coreknell

Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve posted. Wanna make something of it? I, for one, don’t feel like delivering the apologia that normally accompanies a black hole of several months between blog posts. Suffice it to say 2010 was a year of getting along, plugging through and all that. It just wasn’t a year, for me, full of creative inspiration and productive urges. Death, yes. Family drama, si. Random illness, da. Creative energy, not so much.

(Speaking of random illness, anyone who’s experienced a nasty inner ear imbalance can confirm the level of debilitation. The emergency room nurse opined that it’s the worst no-permanent-damage ailment that can happen to someone. Forget elaborate, Evil Overlord style plotting; any villain with the mutant power to tweak an opponent’s inner ear would win by default. Superman would remain curled in a fetal position if Lex developed an Inner Ear Pressure Alternator. Hell, Galactus would even puke up all the old planets he’s already devoured if someone just messed with his balance to that extreme. But I digress…)

New Year’s, with all its expectation of resolutions and new beginnings, seems like the perfect opportunity to hit the reset button. So, why not jump on the bandwagon? I’m writing, filming and recording with renewed vigor… even knee-deep in research for a new idea that has me excited again. In the immortal words of my VP chum Cath Schaff-Stump, I’m ready to “see my writing journey as more about being who I am, and less about being a goal-oriented freak.” Preach it, sister! I’m totally on board.

Mirrored from coreKnell.

Everyone else seems to be weighing in on the future of e-books, so here’s my two-cent licensing fee.

The New York Times recently published this article regarding retail price vs. the overhead of distributing an e-book. Eric from Pimp My Novel weighed in with some useful facts essentially showing that, while it is true that some publishing costs are less for an e-book, the price/profit ratio remains roughly the same as with a traditional print book.

The main problem with all of this back-and-forth price-point justification is that it’s based on a flawed assumption: that we are talking about two versions of the same product. An e-book purchase is in almost no way directly analogous to an ink-and-paper purchase. In fact, it’s closer to the idea of renting or streaming a film from Netflix rather than buying the DVD. When you purchase a book from your local bookseller — or through mail order — you are purchasing outright ownership of your copy of the work. When you make an e-book purchase — especially a DRM-restricted purchase, which is the overwhelming rule both now and in the planned future — you are merely paying for the right to view the work on a limited subset of devices under circumstances dictated by the licensing agreement. You cannot mark it up, take it with you wherever you go (without said device), loan it to your Aunt Martha or sell it used. Your own access to the work can be denied or restricted at any time, either intentionally (renegotiated contracts) or unintentionally (DRM servers go down). At best, you can engage in limited sharing, often after enduring accompanying finger-wagging and legal nags. In short, in many ways an e-book purchase presents far less value than a physical book purchase even when the content is the same in both cases.

How can we apply an existing price/overhead ratio to a new product with an entirely different value? Of course, the value of any product is merely what someone is willing to pay for it. The e-book is essentially a brand new product that must be evaluated on its own merits, not framed using traditional print criteria. I think the main reason that many consumers question existing and proposed pricing structures is that they perceive this difference. Comparing previous revenues from other distribution channels is not the way to win over the public pocketbook. Quite simply, in my opinion, e-books need to remain cheaper than physical books until the purchaser is given an equivalent value. DRM, by virtue of inhibiting a paying customer, devalues that product.

At least that’s how I see it.

Mirrored from coreKnell.

Last night I attended the official NaNoWriMo Night of Writing Dangerously Event in San Francisco. I admit to being surprised at how big the event was. Lighting was subdued so most of my pictures on my crappy cell phone camera turned out not so great. But here are a few that I have partially salvaged.

The Julia Morgan Ballroom was a perfect place for a write-in, feeling a bit like a den with its dark wooden walls and roaring fireplace. (That’s “Warm Ye in Friendship” inscribed across the mantle.)

Writers were in attendance from all over the world, competing in 5, 10 and 30 minute word sprints. I gave up on those after the first 5-minute run; I’m convinced the winners’ plots involved quick brown foxes and lazy dogs.)

The food was insane. A candy table was piled high with marzipan, Japanese gummi treats and every other imaginable confection. There was also pasta, pizza and the capper: crazy candy-topped donuts from Psycho Donuts. I started to get the distinct feeling we were being fattened up for a Thanksgiving slaughter.

In the end I managed just under 4,000 words. Not a record-setter, but not bad considering the constant distractions of food, conversation and even author photos with amusing props. All in all it was fun, and probably salvaged my NaNoWriMo word count as I was beginning to bog down last week. Now I’m in pretty good shape for the home stretch.

Mirrored from coreKnell.

So I started this post a couple of hours ago from the waiting room at the doctor’s office. I figured I’d give wpToGo another shot, and it progressed quite well now that I am a bit more comfortable with the virtual keyboard. (Also, yay the Better Keyboard app!) Unfortunately, although I hit Save several times, nothing is showing up either on the site or in Local Drafts, so I guess it’s gone baby gone. So much for mobility.

An interesting brouhaha is brewing over Harlequin’s decision to start publishing slush for cash with their new Harlequin Horizons line. The move has been almost universally decried by writers and organizations alike, provoking harsh responses from the likes of SFWA and MWA as well as popular forums like Absolute Write. Now comes the interesting news that, in response to the backlash, Harlequin is changing the name of the imprint to preserve their brand name. Will it be enough to appease the angry mob? I suppose at least no poor writer will fall for the scheme just to claim being published by Harlequin.

And, on another tangent, it looks like I will be attending the official NaNoWriMo Night of Living Dangerously write-a-thon in San Francisco. It’s close — a BART ride away. I need the catch-up time and might actually write if sitting in a room with a bunch of other writers. And, judging from the forum responses, interesting people from around the world (!) will be in attendance. So, why not? We’ll see how it goes.

Mirrored from coreKnell.

Today is the 16th, which means we’re over the hump, NaNo-wise. I’m sitting at just over 27,000 words and that places me squarely into the second half of this abomination. The story itself is nowhere near the halfway point. This is probably great news, since half of this drivel will either go away or be revised out of existence should I ever decide to do something with this manuscript. Regardless of the quality of the final work, I must give NaNoWriMo credit for getting me back into the habit of writing Every. Single. Day. (The irony is that my trip to Viable Paradise and beyond played a large part in that derailment.)

In unrelated news, I’m ready to declare the AMC remake of The Prisoner a crushing disappointment. The writer, director and most of the actors somehow managed to evade all of the wit and charm that made the original tick. Ian McKellen provides some entertainment — as he is wont to do — but Number Six is sorely lacking the calculated shrewdness that made him a worthy adversary for the Number Twos. The updated setting is interesting, and I was glad to see Rover bounce back, but I am sad to have lost two hours of weekend writing time for this.

Mirrored from coreKnell.

I’m composing this entry from my Android phone as a test of the wpToGo app. Pretty cool, but the microscopic touch screen keyboard really tests the ol’ patience during long passages like this. And who invented the predictive text that tries to turn every sentence into a non sequitur?

OK, changing that last bit to nob sequitur was the last straw. I’ve switched to a real pc to finish editing this post. Happily, the phone did correctly save the draft to my blog so I could pick up where I left off. It’s a cool idea — and I suppose if I am lost in the wilderness and need to post messages to this site, the mobile app will come in handy. But posting from the phone takes about ten times longer than using a real keyboard and years of muscle memory QWERTY typing. I think Twitter length is probably the zenith for a tiny virtual keyboard.

Speaking of the arch-daemon, Twidroid is awesome. It was great to receive regular updates from fellow Viable Paradise stalwarts after we’d all left for home and I was out in the freezing, broadband-free Illinois wilderness during the second leg of my journey. And it continues to eat up a significant portion of what could be writing time. But it’s worth it, damn it!

Mirrored from coreKnell.

Eric at Pimp My Novel just posted some interesting thoughts about NaNoWriMo and a reminder of the nature of this event. As he points out, this is not about writing immediately publishable material but about “writing crap and having fun.” I was reminded of a conversation with some independent publishers at World Fantasy who mentioned closing to submissions for a couple of months to avoid being inundated with bad NanoManuscripts. (Not to mention that at 50k words it should probably be renamed National Novella Writing Month. Hey, that doesn’t even change the abbreviation.)

I think those having the most problems are those who already write regularly. It’s hard to suppress the Inner Editor and just churn out words that may or may not have any redemptive value. For me it’s been an exercise in learning to Just Finish the Freaking Thing and retraining myself not to edit as I go. The result is a story that, thus far, consists of some interesting ideas stitched together by implausible events and laughably long expositional conversations. But the point is, I churned through the parts I haven’t quite worked out in my head and made it to spots of real inspiration. A lot of it will be thrown out, and a lot won’t.

But I won’t be shipping out query letters on December 1st.

Addendum: Forgot to add this tweet from fellow Fighting XIIIth squad member Lisa Morton. A perfect summation of writing by the pound…

“Thanks,” Gita said, realizing this conversation served no purpose in the plot. Gathering her things, she headed out to find it. #wip”

Mirrored from coreKnell.

It’s a VPXIII mini-reunion at World Fantasy Convention in San Jose! We managed to gather 1/8 of our class (Chris, Cath and Sean represent.) If you didn’t make it, you were missed and discussed.

But wait, there’s more! We got to meet several members of our extended writer-tribe from previous workshops (V, X, XI and XII, I believe), plus a couple of peeps from Meadowhawk Press. They were all terrific, of course.

Sean and I were bummed that we missed out on memberships, but the bar is indeed where it all happens at WFC. And yam-based booze, mead and Lightbreaker beer were all present. (The bar also offered a scary selection of Star Trek-themed drinks such as Aldebaran Whiskey and the Klingon Disruptor. Someone did their Wikipedia homework.)

It’s pretty amazing how the Viable Paradise experience continues to expand outward. Soon we will achieve galactic supercluster status.

Mirrored from coreKnell.

I decided, in preparation for my crap-writing marathon for NaNoWriMo, to create a rough, iconic image for my would-be novel. It’s composited from about a half dozen sources and I’m happy with the result. Not that it depicts anything that actually happens therein — yet! — but I think it captures the mood I’m going for. I’m resisting the urge to do outlining of any kind; this will serve as my inspiration throughout November.

Bring on the badness!

Mirrored from coreKnell.

NaNoWriMo is now a mere week away. I’ve decided to participate, and to use it as an excuse to practice a bit of advice gleaned from VPXIII: Write by the pound. What better opportunity to practice just that than a month-long event that values “enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft?”

I’d originally planned to build an outline and perform rudimentary research beforehand, but now I’m fully invested in the seat-of-your-pants NaNo approach. November is much easier to deal with once you accept the idea that it’s okay for your rough draft to suck. If I wind up with a few good ideas to extract from these pages come December, I’ll be happy with the effort expended. Plus it doesn’t hurt that I’ll be staging a support group along with my fellow VP XIII writers on Twitter.

Anyone else in?

Mirrored from coreKnell.