Craig Schaefer's Blog, page 30

Grand Piano

This weekend I watched "Grand Piano", featuring Elijah Wood and John Cusack, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a great tribute to Hitchcock (or at least a tribute to DePalma doing a tribute to Hitchcock), with a killer hook: Wood plays a concert pianist making his return to the stage, only to discover that a sniper hidden in the theater will assassinate him if he plays a single wrong note. He has to figure out why, and find an escape, as the symphony continues its approach to an "impossible to play" piano piece.

Super-tense, and a lot of fun. Wood is excellent as usual, and Cusack is never not awesome. It's on Netflix instant view right now, check it out.

(And can anyone else picture John Cusack playing Daniel Faust? Is it just me?)

Syncing...I hope. Also, Ask Me Anything

First up, I've just linked my blog at craigschaeferbooks.com with my blog on my goodreads.com profile. They should (should!) update simultaneously from now on, so you can just catch my scintillating words of wisdom (or utter lack there of) in the place of your choosing.

Secondly, the "Ask the Author" feature is live. If you head over to my profile (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...) you can ask me questions. And get answers! Answers that may or may not correlate in some way with actual facts! Give it a try, see what happens. I dare you.

Independence Day

So I've been sitting here trying to write a little about Independence Day without going off on a political tangent, and wow, it's not easy. Lemme just get this out of the way: it's hard to talk about my nation without running headlong into the sheer polarization that's poisoned the waters of public discourse here, maybe (but I hope not) beyond repair. Thanks largely to corporate media running a 24/7 Outrage Machine intended to keep us frightened, angry and divided, we're all Ignorant Thug Fascists or America-Hating Socialists instead of, y'know, what we really are: ordinary people who want what's best for our country, and disagree about how that should work.

We could stand to listen to each other a little better, and talk a little more, and try a little harder, is all I'm saying. So! Moving on!

I love Independence Day, and not just for the fireworks and cookouts. It's a day that makes me think about the best parts of the USA, the ideals that still shine: our Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and how they tie directly into our relationship as reader and writer. (See, there's a point to this. I'll get there eventually, I promise.)

I've got a pet peeve. It irritates me when people say that the Bill of Rights "gives" us the rights it enumerates. Nope: you've already got them. Your rights are yours. You're born with them! All a government, any government, can do is either 1) acknowledge their existence, or 2) try to take them from you. It might sound like semantics, but it's super important to understand this because of the implications involved. If a government "gives" you the freedom of speech, that implies that you don't naturally have that freedom. And that's a scary headspace to be in.

(It also makes it a whole lot easier for a government to get away with nasty shenanigans. If everyone agrees that the state "gives you" a freedom, then the state has grounds to take it away from you, too.)

There's a reason that freedom of speech is number one with a bullet on our list of acknowledged rights (and for my foreign readers, yes, I know a lot of you have freedom of speech in your own nations, too, so please don't take this post as a slight -- I live in the U.S., so that's what I'm talking about today). Speech is expression. And expression is what makes us human.

We are driven to communicate by our very nature. We congregate. We seek friends and lovers. We share our experiences, our joys and our pains, our hopes and our fears, and we learn from one another. The act of sharing doesn't just make us human, it makes us MORE HUMAN.

Speech is history. Thanks to people writing about their lives and times, the places they lived, the wonders and tragedies they saw, we are the inheritors of the entire world's story. We can pick up books written by eyewitnesses from twenty years ago or two thousand years ago, and learn what they believed and how they lived. Speech ensures that we won't forget, and gives us the chance to learn from our mistakes instead of repeating them.

Speech is art. Every painting, every sculpture, every book and every poem is a statement. Art can do more than move us: it can challenge us, twist our perceptions, help us to see the world and life itself in a new way.

Speech is a weapon. Words can rally the masses, drive social change, and shift the course of history. Satire can show everyone that the emperor is naked, and embolden resistance to oppression. Want to know the first step to bringing down a tyrant? Laugh at him.

As a writer, I've got a few jobs. I want to make you feel something. I want to make you think. I want to give you a smile or a thrill, and I always, always want to give you your money's worth. A novel is a form of communion. When you read it, you're stepping into my imagination for a little while, and you're letting me step into yours. Even if we never meet, we've shared something, you and I. That's the power of speech.

There are places in the world where I wouldn't be allowed to write my books, and places where you'd be punished for trying to read them.

So that's what I'm thinking about, this morning, this Independence Day. How absolutely fucking great it is to live in a place where I can write the words in my heart, and you can read them, and we can share our truths and nobody can stop us. My nation has a lot of problems, no argument there, but I still love the place. Today, I love it a lot.

And if I hated it? I could say that just as loudly. Because I'm free to.

Okay, that's enough rambling. I'm going to make breakfast, aim to write 3,000 words for the new novel, and hopefully catch some fireworks. Because if there's one thing Americans know, everything goes better with explosions.

"The Institute" and Storytelling

Caught a fascinating documentary on Netflix Instant this weekend, "The Institute", about an incredibly ambitious ARG ("alternate reality game") that ran in San Francisco over the course of about three years. Players were challenged to unravel puzzles in real-world locations and interact with live NPCs, working out the mystery surrounding a cultlike self-help movement and a missing girl. Really captivating stuff from a storyteller's perspective; ARGs are a relatively new way of telling a story, and seeing the reactions and memories of the participants was really thought-provoking.

The part storytellers really need to pay attention to, though, is the ending. Be forewarned, going to get a little spoilery here.

The end of the Jejune Institute ARG was flat and anti-climactic. On purpose. The gamerunners built up a big infiltration/take-down-the-evil-cult-from-inside scenario, and then...nothing. (Worse than nothing, really: the final event was a bizarre mix of breaking kayfabe in some spots while reinforcing it in others, more or less mocking the players for thinking they were about to enjoy a big cool finish, and driving home the fact that three years of story had a sudden and aggressive anti-ending.)

The gamerunners' explanations actually made me angry. They explained that they didn't want to do play out the ending "in some science fiction and fantasy realm with shootouts and car chases." Bear in mind that this was a  game involving mind-powered force fields, a time camera and a girl who could travel into an alternate dimension, and the story arc followed a revolutionary fight against a dangerous and powerful cult. I just can't imagine how any of the players could have come to the wild and inexplicable conclusion that they were playing an action/fantasy/sci-fi game, can you? Crazy. Then this comment gets dropped: "I suppose there was an element of wanting to punish those players, who seemed to be missing what the real story was."

...There are not enough "fuck yous" to respond to that. I have literally used up every fuck you in my fuck-you-knapsack, and now I have to go to the store to buy more.

In any storytelling medium -- books, movies, video games, ARGs, you name it -- there is a powerful bond between creator and audience. We put our emotions in a storyteller's hands and trust them to manipulate us. We trust that they might drag us through some dark and scary places, but in the end we'll leave with something fulfilling: an insight, a new way of looking at the world, cathartic relief, or just a smile or a thrill. That's powerful, precious stuff.

That comes with big obligations on the storyteller's end. First and foremost, while it's both acceptable and expected to play around with audience expectations, that's worlds apart from pulling a bait and switch. If the next novel in the Faust series opened with all the characters getting hit by a bus and then suddenly it became a romance novel about an accountant in Iowa, readers would be pissed -- and have every right to be. It wouldn't matter if it was the best damn Iowa Accountant Romance ever written, because that's not what they bought.

As far as a storyteller thinking it's their place to "punish" an audience for not interpreting their art correctly...yeah, no. Get right outta here with that weaksauce. That's a good way to lose an audience forever. You know what a storyteller has left, when their audience goes away?

Nothing.

For the Nook-Owning Folks

(Not the Scrivener's Nook, the e-reader). Redemption Song is finally live on Barnes & Noble!

Redemption Song is Out!

Looking for some action this weekend? Depending on your interpretation of the word, I may be able to help. A week ahead of schedule, Redemption Song is live! Right now it's on Amazon and Kobo, and it'll be up on Barnes & Noble just as soon as Barnes & Noble...um...well...does whatever they need to do to push the book to their live servers. I'm sure they have top men working on it as we speak. Top. Men.

I've been absolutely floored by the warm reception The Long Way Down has received, and I'm so excited to share the next book in the Daniel Faust series with you. I hope you enjoy it!

2014: A Roadmap

Dates are locked, courses are plotted, and the stars are right. Yep, it's time to reveal my publishing plans for the rest of 2014. That or raise dread Cthulhu from whence he slumbers in the watery halls of R'lyeh. Either-or, y'know. It's all good.

Redemption Song is in the hands of the ebook layout experts as we speak. Barring strange catastophes (like the aforementioned rise of Cthulhu), it'll be in your hands by the end of the month and maybe, if we're very lucky, sooner. Like...next Friday, sooner? No promises, but I'll do my best.

Oh, speaking of "in your hands," how about we go ahead and make that literal? From book three onward, all new releases will be available both as ebooks and, for you Paper Purists out there, trade paperbacks as well! James T. Egan (master of awesome cover designs) is going to create paperback covers for The Long Way Down and Redemption Song too, so you can have the whole series in paper if you like. I'll let you know as soon as the first two books are available in print.

The third Daniel Faust novel will hit shelves (with a vengeance) in September. Finally, in December, I'll have something new for you just in time for the holidays -- the first book of a new four-volume cycle. It's something a little different, a little dark, a little twisty, and if you like the Faust stories there's a good chance it'll be up your alley. We'll talk more about that soon, I promise. All I can say right now is that the first draft is done and it's looking good.

What am I doing right now (besides talking to you)? Full steam ahead! The fourth Daniel Faust novel is well underway, and I have a few fun ideas percolating for the year to come. There's a heck of a ride ahead -- thanks for sharing it with me!

Why Editors Rock

Okay, you know how some great writers seem to go sharply downhill over the years? Like their once-tight narratives balloon into 200k-word epics for no reason, nothing seems focused, the verbiage gets sloppy, and their work starts feeling like Amateur Hour from start to finish?

That's because they stopped listening to their editors.

A good editor is a writer's secret weapon. Their hold-out derringer. Their fully-functioning Death Star. Let me tell you a little something about my process, and you'll see what I mean. Every time I sit down to write, I start by reading the last chapter or two and doing touch-up edits. That helps get me in the right headspace, and reminds me of any recent details I might have changed from the outline.

Once the book is done, I do a comprehensive self-edit, then send it to my beta readers for feedback. Then I do a second full self-edit based on their notes. Then I move the book from Scrivener to a Word file, and in doing so, run a third edit. Usually a fourth.

That said? Know what was in my book and got caught by my editor, among a billion other errors? "I took a peak."

I TOOK A PEAK. Five reads, in all, and I missed that embarrassing chunk of fail. My eyes just slipped over it, each and every time.

That's just one tiny example. The truth is, you can't self-edit. You CAN'T. Our brains are amazingly good at skipping tiny details to grasp the whole of a big picture, and that's kind of a problem when your job is to catch those tiny details. More than that, a good editor will let you know how they took the story, how they reacted, and point out the bits that might be perfect in YOUR head but utterly incomprehensible to a reader.

Any good writer has an editor. Fact, incontrovertible fact, end of discussion. (My editor, for the record, is Kira Rubenthaler with Bookfly Design. You should hire her, if you ever need editing work. But not too often, because then she won't have time for MY books and I'll be terribly cross.)

Endings, Beginnings

It's a strange feeling, the day after finishing a new manuscript. I've spent months immersed in another world, surrounded by characters who are dear to my heart, lost for hours in the twists and turns of plotting and craft, then all of a sudden...it's over. The ride ends with the last words on the last page, leaving me adrift. Curiously empty.

Oh, it's not OVER, of course. I'll have between two and five more self-editing passes and rewrite rounds before sending it off to my (amazing) editor, but that's a matter of error-catching, structure and style. The story's told. The story's done. There's a small sense of sadness, like parting from dear friends (if only for a little while). That's mitigated, though, by the thought that soon, when the book is polished, tight, and ready, I can share it with all of you.

Tonight I just feel...peacefully quiet. I'm going to cook up a steak, pour myself a drink, and boot up the Playstation. Sounds like a good night off, to me. Tomorrow? Tomorrow I start plotting the next book. And so it goes.

Progress

It's been a month and a day since TLWD hit stores (not as magically significant as a year and a day, but whatever), and I took some time this morning to do a little launch post-mortem. Lessons Were Learned.

For starters, reactions have been so much greater than I anticipated. Sales have steadily climbed and I've been sitting around the 50-80 mark on Amazon's Urban Fantasy bestseller list (though I'm nowhere near enough sales to crack the top 100 for general fantasy or horror. That's the REAL big time, right there). Now that the book's past a month old, I've just dropped off the "hot new releases in urban fantasy" list, so we'll see if I lose sales/visibility as a result. I've heard various arguments as to how important (or not) that particular list is, so I'm about to find out first-hand.

That, right there, is a big blind spot when it comes to ebook sales. Do readers find me by word of mouth and come looking for me by name? See the book on one of the bestseller lists, click and buy it from there? Find it by searching keywords? Amazon knows, but Amazon ain't tellin', which means it's basically a constant guessing game as to whether your efforts to reach readers are as effective as they could be. There's a whole lot of trial and error involved, and making tiny adjustments to see what ripples they leave behind.

(This may well be, and I believe is, intentional. Amazon REALLY doesn't like people trying to game their system. When authors have found ways to push themselves onto the best seller lists in the past -- like the classic "run a 99-cent sale to move lots of copies, end up in the top 100 and then return to regular price once you're on the front page" routine -- they quietly adjust things to correct the situation. Frankly, I like it that way; I'd rather focus on writing quality stories and work hard on reaching a long-term audience instead of relying on flash-in-the-pan numbers tricks.)

I've received wonderful feedback from so many of you, and listened to every bit of it. I actually went back and re-wrote bits of Redemption Song in the wake of some great constructive criticism for TLWD, trying to shore up some of the weaker bits of the characters' relationships. Hopefully I've hit the mark, but you'll be the judge of that in about three weeks...

(And thanks so much to those of you who have written reviews! That's a huge help when it comes to establishing a writer's credibility -- I can talk all day about my books but nobody sells 'em like a happy reader -- and I really appreciate it.)

I've learned after a month on the market that Amazon truly is the top dog when it comes to ebook sales. My traction on Barnes and Noble and Kobo is virtually nonexistent. That doesn't mean I'll stop putting stuff up on B&N, though: as long as the Nook is still a viable e-reader, I'll support the format. I'm still not up on Itunes' ebook store, but given how convoluted and arcane their sales interface is... Wow. To paraphrase Meat Loaf, "I'd do anything to put a book in your hands, but I won't do that."

Getting a lot of requests for print versions, and it's definitely on my radar but it's a considerable added expense and for most writers who focus on the ebook market, print sales lag way behind (as in "you'll never make this money back" levels of lagging behind). So, I'll make you a deal: when the third Faust novel comes out (right around Halloween, because of course it is), I'll take a long look at sales and evaluate if I can start rolling out print editions then.

Okay, that's enough out of me for now. Be safe, keep sharp, and stay awesome.