3. Look at those crazy numbers! What’s that all about?
4. Well designed shoes.
5. Legible.
6. I mean, for real..those numbers! They are so interesting and strange. I’ll be the author is pretty cool. And handsome.
7. That girl looks pretty mean. I’ll bet she’s a badass.
8. What’s up with that kid’s hair? Ha ha ha…I mean, really.
9. Where can I get some of those shoes?
10. Ten reasons seems pretty arbitrary.
11. Why not eleven?
12. Seriously, kid. Get a comb.
13. It’s not hip. It’s not cool. It’s not edgy or geek chic or expansive. It would look completely out of place next to a Wheel of Time cover, a Game of Thrones cover, and the Name of the Wind cover. It would look completely out of place on the Fantasy shelf at Barnes & Noble. And that’s the point.
14. It’s simple. It’s clean. It’s dorky. It delights me that people who read the paper version will be slightly embarrassed to have people see the cover. It raises a giant Nerd Flag and waves it for all the world to see.
15. Wait. What’s the weird little symbol on the spine? Mysterious.
18. For better or worse the cover is exactly what I want. It’s exactly what you’ll find inside. A weird, off-kilter world just shy of a cartoon fever dream. Things are silly, things are odd, things are real. Silly things matter even though they shouldn’t.
“Huhn?” I said, cornflakes falling from my surprised mouth.
“The book. Spell/Sword. Why did you write it? What inspired you?”
“Uhhhh.” The spoon hovered over the bowl. “Look, my cereal is getting soggy and you know I am borderline neurotic about that, so…”
“Fine. I was only showing a little interest in your work, a little curiosity if you will. Thanks for responding so elegantly.”
My mouth was already full of more cereal, so it took a moment for me to respond. I munched furiously and swallowed, pointing accusingly with the spoon — then took another bite. My hatred of soggy cereal is a cruel mistress.
“You’ve never cared before! Why the interrogation all of a sudden?” I demanded through half a mouthful of cornflakes.
[It actually sounded more like “Myouff nevarr cared befoo! Ay the inrerroration paul of a suddeth?”]
The orange cat flicked its tail and said nothing. I hate it when he’s like this. Aragorn is more sphinx than
Aragorn.
housecat, a grand old lion and shaman of the Cat Tribe — but he can be a proper bastard when the mood strikes him. Like most cats.
“Hey…look. I’m sorry.” I took one last quick bite of pre-soggy cornflakes. “It’s just a big question.”
Aragorn eyed me, green eyes level.
I wiped some milk off my chin. “It is!”
The orange cat sighed. “You don’t have an answer, do you? People like to know where books come from, what motivated the author, the journey from idea to page to finished product. You should have a short, easily-digestible sound bite prepared for this question. Don’t you know anything about marketing? Prospective customers want an easy hook when purchasing from an artist online. Young Genius, Aged Artist Returning to the Craft, Nerd Royalty, Passionate Young Woman/Man, Social Justice Crusader, Super Cool Hipster, Erotic Smut-Peddlar. Pick an easy bucket and climb up in there, silly human. You should really have all this figured out—you are self-publishing after all.”
“But the answer isn’t short or easily digestible. It’s not even coherent.” I protested. “And that is some seriously cynical e-marketing advice, Aragorn.”
“I’m a cat. We take in cynicism with our mother’s milk.”
“How does it taste?” My eyes dipped of their own volition towards the mostly empty cereal bowl in my hands.
Aragorn flicked his tail again and turned to leave.
“Wait, wait! I just don’t have an easy answer. I’m not one of those people who knew from age 9 that their dream was to write. You know? Study hard, build their craft, working slowly and inexorably towards their heart’s goal? And I’m not one of those people who were just minding their own business when a lightning bolt flash-seared their pants to the chair, and they immediately started writing a Profound Work. I mean there was some of both of that, but it all kind of happened in fits and starts — and mostly by accident.”
The orange cat looked over his shoulder with faint interest, halting his exit. I put the cereal bowl with the small residue of milk at the bottom to buy myself a little more time to prevaricate. Aragorn approached the offering, keeping his green eyes on me.
“I mean, sure. I’ve been a reader basically my whole life. I was reading my mom’s books when I was 10, way before I was ready for them. Dune, Sword of Shannara, everything I could get my hands on. And fantasy was always the thing that fascinated me. All through middle school and high school, just burning my way through every piece of genre fiction that the library and my meager funds could provide. Eddings, Tolkien, Williams – anything, everything! And maybe in some sort of vague, half-hearted way I noodled around with the thought of becoming a writer some day.”
Aragorn’s tongue rasped away at the milk in the bottom of the bowl in the sudden quiet as I took a breath.
“But never seriously, never with any drive. Sure, I wrote a few scenes and skits and short stories through high school and college, but it never even occurred to me to think of myself as a writer. Maybe because the people in my Creative Writing class who did were insufferable ponce-wicks — but also because me and the Future are always on our first date. I like her, things seem to be going more or less well, but I don’t know her at all.”
“Hmph.” Aragorn chuckled into the milk. “So, how did you accidentally write a book?”
“Stupid human.”
“Well, not really by accident. Okay — this is long and involved, let me give you the short-short version. A couple of years ago, I started running a Pathfinder campaign…”
“What?”
“You know, Pathfinder? It’s a lot like Dungeons & Dragons, but it’s more similar to 3.5 than that awful, awful 4th edition.”
The orange cat simply blinked and went back to cleaning the cereal bowl.
“Okay. You don’t care about that. Uh…okay, me and some friends started writing a story together online. We mainly did it to avoid boredom at our respective jobs, but it quickly turned into something very expansive and involved. Like, over the two years we wrote over a million words for this story.”
“Is that a lot?”
Cats. They just refuse to be impressed.
“Yes. It’s a lot, Aragorn. And in the middle of all that I developed a whole world, hundreds of characters, super involved multi-layered plots and history and backstory and..you see where this is going? I suddenly had the Stupid Epiphany: This is how novelists work. They start, and they don’t stop — then at some point they have enough words to call it a novel.”
“That is stupid.” Aragorn said.
“So, in the midst of this vague idea, I met a guy at DragonCon named Joe Peacock.”
“Is that a real person? And did you just verbally hyperlink something?”
“Yes and yes. He gave this awesome presentation on Akira–”
“Okay, stop that. Stop linking things in the middle of our conversation, it’s just rude.” The orange cat’s tail lashed with agitation.
“Sorry. Anyway, I was looking on his blog and I stumbled across this massive article he wrote about Self-
Artsy shot.
Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing. It was really cut and dried, step by step instructions. It reduced the process to something concrete — something that I could actually see myself doing. Combined with my Stupid Epiphany it got me to open up a Google Doc and type ‘Chapter One’. I’ve never started a novel because I was absolutely sure I would never finish — and if I did nothing would come of it. Now I felt like neither of those were excuse enough anymore.”
“So,” the orange cat mused. “You wrote a book to prove that you could write a book? That’s it?”
” Partly, I guess. That got me through the first chapter, but after that it was about telling the story.”
“The story?” Aragorn curled up into a more comfortable position. ” What’s your book about?”
“Oh god. Well…” I picked up the immaculately scoured cereal bowl and dropped it in the sink. “How long do you have for this?”
[To be continued…maybe?
Take a minute and ‘Like’ our page on Facebook, that way you can enjoy my randomness at more regular intervals.]
G. Derek Adams – Author of Spell/Sword Who wouldn’t buy this guy’s book?
I’ve received some stern advice since putting up my Facebook page for Spell/Sword.
[COUGH….you can like it by clicking that shiny box over there, to the right of the screen….COUGH.]
I need to actually tell people about myself. I need to make it reasonably easy for people to know my name, my backstory, what feats I selected at character creation, etc. This is one of the many ‘Duh’ moments that I’m guaranteed to keep having as I explore the world of self-publishing.
It makes total sense. Whenever I investigate a new book I immediately want to know who wrote it. Are they someone I would hang out with? Are they cool? Would they be nice to my dog?
[Which would be hard. My dog’s kind of a jerk.]
Most of the authors that I truly enjoy pass these simple tests — with a few making their way to coveted Birthday Party Status. I want them to come to my birthday party, so we can be Forever Friends.
I need to start crafting my public persona with a little more care. I’m putting the book out there all on my lonesome, so if I’m EXTREMELY LUCKY a prospective reader may look at my personal details ONCE.
No pressure.
I’m going to be updating the About page of the site here, and also putting up some personal information on the Facebook page.
As long as I’m the one on the net gain side of this Help Chain at the end of the day.
Daniele Buetti – Artist
I’m taking my first scary steps into self-promotion. The book should be ready to publish at the end of the month, so it’s time to put my Serious Pants on. I’ve set up a fan page on Facebook, I’m going to be modifying this site to be a little more buyer-friendly, and I’m steeling myself for a long, loooong process of asking for people’s help.
Because that’s what I’m going to need. I’m self-publishing — and as much of a bully as I am, and as much of a shameless snake-oil huckster I am– I can only move so many of these books by myself. I need my friends, I need my acquaintances I need total strangers.
So please — help. All I want is for people to read it. Buy it, sure — but more importantly read. Click the ‘Like’ Box, share posts across your laptops and phones and iPads and Nintendo 3DSs.
Glassroots is the term I’m putting forward for this process. I’m sure that someone somewhere already came up with this term, but it sounded pretty clever to me as I was staring into space in the shower last night.
Mental Transcript: …………chess pieces..cheese pieces…they should make cheese chess pieces…mmmm, gouda…gotta work my way up the internet ladder with the book, sort of like a grassroots political campaign…what’s a cool internet word for that…is there a cool internet word for that…? ….grassroots, grassroots, grassroots….glassroots? yeah! phones are made of glass and laptops are made of glass, well not really it’s some sort of space age polymer, but it sure sounds like a cool word that people should say…i’m awesome….like gouda…
It’s interesting putting myself in the role of the supplicant — or the traveling minstrel. Going from internet hovel to digital inn, singing for my supper. I’ll try not to annoy you people too much.
I was interviewed for a local podcast, hosted by the inimitable Demon of the Sea: Sean Polite.
It’s sort of a follow-up interview from a podcast we did about a year ago, when I had just finished the first draft of Spell/Sword — kind of fun to talk about it now, when I’m right near the oncoming cliff of self-publishing. The first half of the interview is basically me just yammering incoherently about the plot of the book, story structure and my aspirations as a self-published genre writer. I even give a somewhat coherent description of the book.
The second half Sean surprised me with a veritable gunny sack of various nerd/comic / genre greats — I expound at great length about their cultural impact. I have some killer material on Why Neil Gaiman is a Wood Nymph and Scott Summers Man-Love.
Click the image below to listen for free, or download to put on your music device of choice.
There is some naughty language used in the podcast.
A little background. I was running a Pathfinder game for some friends a few months ago. A neophyte-friendly, short campaign to introduce a bunch of youngsters to the hoary arts of dice rollin’.
I got busy, and they got busy — and is all too often the case, we never got to the end of the story.
This weekend, out of the blue, one of the players emailed me. Warming the cockles of my wintry aorta — they asked how the story was going to end.
I stared at the email on my phone and mouthed the words, “How am I supposed to know?”
Maybe I’m a bad storyteller, or a bad DM – but my brain doesn’t operate the way. I can only see so far ahead of the players, just one bend ahead. That’s half the excitement for me — finding the story. Getting little glimpses of the horizon. Broken snippets, and flashes of moments, and vague ideas that will only fall into place when the time is right.
I mean, I generally know the end. The big events, the major developments — but the steps that link these, the tiny choices, human moments that connect them? Who knows?
And this, of course, made me think about Spell/Sword.
CASUAL SEGUE.
Because I do know the end of that story. And it’s horrible. The adventures of Jonas and Rime do not end well. Their tale ends in shadow.
Maybe that’s why I’m so excited to tell their story. I know where they end, but I don’t know how they got there. And as long as I don’t know, then it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe it doesn’t have to happen?
It does have to happen.
But they will shine before the end. That’s all that I ask. For the book, for this dimension, for everything. Because everything ends. The sum total of human expression: the light we emit before nightfall.
Running away from the end, running away from maturity. This is a feat that I am familiar with — maybe I can help them run faster than I did?
Well, this turned maudlin.
RETROGRADE SEGUE
I was staring at my phone, at the email — wondering what to tell the player. Then I knew, I knew what to tell him. I turned the bend, and there was the answer like I had always known it, like I had outlined it carefully on graph paper in my head. Fortunately for this story, it’s not a true ending — more of a End of the Beginning. The end of their first adventure, and a hook into the next.
Here’s what I told him.
The Heroes of Riddlewood [you guys] would have explored the ominous manor of the Count, encountering many strange things and perils in their search for the kidnapped adventurer, Martin Wise. They would have located the prisoner behind a secret wall that lead to a high tower. Under the cover of night, the party attempts a daring rescue mission, only to do battle with the supernatural minions of the count – undead primarily, along with a couple of lycanthropes. They break out Martin and race back through the manor to escape, where they are caught by the Count himself. The Count attacks, revealing several dark powers, that seem to emanate from a gauntlet that he wears. The young heroes are overwhelmed by the assault — until reinforcements arrive in the form of the elder adventurer, Dennis Wise and the local magical instructor, Vurbane and his Mouse Brigade. The two old men work together to seal part of the Count’s dark power, allowing the party to fight back on even ground. The final blow falls and the dark gauntlet shatters — a phantom erupts from the Count’s body, and shrieks promises of revenge into the abyss.
The Count awakes, and thanks the heroes from saving him from the spirit that had possessed him for many months. The source of the possession was obviously the gauntlet, but the Count shares disquieting news…the gauntlet comes from a larger suit of armor unearthed from his family crypt. He had terrible nightmares about the armor for weeks, until he felt compelled to put on the gauntlet. He has no reliable memory of his time under the dark spirit’s control — but he has a terrible feeling that he spent some time sending pieces of the armor all throughout the land….
Another story leading off into the unknown, a story with no end — just a beginning.
Going to be a little quiet on the blog for the next few days. I’m working on getting the novel formatted correctly for printing via CreateSpace and digitial publishing through Amazon’s KDP. My goal is to have the book ready for purchase by the end of the March.
Though, the Ides of March would be a suitably ominous release date…
So when I come back, get your wallets ready. I’m going to be a money grubbin’ fool.
Xander Berkeley – played Captain Isaac Whitaker in the film version of A Few Good Men.
I’ve complied my Bizarro World fanfiction onto one page for easy consumption. I’m sure that Aaron Sorkin never expected there to be fanfiction of A Few Good Men, but he almost definitely never expected some starring a forgettable throwaway character, only intended for exposition.
I kind of had a lot of fun with this one. It turned from a silly, one-off joke into something approaching a Stoppard Rosencrantz And Guildenstern are Dead. Not approaching closely admittedly. My side-story has a few more psychic duels and resurrections than Stoppard’s work.
But, as I said — I found myself digging the project more than I expected. I’ve always enjoyed the idea of the aging hero pulled back into the fray. The days of youth, wonder and power cracked back open when the need is dire. And really, any excuse to have super-powered characters cavort on rooftops is fine with me.
I did some quick web-research, and found the actor who played Whitaker in the film version – Xander Berkeley. Dude looks pretty badass, and has some interesting genre credits to his name. So if his people are interested in the TV show rights, they can give me a jangle. Don’t tell Sorkin, though. I don’t want him to write an uplifting monologue to batter me into submission.
spell-sword.com 