Apparently, completely freaking out over my WIP is a normal part of my process.
(::sigh::)
The weird thing is that it feels different every time. Each book has some massive problem that I don’t think I can solve, and it’s a different problem every time.
Someday, the problem that comes up really will be a book-breaker and my freakout will be justified. Personally, I think this project is that one, but I thought the same way about all of them.
In my day job, I’ll be in training most of the day (I believe). So I’ll be doing something I hate for an organization I don’t care about, and I’ll have to ignore everything that matters to me.
Ah, America! Your support for the entrepreneur never ceases to amaze.
Anyway, I’m way behind in my LiveJournal/blog reading, and I may be missing things. For the past few months, I’ve been thinking of my reading list as an obligation to the people I know online, but I may have to fall down on that obligation today.
Wish me luck in Insurance Verification.
1) Miniature scenes crafted inside toilet rolls.
2) Superheroes imagined as hipsters.
3) Top ten cars the Car Talk guys hate the most.
4) “Hey, you’re the one who forgot the wheelbarrow!” Video.
5) Until I saw it, I didn’t know I wanted perfume that would make you smell like a library.
6) Now THIS is the A-Team movie they should have made! Video.
7) Dot, the world’s smallest animation character. Video. Truly amazing.
I’ve been hinting about a secret project for a little while now, and now I get to share the details.
On Suvudu.com, I and four other writers (Lara Adrian, Stacia Kane, Kelly Meding, and Lucy A. Snyder) are writing a “chain story.” The first author writes a section of the story leading up to a major decision for the protagonist. At the bottom of the page, there’s a poll allowing you, the readers, to decide what will happen next. When the poll closes, the next author in the chain continues the story along the path you, the readers, have chosen. After the last story, the whole thing will be released as an e-book.
Here’s the official announcement on the Suvudu site. The cover art is beautiful, isn’t it?
The first chapter, by Lara Adrian, is right here. As I’m typing this post out, I haven’t even glanced at the first chapter (just got out of bed, actually). But on Thursday, voting will close and I will spend the next weekend writing chapter 2.
Yeah, it’s a real-time choose your own adventure. And yeah, I’m next in line.
So go! Read! Vote! I am a puppet and you pull the strings!
There have been some brilliant, and touching articles posted online recently. These don’t deserve to be shunted to a “Randomness” post, which is for fun weirdness and simple beauty. These are deeper than that. So, here are some articles you might want to read:
First, everyone has been linking to Ta Nahisi-Coates’s post on “Compassion” and for good reason. If you haven’t read it, you should.
In this society, we view compassion as a favor, something along the lines of forgiveness extended to the humble and deserving. No. My compassion is utterly selfish, and is rooted in a craving for power. It is compelled by my curiosity, itself, just another name for hunger, for desire, for want of the great power of knowing.
Second, a post by Shweta Narayan called “Dissimilation”, about her experience as an Indian in British schools, and the way she was pressured to assimilate by people who would never really accept her.
My friends, in this period (maybe just the first 10 years of it) were the people who sometimes did not torment me, who sometimes let me sit with them without wrinkling their noses and edging away and tossing my books around the room, who sometimes called me Shweta rather than Pakkie or Shwetterpants or shitface.
Third, Myra McEntire writes “Speak Loudly – In Defense of Laurie Halse Anderson” about her Christian faith and her outrage that people are trying to ban YA books about troubling subjects from schools, in particular a book called Speak about a young girl who is raped and does not speak up about it.
Because for Christians, there is one Boss. Mr. Scroggins might need to surrender his Junior God badge.
Fourth, in the NY Times, Nicholas Kristoff sends a “Message to Muslims: I’m sorry.” If we expect moderate Muslims to apologize and denounce extremists, shouldn’t moderate American citizens do the same?
I hereby apologize to Muslims for the wave of bigotry and simple nuttiness that has lately been directed at you. The venom on the airwaves, equating Muslims with terrorists, should embarrass us more than you. Muslims are one of the last minorities in the United States that it is still possible to demean openly, and I apologize for the slurs.
That’s about it for today.
1. My wife comes home from her Italian yoga retreat tonight. I can’t wait. As much fun as I’ve had with the boy this week, I miss her. We both do.
2. The apartment is clean but cluttered, for those of you expecting to hear that I’ll be spending the day in a frantic cleaning jag. The living room needs to be picked up, though. It’ll take about 15 minutes.
3. My desk is another story. I’m tempted to just throw a match on it to rid myself of these meaningless stacks of paper.
4. I can’t stand Talk Like A Pirate Day. Can’t we let that idea die?
5. I deposited my on-publication check for Game of Cages yesterday. Damn, that feels good.
6. Sales for Game of Cages seem to be doing pretty well, too. It’s not a guarantee, but it bodes well for the future of the series.
I just had a conversation with the guys making the book/series trailer for book 3. Very exciting! The current schedule should have a trailer ready for me by the start of the new year.
Last night my son insisted that we draw some comic books. He’d just watched Scott McCloud on TED Talk and wanted to try a branching “choose your own adventure” comic.
I don’t have permission to post his, but I’ll put mine below the cut. It’s not nearly as ambitious, and I can’t draw worth a damn, but here you go anyway. Continue reading
1) Parents offer baby-naming rights to corporations.
2) Top 5 Regrets of the Dying.
3) Speed-dating in the Marvel Universe.
4) Eight historic symbols that mean the opposite of what you think.
5) A TED talk about sleep patterns, and it’s only 4 minutes long. Video.
6) I’ve changed my mind: e-books will ruin everything. E-comics allow users to leave comments. Yeah, it’s bad.
At our dinner on Wed, Kurt Busiek mentioned the story of Howard Moskowitz, a market researcher for food companies, and it reminded me that I wanted to post the TED Talk Malcolm Gladwell gave on him.
It’s a long one, about seventeen and a half minutes, but it’s worth watching. For one thing, it’s interesting. For another, it’s funny. For a third, it not only explains why there are so many different varieties of tomato sauce or mustard on the shelves, but why there are so many sub-genres in sf/f (not to mention mystery and romance).