Absurdist Inc.

The End of a Hiatus

jneilson@cityofcomplications.co.uk — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 18:36:00 PDT

Real Life has, as it tends to, got in the way of the Absurdist Inc blog. The breakdown of a relationship, relocation, job-search and the death of a computer will tend to do that. However, writer-wise, there have actually been things Getting Done, and so it felt like a good time to blog here and flag up what I've been up to and what's incoming.

While my fiction has been a little thin on the ground, I have been expanding my writing horizons with columnist work over at Hub, a quite spiffy sci-fi/horror/fantasy webzine. And no, I am not just giving them props because they gave Chaos Magic its first proper review (and a favourable one at that), nor am I just giving them props because they persist in publishing my articles. :) Seriously, the back catalogue includes a piece on sexuality issues in Torchwood, the evolution of vampire in fiction (I really ought to have mentioned Ultraviolet in there, but maybe that can be another review someday; that's still out on DVD, right?) and a review of JC Hutchins' Personal Effects: Dark Art that some might find familiar. There'll also, I think, be an interview with Colin Ferguson (aka Sheriff Jack Carter on Eureka) soon enough, and I've written a couple of others that I think are on the slushpile. It's all building a portfolio and now I'm pondering freelance work.

November's coming up, and that means National Novel Writing Month. As is now tradition, I will start the next City of Complications novel during NaNoWriMo, and get it at least mostly done over the space of that thirty days. Last year's was Chaos Magic. This year's is Birth Rites, and is going to darker places than Chaos Magic did. It's all outlined and I'm looking forward to it. And I have to wait a week. *gnaws nails*

So those of you who've missed this particular blog (all two of you), take heart. It's ba-aaaaaack.

Personal Effects: Style and Substance

jneilson@cityofcomplications.co.uk — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:15:55 PDT

We are told throughout our lives that looks aren't everything, that you can't judge a book by its cover, that it's what's inside that counts. Later on, the world seems to prove the opposite. We are talking about a world where people can become famous just for being attractive, and where actors don't have to have any kind of talent to be big names; they just have to fill seats with oglers. So which theory is right? Is it all about the looks, or is it about what's within?

I tend to think the answer is somewhere in between. Sure, I love the pretty wrapping paper as well as the next person, but I'm not going to be so blinded by it that I don't want what's inside to live up to the expectation provided by the packaging. David Boreanaz may get hired for eight seasons of Buffyverse because he had 'the right look' as seen while walking his dog, but I was never interested because the man can't act. Give me the combined yumtastic abs, character-filled face and sheer acting talent of Alexis Denisof every time.

That said, I should probably mention that the household copy of Personal Effects: Dark Art by JC Hutchins and Jordan Weisman arrived today. And, to use the above example, three chapters in I am after deciding that this is a Denisof, not a Boreanaz - this one has both.

Print quality and layout is a thing that fascinates me ... probably because I'm no good at it myself. I may not know how to do it, but I know what I like. Personal Effects: Dark Art has an innovative look, somewhere between really attractive hardcover novel and new World of Darkness sourcebook. The 'lined notebook paper' effect helps with a sense of immersion and a nearly voyeuristic investment in the text in that it gives the feel of reading someone's journal. The artwork is at once minimalist and evocative, sparing detail except where it is most required and effective. This is a book that, if you're anything like me (occasionally childishly over-exuberant), you may want to hug. And, if you're inclined to do that, even the cover's finish is smooth without unnecessary gloss, and rather tactile for it.

There's not much to say about the 'effects' bundled in with the book that hasn't already been said, but there's no overstating the innovation here. Looking at the birth and death certificates, photographs, driver's licence, credit card, admittance papers and all the rest, one can't help but see the investment of time and effort, the sheer geeker joy it must have been to design these things. Beyond what they add to the story, these effects are inspiring, and the fact that they exist at all nudges a reader towards the story. The creators love it, and put so much into it; it stands to reason that the story between those covers must contain the same hard work, attention to detail and inspiring non-gloss minimal invasive-yet-not creepiness that the packaging and extras do.

So far, the story does not disappoint. I'm hesitant to say that Hutchins has improved since the 7th Son trilogy, because that worthy material was good to begin with, and I'm a sucker for good first person narrative voice. That said, first person is easy to do badly - the starting point for the story is generally harder to find and the balance in detail given can be hard to strike. This, however, flows effortlessly; Hutchins has streamlined his style since 7th Son, and it takes his writing from 'man, this is good' to 'Can't talk now. Reading. Go away'.

(Side note: the only reason I interrupted my reading to write this is because I couldn't contain the squee. There'll probably be more of this once I've actually finished the book.)

As with everything, there is a flaw to this masterwork, though it's relatively forgivable in the circumstances. Setting up operational telephone numbers that could be reached by international readers free or for a nominal fee is likely difficult, after all. So it stands to reason that the phone numbers provided to give readers further tidbits would be North America only, but as a London-dweller, it's a little whimper-inducing to see those numbers and not know what happens when you dial them. Transatlantic phone calls aren't cheap, after all. It's also not the most portable thing in the world - the book itself will fit into my handbag, but that's only because I could fit half Guam in my handbag, and there's a risk of losing the 'effects' if taking this book out to read on the commute. This is a book for home.

Right. I have evangelised on this eminently worthy bit of cross-media entertainment, and now the need to do so is no longer a distraction. So I'll say it: Can't talk now. Reading. Go away. Preferably to your local bookstore or wherever else you can get your hands on this thing. It's worth it.

Chaos Magic: Online, Offline, Fine Line

jneilson@cityofcomplications.co.uk — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:07:14 PDT

Before I finish with my editing job, here is all the news that's fit to print about HIPPIE, Chaos Magic and what I want to be my career one day.

The Podcast: For those of you who don't know (and I know there are a few, for one reason or another), I'm doing a little thing called the HIPPIEcast. You can find it on iTunes, Podcast Pickle, Podcast Alley (search for HIPPIEcast on those three avenues), Podcast Blaster, or just on the site:

Currently up on the HIPPIEcast are the first eighteen chapters of the first City of Complications novel:

Image by Roomic Cube on Flickr under Creative Commons Attribution licence.

Back Blurb
London is a city of complications beneath the surface - supernatural entities of all stripes lurk and plot or, in most cases, just try to make a normal life for themselves. Of primary importance is keeping the Mortal Way inviolate and ignorant of the supernatural. So when the magical community explodes into frenetic and dangerous activity, with untrained magic-users of all stripes causing some of the worst kind of havoc, someone needs to find what's tempting the young mages into throwing their magic around before other warding forces get angry, and time is running out. Therefore, there's only one group to call. They are the Headquarters for the Investigation of Paranormal Phenomena and Interdimensional Entities. Here to help; won't call you a lunatic.

And yes - they call themselves HIPPIE.

So there's the pitch and the whole of the pitch. Sorry if anyone's hearing this for the umpteenth time, but given what's going on at the moment, I want to be thorough.

I want to get the book onto Podiobooks, but there's a not-so-minor problem with formats and various other bits that means I'm going to have to rerecord the entire damn thing. Start to finish. At least the first eighteen chapters' worth. This, as you can imagine, doesn't thrill me, but I've tried every work-around I know and it hasn't worked. So there you have it - to get onto the top source for podcast novels out there, I'm going to have to entirely re-record the entire thing. This, as you can imagine, is a bit disheartening. However, I have every intention of finishing the podcast before I get started on re-recording anything, as we're in the home stretch now and I'd rather not keep people waiting on the finish longer than I already have.

The Writing: I'm two chapters from the end of this, people. It needs an edit, but that's not an issue. A really good part of the whole podcast deal is that reading it aloud gives me a great view of what works and what doesn't, where I've fouled up, etc. So I've been editing as I go anyway, but will give it another once-over with the blue pencil before I do anything else with it. I don't expect that to take long. Which means now's the time to start doing something with it.

The Publication: I've mentioned the Print-on-Demand business model before, and it's still the one I plan to go for; the issue now is interest and publicity.

I'm well aware that everyone's finances are in more or less shoddy shape these days. Mine suck. I've been screwed over more times than I can count on the financial side, and the mess just keeps on coming. Rent's been an issue, food's been an issue, and it's caused more stress than anyone with chronic migraines can take. I can only barely work part-time given my health issues, and I'd go on disability in a heartbeat if the NHS weren't so fucking keen on screwing me around - massive waits for specialist appointments, the eventual appointment rescheduled with no prior warning (DO NOT TRUST THE POST OFFICE WITH SOMETHING THAT IMPORTANT, KTHX), the total lack of interest in worrying symptoms and the prescribed medication that has been tried with no appreciable success when I did finally see the specialist ... and on and on. We're scraping by. Barely. And sometimes, not even that. It's a mess. Some of you knew this. Some of you didn't. Now you know. We're hurting. Badly. A lot of it's my fault, or at least down to my circumstances. I want to make good.

So I want to sell this book, and print on demand is the quick-return way of doing it. It doesn't involve hoping an agent will find it useful, it doesn't depend on a publisher liking it and handing over an advance, and frankly, it's a way of generating the interest of agents and publishers by proving the thing can sell, and would sell even better with proper marketing. However, there are a few issues on the POD side, and they're worrisome. Very, very worrisome.

My preferred option would be to publish through Lightning Source. There aren't tax issues cutting into royalties, for one thing, and all I'd really need to do is transfer the ISBNs we got from when we were doing Affils to Absurdist Inc. Except for one small problem: there are fees with Lightning Source, and I haven't got the cash to lay out for that kind of thing. We're looking at about £90 in set-up fees with Lightning Source, including proof copy. (£20 for a proof copy; dear gods. If we hadn't found a serious mess-up with the proof copy they sent us for the Affils GM Guide, I'd think that was a total pile of bullshit.)

There is another option, though it's one I'm really not sure about. There's Lulu, and others like it, that do this sort of thing without any set-up fees. However, they are total bastards about the manufacturing fees and retail mark-ups and a whole lot of other things, which means that the actual royalties are low or the book price gets jacked up like you wouldn't believe. I'd rather not jack the book price or it'll never sell, so that leaves the other option. If I'm really lucky, really persistent and have a lot of support, I might be able to sell enough to upgrade my recording equipment, upgrade to a paid account so that some of this mess isn't an issue and maybe even pay for my web hosting between 2010 and 2012. It's a risk. It's a gamble. And I'm going to need all the help I can get.

I'm insanely grateful for the support I've had in this so far. I'm particularly grateful to Dodgyhoodoo, who does my DTP work and a lot of the mathematical working because I'm so hopeless at it as well as for the retweets and blog posts and general pimpage. I'm grateful to CourtCat for the ever-present retweeting, and to Asmenedas for the offers of help with some of my technical issues, his occasional retweets and that one really nice review-thing on his LJ. I'm grateful to those of you who have expressed enjoyment of and appreciation for the work I've done - for the squees, for the LOLs, for the lot of it. Please don't think for a moment that I don't. It's all that keeps me going in the face of insane setbacks like this.

But now, as we're getting into the final stretch, I really need your help. There's going to be a lot of updates in the near future, here and on my personal blog on LJ, about how the route to POD publishing of Chaos Magic is going. If Lulu fails me, I don't know what I'll do, but as I don't have the cash for Lightning Source, there's not a lot of other choice. All I ask is the following:

- If you like audiobooks, or haven't tried them and might like to start, pick up the HIPPIEcast and start listening to the book as is. It's there so that you know what you might be buying, and so you have something to listen to on boring commutes or what have you. If you're really against the idea of audiobooks, don't worry about it, but if you think you might like to give it a try, please do.

- If you do choose to listen to the HIPPIEcast, leave a review someplace. Podcast Alley, Podcast Pickle, Podcast Blaster, iTunes, Podiobooks if I can ever get it there, your own journal, any and all of the above; talk about it. The only way this stuff works is if people spread the word. Word-of-internet is the most powerful marketing force anyone could ask for, if it works for you. Please help make it work for me.

- When and if the book comes out in print, and you end up purchasing it, tell your friends. Leave reviews. It's the same principle as the podcast reviews - word-of-mouth and word-of-internet is powerful, but it only works if it gets past that first degree of separation.

I'm going to mention the donations button on the City of Complications home page only for the sake of completeness. It's got no interest to date and I get that; as I say, I know times are tight for everyone. However, I am working on an incentive scheme, as it were: extra content for those who are kind enough to donate. One is The HIPPIE Case Files; case notes, contact dossiers, mapped sites of interest around the City of Complications, the works. The other is Tales of the Side Ways Market; I originally had this in mind as a fan project the likes of 7th Son: Obsidian but it's since evolved into an idea of a collection of short stories outlining not the HIPPIE Brigade but the lives and business dealings of those manning the stalls at the Side Ways Market, shopping haven of all supernatural types. These will start off in .pdf format, so computer only, but maybe someday they'll get collected into side books of their own - kind of like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages.

In any case, that's pretty much it from me. Sorry about the length of this post. Hopefully there wasn't too much tl;dr here. And once again, thank you to those of you who have been so great in terms of support on the technical and promotion side. I appreciate it more than I can say.

The Business Model

jneilson@cityofcomplications.co.uk — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 06:21:19 PDT

Some time ago, when I first declared my intention to take Chaos Magic to the free podcast/print on demand business model, a friend of mine informed me that I was "worth so much more than that"; that 'vanity press' was not the way for an author to go if they had anything remotely like talent. Surely an agent would notice me eventually, and a publisher would accept my work. Talent will out, she said, and a turn to what she deemed 'vanity press' would 'hurt my career'. In her view, there is no other business model than "submit to The Establishment and hope". She's not alone; recently, a new Twitter friend and fellow podcaster had a conversation with a friend of his about the podcast/POD business model, where the book designer friend stated unequivocably that the model was economically unviable; "Why would anyone buy the book," he asked, "if they've already received it for free?"

Yes, both of these individuals were pointed at the stellar example that is Scott Sigler, who had his initial book deal scrapped, went to podcast, and is now one of the top sellers in his genre and out of it. Then there's JC Hutchins, whose first podcast novel trilogy 7th Son has not only gone to print but has been optioned for film adaptation by Warner Brothers. These two alone prove that the free podcast and print on demand model does actually work. But there's more to the argument than just examples of "If they can do it, why can't I?" Those examples just illustrate a few small parts of the wider benefits to the business model under discussion.

It's a format range thing, first and foremost. Podcasts are great for some settings - commutes and long car journeys, mostly - but poor for others. For waiting rooms, departure lounges, being put on hold in a phone call for ages or anywhere else that you need to be paying some sort of attention, a podcast won't do. You need a hard copy book, or maybe a Kindle, so that you can get your story fix and still be paying attention to the things you need to hear. Most people will want both, for the purposes of re-reading. The podcast gives readers the opportunity to experience the book in one format, and that takes the risk element out of buying a new book. Reviewers' opinions may differ from the readers', but knowing what's in the book before you buy it means that you know for sure whether it's what you want to read in those moments where podcasts won't do. Never underestimate the power of the need to re-read. Consider how many people ending up buying multiple copies of the same book because they've read the first to tatters and need to replace it so they can re-read it a few more times. There's more to a book than just knowing how the story ends.

Additionally, podcasts provide the ultimate in word of mouth advertising. There are people who do not like audio books, usually speed-readers who don't appreciate having the pace of their reading dictated by a voice actor. But they have friends who podcast, or who listen to podcast novels, and thus they hear about all the new things that they're missing. They want to read this book because their friend is recommending it - likes it enough to buy the book even though they've listened to it on podcast already. So, particularly if the two friends don't live close enough for one to loan the book to the other, the non-podcast-listener will check for the book on Amazon, or wherever the book is available for sale. Good print-on-demand presses like Lightning Source will list with Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Blackwells and a number of other locations that may not buy and stock copies in meatspace stores but will certainly have them available to order. So the non-podcast-friend asks about it, recommends it to their friends, whether or not they listen to podcasts, and maybe they ask about it, and word of mouth (and word of broadband, perhaps) spreads the word until the book sells well. It's advertising of the cheapest, plainest and most effective kind; "We share similar taste in reading and you will like this; go find it in whatever format you can and support the author".

Another thing people often underestimate is how often people do want to support someone who has offered them free entertainment for so long. Take the case of Randy Milholland, who eventually broke under the strain of complaints that he wasn't updating regularly enough and said, "If you want me to update five to seven days a week like a regular job, pay me like a regular job. I will quit my job and keep a seven-day-a-week update schedule if I get a year's salary in donations". He did not expect to make as much as he did, but he did make it; he got his year's salary and took his year off, and kept his update schedule. It's been dropped since, as I think he had to go back to a day job, but the upshot was that his fans ponied up to support him. Consider all the webcomic artists who have received donations both financial and in the form of equipment when their computers/scanners have died, or when they've had serious medical issues that they've had to raise money for. Fan support is a very real thing, even in a troubled economy. And when you're getting an exponential expansion of the ways in which you can enjoy a book, what fan wouldn't shell out $10 for an article of proven quality by someone whose work they've enjoyed for months for no charge?

Looking at the world of professional publishing, there are few if any real benefits to having your work accepted by a publishing house. Yes, there's the advance, and there's not having to work your butt off self-promoting, but that's not exactly an advantage when you consider that an author is not being judged by their talent alone, or even primarily on the strength of their work. Agents and publishers accept authors and work that they know will sell. They are going on the strength of market trend sheets and no matter how good an author is, if it's felt that the book under offer isn't going to fit into that narrow demographic of "Will Make Us A Metric Fucktonne Of Money", it won't be accepted, end of story. Talent will not out; market trends will out.

Consider the piss-poor books that have not only been published, but have made it to the tops of best-seller lists. Consider Michael Crichton, whose pseudo-science-laden Jurassic Park had to be turned into a movie to save it. Consider Dan Brown, who more or less plagiarised his best-selling novel and whose plot pacing moves like a five year old with ADD but who still sold millions of copies of not only The DaVinci Code but Angels and Demons, which was an even weaker effort. Most of all, consider the Twilight saga.

The worst example of this, and why publishing houses can be seen as hideously overrated in terms of being published, is what happened with Breaking Dawn. According to the articles and discussions following the publication of that little slice of WTF, Stephenie Meyer's first three novels were heavily edited; the editors made as many changes as they could and demanded a lot of removal of subplots just so that the book would be remotely readable. She despised this - Meyer apparently has a history of not being able to accept criticism, however constructive - and when it came time to publish Breaking Dawn, complained that the editors were 'ruining her vision' and how she wanted this last book to be 'entirely in her own voice'. Likely because Meyer was Little, Brown's primary cash cow at the time, they acquiesced, and it appears that editors never so much as looked at her last, because it was full of spelling errors, repeated words, continuity errors and other very basic mistakes that no self-respecting author would (or should) leave in before handing it to an editor, much less for final printing. This is a large part of the reason why I fully approve of the "Don't Burn It - Return It!" campaign that even die-hard Twilight fans became a part of after Breaking Dawn launched; it's one thing to return a book because it didn't meet expectations or violated the author's own canon (which is cheap, but never mind), and quite another to return a poorly-made product that never came within five feet of quality control. Little, Brown published the book too soon because all they wanted was the money. They didn't do the job properly. Therefore, they shouldn't get the money.

Long story short: publishers are all about the bottom line. They don't care about the consumer, they don't care about the production team (in this case, the author) and they don't even care about the product; they care about the money. So good authors will get ignored in favour of people who are producing the same old tat because they are guaranteed a return. Anyone doing something truly innovative will not get a look in unless they are very, very lucky ... or unless the truly innovative thing has already proven popular with an audience. The sensible publishing houses are paying close attention to the podcast novels out there, and when they pick up a Sigler or a Hutchins or a Lafferty, they're doing it for the same reason that a listener will buy the book from Amazon in the first place; they know what they're getting. In this case, what they're getting is a well-publicised work of known quality, already written, already edited, with an existing fanbase to be expanded. The author's done all the work for them; they just need to add a bit of Emeril BAM!

So podcast/print-on-demand is a great business model for a new author doing something new and innovative. It gets an author noticed, allows new ideas to break into a static system that wants proven results and no risk. It's a lot of work, sure, but the sooner people stop thinking of it as 'vanity press' and start thinking of it as 'grass-roots indie publishing' or even 'guerilla publishing', the better off all us podcasters will be. Maybe then we'll see a change. Maybe then we'll stop seeing hacks like Meyer getting the attention that amazing authors like Phillippa Ballantyne and Matt Wallace should be getting.

Viva la Revolucion!

Women, in 'General'

jneilson@cityofcomplications.co.uk — Sat, 02 May 2009 19:24:02 PDT

I was challenged recently by Matthew Wayne Selznick to discuss how women are represented in fiction outside the fantasy/sci-fi/horror genres. In terms of podcast, I can't legitimately comment (unless you count JC Hutchins' 7th Son as thriller rather than sci-fi, for which there's a legitimate case - genre's hard to pinpoint, as I'll discuss another time). I'm relatively new to listening to podcasts, mostly because I tend to get sidetracked when sitting in front of my computer and end up missing half the story because I'm reading something at the same time. When I started doing my own, I thought I should listen to other people's, and therefore I started with the genres I favour, and which fit in best with what I write. So I haven't listened to 'general fiction' podcasts.

In terms of hard-copy books, however, I've got a wider range, so some thoughts about women in fiction in general, with random books taken from the 'non-geek', if you like, sections of my bookshelf. I haven't even heard of some of the authors Selznick mentioned, so I'll have to make do with my own selection. I'll categorise between the good and the bad, by which I mean the most representative and the most stereotypical and horrible. Honestly, I am not trying to damn all male authors, nor am I trying to laud all female authors. Women authors are just as guilty of shafting men as men are of shafting women, character-wise.

The Good
Margaret Mitchell: Gone With the Wind. Male and female equally represented, more or less, despite mostly being told from a woman's perspective. Neither the women nor the men get short shrift, unless they're disposable villains - and I think every author has to have a few nameless, faceless plods doing the dirty work somewhere along the line. Mitchell runs the full gamut in terms of motivation and character types on both sides of the equation, and generally points out where the flaws are in both genders as well as the laudable points.

Warren Ellis: Crooked Little Vein. Sure, there aren't a lot of women in that book. However, there aren't a lot of characters in that book; it's short and there's a lot of secondaries but only three or so main characters. The woman who is there is true - a little warped, but true nonetheless. She has motivations, she has opinions, and she can love without being clingy. That's a rarity, and a pleasure.

Haruki Murakami: Dance Dance Dance. Again, the women in this book, even the somewhat scary or weird ones, have motivations and react to things and are an important and integral part of the story for more reason than someone is mooning over her or getting screwed over by her.

Douglas Coupland: I've read most of his work, and while every single woman he writes is mentally screwed up, so is every man, so it evens out. At least all the women are realistically screwed up, and act as support system for the screwed-up people around them instead of leaning on the nearest man.

Jacqueline Susann: The Valley of the Dolls. Women outnumber the men, yes, but when Susann does deal with men, she does it well. There are good men, and bad men, and they're important in their small ways, and even the outright miserable sods have reasons behind what they're doing beyond 'he's a man, they do bad things to women'.

The Bad
Zoe Heller: Notes on a Scandal. The men in this book, despite being more or less central as catalysts to the drama, are seldom if ever seen. While this is a first-person perspective from a somewhat malicious, stuffy busy-body of a woman, one would think that the author might at least try to throw one sympathetic male in there somewhere along the line, instead of tossing out an endless parade of insensitive brutes who seem to be out for little more than their own comfort and convenience.

Alex Garland: The Beach. The women in this book have no depth. They are manipulative, controlling, passive-aggressive bitches or background noise. There is no in-between.

Donna Tartt: The Secret History. This is a great book, and I really adore it, but the one female lead in it - one, mind you - just serves as a catalyst for jealousy and twincest. The others are background ditzes.

Irvine Welsh: Again, just about everything he's written leaves out women completely, but Trainspotting is particularly bad as you've mainly got a Lolita and a couple of mothers, one of whom loses her baby to SIDS while she's stoned, and that's the end of it. Most of the characters in Trainspotting are thoroughly reprehensible people but surely there's more to women than sex and yowling over where they went wrong with their kids.

Richard Adams: Watership Down. Yeah, they're rabbits. However, it would have been nice if we had seen one sensible doe in the entire thing, instead of having a lack of breeding stock be a plot point and females not mattering beyond that.

Virginia Andrews ... well, she doesn't get either gender right. Virtuous Woman is Done Wrong by Evil Man who is actually her brother or something equally ridiculous, and is also Horribly Abused by Evil Grandmother/Stepmother and Evil Sister. Generally it's less about gender and more about Rich People = Bad. I know it's her ghost-writer now, but honestly, perhaps a little less being beaten about the noggin with the idea, please?

I could go on - for all I focus on a genre for preference, I've read a fair bit. Some can be excused because of the time frame in which they were written - I wouldn't rant about Charles Dickens, Miguel de Cervantes or Alexandre Dumas not giving women equal time on-'screen', for example. Others ... well, I could go on all day about Lolita. But that's still a fairly good cross-section. To sum up, I like every book listed above, or I wouldn't still own it. However, I do have some problems with how some of them treat women. This isn't a male author versus female author thing exclusively, either. Whether it's Stephanie Meyer or Virginia Andrews, women denigrating their own gender in prose annoys the hell out of me, same as it does when George RR Martin or Irvine Welsh do it to women. So maybe this is less a gender thing in the broader context and more a thing where I should simply say 'bad characterisation annoys me' and leave it at that.

Androgyny

jneilson@cityofcomplications.co.uk — Sat, 02 May 2009 18:26:53 PDT

It's interesting to get actual debate on this blog - in the good way, lest it be overly ambiguous. It's good to get called out when I haven't made myself as clear as I would have liked, or perhaps when I'm just dead wrong, or missed the point. Therefore, I now leave the 'being a girl geek sucks' rant aside and look at women in podcasting without genre coming into it. (The difficulties with even having genre divisions, which I've also considered ... that's another rant for another day.)

So, women in podcasting - or authorship in general - leaving aside genre questions. They're still out there, as I stated in the first couple of paragraphs of my last post. The list of female podcast authors given is no less valid just because they're genre writers, and there are more outside of those genres that I predominantly wrote about because that's what I listen to. And the ratio of male and female podcast authors still pretty accurately reflects the ratio of male and female hard copy authors. Read: there are more male authors just in general, though there's a heavier concentration in some pigeonholes than others. There it is, point blank: men write more, or at least are more successful at it. Definitely not saying they're better, but they certainly seem to get more books on shelves. So maybe the statement should be: "I rue the dearth of female authors".

Or maybe it shouldn't even be that. What's more important - the story, or the gender of the person writing it? Take for example KJ Parker, or even JC Hutchins; does it matter what the initials stand for, if Devices and Desires or 7th Son: Descent are stellar books? Does it matter that Kim Newman is male? (Seriously; I read a good four of his books thinking Kim Newman was female before someone told me otherwise, and my reaction was, "Oh. Okay".) Leaving aside the personal stake - being a female writer and podcaster with aspirations to getting paid for it one day - would it matter if I was male, at this point? I'd still be there, telling a story. Maybe it'd be a different story. Obviously from a different perspective. But I'd still be a writer struggling to get a decent story out, one I think is worth something and that I want to share, and that has nothing to do with what equipment I've got in my underpants.

There are so many people out there with a story to tell, and some of them could tell it very well but don't because they haven't got the time, or the patience, or the attention span, or the guts. I know people who'd love to write but don't because they freeze up after the concept-forming stage. Does it matter if they're male or female if there's this great story out there that's never getting told because the person who came up with it can't or won't write it down? So maybe the issue of gender ought to be cast aside along with issues of genre and we should simply say, "More writers, please!" There are dangers inherent in that, of course, as not all the people who think they have a worthwhile story do, or can tell it well, but no one has to read them so arguably, that doesn't matter either. Everybody who wants to write should do so, and strive to make their dream a reality. End of statement.

Thinking about it, it's a bit like those 'equal opportunities' policies that end up making sure they have a certain number of people of various genders, ethnicities, faiths and so forth so no one can accuse them of prejudice. It's a stupid system because the people who can do the job best might not fit into the slot some employer needs to fill according to their hiring policies. And, just as an employer should pick the person who can do the job the best, regardless of age, gender, sexual orientation, race or faith, so should publishers and readers pick the story that interests them most, regardless of anything about the author bar the story they've told. So maybe it doesn't matter so much that there aren't as many women authors, podcast or otherwise, as there are men. Maybe they're out there, these women, and we haven't heard about them much because they're not as fearless as some of the guys we share the podcast universe with. That's down to the individual, not the gender. Unfortunate, but true.

So in summary - to hell with gender. Everybody who wants to write, get writing. Sign up for National Novel Writing Month if you need support and a good swift kick in the rear to get started. Podcast if you want to. If you don't like having your voice recorded and heard by all and sundry (and believe me, I can get behind that one), there are options: like find one of the friendly folks who will read your novel for free at Voice Acing UK.

Make no mistake - it's going to be scary. This is the internet, after all. And even if you don't podcast, writing is scary. It's always going to be scary. It's never going to look as good to you as it might to someone else. You cannot see the splendour of your own work because you are too close to it. Keep telling yourself every day, every chapter, every paragraph - hell, every sentence if you have to - that it is not as bad as you think. It is never as bad as you think.

Male, female, white, black, religious, atheist, rooster-worshipper, I don't care - WRITE, DAMNIT! If only so that selfish little buggers like me who read too fast can have entertainment. Podcasting is good because it means I can eke it out over days rather than devouring a 400-page book in an hour or so.

Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves

jneilson@cityofcomplications.co.uk — Sat, 02 May 2009 06:57:41 PDT

An interesting lamentation came up on Twitter recently, and inspired a great deal of thought and debate: JC Hutchins and Matt Wallace both lament the dearth of female podcast authors out there. Which made me dubious and curious in equal measure: is there a dearth of female podcast authors out there? Admittedly, most of the ones I listen to are male (Hutchins, Bennett, Wallace, Doctorow, Bartlett etc) but there are at least two female podcast authors on even my admittedly small podcast update list. Three, if you count myself. And there are more out there that I just haven't subscribed to for one reason or another. At which point, I started researching, not just for female podcast authors, but for female genre fiction authors in general - specifically, in terms of science fiction, horror and fantasy.

There really isn't that much of a dearth of female podcast authors if you compare the numbers to female novelists, really. In the arena of the genres I predominantly listen to alone, there's Phillipa Ballantyne, Kimi Alexander, Lisa Wright, Abigail Hilton, Arlene Radasky, Christiana Ellis, Gloria Oliver, Leslie Anne Moore, Michele Roger, Karen Marie Moning and the inestimable Mur Lafferty, to name but a few. And those are only garnered from a couple of subgenres and a quick scan of Podiobooks.com, and not counting those with gender-neutral usernames instead of full on author names. If that's what one can come up with in five minutes, it shouldn't take long to find more.

The men do outnumber the women, that much is true. There are likely a lot of reasons for this, but I think a fairly telling one is that broadly speaking, there's not a lot of inspiration for a woman in the sci-fi/horror/fantasy arena, unless it comes from other women ... and even then, it's not taken as seriously as it could be by the industry and the fan base at large.

Say what you like about equality and so forth, but the fact remains that the 'geek genres' are predominantly a boys' club. Particularly in the mainstream TV and film arena, women get a raw deal a fair amount of the time, even when the main character is a woman. The best example I can give of that is Underworld, where the leading lady was once described to me as 'a sword attached to a catsuit'. The recent explosion of superhero movies in the media underlined the fact that women are predominantly eye candy who either kick arse or are damsels in distress (preferably both) in the eyes of the target audience. Electra and Catwoman, films that deal with some of the major female stand-alone bad-arses of the comic book world, were box office flops and poor films to boot, mainly an excuse to have women in skimpy and/or skintight costumes stretching their nubile bodies in fight scenes. Much as Seline in Underworld, in fact.

Speaking from the point of view of television, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was not the bastion of female empowerment that many people made it out to be. Every woman in the piece with the exception of Cordelia Chase and Anya (her replacement in the Insensitivity Squad) turned to absolute mush the moment there was romantic strife in their lives. Buffy can carry on slaying after her mother dies - hell, after she dies - but can't function without bursting into tears when Riley leaves her? What kind of an example is that to set for women? Losing your man is more traumatising than losing your mother in the Buffyverse, which seems to defeat the purpose of female empowerment. On the whole, while there are a lot of women in Buffy, they aren't particularly realistic women for the circumstances; by the point at which they're getting dumped, they should be more or less case-hardened to little disappointments like a relationship not working out, seeing as how they're in constant danger of losing their lives. But no, apparently heartbreak trumps all, if you're a guuuuurl. Angel was similar, if not worse: there were two female leads in all that time, and while both Fred and Cordelia started well, both turned into yet another excuse for Joss Whedon to air out his fetish for pretty girls who can fight. Firefly was more hopeful than Angel ever was, with women who could do without men but chose to have a relationship, or who manipulated them for a living, or who did what was considered 'a man's work' but maintained their femininity (Zoe, Inara and Kaylee respectively), but the movie more or less put paid to that. In terms of female-based action, the entire thing focused solely on either River's sudden and unique arse-kicking abilities or Inara being all conflicted about Mal in a far less subtle way than the TV series managed.

In short - women are there to kick arse and look pretty, or they're there to moon over a man. Or both. That's the message that we get from film and television. It's not really inspiring to women. Unless they're writing Twilight.

Authors - including podcast novelists - do not help any of this. Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files tries, and has been doing better of late, but in the beginning it was a serious sausage-fest; the girls were stereotypes at best. Murph was the Scully - the believer who still insisted on doing things by the book when it was clear that 'the book' wouldn't do. And then there was Susan - the romantic liaison that seemed to come out of nowhere. And that was it for females for awhile, at least until the Fae courts started in and Bianca got a better role. It has to be said that for predominantly hard-copy male novelists dealing with female roles, Jim Butcher is one of the best, and even the girls get short shrift in the first few books. Simon Green seems to have Buffy Syndrome; the girls are either little kick-arses, damsels in distress, little sisters or PURE EVIL (and dumb as posts). Stephen King, too, has issues with writing believable women, and tries to write a female main character perhaps once in a blue moon.

Podcast novelists? In terms of males dealing with female characters, Matt Wallace beats them all. That's discussed in a recent review, so that glowing exception can be passed over in favour of the rule - male podcast authors don't write women well, if at all. While JC Hutchins' 7th Son trilogy is a very good listen, it does not deal with female characters particularly well. Of the ones that show up most frequently, nearly all of them have been hijacked by a male psyche, so they do not count. Scott Sigler's Infected deals with women only out of necessity, though at least in that case the plot does call for a certain amount of inward thinking by a male protagonist. Mike Bennett's Underwood and Flinch does have female characters, but they are predominantly incidental, and only well-written in that they deal with the worst facets of 'woman' ... but then again, every single character he's written in that podcast novel are reprehensible, so that shouldn't be a surprise either. Any way you look at it, however, female characters are underused, underappreciated and poorly written on the whole by male authors.

That leaves female authors, who do pick up the slack. Kim Harrison's Dead Witch Walking and the other books in the series has a female majority in the character list, whereas Rachel Caine's Weather Wardens series is heavy on male characters but still shows a good rounded female protagonist. However, for every Mur Lafferty or Kim Harrison or Rachel Caine, there's a Stephanie Meyer and a JK Rowling; women who subjugate their own gender according to the rules set out by male authors since time immemorial. Bella Swan is seen as someone to emulate, as are Ginny Weasley and Nymphadora Tonks - the first is a whiny, clinging, self-absorbed airhead with serious codependency issues, and the latter two were a good strong character who turned to mush the moment they 'got their man'. While there are wonderful 'geek genre' series, predominantly fantasy, written by women, half the time the female characters they write are not to be taken seriously, as the whole thing has turned to paranormal romance - 'Mills and Boone with fangs'. Perhaps Buffy, with its 'Slayer/Vamp Doomed Romance' scenarios, can be blamed.

Genre fiction of this type doesn't tend to deal with sexuality much, unless that's the driving force of the tale - romance tends to go by the wayside when you're fighting for your life, unless it's heat-of-the-moment post-apocalypse-aversion sex. LGBT is rarely touched on in 'geek genre' stuff unless it's in passing or two women getting it on - note George RR Martin, who admits that Loras Tyrell and Renly Baratheon are an item but never showed them having sex before Renly's untimely demise, whereas there are at least four lesbian scenes within the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Likewise, gender issues are more or less ignored, with authors writing what they know. On the whole, it seems as though women writing men have a marginally greater success rate than men writing women, which is telling in and of itself, but the fact remains that when even female authors are turning their female leads into soppy puddles and that's nearly all male authors do when the girl's not dressed in leather and kicking your arse (or citing the rules and spoiling your fun), there are few places for a female author to turn for inspiration.

If you are a male author and you are lamenting the dearth of female authors, podcast or otherwise, take note: at least part of the reason is that the genres you're talking about do not take us seriously. We're fluff. We're eye candy. We have to be there because we make up half the population but we are not important to most male authors. Often, we feel shut out of the whole genre. Why the hell would we bother? Read over your own work and see if there's any single point where you indicate that you care what a woman thinks. If you can't find one, you're part of the problem.

Technical Notes: Bring the Noise

jneilson@cityofcomplications.co.uk — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:04:25 PDT

There's a song that talks about there being fifty ways to leave your lover; well, there are at least that many ways to record a podcast novel. Some of it depends on your budget and the tools available, particularly in terms of the quality that comes out, but a little imagination and a lot of hard work can excuse a multitude of sins.

For instance: the HIPPIEcast is recorded on an Advent digital stereo headset microphone. There is no pop shield, though the noise cancellation isn't too bad. For a piece of kit that cost maybe £25 (I guess about $40 USD), it's actually pretty good, though obviously the sound quality would improve for a decent stand mic and a pop shield. However, it would be a lot worse without the editing process. For every off-kilter sibilant, overly breathy note and sinusitis-mangled consonant, there are at least a dozen places where swallows, sniffles and overly loud breaths have been edited out, and the editing has become a lot less noticeable over the weeks that HIPPIEcast has been going. That's most of the hard work; editing out extraneous sounds as seamlessly as possible. Add an hour to every twenty minutes of podcast, more or less, just for that alone.

Over the course of weeks, additions have been made to the HIPPIEcast to make it sound better. The first thing to be added was theme music - care had to be taken to select something that could be used for free via Creative Commons licence but still gave the appropriate mood to the story. Chaos Magic uses a track off Distimia's 'Sinfonia de Pandemonium' album called 'Condenado', generally edited as well as possible to fit the 'story so far' and end credit blurbs. For the next book (Sir Realist, coming to podcast in July of this year if current schedule holds), a more ambitious course was set in terms of the theme track; Sick0, with permission from their label, Intolerance Records, agreed to let one of their tracks - % (Prozente), which is available for free download on the Intolerance Records site - to be used as the official theme music for the second HIPPIEcast novel. Details should be appearing in the Intolerance Records newsletter, coming soon.

Beyond that and the occasional bit of background music (there have been attempts made to strike a balance there; some episodes and chapters have background music, some don't, and it often depends on the action or setting), another sound feature has recently been added to the HIPPIEcast: sound effects. While Jamendo offers some wonderful tracks on Creative Commons Attribution/Non-Commercial Licences, The Freesound Project is a good place to find sound samples and field recordings for almost anything an audio tech could hope for. If one can't find precisely what one's looking for - for instance, a computer monitor falling over and shattering in a fizzle of cheated electrical current, or a pink plastic Barbie car hitting someone in the back of the head? No problem. Either substitutions can be made, or a clever little trick of editing can make two sounds (heavy breaking glass and electronic spark noises) into the one sound a sound FX director is looking for. It requires a little imagination and a lot of work to put the sounds in just the right spots to enhance the narrative, but when done right, those are just more things that can enhance the story without distracting from it.

If anyone's considering a podcast novel of their very own, looking into places like Jamendo and The Freesound Project wouldn't be a bad idea once they've got the hang of their sound editing software. If you're willing to work for it, a lot can be done to enhance a story with the addition of just a few noises. Also, no one should let a lack of expensive tech stop them from giving podcasting a shot if there's something they want to say or a story they want to tell. Inspiration and perspiration are always going to win out over shelling a lot of money for kit.

JC Hutchins: Suspension Bridges

jneilson@cityofcomplications.co.uk — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:13:27 PDT

Note to reader: a lot of the reviews given on the works of various authors in this blog will be on the strength of being partway through one of the novels. Maybe it's a strange way of doing it, but some points about a podcast are best given fresh, and an updated review of a story can deal with the 'overtaken by events' problem. Besides, a new audience might be interested in the thought process about a podcast being listened to as it happens, instead of being presented with a fait accompli.

That said, a note on the second podiobook in JC Hutchins' 7th Son series - 7th Son: Deceit.

An interesting point to note about the 7th Son series in general is that in terms of the science and tech elemenents (the biochemistry and biophysics as well as the straight-forward non-biological hardware), willing suspension of disbelief is a process Hutchins works to let the reader achieve. This is especially true in terms of the neurology of the 7th Son project. Cloning technology has been around for awhile; at the time of 7th Son: Descent's release, Dolly the cloned sheep had been and gone as a news blip. It doesn't take much of a leap of faith to consider that perhaps some hyperintelligent government bods had gone a lot further on that research than conventional science had managed, and kept it under wraps. After all, the concept of human cloning is a serious bone of contention for many of the reasons Hutchins flags up throughout the series so far - the ethical and philosophical implications are wide-ranging. So if a top-secret government lab had managed human cloning to that extent, it makes sense that the world at large wouldn't know about it.

Recording memories is the next leap of faith, a little further, but with the idea of human cloning as a stepping stone. That subject hasn't been touched as far as the world at large knows, but if it had been, it would be government and it would be kept under strict lock and key. The idea that human consciousness can be recorded and kept in a computer has even more serious ethical issues than human cloning does. No one would want the world knowing that the research had even been undertaken, much less given practical application. From there, it's only a short hop and skip to downloading the recorded memories into an 'empty' brain. If the brain is like a biochemical computer (one commonly espoused theory), a data download to a blank hard drive is a simple enough thing to believe in, given the idea that the research had been undertaken and the neurophysics involved mapped. It's still a stretch, but with the foundations of 'Secret Government Research' to build on, it's not as much of one as it might be.

Which moves the audience onto NEPTH-charge technology. The leap of faith for that bit of willing suspension of disbelief is made easier by a combination of the previously created stepping stone of memory download and the knowledge of how delicate the human brain can sometimes be. Brain damage is a constant for the human animal; a night of heavy drinking will kill brain cells, after all, and even a comparatively light blow to the head aimed properly can either kill a person or reduce them to vegetable status for the rest of their lives. Given the existence of technology capable of downloading memories into a blank mind, the idea of blanking out a mind and replacing it with a previously recorded 'memory singularity' is easy to believe. The idea is given further veracity by the much-reduced lifespan of a NEPTH-charge victim; the amount of damage necessary to wipe out an entire lifespan of memories doesn't leave a lot of functioning brain tissue to work with, as any neurosurgeon will tell you. A victim of such a procedure could last out a little while, like head trauma victims can live on for awhile before having a fit and keeling over dead, but eventually, that massive brain trauma is going to tell.

Then there's Psyjack, and that's a little harder to swallow. Still, given the established and more or less believable foundations for the idea that a mind can be not destroyed but stunned to allow a new memory singularity entry, it can be swallowed. Hutchins has given us a firm narrative line, anchored in truth, to follow towards the portions of his Maguffins that might be picked apart by any particularly nit-picky geek. Which just goes to prove he knows his audience, as evidenced above.

And even then, a not-quite-spoiler indicates that Hutchins has still made provisions to patch up or exploit even the tiniest plot hole. Hence the conversation between me and my fiance the other day:

Me: But if the consciousness of a Psyjack victim is only stunned, surely there's the chance for the Psyjacked personality to reassert itself; rise up righteous and choke the interloping thought processes down, regaining control.
Him: I don't know how far you've got...
Me: They'd found the proto-womb and what was in it.
Him: Right. I won't say anything more than ... hold that thought.
Me: Oooh!

You can find the 7th Son trilogy (Descent, Deceit and Destruction, as well as the spin-off anthology Obsidian) at JC Hutchins' website or on Podiobooks.com.

Matt Wallace: Talking Headcases

jneilson@cityofcomplications.co.uk — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:57:52 PDT

In the 90s, Quentin Tarantino directed Pulp Fiction, a film showing a single day's worth of story shown from the point of view of several different characters. It was full of excitement and adventure and pop culture references and mayhem and honest interaction. It linked up very well, and the human interaction elements were very true to life. Being a film, it handled everything from the point of view of a quasi-omniscient narrator, which makes things a little easier. To handle that from a first person perspective - say, eight characters, two cities, one story - takes talent and guts.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Matt Wallace, author of The Failed Cities Monologues.

Wallace's Failed Cities Monologues combines the narrative macrame of Pulp Fiction, the poignancy and first-person immersion of Alan Bennett's Talking Heads and the cybernoir glory of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, while at the same time remaining very original. Wallace is a master of the 'show, don't tell' rule; while keeping to the monologue format through every chapter, the focus is on character rather than surroundings, but the audience still gets a very good look at the Failed Cities. The two cities - a single city divided by sixteen miles of river and light years of socio-economic differentials - are lovingly rendered mostly in allusion, shaped for the audience predominantly by the thoughts and deeds of the characters involved. The same can be said for the tightly-woven, seamless plot, which is revealed to the audience in tantalising glimpses and flashes, like the body of one performing The Dance of the Seven Veils.

The consummate reality of the eight characters involved is another mark of Wallace's talents. Each of them has their own distinct voice, from the 'Arthurian' cowboy-ish street preacher lawman to the killingly intelligent femme fatale, to the point where one could be fooled into believing that each character was written by a different person, not just read by one. The favoured turns of phrase are different between each, the cadences of sentences and paragraphs change for each character, and yet the flow of the narrative retains a strange seamlessness despite the juxtaposition of moving from the rock-and-car-happy knifeman/runner Truck to Constable Klimenko, the hapless Russian who hunts him.

However impressive all of this is, what is even more impressive is the presence of strong women throughout the story. While it may seem unfair to make the judgement, experience shows that quite often, male writers have a difficult time dealing with female roles at all, much less strong ones. Often, there's very little feminine presence in stories written by men - from King to Stephenson, women take a firm back seat to the men of the piece. And while the women are outnumbered by the men in The Failed Cities Monologues, they are certainly not outclassed. Fera's psychology is true to life for her background but she takes it to its absolute limits and to hell with the world that might disapprove; she transforms herself into a monster, true, but she's still a female monster, whatever else she may be. As for d'Anger, the femme fatale ... the stereotypes brought to mind by those two French words are nodded at, acknowledged and then kicked around like a football. Her appearance is mostly described by others; she does not indulge overmuch in physical vanity like other characters who use their beauty for fun and profit. She saves her vanity for where it counts, and where it counts is that killing mind of hers, a rarity for 'bombshells' in this sort of literature. Even the background women show more spine than is generally expected - the Mother Superior of the Joy Sacrament being the best example.

If there are any flaws in The Failed Cities Monologues, any points that might turn an audience off, they are in the readings, and are predominantly a matter of taste. Some might find the accents for both Ethan the street preacher and Constable Klimenko difficult and mildly off-putting, but only for a few moments. After that, the narrative takes over and excuses all.

In short, in The Failed Cities Monologues, Matt Wallace has produced an imaginative, witty, original and real story with almost no down-sides to speak of. An impressive achievement, to say the very least.

So on to the promotion.

Matt Wallace's home page - where you can find all of Wallace's podcast endeavours and "KILL (the) FEED".

Variant Frequencies hosts all twenty-six chapters of The Failed Cities Monologues and Wallace's other works, including the chapbook The Failed Cities: Hath a Darkness.

To download the entirety of The Failed Cities Monologues in one go, try its site on Podiobooks.com.

Listening to Fear

jneilson@cityofcomplications.co.uk — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 04:00:01 PDT

This morning's mission: find podcast promos. Amass a collection. According to the outline of Chaos Magic, there's a good thirteen chapters to go before the end, and it would be nice if each chapter could flag up, if not two new authors, then at least two new audiobooks. It may not bring in much traffic for these bright lights amongst the podcast set, but every little helps.

Thing is, finding promos for some of these is harder than it sounds. Sometimes they're tucked away in some unconsidered portion of an author's website, nearly inaccessible. Others don't seem to have one at all. It takes dedicated work to find the promos that will increase a podcaster's readership (listenership?). This is not helpful in that great scheme of reciprocal podcaster promotion, on the whole. How is one one podcaster supposed to send their listeners towards another podcaster who deserves the exposure if there is simply no promo to post at the end of whatever chapter or story they've come up with?

In the introduction to The Turing Test by Chris Beckett, Alastair Reynolds has a few words to say about the current trend towards self-promotion seen in authors both podcast and hard copy, mostly by implication. Reynolds claims that Beckett does not get the attention that he deserves because he does not 'rant and rave on a blog' or 'spread himself around on message boards, pimping his latest story or book at every opportunity'; because 'he doesn't do the noisy self-promotion thing'. Reynolds implies that it's a bad thing, this self-promotion thing that he himself points out is 'how things work these days' - that it means that the only reason that worthier authors aren't getting the attention given to these loud self-promoters is that they are, in fact, loud. The entire tone of the introduction at that point is that self-effacing is the way to go, that those who do self-promote are all sizzle and no steak, and that if one's work is good enough, one shouldn't need to self-promote to the degree that is currently acceptable. So we are told that a true author waits for others to praise and promote his or her work, at least by implication. It's small wonder that some podcasters might feel particularly shy about self-promoting to any great degree.

The problem with that whole train of thought is as follows: if one wants praise and promotion of their work from others ... don't those others need to know where to find their work first? It's all well and good to say that one's work should speak for itself, but the work can't say anything if no one is listening. Authors have to promote their work all the time; they send things to agents or publishers, explain them in detail to publishers for the sake of cover art and advertising copy, and while they may not speak to the purchasing staff at bookstores directly, the ad copy they helped generate certainly reaches their desk. Before a book can ever hit the shelves, it needs to be promoted to a whole lot of people.

The internet cuts out the middleman. Instead of having to sell to an agent, someone savvy in the ways of message boards and blogs and the like can reach their audience directly. An author who goes the way of self-publishing and podcast has to be a sort of a Renaissance author - author, publisher, art designer, agent and marketing executive in one neat package. Many do this quite well, and their enthusiasm for the work makes the promotion all the more effective.

It's a pity, then, that there are still a great many people who not only don't appreciate the work that goes into self-promotion on the scale it is currently reaching, but disparage it as egotistical and claim that it denies true genius of its day in the sun. If 'true genius' wants its day in the sun, it can reach for it just like everyone else. No one is going to be able to make a judgement call on stories like 'The Turing Test' or 'The Perimeter' if they don't know how to find those stories. An author can either hope that his or her publisher is doing their job, or that someone happens to find the book in a bookshop or public library and thinks it looks interesting ... or one can send up a signal flare by every means necessary, promoting the writing they worked so hard on and truly believe deserves to be seen. And if by some chance they truly don't believe it deserves to be seen, way down deep? There's only one thing to say to them: suck it up and do it anyway. If unconsidered, unacknowledged, self-published authors with self-esteem issues (*ahem*) can make even the slightest stabs at promoting their own work, someone who managed to get an agent to look at their work and a publisher to accept it shouldn't have the least bit of trouble believing that their stories are worth something. They got a publishing house to part with money, for pity's sake!

This post to Absurist Inc brought to you by a recent library foray and the words of JC Hutchins: "Be FEARLESS!" ...Yeah, right. I personally wouldn't know 'fearless' if it bit me in the arse. I can hear every flaw in what I've put out so far, even those that aren't really there. As I think most authors can say, I am my own worst critic, and while I acknowledge that the story is worth it, my reading of it (particularly in the first couple of chapters, which I desperately need to re-record) might not be so. I hate the sound of my own voice on recording, partially because the microphone picks up every sniffle and breathy little noise that my chronic sinusitis lends to my voice. The editing process is brutal. I am not fearless. I will never be fearless.

However, I do it anyway. I can see the good points. I recognise that, much as I hate my own voice - its sniffly nasal notes, its mild lisp that is the primary hangover of my lower-class Montreal accent - I can work the hell out of a dramatic reading thanks to years of drama classes and tales spun over campfires at sleepaway camp. Plus the story is worth it, shakily started or not. I did good. I continue to do good. And just because I can hear every single bit of the bad doesn't mean I can't find the good as well.

As I said, I am not fearless and never will be. It's less a case of "Be FEARLESS!" than of "Feel the fear and do it anyway". While I will always be shy and self-effacing at root, I will also do my best to make sure my story gets some attention. I might not deserve it, but the story does.

That said, CLICK HERE for the City of Complications HIPPIEcast promo. If you are a podcaster, please feel free to tack this onto the end of your own podcast episodes. Whether you do or not, if you do have a podcast, please feel free to point me at your own work and the promos for same, either in comments or by email (jneilson at cityofcomplications dot co dot uk, written in the conventional way - unconventional spelling to deter spambots).

And now, to quote the inestimable Mur Lafferty ... I should be writing.

The Road Less Travelled

jneilson@cityofcomplications.co.uk — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 16:46:11 PDT

There's a theory on writing that goes something along the lines of "There are two types of writers - Freewriters and Outliners". Those who advocate this theory of auctorial division say that while Freewriters come to the empty page (or screen) with no idea exactly where everything is going to go, an Outliner will sit down with their notes and have the entire story plotted from beginning to end. Thus the implication is that Outliners have an easier time with getting a story finished.

There's another theory; that the above, particularly the implication, is a load of crap. We are all Freewriters, to one extent or another. The best way to describe the plight of your average Outliner is by analogy, and it will make the most sense to the video gamers here; it's a lot like playing Silent Hill 2. (Any of the Silent Hill games make sense here, but Silent Hill 2 is arguably the best example.)

Upon starting a game of Silent Hill 2, the player receives a map of the town, and clues about where in town they need to reach. There is no going back, only forward. The path is clearly laid out, and the player is launched full on into the mission. No surprises; it's the metaphorical equivalent of a smash and grab. In and out, shouldn't be hard. Except it is. The map's accurate as far as it goes, but there are massive rents in the pavement and inexplicable walls and things blocking the most obvious path to the point the player needs to reach that just don't turn up on the map. Sometimes there's an air raid siren and the entire landscape changes - the buildings are more or less the same, but more of the paths are blocked off and a whole other route needs to be scouted out. Some things the player can't even access until a puzzle of some sort is solved or some other conditions are met. This carefully laid out mission with all the clues in place is getting harder by the second, and a lot of thought has to go into how to meet the necessary criteria just to move forward according to plot. If that weren't bad enough, it turns out midway through that the spot that the player was told would be the end point actually isn't, and so it begins again; the clues that must be followed to get to endgame are still there, but following them becomes yet harder. Meeting all the criteria becomes a nightmare and sometimes what the player has to make their PC do doesn't make even the tiniest bit of sense until taken in context later on.

That's writing with an outline. Sure, the author knows where the story is supposed to end, and that's a bonus. They know where they want things to go. The trouble becomes getting the characters and the plot from point A to point B in a believable way. It would be much easier if the author didn't mind being a bit of a hack, frankly; they could just Deus Ex Machina everything into place. But most authors - the good ones, at least - prefer not to do that. They'd prefer it all to make sense, and for the journey to be as entertaining, true to character and logistically viable as possible. Proper pacing is a must. Foreshadowing is a bonus. The author encounters the puzzles and solves them, and only then can the characters - and the story - move on.

This is harder than it looks.

Take an example: the author knows who their villain is going to be ... but to introduce them immediately would rush the story. Therefore, the author needs a red herring. But red herrings don't just appear out of nowhere; they have to be carefully created to look enough like a real villain to take the audience in without looking so much like a villain that it screams 'RED HERRING' in great flaming neon letters. Meanwhile, the real villain has to be sort of seen in the background, so that the audience later has something to point to and say, "Ooooh, we should have known!" All of this has to happen at the pace the author decrees. So while the story is more or less outlined, the devil is always in the details, and it's still a freestyle process, trying to get that pacing right.

In short, in terms of writing, the authors with an outline are just starting Silent Hill 2 with their blank, unmarked map. They don't know where the walls and pitfalls are until they run into them in the course of writing. This does not make the writing process any easier. And to give this particular bit of writing on writing a more personal touch ... anyone who says that Outliners have it easier somehow can bite me.

Hard Copy Promotion

jneilson@cityofcomplications.co.uk — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 09:14:45 PDT

Spontaneous Human Promotion time - City of Complications Chapter 7 is now up. Promos this week are provided by JC Hutchins and Matt Wallace - for Personal Effects: Dark Art and The Failed Cities Monologues respectively.

On the subject of promotion, self- and otherwise, a thought occurred yesterday as I was applying for my first library card in over a decade, and I asked the nice librarian lady a fairly simple question: "Do you order books on the recommendation of library patrons?" There's a twofold reason for asking this question. First, because most of the libraries in my section of London aren't particularly well-stocked. Second, because in that state of not being well-stocked, I noticed a few authors and titles missing that I personally thought should be there, tucked into the sci-fi/fantasy or crime/thriller sections. Books like Mur Lafferty's Playing For Keeps, or Scott Sigler's Infection. Authors like Richard Dansky and Cory Doctorow. Come June, I want JC Hutchins to be represented at my local library. And I'm sure there's plenty more I'm forgetting.

Anyway, the answer was "Yes, we do try to obtain books if a patron asks for them and we don't have them in stock". Therefore, my intention is to present the Chipping Barnet Library with a list of books they ought to have, one net-based author at a time. The whole point of libraries is to encourage literacy; I'm just helping The Cause, on a number of levels. Pushy? Perhaps. But at least it's not tooting my own horn. (Though then again, when and if I do end up getting Chaos Magic published by whatever means, it might please my local library peeps to stock something by a local author. So you never know.)

JC Hutchins - Kilroy 2.0 Is Everywhere

jneilson@cityofcomplications.co.uk — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:45:23 PDT

For the aspiring writer, aspiring publicist, and anyone who wants to understand the full-on power of the internet, JC Hutchins is a definite must-listen. The reasons? His raw talent, his incredible enthusiasm, and his flaws.

Talent is a hard thing to benchmark because of the many different ways in which it manifests. Hutchins' main talent seems to be extrapolation. In his writing, this shows in his 7th Son trilogy. By the middle of the first book, Descent, Hutchins gives an up-close and personal look at the oldest argument in the book - nature versus nurture. In 7th Son, seven 'John Michael Smiths', each with the same childhood, are separated and given different upbringings in their mid-teens, and as a consequence develop into seven very distinct personalities. The differences are thought-provoking, to say the very least. Each show differences in metabolic rate, as illustrated by body mass and rate of hairline recession. Some wear spectacles. One of the seven is mentally disturbed, with a guessed-at but as yet undefined psychiatric diagnosis. Another is homosexual. Conventional wisdom says that at least some of these things are genetic, but Hutchins posits that this is a predisposition rather than a genetic imperative. The idea that a paranoid schizophrenia-like mental illness to which one is genetically predisposed can be triggered by circumstance and upbringing is novel, but sensible. The idea that one of seven genetically identical men is attracted to his own gender hints at a controversial but eminently logical idea that sexuality is not a radio button decision but a sliding scale; that there is no 'straight' or 'gay' but an attraction to a certain 'type', established through circumstance and a great deal of trial and error. (Still, one wonders how the other six would react upon meeting Michael the Marine's boyfriend.)

Aside from that, a wonderful balance is struck in terms of the relationship between the seven main characters, running the gamut between intimate familiarity, fraternal affection, disgust and mind-bending horror. Meeting an alternate-universe version of one's self is a long-established trope; meeting seven at once is new and much more difficult to handle in terms of narrative line and balance. It's admirably handled here, as are the cuts to other places and characters important to the plot arc. On the subject of the plot arc, it is complex and interesting without becoming overly convoluted, and is a perfect example of a conspiracy theory story that does not feel the need to overcompensate in view of standard media predecessors like The X-Files or Millennium (two shows in which this sort of idea would likely find a good home). 7th Son is something of a classic car in the car lot of fiction from the point of view of plot - clean, smooth lines and enough optional extras for comfort and style.

Which brings us to his flaws - and let's face it, everyone has some. Descent is very much a first novel, and it shows. While the plot is smooth and streamlined, the narrative isn't always, and there's a reliance on the words '[character] said' that breaks up the story flow in places, specifically in those spots where it's patently obvious which character is speaking, be it by the voice the reader is using, the circumstances under which the line was spoken or the exact phrasing used. It's not a major flaw, but it's definitely noticeable. Descent is also a bit of a slow starter, with perhaps an overly long look at 'Saturday sex with Sarah' and slightly more 'talking heads' action than is necessarily required. While it's a good story as it currently stands, it could stand a bit of an edit in some spots to make it even better.

Which is, in fact, no bad thing. What little Descent lacks in prose streamlining, it makes up for in spades in character portrayal and raw enthusiasm. JC Hutchins is an author who truly enjoys his work, and as a result, he gets into his world and brings the reader/listener with him as much by his sheer love for his story than anything else. Hutchins has a world and a story that he's created; he loves it and he wants you to love it too. Often, a rough story told by someone who truly enjoys the story he or she is telling is better than a story with flawless prose written by someone who is more in love with the idea of authorship than the story on the floor, and such is the case here.

Another place that Hutchins' enthusiasm shows is in his concept of Spontaneous Human Promotion. He's not shy. He loves his work and he believes in it, and thus brings out every weapon in the arsenal to get it heard by as many people as humanly possible, using every resource available to do it. Twitter posts, blog posts, promos for other podcasts to play, and a recent video advertisement for his new book Personal Effects: Dark Art; Hutchins is viral. Hutchins 2.0 is here. Hutchins 2.0 is everywhere. Though he's less creepy than his character Kilroy 2.0; more of the human/web-entity version of a golden retriever puppy who desperately wants you to come play fetch.

He's also reciprocal. Hutchins 2.0 is everywhere, and if you're doing something podcasty, he seems to want you to be everywhere, too. Rather than simply tooting his own horn in an endearingly enthusiastic way, he also promotes others. He recognises that he isn't alone, and for that, we the podcasters thank him. Particularly the shy ones who aren't quite so good at Spontaneous Human Promotion as he is, afraid that we won't come across as 'endearing golden retriever puppy with a fetch-worthy stick' and more 'spam-flinging annoyance with delusions of adequacy'.

All that said, here's where to find JC Hutchins on the net:

His main site
Direct link to his 7th Son trilogy, and the anthology Obsidian that followed
The video trailer for his upcoming novel, Personal Effects: Dark Art
Related to Personal Effects - the Brinkvale Psychiatric Hospital website

And wave hello to him at some point; from what one can tell from Twitter, he's a nice guy.

Open for Business

jneilson@cityofcomplications.co.uk — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 07:43:55 PDT

*best secretarial voice* Welcome to Absurdist Inc. If you'd like to take a seat, someone will be with you shortly. Can I get you a cup of tea?

I'm being a little facetious in that first paragraph, but not as much as you'd think. Looking at the internet as a sort of microcosm of social experience, it's actually pretty apt. Metaphorically speaking, you can find just about everything you would in the regular course of meatspace living over here in what is ironically known as teh intarwubs. Livejournal measures up well to the image of one of those apartment blocks, condominium complexes, suburban cul-de-sacs or other close-knit living arrangements you find in soap operas, with all the attendant drama. Twitter is the online equivalent of those little snippets of gossip that the people in those selfsame soap operas trade in supermarket queues, doctor's office waiting rooms, pubs, chip shops or across back garden fences while hanging up the washing. Facebook ... well, Facebook is like one of those travelling carnivals, complete with tacky games that rook you if you aren't careful, where the guy who runs it is the anthropomorphic personification of serendipity on crack and you end up locked in a ferris wheel car with your most hated ex or that annoying kid from high school that you only used to hang out with because the drama that would ensue if you didn't wasn't worth it. Myspace? Shopping mall, where the teenagers mill around posing dramatically and thinking they're the epitome of cool, and the majority of the sensible adults therein are trying to buy something or, more often, sell something.

Not very flattering, but true from a certain perspective.

That said, if I had anything that I would label a 'home page' in the old way, it'd be my personal blog. It's like my home in the Wired, as Serial Experiments: Lain would put it - fairly cluttered, needs redecorating, and the rent's a bit steep, but it's where I go to put my virtual feet up. My friends come by to visit often; it's a nice place, on the whole. But given the clutter and the crowding and the occasional drama, I thought it best to set up an 'office', so to speak. It had to be someplace entirely devoted to the writing and podcast community, a place where news, reviews and promotion (self-promotion and that of others) wouldn't get lost in the welter of personal gabbing.

Hence, Absurdist Inc. Anyone who's ever read or listened to anything I write will understand the title; it's the only name that fits. I've only had the idea for it for a day, but already there's a whole lot of catching up to do; the podcasting, writing and entertainment online community moves fast. But we here at Absurdist Inc will endeavour to provide you the reader with news, reviews and sundry hopefully annoyance-free advertisements to point you at some of the community's ultimate awesome, all in our inimitable style.

*best secretarial voice* Thank you for your patience; if you'd just like to step through? The Absurdist will see you now.