Bryce Moore's Blog, page 267

WorldCon Panels--Come See Me in Chicago!

At the end of this month, I'll be trekking out to Worldcon in Chicago. What is Worldcon? The World Science Fiction Convention. Tons of sci-fi/fantasy fans from all walks of life. Movies, television, writing--you name it. It's not quite at the Comic Con level, but it's up there.



I've been to it once before, when it was in LA a few years ago. (Has it really been six years? I think it might have . . . ) Back then, I carpooled out from Utah in a caravan. My car had Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Janci Patterson, and . . . Isaac Stewart? (If that's the case, the car at the time had a 1 in 5 record for published authors. It's now at a 5 for 5 stat, which is pretty darned encouraging, if I do say so myself. It's great to take a step back and think about where we all were back then and where we are now. Dan was talking about a serial killer book on the ride down, as I recall. Brandon just had Mistborn books coming out. What a difference six years can make.)



In any event, this time, I won't be carpooling. I'm flying. And where last time I was just trying to make some connections to get an "in" in publishing, this time I'm looking forward to being on some panels, eating with friends, and doing my best not to have Myke Cole snore me to death. (He's been threatening. I'm loading up on ear plugs before I go, though.) I'll be catching a Cubs game, even.



But wait--did you see that bit about being on panels? That's right! I'm presenting on three, actually. Which is two more than I thought I'd hoped to be on. So that's exciting. If you're going to be in Chicago on Labor Day weekend and would like to see me, here's my schedule:




Fri Aug 31 9:00:amFri Aug 31 10:30:amAcquiring an Agent
Columbus KLAspiring authors talk about landing an agent for their manuscript.
Bryce Moore Courtney Schafer  J. Kathleen Cheney  Joshua Bilmes R.T. Kaelin




Fri Aug 31 1:30:pmFri Aug 31 3:00:pmYoung Adult Trends
McCormickA look at the various current trends in the Young Adult book market, from the dystopias to paranormal romance.
Aurora Celeste  Bryce Moore  Emily Jiang Gwenda Bond Leigh Bardugo




Sun Sep 2 10:30:amSun Sep 2 12:00:pmSF in Libraries Focus on Schools
ComiskeyScience fiction is an area of increasing interest and activity for library collections. Discover what types of materials are being collected, how they are being used, and how they are exposing a new generation to science fiction.
Bryce Moore  Greg Prickman James Bryant Maurine Starkey Peadar O Guilin




Sun Sep 2 12:30:pmSun Sep 2 1:00:pmReading: Bryce Moore
Dusable
Bryce Moore



I'm excited for all of them. Joshua (my agent) is (fittingly) on the panel with me that's about acquiring an agent. He's absolutely terrific, and chock full of wisdom when it comes to the industry. I'll be moderating the other two in addition to presenting. The reading? I'm kind of not sure how that will go . . . Let's keep it real here. People aren't coming to Chicago to find out what the next Bryce Moore books is going to be about. But I'll try to read some from VODNIK or TARNHELM or even GET CUPID (tentative title of my YA Ocean's Eleven book), depending on who's in the audience (assuming anyone's in the audience.)



Anyway--I'm really looking forward to the experience. Any of you out there planning on going? Let me know!

Dueling, Rope Climbing, and Sailor Swimming: Crazy Olympic Sports from Days of Yore

So there I am, perusing the Olympics, and what do I see? Some girl dancing with bowling balls. I'm not making this up. She had two balls, and she was dancing with them. She followed this up by dancing with a hula hoop. That's when I had to hit Google. What was this woman doing, and why in the world was it considered an Olympic sport? I mean, I think I'd be disappointed if I were at a basketball game and she came on as the halftime show, even.





Just keeping it real here, folks.




And as half of you are no doubt telling your computer screen even as you read this, she was doing Rhythmic Gymnastics, and I really shouldn't knock it just because the one I happened to catch wasn't particularly good. I mean, check this girl out:








Yeah. That's pretty darn awesome, I think. And it got me--librarian that I am--curious. What other strange Olympic events are out there? What odd ones have their been throughout the history of the modern Olympics?



There have been some doozies, people. And I'm not just talking about the ribbon dancing that's also part of rhythmic gymnastics. No--to get to the really funky stuff, you gotta dig a bit. And I have. And so without further ado, I present to you my list of crazy sports that were actually, literally, Olympic medal-winning contests in the past hundred years or so. (There were so many that I had to ignore demonstration sports to keep things under control. Otherwise, I would have had to talk about ski ballet, skijoring (dog racing on skis), ballooning, and surf lifesaving. But because I love you--and couldn't resist--here's some ski ballet for you. I want this guy's hair. Why was this not a medal sport when some of the others were? You got me.)







Anyway. Back to the real events.


Croquet--That's right. Back in 1900 in Paris, there were three croquet events. Single ball, doubles, and double ball. Ten athletes competed. Nine of them were French. The French swept every single medal. And you wonder why croquet didn't make another appearance. Then again, before we Americans decide to get hoity toity about it, let me point out that in 1904 in St. Louis, croquet was replaced by roque, the American variant of croquet, apparently. (Who knew?) Four players competed--all of them American. America swept the medals.
Tug of War--This actually had a long, storied history at the Olympics, being played from 1900-1920. 6 Olympics in a row. Team sport--no individual competitions. Men's Tug of War, people. Just think how awesome that would be.
Dueling Pistol--1912. Shooting at targets dressed in frock coats, from what I've gathered. Bull's Eye on the target's throat. Pure awesome.
Rope Climbing--Held in four Olympics during the span of 1896-1932, it consisted of timed rope climbing. Climb the rope, ring the bell. The world record for the 20' climb was 2.8 seconds, in case you were wondering.
Club Swinging--One man. Two clubs. Swinging them around. If this involved ninjas, this could be epic. Unfortunately, to the best of my research, it does not involve ninjas.
Underwater Swimming--1900. Competitors got points for the amount of time they were underwater, and the distance they had swum. It apparently wasn't a very good spectator sport at the time, so got dropped.
Men's Sailor Swimming--Perhaps the best example of exclusionary sports, this one had a strange entry requirement. Only members of the Greek Royal Navy could compete. In 1896. In Greece. Eleven men entered, but only three actually swam.


There have been other sports. Less outlandish, perhaps. Golf. Polo. Cricket. But I guess next time I see a woman and her bowling balls making beautiful art on a gym floor, I should just keep my mouth shut. Also, maybe my dream--that sports like competitive eating, or pizza dough tossing, or arm wrestling will one day become Olympic events--isn't too far off, after all.

A Brief Travel Guide to Western Slovakia

Sorry about the late post today. I was waiting for the second half of a guest post I wrote to get published. What guest post, you ask? Well, let me tell you.



My publisher (Tu Books) asked me to write a brief travel guide to Slovakia a few weeks ago. I was more than happy to comply, although there was too much material to cover in a brief post. I mean, this is Slovakia here. A paragraph or two wasn't going to cut it.



So it turned into a two parter, and I restricted it to just Western Slovakia. Check it out here:




Part One--Castles
Part Two--Everything Else


And really--if you haven't been to Slovakia, you're totally missing out. I've been to France, England, Germany, Austria, Ireland, the Czech Republic--Slovakia can compete with any of them, and it's less-well known. If you want to get in on the cool before it becomes cool, now is your chance to go. And did I mention it's less expensive than the rest of Europe?

Internet Security

Over on my library blog today, I link to an article in Wired, focused on internet security. It scared me no end--enough that I wanted to blog about it. Here's the beginning of my post--click on over at the end to read the rest of it.

I just came across this absolutely frightening account on Wired of a man--a techie--who lost access to his email, his Amazon account, his Apple ID, the entire contents of his laptop and Apple devices--all due to some hackers who were bored. What scares me the most about this is that it happened to a guy who is "with it" when it comes to technology. He writes about it for Gizmodo, for crying out loud. I immediately started looking at my own security setup to see if the same thing could happen to me. It couldn't--mine's a bit different--but it's not out of the realm of possibility that there's another, easy way to get past the security I have set up.

When you get down to it, I'm tech-savvy, but not nearly as tech-savvy as some of the other people out there. Most of the time, I just take an approach of security in anonymity. There are billions of people out there--what are the odds that a hacker is going to take interest in me? I realize this is a really bad approach to take, but at the same time, there are so many ways for hackers to get access to my information, that it's just easier for me not to worry about it.

Read the rest of the post. 

Doing Awful Things to Your Main Characters: Vodnik Chapter Fifteen

Hmm. Chapter fifteen. This was a chapter that changed drastically in one of the last rounds of revisions, and I'm honestly still a bit up in the air about how it all ended up. I'm talking, of course, about the beating Tomas gets from the Bigot Gang. This was not a fun scene to write. It's the worst thing I've ever done to one of my characters. Yes, I've killed them before, but I haven't totally humiliated them. I tend to be a pretty optimistic guy. I like the believe people are inherently good, and having any of my characters--even my villains--do what Gollum, Draco, and Jabba do to Tomas in this scene . . . I needed to go wash my hands after I'd typed it.



And after I was done with it--after I'd read the scene over again--I still wondered if all that happens in it should happen. The kids pee on Tomas? Did that really happen? Would someone do that to another person? But then I read the news about what's going on in Europe with the Roma--what they face and have to endure--and if anything, I wonder if I went far enough.



When I first was working on the Roma revisions to the storyline in Vodnik, I kept trying to shy away from any real pain and suffering. Violence to Tomas was limited to gruff looks and general suspicion. Of course, this wasn't enough to adequately portray the Roma plight. And a big part of me wonders how any outsider could portray it. I'm not Roma, after all.



But then again, I'm not a magic user, either. I don't speak to fairies. I've never had to witness a murder--but these are things I drop in and out of stories whenever I feel like it. A big part of being a fiction writer is putting yourself into different "what if" situations and thinking through how they'd play out.



And yet even as I write that paragraph, I know there's no way to compare living as a minority with coming up with "what if" scenarios in my head. The difference is night and day.



The chapter--the bullying scene--stayed in as written. It provides a good contrast to the later scene, where the bullies try to up the ante, and Tomas turns the tables on them. It's vicious, yes--but so is racism. Go read Mississippi Trial, 1955 (linked to at the top of this post). The world is an awful place sometimes. Much more awful than what happens to Tomas here in this chapter.



That said, I'm really interested to hear what readers thought of this chapter--this scene in particular. Was it too much for you? What did you think when you read it? How did you respond? Please take a moment to answer, if you could. I can't be an objective reader in this case, and it was such a difficult scene to write--it would help me tremendously to see how actual readers engaged with it.

Special Order a Vodnik T-Shirt!

I've sold out of my first order of T-shirts, so I'm going to be ordering some more. I was really happy with how they turned out (been wearing the heck out of mine), and TRC has been dying to have his own since I got them. (He needs an XS, and I had only ordered S, M, L, & XL). I know last time there had been some people who were interested, but I didn't have their size (or I'd run out of it)--so if you want a t-shirt, let me know. I'll take special orders for any specific sizes this time around.



I plan to run the order sometime in the next week or two. Comment below, on Facebook, Twitter, or shoot me an email. The shirts cost me $13 each. If you write a review and promise to promo the book online or with your friends, I'll sell them to you at cost. Otherwise, they're $20 each. Shipping is $5.




Don't miss your chance for fun glow-in-the-dark reaper goodness!

Wisdom Tooth: The Reckoning

I never got my wisdom teeth taken out. I have a really big mouth. (No snide remarks, please.) At the time, I was really happy that I didn't have to have them out, since this meant an avoidance of . . . you know . . . having them out. Which I imagine isn't the best feeling in the world. And since I'm all for avoiding pain when possible, that was a plus.



Of course. which great power mouths comes great responsibility. My dentists always warned me I'd have to watch out for those wisdom teeth--taking great care to brush all the way heck back there. And I'd usually do as they asked. For the first few weeks after every appointment. But in the end, I'd return to my wicked lazy brushing ways.



For three decades, that wasn't a problem.



This week, the time had come for a reckoning. Not a huge, wisdom-teeth-getting-yanked sort of a reckoning. No--my wisdom teeth have decided to take the slow but steady root route to inflicting pain. Step one was get some cavities. I knew I had to have a couple filled on Tuesday. They were supposed to be minor, but it turns out, my wisdom teeth are much sneakier than that. They'd made a small impact on the outside of the tooth, but had let decay burrow its way much deeper into the inside of the tooth than any dentist could expect.



If you've read the blog for a long time, then you'll recall that I'm a complete wuss when it comes to dentists. Pretty much scared stiff of them drills and shots. In the end, did the actual drilling cause much pain? Maybe not, though I needed three shots of Novocaine to get through it, but the fear of possible pain was more than enough to keep me occupied throughout the ordeal.



The good news is that it's over. I still have the teeth. (Which will no doubt seem like bad news, come the day when they have to be yanked for good.) My mouth is still pretty achy. (Drilling a wisdom tooth means you have to have your mouth really wide open for a long time. Less than fun.



My dentist is a really nice guy, but I still hate going to see him. :-)



And for those of you who have stuck with this post for this long, here's my favorite dentist scene from film. (Hey--any of you BYU Film/Lit students notice that Steve Martin with dark hair looks a lot like Dennis Cutchins? Ot is it just me?)

In Defense of Losing

(Bonus points to anyone who can get the connection between the title of the post and the picture I used to lead this off--without clicking through to the source material. No peeking!)



I've been watching the Olympics over the last few days (naturally), and I've been as disappointed as many people have been over the poor quality of NBC's coverage. I never really noticed this before, so either I'm being more critical these days, or I've changed over the last few years, or . . . their coverage has gotten crummier. Probably a combination of both, plus the fact that I resent how hard they hold on to their coverage. CBS does a fantastic job with March Madness each year, letting anyone download an app and watch on their device of their choice for a small charge, plus ads. That seems more than reasonable. NBC seems to want to defend their coverage from any possible onslaught.



Me no likey.



But that's not what I wanted to post about today. No--what I've really been thinking about is how important it is to learn how to lose. In many ways, life's all about losing. You're going to lose, and you're going to lose often. I've always liked this quote by Michael Jordan:

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

Sure, it's from a Nike commercial, but it's still a great point. The only way to be able to win is to be able to lose.



NBC was hyping up the Phelps/Lochte showdown so much, a part of me was more than a little happy when both of them failed to live up to expectations. Because I think it's important to see that dreams don't always come true. That you can work really hard for something, but just because you worked hard for it, doesn't mean you're going to do the best or have everything you wanted. That's a life lesson, folks.



I was reminded this during Jordyn Wieber's failure to make the all-around finals in women's gymnastics, as well. Everyone was talking about what an outrage it was, and how she should be allowed to compete anyway, and how she should have gone last in the order. All of that talk, but no one really focusing on why she didn't make it to the finals.



She lost.



She wasn't as good as the other two girls on the team. Despite NBC promo'ing the heck out of her. Despite all the commercials with her smiling face. She didn't come through when she needed to, and she lost. (The cameramen shoving their lenses into her face while she was sobbing was a bit much, though.)



I was really happy to see her bounce back. To get over her loss and come together with the rest of her team to win the gold last night. That's how you lose. You accept it, and you move on.



(Long aside: This same principle goes for other areas, too. In the same vein (but not a complete match) is the importance of being able to admit you were wrong about something. The other day, I posted on Facebook a minor rant against junk lawsuits--how disgusted I was that people kept using our legal system as a giant slot machine, everyone trying to cash in for a big settlement.



Then a friend posted a response, essentially telling me I was falling for a storyline that was based on hype and not facts. He even included some links to back his point up.



My initial response was to prove I was right. To find contradicting evidence that showed why I had been justified saying what I had. So I put on my librarian hat, did some research, and . . . discovered I had been wrong. I went back to the conversation, admitted I was wrong, and thanked him for correcting me. It was essentially good news, after all. I'd been upset that people were flooding our law system with junk lawsuits, and that wasn't the case.



I'm not trying to pat myself on the back, but I do wish this sort of mentality would be shared by others these days. Everyone seems so set on proving when they're right all the time. Looking for ways to slice numbers and shave statistics until they find something that confirms their gut reactions. All it takes is one study, and they sit back and point to it and say, "See?" When an argument becomes focused on who is right and who is wrong, any hope of having a productive exchange of ideas has long since evaporated.)



Anyway. Back on topic. When I look at my kids, I want them to play games, and I want them to lose. Not all the time, of course. Winning's fun, too. But I never got too good at losing when I was little. I'm still not great at it. I'm intensely competitive, and that does me no real good in the long run. I love playing board games, and I enjoy learning the rules and twisting them to my advantage. That should be enough--enjoying the process. But I sometimes get so hung up on winning that I lose enjoyment of the game.



I play Magic: the Gathering with a friend over lunch a few times a week. It's a game I've really come to enjoy the more I play it. Full of strategy and replayability. I have a great time playing. The last few times we've played, I've gotten mowed over, however. My friend is a much more experienced player than I am. He's been doing this for years and years. I've been playing for maybe one. I enjoy the process of learning--but I know I'd enjoy it more if I'd stop worrying so much about winning.



The temptation is there, of course, to tell my friend to lighten up, just as many youth sports have started focusing on "participating is the same thing as winning." I'm not a fan of that, clearly. You get better by playing against better competition. You get stronger by working against resistance. And getting better is important--much more important than the simple "I won."



I'm getting a bit rambly at this point. My thoughts are all over the place. Let me bring this back to the Olympics. The first night during the Opening Ceremonies, they interviewed Michael Phelps, who was asked if--if/when he won more medals than anyone else--he would have earned the right to be called the greatest Olympian of all time. To me, the answer to this was a no-brainer. You laugh, you say that's a bit much, and you point to all the other great Olympians out there. Did he do this? No. He sat there and thought about the question some, then eventually pretty much agreed, as I recall.



I thought it was outrageous.



So I was really happy to see him come in fourth in his first race. But I was even happier to see him actually show some humility in his interview after the men's relay victory last night.



Maybe losing had done something for him, too.

Movie Review: War Horse

Denisa and I watched War Horse the other day. I had fairly high hopes for the film, It got above 70 on both Rottentomatoes and Metacritic. It's directed by Spielberg, based on what's supposed to be an awesome play (which was in turn based on a children's novel). Also? It was nominated for 6 Oscars, including Best Picture,



Sounds like a winner, yes?



But it just wasn't. It's beautifully shot. It looks fantastic, and I was impressed to read that almost all of it is real--digital effects were just used in one 3 second shot. Other than that, the whole thing is actual stuff being done by actual people.



What didn't work for me, then? I think the biggest problem was that the story was too big. Too many plot points and characters to cover, and the stakes were never really established. In a nutshell, the story follows the adventures of a horse (Joey) in World War I. Joey encounters a lot of different humans, and he has good experiences with some and bad experiences with others. And this could have been really awesome. I enjoyed seeing the sequences depicting the war and how things were done at the time, and there were some very well done bits and pieces, but in the end, it feels like you're watching a pinball game from the point of view of the pinball.



Joel doesn't do enough to warrant being the main character of the movie. The various humans in the film don't do enough either. So what you end up with is a slice of life movie masquerading as an action/adventure. That's not a good combo. Maybe if I had been expecting just a slice of life film, it would have been different. I'm not sure. But I don't think so. When I'm watching a movie, I want the main characters to be resourceful. To be people (or horses) who take an active part in their fate. Sitting back and being there doesn't usually cut it.



Even overlooking this big problem, there wasn't enough of an actual story to keep me engaged. First there's life on the farm (which started well enough, and gave me hope for the movie), but then we're with a series of owners. Each time, you wonder why we're with this owner at this time. What will happen here that makes everything make sense. And it never comes together.



In the end, I'm left with a movie that looks fantastic, has a great score (John Williams), and . . . seems to be trying too hard to be an Oscar winner. It's like an overenthusiastic high school drama student. Very earnest, and that's all well and good, but this is the big leagues, son. Bring a story that counts, and bring some acting that works. (Did I mention the acting didn't work for me? Likely because I was never engaged in the story.)



Still, I recognize sometimes I'm off in my reviews. Did anyone out there see this one and want to disagree with me? Was I too harsh? Let me know in the comments.

Defining Death: Vodnik Chapter Fourteen

[image error] I've already discussed how the actual character of Morena had to change at the last minute during the revision process (check out that discussion here). This is the actual chapter where the transition took place, of course,



For this week's commentary, I wanted to discuss how I decided to handle death in Vodnik. I knew that I wanted to have the Slovak personification of Death show up, but how did she behave? What was her day to day schedule like? What did she like?



The knee-jerk reaction for me when I think of Death personified is one of two options: The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come (from Dickens' Christmas Carol) or Death from Terry Pratchett's Discworld. For the former, you've got a big ominous skeleton in a hood going around freaking people out by being spooky. In the latter, you've got the same character essentially, except now you have him do funny things every now and then. Humor plays a much bigger role for Pratchett than for Dickens. Go figure.



I already knew that my version of Death wasn't going to be the skeleton-in-a-hood routine. Here's an image Shawn Boyles did for the mythology guide over on Tu Books' website.




So. Still the scythe, but no hood. I wanted the image of Death to still be ominous. But I also wanted a touch of humor in there, as well.



For me, that came as I fleshed out the character. Gave her some basic human traits (she likes cough drops, she has a sense of humor, she likes American football).



Next question to tackle--how does she get everything done? There are people dying all over the world. What are her boundaries? What happens if two people die at the same time? If she's just in charge of deaths in Slovakia, how does she keep track of them all? How many people die in Slovakia, anyway? I had to research up some of these statistics and do some basic math for this, then extrapolate some world building based off of that. She'd need to be able to freeze time, for one thing. What would the world be like when she did that? (I took some of my mental image of that from elements of CS Lewis's The Great Divorce.)



How long can she freeze time? Why doesn't she do it all the time? Questions questions questions. And then there was the question of how long she'd been doing this. Is Death a job? A permanent position? (That, of course, led to other elements of the book--like Death in the Modern Day.)



It's important to note here than I am far from an intensive plotter. I'll write a general outline of a book, and then I'll flesh it out as I go. (For Vodnik, I was even less of a plotter.) This means that I explore things as I go. My friend Isaac Stewart compared it to set design for movies. You make the facade look perfect, but if you glance behind it, it's all two by fours and nails. Nothing finished there. This works--but the trick is you have to have all the facade covered everywhere that shows up in the finished product, so to speak.



What this means in practice is that sometimes you'll be blazing along in your writing, and then you discover there was an area that you left unfinished. You've got to go there, but you don't know what "there" is. For me, that's when I have to go back to brainstorming mode until I've got that ironed out. Often, this results in me having to iron out other places that are affected by the changes I just made to the new section. Part of me thinks it would be better to just plot the whole thing out in the first place, but I know me and I know how I write. I'd inevitably drift off script sooner rather than later, and all that plotting could well go down the toilet.



Did this happen in Vodnik? Some. I had no plans to have Tomas get the manual for Death in the book. And yet it popped up in the middle of once scene. This meant I had to figure out what it was--what was in it, how it worked. I'll probably have to wait and discuss this at a later time, though. Out of time for today, and this is already late as is. (I blame the Olympics. They're making me stay up even later than I usually do.)