Another ranking done and gone today (Zuda checks the ranks every Monday and Thursday around 5:30 p.m. EST). Our comic stayed at #1, which is awesome.
Huge, huge thanks to all our readers, and to people who helped get the word out. Ten thousand views is really amazing, for a little over two weeks of being online! Of course, some of those views just might have been me, checking the comments every now and then, but still... you get the picture.
So -- thank you! It's been a fun ride, and I'm really hoping to stay on top for the rest of November so we can continue this story.
It's cool to look at these numbers, then flip back to the results from week one here:
Less than 11 days left of the competition! Will I have any hair left when this is over? We shall see...
Mostly because I don't think I have any, and also because the rules are so stupid I can't remember how far back it goes. Rolling eligibility my ass. It's all a conspiracy, I tell you!
It's quite an in-depth discussion of our online comic IN MAPS & LEGENDS and Zuda as well, along with some side chat about other stuff Niki is working on, and myself.
And you'll get to find out the answer to THIS question:
"Do you have anything to say to Zuda fans sitting on the fence, and who have not yet cast their vote yet?"
I hope you'll check it out, and as always remember to vote while the voting's good over at Zuda! Every vote counts, as do the stars, the number of people who list us as a Favorite, and even the comments help. My stress-induced ulcer thanks you as well...
We're getting down to the finish line on 11/30, and the race is tight. Thanks!
(But I will include a link to it, just because I can.)
Instead, I wanted to change my tune and talk about one of my other projects. This is my historical/slipstream/baseball book about the first racially integrated baseball team formed before World War I. Here's a quick description of it:
In his first season as head coach of the All Nations team, former slave George Grunion must contend with racist crowds, flagging team morale, his own loneliness, and even the ghost of the previous head coach. His players are now the only family he has left, ever since his wife left him two decades ago. And if George can't hold the All Nations together, he loses more than his job and his team. He'll miss his chance to fulfill the prophecy made by his prescient centerfielder Mack -- that he will be reunited with his estranged family before the 1918 season ends. If George doesn't score this final run, he loses everything.
I've been enjoying re-reading this book about my "post-racial" ball club since I started re-reading it earlier this month, adding bits and pieces that set up the new ending I want to give it. The following snippet is from some new stuff I added this morning to The All Nations Team:
( Read more... )
The competition's pretty tough this month, and there's another comic running quite close on our heels, so if you haven't clicked over, registered, and voted, I hope you do so soon. (It'd be nice to lock this one up and enjoy the rest of November!!!).
All the info you need is right here, including tips about voting.
Thanks so much, and I'll stop pitching this comic at you in three... two... one...!
Frankly, I'm amazed at how fast and how efficiently the comic came together. And the art is simply awesome. I take no credit -- I just put down the words and some ideas for the pages. Starting with...
Step 1: The Script
I've never written a comic script before, so the format was pretty loose and non-standard. I'd had the idea for the comic for a while, and it actually started life as a novel that I'd never finished. So I did some tweaking, studied some comics scripts (thank you, Neil Gaiman, for Sandman!), and used an alternate version of my novel's opening.
Here's what I sent to Niki:
( Read more... )
At the end of week one, our comic In Maps & Legends is in the lead! Thanks to everyone for reading and voting!
Woo hoo!
And if you haven't voted or marked us as a Favorite, there's no time like the present... :)
I'm writing for DC Comics!
Okay, allow me to 'splain.
Back in July, I worked with author Niki Smith on a comic script to be entered into the monthly competition for Zuda Comics. I took an old novel idea and cranked out a rough script. Never wrote a comic script before, but it was fun. I got to think like a film director, with a limitless set and endless special effects. It was an awesome learning experience.
Niki then took my script and created first some amazing character sketches. Then thumbnails. Then pencils. Then some amazingly crisp inks. Followed by the colored versions, which knocked me out of my chair.
Then we entered them into the contest. And waited. And waited. And now, at last, here's the big news:
Our comic, "In Maps and Legends," is live on the Zuda Comics site!
( Read more... )
- Mood:Woooh!!
Just a quick journal to note that I made it back home early Monday morning, around 1 a.m. Ouch.
But it was all worth it to get home to see Elizabeth again, and then see Drew and Mitch again the following morning. Holy cow, those kids grow fast! Mitch didn't know what to think of me at first, but he got over that fast.
At least the flights were all on time -- it was a full day of traveling. We left Lincoln City at about 7:30 a.m., got to PDX by 10, then onto the plane for about six hours...
( Read more... )
For a great explanation of the Master Class, check out this entry from Dean's blog. I think the title says it all.
And, just re-reading that entry by Dean again myself -- oog. 400,000 words in two weeks? That's about 25,000 words per person, or about 100 pages of writing. Per person. Wow. Along with classes for about 8 hours a day, I don't see much sleep in my future...
And I can't. Frickin'. Wait!
So what does this Master Class mean to me? Allow me to explain...
( Read more... )
Anyone know of some good YA contemporary fantasy books that take place in the real world (not a secondary world) and don't involve other worlds or dimensions or the like?
Just curious. I'm looking to compare my book to what else is out there, YA-wise. But most of the fantasy I've seen is in another world altogether, and not ours.
Any tips or suggestions?
Thanks!
And in a interesting twist -- if you could call it that -- our own dog went missing late Saturday night.
( Read more... )
While I'm between writing projects and finishing up my reading, I've been doing a bit of surfing around the Web. Maybe I'm woolgathering, picking up odd bits and pieces of stuff I can use in my writing later. Maybe I'm just wasting time. I dunno.
But what I have come across in the past few weeks are a trio of cool applications I've started using to help stay on top of all the data on the Net, as well as how to easier read and manage it all. And also, a way to manage my own data, since I work on three computers on a regular basis.
- Read It Later
All of the above applications are free, too. How sweet is that? Hope you try 'em out. A tip of the hat to fellow writer and PR guy Jeff Rutherford for pointing out Readability to me on his twitter stream, and author Ryan Williams for clueing me in on Dropbox. Not sure where I came across Read It Later, but thanks, whoever linked to it first!
If you use any of these apps, let me know! And if you've found some cool ones of your own, let me know 'bout 'em too, please.
Finally, I have to mention one more application that's for iPhone users only. It's mainly of interest to authors and poets and writers -- anyone submitting work for publication where you want to track where you sent a story or poem or article. The application is called Story Tracker, and it's available on iTunes.
This tidy little app lets you track your submissions, when you sent 'em, to whom, and other details -- it's a nice little database, right on your iPhone. Best part about is it the developer, Andrew Nicolle, has been really open to making fixes and improving it, and the newly updated version is coming soon.
I've been REALLY bad about keeping up with my story submissions in the past few years -- just a few week ago I almost sent a story to two different magazines that rejected it last year! -- so this app came along at just the right time. Looking forward to the update! The app even has its own Facebook page. That means it has arrived. :)
Now, to stop tooliong around and get to work on that science-fiction story I need to write before my workshop!
I've come across some really good stories, but I've been trying to put my finger on what it is about a lot of these stories that have been throwing me for a loop. I find myself skimming or losing interest in a lot of the stories that either 1) have a far-future or utterly alien setting or 2) are filled with a ton of gadgetry and tech. In those stories, I lose touch with the characters. I feel like I can see the author in the background, just making up stuff. Waving his hands. Showing off her imaginational skills.
At that point, I turn the page and move on to another story. And I start to look longingly at that anthology of wizard stories that I've been itching to read. Or that book about magicians I just bought.
I think science fiction is kinda sorta dead to me. At least right now.
It's the focus on world-building that often throws me out. I feel like the author is so eager to show me all of his or her research, or to pack as many wild "eyeball kicks" of weirdness and creativity into the story (usually in huge blocks of paragraphs that stop the narrative cold) that the characters get lost.
Or worse (and this is a weakness of mine, so maybe I'm just projecting my own insecurities here), the authors see their characters only as pawns, to move around on the fancy-ass chessboard they've created to fully show off their artistry.
I know this is a common complaint about SF, but for some reason, maybe 'cause I'm reading them FAST, a lot of these stories just never took off for me. Or I gave up ten pages in; due to the world-building and exposition, many of these stories were quite LONG.
I'm kind of sad that not many of the SF stories I read did much for me. I think it's indicative of the state of our high-tech world -- to really make a story SFnal, you have to go over the top with your world and concepts. Why? Because our world has become a science-fiction world, with handheld computers and space shuttles and electric cars (but still no jetpacks!) and more.
So to set a story apart, seems like many SF authors feel they have to just go over the top with the details of their created world -- a lot of stories felt more grounded in the fantasy world than the real world -- often at the expense of characters and, ultimately, at the expense of telling a good story. Some stories just never got started -- they were simply a travelogue of the author's imagination. Which usually put me to sleep, eventually.
Of course, you know what this means -- I'm gonna have to go write a science fiction story, the kind of story I'd like to read. There's no way around it. Me and my big mouth.
So while I'm working on that -- please let me know in the comments which science fiction authors you've been loving lately, and why. And point me to some good character-driven SF stories, if you please!
I tried to stay away, but I missed youse guys!
It's not much right now -- mostly a collection of links for my books and some reprints of my stories -- but once things get rolling, I hope to be able to let interested readers buy more than just older stories and regular books directly from Amazon.com. I'm trying to get more of my work available on the Kindle so that you can download it and start reading Right Away.
My short-story collection, Gunning for the Buddha, will soon be available on the Kindle, once the Amazon elves finish doing their magic to the files I sent them. But you can find some of the stories from that collection at my Amazon page or some other places as individual downloads.
So instead of getting the whole album, you can download a single, for now, just like music on iTunes (though buying the whole collection in the Kindle version is WAY cheaper).
In the meantime, check out the links, and if you want something free, go here. Enjoy!
This one was a challenge to myself to write something completely different from anything I've done before. I had a handful of stories ideas to choose from, but all of the other ideas I had were related to my novels, somehow. I really wanted to write something new and unconnected.
So I wrote a mystery. I don't read a ton of mysteries, mainly because I don't want to read about fictionalized crimes in a world chock full of real, heinous crimes. And it seems like most mysteries deal with a death. I didn't want to write about anyone dying. So I figured out a way around it.
And in the process, I created two very fun characters that I'd kinda like to see again. One's a private eye, and the other one is... someone very, very unique. For one, he tends to eat. A lot.
And on his first "case," our guy eats some of this:
Ewww. And that's not the worst thing that happens in the story. But it's definitely the grossest. Well, except for the vomiting. There is that...Needless to say, I had a lot of fun with this one. Now, I gotta run to the PO to mail it off (can I just reiterate how much paper submissions suck? Email subs are the way to go, man!). And I owe a great big beer to fellow author Lee Capps for his speedy and insightful feedback. Thanks, dude.
Happy reading, and happy eating!
Okay, I can't just link to it -- I've got to share:
Sweet! I'm looking forward to working with Niki some more, so we can tell what happens after those 1st 8 pages. More on this as it progresses!
I finished a couple big projects this week, and just got started on a new, much smaller one, so I thought I'd ruminate on them for a little bit. Otherwise, those Deep Thoughts will get churned up by the gears of everyday life and forgotten, just like most everything else does these days, and I will be sad.
Actually, it's not as bad as it sounds. I've just been busy on just about all fronts -- family, work, fiction-writing, reading, house stuff -- almost all but the exercise front, which fell by the wayside from mid-July to late August. My Run Log is empty! But I'm working to remedy that (two short walks today already!). It's just too damn hard to fit it all into one day...
First, the smaller (just because it's less big, but no less important!) project went out most recently. I can't talk about that one much, other than to say it's a collaboration, because we entered it into a competition. If it makes it into the competition, and then wins, we can continue to work on it, and tell all sorts of cool stories as a result. So far, we've just done eight pages. More on that as it develops...
Next, the bigger project. This is the young-adult fantasy novel, and I've been working on that crazy book, in one form or another, for about sixteen years now. Of course, I've done a couple other things during that time as well, but it's sort of freaky to think about the Me that first dreamed up my 700-year-old character Jonathan Archibald Masterson Brightwell: "Sorcerer, Clockmaker, and only son of Richard Masterson the Plowman."
That younger Me was quite different from the much-older Me that wrapped up the final revisions to novel version of that idea on Monday of this week! I was teaching junior high and single and in Nebraska, as opposed to working as a tech writer, married with two kids, and in North Carolina. I don't even think I'd recognize that 23-year-old Me...
Anyhoo -- what's interesting (to me at least) about the whole process is how much fine-tuning I did to the novel over all those years. What started out as a novella (about 100 pages) with at least 10 point-of-view characters got boiled down to about five points of view last year. I even eliminated entire characters altogether (sorry Tim and Jersey and what's-his-name). After getting feedback on that version, I honed it down to just three points of view, and thought that it was just right. That would've been earlier this year.
But after some arm-twisting by my agent and some soul-searching on my part, I knew the book would work best with just one main character who you stay with the whole time, and that was Kelley. She had the best voice, and the most to lose. And she was fun to write.
I thought it would take me a month to fix it all up, but I realized I had to write some new scenes and totally rework existing scenes to put it all in Kelley's perspective. Ow. It ended up taking me three times as long, from May to late August. I am SLOW.
The end result, though, is that this version of the book is in the best possible shape I can get it. I even went over it once more time than my usual impatient self would've, and cleaned up typos and continuity errors. Can't wait to start sending A Sudden Outbreak of Magic out to editors and getting their responses. I'm still fiddling with sequel ideas, though for the most part I've put Kelley and company on the back burner. I need a break from magic for a while!
I'm working a brand-new short story, instead. This one's tentatively titled "Finder," and so far, I'm intrigued. Have no idea how it's going to turn out (oh, okay, I lied -- I do have an idea. Writers ALWAYS have ideas! They just don't like to share).
Here's the opening:
It started with the bully's dog. He'd run off -- the dog, not the bully, unfortunately -- and the Lost Dog posters had been up long enough to get sun-faded and rained on. After a week, Darren showed up at my door, looking like someone was holding a gun against his upper spine.
We'll see how it goes! This is the kind of stuff that gets me up out of bed at 4:30 in the morning. Well, that and a little 4.5-year-old who's had a bad dream... But Drew's back in bed sawing logs, and I have another story to tell.
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michaeljasper- Michael Jasper
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