THING IN THE WOODS First-Ish Draft is Done

This announcement is a week or so late, but here it comes. The first draft of my "teen Lovecraftian horror novel" The Thing In The Woods is finished.

The story began when I was hanging around the Borders in East Cobb when I was in high school or college. I was reading a Call of Cthulhu role-playing game manual and came across the concept of one of those isolated small towns where Lovecraft depicted evil things afoot being suburbanized. The phrase they used was "supernatural Love Canal." What began as a short story turned into a novel (in terms of concept, as I actually hadn't written very much), a novel I neglected to focus on other projects like Battle for the Wastelands.

However, I eventually realized this was another project I could write fairly quickly, since I wouldn't need to do as much research as I would for other projects. As of last March, only 1,517 words had been written. By the time the summer writing challenge with my friends Nick and Lauren began, only 6,000 words had been written. Now it's 46,000 words long. I call it a "first-ish" draft because I typically write one or two chapters at a time, print and revise them, submit to writing group(s), and then revise based on their comment. The last two chapters, which one of my groups will consider on 12/29, would technically be at the "second draft" (or a "Cherie Priest first draft" because she considers an unrevised-but-just-finished project to be "draft zero"), but earlier parts will have been revised twice or more.

Then things will get a bit tricky. Many agents will not represent and many publishers will not publish a work that's this short. There are some presses that will, but oftentimes they will only put them out as eBooks, not as print books. Although the eBook market is rapidly growing and threatens to obliterate mass-market paperbacks, no print editions mean no book signings. That's a very good way to generate publicity and thus further book sales (I've covered a bunch in my years as a journalist--see here, here, here, and most recently on page 10 here). If book signings are not an option, I'm not sure how I'd do my bit to promote the book.

Fortunately, I've got ideas for at least three more scenes I can add that flesh out the book's female lead (she's a relative newcomer to the story and I fear it shows) and provide one last POV for the novel's (human) villain that's thematically fitting. Hopefully I can get it to 50,000 words. Then I can bring the completed novel before my other writing group (and some interested friends) and once I revise based on their opinion, it'll be ready to be shopped around. I'm thinking this will be done by the end of first quarter 2014, although graduate school could be a problem.

Fingers crossed. Wish me luck.

EDIT 8/20/17: The Thing in the Woods has since been sold to a small press and is now available on Amazon. Enjoy!

The Next Big Thing...

I found the idea of "The Next Big Thing" on the blog belonging to Christopher Nuttall and got reminded to do it when I saw Delilah S. Dawson post it herself. So here goes...

The Next Big Thing: Battle for the Wastelands

Where Did The Idea Come From: When I was in high school (probably around 2000), I read the first of Stephen King's Dark Tower novels and wanted to write something similar. The world of the Dark Tower is a Western-type world, albeit more feudal (there's a knightly caste called "gunslingers" who control most of the world's guns), but it's strongly implied this is a post-apocalyptic situation--the world has "moved on." Over the years, the story has mutated drastically--the technology level has shifted forward to the Civil War era, the general milieu has become rather steampunk, the characters have last names instead of "Name of Place," and I've included some deeper themes like race in a fantasy context, the merits of decentralized vs. centralized power, and whether or not leaders who are less despotic but more prone to racism are worse than tyrants who don't care about such things.

What Genre Does Your Book Fall Under: I used to call it "a post-apocalyptic steampunk Western," but my friend James R. Tuck said it would be better-described as "a post-apocalyptic military fantasy with steampunk elements." I think "post-apocalyptic military fantasy with Western and steampunk elements" will do nicely, even if it doesn't come off the tongue well.

What Actors Would You Choose to Play Your Characters In a Movie Rendition: The only thought I've really put into it is that the character Catalina Merrill could be played by Danielle De Luca. In fact, I used De Luca as the model for Catalina, since she was a relative latecomer to the story. Although the tyrant Grendel's general look was inspired by Clancy Brown's portrayal of the Kurgan in the film Highlander, Grendel's face and hair don't really match up with his. And Clancy Brown is too old now anyway.

What is the One-Sentence Synopsis of Your Book: A teen becomes a soldier in a rebellion against a scheming tyrant, who has problems of his own.

Will Your Book Be Self-Published Or Represented By An Agent: Preferably an agent. I've sent it out to one publisher, since I met an editor there at DragonCon 2012, but I'm considering tweaking it a bit more and sending it out to agents. If it gets rejected from the publisher, I've already moved onto the next step, and if they accept it, that's a way to get an agent. I'll keep working my way down the chain to small presses, some of which are following me on Twitter. Self-publishing is an absolute last resort.

How Long Did It Take You To Write The First Draft of Your Manuscript: Too long. I had parts of it written down many years ago, but decided to focus on actually finishing this one (as opposed to spreading my efforts thin on various projects) probably sometime in 2009. That didn't stop me from finishing some lengthy fan-fiction projects I'd already started, which helped delay the first draft until sometime in early 2012. It's 104,000 words, so it has more in common with an epic fantasy than a genre novel in terms of length.

What Other Books Would You Compare This Story To Within Your Genre: When I submitted it, my cover letter compared to Cherie Priest's Clockwork Century and L.E. Modesitt Jr's Corean Chronicles novels. It has more in common with the latter than the former, considering they're both secondary-world fantasy with guns, but it does have airships and other steampunk stuff like Priest's work. Also like Priest's work, it's a big enough world to set a lot of stories. I have partial or complete novellas centered around lesser characters and eight planned novels--a seven-novel cycle focusing on protagonist Andrew Sutter's war against Grendel, with an eighth novel ending Andrew's story a la Beowulf.

Who Or What Inspired You To Write The Book: Stephen King, as I've said above. Beowulf has had a strong influence on my overall plan for the series. I'm sure the Corean Chronicles have influenced things, at least subconsciously, since I read the books when I was in high school and college and working on the earliest version of this. A Song of Ice and Fire has crept in as well, especially the emphasis on the impact of war on ordinary people and moral grayness. In fact, I've compared Grendel to Tywin Lannister (an evil man who nevertheless has understandable motives, governs effectively, and generally maintains the peace) and Roose Bolton (expend the soldiers of subordinates who don't trust and husband your own, plus the "quiet land, quiet people" thing).

What Else About Your Book Might Pique The Reader's Interest: The battle sequences are Civil War in style, if airships were available for close air support and elite units were armed with 20th Century repeating rifles. The way I explore certain themes will either intrigue or offend you. And considering the amount of time I've worked on this and the number of eyes that have been on it, this isn't going to be a "bad first novel."

What I'm Working On Right Now...

Current Projects

*Battle for the Wastelands

*Escape from the Wastelands

*Untitled Superhero Project

*"Coil Gun" Screenplay

Battle for the Wastelands has been finished for some time.  I've been tinkering with it, revising it based on suggestions from my friends Nick, Korsgaard, and others, and awaiting the final meeting of my writing group where we go over the whole novel.  That's slated for later this week.  Once I make the revisions based on those comments, I'll start sending it out to agents I've identified by reading the Acknowledgements sections of books like Dead Iron by Devon Monk, the Clockwork Century novels by Cherie Priest, and others.  Hopefully I won't have many significant changes to make, especially since I took out all the phonetic spelling of dialect ("'em" for "them," "somethin'" for "something," etc) at the behest of pretty much all of my writer friends.

I've also been working on Escape from the Wastelands, the second book in a planned series of eight.  Right now I'm done with the first three chapters and a significant block of text toward the end (it was originally the second half of one book) and need to finish Chapter Four.  A lot of the chapter is written already--I just need to write a battle scene in the middle.  When I brought Chapter Three before my Lawrenceville writing group, the group wanted more human interaction (including a sense of humor) among the characters, so I've been working on that.  The character Will has been established as kind of a jerk, so I figured someone not concerned about the feelings of others would be interested in pranks.  I haven't found the chance to work that into Battle, but I was able to plug that into Escape.

I've also gotten started on a new project based on how Abaddon Books has opened up for novella submissions.  I'm not familiar with any of Abaddon Books' existing worlds and they are open for new worlds, so I decided to start on a new project.  Not going to go into a lot of detail at the moment, but the premise involves supervillains relocating their operations to the Third World after the rich countries develop a significant deterrent to their behavior.  The deadline to contribute is in September.  I've written the prologue and plotted out the rest of the book.  If Abaddon Books isn't interested or if the story gets too long, this one might be a candidate for self-publishing.

Finally, I got a lot of work done on my screenplay adaptation of my short story "Coil Gun," which appears in Pressure Suite: Digital Science Fiction #3.  At DragonCon 2011, S.M. Stirling said short stories make good movie scripts and books make good miniseries, and I decided to test that theory out.  I wrote 15 script pages today, bringing it up to 62 pages total.  The problem is, a page equals a minute of film time.  A good script is 90-120 pages long.  Not sure how I'm going to add 28 pages.  Maybe I can describe some of the space battles in more detail rather than just saying spacecraft are fighting.

How to Serenade a Cat While Drunk...

Here's a really funny video I found on Facebook courtesy of Cherie Priest, author of Boneshaker and Dreadnought.  It's so goofy it's absurd.



I hope you all enjoy it.  Here's the original link.

Book Review: "Boneshaker" (SPOILERS)

I finished reading Cherie Priest's novel Boneshaker the other evening.  Having taken a bicycle jaunt to return it to the library this morning, time for my review.  Spoilers contained therein.

Starting off, I do like the concepts and overall aesthetic of steampunk.  Furthermore, it's in my interest that steampunk novels like Boneshaker do well, since my unfinished novel Escape from the Wastelands (and its planned sequels) and an idea I have for a series of novels featuring air pirates all fit into the steampunk genre.  I also picked out the book because I remember reading that it featured a strong female protagonist and I figured I could use help with that.

If by "strong," they mean "resourceful," "decisive," and "not taking crap," protagonist Briar Wilkes works well.  In Boneshaker, her teenage son Eziekel, seeking to prove that his father Leviticus Blue did not build his gigantic drilling machine to rob Seattle's banks, ventures into the walled-off city of Seattle (walled off because the titular machine instead released poison gas that turned people into zombies) in search of proof.  Briar, upon discovering her son is gone, proceeds to beat one of his druggie friends into revealing where he'd went, then persuades the crew of a disreputable airship to drop her off over the city so she can find him.  When confronted by a local mad scientist who has some people convinced he's really her husband, she proceeds to chew him out rather than quiver in fear of him.

Points for that.  Briar is a good female protagonist who is not a simpering wimp, nor is she the "Jane Kickass" overreaction.

However, the book is a little slow-moving, especially the beginning.  I was willing to push through this, but one of the writing lessons I've learned is to not have slow beginnings, lest the reader become bored and put the book back on the shelf.  I also did not like how it turned out Briar had killed her husband upon finding him in the basement with bags of money stolen from the banks after his initial test run and he gave her the choice between leaving with him on the Boneshaker or dying of the poison gas along with the rest of Seattle.  She knew this the entire time, but it did not show up in her interior monologue when facing off Dr. Minnercht, the mad scientist who was using her husband's inventions, even though this would be an entirely appropriate time for her to think that if not bring it up in conversation.

The alternate-history aspect of the book is also somewhat shaky.  Apparently Britain's intervention to break the Union blockade and to support the Confederacy with soldiers, the construction of the trans-continental railroad through the South, and the continued survival of Stonewall Jackson have led to the Civil War lasting 18 years.  Apparently Priest has got a timeline written somewhere--she's writing other books set in the "Clockwork Century" universe and there are references to an independent Republic of Texas discovering oil as being a contributing factor to the timeline--but a war lasting decades would exhaust everyone's economy and manpower and would provoke internal problems for all sides (draft riots in the North, slave risings in the South, industrial unrest in Britain).

It would have been better in terms of plausibility if the South won the Civil War with British help, there was a "steampunk weapons arms race" between the US and the British/Confederacy, and the novel took place during a second war over a decade later.

Still, considering how few steampunk books there actually are and how, despite there being older books that can be classified this way, the modern steampunk subculture is in its infancy, I think Boneshaker is a worthy effort.

6 out of 10.

I think a Boneshaker movie would actually be better than the book, since pages of text would translate to seconds of film, remedying the slowness issues.  Exciting action sequences (battles between air pirates, zombie fights, the residents of Seattle storming Minnercht's lair, etc) would thus take up a greater proportion and the movie would be more fun to watch.