Chelsea Gaither's Blog, page 75

Pre-Criminal Education

Most people aren't going to agree with this, so we're going to start by explaining the basics: Our brains are smarter than we are.

Our brains are a wonderful tool, and we only consciously use about a quarter of it. Which is how it's supposed to work. If we had to consciously do everything our sub- and unconscious minds do our heads would explode. We'd never get anything done. And one of these things is reading ten million social cues a day so we can behave in a socially acceptable manner.

Unfortunately one of the cues in our society is this thrumming undercurrent of "they deserved it".

Let's use a movie as an example. It can be any horror movie in the last fifty years, but we're going to use Cabin Fever because what I'm talking about is really blatant. Victim blaming is par for the course in horror movies, which is sad because it takes most of the actual horror out of the equation, but that's a rant for another day. The premise of Cabin Fever is, a bunch of friends show up at a cabin, get sick with flesh eating rabies (or something) and try to quarantine themselves/get out/keep everyone from getting out/survive angry mob of townspeople. You'd think this would be horrifying, but then we meet the characters.

And you realize the world would be better off without them. They totally deserve it.

In any horror movie/movie about serial killers/movie where a lot of people are going to die, you can always pick the first deaths out of the crowd. They're the ones behaving in a socially reprehensible manner. In Cabin Fever the kids are heading up to the mountains to party over spring break. They all have responsibilities they've elected to dodge so they can get drunk on a mountain. The promiscuous girl? Dead. The kid taking a drag on weed? Dead. Final Destination 3 lets you know who's going to die by having a character declare her intention to break up with a devoted boyfriend within five seconds of her introduction (also: death by tanning bed).

The function of doing this--setting up an unlikable character to die--is a reflex on the writer's part. We don't want our likable characters to die. We don't want to be affected by death. If you're reading a book and you suddenly come across a lot of "She saw it happen" and "it seemed/almost/probably" it usually means the writer was REALLY uncomfortable with that scene and tried to add more distance between themselves and the action by having it almost happen through the character's eyes, not their own. I call them "filter" words. Unlikable cannon fodder serves the same purpose. We're protecting ourselves from the mayhem we're about to create by shoving the morally reprehensible under the bus.

The problem with doing this is it creates a social implication. That being that only the morally reprehensible get thrown under the bus. It's subtle and not something we pick up consciously. But our brains are smarter than we are. Subconsciously, we pick it up just fine. And if something bad happens to you? You must have deserved it. If you were good, and of upstanding moral character, you would be Final Girl, walking out of the dead zombie horde with a bloody chainsaw. Victims are the weak. The truely strong can fight it off.

It's bullshit, of course. You can take steps to protect yourself, but over and over and over again there are stories of homeowners who did everything right, who still got robbed. Women who carry mace and whistles and know you scream "Fire" still get raped. The people who trusted Bernie Madoff weren't idiots. They did their homework and got taken anyway. Victims cannot control what happens to them. Or to phrase it slightly differently: gazelles can't control when the cheetahs get hungry.

Thing is? People aren't cheetahs. Victims shouldn't have to be the one responsible for their safety, as the victim is not the person putting themselves in danger. The initial decision, "I'm gonna go hurt somebody", does not lie with them. They can choose how close to danger they get--don't walk alone, lock your doors, buy alarms, carry mace--but they do not choose when danger will exist. That choice lies with the individual committing the crime.

Imagine how effective drunk-driving campaigns would be if they were aimed at the victims, and not the drivers. "Know how to identify a drunk" would be one class. "Avoid these roads. Drunks use them" would be posted everywhere. Cops would be pulling sober drivers aside and say, "Don't go out tonight, there's a drunk in the neighborhood."

Why aren't we doing that? Because it doesn't work. It will never work. Educating the victims on how not to be a victim does not and will never be an effective social tool. We're educating the drunks because the drunks are the ones with the initial choice.

But other crimes, it's okay. Because we still have that social implication: You were asking for it. And that implication is why people laugh if an unchained bike gets stolen. It's why that FUCKING MORON from Missouri said women can't get pregnant from rape, why the rich white men in charge of the world keep saying "lie back and enjoy it, if you can't avoid it".

We need to educate the people who can actually stop crime: The people most likely to commit it. Right now all the materials say "Rape is wrong, here's how to avoid it". It might save my life, but it won't save every life. The day I see a poster with the message "Rape is wrong, don't do it", I'll know we've turned the corner.

Hey, and don't forget to check out the preview for my next book: Starbleached due out on Monday. 

The Sci-Fi Book of Mystery! Cover! Title! SAMPLE!

 

Sample after the cut, info first. 
Starbleached will be released Monday 9/3 via Smashwords (I know, total change of plans. I be sorry). It will appear at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBooks and elsewhere sometime in the next couple of weeks (dependent upon Smashwords doing its thing). 
Saturday 9/8 we will have a coupon set up to get Starbleached for free. And just to make it fair, we're going to extend the coupon through Sunday, 9/9.
And you know what, guys? I am so excited about this. Above and beyond any ambitions, failed or otherwise, I really like this story. A lot. And I wouldn't have written it the way I did if I weren't flying on my own recognizance. 'Cause ain't nobody gonna publish a 30k book. 
Alright, enough of my ramblings. What you came for is after the cut. SAMPLE:



Starlight without atmosphere was cold. It stole more life than it lended. Beams from New Houston’s sun lanced through the USS Marel Sanders’s front ports and tinted the interior graveyard gray. The fire bled out of Adrienne Parker’s auburn hair. Her trembling hands now resembled a corpse’s. “Brace!” a voice screamed from the cockpit. Adrienne grabbed the arms of her crash couch. The Marel was a claustrophobic shoebox for supplies and personnel, and all fifty meters of it shook as enemy weapons fire grazed their rear. Electric bolts blasted through cockpit and tiny hold, playing over stacks of yellow medical boxes. The lights flickered. Adry’s heart sank. Only Overseer weapons burned out electrical systems while they made holes in things. It took all her willpower not to leap up and check her cargo, those precious yellow boxes stacked six deep around her.
Beneath the lids sat four thousand glass vials in black foam nests. The enzyme inside degraded too quickly in plastic, and like most medicines it wasn’t DMS friendly. She’d packed the vials herself, twenty vials to each foam flat and ten flats to a box. Totes of standard antibiotics and vaccinations were netted to the bulkhead on the opposite wall, along with two rad-field generators for emergency bandage sterilizations. Sixty boxes of foodstuffs. Two hundred personal water filtration systems. Everything Digital Matter Storage couldn’t handle. All fine targets for smugglers aching for a buck, but not something that would attract an Overseer.
No. It was after the vials. This ship carried the first widespread distribution of the Landry Enzyme. The game changer, world saver they’d all hoped it would be. If it worked as advertized, it could end the Overseers as a species. The aliens had to stop its spread.
Bad luck for her and the USMC. Their job, after all, was to stop them.
The invention of Jump Drive had allowed humanity to settle distant worlds. Over the last two hundred years the so-called Rim Worlds had grown from tiny colonies on distant stars to bustling centers of commerce. Most of them had broken free of their parent nations over a hundred years ago, though a few were still nominal members of their parent nations. The United States had fathered no less than four worlds. These were the reason the Space Force and Adry were here to begin with.
The Overseers arrived just over fifty years ago; they hit the corporate colonies first and spread like some kind of disease. Planets with national backing survived a little longer. They had more resources, support from a stronger military. But it wasn’t enough. Of the US settled planets, Foster and New Greenland were cinders populated only by slaves. New Houston and Planet Gaga were hit every few weeks. Millions on millions were dead.
And unless they were incredibly lucky, Marel Sanders, Adrienne, Captain Bob Harris and PFC Morgan were all about to join them.
 Teeth gritted, she rode out the next impact. Let them shoot. In the long run, it wouldn’t matter for the Overseers. They were doomed. The Enzyme was Bryan’s idea, his life’s work and epitaph. Finishing it was her revenge for their destroying him. If she died here, now, the SF would only spread the enzyme through the galaxy in her memory.
But she still didn’t want to die in the next ten seconds.
“How long has the Overseer been following us?” She faced the control chair. Captain  Bob was tall and blond. Distant starlight glared through his buzz cut. Pale ghost sweat poured down his brow.
 “No way to know.” Fingers moved cat quick over transport controls. The console design was bulk in olive drab. Nothing like the chrome-and-cream civility Adry was used to. But shoebox or not, Marel Sanders was designed for war. Bob couldn’t have gotten his answers half as fast in a Honda Sailor or Vacuro Sandman.
He flicked through the radar screen controls until their follower was dead center. Bigger than the Marel, the alien vessel was streamlined for atmo combat, an arrowhead shape with a rounded aft. “It must have been coasting on atmospherics until we got here. Fang class, no shielding, no backup…Give me a shot, Morgan.”
“No can do, sir. It’s in the hole.”  
Harris cursed. The defense/offense, or def/op, hole was created by bad weapons placement. Oh, the United States Marine Corp equipped their transports with the best. The best was just designed for ground ops. Terrestrial design bias didn’t work in space war. And out on the Rim of explored space, most worlds couldn’t afford support craft designed for a three-D battleground.
“We should have had cover when we left base,” Morgan said. “We’re flying with our drawers down.”
“With Overseers gathering near New Houston, we’re lucky we got transport at all,” Harris said. “I just wish the bastards hadn’t figured out about the hole. Incoming!” He braced against the console. Morgan grabbed his seat straps. Adry wasn’t as lucky. When the enemy fire hit, she bounced off the bulkhead wall.  Bob swore. “Subspace drive is down; Jump drive is going on and off like it’s having a goddamn stroke. I need to route power out of the inertial compensators before—”
Shunk.
For one instant g-force wrapped around Adry’s insides, a giant hand squeezing her guts like a tube of standard-issue toothpaste. The old-fashioned kind with obnoxious mint. Then the compensators came back up and she could inhale again.
“Goddamn it, we’re losing her. Morgan!” Bob flipped a panel off the rear control bay. “Start breaking procedures now, and do whatever you can to get that sucker off our ass before it gets another shot.”
“Did we lose compensators?” She asked, breathlessly.
“No.” Bobby pulled several burned components out of the hole. “Fast as we’re moving, if they had gone we’d be smears on the backdrop. Please sit down, Dr. Parker.”
Morgan turned. “It’s got a lock, sir. I can’t shake it.”
“Hell. Switch with me.” Bob grabbed the side of the chair, and Morgan half ran, half fell to the open circuit board.
Adry dropped back into her crash seat. The boxes of Landry Enzyme stood around her like a yellow castle wall with netting motor. A shield. That had been Bryan’s goal. But it took losing Bryan and Holton Station for the Space Force to turn it from a chemical experiment to an actual thing. Now, if their mission worked, millions of lives would be saved.
So please, God, let it work. Let it survive her.
The ship rocked with another well placed blast. Sparks flew as the inertial compensators gave another hiccup, pressing bone against the crash chair’s cushioning factor. If you were moving when compensators were on the fritz, arms and legs could be ripped from sockets, fingers turned to powder, necks snapped, bones ground to dust. And even if you were sitting during a total loss, you might as well stand between your ship and an asteroid. G-force would turn you into tenderized mush. It was a race between the breaks, the compensators, and the alien fighter on their tail. So when Morgan began screaming, Adry had her safety straps half off before her brain started working.  
 “What’s wrong?” she shouted.
“Thumb!” Morgan said.  “Nothing!” Clipped tones belied that last “nothing”. Figured. You could set a load of CF-29 in a soldier’s gut, and if they survived the explosion they’d just ask for a stapler and their gun back. She reached for the first aid kit.
“Parker, get your ass in that chair and don’t leave it. That’s a direct order. Oh, goddamn it, sucker took out the Jump Drive.” Harris ran frantically through the Marel’s switches. Without compensators, they couldn’t use the subspace drive. G-force would be fatal. If they couldn’t Jump, they were dead in deep space.
“Can you fix it?” She said.
Morgan met her eyes, his own dark as caramelized honey and hopeless as a black hole. “I can try.” He looked a thousand years old.
You might as well have said no. Hell. I didn’t sign up for this, Adry thought. But that was a lie.
She had.
*************One Year Earlier:
Holton Station hovered in deep space, the most isolated human outpost in the Rim. But it was still famous even in New York, both for its engineering and the spectacle of its beauty. Adrienne couldn’t help but gape, and she was no small-town girl, or Rim-world colonist, to be stunned by a shiny building. She’d grown up in the mile-high towers of New York, worked Beijing’s trio of space elevators while attending college, and had summered twice in the sprawling space ports of Mars. And even to her, Holton was something else.
Artificial gravity supported a u-shape of skyscraper dragon teeth around a field of green. Of course, most of the city was façade. Behind the first row of apartments and lab spaces was a warren of tunnels, support structures and warship hanger bays. Holton was a military research station, after all. But people had to live there, sometimes for years. No space or procedure was wasted. If it could be done here, it was done beautifully. Case in point: the water purification system. Pools of carefully selected plants and algae removed toxins from the water, and glass-clear waterfalls oxygenated it. Windows of six-meter thick blast-glass displayed the stars beyond, and artificial sunlight fed the greenery sprouting in every possible corner.
But it’s cold, she thought. Like silk flowers on a receptionist’s desk. The first three hundred yards of the central thoroughfare were a perfectly manicured lawn. Adults sat in benches under the green trees, or on blankets spread over grass. There were no children. No birds. And because Holton floated between stars, the nearest several million light years away, there would never be real sunlight.
She continued down the space ramp, shaking her head at her own hypocrisy. She criticized this for being constructed and unnatural? Genetic surgeons like her rewrote biology. The nearest she got to “natural” in her work was old fashioned thoracic surgery. Meat cutting. And she was good at it. They’d given her the US Medal of Terrestrial Honor for her work during the New York Needle collapse. Not that it’d been her choice to take lead in emergency triage. Just her aching duty.
The papers had nicknamed her the Valkyrie. She had decided if a patient would live, or receive a heavy dose of morphine and a quiet corner in which to die. The memories haunted her. Row on row of bleeding bodies. Sterilizing cloth bandages until the irradiating field generator broke. Running out of medicines, her nurses collapsing after the first sixteen hours, her fingers gone numb but she didn’t dare stop. The smell of burned skin, the ever-present stink of blood. The first time she’d picked up a scalpel after the Needle collapse, she’d vomited at the thought of cutting in.
People who could handle severe triage these days were rare. They’d wanted her to keep going, and she’d gotten three offers she couldn’t refuse. One from the UN, one from Martian Cosmopolitan Government, and one from Holton Station. The decision had been easy. She’d spent too many nights dreaming of injecting a syringe of morphine into a child’s arm while some society barfly wailed about the shards of glass in her back. The universe wants Adrienne Parker to work triage? Fine. She’d do it at war.
“Dr. Parker?” This male voice was attached to a tall blend of Nordic sensibilities and East Indian grace. Tan skin, brown eyes, blond hair. His hand, when she shook it, was soft. He wore a Major’s uniform.
“Dr. Landry, I presume.” She frowned. “I thought you were a civilian contractor?”
He laughed. It fit somehow with the rest of Holton. Artificial. “Not hardly. Major Michel Landry. Mich when I’m off duty. I’m your escort to my brother’s ivory tower.” His eyes darted down, and his smile turned genuine. “Wow. I can’t remember the last time I saw a luggage bag. I mean, I know DMS can’t store medicines or foods, but…damn, lady. Even we use it for clothes.” He pointed at the chip on his lapel. It probably held six weeks’ worth of clothing and, knowing the Marines, a couple extra ammo clips. Not that Digital Matter Storage could hold live ammo; Marines just never stopped trying. “Could I buy that off you? There’s a real fad for retro around the station right now.”
She smiled. “No, you can’t buy it. And I don’t trust DMS with my valuables, Major. It works for replaceable basics, but if I want pretty clothes, I need a suitcase.”
“Good call.” A new voice, rolling and rich. The kind of voice that sinks into your bones. Mich scowled as if his breakfast had soured. Adry turned around.
He was obviously Michel Landry’s brother. His dual heritage had blended together in a strong chin, a nose like an eagle, thick black hair and eyes blue like day lit sky. Bright white teeth flashed in a glamorous smile. He walked forward, hands in his pockets. “Sorry, Mich. Didn’t I tell you I’d handle this one personally?” Mich glared, and the man waved a hand, forget about it. He kept going, kept teaching. “The myth is, you get things back from DMS. In reality, it destroys the object on a sub-atomic level and stores the resulting energy signature for remateralization. You can’t duplicate objects you store because it uses all the energy in the process, and you can’t store something organic like silk or canvas because you’ll get a loose soup of protean chains back. You’re getting an entirely new thing created by the tiny computer stuffed into that antique you’re pulling.” He pointed at Adrianne’s suitcase, an ancient battered wheelie in a red/green plaid. “You know, I hear they sell a new model. It comes with that flashy new LED fabric you can program. We just wrote up a new rule that you can’t program obscenities. Too many kids were showing up on base touting variations on a theme of ‘fuck you’.” He offered a hand. “Bryan Landry.”
She took it. “Adrienne Parker.” His hand was warm, and work-rough. Interesting. What did he do in his spare time? She patted the suitcase. “This was my grandmother’s. She was one of the founding colonists of Foster. The Overseers killed her in the first incursion, and my mother brought her ashes back to Earth in it. It’s only fitting that I bring it here when we drive them away.”
Landry laughed. “I like that attitude. With the New York Valkyrie on our side, how can we lose?” He hadn’t let her hand go, either. Instead, he raised it to his lips. His kiss sent shivers up her spine.
“Old-world charm, Dr. Landry?” Her pulse increased in a not-unpleasant way.
He let go. “Sunshine, you’re the girl with the retro suitcase.”
*************Now:
“We’re going to lose I/Cs in about fifty seconds, Captain. We have to shut her down!” Adrienne’s gut plummeted as the ship slowed. With failing compensators, the Gs actually increased. Now it was a race: Loss of inertia verses compensator failure. The finish line was the smear they would become if failure came too soon. She tried not to think about it. Ruptured spleens and powdered bone weren’t the nicest last thoughts.
“Fire atmospherics, Morgan,” Bob said.
Silence. “Sir?”
“If we splatter a few extra hours of atmo aren’t going to matter. Fire the goddamn atmospherics on my mark.”
Every ship had three standard propulsion systems: Jump drive, which traversed the massive distance between stars almost instantaneously; subspace drive, which bent the laws of physics and allowed for speedy inter-system travel; and atmospheric drives, focused jets of gas which were the last resort of a crippled ship…or the subtle trick of a fighter skirting the edge of capture.
But the transport wasn’t a warship. Atmospherics were tied to their backup air. If Bob used them, he didn’t think they’d need the extra supply.
“Where’s my bogey?” Bob muttered, more to himself than his sweating partner. “Come on, sucker. Walk where I can touch ya.”
“It's off the reads?” Adry asked.
“Yeah. It turned on subspace and attack systems long enough to hit us, then dropped back to atmospherics. It could be flying up our ass right now and I wouldn’t be able to see it until it forced our cargo bay.”
“You’re talking like it’s a possibility,” she said.
“Until it’s back on radar it’s a probability. It…there you are.” He dropped hand to the controls and hit a few buttons. “Radio transmission down and right. Shit, it’s ten feet off our tail.”
“Radio transmission? Is it hailing us?” The gees had died back to sane levels. She clawed out of her chair and caught the back of Bob’s. “What’s it saying?”
He hit two buttons. The voice on the com system was cold and emotionless. It was like hearing something made of silicone and paper imitate human speech. But that was par for the course. A naturally telepathic species, Overseers only spoke to slaves. Usually, right before they ate one.
“--Your ship is damaged and you are stranded. Cut your protective measures and power down your weapons. Your ship will be repaired and you will not be harmed. Message repeats. Vessel of the United States Marine Corps, you are overpowered. Your ship is damaged and you are stranded. Cut your protective measures and power down your weapons. Your ship—”
Bob cut the feed. “Yeah, right. Trussed up and saved for dinner, that’s the Overseer version of ‘not harmed’. Doc, tell me you got a suicide pill somewhere in that case of yours?”They’d handed those out at the start of the mission. She’d flushed hers down the john. “No. What about the scuttle charge?”
“We’re a glorified shipping container. They’re not wasting ordinance on a humanitarian mission. 
Don’t want us blowing on a few hundred civilians.” He hit a whole bank of switches, piling more gees on top of their load. “Doc, there is a gun next to your crash chair. Put the clip in it. That goddamn thing is going to force our rear in five minutes. Morgan, how’s your hand?”
Adry looked left and wished she hadn’t. Red was everywhere. On instrument panels, on his clothes, on the bandages around his thumb. Morgan was shaking from the blood loss.
“It’s good.” He picked up his own gun, cradled in his good hand.
“Jesus Christ, Morgan.” She started towards him.Bob’s rough grip pulled her around. “Look. We don’t have the ordinance to stop the son of a bitch when it boards. The only thing we can do for humanity is convince it that attacking someone else this way is a bad idea.”
Metal scraped against metal. The alien ship was now suctioned against them, air bladders filling the void between ships, wires attaching to vital sensors. Soon it would force the rear door open, and the 
Overseer would arrive.
“Save the last bullet for you.” Morgan said. “You’re going to want it.

More Stuff

 
Okay, cover and sample to go live midnight, tonight and tomorrow morning.

I am SO freaking happy with this right now. It's the first time in a really long time that I've finished a project and been happy with it.

I still feel like an ass for choosing to self publish. Today I feel like less of one. Why? Well, as I will touch on again later tonight (oh, about midnight) there are things that you just...can't do for a commercially published book if you are an unpublished writer looking to become a professionally published one. So there are ideas about technique I've completely ignored because they're not viable options in the publishing world.

The most depressing thing in the world, to me, was that Fight Club only got a $5,000 advance. Because it was just that weird. I mean, I totally understand why! How the hell do you summarize that book? I assumed it was a bromance about punching for years, until I watched the movie. And it was life-alteringly awesome. But nobody had any confidence in it, because it was weird.

I am not comparing myself to Fight Club. I do not have a Fight Club in me. I am not that kind of writer, and I never will be. I tell bizzare little stories that have no social value, at all, and I'm happy with that. And I don't think that I know better than the publishing industry at large. I think they made the right choice telling me to get lost. I'm not a great writer, I'm not destined to be a great writer, and I've made some pretty good progress accepting that. That has been my goal through all this, by the way: To accept that being a professional author is out of my reach, that I'm not going to make it, and that I just need to get the fuck over it already and move on to my real life, whatever that might be. I can't spend my whole life pounding on a door when there is no evidence whatsoever that door will ever open.

And it's not so bad, here. There's light here--a distant, impossible to get to light, but there is light--and because self-publishing is a career killing, selfish thing to do...well, I'm not leaving here, so I might as well adjust the window dressing and make myself at home.

And that means doing the things that I wouldn't do if I were trying to get published. Like rip apart other people's books (It is so. Freaking. Fun) and movies, and complain and bitch about my life, and write short little things I can only sell for a dollar.

That turn out to be (to me, at least) FREAKING. AWESOME. I really, really, REALLY wish somebody else had written this story. I wish I didn't know what it was about, where it was going (there's going to be more FYI) and I wish I hadn't read it EIGHT MILLION TIMES until my brains started dribbling out my ears.

Ah, well. Enough depressing shit. BOOK! SAMPLE! TONIGHT!

Info hub for Sci-fi Book of Mystery+COVER!!!

Okay, I'm going to be spreading a lot of stuff around for the next couple of days, and it's all going to come back here. So first...



Cover art is done! Version with title will be posted on the first, and OMG It looks so kickass. I wish it weren't mine, so I wouldn't feel bad for thinking it looks good (or so that I could read this story without wanting to punt it across the room. Editing is clean, but I stopped enjoying it about two read-throughs ago)

Editing is done! WHOO! FREAKING! WHOO! It is probably not good enough, as I am on my lonesome with this, but it is nice to finally read through and go ten pages without needing to change something. THIS IS NOT BOASTING. This is feeling as if the train has finally stopped moving and I can get off now.

SO. INFO. Which ya'll are probably tired of hearing about!

We (being me) will now be working on the coding for the book. I will post a 4000+ word sample, the finished, titled cover and the title (of course) on September 1st. (LABOR DAY! IEEEEE!)

The book will go live on or around 9/7.

Also on 9/7, I will post a coupon code set up for the following day, Saturday 9/8. It will let ya'll get the Sci-Fi Book of Mystery for free. As I said earlier, you'll need a Smashwords account to make it work. If you don't have one already, go there, sign up, it's just like getting an Amazon account except they're a lot friendlier to authors and they only sell books.

The coupon will ONLY work for the 8th. First, because I am poor and I do need money. Second, because Amazon has bizzare policies about offering stuff for free on other sites and I'd like to duck dealing with that as long as I can.

Now, you don't have to get the book from Smashwords. It will be avaliable through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, iBooks, a couple other places about a week or so after it goes live on Smashwords. But the coupon won't work on those sites.

So if you remember nothing else from this post, remember: Saturday the 8th, Smashwords, coupon code, free book.

ALSO-ALSO! If you bought and read Silver Bullet, and liked the first story, there's a sample of the next Exiles story in the Sci-Fi book of mystery. Another reason to check it out!

Alright. I'm done. It's off to work I go...

My life is just not that interesting

Last month I said that I would update this thing every day. and I have, excepting weekends when I just want to die (why did I say I would post book stuff on the first? HAVE I MADE IT CLEAR HOW SCARED I AM OF THE FIRST YET???!?!) and in doing so I have come to the following realization.

I? Am not an interesting person.

HOPEFULLY my books are interesting. But I know that if they are, it is because I have taken all my not interesting stuff and shoveled it all into things that don't exist. The other part of my not being interesting is...well...I don't go out much.

Why don't I go out much?

I live in South Texas. In a small town. And my options are: Go out with friends (who do not read) and get drunk at techno club; go out with friends-who-do-not-read and get drunk at a bar listening to god awful country music; get drunk at work (My boss would totally allow this as long as I am not actively on the clock OR on call); stay home and read sci-fi book that is six times more awesome than anything in the little theater right now; or go on adventure involving aliens and space ships and medical missions and Space Needles and fairies and ghosts and romance something that bears a more than passing resemblance to Jareth the Goblin King AKA write something.

Which is not a very interesting thing to write about.

So yes. On the surface I am boring.

That said, book cover artwork is mostly done. I think I just need to let it cool off a little, do basic resizing for the artwork ratios, and then it'll start appearing in Places. Also why I am boring: you can make cool stuff or you can have a cool time, but doing both at once requires somebody doubly awesome.

Brand new Week!

Whee! Or...not so much, as this is Labor Day Week, Guys and Girls, and if you work retail, or restaurants, or any other industry that depends on large numbers of people having many days off, Labor day is less "Whee" and more "HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE COMING HERE???"

We already have reservations for Saturday. I. Am. Frightened.

In happier news, I have started Cover Art for the Sci-Fi Novel of Mystery. It is going so well I think I can promise to release the cover as well as the title and sample on the First. Which will be Labor Day Saturday.

Have I mentioned yet, that I bought whiskey today? I bought whiskey. Because this is Labor Day week and I am tired of giving my boss money back just because I want a whiskey sour. I should not drink quite as much as I have been (thank you, oh boss who hands me things with booze in them and says "finish that") but about the ninteenth time someone looks at the lovely goodness of Eggs Benedict WITH hollindaise sauce I made myself and says "Can I have some ketchup?" you realize, my dear and lovely blog-readers, you realize that there is not enough booze in the world.

BUT! Saturday is the first! And you shall get a taste of the Sci Fi Novel of Mystery! Which you lovely blog readers may have for free! REMEMBER THIS. IT IS THE PLAN.

Labor. Day. Weekend. Why did I think this first was going to be anything other than OH MY FUCKING HELL THERE ARE PEOPLE? There will be fancy doughnuts. There will be armies of fancy doughnuts. They shall dance through my dreams like soldiers. Square ones. With powdered sugar on them. Which I shall fry and fry and fry until--

BOOKS! Right. And I am confident in promising that the book itself WILL be live by weekend after next. Not only that, but you will get a sample of the next one after that, a continuation of one of the stories in Silver Bullet...

The liquor store is scared of this week. The fucking liquor store.

Be here on Saturday. Look at the Sci Fi Book of Mystery in all its mysterious goodness and shiny shiny artwork, and leave me comments. Not necessarily on the book. Just remind me that there is life after Labor Day.

P.S. No less than three purry incursions. I surrender. I will throw her out of the house before Mother and Stepfather return, but I know when to bow to the inevitable.

Calling it

The problem with editing stuff is, first I write the story that I want to read. And then I read it, and read it, and read it, and read it, until the words start spurting out of my ears. Most of what I've done the last couple of days has been purely cosmetic stuff.

I just wish there was a way to read this story without knowing how it ended. Because I really like this story. A lot.

But unless the test reader (read as: parental unit bribed with dish washing and sushi) finds something horrendously out of whack, I think I'm as close to done as I can get. Because, you know, you're never really done. You just get frustrated to death.

Artwork next. Which should be fun. I think I'm going to try a couple new techniques on this one, stuff I haven't really done much with before.

So remember, dudes and dudettes, title, sample, and (if I can do it that fast) cover art on the first, and the book will be posted either the first or second weekend (First if nothing goes wrong, second if something does) in September. I'm going to set things up so that the free book thing will be on a Saturday, and give you guys a lot of time to pick up a copy.

Have a good weekend, guys!

Sci-Fi Book of Mystery Update

I've made a pretty important decision regarding this book. Namely...I know everybody who is buying my other book is either a blog reader or my mom. (Hi Mom! Have you read it yet?) which means that I can't exactly do promotions for the book (IE offer it for free, offer discounts, ect) without making it unfair to you guys. Because you are loyal and wonderful human beings and you gave me money for Silver Bullet.

So ya'll are going to get the Sci-Fi Book of Mystery for free.

Now, because I am poor (and also because Amazon is an overbearing monopoly and will screw with your pricing on its website if you do special stuff anywhere else, and requires you to publish there and only there if you want to do special stuff through them) it won't be for the entire world, and it'll only be for one day. It's a reward for you guys. Here's how it's going to work:

1. You will need a Smashwords account, if you don't already have one. Do it. Smashwords is a good company, they sell every format you can think of, including printable plain text, and I get a bigger royalty cut if you buy it through them.

2. The book will go live. Probably near the end of the first week of September. I do not know exactly when, as it usually takes a day for them to process the book itself.

3. Smashwords has a coupon system.  I will post the code here. It'll be for the first full day after the book goes live, from midnight to midnight. I'll give you lots of warning. If you want to read The Sci-Fi Book of Mystery (Title pending) you'll go to Smashwords, pick up the book, enter the coupon, and then start reading.

I'd do it through Amazon, but the number of hoops I have to jump through to offer a book for free are numerous and not fun.


Why do I want to do this? Well...the best way to do promotions is to put stuff on sale. Which I'm not going to do, when I know the people who've supported me the most have already bought the thing for full price. It's not fair to ya'll. You get a free book, I get a free conscience for later promotions. Everybody is happy. Right? Right.

So remember, kids. Read my blog. Get free stuff.

The battle continues

The incursions continue. This is Chloe. Exactly where she really shouldn't be. She deployed purrs and snuggles in a desperate attempt to hold the sofa hostage. It did not work, though I was sorely tempted to surrender.

Also, when I threw her out, she climbed straight up the door to get back in. I think we will not win.

In other news, I really do enjoy editing and discovering themes in the work that I didn't entirely intend to put there. It's a lot like artwork. We're almost ready, and I feel much more confident in meeting my (self-imposed) deadline next month. And remember: title and bigger sample goes up September 1st. We're almost there.

Names

I think the thing that creeps me out the most at work is when people use my name. Total strangers whom I have never known before. I know it's better than "hey you", but call it a pet peeve of mine. If I don't know you outside that building and/or you haven't been in there more than once? Don't call me by name. You're not my friend. You're my customer. I am not going to be buddy-buddy with you.

A lot of people ask about naming characters, too. They don't ask me, of course (You gotta have chops for that) but in the forums I visit inevitably they'll ask "What about names? How do you come up with those?" and the inevitable come up: Baby books, fancy names, remember what you like. Ect. Ect. Names are surprisingly important. Just not the way we think of names as being.

People are more likely to be successful if they have a normal name. Jane. Bob. John. Edward. Ana (my reading tastes suck sometimes. Yes. I read Fifty Shades of Gray. Yes. I LIKED Fifty Shades, and yes, eventually I will blog about that series. Someday.) (also, dear readers, never ever ever write a book where ENTIRE E-MAIL CHAINS are reproduced IN THEIR ENTIRETY. It does not work out) It gives us the impression of being solid...and kind of makes it easier for us to exchange our name for theirs.

My favorite book heroine who is not Honor Harrington (Because we can't all be Honor) is named Jane. The only slightly scary vamp in Twilight? Jane. The most snuggable character in Firefly? Jayne, which is one Y away from being a girl's name.

You know when I get annoyed with books? It is when someone starts getting fancy with names. I hated the names of everyone in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy except for Arthur Dent. I made it about three pages into Old Doc Methusulah before L. Ron Hubbard's idea of a good name made my eyes cross, and we are not going to get into what Mission Earth did to me (actually, we will. Very soon. Jesus Christ was that a bad book. I can almost forgive LRH for Scientology. I can't forgive him ever for Jettero Heller)

There are books with non-normal names that I do like. The Belgariad, for example (FYI that stands for every David Eddings novel ever written. They are all the Belgariad, just with the names changed). But he hit on a naming game that kind of eases you into it. Garion is Garion, which looks close enough to normal, Belgarath is Mr. Wolf when you meet him, Polgara is Aunt Pol, Silk is Silk...and in all his other books it doesn't matter because you recognise that Serephrena/Aphrael/Emmy/Mother Goddess Person from Elder Gods is Polgara in a new hat. (I think that he gave up after The Belgariad and didn't bother recycling Garion. Sparhawk/Althalus is Belgarath) BUT! he plays games with the names, gives you something kind of normal (Pol, Wolf, Silk, Errand) to hang your hat on so when the real stuff shows up (Polgara, Belgarath, Kheldar) you're already in love with the character.

Point? There isn't really one. Just a nice rambling for your evening pleasure.