Alternate Timelines: Things not to do

Came across this article on io9:

10 Worst Mistakes that Authors of Alternate History Make

An interesting read, and some good tips to work on if you might be thinking of working on a novel that plays with history.

...not that I know anyone planning to do that.

...Really.

Oh, and they added this one this evening:

Another Mistake That Alternate History Authors Fall Into

Enjoy.

As for me, I'm editing (still). It's like writing only less fun.

But it makes the work so, so much better.

Late night Christmas Poetry

The cake is now baked, the whisky's been poured

And downed as we wrapped the whole Christmas hoard.

It's way, way too late as we stumble to bed,

Hoping to lie down and sleep like the dead,

But knowing that soon the child will arise,

And wake us all with her loud, happy cries.

It's that time of year, so what can you say,

But Merry Christmas! And may you nap later today.

They Read my Story in Salem (or Why the Internet is Really Cool sometimes!)

I received an email today from Kevin Newland Scott, who was participating in Deck the Halls: Grown-Up Storytime at the Salem Public Library in Salem, Oregon.

And there, he read my story, "A Visit from Cousin Charles." (which you can find here)

A quote from his email:

Everyone wanted to know where I had found the wonderful Christmas ghost story -- and it was a lucky Google. I was looking for a Christmas ghost story by Robertson Davies, and chanced to turn up one that mentioned him.

I am all sorts of thrilled!

Thank you for picking my story, Kevin, and I am very glad the audience enjoyed it.

And now I'm wondering if I can get another one written by Christmas. Hmmm...

Merry Christmas to everyone who attended the event, and heck, Merry Christmas to the rest of you!

Science! Learn like they did in "The Matrix"... maybe...

What if there were a technology that would allow you to learn how to do new things with no conscious effort?

According to scientists at Boston University and ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, it might be possible.

Click the link above to read the whole article, and then imagine opening your eyes in the big chair and and saying, "I know Kung Fu."

Cool.

NaNoWriMo Wrap-up and next steps...

I wrote 50,440 words. I also took 6 days to recover. The question is, was it worth it?

The answer is, I'm not sure (how decisive of me, eh?).

Yes, I wrote 50,000+ words on my new novel. On a normal month I write around 20-25,000. So I doubled my output. The problem was, it wasn't a sustainable pace.

Like a lot of other people who tried it, I have a full time job and a small child. I also have a nasty exercise habit that gets me out of bed at 5:30 a.m. and a convention I go to in the middle of it all. All of them are immoveable objects in my life.

So what did I give up?

Sleep.

I averaged 5 hours a night or less for a month. Yes, I can do that. No, it is not happy making. It leaves me zombified and drinking too much caffeine, which in turn (because I am allergic to caffeine) leaves me shaky, irritable, prone to mood swings and given to sudden exhausted collapses, one of which happened on a weekend with my daughter.

That was not happy making.

The other issue is that the name of the game in NaNoWriMo is volume, not quality. I can already see that there's at about 10,000 words that are going to be cut entirely. And there's a fair amount of the rest that will need some serious re-working (even more serious than usual, and that's saying something).

So while I highly recommend NaNoWriMo for those who need impetus to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, I will not be taking part next year. Instead, I am focusing on three writing projects between now and then:

1. Editing my new book, a young adult piece set in Victorian London.

2. Finishing the third book in my "Magics" series for Dragon Moon Press (which was my NanoWriMo project last year).

3. Writing a new historical fiction piece that's been brewing in my mind for a while.

Will I get it all done?

I think so. And hopefully with more sleep than I got in the last month.

Too funny not to share

From the website Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:

Good-bye, Anne McCaffery

You gave me dreams of dragons.

Anne McCaffery, 1926-2011

SFContario!

This weekend is SFContario!

I'm tearing myself away from NaNoWriMo (32,819 words, by the way, which puts me past last year's count. YAY!) to staff the Dragon Moon Press table, which this year will feature:

When the Hero Comes Home (anthology), edited by Gabrielle Harbowy and Ed Greenwood

Small Magics and Cold Magics by Erik Buchanan (of course)

Destiny's Blood by Marie Bilodeau

Triptych by J.M. Frey

Authors J.M. Frey and Marie Bilodeau will both be at the convention (Marie on Sunday only), and both will happily sign books whenever they get the chance.

Also, panels!

Weapons and Armour - Fri. 8 PM, Parkview
An examination of the historical and ongoing technological race
between weapons and the equipment that makes them obsolete. (Erik
Buchanan, Stephen B Pearl, Adam Shaftoe(M), David Stephenson)

Are there any new stories? Sat. 4 PM, Parkview
It's been said that there's a limited number of stories - the number
varies with who's saying it - but each generation of writers seems to
come up with a few truly new ones. How can you break out of the
classic story forms and do something really new, while still being
understandable to readers? Is it even worthwhile to try? (Erik
Buchanan, Derek Kunsken, Ira Nayman(M), Craig Russell, Michael
Swanwick)

Accents and Speech Patterns - sun 11 PM Ballroom BC
When representing accents and ways of speaking in fiction some authors
choose to add slang terms while others may write entire novels in a
vernacular accent. When is it too much? Is it worth sacrificing
readability for authenticity? Our panel will give tips, strategies and
techniques for accurately representing speech in fiction. (Richard
Baldwin, Erik Buchanan, Ian Keeling, Stephen B Pearl(M), Robert
Charles Wilson)

So do come by this weekend, if you have a moment and want to have some fun. It's a great little con and this year is hosting the Aurora Awards.

Or, if you don't have the cash to spare, but want to get your hands on some fine DMP books, the dealer's room is open to the public from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

A bit of fun...

As I mention from time to time, I'm a fight director and an actor. About a week ago, my friend Kevin Robinson, a stunt coordinator, asked me to come out and stunt-double for an actor on a show he is working on.

So I said yes.

The video is a bit dark, but that's me, wearing a wig and padding, on the left.

A great bit of fun, thanks to Kevin and Chris Mott, his assistant, who made sure I was safe and that most everything went off smoothly and on time.

J.M. Frey's Triptych makes Publisher's Weekly Top Books of 2011

Congratulations to J.M. Frey for a great debut novel! Looking forward to seeing many more good books from you!

Here's the link!

And in case you don't know about Triptych, learn more and buy it here.

Well done, J.M.!

See you at SFContario!

Nanowrimo - week one round up

Well, got through the first week and got 15,223 words.  My goal was 17,000, but still, not bad at all.

I had a strong start last year, too, but didn't make the finish. I only managed about 30,000 words.  Just like last year, life is remarkably busy and I have a convention right in the middle of it.

So the real challenge this year is to show a little more self-discipline than I did last year with my free time.

On a good night, I can write a thousand words in about an hour (maybe a bit longer. I tend to lose track of time).  If I can keep up my self-discipline for the next three weeks, I can easily put down 1500-2000 words a night. But there are things I'm going to need to do:

Get enough sleep: I never do, and with a month like this I really need to, which means

Stay on schedule:  Even tonight I'm up later than I should be. I live on a tight schedule most of the time, and this month, it's tighter than most. I need to get my writing done in the time I have (usually 1 to 2 hours a night) and get to sleep by 10:30 p.m. so I can get up at 5:30 a.m. and

Exercise: I really need exercise. It keeps my brain alive and keeps my damaged bits from falling apart entirely. Also, it's fun.

Stay away from coffee: I know, everyone talks about living on caffeine during Nanowrimo. I'm highly sensitive to the stuff and drinking it messes me up after a few days.  Drinking it during the day leaves me exhausted at night, drinking it at night means no sleep, and no sleep means no creativity and no writing.

So that is the end of Week 1. Let's see what week 2 will bring!

In Time

Went out to the movies last night in the company of four lovely women (you know who you are) and saw "In Time."

Fun little film. Nothing too deep, nothing too groundbreaking. The whole "time is money" thing worked fairly well, and the whole movie was a fairly straightforward allegory for corporate greed. It's also a not bad chase money. And while the ending was predictable, it was fun predictable.

For the most part I liked it. The one thing that I really didn't like was Amanda Seyfried's shoes.

Seriously. The shoes. Because I don't care how much you practice running (and her character wouldn't have practiced much before she met Justin Timberlake's character) no one runs that fast in 5 inch spike heeled platforms.

I know Amanda is short and needed to be in frame with Justin, but couldn't they have found a nice pair of combat boots for her? Just for believability's sake.

(Of course, making a movie about people who turn 25 and then only have a year to live unless they earn more time, chances are believability wasn't high on the list).

Still, it was a good bit of fun and all four of the women with me assured me that Justin looks cute with his shirt off. So if you like a good gritty near-future sci-fi action movie, I'd give this one a try.

Just ignore the shoes.

SFContario Schedule

Hi Folks

I'll be at SFContario from Friday November 18 to Sunday November 20. Mostly I'll be staffing the Dragon Moon Press table, selling books and signing away madly. But I also managed to land on three panels this year. Here they are:

Weapons and Armour - Fri. 8 PM, Parkview
An examination fo the historical and ongoing technological race
betweeen weapons and the equipment tha tmakes them obsolete. (Erik
Buchanan, Stephen B Pearl, Adam Shaftoe(M), David Stephenson)

Are there any new stories? Sat. 4 PM, Parkview
It's been said that there's a limited number of stories - the number
varies with who's saying it - but each generation of writers seems to
come up with a few truly new ones. How can you break out of the
classic story forms and do something really new, while still being
understandable to readers? Is it even worthwhile to try? (Erik
Buchanan, Derek Kunsken, Ira Nayman(M), Craig Russell, Michael
Swanwick)

Accents and Speech Patterns - sun 11 PM Ballroom BC
When representing accents and ways of speaking in fiction some authors
choose to add slang terms while others may write entire novels in a
vernacular accent. When is it too much? Is it worth sacrificing
readability for authenticity? Our panel will give tips, strategies and
techniques for accurately representing speech in fiction. (Richard
Baldwin, Erik Buchanan, Ian Keeling, Stephen B Pearl(M), Robert
Charles Wilson)

Looking forward to seeing folks there!

Something for the Narnia fans out there

Embedded from of xkcd.

And twistedly brilliant, I might add.

And it is done!

Finished my story for the new Dragon Moon Press anthology and have sent it off to the lovely and talented Gabrielle Harbowy, editor extraordinare. Very happy making.

Now there are three projects ahead of me:

1. Start writing the third Magics book.

2. Start editing The King Below.

3. Start editing City of Phantoms.

A lot of work to be done, but it should all be fun.

The rhyme there was not intentional.

In the next day or so I should post my schedule to SFContario, so stay tuned.

SFContario and a Finished Story

After much hemming and hawing, I decided to go to SFContario 2/Canvention 31. I will be doing panels and staffing the Dragon Moon Press table.

The hemming and hawing centred around NaNoWriMo, which I will be using to help kick-start the next Magics book. I have a whole big bunch to write, and it was a hard decision to lose most of three days to a Con, but the folks at SFContario are great and I wouldn't want to miss it.

I'll post my panels as soon as I know what they are, along with our table location and hours.

In other news, I finished my story for the new DMP anthology. Going to edit it tonight and send it out, if all things work out (which they rarely do, but I have high hopes for tonight).

Then I will be engaging in a mad editing/writing frenzy for the next few months. Whee!

And so it begins again...

I've put down 924 words today for a new short story anthology from Dragon Moon Press. Wrote it in under and hour while my daughter was doing her ballet class. Very cool.

And once this is done, I will be starting on the new "Magics" novel. Got a title (not telling you) got a plot (still not telling you) and got a plan for writing a whole bunch very quick. We'll see how well it goes.

(It would be so cool to have it finished for Christmas. It's nearly impossible, mind you, but it would be very, very cool.)

And Another One Down...

Very happy making kind of week. On Monday the new website went up at erikbuchanan.ca, and today, I finished writing "City of Phantoms." Yay!

Now I have short story for an anthology I need to write, then on to writing the new "Magics" book while editing "the King Below" and "City of Phantoms."

Want to see something really cool?

It's the "When the Hero Comes Home" book trailer!

And what a damn handsome fellow that is!

You know, this is an excellent time to pick up your own copy!

Here's the paperback.

Here's the Kindle.

Have fun!

New Reviews for "When the Hero Comes Home!"

And very good reviews they are, too!

And I get a mention in both!

The Gloaming says this about When the Hero Comes Home:

...And it’s a really good anthology. It’s clear that Harbowy and Greenwood carefully considered their theme and the authors and stories that are its backbone. Every story is well-plotted and contains characters that leap off the page. Characters that feel, that make you feel along with them. When I got the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book, I was excited by the subject matter I’d heard so much about at Ad Astra. I popped it into my Kobo right away, and was glued.

And mentions my story here:

My Top 5:

• An Evil Not Forgotten by Erik Buchanan
• Brine Magic by Tony Pi
• The Legend of Gluck by Marie Bilodeau
• Ashes of the Bonfire Queen by Rosemary Jones
• Dark Helm Returns by Ed Greenwood

Yay!

The Left Hand of Dorkness says this about When the Hero Comes Home:

I love small presses. Really, I do. They are so much more likely to put out interesting anthologies, such as When The Hero Comes Home...

...Really, there are no lackluster stories in this collection, and I could easily sing the praises of each of them. Pick up a copy from Amazon and enjoy, or go to the Dragon Moon Press site to check it out.

And says this about my story:

Let me highlight some of the gems inside, in order of appearance. Erik Buchanan's What Evil Remains gives us a picture of a veteran of a wizard's defeat dealing with post-traumatic stress, a good man who served his community and bears the mental scars to prove it. Truly heart-wrenching.

Excellent reviews and very happy making. So, if you haven't picked up your copy of When the Hero Comes Home (Paperback or Kindle), I (and they) recommend you do so now!