Christopher Kellen's Blog, page 7

Quick Staff Carving Update

After a few more hours’ of work, this is what I’ve got. The wood is actually almost white, with just the faintest hint of a yellow/tan. I cut it down a little bit so that it’s decent for human living areas, and now it’s just a couple inches over 6 feet tall.

It’s really quite attractive, even if it’s not quite as straight as I might have liked.

I’ve also picked up a length of red oak and some white birch to work on, but I’m leaving them to dry for at least a week or so before I start working them.

Right now I’ve got to get some sandpaper so that I can continue polishing this one into a nice gnarly maple staff, and then I’ll decide whether or not to use a color stain to bring out the wood grain before I finish it.

Review: The Cestus Concern by Mat Nastos

Voice Mini-Review via @Dubbler

I was psyched to see that my Twitter compadre Mat Nastos (@NiftyMat)–who has read and reviewed several of my books over the past year that I’ve been chatting with him–had released a novel. The cover art drew me right in, and I was prepared for cyberpunk badassery on a massive scale.

As it turns out, The Cestus Concern is a bit more modern sci-fi thriller than cyberpunk, but that didn’t make it any less badass, and it most certainly did not reduce the scale.

The Cestus Concern starts off in a place which might be familiar to fans of the genre. A metal table, wires and tubes protruding everywhere, a sense of confusion and strangeness as the consciousness slowly returns after some sort of terrible accident. Unfortunately for Malcom Weir, things are only going to get worse.

This book is sheer, unmitigated, balls-to-the-wall fun that plays like a movie in your head. It’s impossible not to visualize the amazing special effects (and mind-blowing budget requirements) of this AAA sci-fi thriller. It’s action-film-in-a-book, filled to bursting with sickeningly-bloody violence, amazing mental picturescapes and a healthy dose of good humor to top all of it off.

Honestly, my only quibbles were minor and editing related; I had no problem at all with the characterization, plot or other important parts. I found a few places where words seemed to be missing, or when the obviously-intended word was replaced with another (I had an unintentional snort of laughter when someone’s hair was described as perfectly ‘quaffed’ — I assume it was supposed to be ‘coiffed’ but I spent the next few minutes trying to figure out how you’re supposed to drink hair…) The important part here is that the story was so engaging that my mind only made minor notes of these quibbles before hungrily moving on to the next word, the next paragraph, the next page.

There is no doubt about it: I loved this book, and would recommend it to any fans of action-thrillers, sci-fi, super soldier projects, or just awesome books.

Quarterstaff Carving #1

So, I’ve been desirous of a sort of productive project that I could do that wouldn’t require too much heavy thought and would be sort of meditative. While browsing the web, I came across the idea of staff carving. I’ve never really done any raw woodwork before (or any woodwork beyond some very basic lumber-type repair stuff) so this is new to me.

After some research, I bought a knife (and a sharpener) that I could use, and went out and harvested myself a relatively-straight section of tree that would serve as a test piece. Here’s the first pic of it after just a few strokes of the knife.

I admit, I didn’t exactly expect the bark stripping to look or feel quite so much like peeling a potato. It’s remarkable, really, just how much the inner flesh of a stick resembles that of Irish gold =)

The basic process is relatively quick, speeded along by my very nice, very sharp carving knife that is doing a beautiful job. Basically, step one is to strip all of the bark off from top to bottom, so that’s what I’ve been working on so far.

There are a couple of layers of bark that need to be removed. The dark gray outer layer is obvious, but what’s not so obvious are the inner layers. There’s a green layer just below the surface that comes off pretty quick, but then there’s sort of an orange-ish layer that you can’t see right away. You actually have to let it sit and dry overnight, and then the orange inner bark will become more apparent. (I’ll take a picture of that tomorrow when I get to work on it some more.)

Here’s the staff after stripping one end of the outer bark layers. 

It’s really interesting to see how it’s coming along already. The bare wood beneath the bark on this particular piece has a really nice grain. I know it’s oak, but I’m honestly not sure of the sub-breed. If anyone knows how to tell, I’d love to be enlightened.

The way it’s going, I’m probably going to cut a few more pieces to work on over the summer. I’ve already been informed that it’s best to cut these things during the fall and winter so that they take less time to dry. If you cut them during the spring and summer, the sap is very thick and they take forever to really dry out into nice staves.

For the record, the staff is probably about 76″-78″ tall. The bend there at the top of it is just over my head when I’m standing next to it. It’s probably 1 1/2-1 3/4 inches around at the thickest point, tapering to a little under 1 1/2 inches thick at the top. It’s damned heavy, but should be somewhat lighter once it’s stripped and dried.

So far, a very cool project. I’m looking forward to each stage as it comes along.

The Dying Light of Magic: Fantasy Fiction

I went to see The Hobbit this past weekend, and it got me thinking. Modern fantasy has tons of magic. Characters, heroic and villainous, throw it around like it’s going out of style. Ancient orders cast world-shaking spells, a dark lord changes the world forever, wizards and sorcerers have flashy duels where they fling fireballs at one another’s feet.

Yet, as I look at it now, none of that feels magical to me anymore. Sure, they can violate the laws of physics with flagrant abandon and do things that no mortal could ever hope to do (absent some napalm or a grenade launcher, perhaps), but it doesn’tfeel magical.

Watching The Hobbit, I got a taste of what that old magic used to feel like. Locations that actually feel wondrous, unlike the congested cities and dirty roads of modern fantasy. Swords with names, like Glamdring (the Foehammer) and Orcrist (the Goblin-cleaver) that strike fear into the hearts of their enemies simply by being drawn, lost for centuries and rediscovered in a troll’s burrow. A vast, empty landscape dotted with civilization that barely holds against the wilds and the remnants of greatness that has gone before. A wizard who never once so much as throws a fireball, but provides guidance, insight and the occasional giant eagle bomber/rescue mission.

I think the advent of tabletop gaming may have had something to do with the slow decline of wonder in fantasy. It forced us to think of magic in democratized terms. Because there had to be a feeling of progression, and everyone wanted to be the wizard, magic became things of cantrips and magic missiles and burning hands and stopped being real feats of wonder. Our fantasy worlds became more crowded, grittier, ‘darker’ in the name of ‘realism’, except the point of fantasy is that it isn’t real. (Mind you, I’ve got no room to be talking, because I loveA Song of Ice and Fire as much as you do.)

I’m not saying there’s no place for the new, gritty, ugly, realistic fantasy like Martin’s epic saga. To be fair, the magic in Westeros is abstract and ephemeral, much closer to Gandalf’s brand than the democratized-RPG-lite version of magic. Still, there is little sense of wonder in Westeros. Just people, doing what people do, while magic happens in the background. Westeros is not a magical land–it’s a harsh, terrible place all too like our own history.

The Hobbit felt like a callback to a sense of wonder that I’ve forgotten how to even think about. When I think about fantasy, I think of something crowded, something akin to medieval Europe, because that’s the fantasy that I grew up on. I think of politics and shifting alliances, because that’s what my studies of history have shown it to be like. As I mentioned in my old post The Winds of History, trying to make fantasy feel historical is like trying to… I don’t even know what. It’s not entirely a futile endeavor, but it results in something like ASoIaF.

Is there any room left for the old type of fantasy, the one that leaves us breathless with wonder? Don’t get me wrong, I love me some swords & sorcery (I write it, for cryin’ out loud! but the nihilism and brutality of S&S doesn’t inspire that feeling of wonder. Is it possible to strike a balance between the gritty realism desired by today’s readers and the wonder that we felt reading a tale like Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit?

I don’t know the answer to these questions, but I’m curious to know what others think. Does anyone still look for the real Tolkien-esque fantasy? Does anyone still write it?

Aspirations: Goals for 2013

They say it’s always a good idea to write down your goals, so that you have a list to reference when you hit a checkpoint. I have a number of things that I want to accomplish this year, so if I write the list now, I can check on it quarterly and see how I’m doing.

1) Write, edit and publish DESTINY, thus completing the Arbiter Codex. This will be the final volume of D’Arden’s story, wrapping up the trilogy in a (hopefully!) satisfactory and epic fashion. (In progress)

2) Complete the Elements of Sorcery. This requires completing revision work on Sorcerer’s Blood, and writing, editing and publishing two more novelettes to put the cap on that series as well. (In progress)

3) Attend the World Science-Fiction Convention (WorldCon) in August. Bonus goal: do it on royalties alone.

4) Write the next entry in the Syndicate Worlds universe, following up SINS OF THE FATHER. I already have an idea for this, but I have a bunch of other stuff to do first. I’d like to have at least the first draft done by 12/31/2013. Bonus goal: edit and publish by 12/31/2013.

5) Write, edit and publish at least one short story/novelette not related to any of the above goals by 12/31/2013.

6) Firmly decide on an all-new novel project, possibly the first entry in a new series.

Whew. That’s a hell of a list. We’ll see how much of that I manage to get done this year!

A 2012 Retrospective

I know, I know, but I can’t resist going along with the fashion just a little.

2012 has been a big year for me. It started out pretty tamely, selling a couple of books per month and working on adding to my book list. Sorcerer’s Code was published in December 2011, and I took up the project that eventually became Legacy shortly after the turn of the year.

In late January/early February, the seeds were planted for the revolution. I started talking with my friend M. Todd Gallowglas about the possibility of making a sojourn to San Jose, CA for the San Jose Fantasy Faire, which was going to be featuring a panel of independent fantasy authors. Since I hadn’t had the chance to travel in a while (and I have a travel bug) I decided to jump on board.

That decision changed the entire year.

The promotion that I did alongside Mr. Gallowglas sold dozens of copies of my books, thanks to running it just before the KDP Select algorithms made free giveaway copies basically useless in their recommendation queues. The faire itself was pretty successful, since about 8 or 9 strangers bought paperback copies ofElegy on a whim. The confidence instilled in me by complete strangers looking at my books and deciding that they looked interesting enough to buy a signed copy from a guy they’d never heard of really transformed me.

It wasn’t long after that I published Legacy, which was a significant leap forward in my storytelling and novel-writing ability. (Some have commented that it looks so different from Elegy that it might well be written by a different person. Given that the difference was 3 1/2 years of learning and the catapult forward granted to me by the initial publication, there’s some truth to that.)

Around the same time, we were in talks with a few of the writers who attended the SJFF and some other friends to form an author’s alliance, which became the Genre Underground. Our first promotion at the beginning of July went fairly well, and working with them has been a great privilege and honor throughout the year.

Just in time for my first anniversary as an author, I published Sorcerer’s Crime, which is still one of my favorite stories. A darker take on Moncrief’s voice was something I’d been wanting to try, and I personally think I nailed it.

Around August, I started work on my first science fiction project, which is now Sins of the Father. It took 58 days to write almost 83,000 words, and then another month of revision pushed it up over 90,000. If the first month is any indication, it will probably be my most successful work within a pretty short period of time.

The end of the year has given me the chance to write the next Moncrief story, which will be called Sorcerer’s Blood. It’s also allowed me to begin work on what will eventually be Destiny, the final installment ofThe Arbiter Codex.

Throughout the entire year, I’ve gotten a lot of help and support from my writer’s group and my darling wife. The fans, though they are still few and far between, have been amazing. I feel so privileged to be touching lives with my stories, and I’m looking forward to creating so much more. I’m so glad that I’ve reached people, and I hope that more will discover my work in the coming year. I’m looking forward to publishing at least two novels and two or three novelettes next year, assuming that all goes well.

2012 was a good year. I plan to make 2013 even better.

Review: The Trans-Human Trilogy by David Simpson

I picked up the Post-Human Trilogy on a whim; it was on sale for Kindle, and so I grabbed it. What I didn’t expect was to go on a three-book whirlwind ride of nanotech, multiverse-hopping scientifically super-powered madness that was as much fun to read as it must have been to write.

The prequel starts out simply enough: an American special ops team is going to drop from a sub-orbital height to take out a Chinese AI that’s threatening the whole world. From there it takes a left-turn that I had only a vague idea was coming… but what happens after that sets off a spark that travels through all three books, and it was great fun.

Whether or not the science is entirely plausible I’ll leave up to more expert opinions than mine, but I have to say that the author writes with such blase confidence that I never once doubted the integrity of the world he’s created in these books.

This is probably the most sheer fun I’ve had reading a techno-thriller type book since Wired by Doug Richards. Definitely recommended if you’re ready for a crazy ride that will NOT end up anywhere that you expected when you start reading.

You Wrote A Novel; Now What?

At this point, you now know what 99% of the world doesn’t: writing is hard. Whenever a person in your life tells you “Someday, I’m going to write a great novel” you get to silently laugh, just like the rest of us. It’s not so much that you’re laughing at them; the laugh is out of pity, knowing just how much work it takes to do that, and how easily they brush it off as though anyone could do it. You’ve seen how much work, how much investment and how much time goes in to writing.

The thing is, most people who “want to write” are the person who “wants to write a novel” and ended up attending a single writer’s group meeting before checking it off their list, as though they had accomplished something. That’s where the vast majority of those “I’m going to write a novel” people end up: exactly nowhere.

You’ve shown, by finishing that project, that you’re not like those people. You have demonstrated a very rare kind of commitment in finishing your first draft, Your writing skills have improved immensely just in this first completed project, and I’m sure you’ve seen it.

When I wrote my first NaNo in 2005, my storytelling craft was probably around where yours is now. It took me six years from that point — my first “finished” novel — to develop into a professional-level writer.

Unfortunately, despite the great leaps and bounds you’ve made in improving your skills, you’re not there yet. Watching your expectations is important. Storytelling is a craft, and contrary to what many people think, it’s not an easy one. Writing as a career, without a secondary job to pay the bills, is something very, very few people ever accomplish. Expecting your first novel to be a publishable bestseller and giving up when it’s not is like picking up a golf club for the very first time, standing on a Par 4, hitting the ball, and then deciding never to play again because you landed 50 yards short of the green instead of getting a hole in one. (Sorry for the golf metaphor; it was the best one I could come up with).

I hope that you followed your passion when you wrote this book. Readers are looking for passion and sincerity in a story; they are most engaged when the author is most engaged. This is what the “write what you know” platitude comes from. On the surface, you may wonder how a fantasy or science-fiction author could possibly “write what they know”… who’s ever seen a dragon, cast a magic spell, or entered hyperspace? What it truly means is to tie in your own personal experience, to tell the story that only you can tell with themes that speak to you and matter to you, as the author, regardless of the trappings (dragons, hyperspace, etc).

I know this is a bit rambling, so I’ll get to the point. There is potential in you to make a good, or even great storyteller. The rub is that it’s going to take a lot of time, work, sweat, discarded words, investment, and despair before you make it there — just like it did for me.

Last year, just after I published ELEGY and made my first forays into this world of professional writing, I wrote 50,000 words on the sequel (then entitled PROPHECY) before I realized that something was wrong. I backtracked (erased 10,000 words) and wrote 25,000 more before the truth hit me: I was telling the wrong story. I put the entire thing away on my hard drive and then cut it up into pieces when I finally wrote LEGACY several months later, which was the right story.

I share this anecdote because it sheds light on a personal truth that I’ve discovered about writing. Not every story works. Not every project is a home run, or even a single. Some of them look great, but they edge over the foul line just before they land (baseball now, apparently).

The point here is, writing is a skill. It’s a passion. If you were hoping solely to make it into a career, I advise you to revise those expectations. Most people who write full-time scrimp, compromise, freelance and otherwise don’t do much writing of their own. The very rare bestsellers, especially on their first time out, are like lottery ticket winners. The odds of not only having enough talent to produce a killer story on the first try but getting recognized by someone are even more astronomical than the Powerball.

Right now it would be easy to get discouraged, and I know that. These things aren’t easy to hear, and they’re not easy to say either. It would be easier to tell you that everything’s going to be okay, that you’re great and everyone will think you’re great, but that’s not how the world works. It would be easy to quit, to call it a day, pack up and go home.

The thing is, I’d prefer to see you keep writing, because the commitment you’ve shown tells me that there’s a writer in you — but the investment of time and emotion to become even a passable author is a large one, and it’s not for everyone.

Whatever you choose, I wish you the best of luck. May the stories in your head keep you entertained.

The Next Big Thing

Wow, what an idea.The next big thing.

My friend and fellow Genre Underground author Robert Eaton (@heroalwayswins) tagged me in this blog hop tour, so I’m supposed to answer a few questions about my upcoming project. Here goes!

What is the working title of your book?

Well, it’s not really a working title anymore as it’s set to release in about a week. It’s called Sins of the Father. No subtitle.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Well, about two years ago now I wrote a short story called Dutiful Daughter, which I published as a free giveaway on multiple platforms a year ago. Many of the people who read it saw it not as a self-contained work, but as the start to something more (like so many of my short stories end up being). This book is the continuation of that story.

What genre(s) does your book fall under?

Science fiction, particularly military sci-fi, and thriller. The plot structure is less akin to a traditional military sci-fi war book and closer to the kind of political thriller you’d get from a season of 24. A few key characters struggling against the system, that kind of thing.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Ooh, this is kind of a hard one. I’m going to base this one mostly on appearance, not necessarily on who I think could bring the parts alive, because I’m no casting director. Here goes:

Trace Atherton - Katie McGrath

(Author’s Note: Trying to figure out who the hell looks closest to how I envision Trace in my head was quite the project. Katie here is very close… perhaps just a bit too pixie-ish, but her severity in images as Merlin‘s Morgana gets pretty damn close.)

Zack Richards -
James Kent – Nick Dunning

Thomas Atherton – Viggo Mortensen

Darren Atherton – Ewan MacGregor

Jami Kellerson –
Marcus Parks – Jonny Lee Miller

Lena Winchester - 
Rochelle Santiago –
Miles Briggs – Adam Busch

Rosaria de Vega –
Jason Iverson –
Immanuel Erickson – Christopher Eccleston


What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Up against the government of her own home, Trace Atherton must race to stop an atrocity before her father sacrifices millions of lives to maintain his own base of power.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Self-published. What can I say? I’m a revolutionary.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

58 days from start to finish of the first draft. It was a hell of a process, including a day near the end when I wrote 7,500 words.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Being that I have a strong female protagonist on a spaceship, I’m certain that it will be compared to the Honor Harrington series. Trace and Honor have very little in common, though.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I wanted to write military sci-fi after reading a bunch from Baen, which led to my writing Dutiful Daughter. From there, I never would have written this novel if it weren’t from the feedback of the many readers who wanted to see what happened to Trace following her imprisonment.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Lots of characters, intertwining storylines, family drama and plenty of action — both in space and on the ground. Science that remains grounded in reality (or at least plausibility), given the advanced timeline. A Weber-ian understanding of spatial distance, if a slightly different approach to starship combat.

That’s about all, folks. Thanks for dropping by!

Interview: Robert Eaton, Author of The Hero Always Wins

Today, I’m very fortunate to be joined by Robert Eaton (@heroalwayswins on Twitter), author of the new release The Hero Gets the Girl, which is Book 2 in the saga known as The Hero Always Wins.

Rob is a member of the Genre Underground indie author alliance, and one of the first indie authors who really blew me away when I started reading. He’s continued that tradition in his new book by giving us a hard-rocking, heavy-drinking awesomely good time with The Hero Gets the Girl.

C.K. Thanks for being here, Rob. Let’s get right into it. Your first book was awesome. What have you done with the sequel to make sure that it reaches the same level?

R.E. I really dove into my characters in this book, exploring their motivations and feelings.  The love affairs and feuds from the first book boil over in the sequel.  Also, magic is at the center of everything.  Magic brings power, but it also brings vanity, heartbreak, and pain.  This is a story of men and women who obtain power they’d never dreamed of, power they were never ready for.  Unbridled power crossed with unbridled emotion is a dangerous combination, and this book shows that in explosive fashion.

C.K. Just for some background, could you say a bit about why you decided to go independent with The Hero Always Wins?

R.E. Fantasy is a fickle beast.  The market is flooded with options, and the big houses want proven formulas from proven names.  For a new author pushing a blend of dark mystery crossed with satire of common fantasy cliché, traditional publishing is a tall hill to climb.  For me, I was far more interested in getting my work out there to the niche audience that enjoys it than I was battling the mountain of grunt-work required to put books on supermarket shelves.

C.K. You’ve talked a bit on other venues about how you incorporated music into The Hero Gets the Girl. Care to elaborate?

R.E. I love rock and roll.  I was a kid in the late 80s and early 90s, and grew up watching hair bands give way to grunge.  I’ve read so many fantasy books rooted in ancient mythology; I decided wanted to write one rooted in something I actually care about.  So for this book, I created a medieval version of the Sunset Strip circa the late 80s.

In the 80s, the Sunset Strip was ruled by hard-rocking, hard-partying bands that lived and died by the motto of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll.  In The Hero Gets the Girl, I’ve re-imagined that era in a land where electric guitars and neon lights are replaced by medieval string instruments and magical powers.  The rest of the scene is much the same: cocky pretty-boy musicians, leather clad groupies, and enough drug-charged lust to kill a man and bring him back again.

C.K. The scenes with the band definitely evoked that 80′s hard-rock era for me, even though I’m not nearly as familiar with the backstage antics of the bands. It was sort of like a history lesson wrapped in fantasy. Very nicely done.

Do you have a set number of books you’re planning for this series, or is the intent to keep it open-ended?

The story has a fixed ending, and several carefully planned twists along the way.  I know it will be at least four books, but could be as many as six.  The plot for book three is pretty well set at this point, but I’m still weaving sub-plots for the book(s) beyond.  It’s not open-ended, but more open-middled.  Is that even a word?  Hah!

C.K. Ah, the George R. R. Martin school of plot planning. You seem to be doing a much better job of keeping it focused, though!

The world you’ve created is both fascinating and believable. What were your main considerations for designing it? Did the world come first, or did you create it to have a place to put the characters?

I think my world is extremely simple.  My settings are largely based on places I’ve lived or at least visited.  I use plants and geology that I know in real life.  My castles and towns are not much different than you’d find in any period piece from medieval or early-Renaissance Europe.  It’s much like my incorporation of 1980s music culture into this book: my settings are places I know and love.

My world was created for my characters, and I purposely kept the scale fairly small.  I wanted to write about individual combat, not world politics.  To do that, I needed a world where individual characters could make a difference, a world where a few hundred people constituted a formidable army.  The result is a world that is much more medieval England, with small feudal houses, than a land of nations fighting across all of Europe.

C.K. One of my biggest problems with world-building is that the scale always seems to get away from me. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger the more I think about it, and I realize that it’s very hard for one person to make a difference. I must congratulate you on keeping your scale focused; I find it very hard.

So, tell me: what was the single biggest difficulty you ran into when writing The Hero Gets the Girl?

R.E. The biggest difficulty was simply forcing myself to sit down and write.  I love to write, but I also love to play video games, play my guitar, sing, watch movies, work out, hike, and so many other things.  Also, like anyone else, my life is full of less-fun activities that suck my time away.  I usually have far more time to think than write, and have so many stories in my head that once I finally put fingers to keyboard, the words just pour out.

C.K. I definitely understand that. So, given all of those things you have to do, how long will we have to wait for Book 3 (assuming you’re planning one?)

R.E. Let’s start with the second part of that question: yes, I am definitely planning a Book 3.  I’m excited about Book 3 for several reasons.  First, my young characters will go from discovering who they are to living their lives.  Second, the lore behind my magic will start to come to light.  Third, if you thought my first two books left your head spinning, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

That said, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my writing career, it’s that I am bad at sticking to timelines.  The book will come when it comes; hopefully it won’t be as long as it was between Books 1 and 2, but no promises.  One thing I will promise: Book 3 will be worth the wait!

C.K. Well, I’m certainly very excited about Book 3. I can’t wait to see where it goes from here. Thanks for being with us, Rob.

Readers, you can get your copy of The Hero Gets the Girl at Amazon.com for Kindle right now, or it is also available in paperback. These are books you do NOT want to miss.