Taking the Good from the Bad

My summer of travel is over. In June, I was telling everyone that I would be heading off to London for a bit, followed by a trip out to India for a bit longer. A little over a month ago, I returned from India and concluded what may be a recurring theme for my summers, in that I keep referring to them as "The worst summer ever" each year. I was to be in London for a few weeks training employees from my day job on our software product. Once complete, I was to travel out to India for an extended visit of about six weeks for training activities as well. I ended up being in each location for a couple weeks, while the mid-summer activities included being prepared for my impending India trip and tending to a project on fire. We use that term for projects which either have severe loss of resources unexpectedly or otherwise a deliverable date we would need a TARDIS to hit.

My day job had consumed my summer and my ambition of completing my book by now is a complete failure.

Out of the Bad, comes the good...

I actually started writing this blog the week of my return from India and I was a bit miffed, to say the least. When returning to this site, I also saw a blog in my drafts from June titled "What if you're a part-time writer?" The theme is the same, although my frustration is a bit greater these days. My dream job does not pay me enough money to live my current life. On the other hand, I really like my career in the software field. I guess the question is, 'How do I balance these careers?'.

I'm on vacation this week and so far, I've been able to write a chapter, return to my blog and sleep in a little bit. As any writer knows, you can't be a vacation writer because inspiration does not happen on schedule. I've been toying around with the idea of a Sorcerer who can travel through time in Alorya, but I can tell you that I've had at least three moments in which I had the biggest and brightest idea completely die in my head since I wasn't focused on writing at that moment. Oh well...

Keeping a positive mindset, I have not given up. I haven't picked up my bass in years. I haven't played sports in years. There are so many things that I love to do, but instead of doing them, I focus on my top priorities in life. Career, family and enough relaxation to survive. AND, I haven't given up on my writing either. Like an old friend, I can go to my computer and type a few pages without much effort. Conversations picked up midway from where we left off months ago. There's such a comfort in knowing that it's always there waiting for me whenever I can spare a few moments.

A Generational Thing - Music

I thought of this topic when I was at a stop light. It was a nice day and I had the windows down. My mind started to wonder off and I was hoping the guy behind me would have an aneurism when he noticed I won't hit the gas the exact second the light turned green. Somewhere between wondering what green tasted like and which side of a coin was heavier, I heard a familiar tune coming out of the car which had just pulled up next to me. Bon Jovi was living on a prayer, not five feet from me, but I did not bother to look at who was driving. My mind already gave me the image of a familiar woman in her mid-thirties driving an Acura. The Left-Turn signal had changed to green and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man in his seventies driving a Mercedes ML-63 (a hundred thousand dollar car). My mind did a quick mental calculation of the meaning of the song versus the life that gentleman was living. No sir, he was not living on a prayer, he was surfing on a cloud. Performers like Springsteen, Bon Jovi and Bob Dylan would never have been successful if they sang about being a Rock Star, making tons of money and having women throwing themselves at them. A good performer can connect with their audience and give a reflection of society of that era. Some audiences want to live vicariously through the performer, so those performers have their place and time as well. What I remember my father telling me about Rock 'n Roll though had forever shaped my image of the genre. He told me he played the Rolling Stones for my grandparents at some point in the 60's and they hated it. For it to be Rock 'n Roll,he said, your parents have to hate it. I read an article a while back in which Alice Cooper said as much about what was considered Rock 'n Roll for the modern day. They may be playing the same riff and beat as they did thirty years ago, but if your grandfather is blasting it in his Mercedes, it's not Rock 'n Roll. Within the last decade, I went to a Metallica concert with my mom (yes, my mom). I sat around people who were between the ages of ten and fifty. Linkin Park had opened for Metallica at Giant Stadium that day, and I remember the older people around me shaking their heads as the Nu Rock band played their hits. I said to myself, "Hey kids, your parents hate it, so it must be Rock 'n Roll". I was right. After the concert I had to consider that Metallica was not Rock 'n Roll anymore. They're a great band, that's for sure, but they weren't Rock 'n Roll. I had to accept that being in my thirties; it was still okay for me to like Linkin Park as well as Metallica. Hell, I like Elvis and Johnny Cash! In time, I will be of the age where my kid plays a song that I will absolutely hate. That song will be Rock 'n Roll. When I relate it to Sci-Fi, I notice that I've yet to read a book which takes a stab at predicting the direction of music in a futuristic Sci-Fi type of way. We have to understand that when Sci-Fi becomes our reality in fifty or so years, we will hate that music. I thought about including the most repulsive sounding music I could imagine in my next book. That repulsive music that I hate will the futuristic Rock 'n Roll. We will all hate it and that's a good thing.

Shipping off to London

It looks like it's definitely going to happen.  My company is going to be sending me to work in their London office for a few weeks in June.  From there, I expect to go to India in July.  I'm not really going to get into my level of excitement for this trip since I think it's obvious.  Instead, I'm going to write about a vow I made to myself regarding my summer business trips.

I will complete the first draft of my second novel by the time I return from India.

It's only a first draft and I know I went through over twenty drafts for my debut novel Alorya.  I don't think I'll be as cautious for my second book as I was my first, so I'll probably only make ten drafts.  :-)

The reason for my caution is simple - Once it's out, it's out.  If it's worth putting your name on it, it's worth taking the time to make it as good as you can possibly make it.

Podcast - Author Interview with Jon Teetsell

I had a great time chatting with Quinn Barrett of Wise Bear Books.  Although I was nervous at the beginning, it quickly turned into a chat about Science Fiction and eventually my book Alorya.  The most interesting part of the interview for me, was that she asked me questions about Alorya that no one had ever asked.  By asking me about some of the complicated names in Alorya, it brought me back to questions I had been preparing for back in 2008 when I finished writing my first "acceptable" version of Alorya.  To be honest, the interview was exactly what I had been expecting back in those days.

When I first shared my work with friends and acquaintances back then, they had asked me about Scarlett or Aiden.  Soon, the line of questions came to be about the Jaadugar and the Sorcerers.  All in all, it was questions like this which led me to kind of expect the unexpected.  It was because I didn't know what to expect that I became so nervous.  Prior to the interview, Quinn had provided me a list of questions she might ask so I could prepare myself, but when she actually asked me about Mercer, I was thrilled.  He was definitely the character I had the most fun writing about.

Please enjoy the podcast!  With experiences like this, I hope to make many more.

Writing in the Zone

Sometimes, the temperature is just right.  Sometimes, it's the dewey smell after the summer rain.  I've noticed over the course of my life that seasons are highly influential when it comes to my creativity.  I had recently been awake for a couple days straight and on that night, I found myself sitting in my living room opening my senses to a Staten Island spring.  It's been warmer than usual and we had all the windows in the house open.  The smells of budding flowers, the sounds of birds going crazy and the feel of nice warm breezes made their way through my windows.  At around 3am, I had a moment of self-awareness.  I should be writing, I thought.  It was the spring after Aiden was born that I burned through the pages of my first draft of Alorya.  I would stay up late to feed and care for him, while Regina caught up on some much needed sleep.

I don't know if it's possible, but I'm going to try to blog about getting into the Zone.  I first heard the term in the days when I played basketball for hours on end and it's a moment when everything goes right and the energy is endless.  When I was writing Alorya, I would get into that Zone and emerge with 40-50 pages that for the life of me, I can't explain their inspiration or source.  I sometimes tell people that the book wrote itself, but I edited the first draft.  It was the most amazing thing I had ever done and I sometimes find myself acting like a junky waiting for that next moment in the Zone.

It was during the other night when I may have found the formula:

• The environment has to be perfect.  You may not have discovered your environment, but when you do, try to replicate it whenever you're ready to write.
• Make it personal.  No matter the topic, we all have some feeling one way or another.  If you don't have it, don't write about it.  Draw from that feeling when you write.
• Go off on a tangent.  You can always go back and edit, but sometimes while writing about "A", a few thoughts on topic "B" pop up in our heads.  Write it down.  You can move or delete it during a later edit if you don't like it, but the important thing is that something about "A" inspired you to think about topic "B".
• Do Not Check Your Spelling and Grammar.  You can always do that later.  If you're serious about writing, you're going to hire an editor anyway.  Let the story flow and don't worry about spelling and grammar for now.
• Get comfortable.  The perfect environment should always include a comfort.  You may find yourself writing for hours, so don't let the pain of sitting on cactus be a distraction.
• Plan to be alone.

I would love to bottle it and sell it, but I'm just hoping to be able to give some of my own insight into the Zone.  We write because we love to do it.  I love to write because of those exhilarating moments when the world around me become ethereal and my story comes to life.

Author Profile - Terry Pratchett

“Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

By now, many of you know that Terry Pratchett is a major influence on my writing.  To take it a step further, he is also my favorite writer.  Right now, Americans are saying "Terry who?".  It can be said that Americans have a difficult time with British humor.  Maybe it's a little dry, I don't know?  I love it!  My television defaults to BBC America, what can I say?

Terry Pratchett writes with some of the most complex sentence structure I've ever read.  At times, I'll have to re-read a sentence just to make sure it said what I thought it said.  It wasn't until I tried out a little experiment which really gave me that moment of clarity.  I read the sentence aloud.  My mind had been trained through the education system to expect sentences to be structured a certain way, but when I read Terry Pratchett aloud, I was surprised.  This is how I speak.  Granted, the Brits use slang which takes some getting used to for an American, but it really struck me as the easiest way to understand him completely.  I took that idea to a Star Wars novel and it was a disaster.  Once my mind was prepared for reading a Terry Pratchett novel, he standing as an author, in my mind, shot right to the top.  It was amazing!

“In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods; they have not forgotten this.”
― Terry Pratchett

I started writing Alorya with a bunch of Terry Pratchett novels under my belt, but continued writing as I had been taught.  When I was a fan of John Elway, I emulated him as a quarterback.  I watched Clyde Drexler and immediately went outside to see how high I could glide.  Why not emulate Terry Pratchett as a writer?  In America?!?  Are you crazy?!?  Yes and Yes.  I think he deserves it.  I think anyone who takes a "standard" and turns it on it's head is worth a second look.  If it comes to them as second nature and they're really good at it, then you are watching a genius of your time at work.  It is because humans are so brilliant that we were able to appreciate genius when the genius is still alive, right?

“God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”
― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens

As you read that passage from Good Omens, your brain is begging and screaming for a period.  When you reach the end of the sentence though, it became a worthwhile journey (if you understand the humor).  When I read it the first time, I had to read it one more time just to make sure.  I did not laugh.  I smiled and said, "Very interesting, Mr. Pratchett."

At times, people would come to me and tell me my sentence structure is a bit weird.  At first glance, they say it's a run-on sentence.  Inside, I smile and say, I know.  I admittedly wrote a run-on sentence in a published book against the wishes of my editors.  Why?  To say 'thank you' to Mr. Pratchett!!!!!

“Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.”
― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

“It's not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren't doing it.”
― Terry Pratchett

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.

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.

Marketing - What makes sense to me?

I definitely can't be confused with a marketing expert, but recently when two friends released their first album I thought they might not be reaching their entire audience.  I wrote to them a facebook message from my iPhone and I thought my fingers were going to fall off.  The following day, I had some things come to mind that I forgot to mention.  Keeping in mind that I am a writer and they are musicians, we naturally have different methods for marketing, but I came up with a few ideas which can be useful for most of us.

• Know your audience - What do they want to hear, read or watch?
• Know your competition - What are they doing to reach their fans?
• Know your material - Is there some facet of your work that differs from or is similar to anything?

Whether you're in the stone age or the information age, you need to address these points.  The following part has to do with timing, location and current trends.

• Don't wait until your book is published, album is released, openning night at your play (whatever) to begin marketing.  You want to think about these things at most a year before publication.

I finished the first few edits of my book in 2008 and felt that it was ready for an agent.  Before I did that however, I registered the domain Alorya.com.  I joined MySpace to get into the social media movement. I even did the unthinkable and became sociable around the office.  I expect to be published in the next few months.  Get something... anything... on every form of social media and interface you can (afford) and begin talking to people about your work.  If you're not proud enough to talk about it, who will be?

• Your competion should be the established greats of the current era in your genre.  If you're a musician, Mozart is not your competition.  If you're a writer, Frank Herbert is not your comptetion.  Find out how your competition is reaching their audience and then adopt/improve on it.  Do they use the web?  Do they use PodCast? 

I looked at Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman and Troy Denning to see how they reached their audience.  I obviously don't have the budget to compete with them from a marketing stand-point, but it was a great place to find some ideas.  (Hint:  Follow them on Twitter).

• Try to set yourself apart from everyone else.  Find something unique about your work and put a neon sign around it.

"Buy my book", "Check out my book" can really be annoying.  Don't turn yourself into a salesman, just try to spread the word that you are a member of the industry and you can contribute. (Kind of like this article, right?).  The unique part of my book is that I took real life events and exaggerated the hell out of them.  What's unique about that?  Well, they're MY life events.  That's pretty unique.  I never expected to write the first or best of anything.  I'm just trying to tell the story I started writing when I borrowed a few sheets of paper from a nurse, when my son was still in the hospital after he was born.

Special Thanks to Matthew Ashdown for helping clear these points up for me.