Welcome

Life Lessons from a Five-Year-Old

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 23:11:11 -0600

My son had his eleventh birthday party today. He went skating with a large party of friends but because they all had scouts later in the evening, they could only stay for two hours. Now the boys arrived equipped for Everest with skates, roller blades, and scooters.

Despite all that, they spent most of their time watching the promo screens of the video game machines. Machines for which they had no money.

While that was going on, my five-year-old daughter spent the time going around and around on her scooter. By the end she was zooming around, flushed but happy. While the boys spent their time pining for entertainments they couldn't have. My daughter made the most of what she had.

Out of the mouth of babes.

In the News

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:45:13 -0600

It’s update time!

I know I haven’t been very forthcoming lately about what I’m up to. The truth is I’ve been in scramble mode for a long time. The decline and fall of the real estate market all but wiped me out and I’ve spent the last year trying not to lose my house. (No worries now, things are finally turning around.)

That said, I haven’t really had much time to write. I must confess I’ve really missed it. I started my new book, The Flux Engine over a year ago. That’s just too long to be working on only one project. So how about an update?

A few months ago I joined a writer’s group in an effort to kick start my writing. I still don’t have a lot of time, but I’m squeezing in what I can when I can and I’m happy to report, it’s going very well. If I stay on track, I should be finished with it by the end of September. I still don’t have a publisher, but I’ll be putting up a website for the book and publishing some art I had made for it. I’ll let you know when that’s live and any comments would be greatly appreciated.

I’ll be posting regular (or at least semi-regular) updates on my progress, so watch this space for more.

Upcoming Events

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:35:38 -0600

I’ve got a couple of events coming up, both in September. I’ll be doing a massive book signing with 40 other authors on the 18th in Orem Utah. I’ve done this event before and it’s always a good time.

The second event is very exciting. I’ll be part of a small, very select group of authors including Tracy Hickman, Dave Wolverton, and Larry Corria. We’ll be signing books and holding panel discussions on writing, reading, and fiction. This will be a two part event starting at the Barns & Nobel in West Jordan on September 25th, and continuing at the Borders in Murray after lunch.

Come on out and pick up a copy of my book, the Survivors, and get it signed. Also, I’m going to have chapters and artwork there from my upcoming book, The Flux Engine, so come out and check it out.

See the latest details HERE.

CONduit

Sat, 29 May 2010 12:47:28 -0600

I’m spending my weekend in Salt Lake, attending the annual Sci-Fi / Fantasy convention. As an author, I get invited every year and I come and speak and meet with readers and writers. A good time is always had by all.

I’ll be reading from my forthcoming book today as well as signing books and speaking on panels. If you’re in the neighborhood, come on by and say hi.

CONduit is at the Raddison Hotel downtown. See their website HERE.

The Naked Truth

Tue, 4 May 2010 15:05:55 -0600

Those of you who know me know that during the day, I’m Mr. Mom. I look after my two youngest children, both girls, ages three and four. They’re wonderful kids, but they couldn’t be more different. The four-year-old is sweet and quiet with long, gorgeous brown hair and eyes. We call her the Dog Whisperer because she has a way with animals that’s just astounding, they just lover her.

By contrast, the three-year-old is a little blond tornado. Seriously, I call her the Destroyer. She’s one lab accident away from being a Super Villain. To illustrate the point, about a month ago, I found her in the TV room, having carried a barstool in from the kitchen. She then retrieved the little wooden stool she uses in the bathroom to reach the sink, and placed it on top of the barstool. When I discovered her, she had climbed atop this construction in order to reach the little chain that hangs off the ceiling fan.

Now both our little girls like to play outside, so I’ve arranged the garage such that they can get out into the back yard without any help from me. To this, I added a lock on the fence gate to keep them from escaping. Now they can come and go outside at their own will and pleasure and I can stay at work on my laptop without having to go outside to supervise them.

This has worked out very well.

Fast forward to yesterday.

Yesterday, my son mowed the back lawn. To do this, he had to unlock the gate. No problem, we’ll just let the girls play out front. Well, the four-year-old had a ball, the Destroyer, however ...

Let me set the scene. There’s an elementary school in my back yard. Specifically, my house sits on the rim of an old gravel pit and the school is down, below us. The girls love to go down there and play on the slides and other play equipment, but they only get to go when one of their parents or older siblings can go with them.

When my 13-year-old returned to the house, she asked me: “Did you know the three-year-old is going down to the school?” I did not know this. Grumbling that she should have been smart enough to go get the three-year-old rather than coming home to report, I got in the van and headed out to intercept the blond tornado.

As I passed my neighbor’s house, I saw two pieces of wet fabric near his trash can. I hoped the kids hadn’t been playing in his trash. I more fervently hoped that the red fabric wasn’t the clothing the three-year-old was wearing. I started down the hill and sure enough, up the sidewalk came the Destroyer, naked as the day she was born. Based on the condition of her clothes (which I retrieved later), I suspect that she had rolled around in a puddle, gotten cold, and simply took off her clothes.

I brought her home and was confronted by some concerned neighbors from down the hill who wanted to make sure I wasn’t some pervert just picking up a naked child. Believe it or not, I appreciated that. After showing them a picture of the girl on my iPod, and introducing myself, we laughed about it and they left.

I swear this girl is going to be the death of me. But, in the mean time, I have a great story to tell her prom date.

Self-Improvement

Sat, 17 Apr 2010 09:59:44 -0600

I had an epiphany recently (and no, it didn’t hurt).

First, some background. In February 2009, I made a decision to write a Young Adult Steampunk novel. (Steampunk is a genre of Science Fiction set in the past rather than the future, think the 1800’s with all of Jules Verne and Mary Shelly’s technology.) Anyway, in January 2010, I had only managed to write eight chapters. That’s less than a chapter a month.

For perspective, when I wrote my last published novel, The Survivors, I did the entire thing in three months, that’s writing, editing, rewriting, the whole bit.

Needless to say I was depressed. In that time a writer buddy of mine published one book and wrote two more. I was beginning to think I’d lost it (whatever “it” is). Well, I’ve never been one to take things lying down, so I rededicated myself to my work and set about completely rewriting those eight chapters. Here it is April and I’m on chapter twelve. That’s better, but not great, but I’m very encouraged. Looking back over the experience, I came to a very important realization.

I didn’t lose a year of work.

I don’t mean to say that eight chapters a year is acceptable, because it isn’t. What I mean is that I spent that year teaching myself how to write all over again.

You see, my process for all my books before this one has been very simple. I work five days a week for five hours a day. That allows me to write a chapter every work day. That allows me to write a 100,000 word novel in about six weeks. That’s how all my previous books have been written.

But in 2009, my life changed. My dear wife decided to go back to school and get her Master’s Degree (yes, she’s a glutton for punishment, but you should already know that - she married me after all). Anyway, that meant that she spends her days teaching and her nights at school or doing homework. That means that I’m Mr. Mom for twelve hours out of every twenty-four, and with a three-year-old and a four-year-old, that doesn’t leave any five hour blocks of uninterrupted time any more. That broke my entire process.

I spent the last year learning to write while being interrupted. I learned to sit down, get in the writhing zone and work in minutes where it used to take me at least half an hour. I leaned to crank out a chapter while fielding requests for movies, hot-dogs, diaper changes, and trips to the park to play on the slides.

Yes it’s been a long, professionally-depressing year. That said, I’ve passed through the refining fire and emerged a better writer. Now I’m confident I will have my next book, The Flux Engine, done by the end of May. I’ve already generated some interest from editors and publishers to see it, so with any luck I’ll have it sold within a few months.

No matter what happens with this book, however, I can say with great confidence ... I’m back, baby.

Electronic Publishing and the iPad

Fri, 2 Apr 2010 13:36:40 -0600

Wow, is the publishing industry running scared.

If you, like me, have been following the release of Apple’s latest “where-did-all-my-money-go” gotta-have gizmo, you might have noticed that there hasn’t been much of a push for the most obvious use of an iPad — reading. The iPad would seem to be the ultimate reading device, it’s about the size of a book, has a color screen and lots of power, so why aren’t we seeing adds touting all the latest, greatest books coming to it?

The answer to that question is actually fairly simple. It’s the same things that drive Wall Street — Fear and Greed.

Here’s a little prediction for you. Bookstores are going to start disappearing as early as this year. In five years, you’ll be lucky to find one at all, and they wont’ be in malls or other high-priced shopping meccas, they’ll be specialty shops.

Now I hear you, “Dan,” you ask, “How can y0us believe that? Borders and Barnes & Noble are huge, multi-national conglomerates.” Let me tell you a story. For those of you young enough not to remember the LP, there were once these things called “records,” It was like a big CD but was made of incredibly fragile vinyl, prone to scratching and breaking. Then came the CD. At first, CD players were massively expensive, so few people bought them. For years, music stores had racks of CD and records side by side. Then something transformational happened — in 1985 the price of CD players dropped dramatically. Suddenly everyone had one and within six months, you couldn’t find an LP in a regular music store. CD’s revolutionized music in less than a year.

E-book readers have been around for a few years now. Amazon’s Kindle and B&N’s Nook are both good at what they do, allowing people to read books on the go. That said, the iPad makes them look like chumps. If the early tech reviewers are to be believed (and for the record, I believe they are) the iPad is going to change everything. It’s only marginally more expensive than those other ebook readers, and it’s not a one trick pony. Apple had so many pre-orders for the device, it had to cut them off and is pushing back corporate and educational orders to meet initial demand.

So why isn’t the publishing industry on board? Why aren’t they out there pushing iPad versions of their books? I mean in less than three days there are going to be several hundred thousand new iPad owners looking for things to put on their shiny new toys.

I think Apple is a victim of it's own success here. You see, publishers (like Hollywood) remembers what happened to the music industry. Music publishers used to be the big dogs, throwing their weight around and laying down the law. Now they’re skinny and toothless. Apple did that. W hen iTunes became the number one worldwide distributor of music in any form, the music publishers lost control. Now, despite the fact that they make more money per song on iTunes than they ever did on CD’s, music publishers want a bigger piece of the pie and Apple is holding the line on iTunes pricing. This makes music industry execs whine and moan about the tyranny of iTunes.

It’s clear that book publishers are hearing this. They’re trying desperately to disparage e-books and keep literature on paper where they have total control. E-book prices range from a low of $14.99 up to over $20. That’s not just absurd, it’s highway robbery. They’re pricing e-books to compete with the most expensive hardbacks. Even then, the publishers are making out like bandits. Without printing, warehousing, shipping, and return costs, they’re going to keep more of their profit than ever before.

Even with all this pressure to keep e-books from taking off, the book publishers are missing an important fact. They’e forgotten the reason the music industry turned to Apple in the first place. Pirates were stealing them blind. They were losing money hand over fist to music pirates because they were still charging $21 for a CD where only one song was worth having. Apple stopped all that and returned the profit to the music industry by making music so cheap and easy to buy that it simply wasn’t worth stealing.

Now, I’ll give you the chance to make a prediction. What do you think will happen to e-books if their prices stay so high? That’s right, computer geeks with skills will rip them and post them online for anyone to download and use. Eventually, that market force will drive the price of e-books down to more reasonable levels. Until then, however, prepare for the wild west.

Magic Encounters of the Hard Kind

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 22:41:36 -0600

Part of being a writer is reading. You read a lot.

I just got finished reading the pre-release copy of Hard Magic, the forthcoming “Diesel Punk” fantasy from my buddy Larry Correia. It’s a fantasy that takes place in the 30’s, or as Larry put it — “when men wore hats.”

Hard Magic was a fantastic tale well told with an interesting magic system and compelling characters. If I was insecure in my writing ability, it would have been intimidating to read it. It’s really well written.

Now, for those of you who can’t get Larry to send you pre-publication copies of his books, you can read his current book; Monster Hunter International. It’s available everywhere.

Laptop Surgery

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:25:13 -0600

Back in the day, I used to sell computers. One time I had to add some RAM to a laptop. Now in those days, laptops were rare and wonderful things. I had installed memory in lots of desktops, so I understood the basic procedure, but I’d never opened a laptop case. Well, I figured it out and installed the RAM before the store tech got back from lunch (the customer was in a hurry). The store tech (and later the owner) had a heart attack when I revealed what I’d done, but the computer worked with no issues.

The truth of the matter is that most machines are just machines. Taking them apart isn’t all that dangerous. The real trick is to know when to stop - the point where a device stops being parts screwed or snapped together and becomes something arcane. Of course, if you’re trying to fix something that isn’t working, you have added armor. If you aren’t planning on having whatever it is fixed professionally, then it doesn’t matter what you do. I mean you can’t make something that doesn’t work any more broken, right?

With that said, the DVD drive in my laptop stopped working a few weeks ago. Now I have an older Titanium Macbook Pro, and their DVD drives were always a bit dodgy. So I wasn’t really all that surprised when it finally gave up the ghost. Still, I like ripping my movies so I can watch them on my laptop and my iPod Touch, so I decided it was time to get pro-active.

So, this morning I could put it off no longer and I got out my phillips head screwdrivers and my #6 Torx driver and did the unthinkable. I opened up my laptop. Almost immediately a ribbon cable connecting the keyboard to the base popped off from where the cable was being held with tape. Once I got my heart out of my throat, I examined it and found out that it was supposed to come off like that when you remove the keyboard.

Disaster averted, I pressed on. I removed the DVD drive and examined it. It didn’t seem to be able to open easily so I turned my attention to what I could see through the disc slot. Well, to make a long story short, I discovered the problem — two flat LEGO pieces and a torn piece of card-stock.

Ah the joys of having a 3 & 4-year-old.

So, with deft precision I removed the foreign matter from my drive, re-installed it, and put the computer back together. Result — everything is working as it should. (In fact the DVD drive seems to actually work better.)

Just call me the Laptop Surgeon.

Oh, yeah.

You’re Invited ...

Thu, 4 Feb 2010 15:05:54 -0700

This is a bit late, so I apologize. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be doing a couple of events and, if you’re in Utah, you can come out and see me.

First, I’ll be attending the Authorpalooza event at the South Town Barnes & Nobel this Saturday, February 6th. I’ll be there, signing books and talking about all things writing and author related. Come on out Saturday between 1:00 and 4:00 pm and stop by.

Secondly, I’m a guest at Brigham Young University’s annual symposium on Science Fiction & Fantasy — Life, the Universe, & Everything 28. This runs from Thursday the 11th to Saturday the 13th and I’ll be there all three days. You can find me on panels dealing with the art of story and the business of writing or in the halls between events. With big name writers like my friend Brandon Sanderson, this will be a terrific event you’ll want to attend. See you there.

My schedule for LTUE 28 is:

Thursday:
• Noon — Creating a wizard that isn’t another Gandalf, Merlin, Dumbledore, etc. (Brandon Sanderson, Paul Genesse, Dan Willis, Aleta Clegg)
• 1:00 pm — Defining Children’s Literature: What are a children’s book, a middle grade reader, a YA novel and an adult novel? (Stacy Whitman, Lisa Mangum, Mette Ivie Harrison, Dan Willis, Pat Castelli)

Friday:
• 9:00 am — Paths to publishing: When is traditional best and when should you try an alternative.(Stacy Whitman, John Brown, Dan Willis, Eric Swedin, Sandra Tayler)

Saturday:
• 9:00 am — Guys Take on Writing Romance. (L. E. Modesitt, Jr., Clint Johnson, Aleta Clegg, Dan Willis, John Brown)
• 10:00 am — Using Fantasy and Science Fiction in the Classroom: Reaching reluctant readers. (Aleta Clegg, Dan Willis, David Ferro, J. Scott Savage)
• 5:00 Booksigning.