One Cobble at a Time

Mirrored from Janci Patterson.

Amazon announced Kindle Worlds today, describing it as “the first commercial publishing platform that will enable any writer to create fan fiction based on a range of original stories and characters and earn royalties for doing so.”

I didn’t know this was coming, but I’m not surprised, exactly. Amazon has been a very successful business, and if they see a potentially profitable area they can branch out into, they’re gonna do it.

I found out about this through Chuck Wendig’s post here, wherein he talks about the press release and proceeds to fragment his own brain into tiny, shiny pieces.

I’m still digesting and processing this, and I suspect some of it will boil down to having to wait to see how it all plays out. But some of my initial reactions are…

• This isn’t a free-for-all. Amazon has licensed these rights from the rights-holders, and it’s for a specific and limited list of properties.
  • But wait, if they’ve licensed the rights, is it really fanfiction or is it an open call for licensed tie-in work?
• They’ve got a no porn rule. Fair enough. If anyone’s going to write 50 Shades of Blue: A Goblin’s Erotic Awakening, I think it should be me.
• My understanding of the fanfiction community is that there’s a strong value on not profiting from your work. This seems like a potential culture war between Amazon and the community they’re trying to court.
  • That said, no community is perfectly homogenous, and as a writer, I have nothing against getting paid for your work, so long as it’s done legally, which this would be.
  • Also, as someone who isn’t a part of that community, I could be TOTALLY AND EMBARRASSINGLY WRONG ABOUT THIS PIECE.
• Who decides whether to license a work, the publisher or the author? Can DAW license Libriomancer fanfic without my approval? Can I do it without theirs?
• Amazon takes all rights to your fanfiction story. Which isn’t entirely unreasonable in a work-for-hire situation, but will make a lot of folks uncomfortable.
• Why would people pay for fanfiction when so much is available online for free?
  • Then again, why would people pay for licensed tie-in work when so much fanfiction is available online for free…
• Should prolific fanfic writers look into getting agents? I’m not sure the benefit of an agent in this situation, but I also cringe at the idea of writers who aren’t very, very business-savvy signing contracts without someone else looking it over.
• Does this mean fanfic could now qualify for SFWA membership?
  • Waiting for various heads to explode at that question…
• Finally, Amazon is not pro-author, nor are they pro-reader. They’re pro-Amazon. (This doesn’t make them any worse or better than most businesses, by the way.) When Amazon’s interests overlap with those of readers or writers, great. But don’t lose sight of their bottom line, because I guarantee that’s what they’re watching.

I’m sure there will be many, many discussions and arguments about this, and I have no idea how it will all play out or whether or not it will work. But I do think it’s a fascinating step in the ongoing evolution of the industry.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

I think of myself as a quiet and reserved person and an introvert, so it was a little startling to be called a “social butterfly” as one acquaintance did in San Jose over the weekend. “You know absolutely everybody!” he said.

Well, it’s a fair cop. I’ve been in this business for sixteen years, and the set of pro sf writers in the field is basically a small town. There are several thousand of us, and of those a group of maybe 500 who are frequent or regular convention-attenders. After a while, you get to the point where you either know everybody, or are connected to everybody. I happen to think that this particular rotating group of connections and acquaintances are some of the best people in the world. If you parachute into the middle of an average, mid-sized midwestern city, you could spend all day wandering around looking for people as fascinating, smart, motivated, and dynamic as those who are just literally lying in your path at a well-attended SF lit convention. Why not enjoy it and make the most of it?

Why attend conventions at all? First of all, convention attendance is totally optional. You can be a successful writer without ever setting foot in one, and if you don’t like it, that’s well and good. You don’t have to attend. And it’s important to know this, because if you do go to a convention, it’s good to go with the attitude that it’s all optional and anything good that comes from it is just gravy.

That said, there are some very good reasons to go to conventions. Human interactions are crucial in any business, it doesn’t matter what kind. If you are someone who makes and sells shrubberies, you may be very successful as the only shrubber in your local market, but it’s still very nice to get together with other shrubbers to share experiences, seek support, and get new ideas. You might even find ways to work with other shrubbers to enhance your own business and make a little extra money together. Who knows? Anything can happen.

It can be paralyzing to go into a convention with the idea that you’re there to “do business.” Forget the elevator pitch. Don’t even think of it. Instead of worrying about making a good impression on people that will be useful in your career, form an expectation that you are just there to look around, and be curious about everyone who crosses your path. That person might be a famous writer or editor, but they might also be a radically cool fan. It doesn’t matter. Whatever serendipitous meetings occur, that is what is meant to be. Have fun, talk about your kids and pets and the weather and favorite movies, and let the business happen organically. And it will. Because trust is a basis of business interactions, and showing people pictures of your cat on your cell phone is how you build trust. Just do it.

Adjust your expectations. You are not going to go to a convention and walk out with a huge novel contract. Don’t even think about it. Put it out of your mind. You are just there to make friends. Do you like having friends in your day-to-day life? Friends are good. Humans need friends. You are just there to meet some people.

Also, if you are new to the scene and don’t know very many people, prepare yourself to spend some time alone. Bring books to read. Plan one or two solo sightseeing outings. If the hotel has a spa, make an appointment. Get comfortable with the idea of eating alone in a restaurant or bar. Bring a spouse or a partner if it makes you more comfortable, but don’t let that close you off to hanging out with new friends. If you and your companion form too tight a knot, no one else can get in.

Your goal should be to make one or two new friends at each convention. You can’t spend all of your time with that one new person, but over time things will snowball.

Sign up for things. If the convention offers any tours or workshops you can sign up for in advance, do it. You will meet people, and those people will be well-disposed to making new friends because of the situation. In a writing-oriented convention, whatever you’ve signed up for may have a pro running it, so you get to meet at least one professional in your field.

Volunteer for panels. If you have some professional credits, let the convention know you’re coming ahead of time and are willing to help out on programming. They are often very happy to have you, and may offer you free membership. Panels are also a good way to get used to public speaking, since the burden isn’t on one person to carry the entire show.

Connect with online friends. Look for opportunities to meet up with online friends. Check out parties, mixers, tweetups, and other organized get-togethers. Again, these are situations where people will be very open to meeting you and it will help you overcome your natural reserve.

Make plans in advance. If you do have someone you know will be at the con, make plans ahead of time. People have a way of getting busy, or getting tired, and you might miss them otherwise.

Bring a book. This is a trick I learned a number of years ago. I carry a book around at conventions. If I go to the hotel lobby looking for friends or new, interesting people to meet, and there’s no one I can immediately approach and begin chatting with, I’ll park myself at a table or the bar and read my book. The book itself is a conversation-starter, and at a science fiction convention, most people share your love of book-reading. You won’t get very many pages read before someone comes along and interrupts you.

Ask questions. Never have an awkward conversation again in your life. When pauses emerge, throw out a question. Where are you from? Have you seen the new Star Trek movie? Do you like cats? Don’t fill every silence. Let your new friend ask you some questions, too.

Fans are cool, too. As writers, we naturally gravitate to other writers. These people instantly get us. But don’t overlook the fans. Science fiction fans are very often extremely smart, successful, interesting people. And fans also have their own brand of power in the business. It’s fans who make decisions about programming and inviting guests of honor, etc., etc. If you make a good impression on the fans, you will definitely have a better time at conventions. BE NICE TO THE FANS.

Cut your losses. Everyone knows that conventions also attract…well…weirdos. People you don’t want to know or spend time with. In fact, this is one thing that tends to scare writers away from conventions, because if there are one or two of these types in a room, it can give you a bad impression of fandom in general. Practice some conversational dismounts to get you out of conversations you don’t want to be in. They can vary from, “Excuse me I need to visit the ladies’ room,” to “You are making me uncomfortable please leave me alone.” (And please carefully tune your dismount to the audience. No need to be cruel.) I’m sorry about this. I apologize on behalf of the whole genre. The important thing to remember is you don’t have to let someone monopolize your time if you don’t enjoy their company. You are at the convention to have fun!

You are not there to get laid. I mean, if you do get laid while you’re there, it’s great. But don’t treat the convention like a singles bar. This is a bit of a tough transition sometimes for writers who started as fans, because there is an element of con culture that is all about hooking up. And that’s great. But the writers by and large are NOT there to hook up. So what I’m saying is assess your social environment very carefully and only hit on people who are clearly available.

Allow extra days for travel, if you can. Arriving a day early and leaving a day late will make things much less stressful. Much. I particularly recommend the leaving a day late strategy. That last night at the con can be the very best, especially for shy folks, as you’ve had a day or two to gradually relax and start feeling comfortable with new people.

Schedule some downtime. I often treat myself to room service one night, which not only gives me some time to recharge, but takes the pressure off for one meal. No need to find dinner companions, choose a cuisine and restaurant, make an expedition, make scintillating conversation, etc.

Comfortable shoes. Need I say more?

Buy a banquet ticket. At some conventions, like Nebula weekend, you’ll have a chance for a sit-down meal with strangers. Go for it, even if it’s expensive. I met my friend Jay Lake that way. Every time I’ve done this it’s worked out great. Again, this is a situation where you’re automatically placed in a group, so no need to approach anyone or find a good opening line. You can just ask a question and you’re good to go.

Don’t get too wrapped up in status. If there’s one thing I’ve seen in sixteen years, it’s the coming and going of hot new writers. Trust me. Slow and steady wins the race. So there are hot new writers getting a lot of attention, collecting awards. They are just as anxious and insecure as you are, and often they sort of stop writing and disappear a few years later. Some of this year’s batch of superstars had me thinking of meteors from years past, wondering where they are, what they’re doing, are they still writing? Don’t sweat it. Honors, awards, accolades–all very capricious. Do you have some cat pictures on your phone? Whip them out. Cat pics are eternal.

Don’t be an asshole. You know how they say some people can do it and get away with it? They are not getting away with it. Trust me. Those people have lost friends and opportunities. It only looks like it doesn’t stick. Don’t be that person. It’s not worth it.

Don’t cart the internet around with you. If you’ve encountered someone on the internet and you’re meeting them for the first time in person, it is largely best to simply start over. If you’ve had extensive conversations online, then of course acknowledge it. But most people don’t have a perfect memory for every discussion or flame war, and, more importantly, if you set aside any charged interactions you may have had online, you may find the person is actually really cool.

Be authentic, be genuine, be sincere, be yourself. Have some faith that you are an interesting person and others want to know you. Wear what you want that makes you feel awesome. Be a good listener. Be forgiving of yourself and others. You’re not always going to say the right thing. You might make a faux pas, or someone around you might. Laugh it off. Let it go. Be gentle. Be kind. Make jokes. Buy drinks for people. Find ways to help.

Originally published at So Shiny. You can comment here or there.

Today Janci and I spent four hours organizing the work spaces, sorting invoices, and generally cleaning up so that coin shipping could proceed. This flurry of activity was triggered by the UPS packing tracking stating that the coins were out for delivery. And they were. My garage is full of coins. I spent an hour sorting to pull out samples of all the types of coins. They had to be inspected. Later this evening I spent another 90 minutes making sure all the addresses were in order and everything is cleared for test shipping tomorrow. That will be the day when Janci and I start putting packages together and trying to figure out how everything works.
Total coin shipping work hours today: 10.5

The coins are gorgeous. Holding them makes me very happy. I would be more eloquent about that if I were not so very tired.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

1. You are letting people tell you that you should be doing other things with your time.

2. You can’t live with the level of clean that your family accepts as normal.

3. You haven’t decided to treat your writing seriously and so no one around you treats it seriously, either.

4. You haven’t made yourself a writing space.

5. You haven’t realized that you need help.

6. You do what is urgent rather than what is necessary.

7. You don’t let your kids and other people solve their own problems.

8. You think that someday you will have more time for writing.

9. You are spending time doing things you actually don’t care about.

10. You are actually using distractions as an excuse not to write.

11. You are terrified of writing, of actually sitting down and putting yourself on the page.

12. You are too busy criticizing the best selling books that you are reading to write something better.

13. You don’t know what to do with a blank page.

14. You don’t know how to turn off your internal editor.

15. You talk a good game, but you don’t play it.

16. You need to do a little planning and research before you start.

17. You don’t actually like writing. You like having written. (Join the club.)

18. You need to write the first line of the next chapter before leaving for the day.

19. You need to spend time remembering what it is you love about writing.

20. You have convinced yourself that you need 2 hours to write and don’t know how to use the 20 minute chunks you actually have.

21. You don’t have notebooks scattered through the house, including in the bathroom, to jot down inspiration.

Timeline is one of the trickiest things for me as an author. This may be because I don’t outline or it may be a problem for all authors and all books. For me, there were two distinct tasks involved in this.

1. Condensing events

My first draft of The Rose Throne had Issa and Ailsbet begin as pre-teens, about age 11. They met each other briefly, became friends, and then spent another 6-7 years apart before meeting again at age 17. I think I did this in part because I was used to spending a lot of time building backstory for my main characters. In The Princess and the Hound, Prince George begins as a young child and ages up through about 70 pages of the book.

But The Rose Throne was a very different book than The Princess and the Hound, in part because there were two viewpoint characters who grew up in different kingdoms and had very different views of the magic system which they actually share. But in addition to that, I think The Rose Throne is for an older audience than The Princess and the Hound. And there were other reasons for me to condense the story, which included the fact that if Issa and Ailsbet had met and become friends as younger figures, a lot of the narrative tension around their relationship was taken away from the rest of the book.

I cannot say how often I have done critiques on manuscripts in which I tell the author that the timeline needs to be condensed. It’s a major change, but increasing the tension often makes other narrative problems disappear or at least become easier to fix. It improves pacing enormously and makes the structure of the novel really pop out and make itself obvious. If you are meandering through your plot slowly, more tension will help you find your climax and move toward it more easily.

2. Day by day

So the second timeline issue was a chapter-by-chapter day-by-day issue. This happened at a much later stage in the process, at nearly the final revision before copyediting. After I had condensed the book events into one year, I needed to make sure that the seasons were right for each chapter and scene, and that events happened in the right order. You would be surprised at how often I had to shift things backward or forward in time so that one event that caused another didn’t happen chronologically after it in my narrative.

What I did to fix this problem was make a chart for each chapter and then type in a date. Now, the kingdoms of Rurik and Weirland don’t have our Roman calendar and I purposely never referred to our months or days of the week. I always feel like fantasy loses its sense of other-worldliness if it relies on our conventions too much (unless it’s set in our world, in which case, it’s fine). So instead I used seasons and day numbers. Each event happened on a given day in a given season. When I put them all together with a short one-sentence explanation of each chapter, I could glance through and make sure there weren’t any long, unexplained absences (which, of course there were, but I had to fix). I also could see whether too much happened in one stretch. This visual was a useful way to make sure the scenes were organized properly and that the events happened in a measured fashion.

I still have trouble with timeline in most books that I am working on now. Maybe one day I will figure out a way to hold it all in my head and not make a mistake. Ha!

I’ve been remiss in posting writing news here, so I have a number of updates from the past  couple of months to share.

AnLab Reader’s Choice Award. I flew to San Jose to pick up my check and certificate for the Analog Reader’s Choice award for short story for “Titanium Soul.” This is the second time I’ve received one of these, the first being for a fact article. It’s particularly gratifying to take one home in the short story category, as I believe that it is the most competitive category, and the one most paid attention to by readers. And although it is not as high an honor as, say, a Nebula in our field, there is something really nice about taking it home knowing that it was voted on by the actual readership, in a process as perfectly free of politics and logrolling as it could possibly be. My sincerest gratitude goes to the readers of Analog for their appreciation and the effort they made in reading the magazine and filling out the ballot.

Year’s Best 18. David Hartwell chose another 2012 Analog story of mine, “The North Revena Ladies Literary Society,” for his 18th Year’s Best Collection. I’m very pleased and honored. This is the first time I’ve had any kind of a Year’s Best publication, and it feels like a major milestone.

Heroic Relics in Buzzymag. My story “Heroic Relics” was published in BuzzyMag. It’s nice to have something free and online to point people to.

Nebula Weekend Mini Con Report. This is about my fourth or fifth visit to a Nebula Weekend event, and I’m always surprised by how rewarding they are. I wasn’t very good at doing conventions early in my career, due to shyness, but I’ve evolved to the point that one person this weekend called me a “social butterfly” and said that I know “absolutely everyone.” I was talking with Jay Lake about this, and we both agreed that if you just show up, you start meeting people. I’ve been in the business sixteen years, and attending a convention, particularly one with a lot of writers in attendance, is an amazing opportunity to meet a lot of people who have a lot in common with me. I strongly recommend Nebula weekend as a great business/networking event. I think it’s widely overlooked as such because of its award-handing-out function, but it’s also a pretty good place to go as a writer and remind yourself that you’re not insane–that there are a lot of other people out there that give up their free time to scribble and share in the rewards and frustrations of this crazy lifestyle/vocation.

Originally published at So Shiny. You can comment here or there.

I’ve been remiss in posting writing news here, so I have a number of updates from the past  couple of months to share.

AnLab Reader’s Choice Award. I flew to San Jose to pick up my check and certificate for the Analog Reader’s Choice award for short story for “Titanium Soul.” This is the second time I’ve received one of these, the first being for a fact article. It’s particularly gratifying to take one home in the short story category, as I believe that it is the most competitive category, and the one most paid attention to by readers. And although it is not as high an honor as, say, a Nebula in our field, there is something really nice about taking it home knowing that it was voted on by the actual readership, in a process as perfectly free of politics and logrolling as it could possibly be. My sincerest gratitude goes to the readers of Analog for their appreciation and the effort they made in reading the magazine and filling out the ballot.

Year’s Best 18. David Hartwell chose another 2012 Analog story of mine, “The North Revena Ladies Literary Society,” for his 18th Year’s Best Collection. I’m very pleased and honored. This is the first time I’ve had any kind of a Year’s Best publication, and it feels like a major milestone.

Heroic Relics in Buzzymag. My story “Heroic Relics” was published in BuzzyMag. It’s nice to have something free and online to point people to.

Nebula Weekend Mini Con Report. This is about my fourth or fifth visit to a Nebula Weekend event, and I’m always surprised by how rewarding they are. I wasn’t very good at doing conventions early in my career, due to shyness, but I’ve evolved to the point that one person this weekend called me a “social butterfly” and said that I know “absolutely everyone.” I was talking with Jay Lake about this, and we both agreed that if you just show up, you start meeting people. I’ve been in the business sixteen years, and attending a convention, particularly one with a lot of writers in attendance, is an amazing opportunity to meet a lot of people who have a lot in common with me. I strongly recommend Nebula weekend as a great business/networking event. I think it’s widely overlooked as such because of its award-handing-out function, but it’s also a pretty good place to go as a writer and remind yourself that you’re not insane–that there are a lot of other people out there that give up their free time to scribble and share in the rewards and frustrations of this crazy lifestyle/vocation.

Originally published at So Shiny. You can comment here or there.