Michael J. Martineck

Roll apple roll

2012-02-23T12:02:00.002-08:00

As I worked on a short story Monday, so did My 11-year-old Nina. She’s writing for a local literary contest. Part of me thinks it’s great. The outer part; the part I use to encourage my children in all of their varied endeavors. Good throw. That looks exactly like a giant carrot. Sound it out. The inner part, though, that one grumbled. Who, in their right mind, would want their child to pursue writing?

Fitting words together can be rewarding, to both your inner and outer parts. Your exterior gets to absorb the occasional accolade. Your interior can reflect, grow and learn about you. But the learning doesn’t stop there. You can’t help but learn about others, too. Writing is, most of the time, like standing at the wrong end of a shooting gallery. It’s tough to watch your loved ones giving that a try.

Rejection is part of life and it’s a good idea to teach kids about it early on. It’s not fair to let them sail through their early years thinking everything they do is smart or adorable. Writing teaches you first about rejection and it’s quieter, more despicable sibling, apathy. Apathy is a tougher concept to inject and of dubious long-term merit. I’m not sure I need my kids toying with the idea that, for the most part, no one cares what you do. Most of your successes in life are going to be measured by you and cherished by no one else. Following that come the critiques. Writing never leads to perfect consensus. If you dead-on write the absolute truth someone out there will dislike your work if for no other reason than he or she is contrary by nature. They snipe for snipe’s sake. You really can’t please everyone any of the time.

There are easier paths for one to wish their loved ones along. Or so it would seem. I have a doctor friend who hopes his kids steer clear of the medical profession. My father-in-law told each of his children to never go into banking. I’m betting every parent wants their apples to roll.

George Bush is the sodomy president

2012-01-19T06:02:00.000-08:00

I like Newt Gingrich’s reasoning Monday night, at the Republican Party’s Martin Luther King Junior Memorial Debate. His assertion is that a president is directly responsible for whatever happens during his (or someday her) term. Here’s my favorite quote from the evening:

“First of all, Juan, the fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history. I know among the politically correct you’re not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable.”

That’s why he calls Obama the Food Stamp President, get it? The number of people on food stamps rose during his Presidency, so he must be putting them on the program. I don’t know how many people he personally signed up, but Newt seems to think it’s significant and a fact. It’s a fun kind of logic that people don’t seem to be enjoying yet, but I’m sure will catch on. By Newt’s reasoning:

Lawrence v. Texas made sodomy legal in 13 states, so George W. Bush is the Sodomy President.

Between 1993 and 1999 the Federal Government shed 377,000 jobs, making William Jefferson Clinton the Small Government President.

The U.S. deported a record 393,000 people in 2010 making Barack Obama the toughest anti-immigration president ever. The Hard Boarder President? The Homeland Defender President? I don’t know. Newt can pick one.

It’s a fun game. I hope more people start to play.

Jobs for Kids

2011-12-19T06:20:00.000-08:00

My five-year-old Max doesn’t want to wash off his autograph from Buffalo Sabre Tyler Ennis. “What? You want to be a piece of memorabilia all your life?” I say. To which he answers yes. It’s not a bad line of work, really. I’m just not sure of growth potential.

All of which got me thinking about Newt Gingrich and his wish to have poor kids work an janitors in public schools in order to fashion a work ethic, while earning money. I’m assuming Newt grew up on London in the mid-1800s. I would have guessed as much from the Dickensian first name. While I applaud efforts to teach our children about the world, I’d like to get more value out of them. My kids are not, by nature, cleaners. Of anything. If you want to get some work out of them, we should play to their strengths. There are some jobs my kids could perform.

iPhone coach. To earn a little money after school, kids should hold seminars for people over 40 who use their iPhones for making calls. I’ve seen kids make backing tracks using voice memo, place reminders by location and Facetime homework assistance. They use technology in ways older people don’t immediately grasp.

Negotiator. If you’ve ever seen my two-year-old niece have ice cream for dinner, you know what I mean. I may never sit down with my publisher again. I’m going to send her. “More” “Now” You think the teacher’s union is powerful, wait ‘till they start employing their little guns.

Racketeer. You can try to organize children into a work force, but organizations, like guns and fire, can lean a lot of ways. Informing your local 711 that you can keep a roving band of six-year-olds out of their store for a small monthly fee could prove to be a lot more lucrative than sweeping floors.

It takes a hack

2011-12-02T10:40:00.000-08:00

‘To Catch a Thief’ was on the other night and it occurred to me that I should be more like Carry Grant for all kinds of reasons. Stealing jewels isn’t my thing – due to high coffee consumption my hands are only steady when I sleep (and even then only in delta stage) – and I tend to hum when I’m nervous, which has got to be all the time if you’re a criminal, so the whole stealth thing is out. What I can do is write things, twisting words to my will. So, a la The Cat, in the spirit of “it takes one to know one” I’m going to start calling out other people who abuse language.

Today, it’s the pollster Frank Luntz. Frank is on my watch list for turning the estate tax into the “death tax.” The kind of cleverness one might expect from Lex Luthor or Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Frank spoke at the Republican governors’ conference on the last day of November, and showed off some new verbal judo moves.

According to Frank, raising taxes on the rich should be called “taking money from hard-working Americans.” The spirit of the phrase is disingenuous, but he means it. Franks feels that Warren Buffet and crab fishermen should be lumped together. (They’re not taxed the same now, but that’s a different diatribe.) The real problem is technical. Taxes don’t take money from you. They are imposed on a transaction yet to take place. They are a cost to doing business. If you made $22 million like the hard working Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz did last year no one is going to take it away from you. Taxes are on thing to come.

My other favorite quote from Franks’ speech is this:
“You should occupy the White House because it’s the policies over the past few years that have created this problem.”

He’s actually telling you he’s performing a trick. He’s taking your eyes from one focus to another, like a stage magician. Except, you expect illusions if you you’re watching an illusionist. The fact that the White House has been ineffectual in getting any of its economic policies passed in the last two years doesn’t matter. The real leaders of the economy are not in the White House, they’re not even in Washington, and Frank’s slight-of-word wants to keep from seeing them.

And that’s the saddest part of Frank’s misdirection to Republican governors. Legerdemain works. If you don’t believe me, watch ‘To Catch a Thief.’ Carry Grant’s character could sell derivatives to Occupy Wall Street. But, don’t forget, he was burglar.

429

2011-11-17T07:55:00.001-08:00

I sold 429 copies of Cinco de Mayo last year. It's great, in a way, because I think I personally met everyone who purchased a copy. There's no way Dan Brown can make that claim, eh? E-books account for just 21 Cincos sold. Not the digital revolution I've been hearing about. Perhaps I don't attract early-adopters, which is a difficult position for a new author.

A cheery person by nature, there really isn't a great way to spin 429 unless . . . unless it's the size of the engine you're dropping into your '69 Mustang. Now that's a different story. The story I should've written. Hitting the open road, burning a gallon of dead dinosaurs every 8 miles, to make thunder and speed. The roar of a 429, not the whimper. If only I could adjust my vocation to meet my numbers. Ha. Then I'd go for batting average. Even better.

Originality

2011-10-24T11:50:00.000-07:00

I bought an unusual car. Not Jowett Jupiter unusual, but a Saab in an odd shade of gray. A friend of mine bought the same car at the same time and now parks next to me daily. Originality is not a constant.

A seemingly simple concept, originality. Be new, be different. One might think writers would be rewarded for being such. And one would be wrong. Originality, like ouzo and Oxycodone, works best in moderation.

Editors, movie producers and a good portion of the public want something new. Not everything new. They want evolution, variations on a theme. Too new is frequently too much. Titrating the amount of originality that goes into a piece of fiction is tricky and, I think, an overlooked key to wide success. Novels in particular must avoid cliché and boredom while remaining accessible to humans in the 21st century.

Originality is also as relative as time or motion or most other things besides the speed of light. A work's degree of originality depends on your experience. I tell my five-year-old knock-knock jokes all the time. He thinks they’re great. Because, obviously, he hasn’t heard then a zillion times before. There’s a lot of popular literature that falls into the same dynamic. At any given time, everything up on the big screens is trite to movie-goer over the age of 25.

If you go too far – bend time, twist language, use characters that are completely alien – and you can lose your readers. They need access into a work of fiction. The farther you stray from the norm, the fewer people you take with you.

There are also readers-viewers-aficionados who appreciate the effort. They'll come along for the ride. Eventually, no matter how unusual your car, another just like it will pull up next to you.

Fantasy Fantasy League 2011

2011-09-28T10:47:00.000-07:00

The term Fantasy League almost always means contests surrounding baseball, football or some other sphere-based game. While I don’t disagree that there is a huge fantasy content in professional sports (Psst, none of the Bills are really from Buffalo) I’m outraged that the fantasy community has left the field unchallenged. So, now in its second year, I throw down my own, tiny gauntlet. The Fantasy Fantasy League.

Fill in the ballot bellow. Make your picks before midnight Oct. 29. If you figure them all correctly - based on the winners, as decided Oct. 30 at the World Fantasy Award Banquet - I'll send you a signed copy of my novel Cinco de Mayo AND a vintage signed copy of The Misspellers. Ties will be settled by . . . song. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. (If it doesn’t work, I'll randomize.)

Enter once and now.

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The Way of the Writer

2011-09-17T16:31:00.001-07:00

In feudal Japan, samurais were taught how to write poetry along with how to slice people in two and put an arrow through a neck. I’ve spent most of my adult life trying (and trying and trying) to hone my writing skills. I can’t help wondering if I shouldn’t have tried to pick up a little kendo on the side. Maybe it works both ways. Writing makes you a better warrior, warring makes you a better writer. I certainly think the way of the samurai might make a writer more mercenary. That could be helpful.

Ending my year-long book tour in Erie, Pennsylvania (the perfect choice. Everyone should finish his or her tour of anything in Erie. The place embodies the concept of ending.) I had the honor of sitting with acclaimed artist Charles Urbach and his wife for several hours at ErieCon. We ate pizza and drank Bawls energy drink (proud and appropriate sponsor) and couldn’t help but chat. We ripped through a number of interesting topics. Charles has had a splendid career doing illustrations for games like Magic, The Gathering and Star Wards Galaxies. He’s insightful, talented and making a living. That last part proved the most interesting to me.

Charles asked me how much the market directed my writing. In his business, artists are frequently asked to create something along the lines of someone else. In a particular style or with a certain feel. It is not art for art’s sake. It’s for a card or a box or a poster printed to lure buyers. It’s still art, though. He couldn’t really do it otherwise. He needs to find an angle of approach in each piece he’s asked to do, that intrigues him as an artist.

I, and I think a lot of writers, work the opposite way. I write what comes to me and hope I can find an audience for it. More or less. I’m not totally ignorant of market forces. I’m not enthralled by them, either. Nor can I make a living writing fiction, like Charles can. We all trade in frustration. Artists deal with clients who want the last big thing. Writers face audiences who fear new writers like the dark. Accountants face rules. Astronauts face gravity. Doctors face insurance companies. Insurance companies do whatever they want, they’re the exception.

Whether we’re dealing out frustration or sucking it up, our capacities determine our successes. I can’t help thinking, if I’d learned to attack, retreat, parry, thrust, riposte, I might have gained a little more control along the way. Control beats frustration. (Life beats control and frustration beats life, just so you know all the rules.)

And the bonus of bushido: You get to kick ass. Writers don’t get much of that from under the laptop.

Diving in

2011-09-05T06:12:00.000-07:00

While it’s always fun lounging around other writers – it is such an insular vocation most of the time - hanging out with Carol Weakland at Eriecon last weekend was extra fun. Carol is actor, currently running a series of one-woman shows. Most are based a classics, like a Turn of the Screw. One is based on her new novel. In fact, Morgen of Avalon started out as a single-actor piece set in Arthurian Britannia. The novel was thus forged in live audience. That’s different.

Every writer, swimming through his or her own personal pool of darkness, gasps for feedback as if it were air. Carol claims the audiences did not have a huge influence on the course of the novel, but I can’t help thinking, that even subconsciously, a set of smiles and applause helps shape the text a little. I’m fascinated by the idea, regardless.

Carol spends a lot of time in front of crowds. She writes in and around her performances and appearances. She plunges into her audience. It doesn’t sound easy, but I’d love to take a dip.

On the Set

2011-08-26T09:05:00.000-07:00

I got to lurk around the set of King’s Faith – a feature length motion picture being shot in and around Rochester, NY - for a day, watching Director Nick DiBella and his crew work. Accent on work. These people moved like a hurricane was in the forecast. Which, in a way, it was. Outdoor scenes were scheduled while hurricane Irene built up steam in the Atlantic. Rain isn’t even the primary problem. Mottled cloud cover can be just as debilitating, throwing down ever-changing shadows. Consistency, I learned, is key.

This is something every writer knows. Consistency in your chosen grammar, tone, characterization, whatever rules you’ve given your world, basic logic – it’s all critical to a clean reading experience. You never want the audience to see your seams.

Unlike the author, the director can’t easily go back and fix things. Do-overs are not just costly, in many cases they’re quite impossible. Every moment, no mater how much control you have, is unique.

I wonder if directors learn to cherish moments and lead happier, more efficient lives? Are they more fulfilled than writers? Or jealous of the chance to go back and fix things right.

The Wrong Perry

2011-08-16T16:15:00.000-07:00

I wish the other Perry was running for President. Not Rick Perry - a 00s reboot with attitude – no, I mean Steve Perry, the former lead singer of Journey. I don’t know anything about his political views. I’m quite sure it doesn’t matter. George Bush the younger ran as a compassionate conservative and proved real light on the first half of that phrase. Barack Obama allowed the impression of his practical progressivism to linger through election day and no longer. So, in politics, you don’t get what you pay for. Making any prior knowledge of Steve Perry’s leanings irrelevant.

Here’s what we do know about Steve. He won’t stop believing. I can get behind that. He’s also got open arms and claims to do things faithfully. Both are big pluses in my book.

Steve Perry is a celebrity. Already. He’s not trying to become a celebrity, with bus tours and reality shows and crazy statements about how his state should secede or how Jimmy Carter is to blame for the swine flu. Rolling Stone named him the 76th greatest singer of all time.

Which is another plus in Steve’s column. He’s a true entertainer. They tend to be much more honest. Entertainers want to entertain you. That’s their nature. There’s no hidden agenda or behind closed doors cigar smoking. There’s applause or no applause. Regan understood this.

Steve Perry’s got nothing to do but try to be a decent president. If I could have it any way I want it, I’d go separate ways from the current line up and follow my foolish heart. Steve Perry in ’12.

Casting

2011-08-14T19:04:00.000-07:00

Every one should have to sit on the other side of their desk once in a while. Whatever desk you happen to have. I’m working on an advertising campaign and this week participated in the casting call for the central talent. It’s not exactly playing editor for a day, but in some ways maybe a little worse. Watching people try out, smiling laughing, frowning – basically doing anything you ask them to do, and then deciding, nope, next, within seconds, is surreal. Nearly any one of the people we viewed could’ve done the job. Deciding exactly who plays the part best becomes a matter of slicing things really, really thin.

Of course, in the end, it’s all about me. How often do my stories end up tossed immediately? How often to they end up on the floor with the other split hairs? All the people I’m about to cast out into the dark will be left wondering, too. Just like I spend most of my time. I wish I could say I felt a surge of compassion, but this is the way things go. Rejection comes in silence.

You only ever get the details of success.

I don't usually like writing tips, but . . .

2011-08-04T12:20:00.000-07:00

I like this little piece. It validated a lot of things I already thought, but had never heard from anyone else. Like "Don't be boring." Of course, I don't agree with everything on the list. I never agree with everything, not even my own stuff two hours after I've authored it. "Get a routine and stick with it." Really? People can do that? When it comes to writing I'm more of a lion, waiting for the right wildebeest to stroll by. When the opportunity comes up, I take it. I can only dream of a proper schedule.

In fact, I do sometimes. While other people yearn for vacations in the Greek Isles, I long for days in a big chair with my laptop and endless cups of coffee. We all need our dreams.

The future of 2001

2011-07-28T17:21:00.000-07:00

The year came and went without much deep space travel, computers going mad or giant monoliths. We did get the Segway – something science fiction writers didn’t quite expect. (Too much focus on jet packs.) The two-wheeled gyro scooter is actually much closer to vehicles Dr. Seuss envisioned.

I finally got to ride one. Indoors. I didn’t kill myself because the thing is too damn easy to use. You can’t show off skill, like on a skateboard. They don’t have the history and sport of the bicycle. For six large, you can pick up a used Miata and share the fun.

Segways will never be as cool as they are fun. The dorky position, the handle – does a surfboard have a handle? – and the battery life will keep it as far from the hip crowd as a hip replacement. The technology is amazing and Segways have all kinds of interesting, practical uses.

But they’re still great examples of a future that just doesn’t fit. Rolling alongside manned space flights to the edge of the solar system, and huge slabs of humming stone.

Fun to frustration ratio

2011-07-15T10:09:00.001-07:00

I gave up playing golf 15 years ago. I can blame the house, kids, costs but the real reason was – and is – skill level. There are kangaroos hitting the ball farther and straighter than I ever could. There comes a point at which the frustration outweighs the fun. It’s no longer worth it. You’re faced with a choice – go all in (lessons, play three times a week, video tape yourself, read the magazines, buy new clubs) or get out (everything else in life). Hanging up the putter was easy. It would allow me to write more, while still staying in touch with my family.

So, when a rejection letter comes in from some Podunk anthology for a story I tossed them out of the goodness of my heart, because I feel like slumming sometimes, and because other times, if you’re as sweet as I am on the inside, you need to show it outside. You toss a nice piece of writing to little publications that can use it.

Not to have it tossed back like I’m some kind of towel boy at the club. What’s that? I have half a mind to go back to playing golf, where my fate becomes my own. Paring a hole is not subject to someone else’s whims. It’s just me. And the wind. And the greenskeeper’s got to do his job, right?

What was she thinking?

2011-07-06T10:09:00.000-07:00

I don’t want churn national news, but when it comes to the Casey Anthony verdict, I can’t help thinking, a little bit, about “Cinco de Mayo” – the novel, not the holiday. For those who aren’t familiar with the premise, go get a copy and read it. No, seriously, it’s a good book. It starts like this: Everyone around the world suddenly shares complete memories with someone else. Names, languages, first kisses and what you had for dinner the previous night. Everyone gets an “Other”, an ultimate pen pal.

And I really wish Casey Anthony had an Other, like in the book. I can’t stand the vagaries of her story. It’s incomplete and I’m fearing it will remain that way, along side Jon Benét Ramsey’s tale, for ever. Were this a novel, it couldn’t be published. Too infuriating. It wouldn’t even make a good cautionary episode of “Law and Order”. People like stories. That’s why everyone made up his or her own as the trial proceeded. And why everyone’s so frustrated now. The story didn’t work.

It’s too bad we don’t have an Other – or an author – to provide more insight, to sew this all up into a package. Not a nice one - that was never going to happen – but at least something tight. Something done. Sometimes, sadly, fiction is better than real life.

Unsoliciting

2011-06-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

I got a great e-mail yesterday from Dave in Alberta, telling me how much he liked Cinco de Mayo. Just a nice note, out of the blue, to compliment the work. It’s so incredibly rewarding to receive compliments without any strings attached. They’re pure. He liked the book, wanted me to know, end of story. It made me feel great.

Then I felt bad. I never send authors notes about how much I like their stuff. I know how they salve away in the dark, wondering if that last line worked. Too much, too little? Is this making any kind of connection at all? I know what it’s like to wander through a manuscript, a maze you created, and still don’t fully comprehend, unsure of any more, knowing you can’t stand still. When somebody, who wants nothing else from you, says they liked it, the whole struggle is suddenly worth it. It’s a prize. Most times, praise is the only prize. I should be handing out more.

It’s not hard to do, either. Authors have Web site, blogs, Twitter accounts. As of today, I’m going to start sending compliments to writers I’ve enjoyed. Knocking on a door to give someone something. Unsoliciting. I’m starting with Time O’Brian, whose “The Things They Carried” is remarkable. He shouldn’t be too hard to find.

Robert Kroetsch

2011-06-22T10:35:00.000-07:00

Author and poet Robert Kroetsch died in a car crash yesterday. I had the double honor of meeting him in Red Deer last month and having my book sit along side his in the same contest. The local library - and the mayor and his wife - held a dinner for the writers and I got to sit next to him. Funny, engaging, charming - I had a ball. He taught English at Binghamton for a spell, but his heart and his kindliness were rooted in Western Canada. Born in 1927, he was an Officer of the Order of Canada, authored nine novels and 13 poetry collections.

And his poetry captured the spirit of his up-bringing and let slip all the wisdom he wanted. I will remember him quite fondly for that.

Vanishing Point

2011-06-20T18:36:00.000-07:00

I got one of those wonderfully frustrating rejections today. The story made it to a second round, then got kicked, with a very apologetic note. The editor “had questions” and didn’t care for the ending. She said she loved the premise, the writing and would like to see more.

Which always leaves me wondering: Did she just not care for the ending – the way I simply don’t care for cottage cheese or Ralph Fiennes – or was the ending wrong. I don’t like the endings ‘Of Mice and Men’ or ‘Crime and Punishment’. Doesn’t matter. They ended they way they must.

There is probably a point at which an editor trusts that the writer’s right, whether from the power of the writer’s voice or stature. (There’s a point beyond this where the editor trusts too much. Different problem, different day.) I’m certainly not at that point. In fact, I can’t see it at all. But I’ll keep looking.

Wide Right

2011-06-12T06:20:00.000-07:00

I didn’t win the Alberta Reader’s Choice Award. Helen Waldstein Wilkes’ Holocaust memoir Letters from the Lost has been picked as the book everyone in Alberta should read. I want to thank all those who voted. Especially those who voted, and voted again. It was a valiant – or obsessive compulsive – effort.

Cinco de Mayo always had the long odds. Not just because I’m American and not writing about a cause, but because more people read non-fiction than fiction. I have no idea why. Good fiction frequently represents the truth much more clearly.

It was exciting to be nominated. I loved hearing all sorts of nice things about the novel. The people who enjoyed the book despite not usually liking this kind of fiction, or even fiction at all, made me smile. I never expected to win, though I always held hope. The fiction between the two was not pleasant. It wasn’t ‘nice’ being nominated. It was rewarding and challenging, but never nice, like volunteers at a bloodbank or cupcakes.

Not that I wouldn’t do it all again. Nope, I would. Only better next time.

Horizons

2011-06-06T12:47:00.000-07:00

The Horizons anthology just came out. I mean just, it's not even at Amazon yet. But I'm excited because I've got not one but two stories in it. "World Without Boats" and "Elements of a Champion" both of which I like because they're fun and odd and the kind of story you don't see a whole Hell of a lot in the monthly print magazines anymore, with all their brooding and blood. I was quite happy when these two were accpeted not just because I wrote them and I always want my stories to find a home, but because it was so nice to discover that some editors somewhere still appreciate stories with a little quirk

That's it

2011-05-31T02:54:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day to vote for Cinco de Mayo in the Alberta Readers' Choice Award. It'll be over and won't that be nice. It's tough to devote a month to voting for one novel. I mean, Black History or Fire Safety, sure. They can sustain a whole month. Me, reminding people to vote? It's been fun, but I'm ready to obsess about something else now.

Two Days Left

2011-05-30T05:03:00.000-07:00

After tomorrow I won't bother any of you with this again. The voting ends with the month. So, honor our veterans, eat a hotdog and vote for Cinco de Mayo.

Please vote

2011-05-28T18:24:00.000-07:00

Only three days left and what I learned in Red Deer is the competition is fierce and worthy. Each of the other books is real, and good and from a heart. Each deserves to win for it's own particular reason. Cinco de Mayo does, too. So, if you can manage, please cast a vote. Often.

If you're feeling weird about it and haven't gotten around to reading the tale, try a sample here.

Live from Red Deer

2011-05-25T14:30:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow night is the Alberta Readers` Choice Awards big event. May 26, 9:00pm (Eastern) 7:00pm local. They are broadcasting it live. Click here if you want to watch me, and my champion, apologize for Cinco de Mayo. Not like were sorry for it or anything, you know, the other, older definition, where you explain why something`s right or solid or deserving.

And even if you don`t want to watch - and I can`t imagine why as American Idol is over - at least vote.

The Rapture Happened

2011-05-22T07:50:00.000-07:00

I think Harold Camping was dead on right in his calculations. Don’t believe the lame-stream media. The Rapture happened yesterday. Jesus returned, took a look around, and didn’t find anyone worth assuming up into Heaven. Perhaps there were a few here and there, just not enough for us to notice. No legions of people gathered into the clouds. Most of us have been weighed down with sin, hypocrisy and, in my case, materialism, as I really want to win that Alberta Readers’ Choice award. So go vote. I think I may have given up paradise for a chance at the honor.

Janet Lane in sync with Cinco de Mayo

2011-05-14T06:55:00.000-07:00

Cinco de Mayo's champion for the Alberta Readers' Choice Award talks about how the novel won her over. And how you can help Cinco de Mayo win. Vote. Again. As many times as you can stand it.

Vote. Often.

2011-05-03T18:42:00.001-07:00

I need your vote, everyday if possible. Cinco de Mayo is one of five finalists for the Alberta Reader's choice Award. It's kind of like American Idol for writers or publishers based in Alberta. Librarians chose the initial field. Five 'champions' chose the final field. Now voting opens to the world.

And I really need your vote. If you haven't read the book and feel funny about voting for it, trust me, it's the best. I read a lot of books, so I know these things.

It’s Chicago rules: Vote Early, Vote Often.

Ask me questions

2011-05-03T17:15:00.000-07:00

I'm the online guest at Bitten by Books, May 4 and 5. Stop by and ask me questions. Deep questions, personal questions, questions most normal people would find disconcerting. It'll be more fun than The King's Speech, now in 3D!

And please,

vote every day

I need your vote

2011-05-01T05:39:00.000-07:00

Cinco de Mayo is one of five finalists for the Alberta Reader's choice Award. It's kind of like American Idol for writers or publishers based in Alberta. Librarians chose the initial field. Five 'champions' chose the final field. Now voting opens to the world.

And I really need your vote. If you haven't read the book and feel funny about voting for it, trust me, it's the best. I read a lot of books, so I know these things.

It’s Chicago rules:

Vote Early, Vote Often

At Erie Con

2011-04-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

This weekend (4/29 - 5/1) I'll be attending Erie Con, in Niagara Falls, NY. While not technically in Erie County or on Lake Erie, I imagine it will, like most cons, at least be Erie, with an extra 'e'. I'm on panels Saturday and Sunday, talking about low-budget film making, the futur, war and envy. All of which fall under my expertise.

Review from SFF Chronicles

2011-04-23T06:03:00.000-07:00

My friend Ian Sales reviewed Cinco de Mayo and he deserves an award for Bravery in an Awkward Position. We’ve been friends for more than a decade. He read early chapters and actually helped me shape one the book’s central characters, Sultan. Anyone who knows Ian, knows that doesn’t make a wink of difference. The work is what matters. He takes the craft of writing very seriously, and science fiction a little more so. Putting him in an odd position. He could’ve ignored the whole thing. Instead, he plunged in.

Luckily, my book is so vastly awesome Ian found a galaxy of nice things to say. My book really is like a holiday that way. It makes everyone happy.

Review from October Country

2011-04-19T14:05:00.000-07:00

Cinco de Mayo just received a great review at October Country. Of course, if it wasn't great I probably wouldn't be linking to it. Though, I don't know for sure. I haven't had any bad reviews, so I'm not certain how I'd react. It might be a huge post on how ignorant people shouldn't be reviewing books. How some people don't 'get it' and I won't be hailed as a genius until after I'm dead. Luckily, I don't have to do that right now. I got married in October. My wife's birthday is in October. It's nice in October Country.

Slow Draw

2011-04-13T17:58:00.000-07:00

My friend Tom runs everyday. Not usually into a tree, as he just did, making the event fit the old 20th century journalism school definition of news. I saw the river of blood running down the front of his face, like he’d been fighting the English, and thought, ‘there’s a story.’ That’s what I always think. I’ve been writing stories my whole life. I didn’t think, ‘there’s a blog post, Facebook post or Tweet.’

Nor did I think, ‘snap a photo.’ Aside from the fact that image capturing equipment doesn’t snap anymore, I should have at least remembered that I’ve got a camera in my pocket all the time. It’s built into my phone. I’ve got the gadgets, but not the instincts.

And that’s what puts me perhaps my generation in the right lane, watching other whiz by on the left. I’m not whining about it. I’m trying to adapt. I went and got a photo of Tom after I thought about it for ten minutes. Sadly, he’d cleaned himself up at the same rate it took me to realize everything I wanted to do with everything I have available.

Were I a gazelle on this techno-Serengeti, the lions would’ve been watching me today, licking their fuzzy chops. Although today, they may have actually caught Tom.

Kids with e-readers. Yeah.

2011-04-07T03:26:00.000-07:00

The Misspellers Kindle edition is up. Actually, a bunch of electronic versions are up. I didn’t want to leave out the Nook, and other e-readers. So they’ve got versions, all of which I find kind of weird. The book is for 9 to 12-year olds. Apparently, a lot of them have devices only dreamed about way, way back in 2002, when the book first came out.

Initially, I found it odd that intermediate readers were moving their line on e-reader stats. Then I realized I’m just old enough to be outside the new model. They learn how to operate Blue Ray players before they can form full sentences. I have a two-year-old niece with an iPod touch that she manipulates with the casual skill of a Star Trek, The Next Generation extra.

Besides, if a kid wants to read a book, we should do everything reasonable to make it possible. If there’s a gadget that makes reading more fun, more accessible, more like all of the other forms of entertainment thrown at them, then fire it up. I’ll try to stoke it in my own little way.

The terror from below

2011-03-31T17:49:00.000-07:00

So I’m swimming today, like everyday, in a big collegiate pool, in my lane, lost in thought, when a black shape passes beneath me. I mean holly crap. My vision is stupid without my glasses, but holly crap. After yelping in the water and splashing around for a second, I realize it’s a scuba diver. What else could it have been, really. He’s picking stuff up off the bottom, looking for cracks. I don’t know. He swims to the side, then I don’t see him, then, foolishly, I forget about him. Lost in thought and there he is, passing beneath me. I yelp and flail around for a second time, like some kind of goldfish with a 40 second memory.

I think there’s a writing tip in there, somewhere, with regard to the unexpected, but completely plausible. How context and habit create their own absurdities. There’s a bigger lesson about pool safety, though. I’m not sure they should be scaring the swimmers. At least the half-blind science fiction writers who immediately assume every dark form in the water is a robot shark. Killer robot shark.

Interview: I Just Finished

2011-03-24T07:00:00.000-07:00

On Monday, March 28 at 11 AM EST, I get interviewed on the blog radio show I Just Finished. I have no idea what a blog radio show is, never quite conceived I'd be doing one and I'm not entirely sure how the whole thing works. My whole life seems to be a work in progress, making the I Just Finished moniker for the show funny to me.

I don't finished things. Yes, Cinco de Mayo came out in print, because EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy was smart enough to take it away from me and give it a wise and patient editor. Otherwise, I'd still be fooling with it. There is an upside. I haven't finished promoting this book. Don't think I ever will. Hell, I'm still pushing The Misspellers, which came out in 2002, when that Tweet bird wasn't even an egg, a facebook was an actual book your college gave away and the radio blog . . . I don't know. Still trying to figure it out, and will, shortly.

If you're home next Monday, or hate what you're doing at your desk or, my friends across the pond, just got home - log on, tune in or click through. Not sure of the phraseology.

Remembering Manny Fried

2011-03-16T17:58:00.001-07:00

Playwright, actor, union organizer and pretty much the patriarch of theatre in Buffalo, Emanuel J. Fried died Feb. 25 at the age of 97. Though always conscious of his presence around here, I only met Manny once, when I was 12. I never forgot it. He was a writer, after all. I hadn’t read or seen “Drop Hammer” or “Dodo Bird”, but that didn’t matter. My father liked his work. The man was the real deal.

“So you want to be a writer?” he asked me, all knowing. I think I nodded. I don’t remember saying anything.

“Write everyday,” Manny told me. “If you’re sick, even if you don’t want to. Especially if you don’t want to. Writers write everyday.”

I took his advice. I still take his advice, like a vitamin – daily.

Academy Award for Best Makeup

2011-03-06T06:37:00.001-08:00

One of the artists my publisher - EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy - uses won an Academy Award last week. Dave Else won for Best Makeup (he worked on "The Wolfman"), and is the cover artist of the new Sherlock Holmes anthology GASLIGHT ARCANUM: UNCANNY TALES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. I'm very impressed.

Life Editor

2011-02-28T14:12:00.001-08:00

I almost sent out a thank-you note to someone who didn’t attend the five-year-old Max’s birthday party. Can’t decide if that would have looked sarcastic, stupid or a really asinine combination of both. Luckily, the wife Sarah caught the mistake as she applied stamps. Kind of like a good editor. Proving, once again, the need for lots of people on any one of my projects, including, apparently, my whole life.

Which makes me wonder if being a writer is perfect job for me, because there are all kinds of literary lint traps to keep my work light and bouncy and that’s why I’ve chosen it. Or, do all these safety nets just make me more reckless, figuring subconsciously, someone will fix up my little messes?

It’s probably some asinine combination of both.

The bane of the bon mot

2011-02-21T05:00:00.000-08:00

I have a love – hate relationship with little bromides. “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” Clever sounding, worth thinking about for a moment, but repeatable? I’m a fan of clever. Still the problem with quotes like these is one of applicable force. They sound so absolute. Big blanket statements that must always be true. This one, for instance, is probably true of people who push themselves, who need new stimulation to feel alive, who measure themselves by challenge. There are other people thriving quite nicely in their comfort zones. They beat cancer and got their lives back to normal, survived a foreign war or three years for possession.

Or, to put it more succinctly: Beware the bigotry of clever quotes.

My book is on a poster

2011-02-10T12:47:00.000-08:00

My book is a on a poster. The kind you see in the library, urging people to read. It’s a little bit of a thrill for me, as I’ve seen so many posters like this one over the years but, you know, without my name on it. While I didn’t exactly envision this as a specific achievement the way some kids practice an Oscar acceptance speech or waving Lord Stanley’s Cup at an adoring crowd it does feel blue-ribbonish. Like I raised a decent pig or baked a flaky pie.

Writing Wet

2011-02-08T13:24:00.000-08:00

I went to a convention in the fall that had a seminar on staying fit while writing. I didn’t catch it, but I wish I had, because I’ve had a good deal of luck mixing the two. The swimming pool is one, big sensory deprivation tank. You swim back and forth, increasing your blood flow, alone with our mind. A scary proposition for me, I admit, but if I time it right, I can work through my next line or scene or plot complication as I ply the water. I know writers who work while they run. Maybe yoga’s cool, I’ll never know I break before I bend but swimming offers next to no distractions. The only real danger is becoming deeply involved in your idea and hitting the wall. Not like runners hitting the wall. This is a concrete and tile slab that really stings. I know.

Still, it’s worth it. I know that too.

Can we 'Win the Future'

2011-01-26T11:38:00.001-08:00

President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union speech will come to be known, if remembered at all, as the Winning the Future speech. Political pundits can swing back and forth at the thing for a full news cycle, like always, but this one calls out for new voices. As a science fiction writer, I’m honor bound to comment on the theme of the speech.

"The future is not a gift. It is an achievement," Robert Kennedy said. The President continues the thought, telling us the future is ours to win. He repeats the phrase, in varying forms, about 11 times in the SOTU hour. Of course, the problem is that ‘achievement’ and ‘winning’ have very little in common. I couldn’t win the Boston Marathon on a Harley V-Rod, but finishing? That would be an achievement. When it comes to the future, we need to be concerned about getting there, surviving, not dominating like the world is some kind of round-robin U.N. tournament. Games have rules and ends. The future has neither.

I think I speak for all science fiction writers when I say . . . that’s impossible. No one speaks for all science fiction writers. Everyone who peers ahead sees something different. Infinite paths converge and diverge from every moment. All we can really do the Speaker of the House, the label maker on the radio, the President of the United States, any of us¬—is prepare like Boy Scouts.

Obama’s future speech was actually pretty good on prep work. He didn’t sell it that way, because preparation is never all that salable. Nobody joins the football team to run through tires and lift weights. But the essence¬ education, business climate, building launch pads for the next big ideas all made sense.

I just wish it all could have been framed differently. When you look into the future, it’s easier to the see the fierce and scary than it is the bright and beautiful. There’s so much unknown. So much that can go wrong. And I’m not talking meteors, zombies, alien invasions and the flipping of the magnetic poles. Disease, war, famine, exhaustion of resources and climate change are not science fiction tropes. They’re too commonplace. Too real and in motion. Winning the future? Hell, we should all just want to be players.

Second Round

2011-01-18T16:39:00.000-08:00

Cinco de Mayo has made it into the Albert Reader's Choice Awards top ten. I'm excited. It's nice to know that a group of librarians-presumably people who read quite a bit-thought enough of the book to put it through to the next round. Now it's up to the five champions to advocate for the novels they like best. There names are here. If you could go down the list and check to see if you had a 'thing' with any of them that they might not want widely known, that could be helpful. Thank you for you continued interest.

I hate my inspiration

2011-01-13T18:54:00.001-08:00

I never talk about my inspiration for my novel, Cinco de Mayo, because it’s so freakin’ trite. It’s that phrase: You never know a man until you’ve walked a mile his shoes. Banal tripe. You’ve probably bowled in someone else’s shoes, ever learn anything? You can never know the whole of someone else unless you’ve lived their whole life, fought their climates, listened to the late night whispers of their friends, heard the call of a chemical that’ll set things right and leaned against the gravity of families waxing and waning and spinning in place. It’s all so much. All too much. You can’t know a person because most of the time, you don’t even know yourself.

Unless you could. What would be helpful is a second party who knew the totality of your make up. What would another person think of you and your choices if they knew your whole story? That idea, that tiny question, lead to a lot of other questions. More than I could put in a book, really. That vapid statement about walking in someone else’s shoes. Disgusting, really. All that shared sweat. Hey, what’s that other phrase, about so many parts perspiration to some part inspiration? Yeah. I hate that one too.

Anyone know a librarian in Alberta?

2011-01-05T17:28:00.000-08:00

Cinco de Mayo is on the long list for the Alberta Reader’s Choice Awards. Only librarians in Alberta Canada get to vote. I have no idea how to persuade Albertan librarians that my book is the best. I don’t have the budget for an Oscar-style campaign, though sending out cookies might help. Or is that too forward? Again, no idea. So, if any of you know a librarian up in the Great White North, ask them to put in a good word for my book.

Listen, a new review

2010-12-29T16:46:00.000-08:00

I had another really nice review, so I thought I’d share it. I’m not sure how many others care besides my self and my publisher. Still, one can listen to this piece, and that makes it more special. There’s nothing like hearing your name when it’s not preceded by the words “down with” or being shouted over the crackling of a paper mache version of yourself set ablaze.

Review as podcast or the kind you can read.

My conversation with Anne Michaud

2010-12-20T03:40:00.000-08:00

Anne Michaud writes Livy Parker's Journal. She's published several short stories, but the unique blog serves as an entry point for her novel, Rebel.

MJM: I actually have a honest to goodness question: Why dystopian fiction? What made you want to write this kind of story?

AM: Hmmmm... because dystopian books are the stuff made of nightmares! I was 12 when I read 1984 and it traumatized me - in a good way. There's something very satisfying to create a really f*cked up world where everything goes wrong, where everything is worse than now. You're allowed to think the darkest of future, the worst of mankind... I never could write about rainbows and princesses, anyway :)

Plus, Rebel's story called for it: not as apparent on the blog as in the book, the plot could never work in a contemporary setting. The story itself is about what becomes of the US in the future, and what Livy Parker has to do to save it.

But YOU, what made you chose sci/fi/thriller/YA? Which books had a impact on you?

MJM: The idea for Cinco de Mayo - pairs of people across the world sharing complete memories - grew from a story about two people into a global event. So I didn't really set out to write for any genre in particular and, well, I succeeded. I pretty much don't have a particular genre, which is good and bad. The book is tough to classify, but it's got a big span of fun.

Oddly enough, 1984 had a big impact on me, as well: Here is our world, only different. I read it about the same time I read Dune (a very different world) and Catcher in the Rye (out world seen from a different perspective). Not what you would call three of a kind. But those were the cards I was dealt. Started writing novels with that hand.

AM: And now you're a writer.

I don't know about you, but when I started, I tried ALL genres - back then it was in the screenplay form, after my Master's in screenwriting for feature films; talk about a waste of good money - we're talking about 6 years ago (when I still had a life). Since then, I've been writing every second of my free-time, enjoying it much more than parties and anything social.

If I was a man, I'm pretty sure I'd have a long beard and a goat, because that's what recluses do, don't they? They have facial hair (not yet in my case, thank whatever god!) and weird pets (two cats for me).

How about you, have you become an hermit? How did you start writing?

MJM: That's awesome. A goat. Ha. Screenwriting is like playing tennis with yourself. Exhausting, frustrating, accomplishing little besides building your skills at something that's exhausting and frustrating. Still, it's very cool to have your Masters. They can't take that away.

All my free time used to be spent writing. Actually having a book come out means promoting. Which is writing's arch enemy. It sucks your time and energy like some kind of wraith. (There might be a good story in there - public relations firm run by succubi. Hmmm.) Luckily I have a wife and two kids who forcing me into normal suburban situations on a daily basis. Were I alone . . . shudder. I'd probably don a pith helmet, chair smoke cigars and obsess about that succubi story.

I have no idea how I started writing. I did my first comic books when I was around seven and never stopped. My wife, back when she was my girlfriend, said "why don't you write?" She was young and naive and thought that was going to be really neat, living with a writer. Ha. She would've been better off with a goat.

I end up hating the time I take with my writing. I want more, quality and quantity. I'd love to slow the whole process down. How 'bout you? What do you wish for?

AM: Screenwriting has such little rewards - it's always the director, the actors and the frigging producers who get all the praises, forgetting what started the whole process was THE SCRIPT! At least with books, people remember who wrote it... well, most of the time.

Wasn't it Saint-Exupéry who said 'a goal without a plan is just a wish?'

So I don't have a wish (well, I do: I want to live in London, but I don't have plans for that), I have a goal: my novel Rebel has to be published. It has to. Or I. Will. Die.

I've got a dozen short stories/novelettes published in magazines and anthologies. Is that enough? Nope. I want to hold a hardcover with only my name on it. Well, and the title of the book. REBEL. I close my eyes and I actually see it. So pretty...

So tell me: how does it feel to touch it for the first time? Your book, I mean.

MJM: A published novel is a bit of a landmark. Like completing a marathon or receiving your degree. I certainly felt it when that first cardboard box arrived. I savored the moment, but only for a moment. Books are a little like babies, in that they arrive with so many jobs and tasks and commitments and all you really want to do is make another. And that's when the analogy collapses. You can put a book on a shelf for a while and it won't scream. Or shouldn't, at least.

How has your screenwriting background shaped your novel?

AM: In every shape and form. I've always been quite a visual person, so making films came naturally since I loved to tell a story with images. I do the same with writing prose - it all comes down to creating atmosphere with what we see as a reader. And I always think it doesn't take much (yes, mom: less IS more) to grasp us; a few key words, subtle, effective.

I've spend most of my life studying films, learning how to make them, and even if I do prefer writing prose, nothing got wasted. Filmmaking made me the writer I am today - might not be much, but I'm darn proud of those stories!

Tell me a story: what are you writing now?

MJM: I'm working on a new novel, as yet unnamed, set in a world with no governments. Everyone works for one of three corporations. A world that moved so far to the right, it ended up on the left. The writing's been slow, fun and scary.

How 'bout you?

AM: Interesting, mr. Martineck – I love a good dystopia!

I'm turning a script into a novella - horror, gore-ish with ghosts, can't wait to see how it'll turn out! - and the sequel to Rebel, Unwanted, and then I've got my mind set on turning a novel into two shorter pieces... so I'm recycling, basically.

This has been fun - should we catch up in six months?? Like a sequel to this chatty-chat?

Stuck in my hat

2010-12-15T16:21:00.000-08:00

I got stuck in my hat. I have this hat a friend of my father’s brought back from Moscow back in the 60s. He was in the State Department, during the most frigid parts of the Cold War and I love the hat, though it’s really only appropriate to wear if you are A) brandishing a sword on horseback or B) using the snow blower at six in the morning. Post later, I re-entered my home, scraping off a plaster-coating of ice. I’d tied the hat under my chin and it wouldn’t come undone. Tugged, yanked, tried to bend it off my head, but I’d done too good a job. It refused to let go. I had to strip off all my wet clothes and go wake the sleeping wife.

“Sarah,” I said. “I’m stuck in my hat.” She turned on the reading light next to the bed, reached up, nicked open the knot and let the ties drop.

“Leave it on,” she said.

I stared at her.

“The light, you moron.”

Yes. That made more sense.

I need your vote

2010-12-13T18:39:00.000-08:00

If you have a Goodreads account, scoot over to the choice awards and vote for Cinco de Mayo, fiction, science fiction, new author. I fit all kinds of categories. If you do, I will some day do you a big favor. I don’t know what. Maybe you don’t even know right now, because you don’t have to. You can save it for the next time you need a couch moved or can’t find a babysitter. I also make a good Alfredo sauce and play 90 minutes of standards if you have a piano and a cocktail party. As they say in the First Ward, vote as often as they’ll let you. (I'm a write in.)

2010 Goodreads Choice Awards Official Nominee: Favorite Book of 2010

Vote for this book!

Thrills

2010-12-11T11:23:00.000-08:00

Very glad to report a nice review of Cinco de Mayo by Mike Griffiths at Innsmouth Free Press. It’s so rewarding when someone actually gets the meat of the book. Writing is incomplete until someone else reads it. You sit, guess, craft, guess some more and hope that the message hits its target, kind of like throwing knives blindfolded. So you’re naturally thrilled when you don’t chuck the literary equivalent of a blade to the gut.

Writers are the real undead

2010-12-08T18:27:00.000-08:00

The enduring popularity of vampires, and the resurgent popularity of zombies, doesn’t surprise me. The writers cranking these stories out are vampires and zombies. Write what you know, you know?

I’ve been asked on several occasions where I get my characters. I never have a good answer, because there’s never a single person to which the questioner can easily relate. I bite off a piece of this guy or that girl and create something new from the parts (Frankenstein’s monster-like, but I digress.) All writers, fiction or non, feed on others. Especially the brains. Mmmm brains.

The term ‘picking your brain’ is gross, illustrative and invented by a zombie writer planning to do just that. (The origin of the term is unclear, but it was a writer. We know that for sure. Somebody put the phrase together, which is the very act of writing.) All writers pick other people’s brains because, contrary to the impression we’re be trying to leave at the cocktail party, we don’t know everything. The best sniper rifle? Can you give mouth-to-mouth to a ferret? Would the doorman let up a woman wearing just a Burberry trench?

Plot, theme and story dynamic can also come from the lives of your acquaintances. I’ve seen people react to things in unexpected ways, done things based on motivations I never imagined or acted out of character, until I realized my understand of their character fell far from complete. I suck up all these moments. They’re delicious. And I’m careful never to drain the source.

It is all quite necessary. Believable writing has to draw from real life. A reader’s identification with a piece, how much he or she understands and what kind of connection forms is largely determined by accessibility. When readers see people they know, or, better yet, themselves, the in a work, the work works better. To achieve that, writers take a sip here or a nibble there and craft writing that’s alive. Well, unalive really. Good writing can’t grow or reproduce on its own. It should just seem alive. Like a zombie or a vampire. Not a werewolf. There’s no excuse for werewolves.

Rock, Paper, Web

2010-11-30T18:16:00.000-08:00

Nina (my ten-year-old) decided to teach Max (my four-year-old) to play Rock, Paper, Scissors. After a few throws, Max put out a hand with two fingers pressed to his palm and said “web”. I’ve never been more proud and horrified at the same time. Not only was Max thinking way outside the box, he grasped the fact the Spiderman trumped rock, paper or scissors.

Of course, then there’s the matter of geek influence. Nina knew what Max’s gesture meant. Have I submersed my children in geek culture? By watching certain shows with them, as opposed to near them, by being more willing to play with action figures than soccer balls – based on my own skill and knowledge base, got to play to your strengths, right? – have I pointed them down the geeking path, aimed at a future of cons, zines and recurring frustration that a jet pack does not, indeed, actually exist, because I would be home by now?

I’m not sure. I shared a love of words and automobiles with my father, but not basketball or early rock and roll. So I’ve decided not to be too worried. Exposure is about all I can offer anyway. My children are already carving their own personalities out of whatever raw material Sarah and I threw down – rock, paper or webbing, I guess.

Zen Questions

2010-11-20T11:48:00.001-08:00

What's the sound of one author clapping? No, no, I've got a better one. If an author falls in the woods, does he make any noise? I pondered these questions sitting in the Gardenview Room, which really does look out at a garden, as opposed to most hotel conference rooms which have nothing to do with America's founding fathers or fox running or other inane marketing folk cleping. I pondered these questions in abject silence, awaiting someone, anyone to show for my live reading. From my book. I probably should have said 'palms' or 'tea leaves'. I would have gotten a lot more response.

There's little worse than forced meditation.

Here’s what I’m doing

2010-11-17T14:06:00.000-08:00

I’ll be in Toronto this weekend, attending SFContario. This is the convention’s inaugural run, but I’m convinced it’s going to be a success. The organization leading up to this con as been outstanding. They sent out clever surveys well in advance, to help create panels that made best use of the scheduled participants. At least that’s true in my case. I’m on the following: Introducing SF to four-year-olds, Writing Short Stories That Don’t Sell and Coffee Drinking. I’m the moderator on that one.

I’m also on How to Write a Proposal, Why SF, Best of 2010 and Fake Swearing. Really. That one I did not make up. I’m doing a reading on Sat. at 2:30 PM and if you’re in the area, stop by. Please. As only one in 50 get half my jokes, I need 100 people in attendance to hear any chuckles.

Get Cold

2010-11-08T17:43:00.000-08:00

Crawl out from under your blanket. I don’t like to take advice, so I really don’t like to give it, but there it is – get cold. I’ve been to two conventions now, ostensibly to remind people that my novel Cinco de Mayo waited for their eager eyes at area book stores or Amazon. In both cases, I went knowing no one. Not my forte. I live two miles from the house in which I grew up, married my high-school sweetheart and never go to a restaurant to which I haven’t already been. My fiction spans the globe. I do not. Making conventions that much more formidable to me. More important, too. Somebody’s got to know I wrote a book, right?

Forcing myself out of my little writer’s pod as been the most challenging and rewarding aspect of the last two months. Out in the world, alone, I had to talk to people, so I did, and it turned out wonderfully. Science fiction and fantasy conventions facilitate friendliness in a way I hadn’t anticipated. The ice is already broken. We all already have something in common. Conversation flows like a creek in spring. I also enjoyed the lack of competition. These aren’t a trade show, with competing companies battling for attention. No one rooted a team they needed to see smash another team into irrelevance. Everyone seemed to want everyone else to have a good time. Very refreshing.

Attending a convention without buddies is like jumping into the deep end to check the temperature of the water. It can be cold. It can test you. It can also be a fresh experience and every writer needs those more than the security of a down comforter. Besides, conventions like these are really just a bigger blanket. As they should be.

Fantasy Fantasy League II

2010-11-02T17:38:00.000-07:00

We have a winner, with six out of nine correct answers. I didn't think anyone would score that high. Indeed, the next highest score was three, with a whole bunch of people hitting that plateau. Most only got two right, with Charles Vess being everyone's best guess.

Thanks for playing.

Fantasy Fantasy League

2010-10-27T08:31:00.000-07:00

I have no idea how baseball or football managed to usurp the fantasy game title for so long, but it's time to take back the reigns. Or at least join the fray. Sorry for the late start. I'll do a better job in 2010. For now, here's the Fantasy Fantasy League choices. Make your picks before midnight Oct. 30. If you figure them all correctly - based on the winners, as decided Oct. 31 at the World Fantasy Award Banquet - I'll send you a signed copy of Cinco de Mayo AND a vintage signed copy of The Misspellers. If there's more than one winner, I'll be stunned. When I recover, I'll randomize. Enter now, enter once. Help return the fantasy helm to the righteous, chaotic neutral, and evil hordes.

Create your Fantasy Fantasy Choices with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

My Fantasy (con)

2010-10-26T16:53:00.000-07:00

I'm attending the World Fantasy Convention this weekend (Oct. 29, 30, 31) in Columbus, OH. Not sure exactly where I'll be or what I'll be doing. I'm not all that adept at conventions. I suffer from a persistent sense that I'm a step behind. But the last one was fun, when I wasn't narrowly avoiding injury or trying to push my way back into a conversation I'd been pushed out of by guys who learned their social skills watching Taiwanese Parliament. And that was a con that didn't see a lot of battle axes or broad swords. Wish me luck.

TV Again

2010-10-20T16:53:00.000-07:00

AM Buffalo had me on, which is very nice, as authors in general - and me in particular - don't make for great television. No singing, no dancing, no cute animals or magic tricks. Thus, I'm quite grateful they let me on. Linda Pelligrino is wonderful. She gets you talking off camera. Then the cameras come on and you're already rolling along. In other words, this is about as good as I get. Of course, that's kind of like saying this is your healthiest donut or best Jackass movie.

Good Morning Buffalo

2010-10-15T18:05:00.000-07:00

I had the dubious honor of being Bridget Blythe’s second last interview on Good Morning WNY. She is a skilled anchor and a great interviewer. She puts you at ease, asks intelligent questions and lets you answer. Those three things don’t always come together at one time, from one person. I’m very lucky to have made her list. I hope I make her next one, on her next gig.

Book Signing

2010-10-11T11:03:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be at Talking Leaves, Elmwood, Thursday, Oct. 14, 5 to 7, or so. They're not tight on kicking me out. Stop in if you can. Even if it's difficult for you, because I don't want to some sad lump of a human, alone at a table, under a ridiculously huge banner to which no one pays attention. I'll give you a book mark. That's cool, right?

It's a nice bookstore - one of the last of the independents - and they've been very nice to me so far, which makes me want to really bring some activity to the place.

My first time

2010-10-09T14:14:00.001-07:00

I didn’t know what to expect from my first science fiction convention. And I’ve kept it that way. It’s been one unexpected thing after another. For instance, my first panel at my first con was the “Novels of Allen Steele”, whereby I got to sit next to Allen Steele and discuss his life’s work. Ha. I know why they put the newbie on that one.

And the moderator didn’t show. So I got to moderate my first ever panel. There’s nothing like getting everything over all at once. Lucky for me, Mr. Steele is wind-up toy. (The steel kind, with the key on the back.) Once I introduced him, I was pretty much done. Questions, answers, conversational tributaries on which to glide. It was over before I knew it.

Oh, until I tripped on a Peavey speaker stand while trying to get a photo. Nearly cracked my head open, which would have been a much better story. Maybe next time. Blood always sells.

This doll won’t beat me

2010-10-04T14:26:00.000-07:00

Did you ever have someone impersonate you? One day this friend of mine, Geri, was doing her impression of people those gathered had in common. Her facial expressions, style of voice and – this is the important one – her diction was hilarious. She boiled people down to their comic essence. Which I laughed at until someone said, “do Michael.” At which point I laughed even more. I’m a bland white guy from the suburbs. There’s nothing there. You’d have better luck taking a run at copier paper or salt.

Then, of course, Geri did me. Dead on. My mannerisms, my twitchy face and my expressions. “Fascinating” and “Have fun.” She nailed me in less than ten words.

I let all this slide to the back of my head until last night, when I saw this commercial for the new Fisher-Price Little Mommy Play All Day Doll. It’s got 50 phrases. 50! I did a rough count, and I think I’ve got like 14.

We all have a little quiver of phrases we can draw and fire without much thought. Our pet phrases. I listen for them all the time, because they make characters more real when added to dialogue. I also try to keep my own out of my writing. The last thing I want is every character sounding like me. Now I’m on a crusade to expand my repertoire of phrases. From now on, if someone asks “How are you doing?” I will answer, “I’ll get back to you.” For “have a good one” I’m going to reply “maybe even two.” Certain phrases are invaluable: “Seemed like a good idea at the time” needs to stay. But that’s OK. No, no . . . that’s smashing. Because the goal is to get above 50. I can’t go around calling myself a writer if that $34 robot baby has more to say than I do.

I'm OK

2010-10-01T13:52:00.000-07:00

It would seem not all reviews are great. I’m stunned—stunned, I tell you—that this guy thinks my writing is just OK. I’m mean, sure. I don’t expect everyone to have great taste. Budweiser remains America’s number one beer and Ke$ha is still on the charts. Not every reviewer can smell greatness like fried dough on a hot summer night. But OK? Sharing an elevator is OK. Finding a penny is OK.

The review is intriguing, though, because the writer is surprised to have liked the book. That part amazes me. If somebody spends years writing a novel, and a publisher spends thousands editing, creating cover art, printing, binding, shipping and promoting the thing, shouldn’t the surprise come when the novel ain’t that good? That happens to me all the time. There’s all kind of stuff on bookstore shelves that should never have made it out of .doc format. What I can’t quite figure out is why someone expects a book to be so-so, picks it up, reads it and can’t believe the activity ended as worthwhile.

Eh. I’m glad Don found me interesting. I’ll take it. It’s better than he never found me at all.

Critical Mass Cinco de Mayo review

A good slice of review, please

2010-09-25T18:31:00.000-07:00

A good review is like pie. I don’t know that it’s particularly good for me—I’d probably get more out of a more cutting look at the work—but it’s so tasty. I’m not one of those writers who wants to stretch and challenge and dare the readers to understand, let alone enjoy the novel. Oh no. I want people to connect with, and outright love, the story. So, this is nice. Not too flaky or fruity and I don’t have to worry it’s going to my hips.

Thank you to Ronald Hore, CM Magazine, published by the Manitoba Library Association.
CM Review

Me on WECK

2010-09-22T10:09:00.001-07:00

That title is funnier if you’re from Buffalo. While chicken wings are a lot more famous, I actually prefer Buffalo’s other culinary invention: the beef on weck. Weck, being short for kummelweck, which is a Kaiser roll encrusted in chunky salt and caraway seeds. Exquisite. Writing this makes my mouth juice up. WECK is also a local talk radio station, which served me up nicely this past Monday morning.

I’ve been on television before, but this was my fist radio interview. They are more intimate. The voice is the sole way in or out, so you become more attuned to your interviewers and your own elocution. With only sounds and words to express yourself it feels – it probably is – quite personal. Because of the headphones and the booth, your interviewers become the only people in the world.

Except it’s the opposite. A whole mess of people are listening as they pack lunches, sip coffee, drive someplace or, as happens to me on many a morning, all three at the same time. Scary.

Loraine O'Donnell and Nick Mendola were kind, enthusiastic and the best interviewers possible. Loraine has spent years in the theatre and Nick is a writer, so they had interesting questions for a novelist and about a novel. They asked about being edited (painful and rewarding) and collaborating creatively (impossible it if weren’t so indispensible) which I thought were really insightful inquiries. I tried really hard to curb my Western New York nasal tone and give answers that didn’t cut up anyone’s inner ear.

Not sure if succeeded. No recording of the interview survived. Not even a clear one in my head. I was so focused about my sound and my answers I have very little idea what else went on for the 15 minutes that felt like 15 seconds.

Still, I was glad they could sandwich me in.

Why do you write?

2010-09-16T18:27:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me this the other day. Short answer: Can’t not. And I’ve tried. But there was never a time when I wasn’t telling stories, framing stories, saving fodder for stories and or trying bits on the nearest susceptible subject. It is a compulsion. There’s nothing glamorous or laudable about it. Luckily there are enough good writers out there, past and present, to make it an acceptable compulsion. Otherwise, we’d have a show on Discovery. People would tune it every week to watch to the sad schmucks who can’t stop stringing words together. Poor, poor storytellers. It’s actually not a bad idea for a show, really. I mean, it’s got to be better than people with too many parakeets.

Parajunkee’s View

2010-09-11T05:49:00.000-07:00

I love when writers / artists / actors say they don’t pay attention to reviews. I can understand not wanting to, but skipping them completely is like ignoring a mirror as you pass by. Don’t you want to know anything about yourself? Even if it’s just to make sure there’s no basil stuck in your teeth? I like to read reviews, of all kinds of books, but especially my own. Whether or not I agree with the review is superfluous. The meaning is in what the reviewer took away. What, of the thousands of possible traits, items and aspects in any novel, sat up and wagged its tail . . . or growled.

This review is interesting to me because one of things I set out to do in Cinco de Mayo was cram as many stories as possible into a regular sized book – no huge phonebook like thing. Accessibility was my first priority. This reviewer tells me I succeeded, though maybe too well. She’s a bit harsh on the cover. Other than that, I’m thrilled. Nothing in the teeth.

Cinco de Mayo review at Parajunkee

Science Fiction Says: Park 51

2010-09-09T18:10:00.001-07:00

My idea here is that well-crafted science fiction can sometimes be used to examine current events. Good literature – the really good stuff – illuminates the human condition and helps sew all of us together. Literature helps us understand how we work, in pairs, alone, as a group or as a thriving mass. A better understanding of us, people, gives things perspective. And because I hate to use words like “things” in some limp amorphous way, let’s pluck an item from the news and see if literature has anything to add.

One of the central pieces of George Orwell’s 1984 set is the grand, never ending war between Eastasia, Eurasia, and Oceania. This world has settled into just three meganations, in perpetual conflict – an ersatz perpetual conflict. It is a phony war, staged and stoked to keep citizens alert, united and afraid.

All of which puts me in the mind of the Park 51 project in Manhattan. That the dream of an Islamic community center, two blocks from Ground Zero, with a prayer room inside should garner international attention is as fake as the wars of 1984. And for the same reasons.

They’re aren’t too many Nazis around any more and the Communists seem to have lost their mojo. Besides, we can’t fight China. They’re covering a good part of our tab. Turning 1.5 billion people into enemies, based on the beliefs of the nastiest one percent is great way to create a fresh and fearsome threat. You get all of the awfulness of radical few, without the real world-shattering power 1.5 billion people strewn across the globe could really wield.

All you have to do is make things up. It’s Orwellian.

Book Wake

2010-09-03T18:47:00.001-07:00

Book launch parties are wakes. Irish wakes. Lots of beer and wine and little sandwiches. At mine, last night, I greeted people, tried my best to chat with everyone, and thank them for showing up, which isn’t always easy for people, on a Thursday night, with kids in Karate class, and such. It’s great that nobody’s dead. Nobody’s getting married or baptized, either. The closest common model for the party is the wake.

Which kind of makes sense. The origin of the morose usage derives from wake, as in to be inactive, but alert. To keep watch. We stand guard as the soul leaves the body for a better place. The book is also leaving the author’s head, for presumably a better place. That the directions of the corporealness are opposite doesn’t matter. We keep watch, just the same. Although bringing something into existence is a lot more fun.

I want thank everyone who turned out last night, and to the Marcus Wise, from 464 Gallery for hosting the event. Parties like that are tough to appreciate in the present, in retrospect, I had a ball. The origin of that term . . . nope. Won't do it.

Awesomeness

2010-08-31T17:52:00.000-07:00

I made it on to . i09's September calendar of awesomeness. While this is probably not the kind of goal you tell your guidance counselor about, it has been one of mine since I discovered the site . . . long after I had a guidance counselor.

I could probably use a guidance counselor, now that I think about it. Now more than ever, really. Sigh.

Profiling The Misspellers

2010-08-24T17:22:00.001-07:00

My first book, The Misspellers, has found a second life at Smashwords.com, as an ebook. I was reluctant to put it up, not thinking too many 9 to 12 year olds had Nooks or Kindles. That has turned out to be a silly consideration. That phrase about presuming making an ass . . . no, that’s not right. ‘Presume’ makes a ‘pres’ out of you and me, and there’s nothing wrong with that, other than it’s misspelled, which brings me back to my point. The Misspellers has taught me that you never know what’s going on out there in the world. People who access ebooks may very well read novels intended for middle readers. If they’re about faeries, anyway. (I think there’s people who will read anything about faeries.) Predicting literary markets is difficult, if not impossible and probably a waste of time for a writer. Write what you want. If it’s for kids, write it. If it’s for adults, write that. Put it out and let other people slap on their labels and shove it into their ready-made holes. Don’t pre-shove, I guess, is what I’ve learned.

Oh, and give away if you can. People seem to like that, too.

The Misspellers.

The Binky Fairy

2010-08-16T18:36:00.001-07:00

Max, my four-year-old son, dictated a note to the Binky Fairy, imagining the places she (or he, I don’t know) might take his binkies, now that he was a big boy and no longer needed them. Babies in the jungle. Clown babies. His note was specific and far-reaching and troubling. Every time I see one of my children exhibit creative skills – every time someone shows me a great piece of writing from any young person – I get a tiny ping of dread. For them.
Yes, unbridled imagination is great. But, you know, doesn’t every parent want the easiest possible path for their children? A strong imagination never leads to the downhill-all-the-way road. There are easier ways to make a living than by thinking things up. I know. I’ve tried them. I’m not complaining about being a writer. It’s kind of a choice I’ve made (kind of a compulsive disorder) so I never curry condolences. In fact, because I enjoy writing, it took me a while to pinpoint the source of my ping of dread.

Rejection. Nobody wants to subject anybody they like to the waves of rejection that crash against any creative process in a constant cold and salty assault. You face those that don’t like your stuff because it’s not that good, those that hate it because it is, others for whom you are simply not their cup of tea and still others with no taste at all. It’s daunting and I wish for my kids to escape it all, in whatever they choose to do. I wish for them a life of fair exchange. A binky for a plastic robot. Straight up and done while they’re asleep. Of course, that kind of fairy-filled world takes a tremendous leap of imagination . . . and I’m back where I started. Crap.

4,432,462

2010-08-12T08:38:00.000-07:00

. . . that is Cinco de Mayo’s ranking on Amazon. Yep. There are apparently 4 ½ million books more interesting than mine at the moment. It hasn’t gone on sale yet, so I shouldn’t be too upset, but that is a big hill to, well, I’m not much of a climber. I rather strap on the ole’ jet pack or take the family dirigible. Because if you look at 4.5 large as a one-step-at-a-time kind of journey, you’re better off just making camp. The Amazon equivalents of a Legion flight ring are going on Oprah – that would be too easy – or winning an award. I’m going for that one. My plan is to make up my own award and then win it. Or at least get on the short list. The Grand Island Literature Laurels or “Gilly” awards. That sounds so cute it could be true. We’ll start accepting nominations September 1.
Cinco de Mayo at Amazon

Editing Anonymous

2010-08-06T12:28:00.000-07:00

The editing process for Cinco de Mayo was not at all what I expected. Two editors, and I never met either one. I don't even have full names. Safety standards, I guess, to protect them from the kind of writer that flips out and drives 2,300 miles to Red Deer to scream "I wrote 'froward' because that's the word I wanted!" They needn't have worried in my case. I have never done such a thing. 2,300 miles is far.

The anonymity benefited the process of creating a novel in ways that didn't occur to me until after. The book became the thing. The power of personalities became much less consequential than they can be in other, more personal exchanges. We had no bullying. No forcing. No contests of will that many boys lean towards in times of crisis. Nor was there suasion by means other than the written word. No one conceded any point because the other was pretty, nice or offering pistachio muffins.

Not that there was much to argue about. My book was near perfect when in entered the mill. . . And much more perfect when it came out. The procedure was, in the end, like any good surgery. Mostly painless, resulting in a healthier patient. The only real discrepancies arose from those odd places in the English language at which Canadians and Americans diverge. Colour and a few capitalizations. That was about it. Oh, and Chapter 73. That's gone. Which makes me froward. But not nearly enough to drive to Red Deer.

A Picture's Worth 75,000 Words

2010-08-03T12:15:00.000-07:00

26 years of writing teaches you not to get excited. Which does not help your writing at all. You've got to have oodles of enthusiasm - sourced from nothing - to jot a sentence, contemplate a scene or build a character. I've had projects killed in legal battles, bankruptcies, tragic accidents and death. (I'll leave out bad ideas, poor craft, 'what was I thinking?' . . .) After years of a mental steeplechase for which you never trained, but ran full out anyway, your energy can feel unfounded. I always have a little hope tucked away and certainly some intrigue. I'm guarded with my excitement, though. With Cinco de Mayo, I didn't allow myself any until I got this illustration attached to an e-mail.

The retro feel, the colors, the abstract interpretation of the book's defining event - very cool and very difficult. The novel is about people who share memories. It follows a half-dozen stories, spanning the globe, with the only commonality being something you can't see. Try drawing that next time you've got your Crayolas out. Berets off to Tomislav Tikulin. His picture got me excited about my words again.

My socially conscious novel

2010-07-29T17:53:00.000-07:00

Cinco de Mayo comes out September 1, from EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy. It’s a science fiction thriller. A hybrid. And while hybrids are the happening thing in the automotive world, they have not always been must-haves for publishers. People are trounced everyday with immane amounts of choice. We need guild posts, labels and pigeonholes just to get through a morning, let alone a day. So I don’t begrudge people wanting clearly defined categories, and being weary of things that don’t quite fit there in. I do hope we find a few iconoclastic readers. EDGE deserves to have its bravery validated. I like when people read my writing. And, you know, hybrids are good for the environment. Read my book, save a manatee.

The world is my neti pot

2010-07-28T06:29:00.000-07:00

Like most writers, I suck stuff in and let it drain out of me. Not the most elegant metaphor, but then again, you don't have my sinuses. Be thankful for that. I'm going to try to blog about writing, launching my first novel for adults and holding on to the rest of my life while I do so. It won't be elegant, either. More of a cleansing. Or flushing, really. We'll see.