Kyell Gold's Blog, page 48

Updated Publication Dates!

I’ve updated my upcoming e-book publication dates. Some explanations:

* Green Fairy will be coming out sooner than expected in e-book format (I think). I have been talking to Sofawolf about the impact of e-book releases on print sales and we are agreed that releasing it a little earlier than a year after the print release should not adversely affect their sales too much. So we’re gonna try this as an experiment.

* In the Doghouse of Justice will be delayed a couple months, to October. There are a couple reasons for this, but one of them is that this release will actually take a bunch more work than the others. I want to do a version with the original “saucy” stories as well as a version that faithfully reproduces the stories in the print version. Also, if Green Fairy is moving up, I can bump this one back down a bit.

So there you go! I will be busily creating e-books this summer.

The 20-70-10 model and your writing

Recently I was reading a sports article about the head of the Marlins (I think) who said he uses Jack Welch’s “20-70-10″ model from GE to evaluate his roster. Oversimplified, that sort of goes like this: the top 20% of your employees are your “core,” the ones you absolutely must keep, the ones who distinguish your company and make it special. The middle 70% are the “vital 70,” who do adequate work and keep things running. The bottom 10% are the ones you should look to turn over as quickly as possible.

I was explaining this to some people today and said that I was glad I was in the “core” of my current company (which is, of course, a business of one: me), and one of my friends pointed out that I’m also in the bottom 10. So I started thinking about that as a way to think about myself as a writer and as a business.

As a writer, focusing purely on the writing, you know of course that some people are better at some things than others. I have friends who write breathtaking action scenes, friends who write lyrical descriptions, friends with an indefinable wonder to their style, friends who write crisp, crackling dialogue. I think that my “core” skill lies in character–time and again I have heard people say that my characters have become real to them–and perhaps somewhat less so in dialogue (I think I have a lot of room to improve in dialogue, but people seem to like it). Anyway, the point is: as a writer, you can probably identify what your “core” skill(s) are. You probably have a pretty good idea of what your “vital 70″ are. You might not write sparkling dialogue, but nobody complains that your characters all sound the same. You might not have Cat Valente lyricism, but you can string a pretty sentence together.

And then there’s the bottom 10. Note that this doesn’t mean your skills in this area are bad, just that we all have an area that we know we need to improve. I think my word use in one sense is okay–I can put together a clever phrase–but I would like to get a touch more lyrical with my prose at times. But what I really think I need to improve is communicating my world-building. I often build incompletely, and communicate less, and so people end up with all sorts of questions. I’m working to improve that by writing a lot more about the world outside the story (in the Calatians work, for instance).

So what do you do with this? Well, I think you look at your top 20 and your bottom 10: the things you do really well and the things you do worst. You want to focus on those, because the things you do well are likely to be the things that make your prose stand out. So if you are an ace at action plots, push yourself. Create amazing, breathtaking action, and show off that skill. But if your dialogue needs work, then turn over that part of your writing. Try new things, read new authors, look for ways to bring that dialogue up into the vital 70.

And yeah, when you get your dialogue to where you’re happy with it, that means something else will drop into the bottom 10. That’s what being a writer is: constantly identifying the things you need to/want to improve, and working to do it. But don’t neglect your core, the thing you do really well, the things that make your work sparkle and shine and set it apart from everyone else’s. Nurture those and keep them happy and do whatever you can to keep improving that.

You can apply this to your business life, too, to the process of writing or the business of being a writer. If you’re great at marketing yourself but bad at meeting deadlines; if you’re a dab hand at editing but first drafts take you forever; if you’re great at reading over contracts but hate public speaking. Nurture what you’re good at, improve what you’re not. It’s a neat way to help focus yourself: sit down and think about your 20-70-10 for half an hour, or ask some friends, and then set yourself some goals. Good luck!

Former NFL Player Discusses Being Gay

Many of you have already sent me this link or related ones, but if you haven’t seen it: Wade Davis, former professional football player (he was a cornerback, like Dev used to be! but he seems more of a coyote build), has been sort of gradually coming out over a period of years, and finally has gone full public with it. This came on the heels of an Outsports.com article in which pretty much every NFL player they talked to said a gay teammate wouldn’t be a problem. Course, when you’re talking to OUTSPORTS DOT COM, what are you going to say?

Davis is both more realistic and more idealistic. For someone fighting for a job, he says, it’d be difficult–but he still thinks they should come out.

For my money, speaking as someone without the firsthand experience of being a pro player, much less a gay one, I think Davis is right. I really do think that the scenario I’ve written about in Out of Position/Isolation Play/book 3/book 4 is becoming more and more likely; if anything, the scrutiny and shame Dev faces are becoming more unrealistic every day. Will there be guys who don’t approve on your team? Sure. Is it going to be okay for them to behave differently to you? Nah. At the end of the day, like one of the players said, you’re going to war with your teammates on the field, and all you want to know is whether that teammate’s got your back when you’re playing. When you hang up the uniform, you’re friends with some guys and not with others, and it’s live and let live.

We have a sort of ongoing debate about which pro league will have the first gay player. I think the odds just shifted a little toward the NFL. And I think the first gay player to come out will be a football player precisely because it is the most high-profile of the four big sports here, and because the player will have a canny agent who says, “look, you might have to switch teams, but you are going to be on every talk show and a dozen commercials if you want, and if your current team doesn’t want you, you can bet your ass that some other team will pick you up (probably Dallas, given how Jerry Jones hates having the media spotlight on other people).”

I mean, at this point, if someone comes out as gay and then is cut, can you imagine the outcry? Even if the guy was on the edge performance-wise, the team’s going to keep him because at this point in our history, nobody wants to be the team that cut the first gay player.

It’s going to happen, and pretty soon. I never thought I would see an out pro athlete in one of the big four sports before I finished writing Dev and Lee’s story, but now I think I would place money on it. You know, if Vegas were aware of my books at all.

“Green Fairy” Nominated on Over The Rainbow List

Okay, this actually happened like a month ago, but it’s still pretty cool. The American Library Association has a Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Roundtable which every month selects a list of books to recommend for their Over the Rainbow list. At the end of the year they go through all the nominees and select a final list of recommended books for the year.

“Green Fairy” was sent to them and is on the list for April! So that means that at least one person in the group read it and liked it enough to put it on the list. We’ll see if it makes the cut at the end of the year, but this is still pretty cool on its own.

I Less Than Three You All

By now you may have heard, or you may not, that the Ursa Major Awards were announced at Califur on Saturday. I am delighted and deeply honored to say that Isolation Play won for Best Novel, and “How To Get Through The Day” won Best Short Fiction.

(Blotch’s smart and lovely “Across Thin Ice” won an award for Other Literary Work, and for the stunning cover; Rukis’s “Red Lantern” was recognized with the first ALAA’s Choice award, selected by the board rather than popular vote. My guess is that this is the board’s way of recognizing a work that they felt deserved an award but did not win the popular vote, which is awesome–I subscribe to the “list” type of awards anyway. These were my personal favorites, but congratulations are due to all the winners.)

I have difficulty really conveying to people how much this does mean to me. People think I must be used to it, must care less about it, but that’s not true. There is no momentum with these awards–much the opposite, I think, as more people grow tired of seeing my name up in the Fiction categories–and every year you people out there all have to sign up, log in, and vote, and I feel that the standards every year are higher and higher as fiction in the fandom improves. Every year I spend some part of the night before rehearsing what I’ll say when my work doesn’t win (which has happened, back in ’07) and I think that this will be the year you guys get tired of voting, or find something else you like more. And it turns out that being prepared to lose is one of the best ways to appreciate winning.

Because I know from experience that you guys are doing this because you love the books and the stories. Reaching people in that way is what makes writing worthwhile to me, and this is just one indicator of that, but it’s a nice one. It drives me to keep getting better, to keep writing works that matter, to give back to you all.

Isolation Play had the unenviable burden of being the sequel to my most popular book, and surpassed all my expectations for it. It feels somewhat fitting that this award comes a couple days after I sent out the first draft of book 3 for the first time; Dev and Lee have many words left to live through, and you will be seeing them on Sofawolf’s shelves for years to come. And yet, still, with the first-year sales behind it, I see more traction for OOP than IP, and I think that is perhaps normal–Volle continues to sell more than the rest of the Argaea books–but it still makes me worry. And yet, the feedback has been positive, and it is because OOP did so well that I have had the confidence to go ahead and tell their story fully. Isolation Play was a huge novel, planned and plotted out as a novel, and I loved writing it. I am so, so happy that everyone loved reading it (and one of the best compliments, I think, was getting e-mails from people who said that after reading it, they got in touch with their parents again after months or even years of estrangement).

And “How To Get Through The Day” was written for you guys, because you went out and bought Bridges up, and because you asked for more Fin and Amir. For the longest time, I put off writing this story because I didn’t know what angle I would take. And then I remembered a comment my good friend and writing colleague foozzzball made about Fin’s use of antidepressants, and I started researching things people did to cope with depression even when taking medication for it, and the story blossomed out of that.

I say often, but probably not often enough, that I have the best fans, and you all just prove it every day, with comments, with e-mails, with requests for sequels, with votes for awards. You guys fill me with wag, and I hope to continue to be worthy of your fandom (fanship? fanhood?) for many years to come.

This is a really wonderful gift you’ve given me. Thank you, every one of you. *hugs*

Silver Circle Interview

Flayrah took that interview I did about Silver Circle which was posted to FA and be-linked a lot of it. If you missed it on FA, check it out here: http://www.flayrah.com/4039/interview...

(It includes me scoffing at the Bible’s view of women, if that impels you more than the subject itself.)

Remember, you can get the e-book or pre-order the print edition now!

What Happens When You’re Not Concentrating

I printed out some stuff for OOP3 to go over yesterday while we had company in town, and today I can’t find it. I don’t think anyone ran off with it, but, uh, I did mail off some documents to my financial advisor yesterday …

Oops.

I guess I’ll see if I get a phone call from them saying “Yes, we got your documents…and something about a fox and tiger?”

Either that or it’s lost in the clutter of my office. I honestly have no recollection of holding it after I took it off the printer. But oh well, I printed another one. C’est la vie.

Progression on OOP3

Good-ish day. I have finished reading over the part of the megadraft that will be OOP3 (which has a title! I will announce it sometime!), and it is not in as terrible shape as I’d feared. I remembered having to push myself through many parts of it, and indeed there are bits that will need to be trimmed, of course, but there are also some fun parts, and overall the story arc will serve quite well.

Now, of course, when you get to the end of it, you will have the reassurance that there is a fourth book. The timetable for these is still up in the air; if I get this thing done in the next couple weeks so I can send it to beta readers for feedback, then it will quite likely end up on schedule for FC 2013 (January). But OOP4, I dunno. It is possible that I could roll directly from this book into that one, get them both done, and have OOP4 ready to go for FC 2014, but that will also depend on Sofawolf’s schedule and Blotch’s schedule and a lot of other factors, so we will see. I don’t like to announce dates until they are pretty firm, because I don’t want to play the game of “it’ll be out in a month! no wait, two months! er, six months!” Sorry! But you can take consolation from the fact that when I announce a date, there’s a pretty good chance it won’t change.

Also: wow, when a gay couple lives together, they have a lot more chances to have sex. Just sayin’.

Silver Circle in Print

I’m pleased to announce that FurPlanet has picked up the print rights to “Silver Circle.” We’ve worked out the layout and the print version should be debuting at this year’s Anthrocon. You can take a look at it RIGHT NOW in their catalog. You can even PRE-ORDER it if you want!

Busy Editing

I have a couple booky things in various draft stages–OOP3 for one, the first Calatians book (“The Tower and the Fox,” which is almost finished), and my Cupcake for this year, which will get its own post eventually–and I am going through them to try to write a synopsis of each so that I can look over the plot and characters from a high level and see what needs to be fixed.

Also have a couple little short stories going on that I hope to post sometime soon as a break from working on the novels.

So my paws are busy!