Category Archives: writing

WordPress Plugins and Some New WhatCulture Articles

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wordpress_logoOne of the things I like a lot about WordPress are all the plugins it has. It can really help to enhance a site. Besides having my own webspace that I paid for (as opposed to using the limited free services on WordPress.com), I took it a step further and also bought the Magazine Premium theme, which has been wonderful.

One plugin I’ve been struggling to find is something that will easily display all my different books. If you use the navigation bar to find my titles, you’ll see I’ve got them split into different series. For the most part, I do this with the use of categories and make the pages as simple WordPress entries.

It’s far from being the ideal set-up. Quite far, actually. There are a few different plugins that allow me to display my books, information about them, and buy links to them, and I thought I’d talk about some of these today.

First up is Buy This Book. It provides buy links for Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Lulu, iBooks, and one custom option. Books are displayed with just the cover and if you click on the cover, a slide-out menu with the buy buttons will appear. It’s got support for the major sites, plus a custom one. The downside, however, is that it’s just a widget for sidebars. Not as helpful if you want to provide more information about your books.

Next is MyBooks for Authors. This takes it a step up from Buy This Book. The sites it supports are Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, 800 CEO READ (a site for business books), IndieBound, Books-A-Million, and also iTunes and Audible if your book’s available in audio format. The buttons are displayed nicely beneath the cover and everything is aligned well. There’s also a sidebar widget that can be set up to slide through different books. Not bad so far. But there’s no support for some of the other things I’d like, such as being able to connect books in a series.

Third is Totally Booked. This one actually shows the most promise of all four (we’ll get to the fourth one in a moment). They provide links for Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, IndieBound, and…ChristianBook. Support for a niche market like ChristianBook without support for iTunes and Kobo, two of the big four online booksellers, is definitely a bit strange, but whatever. There’s one buy button and when you click it, a pop-up window appears with all the various sites you can buy the book from. That definitely cuts down on clutter. And there’s support for genres and series with links at the bottom where you find links for other books in the series, other books by the same author, and other books in the same genre. The problem here is that there’s no differentiation. For example, Tales of the Rook isn’t a book I wrote by myself, I just wrote one story. So if I clicked the more by this author, which author would it list? Me? Barry Reese? Bobby Nash? Tommy Hancock? And what about multiple genres? Chasing The Dragon is partly a horror book, but it’s also a crime novel. And a thriller. If I clicked the “find more books in this genre,” which genre would it list? Also, there’s a major problem with theme integration, in that it doesn’t work with my theme. Fortunately, the developers have said they plan to address the theme support in the next release and are also going to look at the other suggestions. If those things are addressed, this may be the one to go with.

And finally is MyBookTable. This is a relatively new one and seemed to show the most promise at first. For one, their layout is the best of all of them. They’ve also got support for series, multiple authors, and multiple genres, all of which are individually-clickable links. So far, so good. But the only link you get with them is Amazon. If you want more, you have to pay for the pro version, which is $49. The pro version is also required if you want to use Amazon’s affiliate system (if you want to sell your books directly with a PayPal button, that requires a developer version ($99). So they want you to pay $49 before you get the links that are provided by other plugins, that’s a definite turn-off. But the final nail in the coffin is theme integration. They only support the free WordPress themes and select other themes (all of which are paid). Support for the plugin also requires a paid version.

At the moment, it looks like Totally Booked is going to come out as the winner. They seem the most dedicated to providing a product that can work for as many authors as possible, regardless of how much money you give them.

Anyway, on the WhatCulture front, I’ve got four new articles for you to check out, if you haven’t yet:

5 Reasons Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk Should Get His Own Movie

10 Irresistible Quentin Tarantino Spin-Offs That Definitely Deserve To Be Made

8 Changes That Would Have Completely Fixed Batman Forever

6 Worst Ever Comic Book TV Shows

UPDATE: Since I posted this piece, MyBookTable came out with an update to their app. it can now integrate with my theme without problems and they’ve also added Barnes & Noble links to the free version. For now it’s the one I’m going with, but Totally Booked could still impress me.

Lettering Portfolio Now Active And Some New Articles

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Got a bit of an update for everyone today.

First off, I’ve decided to try to get back into the lettering game. I’ve spoken to some former clients and they seemed excited to hear that I’m looking for lettering work again. I’ve also updated my lettering portfolio and added it to this site, so you can check it out here. These are some sample pages I’ve worked on (obviously I can’t post up everything I’ve ever lettered). Some of these were published and some were just submissions that unfortunately didn’t get accepted. I’ve also done some logo work (which can also be seen in the logos for every single one of my books). So if you’re looking for a letterer or logo designer for your comic, please send me a line via my contact page and we can discuss page rates.

I’ve also got some new articles for your perusal on WhatCulture:

Kindle Worlds: Is Open Source Fan Fiction A Good Or Bad Thing? – I take a look at the Kindle Worlds and break it down a little, talking about the platform and what it means for new writers.

The Avengers: 4 Things The Comics Can Learn From The Movie – With the success of the Avengers, I talk about the comics and how they could benefit from some of the many, many things Joss Whedon’s Avengers film did right, which the comics are currently doing wrong.

6 WTF Comic Book Movies That Almost Got Made – There are some comic book movies that are just so terrible, even studio executives have a moment of clarity and think, “wait, what the hell are we doing?” Here are six such movies.

10 More TV Shows Marvel Must Make – After my first article spotlighting 10 shows Marvel should consider, I realized I had a whole lot more. So here’s a follow-up with 10 more comic properties I want Marvel to put on the small screen.

And here’s a new article over on GaijinPot:

4 Tips On Preparing To Move To Japan – I think back to my experience moving to Japan and give some tips for new people preparing to come over.

Want to Write Batman? Here’s Your Chance

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batmanAmazon is preparing to launch Kindle Worlds. This is a new platform that will allow anyone to submit novels, novellas, and short stories inspired by the properties they’ve licensed.

If you’re thinking, “hey, that kind of sounds like fanfiction, doesn’t it?” then you’d be right. Amazon has now found a way to monetize fanfiction.

Of course, not all properties will be licensed. To date, Amazon’s Kindle Worlds page mentioned that they’ve secured the rights to Warner Bros. Television Group’s Alloy Entertainment shows Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Vampire Diaries. It remains to be seen whether or not you’ll actually get the chance to dust off that Batman story you have posted up at fanfiction.net and be able to publish it.

Now, some people will understandably be skeptical about this. After all, just what exactly are we looking at here? Well, according to the Kindle Worlds’ site, Amazon will set the prices of all works from $0.99-3.99. The standard royalty for these works is 35% for 10,000 words or more and 20% for works between 5,000-10,000 words. Amazon gets the global publication rights to your story, but you retain the copyright to original, copyrightable elements, such as characters and scenes, that you create (but you also grant Amazon a license to them, so other creators can build upon your work).

That’s…actually not a bad deal at all. 35% royalties sounds like a pretty decent cut. While you don’t retain the publication rights to the story, that’s also pretty much standard for work-for-hire contracts. So even if you got accepted to write something for Warner Bros., there’s no guarantee you’d get a better deal.

The platform will launch next month and Amazon is in the process of trying to secure other licenses. If this takes off, it could mean a chance for independent authors to get wider exposure by giving them a chance to work on some big-name properties.

When I started writing, it was fanfiction. I found it to be a great way to hone my skills and develop my writing style. Hopefully, Warner Bros. will allow their DC Comics’ properties to be used. Because I’ve got a Superman story I’ve had sitting around for a long time that I’d love to polish off and send their way.

Two Magic Words: The End

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Man, those are two words every writer loves to type at the end of a project. Especially one that’s been with me for as long as SoulQuest has.

It’s funny, actually. Two years ago was the last time I finished writing a book, and that was Dragon Kings of the Orient. I haven’t been writing non-stop ever since, in fact when Dragon Kings of the Orient was released last year, some may recall that I said it might actually be my last book as I was struggling with writing.

I finally decided to get back onto the horse in October and I used NaNoWriMo to help me get started. The project I began work on was titled The Legacy of Frankenstein and it started off good, but quickly hit a brick wall around 16,000 words. At that point, I decided to take another look at SoulQuest, which I had about 10,000 words written for already.

SoulQuest, some readers may remember, began life as a comic book project. The initial artist I tailored the project for stopped responding to e-mails, but I later found a new artist named Frank Jensen. Frank was initially very excited about the project and did a lot of character designs and gave some plot input as well. Then history repeated itself and he also stopped responding to e-mails.

For about two years I didn’t give SoulQuest any more thought, until a friend of mine began a website for original, serialized fiction. I dusted off SoulQuest and decided to do it as a monthly serial novel. The plan was to release a chapter a month online for free and once the entire thing was finished, to take it down and release it as a full novel.

The site, however, fell through before the second chapter was released. And while I attempted to make some more progress on it, it mostly stalled. But when I hit the wall with The Legacy of Frankenstein, I took another look at SoulQuest and felt the desire to jump back into it. That was around mid-November/December and now I’ve finally completed it.

The project’s goals have shifted a lot. Originally I aimed for 50,000 words. Then that became 60,000. Then 65,000, then 70,000 and 75,000. And the book topped out, as you can see from the little guy in the Writertopia image, at 78,440 (by the way, the beer he’s holding is prophetic, that’s definitely what I’ll be doing tonight!).

And it’s not even close to finished. As any writer will tell you, completing the first draft is just the beginning. Next comes the revision process. Normally I’m pretty good about self-editing as I go along, but this time I just went full-speed to complete this draft. And now that it’s done, I know that I’ve got a lot of revisions to do before I send it off to my editor. For instance, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I made the decision halfway into the book that one of the characters was superfluous so I decided to cut him. I have to remove all references to him in the beginning. I also have to change around a few other things.

But first, I need to put it aside for a bit. Editing and revising can be a tough process, and you want to let some time set before jumping right into it so the book isn’t so fresh in your mind. Besides, I’ve got ideas brewing for my next project that I really want to start developing into a full-fledged outline.

Kill Your Bastards

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deletechar

Faulkner once said, “in writing, you must kill your darlings.” He was referring generally to those sections of writing that you’re really in love with, but it’s also been applied to kill off your favorite characters. In this case, I’m using it to refer to characters who you created but then sort of forgot about, your bastards. Hence, I’m changing Faulker’s quote from “kill your darlings” to “kill your bastards.”

If you look at the image, you’ll see a very small (very incomplete) list of characters in the Scrivener file for my current book, SoulQuest. Yes, there are more characters than this in the book. No, I don’t have every one of them catalogued. Yes, this means sometimes scrounging through my manuscript and notes, trying to remember a character’s name. Yes, I need to get more organized, but that’s beside the point. You’ll see the last character, Jan, is selected with “Move to Trash” highlighted.

It’s a decision every writer will likely be faced with at some point in the course of a project—whether or not to excise a character that just isn’t pulling his or her own weight. If you’re lucky, this will hopefully happen before you’re 50,000 words into the book. If you’re like me, you didn’t properly revise your original outline to account for the changes that would happen.

In SoulQuest, Jan is the pilot of the Excalibur, the airship our intrepid group of sky-pirates (and unlikely heroes) travel in. Back when I was collaborating with an artist to produce SoulQuest as a comic book, Jan’s role was much larger. Not only was he the pilot, but he was also a childhood friend of Zarim, the protagonist. As this was originally planned to be an ongoing series of an undetermined length, there would have been more room to explore Zarim’s past, but when I made the decision to turn SoulQuest into a novel, a lot of changes were made. For example, in our original plans, Jan was going to die and become part of the ship. But as I was drafting the outline for the novel, this didn’t work as well for me and I decided to get rid of it.

Now the question comes, why is Jan still here? He doesn’t go on missions with the rest of the crew, and aside from one scene, he doesn’t really play an active role in the story and mostly just provides the occasional line. All he does is fly the ship, and that’s a role which, with a little rewriting, can be handled by one of the other characters.

It’s one thing to decide to remove a scene or a chapter that just doesn’t work. But to remove a whole character can be even more daunting. But if that character is just dead weight, you’re not doing the story any favors by keeping them in. Currently, I’m writing a chapter where the crew has been taken captive. Now, I already know how they’re going to get out of this, it’s in my plot. But as I was preparing to write the next scene in this chapter, I started to think to myself, “what is Jan up to right now and is there any role I can have for him in this part of the story?” And that got me thinking, “what role does Jan actually have that’s beneficial to the story?” I skimmed through my chapter notes and realized that in reality, he doesn’t serve much of a purpose. He once did, in the original plan way back when. But with all the revisions to the plan, his purpose became lost and now he’s simply become a bastard character who doesn’t have much use.

So now, I’m planning to cease writing any more scenes that include Jan and when I get started on the editing and revising of the manuscript, I’m going to have to rewrite the scenes in which he is in. A bit daunting, yes, but I don’t think it will be as difficult as it seems at first glance.

So kill your bastards. They’re not helping your story, they’re dragging it down.

 

Work In Progress

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wipI’m still muddling through the middle of SoulQuest. This one section of the book is proving pretty difficult to write for some reason and I’m not really sure why. It could just be some general fatigue with the project as a whole. It’s been a while since I’ve written a longer piece than the novellas I’ve become known for over the past few years.

I’ve got a new piece I sent in to GaijinPot last weekend, which my editor told me would be up soon. So it will probably turn up by the weekend or early next week.

Once I’ve finished SoulQuest, I’ve been contemplating what I should work on next. It’s been a while since I’ve written an Infernum story, and I’ve got one planned for the third book in that series. Going along with the tone I’ve established for that series, it’ll be a stand-alone book featuring a brand new protagonist, with some familiar faces in supporting roles. I can promise that Dante, Tauna, and Johnny Venom will all show up.

Another potential project is the third Myth Hunter book. For those of you who have read it, you know Dragon Kings of the Orient ended on something of a teaser for the next book (and if you haven’t read it yet, what’s stopping you?). The next book will feature Elisa re-teaming with her sometime-friend, sometime-foe Lucas Davalos and going after the…well, read Dragon Kings of the Orient for the tease.

And then there are two other projects I’ve considered, both of them unrelated to anything I’ve done so far. One is a superhero book I’ve considered doing for a while. The other would be set in postwar Japan. But it’s too early to say anything more about either of these just yet.

Of course, it’s a bit too soon to get too invested in other projects while I’m still pounding away at this one. I might switch gears just a bit to do something different, since lately I’ve only managed to knock out a few hundred words per day as opposed to my goal of two thousand. Or I might just keep plugging away until I get back into the groove.

Pulp Ark Ballot now available!

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pulp ark logoThe nominations for the Pulp Ark Awards of 2013 have now come to a close. If you sent in your nominations by the deadline, you should have received an e-mail from Tommy Hancock with the final ballot. Make sure you send in your votes! Please note that only those who participated in the nominations are eligible to participate in the final voting. So if you didn’t send in any nominations, you won’t be able to vote. Keep that in mind when the Pulp Ark Award nominations for 2014 roll around in December.

A big congratulations go out to everyone who was nominated. I did quite well this year, and I’ve highlighted my own nominations below. Make sure to take part in the final voting and to mark me down in the following categories! While I’ve been nominated every year for a Pulp Ark Award, I’ve yet to win one, so I hope this year I can buck that trend! But to do that, I’ll need your help!

BEST NOVELLA

Outlaw Blues by Percival Constantine (PulpWork Press)
Dragon Kings of the Orient by Percival Constantine (PulpWork Press)

BEST COLLECTION/ANTHOLOGY

Tales of the Rook by Various (Pro Se Productions)

BEST SHORT STORY

“The Curse of Baron Samedi” by Percival Constantine from Tales of the Rook (Pro Se Productions)

BEST COVER ART

Dragon Kings of the Orient by Percival Constantine (PulpWork Press)

BEST NEW CHARACTER

Carl Flint in Outlaw Blues by Percival Constantine (PulpWork Press)
Sun Wukong in Dragon Kings of the Orient by Percival Constantine (PulpWork Press)

BEST WRITER

Percival Constantine
All in all, I received a grand total of eight nominations this year, including two nominations for Best Novella and two for Best New Character! Pretty exciting all around! And also some stiff competition for the awards this year!

I also wanted to give a nod to everyone else who worked on Tales of the Rook, as well as those who worked on Monster Aces (an anthology which I edited). Plus a special mention to my buddy Curtis Fernlund, who was nominated for Best New Writer! Well-deserved!

The Muddling Middle

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Yesterday, I passed the 25K mark on SoulQuest, so I’ve hit the middle of my 50K goal. Crossing the 50% mark on a project is both exciting and scary and it’s when I enter what I like to call the Muddling Middle.

On every project, when I hit the 50% mark, there are two thoughts that occur to me. The first is, “wow, I’ve made it to the halfway point! This is great, I’m going to finish this thing!” And then the second thought is one of panic: “Wait…I’m only halfway through? All the work I’ve done so far and I basically have to do it all again?”

It’s more of a state of mind than anything else. The majority of my books are novellas of only around 30K, so I’d be close to the end if I were writing those. I entered the Muddling Middle on every one of those books when I reached 15K. When that didn’t happen with SoulQuest, I thought I was in the clear and on a great track…until I hit the Muddling Middle at 25K.

So like I said, it’s a state of mind. It’s even happened on short stories of only a few thousand words. It’s this whole idea of being so close to the finish, yet so far at the same time and also a sense of, “you’ve invested this much into it now, so there’s no turning back.”

And the Muddling Middle can really be the point where a project will either see fruition…or stop dead in its tracks. There have been a number of projects of mine that just stopped dead at the Muddling Middle because I didn’t know where to go. A big part of this had to do with the fact that in the past, I didn’t plan out as much. These days, I do much more planning and I’ve got everything mapped out with SoulQuest—I know where I want to go and what I want to do. I know one theory could be, “well obviously, it’s time to change the plan if you don’t like it,” except I do like the plan and I think it makes for a great story the way everything is connecting together.

So it’s more of a state of mind than anything else. Given how long I’ve lived with SoulQuest and how much effort I’ve put into it this far, I don’t think the Muddling Middle will be strong enough to cause me to drop it. Nonetheless, it’s a difficult stage to hit, and something I’m sure many writers struggle with.

The Next Big Thing: SoulQuest

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I was tagged in this game by Mark Bousquet earlier this month (which shows you how off my memory can be as I just remembered). The Next Big Thing is a little game where you answer ten interview questions about your upcoming project and then tag five writers in it. For this, I’m going to go ahead and tag Alan Lewis, Jim Beard, Sean Taylor, Kevin Rodgers, and Sean Michael Wilson. Join in if you guys feel so inclined.

TEN INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR THE NEXT BIG THING

What is the working title of your book?

SoulQuest.

Where did the idea for this book come from?

Several years ago, I was searching for an artist for a project. I got two responses and one of the artists was very talented, but his style didn’t quite fit the project in question. His style reminded me of the character designs for Final Fantasy VII and Xenogears, two of my favorite video games, and it got me thinking about those games. I then came up with the idea for SoulQuest, and contacted the artist. Unfortunately, the project never came to fruition as a comic book, but the idea has stuck with me over the past several years and I’ve now decided to finally produce it as a novel.

What genre does your book fall under?

Sci-fi/fantasy. It’s very much inspired by Final Fantasy VII and Xenogears, so I wouldn’t go so far as to call it fantasy in the Tolkien sense and there’s enough science and technology in it to set it apart from that setting.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie?

What, you couldn’t think of a more difficult question? In all seriousness, I’m not really sure. It’s got a fairly large cast. For Zarim, the main character and a sky pirate, I might go with Leonardo DiCaprio. Ekala, his right-hand woman, could only be played by Eliza Dushku. Swul, a hard-drinking, chain-smoking surly faerie would probably be either Jon Polito or Danny DeVito. Tanus, an ex-military guy who gets roped into this would probably be Idris Elba. There are more characters, but it’s difficult to cast them off the top of my head.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

I’m terrible at writing these things, but here goes: When the power of the ancients is awakened, the fate of the world falls to a ragtag band of pirates.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Self-published through PulpWork Press.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

It’s not finished yet. Currently I’m at around 16,000 words, so got a ways to go. It’s been in development for a while. I first began work on it when it was going to be released digitally as a serialized novel through an original fiction site, but when that site closed down, work stalled. I’ve since come back to it and managed a good bit of progress.

What other books would you compare this story to in your genre?

I’m not sure. I’m not familiar with a lot of books in this style, my inspiration for this comes more from video games and TV/movies.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

As I said earlier, the impetus that got me thinking was an artist’s particular style and I drew inspiration from the previously-mentioned Final Fantasy VII and Xenogears, as well as TV shows like Firefly.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

New Pulp has a lot of focus on globe-trotting adventurers, masked heroes, or period pieces. This is a different kind of story from most of the New Pulp, and I hope that will cause some people to give it a look, even if it’s out of curiosity.

Back to the well

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The life cycles of my projects can be really funny sometimes, and also a bit bizarre. For example, the project that would eventually become Love & Bullets, my third novel, was actually begun before I even sat down to write my first novel, Fallen. And The Myth Hunter may actually predate both of them, it’s all kind of fuzzy. But one project, SoulQuest, might predate all those books. This project originally came about when I was soliciting artists for a comic book project. I had it narrowed down to two artists, and both of them produced awesome samples of the title character. I had to choose one over the other (who unfortunately had to quit due to a higher-profile gig), but I liked the second artist’s style a lot and wanted to do a project tailored specifically to his strengths. So I came up with SoulQuest, a concept inspired heavily by some of the RPGs I’d played when I was younger (particularly Final Fantasy VII).

The artist liked the initial script and the character concepts I came up with. He drew two initial sketches and then just disappeared. Never heard from him again, never got any e-mail responses from him, nothing. Time went on and I stumbled on the project notes about a year or two later and started soliciting for an artist again. I had a really talented guy approach me about it, but his style wasn’t really what I was looking for. As this was inspired by Final Fantasy VII, I wanted more of a manga-esque style and he definitely wasn’t that. But he asked for a shot so I said sure, sent him the notes and he came up with some absolutely amazing concept art and character designs. They were spot-on perfect. I thought I’d had finally found my guy, as he seemed just as psyched about the project as me. He came up with designs for pretty much every significant character in the series, produced about three pages for what would have been the first issue…and then vanished. I tried e-mailing him numerous times over the past five years, each time getting no response. Even when I’d decide to transform this into a novel, I asked if he’d be interested in doing the cover art on commission, but still no response.

Brief note to any artists out there: If you aren’t able to complete a project, at the very least please have the courtesy to let your partner know. Yes, sometimes things happen and you can’t respond right away. And yes, sometimes you’ll get a gig that comes along that offers higher pay or more exposure and that’s fine. But at the very least, you should let them know what’s happened and why you can’t complete the project. It’s just common courtesy, don’t leave them waiting. I’ve more or less given up on trying to put together a comic, because this has happened to me on more than a few occasions.

Anyway, back on track. A few years ago, a friend began a website for original fiction, presented in a serialized format. This caught my interest and I wanted to get a chance to put SoulQuest out there. But the site fell through as the creator became too busy to maintain it, so he told us that he’d have to bring it to an end. The image you see at the top of this page was something he threw together as a promotional image for the series, combining a bunch of images he found online that were appropriate for the series.

Once the site fell through, I put the project on the back-burner, revisiting it occasionally. Now, I’ve gone back to it once more. I looked at what I’d written before and stripped out a bunch of sections that just didn’t work, the result was that the 10,000 words I had written were reduced to about 7,000. I also broke down the story, figured out the basic outline for it and went from there. As you can see in the sidebar on my main page, I’ve managed to make up a bit of the deficit I got from that big edit and have now broken 11,000 words.

Hopefully it continues.