Behold, my powers of parenting and artistry combined!  Quake in fear!

(Also, check it!  I didn’t realize it until later, but I used lots of consummate Vs!  That’s how you can tell it’s a real dragon.)

Yes, it’s time for that blog post that everyone in NaNoWriMo makes, but here goes.  Maybe I bit off more than I can chew. I think I’d roughly be meeting my quota if I’d quit throwing my beginnings away.  I’m giving it to the end of this week to get going, and if it doesn’t, then I’m going to return next year.  Last week I was sick, and the next two weeks are chock full of holidays and company.  If I can’t really get to rocking by the end of this week, I think I’ll just be freaking myself out.

The whole point of this is to put excessive amounts of pressure on myself to set a goal, and finish it.  I know that some writers have published works from this project. Water for Elephants was a fun quick read, and ended up being a best-seller.  I didn’t intend to publish anything.  I just wanted to kick my butt into high gear and get cracking with the creativity.

I’ve not thrown in the towel completely yet.  The bad start has me wavering at this point, and I’m not figuring out how to get very far in just yet.  If I want to write the novel I want to read, I need to be in a much happier mind frame. If I want to write the novel I want to write, Steinbeck would be proud at the bleakness and negativity.  And I really don’t always want to be bleak, it’s just what comes out.  I’m having a hard time striking a balance, and a mood that will carry from one day to the next.  Now, if a whole novel of just sex counts, then I’m pretty sure I can write way more than my allotted 2000 words.  That always cheers me up considerably, and accounts for a lot of the trashed prose.  But, I did intend to have a loose plot in there somewhere, so that’s not really going to satisfy me.

I’m glad I haven’t faltered on writing here, yet. I always sit down, not sure what I’m going to write.  Something is constantly coming out, even if I’m not wild about the blog post.  I think maybe this part of the project is more useful than the frustration of dealing with a novel.  Just reading my daily post and seeing how my emotions are swinging like a pendulum is proving to be a useful gauge.  I can step back and see exactly how uneven I am.  It helps me to be kind to myself, and more realistic.  While I absolutely believe I will achieve the things I truly want, and set out to accomplish, I’m trying to remember that I don’t have to try to do everything at once.

Today I read a Paste Magazine interview with Felicia Day.  She is quickly becoming one of my favorite actresses. She’s unconventional — beautiful, smart, witty and has gorgeous eyes and red hair!  Yay!  She’s a gamer nerd chick, with smooth pale luminescent skin glowing from lack of pigment and too much computer time.  She’s got freckles!  She was born in Huntsville.  She was home schooled and then went on to college and double majored in mathematics and violin performance.  After she graduated, she moved to California… to become an actress.  What’s not to love?

Felicia has been here and there, most recognizably playing Vi on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But I became really familiar with her through her online work, particularly Penny in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Dr. Horrible is Joss Whedon’s hilarious and wonderful online musical, created during the writer’s strike last year.  Did you ever see the Buffy musical episode?  Dr. Horrible is definitely a close relative.  It chronicles a young hopeful’s rise to stardom in the world of super villains.  It’s only 43 minutes all told. I was a  big evangelist when the episodes originally debuted.  I’ve memorized it by now, because I have watched it at least a dozen times.

As I began researching the actress who played the lovely Penny, I discovered that Felicia Day actually was brought to Dr. Horrible largely because of her experience with her own online project, The Guild. The first season of The Guild was very easy to find Youtube.  I immediately watched them all, enjoying the instant gratification. Before you click “play,” I should warn you there is some strong language.

There, the first one’s free. Actually all of them are. Just travel over to the Guild’s website.  There are only two seasons so far, so catching up won’t be hard.  It’s very different than Dr. Horrible, which created for mass appeal.  Obviously, it’s very much a niche oriented video, with jokes geared toward online gamers.  World of Warcraft players will especially enjoy it.

Felicia had tried to sell The Guild as a more traditional show, but it was too much of a niche market.  Too many people didn’t understand the jokes.  So she turned to where the audience that would appreciate her work hangs out all day every day, and began making Youtube shorts.  By the end of the first season, the donations that were pouring in actually made it possible to pay the actors.  For the second season, after much wooing from many angles, the perfect solution to return to her pet project and actually make money while retaining her creative autonomy.  From the Paste interview:

Then, Xbox and Microsoft came in and were like, “We love the show, we want you to do what you do with it, we just want to help you produce it and make it and roll it out really fast.” They created a revolutionary business model, because not only did they get a sponsor on board, but they distributed it over all the Microsoft platforms so you can download it for free off of Xbox live and HD which is basically like downloading a TV show. So our little independent, shot-in-my-shed show is essentially one click away from 30 Rock.

How cool is that?  She had the idea for a nifty show about gaming, got rejected everywhere, and decided to go ahead and do it.  And now she’s enjoying incredible success by turning a small independent venture into something that is reaching the whole world because niche marketing actually works so well on the internet.  Joss Whedon was right to seek her simply for her skills as an internet guru for Dr. Horrible.  The fact that she can actually sing and act was simply a bonus.

I have decided that these two posts will be the last of the ImagiCon inspired posts.   I learned so much while I was there, and was exposed to exciting new ways of looking at many topics I love, but the past two weeks have been too busy for me to even remember half the details.  I’ll take it as a lesson learned, and try to prioritize my time a little better so that I set those ideas down on pixels before life intervenes.  Most of the topics are inspiring and interesting enough that they’ll be relevant later, so I’ll just pick them up then.

Most of the panels I attended were in the Literary Track, so most of my time was focused on hearing people speak about writing, web technologies, and publishing.   In my notes there are pages of links to check out, books to be watching for, and ideas on how to become a better writer.  Not surprisingly, since ImagiCon was packed with SF, horror, and fantasy authors trying to sell their upcoming books, a big focus in almost all of the panels was on how to get published, types of publishing, and marketing strategies for written materials.  The energy and enthusiasm made it evident that this was the point in the process where the writers were currently embroiled.

Trade Publishing

The traditional route for writers is to go with a well known, established publisher.  These are often referred to as big house or trade publishers.  Getting their attention has historically been difficult, with good reason.  They have thousands of manuscripts coming in every week, and they must triage mercilessly.  With the market on paper becoming more expensive, this process has gotten even more ruthless.  New authors are risky, and already established favorites of the house make most of the money for these publishers.   If the first paragraph doesn’t grab the reader’s attention, there’s a good chance the manuscript will be returned, unread, with a form letter rejection attached.

If a manuscript makes it through a full read, but is rejected, the writer (and agent, if applicable) should dissect the personal rejection letter with careful attention.  No matter how tiny the adverb is, it is feedback, and that is manna to a writer trying to force their way into the marketplace.  To get published by the trade houses, an author often must compromise with ruthless demands, accept page restrictions, be willing to cut out their most precious characters or add new story arcs.  Style often is totally revised to fit in with the feel of the trade publisher’s other books.  It’s an incredibly competitive market, and many brilliant pieces of writing simply will not make it past the several steps required to conform to a publisher’s standards.

After getting a book through the rigors of rewrites, edits, and re-edits, the publisher prints a certain number of copies to be sold.  Traditionally, a book was given six months to move off of shelves before the extras were sent back to the warehouse.  Now, with rising publication costs and competition, that time has been shaved back to closer to six weeks.  Luckily, an author with a big house does not have to do all the work promoting their new book alone.  By signing with that large, well known publisher, the author has ensured that a built in marketing house will be backing their work.

Small Publishers

One alternative is to get published by a smaller house.  Most of the well known publishers have many smaller companies under their umbrella, but I’m not referring to those. Rather, I’m focusing on the independent publishers.  There are many reasons that these independent firms get a good share of real talent that will never be exposed to the mainstream.   Trying to sell a manuscript can meet with repeated dead ends.  Writers often prefer more creative license, and will not alter their art simply to fall in line and conform with the trade houses’ ideas of marketable product.

Independent publishers can be more flexible about words per manuscript and often will take more risks, but they are not the established powerhouses the big conglomerates are.  Besides employing editors, copy editors, and other employees to make sure that the finished product is clean and worth reading, there are the same issues of the cost of creating the physical product.  Paper costs mean that independent publishers are often turning to a “Print on Demand” model.  This is exactly what it sounds like.  Instead of printing a set number of copies ahead of time, books are printed as demand dictates. Often an independent publisher has only a regional market, and limited marketing.  The artist has a lot more marketing to do, and of course many writers cringe at this prospect.   There is also the risk of being taken advantage of by predators who will steal your work.  The author has to be prepared for these pitfalls.  Realizing there are still responsibilities to your work far after the book is printed is crucial.

To be honest, I already had a fair amount of familiarity with most of the information I’ve written here before attending Imagicon.  Tomorrow, I plan to write more about different avenues of publishing, and more fresh information.  Alternative media, especially ebooks and self-publishing as options are becoming increasingly viable in today’s market.

As I mentioned last week, ImagiCon was my first real convention.  The turnout was disappointing, with high estimates being around a thousand visitors.  The event suffered from disorganization,but while I was there, I got the scoop about the current Birmingham convention scene, and that shed some light on the situation.  Birmingham’s big convention last year, OmegaCon, had around 3000 visitors.  They also went around $60,000 in the red because they bit off more than they could chew.  Consequently, OmegaCon did not return this year.  Around 5 months ago, some people got together and decided that they would do what it took to make sure Birmingham still had a convention this year.

Despite having only 5 months to plan, the staff at Imagicon pulled off an event that I highly enjoyed.  The first thing Friday, I saw one of my old gaming buddies heading in the front door.  We hugged and headed in and were greeted by an impressive Captain Jack Sparrow, who invited us to give blood.  Our first order of business was to find out when Chris would be DMing.  The gaming room was empty, so we wandered around, getting a feel for the layout.  I was thrilled to see an old friend, J.F. Lewis, in the main hall.  He was eating Subway and preparing to sell his newly published vampire novels, Staked and Revamped.  Soon thereafter, Shadowhelm also found me.  I was thrilled, and immediately comfortable, being amongst my people.

There were movies being shown on two screens all day and night.  There were showings of Serenity, Dr. Horrible’s Sing A Long Blog, some MST3K, individual favorite episodes of shows, some horror movies, and some anime.   It was nice to go and just relax in the quiet rooms after running around in circles.  There was 24 hour gaming, too, in theory at least.  The poor turnout meant that the real gaming actually didn’t get going until around noon on Saturday. The dealer’s room was also a bit of a disappointment to me.  I had expectations of anything I could possibly want for a gamer, a SciFi geek, or an anime addict, but mostly there were tee shirts and Star Wars toys. I had been planning on supporting my dice habit, but no dice vendors were to be found. Alas, no cool new dice bag for the hubby, or nifty glittery new GameScience dice for me.

On Saturday, Chris finally did get his game up and running  and settled into some hours of gaming, even introducing a newby to GURPS.  Most of the tables in the gaming room that were filled had people playing 4.0 D&D.  Meanwhile, there were panels on multiple geeky issues, including writing, publishing, paranormal activity, costuming, and hard science.  This is where I personally had the most fun, and I intend to write later on about some of what I learned in various panels.  I won’t overdo my thoughts on those mini-seminars, but they made the whole convention in my opinion.  I definitely remembered how much I enjoy soaking up new information.  Armed with my pretty green journal, I flew from class to class, stopping only to make sure the kids (large and small) were having fun.

Actually, the children’s track was the most sorely lacking area.  My children had a lot of fun, but mostly because they made their own, and I had thought to pack them goody bags to entertain them.  The gaming room being half-populated was a blessing for us, as my two boys were set up in a table by themselves beside Daddy’s GURPS game.  The kids’ track wasn’t entirely neglected, but there were some glaring omissions.  In Atlanta, DragonCon offers daycare for the price of an extra ticket.  That would have been ideal. The McWane Center, just down the street, always makes a presence at any event there might be children in Birmingham, but had no representation at this convention. They would have fit in perfectly, too.  There was a magician who put on a few acts and strolled around the grounds handing out balloon hats and animals, but that was about it, except for a room filled with coloring books and a few tired looking teenagers trying to think of ways to entertain children by themselves.  Sunday was actually the best day for the kid’s track, with a Jedi Academy and jiu jitzu demonstrations, which were incorrectly labeled ninjitzu in the program.  Unfortunately, by Sunday, all the adult attractions had dried up, and only the vendors remained, trying to squeeze the dwindling crowds for every shiny penny they were worth.

All in all, this convention virgin had a wonderful time.  There were definite areas that needed improvements, but I’m willing to cut the staff of ImagiCon some slack.  They only had 5 months to prepare, and apparently a shoe-string budget.  Next year, they have so much to build on and learn from, that I would wholeheartedly recommend people look into attending next year’s ImagiCon.  I already have been brainstorming for ways they could improve, which shows that they sparked some passion in me. I saw so much potential that a little creativity, discipline and organization could have helped, that I’m seriously already looking into ways to participate myself next year.

It has been a very busy day, and nearly everything has gone differently than I expected.   Rolling with it really worked out for me today.  A nearby framing store was going out of business, and everything was 90% off.  I got frames for things that have been waiting for over a year to be mounted for super cheap, and a couple of new works to break up the bare walls in my house.  The Feng Shui is all off, but it’s still better than it was.

The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse now overlooks my living room.  Actually, it’s only a nicely matted print, but it warms my heart.  The painting was inspired by Lord Alfred Tennyson’s poem of the same name.  The Lady of Shalott was cursed and imprisoned in her home.  Not even allowed to look out the window, she relied on a mirror for her connection to the outside world and her inspiration for her tapestry.  While she was weaving, the mere reflection of Lancelot tempted her to look directly at the outside world, bringing about her curse.  To read the whole poem, with commentary and an even earlier 1832 version, go here.

But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror’s magic sights,
For often through the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot;
Or when the Moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed.
“I am half sick of shadows,” said
The Lady of Shalott.