The original bromance, now updated. Watch this series. For real.
First off, hope everyone likes the new visuals here on the blog. If anybody has a line on where I can get some good space and/or tall ship images, let me know in the comments. Heck, if anybody’s a whiz in Photoshop or other graphic design and wants to make a sailing-ships-in-space header for the site…for free…well, OK, I might be asking a lot. Can’t hurt to put it out there.
Now, let’s talk about bromance. Continue reading
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Listen, bub. Writin' is writin'. Now I gotta churn out 500 words in the next ten minutes. Shoo. (For the record, this is not me. Thankfully.)
Originally, my sailing-ships-in-space idea wasn’t going to be a novel, but rather a role-playing game like Dungeons & Dragons. At the time, I had plenty of reasons for taking that tack — a strong DIY game e-publishing market, low overhead, Wizards of the Coast’s “d20” open-source rules system and, perhaps most importantly, a geeked-out personal background.
But you know what? Looking back, I can honestly say that, at the time, I simply didn’t think I had it in me to write fiction. Continue reading
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C'mon, baby. Papa needs a literary agent.
I’m thrilled to be repped by the talented Sara Megibow of the Nelson Literary Agency. Getting an agent is a big victory for a debut writer, and it’s not easy. Here’s some humbling stats, courtesy of Kristin Nelson’s blog. In 2010, the agency received an estimated 36,000 queries. Mine was one of them. Of those queries, Kristin and Sara requested sample pages (generally the first few chapters) from just 839 queriers. I was also one of those. Continue reading
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A really old-school approach to writing?
Alchemy — lead into gold, right? Take something common and turn it into a treasure. It works for writers, too. Take an idea and work your magic, transforming it from a mere notion into something that can transform the reader’s imagination.
The ancient Art of Transformation plays a big part in my novel’s setting, but it’s not a bad metaphor for the craft of writing. I had the germ of the idea: I wanted sailing ships in space, and I wanted to do it right. I had to take that little nugget, break it down and build it back up into gold. And it started with a single question. Exactly how am I going to have sailing ships in space? Continue reading
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So I had an interesting mini-conversation on Twitter this morning with regard to world-building in science-fiction and fantasy, and I thought it worth expanding beyond 140 characters. After all, creating entire new universes is pretty exciting. But it’s also a lot of work.
I have two universes in my book: a 22nd century future extrapolated from our present day, and an alternate late-18th century universe in which sailing ships travel between the planets of our solar system. So what does the 22nd century look like? And how exactly do sailing ships in the 18th century travel between planets? I’m a writer, so the short answer is pretty much, “Because I said so.” Unfortunately, like parenting, it’s rarely that easy. Continue reading
A source of inspiration. The poster was better than the film, however.
So. Sailing ships in space, eh? Frigates crashing into Mars? Where’d that come from, anyway?
Unemployment. Looking back, a successful stint of unemployment.
Backtrack to 2003. I had been laid off from my previous job and was on the dole inWashington,D.C., looking for a journalism gig. In order to get out of the house, I would go to Starbucks, crashing in a comfy chair and surfing for jobs for a few hours, all for the $1.50 needed to buy a cup of coffee. Continue reading
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This is not the book I wrote. Not even close.
If prior postings on this blog seemed rather disjointed and aimless, it’s because…they were. I was writing a book, of course, but it wasn’t something I shared with a lot of people. You see, I’ve been a professional writer my entire adult life, and I know how much effort it takes to complete any given piece of writing, from a 100-word news brief to a full-fledged book. I didn’t want to claim the title of “novelist” until I saw that there was a decent chance of actually becoming one.
Now, of course, I’ve not only written a novel, but I have an agent who, according to her last e-mail, “adores” my manuscript. I’d say she was just being kind, but her enlightened self-interest is working in my favor — she thinks she can sell this puppy and, thus, make money in her own right. To be fair, she really is super nice. You can follow her at @saramegibow on the Twitter thing if you’re so inclined. Continue reading
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Michael J. Martinez 