Anyway, I’m still working on my top secret project I’m not allowed to talk about.  So why bring it up?  Because what’s the point of working on a top secret project if you can’t mention it?  This is probably why I’d be a lousy spy.  The details will remain undisclosed, but I’m optimistic at this stage that this could be awesome.  I could be wrong.  It’s happened once or twice before.

But while I have a free moment, I figured I’d drop by, confirm that I am still alive, and maybe share some random thoughts.  People do seem to like that sort of thing.  Maybe because as a sort of famous person, they’re under the illusion I have something interesting to say.  Or maybe we all have something interesting to say, and I just happen to be lucky enough to have an audience.

So I’ve been playing Skylanders on my Wii.  If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s a video game with a gimmick.  You get a wireless “portal” device that connects to your system and when you put the Skylander figures onto the portal, they appear in your game as characters for you to control.  Think of it as Pokemon, but without having to capture the damn things and instead just going out and buying them.  It is a gimmick, and psychologically, it should be annoying that you’re basically paying to unlock things that are already in the game.  But it’s a tremendously charming game with a lot going for it.

For one thing, the game is a bit old school and aimed at a younger audience.  It’s not tremendously difficult and most of the levels are straightforward, even if there is a bit of puzzles here and there.  For some reason, Skylanders reminds me a lot of that old classic Gauntlet.  Only instead of running around in a dungeon with four characters to choose from, there are 32 different Skylanders (if you should happen to buy them all).

What elevates this beyond a gimmick for me is that the game is genuinely fun to play.  And each character has their own unique style.  They aren’t just interchangeable with different special effects.  Trigger Happy carries a pair of pistols that shoot gold coins and can spray the screen with a deadly barrage.  Meanwhile, Terrafin is a landshark who can swim through rock and punch the enemy with tremendous force.  The more you play the game, the more you unlock on the characters.  It’s all a very elaborate system of enticement, but so cleverly done that it seems rewarding rather than manipulative.

It’s the difference between a game with a gimmick and a gimmicky game.  Skylanders is certainly designed to sell collectible figures, but they went above and beyond to create a fun experience that continues to reward me.  If I were less secure, I might feel weird admitting how much I’m enjoying a game aimed at kids, but I’m a professional novelologist.  And I fear the day I can’t see the beauty of playing a game where I can be anything from a rock dinosaur to a cyber dragon to a very angry tree who spits out giant spiked acorns that he rolls over the forces of evil.

Meanwhile, I’ve also been enjoying Castle Empire Online, a free online game that’s about managing a small kingdom.  It’s a different animal than Skylanders, but fun.  Worth checking out, if you’re so inclined.  I play under the name EmperorMollusk.  Send me a friend request.  Maybe I’ll trade you some fish for coal.  (I’m always short on coal.)

But what about the real world?  What’s going on there?

How quaint of you to ask.

Got that secret project thing.  Hush hush.  But it’s coming along.

Working on Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest, my next manuscript (prob out in 2013).

Oh, and that Mack Megaton story…it’s still coming.  I promise.

Finally, I’d like to offer my thoughts on the topic of skepticism.  The problem with your average person’s view of skepticism is that it seems to mean “Non-Believer”.  When I say I’m skeptical of ghosts, for instance, it’s often assumed I don’t believe ghosts exist.  In point of fact, I am a genuine skeptic when it comes to the paranormal.  I remain unconvinced but open to it.

And, yes, I understand there there is “evidence” for the paranormal.  It’s just not very good evidence.  And it certainly isn’t very convincing evidence for any particular claim.  This isn’t to say that those claims are wrong.  It’s just that they remain so ill-defined as to honestly admit they are specious at best.  The difficulty I have with “the paranormal” is that no one who believes it genuinely seems to be investigating it in an open way.  Instead, they have their pet theory that they are trying to prove.  That’s just bad research.

For example, perhaps electronic voice phenomenon is a real thing, and we are managing to record the voices of invisible beings around us.  This could mean a hundred things though.  Perhaps there are alien entities from another dimension trying to make contact with us.  Perhaps mischievous imps are playing tricks on us.  Or perhaps they are psychic imprints created by the will of the living investigators.  When it comes to the paranormal, none of these explanations seems unreasonable to me.  Or they could all be wrong.

This is why I am skeptical.  Even if you capture a genuine EVP, it could be something we haven’t even thought of yet.  There are so many possibilities, the only genuinely honest thing to do is to record the result and keep investigating.

Inevitably, someone will tell me I am being too closed minded.  But it’s actually the opposite.  I’m so open minded about what it COULD be that I have a hard time just declaring what it is as if I actually knew.  The believer is often the one who seems closed minded to me, willing to stretch any and all evidence toward their pet theory, ignoring any possibility outside of that.

As an experiment, I suggest watching different ghost hunting shows.  What’s most surprising about the shows isn’t that they find “evidence”, but the type of “evidence” they find.  Each show tends to find the kind of ghosts they’re looking for, regardless of their location.  The less dangerous spirits of Ghost Hunters never seem to cross paths with the more terrifying specters of Ghost Adventures.  And the outright malevolent forces of Paranormal State never seem to show up in any episodes of Fact or Faked.

Skeptically, it could be argued that perhaps that’s the way the supernatural works.  Perhaps different facets of the paranormal respond to different people.  Perhaps my very skepticism is what prevents me from seeing any evidence for myself.  Or perhaps it’s all just our primitive imagination responding to spooky sounds and unfamiliar locations.  Or perhaps we’re all just brains floating in a giant shared simulation and some people have their experience settings dialed to monster.

That’s skepticism.  Far too extreme to be practical, of course.  But just want to put it out there.

My general rule is that if the evidence could just as easily apply to leprechauns, then I remain unconvinced.  Lights in the skies could be alien spaceships.  Or the fey folk playing tricks on us.  Until we actually have a flying saucer or a faerie in our possession, we can’t know for sure.

Although I do still believe that Bigfoot is just Chupacapbra in a suit.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Yes, I am a brand.  Of a sort.  With eight published books, a ninth due out next year, and hopefully a long career ahead of me, it’s not an unreasonable observation.  Though I’ll admit it’s weird to say that aloud.  Or type it out loud in this particular case.  Nevertheless, it’s become increasingly obvious that for my career to continue to grow, that branding isn’t something I can dismiss as unimportant or someone else’s concern.

Since I’ve so far written a collection of unconnected, standalone novels, I don’t have the option of branding a world or a character.  I have to somehow figure a way to sell myself, to capture the idea of an A. Lee Martinez novel in some pithy, easily sold way.  I don’t honestly know how to do that right now.

One of the biggest obstacles is that the writer I perceive myself to be is not usually the writer I’m perceived to be.  There’s no reason to bang that same old drum again, but it does raise an interesting questions.  Am I doing myself any favors by fighting my “funny fantasist” rep?

I don’t exactly rail at being called “funny”, but I do tend to avoid playing it up.  Yet it’s clear that “funny” is the adjective that most often comes up when talking about my books.  So often and reliably in fact that I can’t really think of anytime someone approached me and said a book of mine was thrilling or original.  No, it’s always “funny” or “zany” or “silly” or some other adjective.

It’s no secret I don’t consider myself a funny writer, but maybe I should just accept it.  Maybe it’d be easier it I dove headfirst into the category.  Not by writing “funny” books.  That’s not the problem.  But instead, by being funnier.  By writing blogs that are funny.  By accepting that I will always be funny and that there’s nothing terribly wrong with that.  This blog entry itself is a perfect example.  Would it be more beneficial to write something about chupacabras than my thoughts on my career?  If someone hears about “that funny writer” A. Lee Martinez and comes to this blog hoping to discover how goofy and zany I am, only to read a long, self-indulgent post of an artist struggling to define himself, is that a plus or a minus?

In a story, the best characters are the simplest.  The characters that can be easily defined with one or two qualities are the ones that stand the test of time, the people can relate to.  If I am a brand, if I am a character, then I’m not doing myself any favors by confusing things.

Granted, many writers in my category can have reputations for being both funny and smart.  But they almost always start with “funny” and work their way backwards.  They embrace humor in a way that I’ll admit I just haven’t done.  Even when my publisher emphasizes the humor in my work, I cringe.  Almost instinctively.  Because it’s just not how I see myself.

But in the court of public opinion, how one wants to be perceived always takes a backseat to how one is perceived.  If most people think of me as “funny”, it really doesn’t make any difference if I disagree.  Because I don’t determine my brand.  Or rather, I’m just one determining factors of many.

My publisher is another of those factors, and they will continue to sell me as funny.  And I can’t say they’re wrong to do so.

My audience is another factor, and they will continue to most likely categorize me with other funny writers.  That hasn’t come close to changing in eight books.  My ninth about a supervillain squid probably isn’t going to change that either.

And there are the critics.  Again, funny is the name of the game.

So the A. Lee Martinez brand stands for “funny fantasy”.  And maybe I should just accept it.  But if I do, what does that mean?  Should I take extra efforts to ensure that my books are funny?  Should I emphasize my humorous side when doing interviews?  Should this blog be a steady stream of zaniness?  And when I talk about my books, should I be sure to push the humor above all else?

My reflex is to say NO, but as is often the case, reflex just might be wrong.  Maybe I should stop sending mixed signals and just accept the brand I carry.  It doesn’t actually mean I have to change what I write.  It just means selling it in a more user friendly fashion.  And that’s not a bad thing.

Chasing the Moon doesn’t have to be a strange exploration of an incomprehensible universe.  It can just as easily be about a plucky heroine who finds herself in over her head while trying to keep her monstrous roommates from getting into trouble.  Emperor Mollusk Versus The Sinister Brain could be my homage to pulp adventure.  Or it could be a madcap story of an evil genius without a spine.

It’s all in how you spin it.  And maybe it wouldn’t hurt to put a different spin on my brand.  It’s all about finding my audience, selling books.  I gotta make a living here.  And if I should happen to trick a few people into buying books with more than just “wacky” at their heart, then that’s all the better.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

The first thing that keeps popping in my head is that I’d like to say this isn’t a “funny” novel.  Except it is.  I’m sure everyone who likes it will tell me so.  And everyone who hates it will say how shallow and “unfunny” it is.  Or perhaps that it’s too serious.  Or that the plot is either too convoluted OR too simple.  And, really, I’ve read enough reviews to know that people will love and hate it for a multitude of reasons.  That’s just how it works.  You throw stuff out into the cosmos and see what happens.

But I don’t know if I consider Chasing the Moon to be funny, myself.  Oh, sure, I’ve mentioned this once or twice (or perhaps three or four dozen times) before, but I have never considered myself a “comic fantasy” writer.  Or “zany”.  Or “madcap”.  Or any of a hundred synonyms for “comedy” you could dig out of a thesaurus.  But I’ve also mentioned I ultimately don’t care if someone likes the book because it’s funny.  I’m not picky about my career in that sense.  If I make a million dollars off a “funny” book, I could certainly live with it.  But if you were to ask me to describe most of my own books in my own words, “funny” would rarely make the top of the list.

But Chasing the Moon is a bit different.  At least from my own perspective.  Because it’s a story about the incomprehensible, the unknowable, and the insignificance of being human.  I hate to use the word Lovecraftian because it gets thrown around way too often these days, but this is a story from that perspective.  It’s about a universe you can’t understand and circumstances beyond our own control.  It’s about the unimportance of everything we do that we keep doing anyway in hopes that maybe something, anything, will mean something.

You would think that a story with such themes would be dark, depressing stuff.  That’s not me though.  My goal with Moon is not to get you to throw yourself off a bridge.  It’s to take those traditional aspects of cosmic horror and explore them from a different angle.  My ambition is not to take the teeth out of it, but to see if being part of a vast, indifferent universe has to automatically be a bummer.

Yep.  My goal here is to write a cheerful Lovecraft story.  Never let it be said that I am not an ambitious novelologist.

It’s not that Moon doesn’t have humor.  One of the characters is a green furball described as resembling a rejected Muppet whose primary motivation is the eat the entire universe, and the plot hinges on a monster god who chases the moon in hopes of eventually catching it and destroying the universe.  (These aren’t spoilers, by the way.  They’re right there on the inside of the book jacket.)

It’s weird.  Intentionally so.  There’s very little grounding in reality as we know it going on here.  And certainly Vom the Hungering is an unusual supporting protagonist, but does that make him “silly?”  To many, it will.  And if they get a good chuckle out of it, fine with me.

But I put a lot of thought into this book.  I didn’t just bang this out over a weekend while thinking, “This’ll be funny.”  I think this story is more than just a series of strange, comedic encounters.  It is most definitely not intended as a satire or parody of cosmic horror.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  Consider it the counterargument to Everybody Must Die or Go Mad assumption that comes with the genre.  Moon isn’t a send up.  It’s not even an homage.  It’s straight up cosmic horror.  Just not particularly gruesome or terrifying.  Although, given the theme of the novel and the answers it offers, it wouldn’t be completely wrong to say it has a certain spookiness.  Though I’ll probably be the only one who thinks so.

My hope is that if you don’t like Lovecraftian horror then maybe you’ll end up seeing what’s interesting about it after reading Moon.  It probably won’t turn you into a fan, but if it opens new horizons for you, even just a crack, then I’ll consider that a victory.

If you’re already a fan of horror, then maybe you’ll find something worthwhile in Moon, too.  A change of pace that still appeals to the dark, brooding hopeless soul in all of us.  And if you should happen to find the book worthy of sitting on your shelf next to Lovecraft himself, I wouldn’t complain.

And if you just want to read a story where a giant eyeball obliterates people with magic lightning, I’ve got you covered there too.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Since I’ve had various books optioned for films, I’ve been involved, in different degrees and stages, with the possible films.  Some books I’ve just had optioned and left in the hands of experienced filmmakers who know a lot more about moviemaking than I do.  And some others, I’ve contributed a bit more.  All these experiences lead me to one inescapable conclusion.

I am so damn glad I write novels and don’t make movies.

Movies are just so hard, so much more work.  They’re huge projects with tons of people involved.  They have budgets, actors, directors, tons of marketing decisions, and so many other elements that it’s amazing good movies get made at all.  In comparison, books are quaint, almost mom and pop productions.  It’s not as if books don’t require a lot of work.  Or that, by the time my books go from an idea in my head to a thing in your hands, they haven’t been through an elaborate process to get them to you.  It’s just not much of a process compared to making a movie.  Or even thinking about making a movie.

Yep, there’s more work in the development of a film than in the entire writing of a novel, I think.  At least, one of my novels where I usually start with an idea and hash it out over the course of a few months into something sensible (or at least readable).  More work goes into the possibilty of a film than the entire production of a book.  And it’s entirely possible, probable in fact, that most movies in development will never become a movie.

It boggles my mind sometimes.  I couldn’t imagine doing all that work just to have nothing come of it.  And moviemakers live with that everyday.  I guess the millions of dollars that can be made from a successful film make it all worth it (and I’m just as happy as anyone to grab some of that Hollywood payday if I’m fortunate enough to have it come my way), but it’s not necessarily a business I’d want to consider my primary job.

It’s fun to dabble.  And the work I’ve done so far has been rich and rewarding.  I look forward to more of it coming my way (as long as that luck holds out), but at heart, I think I’ll always be a novelologist.  Maybe I’m too much of a control freak.  Or maybe I’m just too damn lazy to work that hard and not see something come out of it.  Most probably it’s because I know it’s highly unlikely anyone would pay me to write a movie about space vampires vs. jetpack gorillas.

But, hey, Hollywood, if you ever need a story where a pirate primate swordfights an alien bloodsucker on the moon . . . well you know where to find me.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

This was a few years back when the original Iron Man movie was about to come out.  Or maybe it had just come out.  Little hazy on the details, but I remember that some tenative steps were taken between me and a publisher to write an Iron Man novel.  It wasn’t going to be an adaptation, but rather, an original story.  I even wrote and submitted an outline.

I don’t quite remember the exact details of the story I had in mind, but I know it revolved around espionage, both corporate and governmental, and attempts to recover a lost alien robot.  The robot, for those who have enough of a knowledge of the Marvel universe to even care, was an inactive Kree Sentry.  Basically, I imagined an Indiana Jones style story where Tony Stark has an adventure, foils the bad guys, fights the reactivated Sentry.  Also, Iron Man’s love interest was going to be a Skrull spy in disguise.

The deal stalled, and I don’t remember why.  Just sort of sputtered to a halt.  It happens.  Still, it would’ve been cool, I think.

I was also approached once to write a Brutal Legend novel.  That fell apart quickly though, and I didn’t get nearly as past the tenative stages.  While I wasn’t a fan of the game (how could I be?  It wasn’t even out yet.), it might’ve been fun.

The near-adaptation I bemoan most though is the Heroscape novel I might have written.  This one was purly my idea, and my agent even went so far as to approach the right people and express my interest.  Regrettably, that interest wasn’t reciprocated.  No one with the power to authorize such a thing seemed to think there was a demand for a novel based on one of the greatest board games ever.  Too bad because I guarantee my Heroscape novel would’ve been amazing.

But thinking about these potential projects, I can’t say I’m disappointed that they didn’t work out.  The money would’ve been nice, and while it might have been cool, it would have been work for hire with no real control over how it came out.

I’ve never really understood people who aspire to write Superman, Batman, or some other character not of their own creation.  I understand doing it.  I even understand enjoying it.  It can be fun to play in someone else’s sandbox and enjoy their toys.  But in the end, those toys will never be yours.  You’re just borrowing them for a short while.  Of course, if you’re an aspiring comic book writer, you really don’t have much choice.

Even more troublesome to me is the invention of an original character that you surrender all control over.  Steve Gerber had this problem with Howard the Duck.  He had very little control over Howard, and he only wrote Howard stories if Marvel allowed it.  I’m not villainizing Marvel for that.  You know the deal when you write for Marvel (or DC).  Yet making that deal is usually easier than living with it.

Two of my favorite new superhero characters, Blue Beetle (DC) and Gravity (Marvel), currently languish in editorial disinterest.  Blue Beetle’s comic was one of the last ongoing titles I enjoyed.  After its cancellation, he was moved to Teen Titans, and as much as I wanted to like that comic, I just don’t have any interest in any of the other Teen Titans.

Gravity had a terrific debut miniseries, and then…he just sort of vanished.  Gone.  He’s coming back, this time in a team comic.  But again, I doubt I’ll have enough interest in the rest of the team to care.

I find it tremendously annoying, and I’m just a fan of these characters.  I can’t imagine being the creator behind them, having lost any creative control over them, not even being able to ensure that they will get any real exposure at all.  Even worse, there’s the very real threat that someone somewhere will decide to kill or maim these characters in the service of more popular characters.  Either that, or just disappear into obscurity.  Either fate sounds lousy.

I’ve had a few books optioned for film, and it’s certain that however these films turn out, I’m cool with.  But that’s because my characters and my stories will still exist.  The movies might be very similar.  Or they might be entirely different.  But the books, the original characters and worlds, will still exist.  No one is going to write a dark and gritty reboot of Gil’s All Fright Diner or the Mack Megton story where zombie cannibals attack Empire City.  Not on my watch.  Not as long as I have a say so.

Although if Marvel came to me and asked me to write a Devil Dinosaur or Man-Thing story, I’d be up for it.  And if DC ever gave me the green light to write a Kilowog . . . well, that ain’t going to happen.

But it’d be awesome if it did.

Fighting the good fight, writing the good write,

Lee

But, believe it or not, this isn’t about me.

Thinking about Iron Man 2, I think it’s a failure as a superhero movie.  At least, how I would define a superhero movie.  As I’ve mentioned, superheroes to me are about fisticuffs.  They’re also about how a superhero spends his hours fighting evil and less about what they do in their secret identities.  I couldn’t really care less about Tony Stark.  I care about Iron Man.  I like him in the power armor, battling evil.  The parts of the movie without power armor shouldn’t get in the way of that.  They should serve as bridges to action scenes.  This is my definition of what makes a superhero story work.  And, yes, it’s a completely arbitrary definition created by me.  A definition, I’ll admit, that most no one else seems to agree with.  Still, a superhero movie without 2o tons of mega action seems inexplicable to me.  Why have a character who can bench press tanks, fly, and shoot lasers out of his palms if those aren’t going to be central to what the movie is all about?

Just as I don’t read Spider-Man stories to watch Peter Parker moon about his love life or read Batman comics to watch Bruce Wayne in the board room, I don’t follow Iron Man to see him build power suits and play Davinci Code with clues left behind by his dad.  (By the way, why did his father leave behind a bizarre puzzle for his son when there didn’t seem to be any good reason to hide it?  Even if his dad had wanted to hide it, was there a reason he couldn’t just put the plans in a safety deposit box along with a note: “Dear, Tony.  Here’s a cool new molecule that could come in handy some day.”  I mean, it just seems so needlessly complicated, just an excuse to show how brilliant Tony Stark is.  But they guy built a super suit.  I get that he’s brilliant.  But I digress.)  Yet I know that I’m the minority on this, and I accept it.

So by my own definition, I’d say Iron Man 2 is a failure as a superhero flick.  I’d say the same thing about each of the Spider-Man movies.  And probably the first Fantastic Four movie.  Both Hulk films occupy a gray area, although I’m one of those who actually liked Ang Lee’s film, it definitely wastes too much time on Bruce Banner.  The newer Hulk was much better, and yet, once again, I’m in the minority of those who consider it a good film.  (Better than Iron Man 2 in my humble opinion.)  I’ll even go so far as to suggest that Ghost Rider is a better superhero movie than Iron Man 2.

And there goes all my comic book credibility.

Have I mentioned how amazed I am that I have a career?  It seems that my tastes are, more often than not, contrary to the norm.

Now, I’m not going to say Ghost Rider is a great movie.  It’s good, but it’s still a little skimpy on the superhero stuff.  Still, in comparison to Iron Man 2, I feel that it satisfies my superhero itch far better.  Remember, this is by my definition that I could give a damn about complex characters and plots if it gets in the way of the super action.  (If those characters, plots managed to be complex without getting in the way of the action then it’s another thing entirely.  The Incredibles manages to be both a great study in multi-layered writing, fantastic characters without losing the super action.  Probably why it’s my favorite film.)  Ghost Rider’s storyline won’t challenge you, but it’s not supposed to impress you with its sophistication.  It’s supposed to be about a supernatural ghost biker who fights demons.  Everything is just an excuse for that.

Once again, I’m rambling.  Back on track.

My original point is that I consider Iron Man 2 a pretty subpar superhero movie.  But it’s not a bad movie.  It has good acting, good production, good FX, good directing, and while the story is actually pretty clunky, the dialogue is clever and interesting.  It even has a few moments of creative action.  Just not nearly enough for my specific tastes.  So if you’re willing to concede my point for a moment, is it possible for Iron Man 2 to fail as a superhero movie and still be a good movie?  The answer, as we’ve previously established is yes.

I think this can be a bit confusing.  How does something fail and succeed at the same time?  And it could be argued, pretty easily, that I’m just splitting hairs.  If the movie, book is good then does it matter why you enjoyed it?  No.  I’m not usually insulted when someone tells me they enjoyed my books, even if they just talk about the humor.  Although I’ll admit that if I’m in a bad mood, it can be a touch annoying to my perception of myself and my work.  But that’s merely ego.

On the other hand, I don’t think anyone involved in the making of Iron Man 2 cared much about the superhero stuff.  They threw it in because it was expected, but if they were really excited about it, they’d have cut a minute off of every talky seen to allow the supervillain showdown to last beyond three minutes.  (Have I mentioned how much that cheeses me off?)  And why should this be surprising?  Robert Downey Jr. doesn’t really get a chance to act when Iron Man is onscreen.  And, unless you’re an animation fanatic, is it much fun to direct CGI characters?  The liveliest action piece in the whole film involves Whiplash attacking an armor-less Stark on a racetrack.  You can just tell that Favreau was glad to be working with real people, and as soon as Stark puts on his Iron Man armor, the scene ends almost immediately.  It’s completely unfair to suggest that I really know what was going through the director’s mind, but all I know is that the movie seems to want to ditch Iron Man whenever it can.  Heck, the longest scene of Iron Man involves Tony Stark stumbling around in a drunken haze.  That’s gotta mean something, right?

People will like Iron Man 2.  There’s not much reason not to.  Even I don’t dislike it.  I just think it’s a weak superhero movie, but I’m probably wrong.  Just as I’m wrong for thinking I’m not a comic fantasy writer.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Hi.  Been a while.  Still working on finishing my current manuscript, but I can’t stay away.  It’s not fair to you, my adoring public.  You guys are my bread and butter, so I’m setting aside the manuscript for a second and posting something because I know how much you look forward to me enriching your lives with my wit, humor, and dinobot references.  Although in this post, I will endeavor to keep dinobot references to a minimum because “Me, Grimlock, love challenge!”

Damn.  So close.

Oh, well, onward and upward.  As a professional novelologist, I have a tendency not to talk about my work directly.  I feel a good book should stand on its own, and if I have to explain it to you, then I’ve failed.  And the first rule of Novelology Club is you do not talk about Novelology Club.  The second rule of Novelology Club is you do not talk about Novelology Club.  Oh, wait.  The second rule of Novelology Club is don’t use semi-colons.  Why?

We don’t talk about that.

Still I spend a lot of time working on these books, and while I realize that not all of them can be as beloved as others, I still want people to like them.  Or at least, pay me some money for them.  So I’ve decided to take a moment and talk about one of my previous novels.  But because Orbit, my current publisher, doesn’t really gain much from that, I’m also going to go ahead and talk about DIVINE MISFORTUNE, due out next month.

But first, let’s take a look at the ancient past.  Waaaay, waaay back to 2008.  (By the way, am I the only one who still gets annoyed that 2008 is “the past” and yet, when I look back on that time, I don’t think about the time the Martians blew up the moon or the armies of the mole people rose from the underrealm?)

Let’s talk about TOO MANY CURSES.

Too Many Curses might be my least successful novel.  Although I think A NAMELESS WITCH might ultimately be the winner (hooray?) on that front.  I’ll go on record saying that I think WITCH is probably my most subtle novel.  I say this because it seems to get the most varied interpretations and some of the strongest responses (both negative and positive).  Although it gets its fair share of Meh, too.  I really like Witch, and while I could discuss it at length, I think it holds up pretty well.  It did win a feminist fiction recognition (of which I am very proud), and since I actually love hearing the many interpretations, I’d rather not get too into that right now.

CURSES, on the other hand, gets shortchanged a lot.  It’s not that people don’t like it.  It’s got a solid rating on Amazon, just not many reviews.  But that’s par for the course when you’re an obscure li’l writer like yours truly.  Still, stylistically, Curses is a departure on many levels from my previous novels, and it breaks a lot of rules of what readers are trained to expect.

There’s no romance in Curses.  None.

There’s no edge.  Our heroine is not a your typical empowered woman warrior or mage in training.  She’s a housekeeper.  And she remains a housekeeper, more or less, throughout the novel.  While she does evolve over the course of the story, she doesn’t radically shift.  And that was kind of the point for me.

It has almost no world-building.  Not a single scene takes place outside of the castle walls.  And even the castle itself is left ill-defined and nebulous.  While Nessy knows how to navigate its many halls, I deliberately didn’t include a map or even bother to create one.  I couldn’t care less about those things.  They are completely unimportant to the story for me.

I wrote Curses because I wanted to write something with a lot of weird monsters in it, and a castle full of weird monsters seemed the perfect place for that.  But like any story, it evolved into something more interesting.  Curses is a story about individuals trapped in a rotten situation and just trying to make the best of it.  Even the villain of the story, The Door at the End of the Hall, is really all about growing and evolving as a person, trying to become better than you are.  But lest you think I take myself too seriously, let’s not forget some other reasons I wrote this story:

THE MONSTER THAT SHOULD NOT BE.  The Monster Under the Bed.  The Very Hungry Carpet.  The Sword in the Cabbage.  The Drowned Woman.  Olivia the Alliterative Owl.  The Toad Prince.  The Ragdoll Princess.  Decapitated Dan.  Mr. Bones.  The Vampire King.  The Hellhound.  Gnick the Gnome.  The Hanged Man.  Echo the Bodiless Poet.  Sir Thedeus the Fearless Bat Hero.  Dodger the thieving weasel.  The Jabberwock.  Fortune the black cat.  Wow.  Just writing it now, I could go on and on, and I have to say I love all these characters.  Some don’t get much more than a few pages of story time, but that’s what I love about the castle.  It feels alive, like a real place brimming with characters and life.  A small world in itself.

Also, there’s a really cool scene where a bunch of enchanted armors for fantastic creatures fight a witch who can kill you with her touch.  And the scene where Tiama the Scarred confronts THE MONSTER THAT SHOULD NOT BE is just awesomeriffic.

So if you haven’t read Curses yet, you really should.  At least I think so, and if you can’t trust my opinion, what is this world coming to?

Onto DIVINE MISFORTUNE…

This is my new novel, out this March.  It is going to be my breakout novel.  I call it here and now.  It’s going to make me rich and powerful and able to control the weather with my mind.

Plus…Laser vision!

But what’s it about?  It’s about gods.  Lazy, dumb, petty, easily confused, down-on-their-luck deities who spend most of their time watching television, playing board games, and trying to do as little as possible while gaining the most glory for themselves.

So, yeah, they’re pretty much like the rest of us.

That’s how gods used to be, y’know, and while I have nothing against the modern conceptions of divinity, they don’t really allow one to tell a great story.  Heck, once you make your protagonist all-knowing and all-powerful, it’s hard to have much conflict.  But Zeus and his ilk were that wonderful combo of all-powerful and dim-witted that allowed pretty much anything.

My gods are immortal.  Period.  They don’t die.  They can hurt each other physically (they are physical beings), but nothing leaves any permanent damage.  My gods aren’t powered by faith, which is far too nebulous a commodity.  They’re paid in tribute:  blood sacrifice, prayers, and ritual.  Or cash.  Yes, these guys take cash, too.  It’s a modern world.  The more tribute they collect, the more powerful they become.  The more powerful they become, the more tribute they collect.  Yes, even for gods, life is all a popularity contest.

The focus on the story isn’t on the celebrities of the divine, but on the working class gods.

First up, is Lucky, raccoon god of good fortune.  He’s a player, a schmoozer.  He’s not quite as charismatic as he thinks he is, but he gets by on equal parts charm, wit, and…well…luck.  That’s kind of his thing.

Then there’s Quick.  You know him better as Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec feathered serpent god.  Quick is definitely down on his luck.  He turns his back for one second and the next thing y’know, a handful of conquistadors have ruined everything.  Ain’t that always the way?

Siph the goddess of heartbreak is a former goddess of love who…well, can’t ruin everything, can I?

And let’s not forget Gorgoz, the chaos god who sulks in an unlit basement, watching Leave It to Beaver reruns and drinking beer.  Even for a god of death and destruction, he’s a real asshole.

Intrigued?  You should be because, as we’ve already covered, if you can’t trust me, who can you trust?

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

LEE

Where does the time go?  Has it really been a year since Jan 12th, when all the people in all the world gather together, watch monster movies, play board games, and push great A. Lee Martinez novels on friends, family, and strangers?  You betcha!  And that means that once again, the second most wonderful time of the year is upon us.

(The most wonderful time of the year is, of course, Activation Day.  That glorious day when we celebrate The Mighty Robot King completing the work on the Grand Schematic.  Or maybe it’s Arbor Day.  Trees are pretty cool, and since I breathe oxygen nearly every day, I gotta salute them too.)

Everyone loves A. LEE MARTINEZ APPRECIATION DAY! ! Even communists and Eskimos!  Because A. LEE MARTINEZ APPRECIATION DAY!! means fun for everyone.  So celebrate.  And buy an A. Lee Martinez novel to give to someone you love.   You’ll be glad you did.  They’ll be glad you did.  Everybody wins!

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

The hullaballoo about the new Harlequin Horizons self-publishing imprint gave me an excuse to post some thoughts on self-publishing in general.  You read right, gang.  This isn’t a blog about Godzilla, board games, or the coolness of robots and cartoons.  Although I’m not promising that one or more of those topics might rear their head along the way.  They tend to do that in my internet postings, and I’ve just learned to live with that.  But onto the topic at hand.

Self-publishing (or vanity publishing or whatever the hell you want to call it) is a tricky proposition.  I’ll just go on record here and now and say that self-publishing is, in my own opinion, a lesser form of publishing.  There’s no rule that says a self-published book has to be bad, but this is true more often than not if we’re honest with ourselves.  But there’s also a hell of a lot of bad professionally published books out there too, so what does that really mean?

I’m not against self-publishing if you really, really, really want to get published.  But there’s a lot of pitfalls to self-publishing, a lot of mistakes made by aspiring writers who seek to self-publish.  We should lay those on the table right now.

If you want to publish so badly just to have a book in your hand that you can show people, maybe sell a few copies here and there, then self-publishing is fine. If, however, you think this will make you a “real” writer, think again.  Most self-published books have a hell of a time achieving any kind of market penetration.  No matter how good the sales pitch a self-publishing company will give you, a self-published book faces a variety of obstacles a professionally published novel won’t.  And considering how hard it is for a professional published book to make an impression on the market, that should tell you something.

Booksellers know the difference between a self-published and a traditionally published book.  And, whether you like it or not, they do hold it against you if your book is self-published.  Space is limited in a brick-and-mortar store.  If they can order ten more of the latest bestseller or one copy of your brilliant self-published book . . . well, do I really need to finish that sentence?

Vanity publishers will lie to you.  They will tell you that your book will have every advantage a traditionally published book does.  Do NOT believe them.  They might even be sincere, but no matter how successful a vanity press is, it is and will always be a vanity press.

Maybe you don’t care about brick-and-mortar stores.  Maybe you’re thinking I’ll sell on Amazon and the magical internet.  No competition for shelf space there, right?  Sorta true.  Except that the internet is a ginormous marketplace, and in that marketplace, most everything except a fortunate few exist in shadowy darkened corners.  Someone might discover your book about the history of Eskimos.  But odds are good that there are likely about a dozen Eskimo history books available on the internet right now and they’ll probably all pop up on a search engine before yours does.

Promotion is key, and while authors have more power to reach out to their audience than ever before, this hasn’t leveled the playing field.  Because EVERYONE gets to reach out to their audience now.  It’s like wordprocessing programs and electronic submissions via internet.  These have made the nuts and bolts of writing easier than ever before and creating more competition than ever before.  So it is with the internet.  A million voices are all shouting for attention, and between the porno ads and the snuggie pop ups, standing out ain’t all that easy.

Self-promotion is grueling, difficult, rarely rewarding work.  I know several self-published authors, and I have tremendous respect for the hard work they do.  I don’t work nearly as hard in that department, but I do outsell these folks.  One ad in a magazine (paid for by my publisher) or one interview on a popular site (arranged usually by my publisher) will reach more people than I could ever on my own.  Monster, my 6th novel, sold pretty well.  I’d like to say that this was all because of my talent and hard work, but there’s no doubt in my mind that it has more to do with the fact that this was my first book to be put up front in the store.  This was arranged entirely by my publisher influence.  Without a publisher, this wouldn’t have happened.

Let’s just lay something out on the table here.  Anyone can be a self-published writer.  ANYONE.  But if you’re writing a book, you don’t want to be just anyone.  you want to be more than that.  You want to stand out.  You want respect.  You want money.  You want to reach people.  And all those things are almost impossible to do as a self-published author.  Hard truth.  End of story.  No arguments from the peanut gallery, please.

At this point, I’m sure all the self-publishing advocates will mention the few people who have been successful via the self-publishing path.  Good for them.  You will not be one of those people.  Okay, you might be one of those people.  But you also might wake up tomorrow to find the world has been consumed in nuclear fire and that you are a god worshipped by the new race of mutant snailmen.  It might happen, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Every aspiring writer strives to be an anomaly.  Getting paid as a professional writer is a small miracle.  Getting self-published is just about writing a check.  Getting that check to turn into a writing career isn’t just a small miracle.  It’s parting the Red Sea level divine intervention.  Almost.

And here’s another ugly truth.  Vanity publishers might give you a big salespitch about how much they care about your book, how they believe in it, and how they’ll help you sell it.  But, really, most of them just want your money.  That’s the real difference between vanity press and professional publishing.  Both are in this business to make money.  One’s looking to make it from readers.  The other is looking to make it from aspiring writers.  Ask yourself before you self-publish.  Are you a writer?  Or a customer?

My agent has “The Gatekeeper” rule.  It’s a great metaphor for the situation.

Imagine there are two guards at a gate.  Both guards allow people into the city at their discretion.  Guard A gets no money for letting people in.  In fact, it costs Guard A $50 for every person he lets in.  Then he gets a percentage of their earned income for the next year.

Guard B gets no percentage.  He gets a flat $5 from everyone he lets into the city.

The metaphor is clumsy and obvious, but it illustrates the situation.  Guard A has to be discrimating.  Guard A probably is even willing to help everyone he lets in find a job because it’s in his best interests.  Guard B, on the other hand, benefits from letting everyone in and then just forgetting about them.  His best interest is just letling in as many people as possible.  Once there inside though, he couldn’t care less.  He might tell everyone how great the city is, how easy it is to make a living inside its walls, and how they’d be a sucker to pass up the opportunity for a mere $5.  He might even be right.  But that’s irrelevent to Guard B.  All he cares about is his $5.

Now, not every vanity press is like this.  I’m sure that there are honest, hard working self-publishing companies in existence, but I gotta figure that these companies are just as hard to find as a professional publishing house.  So you might as well go for the real deal.

This is running a little long.  I am not dead set against self-publishing, but I do think it is a decision that should not be taken lightly.  The only thing worse than a constant stream of rejection from editors and agents is to have a published book in the market that fades away into obscurity without a real shot.

In brief:

Vanity publishing will always have much harder time finding an audience.

Vanity publishing is rarely likely to make its writer any money.

Since these are the only two reasons I can imagine anyone wants to write a book, I think we should be up front about it.  Still want to self-publish?  That’s your call.  I wish you all the luck in the world.  Just don’t come cryin’ to me if it doesn’t work out.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

It got me thinking.  So many aspiring writers just don’t seem to “get” query letters.  A while ago, I wrote a blog post about it.  It ended up getting deleted when my website went through a spot of trouble, but fortunately, I had a backup at the ready.  I guess we could classify this a rerun blog, but hey, if you haven’t read it before, it’s new to you.  And more importantly, it’s something I think every aspiring writer should take a look at.

So without further ado…

Being a writer is tough.  Being an aspiring writer is tougher.  It seems like there are a million pitfalls, and you can never be sure if you’re doing the right thing or not.  So in search of inspiration for something to post about, I’d like to present a semi-formal feature where I address some common questions.  The kind of questions that I hear all the time.

Today, let’s talk about QUERY LETTERS.

Plenty of aspiring writers break into clammy, cold flopsweat about query letters.  You’ve put your heart and soul, blood and sweat, into writing your novel.  Then you have to figure out how to sell it in a one page letter.  It’s like meeting the guy / girl of your dreams and having 30 seconds to convince them that maybe a date is worth a shot.  Good luck on that.

Here’s the good news.  It’s not nearly as hard as you think.  I’m not suggesting that there’s any such thing as a perfect query letter or that after you read this you’ll be getting requests for your manuscript with every letter you send.  That just ain’t gonna happen.  Rejection is part of an aspiring writer’s life.  Even yours truly, gifted and talented as I am, had so many rejections that I can’t even remember them all.

Here’s the first thing, the most important thing, you need to remember about a query.  It’s a sales pitch.  A tiny, tiny sales pitch, but a pitch nonetheless.  All you’re trying to do is get the reader interested in hearing more.  It really doesn’t matter how you do it, but there are a couple of solid notions I adhere to.

QUESTIONS: Queries aren’t about answers.  They’re about questions.  Think about it.  You don’t go to a movie or buy a book because you know what’s going to happen.  You go because you want to know.  Or, if the sales pitch is really good, because you NEED to know.

Many aspiring writers tend to spell out their plot in their query letters.  Bad idea.  Most stories sound uninspiring when spelled out.  It just doesn’t matter how cool your story is.  It’ll sound dumb if you describe it in three or four sentences.  Or contrived.  Or, perhaps worst of all, uninteresting.

A great example available to all writers is found on the back of nearly every paperback book on the shelves of any bookstore.  The next time you’re in a bookstore, go ahead and pick a random genre and just start reading the back of books.  You’ll discover the perfect query letter format.  Colorful, intriguing, and mysterious.  They give questions, not answers.  They pose complications, not solutions.

Now most query letters should be shorter than what is written on the back of books.  But the principle is still the same.  Tease and intrigue.  Don’t explain.  Just pose questions and complications.

UNIMPORTANT DETAILS:  Don’t give unimportant information.  Don’t open your letter with details about yourself.  Even if you were a supermodel, ninja, jewel thief, rocket science, nobody really cares.  You’re selling your story, not yourself.  The first paragraph should really get right into your story if it can.  (Unless you’ve met this person before, in which case a sentence reminding them where they met / heard about you is a good thing to do.)

Don’t give the technical details at front.  Don’t tell your word count in the first paragraph.  Don’t tell how long it took you to write the book.  Don’t say that this is based on your life experience.  As my own agent once put it, if you’re writing something about yourself, what do you do when you run out of experiences to write about?

Remember that you’re trying to sell your book.  You are expected to be honest, but you aren’t expected to tell them stuff right off the bat things that will discourage them.  Word count is a great example.  If your book is 10,000 words longer than what the agent / editor wants, they might overlook that if your query letter was sufficiently interesting.  But if the first thing you do is tell them your book is too long, they’re likely to put it aside before even getting to your sales pitch.

THREE PARAGRAPHS / HALF A PAGE:  The shorter, the better.  When in doubt, cut it down.  My queries tended to get great results (though rejection followed after), and I kept mine down to three paragraphs / half a page.  The first paragraph was usually the tease, less about the story and more about something unique about it.  For GIL’S ALL FRIGHT DINER, for example, I listed the more fun and memorable elements of the supernatural: Zombie Cows, Magic 8 Balls, Pig Latin.

The next paragraph gave brief character mentions along with the weird situations they find themselves.

And the final paragraph gave the technical details, page count, genre, etc.  Done.  Don’t overstay your welcome.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT DON’T: Avoid strong comparisons to established writers.  It’s okay to mention a similarity, but it can be dangerous to make too much of it.  Sure, everyone’s looking for the next Harry Potter, but everyone is also writing the next Harry Potter.  In other words, it doesn’t really distinguish your novel.  It just makes it seem like another copycat.  And you’re better than that.

Well, look at that.  An awfully long entry for an awfully short subject.  Just remember.  It’s not as hard as you think it is.  And a bad query letter is better than no query at all.  So don’t get discouraged.

Just get to it.

And remember, I’m rooting for you.  Just as long as you don’t sell more books than me, that is.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee