Clonepod, who will be running the first of the Union Dues: Team Shikaragaki stories has set up a couple of great t-shirts for sale at their site. Clonepod and I split the proceeds, so your purchase will help me put food on my table, and help the Clonepod gang (Abby, Forrest, and Zack) save for college. That's like killing two birds with one stone!

What are you waiting for? Go buy a shirt!

Recorded a mammoth 3 hour interview extravaganza with Aaron Macom over at Sci Fi Dig. I'm guessing it'll air either sometime this week or next. We talked about everything from giant monster films (and our mutual dislike of Cloverfield), tokusatsu TV shows, chambara (sword fight) movies, and writing/publishing... If I left anything out, hey, it was three hours long!

Check it out when it goes live!

The gang over at Clonepod have finished their recording of Union Dues: The Ballad of Kitty Momoiro! It should air sometime in the next month or so.

In the world of POD, that is Print On Demand, there is a big battle going on between POD companies and Amazon over who will be allowed to print the books sold through the Amazon website. I've mentioned many, many, many times that POD is a baaaaad idea and I stand by that. The internecine fighting between these companies and the largest online distribution chain just makes it that much worse. Why put up with all this bullshit on top of the ridiculous cost to pay for your own publishing too? The Pocket Sales Model that POD companies rely on only benefits them.

The reason I mention POD today is because it came up during the interview with Sci Fi Dig as part of a question about whether or not I'd consider self publishing as part of Amazon's Kindle program. You'll have to listen to the whole interview to get all the reason why I won't consider it, suffice to say hitching my limited exposure to a $400 proprietary device seems like a bad idea. But if you've done it, drop me and line and let me know what your experience was like. I am strangely intrigued by the idea, but my POD-bullshit detector is bleeping like R2D2.

Still, if you've done it, and made decent money with it, let me know.

Okay, so here’s the rub. I am apparently only six people away from someone famous, a publisher, a producer or a well connected literary agent. That puts each of you reading this five degrees away from these same people.

Therefore, I need your help to get the Union Dues, or the Pleasant Hollow series in front of someone influential.

I’m having zilch luck with my queries, but that’s to be expected now that publishing has become so conservative in what they choose to purchase and release. I need a foot in the door, I need a way in, I need you to help me. Read any issue of Writer’s Digest and you’ll see first time authors who say they made the big break because someone they knew was a literary agent, or publisher, or was related to one, or worked with one etc.

How about you? You like the stories I’ve sold, right? You might know someone in a position to stick them under an agent’s nose, or on a publisher’s desk, or into the bathroom stall with a film or television producer. You have to know someone, right? I mean, I know you... And we’re only one degree apart.

Escape Pod, where the Union Dues stories live gets over 10,000 unique downloads a week. I’ve already spoken to a small production outfit in Canada, but that went nowhere. Someone in that 10,000 unique downloads has to be someone with the power to bring these stories to greater exposure.

So your challenge is to look through your contact list, address book, and personal friendships and find that person who can help me, and get my stories in front of them. The first reader that scores me at least an e-mail from someone with demonstrated publishing/production muscle gets a free dinner at Manchester’s Red Arrow Diner (the only 24 hour diner in New Hampshire).

Here are the Union Dues stories.

Here are the Pleasant Hollow stories.

It’s been a while since I’ve had the necessary time to update my poor neglected blog. But here I am today. So, let me offer a quicky update as to what I’ve been engaged.

I’ve been recording and submitting commentary tracks about writing to The Writing Show.

I’ve been polishing the Team Shikaragaki stories. The first of which, The Ballad of Kitty Momoiro, will appear at Clonepod in a few weeks or months. You should definitely check out the Clondpod podcast! It’s edited by three middle-school-age kids and some adult accompaniment. They’re new, but you wouldn’t know it from the quality of their production.

I’ve been chipping away at a couple of Zombie stories, a few Union Dues stories, among other miscellaneous stuff.

Oh, did I mention I lost my job? Well, that explains the time I’ve had recently to work on the writing that I want to do and love to do. Yeah, the contract I was working under (in hell) wasn’t renewed. Hooray! Not to worry, I was able to save a little, and I can collect unemployment for a bit. Besides, it’s not like I can’t find another gig. i can and I will.

Finally, I was able to add the most recent Escape Pod published Union Dues stories to the page. Finding a player was a pain in the ass, especially for someone as html/css impaired as I am.

So, check out Send in the Clowns, and the just published All That We Leave Behind, today! I’d love to know what you think! And check out The Writing Show!

Hi everyone. Haven't been around much as I'm recently/newly employed and haven't quite adapted to the schedule. This doesn't mean I haven't been writing, I just haven't had time for blogging, or really had anything to blog about. No one wants to read "hate my new job" right?

I work in a place where every keystroke is pretty much recorded for permanent posterity and since I am in the habit of writing fiction between projects on my computer, it's been a torturous two months. But, necessity being the mother of invention, I've found a solution -

Scrap paper. Yep. Just like The Belle of Amherst, I'm scrawling down short stories in longhand on the back of old outlines, hand outs, and other things, stuffing them in my lunchbox, and bringing them home.

So, with that said - what's in development?

Well, I've got the next two Pleasant Hollow stories nearly complete - The Walker, which I started before I began the new job, is about 4000 words. The new one, The Marionette is about 30 handwritten pages long. I have no idea what that word count it.. but I'll update once I finish transcribing it.

Atop that I'm still writing for my patron, though I haven't had much time since before Thanksgiving to put any good time into the next story, which is already at the 5 draft stage. It's hard because I'm working from 500 words worth of notes for a 2000 word story. So either it's an info dump, or a story... in one case it has no story, in the other it has no info.

Next one will work though. I have a solution already planned.

I'm considering adding a new first chapter to Tears of Amaterasu which is still under consideration at Zumaya Publications. I should be hearing from them in the next couple of months if their submission turnaround time is to be believed.

I'm got two new commentaries ready for recording at The Writing Show too!

Busy busy busy.

I have just received word that my short story Lilies for Donald has won first prize in the Tales of the Zombie War quarterly fiction contest. Thanks to all who've read it and sent comments to me or to their site!

If you haven't read it, you can still read it for free at Tales of the Zombie War.

Just sold Lilies for Donald to a cool online mag called "Tales of the Zombie War" and if you can't tell what their focus is from the title...

Anyway, please read and enjoy and comment at their site.

First things first... Being out of work sort or sucks, but I've made the best of my time when not searching job boards and sending resumes I've been working on book marketing and short story creation. Fortunately, I haven't reach the depth of unemployment seeded despair that I spend all day watching Godzilla DVDs and feeling sorry for myself.

I'm embroiled in a very cool project at the moment that has become somewhat of a life and sanity saver, it's a writing project, but you already knew that. I don't want to shoot too many details out there for fear of jinxing myself, but I'll throw the story of the gig down and, like they used to say on Dragnet, the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

I received a phone call from someone who first asked my name, then asked if I was the same guy who authors the Union Dues stories.

I am, in fact, that guy!

He was putting together a non-fiction project but thought it would benefit from some fiction between the covers to help illustrate the concepts and ideas in his book. He liked my writing, and figured I'd be cheap (and I don't mean in the sense, frugal), and wondered if I'd be interested.

Was I interested? Was I interested?? Does Ronald McDonald wear floppy shoes???

The terms are that I put together stories based in part, or in whole, on his ideas and each story must be no more than 2000 words. If accepted I would receive the princely sum of $.15 per word, which, if you don't have a calculator ready, is $300 per story.

So far so good! Well, I put the first story together over the weekend after spending some research time getting to know the general gist of the book in question, submitted it, and after a single rewrite, was paid.

Amazing! If only magazines were as efficient as regular people!

The coolest bit isn't that I am getting paid well for these stories, that goes without saying, the cool bit for me is that I have a real honest to goodness hard, short, word count limit. if you've read or listened to any of my fiction over the last couple of years you'll realize I tend to keep my stories in the 5000-6000 word count area. I am usually just getting warmed up at the 2000 word mark, so this assignment has forced me to write with more punch and more economy than ever!

I usually work to an established formula mirroring the three act structure, so scaling that back wouldn't be too much of a problem. I could trim some of my usual dialogue, again, no problem there. Finally, I could restrain myself from getting overly detailed.

Could I? Well, here's the rub. These stories are all short futuristic science fiction with some ties to our current world, but loads of new technology and concepts to explore. Hmmm, it's getting challenging now.

I put the first piece together and forced myself to have a workable ending on the first draft at or before 2500 words. This limit would allow me a little leeway to get the story complete, and have some room to go back and make decisions on what had to be cut.

The lesson of this is, increase the word limit a little, so you can go back and shrink it down again. Not only did I cut dialogue, description, and detail, I found places where the story hit a fork in the road, one side of which I never followed. After pruning everything that looked out of place, speeding up some sentences, and cutting back on my penchant for descriptive pauses (John paused, and looked at his shoes, before continuing...) I had a solid 2000 words even.

I had to change the ending, which offered a 180 degree shift in the central plot of the story, and this new ending would require a little more verbiage than I'd used in the first draft. So, that meant more cuts. And in this second draft I'd find a sentence that didn't really need to be in the story, delete it, watch the word count drop by say, 30 words, then scroll to the end and add 30 words to the conclusion. I did this over and over and over until the conclusion was complete and the story wrapped up just perfectly.

Sort of like fiction writing ping pong.

Man, I tell you though, I had a great time. Having to make very judicious edits was time consuming, I had to cut sentences and passages of conversation that I liked, hell, I loved, just to buy enough words to get the end on the story, and you know, the story was better for it!

I'm mid way through the second tale in this set now and using this same process, set the initial count to 2500, then go in and prune/polish down to 2000 words.

In the end the story was satisfying for both of us!

So, I've learned two things:

1. Good process
2. I can write a complete and compelling story in 2000 words of less.

Now, the key is that I apply these lessons to the other works I have in process, or set a bit down the pipeline. If I could cut, say, 1000 words of fluff from some of my unsellables, I might make them attractive to more editors. Such cuts would certainly make the stories more concise and fun to read. I might have to focus more on what the most important aspect of the story too, and can do away with some of the peripheral distractions.

So, what's today's lesson? Try setting a hard limit, half or less than half of what you normally write for short fiction, and stick to it. See if you can punch up your tale by making it smaller!

Writing update-

Still waiting for Escape Pod to publish "Send in the Clowns" and eventually, "All That We Leave Behind".

Received a nice personal rejection from Pseudopod for "Lilies for Donald", in a nutshell the editor said it was "quite beautifully written... but the climax was shockingly graphic, as if another writer stepped in and added it."

I'm not a horror writer, so getting my brain around the genre tropes, pacing, and style is going to take some time. The editor circumvented my asking to edit and resubmit by asking that I don't.

So I won't.

Remember when I said I had a place on deck for every story that gets bounced? I did this time too, and shot the tale right to Apex Digest. Maybe I'll have more luck with it there.

I've hit the 3/4 mark with the next story set in Pleasant Hollow (same as Lilies for Donald), The Walker, but I am struggling a bit with the conclusion. However, at the moment I am consumed with 2000 word science fiction stories for a negotiated price, so it isn't like The Walker won't get finished. It just won't get finished this week.

I am also dabbling around some in the short novel based around the Zatoichi films. I still don't have a good title for it, but at 40,000 words it's progressing nicely. The title will come later no doubt.

I've also got two commentaries to write for The Writing Show that we'll record next week.

Finally, I've been sending queries and novel chapters out like mad as I try and land both Tears of Amaterasu and a collection of the Union Dues stories with a major agent/publisher. So far only one rejection.

Keep writing!

Check out this week's Escape Pod story, Transcendence Express it's a good piece of real science fiction.

So, I was laid off this week after 9 years of Instructional Design and project management at Telecommunications Research Associates. The shock is wearing off a little now, but it's still a shock. They whacked me on my first day back from vacation.

Nice huh?

Well, things change all the time and I guess 9 years is a good run for that place.

But onto writing -

While on vacation I started the next of The Hamlet stories. This one is called "The Walker" and is told in first person, present from the POV of Reverend Lyons (as introduced in Lilies for Donald). Again the town of Pleasant Hollow is featured as the setting. I actually found the perfect model for the town in Whitefield, New Hampshire where I spent the last couple of days on vacation from gainful employment in Whitefield at my pal Dan's cabin. Very peaceful.

No TV.

No Radio.

No computer.

Just me and a spiral bound notebook.

But the idea didn't just blast into my head when we arrived. See, I'd heard that layoffs were pending (though didn't know at the time that my name would be on the hit list) so I wasn't in the right frame of mind for a two hour drive. But boy was I angry.

Still, as Cindy drove us through these amazing winding country roads to the north country I kept thinking about the world I'd envisioned in Lilies for Donald. And I thought of a man walking. By the time we hit Lincoln for lunch I had my notebook out and the first two paragraphs or so written.

After that it was just a matter of Dan and Cindy and the kids giving me a good couple of hours of quiet time to write. Whatever emotional state we're in colors how we write, and I am usually a pretty easy going guy so my writing is usually breeze and accessible. However, I found that both Lilies for Donald and The Walker I've been able to channel all the lousy crap that's gone on into prose and that makes the really real world easier to deal with, and easier for really real world people to deal with me.

The point of all this is, I didn't intend to write anything, my mindset was completely focused on plotting a course of action should the hammer fall at work. Where would I go next? How long could we live on no savings? Who could we borrow from? How bad would we have to scramble? But even in the midst of all this panic, I found that writing about fighting off hordes of zombies provided a nice visceral escape from my problems, and even helped me keep my cool when the word came down from Kansas that my position had been eliminated.

Was I polite? Sure was. Was I professional? You bet. Did I envision a legion of undead tearing my former bosses to bloody pieces. Oh sure. Will that show up in The Walker? More than likely.

But all is not so bad. I put in my paperwork for alternative certification to teach high-school level English, and I have an interview on Friday for just that sort of job.

In other news -

The Writing Show Smackdown with Matt Selznick, Stacie Penney, and me was posted on Sunday. I am happy with the way it turned out. It sure was fun to record, technical glitches with Skype and phones not withstanding. Some of it was heated. Some of it was complimentary. I still believe POD is a death sentence for fiction writing careers, but that's me.

Still waiting for Union Dues: Send in the Clowns to hit Escape Pod. Maybe this week. I could sure use some cheering up tomorrow.

A quick update -

Union Dues: All That We Leave Behind has been accepted for publication at Escape Pod :)

And now, the text of this week's commentary available at The Writing Show.

***

The Care and Feeding of First Readers

It's not easy to find a person with the right personality to be a good and useful first reader.

A common mistake that many writers make when looking for someone to critique their material is that they think because their first reader tells them they'd rather marinate in kerosene and roll around in a campfire than read another one of your space opera, superhero, sword and sorcery, mini epics, that they should find a first reader with little more tact.

Now, don't get me wrong, negative feedback can often be less than useful, especially if it's delivered in spite, but having a special someone, or group of special someones who'll flat out tell you "this story sucks!" is a rare treasure and far more beneficial than having someone tell you "man this story is awesome" no matter what you give them to read. Generally, if your first readers can't find something to fix in your story, then you need new first readers.

I've got three first readers. Yes, it sounds like an oxymoron, how can you have three of anything that's truly first?

The key is specialization.

My friend Jim from horrorview, he's a dialogue and pacing man. He can spot a paragraph that deviates into "the many colors of sky" territory at a glance, and won't hesitate to point it out.

My wife Cindy, she's the spelling and grammar guru. She can circle a run-on sentence, or a misspelling/type-o from fifty yards (meters for our non-American listeners).

My pal Dan, he's the overall story guy. He doesn't bother with the little details, but he's a pro at mapping the flow of a piece. He can identify at exactly which word my plot switched from heartwarming tale of motherly love to melancholy rumination on robot mortality. Even better, he can usually offer me good solutions for finishing either type of story.

Now, having three fantastic volunteers sounds easy, but it's not. You won't keep a set of quality first readers without giving more than your current manuscript in return for their time, effort, and red ink.

Nope, you have to become a useful and effective first reader for them by freely giving your time, patience, and honesty.

First readering is no easy task. Trying to piece together a narrative from a thousand words or so from their projects is tough. And it's not just reading and saying "yeah, that works!" There's more, and a whole lot of it involves not writing and not reading. In its place are communicating about the story, probing for answers about the overall project, or questioning why this part is so vastly different from that part, or asking which market they think this piece fits in, and why. And sometimes it's just venting about the writing process in general, giving a good ear so they can talk through whatever narrative problem they have until you, they, or a combination of the two, sorts out the problem.

Jim and I chat over the AOL Instant Messenger, and like me, he's ALWAYS ONLINE so I can shoot him a chapter, or a whole 6000 word short, and ask if he's got time. If he does we'll go back and forth over the IM until we've dissected whatever I sent and I can move forward. Same goes for him. He'll drop a story or a novel chapter into my inbox and ask for feedback.

And I always give his work first priority, not only because he's a very talented writer and he's been my best friend since we were in 4th grade, but because he is such a good first reader for me. It's a pleasure to help him work through a story, just as it's a pleasure to have him work through one of mine.

Do we argue? Sure, all the time, but in the end we are both better writers for it.

Cindy lives here so I print up and hand manuscripts to her. Usually when Meg is sleeping she'll pour through a story, red pen in hand, and slam an edit on my desk before afternoon coffee. Sometimes, if she likes a story, she'll hang around and we'll talk about it. She doesn't write, so I get a pass there, but I do other stuff to make up for it.

Dan gets his via e-mail, then on Thursday nights over a pot of coffee we talk about the big picture and how to make whatever focus changes are necessary. Usually by the second pot of coffee I've got Dan's manuscript out and we're going line by line through the thing. Sometimes we bark at each other, other times we physically, literally tear stories apart, but in the end our respective work is better.

One key to maintaining a good relationship with first readers is to put as much, if not more, effort into being a good reader for them than being a good writer for yourself. In turn they grace me with their insight, and honestly and that gives me a set of guardrails because I know if a story starts going off track they will probably spot it before I do.

The second key is honesty. If you really don't like something, say so, and be happy when they do the same. Sometimes your first reader just won't jive with what you write, Jim doesn't like my samurai stories. But he doesn't let that stop him from being a first reader. He's probably harder on these than on the stuff he does like by virtue of not being swept up in the narrative, same with Cindy, same with Dan.

And it's the same with me when I first read for them.

Besides, it's less painful to hear "this story sucks" from a friend than it does to hear it from an editor.