Hack part 1

Hack Part the One

I enjoy writing. To the point that I have two blogs, though I don't update either as often as I should like. Sometimes concentration is difficult – my attention span is so short.

Sometime back in the spring of 2005 I was watching 28 Days Later with a friend of mine. After she freaked out at the Church Scene, she told me about her grand plans whence came the Zombie Apocalypse. She and her friends had decided that they were going to hole up in the local Walmart Dawn of the Dead style. Really for them Walmart was the only choice. The local mall sucked donkey gonads, and it even did that poorly. The big box concern was the most logical destination for a bunch of geeky fucktards to flee for if the dead started coming to life. Never mind that all the other assholes in the city would probably have the same idea, this is their fantasy damn it! The other denizens can find their own big box store turned fortress.

This sparked an idea in me, to write a story about those people. The ones who made plans for the ZombPoc and then had it dropped into their laps. It was a fun idea and my plan was to write a 8,000 word short story. Maybe 10,000 words. And then see where it took me. I made fantastic headway and the writing took on a life of its own, to the tune of about 35,000 words by that summer. Then I lost steam and put the project aside.

Then I graduated from college. I live in Michigan, and our economy has been in the cesspit for decades. It hadn't improved, and has only since gotten worse. On top of that I have a Bachelors of Fine Arts with a Concentration in Ceramics, and a second Major in History. The History Major? I added it to the queue because I thought it would be more applicable to the outside world.

Heh. Stupid art fuck. Who let you leave home and play adult?

As I worked through college and being cheap and obscenely dull I had money 'saved' If you don't take into account the tens of thousands in student loans. With no real prospects or direction in the real world, I tried to decide what to do next while applying for Fed jobs in the region. After graduation I came across a copy of Max Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide.

Boom. I was inspired again. I began writing 2,000+ words a day seven days a week. Every day after the morning routine I would work on the first 1,000 words. When that was done I would get some exercise and otherwise enjoy my afternoon. Then dinner. Then around 8 or 9 I'd start working on the second 1,000 words. I looked forward to getting up and going to work every day. The story was a blast and the process of creating it was a blast.

Six months after I graduated I had 300,000 words of zombie uprising goodness following the travails of several groups of survivors for one full year following the apocalypse. I named it the Survivor Chronicles(i am shite when it comes to naming). I was proud of what I had done.

I thought I needed a story that long, as in college I had found Robert Jordan and other fantasy authors. Those men and women who create those giant doorstop volumes. This must be what the Industry was looking for me thought. They will see my work and pay me thousands and thousands of dollars for the honor of being my publisher! Now all I needed to do was decide what I was going to do with my newfound fortune.

Wrong.

As a Ceramics/History major, I have no real education in the ways of getting published. I just had to leap into the awaiting arms of Google and figure it out. The worst part for me was the crafting of the Query Letter. How do you take the whole of who you are, and your labor and winnow it down to a concise trio of paragraphs? And make all of that interesting? And sell this idea to a complete stranger.

Even now, nearly five years and additional five novels later, I don't have the foggiest notion. There is a feeling that my letters are hit or miss. But after a lot of thinking, something came out and my first twenty pages were on their way to Tor books. Even then I wasn't sure exactly what I had. One book? Or two? Would there be more? My story was an open-ended affair with no over-arcing plot element. There was no great evil to defeat. Just people surviving the apocalypse as best they could. Surely, foes sprang up. But there wasn't a built in ending. The series would last as long as my interest and imagination could hold out. Right now, all told the series a bit longer than the Lord of the Rings. Or about the same length as a single Robert Jordan(RIP RJ) novel.

Here you go Tor. Take it in! This was sometime in the summer months of 2007.

I don't know if it's a failing of the creative mindset to be able to construct and inhabit such grandiose delusions. Or maybe I was just driven by a naïve optimism. All while teetering on the brink of insecurity and self-doubt. They were like a pit beneath my feet. Tor books crushed my hopes with a single letter. For about a week.

It was a blue week as I climbed out of the pit and pushed forward.

I was at the time only aware of one zombie novel, and that was the afore mentioned Max Brooks' World War Z. Though I admit that I really didn't go looking, so there might have been dozens of zombie novels by then, and there probably were. There is only one overriding fact in my mind. I like zombies. Many of my friends share the interest. Someone must want to read this story.

I then sent out more letters and samples. One at a time. To any Publisher who foolhardily took direct submissions from the bottomless sea of unknown hacks. TSR/Wizards by far sent the most promising letter with a 'No, but if you write something more in our genre, please think of us.' Or at least that's how I translated it. The letter left me feeling a mite more hopeful than I had been.

I still have that letter here somewhere I think. I kept them all as a reminder (mostly so I didn't forget and try again).

Oh well, by then I was already working on what would turn out to be Zombies 3 and 4. Each time rejection hurts a bit less and the effects go away all the sooner. I've built a shell of pessimism. I send letters with little exposed hope. When I open the responses, from those who have the courtesy to respond at all, I chant my mantra. That expected answer: Thank you for letting me see, but this doesn't work for me at this time. The bane of the struggling writer.

I've had the phrase repeated to me a hundred times or more now.

There are those who might suggest that one takes a more positive outlook and mindset. To expect that good things will happen. As if one could force their will on the universe simply by wanting something and expecting it. This is Magical Thinking. And it's utter bull shit. Ask any five year old who didn't get that pony that they asked for for Christmas.

All you can really do is keep writing and keep trying. So, I moved onto agents. I've since retired my zombie novels and moved onto other stories. Short and long. No dice. But I keep writing and submitting. All while working – mostly in between employment. An eight hour shift takes too much out of me and drains my focus. My creativity comes in bursts.

About that time, I had quite a job that I hated. HATED. For a company that I despised. I am fairly sure that remaining there would have driven me to a heart attack and an early grave. So I handed in my two week after over-reacting to some petty event. And there it was again, the chance to write and the forgotten desire to do so. Even with the uncertainty of being able to eat it was the best decision of my life. I quit, so there would be no unemployment. Back to living on savings!

The cycle began anew. Write, revise and submit. And be rejected.

A wonderful tool has evolved as I quite my job. Or at least it came to my attention. Independent publishing, largely with eBooks. Amazon and Barnes and Noble and Smashwords among a legion of others. My zombie novels have finally found a home. Once again my optimism was fired up and I jumped into a whole new maze of confusion. How much do I charge? I started high and then toned the price down, tweaking it as I thought about my problem.

My stories don't have professional editing, or cover art. I am a one man show. One who really doesn't enjoy editing at all. It's work, where writing is fun. The words just seem to flow on past my eyes, making it difficult to fix problems that are there in the prose. But it needs to be done and so I tackle the problem as best I can. Write, revise and submit.

And hope. There's always that fragile hope.