Bad Penny Update – 2 Chapters to Go

ByJohn Brown

I just typed the last words of the climax!  The last 15,000 words have been a blast to write.  Heck, the whole thing has been fun. 

If you look at the progress meter, you’ll see I’m at 83,384 words.  It’s weird writing something this “short.” I figure I’ll end up around 90,000 words.  I did some analysis of the size of some other thrillers.  You can see it below. It’s not super rigorous, but BAD PENNY falls well within the range.

AUTHOR AVERAGE WORDS BOOKS
Dean Koontz 93,500 2
Harlen Coben 130,500 2
JA Konrath 77,667 3
James Lee Burke 153,000 1
John Grisham 148,000 1
Ken Follett 140,000 1
Lee Child 149,000 4
Michael Connelly 145,000 1
Ridley Pearson 114,000 1
Robert Crais 80,667 3

The average of all those books is 117,000.

So I have about two more chapters to go.  I’d finish them next week, but we’re taking some vacation for the 4th.  This means I expect to type “The End” in the second week of July. Then I’ll set it aside for a few weeks, revise it, and send it out to first readers, including my agent.  Here are the characters:

  • Frank Shaw – Ex-con trying to go straight
  • Sam Cartwright – Friendly neighborhood Mormon who’s trying to make Frank feel welcome
  • Dan Meese – A man with snakes in his soul, Frank’s former cellmate
  • Tony Shaw – Frank’s nephew and hacker
  • Carmen Escobar – The woman found tied up in the trunk of Dan’s car
  • Pinto Correia – Bearded gun nut and Sam’s go-to guy
  • Jesus Goroza – Zombie for a drug cartel & Dan’s employer

I really think folks are going to enjoy this one.

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  • A true Christmas tale from me to you

    ByJohn Brown

    A true story. 

    There once was a spider who climbed into a lush, seven-foot fir tree somewhere in Oregon. This happened sometime in September or October. She wove a small, silken pad deep among the needles and laid hundreds of eggs upon it. Then she spun layer after layer of silk over them, sealing them in a warm, white chamber. Her life’s work. 

    Having fulfilled the measure of her creation, she went where all spiders go. But where is that? Are spiders elegant biological machines, or are they living souls? I don’t know. Perhaps at some future date we’ll be blessed to understand such things. 

    What we do know is this: as autumn cooled, the temperature dropped below fifty degrees, and her eggs slipped into dormancy. October passed into November. And sometime in the last days of November or early December, humans with chainsaws arrived for the final harvest. 

    The tree was cut, loaded onto a truck, bundled into a refrigerated trailer, and shipped hundreds of miles away to a Smith’s Marketplace in Logan, Utah. There is stood with a number of other trees in the area just outside the front doors in the snow and cold and fluorescent lights. How many days and nights it waited there, we don’t know. But one evening, a mother and father and their four girls arrived to find their Christmas tree. 

    They walked among the evergreens, feeling for soft needles, breathing in the deep, resinous smells. They found the tree. It was perfect. They paid for it, tied it to the top of their minivan, and drove home over the mountains to the south end of the lake. Then they set it up, the father complaining, as he always did, about the goofy screw-stabilizers, strung the lights, and hung ornaments from past Christmases. The little tree filled the room with warmth, scent, and memory. 

    On Christmas morning they came down to open presents. As the sun rose, the light through the front window illuminated the tree. And something was different. 

    The branches shimmered. 

    The girls peered closer to investigate.  

    And found thin silk filaments. Everywhere. And then, to their shock, they saw that the whole tree was alive, moving with hundreds of baby spiders. A small horde that had warmed over the days and hatched silently sometime in the deep night after Santa and Mrs. Claus had gone to bed. A small horde that had then gotten to work—tiny, mad elves weaving their own gossamer garlands through the branches. 

    When the girls realized what they were seeing, there were shrieks of horror. Then the father, not knowing what else to do, escorted the tree, its decorations, and mad elves outside into the cold. The father returned, closed the door, and the whole family stood there, looking at the tree out on the deck, a bit stunned.  

    All these years later, it’s one of our family’s warm and funny memories. But if you ponder it just a little longer, it’s also one that lingers. 

    Are spiders merely elegant machines? Or are they living souls? Do they have claim upon us? Should a swarm of locusts or an infestation of roaches be preserved? 

    I will leave such questions to you, Dear Reader. 

    In the meantime, I wish you the merriest of Christmases. Whatever you believe or don’t, may you receive a measure of divine light this season—and reflect it, to brighten the world, if even just a little, for creatures both great and small. 

    John 

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  • Denver: fire, snow snakes, and farty beef jerky

    ByJohn Brown

    Here’s the report of what happend on the Larry and John tour of Denver.

    On the way out:

    1. We met in Evanston, WY at 8:00 AM
    2. On a lonely stretch of I-80 we passed a semi that was on FIRE. Didn’t stop because Larry and I wanted to see the driver burn.
    3. Was freeze-dried in a parking lot in Rawlins by Arctic winds in the four seconds it took to open the car door, say “Holy schnitzel! It’s freezing,” and then run to the Subway. It was cold. COLD!
    4. On another lonely stretch of I-80 we passed a truck driver out in that wind with a knife. He was down in the median trying to hack off the antlers of a bull elk that had obviously been hit by a vehicle.  His truck was slowly rolling forward. Someone had to be driving, but I didn’t see anyone.
    5. Because it was soooo cold the snow didn’t stick. So in various stretches the wind would blow the snow across the road in long trails that looked like ribbons of fire or snakes. Totally awesome!
    6. Then we started hitting stores all the way down to Denver–Cheyenne, Fort Collins, Boulder, etc. I can’t tell you how much I like Barnes & Noble booksellers. Everyone was happy to see us and nice to work with.
    7. Oh, and Larry bought treats. Wal-Mart trail mix, cookies, and beef jerky. When he opened the beef jerky, he said, “Holy cow, did you just fart?” I had not. It was the jerky. You have been forewarned.

    Other highlights:

    1. A number of the stores ordered extra copies of our books for our driveby signings. But the Barnes & Noble in the Aurora Southlands Town Center beat them all hands down. They rolled out a hand truck stacked with books.
    2. Had a great time in Loveland at the B&N there. Vivian Tapp was a peach with a Santa’s hat to boot.
    3. We had a bunch of folks show up at the Lone Tree signing. Thanks to everyone there. I’ve forgotten all the names except that of James, the store’s fantasy nut.
    4. Then we went out to dinner with a great crowd. Larry had a bunch of his interesting friends. I got to hang out at the other end of the table with my sister and her man Mark, Rachel Dryden, and Ken and Rachel Kao (who both do parkour–cool!!).

    On the way back:

    1. We almost died. You can read Larry’s version of the story here.
    2. More of that fine smelling jerky and road crawling with snow snakes.
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  • The Cover Illustration for CURSE

    ByJohn Brown

    This is a story of how things went wrong and then went right. It’s also a cautionary tale for indie authors who want to direct their own art.

    Victor Minguez did the art for Servant, which I think is awesome, so I naturally wanted him to do the art for the second book as well. I started as I have before by working up a detailed creative brief which stated my goals, suggested color scheme, identified the scene I thought we should illustrate, and provided plently of reference images. The goals for this illustration were that it had to say epic fantasy, fit with Servant, have energy, and pop in thumbnail.

    Victor came back with these sketches. I thought all of them were great concepts. The framed and rear view depict the moment before something dramatic is about to occur, as if something dangerous is out in the woods. The front view was well into a dynamic scene. I loved the contrast of the framed sketch, but was drawn most to the dynamic rear view. (Click on any image to see it full size.)

     CurseSketchFramed CurseSketchFront CurseSketchRear

    I knew from the last project that we needed to make sure that the illustration would integrate with the title and author’s name. And because we are going to brand the series, in part, by keeping the author name and title in the same position on all the books, I thought we needed to zoom in a bit. I tried various angles. Ultimately, we decided to flip it.

    Victor then did another sketch with values to nail it all down. I thought this sketch was awesome. There was energy. It said epic to me. I was drawn immediately to the characters. I thought we had great contrast.

    CurseV1SketchValues

    So the next step was to start laying in some colors.

    CurseV1WIP1

    And here is where the cautionary tale begins. I think I have a good eye. I know when something is working. But I’m not a trained artist. And I’m not a trained art director. Which means that while I have a feeling of where in general I might want something to go, I don’t know exactly what will get us there. And that means that sometimes I’m going to do a lot of, let’s try this, nope that isn’t it, let’s try this instead. Naw. Maybe this. And as I begin to ask the artist to tinker, the risk of me directing us into something that doesn’t work, and forcing the artist to work way over his or her budgeted hours increases dramatically. It also sometimes increases the risk of me losing sight of the end goal.

    I keyed in on my desired color scheme. But a color scheme is a means to an end. I got trapped thinking about the means, not the end. So I asked Victor to get more gold and blue. Open it up.

    CurseV1WIP2Brighter

    Can you see me taking us away from the original concept? Not necessarily a bad thing. Art is often iterative. But I wasn’t done. I wanted color. At least, I thought I did.

    CurseWIP3ColorBright

    Do you see where this is heading? But I had this idea and was determined to see it implemented . . .

    CurseV1WIP4

    Well, we got to this point. The artist was delivering what I’d asked. And it was shaping up to be a fine piece of art, but it was totally wrong for the book and genre. What’s more I was driving the artist nuts. For every change he’d make, I’d bring up two more. I was way too far into the details. I’d  taken us way off course. And burned up all his hours doing it.

    What do you do?

    Luckily, I know someone who IS an experienced illustrator, who has worked on many different projects, and who was willing to step in as art director. Most importantly, with me out of the picture, the artist was willing to give it one more go with this new guy at the helm.  I stepped completely away from the process. Here’s what happened in the words of the director (who wishes to remain anonymous).

    ART DIRECTOR TO THE RESCUE

    The goals for this image were to say fantasy and be eye grabbing at a very small size. I was brought on to accomplish those goals. I think we all felt that the image was too peaceful. It contradicted the feeling of danger we were going for.

    Take two: John gave me the old thumbnails that Victor had. At first I looked to see what could be salvaged from the old completed painting to use in the new, but ultimately Victor came up with a more dynamic sketch, and we decided to go for it.

    CurseV2Sketch

    So we started there. The processes was an iterative one. Victor blocked it in, and we nailed down the values/black and white image. Values are the underpinnings of a painting; you want that to work on an abstract level first. Meaning if you didn’t know that it was a painting of Talen and River riding away on a horse, would the value patterns still be both striking and pleasing? There is no point in proceeding with a painting if either the drawing or the values are failing. After that came the color study. 

    CurseV2ColorStudy

    Once nailed, we went to finish.  Victor really put his heart into this and it turned out awesome!  He’s got great talent, and is a pleasure to work with.

    CurseV2FinalV1 

    JOHN AGAIN

    Are Minguez and Un-named Director good or what! It says epic fantasy. It says action. It has the level of darkness and energy we need. And it looks like it belongs with the cover of Servant. It’s going to work great, and I think the cover will pop in thumbnail, especially when we add the title (white, like Servant) and author’s name (probably a bright color taken from arrow head or horse shoe).

    So lessons learned from this and the previous covers:

    1. Authors are not artists. Just because you know in general what you want doesn’t mean you have the ability to direct a project the way it should go. If you’re not careful, you will shipwreck the project.
    2. Having an experienced art director on board can do wonders.
    3. Keep the broad end in mind; try your best to let the artist focus on the means to that end. This doesn’t mean you don’t provide a lot of image reference up front, but you’re paying the artist for a reason.
    4. It’s helpful for the artist to estimate a total hours they’ll work for the project, even if you’re not paying them an hourly rate, and then keep you up-to-date on hours worked. This way you are forced to use their time wisely. You only have X hours to spend. Spend them on dumb changes, and you’re going to end up with something that’s half-baked.

    And now a mystery.

    I want you to look at the final image again. It’s not actually the final, final image. We had to ask the arist to make one more change because something was off. I will give you a hint. The change had to be made in the lower 1/4 of the image. Look at the image and see if you can find it. Do you see it?

    In the next post about this art I’ll both reveal what needed to be changed and tell you something about this artist that I think you’ll find both inspiring and amazing.

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  • |

    Your local zombie author appears on Writing Excuses, Plus the Writing Debrief explained

    ByJohn Brown

    After a cancerous death, I appeared on Writing Excuses this week to groan and hold forth with the guys on writing second novels and second books in a series.

    During the podcast I talked about my practice of debriefing after every writing project. A reader just asked what that was, and so I thought I’d explain it here.

    The debrief is a simple thing. I learned it back when I worked as a business consultant. It always provides great insights. Sometimes  it provides massive insights. The principle is to pull back and look at the big picture every once in a while. So here’s what I do. When I finish a project, I sit down and simply list out what I struggled with, what went well, and anything I learned. I list out things I’d do again that worked particularly well and things I’d do differently. This might be about craft or process. Sometimes I might take some time to reflect on the nature of story and read a favorite book about the craft or perform a story analysis on another movie or book. Then I write up my insights in a form that I can read later and know what the heck I’m talking about. This can take a few hours or a few days. This last debrief after draft 3 of CURSE coincided with my preparation for a day-long workshop I had agreed to give on story, and so the insights came thick and fast. I recommend the practice highly.

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6 Comments

  1. As much as I enjoyed your book and look forward to your future books, I think what I like the most is following your journey as a writer. Writing fiction has always been my favorite hobby, and until recently I had many half finished novels and short stories, but never anything complete. When I started reading your blog and using the resources you posted, I learned all kinds of things that have made writing more fun and me more efficient. Your “On Writing” series, Rachel Aaron’s blog on being more productive, and the book “The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business”, have all been amazing tools for me. Thanks for sharing so much of the process with us!

  2. Good to hear that, Shane. I hope to have two authors on shortly that will provide some wonderful tools and insights!

  3. I almost laughed out loud when I saw “Pinto Correia – Bearded Gun Nut”. Larry Correia!

    It’s good to see you’re almost done with BAD PENNY. When it’s all done, will you be doing DARK GOD’S GLORY?

    -Matt

  4. Matt, if you can’t have fun with your friends, why write (grin)?

    I’ll most likely start on DGG. I’ve already outlined it. I’ll know better in a month.

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