Author: terribleminds (page 381 of 464)

WORDMONKEY

August 30, 2012 / 4 Comments

John Anealio: The Terribleminds Interview

Continuing the tradition here of posting interviews with storytellers of all stripes and polka dots, we’ve got Geek Bard John Anealio, also of the Functional Nerds podcast. He’s a funny dude, a smart man, and a kick-ass musician — fan of Jonathan Coulton? Do check out Mister Anealio’s work at johnanealio.com where you can download some free awesome music. Find him on the Twitters: @JohnAnealio. Oh, uhhh, also? JOHN TOTALLY DID A TERRIBLEMINDS SONG. You’ll find it in the interview, below.

This is a blog about writing and storytelling. So, tell us a story. As short or long as you care to make it. As true or false as you see it.

I’ve been a music performer for 20 years now. I’ve played every type of venue that you can imagine: bars, coffee shops, restaurants, ice cream parlors, churches, VFW halls, hookah bars, book stores, libraries and more. The most memorable gig that I ever played was with a cover band at a strip club. Now, that sounds awesome, but it was actually horrible. First off, the name of the band was “Hoosier Daddy”. Second, we weren’t performing for the dancers, we were performing instead of the dancers. The owner of this club thought it was a great idea to give the dancers a night off and hire our crappy college cover band to perform as a substitute. We proceeded to play the pop hits of the day (we did a mean version of “Breakfast At Tiffanies”) to a never-ending stream of horny dudes who walked in the door and were wildly disappointed to discover that the regular entertainment was replaced by a quartet of flannel clad douche bags playing Goo Goo Dolls songs. By the end of our set, all four of us were hammered… and shirtless.

The capper to this story is that the gig was on the Saturday night before Easter and it was Daylight Savings Time Weekend. Oh, and I had to play guitar for a children’s choir mass the next day. Being sleep deprived, hungover and covered in glitter is no way to accompany children singing “We Gather Together”.

Why do you tell stories?

Lessons are learned through stories. A good storyteller not only entertains, but educates. I’ve been a teacher for almost as long as I’ve been a musician and students learn best through stories, even inane ones.
When performing, I like to tell little stories that help to give my songs context. A song can have a much greater impact if you prime the audience with a relevant story first.

Give the audience one piece of writing or storytelling advice:

Write with all five senses. A lot of songs, even great ones, are “feeling” songs. You know: “I love you baby”, “I need you”, “I want you”, “I can’t live without you”. This is fine, but there are a ga-zillion songs like this. I think one of the most powerful songwriting techniques is to describe the situation to the listener with all five senses. Even if it’s a straight up love song, describe what’s going on. Where are you? What do you see? What does she look like? What is she wearing? What do you hear? Cars in the street? Boardwalk creaking? A song on the radio? What do you smell? Salt water? Gasoline? What do you taste? What are you touching?

I think you can really take a listener on a journey if you do this. Ironically, I think the listener can feel so much more if you describe in sensory detail what’s going on, rather than just saying: “I feel like my heart is breaking”.

What’s the worst piece of writing/storytelling advice you’ve ever received?

I was in a band with a drummer who was the primary songwriter. While discussing songwriting one day, he told me that: “real songwriters don’t use rhyming dictionaries”. Besides being an incredibly arrogant statement, that is truly horrible advice. Rhyming dictionaries not only help you construct better rhymes, they help you write better stories. They may reveal a word that can send the story of your song into a completely different direction that can make your tune much deeper and more memorable.

What goes into writing a strong character? Bonus round: give an example of a strong character.

Flaws. Vulnerability. Ironically, a character’s weakness will reveal their strength. How someone deals with adversity and how they overcome their weaknesses ultimately proves how strong they are.
So many strong characters, but I’m going to go with Arlen from Peter V. Brett’s THE WARDED MAN. Such a relatable character that develops into an utter badass.

What’s the secret to storytelling in songs?

Sequence. If you take a song and put the second verse first and the first verse second, and it doesn’t really make a difference, then there’s no story. Each verse, each line should develop the characters and story. The first verse should introduce the situation and character(s). The subsequent verses should move the action forward. The bridge or break should present new information or look at the situation from a different point of view. Otherwise, it’s better to not have a bridge at all.

Favorite songs that tell stories. Pick three. Go.

1. “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” by Richard Thompson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0kJdrfzjAg
2. “Red Barchetta” by Rush http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djVGhqvl_8A
3. “Another Auld Lang Syne” by Dan Fogelberg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar9Ip7pSqEg

What’s a musical artist we should all be listening to but aren’t?

There are so many amazing singer/songwriters out there that most people have never heard of. I can’t pick just one. Here are three:

1. Kelly Joe Phelps
2. Peter Mulvey
3. Jeffrey Foucault

In my opinion, these are the three best singer/songwriter/guitarists performing folk music these days. They all had a profound impact on my own writing, guitar playing and performing. If you like literate story songs, soulful singing and stunning acoustic guitar work, then you can’t go wrong with any of these guys. Pop their names into YouTube and prepare to kill a few hours.

What geek topic or pop culture property deserves a song that doesn’t yet have one?

All of them. Let me clarify. Back in the day, TV shows used to have theme songs that would really lay out the story behind the show. Nowadays, songs are put into movies to evoke a feeling. Lyrically, they usually have very little to do with the source material. “Live to Rise” by Soundgarden was the theme song to The Avengers movie. It has nothing to do with The Avengers! Hey Marvel, why not hire Jonathan Coulton, Kirby Krackle or me to write a song that is actually about The Avengers? I work cheap.

What’s an average day like in life of John Anealio, Geek Bard?

Wake up at 5:30am. Get to the day job (elementary school music teacher) at 6:30am. Do my creative work from 6:30am to 8:30am before my students and co-workers arrive. During this two hour period, I’ll work on recording and editing whatever my latest song is. Fortunately, we live in a world where you can make a pretty professional recording with a good mic, audio interface and laptop. I teach my morning classes from 8:30am to 11:30am. I continue working on my song during my lunch hour. I get home at around 4pm and take care of my son until about 6:30. After dinner, I do about an hour at the gym. I usually try to put another hour of work on the song in before I go to bed.

If you had to write a song about terribleminds, what would the chorus be?

I actually wrote a tune and recorded it. Here’s the link: Terrible Mind Song If you are so inclined, you can click the share/embed button to get the code to embed the player widget within the blog post.

If you look inside his terrible mind
You’re bound to be offended
So don’t look inside the terrible mind
Of the man they call Chuck Wendig

Recommend a book, comic book, film, or game: something with great story. Go!

CONTROL POINT by Myke Cole. Blackhawk Down meets the X-Men. If you dig military sci-fi, D&D and the afformentioned X-Men then you will love this book.

Favorite word? And then, the follow up: Favorite curse word?

Appoggiatura: which is a type of musical grace note. I just like the way it sounds.
Cock-wad: I find myself yelling this when I get angry these days. Sometimes I shorten it to wad, which seems even more vulgar for some reason.

Favorite alcoholic beverage? (If cocktail: provide recipe. If you don’t drink alcohol, fine, fine, a non-alcoholic beverage will do.)

I’m a beer and wine kind of guy. If I want to catch a buzz quicker, than I’d say red wine. If I had to pick a favorite based on taste, I’d go with a nice beer like a Blue Moon or a Sam Adams.

What skills do you bring to help the humans win the inevitable war against the robots?

The ability to bore the robots to death with my endless, narcissistic blathering. I’m also an excellent swing dancer.

What’s next for you as a storyteller? What does the future hold?

Good question. I want to continue churning out good songs and releasing singles, albums and E.P.s. I have lots of awesome spec-fic author friends. It makes me want to do more collaborative work. Perhaps a concept album tied to a novel, like what Rush just did with Kevin J. Anderson for CLOCKWORK ANGELS. Maybe some sort of trans-media thing. I don’t know. I’m excited to have the opportunity to work on any of it.

August 29, 2012 / 82 Comments

So, Just What The Hell Makes A Good Book Trailer?

Book trailers are notoriously ineffective.

Not necessarily crappy (though I’ve seen my share of those, too) — but usually ineffective in the sense that, it’s not selling me on the book. Hell, most of the time I’m not even sitting down to watch it because I happened to hear you put two words –“book” and “trailer” — together, and I know what means.

You say “book trailer,” klaxons go off. Sirens. A randy goat-man comes up and kicks me in the junk drawer.

A couple-few weeks back on The Twitters, I asked what it was that made an effective book trailer. Not a quality one — because many are quality and yet offer no effect (again, that effect being, “makes me want to run out to the store and throw all my money at your book”). As it is that we so often define things by their negative, a handful of elements kept popping up:

First, that book trailers sometimes looked amateurish. Even if the book trailer had quality in one area (say, the filming), it had poor quality in another (acting). Or, it’s just a right awful shit-fest from start to finish — and a truly bad trailer will go a very long way toward not merely failing to sell the book but making sure I’ll never ever read that book, not even with someone else’s stolen eyes.

Second, if it was a live-action trailer, it was selling the movie of the book better than it was a book. It’s using a visual medium to sell a rather inert and bulky block of text.

Third, and related to the first, actors used to portray characters have now “become” those characters in the minds of the viewer. So, where before the book is a wide open orgy of imagination, suddenly the book trailer starts nailing elements to the walls and the floors and it limits your, erm, “creative orgy partners” to a few actors instead of the infinite carousel of faces and body-types whirling around inside your skull.

Fourth, other trailers were too simple. A few image stills, sliding text, creepy music — BOOM. BUY THIS BOOK. THE CREEPY MUSIC TELLS YOU TO. YOU’VE JUST BEEN INCEPTIONED, MOTHERFUCKER. Except, not really. As such, it does the opposite of the live-action trailers — it fails to engage any of the wonder of the book and ends up being so boring it’s like clumsy missionary sex with an old fishmonger.

Other smaller complaints popped up.

Some trailers are too long. Some too short. Some don’t match stylistically. Are they an advertisement? A short film? Are they just a tremendous sick-bucket of wasted time?

I asked around behind the scenes: “Should I do a book trailer for Blackbirds and Mockingbird?”

The answer was a robust shaking of the head. “Don’t waste the time. Don’t waste the money.”

And at first I was like, “Yeah.” I mean, we have minimal data whether book trailers work, right? And it’s not like authors make super-huge bank anyway, so — my initial thought was, “Eff that in the bee-hole.”

But it nagged at me.

I thought, “Okay, those things that are a problem for book trailers, you don’t have to do those things.” As we tell our toddler, B-Dub, “That’s yucky. Blech. Ptoo. Don’t eat that.”

No movie. No actor. No creepy music and straight text. And definitely don’t make it suck.

I figured there were a couple ways to go.

Book trailers that are funny have been good. Even amateurish book trailers are fine in this case — hell, the more amateurish they are, sometimes the funnier they become. And an idea popped inside my head and I thought, “Hey, I’m a funny guy.” (This is where you correct me and start pelting me with cat turds and I run off the stage crying into my bonnet.) Then I thought, “Oh, hey, people like to hear me curse, and the Miriam Black books are full of all manner of pickled vulgarity.” So, I pulled out all the naughty sayings I could find and strung ’em together like a series of very dirty, very angry Christmas ornaments, and the script sounded absurd, insane, and… kinda funny. My initial thought was to get a bunch of other authors and fans reading the script and I’d supercut that sumbitch together, but, y’know, no time.

Instead, I read it myself. You probably saw that trailer — it’s right here.

But I had a second trailer in mind. This trailer would be pure voiceover with… something in the background. Text, or images, or… I don’t even know. And the trailer wouldn’t sell the books so much as sell the character — she’s the angry, chain-smoking cornerstone of the series, and so it seems wisest to push her. And I’m a storyteller, so I thought, the smartest way to play it would be to tell a new story. A very small “flash fiction” story, written like a script, a first-person script, and use that to sell the character. So, I wrote a couple short pieces but my favorite was the one that was a bonafide story and was in fact not from Miriam’s POV — it was from a man who met Miriam and what that means for the man.

At this point I’d already had an offer on the table from my Alpha Clone, Dan O’Shea, to read something of mine and record it — anything at all. So I told him what I was thinking of for this trailer and I tossed him the audio file and in like, ten minutes, I had the first recording. He did a second for me and it was like — it was like gold. My wife listened to it and I watched her just fall into that voice (he’s got a sexy, grizzled, broken-glass-and-cigarettes voice, that guy). It blew me away. (It was then I wondered: could someone do an audio book trailer? Why couldn’t you? *files for later*)

I was also talking to a director at that point, Alan Stewart, about how to make this happen and the cost and all that, and initially we’d talked about getting an actor to play Miriam to do a thing where she read all the profanity or maybe did a speech about your death, playing off the core tenet of the series (touch you = find out your demise), but again, that means putting a specific Miriam into people’s heads. I didn’t want to do that. (Not without big bank from selling the film or TV rights, anyway.) So, I passed him the voiceover and Alan had this idea for kinetic text, and —

Well. I’ve posted the trailer down at the bottom of this post. Some of you may have seen it already because I was geeking about it hard yesterday, but before you view it, some questions for you.

What makes an effective book trailer? Or an ineffective one?

What are some book trailers you’ve liked?

Have you ever been convinced to buy a book via the trailer?

What are some particularly bad ones you’ve seen (if you care to share)?

And, feel free to let me know if this new trailer, below, does the trick. Be honest. Polite, but honest.

Second trailer for BLACKBIRDS and MOCKINGBIRD.

August 28, 2012 / 9 Comments

Book Trailer #2: “I Met Her At A Bar”

Second trailer for BLACKBIRDS and MOCKINGBIRD.

Featuring a brand new piece of Miriam Black flash fiction.

Written words by me.

Spoken by Dan O’Shea.

Directed and animated by Alan Stewart.

Alan did a bang-up job with this. I’m really, really blown away.

And Dan’s voice is just the gritty gravely throat-grab I was hoping for.

Thanks, all.

Follow Dan on Twitter (he’s got a pair of novels, PENANCE and MAMMON forthcoming from Exhibit A, and you’ll see him here next week with a brand new short story set in the world of that novel).

Follow Alan on Twitter. See his other work on Vimeo. His About.Me page.

August 28, 2012 / 11 Comments

Things I Learned While Writing Mockingbird

(Be advised: I’m doing another Reddit AMA all day today, so swing by and ask me, well, anything.)

I’ll dispense with the self-promo bloggerel right now:

HOLY CRAP MOCKINGBIRD IS OUT

*jumps up and down, froths at the mouth, kicks computer monitor through the window, throws up on self*

Available for in print and e-book at:

Amazon (US)

Amazon (UK)

Barnes & Noble

Indiebound

Now, on with the post.

The Second In A Series Is Tricksy Business

Staring down the barrel of a “next in the series” is some tricky shit, hoss. You can feel the Sword of Expectations dangling above your head, held there by a little length of underwear elastic, the blade bobbing and swaying and ever-ready to fall. People who read the first one have certain parameters in mind. You want to deliver on the promises made in the first book but you want to exceed them, punching and kicking the walls of your self-built box so you can deliver something bigger, stranger, different without being too different, the same without being too much the same.

This book is that, for me — it takes Miriam, throws her into a more active role regarding her dread psychic ability of touching people and seeing how and when they’re going to die. She’s been trying for the last year to live a normal life and, well, that’s like dressing up a wolverine in a chef’s coat and hoping he’ll cook you dinner instead of biting your face. But Miriam finds herself on a slippery slope that starts with a teacher suffering from powerful hypochondria and ends with a serial killer of young girls. Miriam must race against the clock and her own worst instincts to solve murders before they happen, lest these girls die. In the first book, it was all about Miriam deciding if she even wanted to tackle fate one last time to save the life of Louis. In the second book, she’s armed with one more rule. She knows how to divert the waters of fate, and that means throwing into the stream one big motherfucking rock.

But can she do that? Will she? Is that really who she is, and if so, what the hell does that mean?

With the second book you want to take the questions asked in the first and bring them forward. You’ve answered some of those questions but in fiction, answers just breed more questions. That’s what a second book must really become: the natural evolution of our Q&A regarding the character and her story.

So, in Mockingbird it’s a question of, who is Miriam Black? What does she want to become? Can she try to live a normal life? (Short answer: no.) Is she a drifter? A thief? A problem-solver? A killer?

Not Everybody Knows It’s The Second In A Series

Some people are just going to pick the book up, blissfully unaware that there exists a “book one.” And so there’s another tricksy part of the “next in the series” equation — you want to write for all the people who read the first one, but you also want to give enough in the book that it stands on its own. (Ideally, Mockingbird does. I hope?) You want to make it so reading the first book isn’t a chore, isn’t a necessity, but instead offers the reward of backtracking through a story. You find this in television, or in comics — jump in late, you get the pleasure of one day starting at the beginning to see how everything got to be the way it is.

But you also can’t write only for those people.

It’s a balance. It’s the “episodic” versus “serialized” thing — some books, shows, comics get that right.

Many do not.

It’s a tightrope walk.

The Outline’s The Thing

The first book took me way too many years to write.

The sequel took me 30 days.

And it’s longer. Mockingbird is a bigger book — bigger in all ways. Page count. Character. Plot.

I attribute the swiftness of the writing to a couple things.

One of those things is THE BLUE METH.

Wait, no, I mean — one of those things is the outline. I’ve long said that I am a pantser by heart but a plotter by necessity and this book is proof of that. I scrawled an incomprehensible-to-anyone-but-me roadmap of the novel from Point A to Point Holy Fuck What’s Wrong With You, and man, having that map was so freeing. I didn’t have to follow it every day, but on most days I merely had to look at the map and say, “Here’s where I am, and here’s where I need to go,” and boom, the day of writing was easy-breezy. Given that I don’t write fiction on weekends, that means I was pretty easily churning out 3-4k words a day.

For me, outlines are like vitamins. Nobody wants to take ’em.

But when I do, I feel better. So, I do.

Know Thy Character

The other thing I attribute the ease of writing this book is THE BLUE M… er, sorry, is “knowing thy character.” Miriam Black, for better or for worse, is a character who has roosted in the eaves of my brain-barn. She’s up there. I can’t get her out, not with a shock-rod and a catch-pole. She’s sitting there, smoking and cursing at me and telling me all the inventive ways people suck the pipe.

My characters don’t always take up permanent real estate inside my mind. Some do. Others don’t. (Atlanta Burns has, for instance.) But she has. I always know which way Miriam will jump. The things she says — which are usually horrible — pour out without any effort. I know things about her and her life that may one day show up in books — or maybe they don’t.

But knowing her through and through makes her very, very easy to write.

Which is probably a bad thing, in retrospect.

Softening Hard Edges, Sharpening Round Corners

I continue to submit that likability is not a meaningful trait in fiction. We must like spending time with the character, but that doesn’t mean we need to like them personally. I don’t need to get a beer with my president or my protagonist. That being said, you do want to advance a character somewhat, to evolve her story and her persona, and for Miriam that was a two-fold path.

First, I wanted to make her more understandable. More sympathetic by dint of her being wholly active and in control of her destiny (in a book where, quite literally, few can say the same thing). In this book Miriam isn’t just serving her own selfish whims — though those are, erm, still there — but she’s actively trying to change something she has no right or reason to change. She’s trying to help save girls who will one day be murdered. Girls she doesn’t much like. (Girls who remind Miriam of Miriam, truth be told.)

But I also wanted to take that sympathy and turn it on its ear. A “more active Miriam” is fucking scary. Because a determined Miriam is no longer a bear trap you step into, but rather, a bullet coming at your face.

So, on one hand, I’m softening Miriam.

On the other hand, I’m just softening the metal so she can be turned into a sharper blade.

Serial Killers Are People, Too

This book features a serial killer. I’ll say no more about the plot details of that — because it gets a little twisty, as the identity of said killer is an OMG QUESTION MARK THE RIDDLER’S BEEN HERE OH NOES. What I will say is, the serial killer is deeply fucked. The killer does things that freaked me out. And I wrote it. It came from my own head.

And yet, I always know that the danger of a serial killer is that they’re woefully redundant and that the horrible things that they do are meaningless (and even cartoonish) if done poorly.

You have to remember that serial killers are people, too.

They come from somewhere. They have mothers and fathers and people they love.

They likely have some super-tangled brain-wires, but they’re still people. They have an agenda. They’re not just killing because they like pain and death and blah blah blah. That may be true in real life, but in fiction, you need more. You need meat on dem bones, and that was my goal here: to make the serial killer, well, not sympathetic, but to put in place a plan, a plot, a scary-ass WTF motive.

How To Get Twisty

Twists, man. Another thing that can go dreadfully wrong in a story.

Mockingbird has a couple notable twists in it.

I’m always wary of doing that and yet, at the same time, I fucking love doing that. Twists are great. Fiction works best when you can subvert the expectations of the reader. When you can show them something they didn’t expect but on retrospect, should have. Right? That last part is key. You’ve set up the pieces and shown them what is a kind of narrative optical llusion that things seem like they’ll turn right but all along you’ve been showing them why the story needs to turn left. Tricks don’t work when they come flying out of nowhere (“Oh no! The serial killer is the monkey butler! Though we’ve never seen nor heard of a monkey butler before! I guess I just have to take it on good faith! Damn you, monkey butler!”).

It’s a lot of fun hijacking the reader’s brain.

Twists are a part of that, I think. Small twists and big twists.

Three Things I Want To Do With Fiction

First, I want to make you feel something. Emotion. I want you invested. I want you happy and sad, hurt and healed. I don’t mean in the larger scope — I don’t expect to be gut-punching you five years after you put the book down. But I do want, whilst caught in the throes of reading, for you to feel something. Anything at all. (Er, anything except the urge to throw the book in the toilet where you will then urinate upon it.)

Second, I want you to think. For me, these two books break my noodle in certain ways — soon as you start getting into lofty notions like fate and free will, I get excited. My gears start turning immediately. And I want your gears to turn, too. Mockingbird I think ups the ante a bit by incorporating bits about poetry and mythology into the story. More grist for the thought mill.

Third, I want to shock and surprise you. I don’t mean “shock” as in “gross you out” — though that’s one viable option. I like stories that surprise, that do things I’d never expect. I think a good story takes risks. It fucks with your head a little; it presents you with two doors and then goes out a window, instead. My favorite fiction has always surprised me. So I aim to do the same.

Something Is Wrong With Me

That’s the last thing I learned.

Something isn’t right with my noggin.

But that’s okay.

Because I’m hoping something isn’t right with your noggin, either, for reading the book and — hopefully! — liking it. I think writers are all a little goofy in the head, and maybe that’s a good thing.

Hopefully you’ll check out Mockingbird today (and if you’re looking for an incentive to check out Blackbirds, it’s under five bucks for your Kindlemaschine). If you do check out either book, I hope you dig it and that it’s a book worthy of you telling a friend or three or maybe writing a review. We authors live and die by your recommendations and your love of the books you read, so for that, thank you.

At the very least, I’d sure like it if you spread the word.

Because I loved writing this book and I hope people love reading it.

You can read the first 50+ pages of Mockingbird here, for free:

Open publication – Free publishing – More chuck wendig

August 27, 2012 / 40 Comments

Bad Author Behavior As A Response To Bad Author Behavior… Is Still Bad Author Behavior

So, this weekend we learned that out in Book Land exist these people– aka opportunists, aka “human vultures” — who will gladly make a buck selling good reviews of e-books even though they haven’t really read them. We learned that they can make fat bank in the process, which means we also learned that they are rolling around in the fatty grease of a robust client base. Lots of authors have plainly paid for a glowing review, which casts the entire review system (which is already of dubious value in terms of their effectiveness with readers) into a big question-mark-shaped hole. And we can all be sure that, deserved or no, this is going to reflect more prominently on self-published authors above all others, right?

Right.

(For the record, I have never once paid for a review good or bad. I’ve paid for sex from a Czech hobo, I’ve paid to have various implements removed from various orifices, I’ve paid to have those who have left me bad reviews killed in the streets like the gutless curs that they are, but I have never once paid for a review. Thank you to those who have left reviews regardless of my not giving them a big bucket of money.)

Here’s the thing: this is scummy behavior. We know that. We can all see it. There’s no integrity there. No dignity or honor or any of those other words. (Okay, admittedly, my first response was, We can pay for good reviews?! and then I started whipping out my debit card, but cooler brain cells prevailed.) More I thought about it, more it got under my skin. I was suddenly mad at both the guy who sold these reviews and the many clients of this type of service (reportedly including schlocky self-pub uber-guru John Locke with his e-book HOW TO SELL A FRAJILLION E-BOOKS AND ALSO A SMALL PORTION OF YOUR SOUL).

And then I calmed down. Because, really, who gives a shit? Assholes are assholes. They’ll always be out there. I’m not saying you can’t do something. You tweet a little snark, you point people toward the hypocrisy (“Please everybody note the scumminess of this thing”), you maybe write a blog post or contact Amazon to see what they’re going to do about it. But what you also start to see are the torches and pitchforks coming out. You start to see people leaving bad reviews in response or otherwise piling on. This happens with lots of bad author behaviors — remember that Greek Seaman self-pub author? Her meltdown was easily eclipsed by the authors who came out of the woodwork to condemn her and run her out of Publishing Town on a rail. I’m not saying she didn’t bring that kind of response upon herself. She did.

But hey, remember LendInk? The piracy witch-hunt that turned out to be no such thing?

Right. Oops.

What I’m saying is, bad author behavior in response to bad author behavior is…

…wait for it, waaaaait for it…

…still bad author behavior.

Trust me. I’ve done it. I’m not proud. But I’ve been there with a rusty pitchfork in my hand, braying for some kind of Internet Justice to be poured upon the heads of the offenders like hot tarry pitch.

But what the hell good does that do?

Here is what I’m suggesting:

Let it go.

Dwell on it for a little bit. Talk about it and continue the conversation when it’s productive. But then put it in a drawer. Lock the drawer. And get back to work.

Because all this stuff serves as a distraction and doesn’t do much to change your fate for good or bad. Whether John Locke did or did not pay for reviews matters little to my actual life. It doesn’t change the reviews I’ve gotten (or not gotten). It doesn’t change what’s in the pages of my books. It doesn’t adjust my deadlines (“Oh, you’re forming a lynch mob against that guy who sold positive e-book reviews? Here, let me move your deadline back a week, soldier”). I’m not saying we don’t have a right to be incensed. Nor should we ignore problems when they affect us or otherwise poison things about our industry.

But we should be careful not to respond to bad voodoo with more bad voodoo. Just because we see another child on the playground acting like a little ass we don’t get to do the same.

Because then the terrorists win. Or something.

August 27, 2012 / 3 Comments

My Official Worldcon Schedule (And Other Newsworthy Snidbits)

You can find the official WorldCon schedule here.

But, if you’re a bonafide bonded-and-licensed Wendigo Hunter and you’re looking for me specifically, well, then, here’s your best bets for tracking me down this upcoming weekend in Chicago:

Thursday, 8/30:

I arrive in an ornithopter whose wings are formed from the skin of the Mighty Humbaba!

Friday, 8/31:

“The New Pulp” panel with me, Adam Christopher, and Stephen Blackmoore. Ideally, we’ll be drinking. Or talking about drinking. 10:30am to noon, McCormick.

Friday, 8/31:

Mockingbird launch and book signing with fellow Angry Robot book-launchers Gwenda Bond, Kim Curran, and Adam Christopher. Starting at 7pm, The Book Cellar. They sell beer at this bookstore. Repeat: they sell beer at this bookstore. Also, it’s located in a neighborhood appropriately called “Ravenswood.” KISMET, MOTHERFUCKERS.

Saturday, 9/1:

Not much going on. Find me! Maybe we’ll do an impromptu unofficial “kaffeeklatsch,” whatever that is. I think it involves espresso and artificially intelligent Rube Goldberg devices.

Sunday, 9/2:

Reading! In which I read something! 10am – 10:30am, DuSable.

Sunday, 9/2:

Signing! In which I devalue (Er, “autograph”) your books! Or your boobs (lady- and man-boobs)! I’ll sign anything! A puppy! A handgun! Whatever! 10:30am – noon, Autograph Tables.

Monday, 9/3:

I flee the city on a horse made of fire!

Your best bets for communicating with me is via Twitter (@ChuckWendig). I’ll also be rooming with Stephen Blackmoore, which is frightening as I’m told he’s bringing one of his many clown outfits. If you find me and I’m shivering and there’s a little smudge of greasepaint on my cheek or chin, just do me the service of quietly wiping it away with a moistened thumb. Say nothing. Just nod and hold me.

Sweet Crispy Ass-Crack, It’s A Book Trailer!

Book trailer for the Miriam Black series? With me reading strings upon strings of profanity extracted from the books? YOU ASK, YOU RECEIVE. Put on your helmets and tarps.

DO NOT CLICK THIS LINK BECAUSE BAD NAUGHTY NO-NO LANGUAGE.

(A second trailer will be incoming in the next day or three read by the inestimable growl of Dan O’Shea.)

Holy Shitting Shitballs, It’s Mockingbird!

So. Mockingbird releases tomorrow (next week for the UK audience).

*pause*

*freaks out, jumps up and down, throws chair through office window*

I’ll remind you that pre-ordering enters you into a contest by which you may win a buttload of my other books in hardcopy (deval… er, autographed). Email proof of pre-order to terribleminds at gmail dot com.

You’ve got till (now extended) 9pm tonight to get those pre-orders into me. I’ll pick tomorrow!

You can read the first 50+ pages right here, for free:

Open publication – Free publishing – More chuck wendig

Holy Fuckity Fuck-Otters, It’s A Buncha New Mockingbird Reviews!

Kickass Litstack review:

“For those nervous about sequels, pop an Ativan and take a few cleansing breaths. Mockingbird, dare I say, is even better than its predecessor, a heady feat considering the pressure of novels written in series format. Chuck Wendig delivers on the promise he established in Blackbirds. The continuing saga of Miriam Black never lags with its hairpin plot turns and freakishly ornate imagery. It is a book that, once consumed, will leave you famished for the next installment.”

From My Bookish Ways:

“Chuck Wendig’s mind is a terrifying, twisted, fascinating thing, and thank goodness he puts this stuff down on paper for the rest of us. Darker than dark, Mockingbird will take you on a journey you won’t soon forget, so fortify your stomach and settle in, because you’re going to want to read this one in one sitting. Can’t wait for the next one!”

From Crime Fiction Lover:

“Wendig carries on where he left off in Blackbirds. All the strengths which made it so fantastic return here – great pacing, taught plotting, laugh-out-loud language, and the empathy he has with his damaged protagonist. He continues to blend genres like someone who’s written 20 novels, not just two or three. This is part horror, part urban fantasy, part thriller and part mystery. All of it, however, is good.”

From Romanceaholic:

“Holy hell, that twist!”

From Kindle-a-holic:

“Miriam is near the top of my badass list and she does it without any superpower other than her ability to touch a person and know how they die. That and she knows how to fight dirty. The last third of this book is just nonstop action-packed don’t-interrupt-me-now-I-mean-it awesome.”

From Spacetalkers From Outer Shelf:

“It almost made me late for work. It almost made me miss my bus. It sucks you in (and no, it’s not a pun, there are no vampires in it, which is perhaps another point in its favor) and does not let go. It is fast-paced and engrossing. It is pretty much everything I look for in a good urban fantasy book.”

From Amberkatze’s Book Blog:

“Mockingbird makes Blackbirds look tame. Which I didn’t think was possible. The sequel has all the dark and wonderful content of the first book but manages to be darker and even more wonderful.”

Oh, and Amanda Makepeace did this cool word-cloud from the book:

Faster, Mockingbird, Kill, Kill!

Finally, two more pieces of Blackbirds/Mockingbird fan art (and remember, there’s a fan art contest going on right now as I type this very sentence — details here):

From Maggie Carroll:

From JD Savage:

And I guess that’s it. Hope you decide to hunker down and check out Mockingbird. And if not, I’d appreciate it if you at least spread the word. Thanks, lovely readers.