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On this page
- A marble that's been causing me some fun
- Workshops and Misc. 10/6
- A Report Cover and more history
- Forum is gone
- Long Trip Now Done 5/1/07
- Week Four 1/28/07
- Week Three
- SNW Early Cover
- A picture of a place that changed my life
- Week two 1/16/07
- Snow on the coast 1/11/07
- January 8, 2007
- Christmas week
- Week #2, 12/17/06 Storm
- First Week down 12/10/06
- Challenge Update 12/05/06
- Space Cadets 12/05/06
- An Old SNW signing
- SNW Manuscripts
- 9/6/06 Reviewers
I won a poker tournament yesterday at the casino. First one I've played in over two months.
$35 buy in, about 30 players, won $290.
You're going to have to put up with me reporting that sort of thing if you start reading this site regularly. I'm a poker player and have been working on a major poker novel. The story of that book over a series of reports later. But for the moment, just leave it at you don't want to put money on a poker table if I'm sitting there. Trust me on this one.
Yesterday, I also bought, read, and finished the new James Patterson novel Honeymoon. Tonight I'm headed back over to Galahad's house to reread and study the Patterson novel, tear it apart, see what Patterson and his co-author were doing, and how they did what they did. I'll report on the findings later.
I also rewrote about five chapters of the romance novel I'm working to finish. That should be off to my agent by Monday, if all goes well. In fact, maybe I'll go back out to the office and work on a few more chapters before working on the Patterson novel. Get that romance done sooner.
Back with you tomorrow.
Cheers
Dean
Well, got the date wrong on yesterday's post. And I still can't get over to the forum area at all. I'm doing something horribly wrong, I suspect, but I'll figure it out eventually.
Stop laughing.
Wind gusting up to 60 mph here today. Normal winter day on the Oregon Coast. I got three more chapters done on the romance novel and printed out. Done means rewritten and spell-checked. I'm going back through the book now to try to make a run at a new ending I haven't figured out just yet.
I'm going to save my run-through of the new Patterson book until I can answer questions on the forum part of this. Haven't forgotten. Just pacing and figuring this out.
So now back to the romance novel. Working title is "Dust, Death, and a Really Good Kiss."
Cheers
Dean
Well, got about a hundred pages on the new romance novel rewritten. With luck, another bunch tonight, then finish it and mail it later this week.
Just heard from my agent that he loved my novel "Poker Boy vs. the Slots of Saturn." We're not sure where we're sending it yet, but with luck, it will go out to publishers and editors next week. Stay turned for those adventures.
I also have a large poker thriller out on publisher's desks at the moment. It's called "Dead Money" and it's under submission to a number of places with the first 100 pages and a very extensive outline. That will be under the name Dean Edwards. The romance is under the name Lisa Dean. The Poker Boy novel is under my name. And I have another thriller coming out under yet another name later in the year, but I'm not sure I can mention that one just yet.
I also have a wonderful fantasy novel, in the tradition of my Men in Black novels, coming out in August under my own name. It's called City Knights: All Eve's Hallows. Men in Black done fantasy. I'll have the cover uploaded here soon.
Anyhow, got to the forum, started a new forum there, so now there's two. One for Strange New Worlds (which I am editing again for #9) and one for writing lifestyle questions. Ask any questions you might want. I'll be by here every day now.
Cheers
Dean
More pages done today, almost to page two hundred on the rewrite of the romance novel.
I suppose I should tell you all something about this romance novel. The idea for it came from a short story I did for Mike Resnick and Janis Ian, the singer/songwriter. They were doing an anthology called "Stars" and asked a bunch of us to write a story jumping from a lyric of Janis's. I did a romance short story set after an electromagnetic wave killed almost all human life. Basically, the romance part of Earth Abides. I then jumped from that story and wrote the first draft of this novel.
It sucked, and I tabled the book a year ago, going on to other things. This winter I figured out how to make it work, how to make it really interesting, so now I'm back at it, rewriting the part I did have done, and putting a new ending on it.
Great fun, and the book will be dedicated to Mike and Janis when it comes out.
Also, another feature here. Since most of you know I'm married to Kristine Kathryn Rusch, aka Kris Nelscott, aka Kristine Grayson, and we write books together once in a while under our names, or Kathryn Wesley or Sandy Schofield, I'll give updates on what Kris is up to at times.
Her new Kris Nelscott novel, War at Home, is out on the stands now. Man, if you're not reading these books, start now. And this one just got a rave review in "Entertainment Weekly."
More tomorrow. And I've even answered some questions on the forum site. After I get this novel finished, I'm going to try to start posting updates of short stories and a list of my stories, plus my new cover for my new fantasy novel.
Cheers
Dean
Got to page 232 today on the romance novel. Still going. Mostly rewriting, some redrafting. More than likely, more redrafting from here to the end then rewriting.
Big puzzle today is trying to come up with some pitch lines for the Poker Boy novel to help my agent sell the book. It's a satire about the gambling industry. Got some parts of what might be a back cover blurb, but no pitch yet.
Back cover blurb type idea:
"Everyone knows luck is a lady. Few know her name is Laverine, and that she runs the gambling gods and superheros like a giant resort corporation. Poker Boy is only a lowly super-hero, but it falls on his shoulders, and his sidekick Front Desk Girl, to save the entire world of gambling. Set at the World Series of Poker three years ago, Poker Boy vs. the Slots of Saturn is a hilarously funny, pointed, satiric look at the world of poker, gambling, and the casino industry."
Hmmmm, not too bad I suppose. I have to copy that and send it to my agent.
I should have the cover to my new fantasy novel up here somewhere in the next few days. I'm going to try to start a new section for upcoming books, then maybe add in some details about writing some of the older books.
Plus, working on setting some new goals. I'll report here when I get that figured out.
Later
Dean
Bought the biggest marble I have ever seen today. Actually made out of marble. An amazing thing, weighs about ten pounds, and it's now sitting on my desk. It's bigger and heavier than the Goddess (cat), so I hope she doesn't try to play with it.
Got up the cover to my upcoming novel, "City Knights: All Eve's Hallows" and you can see it over in the news section. I'm going to put the story of that novel up there sometime over the next week or so. It's a long story, and shows how you never give up on an idea and it comes to pass. Sometimes.
Did about fifty pages rewritten and redrafted on the paranormal romance novel. Kris has decided she hates my working title, so I might change it to Dust and Kisses. Sounds kind of western, but what the heck. I still want this thing off to my agent early next week.
Also went to Newport (about thirty miles down the coast from here) and got a trophy shop engraving plates for the Beautiful Trophy Awards. I'll explain that some day as well. (Just realizing many here might not have a clue what that is.
So now, back to work on some more pages. Back tomorrow.
Cheers
Dean
Not a word of writing done yet today. But had a blast anyway. I spent all afternoon drifting in and out of antique shops here, mostly looking for marbles. Found nothing, but got a few comic books from Bob at the local store here that he had been saving for me.
And at Goodwill, I found something very special. I happened to walking in the door as they were bringing this small rocking horse-like toy out of the back room. Carved out of wood, about eighteen inches high, it's actually a tricycle, with metal wheels and working parts. It looks like it is a salesman's sample from early part of the last century. Amazing condition. And I got it cheap.
The find of the month. Maybe.
Anyway, short tonight, going off to do some pages.
Later,
Dean
Monday 3/28/05Well, that was a fun, and long weekend. Didn't write a word.
What I did do, however, is go up to the Portland area and help a writer friend of mine move, in the rain.
On the way up there, I did my normal stopping and searching through old shops and antique malls. Found a marble made of china, and a handmade German, both in great shape. But the real find was in a box in the back of one small mall, marked "comic two bucks each." Buried in that box were ten comics from the early 1950's, and late 1940's. Decent shape. Including a Challengers of the Unknown. Made the trip worthwhile, that was for sure.
Big poker novel proposal was rejected twice today. It's still at one house. It will be the last person to see that proposal. As soon as I get finished with the romance this week, I'll start writing the big book (titled Dead Money). The next editors who will see it will see the entire manuscript. It's very hard to sell on only proposals these days.
Poker Boy vs. the Slots of Saturn will be heading to editor's desks mid-week. My agent and I have decided the best way to try to sell this book is as a gambling satire. I'll keep you posted.
Friday, people start arriving for the proposal workshop. Some Strange New Worlds alums are showing up for that as well, including Scott Carter, Louisa Swann, Robert Jeschonik, and Russ Crossley. It's going to be a really fun week. (And if you are wondering what I'm talking about, go to www.oregoncoastwritersworkshops.com and take a look. I think there's a link here on the site.)
Well, back to the romance. Got to get them to the sex scene.
Cheers
Dean
Got back to the paranormal romance today, finally. Yeah!! Just went past page 225 and moving now again.
There was a really good link to Neil Gaiman's site over in the writing board here. The link was talking about agents, which is a very tough topic for most writers, no matter what stage of their career. And the most cliche and myth-riddled area of this business.
For example, you hear the myth all the time that a relationship between a writer and an agent is like a marriage. Bull-pucky. An agent is your employee, nothing more.
You hire them to help you with selling, contracts, and contacts with overseas and Hollywood agents. You pay them 15% of what they sell, never a penny more for any reason.
Agents can make your career if you just got one. Huge false myth. The only thing that's going to make a writing career is writing great books and stories. The agent can help you with the business, or really hurt you in the business side. But they can't make your career for you if you can't write great fiction.
Agent as editor. I even heard myself saying this at one point a number of years back. False myth. Agents can help you with a few suggestions about fine-tuning a book to make it more marketable, but if the agent knew how to write, they would be doing it themselves. Agents should never, ever be in your way. Only publishers can write you a check for your work. If you have an agent who takes longer than a month to respond, doesn't want to mail your work, find a new employee right away. Agents should never be roadblocks.
Ever.
I have a number of friends who have been in this problem, with a certain agent who can't seem to mail a book to a publisher. These writers let this agent do this to their career. This agent took three or more months to get back to a client. Imagine you were sitting in jail and you called an attorney to come get you out, and the attorney let you sit there for three months waiting while the attorney went out and taught. Would you allow this to happen? Of course not. Agents don't know how to write. Listen to them for marketing only, and then take even that as just advice, not truth.
Questions on this over in the writing forum side of things.
Now, I must got get more pages done on my paranormal romance. It's Julie Dean's first book, and with luck, won't be her last.
Cheers
Dean
Well, the novel proposal workshop is about to start. Twelve great pro writers coming in to work with me and Kris on how to do better novel proposals. What a fun week this is going to be. I'm looking forward to it because I always learn so much. And proposals are critical to selling in this modern world of publishing.
And query letters. We're going to work on those this week as well.
No new words on the paranormal romance today or yesterday. I've got to get this thing finished. Now, those of you who follow this place for some time will see me doing this a lot. But at the end of the year, when you add them all up, I will have done a startling amount of writing. Kris just shakes her head at me, and she lives here with this.
I'm going to post my challenge to myself here as well, since I have decided that I'm going to be honest here. What the hell is the point otherwise.
My first challege this year (starting November 1st, just before my 54th birthday) is to finish and turn in a book a month for 12 months. I'm cheating some, since I have decided that since it takes me most of a month to do Strange New Worlds, I'm going to count those as well. It's a book, it has my name on the cover.
So I turned in SNW #8 on November 5th or so. Book #1.
I finished and turned in City Knights (cover in the news section) on December 15th or so. Book #2.
I started, wrote, and turned in a book I call Battle to my editor on January 10th. This is under another name in another genre, and when it comes out I might tell you about it. Book #3.
I rewrote and turned in to my agent a proposal and the first 100 pages of a big thriller on January 20th. Can't count that.
Redrafted and rewrote a novel called Poker Boy, turned it in on Feb 15th or so. Book #4.
Paranormal romance is book #5, but it will be a few days late into April. Sigh. I was doing so well up until the last three weeks or so.
I am giving myself a "Beautiful Trophy Award" for each book finished and turned in. I'll explain the BTA later, but the trophy itself is a handblown glass float, artist made, one of a kind, signed and numbered. I've put it on a trophy base and had the book name engraved on the base. Stunningly beautiful trophys to reward myself.
Now, I have to go back to cleaning up my e-mail. I got about three weeks behind and it seems to be taking me three weeks to go through it all.
Later
Dean
No worries. I'm not doing any silly April Fools post. Actually, not much of a post at all today. Got live ones here to talk to if they show up.
Tick...tick...tick
Well, that first sentence was about six hours ago. For those of you who have been around here on the night before a workshop, you know what happened. I got started with this and someone showed up, and then others, and pretty soon, it was about ten of us sitting around talking about writing and other things. What a blast.
Dan Duval (who has written Mech Warrior and will be in SNW 8 showed up with Chris York (novelist and also in the first two SNW anthologies). Dan has just moved here to the coast, and Chris and Dan wanted to come by and say hello to the people arriving. Steve York, Chris's husband was home writing the third book in the new Conan series.
Karen Abrahamson and Joe Cummings from Canada showed up, after picking up Louisa Swann at the airport. (Louisa is also in SNW a few times. She's from the Reno area.) Adrian Phoenix (author of a number of short stories in anthologies) arrived next, then followed by Pati Nagle (author of a number of great novels), Mary Fisk (numbers of books and stories), and Jerry Weinberg, all who had met and rented a car together at the airport. Jerry and Pati are from New Mexico, Mary is from Cape Cod area. (Jerry Weinberg is the Gerald Weinberg, in case the name sounded familiar.
Wow, what a fun group to sit around with and just talk. Workshop doesn't start until 7 tomorrow night, but these first nights are always fun. Topics of writing discussion ranged from agents to proposals to other workshops, back to agents, novel structure, back to agents, some tax stuff, more agents. Of course, with Gallahad, my cat running around, there were cat discussions and other non-writing stuff.
So I'm now tired, it's one in the morning, and I got no pages done again today. Maybe tomorrow, between others showing up. (Still got five more to show up to make a total of twelve.) Russ and Rita Crossley from Canada, Scott Carter from here in Oregon, Richard from Seattle area, and Robert Jeschonick from back East. This is going to be a fun week. I'll keep you posted.
Now to bed for me.
Cheers
Dean
Short post tonight. Again, it's late, and with losing an hour, it's even later.
Good first day today for the workshop. No writing for me again, but I should be back at it tomorrow.
More then.
Cheers
Dean
Okay, now I'm tired and it's only Monday. I'm sure the twelve people next door are going to want me dead by the end of this proposal workshop. I may be dead.
Story vs. plot. You wouldn't think it would be so hard. But it's turning out to be the hardest thing I've ever tried to teach. Plus proposal formats, novel structures, and all the rest of the stuff I expected to teach this week.
But, that aside (I just got done readying about 48 different proposals generated by the twelve in the last 24 hours... I kid you not), this is already turning out to be a really great week. I'm learning a lot, and being forced to look at novel structures and genre structures in some new ways. Fun. I love learning. I seem to be hungry for it.
No words on the romance yesterday or today. Maybe tomorrow.
Picking up Beautiful Trophy Awards and engraved bases on Wed, more next week. (Yeah, I know, I'll explain that some time soon, maybe next week.) That way, those who are here can take their awards with them and save me the shipping.
Got ten beatiful German made, late 1800's marbles in the mail today. Handmades. Got them for a real deal on E-bay. Not often you can sneak deals out of E-bay on marbles these days. Got lucky on this one. Also found a Sandpiper in my collection (that's one of the world's most beautiful marbles) and if it had been in great shape, it might bring upwards of $1,500. And it is in mint, except for one small problem. Someone, in the time since 1920, drilled a perfect hole through the marble. Ughhh. I have no idea what it is worth with the hole. Sigh.
Back to proposals. I'm starting to dream in proposal format.
Cheers
Dean
Wow, really hard to be here every day with 12 people living in my house.
Tonight I read four different novel proposals from each of them. 48 novel proposals and that's just what they produced in the last 24 hours. All new stuff too. Nothing from their old files. An amazing bunch.
Not a word written on the paranormal romance. Bought 500 marbles today on the way to Newport to pick up the Beautiful Trophy Awards. Got a real deal on the marbles. A great find in an old antique shop.
My big poker novel is still on editor's desks. And Poker Boy has gone out to a bunch of editors. Soon, after these people leave the hill, I'll finish the paranormal and get it on editor's desks.
Now must sleep.
Cheers
Dean
Okay, I'm tired, and very happy with the gang here. They have made huge progress, created from out of thin air seven original novels each and did proposals on them, plus written another 15 proposals on other books and their own finished novels. Great week, a lot of tired people on the hill at the moment.
But there was a question over in the forum I wanted to give a very quick answer to here as well. How do you become a full time fiction writer?
I answered it quickly there, but I'm sure there will be more discussion. But here, I'd like to answer just as quickly how I did it.
1974, I started writing some poetry and a few ultra-short stories during the first year that I went back to college after leaving the golf profession. I was in Architecture, but I still took a few classes over in the English department, one of which was Poetry 101. Kid you not. Instructor had us mail out a poem to Prize Poets college contest, just to show us how to submit something to a publisher. I was getting a "B" in the class because my stuff was so "commercial."
I got second in the national contest, blew away the poor instructor, and I was off, mailing poems all over the place, and selling like crazy. But I was only writing a few very short stories. 1,000 words to me seemed like an epic.
While in college, I worked two jobs to pay my way through, plus started a used bookstore in 1977 for my third job. Got married somewhere in there as well, but my first wife thought my little writing hobby was a joke. Actually, at that point, so did I. I stopped mailing out poems in 1977 but I still write the stuff at times.
From 1974 through 1982, I wrote about two short stories a year. I mailed them, never sold except to a small fanzine.
In 1979 I graduated from Architecture, didn't want to be an architect, got divorced, went on into law school. Got remarried in 1981. Dropped out of the last semester of law school in 1982. Had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up, but I still had my bookstore, still tended bar at night and drove school bus in the morning. I was 32 years old. So one day I was sitting in my bookstore staring at a wall of books and suddenly realized that someone had to write all those things. If they could, so could I.
January 1st, I got serious. I had read a Bradbury book about his writing and he said he did one short story a day in his early years. I figured I could mail one short story a week. So, in a challenge with new writer Nina Kiriki Hoffman, I set out to write and mail a story a week. And I started going out to learn at the same time.
My attitude is, I just wasted seven years on school I didn't want to use, I could spend that much time and money on writing, something I wanted to do. I finished and mailed 44 stories the first year, following Heinlein's rules, and I went to Clarion.
I finished forty-plus short stories the next year and kept them in the mail, finally selling to Damon Knight at the Clarion Awards and the very first volume of Writers of the Future edited by Algis Budrys.
Moved to the Oregon coast, kept writing a story a week in 1985, plus I pounded out my first novel on a typewriter. Had my house burn down and lost it all, got divorced, moved back to Moscow, Idaho. Back to bartending and driving bus.
1986 I got invited to be one of 12 young writers attending a workshop in Taos, New Mexico taught by Algis Budrys, Gene Wolfe, Fred Pohl, and Jack Williamson. I spent my last penny getting there. Met Kristine Kathryn Rusch there, and we haven't been apart since.
I wrote another novel that sucked, then wrote one that was pretty good, got it to Brian Thomsen at Warner and he bought it. By then I had also sold about 20 short stories. The year was 1987. I had written three novels and over 200 short stories in five years, plus had life beat on me something awful.
So, what did I do next? Stopped writing of course. Started a publishing company named Pulphouse and went off and made it the 5th largest publisher of sf/fantasy in the nation for a number of years. 19 employees, two story office building. Stupidity.
It crashed in 1992, although I didn't put a bullet through its head until 1995.
I turned my attention to trying to get back to writing in 1993. I got lucky and got into the Star Trek program, then into the Marvel books program, then started doing other things, and picked up speed. My best year was nine novels and seven short stories. And I kept learning. All the time, hungry for information. (Got a lot this weekend from this crew.)
In 2004 I had over seventy-five novels and six plus million books in print, and I had been making a very nice, very very nice, living for 12 years at fiction writing. I then turned my attention to writing my own stuff completely, and have made the transition. Follow the growth here as it picks up speed. Two original novels coming out this year, more next.
And that's how I did it. Once I set my sights on making a living at this business, I never let go. A house burning down, two divorces, and health hasn't stopped me. And trust me, it's been worth it. Sitting alone in a room and making shit up is the best job there is. And it pays real well to boot.
Questions about all this over in the forum area.
Now, off to bed, tomorrow is the last day of the workshop.
Later,
Dean
Well, if you were wondering what happened to me the last four days, it was mostly just too busy and too tired to even think of coming in here and sitting down. I will get my e-mail caught up soon, I promise.
Another time sink, besides finishing a wonderful week with 12 pros writers here, was taxes. I do ours, with Kris checking me, and let an accountant do our corporation taxes.
Kris and I have been full-audited twice over the years, and both times took less than two hours in the office and we walked away without a problem. We keep very, very accurate records, right down to the penny. And we keep all reciepts and logs for things. Very organized.
So doing the taxes every year feels like a homework assignment where I get to copy the answers out of the paperwork. Very strange feeling, and I always end up going over the numbers two or three times to make sure my addition is right.
Anyway, that's done, and I watched the Masters this weekend between teaching and lunches with writers. Great tournament. Fantastic ending.
That's it for the last four days. Off to Eugene tomorrow for a few hours, then back and finishing the book. Back here tomorrow night.
Cheers
Dean
Well, back finally, and working my way through backed-up e-mail. And getting the last short story workshop ready to fly by answering all the questions from those attending.
Some of you may have noticed that we basically took down the workshop web site. We'll still be doing novel workshops for the next year or so, and I have two weekend genre structure workshops this summer. And who knows, we get a good discussion going here and if something comes up, we might do some other weekend workshop next year as well as the novel workshops. Anyway, if anyone has any questions, e-mail me and I'll answer them as best I can.
Finally feels like life will allow me to get back to writing tonight and tomorrow. Yeah! Get this romance finished and get it in the mail to my agent. Then on to writing the big poker thriller. I've got a couple of challenges for myself later this summer which I'll put up here at some point. And yes, I still plan on going over the new James Patterson book here, right before I fire into the thriller of my own. I wrote the first 100 pages and the proposal of the thriller in Patterson style, so it won't hurt to get his style back in my head.
Great day over in the valley yesterday. I went over to help a friend work on his house. (I'm going to be doing that off and on all summer.) On the way I found a few really nice marbles, including a German swirl made in somewhere between 1880 and 1920. Got it for a buck. Also ended up buying a friend of mine father's marbles, about 600 of them in great condition. All 1920's-through 1930s.
So, now, back to the project at hand. Finishing the darn paranormal romance. Amazing that I have turned in four books so far since November 1st, isn't it? As much as I screw around. This will be the 5th.
To work. Later...
Cheers
Dean
If you aren't finished, you shouldn't be reading this.
Went through another 35 pages of the Paranormal last night, and then another 20 pages so far today. That's it for the old material. I'm on page 280 and now need to write the last 40 pages or so. Book is called "Dust and Kisses" by Lisa Dean.
(Yeah, another pen name
Struck some more gold today in the marble world. 615 of them from a seller on E-Bay. And got a bunch in the mail I bought a few weeks back for another seller. It contained three 1980's-1920's German swirls. Way too much fun, and boring my poor wife to death with this.
Anyhow, got to go get started on that last 40 or so pages of the novel, then off to see Sahara with Kris. Later...
Cheers
Dean
Got nothing worked on today. This is getting very old, actually. Got to get firing on that book. Get it finished. I think it's the sex scene that's got me stopped, so screw it, I'm just going to make this thing a "sweet" romance and fade over the sex scene. For a person who's published erotica novels, and had one of his first short story sales to OUI Magazine, this is really a silly problem.
Back to cleaning up the e-mail. If anyone out there has e-mailed me and I haven't responded in the last month, fire it at me again. I get behind on e-mail like this about three times a year.
Dumb.
I've got a creative non-fiction book idea I'm going to be working on later this summer, so this blog will turn into pratice sessions for that, sort of short essays of observations. Not every day, and I will say when I fire into an essay at the top of the blog entry. I'll put a topic over in the forum and ask for feedback on the practice sessions, if anyone has anything to say about them.
The idea is to write most of the entire book while out on the road on a two week trip in July. That will be interesting.
I also have a challenge with myself starting in June that I will post daily results here. It's going to be a writing summer I hope.
Now back to cleaning up e-mail. Sigh....
Cheers
Dean
Wow, Allan and Paulette will be so proud of this old man. I actually figured out how to add a new catagory called Blog Archives and then I actually moved all of the March blogs there.
I have just enough knowledge on how to get around this place to really screw it up.
And by the way, Allan and Paulette. Congrats!!! I doubt you have time to stop by here and read this. But it had to be said.
Okay, now I go work on cleaning up the e-mail.
Cheers
Dean
Finally got to the movie Sahara tonight. Fun ride. Stayed fairly close to the book in all but the big shoot-out in the old ship. I enjoyed it. Perfect for what it was.
Worked out my writing schedule, something that was stopping me. Not my day-to-day schedule, but which book next and then which after that and so on. Since I spent so many years working under backed-up contracts for novels that had deadlines, now that I'm writing spec books, scheduling suddenly became a problem. Weird. But finally figured out and I feel like I can get really back to work now.
I'm deadline driven. No doubt. It's why challenges work for me.
I got a great picture sent to me by Pati Nagle of five or six of the Beautiful Trophy Winners for the first quarter standing in front of all twenty trophies. If I can figure out how to upload it, I'll get it here somewhere and talk about that challenge. I'm going to do a new front page essay this week about challenges.
Now, it's off to stare at a few marbles and then go get some sleep.
Cheers
Dean
Well, the last two days sucked. Tomorrow will be a better day.
Still getting my e-mail caught up. I get so much every day with all the groups I'm in that once I get a few days behind, I just feel buried, then don't do it for a few more days because I feel that way, and then it gets ugly.
Tired, going to bed.
Cheers
Dean
Well, to be honest, I'm proud of myself. I said no to something. Those of you reading this who have been through workshops with me will find that puzzling I'm sure. But my close friends and wife are cheering.
Here's how I did it. I got an e-mail from a clearly nice, clearly young, editor asking me if I was interested in writing a novel for a popular show that's running on television. The letter had been sent to a number of people, including my wife. Understand, major publisher, major TV show.
I assumed, as was standard in these cases, that we were on a list of licensor-approved authors for this project. Kris said no, since she's "booked" up and had a bad experience on her last work for hire project that hasn't completely gone away yet. I like the show, thought the book would be fun, wrote back and said, sure, I'm interested.
Editor then told me the advance amounts (small but worth it for the time involved I thought) and about the areas in the series that were open to write in, and so on. And he told me the deadline. A very short one, actually, which made me think there was a reason he came to Kris and me and a couple of others I knew of who got the e-mail.
I told him to contact my agent with all the money stuff and that's when the light started to dawn on me something wasn't standard here. He wrote back and said I should alert my agent, no problem, for the hoped-for contract after approval of proposal.
Hoped for???????
Oh, oh.
It's been a decade since I've chased a book and done free work before a contract. A decade. I've written on over seventy work-for-hire projects, been hired to rescue other authors, ghost bestsellers, and I still edit a project for Pocket Books. I don't chase anything. You either hire me or you don't, thank you very much.
So I wrote back to this nice, young editor, making sure I understood what I was starting to understand, talked to another writer who was also in the process, and then learned that it was even worse than I thought. This editor has a number of writers competing for a single spot. His letter was so carefully worded that you couldn't tell.
My mistake for assuming it was standard. Big publisher, big series, I thought it was standard. Again, my mistake.
Slap, slap, slap.
So I wrote him back and said no. (No problem saying no, actually.) Thanks, but no thanks. Yeah, I know, some of you reading this are thinking "Shit, I wish I had that chance." And you are right, and I've encouraged a couple of newer writers to give it a shot and told the editor about one of them.
I did it early in my career as well. Sometimes you have to take shots.
Early on, you have to work for free sometimes to get the jobs.
But I'm way too damn old. I'm way beyond competing for a small-advance book. I am a professional writer and have been for thirty years, making my living at this for the past 15 or so. I write fiction for money. I do this blog for free, that's enough.
But this afternoon I learned that this project gets worse for those in the fight for the spot. I learned that these authors who are in this "write for free race" will not only have to do "detailed proposals" but sample chapters.
All for free. All in a world they don't own. You got to be pretty new in the business, and pretty hungry for a sale, to do that kind of work for nothing.
I'd rather go back to bartending.
Hire me or don't hire me. Just don't screw around with me. Pisses me off.
Cheers
Dean
Some day I will finish this stupid novel. Maybe someday I'll even get back to doing some writing, which is sort of the important part of finishing a novel. But right now, I'm not writing. I honestly have no idea what I'm doing, although I seem very busy every day.
I go through these phases. It stuns people when they learn that I can manage, somehow, to get seven or eight novels a year done. It seems like I never write.
At the moment, that's the case.
Sometime this next week I'm going to write a new opening article for this site about challenges. After that, I'll talk about some different challenges here, and a few I'm going to put myself through this year.
Maybe the not writing is just my way of getting ready. Yeah, that's it. I might be able to believe that for a few days. Yeah, getting ready to write. That's the ticket.
Later. I have "things" to do. Must get ready to write some day.
Cheers
Dean
Since I did the new front page article yesterday about challenges, I figured since nothing much happened today except me hitting about six billion garage sales, I'd talk about The Race.
(Garage sales this weekend was a special weekend, where the entire city gets together and everyone seems to do a garage sale at the same time. The city advertises the weekend over in the big cities, calling it Shopping the Coast. I found a fifties old oak display case, glass top and front, glass shelves, with light, for $25.00. Five foot long. I thought the person said $250 when I asked the price, and I thought that would have been a good deal. Nope. They just wanted to get rid of it and I was the first one interested. $25.00.
Anyway, The Race is a challenge I invented back with a bunch of us were first coming into the writing business. I kept track of it in a writer's magazine I published called "The Report." The Race has hung on for years now, and there are a bunch of pros challenging each other every week with this challenge.
Here are the rules to The Race.
1 point for every short story you have in the mail.
3 points for every chapters and outline you have in the mail.
8 points for a full novel manuscript you have in the mail.
Only count each thing once, meaning if you have a chapters and proposal out to both an agent and an editor, it's still only 3 points. No poetry or articles.
Right now I'm at 29 points. I have a novel manuscript waiting for acceptance with an editor (8 points), another novel sent out by my agent to editors (8 points), another novel out on chapters and proposal (3 points) and ten short stories in the mail (10 points). 8 plus 8 plus 3 plus 10 equals 29 points.
The person leading the current race I am taking part in has 134 points. I'm going to try to catch him by the end of the year.
If a story sells, or an editor accepts the final manuscript under a contract for a novel, then you lose the points. For example, if the novel sold that I have out on sample chapters and outline, I would lose the 3 points. But then when I wrote the book, I would gain eight points when I mailed it to the publisher. When the rewrites were done, and the editor accepted the final manuscript and put it into production and paid the acceptance part of the advance, I would lose the eight points.
This challenge not only forces you to write and finish things, but it forces you to keep things in the mail where editors can buy them. Back when I first started this, Kevin Anderson and Kris Rusch always fought for the top spot, with Dave Wolverton, Nina Hoffman, Ray Vukcevich, and me fighting right behind them. No one at the bottom of those old races have careers. Everyone at the top does. It's a challenge that works.
Have fun.
Cheers
Dean
In the master class, Kris and I and Loren used to run what we called "The Game" every evening for the entire two weeks of the class. Basically, we ran the 12 writers attending through about nine simulated years of a writing career, after they had sold the first two novels and got a good agent. (Selling your first two book contract and getting the top agent is called "Getting to the Game" by Master Class grads.
In the game, one of the many things they do is roll six dice, total up the number, and then during the "Life Rolls" part of the game, they tell me their numbers. One number for every three months of the game. I have massive numbers of sheets filled with a lot of things under every possible number. Each "thing" or life roll actually happened to a real writer that we know. Many of the life rolls were simple stuff, like selling a short story. Many were things like divorce, moving, buying a new car, hiring a gardner, and so on, that affected the writer's monthly expenses. The goal of the game is to first make a living as a writer, second, get rich. But most importantly, not go broke and have to go back to a day job.
So "Life Rolls" to all master class grads means "Something good or bad happened in life to keep me from my writing."
Today, I had cat life rolls.
All has been moving right along on the third run-through of the current novel. Kris read it, and we had a long discussion about romance structure and where I had just missed on one element that needed to be there for it to sell well. So now I'm putting it in, roaring through the book...... up until this morning.
The top of this hill we live on seems to be a magnet for stray and lost cats, and of course, we feed them. For years, every year during the spring, we get one or two young cats clearly from the same family. This has been going on now for six years. Somehow, someone is letting a cat have kittens every spring, raising the cats until they are five or six months old, then letting them go outside to get lost and end up at our place.
We have managed to keep two of these cats, one named Willow, one named Galahad (by Laura Anne Gillman). Galley is my cat, arrived last year, Willow is a little princess who loves everyone. She got here four years ago. Galley is also the workshop house cat who will move from there to my new office with me. (Pictures of him on the writers web site.) Last year a wonderful cat (all from the same family) showed up and we gave him to Dan Duval (story coming up in SNW and Mech Warrior site.) Dan called him Silver. Four years ago, with Willow, another cat from the same family showed up and we gave him to Chris and Steve York. They called him Oz. The year before that Archer arrived and went to Annie Reed in Reno. The year before that Neo arrived and went to friends in Eugene.
This year, two cats arrived two weeks ago. One was from the same family, clearly. One was a stray not related. And pregnant. We managed to get feeding both, but the one from the family vanished two weeks ago after just a day or two here. The other one seemed to have taken over the food.
She was pregnant, it seemed. And getting very sick. So finally, this morning, I caught her and took her to the Humane Society, which is great here. She's going to be fine.
The moment I drove away with the pregnant cat, the family related cat showed up. Kris said she barely made it to the area of the food and then just sat down. Very, very sick, and beat up. I got back about an hour later and Kris was worried the little girl wouldn't live long enough for me to get back. We bundled her up and got her to our vet. He did all the tests and she's going to be fine as well.
And since she has the colors of Dan's Silver, and the attitude of Willow, we're going to keep her.
One full day shot today with cat emergencies. Tomorrow, I go get the little girl from the vet and make a place for her to be alone inside, away from the rest of the cats, to recover. That will kill tomorrow morning as well.
Life rolls. I will be back at the book tomorrow afternoon, I swear.
Cheers
Dean
Ahhh, but I got chapters done today. Got up, while the cat was still at the vet, and worked through six more rewrite chapters on the book. I'm also to the place where the structure needs to really shift, which will slow me down.
Cat is alive, but barely. We are coaxing her back to health carefully, both Kris and I spending upwards of an hour every three or four hours with her.
Also got a display case I bought moved (thanks Dan!) into an antique mall space I have rented to sell stuff. Anyone who knows me knows I have enough stuff to sell in a dozen booths for twenty years, and not even dent the things here. For example, tonight I got dinking around behind my desk in my office, looking for a fallen marble, and found a small black case I had put back there a few years ago to get it out of the way. It's full of about 300 Mage Knight game Clicks and Hero Clicks, including some limited edition ones in boxes. (I bought the entire case of them for $4.99 at a Goodwill.
So, yes, not only was today a cat day, but I got pages done, and I took the first step into the selling side of collecting things. Oh, oh...
Cheers
Dean
Actually moved the book forward another four chapters today. Almost into the newer writing areas. Mostly just doing some set-up for the changes to come.
Cat is feeling better, but still very sick. Still not eating. We're feeding it water and food by hand, along with pills and antibiotics. It's a real trial just getting to the cat, since we don't want to infect any of our other animals. Change clothes in one room, into "cat clothes," then go in with the cat in a closed bedroom. After feeding and pilling the little sick girl, we wash our hands, change clothes again, wash hands again. About four times a day.
With luck we'll get her eating on her own again in the next couple of days. Kris and I figure she was within hours of dying when we rushed her to the vet. Now, we just have to figure out what to call her. I don't think we've named her yet because we're both worried she's not going to make it.
Short story workshop taught by Kris and Gardner starts in a week. I really want this novel off to my agent by then.
Later...
Cheers
Dean
Well, to my shock and amazement and laughter, the normally wonderful and very serious show, Cold Case on CBS, did Rocky Horror tonight. And I mean they did Rocky Horror, all the way down to having Barry Boskwick play a killer set off by attending the Rocky Horror Picture Show. All the past scenes were done like the dialog between Brad and Janet, the music was from the movie, and fit perfectly, right down to "There's a Light..." which rolled me off my chair with laughter at the timing.
Oh, man, beg, borrow, get this episode.
Cat care... took large parts of the last few days, along with setting up my new booth in the antique mall. But I got writing done all but today.
Cat is doing better, and we finally got her eating yesterday. She's a brilliant cat, with a real "goddess-like" attitude, even sick, so we're calling her Isis. The plan is for us to keep getting her stronger this week, then take her back to the vet to get her fixed, then move her in with the other cats here and get her out of the workshop house before the writers coming for the short story workshop start arriving. Yeah, that's going to happen smoothly. Not.
Kris is powering on the very last of the new Smokey Dalton novel. If you haven't read the one that's just out, you should. It's called War at Home. Great book.
So, the upshot of all this is we might actually save this cat's life, and then she's going to be with us for the next 15 years or so. No good deed goes unpunished. And if anyone is wondering, that brings the total to six cats. Four in the main house, one in the office, and Galley in the other house. We moved over here with eleven. All of them are now gone.
Our problem is, there are three more young strays hanging around outside. It seems to never end.
Cheers
Dean
5/5/05
Well, the cat drama continues. Right now she's been moved upstairs into our bathroom here in the house we sleep in, mostly because the short story workshop people will start arriving tomorrow and we needed to get the little thing out of there.
Her name is Isis. We may regret that.
We started to introduce her to what we call "the big three" (the three cats here in the house already) and there was hissing and such, as expected. She's so tiny and weak, we're going slow.
Kris has been powering on the new Smokey Dalton novel under her Nelscott name. I should be reading it this week. I'm excited. I LOVE those books and feel very lucky to get to read them first.
Last two weeks have just been crazy, what with getting ready for the workshop, getting the booth down at the antique mall stocked and put together, the sick cat, and a dozen other things seemingly all happening at once. It's going to feel good in a week or so to just settle in back on writing again.
With luck, I should be doing some practice right here starting in a week or so for a creative non-fiction book I'm going to be working on sometime this summer.
Anyhow, back to work. Still got hours ahead of me tonight.
Cheers
Dean
Well, the workshop is up and running. 12 people sitting next door listening to Gardner Dozois and Kristine Kathryn Rusch talk about the craft of short fiction. I think Ellen Datlow is the only person to have won a best editor Hugo besides Kris and Gardner in the past 20 years. Those twelve (soon to be 13 as soon as Kevin arrives later tonight) are going to get a learning experience they won't soon forget.
For me, it feels good to be done with my part of the job. I'm the set-up person, the person who makes sure everything is in order all the way up to when the "talent" takes over.
I'll be doing updates as the week goes along right here, who's doing what, who's melting down, and so on.
Stay tuned.
Cheers
Dean
Well, as some of you may have noticed on the forum side of things, I am back.
Just too much going on, too tired, to post here during the last part of the Short Story Workshop and the week or so after it. Way too much going on. But now, things have calmed, so a few updates on life around here.
We cancelled the workshop for June and September, and will start up new workshops starting in November and solidly through 2006, skipping over the summer. New workshops will be in hotels or other coastal retreats. Kris and I are now in the process of finishing the remodeling of the workshop house, tearing out some bedrooms, and getting ready to move back over there. For those of you who have been to a workshop, don't worry, Galley will move over to this house and my office will move back upstairs here, so Galley and I will be working hard here.
The cat we called Isis, the stray we nursed back to health, is gone. We had to give her away since she didn't mix well with the other cats. Bummer. She was a good one. At least we saved her life.
We also had a third stray of the year show up, but Loren Coleman and I got him tamed easily, so much so that he ended up sleeping on the bench outside the workshop house for the entire length of the short story workshop. Loren took him to friends in Seattle and at last report, he's doing great.
Not a word done on the romance, and I think I just might shelve it for now and go back to work on the bigger books. I don't plan on writing much however until I get into my new office, which will be a little bit yet, meaning a few weeks. I also plan on firing up a new challenge to myself that I will keep track of here. I'll announce that later on in June. It will be interesting for you newer writers out there to follow my progress on this challenge. Trust me.
Still tired, so I'm out of here.
Cheers
Dean
Not sure why this year has turned out so hard. Just did for some reason, mostly the last few months. I think it was just too many things at once going on.
Now, things are settling out slowly. Kris is done with her new Smokey Dalton novel under her Nelscott name. My best friend since junior high is here visiting and we're all having a blast and eating too much.
I have managed to price and put into an antique booth in an antique mall, over 370 items so far. Today, I put a few more things in and the woman who runs the place told me that just today I had sold three jars of marbles, an old Argosy 1913 pulp magazine, and two old vanilla bottles from 1920's, still with mint boxes. (Those both sold for $25.00 each. I have more.
I'm having way too much fun with this booth. Way too much.
The four of us sorted through an old jar of jewelry I bought in Goodwill for twenty bucks last night. Not only was there some nice costume stuff, but two diamond post earrings (very small, but still $40.00 in a jewelry store) and a surprisingly large diamond that was set to hang from a necklace chain. It was covered in dirt, which is why the store missed it. It cleaned up real nice. My guess is it's worth a few hundred at least. From that jar last night, Kris priced three things (and we have another fifty to price at least just from the one jar) and I put them in the case in our booth. The three things she priced totaled just over a hundred bucks, and that's not counting the diamonds. Nice jar for $20.00. Sometimes there are real treasures to be found in Goodwill.
Nothing on writing here today, or for the next few weeks. I'm going to be reworking the house(s) and moving my office back upstairs. But before I can do that, I have to get us a bedroom set up over in the workshop house, get the kitchen and dining painted, and get the new flooring in the kitchen and dining room. Lots of work, none of it writing.
I will be checking in regularly in the forum side of this place. If you have questions for me, or for anyone there, just post them. Lots of pros lurking around there I'm discovering.
Later
Dean
Back Home Again 6/13/05
Well, after two weeks being gone, we're home. Yeah! It feels great, but wow am I behind on just about everything.
Trip was a blast. We actually decided we needed a real vacation and we did our best to do just that as much as two writers could do. The first vacation we have taken in 19 years together. No e-mail, no nothing. Just us in a car, driving and stopping where we wanted and roaming in and out of old shops and bookstores and casinos.
We ended up, at one point, in Las Vegas, where we stayed for a good amount of time. We hung around the World Series of Poker and I played some. And to answer your question, I did just fine.
We hit a bunch of old shops and bookstores in Vegas. One shop I ended up buying a small bag of marbles from an antique dealer who had just got them in an estate. I paid him $50 bucks and he thought he took me, I'm sure.
After Vegas, we went on to see my mother and step-father in Boise and spent some time there. I'm going to be over that way a lot this summer and fall.
But right now, we're home. The cats are well. (Thanks, Chris!!!!) And I'm back working on getting e-mail caught up and getting the big house ready for Kris and I to move back into. Then I move my office into this building and fire up on writing a book I've been working at for a year now. It's going to be great to finish it. More on that later.
I'll be back here, posting regularly again now that things have settled. Sure feels good to be home.
Cheers
Dean
Still not even close to getting caught up on everything after being gone two weeks. But gaining on it.
Also had to take some time to play in a poker tournament today.
The big house remodeling is starting to take shape. We have a contractor for the kictchen and dining room and laundry room floor coming in on Monday, so with luck that should be done by July. They will also do the stairs and the area at the top near what once was the workshop room. We're leaving much of that room the same, for those who have been here. Just taking down the white boards and moving in Kris's piano where our chairs used to be.
Tonight I'm tearing out a wall between the hardback bedroom and the door bedroom downstairs, to turn that back into one large room. Eventually, it will become a nifty home theater. Eventually.
I won't be going back to work writing until early July. Just too much to do here to get things moved around.
So better get to that wall. Later...
Cheers
Dean
Well, the bedrooms that used to be downstairs in the workshop house no longer exist. Last night I took out the two doors, and the wall between the "door" room and the "hardback" room. It's now a really cool space that will slowly work into a big home theater area. It will also be the mystery books area, with paperbacks on one end and hardbacks on the other. Right now there's about 4,000 mystery novels down there, plus a few hundred sf that will be moved as other mystery novels come in. Watching movies in a library-type room.
Still on the construction front, today we took delivery on a new fridge and moved the workshop fridge into the laundry room where the little brown drink fridge used to be. Only problem is that "standard size" fridges these days are about four inches wider than standard size of four years ago. I just asked the guy if it was the standard size and didn't take exact measurements, since we had a new fridge in that spot four years ago before we did the workshops and it fit just fine.
Nope. Standard is bigger now. Four inches too wide for the space. So I spent tonight tearing out a wall beside the fridge and making a closet just about five inches narrower so the fridge fits. Nothing like sheetrock dust. Ughh...
I also tore out the wall at the top of the stairs that lead from the laundry room into the North Wing. Took the doors off the laundry room as well on both sides, since we don't have to keep cats out of the wing now. So now you can stand in the kitchen and see all the way into the paperback room out in the North Wing. The "safe" room will soon become a third bathroom. It will be a wierd bathroom, with a huge old safe in it. Kind of cool, actually.
But that's about it on tearing out walls. Now it's just building and painting before the contracter gets here to put in the new floor in the dining and kitchen and laundry and stairs. The kitchen is not even going to look like the same room when it's finished.
One good collecting find yesterday. A fellow poker player, who has been spending years traveling and getting chips from every casino he passed, decided to sell his poker chip collection. He's got it in wonderful order by state and region and even has paperwork from most of the casinos. Almost 400 different casinos. I bought it from him and now will combine his collection with mine and E-bay off the duplicates. What a find. And a great collection for a very decent price. Luckily, I had won a bunch of money playing poker in Vegas.
No writing or poker today. Kris finished a new book and went off to a concert and I tore out walls. A standard day on the hill.
Cheers
Dean
Some of you may have heard that a few days ago there was a pretty major earthquake off the Northern California coast, about 500 or so miles south of here. Chris and Steve York and Kris and I were having a wonderful Mexican dinner when it hit, and we didn't feel a thing. Or at least, I didn't, but I was munching down a lot of those hot chips they give you with the hot sauce and might have missed it in all the crunching.
But, it seems, that they (whoever is in charge of such things) decided that a tsumami might be possible along the Oregon Coast. And "they" sent out the alarm. I discovered this alert the next morning when I read the newspaper. Fat lot of good that would have done us. The Mexican restaurant we were eating in was a good six, maybe seven feet above sea level. Two seagulls sneeze at the same time in the same direction and that restaurant could get wet.
Actually, by the time any wave might have hit our little home town, Kris and I were home and working construction and writing. Kris writing, me hammering. We had radios on from the restaurant to home, and I had a radio on the entire time that night. Not once did anyone on any station mention any tsunami alarm. Yet a hundred miles to the north of us (father away from the earthquake for you directionally challenged folk) in Cannon Beach and Seaside, there were traffic jams as people tried to flee the coast.
And tried to get to the coast from Portland to watch the waves.
That's right. People jammed into our towns to watch the possible unfolding disaster. I can't make that up. And it's been making me shake my head for days now.
In fact, I heard today, that the police had to chase people out of a popular parking lot and close it because of all the gawkers. The parking lot is not more than a few feet above sea level.
I only have on question to ask: DIDN'T ANYONE WATCH WHAT HAPPENED IN THAILAND?
(I meant to shout that.)
The newspapers and local folks are saying, and I kid you not, "It was a good drill for us." I guess so. No one got alerted.
For our little town, one alarm system worked for the north end, but they couldn't get the rust off the system on the south end where we live. And even if it had gone off, without any radio coverage, we would have thought it was nothing more than a fire alarm. There has been no drills here at all in the ten years we have lived looking out at the Pacific.
The officials also said it was a good drill because they never would have expected the jamming of the highways from people trying to get here to be killed by the big ocean surges. I think Lemmings would be proud.
I suggested to a friend of mine that next time, the police direct everyone coming into town to watch the disaster to the parking lot two feet above the beach. Anyone stupid enough to come to watch a tsunami, and park at sea level to watch it, deserves to be thinned from the herd. My friend thought it was a good idea and was going to bring it up at the next town council meeting. I hope he does. Wouldn't that be a fun headline in the Portland paper?
Kris thinks the reason people came streaming over here was that we're Americans and we can't be touched. Hell, we're from the good old U. S. of A. and some strange sounding word like Tsunami can't hurt us. It wouldn't dare. It only happens in them strange other countries.
I just think it's Lemmings. Mother nature wanting to thin the herd.
Either reason, I will give the town officials the fact that the false tsumani alarm was an interesting "test" here on the coast. Rusted alarms with no money to fix them, no radio coverage because the stations were afraid they might get sued if they paniced people, people sitting in cars in traffic jams on the highway at sea level instead of simply walking to high ground. (I guess they thought their cars were going to save them.) Thousands and thousands of people who jammed all the coast highways trying to get here so that they could die, and those who were already here who went down to the beach to watch the big waves. It was all a test of the brains and clear thinking of the American public.
And it worked.
Now, the Oregon coast knows how to really make some money. Set up tsunami watch stands along the beach and charge for admission, start gambling pools as to when the big waves will first roll in, do a Tsumami Park Rides and Adventure Land where people can enjoy the thrills of being swept under water while they wait for the big one to happen. Hell, the Massive Earthquake Ride (nicknamed 9.2) should draw the Californians by the millions.
As long as there's a chance of a few of those big waves coming and killing thousands and destroying the towns, there won't be an empty hotel room. Just get their money before the waves sweep them away. That will be the trick.
Cheers
Dean
Chasing deer 6/21/05
It almost always starts with our little black and white cat named Willow standing at a window looking really pissed off.
Kris, without looking out the window, will say something along the lines of "Damned deer."
That's the way it started tonight. We were having dinner and watching the news when suddenly Willow goes on the alert near the window by Kris's piano.
"Damned deer," Kris said and out the sliding back door she went. As she closed the door, I heard her say to someone or something in the back yard. "You're not invited up here."
Then I see one of the better writers on the planet running like a mad woman across the grass, waving her arms and growling really loud. Now, such a sight might send terror into the hearts of newer writers, but I doubt the deer standing there was really impressed.
A moment later they both vanished around the end of the house.
Willow, the cat, looked satisfied that she had done her job.
I went to the kitchen window to look out toward the cars on the other side of the house and a few moments later a bounding deer lept past the window, then stopped in the driveway. Next came Kris, still running, still waving her arms and growling really loud.
The deer looked confused. There was a crazy woman between it and its favorite dinner, roses. Finally, the deer seemed to sigh and head down the driveway with my dear wife chasing it.
Thus is the dinner entertainment of two writers.
Last year, Kris slapped the butt of one deer who had learned to ignore her and keep eating. I'm not sure if the deer has ever gotten over that. I never saw that deer again. The one this year is young and new and obviously didn't get the word through the deer grapevine that there's a growling, slapping crazy-human who lives near those tasty roses.
I personally am waiting for the showdown when the deer suddenly realizes that Kris is all show and growling and no real threat. At least, no threat to deer. Put a sloppy manuscript in front of Kris and you have a different story. But I doubt seriously that this deer has any desire to learn to write. There may be more deer slapping before the end of the summer.
Cheers
Dean
Update time I suppose. I just got home from the casino. Playing in a no-limit poker game there. Great fun and great money as well. It was a good night, if you know what I mean.
Kris went off to a classical music concert with some internationally known musicians. We sure are matched as a couple, huh?
House remodeling of the workshop house is going great. Decisions on the flooring are oak floor in the dining and kitchen, linolium in the laundry that looks like tile, and all new carpeting on the stairs, living room, and hallways. All the rest of the carpet is still good and can be cleaned back to new shape.
(For those of you who haven't been to a workshop in the big house, sorry to be boring. But after you've spent a week or two or three in the big place, people feel sort of sad I'm changing it. Trust me, it needed it.
Downstairs is done and just waiting for the big screen television and a little trim. Kris is starting to put books in order, something she has wanted to do for years with all the thousands of books in the place. Downstairs will be all mystery. North wing science fiction, upstairs Pulphouse and romance novels. My current (but soon to be old office) will be a non-fiction library.
Closets are about half done. I moved all the books in the one room upstairs, and all the cars have moved as well. After I finish the closets, I start on the painting of the living room (all those books are coming out, as well as the shelves), the kitchen and dining. Plus rebuilding the closet that I had to knock out when the fridge was too big. Then in mid-July the carpet and flooring come in and we then move in, which will take a weekend to shift everything around.
Then another week or so to get my office moved and everything in its place. Then I go back to work writing.
On that front, I have killed the romance novel I finished. It's good, but Kris and I both think that with a little more work, I can turn it into a very large bestseller type product, so next spring I will do that. (I have three other big books to write first.)
So now, I've typed enough to get tired, so off to bed. A good night of cards tonight. Fun and good money. Can't beat that.
Cheers
Dean
Well, as usual, here at the beach, the tourists think no one actually lives here, so they come, explode things until all hours of the night, and have a great time. There have to be upwards of a hundred thousand people here in the area at the moment. The seven thousand of us who live here are pretty much closed down and only going out if we have to.
I'm working on the house, although slowly. I have to do one thing in one room, to get to another thing in another room, which then allows me to do something I wanted to do in a third room. Very slow and frustrating. But progress is being made. A new chop saw will help this next week as I get into more actual construction.
Over in Eugene last week as well, for two days, helping my friend with the remodeling of his house. It's going to feel great to have this done, my office moved, and back to something easy like writing a novel.
Besides a showdown with a racoon that wouldn't back off from some cat food, there have been no more wild animal stories. I think the deer have decided the humans up here are just too damn nuts to bother with. And with all the explosions on the beach, the cats are cowering in the center of the house. And Galley is just going nuts, with me doing construction and the explosions outside, he's really tense. He's going to be very glad when this summer is over.
Right now it's 1:07 and someone on the beach is firing off a long stream of fireworks. This town sounds like a war zone. Never understood the attraction to risking life and fingers, setting off expensive toys, and watching them explode, only to do it again. It seems that if I'm going to spend that kind of money, I want something to show for it.
Speaking of things to show, found a great marble collection again this week, right here in town this time. And someone dumped a very expensive Hot Wheels collection of about 200 plus cars in Goodwill this week and I got that as well. Yes, the sound you hear is Kris sighing heavily. If I don't start selling some things on E-Bay pretty soon, we're going to have to buy yet another neighbor's house to hold this stuff.
Nothing much else to report. Won some money playing poker, lost some money playing poker, bought stuff, hammered nails, did a bunch of driving, and got some of my e-mail caught up. Now, if they'd just stop exploding things outside, this will be a great week.
Cheers
Dean
You know how it sounded when the US was bombing Bagdad? Well, welcome to the beach on the 4th of July.
An explosion a few minutes ago shook windows. It sounds like firefights are going on all around us. We went to Newport to take a drive and get out of the main time of it, but are now back, it's 11:30, and things are still going strong.
I still don't understand the point of spending hundreds of bucks on fireworks to blow them up. You don't get anything for it but hearing problems and a few burns, and that's if you're lucky. Someone over in the forum area want to explain this holiday to me and why we pretend we are in a war zone?
Of course, I know, this town, as a tourist town, is more than likely a little more than most towns on the quality and quantity of explosions. Right now, the smoke is so thick outside, you can hardly see from house to house.
Our poor cats. They are all so stressed, they're going to lose their hair and go bald if this keeps up much longer. Not a pretty sight.
Ahh, well, off to see if Galley is all right. Later...
Dean
Too much deathWell, been a very strange week. My stepfather is doing all right at the moment over in Idaho, but two people I worked with died in the last few days. And these two point out to me a very real contrast in people and belief systems.
Byron Priess was killed at 52 in a car accident. I worked for him for a number of short stories and five novels. He tried to work with me during the Pulphouse days as well, and we had many lunches over the 20 years. I don't have anything nice to say about Byron, and since he's dead, I won't say anything more about him.
The other man who died this Monday was Leo Eckley. None of you would know Leo. About 15 years ago, Kris and I hired his wife, Pam, to help us with cleaning chores. For the next 15 years, Pam showed up every Tuesday, never missing a day, never late. When we moved over here to the coast, Pam continued to come, making the four hour round-trip drive. Her husband, Leo, came with her and soon we hired him to work with me on the vast fixer-upper we had bought. He was basically retired, didn't really need the money, but said yes to my offer of work.
Every Tuesday afternoon for ten years, Leo and I worked side-by-side, sometimes arguing over things I wanted done, often with him shaking his head at me, but I quickly learned to listen to every word he said, listen to his advice. He was almost twenty years older than I am, yet he could out-work me and out-lift me right up until about a month ago when the cancer finally knocked him to his back. For those of you who came to the workshop house, all those bedrooms, all the landscaping, almost all of the shelves were done on Tuesday afternoon with me and Leo working together.
He chain-smoked to his last day, and loved his scotch and beer. He loved his guns, his kids, his hunting. Last year, when a young friend of his accidently shot a second elk (two elk with one shot, didn't see the second elk behind the first, and they only had one tag), Leo took the blame, went to court on the fine and ticket, and paid for everything. When I asked him why he had done that this last spring, since he hadn't been the one to fire the shot, he said, "Hell, I'm not going to be hunting much longer. The kid has his entire life. He doesn't need this on his record. It was an accident."
Leo never went hunting again because he hated the thought of breaking any rule of hunting and the accident bothered him so much.
He had a work ethic I learned from and admired, he had a heart of gold, and he was loved right up to the end by his family and friends. His life was a success by any measure, and it was a real honest pleasure to work with and know the man.
See you on the other side, Leo.
Dean
Construction continues
Well, with two weeks until the kitchen flooring and new carpet for the living room arrive, the construction is moving along slowly. I'm hoping to have all construction done by next Wednesday, then start into the mudding and painting part of the chore. But it's going to be a long weekend if I make that happen.
I have moved all the tools and set up what was called the "Safe Room" into a tool room. The "Digest Room" is no longer, and all the digests are down the glass hall in what was the "Magazine Room." The area that was the "Digest Room" will hold my comics.
I finished the downstairs, tearing out the walls, moving everything, and Kris is madly working her evenings down there getting all the mystery hardbacks, science fiction hardbacks, and mystery paperbacks into order. She's loving it, since it will be the first time we've ever had them in any order.
My big chair is now upstairs in what will become my new office. Dan Duval and I managed to shove it, drag it, tug it, and finally just force it up those stairs. I also have some of the white boards up there. My new office will have a wall twenty feet long of nothing but white boards for plotting. With the big chair from the workshop room facing the boards. A perfect office for plotting big books.
For those of you who remember, I was working on a romance novel way back this spring. Well, it got within a few pages of being done and I hated it, had a talk with Kris and she helped me understand that I wasn't writing the book I wanted to write. I had crammed this thing down into a romance and hoped to write a few more in the same series, when the book clearly wanted to be a big book, with big scope, and big themes. So this winter I will start over on that book, working to write a big book bestseller instead of a romance with the topic.
Poker Boy, the satire of the gambling industry that I wrote, is still out on publisher's desks, getting some interesting comments. I have a poker boy story coming out sometime around now in an anthology.
Anyway, no writing, just construction and poker.
And that's the update.
Cheers
Dean
Well, so much is happening now, I can barely keep up. Five different people showed up here today to do one thing or another, plus Kris and I went out to dinner with a poker professional friend of mine and his wonderful family. Yesterday was the same way, except dinner was with Chris and Steve York and Dan Duval and his wonderful parents.
Great food and company, far too much construction.
Later this morning I have to be up because an auction service is coming to take a truck load of stuff away, including four beds and boxsprings, bunk beds that were in our house, a rocking chair, two desks, two oak benches, and a ton of other stuff. Then I do more sheetrocking until I head to play in a poker tournament, them back for an evening of more construction.
I will be done sometime soon, I keep promising myself. One week until carpet and new flooring arrive. The clock is ticking, the paint not drying fast enough.
Later...
Dean
Construction hurtsOkay, about a week ago the contractors of all sorts started saying they would be here around 8 in the morning. Now, for a freelance writer, eight in the morning is not an hour I see often. It hurts being awake that early. (I can hear the snorts from here from those of you who think that's late.)
Flooring is half in, will be finished tomorrow. Those of you who have been to the workshop house will no longer recognize it. If my hands and back and legs hold out a little longer, I'll have my office moved in about a week and be back to work writing. And I'll have all the new areas in the big house trimmed out in oak (I'm doing all that) and Kris and I will be done with the painting. We were painting until past midnight in the living room (old workshop room) last night, and spent this evening painting the laundry room. Tomorrow we finish a second coat in the laundry and fire on the kitchen and dining. I got all the walls completed and all the mudding and texturing done, just didn't make the painting, so we'll have to be real careful on the new oak flooring.
My hands are so beat up after all the construction the past three weeks that I could barely hold my cards this afternoon in a poker tournament. Felt with the guys doing the flooring, I deserved a break.
Poor Galihad. He's been trapped in different rooms during all this, and is now locked downstairs for the night since there are carpet tack strips all around the living room and hallway. If we make our planned move-in date, Gallihad will meet the big three who are living with us now. They are moving in with him. That's going to be interesting, to say the least.
The ugly bannister that we used to put manuscripts on in the workshop room is long gone, and I got disgusted at the closet near the fridge in the kitchen that used to hold garbage cans and I tore out the old door and just filled in the space with a stud wall and sheetrock. You can't even tell there was a closet there now and it looks a ton better as well.
Only two beds left in the big house now, one downstairs in the room at the end of the hall (wine room), and one in our new bedroom, which used to hold Kris's bear collection. What had been the bedroom right off the workshop room is now a file room. I hired three stong backs to carry all the books from that main room over to Kris's office, and all the files from our file room over to the new file room. Let me tell you, it is shocking to an old guy like me to see a young kid just pick up a loaded file cabinet and carry it away without help. Hell, I could barely move the thing.
So, the construction and moving continues. So far people have taken three full large trailers full of garbage and stuff out of here. I hope to survive the physical labor, but this eight in the morning stuff has got to end soon.
And I am down exactly 27 pounds from my weight that I started this entire thing with last spring. Another 15 or so to go. One good thing about working this hard in physical labor. Kris is laughing at me because I haven't bothered to get new pants yet, and even with two new holes punched in my belt, half the time I'm looking like a teenager with the drooping pants look. My pants actually fell to my knees while I was carrying a couple of boxes last night, but luckily no one was around to see. Ugly sight. Ugly.
To bed to get up far, far too early.
Cheers
Dean
Still alive, but it doesn't feel that way. Two days working on the trim along the new floor, around the windows and doors, plus finishing up a dozen other details in the construction. Still another few days to go on the trim. I can flat admit it now, I am not cut out for this construction stuff. Writing fiction on a bad day is better than this. Period.
Friday we moved Kris's baby grand piano from one house to the other. Stressed her so much, she had to leave. Me and three big guys and a skinny guy who knew exactly what he was doing. We got it moved over the yard, over the gravel, up the steps, over the new flooring and into what had been the workshop room without a problem. It cost me a lot of money to hire the guys to do it, but worth every penny.
Lunch with all the writers in the area today was interesting. I didn't even say anything about the past week from hell because all the stories the others had made this past week seem like fun. One nasty car wreck, another back from RWA Nationals, another with a story about power problems and dead deer. Good writing discussion around the eight person table as well. The RWA Nationals handout book has some great stuff in it. I'm looking forward to listening to all the tapes from the conference. I try to listen to most of them every year.
Another few weeks and I should be doing these entries with more regular pacing again. Two more weeks of constuction and moving and it should be almost done. I am counting down the days.
Later
Dean
Stuff getting moved backWell, I'm almost done with putting in all the new trim, getting shelves back into place in the living room, moving rooms full of furnature back into place.
Went to a local auction tonight as well. Bid on a bunch of stuff, bought nothing. But these local auctions are always entertaining and if I can, I never miss one. Interesting tonight in that they were also selling some of the stuff I gave to them. Two oak benches went for $40 bucks each, and one desk from one room went for $35.00, which I think was $2 more than I paid for it four years ago. Bob, the guy who runs the auction took an entire truck load of stuff out of here. I think I need to give him another truck load full.
Three or four more days and we'll give the old cat-blending a try. Gallahad will meet the "big three" from this house when they suddenly move in with him. If nothing else, it ought to be interesting.
Well, I should have my new book, "All Eve's Hallows" in my hands in a week or so. I'm planning on being up at NASFIC in Seattle with a copy. It should hit the stands in September. And the cover I have posted in the news section is not the cover that will end up on the book. I think that's two covers ago. But I like the one that they ended up with. Actually, I liked them all so far, so no problem from me, as if I would actually say anything anyway. I learned in my Pulphouse years that doing book covers is an art best left up to the folks who know how to do covers that sell books.
I also just learned that the thriller I rushed to get done in December, turned in in January, ahead of deadline because they wanted it really fast because they wanted it to come out really fast, will now be a fall 2006 book. This business can drive you crazy at times. But I have to admit, it's going to feel great getting back to writing again in a few weeks.
Until then, I have more construction to do. And a ton of things to move around.
Later.
Dean
The Day of the Cat
Finally, just today, Kris and I moved back into the big house. Not everything is done, but we are sleeping there tonight.
And we have blended the cats. The big three from here have moved in with Gallahad. Gallahad is doing great. He and Willow are actually becoming friends between hissing.
Ezri Dax is hiding, but coming out at times to explore.
Thor is in complete shock and hiding in my comic book room.
It ought to be an interesting first night in the house.
But tomorrow I start rebuilding my office. Yeah!!! Soon I will be back to writing.
Must go fall down now. Just wanted to give a quick update. Once all this is over, I'll be back here a lot more.
Cheers
Dean
Well, there's been a reason I haven't been around here except to quickly stop by at the forum area. The construction and moving continues.
Yes, this is neverending. But Kris and I have decided that on Friday, at 5 pm, we are calling it over and going out for dinner. Will it be actually done? No. Not even close. But wow, what a long way these places have come.
For example, today, two men and a truck full of new windows appeared very early and twelve hours later the big house had new windows replacing those old ones no one could open. I had spent the two days before tearing out the old trim and casing around the windows and getting ready for today. Then, between helping them, I got new casing boards and trim and got it stained so that tomorrow I can cut it and get it all into place.
And that is what it seems every day has been for weeks and weeks and weeks. One thing right after another. But Friday night, in my new office, I should be back at writing again. Finally.
And I will spend a bunch more time around here after NASFIC.
So, anyone who might be in Seattle over Labor Day at the convention, say hi. I have no idea what panels I will be on, and after dealing with these folks for just a tiny bit, I'm remembering why I don't go to many sf conventions any more. But it should be fun and I'm looking forward to seeing some old friends.
I will also have copies of my new novel in my hands to show around, and it will be on the shelves. This is a fun one in a series I hope to write more in.
Also, I should have news this next week about the upcoming workshops and the new dates, format and costs for 2006. Stay tuned here and watch the OregonCoastWritersWorkshops web site for details.
But on Friday night, I go back to work on the big poker thriller. Yeah!!!
Now, I need sleep.
Cheers
Dean
Anyone heading to Nasfic, say hi if you see me. I think they have me on a few panels, and I'm signing my new novel, "All Eve's Hallows."
We declared the official end of construction at Friday at 5 pm and I have spent the weekend putting together my office, getting ready to write after the convention.
I'm going to be doing a bunch of writing here as well starting in mid-September, with all sorts of new articles and other things.
Also, the workshops are firing back up, and the web site for the listings is coming into shape. If you are interested in any of the professional workshops being held here on the Oregon Coast, go to www.oregoncoastwritersworkshops.com. Schedules should be up for the first half the rest of this year and the first half of 2006.
So, off to the convention. Back shortly.
Cheers
Dean
Well, Kris and I are home a day or so early from the convention. We had fun, saw lots of people we hadn't seen for a long time, and met new people.
I haven't been to a convention for almost six years and now I remember why. It's just not worth the time and energy. This convention, of all the ones I have been to over my 30 years in sf, was one of the worst in many ways, at least for pros. Panels were totally disorganized. And the program books said different things, at different times. And the pocket program was just wrong most of the time. For example, I was scheduled to be on two panels at the same time, and I was the moderator of both. (I figured I was real popular or something.) Luckily, they had forgot to announce one of the panels anywhere, in any program or book, to anyone but the panelists, so I ended up at the second one.
One panel actually had all four panelist who belonged there, and people who came to listen to that topic. One of the panelists asked everyone if they were in the right panel, the one they wanted to see and everyone nodded. Then he checked the panelists to make sure we were all where we supposed to be, then announced that getting the panelists and the audience together was a first for the convention. Everyone cheered. It was that bad, I kid you not.
And the site was awful as well. Kris had broken a bone in the top of her foot while out running last week and the doctor had told her to stay off of it, but we decided to go anyway, figuring she could just sit in one area and let the convention move around her. Well, that wasn't possible because the Hilton hotel had an area and a very small restaurant and bar, then a three hundred yard long hallway, very narrow, to get to a breezeway, where you had to then go across the street, up a flight of stairs, then up three floors through a parking garage to a convention center. Even that would have been all right, but they then went and put half of the paneling in another hotel a half mile away. I kid you not.
I had two panels, one ending in the convention center, one starting a half mile away in ten minutes. Yeah, that was going to happen.
And our hotel room. Okay, granted, Kris and I are spoiled with this great home, but we do expect hotel rooms to have decent plumbing if there hasn't been a hurricane. This one didn't, and to make matters worse, we got everyone else's wake-up calls for the first two mornings until I finally did a tap dance on the manager's head. Try having the phone ring every fifteen minutes from seven am onward. Starts off your day really well, let me tell you.
So we lasted three days and gave up and came home. Now, when we mention NASFic, we call it SuckyCon. It really did suck.
But, all that said, we did have some great conversations with old and new friends. Dinner the first night with Mary Jo Putney, Jo Beverley, Michael Cassett, and Mike Moscoe. Great time, and pretty decent steak for me. The other meals were just as fun. The last day, as we were leaving, I gave my badge to Loren Coleman. He was only planning on staying a few more hours as well, but I have no idea what trouble he got me into after I left.
So, now, after six years of not going, I have ventured back out to a convention. I think it's going to take a few years for me to forget Suckycon enough to try it again.
It's good to be home.
Cheers
Dean
Well, except for a day trip here and there, I'm home for the winter and getting into my office again, back to writing, back to all the things I need to finish around here.
I had actually planned on being out of town until next week, visiting my mother and stepfather and helping out over in Boise, but car issues forced me home early. I don't want to talk about it. Nothing interesting. Now I'm looking ahead and back to work.
I basically (after all the remodeling and moving around) have an entire building as my office. And I'm spreading out and going to use it all. (I know, tough life. But someone has to live here, staring out at the ocean.)
And on this web site, I'm going to keep answering questions over in the forum area, I'm going to start doing regular topics for the front page, and I'll be bloging more often about writing among other things.
The workshops are coming back up and anyone interested can find information at www.oregoncoastwritersworkshops.com. I'll be talking a lot about those here as well as they happen. Working with a bunch of young professional writers is always fun, always a learning experience, and now that the workshops are not in our home, they should be less stressful as well. First one up is a workshop I've been looking foward to for some time. Genre Structure, which is basically a weekend going over the basic structures of novels and how that structure alters from genre to genre. That's going to be a real challenging workshop because there are so many gray areas and sub-genres that will be fun to explore.
And in October, I'll be reading for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds #9. I'm looking forward to that, and already have a couple of pretty good-sized boxes of manuscripts sitting upstairs waiting beside my big reading chair. I'll talk about that reading process a lot here as well as it goes on.
So, anyway, I'm home, and powering back to work. It sort of feels strange, since I was supposed to be in Boise right now. But I'll take the positive side of things when I can get it. I'm bummed I couldn't make the trip, glad to be home and working.
Later,
Dean
A day in the lifeI got thinking about what I did today and realized that my life is very, very strange, in many ways. More than likely normal for a fiction writer, but still strange. Or at least, that's how it felt when I was thinking how little I got done today, which forced me to go back over the day, which forced me to realize I had actually done a lot, but I didn't notice. (Actually, I never think I do anything in a day if I don't produce pages. That's typical of most writers I know.)
So, just for the heck of it, let me go back over the last twelve hours, since that's all the time I've been out of bed so far today.
Crawled out at the crack of 11:15 and made it to my office before noon, which isn't bad for me. I tend to stay up very late, and that habit is getting worse instead of better.
Got e-mail, then worked downstairs in my office, (yes, I have a two-story office) still getting things into place from the move. I'm setting up an area for things I want to sell on E-bay and it has finally come together just today with the final addition of nine feet of shelving, six shelves high. I also have two desks in that area and a nine foot long antique display case with drawers under the glass. It's a way cool area.
Then I went to get the mail with Kris. (No rejections, no acceptances, no bills. A ho-hum day at the PO Box for a writer.) Back to work in my office area again, both on-line and working on shelving for an hour until Kris came to get me for lunch. During that hour I managed to install a new printer/scanner on the computer and got it running.
After lunch, I headed for a few antique stores and found a really nice collection of marbles which cost me $80. I found a really cool jar of jewelry in Goodwill for $7.95 and a Pepsi Collector's Glass with Porky Pig on it from 1976 for $1.99. On the way home I stopped at Robert's Bookstore and got three great books, one on collecting buttons and two other collector books for reference.
Home by 5:30 to watch the news. Anyone who isn't watching the news these days is really in denial. It is stunning how awful this mess in the south is, and how awful our dear government did at first. Kris and I live in Earthquake and sunami areas, but our house is above the big wave historical line. After watching civilization in New Orleans go from normal to the dark ages in three days, we are adding to and changing some of our preperations here. It's been a real eye-opener, that's for sure.
Started to read the button collecting book, then Kris called me for dinner. I do the grocery shopping, she does a bunch of the cooking unless she is on deadline. She says the meals I cook are too heavy. (Steak is never too heavy in my opinion.) After dinner I finished reading the button collecting book, then went back to my office and quickly looked through part of a jar of buttons I had found at a sale. Great stuff in there, and will end up putting some buttons up on E-bay at some point.
I then did more on-line work on the workshops, then started the process of learning my new Olympus digital camera. Fried my brain after about an hour and decided to heck with it for the night. Better to learn new electronics during the daylight hours. Not sure why, but it sounded good when I quit tonight.
I then went upstairs and worked in my writing office for a few hours, getting the last details of that together from the move, including putting up some SNW covers on the wall. I have all the novel covers I can claim publicly around the top of the walls of my writing office. Almost three walls, and in a few more books I'll be starting down the 4th wall. I have no idea what I'm going to do when I reach that cover of my first novel.
Then I went into the marble room (yes, I have a room just for marbles) and sorted the marble collection I had bought, looking some of them up in books. I was right, some of them were great, including a perfect Akro Agate Oxblood swirl, a dozen corkscrews, and a few Popeyes. Nothing handmade or German, but still some good 200 plus pre-1940 marbles, almost all in great shape. Well worth the $80.00 I paid.
Then I went back into the writing part of my office to keep working there. I should be actually writing again on Monday and I'll start posting some of the progress here on that as well.
Now back down here to the on-line computer to do this. Still hours to go in my day. Not sure what's next. More than likely whatever catches my eye at this point. Maybe I'll sort through that jar of jewelry I bought today.
But for now, I've killed 30 minutes typing this. It's a very strange life I have. And why the hell I think anyone would care about it is beyond me. But this new computer world we live in allows me to put this silliness in a place where people can read it.
Now, back to something else. Later...
Dean
Keith DeCandido put on his blog exactly what I wanted to say here, so let me just copy and paste what he said here. Then I'll talk more about this.
<<<< "Lee Goldberg and Max Allan Collins have started an organization called the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers -- IAMTW. It's something that should've been done a long time ago: an organization specifically for those of us who write tie-ins, an organization to serve our needs regardless of which genre we work in, and without the disdain that organizations like SFWA tend to heap upon us folks in the salt mines.
The web site has gone online. It has some useful articles that grew out of conversations on the tie-in writers Yahoo!Group where this organization was conceived, some of which I've contributed to, and to which I plan to contribute more.
Anyhow, if you're a tie-in writer, or want to be one, I recommend it.">>>
And so do I. The web site is www.IAMTW.org and I too have contributed a few small thoughts to a few of the topics on the site.
Now, for some of you who know me, you'll know this is sort of stunning. I hate writer's organizations. No, let me put that in a way I actually feel. I HATE them. But for the moment, Lee and Max are trying something that needed to be done a long time ago. They are working very hard at this, and I admire that drive. So I decided after watching for a while, to actually join.
Am I going to continue to write tie-in and media work? Sure, if the right project comes along. But not to the exclusion anymore of my own work. For years, I had myself so buried under book contracts that I never wrote original work unless it happened along in a media contract, like the Frakes novel. And the Tenth Planet series was original, considering we worked from a one paragraph idea. Not going to do that anymore. My original novels come first these days. If a media tie-in project comes up and fits in, and I love the world, I'll do it.
So check out the web site, read the articles and what the organization is about, and keep it in mind if you get to the point you have sold something in the media world. Anything, actually. Even a story to me in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will get you a membership in the group.
I'll keep you posted if I think the organization is going to be worthwhile, since I'm about to join. It has a lot of big name writers in it so far. If the focus stays on education, it might turn out to be a real powerful organization in modern publishing, since it crosses all genres. Only time will tell.
Now, back to my writing. I'm actually getting back up and running after the long summer of construction. Right now I'm working on a really fun book about golf that an editor wanted from me. A sort-of non-fiction book, with a lot of goofy things that could be fiction in it painted as golf advice. Yes, it sounds strange. We shall see if it actually sells, but I'm writing it and having a blast.
Cheers,
Dean
More on Media WritersI put some of this entry over on the forum side, as an answer to some posts there. But for those of you who don't go over to the forum, I thought I'd repeat some of it here.
The new organization of media writers I mentioned in the previous blog is just getting off the ground, and I do mean just. Within the last month, actually. A baby by all standards just learning to crawl. But in these early days, they are doing some things right. They are asking opinions of top writers and actually listening, and the two people who are starting this are top writers as well. This feels a lot like the early days of Romance Writers and Sisters in Crime, both great organizations.
One thing that they are doing correctly in my opinion is education right off the bat and as a mission statement. And there is no area of fiction writing that needs education like tie-in writing. It is the most misunderstood area in all of publishing, and yet one of the largest. The Media Writers web site is going to keep posting all sorts of business articles from well-published writers. It's a start. From what I understand, there will be more education in different ways later.
The media writers site might be a site worth marking on your favorites list and going to read regularly just for the free knowledge. I know I love free knowledge. Almost more than the stuff I have to pay for by hard knocks or workshop fees.
One of the articles posted there is about tie-in writers as hacks. I basically said in my small part of the article that the entire topic only comes up among writers. And again, sadly, I have been proven right. The silliness about what other writers think of tie-in writers reared its ugly head again the past few days, or so I have been told by friends. One writer on a writer list (I am not on) called tie-in writers hacks for wanting to make money with writing they enjoyed doing. This writer even went on to say that most fiction writers couldn't make a living unless they lowered their standards to write tie-in work. Sigh. So wrong. So stupid in so many ways.
This attitude never, ever comes from readers or fans. Just other, usually career-dead writers. So when this comes up, I tell any writer I talk to to just ignore the doomsayers and write what he or she enjoys. There is no greater satisfaction than doing that.
Actually, I have actively encouraged every new writer I meet to write their own work, in their own universes. And the workshops we do here for younger professional writers only focus on original work. The reason for this is simple, actually. Tie-in writing is much, much harder, and takes more control over more skills than writing your own stuff does. It's why so many new writers who can write a story for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds have gone on to writing careers in just the short eight years the contest has been in existence. It's because writing tie-in stories or novels is harder.
Write your own stuff first. But for heaven's sake, ignore the stupidity of other writers who try to tell you what you should or shouldn't write. If a tie-in market comes open and you love the universe, write for it if you can.
One important side note. You can make a lot more money writing your own books in your own worlds. A lot more. It's why I've been working over the past three years to move from so many tie-in books to my own work that I control completely. More money.
So, whe it's all said and done, this new media writers organization just might turn out to be a great one, an organization that will help educate and gets its members jobs as well. So watch their site regularly, and if you have the publications to join, pay the money and join. You might be very, very surprised what you get in return.
Of course, I may be wrong. Remember, I hate writers organizations. Trust me, if this one goes sour, I will be shouting that right here. But for the moment, the people in charge are great people, with great intentions, and great ideas, who are actively working hard to make this happen in a good way. They are getting my support just for that.
Cheers
Dean
Over in the forum section, there's a new topic on pen names that I've listed the ten major reasons writers have pen names. If you're a writer, or are thinking about writing, go read that forum section. Some good questions, and I hope my answers clear a little of the air about pen names. If not, ask questions.
Today, here in our small town, Kris and I went to a great book signing that the local bookstore put on as part of a city celebration. Seven authors total, and a lot of people, sitting out in a courtyard. I signed a bunch of books, both my newest All Eve's Hallows, and some old ones, including a copy of my very first novel. And I signed five or six different names.
It was a great signing, and I don't say that lightly because I don't much care for book signings. This one was a good one and worth it I hope for the bookstore.
I honestly don't know all the pen names I have written under off the top of my head. And many of them, as per contract, I can't say out in public for a number of reasons. Those books under those hidden names are still mine and I know it, my agent knows it, the editor and publisher knows it. That's enough for me. (No one asked me to sign one today.
But the names I can list here are pretty simple. And I'm sure I will forget a few of them. But let me try just for the record.
Sandy Schofield. A name Kris and I came up with for our first Trek novel in the Deep Space Nine universe. Sandy is a family name for Kris and Schofield is a family name for me. Sandy has published five or six novels now, I think. A good career going, actually. At some point, Sandy will come out with a new, original novel I'm sure.
Kathryn Wesley. Again Kris and I writing together. This name came about when we got hired to do the Hallmark Hall of Fame novelization of the television mini-series "The Tenth Kingdom." We did a few more Hallmark books under that name and a few other novelizations since. Maybe five or six under that name total. Not sure. This is just a name we'll use, and I doubt we'll do any original novels under it.
Edward Taft. My family name Edward and Taft is a subsection of the town we live in, just like Kris's Nelscott name is a subsection of the town. Edward has one novel out and a number of novellas. The name came about when I was hired to do an original novel for the first book of a new line of books with a married couple erotic slant, so I picked that pen name. Edward sold three other novels, but the company went under before they could see print. Edward might just come back at some point.
D.W. Smith. I have a book coming out sometime in 2006 with that name on it. More on that later as the time gets closer.
Wesley Dean. Sold a bunch of short stories and was convinced by Damon Knight to never use the name again one fine Saturday when Damon went around for an entire six hours calling me Wes. No offence to Wes's out there, but I'm just not a Wes. I learned right there to pick a pen name I wouldn't mind being called.
Lisa Dean. A romance writer. No books published yet. Time will tell if this name holds.
Dean Edwards. Working on a big thriller. Time will tell. But this name will stick around on other projects if the thriller doesn't sell.
And come to think about it, I sold my very first short story back in 1975 under the name D. W. Wood, because I thought there were too many Smiths. The editor convinced me I was being silly and we switched the name before the story came out. Never used that name since and won't. Horrid pen name.
Under Dean Wesley Smith, my real name, I've done a lot of different books, some of them have their covers here on this site. And my newest original novel under that name is out and getting pretty nice reviews. All Eve's Hallows.
That's it for public consumption of pen names at the moment, unless I remember another public one.
Maybe, at some point, I'll try to figure out who all I have "collaborated with" on novels and stories. The Frakes novel is a collaboration I suppose. So is the Eric Katoni Voyager novel. But at one point I told someone I had collaborated with the entire world and lately I've come to believe it. A topic for another weekend night.
Now back to a golf book that I hope to hell is laugh-out-loud funny in places. Time will tell on that one as well.
Cheers
Dean
Here are some basic numbers about publishing, from Publisher's Weekly, an article by Andrew Grabois, with facts from studies done by the Association of American Publishers and other organizations.
-- 20 years ago any single Fortune 500 company generated more revenue than the entire book industry.
--- In 2004, estimated total book publishing revenues were $23.7 billion.
--- That amount is 152% more than the total box office gross for all movies in theatrical release.
--- That amount is 76% more than all dollars generated by AM and FM radio stations.
--- That amount is 60% more than the net dollar value of all recorded music shipments and North American concert revenues.
--- That amount is 39% more than the entire video and portable gaming industry.
--- Since 1990, publishers have released more than a million new books.
--- A typical chain bookstore today stocks some 250,000 titles, more than all books published in the U.S. between 1920 and 1950.
--- 11,000 new publishers started up last year alone.
--- 195,000 new books were sent into the market last year alone.
And all trends are upward.
Too bad no one reads anymore, huh?
Cheers
Dean
Right now, I have my fingers crossed that those on the Texas coast are going to make it through this night and tomorrow.
My week, compared to those folks and the problems they are facing, was a dream. All I did was go over to Eugene, tape an entire house's windows, and then put one coat of paint on that house. All by myself. I am not a professional painter, and I am not young. Climbing up and down a ladder a few hundred times that day darned near killed me. I just did this to help a friend save his house from a long winter.
Then, back for one day of rest before driving Kris up to Portland yesterday (Thursday) for a great awards dinner and talk. Her Nelscott book, Stone Cribs, won an award for the best mystery in 2005 written by a Pacific Northwest author, which includes part of Canada and four states. A really fun honor and well-deserved in my opinion. She gave a great talk.
We made it home by one in the morning and today I have been dragging. It's now after nine at night and I'm just headed up to my office to get back on the book I'm working on.
One thing I did do, after years of thinking and talking about it, was put some items up for sale on E-Bay. Actually, I did it over in Eugene the night before painting the house, with a friend there helping. We just put up some small digest comics as test items for me to learn on. One actually has a bid on it. Amazing.
So now I'm taking pictures of different things and tomorrow I will start listing even more on my own. I'm going to be putting up at different times lots of marbles, comics, books, toys, and buttons, among other things. It's really fun for me, after all these years of collecting, to finally get to clearing out some of the duplicates and things I don't want. Anyone interested in watching this, my E-Bay handle is Pokerhat.
And yes, I will put up some extra Pulphouse books we have around here as I get to them. (I had someone at the awards dinner in Portland ask me that. I'm always amazed that after twelve years, people still remember Pulphouse.)
I sure hope those along the Gulf Coast make it through this storm tonight, and that our stupid government can get something right at least once and get in there quicker this time to help those in trouble.
Here on the west coast, Kris and I have taken the lessons of New Orleans and are getting even more prepared than we were before all this happened down there. This area could have a 9 point quake at any moment, and big, huge waves off the Pacific. Our home is above any historical wave line, so unless the entire area land mass drops, we should be all right there. But the quake will mess us up, and since it will also hit Portland, Salem, Eugene, and all the Washington cities, no help will be coming our way for weeks, if that.
Reading Poppy Z. Brites blog about her cats and what they went through made us start stalking in even more pet food.
We don't need to prepare for evacuation as much as those along the Southern and Eastern coast do, since our big problems will have no warnings. But we are preparing anyway. The first year we lived here, we had a huge storm come up the coast with over 110 mph winds. We knew it was coming and rode it out in our new home. Not something I think I would do again. However, it's the earthquake stuff we're working on getting ready for. We have emergency supplies stashed in different places, medical stuff, a ton of water, and cat supplies.
Now, if the experts are right and the chance of a major 9 earthquake here is only 20% in the next fifty years, we'll be fine. 80% shot that it won't happen. If I were a gambler, I might even bet on those odds.
Wait, I am, with everything I own and my life.
Good luck Gulf Coast, folks.
E-BayWell, after years and years of talking about it, but doing nothing, I finally got off the dime and started listing things for sale on E-Bay.
Everyone says it's easy. Well, yes and no. It's easy once you have done it. And E-bay is great at leading you like a horse to water through all the steps.
But... It damn near exploded my brain getting up to speed to do this.
First off, we bought a new scanner/copier, so I had to install and learn all of those programs, them pactice scanning and getting pictures to the right size, both in shape and in pixels and K's. Fine. Got that, got so I could scan like a pro.
Then I turned to the brand new digital camera, with a macro for really close up shots. Now, understand, I'm a pretty decent photographer with my 35 mm camera. Because of my art and architecture background, I can frame a shot pretty well and get the best looks on things.
But a digital camera is another matter. It took me most of a night to just learn the camera, let alone how to load it onto an IBM computer and then find the pictures after they were loaded. (I'm a Mac person, but am using an IBM for all internet.)
Fine, found the pictures, but now what? Oh, yeah, now I had to learn an entire new computer program to make the pictures look better, or how they are supposed to look, not counting adjusting the camera for dpi and pixel size, and then learning how to do the same in the photo program.
I still haven't gotten to E-Bay at this point.
So off to a friend's house who has a scanner. I took some digest-sized DC comics and we scanned them in there, then he sat me down at his computer and walked me, step-by-step through the listing process for those six comic book listings. (Ended up selling two of them, which is stunning because I got more for the two than I paid for a stack of twenty. Okay, hook one on the E-Bay addiction.)
I left there that night feeling I could do this.
Well, one problem. I'm a fiction writer and I have no clue how to write sales or ad copy, which is what you need on both the titles in E-Bay and the descriptions of the product. My first ten books I put up (scanned because that was easier and the camera still scared me) went up fairly quickly. And I was pretty darned proud of myself until my friend e-mailed me a screaming letter saying basically, "Well, you made sure you were going to sell those for as little as possible, if at all."
I did what?
So, again, my friend, put me through the lesson cycle and I now am getting better at descriptions.
So,