For those who missed the live show, you can find the recording of the Dungeon Crawlers Radio interview here or you can find a link on the DCR site. I had a great time with Malak, Revan, and Joe. Talked about the current and upcoming series and some other stuff.
If you write poopy-slow like me, you will finish 500-700 words of your draft in an hour. Let’s see what that means for various novel sizes.
And those requirements don’t count time you might need to spend re-imagining a piece or researching some gap in your knowledge or figuring out some knotty bit you couldn’t see was problematic when you first set out. A novel can be a big project and stretch over a few weeks, especially when you don’t have eight hours a day to write.
In this lesson, you will learn that you need to treat the draft like what it is–a project–and use basic project management techniques to help you get the work done.
Dude…
I can’t tell you how excited I am to know a cover artist has been chosen for Servant of a Dark God. And that it’s Raymond Swanland. Check this out.
Without importing his whole gallery, I’ll link to a number of those I like the best. But I have to say the movement, action, energy–even when the people are standing still–are amazing. I think I like most his pieces that are lighter and have more color (and think they’ll match the book’s content best as well), but I can’t wait to see what he comes up with. I think Swanland is just jaw-dropping amazing.
http://www.raymondswanland.com/Pages/Personal%20Gallery/Personal03.html (Love the color and energy; the sky color and figure is just, dude)
http://www.raymondswanland.com/Pages/Personal%20Gallery/Personal01.html (Love the color and energy; again, the sky color…)
http://www.raymondswanland.com/Pages/Illustration%20Gallery/Illustration04.html (the guy’s standing still and this thing is still rippling with energy!)
http://www.raymondswanland.com/Pages/Illustration%20Gallery/Illustration17.html (wow)
http://www.raymondswanland.com/Pages/Illustration%20Gallery/Illustration11.html (color and energy)
http://www.raymondswanland.com/Pages/Illustration%20Gallery/Illustration10.html (movement; I don’t know, some artists just don’t get action right, but this one does, holy crap)
http://www.raymondswanland.com/Pages/Illustration%20Gallery/Illustration05.html (movement)
http://www.raymondswanland.com/Pages/Illustration%20Gallery/Illustration19.html (look at the pov and movement, the belly of the dragon up in the right–have we ever seen this angle on dragons before? It feels like we’re IN the sky)
I’ve got a deal to make t-shirts for my book available, and I have to make some decisions. The problem is that I am terrible at making these kinds of decisions. So I’m asking for your help. Any input would be appreciated.
So we’ve decided on the design. It will say “Servant of a Dark God” on the font as shown. We might put “Welcome to the Grove” or “Beware, the Mother is Watching” on the back. It will NOT have the Tor logo indicating it’s a book. Who knows what that is anyway? Instead, the question is whether to put my name on the shirt in some fashion.
Option 1
Some suggest that it’s better to just have a shirt that has the crazy label, suggesting the wearer is a servant of a dark god. It’s provocative, and if someone asks, the person wearing it can talk about the book. With this option we would NOT put my name on the t-shirt, just a small open book icon under the title. The idea behind this is that those who would buy the shirt would already be fans and the provocative statement will do more to spread the word than my name because going this route will make the shirt more fun to wear.
Option 2
Others think that you should have your name on the shirt to advertise. So we’d put “by John Brown” underneath the title. Or we’d put it on the back of the shirt. But some say it would make the shirt less fun.
What would you prefer and why?
Because of the way we’re going about this, the color of the letters must be fixed. So the question is do we simply let people choose their own shirt colors that they thing will work with the color of the lettering or fix both the color of the lettering AND the shirt?
Option 1
Fix the shirt colors. Brown for guys and plum for women. Make the lettering a fantasy green or cream.
Option 2
Give people as much choice as possible and choose a font color that will work with the bulk of the shirt colors here: http://gildan.com/distributors/colorpalette/.
But what would color would do that and still say fantasy, or would it matter?
So which option to you think would work best? If you chose option 1, which colors?
Why is John worrying about this? Shouldn’t he be spending his time tracing his ancestry back to old grandpa lemur?
The answer to that is that John’s mind works in mysterious ways, dear Reader. You must bear with him. And you must now face your greatest fashionista test ever: which colors would say fantasy and still be something people would want to wear? I will be making shirts up for the book store employees to wear before I come to signings. So I have to decide. Someone suggested plum is all the rage this year for women. Make the letters a nice new willow green. We could have another color for men. Any ideas of what would appeal broadly?
I await your ideas.
(Ha, look at this. It appears one of my greats did indeed live his life out in the Prague menagerie. Hum.)
Luc Reid is the author of, among other things, Talk the Talk: The Slang of 65 American Subcultures. He is also the lizard king of Codex, which he started and of which I’m so happy to be a member. He’s always starting provocative threads on Codex, making us all think and reexamine the principles of story and the whole writing business. He recently posted some insights about what makes memorable stories. A lot of other fellow Codexians joined in the discussion. Happily, he asked me to share some of my thoughts on his site, ReidWrite. They begin as follows:
YOU’RE MINE, DEAR READER
Mwuhahaha.
Okay, maybe not. But you are wired to be mine. And you wouldn’t have it any other way.
Let’s back up. Luc wrote about writing memorable. I agree with the idea that the stories that produce a strong emotional reaction are the most memorable. In fact, I believe that triggering of emotion is THE reason why linear narrative that puts us into the trance has lasted so long in so many forms and makes so much money.
But can writers guide reader emotions? Or is it all just by accident?
Read the rest here: http://reidwrite.livejournal.com/8331.html.
BTW, when you’ve finished that, you might want to check out Luc’s new site, WillpowerEngine.com. It’s a place where he shares what he’s found in his research for his current book project, The Willpower Engine, on how self-motivation works. I think you’ll find a number of the posts there very interesting.
Yes, it’s goofy GIF worthy. It’s time to party.
Holy cow.
HOLY COW!
The beast is finally finished. Now I send it to my copy editor to brush a bit off here, comb a few strands of hair back, and shine a few buttons there.
It is done.
This means release is weeks away.
I will be announcing an early bird sale to those who have signed up for the Good Stuff Notification. If you want to be sure to get in on that sale, sign up at the top of the left sidebar.
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Great interview! I was really happy to hear that you’ll be writing a thriller down the road.
Question: will you be using a pen name? I read a very interesting blog post on Daniel Abraham’s site about just why people use pen names.
http://www.danielabraham.com/?p=61
I guess in the end it boiled down to authors wanting to be known for a certain “type” of writing, and authors that publish in several genres under the same name end up with a reputation of “you never know what you’re going to get with their books.” Interesting stuff.
Probably. Fantasy and thriller are very different genres. However, I don’t know that it’s critical within a genre. Koontz seems to do okay with one name as do Card and Bujold and many others. I think it’s when you go way outside the genre. Still, I know Wolverton created Farland for his fantasy for this reason.
I think Abraham’s comments on people being invested in a specific project is interesting. Terry Brooks has had this problem. But others haven’t. I don’t see that Brandon Sanderson’s fans are only invested in Mistborn or Elantris. They seem to have at least given Way of Kings a decent go. But maybe that’s because it’s the same KIND of stuff. Terry Brook’s Landover stuff wasn’t the same type. It had a freaking dog with sunglasses on the cover (if I recall). So maybe Abraham is right and there are types of fantasy that act as separate genres.
I’ve noticed more and more in my reading that I tend to skip over the epic fantasy books at the library and the bookstore in favor of something with more of an urban fantasy feeling. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s just that I’m starting to find the tropes in epic fantasy aren’t to my liking anymore or if I’m just struggling with length due to not having as much time to invest in any one story. Either way, I can honestly say that your book was probably the last epic fantasy that I’ve read. I’ll eventually get to Way of Kings and probably read Wise Man’s Fear by Rothfuss, but those are the only real guaranteeds on my list these days.
That’s interesting. I wonder if the divide is urban and epic. Urban because it’s usually contemporary. In fact, maybe that’s the divide. Contemporary and historical other world stuff. I think it would be an interesting survey.
Hi John, loved the interview. I was happy to hear that you and Larry are planning to do a podcast, but are you sure you want the Dungeon Crawlers guys to do your tech stuff. It was the first time I heard one of their shows and I have to say with all their microphone switching and other things they sounded less then professional to me. Anyway, all the best.
Thanks for the feedback OlettaLiano. Nothing’s in stone right now. But I’m sure the DCR guys can fix whatever the problems are should we go with them 🙂