C.Y. Reid

GJx2: my worries and fears.

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:13:39 +0100

I thought I’d take a little time to talk about the game jam that starts tomorrow. The one I volunteered to take part in, organised a logo-production for, contributed to the Google Group for, and, of course, the one I’m writing a weekly column on at Gamers with Jobs.

In short, it’s the day before, and I am really stressing out.

I’m not a game designer - I could find multiple things that are wrong with any game, but ask me to make one and I go blank. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I don’t criticise some stuff, these days - I know that I can’t actually achieve the same thing myself with my skillset, so I don’t really feel like I have the right to rag on them for it.

Primarily, I’m worried about:

Actually finishing the game, but this is a given - the wonder of writing a column for a popular site about the jam is that I finish or face public humiliation, as does the site, so it provides a somewhat intense source of motivation for me.
The art - I’m probably going to go for a game with VVVVVV graphical complexity simply because I can’t sprite to save my life and the thought, the mere thought, of me doing 3D work is laughable given the month-long time-span.
The music - I am a musician, or at least, I have been in some stages of my life. But at the same time, composing music is a little daunting, especially when I know that if a repeating track sucks, the player will mute the sound and keep it that way, ignoring the other tracks that might not suck as badly as the one that put them off.
The concept - I’ve not played them, but commenters over at GWJ revealed to me that there are two games already themed around hugging. Sure, they’re not actually the same in terms of story, but one of them looks really great, like Swords and Sworcery great, and it was made in 48 hours, as far as I’m aware. Wonderful. No pressure.
Stencyl. I have no idea how easy this tool is actualy going to be to use when it comes to the real grind - actually getting the work done and the game built. Hopefully it’ll be easy enough for me to get a fun, great game sorted out in the time I have.

What I’m looking forward to:

Actually making a game. Being able to point to it and say “that’s mine. You can play it. It has a start and an end.”
Seeing the feedback/comments grow on GWJ (I hope) as the columns go on and the playable version develops.
Potentially seeing my game appear somewhere on some site with someone going “you HAVE to play this. This is awesome.”
Being able to expand the game after it’s done and potentially build it up into a massive, sprawling game - or a developed Metroidvania sequel, in which you go around a huge space station hugging unique aliens, rather than from planet to planet.
People enjoying the soundtrack/art/story/gameplay/anything about it at all.

What scares me is the (admittedly self-inflicted) publicity of it all, but at the same time, that also means I’m extremely unlikely to lose focus. So, if you see me freaking out on Twitter or anything like that, please know that it’s due to everything I just wrote about. I’ll link the columns as I go, and I would say that I’ll blog here as well and be a little more personal about the development process, but I’ll probably just do that there, as I think that’ll have more of an impact than a goddamn plain progress report.

Good luck, me.

The point where I stop forcing myself.

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 19:03:57 +0100

So, for ages, I’ve been going on and on about writing two books, and getting them published, and doing all this stuff that’s basically going to take up every goddamn weekend and evening forever with no immediately foreseeable reward.

Stuff it.

Instead, I’m going to focus on my career, my life, and while continuing to contribute to the odd thing, I’m going to just basically get myself to a place where I feel like I can write for the sheer joy of it, rather than pressure myself into this whole “you’re twenty-four, quick, sell a novel already!” stuff that has been driving me up the wall.

Next month I am taking part in a game jam, and I’m making a game where a marine goes to a lot of alien planets and hugs some aliens in order to make friends with their entire race. Diplomacy via hugs, via a platformer. You can already tell I’m a happier human being.

As for the book, still totally doable - just at my own pace. I really don’t know why I do this to myself, to be honest with you - I set myself ridiculous goals (i.e. write a good, full-length novel within a month, while working a full-time job, a podcast and a contributor position at a site) and then I always fail them. I’m actually delieriously happy simply thinking about my future now I’m not piling on work I make no money from and frankly, find a little too stressful to enjoy right now.

I’ll continue to write here - in fact, I’ll probably write here a little more as a result. But I can relax a bit, now. Good stuff. Now to go upload a podcast, and go and play a Pandaren Monk.

Update.

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:19:18 +0100

Right, so, I’ve got a ton of catching up to do, I know, so I thought I’d kinda hash things out with you people. At the moment I am:

Looking forward to seeing my name on the shelf at Forbidden Planet in June.
Working on a few new sites.
Working on a novel.
Moving towards hosting everything from my blog to other stuff over at an entirely new domain that will encompass everything a little better. I’m still not sure about this one, though.

The reason I’ve been so quiet is that I’m doing a lot of learning, a lot of working, having some fun, and basically taking a look at where I’m at and where I want to be. Looking forward to a lot of changes in the next several months. More soon, eh?

Update time, re: AYWT.

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 21:51:30 +0000

I’ve done no work on it this week, because I’ve had a lot of stuff that’s been more important. Some of that was sleeping. But I know that I’ve got a lot more editing ahead of me than I previously realised, and that in fact, this book could well get significantly longer. So, that’s good. I’ll keep you posted - not abandoning, just got a lot to do.

AYWT: The Edit, day four.

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:59:09 +0000

Today, I got some more charting of the plot done, and some feedback from a couple of chapter one beta readers. The feedback was great, and helpful. Also means I might be restoring a decent chunk of the opening chapter that I nixed after a BookCountry reviewer convinced me to can it.

Now, I’m going to finish The Social Network (I watch this film quite a bit) and get some sleep. Hopefully by Sunday the rest of the feedback will appear, and by next week I’ll be editing the novel and preparing it for beta readers. Laters.

AYWT: The Edit, day three.

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:52:27 +0000

Today, I sent out my first chapter to a bunch of people I know whose opinions I’d be interested in reading. They’re all writers, but not all of them write fiction - some of them just happen to read books. I’ll be watching their reactions closely, because I’d love to see how non-fiction-writer people react to it, as I have a feeling they’ll be less nitpicking. Then again they are writers, so who knows?

I think it’s good, I’ll just have to roll with the punches if they think it isn’t. And now, to wait. Dum dee dum. Oh, boy.

Remodelling Dark Souls

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:36:00 +0000

Remodelling Dark Souls:

This was a piece I wrote about Dark Souls, in which I basically attack its treatment of narrative and its souls-as-a-currency mechanic. It got people talking, and I really enjoy throwing a spanner in the works of people who enjoy a game without nit-picking it the way I sometimes like to do.

Not that those people are flawed, in any way - I like just enjoying a game for what it is. But when going back to it in order to research my second article about it, I was miserable, and tired of it, and thought it had issues, so I brought two of them to light. Hope you enjoy it - the title of the post is the link to the article.

AYWT: The Edit, day two.

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:18:37 +0000

Today I got nothing done at all, because I slept so badly last night that I’m physically exhausted. I know some people are HARDCORE WRITERS but I’m not an idiot and prefer taking care of myself. The wonders of having a day-job, I guess. I’m consciously aware of the fact that it piles more work onto me, but that’s okay. I just need to take things one step at a time and realise my opportunities aren’t going anywhere if they’re all self-made, although novel #2 does have something of a deadline in terms of beating someone else to it.

It makes me wonder how other people feel really, if anything - some writers have this bizarre, obtuse “write every day” approach, and although I do technically do this - I’m a copywriter - I feel like that’s a completely stupid approach. You’re either inspired or you’re not. You’re either motivated or you’re not. I don’t like the concept of forcing yourself into a state or task you’re not moving into naturally. You’re a human being, not a writing machine, and this culture of HEY GUYS I STAYED UP TILL 4AM OH MAN NOW I’VE GOT TO GO TO WORK/TAKE THE KIDS TO SCHOOL LOL stuff drives me absolutely nuts.

So, yeah. No activity, but rest instead, and I need that. Laters.

An uneasy sense of self-confidence

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:55:55 +0000

Going back to a novel after four months fills me with two sensations - uneasiness (about how good it will be), and dread (because once I’m done with something I really don’t enjoy going back - a pretty major flaw in a writer).

When I went back to AYWT - I’ll talk about the title when it’s done - I discovered that not only was it actually pretty solid in structure (although I’m concerned about the order of events as it’s been so long I’m blanking, so a full-read through is in order), but it actually reads well, and I mean well to the point where I feel like it’s beyond something I could actually write.

I am not a fan of this sensation.

I think it’s mainly because it makes me feel seriously arrogant, and it makes me worry because if I say I think it’s good and people don’t enjoy it, I’m going to look like an idiot. I’m far from humble - frankly, if I couldn’t write, I wouldn’t have done as well as I have thus far - but I’m reluctant to call my novel amazing. But I really like the writing, and I’m glad that I took on board a common criticism - to strip out most if not all of the profanity.

It’s weird - I don’t swear on my blog, or on Twitter. It’s a rule I’ve held to since I was once swore on an older blog and removed the offending word(s - I don’t really remember the details). But in my book I swore like a son of a mother, because my character and everyone around him swore like sons of mothers. Or daughters. I’m trying to be equal-opportunities here.

I’m also drifting away from my theme. Ahem.

Honestly, I’m just really keen on seeing what people think of it. Getting some beta readers in will be really important, although I’m worried that as they’re probably all going to be friends of mine, they’ll be offended by the NDA I’m going to make them sign. It’s not because I’m being horrible, it’s just because I’m really passionate about keeping my ideas locked down outside the people I’ve chosen to tell - though not to the point where someone couldn’t tell their other half, as long as that’s as far as it goes.

The thing with ideas, and this book, is that I’m really keen on keeping them quiet. The literary scene is an endless sea of paranormal romance (not that I mind it, but it’s completely over-saturated the market) and generic thrillers. Original or different ideas are few and far between, and although this is a straight-up thriller with a few tweaks, novel #2 is a concept piece that I’d be devastated to see ripped off and dashed out onto the web.

At least the outline is going well, although during the chapters that needed work or, in one case, almost an entire rewrite, I started assaulting myself with CAPS IN BOLD TO INDICATE WHERE I DIDN’T LIKE SOMETHING AND NEEDED TO FIX IT. It’s a book about a weird journey, so I’m aiming to make sure it actually sounds like a journey, rather than a bloke stumbling around aimlessly, which it sometimes is, but hopefully not in a way that bores the hell out of you, the likely reader of the piece.

So, I’m uneasy. Laters.

AYWT: The Edit, day one.

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:17:24 +0000

Sigh.

I love writing, but I don’t like editing. I enjoy it, but usually only if it’s me sat with a printed version and a pen, or reading it out loud (this is really effective, as you’ll stumble over your mistakes). Looking at a document in Word and realising I’ve got to rewrite huge chunks of the book is daunting at best, and depressing, at worst.

But it’s got to be done - it’s a good story, one I want to tell you, and one I want to publish next month. I figure the easiest way to do this is to chronicle how far I’ve gotten at the end of each day I work on it. Hopefully you’ll be curious enough by the end of the process to actually buy/sample the book itself, which will be e-published via myself, on Amazon’s Kindle Store, and soon after will become a KDP Select title, to help boost publicity and promote the book.

The moment it goes out, I’ll take a week off from writing and keep up PR, then while maintaining that little planned effort, I’ll start planning and then writing novel #2, which is going to be longer (this one stands at 50k words, but who knows, it might grow or shrink during editing) and written and published significantly faster.

Then, who knows?

—later—

Tonight, I finally went back to charting what happens in each chapter, in bullet points. I started at just after the opening of chapter eight, and finished at thirteen, with the intention of finishing it completely tomorrow, so I can start actually editing and rewriting significant chunks of it by Thursday (I’m out Wednesday night).

As far as the rewriting actually goes, I’m pretty damn happy. Looking through it from chapter eight onwards, it’s well-written and reads solid, so I’m happy that after a rewrite and an editing pass, I can give it to whichever crazy (read: insanely time-generous) people sign up to beta-read it (with an NDA of course - archaic, but stuff it, I protect my IP). I have also figured out how to rewrite the main chunk I was concerned about.

My issue with rewriting that chunk was the feeling that it was that point I should be using to effectively shoehorn in 30,000 words. No, really. My novel is, what, around 220 pages? I’m worried it’s too short, despite being a fan of (and heavily influenced by, for this novel at least) Phillip K. Dick’s novels, one of which (Androids or Scanner, one of the damn two) is about 180 pages, to memory.

I’m content with it staying short - I’ve felt that way for a while now, and this settled it.

Until tomorrow then, peeps.

CY & J.: CY & J.: #11: Twenty questions, part two.

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:12:38 +0000

CY & J.: CY & J.: #11: Twenty questions, part two.:

cyandj:

Happy Sunday, peeps. This week’s episode (our eleventh!) is the second of two - because the recording was so long we thought we’d split it up into two chunks at around regular length. We each asked each other ten questions, based around each other and our gaming thoughts and habits. This week’s…

Another one I enjoyed, this time with a happier finish.

How to lose friends and alienate employees

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:05:03 +0000

A magazine publishing house are making some money, and, according to their founder, quite a lot of money - “the same as Facebook’s”, he says of their net profit margin. His bragging is a problem, for several reasons.

He isn’t paying the writers enough. In fact, some of them aren’t even paid at all! Isn’t that wonderful. Well, I’m glad that while he’s expanding his little empire of sites, apps and print magazines, it’s arguable that at least some of the people producing the content that’s making the company so rich are not living the life they’d like to lead. Funnily enough, you can’t pay your rent with the odd bit of praise from the big man up top.
He has no concept of how different Facebook and his business are. Seriously - they’re not even the same kind of business. Facebook is a social networking platform with its fingers in various related pies, and Imagine is pushing journalism and similar media onto apps, print pub, and the web. It’s like comparing a taxi service and a hot dog stand. We can conclude from this that his understanding of basic business concepts, such as identify the industry and sector a business operates within, may be somewhat limited.
It shows no interest in the issues surrounding his company. If people within journalism but outside your company are publicly addressing your failings in a manner you should be addressing immediately and following up on with a formal statement, yet you cannot muster a response (and frankly, so few tweets and followers for the head of a media empire is ridiculous), you are damaging your reputation, and the reputation of your company.
He has become an island. By constantly being positive and arrogant about the successes of his business, he is simply alienating those within the company who may have issues with the way it is run, from how much they’re paid, to how he is presenting Imagine as a whole. By repeatedly excluding himself from the PR-unfriendly matter of low-or-no pay for many writers, he is not integrating himself into the network of people slaving under him - something that should be one of his top priorities.

If Facebook is indeed his ideal success story - and I think we can take from his comment about net profit margins that it is - then it might be worth considering that Mark Zuckerberg, aloof though he may appear through the media, sits at a randomly placed desk in the middle of their offices. There’s no wood-panelled office, no “hey, I’m mister corporate” attitude, because for all the profits, it’s arguable that Facebook cares about its staff and he happens to be just that - one of its staff.

If you’ve got profit to invest (and you should be investing it), then put it into the people generating the product you’re pushing. Sir, you look foolish, and it’s making a mockery of your company and its sites, apps and magazines. Not to the readers - but to the industry itself, and when the time comes to replace people who might just end up leaving out of sheer frustration, you won’t have anyone worth the salary left to choose from.

Update: Feburary, 2012

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:12:54 +0000

Something of a personal update, today - I wanted to bring you a post yesterday on something I feel strongly about, but it involves various stupid things I tend to do as often as the people I criticise, and I’d rather publish nothing at all than utter hypocrisy.

I’m working through the last stages of the RPG project this week, for a final deadline that is approaching at a reasonable pace. It’s quite a big thing, to see this all come together, and I’m happy that my editor seems to be content with what I’ve got down so far - just the formatting and rewrite bits and bobs from both the editor and the company who owns the IP we’re using to deal with, now.

I’m shifting the iPad-iBook project into the second half of 2012, which means no iPad until far later in the year. It’s actually a weight off my shoulders, if anything - I was constantly thinking about the cost (as the model I would get will be, and this is my estimate, over half a grand) and it was getting to me quite a bit. It’s a luxury item, sure, but I do want to get involved in iBooks, so it’s something worth thinking about.

That and I’d like to earn it.

I want to be able to buy it with the money I’ve made from my writing, and that’s why I’ll be starting an iPad 3 and PS Vita (c’mon, I’m a gamer) fund that I’ll dump book revenue into until two conditions are met:

All three novels are out via self-pub.
I have made enough to buy both.

This means that, realistically, I’m putting a novel out in, hmm, March? That’s a big deal, to me, and it’ll be the first time a long-form piece of fiction of mine will be in the public domain. To start with, I’m going with KDP Select, as this allows me 90 days of promotion (possibly more, actually, if I want to do a second 90) and at least five days of “it’s free” promo time. Whether I’ll do this with the other two remains to be seen - it depends how this project goes. But I’m looking forward to getting started.

The book I’ll be aiming to send out into the cold, harsh environs of reader-world in March is one I wrote during NaNoWriMo in 2010, and one I’d like to clean up, refine and get out there, as it’s an idea I like and gives me something to show people as I launch myself headlong into the ones I’ve not even started planning yet. So, here goes, I guess. Laters.

Choose Your Own Misadventure

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:53:55 +0000

Last year, I published, having spent months working alongside a programmer, a choose-your-own-adventure app for Android, called Scoundrel’s Cross. It had taken some time, I had done the press for it, we had a review in PocketGamer (a five out of ten, and I’ll explain that soon), and I’d even blogged about writing it for the renown Terribleminds blog, owned and operated by one Chuck Wendig.

The app came out.

And it sucked.

Now, let’s analyse this, because if there’s anything I think people would benefit from - specifically people who want to write a choose-your-own-adventure novel - it’s learning why we screwed it up so badly.

This isn’t a denial of accountability, but I’d be crazy to say that it was my fault. At first, the idea was we’d have choices on every page. Why? Because this is what you do. But it soon became apparent that in the many pages of the novel we’d written together so far, there were only around five or six choices. Sounds terrible, right?

It gets worse.

We decided (well, he said what he wanted to do, and it was his IP, so I went along with it) to release it in five parts, rather than release it all at once as an entirely self-contained app. Updates or new apps, who knows - we never got past part one because the delays got so long that we both called time on the project. I was enthusiastic and raring to go, but I think he had a lot going on behind the scenes, and although I’m disappointed it didn’t happen, I’m not going to hold that against him. He worked hard, and I sure as hell can’t program an app.

The problem with these mistakes is they go against so many of the fundamental rules, or my rules, at least, of what goes into a great choose-your-own-adventure book. Here they are, for you to agree or disagree with as you see fit.

A choice on every page. No, really, don’t even bother writing a choose-your-own-adventure novel if you’re not going to offer someone some way to change the course of their journey through the book every time they turn the page. The reason for this is because turning the page, for the reader, is an act they will relate to making a choice.

But introduce them to a page-turning event that doesn’t allow them to make a choice, and you’ve taken that familiar if you choose choice A, turn to page X choice away from them. Interactive content needs to stay interactive throughout, or at least damn interesting or you risk losing the reader as they begin to feel frustrated and powerless.

One long story. Do not release it in chunks. The reason the app we worked on went south was because he was low on spare time, and because I was really unhappy with the decision he’d made to split up what was a relatively short book already into chunks so small that you’d be in and out of the app we released, beginning to end, in about five minutes.

Ideally, you want something that provides someone with about, hmm, 150 pages of content. Which means a lot of content for you. Try not to think about it too much, because I assure you it will depress you. Most readers are not going to re-read your CYOA book, but if they do, the advantage of having so many pages is that it can genuinely be a totally different experience at least twice. You don’t need thousands of branches, but many different routes through to several different endings can not only keep the reader feeling in control of the outcome, but also encourages discussion, i.e. “what did you do in the cave? I took route A, but should I check out route B next time?”

It’s a novel, stupid. It might be a CYOA title, don’t don’t opt for prose that’s a little too basic - this isn’t a blow-by-blow of a videogame, it’s an actual novel. Ensure your description is lush with detail, and don’t skimp on the characterisation - your protagonist may be a shell, its existence defined soley by the second-person viewpoint you’re using, but a barren story does not a book make. If you want to make a game, make a game - CYOA novels are interactive fiction. There’s a difference, there, and if you’re not sure what that difference is, it’s that the reader can’t see anything until you tell them what they’re looking at. Imagine playing a videogame blind. See? There you go.

If you experiment, make it good. People are used to the second-person, and if you futz around with this particular genre staple, then you better be able to back it up with some pretty goddamn amazing characterisation. If you want fifty choices per page, you’ll need thousands of pages to back that up, lest your reader’s CYOA experience with your book be two goddamn pages long.

Make sure you know what age group you’re writing for. This one occurred to me as I was finishing up here, and my god is it important. CYOA books are traditionally for kids, right? That means that your stuff needs to fit that market. But it doesn’t mean that you can’t write, say, a gore-fest thriller for adults that uses CYOA mechanics. In fact, a mature series of CYOA novels might be an interesting experiment - will they read it, or will the CYOA thing put them off considering it as a book for adults? Only one way to find out, I guess, but personally, I’m aiming for something more in the middle - teens and adults, enjoyable because it’s simple and has a strong storyline. But that’s just me. You’re your own people.

Now, the one thing I don’t know how to do is price it. Do you go with novel pricing? Do you make it cheaper as, to the reader, it’s a shorter novel? Or do you make it more expensive, because there’s a game element to it? It’s a tough choice, and personally I might opt to make it cheaper, as ultimately it’ll read like 50,000 words to them, even if it’s 150,000 to you.

Now go forth, and write awesome CYOA books.

Laters.

CY & J.: CY & J.: #10: Twenty questions, part one.

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:11:31 +0000

CY & J.: CY & J.: #10: Twenty questions, part one.:

cyandj:

Happy Sunday, peeps. This week’s episode (our tenth!) is the first of two - because the recording was so long we thought we’d split it up into two chunks at around regular length. We each asked each other ten questions, based around each other and our gaming thoughts and habits. This week’s…

This first half was harder than the first, mainly because I had to talk about my grandfather and his passing, which I’ve always found difficult. But it’s a chance to look a little closer at us as people, and as gamers, so I hope people enjoy it.

How to judge stand-up and podcast humour

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:31:59 +0000

Step one: download said stand-up or podcast.

Step two: listen to it on public transport.

If it’s funny, you’ll look like a nutter, laughing at something no one can see or hear.

For bonus points, wear a hat that hides your headphones.

/facepalm

In Favour of iBook Author

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:24:30 +0000

This post is about something that irritates the living hell out of me, almost as much as people who see ebooks as a bad and terrible thing, despite the fact that they have got so many people reading who wouldn’t normally read.

It’s called iBook Author, and some people don’t like it.

At first, it was pure, unbridled stupidity, relentless in its ignorance. “What? We can’t publish the iBooks we used Apple’s software to make anywhere else? Oh, god! No! Our copyright!”

No. No, no, no.

Your book - and I said this before all the astonishing genius put forth by those who actually used their common sense appeared - is not in danger. You can simply re-format it for Kindle, or Nook, or whatever platform you’re intending to publish it on. Apple don’t want your goddamn prose, they just want you to give them exclusivity to the awesome thing you made using the software they gave you for free.

The worst part is that there are inevitably a bunch of people whining and complaining that they can’t take their amazing iBook Author layout and publish it elsewhere. Let me explain to you why this is an incredibly short-sighted, bizarre, lazy, archaic approach is all of the things I just said:

You’re failing to embrace a viable format. By simply ignoring iBooks because you’re going to have to format your book again for Kindle and other ereaders, you’re missing out on a huge potential market. the iPad 3 will hopefully hit shelves in March, and this combined with the big push for iBooks and, of course, significant iPad user numbers, means you’re stopping yourself from tapping a market that could help you, as a writer. Take advantage of the massive amount of writers who won’t make use of this opportunity.
It’s free. No, really. iBook Author is free software. If you own a Mac, and can access the App Store, you can download it and use it for free. You don’t pay Apple for any new features, or updates (thus far). Your cost is simply your time, and if you can balance a new market and a potential to take books to another level of interactivity against an ongoing formatting project (time-dependent, of course), then download and use it. Apple’s only repayment is your exclusivity to them in terms of your finished iBook. That sounds fair, to me.
You are not losing your work to Apple. What is wrong with people? Did you seriously think, off the bat, that this is something Apple would gamble with? Taking Amazon’s reach and market share into account, this sounds even more stupid than it did before. You keep your goddamn prose, you’re just allowing them to be the only person to sell the iBook file! What other platform were you planning to run an ebook with widgets and HTML5 on, your wristwatch?
You are a writer. Stop being a lazy one. Oh, no, another new format? Cry me a river, seriously. You’re willing to go through the rigmarole of self-publishing just to cop out because this format offered you the opportunity to create a one-off, cool version of your book for people who want to use their iPad to explore literature in new ways? Come on. You’ve done the hard work! The novel is done! Now make it look incredibly cool! Sure it’s a shame that you can’t do this on the Kindle, but is that Apple’s fault, or the Kindle’s? Alternatively, why not make a PDF of the same quality in Microsoft Wo-oh wait, you can’t. No, that’d be InDesign. Software that will cost you hundreds of money-bits. This is free. FREE.

I think what irritates me the most is the majority of people who would reject this change wouldn’t walk away from Amazon’s market should Amazon say “hey, Kindle formatting software for you! Free! But we get exclusivity on the file you create with it!” In addition, the sort of people who refuse any sort of ebook format altogether and commit themselves to paper books. you’re free to do that, but some of you have a weird habit of calling ereaders and ebooks terrible, and not real, and all this other weird stuff that you don’t quite understand but shove down the throats of anyone who will listen anyway.

Tell you what, tell that to someone who gets interactive widgets in the novels they buy. Tell that to children looking at iPad versions of picture books, where they can touch and move and read and look, where literature becomes more interactive than it ever has before. You’re all over literature coming to life on the page. So why not allow that to happen more literally? Go read, or make an iBook. Look at the quality of the software you’ve been given, and the market you’ve been granted conditional (don’t upload horrendous stuff) access to. Stop nitpicking and enjoy the opportunity to be new in a market that hasn’t been suffocated with terrible e-pub literature yet.

*breathes*

Laters.

Agony, or how to not write too much at once

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:22:58 +0000

Currently, I am knee-deep in one of the most engaging and important projects of my writing career. There’s no “maybe” about penning prose and game design for this particular piece - without a doubt, my words are in that book and on shelves by the summer. It brings with it a curious kind of focus, a knowledge that this is your task and you’d better get it done. And yet, I still can’t stop thinking about one thing.

Novel number one.

It’s been plaguing me for months now, and the reason for it is I’ve got ideas and motivation bursting at the seems for it, so much so that writing anything else at all outside my day job feels like so many minutes being wasted. This isn’t because I’m uninterested in the RPG book project - far from it, I’m more engaged than I’ve ever been with freelance work. But It’s that all-consuming urge that drives me towards thinking about and planning that I find hard to deal with.

One of the ways I let a little of the pressure out of this little pressure cooker I call my noggin is through emailing. I email character names, place ideas, and plot points to myself, all under the email title of “book” (so I can quickly find all the emails in my archives when the time comes). I find it’s a good way of ensuring I don’t go COMPLETELY NUTS when I’m trying to work on other stuff.

My final deadline for this RPG stuff is early to mid-February. It’s intense, and I know we’ll be doing some redrafting, but I’ve never been so excited about a single novel idea I’ve had. In addition to that, the iPad 3 should show its face in March, which means not only a Kindle release, but a complex, feature-rich iBook version as well.

Today, I had someone I didn’t know (no offense to you sir, of course) approach me on Twitter and ask if I had any published work kicking around. Oh, did I mentally shake my fist at the sky, and cry “why do you ask this of me now, sir?! Why not in six months, when novel #1 and the RPG book will be out?” It’s astonishing to have someone ask you what stuff you’ve got out, seriously. I’ve never had that before, and I was flattered beyond all belief.

So, if you’re in my position, write all of that stuff down, relax, let it go out of your head for a bit, and get on with your top priority work for the time being. Then, by the time you’re free enough to start, you’ll be eager and well-prepared, rather than dealing with a first draft you wrote at two in the morning in an effort to stop all the ideas beating your brain senseless every day. Enjoy your idea rush, people. Laters.

Haiku #1: Writing

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:36:52 +0000

Writing is sometimes

Playing a game of chicken

With all of your fears

CY & J: #9: SOPA and PIPA.

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:14:30 +0000

CY & J: #9: SOPA and PIPA.:

cyandj:

You may notice that this episode is completely silent. In fact, it’s silent for all sixty minutes of its length. The reason for this is because although we can’t manage the blackout as easily, for a podcast, this is the nearest equivalent.

You can learn all about SOPA and PIPA here. The…

This is the podcast I host, and my contribution to all the crazy what the hell stuff that’s going on right now.