#Novellines: A Rant and a Plea

For those of you not on Twitter, you’re really missing out on this really cool hash-tag, #novellines… which I believe is pronounced nah-vehl-leens or perhaps nah-veh-yeens. Anywho, the whole “thing” behind these 140-character blurbs is to pimp your novel or a favorite novel by tweeting random lines. Now, I think this is a really cool idea, I honestly do. But I also think that people are really dumb. And especially – apparently – independent (remember – that’s what we’re calling ourselves nowadays) authors.

If you do a quick search of #novellines you’ll see such award-winning lines as:

“I knew that if he told me, then I would know. #NovelLines”

“There was a hunger in her. A hunger that I knew no bacon double-cheeseburger could sate. #NovelLines”

“’That boy’s no good for you.’ ‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘Because… he’s a fallen were-vampire angel… from HELL.’ #NOVELLINES”

“I hadn’t seen her for a long time. At least not like this… in public… with her knowing that I saw her. #novellines”

Okay… so maybe those weren’t legitimate #novellines, but they’re a good example of what quality you'll get. Sure, you’ll occasionally find a rare treat, a diamond-in-the-giant-garbage-bin-full-of-rancid-trash, but more often than not, you’ll be getting some tired, on the nose selection of dialogue or some cheesy description of a vampire sorceress’s two big, bulging teeth. 

I love Twitter, but the whole tweet-machine is a very good argument for independent authors to have agents or PR people of some kind. Now, some of the authors out there use it responsibly. They post a link to a blog or to their book once a week or every few days. Heck, even some of them post a really good #novellines every now and again. They pick legitimately good sections of their work, probably ask a few people - to double-check their own biases - and post that line once… maybe again a few weeks later at the soonest. Then there are the spammers. I would hate these people, but when they’re spamming really, really badly, I can’t help but feel sorry for them... knowing full well that someday very soon (hopefully) I will become them (not-hopefully). 

Part of me wants to send these people a private message and say, “Hey, you might want to spell check these excerpts you’re posting” or “Is that really the best line of your book? I really liked this line, why don’t you use it?” An even bigger part wants to scream, “It’s the same audience as two hours ago!” Eventually, if you post about your accomplishments, your little baby’s first steps, your really great method to get bloodstains out of carpet squares, too much, you get Un-Followed. Or Un-Friended in the case of Facebook. At the least, people will Hide your updates because they’re tired of their feed being filled with your Spotify song of the minute. 

I’ve blogged about the importance of honest editor-friends before, and this is my open invitation for filtering. In the coming months (I say months to give myself plenty of window to surprise people with an “earlier” production cause ‘months’ can mean up to eleven), I will begin touting my own wares similar to a stay-at-home mom guilting her friends into buying a $20 candle and a canteen full of facial cream. My request to you is that you tell me to shut up. If I spit out a line that makes you want to not-read again ever, maybe be like, “Hey, Dallas, you’re really tall and all, but I don’t think that selection you posted is the best example of your work.” And I’ll say, “Thanks for the compliment and the honest critique,” and go cry myself to sleep. Or if I’m filling up your feed, just send me a quick, subtle message and say, “Hey, knock it off, you self-promoting hack. Nobody cared 5 minutes ago when you posted the link, and no one cares now. Heck, no one will care in 5 more minutes or 5 more years! Also, I really like the stubbly-facial hair look you’ve got going right now.” Again, critique and compliment… makes it easier to digest.

Okay. This is getting way too long. I expect plenty of TL;DR comments. /rant

Incomplete Thoughts on Completion

Have you ever noticed that things often become very difficult if you don’t have a deadline? Or a schedule? Or any self-discipline? Or a stack of imported Anime DVDs to watch with your wife? 

What has it been like eleventy months since I last blogged? Yeah, sure, I haven’t been active here in a while, but that’s not really what I’m talking about. I’m talking about a book, or – heck – how I approach projects in general. The closer I get to finishing, the more I find myself distracted, disengaged, and full of excuses. 

It’s like making a move in chess but keeping your finger on the piece. You’re pretty sure that moving your knight forward places the king in check and blocks retribution from the rook because your queen still has a bead on the crown. But what about that pawn, and that bishop, and that other pawn? Is this really the best possible move to make? I’ll just keep my finger here… maybe slide the piece back and forth between here and it’s starting position just to make sure I know what I’m doing. Meanwhile, I’m already thinking ahead to the next move, the next book, and trying to make sure that this play sets that one up properly, and the guy across the board from me has started playing Pokemon because he’s lost interest in the game. Ooh, Pokemon is fun. Maybe you should be playing that instead of chess.

Or maybe you’re decorating your Christmas tree with your family and you’ve got the tinsel spaced perfectly, the ornaments distributed nicely, the tinkerbell tree-topper looks great… everything’s working. Or so you’re told. You’re not so sure about the lights though… and that’s a pretty big deal. Plus, when you asked Steven about it, he was all wincing, and sucking in air through his teeth, and kind-of bobbly-headed with his response. Maybe you should just pull off a couple of layers and rebuild. But at least with Christmas décor you have a deadline. 

Right now, the last thing I want to do is rush, but eventually, if you sit there too long, you get hemorrhoids. And nobody wins with hemorrhoids… except maybe the company that makes Tucks.

Word Spewing

So, I have just returned from a nice, week-long vacation. Where did I go? That magical place some people like to call a backyard (or as my friends across the pond call it – the garden) to do a ton of yard work. In truth, this “vacation” wasn’t really nice at all. My entire family was brought low by the plague and each of us spent a day vomiting (or in my case, a night). I hate vomiting. It’s painful, disgusting, and it makes you feel completely helpless when you’re curled up on the bathroom floor, staring at old toenail clippings and all the hair that gets matted into the carpet, just trying to keep your stomach from exploding all over the room. The only thing worse than vomiting is a fit of dry heaves. It’s the same uncontrollable crushing of your sternum against your spine, the same en mass escape attempt by your organs, and the same amount of eye-bulging strain… just none of the pleasure of coloring the water with your five-hour old snack of Twizzlers.

     For me, dry heaves are akin to writing a superfluous tale. It’s the same amount of work and effort and time that goes into crafting any sort of story, but there’s no real heart. Now, you might kid yourself into thinking that your new story about zombies or a government funded school for people with unique powers has some sort of merit, especially since they’re quite a bit more marketable than your standard tripe, but if you’re just writing that story to tell only that story then it’s little more than a dry heave. That’s not to say zombie stories can’t have more to them than a scream or a laugh or a some ill-timed flatulence that draws disgusted stares from your fellow movie-goers. But if art – in any form – is only entertaining, then it is falling short of its potential. Sure, we all need a break from themes and depth every now and again, but a good foot to the groin will make me giggle just as much as a theme-less script meant only to entertain. Heck, it has nearly twice the emotive power, since it makes one person laugh and another cry.

     I get distracted quite often by my desire to work on funny or clever ideas that have about as much depth and substance as a piece of toilet paper (used or unused). It’s time I switch to vomiting in earnest. No more of this gut-wrenching with nothing worthwhile to show for it.

The Writer's Scrapbook

My “Monday” posts are slowly becoming “sometime-during-the-week” posts. Tuesday morning before 8 counts as Monday, right? It sure feels like it. In truth, I had a completed post ready to go last night, but I sat back and said, “This is boring.” So I had my wife read it just to be sure. She agreed a little too quickly, and I spend the rest of the evening sulking under the covers while she worked on our daughter’s 1^st Year Scrapbook.

     Scrapbooks are funny things. They’re basically just a collection of pictures with notes by them so you remember what the heck was going on that day you decided to pose with your foot behind your head, your tongue out, and a 5-foot tuna cuddled up in your lap. They’re conversation pieces and they’re a sort of lineage tracker in some ways… something you can sit down on the couch next to your kids with and talk about what life was like before you were stuck paying for their diapers, the tons of food they ingest, and that stupid pet they guilted you into buying because all the “good” dads that “loved” their children had bought them pets that cost more to maintain than a college education (I use the word maintain purposefully because I do not care for or nurture pets).

     My wife has made a scrapbook for each year of our marriage and has almost completed this new one for our daughter, and the coolest thing about them is the page by page growth. It’s like we have this little tome that transports us back in time and holds our hand as we reminisce. Sure… pictures can do that. But scrapbooks do it better. I can flip a few pages back and see what I looked like without a beard (which is actually how I think of myself, even though I’ve had one for almost two years now), I can see the different stages of my hair, and I can watch my waistline expand over the course of a few pages. (Curse you McDonalds Monopoly Month!!!!)

     I’ve been thinking of taking all my old writing and putting it together in a writing scrapbook of sorts; all the notes and character ideas and shorts stories and even all that really bad poetry I wrote my freshman year of college. I don’t believe that any writing is ever wasted, except perhaps on “The Happening.” That was just awful. Even when I’m doing re-writes I don’t like the idea of just tossing the old copy out. For one, there might be a gem or two in there that – while it didn’t seem to work for this piece – might go nicely with that idea I had for a zombie musical or something. Second, it shows how much I’ve grown and how much I’ve changed. Back in 2001 I started writing a book; just started writing away on what would eventually become my world. I got as far as the first chapter before spending the next few years just working on the world as a whole. But that story is the same tale as my current work: the tale of Polas Kas Dorian (no… that’s not what I’m calling it). Granted, that first chapter was almost an exact copy of the first chapter of Elvenbane by Mercedes Lackey and Andre Norton, but it helped to lay the ground work. I even went through a haiku phase. In fact, I have the outlines for six or seven novels summed up in to three lines of 5-7-5. Sure, most of that old stuff is really really bad, but, in most cases, it’s my foundation. It’s something I can pull out every once and a while and remind myself of how much I’ve grown and sometimes even find something great that I had dismissed after first writing it down. Like that scrap of paper that has “Mareness will protect them” scrawled across it. That’s all it says, but dang… it really makes me want to know about Mareness, who she’s protecting, and what the heck she’s protecting them from.  

Your Mom's an NPC

I’m having a major case of blog-writer’s block today. I’ve typed a first sentence to about nine different entry ideas now and backspaced my way through each of them shortly after. I even considered just making a top ten list of things to do when you don’t feel like writing. It would have been pretty great… and hilarious because each of the ten options was actually going to be writing. Heck, maybe I’ll save that for another day when I’m having blog-block.

     This has been a week in which everything really starts to pile up. The fence in my backyard is about to fall down, the plastic tarp I ordered to finish my landscaping in the front yard will be here tomorrow, I’ve got a pile of 2 x 4’s in the garage waiting to be made into the base for a built-in bookshelf/desk for my bedroom, and I just started writing “book 2” a few days ago. Thankfully, I have a bit of vacation time coming up pretty soon. I’m not planning anything fancy, but it will be nice to have time to get some of these things done (and probably take a few naps too).

     People sure love vacation time in the summer… and it usually leaves more work behind for the people stuck in the office. In fact, sometimes I almost feel guilty about taking time off and leaving my own tasks behind for someone else to pick up. But then I remember that I’m the protagonist. Right? Who knows if my office even exists when I’m not there. Maybe it’s just a sandbox setting and the plot won’t advance unless I’m there to trigger the next bit of action by – I don’t know – starting a small fire in my waste basket and watching while all the other employees rush to our fire-safety spot, saving a nun that’s stuck in a tree, being in my chair so that someone can come ask me some significant question, and/or driving down 2^nd street so that the crazy lady knows to pull out in front of me and cause me to need to wash my underwear earlier in the week than I had planned. Any of these things might unlock a new level or some area in which I can hunt higher level Pokemon in the tall grass.

     See, all of those other people are supporting characters and – I assume – they have absolutely no ambition in life outside of how their path crosses mine. In fact, they probably just go inert like some sad robot when I’m not around (except of course when they’re calling me or doing something that will later affect me). That’s just the way supporting characters work, right? But that doesn’t explain why these people think they’re just as important as me to the overarching… umm… story.

     As I said about nine inches earlier, I just started writing “book 2” and I’ve picked up with some of the supporting characters. We won’t see the “main” group for a few chapters, and I’m enjoying the heck out of it. In fact, I really don’t want to leave these guys alone. That’s one thing that J.K. Rowling and some (basically any that aren’t George Lucas) of the Star Wars authors do very well: give their supporting cast purpose and draw. Minor roles become multi-dimensional and we find ourselves caring about who Luna Lovegood ends up marrying, whether or not Tahiri Veila will ever be a Jedi again, or why Karrah has had such trouble stepping into the role of a true leader of the Dairbun.

     So, here’s to the NPCs in your life… and sorry this blog-block-breaking idea turned into such a long post.

Another Necro-Monday

So summer is officially here and my Monday through Thursday work hours have changed to something Adrian Peterson might equate with building the pyramids. However, my Fridays are now far grander than even a normally awesome Friday… they’re like Uber-Fridays. Why? Because I only have to work from 8 until noon. That’s hardly even worth the ten minute drive to and from work, right? I’m pretty sure Rebecca Black would crap herself if she got Uber-Fridays in middle school.

     While Uber-Fridays are all well and good, these other days are going to kick my butt. I just experienced my first Necro-Monday today, and I' m spent, done, kaput. I just want to curl up in a ball under the couch next to a honey-roasted peanut and a dime and hide here hoping that no one will ever find me. In this dark den, I start to see characters take shape and energy that I desperately need is drained from me as ideas leak out. Once the house is still and I'm certain no one will see me, I crawl out from my hidey-hole, strap myself down in front of the computer, dump a box of raisinettes into my mouth (which I hate, but feel a desire to eat about once a year anyway), and watch as the last of my soma trickles from my fingertips.

     And then a funny thing happens. The tiny bit of energy pools and waxes. The characters take what little energy I give them and amplify it and I find it redirected back through my hands, up my arms, down my back, and... well, sometimes it's just gas. But other times I am renewed and each keystroke charges me and draws me closer to the screen while pushing me further than I would have thought possible when I was hiding in the dark, damp places where words are only thought and dreams wither for lack of nourishment. I leave behind jobs that siphon off energy and people that use and take as they see fit. When I am here, though the first three gates may be depleted, I open the fourth and fifth gates and push myself beyond mortal coils of mindless drudgery, task laden monotony, and the doubt I have in my own abilities.

     I guess Nike always had it right: it's really fun to fly around battlefields and rewards soldiers with glory and fame. Nevermind... I thought there was an appropriate metaphor in there somewhere, but I guess I missed it.   

Getting Old

I am now officially old. I attended my ten year high school reunion (well, technically it wasn’t mine… I was part of the class from Kindergarten through 11^th grade but graduated elsewhere) this past weekend. We took a tour of the old school grounds which had been dramatically updated, we all commented on how cute each others' kids were while secretly knowing that mine was the cutest, and we played – badly – a four inning game of softball. I spent the next day feeling like someone had stabbed me in the shoulder with a Barbie Doll foot (those things are sharp!) and cried myself to sleep after downing a bottle of tasty Percocet.

     I also helped a student navigate the waters of admission to the university at which I work last week (that sentence was overly wordy, but I didn’t want to say “my university”). Now, helping students get admitted happens all the time, but this particular student happened to be the little sister of one of my old classmates and I remember when she was born… cause I was in middle school! Talk about feeling old! Granted, I’m still more than a year away from thirty… but only by two months. When I wander the toy aisle at Target, I don’t recognize half of the cartoons the toys are based on and the ones I do recognize are making their comebacks because they’re so old that people like them again. Worst of all, I’m pretty sure my back hair is starting to gray.

     I did get to see a few of my former teachers and administrators over the last few days. One thing that I was reminded of was that there are plenty of people older than me. And a lot of those older people are pretty awesome. In fact, I’m entering the stage of life that they were in when they had such a huge impact in mine. Growing up, most all of my teachers were in their thirties and forties. They had families and bad backs and mortgages. They were falling victim to thinning hair, early signs of wrinkles, and bowel irregularity. But did they let that stop them from rocking some lectures on volcanoes or throwing out some wicked-sweet cursive homework or telling me to sit down and be quiet because nobody cares what a pterodactyl sounds like when it’s in heat? Heck no! They were classroom demi-gods! They didn’t let any of that “getting old” crap stop them, and neither will I. That graying back hair is really just a sign that I’m a silverback, and silverbacks will mess you up… with knowledge!

     What does any of this have to do with writing? Well, very little other than the fact that this weekend really made me think about that page at the beginning of every good book where the author acknowledges the fact that there are cooler people out there than him/her. I guess I’m going to have to write a lot of books in order to thank all the people that made a difference in my life. Or maybe I should just include a complete list via an Excel file with each digital copy… that’s probably more efficient.

A Day Late, An Artist Short

Sorry today’s post is a day late. I didn’t get back into town until Sunday evening after spending the weekend at the Dallas Comic Convention in Las Colinas. I had a good time, spent less money that I took with me (which is an amazing feat for me), and got some really great sketches and commissions from local artists (I’ll post them later this week). I came back completely exhausted and had to drag myself to work yesterday morning, and it wasn’t until about 10 am that I realized I was still holding a dirty diaper in my left hand and my deodorant stick in my right (which probably explained why half of me smelled like poo all day).

     I had been waiting to attend this con for months, and now that I’m back, I find that I’m still waiting. I went into the weekend hoping to make connections with an artist or two, begin haggling on a contract, and set in motion what would be the beginning of the final steps for producing my strategy board game. The game has been “ready” to move forward for a few months now, but there’s not a whole lot I can do with it without art… specifically art for the 150 cards used in the game. The board design I can handle, but my two years of art school grant me little more ability than that. And I have to say… it’s completely frustrating. I am not an artist. Every now and again I like to paint or do a bit of sketching, but it’s completely amateur stuff. Basically, I could paint you a dragon and a passerby might stop and say that they love the color and the brush strokes, but they’ll think it’s a chair or a flying monkey or Ted Nugent.

     This weekend I was supposed to meet with a couple of locals, but that apparently fell through. They’ve asked when I’ll be in town next, but it’s not a trip I’m able to make all that often. I also found it really difficult to push myself on the artists that we at the con. Most of them were incredibly busy with waitlists for sketches and upcoming projects, and the others – while great – didn’t have styles that meshed well with my world. I still plan on following up with a few of them, but who knows what will come of it.

     At this point, I think my only option might be kickstarter.com. You see, artists cost money. My “real” job in higher education doesn’t pay in money, though… it pays in happy feelings of helping other people achieve their dreams of making money. While those happy feelings are great, “they don’t put art on the card,” as my third cousin used to say (he still says it sometimes). This is certainly one of those moments when I have to decide if something is worth pushing for, and if so, push as hard as I can. So if you see me stuck beneath a pile of rubble born of broken dreams, feel free to lend a hand or a rudimentary lever of some sort.