While the conference isn’t actually over for another few hours, it is for me.  Because I’m tired.  And my panels are all finished, so I’ve come back home to medicate my knees and tell you all the interesting (to me, at least) bits I remember.  (Things do have a tendency to blur at these things.)

Thursday

The conference started off with an interesting panel on writing style, after which I talked with Lisa Mangum about a requested manuscript of mine that’s apparently disappeared in some vortex at Shadow Mountain.  She said she isn’t in the vortex neighborhood (acquisitions) any more, but that believe it or not there is  bottom to the singularity and, yes, a fourteen month wait probably is a good sign in this case.  Having decided I would take what I could get in the optimism department, I headed to a presentation on open source software that made me aware of a few tools that may be very, very helpful.  (I’d never even heard of GIMP, which is apparently an open source graphic program in the vein of PhotoShop, for example.)  After this, I attended a panel on Mormons writing, reading, and editing horror fiction, mostly because Michael Collings (formerly of Pepperdine) took part, and I always love hearing him speak and teach.

Nathan Hale (who works with Shannon Hale on the Rapunzle graphic novels but is not her husband, brother, or othersuch, but is a scion of the Hale theater dynasty) then gave the day’s keynote address, which was a blend of three presentations that wasn’t exactly seemless and was better for it.  It was fun, as were the substantial number of flying fish (the helicopter rather than the standard species).   

Then came my first panel of the conference: Putting Romance in Fantasy.  Other panelists included Mette Harrison (who was a fine moderator in addition to contributing a great deal), Ami Chopine, Lesli Muir Lytle, and Anna del C. Dye.  We talked about romance as a concept apart from romance as a genre, which I thought was important, and I even thought to bust out one of my favorite Oscar Wilde quotes.  A number of people complimented me on the panel over the weekend, so I must have said something constructive, which is the goal.   

Soon after I took part in my second panel of the day, which addressed why so many mothers and dogs and such die in children’s stories.  My friend and former editor Stacy Whitman (who is moving to New York, hurray!) served as moderator and panelist as she pitched questions at two good friends, Julie Wright and Paul Genesse, and myself.  Much of the time was spent establishing the difference between a trope and a cliche, which is a really important distinction.

Oh, I almost forgot.  That night I was invited to a goodbye dinner for Stacy at Bangkok Grill in Orem (about 8th south and 3rd east, I believe).  It was quite a gathering.  Stacy went to BYU with Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Taylor, and a bunch of others now in the writing/publishing world, and they kindly let me attend with the rest of the clan.  It was kind of a thing to see, about twenty-five or thirty of us, a surprising number published writers (some very famous).  Here’s all you need to know: 1) Bangkok Grill is very good (Howard knows his Thai food) so you should go.  Frequently.  2)  Talking about methods of procuring and utilitzing tape worms for medicinal use is not the best subject for dinner conversation, but it can and does happen.  3)  If you think a writer is an especially capable, interesting, or admirable kind of person, never, ever go to dinner with a gang of us.  I fit in that night.  That means you will be disappointed to the brink of suicide.  4) Eating spicy food at night does not hinder my sleep, for which I am profoundly grateful.       

Friday

I was on the first panel of the morning, which filled up despite the hour (9:00 am) because of a really strong lineup: Guest of Honor and NY Times Bestseller Brandon Sanderson, the certified and certifiable schlock genius Howard Taylor, good buddy and perpetual puzzle James Dashner, and Larry Correia and Karen Hoover, neither of whom I knew but both certainly held their own on this heavyweight panel.  I hope I did the same, because this session earned a lot of praise—perhaps because it ranged from imbibing Essence of Payton Manning (you will live a happier life if you don’t ask) to the redneck fairies in Larry’s work to Brandon’s taking “Rapunzel’s hair” and “Sponge Bob” and transmuting them into a story about a space elevator constructed of impervious, semi-divine keratin which facilitates the discovery of a race of sentient sponges.  Yeah, if you weren’t there, you missed out.  That fifty minutes will never be replicated.

Marty Brenneis was the day’s keynotes, and he showed how George Lucas’s special effects company did every single cool thing you’ve ever seen on film.  It was a blast!  (Very literally.)  

At noon I was scheduled for a signing, which eventually happened though it looked for a long time that it wouldn’t.  There was some miscommunication between event organizers and the BYU Bookstore, and myself along with quite a few other authors found none of our books were available to buy.  When I discovered this the previous day I allowed my frustration to get the better of me for a while, but a very kind and patient woman named Tami arranged for me to sell on consignment and all went swimmingly.  They even got a sign with my name printed out in three hours!  I’m telling you, that girl is magic.  I signed some books over the course of the hour and talked to more people, so it turned out great.  A few other ladies at the bookstore helped me along with Tami though I didn’t catch their names.  Thanks, ladies.       

An hour later came my second panel of the day on writing authentic child characters.  Other panelists were Julie Wright (a much better moderator than she gives herself credit for), Dene Low (Laura Card), Laura Bingham, Bron Bahlmann (who is sixteen and truly deserved his seat!), myself, and James Dashner doing his best Jeff Savage impression as Jeff didn’t make it.  (For the record, it was more of a James doing Jeff doing a spot-on James Dashner impression.)  Again, things went well.  I didn’t know Dene or Laura very well, but they were both impressive.  Bron made me feel both old and a touch slow, which is a striking concoction of inferiority.  I’m a bit embarrassed that I laughed when James explained his process of secondary character creation, but it wasn’t insulting at all, at least, it wasn’t meant to be.  It was a result of perplexity.  James just writes good stories, much in the way the wind blows.  He’s so instinctive where I’m analytic.  He’ll tell you frankly he doesn’t know how or why about much of his process and, equally frankly, it’s like an itch I can’t scratch.  I gotta know how that brain works!  I swear, if he’s ever foolish enough to take a nap near me when we’re alone I’m going to find some scissors or something and poke around in his brain.  James, you have been warned.

I wrapped up the day with a really interesting presentation by Bryan Beus, a visual artist who reminds me a lot of myself in his approach to art.  He presented on archetypes and the monomyth in narrative from a largely visual point of view, which I found fascinating.  It really was like looking at a very familiar subject through lenses just that much different from what you’re used to.  We talked for a minute afterward and it was clear that there was some methodological kinship there.  I’m really glad I went.

Saturday

I’m always a bit drained by the third day of a conference and I was only on one Saturday panel, so I planned on keeping things short.  The day started off pleasantly when Brandon Mull and I parked near each other and walked into the Wilkinson Center together.  We caught up a bit and talked shop.  Brandon is one of the very successful writers who has and continues to pound the pavement like a madman.  He’s visited, I don’t know, a thousand schools over the years?  Whatever the actual number, he’s a legend in the local children’s writing world for his energy and work ethic.  When you add that to a terrific storyteller and a genuinely nice guy, you get someone who’s always nice to cross paths with.

Again, my panel was the first of the day (though my second on romance, go figure).  Where before I was the only guy on the romance panel, this was all men: moderator John Brown (who I got to know at dinner on Thursday), fellow Dragonlance writer Dan Willis, and L.E. Modesitt Jr (Lee) in addition to myself.  I thought this panel was fantastic, though Lee did disagree with me a few times (ouch!).  I can’t complain, honestly.  This was a good panel with the four of us dealing with pretty nuanced stuff, from sociological theory to narrative craftsmanship.  There was a lot of interplay and, I think, really actionable information for those in attendance.  I was glad to be a part and look forward to future events with all these men (though the topic of romance seems unlike as a future place for us to meet up). 

Then I spent an hour or two talking with a lovely nineteen-year-old woman about her book—or, you might say, abusing her by suggesting so many options for revision it certainly gave her a headache.  I’d use her name, but she insists she’s a thirty-plus married with two children.  I don’t want to expose her identity as a bald (and very young)-faced liar.

Then I went to two panels on worldbuilding.

Then I came home to write to you.    

Other things I’ll report (which you may or may not want to know):

* People ask me to take pictures with them, and this happened three times at LTUE.  I always agree, but still find this to be extremely odd.  Rather like taking pictures of a can of soup.  There is nothing particularly off putting about a can of soup, certainly, but neither is it possessed of a rare aesthetic quality.  Whenever I’m asked to take a picture with someone, a single thought fills my head: stop looking so confused.

* James Dashner’s entrance in a room is sometimes accomplied by applause, only some of which is sarcastic.  Brandon Sanderson’s is accompanied by greater applause, none of it sarcastic.  Mine is accompanied by no applause.  All of this strikes me as logical.

* Paul Genesse wrote some very generous things (perhaps overly so) on his blog after our Thursday afternoon panel.  He actually posted it that day—after being on four panels!  Like Brandon Mull, Paul too is a machine in synthetic flesh.     

* The Brandons Mull and Sanderson signed books for my brother and his wife.  I will now be even cooler to their family.  (My nephew, who will be four tomorrow, thinks I’m pretty awesome already, so just wait until he can read the dedication to GDC.)

* Best panelist of the conference: L.E. Modesitt Jr.  Yeah, yeah, that guy who kind of sort of disagreed with me about some stuff.  I may not agree with him on everything, but I do most things—and the guy knows his craft and knows how to talk about it.  I admire and respect his balance of intellectual orientation in the disciplines of economics, politics, and other social dynamics with the truly idiosyncratic nature of telling a story.  He’s one who does it right, if you ask me (though he’d be the first to point out that a million other ways can be just as right).  The Brandons, Howard Taylor, and Dan Wells among others are always standouts, but this weekend’s cream was Lee (which, unfortunately, rose only on Saturday as he was supporting his wife with an event she is holding this weekend).  If you ever get a chance to hear Lee talk about writing, don’t pass it up, I’m telling you.    

* My friend Eric Swedin and I still have yet to appear on the same panel, which is beginning to threaten mathematical probability as we know it.  My five panels were, I believe, more than the allotment to anyone not a very special guest.  For his part, Eric is so omni-present at this thing that it is unofficially known as Life, the Universe, and Eric.  (This may become official next year depending on Eric’s generosity and the conference’s poverty.)  I’m impatient to sit with him at the same covered table brimming with mics and free water, do you hear me!

* At my book signing a lady picked up my book, started to read, and in about a minute laughed long and hard out loud.  That was cool.

* Yup, LTUE was all good.

Just a reminder that I’ll be at LTUE this weekend: Thursday - Saturday at BYU (3rd floor of the Wilkinson Student Center, as Marny kindly reminded me).  Also a reminder that the conference is FREE and that my charm will be in rare full display as I pontificate on romance and writing not once but twice.  And a comment that only the exceedingly lame and those with very good excuses will miss this event.  (A good excuse would involve death or dismemberment in some way; a healthy letting of blood alone won’t cut it.)

If my tidbit ethos alone is insufficient bait then don’t forget the main courses: Brandons Sanderson and Mull, L.E. Modesitt, James Dashner, Howard Taylor, Mette Ivie Harrison, Lisa Mangum, ad infinitum.  (Well, maybe not that long.)

And here, once more, is my schedule:

Thursday, Feb. 11th

2:00 pm: Putting Romance into Your Fantasy—Do you have to have a love story in Fantasy?  Why or why not?  If you do, how do you balance it with the action and adventure?  Other panelists will be Mette Ivie Harrison, Ami Chopine, Lesli Muir Lytle, and Anna del C. Dye.

4:00 pm: No More Dead Dogs (or Moms)—Why do mothers and dogs always die in children’s literature?  How do we pull at the heartstrings and give child characters independence without killing off dogs and moms?  Other panelists will be Julie Wright, my old editor Stacy Whitman, and Paul Genesse, all good friends so this should be fun.  Also, Stacy andI kind of invented this panel last year.

Friday, Feb. 12th

9:00 am: How to Become an Idea Factory—Where do you find ideas?  How do you go from an idea to a story?  Other panelists will be Brandon Sanderson, Howard Taylor, James Dashner, Larry Correia, and Karen Hoover.  There are some heavy hitters on this panel, so don’t miss it.

12:00 pm: I’ll be having a book signing.

2:00 pm: Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction for a Discerning Audience—How to write believable child characters.  Other panelists will be Julie Wright, Laura Bingham, Laura Card, and Bron Bahlmann Wilcox.  Just a heads up, I think I may take this one in two different directions.  It seems the panel is asking two questions: how to make speculative elements feel authentic, and how to write authentic children characters.  If you’re interested in either question I think you’ll get some interesting insights.

Saturday, Feb. 13th

9:00 am: A Guy’s Take on Writing Romance.  Other panelists will be L.E. Modesitt, Dan Willis, Aleta Clegg, and John Brown.

What do you call a bunch of librarians?  A pack?  A mob?  I hope it’s not a murder (it is for crows, you see).  Next month I’m presenting at the UELMA (Utah Educational Library Media Association) Spring Conference, where I’ll begin the session by pointing out that Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations and R.L. Stine’s Welcome to Dead House are essentially (in terms of archetype) the same story.  I’ve never known any books to generate such antipathy in elementary educators as the Goosebumps books, so I’m a little worried that the session will end prematurely in some violent episode. 

If it doesn’t, I’ll claim much more than a foundational sameness between Great Expectations and Welcome to Dead House; I’ll argue for the following texts being riffs on the same elemental story: Pride and Prejudice, The Harry Potter Series, The Graveyard Book, Holes, Much Ado about Nothing, Fablehaven, A Wrinkle in Time, The Tale of Despereaux, Last of the Mohicans, Dracula, Dune, Little Women, The Illiad, and the books of 1 and 2 Samuel from the Old Testament (the story of King David).  And just for the record, I am NOT making a comment on the veracity or lack of such of scripture.  Archetypal theory is about narrative, not fiction; it addresses the structure humans apply to everything, including facts and events, in order to construct meaning.

Sound implausible, all those books being the same story?  Well, if you’re not a librarian you may have to figure out how and why this is true on your own.  Then again, once I have a presentation in my toolbox I’m not one to let it rust in there.  If things go well I’ll see about doing the presentation other places.  Then the world can share in the wonderful knowledge that Mr. Darcy is Darth Vader, Japanese Kabuki is only technically and cosmetically different from classical Ballet, and not only do all the world’s great religions believe very similar things, but that these things are taught using the same story that undergirds life.

I’ll let you know how things go next month, as always.  But next on the docket is LTUE!

Vivia wrote the following:

I plan to attend the workshop each month. Do you attend regularly? I am willing to learn, and would welcome any advice you can give me.

If you mean the Oquirrh chapter meeting of the League of Utah Writers, I attend as often as I can. It was the first writers organization of any kind I ever became involved with, and through the people I met there a lot of important things have happened in my career. Also, I’ve made a lot of friends in the group, as well as throughout the other chapters of the League. So I go as often as I can.

Back to Vivia:

What does LTUE stand for?

Life, the Universe, and Everything: The Marion K. “Doc” Smith Symposium on Science Fiction & Fantasy. No, I’m not making that up. 2010 is the 28th annual holding of the conference. Er, um, symposium. I believe one’s nose must be slightly elevated in a snooty way to pronounce that word properly, by the way. That’s why I call it a conference. I can do snooty, but not very well.

Vivia (a name I am going to “borrow” for a character at some point) concludes with:

Hope to someday read one of your books. I will get one as soon as possible.

As things hoped for go, this is about the grandest of them all. World peace is almost as good.

Now to practice my assembly presentation a few times before visiting Farnsworth Elementary later today. Not that I’m complaining, not at all, but I’m still a little perplexed at how intelligent, responsible adults can knowingly and willingly expose large numbers of children to me. I’m pretty sure my odd breed of madness is catching. Oh well. Who doesn’t appreciate 300 tetched elementary students?

Still resting my wrist (kind of), so this’ll be quick.  Here’s a look at the list of panels I may be on at LTUE this year (Feb. 11-13th).  While this is subject to change, I’ll probably be on 3 or 4 of these panels.  I’ll also be doing a signing, and maybe a reading, despite the fact that I’ve never really taken to readings (don’t worry, I’m proficient at reading out loud, I just don’t enjoy it).  Hope to see some of you there. 

Thursday

9:00 a.m.—Killer Openings: How to write a gripping, engaging and interesting first paragraph.

2:00 p.m.—Putting Romance into Your Fantasy: Do you have  to have a love story in Fantasy?  Why or why not.  If you do, how do you balance it with the action and adventure?  (No, I’m not kidding.) 

3:00 p.m.—Writing Strong Female Characters. (Clearly, my reputation as a specialist on women has preceded me.)

4:00 p.m.—No More Dead Dogs (or moms): Why do mothers and dogs always die in children’s literature?  How do we pull at the heartstrings and give child characters independence without killing off dogs and moms?  (I think my friend and former editor, Stacy Whitman, and I invented this panel at LTUE last year.)

5:00 p.m.—Worldbuilding 101

Friday

9:00 a.m.—How to Become an Idea Factory: Where do you find ideas?  How do you go from an idea to a story?

1:00 p.m.—Style in Speculative Fiction: SF was long denigrated for being a literature of ideas, not of good composition.  How has that changed?  What constitutes “good style” in SF or fantasy, and what is the difference between the two?  What special stylistic challenges (for instance, exposition) face the SF or fantasy writers that aren’t an issue for mainstream writers?

2:00 p.m.—Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction for a Discerning Audience: How to write believable child characters. (I think I’ll be on this one, as I’m something of a voice in the wilderness on this topic sometimes.)

Saturday

9:00 a.m.—A Guy’s Take on Writing Romance.  (Wow, how unbelievably romantic I must be!  And I never knew.)

I learned something last night: I am verbose. So I have decided to correct myself in this. Starting now!

(How long do any of you think this’ll actually last?)

*****

Not fair, ForeverTeal, as you played a role in this whole situation.  Doormat #1, I believe.  Oh, fine.  Cheater.

So, yesterday after work several colleagues and I were interviewed over the phone for a doctoral dissertation on writing center work.  The candidate, Dawn, was very kind, clearly astute, and engaged in a very interesting project—and her son only called, “Mom!” once during the hour plus interview.  Clearly a woman on point, and I wish her the very best with completion of her Ph.D.

Dawn’s dissertation is on how assessment as a force influences people, primarily students and tutors, in writing center work.  Think of it as examining how awareness of being graded or scored affects someone’s performance.  Think of the difference between rehearsals and opening night, or practice and shooting a free throw in the fourth quarter of a tied game.  Writing centers fill a unique roll in academia and tend to become an intersection of lots of different, and sometimes opposing, systems of assessment—government instituted standards and curriculum, school specific requirements, idiosyncratic professor expectation, cultural assumptions and morays, etc.  When you’re trying to teach a student to communicate what they mean through writing in an efficient manner, and they’re focused on saying exactly what three different parties want to hear, it can be tricky to preserve focus on rhetorical purpose.  Plus many, many other pedagogical issues.  Very interesting, if you ask me.

Anyway, the experience was pleasant, enriching, and completely painless.  At least for me.  It was only after we’d finished that I realized my lack of discomfort likely stemmed from the fact that I had never seen fit to bite my tongue.  I now worry that this made the three other interviewees (all my friends) bite their tongues frequently.  I hope I didn’t monopolize things as badly as I fear but, well, I fear I did.

It’s a problem I have but, as Mr. Darcy says, it is not a fault of understanding—or something to that effect.  To the contrary, I’m quite aware that a captive audience tempts me to talk.  I’ve noticed it on conference panels I do as well.  Recently I’ve been making a conscious effort to spread the wealth around, as it were, but I find that when the balances are weighed I’ve usually gabbed more syllables than anyone else on the panel.  (I have discovered that sharing a table with a NYT bestseller is somewhat of a cure for this.  I’m pretty sure Tracy Hickman outspoke me at LTUE earlier this year.  Not by that much, but I think he did.  I hope so, as he was the Guest of Honor.) 

It’s not exactly that I just have too much good stuff to say (I’ll have you all mark the humility of that statement); it’s more that I have an opinion on everything and am occasionally lacking in self-consciousness and forethought.  This is helpful when I write a rough draft, as I can bang out my 1,500 words in two hours or less most days.  But I keep forgetting I don’t get those revise and edit stages when I talk.  Am I the only one that hates that?  Spoken words should be like typed ones: they should come complete with a string to pull them back to my mouth, gulp them down, and wait for something better to come along.  But if wishes were fishes then every birthday cake would be wet and ruined.  Isn’t that how it goes?  Fine, insert your own ichthyic idiom. 

Ah, well, I suppose I’ll look at the bright side—while my tongue may get tired, it never smarts for teeth marks.   

Scarlet Knight, I’m not pretentious enough (despite my best efforts) to assume that I’ll ever understand even that one right woman.  But there are happy mysteries out there as well as unhappy, and I’m confident the “right one” will be an adventure of discovery that keeps me blissful and greatly improved as a person, despite my state of continual perplexity.  To be honest, I’m not certain I’d want someone I could ever figure out.  There’s a lot to say for the girl who will always be an exciting horizon.

Shoes are an entirely different matter.  Shoes are a fine example of just how alien you women really are.  Women, you see, live in a big, huge, sweeping world cluttered with relevant stuff; men live in an unadorned hallway as empty as we can keep it.  For guys, material things (meaning things that matter, not corporeal items) are extremely limited: things that fill our bellies, things that wear summer dresses and smell of exotic lotions (mostly these things turn out to be people, but just the dress and the odor can distract us), and things that might kill us.  Anything that doesn’t fall into these categories is, ultimately, irrelevant (and when our team loses, that counts as a mini death).  It’s a good thing we’re so simple, too.  Look at the men you know and how greatly they have life figured out.  Now imagine if we had more stuff to deal with.  Yeah, it’s a good thing we’ve got blinders on.

Women, on the other hand, live in this perpetual chaos where EVERYTHING matters: shoes, and this week’s hair color (as apposed to last week’s), and three week anniversaries, and the distinction between blue-green and green-blue (which I maintain are the same color, Bethany), and nice smells, and nasty smells, and little bits of hair that must be plucked or shaved or waxed or sculpted, and Pampered Chef (what is that?), and seasonal wardrobes, and pack etiquette when you head to the ladies’ room (it is physiologically impossible for a man to imagine this), and there’s no end!    I tell you, if we men lived in this world of excessive relevance we wouldn’t last long.  Something would distract us from one of those things that can make us dead, and we’d be hit by a train or step into an empty elevator shaft or something.

The writing connection?  Um, okay, give me a moment… Ladies, you know that blank look you see so often on men’s faces, whether husbands and boyfriends, or sons, or brothers, or just friends?  Yeah, that one you must get at least five times a day.  When the guy in your story displays this expression, be a little generous and don’t assume he’s a moron.  Just remember that he lives in a hallway where the term “accessories” just doesn’t have the same meaning–as do your male readers.

Tomorrow: More about the new SCBWI event on my schedule where I’ll be giving the same workshop I conducted at LTUE this year, for any who may have missed it.

Just posted a new essay on how to use gender to tell really good stories. Haven’t you read those writers who somehow manage to write the opposite gender (I’m assuming you share my dualistic gendered culture) so well you’d never guess they weren’t writing from experience? Both Robert Jordan and L.E. Modesitt, Jr. come immediately to mind in fantasy. I know both of them are/were approached by women readers who ask how they write women so well. (I suspect empowering female characters has a little to do with it, but hey, what do I know?)

Writing gender is an interesting topic. (Certainly was for Ursula K. Le Guin in The Left Hand of Darkness–so much so she sometimes forgot she was writing a story and not an ethnography). It’s also tricky. I hope this essay, which at this point addresses only gender specific experiences of insecurity, is helpful to some of you writers out there. If you have other questions about writing gender, shoot them to me.

Oh, and just for the record, the fact that I wrote this essay and am willing to field future questions on the matter does NOT make me a specialist on women. Much study and an unhealthy interest has taught me that women are not to be understood by learning; you either view the world upside down and sideways (and profess that things somehow make more sense this way) or you don’t, and guys, if you try to see things that crazily you go mad. So enjoy the mystery, and accept that perpetual confusion is your lot. Trust me, it makes things easier.

*****

Daniel wrote: 

I want to thank you for taking the time to talk with me on several occasions during LTUE last month. You have been a great help and an inspiration to me and have given me several tools and ideas to further hone my skills. Your workshop on character development and conflict was by far one of the most valuable.

I was writing Chapter 7 the other day and I have a part where my character, Turum is following someone from the city council down a dark, narrow, circular stairway that descends deep under a building. In the middle, I thought to myself, “Gee, this is getting boring,” and thought to myself, what would Clint and the other authors I met at LTUE say? Conflict came to my mind and all of a sudden Turum and this counselor came upon a missing chunk of stairs in the darkness. I was able to provide some tension and strengthen some backstory in this scene and it turned out way better than the two of them just walking down this stairway for 10 minutes.

You’re very welcome, and thanks for talking with me rather than staring with your mouth open or asking, “Who are you, weirdo?”  Glad to hear Turum nearly fell to his death, Daniel.  Really, it gives me this warm, happy feeling, like I’m full of bubbles bursting free their gooey goodness.  If he’d continued walking down the stairs for ten minutes unaccosted I’d have pushed him, that’s for sure.  I look forward to seeing you at CONduit.  Check back here to see what I end up doing there (you’ll know when I know).

No publishing success starts at a genuine beginning, at least that any of us can recognize. The changes, happenstance, and twists of fortune that eventually accrete into a sale are too odd, random, and difficult to identify to trace back to a true origin. So I’ll start with LTUE 2007.

Life, the Universe, and Everything (LTUE) is a speculative fiction conference held every February at BYU in Provo, Utah. It’s a great conference (in which I participate yearly) so you should make plans to go if you’re in the area. (Did I mention it’s free?) Stacy Whitman, then the editor for Mirrorstone in charge of the Codices, was one of the guests at the conference that year. The Dragon Codices were just getting started with the first book in the line, the Red entry, still eleven months away from release. It just so happened that Rebecca Shelley, a good friend now and pleasant acquaintance then, was the author of said Red Codex. She was also a contributing guest at LTUE. When I learned Rebecca and Stacy would both be at the conference, I knew it was too good a chance to pass up and asked Rebecca to introduce me.

It all made sense. Rebecca knew me from local writers groups and circles and had seen me win several statewide awards from the League of Utah Writers, including a first place for full-length novel. She knew I could write and that I was serious about the business. Stacy was her editor, so to make a pitch to Ms. Whitman there was no better contact than the foundational author of the first book in the Codices line. It was all perfectly logical.

Except I had never written a children’s book. Yeah, that part I didn’t tell Rebecca. At that point I had already completed six novels, but they were all for adults (with a kind of YA thrown in). None were shorter than 150,000 words. The Dragon Codices were middle grade books with a target of no more than 50,000 words. I’ll do the math for you: that’s 1/3 the length of the shortest thing I’d ever written that wasn’t a short form, like short story or essay. Without knowing if I could even write for kids (or produce a book that wouldn’t demand a wad of paper thick enough with which to beat seals to death), I brazenly asked Rebecca to introduce me to Stacy, and if she felt it appropriate, maybe put in a good word or two.

Rebecca agreed very cheerfully, and was good as her word and better than gold. She recommended me to Stacy after a panel and Stacy invited me to send her a pitch. I then proceeded to write my first ever children’s novel. Now, to clarify: I didn’t write the whole novel, just three sample chapters, a synopsis (two, actually, one short and one more detailed, as is my method), and a cover letter. And it may surprise some people to know that I didn’t actually make a pitch for any of the Codices. Originally, I proposed a trilogy of my own. Still in the Dragonlance shared-world, but beyond that my own creation. At this point I wasn’t even aware that they were looking for authors for further Codices in the future.

So, I sent out my package and a few months later got an email from Stacy. She told me she didn’t have a spot for my trilogy (rend hair and clothing) but that she liked my sample chapters so much she wondered if I could adapt them for the Green Dragon Codex (as my original story involved a green dragon). So I did. I took my original three books and turned them into one book incorporating editorial suggestions Stacy had given me, wrote a synopsis of that, and submitted it.

Then I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Hint: If you intend to publish, get some training into the virtue of patience. It will serve you well in the absence of a really great stress reliever, such as rugby or free climbing or, if you wait too long and turn away from the constructive, some type of dramatic spree of violence that will earn you both five minutes of the evening news and a shiny new headstone. However you cope, if you write to publish, you will spend a great deal of your life waiting for something you really, really want but suspect you probably won’t get. How to deal with this? To each her own, but I have a modest suggestion: try writing something new.

Anyway, a lifetime later (in this case being six or seven months), I get an email from Stacy saying they are offering me a contract. She’d tried to call me, but, honestly, I’m glad we never connected. I wouldn’t have wanted to ruin my ultra-manly reputation by bursting into tears over the phone.

Um, yes, I cried. Sobbed like a baby. In my defense, you should realize that the very fact that I write for a living is a strange mix of cosmic joke and divine mercy. Whatever the mix, it became a kind of salvation. I never wrote growing up and never wanted to (though I loved reading from fourth grade on). Never enjoyed it as a boy or teen, never enjoyed it at school. By the time I turned twenty I had never written anything longer than five pages in my life, and cannot remember a single written piece in which I invested myself. What I had done was endure a number of difficult experiences as a teen that resulted in my leaving school and work and, in a peculiar way, the world of the living (I might share more on this if someone asks, but probably not otherwise). My writing, to be completely honest, was a desperate outlet from a really dark time and place in my life, and to this day I don’t understand how it all happened or why. What I do know is that separated from school and all my friends, apart from the vibrancy of society, and unable to see any possible future distinctive from my purposeless present, I started writing. No training or education, no acquired skill, not even a genuine desire or understanding of why I started. But I did.

Some five years and more than a million words later I was offered my first contract. It was a wonderful moment that grew directly out of that darkest time in my life when I couldn’t imagine wonderful moments coming again. The five years in between I had nothing to encourage me but what I taught myself, my love of story, and my desire to achieve something, and with every rejection letter I received that seemed less and less likely.

So maybe you’ll forgive me my tears.

Tomorrow: The difference between getting GDC accepted for publication and publishing it. Oh, yeah, there’s a difference.