The Memory of Flight

So I had a very odd dream.

Mary Lynn and I were sitting on the roof of an apartment building, about three stories up. Above us was a blue sky, draped with several broad white clouds. One particularly large cloud bank was approaching, and as I looked at it, I saw that a large round hole had opened up in the bottom of the cloud, and something like a waterfall was spilling down from the opening's rim.

I immediately pointed this out to Mary Lynn. As we watched, the stuff (whatever it was) that was falling from the cloud seemed to level off, forming a horizontal stream, which began to drift by us at the level of the roof we were on. I expected to see just a horizontal column of mist, but as we looked, we saw that the stream was actually formed of innumerable floating feathers, about as long as my hand. Each feather had an intricate, delicate structure, and was colored white with grey touches.

One of us (I don't know who) reached out into this passing stream of feathers and brought back something larger. It was also white, gray, and fluffy, but was about the size of a soccer ball, with the heft of something that had been made of papier-mache. A point at one end that gave it a round teardrop shape, and opposite the point, a long feathery crest hung from the object, nearly as long as I am tall.

After staring at it a while, it became clear to us that we were holding the mummified head of a huge bird. This fantastic white-gray avian had, for some reason, disintegrated in the upper atmosphere, and its feathers and impossibly light bones had spread out into a cloud. This cloud had drifted with the wind until some twist of atmosphere and temperature had caused the feathers to suddenly fall, near the apartment building where Mary Lynn and I sat. Thermals near the buildings had temporarily halted the descent of the bird's remains, causing them to float past us where we sat on the roof.

Below us, an actual river flowed past the building whose roof we occupied. We dropped the head off the roof, and it fell into the river, along with the other feathers and remnants that had begun to succumb to gravity. The head, and the other feathers, turned black when they touched the water, sank, and dissolved.

I woke up shortly after that, knowing that I had seen one of the most miraculous and astonishing sights of my life -- and that it had only been a dream.

Stone of Names: Cover Art Preview

Karri Klawiter, the artist who prepared the cover art for Stone of Names, was kind enough to post a preview of the cover on her web site. Click here to take a look. While you're there, be sure to check out Karri's other projects as well.

Stone of Names: October Status Update

Rejection letters are still trickling in from literary agents, which means I'm on track to self-publish Stone of Names come December. I've commissioned cover art from a professional illustrator, and I'm overjoyed with the results. The cover looks so nice that it would be a shame to just sell it on the Kindle. I'm now considering selling it through print-on-demand as well, through CreateSpace at least. (For anyone reading this blog who's also shopping around for cover art, I highly recommend Karri Klawiter; she turned around quick, high-quality work, and was very accommodating when it came to tweaks and revisions.)

The conventional wisdom among self-publishers seems to be that sales will be slow until you have several books available for purchase under your name. Readers who like one of your books will be more likely to buy the rest. The more books you have available, the more books you're likely to sell to happy readers. A common strategy is to publish a linked series of books and offer the first one for free.

This suggests, of course, that my smart move is to turn Stone of Names into a series. I know what the next two books in this hypothetical series would be about, but I'm more interested in telling a different kind of story. Stone of Names, at heart, is a fairly traditional high fantasy story; I have something more original in mind for my next book. If I get good results from Stone of Names, though, I might be more likely to write those hypothetical next two books.

Verify, Then Trust

Today's first lesson: if you live in the United States and you are being questioned by a law enforcement officer, and you want to decline to answer a question, be sure to state explicitly that you are exercising your legal right to silence.

Today's second lesson, unrelated but equally important: don't sign a petition or call a public official until you've verified for yourself that you have the facts about the issue at hand.

I tend to be somewhat left-leaning on many political issues, and I get a lot of e-mail from left/progressive/liberal/Democratic/green organizations telling me about their cause du jour. Frequently these e-mails come in the form of a statement that something horrible has happened, accompanied by a plea to contact someone in authority and complain about it. For the most part, I appreciate getting these e-mails, because it lets me know when someone is trying to organize a coordinated outcry about an issue I care about.

But I always double-check the information these organizations are sending me. I'll go and look up the text of the law in question, or the facts about the Supreme Court decision we're talking about. Unfortunately, I have do do this homework on my own, because I've found that I can't trust my so-called allies on the left to give me the straight facts.

The note I got today is one such example. The underlying issue may well be something for folks to be concerned about, and is certainly something that everyone should be aware of, but the e-mail I received about it is misleading, exaggerated, and inappropriate.

In brief, I got a note about the SCOTUS Salinas v. Texas decision that was given in June of 2013. The court decision pertains to a criminal investigation in which a person of interest was being questioned by authorities but had not yet been placed in custody. The individual declined to answer a question about the crime, and later, the prosecutor included this refusal as part of the evidence of the person's guilt. This case made it up to the Supreme Court because the accused's defense claimed that this silence could not be used as evidence against the defendant, as per the Fifth Amendment. The Supreme Court nixed this defense, indicating that it is critical that law enforcement officers must have a clear indication of when a suspect is claiming his Fifth Amendment rights, as opposed to when a suspect is aware of his rights but has not yet chosen to exercise them. Therefore, the defendant's silence was admissible as evidence, since the defendant in this case did not explicitly declare that he was exercising his Fifth Amendment rights.

The e-mail I got, however, doesn't say any of this. The e-mail contains no details of the case, and simply includes language such as the following:

• The Supreme Court Just Eliminated The Fifth Amendment.
• This Supreme Court ruling guts the Fifth Amendment and turns the Constitution into a list of privileges, not rights.
• The Supreme Court just handed down a decision that rewrites the Constitution, claiming we have no Fifth Amendment protection unless we explicitly call for it.

About the only thing missing here is a statement that Justice Roberts has established his own personal army and has seized control of the government. It's a small blessing that the e-mail did include a link to an article explaining exactly what happened, which has very little to do with what the e-mail claims. First of all, the Fifth Amendment, in total, reads as follows:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

It should be clear at a glance that this SCOTUS decision applies only to one clause of this amendment. The assertion that the decision "rewrites the Constitution" or "eliminated the Fifth Amendment" is a ridiculous bit of hyperbole.

In fact, it's not at all clear that even the clause "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" has been nullified by this decision. The SCOTUS case was specifically about a defendant who was not in custody and declined to answer a question. The decision seems to have no bearing whatsoever about the testimony (or lack thereof) given during a formal trial.

What we're talking about here are Miranda rights, which are a facet of this clause of the amendment. And while this decision does seem to weaken the protection given by Miranda rights, it's important to note that this is merely a repeat of a similar SCOTUS ruling given back in 2010.

Yes, there is a legal issue here to be concerned about. Yes, this decision raises a legal hazard for any potential defendant who isn't aware of this particular ruling and its implications. But no one has torn up the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, and in fact, the legal precedent here was set three years ago, if not earlier.

I would be happy to get an e-mail informing me that a recent SCOTUS ruling has re-affirmed what seems to be a weakening of my Miranda rights, and suggesting that I talk to my Congresscritters about it. I'm not at all pleased to get an e-mail telling me that the Supreme Court has started burning the founding documents of our democracy.

Stone of Names: September Update

This is probably going to be the last update about Stone of Names for a few months. I've sent the last query letter I intend to send for this book, and I need to wait a couple of months to let any late responses come in. I would hate to have this book uploaded and selling on Amazon and then get a note from an agent saying that they love it and want to represent it.

But the uniform series of rejection letters suggests that I am going to have to self-publish it. The book is clearly lacking something that makes it attractive to an agent.

It might be something simple. I had one response suggest that the book is too short to easily sell. This is a completely valid observation. The book is only 63K words and change, and I know that's pretty short. But that's as long as the story is. The story went everywhere I wanted it to. I'm sure that I could have padded it out with more stuff, but the book as written is the book that I wanted to write. If it's too short for the current market, then it's completely appropriate for me to self-publish.

Or I might be trying to sell a book that the market doesn't want right now. Urban fantasy is big right now, and there might not be as much room for a traditional elves-and-dragons kind of story.

Or my writing still might not have quite enough polish to catch an agent's eye. My beta test readers helped me quite a bit with Stone of Names; I've joined the Critters online workshop in the hopes of continuing to improve.

In the meantime, I'll be working on the cover art and the book description that will appear on Amazon. Hopefully, around the start of the new year, I'll have it available for download.

Adventures in Query Writing

Throughout August, I've been hunting down literary agents on the web, identifying agents who seem to be interested in conventional fantasy fiction, and sending them query letters in the hopes of finding representation. For those who haven't participated in this exercise, it's a ... unique experience.

Most agents want some combination of the following:

• A query letter
• A synopsis of your book
• Some portion of your manuscript, from a few pages to a few chapters

Every agent is different. I've been told that literary agents receive a huge volume of queries; their job is to sift through a mountain of broken glass and find a diamond in it. I do not envy them this task. So when I find that this agent wants five sample pages while this other agent wants ten, or this other agent wants my material inline within the email while this other other agent wants it attached as a Word DOC, I'm glad to comply. Whatever works best for their workflow is fine with me, and I'm happy to accommodate.

But every so often, I run across an agent who has very particular requirements. Some agents have online forms that you must submit through, instead of sending e-mail. A few agents want to see all material, including the query letter, in the form of Word documents. It takes a little more work on my end to get my stuff prepared to meet some of these unique requirements, but if I want to get published, I have to be willing to do the work.

And then there are the agents who just seem to be constructing an arbitrary and elaborate series of obstacles for reasons known only to them. I feel at times like I'm being made to pass some sort of examination to see how thoroughly I can follow instructions. This, combined with the steady stream of rejection letters I've been getting back, makes this an exceptionally humbling experience.

So, for anyone out there who's planning to try to find an agent for a book, I would offer the following advice: when you find an agent's web site, read it carefully, and try to find the following:

• Try to find the agency's web site, so that you can find their up-to-date information. There are several web sites that have listings of agents, but the information on those sites might be obsolete. The agent you're looking at might be out of the business, or might not be looking for your genre of fiction any more. Don't just send a query blind to someone's email unless you can determine their status first.
• While you're on their web site, check for any danger signs that might indicate that this isn't a legitimate agent. Anyone who wants to charge you money just to read your manuscript is not the kind of agent you want to associate with. A legitimate agent earns his or her money from the publisher by selling your book. (Here is a good place to start if you want to learn more about organizations and entities that you should avoid.)
• Try to identify whether or not they're interested in your type of work. Most agency web sites will list somewhere what they're looking for. If the web site has agent bio pages, this is usually a good place to start.
• Find their submissions guidelines, and read them closely. You probably have a pre-prepared query letter and synopsis, but you might need to tweak what you have to meet a specific agent's needs. Don't get yourself disqualified just because you forgot to send something that the agent asked for.
• Don't take rejection personally. Don't get upset at the agent who sends you a polite "thanks, but not thanks." Be professional. Query someone else.

In short: if you're going to try to find an agent, be prepared to put in a lot of work.

Review: The Wolverine (Spoiler Warning)

Short answer: The Wolverine is an adequate superhero movie, but you've almost certainly seen this story before, even if you haven't read the exact comics this movie is based on.

Spoilers ahead, by the way.

I've never been that much of a Wolverine fan. When I was collecting comic books, I had a different first choice for my stories about a tough, cyncial, flawed hero. I was disappointed when the first three X-Men movies basically turned out to be "Wolverine and His Less Competent Friends". So it may not be much of a surprise that I thought this particular outing for the super-healing Aussie was lukewarm at best.

But the basic story of The Wolverine is completely paint-by-the-numbers. You start with your hard-edged hero, who's suffering from a painful past and hiding his bad-assitude under a basket. Then he's offered a chance to do something meaningful and noble. He tries to walk away, but eventually finds that he can't; he's become smitten with the story's damsel in distress, who is sufficiently helpless that the hero must come to her rescue. He succeeds, and by doing so, he rediscovers himself and his purpose.

The movie just keeps hitting the same old cliches, right down to the love-em-and-leave-em, "I don't fit into your world, babe" ending. I know that some of this story actually predates the movie, although there's not much in common between the original comics and the movie aside from a few characters and the general theme. With so much divergence from the source material, the scriptwriters certainly could have invented a less cliche Wolverine/Mariko storyline.

There are a few good moments in the movie, and Yukio is a fun character I wouldn't mind seeing more of. And, of course, there's the mid-credits teaser for the next movie, which by itself will probably justify the price of admission for hardcore fans. If you're keen to see Hugh Jackman beat up ninja or take his shirt off a lot, you're well-served by The Wolverine, but otherwise, there's nothing special or noteworthy here.