I mean, don’t get me wrong, I hang out with crazy smart people every time I’m with my wife. I read crazy smart people on the internet. I listen to crazy smart people in the podcast. But there’s something about being around someone who is crazy smart face to face that’s just different.

So, one of the things that FIP always talked about but never really got off the ground was RSS delivery of ebooks. The delivery is probably pretty simple – it’s an RSS feed, and the ebook is provided via a link or an enclosure, like a podcast. So that’s not that difficult to set up. The hard part is how to catch it and make it automatically readable on your computer, your e-reader, your phone, or your tablet. And that means building some kind of app.

We had thought about applying this to something like serialized fiction – where you have a number of chapters that get released bit by bit over time. You could do that by making them all separate ebook files, and that’s probably how people are solving that now (to the extent that people are doing it at all). Basically, it’s taking the podcast model and applying it to text. Separate files.

But I don’t know that it’s the best way to handle it.

I guess first you need to understand something about what an ebook is. I haven’t done a lot of looking under the hood at .mobi files, but I have been up to my elbows in the guts of epub files. Mobi can’t be all that different. And here’s what an ebook is – it’s just a set of hyperlinked web pages, zipped together with a specific hierarchy. Period.

Serious. It’s just a re-named zip file. If you’ve got an epub (or can get your hands on one from someplace like Gutenberg or Baen’s free library, then make a copy of it on your desktop, and rename the file extension from ePub to zip, and extract it. And what you’ll see is, essentially, a stack of web pages linked together in a particular structure. And if you do anything on the web, you can build your own pretty easily. I usually use Sigil to build an epub file.

Now, here’s my thought. There are two problems with RSS delivery of an ebook.

1. The Delivery. How to get the book from the RSS feed into a reader app?
2. Not Losing Your Place. Because if I’m working my way through someone’s book, I don’t want to have to do a lot of flipping back and forth to find my page again. That’s a non-starter.

So, an app. A new app that would be a basic e-reader, and could add chapters to the end of a current work, smart enough to recognize a new update in an RSS feed, grab the file and insert it in the place of the prior one, while keeping your place from where you were reading in the old file.

Here’s where I start just randomly speculating how current e-reader apps work.

If I was designing an e-reader app, knowing what I do about epub structure, I’d tie the “bookmark” or “last read place” to

• The last internal web page you were looking at.
• and the line number in that web page that appears at the top of the screen on that last viewed page

Then if you download a new file with more chapters on the end, the prior chapters (which are separate webpages) should all be the same with no changes in their names, the lines should be the same up to where you’ve read in the current chapter, and all you’re doing is adding more train track in front of where the reader has gotten to.

So, all my software engineer buddies out there. Here’s the idea. Maybe that works, maybe it won’t because my understanding of e-reader software is incorrect. Maybe it doesn’t work because of something else. Or… maybe it does work, and all of a sudden you have something you can put in an author’s hands to put stories in front of their readers…? Something that could be skinned and branded for a particular author so that if you wanted to get everything written by, say, a podcast author, but you want to get it in text.

Then the fans subscribe to a secured feed – maybe there’s a subscription fee, maybe not, but if there is, it becomes another revenue source for the author.

Am I overthinking it? Is it enough just to put chapters out on a blog, which is what I see other authors doing, particularly on a Friday?

Effective a week ago, I stepped down as managing editor of FlagShip and Flying Island Press. Reasons are many, and I won’t go into them here. As for anyone looking to submit new stories, FlagShip is on hiatus for now while the team determines how to proceed. They are in discussions now.

For anyone who’s submitted stories to those outfits and gotten no or slow feedback, that’s on me, and I apologize from the bottom of my heart. It was my fault, and should not be taken as a reflection of the professionalism of anyone else on the staff.

What does this mean? Well, for FlagShip, watch that space. I’m not sure how they’re going to proceed, but I have faith in the crew, and I still believe that its mission of publishing positive fiction is a good one – one which should continue to be pursued.

For me, well…

I can’t promise anything, and it would be inappropriate of me to do so. I have no current plans for podcasting anything in the near future. I do have a short story that is WAY behind schedule and a book sequel that need finishing up, so I do believe I’ll be giving those some loving attention. Also, our cat just had kittens, and a lot of my time is being taken up by being super distracted by those adorable little fuzzballs. All four of them. (Frodo, Mary, Pippin and Sam, if you must know).

Meanwhile, I’ll admit that there are places where I’ve done a lot of self-editing. And there are things that I haven’t said here because of how I thought it would impact FIP. I haven’t always been able to keep a lid on things, and I honestly expected that I’d have more to say on a plethora of issues, and that I’d be posting more often here. A lot more often. But for a variety of reasons, I haven’t felt comfortable asserting my voice here. In formally separating myself from FIP, I want to clearly restate that my views here are my own, and not those of FIP, not those of the crew members of FIP, and should not be construed or interpreted as such. (Hi! I’m a lawyer.) Heck, even my views over there are my own, and not the views of FIP. I hope to be able to to say a lot more on a lot of things. No promises.

This was, at least on my part, an amicable parting, and I hope not to have hurt any feelings by stepping down from a role that I could not in good conscience continue performing (and wasn’t doing a very good job with, let’s not fool ourselves).

In the meantime, watch that space. I’m sure there will be some kind of announcement as to their plans going forward, perhaps around Balticon. And to those people who supported and encouraged our venture, and those who will continue to do so in the future, I thank you.

Doom and Gloom.

Doom and Gloom.

DOOM AND GLOOM.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m getting a little tired of unrelenting, unremitting tons of metaphorical dirt being shoveled on top of my metaphorical head.

Hey, Guys! I’m not dead! I think I’ll go for a walk! I feel happy! I feel happy!

Clonk

Doesn’t it just feel like the walls are closing in a little bit?

Don’t you feel like you’re being pulled a little? I sure do. It feels like some place I’ve been before. It feels like a tug-o-war.

I mean, with the bombing in Boston, and the imposition of what essentially was martial law, the warrantless searches (which were largely consented to, yes)…

With shots being fired at a gathering of protesters in Denver…

With an economy that people say is getting better, while prices on staples like food and fuel rise…

And, of course, it reminds me of a story…

STORY TIME!

I spent two years in the Philippines as a missionary for my church, and both Christmases I was there, all the missionaries gathered at a little ag college in the middle of our mission area for a big Christmas conference. We’d have talks and songs and a talent show. And the last day, we’d break out into teams and engage in a little friendly competition.

I was on the Green team, and…well, we weren’t the most athletically inclined people in the mission. In fact, if you’ve ever seen any of those movies where you essentially had a team of nerds who had to compete against teams of jocks…we were the nerds in that scenario. And we lost every competition we were in. Badly.

The climax of this exercise in humility (which is a good thing for a missionary to occasionally experience. And I suppose it’s really good for anyone when you get down to it…) was the tug-o-war. It was the most anticipated event of the competition, and it was the last event of the competition. I wasn’t really looking forward to it.

However, just before leaving for the Philippines, I’d been talking to my uncle – a Scoutmaster – who’d just gotten back from Scout camp, and he’d seen an interesting way of winning tug-o-wars demonstrated there as a particular troop took all comers and whooped ’em. So I figured… what the heck? We’ll give it a shot.

Being an American and the biggest guy on the team, I was automatically assigned the anchor position. So I walked to the back of that rope, and tied a loop around my waist. I kicked my flip-flops off into the grass, and waited for the signal. And when it came…

I turned around. I dropped to my hands and knees. I dug in my fingers and toes, and crawled.

And we won. It was…weird. But awesome.

The next team we pulled against was the red team. If we were the nerds in this little scenario, the reds were the jocks. (Let me introduce you to my team of ex-American Gladiators…Blade! Laser! Blazer! And my fitness consigliari… Mi’chell)

The signal went off, and I turned, dropped, and pulled. It was HARD. Much harder than the first pull had been. And though we had a little early success, it was shut down fast and hard. And I was pulling, my legs and arms aching from the unusual effort, and I’ll admit – I got to a point where I did not think I could go on any more. I was this close to giving up and letting go.

Boy, does that feeling seem familiar today.

Suddenly, from the crowd of onlookers, one of the sister missionaries came running over to me. She began jumping up and down and yelling at me “YOU CAN DO IT! KEEP GOING! YOU CAN DO IT! COME ON!!!”

This was a little frustrating to me. I was ready to quit. We weren’t going to win against the Red team. Right?

But…I couldn’t give up with this sister jumping up and down and clapping and yelling me on. I just couldn’t do it. So…I reached deep inside, pulled myself together, and somehow pulled harder. And incrementally, we started moving. Little by little, inch by inch, with Sister Raj cheering me on through every clutching grab and incremental step, with a whole team pulling with me, we won.

Third team came up and we beat them pretty easily.

You see where I’m going with this, right? We are in a struggle. Pulling with all our might. And it feels like we’re not winning – like the odds are insurmountable. Like we’re doomed to failure. Like we’re lost and scattered and going down for the third time.

I’ve been there. But I kept pulling. And we won. So, that’s the first lesson. Don’t stop pulling.

That was my first year at Christmas Conference.

The next year…

Again, somehow I was on the Green team. Same scenario. Except this time, with every setback, every loss, I would look at my team members and say…“It’s all right. We’ll win the tug-o-war.”

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that after we beat those first two teams that year (without anything close to the struggle that we had that first year with the Reds), I may have gotten a bit of a swelled head and said a couple things about being unbeatable. I was feeling my oats. Ah, hubris.

It was the last match. We were making steady progress. I knew we were about to win. And that’s when it happened.

Suddenly, I was ripped out of the ground, and flew backwards like I’d been fired from a catapult. Flew what felt like ten feet. Totally sent the Mission President’s daughter flying through the air. You’ve seen those Peanuts comics where someone gets tackled and his shoes and socks go flying off? Yeah. That.

And I got up, wandering around, and wondering what happened? How had we lost? I don’t think I had a concussion, but I was pretty darn dazed.

Well, turns out we’d won. And when we won, my team – in understandable and perfectly justified jubilation – dropped the rope and lifted their hands in a cheer. But the other team kept pulling. With somewhat spectacular results.

And that’s the second lesson. You can’t do it alone. The good news is, we aren’t alone. I can’t believe that we are. I keep thinking about 2 Kings 6, and the words keep coming to me They that are with us are greater than they that be with them.

So, if you feel things are pressing you down, pulling you back…

Dig in.

And pull.

Kickstarter, said the author, isn’t charity. It’s an open market. Open to everyone. If you like something, kick in and contribute. Promote. And if you don’t? Stay away. No skin off your nose, no burr under your saddle. Move on, nothing to see here.

The second guy jumped in and said something that I thought was interesting. He said, in essence, “Sure. And like all other open markets, it will devolve to the most average, most generic, most commercial products possible.”

And of course, after I stopped laughing, I picked myself up off the floor, and had to respond. Because that idea was so easily shown false, so… laughable… that I had to jump in there and put a stake in it.

This is such an obviously inane argument. And it's refuted by a trip to the local grocery store. Not even the whole store. We just need to go to the dairy section. And not even the dairy section. Just the cheese.

See, if what our poor, misinformed critic of free markets (and that brings to mind the question – if he's not down with free markets, what is he a fan of? central planning? generics? is all commercial activity inherently evil in his eyes? Who knows?) fails to grasp is this. If he were correct, all cheese would be Velveeta ™. Or squeezed from a can.

And yet, upon a trip to the grocery store a couple of blocks from the house, we find a rich, varied panoply of cheesy goodness.

Maybe it's just me, but if your argument can be refuted by the mere existence of brie, it's not a very good argument.

But it got me thinking about the nature of free markets and what I'm doing as a writer (when I do write, which has been shockingly lacking since the turn of the new year) or as a publisher (did I mention that Flying Island Press has a new issue of Flagship available at flyingislandpress.com/flagship? No? Did I mention that it's free? Three science fiction stories that I thought were good enough to pay for and am now passing on to you? No? Well, shucks. That seems like a real oversight to me… but now it's fixed).

One of the things that's been keeping me from the keyboard is this thought – and that's all it is – that what I write has to be… really big. It has to be beautiful, and important, and has to bring tears to the eyes. That's what I'm really aiming for (and is one reason that Lamentation is as yet unfinished – that ending has to really BURN. And it's got to be set up just right.)

I'm trying to make brie.

But there's a market out there for all kinds of cheese. Even the squeezy kind. Even the Velveeta (again ™). There's a market out there for science fiction and fantasy stories that have positive things to say about humanity in general (see that link up there to Flying Island Press). And it's a matter of finding them. And making more cheese. Or bread. Or donuts. Or whatever your metaphor for writing / creating / productive work is.

After all, it's not enough to complain about pop culture if that's bothering us. We have to seek out good culture as much as we can. And if we have the time, discipline, a little talent, and the disposition, then it's up to us to MAKE good culture. (Cheese comes from cultures! Ha! Get it!? I just… ah, never mind.)

What are you scared of?

I finally sat down and wrote a good chunk of what’s left in book 2 – Lamentations tonight. (Yeah, I know, the goal was 3k a day, I’m a week behind, I know. That’s still what I’m shooting for. Which will get harder starting Monday when I start a new contract job for a few months.)

But there was one scene I knew I needed in Battlehymn. I wasn’t 100% sure why I needed it, it was just a cool thing. And a not-insignificant portion of Lamentation is one character trying to figure out how to deal with the implications of it, while everyone around that character is sort of pooh-poohing the idea that there was any real effect at all.

Then I wrote tonight’s piece. I’ve heard Holly Lisle talk about how your muse will leave breadcrumbs around for you as you’re writing. Call it the muse, call it inspiration, call it your own subconscious playing with shiny bits and pieces. And suddenly, things in the first book that I thought were just interesting filler or characterization have taken on very real significance. Writing pieces like that – being able to play with that kind of thing… it’s why I love doing this so much.

I’ve got a lot of writing to do between now and February, when I said I wanted to have Lamentation started in broadcast.

Addendum: And by talk of breadcrumbs and muses, I don’t want anyone to think that maybe I believe that something in me planned it. Writing is a lot like playing with blocks. LEGOs maybe. You’re putting together something, and you see this fiddly bit sticking out, and then you grab another fiddly bit, and things go together. You didn’t plan it, but you grab it and use it because it looks cool, feels right, makes it more interesting. That’s me – a kid with some LEGOs.

After taking a look at my writing goals for this year, here’s what I’m doing. I’m erasing the Google Docs tracker that you see in the sidebar, and re-assessing my goals. As for a bare word count goal for the year, I’m setting that at 750,000 (which including my NaNo books I’ve done in years past, will put me at 1,000,000 words). And if I allow for Sundays off and a two week vacation, that means that starting today, I should be writing 2,500 words per work day. (There’s a very slight buffer there, but 2500 becomes the new baseline. Which after reading Michael Moorcock’s “Death is No Obstacle” is pretty small potatoes. Moorcock’s normal writing day is 15,000 words. (I’m hoping by the end of the year to be able to put up 5k on a regular basis.)

But there’s more than just numbers involved in this year’s writing. This year, I aim to write things that support, defend, and promote my values. And yeah, I know everyone does that. I aim to do it on purpose and with malice aforethought. 

And that starts with a sense of religion and values. It’s already in everything I write, going all the way back to Frosty’s Deposit, which features a father wanting to get to his son on time for a camping trip. Cost of Miracles and Cost of Duty feature moral choices, loyalty, etc. The Sinner stories are explicitly about religious issues, with a wandering gunman trying to buy his soul back from the Devil. There’s discussion of faith and its role, good vs. evil, and in Perdition’s Posse, there’s very explicit language about how some evil cannot be reasoned with, cannot be bargained with, cannot be countenanced, and when the cup of wrath is full, well, then it may just be fire and brimstone time. Which is not a completely inaccurate description of gunpowder.

And you get into the NaNoWriMo novels I’ve written, and all bets are off. They are all about family, religion, morality. Battlehymn has explicitly religious characters, though no one can say they’re all in your face about it.

Anyway, it’s safe to say I’ve been thinking and writing about these issues for a long time without realizing it until a few weeks ago, when I started looking at the themes of my stories and started seeing all the places where I was talking about issues of faith and morality.

So, my aim is to do two things, I suppose – first, I aim to explore issues of faith and morality and traditional Judeo-Christian values in my writing with malice aforethought. And second, I hope to write well enough that you read it anyway. I won’t always succeed. But that’s the writing goal I’m setting for myself.

Boo-yah

BUT, after I saw it the first time, I did have some thoughts, mostly about how people want science fiction to be more “challenging”. And how “challenging” always seems to mean “destructive / derisive of traditional western civilization and all it holds dear without necessarily offering any kind of constructive alternative – just a funhouse mirror that shows how awful it is, and how everyone who is a part of it should feel super guilty.” Or something like that.

So I recorded a little something in soundcloud. Here it is.

The less said about 2012, the better. It’s been one of the hardest, most difficult, most disappointing, frustrating, miserable years I have had the misfortune to suffer through. On both a professional and a personal level, 2012 has been challenging.

That’s not to say it’s been without bright spots. Most notably as far as anyone reading this is concerned, this is the year I finally let one of my novels out into the wild, and everyone who’s heard it / read it seems to like it and seems to want more. So there’s that.

And more Sinner got written this year, culminating in a story I was particularly happy with – Perdition’s Posse, which I wrote using Lester Dent’s Master Plot Structure (big time props to Brand Gamblin for turning me on to that).

And I’ve learned more about writing and structure in a short form at least. Got a copy of Michael Moorcock: Death is No Obstacle for less than $30.00. And I didn’t have to club a little old lady over the head or anything.

But aside from that, on a host of issues, 2012 is dead to me. Let us not speak of it again.

In Which I Speak Of The Year To Come (And Hereby Doom Any Of The Things Mentioned From Actually Coming to Fruition)

So, 2013. Here’s what I’m thinking.

Four new books in text format. At least two of which will be released in audiobook / podcast /serialized form. That’s three months per book. They aren’t going to be long, and at least two of them aren’t plotted yet. One of them isn’t even an idea yet. But four books. Novels. Which means anything over 50,000 words. And a stretch goal of six books.

PLUS – At least one short story a month. Which gets three professional rejections before coming up on the site. What the heck, right?

Four books is doable. Six is pushing it, but still in the realm of possibility. And the good thing is, two of them have at least a good start on them. So, here’s what’s going to be coming in 2013 from me.

1. Crown of Exiles Book 2: Lamentation. I’m having a ball writing the sequel to CoE: Battlehymn, but I need to set a hard date – a deadline – to get the thing finished, edited, and out. So look for that to kick off in podcast / serialized form on February 4th. That isn’t a lot of time to get the thing finished and edited, but editing CAN happen as I’m recording (it’s what happened with Battlehymn), even though that’s not ideal. Those of you who have been worried about spoilers that may or may not have been revealed during recent Galley Table episodes… the ending has already shifted from what I had originally come up with when a something unexpected happened at the end of the second act, and Haven is about to become an even bigger target – which means a) I have to go back through Lamentation and lay the groundwork for that so it becomes the “sudden but inevitable” event it needs to be, and b) the final battle of CoE: Requiem is going to be absolutely crazy. Bigger stakes, bigger themes, and bigger prices to be paid for everyone involved – especially Cassie and Shem.

2. Kumite Mage. I’ll freely admit, this came out of a story brainstorming session with the Austin NaNoWriMo authors, and when someone mentioned “Magic + Tournament”, the whole thing just sort of appeared in my head. In a way, it’s a return to what I was doing in my first NaNo book, which I always describe as “Science Fiction + Shaw Bros. Kung Fu Movie”. (Of course, what I really wanted to write there was “Science Fiction Enter the Dragon”, but I had to build the world.) This should be a lot of fun to write, and I’m thinking it’ll go fast. Really fast. And it’ll be fun to introduce a comic-relief sidekick, which I’ve never done in any of my fiction to date. I’m already building the playlist, which is pulling from places like Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Mortal Kombat, as well as Florence and the Machine.

3. Norris Tilney and the Western Wild. This already has about 50,000 words on it, but I put it down as we approached November, because a) NaNoWriMo, and b) it was dragging, and needed some more percolation. This one looks to be LONG.

4. Untitled Unplotted To-be-determined Fourth Book. Which May Be A Rewrite Of An Earlier NaNo Novel. This one is hard. I could go back and re-write / edit / polish / release one of my prior NaNo novels. My first one, Eyes of the Marauder is the Shaw Bros/Kung Fu one, #2, Prodigals is the start of a different space-opera series I came up with years ago, #3, Scions is a heroic fantasy which heavily features ghost bears. All of those need a new title and significant re-writing. Scions needs a real ending. Prodigals has a surprising thing that happens in act 3 which requires some major rewrites in the rest of the book to appropriately explain the relationship between this kid and his pseudo-Russian AI sidekick. (A purple silicon cube named “Nikolai”) But it could also be something I’ve been messing around with for a while – a post-apocalyptic tale featuring a kung-fu monk wandering the southwest fighting demons who are passing through a dimensional rift accidentally opened by the Chinese. You never know.

So that’s for the novel writing. Some of which may lead to an indiegogo or kickstarter campaign for cover art / editing. And pushing into the paper publishing aspect as well through creativespace or something else.

I am also considering launching a new weekly podcast above and beyond the podiobooking / short story writing. Put that out on Wednesdays so I can rant about writing, popular culture, and whatever else. With a weekly survival tip for fans of GSG. Call it “The Hump”, but I’m still thinking about what kind of ‘cast it will be, what format I want to use, solo/interview? time? politics?

That one is still up in the air. But anyway, four novels. Stretch to six. Two audiobooks at least, with one of them definitely being CoE: Lamentations. In short, this year, I take Der Wendigmeister’s advice to heart. Write as much as you can, as fast as you can. Finish your stuff. Hit your deadlines. Try very hard not to suck.

Amen.

Ahead or behind, this is your last day to participate in this year’s NaNoWriMo. So, two last pieces of advice.

#1. Don’t submit this first draft anyplace. Seriously, ANY PLACE. Take some time, then re-write the heck out of it, polish it as much as you know how… THEN submit it. Seriously. That’s what I’m going to do.

#2. Don’t end suddenly with the climactic battle’s resolution. Star Wars needed the award ceremony and showing that R2 was repaired. Raiders of the Lost Ark needed that last scene about “Top Men”. And your book needs that last scene that shows the new normal. Don’t just drop your character after the climax, or they won’t have the full emotional impact. Which is what they’re here for.