Category Archives: Writing

January 13, 2016 · 9:00 pm

More money matters for writers and freelancers

It’s not something I talk a lot about here on the blog — other than saying it’s my nebulous “day job” — but I do have some modest insight into financial matters. I used to be a business writer for The Associated Press, and my current gig is in communications for a financial services company. (My company is privately held and incredibly supportive of my fiction writing, and in turn, I keep it low key with them on here.)

There seems to be an appetite amongst the writerly crowd for thoughts on money matters — especially critical since we don’t make a lot, generally speaking, but so many of us want to ditch it all and write full time. So I thought I’d throw some ideas together that you may want to think about if you’re considering fictioning or freelancing.

Please note, though, that I am not a financial adviser, not certified as a financial professional in any way shape or form, and this does not constitute actual financial advice. These are simply my observations that may or may not be useful as you consider your own situation, which will undoubtedly vary from my experiences. In other words, just think about this stuff, and don’t sue me. Deal? Deal.

Here we go:   Continue reading →

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January 11, 2016 · 10:00 am

A little 2016 preview

MJ-12-logoimage

The new series comes out this year!

I think everyone should be well and truly recovered from the holidays and such, so I figured it was a good time to let you know what you can expect out of me in the coming year, words-wise. And it’s going to be pretty cool.

Obviously, the Big Thing™ will be the release of MJ-12: Inception in September. This is the very first volume in the MAJESTIC-12 series of fantastical Cold War spy thrillers, because that kind of genre-blending is how I roll.

Now, the conspiracy theory states that MAJESTIC-12 is a cabal of government honchos hiding proof of extraterrestrial life from the general populace in order to leverage alien technology on behalf of the United States military. I’m taking that historical theory and running with it, but in very, very different directions. So you’ll see a lot of action and adventure, some truly fantastical elements, a decent dollop of mystery and suspense, and a couple of big question marks in MJ-12: Inception that’ll hopefully have you coming back for more.

So that’s out in September in hardcover. Where do things stand with it now?  Continue reading →

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January 5, 2016 · 5:30 pm

Best midlife crisis ever! (Or, starting your writing career mid-stream)

I’ve told the story, more than a few times, about how fantastic literary agent Sara Megibow made “the call” and notified me that The Daedalus Incident had found a home at Night Shade Books. It was my 40th birthday, right on the very day in fact. And with that five-minute call, I had a second career in the making.

So what did I do? Did I call my boss, laugh hysterically into the phone and give my notice in between streams of profanity? Did I then proceed to throw my files in the hallway and jam the copier for no good reason on my way out the door, where fame and glory awaited?

Uhhh…no. I celebrated by calling my wife, telling some friends around the office, and then got back to work. At least until it was time for cake. (For a time, my team at work celebrated everybody’s birthdays with cake. Because cake.) And then I told the team and basked in some congratulations — and cake — until I had to go back and finish my work.

Glamorous, no? Totes. The cake was fantastic.

Robert Jackson Bennett — a fantastic writer of novels and tweeter of profane non-sequiturs that invariably make me laugh — recently wrote a blog post offering some advice to writers who want to make a living off writing. It was, in my estimation, very good advice indeed — so much so that some of Robert’s readers asked him if he had any advice for older writers interested in making the leap. Since Robert has yet to encounter middle age (and damn his youthful visage), he didn’t have much.

So that’s where I come in, marshalling the gray in my beard in an attempt to approximate some kind of wisdom.  Continue reading →

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December 31, 2015 · 6:30 pm

Happy New Year!

Just a quick note to wish everyone a celebratory — and safe — New Year’s Eve, and a happy, prosperous 2016. Thank you, readers, for being awesome and helping me make this author thing such an amazing success. I’m glad I got out to see some of you in 2015 in Phoenix and Atlanta and here in New York, and I hope to see more of you in the coming year.

I look forward to sharing some great stuff with you in 2016. Until then, Happy New Year!

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December 28, 2015 · 5:00 pm

2015 in review: My year in blogging

What makes for a good blog? What do people want to read? I think a lot of authors struggle with this at one point or another — I know I do. Obviously, I hope this site provides a connection point between myself and my readers. I hope that it’s entertaining. And yes, I hope that it sells some books. Hey, I’m being honest.

So what really works? Chuck Wendig’s blog works because he primarily focuses on the art and craft of writing, and he has a great following among writers. John Scalzi’s blog is largely whatever (pun intended) comes out of his brain, and as one of the most venerable blogs on the Internet, his following has grown organically through the years.

More than three years into blogging, I suppose I’m still looking for something of an identity, though this year’s stats do point toward some interesting things. I think most importantly, though, is that this stuff can’t be forced. I don’t want to up and declare my blog to be “X,” because I may have readers who don’t want to read “X.” I’m still evolving as an author, and I think this blog should evolve as well.

So what worked in 2015? Here’s a list of top posts, in order of popularity:  Continue reading →

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December 23, 2015 · 5:30 pm

2015 in review: My year in writing

There are days when I still can’t quite believe that all this good authory stuff is happening. But it is, and apparently I’m not half-bad at it. And as it happened, 2015 was my most authory year yet.

Authory is totally a word. Back off, man…I’m a writer.

The following is a recap of the stuff that got published over the last year, and if there’s something that you haven’t read that piques your interest, by all means I’d encourage you to check it out. I suppose this is also my “awards consideration” post, and if you felt that anything below warranted that sort of recognition, then that’s pretty amazing and awesome. (Note: Don’t put me on a slate, no matter what the slate’s for. Just don’t. Thanks.)

TVG-cover-finalThe Venusian Gambit: The Daedalus trilogy wrapped up in May with The Venusian Gambit, which got a starred review from Publishers Weekly and lots of love from lots of people. The reception this trilogy has received has been hugely encouraging to me as I’ve plotted my next steps as a burgeoning author. It’s been nearly a year since I wrote the last words of this series, but I know Weatherby and Jain will be with me for a very long time indeed.

“Crisis of Faith,” Pathfinder Tales: My first published short fiction of the year was the four-part Web series “Crisis of Faith” for the folks at Paizo, publishers of the Pathfinder RPG. Doing a Dungeons & Dragons-style piece was quite a lot of fun, and something of a bucket-list item for me. Plus, the story centers on a priest of the setting’s god of beer. So of course I had to write it. You can check it out for free at the link.

“On a Kansas Plain,” Cthulhu Fhtagn!: Another big bucket-list piece, this time for Ross Lockhart’s Lovecraftian anthology for Word Horde. “On a Kansas Plain” is the story of what happens when one delves too deep into the shadowy cults waiting for the day when the Great Old One rises from the depths once more. I think this one is a little less weird than some of Lovecraft’s pulpy fiction, but it was still fun to revisit the Mythos.

“Confessions of an Interplanetary Art Fraud,” Unidentified Funny Objects 4: Yep, a horror story and a humor story in one year. This still amuses me to no end. In this one, an Earthling abducted by aliens at an early age grows up to find that his childhood drawings are the toast of the galactic art scene — until his muse ends up in Twinkie rehab and he steals cultural icons from another species to pass off as his own work. Hijinks ensue, as you might imagine.

A lot of people made all this stuff possible: awesome literary agent Sara Megibow, Night Shade Books editors Cory Allyn and Jason Katzman, Word Horde publisher Ross Lockhart, UFO4 publisher Alex Shvartsman, and Paizo editors Chris Carey and James L. Sutter. And then there’s my family, of couse, who continue to support and encourage me in this whole writing thing; none of this would be worth a darn without them.

And ultimately, all the folks who bought, read and enjoyed my work — none of this would be happening without your support. Thank you!

There will be more stuff in 2016, including an exclusive short story for Geeky Giving and the launch of the MAJESTIC-12 series with MJ-12: Inception in September. And…there’s a few other things that I’ll be telling you about in January, so stay tuned!

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December 1, 2015 · 5:45 pm

Congrats, NaNoWriMo winners! Now what? (And a plug for Worldbuilders)

I really hope that if you churned out 50,000 words in November that you’re not in front of the computer today. (Reading this on a phone or tablet is acceptable, however.) You deserve a break! Congratulations for all your hard work in creating…what exactly?

Let’s call it a proto-novel, because while it’s going to be a novel some day, it’s not a novel at the moment. It’s a first draft, a heap of words with just enough connective tissue to create the bones of a story. Zombie-like, it has emerged from your brain-things and is now shuffling about your hard drive. It is not yet alive. It’s most certainly not ready for real readers. (Beta readers are, of course, perfectly fine.)

So whatever you do, don’t start querying literary agents! I have it on good authority (i.e. drunken, frustrated agents) that many agents dread December due to all of the NaNoWriMo stuff that’s slopped into their inboxes. It’s not that NaNoWriMo is bad — Far from it! You wrote stuff! — it’s just that the books hastily submitted to agents just aren’t ready for prime-time. And they won’t be for a while.

So what do you do? First off, remember that it’s no longer a race. You did the thing, produced the words. Now the hard part starts. And that takes time. I suggest taking a week off, reconnect with your family and friends, and generally remember to eat, sleep and be social once more. Let the zombie shuffle around a bit. It’s not going anywhere.

Then you start revising. And revising again. Probably a third time. This is the part where you connect the words together, make sure each passage is carrying its weight in the story, each sentence is complete and has the appropriate amount of nouns, verbs and adjectives, with a sprinkling of adverbs. (Don’t overdo it on the adverbs. Think of them as seasoning. A little goes a long way.)

This is now the time where you sit back, ease off the throttle, and make sure what you wrote becomes good. This is when you revive the zombie. Only after revision and attention to detail and thorough review can you sit back and scream, “It’s alive. ALIVE!”

And only after that should you begin to query. Many literary agents will thank you for your patience.

Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind you that you can still chip in on the WriMos for Worldbuilders fundraiser. Each $10 gets you an entry into a lottery for fabulous prizes — four of which are critiques of your writing. (Why, yes, I’m one of the four people offering critiques.) It can be a critique of the thing you just wrote. Or something else. Whatever. If you win, it’s your call. You have until Dec. 14 to chip in.

It would be super swell of you to donate, and I hope karma wins out and I get to critique your proto-zombie-novel.

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November 17, 2015 · 5:45 pm

Update on stuff and sundry things

I think I’ve exhausted myself of any and all Weighty Topics I care to address on the blog these days. (Note: There are many, many Weighty Topics to discuss in the world, generally speaking. What I choose to talk about here is an exceedingly thin slice of that.) So I figured I’d give you some updates on what’s going on with writing and such. The fun stuff.

First off, MJ-12: Inception remains with editor Cory Allyn in his Maine editing bunker. No word if there’s a moose involved. I haven’t received any emails with “WTF were you thinking” as the subject line, so I’m encouraged. The nice thing is, we’re still months away from release — building in some lag-time between The Venusian Gambit and MJ-12: Inception was a smart thing to do. Whatever I need to do, it won’t be a scramble to get it done. This is a good thing.

We’ve been doing some metadata and catalog stuff in the meantime, the kind of stuff you’ll see on Amazon pages, in publisher catalogs or on the back of ARCs. There’s also bits and pieces of business ponderings, and some neat opportunities to preview the first MAJESTIC-12 novel this spring, even beyond the planned build-out of MJ-12.net. More on that when it’s ready.

I’m also writing my short story for Geeky Giving, which is due in January but I’m hoping to finish by Christmas, if only to have the holidays off. Plus, Cory will emerge from the bunker any minute now with edits, and I wouldn’t mind having this story done before tackling the novel, lest I mix my neuroscience with my espionage.

And finally, there’s five days left on the Worldbuilders critique auction. Right now, that critique of 25,000 of your words is a steal. It won’t be cheap forever, since these things tend to ramp up at the end, but I imagine it’ll still be more reasonably priced than Pat Rothfuss’ critique, largely because I am not Pat Rothfuss. (However, I’m apparently pretty good at critiquing, if the kind words of past bidders are any indication.)

Remember, if you get priced out of the auction, you can still chip in $10 or more and be entered to win a critique by me, and others, as part of the WriMos for Worldbuilders lottery.

And that’s all I got. Family’s fine, day job is busy as usual leading up to the holidays. I clean the chicken coop on weekends and putter around with words when I can. It’s all good.

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November 12, 2015 · 5:45 pm

Depicting historical figures in alt-history or historical fantasy

I’m proud to call Scott Reintgen a fan of my work, prouder still to have talked to his high school English class about writing, and even prouder to call him an authorial colleague now that his YA trilogy has found a home. Scott is good people.

So when he asks me a question, I do my best to answer. Over on Twitter this morning, Scott asked me:

I gave some thoughts off the top of my head on Twitter (while riding into work on the beautiful New Jersey Turnpike), but I thought the topic was a good one, and worthy of more than 140-character answers. So here we go.

First off, I’m not a fan of rules, per se, when it comes to writing. If you can make it work, do it, with the caveat that any rule-breaking you do is hard, and you’ll fail many times before you find your way. But that said, when I wrote the Daedalus trilogy and MJ-12: Inception, I certainly had some guardrails keeping me on a certain path when it came to historical figures.

These worked for me, maybe they’ll work for you. Maybe they won’t. It’s all good.  Continue reading →

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October 26, 2015 · 5:45 pm

Thoughts on NaNoWriMo

The e-mails have been trickling through my inbox, reminding me that November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo — because everything’s better abbreviated. Right? Right.

Long-time readers of the blog — and yes, there are at least two or three of you — may remember that I tried my hand at NaNoWriMo in November 2011. (I thought it was 2012, but then I looked it up and it was five years ago and then I felt old.) I failed spectacularly. Flamed out.

Of course, I’ve written a book a year since 2013, including one I wrapped up and packed off to my editor earlier this month. I don’t feel super-duper bad about blowing NaNoWriMo. And given my experiences since then, I think I have a bit of perspective on the whole thing. So here goes.

Continue reading →

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