Abby Babble (the official blog)

Clear internet vs. Broadband cable internet

2012-01-25T14:43:00.000-06:00

I want to take a moment here to reflect on the incredibly bad customer service of Clear 4G, a WiFi internet service which is offered in my area as an alternative to DSL or cable. Most people want an alternative to the big cable corporations, such as Time Warner and Comcast. Clear could tap that huge market and become a major corporation in its own right ... if it could get its act together and offer competitive prices and decent support. But it doesn't.

First of all, potential customers should be aware that Clear lies. Their customer support (outsourced to foreign countries) representatives barely understand English, and apparently it's okay for them to lie to customers or potential customers. If they tell you the service costs $35/month, it actually costs $42/month. If they tell you there's no contract, there's actually a 2-year contract that you're locked into. I've been shifted on the phone to two different representatives who told me two different prices for the same modem.

Once I realized that their company policy is to lie to customers, I asked for email (written) confirmation on the next change to my account. They told me that their company policy is to never put anything in writing. I can see why...

So today, I got broadband installed from my local cable mega-corporation, and cancelled Clear 4G. My cancellation call went like this:

REP: "Why are you cancelling ma'am?"

ME: "Bad customer service."

REP: "Oh i am very sorry ma'am. Let me transfer you."

new REP: "Why are you cancelling ma'am?"

ME: "Bad customer service."

REP: "Oh i am very sorry ma'am. Please hold."

[3 minutes later]

REP: "We can offer $27 a month and waive the first month."

ME: "I want higher speed, and I already signed up with another service."

REP: "We can offer $27 a month at higher speed."

ME: "Your company policy is to lie. I've been told in the same phone call that high speed would be $45/month, and then the next rep said $50/month. You don't put anything in writing, so I can't trust what you say over the phone. Clear also locked me into a 2-year contract, when the rep told me there would be no contract."

REP: "This high speed will be $27/month, and we will waive the first month."

ME: "I don't believe you. Please cancel my account."

Then we did 5 more minutes of the song and dance. Anyway, I hope broadband Turbo will be better. I don't have high hopes, but at least I hope they won't have a company policy of flat-out lying to customers. (For the record, $27/month for high speed would be a great deal ... if it were true.)

For your entertainment: I did one chat session online with Clear, in an attempt to get their contradictions in writing. Here's the chat transcript:

Hello Abigail. Please wait while we find a CLEAR specialist to help you.
Your question is: I would like to replace my home modem lease with a refurbished home modem.
All agents are currently busy. Please stand by.
An agent will be with you in a moment. Thank you for your patience.
You have been connected to Dennis.
Abigail: Hi Dennis. I just spoke on the phone with a representative named Cesar, and he said I could buy a refurbished modem for $50 (one time fee), which would also cancel my 2-year service contract and make it monthly. Is this true?
Dennis: Thank you for contacting Clear, my name is Dennis. So I can help, may I please have your first and last name?
Abigail: Abigail Goldsmith
Dennis: Thank you for the information. Please allow me a moment to pull up your account.
Abigail: Right now, I'm locked into a 2 year contract (not my choice), and I'm unhappy with all the hidden fees Clear hit me with. I'm paying $7/mo for a modem lease, plus the basic $35 internet service.
Dennis: Yes, you can purchase the device for $50.
Abigail: Would this device: a) Replace my current home modem, and work just as well?
Abigail: b) cost $50 one-time only? (not a lease)
Dennis: I see.
Abigail: c) cancel my two year contract and make it month to month?
Dennis: A new device?
Abigail: refurbished
Abigail: a home modem to replace the one I'm leasing (which is white)
Dennis: Okay.
Abigail: ... can you answer my questions?
Dennis: That will be a Home modem with no Wi-Fi.
Abigail: the one I have has WiFi
Abigail: it's the basic CLEAR Moden wf Wi-Fi
Dennis: Yes
Abigail: I am asking about buying a refurbished modem to replace it
Abigail: you're saying that I could buy one for $50, but it would lack the Wi-Fi?
Dennis: Yes
Dennis: The one with Wi-Fi refurbished is $79.99.
Abigail: What is it called? Series G or Series M?
Abigail: What is the difference between those two?
Dennis: Series G. It has no built in Wi-Fi but functions the same.
Dennis: No difference much, only the manufacturer.
Abigail: neither one has Wi-Fi?
Abigail: hello?
Dennis: Yes
Abigail: Dennis, can you transfer me to someone who can type faster, or have faster comprehension?
Dennis: All agents are assisting right now.
Dennis: To give you the best assistance regarding this matter, please call our Account Services Department at 888-888-3113.
Abigail: I'm chatting because I want this in writing.
Abigail: I want to know: If I buy a refurbished modem, will that cancel my 2 year contract and make it monthly?
Dennis: No
Abigail: ok, that contradicts what I was told on the phone.
Dennis: If you would buy a modem and then you change your plan, that will cancel the 2 year contract.
Abigail: I want to be clear on this, before I dump more money into CLEAR. Please answer:
Abigail: Are you talking about a package deal? In other words, the deals listed here: http://www.clear.com/packages
Dennis: I'll check.
Dennis: Please wait.
Abigail: ok
Dennis: Yes, those are the deals.
Abigail: so if I buy one of those, it cancels my current contract WITHOUT the cancellation fee?
Abigail: (according to the phone guy, my cancellation fee would be $92.50 this month)
Dennis: We will just switch the plan. But it will also switch the service to NO Contract.
Dennis: Yes
Abigail: No cancellation fee?
Dennis: If you will switch plan. Yes.
Dennis: Month to Month plans have no cancellation fee.
Abigail: I'm not currently on a month to month plan, though.
Abigail: one more thing: Those package deals offer 4G Home service for $50. It used to be $45, and I was told $45 over the phone today. Which is it?
Dennis: It will be $50.
Abigail: Why did the phone guy tell me $45?
Dennis: There are no entries regarding your conversation just summaries. But I do verify that it is $50.
Abigail: Time Warner cable offers internet service for $30/month.
Dennis: But surely that will at a limited speed.
Abigail: I'll call them today and get back to Clear. Thanks for answering my questions.
Dennis: You are most welcome!
Dennis: I apologize for the inconvenience incurred to you by this issue.
Dennis: Thank you for chatting with me today! You may receive a page asking you to take a survey about your experience today. Please take time in taking the survey and tell us what you think. If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us; we are available in live WebChat 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Thank you for visiting clear.com. You may now close this window.

FOLLOW UP:
Apparently I'm not the only one who had problems with Clear. They've been accused of running a Ponzi scheme, and there's a website for complaints, as well as a pending class action lawsuit. To make a long story short: Don't believe their advertising, or any claims they make. They're lying.

Abby Online

2012-01-15T03:53:00.001-06:00

It's been a busy 2012 so far, and we're only halfway through January. First, I was interviewed on an art & architecture podcast for Austin, Texas. You can stream/download the interview HERE, or from iTUNES.

I'm collaborating with a programmer and some other friends to create iPhone games and apps of my own design. This is super exciting for me, since it's the first time I'm getting to work on my own games. I'd like to pump out a lot of material and see if anything takes off. The advantages we have: A talented team with lots of excitement and passion, and (if I say so myself) good ideas. The disadvantages: Lack of budget, and my own inexperience in marketing. The more I learn about marketing, the more scary it seems. Anyway, I will do my best. I'll let everyone know when our first game comes out. If you haven't subscribed to my blog, please do so!

I'm recording tutorial videos for 3D Modeling in 3dsmax. They're available in HD on my YouTube channel, and on the new tutorial page of my website. I plan to add more tutorials for animation, Flash, and other art software. This is partially just because it's fun to make videos, and relatively easy nowadays. It's also to prepare for my first job as a teacher. I will be teaching a 3D Animation class once per week at the local community college.

Games, contract art, teaching. What else am I doing? Still writing novels, of course. Actually ... no ... I'm editing and marketing novels now. I would like to get back to writing original material, but sadly, I've learned beyond any shadow of doubt that marketing is important if one wants to sell one's work. I'm 3/4 through an edit of Book 2, and in the process of querying agents and publishers about Book 1. Still getting top tier rejections for my short stories, but I haven't written any new short stories in a few years. Participating in (and enjoying) my local novel critique group. It's a talented bunch of writers.

I wish I could report more on my personal life, but there's not much to say. My adorable dog says "hello." She apparently sees the HOA (home owner's association) lady as a threat, which could be why the HOA lady got on my case a few months ago. My dog normally loves people, but every once in a while, she goes into attack mode ... this was the first time I saw her growl at a woman, though. Strange. Usually she has a problem with men in uniforms wearing hats. (I will add that I don't encourage aggression in my dog; she just has guard dog tendencies. She might be part pitbull or akita, and I suspect she might have been abused before I got her.)

Movie Reviews:
I enjoyed HUGO, both visually wonderful and good storytelling. I saw TINTIN in 3D, and although it was visually stunning, I thought the story was weak; predictable and beating the same joke to death. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (American version) was really great. I was pleasantly surprised that it followed the book closely, and managed to do it well. There's an example of a well written screenplay adaptation.

Book Reviews:
I read the first ten books in the ANITA BLAKE, vampire hunter series. What can I say? GUILTY PLEASURES is aptly named. I'm not sure I can recommend this series for everyone, but the first four or five books entertained me. After that, there's some fall-off. Many fans say that it devolves into weirdo erotica after the tenth book, and I can see that happening. Dating a vampire and then dating a werewolf is fine. Menage-a-trois sex with a werewolf and a vampire, plus bondage rape with a wereleopard, and turning into a succubus ... um, starting to cross a line there.

Then I read the Stieg Larsson series, which starts with THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. Interesting stuff. People may scoff, but I find the books to be very feminist, despite being written by a man! The main characters get a little ridiculous and unbelievable, especially in the second and third book, but I don't mind ridiculousness with a good story, which this had. Salander is a cool character. No one knows if she has Asperger's Syndrome or what, but she's a criminal mastermind who looks like a sullen Goth teenager, so who cares?

And I just finished listening to Scott Sigler's THE STARTER, a sequel to THE ROOKIE. Yes, that's right, I don't have a clue about sports or football, yet I read two books about football. I'm just a hopeless Sigler fan. I guess it's weird that I like his alien voice acting and his super-weird alien universe, where humans play pro sports alongside drooling alien teammates. What a cool idea, though.

If you want to receive my infrequent updates, please subscribe to my blog!

Update and Thoughts on Mind Readers

2011-11-11T16:00:00.001-06:00

Time for a bit of an update! I got my first two (form) rejection letters from this year's round of novel querying. Rejection is never pleasant, but it's especially hard when you spend years rewriting the 1-page query letter. Literary agents usually never get past this simple-yet-vitally-important letter. They get flooded with hundreds of query letters per week, and that's on top of the daily work they need to do for their existing clients. I'm going to try and keep my complaining online to a minimum. I'll let you and the rest of the world know if ... ahem, *WHEN*, I land an agent.

Tomorrow, I'm going through a corn maze. I have also begun to substitute teach a 3D Animation class at the nearby community college. It's my first time teaching, and I'm pretty stoked about it!

One of the games I've worked on this year is coming to the App store. If you or your child want a simple and fun way to learn how to hear/play music, check out Tune Hopper.

I just got my shipment of Book 6 in the SmartBoys Club book series, which I've been illustrating. These are great books for middle grade readers, girls or boys.

Work life: I continue to freelance from home, using 3D Studio Max, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, and a variety of other art programs. What's next? Should I start a business in e-learning apps? Should I make a series of short animated films? Should I write some silly e-books and sell them? Should I just concentrate on expanding my current self-employed contract business?

What do you think? I have exciting ideas for all of the above, but only enough time to focus on one.

Torth series update: I'm still editing Book 2. Just one major edit, and it should be done by the end of this year.

Writing topic food for thought: We no longer have much folklore, but instead have fantasy books. As a genre writer, are you willing to break with tradition and make a new kind of vampire, elf, zombie, dragon, or whatever? This is about originality, a topic I feel strongly about. Many writers seem uncomfortable about inventing their own worlds and aliens. Even when they do it, they often follow traditions that were laid out by previous writers. I like to break with tradition.

When it comes to mind readers, they're often treated a certain way in fiction. Either they are benevolent and kind (Professor X, Deanna Troi), or they are befuddled by their power (Jean Gray, the cop in "Heroes," and many more). In order to justify this befuddlement, mind readers in fiction often gain their powers late in life, or have very little control over their power, tuning in and out of thoughts at random as the story requires.

I say that's all bull****. First of all, a lifelong mind reader would damn well know how to use that power effectively. Whenever I read or watch someone else's telepathic character get befuddled, I feel a strong sense of author manipulation. It wasn't thought through all the way. The writer was lazy; rather than actually think about the full spectrum of implications of mind reading--its limitations and possibilities--they try to make it work without a set of rules, forcing it to fill a plot need and glossing over the plot holes it creates.

Second of all, if you are privy to the darkest secrets of your fellow humans, you're not going to be a benevolent sweetheart. More like cynical and misanthropic.

And if you have the ability to control other people's minds, that is the trump card of all super-powers. It trumps *EVERYTHING* else. Any character who can use a Jedi mind trick is likely tobecome super-corrupt. I use it sparingly in my fiction ... because much like time travel, it can easily mess up a story unless it's thoroughly thought out.

And that concludes my thoughts on mind readers for the afternoon.

Writing Topic: Inventing Words

2011-10-18T16:15:00.000-05:00

Every week, one of the writing mailing lists I belong to has a discussion topic. I often respond to the list, so I figured, why not post about it to my blog? Today's topic is about inventing words. Most fiction writers invent names for people or places, and most SF/F (science fiction/fantasy) writers also invent jargon or slang for their world. Famous examples include Quidditch, Jedi knights, Unobtainium, grok, Cthulhu, and elves.

It seems to me that a lot of contemporary writers, particularly in SF, overdo the futuristic jargon and slang, which makes it hard for a new reader to get through. The universe in which my novels take place is ruled by mind readers, who have no use for slang. Their jargon is utilitarian rather than slang-like.

Hoverchair = a floating chair.
Transport = a flying car.
Adaptive skin = photo-sensor cells that can be programmed to imitate a realistic view, or approximate invisibility.
Plasmic polymer = a super strong and flexible building material.

They use holograms, antimatter, nuclear weapons, FTL engines, and so forth, but I saw no need to invent new words for things we already have words for. Other than the aforementioned tech gadgets, and aside from names for people or places (Torth are mind readers), I've only invented two words for use in my Torth series. A Yeresunsa is someone with powers that go beyond mind reading. I didn't want to use Jedi, wizard, warlock, sorcerer, etc, which come with preconceived notions. The etymology of this word has a history in my series. And Guaht is someone who only judges him/herself and never judges anyone else. In my Torth series, this can be the equivalent of being a saint, although only some people follow the Code of Guaht (which is akin to a philosophic religion, a la Buddhism).

Query Letter take 2

2011-10-10T03:40:00.001-05:00

Dear [insert ideal literary agent],

Thomas has always felt like an alien, too brilliant for his youthful age. When alien mind readers snatch Thomas and four of his acquaintances from their mundane lives on Earth, he learns of his otherworldly heritage, and seizes a chance to join the mighty Torth Empire. The only catch is that Thomas must abandon his human friends to brutal slavery.

While Thomas navigates a world full of technological marvels, the four humans survive in an alien slave ghetto. They can't escape from a city thick with mind readers. When one of the humans is marked for execution, they realize that time is short. Unless Thomas can remember his human loyalties, they must escape on their own . . . which means they must rescue Thomas from the monster he is becoming.

CITY OF SLAVES is complete at 105,000 words ... blah, blah, blah. How does it sound?

Query Letter for "City of Slaves"

2011-10-09T22:39:00.002-05:00

Dear [insert an ideal LITERARY AGENT],

Thomas has always felt like an outsider, too brilliant for his youthful age, victimized by adults and unable to relate to other kids. His handful of friends are all older than himself, teenagers and adults who also suffer as social outcasts. But Thomas has a brighter future. If he agrees to join the Torth Empire, he will win acceptance among the powerful mind readers who rule the known universe. The only catch is that Thomas must abandon his human friends to slavery and death.

While Thomas navigates a world full of technological marvels, his friends survive in a brutal alien slave ghetto. Their only hope for long-term survival is escape . . . but in city full of emotionless mind readers, secret plans are impossible. Their slim hope hinges on Thomas. If Thomas can't remember his human ethics in time, then his friends must rescue him from the monster he is becoming.

CITY OF SLAVES is complete at 105,000 words, the first in a dark science fiction novel series that explores what it means to be human. I've completed three sequels, following Thomas and his friends as they lead a slave rebellion against the Torth Empire. My writing credentials include stories and articles in Fantasy Magazine, Escape Pod, The Internet Review of Science Fiction, and other publications. I'm a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop and a member of Codex.

So that's my latest query letter. I know I can tear it apart endlessly and always find flaws, but do you see anything that really turns you off?

I'll start contacting literary agents and editors this coming week. Possibly as soon as Tuesday. Yikes! This is a special kind of scary.

Deer in the neighborhood

2011-10-02T13:17:00.002-05:00

Packs of deer rove around my new neighborhood, and they have no fear of people or dogs. Unfortunately, my dog wants to chase them, and she doesn't seem aware that they're bigger than her.

A few times, I've encountered does and fawns. The does get protective and act as if they're going to charge at my dog, pawing the ground and grunting. The fawns frolick and try to get my dog to chase them. I have to drag her away. I've also seen stags with antlers, but they tend to be solitary and not as confrontational.

Here's Saphira relaxing in her guard dog pose. She likes to hang out on the patio or near doorways, facing outward to ward off the forces of evil.

Disney's Worst Feature Film

2011-09-12T00:07:00.000-05:00

I finally got around to watching The Black Cauldron, which is supposedly the worst animated film ever made by Disney Feature Animation. It was pretty bad (although I would argue that Dinosaur was a bigger flop). As an animator and a writer, I can't help but analyze animated films. It hurts me to see a disaster like this one, especially knowing how much talent was wasted on it.

This Slate article gives a history of what was going on at Disney at the time, so I won't repeat that here. The biggest problems I saw with this film were 1) the writing (both dialogue and story), and 2) the voice acting. The animation also had problems, and it looked more low-budget than it was, but it could have held together with a good story. The special FX were classic Disney and looked nice.

A hero is only as good as his villain is bad, and vice versa. In this film, both the hero and the villain are rather pathetic. They're both passive characters, not taking much initiative to get things done. The villain relies entirely on a lackey with the mentality of a 3-year-old, while the hero accomplishes everything by accident. He defeats the villain with a weak little kick. He saves his friend's life by asking the authorities (a trio of witches) to do it for him. I think I've seen more story tension in an average episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.

This is a perfect illustration of a bad adaptation, and why bad film-making can harm the reputation of the writers and artists involved. I had no idea that this film was based on a series of fantasy novels by Lloyd Alexander. Frankly, I'd never heard of him, which says something about what happened to his reputation as a novelist. In the 1970s, he was appreciated enough for Disney Studios to option his novel series. I assume that this wretched film discouraged his book sales, and it seems the film also discouraged some young animators at the studio enough so they would leave and look for a future career elsewhere. Don Bluth, John Lasseter, and Tim Burton were among those who left.

I wrote an article about the bad adaptation effect, Down the Tube, published in the Internet Review of Science Fiction (2006).

Bioengineering and The Windup Girl

2011-09-08T19:00:00.002-05:00

I just finished reading Paolo Bacigalupi's "The Windup Girl," and I'm a bit pissed off. Not as pissed off as I was after reading Scott Smith's "The Ruins," but still irked. Let's set aside the writing for now, and just talk about the premise of the book. The supposed science doesn't gel. As a bioengineered "New Person," Emiko moves with a jerky stutter-stop motion (to mark her as a non-human) and has the loyalty and submissiveness of a dog. In fact, a genetic scientist character remarks that her gene pool comes partially from a Labrador retriever.

Emiko's submissive behavior strains credulity. Humans have a very similar pack mentality to dogs, and I think the only reason most people are not blindly submissive to authority is because we can think and reason. As an intelligent human being (she speaks seven languages), Emiko should be able to overcome her submissive genes. But even when she's gang raped, Emiko can't help but obey commands. Right. In creating the character of Emiko, the author created a fantasy female ... yet another sexbot. She's cute, tiny, submissive, built for good sex, super-powerful, in need of rescue, and ready to drop to the floor and worship the first man who gives her the time of day. Oh gee, where have I seen this before? Could it be Freya from "Saturn's Children?" Or how about Pepper Potts, who was not engineered to be a sexbot, but was just born that way? There are too many to name. To me, this character archetype is very transparent as a male fantasy object.

Oh, and how sexy is stutter-stop motion? I have trouble believing that scientists would bioengineer sex-slaves who move like creaky robots. They would find some other, much sexier, way to mark them as different.

Now let's talk about the bioengineered mastadons. In this futuristic novel, climate change has wreaked havoc and the world is starving to death. People can no longer rely on petroleum. So in order to power their computers, people rely on spring or windup mechanisms, gas power, or ... mastadons?! Yes, that's right. Apparently these enormous bioengineered elephants are very efficient in converting food to power. I'm not sure I buy this. If your country is starving to death, would you rather plant a field full of hay (or whatever mastadons eat), or a field full of wheat or corn for human consumption? A mastadon must eat a lot more than a human. Honestly, if this is a survival scenario, I think that any government would put its citizens first, and sell or butcher the poor mastadons.

I wanted to like this novel, since it came so highly recommended, and it won the coveted Hugo Award. But in addition to the issues I mentioned above, I didn't like any of the characters. This was a difficult book for me to get through. The only reason I stuck through until the end was a) because I was listening to it as an audio-book, which makes it easier, and b) high quality prose. Paolo Bacigalupi writes atmosphere and action equally well. Several times, I was tempted to stop reading, but some clever little hook pulled me through to the next scene.

I kept hoping to warm to the main characters ... or hoping to see them die in some deservedly unpleasant way. I was partially rewarded in the end. The characters never redeem themselves, but several of them get served a piece of justice.

This is Highbrow science fiction, with a capital "H." It's not about fun characters or a fun story. It's about a Messsage, written in a very elegant, intricate, complex, brutally adult way, so you'll feel smarter for reading it. I guess I feel a little smarter. But I can't quite bring myself to recommend this to the average reader. Go for it if you love Charles Stross, China Meiville, and Neal Stephenson. They're not bad company.

Teaching and public speaking

2011-09-07T01:15:00.000-05:00

I've been telecommuting from my home office for a while now. Sure, I get out of the house to do social things, but I figure it's time to try something totally new and different for me: Teaching. I used to be very uncomfortable speaking in front of people, and I still have trouble overcoming my natural urge to blend into the background ... but self-marketing has become necessary in my career. I want to continue working on fun animation projects with nice clients. I want to get literary agents and publishers interested in my novels. To that end, I want to get more comfortable with public speaking, including being on panels, and teaching.

So I will be teaching 3D Animation at the Austin Community College. I'm really excited about this, and grateful for the opportunity to teach a subject that I feel comfortable in.

To prepare myself for the act of teaching, I've volunteered to teach a class on Writing: Plot Structure, which is free and open to the public, hosted by HourSchool. If you live in or near Austin, you're welcome to attend, and I'd appreciate your feedback if you show up. A minimum number of RSVPs are necessary to make the class happen. You can sign up here.

I'm also volunteering to speak at local schools. I gave a talk at UT (the University of Texas) a few months ago, and I may speak at a high school later this week.

If you have questions, or would like to invite me to talk about animation, the game industry, or fiction writing, please contact me through my website.

Abby Update

2011-08-11T11:35:00.000-05:00

It's time for some self-promotion! If you have an e-reader or a subscription to Fantasy Magazine, you can read my non-fiction article about magical talismans throughout human history in the August 2011 issue.

Fantasy Magazine - August 2011

If you're in the mood for a podcast, Comic Dish interviewed me about working as a contract artist in episode #152.

My latest book illustrations can be viewed in the Smartboys Club #5: My Stomach Explodes, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and more.

I'm designing and animating characters featured for Moon Haven, an MMORPG in BETA stage.

If you own an iPhone, iTouch, or iPad, look for Tune Hopper, a cute musical game featuring a lot of my artwork.

Earlier this year (sorry for some slightly old news), my short story "A Taste of Time" was published in episode 287 of Escape Pod, a podcast magazine of science fiction.

I will be attending Armadillocon in Austin, Texas. If you're attending, drop me an email or leave a comment here!

In other news: I'm moving to a condo in a different part of the city, along with my dog. I look forward to a nice new environment and neighborhood!

Writing update: I'm beginning to shop around my novel "City of Slaves," Book 1 in the Torth series. I'm also making some minor edits to Books 2, 3, and 4 in the series, in preparation for writing Book 5. I'll probably start that project in the fall of this year, and I'm really looking forward to writing a new novel, despite the nerve-wracking uncertainty of having completed more than half of my dark science fiction series without a publisher or agent involved. The Torth series is projected to end with a total of six books. I hesitate to set a firm date (it seems silly without a publisher), but it looks like I'll finish writing this series in 2013.

If you'd like to give my series a try, let me know! I'm giving away free e-books in PDF format. I also have some old hard copies (printed manuscripts) lying around. They're an older version, but the same story about mind readers, their alien slaves, and five humans torn from their ordinary lives and forced to survive on another world, where keeping a secret can mean death.

A Dance with Dragons

2011-07-31T18:57:00.000-05:00

This novel is the fifth in an epic dark fantasy series, so I assume that anyone interested in it has read at least one of the previous Game of Thrones novels. You probably don't want spoilers. To read the spoilers, simply highlight the blackened text with your mouse.

"I'm just a young girl, innocent of the ways of war."
"A Lannister always pays his debts."
"Dunsen, Raff the Sweetling, Ser Gregor, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei."
"The things I do for love."

If you're a fan, like me, you know exactly which character each line above belongs to, and you're eager to pick up their story where it last left off. I pre-ordered A Dance With Dragons and read all 957 pages (from prologue to epilogue, hardcover) in a week. Now I have mixed feelings. Some of the story was very satisfying, especially in regards to Tyrion and Bran. Some of it progressed slowly or stalled. Theon got served a heaping pile of justice, but it went on for too many chapters. Half of this novel follows minor characters through machinations that are only tangential to the overall plot, which made for a frustrating experience, despite the high quality of the writing. I was tempted to flip through pages to get back to a favorite character. My tolerance for over-description is very high, so my impatience worries me. If I was tempted to skip parts, I imagine that some readers will drop the series after this book.

The fourth and fifth books are actually one volume, a fact which in and of itself signals a slower pace. The new plot developments are interesting and well worth reading, but they're interspersed between myriad rich descriptions of palaces, dungeons, exotic feasts, and outlandish warriors. Otherworldly descriptions are part of the appeal of fantastic fiction, of course, yet they lose a bit of magic when they fail to propel the plot forward. Without story tension, the outlandish details become merely a list of curiosities.

The first three books in this series seem fast-paced because each chapter had a situational change, or value change. Each chapter ended with a new plot development. By contrast, A Dance With Dragons contains many chapters which only deliver new environmental details without new plot developments. These areas could have been reduced. Several chapters contained a single new character insight or plot development, which could have been boiled down to a paragraph of exposition or dialogue. This is especially true for the scenes taking place in the land of Dorne, and to a lesser extent, the Greyjoy fleet, the city of Meereen, and the Dreadfort/Winterfell. I don't think it was necessary to go into the point of view of Areo Hotah or Arys Oakheart at all.

The names of minor characters are overwhelming in some places, particularly in the Daenerys chapters. While the complexity of her political situation is admirably realistic, the names are tedious and hard to remember. Instead of listing every noble family in Meereen, only the most important one should have been mentioned, with the rest summed up as "noble families." The same would be true for various sell-sword companies. Most readers will have enough trouble distinguishing between the Second Sons, the Brazen Beasts, and the Golden Company, let alone remembering the names of multiple officers in each one.

Now let's get into the meat of the story. I like the implication that Bran might someday be able to communicate to faraway people through talking birds. Right now, I'm pondering the prophecy of "the dragon has three heads." If this means three Targaryens, I assume it would have to be Daenerys, Jon Snow, and Aegon. If this means three wargs who are capable of controlling dragons, it might be Daenerys, Jon Snow, and Bran, or maybe Arya. Victarion has a horn that can supposedly bind a dragon to his will, which opens up an interesting potential for him to become a powerful antagonist.

Overall, this book sets up a lot of potential bad-ass scenes for the next book. It hums with possibilities. Although Jon Snow was stabbed multiple times, he seems too much of a central character to die. I figure Melisandre is the only one who can save him . . . with blood magic. She might use Jon to rescue Stannis, or maybe she's decided that he must be Azor Ahai. The only other possibility I can think of is that Jon will come back as a wight, a la Cold Hands, and become the first undead Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.

The introduction of Aegon Targaryen in this book feels late, since he will presumably play a major role in the final books. But I understand the need to withhold his existence from the main characters, and I think the surprise works. His appearance is satisfying in that it answers a number of plot questions, and sets up interesting possibilities for war or peace in the final books. I'd like to know if Tywin Lannister spared his life, and why. Just to make sure I have everything straight: Varys and Ilyrio have been working together for years, along with Jon Connington, planning to restore the throne to the boy Aegon Targaryen. I'm not sure why they're so loyal to the Targaryen family. Ilyrio claims that he was friends with Varys when they were both street rats; it's possible that Jon Connington or Rhaegar saved their lives in the past. Maybe they swore to serve House Targaryen in return.

I like the potential for self-revelation that Tyrion has with Penny. He's unaware of his own hypocrisy; that he's treating Penny exactly how most women treat him, as a disgusting chore, or someone to pity. But I also find myself losing respect for him. Tyrion is set up as a clever character, and I have trouble with him remaining self-deluded for an entire book. Beyond that, I was a bit angered by his lack of remorse for strangling Shae, and his lack of personal responsibility for the gang-rape of his first wife, Tysha. He believed the lies of his brother over the wife whom he claims to have loved. I'm still rooting for Tyrion, but less so. His self-reflection seems overdue.

Bran is being set up to be a greenseer, and Arya is becoming a Faceless assassin. They have a lot of potential, and I'm excited to see how their characters will play out in the final books. But neither of them seems worried enough, considering the lessons they're learning. Bran ought to be worried about losing his body forever, and Arya should be very worried about losing her true identity, her past and her future. They're both such deep and insightful characters, I was a little bit disappointed by their seemingly blithe attitude.

The Jon Snow chapters particularly frustrated me. I was impressed by the way he handled the various important people who tried to manipulate him, and he'll remain one of my favorite characters due to his compassion. However, I foresaw that mutiny from a mile away. While I read his chapters, I kept mentally yelling at him to keep Mance Rayder close, to let the wildlings at Hardhome die, and so forth. I understand why he made those decisions--compassion--but I wanted to see him at least think about the consequences. If I foresaw that mutiny, he should have foreseen it, and kept his wolf nearby.

Queen Daenerys is often shown bathing in her pool or giving commands, repeating the line that she is just an innocent girl who knows nothing of the ways of war. After so many of these scenes, her concern for suffering people began to ring hollow for me. I especially had trouble with the way she dismisses her dragons, hardly sparing them a second thought. How can she pity slaves, yet abuse and neglect her "children"? She should have made an effort to train them; that should have been high on her priority list. I had trouble believing her miraculous ability to control Drogon after he attacked people.

I get the uncomfortable sense that George R.R. Martin is losing focus on his epic, shying away from the meat of the overarching story, either out of fear that he won't be able to give it a satisfying wrap-up, or because he's reveling in the rich environment and losing his path in his own creativity. If the plot spins out of control, buried beneath the weight of subplots, some readers might shrug and say "it's impossible to control an epic." Other blockbuster and best-selling epics have ended in disappointment. The Star Wars movie franchise took a nosedive, and many readers would agree that the same tragedy befell the Wheel of Time series and the Dark Tower series.

I think it's possible for the next Song of Ice and Fire book to match the stride of the first three. As a writer of an epic (four books completed so far), I understand the temptation to discover and explore new details within my created universe. Creation is fun. It's addictive. Self-editing, on the other hand, is a painful and difficult chore. Creators want to share every detail of their invention, and set out to impress their audience . . . but sometimes readers are bored by a scene that the author found absolutely riveting. This is when objective criticism becomes essential. Right now, I feel fortunate to have two "neo-pro" advantages. One is that I can get objective criticism. The other is that I don't have to rush through edits due to deadline pressures from a publishing house. I keep wondering what obstacles George R.R. Martin is facing, in regards to critiques and deadline expectations.

Anyway, I'm hooked on this series, and rooting for the sympathetic characters who've managed to survive so many battles and treacheries. In a dark world where the strong rule and the meek get slaughtered, one can't help but admire Tyrion the dwarf, Bran the cripple, Sam the coward, and ugly Brienne. Then there's Daenerys, whose brother sold her into slavery, and Arya, who believes herself an orphan among foreigners, and Jon Snow, who believes himself unwanted by the family who raised him. These characters are far more complex and compelling than the typical heroes of epic fantasy. George R.R. Martin has a formidable talent for creating unique characters, and a knack for setting up dire situations and then twisting the plot in surprising, unpredictable ways.

The first three books had me on the edge of my seat, turning pages. These latest two books are a comfortable return to the world where wights walk and familial schisms lead to global warfare, and they might be connective tissue to an awe-inspiring grand finale. The first book has practically become a modern classic and inspired a popular HBO miniseries. If this series ends as strongly as it began, it will earn a place among classics, worthy of study and influential on western culture.

Joining the Technorati

2011-06-18T12:40:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I hate technology. I'd like to get more readers, which means I want to post more on my blog, which means I need more readers, which means research into blogging publicity, RSS feeds, and social networking, and I really don't have the time or inclination to become an expert, and yet I must ...

I find that computers suck all your free time, like vampires. The more time you put into learning something to improve your self-marketing, the more things you will need to learn.

All right, Technorati: V4R4TTU8P2VG

Kids Today Read the Darndest Things

2011-06-16T15:58:00.000-05:00

I'm going to try to be objective about the Wall Street Journal's Darkness Too Visible article, in which editorialist Meghan Cox Gurdon asserts that modern fiction aimed at the teenage market (Young Adult, or YA fiction) is far more brutal and graphically sexual than it should be. This claim has angered many YA authors. Jay Asher responds here.

The book industry has undergone major changes in the last decade, including the creation of a humongous teenage market. YA did not exist when I was growing up in the 1980s-90s. Now it is a multi-million dollar industry (perhaps multi-billion). Household name authors such as J.K. Rowling, Jim Butcher, and Stephanie Meyers dominate the YA section of each bookstore. Booksellers and publishers have finally learned that a voracious teenage reader will buy as many books as any adult bibliophile--and they advertise accordingly.

This new market is having some side effects on the book industry. For one thing, writers are flocking to YA because it's a hot market. Many books that would have been unquestionably adult ten years ago are now considered crossover, or YA. If Anne Rice or Stephen King were new authors breaking in this year, I suspect they would send query letters to the YA market. That's how hot it is. Contemporary adult-level science fiction/fantasy/horror is a little stagnant right now, so if you happen to be a genre novelist, you will consider YA.

On top of that, publishers are under a lot of pressure to produce best-sellers. Many publishers are hit hard by the recession, and their business model relies entirely on their few best-selling authors. They're going to push the envelope. Teenagers like shock value. The more adult a book seems, the more likely it will garner controversy, and therefore buyers.

So I think Meghan Cox Gurdon makes some valid points. The YA market is swimming with adult books, and perhaps these books should not be marketed towards teens and pre-teens.

However ...

I picked up my first Stephen King book when I was 11 years old. I picked up an Anne Rice book the year after. And I was not the only child reading adult novels in the 1990s. True, I didn't understand the sex scenes or the adult themes, but I enjoyed those books all the same, and it was fun to reread them as an adult and "get" the things I'd missed the first time around. Back then, the books marketed to kids my age were Babysitter's Club titles and R.L. Stine's Fear Street. When I outgrew those books, I turned to the adult section because I was ready for something more challenging.

I would have been thrilled if there was a special teenage section in the bookstore tailored to my reading level. That way, I could read the books I wanted to read while still seeming "cool." And I could discuss those books with more kids my age. Thanks to the YA section, more kids are reading ... and most importantly, they're actually enjoying the experience.

Meghan Cox Gurdon moans: "Whatever happened to fostering a child's happiness, moral development, and tenderness of heart?" She apparently feels that teenagers should restrict themselves to Judy Blume ("objectionable for some parents, but not grotesque") and other tame or outdated authors. She doesn't mind 1970s books that explore puberty, but she's disturbed by modern YA books that deal with drugs, cutting, rape, incest, and other very unfortunate situations. According to her, Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games is "hyper-violent."

Well, those darned kids, readin' stuff they shouldn't. Next thing you know, they'll be turnin' to violent video games and murdering each other in the streets.

Meghan Cox Gurdon writes, "So it may be that the book industry's ever-more-appalling offerings for adolescent readers spring from a desperate desire to keep books relevant for the young." I would have to agree. This is probably at least partly true, and it's at least partly working. I applaud them for it.

Then Cox Gurdon writes, "No family is obliged to acquiesce when publishers use the vehicle of fundamental free-expression principles to try to bulldoze coarseness or misery into their children's lives."

Misery? Really? How does enjoying a good book, relevant to your own situation, equate with misery? I don't think the kids who read The Hunger Games or Shine are sitting there with tears streaming down their faces, asking mommy and daddy, "Why, oh why, did you make me read this? I want to stop!" On the contrary, I think they're eating it up like popcorn.

And that's a good thing. A dark, challenging, twisted, thought-provoking book that deals with real life situations isn't going to transform a good kid into a morally depraved high school drop-out. Instead, it will challenge that kid's inner beliefs. Perhaps that kid will look at the world and the people around him/her in a new way. That's the whole point of reading. And generally, when a book makes a big impact on a kid, he/she will pick up another.

X-Men and telepaths

2011-06-10T16:46:00.000-05:00

First time ever: two posts in one day!

A telepath can't play a fair game of chess. If you play chess against a telepath, he's either training you, or letting you win. Why doesn't this bother anyone (like Erik) playing against Charles Xavier?

A telepath would be a guru on social interaction and psychology. He would tailor manipulative words to suit each person he speaks to, so he'd rarely need to resort to mind control (which gives him an awful lot of power, by the way).

It seems that the writers of "X-Men: First Class" failed to think telepathy through thoroughly. I can think of several things Professor X failed to say to Magneto at the end of the film, and I'm not even a telepath. Like, "Are you trying to create a master race? 'Cause you should have a moral problem with that." If Professor X truly wanted to stop those warheads, he would have said something along those lines. And then Magneto could respond to it with something mind-blowing, and then maybe I would actually believe his sudden character plunge from good-vigilante to tyrant-bent-on-genocide.

Ah well. If believable character development were a priority in Hollywood, this would be a different world.

As for the telepathic diamond lady ... if she has Xavier's power to control minds, she would be the one in charge, not fetching the ice. Sorry, but that's just the way mind control works. It trumps other powers.

FYI for all people reading my blog: I write better telepaths.

"Jumper" and "Reflex," by Steven Gould

2011-06-10T16:13:00.001-05:00

I recently reread two highly underrated super-hero novels, "Jumper" and its sequel, "Reflex," by Steven Gould. These books remain among my favorite super-hero stories, and I only wish the movie version had been an actual adaptation, instead of crapping all over the book.

"Jumper" is an engaging hero's journey. Davy doesn't spontaneously decide to put on a costume and fight crime (in fact, he wears ordinary clothing throughout the book). His character develops exactly the way a real 18-year-old with a sudden ability to teleport would develop. He can't find his birth certificate or social security number, and like many young people, he's unaware that he can write to his state department to get a copy--so Davy can't get a job. In need of money, he uses his power to rob a bank. Then he starts messing with bullies, from his thuggish neighbors to his abusive father. He takes creative revenge on people who have hurt him. But even with endless freedom and money, Davy is lonely, without friends or family. In need of someone to share his fortune with, he gets a girlfriend. He finds his long-lost mother. He does good deeds. But he doesn't decide to hunt criminals until a suicide bomber kills his mother.

A timely theme in "Jumper" is about terrorism. When Davy hunts suicide bombers, the U.S. government treats Davy as a lawless vigilante--so they abduct Davy's girlfriend and hold her as a hostage. Outraged, Davy starts jumping agents all over the world, stranding them in dangerous countries. Homeland Security then labels Davy as a terrorist. Davy reacts like most 18-year-olds, with extreme anger. In the end, both Davy and the man in charge at Homeland Security have to reconcile their mistrust of each other, and work together for the people they are both trying to rescue.

Both of these books are short and fast-paced. I will add that "Reflex" is a bit more geared to adult audiences. It takes place ten years after the first novel, so Davy is a married man. He's also gained some very powerful enemies, and one of them is a woman who treats him like her pet dog.

Dysfunctional Families

2011-05-21T01:59:00.003-05:00

I've been watching HBO's Game of Thrones. They're doing a great job and staying true to the novel, but a couple of the actors don't fit in with the medieval/primitive setting. Jon Snow is a soldier-in-training, but the actor who plays his role looks more like a sultry poet, like if Johnny Depp and Shia LaBeouf had a child. Not how I pictured Jon Snow. And Daenerys is supposed to be a 16-year-old concubine with white-blond hair. The actress in her role looks like a tired 28-year-old with bleached hair, a deep tan, and collagen-injected lips. I doubt the Dothraki horde carries hair bleach and botox with them, so the L.A. look seems a tad silly.

Still, I love these books (you can read my review from 2002). I'm not above bragging that George R.R. Martin read and critiqued the first chapter of my novel, "City of Slaves," while I was at the Odyssey Writing Workshop. This was the chapter that introduced my character of Thomas--and G.R.R. Martin said mind readers are hard to write, and he thought I did a good job. He went on at length about it, and I glowed the whole time. I wish I'd brought a voice recorder to that session.

I've been reading a lot of great fiction lately that involves dysfunctional families. Since I'm kicking around a future novel idea with a horrid family as its centerpiece, I'm comparing these fictional families, and I can't help but study A Game of Thrones. "A Lannister always pays his debts." Heh heh heh ...

Many dysfunctional family stories involve incest. Jamie Lannister feels sorry for the way his sister Cersei is treated. He loves her out of a misguided combination of worship, empathy, and stories of the Targaryens, a fictional royal family who often wed brother to sister--similar to Egyptian pharaohs. Cersei Lannister was unable to choose her husband, and she resents being married to a drunk whom she considers her intellectual inferior. So she chooses her lover--her brother--because she has so much family pride, she can't see anyone else as being good enough for her.

Another popular theme in fictional families is a child struggling to gain the approval/praise of an unworthy parent. Jamie, Cersei, and Tyrion Lannister all try to please their father in various ways. They're willing to kill, lie, commit adultery, and start wars in order to hide an ugly truth from daddy dearest. Yet when the reader finally meets Tywin Lannister, he's as cold as an alligator. He's all about verbal abuse. People admire Tywin because he's clever; he makes money and commands battles with success. But does he truly deserve respect? This is a man who uses people like pawns, including his own children, yet they continue to vye for his love.

Finally, there's the issue of sibling rivalry. A Game of Thrones explores all shades of sibling rivalry. Sansa Stark, the elder daughter, is going through the pressure of what-is-expected-from-a-lady, and terrified that Arya will make her look bad and ruin her future. Arya, the younger daughter, is terrified of losing the freedom that boys have, and being forced to act as fake and demure as Sansa. Every woman in the world has gone through these stages. Every woman with a sister probably remembers the worries and fights caused by seeing an older or younger sister grow to face teenage pressures.

There's Jon Snow and Robb Stark. I find this rivalry especially tantalizing, even though it doesn't turn ugly in the book series. I've always been fascinated by class systems and the disparity between rich and poor. Jon and Robb are the same age and share the same father (so they believe), and they grew up together, with the same servants and everything. But one is a bastard without any rights to a land or a title, and one is the heir to Winterfell and the largest of the seven kingdoms. This sort of treatment would turn any normal stepbrothers into bitter enemies even at a young age, but Jon and Robb both have nice dispositions, so they try REALLY HARD to be friends. Robb never mentions Jon's bastard status, and Jon tells himself over and over that he is devoted to his brother and will never begrudge him. But then stuff happens. Jon endures hardships--the best fate a bastard son can hope for--while he hears distant news that Robb has become a king ... Robb is getting married ... Robb is wallowing in wealth and power. Jon begins to choke on bitterness and has to acknowledge it.

I just read a book called Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn, which was partially inspired by the Jonestown cult. It's also a beautiful examination of a horrifically dysfunctional family taken to extremes. SPOILER ALERT: If you plan to read Geek Love, skip this paragraph. Anyhow ... the sibling rivalry is particularly poignant in this book. Jealousy is what turns the eldest son into a monster. Artie is constantly worried that he's not as good as his siblings. The admirable thing about the little monster is that he is the only character who is fully cognizant of the truth. The twins are more beautiful and talented than he is, his dwarf sister is more normal and compassionate than he is, and the Chick is more powerful and more loved than he is. Artie uses every trick of psychology to prevent them from realizing these facts. He is a sideshow freak, and he repeats the party line his parents fed him (and their many redheaded employees): Freakishness is a wonderful gift. They delight in deformities. But Artie knows that his parents purposely handicapped him in order to use him as a tourist attraction. Artie can't walk or feed himelf; he can't turn the page of a book without help. He is fully reliant on other people, and the only value his parents truly see in him is his ability to draw a crowd. Anyone who can do it better becomes a threat to him. So Artie focuses on manipulating and controlling crowds. When the conjoined twins draw larger crowds with their piano routine, Artie starts his own religious cult to upstage them. When his baby brother shows signs of being a bigger "miracle" than Artie, he tries to smother the baby with a pillow. He cons his siblings, step by step, into doing his bidding, and uses distraction techniques in order to ensure that they won't have enough time or energy to figure out what's really going on. When the conjoined twins start hiring themselves out as expensive prostitutes, Artie feels threatened by their new independent source of revenue, and he has them impregnated and one of them lobotomized. When Artie thinks he's losing his sister to a new boyfriend, he gets the supposed boyfriend murdered. His acts become more desperate and more monstrous, but at every step, it's clear that his fear of his siblings lies at the root of everything he does. And it's pathetically clear that Artie is unaware of his own talent: He is a genius. He's among the most well written evangelist-dictators I've ever seen. He could have used his brains for better things than destroying his siblings and parents. Ah, the tragedy.

Siblings who murder each other. Siblings who marry each other. Siblings who hire thugs to rape or torture each other. It all seems far removed from normal life, but human history is peppered with these sort of rivalries. Byzantine politics was full of murderous, back-stabbing rulers who tortured their own parents or siblings to death. Ancient Egyptian pharaohs and Hapsburg monarchs were all about incest on a grand scale. I imagine that high stakes brew the most atrocious families.

It's good fodder for stories. Everyone recognizes elements of their own family in a fictional one, so there's instant affinity. Dysfunctional families can be exaggerated, pulled apart, and examined through the lens of fiction, which gives us new and fresh ways of looking at families we know in real life.

Backyard Archeology

2011-04-23T14:24:00.000-05:00

On my recent visit to New Hampshire, my parents showed me an old, tarnished, dirt-encrusted pocketwatch that my sister had dug up in the backyard. They'd thrown out the potsherds and given away the arrowheads that she'd dug up, but left the pocketwatch lying around the house. Here it is:

Curious, I decided to find out how old it was, and what metal it was made of. The front of the timepiece read "American Waltham Co," which I Googled. I learned that this company had manufactured pocketwatches from 1852 to 1957; our watch might be from any date in between, and it could be cheap nickel plate or sterling silver. The only way to know for sure would be to open the watch and find the serial number.

The pocketwatch was jammed shut. My dad used some tools to pry the case open, and we found a slip of paper sealed inside, protected from who-knows-how-many harsh winters. A name and date were inked on the paper in faded fountainpen ink.

George F. Smith
September 28, 1913

The name and date were too common for a Google search to turn up anything. However, my parents thought to look in an old census for their local town, and found a George F. Smith who was a watch-maker and repairman. Apparently it was common for the watch-maker to leave a receipt inside the watch, so the owner would know when it was last serviced.

We used silver/nickel polish, clarifying the engraved design on the back of the case. But the inner workings and case were corroded with blue oxide, telling us that it was brass or copper.

The serial number was visible, as was "Elgin Navy Watch Co." I looked up the serial number, and discovered that this pocketwatch was manufactured in 1893. The inner workings come from the Elgin Navy Watch Company in Chicago, while the outer case comes from the American Waltham Company in Massachussetts. It was common for people to buy the case separately from the inner movement (workings).

Who dropped or lost this watch near the old stone wall in my parents' backyard? Why were they hiking around (what would have been) rural farmland? How many decades ago was it lost? I assume it was lost or thrown away before my parents' house was built, possibly in the WWI or WWII era, when the plot of land belonged to a farmer.

I'll never know its exact history, but it was fun to find out so much.

Buy "Bees in My Butt"!

2011-03-25T15:31:00.000-05:00

I'm illustrating the Smartboys Club book series, by Rebecca Shelley. Purchase any Smartboys Club book, and you'll see black & white chapter illustrations by Abby Goldsmith!

I'm excited to announced the first ever Smartboys Club Blog Fest to celebrate the release of Bees in My Butt in paperback. Everyone who participates will get the first 4 Smartboys Club books for free as ebooks and a coupon code to buy the paperback Bees in My Butt for only $3 instead of the list price of $6.99. In addition, for every hundred people that join us in the blog fest we'll have a drawing to give away a Kindle.

For details on how to participate, visit the Wonder Realms Books website. I look forward to seeing you there.

Purchase Bees in My Butt

Take Monkey, a literary genius with flatulence; Bean, a science and math guru; Vinny, a computer whiz who can't keep her mouth shut; and Art, an artist who can shoot a basketball like a pro, confront them with a mess of fourth grade trouble, and watch the fun explode.

In Bees in My Butt, the first book of the Smartboys Club series, the members of the Smartboys Club use their skills to battle a group of crazed Ninjas that take over the school. And it happens on a day when Monkey has the worst case of flatulence imaginable.

City of Slaves, v.2011

2011-03-19T01:38:00.000-05:00

I'm finished ... again! And I dared to enter the Suvudu Writing Contest.

What do you think of this blurb? Please comment or email.

CITY OF SLAVES: Torth Book 1

Thomas is a mind reader whose friends rely on his advice, unaware that Thomas belongs to an alien race of emotionally stunted slave masters with advanced technology. Thomas himself remains unaware of his heritage--until the Torth abduct him along with four of his friends, subjecting them to brutal slavery. Thomas accepts his birthright of power and privilege, hoping to rescue his human friends. But Thomas can't allow his old loyalties to surface in a society full of mind readers, and while he flounders through repressive laws and unimaginable luxuries, his friends must rely on alien slaves in their daily struggle to survive. They soon realize that they will die as slaves unless they can figure out a way to escape on their own ... and rescue Thomas from the monster he is becoming.

Would you like to test read? This novel is 105,000 words, or approximately 420 paperback pages with relatively large print.

Full disclosure: I'm still not happy with it. I may never be happy with this book. Parts of it look really lame to me now, from my perspective as a more experienced writer versus the person I was ten years ago. I'm convinced the beginning is still a problem, but I did my best. The story remains awesome to me, and I've grown a lot as a writer during this series.

Bibliography.

In other news, it's SxSW here in Austin. I made the mistake of walking downtown on St. Patrick's Day during a Strokes concert. Wow. I've never seen so many crazy drunk people wearing green.

So few readers on my blog!

2011-02-08T01:02:00.000-06:00

I wonder if my blog ever gets more than two readers? Looking at the lack of comments, it looks so lonely. But never fear! Someday I will have a fan club, and the most hardcore among them will look back through these old blog entries and fill them with insightful and delightful comments. Yes. It will be awesome.

I wonder if my 600+ friends on Facebook would visit more often if I blogged more often?

I wonder if having 600+ friends on Facebook is lame, or if it's a good start to building a fan base? I swear, they're all people I know. Maybe not WELL, but at least I know where I know them from.

Okay. Time for an Abby Update. Feel free to comment.

- I sold a short story to Escape Pod. No, it isn't out yet. Yes, I'll let everyone know when it comes out. No, I don't know who will narrate the podcast version. Yes, it's a really good e-zine. This story has never been rejected!

- I'm procrastinating on making edits to Torth Book 1: City of Slaves. Here's a very short prologue. What do you think? One thing I'd like to do is post the first few chapters along with a comment box, and see if I get some interactive feedback.

- My employment situation is sketchy right now. I'm feeling a need to get better at self-marketing, and/or start a business, like everyone else my age. Last week, I thought I had three job interviews lined up for this week. I might have contract work tomorrow. I've signed a lot of NDAs lately. Either the perfect storm of jobs will happen, or it will all evaporate and leave me at square one. I hate uncertainty.

- I'd like to make e-learning apps (smaller than games) that are fun (not boring), with appealing characters, and relevant to the target audience. I'm beginning to see some concrete directions to take this business idea, but I would love to find a partner(s) to work with. I wish I could write code. And the whole marketing thing will be daunting. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

- My dating life. Do you really want to know about it? Okay, I'll tell you. I've stopped answering messages on my online dating profile due to the volume. So I'm optimistic this time around. Being single is a drag--and not a state that I intend to stay in forever--but I'm not looking to rush into another relationship that ends after a few years. No rushing. No settling. Pure pickiness. I owe this ability to Austin, which has a high male-to-female ratio. Maybe I'll change my mind in a year ... but right now, I have a nice feeling that: (a) I know what I want, (b) I'll recognize it when I see it, and (c) my next long-term relationship has a chance of becoming something permanent, owing to (a) and (b).

It will be interesting for me to reread this blog entry in a year and see what's changed.

Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon

2010-12-27T22:19:00.000-06:00

Friends have been recommending the OUTLANDER series to me for years, but I kept putting it off because the books are most often described as romance, a genre I'm not fond of.

I recently acquired the first book as a gift (the unabridged audio version read by Davina Porter), so I've finally lost my Gabaldon virginity. OUTLANDER was originally published in 1991, and now I understand why the series is still popular. These books are beautifully written, and they have all the earmarks of classics that will stand the test of time. They might be categorized as romantic fiction, but they would just as easily fit under historical supernatural fiction, or fantasy adventure. There are elements of horror as well. In fact, the torture scenes were enough to make me squirm, dark enough to compete with the darkest scenes written by George R.R. Martin or Anne Rice. When I think of romantic fiction, I often think of formulaic plotting. OUTLANDER had me turning pages the whole way through, with an intricate, fast-paced, and satisfyingly unpredictable plot.

This is smart writing. The main characters--both good and bad--are intelligent, and will earn your admiration. The books are thick, but every scene is well-placed and serves a purpose. Some of the scenes made me laugh out loud, and others had me tearing up. I was astonished to learn that the author was born after WWII, since her main character is a WWII field hospital nurse, and she made me believe it. And I'm astounded that she lives in the U.S. southwest, since she paints such vivid portrayals of the Scottish Highlands. I can't imagine how much time she must have spent researching Scottish lingo from the mid-1700s, not to mention Gaelic phrases, and the details of life during the era of colonization. She brought a historical era to life in a way I've never read before.

These books don't read like a history lesson. The characters and plot are wonderfully memorable, and famous personages show up only as necessary to the plot. They're treated with the same brush of humanity as the other characters, so they seem a genuine part of the story, rather than larger-than-life.

For me, an S&M element in the first novel, OUTLANDER, diminished what would otherwise be a staggering work of genius. I'm critical of one scene involving domestic abuse treated as erotica. However, I'm so impressed and blown away by these books, I was able to dismiss the weirdness as a preference for an alternative lifestyle. If these books had dwindled into BDSM erotica, I would have put them aside without finishing. But there's only one scene in the first book that stands out as "too much" to me, and I'm glad it wasn't repeated in any way.

These books appeal to me in part because Gabaldon isn't shy. No subject is taboo to her, and she throws as much sex, torture, and very uncomfortable dinner conversations as she can into each book. It makes for great entertainment. Men get their genitals hacked off, women get burned at the stake for witchcraft, boys get raped, girls die in childbirth . . . you name it, and she went there. She's not afraid to explore the way people struggled to survive during that era. On the flip side, she sinks you into the wonder of Scottish romanticism, and Paris during the era of powdered wigs and waltzes. It's a world ruled by religion, loyalty towards monarchs, and firearms, but completely lacking in our modern notions of law or medicine.

The OUTLANDER books also explore deep themes of love and loss, destiny and choice, honor and duty, and so forth, through the lens of modern life versus what we now think of the distant past. I have never seen such a poignant portrayal of marriage in any other book. These characters have strong personalities. They're people whom you'll remember.

Before I read OUTLANDER, I'd wondered why the protagonist vanished from 1945 instead of the year the book was written. After all, the more modern conveniences she loses, the greater the contrast. Now I understand: The horrors of WWII prepared the protagonist for the brutality of 1743. She needed that preparation, or she probably wouldn't have survived her first week in the past. And I imagine that the general sense of loss would be much harder for someone from today's world than someone who's never heard of television or the internet. As it was, I felt her loss of cars, electricity, recorded music, modern medicine, and indoor plumbing.

I'm addicted now, and I'm churning through the fifth book in the series. I'm sure I'll finish them all in short order. Gabaldon is such a capable writer, I'll probably buy whatever she writes next. I'm just amazed.

Here's a link to the Outlander wiki.

e-book: SLAVES OF GOD

2010-12-02T23:28:00.000-06:00

My friend Brian has an e-book for sale, and it's a page-turner! Slaves of God is dark supernatural horror, along the lines of early Stephen King or Chuck Palahnuik. I read it in 2 days and couldn't put it down. This is really great stuff--I think he'll be a brand name.

If you know someone else who likes horror, it's probably suitable for older teenagers, too. Parental warning: Lots of nudity, sex, violence, and profanity.

And I made the cover art, so if nothing else, check that out!

"Slaves of God" by Brian Rappatta is available from Amazon, and from Smashwords in just about any format.

Pedernales Falls

2010-10-23T22:06:00.002-05:00

A recent trip to Pedernales Falls:

Rejection letters

2010-10-07T22:06:00.000-05:00

Sometimes personal rejection letters can be amusing. Here are a few excerpts:

"To be perfectly frank, the only reason for our rejection of the story is that real estate is terribly, terribly boring. It's difficult to get into a story with such a boring premise, and impossible when that premise is not even played down or dressed up with other, sexier topics. ... We paged through and found that the later descriptions of the deformed woman were indeed disturbing."

And another for the same short horror story:

"To be perfectly honest, fat murderous retards are played out."

Random new photos

2010-10-07T02:28:00.000-05:00

This is what I have to put up with while I'm on my computer. A dog stares at me all day, exactly like this:

This is what I see when I go walking in the woods nearby:

Another example of weird woods sculpture:

Here's downtown Austin at night. Halcyon on 4th Street is cool coffee bar and lounge.

And here's a glimpse of brush country in hill country.

Torth Book 4 finished!!!!

2010-08-11T18:06:00.000-05:00

My fourth Torth novel, the aptly named "World of Wreckage," is complete!

It weighs in at a healthy 104,000 words, and took me one year to complete, or six months if you factor out real life delays.

Writing this book was one heck of a wild ride, and required me to stretch my writing skills in new and strange ways. I wrote a blog post about the chemistry of hate (see May 2010), inspired by a rocky relationship between two characters in this book. I developed some new insights about the Torth Empire, and opened up the plot gateway for the wrap-up of the series, which will probably require three more novels.

Working on this series has given me a lot more respect and appreciation for writers such as Robert Jordan, J.K. Rowling, and George R.R. Martin, who've juggled long character arcs that must stay fresh and fun over multiple novels. It's really not as easy as it looks.

And now . . . here are a few random, completely out-of-context, and spoiler-free quotes from the book!

# # # # # # # # # #

Here's a solution, she told the Commander of All Living Things. Drop a series of thermonuclear bombs on them.

"He's a lying sleaze-ball who'll lick anyone's boots if he thinks it will save his life."

"You've doomed the universe. Way to go, genius."

"I have to warn you," he said in a quiet voice, "the Great Prison is a hard place to visit, even if you're not being tortured there." He seemed intent on ignoring Thomas. "The sights we'll see . . . it will be unpleasant. We have to remember not to intervene. We can't help the prisoners, no matter how much we'd like to."

"I should have let you die." He raised his voice to a squeaky pitch, doing an imperious imitation of Thomas. "I bet I can outsmart them!"

"The little girl who keeps coming up with doomsday devices? Ugh. She gives me the willies."

"This place has been untouched for who-knows-how-many-thousands of years, and he's going to break it?"

"You're obliterating countless centuries of ancient artifacts!" His voice cracked, anguished. "The things we could have learned!"

"We've met before. You saved my life. Would you be so kind as to allow me to save yours?"

"C o m m m m m m m m m m e," the Torth whispered through smiles.

Cherise raised her hand--and stopped herself just before she could slap Flen across the face. "I don't love Thomas." The very idea stung her, a deep wound that she wasn't sure she could forgive Flen for speaking. "I hate him. But he's trying to save the Alashani, so get off his back."

"Oh, hell. I could explain it perfectly if you were a mind reader. But since you're not getting it, I think you're going to have to perform an astonishing feat of heavy lifting, instead."

The Indigo Governess sat in her massage pool in her suite on Umdalkdul, so weakened that she required medical devices to aid her lungs and heart. Derision leaked from her. This 'frippery' is an ingenious new weapon that will change the course of history. Her communication came with an attached mental image of the Betrayer as a bloodied corpse. Once it's ready, it will destroy him. My creativity will save the Empire.

"Alex is done for today. The next time he reappears, grab him. Jump on him. Tell him to get some sleep. If he tries to ignore you and do anything at all, kick him in the balls."

Get rid of all mentally defective infants, no matter how trivial the defect seems. No emotional babies, no handicapped telepaths, and especially no Yeresunsa. We (Torth) have been too lax.

Of course, the Death Architect replied. It could destroy a star. It might be able to destroy the galaxy. It might unravel the space-time continuum and collapse the universe as We know it. I don't really know. Pride and eager curiosity shone in her thoughts. I'll need to run some experiments.

Inwardly, the Commander wondered what signs of treachery she'd missed twelve years ago. Why did you throw away your life (just) to copulate with a human beast, and then carry a hybrid fetus to term inside your womb?

# # # # # # # # # #

Ah, those Torth ... never up to any good.

Now I would love to write Book 5, but I'm going to resist the temptation and (sighhhhh) take another peep at Book 1. I want to market this series, and, like, sell it, someday.

New Mexico, end of trip

2010-06-28T22:59:00.000-05:00

A few photos from Carlsbad Caverns:

This gigantic hole in the ground was feared by early settlers in New Mexico.

Views of Chaco Canyon, ruins of ancient pueblos:

This was once a thriving city with a population of thousands of people. They traded with the Mesa Verde people, as well as coastal people and Mexican Aztec people. The city went into decline in the 12th century A.D.

If you plan to visit this remote site, be prepared for a full day. The easiest route includes twelve miles of washboard dirt roads, and the nearest town with a hotel is over 80 miles away.

Whites Sands National Monument, after a rainstorm:

Photographs can't do that sunset justice. We hiked away from the road and lay on a towel. The sand was damp, and the temperature was perfect. We also saw a rainbow, and a huge full moon that night.

New Mexico, Day 4

2010-06-22T18:01:00.000-05:00

Day 2:
I brought a video camera into Carlsbad Caverns, since it handles low light better ... I will capture still shots from the video when I get home. Suffice it to say that Carlsbad Caverns is a beautiful walking trip, about 1 to 2 miles of subterranean hiking. Every bend reveals a new array of colorful pillars, stalactites like needles, stalagmites like giant drip castles, and chandeliers made of rock. The trip took us about 3 or 4 hours.

Afterwards, we drove to Roswell and settled into a quaint motel built in the adobe style. Roswell is a strange town. We began to suspect everyone who lives there might be part alien. Here's a photo of a gift shop on the main drag:

Day 3:
We drove to Albuquerque, and stayed with a friend I met via the Odyssey workshop. This was a laid back day, playing Skib-Bo and Bananagrams.

Day 4:
We hiked around Petroglyph National Monument, right outside Albuquerque. It was a hot day to be hiking up a hill, but the view and petroglyphs were worth it!

Then we drove up to Santa Fe, and had lunch at a cafe in downtown, which is full of beautiful pueblo-style buildings, art galleries, and very narrow and winding streets.

We're looking forward to tonight, when we will be having dinner with a fantasy author, of whom we're all fans.

New Mexico, Day 1

2010-06-20T09:14:00.000-05:00

Since this hotel has wifi, I've decided to try and post a day-by-day account of our road trip through New Mexico. My friend Amy flew in from Rhode Island the night before, and we had a dinner with writers before leaving Austin in the morning. We arrived in Carlsbad, New Mexico last night around 7pm MST, after dealing with tourists in Fredericksburg, Texas, and then driving for about 8 hours west. The whole 8 hour drive is a lot of Texas canyonlands. I think we saw a few ghost towns on the way. There was one Burger King, and maybe three gas stations. Lots of roadkill, including a wild boar and a vulture eating a deer (we didn't kill the animals, just drove past them).

Anyway, we checked into our hotel in Carlsbad, met up with our friend Brian, who drove down from Colorado, and went to dinner at a very crowded Chili's--apparently the only restaurant in town, other than a Subway. But we had a good time catching up.

So now we're ready to tour Carlsbad Caverns! I have my Flip video camera (since it handles darkness pretty well), and I'll see if I'm permitted to bring it into the cave.

flying car parts

2010-05-21T11:30:00.000-05:00

This morning, I was just thinking about how many bad drivers are on the road, when a collision happened right before my eyes. I was in a left turn lane. The light was green, but the green arrow wasn't lit up, so our lane had to yield right of way. The car in front of me completely failed to do so. He just swung out in front of a pick-up truck. The truck tried to swerve at the last minute, but it was quite a crash. Car parts few everywhere.

Fortunately, it looked like no one was hurt. The car driver jumped out and ran to the truck to make sure the driver was all right. The truck looked more or less undamaged, and its driver just looked shaken.

Everyone thinks their own city has the worst drivers, but I've lived on both coasts ... I've spent time in several U.S. cities ... and I think Austin is right up there with Boston. It's like the worst drivers from both coasts decided to move here and get drunk, get high, or otherwise mentally check out. The poorly marked, narrow roads for high volume traffic don't help (although Boston is worse on that factor). I like Austin, but maybe they need huge blinking traffic signs everywhere that say STAY ALERT! Maybe the Austin Chronicle should publish a memo that says "pay attention."

It seems that witnessing traffic accidents here is pretty routine. A few months ago, I almost got rear-ended by a speeding pick-up truck. There was nowhere for anyone to swerve; it was a two-way backroad in a forested area. I was waiting to make a left turn. The truck coming up behind me swerved at the last minute, but it had to drive on the grassy shoulder to avoid hitting me, and could easily have hit a boulder or tree. This was in daylight; the truck should have seen me and slowed down. I can't imagine what delayed mental processes led the driver to ignore the fact that my car wasn't moving and had a turn signal on.

A few weeks ago, I got stuck behind a car driving at maybe 2 to 5 mph in heavy traffic. I was stuck behind this car long enough to determine that they were not stalled; the driver was arguing with his passenger. It looked like a greasy older man and either a tiny old lady or a little girl. As we went through a heavy traffic intersection, I honked. The car slowed down even more, causing a huge traffic pile-up. I was able to swerve around him, and everyone behind me was forced to swerve, as well.

I could go on and on. Bicyclists pedal across busy intersections without looking. People cross roads without looking to see if traffic is coming. Cars change lanes or pull into busy roads without checking to see if anyone is coming. This is normal, daily driving in Austin.

The Chemistry of Hate

2010-05-14T22:46:00.000-05:00

I’m pondering the nature of hatred as I write the fourth novel in my Torth series. The interaction between two characters (one of them a new introduction) who grow to absolutely hate each other on a personal level is a challenge for me, and my particular set-up feels like unexplored territory in fiction. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any comparable examples.

The closest might be Harry Potter and Professor Snape. Harry Potter and Snape are both on the same team, forced to interact for the larger good, yet they can hardly tolerate being in the same room together. This is similar to my character situation, except that the Potter and Snape relationship is skewed in favor of one character over the other. Harry Potter has valid reasons to hate Snape, but Snape simply equates Harry with the school bully who tormented him. In my opinion, this makes it harder to identify with Snape. If you had to side with one or the other, most people would side with Harry. Snape is just a little too greasy, a little too mindlessly supportive of Draco Malfoy.

My characters locked in mutual hatred are meant to balance each other. They’re both good guys. They’re both on the same team, which holds them in check. They both have equally valid reasons for wanting to strangle the other to death. (To readers: I can’t say names or details without giving major spoilers.)

This got me thinking about the nature of hatred. It seems to me that fictional hate relationships tend to be impersonal and sketchy. The grand scale of hero vs. villain hatred is alien to the average person. A serial killer or a tyrannical dictator is almost like a force of nature. Even if the villain orders the hero's family to be murdered and gets the hero framed for the crime, readers have to acknowledge that the villain is just acting in his or her best interest. Fictional villains usually target the hero because he or she has the wrong genes, or happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The villain simply acts; all the hatred comes from the hero, who reacts. This is not the simmering, mutual hatred that leads siblings to tattle on each other, or divorced couples to use their children as pawns against each other. Most people can’t identify with grand-scale hatred, but everyone has some personal experience with mutual or personal hatred. Personal hatred seems to come from a betrayal of trust. It’s the flip side of respect or love.

Is there anyone whom you once admired? Someone whom you used to protect out of love? Someone you once held in great esteem? Someone who used to be your role model? Is this person now the one you speak of with venom, and can’t say two kind words about?

Yeah. That’s the chemistry between my two hate-filled characters. In a different story, they might admire each other. They are naturally inclined to respect each other. But each character feels as if the other did him a grave injustice, or has grossly misjudged him.

Both of these characters consider themselves to be very wise, but their world views are polar opposites. One character wears his emotions on his sleeve, while the other hides everything he feels. One character tells the truth no matter who it hurts, while the other sees no problem with lying. One character is deeply spiritual, the other is abhors religion. One is an adventurer, while the other would rather stay home and hide. One is a gambler, the other takes no risks. One advocates peace, the other is a war-monger. One sees the universe going to hell in a hand-basket, the other is wildly optimistic. One curses like a sailor, the other uses scientific jargon. They are hot and cold. They are night and day. All their personal differences add to the friction.

Real life abounds with this spectrum of friction. It’s as much a part of life as love. In America, we see outspoken atheists sharing a family with the devoutly religious. We see liberal Greenpeace advocates living and working with conservative Republicans. This is our world. I don’t know what side of the fence you fall on in those examples, but if you’re anywhere close to the middle, you probably agree that both sides have some merit and certainly have a right to exist. But people on the extreme fringes would disagree. They scream with fury if forced to spend significant amounts of time with their polar opposite.

That’s the kind of hatred I’m talking about. Personal hatred seems to parallel the love formula. Two characters meet, they get to know each other, they exchange scathing verbal attacks (as opposed to flirting), they are thrown into a situation where they have to rely on each other (as opposed to torn apart and having to rely on themselves), they start making death threats towards each other (instead of long for each other) and tearing the other down at every opportunity (as opposed to reuniting in romantic bliss).

I’m learning as I write that hate is just as complex as love, and takes just as long to build. I’m eager to see reader reactions on this one. Torth Book 4, World of Wreckage, will be finished sometime this year. As always, please let me know if you’d be willing to test read my Torth series. Unfortunately, the fourth book in the series only makes sense if you’ve read the first three.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter

2010-03-28T12:01:00.000-05:00

One more positive book review! I listened to the (unabridged) first book in Jeffry Lindsay's Dexter series, about the serial killer who kills other serial killers. It's a new twist on crime thrillers, and despite being a cold-hearted serial killer, Dexter has a lot of personality and interesting inner monologue. If you've ever wondered if you're missing something about human interaction, you'll empathize with Dexter. The book's one weakness was the author's penchant for alliteration. Dear despondent Debra, discombobulated dorkiness, D'oh!

Refrain from watching season 1 of the TV show Dexter if you plan to read. It follows the book very closely.

The House of the Scorpion

2010-03-25T13:25:00.000-05:00

My favorite book reviews are negative. They rip apart books dumb enough or unoriginal enough for me to hate, written by a best-selling or critically acclaimed novelist. But since I want to avoid winding up on a blacklist, I will henceforth only post positive book reviews. Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion fits the bill.

Fresh, original premise, sympathetic and strong protagonist, fast pace, tight plot, great setting and characters, scintillating dialogue, serious underlying themes, all wrapped in a light young adult package. The House of the Scorpion has it all. Go read it.

Need more encouragement? Let's see. I picked up this book from my local library because the back cover blurb sounded interesting. It's about the teenage clone of a drug lord/dictator, set in a future where mind-altering drugs and human slavery are legal in North America. I wondered how a young adult author would handle such weighty topics. I figured the protagonist would stay ignorant throughout most of the novel, until (HORRORS!) he figures out the evil around him (sugar-coated evil, of course), and easily escapes.

Nope. Nancy Farmer stays authentic to the situation. Matteo suffers the best and worst childhood imaginable, full of unique details that bring to life a high tech, futuristic dictatorship located in northern Mexico. Nothing comes easily for him, least of all, escape. Not only must he deal with the sinister implications of being a clone, but he's the pampered clone of a particularly feared and hated tyrant. He must figure out the secrets kept around him in order to survive, and he also has to navigate a tough world of criminals, child labor, drug trafficking, and communist ideologues. And somehow, Nancy Farmer managed to weave a romantic subplot in all that danger!

Seriously, this novel is adventure, science fiction, romance, action, coming of age, and adult themes, all rolled into one. Go read it!
(P.S. -- Don't read the Wikipedia article unless you want spoilers.)

Watch my student films on YouTube!

2010-01-31T19:12:00.000-06:00

At last, the wait is over ... you can watch all four of my CalArts student films on YouTube!

Here's Like Liz and Beth, made in my third year.

This film was screened at the CalArts Producers Show and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

My channel on YouTube is AbbyBabble. Comments on the videos are welcome.

another character

2009-12-25T15:24:00.000-06:00

I modified a drawing I had using a stylus and Photoshop, to recreate a character from my Torth series. This is Alex as a prisoner (Book 1).

Jonathan Stead

2009-12-22T15:16:00.003-06:00

One more piece of my own fan art. I can't say much about this character without giving spoilers, but he has quite a reputation. If you've read Book 1, CITY OF SLAVES, you'll recognize him as Jonathan Stead.

human slaves

2009-12-22T15:13:00.001-06:00

More of my own fan art.

These characters are Rhianna, Cherise, and Margot, shortly after being enslaved to the Torth.

Those green collars around their necks ensure that they wake up and sleep when the Torth want them to. Green means it's a work shift.

I draw my own fan art

2009-12-22T14:58:00.001-06:00

I've colorized some ink drawings from my TORTH series of novels. I like drawing fan art for my own books. It's almost like having a fan.

This character is the Indigo Governess. She has the power to telepathically absorb knowledge and memories, whether or not you want her to. But does she use this power to help people? No. She uses it to gain personal power.

Quote: "When I want something, you give it to me."

raving fan girl book review

2009-11-05T00:09:00.000-06:00

A lot of really great books get overlooked by the general public and best-seller lists, a fact which saddens me. Of course, "great" is a subjective opinion. Still, sometimes I'm baffled when I find gleaming treasure that no one else seems to have noticed.

I just finished re-reading Tad Williams' four book Otherland saga. This series is everything The Matrix films should have been, and better. It's just a stunningly awesome tale. It's deep on many levels. It's about the nature of reality, the nature of religion, the way humans perceive things, the nuances of the human psyche, all wrapped in a shell of epic science fiction with romance, adventure, and overtones of fantasy. It blows my mind that so few people have enjoyed this series, or even know what I'm talking about.

The only reason someone might be off-put by Otherland is the density of the writing. Tad Williams is wordy. He's obviously a LotR fan, and he delights in fantastical descriptions. But you know what? He's good at it. His descriptions are masterful. I'm happy to sit there and let him describe the horror of being chased by a giant Egyptian god, or the wonder of stepping off a cliff and finding yourself able to fly.

The first Otherland book was published in 1996, and it's a tiny bit dated in terms of technology. It was written during the end of the virtual reality craze. But it still holds up well! Otherland is about a near-future where people have integrated their daily lives with online lives. People wear virtual sims (avatars) to do their online shopping and business. Kids spend their free time in virtual worlds that sound a lot like World of Warcraft, although Tad Williams wrote this series before WoW or Everquest. People form close friendships with people in distant countries, whom they've never talked to or seen in real life. People take pride in making their virtual reality bodies look super-awesome or super-realistic, or both. Aside from the virtual reality factor, this is visionary stuff, considering that it was written in the early 1990s.

In a virtual world where real people choose their own body/voice/identity, relationships get complicated. It's great. Two of the main characters are a teenage boy & girl (friends) who wear heroic male identities. When the boy finds out that his best friend is really a girl, he starts having protective feelings towards her, and worries that he's gay. For her part, the girl thought it was fun to be a guy, but she has to sort out the way people react and treat her differently when they discover that she was lying for years.

There's a blind woman whose virtual body looks very generic--but she is a pivotal character and not at all generic in personality. And best of all, there's a man who wears the body of a baboon, which really complicates his love life. There's also a teenager who looks like a giant robot. That's always good.

Enemies? This series has awesome antagonists. Felix Jongleur is a multi-trillionaire whose body resides in a vat of gels designed to keep him alive. He's over 200 years old, but he wants immortality, and he does some truly vile things in pursuit of that goal. I mean REALLY vile. I can't say it without giving away the ending of the series, but it involves incest and clones.

My favorite character is Paul Jonas, the amnesiac wanderer and target of everyone. Paul is simply awesome. In the beginning of the series, he believes that he's a trench soldier fighting in WWI. He has no memories of being placed in a virtual simulation world. As the series progresses, Paul slowly figures out that 1) he belongs in the 21st century, and he must be in a virtual network more realistic than any he's ever encountered, 2) he's being hunted by scary figures with weird abilities, a la Agent Smith in The Matrix, and 3) he has no idea where his real body is, or why he can't disengage from the network.

Paul's memories come back to him bit by bit, like puzzle pieces, as he flees from virtual world to virtual world. He hides in a post-apocalyptic version of London, and remembers 21st century London. He glimpses a princess in another virtual world, and recognizes her as someone he loved in real life. He talks to a swashbuckling hero and finally meets someone real, whom he's sure isn't just A.I. He interrogates an oracle in a Venetian underworld, and learns a few secrets that allow him to travel through the Otherland network more easily. But through all of this, Paul is lonely and terrified, unsure who to trust, or who is real. Paul isn't even 100% sure that he's real, himself.

Paul eventually meets up with the rest of the ensemble cast, other real people stranded in the vast Otherland network, unable to unplug. Their real bodies are in comas. Some of them are in hospitals, or are cared for by family members. But there's a difference between Paul and everyone else: Paul did not plug himself into the network. As far as Paul remembers, he doesn't even have a neurocannular (a jack that allows him to plug into virtual reality). No one else is being hunted by the most powerful agents in the network; only Paul. And only Paul is visited by a strange angelic apparition who gives him riddles and advice, sort of like a brain-damaged game character. When Paul stumbles into a virtual simulation of Homer's Odyssey, he finds himself in the title role, assailed by sea monsters and goddesses. Since everyone who dies in Otherland winds up dead in real life, Paul is desperate to survive. He is very much an ordinary man who has to become a hero.

I could rave on and on about how awesome this series is. Aside from the battle between the forces of narcissistic trillionaires and ordinary people trying to save their comatose family members, and aside from the question of who is real or not real, there is a central mystery that gets answered in a stunning reveal at the end of the series. The mystery: What is Otherland? Otherland is a collection of interconnected virtual worlds, but those worlds seems indistinguishable from reality, far beyond any technology known to mankind in this series. People trapped in Otherland can die there, or go blind, or feel as if they're being tortured. People trapped in Otherland can't unplug. Otherland seems more than the sum of its human-designed code. Strange figments roam the Otherland worlds, virtual children who have the traveling privileges of real people (users), but who have no memories of any other life. Then there's Paul's angel, the woman who appears to him in different guises and different worlds, but who seems drawn to him. The angel can only appear to him once in each world, and she follows game logic, a set of hard-code rules--she's unable to converse on a human level--yet she also embodies elements of a real person whom Paul once knew.

I guess it takes a certain kind of patience to read this series. It is dense with words. Still, I can't believe it isn't more popular. I can't believe Hollywood hasn't made it into a trilogy of movies yet. The second time I read it was just as amazing as the first time. This is a work of genius, one of the few books/series I will ever speak of in such terms.

I can be cynical and critical, but right now, I'm a raving fan girl!

Book 3: City of the Dead

2009-06-02T23:19:00.000-05:00

I began writing the third novel in my Torth Empire series in January 2009. I completed it on June 1st. This first draft weighs in at 128,000 words (roughly 500 pages), and I hope to shave off a few thousand words on the second pass. But it was an absolute joy to write. I would have completed it much faster, if real life didn't keep me so busy. I poured in a few hours here, a few hours there, usually late at night. The characters showed up vibrant in my mind, ready to continue their story. It all came together nicely.

I'm still high from the experience of writing it, so don't trust my judgment ... but I think this is the best novel I've ever written.

Of course, that's not saying much, since this is the first NEW novel I've written in over seven years. I've improved as a writer and as a person since the early 2000s. But the experience has taught me that I am a writer at heart. It is in my blood. I enjoy it too much to deny it. I will write many more new novels in the coming years.

Book 3: City of the Dead picks up where Book 2: Caves and Canyons left off. The characters think they're escaping to safety, and then ... well, I can't dilvulge the details. You'll have to read to find out. And by the way, I am always interested in test readers. I welcome feedback, even criticism, and I will never pressure you to finish reading, so there is no obligation involved. Let me know if you'd like to test read!

Just for fun, here are a few out-of-context quotes from my new novel:

"My calculations would take an average genius weeks to work through. I did it in half an hour."
"You have free will. Now turn around once in a complete circle."
"I recommend that we fly into the sun and kill ourselves."
"They have a system called justice. I very much like the idea."

If you know my characters, you can probably guess who said each of those quotes.

And now I will begin to climb the mountain of marketing. I have plans to make an official author site for myself, which will include a high quality, interactive TORTH section. What do you think? The TORTH net will include an alien encyclopedia (with information about culture, physiology, and native habitat for each intelligent species), a guide to choosing your own spacecraft, a photo guide to Torth and their ranks, and either a web comic based on the Torth universe, or an interactive "Thomas Guide," where the user can view Thomas's childhood on Earth in a series of animated vignettes which Thomas comments upon. If you can suggest other ideas, please do so.

My time for marketing is now. I've come to the stunning realization that I can market my work before I get published. The science fiction book genre industry is a fickle business, and some of my newly discovered heroes among authors include Scott Sigler and Mark Jeffrey, who put a lot of effort into networking with fans and marketing their books, as well as honing their writing skills by welcoming feedback. I admire how they built their careers from the ground up, circumventing the traditional route of agent-editor-publisher. Like every other unpublished novelist, I want to go the traditional route, but in this economy and with the changing climate of publishing, there are no guarantees. so we'll see what happens. But I have confidence that someday, my Torth series will see the light of publication--and I hope that my readers, new and returning, will help me get there.

Doggy graduation!

2008-11-12T02:31:00.000-06:00

I work at home, so this dog is my full-time companion. We take daily hikes. I've owned her for six months!

After her graduation, I took her to the RedBud dog park in Austin. It's on an island, so the dogs can't easily escape. What a great park! There were about thirty dogs on the island, chasing and wrestling each other, fetching balls, swimming. Saphira had the time of her life. I had a good time too, chatting with other dog owners while our furry friends played.

The Next Big Move

2008-06-27T12:19:00.000-05:00

Some people may be wondering if I've disappeared off the map. I wonder the same thing myself sometimes. I've had a lot of R&R time here in Missouri, more than I thought possible for myself. So what have I done with all this amazing mana-from-heaven free time? Did I use it to further my career? No. Did I change my life in any fundamental way? Nope. Did I get engaged or married? No, but I got a puppy. Did I get a novel published? No, but I'm still trying. Did I write a new novel? No, but I wrote the first half of one.

Mostly, I spent the last few months trying to decide what to do with the rest of my life. I'm at a major crossroads. Do I want to remain in the game industry or seek a new start? Do I want to work for myself or for a major corporation? Do I ever want to settle down and raise a family? How much effort is my writing non-career worth, and what balance should I seek?

These may seem like simple choices to you. You've probably already made the decisions, and they're sealed ... or you have a very strong idea of what you want in life.

When I was in high school, people would tell me how envious they were of my ability to KNOW what I wanted in life. They would say, "You're so lucky you're an artist; you know what college to go to and what job you'll have afterwards." And I felt lucky. I loved having my shining future planned out. Of course, at the time, I never doubted that I would be highly happy and successful by the age of 25. I saw myself as the next James Baxter of animation, or maybe I'd be like Brad Bird and direct my own blockbuster animated features.

Okay, I'm not in Los Angeles any more. What's more is, I don't particularly WANT to move back to Los Angeles. The city is loud, smoggy, expensive, pretentious, and animation is often not the glamour job it's reported to be. I lived in Los Angeles for twelve years. I have unpleasant memories of applying at TV and movie studios, and taking on crappy freelance jobs. My animator friends have similar experiences. The industry hasn't changed. But I've changed. My tolerance for the low pay, job instability, and lack of respect towards artists has gone way, way, way down. I almost enjoyed it at age 22. I wear my bad experiences like a badge of honor. Animation is like a fraternity; you have to get hazed by bad jobs before other animators will admit you're one of them. But my hazing days are over. I've been there and done that.

I'm moving to Austin, Texas, with my boyfriend Phil. Austin is a city of technology and video game development. I took a break from full-time work while we lived in Missouri, but I plan to pick up my career in Austin. I have a lot of worries about what sort of job I'll be able to find. I want something that's fun, challenging, and pays well. I'm worried that such a job doesn't exist, so what do I settle for?

And then there's my love life. I won't be airing any details here (sorry to disappoint), but Phil and I disagree on one major, important issue. I'm afraid to think in terms of engagement and marriage right now, because this one issue does not allow for compromise. Could I ever be a mother and raise kids? If you know me, you know my reaction. And being a mother means making all kinds of sacrifices that I think would lead me into deep depression. I don't feel as if I've fulfilled my potential in life yet. I don't want to cut short my remaining opportunities. Yes, I really want to leave a mark somewhere. I want to have an impact in the book industry, or in games, or on the internet. I feel as if I can make an impact, given the right time and resources. I don't feel as if my "destiny" (using a cliche here) is to be someone's mom. You may go ahead and cite J.K. Rowling as an example of a mother who made her mark, but I dare you to name another.

And then there's my goal of being a career novelist. I've aimed a lot of effort into this goal over the past ten years, and so far, the tree ain't bearing no fruits. My mantra is "I will keep trying to get published, even when I'm 80 years old." But now the question becomes one of balance. How much time is this effort worth? I write novels instead of making new friends. I write novels instead of updating my animation reel and applying for jobs. I write novels instead of furthering my software skill set. I get nice reader reactions, but I have trouble inducing any literary agents or publishers to look at my work. I write because I believe in my ability to communicate and affect readers, and because it's fun ... but should I refocus my efforts on another project in another medium? Maybe I should create my own animated show. It would require more work and it might be a hair less fun for me, but it would get more immediate reactions and hone my art skills.

I could work on my Darwin's Gap project and finish a funny webisode or two. My short animations might gain noteriety in contests and stuff.

I could make a more serious animated show, set in my Torth universe, and put it all online for free. This might generate interest in my novels.

I could create and maintain an educational website about a subject I'm interested in, and keep it entertaining, thereby gaining noteriety.

I could found my own art outsourcing company for video games, and try to make life better for video game artists.

I could finish my horror-thriller screenplay, enter it in contests, and try to get my foot into the screenwriting industry. Maybe I'll have better luck there than in novels.

I could get a job as an environmental artist to further my 3D skills (I already know animation and low poly modeling), use this knowledge to create an amazing 3D short film set in my Torth universe, and use the film to generate interest in my novels or get a job at Pixar.

I could write story and dialogue for video games, and possibly design a game based in my Torth universe, thereby generating interest in my novels.

I could go into architecture or marketing, and learn completely new things in a completely different industry.

Or I could continue writing novels and wait for one of them to sell to a major publisher.

Tell me, what would be the best use of my time? I can't decide. I can't do all of the above (unless I get another 300-400 years of life). Every option has pros and cons, and I always second-guess my choices.

Enough of that. For your viewing pleasure, I've posted puppy photos of Saphira (below). She's a nine-month old heeler-basenji mix. We adopted her from a shelter. She's very sweet, friendly, and playful, and oddly quiet for a dog.

And our cat Fiona is up on the LOLCATS website! Here's the links:

Fiona 1
Fiona 2

So is our neighbor's cat, Mary:

Mary

I drove from Los Angeles to St. Louis, Missouri

2008-05-24T20:12:00.000-05:00

Earlier this year, I drove 1,650 miles with my friend Val. We managed the drive in 4 days and included some sightseeing along the remains of old Route 66.

CLICK HERE for a photo journey of our trip.

Cities we spent the night in:

Flagstaff, Arizona
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Springfield, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri

Sites we saw:

Calico Ghost Town, California
Petrified Forest, Arizona
Painted Desert, Arizona
Old Town Albuquerque, New Mexico
Amarillo, Texas
Tulsa, Oklahoma

The trip was a lot of fun. If you check out my photo journal and would like to use one of the photos, just let me know. Here's a small sample of the Painted Desert:

Moving to Missouri

2008-01-30T01:36:00.000-06:00

If you include my four years of college, I've lived in the same Southern California valley for nearly 12 years. Now I'm going to enter a new decade of my life by moving to the American midwest.

Why Missouri, you ask? Well, 1) boyfriend is waiting there, 2) new job is waiting there, 3) house and lower cost of living, and 4) just for the change. As much as I enjoy living in California, I've grown increasingly bored with the lifestyle. It's almost too easy. I can go to Disneyland or San Diego, ocean kayaking or skiing, out to the high desert or up to wine country, clubs or theatres, whenever I want. And all my friends are here. Oh, okay ... so I'll miss California. A lot.

All the same, I'm excited about this new lifestyle awaiting me. I never expected I'd end up in Missouri, but then, I never expected I'd live in California for 12 years, either. Here's a photo of Phil and our Missouri "front lawn" (actually a park across the street):

I don't know how many tornadoes we're going to face, or how my new job will compare to the old, but I look forward to all of it. And I will continue aiming to get my novels published. That hasn't changed.

As my new life gets started, I will make an effort to update this blog more often. For now, let me show you some pretty pictures of California and what I'm leaving behind.

Southern California Fires

2007-10-28T15:27:00.000-05:00

I get tired of living in a disaster area ... actually, it could have been a lot worse. The fire department fought quickly and efficiently. Every time a new fire started, it looked as if helicopters were dropping water on them immediately. They stopped a lot of fires before they even got going.

These photos were taken last week, when the smoke started rolling in.

Pretty, but I had a sore throat all that week!

Several neighborhoods near me had to evacuate. None of them lost their homes. Unfortunately, thousands of people did lose homes in San Diego and other regions of Southern California.

Right now, the sky is a clear blue and back to normal. We finally got some rain.

Home Sweet Home

2007-10-14T01:49:00.000-05:00

I've had an eventful week, but I'm going to blog about something news-related. Last night there was a major accident that closed the 5 freeway at the Newhall Pass. Several people died in flames. Traffic was stopped on the freeway for upwards of 7 hours.

On Friday, I spent the day with a friend who visited me from New Hampshire. We toured around Los Angeles and saw the play "Avenue Q" in the Ahmanson Theatre. Then I dropped my friend off at her hotel on Wilshire Blvd. and headed north for home. That was around 10:30pm.

First of all, it was raining. This was the first rain we've had in many months, and traffic accidents always happen in L.A. during rainy nights, so I was prepared for some heavy traffic. I figured I'd be home by 11:30pm.

I needed to get to any northbound freeway in order to get to the 5 freeway. Most freeways of Los Angeles feed into the I-5, which runs through the center of the city and continues south to San Diego and Mexico, and north to San Francisco and other states. I drove over a bridge across the 110 freeway and saw how clogged it was, so I skipped it and headed towards the 170 Hollywood freeway. In my limited experience, the 170 moves fast.

I crossed Hollywood Blvd. and headed up Highland Ave. Traffic stopped. It inched along, and then it completely stopped. I sat at the same block for half an hour. I figured a concert must have just gotten out from the Hollywood Bowl, and decided that the 170 was a bad choice. So I turned around as soon as I was able, which involved a lot of manuevering and luck. I made my way through a warren of traffic-clogged alleys and finally back to Sunset Blvd., which was mostly empty. I decided I'd cross the city on surface streets and take the 405 freeway.

Around 11:30pm, I was on the 405 freeway. I passed a sigalert roadsign that said the 5 freeway was closed, and there was a detour at Balboa Blvd. (a two-lane street). I thought: WTF?! The 5 freeway DOESN'T close. Impossible. It's a vital freeway to the city. The last time it closed was when the Northridge earthquake destroyed an overpass in the year 1994. As far as I knew, there was no reason for it to close. I drive it every weekend, very often on Friday or Saturday night, and I've never seen it with heavy traffic near midnight. The heavy traffic is reserved for rush hour...

I saw brake lights around a bend. A bunch of cars quickly exited at the nearest exit. I got into the exit lane, and figured I'd use the next exit if traffic turned out to be really slow.

It stopped. For 7 hours.

I was very fortunate, because I was only stuck for 2 and a half hours. I don't know what happened to the cars in the other lanes; I suspect that some of them were stuck there until dawn or later.

I had no entertainment except for radio and music. The guy in the car next to me had a reading light and was reading a book or magazine. I shifted my gear into park, and there it stayed. People were getting out of their cars and walking around in the rain, trying to see what was holding up traffic. I tuned in to the radio news stations.

The news claimed that the 5 freeway was closed, and so was the 14 freeway, and the 210 freeway. Balboa Rd. was hopelessly clogged. In other words, there was no way for anyone to get to the suburbs 15 minutes north of L.A. unless you took a loooooooooong detour of 3 or 4 hours. None of the channels could give an ETA of when the freeways would open. Every channel reported a different story of what the accident was. One report claimed that four big rigs had collided and caught on fire. Another report said it was fifteen trucks. Another said they were in a tunnel that was collapsing from the heat. But none of them explained why that would close an entire freeway of 6 lanes northbound and 6 lanes southbound, or why two other freeways were closed. I later learned that the explosions in the tunnel created a danger of road collapse. All of the surrounding freeways and surface streets near the accident were clogged enough to necessitate closure.

I listened to this news, and I considered taking an obscure mountain route home. The obscure road is known as "A Street" in Filmore, also known as route 23. It has a section of tall, sheer cliffs and hairpin turns. It's a dangerous road to take at night in the rain. This is mudslide country.

Even so, I had hours in which to ponder. The obscure route 23 is not common knowledge even to local residents. I'd be home in under two hours if I could exit and get on the 118 freeway towards Moorpark.

I happened to be parked near the next on-ramp. As I pondered, I watched cars drive up the ramp, pile up, and then drive down the ramp on by one, in reverse. It was like a parade.

Around 2:15am, a motorcycle cop wove between the parked cars and went to the on-ramp. He began directing cars to drive down the ramp. At long last, traffic was moving ... off the freeway. Even so, most people chose to stay. I guess they didn't want to lose their place in line, and they believed traffic would HAVE to move soon. Traffic accidents are statistically common in Los Angeles. Locals depend on the fact that accidents get cleaned up swiftly. Otherwise, we'd be stranded all the time. The city is too spread out for freeway closures.

When I exited the freeway, I had no idea it would remain closed for days. Like everyone else, I believed it would be open within a few hours; I just was unwilling to wait those hours.

I drove down the least clogged surface street until I was well away from the freeway. Then I stopped at a gas station for a bathroom break. While I bought a drink for the road, a man in white collar business attire walked up to the register and asked me if I knew what had happened on the 5 freeway. He'd been stuck there since 11pm. He lived in the same town as me, and was also trying to get home. I told him about the obscure mountain road, but I couldn't remember the street names necessary to give driving directions. He was distraught, because he had nowhere to stay. He bought a toothbrush and asked the gas station attendant for directions to the nearest motel.

I'm fortunate, because I have someone to stay with. I called up my boyfriend, Phil, and warned him that I might need to crash at his place for the night. Then I headed for the obscure mountain route.

As soon as I got onto the westbound 118 freeway, I saw a line of traffic on the eastbound side, all of them trying to get onto the 405 north, where I'd been parked for the last two hours. I finally pictured the scope of this traffic jam. The standstill went for miles and miles. These freeways all have 4 to 6 lanes. They can carry hundreds of thousands of fast-moving cars. If it had gotten to this state between 11pm and 2:30am, it would get much worse with the morning traffic.

If I turned back, I'd get stuck in the eastbound 118 traffic trying to get to the 405 north trying to get to the 5 north. Wow. But it wasn't too bad yet. In a few more minutes, it might be.

The rain became a downpour. I imagined myself navigating the hairpin turns on the edge of that cliff, with the road slick from dust and oil loosened by the season's first rain. The road might become impassable from a mudslide.

I turned around, and I made it to Phil's place by 3am. I'm grateful that I had a place to go. I kept thinking about all the cars still stuck there, and the exhausted man who had to get a motel room less than 15 minutes from his home.

In the morning, I watched the news to make sure the 5 freeway was open. It wasn't.

I got a horrible, frustrated feeling that's hard to convey here. I couldn't get home. I wanted a change of clothing, and I needed to do my laundry, and so forth ... and I couldn't. My home was less than 40 miles away, but it might as well have been in another state.

We researched detours. It turned out that the obscure mountain route 23 was being used by trucks bound for Los Angeles and San Diego. I shuddered to think of all those trucks on that cliff. I imagined them shoved sideways on the hairpin turns, or stuck in mud. The auto traffic was diverted to Calgrove Blvd. and the 14 freeway. Estimated travel time to my home: At least four hours.

I spent the day with Phil. He cheered me up, but I still had to face a long journey to get home. The drive usually takes me half an hour. Instead, I figured I'd go all the way around to Ventura County. That would be about three hours, if traffic stayed light.

I changed my mind mid-drive and headed for mountain route 23 after all. The radio news reported that southbound I-5 traffic was diverted that way, but they never mentioned northbound. I figured it was worth the risk, since traffic tends to be light around that time, and it wasn't raining.

What a pleasant surprise! I encountered no northbound traffic whatsoever. I began to think the 5 freeway was open again. Then I saw a long line of cars and trucks heading southbound over route 23. Now I'm left to wonder why northbound traffic wasn't diverted that way. I made it home in less than two hours.

The latest news is that the 5 freeway might be open as early as Tuesday. Until then, thousands of suburban commuters have no useful way to get to their jobs. All the residents of Los Angeles and San Diego who flocked to Northern California for the weekend will have a hard time getting home. All the trucks that deliver produce and goods to these major cities will have no good way to deliver them.

The 5 freeway closure had to happen, because that was a hell of a serious accident. But I think this is a warning that a valley with only a few routes in and out can become a trap. I hope something good will come from this disaster. Maybe whoever is in charge of Los Angeles infrastructure will add a few more roads through the mountain passes.

Photos of New Hampshire

2007-08-01T02:29:00.000-05:00

I just returned from a vacation to Colorado (4 days) and New Hampshire (7 days). I figured I'll post the photos in order of most recent to earlier, so they'll show up in correct order to anyone who scrolls down my blog. So here's the "last" installment!

Above: I grew up in a historic district of a New England town. I always found the thick woods to be creepy. In summer, it's a bug-filled jungle. In winter, it's a Robert Frost poem.

Below: High noon in New Hampshire during a thunderstorm. It doesn't get very bright even during the rare cloudless days, because the trees block out the sunlight.

Ah, the old view out my bedroom window. I grew up with this view. No matter what time of year, it was always gloomy, because the overhang of the roof and the trees blocked out the light.

I like to try to describe New England to Californians, because it's such an alien place to anyone who grew up in the western states. This is a typical road in New Hampshire. They're hilly, winding, in poor repair, overgrown with trees and other plants, with many blind turns and hidden houses. You never know what's around the bend. You can't see it until you get there. Very often, street signs and even STOP signs are obscured by plant growth during the summer months.

Here's an oak tree that serves as a landmark for many locals. In California, the trees are fewer but older, whereas in New England, trees grow like weeds and are mostly younger than a century or two. This tree is unusual because it's more than two hundred years old.

One of the many things that always struck me as weird about my hometown was how much trash and litter you can find on the roadsides, despite the love of nature professed by the locals. I don't see this much litter in western states.

Some more typical New England scenery. This is in Manchester, New Hampshire.

And then my vacation ended, and it was time to fly back! (Don't worry, I'll post more of these vacation photos soon.) For now, here's an aerial view of New Hampshire.

As you might suspect, the logging and paper industries are big in northern New England. So is the export of maple syrup. Lots of tree products. The forests grow back very quickly, and logging companies tend to plant new trees in deforested areas.

Above: I got a lot of nice cloud shots from the airplane trips. More to come.

Below: Back in the West! This was approaching Las Vegas.

Dune Buggy Ride

2007-06-17T00:48:00.000-05:00

I have a photo gallery on my website, but I've decided to give blogging with photos a try, since Blogspot makes it so easy.

So Phil took me on a dune buggy ride for our 6 month anniversary of dating. It turns out that we can't rent dune buggies and drive them ourselves. I guess there's some kind of liability involved, since it's somewhat dangerous. So we rented a ride from a guy in Desert Palm Springs, and let him drive us around.

Here's the rental place:

The ride was somewhat wild! The dune buggy was actually a VW bug chassis with a topless shell on it.

At one point, our driver pointed out this oasis:

And had us hike to see it up close!

Later, we visited the windmill farm and finally learned why those windmills exist. Apparently each windmill is sponsored by a different company (like Texaco, Enron, etc.) and produces tons of electricity, which they sell to the grid for a profit. The companies pay to maintain their own windmills.

The windmills are a highly efficient energy source in the wind corridor of Desert Palm Springs. According to our guide, each windmill generates enough electricity to power a small town. Why don't they build these things across the windy deserts of America and save on oil-based fuels? Anyone who's driven from California to Arizona or Nevada knows there's hundreds of miles of empty land.

Sculpting a Novel

2007-05-25T02:08:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, I finished the rough cut of my novel rewrite.

I'll assume that most readers of my blog haven't followed along with the trials and tribulations I've experienced with this project, so let me give you a quick recap. I wrote the original first draft in the year 2000. It was 519,100 words (roughly the size of Stephen King's unabridged The Stand). When I look back at that original, I judge the story to be good, but the writing to be amateur and bloated. I went through a long learning process. I split the book into three books to make it more palatable to editors. I reduced the total word count to 475,600 words. I let strangers read it and give me their honest reactions. I edited and polished it frequently. I submitted it to literary agents and publishers, and got one excited manuscript request (without a follow up) from a well-known agent, and one rewrite request from Baen Books.

As I became a better writer and learned the ways of the genre book industry, I realized (around 2004-2005) that my masterpiece needed a complete overhaul. So I set out to restructure it, to tighten the pacing and get rid of the bloat.

In order to focus on this huge task, I shoved aside my other writing goals and projects, many of them ideas which I was (and still am) excited about. I immersed myself in Thomas's and Alex's journey until I got sick of it. I reread my original epic in bits and pieces, then sliced it up and pasted the paragraphs into new places, and reread them, and slimmed them down, and changed details, and reread them again. I took notes on my own writing so I wouldn't forgot what I'd put where. I applied techniques I'd learned at the Odyssey Writing Workshop and since to my reborn novel. I gained more of a social life while I procrastinated facing this huge project every night. I gained a sense of the work involved in being a professional writer.

After all that, I won't know if my hard work paid off until years from now. I have a feeling that it will, but I've never trusted hunches or feelings. I only know that this confidence is highly unusual for me. Even though I'm sick of the project, I still look back and think it's good. I still get excited about it. I hear opinions from people who've read the first three chapters or more, and I hear good news. I don't think this is wishful thinking, since I've heard and given my share of harsh critiques. I can tell when readers genuinely like something.

But there's no immediate payoff. By now, everyone around me must think I'm a jack-off, just someone who creates endless busywork for herself and talks big. I know I'm not this person. When I started this rewrite, I knew I'd be in for a difficult journey, with a gamble for a payoff. I took the journey, gamble and all, because I believe in the power of my words. I'll market this book any way I can, because I see a fan following in its future. I'm fully aware that I may be self-deluded here, but I can't ignore the possibility that I'm right. Had I decided not to do the rewrite, I'd be second-guessing myself for the rest of my life, always wondering if it could have been the next major best-seller. What's the point of living if you don't take risks like this?

I combined the first two sections of my original and reduced the word count from 278,300 to 127,400 words. That's amazing. That means my total word count (including the original, unrewritten third section) is down to 324,700 ... and I'm positive that I can cut out another 100,000 words from that third section (it will be book 2 instead of book 3, now). The story didn't change. The characters are the same. Most of what I removed was excess description and wordage.

Is this new version much stronger than the original? I'm not sure. I wish I was. Parts of it are definitely improved. The whole is lighter and faster, with tons of excess wordage deleted, but I'm afraid I may have accidentally deleted crucial bits of character development and story pacing. I might have taken out the spice that gave it its bite. If it turns out that test readers respond with less enthusiasm than they did for the original, I'll try to fit the missing character development back in there without overinflating the word count.

But these are worries for later. Right now, I'm working on new material for the first time in two years. It's a short story!

Yay!!!!!

I absolutely needed the break. I needed to write something fresh before I forgot how a first draft feels. It's pure joy. And I also need a couple of months when I'm not thinking about slavery, snobby mind readers, and berserk giants who kill people.

In July, I'll return to the Yeresunsa universe and polish my rewrite. My goal is to have it readable by September 1st. Would you care to be a test reader this winter? Here's the synopsis!

Thanks for reading my blog.

The Blame Game

2007-04-17T00:04:00.000-05:00

Against my good judgment, I'm going to blog about a current event.

I just went to a section of BBC.com where readers can post comments about the Virginia Tech shootings. As I scrolled through the comments, I saw a few condolences for the victims and survivors. I saw a lot of America-bashing and pro- and anti- gun control rants.

Why is it that when a tragedy makes world headlines, people IMMEDIATELY fling accusations and blame around? People seem unable to just sit and absorb the news. A disturbed man murdered 33 innocent students. This is not the fault of the students, the school faculty, the senators, the NRA, America, or TV and video games. It's the fault of the guy who locked students in a building and shot as many as possible. Please, assign blame where it's due. He deserves your anger. He's dead, but that doesn't make him any less guilty.

Lake Tahoe and Squaw Valley

2007-03-20T13:31:00.000-05:00

I went on a ski trip this weekend! It was St. Patrick's Day and the snow was melting, but we had a great time. Click the photo to see more.

Scott Smith's "The Ruins"

2007-03-07T04:08:00.001-06:00

It's been a long time since a book made me so angry as the one I just finished.

I can't stop thinking about it, which I suppose is the sign of a successful author. And I finished it, which is usually a sign of enjoyment. I'm not compelled to finish books I hate. Yet I'm angry. I wouldn't recommend this one. I can't voice my criticism without giving spoilers, so brace yourselves. There's spoilers.

SPOILERS *** SPOILERS *** SPOILERS *** SPOILERS

This is a book about a man-eating vine. It sounds stupid, but it's surprisingly well written. This author has been compared to Stephen King, and I understand why: He can make you believe anything. Giant alien spiders that lure children into sewers? Sure. Sentient jungle plants? No problem. Scott Smith is one of those authors who brings you into the weirdness step by careful step, starting in the land of normalcy and ending in the land of lunacy. He takes you into the characters' heads in such an intimate way, you feel their terror, and their struggle with insanity as they try to comprehend the incomprehensible. This is Horror fiction.

But I felt like I was watching a train wreck. The self-absorbed idiocy of the characters had me wincing from the beginning. They harbor secret resentments towards each other. At first, I struggled to like them, because the quality of writing drew me in. They hiked into the jungle for a good reason, to find their buddy's missing brother. So what if they ignored all the classic signs of impending danger? I mean, if it were me, I would have turned back when the creepy truck driver said, "This is a bad place," and drove off in a hurry. But not everyone thinks like that.

When they became trapped on the vine-covered hilltop, surrounded by natives with pistols and arrows, I read breathlessly to find out how they would escape. They heard a cell phone ringing at the bottom of a mine-shaft. They decided to send someone down to find it. Did they check the rope? No. The rope had been sitting out in the weather for countless weeks, and no one bothered to uncoil it or test its strength. Of course, the rope broke, and we've got our first major injury. Pablo broke his spine. He's lying at the bottom of the shaft, screaming. What do the characters do? Well, they spend the entire rest of the day figuring out how to send someone else down there to bring Pablo up on a backboard. Meanwhile, they're rationing their water, the hilltop is littered with the skeletal remains of previous people who've died there, and they can't escape. WTF? I'd think they have bigger worries than the guy with a broken spine. He's already a goner. Yet the characters keep whining about how they need to get Pablo to a hospital, as if they have any way to accomplish this.

By that point (about 1/4 through the book), I knew these characters would die from terminal stupidity. Maybe Jeff, the relatively smart one who used to be an Eagle Scout, would survive. The women were annoyingly dumb. I can't stand how so many male authors write about survival situations with dumb, whiny female characters. Why not make one of the women competent? In fact, I think women are better suited to survive trauma than men. Also, resourceful characters are easier to like.

I wouldn't want any of these characters for friends. Let me tell you, this book terrified me on multiple levels. It works as a horror novel for all the good reasons. There's suspense, there's gore, there's tons of creepy scenes. And then there's the horrific idea of having to die with a group of idiots. What if you were trapped in a deadly survival situation, and your only companions want to drink tequila instead of planning a way to gather water when it rains? What if no one around you even thought about escape? What if you had to trust your life to their thoughtless non-vigilance? Scary! I get chills thinking about it. And Scott Smith made these characters very, very believable.

I came away from this book with fresh cynicism about humanity.

Before I wrap this up, I need to mention a few great ideas that never occurred to these characters. I wonder if they occured to the author.

1. My escape idea.
The natives keep watch day and night, and the vine makes an alarm noise if anyone tries to sneak past the sentries. But what about a diversion? Pablo, the guy with a broken back and hastily amputated legs, is shrieking in agony. They could drag him down the hill, let the natives shoot him to death, and flee while they're busy. Pablo would then die for a good cause instead of in vain. Okay, I'll concede that the natives might not fall for this diversion, or it may be too quick. But there's always victim #2: Eric. Eric is slowly bleeding to death from multiple self-inflicted wounds made with a dirty knife. By the second day, they all know he'll die without medical attention or food. He could martyr himself to save the rest of them. But no one thinks or suggests this idea. They discuss eating Amy's corpse on the third day, but they never discuss any practical escape attempt. Even Jeff, the former Eagle Scout, doesn't think of this. I hate them.

2. My communication idea.
The natives don't speak Spanish, which is why they were unable to warn travelers away. I don't buy this. The natives live in Mexico, and they obviously trade with Mexicans, because they have things like bicycles and T-shirts. At least one of them must speak enough Spanish to communicate. Jeff (who speaks high school level Spanish) should have tried communicating. Also, these natives are too cruel to be believed. They just let travelers wander into the vine, again and again, and hold them captive until they die. Why don't they flat-out kill them? Why do they waste resources by watching the travelers suffer in a long, drawn-out process? What if a little child or baby came with the travelers? Would an entire village--men, women, children--let a child die slowly like that? I don't believe these people.

3. My S.O.S. idea.
The vine yanks down any sign they put up. They find old S.O.S. signs hidden around the base of the hilltop, the sort of signs that might have warned them to keep away. But why don't they carve into the trunks of trees? That's what I'd do. If the vine covers their etchings, they could climb up and spend all day hacking off tree branches. That would leave some strange-looking trees, which might be enough to warn other innocent people to keep away. It might even be noticed if an airplane flies overhead.

4. My suicide idea.
Every character dies in a unique, tragic, gruesome way. By the third day, the remaining survivors (all three of them) know they're doomed. Eric skins himself alive because he's convinced the vine is inside him, Mathias gets stabbed in the heart, and the final survivor, Stacey, slits her wrists and bleeds to death. Why, oh WHY, don't any of them think to set the hilltop on fire??? They have a book of matches and a bottle of tequila. The vine recedes when it gets burnt. I'd say it's time for a Molotov cocktail and a forest fire. At least that way, they'll have saved future travelers from much pain and suffering.

Okay, I feel better now. Stay away from "The Ruins" unless you enjoy torture.

My Blog's New Look

2007-03-03T03:05:00.000-06:00

I'm not a programmer, so I decided to go with a quick and easy blog rather than hosting it directly on my website. Here it is! And here is a very lame post.

After the Turkey Day

2006-11-26T14:00:00.000-06:00

I hope all you American readers had a happy Thanksgiving! Heck, I hope my blog actually HAS readers ... I really don't update it often enough to get any kind of following.

I will spare you the boring details of my actual Thanksgiving with mom, dad, aunt, & grandma. I stuck around for six days, and just before I flew back to L.A., I went to my ten year high school reunion. With trepidation. I was a shy, artsy loner in high school, and my way of coping with a misspent youth was to not remember much about it. Therefore, I was worried that I wouldn't remember or recognize anyone at the reunion. I decided to go because I keep in touch via email with a few friends from high school. I also had contact with a few more people from my class of 1996 via MySpace (isn't that site amazing?). I figured if nothing else, it would be cool to blog about the experience.

You know, I'm glad I went. I didn't invent Post-it notes or anything to brag about, but I found some cool people whom I never talked to when I was in high school. Maybe we never shared classes, or maybe I was too shy. In any case, it was like meeting them for the first time, in a setting where we all had something to talk about to break the ice. There were a few people whom I remembered being friendly with, and they were as nice as I'd remembered. And what about the so-called "popular kids", the cliques? They became ordinary. Or rather, I saw them as ordinary in a concrete way for the first time. Some seemed much nicer than I remembered, which I'm sure is an aspect of my memory and not a fundamental change in their personality. I was amused by how a few people were much taller or shorter than I remembered. I have no idea what happened there. As far as location goes, I was surprised by how many stayed in New Hampshire. It's a small enough state that the borders are never more than an hour's drive, maybe two hours. I was also surprised by how many from my class became teachers. I guess that shouldn't surprise me, since we were between Harvard and Dartmouth, and New England tends to be big on education. And ten years leaves a lot of room for marriage, so quite a few people showed up with bored spouses. A few high school sweethearts got married, some pairings that seemed strange to me. I wasn't the only single there, although I thought it skewed towards women. Oh well!

One of these days, I'm going to write an article about why I don't like New Hampshire. I mean no offense to those who like it. The things that I find repulsive (statewide headlines about a telephone pole getting knocked over, for instance) are the same things that attract people to that state, in ways I understand. But there can be no doubt that I exist more easily on the West coast. The people are different, the atmosphere is different, the climate, the houses, the terrain, the wildlife, the businesses, and everything is different. I think I'm happy for the reminder every once in a while. When I went to my high school reunion, I saw a few glints of the things that irritate me about people from my home town, and I sort of breathed a sigh of relief when I got on the plane.

The Three Musketeers

2006-10-26T14:00:00.001-05:00

Whenever I finish a book, I want to discuss it, but the urge usually goes away because I'll start a new book before I can sit down and write a well-thought out review. Lately I've been spewing out spontaneous reviews on my MySpace blog because it's convenient. Tonight I'll break the habit and spew it out here.

The only other book I've ever read by the great Alexandre Dumas is The Count of Monte Cristo. I enjoyed it enough to buy two more books by him, and considering the fact that the author died in 1870 and I usually stick to modern genre fiction, that's really saying something. If Dumas were alive today, I believe he'd regularly hit the bestseller lists.

Okay, The Three Musketeers takes place in 17th century France, so it's historical fiction written by a 19th century Frenchman. At first, as the main character was introduced, I had trouble liking him and getting into the story. I had the impression that Dumas was trying too hard to settle into the literary tropes of the past. He took pains to compare his protagonist to Don Quixote, although D'Artagnan has nothing in common with the former. But the story quickly picked up. Dumas has what I think of as a modern sense of pacing. He devotes most of his words to action, dialogue, and suspense, and he builds scenes so you have to turn the page and find out what will happen next. In reading this book, I expected a conventional swashbuckling tale of friends who go around doing heroic deeds. But this book exceeded my expectations by a long shot. I think one of the main elements that sets it apart from similar fiction is the villain. She's a clever, beautiful, ruthless bitch. This story takes place in a time when women were considered lesser creatures, but all of the male characters are terrified of her, and with good reason. It sounds cartoony, but Dumas makes her believable without reducing the heroism of the protagonists in any way. She's almost funny, mostly scary. In the end, I respected her and wanted to kill her myself. We've all seen our share of ruthless female villains, but this one stands out in my mind as being a cut above the rest. She doesn't use magic--it's not that kind of book--but her skills at seduction are pushed just slightly beyond the realm of human ability, and she's pretty much a genius, so she achieves a demonic status to the male characters and to the reader.

Of course, a kick-ass villain is nothing without kick-ass protagonists. D'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis are a study in contrast. One is brave and too impulsive, one is a near-suicidal former nobleman, one is a gigantic idiot, and one is a peaceful wannabe monk. The way they meet each other is hilarious, and their interaction throughout the novel is just pure fun. I think the reason Dumas's novels are so popular is because everything is pushed just slightly beyond the bounds of reality, without becoming fantasy or even beyond possibility. The relationship between the four protags isn't quite as silly as that between Egon, Ray, Venkman, and Winston from Ghostbusters, because these guys have their serious moments and their arguments. As with any great story, the larger-than-life characters are portrayed as real people.

I feel a little silly for reviewing a novel that must have been reviewed by thousands of people before me. Oh well. I'm glad I bought Queen Margot, because I want more Dumas.

In the meantime, I'm taking a break from translated French novels to listen to a modern crime/action novel by David Baldacci. It's called Last Man Standing. So far, so good, although it's a little too testosterone-laden for my tastes. I would rather read about a guy's inner feelings than the specifics of all the guns he owns. But I like the premise. An FBI hostage rescue team goes into a drug operation to take out the bad guys, but it turns out the team was set up, and everyone gets killed except for one fluke--the main character, who froze at the critical moment and therefore missed the gunfire meant to kill him. Now people believe he betrayed his team, and he has to endure the accusing stares of the widows of his best buddies, not to mention his coworkers and bosses. I suppose his moment of freezing must have been psychic intuition, but I will read and find out.

Since I'm on this long review kick, I'll add a final blurb about the movie The Prestige. It's worth seeing, and it will bend your mind in weird new ways. However, I thought it was a bit too convoluted. The ending was especially hard to get, at least for me. You have to think outside the magic box. Still ... fun premise, awesome acting, cool cinematography, and so forth. And it is very different from The Illusionist, so see both of them if you can.

An Evening With Harry, Carrie & Garp

2006-08-05T14:00:00.000-05:00

I needed that vacation!

I just got back from a two week trip, in which I went to Comic Con in San Diego, then flew to New Hampshire to visit my family and friends, then drove to Manhattan to see my film screened at the Museum of Modern Art, and more visiting. I plan to post lots of photos online soon. You'll see me with a bunch of Storm Troopers, some nice views of Lake Winnipesaukee, and a few great shots of Manhattan, if I do say so myself.

Are there any J.K. Rowling fans reading this blog? How about Stephen King or John Irving fans? I admire all three, and consider myself their fans, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see them perform readings at Radio City Music Hall on August 1st. There's a lot to respect about these authors. They've become wildly successful in a waning industry where the odds are stacked high against any writer, and they've actually earned their success (so I believe). Also, unlike many celebrities, they respect their fans, and aim to please them, rather than treating fans as a nuisance. These qualities make them rare among artists of any discipline and any level.

I could talk about the rest of my vacation, but I'll save that for another blog entry, if at all. "An Evening With Harry, Carrie & Garp" was for two nights only, and these are three of the world's most respected living authors. I doubt these they'll do another public event together again. I need to share the experience. No cameras or recording devices were allowed in the theatre, so it's all words from here.

Six thousand people bought tickets; the show was sold out. As the seats filled, I noticed lots of families with Harry Potter aged children. Some wore wizard robes and hats. I heard a lot of buzz about Rowling, and I began to worry that 1) these kids would get bored and restless during the readings by the other two authors, and that 2) fans of King and Irving would be a minority, which seemed unfair, considering how many readers they must have.

Whoopi Goldberg, a fan of all three authors, came onstage to give a warm introduction. She mentioned that the King and Irving fans were out there, just not as outspoken as the Harry Potter crowd. I was happy that each author received a huge round of applause; Rowling had not overshadowed the other two.

Each author got a separate introduction by a surprise guest celebrity-fan. Kathy Bates introduced King, relating a story that King used to carry a rubber rat in his pocket during the shooting of The Stand miniseries, and he'd whip it out to scare people. Once introduced, King strolled onstage and got a standing ovation (as did the other two authors, later). He looked fit and healthy, and comfortable in front of this huge audience. He promptly sat in the rural country stageset that had been arranged for him, and launched into reading the pie eating contest scene from The Body in his Different Seasons collection.

I thought this was an odd choice. He could have read an excerpt from The Eyes of the Dragon, or one of his less R-rated short stories. The pie eating contest is a child-friendly scene, but it might make some people feel uncomfortable. Well, King read it with great relish and delight, and the audience laughed quite a lot. I think it held everyone's interest. At one gross-out scene, King interrupted himself, saying, "Who writes this stuff?" Pause for audience laugh, and then he said (with glee), "Let's press on, shall we?" And the next sentence was even more disgusting.

Andre Braugher introduced John Irving. In contrast to King's rural Maine stageset, Irving got an Ivy League New Hampshire setup. He sat down in an ornate leather armchair and read the manger casting scene from A Prayer for Owen Meaney. Like King, he was relaxed in front of the crowd and kept everyone interested. He did a funny, squeaky voice when reading Owen's lines.

John Stewart, a fan of all three authors, strolled out to great applause and introduced J.K. Rowling. He acted as if books were threatening the TV industry, a nice touch of ironic sarcasm. Rowling had a wizardish throne setup. She was a little nervous at first, and joked about being classed in the caliber of King and Irving. Of course, she's much younger than those two, and less prolific at this point in her career. She did an excellent reading of a scene from the sixth Harry Potter book, where Harry accompanies a memory of Dumbledore recruiting Tom Riddle to Hogwarts. Afterwards, she remained alone onstage to answer four audience questions. Among other things, she said that Draco would not have murdered Dumbledore, had that scene panned out differently. She wrote the finale of her series before she began it.

The authors answered twelve selected fan questions, out of a thousand. Soledad O'Brien introduced each fan. Among the answers to their questions:

Irving is a compulsive rewriter, and claims that 3/4ths of his career as a writer is spent revising. He enjoys rewriting, but gets nervous about first drafts. He writes by hand or typewriter, without saving files, which I suppose makes rewriting both more necessary and more difficult.

Rowling was surprised by much of the fan fiction devoted to her series, which she found when bored one night and Googling "Harry Potter." She also has a morbid urge to scroll through the Amazon reviews in search of the harsh ones, and does not recommend doing so.

Irving writes the endings of his stories first, feeling them out emotionally, then meticulously planning and building on the mood structure. He saves beginnings for last and finds them the most difficult. King works the opposite way, starting from the beginning and pulling through without a plan, discovering the plot and characters and mood as he writes it.

Rowling got an agent on her second attempt, but collected rejections for two years before the book sold. She knew from the beginning that Harry Potter was an idea she needed to write, and she never felt like giving up on getting his story published. Hypothetically speaking, if she'd gone through every last publisher without selling the book, she would have kept trying. She would have supported herself as a schoolteacher while continuing to pursue her dream.

Irving said that his book The Fourth Hand was inspired by a TV news story about a hand transplant, and a comment his wife made about visiting the transplanted hand of one's donor spouse. Then his wife went to bed, and he was up all night thinking about it.

Someone asked King how he could come up with such ideas without being demented. King answered that there's no good answer to that question. He didn't have much to say to any of his questions: what scares you, what was the most inopportune place you got a story idea ... he's answered these before. I wish they'd chosen different audience questions for him. Mine, for instance. What would you change about the publishing industry, if you could?

You may wonder what I got from seeing these authors live instead of on TV. The answer (aside from the pleasure of hearing them perform their work specifically for fans like me, and experiencing them along with six thousand readers) is seeing their public personas. One can't hide personal mannerisms when live and onstage for a few hours. I expected one of them to come across as a jerk in some way. Instead, all three seemed down to Earth, not arrogant, very confident in themselves and in touch with their fans. That's a wonderful thing to see.

If you'd like to check out some other reviews of the event:
The Slush God
Tom Richmond
Sense of Soot

Lost River, NH

2006-07-26T04:35:00.000-05:00

NOTE: This should be dated July 26, 2006.

I visit New Hampshire every summer. I live in California, but it's nice for me to remember where I grew up (and why I moved). Anyway, during this trip back east, I went on a day excursion to the White Mountains with my friend Amy. We drove from Manchester for about 2 or 3 hours north, to the White Mountain National Park. This is basically a gigantic forest. It stretches from Eastern Canada all the way to the Southern USA. The northern New Hampshire part of it is extremely unpopulated. You might find a quaint town or two, but mostly, it's trees. Lots of trees. The mountains are furred with pine trees and look like hills or clouds from a distance, because they're round and hump-like, but up close, you can see they're taller than hills. The tallest White Mountains are known as the Presidential Range (named after U.S. Presidents), and they tend to have tundra or bare granite peaks due to the awful weather at the top. In midsummer, the tops of these mountains experience freezing rain and the highest windspeeds on Earth. In winter, it gets worse.

We didn't visit any granite peaks on this trip. Instead, we visited Lost River Gorge.

This is one of several parks in upstate New Hampshire where you can explore granite caves (the most well-known one is the Polar Caves). At Lost River, you follow the trail, which consists of walkways between, over, and under giant boulders in the woods. Every so often, you'll see a crack between boulders with a sign inviting you to enter the cave. If you can contort your body through the crack, you're fine. Some of these caves involve spaces that a child has trouble crawling through. Seriously, you need to be flexible and NOT claustrophobic.

Here's a man emerging from a cave:

Here's a view of the White Mountains. Appalachia at its finest!

So, what does one find in a Lost River cave? Somtimes chilly little underground ponds. Sometimes old-style lanterns. Sometimes ladders made out of sticks that you have to climb in order to get out. Sometimes children (or adults) looking for an easier way out. Not much else!

At least it's a fun hike, and there are plenty of nice views.

ComicCon 2006

2006-07-21T02:46:00.000-05:00

So far, I've been to two ComicCons, each more crowded than the last. Nerds take over the entire city of San Diego! Look at them all:

Last year, in 2005, I had the supreme honor of being a guest at a private fan dinner with author Robert Jordan. This year, I had a lot of fun hanging out with my friends Brianne and Heather. Here we are in front of the Star of India, a sailing ship near our hotel:

We met a number of pirates, but Captain Jack Sparrow had a certain allure, so we took photos with him.

Part of the joy of being an Attending Professional is avoiding lines. Comic Con attracts over 150,000 people from all over the world. Some of them wait in line for hours just to enter to convention center. Here's a line we skipped:

Last year, I avoided the crowded floor and spent most of the weekend at panels, which were fun and enlightening. This year, I avoided the panels and browsed the floor. The San Diego convention center is so huge, no photograph can convey its size. There are over 5,000 booths in one massive room. There are contests, clothing and jewelry, prints and fine art, comics and toys, celebrities, costumes, novels and author signings. You can spend a day on the floor and not see it all.

Here's a sliver of it:

We met some storm troopers and Jedi:

And Heather met some comic book heroes:

We saw lots of strange costumes, including five women dressed like Wonder Woman, a giant panda on a tricycle, and a naked old man. The thick crowds made it hard to snap shots of individuals. Here's some strange ones:

Finally, we took breaks and explored beautiful downtown San Diego. We went to clubs (full of Comic Con attendees) and restaurants (full of Comic Con attendees). Here's a view of the harbor within walking distance of the convention center:

Will I go again? Surely! But if the convention keeps growing like this, they'll need to rent a larger city.

relieving traffic congestion while improving our standard of living

2006-05-09T14:00:00.000-05:00

I am uniquely lucky in one respect: I live in the Los Angeles area, and I almost never face rush hour traffic. This is because a) I live two blocks away from my office building, and b) I'm a night owl who rarely sees the sunny side of the AM hours.

So today, I was required to show up for jury duty at a courthouse in San Fernando Valley. I woke up at 6am (which was painful) and belatedly realized that I was going to get stuck in morning traffic. Yup. I sat amidst cars in the smog-filled morning haze of L.A., and since I wasn't doing much else, I got to thinking about how much it must suck to have to commute every day.

Wouldn't the rush hour traffic be lessened if businesses adopted different schedules? Other night people like me exist; not every employee would voluntarily choose 9am till 5pm. I don't see why other businesses can't shift their schedules in an effort to alleviate traffic congestion. If some of the major corporations were to adopt 11am to 7pm shifts, that would help a lot. And please don't tell me "no one would agree to those hours." That's pure bullshit. If you think that way, then you're one of THEM ... a morning person.

And by the way, I spent my entire civic duty as a potential Juror reading a book. The trial was postponed or something, so they didn't need a jury. I guess that happens a lot! The free time was nice, though; my only complaint was having to wake up at 6am.

Reading and today's youth

2006-05-03T14:00:00.000-05:00

Obviously, if you're reading this, you have enjoyed the act of reading at some time in your life (and maybe you still do). You don't habitually avoid large blocks of text. I'm so involved in the writing industry, I sometimes forget that there are huge portions of the population who don't read. They fall asleep when they pick up a novel. They may be proud of the fact that they prefer videogames to books, or they may be embarrassed and pretend to tout some book knowledge based off of the few novels they read in high school English classes. Either way, these people have probably never had the experience of becoming absorped in a novel. They've never read a story that tugged their emotions in an unforgettable way, experiencing something very different from the sort of emotional impact that a good movie or game can impart.

I suspect the reading attitude is cultivated in high school (or junior high) for most people. I wonder how much reading I'd do if I had never picked up Pet Semetary in 6th grade. What if the first adult book I ever read was, say, Moby Dick? What if I'd never read Stephen King or Anne Rice? What if my only encounters with literature were Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and a handful of V.C. Andrews and Nancy Drew? Well, I'll tell you: I would hate to read. I would chalk it up to an overrated waste of time.

Really, I wonder at the approach high schools take. The classics are important ... but they're not relevant to most teenagers in 2006. To me, emphasizing the Bronte sisters in a 10th grade English class is the equivalent of emphasizing silent films in a class about cinema in general. All of the focus is on one long-ago era, rather than what's innovative and current. Maybe a classic book will have a profound impact on one teenager, somewhere ... maybe. But the way I see it, kids aged 10 through 18 need to experience the joy of reading before they choose to study classic literature. And studying the classics ought to be a choice. I've heard people make a fuss about losing Shakespeare in high school classes, but I think these people are worried about the wrong aspect of the reading problem. Given the choice between losing a few Shakespearian quotes as part of our cultural vocabulary (and that changes every year anyway) and losing millions of readers each year, I choose to lose Shakespeare in high school. This is not the death of Shakespeare. Every reader has a love, many readers love Shakespeare, and they will keep him alive. I'm sure that colleges will continue to devote classes to Shakespeare, and people will continue to study and perform his plays. Meanwhile, high school students would become less familiar with Shakespeare ... which may have the effect of rekindling an interest in his works. Now, if those same high school English classes replaced Shakespeare and the classics with some modern, popular authors, we may actually have more readers entering society.

And one more thing: Most of the bookworms I know, including myself, started out by reading fun, modern authors. We identified with characters who lived in the same society we inhabit. Later on, we read about other worlds and time periods. Now, in our adult lives, some of us read (and enjoy) more classics than any high school would assign. But while we were in high school, we preferred those modern authors, who validated our feelings about the world around us, and showed us characters like our friends and ourselves. That is how we became readers. To me, that is the most important point.

What does society lose from having fewer readers? Let me put it this way: Right now, there are some people who don't know how to navigate the internet or send an email. They've been unable to access computers, or they've purposely avoided them. You're a computer user. What kind of disadvantages do you see those people as having?

St. Patrick's Day madness!

2006-03-20T14:00:00.000-06:00

Okay, I'm not a bar-hopping type of girl, but for St. Patrick's Day, my friend convinced me to celebrate by going to an Irish pub. I wasn't sure what to expect. I figured we'd get hit on by all the wrong kinds of people and then leave after an hour, but at least I can pass for Irish if anything went wrong.

So we cruised around the O.C. It so happens that in Seal Beach, there are four Irish bars within a block of each other, and they were all full of St. P's Day revelers. About ten seconds after we walked through the door of The Irisher, a drunk woman started pinching my arm. She wanted to know why I wasn't wearing green ... apparently she didn't notice my bright green pants. Anyway, she was hurting me, so we escaped into the crowd.

Long story shortened (not because I can't remember what happened, but because it's censored, thank you very much): We stayed till closing time. I had a good time. I'm not sure what the point of this story is, except to say that I went to a bar as a single woman for the first time, and it's nice to be hit on.

And last night, I went to an art opening at Gallery Nucleus, where my friends have some artwork up. If you come to the Pasadena area, I highly recommend that you visit this art gallery. They have cool "underground" sort of prints, books, and T-shirts, too.

And earlier today, we had lunch at the 60's futuristic LAX restaurant, Encounter. It's worth a visit for the art deco architecture. Their elevator plays 60's scifi music.

I plan to post new photos on my site soon!

Email backlog

2006-02-08T14:00:00.000-06:00

It has come to my attention that I have more than 200 emails awaiting replies. This is worse than usual. To Everyone: I'm sorry! I would send an auto-response that I'm busy, but I don't have time to figure out how to make one.

Here's my typical schedule: Go to work around 11am, run around totally busy until 7 or 8pm (I'm managing a small animation team), then go home and work on my novel revision until 2 or 3am. On weekends, I catch up with friends, or my sister, or actually go on a date. I don't have kids or pets, so honestly, I can't comprehend how someone with kids or pets ever answers email.

Mini-update on my writing:

I estimate I'll be finished with my novel revision around May 2006. Once I'm satisfied that it's better than the old version (test readers!!!), I'll throw every effort into trying to catch the attention of an agent or publisher. No more rewrites. No more agonizing over making it marketable. If the new version gets poor reactions, then I'll stick with the old version, and I mean stick with it. That is a resolution! Stand by for adventures in publishing . . .

Since I've thrown all my attention towards the novel, I haven't done anything with my short stories. Most of them need revisions. But, happily, I did get a rewrite request from Baen's Universe . . . that's almost a pro sale!

Regarding the monitor problem: Thanks for sending in advice. I gather that it could be a bad monitor cable, a conflict between hardware drivers, or a dying monitor. Since I wrote that blog entry, I haven't had a problem (go figure), but I'm sure it'll come back. I'll try different things and post about whatever works.

My computer is insane and wants to die

2006-01-31T14:00:00.000-06:00

I just restarted my computer 18 times (maybe more than that), and the monitor never kicked in. The power's on, but nobody's home.

So I figured, maybe I have a dead monitor. Time to test it with another computer. I dragged out my ancient Windows 98 machine and hooked it up. The monitor worked, but it looked pixellated and weird. I began to hope that my problem truly is JUST that I need a new monitor. Replacing a monitor is easy. Replacing my computer would be a huge chore, because it has a ton of stuff on it that I don't want to lose in the transfer.

I hooked the monitor back to my newer computer . . . and lo, it worked fine. It was as if nothing was wrong at all.

You might say, "Well, Abby, maybe your monitor wasn't hooked up properly the first time." But you'd be wrong! Because this blank monitor is a recurring problem that's been happening AT RANDOM for the last half a year. Every once in a while--usually when I plug or unplug a USB device--the monitor goes blank. It's been happening more and more frequently. At first, it only happened once a month or so. Now it's very common, and sometimes the monitor won't work on start-up.

You might say, "Well, Abby, maybe you just have a bad video card." But you'd probably be wrong again! Because I've replaced my video card TWICE in the last year or so. If it's gone bad a third time, that's just not fair. Not fair, I say.

So . . . what do you think I should do? Buy a new monitor? Or bite the bullet and buy a new computer, even though I'd rather wait to do that? Please, if you're reading this and you know stuff about computers, I beg you for advice!

Thank you and good night.

digital camera joy

2005-12-23T14:00:00.000-06:00

Yay! My parents very nicely bought me a Nikon S4 for Hanukkah. Now I can show you the pretty view from the balcony of my condo, which I just moved to. Check it out:

I mean, it's no big deal to most people, but in So Cal (Southern California), the houses are spaced so close together than most windows look upon other people's houses. This is the first place I've lived in since college where I can look out my window and see mostly sky. It's sunny and pretty. Directly below me is a courtyard-like park where dogs and kids sometimes play.

Now I'll set about making a photo section for my website!

new start

2005-11-27T14:00:00.000-06:00

I've started a new life today.

Sort of. About two months ago, I had a break-up with my boyfriend of five years. We both still care deeply for each other, but our relationship wasn't working. Ever since the "divorce" (that's what it feels like), I've oscillated between depression and joy, nostalgia and optimism for the future. It's been a rough end-of-year. Anyway, he's dating someone else now, and I've moved into a different condo. Today is my first day of being settled in. I'm mostly unpacked, my internet access is set up, and I can sit around and enjoy the view from my balcony. It looks like home at last! I would show you the pretty view, but I need to buy a digital camera. It's on my lengthening shopping list. The last time I was single, I was a mere teenager of 22, fresh out of college, and I didn't own much furniture or things. I'm at a stage in life where I want to own more things. Like a house. It's strange, because I remember being 22 and not wanting to settle down. I'd retained a notion that I would travel a lot, become wildly successful by the age of 27, and build a fabulous mansion when I was good and ready. Do all 22-year-olds have grandiose dreams? I think they're a good thing. We all need goals to strive for. The biggest symptom of my late 20s, I think, is that my dreams are fading. I still hope that I'll be wildly successful and build the awesome mansion, but I can no longer tell myself that it will happen by the age of 27. I'm 27 now. So I'll postpone that goal for age 30 . . . but somewhere along the course of life, I've learned how to postpone good things and procrastinate on others, and I can no longer believe these promises I make to myself without at least some doubts. I have a sad feeling that I will end up postponing that goal till age 35, then 40, and while I continue to struggle towards the stars, so to speak, I'll remain single and grow more bitter and ugly with every passing year. What will I have when I'm 60? I used to believe in my wonderful future with blind faith. I think that's what held me together through the trials of childhood, high school, and college. Now that personal faith is shaken. Worries and doubts are creeping in. I don't know what my future holds, and I don't like not knowing.

So there's my depressing sermon for the day. Kids, don't grow up! Priestess Abby signing off.

Oh, I may as well give an update on the rest of my life while I'm here. Work is going well. I'm doing 3D animation for a Nintendo DS game, and enjoying it. Being single, I've seen more of my friends, and will have more time to write screenplays and novels. I did have a fun Thanksgiving holiday at a friend's house. For the Christmas week, I'm going on a ski trip to Mammoth Mountain, which I'm really looking forward to. Skiing is the only sport I'm capable of, since I grew up in a non-athetic family living in New Hampshire. I'm only an intermediate skier, but I like the speed of going downhill.

Writing: On hold for the last two months. I will get back to it as of today. Of course, I've managed to distract myself with George RR Martin's series. If you like to read, do yourself a favor and buy A Game of Thrones. That is some good crack.

Art: I just modeled a few Gothic buildings in 3ds Max, but my latest ambition is to paint my own book covers. I went to the Gnomon Workshop, where world-famous digital painters give amazing tutorials, and I left feeling inspired.

Long Time, No Update

2005-09-01T14:00:00.000-05:00

It's been a while. I planned to update this blog every week, but I think I'd have to write a novel to catch up now. August was a busy month. Well, it was a vacation month, which means I got to go to a lot of theme parks, concerts, parties, and generally wallow in my free time. I count that as REAL life. Most of my life isn't that exciting.

Anyway, my artwork will be featured in an upcoming gallery show. The reception is this Saturday evening, in Alhambra (between Pasadena and Los Angeles), at Gallery Nucleus. If you're in the L.A. area, it's worth going to! There will be free drinks, a live band, and women get 10% off all the store merchandise, since it's an all-woman show. My artwork will be for sale at the gallery and on their online store throughout September.

I never told you about Comic Con, did I? Well ... to those of you who are "Wheel of Time" fans ... I went to a dinner with Robert Jordan and his wife, Harriet. That was a really cool, interesting experience! I'll attempt to go into more detail at a later date.

In the last week of July, I spent ten days in New Hampshire at TNEO (the Odyssey writing workshop alumni program thingy). It's basically a high-end critique group. Some of the Odyssey graduates are published novelists, and many have experience in the publishing industry, so I judged it worth going to. It was. I'll probably go again next year. Not only did we critique each other's work (and receive critiques on up to three stories of our own), but we practiced pitching our novels, we did a reading at Barnes & Noble, and we had panels covering everything from Young Adult markets to writing good query letters. Ask about my reading at B&N and watch me blush ...

So, I could tell you about the Doctor Steel and STG concerts I went to, but I think Larry has covered everything I'd have to say about that. If you've never heard of those bands (and you probably haven't), then it is your duty as a music-lover to check them out. By the way, Doctor Steel went to CalArts in the same Character Animation program I went through. You just wait, someday I'll have a Flash website that looks as cool as his ...

I've been out of work since Tak 3 wrapped up. I believe it will be showing up in stores across the world pretty soon. Remember, kids, I wrote some of the dialogue in that game (the Gameboy Advance version, anyway). I got to write the mind reader boss's dialogue! Oh yeah, and I animated him, too. Actually, I'm only responsible for about 1/3 of the in-game dialogue, and the publisher smoothed it all over and made sure there weren't any in-jokes left. Or maybe they just replaced our in-jokes with their in-jokes.

So, I'm doing some freelance, designing T-shirts and logos for an advertising company. Also continuing to teach myself Flash MX. I've overcome the learning hump and enjoying it now. I want to design a whole bunch of Flash websites for fun. But I try to keep my priorities in the right order, so I'm focusing on my writing instead. (Yes, that is a priority with me; I'm just weird.) I'm currently working on a short story about demonic Vikings. Rejections are trickling in ... maybe I'm self-deluded, but I keep thinking it's only a matter of time before I reach my goal of breaking into a pro market. I'll tell you as soon as it happens.

My novels and my screenplays are on hold. But not for long! I'm going to go insane and rip somebody's head off if I don't get back to long format writing soon.

Abby, signing off.

Spam-free!

2005-05-15T14:00:00.000-05:00

What a difference spam makes . . . I just closed my last spam-compromised email account, so I no longer receive unwanted emails. Words can't describe how joyful I felt when I checked my email today and it said "no new messages"! Ah, bliss! I checked it several hours later, just to make sure, and there are still no new messages! This is like a trip to Disneyland.

So, Larry and I went to a Goth/Industrial club on Friday the 13th. The band we saw is STG, and Larry took photos of them. I had a good time. The Derby has a really cool, retro atmosphere; it used to be the major Swing club in L.A. I'm considering going to The Labyrinth Masquerade, an annual masquerade in L.A. based on the movie. Isn't everything based on a movie around here?

I'm not as crazy as I sound

2005-05-08T14:00:00.000-05:00

After I received a number of concerned responses to my latest Abby Update, I realized that I sound like a crazed, overworked, 10-cups-a-day freak. Rest assured, this is NOT the case. My job is fun. I enjoy all of my writing projects. Yes, I have a lot going on, but most of it is self-imposed, because I love doing it. And I do take breaks and have fun! I have a social life, I live in a pretty neighborhood where I can go for walks or swimming, and I live with a really great guy. I'm not locked up in some room slaving away. But thank you for your concern! :-)

One day, one of my projects will pay off . . .

2005-05-07T14:00:00.000-05:00

Hello Friends and Neighbors!

My latest story is at Aoife's Kiss. I've been writing at a faster pace, but my publications are growing fewer. I don't think this is because I'm losing my touch. Nope. I've begun to submit to high profile markets first (like Asimov's), and these places take much longer to respond than smaller zines. It's not unusual to wait three months for a reply. In my case, it's often a rejection. Then I send the story to another market and wait another for another season to pass. I currently have six stories subbed to various markets: Borderlands anthology, Deathlings.com, Fishnet.com, fromtheasylum.com, Conduit contest, and two closed anthologies.

You may be wondering what happened to my novels. Well, The Illusionist is shelved. It needs major revising, and I've been distracted with other projects (see below).

As for the Yeresunsa saga . . . if you read my blog, then you know that's the frustration of my life. I believe that Yeresunsa is publishable and good. But the first part of the adventure is 530,000 words, and no publisher will consider that length from a new author. So I chopped the story into three novels. The first of these three books was rejected from Baen Books a few months ago. The reader at Baen said that she'd love to see my novel in print, but the current ending doesn't work at all (which is natural, since that book was the first segment of a longer work). Anyway, when all is said and done, the Baen reader had a very good point. Based on her advice--and on feedback from test readers--I want to combine the first two books, thereby giving it a more conclusive ending. That will make for a long novel, even after I reduce it . . . but 250,000 words long, not 530,000 words. I'll still have a hellish time trying to get any editor to read it, but at least the possibility will exist. I hear tantalizing stories of authors who've gotten their 250,000 word first novels published. I hope to become one of them.

The Yeresunsa saga is not sitting idly. A literary agent requested an exclusive read on the first book, and has had it since December. I've queried her a couple of times, and as far as I know, she still plans to read it. I'm not in a hurry. I want time to combine/reduce the first two books into a fat novel with a solid ending, if the agent passes on it. And after that, at long last (and with great joy), I will write the next book in the series. I'm pleased that a few people have been asking for it.

I've planned other novels, but they're on hold in favor of a screenwriting project. I figured, I live in Los Angeles, I have film industry connections, and I write stories for fun . . . why not try to earn money for it? Yup. So I'm finishing a feature-length SciFi Thriller in between my short stories and work. To stay motivated, and to meet other screenwriters, I've founded an informal screenwriting group. We meet once a month in the L.A. area. If you'd like to join our mailing list, here it is.

Of course, that's the not the end of the projects I'm working on. My life is not complete without ten million things I can't handle. If you looked up the phrase "bit off more than she could chew" in m-w.com, you'd see my photo next to it. I plan to finish animating my little Flash film. I want to animate a series of webisodes. I want to revise major portions of my website. The Wheel of Time section needs work, my art gallery needs an overhaul, I'd like to expend the review sections, and start a column in response to Group Hug. Oh yes, and I participate in a critique group that requires one critique per week. Finally--last but certainly not least--I'm going to TNEO (The NeverEnding Odyssey) this July. This involves something like 50 critiques that I need to complete by July, and I need to write two short stories within the next two months. I don't know what animal I'll need to sacrifice to generate enough free time, but it will have to be a big one. Maybe a cthulhu.

So you can understand why I'm not responding to my email very quickly.

Now it's time for BOOK and MOVIE REVIEWS!

I just finished listening to Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Maybe it was because I was listening to an all-star British cast recording while animating weird monsters, but I greatly enjoyed it. I'm not too keen about the ending--it sort of fell apart in mayhem and abstraction, as many epics tend to do--but it worked. The premise (original), characters (entertaining), and settings (nicely rendered) made the trilogy very worthwhile. I can't wait to see how New Line Cinema adapts it to film.

And I listened to Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. Maybe I'd better not comment on this classic, for fear of critical repercussions. Nah. Here's my opinion: Beautiful language, lovely voice, extremely engaging character and situation. BUT the ending just sucked. I mean, I hated Jane Eyre towards the end. All of my built-up sympathy for her character just evaporated. I can't say more without giving spoilers, but I had to say that much.

Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold was entertaining. Much more so than the book cover indicates. The more of Bujold I read, the more I like her, and the more I resent her marketing people for choosing terrible cover designs.

I give Dean Koontz's Odd Thomas a thumbs-down. Before you shoot me for saying that, please remember that I don't enjoy reading humor (not for prolonged periods, anyway). You might like Odd Thomas just fine. In fact, you probably will, especially if you liked The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or Terry Pratchett. Odd Thomas was halfway between serious and funny, as some of Koontz's books tend to be, and I dislike those, although I think they're among his best-selling. The character of Odd Thomas was cool, nice to listen to, but the plot just didn't do anything for me.

Now, on to movies. I saw Hitchhiker's Guide and my reaction was "bleh." Again, you might not want to trust my opinion, but I have a few valid reasons on this one. The film-makers played up the romance way too much. This film is supposed to be a comedy. The sudden soberness of the romance slowed down the pacing. It became cheesy in a few scenes. Also, the character design of the manic-depressive robot was awful. He looked cute and superdeformed, with sad eyes, which gives away everything about him without a hint of contrast. As any film student knows, contrast makes a character interesting; it emphasizes the main traits. If you want your audience to be impressed by a legendery 900-year-old warrior, you make him look frail and puny. This emphasizes the fact that the warrior can kick anyone's ass. If you want your audience to fear a genius serial-killer, you make him look and behave like an ordinary person when he's in public. Etc. Anyway, the robot just looked stupid and fake.

What else have I seen recently? Honestly, not much, because there isn't much out that interests me. I saw Sin City and probably won't see it again. And Robots, which was well-made from an animator's perspective. Oh yes. A Boy and His Dog is a 1970s film based on a novella by Harlan Ellison; the ending makes the film worth sitting through, perhaps.

Travel:
I'll be at to E3, the game expo in Los Angeles., in a couple of weeks.
I plan to attend ComicCon in San Diego in mid-July. I'll try to say hello to Robert Jordan.
And I'll be in New Hampshire during the last week of July. TNEO is being held at St. Anselm's College, near Manchester.
I'll also be at WorldCon (the world's biggest science fiction convention) in Anaheim next summer, 2006.

Thank you for reading, listening, or what have you. Best wishes!

Busy!

2005-04-05T14:00:00.000-05:00

I've overdue for sending out an update, and my unanswered email piles up. I feel terrible about the emails that have been sitting in my inbox since November. But I can explain. I'm putting in long hours at work, animating characters in the upcoming Tak game for Gameboy Advance, meeting tight deadlines. I've also started a screenwriting group, Reel Writers, Los Angeles. If you live in Los Angeles and you're interested in screenwriting, you're welcome to join. We recently had our first meeting. I thought it went well, with useful feedback on our individual projects, and good discussion about plot ideas.

It may not sound like a lot, but I've barely had time to sleep. My fiction writing has fallen by the wayside. That's making me a little depressed; I hope I'll have some time to write this week. More to come! By the way, I've just got to say, I'm glad to work at a company where everyone can spontaneously leave in the middle of the day to see a matinee of Sin City. It just meant we had to work later than usual.

Some weird fun with Photoshop

2005-03-29T14:00:00.000-06:00

I like using my Wacom tablet. The furniture photos, by the way, are from my parents' house.

I plan to have a real update here soon. The short of it is this: My story Leveling Mountains is featured in this month's issue of Aoife's Kiss. I'd appreciate a vote!

Wow . . . tsunamis.

2004-12-29T14:00:00.000-06:00

I'd always imagined them to look like a curling wall of water, but the footage from Sri Lanka and India shows that they look more like ordinary beach waves on a massive scale. It's like a bucket slopping over miniature models of buildings, vehicles, and people. I can't imagine the devastation and anguish that the survivors have to face. I rarely comment on global news that reaches my corner of the world (because it's usually about fighting over my two least favorite topics: politics and religion) but this one left me a bit shocked. For some reason, tsunamis are one of my weird childhood fears. I was never worried about tornadoes, earthquakes, or sharks, but when I went to the beach, I'd sometimes think "If a tidal wave sped toward us right now, we'd never be able to outrun it."

I recently sent out my Abby Update newsletter, and I was going to paste it here. Now it seems too happy in the face of recent world events. Hence the preface. Also, after I reread the newsletter, I realized that it sounded way too friggin' happy. I'm more of a pessimist than an optimist. So I want to take a quick moment to say that I was in an unusually good mood when I wrote it! In fact, I've had such a great month so far, I'm expecting a ton of bad luck to come crashing down on me in January. Yeeks! I can almost see its shadow!

Okay. My biggest cause for celebration is that a literary agent has requested my manuscript. That may not sound like a big deal, but I was jumping for joy. Literally. Why? Well, here are the usual steps in the process of a first-time author getting a novel published:

You finish your novel, and revise/edit it obsessively over a period of years.
You send out lots of query letters to reputable agents and major publishing houses, hoping that one of them will be interested enough to ask for the first three chapters. (A good literary agent may be able to get your novel read by major publishing houses.)
No one answers your query letters. Years pass. You revise your query letters incessantly, trying to write the perfect query letter.
More years pass. Your new query letters don't work. You try networking with agents and editors.
Finally, your years of networking and query letter revising come together in perfect harmony. An agent requests the first three chapters of your novel!
Months pass. You worry that the agent has lost your submission.
But wait! The agent had a huge slushpile of submissions to wade through, and as it turns out, she "literally flew through" the first three chapters. And she looks forward to reading the rest of the book!!!

That's where I am right now. I've FedExed the novel to her, and I'll let you know what the outcome is.

This is by far the furthest I've ever been toward novel publication. I have some worries--she may not take me on as a client--but I still consider this to be a huge step. It's the first time my novel will be judged by an agent on its own merits, rather than on my query letters or poor salesmanship skills. I figure that no matter what happens, at least ONE agent in New York will know that I can write. I have high hopes that she'll remember my novel, because it's an unusual story.

In addition to that, my animation career is perking up. I'm slated to work on a few Nintendo games as a lead animator. As always, this industry is unsteady, and I can't say what I'll be doing six months from now, but I feel good and secure about the immediate future.

Larry and I celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas. I've received a Dell pocket PC--a very nifty little computer that comes with a retractable keyboard and wireless internet access--and a 20GB mp3 player. This is perfect for my audio book listening habits. I go through seven or eight unabridged audio books per month. I also got some delicious Belgian chocolates, and a bunch of magazine subscriptions and gift certificates that I've wanted.

Spoiler-Free MOVIE REVIEWS

We saw Life Aquatic at a fabulous outdoor mall in L.A. Yes, fabulous is the word. It was the epitome of Beverly Hills / L.A. culture, although it was closer to Hollywood. Anyway, my friends give the movie a thumbs-up. If you liked The Royal Tennenbaums, you'll like this one. But I didn't particularly like The Royal Tennenbaums. 'Nuff said.

I thought A Series of Unfortunate Events was worth seeing, but I haven't read the Lemony Snicket books. The acting and the movie sets and costumes were completely awesome. The story adaptation may have been a little shaky.

Blade III was campy, good fun. I think it was better than Blade II, with more character and plot. And it has some funny scenes.

The Return of the King, Extended Edition was well worth the four hours of watching! I think it needed the scenes they'd cut.

Meet the Fockers was entertaining. It was pretty much as funny as advertised in the trailer, and a good way to spend a few hours, but don't go expecting a deep story!

Um . . . I'm not sure if I saw anything else recently. Hey, the trailer for the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory looks great! I'm angry at Tim Burton for remaking something that didn't need to be remade, but after that trailer, I'll see it. I'm less enthusiastic about the upcoming War of the Worlds movie.

Spoiler-Free BOOK REVIEWS

So, I listened to Across the Nightingale Floor, by Lian Hearn. I've heard rave reviews about this one, but after reading it, I don't understand what they were raving about. The story and style both seemed very conventional. It was well-written, but . . . well, nothing to rave about, IMHO.

And I listened to David Brin's The Postman. My diagnosis on this one is that it has a kick-ass, original premise, and poor execution. I had this feeling throughout the entire story that it wasn't hitting its potential. The characters were too clueless within the context of the story. The suspense never really peaked in any place, although there were plenty of places where it could have. Worst of all, I kept predicting what the main character was going to do well before he realized what he was going to. This could have been a wild, unpredictable story, but it was pretty tame for the subject matter.

I've been reading a lot of short stories. I'm picking through genre magazines and anthologies, and my two critique groups are keeping me really busy. I probably read fifteen short stories per week. I listen to audio books because that's my way of sponging extra reading time. If you're wondering, I only listen to unabridged audio books. Abridgements are an affront to nature and all that is holy! Next up: Orson Scott Card's Lost Boys, Ursula K. Le Guin's first Earsea novel, and Susannah Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.

And now it's time for me to sleep. I humbly beg your pardon if you've emailed me and I haven't responded. My backlog of emails-to-answer is nearing 100. I'm going to make an effort to reply to some of those over the holiday week. If you don't hear from me . . . .I'm a jerk. But I'll still like hearing from you, and eventually, I hope, I'll reply.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

eulogy for Billy

2004-12-01T14:00:00.000-06:00

I had a shock today when my mother called and told me that my dog died. He was a golden retriever named Billy, and he died from a ruptured spleen and other complications at the age of twelve. I knew this death was coming, because he was getting old, but I'd thought he'd live another year. I'd hoped to visit him one last time and let him know that I hadn't forgotten him. The last time he saw me was in August 2004, three months ago. I'm writing this now because Billy was a dog who deserves to be remembered. He was the finest example of a dog that I've ever known.

He was born from a family of golden retriever show-dogs. My family adopted him in the winter of 1992, when he was three months old. I was thirteen at the time, and nervous around dogs, having had a few unpleasant experiences with them. Billy was a surprise. I came home from a winter camp to find that we had a puppy in our house. But he was gentle and innocent, so I found it impossible to be afraid of him. My parents caged him in our basement at night, but he cried, and soon I let him sleep in my bedroom, on the condition that my sister and I take full responsibility for training him. Billy was extremely intelligent. House-training him took a few weeks, and he learned every conventional doggie trick in a few months. He slept at the foot of my bed until he grew bigger, and then he slept under my desk. Eventually he slept downstairs with a dog we bought to keep him company, a female tri-colored collie named Layli. Billy had a lot of funny personality quirks that I'd never imagined in a dog. For instance, he would try to smile by holding in his lips so his teeth showed, but his face was relaxed, not like a growl. He had superstitions about robotic toys and floating balloons; both were things to be avoided, probably because of the weird way they move. He also learned how to communicate with people by shuffle-dancing (when he wanted something), making noises in his throat (he made low whining sounds that were almost like questions or comments), and pointing by looking back and forth between the object and the human. He had a bin full of toys, and he assigned each toy to a specific person. If he wanted to greet me, then he would search though his toy bin and find the human-doll. If he wanted to greet my sister, he would find the duckie-doll. He had a toy for each family member, and different toys for friends. I thought it was cute that he always greeted people with a toy, no matter what. There were a few times when he rooted through his toy bin to the bottom and whined because he couldn't find the correct toy to greet someone with. Usually the toy had been left under a cushion or in another room.

While the dog-tricks are cute, Billy's best trait was his compassion. He was a companion to my grandmother, who lived in our house for a year, and who disliked dogs until she met Billy. He offered comfort to people in pain by resting his head in their lap, and by giving them extra attention and sympathetic looks. Although he was energetic during his puppyhood, and he grew to be 90 lbs, he knew when to be gentle. He never jumped on anyone aside from healthy family members who could handle it. He never knocked anyone over. He never bit or growled at people. At one time, my mother (a social worker) brought him to her patients as a therapy dog. And I can't neglect to mention that Billy was a wonderful friend to me; he was a being whom I absolutely trusted, and who trusted me unconditionally. I'm not sure I would have survived my teenage years without Billy. At the very least, he kept me from slipping into a pool of self-loathing. He kept me sane. The hardest part of leaving for college was leaving Billy behind. During my first or second semester away, I heard that Billy had run past the dog-gate and into my bedroom, leapt onto my bed, and wouldn't leave for a day. I wish I could have taken him with me to college. The first few times I returned home to visit, he cried more than I'd ever seen him do before. After a few years, he got more used to it--but I wish my long absences didn't hurt him. I noticed that he grew more lethargic and took to barking at night, both traits that he hadn't had until after I left.

I have a lot of happy memories of Billy. I'd like to share them all, but I could go on for pages. I'll mention a few highlights. Billy liked to play squeaky-under-the-rug. This would involve me (or anyone) hiding one of his squeaky toys underneath a small rug. I'd press the squeaky so he could hear it. Then Billy would pretend he was stalking it. He'd rear up and leap upon the rug like an attacking bear. I'd move the squeaky around so it wasn't where he'd expect. Eventually, he would throw the rug aside and grab the squeaky, then do a dance of triumph. He would prance around in a circle, snorting, tossing his head, and squeaking the squeaky. In later years, he'd do the triumph dance with the rug in his mouth instead; I guess he considered that a bigger trophy. He also liked to play fetch, and he would chase balls down flights of stairs and swim after them as well. He knew every variation of the terms "walk" and "food", and how to spell all of them, so our family was eventually reduced to using code phrases like "Let's do a W" (take Billy for a walk) or "Is it time?" (to feed Billy). If he understood what we were talking about, he would expect us to carry through with it immediately. If anyone said the word "walk," he would run and get his leash. If anyone said "dinner", he would look at the kitchen and make noises until he was fed. Of course, if we failed to carry through, he would look dejected and sigh a lot. Yes, he could actually guilt-trip humans into walking and feeding him. He had very expressive eyes and eyebrows.

I've missed Billy for eight years now--that's how long I've been gone from home--but he was always close in my heart. I will continue to miss him now that he's gone, and mourn him. This is the best I can do, and I know that it's less than he deserves. He's earned the respect and love of this particular human.

Billy
b. October 15, 1992 -- d. November 30, 2004
Rest in Peace. I will never forget you.

World Fantasy Convention 2004

2004-11-05T14:00:00.000-06:00

he palm trees are green, the hedges play jazz music, and it's late autumn in California.

The last time I posted in my blog, I was going insane with my novel rewrite. This is no longer the case. I have attained a zen-like attitude of fatalism. If I finish the rewrite and it works, great. If not . . . I still believe the current version is a good book. If it never gets looked at due to its structural problem, then I'll just wait until I'm famous and have it published then!

I just returned from the World Fantasy Convention, which is a conference for professional genre authors, editors, and publishers (despite its name). They're so professional that they hold the convention on Halloween and don't dress up in any costumes. There was an art show there, and panel discussions, but the point of this convention was mostly to shmooze--aka network. I'm not a social person, but to my surprise, I had a really good time. I met a lot of online friends for the first time, and (to sound corny) met new friends. It was also a thrill for me to hear some big-name authors and publishers speak their minds.

I want to go on about this conference at great length, but that would be boring to many readers, so I'll save it for the end of this entry.

ANIMATION

On the animation front, I'm full-swing into the job hunt. It's a demoralizing process, because most of my queries receive no reply, and I'm not qualified for most of the jobs I want. I'm not qualified because I don't have the right experience, and I can't get the right experience because I can't get those jobs. It's the old catch-22. I can see a way out of this vicious cycle: I need to make a kick-ass 3D film single-handedly. But that requires a lot of time and dedication, and I don't like the idea of putting aside my writing ambitions in favor of that.

However, I am learning Flash MX and making an animated short that will probably put my other films to shame. It's a lot of fun, and I think it'll be a great thing on my demo reel. The process is also setting me up for my future ambition: A series on online cartoons, a la Homestar Runner. I have high hopes for this project. The voice actors are lined up (thanks, voice actors!), the scripts are ready, and the characters are designed. All I need now is to do it.

Speaking of animation, I just saw The Incredibles. Go see it! I think they made an incredible film, exceeding my expectations by a long shot. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually WANT them to make a sequel. (pout) I wish Pixar would hire me. My applications to them never received replies.

ARIZONA ROAD-TRIP

So anyway, back to other stuff. Larry and I took a little road trip through the deserts of Arizona on the way back from the convention. The photos should be on his website soon. We stopped at Montezuma's Castle, an ancient fortress built into a cliff wall by Native Americans. It was inhabited by 35 people from a community of 200. Apparently the other people had a ground-level place, but it burned down 600 years ago. The same day (Halloween), we drove from a saguaro cactus desert--with warm summer temperatures--to an icy cold pine forest with a foot of snow on the ground. We passed through the town of Sedona at sunset. All the kids were trick-or-treating. According to the people of Sedona, there are energy points around the town that make people feel good. I'm a total skeptic, but I must say, I felt good driving through there! It was so pretty. Larry and I turned to each other at the same moment and said "Let's live here!"

We stayed overnight in Flagstaff--brrr--and then we checked out Meteor Crater. Yeah, it's basically a big hole that got blasted into the desert 50,000 years ago, but it was impressive. Also windy. I figure the wind chill factor was 30 F. And then we drove the eight hours back to L.A., reading the last book in the Dark Tower series on the way. We're still not done with it, but I must say, the action is building toward some kind of crazy climax. My favorite books in the series so far have been Books 2, 3, and 6. Book 6 was hands-down awesome. If anyone out there is looking for a good SF/Fantasy epic, I recommend this one.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS AND NOVEL STATUS

As you know, the process of editing my novel has become gruesome to me. I'm taking it more slowly now. I also want to polish my scary screenplay and write new short stories. I'm afraid to start a new novel, because I get sucked in and tend to pay less attention to job hunting and films and stuff like that. Once I feel like my life is on a more comfortable track, you can bet I'll start another major project. I have more than enough ideas to run with.

I have a story accepted by Aoife's Kiss. "Leveling Mountains" will appear there sometime in 2005.
I have one submission waiting at Realms of Fantasy, one at Borderlands 6 anthology, and one at Corpse Blossoms anthology. That's all I have out there right now, which is pretty meager for me. You can count on a lot more news with my next update.

MOVIE AND BOOK REVIEWS

The Grudge was relentlessly scary. Lots of fun! Team America was very funny, but not the sort of movie I can watch repeatedly. Most of the gags were one-time only. But other than those movies and The Incredibles, there haven't been many good films lately. The Forgotten was like a low-budget made-for-TV movie. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was a huge disappointment, to me. They went all out on special FX, and the imagery was beautiful, but the plot completely failed in its attempt to pay homage to old-time pulp fiction.

Um . . . what have I been reading? Lots and lots of short stories. I'm a member of two critique groups now. That amounts to about three critiques per week. I'm also working through the last Borderlands anthology, in which my friend Lon Prater was published. And reading a bunch of SF magazines I got at the convention. And reading/critiquing a friend's novel. The novel is a relief, because I'm still more of a fan of epics than short form, but I'm also continually suprised by how much plot and character one can pack into a short story.

And now it's time for the . . .

WORLD FANTASY CONVENTION 2004 REPORT

This was my first con, and I learned a few things. Here are the highlights.

01) Many of the authors I talked with had completed five stand-alone novels or so before their first book was picked up by a publisher. There were a LOT of neo-pros there. I had this weird feeling that no one was taking me seriously because I have no pro publications. My conclusion is that I haven't written and submitted nearly enough stuff. I need a few pro publications!

02) The panels were pretty silly. A friend advised that I should attend panels based on WHO is on them rather than the topic, and I think this held true. The panelists were often answering audience questions or talking about their personal opinions rather than holding an illuminating discussion of the topic. There was one panel where they strayed completely from the topic and never came back to it. However, it was illuminating to listen to all these published authors and major editors speak. I feel like I have a much better sense of who they are and what they're about.

03) Ellen Datlow says that the SciFi Channel doesn't read her magazine, SciFiction. Both Ellen Datlow and Gordon Van Gelder want more SF and more Humor, and more complete stories with a protagonist who changes during the course of events. They believe that the importance of story structure is being forgetten, and want to see more stories with the traditional structure of a single hero who undergoes the most important change of his or her life.

04) Gordon Van Gelder gives detailed feedback to writers whom he considers to be promising. He says that sometimes a story is great except that the fantastic element shows up too late, or the setting/style is generic, or it's too literary.

05) All of the panelists on short stories agree that Robert Reed is a model of what a short story writer should be. He has at least 15 stories per year in all the major markets, and they're always good.

06) Tor editor David Hartwell cares so much about finding talent that he actually read a short story of John C. Wright's, then tracked him down and asked him if he had a novel.

07) I was really happy to talk with a screenwriter who's produced TV shows such as DS9 and Sliders. He gave me some nice tips on how to get in on the industry here. I know that book writers and screenwriters don't often mix, but I don't see why not. The mediums are not hugely different. The biggest difference I see is this: Screenwriters cannot survive if they're overly attached to the purity of their work.

08) Interestingly enough, I met an extremely talented animator who's attending the school (and department) I graduated from at CalArts. That was a surprising coincidence. We talked animation industry for a while.

09) The parties were tiring, and they stuffed a lot of people into those little suites. The Tor Books party was particularly crowded. There were about 100 people in a room designed to hold maybe 50. I'd been told that the parties would be mostly invitation only, but it seemed that anyone could walk into any party. There were only four suites or so in the hotel, and a party in them every night. I popped into most of them.

10) Shmoozing was not nearly as frightening as I'd imagined. Writers are very open to conversation. Unfortunately, most of the people there knew each other and were wrapped in private conversations. A few times, I struck up conversations with other people who looked alone. Most of them had their own weird tales about the getting-published process, and most were further along than I am (I have a competetive spirit, and couldn't help but compare). I really found everyone easy to talk to, which was a HUGE relief. I've known writers who are snobbish. It was also nice to realize that just about everyone at this convention wants a lifelong career as a writer or editor.

11) I met a whole bunch of people that I've hitherto only known online. It was exciting to meet other Odyssey graduates, friends from science_fiction_writing on Yahoo, and Samantha Henderson from my online critique group.

12) There were some good artists in the art show amidst the not-so-talented ones. I found a new artist to admire: Sarah Clemens. She's one talented woman. It was also cool to see the original book cover paintings by Janny Wurts and Don Maitz. They're much more impressive up close than on book covers.

13) One of the highlights of my experience at WFC was that a girl asked for my autograph. She was collecting them in case any of the new writers get famous. It was the first time anyone's requested my autograph, and I was flattered!

14) Authors did readings at the con, and I thought this was a great way to sample their work and decide if I wanted to buy one of their books or not.

15) The first panel I went to was a discussion on why adults read Young Adult novels. I thought that one of the best points in the debate was brought up by an audience member. He said that adult fantasy often focuses on using the magic for war and fighting, whereas YA fiction is still about the sheer wonder of magic. This may be why Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is compared to the Harry Potter series. Although it's adult fiction, it's about the wonder of magic rather than using magic for war.

16) I enjoyed the panel about stereotyped characters. The panelists all had interesting things to say. Charles de Lint said that for him, beginning a new novel project is like starting a new job and having to get used to a new setting, new co-workers, etc. He also finds it important (as I do) to have people read the novel before it's published. Jo Walton mentioned that the "spunky woman heroine" in a medieval setting often doesn't belong in that world. The spunky woman heroine is a 20th century woman, not a person that grew up in a medieval society.

17) The panel about villains got a little silly, but it was fun. I'm glad that L.E. Modesitt, Jr. pointed out the done-to-death stereotype of stupid bad guys who also happen to be powerful. Those also bother me. I get bored with stupid villains in novels and movies. Enough with the James Bond cliches! David Levine mentioned that villains are often the agents of progress or change--a new regime--while the protagonists are often trying to restore the old way of doing things. Strange, huh? I think so. But it holds true more often than not. Even in my Yeresunsa saga, the protagonists are trying to restore an ancient culture, and the bad guys are all about technological progress.

18) Finally, the panel about recurring characters in series was a good one. James Barclay doesn't believe in writer's block; he said that Terry Pratchett holds the same opinion. An audience member--Carrie Vaughn--brought up the point that a character must change in order to be interesting, but this might get tiresome in a long series where the character changes in every book. L.E. Modesitt answered this by saying that he never writes more than three books about any given character; beyond that, the character begins to seem plastic. Barclay said his limit is six books before the character gets tired. There was much mention of Lois McMaster Bujold handling a character through seven books without making him seem too plastic. Yes, Bujold is definitely on my list of authors to try soon!

With that, I believe I've run out of things to say. Oh! Email. If you email me, and I don't reply for a month or two, it's because I want to take the time to write a thought-out response. I'm usually too busy or lazy to do that. The one-sentence replies tend to go out the fastest. If I have more than one sentence to say to you, then . . . sorry. I'll reply eventually.

Best of luck to everyone who had the patience to read this. Happy Holidays!

Rewrite Frustrations

2004-09-15T14:00:00.000-05:00

I've just got to say . . . right now, the idea of being attached to my writing is a HUGE JOKE to me. I must have written and discarded about 20,000 words for the new version of my novel, and I'm barely halfway through this monstrous rewrite. I mean, I must have written a novella's worth of words that will never see the light of day. I'm not bitter about that part of it. I don't mind losing crap that isn't working for the story as a whole. What bothers me is that I have no idea if I'm really making improvements, or just making a mess. For all I know, some of those discarded scenes would have been perfect. For all I know, I'm wasting a lot of effort on a new version that isn't any better than the old. And I feel certain that I will be writing another 20,000 words within the next two weeks, thinking that they're marvelous, only to have my hopes crushed when I reach a point and realize it isn't working. It's like repeatedly having my hopes crushed. Rewriting is a form of purgatory or something.

And I'll add that my "Scrap" file for this novel -- that is, the total amount of permanently discarded scenes -- is up to 84,000 words. That is literally a novel's worth of crap. The only reason I save it is for sentimental value. I can't stand the idea of throwing all that work away, even though no one will ever read it, and it's completely useless, and it's just taking up computer memory. I'll probably delete it when my novel is published. The next step after this rewrite is truly terrifying . . . I'll have to try to interest an agent or publisher. Let my query letter not suck! Let me be able to pitch this story without stammering!

So that's my month. I'm halfway through the rewrite, and I no longer find it remotely enjoyable. I yearn to write something new--I dream about it--but if I start a new project now, I know I'll never finish this one. I have vowed to myself to never undertake a rewrite like this again; not unless I'm offered money for it. This is hellish. I hate it.

Now you may be wondering why I'm doing it in the first place. I wonder that myself, sometimes. But here's the answer, as far as I can ascertain within the rotting mush that my brain has become: I'm not satisfied with the current/old version of my novel. I never was satisfied with it, even when I wrote the first draft. I feel absolute confidence that the story is wonderful, and I love the characters, but this novel had some major birthing pains, and I think it's a deformed baby. So now I'm trying to hammer it into a more acceptable shape. (Please excuse the crude analogy; I told you my brain is mush.) I'm willing to go to these great lengths and suffer to improve it, because I know this story is worth reading, and worth publication, and quite possibly bestseller material. I know I sound like an overproud author--or a mother talking about her child--but please remember that I have been known to shelve other novels rather than spend the effort to rewrite them. This one is worth the effort. I've already poured three years into it, on and off, and I will continue to pour effort into it until it sees publication . . . even then, I'll still promote it. And I can tell you that the current/old version wasn't BAD. It had a good reaction from test readers. A magazine even offered to publish it as a serial. But the reaction wasn't as great as I was hoping for, and like I said, it's a deformed baby. I think it can sell to a major publisher, with some more hammering. But wow, my arm is getting tired.

The Odyssey Writing Workshop

2004-07-29T14:00:00.000-05:00

Back to reality. As I write this--long hand--I'm flying back to California after attending a six-week workshop devoted to genre writing. "Why long hand?" you may wonder. Well, I've become pretty handy at it after writing two to three critiques per day! Using the school's printers turned out to be more of a hassle than it was worth (I'm a night person), and I was doing line edits anyway, so I practiced my handwriting. It's nearly illegible. At least I can read it to type it up.

The Odyssey Writing Workshop completely exceeded my expectations, which were high to begin with. Admittedly, when I received the acceptance letter, I had some momentary doubts, wondering if they let just anyone in. But it turned out that all sixteen students were the sort of experienced, determined, talented writers that you rarely (if ever) find in online critique groups open to the public. Everyone had useful insights, and it was interesting to be able to talk with each author in person, and learn from their critiques of each other. The workshop teacher, Jeanne Cavelos, comes from a professional editing background and has a skill for adapting her advice to each writer's needs. I'm grateful that she was able to offer me fresh ideas and new angles on the novel series I've been writing and rewriting for years.

The guest lecturers and writer-in-residence (George R.R. Martin) added their personal experiences in the publishing industry, and plenty of interesting anecdotes and advice about writing. Looking back at my notes, I see that I've covered 8 pages from G.R.R. Martin alone. And, of course, some of the best things about the workshop included networking with other hopeful writers, and the pleasure of focusing solely on genre writing for six weeks. I've come out of this workshop with a new feeling of confidence. I believe that I've improved as a writer, and I also have a clearer view of the publishing industry, so my old reservations about submitting to major magazines and agents are gone. I'm eager to see if I can make pro sales and win awards!

My writing plans now consist of a lot of revising. I want to revise all of my unsold short stories, including novels and screenplays, and submit them to my top choice publishers. That will be an immense task . . . but you know I'm shamelessly crazy about writing, so I'll give it a try. And yes, I also plan to write new stories. I'll fit that in somewhere. Oh, and yes, I'm going to keep reading books and participating in my critique group. I'm back on my hectic my-computer-takes-up-my-entire-life schedule.

Two of my short stories were published while I was at Odyssey. The Blur can be read in Twilight Times, and Sunrise (longer yet sexier) is available in this month's Cyberpulp e-book/PoD anthology. This is my first story in print!

Novel status:

The Illusionist was rejected from Mundania Press in a polite and timely manner. Thanks to an insightful critique from Dave Fallon of DargonZine, and other test readers, and the Odyssey Workshop, I'm really seeing that this novel has problems. I may retire it until I have time for a major rewrite.

I heard through the writer grapevine that Baen Books lost everything in their electronic slush pile a month ago. If this is the case, they didn't notify the authors, and you can imagine my frustration. My novel Yeresunsa Book 1 was there exclusively since February 2004. Maybe (hopefully) it's still there. I've considered resubmitting it to them, but after Odyssey, I've oscillated back to my original ambition of querying literary agents. There are a few major ones I haven't tried yet. I still have a lot of faith that this book has major sales potential. Test readers have responded extremely well, and I'm going to revise it ASAP to get a better reaction. Now I just have to manage not to freeze up when it comes to querying agents. The problem is that I'm really proud of this book, attached to it in a way that I don't feel for my shorter works, so I'm paranoid that I'll ruin its chances with a bad query letter or synopsis.

Wrap up:

This is where I usually launch into short reviews of the most recent books I've read and movies I've seen. I'm too tired! I hope everyone is having a good summer. Best of luck to you all with your writing, artwork, or whatever your passions may be.

preparing for Odyssey

2004-06-09T14:00:00.000-05:00

This Friday, I embark on an odyssey. Actually, it's the Odyssey Writing Workshop. This is a six week course for aspiring writers of Horror, Fantasy, and Science Fiction. It takes place at the Southern New Hampshire University, near where I grew up. It's also a very intensive course, with classes every day, events every weekend, and a large workload, so I'll be slow answering email for the next six weeks. If you live in New Hampshire, I'll give you a call.

What's so special about this workshop? Well, I signed up for two reasons: a) I'm guaranteed a lot of personal critiques, and b) the guest lecturers include renowned authors such as Catherine Asaro, Ellen Kushner, and George R.R. Martin. I'm really excited about this! G.R.R. Martin is one of my influences, so I'm looking forward to classes taught by him, and...wow, a personal critique.

The downside is that I won't be working for six weeks, and I'll be apart from my friends and significant other. I'm not exactly a big fan of New Hampshire, either. Lots of mosquitoes and black flies. But what the hell; an opportunity to learn from authors like this doesn't come along every year.

I'll be at Odyssey from June 11 through July 25. Larry will visit me during one weekend in the middle of it.

2. LIKE LIZ AND BETH
My animated short film Like Liz and Beth is now online! Quicktime is necessary to view it. This film was featured in the 1999 CalArts Producers Show, and leased to Level 13 Entertainment, Inc.

3. LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS
There's new artwork in my art gallery. You'll find new pictures in these categories: Landscapes, Characters, Animation, and Fan Art.

4. RECENTLY PUBLISHED ART
Two magazines have offered to publish my artwork! You'll find my drawings and paintings in Lighthouse Magazine, a print zine based in the U.K., and the online zine EOTU.

5. CELEBRITY SIGHTINGS
Life in Southern California isn't complete without celebrity sightings. However, one rarely gets to sit next to Tommy Lee Jones at a sushi restaurant, or say hi to James Cromwell in the street! Yup, two in one week. And I have lived here for seven years without seeing a single actor! Talk about universal synchronicity...or maybe they were filming something up here. Anyway, both incidents were a bit awkward, because I (in typical Abby style) did not recognize the actor until I had humiliated myself in front of him.

In the case of James Cromwell, I stared at him because I was sure I knew him; thinking he was someone I know in real life. Then he said "hi there" and walked on, and Larry and I realized in the same instant that this was the voice best known for saying "That'll do, pig."

In the case of Tommy Lee Jones...okay, Larry and I sat down to eat some sushi. Larry immediately noticed that a famous actor was sitting approximately five feet to my right. So he gestured with his eyes a few times. I didn't get the hint. So Larry proceeded to write "Tommy Lee" on a napkin. I said out loud "Tommy Lee?" Finally Larry wrote "CELEB --->" in big letters. But the funniest thing is that all of the waiters, waitresses, and manager gave us extra attention, because we're regular customers. Tommy Lee ended up glancing at Larry like "Should I know you?"

6. SCREENPLAY WRITING
This past semester, I took a course in screenplay writing at a local college. Our teacher has written S.W.A.T. and a few other movies, and he's a fun guy to listen to. Anyhow, the class wrapped up and I did not complete my screenplay in time. Now I'm angry at myself for all that procrastination! But my screenplay is 90% complete, and I'm looking forward to finishing it ASAP. Okay, it's a zombie film, but I truly scared myself while writing it! With luck, maybe I'll be able to sell it to a movie studio. I also have a few ideas for future screenplays.

Screenplays are a much more limited format than novels, but they're also quicker and easier to write. Other differences: When you sell a screenplay, you give up all of your rights to that work (including characters and plot), but you can get paid big bucks. Novels are much harder to make money from, but you can keep ownership of your work.

7. NOVEL STATUS
Yeresunsa Book I: The Nameless is still sitting in the slush pile at Baen Books. It's been there since February, and I expect it will be there until 2005. I hope an editor at a major publishing house reads it within the next few years! I feel confident that this book can sell. On the other hand, I'm very eager to give it one more revision, thanks to reader feedback.

The Illusionist has been at Mundania Press since January. After I sent a query, they sent a very polite, prompt reply that they're still considering it. I expect to receive a rejection (or acceptance) sometime this summer.

8. MOVIE REVIEWS
I saw Harry Potter 3, Troy, The Day After Tomorrow, and a few others. Without giving spoilers: I recommend Troy, especially if you like to watch buff men fight each other in skimpy outfits. Actually, it was a good movie, despite a few Hollywood cliches and Brad Pitt's recognizable factor.

Harry Potter 3 was better than the first two, but I was still disappointed by how much vital plot information they cut from the film, or told out of order. At least this one holds together reasonably well. I imagine that Harry Potter 4 will absolutely suck unless they divide it into two films; the book is three times longer than the first three, and from what I remember, not much of it can be cut without losing the story.

And please don't see The Day After Tomorrow. Don't support the idiots who thought it would be a good idea to tell a father-son reunion story against a backdrop of plot holes!

9. BOOK REVIEWS
I'm on a binge of good books lately. My highest recommendations go to: Hyperion by Dan Simmons, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson, and American Gods by Neil Gaimon. Really. Those books are page-turners, and better than anything I've read in years. Now I'm hooked on the Hyperion saga; I wish I had time to finish all four books before Odyssey.

Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash is also very good. And I read Barry B. Longyear's Enemy Mine, as he's the first guest lecturer at Odyssey. It's worth a read, if you can find it!

Now I need to pack for my six weeks in mosquito country.

Fire season

2004-05-07T14:00:00.000-05:00

As the weather warms up and fire season starts, my schedule is getting hotter! That's hotter meaning hectic. Have you ever longed for the gift of More Free Time? Incidentally, I wrote a story with that premise, because I wish for that a lot. Every day. Several times per day. You can find A Taste of Time in the May 2004 issue of the e-zine Deep Magic.

I also had a daily short story in Flashshot, and I will have a few upcoming publications this summer. Exciting! In other news: Well, I have three weeks to finish writing a feature-length screenplay, prepare a pre-class assignment for the Odyssey Workshop, write a screenplay coverage report for a class, revise my epic novel based on recent feedback (thank you Jackline, Maggie, Sue, J.R., Steven, and Cecile), critique a few stories for a workshop, and fulfil a few outside obligations to people. I know I'm forgetting something. Did I mention that this is all slated for the next three weeks? Did I mention that I have a full-time job now? And that I want to read all the authors who'll be at the Odyssey Workshop? And that I want to update my WoT Theories section and add new art to my online gallery? Oh -- and that I really want to write a few more short stories and submit my current ones to zines?

Please be understanding if I'm slow in answering my email.

Currently reading: Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson, Freehold by Michael Z. Williamson, and the first three Pern novels by Anne McCaffrey. It's rare for me to read three books at once like this, but they're all in different formats. Audio, paperback, and read aloud with boyfriend. :-)

New online hang-out: Orkut. Those Communities are addictive.

Addendum: Yes, I still have a semblance of a real-life social life!

unemployed and unpublished

2004-03-30T14:00:00.000-06:00

Firstly, I was accepted into the 2004 Odyssey Writing Workshop! It's a six week program that takes place from June to July in Manchester, New Hampshire. That happens to be near where I grew up, which is just a coincidence...anyhow, I'm really excited about this, because the guest lecturers include George R.R. Martin (one of my favorite fantasy authors) and Gardner Dozois (the editor of Asimov's SF Magazine).

My job hunt continues, but I've picked up some freelance work animating sprites for a GBA game. It's fun!

COMING SOON on my website: Love Advice from Mack Master Sugar Batter! This guest columnist is *not me* (I feel the need to stress that), but she will have a section HERE. Send your questions and pleas for relationship advice to Sugar Batter!

Also, I've added some new illustrations to The Illusionist, and I plan to add more when I have time.

I'm writing a screenplay about sentient alien parasites that possess a group of human scientists. It's sort of a cross between Alien and Resident Evil. This will be my first feature length screenplay, and my goal is to have it finished by May.

My two completed, ready-to-go novels are currently in the slush piles at Baen Books, and Mundania Press. Reply times are four months at Mundania, and over a year at Baen, so I won't know if I'm rejected or accepted for quite a while. Unfortunately, the odds of being published in print are piled against new authors. Most publishers (even major ones) only publish one or two new authors per year, and they get thousands of submissions. And there's a nasty catch-22: In order to get noticed by a publisher, you usually need an agent, but in order to get an agent, it seems that you need to have a contract with a publisher. Genre fiction is a hard field to break into.

If you're wondering what my track record for these novels is so far, here it is:

I've been unable to get an agent to so much as read the first three chapters of either novel. I think the problem is either a poor synopsis, a lack of impressive writing credits, or a lack of connections.
The Illusionist has been rejected from LTDBooks and Renaissance e-Books. LTDBooks offered a little bit of feedback with their rejection.
Baen Books is the first publisher that will ever see Yeresunsa Book 1: The Nameless...provided they actually see it, of course, and don't lose the manuscript or chuck it into the trash without reading it. Yes, I have fears about that. Of course, I won't find out until mid-2005, and I can't submit it elsewhere until then.

What else...? Hmm. Short stories. I've written a few more, and I'm finally starting to like doing it, a little. I still prefer epic novels (both reading and writing), so short fiction is really hard for me. It's literally harder for me to write a good 5,000 word story than a well-plotted 150,000 word novel! What is my problem? Anyway, I'm pleased to report that I've had a story accepted for publication in Deep Magic. This is a really nice genre e-zine; well above standard, in my opinion. And I formed that opinion long before they accepted my story. :-)

I will be attending the 2004 World Fantasy Convention in Tempe, Arizona, this October. Look for me there! Okay, so maybe you won't be there...(or maybe you will; if so, I'm the redhead carrying a notebook portfolio)...but I'll write an update on how it goes. This is my first writing-oriented convention, and I have nothing notable published yet. Scary!

So, that's the end of my news. The weather is getting nice and hot here. I have my first sunburn of the season. I will continue to whittle through my backlog of emails, job hunt, prepare for Odyssey and conventions and other stuff, and write that screenplay. Oh yeah, and finish updating The Wheel of Time section before Robert Jordan writes the next book.

Panama Canal cruise

2003-10-06T14:00:00.000-05:00

So, Larry and I just got back from a two week cruise from Los Angeles to Fort Lauderdale, via the Panama Canal. :-) This was my first cruise, and my first trip to Central America. The ports we visited were very tourist oriented, but we did see some of the beautiful countryside in Costa Rica, and rainforest natives in Panama. Most of our time was spent aboard the Sun Princess. It can easily hold 1200 passengers and 900 crew members, so this wasn't really a drawback; there was plenty to do, and I'm always able to relax or entertain myself with reading and drawing. There will soon be some new book reviews, drawings, and rants on my website. Rants? you ask. Yes, well, we were floating with the geriatric crowd there! Larry and I were the youngest couple on that ship...the average age was upwards of fifty.

PHOTOGRAPHS of our journey can be viewed on Larry's virtual Photo Album. And now, I'll provide an account of what happened.

First, we boarded our 14 deck floating hotel. It had several pools, spas, a gym, several lounges, several restaurants and bars, two theatres, a nightclub, a minimall, a casino, an arcade, a library, lots of cool paintings and sculptures, and more stuff that I can't remember. It's not surprising that its top speed was about 22 knots, which is something like 25 miles per hour. Anyway, we tested out one of the pools, and I thought it was cool that water kept sloshing out of the pool into an overflow enclosure around it. There was a Reggae band. That seemed appropriate until I realized that they were playing the same songs over and over, and not very well.

Every night, we had dinner at an assigned table in an elegant dining room. Each table had a head waiter, a waiter, and an assistant waiter, all from different countries. Larry and I were in fine company at that table, which is lucky, because not all of the ship's passengers were overly polite. Two couples at the table were from England, and three were from California, including us. Everyone got along, and there were interesting conversations and jokes told at every dinner.

The first port of call was CABO SAN LUCAS, MÉXICO.

The Baja peninsula is mostly desert, and the terrain looked similar to southern California. Our ship was too big to dock near the city, so smaller boats called "tenders" were used to ferry the tourists to shore. We had already signed up for all of our shore excursions via the internet. All we needed was our tickets, our sunscreen, and some beach towels. We were going snorkeling off the deck of a sailboat.

Once on the pier, we passed a few tourist shops, and got directly onto the sailboat with about twenty other passengers. Our tour took us to a little cove between two rocky cliffs, facing a private beach. The Mexican tour guides gave us instructions on how to use snorkel gear, which I needed, as I had never snorkeled before. Then we stepped down a ladder into the water, one by one. My first snorkeling experience was impressing. The water was murky, but the fish came close enough to blink at me. I was slightly paranoid about the warnings that jellyfish had been spotted in the area, as I've had the misfortune to have suffered a sting from a Portuguese Man-of-War when I was a child not wearing my glasses, and walking along a Florida beach littered with "purple balloons."

So anyway, there were no jellyfish or sharks, and the tour guides began spilling nachos into the water, which explained why the fish were so friendly. The waves were rough because of a nearby hurricane. I thought I might finally get a little bit tan, but no, it was a sunburn.

On our way back, we sped past some very dramatic rock formations, including a natural arch carved by ocean waves, and a leaning spire as sharp as a knife. There was a rock covered with snoozing seals. I'll mention the pelicans, but we saw pelicans in every port we stopped at, albeit different subspecies.

ACAPULCO, MÉXICO.

The tour we'd signed up for was the Shotover Jet Boat ride, and that turned out to be a lot of fun. After riding in a van through the beautiful (yet traffic-clogged) city of Acapulco, we arrived at a mangrove swamp, where the open-topped jet boat was waiting. It had something like 550 hp, and it could travel at something like 45 miles per hour. I was impresed by the skill of the driver, who managed to skim the boat through narrow swamp channels at top speed without hitting anything, although the channel was barely wider than the boat, and then swing the back end around so we did a 360 in the water. The wildlife was friendly, considering the noise from the boat. We saw a wild pig (maybe a boar) with some piglets, and an owl, and lots of cranes. There were crocodiles in the area, but they must have been sleeping.

After the ride, we went on a tour through the city. We saw the former home of artist Diego Rivera, with a lovely mosaic mural on the walls on either side of the gates. We drove through several narrow winding streets, and at last we saw the famous Acapulco cliff divers. Three young men wearing speedos each swam across a rough ocean channel, scaled a steep cliff wall (only wearing speedos, mind), prayed at an altar, meditated, and then dove into the rough channel. I'm not sure how high the dive was, but I would estimate about sixty to eighty feet. They had to really get some distance on the jump, because the cliff sloped down to the water at an angle.

PUNTARENAS, COSTA RICA.

I have a tough time deciding what the highlight of the trip was, but Costa Rica was certainly the most immersing tour. We rode in a tour bus for two hours, onto the Continental Divide, stopping briefly at a coffee plantation along the way. We were going to see the plugged crater of the active Poas Volcano, at an elevation of 8,870 feet above sea level. There was a small museum there, and then we hiked on a paved path through a cloud forest toward the watery crater. I regret to say that I saw no monkeys. What we saw were some huge leafy plants called "porous umbrellas," with leaves that could measure four feet or more. The cloud forest was so named because it was, well, cloudy. At that elevation, most of the clouds were below us. One can see both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans from the summit of Poas on a clear day.

The plugged crater was filled with a luminescent, opaque, turquoise pool of rainwater that was heated up and mixed with deadly minerals. It was impossible to say how deep it might be. The area around it was issuing sulfur fumes from seven or eight vents. In fact, a wide swath of the mountainside downwind from the crater was barren, because the sulfur mixes with the clouds and produces acid rain. The fumes were so deadly that we (the tourists) would have had to leave immediately if the wind were to change directions.

After that, we ate a buffet lunch at a restaurant in the LaPaz Waterfall Gardens. It was on an outdoor balcony overlooking clouds (well, at the time), and we saw hummingbirds feeding around us. A housecat shared our meal by begging at each table, and sitting in peoples' chairs as soon as they stood up. The cat thought my camera strap was a plaything, and ended up jumping into my lap for no apparent reason.

We drove through a lot of Costa Rican countryside, and the people were refreshingly friendly in a non-salesmen kind of way. Everyone waved to the tour bus--little kids, teenagers in school uniforms, construction workers, older folks, and so on--and I was surprised by how much the terrain looked like pictures of Switzerland. There were a lot of pine and aspen trees, rolling green hills and verdant pastures, and moss growing on everything. The towns were small (we drove through several), with fenced yards, often with a small cow tethered outside to mow the lawn. A lot of houses had broad patio porches with shiny tiles, and sofas or armchairs, as if it was a room without walls. There were many dog owners, too, and all the dogs looked happy. Most buildings had corrugated tin roofs to channel away the rain. Many of them had laundry hanging on lines to dry in the front yard, which led me to wonder how dry any clothing could get in such a wet atmosphere.

On the way back to the ship, we stopped in the town of Sarchi, where a family of artists have been painting beauiful designs on oxcarts and chests for generations. Like everywhere else, the store had the same basic tourist items sold throughout Central America--such as wooden boxes, T-shirts, pins and magnets--but it also had a good variety of more unique items, such as lacquered paintings on wood, and potholders woven to look like chickens. I don't know if the latter is really unique, but I didn't see them in any other tourist shops during our journey.

PANAMA CANAL, and CRISTÓBAL, PANAMA.

For most passengers who had been on cruises before, this was meant to be the highlight of the journey. For the ship, this was a seasonal transfer (I think) from the Alaskan coast to the Caribbean. They had to pay some huge amount to pass through, something like $160,000, but don't quote me on that. Anyway, we entered the Canal very early, like at 6AM, and exited around 4PM. Larry stood on deck most of the day taking photos, and got a bad sunburn on his arms, so he looked like an action figure with mismatched arms. The Canal has a series of water locks, sealed off by massive underwater gates, that slowly lift the ships to an artificial lake (created by dams). On the other side, the ships descend into the ocean by another series of locks. The Canal gets so much traffic that the lake can't be used for any other purpose, and we saw many cargo ships and oil tankers, all of them smaller (height-wise) than our cruise ship. In fact, our ship was close to the maximum size for passing through the Panama Canal. There was about 16 inches of leeway on either side while we were in the locks. If we had been on a lower deck (such as deck 4), we would have been staring out the window at the Canal wall. There were train tracks on either side of the Canal, and sturdy little locomotives held our ship in place with thick cables. I'm sure if the ship were to wobble a little, it would have hit the side of the Canal.

The Canal is one-way traffic, as there are only two traffic channels, side by side, to and from the lake in the center. Our ship was the first to leave the lake, and we had a brief stop in the city of Cristóbal. There was only enough time to check out a local bazaar (that's what it seemed like) and a restaurant/bar. It was interesting, though, because the bazaar gave me my first real sense that I was in a foreign nation...in terms of atmosphere and impressions. It was the first place where the local people did not seem to fully understand Westerners. Sure, the same items were on sale--T-shirts, pen holders, envelope openers, pottery, boxes, and some knickknacks that were supposedly hand-carved but had been sold in every shop from Mexico to Aruba--but not everyone spoke English (how about that!) and a number of people wore costumes to entertain tourists, which is something I hadn't seen in any shop elsewhere. There was a man in an elaborate costume (I have no idea what it was, but it looked like a rainforest version of the Green Man) who stepped around outside the doorway of one area. There were choreographed dancers in what looked like traditional old-style Spanish clothes. Even more exotic--there was a line of natives from a rainforest tribe, selling pottery and beaded jewelry, and wearing nothing but loincloths and body paint.

ORANGESTAD, ARUBA.

Aruba has a friendly motto, and they live up to it. Our first tour was on a passenger submarine. We rode a fast little boat to the electrical submarine, and climbed down into it one by one, sitting on a row of bench seats facing large windows. The submarine descended to about 150 feet, touching the bottom of the coral reef area. We saw a few shipwrecks, which turned out to have been sunken by the Arubans for the pleasure of fish and tourists alike. We saw a variety of coral and fish, including some barracuda, and a weird fish that kept eating algae off the side of the submarine.

The highlight of the trip, for me, was snorkeling in Aruba. We took a boat to De Palm Island, which is (from what I gathered) a private island with a hotel, beach, a restaurant, and lots of pretty palm trees and huts. There was a short pier where snorkelers could walk into the coral reef waters. Larry and I did that, and we were so enchanted by the experience that we ended up being late and almost missing our bus back to the cruise ship. There were hundreds of different fish that we saw--many so close that we could touch them--and the water was crystal clear. The reef formations varied, but the water was only six feet deep in most places. The coolest thing is that we could hear the parrotfish eating, crunching away at the coral with their beaks. Some of those parrotfish were a good four feet long, and wide also, and they looked intelligent for fish. Apparently they get fed by people sometimes, so they were very tame. Beyond that, we saw some long skinny fish (I'm no expert on fish), rainbow-colored fish, yellowtail, and a pretty black fish with glowing indigo speckles. Of course, there were more than that, and I swam through several schools of small silvery fish. It doesn't sound all that thrilling now that I've written it down, but I would do it again any time.

CONCLUSIÓN.

You might (or might not) wonder what I did on the cruise ship, other than draw and read. Well, we saw a musical stage production, which was impressive considering the fact that the dancers were on a rocking ship. Our ship went through a hurricane off the coast of Mexico, between Cabo San Lucas and Acapulco. It was rocking so hard during the night that Larry thought he might get thrown out of bed, and I was actually afraid that the ship might capsize. Neither of us slept much. There was lightning every two seconds or so. Of course, our stateroom (aka cabin) was located in the very front of the ship, so we could feel the ship shudder every time it rose out of the ocean and crashed down again. We didn't get seasick--but our stateroom steward did! After the hurricane, she called us to say that she was sick and couldn't work.

Twice, we saw dolphins playing in the wake of the ship. They really had fun, leaping completely out of the water, but they were usually too far away to see clearly. We also saw some freaky looking ocean birds that resembled a cross between penguins and pterodactyls, known as the brown booby. They were eating flying fish.

That's about it. This entry has gone on long enough, ya think? I'm glad I had some time during the cruise to read, and brainstorm some story ideas, and come up with new content for my website, and share it all with you. Now it's back to the job hunt. By the way, I'm preparing to submit Yeresunsa Book I to a major publisher. All it needs is a flawless synopsis and cover letter. I'm stressing over that, but I can't wait to get it done and get busy waiting! Have a good day, y'all.

writing update

2003-08-31T14:00:00.000-05:00

Lots going on. I've had a short metafiction story accepted for publication in neverary.com. I'm waiting to hear from Weird Tales magazine about another one of my stories.

I will be co-writing a screenplay for a feature film, along with Jason Denzel, who is incidentally the director behind the Dragonmount film project, which I am contributing to with my 3D animation experience.

I plan to submit another screenplay, my original work, to an animated TV sitcom pitching contest, hosted by Fox Studios. You can view some of my original character designs for this sitcom at my online art gallery by clicking here and scrolling down to the animal designs.

What about my novels? I've finished editing Book II of Yeresunsa, leaving only Book III as a rough draft. It will have to stay that way a while longer. As usual, I'm stressing over stupid things, such as the fact that I'm an unknown author with few publication credits. How seriously will agents and editors take my huge fat novel manuscript when it lands on their desks? There's no way to know but to try, of course, but I would feel better about submitting it if I had some more credibility. Things like guild memberships, nepotism, and awesome publication credits aren't supposed to matter that much to agents and editors--supposedly--but I hear stories about manuscripts being thrown in the trash because the author didn't have a recognizable name. I think this might have happened to me. No way to know for sure, but I received that rejection letter awfully quick. The agent couldn't have had time to read the manuscript. She responded the next day, and she must have a huge slush pile.

This is the sort of silly worry going through my head at this point. I don't mind if I get a rejection letter from someone who honestly read my book. I feel confident that it's an appealing story, and at least one agent or editor out there is bound to like it. What worries me is the idea of never getting read in the first place. There aren't a whole lot of SF/Fantasy novel publishers.

So I'm going to work on some more short stories. I will send out query letters and phone calls regarding Book I of Yeresunsa, but I'll also concentrate on getting myself some more credibility. So far, my first query letter (to one of my favorite publishers) was never responded to. That's mildly depressing.

The Illusionist is technically ready to be sent out as well, but I don't feel that confident about it. I'll let it sit for a while. Does every novelist hoping to be published go through this crazy nervousness about sending out their finished manuscripts?

July 2003 musings

2003-07-03T14:00:00.000-05:00

Just came back from a trip to New Hampshire. It was great to see some of my friends from high school, and some of my family members. I'm really enjoying the novel manuscripts that I'm test reading right now (for an author who has done me the same favor). Seriously, this stuff is good. I hope to see it in a bookstore one day.

Still editing Yeresunsa, and still confident that it's good, and still hoping to interest an agent in it, yet still worried that it might get dismissed due to high word count combined with my unknown name. That's on top of the usual writer's worries that the story could be improved--but how? And should I continue to rework this thing until the clay dries out?

Writing in May

2003-05-21T14:00:00.000-05:00

Lately, I've been starting short stories, and not completing them. I have the endings in mind . . . but I let myself get distracted with other things. I'm not sure if my life would be considered busy compared with the average person, but it always feels busy to me. For every thing that gets done, three things replace it. Some things have to take priority over writing.

That's not to say that I haven't done anything with my stories. I've submitted one short to a critique group (thanks to everyone at Milk of Medusa!), and I believe it's ready for submission to zines. Another short story, Fiction, is also ready. It was accepted at a zine earlier this year, but the editor is on a possibly permanent hiatus, and has given permission for me to shop the story to other zines.

Researching zines is a perilous activity. I get caught up reading them, and never get around to submitting. There are hundreds of zines on the internet, but only a handful print magazines that will publish scifi/fantasy short fiction. Lots of great fiction out there from new or unknown authors.

Status on my novels: Reader feedback has been coming in, and I'm very grateful for all of it. Reactions to The Illusionist are good. Suggestions and other factors have me rethinking a few details of the story. It needs a bit more work before being submitted to the literary agency I have in mind.

Reactions to the first part of Yeresunsa have been beyond great. To those who are currently reading it: Your feedback is still welcome, of course! I will take all suggestions into consideration. You are invited to be brutally honest. Please!

So why haven't I submitted it anywhere? Because Parts II and III need work. I've barely gone over them. Yes, they are three separate books, but something tells me that I should have all three finished, just in case I'm amazingly lucky and land an editor who is willing to combine them into a single volume, as I had originally intended.

I doubt anyone really reads these updates, or cares what I'm babbling about, but it's good therapy for me. If you want to laugh . . . I've been working on a horror story that has me so scared, I can't work on it while I'm home alone. Every time Larry walks past my computer, I jump about two feet.

In other news: It's hot here in California. Even I start complaining when it's 100F.

Rejected

2003-03-31T14:00:00.000-06:00

I got my first rejection letter. The agency responded very quickly, and did not provide any details. I suspect they may have been put off by my original dry synopsis (I have rewritten it since then). Then again, maybe they just aren't interested in this particular flavor of over-the-top fantasy science fiction, or maybe they didn't like my writing style. I will keep submitting The Illusionist to other agencies.

What now? My problem is that I would rather spend time writing stories than trying to market them. I have a short story, DEMON CHILD, that I would like to see published, and I could (and should) go back to Yeresunsa and revise Part I as a stand-alone book... because I consider that particular saga to be my best work... but right now, I would rather write some new stuff.

Working on Yeresunsa

2003-03-27T02:00:00.000-06:00

I've been editing The Illusionist, and have recently sent the first three chapters to an agency in New York, along with the synopsis and outline. It's a first time submission. I have never sent a manuscript to an agency or editor in my adult life. I'll keep my website posted with the developments. I'm already steeled for rejection! No one sells a book on the first try.

If you're wondering what happened to that giant saga I've been working on, Yeresunsa . . . I'll get back to it in a few weeks. I have been advised by experts (or experienced people, anyway) that no first time author can sell a manuscript that exceeds 150,000 words. While there have been exceptions to that rule, one can pretty much bet that a first time author can't sell a book that exceeds 250,000 words. How long is Yeresunsa, you ask? (blush) Okay, it ended up being 530,000 words... slightly shorter than Stephen King's The Stand. Frankly, I'm impressed that test readers were willing to read the entire thing. I was blinded by love. While I was writing it, I tricked myself into believing it was no longer than a George R.R. Martin novel.

Thank you to every test reader who offered to read Yeresunsa. Your suggestions have helped me immensely. As soon as possible, I will begin to break the saga into more marketable chunks. I count myself lucky that the first three books are already written. I've learned a lesson from this experience: Word count actually affects your chances of being considered for publication. Pay attention to it.

One more thing I've learned in the process of editing Yeresunsa: Editing is a much lengthier process than the actual writing. I think I wrote the entire 600,000 word first draft in ten months, or less. Editing took two years. I cut over 150 single spaced pages. There were times when I got tired of it, and had to suppress an overwhelming urge to move on to a new project... but the Yeresunsa saga is my big dream. I believe it's worth sharing with other people (unlike the vast majority of crappy things I make). I also think it's highly entertaining. During my editing, more than once, I would get absorbed into the story and read until dawn. Obsession? Okay, yes, but at least you know this isn't some little project I blew hot air into. It is a work of substance. Or so I hope!