Nethermore

Took a look at the stats for last week, and we had 200 unique visitors on Tuesday! The rest of the week was pretty strong as well. Thanks for coming by and taking a look at things.

By this weekend, I’m hoping to make some time to tweak the design and colors of the website. Things may look a little bit weird (ala I-15) as I try some new things.

In other news, I’m going to be pushing really hard to hit 100k by this time next week. I’ve been doing a significant amount of outlining for the book when I’ve been sitting places where I could do nothing else. By Monday next, I’m shooting to be completely done with Part One of Nethermore and have the beginning of Part Two started. Part One should clock in at about 75k words, and I think that Part Two will take me about 100k to get through. That leaves around 25k for the climax and epilogue, though I think I’ll go over that by just a little bit.

A few Miscellaneous Links:

For those of you who are interested in news in the Science Fiction and Fantasy community, check out Locus Magazine online. It’s the standard news magazine for the industry and always has interesting links.

If you’re a writer interested in sending your stories to publishers, check out Ralan’s Market Guide. This website is updated pretty often with amateur and professional publications that are looking for content.

For those who have never submitted a manuscript before—or if you would just like to review—Speculations has a terse little guide on how to format your manuscript before you send it somewhere.

Here’s to another good week!

—”Stewart”

I think we’ve got about five more years before the plants make their final move.

It starts with a few vines covering a building and next thing you know, they’re sitting at the breakfast table reading the paper and complaining about world politics.

What follows is disturbing evidence of this invasion. (Click pictures for larger versions.)

Step One

First the plants take over things that don’t matter much, like fences. As you can see here, the lawn in this back yard has been largely taken over by grass. Those stepping stones are in a pretty sad predicament, if you ask me.

Step Two

Once the yard is overgrown, the plants reach the buildings and, tentatively at first, they shoot out their little tendrils and surround the unsuspecting edifices.

Step Three

Those who turn a blind eye to this problem soon discover that their whole neighborhoods have been besieged. Unfortunately, at this stage, there’s nothing left that can be done short of setting fire to the whole street.

As a sidenote, those few scientists aware of this problem have yet to decipher coded messages from the plants in order to discover the demands of these photosynthetic green fiends.

The Bench Case

In this backyard in New Jersey, we see the all-too-common practice of plants surrounding otherwise cool items like benches and decks. This poor bench is a goner. Many plants camouflage themselves, so I’ve labeled the insurgents that are seeking the bench’s destruction.

Hidden Dangers
This person is staring reflectively into his/her backyard well. Unbeknownst to him/her, bushes—circled for clarification—are hiding in the beds by the fence. Let this person’s mistake be a lesson to us all! Don’t sit down by a reflecting pool when plants are nearby!

Without Warning
Don’t let this tree fool you like it’s fooling that administration building. Where there is one tree, more will soon arrive . . . if this tree doesn’t get to the building first, a whole gaggle of trees—a forest?—will come to reclaim the building for nature.

There you have it: the facts as I have them. But still, besides this compelling evidence, most people are oblivious to this impending disaster. Or worse yet, are aware but choose to do nothing!

The plant invasion has been slow and subtle. You may think, “This doesn’t concern me. I live in the desert.” And you’re right! The invasion will stop when the plants hit Utah. They won’t be able to survive out here. But who knows? Nevada might be the only place completely immune to this problem.

But why wait until the plants are stopped at the borders of Utah and New Mexico? We must rise up in defense of our brothers and sisters on the East Coast, who live practically as prisoners of war, incarcerated as they areby the plants that have invaded our shores!

Write your Congressman today!

Disclaimer: This post may make you want to be politically involved by saying words like, “Write your Congressman today!” However, Isaac Stewart, Nethermore.com, and the Stinky Hobo are not responsible if you write to your Congressman about this issue. On the other hand, Angus the Scotsman can be blamed since he can defend himself with a two-handed Scottish Claymore. The rest of us do not have a license to operate such a fine weapon.

Remember the Science Fiction/Fantasy Gold Rush of the 1990s? That’s when publishers were scrambling to put out the next big, thick fantasy, ala Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, George R.R. Martin, and Robin Hobb. All four of these authors (or pseudonymns) became big in this last decade of the century.

I think another “Golden Age” of fantasy is on the verge of exploding in the publishing community. Of course, it’ll be different this time around. At least I hope that it’s different. I’m excited to read new fantasies that aren’t exploitatively derivative of the big series I mentioned above. And I don’t think that we’ll see a resurgence of the truly “big, fat” fantasy novels (bigger than 200k) for a few years yet. But who knows? Any breakout book could buck that trend.

In the past few weeks, two large publishers have opened (or will soon open) their doors to manuscripts in advance of beefing up their fantasy and science fiction lines.

Orbit Books is one of the leading publishers of speculative fiction in the UK, and now they will be opening offices in New York and Australia according to this press release. Additional information can be found here.

Wizards of the Coast, of Magic the Gathering fame, is opening their doors for what they call “author property” submissions. Several years back Wizards bought out TSR, creators of the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms book lines/campaign settings. Wizards took up where TSR left off and continued to publish books in several of these “shared-world” settings. This is (to my knowledge) their first effort at branching out into the general fantasy publishing market.

I visited Wizards of the Coast in August of last year, and you wouldn’t believe the marketing power these guys have behind them. They also produce beautiful books and have wonderful editors working for them. Not only is their fantasy/science fiction line opening up for submissions, their Young Adult line—Mirrorstone— is also accepting author properties, as mentioned in these guidelines.

Exciting times!

Yesterday I wasn’t looking forward to coming home to the apartment. (The air conditioning has been broken for five days now and we’ve been having record high temperatures.) But when I came in the door, I noticed that my Amazon package had arrived. I just ordered two books on writing, Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass, the literary agent. And How to Grow a Novel by Sol Stein. Both of these books came highly recommended, so I’m looking forward to diving into them as soon as I have a free minute.

In other news, the Scotsman now has a name. Angus.

Here’s to the time when I’ll actually get him animated.

—”Stewart!”

Only wrote for about two hours last night and did well over 3k words. I’m getting faster at this, and I don’t think the quality of the writing is suffering. It could have been that I’ve hit a pretty big action sequence, and I tend to write those faster.

I’m pretty pleased with the way things are going. I’ve been training the muse to hit between 9pm and midnight, and she’s starting to show up at that time every night to beat me over the head until I sit down and get some writing done.

My only worry is that Nethermore is going to be longer than I expected it to be. I thought I would be done with Part One by about 25k words. Now I see that it’ll be about 75k.

In the end, I think I’ll be surprised one way or the other by the outcome.

Orson Scott Card talks about this in one of his writing columns at his website.

There is a weird story-dilation effect that I’ve noticed. At about 25,000 words, I start thinking this novel will never end — I’m barely started and I’ve got all these pages! That feeling persists up to 50,000 words. But then, along about 75,000 words, I start getting a real anxiety that I’m suddenly moving so quickly that this novel won’t get even to 90,000. Then, at about 100,000 words, I realize that I’m not done yet so I have nothing to worry about. And at 108,000 or 112,000, I’m done.

Interesting arcticle about how story lengths are particular to the author.

Quote for the Day

Isaac say, “Life is like a road trip. The company you keep largely makes or breaks it.”

Scotsman say, “If life is a roadtrip, then let me bring my bagpipes.”

Stinky Hobo say, “Roadtrips are fun, except that one time when a Scotsman brought his bagpipes.”

I bet you’re all dying to know what I’m eating for lunch today. I’m dying to eat it anyway.

I haven’t had a lot of time to make my own food because I’ve been filling most of my free time with writing. So lately I’ve become a connoisseur of fine frozen dinners.

Most of the time I’m eating frozen dinners that cost anywhere from $.75 to $1.50. I’ve found that Michelina’s fine frozen food does the job for this.

Some of my favorites (the following links just show pictures and descriptions; I’m not advertising nor am I getting paid for talking about their food—I’m just doing this because I think frozen dinners are cool. Plus, I would probably die of starvation if they had never been invented) :

Salisbury Steak
Lasagna Alfredo
Lasagna with Meat Sauce

But today I’m eating my absolute favorite frozen dinner ever (so far). Amy’s kitchen makes fine frozen (organic!) dinners. Not that I really care about it being organic (most “organic” food is a coverup for buying foreign produce), but man is this stuff good, and I love feeling like I’m eating somewhere near healthy.

Indian Mattar Paneer

Tender organic peas and Indian cheese in an authentic delicately spiced sauce. Golden carrots, onions and cumin add flavor and color to the organic basmati rice. Curried chana masala made with organic garbanzo beans and sweet tomatoes round out this delicious meal.

I bought it at Wal-Mart earlier today.

I also did my normal tour of their book section. Of course, with the new X-Men movie out, there were a lot of books on the shelf trying to ride the wave of the movie’s success. One of these novels, by Pocket Books in association with Paramount entertainment, had a picture of Wolverine on the cover . . . and Worf from Star Trek: the Next Generation.

I did a double take. Sure, comic books have been doing crossovers for a while. Even movies have gotten into it, like Alien vs. Predator, which I never saw—for good reason.

But X-Men and Star Trek? That just seems weird to me.

Personally, I’m waiting for the Conan / Carebears crossover, which I hear is in production.

—”Stewart!”

No yurt sightings this Friday, but I did find two articles of particular interest.

The first one is a blog post by Brandon Sanderson about the draft process he went through in writing his book Elantris, which is now out in paperback. He talks about the revision process:

Many of these drafts don’t change a whole lot. I call a ‘draft’ any time I read through the novel all the way, changing things as I go. So, false starts and thrown away chapters all count in the rough (or first) draft. The second draft is usually me reading through and fixing the big consistency errors. The third draft is me trying to cut the book down (since my novels all get a little long-winded.) I usually lose between 10 and 15 percent in this draft.

This second article at PopSci.com put the idea-generator in my head into overdrive.

One Indian government investigation conducted in 2001 lays blame for what some have called the “blood rains” on algae. Other theories have implicated fungal spores, red dust swept up from the Arabian peninsula, even a fine mist of blood cells produced by a meteor striking a high-flying flock of bats.

Enjoy the weekend!

—”Stewart!”