August 11th to 15th, 2015

And that's my first day of missed log updates. *throws confetti* *blows gazoo*

Bad night on the 10th. Up too late, again, then up around 3 to change and feed my daughter, then up again around 4 or 4:30 because my son woke up screaming at... I don't know. I could guess, but my wife wouldn't appreciate me populating the space under my son's bed with monsters.

The 11th was busy and the 12th was the day of my son's surgery, so no writing got done while I was taking care of him. He's fine, already back to normal a day later, but he has a nasty habit of snatching pen and pad out of my hand if I try to use them in his presence. Today (the 13th) is being another busy day back at work, but not quite so bad as the 11th.

...And I wrote that two days ago. A series of bad nights and busy days between now and then. Hopefully Sunday is quiet.

Today I Wrote: 

The first entry in the Vault 867 archives, which is up here. I've also pulled images for the first week or so of game, but the more I progress the more I'm running into two problems:

1. I'm having to write from screencaps I take in-game because of the difficulty of playing a phone game with a pen and notepad in the other hand. This is actually a reasonable challenge to take on, though, so we'll see how it goes.

2. I may have reached the limits of "interesting things that happen in Fallout Shelter". This is not Dwarf Fortress, and apparently I can't count on a drunken Dweller flooding my elevator shafts with magma. (Would be a nice update though, Bethesda.) If my Vault ends up being a stable society I'm going to get tired of writing this log real fast. Fortunately it looks like Deathclaws will spice things up a bit.

Aside from those, I'm enjoying playing a game my wife enjoys as well. She just got access on her own phone and I'm only slightly worried it'll turn into another Candy Crush. Well, more than slightly. She may have had to recharge her phone in the middle of the day.

Today I Read:

This Storify log of some tweets by Chuck Wendig and others, on the subject of whether you actually need to write every day or not. A subject near and dear to my heart! I recommend giving it a look if you worry you're not writing frequently enough.

Links of Interest, Kameron Hurley Edition

Shameless plugging follows. Kameron Hurley is the Hugo-winning author of Mirror Empire, which I read last month and quite enjoyed, once I got my head screwed around one of the most alien fantasy settings I've ever come across. (Alien as in non-Tolkien, non-Moorcock, not alien as in actual aliens running about. But then again who knows.) She's also been turning up in my newsfeed a lot so the next two links are to her blog.

First up we have So You Think You Finished A Novel..., where Ms. Hurley shows us first draft of Empire Ascendant complete with revision tags and makes me feel like maybe my editing process isn't as crappy as I thought. (Still not as good as hers, but better than I feared.)

Next is What I Get Paid For My Novels: Or, Why I’m Not Quitting My Day Job, where Ms. Hurley posts honest-to-God figures of what she's been paid for her books. If you want to know more about what a novelist makes this is the link to follow. (And I'll be trawling her blog to see if she writes more about writing with a day job, particularly how she handles the quarterly bookkeeping alongside her employer's W-2s. The only advice I've ever seen on this comes from Chuck Wendig, and that was "Get an accountant. No, seriously.")

I found that link through io9, and in the comments section user DocSupreme talks about self-publishing erotica on Amazon. It sounds like a get-rich-quick scheme, except Doc's sincere, up-front and helpful about it. Plus with daycare bills to pay I might not be above catering to the post-Singularity smut market.

Then there's 750words.com, which one of my college friends is using. I haven't tried it yet, but the concept of starting my day with 750 words on paper, come hell or high water, is an appealing one. And Lifehacker links to a post by the founder of 750words.com, which talks about using writing as a meditation technique. Based on the first link I posted I feel I'd need a meditation technique to cope with editing, but it's an interesting thought. (The Lifehacker thing also mentions journaling. I wouldn't recommend it. Mark Twain talked about journals in The Innocents Abroad and approved of them... but only if they're done. Because done journals are fucking rare.)

And last but not least is a guest post by Delilah S. Dawson at Terribleminds, titled 25 WRITING HACKS FROM A HACK WRITER. Much wisdom there, especially regarding getting rid of extraneous bullshit. Do it. And go read.

I'll leave off there because my son's waking up and there's some sort of sporting event this evening. Happy reading!

Status Report - Black Library Window 2012

Oh yeah! I write things. Bet you forgot about that, didn't you?

Last Saturday was the deadline for Black Library's latest submissions window. This was the last one they were accepting novels for - from now on, it's short stories or bust. So I figured it was about time I got off my ass and put together a novel pitch I felt proud of.

And I did! One novel pitch, and three short story pitches. I'm proud of all of them - less so by the day, granted, but I'm a neurotic. I do think my writing is getting better. I don't know if it's getting consistently worthy of publication, but I'll find that out in three months or so, hey?

I'm not going to go into problems I still have to get over right now, because that's shooting myself in the foot and I don't want that. But I will say that I'm getting better at planning out my work. Outlines, random notes, character sketches - all of this is seriously helpful.

I can recommend two books that are great primers on the subject of planning a book:

Nail Your Novel: Why Writers Abandon Books and How You Can Draft, Fix and Finish With Confidence by Roz Morris. Roz is very big on planning and walks you through all the prep work you need to do for a book.

Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success by K.M. Weiland. This book is entirely focused on outlining, so don't expect full novel-writing advice, but it does have useful tips for putting an outline together. And they aren't the same tips Roz documents, so it's worth reading.

I've read both of these myself and they were both worth my while.

So... what am I doing now?

I am not resting on my dubious laurels. I've got a plan for a novel about fairies and the people who kill them that has been rattling around in my head for... Jesus, five years now. It's high time I got the bastard on paper, even if it sucks (again). I think I'm up to writing it properly this time, though - by which I mean last time it was a NaNoNovel I didn't plan properly, and this time I intend to outline and plan and make sure I know exactly what I'm doing when I sit down to start writing prose.

And oh my God, would Breaking Bad mind keeping a consistent volume level for its dialogue? I get that there's power in soft-spoken menacing words, but it's kind of lost if I can't hear what anybody is saying without waking my wife up with gunshots...

Sorry. This got a little stream of consciousness there, didn't it? I'm trying to catch up on the show so I'll be ready to watch it's fifth season as it happens. Fantastic writing on this thing. It got my best friend to quit watching it halfway through season two, and I dropped it for awhile at the start of season three because it made me so uncomfortable. And then I started watching it again. That's quality, folks!

So yeah. I'm also dealing with a plumbing problem that is on its fourth visit by a repairman and hasn't been resolved. My home warranty company just loooves me, no doubt. I certainly love them. Why shouldn't I? I burned through my deductible two visits ago and they haven't cut me off. Take that, leaky pipe!

...I may have been mildly intoxicated while writing this post. Which I suppose I shouldn't encourage. Drunk authors are already practically a stereotype. So here's a picture that'll get you all jumping on the latest version of Firefox.

New Year, New Look

Behold! I bring you a new blog layout.

First of all, credit where credit is due. The new look is a pre-cooked blog template called The Essayist, downloaded from BTemplates.com. The only major change I've made is the ink pen, which is an image I downloaded from Clker.com and resized.

I definitely think I prefer the new look. The old one was a bit... colorful for my subject matter, though it was easy to use. It also strikes me as more readable than the old format.

I'll be tweaking the layout a bit more this week, probably, so let me know if you think there's anything I should add, or perhaps take away. Suggestions to delete the entire blog will be forwarded to Cap'n Hector.

Happy New Year 2012

Yes yes, it's Friday the 13th and I'm just now doing a New Year's post. If SOPA or PIPA make it into law I'm sure you can have me taken down for this grievous offense.

2011's largely a blur to me right now, but some events still stand out. Going fishing with my dad in West Virginia and catching a mess of trout. Weathering an earthquake and Hurricane Irene with some good friends. Getting hacked for the first time, then getting hacked again for good measure. Getting pre-approved for a mortgage and starting my first house hunt.

And 2012... who knows what's coming up? Hopefully my wife and I will find the house for us and get moved into it before the year is half gone. I'd also like to travel out of the state again, if only briefly. I'd like to see the inside of a casino before I die, and now's as good a time as any. There's also an election to keep a close eye on, for as long as I can stand it; I'm estimating I'll break down and hide in a closet in mid-February.

Anyway. Resolutions are a big thing this time of year, so here are a few things I'd like to succeed at this year:

Lose 50 pounds. This is not a resolution so much as a requirement. I feel like crap and my weight is to blame; therefore, the weight must go.

Write every damn day. Technically I've already failed at this, but if I can spin up to writing every day by the end of the year, I'll consider this resolution fulfilled.

Cut back on the comic books. I love reading them, but they take up too much space and they're an expensive habit. Another one that needs to be evaluated at the end of the year, but I'll be happy even if I can just move to electronic comics at some point.

Nothing special here, as you can see. But I think these are all things worth doing this year, and I intend to attempt them all.

Now if you'll excuse me, Mitt Romney's tainted my blog with a campaign ad, and I need to figure out how to get rid of it.

GOOGLE!!!

On the Wings of Random Thoughts

I wanted to write about the Senate's pending refusal to confirm someone to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, but I'm nauseous at the idea of doing more than one paragraph on it. So here's the gist: Shit like Jefferson County happened. The CFPB is supposed to stop this shit. The Republican caucus in the Senate won't let anybody run the CFPB for these reasons. I find their arguments lacking, but nobody listens to me so hey, whatever.

There's a new XBox Live update out today - technically yesterday, but I didn't get it until tonight - I guess some people might still not have it - oh enough! The point is I got it and it kind of looks okay, I guess? Like Zune, which does not seem like an improvement to me. The new Netflix app is a pain in the ass; Tycho Brahe sums it up pretty well. I might like it better if I had a Kinect, but I don't. I might have a Kinect if I could find a game worth playing with it, but I can't. There are some cool hacks you can run with it, but so far they're not worth $100+.

You know, the problem with stream of consciousness writing is that sometimes it just plain peters out. Let's move on.

I recently won an advance copy of Deliverance Lost
by Gav Thorpe, from Gav Thorpe, as part of a contest on his blog. (I've had an odd lucky streak with author blog contests - I still owe Phil Athans and Ari Marmell some book reviews on Amazon.) Deliverance Lost is part of the Horus Heresy series, and so far it's an excellent addition to the story. I think Corax may be the most likable Primarch we've seen yet, and it's great to see the Alpha Legion active again.

Last random thought: I promise! (Not really.) She doesn't need the traffic from me, but are you reading The Bloggess? Because she's hilarious. And she wears a wolf pelt in public. You can't top that.

To Read List

I'm currently putting the finishing touches on a short story pitch for Black Library. Yes, I said I'd be moving on to my own work by now, but they had a surprise submissions window open up, and I had an idea. Couldn't be helped, really.

Anyway, while I've been procrastinating on that last round of edits ("Tell me what you're feeling, Xaphan. I need to know."), I've put together a list of what I want to read in the near future, which is as soon as I have the time and enough money for the eBooks.


Matt Taibbi's tale of the Wall Street crisis isn't particularly fair-minded: he's out to get everyone he holds responsible, and he's not shy about saying so. Still, based on his Rolling Stone articles, I'm expecting Griftopia to be an engaging description of the some of the worst excesses of Goldman Sachs, Wall Street and our politicians. Plus he swears a lot.


The Chronicles of Prydain were some of my favorite fantasy books growing up. Honestly, who wasn't scared of the Cauldron-Born? They've recently been released for the Kindle, and as soon as I have forty dollars or so to spare, I'm snapping up all five.


The Outcast Dead is the latest book in the Horus Heresy series by Black Library, which remains on my must-read list every time something new comes out. This one looks especially intriguing, since it takes place on Terra and promises to deliver some soul-shattering revelations.


Finally, there's Moneyball, which I wasn't sold on until today, when I saw the movie. Brad Pitt had me rooting for Billy Beane, the Oakland A's general manager, and as with Goodfellas and Casino, I want to get the full story. Plus Michael Lewis is the author of The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, which I've read and found to be an excellent explanation of the 2008 financial crash, so I trust him to do a good job here, too.

Alright, then. Back to editing! Oh don't cry, Xaphan, don't cry...

Miscellany

Status Report! I'm two weeks out from a submission deadline and feeling, for once, pretty confident in my work. Project Oh God It Burns and Project Lost In The Woods are both revised, polished, and sitting with beta readers for a quick once-over before I give them a final bit of shine and send them out to the God-Editors. Let me take a moment to thank my beta readers, better known as my wife Sarah and my best friend Colin. They don't generally read the stuff I like to write, but they're still willing to take time out of their busy lives to pore over manuscript pages and tell me where I've gone and fucked up. They both rock.

Project Long Hard Slog Over Broken Glass has not been so much fortunate: For the moment it's sitting in a drawer, waiting for me to dust it off and get it on its feet again. That could happen in a few weeks; that might not happen for months. I'm not sure at the moment which: at the moment it depends on how well Project Oh God It Burns is received, in my mind if nowhere else.

I am currently casting Project Sexy Golem, which involves taking a hard look at the characters I know I want in the story, and making sure they have what it takes to carry a story. That means giving them names, faces, goals, loves, hates, quirks, neuroses: the whole gamut of what makes someone interesting to read about. Once I've got a few sketches together, I'll be outlining. Once I've outlined, I'll start writing. That should still happen in August.

* * *

I'm slightly scared about taxes.

Well, that goes for everyone. What I'm worried about is paying my taxes when (never if) I reach the next level as a writer, which is making enough money at it that I'm forced to register myself as a business. So far my income's been meager enough that I've been able to file this as a hobby.

No writers write about taxes. Stephen King discusses how his short stories helped him scrape by before Carrie, but Uncle Sam does not appear once in On Writing (he's probably got a guy). A few books about writing take a stab at the business end of things, but never in great detail. The books that devote themselves entirely to freelancing never tackle the question of what you do if you already have a day job.

I have a job I'm not quitting anytime soon. I get taxes withheld from my paycheck and a W-2 at the end of every year. I do not want to layer quarterly tax filings on top of that if I don't have to. I don't know if I have to. I don't know anyone who's dealt with this and spoken about it publicly.

Help!

* * *

I'm developing an unhealthy obsession with OCD: Obsessive Corgi Disorder. It's just pictures of Corgis. There's nothing else to it. But it updates faster than a speed freak and it always brings the cute. I'd contribute, but the lighting in my house is horrible and Lina refuses to take a good picture recently.

* * *

True Blood has me actively hoping for a black panther massacre. If you're following the show you know why. It's something that bothers the living fuck out of me whenever I try to read supernatural romance of the Charlaine Harris or Laurell K. Hamilton variety. The main character typically gets fed on, mesmerized, cursed, raped, infected, and God knows what else by the cast of a Hammer horror film in every book. Yet, somehow, thoughts of stakes or silver bullets never enter the heroine's mind, at least not associated with the sexy bad boys gnawing on their neck.

I wonder to this day what would happen if Anita Blake got loose from all the shit flowing in her veins and reverted back to the no-bullshit investigator we met in Guilty Pleasures. I guarantee you Jean-Claude would be a tiny pile of ash inside of a week. Which is kind of how Project Sexy Golem came about, now that I think about it.

* * *

Two last bits of business.

Ari Marmell has a new book out. The Goblin Corps is epic fantasy written from point of view of the monsters: the orcs, gremlins, trolls, bugbears, and other miserable creatures bound in service to the titular Dark Lord. Except this lot is foul-mouthed, crude, treacherous, and somehow quite sympathetic on top of all that. It's a load of fun to read and well worth your time if you've ever enjoyed anything with an orc in it.

Chuck Wendig also has a new book out, but electronic-only I'm afraid. 250 Things You Should Know About Writing is a dirt-cheap collection of his 25 Things You Should Know About... blog posts, all of which have been informative. You also get some articles that were never posted on the blog, such as 25 Things You Should Know About Writing A Fucking Sentence. For 99 cents, you've really got no reason not to pick it up.

Go. Read. Enjoy.

Links of Interest - Thunderstorm Edition

My apologies for the lack of blog updates recently. Work continues to intrude on my writing time (which, let's all remember, is no excuse), and when I do write I'm trying to focus on fiction instead of blog posts.

And now I guess I should apologize for apologizing. At this rate I'll never make it into the Evil League of Evil Writers. (Agh, God, another apology! It's like some horrible, infinite, melancholic loop of sad-sackery. Screw it, I'm blaming the rain and moving on.)

A few links well worth reading:

• Lilith Saintcrow points out that Finishing Requires Finishing.
• Two links from Terribleminds: First, Stephen Blackmoore recommends that you shoot your baby, er, don't pull your punches when writing. Then, Chuck Wendig explains how to not bug out when you're writing your novel.
• Over at The Blood-Red Pencil, Kathryn Craft sets out to defend Stephanie Meyer and the Twilight books. I had my doubts about this one, but she makes some good points.
• Finally, James Parker interviews Stephen King about his short story Herman Wouk Is Still Alive, along with his creative process.

Now back to... apparently petting the dog so she'll stop growling at me. Maybe she'll let me jot a few notes down with my spare hand...

Links of Interest - The "Dave Is In Crunch Mode" Edition

Sorry for the lack of blogging. My day job has started to bleed into my nights for the past week, and looks set to continue the trend. This is not a pleasant development, but it happens and I can pretty much cope with it, it just cuts into my writing time something awful.

Anyway, there've been a lot of good articles these past few weeks on writing, so I encourage you to check out:

Combat Porn, by Erin M. Evans - A look at how to write a bloody good fight scene, or a good bloody fight scene, I can't remember which.

Lies Writers Tell, from Chuck Wendig, who is really good at these "On your knees maggots and give me twenty pages" articles. Or, more properly, wake-up calls for budding young authors.

Advice on Writing for Black Library, from The Literary Project. Black Library authors old and new give you some advice on how to sell something to the publisher. If you're going to shoot for their May submissions window (like me), this is a must read.

Hyperbole and a Half, because it's frigging awesome. I don't care that it's got nothing to do with writing, either. Oh, wait, it does, meet the Alot.

The Young Adult Mafia is Bullshit, so I could work a swear word into this post. Note that I've stopped reporting the titles accurately. So I guess there was a rumor that some young adult fiction authors were whacking the competition? I wouldn't know, so far I just have to answer to the one Don in England for my output.

The Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft as an eBook for either your iPad or your Kindle. You could even find a program to turn it into a PDF and print the damn thing. It's an entire library of weird eldritch horror, from one of the guys who founded weird, eldritch horror. Go download it and thank Ruth X for her hard work.

I think that covers the good stuff, certainly a good chunk of it. Tune in later, when I maybe stop aggregating links and start generating actual content again.

P.S. This headline is my publication credit for the month. I don't care that it's tiny, getting a Fark article greenlit is tricky and I'm going to take pride in having done it. So there.

This Blog Post is On Strike

It's a sympathy strike with the unions in Wisconsin. Governor Walker's being, like, a total toolbag over this collective bargaining thing, and I figure I should show solidarity to, y'know, drive up my page hits a little bit...

No?

Okay, the truth is this has been a pretty long and irritating week. I've had to deal with my taxes (Protip: Never sell stock if you don't have an accountant handy), deadlines at work, botched deadlines at the writing desk, a crazed Corgi, and most recently a garbage disposal that doesn't work except to leak water all over the inside of my kitchen cabinet. My TMJ keeps acting up, I'm overdue for a new pair of glasses so I'm straining my eyes every day, and I'm probably killing my liver with a combination of Ibuprofen and strong liquor. The weather keeps alternating between beautiful spring days and frostbite, and that is because it is February and February is the month of hate.

Well. It's March tomorrow, and that means better weather, (hopefully) better blogging, and my birthday somewhere in the middle. It's a friendlier month overall.

Hey, have you heard about Writing Excuses? It's a podcast where some pretty good writers chat about some aspect of the craft for fifteen minutes at a time. Last week's episode talked about writing in somebody else's intellectual property, which is a subject near and dear to my heart and well worth checking out.</plug>

Okay, back to unpaid overtime. I'll try to be more substantial next week, or sooner if at all possible.

Quick Writing Link Post

This SHINE online blog challenge requires two posts a week, and I really have no excuse not to manage that, despite the ministrations of Grandfather Nurgle. So, some links:

The latest gaggle of writing links from Sterling Editing. Really, you should be tracking these regardless of what I say. This week's links include some writing on distribution, the meaning of distribution, and what makes a great first paragraph.

How NOT to pitch a book. ProTip: The hospital is pretty much never appropriate.

Your very own Grant Morrison Guide to Writing. (If anyone finds a less tongue-in-cheek form of this in the wild, please let me know.)

Writing and the Mixed Blessing of a Day Job. I admit, not having to scramble to put something to paper to get my next meal is a solid reason to hang onto my day job.

Links of Interest

I'm feeling lazy tonight, so instead of generating content I'm going to pass along some awesome stuff from other places. (Well, there will be some content.)

Smellovision is coming to a television near you. The new ScentScape device emits a set of 20 preset scents to accompany video games. Said scents can be programmed into video games using a Scent Editor. Now when you kill a guy in Halo, you can smell the blood! I don't know if blood is a scent.

A superintelligent blimp will be floating above Afghanistan starting this fall. Luckily the "Blue Devil" program will not be arming this latest iteration of SkyNet.

Optogeneticists have developed a means to manipulate minds using a combination of light and genetic engineering. So far the technique is limited to small organisms, such as worms and fruit flies. Henry Pym is preparing a patent lawsuit as we speak.

Soldiers are beta-testing voice translation smart phones. Yes, we will be seeing a universal translator at some point in our lifetimes.

Since this is supposed to be a writing blog... Chris Baty has eight tips for revising a novel. Or if you prefer short fiction, there's a competition open until February 14th you can enter.

Last but not least, Red Letter Media has a lengthy but hilarious review of Revenge of the Sith. I consider this a must-watch piece of web video.

Ack Ack Ack

Today's going to be a short post. My best friend just blew into town from Cincinnati to spend the holidays with his family, so I ended up playing co-op Plants vs. Zombies and New Super Mario Bros. for much longer than I planned and now I really need to get ready for bed.

Happily I do have some content! Just from other people.

First up is an excellent blog post from Kevin Smith (the Clerks guy), in which he talks about the creative process for film making, and how important it is to go out and do what you want to do, rather than waiting until you're somehow qualified to do it.

Second (and last) is The Penmonkey's Paean, which I am officially declaring a must-read blog post. In fact, you know what? You'll need to print this one out and tack it up on your wall, right behind your desk. Because when you're burnt out in the middle of a book or you're sick of editing for the tenth time, you will want to read this.