Write Tips: 5 Tips For Writers On Planning Their Con Season

Published on April 9, 2012March 9, 2020 by Bryan1 Comment

For most writers, Conventions and Author Appearances are of huge importance for both selling books and networking with industry professionals. Although Conventions and events can occur year round, you may not be able or willing to travel the entire year. Whatever the case, it’s never too early to start identifying Cons and planning for the coming year. If you’ve never done it, approaching and identifying potential Cons for author appearances might be daunting. Here’s some tips I’ve used which have helped me succeed at planning a Con schedule:

1) Identify The Priority Cons First– Con lists are everywhere. You can find them in the backs of zines like Asimov’s and Analog. You can search the web for places like upcomingcons.com/science–fiction–conventions or en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_science_fiction_conventions or by city and state or region. Once you have a list though, the first step is to identify the Cons you want to hit and the Cons you need to hit. What determines your need? Why are you going? If you’re going to promote yourself and your work, you should look at the themes of the Cons, the past locations, and past attendance. Since many conventions cater to returning fans, try and identify cons which cater to those sharing interest in the types of genres and books you write. Are authors similar to yourself going? How many? You don’t want to many, but there can also be advantages to not being the only one. Do they focus on media guests? Literature guests? or a combination? Is the theme something you can speak to on panels or at your reading? Is the Con well attended? Unless you’re just trying to get your feet wet and need a low profile place to do your first reading and panel, you want Cons large enough to expose you to lots of people. Not too big, if you’re small. You don’t want to be lost in the shuffle, but big enough that you can get the word out to a decent spectrum.

Once you’ve identified the Cons you want to prioritize, check the locations. Look at things like the cost, who’s coming, the hotel, travel arrangements, dealers, etc. Then decide if the expenses and difficulties getting there are worth it or not. I always google the Con hotel and search for nearby hotels to see if there are cheaper options. After all, Cons are expensive and often thrown in the most expensive hotels. Yes, it’s fun to stay in those hotels, but unless your publisher is paying for it, consider whether you can reasonably hope to recoup your costs. If you pay for a membership, which many Cons require, housing, food, and travel, it can add up to several hundred dollars quick. Will you sell enough product to pay for that? I doubt it. There’s also product cost, too.

2) Contact Programming–Panels are a key opportunity to see and be seen as well as prove your value to readers and fellow professionals in a way that doesn’t involve self-praise or pushy sales tactics. I usually consider programming as I determine which Cons to put on my list for the following year. Contact Programming early on and find out if they would promote you as a guest. Do they offer discounts for participants? Can you be on panels or do a reading? Is there any interest? Knowing this may help you narrow down your list to the final choices.

Once you’ve identified the Cons you want to attend, be sure and contact programming. There’s usually a link or email address on the website. Send your bio and tell them which books/products you’d promote. Offer panel suggestions and ask to do a reading. Be sure and consider their theme when suggesting panels. I have never had anyone turn me away. Most are very happy to have another creative professional headed their way. And they are more than happy to have volunteers to up the value of programming. [NOTE: If you’re nervous about panels, here’s 12 Tips For Preparing For Author Panels. I really find them quite fun, especially when other authors participate.]

3) Find A Dealer–If the Con’s website lists dealer attendees, try and find one to carry your books if you come. Paying for your own dealer table can be expensive and, more than that, can keep you from promoting yourself by locking you down at a table for the whole Con. Unless you’re an expert salesman, you’ll want to promote yourself in subtler ways: doing panels, doing a reading, schmoozing and hanging with fans. Standing by a table trying to start a conversation with anyone who passes can make for a long weekend. Especially if you want to enjoy the Con while you’re there, this is not always the best option. Unless you have someone who can go along to man the table when you’re out, and especially if you have only a few books or items to sell, finding another dealer who will take a cut to sell your stuff on consignment is really the best way to get product out there. You can help bring people to their table and they get attention from having attendee’s books on their table. It’s often a win-win. I usually encourage people to buy from the dealer even at my readings, etc. And if I do sell books elsewhere in the Con, I give the dealer a cut. Unless they’ve already sold enough of my product that they’ll feel justified in helping me out. Fair is fair. You are taking space they could have used for other merchandise so be sure and do your best to make it worth their while by not just verbal thanks but letting them show some profit from the enterprise.

If the Con site does not list dealers, you can track them down. Some Con dealer reps will offer to put you in touch, but some won’t. You can search dealers and their appearance calendars, or, better yet, contact people you know who have attended the Con and might remember who was there.

4) Cutting Down Expenses– Many Cons offer discounts for members of professional groups like SFWA. Be sure and ask. Discounts can be given for those who participate in a certain number of panels or do readings. You can also get discounts if you’re a dealer, etc. It’s good and perfectly acceptable to ask questions and explore all the options. Some Cons will pay for your housing and meals, but usually that only applies to those on the invited guest lists or billed as headliners. There are other ways to cut costs: hotels usually occur in clusters. Check neighboring hotels for cheaper rates. You can often get a deal and still be near enough to stay up late and party withotu needing to drive or pay a cabbie. Visit the Con’s site and FB page and post about needing a roommate. Sharing a room is a great way to cut costs. I even offered to guard the dealer room at a Con and was invited to sleep in that room for free. You can also map out restaurant options. Does the hotel have in-room fridges or kitchens? Microwaves? This can help with cost savings too. You can pack cereal, snacks, popcorn, etc. to use as fillers between meals and cut down on your appetite. You can also find nearby places with much better prices than an in-hotel restaurant. Explore your options.

Another option is car pooling. With airfares on the increase, finding Cons within driving distance can be a real advantage, particularly if you plan to stay offsite for cheaper lodging. No need to worry about transportation when you’re there, and no need for luggage fees or concerns when hauling product. You can also bring a microwave and food or a mini-fridge if you want. In the end, since it’s a business write off on taxes, paying for gas can wind up being a cheaper, more practical option. Even better, if other people want to go, you can ride together. Sharing driving time and expenses can make it even more affordable. Lots of people like to hit as many local Cons as they can. Often they need a ride or prefer to carpool for the same reason. It may even be you catching a ride with someone else.

5) List Your Appearances On Your Website–My Con schedule is listed on the Appearances page on my website. I list the date, time, location, Con name and link to the website. I also list if I am going to be a pro guest or just showing up on my own. That way people know whether to look for me on panels, etc. As I get a schedule for the Con, I do blog entries listing my schedule, panels and outlining my plans. I mention other guests and link to their websites if I can and I encourage people to come. If I know of discounts, cheaper hotels, etc., I mention that, too. The more people who come out to see you, the more value you are to the Con and the more product you move. It’s better for everyone.

Anyway, that’s how go about planning my author Con schedule. I try and vary the locations of Cons when I can to try out Cons I’m unfamiliar with and meet new people. Once I’ve been at this a few more years, I’ll likely identify a few Cons I want to attend regularly while switching up others. But in any case, I hope these tips give you ideas and assist in making the process simpler and more pleasant for you. How do you plan your Con schedule? If you have tips I didn’t mention, we’d love to have you share in comments. For what it’s worth…

Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novels The Worker Prince, a Barnes & Noble Book Clubs Year’s Best SF Releases of 2011 Honorable Mention, andThe Returning, the collection The North Star Serial, Part 1, and has several short stories featured in anthologies and magazines. His children’s book 102 More Hilarious Dinosaur Jokes For Kids from Delabarre Publishing along with the anthology Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6 which he edited for Flying Pen Press, headlined by Mike Resnick. As a freelance editor, he’s edited a novels and nonfiction. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chat every Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. A frequent contributor to Adventures In SF Publishing, Grasping For The Wind and SFSignal, he can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Bryan is an affiliate member of the SFWA.

19 5-star & 4-star reviews THE WORKER PRINCE $4.99 Kindle http://amzn.to/pnxaNm or Nook http://bit.ly/ni9OFh $14.99 tpb http://bit.ly/qIJCkS.

SPACE BATTLES Author Profile: Meet Author Gene Mederos

Published on April 7, 2012March 9, 2020 by Bryan1 Comment

The second story in Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6 is by Gene Mederos. Born in Cuba and raised in Brooklyn, he wrote his first story in second grade. Mederos received a BFA in Theater from the University of Miami and has worked as an illustrator, graphic designer and various odd jobs including a seven year stretch at the The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in NewYork City. In 2007, he discovered filmmaking and currently teaches editing and filmmaking at the Santa Fe Community College. Most recent stories in print include the stories “Moons of Blood and Amber” in the Tangle XY anthology published by Blind Eye Press, and “A Touch of Frost” in the Space Horrors: Full-Throttle Space Tales #4 anthology published by Flying Pen Press. He can be found online at Facebook or via his website at http://lostsaints.com.

BTS: How did you find out about the Space Battles anthology and what made you decide to submit?

Gene Mederos: I was in the Space Horrors anthology and I like the imprint, it hearkens back to yesteryear.

BTS: Tell us a little about “The Thirteens.” What’s it about? Where’d this particular idea come from?

GM: At the core, the story is about tolerance for diversity, even toleration for the intolerant. It’s an old Sci-Fi trope, that the only thing that will unite warring parties is a bigger, badder alien or even the unknown. As for the inspiration, I have friends from the extreme left to the extreme right, politically, so it wasn’t hard to craft the mindsets for the characters.

BTS: You’ve contributed to multiple anthologies in the Full Throttle Space Tales series. Are they tied to this story in any way?

GM: They nominally take place in the same universe, one where physics is not as abridged as on Star Trek and Star Wars, but faster than light travel is available, and about two hundred years in the future.

BTS: How’d you come to be involved with this series?

GM: My friend Trent Zelazny put me in touch with David Lee Summers who was putting together the Space Horrors anthology. It’s all about who you know…

BTS: How’d you get started as a writer?

GM: I’ve always loved stories, and am always telling stories. It was a natural progression to start writing stories to share with others that way.

BTS: Where’d your interest in SFF come from?

GM: Comic books, the original Lost in Space and Star Trek, and the first musty hard cover edition of Dune I found at the local library.

BTS: Do you have plans to do any more with this universe?

GM: Yes, as a vehicle, or a common canvas, not necessarily with any of the characters already seen in print, but cameos are fun.

BTS: What other projects do you have in the works that we can look forward to?

GM: I have lots in the works, lol, most writers do. I’ve submitted a story to Bad Ass Fairies 4 which I hope they’ll publish, and am hunkering down to write an extreme planet story for another anthology, and I have the requisite novels. But I believe mastery of the short story form is a prerequisite to a good novel, so I consider myself still in training.

Here’s an excerpt from “The Thirteens,” Gene’s exciting story from Space Battles:

The Thirteens

Gene Mederos

Nestled deeply in the foam mattress of the semi-luxurious hotel suite her rank afforded her, Captain Andromeda Sax was sound asleep when her com went off. The double pulse told her it was something important enough to warrant a secure connection. Even less than half awake her hand automatically flew to the spot on her jaw below her right ear. She pressed the small stud embedded there under her skin.

“Go ahead.”

“Captain, a bogey has entered the system,” the officer of the watch on board her ship, La Espada de la Libertad, informed her.
That could have been anywhere from four to six hours ago, depending on which of the outer system beacons had first detected
the incoming ship and transmitted the alert. A bogey was a ship that did not, or could not, transmit a valid ID code. It could be a smuggler, a legitimate freighter with a screwy comp—or it could be the enemy. Sax allowed herself a small smile; after all, there was no
one around to see it.

“Recall the crew, priority one.” That gave the crew ten minutes to
get back aboard the ship. She spared one last glance at her room. Aquarii
Station was on the frontier, but it still managed to offer most of the comforts
of the more cosmopolitan stations of the home-worlds. Accommodations
on La Espada were much more austere. She smiled again.
Five minutes later she strode onto the bridge. She hadn’t really had
time to dress, just comb her short-cropped jet-black hair and throw on
her officer’s greatcoat, but the voluminous garment covered her from
neck to ankles. And if anyone noticed she was wearing slippers instead
of boots, they wouldn’t dare comment on it. The guards at the
door snapped to attention. The crew on the bridge was all in uniform
and seated at their stations. She always kept a full watch on duty while
the rest of the crew took liberty.

“Inform the stationmaster we are launching to investigate,” she instructed
the com officer, then requested the general hail. “Emergency separation from
Aquarii station in T-minus four minutes.” That was sure to make the stragglers
scramble, for anyone left behind would have to fend for themselves out of
their own pocket. Stations were notorious for separating crew from their coin,
and the community service often imposed to pay off a debt was the most odious
of station maintenance work. Some of the crew would not return, for the
ship had its own share of odious duties as well as providing a greater chance
of getting killed. She’d deal with any of those persons when she returned. She
never thought ‘if’.

“Release hook-ups,” she ordered on the mark.

“Hook-ups released,” the officer at conn replied. She heard the
usual chorus of clicks as everyone strapped themselves in.

La Espada was now completely on its own power, air and water.
Sax strapped herself into her chair.

“Cast off.”

The station’s magnetic clamps released the ship and she imagined
the hiss of air as the powerful propellant tanks pushed them away
from the station and felt the familiar tug as the gravity provided by the
station’s rotation gave way to the gravity generated by the ship’s sudden
acceleration. She felt the weight ease an instant before the conn
announced they were standing clear of the station.

“Full sail,” she ordered. The most insane and courageous members
of her crew were the riggers. At her command they jetted out in EVA
suits along the masts and struts to unfurl the giant micro-thin solar sails.
The riggers claimed watching the golden sails catch the rays of the sun
was akin to a religious experience. She’d never seen the phenomenon
herself, but figured it must be quite a sight if it could induce one to hurl
oneself into the void to see it.

Acceleration under sail would increase slowly, but surely.

“Begin rotation,” she ordered.

“Beginning rotation,” the engineering deck replied on the ship-wide
hail, the only warning the crew would get that up and down had to be
taken into account again. The sound of the engines that rotated the cylindrical
ship within its frame of struts and masts starting up did not need to
be imagined. It reverberated and shook throughout the ship. Fortunately,
once the ship began to spin at speed, inertia was maintained by magnetic
induction and the engines would be almost silent.

The captain felt herself sink ever so slightly into the cushioning. A
thought, via implant and wireless transmission, was all it took to make
the chair turn slightly on its horizontal axis. She, like the crew, enjoyed
the automated, computer guided functions on the ship while she
could. During battle, with the comp taken offline, everything had to
be done manually. The navigator’s station came into view and with it
the senior nav officer, Poole. This was the one crewmember she would
never leave behind. As she understood it, the ship ran on numbers, and
this was the man who crunched them when the comp was down.
Poole raised his head from his displays, as if he could feel her
scrutiny like a sensorite. Like all the human beings from his planet,
Cygni-I, his skin had a slight blue cast and his hair was colorless.
These obvious and innocuous signs of the genetic modifications
undertaken by his ancestors to survive on their relatively oxygenpoor
world were all that the Purists needed to hate Poole’s kind. Sax
thought them fools. If anything, the Cygni were far more dangerous
for what they had done to their minds.

“Have you correlated a course, Mr. Poole?”

“Yes, captain.”

“Let’s have it then.”

Immediately, a heads up display appeared before her, La Espada’s
course outlined against the current layout of the system in a bright
certain blue. Lines shaded from yellow to green showed the most
probable courses of the bogey, extrapolated second by second as more
sensor data came in from the beacons arrayed throughout the system.
She was pleased to see that the most probable vectors would intercept
with her ship well above the plane of the ecliptic, where there would
be plenty of fighting room, if necessary. She knew that the universe
was more empty space than matter, but to her the Aquarii system had
always seemed cluttered with asteroids, comets and other debris.

Debris that could damage her ship.

She willed La Espada to go faster, and closed her eyes to imagine
the nonexistent creaking of the rigging and masts as light pushed
the solar sails out against the star’s pull on the ship. She’d been on a
sailing ship once, on the oceans of Maravilla, before the Associated
Worlds lost the Lalande system to the Purists. Someday, she meant to
win that world back. But since the faster than light engine could not be
used anywhere near a star’s gravity well, the ship could go faster only
as they got farther from the star. She could order a burn, and kick the
ship up to her full speed of a hundred kilometers per second, roughly
a third the speed of light. But if she were headed for battle, she would
be wise to reserve all the fuel in the tanks for maneuvers.

It would take a little under thirty hours for the ships to meet, and
there was much to be done. “Steady as she goes,” she ordered Poole
as she turned her chair to line up with the exit from the bridge. This
brought Augusto Lo into view. His bronze-brown skin was a few
shades lighter than the captain’s, his eyes and tousled hair darker. He
was actually earth-born, yet had rejected the Purist philosophy and
immigrated to an Associate world as a youth. He was slouched at his
usual station at the rear of the bridge, his eyes half closed, his head
resting on his fist, his other hand fiddling idly with the buckles on his
disheveled jumpsuit. To all appearances he was oblivious to what was
going on around him. But it was all an act. The captain knew that the
‘State Liaison Officer’ never missed a thing that happened on the ship.
So she wasn’t the least bit surprised when he came up behind her in
the corridor as she waited for the lift. The guards wouldn’t stop him from
coming after her like that, after all, they ultimately answered to him.

“Odd, isn’t it?”

She raised an eyebrow in reply.

“If I’m not mistaken, that bogey is following the same trajectory
as the last Purist ship that attacked this system.”

The captain nodded. “Yes, I’d noticed that.”

“But that approach gives you, the defender, the weather gauge. The
bogey has to expend fuel to fight the same solar wind that La Espada
has at her back, filling our sails, leaving it less fuel to maneuver. These
were decisive factors in our victory against the last incursion.”
Again, the captain raised her brow.

“And your superior skill at command and tactics, of course,” he
amended with a small grin. Sax smiled in return, more because of his use of
the archaic term ‘weather gauge’ than his sardonic compliment. “Everything
means something,” he said in return.

“Then figure it out,” she said, after pausing for a moment to visualize
her deck number.

Lo nodded. “Nice slippers,” she heard him say as the lift doors
closed.

An hour before intercept the captain was touring her ship as she
was wont to do before a battle. And she had no doubt that there would be
a battle—the bogey’s course was lining up exactly with the last Purist
ship’s incursion. A statistical impossibility, Poole had assured her.
So this ship was using the last ship’s comp data, possibly retrieved
from the latter’s logs, which would have been downloaded into a locator
beacon before the ship went into battle. It made no sense to her,
but then, she thought the whole Purist agenda made little sense. She
entered the rigger’s loft in the core of the ship. Since the ship rotated
around the core, there was no gravity in the long, cold cylinder. It
was the perfect place to store cargo, house the ship’s engines and, of
course, the riggers.

A rigger spotted her and snapped to attention, his elongated
prehensile toes grasping a length of cable to steady himself. He
was blond and blue-eyed, not too bad looking, with a crooked nose
and a wry twist to his mouth that suggested he was always smiling.
He was tall and thin, his arms and legs of equal length, with all twenty
digits being equally dexterous. His name was Jaller. He’d served on
her ship for the past four years and she knew him to be brave, loyal,
and kind. And even though the rigger’s section of the core was only
partially heated, he was naked, as was their wont. Diversity. The idea
and the reality that the Purists condemned as unnatural.

She drifted among the riggers, male and females both, for no few
minutes, praising their courage, thanking them for their service and
exhorting them to battle. Despite her duty uniform and her boots, she
still managed to skillfully make her way in Zero G among the giant
web of cables that the riggers called home. Their ancestors had destroyed
their world in a paroxysm of industrialization that had seen the
world laid waste in just six generations after colonization. The riggers
had been forced to evacuate onto space stations and ships and had
during the centuries of the sundering, when all of humanity’s worlds
had lost contact with each other and faster than light travel had been
abandoned, modified themselves to live in micro-gravity.
Members of no fewer than five of the existing seven modified human
races served on her ship and of the remaining two, the Aquarii had inadvertently
made themselves highly susceptible to space sickness and the folk of
Twobit were devout pacifist.

Her last stop on her tour was always the medical deck. Doctor
Stures was a sensorite, his people hailed from the dust-cloaked planet
of Gliese 876, Umbra. The world was metal poor and had erratic
magnetic fields so technology had been difficult to maintain.

Without much artificial illumination, the people of that world had
modified their other senses to compensate for the gloom. His skin
was blue-black with raised oblong bumps that ran from his hairline
to his jaw. She knew them to be receptors, allowing the doctor
to feel minute changes in temperature, in air pressure and displacement,
even vibrations. His eyes were hidden behind a band of dark
glass, to protect them from the ship’s bright illumination. He greeted
her in his usual way.

“Ah, Captain, in excellent health I see.” And by see he actually
meant by smell, by feeling her body temperature and by hearing her
heart beat in her chest. “All is in readiness for the coming battle.”
She had expected no less. His people were sensitive by nature and
design, but they were also pragmatists. He wasn’t one of those medical
officers who questioned the need for battle.

“We don’t know that the bogey is hostile—” she began to say.

“Pshaw,” the doctor interjected. A liberty he could take here, on
his deck. “From what I’ve heard, how could it be anything else?”

“Indeed,” the captain said, raising her brow. News travelled fast
on a ship. She believed the ancient term was ‘scuttlebutt’. Satisfied
that her ship was in order, she headed for the bridge.

As the captain stepped onto the bridge, the ship’s executive officer,
Commander Ortencia, saluted and left. The XO’s station during battle
was located close to the core, half the ship’s length from the bridge, a
hopefully safe distance from anything that might happen to or on the
bridge. The commander would monitor all activities on the bridge from
there and issue orders in support of the captain’s activities during battle.
In exchange, Major Drummond, the Captain of the Guard, took a station
on the bridge. When ships sailed on oceans his troops would have been
called marines.

“We are coming to transmission and targeting range,” Poole said.

“Furl sails, retract masts,” she ordered the riggers. “Advise the
ship and begin viral transmission,” she ordered the com officer.
She waited until all decks had acknowledged.

“Take the computer network offline, Mr. Poole.”

A few seconds later she saw the board at the Armscomp station
light up.

“Bogey firing missiles!”

Continued in Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6 which you can purchase here starting now (preorders end April 17).

SPACE BATTLES Author Profile: Meet Author Anna Paradox

Published on April 5, 2012March 9, 2020 by Bryan1 Comment

The author of the opening story for the anthology Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6, Anna Paradox enjoys writing, science fiction (sometimes the two combined) and poker. Her first novel, The Cracked Bell, is available as a free download. Her short fiction has been published in the award-winning anthology Polaris: A Celebration of Polar Science, in the previous Full Throttle Space Tales anthologies Space Pirates: Full-Throttle Space Tales #1, Space Sirens: Full Throttle Space Tales #2 and Space Horrors: Full Throttle Space Tales #4, and in Tales of the Talisman. Her second novel Embers of Humanity is here Her workbook for writers, From Wishing to Writing is here. She can be found online at Facebook and via her website at www.annaparadox.com.

BTS: How did you find out about the Space Battles anthology and what made you decide to submit?

Anna Paradox: I’ve been following the Full Throttle Space Tales series from the beginning. It has had a remarkably high percentage of stories I enjoy reading. So when I heard about Space Battles, I thought, there’s a theme I can do something with, and I was glad to submit a story.

BTS: Tell us a little about “Between The Rocks.” What’s it about? Where’d this particular idea come from?

AP: I’ve been thinking a lot about how people will expand into the solar system. There’s a lot of room out there—room enough for a variety of different approaches to colonization. Like the immigrants to the U.S., some may go seeking freedom they can’t have at home. “Between the Rocks” tells of one group fighting to preserve their homes and families built by hard work on an asteroid from another group that sees what they have and decides to steal it.

BTS: You’ve contributed to several anthologies in the Full Throttle Space Tales series. Are they tied to this story in any way?

AP: My stories all loosely fit into a future where humans are expanding into space. None of them share any characters. In my Space Pirates story, we’ve colonized the Moon. In the Space Horrors story, we make regular trips to Mars. In “Between the Rocks,” we are starting to colonize the asteroids and outer moons. My story in Space Sirens is set in the furthest future, since we’ve reached other solar systems and established trade with other intelligent species.

BTS: How’d you come to be involved with this series?

AP: I had the good fortune to share a panel at Coppercon with David Lee Summers, and he told me about the first anthology, Space Pirates. I was pleased to submit a story, and even happier to have it accepted!

BTS: How’d you get started as a writer?

AP: I started writing stories in grade school. One early piece was a satire about the sad state of the food in the school cafeteria. I’ve continued to write short stories ever since. I wrote one novel after college, and another for Nanowrimo in 2002 or 2003. My first sales were poker articles. Then I sold a story to Julie Czerneda for her anthology Polaris. Science fiction is where my writer’s heart yearns to play. However, most of my working time goes to helping other people write and, for the moment, to graduate school.

BTS: Do you have plans to do any more with this universe?

AP: I have several novels outlined, and a couple of them belong in this universe. To me, this looks like the shape of the future I’d want to live in. The best long run goal I can think of for humanity is to play so that future generations can have more choices. That means giving us more places to live as well as taking care of this planet—to me it makes no more sense to foul our nest than to never leave it. So if I have no reason to make a different assumption, my stories tend to fit in this universe.

BTS: What other projects do you have in the works that we can look forward to?

AP: The novel that I’m most excited about now is called A Game of Christmas. Just when humanity has worked out how to stop violence against each other—including some fairly draconian laws against any depiction of using force against another human, such as most of our current movies and video games—we are attacked by aliens who have no such compunctions. That leaves our only defense in the hands of a loose coalition of underground gamers and weapon collectors. I hope to reorganize my time so that I can have it out in 2014. Goodness, how time flies!

Here’s an excerpt from Anna’s fast paced action story “Between The Rocks” which opens the Space Battles anthology:

Between the Rocks

Anna Paradox

“I can’t wait to get home,” Xiao said, taking off his helmet.

We were all thinking it. Home was Old Lumpy, an asteroid hauled into Jupiter orbit and refining fuel for passing ships. In a decade of habitation, we’d slowly built ourselves comforts like hot showers and hydroponics parks. With our hold full of ore from another, less welcoming rock, it would be good to go wash the grit off ourselves and cook a few hot meals.

“Give me a flight check, then, and we’ll be on our way,” I said.

“Yes, Ma’am,” said Xiao with a wide grin.

Four of us ran The Courtly Vizier. Despite the tony name, our ship
was little more than a utility truck in space. We alternated scoop runs
on Jupiter’s atmosphere with mineral runs to other local rocks, to supply
the refinery on Old Lumpy. Faster, sleeker ships bought our fuel to
venture farther out in the solar system. The Viz turned slowly and accelerated
like a peashooter-propelled iceberg, and quarters were tight,
but she’d been built to last. I gave her bulkhead an affectionate pat
when we’d completed the flight check and lifted off for home.
With Xiao handling the engines, and Jackson keeping his eyes on
the monitor, I had time to revise my letter to Earth. It wasn’t going
well. If I sounded too needy, we might get dregs, and if I didn’t make
our case, we might get nothing at all—either could be a disaster. I’d
just about decided to join Nogal where she was taking her sleep shift
in the two-bunk closet we called the cabin when Jackson spoke up.

“That’s odd. Grandpa isn’t answering the hail.”

I glanced over to where he sat fiddling with the radio tuning.
“Loose wire?”

He shook his head. “I can read the buoys fine. Although…” He
flipped quickly through the frequencies. “Only the sunward buoys
are responding. The leeward ones—I’m not getting anything from
them.”

We had four buoys each leading and trailing the ore processing
center in Jupiter orbit. They gave us early warning of storms below
and visitors above. To have four go out at once—felt like more than
chance.

“Xiao, ease her down. Let’s come in quietly. We’ll get a look when
we come around Jupiter.”

I rose above my seat as Xiao cut the engines. The Courtly Vizier
continued over the horizon of Jupiter on momentum. I strained forward
against my restraining straps.

“Jackson, get me a magnified view of Old Lumpy.”

How many times had I returned home? This time, something had
changed. The monitor view zoomed in on the asteroid that held our
friends, our families, our food supply, and everything we needed to
refine our fuel and water … a black streak crossed the rise where the
communications tower should have gleamed.

“Helmets! Now!” I thumbed the intercom. “Stasia! Suit up! We
have an emergency.”

“What is that?” asked Xiao.

I pulled my helmet to me, started buckling it on. “It looks like a
burn. I can think of a handful of ways that could happen, and for all of
them, I want your helmet on. Move it, Len!”

Jackson finished sealing his helmet to his suit first. He left monitor
one on Old Lumpy, and on the other two began scans of the region.
Once I was sealed up, I tapped into the suit-to-suit system. “Nogal,
are you suited?”

“Getting there, Captain.” She sounded sleepy.

“Make it fast. Communications are down with home. We may
have trouble.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Jackson, do you see anything moving out there?”

“Nothing yet. Scanning.”

Xiao hovered his hands over the engine controls. “Captain, what
happened? Was there a fuel explosion?”

“That … would be the most positive possibility. I don’t think it’s
likely though. Jackson, check my thinking. What do you make of that
black streak?”

“Like someone deliberately turned their engines on our communications
tower.”

“And that would be the worst possibility.” The black mark tapered
at each end. I could now make out the silvery slag that had been the
comm tower—fortunately unmanned—right in the center of the mark.

“But I think that’s it.”

Between us and home lay a few dozen large rocks. Big enough to
hide a ship? Would they know where we were coming from?
Jackson studied war, played battle games. I’d watched him arranging
the ships on the screen, maneuvering for position against a
computer opponent. “Which way will they expect us to dodge?”
He hesitated a moment. “New players tend to dodge straight right
or left. Up has tactical advantages, since we’re in Jupiter’s gravity
well. I’m not sure how much he’s thought about this.”

“Who would do this?” asked Xiao.

“Take us towards eight o’clock, full burn on my mark. Mark in
thirty seconds.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Nogal, are you suited and strapped in back there?”

Her voice came back over the suit system, no longer sleepy. “Yes,
all connected, Captain.”

“Good.” I watched the timer count down the seconds. “Mark,
Xiao. Now!”

The Viz shuddered as the engines pumped directly to full. The
acceleration pressed me into the seat, and I slid slightly to the right.
Only a little. The Viz was born on Luna, and our max acceleration
was three times Earth gravity. We could direct at most half of that laterally.
The rest was forward motion only. Fortunately, we had plenty
of fuel. We’d made it a habit since the refinery went live.

Xiao’s question still hung in the air. “Who? As far as I know,
there’s only a handful of ships nearby, and none of them have a reason
for this.”

“Right,” said Jackson. “The Feds have three cruisers—and they’d
send a diplomat if they had a problem with us. Our last customer headed
outward three weeks ago.”

“Aliens?” asked Xiao.

“This isn’t what I’d hope for first contact,” I said. “Keep your
mind on your driving, Xiao, and we may know who soon.”

Jackson flipped a rotating series of images onto the monitors.

I watched them go by. Xiao held our course. I thought about our
options. We had no guns. There were a couple small explosives we
used to loosen ore from asteroids. Our drive glowed brightly behind
us—and we could shift it thirty degrees to any side over the course
of a few seconds. We had a cargo hold full of ore. Unless they’d stay
put long enough for us to apply our jackhammer and shovels to their
hull, that was it.

Another image flipped away from the monitor. Then it flipped back.

“Do you see that, Captain?” asked Jackson.

I stared at the image. “What do you see?”

“That glint, underneath the asteroid, to the right.”

Then I spotted it—something shiny and metallic revealed where the rough contours of the asteroid left a gap.

Continued in Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6 which you can purchase here starting now (preorders end April 17).

Write Tips: 8 Copyediting Tips For Writers

Published on April 2, 2012March 9, 2020 by Bryan3 Comments

It’s common wisdom that writers make terrible self-editors, even those of us who edit for others on a regular basis professionally. It’s a natural thing given the passions at play. Writers get so close to their work that it’s easy to gloss over missed words, typos, etc. We know what we meant to say and the mind just fills it in. Plus, you can only reread the same words so many times in a row without losing focus. But copyediting is an important step in the process. And when you get to the final stages of preparation for publication, you’ll face the need to review your manuscript one final time to make sure it’s right. After all, you have to live with the results ever after. So here’s 8 Tips I’ve learned from trial and error which have helped me when it comes to copyediting my own work.

1 ) Take Your Time — It’s easy to be impatient and rush. After all, copyediting isn’t the most exciting stage of the process. And again, you’ve already been over it so many times, the words just start blending together. But this is your last chance to avoid embarrassing mistakes you might regret later. So work at the pace you need to in order to pay attention to the details, even if that means taking a break every few pages.

2 ) Read It Aloud — I don’t sit down and read every word of my novels out loud. That’s hard to find time for. But I have friends who do that. I do read aloud scenes after I write them, and I read aloud passages which pop out at me in later drafts. If it raises a question mark, I read it aloud. Run-on sentence? Read it aloud and see if you run out of breath. Awkward phrasing? Read it aloud and you’ll know for sure. Missing punctuation? Reading aloud will verify that, too.

3 ) Print It Out — Yes, I know. Cartridges and paper cost money. But if your galleys don’t come printed, it’s a good idea to print them yourselves. If you spend as much time each day staring at a computer screen as I do, you’ll understand how your eyes can begin to glaze over after a while and really affect your concentration. Copyediting required solid focus and full attention. Having the whole page in front of you without the back lighting, can really help you with this. It also makes it easier to get context and catch repetitive words or phrases. You can read aloud without scrolling. And you can flip back more easily to compare passages if the need arises.

4 ) Posture Makes A Difference — When you’re dealing with details and need focus, it’s not the time to lay on your bed or relax in a lounge chair. This posture sends signals to your body that it’s time to relax and your attention span tends to relax along with it. Seated in a good, straight-backed chair at a desk or table is a much better place for copyedits. It sends signals to your mind that it’s time to be alert and pay attention. And it really can make it easier to get the focus you need.

5 ) Plan Your Time — Through trial and error you probably have learned when your best creative times are; when you’re at your finest focus and most productive. Right after lunch when you’re needing a nap, for example, is not the time for detail work. Neither is anytime you’re riled up emotionally (angry, sad, frustrated, elated, etc.) For me, my most focused creative time tends to be from 7 a.m. to 12 noon daily. I get occasional spurts between 3 and 7 at night as well. But mornings are the times I can get the most done, so they are sacred for writing. Additionally, I edit well during the 3-7 window, post-nap and 1 mile walk with my dogs. So that is a time when I can concentrate well enough to take on editing, if my writing time was needed for wordcount that day. Experiment. Find your ideal times and guard them zealously. Plan appropriately so your copyediting will be most effective.

6 ) If It’s Not Obvious, Make A Note — There’s nothing worse than having an editor or publisher ask you questions about your copyedits and not being able to remember what you were thinking at the time. Some edits are obvious on the page. Others are not. Don’t count on your memory to keep it straight. There may be a delay before your editor or publisher has time to go through them, and if you’ve moved all your focus on to another project, you may not remember why you did what you did. If the change is not self-evident at the time you make it, write a note for future reference.

7 ) It’s Called CopyEdits Not ReWrites — All writers have a tendency to be their own worst critics. Typos, grammar, etc. are obvious copyedits. So are repetitive words and unclear passages. But what if you suddenly decide your writing is subpar and get an urge to start fixing a lot more? Your editor and copyeditor have put a lot of time into this, and your manuscript has been approved for moving through the final stages. It costs money and time. They are not going to be enthusiastic about having to start over from scratch. In fact, they have other projects and deadlines and probably don’t have the time. Turning in a copyedited manuscript that’s so marked up it’s practically a new draft does not impress them with your diligence. Instead, it may piss them off. So remember, it’s a copyedit, not a rewrite. If something really bothers you and it’s a complicated change, include it in your notes and inquire about it later. They will happily change anything that you validly point out is worth fixing. But copyedits are for tweaking, not page by page redrafts.

8 ) Take Pride In Your Accomplishment — You, more than anyone, know the work that’s gone in to get you to this moment. So many people can only dream of sitting there looking at galleys of their about to be published work. It may not be perfect, but that doesn’t negate the significance of the accomplishment, so it’s okay to enjoy it. Allow the butterflies to dance in your stomach and enjoy seeing your work looking like real book at last. It’s come a long way, so don’t forget to enjoy the moment and be proud of yourself. You deserve it.

Well, those are 8 Tips for Self-Copyediting which I’ve picked up through trial and error as both author and editor. I hope they help you be more effective in the process. Have I left any out? What do you do that I haven’t mention? I’d love to have you mention them in comments so we can all learn from each other. Writers helping writers is what my Write Tips series is all about. For what it’s worth…

19 5-star & 4-star reviews THE WORKER PRINCE $4.99 Kindle http://amzn.to/pnxaNm or Nook http://bit.ly/ni9OFh $14.99 tpb http://bit.ly/qIJCkS.

Space Battles Official Release Announcement & Cover

Published on March 30, 2012March 9, 2020 by Bryan7 Comments

Full Throttle Space Tales #6: Space Battles

17 Explosive Tales of Spaceship Battles (all original to this volume)

Edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

Flying Pen Press, 264 pp., tbp, $16.95, Release Date: April 18, 2012

Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6 can now be purchased here starting now (preorders end April 17).

Red Alert! Red Alert!

This is not a drill…

Anna Paradox’s “Between The Rocks”: The Courtly Vizier, a

utility truck, renders aid to a colony ship but when they return to their

asteroid home from supply runs to mines on Old Lumpy from Jupiter’s

atmosphere, the colony ship they once helped attacks them. But the

situation is not what it seems, and strange circumstances are at hand.

David Lee Summers’ “Jump Point Blockade”: While pirating a mine

on an asteroid, Captain Ellison Firebrandt and the crew of the Legacy

find themselves forced into battle by Captain Stewart of the New New

Jersey, serving as shields against the Alpha Comas at a jump point to

Rd’dyggia. But instead of obeying Captain Steward, Firebrandt has

plans of his own.

Jean Johnson’s “Joystick War”: Scavenging a storage bunker for

salvage, Scott Grayson and Rrenn F’sauu stumble onto mint condition

Targeting Drone A.I.’s, joystick controlled combat suits and can’t resist

taking them for a test run. Then an old enemy, the Salik turn up, and

instead of joy rides, they’re fighting for their lives and their people…

Mike Resnick & Brad Torgersen’s “Guard Dog”: Watchfleet sentinel

Chang leads a lonely life of extended, dream-filled sleeps in between

frenetic, life-or-death battles. The Sortu had almost defeated humanity

and the lives of everyone, including his wife and son, depend on men

like him. Then, called to battle again, he finds himself up against the last

opponent he’d ever expected…

These and more stories await inside…

All personnel,

report to battle stations!

FULL Table Of Contents

9 Introduction – Bryan Thomas Schmidt

13 Acknowledgements

15 Dedication

17 Between the Rocks – Anna Paradox

29 The Thirteens – Gene Mederos

45 Like So Much Refuse – Simon C. Larter

61 Jump Point Blockade – David Lee Summers

73 First Contact – Patrick Hester

83 Isis – Dana Bell

95 The Book of Enoch – Matthew Cook

113 The Joystick War – Jean Johnson

133 Never Look Back – Grace Bridges

147 The Gammi Experiment – Sarah Hendrix

161 Space Battle of the Bands – C.J. Henderson

175 A Battle for Parantwer – Anthony Cardno

187 With All Due Respect – Johne Cook

209 Final Defense – Selene O’Rourke

219 Bait and Switch – Jaleta Clegg

227 The Hand of God (A Davi Rhii Story) – Bryan Thomas Schmidt

245 Guard Dog – Mike Resnick and Brad R. Torgersen

255 About the Authors

Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novels The Worker Prince, a Barnes & Noble Book Clubs Year’s Best SF Releases of 2011 Honorable Mention, and The Returning, the collection The North Star Serial, Part 1, and has several short stories forthcoming in anthologies and magazines. His children’s book 102 More Hilarious Dinosaur Jokes For Kids from Delabarre Publishing along with the anthology Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6 which he edited for Flying Pen Press, headlined by Mike Resnick. As a freelance editor, he’s edited a novel for author Ellen C. Maze (Rabbit: Legacy), a historical book for Leon C. Metz (The Shooters, John Wesley Hardin, The Border), and is now editing Decipher Inc’s WARS tie-in books for Grail Quest Books. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chat every Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. A frequent contributor to Adventures In SF Publishing, Grasping For The Wind and SFSignal, he can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Bryan is an affiliate member of the SFWA.

19 5-star & 4-star reviews THE WORKER PRINCE $4.99 Kindle http://amzn.to/pnxaNm or Nook http://bit.ly/ni9OFh $14.99 tpb http://bit.ly/qIJCkS.

Top 10 Silliest Things People Get Annoyed About On The Web

Published on March 29, 2012March 9, 2020 by Bryan2 Comments

We’ve all seen it. People flaming mad over silly things someone did on the web. And I’m not talking political or religious posts or family infighting, either. I’m talking fairly common little things which really shouldn’t be that big of deal to anyone. They are always things that really deserve people getting riled up about them, so why people waste their energy getting so mad over so little is beyond me, but here’s my Top 10 Silliest Things People Get Annoyed About On The Web:

1) Facebook invites–Whether to games, pages or groups, the posts on your wall are often more Facebook’s fault than your FB friend’s fault. FB has a silly set up for these things. Sometimes they happen and people are even unaware. The first time one appears for a particular application, page or group, click the x to block all posts and you’ll never see one again. It’s eas. So if you’re going to get all bent out of shape about something this small, you probably shouldn’t be on the Web.

2) People Who Don’t Do Social Media/Webbing Exactly Like You–What? You have time to read and comment on tons of blogs? You spend hours a day keeping up? You do everything just right, dotting i’s and crossing t’s. Hey! Good for you. But not everyone has time or interest and there’s nothing wrong with that. The freedom that makes the web great is the fact users can employ its capabilities on their own terms. Just because someone doesn’t do it the way you think it should be done, doesn’t make them an idiot. Your furor over it is far more idiotic.

3) Celebrities Who Don’t Follow Back Or Reply– REALLY?!!! Seriously people? You honestly think they have time? They don’t have a million followers for nothing. In fact, many of them have assistants who do all their web posts and tweeting. How are you to know if it was genuinely them responding anyway? Does it make you better than everyone else if they do? I don’t think so. Get over it!

4) Hashtags–“They use too many!” “They’re confusing!” “They’re annoying!” “They’re stupid!” #gotnewsforyou #hashtags are #heretostay. They’re not going away. #deal withit! They can actually be a lot of fun and, more importantly, big time savers.

5) Lists Omitting Their Personal Favorites–Uh, hey, these lists here, like this one? They are a person’s OPINION, okay? They are subjective. Great freedom of the web: you can make your own list. So why are you getting all upset over mine? I may not like or rank your favorite things the same as you but you can counter with your own list. No need to insult my intelligence or question my parentage or integrity. It’s OPINION. Repeat after me.

6) Other People Daring To Talk About Things They Themselves Don’t Care About–“So-and-So is so annoying. Why can’t he post about something interesting that I like?” I don’t even know what to say about this. Unfriend, unfollow or shut up and respect free speech.

7) People Having More Friends/Followers–It’s not high school. The Web is a great equalizer but you do have to be interesting and you do have to make an effort. If someone has more followers and they’re not a celebrity, they’re probably just following back more and interacting better. Maybe they’re providing more useful content. You can always up your game but it’s not a competition and it’s nothing worth getting all steamed about.

8 ) Chain Posts–Okay, they are silly. And they don’t make sense. No, you are not denouncing Jesus if you don’t repost. No, you won’t go to hell either. No, you are not unsupportive of veterans, etc. either. Some people enjoy being sheep and others march to their own drum. You’re fine either way. Just hide the posts if they annoy you but don’t even give it a second thought.

9) People Using Foreign Languages On The Web–This one’s so obvious, I almost forgot it. Really? English is the dominate language for website language because of the html developers using it, not because English rules the world, people. You have users from all over the world. If you get to a site where they are using a different language, learn it or leave. Now, posting comments in a language no one can understand is rude and silly, too, of course, but it harms the poster more than the recipient. I mean, if they really wanted to communicate, they’d get with the program on that. So stop bitching, really.

10) People Who Get Annoyed At People Who Point Out Their Silliness In Posts Like This–You know you’re out there. If we can’t learn to laugh at ourselves, how can can we survive? Seriously. In a nihilistic world, it’s important to separate what’s worthy of raging and angry energy and what needs to roll off our backs. Did I poke at your precious annoyances? Maybe they shouldn’t be so precious. Save your wrath for things which really matter. The internet and your lives will be happier places, trust me. There really are plenty of legitimate things to get mad about, but these ten just aren’t them. After all, web piracy is alive and well and so are things like child porn, abuse, bullying, etc. So let’s try and keep things in perspective.

Well, there’s my Top 10. What would you put on this list? Feel free to comment below. I’ll be interested in hearing. For what it’s worth…

Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novel The Worker Prince, a Barnes & Noble Book Clubs Year’s Best SF Releases of 2011 Honorable Mention, the collection The North Star Serial, Part 1, and has several short stories forthcoming in anthologies and magazines. His second novel, The Returning, is forthcoming from Diminished Media Group in 2012 along with his book 102 More Hilarious Dinosaur Jokes For Kids from Delabarre Publishing and the anthology Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6 which he edited for Flying Pen Press, headlined by Mike Resnick. As a freelance editor, he’s edited a novel for author Ellen C. Maze (Rabbit: Legacy), a historical book for Leon C. Metz (The Shooters, John Wesley Hardin, The Border), and is now editing Decipher Inc’s WARS tie-in books for Grail Quest Books. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chat every Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. A frequent contributor to Adventures In SF Publishing, Grasping For The Wind and SF Signal, he can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Bryan is an affiliate member of the SFWA.

19 5-star & 4-star reviews THE WORKER PRINCE $4.99 Kindle http://amzn.to/pnxaNm or Nook http://bit.ly/ni9OFh $14.99 tpb http://bit.ly/qIJCkS.

Write Tips: The Power Of Diligence

Published on March 26, 2012March 9, 2020 by Bryan3 Comments

In a recent interview with Charlie Rose, Steve Martin talks about how important diligence has been to his success. And the website Study Hacks, which explores how some people succeed and others don’t explores his comments. I also recently read that a high percentage of Robert Frost’s most acclaimed poems were written after he’d reached the age of 50. That got me thinking how important diligence is to the writer’s journey.

If anyone hasn’t figured it out yet, the writing life is a lifelong journey. The day you stop learning new things or striving to get better, you might as well close up shop because that’s what it’s all about. Through all the rejections, all the bad reviews, all the starving days, all the tribulations of artistic life, only one thing is sure: you can always get better. You’ll know know everything.

That’s why diligence is so vital for success as a writer.

If someone as respected and famous as Robert Frost did his best work in his later years, if someone like Steve Martin values diligence, how can we not ask ourselves to be diligent too? You can only be the best you can be at any moment. But if you continue to grow and learn, i.e. through diligence, you can get better and better. And, like Frost, the highlights of your career can come later in life. Martin won two Grammys for his banjo albums, both well into his career as movie star, post-career as standup comedian. He’d been playing banjo for 50 years when he won one of them. Now that’s diligence.

How successful do you want to be? Do you want a career or just a hobby? One requires diligence, one doesn’t. Period. To do anything artistic well, one must constantly reexamine and strive to improve technique, craft, etc. No one’s perfect and there’s always room to grow as an artist. There’s a reason writers talk about the “writer’s journey.” There’s also a reason you don’t hear successful authors say “the journey is over.” In fact, many would say “my writer’s journey’s just begun.”

Think of writers like George R.R. Martin, who is writing a 7 book series but taking more than a decade to do it. The gaps between books are years, not because he intends to drive readers and his publisher to distraction, but because he’s diligent. He wants to get it right. Would anyone begrudge him that? To me, there’s something to be admired in that kind of dedication. It’s a level of intensity I sometimes wish I could match. On the other hand, GRRM has more financial security as a writer than I do and I wonder if I’d survive such long periods between paychecks. Still, I admire his dedication and diligence in writing it the best it can be and doing it the way he needs to in order to get there.

To do anything well, one must be willing to work hard. Some times working hard means different things for different people. For some, certain things come more easily than for others. I have writer friends like Jay Lake who turn in what they call “clean first drafts.” Others of us spend days going over copyedits. I think these are things one can improve on with time. I know some who struggle with POV and description, while others roll intricate flowery emotional prose off their keyboards like breathing air. (I hate them for it, don’t you?) Some are stronger on science than character. Some are stronger on dialogue than plot. Part of being human is to be imperfect. It’s not a crime. It’s a challenge. But it’s a challenge that can be overcome with diligence.

It’s a cliche, I suppose, to say anything worth having is worth working for, but in a sense, that’s just truth. The writers whose careers last decades are known for diligence: Robert J. Sawyer, Robert Silverberg, Mike Resnick, Anne Rice, Orson Scott Card, Ben Bova, Stephen King, Peter Straub, etc. All have worked hard to perfect their craft. All write with great discipline and take advantage of every opportunity. All produce multiple books and stories every year. And all will tell you it’s hard work and that they are always seeking to improve.

For me, part of following their example is modeling myself after their efforts. I am diligently blogging, writing, and networking. I am diligently educating myself about this business. I am diligently reading to be aware of what’s come before and who’s writing what. And I am diligently studying storytelling, craft, prose, etc. to understand how others do it well and improve my own work in the process.

How’s your diligence? Is it a priority for you? Are you in it for the long haul or short run? Good questions to ask, I think. For what it’s worth…

19 5-star & 4-star reviews THE WORKER PRINCE $4.99 Kindle http://amzn.to/pnxaNm or Nook http://bit.ly/ni9OFh $14.99 tpb http://bit.ly/qIJCkS.

My Panel Slate For Constellation in Lincoln, NE

Published on March 23, 2012March 9, 2020 by Bryan

Well, the Con Programming Chair from Constellation in Lincoln, NE, April 13-15 sent me my panel schedule. I’ll be launching Space Battles there as well as promoting my other stuff. More details to follow when I have them. Elizabeth Bear is the GOH. Hope to see some of you there.

Character Building – Saturday, 11 a.m.

What makes a good character? How do you name characters? What are the aspects of character one must consider when creating characters for a story? How deep do you go? An examination of character creation and more.

Author Reading- Saturday, 2 p.m.

I’ll be reading from Space Battles and The Worker Prince and perhaps even a passage from The Returning which comes out in June.

Faith in Science Fiction and Fantasy-Sunday at 1 p.m.

A discussion of the importance of faith as a motivator for humankind. Not a debate about the validity or value or religions, but rather a discussion of how faith drives all of us in some way. What do you put your faith in? What drives you toward your elusive life long goals? Why is faith an indelible, essential element for world building in speculative fiction? We’ll discuss these questions and much more.

Great Reads – Sunday at 2 p.m.
What are the best books you’ve read in the past year? How do they compare to ones you’ve read in years past? Which forthcoming books are you most excited about and why? A discussion of books we love and why we love them and our quest for more.

Excited to attend this Con for the first time.

Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novels The Worker Prince, a Barnes & Noble Book Clubs Year’s Best SF Releases of 2011 Honorable Mention, The Returning (forthcoming), the collection The North Star Serial, Part 1, and the kids book 102 More Hilarious Dinosaur Jokes For Kids from Delabarre Publishing. he edited the anthology Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6 which he edited for Flying Pen Press, headlined by Mike Resnick and has stories in several anthologies and magazines (some forthcoming). As a freelance editor, he’s edited a novel for author Ellen C. Maze (Rabbit: Legacy), a historical book for Leon C. Metz (The Shooters, John Wesley Hardin, The Border), and is now editing Decipher Inc’s WARS tie-in books for Grail Quest Books. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chat every Wednesday at 9 pm EST on Twitter, where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, AC Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. A frequent contributor to Adventures In SF Publishing, Grasping For The Wind and SF Signal, he can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website. Bryan is an affiliate member of the SFWA.

19 5-star & 4-star reviews THE WORKER PRINCE $4.99 Kindle http://amzn.to/pnxaNm or Nook http://bit.ly/ni9OFh $14.99 tpb http://bit.ly/qIJCkS.

The Importance Of Strategy & A Career Plan For Writers

Published on March 22, 2012March 9, 2020 by Bryan3 Comments

I recently commented on a post by Mike Duran, an author friend, who got slammed by self-publishing fans for the gall to suggest one might actually want to have patience and explore options before rushing into self-publishing. HOW DARE HE?! You’d have thought he was talking about abortion or gay marriage from the vehemence of the responses. Most seemed not very thoughtful (not all) and very knee jerk reactions.

Ask yourself this right now writers: Do you want a writing career or do you want a writing hobby?

By writing career, I don’t necessarily mean full time. That’s a pipe dream for the majority of writers. But you can publish a lot of books while holding down a day job and be quite successful as well. That’s a writing career.

By writing hobby, I mean someone who just wings it. You write, you throw it out there, repeat.

It does not matter if you are an outliner or pantser, if you want some kind of career arc with longevity, you must consider strategy and planning for how to approach your career. Yes, those plans will evolve over time. Things will happen you never expected. That doesn’t negate the need for careful thought. And one of the most important considerations you can make is which publishers to work with and why.

FACT: The market is flooded with self-published books.

FACT: There is a lot of stuff that’s self-published because no professional publisher, small or large, in their right minds would pay money to publish it.

FACT: When you self-publish, people will look at you as if you might have written crap. It’s up to you to get them to discover differently and it’s a hard road.

So why is it so offensive, then, to suggest that people exercise patience? Hey! I know how hard it is to be patient when it comes to your passions. I have ADHD and patience is something I never pray for, fearing God will actually test me. But the advantages I’ve found to the reactions for my novel, published through a small traditional press, and my self-published short story collection are significant. The novel gets taken far more seriously by reviewers, readers, etc. It’s easier to sell. It’s easier to promote. It lent a sense of legitimacy to my career as a writer that the collection just didn’t. Now, I’ll admit the novel’s better. But even so, the collection was carefully prepared, beta read, and edited by others before I put it out there. I did approach it like a professional rather than just throwing it out there. But the stigma of self-publishing is a fact.

I walk into bookstores with my novel or sit at tables and the first thing people ask is “self-published?” People are inundated. And people are wary. They actually look relieved when I tell them it was published by a professional publisher.

These are just observations I’ve made from the past five months as an author out promoting his book. So it amazes me that so many people will jump down the throat of someone who suggests the common sense to think before you act in regards to self-publishing. It seems plain and simple to me. In fact, it seems stupid not to think it through.

The difference between those who want to be professional writers and those who are hobbyists is some thoughtful consideration of what to write, how you’d like to see it published, whether to have an agent, etc. It involves consideration of craft and growth, constant educating and reeducating of one’s self to stay on top of not just prose issues but the industry and genres. It involves being a harder critic on yourself than anyone else can be and approaching your work like a pro: seeking gatekeepers to help vet it and make sure it’s polished. The difference between a self-published novel where the author hired editors and made sure it was polished and one where the author just threw it on the market is huge. Do people occasionally get lucky? Sure. But luck is no foundation on which to build your career. Most of career building comes from hard work. It’s surely a symptom of our cultural addiction to instant gratification that people ignore that. There’s been plenty of evidence to prove it.

If you want to play Russian roulette with your career, you do have the right, of course. But if you don’t, attacking someone with common sense for daring to suggest you use some yourself is foolish and ignorant. It shows a lack of seriousness about yourself and your work. It shows the lack of a pro attitude.

I approach my writing as a career I’d like to make a significant portion of my income from. It’s what I’ve wanted to do since I was but a young child. It finally seems possible. After years of struggle, rejection and heart ache, I am finally getting success. I want more success, greedy bastard that I am, not less. So every move I make in regards to contracts signed, publishers I submit to, etc. is very carefully considered. I ask friends. I do research. I pray. I’d like to get to the goal of three novels a year. So far I am at two written. I’d like to have an agent. And I’d definitely like to make a profit as a novelist. Not there yet. So before I consider self-publishing, I think long and hard about my decisions. I can’t afford to be casual. I can’t afford to be careless. If you’re serious about your writing career, neither can you.

Let’s be clear. I am not saying all self-publishing is crap. Read this again if you think that. Never said it. But I am saying the stigma is real. And cannot/should not be ignored. What if your work gets lost in the shuffle? Are you okay with that? What if it’s not ready and you realize that after it’s out there associated with your name? Could it scare off future readers? Yes it could. Can your work be rejected without being read just because of the stigma? Yes. So give it careful consideration. Self-publishing may be right for you. But the stats speak for themselves. It’s not a get rich quick scheme. And above all, it’s no reason to attack a man suggesting patience as good sense in your approach to publishing.

If you’re serious about writing, it should be approached like a business. And most successful businesses have strategies and plans beyond an hour from now. Think about how you spend your money, where you spend it and why. How do you present yourself? What’s your audience? Are you a long form writing? A short fiction writer? A nonfiction writer? Or all three? What are your weaknesses? What are your strengths? How do you need to improve and what are things you can do to make that growth happen? Set goals. Most of all, write. Every day. It does take patience to succeed, especially in the writing business. It also takes smarts, not just passion, but wise thinking and strategizing with every move. How will the decision you’re making right now advance your career? If it doesn’t advance your career, is it worth doing? Where do you want to be in six months? A year? Five years?

Have a strategy. Have a plan. Know what you want. Go for it thoughtfully. That’s my two cents.

For what it’s worth…

Bryan Thomas Schmidt is the author of the space opera novels The Worker Prince—which received Honorable Mention on Barnes & Noble Book Club’s Best Science Fiction Releases of 2011—and The Returning, both from the space opera series Saga Of Davi Rhii. He also wrote the collection The North Star Serial, and short stories published in Tales Of The Talisman and the anthologies Of Fur And Fire and Wandering Weeds: Tales Of Rabid Vegetation, amongst others. A freelance professional editor and proofreader, he’s edited books for authors like Leon C. Metz, David Brown and Ellen C. Maze. He’s also the host of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s Chatevery Wednesday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Twitter (#sffwrtcht), where he interviews people like Mike Resnick, A.C. Crispin, Kevin J. Anderson and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. He can be found online as @BryanThomasS on Twitter or via his website: www.bryanthomasschmidt.net. Excerpts from The Worker Prince can be found on his blog.

‎18 5-star & 4-star reviews THE WORKER PRINCE $3.99 Kindlehttp://amzn.to/pnxaNm or Nook http://bit.ly/ni9OFh $14.99 tpb http://bit.ly/qIJCkS.

Write Tip: How Screenplay Structure Can Help Plotting & Pace In Your Novels

Published on March 19, 2012March 9, 2020 by Bryan5 Comments

I am a film school grad of California State University, Fullerton. I spent several years working in TV and film and had a script in development at Disney. It never got made. I never got rich and famous. But the lessons I learned from film school and, particularly, the books of Syd Field about story structure have stayed with me. In Screenplay, field presents the standard for screenplay structure: 3 acts, the first and last of 30 pages (a page equalling approximately a minute on screen) and the middle being 60 pages. This is called the Three Act Structure.

On a basic level, it works like this:

The First Act sets up the setting, characters, etc. We are introduced to our protagonist, antagonist and their problems, i.e. the issues which will cause them to clash later on. Around page 30, a major plot point occurs, called a turning point, where something happens the compels the protagonist to react and takes the story in a new direction. He or she must respond and struggle to save the day, solve the problem, win over the girl, or otherwise deal with their life being turned upside down in a major way to get back to happy again. This act tends to move fairly tightly and concisely. And a good steady pace is helpful to get people into the story and make them want to stay for the rest.

The Second Act is the middle. The first major plot point has happened and the character must now respond, going on an adventure or quest to solve the problem. The antagonist, meanwhile, is working to get there first or keep the protagonist from succeeding. Act Two is full of complications. The first half propels us toward a middle plot point which in some way turns the story and compels them to action toward the second major plot point at the end of the act, around page 90. Although pace is important here, at times, in Act Two, one can slow down a bit and develop characters, etc., allowing the story to breathe.

The Third Act is the wrap up dealing with the results of major plot point two and all the loose ends from throughout the story. Like Act One, this act moves quickly, and more quickly than any of the others because it needs to feel driven to carry us to the climax.

Those are the basics of Three Act Screenplay structure, but further breaking it down is where it really becomes useful for us as novelists. In screenplays, stories consist of beats.

There are three types of beats:

1. Story Beat (Plotting) — these are action points upon which the story is framed. They build together like a puzzle. These include the major turning points at act breaks and usually the halfway beat for Act Two. But many smaller beats occur as well (we’ll get to that shortly). Major Story Beats typically include:

Opening (Normal World)
Inciting Incident (Act One midpoint)
Act 1 Break (Plot Point 1)
Midpoint (Mid-Point of the Act 2, takes us into the second half of Act 2)
Act 2 Break (Plot Point 2)
Climax (Resolution)

2. Emotional Beat (Character Arc)–We’re all familiar with “character arcs.” These are made up of emotional beats: events wherein the physical action of story creates an emotional reaction within your character. These show us what motivates the next action within the character. By connecting the emotional beats, you see the character arcs.

3. Reversal (Emotional Beat Within a Scene)–Unlike the others, this refers to specific moments within a scene where a character undergoes an emotional reversal. Example: Bob confronts Joe who killed his mother. Bob wants to kill Joe. But then Joe explains Bob’s mom viciously murdered his mom years before. Not only that but Joe is Bob’s half-brother from his father’s affair. Now Bob is reconsidering his initial emotional reaction.

Something major happens every 15 pages. While the major act turning points occur at page 30 and page 90, these in between breaks matter too. They are beats. And some are emotional, some story and some reversals. Reversals are powerful and must be used with care, but you can use more than one to provide some mystery and twists and turns to your story as long as you use them wisely.

How can this help novelists?

By thinking of your story with this framework, you can make sure you keep your plot moving at a steady pace. You can avoid long periods where “nothing happens” and, instead, focus in on beats and plot points which push things forward. It doesn’t matter if you’re a pantser or an outliner, this can work for you. I tend to be a pantser and that’s how I write. I ask myself: what could happen next that would surprise the characters and take things in unexpected directions? Sometimes, I surprise myself. The Returning, my second Davi Rhii novel, is full of moments like that. The Story Beats lead to Emotional Beats as characters affected by the events of the plot react emotionally. Examples: A friend’s life is threatened, the protagonist takes action to protect and/or save the friend. A secret past is revealed and the protagonist struggles to come to terms with it and redefine who he/she is. See how it works?

Novels don’t share the same paging as screenplays, so you have to set aside the specific 15,30,60,90 pages marks in this case. But screenplays consist of sparse description/action and lots of dialogue, so thinking through this structure should still make things come out fairly close to the same as you write. By incorporating these beats and plot points, something many of us do on instinct, you can be more deliberate about arranging your story so it moves at a good, even clip and avoids needless sidetracking or lags. The end result will be a tighter, better paced story which hooks the reader and keeps them interested to the end.

How do you structure your novels? I’d love to hear your thoughts in comments. For what it’s worth…