Why I Went Indie

This week, after much consternation, I decided to release my first "real" novel, WINTER'S DISCORD, on my own. It wasn't an easy decision and one I'd been flip-flopping about for months but a wide assortment of reasons prevented me from pulling the trigger. This past weekend I made it happen and released it as an ebook only through Kindle Direct Publishing. So what changed? Here's a short list of reasons.

1. It's been 17 years since I finished WINTER and queried it for the first time. I've been through two agents. One signed me then quit agenting, leaving me high and dry. The second screwed me over multiple times by not submitting my work even though he said that he was. He didn't even bother returning my emails telling him I was letting him go. I had a few close calls. One publisher liked the book but felt it was too much like something else they had (that wound up being wildly popular) and another that felt it was too complex for the YA space but too simple for the adult epic fantasy audience. I decided that it was time to do something with it. I felt that it's too good a book to be a trunk novel and that I had nothing to lose by releasing it to the world. I talk about my writing all the time and felt that it was time to shit or get off the pot. 
2. I wanted to see what people would actually think of what I wrote, for better or for worse. I need to know if I'm as good as I think I am. And what a better way to do it then by releasing it by myself. I'm only doing ebook for an assortment of reasons that I'll discuss later. 
3. The third reason is the one that pushed me the most. About a month ago, a good friend unexpectedly passed away and it shook me to my core. He was only a few years older and was about to retire. It made me really consider some things and I decided that I didn't want to be one of those people that just talked about doing something, so I decided that it was time to do the thing. And I did. 

So that's the reasoning behind the release of my book. Now, let me address some questions.

1. Does this mean I've given up on being traditionally published? No. I'm still actively querying and seeking representation for my writing, but I've decided to slow down a bit and reevaluate what I want to send out next. I shifted to writing for a younger audience in the last year and most "new" writing I'm doing has been in that space. More on that later.
2. Why just an ebook? Mostly for logistical reasons. There are a lot more steps in preparing a physical book that I just didn't want to take right now or pay for, to be honest. I may do so in the future, depending on how well the books do. 
3. Is there a sequel? Yes. If all goes according to plan, there will be three sequels as part of the series. Presently, I'm working on revising and editing the second book, SPRING'S TEMPEST, and hope to release that some time in the summer (It looks like I'm going to be running at least a season behind on each book!). The other two books, tentatively titled SUMMER'S STRIFE and AUTUMN'S GLORY, need to be planned and written, so that'll take time, I just don't know how much time it is going to take for me to finish the books. I think they are going to be big books so it'll take some time to finish them, even with a good plan!
4. Where's the map? Alright, if you know me, you know I LOVE me a good map and think that all fantasy books should have a map. I wanted a map but I don't exactly have the funds to hire a cartographer to turn the chicken scratched map that I've drawn into something worth putting into the book. Again something I will correct. (I could've asked my daughter, who did the brilliant cover, but I felt like I asked her to do enough already, plus I need her for three more covers!)
5. What's next? Well, I'm still working that out. I want to focus on finishing this series but that's easier said than done. I have to fix SPRING, which is going to be a lot of heavy lifting in some spots, then plan and write books three and four. That being said, I have other plans for the coming months. I have a middle grade project that I really want to finish and send out into the world. I'm studying MG books and trying to get the voice down. I think I'm close. I just have to figure out the third act. I think middle grade is my best shot at getting representation. I also want to give another swing at my YA fantasy THE LOST SCIONS...well at least take a swing at the third act. Third acts have been vexing me lately. I really believe in that story. Everything else has kind of been put away for a while, I don't want to say that they are trunked but they are carefully put under glass for now. 

I can't think of anything else right now that needs explaining. If you think of anything, please reach out and ask. I'd strongly encourage you to give my book a try. Think of it as a PG-13 Game of Thrones. It's got all of the action and thrills of GOT without the gratuitous violence, rape and incest.  While written for YA, I think it works in the traditional epic fantasy space as well. And don't be afraid to tell me what you think.

As always, thanks for your support. 

What Ever Happened To Power Ballads?

My daughter's school is doing the musical version of Footloose for their Spring musical. She's on the tech crew and really excited about it. A seminal pop culture touchstone for my generation, I'm curious to see how it translates both as a musical and on stage. The movie is a hard act to follow, especially when you consider the music. The other night we were on our way home from a birthday party listening to the soundtrack from the original movie. It's a banger and, from what I've gathered the musical borrows heavily from it, as it should. 

Shuffling through the songs, we landed on Almost Paradise featuring Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann freaking Wilson from Heart, two mainstay bands of the 80s. I honestly never realized that it was Ann Wilson singing on this song until this week. It's a pretty good song. A little schmaltzy but it was the 80s, am I right? At one point during the song I said to my wife, "They don't make songs like this anymore." I have never sounded so old as I did at that moment. My wife agreed and I doubled down by saying that there were no real "power ballads" in music anymore. That made me a little sad as I thought about it. 

According to the always reliable TV Tropes website, a power ballad is "a slow and soft song using some of the bombastic elements of hard rock and heavy metal." You can read the carefully curated entry here, but user beware, spending time there is a lot like blacking out from drinking. One minute you are looking up power ballads and next thing you know three days have past and you wake up in Cleveland wearing someone else's underwear. 

I love me a good power ballad. Give me some Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, Aerosmith, Garth Brooks, Chicago or Van Halen (mostly Van Hagar) any day of the week. Something that will blow me out of my shoes with its hard edged cheese. Can you name a blockbuster from the 80s and 90s that didn't have one of these sonic schmaltzfests attached to them? They were part of the very genetic make-up of those movies and, honestly, part of the success of such films. I'm not joking. Was there a bigger song that (Everything I Do) I Do It For You or My Heart Will Go On? I think not. You just don't see it anymore. It's a relic of another time. As Roland the Gunslinger says, the world has moved on. And that's a shame. What caused this? Why is this the case? Where has the power ballad gone? 

Sure, there are still musicals with massive, swelling ballads in them, and there are plenty of pop ballads that still make the round. But when was the last time we heard a song like I'll Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)? Sure Adele comes to mind. And Disturbed had their terrific cover of The Sound of Silence, but for the most part, this type of song has disappeared. Why?

Well, the erosion of rock as a musical genre certainly has something to do with it. There just aren't enough rock bands out their doing what they do anymore. Most of the rock bands today are those that appeal to people my age. I mean I went to see Bush three years ago (Glycerine is a prime example of a great power ballad) and realized that Gavin Rossdale was almost 60! (And still getting it done!) The older generation that cultivated this genre of music is moving on and no one has stepped in to fill the void. 

Gavin Rossdale wonders where all the power ballads have gone.

Younger pop stars like Ed Sheeran, Sabrina Carpenter, Bruno Mars, Billie Eilish, Benson Boone and ever Taylor Swift lack the gravitas for a power ballad. It's just not what they do. This is not to diminish their talent or abilities, they just don't have "it." They lack the oomph that is required for a good power ballad. And that's disappointing. 

So, music industry, you cowards, bring back the power ballad! I don't have a good ending for this, so as my friend Mark likes to say, "And then I found ten dollars."

2024: The Year In Review & A Look Forward

 It's been a while since I've done a year in review post and I thought that it might be a good time to do one. Sure there's five days left in the year but writing this now is better than me scrambling to write it later in the week. After a flourishing start to the year, I kind of petered out with posts in this space, which is kind of how the year went. I just had nothing interesting to share. At least that's the way that I felt. I thought my posts earlier this year were pretty good, yet they never really got the views that I hoped. I think that feeling may have influenced my sharing here because it was like yelling out into the void. And maybe that's okay. 

2024 was a weird year because of reasons. I'm going to focus strictly on my reading and writing in this space, let's just leave it at that. 

I've been in a horrible reading slump. I've only read 35 books this year. That's the lowest total in a long, long time. It's certainly a long way from years when I read 150 books in a year. I just haven't been investing the time or energy into reading that I should and that's been reflective in my writing, which I'll get to in a little bit. The number that alarms me most is that I only read 11 novels last year. That's crazy to me. That's less than one novel a month. Granted, some were some monster books but that's no excuse. I'm going to rectify that in the coming year. I intend to really embed myself with some big book epic fantasy in the coming year. 

I recently restarted the WHEEL OF TIME. I had gotten about half way through WINTER'S HEART and had put is aside months and months ago. I realized that it had been over 20 years since I last read the first book, so I decided to start over. I'm glad I did. Next I want to check out Tad Williams, JV Jones and Brandon Sanderson. It's likely that my book count next year won't be as robust as other years  as well, but for different reasons. I also want to shore up on some middle grade reading so I can research that voice for my own writing (we'll get to that). There's also a part of me that wants to check out this whole "romantasy" thing, though I'm likely going to audiobook most of that. I'm going to read very promiscuously this year. I'm not ready to put a number on it yet but maybe 55? We'll see. I'll decide when Goodreads puts up its Reading Challenge. 

As for writing, I had a very interesting year of writing. I set a goal of 500 hours of writing for the year and I'm awfully close to hitting that number, though it's more and more likely that I'm not going to hit it. I'm not that bummed out about it because I still managed to get a lot done. 

I floundered a bit at the beginning of the year, a continuation of the last few months of 2023 but then I did a project with my classes at school that sparked me, leading to an unforeseen middle grade project titled PIECE OF NIGHT. Based on my obsession with the "kids on bikes" trope, I wrote like a maniac. It took over and fueled the late Winter and early Spring. I queried it and despite a few nibbles here and there, it never grabbed a hold of anyone. I don't view it as dead, just dormant for now. 

This energy led into a thorough rewrite of THE LOST SCIONS that I whittled down to 85k...that's a long way from the 119k it once was. I'm not completely happy with said rewrite. I feel that my obsession with getting it down to the 85k range really butchered the entire third act. I really like the story and even though I've been working and kneading this story for YEARS, I think it might be worth another pass to fix that third act. Maybe just rewrite the third act completely on its own. 

I struggled in the Fall to find my footing. I had ideas for new projects, but none of them really grabbed me. I mean in the last year and a half I've plotted out not one but two "YA-adjacent" epic fantasy ideas that look pretty good on paper but they just felt like more of the same and I kept thinking of that definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. That's where I felt like I was. 

Around Thanksgiving time, I sat down and started brainstorming ideas about my "what's next." I felt like I was wasting time and that wouldn't do. Two ideas coalesced in my mind, neither of them completely clear but close enough for me to set ideas on paper. One was a middle grade idea that scratched my "boy on a quest"/ kids on bikes itch and the other was a fantasy idea based on something I read about how editors aren't looking at fantasy without a strong romantic element (don't talk to me about following trends, I have thoughts on that but I'm not ready to share them.).  

I sketched out the basics of each idea and the "boy on a quest" idea spoke to me. Plus, I didn't need to study the genre as much as I did for the "romantasy" idea that's kicking around in my head. I knew I needed a good McGuffin and literally took a page in my notebook and wrote down the following:

It only took three choices to get to the one I knew was the right answer. Inspired partially by the BOB'S BURGERS episode "Gene's Christmas Break," I felt like I hit the mark. (I have to write about how much Gene-centric episodes of that show inspire me.) And I was off and running. After the typical start and stops that usually accompany me starting a new project, on December 6th I had a half day from school and spent much of the afternoon loosely plotting out the story. I relied heavily on Save The Cat and then took off. I'm past the halfway point and really happy with where it's going. And I'm making good time on it. 

I've put a lot of thought into how I want to proceed, though I don't want to commit to too much right now even though I have some thoughts. I know that in addition to the fantasy idea, I want to do a rewrite/revision of THE GIRL IN THE PICTURE (I still believe that's some of my best writing) and take another look at THE LOST SCIONS. I just have to figure out what order I'm going to take on these various projects. I think I can maintain the energy and enthusiasm for the year. I'm not going to go too crazy though I have some ambition this year, so I'll say my goal is 550, though I'd like to get more. That's about an hour and a half a day. After a couple of bad writing years, this last year felt good and I'm hoping to continue the trend. I'm not going to make any publishing predictions this year, all I can control is the writing. And I intend to do that in 2025. 

Kids On Bikes, Chapter 2

I was recently watching a vlog featuring a prominent middle grade writer and an renown literary agent where they were talking about the state of middle grade writing. For those of you that don't know, middle grade is literature for readers primarily between the ages of 8-13 that is more sophisticated than children's chapter books but not as thematically advanced as young adult. In the vlog, the agent implied that using a pre-cell phone setting was kind of cheating for these types of books. I didn't like that. It ignores the inherent fun in these stories. But this was also the agent that basically said all books need to be "message" or "issue" books. But that's a discussion for another time, though if you follow me on Twitter or have read my previous posts, you already know how I feel about that.

The setting of these stories is clearly defined and perhaps the most important aspect of the trope. It HAS to be set before cell phones. They change the entire story. Every kid has a phone and they drive so much of their lives. I mean I can tell you within six feet where my 11 year old is at any time. Kind of hard to have adventures like we did when we were his age. I sometimes wish my kids would have these adventures. I can't help like they're missing out on something that I had and they don't. It's not a cop out to set stories in this time period. it just doesn't fit said agent's view of the publishing landscape as they see it. (Okay, okay, I'm getting off my soapbox.)

More trope codifiers. 

I think it's a fascinating trope to play with. The adventure aspect of it is appealing to kids while that nostalgic parts grab their parents. I mean who amongst us hasn't sat on our bed blaring Van Halen out of our boomboxes while reading some R.A. Salvatore? (An actual scene in my book!) That nostalgia was hitting hard while I was writing the book. It made it fun to write, which in turn makes it fun to read. But that nostalgia might come at a price. 

Nostalgia is something I want to write about at length, but this is not the post for it. There's a great quote from one of the aforementioned R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt books that I want to use as the basis of my discussion. But that's for a later date. The problem with heavy nostalgia in a project like this is that it might alienate readers, especially younger readers that might not get the references. I think that's why my 90s set ski club rom com never caught on, even though I feel like it's really well written. It makes me wonder who am I actually writing these books for. I've noticed that a lot of "kids on bikes" books are written for adults, I would imagine for exactly this reason. But, for some reason, in other mediums that doesn't seem to be a concern. STRANGER THINGS is wildly popular across multiple age groups because for all the nostalgia, it's a show about kids having adventures, which is what kids want to read. Not books about issues...wait, wait, I'm not getting back on that soapbox. For now. 

Kids On Bikes

For the last three years I've been teaching 10th grade. I love it. While I do miss teaching seniors and the troubles they run into, I've really enjoyed returning to 10th. But I have one major issue with the tenth grade curriculum. There's no novel on it. There's plenty of short stories, two plays and two memoirs. They're very good but I feel like the lack of a novel is a little harmful. So I set out to fit one in. Last year I did lit circles. That went well enough but I felt like I had to try something new this year. One of my present students made a suggested that we do some Stephen King. I liked the sound of that but I wasn't sure which King novel would work in a tenth grade class. In the same class another students suggested STAND BY ME, which is based on the Stephen King novella THE BODY. It was a genius suggestion and I ran with it. I had my students read the novella.

I did it as a complete independent reading for the most part. I had to make some adjustments mid-unit because there's a lot of content in the novella that's probably not appropriate for high school sophomores. For a final assessment I did something definitely outside the box. They had just finished taking the NYS English Regents and I didn't want to just assign an essay, so instead I decided to do some creative writing. Students were to create a 1 to 2 page "pitch"(essentially a hybrid synopsis/query) for a "kids on bikes" adventure story, be it a novel or a streaming show. Talking to students at the end of year, many said it was their favorite thing we'd done all year. 

What is "kids on bikes" you ask? This article does a stupendous job of breaking it down. Better than I could ever do. Go read it. I'll wait. 

I had never heard of the trope/genre until December of last year. Of course I knew what it was but I didn't have a label for it until I hear it for the first time. I've also seen it labeled as "free range children." I don't remember what exactly pushed it into my awareness. It might have been something I saw on Twitter or it might have been something related to the episode "Stand by Gene" of BOB'S BURGERS, it might even go back as far as last summer when, during an afternoon excursion to a local watering hole, I had a conversation about "boy on a quest" stories with some of my buddies. All I know is that I became obsessed with these stories. And THE BODY was one such story. 

These were the stories I grew up with. THE GOONIES . E.T. STAND BY ME. NOW AND THEN. IT. DANDELION WINE. ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK? (There's an argument to make that Stephen King, as he is with so many things, is the master of this trope/genre.) Not to mention more contemporary plays on the trope like ATTACK THE BLOCK, SUPER 8, STRANGER THINGS, THE PAPER GIRLS and the aforementioned "Stand by Gene" (in fact most Gene-centric episodes of BOB'S BURGERS fall under this trope and are often send-ups of previously mentioned works). They were the stories I lived, tooling around the neighborhood on bikes. It's how we got around, it's how our adventures started and finished: a pile of bikes scattered on someone's front lawn. 

Trope codifiers. 

As part of the unit, I literally taught the "kids on bikes" trope to help the students organize their pitches. I created a graphic organizer then modeled how to fill it out. Once I finished the outline, I modeled how to write the pitch. Then something happened. The pitch I created grabbed me and I decided to write it. I told my students and then promised them that I would print and bind a copy of the book for each of them. 

After a few stops and starts, the project got its claws in me and I took off writing it. It was a departure for me. I really tried to write an upper MG/lower YA kind of book filled with thrilling heroics and adolescent mischief. I used Save The Cat and the guidelines suggested by the article to structure the novel. It all just came together and I started rolling. I finished it in early May. I was pretty excited. My students, on the other hand, were mostly indifferent. I let it sit for a month and took a look it again, tightening up the opening a little bit and polishing it up. It's pretty good. But I never bound it for my students because I was afraid my fragile ego wouldn't be able to handle seeing it in the recycling bin or just left behind on desks. It's a decision I already regret because I had several students expressed their disappointment that I didn't make copies of the book. 

The Crossroads

This week I got five rejections. Not the worst week I've ever had, but it certainly felt like it. Three of the rejections were for the new project (MG "kids on bikes" adventure) that probably wasn't ready for submission and two were for my YA romcom, one a query the other a full manuscript rejection. What's made these rejections stick and sting so much is that I've had time to reflect on them. I'm working on a rewrite I can't get to work for a project that's probably dead anyway, I'm pretty much done teaching anything new for the year. I had time to reflect on several of the rejections on a lengthy drive from Boston to Syracuse, where I was pretty much alone with my thoughts scored by SiriusXM's Lithium. I've had some time to think this week and it hasn't been a good headspace for me. 

Okay, I'm likely being more than a little melodramatic right now, but it feels like I'm at a crossroads when it comes to my publishing "career." I've felt like this before and gotten over it, but this week has been particularly rough. I'm questioning everything. Am I just not as good as I think I am? Could I be one of those people that thinks a little too highly of themselves? Could I be just plainly mediocre? Right now, I'm really not sure. I've fallen into a rut of unknowing and I'm not sure how to get out. 

Not quite where Robert Johnson was, but pretty close.

The last few projects I've sent out into the world have barely gotten any traction. I mean nothing. And that bothers me. I read a lot. And I believe in my heart of hearts that a lot of what I'm putting out is at least as good as a lot of stuff that's out there. Maybe even better than some of it. Or it could be that I'm just delusional about my own ability. All my self-doubt (and there's a lot of it) floods in and I find myself saying, "Maybe this writing thing isn't for me."

I know that's not true. I can't not write. It's impossible. I'm writing this aren't I? The problem with something like this is that I just sound like I'm whining or that I'm fishing for compliments. Both statements aren't false, but there's a therapeutic aspect to all of this. Getting the words out into the ether feels good. It gets them off my chest where they feel like they're suffocating me. 

There's a difference between writing and publishing. And that's where I'm running into the problem. I love to write. That's not the issue. I think I'm pretty good at it. I've been told by that I'm pretty good at it. So where's the problem? Is there something precluding me from finding success. 

I pay attention to the market. I'm told not to chase trends, so I don't. I write the books I want to read. Or at least the books 13-year-old and 17-year-old me would like to have read. But that doesn't seem to be cutting it. Are there no 13-year-old and 17-year-old mes out there anymore? Do they matter?

I don't write issue books. I don't like issue books and I think that most kids don't like issue books. But that seems to be what gets attention these days. Books that tackle some kind of hot button issue. I don't want to preach. I want my books to be an escape. Something someone can read so that don't have to worry about the issues. Books used to be fun to read and it feels like the fun has been taken out of them. We worry about why kids don't read anymore, I think this is clearly one of the reasons. Kids don't want to be preached to and pandered to. They want to be entertained. You'll all be able to listen to that in my never to be released TED talk, "Are You Not Entertained?" 

So here I sit at the crossroads. Let's be honest, I'm not going to stop writing. All I can do is to keep on writing. The question is what do I do with that writing when it's done? I don't have an answer for that right now. And that might be the biggest bummer of them all. 

Indecision

I was on quite a blog tear to start the year then I just sort of petered out. I have some ideas for posts but none came together the way I wanted. Then I hit a little bit of a stride on a new project (a MG "kids on bikes" adventure set in 1988) and that took precedence over my personal writing. Until last week. I wouldn't say that I hit a wall on the project so much as a speed bump. An element of the story wasn't coming together the way that I wanted it to and work slowed. There are other factors, too. One factor, in particular, has been at the center of my recent struggles in writing. A sense of complete and total indecision at which project to work on. 

If Tyrion doesn't know, how should I?

e

A part of my brain wanted to work on my updated version of THE FALLING DARK, a trunked novel that I reworked into my "21st Century DRAGONLANCE." I've planned that out with a seven page narrative outline and it's ready to go. But to be honest, I don't want to worldbuild. Not now at least. And I feel that it needs a proper worldbuilding session or two before I write it. It's closest to one that's ready to be written. But part of it feels like it's just more of the same from me. YA adjacent epic fantasy. Just like SUMMER'S SON before it died on the vine (even though I think that's a good book idea too), I fear that's what's going to happen to DARK. This is my own self-doubt creeping in and preventing me from doing things. 

Another part of my brain cried out for me to work on the "dad"/"airport" book that I want to write. I've jotted down a few ideas here and there, but once again, nothing concrete enough to expend the energy on. Plus, I don't know if I know enough about the genre to write in it. I floundered for a long time, desperate to write something worth my while but nothing was presenting itself. Then came the new project. 

The launching point was a creative writing assignment I gave to my students based on Stephen King's THE BODY (STAND BY ME). I modeled how to write a logline and a 1-2 page pitch/synopsis/plan for a story idea similar in tone and subject matter as the book. The entire process sparked something inside of me and after a sputtering start, I was off and running, until I hit my speed bump. 

The "fun and games" part of the story isn't coming together as well as I'd like. I'm trying to figure out why that is. Maybe I'm trying too hard to stick close to the Save the Cat story structure. I just need to find the connective tissue between where I am and where I want to go. It's there, I can feel it. I'm groping around in the dark looking for it when I find other things, like an old project rising up and demanding attention. 

As I hit my little lull last week, THE LOST SCIONS popped its head in and let me know that it wanted some attention. And I gave it a little. There's something in my bones that's telling me to do something with it. I'm trusting my bones this time and giving it some attention. But at what cost? There's only so much energy to go around. See what I mean? Indecision. 

So, what am I going to do about all this? 

I'm going to make a plan and stick to it this time. I'm about 1/3 of the way through NIGHT. That's going to be the starting point. I'm going to plug away at it and wrap it up this month. Then I'm going to sit down and decide how I'm going to tackle the rest. Step by step. How's that for being decisive? I'll let you know how it goes. 

Am I A Pantser?

 Something made me decide to listen to Brandon Sanderson's lecture series on YouTube. I don't know why, but I thought that I'm sure there was something I could learn from him by listening to what he had to say. I didn't get twenty minutes in before I had a profound moment. He said something that shocked me out of my seat almost shaking me to my core. And with one simple statement he may have explained my long malaise. He was explaining the difference between planners and pantsers. For the uninitiated, a planner is a writer that plans everything they write, famously called architects by George RR Martin, and pantsers are writers that write "by the seat of their pants" with no plan, GRRM calls them gardeners and he alongside Stephen King are the two most famous pantsers out there. I always considered myself planner until now. 

During his explanation, he said, "For a lot of gardeners, if you have an outline, and you work a lot on your outline, what happens is your brain feels like you've already written the story."

Holy crap, that hit hard. 

I began to wonder if that's been my problem. The last three projects I've had , I wrote relatively detailed narrative-style outlines for them and I struggled with all of them. I think that deep down inside I was thinking exactly what Sanderson had said. I started to wonder, "Am I a Panster?" The very thought made me shudder. It can't be. It's impossible. 

If I am a pantser, I'm more a cargo pantser!

All of my books have been outlined, no matter how vague said outlines might have been, there was always a plan in place, detailing the shape and direction of the story with full permission to deviate from said plan as I see fit. I've always had a beginning and some vague notion of the end. But now I'm beginning to wonder if I am a planner or am I actually a pantser? Is this why I've been failing lately starting and finishing new projects? I don't know what they answer is, but Sanderson's words definitely have left a mark on me. It's made me question my entire method of writing, even if just for a few moments. 

What does this all mean? I'm not sure. I don't actually think that I'm a pantser. I need a plan to write. Maybe I'm something of a hybrid that is actually a planner with pantser tendencies. Whatever I am, I need to figure out this malaise and finish something. I mean, I'm a writer for crying out loud. 

Seeking Perfection

 I just finished reading a book titled Seven Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg and was struck by it. An interesting little book that is exactly what it says on the label and it's filled with tons of bite-sized nuggets of writing wisdom. It almost reads like a book of poetry. There's some good stuff in it and hoity-toity stuff in it as well. A few of the passages really grabbed me though and one read like Mr. Klinkenborg had been reading my blog. This one isn't a short sentence really but rather a list:

            "Think of all the requirements writers imagine for themselves:

A cabin in the woods

                    A plain wooden table

                    Absolute silence

                    A fountain pen

                    A favorite ink

                    A favorite blank book

                    A favorite typewriter

                    A favorite laptop

                    A favorite writing program

                    A large advance

                    A yellow pad

                    A wastebasket

                    A shotgun

                    The early light of morning

                    The moon at night

                    A rainy afternoon

                    A thunderstorm with high winds

                    The first snow of winter

                    A cup of coffee in just the right cup

                    A beer

                    A mug of green tea

                    A bourbon

                    Solitude

            Soon or later the need for any one of these will prevent you from writing."

I'm not sure who needs a shotgun before writing. 

Oof. Talk about a punch to the gut. This nails that feeling I had when I wrote about typewriters and writing sheds and the wardrobe of writers. (Well, I mean, I've never needed a shotgun for anything let alone writing!) I'm seeking perfection where perfection doesn't matter. But in reality, they are nothing more than distractions. It's never going to be perfect and I need to come to grips with that. Things are never going to be perfect when writing and they don't need to be. Much like the writing itself doesn't need to be perfect. It's all about getting these ideas on paper. Or through a keyboard. And that's where my focus should be, not on building a writer's shed or wearing the right clothes when I'm writing. I've got to get the ideas out of my brain and to their destination. I can worry about perfection later. 

 

Earning Turns Revisited

It's snowing in Syracuse today. This is not news. Actually, it's pretty standard for January. I always get a little melancholic when it snows because I can't ski anymore. But I've talked about this before when I wrote "Earning Turns" a few years back. "Earn you turns" is a skiing term that means a skier has skied the "back country" by hiking up a mountain then skiing down it. I didn't know this when I wrote my first post so many years ago but I don't regret it. My kids were earning their turns in their own way and while skiing didn't grab them the way it grabbed me, I was glad that I exposed them to it. The expression "earn your turns" got me thinking though. When you think about it a little, it's a great metaphor for writing.  

When you start writing, you're in the wilderness, hiking up the mountain in hopes of finding the perfect run that no one has ever taken before. Or at the very least one that only a few people have so you can make your own mark. There's an anticipation and nervousness that comes with the unknown as a new project looms and you stumble your way through the bleakness, seeking and searching. Then you find it. That perfect run. The one that had been eluding you. A blank sheet of snow stretching out, ready for you to carve up how you see fit. It's familiar but intimidating. The first step is the hardest but once you take it, everything comes back to you in a rush. The silence of a winter's morn is replaced by the creak of a boot and the whisper of the skis on the snow. The tautness gives way to muscle memory as you guide the seventy plus inches of fiberglass through the snow. Stone and tree blur by and you feel a sense of accomplishment as you complete the run. You can't help but look back at what you've done and feel some pride that you did it. The entire process is never quite easy and if you're doing it right it should be a little difficult. It's like the quote from A League of Their Own, "It's supposed to be hard, if it wasn't hard everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great." 

I think it's a damn fine metaphor, if you ask me. So, let's go earn some turns and get some writing done. 

Properly Attired

While I was down the rabbit hole of looking at writers and their typewriters, something caught my eye in the photos. Not the typewriters or any other technology they use, but rather the way they were dressed. No, seriously. It sounds like a silly thing to notice but it made me think of the adage "dress for the job you want not the job you have." 

Almost everyone in the photos is well put together. Men at the very least in slacks and button down shirts, often with ties and sports coats. Sometimes in a smart looking sweater or cardigan. (I truly believe after my yearly viewing of the beginning of the year Twilight Zone marathon that cardigans and sweater vests need to make a comeback.) Women almost all wore skirts and blouses with pearls, usually in flats with the occasional pair of heels. The most frequent accessory besides their typewriters? Cigarettes. Lots of cigarettes. But there was more. 

Mixed in was your occasional pair of jeans (David Letterman), flip-flops (Ian Fleming of all people), and some hats (Terry Pratchett, Damon Runyon, Will Self). Mickey Spillane liked to show off his guns. Hunter S. Thompson wore shorts and often eschewed shirts. Hemingway and Fitzgerald wrote in their pajamas. George RR Martin has his Greek fisherman's hat and suspenders while David Foster Wallace liked bandanas and Joan Didion had her sunglasses. 

Actually, we have a lot in common when it comes to writing attire.

It got me thinking about the way that I dress, especially when I write. I dress like a schlub. I have a schlubs's physique. I'm tall, hunchbacked with a big belly. I have relatively broad shoulders but recent years of neglect have ebbed away any muscle that I once had hiding under the soft exterior. Most of my wardrobe consists of jeans, sweatpants, athletic shorts and formless tops like sweatshirts, henleys and t-shirts. I'm not exactly ready for my candid typewriter shot. Usually, when I'm writing, it's later at night and I'm in a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt. What job am I dressing for? 

It amazes me the things that I notice about writing when I'm not writing. Why would I focus on what writers wear when they write? Why would I think that was important? Maybe it's my quest for that writing ideal. The perfect tool. The perfect place. The perfect writing attire. The prefect writing scenario. Something that probably doesn't exist. 

My Own Space

Recently, instead of writing or grading, like I should be doing, I found myself researching sheds. It became something of an obsession and occupied my time. Now I'm not talking about the kind of sheds most of us have in our back yards, filled to the brim with lawn supplies, tools and old Christmas decorations. No, I'm talking about a comfy place sequestered from the rest of the house just for myself. A place to get away and write. It's really a romantic but completely unfeasible notion. But a boy can dream can't he?

I like that it has a porch.

This all started when I read online that Wes Anderson had replicated to the tiniest detail the writing hut of Roald Dahl for his Netflix short films. I started to wonder about writing places and, as is my wont, fell down a pretty big rabbit hole. There's a lot out there about writer's sheds. Names like George Bernard Shaw, Dylan Thomas (who inspired Dahl in the first place), Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf and, of course, Henry David Thoreau (even though his mother did his laundry and brought him sandwiches) all had sheds, shacks or huts where they wrote. Neil Gaiman has his gazebo. Chuck Wendig has his "mystery box." Yann Martel has his back yard writing studio. Eoin Colfer and David McCullough sought refuge from busy families in their own writing sheds. Michael Pollan wrote an entire book about the entire enterprise of building a shed for his writing on his property. And it's made me want one of my own. I just feel like I need a writing space all to myself. 

I'm fascinated by the idea of writer's spaces in general. There's an entire Instagram account and hashtag about writer's spaces and I can't stop looking at it. I want a cool space to work in. I don't really have one now or maybe it's that I just don't use the space I have properly. I do most of my writing from the comfort of my couch and I wonder if that's part of the problem (though it worked for Truman Capote and Stephen Sondheim). Maybe I'm not a couch writer. Maybe I need to be at a desk or a table. I've found great success writing at my kitchen counter, though that gets uncomfortable after a while. I do well in cafes and I wrote most of this sitting at a rickety table in a cold room at the back of the school. 

I do have a great little desk/alcove in my study that's perfect for writing.  I haven't used as much as I should, for no good reason. Maybe it's time to change that. I mean there's no way my wife is going to let me plop a fourth shed in our backyard (and who could blame her?), so I'll have to make due with what I have. Plus, who wants to trudge across the backyard on a cold, snowy kind of day like today? I need to make that space my own. 

I started this process before the holidays. I bought a really nice chair  that I'm not putting together until I finish a few other around the house projects. I can't use the folding chair that's in there now because of my back. I still have to finish tidying it up and organizing a few things. I'll be sharing the space with my daughter so I won't be alone in the room but at least I won't be on the couch. It's not perfect and I'm sure there will be some bump along the way, but I think in the long run it'll work. It'll focus me on what I need to do, be that writing or grading. Speaking of which, I have some grading to do. I suppose that the kitchen counter will have to do, for now.

Corona, Futura and Stephen King's Wang

My friend Brian uses a typewriter (1938 Corona Sterling) and recently sent me a bit of correspondence using said typewriter. To be honest, it was kind of cool. It's been a long time since I'd read/seen something typewritten. I thought about how I should respond. I thought about using my own typewriter (a Royal Futura 800, gifted to me by my friend Justin) but after a long side eye from the wife, I decided to just send him an email in return. But it did get me thinking about typewriters and the tools we use to write. 

When you think about it, until relatively recently most "writing" was done on typewriters. There are still some writers that still use typewriters not unlike my Futura or Brian's Corona. And we're talking about people that don't write small books. David McCullough, Robert Caro, Cormac McCarthy and even Danielle Steel. I think about my last post. How much of Wheel of Time was written on a typewriter? I mean great googly moogly, that's a lot of paper. That's a lot of ribbon. That's a lot of time. 

There's almost a romance to it. The sounds alone: the platen makes when you roll the paper in, the click-clack tapping of the keys, the typebar hitting the paper, the ding at the end of the line and the thunk of the carriage return lever. But there's also a sense of labor in typing. A sense of satisfaction by the end of the page that you've done the work. 

A few nights ago I fell down a rabbit hole, looking at pictures of famous writers/artists/celebrities and their typewriters. It was fascinating and interesting to see. This was the way people used to work. Computers for the purpose of word processing is a pretty new thing. One, I think, that we take for granted. It's made writing a novel something anyone can do anywhere they could do it. It's said that Stephen King was an early adopter of this digital revolution, using a Wang Word Processor by the early 80s. (A $12,000 piece of equipment at the time.) I read somewhere that King may have been the first author to have a novel published that was written entirely on a computer. (A simple Google search seems to refute this, but it's still a cool piece of mythology.)

Stephen King and his Wang

Besides paper and ink, I've only ever used computers, mostly using Microsoft Word. (I'm sure in my younger days we owned a typewriter and I tried to write using that, because that's what writers did in the late 80s/early 90s.) I've used other word processors. Google Docs is incredibly useful and a back up when I need it. I tried Scrivener but found it overwhelming. Even George RR Martin, one of my literary idols, uses Word Star 4.0, a 30 year old word processing program that runs on DOS and from what I've seen it looks almost as unwieldy as Scrivener. I've never had a huge issue with Word and I've grown accustomed to it. I have other friends that swear by other things. Some even use typewriters. 

Doorstoppers and Fanfic

A few weeks back I was putzing around, watching Bob's Burgers with the TV Tropes website open as I watched the episode. I do this often, enjoying how writers use (and misuse) tropes in their work. I have strong opinions on tropes that I'll share another time. That's not what this post is about. It's about a specific trope that I came across on the website as the adventures of the Belcher family played in the background. I found myself reading the page dedicated to Doorstoppers and there went the rest of my night as I fell down this deep rabbit hole. 

According to TV Tropes, a "Doorstopper" is a book that is literally heavy enough to stop a door. A proper doorstopper is no less than 500 pages, that's about 150,000 words with a normal sized typeface though most use a smaller font to fit more words on paper likely pushing that to number closer to 250,000 words. That's the number that TV Tropes uses as the minimum to define a doorstopper. That works for me, so we'll use that number. 

3.8 million words of doorstopping goodness.

I perused the entries. the Literature one hit all the classics you know and love. Dumas, Trollope, Michener, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Tolkein, Follet and modern writers like Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, Stephen King and, of course, George RR Martin. I've obviously read my share of doorstoppers. I mean A Song of Ice and Fire is hugely important to me. I've read It and The Dark Tower series. I made it about 2/3 of the way through Winter's Heart in The Wheel of Time before I made a bold decision to start the series all over and read from the beginning. (It's been 20 years since I read The Eye of the World.) But a knew a lot of the entries in the Literature section. It was another section that caught me off guard. 

I opened the tab for Fan Works and, boy, was I quickly overwhelmed. Not only by the number of entries but by some of the word counts. Great googly moogly. The tab is split into smaller tabs labeled Over 2 million words, Over 1 million words, Over 500k words and Over 250k words. I was flabbergasted by the numbers. Someone wrote 16 million words of fan fiction dedicated to the Nickelodeon show The Loud House. To put that into perspective, that's FOUR Wheel of Times. Not four books but four of the ENTIRE SERIES. There's a lot-and I mean A LOT-of My Little Pony. I did a little research. I found someone that wrote 2 million words of MASH fanfic and someone else that 1.3 million words of Dallas fanfic. (These were strictly found on Fanfiction.net. I didn't even attempt to check AAO3.)

On Fanfiction.net there are over 600 words of 800,000 words or more. That's a lot of passion for an IP. I mean 800,000 words is about 2,700 double spaced writing pages (Times New Roman, 12 point font). That's incredible. That's a lot of time and energy. That's a lot of love and devotion. the level of commitment it takes to write this much is titanic, no matter the topic. And it seems to me to be a waste. 

I have an antagonistic relationship with fan fiction. I've never been a fan of it. Technically, you are stealing the blood, sweat and tears of another author. I know that's a little melodramatic but it's kind of true. That's the way I feel about my work. I know that there are plenty of writers, especially genre writers, that got their start writing fanfic and there are others that wholly endorse fanfic of their own work. I'm not so innocent, I suppose. My earliest attempts at writing were little more than Lord of the Rings/Dragonlance fanfic with the serial numbers barely filed off. But even then, it was my own world, my own characters and ultimately my own story. It turns out I was just using the same tropes from those properties. I wasn't using Middle Earth as a setting and despite the likeness I didn't have a character named Tanis Half-Elven. If you are going to spend the amount of energy it takes to write 16 million words of fanfic, why not on something original? Or, at the very least, something that could be called an homage or pastiche of the thing you love. It seems to me to be a better use of energy. I've written about shared DNA before and find that to be far more digestible a concept than fan fiction.

But who am I? Maybe I'm just being a Grumpy Gus. I try not to be a goalie in life. As long as you aren't hurting anyone, why should I stand in your way? (There's an argument to be made that you are hurting the original author with fanfic, but I'm not here to make it.) I'm all for writing in any form, especially if you derive happiness from it. 

Peculiarity

 The other day I was thinking about my father. He died a little over a year ago and I still have plenty of thoughts about him, though they come in dribs and drabs at the weirdest times. I haven't publicly written about his death and I'm not sure why. I've written about my father before and God knows I'm not afraid of sharing in this space, but lately I haven't had much to say period, let alone about my father's passing. And I don't have to anything to say about it right now. This is more about a memory that I have of him. A very peculiar memory. 

The last few years he spent the summers at our house and at night my son and I would sit with him while he watched television. It was nice and I relished that time. Not that it was just me and my dad but that it was all three of us. It gave my son a chance to get to know him and spend some time with him. We'd sit around and shoot the shit, remembering the past and talking about a wide array of topics, as we were wont to do. 

But it was during these times that some of my father's peculiarities showed. He watched a peculiar variety of shows. We'd spend plenty of time watching American Pickers or a wide variety of those car repair/rebuilding shows. But as I've said before, my father is a paradox and on top of those shows, my father loved genre television. Cowboy shows were a staple as was scifi. He was a regular viewer of this guy called Svengoolie, where I watched FRANKENSTEIN, DRACULA and the ever classic ABBOT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN with him. I also remember watching the Americanized version of the 1954 GODZILLA movie featuring Raymond Burr. And it's Raymond Burr that got me thinking about one of my father's strangest peculiarities. 

My father also like procedurals like SHERLOCK (BBC version), LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT and, in particular, the old PERRY MASON starring Raymond Burr. The first time I sat down and watched it with him (to be fair, I was on my laptop writing or putzing around on Twitter) my father did something I found bizarre. As the show came to it's climactic end when they trial was about to be decided, he turned the station. I was taken aback. I looked up at him and thought he was just messing with me, but he didn't acknowledge my befuddlement and, being who I am, I said nothing to him in return. This became the habit. We'd watch 55 minutes of PERRY MASON and my dad would switch channels for the last five minutes. We never watched the resolution of a case. 

Now I know that Perry Mason almost always won and I always wondered if that was part of my father's reasoning. But I found it so frustrating. And the lack of explanation just made it worse. I never pressed or pushed. Maybe I didn't want an explanation. Maybe the wondering was more interesting to me. Maybe he already knew the ending. Maybe he was more interested in the investigation and didn't really care about the ending. Maybe my dad was just peculiar. 

It's weird quirks that I remember about my dad. And maybe being peculiar is what makes us memorable. 

Eureka Euphoria

I didn't want to get out of bed Friday morning. I stayed up too late and was tired. But, as I do everyday, I got up, got ready for work and trudged out the door to my truck. Then something happened that was entirely unexpected, a spark lit in my brain and I had a moment. 

I've been struggling writing for the last several months. I have one project that I've completely outlined. I've told myself the story but I can't decide which POV style to use and it's completely frozen the process. I've also been wrestling with another story idea for months. It wasn't so much an idea as a notion. It wasn't quite coalescing into something the way that I would have liked. It was elusive, just at the edges of my subconscious, and it was frustrating. I just really struggled to write. I tried forcing the idea out and it resisted. It wasn't ready yet. That was until yesterday morning, in my truck as I drove to school. The notion just clicked together like so many Legos and became a idea then an honest to goodness writing project. 

Don't get me wrong. It's still early in development. It could just shrivel up and die on the vine like so many other projects. But the bones are there, it just needs to be put together. And I think I'm up to the task. As I'm conceptualizing the idea, putting it together in my brain, something else happened. A brand new idea came strolling in through the mists of my mind. It was jolting. 

The second idea is completely different than the first and it came in fully formed. Shockingly so. It wasn't a notion or a concept, it was a fully formed idea. Sold. Tangible. And I couldn't believe it. Endorphins were released. I was overjoyed. I rushed to work to get the ideas on paper before they retreated back into the aforementioned mists of my mind. After a few bumps, I managed to get to my desk and get the ideas into my notebook. I was euphoric. 

What I think I look like getting out of my truck.

I was excited about writing again. The last few months have been a grind. I wrote, working on some things that will never see the light of day, but this felt different. All the gloom and hesitation I'd been feeling is gone. And it showed. 

My students must've noticed something. They were working on a writing assignment and were diligent and focused. For a few of the classes the only thing you could hear with the tapping of computer keys. It was exciting. Even my most challenging class (one of the most challenging I've had in the 18 years that I've been teaching) were acting different. They lined up at my desk and were asking about their grades, trying to figure out what they could do to improve. I had several constructive conversations with some of the most demanding students about what was going on in class with them and felt like I made a little bit of a connection with them. And then they went to work. No shouting across the room. No TikTok dances in the back of the room. No theatrics and antics. Just work. At the end of class they were eager to show me how much work they had done. I was beside myself. I was smiling.

I wondered, did my students sense my mood? Was I giving off vibes of some sort? Whatever it was, I was glad for it. 

Writing is a funny thing. When I got up on Friday morning, I had no idea that I was going to have a breakthrough like that. And the icing on the cake was what happened in school. Now comes the difficult part, writing the stuff. It's also the most fun. 

Am I Good Enough?

Every writer has that moment of doubt where they ask themselves that dreaded question comes bubbling up from the tar pits of the mind: Am I good enough? I'm having that moment right now. It's not a pity party either. It's an honest appraisal that I'm having with myself.  

I don't know where this is coming from. I didn't get a rejection letter. I'm not submitting anything right now. It just sort of hit me out of the blue and I'm not sure how to react to it. It started after I lost the scrap of an idea I had on the ride in this morning that blew away in the wind because I didn't write it down right away. I started thinking about the futility of trying to get published and wondering about the answer to the question. It's a good question. A fair question. And I don't know if I have an answer for it. 

I've had two agents, both of whom left me high and dry, so I guess on some level I am good enough. Not good enough to find a publisher, though. But my search for a third agent has garnered barely a drop in the bucket.  I've had some nibbles but got nothing on the book that I swore up and down was "the one." It's downright soul crushing. 

I'm about to go out on submission again, this time with a 90s set YA romcom. I have no idea if there's a market for that but I don't care. It's what I wrote. It'll be the fifth book I'm querying. That seems like a lot. And it has me wondering, am I good enough?

I hope so.

Shared DNA

 In the build up for their new show, THE HOUSE OF DRAGONS, HBO played the entire run of GAME OF THRONES. I watched when I could and man, when that show was good it was good. Like really good. And even when it was bad, it was still good. In a strange coincidence, a few weeks back I loaned my copy of A GAME OF THRONES to one of my neighbors and decided to listen to the audiobook. I had audible credits to use and I wasn't sure what to listen to. I had forgotten how good that book is. It's incredible. It got me thinking about how important that book was to me as a writer. It got me thinking about shared DNA.

What is shared DNA? It's the strands of other work, the things that inspired you or moved you, that exist in your work. These are the building blocks for creatives. Our starting points. We all have them. Watching GOT and listening to AGOT made me remember how much DNA my novel WINTER'S DISCORD shared with ASOIAF. 

After being reminded of the importance of ASOIAF had on me, I spent too much time looking back on the mess that was WINTER'S DISCORD. It was my first real book. (We don't count the chaos that is THE FALLING DARK. That was a practice book.) I say mess not because the book is a mess. It's not. I stand by it being a damn fine book. If I could afford a decent cover artist, I'd release it myself. It was my first experience with the publishing business. I could lament about that but I'd rather focus on shared DNA. 

WINTER'S DISCORD shares so much DNA with A GAME OF THRONES it's almost scary. I really was trying to write the YA version of it. I had a chance to strike while the iron was hot too. Before it was "cool" to write the "YA Game of Thrones." While the tones are different, I look at a lot of the same themes as AGOT, but done in my own way. Plus it share DNA with other things. I can see the strands in my writing. There's DRAGONLANCE, Tamora Pierce and R.A. Salvatore in there as well along with BEVERLY HILLS 90210 and DEGRASSI. I'm going to save more about that for my 99 Inspirations posts. There was a real opportunity there. But "he who shall not be named" really kind of botched it, but again, I don't want to carry on about that right now. Like I said, I still believe in the book and think it's damn good. Maybe some day I'll let everyone read it. 

The WINTER'S DISCORD/AGOT isn't the only book I've written with shared DNA. 

The first time I saw the trailer for the movie THE BLACK PHONE I literally said out loud, "Holy crap, that's THE GIRL IN THE PICTURE!" When I tweeted the trailer at my friend Neil who responded by asking me if the book sold and I forgot to tell everyone. I wish. But GIRL didn't catch on, even though it not only shared DNA with THE BLACK PHONE but IT at a time when the IT movies were all the rage. Maybe it needs another pass. Maybe a full rewrite. But like all my manuscripts, I just can't give up on it. 

I'm presently studying the DNA of "airport" thriller-style books (like I said, more on those later), trying to find the strands that inspire me and that I can use. It's been an uphill battle thus far. It's the genre's subject matter that I'm not experienced with and I don't know if I have a voice for it. But then again, what do I know about swordplay and riding horses and using magic? And that didn't stop me from writing that.  I guess we'll find out. 

Look for the DNA that makes up your favorites and use it in your work. Sometimes it's hard to find. sometimes it's right there on the tin. 

The Spinner Rack

The other day I stopped at a small, locally owned grocery store with my kids to pick up some beverages to drink. As we approached the cooler, wedged between it and a pretzel display stood a spinner rack of mass market paperbacks. I stopped dead in my tracks. If you follow this blog at all, you know that I love mass market paperbacks. I gleefully spun the rack, absorbing the titles. It was entirely muscle memory. A few thrillers, some romance novels, a few action/adventure airport type books (I've got more to say about airport books, but that's another blog entry) and even a George RR Martin title. I was elated. It brought back so many memories to my earliest experiences with reading. 

Sure, my grandfather took me to the library as a child and I read voraciously, but the spinner was where I learned about storytelling. Combine the the spinner racks at the grocery stores with the wire racks of the department stores of my youth. When my mother would take me along with her to Ames or Hills or Switz's, I would disappear to the aisle of wire racks filled with dozens and dozens of mass market paperbacks. (One time I even snuck out of Hills at Penn Can Mall to go to Economy Book Store. I got in so much trouble for that, she even had me paged.) I would peruse the lurid covers featuring half-naked warrior women or muscled soldiers packing heat against unseen enemies with titles like Raven or The Scorpion Squad. I would sneak them into my mother's cart and read them as soon as I got home.They were books that no twelve year old should've been reading!

My mother rarely blanched at the requests. The books were usually cheap and reading was reading. They were books that weren't available at the library. They weren't literature, that's for sure, but they were formative to my development as a writer. I recently scoured a few of the online used bookstores and bought some that I remembered. I'm going to try and read them in what remains of the summer. To a lonely kid, these books meant the world to me. 

Seeing the spinner rack got me thinking about my writing. The mass market paperback was the backbone of my education as a writer. My earliest attempts at writing were pastiches of these books that I shared with friends. To be honest, I don't know if my writing has advanced much further than writing pastiches of what I love. I have no lofty ambitions about my literary career. I just want to write a book worthy of the spinner rack. 

Regarding THE JUSTICE OF KINGS

Every so often there is a book that I'm super excited about coming out. The book THE JUSTICE OF KINGS was one of those books. I remembered reading the description of the book and thinking that it sounded like a cool idea. Then I saw the cover and I knew I had to read it. And the wait was worth it. I was lucky enough to get an eARC of the book from Orbit Books and I'm glad that I got it. It was a stellar book

THE JUSTICE OF KINGS tells the story of Sir Konrad Vonvalt, one of the King's Justices. Think of them as one part Judge Dredd, one part Elliot Stabler and one part The Witcher. They're a one stop shop for law and order in the vast Empire. Told through the eyes of Vonvalt's young clerk Helena, a foundling given the opportunity to escape her lot in life by becoming the Justice's protégé. While making his rounds, Vonvalt comes across what looks like a simple murder in a town and stays to investigate. He uncovers a vast conspiracy that could undo everything that Vonvalt and his companions fight for. 

As I said, this book is stellar. For such a dense book, I found it to be a quick read. It's an epic story told on a small scale. Helena is our window into this complex world and it's pitch perfect. We learn the way this complex world operates on the ground level and it never feels spoon fed or info dumpy. The action scenes are just amazing and breathtaking. The real strength of the book, however, is the voice. Swan's writing voice is just masterful. You want to keep reading it because of the voice. 

I'd highly recommend this book if you're an epic fantasy fan.