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I See You

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I see you.

The nerd. The geek. The forgotten. The ignored.

You were different, you knew that, but it wasn’t supposed to matter. Chubby cheeks, frizzy hair, funny glasses and ratty sneakers. A nose that goes on for days.You were last to be picked at kickball but the first to get picked on. Who decided that, you asked. No one could tell you why. You wanted to play with them, but you didn’t know how. Nobody had a crush on you in school. You danced to a different drum, but no one would ever join in.

It wasn’t just the kids – the adults were in on the game, too. Silent, cruel legions of moms with warm smiles and cold, calculating eyes. Their children were to be pushed forward while you were held back. Nothing personal, kid, their eyes said, you can get ahead, just as long as you aren’t ahead of me. You saw it happening, but you didn’t know why. You had learn to be strong, to stand up for yourself, on your own.

I saw you when you woke up that morning. You were what, twelve? Fourteen? You knew you were different. The aching beauty of blossoming youth … what was that? Your body wasn’t made for designer clothes. Your budget wasn’t made for expensive shoes. Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram filled up with pictures of your peer’s amazing adventures. Parties, ball games and concerts. First dates and camping trips … bittersweet events that will eventually make up the nostalgia of childhood are not to be yours. The adventures and romantic experiences in coming-of-age movies were interesting, academic ideas … but you never knew them for yourself.  … someone was having the time of their life, but it wasn’t you.

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Working on a Book Proposal: “Mesh”

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67300035-mesh-wallpapersWithout giving away the store, let me say that I’m working on a proposal and will keep you posted. Mesh is ‘Fight Club meets Stranger Things.’ Meanwhile, I’ve updated the Novels page and added a new project page to cover whatever Mesh turns into.

The backstory is interesting unto itself but there’s too many details I can’t share yet. Suffice to say, I have some very supportive friends in the publishing business. They’re giving me a boost to get a book pitch in front of agents. As soon as I have a solid, working process, I promise to come back and explain how it all works.

Make Happy

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Remember what I said about building audiences for fun and profit? How about that part where I said ‘use your powers for good?’ Now it’s time to put that into practice. I just finished watching this video and it’s an amazing explanation of neurolinguistic programming, emotions and how videos become viral. Understanding how people think is the first step toward ensuring that you engage with them correctly when building your audience.

Recent current events highlight the truth that many people will use this information to manipulate others and harm them. That must never be your goal. Remember, kids, when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you. Happy audience building.

SciFi For the Rest of Us

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wikis_for_dummies_coverI don’t know about you but I love those ‘For Dummies’ books. They make so many complex topics accessible and they do it in a non-judgemental format. In fact, I remember buying the first book Dan Gookin wrote, “DOS for Dummies” and picking up other ‘For Dummies’ books as time went on. I know I’m not the only one who likes the ‘For Dummies’ books – they’ve got 2700 titles and they’ve sold 200 million books.

The one thing that got me thinking was the ‘A Reference for the Rest of Us’ tagline. I think this might be significant to the evolution of science fiction. As it stands, science fiction is rigidly stratified, filled with class warfare and there are many cringe-worthy examples of ‘teachable moments’ on all sides. I’m not here to point at the problem, I’m here to talk about a solution. Here goes:
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Three Field System to Maximize Creativity?

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2013-updated_scientific-method-steps_v6_noheaderMy life is something of a science project, and I think I’ve stumbled onto something. Let me start out by expressing this in appropriate nerd language:

Question: How do you maintain creativity over time?

Background: Many writer friends talk about ways to avoid or recover from burn-out. It seems like you can’t do one kind of creativity forever, you need to switch it up from time to time to remain fresh. How do you do that?

Hypothesis: I think the three-field system of crop rotation can also be used for human creativity

Test With an Experiment: This is where it gets tricky … Continue reading

Authors Build Audiences for Fun and Profit – Part Two

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minas-tirith-best

Return to Part One …

 

Continuing this discussion about building audiences. All artists are entrepreneurs, and all entrepreneurs are artists. Real artists ship. The game of professional creativity was never for the faint of heart. This blog series is simply about accepting the art and process of building an audience. It’s just as necessary to authors as a copy of The Elements of Style. You’ll never be in a place where you can afford to only listen to your inner creative voice. Audience building is integral to the Author Trip, full stop.

So let’s continue that discussion. Keep in mind, though, that it takes much persistent and gentle attention to build an audience. You need to understand the mechanics, but you’ll still need to apply them and everyone does this in their own way. Just like our matchstick Minas Tirith, you’ll be working at the micro level while being painfully aware of the macro. You’ll push through the ambiguity and doubt with a blind faith that your effort will lead you somewhere. After all, if you don’t believe in yourself, why should we believe in you? Let’s now consider some more ideas about audience building: Continue reading

Authors Build Audiences for Fun and Profit – Part One

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Authors Build Audiences for Fun and Profit - Part One

I watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy about once a year. As a fantasy series, there’s a lot to recommend. One thing I enjoy about the films are the sweeping, epic visuals of cities like Minas Tirith. Like me, you probably saw the matchstick sculpture of Minas Tirith that I use throughout this post. To me, it’s the perfect metaphor for the process of building a sci-fi audience. As with this matchstick sculpture, you’ll find that audience building is a slow, painstaking process made out of many small pieces.

Now, before you write me off because I have less than 200 followers on Twitter, let me establish a few things: I’ve built audiences before. Before I pivoted and started the business of telling scifi stories, I had a side business in social media marketing. SEO, blogging, inbound marketing, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram … you name it, I’ve done it all. I’ve had Twitter audiences in the thousands … I’d love to tell you more but am forbidden by the NDAs that I signed. 😉

So when I started InkICan, I wanted to make sure I did the job right. No paying for clicks, no buying fake followers … I’ve watched people go this route and I’ve also watched them crash and burn. I’m an author and an entrepreneur. I’m trafficking in dreams, emotions, hopes and fears. This is too important to me. I’d rather take my time and get the job right. I apologize in advance to any of the bubbles I may be bursting with this breakdown. Please keep in mind that I have zero skin in the game, it doesn’t matter to me if you sell your book or not.

What follows are some lessons learned about the process of building that audience. It’s not a step one-step two-type process, it’s more of a state of mind. Believe me, there are plenty of “How to Build an Audience” blog posts out there that do just that. This isn’t one of them. One thing I want to stay very far away from is the formulaic ‘Do this to get 10,000 followers’ posts you often see on author blogs. Anybody can get 10K followers on Twitter or Instagram. Don’t believe me? Google ‘Buy Fake Followers’ and follow the instructions. All you need is a valid credit card. After you spend the money, you’ll quickly understand the truth: bots don’t equal audience. Let’s now cover a few basic ideas so that you can start building your own ‘matchstick castle.’ Continue reading

Be the Change

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I’ve been thinking about publishing some sort of snarky rant about the state of the sci-fi community. It’s well-known that we’ve got some growing-up to do, but I don’t think of myself as The Sheriff of Sci-Fi. So rather than laying claim to any position of power, I think it’s fair to say that my job is to apply Ghandi’s famous quote to how I want to interact with the sci-fi community:

“You Must Be the Change You Wish to See in the World.”

There’s a logical fallacy taking place in the world today, which assumes that the only opinions worth listening to are the ones you’re willing to fight for. While I’ll grant you that there is such a thing as righteous conflict, it happens much more rarely than people realize.

It’s also been my experience that the scifi community has a nasty habit of getting distracted from the business at hand. I remember reading the tweets of a recent con and their business meeting … they’re literally bringing together geeks, nerds and auteurs to debate what ‘North America’ means. I kid you not: Continue reading

New Short: The Battle of Victoria Crater

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1920px-victoria_crater_cape_verde-mars

Got a new idea for a short story that I’ll be exploring – The Battle of Victoria Crater takes place on Mars, about a hundred years after the first human lands there. Elon Musk talks about the benefit of sending people there, but I’m somewhat skeptical that traveling to another planet will make us leave all our baggage behind.

Adding The Battle of Victoria Crater to the Short Stories production queue – feel free to ask any questions!