Category Archives: Me

ICON 38 / Paradise ICON 2

icon38Wow, what a weekend. For the second time, I participated in the Paradise ICON workshop which runs concurrently with ICON, the Cedar Rapids area SF convention.

Friday morning started a day of critiques with the Paradise ICON attendees. I’m going to be lazy here and paste in their twitter accounts: @SplitLegend @bluemaven @ransomnoble  @cathschaffstump @GeorgeGaluschak @CoreKnell and @timothycward. I was a little nervous getting into critiques with people I’d never worked with before. Fortunately, George Galuschak’s piece, my favorite was up first.

Yeah, I’m playing favorites. I’m harsh like that.

One of the nice things about working with more skilled authors is they all know how to take criticism. It’s not that I want to be mean or gruff, but if you genuinely don’t connect with a piece, you need to be able to tell them that and explain why without them getting upset. Even if they don’t agree with you, you owe it to them to tell them how you felt.

After eight critiques, my time was my own. I’d intended to meet up with the Paradise crew at the bar, but I was too busy catching up with Adam Whitlatch, Lars Pearson, and Dylan Moonfire. It’s funny, when I first started coming to cons, I thought it was weird that people would come to socialize, play games, and do crafts, things that they can do at home or with their friends. Outside of the writing workshop that was mostly what I did.

My Saturday started out with lectures from Nancy Kress and Gregory Frost. Having read Kress’s Beggars in Spain, I was already excited to hear what she had to say. She spoke on the subject of character arcs and what makes a believable character. She also had a really nice character worksheet.

Greg Frost’s talk was an eye-opener for me because he talked about the differences between short stories and novels, and I have never been able to master the short story. Even now, I am planning a short story that goes against the advice he gave… I know. I know. It will probably fail, but I’m still going to try.

After lunch, we were supposed to get a Q&A from Ellen Datlow. Unfortunately, she couldn’t make it, so I went downstairs and wandered into a panel on Dungeons and Dragons. I ended up having a very enjoyable time. Not only were the two local game masters very knowledgable and had good things to say, but Jim C Hines was on the panel. Jim had some interesting things to say about teaching morality and math.

Then I went to a panel on Doctor Who. My friends Adam and Lars were on the panel. Now, if you don’t know Lars Pearson, he is a walking encyclopedia of Doctor Who. His company Mad Norwegian Press publishes gigantic compendiums of Doctor Who essays and facts. As a panel member, he is a clever, hyper-animated–I hesitate to call him elf, but… yeah, elf.

Then we went to a nice dinner before our Paradise ICON rapid-fire reading. We were up against a Joe Haldeman reading and the cosplay Masquerade, so the attendance wasn’t great, but I still managed to be plenty nervous. Mostly we read pieces we had worked on in our group, but I was totally blown away when Tim Ward read his short story Cornhusker: Demon Gene, which was awesome.

After that, I went to the post-apocalyptic survival panel, featuring King Zombie Sean Beaty, Adam Whitlatch, and Jess Whitlatch.

Then I spent the night in the bar.

Sunday was a nice quiet day. The paradise crew went to breakfast, and then I attended a panel on cover art, featuring my friend Adam Whitlatch. After that, I attended a radio-style play done by the BrassGears Adventure Society. Finally, I finished off my weekend with a reading by Adan Whitlatch–you might have guessed that Adam and I get along well.

It was a tremendously fun weekend.  PARADISE2

I Am a Weather God

file519a9ce66e6e9For some reason, I’m feeling a little nervous about this post, like it someday might be used against me in a court of law.

But here goes…

I can make clouds disappear with my mind.

I know. It sounds crazy. I think it is crazy even as I am doing it.

The technique is a simple one that I learned from a friend of my father’s about ten years ago. He said all you had to do was sit firmly in a chair, envision yourself anchored to the ground, find a cloud you wanted to make disappear and order it to dissipate. It sounded a little nutty to me at the time, but I remembered it, and a year or two later, I was relaxing on my deck. The sky that day was filled with little, fluffy clouds. I looked at one and mentally told it to dissipate.

At first, it started to look a little dark around the edges. Then in began to shrink, almost like a deflating beach ball. Pretty soon it was just a little wisp of white. Then that wisp disappeared.

Since I started doing this, I’ve dissipated clouds of all sizes. I’ve made a cloud disappear out of the middle of a group. I’ve found two clouds side-by-side and dissipated the one on the right before the one on the left. I’ve even taught other people to do it. The more I do it, the easier it seems to get. I don’t have to concentrate very hard, just a little, and I do feel a bit of tingling in the back of my head.

If you are skeptical, give it a try. It seems like most people who go into it with an open mind can do it. I’m not sure what this means in the deeper, greater scheme of things, but it is a neat trick.

GPS Adventure

Yesterday, I thought I’d look for a new coffee shop closer to my house. I opened Google Maps and search for Coffee Shop. I was surprised to see a Starbucks in the middle of nowhere. Now, I’m not usually a Starbucks enthusiast, but this one had two things going for it which drew my attentions. First, it was less than a mlle from my house, and second, I was reasonably sure it didn’t exist.Screen Shot 2013-03-17 at 9.35.01 AM

While nothing was on the satellite image and the area is not built up, I do know that Starbucks is always looking for new places to build more Starbucks, so I drove in that direction.

Seeing no Starbucks, I ended up just past this intersection at a local garden center. I parked there, and entered the address into my GPS. It took me back on the 4-lane road and told me to turn off onto the access road for a small airport. I drove by the airport past some pretty planes, but I found no Starbucks.

However, the GPS was not done, it led me about a mile down a gavel road and told me to move south. A quarter-mile south on my next gravel road, I saw a farmhouse. While I’ve never personally been to a remote farmhouse with it’s own Starbucks, I know they are always looking for new expansion opportunities, and I believe old farmers like coffee so I kept driving. However, the GPS took me past the farmhouse.

I ended up back on blacktop, heading back the way I had come. I followed my GPS all the way back to this intersection, where it announced I had arrived at my destination.

Screen Shot 2013-03-17 at 9.47.22 AM

Razzle Dazzle

Someone posted this video of a young Liberace to Reddit today. The commenters all went on and on about how talented he was. This is true. Liberace was a talented piano player. He had skill, style, talent, and personality. However, it is a mistake to believe he was the most talented piano player in the world. He was merely the richest.

The same can be said about the writing world. There are writers that have great technical skill. They write great, literary works. They get outsold by Stephanie Meyer. I’m told this should bother me…. No. It doesn’t.

url

I would totally wear this.

Personally, I’ll take the glamour over mundane quality any day, because, as Liberace shows, people love a spectacle. And I want to give people what they want. If you can mix that spectacle with a tacit competency  that’s all the better. Does that make me a clown? Maybe. But let me share my favorite quote about Liberace.

My favorite story about Liberace:
Liberace called up his brother and said, “George, remember that bank I used to laugh all the way to? I bought it.”

 

Anxiety

If you’re not interested in writer insanity, you can stop reading now. It’s okay.

I don't think

I don’t think frogs spit like that.

I should be asleep right now, but two things are keeping me awake. I have a chapter up for my critique group this week. And I was having trouble getting into my scene today.

I’m putting this down, in public, on the blog, because people might find it interesting. Also, it’s like 1AM, so expect the typos to be worse than usual.

I re-joined my critique group recently because I like helping other people. I never intended to put things up for critique for any other reason than turnabout is fair play, and yet, here I am awake. What if they all say the chapter isn’t ready, or it needs work? I’ve reworked it more times than I can remember. Of course, I tend to forget things rather easily, so that might just be three times, but I’m sure it’s more like ten.

I think some, or possibly most, of the anxiety I’m feeling stems from the story itself. You see, when I write, I tend to take on aspects of my character’s personalities, and Nick Baker is just a little bit crazy. He jumps at the slightest provocation. He’s not one to poke around a dusty attic, or sit with his back to a dark room. Hopefully, he will be fun to read, but right now, he’s in my head.

Okay, second reason for crazy, or are we up to three. I worked on re-writing a scene today, and I realized I’d walked off the edge of the world. I’d always intended to do a complete re-write to the end of the current book, but now that the time is here and I find myself gun shy to modify a manuscript I’ve always put so much work into. Everything I write form here on out is just a first draft hanging on 60,000 completed words. The book could be another 10k or 30k or 60k long. I don’t know. Usually, I say this is the fun part, but today, I just got caught a little off guard.

I feel like I’m never going to finish this book. I’m not tired of working on it. Things seem to be going reasonably well. I’m just not working that fast, and there’s a bunch to do.

Yes, I could work longer or harder if I wanted to see things move faster, but I discovered long ago that I have my own internal clock and it is broken. When I’m on, I can give Superman a run for his money, but sometimes the gears just don’t want to mesh. I’m starting to think tomorrow morning’s not going to be a good day. What time is it again? Oh, yeah.

They say that everyone is a little crazy on the inside. I’ve just shared a little of mine, but blogging is an imperfect form of crazy release. I need to start stockpiling my crazy for the forces of good and channeling it into the manuscript.

Ironic Racism?

Something kind of awesome happened the other day. William Shatner showed up on Reddit, and then went on to introduce himself on their /r/startrek. I’m a big fan of his acting, and I think Bill’s just about the coolest 81-year-old in the world. Which is why I was a little surprised when he had some choice words about the site.kirkpassport-713262

The unsavory aspects still exist — I am appalled by some of the immature, horrifically racist, sexist, homophobic, ethnic … etc … posts that are just ignored here.

This kind of took me aback. I consider myself pretty good at getting on the Internets. I’ve gone on 4chan/b to see what all the hubbub is about. I was on Slashdot, Fark, and Digg back in the day. So, I guess I’ve been taking for granted the fact that some people use words that… Well, let’s just say words that, in my day, were only allowed in rap lyrics, and because I am a fat, white man, from me certain words sound offensive no matter what the context.

As God as my witness, I though turkeys could fly.  As God as my witness, I thought that was just the way young people talked these days.

If people use those horrible hurtful words without thinking because those words have no negative connotation to them, I don’t necessarily consider that a bad thing–I drop F-bombs like I own stock in the F-ing company, a sin which would have gotten me stoned (not the good kind) in 1950s America. I’m a big fan of words not hurting people, and I’m all for taking the teeth away from those words.

Here’s the thing that Bill Shatner made me think about: Even if they were meant ironically, if someone reads those words and interprets them as hateful, does it matter if they were meant ironically? And is there is a darker side to this as well? Are there closet racists who hide behind hipsterism, or are empowered because they don’t understand the intent of the words they’re reading?

Hell, I don’t know. I don’t even know if these comments were meant ironically.

As a member of the privileged class–I didn’t sign up for that–I also struggle with racial issues in my writing. Should I mention that I mentally see a character as black? What if I didn’t mention another character was white? Growing up in Iowa, white skin is definitely my default*. Can I say black or should I say African American**? The only thing I am sure I can do is offend someone. Ironically, I usually enjoy offending people, but racially, I’d rather not.

* I think I was seven years old before I saw a person with black skin, and I was very confused. From what I had seen on TV, I didn’t know whether I was supposed to burn a cross or be mugged, neither one of which would have been easy in the crowded Strawberry Point swimming pool. Things only got more confusing when I asked my father about racism, and he told me Irish people were once considered racially inferior. I’d always thought we were just drunks.

** I once went to a party where a drunken gentleman explained to an African woman that she was “African-African American.” She insisted that she was not an American, and therefore she was an African who was black. She then pointed out that there were white Africans as well. The drunken gentleman explained that white Africans were her European opressors, to which she responded, “My father is white.” The conversation ended there.

 

A Flowchart

eFiction Founder Doug Lance posted this flowchart the other day “to help people decide how to publish.” He’s obviously biassed, but I think he makes a good point.

IOg0NVo

My editor recently retired, and over the last few months I’ve been toying with the idea of self publishing. I feel like I got a lot out of the small-press process, but I really like the idea of more creative control. Still, I have a voice of doubt in the back of my head, arguing that I might be making a misstep.

Lance’s flowchart really helped me break this down. According to his flowchart, I have four possible goals. Here they are out of order.

Critical Acclaim: If I wanted critical acclaim, I wouldn’t be writing vampire novels filled with dick jokes. Come on, until they come out with the Hugo for Best Dick Joke*, that’s just not happening.

Prestige: A little piece of me wants to be published by a big house, so the next time Jim Hines or somebody else who’s work I enjoy comes to town I can say, “Hey, remember me from that TOR mixer at BlahCon. My book just did the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs. Now we can be best friends.” But honestly, every writer I’ve talked to either big or small has always been really cool and approachable. Whether we self-publish or make a million for Harper Collins, we all share the same challenges and anxieties.

Money: At the end of the day, it’s nice to do what you love and be appreciated with social-survival points. However, this is not my most important concern.

Readers: Okay. This is the big one. I like when people read my books. I know there is a potential audience out there for me. We just have to find each other. When people love my books and leave me nice reviews, it makes me squee. And I am no serial squee-er.

* I’m pushing for this.

My 2012 in review

McCutcheonNY1905

Why MMMMMMMMMM? Why not MCMIV?

 

I tend to be bad about taking pride in my accomplishments, so I thought it would be good to do a year in review. 2012 has been a pretty awesome year for me.

I got my first book published this year, and it many people seemed to like it. It might not be the cleanest copy ever produced, but I’m proud of Minion of Evil. It’s a good story and a story I think I would have enjoyed as a reader. And then I got a second book published this year, and it went better than the first. Sure, they aren’t making any bestseller lists, but they are mine and they are out.

Also, I finished two rough drafts this year and did a boatload of re-writes. And despite being sick as a dog for the last 2 months, I’m finally gaining ground on my re-write of Panic No More–I finished three scenes this week.

I was even offered a job as an editor at a startup publishing company. I turned it down though. I’m a fairly decent content editor, but I’m a writer. Right now, I have to focus my energies on my writing.

I think the biggest thing I did was put myself out there. I went to cons and sat on panels (which I was not qualified to do) and did readings (which noone attended.) And I have fans, which is the awesomest of the awesome.

I’m quite pleased with my 2012. I feel like I got a good start in my writing and I am moving in the right direction.

Just an update

I’m currently slogging through the middle of my latest rewrite, fighting the “Muddle in the Middle.” It doesn’t help that my coffee shop is playing the XM seasonal channel, so instead of my usual Rat Pack crooners, I’ve heard Feliz Navidad 12 times in the past 3 weeks, which apparently makes me want to eat nachos and attack innocent bystanders with a meat hammer. I’m going to spend the weekend away from the book so I can get some fresh perspective next week.

LocationsFOn the bright side, I’m feeling good enough to drink wine, and my friend Jose has announced his bottle–or in this case bottles–of the year. The Locations F-1 and E-1 by Dave Phinney. I opened a bottle of the aromatic F-1 last night and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Sick of being sick.

This is a picture of Danny DeVto’s foot. Why? I don’t know.

In Iowa, we have something we call the creeping crud. We get in every fall, where temperatures tend to rise and vary by 40 to 50 degrees (F) in a night and cold snaps can be followed by a week of 50 degrees and 100% humidity, where the air carries wet funk like a soiled sponge.

My family came to Iowa via Ireland, Nova Scotia, and the Eastern US. Once my father showed my the diary of one of my first ancestors to move to Iowa, it was basically complaints about the weather and a lot of swearing.

The crud usually starts as a virus and then turns into a respiratory infection. At my tender age, I’ve had it about 20 times and it accounts for around 40% of my doctor visits total. This year, it’s pulled a new trick and turned into bronchitis.

Needless to say, between a family funeral, the creeping crud, and the bronchitis, my writing productivity was down for the month of November. It did give me a lot of time to watch old television shows and play on my new Nexus 10 tablet. I can’t even drink wine because my palate is  toast.

However, I am now on steroids* and showing signs of vigor, productivity, and erratic behavior–which only helps with the way I write.

* Ha! WordPress tells me that “on steroids” is a cliché. I think it can be allowed as I am actually on steroids.