Writer's Grove

Fantasy author Jim Hines conducted a survey of 247 sci-fi and fantasy authors—myself included—on how they broke into the business. The information should be interesting (even encouraging) to anyone trying to make their first professional sale. Here’s the link. This is only part one of several blogs where he’ll break down the data, so stay tuned for more updates.

Many thanks to Jim for putting this together. The numbers show that the self-publishing route is pretty grim; but it also shows that a surprising number of people have broken into the industry without an agent and without a single short story sale.

Today I installed TweetDeck as opposed to Tweetie and I think I like it a bit more. It automatically shortens URLS (Tweetie didn’t) and makes shortened links to pictures on the web if you just drag ’em in there. So that’s cool thing number one. (If you’re not following me on Twitter, the username is kevinhearne.)

Got the taxes finished and they weren’t nearly so bad as I feared. Cool thing number two.

I get to hang out by a pool tomorrow when many, many people elsewhere are still freezing. Cool thing number three.

I’ve found a small groove to write in; I’ve only managed spastic fits here and there the last few days but I think I’ll have time to write the rest of the night now—cool thing number four. 23K on Hammered.

Caffeine withdrawal. Argggh. Unrelenting pain. But I will carry on!

Right now I’m in Payson visiting my mom and I’m sorry to say it doesn’t have much in the way of bookstores. There’s a library, to be sure, and I think there are a couple of used bookstores with yellowing copies of old paperbacks crowding the shelves. They’ll order anything new that you want. But there isn’t a bookstore one can walk into and browse the new books for hours, smell the ink and caress the paper and smile at the soft crack of the binding. There isn’t a chance to discover a new author on a display some publisher has paid for, no helpful associates hand selling this title or that, no opportunity to be surprised by something and pick it up on impulse. And so I don’t think I could ever live here, though Payson has many other charms. We like going to bookstores too much as a family to give up that simple pleasure.

It’s been pointed out to me that Wal-Mart sells books. But one cannot enjoy browsing in a Wal-Mart. Its cold fluorescent lighting kills all joy and discourages literacy somehow. Going to a bookstore is a tacit celebration of human achievement and lofty ideas; going to Wal-Mart is a tacit acceptance of the lowest possible standards and a willingness to take advantage of exploited labor.

I’ve never been to Portland, but if I ever make it I will set aside a day to explore Powell’s. Since I’ve heard disturbing things about Amazon, I’m going to switch to Powell’s for my online purchases—they seem to still be focused on books, in any case, whereas Amazon has bloated to the extent that books are only a portion of their business.

Right now I’m reading A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick and The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen. Neither was purchased at Wal-Mart—I’d be surprised if Wal-Mart carried them. The latter is a loan from a friend, but the former was picked up leisurely in a bookstore after an hour’s pleasant meandering amongst the shelves.

Even though I have plenty to read right now and a book of my own to write, I’ll doubtlessly return to the bookstore this week; it’s just something that has to be done to affirm that I’m on vacation.

Well, I think this character might be sticking around for a while, so maybe I should give her a surname. It’s so weird that I never really thought of it before, but one of my fairly important characters, Granuaile, got all the way through two books without her last name being mentioned…even in my head. I simply never thought of her beyond the first name. So odd, since I gave full names to very minor characters.

And you know what’s weirder? Nobody who’s read the first two books ever asked me. Not my primary readers, not my editors, not even my mom. They were cool with her having no more than the single moniker. I think it must be because it’s such a rich, full name. If you can live up to a name like Granuaile, walk around wearing it every day, then you don’t really need anything else.

Still, she isn’t super-duper famous yet. I don’t think she could pull a Madonna and live with just the first name, so I need to come up with something…and that something is MacTiernan. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Granuaile MacTiernan. Get to know her in 2011.

1. Still loving The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet. I will post a full review when I’m finished.
2. Looking forward to reading Peter Brett’s The Warded Man. My editor is being really spiffy and sending me a copy.
3. I have discovered that some people are really, really fascinated by their salad spinners. Perhaps it would not be going too far to say that they love their salad spinners. There is a Salad Spinner Appreciation Society on Facebook. I do not own a salad spinner, but I joined it anyway, more out of appreciation for the existence of the society than for the invention the society appreciates.
4. 20K on Hammered, hoping to make better progress this week now that I’m on spring break.
5. My assistant editor has turned me on to a band called Amon Amarth, specifically because of their song “Twilight of the Thunder God.” If I typed at the tempo their drummer plays, I’d have my novel finished tomorrow.

Thor the movie is currently set for a release date of May 6, 2011. My books, which all mention Thor and feature him prominently in book three, Hammered, will be coming out in May, June & July of 2011.

This is entirely coincidental.

Likewise, any similarities between the representations of Thor in the movie and in my novels are also coincidental, because both are based on original mythological sources. In the movie, Thor will have a hammer. In my books, Thor will have a hammer. That’s because in the mythology…Thor has a hammer.

Someone will doubtlessly wonder, however, if my books were influenced in any way by the movie—or in any way by the comic.

No. The answer is no. My characterization of Thor is quite different. Looking at the cast list on IMDB, I see they’re using gods and goddesses I’m not even mentioning, such as Frigga & Sif, & I’m certainly not using Volstagg, who’s not in the original mythology at all but is rather a creation of Stan Lee.

Also, consider this: Hammered will be finished by July 2010. Its plot, however, and Thor’s basic character, were written/conceived in 2008—all of which is long before I could possibly be influenced by the Marvel’s movie being released in May 2011.

As for the comic, I’ve never read it. It might be good; I don’t know. I have no plans to read it. The best Viking-themed comic out there is Northlanders, but it deals with the Viking people rather than their gods.

And now for a completely random fact: I prefer crunchy peanut butter.

1. Still like Apples n’ Cinnamon oatmeal.
2. 17K on Hammered.
3. Wrestling with capitalized pronouns for deities, especially Jesus. Atticus didn’t capitalize the pronouns for any other deities, so why would he start now? Yet I also understand the convention, so I’m torn.

March 1, I have decided, is a spiffy day. Behold:

1) My editor told me my revisions were spiffy and formally accepted HEXED a month before it was due to be delivered. I don’t think it’ll ever get old to hear that I’ve written an acceptable novel. :)

2) I inserted an allusion to Sheriff Buford T. Justice in Chapter 4 of HAMMERED. Any day in which one alludes to Sheriff Buford T. Justice is a spiffy day.

3) I have rediscovered Apples n’ Cinnamon oatmeal after a long hiatus. I wonder why I ever left.

4) Jerry Reed’s “East Bound and Down” is now stuck in my head and it’s not that bad. I could just as easily have something abominable stuck in my head, like a Disney song or something from Spongebob Squarepants. Instead, I’m stuck with a spiffy chase scene song with banjos. Banjos are good on March 1.

Though I have doubts that such entries as these are engrossing, I like to make them for the purposes of my own documentation….so:

1) The Ifing River in the Prose Edda is supposed to separate Asgard and Jotunheim. That would put Asgard and Jotunheim on the same plane. But in the Poetic Edda, generally considered to be the older source (and the one I’m relying on), Jotunheim is on the same plane as Midgard—a plane clearly below that of Asgard. Grrr. I want rivers in my Asgard but (thus far) the named rivers I’ve found don’t match up with the cosmology I’m using. So yeah, you know. Fiddlesticks. Darn it. Gaahh!

2) I’m at 10K words now in Hammered. It’s going a bit slower than Hexed because, well, there’s this whole world-building thing to do. The first two books were set in the East Valley and I’ve been there. Anyway, I’m feeling a bit more free, the frozen pack ice of my brain is breaking up and I’m seeing clear sailing through the floes…

Follow your fancy, says the New Belgium Brewing Company’s slogan. Normally I do not do what brewing companies tell me to, but this once I suppose I’ll succumb because it amuses me.

Right now my fancy is the hyphenated compound modifier “snake-free.” I have been chuckling over it for a couple of days now, and if I’m honest I’ve even chortled once or twice. It has sunk its fangs into my brain like a vampiric mind cobra and it won’t let go.

One of my friends used it innocently while soliciting suggestions for hikes. She wanted her hike to be snake-free and beautiful, and I just started laughing. Words do that to me sometimes.

I just began to imagine what it would be like to advertise products that way. If I saw three different packages of coffee, for example, and one of them had the words “NOW SNAKE-FREE! COMPARE WITH OTHER BRANDS!” in a little yellow starburst, I think I’d have to buy it. The other brands would seem less savory to me somehow, because they did not loudly proclaim their freedom from snakes.

This blog, by the way, is totally snake-free! Compare with other blogs!

This is not a snake-free sentence, unfortunately. Many of my other sentences are, however, including this one.

I have discovered that adding “snake-free” to everyday objects can rescue our daily routine from mundanity and add a whiff of adventure where normally none is expected. To wit: She put on her pajamas and curled up on the couch with a mug of cocoa and a snake-free blanket.

See? Whoever she is, she lives in a world where snakes sometimes occupy blankets. That’s edgy. Anything can happen in a world like that. In fact, it sounds like something that movie trailer guy would say to pitch an apocalyptic blockbuster. He’d say in that deep, gravelly growl, “In a world where snakes sometimes occupy blankets,” you’d see a python slithering up this woman’s thigh, and then everyone in the theater would go “Oh, snap!” and cram a handful of popcorn down their throats before they lost their minds and screamed.

I’m having chili with onions for dinner tonight, so I’ll have to brush my teeth immediately afterward with snake-free toothpaste. That’s right. It’s the best toothpaste you can possibly buy. EVERY dentist recommends it.

I hope you work and live in a snake-free environment. Next time you think your job sucks, think of all the people out there who have to deal with all the stuff you do, plus snakes.