Writing Update: Curse, trebuchets, CONduit, book industry, & Robinson Wells

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As of 5 PM this last Saturday I have finished 15,000 words of the climax of Curse of a Dark God. I think I have another 10,000 to go and the book will be done. I’m so close to the end of this draft! So don’t let the progress bars fool you. The ending is coming together fabulously–lots of spectacle, big reveals, and major heroics. At least, I think so.

While working on this, I had to spend a number of hours finding out how strong a wind must be to pick up humans and stones. I also needed to know the destructive forces of various classes of tornados and hurricanes. Why would I need to know such things? I write fantasy, for Leroy’s sake!

(Yes, that’s good English; I’m a writer, and one of my prerogatives is to make up silly versions of common expletives using the names of friends and enemies.)

Here’s why: I just can’t write if I don’t believe in what I’m writing. And when I’ve got monsters (skir) that can generate winds that will be used in a siege, well, I had to know the terminal velocities of what these creatures could throw, and what that might mean for fortress defense. I had to know the limitations and ramifications.

I won’t rehearse all the fascinating details (and it WAS fascinating), but all that research did lead me to a wonderful documentary. It’s called Secrets of Lost Empires 2: Medieval Siege and was produced by Nova in 2000. You can get it on Netflix or Amazon.  In the film, fifty carpenters worked day and night to create and test what they dubbed “the fourteenth century version of the atom bomb”–the trebuchet (tre-byou-SHAY). The trebuchet as the most popular throwing machine in Europe during the middle ages. If you love the history of medieval war, you’ll love this film. You might want to add to it a reading of the excellent Ancient and Medieval Siege Weapons by Konstantin Nossov, which you can get via the inter-library loan program.

I’ll share two cool factoids for you history fans. “Catapult” means “shield-breaker,” “cata” meaning break or penetrate and “pelta” being the name of the shield used by the Greek light infantry. The original catapults were NOT big spoons–they sped arrows and balls along a track like a crossbow. However, instead of using the spring force of a bow, they used torsion-springs, which is what you get when you twist fibers that want to be straight. In the case of catapults the fibers were ropes made out of animal sinews or hair (horse or human, a woman’s hair being considered the best) and soaked in oil. Click on the image to see a larger picture. 

A modern example of a torsion-spring are those balsa wood airplanes with propellers attached to a rubber band that’s hooked to the belly of the plane. To fly them, you rotate the propeller round and round, twisting the rubber band. Then you let the propeller go. Because the rubber wants to be straight, it reverses the twist, spinning the propeller the opposite way you twisted it. 

You might think these torsion-spring engines were weak. But one catapult was reported as being powerful enough that an arrow shot from it broke through a shield, and the armored warrior standing behind it, at a distance of 400 yards! Hence, the name.

The other factoid is that “trebuchet” comes from the French term meaning to overthrow. If you saw Return of the King, you’ll recognize them as the engines used on the towers of Minas Tirith. Trebuchets are simply an evolution of the staff sling. When it came to breaking castle walls, there was nothing more effective until the cannon appeared. Of course, in my book I use them a bit differently. You’ll see.

One funny thing. I watched the movie with my oldest who was just as fascinated with the engines as I was. When she was telling my wife about the film, she kept referring to trech-uh-butts. Which, I guess, is as fair an attempt at “trebuchet” as any. However, my wife kept picturing buttocks and couldn’t figure out what the heck my daughter was talking about–“You were watching what with your father?!”

The French make things so hard . . .

***

The Monday after CONduit I left for work in Mexico and then Vegas. I didn’t get back until this week. So I just wanted to say I had a great time at the con. Loved chatting with all the folks there.

It was great to see the Larry Correia, Paul Genesse, Jessica Day George, Isaac Stewart (and his brother Dan), Mette Harrison, Eric James Stone, Darren Egget, Julie Frost, Sandra Tayler, LE Modesitt, Josh Perkey, Nicole (whose husband is an Orem cop and I lost his number), Daniel Who-I-Sacrificed-to-My-Editor, and the Dungeon Crawlers Radio guys.

It was also nice to speak with Julie Wright who was one of the initial judges for the Whitney Awards. She’s always nice to chat with, but this time it was especially nice since she said reading Servant of a Dark God was like eating chocolate. I’ll take chocolate praise any day.

I also met new author Janci Patterson who just sold a YA with a great premise. It’s called SKIP and is about a young girl whose parents are divorced. The girl has to go stay with her dad who lives in a trailer and is a bounty hunter. I’m a sucker for bounty hunter stories. Especially this one, because she goes out with him and falls in love with one of the guys her dad has to haul in. I’ve slaughtered the pitch, but I got that good old writer’s envy when she told me about it. Can’t wait to read it.

I also got to see Barbara Hambly. I was at LTUE when she was there like 20 years ago. We loved her stuff. She suddenly dropped out of the writing scene in the early 90’s and now I know why–it appears Del Rey dropped all their midlist authors except for Anne McCaffery and someone else. Hambly was one of the causalities.

***

After Hambly’s main address, I sat with a few authors and had a brief discussion about the book industry where it was suggested the industry was shrinking–fewer readers, fewer sales, doom, doom, doom. But that is exactly opposite all the data I’ve seen.

  1. Book sales have an annual average growth over the last seven years of 1.1%, adult paperbacks are growing 2.9% http://www.publishers.org/main/IndustryStats/indStats_02.htm or http://www.publishers.org/main/IndustryStats/documents/S12009Final.pdf . Now, this doesn’t show units sold. So it could be that they sold fewer units for more money per unit. Still, it shows at the very least that $$$ aren’t shrinking.
  2. The New Book Titles report here shows an increase in the number of titles: http://www.bowker.com/index.php/book-industry-statistics — 80% increase from 2002 to 2009.
  3. Reading rates are actually on the rise: http://johndbrown.com/2009/03/literary-reading-rates-on-the-rise/
  4. Finally, I contacted Bookscan for their numbers for an ALA conference I did last summer. This is just juvenile fiction, but the numbers are in units. Now, I don’t know if they added more sources to their database and so that caused a rise, but I explained to them what I was trying to do—see trends over time—and this is the data they provided. According to their numbers, more juvenile books are being sold now than in 2004. Click on the graphic below. This means we have more and more readers rising up through the ranks! One author asked how much of that was Rowling and Meyer. During that period books by those authors accounted for an average of 7-10% of all juvenile fiction. Bookscan categorizes “juvenile” as everything for kids. That means from Go, Dog Go up through what we consider Young Adult. R&M accounted for an average of 33-36% of what Bookscan categorizes as science fiction, fantasy, or magic within the juvenile mega-category. What all that means is the growth is across the whole category, not just with their books.

So I’m very sanguine about the book industry’s prospects. Today’s youth seem to be able to play computer games AND read in great quantities.

***

Finally, one last bit of news. Robinson Wells was the one of the main ones to start the Whitney Academy and the Whitney Awards. Well, he just got some fabulous news. Here’s the announcement from Publishers Marketplace: “Robison Wells’ YA debut dystopian thriller VARIANT, a modern-day LORD OF THE FLIES, set at a boarding school where not everything is as it seems and every day is a fight for survival, in a significant deal, in a three-book deal, to Erica Sussman at Harper Children’s.”

For those of you who don’t know, here are the PM deal categories.

  • “nice deal” $1 – $49,000
  • “very nice deal” $50,000 – $99,000
  • “good deal” $100,000 – $250,000
  • “significant deal” $251,000 – $499,000
  • “major deal” $500,000 and up

Oh, baby. Someday. Someday. Of course, I’m nothing but happy for Mr. Wells!

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The Young Victoria

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Being a crass American I have always considered the current British royalty as nothing more than very expensive mascots. What function do they really serve besides acting as some kind of high-society-reality-show soap opera? 

Not that this is bad. If the British want to spend their money on queens, princes, and princesses, who am I to oppose them? After all, we Americans have kept the stellar Survivor series going for ten seasons. And when it finally ends, we’ll probably replace it with something else of supreme value like World’s Biggest Belchers or Kids Who Eat Boogers. At least the Royal Family has some modicum of class. Still, the point is that I’m not disposed to feel much sympathy for state-supported rich folk. So when I tell you I just watched and loved The Young Victoria, it should tell you something.

The movie was sublime. A large part of it was because the story left me edified, left me wanting to be a husband–a friend to my wife–as good as the Albert portrayed in that film. Compare this to Killers which could have been so good, but devolved into dumb sex jokes and dumber action, which then only got worse. When that one ended, I staggered out of the theater having lost half my brain.  The Young Victoria, on the other hand, enlarged my soul.

The movie is a romantic dramatization of some of the events preceding and following the coronation of  Alexandrina Victoria (Queen Victoria), focusing on her early reign and romance with Price Albert in the 1830s. She was only 18 when her uncle, the King, died and the crown fell to her. Some suggested she was too young and should sign her powers over to a regent. Others wanted to use her as a puppet. The question was: would she fall prey to the political aspirations of others? I will let you watch the movie to find out.

Emily Blunt does a wonderful job as Victoria. I loved her in the Jane Austen Book Club as well. She’s supported by a great cast, including Rupert Friend as Prince Albert, Mark Strong (the villain in the recent Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood) as the domineering Sir John Conroy, and Paul Bettany as the dubious Lord Melbourne.

When recently compiling my list of favorite movies of the decade, I lamented the dearth of good love stories. Well, I just found one. This movie was golden.  If you love Jane Austen, you’re going to love this show.

(BTW, the Royals actually do perform a number of worthwhile tasks. Read this wiki on the British Royal Family. You may also want to read this on Victoria after you watch the movie.)

Come say hello at CONduit this weekend

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This Friday and Saturday, May 28-29

I’m going to be participating at CONduit (Utah’s longest-running and largest general science fiction and fantasy convention) again this year. It’s being held at the Radisson just east of the Gateway shopping center.

Radisson Hotel
215 W. South Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
(801) 531-7500

The list of authors and artists you can meet there is quite long, including BARBARA HAMBLY! They will have panels and workshops on everything from ghost hunting to chain mail. For more info, see the programming schedule.

My CONduit Schedule

  • FRIDAY – 2:00 PM – Cartography for Stories
  • FRIDAY – 4:00 PM  – Reading from CURSE OF A DARK GOD or SERVANT OF A DARK GOD (1/2 hour)
  • FRIDAY – 5:00 PM – A Writer’s Life
  • SATURDAY – 11:00 AM – SIGNING
  • SATURDAY – 4:00 PM – Writing the Rogue

Wolves in my backyard

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National Geographic ran an article in the March issue titled “Wolf Wars.” It has a great interactive map. You’ll want to read the whole article, but I want you to look at something.

First, here’s a picture of a wolf in Yellowstone licking his or her chops over a recent elk kill.  Looks real friendly, doesn’t it. Here, poochie, poochie, poochie.

A few facts. Wolves can grow up to six feet long (tip of nose to tip of tail) and three feet tall. They weigh on average about 80 pounds but can be as heavy as 150-190 pounds. Wolves can reach 40 mph when chasing, but the use their stamina more than speed. Regardless of how they catch you, their jaws are strong enough to crush bones. You want more facts? Go to this wiki article on canis lupis.  The point is that they are large, smart predators. At the top of the food chain. These aren’t little doggies. They’re killers. And they are mighty hard to socialize with humans (read the wiki article).

Of course, it can be done. Not far away in Heber City, Utah lives Doug and Lynne Seus (yes, that’s the name–gotta love it!) who train wild animals for movies. The company is called Rocky Mountain Wasatch Wildlife. I know you’ve seen one of their animal “actors,” Bart the bear, in many movies. The Seuses also happen to train wolves. A friend of mine grew up in Heber with the daughter of Doug and Lynne. She visits from time to time. Last summer she went down and saw the wolves. My friend was told that she had to carry any children she might bring.

Why?

Because the children are food. That’s why. And when she went out there, the wolves were tracking those children every minute with their eyes. Freaked her out. In fact, another friend got so freaked she took her kid back to the main house and didn’t come out again. Folks, these are wolves that work with humans ALL THE TIME.

I know the nature programs often make it seem like wolves are harmless, but they’re predators. Just like grizzlies, tigers, or crocodiles. Wolves are dangerous. A pack kills up to two elk a week. That’s a lot of eating. But they’re all up in Yellowstone, right?

Um, no.

Exhibit 1: Documented wolf packs, i.e. two or more wolves, in 1992 (click on image to see it full size)

Exhibit 2: packs released in 1995

 

Exhibit 3: wolf packs as of 2008 (2 years ago)

Holy schnitzel!

If you didn’t read it above, they’re estimating about 1,645 wolves in 217 packs. And that’s just the ones that have been officially documented. You know there are more out there that haven’t been seen. Look at the one all the way out by Casper, WY. Those bad boys can travel. In fact, the NG article says that wolves stake out a territory of about 200 to 500 square miles (a circle of that size has a radius of 8 to 13 miles). They travel on average (AVERAGE!) 60 miles from their pack when seeking a mate or new pack. Although one was recorded traveling 500 miles.

Okay, so given the maps and sightings above, how is the John Brown family doing down in Laketown?

Exhibit 4: I need a gun!

The map below marks Laketown, UT with an A. I marked over that the packs shown in NG in red and others reported in pink. I also show orange rings 20 miles apart.  

The “unofficial” sighting just inside the 80 mile ring was by my brother-in-law. The wolves were killing a bunch of his neighbor’s ewes he was taking care of. I didn’t say “eating” because they were killing far too many to eat. Wolves looked up at brother-in-law on four-wheeler. Assessed him. No whimpering, no cowering, no doggie wagging of tails. Just a frank assessment–human, danger or lunch? Said wolves sent a herd of the willies galloping up brother-in-law’s back. Freaked him out. He high-tailed it out of there and called the Feds who found that pack and killed them about fifteen miles away. But that sighting was before 2003. The sighting just outside the 100 mile mark was by some neighbors around 2007. The sighting down by Manila, UT was reported in a  news report by KSL news in 2008, just two years ago.

Okay, so I think it’s pretty safe to say that we probably have wolves in our backyard. And if we don’t, they’ll be here in a year or three.

Go read “Wolf Wars” in the the National Geographic. It’s free. Then tell me how you’d feel with a few packs in your backyard. Are you all warm and comfy? Here, little doggie . . .

So I’m thinking that when the girls or I go hiking, which we do all the time, we need to carry more than a walking stick. More than a paintball gun used to scare the deer out of our garden. I know that even with all the packs shown above, I haven’t heard about wolves attacking humans, but is it wise to assume they just freak out when they see humans and all run away–“that’s a eight-year-old human girl, she will make me wear the cone of shame. I do not like the cone of shame.”

Or will it be, “Hum, possible lunch over there, let’s check it out. Ooh, look at the fat one. I bet he’s tasty.”

What do you think?

Writing update: Envy

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Bible’s full of great stuff. Look at this.

(Old Testament | Exodus 20:17 – 19)

17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass [we’re talking animals, folks], nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.
18 And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.
19 And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God aspeak with us, lest we die.
20 And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.
21 And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.

Dude, the “thick darkness where God was.” The thick darkness . . .

I love the images in that passage. Moses going to talk to God face to face. Talk about spectacle. As for the commandment, well, let me just say that I might be smite-worthy.

I do not covet many things. Certainly not any dude’s butt, but sometimes it’s so hard not to covet my neighbour’s writing success. And it’s not the big boys that kill me.

I read a Lee Child or Orson Card or whoever, and I can legitimately say, “Hey, those guys have been writing for years and have produced a lot of novels; it’s unrealistic to compare my skills to their current masterly levels.” I can legitimately say, “Hey, best-sellerdom takes craft and luck, and I just need to be ready the next time the opportunity train stops at my station.” I can even say of those who start off as best-sellers, “Dude, maybe they DID start out with more skillz than me. Doesn’t mean I can’t learn. Give me some more books, you’ll see the Brown dog rise.”

These are all true statements. I’ve got the big guys down. I can spot the Brain Nazi trying to hit me with them a mile away.

It’s the other folks that get me. The guys at my level.

I just had an email exchange with one of them. (No, I’m not going to tell you who it is. Author X might read this, get a fat head, and then be ridiculed and derided by small children. I’m not that heartless.) X comes up with great ideas. Has a ton of them. X is one of those other pro writers I meet who are always lamenting about how many ideas they have. Truckloads. Boatloads. They could employ all of  the peasants in a small country like Mozambique just writing the fab things that flow from their brains.

I don’t have boatloads of ideas. I don’t have a truckful. I’ve got maybe two or three riding around on a Yike Bike.

Covet, covet, covet.

Author X is also funny. X can take a pedestrian idea, twist it, maybe with a great character or situation, and suddenly I’m dying to know more. X watches a TV show I’ve been watching for years. Bim! Bam! Comes up with another great idea I want to steal. (I think I average about two ideas a week I want to steal from other authors.)

Covet, covet, covet.

Author X has great sales. Better than mine, at least.

Gol-leeeee, Mother of Hacks, please, put me out of my misery.

Or not.

I’ve got this freaking Brain Nazi’s number as well. The truth of the matter is that while Author X may have some minimal amount of writer-fu, X has also sold his/her soul to the lizard people of the hollow earth. I think they’re going to breed X. So I could have writer-fu too, but I don’t want to become anyone’s genetic experiment. I have standards.

And with that, I’ll sign out. Happiness!