Last year, around this time, Joe Martin invited me to co-edit an anthology with him. It was to be a celebration of strong female characters, inspired by our desire at Ragnarok Publications to diversify our anthologies a bit more. Even when we have awesome women writing for us, so often the characters were still men. We wanted to have a spotlight on the ladies, to explore new themes, to flip some tropes on their heads, and above all, to have fun. But of course, no venture passes without a few learning experiences.

Editing an anthology is a lot like gardening.

I knew going into this project that anthologies were a lot of work. I’ve worked with authors for a long time, and I am one. I know the challenges of working with creative types. It’s like herding the most awesome cats ever, and I wouldn’t change anything about it. But there is an element of acceptance you have to have when you go into it. You have to accept that some authors might need more help than others. You have to accept that some will need deadline extensions, and you have to accept that some are used to working in a particular way, and no other way will work. As an editor, you have to let go of your ego a bit. You are the curator, the cultivator, but the authors are the creators. An anthology is an organic thing that grows and surprises and amazes. When you plant a garden, you can have a plan, you can plant the right seeds, and water it, fertilize it, make sure it gets enough sun. But the most fun and rewarding part of the garden, at least I think, is seeing how all the plants work together in full bloom to make a lovely whole. And as the gardener, you have to step back and watch it grow and bloom, because if you fiddle with it too much, if you try to control the outcome too much, you over-prune and things seem forced and the plants aren’t as strong. In an anthology, it’s amazing how the stories end up supporting each other in ways that were completely unplanned, but it makes the whole book come together. You have to step back and allow that to happen.

You can’t make everyone happy all the time.

Joe Martin and I did this anthology because we felt we wanted to have a collection showing all the ways women were awesome. We really loved what we were seeing out there as far as female characters, and wanted to see how we could contribute to that. We wanted to push the limits, explore the different ways strength could be shown, etc. We invited both men and women to contribute, because I am strongly of the opinion that a good writer can write from any character’s point of view. Women can write men, men can write women. And I’m pleased with the ratio we ended up having. We selected our authors very carefully to make sure the anthology represented what we wanted it to. When we announced the anthology, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Even when I invited authors to take part, and they couldn’t for whatever reason, they expressed great regret. But then, of course, once the Kickstarter started, we began to see comments like, “I wouldn’t touch that SJW garbage with a ten-foot pole!” and “God, another thing with these people trying to take over the genre.” “Here we go again, another anthology that sacrifices quality for their SJW agenda.” Now, these things didn’t hurt me at all. First of all, I was prepared for them. You can’t celebrate women, or any other minority, without attracting the ire of certain groups. And as far as sacrificing quality, I knew I had put the weeks of work into this book, getting authors like Seanan McGuire, William C. Dietz, Lian Hearn, Carol Berg, Delilah S. Dawson, and more, to make sure we had the top level stories people would expect from any Ragnarok anthology. And that’s the thing. Go into a project knowing that you put your all into it, go into it knowing why you are going into it, and your confidence will carry you through. If people have serious constructive questions, I think about them a lot, but I’m able to answer them nine time out of ten pretty easily because I did a lot of soul searching before anything about this project went public.

Speculative fiction is literature, too.

We’ve heard genre fiction called “the ghetto,” we’ve heard commercial fiction trashed because, *gasp* there is money involved. Lord forbid stories should be fun! And authors making money? How scandalous! It’s an age old thing that’s been going on since genre was invented. Now, I have always just dismissed this thing, but I will tell you, nothing more firmly cemented the fact that genre fiction is no less “literary” than so-called literary fiction faster than working on this anthology. Watching the process these authors went through to come up with their story ideas was both awesome and humbling. I actually get weepy when I look at some of these stories, not because of the content, but because of the work and thought the authors put into them. One could think, “Oh, a book centered on female protagonists. I’ll just have a woman save the world!” But I don’t think a single one of our authors had that thought. We have stories in there from folks experimenting with the ideas of different types of strength, different types of women. Can a story be fun while still having a message? Does a story NEED a message? Do strong women have to be young? Are women strong in a vacuum? The fact that all these questions were raised, yet all the stories in this book are amazing fun, moving, action-packed, and thrilling just really puts the argument of literary vs genre to rest for me. Words can’t express how awesome it’s been to work with these authors over the past few months.

Awesome talent doesn’t just live on the New York Times Bestseller list.

The NYT and USA Today Bestseller lists are good tools for seeing what folks are interested in reading. As a publicity and marketing person, when I was curating stories for Hath No Fury, I paid close attention to numbers. I mean, what’s the point in making a book if no one’s going to read it, right? I wanted to make sure we had some really strong names there to support us. But at the same time, it was really important to me that we had the best stories we could possibly collect, AND it was important that I gave new people a chance to be in the book. I knew, theoretically, that sales did not necessarily reflect quality. And after looking at the stories in this book, now I know it in practice, too. We have a lot of midlisters and a couple of pretty new authors in the contents as well, and their stories are all of equal quality to the bestsellers. So the lesson is, if you haven’t heard of an author, give them a chance anyway! Sure, you’ll come across some clunkers, but I find bad books on the NYT bestsellers list as well. There are some amazing stories out there waiting to be read.

Writing “Five Things” posts takes a lot of time.

My day job is as an author publicist. Authors and publishers hire me, in part, to find venues for them to talk about their work and books. And an inevitable part of any publicity campaign is the author calling me, sobbing, “OK, UNCLE, enough, I can’t write another blog post. I’m dying, plus I have another book to work on…” In response to which I usually laugh maniacally and say, “DRINK YOUR MEDICINE, IT’S GOOD FOR YOU!” Well, the shoe is on the other foot, now. I need to do a lot of publicity for the Hath No Fury campaign, while still editing the stories, and working on my own novel (I got a request from an agent the other day, so I’m scrambling to perfect the first twenty pages), AND doing day job stuff. It’s…a lot. You don’t want to just spew out posts left and right. You want the posts to represent the best of you so people will actually want to check out your work, rather than saying, “Who the hell is this quack?” So I have full sympathy for all my author clients…but at the same time, I know it’s necessary, and I actually love reaching out to readers in this way and engaging with them. So it’s all worth it in the end.

* * *

Hell Hath No Fury: Kickstarter

BIO: Melanie R. Meadors is the author of fantasy and science fiction stories where heroes don’t always carry swords and knights in shining armor often lose to nerds who study their weaknesses. She’s been known to befriend wandering garden gnomes, do battle with metal-eating squirrels, and has been called a superhero on more than one occasion. Her work has been published in several magazines, and was a finalist in the 2014 Jim Baen Memorial Science Fiction Contest. Melanie is also a freelance author publicist and publicity/marketing coordinator for both Ragnarok Publications (where she is also associate publisher) and Mechanical Muse, an independent gaming company. She blogs regularly for The Once and Future Podcast and GeekMom. Her short story “A Whole-Hearted Halfling” is in the anthology Champions of Aetaltis, available now on Amazon. She is the co-editor of Hath No Fury, an anthology celebrating women in speculative fiction, which is currently on Kickstarter and includes stories from Seanan McGuire, Carol Berg, Elaine Cunningham, Bradley P. Beaulieu, Philippa Ballantine, Anton Strout, and more. Follow Melanie on Facebook and on Twitter as @MelanieRMeadors, and visit her website at melaniermeadors.com

INVASIVE is out now! Kirkus said it best in its — *shines an apple* — starred review, “Think Thomas Harris’ Will Graham and Clarice Starling rolled into one and pitched on the knife’s edge of a scenario that makes Jurassic Park look like a carnival ride.”

If you don’t mind spreading the word about it, I’d sure appreciate it.

Feel free to nab it wherever books are sold:

Indiebound | Amazon | B&N | iBooks

Also, don’t forget to join me tomorrow, 8.17, at Doylestown Book Shop, where I’ll be signing and talking about the book, and also there might be edible ants there if you want some, mmmm. *licks fingers* Also, 9.22 I’ll be at Let’s Play Books in Emmaus (with cupcakes!).

And now, I present to you —

10 25 reasons to buy Invasive.

By little chucky wendig, age 11 and a half.

1. Because you like exciting biological creature feature thrillers!

2. Because hey, free trip to Hawaii! I mean, sorta?

3. BECAUSE YOU HATE ANTS AND WANT TO SEE THEM PUNISHED. (Seriously, right now, ant infestations are epic across the US because of weather patterns and because of summer ending, so this book will give you a vicarious thrill. It’ll even give you ideas as to how to COMBAT THE MYRMIDONIAN MENACE. Hell, you can use the book to squash them if you want. Not that I advocate hurting animals or insects! No animals were harmed in the making of this book. Except I punched a cow once around chapter 14 — that cow knows what it did.)

4. BECAUSE YOU LOVE ANTS AND HATE PEOPLE.

5. Because cool contest, bro.

6. Because if you don’t buy the book I’ll keep sending ants to your house. *shakes ant jar* *stares at you* *stares harder* *shakes ant jar harder* Ha ha, no, it’s okay, I’m not totally threatening you with ants. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. Just buy the book.

7. Because

8.Because if you look inside the book OH GOD THEY’RE EVERYWHERE

9. Because I think this is my best book yet.

10. Because RT Book Reviews said one of the coolest things anybody has ever said about me or my books: “Chuck Wendig can congratulate himself on a stunning new achievement: becoming the architect of all my future nightmares.”

11. Because B&N SFF blog said, “Invasive begins at a run and quickly goes careening down an icy mountain road in a truck full of dynamite. With no brakes. He augments that breathless punch with a plot that channels the technology-run-amok spirit of Michael Crichton operating in peak form.”

12. Because you liked Zer0es. This is not a sequel to that book, but is set in the same universe and a few of the same characters show up (Hollis Copper) and maybe, just maybe, with these books I’m building to something bigger. (Note: you do not need to read Zer0es to understand Invasive.)

13. Because this happens:

14. Because Ez Choi. (Read it, you’ll see.)

15. Because Orange Bitey Thing. (Also read it, you’ll see.) (No, not a nickname for Trump.)

16. Because it’s not really — or not just — a book about ants. It’s a book about the future. And about anxiety. And about fear and hope, and about optimism and pessimism, and about the terror and wonder of modern life. Also, ants.

17. Because Hannah Stander is one of my favoritest heroines I’ve ever written. The daughter of doomsday preppers, she’s now a futurist and a consultant for the FBI, helping to advise them on near-future threats for which they are woefully unprepared. She is a character besieged by anxiety for the future but also buoyed by her hopes for what humankind is capable of creating. I hope we’ll see more of Hannah in the future.

18. Because Publishers Weekly said: “With this cinematic thriller’s unusual setting, horror imagery, twisty plot, and grittily determined protagonist, fans of Michael Crichton will feel right at home.”

19. Because Crimespree Magazine said: “Invasive is one part locked room mystery, one part 1950’s monster movie, and one part cutting-edge scientific thriller.”

20. Because if you don’t buy it how else will I pay for tacos. RIDDLE ME THAT, BATMAN.

21. Because you want to find out what’s going on with Han Solo and — wait, no, that’s Star Wars: Aftermath: Life Debt: Jar-Jar’s Erotic Awakening. Never mind.

22. Because Michael Patrick Hicks calls it: “the spiritual lovechild of Michael Crichton and The X-Files.”

23. Because Ed Yong, brilliant science writer, said:

Imagine Jurassic Park, but much scarier, w/ ants instead of dinosaurs, and loads of great female characters. That’s INVASIVE by @ChuckWendig

— Ed Yong (@edyong209) July 30, 2016

(Seriously, buy his book: I Contain Multitudes, about micro-biome. Stop viewing life through the keyhole. His book is funny and sharp and smart and DAMNIT GET YOUR LEARNIN’ ON.)

24. Because bestselling sci-fi legend John Scalzi said of Invasive: “CHUCK I HAVE CALLED THE COPS YOU NEED TO STOP SHOVING FISTFULS OF ANTS UNDER MY DOOR I WON’T READ YOUR STUPID BOOK,” ha ha ha, what a kidder that guy is, I assume he means, “It was real good, Best Friend Chuck.” To which I would respond, “Thanks, Best Friend John,” and then we’d jump up and freeze-frame high-five as the credits to our jaunty sitcom scrolled over us.

25. BECAUSE LOOK THE BOOK COMES WITH REAL ANTS AND IF YOU DON’T BUY IT THE ANTS WILL EAT ME AND EAT YOU AND EAT ALL OF US oh god they’ve already taken over everything they’re everywhere they control the earth

OH GOD HE’S AS BIG AS A ROTTWEILER

IT’S A MONSTER

IT’S CLICKING AT ME

SEND BORAX AND SUGAR

Fine, no, he’s not some gi-hugic ant, it’s just an ant at the end of my macro lens. This one is Camponotus pennsylvanicus — the black carpenter ant. And of course he’s just here, surely excited to revel in tomorrow’s release of Invasive. And hey, did you see there’s a contest?

There’s a contest. A photo contest! Details here.

Also, speaking of ants, I highly recommend this fascinating article on the Argentine ant — an invasive species, hint hint — at Ars Technica by the awesome Annalee Newitz.

See you tomorrow for the release of Invasive…

Nab it here:

Indiebound | Amazon | B&N

Tomorrow, Invasive comes out.

*opens mouth, river of ants pours out*

I MEAN HA HA WHAT.

*shoves ants back in mouth, clears throat*

What I’m saying is, hey, maybe you want to get a copy. And maybe you want to take a photo of that copy and you want to send it to me at terribleminds at gmail dot com. And then maybe I’ll take those photos and I’ll look for the funniest or weirdest or coolest ones, and I’ll pick one as my favorite. Then I’ll pick a random draw from the rest. THEN I WILL DISTRIBUTE PRIZES, RAINING THEM UPON YOU LIKE A SHOWER OF ANTS.

Hey, ha ha, I totally didn’t say that.

I definitely won’t send you ants.

(I might send you ants.)

This is a contest.

As such, there are rules.

First, you get one entry only.

Second, you need to send that one photo to me at that email listed (terribleminds at gmail).

Third, the photo must contain a physical copy of the book. It can also contain you, if you want to be in the photo. But you don’t need to be in the photo if you don’t want to be.

Fourth, this contest is open only to US residents only. Shipping is tricky internationally.

Fifth, all photos are due by 11:59PM EST on Sunday, the 28th (EDIT: adding an extra week to the contest, as some have asked for time!). I’ll pick winners and announce them here at ye olde blogghaus on Tuesday, the 30th. Note that all photos will be posted to my Flickr account, so, don’t send me anything you don’t want public.

[Edit: Photoshop — note this is a contest, not a Photoshop contest. A little is fine in terms of cleaning up the photo, of course, BECAUSE WHAT AM I, A SAVAGE.]

Finally, the prizes are as follows —

Prize, the First:

I will pick my favorite. You will receive a big box of my books, all of them devalued with an autograph. These books include but are not limited to: the Miriam Black series, my two Star Wars books, the Heartland trilogy, the Atlanta Burns books, and more. You will also receive an ant stuffed animal — Lasius niger, the common garden ant. So cute! So mandibley! Finally, I will send you some form of edible ant snacks. Your choice whether that’s a salty snack, or chocolate, or lollipops. (Or omakase — dealer’s choice!) SEE TOLD YOU I WILL SEND YOU ANTS.

Prize, the Second:

I will pick one random draw to receive a prize pack of stuff from Harper Voyager books.

That’s it. Them’s the rules, that’s the score.

This is your last day to pre-order Invasive, by the by:

Indiebound | Amazon | B&N

PLEASE TO ENJOY.

The task here is as simple as it is delicate, as difficult as it is complicated — go into the comments and write one sentence. No more. Just one entry. This sentence should be no more than fifteen words long. It will not be two sentences, but rather, just one. It needn’t be an opening line or a closing line. It need only be a sentence in a story that has not yet been written.

Then, next week, we will use these sentences to create a new story.

Length: one sentence, up to fifteen words, entered into the comment section below.

Due by: 8/19, noon EST.

Imagine your sentence.

Choose it wisely.

Write it down for all to see.

In the face of impossible odds, can one girl stem the tides of war?

It has been six months since clockwork engineer Petra Wade destroyed an automaton designed for battle, narrowly escaping with her life. But her troubles are far from over. Her partner on the project, Emmerich Goss, has been sent away to France, and his father, Julian, is still determined that a war machine will be built. Forced to create a new device, Petra subtly sabotages the design in the hopes of delaying the war, but sabotage like this isn’t just risky: it’s treason. And with a soldier, Braith, assigned to watch her every move, it may not be long before Julian finds out what she’s done.

Now she just has to survive long enough to find another way to stop the war before her sabotage is discovered and she’s sentenced to hang for crimes against the empire. But Julian’s plans go far deeper than she ever realized … war is on the horizon, and it will take everything Petra has to stop it in this fast-paced, thrilling sequel to The Brass Giant.

* * *

SEQUELS ARE JUST PLAIN HARD.

This is one of those undeniable truths that should be carved into stone somewhere. Stonehenge seems like a good bet.

Before I started writing this book, I’d read on various writing blogs and heard from a number of authors that sequels are difficult to write, especially second books in a series. But there is a difference in hearing this difficulty secondhand and being buried waist-deep in the trenches with nothing but a rusty fountain pen and an open vein, fruitlessly carving letters into the mud before the rain can wash them away. I never expected writing a sequel would be easy, but I also had the experience of having already written a couple of books, so I figured it would be no more difficult than those were. Let this serve as a warning: Don’t get cocky. You may have written and published a book (or several!) and think you have this whole writing thing under control, but it’s a terrible terrible lie. Sequels will test you. They will destroy you.

Second books feel like an artless slog. And even when you finally make it to the end, there is an even more horrible truth to be learned: every book from now on is going to be like this. Writing a book isn’t easy. It doesn’t get easier just because you think you know what you’re doing. The more you know, the harder it is, because you recognize just how badly you suck at this whole storytelling thing, and you know that there’s no easy way forward except to trudge right through and hope for the best.

You can hope that you’ll learn something with each new story, that you’ll improve with each new draft, but sometimes, you feel like the kid in art class who mistook a pile of steaming shit for finger paint and now you have a brown mess smeared across the canvas instead of a pretty rainbow. But at this point, you’re invested. All you can do is keep going, shit or not, and make the best goddamn shit-brown rainbow your clumsy fingers can smear onto the page.

And on that note…

TODDLERS AND WRITING TIME DO NOT PEACEFULLY COEXIST.

(Nailed that segue, amirite?)

This novel took me roughly eighteen months to write and edit to completion, the timing of which just so happened to coincide with my daughter’s burgeoning toddlerdom. As a result, this book took twice as many months as the first book to produce, working twice as many hours. Sometimes, I was able to work during her naptime. Sometimes, I could write while she watched an hour of television. Sometimes, I had to work into the wee hours of the morning with a cold mug of forgotten coffee in front of me because it was literally the only time I could focus long enough to get a scene finished.

In fact, this single blog post has already taken me a couple of days to write, scribbled during episodes of Blue’s Clues, naptime, and in the hours between her bedtime and mine.

Writing and editing an entire novel on that schedule is akin to madness.

I just wish I had known years ago just how much having a kid would change my ability to write. I wouldn’t trade my little dude for anything, but man, I wasted a lot of good, solid writing time pre-motherhood. Lesson learned, I guess?

WRITING WITH YOUR AUDIENCE IN MIND IS A GOOD THING… UNTIL IT’S NOT.

Not only is writing a book hard enough on its own—doubly so when trying to write with a toddler in the house—but writing a sequel to a book that is already published and gathering reviews is its own level of torture-hell.

I was about halfway done with the first draft of The Guild Conspiracy when book one in the series came out, and let me tell you… trying to write a sequel while also reading early reviews of your first book is not conducive to being confident in your writing.

(I know, I know… everyone and their great aunt advises against reading your own reviews. Those same people probably advise against looking at your Amazon rankings every day, too. And yay for the authors who can ignore things like sales and reviews and star ratings. I am not one of those authors. I do not get to share in your blissful ignorance.)

One of the top writing tips doled out by writers and publishers alike is to write to your audience. At its most basic level, that just means knowing who you’re writing for and what they like and how to give them something new and different while also giving them what they want to read. Simple, right? Well, with a second book in a series, your audience isn’t this vague, ideal focus group anymore. They’re an actual, living, breathing entity—no longer the people you want to reach with your words, but the people you have reached. You flung the first book out into the world, and there are people who have held it in their hands and turned its pages and read its words. Some of them enjoyed it. Some of them hated it. Some of them think you can’t write worth a damn.

But they exist now, and you want to do your best make them happy.

This is a dangerous road.

Constantly worrying about how a book will be received by readers while you’re still writing it is a one-way ticket to crippling self-doubt. I agonized daily over how certain characters and plot points might be received by the readers of my first book. I second-guessed myself. I tried to please everyone who left a negative review. I tried to please everyone who left a positive review. I lost track of the story I wanted to write and ended up with a book that tried to do too much and accomplished too little.

It wasn’t until several months later, on my second revision of the novel, when the reviews of my first book were no longer fresh in my mind and I’d had some time to mellow for a bit, that I finally reined myself back in and was able to focus on the story as it should have been.

Which brings me to my next point…

NEVER LOSE SIGHT OF YOUR STORY.

Never compromise the story’s integrity for the sake of anything other than your own personal vision for what the story should accomplish. This should be obvious, but after suffering from the kind of crippling self-doubt and second-guessing that comes from trying to write a book for literally everyone but myself, it needs to be said. Loudly.

I could have saved myself a lot of angst and multiple revisions had I only trusted in my original vision for the story and stuck to it from beginning to end. Lesson learned.

EVERYONE AND THEIR GRANDMA HAS ADVICE ON HOW TO FINISH YOUR BOOK.

Literally the only person in my life who did not at one time weigh in on how I should be writing or editing my book was the aforementioned toddler who made sure I never got more than five minutes to write said book.

I am a very honest person. If someone asks me how my writing is going, I don’t plaster on a manic grin and say “fine” while internally screaming for someone to free me from this misery. I usually answer with “oh, you know, I’m actually having a bit of a hard time with the chapter that I’m working on right now,” which understandably leads to whoever I’m talking to giving me their two cents on what I should be doing based on this or that blog article they read, or what they would do if they were writing a book. Which they aren’t. And haven’t. Ever. Because they aren’t a writer.

I appreciate the advice from fellow writers, even if it doesn’t jive 100% with my process, but from non-writers… I know it comes from a place of well-meaning, but telling me to stop worrying about getting the dialogue just right and just move on to the next thing… or, you know if you put this much effort into a new story instead of editing the same one four times, you’d have five times as many books out by now… it’s not helpful. It’s really not.

(I hear this enough from my inner voice. I don’t need to hear it out loud, thanks.)

I struggle with my craft. I work hard at it. I want to improve with everything I write. I don’t want to be the kid who turns in a shit-smeared canvas. I want to be the kid who turns in a masterpiece—even if that means having to scrape away layer after layer of dried fecal matter when I realize my mistake and then starting over with the right materials. (Man, I am really dragging this poop-art metaphor through the whole thing, I guess.)

The point is: Writing is hard. It’s meant to be hard. That means you’re trying to get better at it. And if you learn something in the process, like this here list of things you just read, then rest assured… you’re on the right track.

***

Bio: Brooke Johnson is a stay-at-home mom and tea-loving author. As the jack-of-all-trades bard of the family, she journeys through life with her husband, daughter, and dog. She currently resides in Northwest Arkansas but hopes one day to live somewhere a bit more mountainous.

(Note: Brooke is doing an AMA on Reddit today!)

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The Guild Conspiracy: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Goodreads