BETA TEST coming to Binghamton NY!

Two stops for me around Binghamton, NY, this month -- first on March 20th I'll be heading to the studios of WSKG radio, the local NPR powerhouse that serves up content along the entire southern tier of New York state, to be on OFF THE PAGE, the show that interviews local authors! It'll air live at 1pm, and repeat in the evening at 7pm, so tune in if you're in New York. I'll post a Web address later that'll feature the streaming online version of the interview.

Then the next night, March 21st at 6:30, I'll sign copies of BETA TEST for anyone who wants to stop by RiverRead Books at 5 Court Street. Can't wait! See you there.

Kindle gets BETA TEST! Only $2.99!

Fire up your Amazonian ebook readers, kids! BETA TEST is officially available for Kindle right now. (We're working on some formating issues, but nothing that should impact enjoyment. Go forth and download.

BTW, the cost? Only $2.99. Buy it for a reader you love. Or TWO.

BETA TEST in the TIMES!

Okay, it's not the New York Times, but I'm glad the Ithaca Times wrote about me and BETA TEST today, with just a week to go until the book is out. They didn't get it all correct (book should be out before Dec. 20, and I didn't meet my publisher through Viable Paradise), but I'm okay with some revisionist history for the sake of publicity. Go read it now!

Guest Blog about Characterization

The wonderful Jennifer Wylie allowed me to guest blog on her site today. You should go read all about how I "cast actors" in the roles in BETA TEST so I can, essentially, figure out who the hell they are. 

The First Review!

I've had critiques galore in my life of my creative writing, but never an actual "review" -- where a critic either says you're good or bad, and that's it, really. Well, here's my first -- and I'm relieved to say that despite some issues with my actual "skills" and ability to "write" and perhaps my mis-use of "quotation marks," it looks like mostly Publishers Weekly liked BETA TEST! That first like has pull-quote written all over it. (Saying I have "stylishing awkwardness" is not even close to mean enough for it to work as a joke pull-quote... I'd hoped to be called "unreadable" or something close.)

Anyway, here's the full review, which you can find at http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-9839531-1-1

Happy Author is Happy

Last week I got the first ARCs (advanced reader copies, AKA galleys) of BETA TEST. I took some pictures the minute they were out of the envelope. I've been copy editing my screw-ups inside the book ever since. Thanks, little red pen!

(download)

Click here to download:

Happy_Author_is_Happy.zip (12.4 MB)

Finding Characters

Trying to make a character work in a book can be hard. I've found myself throwing out entire days worth of writing in the past because I'd written something with a character or charaters I didn't have a full grasp on. You know, that whole "what is their goal?" thing.

What I find helps me the most is casting my cast. In my head, that is. Generally this is easy, because I watch way too much entertainment and find it easy to put an actor in the part in my head. I can hear their voice, see their mannerisms—all stuff I actually try to leave out of the book because I'd rather the reader fill in a lot of it.

(My goal is to someday eliminate all the "gazing" and "smirks" and other things from dialog attribution... I'd rather the words the characters say tell you what their face looks like. But it's hard, because I also have an inner-Spielberg that wants to make sure the characters do EXACTLY WHAT I SAY.  

Stupid characters.

Anyway.)

Which brings me to the leads in BETA TEST. Because the two main characters are not Hollywood household names. They're my friends.

The main character of my book, Sam Terra, got his start in my head because I was picturing my friend Dan. He is a big guy in every sense of the word and not exactly who you picture as the leading man who'll save the day in a big action-adventure (and I'd apologize to Dan for saying that, but he would probably be the first to point it out while at the same time calling me by his favorite nickname for me, "Professor Grandpa," so he can suck it.) That's what I wanted—I wanted to cast against type. At the same time, Sam doesn't have Dan's personality at all. Sam is pretty quiet and reserved. Dan is pretty much the opposite.

I wanted the femme fatale of this book to also not be the usual willy type with perfect boobs and legs up to her neck and perfect in every way for a Maxim shoot. That's now who Sam would fall in love. Instead, he likes Molly, an extremely short chick with blue hair. And I based Molly on Polly, another good friend of mine who might also be my distant cousin, and who happens to be married to Dan.

(I hate to tell Dan but when BETA TEST the movie gets made, I expect the lead role will go to Jorge Garcia from LOST and ALCATRAZ. Sorry, dude.)

You get extra points when you read this book and can tell me what characters I based on Jack Black, a young Steve Buscemi, and Marisa Tomei.

Where Do I Get My Ideas?

I'll answer this here before anyone asks, because apparently all fiction writers get asked this.

(Secretly I'm dying to be asked so I'll know I'm a real writer. So feel free. Please.)

The answers I've heard range from "Pougkeepsie" (Harlan Ellison) to "out of my head" (Neil Gaiman) to "from the skulls of small children." (I don't know who said that last one, maybe I dreamed it, but I like it.) My answer is, like most writers, "I have no idea." It's an answer Gaiman says people hate, and I know why they do: people want the magic bullet. They want to know how you can do something they admire, like tell a cool story, when really writing just looks so damn easy except for the ideas part. That's where they stumble.

The thing is, ideas are the easy part. The people who worry about their ideas being "stolen" and how do they copyright things immediately, they are the ones who probably won't write anything. They have a high opinion of themselves that hampers even the best idea. What you copyright and protect is the execution of the idea. And that is the story. If you don't write it down, you've got f&$k-all to worry about.

Ideas come any time, anywhere, sometimes you just need room to think. For example, this morning in the shower, I had almost an entire sequel proposal for BETA TEST (coming soon from Hadley Rille Books, if you didn't know!) pop almost fully formed into my head. All I had going in was the term "multi-verse" in my head. I walked out having nixed most of the "multi-verse" stuff when my brain gave me a different word to work with that followed from the first book. Plus a whole bunch of character bits. None of which I can mention because it would spoil the end of BETA TEST. All I had to do was get on the road in my think-meat and travel down it while I absently rubbed a bar of Irish Spring on my chest until it was little more than a bluish-green nub.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with it.

Write it? That sounds like MADNESS.

The Edits are Coming! The EDITS are Coming!

It's been a while since I even thought about this blog, which I hastily set up in the heady excitement of being told BETA TEST would be an honest to gosh book some time in 2011. But now, here it is May
of that very year and the time is nearing. My publisher, Eric Reynolds, told me today he hopes to get me the edits on the manuscript by this weekend, which I can then work into the book and do a last
pass before handing it off to him to actually publish!

Exciting times, people. So it's time this blog seriously open for business. Time to talk about what went into BETA TEST, what's coming for it, and yes, I even plan to give it away here--in the form of a
podcast of each chapter of the book. Once the manuscript is locked down, I'll get started on that. La-la-la.

Things to think about now: cover art, marketing, all the things that aren't writing that writer's still have to do. (Well, I'm lucky I get to say anything about cover art, so no complaints there!)

Once Upon a Time

I wrote a book. I sent it out to many people. Then I kinda put it aside. Until last year when I told a man with a book publishing business about it. I sent it to him. And yesterday, April 28, 2010, he called me to say: he liked it! Enough to kill some trees and use up some ink so that others will read it, too!

Come 2011, my novel, BETA TEST, will become available through Hadley Rille Books. This site is going to be all about that book, writing it, writing in general, and my first foray into fiction publishing. I'm sure it's gonna be interesting.

And it'll include dinosaurs.