Want to be a writer for rpg company Evil Hat?

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Here’s the place to start.

If you’re new here, I wrote a book for Evil Hat, not to mention all my other work.

“If I were more trite I’d be successful!”

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I’ve been neglecting this space lately except for link salads and new announcements (Twenty Palaces print edition! Buying from B&N earns more for me than Amazon orders do!) mostly because I’ve been on a big push to finish initial major revisions for all three books in The Great Way.

That’s done and I’ve sent them to my agent. Next I have a short story to revise and more Kickstarter work to wrap up. Unfinished tasks unrelated to actually making the trilogy include:

* Fate game supplement for TGW.
* New revision for A KEY, AN EGG, AN UNFORTUNATE REMARK.
* Fate game supplement for KEY/EGG.
* Straighten out notes for Twenty Palaces short story.
* Write Twenty Palaces short story.
* Compile that story plus others (with introductions) into a collection.
* Assorted tasks associated with all that shit, including covers.

Actually, that list doesn’t look too bad from here.

However! In an attempt to remake the habit of posting here, let me resurrect a post that I started and abandoned last July(!) regarding British crime writer John Connor, spurred by this advertisement interview.

Mostly, I was annoyed by this quote:

He says: “It’s been a struggle all along. If you come at it from the point of view of wanting to write something interesting and worthwhile and entertaining, well, those are the three things that makes it hard if you want to produce something other than some stupid trite piece of content.

“You set yourself a goal of doing any of those things in one genre. It’s easy to do two of those, but doing all three feels like one long compromise. It ended up being a long way from doing what I wanted to do at the start.”

See, Connor (actually a pen name, for some reason) is a former prosecutor, and he pretty much hates the way popular mystery and thriller writers portray crime and its effects.

Which is completely fair. He has real world experience and he can call bullshit on what he (and others, too) call the torture pron aspects of the genre. Frankly, I’m not such a big fan of torture pron either, so I’m sympathetic.

And getting the emotions right–that is, treating tragedies like tragedies and not excuses for heroic rage–is a laudable goal. He earned another measure of sympathy with that one.

Still, it’s painful to see him blaming his perfectly ordinary midlist career on his integrity. Without having read any of his books:

First of all, as pen names go, “John Connor” is terrible. It’s bland. It’s easily misspelled (as “Conner” or “Jon”). It doesn’t even let the cover designer set his last name in huge type; six letters isn’t bad, but a four-letter long last name has size. It would be more memorable if he followed Donald Westlake’s advice of using a super-common last name and an unusual first name. “Connor Johns” is a better pen name than what he’s chosen.

Second, I’ve read plenty of books by actual cops and other people with law enforcement day jobs, and while it’s great for marketing, for the most part I prefer books by outsiders.

It’s not that I’m against realism; it’s that realism often has a certain plodding flatness to it. Every job comes with a certain amount of tedium, even the sort they make hit TV shows of. That’s why you don’t give the boring rote work to the lead character; that’s for the supporting cast to explain with a phone call. That’s why you don’t have them wander aimlessly through the clues; make that shit into a trail. Be fun.

Third, if you approach your own genre with this attitude:

“I have experienced those crimes – that’s half my problem. I’ve experienced them and I know what they’re like which makes me think: ‘You can’t do that just for entertainment!’”

Maybe you should be writing something else.

#sfwapro

Randomness for 1/21

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1) The flowchart of medieval penitent sex.

2) Gorgeous high-magnification sand photos.

3) 15 Massive corporate logo fails. It’s amazing how many of these look like people having sex.

4) Researchers compare language in successful and unsuccessful Kickstarters and discover trends.

5) I’m old enough not to be up on the latest music (and feel perfectly comfortable with that) but I have to offer this: a band called Prodigy did a music video called Firestarter (video) and here’s the same video, but musicless (video). Reader, I lol-ed. h/t to @robertnlee

6) Hero Forge lets you design an rpg character, then print it in 3D. Gaming miniatures aren’t really my thing, but I suspect a few of you will be interested in this.

7) Hatchet Job Of The Year Shortlist – 2013’s most negative reviews in quotes. I confess to a weakness for savage reviews and these are pretty acid.

(I’ve been seriously neglecting this space. I plan to write a note explaining why soon.)

How to save publishing, according to Hugh Howey

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“Part of the problem is that the major publishers ignore the genres that sell the best. This is a head-scratcher, and it nearly caused a bald spot when I was working in a bookstore. I knew where the demand was, and I wasn’t seeing it in the catalogs. Readers wanted romance, science fiction, mystery/thrillers, and young adult. We had catalogs full of literary fiction. Just the sort of thing acquiring editors are looking for and hoping people will read more of, but not what customers were asking me for.”

You know what? The last time I walked into a Barnes & Noble, I stood looking at all those shelves full of books and thought “Jeez! If only I could find books that I want to read!” Too bad those multi-million dollar corporations don’t have a sharp guy like Howey around to explain to them how their business works. All you have to do to get bestselling authors to renegotiate their contracts en masse is to put them on a mailing list with struggling midlisters! Gosh, it’s so simple! Amazing that no one realized this before.

And yeah, get out of New York City, publishing! Why would you want your business in a hub full of smart, creative people who share your interests and might have the skills your company needs. Telecommuting! Email! The car-centric hell-hole that is Houston! Because efficiencies are less important than an easily understood number like “rent in Manhattan.”

(Actually, most of that post is pretty embarrassing. h/t Mr. Hornswoggler) #sfwapro

This is trolling, right? It’s a prank. Right? A prank? Hello?

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Scientists find secret to writing a best-selling novel.

I thought readers liked verbs.

Twenty Palace Print Edition Now Available Through Ingram

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Twenty Palaces cover, small imageThe process of setting up my book in Lightning Source is now complete. That means you can buy it from Barnes & Noble or any other brick and mortar store that sells books. If you like buying from indies, swing by your local shop and ask them to check the computer for you.

They might ask you to pay ahead of time, because the discount is thin and I made them non-returnable (to keep the price low) but the books are finished and ready.

One thing: a friend offered to do the interior design for this one, and she matched the book design of the other books in the series beautifully. Seriously, I’m not sure if she wants credit for this, but she did a fantastic job; the inside of the book looks fabulous.

Any complaints about the cover are on me.

In other news, I have a lot I want to blog about and no time to write it. My life is consumed by homeschooling, revision, and trying to get enough steps every day to satisfy the FitBit parasite attached to my wrist. More on that another time.

Randomness for 1/6

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1) A 1600-Year-Old Viking Board Game.

2) Thor is the New Superman. Yet another screw-up by DC.

3) 160-Year-Old historical documents deliberately destroyed in North Carolina. Covering up old crimes? There are followup posts.

4) 4 Things I Learned from the Worst Online Dating Profile Ever.

5) The top 20 most annoying book reviewer cliches and how to use them all in one meaningless review.

6) Here’s Exactly How Much the Government Would Have to Spend to Make Public College Tuition-Free.

7) “There’s a book inside of you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Print Edition of Twenty Palaces Now Available

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At the moment, I have finally, FINALLY created a POD edition of Twenty Palaces for people who prefer to read (or gift) in paper. Yes, it would have been better if I’d managed this before Giftmas. I know this. I wish it had been possible.

Lightning Source being what it is, the book is currently only available through Amazon.com and CreateSpace. I hope it will be available to all stores everywhere through Ingram in the new year.

[Added later: Yep! Now available at Barnes & Noble, which means your local indie will be able to order a copy for you through Ingram. They may ask you to pre-pay, though.]

If you’ve always wanted to read this book but never have because you only read paper, or you’ve wanted to give it to someone who only reads paper, now is the time.

And if you hate Amazon.com with an icy fire and refuse to give them your money: watch this space. I hope to have more options soon. Very very soon.

If case you forgot what it looks like:

Twenty Palaces cover, small image

Thank you.

2013

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This was a tough, weird year.

It started off badly. I was in the dumps, THE WAY INTO CHAOS was not getting any bites from publishers, and the computer we got for our son (which he swore would not be a source of obsession) became an obsession. As the year went on, it became a bigger and bigger source of conflict.

In April, I signed on to a themed Kickstarter anthology called “Walk The Fire 2” (theme: certain people are able to enter special fires and emerge from a fire elsewhere and elsewhen. They’re space-faring/time travel/whatever you want stories about travel) and it was funded. I turned in my story “A No Without A Thank You” but am still waiting on the edits (for perfectly understandable reasons).

I also tried an experiment in April: since sales of the ebook for Twenty Palaces had been waning, I dropped the price to $2.99. End result: no advantage. Sales were slightly better but the money it brought in was pretty much the same. This was a problem because it didn’t look like my agent was going to sell THE GREAT WAY and my only ebook was bringing in $100 a month, approximately.

I’d hoped to finish the zero draft of THE GREAT WAY in the spring, but it actually took me until August. While I was wrapping it up, I was also busting my ass trying to get the Kickstarter ready. I wanted it to run from August to September, but I couldn’t get everything ready in time.

As it turns out, pushing things back a month was a good idea.

The thing is, this was a very stressful time. Money was tight. I kept asking my wife if she wanted me to go back to temping, and she kept reassuring me that I didn’t have to, not yet. Also, it was looking like Christmas was going to be pretty thin.

The Kickstarter turned that around, but I’ve talked about that here at length already.

While the campaign was ongoing, KING KHAN finally came out. It’s the rpg tie-in for the Spirit of the Century game that was a stretch goal for a completely different Kickstarter from last year. (Or the year before, it’s hard to keep this straight.) It’s a fun, upbeat, bright book, but I wish I’d had a chance to give the text one more polish.

I also got invited to submit to a John Joseph Adams anthology of sf/f Kickstarter campaigns, which seems like a weird idea but I wrote up a love potion KS and PUA satire called “Beyond the Game.” JJA sent me his notes last week and the story is almost ready to return. Royalties! Boy, it sure would be nice to get some royalties.

Kickstarter is sorta running my life right now.

Anyway, things went from omg we have no money and this Kickstarter goal is too large omg can’t sleep feel sick all the time I should get a job mopping floors somewhere to Holy shit! for the last few months. We’re still pinching pennies, but I managed to replace my aging laptop with the cracked cover this Christmas, and I’m hard at work on revisions.

For 2014, I have to get the books out to people… and onto the market so they can start earning money again. I’ll also have to publish the two stretch goal books, which will take some revising. Someday soon I really hope to write original long form fiction again.

“The green screen is strong with this one.”

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Must be seen to be believed.