Vessel Blog

a hiatus

2015-11-08T12:58:00.000-08:00

I've finally cobbled together enough spare minutes to type all this out, and now I'm scared to begin. So let's just rip the bandaid off and say it outright: Book III is going to come out much later than anticipated. Possibly a year or two late. As in, like, 2017.

I know. I KNOW.

I love writing Vessel. Like I've said before, I can't even conceive of not finishing it, and I won't stop until the series is done. These characters have been an enormous part of my inner life for so long now. The story itself is a trusted friend at this point, a refuge, a place to go instantly when I am bored or angry or elated, to tinker around and work my shit out, and feel the thrill of conveying a scene exactly as I see it in my head. And best of all, publishing it, sharing it, has forged an instant and incredible link with a sprinkling of people across the continent, people who love this story as much as I do, people who move me to make it the best it can be.

One thing Vessel doesn't do, however, is generate income. I write it because I love to, because, as Elizabeth Reyes put it, I must. And for five years or more, I was fortunate enough to find jobs that allowed me plenty of writing time, knowing all the while that one day this holiday would end. That a more viable career, or another trip to school, would one day become a necessity I could no longer put off. Well, that day came along in the middle of September, in the form of an opportunity I couldn't pass up: namely, the rare chance to apprentice under a master tattoo artist.

Tattooing has long topped the list of careers I give enough fucks to actually strive toward. Drawing was always my first love, not to mention the thing I happen to be best at; tattoos, my vice whenever I have the extra cash. I love the artwork, the styles, the people, the culture, the intimacy, the challenge of pain, the ritual and tradition, the colorful balance between reverence and irreverence. Given a totally unexpected shot at breaking into this notoriously difficult-to-enter industry, to learn skills that will allow me to one day earn a better living (and hopefully more time for Vessel) doing something that satisfies me every bit as much as writing . . . well, I hope you can understand why I couldn't walk away from that.

Obviously my heart is over the moon for this new opportunity, but it also breaks that Vessel has to take a back seat for a while. If it were humanly possible, you know I'd claw out the time to write. Between the apprenticeship and my day job, however, I'm now working 75-90 hours a week. That is not a typo. Most days I consider it an honest to god miracle if I'm able to take a shower. And this madness will go on for some time. A year or more, easily. You can appreciate, then, the agonizing Sophie's choice I now make. This might be the only chance I ever have to claim a more secure and enjoyable future for myself, but it comes at the cost of setting aside that which I hold fiercely dear, that which I have poured myself into for nearly a decade. I feel like I'm leaving my children at an orphanage. I feel . . . like this is the hardest thing I've ever done, and it's only beginning. This is the fight of my life, friends.

Just know this. Know that I mean it when I say that for as long as I am able to compose words, Vessel will remain a major priority in my life. The series will be completed. All five books. Maybe more. You'll see. Double-pinky kiss-kiss.

Boys. Jordan. Hang in there. I'm coming back for you.

quick post: Book II Giveaway!

2015-09-17T16:04:00.001-07:00

I'm moving to yet another too-expensive studio so I'm cleaning house. Still need a copy of Book II? Know someone who'd love Vessel? Good news! I'm giving away 20 copies of Exodus with another goodreads giveaway! Ends September 22nd--enter now!

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/154451-vessel-book-ii-the-exodus

Don't forget: Book I is still available for free as ebook on any device!

Peace,

Tom

Vessel prayer candles are here! (sort of)

2015-08-12T15:54:00.000-07:00

Hey, remember when I wanted to make Vessel prayer candles for the shop but it never happened because the packaging and shipping would've been too costly?

SOLUTION: I'm just selling the decals! At cost. For fun. Sized to fit perfectly on the 8" jar candles you can find at any Dollar Store, Dollar Tree, and most drug stores and grocers (for about $1 each)--and of course anything else you want to stick them on. Your laptop, your accordion case, your cat, go nuts! The world is your sexy, sexy shrine. Priced at $6 for a set of 5, with free shipping, because who doesn't love cheap stickers? Here's the purchase page. Light 'em up, friends!

Belated: The Vessel finally have a sigil.

2015-07-21T20:20:00.002-07:00

Today in "Well that took long enough", we finally have a design for the Vessel's pentagonal sigil, along with their individual glyphs. You know, the pretty logo found all over Elysium? The image etched on Jordan's handy Hollow-detecting necklace? Several previous versions exist, like the hideous one on the cocktail e-book that must now be replaced, and let's never forget the fact that my symmetrical fire glyphs always end up looking vaginal, but that's all behind us now. I've finally come up with a ringer...

Wanna guess which glyph is which?
Answers are at the end of the post.

I wanted something crude and prehistoric, rune-like, simpler than more elegant elemental glyphs like those beauties featured on Avatar. And more distinguishable from one another than the symbols of Wicca, which become easily confused when rotated. The designer in me also required them to be similar in weight and style, so after doodling dozens of little circular symbols, I tried using only straight lines to achieve some sense of unity. Violà!

Have you made your guesses yet? Okay, answer time! One goal was to make the glyphs as intuitive as possible, but symbol design is hard! Let's see if I did well enough to get the point across to you, dear reader.

The crossed lines on top represent Ghi, of course: light, sun, stars, cosmos, a spark, the heavens, etc.

The two vertical lines are for Jesse: a column of air or an upward path.

The horizontal line is for Corin: a river or stream, or the horizon over the water.

The upward peak is for Jackson: a crag of earth, a hill or mountain.

Last but not least, the forked lines are for Khan: representing flame, fire (and hey, it finally doesn't look like a vagina!).

Behold the fiery vaginas of yore.

So, how did you do?

Yes, I know how it ends: Story building without getting stuck.

2015-07-16T10:49:00.001-07:00

The first thing people ask when you tell them you're writing fiction, especially a series, is usually: Do you know how it ends? This is often followed by: Do you have it all written down, or is it all in your mind? How do you keep up with it all?

The answers, respectively, are YES and HAHAHAHAHA. As Zadie Smith so beautifully illustrates in one of my favorite author pep talks, story building can be as organized or haphazard as one needs it to be to move forward. My story building method often involves listening to lots of embarrassing music while exercising, staring into space at length, starting outlines that mean nothing by the time I finish them, and finding completely obsolete notes to myself tucked away in every drawer, notebook, and text file I touch. If my apartment strikes you as neat, know that I am compensating for the tangled heap of fantasy parts that occupies the better part of my brain at all times. Weirdly, and I'm sure many an author will agree, I know where it's all going. I swear I do. Yes, I inevitably have to rip up and re-lay more than half the tracks, but the big picture--as well as all the juicy bits--motors right along in a never-ending playback reel in my head. Strange cargo faithfully appears when I get stuck, story manna, magically making jagged bits fall into place and sending the book along its way again. Characters and scenes that once seemed vitally important to me get booted. Brilliant solutions that wake me in the night get misplaced, and occasionally I do have to pull the brakes and organize things, but in general, I don't worry about forgetting key elements. The ideas that show up and stick are the ones that don't get left in the dust. Sounds reckless, but that's how it is. That's how I write. Your mileage may vary. But if you find yourself stranded in the middle of your own novel, here are three things I'd tell anyone to remember when checking under the hood.

1. Kill, kill, kill . . .
Given 15 years to brew in my head, Vessel has certainly changed, in leaps and bounds, over time. The entire series morphed from one end to another, ten times over, before I was truly ready to write and publish it as it exists today. Characters, names, vital scenes, entire story arcs, so many beloved components are forever falling by the wayside, for any number of reasons. The importance doesn't translate to the reader, the rest of the story changed and this character or that revelation no longer fits, or it just looks plain stupid once it's written down. Put simply, don't just kill your darlings. Slaughter them by the truckload. If the work you finish today in no way relates to what you wrote two years ago, your story is probably better for it. You've dropped unnecessary baggage and transformed it into something lean and delicious. It's impossible not to get attached to your words, but whip out that scalpel anyway. If a line feels cheesy, lose it--no matter how much you love it. If a scene feels more like a speed bump, dump it into a scrap file. Trust me: you'll find those words a few years down the road and be glad they didn't make the cut. If you have to fight the rest of your novel just to accommodate them, then they aren't worth keeping. Conversely . . .

2. Give in.
. . . Occasionally the ideas you feel like ignoring at first are the ones who belong. I have no clue how this happens, but it does. Sometimes an idea comes along unbidden, an idea that would require huge efforts to incorporate. A new setting presents itself--and will entail lots of wardrobe and equipment changes. A character insists on evolving in a direction you never anticipated. A new twist occurs to you, one that doesn't quite jive with what's already published, something nearly impossible to knit in within what remains of the series. And yet it simply must be so, and there you are, eating Lucky Charms dry out of a coffee mug at 3am and wondering how you're going to make Character A completely unaware of Character B's existence, even though they conversed in Book I. You might even loathe the idea, but if it keeps nagging at you in juuuust the right way, you'll know. Find some way to work the idea in, and your story will benefit. (Warning, Vessel Book I spoiler ahead.) Jordan's amputation is a prime example. I thought it too dark and dramatic for the kind of series I wanted Vessel to be, and yet . . . once the idea came to me, her fate was as good as sealed. I fought it. I battled with that decision throughout the writing of Advent. "But Tom!" you say, "The book starts with the line My name is Jordan Murphy and I'm the fastest one-armed bartender in the world." Yes it does, my pretties, but the writing certainly didn't start there. Which brings me to . . .

3. Jump around.
Your story will break down at times. You'll find yourself sitting there with no way to move it forward. Get out. Stretch. Walk away. Jump ahead and write another part, something you're excited about. Hell, write the ending. Write three endings. This is how the bulk of Vessel gets written, by the way. Don't worry about how you'll fill in the gaps or get your characters from point A to point B. You will. You might even encounter some means of jump-starting the earlier part while working out the details of the newer part. Or you might write something that will render the earlier part useless, and have to do away with it entirely. Either way, you'll get un-stuck, and getting un-stuck is half the battle of writing.

The other half? Probably back pain. Or remembering not to talk to yourself on the elliptical. Whatever form your battles take, trust your story and you'll make it to the end, I promise!

One Weird Trick to Improve Productivity

2015-07-01T06:50:00.001-07:00

Much to my dismay, we're approaching the 2 year mark since Exodus was published, with nary a release date in site for Deliverance. At my most optimistic, a December or early 2016 release seem possible (but don't quote me on that ;D), far from my promise of completing this book more quickly than the last one. Deliverance is challenging me in a number of ways, but my biggest hurdle by far has nothing to do with its tangled, sometimes brutal plot. You see, I possess the innate ability to do less with more time. Yep. The more time I have, the less I seem to be able to do with it.

I've always been a sucker for organization, a complete office supply fetishist, a lover of to-do lists and planners. During one semester in college, I somehow balanced 19 credit hours, five part-time jobs, two campus organizations, and a relationship. And I loved it. Now, with virtually no obligations beyond my day job, I somehow let weeks go by without getting a single word on a page.

I don't berate myself. Those words aren't going to get written retro-actively, and the best I can do is find ways to make the most of today and tomorrow. Naturally, the Staples freak in me turns to to-do lists and various productivity models when I hit a wall, and I've recently resurrected one method that has worked for me in the past. Since I've found it so effective, I wanted to share it with any of you who are struggling to get shit done.

It's called "Don't Break The Chain" and it's so simple you'll almost be mad that it works. I came across the method, which was apparently popularized by Jerry Seinfeld (weird), via this Lifehacker post. Basically, if there's something you need to get done every day, you get one of those year-at-a-glance calendars and stick it on the wall. For every day you do the thing, you mark a big X on that day. Eventually, you'll have a few X's all in a row, a visual representation of your momentum--and an incentive to keep going to avoid "breaking the chain". That's literally it. You can put up multiple calendars for multiple tasks. You can spice it up any way you want. There are countless Don't Break The Chain calendars available to print right from your computer if you want something a little more aesthetically pleasing, and pretty mobile apps of course.

I tend to do better at things when I physically put them together, so I made my own. My goals are to spend significant time writing (or editing) every day, blog once a week, and work out three times a week. So I made one grid representing every day left in the year for writing, and two more representing the weeks left in the year for working out and blogging. It's not a perfect system, and I've already broken my writing chain (hey, how could I write during this particular Pride weekend???), but I've found that it motivates me to get my butt in front of the computer (or to the gym) with serious frequency. Maybe it will work for you, too!

And hey, guess who already has her X for blogging this week...

FINALLY.

2015-06-26T15:41:00.001-07:00

LOVE WINS.

Congrats, love, and blessings, all.

itty bitty little update

2015-02-26T19:58:00.000-08:00

The blog has been dead all month, BUT the timeline for the entire Vessel series is finished, and so is the complete outline for Book III (the bulk of which is already written). Not exactly as exciting as a excerpt, I know, but as an earlier post mentioned, this was the perfect (and necessary) time to step back and make sure everything in the series is aligned properly before moving ahead. And dudes, let me just say that it's killing me that Book V is still such a ways down the road, because I can't freaking wait for you to see how it all comes together.

I'll be spending the next weeks incorporating all the changes set forth by the outline and polishing Deliverance into a cohesive first draft before moving forward with the usual gauntlet of edits. Meanwhile, I intend to devise some way to make the content of this blog less diary-like, and more useful and interesting. For now, enjoy this video of a man yelling at ducks, a beautiful metaphor about life. Sometimes, friend, you are the ducks. Sometimes, you are the man. Today, I am the man.

Boss Bitch OUT.

Note to self: Changing up your technique won't wreck your flow.

2015-01-31T19:10:00.001-08:00

We all like to feel like our own way is best, especially in creative endeavors. Sometimes, though, we have to step away from what works for us and try something new. Vessel's first two books were written with very little outlining, relying mostly on character-driven plot development (#JesseTakeTheWheel) and how well I know my own story. At a certain point, I started to shy away from the very notion of outlining, even when it seemed like a good idea, fearful that it would upset my thinky-feely but reliably dope process, or even change the way my writing sounds. But as the Vessel universe's scope increases toward the fifth book, it became necessary for me to stop in the middle of writing Book III and outline it in detail from start to finish, as well as take a page from J.K. Rowling and create a timeline for the entire series. I finished Book III's outline TONIGHT. Holes have been filled, vague details clarified, and while some writing and editing still remains, there is definitely a cohesive book at the end of the tunnel now, and not the swiss-cheese shaped story I've been grappling with for months. Hallelujah!

I am your despair!

From me to you: Don't be afraid to explore a new approach, no matter how far you've come already using your own system. It's never too late, and you've got nothing to lose. At best, your work will improve. At worst, the new thing won't work for you, and you can return to the comfort of your old familiar ways!

My old familiar ways? Doodling in the margins 4EVER. Works for outlines, too!

This is what happens when I use a copy of Dinotopia to balance my notebook.

I don't know how to quit you: The inescapable drive to create.

2015-01-27T11:43:00.003-08:00

I spoke with a friend recently about personal responsibility, which led to some words you might take to heart if you agonize over long-term projects that aren't exactly profitable. Or if you have a creative person in your life. I told my friend that I enjoy my life--that I'm doing what I love and living comfortably--but that I sometimes can't shake the nagging feeling that I appear irresponsible to others. I work an unskilled job and basically live paycheck-to-paycheck--all to afford myself the time and freedom to write Vessel. And truth be told, I squander a lot of that time. On Netflix series, on sleeping in, on doing nothing at all (more on all that later). In addition, I realize that my numberless projects appear totally half-assed and capricious. From selling on etsy to learning banjo to freelance graphic design, my endeavors, in true Aries fashion, start off with a bang and then quickly fizzle.

All but one.

"Yeah, but what if you don't finish it?" my friend asked.

"What do you mean?"

"The books. What if you lose interest?"

I was silent for a minute. What I wanted to tell him seemed obvious and irrefutable to me, but to someone who doesn't live inside my head? It probably sounds like raving insanity at best--or, at worst, like the impassioned declarations of another self-labeled artiste who will drop everything at the next distraction. What I wanted to tell him is that Vessel, in some form or another, has had a firm foothold in my brain since the age of 12. That's well over half of my life now. To lose interest in it now--or ever--would be like losing interest in eating. In living indoors. In bathing. Losing interest would require a total sea change. To drop Vessel would be no less dramatic a move to me than dropping all my possessions and earthly contacts and trekking to live off the grid in Alaska. I am not being sarcastic. At this point, the thought of dropping Vessel is as alien to me as the concept of pointedly walking away from my family or my closest friend without a word, never to see them again. It's more than just an unlikely or unpleasant possibility. It's a literal impossibility. It just won't happen. I can't even imagine a scenario in which it could happen, besides some apocalyptic reality in which I must spend 100% of my time on survival alone. Maybe then. Maybe.

But that all sounded quite trite and crazy, so after a few minutes of babbling about family, I put it to my friend this way: "Imagine that you've built the perfect house in your head. Your dream house. It has everything you want, and you want to live in it so bad. It's architecturally sound and everything. Now imagine that you have the land, the materials, the labor to build it, all of it free. It will literally cost you nothing to build it. All you have to do is be there, build it. Again, living in this thing is all you want, and you have everything you need to make it happen. So. . . How could you not do it? How could you not?"

That's the closest I can come to explaining it. Sure, Vessel may be amateur genre fiction, perhaps riddled with cliches and irksome POV choices, but it's still the story I need to write. My job is to make it the best that I personally can. I can't promise that I'll do a better job at it than anybody else, or even that I'll do a great job at all. But I can promise that I will do it. I have everything I need, after all, and no one else is going to do it.

How could I not?

To answer Rilke's famous question, and as silly as it sounds set before a backdrop of exploding tour buses and frisky man-gods:

I must.

So rest assured: if you read and love Vessel, the series will get finished. Have no doubt. I vow to fight my Netflix timesuck demons and get it to you sooner rather than later, but one way or another--so long as I am alive, that is--it will get to you. Now if that pesky apocalypse comes along and wipes the internet out? I'll be in Seattle, subsisting on leftover sauce at the downtown Buffalo Wild Wings. Come find me. I'll tell you how it ends.

"Go within. Search for the cause, find the impetus that bids you write. Put it to this test: Does it stretch out its roots in the deepest place of your heart? Can you avow that you would die if you were forbidden to write? Above all, in the most silent hour of your night, ask yourself this: Must I write? Dig deep into yourself for a true answer. And if it should ring its assent, if you can confidently meet this serious question with a simple, “I must," then build your life upon it. It has become your necessity."

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet (The First Letter)

Take it from here, Inspirational Sloth.

Best of: Books I read in 2014

2015-01-08T23:01:00.002-08:00

So this post won't be as long or encompassing as last year's roundup, mostly because the first quarter of my year was spent on one entry alone (the Song of Ice and Fire series). Nothing that I read last year rocketed to My Favorite Books of All Time status quite like Kushiel's Dart or Lies of Locke Lamora, but I did discover a new favorite author and continue a beloved graphic novel series. So without further ado, my favorite reads from 2014:

The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
Yes, I am late to the gate on this one. This was my first Atwood. I know. I know. I can't believe I waited this long. Girlfriend is incredible, and Alias Grace, Handmaid's Tale, and Oryx & Crake are already calling to me as I struggle to finish the books I'm currently reading. I can't wait to read more of her. But if you, like I once was, are Without Atwood In Your Life, then Blind Assassin is a great introduction to her effortlessly beautiful but totally accessible and entertaining prose. The book weaves four rather different stories together, culminating at the point where they meet: the apparent suicide of protag Iris's sister Laura. From Iris, we hear the account of the complicated youth and troubled marriage of an industry heiress in post-WWI Canada. We also hear about her freer--but much less glamorous--days as an elderly woman putzing the sidewalks and eating donuts in the town that her family used to own. Interspersed throughout her narratives are chapters of a fiction within a fiction, and a fiction within that fiction: the story of two lovers meeting again and again, continuously building a pulp sci-fi plot together after their lovemaking sessions. It becomes clear that these chapters are pulled from a book very important to Iris: but who wrote it?

A Song of Ice and Fire series, George R. R. Martin.
Endlessly entertaining family drama (and trauma). Excellent fantasy world building, zero flowery fantasy prose. But you've already heard that from every reader in your life. The hype is real. Just read it.

Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark And The Spending of a Great American Fortune, Bill Dedman
This book examines the long, isolated, totally off-the-wall life of a 20th century heiress with limitless financial resources, courtesy of her father, one W.A. Clark, an American empire builder who can claim the decision to buy the land that Las Vegas sits on to build a maintenance stop for his railroad system (Ever heard of Clark County, NV?) as one of his minor financial moves. Moving on: Huguette was old enough when the Titanic sank to remember it, and died during the beginning of Obama's presidency. THINK ABOUT THAT. And she was unimaginably rich and able-bodied the whole time. So what did she do with her 115 years of lavish wealth and good health? Totes bought a lot of art, got married for like five minutes, commissioned lots and lots of very detailed Japanese dollhouses, donated to her father's charities, hung out with her bff/mom, corresponded with a married Frenchman, lived as a total recluse, and inexplicably spent the last 20 years of her life in a hospital room despite being in great health, giving money to people right and left. Fascinating profile of a one-of-a-kind boss lady. All hail.

Saga: Volume 3, Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples
In which I return to one of my favorite series! Seriously, if you love graphic novels--or if you like the idea of graphic novels but don't know where to dive in--get on this shit. The artwork is breathtaking and you cannot go wrong with the storytelling. No trite hero struggling between the weight of saving the world and maintaining a personal life, no undead overtaking the earth, no butt-kicking femme fatales (unless you count armless spider lady and all-around perfect being The Stalk). It's just a small family trying to survive on the run in a war-torn galaxy, with a cast of compelling characters on their heels at every turn. And Volume 3 is the best of the bunch so far! So far. I just bought Volume 4 and I am dying to get to it! UPDATE: Volume 4 was superb.

That wraps it up, folks. Enjoy! And for further reference:
Best of: Books I read in 2013
5 Books I found essential in 2010
....Crap. I thought I'd done more of these roundups. Maybe they're mislabeled somewhere on this site. Oh well. Mental note to post more of my untimely book reviews, check.

Happy New Year!

2015-01-01T07:58:00.001-08:00

Another new year, another vow to blog more, be more productive, stay in touch, the usual business. 2014 was a pretty slow year for Vessel--spent deep in the inner guts of Book III, and most of that happened at the tail end of the year during NaNoWriMo. The coveted 50,000 words were written, and with them came a ton of new ideas, new plot lines, satisfying ways to connect existing--and perilously dangling--plot lines, and a few new characters. It's been the toughest book yet, and there's still a lot of work to do--major editing and some serious gap-filling, mainly--but I feel confident in saying that you'll have your hands on Deliverance sometime in 2015. And that character novella as well.

Hey, I'd rather be ambitious and wrong than pessimistic and right. Glasses half full, people. Cheers, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

What we're up to.

2014-08-05T14:34:00.001-07:00

Hi all! Just keeping up with my tradition of blogging regularly, dropping off the face of the planet, and then returning like nothing ever happened. I am the Jenny to your Forrest, and for that I am sorry.

But here we are.

So what's going on? A lot! For starters, I took a break from Deliverance to complete a 2nd edition of Advent--which is free, indefinitely, on all ebook platforms! If you've already read Advent (aka, Book I of the Vessel series), then there's not much new to see. Just some corrected typos and a gutted paragraph or two. But if you've got a friend who would love Vessel? Now they can start the series without spending a single hard-earned dollar! I can't say for certain what the future will hold, but I hope to keep it that way.

And Deliverance? It's rolling right along. A huge chunk of it was written during my first attempt at NaNoWriMo last November. Advent's 2nd edition, plus a change in my household (my man moved in!) caused a few months of delay, but I've been back at my desk for a while now and plan to use this year's NaNo to complete the 1st draft, plus work on a smaller project that I think you'll like. With the draft done by the end of the year, I estimate that Book III will be available sometime next Spring. And what a book it will be! Deliverance will highlight Corin, and is somewhat of a darker departure from the first two books. Fear not, though--there will still be plenty of laughs. I'm not quite sure yet how I'm going to maintain that balance, but these boys haven't let me down yet. As always, I'll start out with what I think I know and then see where they take me.

As for that smaller project . . . there are a few spinoff short stories turning my wheels and this first one will feature . . . (drumroll) . . . Stella! I'm very excited about trying a new POV and exploring some pre-Vessel backstory. The short in untitled as of yet and will be available either right before or at the same time as Deliverance. Can't wait!

Oh, and I played with some sloths.

you jelly?

Cheers!

Tom

FINALLY: Book I is FREE!!!

2014-03-31T15:30:00.004-07:00

I am so pleased to announce that Vessel, Book I: The Advent is now FREE for all e-reading devices, including Kindle! Indefinitely!

Everybody now: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

It's actually been free for Nook and Apple for a few weeks, but it took Amazon a little while to catch up. Long story short, you can't set a free price for Kindle books, but you can sell a digital title for free elsewhere and wait for Amazon's price-matching algorithm to kick in. So imagine my joy at checking my reports this morning and finding that finally, Amazon had lowered the price of Advent to $0.00!

"But Tom!" you exclaim. "Why are you so excited to be giving away such a massive investment of time and money for free?" Simple! Because if you're someone who might potentially love Vessel, then I don't want you to have to think twice before trying it out. That's all there is to it. My payment is excited, satisfied readers who go on to buy other books in the series as they come out. Everybody wins! So if you have friends who've been on the fence about adding Vessel to their to-read pile, hook them up with some links. I mean, hey, it's free!

Speaking of other books, Book III: The Deliverance is still well under way. You might even be re-reading it this time next year, whilst nursing your over-bitten fingernails. It's gonna slay, people. I can't wait to hand it over to you.

Vessel, Book I links!
Kindle
Nook
Apple (iPhone, iPad)

Downloads for other e-readers and pdfs

Now excuse me while I do this dance in my apartment all day.

Revision update!

2014-02-13T07:51:00.001-08:00

Oy. Me and my self-inflicted deadlines, I swear. Remember when I said that Advent's second edition would be available to all as a free e-book by Valentine's Day? Well, I totally meant by the end of February. :)

As in definitely, for real, absolutely by the end of February! I'm this close to done---I just couldn't swing it by the end of the week. Thank you for being champs at putting up with my setbacks. And if you have friends who haven't yet read Vessel (and are they really your friends if they haven't?), be sure to hook them up when it's FREE! You can bet I'll let you know the moment that happens.

And don't worry. I'm still working like mad on Deliverance. It's going to be a ride like no other and I can't wait to give it to you.

Best!
Tom

In pursuit of "ready".

2014-02-08T16:05:00.005-08:00

The Advent revision continues! We all know how reliable I am when it comes to deadlines, but I'm relatively certain that the second edition of Advent will be available for all e-readers by Valentine's Day. For free! Pending select retailer distribution times and Amazon price-matching speed, of course.

At times it's hard not to turn this into a full-on line edit, which I'm sure any creative person can relate to. There's always something that can be better! you think. But overall I'm still more than pleased with my first book. It's a solid story and I'm glad I waited until it was ready to publish it. Finding "ready" is a delicate dance---again, something you fellow authors or painters or musicians out there are sure to understand. It's hard not to keep adding more. It's hard to cut away at the excess. It's hard to fill in the hungry places, or the odd places where you are sure nothing will fit. But it's important to do all those things. In the end, you just have to trust yourself to recognize "ready" and go forward, see what happens. And to forgive---or indulge---yourself if further tweaking feels necessary down the road.

Amirite?

That said: Holy crap I use the word "immediate" a lot. Got to cut that out.

Announcements: Tiger years and FREE EBOOKS.

2014-01-29T15:11:00.001-08:00

Nostalgia!

The end of this January brings Chinese New Year (what's up, Wooden Horse!), reminding me that it's been three years since the release of Advent. It also reminds me that I've never quite stated why I chose "Year of the Tiger Press" as the formal name of my one-woman publishing entity, which at present does little more than make the spine of my books look "legit". (It has a logo and everything! It's neat.)

So here's the reason. At some point prior to the publication of Advent, it dawned on me that the following all happened during Tiger years:

1. My birth. April of 1986, a Fire Tiger year. If you, like me, consult your local Chinese restaurant's placemat for guidance regarding your zodiac animal, then you'll know that I'm "aggressive, courageous, candid, and sensitive" and that I should "look toward the Horse or Dog for happiness, and beware the Monkey." Sounds about right. And for the record, I've always loved horses and been fond of dogs, but monkeys can GTFO because they are mean and strong and creepy as hell. Don't even with your "monkeys are cute" nonsense. No.

2. Vessel was conceived---twelve years later, by twelve-year-old me, during a sleepover with one Lindsey Strain during which we stayed up until dawn filling brand new spiral notebooks with the kind of character profiles and embarrassing fantasy prose that only tween girls can write. Best night of my life, bar none. The contents of those notebooks barely resemble Vessel, but the barest bones are there: five male elementals, dicking around and kicking ass. The year was 1998, an Earth Tiger year.

3. The finalization of Vessel, Book I: The Advent, all of which occurred twelve years later, right through to its official publication at the tippy-tail end of the Metal Tiger year in early February 2011.

Pretty much.

So there you have it: the story behind the name. I wonder what's in store for 2022's Water Tiger Year? Every last book in the Vessel series should be out by then, at the very least! My fingers are crossed that a lot more will be happening with the series. Graphic novels. Blockbuster films. Mega hot cosplayers feeding me grapes. Hey, I dream big. Like a tiger.

Anyway, with yet another Chinese New Year upon us, I wanted to make an epic announcement! Ideally, I wanted some action to go with this announcement, but the work itself is taking a little longer than expected. So here goes for now:

At some point in February, I will be offering the newly revised "Vessel, Book I: The Advent" for FREE on all e-reader platforms. Indefinitely.

Yes. Free. Indefinitely. As in for a very long time, if not forever.

Why free?

Early on, I said that I'd never charge a lowly 99 cents for any of my e-books, much less offer any of them for free (except during promotions, of course). Why am I changing my mind? Because offering the first book in a series for free just means that loads more people will give it a chance, love it, and pick up the rest of the series. And what matters most to me---other than telling a great story---is getting that story into the hands of people who will love it. Money ain't no thang compared to that.

Why revise?

If you already adore Advent, fear not: I'm making no dramatic changes. It's been my intent for the past year to go back and tighten it up a bit, correct typos, do away with the odd unnecessary adverb, push around a bit of the dialogue, etc. I may do this with Exodus at some point, too, though hopefully my craft and production process are evolved enough now to prevent future books from needing any post-publication revisions. At any rate, you will not miss out on some vital piece of Vessel information if you've only ever read the first edition. But if you still absolutely must check out the new edition, then hey, it'll be free!

Stay tuned for the exact release date. This is Tominda Adkins with Year of the Tiger Press, over and out!

We are totes legit.

Best of: Books I read in 2013

2014-01-24T15:28:00.000-08:00

Just in time for your weekend! Here are my favorites from last year's reading list, in no particular order.

The Lies of Locke Lamora
Scott Lynch

My pick for Best Bromance (protagonists Locke and Jean really take the cake there) AND my introduction to the Sanza twins, who officially fill my docket for Preferred Fictional Threesome Partners.The first book in Lynch's incredible "Gentlemen Bastards Sequence", Lies follows Locke Lamora---brilliant thief, weak swordsman, and sore loser---through an affair much larger than any of his previous heists. Set in the dizzying and cutthroat city of Camorr (an alchemically-powered fantasy version of Renaissance Venice), where organized crime, ancient alien architecture, an extreme divide between rich and poor, and female shark-wrestlers are the order of the day. FEMALE. SHARK. WRESTLERS. Bloody, smart, and full of side-splitting dialogue, plus a refreshing lack of romantic subplots. Don't worry, those come later in the series, as do some truly kickass female characters. As for Lies, it shines a light on the boys alone. Books II and III (Red Seas Under Red Skies and The Republic of Thieves) are also out now, with four more books planned for the series. Don't walk, run.

Kushiel's Legacy Series
Jacqueline Carey

My second-favorite series. I spent the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013 on this two-trilogy masterpiece. Books 1-3 (Kushiel's Dart, Kushiel's Chosen, and Kushiel's Avatar) follow Phedre, a woman indentured from a young age to the exquisite and highly respected pleasure houses of the City of Elua, capitol of Terra D'Ange, a nation of fancy folk who claim angelic bloodlines and value pleasure in all its forms. Early on, we learn that Phedre has been "marked" by Kushiel, the god of punishment, as denoted by a red mote in her left eye and her fascination with pain. Long story short: girlfriend likes a good spanking. And not only does she like a good spanking, but getting one can make her feel downright transcendental. And in this city of wealth and political intrigue, there are men and women who will pay bank to spank, whip, bind, and otherwise debase such a creature. Recognizing this, a certain nobleman pays off Phedre's contractual servitude and educates her to be a perfect spy, hoping she can ferret out important information from her high-profile patrons. She does, and thus begins Phedre's long life of international adventure, saving queens, wearing magnificent dresses, learning new languages, and having super good spanky sex everywhere she goes. I have yet to meet a protagonist that I love more than Phedre. She is brave, compassionate, polite, unapologetically vain, and above all, a constant scholar.

The second trilogy (Kushiel's Scion, Kushiel's Justice, Kushiel's Mercy) follows one of Phedre's family members--a male protag with a lot of sexual and emotional hangups. Essentially: less spanking, more angst, but I liked it. The protag is great in his own way and Carey's world-building is just too good to pass on, and there was still plenty of Phedre for me to admire in these books as well.

Crapalachia: A Biography of Place
Scott McClanahan

If you are of Applachian heritage and grew up in your grandma's wallpapered kitchen listening to your family casually discuss the gruesome details of various relatives' deaths, then you will understand and enjoy this book. If you didn't, then I don't really know what you'll make of it, but it's worth a read. Pure poetry for the homesick. I may not be able to get a Tudor's biscuit in Seattle, but I can pick up this book and soothe my soul.

Blankets
Craig Thompson

Alternate title: Lindsey Strain Will Hate This Book. I made an effort to finally start reading graphic novels last year, because I know I've been missing out. This one was a thing of beauty, basically an illustrated bible of the trajectory of your typical adolescent long-distance relationship. Questioning Christian teens, mixed tapes, furtive kisses, and lots of snow. It will make you sigh and think back on the days when you used to talk to a boy for hours on the phone and mail him handmade presents before ever even kissing him. Can you imagine doing that now? Me neither. It's nice to remember.

Saga, Volumes I and II
Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Another perfect graphic novel. Blessed with fucking glorious artwork and humorous details of the finest subtlety, Saga follows Marko and Alana, star-crossed creatures whose races have been at war with one another for centuries. They're on the run with a baby, and encounter ghost babysitters, nobility with televisions for heads, a giant lie-detecting cat, and the greatest bounty hunter character ever:

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Stalk.

Seabiscuit: An American Legend
Laura Hillenbrand

I don't often find non-fiction that doesn't make my eyes glaze over, but books like Seabiscuit make me feel like taking a break from novels and browsing for more. This book reads like an American tall-tale, and it has every right to. In an age when gumption alone really could get you from the slums to the top in America, three men---an industry mogul, a horse trainer, and a jockey---team up to shape up the nation's favorite and fastest horse. So many extraordinary stories. And racing facts! The accounts of the jockey lifestyle alone is worth the read. Did you know that jockeys used to dig big holes in giant mounds of sundried manure to create saunas for themselves? Or that one such mountain of crap once came apart in the rain and took out an entire Mexican casino with a terrible poop avalanche? Neither did I!

The Scorpio Races
Maggie Stiefvater

I would call this YA literary fiction, or speculative fiction due to its elements of fantasy. I love this book. It's as if Stiefvater had a fever dream about Chincoteague Island and then wrote it all down. The setting: the hard-luck island town of Thisby, where meat-eating horses emerge from the sea each autumn and go mad trying to return to the water if caught. The protagonist: Teenage girl Puck Connolly, determined to keep her family's house by winning big money in the Scorpio Races, a deadly annual event in which the island's men race their carnivorous water horses along the shore. The fantasy and superstition surrounding these horses is hardly the story's focal point. Scorpio Races is a powerful story of community, hard choices, and courage in the face of tough odds. There is also the beautiful and cautious affection between race veteran Sean Kendrick (Puck's rival and love interest) and his prize-winning stallion Cor, a beast he loves beyond measure---despite the fact that it would kill him the instant he lets his guard down. There has to be a life metaphor in that somewhere, but I just realized that there is Fudge Ripple ice cream in my freezer and so I am done here, people.

Also, the phrase "terrible poop avalanche" is still making me laugh, so I'm not sure if you even want to trust my taste in books. But if you do, the links are all up there. Read on, friends!

When one of your characters comes out to you.

2014-01-15T16:31:00.000-08:00

I kind of wondered if this would ever happen, and a few weeks ago, it did. Someone made the assertion that my inclusion of gay characters must be part of my personal agenda. I have no idea what, specifically, that agenda is thought to be. Legalizing Gay Olympics? (Oh wait: awesomely, that already exists. Don't reinvent the wheel, Tom!) Anyway, before going any farther, let me make one thing clear, for now and always:

My only agenda when it comes to my gay characters is to write as if gay people exist.

That's seriously it. Look, it's no secret that I lean way left when it comes to GLBT politics (I will not rest until all straight couples are forced to divorce!), but I'm writing a fantasy here, not a Daily Kos article. My characters are who they are; I don't just go around assigning them characteristics as a way of championing my beliefs. If I did, Jesse would be planning his legal Texas wedding, Khan would be burning down Purity Balls nationwide, and Corin would be rescuing all the orcas from Seaworld. (omg, spin-off novellas, anyone?)

So I have gay characters. Two out of eight, if you're counting all my main characters. One is married. The other is known to hump furniture. So why did I make them gay? Here's the secret: I didn't. I guess in some genres (such as erotica) or for some story lines, it is necessary to cultivate the sexuality of one's characters, but for mine, the process was pretty organic. As any writer will be able to tell you, good characters will do as they please. Like children, they shape themselves in some regards, despite your best efforts. Ask my dearest friend Lindsey about the early days. Corin, for instance, used to be a total ditz. Khan was overflowing with pathetic angst, if you can believe it, and Ghi---Ghi!---was the quintessential leader character. I lie not! And Jesse? Jesse used to bang ALL THE LADIES and drive a VW camper van around. No joke. He was like a younger, blonder version of every character played by Matthew McConaughey. Anyway, I think it was all compensation for something, because one day back in 2008 I was trying to sleep and Jesse was all like, "Hey, what if I was a pop star? Oh, and I'm gay." And I'm all:

Seriously, dude? And he's like "Yep. Pretty sure I'm exclusively into dudes now." And I'm like, Do you even know how much stuff I'm going to have to edit if you're gay? And he's all:

And that is Jesse's coming out story, I guess. My only fear at that point was making a cheap caricature out of him. Jesse was always promiscuous, always fashionable, always androgynous, always obnoxiously talented. And he was stubborn about changing any of that. So I just made it a point to tread carefully around stereotypes. Yes, Jesse is fabulous. Yes, he is expressive. But that's just Jesse being Jesse. He's also vapid, vain, inadvisably fearless, affectionate, a certified musical genius, and, when it matters most, remarkably intuitive and compassionate. He is a collection of positive and negative traits, just like any good character, gay or straight or invertebrate.

And Stella? Back in the day, Stella was married to a much younger man. And, oh gods, she was also a fairy at some point, during a dark period of my life known as 'tween years' (there are pictures of this shit. Which no one will ever see). Anyway, when Naunet came into the picture, I just rolled with it. One does not tell Stella Rosin what to do.

So there you have it: my insidious political agenda to let imaginary people be who they are. Which maybe sort of definitely reflects my treatment of real actual people. Someone best call Olivia Pope: this is a scandal for sure.

**related side note** Since we're on the subject of author agendas, there is one thing I would absolutely force-change about Vessel, if I could at this point. And that is the incredible and inexplicable abundance of white characters. Specifically, but not limited to, the fact that three out of five gods whose origins lay in Northern Africa are white people of European descent. What is EVEN up with that? It's a lame excuse, but during Vessel's formation years, I was young and sheltered and wholly unaware of the concept of white-washing. I just dreamed up a bunch of cute boys and gave them powers, and a lot of them, and their friends, were white. I love my characters, but I definitely hate that promoting racial diversity in mainstream media was not on my agenda when they were born. Maybe I can redeem myself when the movie is cast? :D

How to be a fucking person.

2014-01-07T17:31:00.005-08:00

I was going to write about New Year's Resolutions (I resolute to blog!), but it's come to this instead.

It seems like you can't visit Facebook these days without seeing some shared post about How To Be A Real Man or Good Women Are Almost Extinct Because SLUTS and True Beauty Is On The Inside So Stop Having So Much Fun Being Pretty You Whore and This Is How You Should Go About Being A Wife or Husband and You Should Teach Your Kids To Be Patient And That The World Doesn't Revolve Around Them but You Should Definitely Also Set Your Phone on Fire And Throw It At A Bus Anytime Your Child Comes To You, Even If She Just Wants To Show You A Booger and People Who Follow All These Rules Will Definitely Die Old Together Like In The Notebook And Everyone Else Is Just Selfish And Empty And Unhappy And They Will All Die Alone and Unloved.

HEY.
GUYS.
QUIT IT WITH THAT SHIT.

Look. All of us--men and women of all ages--we're all under insane pressure to dress, act, and perform in certain ways all of the time. The pressure comes from innumerable angles and the messages contradict themselves at every turn. So can we just stop it with these “this is how a REAL woman/man behaves!” posts? Please???? They don't help anyone. They only serve to validate small minds and categorize human beings as either worthy or unworthy of respect, love, and joy.

You know what?

It’s okay to have sex. Be safe. Respect your partners, and don’t accept disrespect from them.
It’s okay to marry young and only ever have sex with one person.
It's okay to marry young, divorce at 70, and become a dominatrix.
It's okay to never have sex, ever ever!
It’s okay to go to church.
It’s okay to go to the club.
It's beyond okay to be this guy.
It’s okay to wear impractical heels and exhibit massive cleavage.
It’s okay to wear sensible flats and tasteful sweaters every single day.
It’s okay to prefer women who dress modestly.
It's okay to prefer godless tarts.
It’s okay to LOVE BOOBS (just remember they are attached to people).
It’s okay to take a bunch of selfies because you feel pretty.
It’s okay to not give a shit about being pretty.
It's okay to devote yourself to an important, time-consuming career.
It's okay to work a crap job and then go home and watch Netflix every night until you pass out.
It's okay to live under a bush and read people's fortunes.
It's okay to not like dogs.
It's okay to have standards.
It's okay for other people to not give a hot, salty fuck about your standards.
It's okay for people who don't live by your standards to be happy. And safe. And healthy. And successful. And fulfilled.
It's even okay to wear cardigans, despite what Nathan says. But we should take his words to heart anyways:

Why approach this stuff like it's so hard? Why seek, share, and follow such narrow thinking, or treat it like universal doctrine when there are so many different ways to be a person? Want to know how to be the perfect husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend? Maybe give your significant other a hug. Feed them food or something. The options are endless! Want to be a decent parent? I literally have no useful advice for you! Good luck! You'll do great! Want to meet someone who shares your values and interests? USE YOUR GOD-GIVEN EYES and look around. If you want to go out and party and get naked, it's easy to find like-minded company. If you want to fall in love and settle down and start a family, there are millions of people around you seeking the same thing. Pick one and strike up a conversation. This isn’t rocket science, nor is it a standardized test. It’s humanity. There’s no one way to Be A Good Person. There’s no one way to Be A Man. There’s no one way to Be A Lady. There’s only being yourself, and owning it, and dismissing unqualified definitions.

And if you're reading this, chances are you live in a place where you have so many beautiful choices. No one is going to kill you with rocks for saying or wearing the wrong thing. Do you realize what an outrageous privilege that is, considering the kind of censorship some people on this planet have to put up with? USE THAT. DRAIN EVERY LAST DROP OF IT. You should embrace your neighbor's freedom to be sinful, or bland, or vain--however you choose to view them. Unless your neighbors play their bass too loud. Seriously. Don't be that guy. That's almost as bad as being the guy who writes blog posts about how to be---HOLD UP. I'M TOTALLY BEING THAT GUY, AREN'T I?

CRAP. NEVERMIND.

Happy New Year, everybody!

I can actually write fast! This is crazy!

2013-11-14T01:39:00.000-08:00

And it ain't bad, either. This will all need some major editing, of course, but holy hell, Book III is coming right along. The same book I was fretting about a few weeks ago, worrying that there would never be enough substance to tie the plot together. I've learned by now that the plot always finds a way, but that doesn't stop me from pussyfooting around or avoiding the work when things dry up.

werk.

But not this month! This month marks my first attempt at National Novel Writing Month's challenge of 50,000 words in 30 days. Gotta be honest: most of the reason I've never given it a shot before is that the abbreviation--NaNoWriMo--kind of gets under my skin. Like when someone names their kid Awstyn or something. But I totally see now why my fellow writers get so pumped about it. It's true that I work best when there's a deadline ahead of me, a raging fire under my ass, and nothing in my fridge but half a can of chickpeas. And sharing that kind of unhinged but totally sublime pace with thousands of other people just takes it up a notch. I'm writing like crazy. And the more I write, the faster the ideas come. The easier it all starts to feel. The juicier the plot becomes. The better those chickpeas taste.

Someday I'll post to this blog regularly. Like, actual helpful, entertaining, relevant stuff that you'll want to read. But it ain't gonna be this November. Right now, I just want to wish all my fellow WriMos (cringe) the best of luck and the most potent of ideas. We can do it! We can! And then we know we can sit down and rock this shit any day or week or month of the year, no matter how much the plot lags or how contrarily our characters behave. YES.

Seriously, though. Someone send me a pizza.

Freebies!

2013-08-09T15:17:00.000-07:00

If you haven't heard it on Twitter or Facebook, Vessel (Book I: The Advent) is FREE for Kindle thru August 11th. So if you're curious about the series, or just trying to get a friend to read it because you already love it so much, check it out! http://amzn.to/15Ogbpc

Want Book II: The Exodus for free, too? I'm giving away ten copies of the paperback over on GoodReads. Giveaway ends August 10th, so get on that!

Cheers! So excited to see what readers, both new and old, think of the existing Vessel books. I can hardly wait for the reviews to start coming in.

Out of limbo.

2013-08-05T07:59:00.004-07:00

So this is it. The first print run of Exodus is finished, shipped, and received. There are copies all over my apartment (who wants the one I killed a spider with?). Pre-orders and early orders shipped Friday. The release party is over, the books signed, the wine enjoyed. And I'm not quite done yet. I'm in limbo.

Most of you who pre-ordered will get your copies in the mail today. I'm on pins and needles. I'm not done until you've read it. I guess I'll never truly be done, ever--I'm already seeing things that I need to change for the second edition--but this is the most thrilling time for me. I've been so eager all this time to share this with you, and now that moment has arrived. Sharing time! Hooray! After a year and more of feeling like the finish line was so far away, these past few weeks shifted into hyper-drive, everything moving faster than anticipated, and this day has come so fast. All the crawling forward, word by word, has led up to this, and suddenly I feel like a kid hiding behind someone's couch, waiting to jump out and scare my friends. I can't wait to see your reaction. I'm pretty sure you'll love it. I hope so, anyway. And I'm so, so excited.

Thanks for being here for this final step. It would be nothing without you.

Now: 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . BOO!

Love,

Tom

'Book II: The Exodus' Available Now!

2013-08-02T17:44:00.002-07:00

Well, that only took two and a half years...

The day has come, everybody! The story of Vessel continues with Book II: The Exodus, and Jordan and the boys are bound for Egypt. Awaiting them are rival cults, a basement of catalogued horrors, roadside tombs, holy underwear, a certain not-quite-dead princess and her carnivorous horse, and, naturally, a gay bar. Would could possibly go wrong, you ask? Get your hands on a copy and find out!

Signed copies are available in the vesselbooks shop.

Also available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and everywhere books are sold. In Seattle? I just hand-delivered ten copies to Elliott Bay Book Company.

e-book releases Aug 6 on all platforms. Details soon!

FINALLY!! I cannot wait for you guys to read it.

Release party and one-armed drink-mixing tournament!

2013-07-26T13:57:00.001-07:00

It's that time again. Come celebrate the arrival of Book II: The Exodus at the incomparable Arabica Lounge in Seattle. Thursday, August 1st, 7-10 pm. Reception, book signing, and the world's ONLY one-armed drink-mixing tournament. Copies of Books I & II available, plus the Sexodus Tour t-shirt. Cash, card, and Paypal accepted. RSVP on Facebook and bring your friends! Can't wait to see you there!

Love,

Tom