Time Enough for Time (an IWM post)

The time for the first Indie Writers Monthly annual is almost upon us. This year's theme is, and this is probably my fault, time travel, which is all kinds of awkward for me, because I hate most time travel stories. Especially those Star Trek type time travel stories which fall apart faster than a Nilla Wafer in milk if you look at them too hard. But, still, that's the theme. And guess what! You get to participate!

Yes, we are actually taking submissions on this one and there is even PRIZE MONEY!
But you have to get through me to get to it.
Okay, I don't know if that's exactly true, but I'll be one of the people reading the stories and passing judgements on them, so, well, impress me.
I'm only sorta kidding there.
ANYWAY...

Hop over to Indie Writers Monthly for all of the details and get that story written.
Don't worry; I can't win the money. But it won't stop me from having my own time travel story in there.
What are you waiting for? Hop in your DeLorean... um, I mean: Hop in your time machine and click that link and get to writing!

The Serial Bowl Is Empty

Well... here we are at the bottom of the bowl. One bite left and some milk to sip from the bottom.

This whole thing has kind of reminded me of when I was a kid. Every once in a while, we would just have cereal for dinner. It wasn't one of those kinds of things where my mom would just decide not to cook and we just ate whatever we wanted; it was an actual, declared cereal night. Yeah, it seems kind of weird to me, now, too, so I can only imagine those happened because my mom or, possibly, my dad wanted the cereal. Specifically. Like, "I want cereal tonight." Anyway...

When we had cereal nights, my dad always used one of the great, giant salad bowls to have his cereal in. All the rest of us would be using normal bowls, but there would be my dad with this huge bowl that was bigger than all of the other bowls combined. He'd pour in, like, half a box of cereal and something like a quart of milk. Maybe, it was closer to half a gallon? I don't really know. I think I'd probably have to experiment by making a bowl that big, but I'm quite sure I wouldn't be able to eat all of it.

And I could never believe that my dad could eat that much either. It was so much cereal! But he did always eat all of it. Amazingly. It was rather... impressive. At least it was to me when I was eight.

At any rate, the Shadow Spinner serialization has been more than a bit like one of those giant bowls of cereal, and being here at the last chapter is somewhat reminiscent of watching my dad take that last bite and, then, tilting the bowl back and drinking the last of the milk with whatever crumbs were left behind.

I can't believe it's over... but, here we are at the end.

Not that I haven't given my thoughts previously on the whole serial experience, I figured, now that it's actually over, I should probably sum it up or give final thoughts or... something, so here are some final thoughts (but, really, if you want it all broken out by points and stuff, go back and read that other post):

I think one of the things we're going to be seeing as we transition away from traditional publishing (and, yes, we are transitioning away from it, at least as it is in its current iteration) is more shorter works and more frequent publications. Rather than indie authors writing full-blown novels, we'll see series of novelettes and novellas. Sure, there will still be the occasional epic fantasy piece, and long, literary pieces will probably continue as they are for quite a while (they are the most resistant to change), but I think we're moving toward things that people can sit down and finish in a sitting or two. People just like that.

And, no, I have no data to back that up. It's just my feeling of how things are going. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. This will continue our move, culturally, away from physical books, because the expense of printing tiny 20-30,000 word pre-novels will just be too high.

Personally, I've been pretty happy with the experience. It's a lot of work releasing a book chapter by chapter, especially when if you devote a significant amount of time to author's notes the way I do, but I think it was worth it. I know that I brought in a lot of readers and made many connections that I never would have if I had only released Spinner as a single book.

Yes, I have another serialization some time in the future. But that's the future...

For now, here's the last part of Shadow Spinner along with the list of all of today's FREE! offerings.
"Part Thirty-four: Uri'el" (also FREE! tomorrow, Tuesday, October 1)
"Part Thirty-three: Justice"
"Part Thirty-two: The Gate"
"Part Thirty-one: The Serpent Strikes"
"Part Twenty-four: The Serpent"
"Part Twenty-three: The Harlot"
"Part Eighteen: The Angel"
"Part Seventeen: The Tree of Light"
"Part Sixteen: The Dark Tree"
And that's that. Nine FREE! parts today, which, granted, is not as many as on some days, but, well, I've used up all of my free days for a while. Still... Look for something special coming up round about Halloween. No, I mean it. Something special and not just from me. But that's all you're getting out of me for the moment about that.

For those of you that have been following along with Tib's adventures, I hope this brings this (first) story to a satisfactory conclusion. I'm not saying there will be another story about Tiberius, but there could be. One day. Maybe. Mostly, I'm toying with the idea of the origins of Michael and Edward; I'm just not sure I'll have time to get them down on "paper."

The Hand of Neil

Let me just start out by saying, Neil Gaiman owns his very own copy of Shadow Spinner.

"What?!" you may be asking, "How is that possible? And, if it was, how would you even know?"
Well, give me a moment, and I'll get there.

Gaiman has, perhaps, been more influential on me as a writer than anyone else, but it's not his writing that did it. Which is not to say that it wasn't something he wrote; it just wasn't any of his stories. As I mentioned waaay back in my post 400 Words, it was something Gaiman said about Terry Pratchett that finally convinced me to put my pen to paper and stick with it. If not for that one thing, that thing that gave me my "ah-ha!" moment, I'm not sure The House on the Corner would ever have been written. For that reason alone, Gaiman is important to me.

More specifically, though, and I talk about this more extensively in the author's note for "Part Five: The Police Car," Gaiman's character, Corinthian, was one of the primary sources of inspiration for The Man with No Eyes. When I got to the point that I needed a villain for Tib, I sat down (figuratively speaking, since I'm sure I was already sitting) and went mentally through the images that have most freaked me out in my life. The Corinthian is one of those images. So Shadow Spinner was directly influenced by Gaiman and his work.

All of that to say, when I found out that Neil was actually coming to my little town on his Ocean tour (the last signing tour he says he's ever going to do), I was very excited. In my normally subdued way. Meaning, you'd never be able to tell. Sometimes, that particular attribute of mine frustrates my wife. I'm sure it's related to why caffeine doesn't affect me. Or alcohol, apparently. The fact that I don't ever even get tipsy also frustrates my wife. Anyway...

I went to see Neil Gaiman. He read a bit from The Ocean at The End of the Lane, he answered questions, he read a bit from Fortunately, the Milk (which is not yet out), and, then, he spent the next four hours or so signing autographs. I know, because I was in the last batch of people.

By the way, Shirley MacLaine once pulled his hair. That was a funny story. And Gaiman thinks that everyone should have a hobby that could kill them. His is keeping bees. I'm not sure I quite agree with that, the killing potential of your hobby, but I think it's cool that he keeps bees. I like having bees around, especially when there are enough of them that you can hear their buzz in the trees. Or rosebushes. Or whatever. But I'm not thinking I'm going to take up skydiving or bungee jumping or, even, bee keeping, at the moment.

Yes, Mr. Gaiman was as entertaining as you might imagine. His stories were funny as were his answers, including the one to the question of whether he wears a hair piece, to which he responded with something along the lines of, "If I wore a hair piece, it wouldn't look like this." He was also polite and gracious, even at 12:30am, after he'd been signing for all of those many hours.

Other than The Ocean at The End of the Lane, I got my (1st Edition) copy of The Graveyard Book signed for my son. Neil drew a cute, little picture for him:

And I got the first two issues of The Sandman signed.

No, I did not go out and buy them special for this event, as I was asked by more than one person; I've owned those copies since they were the price on the cover. [I wanted to get my platinum edition of Death: The High Cost of Living #1 signed, but I'm not really sure what box it's in, and, once I had my Sandman issues, I figured that was good enough.]

The other thing I did was hand a copy, signed to Neil, of Shadow Spinner to him, which may be presumptuous, but I did lead off with, "...this is not a request for you to read this." Which it wasn't. Not that I would be upset if he reads it, but who knows if he will ever pick the book up again. What I did want to do is give him something back that would not exist if not for him. The House on the Corner might also not exist, but, maybe, it would; I don't know. Spinner, at least as it is, would not. So I thanked him for his stories and the stories they inspire and gave him the book.

He looked a bit surprised and, then, genuinely thankful. He began to look at it, but someone came and took it away from him and put it in a box with all of the other things he'd been given during the evening, none of which were books. Then, he shook my hand very firmly while looking me in the eyes and told me "Thank you." It was... nice. But, yes, I have washed my hands since then.

So there you go. Neil Gaiman owns his very own copy of Shadow Spinner with his name in it and everything. Not that he couldn't just write his name in it if he wanted to, but... well, I'm sure you get it. At any rate, it's nice to get the chance to say "thank you" and show your appreciation to someone that has meant a lot to you, so, even if it was presumptuous, I took my opportunity to show my appreciation.

And, well, at the least, I hope he loves Rusty's cover, because it's awesome.

Simon Pegg is brilliant!

Okay, folks it's time for another pop culture post, so strap on your special hats and pour a bowl of milk. Remember, pop culture always stays crunchy!
[Just as a note: my oldest son's pop culture hat looks like this:

Really, it does, but that has nothing to do with this post. And that's not my son in the picture, just his hat, but Adam, there, is already all over the web, so I'm sure he won't mind being in my little blog any more than he minds being in anyone else's. Not to say that he doesn't mind. He might. But I won't add to it, I'm sure, one way or the other.]

There hasn't been much time for movies in the last year or so. Or money. My kids will tell you about it if you mention the fact that they missed Rango and a whole slew of other movies they wanted to see. However, my wife and I did manage to make it to Paul, last weekend. We went with some sci-fi buddies of ours; otherwise, we might have gone to see something more "respectable." Actually, if we hadn't run into this other couple, we wouldn't have gone to see anything, as it was one of those "wow, we haven't seen each other in ages, let's go to a movie and sit in the dark and not talk!" kind of things. heh
But, hey, we did get invited to a party out of it.

Anyway...

So we went to see Paul. It's hilarious. Frequently, I laughed first and loudest. I think the movie was made just for me. However, the people sitting in front of us, what looked like a grandmother and her teenage grandson, didn't find the movie anywhere near as funny. I almost felt bad. Almost. If you like science fiction, especially Star Wars, you want to see this movie.

I'm not going to say anything about the plot, though. That's how I went into it. I knew it was Simon Pegg and it had something to do with a CG alien. But that was enough for me. It's pretty much enough for me to just see Pegg's name on something. It's like he (and Nick Frost, his writing partner and co-star) is pop culture. But, please, don't pour milk on him. I'm not thinking he'd appreciate it. Look, here's an example:
You MUST watch this if you like Star Wars
I will say one thing about the movie, it starts off at the San Diego Comic Con; alas, I've never been. >sob<

But it's not just Paul. It's also Shaun of the Dead. And Hot Fuzz. And it's Spaced. That was British television series he did. Yeah, I know; you've never heard of it, but that's kind of where it all starts. The beginnings of his pop culture brilliance. Go watch it. Right now. I'll wait. Okay, not really, but you can come back later. The blog will still be here. Probably.

Seriously, Simon Pegg makes movies out of the things that my friends and I used to joke about, and he's brilliant at it. Paul is under performing a bit at the box office, but don't let that stop you from going to see it. If you're a sci-fi fan, that is. If you're not, you're not going to get the movie at all. I think the lack of performance has more to do with the title than anything else. It doesn't scream what it's about like Shaun of the Dead. But the title is part of the joke. Paul. E. T. Simple. It fails to grab the imagination, though, so, unless you're actually looking for Simon Pegg vehicles, you're likely to miss it.

Which brings us to the writing section of our post: titles. The all important title. I one bought a horrible book because of the brilliance of its title. I'll even tell you which book: Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand. That is an incredible title. I wish I'd thought of it. I bought the book. One of the very few books I haven't finished. But a brilliant title. Last time I bought a book based on its title, too. Yep, learned my lesson. Both of them. Don't judge a book by its cover (title). And have a good cover (title).

Okay, yeah, maybe I didn't learn that lesson well enough, because the cover of my book sucks, but that's more to do with the fact that I haven't been able to afford any cool artwork for it, yet, than that I'm satisfied with it. One piece at a time...

Anyway, go see Paul. It's not deep, but it is a good time!