ICON 31 - Review

This was the best ICON I have ever attended.  Since 2008, my friends and I would travel out to Stony Brook to nerd ourselves up at the Sci-Fi Convention.  It wasn't what I was expecting at the time, but I found it to be really good if you were comfortable with being a participant instead of an observer.  Like our college years revisited, we would trek (he he) over to the Students Activity Center and sit in a classroom while we read the summary of the activity.

"Evil Laugh Contest"
"Star Wars vs. Star Trek"
"Furry's: How not to be creepy?"

Subsequent years proved to be less entertaining.  It seemed like an evolving experiment which would range from "very adult" to "family friendly".  Those of us from the Golden Age of Sci-Fi have children and in some cases, grand-children.  While we can appreciate adult-themed classes, it was awkward sitting with our children during some of those classes.  In 2011, it was way too tame.  Adult themed classes occurred during the evening, but during the day we were subjected to Twilight, Harry Potter and Teletubbies.  I was a touch uncomfortable with the middle aged man dressed as a teletubby, but that's just me.

ICON 31 brought the perfect blend of balance.  Enter Doctor Who!  The first class of the day, I sat in a "Dalek Building" class with my wife and son.  Steve Gostelow was an independent contractor who built Dalek's for the BBC and hosted the class in a Q&A style forum.  We discussed how to actually build a Dalek prop.  Any and all questions were answered, including how much the BBC paid for the work (not much).




Star Wars Rep in the Upper-Right


I sat on a panel for "Star Wars vs. Star Trek" as the lone Star Wars supporter.  I had some serious fun with the Trekkies and they certainly had some fun at my expense, as well.  My friend Sunil peppered me with comments aimed to question my intelligence for actually preferring Star Wars over Star Trek.  I stuck to my guns an pointed out that I had no trouble understanding Star Trek.  I usually just fell asleep before the show was over to register an opinion.

After this, I went to a "Game of Thrones" class, in which we discussed the book and television show.  The focus was on Season 2, which also covered opinions from the first book (Season 1).  In the end, they showed a couple trailers for the second season on HBO.

I had a blast.  I debated dressing up as Doctor Who, but in the end I'm glad I didn't.  I don't have the "stick thin" physique of Matt Smith and I wasn't about to shave off my Goatee again.

I look forward to seeing everyone in Stony Brook next year!

Wizards and Robots - Can they co-exist? (Next on Maury)

There are those of us who prefer fantasy stories.  Give us a wizard, an elf or an orc any day of the week, right?  We prefer our supernatural protagonists to live in an exclusively natural world.  Others love the Sci-fi realm.  We want robots, space shuttles and geeky technology that most everyone will be calling "normal" in 50 years.  Finally, there are people like me who like both.  I like Star Wars, Harry Potter, Dune and Lord of the Rings almost equally.  All of those stories capture the escapism I look for, but they also bring the reader to see the world in another pair of eyes.

My question:  Can both Sci-fi and Fantasy exist in the same story?  I've heard quite a few "No!" answers and nearly had my head ripped off by a guy calling himself Stormageddon.

The entire story of Lord of the Rings could have been cut down to about 3 pages if Frodo had teleportation technology available.  Star Wars would have been painful if Luke and his buddies had to walk to the Death Star, right?  All of this pondering brought to mind one question:  How do you write a story which can include both Sci-fi and Fantasy without making it ridiculous?

I used the simple element of time, in Alorya.  There must have been a time when Captain Kirk's ancestors wore armor and bathe once a week.  There also must have been a time when Gandalf would become complacent due to the fact that he's a wizard living in a world of men (and hobbits).  After all, that is what Saruman's destiny was to become, right?  The dominator of a Middle Earth now that the Elves had run off to the West.

In my Prologue, I created an instance in which the continents of men were separated from the continents of Wizards and Barbarians.  They each evolved on their own for the most part, but as the technology advanced, they were in for a bit of conflict.  During the days of men wearing armor and bathing once a week, the Wizards dominated them.  As time progressed, the men discovered technology which would protect them from the Wizard.  In the true tradition of "The best defense is a good offense", there had to be a point where men turned their technological advances toward weapons to be used against the Wizards.

It's probably not a good idea to put the Enterprise in orbit around Middle Earth or have Hogwarts facing off against the Death Star, but you have to think that there must have been a time when both genres were an interesting match.  Let me stop before I start thinking about little blue elves in white hats co-existing with robots which transform in modes of transportation.

Book Interview on Staten Island Beacon

This past Saturday, I sat down with Megan McGibney to do an interview for my book Alorya. - Author Jon Teetsell Releases Pain and Book.

It was an absolute pleasure and easier than I thought it would be.  As some people know, I'm a notoriously bad interviewer when it comes to job interviews.  Amazingly, as soon as I got to chatting with Megan, I just opened up and let everything out.  Of course, that evening I was kicking myself for not mentioning one thing or another, but overall I thought it was a good one.

We focused on what led me to writing Alorya and how it got to the place we are today.  From there, we jumped from topic to topic with regards to a vampire book Megan is working on as well as the second piece in the Alorya saga.

It was fun and I'd want to do it again!

2012 - The Year of Alorya

This is not one of my favorite holidays, in fact I think New Years is the most overblown holiday of the year. This doesn't take away from the fact that it's good for all of us to have new beginnings. In 2011, it was a year which brought about many new beginnings for me. As I think back to this same night last year, I thought of Alorya.
I had given up on publishing. The biggest problem I had then, was the same problem I have now. I admit, I get completely tongue tied when people ask me the simplest question: What is it about? It took me roughly 248 pages to tell the story and it would be about half as many pages to explain what it's about. Last year, I set as my resolution to get Alorya published.
On top of every rejection letter I had received, I placed a note which told me what I had done wrong. I learned to do this with job interviews and I found that it really helped. Over the course of the last few years, I had received correspondence from vanity presses which would basically take your money and give you a book. The one thing I knew more than anyone was that I was not a good enough writer to just have my book printed. I wanted to go the independent route, but I needed to go through the same trials that any author would go through to get published. I needed that round of editing, in which a professional would tell me how much they hated the story. The silver lining around that cloud was that they would also tell me how to improve it. I also needed someone to help me take the original problem I spoke of and find a solution. How do I explain what Alorya is about in under 120 pages? With the help of Matthew Ashdown, the task became more simple.

I once heard someone say that if they had a time machine, they'd go back in time and kill Hilter. I thought, if you had a time machine, why not go back in time and make sure Hitler was raised properly?

My little story of the birth of my son was built on the frame of an old Star Wars story I had been writing. Then I tied that question of what to do if you had the knowledge to prevent a disaster.

With the view inside the head of a madman with a laptop over, I thought I'd wrap this up and explain what I want to do next.

My next book has to do with the Sorcerer who holds dominion over Time.

This year, I want to market Alorya to the best of my ability. I want all of the marketing to pave the way for my second book. I'm also going to take part in a contest which has been a nemesis of mine for the last few years. (More to come on that).

I wish all of you a Happy New Year! I hope 2012 gives everyone a chance to make their dreams of 2011 come true.

Author copies have arrived!

My paperback novels have arrived. They look wonderful!

Top Five - My favorite characters from Sci-Fi / fantasy novels

I've read a bunch of Sci-Fi / Fantasy novels, but obviously not all of them. There are some characters which are so clearly defined in there stories that they can come alive in our imaginations. Other times, you'll find writers digging into our own psyche to create a character to which we are already familiar, without needing strong character development. Prince Charming and the Big Bad Wolf are examples of those characters. Even without the aid of Disney, we already know who these characters are because they've been in our psyche since the our childhood.

I prefer my favorite characters to have a fatal flaw that they must overcome. Here are my top five:

5 - King Theoden - What do you do when your people show more allegiance to a ranger from the north than to you, their king? As if that wasn't bad enough, you are already known for being the king who fell under the spell of Sauruman the White. On top of that, your son and only heir had been killed in battle.

What he did was ride.... ride now... ride for ruin... death... and the worlds ending.

4 - Boromir son of Denethor - Everybody remembers Aragorn, Legolas and the hobbits, but who remembers Boromir? He was played in the movie by Sean Bean, which is a spoiler in itself as to what will happen to him. Boromir was the oldest and favorite son of Gondor. In Fellowship of the Ring, he was akin to a wet blanket who was constantly bringing everybody down with comments of doom. "One does not simply walk into Mordor..." he said. When the time came, he tried to take the ring from Frodo.

In his darkest hour though, he heroically battled the uruk-hai to help Frodo escape. His story is what I loved most about the first book. His moment of redemption was my favorite part.

3 - Ganner Rhysode - Introduced in the New Jedi Order, Ganner and the Jedi found themselves fighting an enemy that could not be seen in the Force. The Yuuzhan Vong were mighty warriors immune to the Jedi's greatest weapon/gift. Ganner was introduced as a privileged pretty-boy. He accompanied the Solo children on the fateful mission that claimed one Solo's life, while another Solo took his first steps down a dark path. Ganner was given a livid scar on his face which proved to be a life changing event for the vain Jedi.

After over a year of contemplation in the force, Ganner realized that he was not going to be the hero of this war. In a moment of clarity, Ganner saw that it was Jacen Solo who would be the end of the Yuuzhan Vong. He also saw that Jacen Solo would not make it out of a dangerous mission without his help.

While Jacen Solo was occupied with a strategy to defeat the Yuuzhan Vong, Ganner needed to just buy Jacen some time. The worshippers of death saw Ganner in a new light that day. They saw him as the Gate Keeper of Death. "None shall pass."

2 - Sam Vimes - I only read The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett because it was Terry Pratchett. Sometimes, you don't know what a book is about, but because you like the author, you buy it. Up to that point, I had only read about the witches and wizards of discworld. I found it funny, yet utterly confusing. I needed to go back to the beginning and read the Watch books in order. Sam Vimes was Captain of the Night Watch and had progressed all the way up to Duke of Ankh. Sam was a police officer in the midst of a battle against alcoholism, the City of Ankh Morpork and a Dragon. Sarcastic and crude, Sam had ticked off the entire city from the bottom to the top. With all this in mind, the city, the Patrician, the guards and even the dragon knew one thing about Sam Vimes: He had integrity.

Throughout each of the books, it became clear that good things were happening to Sam, but he was always asking "why?". Why were good things happening to him? While he waited for the world to come tumbling down around him, he simply continued to do his duty.

Sam Vimes is a personal favorite of mine. He is not the flashiest, but he reminded me of me once.

1 - Anakin Solo - Oh, I love Star Wars too! Darth Vader! Yeah, I like Darth Vader too. He was once Anakin.... wait, Anakin who?

Yes, this is Anakin Solo. Son of Leia Organa Solo. Grandson of Anakin Skywalker, a.k.a. Darth Vader. Here on earth, that's like naming your baby Adolf.

While still in his mother's womb, he was touched by the dark side of the force. Many times while growing up, he was reminded about the legacy of his grandfather. The youngest of the Solo children, he was also the most tragic. Anakin Solo had the most powerful enemy in the Star Wars universe. George Lucas. Lucas felt that Anakin Solo's trajectory followed too closely to Anakin Skywalkers. This wouldn't have been so bad if Lucas wasn't making the Star Wars prequels at the time. From birth, it seems Anakin Solo was destined for failure.

In the New Jedi Order, Anakin Solo was the first to figure out why the Yuuzhan Vong could not be felt in the force. The Jedi had become soft and relied too heavily on the force. Mara Jade Skywalker taught Anakin to use the force only when necessary. Solo became more self reliant. As a child, he became one of the first to best a Yuzhaan Vong in combat. After many victories, he became the hero his grandfather and famous uncle had become. In Star by Star by Troy Denning, Anakin Solo was killed. Much like Ganner, Boromir and Theoden, Anakin went out in a blaze of glory. Many of us in the Star Wars universe felt robbed, but it was then that I learned the power of the writer. The storyteller is the most powerful person in the story.

Inspiration - Daily Life

Fantasy vs Reality

Every writer will be inspired by every day events in their life, but to varying degrees.  From a writing perspective, I took everything I experienced and skewed it into a Sci-Fi / Fantasy world called Alorya.  When I was in my teens, I lived inside my head.  People would see me as quiet or shy, but I just hadn't found my outlet for communicating this to other people.

A little over ten years ago, I was on a job interview for a company I can't remember.  I was perhaps the worst person for interviews on the planet, at the time, but the focal point was how I perceived it within my creativity.  I viewed it as a scene out of Star Wars.  The room was ablaze in red and green flashes of light, while I battled the IT Manager for a position with that company.  I would later go to my computer at some point and write about this lightsaber battle with a hypacritical Jedi to which I narrowly escaped with my life.

I write in the same way others would keep a diary or a journal, but through my eyes, it's all transformed into an "out of this world" experience.  My battles against ogres, romances with elves, and command of the force is my way of journaling life without the mundanity of everyday life.  Have you ever thought about a conversation you just had and wished you said something differently?  Maybe you miss your bus by a minute and think about the extra time you took taking that "shortcut"?  It is in this light that I view writing and creating as a fun experience and not a job.

Inspiration - Brothers Abroad

I spoke earlier about how the birth of my son was the event that made me pick up the pen to write Alorya, but inspiration comes in so many forms, at so many different times, that I'm going to write a few of the most inspiring things to happen which led to the creation of Alorya.  I want to set the tone for this post by saying that I am defining inspiration as an event that took place which made me run to my computer and start writing.  Of course my wife, my friends and family all inspire me to be the best that I can, but that's not what I'm talking about in this post.  Many of the events that take place in Alorya are taken from moments in my life to which I applied artistic interpretation.

Both of my brothers were serving their country in Iraq during the writing of Alorya.  Gabriel was in Iraq for three separate tours and Tim was away for one.  They were both stationed over seas when they were not in Iraq, so they were always away, but with different degrees of danger around them.  The main backdrop for Alorya was war.  I would think that if my brothers were hippies at Berkley during this time, the story would have been much different. 

Alorya contains three major characters which come from the warrior caste in a country called Bragar.  Whether they are members of an organized military or warriors in their tribe, my brothers were the inspiration behind their creation, as well as the main theme of the story.  I've had conversations about the use of bionics with my brother Gabriel so many times, that I thought it was a great idea to bring it into the story.  Gabe and I disagree on the use of bionics, so I was inspired to create a scenerio of bionic soldiers with both success and failure which is attributed to our conversation.  I also had numerous conversations with my brother Tim about the feeling of loss while you're away.  The friends, the family and the romance becomes so difficult to manage that it became tempting to just walk away.  I wrote about what I took from my conversations with both of my brothers about ultimate loss versus, something to look forward to when you return home.  Inspiration comes in so many forms that my brothers may not even know that the little 15 minute conversation we had on Star Wars - Knights of the Old Republic in turn became an idea for my book.

The next post will be about inspiration which came from work.

Final Edit Received

I have great news!!

During my initial conversations with the publisher, they were asking how I received criticism.  What I found to be odd, is that I also had forms to fill out describing my book and incredibly, how I received criticism.  It brought me back to the times when I had been handing in creative-writing exercises at school.  Such hope which was shattered with a bad grade.  I always said the same thing, "Are these people nuts?!?  Why can't they understand that I did "this" intentionally and I did "that" because later "this" happens?  I don't deserve this grade because the professor doesn't understand me or my writing."

So, yesterday I got the manuscript back from the editors.

It felt like I was just punched in the neck.  I literally felt the wind leave me when I saw how badly they beat up my manuscript.

Right now, all I can say is that "I got what I deserved."  Something I couldn't say when I was younger, but it's as true then as it is now.

My job is to tell a story to the reader.  I'm sure a Sci-fi/Fantasy reader would have understood a bit more with certain aspects to the review, but that's not the point.  The book is supposed to be intuitive.  At no point should a reader have to say, "Poorly written, but I know what you mean."  I feel really good about this now.  I was worried that I would publish the book and later have regrets with the fact that readers didn't understand what I was trying to say.  With this, I can be pretty sure I'll be delivering a quality product for everyone to enjoy.

I want everyone to enjoy Alorya.  I want people who have never read the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre to "get it."  It's actually the story of my son's first week of life translated into fiction.  When they come to book signings and see Aiden with me, I want them to see how it all turned out.

Revelations during the Wedding

I knew that I was not Matt’s oldest friend. I was reminded of it often during our friendship from his other friends, but I always thought it was a good thing that friendship could endure the way it obviously had between him and his childhood friends. The reminder that set my mind down this path came yesterday during my friends wedding. JT had huddled with Matt and the groomsmen, which were all friends from the age that came when the parents open their doors to let their children explore the world. They huddled while JT told them that the first one of them was getting married and together, they will all get to this stage.
As a parent, I think to the days that come when I will open the doors for my children Aiden and Elena and when they will let their friends into their hearts. One day, I know, these friends will be closer to and know more about my children than I do. Yesterday, I saw the “driven one”, the “nice one”, the “strong one” and the “real one” hugging and for a moment, I saw them when they were young. I saw the “Long Hair” years, I saw the Hockey Years, I saw the “first love” years. It was clear that all of us were way past our Luke Skywalker years and into our Han Solo years.
During ICON 2011, I was in class which I think was called something like “Sci-Fi / Fantasy for old Rock Stars”. One thing I had learned about ICON was that the titles don’t always match the content, but this ended up being the greatest class I had taken at one of these events. The theme wanted us to think about all of those Sci-Fi heroes when they became gray and old. It was a very interesting topic, but for this blog it really comes down to the following Categories:
Years -

• Luke Skywalker - Young, talented and with something to prove. The Luke Skywalker years would be our last years of school and the first few years in our careers. Driven to succeed with a chip on our shoulder’s at trying to prove that we’re not kids anymore. 
• Han Solo - Mid-Career, established with little to prove. The Han Solo years would be from that moment when we win our first major battle in life to the moment when the gray hairs outnumber the regular color we have. Above us, they don’t work very hard and below us, they’re after our jobs. In this stage, we learn the phrase “What have you done for me lately” focuses more on the word “lately” than any other word. 
• Obi Wan Kenobi - Older, near retirement with nothing to prove. The Obi Wan Kenobi years are the years in which we advise or lead the others and hope to have a grand finish. Delegation to the Han Solo’s while teaching the Luke Skywalker’s is the basic method of operation. 

Honestly, Matt and I didn’t like each other when we first met. He thought I was a prick and I thought he was unreliable. We became friendly as time went on, but I can tell you right now the moment that changed our lives and made us allies and then friends.
We were at Komegashi with Bill O’Connell, who at that time was closer to a friend than Matt was to me. In truth, I was a prick and did not think it was possible to work with friends due to the fact that you may one day need to fight them for the same position. That day at Komegashi, we were discussing our dissatisfaction with the people we worked with, although all of us agreed that we liked working there. And then it came - Bill asked us how much money we made. Knowing it was a mistake, I didn’t see any harm in telling him and Matt. Bill was about to move to Washington and I didn’t feel threatened by Matt at all. I knew I made good money since I was making more than my acceptable range of salary. Matt maintained that he made more than all of his friends. Even Bill followed suit with the fact that he made more than all of his friends. The numbers killed us though. Bill had asked this question of the entire team of new hires before he had gotten to ask it of us. Matt and I were paid less than others who we felt didn’t deserve it. We didn’t complain. There were numerous avenues to which we could have taken, but what happened was we both became so driven to learn new things that we set out to conquer.
I taught Matt everything I knew about the hardware dynamics of PC’s and Servers. Matt learned programming while I learned databases. We were unstoppable. When we added Matt’s friends Mike and Dave to the clique, we became formidable enough to be noticed by everyone up to the CIO of a billion dollar company. As I watched the groomsmen in the huddle with the groom, I didn’t feel like a fellow groomsmen. I felt like an outsider watching the Goonies grow up and get married. Folks from my generation know that to be a compliment. These were friends who took the baton from Matt’s parents and raced their way up to the point where his career started. From here, they passed the baton to me.
Together, Matt and I had our Luke Skywalker years and began our Han Solo years. Over the course of this time, many of us joined Matt in his race during the career stage of this race, but yesterday was when we passed the baton over to his wife Rachel. Standing next to his parents, his brother and his age old friends we watched Matt and Rachel celebrate this momentous occasion and we will cheer them through the final leg of the Han Solo years of his life. Together, they will finish the race. Together, we will cheer them on. Those are the rules. We all know our parts. We all have to play them.