Harry Connolly's Blog, page 166
October 4, 2010
A Glimpse of Darkness, chapter 3
Lucy A. Snyder's chapter of this shared chain story is up on the Suvudu site. She took the voter's choice at the end of my session and ran with it.
And she wasn't as long-winded as I was, either.
The chain story is now about half-way through. Pop on over, give it a read and place your vote before it's too late.
That was the weekend
Apparently, I live in a world where I order checks from my bank but the checks never come. Yes, world, I know there are these things called electronic payments, but some stuff still wants a check.
Anyway, did you know that Monday morning is supposed to be the busiest web day of the week? We self-promoters are supposed to save "big" posts for now, when they'll get the largest audience. Me, I'm writing about a box of checks that should've arrived already. See the famous author ply his craft.
In other vital news, for you weekend non-readers, I had a fun Saturday and Sunday, sort of. Sat was great, with a trip to the local Lego convention, BrickCon. Pictures here. I also received a ton of family-friendly rpg suggestions on my blog and LJ. Thank you to everyone who chimed in.
Sunday was quiet for various reasons. I set my laptop very high–on a stool on top of a table–so I could write standing up. The reduction in leg pain at the end of the day was startling; I'm going to try it again today.
If I were the sort of person who wanted to tie all this disparate stuff together (and I am) I'd link to Michelle Sagara's posts about writerly self-promotion. Here's part one. You can click through to the rest if you're interested. I was and am.
She pulls together a lot of interesting ideas and presents them in a more coherent way than I would, and she also makes me realize that I'm okay with not being an internet celebrity a la Scalzi. Yeah, he sells a lot of books and has tremendous name recognition, but do you know how much time he must spend reading through his own comments, wielding the Mallet of Loving Correction?
I swear to god, I'd never have time for anything else.
I'm really lucky in that it's extremely rare for me to get a nasty comment or annoying visitor–it hasn't happened for months. Everyone who drops by here has been really kind to me, and I'm grateful for that. What I really need to do, mentally, is to separate my enjoyment of my own little space online with my desire for ten million people to read my books and Sam Worthington[1] to be cast in the movie version.
I'm off to make coffee and write now before the rest of the family wakes up. My wip has been coming together in my head in a rather sudden way, and I need to finish this scene and jump back to outlining. See you online.
[1]I've actually never seen any of the dude's movies, but I assume he'd be great.
October 3, 2010
Randomness for 10/3
1) Logan's Run as a Lego diorama. For you younger readers, Logan's Run is an old book and movie. This picture isn't from BrickCon, btw.
2) Celebrity Twitter accounts reviewed.
4) Baby Monkey Riding Backwards on a Pig. This is my new favorite song. Video.
6) John Scalzi's thoughts on Atlas Shrugged.
Writers do it while sitting
But not this time. I've stacked a table on top of a table and I'm working on my wip while standing. The usual pain I've been used to has become much too intense lately. I'm hoping a change in position will make things easier on my legs.
Which puts me in the odd position of reducing knee, ankle, and muscle pain by getting up. What the hell. Variety is the spice, right?
October 2, 2010
BrickCon 2010!
I was gone most of the day taking my wife and son to BrickCon (and the library). The displays were, as usual, amazing. The vendor prices were, as usual, appalling. When we left, we were not wearing rain barrels for clothing. I'm calling that a win.
And of course I took pictures:
That whirlpool in the center? It spun around and around. Cool
See, the skeletons are fleeing in terror from a stampede of elephants, who are fleeing from hungry dragons. And those guys strolling down the road at the bottom of the pic? They're about to be crushed by awesomeness.
There's a larger shot of this diorama in the set.
It's a 3-foot tall version of the hero of FULL METAL ALCHEMIST, which I guess makes it life-size.
A cross-section of a modular space habitat.
And finally:
Steampunk blasters, w/ a steampunk robot in the back.
It's funny, but the fantasy layouts were huge dioramas, but most of the science fiction stuff was a ship or a building set on the table with no relationship to the stuff around it.
There were also a few things I didn't get pictures of: coolest was a marble-shooting Mindstorm robot. I do have video, though. I'll see about posting those later.
Anyway, I wish the pictures were better, but the builds themselves were terrific. See more of them at the flickr set.
BrickCon!
I was gone most of the day taking my wife and son to BrickCon (and the library). The displays were, as usual, amazing. The vendor prices were, as usual, appalling. When we left, we were not wearing rain barrels for clothing. I'm calling that a win.
And of course I took pictures:
That whirlpool in the center? It spun around and around. Cool
See, the skeletons are fleeing in terror from a stampede of elephants, who are fleeing from hungry dragons. And those guys strolling down the road at the bottom of the pic? They're about to be crushed by awesomeness.
There's a larger shot of this diorama in the set.
It's a 3-foot tall version of the hero of FULL METAL ALCHEMIST, which I guess makes it life-size.
A cross-section of a modular space habitat.
And finally:
Steampunk blasters, w/ a steampunk robot in the back.
It's funny, but the fantasy layouts were huge dioramas, but most of the science fiction stuff was a ship or a building set on the table with no relationship to the stuff around it.
There were also a few things I didn't get pictures of: coolest was a marble-shooting Mindstorm robot. I do have video, though. I'll see about posting those later.
Anyway, I wish the pictures were better, but the builds themselves were terrific. See more of them at the flickr set.
Request for recommendations
I used to be immersed in paper and dice role playing games, but lately not so much. The social groups I used to play with broke up, then I moved across the country. I expect it would be trivially easy to find a gaming group here in Seattle, but I barely have time to be a writer, husband, and father anymore.
But I'm not looking for help in finding a gaming group. I am looking for help in finding a game. I have the chance to turn some portion of family time to game night. Here are my requirements:
1- Relatively simple game mechanics, esp character creation. If each character has 12 stats and every attack needs six calculations to determine a hit, my 8 yo son (and adult wife) will be bored.
2- Family-friendly. No ultra-violence. No cyborg hookers. No nihilistic grime-topias.
3- It shouldn't have too much moral ambiguity in the setting. My son, he's not a fan of that. When he role-plays, he's the good guy only. His mom will be the same.
4- Nothing too elaborate for the GM, either. I don't have a lot of time as it is, but it will be difficult for me to work up elaborate scenarios for them.
5- Not too expensive. A $45 sourcebook is like a BMW–it may be gorgeous, functional, sexy, and fun, but I can't afford it. It's not a question of value, but one of cost.
Here are my preferences (as in would be nice but not required):
1- Something with monster-hunting or superheroes.
2- Uses lots of different kinds of dice.
3- A setting that is familiar to extremely casual fans of the genre (such as my wife). Modern day, medieval fantasy, old-time space opera will not have a steep learning curve. Fluffy Cthulhu will require a lot of explanation before we start the game.
4- Specifically designed to be played by young kids/newbies.
I wish I could find my old source books for Metagaming's The Fantasy Trip; that's what my friends and I played while everyone else was playing AD&D (yes, I'm old). I'm not even sure I still have them. Most of the old game books I have are Champions (too complex), Call of Cthulhu (not newbie-friendly) and the Pacesetter/Mayfair Games versions of Chill. I'll be using the Pacesetter ed. if I can't find something else. A previous short runthrough of the Chill 1st ed. went over pretty well.
Any ideas?
"I am a perfectly normal human worm baby."
Did you know there's a new drink product called "Vacation in a bottle"? And that it comes in a can?
I know, doesn't it sound great? I have never tasted it but I wrote an absolutely, completely, totally serious review on Amazon.com. I encourage you to do the same.
October 1, 2010
I'm wearing a sandwich-board sign that says "Harry Connolly, author"
Yesterday (the day before? omg–must get handle on life) Sherwood Smith linked to and discussed Sarah Prineas's rant against authors who market their books (titled: "I will be your friend but I won't be your fan"). I recommend reading both, including the links.
And yeah, I get it. I do a little marketing here and there: I'll retweet a nice review, or give books away on my blog. I try not to be obnoxious about it, but everyone has different tolerances and I'm bound to annoy someone.
That said, I know very well that there's little I can do to affect my own sales beyond write a book people want to read. The number of copies I've given away and whatever effect that might have, is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of books I've sold. But I do it anyway; don't ask why.
I have my limits. This blog will never turn into all hard-sell all the time. First of all, because it would annoy me even more than it would annoy you. Second of all, because that's not my job. Third of all, because even if it was, that job would suck and I'd quit. I won't be sponsoring complicated contests where you have to type out a long string of book titles. I won't be sending Facebook "fan" requests." I don't plan to do any readings. I won't be asking people to give my 5-star reviews on Amazon.com or anywhere else. I won't be asking people to call all their local bookstores and ask if they have have my latest in stock.
I will do other things, though. I'll keep sending my books to reviewers (anyone want to recommend some? I don't want to duplicate efforts from the first round, but I'm interested in finding new review venues). I'll still donate books to charity auctions; this is my favorite thing to do, because it does a slight bit of good for the world at large. I'll still sign bookstore stock. I'll still have giveaways. I'll still mention that most people can ask their libraries to stock certain books, hint hint.
Probably the most effective thing I've done is contact folks I know online who have large followings and offer the book to them in the hopes that they'll review it. I try to emphasize that it's at their convenience and I wouldn't ask them to gin up a fake positive review. That doesn't always work, of course. Sometimes they never get around to reading it. Sometimes the review is middling. That's fine by me–I'm grateful for their time. But when they really like the book, that's a big deal.
I mean, basically it's all about word-of-mouth, but when we're talking about online reading communities, some mouths have access to more ears than others. For ex: According to his figures, John Scalzi's blog gets 35-40 thousand unique visitors a day. My blog? 52, and that's on a pretty good day.
Maybe it's just that I don't want to leave everything up to other people. Maybe it's just that I want to do my part in making the book succeed.
What do you guys think? Is there a level of promotion you like and expect ("You have a new book out? Why didn't you tell us?") and where do you get exasperated and turned off? Was there a particular author promotion you thought was effective? Have you ever bought a book because of an author's marketing?
And just because, if you want two copies of Game of Cages leave a comment on my main blog or LiveJournal saying so. I'll choose a random winner sometime tomorrow morning. The extra copy is so that, if you like the book, you can give it to a friend; if you don't like it, you can give it to an enemy.
September 30, 2010
This is my *RAHR*-face
Education historian and former Bush administration official Diane Ravitch will not be joining the chorus of raves for WAITING FOR SUPERMAN, the much-anticipated anti-teacher screed documentary about the problems in modern education.
Even if you don't have kids, or don't have kids in the education system, I'd urge you to read it. If you're American, I'd guess. People outside the country might want to check it out for yet another opportunity to shake their heads and thank whatever fortune/good choices have placed them outside the U.S.
To summarize Ravitch's point (and the point others have made) WFS distorts the problems is purports to address in order to demonize teachers, principles and teacher's unions. Anecdotes about some bureaucratic difficulty are held up as examples of wide-spread problems. Instances (and there are many) of reforms unions have brought to education (smaller class sizes, anyone?) or have been instituted with unions as full partners are omitted. Everything is laid at the feet of "bad teachers," with test scores held up as proof.
Ravitch's article neatly and cleanly demolishes the whole standardized test canard, but it doesn't matter. It'll never matter. People can't hear the criticisms and refuse to acknowledge them, because they're demanding a way to rate schools and teachers. Sure, standardized testing doesn't work, but people will never give it up until a more-effective, more-culturally-acceptable alternative comes along.
So the politicians are ramming testing (and "fire bad teachers!") down our throats. It's yet another way Obama has failed this country. And Ravitch, a long-time conservative who began to refute conservative education policy after studying the data on it, gives quite clear reasons for this. Another meme she evicerates is the union-bashing.
Because let me be clear: I believe the biggest reason that the education debate has gone the way it has is because of the continuing efforts to destroy unionization in the country. No, unions aren't perfect. Yes, there are problems. Guess what? There are problems with corporations, too. And NGO charities. And religious congregations. But there isn't a concerted effort by influential powerbrokers to completely destroy those other groups. WFS, for instance, regularly compares the U.S. to Finland, who has much better education system than we do. Does the film mention that the Finnish system is heavily unionized? Of course not. That would undermine the cartoon baddie they created for the film.
Ravitch nicely wrecks the usual union-bashing arguments in the linked article, but what good will it do? "Unions protect bad teachers!" is already a prevailing meme, pushed by raving assholes. "Get rid of the unions!" "Think of the children!"
Please.
The last time unions were strong in this country was the post-war period, and the nation was doing very, very well.
You know what is the biggest indicator of a child's educational success is? Parental involvement.
How do we get parents more involved in their kids' education? We give them economic security, and time at home with their families.
The way to improve education in this country is to reduce the out-of-control economic inequality we've been building up over the decades, and the best way to do that is more unions.
/rant
