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New project: Wine Bottles and Broomsticks

Winebottles_Broomsticks
After a short and remarkably lack-luster stint as a federal investigator, Rick Basket finds himself assigned to a unit that his partner, Finton Mulligan, assures him is charged with hunting witches. As Rick tries to come to terms with his new job, his personal life begins to fall apart, complicated by the appearance of a gorgeous red-head, with romantic designs who proves to be an essential resource in his hunt.

This tongue-in-cheek urban fantasy serial is meant to keep me occupied while I wait for feedback from beta readers on The War of Shadows. I’m pretty excited about this one because it’s so different from anything else I’ve attempted. It will be available in random installments at channillo.com (http://channillo.com/series/wine-bottles-and-broomsticks/). I don’t have a release date yet, but It’s my main project at the moment. I’m hoping to release the first installment in the next few weeks and then roughly once every other month or so after. I’m sure you’ll be hearing all about it as I progress.

Cover art by: SelfPubBookCovers.com/FrinaArt

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Writer’s ego – taking advice (again)

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Anybody know how to engage beta readers without sounding like an asshole?

Here’s the problem. I know my book needs work. It’s my first completed novel. What I don’t know is what needs to be modified from the perspective of the reader (ie: What doesn’t work, what sort of things to the readers do not like, and so on.) I also know that the reader is not always right, but the reader is always the reader and any complaint should be heard out. A decision to modify the work according to the feedback should be something that is deliberative. I genuinely want the readers to come back to me and give me honest feedback as to what stinks. Of course, those people are friends and family, they want to be supportive right? They don’t want to make critical feedback that’s going to make me feel bad.*

So today I had an exchange that ran: “So, tell me how much you loved my book so far.”**
“I only read the first two pages.”
Both of us laugh, “Sucked that bad did it?” I asked.
“No, no, I didn’t say that.”
The joking starts to cool, but I try to keep it going.
“Really, did you not like it? What sucked – I can’t fix it if you don’t say.”
“Oh, well, it was fine really.”

… This went on for a while before coffee break ended and I went back to work.

I did finally get some advice from this, and I feel like it was good and addressed some things I have been worrying about. It essentially confirmed my worry. The problem was that it was pulling teeth to get that feedback out, and I’m pretty sure I sounded like an ass in asking for it. As near as I can tell, the reluctance is that the work is a little rough, and in pointing out issues there is concern that I’ll take it badly or argue about the advice. All I really want to do is to improve, and even if I think the advice is crap, I do appreciate it. Of course, I also recognize that I’m asking people to read 95,000 words of something they may not like, and not because the writing stinks.

 

*I’m going to feel bad about comments describing any significant revisions.
** This was done jokingly, and appropriate in context.

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Thinking about the end (And they all lived happily ever after)

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I know I promised a dreadful rant on word processors, but there’s just too much other stuff on my mind. Last Thursday I accepted a new job, and submitted my resignation from an organization I’ve been with for more than a decade. Without going into any real specific details, I’m leaving my unit organized, efficient, and fully staffed with highly qualified and trained individuals. When I started, the unit was fairly well disorganized and derided as the biggest problem in our division. In short, it’s in better shape than I found it, and likely to stay that way. Another interesting tidbit is that the last project I’m working on happens to be connected to a series of reports that hasn’t had an update in 11 years. That last report was the first major project I worked on. This weekend I also began sending out my WIP for folks to read and review. I started the book right around the time I started my current job. There is a symmetry in all of these things I appreciate, it’s the sort of thing you find in a novel. While life continues on and a new adventure is just around the corner, a major chapter has concluded.

To tie this into writing, specifically thoughts about the end of a novel. I haven’t gotten to the point of actually having the ending of a fully drafted and once revised book before. Last Friday, somewhere near the bottom of a glass of wine, technically Saturday morning, I got to the last chapter, then last page, and paragraph and finally sentence. I spent longer on those last few sentences than anything else in the entire last chapter. I know the book needs to end in the general vicinity of where it has, it’s just that I’m hung up on what, precisely, those last few words ought to be.

Very often the end of a book is some sort of ‘happily ever after’. However, there are also very many books that are intended to be part of a series. These finish on a similar sentiment, but say something more like ‘and he walked off into the sunset’. One particular ending that’s simultaneously final but gives a distinctly walk off into the sunset feel was the ending to Rama Revealed, by Arthur C. Clarke and Genry Lee. Unfortunately, I no longer have a copy, I recall it having a poetic air. It was final and bitter-sweet, yet had the air of going on to another adventure. That ending stuck with me because it was so well done. I loved Dune, but I couldn’t tell you what the last scene was, and I’m too lazy to dig it up. To illustrate the point, I semi-randomly pulled a few books from my shelf and picked out the very last sentence of each:

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
“Okay, baby, hold tight,” said Zaphod. “We’ll take in a quick bite at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein
“Thank goodness!” said Bilbo laughing, and handed him the tobacco-jar.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke(I’m going to argue two endings here one on Ch 45 and one on Ch 46)

Chapter 45:
Though that, surely, could not be its ultimate goal, it was aimed squarely at the Greater Magellanic Cloud, and the lonely gulfs beyond the Milky Way.

Chapter 46:
The Ramans do everything in threes.

The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell
For I am Uhtred, Earl Uhtred, Uhtred of Bebbanburg, and destiny is everything.

All have some flavor of happily ever after or walking off into the sunset (also interpreted as this adventure is over, but another is around the corner.) I suppose one could do a thesis for an MFA on the last sentence of English novels, I daresay many someones have. My point remains, how does one neatly wrap it all up and close it with a pretty little bow? I don’t know exactly. For the moment the manuscript is in the tender care of beta readers. Once they return a verdict, I’ll have plenty of other things to mop up before I get back to the end.