“What if, for the last seven years, I’d shared my whole process? The submissions, the rejections, the times where I didn’t have time to write. The time I avoided writing for six months because it filled me with dread. The reworking of my process when it wasn’t working. The learnings that came out of all that. If I had done all that, what new friends might have come along for the ride?

What if you did the same? That thing that you’re keeping quiet because you think you couldn’t possibly tell anyone because it’s unfinished, you don’t want people to find out that you don’t belong here, you’re worried you’ll get sunburned working in the sun. Break out the SPF 1200 and lather up, bucko.

Build in public. Write in public. Make your thing in public. This kid did it. You can, too.”

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]]>On building and writing in publicDave ConnisMon, 30 Oct 2017 15:08:48 +0000https://daveconnis.com/home/2017/10/28/how-i-am-or-eat-drink-and-release-your-art-because-tomorrow-we-may-die-10151e97dfbe4b05101599058fb:51e98a23e4b054793ff1d52d:59f4cba6652dea26878857e0Warning: this post is intense and honest.

In less than a month, November 21st, my book, THE TEMPTATION OF ADAM, will hit the shelves of book stores near you. I sold TOA on May 15, 2015. A little more than two years ago. Of course, I'd written the book in the winter of 2014. So, time combined we've got three years into this book. That doesn't include all the time I spent before May 15th writing, querying, getting rejected, and trying to make books work.

I've been dreaming of November 21st since I wrote my first fictional word on August 11, 2011. Six years ago. Since I sold TOA, I've spent just as many hours dreaming of how to promote it, share it, and make it successful as I did writing it. For all the time and struggle I paid, I sure wasn't going to waste "my shot". 

As a writer, I've memorialized dates such as August 11, 2011 and May 15, 2015. Hoping that someday they'd mark how far I've come and the work that led to my debut. And they did. For a long time they did. I pushed through the anxiety of hoping my book would be a success. I've dreamed up schemes that I thought would help get it into the hands of readers and then...

7:13 PM.

That's what time it was when I answered a phone call from my mom in which she told me she'd found my dad dead in the yard.

That's a time I'll remember every time I look at a clock, or a phone, or a watch. It was October 3rd. A Tuesday. I was releasing TOA's tie-in album, an album I spent four years conceptualizing/writing/recording, in less than a week. Just that morning I was talking to a friend about how excited I was that my time to shine had finally come. I was excited that I could stop bothering my agent and editor with questions about how things could possibly go and actually see for myself. Then, 7:13.

Since then, I've thought about the last hour of my dad's life instead of what journalist I could pitch. I've wondered whether or not the last thing I told him was "I love you" instead of sales numbers. I've watched friends debut on the NYT bestseller list while I carry my dad's ashes ashes out of a funeral home. I've been mad. I've been depressed. I've been frustrated. I've questioned the fairness of it all.

It's heartbreaking to me that 61 years of hard work, happiness, heartbreak, wisdom, a hard fought marriage, and accomplishments can all be over in a minute. A set time that we have no control of.  It haunts me that I'll have the same fate. All my striving, all my "platform building", all my awards, or more so my non-awards, stop mattering the moment I peace out.

It's because of this that I've struggled to care about TOA. I've been on the brink of canceling the launch party every night. I almost cancelled the album release. I still haven't listened to the entirety of the album. Maybe a song here and there, but not the whole thing. All the excitement I had turned into feelings of vanity. Self-promotion feels like disingenuous face. "Success" sounds and feels as vague as playing a scale on a broken trumpet. All of this is especially true when I'm staring at the box filled with my dad's ashes. All the comparison. All the fighting to be heard seems pointless when I'm seeing first hand that, in the end, you just end up in a box or in the ground.

So, where does that leave me?

I don't know.

I do know that my dad was always proud of my creativity. He wanted me to "make it". Whatever that means. He was a pastor and apparently bragged about me from the pulpit frequently enough that people saw fit to mention it at his memorial service. Four years ago, my microphone of 13 years had broke, rendering my ability to make music useless. I couldn't afford a new one, so I'd accepted that LOOKING FOR EDEN was just going to remain a concept. He didn't want me to stop, so he bought me the microphone to record the album. There was never a point that my dad wanted me to stop and if I did, then he tried to figure out how to keep me going. That's the only thing that's moving me forward. The thought that, if he were still here, he'd be pissed if I stopped now.

I'm mourning the loss of my dad, but I'm also mourning the loss of excitement for releasing the stuff I've worked so hard to put in the world. Both losses seem to reflect against each other, amplifying the voice of vanity. In my heart, I know the world still needs good books. I know the world still needs good art, but, right now, I can barely think of a reason why. Yet time doesn't stop. The clock still ticks no matter how hard I wish it wouldn't. Even if I hold the minute hand down, time still moves. November 21st is still coming and TOA is coming out whether I want it to or not.

I used to think that "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die" was just pessimistic, but suddenly it's become truth. God put those words in the bible because they define the human existence. So, maybe a party isn't as useless as I think it is. Maybe the celebrating is more important than what you're celebrating. Maybe celebrating the release of a book with the people who've fought with you is more of a legacy than some silly book that'll be forgotten in a few years.

You know, I didn't know how I was going to end this post, but I think, after all this talking we've done, I think I've got it.

Friends and fam, if you're reading this, you're invited to my launch party November 18th, 6:30 at the artsBuild building in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Let's eat queso, drink beer or juice (if you're under 21), and release art, for, let's face it, tomorrow we may die.

You can RSVP on the The TOA launch party event page on Facebook.

Thanks for reading.

If you're reading this, then you probably know that my book, THE TEMPTATION OF ADAM, is coming out in November. I've started to pull strings and stand on my head in order to promote the book, which leads me to the point of this post. Over the last few weeks, I've had a few people ask if there was any way to help me promote my book and the professional answer is "DEAR GOD, PLEASE, YES. PLEASE. YES. PLEASE HELP ME I'M DROWNING."

Facing down the promotion of your book is, for me, a terrifying task. You're reaching out to people who don't have a reason to care about you and your book and saying, "Hey, so...uh. I wrote a thing that looks and acts sort of like my soul. Do you like it? Can you talk about it? Mmmkay, bye." My book is practically a horcrux and every time I ask someone to interact with it,  I feel like Harry is stabbing it with a basilisk fang. This feeling is fairly common among novelists, but especially for debut writers who are getting their sea legs under them (like me). So, whenever someone asks, "how can I help?" the world grows a shade brighter and lilies grow in some field somewhere.

All that said, I've compiled a little visual guide that'll help you help me or any other writer in your world.

I just wanted to swing by and let everyone know that we're racking up the giveaways for THE TEMPTATION OF ADAM. If you enter them, you could win a pre-order of TOA.

The first giveaway is hosted by YA Book Central as a part of my cover reveal (so if you haven't seen it yet, definitely swing by). You can enter that giveaway and see my shiny new cover here. This will be running for another month.

The second is hosted by friend and blogger, Hannah Courtney in celebration of her birthday. Yes, it's her birthday and she's giving away a copy of my book. What a standup human. You can read a little blip of TOA and sign up for that giveaway here. This will be running for another week.

Here's to your winning luck!

HALLELUJAH!

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]]>Wherein I Discuss if I get to Keep WritingNewsThe Temptation Of AdamWritingDave ConnisTue, 14 Feb 2017 22:08:20 +0000https://daveconnis.com/home/2017/2/14/the-temptation-of-adam-is-available-for-pre-order51e97dfbe4b05101599058fb:51e98a23e4b054793ff1d52d:58a3729c6b8f5bf5fa36b8e9Hey everyone!

Some exciting news came out last week and I'm just now able to sit down and write a post about it. I'm going to save my sappy "the journey's been hard" haikus for when the book releases, but for now here's a few quick reasons pre-ordering my book helps me, and a sugary finish of a pre-order haiku I call, "Click On the haiku to Pre-Order The Temptation of Adam"

1. Pre-ordering helps chances of getting on bestseller lists

The first week of book sales is a big week, and all pre-orders count toward the first week's sales numbers. With a few mysterious exceptions, bestseller lists are typically based on a single week’s sales. Having pre-orders wrapped into the first week gives me the best chance of hitting a bestseller list.

2. A lot of pre-orders can make booksellers increase orders

Easy principle here. If a lot of people are buying a book upfront, then it shows signs for good movement after the book comes out. People want book, people buy book. Stores see that people want to buy book. Stores buy more book.

Winning the day in three easy steps

(sweetening the deal with a pre-order giveaway!) 

Step 1: Love me and pre-order The Temptation of Adam.

Step 2: Take a screenshot of your pre-order, tag me, share on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

Step 3: I send you a in-progress demo of from the Temptation of Album and enter you in a giveaway for one of five Temptation of Adam Knights of Vice Forman Pottery handmade mugs.*

I call this haiku, "Click On the Haiku to Pre-Order The Temptation of Adam"

Finally, you can

Pre-order my book. Okay?

Flibbertigibbet

GIVEAWAY WINNERS!

1. Emma Jones

2. Crystal Holland

3. Andrew Shaughnessy

4. Sarah Huff

5. Mason Hall

Email me for info.

Looking ahead, I knew that my magical heap whisky manic writer archive system wasn't going to help me be efficient at recalling the information I needed when I needed it, so I researched some ways to condense and reduce and found a little thing called Trello.

Trello is a desktop/mobile app described by the company as follows, "Trello keeps track of everything, from the big picture to the minute details...Trello is the easy, free, flexible, and visual way to manage your projects and organize everything."

"HARK!" I exclaimed upon finding it. "What light beyond yonder magical heap pile breaks?" Well, not really. Confession, I'd been familiar with Trello before I'd decided to bring it under my creative employ. I'd been using it sparingly in my "feed the family" job for a few months before I realized I might be the tool I needed to condense my chaos a bit.

HOW I USE TRELLO TO KEEP MY BRAIN UNDER CONTROL

With Trello, you start off by making boards. These boards are like folders in which a frick ton of stuff is put, below, you can see the boards I made. We'll come back to what I put inside them later.

After making your boards, you click into them with the expediency of an excited writer who's about to get their shit together, and inside you'll find a digital sandbox that allows you to make a LIST.

Below is what happens when I click on my teal board, BOOK RESEARCH & INSPIRATION.

Each list you see is its own little box in which you can add CARDS. A card is the box within the box. The tiny white squares within in my "random" list. In "random", there are words I like, and links to articles that picked at my imagination when I read them. In my "American Myths" list, I've separated things into two sections: a collection of actual tall tales, and a collection of things that I'd like to explore related to my idea.

To the right is a close up of an actual list and the cards inside. You can move the order of cards inside a list. You can duplicate cards, add cards, archive cards, share cards, add labels and tags to cards. Oh, and lists share similar features.

Within a card, you could add a description that doesn't show in the card text. For example, say I wanted more information on my word "Mematiane," but I didn't want a massive block of text populating the crap out of my list. I could click on the the "mematiane" card and add a description that only shows up if I click on the card.

THE EXCAVATION OF MY DESK BEGINS

Once I learned the basics of Trello, I took a few hours and scavenged through my piles of ideas, condensing them all into lists, cards, and descriptions. I organized loose quotes I'd written into their own list. Things sort of naturally fell into their own categories and subcategories. For example, I made a board specifically for YA book ideas, and another for MG book ideas.

Here...I'll just show you. Bringing back the board picture.

WHAT I PUT IN MY BOARDS. A MEMOIR:

Book Research & Inspiration: A collection of links, anecdotes to dig into further, snippets of things that don't really have a home anywhere else. Ideas from friends that haven't been sussed out, etc.

MG Book Ideas: Ideas for books that are in various stage of brewing. Some have a rough outline, others are just three lines of a possible plot. Others are one line of an basic idea that doesn't even know what plot is.

Names: A collection of lists for names I like or came up with. These are names of places, people, things, towns, far off lands, and all that noun brickabrack.

Other Book Ideas: When the phenomenon of getting an idea that has nothing to do with kid lit happens, it goes here. This is by far the most desolate board because I don't like things if they come without the essence of dragon or youth.

Quirks/Things: This is a board with lists of things that could make up a context or, in a more writerly term, a voice for either a person or a setting. I have lists of possible vocab words, strange quirks that I've observed from people around me (family and friends, your oddities are not safe with me). If I have the idea that some character somewhere should say the phrase, "Sup, Demon," It goes into this board under my list of "possible lines." If I have an idea that some MC's family should own an arcade, and maybe the MC's dad also fixes pinball machines, it goes under my "context" list.

WIP Ideas: In this board, I have a list of each WIP I'm working on. WIP here means, anything that's  an in progress first draft or waiting to be revised. If I find something while out and about that's relevant to something I'm working on--a link, a quote, a picture--or if I have a plot or character idea, etc I'll throw it in a card in the list for that specific WIP. If I'm actively working on something and I think of something I want to change, I'll make a card with what I want to change and the corresponding page number and go back to it the next morning during my re-read stage.

YA Book Ideas: Same concept as the MG board, but for YA ideas. I have so many that i had to separate them into genres like so.

HELLO TRELLO

My favorite part about this system is it's mobility. If I'm out somewhere and one of my friends says something I want to plagiarize, I can open up Trello, go to my quirks board, and throw the phrase in a list. If I have a story idea, I can put it right where it needs to go at that moment instead of just piling it randomly in a note on my phone and scrolling through my phone to find it later. 

So far I've found this system incredibly useful, and hope that maybe my outline of how I made the switch from sifnsrkgtnerlntu to organization will help get you an organized start to the new writing year. 

Now, by no means do I think this is going to completely cut my tendency for magical heaps. Sometimes, I just need to draw/map something out, write something down, or collect some thoughts in a unique way. Writing will never cease to have some physicality to it. It's archival in nature, storing words. My brain will never not have the need to overflow, and it doesn't care what specific media it overflows into. I'm resigned to always magical heaps on my desk, but at least they'll grow a lot slower with Trello around.

Hamilton is a brilliant piece of historical/musical everything, and no matter how many times I've listened to it, I'm continually inspired by it. However, it wasn't until yesterday I realized Hamilton's given me more than just an fanboy addiction to be laughed at by my friends, it's taught me some crucial things about myself, my writing, and my writing career.

I'm writing these things down on the assumption that I'm not alone in feeling all these writer-y feelings. But mainly, I'm writing these things down because, maybe, if I write these things down enough, I'll start to believe them.

6 THINGS HAMILTON'S TAUGHT ME ABOUT A LIFE OF WRITING

1. "Look at where you are, look at where you started."

Writing is a linear journey marked more by small victories than momentous occasions. More often then not, we quantify our value as writers by where we are in what we've lovingly named "the process" (AKA are you pre-pubbed, agented, pubbed, or, of course, global superstar?) By using these few benchmarks as the only road signs of success, we define our writing by whether or not these benchmarks have happened. When we do this, we miss EVERYTHING else.

Take a few days simply to look at where you started. To remember where you've come from. Make a literal timeline of all the things you've accomplished in your writing: starting your first book, finishing your first book. Meeting your CP. Attending a conference. ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE BENCHMARKS. All of these things are pushing you forward, the only way you don't move forward is by doing nothing. By quitting.

If you're writing, you're making progress. If you're writing, you are victorious,

2. "I've never been satisfied."

Satisfaction is not our natural pose. We don't come out of the womb satisfied, and I'd argue the only way we can be satisfied is by choosing it despite what we think we should have.

Satisfaction isn't an achievable accomplishment, it's a daily disciplined choice. As long as we think we can "achieve" satisfaction by going just one step further, by getting that one benchmark, we'll never be satisfied.

3. "Write your way out."

Sometimes, the best thing to do when you don't know what to do is to just do something. In our case, when we're in a wordhole, the option is to just write something. Pick a story. Hell, pick 4 stories and smash them together and go. When you're in this place, the biggest hurdle you need to jump is to let that "something" you write matter. Always let what you write matter in the moment.

4. "Take a break"

If you've listened to Hamilton, then you are acutely aware that NOT taking a break gets you in deep deep ish. Feeling weak? Weary? Exhausted? Did you just finish a draft? Is writing becoming a chore? Are you feeling like an impostor? Like nothing you do is working?

Take a break.

Despite what corporate America says, rest is good. We need to be okay with more rest. Productivity and busyness is good, but it shouldn't trump rest, it should go hand and hand. Resting doesn't make you less of a writer. Set a date to come back, and in your off time, read. Play video games. Run in a cemetery. Calm your brain down enough to let the world's hidden stories inspire you again. After periods of intense emotion and creative exertion, our brains are like forests after a wildfire. You've got to let time do it's work. We've got to give the space for the green to shoot through the char. Let your weariness grow back into curiosity. When it does, that's when you know it's time to come back.

5. "The world was wide enough."

It's really freaking easy to believe that success a limited-run commodity. Our brains are set to the dials of supply and demand. If there's low supply, then the demand sky rockets, making it harder to get. Luckily for us, success doesn't bow to the rules of supply and demand.

Think about it, artists have been achieving success since art became a thing, and we're still watching success happen everyday. Taking a break or not having a book deal won't decrease your chances at success. There's a never ending supply of it. It isn't bound by the laws of capitalism. If you simply continue to do what you do, do it well, keep learning, and have a healthy view of success, there's a slice for you that can't be eaten by anyone else.

6. "The room where it happens"

You are the room where it happens. There are vital outside factors to growth, but at the end of the day you pick up the pen and start writing, no one else.

Comrades in craft, I need you to remind me of these things daily, and I hope I can do the same for you.

Until next time,

Dave

This is the first few pages of my short story called HEAVY LIGHT. A story in which a kid solves a scientific problem that will change the way the world travels, lives, and builds. If you wanna know what happens, you know what you've gotta do.  

DONATE HERE

HEAVY LIGHT

A Kickstarter exclusive short story

By Dave Connis 

THE MIDDLE

November 17, 2044

        I sit in the Chattanooga Library, looking over my shoulder every other second. I shouldn’t be paranoid; but my brother was murdered a week ago, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s connect to what I’m doing. What I’m about to do. I mean, people stopped trying to figure The Mematiane Problem over twenty years ago. If I shouted “Mematiane” right now, you know what would happen?

            Nothing.

            But time elapsed doesn’t equal happy-riding-with-the-windows-down-all’s-well feelings. My knee bounces. I swing my hands up to my hair, but in the process, I knock a Krystal off my workspace and scramble to pick it up before a librarian sees.

I look back at the screen. My brother is dead.  On the eve of our lives changing, the world changing, he’s dead. It has to be connected. I don’t care what the cops say. I look around again. This has to go south, but all I see is someone hiding from a librarian in the stacks in order to eat a taco from Taco Bell. I hate Taco Bell, so I hate him pretty much instantly.

From a notebook I snatched from the lost and found downstairs, I copy the rest of my equation onto an ancient reply form on The Tech Bubble website. I do it slowly. Tapping the keyboard with only one finger to make sure I don’t make any mistakes. Then, for the thousandth time, I check the math. And for the nine hundred and ninety ninth time out of a thousand—I mistook a 6 for a g during one of the calculations. I don’t want to talk about it—I solve the Mematiane Problem.

I stare at it the ancient form. All hard edges and HTML. Then stare at it some more. I look around the library again. I shouldn’t be this freaked. No one expects a sixteen year-old to have a solution to one of the biggest questions in the modern age.

No one remembers the Mematiane Problem, Jack. No one. I say to myself, trying to believe it. Trying to believe the last week of my life has just been a series of strange and incredibly unfortunate circumstances.

            I take a breath.

I click send.

            I’m redirected to the blue and white website I know like my walking route from Boulder Ridge apartment 4B the Chattanooga Library. A flashy Mc D’s arch yellow script pops up.

We’ll see if you’ve got it. We’ll respond in 2-3 weeks. Thanks for playing.

            God it’s hot in here. A summer day in pop’s no AC house. Back when he was alive at least. I look at a girl to the left of me. She’s got a fur coat on. The guy to my right has a beanie on.

            Okay, so maybe it’s just me.

            I study those flashing yellow words one last time. I’ve wondered about the “after submit” life for six years. Granted, all of my scenarios included my brother. So this exact moment is brand new. I hate it, feel exhilarated, scared, happy, and so damn angry all at the same time.

I try to imprint that horrible font into my memory, because, at some point, I’ve still got to go home. I’ve still got to see my wreck of a father-and-one-son-less mom. Those yellow letters are all I have to get me through the next two to three weeks.

            I stand from my computer, and I feel…lost. My last six years have all been devoted to solving this problem and now that I’ve done it, I don’t know what’s next, and I’d rather go to Taco Bell than home.

            Tension bubbles in my gut, then bleeds into my finger and suddenly all I want to do is hit refresh on my inbox. I sit down.

            You get one inbox refresh a day.

            Otherwise I’ll go crazy.

            I log back into my email. I know nothing will be there. It’s only been a few minutes, but I do it anyway, and when I sign in.

            There’s a response from byronm@parallelisttech.com.

            The subject is “Well, Hot Damn.”

THE START

            Here’s what I, Jack Smyth, know.

            The Mematiane Heavy Light Proposal was published by quarterly magazine called The Tech Bubble on October 17th, 2022. TTB was known for it’s quacky articles, and by known, I mean you’d do better using The Onion as a scientific source. TTB’s regular contributors included a former professor who wrote a twenty page long argument suggesting that earth worms changed into mice as soon as they came out of the ground, and a electronic engineer who thought Crisco was the key to a renewable energy source. So when the Mematiane Heavy Light Proposal came out on TTB’s blog, no one paid attention.

            It started with a few shares among engineer snobs and fringe tech geeks. Then it made it’s way to college students studying related majors. It wasn’t until an MIT engineering major wrote his senior thesis seemingly proving the theory.

            That’s when it went viral.

            The theory pretty much stated there was a way to add mass to light so that it became a “manipulatable” substance. “Manipulatable” in such a way that you could use it to hold things. Light like the pockets in your shirt. Light as sidewalks. Light as shelves in your living room. Mematiane also developed a complimentary tech using his “heavy light.” He called it a Light Reactor, which turned the Heavy Light into a renewable fuel, not Crisco, SURPRISE, through a system only one dude in Sweden could attempt to explain.

            Mematiane had a specific purpose for his theory. He wanted to create an international Heavy Light rail system that could take you to and from cities at a little less than the speed of light, and he wanted Chattanooga to be the hub. The brain. The center of it all. He wanted to put the Choo Choo back in Chattanooga.

            Think about it.

            From Chattanooga to London in a matter of minutes using light as renewable energy?

Insane.

            His plan was to attach his technology to a train, and the Heavy Light would be made from tiny projectors on the bottom of the train.

The train would cast its own tracks in the shape of a sheet of yellow light, completely getting rid of the need for millions of miles of tracks that needed maintenance.

            Completely revolutionizing travel.

            Completely revolutionizing everything.

THE MIDDLE

November 17, 2044

            I stare at the email.

My eyes go over the words again and again and again.

            Dear Jack,

            I’d long given up the search for someone who could solve my problem, and, though I must run your numbers a few more times, it seems as if—I cannot believe I’m saying this— you’ve done it.

            It’s been 15 years since I launched the search for the solution to my problem, and here you are. After all had forgotten that I even existed. Congratulations, Jack. If your solution is correct, your life is about to change. Our lives, the world is about to change. Don’t tell anyone.

            I see by an immense stroke of destiny that you’re in Chattanooga. This is pleasing to me. The universes way of making it up to me/keeping things home. Please come by my office immediately.

            I look forward to working together,

            Byron Chapel Mematiane II

If you wanna know what happens, you know what you've gotta do.  

DONATE HERE

THE INTERVIEW

Me: Hey Jeff freaking Zentner. How’s it going?

Jeff: Hey Dave, good man. Really good.

Me: How's stuff going with the book? You’re underway? Can’t go back now.

Jeff: Yeah, yeah, it’s wild. Been doing a lot of traveling for the release. Got a lot yet to come. Going to be going to the festivals and what not. I just got my hardcovers yesterday.

M: Did you geek out a little bit?

J: Yeah. It was very cool.

M: Were there tears shed? If you were Eric Smith tears would’ve been shed.

J: *Laughs* Yeah, I didn’t shed any tears, but I came close.

M: That’s fair. It took me a long time to shed tears over something that wasn’t an emotional issue. The first movie I cried in was Inside Out. It took me that long.

J: That one almost got me too. The last movie that got me was Interstellar. When he’s realizing that he missed his kids life while he was on that planet for an hour. That was rough.

M: Oh man. I didn’t even think about that. I was too confused by time construct thing at end.

J: I’ll tell you what does make me cry. Good reviews. When someone drops a good meaningful review like, “This book really meant a lot to me." That’ll get me pretty good.

M: You know, I bet that would get me too. I'll have to let you know. Those sorts of reviews are always something you hope for as an author, but never really expect.

J: Yeah, absolutely.

M: What’s been the review that killed you the most?

J: Oh gosh. There have been a bunch, but there was this one from a girl in Texas. She put it up on Goodreads, but she didn’t even have a Goodreads profile pic. She basically made her profile just so she could review the book. She said, “I never review books, but I felt like I needed to review this one because it meant so much to me,” and that just really meant a lot to me.

M: Oh man. I don’t know how I’m gonna handle that if that happens. I’ll probably just be distraught all the time. Alright, we’ll I’m going to lay it on you. So, the setting for TSK, the rural south, isn’t something that’s been explored a lot. Did you have this itch to scratch knowing that that sort of context hadn’t been explored or was there a deeper connection to a specific story?

J: When I started writing YA, I hadn’t read a ton of it. So I didn’t actually really know if the rural south had been explored that much. It wasn’t like I saw a gap there and said, “oh, I should fill that.” It’s just the place I like to write about. It’s the place I’ve been drawn to all my life and feel deeply about. I knew if TSK was going to be the first book I'd try to get published, then I needed to write it in a setting I had a deep connection too. I knew that if I had that sort of emotion going into it, I could do such a better job at writing a good story.

D: So the concepts, a pentecostal snake handler, a machismo obsessed father, the tumultuous relationship between Dill and finishing high school, did you just observe these things happening around you growing up or did you research some of it?

J: Yeah, a lot of it is observation while growing up in a religious community. I was raised in a place where there's this idea of machismo, these deeply embedded notions of what a man should be, act like, and be interested in. As far as the practices of Dill’s dad’s church, I did a lot of research on Appalachian snake handling churches. A lot of reading, talked with a friend who’d attended these churches. I just wanted to make sure I was getting the details of the practice right.

M: I’m working right underneath sand mountain, did you do any research into them?

(Sand Mountain is known by most locals in the area for it's snake handling)

J: I did. I read a book called “Salvation on Sand Mountain. That’s a really good book, have you read it?

M: I have, and it's a funny story how I heard about it. So, I work in Dade County, which is in North Georgia, but where I go is nestled in between Sand Mountain in Alabama and Lookout Mountain. One day I'm working on something or rather and co-worker comes in and starts carrying on about how their friend’s father was the pastor of a snake handling church who died during a revival. It was crazy.

J: Wow. That's awesome

D: Yeah, after I heard that I was like, “alright, I think I need to read that book. Alright, I'm off-topic but not really. Jump back with me to the machismo theme really quick. So as a dad, you’ve got this theme in there that we talked about earlier with this idea of what it means to be a man. When you were writing about such a complex and tough theme, how did it affect your parenting and what you want for your son?

J: I basically wrote the the character of Dr. Blankenship, Lydia’s Dad, as the kind of dad I want to be, and I wrote Travis’s dad as exactly the kind of dad I don’t want to be. It’s as simple as that. Lydia’s dad encourages her to be who she is and take opportunities, while also trying to teach her to be respectful of the way other people live. Travis’s dad is the complete opposite of that. He’s trying to teach Travis not to respect the way other people live and pressure him to be someone he’s not.

D: We talked about being immersed in a culture of rural poverty, as a southerner who’s observed it, do you see this issue of rural poverty being addressed?

J: That’s a good question. I mean, I don’t really see any kind of poverty in our country really being addressed, so I’d say the answer to that is no. I think, in some ways, rural southern poverty remains more invisible. It’s still sort of socially acceptable to mock southern poverty. You know, make jokes about marrying your cousin and calling people rednecks, stuff like that. And those sort of jokes don’t take into account that there are problems in our country with class and with divisions between class and economic inequality. That was one of the things I hoped to bring to the floor in TSK was showing the way that there are two Americas and one of them is leaving the other behind. One America has endless opportunities, the other? It’s just a small town, and they try to survive working these dead end jobs that you don’t even get minimum wage on. It’s really concerning.

M: So If we’re neighbors to a Dill or Travis, what are some of the ways we should respond?

J: I think doing whatever we can to share any privilege we have the way Lydia does with Dill. She uses her privilege to help him get ahead. To inspire him. To give him some tools to get out of his situation. I think this is a good way, but don’t know if that’s the thing you do in every circumstance.

M: Yeah, poverty isn’t a one size fits all sort of problem.

J: Yeah.

M: Okay, well this next questions is going to be a hard one, but it’s just been in my head for so long so I need to ask. A while back, I messed around with this book idea that’s got a southern rural poverty context to it, and when I kept trying to think through the plot line and the main character arc, I kept coming back to this plot device of, “well, he just needs to get out of that town. He just needs to leave.” There was a part of me that wasn’t happy with that plot, because how does that help the town? It helps the main character for sure, but how does that help this cyclical idea that people just need to leave their small town to get ahead. Do you see any other option? Is the answer always just “this person needs to get out.” I don’t mean this to be a dismissal of the plot line of your book, I loved your book. I’m honestly just curious because I’m having a hard time seeing alternatives.

J: Man, that is the problem. When there are no economic prospects where you’re at then you kind of have to leave or get really really creative, you know? Start a bee farm or vegetable stand, I don’t know. It’s hard to be entrepreneurial in a place like that. It’s like what Lydia says while she’s doing her college application, “Tech companies aren’t exactly looking to set up shop in Forestville, TN.

M: *Laughs* right.

J: But then there’s the issue of income equality, and the issue of happiness and I don’t believe that everyone needs to leave a small town to be happy. To underscore that point, I have the characters of Dr. and Mrs. Blankenship. They’re sophisticated, intelligent, educated, and they live in Forestville, and it works for them. They make their drives to Nashville to stock up on Trader Joe's, and they’ve got their Netflix subscription to watch their fancy documentaries, and drink their red wine. They're leading this modern lifestyle, and they do it in Forestville because Forestville is the way they escape. Travis escapes through his fantasy novels, that's a perfectly valid way to handle a small town and get by. Forestville just wasn’t right for Dill because he needed to escape his family legacy. He had to much baggage to stay there and make a life out of it. He needed to get out. And I think that’s the answer for some people. That’s a really good question, I think rural areas need tourism and agriculture, those sorts of things can revitalize rural America, but I think it’s really hard to know the answer.

M: It is. It’s one of those situations where what helps one person, or one town even, is probably not going to help the other. Everything is so context specific which makes it all so hard to parse out. Alright, I’m going to switch gears here. Moving on from the tough topic of poverty. One huge thing that I was super encouraged by in TSK is seeing Dill go through this horrible warped version of what his parents, and his dad’s congregants, think God is. The town just rakes the basic principles of grace and forgiveness through the legalistic conservative extremist mud. Dill has to face all of that, even gets the brunt of it, and still chooses to believe in God and hold to his faith. Why did you choose that particular story arc when a lot of other people would’ve just ended with the agnostic/atheistic idea that maybe God is just an asshole, or doesn’t exist, or is not for me?

J: Well, first let me say that I'm super thankful that you and many other people, many here being a relative term because not that MANY have read TSK, picked up on that. I really wanted to show a respect for faith, while also showing the struggle that people have with it. Dill’s struggle with faith is my struggle with faith. That’s one of the most autobiographical things about the book...I’ve had to come to my own understanding of God because other people's understanding of him can’t be the foundation for my faith...I can have the agency to say, “No, I don’t have to take your word about who God is. I don’t think that’s how it has to be"...I think it’s a really pat and simplistic answer for for people struggling with faith to say, “Just leave it. Just leave the faith." I think doing that fundamentally misunderstands how faith works, how it becomes a part of you, how it becomes something you rely upon when you don’t who you are, and I wanted to address all of that, and I think it would’ve been dishonest to offer an easy explaination. For Dill to just walk away from God after his life experiences.

M: Great answer. That part in the book was such a breath of fresh air because while I was reading, there was this thing at the back of my mind going, “oh, this is just going to be another one of those “faith is useless, God is useless. It isn’t for me” sort of endings. I’ve come to expect that in YA contemporary stories, so when you did what you did, I was shocked. I think I remember DMing you after I finished reading going, "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!" You said that others are picking up on it?

J: Yeah, people have responded really positively to it. A lot of people from similar backgrounds, those who have grown up in a conservative religious faith, and they’ve still got faith, and they’ve had to struggle with it. Even people who don’t struggle with faith.

M: This question is from Eric Smith, What fantasy novels did you read as a kid to inspire Travis?

J: *laughs* Here’s the funny thing, I really didn’t read a lot of fantasy as a teenager and I don’t read a ton now. I’ve read Lord of The Rings, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and those are sort of my main ones, and it’s sad because I love fantasy. It's just such a vast world. I don’t really know where to start, and I have to do so much other reading that I’m not able to get into it. What I did read as a teen was Stephen King. I loved his books so much. I will say that, if they’d been available as a teenager, I would’ve been obsessed with the Harry Potter books, for sure. Still, I didn't read fantasy, but the escapist part was still there for me.

M: I think most books, if it’s a good book, is probably going to have some sort of escape factor. You know?

J: Oh, totally.

M: This question is going to be like a condensed summary of a few of the things you’ve already talked about. How did you decide that you wanted to tell these three people’s specific stories (Dill, Travis, and Lydia) when each one depicts such a different story in relation to each other?

J: *Laughs* That's a good question with an easy answer. I took all of the sorts of people I was really obsessed with at that time, pushed them all together, and prayed that it worked out. That they’d work as friends. I wanted to write a book about a kid who struggles with faith and who's a musician, that’s Dill. I wanted to write about someone from rural Tennessee who becomes internet famous, but it doesn’t affect her standing in her town in any way, in fact it might affect her negatively, so there’s Lydia. And then I wanted to write about someone who escapes through books, so there’s Travis. And I didn’t want to take the time to write about each one of those because my goodness I wanted to get something published before I was dead. So I just wrote them all into the same story and was like, “Okay, hope everyone gets along.” And you know, as I think about it, that’s kind of how it happens in a small town. You’ll have three people who really aren’t all that similar, and maybe in a bigger place they might not be friends, but they all are sort of outcasts that come together and it’s beautiful in it’s own bizarre way.

M: (laughs) That’s fantastic. It’s always my favorite thing when an author responds to some question that could potentially be a deep and meaningful discussion about all the symbolism of their creative choices, but instead they say, “well, I just did it.” It’s like were expected to be some sort of mountain-living mystics injecting meaning into every comma, but in the end you just get to a point when you’re writing the story and have to decide what the last name of your character is so you pull up that online last name generator and take the first one that comes.

J: Yep. Our lives. Totally true.

M: Okay. Truth time. I read that you wrote TSK on your phone on the bus ride to and from work. Is this true?

J: Absolutely true. Actually, just today I posted a pic of me sitting in my usual spot on the bus working on my third book. I’ve got a new rig to do it, a tablet with a keyboard, but when I was working on TSK tablet keyboards sucked, it felt like typing on gummy bears so a keyboard wasn’t an option and I didn’t want to take a whole laptop on a bus.

M: So how long did that take? I can’t imagine writing a whole book on a phone.

J: Well, I didn’t write the whole book on the phone, I think it was about 60% - 70%. I know I wrote more than half on the phone. I got where I could do 1,000 words on the bus to and from work. 500-1000 over lunch, and then when I got home that night another 1,000-2,000. The drafting went really quick. It only took about 25 days.

M: Did you edit on the phone?

J: No. I didn’t do that.

M: Oh, thank god. I was about to…I don’t know, something, if you said yes.

J: As far as the raw materials, I’d just open a Google doc on the bus then,when I got home, I’d take everything out of the Google doc and dump it into the master.

M: Did Siri help at all?

J: *laughs* No. Autocorrect helped a little, but not Siri.

M: That’s good. She changes nothing for me every time I draft a message now. I think she’s just given up. She just lets me look like an idiot. Oh, do you secretly have a fashion blog called Dollywould?

J: No, I’d be a terrible fashion blogger. I don’t know anything about it.

M: You could have Tennessee (Jeff's son) write the articles for you.

J: That’s true. Do you know Emily Henry? The author? I’d get her to run it for me.

M: Ah, so you already have a go to fashion blogger. I was hoping that maybe as some promo thing you’d unveil some fake fashion blog with articles written by random authors.

J: Oh man, it was so intimidating writing Lydia’s blog post in the book. I was  like, "how am I going to be convincing that people actually like to read her stuff." No, that’d be terrifying to do a fashion blog and for no other reason because the real teens who are fashion blogging are so much smarter than me. So much smarter. The girl who Lydia is based on, a girl named Tavi Gevinson, she’s genius. I’ll never be as smart as she is.

M: Does she know that Lydia is based on her?

J: Probably not. She’s also like super famous, so I’m sure she’s never heard of TSK.

M: Without taking away to much of reader autonomy and interpretation, what are some of the things you want your readers to take away after reading TSK?

J: If there’s a message of TSK its that you can break a cycle, pave your own road, and make your own path. You can have choices on how you want to live. It might be difficult to break the cycles, but you’ve gotta do it. I mean, I don’t really write with a message in mind, I’m not trying to teach anyone anything, but I kinda can’t help but have something in there for people to take away. So whether they do or don’t get that, that’s fine.

M: I forget who said it, but I’m realizing more and more how true it is, that once you let your book go into the world it’s not yours anymore. It becomes everyone else's and they’re going to read a completely different book than you wrote.

J: Oh yeah. Totally. I 100% believe that. People ask me questions about Lydia, “does she do x?” and I’m like “I don’t know! She’s yours now.” I’m not J.K Rowling where I’m telling people what the deal is with stuff I didn’t put into the book.

M: So 10 years down the line you’re not going to tweet announce Lydia and Dill’s marriage anniversary?

J: Hahaha, exactly. That’s exactly that’s what I’m not going to do.

M: Alright, ready for lightning round?

J: Yes. Lets do it.

D: If TSK becomes a movie, who plays Lydia, Dill, and Travis?

J: Oh dude, this is the hardest question because I don’t know child actors. So, I’m always like, “I don’t know, Johnny Depp.” So, let's just go...Ezra Miller from Perks of Being A Wallflower for Dill. Mae Whitman would make a good Lydia. Travis? I don’t even know. He’d have to be a newcomer. It’d have to be the first time you’ve ever saw him in anything.

D: Would you dedicate your book to Donald Trump if someone paid you 1 million dollars?

J: No. Not worth it.

D: What’s the song that best catches the feel of TSK?

J: Now, I didn’t say I wouldn’t dedicate TSK for 10 mil. Just kidding. Sorry, what was the question? Oh...I’d say the song Tether by Chvrches

D: Are there any songs out there that you’ve written based on TSK/have you put music to any of the songs Dill wrote?

J: No, but I wrote TSK based on two of my songs. I wrote a song called Rusty Town back in the day, which is Dill's story. Then I wrote a song called The Serpent King, which is Dill’s Grandpa’s story. I took those two songs and said, “Maybe there’s a story here," expanded them out, and they became the book.

D: Why are you stuck in Durham?

J: *Laughs* I got snowed in. I couldn’t leave.

D: Did you cry while writing any of TSK? 

J: Oh yeah. Absolutely. All the time. Any part of TSK made you cry or want to cry, I’ve cried already. There were parts of TSK where I had to get off the bus, compose myself, and then get on another bus.

D: Did you make your wife cry when she read TSK?

J: Yeah.

D: Were you happy about it?

J: Yes. So happy.

D: Favorite place to write?

J: The bus to and from work. Well, it might not be my favorite place to write, but it feels the most like home.

D: In the far future, someone pulls a time capsule out of the ground and your book is inside. Who finds it, and what do they say?

J: An anthropologist, and they say “wow, these people had written language. That’s amazing."

D: So, you’re obviously a really good writer, what happens in 20 years when you’re a YA mainstay and you run out of room to tattoo your book titles on your arms?

J: *Laughs* Man, that’s a good question. Wow. I haven’t thought that far ahead, to be honest. I’ll tell you what. I’m going to get a pet pig, name him Little Jeff, and he’s going to have the tattoos.

"Overall, I just want a good, new, fresh voice."

"Send me your amazing voices."

"I want a diverse voice."

Sound familiar?

If it doesn't because you're just starting to venture into writing, just you wait. You'll be barraged with requests/discussions of voice forever more. If you're a querying writer, you probably see agents and editors say phrases like those above roughly always. I'd wager they say it more than "hello" or "good morning." When I met Eric Smith--my agent--in person, he held out his hand and said, "Good to see you, give me a fresh voice." (exaggeration. He actually said something like, "Hey man, so glad you made it. We've gotta take a selfie now.")

When I first started querying, my reaction to "give me a good voice" was typically, "WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?"  The only context in which "give me a new voice" made sense to me was that, somewhere, there was a fantasy creature locals called "The Silence" who steals the vocal chords/voice of its prey. In this context, there's also a girl protagonist, probably adept with a bow, who finds herself in a forest because she's the sole provider of food for her siblings. She knocks back an arrow to make a kill--a bird of some some sort, which she bemoans because that means in order for all her siblings to eat, she has to go hungry-- and she hears her long dead father's voice behind her. She lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding, and then finishes what her father couldn't, letting the arrow go straight into The silence. Finally putting the voice-stealing beast to rest.

Sorry. That escalated quickly. All that to say, if you're clueless about voice, I'm going to attempt to shed some light on it

1. Think About Vocabulary

Conversing while traveling across the US will yield millions of different words and phrases. Each region has it's own slang and vocabulary. The mid-west uses the phrase " too yet" as in, "we've still got to go to the grocery store, too yet." The deep south says "ten" like "tee-en," somehow turning it into a two syllable word. The north still uses the word "wicked" as in, "that movie was wicked." I've never heard someone from Wisconsin say, "that movie was wicked" and I've never heard someone from California pronounce "ten" with two syllables. 

All of these differences make up a "voice," and your character will/should be effected by this.

2. Think About Yourself

I have a friend that uses the term, "I'm on the struggle bus" frequently. Does everyone say this? Nope. This is her phrase. Part of her "brand" if you will. We all have words we favor over others. One person might say, "I'm going to eat this sandwich" where another might say "I'm going to put this food in my stomach." If your character doesn't have any words or phrases that are unique to her/him, then she probably doesn't have a voice, she just exists. Existing is fine if the character calls for it. If the point of the character is to be uninteresting, then give her a voice that makes her "just exist." However, when someone asks for a "fresh voice" they don't want someone who's just existing. I'll even venture to say your main character should never "just exist" in terms of voice. 

Another note on this. If you're not developing each character outside of how you talk, then all of your voices will sound similar. You should be able to see bits of yourself in every character you write, but you shouldn't be able hear yourself in every character you write.

3. Think About Context

This ties into #1 a little bit, but I wanted to be more specific with the details. Where you live is just as important to voice as how you live. Are the main character's parents academic types? If so, then he/she will probably have a bigger vocabulary because he/she grew up having academic discussion. Is the MC religious, a hipster weed-smoking vegan who only eats free-range donuts? This will effect their vocabulary as well. What economic class are they in? Are they creative or analytic? Age? Race? Friend group? All of this matters to voice. Diversity is important here. I, white male Dave, cannot assume that I sound the same as a character of a different gender and ethnicity.

A while back, I took a quiz that guessed my age by the words I used. It was a few years off, but not many. How could this quiz peg me so well? Because of the concept of voice. It took prevalent words and slang used in specific years (yes, even decades have their own voice) and made the user choose between them.

(you can take the quiz here)

Knowing the context of your characters isn't optional, it's the foundation to successful writing. 

Conclusion, Ending, Goodbyes

People most frequently use the phrase "world building" in reference to fantasy and science fiction, but it's important to include world building in ALL genres. Why? Because so many things make up a world, and all of those things comprise the context of a character. So, if world building equals context, and context leads to voice, then we need to know our world to know our voice.

Voice is the sum of the character's everything. This includes experiences, world view, upbringing, friends, family, personality, creativity, habits, hobbies, hopes, dreams, desires, and so on. All of these things effect how we think, and, therefore, our language.

Alright, I'm done. I really hope this was helpful! If you have any questions or comments, hop over to the Twitter and hit me up: @daveconnis.

Go forth and understand voice, pupil.

P.S. See that last line? That's a good example of voice.

So, in honor of the start NaNoWriMo, let's talk about its end. 

4 Things You Need To Know If You Wanna Get Serious

1. Finishing a draft of a book is GREAT, but...

In the elation of FINALLY finishing a book and winning the war against art that Stephen Mansfield warned you about, you will feel like a young Viking who's just vanquished the last of his enemy tribe. Viking you is standing on sandy shores coated red with the blood of everything that distracted you from writing in the first place. Your sword is hot in your hands. You're probably looking around, adrenaline pumping, yelling, "LAY OUT THE FESTAL SPREAD, I AM READY TO DINE WITH THE GODS." This is a great feeling. Revel in it. Drive to your local festal spread (Taco Bell, probably,) and dine with those freaking deities. However, you need to know that your battle is just starting.

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking just finishing a book is all you need to move forward with becoming a published author, yet I know very few authors who sold their first finished book (by few, I mean none, although I know they exist. First book published authors are like yetis.) If you really want to continue what you've just accomplished, devote yourself to learning the craft. Edit your book. Then when you finish that edit. Edit it again. Then send it to friends who can edit it for you. Get their feed back, and then edit it again. Then throw up when you think about editing it again, and then edit it again. Writing the book is a battle, but editing the book until it's at the point of "best it can be" is the war. If the book you write during NaNoWriMo is your first, it probably needs a lot of work, and this is okay. The after party of finishing a draft is the main event for a writist, which you, my friend, are.

2. I Am 99.9% Sure You're Not The Exception To The Rule

As I said above, authors who publish their first book are yetis. One of the biggest mistakes I made after I wrote my first book was assuming that my book was unprecedented, new, and I was giving agents the chance to get in on the ground floor of how awesome I was.

Don't. Do. This.

For the safety of yourself, your writer friends, and agents and editors everywhere, DO NOT ASSUME THAT YOU ARE A FIRST BOOK AUTHOR YETI. That .1% is a formality. It's there because I've heard of it happening through tavern bards who were just tipsy enough to let out things they've heard through a friend's uncle's friend's cousin.

I'm not trying to dismiss your talent, I'm merely letting you know that no matter what your parents told you growing up, you are not as special as you think. The only reason I say this is because this is what I thought. Think of it this way. There might a kid who’s got some raw talent when he plays soccer. He doesn't just play one local league game, score a few goals, and then say, "I'm going to join the professionals tomorrow." Yet, I think a lot of people think publishing a book works this way. Heck, I was one of them. Our glorious raw soccer star has to shape that raw talent by practicing, playing games, going to camps, year after year after year.

The biggest battle of the writing journey isn't writing a first draft, getting an agent or a book deal, it's your capacity for perseverance. 

3. "Querying agents...Yeah, I can do that!"

This thing ties into #2 a bit, so I'll keep it brief. If the words "querying" and "agents" make you say "Sweet Lord, what on earth are those things?", click this to read my Publishing/Writer 101 post.  At the end of NaNoWriMo, you'll open up Google and type in, "I've written a book, now what?" Of course, this search will bring up plenty of good articles and resources for what's next and you should read them. Read all of them, actually. Many will discuss the stage of querying, which is generally the next stage after you've written a book and want to get it published. However, think really long and hard when you consider querying that first book. 

I'd recommend making a few friends during NaNoWriMo that you'll be able to swap manuscripts with once the month of November is over. Make setting up that manuscript swap your first step. Make December NaNoEdiMo (National Novel Editing Month.) You need to cut your teeth on the querying process at some point, but if you're the only one who's seen your book, it's not ready for an agent.

4. You Can Do This

I don't want this post to discourage you or sound like I hate NaNoWriMo. I think writing is a great creative outlet, and if I know of a friend who used to write, I typically hound them until they start again. What I want to do is give you the freedom, and time, to suck at writing, because that’s what I needed when I first started. Your first novel doesn't have to be your masterpiece; it just has to be your first. If you really want this writer thing, buckle in and make every month NaNoWriMo and NaNoEdiMo. Viking you needs clansmen. Find those friends that can encourage you to keep going and make you a better writer. Join a local writer's group. Surround yourself with people who know the process and can help you get through it. I promise you, in the end, when you're standing on a different shore, sand covered in the blood of your book deal, instead of looking around you and wondering what's next, you'll look behind you at all the people who fought with you. Look at them, really look at them and then yell, "LAY OUT THE FESTAL SPREAD, WE ARE READY TO DINE WITH THE GODS."

Now,

Go NaNoWriMo for next month is NaNoEditMo, and you have a story to tell.

Dave

That's thought I've had since I started writing seriously in 2011, and when I announced the sale of my debut novel, The Temptation of Adam, I knew that it was time to dew the dew. Nike the ish out of some ish. 

Write a companion album for my book.

This album is going to be a stretch for both me and the musicians helping me. Why? Here are some reasons:

- Most guest singers and musicians are all going to be recorded long distance.

- The album isn't going to be acoustic guitar based...which I've never done before.

- We're practicing to record, not practicing to play a show.

The list goes on.

Because this album is such a new process, I wanted to make the whole thing transparent for others to watch. That also means that information about the album (who's playing, song names, sound bites of what we've come up with) will be released slowly over time. I don't know if anyone will care to watch, but maybe I'll be surprised. Sometimes I think the things I make are as interesting to others as watching a pot boil and paint dry simultaneously. 

All of the videos, sound bits, and whatnot will be compiled on my blog. If you don't already, follow me on Twitter for updates.

All this to say, I invite you guys (the ambiguous they) to be a part of the process. 

"Cool! So can I buy it?"

or

"I got an agent!"

"So when is he going to publish your book?"

Both are verbatim conversations I've had with my friends and family in the last few months. I've had to explain to a lot of people what exactly getting an agent/book deal means. Why? Because, SURPRISE, life isn't my Twitter feed and I'm like, the only writer in my immediate circles. 

If you love, know, or want to be a writer, this will be mandatory reading. If you hate the writer in your life, just take all the books off your shelves and throw them in the garbage right now.

1. Publishers, Agents, and Your Lonely Little Writer Friend

A. The Publishing Industry Food Chain

(see glossary at end of post for italicized words)

I hath devised a depressing device called The Publishing Industry Food Chain to show you the continuum of industry professions. Bare in mind that the title I've picked is more depressing than it is descriptive.

A1. Publisher

• What They Do: They are the company in charge of making and distributing your book. They have teams that do marketing. PR. Cover design. Formatting. 

• Why They Are First In The PIFC: Because they are the ones that push your book into the world. Writers can self-publish which would, mostly, take this entire continuum and shove it, but the traditional publishing route ends with a book deal at a publisher. Also, if you're a writer and want to have your book considered by an editor at a big publisher, you should probably look into getting an agent. Big publishing houses will typically (there are exceptions) not look at what is referred to as an un-agented manuscript. 

A2. Editor

• What They Do: They work for the publisher, acquiring and editing books on the companies behalf. If they acquire your book, they will work with you on the revisions, send you editorial letters. They are the central hub for your book. They work with the designers on the covers and jackets, they work with publicity on the events and reviews. They are the advocate for your book and also the main point of contact for the writer at the publishing house. They. Do. A. Lot. This is why they're always thanked in the acknowledgements.

• Why They Are Second In The PIFC: Because they work for the publisher. 

A3. The Literary Agent

• What They Do: A lot. When a writer is signed by an agent, they are typically signing for the duration of that writer's career. The agent will flex their editorial knowledge and tap into their vast tomes of industry knowledge to work with that writer until the MS the writer is working on is at it's most perfect (most sellable) state, and then they will submit the writer's MS to acquiring editors. They also help the author with networking/career development. When a writer is offered a book deal by a publisher, the literary agent handles the legalese in writer's contract. They negotiate royalties and advances. They fight for the writer to get the best deal possible.

• Why They Are Third In The PIFC: Because they are helping writers get book deals with publishers. They only make money if they sell your book. They are incredibly connected, but without their relationships with editors, and without the publishing houses that staff those editors, they wouldn't really have a job.

A4. The Writer

• What They Do: Write the book. Cry about how bad it is. Sob in a corner. Don't go out to parties. Don't go out much. Change lives, and if they don't change lives, they might change their pants, but no one really knows.

• Why They Are Fourth In The PIFC: Because you have to fight for a career.

A5. Examples Of How To Use This Information:

Now, the above content should give you, the innocent bystander, a good understanding of the industry. However, just in case it hasn't, here are a few case studies just to solidify the information you've received.

• A Writer Says... "I finally got an agent!" This means...He got the middle man in the PIFC to agree to represent him and attempt to sell his/her books to publishers.
• A Writer Says... "I just got a book deal!" This means...The writer's book sold to an acquiring editor at a publishing house.
• A Writer Says... "My book sucks. Everything is meaningless. I'll never get an agent or a book deal." This means... You need to give them a hug and tell them to keep going.

A6. Conclusion

An agent doesn't publish books, he sells them. An editor doesn't own the publisher, they work for them. The agent signs you as a client, the editor buys your book and works on it with you temporarily. The publisher releases the book into stores, not the editor. An editor isn't an agent. An agent isn't an editor. Getting an agent isn't the same as selling a book. 

C. What Comes After/Final Thoughts

A debut book is typically released two years after the announcement of the sale. Let me say this again. When a first time writer announces they've signed a book deal, their book is not published. Their book is simply acquired by an editor and is in the process of being published.

Why does it take so long?

Because the writer and the editor have to work on the book, getting it as close to perfection as possible. After that, the cover has to be designed. The text has to be formatted. Marketing and PR has to put together a plan. The author has to work on promo as well. ARCs (Advance Reader Copies) are printed and then sent out. Final edits are made. The books have to be printed. All of this is going on for multiple books at the publisher at the same time. Then, once all of that is done.

The book is born.

And because you've read this post, you go out and buy eighty copies and tell the writer every day how much you love them. You don't stop telling people about their book because, after all, you know that their agent didn't publish it. You know that that writer wrote their heart out and fought to get to the point where they can actually hold their book.

I hope this answers all the basics. Let me know if I missed anything. Writers, I hope this helps you spend more time writing and less time explaining what's going on. If someone asks you, "So you need an editor? I thought you already had an agent?" just say "I'll send you something" and give them this.

Peace an Blessins,

Dave Connis

Glossary of Writerly Terms

Un-Agented Manuscript: A finished word doc/novel sitting on someone's computer not represented by an agent. 

Editorial Letter: A very long and intimidating letter written by an agent or editor telling you which ways your book sucks and needs to change. This will often go over plot development, character inconsistencies, and writing technique.

MS: Abbreviation of manuscript, NOT multiple sclerosis. 

Acquiring Editor: Editors at publishing houses hired specifically to buy books and work on them with the writer. Sometimes, the acquiring editor assigns a non-acquiring editor to a book they recently bought.

ARC or Advance Reader Copy: The first physical form of the book. This is not the completed "published" book. It is a draft used for promotion, design and layout testing, and editorial purposes.

-An Honest Timeline of Misery, Angst, and Victory -

1999: I wrote my first story simply because I wanted to be able to kiss Rogue from the X-Men. I put it on a floppy disk. My mom found it and edited it for me thinking she was being nice. I was so embarrassed that I took a break from writing Clive Cussler-ish romantic fan fiction for forever.

2001: I started a novel about Jet Ski racers on my dad's new fangled laptop...then I spilled chocolate milk on it and fried the motherboard. No more Jet Ski racers. 

2001 -2005: Video games, bro.

2007, Fall: I attempted my first novel--titled Claritica--while in college. Hahahahaha. I wrote fifty pages and then decided that novel writing was second to having my ass kicked by liberal arts academics. I threw the file in an external hard drive, wept, then studied all night for a test I probably got a C on.

2008, Christmas Break: I went back to Claritica and added another fifty pages, solemnly swearing that I would finish it even when I went back to college. Hahahaha.

2009 - May of 2011: From hence known as The Age of Darkness.

2011, August: I remembered I used to do things with words that had nothing to do with impressing professors. I started a Dystopian book called Underwater instead of helping my new wife with something she'd asked me to help with.

2012, February: I finished Underwater and by golly wasn't it the best thing ever. It was so unprecedented that everyone would want to read it and see how good it was. Everyone would be in awe of how I could write one book and break into the literary world with the pomp and circumstance of someone who'd say in an interview, "It just came to me." I suddenly wanted this thing. This writer thing. I wanted to be a published author.

2012, Last week of February: I looked up what an agent was and started querying a few minutes after.

2012, March:  Over thirty stone cold rejections. The book was absolutely horrible, and I hadn't done any research on how to write a query letter, so I deserved every single one. At the time, however, it felt like my life was over. With the rejection fresh and painful, I decided I'd just do a major rewrite and re-query it.

2012, November: While waiting for a critique partner to get back to me about the latest draft of Underwater, I wrote a reverse MG zombie novel about an outbreak of humanity. It was a fun break, but by golly I was going to get Underwater published. Also, I left construction and secured a job that, loosely, allowed me to write part-time. I buckled in and put together a three month Creative Writing independent study that included taking an online grammar refresher course from LSU--that I almost finished.

2013, April-May: Again, while waiting for a CP to get the dystopian back to me, I wrote two different YA books in two different genres. It was so refreshing, but by golly I was going to get Underwater published. 

2013, August: After a few promising pitches turned to rejection at Writeoncon, I had the crushing realization that no one wanted Dystopian anymore. I went all Toby Maguire in the third Spider Man and swore I'd never write again. A week later I decided use the one month I had before my first SCBWI conference to edit the MG zombie novel so I could pitch it.

2013, September: I was on my way to my first SCBWI Conference. I was excited, however I couldn't afford my  new membership, signing up for the conference, and paying for a room, so...I had to sleep in my car in the conference center parking lot. Once I got there, something happened to me that I never expected...community. I met a bunch of great writers who've been severely influential to my career with their encouragement and editorial eyes.

2013, Post-Conference: One of the agents at the conference requested a full of my zombie novel. The first time an MS of mine had been requested. I partied like I'd just won a sporting event.

2013, October - May 2014:  SWEET MERCY, AGENT MAN...EIGHT MONTHS? EIGHT MONTHS?! Fine...I'll just write four other books, and develop my craft and actually take in advice from other writers that will severely improve my writing.

2014, January:  I told my wife that 2014 would be the last year I wrote on a part-time basis. We needed to move on from the place we were. I went into the year feeling the pressure of all my work not getting me anywhere close towards a writing career. Seems over-the-top, no? I really did feel like I had the perfect opportunity to get somewhere while I could put so much time to writing. It felt like as soon as I moved on from that, I'd lose momentum and realize in 15 years that I'd never accomplished my dream--probably not true, but it's still what I felt.

2014, Mid-January: I started writing my first YA Contemporary, The Temptation of Adam. It's the first book I wrote that felt strong. That felt complete. Like I semi-knew what I was doing.

2014, May: I finally heard back from the agent who had the full of my MG zombie novel. He gave me a one paragraph, "thanks, bruh, but nope." So, I finished TOA and started querying. Surprisingly, I got 8 full requests on it. I promptly freaked the **** out. 

2014, June:  I edited one of the books I'd written in 2013 with the goal of getting it ready for PitchWars at the end of August, however, it was taking forever to get through, so in the middle of July, I realized there was no way I'd have the MS ready for PitchWars. I really wanted to submit something because I had a few friends as mentors. So, my response, of course, was to write a new book to submit to PitchWars...in a month. Makes sense, right? But I did it. I worked non-stop, slamming out an idea I'd had a few months before. The week before PitchWars, I finished the first draft of the MS, a MG shenanigans book called The Hole Behind The Organ. Three long days later I finished the second draft. Two long days after that I finished the third draft. One long day after that, I finished the fourth and entered the contest. My book made a little buzz among the mentors, but it, ultimately, wasn't picked.

2014, July: I queried an editor at Sky Pony Press who's MSWL (Manuscript Wish List) lined up with TOA. She requested a full. At the end of July, she said that, though it had potential, it wasn't up to snuff. She sent me things she wanted to see fixed and told me she'd love to read it again if I decided to revisit the manuscript. This, for all of my non-writer friends and family, is called a "Revise and Resubmit," aka, an R & R.

2014, August: Though I had some good critiques on TOA I decided to take a rest from editing it, and let the fulls I'd put in the hands of agents do their thing. Instead, I reworked The Hole Behind The Organ according to the critiques I got from some of the PitchWars mentors.

2014, September: After two or so edits on THBTO, I took a subdued query approach and only queried it to one agent that I really liked. She asked for more pages. Yesssssss. But, at that time every agent that had requested TOA had said no, however, they were all very encouraging to me, and most told me that I had the chops to make it. Still. It sucked.

2014, September - October: To cope with the rejections for TOA, I started working on it again, making the revisions that the editor from Sky Pony suggested in July.

2014, November - December: The agent with THBTO offered me an R & R while I was working on the R & R for TOA. I took a deep breath and switched gears, working on THBTO because it seemed more promising/immanent. I sent it off, after putting a solid 75+ hours into its rewrite. I sent it back to her at the end of November, and went back to editing TOA.

2015, January:  2014 hath ended. My time of writing part-time was coming to a close because the place I'd been employed was closing due to the property being re-purposed and my job wasn't going to be necessary any more. It felt like my time of writing was ending. I'd assumed when I took the job a few years before that it would end with at least me having an agent, but I had nothing but a massive trophy case of rejections. Then, in a soul crushing blow, the THBTO R & R was rejected. With more angst than a teenager, I submitted an R & R of TOA I was very proud of to the Sky Pony editor.

2015, February: My wife and I began looking for new places to live. I applied to millions of jobs. While waiting on literally most of the major things that make up your life, (work, living place) I started writing another YA Contemporary to deal with the stress, Suggested Reading.

2015, March - May: I finished, and then began editing Suggested Reading, knowing that it was the last book I'd write in that space.

2015, May: I began querying Suggested Reading (I'd been told that we needed to be out of tour house May 29th.) Feeling frustrated that all the hours I'd worked in the last two years of busting my literary ass for nothing, I threw up my hands and said, "alright, I'm done writing until my wife and I get into a more stable place." I felt that I'd put a lot of time and effort into creating a writing career and, honestly, I needed to focus on other things. We bought a house, and in the middle of refinishing the kitchen cabinets, I queried an agent named Eric Smith. On May 13th, he said, "let's talk." I cried. On May 14th, he offered me representation, and just like that...I had an agent. Then, the next day, the editor from Sky Pony who had the full of TOA made an offer on it. 

2015, June - August: Shock. Business. Moving. New jobs. Ironically, I didn't write a single word.

2015, August: I signed my first publishing contract as an agented writer.

Today (Finally, the big news): I can finally announce that my debut book, The Temptation of Adam, has been acquired by Nicole Frail at Sky Pony Press and will come out Fall of 2017. (Official announcement below.)

What are the morals of this timeline? What did I learn in all of this? What would me now say to me in August 2011? How many rejections did I actually get? Yes, I have those numbers. These are all good topics...for later. I'll write them later. The one thing I do want to say now is

Don't. Give. Up.

Dave

(OMG SO ADDICTING. SORRY BOOKS.)

1.5 A Geek's Guide to Dating by Eric Smith

(Got it as a gift, which is good because he's my agent and I need to be well-versed in his materials.)

2. The Martian by Andy Weir

(I've heard it's funny. I like funny. Therefore, I will read this.)

3. Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard 

(Twitter has told me if I don't read this I'm dumb. I don't want to be dumb.)

Audio Books:

A Story of A Girl by Sara Zarr

Fever Crumb by Phillip Reeve

I could explain LIS in detail, but there's millions of YouTube videos of people doing just that (or you could just click to read about it here), so not going to do that. Instead, I'll tell you things that only I can tell you. A. I am a massive fan of Life Is Strange. Massive. I put the mass in Massachusetts when it comes to LIS. B. I recently finished playing the newest episode and I'm just so much in love with the story. So much so, I had the thought that it'd be fun to try to convert the video game into a readable novel, just to see what it would look like. So today, I decided to start. C. I'm going to do bits and pieces here and there when I have time just for fun, and in the spirit of said fun, I'm not holding myself to the standard of grammatical/syntaxical perfection. If people really dig it, then I'll see if I can work at it a little more intentionally, but for now, I'm doing this for my own jollies, and as a challenge to sharpen my writing skillz.

FYI: I do not claim this as my own work. FYI: This is not my work. FYI: This is, by all accounts, fan-fiction heavily based on Life Is Strange. All rights to the characters belong to the good people at Dontnod Entertainment. 

Let me know what you think with a comment or something.

The Unofficial Life Is Strange Novel Adaptation

Part 1: Chrysalis

    Dirt. 

    I feel dirt. Under my cheek, hands…in my hair. It’s literally everywhere. My back is wet, too. Actually, I’m wet. All of me is wet. A crack of thunder rolls across the air above me. Light flashes bright enough that it seeps through my eyelids. Wind whips my hair into my eyes. I say all this like it’s a fact. Like I’m not surprised I’m lying on the ground in the middle of a lord of all lords storm.    Trust me. 

    I’m very, very surprised. 

    Right now, I, Maxine Caulfield, can be summed up with one panicked, “what the hell?”

    I push myself off the ground and look around. 

    Where am I? What is happening?

    I’m surrounded by trees, and wind. Lots of wind. A storm. I’m in a storm. As I stand, I say it to myself one more time. I. Am. In. A. Storm. Okay. Next question. How did I get here? I look into the sky and immediately I feel like an ant under the cone tops of the violently thrashing pines. 

    I am Ant-Max hear me panic. 

    Shit is flying everywhere, and I have the tiny feeling that I might die. 

    A ball of blue light catches my eye. I turn and I see the Arcadia Bay lighthouse doing its lighthouse thing right above my head. How am I by the lighthouse? Have I been here for a while? 

    I’ve been to the lighthouse before. With Chloe. We came up here when we were kids and pretended it was our pirate ship. We were co-captains protecting Arcadia Bay from all formidable foes. Being here now, in the middle of this storm makes me think about her. I haven’t seen her in years.

    Focus, Max.

    Okay. Instead of standing in the middle of a forest in the middle of a freaking hurricane, I’ll go to the lighthouse. I’ll be safe if I can get there. If. Why is if always a problem? 

    I throw my hands in front of my face and the rain slaps into my palms. A branch flies past my face, and my if seems a lot bigger than it was when I’d made this plan a few seconds ago.

    Please, let me make it there.

    I pass a wooden sign pointing me towards the lighthouse. I struggle up the semi-steps—four-by-four posts sunk into the dirt. The slope up to my sanctuary isn’t steep enough to have me heaving my guts out by the time I get to the top, but I can’t see Arcadia Bay from down here even though I know it’s right in front of me.

    It takes me a lot longer to get to the top of the stairs than it should. I chalk it up to the epic battle between me and the forces of nature. When I crest the slope, I see it. 

    Holy shit.

    A massive tornado spins in the shallows of the bay. It’s taller than any building that I left behind in Seattle with my mom and dad. The tornado is so big it makes the Space Needle lose “space,” and it’s capitalization. Rings o’stuff circles around the cyclone like bugs around a bug light. A sail boat from the marina is thrown out of a debris orbit, and I watch it fall until it disappears into the gallons of churned up mist. Massive streams of water swirl around the tornado’s base. They siphon into swirls of spinning mass, turning into a unified skyscraper of cloud, wind, and water. Lightning strikes everywhere. Maybe even twice in the same place. The sky looks like a swarming paparazzi, a rave that only uses white lights. 

    What I’m seeing…what I’m seeing. It is everything. It is not normal. It is IT, and IT turns my if up to eleven. I suddenly know that the wind is pulling me towards the tornado. I finally have the thought that if I’m not careful I’ll get sucked off the Lighthouse Cliff, and I’ll take flight into the swirling mass of apocalypse. 

    Something snaps my hand with a wet crack. At first, I think I’ve been hit with something, but then I see a banner covering the Lighthouse Cliff park map, its ends whip in the gusts of wind with loud snaps. The banner is brown, and after smoothing it out with my hands I read, “Blackwell Academy, 1910.”

    Again. 

    What the hell?

    I stare at the tornado again, watching it draw closer and closer to the town. In seconds, I see houses close to the shoreline torn from their foundations. Stores are lifted into the air. The Two Whales Diner, where Chloe’s mom works, slides into the fray.  Everything rips off of the ground and disappears into the swirling mass.  I grab the bench in front of me as a thick SHHHHHHH fills the air. I look toward the new noise and watch a fishing boat fly over my head and slam into the lighthouse. I scream as the top of the lighthouse separates and falls towards me. 

    My if turning into my end.

—

    Whoa.

    I sit up in my chair. I’m in class. Everything’s cool. I’m okay. 

    Mr. Jefferson leans against the table in front of me, his back to Daniel, talking to us about Alfred Hitchcock. Daniel doesn’t look super happy about his view. Poor guy. He’s an artist, not a photographer, but still, he always seems to get the backside of Mr. Jefferson.

    I realize I’m grasping the table like it’s about to fly away, which it would have if I was where I was a few seconds ago. I look past the tight bun of Kate Marsh and out the classroom window. It’s sunny. No apocalypse. No tornado. Yes, Arcadia Bay. Yes, me. 

    A ball of paper hits Kate in the face. It bounces off her cheek and tumbles to the ground rolling to a stop by the wall. Kate brings her hand up to deflect it, but she’s too late. Mr. Jefferson asks for an example of a photographer who does something or rather, not even noticing how dehumanizing Blackwell is to its students on a day-to-day basis. 

    A buzz comes from somewhere to my right. I stop looking out the window, looking for the source of the noise. A phone? A phone. Victoria’s phone. At least it’s not a tornado.

    I shake my head and try to focus. 

    I sit up straight in my chair and look at Mr. Jefferson with the intentions of paying attention, but it only takes a few seconds for me to go back to the all consuming WTF-ness thoughts. I didn’t fall asleep. I know that because I hadn’t been dozing before…whatever that was at all. I’d had a coke from the vending machine in the hallway, and caffeine keeps me jazzed, always. If I wasn’t asleep, then dreaming of an apocalypse tornado…an apocanado wouldn’t be possible. You dream when you sleep. I mean, you dream when you’re awake too, but you don’t feel your day dreams, you think them. Typically daydreaming is a positive thing. You don’t normally daydream about shit that can kill you. So what just happened? This is just…weird. 

    Victoria jumps all over the chance to impress Mr. Jefferson, which is a typical occurrence. She’s desperate to win the Everyday Heroes photo contest, but instead of winning by taking a good photo, she sticks to kissing ass and flirting, which is more effort than I can say I’ve put in to it. It’s not that I don’t want to enter. I just take bad pictures. Well, not bad…just not inspired. If my photos were flowers, there would be bees everywhere. I don’t mean that artistically. I mean that in the most inconvenient way possible. Like when you accidentally dump cheerios onto the counter instead of in your bowl. I don’t know. I just shoot a steady diet of crap. Nothing I could show Mr. Jefferson and be proud of. I do like my selfies though. I like the simplicity of them. You don’t have to frame. You don’t need a muse, it’s all built in. Just you and the camera. Really, if I’m honest with myself, the amount of selfies I take is probably why my portfolio is so uninspired. I need to start taking photos of things. The ifs and the whats.

    As if he heard me defending selfies to my selfie, Mr. Jefferson says, “A selfie is a dumb word for a photographic tradition. As you all know, the photo portrait, selfie, has been a popular form of selfie expression, sorry, I couldn’t resist, since mankind was first able to take photographs in the 1800s. You all are not the first to use such a technique, and will certainly not be the last. Now, lets go back to the reading I assigned yesterday for a minute. Someone tell me the name of the process that gave birth to the first self-portraits. The first selfies. Max?”

    He looks at me, awaiting the answer. I try to reach back into the reading, but my mind is filled with apoconados and getting crushed by lighthouses. Ick.

    I look at him hoping he’ll see the look of cluelessness in my eyes and move onto someone else, but his stare is strong. Stronger than my silence.

    “I did know,” I say, prepping myself to ignore the classes reaction to my lack of…whatever. “But I kinda forgot.”

    Mr. Jefferson slaps the table. “You should know this, Max. You guys have to do the assigned reading otherwise you won’t be able to keep up. Does anyone know? Come on.”

    I’m sorry, Mr. Jefferson. I’ve failed you. Please don’t hate me. I promise I did the reading I’m just…

    Victoria raises her hand. “Louis Daguerre was a french artist and chemist who created “daguerreotypes.” A process that involved chemically treating a polished sheet of copper and exposing it to the light. Like a permanent mirror.” Victoria looks at me with a grin of a chemically-treated polished sheet of bitch. “You certainly deserve to be here, Max,”she says. “Always stuck in the twilight zone. Sad face.”

    I figured when I came to Blackwell the kids here would be legit. Like, really into being good artists and photographers. Imagine my surprise when I realize half the student body are eighteen going on fifteen. The class even laughed at her jab. “Always stuck in the twilight zone. Sad face” was enough of an insult for the class to laugh at. These halls reek of low-standards.

    Or maybe I’m just pretentious.

    Or maybe both.

    “Thank you, Victoria,” Mr. Jefferson says as the bell rings, “and for the rest of you, I want you to read yesterday’s assigned reading and today’s. Come tomorrow ready to discuss how the world transitioned from Daguerre’s photochemistry to photography. Also, please don’t forget the deadline to submit a photo to the Everyday Heroes contest.” 

    Everyone stands out of their chairs, scooting the metal feet across the tile floor.

    “The winner will get to fly with me to San Francisco to be feted and preened by the art world. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it will be great exposure and it can help kickstart a career in photography. Stella and Alyssa, get it together. Taylor, you can’t hide. I’m still waiting for your entry, too. And, yes, Max, I see you pretending not to see me.”

    Shame. So much shame.

    I collect all my things, and slide my Polaroid camera in my bag, navigating it carefully around textbooks and stacks of homework. The room clears, with the exception of Kate, Victoria, and Mr. Jefferson while I’m packing. I’m typically not this slow. I just feel so out of it, and I’m struggling to get what happened during class out of my mind. It’s like Leonardo DeCaprio hacked my brain with his band of jolly inceptioners and inceptioned the shit out of me. 

    Mr. Jefferson goes to the front of the room and I’m not sure if he notices the Victoria he has on his tail. Just. Come on, Victoria. Kate doesn’t move though. She just sits at her desk, and it doesn’t take much of a look to know she doesn’t look good. There are dark half-moons under her eyes, but they’re not just from not sleeping. They’re epic. Like, drama epic. I’ve spent a little time with her since I moved back to Arcadia Bay and started at Blackwell. She’s always been really kind. Not the drama-fabulous type.

    “Kate,” I say walking over to her to make sure she’s okay. “Hi.”

    She looks at me. Her eyes dark under her blonde bangs. She’s a little slumped over, like the cross pendant hanging on her neck weighs fifty pounds, and she’s doing all she can to stand under it’s gravitational pull.

    “Oh. Hi, Max.”

    “You seem quiet today.”

    She shrugs. “Thinking too much, I guess.”

    “I hear that. Want to go grab a cup o’tea and bitch about life?”

    Her eyes dart away from me as something in her pulls her away from saying yes before she even consider my invite. “Thanks, but not today. I have to go over homework.”

    Ugh. I want to believe her, but I don’t. Even so, I don’t push her. If she’s having that bad of a bad day, I don’t want to make it worse by pushing her into tea with me. “No worries. We can hang later, okay?”

    She looks down at her sketch book, pencil in hand, but she doesn’t draw anything. “Yeah. Sure.”

    The way she says, “Yeah. Sure” is almost enough to make me pull up a seat next to her. I almost say, “Okay, Kate, tell it to me straight. Give me all the details,” but I don’t. I don’t want to pry into a place she doesn’t want me to be. I like her too much, and I know I can come off as nosey instead of caring.

    “Hang in there, Kate.” I take a step backward and something crunches under my foot. I move my foot and see the note that bounced off Kate’s face. It’s a little flatter than it was before. I act like I’m tying my shoe and pick it up. I unfold it as I walk to the front of the class room.

    Dear Kate,

    We love your porn video.

    Xoxo, Blackwell Academy.

    I read it a few times and almost feel like throwing up every time. There’s no way. Not Kate. I turn around and think about going back to her. Giving her another chance to spill, but I don’t for the same reasons I didn’t before.

    I walk past Mr. Jefferson and Victoria, leaving him to defend himself against her flirtatious bitchery. I think about talking to him, but I know if I did he’d get on to me about entering the contest, and I’m a little over it at the moment. Sorry, Mr. J. You’re cute, but looks alone can’t make my desire for artistic domination grow.

    I walk into the eight mile hallway of Blackwell Academy, leaving behind the safety of a room not filled with couples making out, dudes duding, bros bro-ing, bitches bitching. I’m too catty to a lot of people at Blackwell. I realize this as I look at them walk around in the halls. I try to remind myself that there’s some nice humanoids in this alien world, Warren and Dana to name a few. It’s just really hard to keep the Victoria Chases and all of the Victoria Chase rip-offs from infesting the feel of Blackwell. People aren’t nice to each other here, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be nice. 

    I toss Kate’s note into the trash and realize that I feel gross. I’m borderline claustrophobe.  I don’t know if it’s the apocanado, Victoria’s verbal slap in the face, Kate’s note, the thick smell of dudes duding, bros bro-ing, and bitches bitching, but I’ve got to get away from it. Away from every just-add-water instant judgment. Every silly problem. Everyone trying to be someone that matters by making everyone else matter less. The chorus of, “she’s so shallow”s and “he’s such a creep”s. I pull my headphones out of my bag stick them in my ears, and let the music be the fuel that carries my feet forward.

    I walk into the bathroom and take a deep breath. The silence is fantastique, but I still can’t get away from the apoconado and from how…lost I feel. Am I going crazy? Am I just over Blackwell today? I splash some water on my face because…I don’t know why. Because it makes me feel a little calmer. Not better, per say, just cooler. Tempature wise. 

    Overwhelmed. That’s what I am. Abysmal. Infinitesimal. What on earth was that dream? I turn the water off and stare at the nozzle, not wanting to straighten up until the water is done dripping off of my cheeks. 

    Come on, Max.

    As a drop of water falls from my eyelash, a blue speck appears in my periphery. Everything in the bathroom is a drab shade of grey, so a sudden splash of brilliant blue is almost like having the sun appear in the sky in the middle of the night. I snap my head to the left, and I see a cutesy little blue butterfly fly behind the row of bathroom stalls and into the nook where the school janitor, Samuel, keeps the cleaning supplies. 

    I walk to the last stall and peek into the nook. The butterfly is sitting on a metal bucket. Just chilling. Just doing it’s blue butterfly thing in a girl’s bathroom. 

    Photo. Op. 

    I pull my camera out slowly. I step out from the bathroom stall, making sure I let the ball of my foot touch first. I am ninja. I am silence. I get as close as I can and then…

    SNAP.

    The flash, like lightning, lights up the walls and the butterfly decides it’s done with the bathroom. I follow it hoping to take one more picture, but the door opens, and I’m struck with the absurdity that is Max in the present. I’m in the girl’s bathroom with my camera out. There is no way to spin this that could save me any face. So I do the bravest thing I can think of. 

    I slide back into the janitor nook and pray that whoever just came in here didn’t come for the bleach.

    “It’s cool, Nathan,” I hear. At first I wonder if I’m dreaming again because the voice belongs to a guy, and not just any guy, a Nathan Prescott guy. Nathan is the son of Arcadia Bay royalty and Blackwell benefactor, Sean Prescott. Therefore, I push myself into the wall even more.

    “You own this school,” Nathan says to himself. “If you wanted too, you could burn it down. Blow it up. You’re the boss.”

    Quite the ego boost.

    The door opens again and someone else slips into the bathroom. Hopefully, this time, it’s a girl. Specifically one with enough gusto to kick Nathan out, but not enough awareness to realize I’m here.

    “As my step-ass would say, ‘I hope you checked the perimeter.’ Let’s talk bidness,” a girl says.

    “I’ve got nothing for you,” Nathan says.

    “Wrong,” the girl snaps. “You’ve got trees made of cash.”

    “That’s my family, not me.”

    “You are your family, poor little rich kid. Let’s play this way. I know you’ve been pumping drugs to kids around here. I bet your family wouldn’t want the headline, “Nathan Prescott, drug overlord of Blackwell.”

    “Leave them out of this, bitch.”

    “How about I tell everyone that Nathan Prescott talks to himself in the girl’s bathroom?” The girl’s voice makes my shoulders tense. Her new tone echoes off the walls with the power of a punch.

    I hear a scuffle. Finally, I peek around the corner of the stall. Of course, there’s Nathan. He’s standing there dressed like a rich kid with an psycho problem: slick hair, slick cardigan, slick button down shirt, slick wrinkle-less jeans. Slick. Slick. Slick. Then there’s this girl. Chin length blue hair tucked under a beanie. A black military jacket, silver-studded bracelets, ripped jeans, and a shirt decked out with a skull logo that, I assume, upholds her punk mystique. I’ve never known someone who’d claim the genre punk, but she looks so familiar.

    Nathan reaches for something in he coat. “You don’t know who I am, or who you’re messing with. You want to start this?”

    He pulls out something silver. At first I think maybe it’s a watch, or some sort of payment for the girl, but then he points it at the girl.

    A gun. Shit. It’s a gun.

    “Where’d you get that?” The girl says. “What are you doing? Come on, Nathan put that down!”

    He shoves the girl against the wall and shoves the gun into her stomach. She tries pushing him away, but he keeps pushing back, returning the gun to where it was a few seconds earlier. “Don’t ever try to control me. Ever! I’m sick of people trying to control me!”

    “If you kill me, you’ll get in so much more trouble. Come on.”

    Nathan doesn’t listen. “No one gives a shit about you. No one would even miss you would they?”

     I have no idea what to do. I’m stuck behind this wall even though all of me is screaming to move.

    “Get that gun away from me!” the girl yells as she throws her arms out and pushes him away.

    The gun goes off. 

    Shit. 

    The gun goes off. And suddenly I’m moving even though I know it’s too late. I step forward and hold out my hand, reaching for Nathan. Screaming for him to stop, but the girl is falling to the ground, a blossom of red growing in the eye of the skull on her shirt.

    And then everything goes blurry.

(to be continued)

I'm horrible at blogging/updates/anything that has nothing to do with writing fiction. Sorry, not sorry. However, the recent weeks have been filled with many exiting stomach butterflies and embarrassing giggles because I have some news.

At the beginning of May, I sent a literary agent named Eric my newest completed book, SUGGESTED READING. On May 13th, he emailed me back and said "let's talk." Of course, I said, "Okay, I'll pencil you in" even though I looked like this:

We talked, and from the outset I knew we'd work hella well together. Over the last few weeks, he's continued to prove that to me, which is why, today, I can make the announcement that I've officially signed with agent Eric Smith (in my phone as Agent Smith) of P.S. Literary! 

HU-FREAKING-ZZAH!

THANK GOD! FOR REAL...THANK YOU, GOD!

I know while reading this, most of my family, and many of my freinds, will probably say something like this, "Yay! That's so great! What does that mean?" and others who are neither friend nor family (there's still time for us to be the former! The latter is off the table, sorry. Already married) are probably curious as to what happened between when I started writing and now. I'm very literally the middle of moving. So, when I get settled, I promise to write some non-fiction that will answer such questions.

Until then, go follow Eric on twitter. He's so much better at tweeting than I am, and, not that you need another reason, he has a corgi named Auggie that will melt your face with cuteness.

One would think that the creative world and poverty alleviation have very little to do with each other, but the concept of giving deeply, not widely, holds weight in both arenas.

As a modern-day human, you are barraged with a constant stream of voices. Your twitter and Facebook feed are probably all currently filled with some sort of blog article, Kickstarter project, or band proclaiming their new EP. Though the technological era has brought opportunity to creators in massive ways, there’s a cost to be paid with such a broad accessibility.

Once creation is accessible to everybody, everything everybody creates becomes accessible to everybody.

Suddenly what was once opportunity can quickly become chaos, a scramble to reach the top, to be seen in the raucous of social media. Bids of support become commonplace. Friends become inundated with invitations to be a part of something again, and again. Such a large amount of bids has lead the consumer to (understandably) adapt to the noise, and pick up a modus operandi of ignoring or not responding. This kind of evolution could be argued as both a bad and good thing, but regardless of its place on the morality scale, it can be a harmful thing.

Suddenly, because rejection is in every thing unshared and every thing un-liked, creators have to have an even thicker skin than they did before the digital era. And while the skin of a creator is callousing, the ears and eyes of the consumer continue to adjust to the noise. Both parties are suddenly ignorant to the other, one yelling, and the other ignoring.

Strangely enough, regardless of this intense amount of content, creators are still finding success. Videos still go viral, musicians are still discovered, songs are still shared, and books still are deemed “best sellers.” Creators are still giving people reasons to share, to empathize, to enter into something made, which will never change, however, the way creators and consumers interact does need to change in that consumers need to catch up with the changing face of the creative industry. Luckily, it has been, albeit slowly.

With websites and communities like Patreon and Noisetrade (both sites that give consumers the ability to support specific creators), we’re seeing more opportunities for creative consumers to shift their mindset; suddenly the market becomes less of a shouting match, and more of an opportunity to pick who you support in a very engaging and intentional way. Instead of offering a quick like, you have to put in effort to support the creator. You are committing to patronage. 

The return of the patron system is, in my opinion, the “new” way to support those who make, and here is where poverty alleviation principles collide with the creative industry: give deeply, not broadly.

Just as modern relief supporters are starting to narrow down whom they give too, so should those who consume an enjoy art and creative content. To be clear, I’m not writing a manifesto against those who do choose to pass over bids, to some extent you have, I’m advocating for a shift in how consumers think about the way they support modern makers.

I encourage all of the potential patrons out there to make a list of artists and creators that speak to them the most and support them deeply. Share their bids, check in with them, and be active in their creative lives. When someone engages me in this way, it doesn’t matter how many likes or follows I have, the relationship between what I make and who’s receiving it becomes personal, and suddenly my skin is thinner. Instead of bellowing at the top of my lungs, I start to make gifts for you, and you start to thank me, not ignore me. From personal experience, I’d rather have fifty supporters who I hear from on a frequent basis, than 100,000 who may like one of my posts.

I’m sure you, the reader, is thinking, “but even if the shift happens, bids of patronage support will still flood the internet,” which is very true. As long as content is being made, bids will also be made. The process is undeniably linked.  However, as patronage takes over, the creative process turns into collaboration between creator and consumer. And I know personally, that once I start to see human interaction with what I make, I’m less concerned with numbers and yelling loudly, and more concerned with what I make.I am not letting creators off the hook here. Regardless of patronage, it is still an artist’s responsibility to create as if numbers didn’t matter, however, I want the point to be made that both artists and consumers have a responsibility in creation, and considering that this is a call to consumers, I’m calling on you to step up.

Creators and artists need to you support them deeply, and the best way to do that in the modern era is through intentional patronage.  There are a lot of us out there, and it’s not a crime to have preference, or ignore some bids of support in favor of others, as long as you support the ones you love as well as in your means. Created things ask to be loved, and when you start to invest yourself in their success, you become a curator instead of a consumer.

A word about the author:

Dave Connis is the co-founder of Musetic, a sharing platform/community for creative. Musetic wants to be a place where our users are willing to encourage each other, talk to each other, and collaborate. It doesn’t just want to connect content seekers to really good content, we want to inspire and support the creative looking for a place to call home. We also want to help patrons find their muses, and help usher in the new era of maker support.

I make it with the hope others will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it. When the edits have been made, the tweaks have been tweaked, and the stage has been set, the fanfare blares in my head.

“This will be the one.”

“This will change lives and move hearts.”

“This will be the slayer of the masses.”

My finger twitches above the button that will release the hounds. Send forth mine creation into the bright blue world to be cherished and loved by all.

I press it. Suddenly, my gut becomes a daring teen on a trampoline, flipping more than it should.

Seconds.

That’s literally all it takes for me to feel what I’ve dubbed “Release Erosion.” It’s a special kind of acid. One that erodes at the soul with each passing second, one that picks at the heart with extravagant fervor. Sandpaper on wood. Sandpaper on glass. Sandpaper on paper.

An hour later: minimal views. My mother’s shared it.

Sandpaper on sandpaper.

Suddenly, it’s not enough that I’ve made the thing. It’s not enough that I’ve made it skillfully. It’s not enough that I’ve taken a part in the communal experience of creation. Suddenly, I’m a small star in the constantly expanding universe. A star that will be pushed into oblivion and stepped on by other lost stars trying to throw themselves toward the center of a galaxy.

Release Burn keeps me up at night. Release Burn erodes my confidence. Tells me the thing I made is a gift for oblivion, not for humans.

I twist more. I try to dig down to the depths of what I’m feeling with others and get, “You should create just to create. Not to get recognition.”

I know that. That’s why I continue to create, because life beckons me to do it. Breathing has given me an ultimatum: “Create and breathe, or don’t create and suffocate.” I create because I love it, but I don’t want to create for oblivion.

I still hear: “Some maker you are. You should do it just because you love it.”

Sandpaper on pulp.

For me, the last four years have been an exercise in learning how to create for the lost stars. An exercise in using the oblivion to shape my understanding of how I create. With every non-view, or non-follower I gain, I practice telling myself that I am not a useless void. That I should still rejoice for the ability to make.

I try to reverse the Release Erosion process. Instead of letting the tension eat away at my soul, I try to redirect the erosion at the false lies that would have me shrivel into a creative raisin, and renounce the things I do, push them aside as a waste of time.

I want freedom from Release Erosion.

I want freedom from it before the day the universe decides that I should be closer to the galaxy center. I want to be a lost who’s orbit doesn’t depend on a singularity made out of high platform numbers, and well-shared creations.

Am I alone in wanting this? Are there any other lost stars?