Joshua Reynolds's Blog, page 81

Saints and Dragons

Today is St. George’s Day in England, and to celebrate, why not read ”Wendy-Smythe’s Worm”, which sees St. Cyprian (as opposed to George) and Gallowglass confront a rapacious and ever-expanding serpent of mythical, malevolent proportions in Kensington in 1923. 

It was first published on the site in 2012. To read it for free, start HERE.

Or download a copy of the ROYAL OCCULTIST PRIMER, a free PDF containing three previously published stories, including “Wendy-Smythe’s Worm”, available HERE.

Cheap Heat

So, here’s a post from Mary Robinette Kowal on the subject of hate mail. Speaking as a writer who has received his share of nastily worded letters of loathing, her conclusions are entirely sensible. 

That said, it’s always a bit of a surprise when that first poison penned missive pops up in your inbox. It’s not like a bad review–as I’ve said before, reviewers aren’t speaking to the authors, so much as other readers. A bad review is less about the author than the book, and it’s subjective and (relatively) impersonal. Hurts like a sumbitch, mind, but you can and should roll with it. It’s all part of the game.

But hate mail is a different sort of beast. It’s personal. Like fan-mail, it’s a reader reaching out directly to the author to share their opinions. Only instead of bolstering you, it’s meant to beat you down. So it stabs a bit deeper and the pain lasts a bit longer. It can be a gut-punch and a confidence killer. But like Mrs. Robinette Kowal said, it’s best to ignore it. Don’t respond and don’t let it get its hooks in you.

Now I say that, but, personally? I get a vicious little thrill out of hate-mail, because I’m a nasty sort. I like pissing folks off. I’ve got season passes to the Dark Side of the Force, and I think the best heat is cheap heat. I love my hate-mail so much that I pin it up on a cork-board next to my invoice receipts.

Either way, my advice, if you need it, is simply this: don’t let it stop you. Also, cork-boards have a variety of uses.

‘I Ain’t Dead, Said The Dancing Monkey’

Some folks have recently asked why I haven’t been posting as regularly as I normally do, i.e. 3-5 times a week. The simple answer is, of course, ‘Do I look like a dancing monkey? No? Then f*ck off.’

A more polite answer would be, ‘nothing much is going on’. I’ve been writing at a fairly steady clip since January, rattling off two books, a novella and a dozen short stories, plus edits, but the past two months have been fairly quiet in regards to sales and such. This ain’t to say that I haven’t made them, but that I can’t, as yet, expound upon them. When I can, I will, but I can’t, so I won’t.

I could talk about my works in progress I suppose, but when I moved this dog and pony show over from its last residence, I made a solemn oath not to slip back into that daily word-count mentality. The truth is, my works in potentia aren’t very interesting to anyone except me, hence the rare WIP updates.*

There are other things I could talk about, mind. Lots of big, chewy topics just built for loud-mouth authors like me to rail about from their precarious platforms–political shenanigans, awards flimflams and national tragedies, none of which appeal to me, for various different reasons. I could respond to pieces and essays about writing from other writers, as I am occasionally wont to do. But I won’t, because I’m busy, and I’d rather spend that ten minutes I’d need to respond to something someone else wrote on my own writing, y’know?

Basically, I’m just not very good at this whole blogging thing at the moment. If you were looking to me for your daily entertainment allotment, I apologize.

All that said, once all of the things currently vying for my attention have been seen to and the slate has been wiped clean in the coming weeks, I will have some substantive items of what I hope will be interest lined up. Stuff about writing, about submissions and all that jazz. Contests too, as well as free stuff. Stick around. I’ll make it worth your while.

The best is yet to come, and all that.

The Creative: A User’s Guide

So, given what’s been going on in the news lately, you could be forgiven for not reading this handy-dandy users guide to creative-types that popped up a few days ago. It’s an interesting read, if only for the impressive shade of excrement it provides.

It should be noted that the author is (a) probably attempting to sell a service to corporate-types, and (b) likely generalizing as a means to accomplishing (a). Nonetheless, said generalizing is annoying, especially if you happen to be one of those kooky creative types that he’s generalizing.

As such, there is one key point that I, being one of the aforementioned creative types, would like to address in a civil, if pragmatic manner. 

“Pay Them Poorly”

This is a prevalent meme. A reoccurring concept that rises up whenever someone–be it an editor, a corporate client, DC comics, pirate downloaders or Amanda Palmer–wants as much as they can get for as little as they can get away with paying. The creative as Santa Claus, providing gifts to all and sundry. Art for art’s sake, the book that must be written, information wants to be free, payment in exposure, all that jazz.

In and of itself, wanting something for nothing is not a crime. But you get what you pay for.

Paying me poorly does not increase my creativity. Quite the opposite, in fact. When I approach a job, be it a tie-in novel, a short story submission, or a travel brochure, my first consideration is how doing said job will benefit me. Is the money good? If not, what else do I get out of it? If the answer is, respectively, ‘no’ and ‘nothing’, I don’t do the job. I find another one. One of the perks of being a freelance writer is that I’m free to do just that.

One of the downsides is, of course, that I invariably have to do that a lot. Because brother, there are a lot of folks out there wanting my best work and first international rights for a hearty handshake and the promise of twenty five copies sold worth of exposure.

That said, ‘payment’ can come in a plethora of forms. Money is the best, in my view, but there are other valid forms, depending on your needs. Is it a project/editor/cause you want to be attached to? Are there potential professional connections to be made? Will a freebie here lead to money later? Is it a form of guerilla marketing that will benefit you?

Basically, the payment should always be equal to the job, in your view. You, as the writer/artist/musician/whatever, should always endeavour to be paid in full, to your satisfaction. If that’s five cents a word, great. If it’s in page views or advertising revenue, or the promise of at least twenty-five new readers, more power to you. But always–ALWAYS–get paid, and paid well, for your effort. 

Don’t let someone ‘pay you poorly’ because ‘it’s supposed to stimulate creativity’ or because ‘you should be doing what you love for the love’. Don’t let others dictate your worth. That’s your job. It may take you time, trial and a whole lot of error to determine said worth, but you’ll figure it out eventually.

That’s the theory, at any rate.

BOTH BARRELS Cover (and TOC) Sneak-Peek

Editor Miles Boothe has revealed a sneak-peek at the cover for Monster Hunter Legends: Both Barrels, as well as a full table of contents, coming soon from Emby Press. 

 

Both Barrels is a new omnibus edition, containing stories from Leather, Denim & Silver and The Trigger Reflex, including two of the first St. Cyprian and Gallowglass stories!

The anthology includes, among many other fine monster-hunting exploits, my stories, ”The Artist as Wolf”, which has St. Cyprian and Gallowglass locking horns with an artistically inclined lycanthrope in London in 1920, and ”Iron Bells” which finds St. Cyprian and Gallowglass investigating horrors in the Underground, and worse things waiting in London in 1922.

There are excerpts from both stories available HERE. To learn more about the Royal Occultist and his adventures, be sure to check out http://royaloccultist.wordpress.com/ as well as the Royal Occultist Facebook page!

The Atomic Interview

Mark Bousquet, author, reviewer and raconteur, has kindly interviewed me over at his site, Atomic Anxiety. We talk about Christmas, Slayers and professional strategies. 

From the interview:

MB: You’re most recent novel is GOTREK & FELIX: ROAD OF SKULLS, which is part of the Warhammer universe. You’ve written in the Warhammer universe before and you’ve written Gotrek & Felix stories before, but this is your first time taking over the Gotrek & Felix novels. How did you approach this long form assignment? Was it a matter of merging your style with the work that had come before yours, or did you approach it as simply trying to tell the best Gotrek & Felix story you could?

JR: To be honest, I approached it as I approach everything related to tie-in work or IP that I don’t actively own—i.e., very carefully. With this sort of thing, you want to tell the best story you can, within the limits you’re given for a particular project. At its core, a tie-in novel is a form of advertising, as well as a narrative, so you have to balance those two things as best you can and still deliver an entertaining experience for the reader.

Why not go check out the whole interview? And after that, be sure to check out the other reviews in the series. For a full list of Atomic Interviews, check out the dedicated page over at Mark’s site. Oh, and be sure to check out his film and television reviews as well as his original fiction, including The Haunting of Kraken Moor. 

GOTREK & FELIX: LOST TALES Cover Sneak-Peek

Black Library has revealed a look at the forthcoming anthology, Gotrek & Felix: Lost Tales, which includes stories by myself, David Guymer, Jordan Ellinger and Frank Cavallo.

Here’s the blurb:

Gotrek and Felix: unsung heroes of the Empire, or nothing more than common thieves and murderers? The truth perhaps lies somewhere in between, and depends entirely upon whom you ask… A collection of timeless tales featuring the Slayer Gotrek Gurnisson and his human companion Felix Jaeger. From the undead-ridden marshes of Hel Fenn, where an ancient evil lurks, to the court of a skaven lord in the depths of a dwarf hold, the duo face excitement, danger and intrigue at every turn…

Pretty neat, right? To pre-order your copy, head over to either the BL site or to Amazon.

New ROYAL OCCULTIST Review

If you’ve been paying attention, you might recall the Royal Occultist Primer I made available for download a few weeks ago. If not, it’s a PDF that contains three previously published stories–”The Artist as Wolf”, “Iron Bells” and “Wendy-Smythe’s Worm”–that act as a sort of a taste-test for the Royal Occultist stories. If you enjoy these, you’ll like the others.

Well, Richard Caldwell of The Lottery Party site (which you might recall from this review of the first issue of Black Treacle) decided to review the RO Primer:

Reynolds has written many more stories of these characters and their post World War I environs, and as evidenced here he does a remarkably splendid job in marrying folklore and the occult with a cast that flirts with alternate history. These plots and scripts are very maturely executed, with the banter of his two leads lending a human touch to these events of otherworldly nightmare.

I encourage you to check out the full review. And if you’re interested, you can pick up a copy of the Primer HERE.

To see other available Royal Occultist stories, go HERE. To see forthcoming stories go HERE. For more free stories go HERE.

And to read the story-behind-the-stories, see THIS POST. To visit the site, set your browser for http://royaloccultist.wordpress.com/

The Two Vs

Rachelle Gardner has recently written two very good posts concerning the where’s and how’s of making a living as a writer over at her site. The first concerns volume and the second, variety. The two Vs, in other words. 

I’ve been on fairly friendly terms with both, in the–what?–decade (oh God, it’s been a decade. Cripes, I’m old…) that I’ve been at this dodge. As you can see from this list, I have written quite a lot, and across multiple genres. It’s served me well, and I intend to continue the habit. Sure, I’ve written more in some genres than others, but, and here’s the important bit, I’ve tried them all.

I’m not a guy for authorial advice, normally. I leave that to the professionals. But I will say this…to learn what you’re good at (which isn’t, I hasten to add, always what you like), you have to try your hand at a lot of stuff.

So what are you waiting for?

The Art of IP

And by ‘IP’, I mean ‘intellectual property’, which, as a tie-in writer, is a thing I deal with quite often. IP is both a muse and a monster, a headache and a balm, for a number of reasons that the inestimable Nicola Vincent-Abnett has outlined in two recent posts at her site. The first is HERE, and the second, HERE. You should go read those.

For me, there’s a certain comfort in having a structure, if not a formula, in place for a given project before I type out word one. I’m not a ‘seat of the pants’ sort of writer…I like outlines, plans, and the aforementioned structure. To do otherwise, for me, is akin to furnishing a house that hasn’t been built yet. I need at least the skeleton of a story to be in place, before I start inflicting my particular brand of dubious artistry on the narrative.

Too, there’s the fun of making the limits work for you, rather than against you. I look at the limits of a given IP as the curve of a race-track, something to hew to, skid across or drift through, depending on the needs of the story in question. Limits, y’see, just force you to think. They force you to stretch those creative muscles in clever ways, to do something different (or the same, but better) with what you’re given.

Granted, limits aren’t for everybody. Some folks work best when the story takes them where it will, and I admire that. Heck, I’m in awe of that. But for me? I need to see the edges of the canvas to finish the painting.

What about you?