Month: May 2012 (page 3 of 5)

May 16, 2012 / 26 Comments

Recipe: Faux Pho

This isn’t a recipe for pho.

I mean, it is? But it isn’t.

Shut up.

Pho, as you may know, is a very popular Vietnamese noodle soup. It’s popular because it’s fucking awesome and will blow your face open with comfort and deliciousness. True, one would not normally associate “face blown open” with “comfort,” but hey, life is some complex shit.

You’re just going to have to make peace with your gods on this one.

Pho is generally not pronounced as you suspect — “FOE” — but rather like you gave up in the middle of this already short word — “FUH.” (It comes originally from the French, “pot-au-feu,” which translated means “face-exploding-fire-soup-comfort.”) Though, I guess regional variants in Vietnam have it pronounced differently. For our mileage, you can call it whatever the hell you want. Foe. Fuh. Foo. Puh-hoe. Dave.

I don’t care.

Because this isn’t really authentic pho. This is the “I don’t have a lot of goddamn time to buy beef knuckle and make my own beef broth nor do I feel like roasting and grinding my own spice mixture because I have kids and a dog and two jobs and who else is going to make all this meth and oh god the kids have killed and eaten another mailman” version. Right? Right.

We’re just trying to get you into the realm of a passable faux-pho.

Here’s what you’re going to do. Put your oven on, mmm, really high. Like, 450. You could even use your broiler or the grill for this if you’re so inclined. You’re going to roast some vegetables. No, you’re not going to put them up on stage and make crass jokes about them. Different kind of roast. This is the “char on high heat” roast because roasting brings out flavor blah blah bloo bloo.

Onto a cookie sheet goes: one sliced sweet onion, one sliced knob (heh, “knob”) of ginger, and one chopped carrot. Put them in the 450 oven for… ~20 minutes, make sure it’s starting to get dark and delicious.

Now, into a pot goes: four cups of veggie stock. Homemade if you prefer, or just buy the low-sodium stuff from the store. Best you care to procure, I’d say. You could also use beef stock for this if that makes your nipples stand at attention. Hell, use whatever liquid you want. This is a very customizable recipe, so — dirty mop water? Bear urine? Yak stock? Dead mailman gall? Whatever you want. Go nuts.

Put some spices all up in there. What spices, you ask? Coriander seed. Star anise. Clove. Cinnamon. You can put them in whole if you so choose (and if you have them whole, you could go against what I said earlier and just roast ’em to bring out their flavor YOU TRAITOR), but let’s assume you’re not some cocky gourmet and you have the “I bought this in a jar and it’s all powdery and snortable” version. (Sidenote: do not snort or try to eat teaspoon of cinnamon. Yes, ha ha ha, what a YouTube video that will make when your lungs are on fire and you’re dying in an emergency room, dum-dum.)

You won’t need a lot of these, because these spices go a long way.

So, my thoroughly unscientific measurements:

One generous pinch of each. Into the broth, not your nose. Weirdo.

Oh, and if you really wanna short-cut this: just use a tablespoon of Chinese five-spice.

Also: add a single bay leaf to the stock. Why? Because fuck you, that’s why.

Finally, throw into the pot a tablespoon of fish sauce. Fish sauce is totally grody on its own — it smells like corpse-feet. We once accidentally broke a bottle of fish-sauce on the front stoop of our rented condo the day we were moving out? I bet it still smells like someone died there. But! Once it merges with a dish, fish sauce becomes umami-licious.

Now: into the pot go your charred onion, ginger, and carrot. Set to a boil, then simmer for one half-hour. But don’t just stand there and stare into its turbid depths. THAT WAY MADNESS LIES. Next thing you know you’ll be clad in only a pair of stainy tighty-whities on the side of a highway, one Jack Russell terrier under each arm, your nostrils crusted with coriander dust.

Sidenote: I sometimes like to add chopped mushroom in there, too.

Here, then, is a point of some contention — you would usually soak some rice noodles at the same time, later adding them to the soup. In my experience you can just soak them right in the soup. Drop the dry noodles right in there. They’ll absorb deliciousness. “Absorb deliciousness” sounds like the mandate of an insane kitchen robot. “ABSORB DELICIOUSNESS,” the Dalek Sous Chef screams!

I dunno. Stop looking at me.

It’s time to talk meat.

Once again, you have some customization options here.

You could use stew beef (which is the fake name I travel under — go to any hotel and ask them if “Stewart Beef” is staying there, and then I’ll pop out of a nearby potted plant and tranq you in the face). But for me, stew beef is too tough and going to need time to really break down.

You could use ground beef — sirloin or chuck — and in a pinch, this actually works fine. IF YOU’RE A LOSER. (No, seriously, it actually does work regardless of your losery status. I’ve done it.)

You could use short ribs, which will take a lot of preparation before hand to braise those short ribs so they’re not leathery bricks of sad-making dead cow.

You could freeze a steak (flank, sirloin, or any preferred cut) for 10 minutes then bring it out and very thinly slice it against the grain. I’m fond of this, but your mileage may vary.

You could also consider: mailman meat. POSTAL WORKER FATBACK. Mmmm.

You could use a combination of all of these. Whatever tickles your taint.

You want to cook the meat in the broth for as long as it takes for the meat to become delicious. The raw steak should be added just before serving (or those at the table could add it themselves).

Now comes the thing that really helps to seal the faux pho deal.

The condiments.

You will want some combination of the following available: mint leaves, cilantro leaves, basil leaves, parsley leaves, sliced green onion, bean sprouts, garlic, sriracha sauce, hoisin sauce, lime slices.

You want to know what I do? Of course you do. Just nod and stop trying to bite through the gag.

I take the following:

Buncha cilantro. Buncha basil. Bit of raw garlic.

I put them into a blender or food processor with:

A half-cup of olive oil. And the juice of one lime.

Then I blend it into a chimichurri-esque slurry.

Then I add that to each bowl of soup with a generous splurch of sriracha sauce. (Or, you could try what for me has begun to replace sriracha: gochujiang sauce. Which I love so much I wanna slather it on my body.)

Then I eat.

And my face explodes with comfort and delight.

May 15, 2012 / 44 Comments

25 Ways To Earn Your Audience

I keep noodling on the idea of how you earn — not build, necessarily, but earn — your audience as a creative type. I’m not sure I have all (or any of) the answers, but here’s a good shot at it. Note that this list isn’t meant to be a bunch of checkboxes — you don’t need to do all of these (or even any of them, beyond the first). It’s just meant to offer thoughts and options. Use what you like. Discard the rest.

1. It’s All About The Story

Normally this is the type of thing I’d put as the capstone #25 entry — “Oh, duh, by the way, none of this matters if you write a real turd-bomb of a book” — but it’s too important to put last because for all I know you people will fall asleep around #14. So, let’s deal with it here and now: your best and most noble path to audience-earning is by having something awesome (or many awesome somethings) to give them. Tell the best story you can tell. Above all the social media posturing and bullshit brand-building and stabs at outreach, you need a great “thing” (book, movie, comic, whatever) to be the core of your authorial ecosystem. Tell a great story. Achieve optimal awesomeness. Build audience on the back of your skill and talent and devotion. You can ignore everything else on this list. Do not ignore this one.

2. Swift Cellular Division

The days of writing One Single Thing every year and standing on that single thing as if it were a mighty marble pedestal are long gone. (And, if you ask me, have been gone for a lot longer than everybody says — unless, of course, you’re a bestselling author.) Nowadays, it pays to write a lot. Spackle shut the gaps in your resume. Bridge any chasm in your schedule. This doesn’t mean write badly. It doesn’t mean “churn out endless strings of talentless sputum.” It just means to be generative. ABW: Always Be Writing. Take more shots at the goal for greater likelihood of hitting the goal. One book is less likely to find an audience than three. Put that coffee down. Coffee is for generative penmonkeys only. (Homework: read this article.)

3. Painting With Shotguns

The power of creative diversity will serve you well. The audience doesn’t come to you. You go to the audience. “One book is less likely to find an audience than three?” Correction: “One book is less likely to find an audience than two books, a comic, a blog, a short story collection, a porn movie, various napkin doodles, a celebrity chef trading card set, and hip anonymous graffiti.” Joss Whedon didn’t just write Buffy. He wrote films. And comics. And a webseries. The guy is all over the map. Diversity in nature helps a species survive. So too will it help the tribe of storytellers survive.

4. Sharing Is Caring, Or Some Bullshit Like That

Make your work easy to share. This is triply true for newer storytellers: don’t hide your work behind a wall. Make sure your work is widely available. Don’t make it difficult to pass around. I have little doubt that there’s a strategy where making your story a truly rare bird can serve you — scarcity suggests value and mystery, after all — but the smart play for creative types just setting out is to get your work into as many hands as possible with as little trouble as you can offer. This is true for veteran storytellers, too. Comedian Louis C.K. made it very fucking easy to get his new comedy special on the web. And that served him well both financially and in terms of earning him new audience while rewarding the existing audience.

5. Value At Multiple Tiers

Your nascent audience doesn’t want to have to take out a home equity loan to try your untested work. If you’re a new author and your first book comes out and the e-book is $12.99, well, good luck to you. More to the point: you’re probably fucking fucked (you poor fucker). Now, that might not be in your control, so here’s what you do: have multiple expressions of your awesomeness available at a variety of value tiers. Have something free. Have something out there for a buck or three. Make sure folks can sample your work and still support you should they choose to do so. Be like the drug dealer: first taste is cheap or free, baby.

6. Build The Sandbox

I think I hate the “sandbox” metaphor because, I gotta say, I did not like sandboxes as a kid. What, like I want gritty sand in my asscrack? Hey, great, my Yoda figure’s limbs don’t move well now because he’s got sand in his plastic armpits. Oh, look, Tootsie roll! *nom nom nom* OH GOD CATSHIT. Anyway, as a metaphor I suppose it holds up, so let’s stick with it — these days the audience has a greater percentage of prime movers and participants, people who want to be more involved, who don’t want to just be baby birds waiting for Momma Bird to regurgitate new content into their open gullets. They want some participation in… well, something. The story. The characters. The creation. The author. Needn’t be all of the above, but something is better than nothing. Let them in. Let them invest emotionally and intellectually.

7. Sometimes It’s Just About Not Discouraging

Even if you don’t want to encourage — damn sure don’t discourage. Authors who bristle against fan-fiction are authors who don’t appreciate how wonderful it is to have an active and engaged audience.

8. Be You

(Ignore the fact that rhymes with “pee yoo!”) The best audience isn’t just an audience that exists around a single work but rather, an ecosystem that connects to the creator. The audience that hangs with a creator will follow said creator from work to work. That means who you are as a storyteller matters — this is not to suggest that you need to be the center of a cult of personality but rather the humble creator of many things. You’re the hub of your creative life, with spokes leading to many creative expressions rather than just one. Put yourself out there. And be you. Be authentic. Don’t just be a “creator.” You’re not a marketing mouthpiece. You’re a human. For all the good and the bad.

9. Um, Unless “You” Are A “Total Dick”

If you’re a total asshole, then it might be wise to sew that shut and instead just… make up a persona. Or have a computer do it for you. Maybe an AI? Hell, hire a person to be the public non-asshole face-of-you. This is probably bad advice because I can name a handful of total dickhole writers who do really well. They are true to themselves and are, in fact, totally authentic fuckheads who happen to sell a lot of books. I’m just trying to prevent there from being more jerks and jackasses in the world, thanks. Is that so wrong?

10. Be A Fountain, Not A Drain

Put differently: be a fountain, not a drain. Take all that negative shit, throw it in a picnic basket, duct tape it shut and feed it to a starving bear. The world is home to enough rank and rancid human flatulence that you don’t need to add to it. An audience is likely to respond to negativity in a negative way — is that who you want to be? Fuck that. Go positive. Talk about the things you love rather than the things you hate. Voicing your insecurities and fears and sorrows is okay from time to time but soon as it starts to overwhelm, you’re just going to start bumming people out. Who wants to engage with a sad, simpering panda?

11. Have Opinions

Some authors are all afraid of having opinions. That by saying they vote Democrat or go to Church every Sunday or they prefer Carolina barbecue over Texas barbecue that they’ll collapse their delicate little author platform (which is clearly made of fragile bird bones) and end up alienating the audience. I urinate on the head of that idea. Your audience is way tougher than you think. And if they’re willing to abandon you because you’re going to vote for Ron Paul or didn’t like The Avengers then they were probably going to ditch you anyway.Opinions are fine. They make you human. Why sterilize yourself and your beliefs? The key to having an opinion is obeying Wheaton’s Law: don’t be a dick and a corollary, Wendig’s Tenet, don’t have and/or offer crazy-person opinions. “I think all the Jews should be sent to the moon” is not a sane position, so maybe you just want to button that one up and go away.

12. The Passion Of The Penmonkey

To add onto that last point: reveal your passion to the world. Be passionate about your story. About other stories. About… well, whatever the fuck it is that makes your grapefruit squirt. That energy is infectious. And don’t you want to infect the audience with your own special brand of syphil… uhhh, “passion?”

13. Engagement and Interaction

Very simply: talk to people. Social media — though I’m starting to hate that phrase and I think we should call it something like the “digital conversation matrix” or maybe just “THE CYBERORGY” (all caps necessary) — is a great place in which to be you and interact with folks and be more than just a mouthpiece for your work. The audience wants to feel connected to you. Like with those freaky tentacular hair-braids in Avatar. Get out there. Hang out. Be you. Interact. Engage. Get sloppy in the CYBERORGY.

14. Head’s Up: Social Media Is Not Your Priority

Special attention must be made: social media is a side dish, it is not your main burrito. See #1 on this list.

15. Fuck The Numbers

Just as I exhort you to be a human being and not an author carved out of marble, I suggest you look at all those with whom you interact on social media as people, too. They’re not resources. They’re not a number. They’re not “followers” — yes, fine, they might be called that, but (excepting a few camouflaged spam-bots hell-bent on dissecting your life and, one day, your actual body) they’re people. Sure, as you gaze out over an audience the heads and faces start to blur together in as if in a a pointillist painting, but remember that the audience is made up of people. AND PEOPLE ARE DELICIOUS. Uhh. I mean, people are really cool.

16. Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For Help

An earnest plea to your existing audience to help you find and earn new audience would not go remiss, provided you’re not a total shit-cock about it.

17. Share Knowledge

As you learn things about the process, share them with others. Free exchange of information is awesome — if I may toot the horn of one of my publishers, this is why Evil Hat gets a lot of love and continues to find new fans. Evil Hat shares all the data they can manage. It’s insightful and compelling and human. This doesn’t mean being a pedant about it — “Here are my experiences” is a lot different than “YOU’RE WRONG AND HERE’S WHY, LACKWIT.” It just means being open and honest. It means being useful. We like useful people. We like folks who will walk out onto the ice floe naked and report back with their findings. “Day Three: Testicles have crawled up inside my trachea. Seals have eaten my feet. Send cookies.”

18. Shake Hands, Kiss Babies

The real world is awesome. They call it “meatspace” because you can go out there and eat meat. You can even hunt and kill your own sources of meat. And, while out there, you are encouraged to share meat with other human beings. Kiss some hands and shake some babies. Face-to-face interaction is probably worth more than that you get over social media. And, if someone responds poorly to your physical presence, kill them. They then become meat which you may eat and share with other humans. Mmm. Long pork.

19. Embrace Feedback

Reviews, critiques, commentary, conversation — feedback is good even when it’s bad. When it’s bad, all you have to do is ignore or. Or politely say, “I’ll consider that!” and in the privacy of your own home print out the feedback and urinate on it with wanton disregard. When it’s good, it’s fucking stellar, and connects you all the more deeply to the audience. The audience is now a part of your feedback loop, like or or not.

20. Do Set Boundaries

That feedback loop is not absolute. I’m not a strong believer in creative integrity as an indestructible, indefatigable “thing” — but, I recognize that being a single-minded creator requires some ego. Further, the reality is that once something is “out there” it is what it is and there ain’t poop-squat you can do about it. So, you have to know when to turn off comments or back away from social media or just set personal and unspoken boundaries for yourself. Just because we interact with our audience doesn’t mean we are subject to their stompy boots and groping hands. I mean, unless you’re into that sort of thing.

21. Be Generous With Time And Tale

Put yourself and your work out there. To reviewers. To interviewers. To that hobo on the street who will run up to bike messengers and beat them about the head and neck with your book.

22. Foster Other Creative Types

You’re not a lone author batting back the tides with his magnum opus novel. You’re not the only creator who’s ever wanted to write a movie or ink a comic book. Other creative types are out there. And you love them. They’re why you do what you do — I’m a writer because other writers have given me so much and shown me the way. Like that time Stephen King and I went fishing down at the creek and he taught me how to bait a hook and then afterward we made out under the willow tree and we both fought a giant spider in the sewers. Or something. I may be misremembering. Point is, you have peers in the creative realm and you’re also audience yourself — so, forge the community foster other creators. Don’t just bring people to your tent. Point them to other tents, too.

23. Don’t Wrassle Gators If You’re Not A Good Gator Wrassler

What I mean is, don’t try to be something you’re not. If you’re not good in public, for fuck’s sake, don’t go out in public. If writing guest blogs is not your thing… well, maybe don’t write a guest blog. Again, this isn’t a list where you need to check off every box. These are just options. Avoid those that plunge you into a churning pool of discomfort. You don’t want to lose audience more audience than you earn.

24. Take Your Time

Earning your audience won’t happen overnight. You don’t plant a single seed and expect to see a lush garden grown up by morning. This takes time and work and patience and, y’know, you earn the attention of other fine humans one set of eyeballs at a time. It’s why you put yourself out there again and again.

25. Have Fun, For Fuck’s Sake

If it feels like what you’re doing is some kind of onerous, odious chore, I’m going to tune out. OMG A THOUSAND SISYPHEAN MISERIES, you cry, wailing and gnashing your teeth with every grumpy tweet and every miserably-written short story. Hey. Relax. Enjoy yourself. This isn’t supposed to be torture. You should have fun for two reasons: first, because, people can sense when you’re just phoning it in or worse, when you’re just a mope. Second, because fun is fun. Do you hate fun? Why? I like writing. I like putting my work out there. I like interacting with people in person and online. If you don’t like these things? Don’t do them! Why would you punish yourself like that? It’s like watching you stand there stuffing your face full of candy you hate. “Mmmphh these Swedish fish are so gross grrpphmble oh god stupid gross Necco wafers mmmphhchewchewchew I hate myself so bad right now.” Don’t put yourself through that. And don’t put your (potential) audience through that, either.

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May 14, 2012 / 51 Comments

Bing Bing Bing Bing Bang, Popcorn!

And, boom. Publishers Weekly broke the news:

I’m pleased to announce that my Heartland young adult “cornpunk” trilogy — starting with the book known presently as POPCORN — will be published by Amazon Children’s Publishing. From the article:

Marilyn Brigham at Amazon’s Children’s Publishing bought world rights, for six figures at auction, to Chuck Wendig’s Heartland trilogy. Agent Stacia Decker of the Donald Maass Literary Agency brokered the deal. The series follows a 17-year-old who discovers a secret garden full of rare vegetables in a world where the government only allows the growing of genetically modified corn.

I wrote the first draft of this book last year just after my son was born, and thanks to the mighty wisdom of my agent (and fellow Team Decker author Joelle Charbonneau) was able to cycle it through a couple very robust edits. And, around one year later, it went out on submission and — after tangoing with a few publishers — ended up in very good hands. I’m very excited, totally over the moon, dizzy with disbelief.

I’m told that grown men don’t squee.

But I think it’s time we did.

EEEEEEEEE.

*swoons*

*falls down cellar steps, breaks ankle*

Full piece here at Publisher’s Weekly.

Other News

Hey, remember Double Dead? Remember that cantankerous old vampire, Coburn — the one vampire in a land of zombies? Mmmyeah, well, he’s back. The e-novella sequel to that book has arrived. It’s called Bad Blood and you can find it at Amazon or B&N, baby. Ketamine cult! Angry children! Lots of zombies! The hills of San Francisco! Alcatraz! And maybe, just maybe, more vampires. Check it, won’t you?

And I feel compelled to again mention Dinocalypse Now — two-fisted jetpack kilt-wearing-ape Atlantean magic psychic dinosaur fun! Click here to pre-order print or to get the e-book (which is available now).

I guest over at the Vodka O’ Clock podcast where I say inappropriate things about the Easter Bunny.

Blackbirds is now rocking 48 very kind reviews at Amazon, and also has garnered another bevy of lovely reviews scattered like knucklebones across the web (links at the bottom of this post). Also, keep your eyes out later this week — I’ll be giving away three copies of the book (print) in a little contest. If you have read the book and feel so inclined to leave another review somewhere, I’d be very gracious. So gracious, in fact, that I will take you for a ride to the moon in my unicorn Lamborghini which is made of dodo bones and smells like cupcakes baked in an angel’s mind and oh hey I think the acid is kicking in.

More Blackbirds Reviews!

http://www.theeloquentpage.co.uk/2012/05/01/blackbirds-by-chuck-wendig/

http://www.spinetinglermag.com/2012/04/24/blackbirds-by-chuck-wendig-review/

http://notjustnonsense.blogspot.com/2012/05/review-blackbirds-by-chuck-wendig.html

http://amberkatze.blogspot.com/2012/05/65-blackbirds-by-chuck-wendig.html

http://waggingthefox.blogspot.com/2012/05/rabid-reads-blackbirds-by-chuck-wendig.html

http://lilyelement.blogspot.com/2012/05/review-blackbirds.html

http://allthingsurbanfantasy.blogspot.com/2012/05/review-blackbirds-by-chuck-wendig.html

http://a-fantastical-librarian.blogspot.com/2012/05/chuck-wendig-blackbirds.html

http://eyewryte.blogspot.com/2012/05/blackbirds-miriam-black-1-by-chuck.html

http://www.blueinkalchemy.com/2012/05/10/book-review-blackbirds/

http://whirlingnerdish.blogspot.com/2012/05/review-blackbirds-by-chuck-wendig.html

http://muchlovedbooks.blogspot.com/2012/05/review-blackbirds-by-chuck-wendig.html

http://thefoundingfields.com/2012/05/miriam-black-blackbirds-chuck-wending-book-review-bane-kings/

http://www.elizabethawhite.com/2012/05/09/blackbirds-by-chuck-wendig/

http://bwmathews.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/book-review-blackbirds-by-chuck-wendig-angry-robot-books/

http://popculturenerd.com/2012/05/08/book-review-blackbirds-by-chuck-wendig

http://bunnycates.com/reading/2012/05/blackbirds-by-chuck-wendig/

http://scotspec.blogspot.com/2012/05/book-review-blackbirds-by-chuck-wendig.html

http://www.thenovelblog.com/tnbReviews.aspx?id=1435

http://www.erikreads.com/Book%20Reviews/2012/05/03/blackbirds-by-chuck-wendig/

http://damosays.com/journal/review-blackbirds-by-chuck-wendig/

May 14, 2012 / 37 Comments

On The Privilege Of Being A Writer

My mother’s father was a coal miner. (Died of black lung.)

My father’s father was a farmer. Sun up to sun down.

My father worked 4AM to 4PM in a chemical-rich pigment factory.

My mother cleaned houses. Day in, day out, back-breaking work.

I am a writer. I sit in a fairly comfy office chair put words down on screens and on paper and I tell stories. And outside my window is a pretty forest and lots of sunlight and my walls are a bright and optimistic green. I have a terrier who sometimes warms my feet (or tries to kill me with her intestinal miasma).

It’s pretty cushy business, this writing gig.

Now, here’s the thing. I don’t think that what I do is not work. It is hard work. It is real work. Stories matter. Art matters. What we do is a craft and it takes some mad combination of skill and talent to both survive and thrive, and I’m not going to take that away from myself or any other hardworking ass-busting wordsmith out there. It can be mentally exhausting. It can leave me worn and tattered and gutted like a rotten stump. Some days the words run free like rabbits. Others are like pulling teeth out of a rabid dog.

Just the same, I think it’s important to find a little perspective. A little… appreciation. Because being a writer — being allowed to earn a living doing what I do — is obscenely delightful, unwholesome in its privilege. I’m a lucky fuck. I’m lucky I don’t have to wreck my body and break my bones and come home dirty and pissed off and ruined doing something I don’t want to do. I’m not saying that there’s not room for complaints. Or room for improvement or examination or a place to talk about our struggles and our fears. But I think from time to time it’s a good idea to stop and sit back and say, “At least I’m not castrating llamas or mopping up the floor at a porn store.” I think it’s a good idea sometimes to say, “This thing we do, it’s pretty great and we’re pretty lucky to be able to do it.” Because it is. And we are.

May 11, 2012 / 36 Comments

Flash Fiction Challenge: Over The Top Pulp Insanity

Last week’s challenge: “Must Love Dinosaurs.”

So, Dinocalypse Now is out and so too is the e-novella sequel to Double Dead (called Bad Blood, featuring the continuing adventures of Coburn the vampire in a zombiepocalypse), I feel like I want to stick in the realm of “over the top pulp” — between the two books I throw at the audience everything from jet-packs to kilted gorilla professors to Ketamine cults to zombie-hunting orphans to shark-men to… well, the list goes on. That further calls to mind those images online where a robot Abe Lincoln is shooting fire out of his eyes at a giant city-destroying brain-in-a-jar, and the sky is filled with F-16s fighting pterodactyls and…

Well, you get the point.

Crazy pulp shiznit.

Because it’s awesome.

So!

Your task this week is to go apeshit.

To go moonbat.

To go cuh-razy with the over-the-top pulp weirdness.

Whatever that means to you — “pulp insanity” — just run with it. For up to 1000 words. You know the drill: post at your space, link back here so we can all see it. You’ve got a week. Due by noon, Friday, May 18th.

May 10, 2012 / 40 Comments

On The General Weirdness Of Having “Fans”

(Thursday interviews will return next week, I promise!)

I’ve noticed something over the last year.

I have fans.

I don’t say this to brag — I certainly don’t know that I deserve to have fans and I know of many great writers who do. But the fact remains that a number of people over the last year have identified themselves to me (via e-mail or tweet or even in-person) as “fans.”

Not readers. Not my “audience.” Not… y’know, people who just follow the blog.

Fans.

It bakes the noodle, it does. What the hell did I do to deserve fans? And just to be clear, I don’t use “fans” as a pejorative — I consider it a somewhat exalted (and certainly lucky) state to have your audience interact with you as more than just a passive audience and as an active and interested fanbase.

Readers help make a book. Fans help make a writer’s career.

So, this is not me looking down on fans but rather, looking up in wide-eyed weird-ass wonder.

Part of the reason this is crystallizing for me is this Guardian article yesterday.

The article, by Damien Walter, asserts that (from the article’s title): “Fandom matters: writers must respect their followers or pay with their careers.” It’s for many authors a rough and troubling assertion — in it is the suggestion that the book (or movie or comic or whatever) is not enough (and, taken to an illogical degree, may not even matter). I don’t know that I’m willing to say that a good book isn’t enough, nor would I put it all on the line to say that you need to have a fanbase or your work will be born into this world DOA.

You’ll also note that, to my shock and awe, I am name-checked in the article. (Thanks, Damien!) Specifically in regards to this blog right here and the success of the next Atlanta Burns book, Bait Dog.

What I will say is that, having fans really really helps. Because you have people who identify with you, who join with your… I dunno, your creative ecosystem, let’s call it. Again, these aren’t readers of a single book or viewers of a single television show. They’re folks who will follow you from project to project, regardless of what it is. I know that I’m a fan of certain creators (a quick-and-dirty list: Robin Hobb, David Fincher, Robert McCammon, Joe Lansdale, Christopher Moore, Jane Espenson) that whatever the hell they do, I’m there. I’m there with a big shit-eating grin and a tub of popcorn and a big wad of whatever money they want. I’m there because I love their work. I’m there because I dig them as creators, too — I think they’re interesting on a level beyond just the work they put out as auteurs.

You might say, “Well, what’s different now? This isn’t new.” And it’s not that the phenomenon is new — I’m sure Aeneas and Homer each had fanbase of which to speak (“I FUCKING LOVE SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS DUDE”). But the opportunity to engage with audiences and earn fans (note that keyword: “earn”) is bigger, now. You can in fact earn those fans long before you have a proper “[insert commercial creative project here]” to release. You have Twitter. And blogs. And Kickstarter. And all kinds of as-yet-unforeseen grottos and cubbyholes online in which to earn those fans one at a time (and that’s how they come to you, I think, slowly, over time). That’s what’s different. Our connectedness makes finding an audience and interacting with them easier and weirder and harder all in equal measure.

And it does mean that there’s an increasing burden to be more than just an author or a filmmaker or a [insert your creative title of choice here]. It means that you may find advantage in doing more than just creating your work in darkness and delivering it out of shadow while remaining hidden. Audience are becoming increasingly interactive. It’s the author’s job — or at least one of the author’s potential jobs — to meet the audience in the playspace, in the sandbox, in the fucking Holodeck that is a growing fandom.

As to how you do that? Well. I suppose that’s a post for another time and I haven’t yet gotten my slippery mind tentacles around it. But I know it involves engagement, authenticity and diversity. And I know that at the heart of the thing it’s still about creating the best damn thing (book or movie or comic or game or animated GIF or pornstache or sentient nano-hive) you can create.

Oh, and just so we’re clear: you guys out there? Who read this blog? And my books? And my insane half-drunk Twitter feed? And who bring me dead chipmunks and chocolates?

YOU RULE.

Thank you.