WWdN: In Exile

yet another post about writing . . . and stuff

If you play poker long enough, you will eventually hear the phrase, "I'd rather be lucky than good." Usually this phrase is delivered by a good player who has just gotten unlucky.

While dumb luck is certainly desirable when you're playing cards, good, skilled players will always triumph over unskilled but lucky ones in the long run.

This makes me think of something I once heard about working hard and staying focused, so when you have those inevitable encounters with good luck, it's like a collision of two peaks, rather than a peak and a trough. It went something like, "Work hard, and you'll be in a position to benefit from good luck." or "Hard workers make their own luck."

(For those of you keeping score, that would be poker and physics in the same post, and I'm just getting started. Go me.)

I've been doing more interviews than usual lately, and with all the talking about how I got where I am today, how I feel about it, and what's next, I've spent a lot of time thinking -- I mean really, seriously examining -- those questions, long after the interview is over.

"Who am I? Why am I here?"

(Oh, Admiral Stockdale. We are so glad that we hardly knew ye.)

I keep coming back to feeling lucky, and how grateful I am that I was in the right place at the right time with so many things, starting with the first post on my blog, all the way back in the middle ages. A lot of success is timing, and I started doing this at a time when not a lot of other people were, so I got to load up my wagons and hope I didn't die of dysentery while a bunch of us made permanent the trail that was originally laid out by guys like Dave Winer and Doc Searls. If I'd started blogging at any other time, I'm not sure I'd be writing this post right now.

I was also lucky to have my blog and my love of poker converge at a time when it made sense for PokerStars to hire me and take me on some of the most outrageously fun adventures of my life. If either event had peaked at a different time, I wouldn't have been a proud member of Team Blog in 2006, and made some of the greatest friends I've ever known.

When I realized I had Dancing Barefoot sitting within the manuscript of Just A Geek, I was lucky to realize that the rules for publishing were changing, that bloggers could be authors and authors could be bloggers. I know this seems obvious now, but at the time it was a pretty controversial idea. When it came time to publish it, I had this crazy idea of doing it entirely on my own, and my predictions about how it would work out were correct. Luckily for me, I was willing to take a very big and very scary chance. (Unluckily, when O'Reilly was mismarketing Just a Geek, my predictions also came true. Maybe I should change my name to Zoltan and sit in a box at the fair.)

Most of all, though, I've been blessed by the incredible generosity of people who had no reason to help and guide me, but did anyway: John Scalzi and Warren Ellis are two who you'd recognize, and the rest of the list could fill a 2 gig flash drive in a single-spaced text file. That I wrote in vi because I couldn't find the text editor in emacs. God, that joke never gets old.

There are countless other moments where I got lucky, and an equal number where I've gotten unlucky, but  -- and this is where I get to my point, such as it is -- through it all, I've never relied solely on luck, and neither should you. Through it all, I always kept working as hard as I could to not suck, to never be satisfied, to not get complacent, to appreciate my successes and learn from my mistakes.

I guess what I'm saying is that luck sort of just shows up, I guess, whether you need it or not, while only you can decide to work hard, or not.

Right.

Now, all of that is prelude to what I really wanted to share with this post: some resources that I've come across recently that I think are quite useful for writers, especially noobs like me.

Oh! Jeebus, this is harder to put together than I thought it would be, so bear with me, okay? There's one other thing: don't ever take for granted the kindness and generosity of experienced people who are willing to help you, and when you're finally in a position to do the same for other people, do it.

Still with me? Here ya go:

From mental_floss, a collection of books that aspiring writers should read, and some totally useful grammar rules (including my personal nemesis, the correct usage of that and which.)   

If you're considering self publishing like I did, you should look at all of SFWA's resources for writers, but especially Writer Beware, which identifies many of the scams and dangers that are out there for those of us who don't know any better.

Books that I read when I was building Monolith Press that made all the difference:

• The Complete Guide to Self Publishing by Tom and Marilyn Ross
• The Self Publishing Manual by Dan Poynter
• Jumpstart Your Book Sales by Tom and Marilyn Ross
• The Purple Cow by Seth Godin

One book that everyone should read, whether you're a writer or not, but especially if you're working essentially on your own: Upgrade Your Life (aka The Lifehacker Book) by Gina Trapani.

Finally, an important note to all artists: nobody in the world will work as hard as you will to promote your work, nobody will care about promoting it as much as you do, and your work will be as successful as you work to make it. Hopefully, you'll get lucky like I did and get some good word of mouth and connect with a passionate group of people who will tell their friends about you, but that's never going to happen if you don't work hard -- really, really hard -- to make it happen.

Okay. That is all. Now, I am going to go for a jog with my wife.

Updated to add: VT makes a massively awesome point: get out of your own way. Or, as I put it, don't be afraid to suck. It's easier to fix something you don't like than it is to fill up a blank page. Trust me, I hung on that cross so you don't have to.

in which i write a prequel

Ficlets is this cool collaborative writing project that I occasionally play with as I work out my creative writing muscles. Ficlets takes the philosophy that creativity is born of necessity and applies it ruthlessly: writers only get 1024 characters -- not words, but characters -- to tell a little bit of a story.

Where Ficlets really shines, though, and what makes it so unique and inspiring, is that it's a collaborative writing process; each story has a link attached to it that can be used to write a prequel or sequel to any of the stories people submit (which are all released under a creative commons license.) Stories can have lots of different prequels and sequels, too, as each ficleteer finds and expresses their own inspiration.

There have been some fantastic prequels and sequels written around some of the stories I've put up there, but today was the first time I was ever inspired enough to write one of my own.

Last night I saw that Will Hindmarch (a very creative a hoopy frood) had written a really quirky and awesome story. I instantly wanted to build upon it, but nothing came into my mind. I told my brain to run it as a background process until it returned something useful, and at 7 this morning I suddenly woke from a deep sleep with the entire idea fully formed (core dumped, if you will) in my head.

Because the ficlets are so short, it's not really practical to excerpt them, so I'll just direct you to Will's story, A Loaded Gun in the Mailbox, which you should read first, and my story, An Unremarkable Factory.

The challenge I gave myself was to not just write an interesting piece of fiction inspired by Will's, but to also write it in a style that flowed well with his. At the risk of sounding entirely too pleased with myself, I'm very happy with the result.

If you want to take the Creative Commons experience all the way, listen to tracks five and six of Nine Inch Nails' Ghosts I while you read mine. I had them on while I wrote it.

highlights from my damn geeky weekend

So my geeky weekend was totally awesome, and there were a few moments I thought I'd share. Before I get there, though, I need to clear something up: On Friday, as I was running out of the house, I said "Go see Iron Man this weekend. It is awesome. I saw a preview screening on Monday, and other than the score (which is absolute crap) the movie is damn near perfect. I think it’s the best comic book movie since Sin City, and blows Transformers and the last two X-Men movies into oblivion."

Uh. Yeah. I don't know how, but I managed to leave Batman Begins and Ghost World out of that, which is further evidence that I am a complete moron. Lots of people disagree with me about Sin City and X-Men. Those people are all wrong, of course, but my leaving out Batman Begins and Ghost World is just inexcusable. I deeply regret the error, and hang my head in shame while I carefully fold up my nerd cape. I'll be in the corner for a little bit, thinking about what I did.

Okay, now that we're done with that, allow me to share some highlights from my weekend with you:

Friday night I said to Anne, "When I finish this martini, I'm going to think it's a great idea to have another martini. It will, in fact, be a very bad idea for me to have another martini, and I'd appreciate it if you'd remind me of that fact when the time comes."

When the time came, she wasn't at the table. Oops.

Saturday morning, we unsurprisingly slept too late to get breakfast at the hotel, so we went to a supermarket and got yogurt, bananas, juice and stuff. I think we ended up having a more healthy and less expensive breakfast than we would have had at the hotel.

I wasn't nervous at all about my reading at Mysterious Galaxy, which was really weird. In fact, while we were driving there (Anne was driving, I was reading from my book because I got it into my head that it may be a good idea to try something new about 20 minutes before showtime) I said to Anne, "You know what's weird? I'm not nervous at all." It was at that very moment that I got nervous.

There were more people at Mysterious Galaxy than I was expecting, and when I walked into the store, the whole place fell silent and everyone was staring at me. You know how you walk into a room and feel like everyone was just talking about you? It was like that. I mean, they probably were, but it was still weird. It didn't do much for the nervousness.

When I started my reading, I heard words coming out of my mouth, but I didn't know what they were. I do that when I'm nervous and haven't prepared any introductory remarks. If you were there and noticed this, thank you for not booing me.

I usually read blue light special and maybe exactly what I wanted, but I thought the MG crowd would be entertained by and relate to beyond the realm of the starlight. It turns out that they liked it, so my last minute decision to change the usual program was rewarded. In the future, though, I think I'll stick with the cards, lest I get a visit from Nick Fury when I'm done.

Unrelated to this post: Time Machine is making a backup right now, and it's making my mouse jumpy. That is SO FUCKING IRRITATING.

Right. Back to business:

After I was finished reading, I took some questions. The thing about this is that nobody ever has questions when I say, "I'd be happy to entertain your questions," but when I'm signing their book, they have tons of questions, so instead of getting to tell my hilarious and charming jokes to everyone, I get to tell them to one person at a time. I must come up with some way of helping people not feel self conscious when it's Q&A time. I should also clarify that I don't mind answering questions or getting my geek on when I sign your book. In fact, I've noticed over the years that when I sign books for people, we almost always end up having some huge geek moment about movies or software or other geeky topics. I absolutely love that and hope it won't ever go away.

While I was signing books, a girl about my age walked up to the table. She extended her hand and said, "Hi, I'm Gina."

"Hi Gina," I said. "It's nice to meet you."

"I'm a blogger," she said.

"Oh? Cool!" I said. "What's your blog?"

"It's called 'Lifehacker,' and --"

It was at this point that I completely lost my shit and spent the next eleventy hundred minutes telling her how much I love Lifehacker. I think I slimed her pretty hard, but she wrote the nicest thing in the universe about me on Lifehacker today. Uh, wow. Thanks, Gina!

I also met a reader who nearly made me cry when she told me about her relationship with her stepdad, and how my books were a part of it. Stepkids: it means more than you'll ever know when you tell your stepparents how much you love them, and when that moment finally comes where you accept how much we love you back, it's the most cherished moment in our lives.

Saturday night was much more sedate and responsible than Friday night (and how lame and old am I that 3 martinis now qualifies as crazygonuts?)

Sunday morning, we got up early enough to eat breakfast in the hotel, and I wished that we hadn't. I had a waffle with berries and maple syrup, but forgot to ensure that the "maple syrup" wasn't that corn syrup bullshit that makes me sick to my stomach before I infected the entire waffle with it. I still ate about half of the waffle, though, because I was so hungry.

"I am really looking forward to eating lunch at Stone," I said to Anne, "because I'm seriously thinking about going all Karen Carpenter on this breakfast."

We eventually made our way up to Escondido, wandered around the beer garden (which is awesome and beautiful) and settled in for a nice long lunch.

It ended up being longer than I'd initially planned, because the restaurant was ridiculously busy yesterday, and we didn't get our food until about 15 minutes before I was supposed to go read. As I watched tons of people stream in with my book in their hand, I got the nervous stomach and couldn't eat. Awesome. Greg Koch, who is the co-founder of Stone and invited me, reminded me that, once people are in the beer garden, they relax and live on "beer time," which is much more laid back than real time. This actually put me at ease, which is very hard to do before I am about to perform.

Oh! Please enjoy this moment from lunch, which I sent to Twitter:   Anne: It's Jedi day! Me: What? Anne: May the Fourth be with you. Me: OMG I am so sending that to Twitter.

My reading was great. There were about 50 people there, and I felt like my introductory remarks were much better than they were at MG, probably because I spent some time really thinking about what I would say. Amazing how preparation helps me feel prepared, isn't it?

There were lots of questions when I was done, and I had a good time answering them (some marginally inappropriate answers were brought to you by Oaked Arrogant Bastard Ale.) I think everyone had a good time, and Greg said that I could come back with future books, which I intend to do as long as I can keep coming up with stuff that's worth reading.

After the reading, we had dessert, and I was finally able to enjoy a Ruination IPA. Anne drove us home in time to watch one of the funniest episodes of Family Guy I've ever seen, and I ended the night watching one of the most exciting NHL playoff games I've ever seen.

It was a fantastic weekend, and I want to thank everyone from Mysterious Galaxy (which has autographed copies of all my books, now, if you want to order them) as well as everyone from Stone who put on these events. Most importantly, though, I want to thank everyone who made the effort to come out and spend some time with me this weekend. I did my best not to suck, and I think I mostly succeeded.

this is one hell of a geeky weekend

I just put the finishing touches on the note for the house sitter (my favorite new addition to the standard boilerplate: how to hook up Rock Band without messing up my tours) and I'm about to head out to San Diego for some awesome geekery this weekend.

Before I leave, though, I had to say: Go see Iron Man this weekend. It is awesome.  I saw a preview screening on Monday, and other than the score (which is absolute crap) the movie is damn near perfect. I think it’s the best comic book movie since Sin City, and blows Transformers and the last two X-Men movies into oblivion.

Need a little more convincing? Go see it for the pitch-perfect performances, lead by Robert Downey Junior, who absolutely makes this film so enjoyable. io9 says, “Iron Man is the first comic-book movie that’s actually better than its source material. That’s partly because Iron Man is one of the most boring characters in the history of comics, but it’s also because the movie manages to transcend its source.” I was never a fan of Iron Man, but I'm positively looney for this movie.

If you're looking for other ways to get your geek on this weekend: tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day, there's a Maker Faire in the Bay Area, JPL's Open House is in Los Angeles and there's a BarCamp in San Diego.

Oh, and did I mention that I'll be in San Diego?

Geek Tour reminder: San Diego May 3-4

The 2008 Geek Tour rolls out of Los Angeles this weekend and into San Diego!

Saturday, I'll be reading from The Happiest Days of Our Lives (and signing all of my books) at Mysterious Galaxy Books:

Join us on Saturday, May 3, at 2:00 PM, when we host Wil Wheaton for his new collection of essays, The Happiest Days of Our Lives. Maryelizabeth's review below of The Happiest Days of Our Lives reads in part: "Whether he is writing about subjects one can identify with or less familiar topics, Wil's stories are truthful, insightful, and above all, entertaining." Join Wil in celebrating life as a writer, a parent, and a proud geek. And don't forget to stop by Comickaze to check out Wil's contribution to Star Trek: The Manga, and take part in Free Comic Book Day.

Mysterious Galaxy is an indie booke shoppe that specializes in Science Fiction and Fantasy. I went there with Just a Geek, and this will be my first time back since then. I think 30 or 40 people came out last time, making a great audience for the reading, while still being small enough that I could talk to everyone who was there.

Sunday, I head up to North County for a stop at the Stone Brewing World Bistro and Gardens:

To boldly go where no book club has gone before (er, except for ours, that is), Stone Brewing Co. proudly announces another season of Book & A Beer Club…On the Grass!

Once again we are inviting beer geeks and bookworms alike to participate in a monthly meeting that pairs awesome beer with lively intellectual discussion. The premise is simple: read a book and have some great conversation—and great beer!—in a beautiful outdoor setting.

Wil’s most recent book, The Happiest Days of Our Lives, will be up for discussion, and this evening’s event is sure to be provocative, fun and enlightening.

Guests are welcome to bring their own lawn chairs, and blankets will be provided for those without to keep you from grass-staining your chinos. An RSVP is appreciated (though not required) at 760.471.4999 x1700.

Some of my favorite beers in the world are crafted by Stone, and Stone's owner, Greg Koch, has a lot of the same beliefs about marketing and making stuff that is awesome that I do. At his brewery in Escondido (in North San Diego County) he has an incredible restaurant and gorgeous beer garden. A few times a year, he invites authors to come out for something he calls Book and a Beer, which is exactly what it sounds like. We'll have Stone Pale Ale, Stone IPA, Arrogant Bastard, and all sorts of non-beer drinks if beer isn't your cup of tea. I suspect this will be an intimate gathering, but it will most certainly be an awesome one. If you've ever wanted to have a beer with your old pal Wil, now you can do eet.

I am so looking forward to this weekend. I can't wait to get my geek and beer on!

Alan Moore reads Rorschach's Journal

I'm way late to the party on this one, and didn't even know it existed until about fifteen seconds ago.

Listening to it gave me chills. I want to go re-read Watchmen right now so I can hear Rorschach's real voice.

in which neil gaiman indirectly reassures me (again)

Since I declared that 2008 was the Year Wil Writes Lots of Fiction, I've been . . . well, I haven't exactly been writing a lot of fiction. I've been trying to write a lot of fiction, but -- okay, let's just stop there and acknowledge what a lot of you are thinking right now: "Do or do not. There is no try."

Yeah. About that. The X-wing? Totally not coming up out of the swamp for me.

More often than not, when I'm just making stuff up and writing it, I get self conscious and feel like I'm trying too hard. I've had a lot of success coming up with ideas and characters, but when I try to combine them into a narrative form, I get massive performance anxiety. A big problem for me is working on a story for several days, and then realizing, "Oh shit. I'm writing Quantum Leap." or "Motherfucker! This sure was interesting when it was called Enemy Mine."

There has been much cursing, kicking of small objects, gnashing of teeth, and not nearly enough actual, you know, writing.

Getting past my paralyzing fear that "this has already been done by some master writer and you're never going to be as good as him or her" will obviously have to happen sooner than later if I'm going to get any of these projects done, and I came across something on Neil Gaiman's blog this morning that, while not a magic wand to cure the problem, was definitely part of the eventual solution:

Genre fiction, as Terry Pratchett has pointed out, is a stew. You take stuff out of the pot, you put stuff back. The stew bubbles on.

If Terry Pratchett can say it, and Neil Gaiman can endorse it, than I guess I can give myself a little bit of a break, and not throw something out entirely when I realize that a scene or a character or something has been unconsciously inspired by something I've read and enjoyed.

I can't help but remember that Luke didn't lift the X-wing out on his own; he had to see Yoda do it before he believed it was possible, and even after he did, he never lifted it out on his own . . . I need to go think about that for a little while, possibly in a hollowed-out tree.

See me at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

As I mentioned in the Great Geek Tour of 2008 post, I'll be appearing at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on Sunday, April 27. The festival is at UCLA (go Bruins!) and runs all weekend.

If you'd like to meet me, shower me with praise and tell me how charming and suave I am, here are some details I just got from Mysterious Galaxy, who are letting me ghetto up their booth:

Booth #614
Dickson Court North
2:00 PM Sunday April 27

Authors: Charlie Huston, Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta and Wil Wheaton

Signings will last approximately 50 - 55 minutes.

All three of my books will be available, and there will be punch and pie.

(There will actually be no punch or pie.)

Gorgeous Tiny Chickens, Batman, and the Happiest Media Kit

I guess it's appropriate that I'm a computer geek, because I have a very binary lifestyle: my level of work is either 0 or 1, with nothing in between.

I'm currently set to 1, so my time to post is very limited (though I've been using Twitter like crazy, because it's fast, immediate, and portable.)

However, I wanted to take a moment and share three things for your pleasurable enjoying.

1. I did an episode of Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show last week. I don't know when it will be released, but I saw an edit of it last night that is hilarious.

2. I got permission from James Tucker, producer of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, to tell the world that I worked on the show Monday. I can't say anything about the content of the episode or the character I play -- apparently, it's a Darth Vader-is-his-father kind of secret -- but it was massively fun, and since I'm one of the world's biggest Batman Geeks, it was kind of a dream come true.

3. I can't believe how many orders of Happiest Days were recently placed! I guess I should run out of printings more frequently. Many of you asked for a media kit, like the one I did for Dancing Barefoot. Well, here's the Happiest Days of Our Lives media kit. Please download it and use it; it's under a Creative Commons license, so I encourage you to get crazy go nuts with it.

Shit. The robots are crawling all over the lab again. I have to get back to work.

Happiest first printing is nearly sold out!

When I went to pack up a bunch of Happiest Days orders this morning, I realized that this totally awesome tower of books, representing much of the first printing, has been reduced to just three boxes, and one of those is only half full. I'm probably going to have to order a second printing for the great Geek Tour of 2008.

Thank you, so much, to everyone who has bought Happiest Days, talked about Happiest Days on your blogs or Live Journals or wherever you make your home online. Thank you to everyone who slipped it into conversation with friends, families and random hobos, and to everyone who has supported me and my work. Thank you for believing in me and supporting me. I don't have a publicist or a big marketing budget or any traditional mainstream support in print or electronic media . . . but I've never felt like I'm doing this all by myself.