Little by little, the work gets done: A Cut-Up Girl update.

Back in July, I was able to bang out the first draft of Cut-Up Girl/Accidental Gods in just four days. The second draft... is taking a bit longer. I started the rewrite several weeks ago, but have really been struggling with it due to a flaw in my initial structure. Cut-Up Girl's life story is told in four major parts, her childhood when she first learns she has superpowers, her early adulthood as part of a vigilante gang of superheroes, her years as a scandal plagued celebrity, and finally her years of decline ending in a final battle of redemption.

I wrote the first draft sequentially, but planned to thread all four stories together and tell them simultaneously. Mostly, this is because I admire a lot of works with this sort of interwoven timelines, but also because I had really uneven quantities of action sequences. The second part of the novel, her vigilante years, is filled with lots of big superhero battles as well as a sordid sexual relationship. But, her childhood had exactly one action sequence, and a lot of scenes detailing important events in her life that shaped her personality, but that weren't exactly gripping action sequences. Stuff like a crush on a boy at school, and the story of how she meets her one friend who stays faithful to her through the rest of the book. Important, but not exactly action packed.

But, the interweaving approach wasn't working for me. It felt too disjointed, more an instrument of confusion than clarity, and I worried that my underlying motives for attempting it weren't good ones. I was trying to hide the dull parts of the character's life among more interesting ones, with the effect of making it all dull.

Cutting out her childhood years was an option, but not an attractive one, since some of the stuff, like her relationship with her father, is really important for the later plot.

Finally, though, I've figure out a better approach to her childhood years... don't make them dull. Duh. There were plenty of interesting things happening in this part of the story. There's a freaking alien invasion, for god's sake. Also, a city gets obliterated by an asteroid. And she's kidnapped by a secret government organization! And somehow, I was making all this dull, mostly by having the big stuff happen at a distance. I really couldn't place her at ground zero for the asteroid strike and have the book continue, right? Luckily, I've figured out how to change her from an removed reporter of these major events into an engaged participant. Now, I can simply tell the story sequentially and keep the reader engaged all the way through.

So, I'll call this draft 2.5. Since my revelation of how to tell the story right occurred on November 2, I'll call this my NaNoWriMo novel. Forward!

Joe's Spider Farm--The most important story I ever wrote, finally in print.

The new horror anthology Soon: Four Chilling Tales, has just gone live on Kindle. It contains horror stories by Abby Goldsmith, Rebecca Roland, Sarah Kelderman, and myself. At .99 cents, it's a perfect way to get yourself into a Halloween mood.

My contribution to the collection is "Joe's Spider Farm." This is kind of an ancient story for me, one I wrote all the way back in the year 2000. It's a horror story about a trailer park of retired carnival freaks who get a visit from a former carnival geek. The fire king, Pete Pyro, is none to happy about the new arrival and conspires to chase him off. Things go down hill after that.

So, it's a 14 year old story that I wasn't able to sell when I wrote it. I think the reason I couldn't sell it was that there weren't a lot of paying markets for non-supernatural horror when I wrote the story. I shelved it and mostly forgot about it, despite feeling like it was a really solid tale.

So, why do I call it the most important story I ever wrote in the title of this post? Because my earliest big sales have their roots in this novel. First, one of the highlights of my short fiction career was my first sale to Asimov's, "To the East a Bright Star." In it, Tony, the former circus tightrope walker, makes mention of his old friends... Pete Pyro and the Wolfman, both of whom are featured in "Joe's Spider Farm." The existence of JSF gave Tony a rich back story that helped make him a fully realized character. It's a story behind the story, a larger universe not seen in the Asimov's tale, but the foundation that the visible story rests upon.

If Spider Farm had just got me my first pro magazine sale, that would be noteworthy. But, it did a whole lot more than that. Shortly after I wrote "Joe's Spider Farm," I wrote my superhero novel Nobody Gets the Girl. I wrote Nobody very quickly, making up stuff as I went along, and at one point I hit the scene where I knew I needed to introduce some low-level villains for my heroes to face off against. I still had the villainous geek from "Joe's Spider Farm" kicking around in my head, so I decided to make him one of the villain gang. Instead of having him bite the head of chickens, I decided to give him the power to bite through anything, and also implied that he could survive any injury. If you've read Nobody Gets the Girl, then read "Joe's Spider Farm," you'll instantly see what I'm talking about: Except for the superpowers, it's the same character in both stories. So, I got an important supporting cast member for my first published novel from my little unpublished story.

Of course, that led to Burn Baby Burn, a novel where Pit Geek graduates from supporting cast to protagonist for the entire novel. He's fleshed out considerably in the novel, of course, but there are still elements of his character that originated in the short story. For instance, in the short story, the geek has suffered enough brain damage that he doesn't remember his own name any more, just as Pit in Burn Baby Burn is unable to remember who he used to be.

If there's a larger lesson to be drawn here, it's that nothing a writer puts on paper is ever a waste of time. "Joe's Spider Farm" took a lot of time and energy to write and polish, and back in 2000, it probably seemed like the time and energy I'd put into it weren't going to be repaid with publication. But... without it, I might never have sold anything to Asimov's, and I might never have sold my first novel, let alone wrote a sequel to it.

So, now's your chance to discover the short story that did more to shape my later career than anything else I wrote from that period. Even if you haven't read Nobody or Burn Baby, check it out. It's a pretty kick ass tale on it's own merit, and I'm thrilled to finally see it in print.

Classics Update

In the past few months, I've had a pretty great run of enjoying the classic novels I've read. First, I reread Catch 22, a book I read in high school and still remembered fairly well. The book was even better than I remembered it.

I also read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Wow! I can't believe I hadn't read this before. Definitely one of the best books I've ever read. The voice was perfect, the characters were rich and complex, and the humor was spot on. The only drawback was the outright misogyny of the book, since all the female characters are either evil castrating control freaks or saintly whores who sleep with men and expect nothing from them but a good time.

One of the worst books I've read, hands down, has to be Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde. It's told at such a distance, from the POV of a not particularly close friend, that anything interesting in the novel is kept from actually happening before the reader's eyes.

So, it was with some delight that I moved on to Treasure Island by the same author and discovered that it was fairly awesome. Fast paced, lots of immediacy, interesting characters, an actual plot, and the writing felt crisp and sharp, something that could be published today. The flaw of the book is that Long John Silver is kind of an incompetent dud. He loses his ship, loses his treasure, and basically escapes by being a sniveling boot licker.

Another old book that surprised me way Jane Eyre. Wow! I was indifferent to Pride and Prejudice, mostly disliked Wuthering Heights, but Jane Eyre really drew me in. I liked that she was working class for most of the book. While the book ends, of course, with her marrying the rich man of her dreams, I thought he journey to the happy ending was really interesting and that the characters paid a big price for their final happiness. The only thing I didn't like was Jane inheriting a fortune from a long lost uncle. I always wondered where that cliche came from! But, the book would have worked if she hadn't come into a fortune. And, Jane did nothing to earn her fortune, it was pure luck that she wound up with the money. These gripes aside, it's definitely my favorite romance novel to date.

War of the Worlds: Just finished this and was impressed by how plausible every thing seemed even given how much we now know he was wrong about Mars. Not quite as gripping as Island of Dr. Moreau, but much better than the Time Machine.

Finally, I also read Murder on the Orient Express. Meh. I know all mysteries are contrived to some degree, but this was kind of ridiculous. Still, I did appreciate the pacing and the handling of the various characters.

I'm probably forgetting something... I shouldn't wait two months to update next time! Coming up: The Invisible Man, Kidnapped, and Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Nobody Gets the Girl giveaway on Goodreads!

I'm giving away 4 free copies of the new Nobody Gets the Girl Tenth Anniversary paperback on Goodreads. You have until October 31 to enter the drawing. Just follow the link below. (Note, when I preview the link code I cut and pasted from Goodreads, I get a lot of big gaps for some reason. However, the bottom link that says Enter to Win still works.)

 
 

    Goodreads Book Giveaway
 

   

       
   

   

     

          Nobody Gets the Girl
     
     

          by James Maxey
     

     

         
            Giveaway ends October 31, 2013.
         
         
            See the giveaway details
            at Goodreads.
         
     
   
   

      Enter to win

Nobody Gets the Girl: Tenth Anniversary Edition!

Ten years ago in October, my debut novel Nobody Gets the Girl officially hit bookstores. Not a lot of bookstores as it turned out, but enough to officially mark the beginning of my career as a novelist.

To celebrate the anniversary, I've written a new story, Girl's Night Out, that tells the story of the first appearance of Baby Gun and Rail Blade, and explains why Sarah (the Thrill) first decided to go along with being a superhero despite her underlying cynicism about her father's mission. For now, this new story is only available in the new paperback, not in the e-book. I won't say I'll never include the story in the e-book, but for now I want there to be at least a little bonus available to people who still like to read books on paper.

In addition to the bonus story, I think the new cover is a vast improvement over the cover of the first edition. Can you see Nobody?

Odds are low you'll discover copies of this edition at your local bookstore, though they can always order a copy. And, of course, the book's available at Amazon, currently at the bargain price of $8.99! That's a full buck off the cover price? How can you afford to say no? Honestly, not ordering a copy is like burning money.

New Bitterwood Ebook Covers

So, for about the fifth time, I've decided to revamp my Bitterwood series ebook covers. Ever since I designed the cover for Dawn of Dragons, I've felt that it didn't fit visually with the other books. Paying for new art by the same artist who did the original print Bitterwood covers was way too cost prohibitive, and looking for four related bits of affordable pre-made fantasy art that could be appropriate for all for books proved to be a pointless challenge. Believe me, I've looked at hundreds of fantasy covers on the "pre-made" sites. Sometimes, I'd see art that might be a good fit for Bitterwood, but I couldn't really use the same art four all four books.

 

 

The various editions of the covers I've made myself have all had elements I liked, but none really looked professional. I contented myself with the inferior covers because I figured, on Amazon and Barnes and Noble at least, if you search for Bitterwood or James Maxey, the first covers you see are the kick ass print edition covers. The fact the ebook covers weren't as good shouldn't matter, should it?

 

But, my peers at the Codexwriters' Group weren't impressed by my excuses, and their collective scorn for my previous covers has sent me back to photoshop once more. This time, I think I'm onto something:

 

 

 

 

Coming soon to an ebook supplier near you!

Progress report

I haven't written a short story in several years. I love the form, but short stories don't make a lot of money and they don't really do a lot to generate publicity for larger works. But, there's some things you do for money and other things you do for love, so in the last month I've cranked out the first drafts of three new short stories. One is a Kiaju story for an anthology I've been invited to take part in, another is a modern magic story for the Codex Halloween contest, and the last is a short story set in the world of Nobody Gets the Girl, telling the story of the first time Amelia (Rail Blade) fought Baby Gun, and exploring the reason that Sarah (the Thrill) played along and became a superhero despite her cynicism about the whole undertaking. 

October marks the tenth anniversary of the official release date of my first novel, Nobody Gets the Girl. In celebration of that date, I plan to release a new deluxe print edition of the novel that will include this short story as a bonus. I may also include another short story set in the same world, something I wrote a few years ago but never found a home for, though I'm on the fence on this one, since it's built around a supernatural event and the world of Nobody is seemingly structured in a way that precludes supernatural intervention. Still, it might be interesting to include it just as a historical curiosity, a document of the strange places my mind sometimes wanders. Also, I think it's a pretty cool story. 

Right now, I plan to include the new material exclusively in the print edition. In recent years, I've started releasing more and more stuff as ebooks, but I feel like celebrating the fact that, when Nobody first saw print, it was, you know, in print, on paper, something I could put on my bookshelf. Ebooks might dominate my reading now, but I still have a certain nostalgia for paper. 

After I have the new version of Nobody ready, I'll be plunging into the rewrite of Accidental Gods/Cut-Up Girl, the novel I wrote last June in just four days. My initial instincts had been to self publish the book this fall, but now I think I'm leaning toward trying my luck with two publishers first, in hopes that they can help the book reach a larger audience than I can on my own. Hopefully, I'll have this redrafted and ready to show to people by the beginning of November, clearing me for a NaNoWriMo. Though, right now, I'm not firmly committed to taking part in that. A lot depends on whether or not I hear back from publishers about my Oz novel, and whether I wind up doing one more draft of that book and try to get a version of it out before the holidays. 

After this, it's back to dragons one last time. The final book of the Dragon Apocalypse, Soulless, is taking shape nicely in my head. I've always known where I wanted to take Stagger and Infidel, not to mention Sorrow and Slate. But, my original vision had been to tell their stories in separate books. Now, I've figured out how to thread both story lines together. Brokenwing, Greatshadow's offspring, will play a major role as well, and of course we'll be seeing the Black Swan and Zetetic the Deceiver. Even Father Ver might put in a return appearance. The one last thread I'm trying to weave in is what to do with the Romer family. I'll figure it out. 

After that, I'm probably done with epic fantasy for a while. By that point, I'll have written eight books about dragons, and there are just too many other stories I want to tell. Most of my short stories fit in the category of urban fantasy, so it's odd that I've never written a novel in the genre, especially when I've got a good one kicking around in my head. And, when I first started writing, I always imagined I'd be writing big, epic science fiction novels with characters zooming around between planets on rocket ships, fighting duels with ray guns, and making sweet, sweet love with busty blue-skinned sisters from other suns. I still want to write one of those! And, again, I've got a good one kicking around in my head. 

Now, it's mainly a matter of finding the time to write. I lost my previous job due to corporate restructuring, and my new job has an hour commute each way, not to mention longer hours. I've gone from spending about 37 hours a week out of the house working a day job to spending close to 50 hours a week out of the house. Those extra 13 hours represent a lot of words I could be churning out. Plus, since I'm in a new job, it's taking a lot of my brain power just to figure out all the new stuff I'm doing, and that's sapping my creative juices. I've gone from cranking out a novel in four days to struggling to finish a short story in two weeks. But, hopefully I'll settle into a new routine soon and return to my old productivity, or, even better, an even higher productivity. I'm almost fifty. There's an infinite amount of stories left to write and a finite amount of time to tell them. 

Forward!