Category Archives: writing

Publication Day Plus 1

The Blog Tour for Vulcan’s Forge continues at Scintilla. My pull quote from this review is:

Robert Mitchell Evans manages to create a world that is both a caricature and frighteningly believable. 

As they stream in it has been interesting to read the reviews of the novel. I know there is a great deal of advices suggesting that authors should not read reviews. After all reviews are for readers, to help them find the next book to add to their ‘to be read’ pile and not for feedback to the authors and there is a truth in that. Find reviewer whose taste matches closely with your own and use their information to help you find the next thing you’ll fall in love with. For author negative reviews can be emotionally crippling, or so I am told. Perhaps it is because I am coming to professional publication later in life but I find I can hold negative reviews and feedback at a personal distance. So far no one has hated the book but they will change it simply is the nature of the beast.

However, I am enjoying reading the reviews. It is fascinating to see all the various lens and interpretations that get applied to the text. In my writing group I am fond of saying that no honest critique can be wrong. It is how that person, on that day, reacted to that piece of work. Sometimes people see what is there more clearly than the author and other times what they see says much more about themselves and their worldview that it does about the words on the page. None of that is inherently right or wrong it is how people function. I can know my intention in writing a piece, or in a bit of world building but I too have lens and filters through which I interpret the world and that impacts on my world building in ways that may be invisible to me. So, some of these reviews might even open interpretation that I agree with but never considered because the very premises were obscured from me.

I hope that when the inevitable terrible review rolls in I will react the way I suspect I will. I have always been that sort of person for whom a professional rejection carries little emotional weight. The rejection slip doesn’t trigger imposter syndrome or send me spiraling into self-doubt and depression. My reaction to rejection slips has always been, ‘okay, not for them’ and sending the piece on to the next editor. We shall see if I feel the same way once the first 1-star reviews start appearing on Amazon.

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Publication Day Is Here!

Today is the day. You can now buy Vulcan’s Forge online and at your local booksellers, that is if you live in an area where the shops are open. California has been under a stay at home order since last week but my local favorite bookstore, Mysterious Galaxy, is staking order online and yours might be as well.

It has been a long and twisty road to this day. It started years ago when I decided that I wanted to write a science-fiction noir that didn’t rely on the private eye or police detective plots. And there I stalled for quite a while grinding the gears of my mental transmission searching for the plot and characters of the story.

One thing that consumed more time in my gear grinder than other elements was the search for a McGuffin. Hitchcock coined the term McGuffin referring to the thing that everyone wants in a plot to drive the action of the story, think the bejeweled statue in The Maltese Falcon or the NOC list from the first Mission Impossible movie. Borrowing the wider universe from an unpublished novel of mine I finally worked out the McGuffin and then the characters and story fell into place.

With that I sat down and write Vulcan’s Forge as a 15,000-word novella that did not work.

All the core elements of the story were there but far too compressed lacking the sense of building disaster that I think is one of the central elements to noir fiction. The story had to be a full novel.

So, then I planned on writing a short 60,000-word novel that I expected to self-publish as SF books of that length haven’t really been in fashion since the 60s. However, I overshot that mark and landed at 80,000 words a much more traditional, if a bit on the short side, for novels today.

Once the manuscript was finished, survived it beta-read, I sent it to my then agent where it languished unread until our partnership dissolved and he no longer represented me.

One my own I searched publishers for someone who might be interested in this odd mix of science-fiction and noir and discovered the wonderful people at Flametree. I submitted it, they made an offer, we negotiated, and now the book is out in the world.

Flametree has been wonderful to work with. From the editorial through the promotional processes I have had nothing but good experiences with these people.

Looking back on the trials and tribulations this novel faced to reach publication all I can say is ‘Never Give Up, Never Surrender.’

 

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1 Day Until Release and The Crush of a Deadline

Tomorrow Vulcan’s Forge will be released upon an unsuspecting public. Today’s blog tour stop was Miss Known’s blog and book review site. Let us all give thanks to book bloggers getting the word out there and help authors connect with readers. The pull quote I am taking away from this review is:

“There was so much happening, it made me forget that this was a sci-fi book.”

In addition to traditionally publishing novels one of my goals has been to win The Writers of the Future contest. WotF is a quarterly contest with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners each quarter, then at the conclusion of the contest year the 12 winners are brought together for a week of instruction lead by one of my favorite authors, Tim Powers. The contest does not disclose how many submissions it gets but it is known to be in the thousand each quarter and to date my best placement has been as a finalist, one of the top eight from which the winning three are selected.

Eligibility is restricted to writers who have not been professionally published and that means I lose my eligibility to enter the contest tomorrow with the publication of Vulcan’s Forge.

I have a story in progress the question is; Can I finish it before midnight tonight?

It will be an effort but I am going to try.

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3 Days Until Release and The Blog Tour Begins

This Thursday Vulcan’s Forge will be available from all your usual and favorite booksellers and as of today the link for the e-book went live.

The publisher, Flametree Press, organizes a week of book bloggers reviews the book around each book’s publications date and today my blog tour kicked off with a review at The Bookwormery.

Here’s my pull quote from the review but read the entire thing yourself.

“Wow…..the world building in Vulcan’s Forge is just so well done, the feeling of almost claustrophobic tension is felt throughout. “

In other news my sweetie-wife and I are handling the shelter in place order imposed on California rather well. We get along fabulously, part of why we’re married and all that, and we each have plenty of activities to keep us engaged. Her employer has instituted a work from home policy while I continue to go into the office at my day job, but the office staff is reduced there as many are being sent to work from home as well. A few others and I have volunteered to maintain the critical office roles for as long as possible. I am fortunate to have a job that is critical to helping people get medical care so not only do I still have work and pay but I am also helping people directly during this crisis.

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4 Days until Release & Game Review: Thanos Rising

The novel Vulcan’s Forge will be unleased upon a world clamming for reading material in just 4 more days.

 

My sweetie-wife and I enjoy a good board game and last week I finally got a copy of a game that I had only played at conventions, Thanos Rising: Infinity Wara media tie-in game associated with Avengers: Infinity War.

Thanos Rising a cooperative game for 2 to 4 players who take on the roles of various teams of heroes from the Marvel Cinematic Universe in their bid to prevent the mad Titan Thanos from acquiring all six Infinity Stones and destroying half of all life in the universe.

Each turn a player rolls dice and assigns them towards heroes to recruit onto their team or to villains to damage and eventually eliminate. The players win if they eliminate 7 villains from Thanos’ forces while Thanos has three paths to victory.

  • acquire all six Infinity Stones.
  • eliminate an entire hero (player’s) team
  • eliminate 10 or more heroes

Media tie-in games have a terrible reputation as games that are poorly thought out, designed, and generally as cheap cash grabs riding the tails of something else’s greater popularity but that is not the case with Thanos Rising.this game is well balanced and challenging to play. My group of experiences board gamers is currently running a success rate of about 50% playing the game without enhancing its difficulty at all. All in all, this is a fun game and one that is well worth acquiring.

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5 Days Until Release & The Hunt

Only 5 more days until Vulcan’s Forge is published and a gentle reminder that pre-orders count more than post publication orders for ranking and sales numbers.

Movie Review: The Hunt

Last night a friend and I split the cost to rent The Hunt a film more cursed with it release than my own novel’s trouble path to publication. Originally scheduled for release last year The Hunt is a graphic violent satire of the current political climate forged with the classic story The Deadliest Game. The overt and over-the-top political bent of the characters created a controversy last year and the title was pulled from distribution. Now the release has been thrown into chaos by the COVID-19 pandemic and the studio moved it to on-line rentals to recoup at least some of the production cost.

Betty Gilpin plays Crystal, one of nearly a dozen conservative characters who are kidnapped and awaken in a forest lethally hunted by cultural elites for sport. With a modest budget of 14 million dollars and released by horror studio Blumhouse The Hunt is over all an unsatisfying picture. None of the characters are fully developed and the yet are also not broad enough for over the top satire. The film takes too long to connect with its main character and I found that distancing and prevented me from becoming emotionally engaged in her struggle. Perhaps the greatest failing of The Hunt is as satire. Satire requires a point, an argument, it needs to stand for something and to say something. While it is far from necessary for the film to ‘pick a side’ in the liberal/conservative cultural war it satirizes it is necessary that the film say something, make some sort of point. The classic film Doctor Strangelove is satire with broad characters and does not pick a side in the US vs USSR cold War but does make a point about the madness of mutually assured destruction and living on a knife’s edge. The Hunt makes no statement, exhibits no point of view, but simple moves caricature of characters through cartoony chaos. While my friend enjoyed the movie, I find it is not one I can recommend.

 

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6 Days Until Release

It is now 6 days, less than a week, until Flametree Press publishes my first novel, Vulcan’s Forge.

First novel is such a strange term. Certainly, from the point of view of reviews and the public this is number one but from the point of view of the author it is far from my first, merely the first to survive until publication.

The very first novel I ever write was way way back in 1979 during my senior year of high school. Freeeholder was a post-apocalyptic adventure novel centered on a culture of liberal pacifist survivalists.

After my tour in the U.S. Navy there was a significant period of time when I did no writing whatsoever and even following that years long dry period what I attempted to write were screenplays.

It really wasn’t until the late 90s that I returned to prose writing and then it was short stories as I was quite fearful of the commitment required for a novel. During the 2000s I started writing novels again when a particular idea seized my and would not let go until had committed it to prose.

Several novels were then written over the years, some are destined to be re-written and some are going to be forever abandoned but all were learning experiences that extended my abilities as a writer.

Vulcan’s Forge started prior to 2015 when I first wrote it as a novella but that was far too brief for the world building required for this SF noir. The novel version was written and completed in 2017. At the time I had an agent and I turned the manuscript in to him and it sat on his desk unread for year until our association was dissolved.

2019 I submitted it to Flametree Press and they bought the book. My time with them has been fantastic. I couldn’t ask for better partners in traditional publishing.

The COVID-19 pandemic is terrible. I live in California and we are today 20 March 2020, under a stay at home order, though I work in an essential area of health care and will still be going to my day job. My signing and launch event were canceled, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of one little debut author, but books are still being delivered and you can still order it from your local bookstores, so all is not bleak.

‘First’ novels are rarely the first ones written but just as with ‘overnight’ successes perception doesn’t match reality.

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BOOK SIGNING CANCELED

BOOK SIGNING CANCELED

Due to the continuing Corona Crisis, not even a pandemic will stop my alliterations, the signing event for my first novel is now canceled.

With gatherings of 10 or more people highly discouraged the store, Mysterious Galaxy, has closed to foot and in-person traffic until at least April 1st. There are discussions of possibly rescheduling the event for later in the year but I am sure slots will be limited and I am not the only author impacted so a reschedule would be nice but I am not counting on it.

If you were planning to attend the event, or if independent bookstores are important to you, I suggest that you buy the book from Mysterious Galaxy anyway. They are taking orders and fulfilling them by mail. Bezos and Amazon will weather this storm with literally billions in cash but local businesses will not be so lucky.

Mysterious Galaxy is a critical factor in the existence of my novel Vulcan’s Forge. For ten years I have met there with my writing group and that has certainly leveled me up as a writer and their staff are always helpful, friendly, supportive, and knowledgeable. From Mysterious Galaxy and stores like them you get those personal recommendation that can lead you to a new favorite author, not something simply pushed by an algorithm.

Vulcan’s Forge is my first novel and I certainly hope it is not my last. Having your debut event canceled is tough but COVID-19 is tougher and we can weather this if we do the right things. So, I will be sad to not have that signing but I hope that instead people stay safe, healthy, and order the book online even if they can’t have my illegible scribbling defacing it.

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Debut in the Time of Corona

It is now less than two weeks until the publication of my first novel Vulcan’s Forge and the world is gripped in crisis. A novel corona, Covid-19, that emerged from China towards the end of 2019 is now rapidly spreading around the globe, shuttering entire cities, overwhelming hospitals, and killing people.

Far more important that my debut is fighting Covid-19. We have to keep our distances from each other, we have to disperse any large groups and gatherings, we have to flatten the curve because it is too late to halt the spread of the disease, Chinese and American mismanagement has assured us of that failure, but we can slow the growth enough, maybe, to keep from crashing ours and the world’s healthcare system.

The virus appeared in China in early December but reports were suppressed and people endangered by their government for speaking the truth. Reporting bad news is a bad thing to do in authoritarian systems, China refused concede that there was human to human transmission until later January, wasting vital time for the world to take the precautionary action required to stop the virus.

President Trump dismissed early warnings about the virus, berated staff for bringing it up, and lied to the public about the seriousness of the threat. We do not have an authoritarian system we do have a man-child for whom bad news is a forbidden subject.

Compounding the mismanagement by the presidential administration we have the bad decision making about testing and test kits. Test kits for identifying the virus were available for US agencies to mass produce and use but the decision was made to develop new test kits that would be able to detect a spectrum of corona viruses not only the specific virus causing the pandemic, Those new kits turned out to be faulty, and in limited supply, hamstringing our ability to know the facts on the ground as the disease established its beachhead in the United States.

We’re now facing serious troubles, but we can still do thing that matter. Soap and water is your best defense and the best thing you can do to protect those around you. Limiting social contact is essential.

I’ll admit to being depressed over my debut as a novelist during this crisis and to feeling guilty about being depressed. I’m no good at being noble but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of one little novel doesn’t’ amount to a hill of beans in the world. Yeah, I use movie quotes all the time in real life. Read my novel and you’ll understand.

 

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Two Weeks until Publication

In two weeks, Mach 26th 2020, my novel Vulcan’s Forge will be available at all booksellers in paperback and hardback editions from Flametree Press. Yesterday my US edition author copies arrived and I got my first look at the hardbacks.

They look great, but I could be biased.

This has been a moment a long time coming. The first time I attempted writing a novel was 1979 in my senior year of high school. Freeholder was a post-apocalyptic story about liberal pacifist survivalist. I did complete it so it counts as my first novel and no it is never going to see the light of day.

There have been other novels in between, though it wasn’t until fairly recently that I returned to the novel as a format. Some of those recent books I plan to re-write and there even one currently under consideration by a couple of publishers including my current home of Flametree.

In just over two weeks, March 28th 2020, I will be holding my author event and signing for Vulcan’s Forge, provided it is not canceled due to Corona Crisis, at Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego. I’ll admit to be quite nervous about a public reading and signing but it is part of the gig.

 

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