Bryce Moore's Blog, page 225

The Memory Thief is Now “On Submission”

Have you ever played a game without really knowing how to win? I play a wide range of board games, and one of the first things I look for is what the win conditions are, because that’s the best way to keep track of how you’re doing. There are some games where the actions that seem important turn out to only be the means to the end. I realize now that back when I began writing in earnest, I had no idea what the win condition was. I knew I wanted to “be published” and “be read,” but it seemed to me like that was something that was only going to happen once it happened. The only way I could get closer to that goal was to keep writing.

I wrote a lot. Books and books. And I revised a fair bit. Multiple drafts of multiple books. One thing I didn’t do very well was submit those books. I’d send one off to what felt (to me) like “a lot of places” (translation: about five to ten), and then when I got rejections, I’d give up on it and move on to the next book.

Writing seemed like the best win condition.

And it is. I mean, you’re never going to publish anything if you don’t write anything. But now that I’ve been doing this a bit longer, I’m realizing that writing is far from the only win condition–or at least far from the only important one. First off, anyone can write. In order to get published, you have to write well. That’s subjective, but it’s a significant point. And beyond that, you have to be able to revise well–unless you’re one of that rare breed who write excellent final first drafts. (I am not.)

Of course, it’s easier for me to tell how well I’m doing at that whole “writing and revising” thing these days. I have a crack team of agents whom I send my drafts to. They read them, and they tell me exactly what they think about them. Sometimes, it’s pretty bleak (see GET CUPID). Sometimes, it’s words of encouragement. But by bouncing it back and forth between them, I get a fair idea about how my books are going.

In the two years since VODNIK was published, I’ve only been able to get one manuscript to “submission” status: TARNHELM. That’s a statistic that’s troubled me the most by far. More than sales numbers, that’s for sure. I have absolutely no control over how my books do once they’re in the wild. Yes, I can blog and I can do school visits–so I suppose I have some control–but on a national level, my blogs and school visits aren’t going to amount to a whole lot. The books will do how they do.

But writing books? I’m the only person in control of that. And getting books to finished status? I’ve been failing.

That’s perhaps unduly harsh on myself. My goal is to get a book done and out on submission each year. VODNIK was finished in 2011. TARNHELM was done in 2012. GET CUPID was my book for 2013, and it just kind of meandered around and did nothing particularly well–that’s the one book that can be counted as a failure of mine for the moment. Thankfully, I feel like I’m back on track as of Friday, when THE MEMORY THIEF went out on submission, meaning I now have an official entry for 2014. Huzzah!

The “me five years ago” would probably be quite surprised that I feel like celebrating so much over simply having a book go out to editors–not even hearing anything back one way or another. But again, once it’s in the hands of editors, it means it’s out of my realm of control again. TARNHELM got some solid responses. Editors who really liked the book. Where it didn’t do well (or hasn’t yet, at least) was in convincing editors that enough other people would like the book to warrant them publishing it. (I feel like any book that can make a New York editor call it “one of the most engaging, fun reads I’ve had in ages” is a book that’s doing pretty well for itself–especially when it’s a strange duck to begin with.)

MEMORY THIEF is admittedly more mainstream. It’s a contemporary Middle Grade fantasy. No splintering of genres and audiences. It’s more accessible. Will that translate into an actual published book? Time will tell.

For now, I continue work on the GET CUPID prequel, where I’ve past the 25,000 mark now–which means I’m anywhere from a third to a quarter done. Hopefully it’ll work out well as my entry for 2015. One book a year is about all I have in me, what with all of the other projects and endeavors I’m involved in.

In any case, today I celebrate another milestone. And after that, I’m going to do my best to forget MEMORY THIEF exists and just focus on what I can do: write another great book.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Review

Took some time to head out to the theater for the first time in a long time last night, but with a movie like Captain America 2 out–and getting such good buzz–how could I pass it up? I saw the first one in theaters back in the day, and while I liked it, I didn’t think it was at the top of Marvel’s offerings. It was another origin tale, and I felt like superheroes were ready to go beyond those origin tales.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier takes the series in the exact direction I hoped it would go.

It’s a layered movie–as layered as superhero movies get, at least. There are questions about what is “good” and what is “evil,” and they relate quite clearly to current trends in the world. At the same time, it managed to do all that without becoming overbearing and symbolic–a kiss of death for superhero movies, in my opinion. Captain America himself is a perfect character for this kind of conflict: a man who came from an earlier time, when the difference between good and evil was much clearer. (Then again, I wonder if it was ever that way. Looking back on history, it’s easy for us to see what was “right” and “wrong.” But that’s with years of hindsight. I imagine there are quite a few huge blunders society is making today that will one day be looked back on as ultimately misguided.)

In any case, this is a fun movie from start to finish. It’s got the trademark flairs of Marvel movies: outstanding effects and great action, peppered with solid humor throughout. It’s a recipe for a good time, and the movie uses it to full effect.

8.5/10 for me on this one. Definitely worth checking out while it’s still in theaters.

And can I just state for the record how lucky we are to live in a day and age where superhero movies are done this well? I might have said it on the blog before, but it bears repeating. These movies are finally being treated with the respect and care they deserve. They’re being made by people who “get” comic books, and while we still get some films now and then that are just cash grabs, the ones Marvel puts out are almost universally decent, if not downright excellent.

When you compare a movie like Captain America to earlier movies, the difference is obvious. Fantastic Four? Daredevil? Batman and Robin? It’s been a long time coming, but I think studios have finally recognized the sort of moneymakers they have on their hands with these movies.

Took ‘em long enough.

Guess Who’s One Year Old?

It’s very hard to believe that it’s already been a year since MC came into the family. I’ll be honest: it’s been a stressful year. Not her fault at all, but it’s been a year full of changes and growing pains in many different areas. Being a father of three took more of a toll on me than I anticipated, but I can definitely say I don’t regret it at all. Often the things in life that test you the most are the things worth doing the most.

And really, MC is as close to a perfect baby as you’re likely to find. She’s pleasant and happy almost all of the time, and she sleeps like a rock. (Not kidding. She goes to bed each night at 8:15, wakes up at 7, then naps each day from 8:30-11:30, 1:00-3:30, and 5:00-6:45. The girl loves her beauty sleep!)

One of my favorite things of this past year has been watching how well her brother and sister have taken her under their wing. They both take turns watching her and playing with her, and they clearly enjoy doing it. That alone was worth the price of admission, if that makes sense. TRC is a very caring and thoughtful big brother, and he’s old enough to be able to appreciate the ways MC is growing and getting bigger. DC just adores being a big sister, and she’s ecstatic now that MC is sleeping in the same room with her.

In any case, I’m a bit tight on time today. We’ll be celebrating this evening with a small family party. Denisa’s making a cake, and we’ll see what sort of damage MC can do to it when she digs in tonight. It’s been a wild and crazy year, but it’s been a better one because she’s been in it.

Happy birthday. MC!

Two and a Half Seasons Later, I’m Finally a Dr. Who Fan

It took me a long time, but I finally see what people see in Dr. Who–although I can also totally understand why some people have such a hard time getting into the show. Denisa and I sit down most evenings and try to figure out what we want to watch. Sometimes it’s simple: we’ve only got about a half hour, so we go for a Cheers or a Dick Van Dyke show or some other sitcom. If we’ve got a couple of hours, we shift over to a movie of some sort. It’s the times when we only have an hour that it becomes tricky. Ideally we have a TV show that fills that gap, but we’d burned through most of the ones we’d found and liked.

As you’ll recall, we’d been giving Dr. Who a shot. It wasn’t the easiest show to love. The characters rotate quickly, and the setting and conflict from one episode to the next can be wildly different. So for the first long while, we’d watch an episode and then not return to the show for a week or two.

But we kept coming back.

We finished the second season (of the reboot), and I suddenly realized that we weren’t debating “which show should we watch” as much anymore. Each evening, if we had the one hour slot open, we just turned to the Doctor. Not only that, but when we had the two hour slot open, we’d go for two episodes instead of just one. And the true test of whether or not we’re fans of the show? The dreaded cliffhanger episode that pops up when you’ve already planned on going to bed.

Do you stay up and watch the second part, or do you turn it off and come back to it later. West Wing, Veronica Mars, Buffy, Battlestar–those were shows that I was willing to lose sleep over. Dr. Who hadn’t been in that category . . . until one day it was.

Really, once you’re into the show and understand how it functions and what the dynamics are of the characters, suddenly it all starts to click together, and it can make for some very compelling television. I’m glad we stuck it out–it’s paying off very nicely at this point. How so? Some of my favorite recent episodes include:

Army of Ghosts/Doomsday–the end of Season 2. Really powerful stuff there.
Shakespeare Code–A bit ridiculous, but fun nonetheless
Gridlock–Very intriguing premise
Tooth and Claw–A fun diversion

Really, there’s so much breadth to the show, and I enjoy never knowing quite what I’m going to get when I start a new episode. That said, that can also be to the show’s detriment. Sometimes the ideas just don’t gel together. But on the whole, it’s a price I’m willing to risk each time.

Still, I stand by the point I made so long ago: no show should have this steep a learning curve. Period.

Would You Read a Serialized Book?

So here’s the story. I’ve been toying with the idea of epublishing, trying to decide how best to approach it. I’ve written eleven books, and while some of them are tied up in the traditional publication process, others are just sitting in my Dropbox folder, gathering virtual dust. Not all of them are ready for primetime, but one stands out to me as a prime candidate for epublication: ICHABOD. It’s an adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and it tries to answer the question, “What do characters in books do when you’re not reading them?” Think of it as Toy Story, but for novels. Inside a copy of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, one of the characters is killing off the others one by one, and it’s up to Ichabod Crane to solve the mystery and save the day.

I love this book. My agents? Not so much, and I can’t blame them. Trying to capture the book and present it in a way that editors will immediately understand and see a market for is probably a bridge too far. But just because it’s hard to package doesn’t mean the book’s not without merit, and so I’d like to let it see the light of day in one form or another.

But how to do it the right way?

I’m reluctant to just go the straight epublishing route. I put it up one day, promote it for a while, and then that’s that. This is a book I love dearly. The concept is very unique, the worldbuilding was a blast . . . I don’t want to blow it. To really do it right, I’d love to get it professionally edited, have a pro do the cover, and ideally get some physical copies printed. But as soon as I start talking about those sorts of things, I start talking about money, and that just leads back to “How would I earn it back?” I love the book, but would other people?

But what if I took a different approach? What if I involved all of you lovely people in the writing process? I’ve also long considered exploring the idea of a serialized book–something released on my blog a chapter a week, for free. If I were to do this for ICHABOD, I’d like to solicit feedback on each chapter–encourage people to read it and give me critiques as we go. Then, once the whole thing was done, I could potentially revise the book and release the revision as an ebook, maybe even Kickstarting a modest amount of money to get it done right.

This is something I almost definitely am going to do, but I want to do it right. The book’s 25 chapters long. At a chapter a week, it will be a half year’s worth of blog posts. That’s a significant investment on the blog, and I’d rather not throw it up there to just have it turn into the post everyone ignores each week. There are some things I can hopefully do to combat that (release a current pdf of the book up to its latest chapter each week, ask other authors to do some posts on similar topics or let me do some guest posts on their blogs, etc.), but I wondered what you all thought of it.

So, hive mind: does this sound like something that would be interesting? Any suggestions before I embark on the process? Not sure when this would start–it’s still in the planning phase at the moment. So now’s the time to help me out with the concept.

Thanks!

Shrek: The Musical

Shrek: The Musical popped up in my Netflix suggestions a while ago, and for the first while, I resisted. Nothing about the movie–as much as I enjoyed it–led me to believe it really needed to be a musical, and I envisioned 2.5 hours of fart jokes set to a musical score. Not exactly my idea of a fun time. And yet, one thing I’ve been wanting my kids to get into more is the Broadway scene. Especially TRC. The motivation is purely selfish. I like watching musicals, and I’d love to watch them with my family, but he’s typically the one who’d rather get his teeth pulled by rusty pliers.

Were some musical farts worth it, as a gateway drug?

In the end, I decided that they must be. It couldn’t be *that* bad, could it?

So last week we watched the musical as a family. The first scene started to make me question my resolve. It has young Shrek being sent off into the world to be made fun of and ridiculed. From there, it goes on to a musical number with the fairy tale creatures, and I was not impressed. This was living up to my low expectations, minus the fart jokes. There were some funny spots, and the costumes were great, but the music was just so so, and I was far from convinced this was a good idea. TRC and DC were enjoying themselves for the most part, though, so . . . win?

And then we hit the number that introduces Princess Fiona (“I Know It’s Today”), and suddenly the musical went from middling to great. The staging was really well done, the music was super, the acting spot on. It was an actual, really good piece. And it turned around my perception of the musical a great deal. Don’t get me wrong: I didn’t start thinking that this should win the Tony for Best Musical, but it had earned some amount of respect from me, which let me give it the benefit of the doubt during the times when the musical was only so-so.

The thing is, there are plenty of musicals I really like where they have a few numbers I don’t care for much at all, and some that I think are only okay. But because I know the musical or the composer, I look past those. Until “I Know It’s Today,” I had no reason to give the same leeway to Shrek, and I’m glad I ended up keeping watching. In the end, the whole family really liked the musical. There were some other whiffs, but some other really good numbers, too. Better yet, they’d clearly focused on making a filmed version of the musical, so it was well-produced throughout. I wish more Broadway musicals would do this. At the very least the Disney ones? Anything to be able to capture some of that at home.

Now, that all said, be aware that there is a 2.5 minute farting/burping number, just as I thought there would be. TRC thought that was the highpoint of the whole thing. He was laughing non-stop. The first twenty seconds were pretty funny. After that . . . not so much.

But the biggest sign that my experiment was a success? I put TRC to the Hello Dolly test. That’s right: a whole musical about matchmaking. If he could watch that happily, then clearly something went right. I told them last night that’s what I wanted to watch, and TRC happily went along with it. No complaints. And he was laughing along with the rest of us at the funny parts, enjoying himself.

We haven’t finished it yet (hard to watch an entire movie when you’ve got a baby that needs watching, too), but we’re deep into it, and there’s no signs of us needing to stop, and so for that, I say “Thank you very much, Shrek.”

In the end, I’d give the musical a 7/10. Maybe a 6.5. But it was all worth it to get my kids into musicals some more. Give it a shot if you haven’t seen it. Don’t expect AWESOME, but I’m almost sure it’ll be better than you thought it would be.

Already seen it? Let me know what you thought.

Come On Out to a Signing Tomorrow

Nothing like giving you all plenty of heads up, I know, but I’ll be at Cape Elizabeth Author Fest tomorrow from 10am-2pm, selling and signing books. It’s a ways away for most of you, but if you want to come out and rub elbows with over 35 authors and illustrators–and just hang out with me–then tomorrow’s your day!

A bookseller will be there peddling copies of Vodnik, and I’ll bring down some copies of Cavern of Babel, just in case anyone’s hankering for some alpaca fantasy reading. I’ll also bring Vodnik tattoos, and if I’m feeling up to it, some Vodnik t-shirts. Because why not?

What with all the craziness in my life, I haven’t had the chance to make it to many cons this year or do other authorly things, but I wanted to at least keep my toes in the water, and this seemed like a nice way to do that. So come on by and say hello. It’ll be at the Cape Elizabeth High School cafeteria, I believe.

See you there! (But please–leave your sledgehammers at home. Anyone who wants to be my number one fan can prove it by giving me a million dollars.)

Cloning Dogs: This Can’t End Well

Okay, peoples. For the low cost of $100,000, you can now clone your pooch. You know, for when ol’ Fido is getting up there in years, and you want to replace him with a new model of himself.

I don’t see this ending well.

First off, let’s set aside the ethics of the thing. Let’s assume it’s a perfectly good idea to clone your pet. What are you expecting to get out of it? I don’t think you’ll get a carbon copy of the animal you’ve grown to love over the years, because it will encounter totally different experiences over the course of its life. This whole “clone your friend” approach works if and only if animals are a complete product of their genes. Same genes = same animal. And I just don’t buy that. If you took two identical animals, treated one nicely and one cruelly for the space of five years, you’d have two very different end results.

So what this is is basically a chance to pay $100,000 for a pet that looks just like the pet you’ve had.

Um . . . people? You do realize there are all sorts of perfectly adorable, cuddly, lovely pets in our animal shelters, right? They cost a whole lot less, and they’re just as ready to give you their undivided love and affection. That fact alone is enough for me to be against this whole concept.

But what about cloning in general? Is that taking the powers of God into our own hands? Is it amoral to do it?

I can see both sides of this. We already create life in test tubes. The main difference between this and artificial insemination is where we get the original material from. I’d imagine that as science gets progressively better, it’ll blur the lines between cloning, reproduction, and genetic tweaking further and further.

The catching point for me isn’t whether or not the process of cloning should or shouldn’t be done–it’s further back than that. I could see areas where cloning is beneficial. But I could also see many more where it steps over the line. We’re cloning puppies now. You know it’ll be people eventually. And then the question becomes “How much choice should we have in deciding what sort of a child we want?”

One free of diseases and abnormalities seems like the easy answer. But what’s an abnormality? Who gets to decide that? And once we’re making decisions based on what’s normal and what’s not, what’s to stop us from boutique shopping? (“I’d like a tall, outgoing girl with blue eyes and high scores in Charisma, Dexterity, and Wisdom, please.” My gut tells me having a child shouldn’t feel too much like cheating when you roll an RPG character.)

It’s fascinating to watch science get closer and closer to issues science fiction has been predicting for years. Scary, as well. Because if they were right on cloning, why wouldn’t they be right about the singularity?

And Terminators.

There’s a chipper thought for your Thursday . . .

A Report Back on Plot Holes

(Mega huge bonus points to you if you can get the connection between that picture and this post. It might take you a bit, but I’m almost sure some of you can do it!)

A week or two ago, I put up a (very) short survey on plot holes, asking you all to tell me how much they bugged you. There was some good discussion on my Facebook page about the topic, with most saying that it all depended on the size of the hole and the type of work it appeared in–as well as any mitigating factors (meaning, are there awesome things that make up for the plot hole).

But I also wanted to present back to you the results of the (completely non-scientific) survey. Because numbers.

If you’ll recall, the survey basically asked people to rate how much plot holes bugged them, on a scale from 1 to 9. (I chose 1-9 because that way there could be an exact middle. With 1-10, there’s no truly average option.) 36 brave souls took the time to answer. Not the world’s best sampling, I’ll admit. But we work with what we have.

The average response was 5.53, meaning plot holes appear to bug people a bit more than average, but not excessively so. Breaking it down by answers:

1 (“Not a bit”): 0

2———-: 1

3———-: 4

4———-: 4

5 (“A middling amount”): 9

6———-: 4

7———-: 12

8———-: 2

9 (“To the point I’ll stop reading/watching”): 0

What can we learn from this? (Well, besides the fact that apparently not many of you like taking surveys.) No one loathed plot holes or totally ignored them: they’re an issue for everyone, but they’re not deal breakers in and of themselves. Still, they’re a fairly significant problem for a lot of people, which is why it’s so surprising to me that Hollywood gets away with such big ones so often.

That said, I have to keep in mind my survey pool. You’re all readers of my blog, which means you’re a cut above your average Hollywood consumer (I’d like to think). So I suppose it should be no surprise that there might be a discrepancy between what you prefer and what’s acceptable with your typical movie.

That said, this all did what I hoped it would do: confirm to me that I should take plot holes seriously and do my best to eliminate them. As an author, my main goal is to tell a great story. A story that grabs you and doesn’t let go until the end. To accomplish that goal, I need to pay attention to anything that might cause you to lose interest or otherwise throw you out of a story. Plot holes definitely fall into that category.

Thanks for playing!

And the Winner of My NCAA Bracket Challenge This Year Is . . .

Yes, we’ve reached the end of another exciting March Madness. And back at the beginning, I set up a bracket for fans–as I am wont to do. There were fabulous prizes available, ranging from me writing a post on a topic of the winner’s choosing to a read and critique of a short story or chapter. I was also open to suggestions for prizes.

Ten brave souls entered the challenge. And right away, things looked bleak for yours truly. The team I picked to win it all, lost in the first round. (Thanks a lot, Duke!) So I was pretty  much out of the running from the get go.

Now here we are at the end. And it’s time to announce that the winner is . . .

ME!!!!

Ha ha, fans! That’s how awesome I am. I can pick a team to win it all, have them lose in the first round, and *still* beat you all. (Well, technically my cousin Ted tied with me, but ESPN’s tiebreakers went my way. And since Ted would likely make me write some sort of awful post about how awesome the Utes are or something, I’m definitely taking advantage of those tiebreakers . . .)

But thanks for playing, all. Better luck next year! In the meantime, I shall bask in the gloriousness of how wonderful I am.