Maybe you’ve heard of it.

You take some bread.

You spread some peanut butter on it.

You put some pickles on it.

You smash that motherfucker together.

And now it’s a sandwich and you eat it.

You’re thinking, as I thought: well, that’s fucking gross.

I mean, shit, I like pickles. I like peanut butter. I am nothing if not a fanboy for bread. But my brain could not get around globbing these things together into a single Combiner Transformer in order to eat it. It seemed like some kind of heresy.

Let’s rewind a little.

The PB & Pickle sandwich got some love thanks to a recent NYT appearance. And initially, I assumed the NYT was just being the NYT, which meant it was offering treasonous nightmare opinions, probably either to troll us or to ruin democracy. And this sandwich definitely felt like a democracy-ruiner.

Just the same, I am wont to chastise my child — you can’t say you don’t like something without first trying it. And in the last ten years, I’ve come happily to terms that most of the things I feared were gross were… nnyeah, actually pretty dang tasty. Sweetbreads? (Spoiler: not actually bread.) Delicious. Spam? Amazing. Sushi? What the fuck was I thinking not eating sushi? Bugs? Hell yeah I’ll eat bugs. I ate a chapulines taco and it was legit wonderful.

Pineapple lumps? SURE.

So, I thought, I can eat this fucking sandwich, and it’ll be weird, and I can tweet about it, and my Twitter feed for five minutes will be a hilarious respite from the neverending DIPSHIT WATERGATE that is the true Infinity War.

I made one:

You can see what pickles and PB I used — the bread was a sourdough.

I made it.

I took a bite.

And whoa wait what the fuck.

It was good.

No — it was actually pretty great.

Here’s why it’s great — first, it does the thing that you might find in, say, Thai food, or some Vietnamese food — you’ve got sour and savory, plus the fattiness of the peanut butter (not to mention the salt), and the pickles bring some nice crunch. It’s eerily satisfying. And it helps then too to decouple your assumption that PEANUT BUTTER = SWEET, because it ain’t. Think satay. Normal peanut butter is savory as shit, we just happen to use it a lot with sweet things, combining it with jelly or chocolate or honey or whatever.

So, then authors-extraordinaire Kevin Hearne and Adam Rakunas said, no no no, you need food lube for that sandwich, and they said the true magic is adding in mayo to that motherfucker —

*record scratch*

What ha ha no, that’s a bad idea, don’t do that, don’t add mayo. Like, what? Who hurt you? How did you get this way? I’m not a mayo-hater, I mean, I’m a white guy, it’s literally in my blood, but at the same time, I’m not cuckoo bananapants. I’m not putting that goop on this already-wonderful sandwich and OH FINE FUCK IT I decided to try it.

Duke’s mayo, of course —

And whoa wait WHAT FOOD FUCKERY IS THIS because…

…because it also was great. Maybe even better.

The mayo was food lube. It made the sandwich even more sandwichy.

So, a week or so later, I ran a couple miles, felt pretty good, decided to have a treat, and weirdly, my mind ran to this sandwich. As a reward. I had been reprogrammed — brainwashed! — by this sandwich to consider it a trophy. My brain said, “That sounds like a way to treat yourself.” So I decided to make one. Except… oh, hey, what’s this? I have some extra bacon in the fridge? Ha ha, okay, listen, I am generally of the belief that bacon is an overdone food fad. “Put bacon in it” is a lazy way of making something hipstery and salty and meaty, and generally a good way to overpower a thing with little nuance. At the same time, it’s… also tasty. Bacon is nummy. I like bacon. And I figured I’d slap some bacon on this mad motherfucker of a sandwich —

And by all the saints and all the sinners, all the gods and all the devils, this is a truly sublime sandwich. It is satisfying on a deeply primal, weird level I can barely begin to describe — salty, crunchy, a bit sweet, a lot sour, it’s like a FLAVOR PINBALL going full-tilt in your happy mouth.

Since then, others have hit me up on Twitter with their attempts at making one of these bastard sandwiches and then eating it — and I’d say 90% of the time, people expected to be revolted, but actually really dug it. A lot of folks also added their own delightful ingredients, too: Spam, bacon-flavored Spam, turkey bacon, other pickled veggies, Miracle Whip, jelly, bologna. And it’s versatile, as well — you can go from sweet to dill, you can use all kinds of different bread choices, different meat, different kinds of peanut or nut butters.

It’s great.

And you have to try it.

You don’t get to say it’s gross until you try it.

Because that’s a lesson even my soon-to-be-seven-year-old knows: you can dislike something after you’ve tried it, but not before. Because a lot of foods in particular seem pretty gross. I mean, cheese? Cheese, if you have never before beheld it, is nasty. My understanding is that some cultures view our consumption of cheese the same way we view the consumption of bugs, or stinky tofu, or rotten fish — I mean, cheese is like, THERE’S A BIG LUMBERING ANIMAL, GO SQUEEZE ITS TEATS, GET THE LIQUID, BUT THEN YOU WANNA CURDLE IT WITH ACID, AND THEN YOU WANNA LET IT SIT WHERE IT’LL GET SOUR AND WEIRD, AND SOMETIMES YOU REALLY WANT SOME MOLD TO GROW ON IT, OR EVEN THROUGH IT, AND SOMETIMES IT SMELLS LIKE A DEAD GUY’S FEET BUT HERE, EAT SOME.

Fish sauce is basically, hey, let fish get so rotten that they liquefy, now, put that rotten fish liquor on some rice, mmm.

Meat is, hey, kill that thing, bleed it out, then press fire to its carcass, then eat its carcass.

Eggs: “Hey, this oblong object fell out of that chicken’s nebulous under-hole, maybe it’s a baby, maybe it’s not a baby, but I’m gonna go ahead and open it up and pour the bird-snot I find inside into a hot pan, get it sizzlin’, see what happens.”

Honey? BEE VOMIT.

So, food is fucking weird.

Get past that.

Make the sandwich.

Try the sandwich.

I’ll wait here. Report back.

It is spring. The flowers are poppin’. It’s raining. I’m getting some nice waterdrop shots. Also my face is full of CONCRETE thanks to the DISCARDED SEX BITS of HORNY TREES. Or something. My allergies are having a lot of fun right now, is what I’m saying. In a social media metaphor, it’s like my sinuses went on Twitter to say they liked The Last Jedi or didn’t like Justice League, and now they’re grappling with endless waves of pollen trolls.

(Curiously, I had a tweet last week go hella viral — we’re talking 40,000 RTs at present, 136,000 ‘likes’ — and boy it brings some fascinatingly stupid people out of the woodwork. I may have to dissect what happened there on the blog this week sometime.)

Anyway.

Freshly announced — I’ll be a special guest at Hal-Con in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which is somewhere in the SEA-BRINED WILDS OF CANADA. I am told to expect a thing called a “donair,” so when I arrive my mouth will be open, hungry for this regional food. Which also I assume is just a remix of a doner-kebap? Which are amazing, so, if that’s true, count me the fuck in. Hal-Con is October 26-28th, so, hopefully I’ll see you there.

Let’s see? What else is going on?

There’s this mysterious tweet. Hm.

And that’s it, I think.

Here are more photos.

PLEASE TO ENJOY THEM.

It’s May the Fourth, c’mon.

So obviously the only choice of what to write is:

SPACE OPERA

SPACE OPERA

SPAAAAAACE

OPERAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaa

So, get on that. Whatever it means, it means.

Length: ~1500 words

Due by: Friday, May 11th, noon EST

Post at your online space (“space”) —

Link to it in the comments.

GET THEE TO A SPACESHIP.

As with the earlier post this week about Avengers: Infinity War, I’m gonna buffer in with a metric bootyload of spoiler space in the form of James Joyce, this time in the form of a passage from a significantly less-bullshit book, one of my favorites: Ulysses.

Note that when this passage is over —

THE SPOILERS BEGIN.

Mild fire of wine kindled his veins. I wanted that badly. Felt so off colour. His eyes unhungrily saw shelves of tins: sardines, gaudy lobsters’ claws. All the odd things people pick up for food. Out of shells, periwinkles with a pin, off trees, snails out of the ground the French eat, out of the sea with bait on a hook. Silly fish learn nothing in a thousand years. If you didn’t know risky putting anything into your mouth. Poisonous berries. Johnny Magories. Roundness you think good. Gaudy colour warns you off. One fellow told another and so on. Try it on the dog first. Led on by the smell or the look. Tempting fruit. Ice cones. Cream. Instinct. Orangegroves for instance. Need artificial irrigation. Bleibtreustrasse. Yes but what about oysters. Unsightly like a clot of phlegm. Filthy shells. Devil to open them too. Who found them out? Garbage, sewage they feed on. Fizz and Red bank oysters. Effect on the sexual. Aphrodis. He was in the Red Bank this morning. Was he oysters old fish at table perhaps he young flesh in bed no June has no ar no oysters. But there are people like things high. Tainted game. Jugged hare. First catch your hare. Chinese eating eggs fifty years old, blue and green again. Dinner of thirty courses. Each dish harmless might mix inside. Idea for a poison mystery. That archduke Leopold was it no yes or was it Otto one of those Habsburgs? Or who was it used to eat the scruff off his own head? Cheapest lunch in town. Of course aristocrats, then the others copy to be in the fashion. Milly too rock oil and flour. Raw pastry I like myself. Half the catch of oysters they throw back in the sea to keep up the price. Cheap no-one would buy. Caviare. Do the grand. Hock in green glasses. Swell blowout. Lady this. Powdered bosom pearls. The élite. Crème de la crème. They want special dishes to pretend they’re. Hermit with a platter of pulse keep down the stings of the flesh. Know me come eat with me. Royal sturgeon high sheriff, Coffey, the butcher, right to venisons of the forest from his ex. Send him back the half of a cow. Spread I saw down in the Master of the Rolls’ kitchen area. Whitehatted chef like a rabbi. Combustible duck. Curly cabbage à la duchesse de Parme. Just as well to write it on the bill of fare so you can know what you’ve eaten. Too many drugs spoil the broth. I know it myself. Dosing it with Edwards’ desiccated soup. Geese stuffed silly for them. Lobsters boiled alive. Do ptake some ptarmigan. Wouldn’t mind being a waiter in a swell hotel. Tips, evening dress, halfnaked ladies. May I tempt you to a little more filleted lemon sole, miss Dubedat? Yes, do bedad. And she did bedad. Huguenot name I expect that. A miss Dubedat lived in Killiney, I remember. Du, de la French. Still it’s the same fish perhaps old Micky Hanlon of Moore street ripped the guts out of making money hand over fist finger in fishes’ gills can’t write his name on a cheque think he was painting the landscape with his mouth twisted. Moooikill A Aitcha Ha ignorant as a kish of brogues, worth fifty thousand pounds.

Stuck on the pane two flies buzzed, stuck.

There. We good?

Okay.

Is Thanos the protagonist of Avengers: Infinity War?

I DON’T KNOW WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME

oh wait I’m the one who introduced the question

uhhh

um

LET’S TRY THIS AGAIN

Is Thanos the protagonist of Avengers: Infinity War?

The short answer is: nnnyyyynnnmmmaybe?

I mean, okay, first it’s important to know that this shit ain’t math. Like, we don’t have codified STORY MECHANICS where you can rip open the source code and look at the evidence for the thing. It’s all floppy, sloppy theorizing, but I’m down for that kinda floppy, sloppy theorizing, because that’s what makes all this story stuff fun to build, dissect, study, and replicate.

First it requires us to define our terms a little.

What the fuck is a protagonist?

Well, ‘protagonist’ is Greek for ‘professional player of the game of tag,’ which is to say, it’s the person in charge of tagging other characters and since Aristotle invented the game of tag (also hide-and-seek, and also a less-famous game called who-can-drink-the-hemlock-first) —

*receives note*

My Greek may be rusty there.

Let’s more hastily define ‘protagonist’ as the ‘main character.’

Except wait —

*receives note*

That’s not it, either.

As I noted in an earlier discussion of Fury Road, the ‘main character’ is Mad Max because, his name is in the damn title, but he’s also not the protagonist, which is Furiosa. She’s the one with an effect on the plot. She’s the one with the problem to be conquered, and the one with the arc, and the one whose point-of-view we’re largely with — or at least the one we engage with most often. The film is her story, but Mad Max is still the ‘main’ character. (Though in a sense he’s also literally a supporting character, in that he uses his body as a support for her rifle.)

Usually, I like to define a protagonist as the ‘agent-of-change,’ and the antagonist as the one who opposes that change — either with change of her own, or in an effort to uphold the status quo. Villain ends up being something different altogether, as is hero, because then you’re dealing with the standard (and occasionally boring) duality of good guys and bad guys. Can the villain be the protagonist? Sure. (See: Maleficent or Reservoir Dogs or The Grinch or, or, or.) Can the good guy be the antagonist? Sure. (The Fugitive!) But where does that leave us with Thanos?

Is Thanos the POV character in Infinity War? Not necessarily — we are not proxy to all the beats of his story. The film doesn’t follow him, mostly — it assumes he’s Off Doing Thanos Shit, and we’re not with him. Is he the character with the problem to be conquered? Nnnyes? Mostly? Probably? He has a mission, though a spectacularly dull-headed one — one that is either a plot-hole if you believe him to be noble or one that instead confirms that he’s actually just a giant genocidal dildo (and a purple one to boot). Is he the one with the arc? Probably. Most of the heroes are either nudging forward their arcs from the past several movies or have no notable arcs to speak of — his is the most complete one, in that we get the full scope of it from the start of the film to its conclusion.

Is he the agent-of-change?

Definitely.

But if he’s the protagonist…

If he’s the agent of change…

That means the heroes, who oppose his change…

Are the antagonists.

Which, if you interpret again as a value-free narrative term — meaning, they oppose his change but are not necessarily ‘villainous,’ then that actually works. Are they also the bad guys? Well, no, obviously not. You can interpret Thanos’ mission as loosely as you like, but there’s few moral codes that assert his dipshit plan is actually the noblest one — he wants to kill a lot of people, randomly, in pursuit of some autocratic magnanimity. He’s a dick. A giant, bloated jerk. He’s the bad guy, and there’s really no way of wiggling out of that, unless you’re also a horrible monster.

It does however reveal the slightly problematic part of the movie which is, for me, the characters are playing defense for nearly 90% of it. Even when Tony, Spidey and Strange opt to “take the fight to Thanos,” they’re just doing what would have happened anyway — going where he’s going. It’s still not active, but reactive, which is the hero mode in this film. They become slightly more active with the intro of Cap, who — using the help of his Secret Avengers — opts to work on Vision’s bling and Shuri it out of his head in order to destroy the stone. They become more active in that, though they ultimately fail, and are forced to a fallback position of reactive. (And it goes toward my argument that, despite filmmaker assertions, this damn sure isn’t a “complete movie” unless you really, really want the movie to positively identify with Thanos as protagonist, main character, and Actual Good Guy. Given that the midpoint of a story like this is usually the All Is Lost turning point, and that point in this film happens moments before the credits, it’s pretty clear this is just one half of a larger story.)

So, again, is Thanos the protagonist?

Maybe? It’s an argument, and one you can support. Is he the villain? Also, probably yeah, unless you’re a dictator and a murderer, in which case, hey, he’s aspirational. It’s a fun way to think of the movie, and maybe intentional on the parts of the writers — the question now becomes: was that effective? Was that the best choice? That is left to you, and to the passage of time, to decide.

(Casual reminder now: if you like this sort of narrative dissection, you can find a whooooole lot more of it in Damn Fine Story, which also unpacks stories like Die Hard, Star Wars and… wait, Gilmore Girls? *checks notes* Yep, Gilmore Girls. Grab in print or e-book.)

Goddamnit.

Fran was like, “Hey, can I have the keys to the blog?” and I was like, “Sure, obviously,” because I’m no ding-dong — I know that Fran knows how to bring the Quality Content, but then I show up for work in the morning and what’s happened? THE WHOLE BLOG IS COVERED IN CRITTERS. Well, somebody is going to have to deal with this. And that’s you, dear reader. It’s you.

* * *

The Museum of Errant Critters

Or (as my friend C.L. Polk dubbed them): Adorable Creatures of Doom

Chuck has been tweeting and blogging a lot lately on matters of Authorial Mental Health and Happiness and that synced up with a side project of mine — drawing some of the brain weasels and head dragons that sometimes set up shop northwards of my heart while I’m writing, working, not working, going to conventions, not going to conventions, etc. Sure there are happier critters around these parts, but Errant Critters are currently easier to trap and sketch for posterity.

When I told Chuck what I was up to, he offered to let me park the Museum on his blog for a little while… and luckily he didn’t ask about care and feeding so I’m just going to leave them here to eat all the food in Chuck’s murdershed.

Welcome to The Museum of Errant Critters – Established somewhere between 1812 and 2018 to catalog and archive mind-creatures that often behave in creatively destructive ways.

Visit our exhibits to learn tips and tricks for Critter Management… (results not guaranteed). In particular, we’ve found that identification and discussion helps with management of many of these critters. At least, it helps with identifying the gnawing sounds in the dark of night.

Despair Narwhal

Migratory and nocturnal, the Despair Narwhal’s sharp horn and plaintive song wake creatives up in the middle of the night with intense feelings of doom. Despair Narwhals, being composed mostly of mist and doubt, often evaporate with a good dose of morning light, application of food, or starting a new project.

The Youcant (extinct)

The megasaurus Youcant once lurked artists studios and creatives’ desks worldwide. Currently extinct, the creature was put out of business by a rapid, global outbreak of Why The Hell Not in 2016.

BrainWeasels

The sharp-toothed brain weasel is a rapid breeder that thrives on grey matter. Usually seen following an infestation of doubt devils or worry worms, these critters’ lifespan lasts as long as you feed them.

Catastrophizing Cormorant

Often found hovering, wings flapping, around the worst possible outcomes. No, worse than that. Even worse. Yep, that one. This bird is sure the worst will happen and demands that you make plans for this outcome, often instead of doing other things. Care and feeding involves a nap, some lunch, and a long look at other possibilities.

Guilt Gorilla

The gravity well near most Guilt Gorillas is extensive and can drag down even a stalwart creative. Feeds on: pre-existing feelings of not doing enough, overwork, and lateness. Distraction devices include planning calendars, reminding yourself to stand up and stretch once in a while, and that yes even you should take a @!%$#@ vacation now and then.

Worry Worms

Numerous, but small, these critters can chew through anything, if left festering long enough. Writing down their names sometimes helps, as does telling them you’ve got better things to do than watch them eat. In some cases, they signify something left unaddressed, but not always the thing they’re chewing on.

Garbage Moths

Attracted to dumpster fires, train wrecks, and twitter, these moths’ bright colors and spectacular tendency to spontaneously combust can devour hours, days, even weeks. When you look back at the missing time, you might not even remember what attracted their interest. Solution: accountability software, net nannies, a trip to a wifi-free zone.

Doubt Devils

Known to frequent conventions, speaking engagements, and presentations, doubt devils, much like their cousin the cartoon tasmanian devil (hired long term by Warner Brothers) like to arrive in a whirlwind about midway through any multi-day event and helpfully repeat back to you a distorted version of things that you said, did, or didn’t do. Cause is unknown, but having a strong desire to be part of a community can be an attractor. Cures include checking in with a friend, stepping away from convention overload for a few minutes, and reminding yourself that almost everyone feels this way sometimes.

Procrastination Platypus

Found lazing in deep task lists, this platypus doesn’t really care what you need to do, it wants you to play minesweeper or maybe just watch some YouTube for as long as possible. Set a timer and do a few minutes of downtime if you’re feeling distracted. The platypus is useful for giving yourself a break, just don’t let it eat your clock.

The Carousel

A master of camouflage, the Carousel is a slowly turning critter that can make you forget your own successes in order to ask you, repeatedly, what have you done lately. Best way to overcome: celebrate your wins, no matter how small.

***

Fran Wilde’s novels and short stories have been nominated for three Nebula awards and two Hugos, and include her Andre Norton- and Compton-Crook-winning debut novel, Updraft (Tor 2015), its sequels, Cloudbound (2016) and Horizon (2017), and the novelette “The Jewel and Her Lapidary” (Tor.com Publishing 2016). Her short stories appear in Asimov’s, Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer, Nature, and the 2017 Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror. She writes for publications including The Washington Post, Tor.com, Clarkesworld, iO9.com, and GeekMom.com. You can find her on Twitter (@fran_wilde), Facebook (@franwildewrites), and at franwilde.net.

When portal-mage Harkon Bright and his apprentice are asked to help select a new captain for the immense skyship Iseult, they quickly find themselves embroiled in its Machiavellian officer’s court. Meanwhile, their new recruit, Elias, struggles to adapt to his unexpected gift of life while suffering dark dreams of an ancient terror.

As the skies darken and storm-clouds gather on the Dragon Road, the crew of the Elysium come face to face with deadly intrigues, plots from beyond death, and a terrible darkness that lurks in the heart of a thousand-year storm.

THE FIRST STEP ISN’T THE HARDEST. IT’S THE SECOND.

So you’ve finished your debut, and it’s launched. It has a slew of 5 star reviews on the Amazons and the Barnes and the Nobles. It’s racking up great responses, and you have your own pile of encouragement words that you can turn to the second you start to feel yourself flag on the next book you’re contracted for, right? This should totally be a breeze, because it’s the same characters and the same setting and you know them and what you’re doing and this is all fine, right?

RIGHT?

God, that third pot of the coffee you’ve been mainlining looks appealing. So what if the world is vibrating? It’s smooth sailing. IT’S ALL FINE.

(It is in no way fine my face is melting please help)

This is the thing about writing a series. The first time you write a book it’s this herculean effort of pole-vaulting, bare-knuckle bear-boxing, and naked oil wrestling with giant naked mole rats. Finishing it is an epic act of catharsis that feels like cresting the final ridge of the highest mountain. Oh wait, no, that’s a foothill and there’s a much bigger mountain. And it’s covered in ice. And skulls. And ice-skulls. Fuck. Picking up your legs and doing it all over again is exhausting.

THE SECOND ACTS MEANS EXPANDING THE SCOPE

SKYFARER had a very focused arc. It’s a combination quest/war story that follows two PoV’s chasing one goal as their stories weave closer and closer together until they both collide. Then the rest of the book is the explosive consequences of what they do when what they were looking for turns out not to be what they expected. The benefit of a story like this is that it forces brevity and focus. Ideally no book wastes words at all, but different story structures have different word-allowances. It’s like a triangle: the narrower the base, the less space there is to work in as you hurtle towards the apex.

DRAGON ROAD is a broader story. You get a lot more of Aimee and Elias as they work and fight together to seek truth and bring justice to the Eternal Sky, but you can also expect to get to know the rest of the cast better, too. More Hark, more Vant with his brilliance, Vlana’s devotion to her chosen family, Bjorn’s wisdom, Clutch’s wit and raw badass talent. Basically, my sequel meant that I had to spend more words on getting to know the core cast better. The plot structure of the book is also bigger, it covers more ground, and the build is slower. On the one hand this was SUPER COOL, but on the other hand I’d gotten used to working on a comparatively tiny word budget. All of a sudden I had a thousand extra crates of nails and nuts and bolts available to me and oh god what do I do with this shit.

EXPANDING THE SCOPE MEANS RAISING THE STAKES

Readers are lovely. They will stick with you through thick and thin, if you’ve made them feel something real. The magic of this job is reaching into people’s hearts and giving them something to give a shit about in a world that—lets face it—is pretty rough lately. But even your most devoted fans have limits to their patience. People are showing up for something specific, and if you jerk their chain around with pointless bullshit, they wont have the stamina to finish. So next to “Always make sure your subversion is cooler than the original implied trope,” my best piece of advice on this is to remember that more words builds a broader base. So don’t waste it. Crank up that fog machine, Fuqua. Summon the bigger racks of fireworks.

SKYFARER had the backdrop of a small, third-world country, and dealt primarily in personal stakes. A small crew, a single, dauntless mercenary leader and his tormented backstory. DRAGON ROAD deals with the lives of millions in the balance, and then more, as the story goes on and it becomes apparent the scale of atrocities that the Elysium crew must work and fight to prevent. It needed NEW characters and MORE THINGS. And DEEPER FEELINGS.

And that means…

HIGHER STAKES REQUIRE GREATER INVESTMENT

You know how much those readers cared about those characters? You have to make them care more. The more you present, the greater the pull to get them through it. Every bite of the apple must taste better. The fever must spike, and the colors grow more vivid. The second act is where the readers caring about the first book needs to pay dividends, so they’ll feel rewarded for placing their faith and hope into these people whose journey they’ve shared. Every fleshing out of a character or bright, vivid set piece needs to enhance, rather than distract. You learn to recognize these things as time goes on, and to detect the merit of something you add based on how much it enhances the experience. The question, through all of this bigger scale, meatier, gear-shiftier work is does this contribute to the payoff?

And that brings us to the most important thing you learn writing a Book 2:

GREATER INVESTMENT NECESSITATES BIGGER PAYOFF

A broader base takes a longer time to cross, and that means more time invested, so if you’re going to make people cover more ground and invest more time in the book, your payoff absolutely must be proportionately better. What does this mean? Well, basically if your stick is bigger, so must be the BOOM. Books are collections of sticks and booms, and the doctrine of explodicism teaches us that bigger, heavier sticks must deliver better booms, or the people who lugged them around will feel let down. This isn’t just about set pieces and blowing up the train and finally taking that Howitzer off the mantle-piece, it’s also about the feelings. Emotions are your stock and trade as an author, and goddammit people are showing up for these people you’ve made real enough that they feel as if they know them, and love them.

There’s a goddamn reason why people will read through six hundred pages for a promised kiss, a validation long sought after by a loved one, a mentors benediction, or the sweet release of a death well-deserved. The point is, as you draw people deeper and further, you need to always keep in mind the fact that you’re pulling them towards something exponentially more impactful than last time. Even as that triangle gets narrower towards the point, the point must be sharper, the edge keener. Reading a good book should be the act of getting intensely drunk on something, and my favorite writing is the stuff that creates a humming, dizzying buzz in the senses.

But the good news is, you can do it.

The thing about hard work is it builds on itself, so the most important takeaway from this is that I learned I can do it again. The thing about finishing the first book is that you’re assailed by the sense that you’ve spontaneously generated something you wont be able to make again, and you wont, because what you made then is a product of who you were then, and humans change… but the good news is that you’ve made yourself something BETTER in the course of making it, and what you make going forward will be better too.

So go fucking forward. Charge. Slay. Consume. Rise like a storytelling phoenix and set it all on fire. Because you can, because your trials have made you stronger, and because this is a Kung Fu movie and it’s time to summon the Glow.

And when you arrive at your final battle, and the beast seems like it can’t be overcome?

Tell em Joe sent you to kick its ass.

* * *

Joseph Brassey has lived on both sides of the continental US, and has worked as a craft-store employee, paper-boy, factory worker, hospital kitchen gopher, martial arts instructor, singer, and is currently an author and stay-at-home Dad (the last is his favorite job, by far). His novel Skyfarer–first in the Drifting Lands series–is published by Angry Robot Books. Joseph was enlisted as a robotic word-machine in 47North’s Mongoliad series, and still trains in – and teaches – Liechtenauer’s Kunst des Fechtens in his native Tacoma.

Joseph Brassey: Website | Twitter | Instagram

Dragon Road: Indiebound | Amazon