Bring Your Son to Work Day

Wonder of wonders! I actually made it to work one day this week, so I must not be dying, after all. It's been TRC and my tradition the past three years to have him come with me to work for a half day right before Christmas. He helps out around the library, reads books, plays with my business cards and such, and then we go buy a present for Denisa from the kids, and follow it all off with a movie. Up today? Tin Tin. Hoping it's great.

It's fun to have TRC with me at work. He doesn't get in the way at all, and really enjoys being helpful however he can. Today he made me a "DO NOT ENTER! Librarian at Work" sign, complete with a skull and crossbones. If that doesn't keep people away, I don't know what will.

Rumor has it that there are some Munchkins from Dunkin Donuts downstairs. This will have to be thoroughly investigated, of course.

In any case, I hope you all have a loverly holiday/winter break/Christmas vacation. It actually snowed last night, so things are looking much more Christmasy. Bonus!

Not sure how much I'll blog next week. I've taken the week off (and really hope I'm not sick), so it'll all be kind of loosy goosey. I hope to get some ice fishing in, as well as play with as many toys as possible.

Catch ya on the flip side!

My Online Undead Will

I'm not sure about the legal ramifications of this document, but I'm pretty sure no lawyer would be willing to write up an official one (well, they'd doubtless be willing--but they'd also no doubt charge me for the opportunity). I've seen far too many zombie movies and read way too many zombie books for my own good, but in watching all of these movies, it seems quite clear that the sole reason a zombie apocalypse is able to really gain critical mass and take over the world comes down to one basic reason:

People are stupid.

Seriously. Everybody seems to somehow think that they'll be immune to the zombification process. They get bit. Or scratched. Infected. And instead of doing the reasonable thing--liquefying their brain as quickly as possible--they try to ignore it. Maybe they'll get better. Maybe this time will be different.

I suppose I can understand this mindset for the people who get infected. Liquefying your own brain is no doubt a scary prospect. But it's different for the person's loved one--you know the one I'm talking about. Maybe it's the person's sister. Spouse. Parent. Child. Whoever it is, they're always there when you get infected. Every. Single. Movie. Mary gets bit, and Johnny wants to hold on to Mary for as long as he can, denying that she'll really turn. And then Mary becomes a zombie and Johnny either has to shoot her anyway, or else she bites Johnny and down they both go.

(Note: one possible explanation for this is that all people in zombie apocalypses live in worlds that never speculated about a zombie apocalypse. Maybe they're in some strange alternative universe, where George Romero was hit by a car when he was a kid or something. At this point in time, can't we all assume that anyone involved in a present day (or future) zombie apocalypse is familiar with how this is going to play out?)

In any case, it's for this reason that I'm writing up this online undead will, which delineates what my wishes are in the unfortunate event that I turn into a zombie.

Please, loved ones. Neighbors. Military. Do whatever you need to do to turn my brain into mush before it's too late for me. No shots to the abdomen or heart. There's only one way to take me out once I go zombie.

Off with my head.

You can use a cricket bat, axe, oar, shotgun, pistol, sniper rifle, proximity mine, club, baseball bat, sledgehammer--anything that happens to be handy when I turn. Just get it done fast. No tears. No drawn out dramatics. I'm a zombie, people. Take me out.

If everybody would just do that right when their loved one gets turned, then we all can avoid the impending doom of the zombie apocalypse.

Thank you--that is all.

Heard Back from My Agent on Tarnhelm

For those of you playing along at home, yes--I'm still sick. Really hacking and wheezing today, and it doesn't help that I can't seem to sleep past 4 in the morning. Sigh. There's always tomorrow.

In the "Good News" category, I heard back from my agent yesterday. I'd sent him the latest draft of Tarnhelm about a month ago, and he'd read it and evaluated it. Verdict? I'm 80% of the way there. He had some very solid observations about key elements of the book that need to be tweaked and improved so that the whole thing works together. Better yet, they're fixes I can actually do. :-)

Of course, there's always the dreaded "will there be an audience for this book" issue to deal with. If you've read much of my stuff, you might have noticed that sometimes I don't seem to end up writing books that are very mainstream. Ichabod is an exploration of reader response theory mashed up with Woody Allen's Purple Rose of Cairo. And can we say talking alpacas?

Tarnhelm is a YA Noir with (mostly) light fantasy elements. If you look over the bookshelves in YA sections of bookstores these days, you might notice that there aren't really a whole lot of YA Noir books out there to begin with--let alone fantasy noir. (Actually, if any of you know of any books in this vein, please pass them on to me. I'd really like to see any you've come across.)

So I'm not really following any current literary trends by writing this book.

But there *have* been precedents, at least in TV and movies. Veronica Mars, Brick, and the Assassination of a High School President are three examples that leap to mind. And I loved Veronica Mars, really enjoyed Brick, and found Assassination intriguing. That's good. But audiences didn't flock to Veronica strongly enough to keep it alive past three seasons, and Brick only managed to squeak past the 2 million mark domestically. So . . . not exactly a horde of pent up desire for the genre, it seems.

Why did I write it? Because I wanted to. Because it was a book that had been kicking around in my head for years, and it was time to get it out there and see what it could do. Because I think it's a pretty fun read.

In the end, all it takes is for an editor to see the same things in the book that I see. I can't be the only person to love Veronica Mars (I know I'm not)--and if someone told me there was a book out there like Veronica, but with a bit of fantasy thrown in on the side, I'd be all over it. (But of course I would--I just wrote a book like that. I'm clearly part of the target audience). And if the book did some cool riffs on a Maltese Falcon theme? I'd be even more excited.

So . . . we'll see. I'm going to revise the book one more time (hopefully finishing before the end of January), and then once it's looking good to me and my agent(s), then it's time to send the little bird out of the nest and see if it flies or splats. And while it's struggling to gain altitude, I'll be at work on my next book: a fusion of Ocean's 11, Mission Impossible, and Holiday Mythology. It's a YA heist fantasy.

Because there are *tons* of books like that out there. I'm totally chasing the market now. Right?

Movie Review: Attack the Block, Sherlock Jr, Batman Apocalypse, Going by the Book

Still sick, and if you're sick, you might as well lie in bed and watch a slew of movies, right? I'm at four right now between today and yesterday, and the day is still young. And since I actually have a bit more energy than yesterday (a very little bit), I'm actually going to try writing short reviews for each of them.

First off is the one most of you might have heard of: Attack the Block. It was billed as "Inner City vs. Outer Space," and that pretty  much sums it up. There's a small scale alien invasion that ends up occurring in the projects in South London. And a small teen gang become the ones who have to deal with the problem. I'd heard about this movie a while back, and I'd always wanted to see it, mainly because it sounded like fun. And it is quite a bit of horror fun. I could see this fitting in very well as a double feature with Shaun of the Dead. It's violent, gruesome, bloody, and has a lot of solid humor peppered throughout. If you liked Shaun, give this one a try. No real surprises, though--it does what it says on the tin. If that sounds appealing, you'll like it. If it doesn't, you won't. I had a lot of fun with it, and it was a perfect escape movie. Three stars.

Then we have Sherlock, Jr., an old silent comedy from 1924, starring Buster Keaton. It might seem like a big jump, going from Attack to Sherlock, but I was surprised at the special effects they had going in Sherlock. It's a movie about a film projectionist who dreams of becoming a detective. His fiancee wrongly accuses him of stealing her father's pocket watch, and it goes off from there. Not really a complicated movie--this was 1924, after all--but a lot of fun. I especially enjoyed a scene where Keaton jumps into the film he's showing at the theater, and he interacts with the scenery, which keeps changing setting on him. Really funny, and very avant garde for the time, I'd say. Three and a half stars--this is a movie I imagine kids would like a lot, too. Some very good sight gags, if they can get over the fact that there's no dialogue and it's black and white. :-)

Superman/Batman: Apocalypse was kind of a let down. It wasn't particularly bad--if I were twenty years younger, I probably would have liked it a lot. Superman and Batman team up to keep Darkseid from turning Supergirl evil. It's animated, so there's no need to worry about budgets or anything. No limit to the sets and places it can go. But in the end, it was just a series of fights between superheroes and villains. And while that could be appealing, a lot of it is invalidated by the sheer amount of super powers these guys have going for them. There's a big scene where Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the Amazons are all battling a horde of baddies, and it goes on for quite some time, with many Amazons dying left and right--until Superman decides that enough is enough, and he laser-sight-blasts all the baddies out of existence. Um . . . Superman? If you could do that all along, why didn't you? Is this a power you can only use once a certain quota of your allies have died? That sort of thing. Still kind of fun, but nothing really to write home about. Two stars.

Finally, there's Going by the Book, a South Korean movie where a small city in Korea decides to stage a robbery training simulation to prove to the citizens that their police force knows what they're doing when it comes to fighting crime. But the cop who's chosen to be the robber is . . . a little over-zealous. He throws himself into the role, and he ends up being much better at being a robber than anyone could have thought. It's a comedy, and I really enjoyed it. The fun part is that it plays on so many different levels. There's the actual robbery--which unfolds like a sort of LARP robbery, with some timeouts for debates as to where people were shot, if they're really dead or not, what's legal and what's not--that sort of thing. Then there's the out of character interactions the robber has with the different bank employees and police officers, some light romance on the side, some mystery about how and if the robbery will be successful. There are a couple of scenes that I think must play better to a South Korean audience--I didn't quite get them--but by and large, the movie is great. Three stars--maybe a bit higher.

So there you have it. If you're sick, now you have something to watch, too. Happy Tuesday, folks. Here's hoping tomorrow's better.

Sick as a Dog

Muscle aches, flu stuff, and I sound like Barry White. For some reason, this has diminished my desire to write a really fascinating blog post today. Hope you all can understand.

See you tomorrow!

Movie Review: 127 Hours

Yeah, I know I'm kind of late to the table on this one. What can I say? I'm usually not a huge fan of uncomfortable movies--I like to see movies to escape troubles, not to be forced to endure 127 hours of agony. It takes me a while to gear up for something like this.

And this is a movie you need to gear up for.

First off--was it good?

Yes. As far as "Movies where a guy has his hand pinned by a boulder for 127 hours and is in constant, awful pain" goes, this was a good one. It's well acted, well produced, and well executed. That said, I think the main reason I liked it was that (MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT--but if you didn't know this, you didn't follow the news at the time) he gets free at the end, and I could be relieved for him.

That said, this is like a 99% awful terrible ordeal movie, 1% happy ending. The stark contrast makes you appreciate the ending that much more.

But it's still not a "fun" movie to watch. If it weren't so darn close to what actually happened, I wouldn't like the film. But according to the guy it happened to, it's as close as you can get to a documentary with it still being a drama. So . . . yikes.

Definitely a movie that makes you appreciate watching movies as a hobby, as opposed to hiking. My biggest potential hazard is forgetting where I put the channel changer.

Also, for those of you wondering about the R rating--it's R for language, primarily. Because when a boulder falls on a man's hand and pins him there for 127 hours, he doesn't exactly just say "shucks" the whole time. (He also does not say "golly" or "darn it all.") A bit of sensuality here and there, but the language is the thing that earned it the rating.

In the end, it's a hard one to review. I'll give it three stars, mainly because what it wanted to do, it did well. Anyone else seen it? What did you think?

Multicultural vs. Fantasy--Some Observations (and a Review of 13 Assassins)

I watched 13 Assassins on my day off the other day, and can I just say, "Whoa!" (in my best Neo voice.) The movie is a samurai flick, all about a group of fighters who are tasked with killing an evil ruler who's on his way toward positions of greater power. It's a brutal movie, and I absolutely loved it. (Not for everyone by any stretch, though. Very violent. You've been warned.) But I'm a sucker for Samurai movies to begin with--this one was right up my alley.

Which got me thinking . . .

Why is it that I like multicultural movies so much? I mean, I just reviewed White Wedding, which appealed to me at first just for the insights it gave me to a different culture. Contrast that with 13 Assassins, which I really enjoyed, and the main similarity is just the multicultural aspect.

In some ways, I think really well done fantasy and really well done multicultural literature ends up accomplishing many of the same things: they present an alternate world view so well-conceived, so well-executed, so complete, that they let readers (or viewers, in the case of movies) see the world from a different angle. In 13 Assassins, for example, one of the driving motivations behind much of the action is honor. These men are honor-bound to do what they have said they would do, and they're willing to do anything to keep that obligation. The film starts with a man committing Seppuku (ritual disembowelment). Very long scene, quite detailed. Gives you a very good idea of just how horrible an experience that would be. Why did he do it? It turns out his honor had been wronged and he wanted to publicly protest.

That's quite a protest.

The honor motivations continue throughout the film. The evil ruler has a Samurai in charge of his security: Hanbei. He's a man of honor, and he knows full well that the things his lord do are horrific, terrible actions. And yet he does nothing to stop the man, other than (now and then) trying to suggest the lord do something else, instead. Why? Because he's honor-bound to protect the man. It isn't his place to stop him. It's his responsibility to make sure his lord lives a long life.

If the movie were poorly executed, this wouldn't make any sense whatsoever to American audiences, because our sense of honor is wildly different than the Japanese ideals. In American cinema, a man who sat by and did nothing to stop a murderer would be branded a coward and despised. Likewise in White Wedding, some of the actions of the characters don't make any sense from an American viewpoint.

So why, as an American, do I like these movies?

Because they're internally consistent. Because they're done well enough--with good enough characters and plotting and story-telling, that even as a non-member of the culture involved, I can see and understand why the characters are doing what they're doing. I can see how important honor is to the Japanese, even if my own idea of the matter is different. (NOTE: I'm not by any means an expert in Japanese culture. It's certainly possible that the film depicts some aspects incorrectly. That would be really disappointing, but hopefully it wouldn't invalidate the point I'm trying to make.)

Fantasy does the same thing. Or at least it can, if it's done correctly. One of the things I enjoyed most about writing Vodnik was that the Slovak fairy tale creatures are quite different from the fairy tale creatures most of us have already encountered. In the book, the main character (Tomas) has a conversation with his cousin (Katka) about this:

Katka sighed. “You and your movies. This is real life. Our folk tales are much less violent than your American action films—at least as far as vodníks are concerned. In the tales, they are basically friendly and mischievous.”
“Sure,” I said. “Right until they drown you.”
“But even then, vodníks are just doing what they do. In our stories, the make-believe creatures are the way they are. They do what they are made to do. It is the people—the humans—who are good or bad.

Slovaks don't have fairy tale creatures that are evil just to be evil. They do what they do, but that doesn't necessarily make them evil. Vodniks are water spirits that drown people (typically children) and steal their souls. But they're often depicted as being friendly and funny in Slovak pop culture. They're not bad. They just drown people.

To an American, that sentence makes no sense, but I've had many conversations with my wife about the subject, and it makes perfect sense to her.

In both fantasy and multicultural art, one of the goals is often to recreate a different world in a way that even outsiders can understand it. Yes, there's some fantasy that's nothing more than bulging biceps and shooting fireballs. But in Tolkien or Jordan or Martin, you've got entire worlds created, where people behave in ways that might not make sense to us, but make perfect sense to them. The authors took the time and energy to think out how cultures would behave, and to depict them accurately.

Am I saying there's no difference between an elf and a Slovak? Obviously not. But in the effort it takes to create a realistic fantasy setting and a realistic multicultural setting? Those seem to be closer to being the same thing than you'd think at first--or than I'd think, at least.

Anyway. I'm out of lunch break now, so I guess I'll have to leave it there for now. Hopefully that made sense. Anyone have anything to add?

Help Me Brainstorm a Giveaway

See that there? Those are pictures of the Advance Reading Copies of Vodnik, sitting on my editor's desk, even as we speak. One is wending its way to me in the mail. Gorgeous, aren't they?

One could be on its way to you, too.

I can give away one of these beauties through some sort of a contest on my blog. The only thing is, I can't decide how I want the contest to run. I know one thing: everyone who gives me a solid suggestion on how to run the contest will earn himself or herself an entry in the contest.

Make sense?

So the first way to enter is to suggest how the contest could/should run. What are some potential ideas? Entries could be awarded for:

• Following me on Twitter
• Retweeting a contest tweet
• Commenting on Facebook (maybe on a certain theme--favorite fairy tale?)
• Commenting on my blog
• Blogging about the book?

I don't know! That why I'm crowd sourcing this one. In the end, I'll randomly select a winner from all the different entries, and that winner will get the ARC. So yes, you could have multiple entries in the contest. (And later, I plan on giving away an eARC or two, when those are ready--so be on the lookout for that, as well.)

Make sense?

Then suggestions, please!

Movie Review: White Wedding

No, I'm not talking some adaptation of a Billy Idol song. The White Wedding in point here is a South African movie that's available on Netflix InstantWatch even as we speak. As I've said before, one of the kind of movies I enjoy recommending most is a film that most people probably wouldn't give a chance without a recommend from a friend. I take the chance on movies so that you don't have to--you can know going in that you're going to enjoy it (or not). Netflix said I'd love this movie, so Denisa and I gave it a shot.

For the first third of the film, I was thinking that Netflix had lied to me. It takes a while to get going as it follows four separate story lines that meander around for a bit before they start intersecting. Even once they intersect, the pacing feels off. The movie's about a man who's trying to get to his wedding in Cape Town, but he wants to pick up his best friend first, and then they need to go pick up his fiancee's grandmother. So it's a road trip movie, South African style.

I think one of the things I enjoyed most about the film was how different it was, culturally. A lot of the movie is subtitled, as the characters weave in and out of English, pidgin, Afrikaans (I think), French (maybe?), and some other languages I just couldn't identify. I thought it was fascinating to see how the language worked, and how everyone spoke just about any language he or she felt like (it seemed), and yet everyone understood everyone. (This isn't a flaw of the movie--I'm pretty sure this is just how people speak there.) That alone was enough to keep me watching for the first third until the movie picked up.

The pacing feels off because this is very much NOT your standard Hollywood fare. Yes, there were a few spots that I predicted, but on the whole, the characters acted in ways I didn't expect, did things I wouldn't have thought people did, and yet stayed seemingly authentic the whole time, because they were consistent.

In the end, I went from feeling very meh about the movie to thoroughly enjoying it. A strong three stars from me, and considering that the film started at about a borderline two stars, that should give you an idea of how strong of an ending this movie has. I've said before that I much prefer a film that starts weak and ends strong than the reverse, and this movie is a great example of that. Give it time, if you watch it. Denisa and I both agreed it was worth the wait.

Playing Magic the Gathering Online--for Free

Unlike most normal people, it seems, I waited until I was over 30 to get in to Magic the Gathering. Mainly I was drawn to it by the fact that you could play it with two people. Denisa doesn't really like it, but my son has a great time with the game, and he can actually beat me quite often--which either says something about my own playing level, my son's, or both of us.

Ironically, I left behind a whole bunch of people in Utah who play the game quite often. I'd just never played it with them before I left. So one of the things I've been trying to figure out since I got into the game is how I could play against some of the friends I left behind, without having to fly out to Utah.

Enter a friend from high school, who plays quite a bit. I got together with him over Thanksgiving, and it was a real treat to be able to play with someone who knew a lot about the game (and gave me a lot of free cards. Let's not forget the free.). But again, he lives in Philly, and I don't. However, he knew of some online applications that supposedly let people play against each other--until then, my brightest idea had been to hook up a couple of web cams and play like that.

Yesterday we had a chance to put it to the test, and after a whole lot of trial and error, we played three very fun games. (I won 2 out of 3. Let's not forget that, either.)

Figuring that some of you out there might actually care to try to do this yourself sometime, I thought I might write up how we finally got it to work. Ready?

Step One: Both people download Magic Workstation. It's a free card database of every Magic card they've made. You can even download the graphics, so it's more than just a written description of the card. Theoretically, this tool should let you create sealed decks and play them against other people. In practice, it treats mythic rares like commons . . . which results in some wildly overpowered games. Thus . . .

Step Two: Go to CCGdecks, which has an online sealed deck generator that works much better. You can create just about any sealed deck you'd like, then export it directly to Magic Workstation. The only problem is that it's a lot clunkier in CCGdecks to actually see the cards and work with them. So we just generated the sealed decks, added all of them to our decks, then exported the whole thing to Magic Workstation and built the deck within that program. Actually, now that I've had a bit more time to play around with CCGdecks, it seems like it would be easier just to build the whole thing over there, then export it all at once to MWS.

Step Three: Connect over MWS--you enter in your IP address or the IP address of the person you want to play, and they accept the call, and you're up and running. But don't forget

Step Four: Video chat--or at least audio chat. There's an IM system built in to MWS, but who wants to type everything out? Much easier to have some audio or video going, and it runs seamlessly in the background. (Use Skype, Google Chat, Facebook Chat--whatever).

How does it all fit together and work in practice? Well, you both can see the same playing area. MWS doesn't enforce any rules--it's just a platform to play cards and keep track of graveyards, tapped/untapped, decks, life, counters, etc. So . . . just like playing with a deck of cards in real life. You need to know how to play Magic--the platform doesn't teach you that. (Though there is a clunky mechanism for keeping track of turn order. We ignored that.)

The games we played were actually really fun--at least as far as I'm concerned. My friend was creaming me in the second game--I was down something like 28-5. Somehow I managed to eke out a victory, which felt very satisfying.

So would I do it again? You bet. I plan to, in fact. You can generate sealed decks without the need to . . . actually pay for the sealed decks. Free.

And it's all about the free. (PS--thanks again for the patience, Dan. Much appreciated! Even if I did beat you. I'm sure you're just saving it all up to really unleash all over me in the next game.)

Any Magic players out there care to test their mettle against a relative novice?

Little Debbie Strikes Back

Now, don't have to blame this all on Little Debbie. It's certainly in the realm of possibility that it's a coincidence my stomach is still roiling and severely unhappy a day after eating her offerings. I work in a public place. I also ate free sugar cookies yesterday (and too much pasta salad). It could have been the eggnog I downed when I got home.

All I know is that I was fine yesterday, and then Little Debbie attacked me with her artificial offerings. It had to have been that brownie. Brownies aren't supposed to be shaped like Christmas trees. They're not supposed to be green. And they're supposed to actually . . . you know: taste good. That brownie yesterday was the first thing I have literally spit out in a long time.

Bryces don't spit out food. Especially not free food.

In any case, whatever I consumed yesterday made me less than happy today. I don't have to blame this all on Little Debbie.

But I'm going to anyway.

CURSE YOU, LITTLE DEBBIE! This is me, shaking my fist to the sky, vowing never to eat your offerings again. At least not the cosmic brownies.

Blech.

Dear Little Debbie

I used to think you and I got along wonderfully. I know it's been a few years since I paid you any attention. I've been too busy eating things like fruits and vegetables--or (more often) home baked goodies. But I remembered you with a certain fondness. You were sweet. Not necessarily Twinkies-sweet, and not up to par with my memories of Snow Balls, but I try to be forgiving.

And then, my library had Little Debbie Day today. A whole smorgasbord of Little Debbie offerings, all laid out and ready for eating. I'd been looking forward to this day since we planned it. It was going to be a sweet reunion between two long lost friends.

Instead, you made me sick.

No kidding, Little Debbie. That Christmas tree-shaped brownie? I don't think I'll ever be able to look at a brownie the same way again. The way the icing was so stale and foul that it splintered into tiny shards the moment it hit my teeth. The way it coated the inside of my mouth with what felt like seven layers of wax. The taste--the texture. Like industrial ooze thickened into a brownie-like state of matter that exists on a plane all its own. And the taste? I could bite into a rabid rat and get something more pleasurable out of the experience.

Honestly, Little Debbie. I don't know who went wrong. Maybe it's me. Maybe my standards have gotten higher in the days since we last had our relationships. I was sixteen, after all. I didn't look for that much out of a girl. Sugary. Sweet. What else mattered?

Those days are over, Debbie. OVER!

Now excuse me. I need to go find a trash can.

Christmas Traditions in Slovakia

I love traditions. I think they're lots of fun, and they bring order and excitement to a year that might otherwise be uniform and dull. I just like being able to look forward to something--how Christmas gives even people who don't like winter a reason to be excited. (Or, if you hate Christmas, a reason to be happy once it's over. But what's up with the Christmas hate, people? Your five year old self thinks you're a total loser, just so you know. Do you really want your five year old self having that low of an opinion of you? There are entire movies devoted to how you need to make sure your five year old self (or younger self, at any rate) still thinks you're pretty cool. If you need help with this, just remember one word, my friends: underoos.)

Anyway.

Traditions aren't just fun. They're fascinating, especially when you can get outside them and look at them as an outsider. This is really difficult to do with traditions you grew up with. It's really easy to do with traditions you never encountered until you were grown. Thus, I have a hard time getting my mind around the whole Santa Claus mythos--why we believe what we believe about him. The reindeer, the chimneys, the stockings, the trees. Separating myself from all of that enough to approach it from a fresh perspective would be really difficult.

Slovak traditions, on the other hand . . . those I'm not quite as entrenched in. This morning Mikulas came, delivering peanuts, oranges, candy, and small presents for my kids. They had to get their boots and shoes all nice and clean and shiny last night, because as we all know, Mikulas doesn't give you anything if you leave dirty shoes out for him. If they had been misbehaving, they would have gotten potatoes or onions. Why potatoes or onions?

Why does Santa bring coal to kids who are bad?

If you're part of the tradition from childhood on, questions like that don't need an answer. They just make sense. If you're outside of the tradition, then that same taken-for-granted obviousness loses all weight. In Slovakia, Baby Jesus delivers the presents on Christmas--which is celebrated the evening of the 24th. The 25th is not really special at all, other than a day to sit around and eat a lot of cookies and relax. Even during Communism, it was always the Baby Jesus who brought the presents.

Why is Baby Jesus doing this? And does Jesus turn from Adult Jesus into Baby Jesus for one evening a year? Where does he get the presents? Who knows--he certainly doesn't have any elf helpers. Of course, one thing Slovaks don't have to worry about is getting their kids too focused on Santa Claus. They can all be excited about Baby Jesus, and leave out the Big Man in Red altogether.

At the same time, traditions are great for showing differences between cultures. Part of me thinks it would just be a blast to write a Christmas follow up to Vodnik, where Tomas (the main character) has to interact with the Slovak Christmas traditions and defeat some evil bad creature. (Not Baby Jesus.) Then again, who knows if I could support an entire book-length production on the topic. But it would be fun to try. :-)

The trick, of course, is to do it in a respectful manner that doesn't insult the original tradition, but still can highlight how foreign it is. Just like I wouldn't appreciate a book that basically said, "Santa Claus is a big fat stupid tradition, and you have to be a bumpkin idiot to have ever believed something like that," Slovaks wouldn't appreciate a book that assaults their traditions. Not sure how I would handle that, but again--it would be fun to try.

In one way or another, I definitely see some traditions coming in the future of the Vodnikverse. I didn't delve into them hardly at all in the first novel, but Christmas is coming.

Any traditions you've heard of that you just find bizarre or fascinating? Share!

Why Am I Always Tired?

I used to be an insomniac. Maybe not by the official definition, but I always had a hard time falling asleep. I'd be up until 3am some nights, just unable to actually go off to slumberland. At the time, I understood why I was tired. I didn't sleep. Duh.

But I've gotten over that stage of my life (which means true insomniacs are even now no doubt claiming I was never one of them to begin with. Sorry, insomniacs. I feel your pain.) How did I get over it? Mainly by waking up at about the same time each day, and avoiding naps. I've discovered it doesn't matter so much when I go to bed--it's all about when I wake up. If I sleep in too much, that can really throw off my sleep schedule.

But I digress.

The thing is, even though I'm sleeping more (or, more consistently), I'm still tired. All the time. Not to the point that I'm weak and can't do anything (I was that way when I was living in Utah), but just a general malaise. And I can no longer point the finger at insomnia. Instead, I think it boils down to two factors.

First, I need to sleep more. Getting to sleep is one thing. Sleeping enough is another. I get 6.5-7 hours of sleep a night, pretty consistently. Sometimes as much as 8. Sometimes as little as 6. I know I need more sleep. And yet there are so many shiny movies to watch, books to read, words to write, games to play, parties to go to, friends to talk with, children to play with . . . Something's got to go. But as I get older, I'm starting to wonder if doing as much as I do is worth it at the expense of being tired the whole time I'm doing it all, or if it wouldn't make more sense to do less and sleep more--thereby enjoying what I do more, since I (theoretically) wouldn't be as tired.

And this leads me to my second conclusion: I'm getting older. Those of you who are younger than me are no doubt nodding and saying, "Yup. He is." Those of you who are older are shaking your head wryly and thinking, "Just wait, kiddo." You're both right. I'm old enough to be feeling the effects, but not old enough to have earned the right to complain about it. Poor me!

Now, I could always do what the rest of the world seems to do when they're tired: drink some caffeine. But setting aside the fact that I try to avoid putting artificial chemicals into my body when it's not really necessary (Peeps is a necessity. Mountain Dew, not so much), I'm prone to migraines, which can be brought on by caffeine. So that's pretty much a no go. I'd rather be exhausted all day than having splitting migraines.

What I ought to do is exercise more. When I go for brisk walks, I wake up. One day, my desire to be awake will override my inherent laziness. That day is not today.

No, in the end, I just feel like complaining and not actually doing anything about it. And looky here--I've got a blog! A perfect vehicle for complaining and commiserating. So--let's hear it. Who else out there could go for mandatory nap time at work?

Writing Update

It's been a bit since I updated ya'll on my writing, and there's no time like a Friday to do it, right? I've finished the second draft of Tarnhelm, and it's now on my agent's iPad, officially in his To Be Read pile. Once I hear back from him, I'll likely need to do another thorough draft or two before it's ready to get sent out to editors. (Or at least, that's what I hope will be the case. This is the first time I'm doing this since I got my book deal with Vodnik, and there's no small level of self-doubt involved. What if this next one is no good? What if I can't get it to the right level for publication? What if what if what if. In the end, a guy's gotta have confidence that no matter how crappy the second draft is, he can and will make it better in the third draft. That's how this works.)

In other news, Vodnik has now gone off to the printer's for getting the Advance Reader Copies (ARCs) printed, which means that at some point in the not too distant future, I should be looking at real live printed versions of my novel. If that doesn't excite you, then you live in a drab, grey world, and I don't want to talk to you.

The electronic version of the ARC was looking fantastic when it was sent off. The maps turned out great, the interior graphics are solid, the cover's super. Really a lot to be excited about. I'm hoping to do some giveaways when they come, so keep an eye out for that. Just this morning, I've got a bit of a back and forth going with my editor as we refine the jacket copy (what's on the inside of the front jacket). Exciting!

In the meantime, I'm getting my annual Christmas Newsletter ready. For those of you who don't know, I take the whole "Newsletter" thing quite literally. I write up fake news stories, include pictures--the whole shebang. It's actually fun to do something with my writing time that's so drastically different than the writing I usually do. I'll post it here once it's done.

After that's over, it's on to the next book. What's the next one? That's a secret. Let's just say I'm thinking of it as Mission: Impossible meets Mistborn, with a YA twist. Lots of work to be done on it, though--I need to revisit the plot and the setting, check the characters, and then start writing writing writing. It's the first book I've really thought of from the ground up as a series. Never hurts to have lofty goals, right?

And that about sums up my writing efforts to date. Happy weekend, all!

Plagiarism Ain't an Addiction: A Ramble on Rhetoric and Justification in Today's Society

I just came across a story about an up and coming author of spy books. He was getting noticed for his first book--good reviews, growing buzz. And then some people started reading his book. Spy novel fans. And they noticed something about them--passages seemed familiar. You can guess the rest. The guy hadn't just plagiarized one book. He'd stolen passages and pieces from all sorts of books. Not obscure books, either. Ludlum. Fleming. Really well-known books.

He's written a big long essay about his plagiarizing, which he somehow links with his struggles with alcoholism. He's deep into Alcoholics Anonymous--which I applaud--but he claims that when he gave up alcohol, he turned to another addiction, instead: plagiarism

Lots to say about this one. First, as an author with my own first book coming out, I'm more than a little appalled by this guy. Copying and pasting whole passages--blatantly, knowing it's wrong . . . Not once, but many many times, and then lying to everyone about it. The man has the common sense of a cockroach. What's worse, is that he claims he loves the book industry. He was a bookseller--part owner of a bookstore, for crying out loud. And he'd been plagiarizing for years. But I'm going to set aside all of that, since it's being discussed online elsewhere at great length.

As a librarian with more than a passing interest in avoiding plagiarism, I have some more to add. But it's mainly of the "I can't believe someone would think they'd get away with this" and "This is just so fundamentally stupid and wrong" variety, and you can probably come up with all of that all by your lonesome.

No. In the end, what I really want to talk about is the rhetorical devices this guy uses in his justification of his actions. First, the guy equates "plagiarist" with "almost as bad as 'rapist' or 'pedophile.'" Um . . . no? I see what he's doing. By trying to make it sound like he thinks of himself as a terrible, awful human being--as bad as some of the worst scum we have on the planet--he hopes that his readers will automatically be on his side. "Come on, buddy. Chin up. You're not that bad."

Sorry. That's not going to work with me. All he ends up doing is trying to use language to belittle the crimes of those other terrible actions. Pedophilia and rape are horrible things. Atrocities. Plagiarism? The action of weak-minded, lazy fools who wish they had actual talent.

(Back in writer-mode for a moment: There's a lot of debate in various circles about what constitutes plagiarism. Even in the comments section of the article I linked to above, there's some back and forth. Some equate anyone who copies other people's ideas in any form as stepping toward plagiarism. Meaning, if someone follows the trends in the market and writes a paranormal YA romance, then that person is plagiarizing. Or if someone lifts the plot from one book and uses it for another. To me, you can't start broadening the meaning of this word. There's being a hack, and there's being a plagiarist. The two aren't the same. A plagiarist takes everything. All the words, just as the original author had written them. Sure, they might change a name here or there, or switch a conjunction, but the two things are pretty much identical. (Note that parody is different--if you're twisting the original in a fun way, or to make a point, or do something different with it, then fine.) It also depends on the extent you've done it. And plots aren't copyrightable, and therefore aren't connected to this discussion. If you take the plot from one book and use it point by point in your own, then you're a hack. Not a plagiarist. A lawyer friend of mine said to look at it like this: imagine fans of the original work come across your new work. Would they say "It was so cool to see how he took what was in work A and turned them into this awesome new, different thing in work B." Or would they say "He totally ripped off work A." Non-hack vs. hack--but neither one a plagiarist. Plagiarists have no skill of their own. They're admitting they can't write well, and so they turn to someone else who can. Plot is structure. It's fundamentally different from actual prose writing, like sculpting is different from carving rock out of a mountainside.)

But what really gets my goat is his feeble attempt to say that he's addicted to plagiarism. In today's use of the word, "addiction" is a buzz word for "it's not my fault." I'm not a bad guy. I'm a victim of this awful, terrible addiction. Pity me. Get me help. But don't hate me, because there's just nothing I could do about it. Maybe years ago, when the addiction started. But not today. Today, I'm a slave to that terrible beast.

Please.

Don't get me wrong. Addiction is a real thing, and I'm not meaning to dismiss it casually. Drugs, alcohol--chemical addictions. I'm fully aware of what they can do and how real they are. But "addiction" is wandering into areas it doesn't belong, in my opinion.

Addicted to porn, to sex, to video games, to eating, to whatever you want to say you're addicted to. In some of those cases, I can see a case being made. Pornography in particular seems to have some very strong arguments in favor of it being an actual addiction. But sooner or later, a line's going to have to be drawn that says "This is Not an Addiction."

And to me, nothing about plagiarism justifies it even remotely being included in the pantheon of addictions. The guy was a pathological liar, perhaps. But he wasn't compelled to plagiarize. He was worried about people finding out he was a half-wit untalented thief, so he kept on being a half-wit untalented thief. At any point in time, he could have come clean, or--you know--actually started writing stuff all by himself.

Writing your own stuff is actually possible. I've done it for years. It's hard. And it takes practice and effort. But it can be done.

Anyway. I'm all out of time, and there's nothing left productive for me to say at this point, anyway. Anyone have anything they'd care to add?