Categories
writing year in review

2017 Writing Year in Review

Writing This Year

Novels: 2 (Blood Binds the Pack and an as-yet untitled scifi novel that I finished off at the beginning of December.)

Novellas: 0

Novellettes:  0

Short Stories: 1

Flash: 3

Feature Length Scripts: 0

Other Scripts: 2 scripts written for Six to Start

Paid Reviews/Nonfiction: 4 for Tor.com, 17 for Book Riot

Treatments/Outlines: 7

Editing: A couple of small paid editing gigs.

Consigned to the trunk of awfulness, never to return: None this year, maybe because I’ve been completely ignoring my short stories in favor of long stuff.

Best/Favorite story of the year: Without a doubt, it’s Blood Binds the Pack. I am so fucking proud of this novel. It did everything I wanted it to do and then some.

Magic Spreadsheet wordcount: I have been tracking on the spreadsheet since June 24, 2013.

  • Total words written: 501,010 this year (1,933,798 in the last ~4.5 years)
  • Average words per day: 1,373 (more than last year’s 1,276/day)
  • Days in a row written: 1,651 (over 4 years without stopping)

Publishing

Queries sent: 10
Rejections received: 8
Pending: 2
Most rejections received: This year, it’s Excerpts from the Personal Journal of Dr. V. Frankenstein, MD, Department of Pathology, Our Lady of Mercy Hospital, again. But I am going to sell this story, dammit.
Total earned: $9,872.41, surpassing last year by over $2K and making this year the most I’ve earned with my writing thus far in my life. Obviously still not at a level where I could even entertain the notion of supporting myself, but it’s heartening.

Published this year:

  1. Hunger Makes the Wolf (Barnes and Noble, and Kobo)
  2. Angel of the Blockade from Tor.com (ebook version)
  3. Past the Black Where Call the Horns in KZine issue #19
  4. Comfort Food in Haunted Futures: Tomorrow is Coming
  5. Once Upon a Time There Was a Xurit Named Xcanda from Humans Wanted
  6. Six More Miles in Giganotosaurus (3/1/17)
  7. [REDACTED]
  8. The Escapism of Romance (Book Riot)
  9. Recommended Reading for Andy Weir (Book Riot)
  10. 9 Space Magic Books for Fans of the Destiny Games (Book Riot)
  11. Reasons I didn’t finish the book you loaned me (Book Riot)
  12. Tolkien’s Map and the Perplexing River Systems of Middle Earth (Tor.com)
  13. Tolkien’s Map and the Messed Up Mountains of Middle Earth (Tor.com)
  14. Speculative Fiction on Tap: Revenge of the SF (Book Riot)
  15. Hugo Awards 2017: The Wonkening (Book Riot)
  16. 7 Ways to Support Your Favorite Authors (Book Riot)
  17. Choose a Better Chosen One (Book Riot)
  18. How Deadlines Put My Reading Habits into Overdrive (Book Riot)
  19. Star Wars: Still Disappointingly Heterosexual (Book Riot)
  20. What the World of The Hunger Games Teaches Us About Global Warming (Tor.com)
  21. Arrakis, Tatooine, and the Science of Desert Planets (Tor.com)
  22. Keep Your @ to Yourself (Book Riot)
  23. Solidarity Reading List (Book Riot)
  24. The Hugo Report: Finalists 2017 (Book Riot)
  25. SFF On Tap: Pairing Books and Beers (Book Riot) (part 1 of potentially… more than one)
  26. The Hollow Woman: Female Characters in Science Fiction (Book Riot)
  27. My Glorious Return to the Library (Book Riot)
  28. Books as Self Defense (Book Riot)

Slated for 2017:

  1. Blood Binds the Pack from Angry Robot Books (available for pre-order!)
  2. As yet untitled story in the Sword & Sonnet anthology
  3. The triumphant return of Captain Ramos from Queen of Swords Press

Goals for 2017

  1. Shut up and write.
  2. Wake up and fight.
  3. Write the two feature-length screenplays I’ve outlined.
  4. Write at least one novel, probably a fantasy novel this time around.
  5. Get the birthday short written, and try for a couple of others. My short story stockpile is almost nonexistent. This of course requires remembering how the hell to write short stories.
  6. Pitch a blog post series about geomorphology and geology for GMs.
  7. Find a sensitivity reader for that novella and get it done at long last.
  8. Read at least 60 books.
  9. Finally convince Bungie to let me write that Twilight Gap novel in the style of Killer Angels. I’ve got to have an impossible dream on this list every year, right?

Other Stuff

  1. I DID get Blood Binds the Pack to Angry Robot, well-written and on time.
  2. Destiny 2 has turned me into a Striker and I don’t know how I feel about that.
  3. Started reading romance novels in earnest this year, as a form of escapism. No regrets.
  4. According to my list on Goodreads, I read 94 books this year. Having a library card really helped push this. Though as a note, some of the “books” are actually short stories/novellettes/etc from the Hugo reading list that were still listed on Goodreads.
  5. I went to Finland and Iceland this year. And despite the fact that I was incredibly sick for most of that trip, in Iceland I WENT DOWN INTO A MOTHERFUCKING VOLCANO YOU HEARD ME RIGHT.
  6. The Last Jedi is officially my favorite Star Wars film.
  7. This is the year I started vlogging as an experiment. Still having fun with it.
Categories
movie

The Last Jedi: Who becomes a hero? And other feelings vomit

I’m just here to talk about ATOMIC LEVEL RED ALERT SPOILERS. So if you haven’t seen the movie yet, shoo. (Or don’t complain that I’ve spoiled you.)

Continue reading “The Last Jedi: Who becomes a hero? And other feelings vomit”
Categories
awards eligibility

Awards Eligibility 2017

Since it seems award season is upon us again (wheeee?) it’s time to note what I’ve had published this year.

Short Story

Novelette

Novel

Fan Writing/Other

Categories
mcu movie

Thor: Ragnarok

The first thing you need to know about this movie is that it’s fucking awesome.

I saw it twice this weekend. I’ll be seeing it more times before it leaves the theater. And after several days to collect my thoughts so I can write something more coherent than a high-pitched squeal of delight, I’ve calmed down to the level of OH MY GOD COLORS AND FUNNY AND LOKI AND VALKYRIE AND SO MANY JOKES PLEASE TAIKA WAITITI TAKE MY SOUL IT’S YOURS.

If you’re not familiar with Taika Waititi’s work, it’s time to get right with the world. A great place to start is with What We Do in the Shadows, which is a mockumentary about vampires living in New Zealand–and bonus swearwolves. Hunt for the Wilderpeople is also freaking amazing and easy to find. I first encountered his work in Flight of the Conchords, and was hooked. His sense of humor (heavy on the irony and diminution) and aesthetic sensibility are both right up my alley, so I’d already just about lost my mind when I found out he would be directing Thor: Ragnarok. Finally, I thought, if someone was going to get Loki right as a character, it would be him.

Well, I was right. And so much more. SO MUCH MORE.

The non-spoiler plot summary for Thor: Ragnarok is that Thor’s been having a lot of premonitions about the end of Asgard, so he’s doing his best to stop it. Unfortunately for him, Hela shows up with the intent to ruin everyone’s day and rule Asgard. Thor (and Loki) gets diverted to the colorful garbage-land of Sakaar, ruled by Jeff Goldlum being fabulously Jeff Goldblum, where he meets Valkyrie and gets forced into fighting as a gladiator. It’s up to Thor to put together a team to stop Hela and get them all back to Asgard before it’s too late.

The big thing that doesn’t really show up in the summary is how fucking hilarious this movie is. It just doesn’t stop the entire time, even in the action sequences. And the humor cleverly disguises–and also sharpens–some incredibly fucked up things that the film examines. And between jokes, there are quiet character moments that have more impact because they occur in the ten seconds you aren’t laughing–or you are laughing and then you realize just how important this is to that character and it’s like a punch to the sternum. I’d also recommend this piece about the Maori spin on Waititi’s brand of humor as seen in the movie, though it could be considered spoilery depending on how sensitive you are about that stuff.

It’s a gorgeous, and immensely colorful film. Between that and the humor, it feels like an unsubtle rebuke and mockery of the DCEU’s relentless, desaturated grimness. Like look, here’s an entirely unserious superhero movie that’s a hell of a lot of fun. The MCU movies have often played with genre, and this is definitely their take on the comedy–which makes it a really nice other half to the tragedy that Kenneth Branagh filmed into Thor 1. I also really love the way it was filmed… you get a lot of sweeping, colorful, epic-feeling vistas (particularly on Asgard), contrasted with a lot of close shots that give the important conversations (like when Valkyrie makes some big decisions) feel incredibly intimate.

Oh, and while we’re talking visuals, I have to mention the amazing moments of 1980s pulpy scifi/fantasy movie nostalgia. We already knew we were in for a particular sensibility when we saw the title text for the film, but Waititi keeps it going. Large portions of the score are done on synth and feel like a direct nod back to all the films that made me love fantasy as a child. And the setup of some of the sequences and shots feels like an ode to 80s and early 90s metal band album covers–particularly the sequence with the Valkyries. It’s got nostalgia, but not in a way that excludes those who won’t get that joke–there are plenty of other nods and winks.

I also want to mention that this film has more women (and women of color, at that!) and men of color than any of the other MCU films so far by a long shot. The fact that it’s got a female villain (Hela, played by Cate Blanchett having way too much fun) who doesn’t get shuffled off to the side so she only fights the female hero is immensely fucking cool too, by the way. But it’s even little things like when you look at crowd scenes, particularly on Asgard, there are a significant number of non-white faces you can pick out at all times. This stuff matters.

If you need a happy thing, I think this will provide.

(And now if you’ll forgive me, I need to go on a bit about some SPOILERY stuff, so I’m putting that below the cut.)

Continue reading “Thor: Ragnarok”
Categories
personal

Wish List 2017

This is not a hint of any kind. Unless you’re someone who has been asking me for my holiday wish list, please pretend this post isn’t even here.

  1. Rockport cap toe oxfords, black, size 7 1/2
  2. 1-2 pairs of jeans from cabela’s, womens size 18 regular (this style also okay)
  3. Zojirushi micom 5.5 cup rice cooker (like this)
  4. Gift cards: iTunes, Barnes & Noble, Alamo Drafthouse, King Soopers
  5. Set of 2 Gravity Dice D6 (any color; ones I currently have are red)
  6. 1 D20 from Gravity Dice (any color; one I currently have is red)
  7. Smartwool hiking socks, crew, medium to light cushion, sized for a mens 7.5/womens 10 (any color ok)
  8. Cream of Earl Grey and Glitter and Gold from David’s Tea (or anything else that looks tasty; I prefer black tea.)
  9. Lord Shaxx t-shirt (size large)
  10. Ghost plush
  11. Foam replica Hammer of Sol
  12. Parker Quink black ink refill (NONwashable)
  13. Xbox One controller 
  14. Halo Wars 2 and Child of Light for Xbox one
  15. A couple of crochet books (I mostly like making blankets and scarves and easier projects since I crochet while I’m watching TV)
  16. Mexican Train domino set and score pad
Categories
writing writing advice

Dealing With a Bunch of Fucking Nerds: Research and “Getting It Right”

I’ve gotten some interesting blowback since I decided to go public with my irritation over JRR Tolkien’s puzzling geomorphology. Among the “well actually” and personal insults, there’ve been a more interesting complaint, with variations. To paraphrase: “Writers shouldn’t have to be an experts on everything just to tell a story!”

Well, yes and no.

To be fair to my geological whinging (and that of many other nitpickers across a multitude of different fields), you don’t actually have to be an expert at anything to get most of this stuff right. The geology is level 101 stuff you would cover in the Freshman classes fondly called “Rocks for Jocks” at my old university. The amount of research you have to do to get particular details that are ancillary to your story correct is probably very small. Take a half hour out of your day to do some googling. Ask a friend who is knowledgeable in that area. Read a single book about it, and you’ll likely be covered.

Actually knowing that you lack the knowledge or what you’ve absorbed from other novels and TV is incorrect so that you’d better start asking questions is the much more difficult part. Because you have realized by now, right, that art and reality often diverge?

I think the much more important question here is: do you care if you get it right?

I’m going to add an extremely important caveat: There are certain topics, particularly when it comes to the lives and histories of marginalized groups, where you can and will hurt people by not doing your research. For example: books that promulgate racist tropes or racist historical narratives. Now, maybe you don’t care if you hurt people, in which case I think you’re an awful person and you probably don’t care about that either. But for the most part, we can apply the principle of “First, do no harm” here.

But the course of your river making no goddamn sense in a world where water works the same way it does on Earth? This harms precisely no one. It might irritate people who have a basic understanding of geomorphology, but irritation is not the same thing as being harmed. The decision you’re really facing as a writer is if you can handle people complaining about it, and at absolute worst not buying your next book if it pisses them off that bad. (In which case they were probably looking for hyper-realistic world-building-porn fantasy and wouldn’t really be your target audience anyway.)

Part of this is a question of audience expectation. What expectation are you setting up for them? There’s been a lot of fantasy written that projects a veneer of realism (eg: Game of Thrones, and frankly Lord of the Rings) which means that when the details fail, people with a reason to understand those details take notice. If you want to be “realistic,” you have to do the work or risk someone catching you being lazy and saying now wait a damn minute loudly and in public1. The audience is generally not going to approach something that purports to be realistic with the same expectations they will approach something that says on the package it takes place in a bananapants land where rocks float and rivers run backwards due to the population of magic-farting unicorns.

Even if you clearly project that this is bananapants-land, you’re still going to get complainers, though. This is because you’re working in a genre full of fucking nerds. And you know what nerds do? They pick apart things they hate using the lens of their specialized knowledge, and they pick apart things they love even more. And then they talk about it, incessantly.

Only this isn’t a thing limited to nerds in the classic genre sense. Firefighters shred movies like Backdraft and enjoy it in all its awful glory.  If you write a sportsball book and you get the sportsball details wrong, I’m pretty sure the people who like sportsball will eat you alive. This is a human thing. When you have knowledge, you notice when something is wrong, and then you tell other people about it.

So wait, am I saying you do have to be an expert in everything? No, I’m saying you have to be okay with experts reading what you wrote and possibly finding it wanting.

When I was doing my screenwriting coursework, there were two things I heard in every class, without fail:

  1. Give yourself permission to suck.
  2. Never let the facts get in the way of the truth.

Rule number two here means that if reality gets in the way of the story you’re constructing, the story wins. Screw reality. This is probably the reason why pretty much every movie ever made causes experts to tear out their hair.

I don’t think this should be considered blanket permission to just make everything up and not even try. There are a multitude of books and movies that are terribly researched, and the fact of the matter is, if they’d actually given reality a chance their conflicts and twists would have been a hell of a lot more interesting and challenging for the characters. But you’re writing a story, not a textbook. So write your story. Just realize that this is not a get out of jail free card from ever being criticized about anything.

(Though I will say, if this criticism of your work is dropped steaming into your inbox or tagged at you on social media, that is rude as fuck on the part of the angry nerd. If you choose to read it, that’s your problem.)

Ultimately, you have to decide what you want to get right, and what you’re fine with getting yelled at about. I’m sure all of the physics stuff in what I write is terrible, because I prefer handwavium-fueled rule of cool physics to real physics. Thus, I do not give even half a shit if someone complains that my physics suck, because I was never trying to get them correct in the first place. The people who complain are still allowed to complain, and I’m allowed to ignore them. It’s a feature, not a bug.

And even for the stuff you want to get right, I have some bad news: you’re probably not going to nail down every detail perfectly. Worlds are complex things, and there will always be nitpickers who know more about something than you. It is impossible to write a book that is universally loved and never criticized for anything, and worrying over it will induce a sort of creative paralysis that will make writer’s block look like a fun day at a water park. The fact that you are a writer means that someone, somewhere, is going to hate the thing you wrote—or love it but wish you had just gotten the right breed of horse in that one scene—and they are going to take to the internet and talk about it.

Embrace it.

1 – As an aside, actually having a basis in reality versus being perceived as realistic are often two incredibly different things, and when you’ve got an audience that lacks expert knowledge it’s another wrinkle in the expectation game. That’s why, and I will use hilariously here to mean that I’m going to laugh so I don’t scream, there are sectors of readers who think ubiquitous sexual assault in medieval-Europe-flavored fantasy is “realistic” and the presence of non-white people in such a setting is “unrealistic.” Where actual realism flies in the face of the pop culture zeitgeist of “realism,” I encourage you strongly to challenge your readers because it’s good for them. Just be ready with your research notes.

Categories
someone is wrong on the internet

How to “win” an argument on the internet (without losing your mind)

Let’s get that obvious and ultimately unhelpful piece of advice out of the way. If you’re here and reading this post, you’ve already given in to the siren song of someone being wrong on the internet. But all is not lost. Change happens in you, my friend. Your perspective needs some adjustment for the sake of your own stress levels. So let Uncle Alex share their secret to not getting your life and sanity sucked out of you by randos on the internet.

1. Assume until proven otherwise that the other person is arguing in bad faith.

Most of us are kind people who want to believe the best in others. Deep in our souls, we want to believe that the person on the other end of the keyboard is just ignorant and wanting to be enlightened, or one argument away from understanding your position even if they still disagree, or at the least willing to listen.

Well, put that out of your mind. Place your faith in humanity in a lockbox and stick it in the back of the closet for the duration. In my entire career of arguing with randos on the internet – and I’ve done it a lot, thanks to being someone who was peripherally involved in climate change research among other things – I’ve encountered a grand total of three people who were actually interested in having a good faith discussion. The rest were just, with varying degrees of verisimilitude, pretending in an attempt to waste my time.

If you’re not sure what I mean by “good faith” and “bad faith”:

Arguing in good faith – The other person is approaching this argument with honest intention. They are willing to listen, understand your position, modify their argument if necessary, and maybe (GASP) even change their mind. They are entering into this discussion with, at the very least, the intention of listening.

Arguing in bad faith – The opposite of the above; the intention is basically dishonest or duplicitous. They’re not in it to reach understanding or have their mind changed or even listen to a damn word you’re saying. They just want to waste your time, make you mad, suck out your energy, or all of the above.

This is the foundation you need to start on. This isn’t a call to be rude or insulting out of hand – unless this addresses your ultimate goal, more on that later – but you need approach from word one with the understanding that the other person is not actually interested in having a debate, discussion, or argument. They’re interested in pissing you off. Sure, be open to the possibility that they’re the rare sort of unicorn that does want to have honest intellectual interchange and then you can have a really satisfying conversation – but don’t set yourself up for disappointment.

And what this frees you to do is take a step back from what’s in front of you and address it as a performance rather than an honest communication1.

2. Decide what your goal for the argument is.

And no, it should never be, I’m going to change the other guy’s mind or make them admit they were wrong2. That is, again, setting yourself up for disappointment at best, endless frustration at worst. You need to decide what you want to get out of this discussion, when you will consider yourself satisfied or having “won.”3 Probably the most major cause of troll-induced frustration is that you’re allowing some asshole who doesn’t give a shit about you (or facts in general) to determine what the victory condition for this encounter is – which means it’s going to always be out of your grasp.

Fuck that. You are choosing to engage, at this point. You decide what you want out of this.

Here’s a few sample goals to give you an idea what I mean:

  1. Thoroughly debunk the other person’s bullshit first point, ignoring any goalpost shifting
  2. Provide pushback against extreme bigotry, as otherwise silence can be perceived as agreement
  3. Explain your argument in full for the benefit of anyone watching
  4. Give them enough rope to full expand upon their hypocrisy,lack of understanding, or bigotry
  5. See how long you can counter-troll or insult the other person publicly <— this is not an approach I tend to use except for that time I repeatedly told the anti-trans guy to go fuck himself, but goddamn that was really satisfying

And so on. The point is knowing what you want out of this exchange and pursuing that goal rather than being tricked into playing a game that you cannot possibly win.

And if you don’t have a goal for this particular encounter? If there’s nothing you want out of it? Skip directly to point #5. You don’t owe anyone free access to your time, energy, or expertise. Mute, block, move on.

3. Remember all public argument is performative.

When you’re a scientist choosing to engage with obvious trolls, the question is often why you would want to waste your time like that. The thing you need to keep in mind is that you are never arguing for the sake of changing the mind of the person sea lioning you. You’re arguing for the people who are witnessing this public exchange. And there are a lot of reasons why you might want to do that. Including:

  1. They’re disseminating incorrect facts and there needs to be pushback and debunking for future reference.
  2. They’re espousing hateful, unacceptable views and it needs to be demonstrated that no, their viewpoint is not universally accepted.
  3. They’re acting as if their opinion is fact, and an alternate viewpoint needs to be offered.
  4. It needs to be demonstrated that their blanket statement is proven false by your very existence.

This is a non-exhaustive list. But keep in mind that you are almost never trying to convince the person you’re actually talking to – they approached in bad faith. You are addressing the silent watchers who may actually be listening in good faith. So keep that in your thoughts before your frustration gets the better of you. If you want to really give yourself a pep talk, think about how this asshole that’s started shit with you is maybe doing you a favor, because they’re giving you a chance to reach others.

Also remember: their arguing is just as performative.

4. Do not get distracted.

There’s a thing skeptics call “the Gish Gallop.” It’s named after creationist Duane Gish, who used to derail debates by posing an endless series of questions or counterpoints, to the frustration of scientists. Because the fact of the matter is, when the other guy is a total bullshit artist who doesn’t actually care about facts, they will always be able to throw out more random shit than you can sling back, even if you have the fastest research fingers in the west.

You see Gish Gallop-like moments in a lot of internet arguing; someone poses a lot of questions they obviously have no real interest in having answered, but it’s sure going to waste a lot of your time. Or people will try to distract you by being insulting, by moving the goalposts, by changing the topic.

Keep your eyes on the prize. Remember your goal. And keep going for it.

5. And then walk away.

So then what, after you’ve had your performative argument and reached your goal?

Walk away, because you’ve accomplished what you were after. Feel free to block or mute or otherwise ignore any further attempts to engage. And if that means ye olde randome asshole runs off to their sweaty friends and claims they won because they made you block them? Who the fuck cares.

“Winning” and “losing” are relative, despite what many people seem to believe deep in their souls. You have “won” because you accomplished the goal you set for yourself. The other person declaring victory does not in any way detract from that.

The fact is, you have zero control over someone else’s smugness level. All you can control is the way you choose to address your end of the argument. And when you come down to it, no matter how furiously they masturbate about how they made some SJW mad on the internet, they’re still a sad, pathetic asshole who gets off on being a sad, pathetic asshole. That is not a path you want to go down.

Walk away tall.

Notes:

1 – This is not permission for you to argue in bad faith. Even if you’re taking that mental step sideways and understanding what you’re about to do as a goal-motivated performance, it behooves you to still be honest in your interaction. This is a defense against trolls manipulating you, not permission to engage in the same behavior you’ve come to hate.

2 – “Make the other guy admit he’s wrong” isn’t such a great goal if you’re having a good faith argument either, because it indicates an unwillingness to listen on your part. And I say this about even science issues that I’ve discussed with well-meaning but misguided people who weren’t trolls; my goal wasn’t to beat them into intellectual submission, it was to educate. It may seem like a fine line, but there’s a definite difference between helping someone understand facts and putting them in a corner and trying to make them lose face. Sometimes the greatest victory (in an honest conversation) comes from, “wow, you gave me a lot to think about. Thanks.” Keep that in mind.

3 – The fact that so much gets framed in terms of “winning” and “losing” is not great either, since it precludes compromise and places an arbitrary appearance of “victory” over things like, you know, having actual evidence to back up your claims. That said, I’m using “winning” and “losing” here because most of these bullshit internet arguments effectively are contests with arbitrary rules thanks to being initiated by bad faith actors.

Categories
Uncategorized

DCC: “For Exposure.”

There’s something I’ve been wanting to growl about since July, but I’ve been waiting to see if anyone from DCC would get back to me. So far it’s a big no, and I’m not a fan of the “respond to me or I’ll say something publicly” style follow-up because frankly, I shouldn’t have to make threats to get a response. So.

I had a generally good time at Denver Comic Con, on the scale of Comic Cons. I’ll be honest, these aren’t events I ever go to willingly as an attendee because they’re too crowded, too big, too noisy. (In general, I don’t go to any cons as an attendee anymore.) But the panels I was on were lively, the other panelists were great, and the volunteers I talked to were all excellent and helpful people. Also, I do want to say that the person who actually put the programming together and communicated with us little fish writers was fantastic and responsive.

That said, at the end of the con, I was honestly upset. And it’s about something that on its face seems like a very small matter: name tags.

As part of programming, but not an invited “celebrity guest,” I had to go collect my badge for each day I was on programming, and that badge was only good for the day. The badge just generically says, “PROGRAMMING [day]” and no name. It’s a little annoying to not get a comped membership for the entire weekend and to have to go through the badge pickup dance every freaking day (especially when badge pickup and entry is as confused as it was), but that’s a thing I can roll with.

The bigger problem was that I wasn’t given a name card at any of the panels I was on. None of the regular panelists got name cards either. We also weren’t given an opportunity and supplies to just make them ourselves. This is, frankly, bizarre.

At every con I’ve ever been to, large or small, having a little folded name card that you can put in front of yourself so people know who the hell you are is standard practice. Some cons just put the name cards in packets that are given to the moderators, so you get a fresh one at every panel. Some cons give you one name card when you pick up your badge, and it’s your responsibility to carry it with you and not lose it. But you get a name card regardless.

Except at DCC apparently.

So what this adds up to, when I have no name on my badge and no name card, is that unless someone was in the panel audience and ready to take notes at the very beginning when I introduced myself, they had no way of knowing who the hell I was. I had multiple attendees ask me or other panelists who we were for that reason. And if one person asked the question, you know there were at least ten others wondering but unwilling speak up themselves for various reasons.

It’s incredibly hard to get people to motivate and go look for your stuff. Any little thing that makes the cost of that step higher (like forcing someone to ask for your name and how to spell it instead of just being able to look at your name tag) makes it that much less likely they’ll bother to try. These on-their-face small things are actually very important.

At the end of the con, I asked about the deal with the name cards, because it was honestly a little upsetting. And I found out from a source that I completely trust (but will not be naming) that the reason we did not get name cards was that because DCC was willing to print cards for the “celebrity guest authors,” but not for the rest of us.

It’s also worth noting that we (meaning the non-guest authors) also didn’t get any kind of easily locatable presence on the website. The only place regular panelists seemed to show up on the DCC website at all was as tags in the scheduling widget. This is a definite contrast to other large cons I’ve done programming for, like Houston Comicpalooza, which puts all of their attending authors on a page with their picture and a link to a bio.

(And yes, Houston Comicpalooza is a smaller convention than DCC; this year it had around 40K attendees, which would put it at about 1/3 the size of DCC if the attendance numbers I’ve heard are correct. But we’re also not talking about a tiny mom and pop literary convention where there’s a green room maintained by a nice person with a bunch of crock pots that all writers are welcome in.)

There seems to be this feeling from DCC that small name authors just starting out are bottom feeders who deserve no courtesy and ought to be grateful that they’ve allowed us in the door to have exposure at panels. Setting aside for now the endless, exploitative plague that is expecting artists to do things “for exposure” because I’ll grant that cons are an arguably different sort of fish: Your exposure is worth absolutely nothing if it doesn’t even put my name where anyone can see it. You are treating my time and presence as if it has no value, and that’s highly insulting. It cost me money to go to DCC in real terms, and further cost me time that I would have otherwise been devoting to the editing of my next book – which is also money in my pocket.

I get that I’m no John Scalzi or Cat Valente. I’m under no illusions here. People are not coming to conventions specifically to see me. But I know that we little guppies of the publishing world are necessary to programming at these big conventions; we fill out their panels and give the programming volume that would be impossible if they relied only on their “celebrity guests.” My presence, however slight, brings value to the convention and I’ll be damned if I’ll accept disdainful treatment like I’m the one being done a favor.

I am worth at least a goddamn piece of 8.5×11″ card stock, a pinch of printer toner, and some basic fucking courtesy.

Categories
writing

Too Long for Twitter: I don’t like fantasy maps

I made the mistake of mentioning on Twitter that some day I would vent about why I hate fantasy maps, and that got enough people asking that apparently today will be that day.

DISCLAIMER THE FIRST: These are my personal opinions as a reader. If you, as a reader who is not me, happen to love fantasy maps and can’t get enough of them, that’s totally fine. This is not a judgment on you. We are allowed to like different things when we’re talking pretendy funtimes and not, say, fascism.

DISCLAIMER THE SECOND: Some of my fellow writers may read this. I want you to please understand that this is not a personal attack on you for having decided to make one of those fantasy maps. Readers have different preferences, and I’m sure you have readers who will like maps as much as I don’t like them. And in fact, despite my preferences as a reader, as a geologist, I would be more than happy to help make sure your fantasy map doesn’t contain horrendous geography for a reasonable fee. Because if they’re gonna be out there, I’d like for your maps to be good ones. And I actually do enjoy maps as objects of art, weirdly enough.

We all on the same page now? Good.

Why I Don’t Like Fantasy Maps: A Short List by Alex Acks

  1. Most of them are terrible. Like geographically, geologically terrible. You’ve already probably seen me complain about the map of Middle Earth. From my experience as a reader, and I’ll readily admit that I have neither had the patience nor time to read every fantasy book ever written, the majority of fantasy maps make me want to tear my hair out as a geologist. Many of them are worse than the Tolkien map, and without his fig leaf of mythology to justify it. (And sorry, it’s not a fig leaf that works for me.)
  2. Corollary: If your fantasy map is terrible, you have probably already lost my willing suspension of disbelief before I even dive into the book. Sorry, but this is what an MS in Geology will do to an otherwise easygoing person.
  3. Corollary: Looking at these maps will often make major worldbuilding issues lunge out at me that otherwise might have slid by. Like, for example, the question of where the hell your massive population center is getting its water when it is located nowhere near a river. Or the question of where they’re getting their food from. And so on.
  4. A lot of fantasy maps stand out very glaringly as lands that have been artificially created around a story that was already written, rather than organic geographies that shape the stories and peoples. This will often point back at the previous three points, because features and geography that are located to suit a story aren’t necessarily going to make any goddamn geographical sense. I find this artificiality annoying.
  5. There’s a tendency in certain fantasy maps to make most country borders follow things like mountain ranges or rivers. This, frankly, looks extremely weird.
  6. The number of people who don’t bother to put a fucking scale on their fucking map astounds me. A map without a scale is functionally useless.
    1. We failed student projects in field lab for not doing this, because without a scale, a map (or diagram, or picture) is meaningless.
    2. Putting some kind of scale or other surveying marks to indicate how distance on a map relates to measured distance is not a recent invention. (Even if the measurements weren’t terribly accurate at times.)
    3. If you don’t put a scale on your map, then it’s basically a relativistic perception exercise for whoever the cartographer was… which could almost be interesting if one of the characters made the map, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen in a book I’ve read.
  7. I get extremely offended as a reader if understanding a book requires me to check an appendix or look at a map for what’s happening to make any sense. It breaks up the flow of reading, and a lot of times, it’s something that could be taken care of in the text.
    1. There is literally only one book I can think of as an exception to this: The Killer Angels. Which is not a fantasy novel; it’s a historical novel that closely follows the Battle of Gettysburg. It’s got some very detailed maps of the battlefield over each of the days in it that it does help to consult for understanding of things like troop movements and line of sight. I have never run across a fantasy novel that hits this level of detail, and honestly I doubt I’d be interested in one.
    2. ETA1: OH WAIT I LIED! There is one other exception, and it is a fantasy map! The map of the Stillness that NK Jemisin has at the beginning of The Stone Sky is A+ and has a scale. I didn’t feel the need to consult it during reading, but it warmed the rockles of my geologist’s heart to see all the plate boundaries laid out for the supercontinent.
  8. If the map isn’t required for understanding of the text, I’m left wondering why it’s even there. It’s not necessary. It’s more information than I need.
  9. I’d rather have the space to imagine things for myself.
  10. I don’t like that the ubiquity of unnecessary maps in fantasy literature puts pressure on me as a writer to follow suit. As someone who has drawn or otherwise generated many a map as a function of my job as a scientist, you can’t make me.
Categories
worldcon

[WorldCon] WSFS Main Business Meeting #3 Summary

This meeting felt incredibly fast and quiet compared to every other meeting. We just ran right through things. A little over thirty minutes from start to adjourning sine die.

  • Retrospective Improvement Part 1 is ratified without debate.
  • Retrospective Improvement Part 2 is ratified without debate.
  • Universal Suffrage is ratified without debate.
  • What Our Marks Really Are is adopted without debate and sent on to be considered for ratification in San Jose.
  • The Reasonable Amendment is adopted without debate and sent on to be considered for ratification in San Jose.
  • Make Room! Make Room! is adopted without debate and sent on to be considered for ratification in San Jose.
  • Big thanks all around to everyone, and meeting is adjourned!

And that’s it until next year. If you like what I do, throw the price of a coffee into my tip jar. See y’all in San Jose!

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