The Post-Con Naps

I just woke up from a two-hour nap. This nap was necessary because, in spite of 9 hours of sleep, I’m still exhausted from Norwescon. In convention terms, that means I had a very good time.

Regular readers (ha!) may remember remember a series of posts about last year’s Worldcon, where I expressed considerable annoyance with my apparent inability to talk to people I didn’t already know, whether they were fans or pros. It turns out that there are two solutions for this problem:

1. alcohol
2. a ready-made conversation-starter

By “alcohol,” what I really mean is a social environment where walking up to random people and saying, “what’s up” is acceptable and even expected. That way I don’t have to deal with my issues of not wanting to intrude on people’s personal space. If you fit 50 people into a smallish hotel room, nobody’s going to have personal space anyway, so who cares?

The ready-made conversation-starter was more accidental: I just went wearing my NIWA shirt and pin. Between that and the dealer flag on my con badge, people more often than not asked me what I was selling, and that let me dive in my NIWA spiel. I got very good at that spiel. And then, once that was over, the conversation could move along naturally. I talked to plenty of pros and plenty of fans that way, and I don’t think I ever embarrassed myself once, despite the atomic cherries floating about.

I’m not a social butterfly and I never will be, but it’s nice to know that I can mingle and schmooze and make some friends in the right set of circumstances.

Other con notes: it was a pretty good convention for Fugitives from Earth, especially compared to other recent events where it got no interest at all. I was one of the top sellers from NIWA, although the convention itself was admittedly slow for us. A big part of that, I’m convinced, was our booth setup. A million other small things contributed as well; I suspect that we’ll have a lot to talk about at our next meeting.

Norwescon itself was great: good panels, great costumes, lots of people and interesting things going on. Aside from last year’s Worldcon, it’s the best convention I’ve ever been to. Even if NIWA doesn’t go back next year, I probably will.

Norwescon!

Hey everyone! I’m at Norwescon! Just arrived at my hotel after spending an hour and a half setting up our booth in the dealer’s room, and then walking a quarter mile in the middle of a raging thunderstorm. I was so close a bolt of lightning that I could hear the sizzle as it struck, a quarter-second before the thunder hit.

The lovely view from my hotel window.

It’s funny, this being the third con I’ve attended in the last year, that I’m starting to recognize people. Mostly dealer’s room folks; they tend to make pretty regular circuits to the local cons just like NIWA. But, there’s also various random attendees that I glance at in the hall and think, “Hey, I saw him in Reno.”

Another fun tidbit about Norwescon: it’s kind of packed. In terms of attendance-to-space ratio, this is the largest con I’ve ever been to, and I’m hoping that I’ll be doing less scooting between clots of people as the rush to registration ends.

Final tidbit for now: this is the first time I’ve ever stayed in a hotel room all by myself. Is that weird? Every other time I’ve been with my wife, my parents, or friends. I feel like a decadent Roman emperor, lounging all alone on the rock-hard beds or flipping channels on the ancient Zenith CRT.

Anyone else at Norwescon? Stop by the dealer’s room and say hi at the NIWA booth.

Rediscovering the Process

It’s pretty funny, in an “oh well” sort of way, that I’m having to rediscover my novel-writing process just a few months after finishing the previous novel, and less than two years after starting it.

As you might’ve guessed from the paucity of updates, it’s been a  hard first quarter of the year. I’ve started a half-dozen short stories, and the only one I finished was about 1,200 words and completely unpublishable. I haven’t been able to get back into my NaNoWriMo novel, and I might never do so. And my attempts to start this most recent novel are just now picking up steam, in spite of the first part being done in February.

When I wrote Fugitives from Earth, I took the entire month before I started the novel to sketch bits of setting, character, and plot. I did research. I thought about set pieces I wanted to include. By the time I was actually ready to start writing, I felt like I was about to explode with ideas.

I didn’t do that so much before this most recent NaNoWriMo, just because I was laboring so hard trying to get FfE done in time for OryCon. At the time, this didn’t seem like a major problem–I had a really strong concept of the story–but in retrospect I think it hurt me more than I understood at the time. The way I think about it, it boils down to a subtle but crucial difference: last NaNoWriMo, I had the concept of the story. With Fugitives from Earth, I had the concept of the world, as if it were a real place.

That distinction just came to me a day or two ago. I took a break from writing the story after two failed attempts to continue on from an awesome prologue, and I went back to my setting document. Before, this was about 300 words describing the universe and what I wanted to focus on. Basically, what I would’ve told somebody who asked about it in the line for lunch.

But that didn’t inspire me. I wanted to have a concept of the world of this work in progress as though I lived in it. I wanted to be able to picture people eating dinner, going on dates, flying to other planets, talking to aliens, brushing their teeth, and wasting time. My goal with my own universe is the same as it was with medieval England back in my college history days: I wanted to know what the average person did on a daily basis.

I think it’s helped. Those 300 words are now more like 5,000 and counting. Most of it will never–and seriously, should never–end up in the novel. But I can already feel like I’m getting into the headspace of my characters. Once I know how the world works, I can focus on who my characters are. And once I know that, the story will start to come naturally.

I hope.

From the WIP

Allow me to present you with these notes from my current work-in-progress. They’re written in the perspective of a fairly recent colonist from the planet St. Lucie. This was originally written for me, not for you, so there may be spelling and grammar errors.

The Republic began as the gradual unification of individual superpowers on Old Earth, with the addition of various extra-planetary organizations in the early 22nd century. When Humans discovered the system jump technology, the Republic was formally institutionalized to pose a united front against the Others that Humans found as they explored.

The New Job Post

I started a new job today. For ten years, I’ve worked at Hi-School Pharmacy in Vancouver doing IT support, but it had become clear to me over the last year that I didn’t have a future at that company. We weren’t getting raises, there was no opportunity for advancement, and in the end even the new projects started to dry up.

So now I work at Allion Test Labs in Beaverton. It’s a cool company, although it’s hard to describe exactly what it is they do…the short version would probably be “testing consumer electronics,” although it’s a lot broader than that. I’ve only just started, so I don’t really have a feeling for how the day-to-day is going to go, but everyone I talk to there enjoys their job and is happy with the company. That’s a lot more than I could say at Hi-School, and I could get used to working at a place like that.

There are downsides, of course. Working at Hi-School for so long, I got a real fine sense of what was allowed and what wasn’t, what rules were actually followed versus what the employee handbook said. I knew under what circumstances I should put off taking lunch, for instance, or when I could take off for the day 15 minutes early. I’ve just got to re-learn all that, and it takes time.

It also means that I don’t get to go to Norwescon this year. It’s in just three weeks, and I won’t have enough vacation saved up to make it. I kind of had a feeling this was coming, so it wasn’t a shock, but I’m still disappointed. Oh well; there’s still Westercon, WorldCon, and OryCon. It’ll be a busy year on the convention circuit.

I’m also hoping that this will be an opportunity to dig back into my writing. I tend to write with more discipline when I have less time to put off writing, and with this job I definitely have less time. Enough time, to be sure, but it means that I have to prioritize writing like I really haven’t for awhile. I think this job could be a good opportunity, in more ways than one.

Month of Letters

Because I’m a shameless follower of people far more awesome than myself, I’m throwing myself into Mary Robinette Kowal’s “A Month of Letters.” Every day in February, I will do three things: write a letter to someone, send it in the mail, and then check my mail in the evening. There’s just one problem, though: I don’t have enough people to write to. 

Hopefully, this is a problem that will solve itself later in the month, but for now I have barely a week’s worth of letters to write. Mary posted her address publicly but she’s going to get about a billion letters, so I want to take the road less traveled by. This is where you come in.

If you’d like to receive a letter, hand-written by yours truly, then please, give me your address! I’ll try to write to everyone who gives me an address, so just think…the next time you go out to the mail, you might actually have something fun to read rather than the usual junk and bills. That’s the whole point of this endeavor, after all, so although it’s not required, it’s more fun if you write back.

The deets: if you feel comfortable disclosing your house address, you can always just drop it in the comments, although I doubt most people will be okay with that. So, you can send me a direct message on Facebook or Google+, or email me at thetenthword at gmail dot com. I look forward to hearing from you, and writing to you.

Hangin’ with Obama

It’s been a long time since I posted something, I know. You can expect some changes coming to this site in the near future, not the least of which is the return of regular updates, and not just updates on writing. Updates on, just, you know. All sorts of stuff.

In that spirit of other-stuff-ness, I was watching the very first Presidential Google+ Hangout (must be capitalized!) today while I was working, and it was a surprisingly awesome moment for me. Not because I’m a huge fan of Obama, although I think he’s a decent president at least, and not because what he had to say was groundbreaking, but because of how personal it was.

That deserves some clarification too. Obviously there’s no way that I had privileged access to any sort of executive communication, so if I could watch this hangout, so could millions of others. And when millions of people are watching, the president is never, ever personal, or intimate, or familiar. He pretends to be those things, just like every president since TV was invented, but that’s not what I’m talking about either.

What I mean is this: there were eight other people in that hangout (seven, if you don’t include the event coordinator). They were carefully selected for their demographics, but they were real people. One of them cut Obama off while he was talking. One of them disagreed strongly with his position on foreign aid. That could’ve been me, or you, or anyone.* Maybe I’m just naively enthusiastic, but that seems incredible to me. Technology is changing our government, and it’s changing it for the better.

*Full disclosure: it never could’ve been me. I don’t have the stones to argue with the president while millions of people are watching, and I’m at least man enough to admit it.

The Light at Tunnel’s End

Ahaha! I’m DONE!

Yes, after a week of furious copyediting, I finally have in my hands the final version of Fugitives from Earth. It’s definitely not my best work, not anymore, but I’m not embarrassed to sell it to other people, and I’m oh so very relieved that I don’t have to think about the story anymore.

And the layout’s done, too. Let me tell you: Word is horrible at making print-ready documents that aren’t term papers. It took a fair bit of wrangling the page settings, margins, text wrapping, alignments, and who knows what else to make it look good, but at least it was mindless work, so I got to watch movies while doing it. Didn’t get to do that while I was writing the damn thing.

So, now I’m eagerly awaiting the proof copy from Createspace. I have my hopes that’ll be a quick green light, and I can order my print copies for OryCon, and not a minute too soon. Never again will I let myself get this close to the wire.

Finally, this blog is about to come full circle. I realize that I haven’t been posting as often as I did in my heyday, but I’ve got plans for this year’s NaNoWriMo. Yeah, it snuck up on me too, but whatever–I’m starting a brand new novel, and along with it, I’m starting a brand new posting schedule for The Tenth Word. You can also expect some layout changes to accompany the book’s release, just two and a half weeks away!

The Countdown Has an Ending

Holy crap I’ve been a bad blogger. Over a week without a post? And my posts have been getting more and more irregular? That’s a problem. In fact, coming up shortly I’m going to be re-examining this whole blogging thing. I like having this personal web space, but if I can’t keep it nice and updated, what’s the point?

And more than anything, I need to find some new things to talk about. I’m starting to bore myself talking over and over again about the novel countdown. Yes, it’s stressful, but that somehow doesn’t make it automatically riveting.

Fortunately, in regard to Fugitives from Earth, the stress is about to end (or at least, mutate). It turned out that the only person with the time to do the copyediting, who was willing to do it for free, was me. My wife put in a valiant effort, but she’s even busier than I am, and I still don’t have hundreds of free dollars to spend on the novel, especially since I still have to get it printed.

So that copyediting is a little over half done, and I have every confidence that the novel will be finished (at least in terms of the story) by this weekend. That’ll leave me a few days to do the formatting, and plenty of time to get my review copy before ordering actual printed books for OryCon!

It’s kind of unreal that it’s so close; I’m looking forward to going back to being an actual writer. I feel like I’ve been doing less and less work per day as this novel’s drawn itself out and out. I definitely don’t want to have a major deadline like this if I can ever help it; doing some other creative work would’ve helped to lessen the pain a bit, and kept me from losing my good habits.

Anyway, the next time you hear from me, by this weekend, I should have the novel well in hand. Then I can start the non-writerly parts of self publishing. Yay!

The Joy of Constrained Creativity

So, did I accomplish my goal of getting the novel’s final creative revision done by Friday? You might remember that I promised to set myself on fire if I did not, but…I did not. However! I decided to delay my frustration-induced self-immolation for another week because I did accomplish something equally noteworthy: the cover!

Now I figure another three to four hours of work will finish up the creative revision, and then it’s just copyediting and layout. I’m encouraged by reports from fellow NIWAns that layout won’t be crisis-level hard, since they’ve got templates, tips, and tricks that’ll make it easier. The trick will be to take care of the submission stuff early enough that I can get a full gallery/test copy mailed to me, correct it, and then get a bunch more mailed to me for the con.

So, that’s enough of a countdown post for today. I want to briefly talk about an awesome experience I had last week: it’s called Fiasco.

I imagine that plenty of you writers out there play or have played tabletop roleplaying games. If you’ve played more than once or twice, you probably know that some RPG systems have a lot of stats, mechanics, and die rolling, and will thus tend to play more like wargames. Others put more of an emphasis on story and character, with mechanics that influence gameplay without dominating it. And then there are a few indie games that have few to no mechanics, so as not to get in the way of the story.

Fiasco is one of the latter. It has rules, but those rules exist just to put some interesting restraints on gameplay. Without over-explaining, I’ll just say that character relationships are determined by a series of die rolls, and the characters themselves naturally evolve out of those relationships. For example, in our game, two players had the relationship “mutinous.” They were on a 1930s-era Titanic-esque ocean liner, so we decided that they were officers on the ship. One of those guys would be a criminal, since his relationship with another player was “mutual criminals.”

And then the game took off. We decided two players were working with pirates to hijack the ship, and the third player was the straight man, a crew member who stumbles on the plot. Over the course of the games 12 scenes, the players killed the captain, accidentally framed each other for the crime, barricaded themselves in the bridge, accidentally shot a passenger, and blew out the engine. It was the most fun two hours of recent memory.

I bring this up partially just because I had so much fun with it, but also because I think that, more than most RPGs, it’s a great tool for writers. It doesn’t have a game master, so everyone gets to participate in the plot. You’ve got a framework, constraints that force creativity, but don’t stifle it. The theme of the game is, generally, “small people get over their heads with fatal results,” and that informs the action as well.

The world of writing is similar. The constraints are generally self-imposed rather than external, and obviously there’s a wider variety of stories to tell, but the thinking process is the same: “Next scene. What would be awesome?” I think Fiasco is an awesome creative exercise for writers, particularly ones that wouldn’t roll a D20 if their lives depended on it.

Anyway. I hope to have more triumphant news to report by the end of the week. Also, NaNoWriMo approaches! So much to do.

P.S. Might be fun to do a Fiasco hangout on Google+. Anyone interested?