Reader

So I'm considering finding a third person to read my manuscripts and provide feedback. I already have my Mom and Emily reading them once and giving me great feedback, but I think a third reader would be a good thing. Why?

Well, first of all, it's a pain in the ass to read a manuscript multiple times as a favor to a friend, so I don't ask. I have this suspicion that both Mom and Emily would agree enthusiastically while in their heads thinking "Oh God, not again, please, no."

Secondly it would be great to get a completely new perspective from a different source.

What am I looking for in a reader? I'm hoping to find someone with the following qualities or training:

1. enjoys reading fantasy, urban fantasy and science fiction, and has some experience with those genres

2. has taken some sort of exposure to this sort of 'work' before--whether it be from taking a creative writing workshop, working in the industry or being a writer him or herself.

3. has the ability to view a story as a whole and to see the details as well, and is willing to provide suggestions for addressing perceived weaknesses.

4. has the ability to keep the turnaround to a month or less, or even slightly more than that, but preferably not too much more.

5. And I want a pony.

What output am I looking for?

1. a rational evaluation of the major parts of a good story: characterization, plot, mood and tone, and the prose itself. Gud speeling or grammer not is needed.

2. The ability to be constructively critical. While it's always cool to know what's working, identifying what isn't working is really just as helpful. I know sometimes it's hard to level criticism at someone. The constructive part suggesting I don't really need "The whole thing just sucks, don't quit your day job", or "Your name really ruins the whole novel. maybe call yourself Jet Stevens instead?"

I actually know that some of my friends meet these criteria, with the possible exception of the pony part. But I am leery of asking right up front for fear that the following renumeration/barter offers would just be plain insulting to them. The first step in my search is to find out if what I'm looking for is even remotely reasonable.

Renumeration could include any of the following:

1. An exchange of services if desired. I enjoy reading for other people and will gladly return the favor.

2. A mention in the acknowledgements of anything that he or she reads that I manage to get published.

3. Some minor payment if neither of the above satisfy them. This would be very minimal, which probably excludes anyone who is in this industry professionally already :) But I can't really afford to throw much cash at this problem. It turns out there are some fairly restrictive child labor laws in Illinois so McDonalds had to lay off Theo. I can't understand it--he was only putting in a ten hour work day and was learning some valuable life lessons. Like don't go into the walk in freezer without blocking open the door, don't put your face on the grill and don't call customers "poopie-head".

Finally, another thing that would be awesome to know is, does this sound remotely reasonable to even pursue? Am I looking for someone that simply doesn't exist in this time-space continuum?

Anyway, I'm imagining that all of this will narrow the field to my Mom and Emily, but I figured it was worth a shot. I'm going to go wait for the Child Protective Services goobs to show up.

The New Improved Wheel of Time?

So I have been rereading the entire series--I bought the latest book and after about ten pages realized I'd lost too much context to continue. I've really enjoyed the books, more than I ever have before. I think it's because I've thrown myself into my own writing with such abandon. I have found myself analyzing Jordan's prose, the mechanics of the stories and the characters and how he built them. He had a lot of interesting tools at his disposal that he used to build a sense of individual voice for each character, and over eleven books he'd managed to create such a huge, diverse cast of players that I find myself impressed. Deeply impressed.

Granted, at times his handling of some of the characters becomes clunky or even forced--Nynaeve in particular is not a fun character to follow. But the way he built Mat's voice is one of my favorite parts of these books--I have learned a lot in this most recent read by simply paying attention to the mechanics of how that characterization is carried off.

Now that I've finally arrived at the latest book, which Brandon Sanderson actually authored using Jordan's copious notes and plans, I was prepared to dislike and mourn the shift in writing styles. But I'm enjoying this one just as much as the previous books. In some ways much more. Sanderson is a talented writer--he uses many of the same tools and mechanics that Jordan lived by, but he applies a finer sense of economy to his prose, while at the same time is able to imbue the same lushness of the story. Jordan chose well who his successor would be. I still find myself sad at his death but I am pleased where Sanderson is taking the story.

Of course, I'm still waiting to see if Nynaeve tugs her damned braid.

Theo's ink woes

So last night Theo put this really large, pretty cool looking tattoo on his neck. Before anyone things this is another of my bad dad posts, it's a "temporary" tattoo. The quotes are there because they seem to hang around for over a months :P

Anyway, it is shaped sort of like the wings pins that you used to get from American Airlines when you were a kid flying. He's got the center of it over his adam's apple, and the wings extending around to be underneath his ears. I wish I'd gotten a picture this morning. He was quite proud of it and strutted around all evening.

This morning he woke up and decided he was too embarrassed to go to school with it on. So he asked me to take it off. I have no idea how to do that, and tried to soak it off with warm water to no avail. It was a classic moment of failing to see the consequences of an action, and learning later that he has to think things through. I imagine it won't make any difference though :P

And then there's Riley--she put about 20 tattoos on herself a few months back and had no embarrassment wearing them no matter where we went.

And then there's me--all my tattoos under my t-shirt on my back and I regret not being able to show them to people without coming off as some kind of nutjob. "Wanna see my back???"

Bad Dad!

So this morning I did something with Theo that might not be good parenting. But you know what? I just don't care.

While we were waiting in the car for the bus to arrive--5 degrees out there--he told me that he doesn't like to ride the bus because there's a girl who calls him 'fishbreath' everyday and she's mean to him.

So my first response was the correct parenting response--just ignore her. He said that he does ignore her, but she still does it and it hurts his feelings. So I told him that he shouldn't let what she says hurt his feelings because she's clearly not a nice person and her opinion shouldn't matter at all. He didn't seem reassured by that, and after a moment of considering that advice I realized it was unrealistic. I always had a hard time reacting rationally to that kind of shit, too.

So I ventured out into bad-dad land and told him if, and only if, she called him 'fishbreath' he should look at her, smile in the most friendly way, and say 'Hello, Elephant Ears'. He giggled for a while and seemed excited about getting on the bus, and that made me feel much better.

Until I got home and realized I'd just told him to call names and pick on someone's physical appearance. I felt guilty for a moment. But only a moment. After that moment I wished I could b e a fly on the wall to see how it went, and if it wasn't successful, provide him with another tactic to get the little rugrat off his back.

I wish my Dad would have taught me the art of war when I was a kid :D

Prima Dumbass

I don't know how it is in your industry, but in mine, prima donnas are as prevalent as blades of grass in a lawn. This is interesting because one of the primary traits of the prima donna is this sense that they are the best and infalliable while those around them are idiots and a waste of space. At least that's the case with software prima donnas. However, if you do the math, n-1 of them are full of it. There can be only one. Haven't I used that quote before?

So anyway, for some reason, I end up being stuck working with these people more often than not and currently I've got a new one I'm partnered with for a project. I make mistakes. I'm not perfect (I realize this is a shocking admission) and I'm always learning new things. The constant acquisition of new information and skills is one of the things I've always loved about what I do for a living.

In general I readily admit these things to anyone and everyone who asks. I get excited about what I'm doing, and am more than willing to argue a point, but I also am ready to see the other side and admit when I've made a mistake. Evidently this is a very rare thing in my industry.

I really don't know what to do with these people though. They are condescending and rude at the very least and at the worst they attempt to actually undermine other people. This guy I'm dealing with is the latter sort.

What's the point of all this? Just getting it off my chest in a forum that I control, rather than exploding in anger and raging at him. He's not even really as great as he thinks he is, so if it came to that, putting him in his place would be rather easy.

But I guess I have to ask myself a hard question: maybe there's something...insufficient about me. Maybe it's me who has the issue, not these people. I mean, there are plenty of people that I DO work well with...usually they are polite, interested in doing what's best and discussing things rationally.

Eh, it's his fault. It's not my fault he's a moron and I'm perfect in every way. I shouldn't have to account for his shortcomings.

Drama! Stress!

So I've had my manuscript out in the hands of an agent the last two and a half months. Or so I thought. I finally decided it was time to see if she'd taken a look at it yet--just a gentle reminder/inquiry, etc. I agonized over the five sentence email, trying to combine just the right tone of respect, enthusiasm, and interest in knowing more. I also wanted to be careful not to sound aggressive or hostile. This is the kind of thing I get super neurotic about. I want this to work so much--probably too much.

Anyway, I sent the email and got back a response about an hour later saying that she didn't recognize the title of my manuscript and asked if I mailed it or emailed it. This was my second worst scenario. The first being rejection, of course. So we exchanged emails for a little while and I provided her with the name of the person who signed for it in her office, and a copy of the original email asking me for the manuscript so that she wouldn't think I was trying to scam my way in the backdoor.

She responded and asked me to attach the manuscript to an email, so I did and now it's actually in her hands. I can't decide if she's going to be positively motivated toward the manuscript out of some sense that her office lost it and was at fault, or if she's going to be annoyed at me for being such a pushy (albeit, polite and respectful) asshat.

The bottom line is that after almost three months of a strange mixture of excitement, desperation and terror, I didn't even have anything to worry about. NOW I do though, so I'm ramping up those emotions again at a frightening rate.

Yeesh.

Cry more, noob.

I apologize to anyone who reads this who is not a video game fan. I promise this doesn't signify a vast change in my content here.

Why is it that every single MMORPG since EQ is fundamentally the same? It's around 10 years after EQ and we're still dealing with the same basic issues. Sure, the sugar coating has gotten better: neato question mark graphics above the quest giving npc's head, a mail system, 'mounted' travel.

I'm playing Aion lately in a casual way and this game has all the new eye candy and convenient additions, plus some new ones that are cool. But when you peel all that stuff away it's really no different than anything that came before it. Here's a quick list.

a. static and insufficient quests. this results in boring leveling after the first toon. And grinding. crap loads of grinding.

b. endgame content designed to feed the obsessive and well connect players, and completely ignores the casual player.

c. a crafting system that is designed to be a time and money sink and results in items that are mediocre in most cases

d. combat systems that are basically unchanged from the first mmorpgs: chains, cooldown timers, etc

e. level based advancement. I know that at least one recent game has tried to get back to the skill advancement system that UO sported in the old days, but other than that we're still madly rushing to max-level and uber-gear so we can be even remotely competitive. This is especially painful for those of us that are gradually losing synaptic speed.

I can go on and on. Admittedly, graphics have gotten better, UIs have gotten more user friendly and configurable, and otherwise the games have improved in many ways, but fundamentally the underlying structure of the games are the same.