SciFi Expo

Had a great time at SciFiExpo this weekend despite completely losing my voice after the first day. Thanks to everyone who came by the table.

Back to Work

Vacation OVER.

To celebrate the release of my first novel in both digital and print versions, I gave myself a little bit of time off. Sure, that’s the opposite of what you’re supposed to do when you release a book… you’re supposed to hit the ground running, doing marketing, guest posts, interviews, endless tweets, and general book-pimping. But all that stuff is bothersome.  

So I’ve just been lazy for a while. My wife and I are speeding through Naruto Shippuden on Hulu, and I’ve been eating lots of potato chips and French onion dip. Well, today begins a divided and re-doubled effort. So, like Naruto, I hope to master the art of the Shadow Clone Jutsu… ‘cause I’m probably going to need about three or four of me to get everything done.

This week I’ll be sending out Press Releases (yep… just now) and hope to set up some book signings at a few different locales. I’ve also begun putting together my experiences into a presentation regarding the road to self-publication and, specifically, the pros and cons of the Amazon KDP program. 

I’ve made a few harrying strikes at book 2, and it stands at about 5 or 6 chapters currently with a full outline on the side, but tonight begins the full-scale carpet-bombing, SEED strike team invading, flagship orbital striking, lemon-soaked paper-cutting, TPK’ing, all-out hissy-slapping attack that will drive me through the completion of the first draft. So if you see me anywhere (outside of work) and I’m not writing, feel free to give me an atomic wedgie, a purple-nurple, AND a wet-willie and tell me to get back to work. 

Truth be told, I haven’t been completely idle in the past few weeks. I’ve nearly completed the design for the 144: Champions of Hope strategy game board. I hope to post pictures of it here in a few weeks. I’ve been tweaking the rules to make the game a little more fast-paced and dynamic, and I hope to have a legitimate art plan put together by this summer.

Until then, buy my book, or if you already have, review it (the more stars the merrier), or tell your friends about it (works way better than any marketing I could do anyway), or shoot me a comment like, “Hey, keep it up. I’m looking forward to what’s next,” or “How’s work on book 2 coming? I can’t wait to read it,” or “Keep at it. Don’t get discouraged,” or “Does this look like a boil to you? It itches,” or “Here, I got you this replica Infinity Gauntlet just because I think you’re swell.”

Kindle Edition Now Available

The Kindle Edition of 144: Wrath is now available on Amazon.com. You can order your copy here.

The list price is 4.99... less than a a gallon bucket of ice cream. In fact, you could cozy up with the book AND eat a bucket of ice cream for less than a movie ticket for one.


The print edition will be available in a few weeks. I had some issues with the proof copy they sent me. So I'll have to address those through customer support before I'm ready for phase II.

And remember: if you like it, be sure to leave feedback!

About the Author

I’m in a strange place right now. I have to write an About the Author section, but I have absolutely no idea how to go about it. I’m finding that I just don’t know how to write about myself. It’s weird, too, because I love talking about myself. You would think it would be a simple matter of writing all those wonderful words down. No polyhedral dice.

I could write about all sorts of other people: my daughter, Napoleon Bonafrog, that guy who works at the copy shop and doesn’t know how to use a computer and almost formatted my flashdrive instead of opening it. Heck, I could even write a really great biography of my wife. It would go something like this:

Jenny was born, blah blah blah, met Dallas Caldwell, blah blah blah, married Dallas Caldwell, probably died in a starfighter mishap in 2062 because her contacts dried out.

See? That was easy. So why is it so difficult to sum up my life in a paragraph in such a way that people don’t think I’m a smarmy d-bag… without lying to them? I’m tempted to bet on the idea that no one actually reads the About the Author page and just throw in a string of garbled words, but even that would take effort to craft it in such a way that it looked purposefully chaotic. I can’t talk about High School Dallas who was into sports and Star Wars and making fun of people to make himself feel better about his own shortcomings. I can’t talk about the Dallas that spends inordinate amounts of time thinking about the combative superiority hierarchy (CSH) of Captain America, Captain Planet, Captain Kangaroo, and Captain Caveman (the top’s not who you’d think). And I definitely can’t talk about the Dallas with a birthmark below his right nipple that has completely disappeared in a sea of manly curls. 

Which, if you take those things out of the equation, leaves me with very little interesting fluff. And without fluff, my core shouldn’t really be about me. But then again, neither should my writing. I will never be a visionary evangelist like C.S. Lewis, but I hope that, like him, I can hide a little bit of truth in stories about swords and magic and unusual creatures. Fantasy, to me, is about faith in something greater and acceptance that we, the protagonists, are not the end-all, be-all of the universe, but that we can find significance through the opportunity we have to be part of a much bigger story.

Trailing Triple Banana Peels

The new year has only just begun and already I am behind on like ninety-three things. No, the book isn’t finished yet, I’ve got a huge list of home repairs waiting, it’s our busiest time of the year at work right now, I’m only at 60% on Harry Potter Lego Years 5-7, and I forgot to bathe this week. Needless to say, my life is feeling a bit frenetic right now (which is currently my favorite word… “frenetic” not “now”). I’m using my lunch break to squeeze out this blog post, and I’ve got some wicked bad acid reflux working (I blame the Totino’s pizza I had for dinner last night). 

Over the Christmas Break, I was able to develop pretty nice momentum. I worked about 4-6 hours per day on my book, hung out with my wife and daughter, started IV breeding modest Ludicolos named Ludikulus, and even thought about cleaning out the garage. I also spent a lot of time reading self-publishing guides, getting advice from pros like JA Konrath (via his blog… he hasn’t called me personally… yet), and watching my Twitter-enabled self-publishing-colleagues announce their new books every other day. Which, of course, made me feel like I was sitting on my butt doing nothing despite my forward momentum. 

It was then that I realized I needed a pacing car… and it sure as heck couldn’t be JA Konrath or Amanda Hocking. They’re way too successful. No. What I need is a ghost-me-pacing-car, like on Mario Kart when you do the time trials the second time. It doesn’t matter how fast Donkey Kong is on the straight-a-way or how easily Dry Bones takes curves, it only matters that I push the throttle a little bit harder than last time, and that I hug the corner a little bit closer this time. 

So, while I don’t have a release date set for my book, I do have small goals that I am setting for myself, completing each lap as it comes. It’s very close, and I’m getting more excited every day, but I also want each step to be taken purposefully and not rush headlong over a cliff because I get too excited about my Invicibility Star. I just have to keep reminding myself that if you go too fast and break out to the front of the pack you quickly find a blue turtle shell crammed up your tailpipe.

As an added bonus (for those of you working on your own books), I decided to give a small piece of advice regarding formatting your e-book… or rather converting it for use with a Kindle. Any document can be dropped into your Kindle. All you have to do is convert it to HTML using Word’s Save As Webpage function. Amazon has a pretty nifty program that will do the rest of the conversion. However, it is not so easy to use. The guide on Amazon suggests that you use the Command prompt to run your KindleGen with the associated HTML file for conversion. This didn’t work for me… at all. It was 500 times easier just to drag the HTML file onto the KindleGen. 

I don’t know why that option isn’t listed (there’s probably a good reason, but I haven’t seen any drawbacks yet… all my image files transferred properly and it retained its formatting). Anywho, hope that helps.

#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.