GhostReader, Sowen Updates

I've been shopping around for a text-to-speech reader that I can use to convert my stories to audiobooks. I found a program called GhostReader that works fantastic, and it will only make your wallet lighter by 40 bills. The voices, while no Frank Muller or Carolyn McCormick, are lifelike and there are plenty to choose from. The software has the ability to convert entire Word docs and PDF files to MP3s. My 65,000-word novel took about 5 minutes to convert to an audio file that I was then able to listen to on my iPod.

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I've been a bit light on my Sowen updates, so here's the latest...

I've sent out somewhere in the vicinity of 30 queries to agents. While I've sparked some interest, overall the response has been less than earth shattering. I've found myself in this weird world of blind revisions, for a lack of a better term, where I keep making changes based on feedback that offers no real reason for rejection. For instance, if an agent responds with something like, the beginning didn't capture me, I feel obligated to revise the beginning with absolutely no clue why it doesn't work for said agent.

Actum est, comites!

(That's all, folks!)

Later Fiends,

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The BEA/Writer's Digest Aftermath

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, animals both domesticated and wild ... hmm, this mud on my blog smells like crap.

I'm sure you've all been refreshing this site, waiting at the edges of your RSS feeders for my tales of the Writer's Digest conference, and wondering when my story will be in your fingers. The wait is over!

Please standby while my ego deflates ...

OK, so the conference wasn't bad. Most of the panels, at least the ones not trying to push their own books, were insightful. During the Pitch Slam, I got the sense many of the agents didn't want to be there--surely after two straight hours of hearing three-minute story pitches, I wouldn't want to be there either--but they all smiled, gave me their full attention, even offered some suggestions on how to improve my story, and most importantly, many wanted me to submit fulls or partials, which is a good sign that they're interested in at least the premise of the story.

This week will be me frantically putting together my queries, tightening my novel's prose, and doing other writerly things so I can have all the submissions out by the end of the week.

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Over the next few weeks, I'd like to put together some of the do's and don'ts I learned at the conference. For starters, something all agents agree is the single most likely reason for rejection, is word count. For instance, Sowen, which is YA fantasy, should be between 45,000 and 70,000 words. Of course, you had the commentators saying, what about Twilight? What about Harry Potter? My story is as good. Fact is, if the word count don't jive with the standards, then agents read no further. Fortunately for Stephenie Meyer, Twilight was picked out by an intern not an agent, and J.K. Rowling can do whatever the hell she wants.

Later Fiends,

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Miscellaneous Debri

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, animals both domesticated and wild, prepare to be amazed ... just not here.

I've been neglecting the web in order to finish my--hopefully!--final revision of Sowen. This is one of the slower revisions because of other commitments interfering and because I'm finally forced to finish the little details I have been putting off.

The web, however, has not not forgotten me. I've been trying to get through all of my feeds ( I use Google Reader, if anyone cares), and after nearly two hours of reading, I'm still showing over 1000+ items.

So I thought I'd spend the next few entries posting some of the cool stuff I've found. These are in no particular date order, by the way.

First off, the long awaited Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus trailer. And yes, 80s fans, that's Debbie Gibson.



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And since I'm doing the whole versus thing, a funny picture by Benjamin Parry titled Alien Vs Predator: Chess.





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Troll's Eye View: A Book of Villainous Tales is a collection of fairy tales told from the POV of the villain. How cool! It's written for my target audience, the very impressionable 8-12 kiddies, but I'm sure it's a fun read for any age.

Table of Contents:

Wizard’s Apprentice | Delia Sherman
An Unwelcome Guest | Garth Nix
Faery Tales | Wendy Froud
Rags and Riches | Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Up the Down Beanstalk | Peter S. Beagle
The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces | Ellen Kushner
Puss in Boots, the Sequel | Joseph Stanton
The Boy Who Cried Wolf | Holly Black
Troll | Jane Yolen
Castle Othello | Nancy Farmer
Skin | Michael Cadnum
A Delicate Architecture | Catherynne M. Valente
Molly | Midori Snyder
Observing the Formalities | Neil Gaiman
The Cinderella Game | Kelly Link

I think that's enough for one day.

Later Fiends,

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Sowen Sample Query

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, animals both domesticated and wild, please remember to turn your cell phones on when you leave.

So this is perhaps the fifth version of my query letter. I just put in the meat of the query. So let me know, dear reader, does it sound OK? Would you shell out your hard earned money to read it? Me neither!

Halloween: It’s a day for trick-or-treating, for costume parties, and for all things ghastly. For Christopher Sowen, it’s a day to celebrate his fourteenth birthday. It’s also a day for Chris to miss his Mom most because on this day, one year ago, Chris’s Mom died.

And it’s as if the whole Sowen family died with Mom. Maybe that’s why Chris has been so obsessed with ghost hunting. Maybe if he can contact Mom, she could tell him how to help his father Bill and his older sister Ashley move passed the tragedy.

On the anniversary of Mom’s death, Chris and his best friend Andy Shubblebodum visit the lake where Mom’s car sank and perform an Indian ritual in hopes of contacting Mom’s soul. The ritual is a failure, or so Chris thinks, until he starts having strange, out-of-body visions of his mother telling him he needs to go back to the lake to free her. Were they just dreams? Could Mom really have come back? Chris returns to the lake the following evening, only to find ...

...An ancient evil has tricked Chris into opening a portal into a terrifying world, unleashing an army of dead wasps with a hunger for fresh souls and a particular craving for the Sowen children. Chris, Ashley and Andy soon learn it’s not death they should fear, but what comes after.

Later Fiends,

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More on Sowen

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, animals both domesticated and wild, today is National Stalker Day, so go out there and stalk your favorite celebrity. And remember, dear reader: Fan is only four letters away from FANatic!*

I've been working on Sowen, and I'm halfway through another revision. I thought I'd give a little snippet ...

The other children gathered, too, grabbing his legs, pulling out hair, ripping fingers from the sockets and sucking on them like ice pops. They all chanted together: "Join Us. Become Us. Lead Us," as they dragged the heap that was his body into the lake.

Ah, now doesn't everyone feel better?

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And in important news ...



Robert McCammon's Mister Slaughter, the third book in the Matthew Corbett series, will be out in the Fall of '09, according to McCammon's website. If you haven't been reading the series, you should do yourself a favor and catch up.

Later Fiends,



*NOTE: Today is not National Stalker Day, nor does such a day exist, nor does Mr. Gray or his blog support stalkers in any way, shape or form.

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The Blog That Cried Wolf

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, animals both domesticated and wild, please don't feed the night.

More revisions of Sowen still to do, but I'm about 3/4 of the way through. Should have another round of editing done midweek. My current revisions have been focusing on the structure of the story, which I think for the most part is solid. I originally didn't structure the story to be a series, but the ideas unfolded into a much bigger beast that could not realistically be contained into one novel, or better yet, be sold as one novel. As a result, much of my time has been on reconstructing and removing parts that will occur later in the series. My current structure has the story broken down into 4 novels. And since the story occurs primarily on Halloween, each book will be one year apart, which would cover Christopher Sowen's high school career, since he is a freshman in the first story.

I still need to finish some research for a couple of scenes I've been putting off. One piece of research relates to the gray wolf. I found this great picture from National Geographic that I have pinned above my desk to remind me that wild animals do not talk, sing and dance like their Hollywood counterparts.

Later Fiends.

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Revision, Revisions

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, animals both domesticated and wild, please watch your step.  The floor is slippery.

I'm back to editing Sowen, now on my third revision, and I'm very pleased with how the story is coming together.  Thinking back to when I started the story, I am amazed at how it has changed, so much so that I could not imagine sticking to the outline I created in the beginning.  I had put some notes together before I started this project-- character sketches, big concepts, major conflicts, things like that--but as the story evolved new ideas tempted me, old ideas no longer worked, and entire chapters were tossed.  Now, looking through this old outline, I see that very few things are used.

I imagine for some the outline is imperative, but for me, it seems to be more of a brainstorming tool that helps get me going.  My characters ultimately dictate the plot.  I just try to keep up with them.

So, dear readers, what is your preference:  outline or not?

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Gus Fink's Boogily Heads are the sweetest freaks I've seen in a while.  I can imagine a small army of these creatures sitting on my desk, their heads nodding in unison, agreeing to every mad thing I say.

Later Fiends,

  

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A Magical Rabbi Lives With Me?

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, animals both domesticated and wild, Become Us. Lead Us.  DIE.*  

* From Sowen: The Ghost Club

I was looking at my profile on Scribd and thought it funny where the elipses appear.  I would much rather have a magical rabbi.

And speaking of Scribd, my story All Too Cozy has been viewed 738 times and downloaded 85 times, which is pretty cool since it's only been up for one day.  My thanks to you 738/85 people.  You know who you are.

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Haunted Hot Sauce.  Awesome.  This one here's called the Rotting Flesh Radio "Corpse-Griller" Twin Pack.   It comes in a handmade cedar coffin, which is pretty dandy.  I'm already feeling a haunted barbeque this Halloween.

Later Fiends

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You maul 'em, we haul 'em

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, animals both domesticated and wild, lend me your ears ... because I like to collect them.

If you've been keeping up, you know that my novel has been revised, printed, and is waiting to be read by the few chosen souls I trust deeply with my work, which translates to the only people that I could get.

I've been working nonstop on Sowen for the last several months, and I think I need to put it away for a week, let it get a little cold, and finish off some other projects I've been neglecting.

I've switched gears to a very adult, very horrific short story called Garbage, Inc. about a guy who kills a woman. Yes, I know, very cliche subject. The hero doesn't know what to do with the dead body. Killing, well, that's the easy part. You can disconnect yourself from murder with the help of rage, jealousy, a whole cornucopia of emotions really. But removing the body, cleaning up all that blood, now that's the hard part, and my hero does not know what to do with the body until suddenly, at two thirty in the morning, he gets a knock at the door. It's a man in a navy blue jumpsuit, and he's there to clean up the mess. The hero asks this man who he is, and the man points to his breast pocket. There's an image of a truck towing a body bag ... the logo for Garbage, Inc.

"You maul em', we haul 'em," the man says.

And so the story begins.

Later Fiends.

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Finished Draft!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, animals both domesticated and wild, let's get this party started!

Well I'm sitting next to my revised draft of Sowen, all 396 manuscript pages, about 70,000 words binded and pretty looking.  With a computer it's easy to forget how large a manuscript actually is, then you spend nearly forty-five minutes printing your novel at work, after hours, hoping that your boss doesn't see you. Not that I would do that of course, but I'm just saying.

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Amazon has released the Kindle 2 to mixed reviews.  I'm on the fence about the device myself.  Since I travel often I think it's nice to be able to store over 1,500 books in one little 10.2 ounce device, but I'm turned off by the steep $359 tag and choice of electronic-ink display (I'd rather have seen a color display like the Fujitsu FLEPia e-reader).  

And do we really need an e-reader?  Some reviewers are comparing the Kindle to the Apple iPod, but I think we're talking apples and oranges.  Music and video have been changing formats for years.  It's part of the evolutionary process to get better sound and video quality as the technology advances.  Words, on the other hand, don't require many technological advances.  They work the same way on an ordinary piece of paper as they do on a 60 inch cinema display.  And for many it's nice to at least have one piece of technology--the book--that doesn't require an upgrade or new player or an outlet.  I have books on my shelves that are decades old.  If I buy a Kindle, how long will those digital books last before they become obsolete to a better technology?

What's your thoughts on this, dear reader?

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Mastadon's a new album Crack The Sky is coming out 03.24.09 and even if you're not a fan, I would suggest checking out www.crackthesky.com. It's one of the the more hypnotic album sites I've seen in a while.

Later Fiends.

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Tarantula Hawks & Revisions

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, animals both domesticated and wild, welcome!

Only about 100 more pages to edit in the second revision of Sowen. I've been averaging about 30 pages a day, which is way above normal for me, and I am excited that the finish line is starting to come into view.

I'm currently working on a scene that features tarantula hawks, nasty little things. You get stung by one of these wasps and you'll wish you died instead. Fortunately these wasps don't care much for us humans. They prefer to keep company with, yes, you guessed it, tarantulas.



The female tarantula hawk paralyzes a tarantula, and then lays its eggs inside the spider. When the larvae hatch, they eat their way through the still living tarantula, creating one of the most macabre nurseries in nature.



In Sowen, the tarantula hawks are zombies that paralyze human souls so they can control the person they sting. In the chapter I'm editing, the main characters are having a hell of a time avoiding them.

Right then, back to editing.

Later fiends.

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Process & Demons

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, animals both domesticated and wild, welcome! But please take your shoes off before entering.

Wow! I mean what about that last post, dear readers. You're probably asking yourself, can he top that? I mean sometimes I intimidate myself, but ... 

Today I thought I'd talk process.  I am currently in the second revision of Sowen, my YA dark fantasy series, and it's been a rough ride getting to this point.  I think anyone who writes-- professional, hobbyist, whatever-- can agree there is a point in the writing process where the demons gather, whispering taunts and dares--You suck!  So and such is better then you'll ever be.  Give up now and spare yourself complete embarrassment. I think at one point I had a gaggle of tiny demons scurrying around my feet, on my desk, everywhere, and they were binging on my frustration. I began spending more time with my demons then with my story.

It took me several months to complete the first draft, in part because I'm not too big on outlining, and my characters kept going off in new directions that caused me to have to add and subtract huge chunks of my manuscript. It's part of the process, part of the amateur's process especially, but it ultimately gave me a couple of weapons to defeat those pesky demons.  And so I thought I'd share two of the things that worked well for me:

• Forget Plot.  When I started writing the story, I got about halfway through and got stuck.  I wrote myself into a corner that I couldn't write myself out of.  What worked for me was to write other scenes unrelated to where I was stuck.  I put my characters in different situations just to see how they'd react, to hell with the plot.  Without realizing, I was putting chapters together, and though there are still a few gaps in the plot, I was able to finish the draft, and crush a few demons under my foot.
• Break away from writing to recharge my creativity.  During the drafting process sometimes I felt drained, as if my creative juices had soured.  I had nothing to offer to the story, and everything was stale, flavorless, characters wondered around like zombies (even though some were supposed to).  What worked for me was to immerse myself in the scenes my characters were in.  Since most of my story takes place in my home town, I went hiking on the trails in my story, sat next to the lake which I used as a gateway to a dead world, heck I even went to a car dealership to look at one of the cars I used, a brandie-new gold Shelby Mustang GT, if anyone cares.  This helped recharge me, even gave me a few ideas I had not thought of.  And best of all, I could hear those little f'ers squishing under my heal.

The demons have not left, but they now walk aimlessly with no distinct purpose.  I'm sure they will regroup and attack again.  They always do.  But at least I have some defense against them, you know, for next time.  Maybe it's what separates great writers from good writers: not their prose nor their imagination nor their encyclopedic knowledge, but their ability to slay those demons and just write. 

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