Stephen Kozeniewski's Blog, page 57
September 21, 2015
Quick and Dirty Update
Hey all!
Sorry I'm running a little late today. I'm feeling a little frazzled from the Brooklyn Book Fair and haven't been able to shake the post-cons yet. Overall it was a pretty great event. The foot traffic was immense and we sold a ton of copies of BRAVE NEW GIRLS. I sold a few of my other works, too, but that one was the clear winner for the weekend.
Meanwhile, if you haven't heard yet, The Horror Show will be running some fan favorite episodes in December. If you never listened to my episode, you should absolutely listen to it now.
It's easily the highlight of my career to date. And if you enjoyed it, why not vote for me?
Thanks much, all. I'll hope to have something more substantive for you all on Wednesday. Maybe I'll be able to pull my head out of my ass by then. Take care!
Sorry I'm running a little late today. I'm feeling a little frazzled from the Brooklyn Book Fair and haven't been able to shake the post-cons yet. Overall it was a pretty great event. The foot traffic was immense and we sold a ton of copies of BRAVE NEW GIRLS. I sold a few of my other works, too, but that one was the clear winner for the weekend.
Meanwhile, if you haven't heard yet, The Horror Show will be running some fan favorite episodes in December. If you never listened to my episode, you should absolutely listen to it now.
It's easily the highlight of my career to date. And if you enjoyed it, why not vote for me?
Thanks much, all. I'll hope to have something more substantive for you all on Wednesday. Maybe I'll be able to pull my head out of my ass by then. Take care!
September 18, 2015
I'll be at the Brooklyn Book Festival this Sunday!
Hey everybody! Just a quick reminder: if you live anywhere in the New York/New Jersey area, I'm going to be at the Brooklyn Book Festival this Sunday along with science fiction author Mary Fan! We'll be selling and signing all of our books. (Though a quick note to our regular convention goers: due to space restrictions we won't be carrying any of our colleague's books as we often do.)
The official address is:
Brooklyn Borough Hall and Plaza
209 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Though to be fair it seems to be a bit...expansive (as you'll see when you check out the map below.) We're going to be at booth 244. The festival runs from 10:00 am - 6:00 pm, Sunday, September 20, 2015.
All festival events are free. You do not need a ticket.
Click to expand or right click to open in a new window. The red star marks our booth.
Oh, and if you're a publishing professional or you somehow otherwise wrangled an invitation, we'll also be at the BKBF Gala on Saturday night in case you want to shake hands, buy me a drink, or punch me in the back of the head. Hope to see you there as well!
The official address is:
Brooklyn Borough Hall and Plaza
209 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
Though to be fair it seems to be a bit...expansive (as you'll see when you check out the map below.) We're going to be at booth 244. The festival runs from 10:00 am - 6:00 pm, Sunday, September 20, 2015.
All festival events are free. You do not need a ticket.
Click to expand or right click to open in a new window. The red star marks our booth. Oh, and if you're a publishing professional or you somehow otherwise wrangled an invitation, we'll also be at the BKBF Gala on Saturday night in case you want to shake hands, buy me a drink, or punch me in the back of the head. Hope to see you there as well!
September 16, 2015
Inceptioned!
In a shocking revelation that everyone's been fully aware of for going on thirty years now, legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto finally "revealed" that Super Mario Brothers 3 was, in fact, a stage play. I mean, intrepid players may have guessed this rom the curtain which rises in the beginning and closes in the end, not to mention the curtain call of all the levels and...but I digress. It's now at least revealed to be canonical.
I wanted to be able to get riled up about this. I'm not that hard to rile up about things, really. And Super Mario Brothers 3 is a game I've played quite possibly longer and more often than any other, to include the original SMB. We never had a Super Nintendo growing up, and only about 4 or 5 games, so SMB3 was a staple of my gaming life from its release in 1988 (actually, before that, considering I first learned about it from watching "The Wizard" in the theater...) until I finally got my next generation system, the Nintendo 64, in 1998. So ten years. And it's not like I ever really stopped playing it - I have it on my Wii even now.
So, point being, SMB3 is important to me, maybe even more important than it is to the average video gaming nerd. And instead of being infuriated or whatever the expected response is to finding out that it was "fictional," I found myself unable to ignore the ridiculousness of the concept.
I mean, of course SMB3 is fictional. It's exactly as fictional now after this Shyamalanesque reveal as it was the day I first picked up a controller to play it. There's real and there's non-real, and SMB3 has always been decidedly non-real.
I mean, you can raise the "Inception"-style question of what "level" of reality SMB3 takes place on. Let's take SMB1 as an example. There are basically two planes of reality.
1 - Reality
2 - The Mushroom Kingdom
I occupy reality, and Mario occupies the Mushroom Kingdom. Most fiction is this basic. Now let's take a look at SMB2. Here we have three levels of reality.
1 - Reality
2 - The Mushroom Kingdom
3 - Subcon
I occupy reality. According to the premise of the second game, Mario is in the Mushroom Kingdom. He falls asleep and enters the (fictional?) world of Subcon. Theoretically, SMB2 is two layers of reality removed from me. But, really...it's all made up, right?
So now let's look at SMB3 with our "new" data. Like SMB2, we now have three layers of reality.
1 - Reality
2 - ???
3 - The Mushroom World
I occupy reality. One layer down from that someone is conducting a stageplay. The stageplay is The Mushroom World. Perhaps the level where the stageplay is occurring is meant to be ostensibly "real" but in the same sense that "Days of Our Lives" is meant to be ostensibly "real" but it's still fiction, this level is still fictional. And it may, alternatively, be overtly fictional, like the residents of the Mushroom Kingdom decided to put on a show and this was it.
The reason I don't give a shit is because it's all fictional. Just because "Mousetrap" is positioned as a play-within-a-play in "Hamlet," neither "Mousetrap" nor "Hamlet" is real. Nor is "Hamlet" any more real by dint of not being "Mousetrap." They're both equally fictional.
"Inception" made great hay out of this concept. To a lesser extent, so did "The Matrix." "Inception" at least had the balls to hint that reality may not be what it seems, while I remain disappointed to this day that the last scene of "The Matrix" wasn't Neo realizing that the world he thought was real was really simply another Matrix. (I had that shit pegged from the first time he had magic powers in the real world - but alas, he really did have magic powers. Although, of course, he didn't because he's not real...ugh, this is making my head hurt.)
I guess my point is I've always thought this was a stupid thing to worry about. People often complain about the "just a dream" ending. Like, remember how upset people were when it turned out that "St. Elsewhere" took place inside a child's mind?
I've been confused about this shit forever. Did you think that when it was happening on your TV it was real, but since it turns out that it was happening a level down in the mind of a kid who was on your TV that it was suddenly unreal? Like, what difference does it make? The stakes have literally not changed. Your investment in a fictive character remains the same whatever level of fictionality he exists on.
One of my favorite shows, "Life on Mars" turned out to be all a dream - a simulation of a dude in cold sleep on his way to Mars. People got really upset about this because I guess because they felt like their time had been wasted because (and I want to reiterate this point) they weren't watching a real fictional cop show, they were watching a fake fictional cop show.
I dunno. I know the "just a dream" ending pisses a lot of people off. And I guess if it's just crap writing it would piss me off, too. But when it's not crap writing, when it really turns out that something was just a dream - why be any more irritated about that than anything else?
Feel free to sound off in the comments. I know from experience a ton of you feel super strongly about the "just a dream" thing.
I wanted to be able to get riled up about this. I'm not that hard to rile up about things, really. And Super Mario Brothers 3 is a game I've played quite possibly longer and more often than any other, to include the original SMB. We never had a Super Nintendo growing up, and only about 4 or 5 games, so SMB3 was a staple of my gaming life from its release in 1988 (actually, before that, considering I first learned about it from watching "The Wizard" in the theater...) until I finally got my next generation system, the Nintendo 64, in 1998. So ten years. And it's not like I ever really stopped playing it - I have it on my Wii even now.
So, point being, SMB3 is important to me, maybe even more important than it is to the average video gaming nerd. And instead of being infuriated or whatever the expected response is to finding out that it was "fictional," I found myself unable to ignore the ridiculousness of the concept.
I mean, of course SMB3 is fictional. It's exactly as fictional now after this Shyamalanesque reveal as it was the day I first picked up a controller to play it. There's real and there's non-real, and SMB3 has always been decidedly non-real.
I mean, you can raise the "Inception"-style question of what "level" of reality SMB3 takes place on. Let's take SMB1 as an example. There are basically two planes of reality.
1 - Reality
2 - The Mushroom Kingdom
I occupy reality, and Mario occupies the Mushroom Kingdom. Most fiction is this basic. Now let's take a look at SMB2. Here we have three levels of reality.
1 - Reality
2 - The Mushroom Kingdom
3 - Subcon
I occupy reality. According to the premise of the second game, Mario is in the Mushroom Kingdom. He falls asleep and enters the (fictional?) world of Subcon. Theoretically, SMB2 is two layers of reality removed from me. But, really...it's all made up, right?
So now let's look at SMB3 with our "new" data. Like SMB2, we now have three layers of reality.
1 - Reality
2 - ???
3 - The Mushroom World
I occupy reality. One layer down from that someone is conducting a stageplay. The stageplay is The Mushroom World. Perhaps the level where the stageplay is occurring is meant to be ostensibly "real" but in the same sense that "Days of Our Lives" is meant to be ostensibly "real" but it's still fiction, this level is still fictional. And it may, alternatively, be overtly fictional, like the residents of the Mushroom Kingdom decided to put on a show and this was it.
The reason I don't give a shit is because it's all fictional. Just because "Mousetrap" is positioned as a play-within-a-play in "Hamlet," neither "Mousetrap" nor "Hamlet" is real. Nor is "Hamlet" any more real by dint of not being "Mousetrap." They're both equally fictional.
"Inception" made great hay out of this concept. To a lesser extent, so did "The Matrix." "Inception" at least had the balls to hint that reality may not be what it seems, while I remain disappointed to this day that the last scene of "The Matrix" wasn't Neo realizing that the world he thought was real was really simply another Matrix. (I had that shit pegged from the first time he had magic powers in the real world - but alas, he really did have magic powers. Although, of course, he didn't because he's not real...ugh, this is making my head hurt.)
I guess my point is I've always thought this was a stupid thing to worry about. People often complain about the "just a dream" ending. Like, remember how upset people were when it turned out that "St. Elsewhere" took place inside a child's mind?
I've been confused about this shit forever. Did you think that when it was happening on your TV it was real, but since it turns out that it was happening a level down in the mind of a kid who was on your TV that it was suddenly unreal? Like, what difference does it make? The stakes have literally not changed. Your investment in a fictive character remains the same whatever level of fictionality he exists on.
One of my favorite shows, "Life on Mars" turned out to be all a dream - a simulation of a dude in cold sleep on his way to Mars. People got really upset about this because I guess because they felt like their time had been wasted because (and I want to reiterate this point) they weren't watching a real fictional cop show, they were watching a fake fictional cop show.
I dunno. I know the "just a dream" ending pisses a lot of people off. And I guess if it's just crap writing it would piss me off, too. But when it's not crap writing, when it really turns out that something was just a dream - why be any more irritated about that than anything else?
Feel free to sound off in the comments. I know from experience a ton of you feel super strongly about the "just a dream" thing.
September 14, 2015
Total Immersion in a Novel World
I'm very excited to be forging a new path of sorts with San Francisco company RPGlory. If you're not familiar with what an RPG is, it's short for "Role-Playing Game," the most famous of which is, of course, "Dungeons and Dragons." A real person pretends to be a character and a gamemaster serves as the narrator.
RPGlory is taking role-playing into a different place by creating custom-made worlds based on works of fiction. Up until now, if you love a book like, say, HARRY POTTER, you had to hope it was famous enough to be made into a theme park to be totally immersed and "live" in that world. Now RPGlory is making that possible for the rest of us...including, yes, me.
Ganesh City of BRAINEATER JONES is going to be one of the places you can visit through RPGlory's simple, Skype-based gaming interface. On October 4 we'll be playing a newbie-friendly game set in the BRAINEATER JONES world. If you want to participate, all you have to do is contribute $50 to RPGlory's Indiegogo campaign. I'll be in the game as well, playing the parts of all your favorite characters, like Alcibé, the Old Man, and even Jones himself. Think this idea sounds fun but you're not too keen on playing a Prohibition-era zombie? Well, not to fear gentle-yet-treacherous reader. Other authors participating include T.M. Williams, S.G. Browne, and even the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Craig DiLouie.
Oh, and in case you don't notice, there are two other exciting perqs that I'm offering: 1.) Have a character named after you in an upcoming novel of mine 2.) Create a character and have them appear in an upcoming novel of mine More ways to immerse yourself in fiction! Here's a video telling you a little bit more:
Interested? Click here.
RPGlory is taking role-playing into a different place by creating custom-made worlds based on works of fiction. Up until now, if you love a book like, say, HARRY POTTER, you had to hope it was famous enough to be made into a theme park to be totally immersed and "live" in that world. Now RPGlory is making that possible for the rest of us...including, yes, me.
Ganesh City of BRAINEATER JONES is going to be one of the places you can visit through RPGlory's simple, Skype-based gaming interface. On October 4 we'll be playing a newbie-friendly game set in the BRAINEATER JONES world. If you want to participate, all you have to do is contribute $50 to RPGlory's Indiegogo campaign. I'll be in the game as well, playing the parts of all your favorite characters, like Alcibé, the Old Man, and even Jones himself. Think this idea sounds fun but you're not too keen on playing a Prohibition-era zombie? Well, not to fear gentle-yet-treacherous reader. Other authors participating include T.M. Williams, S.G. Browne, and even the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Craig DiLouie.
Oh, and in case you don't notice, there are two other exciting perqs that I'm offering: 1.) Have a character named after you in an upcoming novel of mine 2.) Create a character and have them appear in an upcoming novel of mine More ways to immerse yourself in fiction! Here's a video telling you a little bit more:
Interested? Click here.
September 9, 2015
A Short Screed
I'm sure at this point we've all heard quite enough about Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who defied the Supreme Court.
I'll not rehash the details of the case. You've read that all elsewhere.
I'll not go over the politics of the case, either. You can probably guess my thoughts on that and you have your own.
I'll not be attacking Ms. Davis as a person, either. I know about the nepotism and the divorces and her personal appearance, etc., that people seem to find quite amusing. I also know that she's given water to thirsty protestors (against her) on hot days and that she visits prisoners every week. We're all complicated people and everyone has their unsavory moments and their saintly ones.
But what I do want to say (and I'll try to keep it brief) is that Ms. Davis really fucked up on this one.
I admire a person of principle. Everyone admires a person of principle. Ms. Davis is not a person of principle, at least not in this matter.
The law changes over time. There will come times when a change in the law leads to a person no longer being able to fulfill the oath of office they stated. That's understandable. That happens. "This is not what I signed up for" is a perfectly valid complaint.
If Ms. Davis was a woman of principle, she would have resigned her position in protest the moment the law changed. As much as I disagree with her politics and beliefs, I would have admired that. I think we all would have. But the truth is we probably wouldn't have heard about it.
But Ms. Davis is not a person of principle. She's a glory seeker. An attention hog. She wants to have her cake and eat it, too. She wants to go on drawing the $80,000 salary of a county clerk without fulfilling her duties as one. This is unseemly behavior and it has nothing to do with one's personal political or religious predilections to find it so.
A principled stand that was unconcerned with wealth or fame or personal glory, would be to step aside and refuse to do what is to you anathema. To gum up the works, to make a public display of yourself, to involve lawyers and the media and protestors - this seems more like a calculated move to raise one's public profile. Get a book deal, maybe a television show, at worst go on the lecture circuit.
And that's all I have to say on the matter. But feel free to let me know what you think in the comments below.
I'll not rehash the details of the case. You've read that all elsewhere.
I'll not go over the politics of the case, either. You can probably guess my thoughts on that and you have your own.
I'll not be attacking Ms. Davis as a person, either. I know about the nepotism and the divorces and her personal appearance, etc., that people seem to find quite amusing. I also know that she's given water to thirsty protestors (against her) on hot days and that she visits prisoners every week. We're all complicated people and everyone has their unsavory moments and their saintly ones.
But what I do want to say (and I'll try to keep it brief) is that Ms. Davis really fucked up on this one.
I admire a person of principle. Everyone admires a person of principle. Ms. Davis is not a person of principle, at least not in this matter.
The law changes over time. There will come times when a change in the law leads to a person no longer being able to fulfill the oath of office they stated. That's understandable. That happens. "This is not what I signed up for" is a perfectly valid complaint.
If Ms. Davis was a woman of principle, she would have resigned her position in protest the moment the law changed. As much as I disagree with her politics and beliefs, I would have admired that. I think we all would have. But the truth is we probably wouldn't have heard about it.
But Ms. Davis is not a person of principle. She's a glory seeker. An attention hog. She wants to have her cake and eat it, too. She wants to go on drawing the $80,000 salary of a county clerk without fulfilling her duties as one. This is unseemly behavior and it has nothing to do with one's personal political or religious predilections to find it so.
A principled stand that was unconcerned with wealth or fame or personal glory, would be to step aside and refuse to do what is to you anathema. To gum up the works, to make a public display of yourself, to involve lawyers and the media and protestors - this seems more like a calculated move to raise one's public profile. Get a book deal, maybe a television show, at worst go on the lecture circuit.
And that's all I have to say on the matter. But feel free to let me know what you think in the comments below.
September 7, 2015
Happy Labor Day!
Hi, everybody! Happy Labor Day!
Labor Day I think might get the most short shrift of any of the Federal holidays - with the possible exception of Columbus Day. But honestly, it might be one of the most important.
Without organized labor we wouldn't have weekends, the forty-hour workweek, child labor laws, and dozens of other life-saving and life-improving workplace benefits.
It's pretty in vogue right now to run down unions, but the truth is that the decline in union membership over the last thirty years has a direct causal connection to stagnant wages and countless other labor relation issues. Labor Day seems like a good day to remember the sacrifices of all the marchers, protestors, strikers, and negotiators who brought us out of the times when corporations could abuse and even kill their employees with total impunity. But it's also a day to remember that we have a long way to go. America is only as strong as its workforce.
Labor Day I think might get the most short shrift of any of the Federal holidays - with the possible exception of Columbus Day. But honestly, it might be one of the most important.
Without organized labor we wouldn't have weekends, the forty-hour workweek, child labor laws, and dozens of other life-saving and life-improving workplace benefits.
It's pretty in vogue right now to run down unions, but the truth is that the decline in union membership over the last thirty years has a direct causal connection to stagnant wages and countless other labor relation issues. Labor Day seems like a good day to remember the sacrifices of all the marchers, protestors, strikers, and negotiators who brought us out of the times when corporations could abuse and even kill their employees with total impunity. But it's also a day to remember that we have a long way to go. America is only as strong as its workforce.
September 4, 2015
Review Week! Part 3: KING OF THE BASTARDS by Brian Keene and Steven Shrewsbury
Howdy, pardners. In case'n ya didn' know, it's Review Week! here on yonder blog. Enjoy!
About KING OF THE BASTARDS:
Rogan has been many things in his life as an adventurer — a barbarian, a thief, a buccaneer, a rogue, a lover, a reaver, and most recently, a king. Now, this prehistoric bane of wizards and tyrants finds himself without a kingdom, lost in a terrifying new world, and fighting for his life against pirates, zombies, and the demonic entity known as Meeble. And even if he defeats his foes, Rogan must still find a way to return home, regain his throne, save his loved ones, and remind everyone why he's the
KING OF THE BASTARDS.
It's available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apex, AbeBooks, Kobo, Book Depository, and you can discuss it on Goodreads.
Review:
When people complain about "Game of Thrones" being too violent or too eager to kill off characters, I often roll my eyes. Life's pretty fucking short and miserable for the vast majority of the world's population these days, and I can only imagine what it was like in the Middle Ages when most people were just the property of a few rich assholes whose only real sport was killing other rich assholes. (Actually, maybe not so much has changed after all.)
But I digress. KING OF THE BASTARDS is set in a grimdark world full of characters who cast aside even the tiny veneer of civilization that the rich assholes of "Game of Thrones" wear. Rogan, the titular King of the Bastards, is a particularly brutish human being who apparently thinks nothing of shitting into an enemy's gaping wound on the battlefield. He has no respect for anything or anyone and only his unwavering loyalty to his blood relatives could be considered a positive character trait - albeit, he usually expresses that loyalty through gruesome bouts of Burgessian ultra-violence.
This is my first time reading Shrewsbury's work, so quite a few references were lost on me. The story is self-contained, but I gather that Rogan has already had and will go on to have many adventures all over his world. From what I can piece together, Rogan lives in a version of our world with Bronze Age aesthetics. He took over the throne of Albion (England) got bored and took to the ocean, where he wrecked on what seems strongly implied to be North America.
Now, I am more familiar with Keene's work, and we quickly learn that the antagonist of this self-contained story is Meeble, one of the Thirteen deicidal extradimensional beings from Keene's Labyrinth Mythos. All signs point to a showdown between Rogan and Meeble, and our intrepid authors do not disappoint.
This is very much a grimdark fantasy by way of extreme horror - about what you'd expect from these collaborators. From Rogan's first fight on the high seas to his final showdown with Meeble, countless gallons of blood and miles of intestines are spilled, eyeballs are popped, and corpses are mutilated. Horror and fantasy fans alike will find a lot to enjoy about this novel.
About Brian Keene:
BRIAN KEENE writes novels, comic books, short fiction, and occasional journalism for money. He is the author of over forty books, mostly in the horror, crime, and dark fantasy genres. His 2003 novel, THE RISING, is often credited (along with Robert Kirkman’s "The Walking Dead" comic and Danny Boyle’s "28 Days Later" film) with inspiring pop culture’s current interest in zombies. Keene’s novels have been translated into German, Spanish, Polish, Italian, French, Taiwanese, and many more. In addition to his own original work, Keene has written for media properties such as Doctor Who, Hellboy, Masters of the Universe, and Superman.
Several of Keene’s novels have been developed for film, including "Ghoul," "The Ties That Bind," and "Fast Zombies Suck." Several more are in-development or under option. Keene also serves as Executive Producer for the independent film studio Drunken Tentacle Productions.
Keene also oversees Maelstrom, his own small press publishing imprint specializing in collectible limited editions, via Thunderstorm Books.
Keene’s work has been praised in such diverse places as The New York Times, The History Channel, The Howard Stern Show, CNN.com, Publisher’s Weekly, Media Bistro, Fangoria Magazine, and Rue Morgue Magazine. He has won numerous awards and honors, including the World Horror 2014 Grand Master Award, two Bram Stoker Awards, and a recognition from Whiteman A.F.B. (home of the B-2 Stealth Bomber) for his outreach to U.S. troops serving both overseas and abroad. A prolific public speaker, Keene has delivered talks at conventions, college campuses, theaters, and inside Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, VA.
The father of two sons, Keene lives in rural Pennsylvania.
You can follow Brian on his website, Facebook, and Twitter.
About Steven Shrewsbury:
STEVEN L. SHREWSBURY lives, works, and writes in rural Illinois. Over 360 of his short stories have appeared in print or electronic media along with over 100 poems. 9 of his novels have been released, with more on the way. His books run from sword & sorcery (OVERKILL, THRALL, BEDLAM UNLEASHED) to historical fantasy (GODFORSAKEN) extreme horror (HAWG, TORMENTOR, STRONGER THAN DEATH) to horror-westerns (HELL BILLY, BAD MAGICK, and the forthcoming LAST MAN SCREAMING).
He loves books, British TV, guns, movies, politics, sports and hanging out with his sons. He’s frequently outdoors, looking for brightness wherever it may hide.
You can follow Steven on Facebook and his website.
About KING OF THE BASTARDS:
Rogan has been many things in his life as an adventurer — a barbarian, a thief, a buccaneer, a rogue, a lover, a reaver, and most recently, a king. Now, this prehistoric bane of wizards and tyrants finds himself without a kingdom, lost in a terrifying new world, and fighting for his life against pirates, zombies, and the demonic entity known as Meeble. And even if he defeats his foes, Rogan must still find a way to return home, regain his throne, save his loved ones, and remind everyone why he's the
KING OF THE BASTARDS.
It's available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apex, AbeBooks, Kobo, Book Depository, and you can discuss it on Goodreads.
Review:
When people complain about "Game of Thrones" being too violent or too eager to kill off characters, I often roll my eyes. Life's pretty fucking short and miserable for the vast majority of the world's population these days, and I can only imagine what it was like in the Middle Ages when most people were just the property of a few rich assholes whose only real sport was killing other rich assholes. (Actually, maybe not so much has changed after all.)
But I digress. KING OF THE BASTARDS is set in a grimdark world full of characters who cast aside even the tiny veneer of civilization that the rich assholes of "Game of Thrones" wear. Rogan, the titular King of the Bastards, is a particularly brutish human being who apparently thinks nothing of shitting into an enemy's gaping wound on the battlefield. He has no respect for anything or anyone and only his unwavering loyalty to his blood relatives could be considered a positive character trait - albeit, he usually expresses that loyalty through gruesome bouts of Burgessian ultra-violence.
This is my first time reading Shrewsbury's work, so quite a few references were lost on me. The story is self-contained, but I gather that Rogan has already had and will go on to have many adventures all over his world. From what I can piece together, Rogan lives in a version of our world with Bronze Age aesthetics. He took over the throne of Albion (England) got bored and took to the ocean, where he wrecked on what seems strongly implied to be North America.
Now, I am more familiar with Keene's work, and we quickly learn that the antagonist of this self-contained story is Meeble, one of the Thirteen deicidal extradimensional beings from Keene's Labyrinth Mythos. All signs point to a showdown between Rogan and Meeble, and our intrepid authors do not disappoint.
This is very much a grimdark fantasy by way of extreme horror - about what you'd expect from these collaborators. From Rogan's first fight on the high seas to his final showdown with Meeble, countless gallons of blood and miles of intestines are spilled, eyeballs are popped, and corpses are mutilated. Horror and fantasy fans alike will find a lot to enjoy about this novel.
About Brian Keene:
BRIAN KEENE writes novels, comic books, short fiction, and occasional journalism for money. He is the author of over forty books, mostly in the horror, crime, and dark fantasy genres. His 2003 novel, THE RISING, is often credited (along with Robert Kirkman’s "The Walking Dead" comic and Danny Boyle’s "28 Days Later" film) with inspiring pop culture’s current interest in zombies. Keene’s novels have been translated into German, Spanish, Polish, Italian, French, Taiwanese, and many more. In addition to his own original work, Keene has written for media properties such as Doctor Who, Hellboy, Masters of the Universe, and Superman.
Several of Keene’s novels have been developed for film, including "Ghoul," "The Ties That Bind," and "Fast Zombies Suck." Several more are in-development or under option. Keene also serves as Executive Producer for the independent film studio Drunken Tentacle Productions.
Keene also oversees Maelstrom, his own small press publishing imprint specializing in collectible limited editions, via Thunderstorm Books.
Keene’s work has been praised in such diverse places as The New York Times, The History Channel, The Howard Stern Show, CNN.com, Publisher’s Weekly, Media Bistro, Fangoria Magazine, and Rue Morgue Magazine. He has won numerous awards and honors, including the World Horror 2014 Grand Master Award, two Bram Stoker Awards, and a recognition from Whiteman A.F.B. (home of the B-2 Stealth Bomber) for his outreach to U.S. troops serving both overseas and abroad. A prolific public speaker, Keene has delivered talks at conventions, college campuses, theaters, and inside Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, VA.
The father of two sons, Keene lives in rural Pennsylvania.
You can follow Brian on his website, Facebook, and Twitter.
About Steven Shrewsbury:
STEVEN L. SHREWSBURY lives, works, and writes in rural Illinois. Over 360 of his short stories have appeared in print or electronic media along with over 100 poems. 9 of his novels have been released, with more on the way. His books run from sword & sorcery (OVERKILL, THRALL, BEDLAM UNLEASHED) to historical fantasy (GODFORSAKEN) extreme horror (HAWG, TORMENTOR, STRONGER THAN DEATH) to horror-westerns (HELL BILLY, BAD MAGICK, and the forthcoming LAST MAN SCREAMING).
He loves books, British TV, guns, movies, politics, sports and hanging out with his sons. He’s frequently outdoors, looking for brightness wherever it may hide.
You can follow Steven on Facebook and his website.
September 2, 2015
Review Week! Part 2: PHOENIX ISLAND by John Dixon
Ahoy, me hearties! 'Tis the first ever Review Week! here on ye olde blogge. Enjoy, ye scury dogs.
About PHOENIX ISLAND:
The judge told Carl that one day he'd have to decide exactly what kind of person he would become. But on Phoenix Island, the choice will be made for him.
A champion boxer with a sharp hook and a short temper, sixteen-year-old Carl Freeman has been shuffled from foster home to foster home. He can't seem to stay out of trouble, using his fists to defend weaker classmates from bullies. His latest incident sends his opponent to the emergency room, and now the court is sending Carl to the worst place on earth: Phoenix Island.
Classified as a terminal facility, it's the end of the line for delinquents who have no home, no family, and no future. Located somewhere far off the coast of the United States and immune to its laws, the island is a grueling Spartan-style boot camp run by sadistic drill sergeants who show no mercy to their young, orphan trainees. Sentenced to stay until his eighteenth birthday, Carl plans to play by the rules, so he makes friends with his wisecracking bunkmate, Ross, and a mysterious gray-eyed girl named Octavia. But he makes enemies, too, and after a few rough scrapes, he earns himself the nickname "Hollywood" as well as a string of punishments, including a brutal night in the sweatbox. But that's nothing compared to what awaits him in the Chop Shop: a secret government lab where Carl is given something he never dreamed of.
A new life. . . .
A new body. A new brain.
Gifts from the fatherly Old Man, who wants to transform Carl into something he's not sure he wants to become.
For this is no ordinary government project. Phoenix Island is ground zero for the future of combat intelligence.
And for Carl, it's just the beginning. . .
PHOENIX ISLAND is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo, and you can discuss it on Goodreads.
Review:
This novel is truly remarkable. The truth is, I wasn't 100% sure what I was getting myself into when I picked it up. I had read the back cover which suggested one thing, but I had also watched a few episodes of "Intelligence," the TV show this book inspired, and that told another story, and I also knew that this novel recently won the Bram Stoker Award. So I was fairly perplexed on whether PHOENIX ISLAND was an espionage thriller, horror, YA, or what.
If I had to put PHOENIX ISLAND in a category, I'd say it most closely resembles a classic. The sort of thing you had to read in school. A clean, trim sort of book with only a few characters and only a few locations that manages to draw you in.
Speaking of classics, Dixon obviously wears his love for LORD OF THE FLIES on his sleeve with this one - there are wild pigs, feral kids, and enough LOTF Easter eggs that I was sort of surprised nobody sounded a conch by the end. There's also a lot of the DNA of ENDER'S GAME in here. But where PHOENIX ISLAND really carves its own niche is in the way boxing is woven throughout.
Dixon is a Golden Gloves boxer and he brings a breadth and knowledge of fighting experience to this book like I've never seen before. Whenever the main character Carl fights the book transforms into something akin to ballet where you just have to admire the beauty of the prose as the scene unfolds.
I read this book in four days. It's been a long time since I've devoured a book that fast. I'm still not sure whether to quite call it horror, thriller, YA, or something else entirely. But I'll stand by my label of "classic." I really hope this ends up in classrooms in the future. I can't imagine kids not loving it.
About John Dixon:
John Dixon's debut novel, PHOENIX ISLAND, won the Bram Stoker Award and inspired the CBS TV series "Intelligence." The sequel, DEVIL'S POCKET, comes out August 4th, 2015, from Simon & Schuster / Gallery Books.
A former boxer, teacher, and stone mason, John now writes full time. He lives in West Chester, PA, with his wife, Christina, and their freeloading pets. When not reading or writing, he obsesses over boxing, chess, and hot peppers.
You can follow John on his website, Facebook, or Twitter.
About PHOENIX ISLAND:
The judge told Carl that one day he'd have to decide exactly what kind of person he would become. But on Phoenix Island, the choice will be made for him.
A champion boxer with a sharp hook and a short temper, sixteen-year-old Carl Freeman has been shuffled from foster home to foster home. He can't seem to stay out of trouble, using his fists to defend weaker classmates from bullies. His latest incident sends his opponent to the emergency room, and now the court is sending Carl to the worst place on earth: Phoenix Island.
Classified as a terminal facility, it's the end of the line for delinquents who have no home, no family, and no future. Located somewhere far off the coast of the United States and immune to its laws, the island is a grueling Spartan-style boot camp run by sadistic drill sergeants who show no mercy to their young, orphan trainees. Sentenced to stay until his eighteenth birthday, Carl plans to play by the rules, so he makes friends with his wisecracking bunkmate, Ross, and a mysterious gray-eyed girl named Octavia. But he makes enemies, too, and after a few rough scrapes, he earns himself the nickname "Hollywood" as well as a string of punishments, including a brutal night in the sweatbox. But that's nothing compared to what awaits him in the Chop Shop: a secret government lab where Carl is given something he never dreamed of.
A new life. . . .
A new body. A new brain.
Gifts from the fatherly Old Man, who wants to transform Carl into something he's not sure he wants to become.
For this is no ordinary government project. Phoenix Island is ground zero for the future of combat intelligence.
And for Carl, it's just the beginning. . .
PHOENIX ISLAND is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo, and you can discuss it on Goodreads.
Review:
This novel is truly remarkable. The truth is, I wasn't 100% sure what I was getting myself into when I picked it up. I had read the back cover which suggested one thing, but I had also watched a few episodes of "Intelligence," the TV show this book inspired, and that told another story, and I also knew that this novel recently won the Bram Stoker Award. So I was fairly perplexed on whether PHOENIX ISLAND was an espionage thriller, horror, YA, or what.
If I had to put PHOENIX ISLAND in a category, I'd say it most closely resembles a classic. The sort of thing you had to read in school. A clean, trim sort of book with only a few characters and only a few locations that manages to draw you in.
Speaking of classics, Dixon obviously wears his love for LORD OF THE FLIES on his sleeve with this one - there are wild pigs, feral kids, and enough LOTF Easter eggs that I was sort of surprised nobody sounded a conch by the end. There's also a lot of the DNA of ENDER'S GAME in here. But where PHOENIX ISLAND really carves its own niche is in the way boxing is woven throughout.
Dixon is a Golden Gloves boxer and he brings a breadth and knowledge of fighting experience to this book like I've never seen before. Whenever the main character Carl fights the book transforms into something akin to ballet where you just have to admire the beauty of the prose as the scene unfolds.
I read this book in four days. It's been a long time since I've devoured a book that fast. I'm still not sure whether to quite call it horror, thriller, YA, or something else entirely. But I'll stand by my label of "classic." I really hope this ends up in classrooms in the future. I can't imagine kids not loving it.
About John Dixon:
John Dixon's debut novel, PHOENIX ISLAND, won the Bram Stoker Award and inspired the CBS TV series "Intelligence." The sequel, DEVIL'S POCKET, comes out August 4th, 2015, from Simon & Schuster / Gallery Books.
A former boxer, teacher, and stone mason, John now writes full time. He lives in West Chester, PA, with his wife, Christina, and their freeloading pets. When not reading or writing, he obsesses over boxing, chess, and hot peppers.
You can follow John on his website, Facebook, or Twitter.
August 31, 2015
Review Week! Part 1: THE BREADWINNER by Stevie Kopas
Greetings, frenemies! As long-time followers know, I've long resisted the urge to turn this into a review blog (with the notable exception of the entire year of 2013 when it became nothing but a review blog - but I digress.) With that being said, I've reviewed occasional books here and there, but I've usually just peppered those in alongside my usual, indispensable pearls of wisdom.
This week I thought I might try something different and see how it goes over. I just read three great books in a row, so I thought I might throw all three review up on the blog and see if anybody gives a shit. If you do, hey, maybe Review Week! will become a recurring event. If not, I'll be back to my usual bullshit next week. So, with that being said, let's kick it off with THE BREADWINNER by our good friend, Stevie Kopas:
About THE BREADWINNER:
The end of the world is not glamorous.
In a matter of days the human race was reduced to nothing more than vicious, flesh hungry creatures.
Criminal defense attorney, Samson, struggles to keep his family safe and his sanity intact when the world comes apart at the seams. Veronica, the high school track star, races to get her brother out of their doomed city. Ben, a military veteran, is forced to come to grips with the end of the world as he fights the undead. Andrew, a police officer, struggles to maintain some sort of humanity in a world overrun by death and destruction.
There are no heroes here, just survivors, and they all have one thing in common: who you once were can no longer determine who you will be in the face of catastrophe.
THE BREADWINNER, book 1 in The Breadwinner Trilogy, thrusts you head first into post-apocalyptic Northwest Florida and will leave you craving more.
It's available on Amazon, and can be discussed on Goodreads.
Review:
So I'm sitting here reading a perfectly serviceable modern zombie novel. A couple of survivors with a give-'em-Hell attitude and tales of woe battle the gruesome undead while trapped in an urban hellscape after the collapse of woefully inadequate emergency services - you know the score. Not brilliant, not terrible, just your standard "Walking Dead" clone that maybe you give three stars if you remember it long enough afterward to review it.
Then in walks Moira Eckhart.
Moira is an ingenious creation, I dare say one of the greatest and most mortifying characters in modern horror. She's clearly a villain and yet...there's no moustache-twirling to her. She's just adamant in refusing to bend to the new reality of a zombie apocalypse. Her attitude is that the world will simply have to adapt to suit her lifestyle and not the reverse.
It's such a brilliant, original, cuttingly satirical take on modern American culture that I can hardly believe it's never been done before. Most zombie stories - hell, most stories, period - make their hay out of how the characters change in the wake of dire straits - with their true faces laid bare, are they really a hero, really a villain, or really just a pragmatist? Moira eschews that entire journey by refusing to ever take off her mask.
Her children are trophies. Her husband - the titular breadwinner - is a trophy. She's even aware to some extent that she's a trophy. And while the reasonable characters are off hunting and scrabbling for a can of beans to survive the night, Moira refuses to cede one centimeter of her opulent lifestyle to reality. It's such a perverse notion, such an American notion - the sting of Kopas's satire cuts deep. I think most of us imagine we'll be Gary Cooper when the end of the world comes, but his glory days have long since dwindled into twilight. We're a culture steeped in the Kardashian ethos now.
Perhaps THE BREADWINNER is a metaphor. Moira represents the cult of celebrity, husband and breadwinner Samson is the American public who indulge such navel-gazing, and in the end it's only the children who suffer. Then again, maybe it's just a gleefully dark and twisted tale of a uniquely American suburban nightmare. Either way, it's definitely worth your time and money. 5 stars.
About Stevie Kopas:
Stevie Kopas was born and raised in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. She is a gamer, a writer and an apocalypse enthusiast. Stevie will never turn down a good cup of coffee and might even be a bit of a caffeine addict.
Stevie is the author of THE BREADWINNER TRILOGY. Books 1 and 2, THE BREADWINNER and HAVEN were originally self-published in 2013 and 2014. THE BREADWINNER TRILOGY was picked up by Permuted Press in May of 2014 and the second editions of both the first books were released in March and April of 2015. The third and final installment in THE BREADWINNER TRILOGY, ALL GOOD THINGS, debuted in May of 2015.
Kopas also participates in the AT HELL'S GATES horror anthologies and all profits are donated to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund. Her short stories, "Nefarious" and "Patient 63" can be found in the first two volumes of AT HELL'S GATES.
She currently resides in Panama City Beach, Florida and tries to spend as much time as she can in the sun.
Stevie is also the Managing Editor of the website Horror Metal Sounds and a writer for the site. She is an avid reader of horror and post-apocalyptic fiction (especially zom-poc) and reviews for The Bookie Monster. Offline, Stevie is a telecommunications professional.
You can connect with her on her official website, Facebook, and Twitter.
This week I thought I might try something different and see how it goes over. I just read three great books in a row, so I thought I might throw all three review up on the blog and see if anybody gives a shit. If you do, hey, maybe Review Week! will become a recurring event. If not, I'll be back to my usual bullshit next week. So, with that being said, let's kick it off with THE BREADWINNER by our good friend, Stevie Kopas:
About THE BREADWINNER:
The end of the world is not glamorous.
In a matter of days the human race was reduced to nothing more than vicious, flesh hungry creatures.
Criminal defense attorney, Samson, struggles to keep his family safe and his sanity intact when the world comes apart at the seams. Veronica, the high school track star, races to get her brother out of their doomed city. Ben, a military veteran, is forced to come to grips with the end of the world as he fights the undead. Andrew, a police officer, struggles to maintain some sort of humanity in a world overrun by death and destruction.
There are no heroes here, just survivors, and they all have one thing in common: who you once were can no longer determine who you will be in the face of catastrophe.
THE BREADWINNER, book 1 in The Breadwinner Trilogy, thrusts you head first into post-apocalyptic Northwest Florida and will leave you craving more.
It's available on Amazon, and can be discussed on Goodreads.
Review:
So I'm sitting here reading a perfectly serviceable modern zombie novel. A couple of survivors with a give-'em-Hell attitude and tales of woe battle the gruesome undead while trapped in an urban hellscape after the collapse of woefully inadequate emergency services - you know the score. Not brilliant, not terrible, just your standard "Walking Dead" clone that maybe you give three stars if you remember it long enough afterward to review it.
Then in walks Moira Eckhart.
Moira is an ingenious creation, I dare say one of the greatest and most mortifying characters in modern horror. She's clearly a villain and yet...there's no moustache-twirling to her. She's just adamant in refusing to bend to the new reality of a zombie apocalypse. Her attitude is that the world will simply have to adapt to suit her lifestyle and not the reverse.
It's such a brilliant, original, cuttingly satirical take on modern American culture that I can hardly believe it's never been done before. Most zombie stories - hell, most stories, period - make their hay out of how the characters change in the wake of dire straits - with their true faces laid bare, are they really a hero, really a villain, or really just a pragmatist? Moira eschews that entire journey by refusing to ever take off her mask.
Her children are trophies. Her husband - the titular breadwinner - is a trophy. She's even aware to some extent that she's a trophy. And while the reasonable characters are off hunting and scrabbling for a can of beans to survive the night, Moira refuses to cede one centimeter of her opulent lifestyle to reality. It's such a perverse notion, such an American notion - the sting of Kopas's satire cuts deep. I think most of us imagine we'll be Gary Cooper when the end of the world comes, but his glory days have long since dwindled into twilight. We're a culture steeped in the Kardashian ethos now.
Perhaps THE BREADWINNER is a metaphor. Moira represents the cult of celebrity, husband and breadwinner Samson is the American public who indulge such navel-gazing, and in the end it's only the children who suffer. Then again, maybe it's just a gleefully dark and twisted tale of a uniquely American suburban nightmare. Either way, it's definitely worth your time and money. 5 stars.
About Stevie Kopas:
Stevie Kopas was born and raised in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. She is a gamer, a writer and an apocalypse enthusiast. Stevie will never turn down a good cup of coffee and might even be a bit of a caffeine addict.
Stevie is the author of THE BREADWINNER TRILOGY. Books 1 and 2, THE BREADWINNER and HAVEN were originally self-published in 2013 and 2014. THE BREADWINNER TRILOGY was picked up by Permuted Press in May of 2014 and the second editions of both the first books were released in March and April of 2015. The third and final installment in THE BREADWINNER TRILOGY, ALL GOOD THINGS, debuted in May of 2015.
Kopas also participates in the AT HELL'S GATES horror anthologies and all profits are donated to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund. Her short stories, "Nefarious" and "Patient 63" can be found in the first two volumes of AT HELL'S GATES.
She currently resides in Panama City Beach, Florida and tries to spend as much time as she can in the sun.
Stevie is also the Managing Editor of the website Horror Metal Sounds and a writer for the site. She is an avid reader of horror and post-apocalyptic fiction (especially zom-poc) and reviews for The Bookie Monster. Offline, Stevie is a telecommunications professional.
You can connect with her on her official website, Facebook, and Twitter.
August 28, 2015
Reader Mailbag #2: Questions On Description, Motivation, and General Advice
Well, after my very first Reader Mailbag, would you believe would you believe that I've received even MOAR questions? Admittedly, from the same studious young lady, but still, questions is questions, amirite? And if you happen to have any for the K-Man, just send them my way and I'd be delighted to answer them.
So after her initial barrage, Steph followed up with a few toughies. Take a gander and make sure to let me know what you think in the comments if you disagree with me!
1) How does one draw out descriptions? For example, in my head, I'll see and beautiful and ornate building, but I don't quite exactly know how to put all of it into words.
One trick authors use is to consider the five senses. So you should be writing in either first person or close third person (second person is so rare it's basically a gimmick and third person omniscient is very passé - but that' a whole other conversation.) In any case, any given scene is going to have only one viewpoint character. So you put yourself in the viewpoint character's head and describe what he's seeing, smelling, feeling, hearing, and tasting. Obviously, you're not going to use all five sense for everything you describe - that would get very tedious. Just pick out the one or two most important sensations for everything your character comes across, and as you do so, gradually you'll fill in the whole scene, almost like a paint-by-number set. Using the five senses give your scene a sense of immediacy and makes it more concrete.
The other "trick" is not really a trick at all - read widely. You should be doing this anyway, of course. But now that you're an aspiring author you need to take a craftsman's eye to your reading. Yes, sadly, you will not get the same pleasure you used to out of reading, because you'll be analyzing it and noticing places where your favorite authors fall down. But you'll also begin to notice the places where your favorite authors excel. So if you want to describe a beautiful and ornate building, go read how Tolkien or Rowling or whoever described their buildings. How did they keep it interesting? How did they make it clear what they were describing? And when you do find those occasional masterpieces where the book is so good you're not slowing down to analyze it, it makes them so much sweeter.
2) I watched an interview with Richelle Mead (author of the 'Vampire Academy' series) and she mentioned that some of her inspiration comes from just driving around. What are other ways to gather inspiration and motivation to write?
That's very interesting. Well, let's break this down into two parts, though, because I don't want to get too much chocolate in the peanut butter.
a.) MOTIVATION
You mentioned motivation. This is the simple answer, the Nike answer: just do it. Some people benefit from setting aside a certain time of day to write. I've heard many authors swear by waking up an hour early (or two, or whatever) and knocking it right out. And it's true that the first thing you do in the morning is usually your best work (I find this true at my day job, too.) I, personally, am a night person so I don't do that. But there is quite simply no replacement for butt-in-chair time, whatever time of day you set it for.
Some people also swear by various phone and computer apps that turn off your internet (or just your timesucks) so there are no distractions. I don't do this because I tend to research as I go - I may need to look up a bon mot or the year the Salem witch trials took place or whatever. But you may benefit from it. The thing is, whatever your bare minimum daily word count is, you just have to set aside some time every day and sit down and bang it out. Like I mentioned before, you'll probably find yourself getting into a groove and doing a lot more than the minimum. But if you set 500 words a day as your standard, you just have to sit down and write 500 words a day. And no "rollover writing" either. You can swear up and down you'll write 1000 words tomorrow if you can skip today, but you just won't. It's lik lost sleep; you never get it back. I'm afraid there's not much for this but to do it. I often talk about writing as being both a craft and an art. Sitting down and pounding away at the words, even when you don't feel like it, is part of the craft.
b.) INSPIRATION
Now, the first half of your question is the trickier one, the one that gets more into the "art" part. People talk about having a "muse" and sometimes people talk about having their characters chattering away in their heads, but these are both metaphors for the artistic process. What motivates you, what inspires you, what gets the juices flowing differs from person to person. Most people will say (and sorry if I'm sounding like a broken record here, but it is an important point) that reading widely in your genre will inspire you. Nothing gets me wanting to write quite like reading somebody else's genius idea and wanting to top it, or put my own spin on it. (Yes, I'm talking about you right now, John Dixon.) I also get really inspired by movie trailers, which is a shame because they usually precede two hours of me not being able to write because I'll be watching the main attraction LOL.
Driving around seems like a good idea and obviously it works for Richelle Mead. I know a lot of authors who like to "people watch." They may go to the mall or a pedestrian shopping center or something like that and look for strange people and behavior to inspire their characters. If you're a fan of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" I can recall an episode where Jake, the captain's son and an aspiring author, just hung out in the Promenade making up stories about the various people and aliens passing by. That seems like it could be a good exercise.
Another thing I might suggest is dumb manual labor. When you go into something like painting, pottery, woodcarving, and the like, you're essentially turning off the storytelling part of your brain and just worrying about your hand-eye coordination. I, for instance, paint models, and whenever I've had a good long painting session I'll often come away feeling refreshed and ready to do some storytelling work.
Ultimately, though, I can't tell you how to get in contact with your muse. You'll have to figure out what works best for you and try a couple of different methods.
3) I couldn't go to a few writers seminars and workshops at Shore Leave due to previous commitments and I had missed the seminar on writing tips. What are some helpful writing tips for young, aspiring writers?
Hoo-wee, this is a big one! Obviously there's enough material on this topic for a panel of five smart writers to fill an hour. (And, to be frank, reams and reams of books and countless websites.) So, one thing I would say is, if you're not already, get plugged in and start regularly reading some industry blogs. If you're not reading Janet Reid, Chuck Wendig, and John Scalzi, you need to unfuck that immediately, and also by using that turn of phrase I just reminded myself there are bunch of great podcasts, too, like The Horror Show with Brian Keene. But that being said, let me take a big picture approach and tell you what I think are the most important things to bear in mind.
First: other writers aren't your competition. This isn't a zero-sum game, where some people win and some people lose. When somebody like E.L. James writes a book that blows up and millions of people buy it, it benefits me because millions of more readers are now logging onto Amazon, thinking about buying books, and might go ahead and buy mine one day. Writers make up a community, and we have to support each other. That's why I'm happy to answer questions like yours here and at places like Shore Leave. It isn't a quid pro quo thing, but there is definitely a give-and-take, almost like an apprentice-and-master kind of vibe to the authorial community. And we all have to take care of each other. Suppose you blow up, for instance. Then I could always ask you for a blurb for my next book. So, remember there are plenty of readers to go around, no serious reader is buying only one book, and writers have to support one another, both emotionally, financially, etc.
Second: manage your expectations. Or perhaps I should say, "Remember that you're doing this for the love of writing." If you write for the love of writing, then you can never go wrong, and no amount of success or failure can faze you. Because you're already doing what you love, right? If you weren't willing to do this for free, then you shouldn't be trying to do this for money. Because don't count on the money. I think every author, when they get their first book deal, secretly harbors the dream that they'll sell a million copies and it will change their life. And there are some people who will, with a straight face, tell you that you're going to sell a million copies and it will change your life. But those people usually have an ulterior motive or an axe to grind. You may never sell more than a few hundred copies organically. You may lose money on what turns out to be an expensive hobby rather than a gravy train. Or, Hell, you may just ride the gravy train and be the next Hugh Howey or George R.R. Martin. I don't know. But if you're prepared to do this just because you love it, and you like the idea of maybe one or two other people out there enjoying your work, then you'll be fine, and everything else will just be the gravy.
Third: that being said, once your expectations are managed, be prepared to bust your ass and never give up. Common wisdom suggests that the fifth book is the book you'll finally succeed with. I think this is true in a sense, not because five is a magical number, but in that if you have the drive and dedication to put out four books that fail, and you still go on to make that fifth one, you've probably got the makings of a writing career in you. No one is going to hand you anything. No one is going to buy your book "just because." You have to get out there and hustle. Your friends and family, who you expect to be your biggest supporters, will be some of the most reticent people to actually buy, read, and review your stuff. You have to get out there and market. No one is going to just spontaneously review your book. I've asked nearly 400 professional and amateur reviewers to take a look at my debut novel. To date, eighty people, including ordinary readers, have actually taken the time to review it. If you're prepared, and you're ready to make the long hard slog, and you take nothing for granted and expect nothing from anybody, then any success that comes your way will just be the gravy.
So after her initial barrage, Steph followed up with a few toughies. Take a gander and make sure to let me know what you think in the comments if you disagree with me!
1) How does one draw out descriptions? For example, in my head, I'll see and beautiful and ornate building, but I don't quite exactly know how to put all of it into words.
One trick authors use is to consider the five senses. So you should be writing in either first person or close third person (second person is so rare it's basically a gimmick and third person omniscient is very passé - but that' a whole other conversation.) In any case, any given scene is going to have only one viewpoint character. So you put yourself in the viewpoint character's head and describe what he's seeing, smelling, feeling, hearing, and tasting. Obviously, you're not going to use all five sense for everything you describe - that would get very tedious. Just pick out the one or two most important sensations for everything your character comes across, and as you do so, gradually you'll fill in the whole scene, almost like a paint-by-number set. Using the five senses give your scene a sense of immediacy and makes it more concrete.
The other "trick" is not really a trick at all - read widely. You should be doing this anyway, of course. But now that you're an aspiring author you need to take a craftsman's eye to your reading. Yes, sadly, you will not get the same pleasure you used to out of reading, because you'll be analyzing it and noticing places where your favorite authors fall down. But you'll also begin to notice the places where your favorite authors excel. So if you want to describe a beautiful and ornate building, go read how Tolkien or Rowling or whoever described their buildings. How did they keep it interesting? How did they make it clear what they were describing? And when you do find those occasional masterpieces where the book is so good you're not slowing down to analyze it, it makes them so much sweeter.
2) I watched an interview with Richelle Mead (author of the 'Vampire Academy' series) and she mentioned that some of her inspiration comes from just driving around. What are other ways to gather inspiration and motivation to write?
That's very interesting. Well, let's break this down into two parts, though, because I don't want to get too much chocolate in the peanut butter.
a.) MOTIVATION
You mentioned motivation. This is the simple answer, the Nike answer: just do it. Some people benefit from setting aside a certain time of day to write. I've heard many authors swear by waking up an hour early (or two, or whatever) and knocking it right out. And it's true that the first thing you do in the morning is usually your best work (I find this true at my day job, too.) I, personally, am a night person so I don't do that. But there is quite simply no replacement for butt-in-chair time, whatever time of day you set it for.
Some people also swear by various phone and computer apps that turn off your internet (or just your timesucks) so there are no distractions. I don't do this because I tend to research as I go - I may need to look up a bon mot or the year the Salem witch trials took place or whatever. But you may benefit from it. The thing is, whatever your bare minimum daily word count is, you just have to set aside some time every day and sit down and bang it out. Like I mentioned before, you'll probably find yourself getting into a groove and doing a lot more than the minimum. But if you set 500 words a day as your standard, you just have to sit down and write 500 words a day. And no "rollover writing" either. You can swear up and down you'll write 1000 words tomorrow if you can skip today, but you just won't. It's lik lost sleep; you never get it back. I'm afraid there's not much for this but to do it. I often talk about writing as being both a craft and an art. Sitting down and pounding away at the words, even when you don't feel like it, is part of the craft.
b.) INSPIRATION
Now, the first half of your question is the trickier one, the one that gets more into the "art" part. People talk about having a "muse" and sometimes people talk about having their characters chattering away in their heads, but these are both metaphors for the artistic process. What motivates you, what inspires you, what gets the juices flowing differs from person to person. Most people will say (and sorry if I'm sounding like a broken record here, but it is an important point) that reading widely in your genre will inspire you. Nothing gets me wanting to write quite like reading somebody else's genius idea and wanting to top it, or put my own spin on it. (Yes, I'm talking about you right now, John Dixon.) I also get really inspired by movie trailers, which is a shame because they usually precede two hours of me not being able to write because I'll be watching the main attraction LOL.
Driving around seems like a good idea and obviously it works for Richelle Mead. I know a lot of authors who like to "people watch." They may go to the mall or a pedestrian shopping center or something like that and look for strange people and behavior to inspire their characters. If you're a fan of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" I can recall an episode where Jake, the captain's son and an aspiring author, just hung out in the Promenade making up stories about the various people and aliens passing by. That seems like it could be a good exercise.
Another thing I might suggest is dumb manual labor. When you go into something like painting, pottery, woodcarving, and the like, you're essentially turning off the storytelling part of your brain and just worrying about your hand-eye coordination. I, for instance, paint models, and whenever I've had a good long painting session I'll often come away feeling refreshed and ready to do some storytelling work.
Ultimately, though, I can't tell you how to get in contact with your muse. You'll have to figure out what works best for you and try a couple of different methods.
3) I couldn't go to a few writers seminars and workshops at Shore Leave due to previous commitments and I had missed the seminar on writing tips. What are some helpful writing tips for young, aspiring writers?
Hoo-wee, this is a big one! Obviously there's enough material on this topic for a panel of five smart writers to fill an hour. (And, to be frank, reams and reams of books and countless websites.) So, one thing I would say is, if you're not already, get plugged in and start regularly reading some industry blogs. If you're not reading Janet Reid, Chuck Wendig, and John Scalzi, you need to unfuck that immediately, and also by using that turn of phrase I just reminded myself there are bunch of great podcasts, too, like The Horror Show with Brian Keene. But that being said, let me take a big picture approach and tell you what I think are the most important things to bear in mind.
First: other writers aren't your competition. This isn't a zero-sum game, where some people win and some people lose. When somebody like E.L. James writes a book that blows up and millions of people buy it, it benefits me because millions of more readers are now logging onto Amazon, thinking about buying books, and might go ahead and buy mine one day. Writers make up a community, and we have to support each other. That's why I'm happy to answer questions like yours here and at places like Shore Leave. It isn't a quid pro quo thing, but there is definitely a give-and-take, almost like an apprentice-and-master kind of vibe to the authorial community. And we all have to take care of each other. Suppose you blow up, for instance. Then I could always ask you for a blurb for my next book. So, remember there are plenty of readers to go around, no serious reader is buying only one book, and writers have to support one another, both emotionally, financially, etc.
Second: manage your expectations. Or perhaps I should say, "Remember that you're doing this for the love of writing." If you write for the love of writing, then you can never go wrong, and no amount of success or failure can faze you. Because you're already doing what you love, right? If you weren't willing to do this for free, then you shouldn't be trying to do this for money. Because don't count on the money. I think every author, when they get their first book deal, secretly harbors the dream that they'll sell a million copies and it will change their life. And there are some people who will, with a straight face, tell you that you're going to sell a million copies and it will change your life. But those people usually have an ulterior motive or an axe to grind. You may never sell more than a few hundred copies organically. You may lose money on what turns out to be an expensive hobby rather than a gravy train. Or, Hell, you may just ride the gravy train and be the next Hugh Howey or George R.R. Martin. I don't know. But if you're prepared to do this just because you love it, and you like the idea of maybe one or two other people out there enjoying your work, then you'll be fine, and everything else will just be the gravy.
Third: that being said, once your expectations are managed, be prepared to bust your ass and never give up. Common wisdom suggests that the fifth book is the book you'll finally succeed with. I think this is true in a sense, not because five is a magical number, but in that if you have the drive and dedication to put out four books that fail, and you still go on to make that fifth one, you've probably got the makings of a writing career in you. No one is going to hand you anything. No one is going to buy your book "just because." You have to get out there and hustle. Your friends and family, who you expect to be your biggest supporters, will be some of the most reticent people to actually buy, read, and review your stuff. You have to get out there and market. No one is going to just spontaneously review your book. I've asked nearly 400 professional and amateur reviewers to take a look at my debut novel. To date, eighty people, including ordinary readers, have actually taken the time to review it. If you're prepared, and you're ready to make the long hard slog, and you take nothing for granted and expect nothing from anybody, then any success that comes your way will just be the gravy.
