Evolution is coming

I wrapped the first draft of book two yesterday, so I'm feeling pretty bloody good today.

Assuming revising, beta reading, and cover design go smoothly, you should see Children of Evolution on the digital shelves in a few weeks.

Thank you, everyone, for your patience, support, and especially your feedback on book one. It's been a slower journey than expected to get book two into your hands, but I'm starting to figure out the best balance for writing around a day job. Here's hoping the wait for book three is pleasantly short for all.

Stay tuned.

The world loses a hero

As some of you might have noticed, I had to cancel my grand appearance at the Melbourne Comic-Con.

Who am I kidding? I was going as a fan. Nobody noticed.

Anyway, I canceled the trip not because I was being lazy or anti-social, although I've been accused of one of those a time or two. I canceled because of an unexpected death in the family. 

The world lost one of its best a few weeks ago, and southern California is a little darker now as a result. 

Good travels on the other side, Dr. Phil Humber. If you approach the afterlife the way you did life, you'll make every second count and enjoy all it has to offer. We'll hold the fort in your absence, but the smiles won't be as easy to come by for many. You will be missed.

Comic-Con is coming

I'll be seeing some of you in Melbourne in a few weeks at the always glorious Oz Comic-Con. Until then, here are some random pics of things I've been doing. Yes, this is why book two isn't out yet.

Defying death

Finding giant spiders

Finding giant dogs

Finding the best pizza in Portland

Taking pictures of people taking pictures

Getting dirty looks

Free for a limited time

FREE

From December 25 through December 29, 2014, the Kindle version of
Children of Genesis is free for all. My gift to you for the holidays. Feel free to share the link with those you love, and even those you don't.


Here's the link for the pasters: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E6NUQKG

Need a Kindle reader app for your device? Check your app store. There's one for everybody.

Happy holidays from down under.

Oz Comic-Con Sydney

One of the many thoughtful *cough*th birthday presents I received from my wife was a pair of tickets to my first ever Comic-Con. This particular con brand of Comic-Com is the Oz variety, which means the accents are a bit cooler and the crowds slightly more laid back and less pushy. Otherwise, it looks about the same to the amateur.

Here's my photo tour of the day.

First I had to suit up.

 

Then I took the train to Central and caught the shuttle to the exhibition center a good hour and a half before opening time, and I paid for it, as you'll see later.

They divided the early crowd into lanes outside the entrance. I was at the front of one of the queues. Here's the crowd behind me with an hour to go until the doors open:

Not that many cosplayers (people in costume) in sight in this shot, which is probably why I was quickly singled out by a producer for Chanel 7 and asked to be in a group shot for their live morning show.

Here are a few of my cohorts:

Yes, that is Jessica Rabbit in the shot above. She was a hoot. Very outgoing and energetic. She happily taught the other glove wearers how to use their smart phones with gloves on - just lick the finger of your glove so the touch screen will respond to it. Everyone was pretty excited to learn this trick. Apparently not a lot of practical playtesting was done on their outfits. Of course, then Jessica realized she'd just told a group of strangers to lick their gloves and touch her phone (they were taking a picture for her at the time).

This Bane was great. He had a little remote in his pocket that made green lights flow through the tubes like venom. Nice touch.

We played nicely for the camera, even though we missed our turn to go inside. If we had been in the States, tempers would have flared at that point for sure. By the way, here's one small angle on the crowd right before the doors opened:

Here are a few shots of the dealer area:

This is the children's play area, complete with a sign telling people not to
drop their kids here and run off. Apparently that's been a problem in the past.

And here are a few of my favorite cosplayers. I know some of these are butt shots, but with the crowd and the juggling of bags and phone, sometimes I couldn't get the camera ready in time to catch them from the front. I wasn't big on stopping people and asking them to pose.

This one's for you, Michelle.

Leia getting a snack from her Yoda backpack.

Leia carrying Yoda around. So Episode V.

It wasn't all costumes and merchandise. There were also quite a few celebrities doing the requisite on-stage appearances, photo ops, and autograph signings. I ducked into one appearance by Colin Ferguson (Eureka, Maytag commercials, etc.)

Not all panels are created equal. A lot depends on the energy and sense of humor of the celeb. Colin was a lot of fun and managed to bring a hum-drum crowd to life. Based on the few other panels I passed and overheard while browsing, I made a great choice with Colin. Sorry, Bloom and Shatner.

Throughout the day I got stopped by at least half a dozen people to get my own picture taken, which was an interesting feeling, especially once I realized I actually liked it. I even got dragged to a Star Trek fan group booth by a very excited young Trekkie and put in front of a green screen so they could get a photo of me on the reboot Enterprise bridge.

Finally, I exchanged picture taking with a nice couple to get this shot with one of my sci-fi heroes:

Good day.

Geek marketing - engage

Sci-fi authors absolutely must attend cons. No ifs. No buts. 

Why? Because no other venue provides such open and welcome access to our prime target audience. The potential for marketing and fan engagement is just too strong of a pull for any self-promoting author to ignore, making cons the fully armed and operational battle station to our modified light freighters. Once they lock onto us with their tractor beams, we just can’t escape.

San Diego Comic-Con, Worldcon, Dragon Con, Fedcon…they’re all on my list of must-attend conventions, as an author and as a wide-eyed fan.

In all honesty though, attending cons is one aspect of author life I’m both longing for and dreading. If you know of my loathing for crowds, you get the dreading part. 

But if you know of my equally powerful love of losing myself in shared fandom, you know why the longing part will no end up winning the day.

I’m holding off on official con appearances until I have more books to promote, and more current readers to meet, but that doesn't mean I’m avoiding cons entirely. A slow build-up to anything is difficult for me. I tend to jump in all the way when I find a new obsession. But my con career is getting the slow clap treatment. I’ll be attending conventions incognito for the time being. Scouting. Slowly spreading the word. Meeting readers on the DL.

First stop, Oz Comic-Con in Sydney. I’ll be there this Saturday, so if you’re a fan of Children of Genesis, find me if you can. I won’t have a booth (this is a low-key appearance, after all). I’ll be wandering the con, attending panels and making a general fan nuisance of myself. If you can find me, and if you have a QR code scanner app handy, you’ll score a top secret con bonus.

For those going on the hunt, here’s a hint:

You know what the Star Trek reboot movies really need? A Trill officer or two.

Who's flying this thing?

I read this article because the teaser headline had a few magic keywords that will hook me every time:

It got me to thinking about how much (or how little) control an author has over a story once it's on the page. Don't get me wrong, I am and will probably always be one of the first in the digital lines to soak up any and every interview and Q&A session with the authors of my favorite works. Once I fall in love with a story or setting, I want to hear every detail and new tidbit the creator is willing to share. That being said, I felt a little defensive of the book when Rowling said she should have had Hermione and Harry end up together.

Her "I'm backtracking" expression

Once a writer releases a story for others to read, it's no longer solely the writer's story. It's in the world. It's a shared experience. That writer has given birth to their story baby, and there's no getting it back into the womb to change how it turned out. Not the best analogy, I know. Parents have a lot more influence on how babies turn out after they're born than writers do their stories after they're released, but you get what I mean. 

The point I'm slowly approaching is that it seems somehow insulting or disrespectful of the book for an author to say she should have done something different. I got defensive of The Deathly Hallows because I've read it, and reading a story is almost as personal and private an experience as writing one. As a reader, you feel ownership of the story you lived in your mind through those pages. And when you hear someone speak ill of it, even the author, you naturally want to defend it. 

But, I understand what Rowling meant when she said she had trouble shaking her original thought of how that part of the story should turn out. She had the feeling early on that Ron and Hermione should end up together and she grew attached to it. Dreaming up a book is a very intimate experience. The characters and their stories become a part of your life, a deeply personal and private part, especially while they're in the early stages of development. You can't help but become attached. And when you consider that most stories cook in the author's imagination for years, sometimes decades, before they end up on the page, the attachment to those early ideas can sometimes become a tie that's not easy to break. When, as a writer, the story starts to go in a way you didn't anticipate and characters start to develop away from your original vision, it's hard to fight off the instinct to drag them back to your original concept. 

Sometimes holding to your original vision for a character or a relationship might be the right call. Many times, it's not. Writing a story can be as exciting for the writer as the reader. I know a goodly number of the scenes I plan turn out far different from what I imagined. Characters develop in ways I didn't anticipate, and relationships sometimes just start to form where I didn't plan them. That's more than OK. That's perfect. That's the story developing the way it naturally should. 

Still, there are limits to how out of control your story should grow. At some point, you have to bring it back to the framework or you run the risk of telling a different tale than the one you started. 

So was it wrong for Ron and Hermione to end up together when the logic of the story was trying to take them in another direction? Maybe. Maybe not. That's not for me or anyone else to say aside from the author. But I do know that once the story is written and shared, it's too late to second guess. Ron and Hermione's relationship already happened for millions of readers. It's out of Rowling's hands. She's no longer at the helm.