words

Ray Lilly is out of the cage match

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Kelsier defeated him 3 to 1 in the voting, just about, which is perfectly cool by me. I didn’t expect him to get this far in a popularity contest, so thanks to everyone who voted. Thanks also to David Pomerico and the Suvudu staff for all the work they put into it.

Now that he’s out, I wanted to comment on the attitude of a lot of the cage match commenters… but Pat Rothfuss already did it and he did it better.

One thing I’ll add to his comments about the slaying of dragons: I’m a writer. If you ask me “Who would win in a fight, Cthulhu or Godzilla?” to me the only logical answer is “Whichever makes a better story.”

Tallying up super-powers and arguing I don’t know this character but [personal fave] is the most awesome-est! entirely misses the point. Sometimes the “weaker” character has to/must win. That’s part of the fun (and it is supposed to be fun).

If the cage matches are a place where the underdogs can never “win” then it isn’t fun. That’s why I had Ray use his ghost knife on GRRM’s readers. That’s why I had Tyrion taunt him for not being lovable enough. Because Tyrion was the underdog and I love underdogs. (People who’ve read my books will know this).

Even worse, how powerful the characters are is orthogonal to the appeal of the work in question, and when people go all munchkin on their favorite characters they turn off potential readers.

Anyway, read Pat’s post. He’s a smart guy.

(BTW, Godzilla would totally kick Cthulhu’s ass. That’s SCIENCE.)

Teaser for Tales of the Emerald Serpent

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As I mentioned a few days ago, I have a story in a mosaic anthology called Tales of the Emerald Serpent, which is having a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to pay for the printing (my understanding is that it will have quite a bit of artwork in it).

There are other authors involved: Lynn Flewelling, Juliet McKenna, Martha Wells, and Julie Czerneda to name just a few, and you can see some of the artwork at the Kickstarter site or the publisher’s Facebook page.

My own modest contribution is a short story called “The One Thing You Can Never Trust.” For folks who are interested, I thought I’d post the first couple of pages of my story. If you like it and want to read the rest, along with the stories from these other excellent authors, please consider pledging. The way Kickstarter works, you pledge whatever amount you want (larger pledges bring more/fancier swag) but if the project doesn’t meet its target, no money will be collected at all.

So! Without further blather, here’s the opening to my story. I hope you like it.

THE ONE THING YOU CAN NEVER TRUST

by Harry Connolly

Emil Lacosta did not expect his new prices to please Mama Serene, but he did not expect her to actually swear at him. She did. Being Mama Serene, she did it startlingly well. “I am terribly sorry,” he said, carefully keeping his voice mild. “Acquiring the materials I require has become quite difficult and…”

“Spare me the apologies of a Zimbolay scholar,” she interrupted. “Every learned word makes my purse lighter.” She wrote out a bank note, signed it, and handed it to him. It was for the old price. “Next time, I will pay your new, even more outrageous, fee.”

Emil nodded and handed the note to Mariella. He turned to the three young consorts sitting on Mama Serene’s ornate couch. “Do you accept this spell without coercion, of your own will?”

The consorts said “Yes,” in deeply bored tones. One of them added: “because it’s making me rich!” They all laughed at him. He had asked them last time, too, and would ask next time. It didn’t matter if they thought him fussy. He held out a small vial to the first consort and, after she had spit into the golden liquid, allowed her to take it. He did the same for the others.

They were love potions all. A select few of Mama Serene’s clients paid a high premium to be genuinely (or at least magically) adored, even if it was just for a few days.

Their business concluded, Emil and Mama Serene nodded politely to each other. Mariella opened the office door and led Emil swiftly and quietly down the side stair and through the lounge. Emil hated coming to the House of the Silk Purse, hated delivering his product in person, hated knowing the consorts would drink the potion when he was not there to watch over them. But the money was good. Very, very good. With luck, he–

Two men rose out of their chairs and moved toward him. They seemed to have been waiting for him, and Emil stopped immediately and drew back. Mariella stepped around him, her hand on the ribbon tying down her sword. There was an odd expression on her face.

“No no!” the taller man said, his empty hands raised. “We mean only to talk.” Continue reading

You guys helped pay for my son’s glasses

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And here they are:

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Not sure what this is about? Last fall I posted a novelette called “Lord of Reavers” in my online store and let folks know that proceeds from the sale would help cover the costs of my kid’s new goggles. Here’s the cover I made.

Lord of Reavers cover

Love that public domain art.

It was also an experiment, of course. I wanted to see how well it would do, and now I know. In the future I’ll know it makes more sense to try to sell my short fiction to magazines before publishing them myself. But no matter. The story is there, you bought it, and it helped. Thank you.

The Power of Habit

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Currently listening to a program about this book: The Power of Habit

I’m a guy who needs to change his habits.

If you want to listen to the program (it’s free) you can do it here.

Round 2 of the Cage Match is over

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Added later: Apparently they are declaring Ray the winner because he was ahead at 5 but the voting was mistakenly not closed. I… er… I think I’m going to skip the comments over there. (Who am I kidding?)

And Tyrion Lannister defeated Ray Lilly, just as my writeup suggested. I’ll admit that it was closer than I expected, 50.15% to 49.85% out of nearly three thousand votes, which comes to a narrow nine-vote margin of victory.

Of course, one of those nine votes was mine. I’m pleased to see Tyrion move on to the next round. Love that character.

Thanks to everyone who made this fun, and thanks especially to David Pomerico and all the other folks at Suvudu who are putting so much time and energy into this game.

Back to my book.

Five things make a post

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1) I’ve asked my agency to accept an offer from a Polish publisher to do a Polish edition of Child of Fire. Awesome! Never let anyone tell you that agents are unnecessary.

2) Netflix Streaming seems to promise a great deal, but I can’t pretend to be happy that the shows continually stop to rebuffer. It took 35 minutes to watch a 20-minute cartoon.

3) This small town will get a grant to cover 60% of the cost of a new library if they can raise the other 40% themselves. Can you help? Video.

4) Like many Americans, I’m not terribly happy with the current state of the GOP, but one thing I do like is the protracted primary process. I’m pleased to see so many candidates sticking it out and going from state to state. Why? Super PAC stimulus. Ad buys, sign printing, mailings, the whole thing, millions of dollars from a handful of extremely conservative millionaires are being poured into each state’s economy as the campaigns move from one to another. I may not like the message conservative candidates have been promoting, but I like watching them spend their cash.

5) Regarding the Suvudu.com cage matches, I’ve made a difficult decision: even if Ray Lilly wins, I’m not going to write the next round. Honestly, I just can’t. I’m struggling too much with my new book to let my attention be divided and that’s where I have to put my energy. I’m 96K words into it; I gotta get this done. On top of that I have more than a few demands on my personal time.

So, vote for Ray if you want but don’t vote to see another writeup from me. The cage matches are fun but I can’t afford to play any more.

Creativity Project part 2

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As a reminder, these posts are a response to this article in Psychology Today: Twelve Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creative Thinking. Not that I think it needs a response, but because it provides a decent jumping off point.

I’m bundling points 2 and 3 together and dispensing with them quickly. Not because they aren’t important, but because they’re easy.

2. Creative thinking is work

What’s this? Coming out in favor of working hard? What a bold position to take!

Not that hard work isn’t important. Of course it is. The author of the article is correct when he says that being creative isn’t a matter of simply having great ideas fall into your lap like flakes of dandruff. So it’s true and it’s easy to say; creativity takes focussed effort.

But what kind? It’s one thing to say: “You must work hard.” That is the easiest thing in the world to type out, because it confirms so many of our own prejudices. It’s the kind of thinking that runs neatly inside the cultural groove and it quickly becomes a “My Favorite Argument” (quick def: an assertion someone feels so comfortable with that they use it to redirect new or unusual discussions toward a dispute where they already feel they have a solid argument).

But how can we manage our creative work so it’s effective and productive? Continue reading

Ray Lilly vs Tyrion Lannister

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Yesterday I wrote and turned in the Suvudu.com Cage Match between Tyrion and Ray, and I think you guys will be a little surprised at what I did with it. It was long, though.

Anyway, to my surprise it took me all day. I gave up one of my prime writing days for it, a day when I’m supposed to be finishing 2K words on A Blessing Of Monsters, so that’s bad.

And after this next cage match wraps up, I’m going to be turning off comments on the blog globally. The spam is just wasting my time and having my time wasted drives me crazy.

Ray Lilly survives yet again

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So, the first round of the Suvudu cage match has ended, and Ray Lilly survived. He’ll face Tyrion Lannister, a character so popular his name is in WordPress’s spell check (j/k). To be frank, I’m a huge Song of Ice and Fire fan, and of Tyrion in particular. I’m looking forward to this, and I have an idea or two that I think will be fun. We’ll see.

As for round one, things got contentious early and stayed that way, but that’s not a big deal. What is a big deal is that I think people might have gotten the wrong idea about R. Scott Bakker’s books.

If you skimmed through the comments looking at his fans’ description of the Kellhus character, you might think Bakker has written a munchkin’s wet dream, but the books are more interesting than that.

Check out this review of The Darkness That Comes Before by Victoria Strauss. Here’s her review of book 2, The Warrior-Prophet. At this point, the trilogy is complete and the second trilogy is nearly finished.

Anyway, these Suvudu cage matches are supposed to be an opportunity for readers to try out new books. Here’s the Prince of Nothing series:

The Darkness That Comes Before: The Prince of Nothing, Book One
The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two
The Thousandfold Thought: The Prince of Nothing, Book Three

Check them out.

Cage Match follow up

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The cage match is still ongoing, and while yesterday I mentioned that the comments were getting a bit caustic they’ve since become even more so. I don’t much care if people are nasty to me; I see that sort of thing in Amazon.com reviews or blog reviews all the time and I don’t much care. Truth is, you can’t be raised the way I was raised and still be all delicate when someone tells you how much you suck. I have some thick calluses over those spots.

But now it’s started between commenters, and that sorta sucks. The truth is, there are a lot of readers out there who haven’t been exposed to R. Scott Bakker’s books and would like them, but not if his current readers treat them with condescension and contempt.

Here’s a general guideline I would like people to follow: If you like a particular author’s books and someone unfamiliar with them suggests that the description so far makes them sound kind of dull? Please PLEASE do not start the “… displays an ignorance and shallow judgment that frankly says you’re not worth [author]’s time as a reader anyway” stuff.

If you like a book or book series, do not try to drive away readers you consider unworthy.

Jesus.

Anyway, Ray is losing by a narrow margin. Voting ends on Thursday 5pm EST, so if you want to vote for him please do. I’d like to win the match so he faces Tyrion in round 2–I have a couple of fun ideas for that.

If he doesn’t win, no big. That just means I’ll have more time to put into my new book this weekend.

Finally, I turned comments back on as a trial run, but the spam has been piling up in the spam filter. That’s what it’s supposed to do, obviously, but it’s very time-consuming to search through it for ham, and I’m unlikely to leave comments on for long. Sorry.