In other news, if you’re looking for short daily podcasts to keep you going for NaNoWriMo, then please check out the rerun of the NaNoMonkeys podcast over at The Secret Lair (we did this daily for 2006 and 2007), and also the Geek Survival Guide is doing an extremely fun daily NaNoWriMo podcast.

But here’s the thing: I still feel like a wanna be.

I think when we’re unpublished, we see the world as black and white – we are standing outside the glamorous party, the published ones are inside, snacking on crab cakes and drinking champagne, looking tall and sleek in their evening gowns and tuxes. They are in the in-crowd, they are warm, they are welcome, they are pampered. We are cold, left in the dark and the snow, and there is no middle ground.

But when you sell that first story it’s… strange. You wonder what you did in this story that was more special than what you did all the other times. You look at yourself, and you’re wearing the same jeans stained with ink and your favorite ratty old sweatshirt. (Maybe I’m projecting here.) The potato chip grease on your hand hasn’t changed miraculously to crab cake grease. (I could have gone for a better metaphor there.) The story sale doesn’t come with an engraved invite to the ball.

Needless to say, you don’t change. And publishing moves at such a slow rate, any change that comes across you is gradual, too. If I sell a book today, that still means weeks till the contract is signed, further weeks till edits start, further weeks till money comes through, etc. Months or a year+ before the book comes out. This world is not black and white, here and there, wanna be and arrived.

To think of it another way, we all have our own definition of success. And I realized I don’t know precisely what mine is – I think it’s making something close to a real salary just by typing words into this device here. And if it’s fiction words, even better. But I’m not. I sold a book, and I was proud of it, but it was small press, I can’t see it on shelves, and I’m way far away from earning enough money off that book to live by. (I’m not putting down my book, or Swarm Press at all here, it is simply a fact that the sale was not something I can feed my family on. Clearly that didn’t bother me enough to refuse the contract. I’m very happy with what we accomplished with the sales of PFK.)

And even if I DID make like a $30K advance, which sounds awesome, the book came out  last August, and I haven’t had a book sale since. That $30K (before taxes) sounds huge in one big chunk, but definitely would have run out by now. So I’m still a wanna-be in my book. I have not achieved success by my own definitions.

I hope you’re reading the Freelancer’s Survival Guide- Rusch just had a great series on success.

I find this unbelievable. Not that the agents dread it, and not that it happens, but that so little common sense takes hold in our frantic writing minds. So I want to go over some basic rules of publishing that may clash with the awesome positive-feeling-fest that is NaNoWriMo. Not trying to rain on parades, but consider this your umbrella for the deluge to follow.

1. 50K words is not a novel. OK, it may be a middle grade novel, or YA, and it technically is a novel by definition, but in most cases a publisher won’t look at your work if it’s not at least 80K words. So if you write 50K, you may not be done with it.
2. Write. Let it sit a week or two. Read. Rewrite. Send to First Readers. Rewrite again. Then-and only then-submit. This process will take you past December and into January or February, depending mostly on your readers. If you’re proud of this book, your baby, then make sure to wash its face and brush its hair and make sure breakfast isn’t smeared all over its shirt before you send it to school for picture day.
3. Learn how to write a good cover letter. This bit of advice was going to be, “don’t say you did NaNoWriMo in your cover letter” but I decided just to remind you about good cover letters overall. Remember- take out all pointless details regarding you, your writing process, and your book. This includes how much your mom liked it, how you are a school teacher/librarian/doctor/real estate agent, the number of children you have, how long you’ve wanted to be a writer, and any details about the actual writing of the book. It’s not necessary information, and there still is a decidedly amateur stigma around NaNoWriMo. It’s a program designed to get people writing, not to get people published. If you get published, great, but think about trying out for the Yankees because you signed up for a community baseball team last summer. Telling an agent/editor that you wrote the book really fast implies that you didn’t research, edit, or even care. And it’s true, to win at NaNoWriMo, you shouldn’t be researching, editing, or caring about the polished product — in November. That’s what editing is for. See #2.
4. Don’t let their grumbling stop you. Lastly, no one can stop you from submitting. They may grumble, but its their job to find the diamond in the rough. So you write that book, then flesh it out, then edit it, then next spring you submit it with a pro cover letter, and they may never know it was a NaNoWriMo novel unless you tell them — AFTER you’ve signed.

Keep writing. That is your focus, nothing more.

Oh, and:

As you may or may not have noticed, there has been no News From Poughkeepsie content this week. This will continue onto next week, but we’ll be up and running again on the 16th. Indeed, NFP shall rise like the phoenix, more beautiful and terrible than ever, outshining the very sun. Because that’s how we roll, here at ISBW. Outshining the sun.

But before NFP crawls into it’s November chrysalis, there’s some lingering October business to take care of. Namely, who one this fabulous piece of clothing?

None other than Scott Roche, for his compelling werewolf-coming-of-age story:

I sat in my chair, keeping his gaze. “I want you to think about the talk we had in the bar. You are embracing the worst of our natures instead of the best. We don’t attack the animals that belong to others. We don’t drink more than we can handle and let that cause us to be foolish. It’s bad enough that we have to be here, we don’t have to give them the satisfaction of knowing that they’re right.” I nodded east in the general direction of what passed for civilizaiton.

The anger turned to petulance. “Yer tha one denyin’ who ya are Doc. Tha wolf takes what it wants and so do real men.”

I took a deep breath. It wasn’t the first time I had heard this sort of talk. Plenty of our young men were angry. They came here without family, without any resources, and banded together, teaching each other the ways of life. “Is that right? Tell me Zach, would your father approve of this?” I gestured encompassing his appearance.

“Ah Doc you know I didn’t know my father.” He looked at the clean pine floor

Scott’s also basing his NaNoWriMo novel on his continuation of another NFP prompt, which tickles me to no end. Anyone else doing this?

• 00:00:07 ISBW #135
• 00:00:39 GoTo Meeting Message
• 00:01:27 Happy NaNoWriMo!  Special episode: three interviews, no feedback.  Mur is still editing as well as NaNo-ing, and trying to pace herself to avoid early November burnout.  You are invited to be Mur’s NaNoWriMo buddy, but it make take her some time to return the favor.  [You are also invited to be my writing buddy!  I’m not as popular as Mur, so I’ll probably be able to “friend” you back a little faster.  –Carrie.]
• 00:03:58 Promo: P.G. Holyfield and Tabitha Grace Smith of Angel Between the Lines write short stories for each other’s podcasts.  On Nov. 16, 2009, download P.G.’s Exit Strategy at Stories from Wolfram & Hart, and on Nov. 18, 2009, at 9:30 EST, visit Stickam.com to view the live video recording of Tabz’s story for Tales of Children, Love’s Sacrificial Song.
• 00:06:06 Interview with author Nathan Lowell of the Solar Clipper series – 6 books written in 2 ½ years.
• 00:24:01 Promo: J.C. Hutchins & the print debut of 7th Son Descent – serialized novel, audiobook, and other content also available online.
• 00:25:40 Interview: David Niall Wilson author of Vintage Soul – novel originated as a 2005 NaNoWriMo project.  Register to read this year’s NaNoWriMo read-along book, The Heart of a Dragon , and be David’s NaNoWriMo buddy
• 00:38:38 Promo: Jon Armstrong and Underland Press present Jeff Vandermeer’s Finch listen to an interview with the author at If You’re Just Joining Us
• 00:39:48 Interview: Chris Baty, creator of NaNoWriMo (don’t forget to check out the NaNo Video podcasts).

Show notes provided by Carrie Kei Heim Binas.

Status- Well, October didn’t go as planned. I allowed the manuscript edits of Project Underground to intimidate me so I didn’t start till late in the month. And once I started, various hiccups during the last week, not to mention planned AFK time for Halloween and our 11 year anniversary, derailed what work I had going on. So Project Underground is not complete. I’m halfway through Chapter 9 of 27. Yeah. Suck. It is my priority, still. Thus, PFK2 is the stepchild here, the afterthought. But I can’t ignore it entirely, as I have a war going on with Nate Lowell for him to do NaNo in 15 days, so if I don’t do NaNo in 30, I’m going to look pretty damn lame.

So two projects at once! Am I set up for failure? I don’t know. I won’t know till I stop this blogging and start with the writing, now, will I?

(Oh- PFK2? Not outlined. I think the title of this podcast should change to “Do as I say, not as I do.” *sigh*)

Anyway. I’m going to try to figure out how to get an ISBW NaNo community going, so let’s start here with leaving a comment with your user ID for NaNoWriMo. Do this only if you want me and other ISBW people to add you as a buddy. I’m going to try to slog through and add everyone on my buddy list.

Username- mightymur UserID- 141415

Next on ISBW- the NaNo special with three interviews from different NaNo enthusiasts!

Playing For Keeps 2- No Take Backs

Tomorrows Ghosts

Old Mason knows all the stories. But the ones the children like best are the scary ones. The ones with the unstoppable monsters who destroyed haunting after haunting with their terrible lightning.

“It’s not easy being a ghost in this here world,” Old Mason would say. “You’ll learn about that soon enough. But these creatures made in harder. Their hunched backs would fire a strange, gripping energy, that would draw you into their one of their jars. Then they’d seal you up and put you on a shelf!”

The young phantoms were horrified. “Where did these creatures come from?” one of them asked.

Old Mason scratched at his ethereal chin. “No one rightly knows. They say the humans summon them. They say, that when there’s something strange, in the neighborhood, who you gonna call?”…

• 00:00:07 ISBW #134
• 00:00:38 GoTo Meeting Message
• 00:01:26 State of the Mur update: giving a talk at BlogWorld re: podiobooks, and working on edits for “Project Underground”
• 00:05:26 Promo: J.C. Hutchins & the print debut of 7th Son Descent – serialized novel (at BoingBoing), audiobook (at podiobooks.com), and other content (at JCHutchins.net) also available online.
• 00:07:04 Main topic: “That’s just words”? The importance of language.
• 00:15:09 Promo: Tuning in to SciFi TV
• 00:16:27 Interview: Devo Spice (aka Tom Rockwell) Recommended sites: The FuMP (Funny Music Project), Dr. Demento, The Real UHF, and Working Indie Musician
• 00:34:48 Promo: A. P. Stephens & The White Shadow Saga
• 00:35:49 Feedback: Neil Gaiman writes a book via Twitter; Is it worthwhile to invest in 3rd-party editing before shopping a novel?; Advice on writing from the perspective of a character who slowly goes insane; New website — Lit Drift ; Possibly useful organizing software — Writer’s Café; 100 Questions for Character Development – Geocities closed down, so we were unable to use the link originally sent to us, but Carrie found another similar list here.

Show notes provided by Carrie Kei Heim Binas.

Tomorrow’s Ghosts

Trixie knew about ghosts. Ghosts were merely the residual electromagnetic field left over after a person passed away. Usually, it dispersed. But Trixie had developed a way to capture this energy, and contain it for further study. As a hospice administrator, she had access to a multitude of ghosts from all walks of life. Trixie kept them in jars in the basement, along with her notes, equipment, and pet cat Irvine. Irvine didn’t like the ghosts in the jars.

Unfortunately, Trixie’s not the only one with access to the basement…

Tomorrow’s Ghosts

Edward was the best cleaner in GLOBE. He scrubbed clean the data of land that had been abandoned or reclaimed, removing any remnant code that might be lingering, any booby traps the previous tenant left behind. New Wheel, the company that created GLOBE, had brought him on as contractor, but had since hired him full time. The turnover rate for virtual real estate was surprisingly high. There were always houses that needed cleaning.

But one house would not go quietly. It’s elements refused to be deleted. More than that, it called to Edward. Called to him to come in. Edward thought he knew everything about GLOBE…what could possibly be the harm of a virtual house?

Of course, once Edward entered, the house had no intention of letting him leave…

Tomorrow’s Ghosts

In the pale light of morning, Konomi can see them coming. They flood the streets, moving slowly on treds and wheels, legs and springs. She can see them, the disgarded robots of the city. She can see them attempt to do what the have always done.

And she can hear their screams when they realize they cannot…

I’m a fan of Hutch and of his podcasting skillz, but honestly, when you get down to it, this is an amazing book and I’m thrilled and honored to be able to feature the special edition in my feed. I personally recommend 7th Son: Descent with no reservations.

In fact, today I’m heading to The Regulator at noon in Durham, NC to buy my own copies, if you wanna meet me and have lunch at Elmo’s. (We’re going dutch on lunch, though….)

7th Son: Descent

As America reels from the bizarre presidential assassination committed by a child, seven men are abducted from their normal lives and delivered to a secret government facility. Each man has his own career, his own specialty. All are identical in appearance. The seven strangers were grown — unwitting human clones — as part of a project called 7th Son.

The government now wants something from these “John Michael Smiths.” They share the flesh and implanted memories of the psychopath responsible for the president’s murder. The killer has bigger plans, and only these seven have the unique qualifications to track and stop him.

But when their progenitor makes the battle personal, it becomes clear he knows the seven better than they know themselves…

Learn more about 7th Son: Descent.

It should be noted that not only do we have only 5 more days until the deadline is up for the official News From Poughkeepsie “Press” T-Shirt, we have two strong contenders for it. Anthony O. Miller II has contributed his version of Zombies VS Cavemen, competing head to head with Scott Roche. But that doesn’t mean YOU can’t enter in and snag the shirt away from either of them! 5 days, and nearly 30 prompts to choose from. I’ll admit, Scott and Anthony have set the bar pretty high, but I’m sure someone can top it.

Finishing out our themed month this week is a classic of the genre: ghost stories! Ghost stories are essentially stories of memory-ghosts are people who refuse to be forgotten, who continue to effect the world after their bodies pass away, staying in the houses they used to live in, the roads they used to walk down. Perhaps the true horror of ghosts is what that they tell that not only is death coming for us, but that it doesn’t change a thing.

The thing about ghost stories is that they are all old stories, continually retold and rewritten, with new details added and others removed. The phantom rider becomes a ghostly truck driver. The maiden at the crossroads becomes the lost prom queen. The pirate with a bloody sword becomes a maniac with a bloody axe. The stories become ghosts themselves, with a hint of their origins, remaining, but still able to send shivers down a listener’s spine.

So what might tomorrow’s ghost stories be like? Who will haunt the future?

Tomorrow’s Ghosts

Gary had upgraded years ago. His body was gone, incinerated, and all that was left behind was a cloud of dust and thought. Nanites bore the weight of synaptic processes, now, sending electric impulses back and forth as they flew through the world. He never missed his old body, he said. He had given up a bum knee for the ability to fly on the breeze, given up taking a crap for being able to move molecules into fireworks or flower petals. It was a better life now, he said.

He didn’t miss his old body at all.

Which was he was so startled when his body started following him around…

Zombies Versus Rabbis

Moishe could hear the way they clawed at the door, the wood doing little to muffle their hungry groans. “Rabbi, don’t you think we should…?” Rabbi Auslander’s glare evaporated the word from his mouth.

“Not until the lesson is finished. Now. What are they?”

“…Qlipoth…”

“So is this jar. Be specific!” The wood of the door began to crack.

“Thagirion! Thagirion! They’re Thagirion! The disputers, the painful movers, the demons called the Zomiel, great black giants that are always working against–” Again, all words were lost in the face of the Rabbi’s gaze.

“Thagirion would have sufficed. You’ll make a good Rabbi one day, Moishe. Should we survive the night.” The old man reached into the large carved chest in the corner, and drew out a long parcel wrapped in blue velvet. With callous disregard, Rabbi tossed aside the velvet, revealing a intricately engraved shotgun.

“Now that you know what they are,” he said, checking the barrels. “Allow me to show you how to stop them…”

Zombies Versus Suffragettes

Susan stood at the door, and glared at frightened women. “You think this is scary?” she said. “Stinking corpses wandering around outside? You think that’s scary.”

Georgette was the only one that nodded, but several others looked down at the floor, ashamed.

“This isn’t scary. The fact that we live in country without representation, that’s scary. The fact that we’re thought of as second class citizens, that’s scary. The fact that we are considered less than human beings, that, my dears, is scary! These…walking dead men don’t frighten me half as much as the live ones.” Susan raised the fire ax she had found up to her eye, as the light glinted off the edge. “And I for one am not about to die at the hand of either.”

“But there’s so many!” Georgette whimpered.

“There’s many of us, as well,” Susan said, he voice as hard as the ax blade. “Standing together, we shall take our lives into our own keeping! Now, who’s with me?”

One by one, the women stood to face the dead men outside…

Zombies Versus Vikings

Sigur, who was called Foxskin, due to length of white fur that adorned his shoulders, saw the boat first. He called Otir, his giant of a commander. Otir had seen the blood of battle twice as many times as Sigur had, and Sigur was a old soldier of twenty three years. Surely Otir had seen this before.

But Otir was as loss for words as Sigur. The ship, burning like a funeral pyre, crept through the ice. Against the powerful wind it came, toward them and nothing else. A legion of flaming oars jutted out from the immense vessel, doused themselves in the icy waters, only to ignite again once raised from the steam. Bolla, the shield maiden, who had the best eyes of the lot, spoke that men crewed the vessel, men who were as powerfully ablaze as the ship they rode on.

Sigur could not believe it, until the flaming ship came close enough for the entire crew could feel the heat. Bodies detached from the incinerating husk, and swam toward Otir’s ship, the charred corpses wailing and gnashing their teeth.

Not even aware he was doing it, the man called Foxskin drew his sword…

Zombies Versus Samurai

Minamoto no Yoshinaka looked at the approaching army in disbelief. The dead? Armed? On horseback? Not in all his battles.

“All my sins have returned. All the deaths I claimed, now seek to claim me.” The mighty general turned to his first captain, expecting to see similar surprise on her eyes. But Tomoe Gozen’s face remained hard.

“Tomoe,” he said, steadying his horse. “Have you seen this before?”

“I have seen the dead,” she said, unsheathing her nodachi. She balanced the immense sword in one hand, while the other gripped the reins of her horse. “I have walked in an apple’s-depth of blood, and seen corpses that bite and tear. I will bring you their heads, General.”

“That will not be necessary…” Yoshinaka began, but Tomoe Gozen held up a hand.

“I apologize, General, but it is. Lest they return. By your signal, General.”

“Go,” said Yoshinaka, as Tomoe Gozen led her squadron toward the gaping, savage maws of slain warriors…

We’ve done vampires, we’ve done werewolves, so now it’s time to wade hip-deep into another horror staple: ZOMBIES! Now you might say that zombies are played out by this point, to which I respectfully disagree. Zombies in a modern context are played out. The walking dead in a historical context, however?

There’s some meat on those bones.

Zombies Versus Cavemen

Thrag lived for the hunt. He saw himself as predator, and could lead his tribe to take down even the largest mastodon. But this…this was beyond what he knew. The dead rising from their graves, wearing the moldered faces of family, faces of the tribe? This was madness. Even old Turlock, the shaman, was no help.

Indeed, he had been one of the first devoured.

Thrag and a handful of the tribe had sealed themselves up in a cave. Most felt comforted that the dead weren’t getting inside. But not Thrag. He was too much of a hunter to play at being prey.

Thrag did not understand why the dead walked, and why they hungered for the flesh of other tribesmen. He understood two things: the strength of his arms, and the strength of his stone ax. Trusting in those, Thrag moved aside the barricade….

Werewolves this week, and the winning submission comes from Jason (Anthraxus). It’s a bit of fanfic, but who among us doesn’t have a little fanfic rolling about in our heads? Perhaps if you ply me with enough fine scotch, I’ll tell you all about my STAR WARS stories…

Smurfette staggered into the giant forest outside of the village. She tripped, losing one of her white pumps in the low undergrowth, and leaned against a cattail growing at the river bank she had reached. A shooting pain in her stomache caused her to curl up in a ball, tears streaming from her eyes.

“Why did I eat that weird muffin?” she thought to herself through the terrific pain that run up and down her spine. “It just smelled so smurfy good!” She gasped and cried out in horror as the change began to over take her. Her smooth blue skin rippled and erupted in tufts of rough aquamarine fur. She felt the seams of her white dress split and the shapeless hat fall from her head as her spine lengthed and broadened.

With a shake she threw away the last few scraps of clothing that clung to her supple, bushy body. She leapt into a break between the trees and turned her head to the full moon above. “Smuroooooo!” she howled, and stalked off into the trees toward the cluster of large mushrooms where she new small, smurfy flavored prey awaited.

Scott Roche does another bang-up job extending one of the prompts over at his site. It’s worth noting here that Scott’s the only one who’s completed a full story based on an October prompt, so he’s a shoe-in for the t-shirt. Anybody want to give Scott some competition?

Werewolves I Have Known…

Red Claw made sure to stay away from the others during the full moon. She wasn’t sure what happened during her transformation, save that she always woke with a sense of loss and shame. Better to have it happen deep in the woods, far from the eyes of others.

The transformation hit Red Claw’s legs first, the bones cracking as they stretched. She felt her hair fall to the grass, her toes lengthen. Her spine creaked and snapped as it readjusted, and she found herself standing on two legs with surprising comfort. Red Claw’s snout collapsed in on itself, forming a small nose and mouth. Red Claw put her newly dexterous fingers up to her smooth jaw, testing the full lips and flat teeth.

Red Claw ambled unsteadily on two legs toward the lights at the edge of the woods, compelled by instincts she barely understood…

Werewolves I Have Known…

Neil didn’t think much of the wolf bite he got a few days ago. He had kept it a secret from his superiors, naturally–there was no way he wasn’t going on this mission. Anyway, it seemed to heal up just fine.

But as he got out the capsule, he started to feel a little…off. Itchy. Something growling in the back of his throat, something growing inside his stomach. Something was wrong. But it didn’t matter. What Neil was about to do was historic. Plenty of time for a check up back in the capsule.

Neil gave a short hop on the surface of the moon, and turned his helmet toward the camera.

“That’s one small step for man, one giant lea-AAAAARRRRRGGGH” Neil screamed as the transformation took hold of him, tearing his suit on the lunar surface…

Werewolves I Have Known…

Handful Jones never wanted to be any trouble. He was a clumsy man, too right. And lazy, sure enough. And if you were to say he’d never held down a job for longer than two weeks, well, that would be a fair point. Handful Jones will agree with you on all of these notions. But he will not let you call him a murderer.

Even though he was found knee-deep in the viscera of his friends and neighbors, blood on his mouth, hands, overalls, Handful Jones continues to protest his own innocence.

“It wasn’t me,” he says. “It was the wolf…”

Werewolves I Have Known…

“There’s a pie in the car,” Lost Corrie says. “I can smell it.”

Lost Corrie sits in the passenger seat, with her knees up by her chin. She has refused to wear a seat belt. “If there’s an accident, it doesn’t matter. I’ll just turn into a wolf.” This her answer for everything, from why her shoelaces are untied to where her parents are. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll just turn into a wolf.”

The lack of a full moon does not seem to bother her.

What does bother her is the smell of pie she knows is in one of the grocery sacks Mrs. Chilton has neatly arranged in the back seat. She can’t stop smelling it. Lost Corrie knows that the pie is not for her, but for Mrs. Chilton’s mother, even though Mrs. Chilton seems much too old to have a mother. Lost Corrie thought she could handle the pie smell, but it has been an awful long drive. And the last thing she wants to do is upset Mrs. Chilton.

“It doesn’t matter” Lost Corrie thinks. “I’ll just turn into a wolf…”

Before we get to this week’s theme, I just want to remind everyone about this fine shirt that’s going to be given away at the end of the month.

As I said last week, the only way to get one of these bad boys is to write a story–that’s beginning, middle and end, folks–inspired by one of the prompts in October. You can put your story, or a link to it in the comments, or send it right to me at newsfrompoughkeepsie (at) gmail.com. My favorite gets the shirt.

On to this week’s theme. As was pointed out in Sunday’s comments, werewolves follow naturally with vampires. Werewolves are less mysterious than vampires, however, and their mythology much more concrete. Full moon = wolf. It’s hard to improve on that.

So this week, rather than taking werewolves apart, we’ll be spending time with them. Too many of these NFP entries have been plot-focused, so I think it’ll be nice to be character focused for a week.

Werewolves I have known…

Zach says he doesn’t mind the change much anymore. Says he’s come to terms. We’ve all got our rows to hoe, he says, his isn’t any different. Old Roger Gilbert mutters something about his destroyed rabbit hutch and my he has to pay for Zach’s hoeing, but no ones pays him any mind.

Zach says he’s a changed man, but he didn’t need to say it. We can all see the return of Zach’s beard. He shaved it off right after he got bit, and it’s good to see it back. Zack said he didn’t want hair on his face, not while human. Good to see human nature–and probably a bit of sloth–win out.

“I’m okay,” he said, ordering another beer. “I’m a werewolf.”

“Naturally,” said the bartender. “You everyone else in this town…”

It’s my first wedding anniversary today, so I’m going to keep this short. We’ll just get right to the stories.

David Niall Wilson gets on the Sunday Edition for the second week in a row for inspired tale of vampires and dentists:

Walter leaned back into the dentist’s chair and scowled menacingly at the ceiling. He had only a few hours until Brendan’s party, and one didn’t attend a Brenda Devoe party with one chipped fang. Not if one intended to mingle with the “elite”.

The dentist leaned in close.

“Open wide; let’s see what we’ve got here.”

Walter somehow managed to deepen his scowl and comply with the request at the same time. The Dentist, Dr. Brody, poked and prodded at the offending tooth with the very sharp tip of a dental tool. He muttered something, but Walter couldn’t quite hear it.

“You gunna figz it?” Walter couldn’t speak clearly with a mouthful of saliva and dental tools.

“Excuse me?” Dr. Brody drew back slightly.

“You gonna fix it?” Walter repeated, a bit more coherently.

“I’m afraid this cap is damaged beyond repair,” Dr. Brody said. The man smiled brightly as he delivered this news, and Walter tried to sit up – vaguely thinking about strangling the smile off the dentist’s face.

“I have to have it fixed,” he said. “It has to be fixed by tonight. It’s … important.”

“I see,” Dr. Brody replied, putting a finger to his chin and looking perplexed. “I don’t suppose you could tell me why?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Walter said.

He turned away suddenly. His face was a wash of sullen angst. He’d practiced the expression in front of a mirror for hours.

“You never know,” Dr. Brody said. “I might. It’s that important to you?”

Walter nodded without turning back.

“Well then,” Dr. Brody said cheerfully. “I think I can help. By tonight, you say?”

Walter nodded again. He turned, chancing a glance up into Dr. Brody’s face. In that instant, the Dr.’s smile vanished. He opened his own jaws impossibly wide, showing long, needle-pointed fangs. Walter scrabbled back and away, but escape was hampered by the dental chair and equipment.

“Now Walter,” Dr. Brody said, his voice suddenly low and menacing, “hold still. If you want to rise and grow fangs by tonight – you’re going to have to be a little more…cooperative.”

Honestly, I’m a little jealous I didn’t think of combining vampires and dentists first. It seems so obvious on the face of it…

The always dependable Scott Roche gave us stylish continuation of Wednesday’s prompt entitled A Liquid Diet . Check it out.

I’ve been looking through my notes, and it looks like I don’t really have anything appropriately “monstery” for the last week in October. So I’m gonna open it to you guys. What should the last week be about? Zombies? Mummies? Trick or Treaters? I leave it to you!

Vampires work like this…

It could happen to anyone.

It happened to Rachel. Rachel awoke with the thirst. She awoke, pale as the moon, and took off through the window. Neighbors found her the next morning, blood caked on her mouth and hands. At the police station, Racheal spoke only of her confusion. She was thirsty. Why? She didn’t know. Shee leapt out the window because she knew thats how she could quench her thirst. How? She didn’t know. Just like she didn’t know where the blood came from, or how she survived a jump from the 4th floor.

It happened to Matt. Matt awoke with the thirst, but never made it out of the house. His wife found him, teeth sunk deep into the throat of their dog. She came downstairs because she thought he was burglar. Matt hissed and shielded his eyes from the light of her flashlight. His distended canines dripping and gleaming.

It could happen to anyone. The thirst comes on you, and rides you ’till morning. You’re it’s creature, then, a beast of the night. It’ll leave in the morning, only to find another to animate with its wicked hunger. It could happen to anyone.

It could happen to you…

• iTunes – will take you to iTunes so you can subscribe to just the podcast.
• Podcast- will give you an RSS feed that you can plug into any reader for JUST THE PODCAST.
• Blog- will give you an RSS feed that you can plug into any reader for all the content on the blog, including posts and podcasts.

If you are already subscribed to the one you want, nothing should change except those in the first two categories will suddenly see a lot more files in RSS. Whether you download all of those files is up to the settings on your reader. It’s very likely you need to do nothing. But if you’re subscribed to the blog RSS and wonder why you only see 5 podcasts, now you know. Or if you’re subscribed to the podcast feed and wonder where all the blog posts went, now you know.

The reason I did this was because with all the extra content on the site, I was realizing that I had instructed the RSS feed to hold only 50 posts. When most of those are blog posts instead of episodes, what shows up on iTunes or your podcatcher of choice was a handful of episodes. This should fix that.

Vampires work like this…

They aren’t human. They were never human.

They’ll deceive you in the dark, mimicking human speech. Guttural moans combine with pheromones to sound like seduction, but it’s not real words. No more than those leathery wings are opera capes. It’s a beast that walks like its prey, a wolf dressed as a sheep.

Vampires cannot be bargained with, for your life is all they want. They cannot be reasoned with, because they live for the hunt. They do not feel pity, or remorse, for you are nothing but food. And once they catch your scent, they will not stop until their teeth are in your veins, and your life in their stomach.

Michaela, who thought she had left violence and savagery behind with her dress blues, is just now learning all this…

Vampires work like this…

“It’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s simple lifestyle choice, a dietary system, and one that has considerable benefits.”

That how Dr. Max Shreck starts his book “The Health Secrets Of A Hematopathic Doctor” (1967). In it, he described how his health had not much improved by becoming a vegetarian and how this led him to try a completely liquid food regime, consisting entirely of blood. He said:

“The results were electrifying, within a few days I felt much stronger with a return of my former enthusiasm. Many of my patients whom I had been able to convert to this new diet also reported similar results.”

Unsurprisingly, with the health benefits presented so, Dr. Shreck had started movement that took the country by storm…

• 00:00:07 ISBW #133
• 00:00:38 GoTo Meeting Message http://www.gotomeeting.com/podcast
• 00:01:12 State of the Mur update: final season of Heaven (War) is finished! Upcoming projects:
  • “Project Underground”
  • NaNoWriMo – other WriMos are welcome to visit the MightyMur profile page (Mur is happy and flattered that so many people want to be her NaNo “writing buddies”… but it may take time for her to “friend” you back. Please be patient!)
  • List of helpful iPhone/iTouch writing-themed apps for future blog post
  • Mailing books to winners of the writing prompt contest
• 00:04:38 Promo: Jennifer Hudock’s Goblin Market
• 00:05:43 Main topic: Cautionary tales for novice writers, including advice re: NaNoWriMo & podcasting novels. Balancing “you’re allowed to suck” with “is it ready to put out there?”
• 00:13:45 Promo: The Scotchcast
• 00:15:03 Interview: Lou Anders of Pyr Books and Pablo Defendini of Tor.com at DragonCon
  • Short fiction website mentioned during interview: SF Signal
  • How to submit to Tor.com?
  • Email short fiction to Patrick Nielsen Hayden at pnh at panix.com
  • Email comics to tordotcomics at gmail.com or pablo.defendini at tor.com
• 00:50:52 Promo: Well Told Tales
• 00:51:48 Feedback & Announcements: Event! December 10, 2009 (Thursday) from 7pm-8:30pm reading/singing/performances with Jeff VanderMeer and Natania Barron at Chapel Hill Comics. Mur will also be at BlogWorld in two weeks to talk about podiobooks. Feedback: Who is the antagonist in the typical romance novel? Update from listener Tom, re: balancing multiple projects. Writers’ conferences. Writing contests. Who does the podcast intro music? Beatnik Turtle! More thoughts on use of language originating with the specifics of the real universe in the context of a fictional and other-worldly novel.

Show notes provided by Carrie Kei Heim Binas.

(Note- she’s only closing the doors to new students. From her newsletter: I’m NOT shutting down or eliminating the course.  I’m most assuredly not kicking out people who are in there now. Everyone who has EVER taken Think Sideways still has and will have full access to the boards, to the lessons, to the movies, to the worksheets, to the manuscripts…  Everything that’s in there is still going to be there.)

Speaking of revising a novel, I finished my HEAVEN series this weekend, finishing up the final season: War. I wrote 11,000 words in three days, which isn’t impressive to the hardcore NaNoWriMo vets, but pretty damn good for me. Now I’m suffering from post-project letdown, where I am kinda sad and want to sleep a lot. The gray weather and nightmares about insecurity and spiders don’t help…. but I’m getting too personal. Regardless, I am finally getting started on novel rewrites for Project Underground, which I suppose I should officially name this month, shouldn’t I?

Heaven Season 5: WAR

Get wordcount generator from Writertopia

Vampires work like this…

No one would burst into flame when the sun comes up. That’s ridiculous. The sun, as it always has been, is an illuminator, a life-giver. And vampires have plenty of reason to avoid the sun, as the light of it’s rays reveal a harsher truth than even fire: in the light of the sun, a vampire looks–and feels–its true age.

And so Immithalia hobbles through her days, a rag and bone woman who can barely walk, caring for her sister, whose appearence in bed approaches skeletal. Her neighbors smile at her as she putters with her gerainiums, and laugh as she nakes jokes about how hard things were “in the old country.” She’s just an old woman, after all.

Immithalia waits for the night, waits for the darkness to reveal her beauty, her savagery. And then she and her sister, her sire, her lover, join hands and hunt for the vitality of youth…

This official News From Poughkeepsie “Press” shirt will never be for sale. I will not be giving them away at cons. I will not barter for them, even if you have fine aged cheese. The only way you can get a shirt is to write.

Write a story, based on any of the prompts in October. It can be short, it can be long, but it must have a beginning, middle and end. The writer of the awesomest story gets the shirt. You can post your story in the comments, or link to it in the comments, or send it to me directly at newsfrompoughkeepsie (at) gmail.com. That’s all you have to do.

As I said, it’s Halloween season, so we’re going to be studying monsters all month. This week, we’ve got my wife’s favorite monsters: vampires!

Vampires work like this…

You get a hundred years. You drink the blood of the youthful, the vital, you get a hundred years of life. Back when most people didn’t live to thirty, this seemed like immortality. But now? Now the promise of blood means little.

To Grigori, who has watched lifespans increase without the constant murder that surrounds his existence, the promise of blood is a joke. Other vampires may sit around and accept it, but not Grigori. He’s going to make the promise of blood mean something again.

Even if it kills him…

• WriteRoom: I haven’t played with this a lot because simply I don’t like to write on the tiny screen. Short txts and emails are all I can manage. But supposedly this lets you write and then connect with your computer, either via sync or wifi, so you can always keep up with your WIP. Great if you are the kind of person who wants to get another couple of words squeezed into your work over lunch break or in a long line.
• Write Chain: This is the one I really like. From How Not To Write, it’s a simple little app that lets you log your daily wordcount goal, how many days you’re allowed to “slide,” and then lets you know how many links are in your chain- how many consecutive days  you’ve written, and total wordcount. It’s simple, but so is the paper clip.
• NaNoMoJo (NOTE- links directly it iTunes App Store): I wanted to like this one. I really did. It claims to interface with the NaNoWriMo site once you input your user number, listing your friends, their wordcounts, and the NaNoWriMo blog, as well as linking to Dictionary.com. But I can’t get it to work after I input my number. I’ve tried contacting support and I have heard nothing. I may try to contact the developer via Twitter. As this is not a free app, I do not recommend it until it manages to iron out the issues.

What apps are you using to keep up with your writing?

(and yes, every time I mention a Mac-only piece of software, people complain. If you want an Windows option to Scrivener, search the blog, I’ve listed them several times, but people still ask me every time I mention Scrivener. If you want to know what apps are available for other phones/handhelds, send me one of those devices so I can test them out. I review what I can, guys. Write your own blog for your own phone/platform.)

Yeah, yeah, it’s Monday. Maybe I should just just merge the Sunday and Monday into one massive, monstrous post. Shout out in the comments if you have opinion on keep Sunday separate or not.

The theme was “Westerns” which got alot of strong responses. My favorite was by David Niall Wilson, which just cracked me up to no end:

The creak-wheeled wagon rolled into town leaning heavily to one side and smelling of dust and gun oil. The horse plodded ahead slowly, as if he knew where he was heading, which was odd; the driver was conspicuously absent.

Heads turned to watch the wagons passing. A boy, barefoot and filthy, ran out, looked into the driver’s seat, then ran away as if the devil had bit him, his face white.

The wagon pulled to a halt, and Sheriff Bony Ridge stepped away from the front of the saloon. Bony hitched his britches over too-thin hips, settled his guns, and strode across the street to the wagon. His heart raced, but he didn’t let the fear show. You could never let the fear show when you were the law.

The wagon creaked, and Bony jerked. Then, angry at himself, he hurried his last few steps and peered down into the wagon.

The tiny twin barrels of miniature six-guns pointed straight between his eyes, which went wide.

“I’ll be goin’ to hell in a coal bucket,” he said softly. “…Shorty McGraw.”

The tiny cowboy hopped to the seat and fired. The sheriff hit the ground hard. People turned and ran in all directions, followed by the shrill echo of tinny laughter.

Scott Roche topped last week’s record of two prompt extensions by providing three this week, all worth checking out. I expect four out of you in the next few days, Scott.

I’ll have Monday’s prompt with the weekly theme and a special October contest up later this afternoon.

Western…as high fantasy

“Merlin! I’m callin’ you out!”

Merlin did not come out of the tavern. Merlin wanted nothing more than to crawl back into a bottle of whiskey, and forget about the dark wizard who waited on the dirt road outside. He had a shot in his hand, and by the gods, he was going to keep drinking until he blacked out.

Only, Arthur was there, wasn’t he? The boy deserved a better role model than a drunken wizard. If he was to be the future of this land, then Merlin had to show him. And getting drunk, while desirable, never brought about a positive future.

“Boy,” Merlin said to Arthur. “Fetch me my wand. Looks like a bully needs to be shown some manners.” Merlin left the whiskey on the bar; their would be plenty of time for that after…

Western…in modern times.

“Hello, I saw your ad on the message board? ‘Have BFG, will travel?’ That’s you, right?”

“That’s the part everyone focuses on, yes.”

“You do have the gun, right?”

“In game? Yes…but I prefer not to use it.”

“But you will use it, right?”

“I will. If the situation calls for it.”

“You’re gonna need it. I’ll just tell you right now, you’re going to need it.”

“Miss, can you tell me what the trouble is?”

“Oh, yeah, sure. See, it’s about my brother. I think he’s fallen in with goldfarmers….”

Western…on the schoolyard

Big Lucy’s Black Hats were the terror of recess. No snack cake was spared their greed, no shin spared their wrath. The teachers were useless. The Black Hats were the queens and kings of Tombstone Elementary, and they knew no one could challenge them.

No one, that is, until the new girl arrived. Her name was Marshal, and she wore a white hat…

Banned Books Week

Happy Banned Books Week! This week is the time when we celebrate the freedom to read what we like, a right that we have embedded in our Bill of Rights.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Course, that’s Congress. People try to ban books all the time on the local level, challenging books because of profanity, sexual content, racism, rape, incest, violence against women/Jews/African Americans, etc. Their biggest defense is, “think of the children!” And the funny thing about censorship is that we all think it’s bad until something comes up to offend us.

There are disturbing and offensive books that I see and I wonder how they got published, or why. Books I’d never want to read, and I sometimes do wonder how in the world someone allowed this to go through. There are some sick and twisted people out there.

Here is where Neil Gaiman comes to the rescue with his insightful and brilliant blog post, “Why defend the freedom of icky speech?”

If you accept — and I do — that freedom of speech is important, then you are going to have to defend the indefensible. That means you are going to be defending the right of people to read, or to write, or to say, what you don’t say or like or want said.

The Law is a huge blunt weapon that does not and will not make distinctions between what you find acceptable and what you don’t. This is how the Law is made.

What strikes me as brilliant about this post is it reminded me that if we allowed censorship, we could never be sure if there’s someone in a room somewhere who mirrors our sensibilities and decides what should and should not be printed. Which means once you allow censorship of some things, eventually someone’s going to be offended and come for something you like – and we’re a blog for writers, people. They could come for something you create.

One of the most influential professors to me at UNC-Chapel Hill was Dr. Reid Barbour. He illuminated John Milton’s writing for me, and one of the most powerful things I read in his class was Aeropagitica, Milton’s pamphlet against censorship. Considering this was written at the height of the English Civil War, Milton essentially risked his own life by defying the censorship laws. It’s cleverly written with much praise toward Parliament before he gets down to it, but then comes the most amazing defense of the written word I’ve seen before or since.

He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloister’d vertue, unexercis’d & unbreath’d, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortall garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world, we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is triall, and triall is by what is contrary. That vertue therefore which is but a youngling in the contemplation of evill, and knows not the utmost that vice promises to her followers, and rejects it, is but a blank vertue, not a pure; her whitenesse is but an excrementall whitenesse;

Essentially Milton is saying that we can’t know good untill we know evil. You are weak and ignorant – not innocent and pure – if you refuse to go learn what evil is against you. The person who faces evil/temptation/or a naughty book and comes away unscathed is better than someone who hides and denies that the evil exists at all. I’m not even a Christian but I find this argument very powerful. I tend to look at it this way: if an athlete shines at practice, do you call her a star if she’s never competed? Of course not. You’re not a star until you face the true challenge, which consist of another team who wants to win as much as you do, the cheers or jeers from fans, and your own fears. Trial by fire is how anyone gets respect in this world (for better or worse, do we remember the peacetime leaders or the wartime leaders?) – why should books be any different?

I am not as eloquent as Milton or Gaiman, but my own personal argument against censorship is this: censorship is the notion that the establishment cannot trust us to be rational human beings. While quite objectionable, Big Brother telling me what I should not read is not what my core argument against censorship is; what really offends me is that some people don’t trust me to read a book and not come away a delinquent. Even more offensive is the thought that them denying my daughter a book in class will impart on her better, more pure values than our raising her can.

To me, it’s about trust, and the lack of it. Kids are smarter than we think; they can handle the occasional disturbing thing, the occasional swear word, the very concept that the world is not sunshine and butterflies and there are bad people around. Using Milton’s argument, books can open my daughter’s eyes to the world, and help her decide how to act and how not to act. I’d much rather the Pink Tornado read books with questionable content so we can explain that content to her and help her come out the other side a smarter, better person, than never read them at all.

In other words, I trust her.

Learn more about Banned Books Week

Western…as religion

Bobby Joe believed in The Gun. He had met other Marshals, men and women who appeared pious, but who threw aside the Lessons of The Gun as it suited them. To them, wielding the gun was about power. To Bobby Joe, however, it was about salvation. Out here in the Wild, it had to be.

Bobby Joe said a prayer for every bullet as he loaded his weapon. He thought about about the two marauder gangs outside his door, ready for war. He though about the town they were about to tear apart as scratched at each other. And he thought about the Lessons of The Gun.

“This about salvation,” he said, walking into the streets. “This is about salvation…”

But I was watching last weeks episode and I almost punched the screen. The contestants were challenged to come up with an outfit based on a cinematic genre, and nobody wanted “Westerns.” In fact, not only did no one want Westerns, but there was serious Western bad-mouthing through most of the episode.

I just about lost it. What is wrong with Westerns, I ask? What?

Not a damn thing, that’s what.

Western…in space

Lucky Goldstein thought this run would be easy. Protect a cargo ship through Vregonian space, collect payment on Halo, and spend a weekend or twelve with her toes in the sand. Probably wouldn’t even have to use her gun.

But when an asteroid plowed into the ship, leaving most of the senior crew dead or injured, things started to get difficult. And when the cargo was found out to be frozen Vregonians, packaged for slavery, well, that certainly didn’t make things any easier.

If Lucky’s going to make it to Halo, she better live up to her name real fast…

This week’s theme, “The New Adventures of…” was alot of fun for me, being a history nerd. Anytime you can make our only peglegged founding father talk like teenybopper is good time, as far as I’m concerned.

Jason (Anthraxus) provided the sole prompt in this week’s comments, so he gets the post by default. Luckily, it’s delightfully sideways look into John Slidell’s work in annexing parts of Mexico:

Slidell smoothed the new map out on the expansive desk. Numerous small towns and missionaries were marked on it, as well as three large red X’s. The new Texas/Mexican border was clearly marked on the fresh bit of cartography.

He looked up at the other two men in the room and smiled tightly.

“As you can see, gentlemen”, he began, “Our spies in Mexico have been very active in gathering information for us. Besides information on the arrangement of the supply lines of the Mexican army, that I’m sure will interest General Taylor”, he nodded to the man in the military uniform,” They have also narrowed down the likely placement of the Martian relic to these three locations.”

President Polk leaned over the map and stroked his chin in thought. “Good work John. Taylor, why don’t you take some troops down to this spot for a look around.” he said, pointing to the one X closest to the new Texas border. “The rest of the territory there is far to vast to hope for a covert search of the area.” He stepped back from the table and began to pace the office.

Slidell smiled and said, “I’ve had an idea Mr. President.” Polk stopped in his restless pacing and looked to the diplomat. “War isn’t necessarily something that we want to launch into with Mexico, but perhaps we can avoid it by just offering to purchase the territory outright from them? We can suggest to Congress that we need access to the San Francisco Bay for trade to get them to approve the money.”

Polk smiled crookedly and nodded, “Not a bad idea John. not bad at all. Let’s go ahead and see what we can do there. And maybe on the trip out there you can arrange a stop by this Salt Lake location and look around.”

John Slidell straightened and said, “It would be an honor, sir.”

But that’s not all! Scott Roche was so inspired by this week’s theme that he did not one but 2 continuations of the prompts posted. His continuation of Monday’s New Adventures of Hitler is definitely worth reading, but his further examination of Mark Twain and Nikola Telsa’s friendship is too good not to post:

Sam Clemens took a pull on his cigar, the coal lighting the otherwise dim library. ”The devil you say. Is it that simple?”

Tesla nodded his head. ”Yes my friend, yes. That’s the beauty of it. And think, unlimited energy from such a simple, clean source.” The excitement brought his native accent to the fore, as it always did.

No one would believe them. They rarely did when genius brought them discovery like this. Not, that was, that this sort of genius or discovery was in any way common. He stirred the grainy contents of the mustard jar and marveled.

If anyone else wants to build on News From Poughkeepsie prompts–either from the current week, or any previous–leave a link or an excerpt in the comments, and I’ll put those up in the Sunday Edition as well. With a readership as talented as ISBW’s, there should be no shortage of gems!

The deal with freelancing and spinning a lot of plates means some inevitably get neglected. I continue to update the ISBW PDF but I just hadn’t gotten around to actually editing and getting it turned into PDF format. Thankfully, the mighty Phil Lunt has come to my rescue and created some awesome ebook files for me! You can get the first three chapters now in PDF or PRC format.

Did I mention it’s free?

• (intro, chapters 1,2 and …) Chapter 3- Ideas are EASY. Work is HARD (Direct PDF download — Direct PRC download)

The New Adventures of…Gouverneur Morris.

Dear Diary,

Today was ever so fine, as I was finally able to woo the Lady Westword away from her husband and to join me for some discrete necking and some indiscrete innuendo under the pear branches. Clearly Charles knew nothing when he said my cravat made may face look bloated. Lady Westword certainly did not think so!

Charles, you are a fathead.

Once again, my restating of how I wrote the “We the people” part of the Declaration of Independence got me a feel around the ol’ apple cart. I now understand Franklin’s envy when he saw what I had wrote. Not that he needs any other ammunition, the old slut!

Lady Westword–or Katie, as she blushingly requested I call her–is set to voyage to the Caribbean, and is most eger to have me accompany her. She claimed she was frightened of pirates. It was then that I swaggered my good wooden leg up and down, saying that I was more pirate than any she might come across.

This, as you might imagine, got me many, many more kisses than perhaps I deserve. Such is my lot in life.

Despite my bravado, I certainly don’t hope we run into any pirates when I join Katie in a fortnight. Though, I would be quite a tale…

• 00:00:07 ISBW #132
• 00:00:38 GoTo Meeting Message
• 00:01:12 Mur tackles ISBW administrative activities
• 00:02:49 Mur names her new assistant, Carrie Kei Heim Binas — check out Carrie’s writing blog at Heim Binas Fiction
• 00:03:37 State of the Mur update: finishing recording War, edits from agent on Heaven, more work on “Project Underground”, and then NaNoWriMo in November (if all goes according to plan) to write Playing for Keeps 2: No Takebacks
• 00:04:44 Upcoming NaNoWriMo focused interviews! Possibly Chris Baty [update since recording- INTERVIEW CONFIRMED!], definitely David Niall Wilson, and Nathan Lowell
• 00:06:05 Promo: The Kingdom Crisis Anthology
• 00:07:05 FEEDBACK: July emails: Is printing a single copy of a book “publishing”?  What is a good synopsis? (Suggested reading: Mastering the Dreaded Synopsis, Writing the Novel Synopsis, Writing a Synopsis (with lots of links from a romance writer.)  How do I protect my short stories? Is it legal to mention famous people in books?  How do I best present my children’s picture book for publication?  (Suggested reading: Editorial Anonymous, the blog of a children’s book editor.) Line-by-line editing vs. “big picture” editing. Polite ways to withdraw a short story from consideration. New beta software for managing timelines: Aeon Timeline.  How do you manage your various writing obligations (freelance vs. fiction)? Is it proper to use italics and exclamation marks in manuscript submissions?
• 00:19:24 FEEDBACK, continued: August emails:  How does an author refer to objects or situations with culture-specific names if writing a fantasy or SciFi story based in a world that has no knowledge of these cultures? Using children and plants to show the passage of time. What is a story bible? Letting authors know the value of their blurbs for other books. How should I handle my disobedient characters? How can I balance my screenplay writing with my novel writing? ISBW’s News from Poughkeepsie inspires listener Jason Ramboz to create the Fifty First Lines project – free ideas to take and use (under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license). Recommended podcast: Writing Challenges. How do I tell a story without explaining everything?  How do you outline short stories?  When should you apply for a copyright? Applying for contests instead of submitting to a magazine. How do I get a job writing for RPGs/writing for money?
• 00:35:03 FEEDBACK, continued: September emails: How do I get access to the ISBW archive episodes that aren’t currently on iTunes (Download them HERE.) How do I handle too many ideas for too many different kinds of writing? Concerns about needing to write more on a daily basis/how can I look at my output and be proud of it? Advice on alternate media/releasing books in podcast form, etc. Cory Doctorow calls for YA writers to donate digital books to a class for blind students.  Should I rearrange and edit the first parts of my draft novel now, or finish writing first? Writing franchise fiction (or not). Starship Sofa is launching its first anthology complete with free ebook.
• 00:47:28 Promo: Into the Blender
• 00:48:44 Contest winners announced (thank you to the 19 people who submitted writing prompts!)

Show notes provided by Carrie Kei Heim Binas.

Additionally, Carrie weighs in with some good synopsis advice:

My personal listener feedback on how to write a good synopsis — I’ve read that a synopsis is the place where you can “tell, don’t show.”  After all, there’s not enough space to show, but if (for example) a major plot point happens because a character gets really angry at another character, you can just say “this makes the hero very angry, and an epic battle ensues” without going into much detail.  However, I think that the best synopses are ones where the tone of the synopsis matches the tone of the manuscript.  An epic tale should have some hints of grandeur in the synopsis, but a lighthearted tale can have a hint of humor in it, etc.  My own main character is a bit irreverent, and the story is told with a rather “confidential” tone, so in my 6-page synopsis, I found room to drop 2 or 3 quotes of the MC’s language straight from the text of my novel, so that the reader could “hear” her voice more effectively.

Dr. Mercury by JR Blackwell

I’ve podcasted and written a bit on villains/antagonists and how to make them believable, but the ever-eloquent and so-damned-talented-I-want-to-hate-her-but-I-cant JR Blackwell said it so much better in this blog post.

A villain can be many things – from the casual cruelty of the hobbyist to the concentrated machinations of an expert. But Arching, the true Arching of a hero, that, my friend, takes love. Oh, it’s often thought that it’s hate, boiling rage or vengeance that fuels the rivalry between a hero and villain, but this is only the surface of the grand story. Deep down, beneath the rage, beneath all that fire and vitriol, must be love. You must love your hero, my friends; you must love her like she is your own child, like she is a part of your soul.

~from It Takes Love

She’s right, you know.

In podcasting, starting with the juggernauts JC Hutchins and Scott Sigler, some of us have self-appointed nemeses. Mine, if you didn’t know, is Matt Wallace, former pro wrestler and wordsmith behind many Parsec-winning short stories and the brilliant Failed Cities Monologues. Now, I want Matt to succeed. I want Matt to get book deals and money and groupies and hookers and blow. I want Matt to be the biggest thing the world has ever seen.

That way, when I destroy him, it will be that much sweeter.

Nobody wants a wussy enemy. Take The Tick, who has to deal with Brainchild calling him his arch enemy.

‘Arch enemy’? You must be joking, Charles. I mean, I don’t like you and everything but if I ever *do* have an arch enemy it’s not going to be some creepy little brat with a glass head.

You have to want your enemy to succeed, you have to root for them (when they’re not up against you) just so your eventual victory will be that much more awesome. And if someone else takes out your enemy before you do, then you will feel a hollow place in your heart.

All of that sounds like love to me. Well, most of it, anyway.

I had a realization the other day. Let’s face it. I have a jealous streak. I have human emotions. There are people I have childish feelings toward regarding their successes; I want to TAKES their successes from them, preciousss, as they do not DESERVES them…. Then I realized that I’ve watched some of my friends achieve successes, and the only jealousy I feel is, “when will it be my turn?” Feeling bad towards them, blaming them, wanting to take from them, never occurs to me. And I realized that it’s because I know them, I love them, I want shiny happy things for them. The people I feel the real gnaw-your-fingers-off jealousy toward are people I don’t know. They aren’t real to me, they are simply SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE. (No, I’m not saying whom.) But the people near me, the friends I get to watch as their careers skyrocket, I’m proud and thrilled for them, and just trying to get my own jetpack strapped on so I can catch up.

I love JR Blackwell. That’s why when she does amazing photo shoots and writes heart-wrenching fiction that goes along with it, I can’t hate her. I just admire her more.

So I guess, to get rid of the feelings of jealousy I have, I have to learn to love the people whom I’m jealous of. I have to appreciate their work, and if possible, meet them to have them be people to me instead of FIGUREHEADS WHO HAVE WHAT THEY DO NOT DESERVE AND THEREFORE I SHOULD TAKE THEIR SUCCESS FROM THEM.

Ahem. Where was I? Right. Love. It’s powerful, in both writing and life.

You have to care about something to want to interfere with it. You have to cheer something on in order to want to defeat it. Remember this as your write your antagonists.

Alternatively, in real life, if you actually do love someone, it’s easier for you to cheer for them when they succeed. And if you’re feeling those dark, rotting feelings of jealousy and anger and hurt when someone else does well, then a little love works there, too.

The New Adventures of…Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla

“Nicky, are you quite sure this is going to work?”

“You’ve never doubted me before, Sam.”

“Before, it was all experiments and labratories and…I’m holding a ray gun, for Pete’s sake!”

“As am I. And we’ll need them if we have any possible hope of defeating that tentacled horror from Dimension X.”

“Stick to the rayguns, Nicky. If we survive this, leave the descriptive articles to me…”

If there is one golden rule of podcasting fiction, it is “Don’t start podcasting until the book you are reading or performing is complete”, but what if the very essence of a podcast is its ability to change?  How can it reflect what the internet does best, disseminating timely information and seeking feedback from readers and listeners, if it is based on a plot written months or years earlier?  Is it possible to create an engaging tale set within our current timeframe that people can not only follow on a weekly basis, but can, with a little democratic process, have an impact on that is substantial enough to change the whole story?  Well, let us not forget that if there is one golden rule about rules, it is “Rules are made to be broken”.

When I set off writing my latest tale, all I had was a setting (Scotland) and a collection of simple guidelines to follow.  Every week I would post a week’s worth of local news stories and ask my listeners to vote for one.  I would then take that item of news and twist it in some way to make it different from reality.  These fractures would build up over time as part of the ongoing story, introducing new characters occasionally as required by the twists.  By the fourth week I had a core set of characters spread around the country being affected by these changes and just the smallest inkling of where the plot could go.

So, where does that leave me, having broken a cardinal podcasting law?  How do I manage to keep writing every week without knowing what the outcome of my story will be?  What stops me leaving gaping plot holes or writing myself into a corner?

The answer may not be what you would expect in the circumstances, but I use an outline.  True, it is not a complete summary of the whole story, as I don’t know what is coming, but without it I would have tripped myself up several times over, which is not a great way to keep listeners interested.  What I have is an overview of the story up to date, including character details that have been added as the story has developed, and a skeleton of what may be yet to come within a rough timeline.  For example, I know that the main antagonist will cross paths with two of the lead characters introduced in the first two weeks, but I don’t know exactly why or when or even what the outcome will be yet.  I just have this open line that states that it will happen at some point on order to move towards the resolution of the story; the result will probably surprise me as much as the listeners.

When a listener poll throws something new and unexpected into the mix, whether it is a character, a special item or an event, it needs careful consideration to identify the best place to slip it in.  Should it apply to the antagonist to assist in his devious plan or to the protagonist to throw a spanner in the works?  Can it be fully integrated into the plot straight away or would it be better to mention it in passing, foreshadowing later events or explaining a reason for actions that have already occurred?  Once these sort of questions are dealt with, the outline needs to be updated, including the potential impact on each of the characters and the overall plot.

Armed with this toolkit, the process of responding to changes becomes much more manageable, if not exactly easy.  Unlike writing a novel in the conventional manner, there is no going back to an earlier chapter to give a character an item she needs to escape a perilous situation later.  Once the episode is sent out to podcatchers, that’s it; the door is closed, if the horse has bolted you’ll need to come up with alternative arrangements for recovery.  There is only so far that planning can take you.  There will be a dead end or a plot twist from so far out-field that the only way out is with the imagination, but that in itself may open more interesting avenues of exploration than you might reasonably expect; just remember that limitations both demand and encourage creativity.

The New Adventures of…Joan of Arc

The girl couldn’t have been out of her teens, but Ronny was willing to give her the benefit of a doubt. And she clearly knew her weapons, the way she cracked open that sig to look down the barrel. But goddamn, there was no way this girl was buying all this ordinance. Like she was out to start a war.

“Listen, Miss—” Ronny started, but the girl cut him off.

“My name is Jeanne,” she said. Her words soft, musical. She did not look up.

“Right. Joan. Listen, are you gonna pay for allla this?” Jeanne looked up at Ronnie, her eyes the cold steel of the weapon in her small hands. “What I mean is, how are you are gonna pay for this? Credit?”

“I have notes,” she said, digging out crumpled bills from the pocket of her hoodie. “God has given me money to pay.”

Ronnie looked at the bills. 20s, mainly. But there were 50s and 100s in there too, all treated with the same lack of interest. He looked back at the girl. She was already absorbed in a Browning A-Bolt.

“God gave you this, eh? To buy guns with?”

“Of course,” said Jeanne, cocking the rifle. “I am His immortal warrior…”

I’d like to announce that I made my choice, and the new assistant is Carrie Kei Heim Binas, author of the fabulous writing blog, Heim Binas Fiction.

Carrie has already done the show notes for ISBW #131, so if you missed anything, you can check it out now.

Thanks to everyone who applied!

Then my buddy Gwen on Twitter said it sounded like a twitter project.

So what the hell- let’s do Nano WriMo! If you can’t commit to 50,000 words in the month of November, how about 4200 characters? That’s 140 characters of fiction every day – well, let’s say 135, saving five for one space and the hashtag #nwm

Bonus points if you write the fiction about nanobots or some other wee object.