Goals

Posted on May 15, 2008

Somebody much smarter than me (or not as smart, but better at coming up with catchy little phrases) once said that life is a constant process of redefining your goals.  Or something.  I’m paraphrasing.  Wouldn’t you like to be a paraphraser, too?

It’s a slow day.  You will deal with my shitty jokes.

Anyway, as I sit here pondering what my current goals are, I thought it might be a good idea to write them down.  And since anything worth writing down is worth sharing (except the directions to all the dead hobos I buried last December), I figured I would go ahead and share them with you.  Because really, what the fuck else am I gonna blog about this week?

NATE’S GOALS FOR 2008 (in no particular order)

1. Sell two more short stories.

2. Finish rewrite on current novel.

3. Write first draft of next novel.

4. Sell out entire run of secret project number one.

5. Announce secret project number two (should probably announce project one, as well).

6. Establish a third secret project (because that would be awesome).

7. Come up with something spectacular for Shawna’s birthday.

8. Afford said spectacular thing.

9. Maintain sobriety.

10. Finish the Dark Tower series.

So there you have it, friends.  Don’t you feel like we’ve shared something?  Do you have any goals for 2008?  Does this look infected?  You gonna eat that last fry?

Speak!

The Marketing Problem

Posted on May 5, 2008

I find myself thinking about marketing a lot lately.  Yes, there’s a reason for it.  No, I’m not allowed to tell you the reason. Yes, that annoys me, too.  End of the day, however, I’m still thinking about marketing.

I’m sure you’ve noticed we’re splat in the middle of an economic shit-bucket.  That’s going to lead to less people buying books, and it’s going to lead to a lot less people taking chances on new writers.  Of course, this happens at a critical time in my writing career.

At the end of the day, it just means I have to advertise and market upcoming books to the best of my ability.  Wait, scratch that.  I have to do better.  I have to get folks talking.

See, there’s always the ads that pepper various trade publications and genre mags.  If you’re anything like me, you probably glance at those ads and then keep flipping pages.  I do believe there’s a place for them, and I’ve seen them work very well (especially if you have a Nate Kenyon-level of ad saturation), but they’re just a part of the approach.

Then there are book trailers.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just go to youtube and run a search.  You’ll find plenty.  In fact, I think they come free with your average myspace account.  I liked book trailers when they were for good books by good authors.  Now everybody’s got one, though.  I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of ominous footage broken up by blurbs and back cover copy.

What do we have left?  There are always interviews I can hustle and attempt to land.  Those always help, but are they good for word of mouth?  Do they light a fire?  I want to get things burning.

I would love to do something online, an interactive experience like Year Zero’s campaign.  Something that big would cost a lot of money, though.  That’s money I just don’t have.

So maybe there’s something in the middle, some way to make it all work.

And I have ideas, fun ideas.  Good ideas.

I just need to get to work.

Scratching at my brain fever

Posted on April 24, 2008

Recently, I’ve found myself spending a lot of time wondering why I do the things I do, why I live my life the way I live it. As I approach one month of sobriety (and wonder why I didn’t celebrate one month several years ago), I turn these thoughts over more and more.  There are questions I need to answer, and it’s about time I got my head out of my ass and started answering.

I’ve never claimed to be normal.  I’m just a guy, but I’m screwed up just like every other human out there.  I really want to get to the bottom of my various quirks, though.  I want to know why I freak out if I overcook a chicken breast the slightest bit.  I want to know why not finding a fajita marinade at Whole Foods ruined my entire Sunday.  I want to know why I hate myself everytime I buy something for my own entertainment.

Every now and then, I wonder why I hate going outside, why I feel a sense of doom everytime Shawna says, “It sure is a nice day to go out and do something!”  But I don’t want to go outside!  Why can’t I stay in and write?  Or sleep?  Or just not be outside?  It’s so outside-ish out there!  It’s horrible!

I swear, most of the time it feels like my brain’s on fire, like it’s itching and out of control and I have to do something about it.  But I can’t do anything.  I can only sit perfectly still and hate myself for not doing something!

Couple this with my need to write, and you have a recipe for disaster.  A day of not reaching my desired word count?  Disaster.  The suspicion I’m churning out crap?  Depression.  A friend of mine sells a story, a book, a comic, or a movie?  I’m happy for them, but I feel like a failure.  What have I done lately?  Why am I falling behind?

And the funny thing is, I’m having a great year.  Once I’m allowed to make announcements, it’s going to be incredible.  This is supposed to be my ignition year, and I’m scratching at my brain trying to figure out why I feel so pathetic half the time.

So my project for the rest of the year, in addition to all the writing and home stuff I’m determined to do, is to get my head screwed on straight.  I need to become functional.  Something close to normal.

And I need to stop scratching at my brain, wondering why it’s on fire.

I always wanted to play SXSW

Posted on March 17, 2008

This past weekend was South by Southwest, Austin’s four day music festival.  Every year, thousands of bands descend on Austin to play as many shows as they can in a short span of time.  In addition to the usual music venues (of which there are a ton), bands end up playing in porn stores, front yards, tattoo parlors, and next to the front door of various restaurants.

I always wanted to play in a band at SXSW.

I first heard about SXSW in 1993.  There was a special report from the festival on MTV news, and it looked incredible.  It looked like this explosion of rock and roll, like Mecca for aspiring bands.  Every year, City Beat in Cincinnati would make special mention of the one or two bands who got to make the trip to Austin.  One year, I was going to be in one of those bands.

In 1997, I was in a band called Radioburning.  We’d recorded a particularly crappy-sounding demo called Gossamer in my garage.  With a fluttering stomach, I filled out the SXSW application and mailed it off with a copy of said demo.  I was convinced the next Spring would see a trip to Austin.  Nevermind we had no press and had only played one show in an actual city (to be fair, we did have almost ten people at that gig).

Any guesses how that application went?

Yeah, so these days I’ve realized my future isn’t in music.  I don’t want to lug drums around or stay out until 3AM on a work night.  I don’t want to schmooze in order to snag an opening slot. 

But dammit, I still wanna play SXSW.  I want to stand on a tiny stage and play with everything I have for forty minutes.  Is that too much to ask?

Yeah, it probably is.

Top Chef Returns, Pray for My Family

Posted on March 12, 2008

Top Chef, that reality competition of bad-ass chefs, returns tonight.  I can’t wait.  The show is one of my greatest guilty pleasures, and I can already see myself staying up later than usual (I’m lame and hit the sack early) while staring at my TV and salivating.

Of course, the return of this fine show creates some problems.  Not for me, of course, but for my family, most notably Shawna.  In the past I’ve discussed my love of food and cooking, and I’ve discussed my relative suck-i-tude at said cooking.  Well, maybe I don’t suck, but I’m no where as good as I’d like to be.  I tend to stress over details that shouldn’t affect a small dinner between Shawna and myself.  Couple this with my complete lack of maturity, and we’ve got one helluva a recipe… for disaster!

So, for your reading pleasure I now present a list of things Shawna is most likely to hear me say in the kitchen during the coming months.

“Don’t burn!  Why are you burning?”

“Fuck you, rice!”

“Everything we own is shit!”

“Get these motherfucking animals away from my stove!”

“Do I look like I need help?”

“Um, a little fucking help, please!”

“Fuck!”

“Motherfuck!”

“Motherfuck me!”

“Motherfuck your fucking mother, you motherfucking chicken breast!”

“Why the hell is it sticking?”

“The goddamn fish just fell apart!”

“Simon, get your fucking nose out of the wok!”

“Goddammit, I fucking suck at this!”

“Why do I even bother?”

“Seriously.  Fuck you, rice!”

“They don’t even look like scallops anymore!”

“Should have ordered a pizza!”

“No salt?  You don’t want salt?  Why don’t we just eat some motherfucking cardboard?!”

“Please cook this goddamn thing before I completely ruin it!”

“There is no way I can un-fuck this!”

“I could destroy Cheerios!”

And so forth. 

So you see, Shawna may have a bit of an adventure coming her way, courtesy of her stress-filled boyfriend who loves to cook but can’t keep things from going south.  Pray for her.

The Burden of Patience

Posted on March 7, 2008

Let me start by apologizing for the recent lack of any real news (this sentence reminds me that I should also apologive for my many attacks on proper grammar).  Trust me, I’d love to tell you about all the incredibly exciting things I’ve got going on right now.  There are, however, a few problems…

1) There’s not much going on.

2) It’s not that exciting.

and 3). The burden of patience.

See, over the last year or two, I’ve really tried to make it a point of doing things the right way.  I treat conventions like work (fun work, but still work) instead of a week-long party, I don’t go spouting off on message boards about certain “writers” (term used loosely) even though they might deserve the occassional drubbing, I try really hard not to be annoying, and more than anything I try to keep myself from announcing things that shouldn’t be announced yet.

But the problem is that I get excited about what I’m working on.  I think any good writer should get that sharp thrill from their work.  The trick-and it’s a damn hard trick-is to keep that excitement below the surface.  I want to tell people about the stuff I’m writing, and it usually ends up embarrassing me.

Case (well, cases) in point: since I started this blog, I’ve probably talked about close to ten comics projects that have fizzled out, disappeared, or blown up in my face.  I should have kept my trap shut, but instead I blabbed.  Now, you might be wondering what happened to Saint James or To the Last Man.  Well, one went through three artists over as many years and the other went through five artists without the script ever getting finished.  Then, I stopped liking comics and decided to concentrate solely on prose.  Now, I love comics again, but I’m keeping my feet in the prose world because I don’t have to sit around begging artists to turn in pages that way.

See what I mean?

So I’ll try to come up with other things to write about here.  There will be much fun and entertainment, and I won’t announce anything until it’s ready to be announced.  How’s that?

Have a good weekend, everybody.

Gary Gygax

Posted on March 4, 2008

Today is the Texas Primary and Caucus. I’m told it’s important, but in all honesty it means less than a shit to me. Why? Well, for one I hate politicians. Two, Gary Gygax died today.

If you read the blog of any horror writer this week–hell, any writer–odds are you will see mention of Gary’s passing. See, Gary Gygax created Dungeons and Dragons. This man spent his college years creating a brand new form of entertainment. In essence, he turned a backyard game of fantasy into a creative wellspring for creative types everywhere.
Maybe that sounds ridiculous. It looks a little ridiculous to me, and I just wrote it. If I’m being honest, however, I have to admit that the first real story I ever wrote was a Dungeons and Dragons adventure I took my friends on when I was eleven years old. Well, really it was just my friend George, who I let role play eight characters because we didn’t have anybody else in our gaming group.

See, when I was eight, I played D&D for the first time. A gaming group whose ages ranged between my eight and the dungeon master’s sixteen enlisted me because they needed somebody to play a monk. A week later, I begged my mother to drive me to Children’s Palace in Florence, Kentucky so I could buy a Player’s Handbook. At sixteen dollars, the book was a bit expensive for my third grade pocket, but I just had to know what my bardiche-wielding monk would be capable of in the future.

Long story short, an obsession was born.

These days, I play Dungeons and Dragons every Friday night with my friends. Everything else gets put on hold so I can go spend some quality time with my buddies, hacking and slashing and role playing our way through adventure after adventure. I made my first real friends in Texas because of Dungeons and Dragons. My best friend George became such a good friend because of Dungeons and Dragons. Damn-near every writer I’ve ever met has played Dungeons and Dragons.

Thank you, Gary Gygax. Come Friday, I’ll roll a d20 for you.

Thoughts on Self-Publishing

Posted on February 28, 2008

My good friend (plus excellent writer and God-pimp) Maurice Broaddus recently wrote a nice essay on why he hasn’t self-published.  Go read it.  It’s a good essay, and every part of it is true, especially the “Money should flow to the writer” bit.

After reading the essay, it got me thinking about self-publishing and the different ways it can be used and abused.  See, it’s a different evil depending on the type of work.

For prose, self-publishing should be avoided at all costs.  If you want reasons, go read Maurice’s blog.  Sure, it’s fine for hobbyists, but it will not make your career.  Every once in a while I see some talented writer pushing some half-pro/half-trash looking thing, and it makes me want to throttle somebody.  They’re making themselves look like a joke.  Instead of realizing this, however, they consider themselves mavericks of the publishing field.  Gah!

Which is not to say self-publishing your prose can be all bad.  I’ll add this exception to the rule: free promotional items.  The little “A Team-Building Exercise” chaps I’m putting together for STAPLE! are an excellent example of this.  I’d never dream of charging somebody for these things, but they do make for a rather cheap way of getting my name out there to 100 lucky folks.

Now, I tried the same thing a few years ago with some other stories, but I sold them for one dollar.  A year later, I recycled about 94 of them.

Then there’s comics. Self-publishing is often a badge of honor in comics.  A lot of incredibly talented people started out that way (and a few stayed that way).  Hell, when I pitched one of the major comics companies back in 2002, I was told, “We usually only published people who have self-published before.”  True story.

But you know what?  Self-publishing comics is no business for a writer.  Hell, I’ve found over the years that pitching comics is no business for a writer.  If I were an artist I would have self-published a book years ago.  Instead, I’ve spent the last three years going through the same pitch, waiting for various artists to turn in pages for a year before they either get their own deals or decide they want to self-publish their own books.

It’s a vicious circle of sorts.

So there you have some of my own thoughts on self-publishing.  Feel free to send comments and/or hatemail.

Bracing for Impact

Posted on February 27, 2008

Three days left until STAPLE! and the official start of my convention season.  True, I don’t have a big convention season.  I don’t know how I’d ever afford one.  Truth be told, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to do STAPLE!  I inch farther away from comics each and every day.  I guess we’ll see, but I know I don’t want to be that guy still trying to sell the same three graphic novels four years from now.

Tonight, I have to finish putting together the “A Team-Building Exercise” chaps.  I hate to put things off to the last minute like that, but a family emergency has left me a little aimless for the last month.  Between that and working feverishly on rewrites for several projects, I’ve barely kept myself from spinning off into orbit.

With any luck, STAPLE! will change that and I’ll feel some return to normalcy.  Even if it doesn’t, I have to hit the ground running.  It’s impact, and another stretch of conventions follows along behind it.

Here we go.

Another Year Older… Not Bad

Posted on February 22, 2008

I turn 31 tomorrow. Now, before you run for the hills, let me assure you this is not one of those “I feel old” posts. Nope. I like turning 31. No problems with it or the aging process. Balding at the tender age of 17 will have that effect.

Okay, so I wasn’t happy about going on cholestorol medication this year, but I can deal. I’m a big boy, now. Fuck, I’m 31!

The last year has been a good one. I built on the career, and actually made it to the point where I can say cool shit like “Important announcement coming soon!”

I became a home owner.

I dropped twenty pounds. I put a lot of it back on. I started exercising. I kinda stopped exercising.

I wrote seven drafts of three different novels. I wrote four drafts of the same novella. I sold five short stories. I was invited to two anthologies. Invited! Me!

I had a beautiful baby girl.

I made that last one up. Never happened.

I reconnected with all of my brothers after several years.

I killed a bear with my hands.

Made that one up, too.

I had a lot of sex. Sometimes with a partner!

I ate both scallops and mussels for the first time, and I loved the hell out of both of them.

I broke a lawn mower (actually, we don’t know who broke the lawn mower, but we assume it was me).

I did not, at any time, wash my car. I did, however, get a tape stuck in the tape player. All class, baby!

I didn’t kiss Shawna nearly enough for my own liking.

I’ll fix that, though!

So here’s to 31. Raise a glass and give us a toast. It’s gonna be a fun ride!

— Next Page »

© Copyright Static Broadcasts • Powered by Wordpress • Using Detour Wordpress Theme created by Brian Gardner.