Tomorrow is my not-birthday
For new or forgetful folks, the not-birthday concept is pretty straight-forward: my wife and I have the same birthday, which sucks, so I moved mine back a month.
What this means: omelet with oven-roasted potatoes for breakfast, pizza at some point, possibly a bottle of quality beer.
Then, on Monday, I’m starting an unjuice fast. Health-related stuff behind the cut. more »
Willpower is not a virtue
And by “not a virtue” I don’t mean that it’s a vice or it’s something awful. I mean, it’s not a wonderful thing that people have or don’t have.
Okay, so, I’m an NPR-listener. Yeah, I often hear this expert or that being interviewed… so many of them that they sometimes run together. Sometimes I’ll hear something that sticks with me and I have to go back to find it again. Like this interview with David Eagleman.
What Eagleman said, for those who don’t want to click through to the show, is that our brains aren’t this unified thing. We, ourselves, aren’t a unified identity. Different parts of our brain want us to do different things: Lose weight, exercise, sleep in, work hard, order the fries, watch that TV show… We’re full of conflicting impulses.
This is certainly true of me. I have long battled with myself over all sorts of indulgences, and different parts of me fight in different ways. When I get up early to work on my book, I feel a sense of accomplishment. When faced with the opportunity to eat something I shouldn’t, I feel a sense hopeless despair.
And in recent years, it’s been a tossup which part of my brain[1] would win, except for the despair. Hopeless despair has been a trump card in my life; I have a hard time beating it.
However! Lately I have stopped looking at myself as a complete whole. Lately I have tried to recognize that there are several different personalities living inside me, and that my brain plays dirty tricks on my to make me do things I shouldn’t. In essence, I’m accepting the fact that my own brain is often my enemy.
I’ve talked about this before: It can be hard to say no to food when the despair hits. It can be hard to get up early to work when I know I need sleep, too. But for the past few weeks, I have not been using willpower to win these internal battles. It might look like willpower, but it’s not. What I’ve been doing is keeping my goals in the forefront of my mind and treating all impulses that get in the way as an enemy attack. It’s not willpower to refuse to go over to my enemy camp.
It’s been working, too. For me, I mean. I don’t know how well this would work for anyone else.
[1] If you’re thinking of “parts of my brain” in an anatomical sense, you’re being too literal. I’m talking about competing impulses.
Keeping the internet at arm’s length
Back in 2010 when the health care debate was going on (and before it) I kept pretty careful track of the health care debate. In truth, I stressed out over it to an unhealthy degree. I couldn’t contain my disgust when Ben Nelson demanded the end of the public option, and I was livid with hate when Joe Leiberman revenged himself on the liberals who primaried him by ending voluntary Medicare buy-in for folks over 55.
In short, I spent a shitload of my time following reports on the legislation, annoyed and alienated friends with my arguments, and generally made myself unhappy. In the last few weeks, I’ve been following the news in only the most general way, trying not to let myself get distracted.
Now that the Supreme Court has (rightly, in my view) upheld the individual mandate, the ACA is going forward. This is going to be a very good thing for me, personally, because the health care plan my family has (bought as an individual) is outrageously expensive. Obamacare will ease that burden. I mean, I have health insurance right now, but I won’t go to the doctor to have my foot checked (I have a possible stress fracture) because my outrageous deductible means the expense would all come out of my pocket.
Anyway, people are saying dumb things on my Facebook feed, and on Twitter, and everywhere. Me, I’m going to stay offline and keep working, to preserve my sanity.
Story Seeds
1) Title: THE ELF-SKIN SHIELD
2) Classically, zombies won’t die except through violent head trauma but their bodies still rot. What if the zombie urge to devour flesh survived the dissolution of the flesh? What if it survived being devoured by scavengers, or worms, or being used as fertilizer. The entire biome would be taken over by the desire to consume all flesh. Oh, wait…
3) Ash Ketchum is… The Punisher! What about a Dark Age Of Comics version of Ash Ketchum, the incredibly talented and optimistic Pokemon trainer, in which terrible personal tragedy turns him–and his pocket monsters–into remorseless vigilantes.
4) A young woman shaves her head and discovers a pirates’ treasure map tattooed to her scalp. — This is the joke movie pitch I entered into a screenplay contest on Twitter. Not only did it advance (while “After a toddler loses a pinkie to a splinter, a vengeful father declares war on unsanded wood” inexplicably did not) but I received a script request from a small but legit company for it.
5) This one is inspired by the old Neverwinter Nights game: what if, every time you looked at someone, the universe/the gods/whoever let you know whether you will have to kill them or not? When I mouse over NPCs in NWN, a little dagger appears over the people I’ll have to fight, and a talking-face icon over the friendlies. But what if that happened in real life?
6) Lord of the Rings as it would have been written by [Author X] (Richard Stark, V.C. Andrews, John Cheever, etc)
7) Why should vampires only subsist on human blood? What about the blood of angels? I’d think that angel blood would sustain the undead for quite a long time, but hunting them would be quite a challenge.
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by Harry Connolly
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Randomness for 6/27
1) If you’ve played Minecraft, this will crack you up. Assuming you have a soul. Non-Minecraft players might also be amused. Video.
2) A picture book you hope you’ll never have to give to a little kid in your life.
4) What filesharing studies really say.
5) R-rated movies re-imagined as children’s books.
6) I’ve never worn a hoodie, but I’d be tempted by this, no matter how stupid I’d look.
7) Investors sue movie producers for fraud over “One of the Greatest Box Office Flops of All Time”
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by Harry Connolly
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Lloyd Alexander
I was in the second grade when I discovered epic fantasy, and I discovered it through Lloyd Alexander. Our school teacher had a shelf of books we could borrow, and being a fan of Dr. Shock’s Mad Theater and Horror Theater (old-fashioned host-in-makeup monster movie shows back in the Philly area–yes, I’m old) I really wanted to read The Black Cauldron.
But it was part of a series, which we were required to read in order, so I picked up The Book of Three first. It was my first exposure to epic fantasy and I loved it. I’ve never looked back.
That’s why I backed this Kickstarter project: It’s a documentary on the author’s life, and I’d really like to see it funded. If his books meant something to you, too, take a look. It might be something you’d like to support as well.
I was a huge fan of the show ANGEL
I mean, seriously. I liked it from the first episode. So how happy was I to see the Twenty Palaces books listed on io9.com as books that could fill the void. Money quote:
Basically, if you want a series that’s entirely based on the storyline about Angel going to work at Wolfram & Hart, this might be the closest you’ll get in book form.
As you might expect, the sales rank on Amazon for Child of Fire improved by quite a bit, although they’re returned to normal now. I’m also getting brand new 2-star reviews, a 5-star review that suggests the books would be perfect for “An urban fantasy fan who loves death”, and a mini-surge in sales of the prequel (although that’s still declining).
It’s nice to know folks are still finding the books. It won’t change the status of the series by any degree, but a high profile recommendation is a high profile recommendation.
Connectivity is spotty right now.
I may be hard to reach, and I know I owe some folks email. Please be patient with me.
How “Hard” Is Your Magic? (plus book giveaway)
I’m about to respond to a post that’s nearly a week old so that makes me totally behind the times, right?
I’m always behind on everything.
Anyway, last week N.K. Jemisin wrote a post about magic making sense (her take: it shouldn’t have to because it’s magic and not science). I think it’s a great post and I agree with much of what she says. There must be space in the genre for magic that is inexplicable, that is ill-defined or not truly understood.
Yeah, I know: the natural first response is to assert that magic needs limits because hey, if everything is possible, nothing is interesting (check out the first comment on Jemisin’s post). But that’s not the same thing at all. Yes, magic can be mysterious or non-rational without being omnipotent. It’s just a matter of how it’s written.
To be clear, I don’t think we should do away with so-called “mechanistic” magic. I haven’t tossed my Pat Rothfuss books into the donation bin, after all, and I certainly enjoy that Harry Potter fellow. But I continually see an emphasis on the rules and limits of this magic “system” or that one–or even the idea that there has to be a specific system–and I agree that too much emphasis is put on it.
The one place I disagree with Jemisin’s post is where she lays the blame for this at the feet of Dungeons and Dragons. First, the idea that magic was a super-complicated but vaguely-mechanical process where people drew certain symbols, said certain works, used certain objects with the plan to get a specific outcome predates Gary Gygax’s great-great-grandfather. Hell, Conjure Wife beat The Players’ Handbook by a couple of decades.
Which isn’t to say that D&D hasn’t had influence. It most definitely has. I mean, it’s a fun game and a lot of folks in the genre play it, how could it not have an effect?
But I think the real culprit here is science fiction.
SF and F have been lumped together for years, with science fiction getting most of the respect and cultural cachet while fantasy gets most of the sales. They’re in an odd relationship, with a lot of crossover among the readers and writers, and from what I can tell as an outsider to fandom, devoted science fiction fans largely holds fantasy in contempt.
Fantasy is “playing tennis with the net down”. It’s supposed to be anti-progress, pro-monarchy, reactionary, irrational… blah blah blah. I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that, if that’s the tenor of the conversation inside that community, it’s no surprise that fantasy readers and writers would start to adopt the idea that the best sort of fantasy would be “hard.”
Since I’ve been online, I’ve seen two separate movements to push so-called “hard fantasy.” The first was fantasy that stuck close to the original folklore. The second was fantasy with world-building that felt so solid you “knew that the sewers worked”.
Both times it came up I couldn’t help but wonder why anyone would want to emulate a niche genre like hard science fiction. My best guess–once again, talking as an outsider here, so I am open to correction–is a version of Stockholm Syndrome.
Still: more of the numinous! Less talk about “magic systems.”
Regarding the book giveaway: The response has been amazing. Thanks, you guys. The winner, selected by a roll of many-sided dice, is Mark Martinez. Your book will be thrown into the U.S. Postal Service in a few days.
Thanks again.
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by Harry Connolly
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Randomness for 6/20
1) 25 Ways to Tie a Scarf in 4.5 Minutes. Whether you care about scarves or not, it’s an entertaining video.
2) The Stephen King story universe flow chart.
4) I guess if you’ve already spent the money on the photos, you might as well do this. Er, #35 is “special.”
6) Political attack ads in Westeros.
7) The ten most ridiculous rules in first ed. D&D. I see that no one will acknowledge the elephant in the room: armor class. via Mike Cole
The Twin Swords of Zordain, a comic fantasy, part 2
As promised, here is the comic fantasy “novel” that my son wrote as a home-school project. I’ve decided to split it in half because cliffhangers are fun and ten thousand words in a single blog post is a bit much. The first half went online yesterday.
Here’s a brief post about the project, in case you’re aching for some background. For the record, this is his work, only lightly edited by me.
The Twin Swords of Zordain
Chapter 5
I ran to the fire and threw the contents of my canteen over the raging flames, extinguishing them.
Cass ducked into the cabin and started casting spells through the door while Garth grabbed a shield and blocked the next blast of flames, melting the shield completely in the process.
I ran back next to Garth and drew my sword. Cass suddenly stopped casting spells. I almost turned and asked her why, but I saw the dragon land in front of us on the ship, crushing various boxes. Without the blinding sunlight in my eyes, I was able to take a look at it. It was a dark red dragon, not much bigger than me, with small red eyes that seemed to carefully inspect the environment around us. From the minute I saw it I knew it wasn’t a common dragon from Casanopala that evolved with more brute force than smarts to survive against various wars going through the area, but a clever dragon that came from far away, where you had to scare off a single knight a year to preserve your treasure and stay alive. It must have come through a portal made by one of the swords. It growled at me. Then I noticed it had an emerald green sash over its shoulder. The sash was as oversized as Garth’s helmet (which, at the moment was lying face-down in the cabin) and had a badge that said: reserved for elite team.
That told me that this dragon was very clever.
”Why do you fight for those Invastigan fools?” I asked it.
“Because they have archers locked onto me every second!” the dragon replied in a different voice than I had expected that suited a stand-up-comedian more than a dragon.
“Okaaaaaay,” I replied. “And are dragons afraid of archers?”
“No.”
“Are you a dragon?”
“Yeah”
Everyone was silent for a moment then the dragon ripped the sash off his shoulder and tore it to shreds with his claws. more »
The Twin Swords of Zordain, a comic fantasy, part 1 (by my son)
As promised, here is the comic fantasy “novel” that my son wrote as a home-school project. I’ve decided to split it in half because cliffhangers are fun and ten thousand words in a single blog post is a bit much. Look for the second half tomorrow.
Here’s a brief post about the project, in case you’re aching for some background. For the record, this is his work, only lightly edited by me.
The Twin Swords of Zordain
Chapter 1
Nack Town, a small village. Not a lot of interesting things happen. This seemed to be one of those very un-interesting days. more »
Check out the cover for the German ed of Child of Fire
Pretty cool, huh? Apparently it came out last May. I had no idea.
I don’t need to see more characters taking a piss
Lev Grossman has a fun list of 20 things he wants to see characters in fantasy novels do more often. Someday I’ll do a list of all the reasons the internet is about lists, but this one is pretty fun.
However, I don’t much need to see characters peeing, unless it’s important to the story. Are they trapped somewhere for a long time? Are they showing their contempt for someone? Go for it. Otherwise, leave it implied.
Also, number 1, forgetting things, wouldn’t fit the sort of stories I like to read or write. For most of us, the expectation is that characters will perform to the best of their abilities. If the troll army is marching through a forest, the elven ranger might be able to successfully elude them while the city tax collector could not, but we expect both to do their best. This is why we invented the term “idiot plot.”
Frankly, fiction is artificial enough without adding complications from obstacles like “I swear I packed our weapons!” It seems too much like author manipulation.
As for number 19, I figure worlds on the other sides of portals would be pretty much like ours, in the most basic way. I mean, if I’m not taking up arms against the Dark Lards in our world, why would I believe myself capable of doing it in another?
Book giveaway email sent
If you believe that you are on my email newsletter list and you did not receive the email I just sent out (and it’s not in your spam trap), let me know. I’ll put your name in asap.
And now I collapse from exhaustion.
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by Harry Connolly
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Last Day for Book Giveaway (plus video games)
Today is the last day to eligible-ize yourself to win a free book–all you have to do is sign up for my I-have-a-new-thing-out newsletter. Details here.
For those of you concerned about being spammed with my newsletter, let me mention that later tonight, when I send out the message about the new book giveaway, it will be the first ever issue of this newsletter.
In other non-news, since my wife has to work on Sunday and my son has a tournament on Saturday, today is my Father’s Day. We’re celebrating by having breakfast at a restaurant (I love restaurant breakfast, for serious) and having burgers for dinner. With buns. I know, crazy, right?
I’ve asked to have the Chris McGrath prints of my Twenty Palaces cover art either framed or matted as my Dad’s Day gift–like most people, I don’t need more stuff. However, my wife and son have been eyeballing a flat screen TV for our Netflixing. Nevermind that I think our 19″ CRT still works just fine; they have the temptation and I may be the excuse.
Anyway, I’m going to do a bit of work in the Star$$ until they get here, then they’ll leave and I’ll work some more. Work! It’s what’s for dinner.
Also, having finished, sent off, and celebrated Epic Fantasy With No Dull Parts, I finally felt as though I had permission to play a bit of computer game.
Now, I’m not exactly Mr. Moderation, so I don’t play all that much. I tend to get stuck in games, trying to do one more thing one more thing. Of course, the games are designed to make you do exactly that, which sort of sucks. As a result, I have to keep away from them for the most part if I want to create books, stay married, pay rent, move my body, and/or feed myself.
But sometimes, I say what the hell. Last night after I did the dishes, I turned on Neverwinter Nights. (It was an Oppressmas gift.) I turned it off at 4 am.
It’s possible that my wife is correct when she points out that these games aren’t good for me. And that I’m a boring husband when I play. Worse, I still couldn’t find that third werewolf. And why am I carrying around this troll head? I know someone wants it, but…
Anyway, I will now get back to formatting my son’s 10K comic fantasy for publishing on the blog while I wait for the fam. Have a great day, everyone.
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by Harry Connolly
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Short fiction on the donation model
All around cool guy Saladin Ahmed is giving away a Sword & Sorcery tale on his website, with a request for donations. Times are tough for a lot of people, but as someone with out-of-date prescription glasses, I can tell you how incredibly hard it is for a writer who struggles to see text.
Give the story a read and, if you like it, send a couple of bucks his way.
Publishing some fiction on my blog
In other news, I just paid for the right to publish my son’s first “novel” on my blog. It’s a comic fantasy called “The Twin Swords of Zordain,” and it’s almost ten thousand words long. I haven’t decided if I’m going to post it all in one post (behind a cut, obviously) or break it up.
I just need to format it a bit and I’ll post it.
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by Harry Connolly
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Epic Fantasy With No Dull Parts
As I mentioned yesterday on Twitter, I finished Epic Fantasy With No Dull Parts yesterday and sent it off to my agent. This is a big deal for a lot of reasons and I have so very many things I want to say about it, but at the moment what I feel is a genuine relief. Anyway, let me skate over some of those topics.
1) No dull parts? God, I hope so. There’s one scene where they eat kabob that could maybe go, but…
1A) After sending to my agent, my son immediately found a grammar error on page one. It’s too late to do anything about it now, but, shit.
2) It’s 136,000 words long. That’s HUGE! Take a look at the printed manuscript with a life-sized Batman statue beside it!
I’ve never written anything that long before. All the Twenty Palaces books were 90- to 105K words. Weirdly, as I wrote, plot elements ended up taking way, way more space on the page than I’d expected. It’s epic, right? Epic is big? Well, I’d promised to make this a stand alone novel, but I’m breaking that promise. It’s going to be two books. (But no more! I’m serious!)
3) I started it on October 7th by doing the exercises in Adventures in Fantasy by John Gust. It was a homeschool project for my son, and he wouldn’t have done it without me. Actually, it turned out to be fun for us to do the exercises together. Being me, I had to mess around with the plot format, which I’m sure is a gigantic surprise to everyone.
However, when I sat down with my agent last summer, she told me that it would be good to be more prolific without a loss in quality. Two books a year, people, that’s what she suggested. That’s what I was aiming for.
Obviously I didn’t manage it, because this was just over eight months to finish. In my defense, the death of my father-in-law shut off all productivity for weeks and it was tough to get my momentum back. Still, only 8 months!
4) I was still late with it. Most of you reading this have probably watched Neil Gaiman’s 2012 Commencement Speech, in which he talks about freelancers staying in business if they have two out of three things: they do good work, they’re easy to get along with, and they meet their deadlines. Me, I’m afraid to admit that I’ve had problems with deadlines.
I’m not talking about externally-imposed deadlines, either. I find it incredibly difficult to judge how long a particular job will take. I promised my agent that I would send the revised manuscript to her in early May. This is mid-June. Not cool.
There’s no production schedule to ruin, no publishing slots to miss. This is just me, the pages in front of me, and my ability to sensibly judge how much time I need to finish a book.
To remedy this, I’m going to start carefully recording everything I do, writing-wise. Every day of the week, how many hours of writing, how many words I write, how many words I revise. It won’t be a goad to productivity; it will help me understand the way I work right now.
5) Last night, I celebrated the completion of a new manuscript in the traditional way:
My kid took the picture, and he didn’t know to zoom in so the freeze frame of Burn Notice would be cropped out.
Today is for reading and recharging my creative batteries. Maybe I’ll even (gasp!) get to play a video game! I know! Crazy!
6) You know how the latest big thing in fantasy is twisty grim pseudo-medieval political fantasy with very little magic? I didn’t write that. Whether that’s a smart choice or not, I dunno, but there it is.
Bonus last thing: My book giveaway is getting a lot of sign ups. If you missed the post yesterday, I’m giving away a signed copy of an anthology I’m in.
Time for a break from sitting and typing. Catch you guys later.
I give away a book.
Want a free book? Well, I have a free book and I intend to give it away.
My contributor copies for the Don’t Read This Book anthology have arrived, and I’m going to give one (signed by me) away. Anthology, you say? Here’s a list of the contributors:
Stephen Blackmoore
Harry Connolly
Rich Dansky
Matt Forbeck
Laura Anne Gilman
Will Hindmarch
Mur Lafferty
Robin D. Laws
Ryan Macklin
C. E. Murphy
Josh Roby
Greg Stolze
Monica Valentinelli
Chuck Wendig is the editor. The stories are set in the nightmare world (literally) of the Don’t Rest Your Head rpg. Oh look! A picture of the books!
I’m keeping two.
Anyway, if you want to be entered for a chance to win one, sign up for my newsletter by Friday. At that time, I’ll send an incredibly easy question to everyone on the list, and will randomly choose a winner from the responses.
Yes, this is a naked attempt to get people to sign up for my newsletter. Hey, I hope to have even more new books out soon, and I figure that anyone interested in this anthology would want to hear about them, too. Of course, after the drawing you can ask to be taken off the list again. Also, due to the costs of international shipping, this is going to have to be U.S. only.
You have until late Friday to sign up. Free book!
