reasons i suck

Five things make a post

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1) Apparently, Twitter prestige is based on the ratio of followers to following. I’m not prestigious. #statingtheobvious

2) That’s the first hash tag I’ve used. I can never seem to remember to include them in a post tweet. I also realized that my Twitter bio was too wordy. This site might actually be good for me.

3) I wish it was more obvious when people retweeted things I write. Or maybe it is and I just don’t know where to look.

4) And because I don’t want to talk about Twitter all the time: additional good news about the health care reform bill is that it carries an amendment that will cut billions of dollars in waste from government student loan programs. ::crossing fingers::

5) Back to Twitter (@byharryconnolly, btw). Maybe it won’t be all that good for me after all. It very much encourages the “Any new messages?” impulse that caused email to take over my life. It’s nice that the browser tab shows the count of new tweets without clicking on it, but I may have to exercise *gasp* self control.

From the Department of Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time…

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I installed, then uninstalled WordPress Stats. It seemed like a simple Google Analytics replacement (and I was fascinated… fascinated to discover that someone found my blog by searching for “golden girls” homosexuals’) but the negatives were too great.

What were they? Well, I couldn’t post to my blog. As soon as I deleted the plugin, the problem went away. So now I have to choose a different Google Analytic plugin so I can continue to ponder why the Lego diorama post and #Agentlove are still getting so much attention.

“I write it because I want it to come true”

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A few discussions and comments online have prompted me to revisit some old ideas. For instance, Charles Stross recently brought up the whole fantasy-is-a-pro-monarchy genre idea, and James Nicoll touched on writers working in genres where the “core political assumptions” (such as contempt for the rule of law in UF) went against the writer’s personal beliefs.

Leaving aside the Stross comment, which I’ve sniffed at before, let me throw a question out to you: Do you read/watch/consume entertainment because you want your real world and real life to be modeled after it?

I think of this as a specifically science fictional protocol: Writers creating worlds in which they want to live (or, conversely worlds they don’t want to see come true, as in “If This Goes On…” stories). I don’t read or write that way, personally. I don’t read war stories because I want to spend time in a bunker. I don’t read gritty crime fiction because I want to have a knife-fight in an alley. I don’t read fantasy because I think hereditary heirs really make the best tyrants.

I think most people feel this way. Does the true thrill of a Spider-man comic come from the way he circumvents the judicial system? Not for me.

Still, sometimes a book will go in a direction that pushes my political buttons. Nick Mamatas has said he will not cheer for a cops who catch the bad guys by breaking the rules. That’s fair enough, although I enjoyed the hell out of the first Dirty Harry movie when I was younger and less aware of the implications. But does that mean I wanted a real-life Harry Calahan? Not then and not now.

So, is it just that we, as a culture, have certain blind spots to iffy political assumptions in our entertainments? Do our individual subcultures have institutions or norms that we like to see rejected or portrayed as baddies (like environmentalists, or the military, or government bureacrats)? Do writers have an obligation to create stories that are true to their belief system? Rule of law=good thing. Flouting rule of law=not so good thing? Or are we free to do something else entirely with our fiction, and to hell with the so-called message?

Because lemme tell you: I may write about vigilantes, but that doesn’t mean I’m pro-vigilante. But do you see Child of Fire (if you’ve read it) as a pro-vigilante novel?

I’m curious what others think.

I know I shouldn’t do this, but I can’t help myself

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I know I should not compare my book with other writers’ books–their distribution, their sales rankings, their bookshelf presence–but I do it anyway. It’s stupid and destructive, yeah, but there’s a part of me that feeds on that feeling of failure.

A couple of days ago, Sherwood Smith talked a bit about authors who blame readers for their own lack of success. I didn’t comment because I’m so far behind on my online reading, but for me, I always blame myself. That self-disgust and self-recrimination makes me focus on improving my work.

Which may be why I think Man Bites World is the best writing I’ve ever done. It was the hardest and the most complex, but I’m really proud of it. At the same time, I’m scrutinizing it for flaws, and gritting my teeth over every choice that would have been better if it had been written by someone else.

I don’t know. This is my weird process: I love the things that work as though they’re separate from me, and I despise the things that fall short as personal failures.

Cage matches

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Suvudu has been running “cage matches,” a sort of March Madness for sfnal heroes and villains (check the left sidebar). They’re all in fun, pitting Vlad Taltos against Dumbledore, or Harry Dresden against Conan, and many others in fights to the death. Several authors with characters in the fight have contributed here and there, explaining why their character would win (although I think it’s hilarious that Jim Butcher is all “Conan would kick Harry’s ass!”)

But you know what? I don’t like it.

Maybe it’s ridiculous (okay, no maybes about it) but depictions of Hermione Granger being stabbed to death are distressing. In fact, I find most literary depictions of violence distressing; they only “work” for me because of the context. The context for the cage matches–“Let’s you and him fight to the death for no reason”–makes me want to stamp my foot and shout “No fair!”

Yeah, it’s ridiculous, but this is my gut-level reaction.

It doesn’t help that the “tournament of fighting” bit is one of the most snooze-inducing structures around, and is one of the reasons I gave up on anime.

Weirdly, I don’t have this same reaction to visual portrayals of violence. I’ll laugh like a hyena at The Three Stooges, and I’m as happy to see Batman punch a gangster in the face as any self-respecting comics fan. But in text? Nah.

(BTW, Ray Lilly would probably be seeded just above Lyra Belacqua, but only barely :).)

Imagine you don’t have a cell phone

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And you just signed up for Twitter: (byharryconnolly). How do you manage it? Tweetdeck? Something else?

Advice welcome.

Pleasant things

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A neighborhood library branch (not mind) is having a writers event tonight. It’s some sort of reading and talk, along with an open mike. I was seriously tempted to go, just to see what it was like. If it was fun and well-attended, I would have introduced myself to the library staff and offered myself for future events.

Then I decided to run the authors’ names through a search engine. They’re all poets.

Just typing that make me shudder a bit. I don’t know if anyone out there has ever heard a poet reading their work on, say, NPR, but they always have the same unnatural, deadening cadence. Gah! Instead, I will go home to my family, share dinner with them, and maybe watch the last of the NOVA dvds we picked up at the library (“The Last Extinction!”). That will be pleasant.

You know what else is pleasant? Woolgathering for a new book. Everything is still made of potential and none of the characters have turned up dead in a burning orphanage. Yet.

Seven followup notes on previous topics

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1) As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve finished my agent’s revisions to Man Bites World. I have, in my backpack, a printed copy of the latest version. My agent prefers to read on paper, so I’ll be (priority) mailing a copy to her over lunch.

2) With luck, she’ll declare it ready to submit sometime next week. Without luck, she’ll point out a glaring problem I failed to address sufficiently or introduced in this draft, and there will be more changes make. Hopefully, I’ll have luck.

3) Have I mentioned this book was due on September 1st?

4) I won’t be attending Norwescon after all. My application materials were never received (which is probably my fault, somehow), and although they generously offered to squeeze me into a panel or two I decided not to go at all. I’ve spent the last several weekends working all day long on MBW, which means it’s way past time to stop skimping on Family Day. My wife and son have been neglected for too long. I’m thinking we should go to the Air and Space Museum–I moved to Seattle in 1989 and I’ve still never been. My first sf convention will have to be some other event.

5) 1989? Jesus, I’ve been here a long time.

6) I voted for SFWA leadership, but I’ve thrown away my Nebula ballot. Of everything nominated, movies included, Boneshaker is the only thing I’ve read or seen. No, I haven’t seen the rebooted STAR TREK or AVATAR or DISTRICT 9 or whatever. The short fiction is largely online, but I don’t like reading fiction on my computer screen.

What’s more, it felt like an obligation that I just don’t care about. I find myself doing these things once in a while–a couple weeks ago I made a stab at spreading word that I’m eligible for a particular award, but I felt stupid during and after, and I’m not doing it anymore. I’m not condemning people who self-pimp for awards–that’s their choice and I don’t have a problem with it. I don’t read those posts or click those links, but whatever.

7) Having finished this latest version of book three, I rewarded myself by getting a full eight hours of sleep last night. Crazy, I know! Tomorrow I’ll be getting up at my usual Unbearable O’clock to work on the goof for Project Number Next. I have no contract for this one and no clue if it’s a good idea or not (only that it intrigues me and would be refreshingly different than the Twenty Palaces books).

You know what feels best about this, though? No one knows a thing about this project but me.

Now I go home

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Now I go home and prep the latest version of Man Bites World to send to my agent. Once she gives it a once over, she will (hopefully) give me the go ahead to send it to Del Rey.

God, I’m so ready to turn this thing in.

Sales Rankings

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My agent has asked me to stop looking at Child of Fire’s sales rankings on Amazon.com. She knows I know that they don’t really mean anything, but she also knows that it’s one of the few tools a writer has to see how the book is doing. Are sale trending upward? Is interest fading away? How does it compare to book X, released at the same time (which is never always fun)?

Her point (and, as always, it’s a good one) is that Amazon.com isn’t representative of certain kinds of book sales. It doesn’t match well with them and I shouldn’t even distract myself with it because it could be suggesting something that’s the opposite of what’s really going on. And I’ve taken her advice. I only visit the Amazon.com page to see if there’s a new review, although I sometimes will accidentally allow my gaze to fall on the ranking. Oops! Utterly meaningless!

The reason it’s been easy to kick the Amazon.com sales ranking habit is that I found a new, better form of crack. See, Random House has a nice list of books on their website, and if I click “science fiction/fantasy” right there in the left sidebar, they will automatically sort them by how well they’re selling that week. And, since they only update once a week, I’m not tempted to obsess

Currently, I’m on page 20 out of 99 of all Random House sf/f. Not bad (probably)! The top slots are almost always Laurell K. Hamilton, Star Wars novels and Farenheit 451. Me, I’ve been as far back and page 30, and as far forward as 12 (I wish I’d known about this when my book first came out).

And of course, I always have to click back one more page so I can trash talk the books trailing me in the list. “Eat my DUST, Stephen R. Donaldson! With your 30-something year old novel that’s still selling strong! How do you like the bottoms of my shoes! HAH!”

I consider this healthy.