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Guest Post: Patrick Thunstrom

While I’m on vacation, my friend Patrick Thunstrom of A Digital Magician has generously provided a guest post.

Not content to focus on just the present, Patrick Thunstrom is always thinking about the past and dreaming of the future. He writes speculative fiction to examine ways to fix the problems he sees around him. When he’s not lost in his dreams, he explores games with friends and family, occasionally turning his creative skills to game design.

You can follow him at his blog, or on Google+ and Twitter.

One of the most useful tools available to a writer is the writing group. They might be critique partners, dedicated beta readers, or just cheer leaders. The key point is the writing group is positive peer pressure to keep up your work.

As the world became more and more connected, writing groups have changed. Locally, I’ve had a lot of trouble finding a writing group whose goals and outlooks were similar enough to mine to be able to help me reach them. Thanks to the Internet, though, I’ve found a number of good groups that I’ve stuck with for a time and moved on when we were no longer compatible.

This evolution is great for writers, since these virtual writers groups aren’t bound by locality, they can take many different forms, and base their organization on other things.

Google+ has produced a new evolution in the concept of the ‘write in.’ Instead of meeting at a coffee shop or library, a group of writers can use the Hangouts feature to meet via video conference to chat and write.

I’ve been a participant in such a Hangout, led by Jason Sanford. The meeting is three days a week, and the writers interested log in to the Hangout and we chat for ten to twenty minutes, then it’s a collective writing session for the rest of the hour.

It’s a brilliant use of time, as it incorporates a natural task batching with breaks built in. The other thing about it, that really seems to drive everyone’s productivity, is that because it’s a video conference, you can see everyone working, and hear the sound of others keyboards flying.

In my experience, these chats have almost doubled my minute to minute productivity, which is absolutely wonderful for me!

I’d encourage everyone to try a Hangout write in sometime, whether it’s a NaNoWriMo, Camp NaNo, or just a bunch of like-minded writers doing their thing. I promise, you’ll enjoy it.

Posted on by Eileen Young

The Practicality of Ebooks

Having recently moved house, I find myself again and even more enamored of ebooks. In whittling away my belongings (I swear, they self-propagate when I’m not looking), I got rid of a banker’s box and more worth of books – and this had been over the course of two years where I was specifically trying not to collect books, after two recent purges (one to a bookstore, one to the free books shelf in our laundry room), and taking a big stack of them to my new place.

Some of the ones I kept I’ve read already, some I don’t know if I ever will, but I held on to them because they were gifts or signed or both.
If they’d all been ebooks (there’s nothing wrong with electronic signatures and dedications), it would have been much easier to keep them all. Just disconnect my ereader, move some files to the cloud if I’m running out of storage, and never delete anything I like ever again.
My mom has a rather impressive and oppressive collection of cookbooks, too. She’s been slowly going through them and whittling them away, but likes to have them around for reference. Ebooks would be perfect: available to leaf through when uninspired and searchable when locating that half-remembered recipe. And then they wouldn’t be littering every flat surface when I come over for dinner!
There’s nothing quite as nice as delicately poring over a hardcover with color inserts from the 1930s, but for condo living or frequent moving, ebooks are the only practical way to go.
An additional note: next week, I’ll be vacationing in Florida, so my friend Patrick Thunstrom has agreed to provide a guest post.
Posted on by Eileen Young

Stone-Blind — Zymurgy

In the laundry room downstairs, calling my name, is the “New Century Dictionary.” Considering it’s leather-bound and the book on top of it was printed in 1929, I’m thinking the 21st is not the new century to which it refers. The title of this post is what Volume Three covers. It caught my eye because it looked at first glance like one long hyphenated word, and because I’d never heard of zymurgy (fermentation, apparently).

The idea of dictionaries has interested me recently, as the new Vice President of VWS, Michael McGovern, has an impressive collection of them. Every kind imaginable, and several languages. A hundred slightly different definitions, a thousand slightly different ideas of the central vocabulary of English.
As writers, we live immersed in language. But we also live in the particular connotations associated with our word choice. I talked about gendered language last month, and all of its attendant problems, but all word choice requires careful consideration, as the language evolves constantly.
Posted on by Eileen Young

Literary Magazines

Literary magazines exist everywhere, and they can be pretty easy to find. You just need to know where to look.

To start with what’s dear to my heart, there are Island Writer and Theory Train.
But if you don’t write speculative fiction or live on Vancouver Island or the Gulf Islands, it can be difficult to find a market. There are just so many to go through, and so many corners of the internet where they could be hiding.
Writers’ Market is a fantastic resource, but it’s expensive, and only updates once a year, at which point you have to buy a new one. Which is fine, in most cases, but errors accumulate over time, like magazines going under or changing their address, so you want to buy a new one every few years at least.
Another option for finding markets is Duotrope.com, which is an online catalog of magazines and anthologies and whether they are currently accepting submissions. It’s searchable, and usually current to within a day or two.
Posted on by Eileen Young

Author Interview: Adam Schreckenberger

Adam, in addition to being the technological heart of Theory Train, is an author in his own right. I interview him about his series, McCallister Chronicles.

Eileen Young: So, what’s McCallister Chronicles about?

Adam P. Schreckenberger: Hmm, that’s a good question. Sometimes, I don’t even know the answer to that one myself. Upfront, it’s about a knight’s duty when it comes to his princess, but that seemed a little boring on its own. To some extent, it is about the endless insanity that lurks in my imagination and a mythology I created to pass the time. I can do whatever I want in those pages. I want a sword that talks? Fine. I want people that can wield fire? Fantastic! It also keeps my girlfriend happy, which carries a lot of benefits.

EY: Was she part of what inspired you to write it?
APS: Oh yes, she was. We had been thinking about writing a story together for a long time, but it just never worked out. One day, she really needed an upbeat, new tale. I sat down and wrote the five pages that became Episode 1. Like always, I posted it on my site for kicks. What I did not expect was the response.
EY: There was a lot of interest?
APS: That day still holds the record for most hits, and I got a few emails with messages asking if I was planning to write new chapters.
EY: Wow, that’s impressive. And you’ve continued to release the chapters as free downloads. What was the thought behind that?
APS: Well, I am a physicist. Writing is my hobby, and that is how it is going to stay. It just has never felt right forcing my readers to purchase my works. Originally, it was motivated by the fact that most of my fans, if you want to call them that, were in high school and had no fixed income. In that sense, it became a simple choice. Either I’d charge for my stuff and no one would read the pieces, or I’d have them available free of charge. Old habits are hard to break.
EY: And now you have the first several episodes available in print. What made you decide to make it available that way, too?
APS: Some of my friends are diehard supporters of MC. When they asked me to make a printed copy available, I obliged. Plus, let’s face it. It is awesome to hold a physical copy of something you wrote. It certainly brings me some joy.
EY: It really is. So, you never considered publishing traditionally?
APS: Once upon a time, I did. I was in talks with a publishing house, but there were terms of the deal that I just did not like. For starters, everyone could kiss the free copies goodbye. They also wanted to put me on a timetable for the remainder of the series, which is not acceptable when one factors in my job. I guess it would be nice to have it released in the traditional sense. It would certainly make it more capable of receiving some recognition, but I am proud of what the book has accomplished.
EY: Is there anything else you’d like to say?
APS: I am grateful that I had the opportunity and the motivation to write MC. It brought me new friends, and pushed my old friends even closer. There is also something worth mentioning to those out there that are on the fence about writing a book or self-publishing. Just do it. Whether you put it on a blog, dA or some website, getting your work out there is worth the effort. We are all extremely fortunate to live in a time when these tools are available to us. Do not let them go unused.

Posted on by Eileen Young

Open Mics

Tonight I was supposed to go to the Victoria Writers’ Society open mic night, but I was too exhausted to go.

Open mic nights are fun, especially if you get to read, but they’re also emotionally draining: exposing your creative side is pointless if emotions aren’t involved.
I’m going to cut my incoherence short and go watch Bones.
Posted on by Eileen Young

Becoming More Awesome Through Reading

Today on my way home I stopped in Chapters. I browsed the new and hot, the three for thirty dollars. Considered buying Cormac McCarthy, as he’s considered a great writer and I want to read great writers to see what works for them so I can apply similar strategies in my own work, but decided against it as these reads are for my commute and I want to be absolutely sure of enjoying my read as well as being improved by it.

So I wandered upstairs to the Science Fiction and Fantasy section, and looked at the slim pickings of Cory Doctorow’s published books before picking up a Jacqueline Carey I haven’t read. But as part of my attempts to better myself, I stopped in the non-fiction section downstairs. Did you know that the section on sex is right next to the section on psychology? I found that out today, and also that anything remotely educational about sex is well-hidden by the Cosmo Truth Or Dare games. So I picked up a book on decision theory.
Decision theory features largely in my plans for world domina- self-improvement. Yes. By making better decisions and being aware of the mechanics of my own decision-making, I can improve my life: get healthier, manage time better, reach my goals better.
So I’m quite excited about my new book purchases.
Posted on by Eileen Young · 2 Comments

You May Have Noticed . . .

. . . the appearance of an ad box on my blog a few weeks ago. I’m currently running Google AdSense. In a few months, I plan to switch to Project Wonderful. I’m going to be collecting data on how much using either would earn for me, and how well I like the ads that are displayed.

These two are the only ad services other than Facebook Ads that I’m familiar with. I’d be open to suggestions on other services to try, and would welcome them. AdSense and Project Wonderful run differently enough that I’d be interested to see whether other services emulated one or the other or innovated something else entirely.
Ads on a website or blog are excellent tools for any independent author, editor, or assorted indie-publishing related person to earn at least minimal returns whether or not they are making sales.
In an ideal world, of course, we’d all be millionaires from our book sales. In the meantime, smoothing out the times between royalty checks and payment threshholds from author services websites is something we can all appreciate.
I installed AdSense first because it’s so conveniently integrated into the Blogger platform. From my end, the tabs to post and monitor settings are right next to the tab governing the AdSense interface with Blogger. They won’t pay me until I’ve earned a hundred bucks, though, which is something Project Wonderful has on them: Project Wonderful will pay up if you’ve earned at least ten. Another thing I like about Project Wonderful is that I know people who advertise through it: writers I know, comics I read, games I play.
Which is another reason I installed AdSense first: unless Project Wonderful earns me exponentially less than AdSense, I will probably stick with it when I install it.
I can’t run them concurrently because of AdSense’s terms and conditions, sadly.
Posted on by Eileen Young

Snow Day!

It’s the hardest snow we’ve had all winter here in Victoria. Catching the bus to my new job this morning wasn’t any kind of fun. Yes, new job. Epublishing isn’t paying all the bills yet, so I needed some kind of gainful employment, and have found it in one of the other fields that makes me extremely happy: bicycles.

Which leads me to today’s mini-rant on why buying your child a bicycle from a department store or toy store means you don’t love them.
Bike stores carry children’s bicycles, and that’s where it’s a good idea to get them. First, because a bike store bicycle will be a real brand – the kind that has warranties. The kind that has people who ride bicycles as the ones designing and manufacturing them, which is important, as sometimes people who do not know bicycles will stick the fork (the front bit that holds the wheel) on backwards. That’s dangerous, as it means that, if your kid hits a bump, they may come down hard enough on the shocks that are beneath their downtube and not out front where they should be hard enough to even momentarily stop steering from being possible. Second, bike store bikes are assembled by mechanics, not by you or by someone in the store who may or may not have even ever seen a bicycle before. And no matter how mechanically inclined you are, assembly by a professional helps. Third, your bike store bike will last longer – usually on to the next kid. Bike stores carry fewer sizes, but have the technical know-how to adjust the bikes to fit any kid, and to fit your kid as they grow. The bikes are also of high enough quality that they allow this kind of adjustment. Most bike stores also offer some kind of service deal, that you can bring in the bike once or twice and they’ll fix it as an extension of you buying it there. That keeps your kid safer.
Bike stores also usually offer a wider range of awesome bright-coloured streamers to choose from.
So buy your kid a bike from a bike store. Yeah, it’ll cost more. But that money goes towards buying a bike that will keep them safer and will last longer.
This rant brought to you by affection for children and economies of scale. Promised entry on Japanese literary culture still pending.
Posted on by Eileen Young

Visual Novel

A friend of mine recently introduced me to visual novels, a sort of hybrid video game and storytelling medium, in the form of the game Ever 17, a psychological horror visual novel.

When I first started describing the game I was playing to a friend of mine unfamiliar with the term ‘visual novel,’ he responded with, “Oh, like a dating sim but without the porn?”

Well, yes. But for those of us less fluent with teenage-male-oriented computer games from Japan than my teenage, male, frequently video- and computer-game playing friend, visual novels are more like a shiny, illustrated Choose Your Own Adventure novel.
Exploring the different options takes you through the story, with the things you look at and the people you interact with popping up in front of you in still frames that change every time you click over to the next line or instance. It’s an interesting experience to play, and an interesting medium in which to tell a story and explore a world.