The Middle of the Dark

I never do very good by making New Year’s resolutions, but as I get older, I have gotten more focused on setting specific goals.   I feel I accomplished a lot in 2011 - I went to NYC for the first time, I went to New Orleans (ok, let's forget that), I moved into a new house, I published my first novel - two of those are from a lifetime goal list, so 2011 wasn't too shabby.  My only real goal for 2012 is to make 2011 the rule, and not the exception.  That being said, I have a few small goals I will tend to in 2012: Publish my collection of short fiction (Winter 2012) Complete and publish my next novel (Fall 2012) Start work - and complete a first draft?- on the Elizabeth sequel (2013) Go back to NYC Make that return trip to Europe I have been planning for 10 years There's lots of other things I'd love to do, such as: Hold my breath until Community comes back on Stop caring so much about new Apple rumors Redirect frustration over the things I cannot chang...

182.  Have you forgot your reader? The writer-reader relationship may be one of the most complicated - and unforgiving - in the arts.  To give you an idea, do a Google search to see how many qutoes line up on the side of the reader being the most important aspect of writing, and then see how many quotes you can find for the exact opposite. The truth is, without readers, fiction is nothing.  Your reader must be your primary concern, but then at the same time, you have to have a certain ignorance of them.  As a writer you need to achieve a couple things in your novel or short story.  The first and probably most important is distance.  The reader can't be aware of the author as they're reading; if they are, the jig is up and what John Gardner calls 'a vivid and continuous dream' is shattered.  Every effect you create within your work has to work towards the goal of making you as the author invisible; you have to work in mysterious ways.  Th...

Continuing my series of posts based off of David Madden's essential Revising Fiction: 99. Have you failed to make dialog perform secondary functions? A lot of beginning writers see dialogue as a way of advancing the plot. Most of the plot will come out through it, and in lesser fiction, characters will contribute things they already know and/or would have no reason to share with someone else because the author needs to get this out for the reader. Dialogue can and should advance the plot - in a play it's often the only means - but dialogue can also convey other functions as well. Dialogue is a incredibly effective means of conveying character. Done correctly, a character may reveal any or all of the following through dialogue: Beliefs Biases Education Location History Most of this should come subtly. You don't want to have a character announce any of these things (typically). A highly educated person will sound different from someone without an education....

As promised, I'm kicking off a little run of posts dedicated to the topics from David Madden's essential Revising Fiction: A Handbook for Writers .  I'll touch on a few of these, and in no particular order, so here goes: 3. If you have used the first-person point of view, have you realized all its potentials? The novel in progress, otherwise known as #GhostofBigDamnEpic, features a first-person narrator.  This is pretty unusual for me.  Most of my work tends toward the third person, such as The Book of Elizabeth .   I chose to tell the new novel from the first person because of the opportunity the character presented me.  The main character lives in isolation, exiled from his memory and every other concept of life that we take for granted.  His voice is his only constant; it's repetitious, a trick against forgetting.  It had a music and an energy that made it compelling to pursue.  Where I rely on Madden is asking myself some key questi...

You've all heard the old addage - writing is rewriting. No one believes that more than me.  I probably over-revise.  I spend years on short stories.  'News Right Fresh From Heaven,' my story that appeared in Fantasy Magazine earlier this year, began almost four years before, as two different stories (one was good, one was bad).  I have a couple other stories right now that I have been working on in some way, shape or form for just as long.  It's funny now to be editing my story collection, which will appear very early next year, and to revisit these stories.  My intent with the editing was mainly cosmetic.  I ended up making some minor edits, mostly aimed at excessive commas and exclamation points (!!!), but also a few bigger changes to sentences and paragraphs.  I changed nothing structurally in the stories.  I don't want to re-write these, though the impulse sometimes occurs - what was I thinking there? - and so this is less a Director...

In no particular order: I'm usually too tired from work and writing fiction to blog. Most everyone says I need to blog to promote my fiction. I write fiction to promote. On the blog I'm too tired to update. Most people think since you're a writer, you always know what to say. Most people - sometimes - think you must be smart, because you're writer. You calculate the speed at which excitement collapses into disappointment on someone's face as the time it takes you to answer, "So what kinds of books do you write?" Time=the books you want to write The best books you will ever write are the ones you dream about right before you wake up. You listen to music for economy and melody.  You watch TV for rhythm and depth.  You listen to the way people talk on the bus for dialogue. You tell everyone else who wants to write to read.

Last month Ty Johnston was gracious enough to let me guest post on his blog.  Now, he returns the favor with a great story on growing up with Star Wars, and how it impacted him as a writer: I’m going to talk about Star Wars, but I want to say right here up front that I am not a Star Wars fanboy or geek or anything of the sort. I enjoyed the original trilogy, especially the first movie, and I found elements of the more modern trilogy which I enjoyed, though it just wasn’t the same experience for the most part (whether that was because I was older or because George Lucas had lost his mind is debatable). I am 42 years old,and as an author of speculative fiction, I would by lying if I said Star Wars had never had an influence upon me and my chosen career. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I am not sure those of older and younger generations can appreciate the effect Star Wars had upon my generation, commonly referred to as Generation X within the media and broader culture. Whe...

This post isn't about the new Lars Von Trier movie where Kristen Dunst gets married and ends the world (I didn't see that coming either).  This is about how writing seriously affects my mood. If I am making a lot of progress, then I'm a pretty happy camper.  If I'm not, as usually the case, my frustration tends to show.  This week I made serious progress on my new novel.  I had been spinning my tires a bit before, but then I realized what had been the stumbling block.  The dam broke, but I wasn't feeling excited, or successful.  Somewhere around Friday, I got pretty blue.  It took me by surprise.  It took a little introspection before I understood what was really bugging me.  In some ways, it was where I was in the book - a major character dies, leaving the story in shadow - but it was another passing that really became real as I worked through the pages this week.  Elements of this book date back 15 years.  Ideas I kept in my b...

My post from last month Mirror, Mirror on character description is featured in this month's Carnival of the Indies at Joel Friedlander's fantastic resource for indie writers, The Book Designer . This is a website I visit daily and it's become required reading for me as I continue on this journey into independent writing.  Please check out my post and all of the other great articles!

You'll start off trying to follow the instructions, and then give up. Are you watching football, or you..? Keep pulling left and right long enough, and it will start to look like something. Remember the ornaments you hang on it will cover up the gaps. OOH LIGHTS PRETTY.  There's more of it on the floor. You cap it off with something over the top, or subtle and understated.  It ices the overall effect, or completely undoes it. At the end, your arms and hands hurt. You always find one you like better at someone else's house. Next year you swear you'll get a real one.

As you may have guessed from my post the other day, I am a pretty big Star Wars collector.  One of the biggest joys - and stresses - of collecting any toy line as old and broad as Star Wars is the question of variations.  The pic on the left shows that this started right away - Chewbacca went through six major card variations between 1978 and 1985, not counting the nearly infinite versions that feature this sticker or that back - and it continues to this day.  I avoid variations by and large.  What happens when you reach a certain point in collecting like I have is that, variations are all that's left, and variations are endless. And expensive. It got me to thinking though, about variation in fiction.  Typically, despite a fascination with looking into the creative process that makes us curious as to what might have been with any one of our most treasured classics, actual, planned variance in novels is pretty uncommon.  But must there be a 'definitiv...

Slightly off topic, but... Some of you may have seen this elsewhere on the web last week, but I am now the proud owner of a fantastic piece and a real treasure, really.  This is a 1978 12 back shelf display that is complete and virtually intact.  There is some minor wear, but considering its age and condition, it's hardly distracting.  The best part - maybe - was that it came with 6 original 12 backs, all of them the 'A' version (find out what all this geekspeak is here ).  EDIT: Two of them, the Stormtrooper and R2, are UNPUNCHED. This is the centerpiece of my collection now to say the least.  The 6 figures include R2, Luke, Han, Leia, 3-PO and a Stormtrooper.   I had a Jawa previously, which means I'll probably have to get the other 5 now...

Voice is the hardest thing to capture in fiction. Every short story or novel has a voice, even if it's told in the third person. Often the 'voice' of that narrator, omniscient or not, will have a rhythm or cadence particular to the storyteller. Sometimes this is called 'style,' but for me, someone is always talking. Junot Diaz has an excellent article on voice over the Huff Post this week. Ignore the comments - wow, did some of these people spill their barely bottled resentment all over themselves - and take in what he's saying. I always start with voice; character is voice. Character is story, so they go hand in hand and the failure in one will be the failure of both. To distinguish the voices of your characters, you have to hear them. You need to listen. It's been said a lot of times before and by better writers, but one of the best tools in your toolbox is eavesdropping. Dialogue benefits from this as well, so don't have your earbuds in...

So NBC has elected to leave Community off its recently announced mid-season schedule . Sign the petition if you'd like to see the show continue.    In the meantime, check out this excellent article over at Wired that provides insight into the creative process of Dan Harmon, creator of Community. In the article, Harmon talks about his 'narrative embryos,' a distillation of the story process by way of Joseph Campbell, and oh, Die Hard: 1. A character is in a zone of comfort 2. But they want something 3. They enter an unfamiliar situation 4. Adapt to it 5. Get what they wanted 6. Pay a heavy price for it 7. Then return to their familiar situation 8. Having changed Essentially, it's Campbell's monomyth, boiled down to the extreme. Harmon uses this same process in breaking every single episode of Community. Here, from Harmon's blog , is the extremely complex 'embryo' for the episode recently that explored six different possible timeli...

Today I have a guest post over at author Ty Johnston's blog, on world building and the challenges involved when you're a fan of Hemingway, like me.  Ty is currently doing a blog tour for his new novel Ghosts of the Asylum, available now!  I met Ty over at the Kindle boards , which is a good place to meet fellow authors and a good resource as well.  Blog tours and guest posts are very cool and different and I look to participate in more of them. Look for a guest post from Ty here in December!

I'll try and be polite about this nonsense: This little post isn't going to try and sort out the ways 9/11 impacted Frank Miller and all Americans, nor is it going to attack an artist who clearly has lost his perspective . What I will try and do here is talk about art and agenda. Every work of art has one. Art is its own agenda; what it tries to convey through you, or about you, your circumstances or those circumstances you may find necessary to shine a light on, art communicates. Art is message. Art then must speak for itself. If you as the artist decide to be the messenger, or if you confuse the form - writing, in this case - with a bully pulpit, or worse, a weapon, then you are not an artist anymore. You are a propagandist. Frank Miller rants against the Occupy movement in his blogpost . He's entitled to his opinion about the movement. As someone who visited the protesters in Zucotti Park last month, I have mixed emotions about the movement. I also have p...

After Joel Friedlander at The Book Designer : The Book of Elizabeth is the first novel I have published. I did it all by myself.   Proudly. It is not the first book I have written (it's the fifth). None of the five novels (and the sixth one I'm working on now)feature a main character that is male. I spent a summer in Dublin, Ireland, at Trinity College with the Irish Writing Program.  We talked a lot about male/female POV and a person's 'default setting.'  I think I said one time men are boring to me.  What more can you say about the male perspective that hasn't been said?  I overstated it, I think.  What might women say of the male perspective? I get emails all the time from people who think I'm a woman.  What is it about sexually ambiguous women ?  This has nothing to do with writing.  Well.  Yes, it does. Right now, I'm listening to the new Florence and the Machine record.  A pattern emerges. The only pat...

Up to 137 pages in the new novel.  Very close to the tipping point.  Haven't felt this way, in oh, four years?  You'd think I'd do it more often.

A fair point in the Good Book Alert review of The Book of Elizabeth was the pace of the novel.  I knew this was an issue back to when I completed the first draft in 2008.  The primary reason the book reads as fast as it does is I was trying to cram all of this world bubbling over in my head under a hard page count given to me by the publisher.  Eventually, of course, that became irrelevant .  When I took the rights back, I did consider expanding a little on the novel.  At that point though, the idea of spending more time on it made me sick.  I wanted to get past the book and four years of my life I felt had been wasted in waiting for it to arrive.  In retrospect, I should have taken a breath and expanded on some items.  The sequel will be more relaxed in pace, and won't be as hell bent on running through the world in an attempt to hit all the touristy spots before you leave town. That said, I do kind of like the hit and run pace of th...

Willow, by Phil Noto. Character is my first concern in any story. Character is the story, as far as I'm concerned.  Character locks you up into stories that otherwise have gaps in logic or weaknesses in craft.  Character will allow you to forgive the unforgivable.  Character opens a window on worlds both within yourself and beyond that you otherwise were unable to access.  As form follows function, so too your story should follow its characters.  Start with a good (or great) character and your story will emerge from them.  Many novels or movies you see today focus entirely on an idea - an alien invasion, for instance - and the characters are stand-ins.  Bland types inserted to scream or chuckle at as the world disintegrates (every character in the Transformers movies, I'm looking at you). Character is why I love Joss Whedon so much.  All of his work, Buffy in particular, follows from explorations into his characters.  Buffy and h...

Artist Unknown?  I tried! Good Book Alert posted a good and fair review of The Book of Elizabeth  today - 4 out of 5 stars!  Some very good praise: ' The Book of Elizabeth is a fascinating take on alternative history speculative fiction.' 'One of the joys of this novel is the exploration of this alternate Earth and how the various strands of history and potential history mesh together.' A pretty interesting discussion on the genre of alternate history and what is or isn't alt-history develops in the comment section.  The discussion specifically in the comments got me to thinking about that particular genre and its conventions.  I never thought of Elizabeth as specifically an alt-history book.  The point of divergence in the novel is very obscure - I never actually identify it, though there are clues - and it is a result of an event that goes unexplained.  It's not a traditional 'what if Queen Elizabeth I had lost to the Spanish A...

Inevitably at some point during a Peanuts cartoon, Charlie Brown's teacher squawks at him in her unmistakable trombdrone and Charlie or one of the other kids simply affirms, or translates, whatever it is Mrs. Donovan says. 'You want me to pound the erasers?' Charlie Brown is a lovable misfit, the butt of many jokes, and he lives in a world of adults who cannot be understood to us except by children. Unless you are specifically writing for children - or maybe particularly if you are - don't treat your reader like Charlie Brown. The last thing you ever want to hear someone say as they look up out of your novel is 'Good Grief!

Right at the moment the characters of the movie ‘Cloverfield’ enter an electronics store that is being looted, I knew I was watching the wrong movie.   The movie I wanted to watch was about these kids, robbing stereos and TV’s as a gigantic monster tears down New York City.   Instead, we follow a group of young twentysomethings who are in the midst or on the verge of prosperous lives; their largest concerns are romantic (‘Does she love me?’).   The movie was a good time, and mostly exciting, but we had seen this before.   ‘Attack The Block’ is a British movie that follows a group of teenage boys up to no good on what appears to be Guy Fawkes Day.   They live in a government housing project (‘The Block’) in south London and open the movie by mugging a nurse that lives in their building.   The mugging goes weird when a tiny monkey-like alien drops out of the sky and demolishes a car.   One of the boys, Moses, kills the creature after it scars h...

Another subject in writing that can be as imagination destroying as the technique of characters describing themselves through a mirror is the idea that you can't write outside your gender.  This would also extend to ethnicity, class and species - if Orwell can put himself in the head of talking animals, why should it be impossible for a woman to do so with a man?  Or vice versa?  I see warnings against this every so often.  There was a little bit of this when 'The Help' came out (the book), and some reviewers expressed concern with the author writing in the voice and from the perspective of a black woman. A failure to place yourself as a writer in the mind of someone utterly apart from you in background or biology is a failure of imagination.

I had been on something of a tear back in September on the next novel.  Then I realized it would be next year if I was lucky before it saw the light of day, and I wanted to have something out there in the cloud since all the advice I get about this digital publishing era centers on volume (woe is me: I write like a snail).  So I thought, I'll collect my published short stories.  And then I thought, I'll include something new.  Like a new short story in the Elizabeth universe, because it's going to be even longer before I get back to that.  So I started writing the short story.  And then I went to New York City. So here it is the end of October, and I haven't touched the new novel in over a month. 

Recently I bought a copy of a pretty well reviewed and promoted speculative fiction novel.  About two chapters in, the main character looks in a mirror and describes themself.  I literally closed the book and stopped reading.  The novel had other issues, but this put me right out of the story.  This technique - being generous here - occurs a lot in first person narratives, about as often as a story beginning with the main character waking up from a dream.  The mirror device is best avoided, but not necessarily because it's so overused - it's best avoided because simply put, it's so easy.  A character, especially a protagonist, should never be described; they should be imagined.

Listening to new Coldplay.  So many great songs - something feels missing.  Could be first listen jitters. Lull in posts.  Went to NYC and had a truly incredible, really meaningful trip.  Some of the best four days of my life.  I visited the Statue of Liberty, Zucotti Park and the Occupy Wall St. protesters, and the WTC memorial all in one day.  A rain storm stopped long enough for me to enjoy each.  I caught up with old, dear friends and made new ones.  I can't write it all here, but that old Tony Bennet song about SF - I left my heart in NYC.

The criminally underappreciated Kathleen Edwards returns with one of her loveliest songs yet, Wapusk (below). I have been playing this and the B-side over and over today. I can't wait for the record, which is due early next year. I saw Kathleen in Chicago a few years back when she was touring to support 'Asking For Flowers.' During the opening act, she came out to watch in this hooded sweatshirt and I totally blew her cover by introducing myself. It was worth it.

I've had the first issue of Buffy Season 9 for two weeks now.  I live and die by Joss Whedon.  I love Buffy.  I love Buffy in comics even more. I couldn't be moved to write anything about this issue. Not that there is nothing to say.  There's actually quite a bit.  Buffy flirts or possibly flirts with everyone in the cast (more on this in a sec).  She has moved to San Fransisco to work in a coffee shop.  Her friends have moved with her.  She gets drunk and acts stupid at a party. She never mentions Giles is dead. 

The Elizabeth short story for the collection next year has turned into a murder mystery of sorts. The story dimensionalizes let's say the larger Elizabeth universe and gives some perspective on the next novel. It does break by default rule #13 though... but rules are made to be broken. Looking forward to it as my mom has always been a mystery nut and by extension so am I. By the way, this is my first post from an iPhone for the blog. Definitely need some more features for this app.

Sometimes I feel like this guy trying to plug my novel, but the downside of being an independent writer is that I am my own business.  I have to shill, as uncomfortable as it makes me sometimes.  This somewhat tongue in cheek post over at TNH doesn't really have anything to do with my own situation as a writer.  Not really.  But just the same, stepping out of my comfort zone, if you have read The Book of Elizabeth , and if you enjoyed it, help an independent writer out by doing some of the following things: 1.  Order a copy.  Pick your poison: paperback , Kindle , or Nook .  iPad and more coming soon. 2. Write a review.  This is huge for indie writers.  Word of mouth is everything.  Post a review at Amazon , Goodreads , and Barnes & Noble . 3.  Attend an event.  I'm working on possible readings/things in the near future.  Check back for details. 4. LIKE my Facebook page .  Even if you hate the new Faceb...

Woke up way too early with the need to puke (thanks Ben ).  Spent the morning compiling a draft manuscript of a short story collection I will publish after the new year.  I've wanted to do this for a while, but for some reason or another haven't.  This book collects most of my published stories, as well as a few new ones, and a few poems and short pieces for good measure.  I laughed a little too as I realized I will be editing some of the published pieces.  I have been protesting George Lucas doing this to Star Wars recently.  Thankfully no one cares about the original versions of these stories. The collection may also include a brand new short story set in the Elizabeth universe.  The thought occured to me that it might be a good idea, and a fun way of tiding over anyone who might be wanting more, as it is going to be a long wait for the sequel. The reason for that is because the sci-fi John Hughes project has become two novels.  The writing ...

My very amazing coworkers threw a bit of party for my book today (along with a bon voyage for our friend Nicole, who is leaving us for another department).  Check out the doodle art by fellow sup Teaya.  Very cool.  It was very, very wonderful of them to do this.  We had amazing cupcakes from Scratch and Andy Rooney - I mean Pat - interviewed me a little about the book. I am so lucky to work at such an amazing place, and to have such wonderful colleagues. Thank you all!

I should really post something about writing here.

Bumming around on Ben's blog I found this old, very low quality video of a newscast from 1983, featuring a toy aisle from Toys R Us, on the day Return of the Jedi came out: You got to love this. 

I picked up the new version of Batgirl today (good thing I had Mike put it in my pull box, because it vanished off the shelves) and wanted to share some thoughts. There's been some controversy over this book, mainly because as part of the DC reboot , and also because Barbara Gordon is back in the costume after 20 years. And walking. For those of you who may not know, Barbara was shot and paralyzed in The Killing Joke back in 1988. This event, along with the contemporaneous arrival of Watchmen, Swamp Thing and Batman: Year One, ushered comic books into the modern, 'adult' age. Barbara has spent the last two decades in a wheelchair, as Oracle, a sort of computer hacking expert and intelligence officer for Batman's extended crime-fighting operation. Oracle represented a lot of things; real-life consequence to what had been child's play; it doesn't always work out at the end of the issue; and a hero, a symbol, for people with disabilities in stories dominat...

Harry Knowles, whose reviews I generally avoid for their lack of perspective, provides quite a bit on the new Star Wars Blu-rays over at his website. The discussion among fans has basically reduced the films, particulary the original trilogy, to the sum of its parts. As George Lucas has dissected the films, amputated them and grafted on new parts, a large group of fans have done the same. These films have been broken down and analyzed to the breaking point. People forget why they loved them in the first place - or they identify what they loved, and consequently, their childhood - with the parts Lucas excises.

Update: more to the story . Read this somewhat surprising story about a team of authors finding their gay character edited out of their YA novel. A really interested discussion about traditional publishing and YA in general follows. The authors present their choices at the end, but none of them include going independent. I feel indie-publishing should be an option. I am all for getting the Big 6 to evolve, but with this story and others this week, it seems pretty clear that traditional publishing is not changing with the times. If anything, they may be regressing. Case in point: What do the girls on these covers all have in common?

Kiana Davenport writes on her blog about an incredible and discouraging ordeal she recently went through: In January, 2010, I signed a contract with one of the Big 6 publishers in New York for my next novel. The book was scheduled for hardback publication in August, 2012, and paperback publication a year later. Recently that publisher discovered I had self-published two of my story collections as electronic books. To coin the Fanboys, they went ballistic. The editor shouted at me repeatedly on the phone. I was accused of breaching my contract (which I did not) but worse, of 'blatantly betraying them with Amazon,' their biggest and most intimidating competitor. I was not trustworthy. I was sleeping with the enemy. It gets worse: Last week, I received from their lawyers an official letter terminating my contract with them, "...for permitting Amazon to publish CANNIBAL NIGHTS, etc...." and demanding back the $20,000 they had paid me as pa...

And even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus, 3rd century BCE

Following the lead of Joel Friedlander , I offer below my responses to the 5 keywords supplied in this interview : #ebook—When I read the word ebook, I think ‘ibook.’ Not that digital publishing is some consequence or invention of Apple, but that it’s the engine of democracy in publishing. ‘I’ finally have control, choice and opportunity. Not only in communicating my art to an audience, but it communicating my art period; the ebook is going to allow for wonderful experimentation. The book will evolve with the form. #future—Unknown. Will traditional publishing perish? Will it adapt and survive? Will the vehicles for e-publishing like Amazon or Apple just become another publishing house, and gate keepers of digital reading? Does the prospect of financial gain in e-publishing create a bubble that bursts in the end? I believe great works of literature will emerge through self-publishing and end once and for all the stigma against it. Will these works struggle to find readers? Will th...

'The world-building throughout this novel is a display of unbridled imagination.'

Dear Sinead , This is in response to your ad for a new boyfriend.   I don’t meet many of the qualifications you specified, but if you hear me out, I think you will see that I am your man. ·          I am only 36, but I am an old soul like you. ·          I don’t live in Dublin or Wicklow.   I live in Iowa, but I spent a summer in Dublin studying at Trinity College.   I know a summer isn’t much but Irish hearts are made in days. ·          I am gainfully employed.   I have a pot to piss in. ·          I am an artist.   I write novels out of frustration for the songs I can’t sing. ·          I am sufficiently hairy. ·          You had me at hello (1990). ·          I am not a Brian ...

Follow the link to see a truly wonderful happy birthday wish to the astonishing Freddie Mercury.

Don't know if anyone has seen the new Superman pics, but... yeah. Here's where I line up, and AMAZING artist Phil Noto brought it to life for us: Your Nice New Outfit . I've been living on Phil's Tumblr for a while now.  Great for pot stirring while writing.

I am a huge, huge, Buffy fan.  Like a lot of other people, I tripped out over the return of the character and world in comics, with Joss Whedon writing.  The show was a comic book at heart, with seasons structured like comic book arcs, with a big bad every year.  The comic started off tremendously, rolling along for three years until - it rolled along for three years.  Season 8 ran way too long and the Big Bad - Twilight - turned out to be Angel.  I had no problem at all with the villian being Angel.  I never read the IDW post-Angel series, so for me, Angel and crew died in that alley.  What happened there?  Did something make him turn evil?  He had been on a do bad things for good reasons path at Wolfram and Hart in Season 5.  Maybe this was the culmination of that. Ah, no. I still don't understand Twilight's motivations, and reading the first issue of what is technically Season 9, Angel & Faith #1, it's obvious no one does....

Following a recent trend, I am pleased to announce a series of changes to my life that I previously was unable to acheive given the budgetary and techinical limtations at the time. I understand this is different from what some people know and love, but also understand, this was my vision all along. Let the changes commence: 1. I now look like this . 2. In the original losing my virginity scene, I shot first. This has now been corrected to show the two of us going off at the same time. Far more realistic. 3. There is now a dinosaur walking through every home movie of my childhood. 4. To emphasize my true emotion, I now scream "NOOOO!!!" any time I am upset. 5. I deleted the scene from our summer where I planned to tell you that I'd been a wimp and that I was in love with you, but you showed up to the theater with that other guy. Now I tell you right away, and the last 11 years isn't the same scene over and over again. 6. I have digitally painted out eve...

Today I knew the new novel was going to stick - there have been other 'new novels' in the last couple years - because I found myself wanting to go to the library to look up stuff. This is the weird litmus test I have with a novel. If I feel the need to go downtown and gather some books, then it's a keeper. If I don't, then I'm probably going to get bored of you pretty quickly. Maybe I should apply this to relationships. 'Hey, mamma. Want to go down to the library with me?" Books I checked out for research: "Twilight At The World of Tomorrow" (about the New York World's Fair) "You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried" (essays on the John Hughes Brat Pack movies) I wrote a scene today where the main character tries to mend her dress with scraps of fabric left over from the creation of other kit-bashed dresses for her cousins. The kernel for this scene actually began in another novel (did not go to the library for) a whil...

Darth Audrey? Nobody's perfect.

Impossibly - happily? - one of the first questions people ask me who have read Elizabeth is, when is the sequel coming out? I tell them a little about the history of this book, and they say, you must have it already in the can, what after four years and all? Yes and no. I have about 150 pages of what will someday be the sequel to Elizabeth. About half of it I wrote in 2009 or so, before this paralysis over what was going to come next took over my life. The other half more recently. I like it. Miranda is older. She has become the centerpiece of the story. Elizabeth (the book) is like one of those relationships where you fight and break up and get back together just to do it all again. I have a serious love/hate thing with it right now. I love that people seem to like it, and want more. I hate that I can't get past it and all I want to do is something else. I am writing a new book, completely and utterly different than Elizabeth. I'm 50 pages into that right now ...

So the first day out with the book, I sold ONE copy. That is one more than I've ever sold before in life, so success. It was kind of strange, and anti-climactic. I admit I was a little - not blue, but periwinkle - about the rank, which is soberingly direct. My only goal is to make the top 100,000. I believe in myself. If I felt sore at all, that was cured when I found a squirrel on the bike trail tonight that I'm pretty sure was suffering from a heat stroke. He couldn't walk (no car damage) and stared at me fuzzy while I picked him up and put him in the shade. He seemed like he was in a lot of pain. There's not much you can do about stroked squirrels or your Amazon rank. I put them to the side, and let the rest happen.

Today my book is available for purchase both in print and as an ebook. You can find the print copy here , and the Kindle version here . Versions for the Nook and iPad will be available any day now. For some reason I am 'Mr. Darby Gavin Harn' on the print page. Hmm. It took four years for this day to happen. Not to write the book. That largely took about 6 months - let's say 9 or so with revisions. I finished the book and delivered it to my publisher three years ago. It sat in limbo ever since, with shifting release dates, all the way up to last fall. It even went up for sale online, but things didn't add up. No cover. It supposedly went out for review, but it didn't. Never available from the distributor that was distributing it. After a while, the obvious finally became clear. The book was never coming out. If there was a reason for the publisher (named elsewhere on the site) not releasing the book on time or at all, it was never expressed. Not even whe...