Category: Writing

First Reviews of “El Mirador”

Two reviews of “El Mirador” have cropped up across the net, one by Writers of the Future winner and author Ryan Harvey on Amazon and another on a personal blog, and the general impression seems to be positive.

Harvey, who gave the story four out of five stars, writes:

It’s tough to write a story entirely in second person and not have it come across as an unreadable gimmick, but Alex J. Kane pulls it off in this high-tech SF thriller about a female assassin laden with cyber-enhancements tracking down a murderer in order to pay off her own debts. The future-noir setting is well-realized in the confines of the short story, and overall the work is a fast and rewarding read.

The other reviewer explains:

I was very much caught off guard by the story. I really didn’t have any idea what to expect based on the title, but I definitely had not expected a second person story, but that’s what I got. Interesting choice that. The ideas are good, the pacing is good, the story overall is good, although it left me wanting more. More depth, more detail, more Tzitzi. I guess realistically being left wanting more is definitely a better thing than wanting less. I also expect that it’s something that’s totally common among people who are primarily book readers, and even more so in my case as I primarily read series. So going from stories which typically are told in hundreds of thousands to millions of words, and instead down to something that’s more appropriately counted in hundreds of words. Odds are that it’s going to leave you wanting more. Even stories that very clearly have a completed arc are likely to leave you with questions like: but what happens next?

Bottom line, I enjoyed the story and would consider reading more work by Alex J. Kane, but at this point I’m not going to go to any particular effort to seek it out.

Hey, fair enough. I’m pleased the story has gotten a reaction at all, let alone a humbling bit of praise from a writer as fine and hard-working as Ryan Harvey. I’m honored.

Writing Goals 2012

Okay, so 2011 was a year spent largely riding on the fumes of 2010′s few modest successes. Why lie? But, on a positive note, I must say that the quality of my fiction, while perhaps yet inconsistent, continues to increase, both in my own eyes and those of readers. I sold a short story from 2010 that I loved (“In the Arms of Lachiga”) to Digital Science Fiction at SFWA-standard professional rates (i.e. hundreds of dollars, praise the cosmos — and many thanks to Michael Wills, Christine Clukey, et al.!), and in doing so got my name on the cover of a pro publication next to none other than Nebula Award-winner Eric James Stone. I wrote fiction I’m proud of — “El Mirador,” which sold to Tom Carpenter’s Mirror Shards anthology springs to mind; as does the story “Prospect of a World I Dream,” which has yet to find a home. And, perhaps most importantly, I read some really great fiction: Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor, Choke and Damned by Chuck Palahniuk, Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi (and a zillion other books and short stories I can’t remember at the moment).

I can hardly call 2011 a failure…but it was a disappointment. I saw all the hard work I did in 2010, with the exception of a small press collapsing under its own weight and canning three of the books I was supposed to appear in, finally come to fruition in the form of books. These things were great. But I didn’t do the writing I’d hoped to do; what I did, I’m proud of, sure, but I could have accomplished so much more… Instead, I chose to bask in the glory of yesterdays, to dream and ponder instead of getting my hands dirty. For the most part.

So here it is, folks. My official declaration of intent for 2012. It’s modest, and extremely doable, but that’s the point. In the course of the next year, I will:

  • Apply to Clarion, Clarion West, and Odyssey
  • Complete and submit my current novel project, Doomster
  • Write, revise, and submit 12 new finished short stories
  • Continue to enter Writers of the Future every contest quarter
  • Follow Heinlein’s Rules henceforth without exception
  • Begin making lists of nouns, titles, concepts, and story ideas a la Bradbury’s essay “Run Fast, Stand Still, or, The Thing at the Top of the Stairs, or, New Ghosts from Old Minds,” from Zen in the Art of Writing
  • Graduate college with a B.A. in English
My “dreams,” then — and these can happen anytime before I die, not necessarily in 2012:
  • Sell a novel to a major SF/F/H publisher (i.e. Tor, Daw, Ace, Nightshade, etc.)
  • Sell a short story collection to a similar publisher
  • Get nominated for a prestigious award in the SF, F, or H field (i.e. Stoker, Nebula, Hugo, etc.)
  • Attend a workshop like Clarion, Clarion West, or Odyssey
  • Sell a story to one or several of my dream markets: Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, F&SF, Clarkesworld, Asimov’s, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Cemetery Dance, etc.

More on the Twisted Library Press Fiasco

Over at a small-press blog called Books of the Dead, James Roy Daley elaborates on his own writing and publishing advice — namely, Yog’s Law — and cites my own discussion of the recent implosion of Twisted Library Press‘s anthology-factory business practice:

I did see one ray of hope while wading through the mess: a newbie writer named Alex J. Kane. Despite the fact that he has few writing credits to his name, he spoke words of wisdom that were – for the most part – overlooked by his peers. But they weren’t overlooked by me.

Glad to see that my post on the matter hasn’t been entirely overlooked. It’s an important example of what can go horribly wrong in this industry, and all the early signs of trouble were blatantly obvious for all to see. We were just too anxious and naive to see them. Traditional publishing is slow, but when the conditions of contracts are approaching their expiration date, it’s worth reconsidering whether or not you’ve submitted your work to a worthy market. Sad but true.

Still Alive

Okay, okay: Quick update.

School is coming to a close. Not winding down, as the expression goes, not yet — but it’s getting close to being over. I have a ten- to twelve-page research paper I’m working on, I have two or three major essay-based tests to study for, a ten-minute presentation to do, but then I’m fucking done.

At least until next semester. (The last one, finally.)

After that? Well, okay. Here’s the official announcement: I’m writing my first novel. I’ve got a couple of short story ideas brewing in the back of my mind, science fiction stories, but I’m saving those for afterward. I don’t want to get in the way of what has the potential to become a really, really interesting dark fantasy novel. Or horror novel. Or weird transgressive satire. I don’t give a shit what people end up calling it, because chances are that no one will want to read it. It’s a first novel — maybe you didn’t catch that part.

I’m calling it DOOMSTER, but you can call it whatever you want. Don’t call it crap, ’cause that’s rude as hell. Just ignore it, if you think it’s crap. Please.

I’ve got a lot of brainstorming notes and a very broad outline written, with some truly inspiring characters and ideas, but I honestly have no idea what it will end up being. It may prove to be a trunk novel. It may end up self-published. It may sell to a small press publisher like Raw Dog Screaming Press, who I think are doing some fantastic work in the field of horror and the weird right now, or somebody bigger. I dunno.

I just want to write a novel, and have some fun with it.

To write the book — here comes that advice bubbling up again — that I would want to read.

(Meanwhile, I’ll also be filling out applications to Clarion, Clarion West, and Odyssey. Fingers crossed.)

So what have I been reading? That’s relevant.

First: Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk’s earth-shattering debut novel from 1996. My favorite book, well, ever. Must’ve read it a hundred times. It’s been instrumental in motivating my lazy, stressed-out ass to hunker down and get a novel done. Finally. Before that: things like Horns by Joe Hill, and Palahniuk’s Damned. More recently, Jeremy C. Shipp’s Cursed, George Carlin’s posthumous memoir, Last Words, and The Dharma of Dragons and Daemons: Buddhist Themes in Modern Fantasy. I’ve been watching my favorite childhood anime series, Robotech.

This is where my head has been, when it’s not at school. Doing schoolwork.

By the time I get around to diving headlong into the novel draft next week, my head is still going to be here. I think that’s okay, even a great thing. These are books I love. The myths I’ve built my life around, to put it boldly.

They’re the reason I’m managing to make my homework fun in this last, final stretch.

Here’s the block quote that opens my final Buddhism term paper, for fun:

I would put forward that the next thing is going to be a story, because right now, people really don’t have a big story, a big software… They don’t have a big meta-narrative story; they don’t have a big story like Christianity was a big story. So right now, we need a really big story… And that story doesn’t have to be in conflict or in reaction to the current story, because I would say, right now, you don’t change anything by protesting anything… You give people a more effective way of living their lives, they won’t give a shit about foreign oil, you know? You give them the right story, and you make their cars obsolete, it’s gonna be like, “We are just swimming in oil. What are we going to do with all this oil?” And you can do that within the culture without reacting to the government, the war, whatever. Because in a way, by reacting to it, you’re wasting energy…you are making it stronger by giving it this token little resistance, keeping it in place. So your job, I would say, is to come up with a story like that, that makes all of the things we worry about so much right now completely beside the point… We won’t even think about them, because your story will be so incredible. I don’t know what that story is, but that’s why…if I can make my case, somebody’s gonna come up with that story.

–Chuck Palahniuk (Postcards from the Future)

The paper is called Karmic Demons and the Power of Compassion: Buddhist Philosophy as a Basis for Modern Myth, and I’m hoping to craft it into a kind of short fiction-writer’s manifesto. A foundation for the rest of my literary career, at the risk of sounding presumptuous, or even pretentious.

Because I’ve come to love the ideas that lie at the heart of Buddhist thought (even though I’m not, nor will I ever be, a Buddhist), I seek to imbue my stories with them — but only if I can achieve that without growing deliberately didactic. In this essay, I’m going to explore Buddhist ideas in existing stories and the larger philosophical truths they represent, and then explain the utility of such ideas from a contemporary storyteller’s perspective.

To give you an idea of the paper’s meat-and-potatoes content, the preexisting basis for my argument, here’s my works cited bibliography:

  • Bacigalupi, Paolo. “Pocketful of Dharma.” Pump Six and Other Stories. San Francisco: Night Shade, 2010. 1-24. Print.
  • Dick, Philip K. “Beyond Lies the Wub.” Paycheck and Other Classic Stories. New York: Citadel, 1990. 27-33. Print.
  • Hill, Joe. Heart-Shaped Box. New York: Harper, 2010. Print.
  • Hill, Joe. Horns. New York: William Morrow, 2010. Print.
  • Loy, David, and Linda Goodhew. The Dharma of Dragons and Daemons: Buddhist Themes in Modern Fantasy. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004. Print.
  • Mitchell, Donald W. Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.
  • Okorafor, Nnedi. Who Fears Death. New York: Daw, 2010. Print.
  • Palahniuk, Chuck. Damned. New York: Doubleday, 2011. Print.
  • Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club: A Novel. New York: Henry Holt, 2004. Print.
  • Postcards from the Future: The Chuck Palahniuk Documentary. Dir. Dennis Widmyer, Kevin Kölsch, and Josh Chaplinsky. Perf. Chuck Palahniuk. Kinky Mule Films, 2003. DVD.

Total Geekout

Over at io9.com earlier today, horror novelist Joe Hill — author of my all-time favorite novel, Horns — participated in a digital Q&A. Fortunately, I finally got the chance to ask Hill the very question that’s been burning in my mind for over a year now:

Hey there! Thanks for the great questions guys. So I guess I’ll just quote your questions, and see what I have (if anything) for answers. First up, from Alex J. Kane:

Q: “What I’d love to know is: How do you develop your characters? Do you write extensive sketches in place of a plot outline? Or do you craft them as you draft the story? I’d love to know where these folks came from.”

A: For the most part, I just sort of feel my way along. Every day, when I sit down to work, I hope I’m going to learn something new about one of my characters: what music they like, how they feel about their mother, what turns them on, what they won’t tolerate. Developing an extensive character sketch ahead of time would rob me of the most enjoyable part of the process.

At the same time, this is also the most challenging part of working on a story, and can lead to setbacks. In all three novels – HEART-SHAPED BOX, HORNS, and the new (unpublished) one – I wound up writing lots of material about certain characters, trying to find the right sound to their voice, struggling to find their emotional center. And most of that material never makes it into the book. I had to write it, for myself, but it isn’t inherently interesting to the reader.

Bad News and Troubling Reactions

Every writer wants to be published. For many, it’s the Big Thing. It’s the external validation, the justification for continuing on with all this madness. But in today’s world, it’s also very easy, and writer exploitation is a rampant nuisance.

Like most writers starting out, the first paid fiction sale was my main goal. Not word count, not long-term project completion, not mastering the craft; I wanted, first and foremost, to be published.

And in August 2010, I received an acceptance for my first story, “Night of the Widow” — not a great story, but one I was proud of at the time. It was purchased — or at least contracted for — by Bill Tucker of the Library of Horror Press. Mr. Tucker is a great guy, so far as I’ve been able to tell, and has worked hard for the Library. I went on to sell three more stories to Mr. Tucker for various Library of Horror Press anthologies, one of which was paid for and published. The other three, I just read on the publisher’s forum, have been cancelled, for financial reasons. So they’re no longer listed on my bibliography page, and will likely never see print. I’m fine with this, despite my initial disappointment.

But what troubles me, aside from my own interests in the matter, are other writers’ reactions to this small press going broke and subsequently cancelling upwards of a dozen — if not dozens — of announced themed anthologies. Each of these books was conceived as a themed collection of stories, and then an editor (to be paid on release of the anthology, like the writers — the editors have been equally wronged) would read, select, and send out contracts for chosen stories. Then a table of contents would be posted, and a vague, tentative release date such as “Spring 2011″ would be posted.

Due to financial difficulties — i.e., poor sales — the projects were simply abandoned. And writers, editors, and cover artists were left unpaid (I’m assuming — cover artists were perhaps paid on completion of their work) and unpublished — which happens all too often in this industry. I’d read the horror stories more times than I can count, and yet I always assumed nothing like this would ever happen to me.

But the writers involved are fine with this! They’re disappointed, sure, as I am — but they’ve offered up propositions such as:

  • accepting a one-time advance of $5.00-$10.00 in place of the contracted 1 cent/word + contributor’s copy
  • attempting to use Kickstarter as a way to fund books that have already been compiled and contracted for
  • and even: paying for the publication of the books in place of accepting payment!

Are we so fucking desperate? Do we never want to have careers?

The writer is such a delicate artist, such an utterly senseless creature, that he is willing to look past simple business sense, accept no payment — which he was promised long ago, perhaps over a year ago, when the contract was signed — and be happy about it?

Involved parties have suggested that a penny per word is itself a problem, that the publisher wouldn’t be going broke if it hadn’t customarily promised writers compensation of 1 cent/word plus a contributor’s copy, and then only the editors and cover artists would need to be paid. Fuck… Aren’t these books of stories? Written by writers?

Anyway, my anger is not toward the publisher — a labor of love with a very passionate community surrounding it — and certainly not toward the editors, but toward the writers themselves, who are too stupid to recognize the seeds of exploitation, who are fully willing to forego payment of any kind, or even pay the publisher to fund the book’s release. This is not the way publishing works — it was never intended to work this way, and it shouldn’t ever work this way.

If someone is in such a big damn hurry to be published, he ought to take ten minutes to convert his document to .mobi format and throw it up on Amazon. Or put together his own pay-on-demand anthology project — and hell, don’t offer contributors any sort of compensation for their work. Maybe they won’t mind.

But dammit, writers, stop giving away your work for free. Writers get paid.

Say hello to my little friend…

Went to pick up my copy of Chuck Palahniuk’s latest, Damned, at my favorite local indie bookshop, Stone Alley Books & Collectibles, and the very next day this infant demon followed me home. I suspect he’s just hungry — probably for my soul — so I plan on feeding him for a few months, nurturing him until he can fend for himself, and then letting him go. He has bloodshot eyes, and a temper that makes his fiery igneous-rock complexion glow. It’s only a matter of time before he catches the house on fire, I fear. And, he says, as soon as I finish reading Chuck’s new book, I have to write a novel about him. Says his handwriting’s pretty bad, and every time he tries to type his fingers melt the keys — so I can either ghostwrite his memoir, or go to Hell, he says.

I figure, what the hell? I can keep him happy, and come out the other end with a novel manuscript in-hand. Sounds okay to me. Says he wants plenty of death metal, cuddly infant demons, and scary shit to happen — not an exaggeration, according to him, but rather an apt metaphorical illustration of his life experiences.

Damned is great so far, and to my relief bears no similarity to my other beloved Satanic bible, Horns, so I’m thinking the subgenre of the demonic dark fantasy story still has plenty of life left in it. I need to get a novel or two under my belt, and science fiction seems like a big chunk of research to chew on right now, given my obligations to schoolwork, etc., so horror it is. I’m enjoying the outlining process so far.

Fragile Magic

Okay, so I’m currently clattering right along on a short story called “Fragile Magic,” for a horror anthology I really want to appear in. My self-imposed daily word count is now 500 words/day when possible, and on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of last week, I succeeded with flying colors. The story is wrapping up nicely and I should have a finished first draft tomorrow afternoon.

Either Thursday as I was writing or Friday during work, I began to notice an annoying, dull pain in my upper back that has in the intervening days spread to my left pectoral. I’m 22 years old, and this is freaking me the fuck out. So I haven’t written much in the past three days — got about 200 words in today, though — and I am going to be making a trip to the doctor’s office soon. I don’t eat healthy, I’ll admit it, but I think my real problems are: poor posture due to sedentary writer’s lifestyle, desk job, etc.; caffeine addiction — I drank at least six cans of soda on Friday, when my pain was at its peak, and a cup of coffee as well; and lack of regular exercise.

I mean, hey, I walk all over a hilly college campus daily, but that’s about it. And some stairs and a walk around the park with the girlfriend and the dog a couple times a week. Friday night after a dizzy spell (brought on as I was hunched over my laptop and scaring myself half to death by Googling things like “Chest Pain and Back Pain 22 yrs old” and “Heart attack symptoms”) I took three ibuprofen (600 mgs, which some search result suggested for heartburn) and slept flat on my back.

Saturday I woke with no pain whatsoever, and that persisted until the girlfriend and I went out for a hearty meal at the good ol’ Olive Garden, where I ate my fill and drank a Diet Coke — my first soda of the day, due to the scare the night before — and things were good. Sunday and today, I went back to my bad habits and now the pain is easing back into the level of “relative nuisance,” for lack of a better metric.

Feel free to chime in and share stories of your own regarding back and chest pain (mine came first as back pain, then progressed to chest pain the following day). For the love of Cthulhu, put my mind at ease.

Confession

Okay, time for me to purge my soul. Or whatever. You know, to ask you all to absolve my sins.

So: You okay with that? You think you handle it?

Good. You’re a pal.

Here’s the thing. For the past…I don’t know, two years? Not quite two years? — I’ve been calling myself a fiction writer. Sometimes I title this blog: Alex J. Kane, Science Fiction Writer. Or Horror Writer. Author. Dark Speculative Fiction Writer.

Call me what you want. I’ve published science fiction, I’ve published horror. But what I’ve done very little of, folks, is actually fucking write. I know, I know; you don’t follow the logic. It’s absurd. Yep.

Let’s be honest with ourselves, shall we? College does not encourage creative minds to foster their creativity outside the curriculum. It does not recognize the work of the aspiring writer as contributing to the enrichment of the English Major’s formative mind. It may toss a million ideas your way, but what it does not do is leave you with much time or energy to actually sit down, think for a bit, and pound out a few drafts.

I mean, I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished so far in my writing career. I’ve been a full-time student, part-time bank teller, and half of a pretty amazing long-term relationship with my best friend in the world; and all the while, I’ve managed to crank out 25 finished short stories and novelettes. Over the course of two years.

Not bad, I suppose, except. Well.

It is bad, because I could be writing a hell of a lot more. We’re now on the tenth month of 2011, which means there are less than three months left in the year.

So far in 2011, I’ve written seven short stories, one of them still unfinished. That’s it.

Here are the raw numbers, along with titles because titles are fun:

  1. “An Apocalypse of Her Own, One Day” — 931 words
  2. “El Mirador” — 3,395 words (Sold for about $70.00 to the Mirror Shards anthology)
  3. “Headcase” — 2,151 words
  4. “Moonbound” — 1,214 words
  5. “Prospect of a World I Dream” — 3,790 words
  6. “Somewhere in the Realm of Dead and Dying Souls” — 752 words
  7. Untitled SF short story — In-progress at 1,685 words

Did you hear that? That was me. Sighing.

My total word count for 2011, so far, is at 13,918 words. Fuckin-ay, man.

I’ve read a shitload of books this year, at least. I haven’t been keeping track, since it’s a recreational activity for me more than it’s some kind of tedious occupation, but I’d estimate a pretty fair number of books and short stories.

But. Last year, I not only wrote a hell of a lot more in terms of new fiction, I also read a lot more; it was automatic, full of passion and unquestionable joy. Now, that impostor syndrome I mentioned a couple weeks ago has…started to hinder things a bit. I’m so self-conscious of every aspect of my career, hell, every aspect of my life, that now the act of writing has begun to feel like drudgery. Ideas are better, but scarcer; my craft is stronger, but I write far less often; I’ve now sold eight pieces of fiction, one of which was for $327.00 — and yet I fear that I’m not really a writer.

Faker, I hear myself whisper. I hear, But you’ll never ever be as good as Joe Hill or John Kessel or Ursula K. Le Guin or Dick or King or Buckell or any of those folks, because you’re just some kid with a kid’s dumb courage and enthusiasm.

I continue to tell myself, of course, that these voices are the writer’s death. Doom. They’re the voices that make or break a career before it ever begins. I tell myself that after college, the mountainous piles of homework will be gone, and I’ll have the energy, free time, and gusto to write on the kind of regular basis that Chuck Wendig and, well, every other fucking writer who ever made a dime on his or her words prescribes. But I also know that King wrote his first novel — hell, maybe several — while he was still in college, doing the exact same workload that I’m suffering through now.

I have to cultivate better habits of regular writing if I’m to avoid falling into the Pit of Would-Be Writers, where all is talk and no words are ever written. Where would-be careers lie dead in their tracks, unlikely to ever rise back up for fear of failure.

I’ve proven I can produce quality, professional-level writing. There’s no excuse for me to do otherwise; I’ve got to make the time, find the words, and forget the critical voice, the stifling self-doubt, and just have fun with it. Back in June, I got excited about Tom Carpenter’s Mirror Shards call for submissions, wrote a science fiction story over the course of three days or so without thinking for a moment about whether what I was doing was any good, or whether it made any sense, and I ended up producing what is probably one of my best stories to date.

I used to scoff at the idea of a muse in any sense of the word, used to believe that hard work and discipline were all this writing gig takes, but now I’m reconsidering. If a muse is good enough for Stephen King, well, I suppose I shouldn’t be so critical of the idea. So I’m taking measures to nurture one, by taking regular walks at a gorgeous recreational park beside Lake Storey, soaking in the life of the  place, taking photographs, breathing in nature’s air and all that. Spending time with my dog and girlfriend, avoiding beer (which I always suspect will help with the writer’s block, but which I’m unwilling to rely on for creativity) like the plague, and trying to gradually get back in shape.

I know what it takes to be a good writer: the work ethic; the unflinching honesty, originality, and in-your-fucking-faceness; the continual development of a process, devotion to the craft, and love of storytelling. What I need to find now is the path to becoming the best version of myself, and become it — because right now, I’m simply not doing my job as a fiction writer. And I hate myself for it.