Craig Schaefer's Blog, page 18

So, About That New Year's Surprise...

So I’ve been dropping hints of a new year’s surprise for a couple of months now, and tonight I can finally share the goods: Harmony Black is out early. As in, it’s out right now. Right this minute. But wait, it’s a better surprise than that: Harmony has been chosen as a Kindle First selection for the month, which means you can either get it at a steep discount or possibly…free? How does ‘free’ sound?

Here’s how it works: head on over to Amazon's Kindle First page. If you have an Amazon Prime subscription, Harmony Black is 100% free. (Or you could get any one of the other monthly selections for free, but you’re gonna pick Harmony, right? Sure you are.)

If you don’t have Prime, you can still get Harmony at a heck of a discount -- $1.99, down from the $5.99 list price. Not too shabby! This deal runs through the end of the month, at which point the book goes back to its full cover price. February 1st is also the day the paperback and audiobook versions come out. Audio listeners, I wasn’t involved in the production this time so I’ll be hearing the audiobook at the same time you are, but the publisher hired Christina Traister as the narrator so I think we’ll be in good hands.

I’m super-excited to be sharing the start of this new series with you, and being able to bring it to you discounted or free is just the cherry on the supernatural sundae. I really hope you enjoy it! Happy New Year, everybody – let’s make this the best one yet.

Inspirations - Librarians

I feel as though I’ve already done a blog on this, but then I glanced back through and found I hadn’t. How is that even possible? I love Dean Devlin. I mean, I don’t love him THAT way, but I’m pretty sure if I ever met him, I could.

Leverage was such a fun show. Mind you, it wasn’t haute cinema, it wasn’t complex theater or Shakespeare, but that’s part of what I loved about it. Sometimes, you want something like Jessica Jones, or Lost, or anything else that makes you think and consider. Sometimes a neat package with a great story all wrapped up is far more satisfying. I loved Leverage for that, and I’m still cranky about not having another five seasons.

So much character development. If there’s anything I love about that show, it’s seeing characters develop, and Librarians is doing the same thing. Even though it’s an episodic show with that episode’s particular challenge, there’s a lot of change from week to week. Cassandra, Ezekiel, and Jacob (and Eve) go through so much together, and each week you get to see the slow genesis of that time spent with each other. 

Granted, I just about did my impression of a blue whale with the high pitched screaming noise I made when Beth Reisgraf had a guest appearance. But regardless, I’m a big fan of the show, and I can’t recommend it enough.

It has the sort of charming, devil-may-care, waiting for a mad man with a box sort of appeal that Doctor Who has. Flynn isn’t Doctor Who, and he’s also not in every episode, but he’s a fantastic presence even when he’s not there. Eve Baird, played by Rebecca Romjin, is the gun toting bodyguard sort. Christian Kane plays an art nerd. I mean, you can’t go wrong there.

Cassandra and Ezekiel are both relative newcomers, from my understanding, but I love them all the same. It’s very clear that the cast really enjoys each other’s company and is having a fantastic time together. It shows in everything they do. The camp, the fun, the wacky adventures… While it doesn’t fit any of my style of stories, that’s okay - it’s still nice to remember that not everything can be urban horror fantasy.

Writing Challenge Tuesday: A Fly on the Wall

(Yes, Tuesday. I was a little obsessive working on the final Revanche book yesterday and by the time I came up for air there wasn't any time left to do a blog post. So Wednesday is now Tuesday. It's official.)

I am generally of the opinion that trying new and strange things out on your protagonist is a fantastic way to see what they’re made of. I’m certain my protagonists really hate that about me, but since they’re fictional and I get to decide, they’ll have to cope. 

Among the many tropes I love is the trope of the fly on the wall - the moment when the protagonist or someone connected to them must stand there and observe. Maybe they’re pretending to be a waiter. Maybe they’re hidden in a crawlspace and will be horribly murdered if they’re found. Maybe, in Caitlin’s case, they’re magically controlled for a time. I like the Fly on the Wall trope for the interesting places it goes next. I like it because people learn things they can’t act on immediately, and that gives time for development and change.

So my challenge this week is this:

Write a fly on the wall moment for your protagonist, and decide what would happen if they were placed in that position. Would they be angry, seething, barely hiding their fury? Afraid? Cold and calm? So many possibilities.

See you on Thursday for something inspiring.

Inspirations - Jessica Jones

Fair warning - there’s going to be more than one post with this particular topic. Why? Because I’m only on episode five. Yes, I know, I know, but I have to keep writing (and writing a lot) if I’m going to hit my deadlines, and I can’t just binge Netflix for a day straight.

…which doesn’t mean I don’t want to. 

Alas, I had stuff to get done, so here I am only five episodes in, and for a spoiler free review, I want to acknowledge a few awesome parts.

I realized very early on that my perception of there being SO MANY WOMEN in the show was the 17% fallacy. After a little while looking at male characters and female, they really are about even on screen time and important roles. I just have a mental bias that sees it unevenly. And I think it’s pretty damn awesome that the show is challenging that.

There’s a quote I saw floating around Tumblr which said when you have an even amount of men and women, each individual man or woman doesn’t have to be representative of their gender. I think that’s pretty damn important to remember. It’s definitely something I try to emulate, though I didn’t see it put into words until Mad Max: Fury Road came out. I’m happy to see the trend continuing and the characters on Jessica Jones are fantastic.

I admit, I’m not a huge fan of some of the actors involved, but each of them have just blown me away. It’s nice to see David Tennant again, even if he’s being a horrible, terrible, nasty human being. The consistency of his behavior as a villain is really neat to see. I feel like too often a villain is immediately softened by showing that they actually care about children or puppies. Not so, with Kilgrave. Krysten Ritter, as always, is amazing in anything she does. (If you haven't seen "Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23" and you aren't averse to sitcoms with truly awful protagonists, get thee to Netflix with haste.)

Also, I admit, I’m glad they’re calling the villain Kilgrave, and not “The Purple Man” because sometimes things that work fine in comics just sound silly when you say them out loud.

More later, when I’ve watched the rest of the season… 

Inspirations - Labyrinth

Usually, I talk about current media when I talk about inspirations. Musicians with new albums out, writers who are hitting their stride, or, sadly, writers who have just left this world for their next adventure. Labyrinth was a formative movie for me. And not just because of David Bowie’s bewildering hair. Or the pants.

Mostly, I loved Labyrinth because it took the notion of a Hero’s Journey and reimagined it completely. Yes, the hero got the call to action, and yes, she overcame a personal flaw, but there was so much heart in between. The Goblin King makes a compelling villain because he interacts with her the way an addiction would. I’m what you want, you want to be with me, I’d do anything for you.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has ever felt the relief of thinking, “You have no power over me” during a particularly stressful moment. I have found that lesson to be the most important of that movie, and incredibly liberating. It’s difficult to realize how much of the time we’re in cages we could find a way out of, and it’s worse to realize that some people simply can’t. I’m fortunate to be out doing my writing full time, but I have definitely had moments of letting go to get here. 

…Although, the puppets who remove their heads are still incredibly creepy.

Writing Challenge Tuesday: Rude Awakening

This is a device I admit to shamelessly exploiting. Who doesn’t love a good rude wakeup call? Poor Daniel’s been through so much, and been beaten unconscious multiple times. It’s sort of inevitable that he’d end up waking up in a terrible situation. Like with a demon god being summoned… Or in jail…

So for this week’s writing challenge, think of the worst possible rude awakening your character could face. Your protagonist could be unconscious outside a bar, or find herself on a roof somewhere. They could wake up on the subway, or at the bottom of a pit. How do they escape? What can they do about their rough situation, and who would put them there? What does that person want from them? All of this and more. Tie it to the core plot and what’s going to happen next. Sometimes, the best segue is a stark shock. 

See you on Thursday for another Inspirations post!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey, everybody -- before I head out on the open road for several hours of fun-filled driving adventure (joy), just wanted to wish my readers in the States a Happy Thanksgiving and a great day to everybody else. What am I thankful for? You. Your readership and your support is what keeps me going and lets me do what I do, and I couldn't ask for anything more.

Be careful if you're out on the road tonight. People will be sleepy, drunk, and eager to argue politics.

Writing Challenge Tuesday: Black Sedan

I’m reminded of the first episode of the BBC's Sherlock, where John Watson finds himself bamboozled into a black sedan and dragged off to meet Mycroft. It was a fascinating double play, since for at least ten minutes I was convinced that we were supposed to think that was Moriarty. Fortunately, it wasn’t, since we need Moriarty to be the major villain later.

The Woman, Irene Adler, uses the same idea. In Jim Butcher’s books, Marcone uses the trope to drag Harry Dresden into conversation. And in Daniel’s case, he often gets dragged off by psychotic half demon twins to amuse their boss. Poor Daniel. The twins will be the death of him, and possibly of me, since they get very cross about not having screen time in the last few books. I mean, I tell them, it’s not like they could show up in Killing Floor Blues, but… Ahem. I’m getting off topic.

The Black Sedan is a great trope to use in order to plunge a character into the thick of an intrigue plot. So imagine your protagonist is dragged off in an unmarked car. Who would be doing the dragging? How will they react? What is their escape method? Talk their way through and get dropped off, or roll out onto the highway during a slow moment? 

See you on Thursday for more Inspirations!

Terms of Surrender is Live!

Today's the day! Terms of Surrender, book three of the Revanche Cycle, is officially live. I hope you enjoy it! The ebook version is available now, and the paperback should be ready in just another day or two. And to celebrate, through Monday the first two books have been reduced to 99 cents and $2.99 accordingly.

After that, my next release will be the first in the Harmony Black series this coming February. Oh, and there's still the super-secret surprise on New Year's Day...but if I told you, it wouldn't be a secret.

One other announcement: since the first half of 2016 is pretty much ruled by the first two Harmony books, I felt bad about making the Daniel Faust fans wait so long for book six. So, I've carved out a little time to work on a stand-alone Faust novella to tide you over, which will be out in early 2016. It's called The White Gold Score, and it's the story of one of Daniel's side jobs. A side job involving a violent ghost in a casino penthouse, a coke-peddling record producer, and some untold secrets of the Vegas strip. Oh, and Daniel teaches Caitlin his rules for the perfect burglary. So that'll be fun. I'll have a firm release date for you soon.

Help, I'm Lost in the Wasteland

Can we just talk for a second about how good Fallout 4 is? So good, am I right?

I don't have a ton of time for gaming these days -- writing deadlines never sleep, don'tcha know -- but when it comes to Bethesda's sprawling RPGs, I always carve out a little niche for fun. I've spent more hours than I care to admit inside Skyrim's snowy deeps, and still have fond memories of Daggerfall.

(Protip: do not go back and try to play Daggerfall on a modern PC. As with so many once-great, classic games, you really can't go home again. Nostalgia is a poison.)

The Fallout franchise has a special place in my heart: the original Wasteland was one of my favorite computer RPGs back in the day (yes, I'm old), and it's been fascinating watching the evolution from Wasteland, to the isometric Fallouts, to the full 3-d spectacle the series has become. I'm also a bit of a post-apocalypse fiction buff, and yes, it's odd that I've never actually written any. It's on my "stuff I really want to get around to when time permits (ha, ha)" list.

A few hours in, FO4 is pretty much everything I could have hoped for in a sequel. And that's a high standard after Fallout: New Vegas, because, well, c'mon. Vegas. FO4 is beautiful in motion, with fantastic ease-of-life upgrades (showing containers' contents on mouse-over is a tiny thing but such a timesaver), and while I know opinions are mixed on this one, I dig the stronger narrative elements and the Mass Effect-ish conversations. And while I'm hesitant to go into detail because of spoilers, the supporting cast is probably the strongest in any Bethsoft game to date. These are folks I'm genuinely interested in, and while I typically play Fallout games as a lone wanderer, I've been dragging NPCs along with me just to learn their stories.

Okay, time for me to get back to work. So I can hit my word count for the day. So I can play more Fallout. One quick tip, for those about to dive in: Charisma is actually important now. 'Nuff said.