Traveller's Tales

So today, I needed to get my awesome go-getting literary agent a copy of the one-page synopses that detail what happen in the second and third books of the series — The Grey Lord, which I’ve mentioned here before, and The Grey God, the third book, which I haven’t.

There is, of course, an excellent reason for me not having mentioned The Grey God before, and that’s because, well, I haven’t really thought much about it yet.  Oh, sure, I knew it was the end of the first big story arc, and it was going to be awesome and have armies and fights and climaxes and heroes and villains and dark evil wicked cool things in it, and I even wrote one scene of it as a prologue to the first book that I’ll probably leave out, but aside from that it was a bit… oh, amorphous, I suppose.

Anyway, I had a one-page synopsis already written for The Grey Lord, and it wasn’t even all that bad, so I sent that along quickly with a modicum of spit and polish (light on the spit).  I was delighted to discover, as I went through my files, that I had also dutifully written a one-page synopsis for The Grey God at around the same time as I’d written the one for TGL.  Eager to send it along, I popped it open to see what I’d come up with, and immediately saw that it was Cack.

The reason it was Cack, of course, has something to do with not having thought much about it yet.  I’d even go as far as to say that it had a Lot to do with it.  Quite a lot, in fact.

So that’s what I’ve done, from mid-afternoon until, well, about twenty minutes ago: I’ve thought long and hard about The Grey God, and ultimately come up with some stuff I really like.  New places to go, new things to see, new research to do and, most importantly, some great conflicts to mark the end of this particular cycle in the story.  Hopefully, I’ve also come up with a one-page synopsis that is not only Not Cack, but is also a reasonably good representation of where I want to take the story and how I intend to get there.

So that was my day, which was awesome, providing yet more circumstantial evidence that I really do enjoy this writing thing.

As for the reasons I’ve been away for a bit, I’ll cover that in a later post.  Not quite ready to talk about that other stuff yet, because I’m superstitious, but I’ll get around to it.

but then the spacemen abducted me, used a maser on my brain to alter my perception of the passage of time, and fed me chocolate.  It was very good chocolate, which is always nice during an abduction, but as a result of the very good chocolate, the only thing I can remember for certain is the fact that they did in fact have very good chocolate.

Damn those sly spacemen anyway.

In other news, nobody at work can function without me being physically in the building, so I have not yet been able to indulge in actual vacation time yet, despite having been scheduled to indulge in exactly that kind of time for the entire week.  In this regard, the aforementioned chocolate is not quite as effective at making me forget details, which is both a good thing and a bad thing.  Primarily bad at the moment, as it results in much weeping and gnashing of teeth, but I expect it’ll be good in hindsight.

Lastly, someone whose work I quite like is showing a preliminary interest in the manuscript.  This is actually an incredibly cool thing and something I’d much prefer to turn into a headline while leaping from one tall building to the next (with or without a cape), but I must reasonably temper this news because (a) “preliminary interest” is not equivalent to “ready to purchase lock, stock and barrel,” and (b) I still have a quantity of residual chocolate to consume.

That is all.  More when the chocolate lets me remember I need to post again.

Good things happening in my writing world.

Old: In a well-worn notebook I’d hidden in one of the Myriad Boxes I Have Not Unpacked From My Move, Way Back In February*, I discovered a seriously huge number of notes regarding worldbuilding and forward series thinking.  The best part of this isn’t the recovered notes, which alone will be lovely to re-assimilate (and will contribute copiously to the Codex Vocrotha in the weeks to come), but in fact a long-lost character interview with none other than my very favorite arch-nemesis, the Warlord, Paldor Daln.  Expect to see him as exposed and self-referential as you’ll ever see him, in a post very soon.

New: a scene rewrite, for The Grey Knight.  Yeah, I know, I’m supposed to be done with this one, and normally I won’t “optimize” a scene, but this just gives me so much more bang for the page space that it has to be done.

Also new: movement in the agent category.  Nothing definite at the moment but forward momentum is always positive; when I have actual news I’ll report it.

*I’m not actually averse to unpacking, it’s the Finding A Place For The Things Which You Have Just Unpacked process that’s tricksy.

Wow. Yeah. That’s a long time in between posts. In my defense, I had the house I was renting sold out from under me and had to both find a new place to live and to move in there; my boss of 6 years flew the coop and left utter chaos in his wake; and, lastly, I’m a lazy negligent bastard anyway and have a hard time writing blog posts regularly even under the best of circumstances.

It’s a lovely 2-story converted log cabin complete with fireplace, spiral staircase, a loft for sunbeams, a balcony for drinking coffee (or scotch) and watching the sun rise (or set).

(Pictures courtesy of my wife, who’s much better at blogging than I am.)

It’s in a great place, not far from friends and very far from the things I didn’t like about my previous home, specifically the ‘urban environment’ thing and the ‘zomg my house is seriously old lol’ thing. There are still way too many boxes to unpack, but it’s starting to shape up. Yes, my desk is already a mess. No, I’m not posting a picture of it.

Speaking of messes, the job has entered a bit of an interesting period. I work at an ad firm, and the part of the agency I belong to is undergoing catastrophic change at roughly double the rate that the agency at large is undergoing catastrophic change, which is to say, quite quickly. Strangely, my job is not at risk; in fact, I’m more in demand now than I ever have been as people struggle to rebuild the organization and realize that not only do I have a clue or two between my ears, but I actually have a metric crapton of well-considered clues to offer. Add to this there are several outside influences who are, purportedly, interested in my roughshod, bum-rush methods of creative management, and suddenly it’s nice to be an ad man again. Go figure. I’ll post more once I have actual details I can share, but it looks as though I’m going to get to work with one of my favorite people again, and that makes me excited to go to work again. Hey, it beats waking up and having a hard time figuring out which excuse I haven’t used for a while to play hookie with.

Lastly, and this is quite exciting, there may be exciting news on the very near horizon with regards to the book. Now I have to figure out where the hell the latest manuscript is — more specifically, which box the laptop is hiding in.

Boxes. Ugh.

you have too much to blog about. Fitness, writing, politics (egads, but yes, politics) and movies would each make good entries all on their own. Not sure what to do about it, but I may as well start somewhere.

Writing! Doing more of that. Got a very pleasant and thought-provoking rejection from Agent Candidate #1, and I’m still considering what to do about her feedback, which was excellent. In addition to having some very insightful thoughts as to how I might approach my issues, she highlit some areas I’ve received consistent criticism about, so I’m thinking I should perhaps tinker a bit more on the original manuscript. I may add some prequel-esque chapters to the fore of the book. I may not. In a way I kind of hate going back to Knight, because I like where it is right now. But every time I’ve tinkered, I’ve been pleased. So, back to the beginning!

So yes, I’m still writing. I’ve been doing renovations over at the Codex as well — there are a few more entries now — but work continues, and I really wish I had a service provider who was running a version of PHP that was compatible with the newest MediaWiki software. Sigh.

Fitness and politics will just have to wait for tomorrow, but I’ll get all of this out of my system by the end of the week.

The one day I go to work without my laptop is the day I get bludgeoned by ideas. I learned something cool though; not only can I type passing well on my phone’s keypad, and not only is the predictive text functionality fairly good, but gmail on my phone is a decent way to save text if I’m stuck without any other way of working. Maybe not great, but good enough.

So yeah, I finally got a really, really important scene of The Grey Lord written. Lord ventures a bit deeper into certain themes, and one scene in particular requires some fairly horrific imagery. I’m happy to say that I’m extremely pleased with the scenework, but I’m really starting to wonder how sane poor Erik is going to be by the end of Lord. He’s starting to slip nicely into the role, though, and assuming he’s able to retain his sanity (and, hopefully, a shred or two of essential humanity), he’ll continue to be a great study well through the end of the last of this first series.

Naturally, my inspiration wasn’t constrained to Lord; some wicked ideas popped into my head for The Grey Lady as well. Fortunately, they were a bit simpler and easier to communicate, so I’ve already incorporated them into the puzzle design of Lady. I’d explain more, but I’d be giving away a key element of a new cipher for the game and I can’t imagine that’d be much fun! Just… trust me, it’s evil and diabolical, and I’ve got it all wrapped up.

In order to get my thoughts together for the guerilla marketing effort, I’ve been investing my time in a short story that pulls the events, settings and characters of the story together. Code-named ‘The Grey Lady,’ it’s already thrown some fascinating wrenches at me, in terms of story and character development. There’s at least one character there, I realize now, who I’ll have to incorporate into the larger saga, and I’m learning to think in a female voice — something I used to be far too uncomfortable with to attempt.

But the coolest part so far is just watching the new character emerge. The short story is told as journal entries from her perspective, and she begins very young and very shallow (yeah, it’s a she — didn’t the post title give it away?). She doesn’t have much time to learn about herself or her world before it all starts collapsing around her, and watching her cope with this new information, watching her attempts at shedding her outer skin to tap into her own inner strength is really eye-opening. Her journey takes her from jaded consumerist to fiercely loyal companion at a breakneck pace, and watching her make the decisions that lead her to the end of the story is — well, I’ll let people judge for themselves when they see it, but I’m impressed.

Apparently, I still have a lot of faith in humanity, and this Grey Lady is the proof of it. She’s going to turn my stories a bit topsy and somewhat turvy, but stuff like this is one of the most best parts of writing.

The good thing: the synopsis is basically done, awaiting a pair of important readthroughs to help me with my last few changes. I’m a little late, but I think the result will be worth it.

The goofy thing:

Yeah. Me. And Shalila. Only cartoony.

Marketing. That’s what a synopsis is: marketing. It’s not really your book, only shorter; sure, it bears a striking resemblance in places, but it’s not going to be a literary work of art, and it’s not really anatomically correct. It’s marketing by the purest of definitions: it’s part of the equation that determines whether you sell or not.

I think this is a critical insight. I may be wrong, and if I’m not published by the end of the year I’ll highlight this as an important misconception, but I’m beginning to think that a modern, commercially-oriented author absolutely, positively needs to understand at least the bare bones of marketing. The market is simply too competitive; there are too many voices clamoring for attention, and too few traditional outlets for the flood of content. I don’t mean that a writer should destroy their art for market share, but I do mean that once the pencil shavings have cleared and the baby’s delivered, said writer had better damn well understand their novel’s potential audience, and take steps to attract them.

But that’s the publisher’s job, right? With 5 years experience now in high-end professional marketing, I can say the answer is qualitatively and quantitatively “no.” Even the marketers who make shitloads of money and who are supposed to know what the hell they’re doing are making a lot of missteps with the modern consumer. Publishers are not, traditionally, on the bleeding edge of marketing theory. Therefore, if you want modern marketing that will really blow the doors off of your niche — unless you have a really exceptional publisher… yeah. DIY.

Anyway. I was going to start this bitching about synopses, but the more I thought of it the more I realized that bitching about a critical part of the process is just dumb. Pitching a novel is a lot like selling a vacuum: the query letter’s the knock on the door, and the synopsis and sample pages are the spiel on the doorstep. If your spiel is good, you get to go inside and show off your vacuum — and dammit, you know that vacuum’s a good one. But if your spiel blows, the door gets shut no matter how good your vacuum is.

Yeah, I’m still working on mine. But I think I’ve got a good perspective on the thing now. I expect to send it out this coming Monday.

Vroom.

Agent A has responded positively to my initial query! They have requested the first fifty pages and a detailed synopsis for perusal at my earliest convenience — which, naturally, is no later than Monday, because I’ve got to do some serious research on how to do this detailed synopsis thing.

Interestingly, they’ve also asked me if I’m simultaneously submitting the manuscript elsewhere. I do seem to remember that this is a no-no with publishers and not so much of a no-no with agents, but until I completely fall off my top-ten list I don’t expect I’ll entirely follow that advice. I’m most seriously interested in Agent A and her fellow top-ten, so I’m going to focus my attention on each individually and in serial, not parallel.

In any event, thank you, Agent A! Here’s to finding out if we’re a good fit. *clink*