Jay Kristoff's Blog, page 18

State of the World Address

The bride tells me it's been a while since I did one of these, so here's an update on where everything is at:

STORMDANCER – copy edits for the UK are done. Copy edits for the US aren't (but tbh, there will be no differences other than spelling, you crazy yanquis with your missing 'U's and superfluous 'I's, eh?). Cover design is underway in the UK, I've seen roughs and I suspect this thing is going to stand out like the dog's bollocks on shelves (Presuming said dog in question still has the requisite parts, of course. Sometimes I catch my dog staring all mournfully at the place where his bits used to be. Poor bastard…)

ANYWAYS, after wrangling in the dank stinky depths of stock photography for a while, it's been decided we're going to actually shoot ourselves a model (with a camera, not a gun, jesus…) to go on the background being assembled by our Mac master. The gal in question has been chosen, and her online portfolio is here. I think she'll make a pretty goddamn awesome Yukiko. Wardrobe is currently being sourced, photoshoot is happening soon. I'll be doing a big detailed post about the cover process a little later, and of course, I have a metric fuck-tonne of signed China Meiville books to give away when we launch our UK/Aus cover, courtesy of the awesome folks at Tor UK.

The US time lines are little more generous apparently, because I haven't heard much in the way of covers from them. Such is life. If you aren't good at waiting, don't be a gorram author, is my advice.

I have a bunch of other stuff I want to reveal. A good buddy of mine created some awesome mons (we round-eyes call them logos) for the four clans of Shima and the Lotus Guild, but I think I'll hold off on those until I have covers out in the big scary world.

I also have some cover blurbs from some very generous and awesome authors who are saying lots of cool things about the book. but I can't show you those yet either

Yeah, so much for telling you what happening…

If you wanna add STORMDANCER to your Goodreads lists and make me go all squirty in my gutty-wutts, click n'yah.

BOOK 2 – Book 2 has a title, but it's not 100% official yet. Besides, I get the feeling that revealing its title should be some kind of… thing.  You know, with dancing girls and limos and ass-loads of blow or something.

I handed the manuscript into my editors at the end of January. It came in at 160k, which is 40k longer than STORMDANCER. There's a lot more happening in this one, but I still get the feeling I'll be asked to kill a few darlings. I don't expect to hear anything back on it in terms of edits for months, so in the meantime…

(flawless segue)

Book 3 – Book 3 also has a title, but it'll be a thing too. Probably next year. I've started writing it, and the first act is done. Much carnage. I feel like a kid who's spent a day down at the beach building this enormous sand castle with spires and battlements and an elaborate, fully functional sewage system, and now the sun is setting and I've started to stomp up and down on it before the tide comes in.

I think I'll be sad when I finish. Sad and terrified. Funny thing is, I'll probably be finished writing the end of this story before most of you even start it.

It's funny game, this.

Anyways, that's where everything is at. Now stop saying I never tell you anything, mum.

On the punkery of steam

This was an article I was asked to write for a college mag recently, asking me for a writer's perspective on the steampunk genre. It borrows a little from my spittle-flecked 6 Part History of Steampunk series, found here. I don't know why I'm considered an expert when there are folks that have been doing it far longer than me. Maybe I just charge less than the famous folks.

Anyways, enjoy. 

Before I start dribbling about steampunk from an author's perspective, I should probably define what I think steampunk is. This is more dangerous than it sounds.

The debate about what IS and IS NOT steampunk has kicked off many a flame war in various poorly-lit alleys of the internet, not to mention several drunken punch-ups at Conventions That Shall Not Be Named. When people try to explain steampunk, you'll see lots of vague hand-waving, and hear odd, slightly masturbatory terms like – 'retro-futurism' and 'neo-Victorianism' and 'techo-romanticism' being splashed about like cheap hooch at an Irish wedding. (I'm Irish, before you get offended)

But yes. Lots of 'isms', basically.

Some people will tell you steampunk should be set in Victorian times. Some people will tell you in should be set in England, preferably London. Some people will tell you there should be an inexplicable amount of tea-drinking and corsetry. Everyone should be well mannered and everyone should be wearing goggles, even in the shower or making sweet, sweet love to the beautiful heiress on the floor of the aether-bot workshop, an artful smudge of grease arranged on her heaving… Yes, well…

As far as I'm concerned there are four mandatories:

The book needs to be set in the past (otherwise you're writing science-fiction).
The setting needs to be industrialized (otherwise you're writing fantasy).
There needs to be some kind of advanced technology that you wouldn't normally expect to find in the setting (otherwise you're writing historical fiction).
You should be having fun (otherwise, what's the point)

SO, this is my definition of steampunk, in so far as writer-types and readers goes:

Steampunk (noun): A sub-genre of soft science fiction, typically set in an industrialized historical period, in which anachronistic technology is present.

The pre-conceptions with steampunk harken back to its roots – the 'scientific romances' of HG Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs and the man who would NEVER have to buy his own drinks at a Steampunk con, Mr Jules Verne. These authors took us on fantastic voyages to other worlds and other times, often with the aid of fantastical technologies beyond imagination, in settings that were almost exclusively British donchewnoe (hence the bias towards English settings in the genre).

Funny thing is, even though many folks look back at these writers as the fathers of the steampunk genre, they weren't writing anything close to steampunk at all – in their day, they were writing contemporary fiction. It's only because the works survived for close to 150 years in our collective consciousness that the label steampunk can be applied after the fact.

The real origins of steampunk fiction lie in the works of authors like KW Jeter, Tim Powers, James Blaylock and the father of cyberpunk, Mr William Gibson (all hail). Though Jeter coined the term 'steampunk', it was probably Gibson who gave it life, funnily enough whilst praying aloud that the label didn't get applied to his book THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE:

"I'll be happy just as long as they don't label this one. There's been some dire talk of 'steampunk' but I don't think it's going to stick."

Ironically, Gibson's statement probably did more to immortalize the term than anything before it. Such is his powah. Fear him.

Truth is, I think the attempt to codify and catalogue the IS and IS NOT of steampunk is the work of demon crack babies and Illuminati robots programmed to take all the fun out of life. The cool thing about the genre is that it's still relatively unexplored and undefined. The most successful writers in the genre are those who've taken the few accepted tropes and turned them on their heads. Cherie Priest's Clockwork Century series was set in the colonial west of America and threw in some zombie survival horror to boot. Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan series was half traditional Steampunk, half OTT fantasy with flying whales and genetically engineered war bears. For my part (you didn't think you'd make it through this without hearing a plug, did you?) I set my story in feudal Japan and combined some traditional fantasy with combustion-driven technology and it's called STORMDANCER and it's out on MacMillan in the US/UK and AUS in September 2012 and oh my god I need to pay my mortgage if you buy a copy it will really help me out and plug, plug, plugplugplugpluuuuuuuuug.

The good news for writers who feel like playing in the steampunk sandbox  is that it's seen as a reasonably hawt commodity by major publishers right now. Westerfeld's series hit the NYT bestseller list and everyone involved drove home in a limousine, but there hasn't been a book that simply broke the genre and led to a market-saturating glut of clone works (like say, that book that shall not be named but starts with 'T' did for paranormal romance and vampires). So there's still some fun to be had before the ship inevitably sails.

Which is, after all, what steampunk is really all about.

The True Editor's Lexicon

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January is almost over, holy crap how did that happen….

Alright, holidays are done, we're all back at work and having NO FUN and it's time to get back into the swing of things.

Aside from last-minute minor tweaks, I've pretty much finished edits on STORMDANCER. These edits began back in (checks mail) early March 2011. Ergo, I've been million-monkeying this Book Thing of mine forrrrr (checks calculator) ten months. I've also been scribbling the sequel on napkins in crayon between fugue states, but still: Ten months. There have been wars fought quicker than that. The Anglo-Zanzibar war took 45 minutes FFS. You know when you read writerly advice that tells you 'Write what you love?' Well, they tell you that because you're going to end up reading the frackin' thing 4,298 times before you're done.

SO, edits.

I found talking to other authors about edits melted my tiny brain a little confusing, because people use different terms for the same process, and every house is different. SO, in order to prevent you aspiring author types from generating the same aura of dipshittery that has haunted me this past year, I present unto thee a lexicon of editing terminology.

Note: this is the way Editing staff at SMP & Tor UK speak – other houses might use different terms. Editors at Gollancz might refer to 'copy edits' as 'swinging on the golden love-truncheon' for all I know. Actually, that would be pretty awesome…

Second note: this all takes place after your agent has done their own edits/recommendations/convinced you not to brutally murder your protagonist in the finale of book 1 in a planned trilogy (true story).

STORY EDITS – Also called 'the Editor's Letter' or 'Editor's Notes'. You're as excitable as a crack-baby about your book getting sold, and this puppy lands in your inbox and fills you with all the pep and spunk of a Real Writer™ (ewwwww). If you're lucky, these Edits are a sunshine-filled cruise through Happyland with scantily-clad hotties in a time-travelling hovercar. If you're in the 99%, this is where your editor kicks you square in the junk and screams "THAT'S RIGHT I AM THE GODDAMN BATMAN."

Plot, characters, world building (or demolishing), structure, finale, opening pages, pacing – Story Edits are where it all comes under the chainsaw like so many sexually promiscuous teens in an Eli Roth movie. I had it pretty easy, but a few of my colleagues received novella-length letters that made them seriously wonder why the hells the editor bought the book in the first place. Worse, this stage is sometimes repeated until you 'get it right'. At your next writer's convention, make a game of whispering 'Fourth round story edits' into the ears of random authors, and see who drops to the ground in fetal position and starts voiding their bowels.

Note: You may notice random compliments scattered among the huge gouges of red pen through your manuscript at this stage, eg "I love the way you use this comma, YOU ARE SO GOOD AT THE COMMA THING". Your editors do this to stop your fragile ego shattering like glass while they tear you a new orifice. Just roll with it and take the compliments where you can get them.

LINE EDITS – Sometimes Line Edits are conducted at the same time as Story Edits. Sometimes not. This is where you realize you have all the writing chops of a flaming bag of monkey jizz*. Things like sentence structure, word choice, tone, 'voice' – all of it falls prey to the Red Pen of Doom™.

Sometimes it'll be your Regular Editor who does line edits. Sometimes it'll be your Copy Editor. 'What's a Copy Editor, Jay?' you might find yourself asking aloud, in which case you should stop talking to your computer because I can't really hear you. It's not a frackin' telephone.

COPY EDITS – Ah, the sweet pain of Copy Edits. This is where you pick up a pair of tweezers and comb the mangy nethers of your manuscript in search of lice. Typos and missing words; spelling mistakes (trust me, it happens even at this stage) ; your inexplicable; and improper; use; of ;;semi-colons, and

overly-dramatic!

line!

breaks!

We're down to the minutiae here, folks. On our hands and knees, eyes all blurry, searching for the literary equivalent of lost contact lenses on a bar floor littered with $2 tequila and strip-club flyers.

At this point, you might find yourself agonizing over the placement of colons, deleting and re-inserting the same comma twenty times, reading the same sentence aloud until you can see through time, your dreams haunted by rampaging flash mobs of apostrophes and exclamation marks hungering for the sweet, gamey tang of human flesh.

This is all totally normal.

GALLEY PROOFING – Some people call these 'First pass pages', 'Unbound galleys' or just 'Proofs'. This is where the editors send your book pages, all typeset and laid out how it will look in the Real World. Many writers will 'squeeeeeeee' uncontrollably at this point – I prefer to rock a little air guitar, maybe bounce around the room terrifying the dog for a bit, but whatever works for you. Sometimes they'll send you hardcopy pages, but some houses are wise to the fact that we live in the age of the interwebz, all rocket-packed and collagen injected and whatnot, and they'll use email instead.

At this stage you're trying to hunt down the errors that have somehow eluded you on your previous 374 read-throughs. And verily, thou shalt find them in abundance. It's around this point where you'll realize that mistakes are going to slip through, even if your copy editor is a former navy seal sharpshooter who once killed a Shetland pony (not the poneeee!) with a paperclip at 200 yards. My copy of the Hunger Games is a 78th edition printing or something, and it still has typos in it – I KNOW I WAS AS SHOCKED AS YOU ARE, WTF COLLINS.

Do your best. But don't lose sleep.

Paper or Plastic? As mentioned, some houses send physical copies of your work at various stages of this game. Some editors still literally use a Red Pen of Doom on real bonafide paper, and some authors I know do too. They'll use all kinds of weird editing dashes and symbols and wtfthatsnotinanydictionaryieverheardof words like 'STET'. Being a bit of a cityboy, not to mention living on the opposite side of the world from my editors where the postmen roam an apocalyptic wasteland with shotguns fending off hordes of mutated man-eating koala bears**, I prefer electronic format. But, whatever works, work it.

That's all for today, kittens. You may go about your business. These aren't the droids you're looking for.

*It's been one of my lifelong goals to use the words 'flaming bag of monkey jizz' in a coherent sentence. For giving me this opportunity, I thank you.

**Melbourne

The YAmazing Race

If you're here for the YAmazing Race, but haven't yet been to the Apocalypsies website, you may be lost! Click here to start from the beginning and read the entry rules. Otherwise, welcome and read on!

STORMDANCER by Jay Kristoff

A DYING LAND 

The Shima Imperium is verging on the brink of environmental collapse; ruined by clockwork industrialization and the machine-worshippers of the Lotus Guild. The land is choked with pollution, animal life ravaged by mass extinctions.

AN IMPOSSIBLE QUEST

The hunters of Shima's imperial court are commanded to capture a griffin by their Shōgun. But any fool knows the beasts have been extinct for a century, and the price for failing the Shōgun is death.

A SIXTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL

Yukiko is a child of the Fox clan, possessed of a power that would see her executed by the Lotus Guild. Accompanying her father on the Shōgun's hunt, she finds herself stranded in Shima's last wilderness with only a crippled griffin for company. Even though she can hear his thoughts, even though she saved his life, all she knows for certain is he'd rather see her dead than help her.

But together, the pair will form an indomitable friendship, and rise to challenge the might of an empire.

*****

That's all you need to know. Somewhere in there is the answer to your quiz question. But, if you like the sound of the book, you can always hit it up on Goodreads.

Now, before you split – BONUS STAGE! If you follow me on Twitter this week, you'll be entered to win a signed ARC of STORMDANCER! March like zombies and make with the clickies!

Ready to move on? Click HERE to go to the next stop on the race! Remember, you must complete ALL FIVE quizzes to be eligible for a prize pack, and failure to answer correctly will punished by state-sponsored bludgeoning (I kid, truly) Thanks for stopping by!

.

In the House of Goodreads

So while I was in the edit cave on Stormdancer 2 last week, there was a great deal of sound and fury over on Goodreads. If you didn't get caught up in the spectacle, you're probably better off for it. Short version: a negative review was posted (which happens all the time and should be no big deal), an agent-mate of the author in question (not the author herself, who handled it all with aplomb) stepped up to defend the work, the whole thing turned ugly, literary agents deleted their GR accounts and folks who enjoy drama (and honestly, we all love it a bit) got their quota for the day.

Veronica Roth wrote a very thoughtful and well-considered post about the feelings/circumstances behind this incident (and the many like it) over at YA Highway. I've no doubt that the author in question probably went into that reviewer's space with good intentions (to defend his friend) and had no idea what a shitstorm it would result in. The real pity is some lovely people who I have all the time in the world for inadvertently got caught in the blastwave, although thankfully, they seem to have avoided the fallout.

Essentially, I think it comes down to this: We create spaces in the online universes. They exist in the public realm, but they're ours. Everyone is better off when that property line is respected.

This blog is mine, to do with as I see fit: a little online house which I've built. I tend the garden, I paint the walls. It's my place, but you can see through the windows, should you choose to look. And therein lies the rub: no-one is forcing you to look at all. You can ignore everything I do and say with relative ease, whether it be on Goodreads or Facebook or the other, far-more-hideously nerdy online places I hang out.

If I choose to wander around inside my house with no pants on, necking green ginger wine from a brown paper bag, so be it. You don't have to like it. But again, you don't have to watch it, either. Regardless, it's probably not the best policy to come into my house (or Goodreads page, or Facebook or whatever) and tell me I'm doing it wrong. If you don't like what I'm doing – that's totally cool. Not everyone wants to see me with no pants on, I understand that. But the solution to this problem (as opposed to the hellish flame-war that would result from criticizing my conduct in my own pad) is really, really simple: Don't look into my house. Walk the fuck away.

Even if you don't like it. Even if you think what I'm doing is stupid. The best possible case scenario is that yes, what I'm doing IS stupid. But you still look like a bit of a jerk telling me off about it, since I'm doing it in my own frackin' house. Worse case scenario? Witnesses to our inevitable flaming collision think I'm perfectly entitled to be wandering around my house with no pants on, and you come off like some kind of radiation-spawned, Tokyo-devouring Douchezilla for chastising me about it. Leave me to my pantslessness. Ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, it really means nothing at all. If I'm out of line, people can and will judge that for themselves. Put the keyboard down and walk the fuck away.

There are no victories in the excrement-fouled halls of internet 'debate'. Everyone winds up wearing shit – it's simply a matter of degrees . Or, to put it in pictorial form:

From wiser heads than mine

Final post of the year, folks. I thought I'd leave the summary to one of the sorely-missed geniuses of our age:

"…and our small planet, at this moment, here we face a critical branch-point in history. What we do with our world, right now, will propagate down through the centuries and powerfully effect the destiny of our descendents. It is well within our power to destroy our civilization, and perhaps, our species as well. If we capitulate to superstition or greed or stupidity, we can plunge our world into a darkness deeper than the time between the collapse of classical civilization and the Italian renaissance. But, we are also capable of using our compassion and our intelligence, our technology and our wealth, to make an abundant and meaningful life for every inhabitant of this planet. To enhance enormously our understanding of the universe, and to carry us to the stars."

- Carl Sagan.

Happy New Years, everybody. Be safe, have fun and tell those who know you love them that you love them anyway.

Thanks for coming with me on the ride so far. Next year, we destroy.

Pretty gold statues

It shouldn't really rock your pantaloons off to learn that we humans are an odd lot. But if you ever needed any kind of proof that you belong to a seriously sideways race, follow my advice and start a blog. The search string terms that generate hits to your bloggery will once and for all remove any doubt that you live on a planet populated by tentacle-obsessed, gym-saddle sniffing lunatics.

To that end, and given we're fast approaching year's end, I present the inaugural:

MOST FUCKED UP GOOGLE SEARCHES TO HIT MY BLOG AWARDS

The entry criteria was simple: any Google search that resulted in a visit to my blog was eligible for entry, and I swear to Crom, I'm not making any of these up. Screenshots can be provided on request.

Note: It was my intention to have Samuel L Jackson present these awards, but he's not returning my calls for some reason.

(Dun da da dunn da da daaaaaaaaaa)

The I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS BUT IT'S STILL KINDA AWESOME award

Honorable Mentions:

Go away homework I don't want to fuck you

Beasts in the Beard

Epic rage face ffffffffuck

шторм фотографии

T Rex woman of gold

Winnah: 

Giant Monster Panda

(because the only way this would be cooler is if they threw the words 'robot' and 'ninja' in there too. Seriously peoples, this is now the title of my next WIP. 'Giant Robot Ninja Monster Panda' – Coming to a theatre near you in 2013)

The DOUBLE YOU TEE EFF ARE YOU DOING ON MY BLOG award

Honorable Mentions: 

Are you asleep I'm Asian you bastard

Lying about gender to literary agent (seriously dude? )

Part chimp t-shirts

Even nazi cat boys love reading

Kiss this if you don't like cowboys

Winnah:   

King tubby dub gone crazy evolution (seriously WTFFFF)

The OUSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN THE FIELD OF SEXUAL DEVIANCY award

Honorable Mentions:  

Giant Merkins

Gay Snape sex dobby

Pecs crushing cock

Mike O Hearn penis (I have nfi who Mike is, but I'm sure he's up to no good)

Firm-handed beard ladies

Winnah:  

If a girl had a dream that you got fucked by a squid, would you hate her?

(deadly seriously here, people. One of your fellow human beings actually typed those words into a search engine. Some have demanded proof of this, and thus, I give it to you. )

And finally the SEARCH STRING OF THE YEAR award goes to:

Jay Kristoff dead

(because I didn't think I'd annoyed anyone that much yet)

See you at next year's award folks. Hopefully Samuel L will have got back to me by then.

Two Minutes Hate – Hunger Games Nail Polish (???)

Dear China Glaze Marketing Dept,

I understand that with no real point of difference to your product, you need to find ways to differentiate yourselves from the million other companies out there who make young women feel insecure about the way they look Make With The Pretty. And tying in with a movie franchise, yeah, I can see a strategy like that selling some weight for you. But that sound you heard when the world awoke yesterday to news of your official Hunger Games nail polish? It was the sound of a million eyebrows racing each other towards their owner's hairlines. The thunder of a million jaws dropping. The mingled harmonics of million simultaneous "WTF's".

First up – you called your collection 'Colors from the Capitol'. I understand you probably haven't read the books and all, but in the HG paradigm, the people who live in the Capitol are the FUCKING BAD GUYS. A morally bankrupt, decadent elite so numbed to the suffering of their fellows they consider it entertaining to drop 24 kids into an arena and watch them slaughter each other on live TV. This is akin to launching a range of Wehrmacht-inspired apparel to coincide with the release of Schindler's List. What. The. Fuck.

Second – the scenes in Capitol where Katniss is being glammed up for the sake of the drooly-faced audience? It's a figurative and literal exercise in objectification. Katniss isn't made to look fierce. She isn't made to look competent. She's made to look pretty. It's a damning indictment from the author about class and gender stereotypes, and it's meant to make us feel bad that Katniss is reduced to a sparkly meat-puppet for the sake of winning a chance at sponsors (and therefore, increasing her chances of survival).

Anyone who's read the books knows this. Anyone who hasn't read the books and buys your pretty finger paint and then reads the books will feel like a sucker. You want to do some good? Release an official Hunger Games bow and arrow set, and hold classes about how girls don't need to paint their fingers pretty to be taken seriously.

I know you need to make money and shit, but for the love of god, you folks could Miss The Point for your country at an Olympic fucking level.

STOP IT.

Pimping

For those of you who've been living under a rock, Patrick Rothfuss is the #1 NYT Bestselling author of the  and super-famous rockstar author type  He's also the main reason why I signed with the agent I did. And my agent is the main reason why I scored the book deal that I did. Pull up a chair and let me pew pew your glazzies with a story, kittens.

When I was querying to literary agents with STORMDANCER, I got really lucky – like, winning the lottery lucky. I had four (presumably drunken) agents offering me representation. And, being Mr Dilligent, I got the contact details of their clients, and dropped said clients an email, asking whether their Agent's obvious addiction to crack cocaine (as evidenced by their offers to rep me) was proving problematic in business negotiations. Anyways, I got my grubby mitts on Patrick Rothfuss' email addy, and asked how he'd found working with the mighty Matt Bialer, and as an Epic Fantasy author is wont to do, Patrick wrote me back this colossal email, with wizards and dragons and shit telling me how awesome Matt was. But then, a strange thing happened. Halfway through this monster mail, he types "Geh. This e-mail is getting really long. I'm so tired of typing lately with all the revisions I'm doing. You want to just give me a call?"

So we chat on the phone for about an hour, and he drops some mighty wisdom all over my n00b skull. And about 45 minutes in, I learn that he's taking the time to speak to me the day before the final draft of "The Wise Man's Fear" is due at his editors. And I hang up the phone and say to myself "That Patrick Rothfuss is a very nice man."

Here's how nice: Patrick runs a charity every year called WORLDBUILDERS. The details are on his blog, but to give you the short version, Worldbuilders is a charity that helps unfortunate folks in third-world countries rise from the mire of crippling poverty. You know that saying 'Teach a man to fish…"? Well, that's what these folks do. And Pat is asking you to donate to this ultra-worthy cause.

BUT, he's not asking you to give out of the goodness of your heart. He's asking you to donate for the chance to win some amazing shit. Like, signed First Edition Scalzi books awesome. Like hundreds of great books by amazing authors (many signed) jet powered rocket pants* and various wheelbarrow loads of other Nerdgasmic Win™.

SO, if winning barrow-loads of Nerdgasmic Win™ is something you like the sound of click here for more details, or here to straight up donate.

Tis the season, folks.

*Jet powered Rocket Pants sold separately.

11-11-11

So a few of you might know my birthday this year fell on 11-11-11. This is apparently some really auspicious number in numerology or the Mayan calendar or somesuch, and being born on it means I'm like the bastard lovechild of the Kwisatz Haderach and the goddamn Batman (I'm still waiting for my mail-order Fremen army and utility belt to arrive. Stupid UPS).

Anyways, I'd been thinking about getting a tattoo for about 10 years, but aside from my wedding, I'd not really undergone any event dramatic enough to paint my body for life over it. Folks get themselves inked for any number of reasons ('Because I felt like it." 'Because I .' 'Because I'd smashed so much tequila and mescaline I thought I was jesus.' ) but this was my first one, and being all virginal and whatnot, I wanted it to be 'speshul'. So, I figure, I've got this Book Thing getting published next year, which will probably be the one of the coolest things I ever do (at least until the Fremen army arrives and I send them forth to commit bloody slaughter in my name) so I figure I'd immortalize The Book on my birthday this year, it being this auspicious date that allows me to look into the place no woman can look. Or something.

My lovely bride told me about an art project where people were supposed to do something creative/awesome/so cool it will make your girlfriend pregnant on 11-11-11 and send it into a Facebook page, but the page was one of those desperately sad 'Social Media Marketing 101′ type deals that forces you to 'Like' it before they even let you into the clubhouse and fuck that noise.

So, I'ma just post the pics up here, with various captions that will possibly amuse and/or astound.

The scene of the crime. This is Chapel Tattoo. They have gold leaf writing on their windows and very few prostitutes loitering out front, which makes them ten times classier than 90% of tattoo joints in Melbourne. Their 'after tattoo care' brochure advises you, amongst other things 'Do not listen to self-proclaimed tattoo experts in bars or on the street for one month after you get your tattoo.'

I was sold.

This is the Dude Behind the Counter®. He told me his name, but I forgot it. I should let you know that, at this point, I was quite nervous about the whole 'pain' aspect of this deal. Having foolishly watched several You Tube videos of people completely losing their minds whilst being tattooed, I was under the impression this operation was going to sit on the Pain Threshold™ somewhere between 'Squeezing Lemon Juice Into My Eye Whilst Someone Repeatedly Stomps on My Baby-Maker' and 'Being Strapped Into a Chair and Forced to Watch Jennifer Anniston RomComs Until My Eyes Flee Screaming From Their Bleeding Sockets'.

I was also plagued by the usual last minute fears. "You're going to be stuck with this thing for the rest of your life." "If you get this thing and the publishing industry collapses next year like you KNOW IT'S GOING TO, you're going to look really silly aren't you?" "You haven't cried since you watched ET dying when you were 10, do you really want to risk your streak over something like this?"

You will note the small idols of various in-vogue deities next to the counter. I took their vacuum-molded presence as a bad sign. As if the owners were telling me 'Dude, this tattoo is going to hurt so badly, you'll rediscover your catholicism just so you can pray for mercy. And lo, sinner, thou shalt find NONE'.

This is my tattoo design. It was done by an incredibly talented Japanese calligrapher named Araki Miho from Ebisu Design. Yes, she does commissions. Having seen a wall full of her artwork, yes, her stuff is beautiful. Picture Kate Beckinsale and Liv Tyler making out naked in a swimming pool full of pristine First Edition issues of Detective Comics #27 and you're in the ballpark.

The characters, top to bottom, are 'Arashi' (storm) 'No' (a pre-posessive) 'Odori' and 'Ko' (which together, make Dancer). So, Stormdancer. The red seal is for good luck.

For those of you wondering, yes, I made damn sure the tattoo didn't actually say "I enjoy rough sex with sea-otters" or "Sad white boy who wishes he was Japanese". Although before I had the tattoo done, my Japanese translator reliably informed me that, because kanji are pictograms and open to subtle interpretation, at a stretch, you could interpret this design as "Little girl who dances up a storm".

"Hell with it," I replied. "I'm 6'7. I can totally pull that off."

This is Shane, my tattoo artist. Shane was a funny fellow. Not like Dylan Moran funny, mind you. More like "I bury the dismembered corpses of streetwalkers under my bungalow" funny.

He approached me in the foyer, looking like he'd just murdered somebody's kitten. Don't ask me how, but this dude gave off a vibe like he would just hate the fuck out of anything small and fluffy.

He held up my design and said "Is this yours?"

"Yep," I said.

"Who put you onto me?" he asked.

I paused for a moment, unsure whether he was asking because he wanted to ruin the dentistry of whoever suggested he work on this ridiculous design. Not wanting to see the friend who recommended old Shane-o drinking liquefied Weet-Bix through a straw, I pointed to the Dude Behind the Counter®. "He said you could do it."

"Ah, ok," Shane said. "It's just I don't usually do this kind of artwork."

"…." I replied.

NICE ONE, SHANE-O. WAY TO INSTIL CONFIDENCE, BUDDY.

This is my pasty, cracker whitebread arm, freshly shaved and awaiting the stencil. You will notice the photo is blurred – this is because I was trembling when I took it. Not because of the anticipated pain, mind you, but because the dude about to paint my body for life had just admitted "He doesn't usually do this kind of artwork."

This is the stencil on my arm. The tattoo people have this magic stuff they spray on your skin, then lay the stencil over the top, peel it away, and bam, all they have to do is trace the design. I was reminded of the scene in Chasing Amy where Jason Lee flips out when someone calls him a tracer. This made me giggle a bit. At the sound of my giggling, Shane looked up at me like, if it was within his power to do so, he would travel back in time and tear my grandfather's scrotum from his body, just to stop him siring the man who would sire me.

I shut the hell up.

It begins. Shane lays me down on his operating table, asks "You ready?" and we're off.

The pain is odd. It's a combination of pressure and heat, like being burned, but with less edge to it. On a scale of 1 to 10 (one being a Hard Pinch, and ten being Locked in a Tiny Room With Justin Beiber Playing Over The PA Whilst a Large Hairy Man Named 'T-Bone' Teaches You The Subtle Art of Prison Love), I would rate it a solid 5.

Outline halfway done. The pain warbles between 5 and 6, somewhere between Having a Tooth Drilled and The Moment You Found Out Firefly Had Been Cancelled. The wrist is the most sensitive part, but it's really not that bad. I scoff at those YouTube vids and wonder what the fuss is about. I tweet to this effect, and am reliably informed by a friend 'Just wait. The fill is much worse'.

THANKS BUDDY!

Outline complete. My dad has a tattoo on his arm. Well, half a tattoo. It's a heart with an arrow through it. He told me there was supposed to be a scroll around it, but it hurt so bad, he couldn't finish it. Looking down at my arm, I consider texting him and calling him a stone-cold pussy, but then I remember he got his tatt done with a razor blade and the ink from a broken ball-point pen.

So yeah, I guess my dad is still pretty hard.

The fill. This does kinda hurt. Not as bad as having your ear hacked off with a straight razor while 'Stuck in the Middle with You" plays in the background, more like an intermittent Chinese burn to the tune of Top 40 radio. But again, it's not awful. I'm not saying it tickled – at no point during the procedure was I at risk of making happypants. On T-Bone's Prison Sex scale, it rates a solid 6.5.

Aaaaand done. About an hour after we began, Shane-o pronounces me finished and hustles me out of his studio like he has more kittens to curb-stomp. This is actually a photo taken the following evening – I would've taken a photo at the end of the procedure, but my arm was wrapped in Glad Wrap and the Glad Wrap was slowly filling up with blood, which is probably a bit low-rent, even for this blog. In all honesty, the pain after the tatt was finished came close to topping the actual procedure – it felt like that time you went to the beach in your new bikini and got smashed on a 6-pack of alcopops to impress the boys and fell asleep in the sun and woke up to find your skin was the color of fire engines (don't lie, you know you did it). When the Glad Wrap came off, my bride proclaimed the tattoo 'sexy' and I was all like 'come over here and let me treat u rite, gurl' and then was all 'arrrrrg, jesus h christ don't TOUCH IT' when she breathed near it.

A couple of weeks later, it's pretty much healed, and I must confess, for a gent who murders streetwalkers and 'doesn't usually do this kind of artwork', my buddy Shane-o did an awesome job.

To prove it, I traveled back in time and took this photo of me flipping off a T-Rex, which I'm sure you'll agree flies quite high on the Scale of Awesome.