Saturday 28 July 2012

The hardest yards in a new author's universe


We've all been there. That moment when you can feel that you are on the verge of something uniquely great. A tantalising taste of tangy triumph and possibility that makes you believe again in the rationality of your efforts. A glimpse of potential that brings everything into focus. A classic moment of clarity without a narcissistic prerequisite of debauchery and redemption.

Tonight, I've been having one of these moments following the progress of my project on Kickstarter. My blog has been neglected for more than a week because I've been preoccupied with the ungracious and untidy art of self-promotion. I've been fundraising on Kickstarter to get my novel, Primae Noctis, the independent editing support that it needs. Although the project is far from guaranteed success with just 10 days remaining, I feel reinvigorated by recent support from both friends and strangers. But this also brings to me a sense of foreboding and trepidation. With time growing short, the spectre of another setback looms on the horizon.

Words almost seem like they are too hard to sell these days. Especially when your words don't fit into a preferred or “saleable” preset of what many would suggest is expected from a new science fiction author.  Some voices that proclaim rigid requirements for new authors come from genuine concern for quality in a bedraggled and ill-treated genre, whilst others would seem to desire to preserve an antiquated vetting and hazing of new minds to enforce literary groupthink or collective mediocrity.  But what's the point of spending thousands of hours of your life creating a new universe when it will be exactly comparable to numerous other universes that have been created recently? Why recapture twenty-two points of a perversion of Lord Raglan's thesis in yet another pedantic work? As with most things, the simple, but ethically unacceptable answer is, money. But a selfish and sorrowful effort would fail to quench my thirst to develop and share new ideas.

The ultimate challenge for both old and new authors is not to sate demand for populist subject matter, but to create demand for new ideas and new iterations of possibility. The same goes for creating works that are eroded for the specific intent of being “more accessible” to a “wider audience”. You can bastardise your own idea, but you will sell your creative soul to some imagined devil of populism for all time.

Some might argue that this is a problem with not just today's literature, but also with the world in general. We lower expectations of ourselves and others rather than challenging ourselves and others to rise to the occasion to gain greater levels of insight and knowledge. We scorn those who build characters and write with painfully human or scientific detail. We criticise 10-cent words because we're growing too lazy to bother to expand our vocabularies. We mindlessly recite and share jingles and jargon, but have no patience for a moment at a dictionary to understand deeper meaning. Our rush to genericise and neuter challenge is also reducing innovation and intelligence in the greater population. With a world that is in desperate need of innovation and bravery on so many levels, it can be very easy to view compromise as a means to an end. Unfortunately, this sort of compromise is the end for many.

The hardest yards in the universe for a new author aren't the obvious ones. Because they are first ones that you cross in your mind to get a truly creative project moving, even though you have no surety of success. They are also the ones that you cross every day from your bedside to the mirror to reassure yourself that you need to keep trying.

As a new author, the hardest yards in the universe are also the ones that you will cross when faced with a setback. But you know that you will cross them to regroup and try again.

I know that I will keep crossing these hard yards until I don't need to look back.

Monday 16 July 2012

Kickstarting Primae Noctis, or what I've learned from my first 168 hours in crowdsourcing's cybertrenches


The most important lesson that I have learned from crowdsourcing my novel, Primae Noctis, is to keep hope alive after the initial shock and panic of being out there.  I say this even though there are only a few more short weeks to go. There are plenty of projects that don't reach any tangible mass in just a few days and go on to succeed, so there's plenty of cause for continued optimism. The one thing that should be avoided at all costs is public or overt pessimism, even if one isn't delighted with outcomes to date.

As I think that I've mentioned on my blog before, I am generally quite loath to self-promotion. I feel bile moving deep in my gullet whenever the notion of telling others anything for personal gain crosses my mind. But especially in the case of crowdsourcing, one must get the word out by any means necessary! Who will support you if you don't support yourself?

The first week of crowdsourcing is a difficult experience, unless you've prearranged a vast amount of support for your project in advance. I had a modicum of support lined up, and it softened the blow a little bit. Other than a mention on my website and on a couple of message boards, I thought that it would be premature to announce a Kickstarter project that hadn't yet been approved.

I was probably wrong, and using a Barnum-style rationale, I probably should have rented the online equivalent of a Sydney bus overflowing with rugby cheerleaders and eskies full of free grog. But that's right, we are crowdsourcing because we can't afford to play like the big guys do... bribery and appeal to sexist stereotypes are generally out of the question to gain the favour of the 'crowd'.

Spreading more information about yourself across the web is painful, especially if you value your privacy or sanity. But to have the best chance of success, you will need to swallow your pride (and possibly your chewing gum) and start a conversation with others about who you are, what you hope to achieve, and why they should help you. State your objectives succinctly, directly, and hopefully with a touch of panache.

A key consideration is how you manage and control the flows of information that you send from your computer. Even consider what I've done: create a flow chart to see where your messages from different sources end up, so that you don't get unnecessary repetition.

Managing your voice and message across Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Kickstarter, your blog, and other platforms is a full time job. It is important to take care and make sure that you have a consistent voice that is reasonably clear in your objectives to all audiences. Probably the biggest embarrassment that can happen is if you contradict yourself and thus discourage supporters. So far, I have been lucky enough to avoid this. 

If you ordinarily blog or share social commentary with others, you should continue to do so.  If you don't, then you'll need to learn how to real quick.  If your ordinary social commentary presents you in a less-than-appropriate light, then you may wish to wait about a decade after scrubbing the Internet with virtual steel wool and soap before attempting anything at all.

Your backers probably don't want to be deluged by more requests for assistance. The public doesn't want to be nagged or spammed to death by an unreasonable amount of requests from you. You don't want to lose followers or potential supporters due to message fatigue.  I wasn't a luddite when I began, but learning the nuances of gaining support on Twitter and Facebook is challenging.  But don't lose hope, as there are plenty of resources about to help anyone get up to speed that are worth looking at.

Inevitably, your friends and family will bear the brunt of your social media onslaught, so you'll just have to promise them that you will take them for a night out on the town or do their chores for a few hundred years to make up for it. If any of my friends or family caught that last bit, please disregard it...

Finally, always get in the plug.  You can help to support the editing and release of my new science fiction novel Primae Noctis on Kickstarter at http://kck.st/M9vhX2

See, I haven't lost hope yet!

Friday 13 July 2012

'Acme Ion Trips' or 'Imprecations'? A continued need for both bright and dark visions of the future


As I try to be attentive to the blogs and articles from the deep core of the hive mind of science fiction, several threads have emerged recently that suggest that there are too many dark visions about.  It is ironic that some of this well-considered criticism is coming from some of the science fiction minds that have given us some of the most intriguing dark visions of the future.  Tie-in blog posts and similar articles have appeared in the Smithsonian, Slate, and on other author's forums.  One recently featured guest post on the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) website by Guy Stewart, particularly inspired me to write this post/rant. He suggests that the word 'apocalypse' is becoming synonymous with 'science fiction', especially amongst the young that he instructs.

I would suggest that more sinister flavours of sci-fi are popular right now because people of all ages are genuinely concerned with the state of the world in which we live, and are increasingly willing to be forthcoming about their belief that our future isn't looking terribly bright. The abundance of overt negativity in the world naturally inspires their reading and viewing habits.

Apparently, concerns regarding a preponderance of dark visions have given rise to some good creative efforts aimed at presenting brighter and more inspirational visions of the future, especially for the next generation of young minds.  In my opinion, creating any new vision of the future specifically geared for the young is a very laudable endeavour.  But young adults are more than just a literary herd of prize cattle to be milked dry, as they are also our future citizens, lawmakers, scientists, and critical thinkers. What if they were exposed to nothing but bright and optimistic visions of what could come to be?  Should we also bind them from reading Shakespeare, Chaucer, Hemingway, or Salinger, for fear of what their dark visions might yet inspire?

In specific regard to young adults, what should science fiction authors and writers do? Should we pull the wool over their collective eyes and proclaim to them that it is wrong to compare and contrast a dystopic future critically with the times in which they live? Should we tell them that regardless of the pain and dysfunction that they are very capable of witnessing on the nightly news, that they should presume that “everything's gonna be alright somehow”? Should we force feed our children with positivity, mouths agape and eyes sealed shut, until their tiny livers explode? The young are not blind, nor can we treat them as captive geese.

To be fair, my first major work, Primae Noctis, is not intended for consumption by the young.  But I would have a difficult time producing a story for anyone that was following some unnatural, external directive to “inspire”, “motivate”, or “brainwash” any segment of the reading population.  I like the idea that readers at any age can come to their own conclusions regarding the content that they wish to read.  For whatever reason that they choose to read.

Inspiration to "do better" and "produce better things" can evolve from many types of sources, even pessimistic or gloomy ones.  I hope that the science fiction community continues to produce both bright and dark visions, as a perfect future is evidently not in our immediate future.  To ignore the imperfections of any possible reality is to embrace its possible inevitably.

If dystopic and apocalyptic visions are what is needed for a 'revolution of the mind' to occur so that readers, both young and old, will become more active in civic participation and concerned about the likelihood of a dark future, then I hope that we see plenty more darkness from the people that are tasked with the mission of delivering us the future ahead of schedule.

Wednesday 11 July 2012

What value have unknown words... the first 72 hours

It find it to be very difficult to stop myself from continuously camping out in front of the computer screen to check on the progress of the Primae Noctis Kickstarter project.  Although the project itself is off to a somewhat less-than-auspicious start after the better part of three days (5 backers @ $131/$5,000), I am very encouraged by the significant uptake in people that are interested in the novel.  Twitter, Facebook, and this blog are all showing very sizable increases in traffic.  I have even received a few emails of encouragement and support via my own website.

I have already moved on to the next step, trying to get the word out to influential voices in the sci-fi genre community that cover new crowdsourcing efforts on blogs, message boards, and news sites.  Along the way, the periphery of my search vision has become flooded with negative scenarios about how the Kickstarter bubble has already burst, how one must be a celebrity to succeed, and reams of negativity in the form of project statistics.  I choose to forget them and remain a 'true believer'. 

Not unwilling to look at any possibility to spread the word or get a well-considered mention, I have also decided to plan a pub-based fundraiser for the effort here in Sydney halfway through the project with the hopes of attracting more local ground-based support.  Have a schooner or a pint, and kick in a dollar toward your mate's novel.  Good on 'ya, mates (and hopefully a few mates of mates)!

So what value do an unknown author's words have?  The very question seems tantamount to asking if words have any value at all... but if you're reading this, they must have some value.  72 hours in, and I find this to be the very encouragement that I need to press onwards.

Monday 9 July 2012

More than just a fiction of science becoming reality


It seems amazing to me that Primae Noctis is finally on its way to gaining a proper, independent distribution and people that I don't even know are already beginning to back the project on Kickstarter. The technologies of self-promotion and the ability to connect with others that the Internet provides are truly amazing, especially when one considers how recent a development that most of them are.

The complexity of our digital connections can be so overwhelming at times, but it is truly a blessing for those of us who are seeking to share ideas and spread the word about our new creations. I am also finding time to probe deeper into the sociological aspects of this meta-connectedness, and have a sense that many people have been wondering for some time about what the next evolutionary step for the Internet might be.

One question that comes to mind is if the Internet will continue to be a thing that people are truly aware or conscious of as an entity? Might our increasing levels of connectedness eventually relegate the concept of Internet to the manner of an appliance or tool to the point where it isn't even named?  Could the Internet eventually become our all-encompassing state or nation, to which we pledge allegiance to and all consider ourselves citizens of?  Or could the freedom that we see before us turn sour and become a far more restrictive place that seeks to limit our connectedness rather than enhance it?

For the moment, having just achieved permanent residency in cyberspace and looking forward to achieving my own digital dreams, I'm very content to imagine the possibilities, just as an early arrival to New York in the early 20th century might have gazed upon the Statue of Liberty or the early skyscrapers of Manhattan.

For the first time in a long time, I again believe that anything is possible and that nothing is fiction.

Tuesday 3 July 2012

Challenging my fear of the unknown

Well, it's official.  Everyone can now read the first 80 pages or so of Primae Noctis in their unedited form.  I can't help but feel extremely nervous of what the general public (possibly you) will think when they have a read of the sample:  Too wordy?  Not enough action?  Too graphic?  Overtly philosophical?  I debated providing a more selected sample of the novel rather than offering the pages from the beginning, but I felt that it would deprive readers of a fair chance of discovery for some of the greater mysteries of Primae Noctis in the order in which they were intended to be revealed.  Too late to worry about it now...

The time is growing close for the launch of the Primae Noctis Kickstarter crowdsourcing project launch.  It will go live globally sometime after the end of the Independence Day holiday weekend in the United States.  At this point, I think that anyone would wonder if they have done everything that they could to ensure the success of their effort.  Decent website?   Check.  Social media linked in?  Check.  Friends and colleagues on board to help spread the word?  Check.  Self-confidence and expectations reasonably established?  Check and check...sort of...

In addition to fulfilling a lifelong ambition, this whole process has also been one of personal discovery.  Do I feel that I've learned enough from all of the random adventures and education in my life to convince anyone else that I can deliver an interesting narrative?  I hope so.  Finding my voice and the confidence to take my concept and ideas direct to the public rather than deciding to trod the well-established channels of the literary establishment has been the real gut check.  I know that the decision leaves little margin for error on my part.  These are very nervous words.

I think that everyone has a few times in their lives where they need to throttle up and take a big risk to try to capture a part of their dreams.  In the past, I sometimes let irrational fears of the unknown stand in my way, as I tried to hide my secret identity as a risk averse person.  Life is replete with opportunities that we miss out on due to fear of risk, and I'm glad that I was able to come to terms such concerns and not miss this opportunity.

Conquering the fear of failure is one lesson that I know that I will take away from this experience regardless of the ultimate outcome.  The more that this endeavour becomes a reality, the greater sense that I feel that I have already achieved something very important.