Three Things

This is a short video. The speaker is a man who was on the plane that landed in the Hudson River and he talks about the three things he learned because of that experience.

Flare and the Guys

I promised I'd talk a little bit more about some of the stories I have for the Jarved Nine world. Please remember that these stories would be side projects that I wrote between my other books and that I can't make any promises about when I'll get to them. I hesitated to mention anything, but an impromptu survey on Twitter agreed that it was okay, so here I am, blogging them.

When I went home to Minnesota for Christmas, the Jarved Nine world exploded in my head. I spent a lot of time hammering out overviews of the stories. Some ideas are more complete than others and some are missing elements that I'd need to figure out, but I was compelled to get this information down. I guess it's not wholly surprising as I've had these characters in my head--most of them anyway--since 2005, when I wrote Eternal Nights. They've never gone away. I'm not going to go into too much detail about the actual plots because the overviews are mostly about characters anyway.

The first story would belong to Zachary "Z-Man" Chen. Zach grew up in Hawaii and California and he's of European, Chinese, and Hawaiian descent. One of the first things Zach told me was that he's the team sniper. Another thing he told me was that in his job, it's critical he have his head screwed on straight. He's one of the most laid back members on the team--only Troll is more easygoing--but when he needs to fire up the intensity, it's like flipping a switch. It's actually kind of interesting to see how fast he can go from 0 to Mach 2.

Zach's heroine is a scientist assigned to J9 and she's brilliant at her job. She's also brilliant at pissing people off. I don't believe it's intentional, although she hasn't said that much yet. I just think she doesn't realize how abrupt she can be or how others take what she says. She also always runs at a high level of intensity, and because she doesn't see Zach in warrior mode right away, she is under the impression that he's always laid back. She is way wrong, which she'll find out. Heh!

Story two belongs to Gravedigger, he's the team medic. His real name is Cutter Wainwright and his heroine is stationed on Jarved Nine, too. Y'all actually would have heard about her in Eternal Nights except that my editor cut that conversation between Wyatt and Flare. (She was right to do it. It slowed down the story and was a distraction from Wyatt and Kendall.) Cutter comes from a family with a pedigree a mile long, but the family money disappeared long before he was born. He joined the army to pay for college, but ended up deciding to stay in.

His heroine is Nadia. She knows most of Cutter's team doesn't think she's good enough for him, which had her trying to keep her distance from him. After all, if his team doesn't like her, she can't be more than a fling to him and Nadia isn't going there. Not even if he is the hottest guy she's ever met.

The final story in the arc would belong to Francisco "Flare" Cantore. Flare is the team's chief warrant officer. I actually thought Flare would be first, but no matter how I envisioned the arc, he didn't fit anywhere except third. Although, the way I've seen things, there'd be some scenes in his point of view in both Zach and Cutter's books. Flare has never quite gotten over his ex-wife (something else that was (correctly) cut from Eternal Nights) and he's not even a little happy to return from a mission to discover she's inside the Old City on J9.

Sasha Cantore (who you met in The Troll Bridge) isn't any happier to run into Flare. She's put the past behind her--or so she thought until she keeps running into her ex. There are only about 600 troops on J9. Avoiding someone is nearly impossible. Flare and Sasha set out to accomplish this impossible task. And fail.

I'm still torn about having blogged about my plans since, like I said, this would be a side project. Please don't be disappointed if it takes a long while for anything to get accomplished. Next week, I think I'll talk a little about what I am officially working on now and share my thoughts on that world.

FAQ on J9

I still get a lot of email and questions about my Jarved Nine world and books, so I thought I'd answer some of them here.

Are you going to release RAVYN'S FLIGHT and ETERNAL NIGHTS in ebook format?

 

Yes, I am going to release RAVYN'S FLIGHT and ETERNAL NIGHTS on ebook. There's a delay right now as my agent and I have submitted them to a publisher to see if they'd be willing to reissue them. If that doesn't come to pass, I'll work on getting them out, but please bear with me.

 

Are you going to write more books set in this world?

 

I do want to write more stories in this world, but because they'd have to be self-published, they're a side project, something I can only work on between my other stories. Because of this, I can't give any timelines or promises.

 

Do you have stories for J9? Who are the characters?

 

Yes, I do. As I wrote THE TROLL BRIDGE, I knew it could be expanded to a full-length book and I plan to do that, but I also have six new story ideas (2 trilogies) that I'd like to get to first because of the timeline. Troll's story takes place in 2050 and all the other stories play out before that. Also, if I manage to get all this done in my spare time, I have to write Cam Brody's story (Ravyn and Damon's son) because my mom keeps asking me for it. I do know who Cam's heroine is, but I don't have a story for them yet.

Most of the stories revolve around members of Wyatt's team (Eternal Nights). The first set of books I want to do have Z Man, Gravedigger, and Flare as the heroes. They were mentioned in Eternal Nights or The Troll Bridge or both. If you read Troll's story, you met Flare's heroine there.

I'll talk a little more about the stories on Thursday.

25 Most Popular Urban Legends

Site Organization Issues

On Tuesday, I posted about the release of my Jarved Nine series on audio. It's hugely exciting for me, but it's also led to a logistical issue on my website. How do I list ebooks, paper books, and audio books in a way that's uncluttered and easy for readers?

I went through this the first time with ebooks and paper. With that problem, I decided to list paper because sites like Amazon and Barnes & Noble include links to the electronic versions. Now, as my paper copies have gone out of print, but the ebooks remain active, I've swapped out the links to the electronic versions. But now how do I handle it? I've tried to check out other authors' sites, but haven't found any method that I really like yet.

While I continue to ponder this, I've created a new page on my site and created a link on my books page to the audio books. They're linked to Audible who has all the books available, but that's something else I have to think about-linking to multiple audio book sellers.

It seems to me, there must be some way to organize my website that's clean and easy, but I haven't figured it out yet.

Now Available In Audio!

I promised to let you know when you could buy the Jarved Nine series on audio and they're finally available! You can click on the link for each book or find all my audio books by clicking here. The links all go to Audible. You can also find them on Amazon.

Ravyn's Flight:
Alone on a strange planet. Their teammates murdered by an unknown enemy. Help weeks away. Could there be a worse time to fall in love?

Ravyn Verdier is the communications specialist for a Colonization Assessment Team studying Jarved Nine. But when her teammates are murdered, their bodies mutilated, she finds herself alone with an unknown enemy lurking. Somewhere.

Damon Brody is a Special Ops captain. He and his team arrive on J9 for a training mission. They've hardly landed when they hear an emergency beacon. They respond to the call, but find only one survivor. Within hours, Damon's team is murdered, too, and he and Ravyn have to work together to stay alive.

They run for the Old City, a long-abandoned alien settlement, but it holds secrets that shake their view of the universe. To make it off the planet alive, they'll have to learn to put their faith in these strange things, and they'll have to trust each other and the bond they share. Only then will they be able to defeat the enemy and find forever with each other.

Eternal Nights:
Captain Kendall Thomas discovers a group of thieves is looting artifacts from the abandoned alien city on Jarved Nine and smuggling them to sell on Earth. While gathering evidence, she and her best friend, Special Ops Captain Wyatt Montgomery, are trapped inside an ancient pyramid. As they try to find a way out, they're hunted by the smugglers who are determined to stay out of jail and keep their profitable side business going.

Wyatt has always considered Kendall to be more than a friend, but he's been biding his time, waiting for the right opportunity to deepen their relationship without scaring her off. The situation they're in now is dangerous, but it also means Kendall can't run from him when things grow emotionally intimate. Getting trapped in the pyramid might be the best thing that's ever happened to him—if they make it out alive.

The Troll Bridge:
Lia Stanton has always played life safe, but when an incident at a particle accelerator sends her through a wormhole, she goes from Earth 2010 to Jarved Nine 2050. Almost everything is unfamiliar, and when she's accused of being a spy, nothing is safe—least of all the soldier sent to guard her.

Troll Maglaya is on his third tour of duty on Jarved Nine. He thought there were no more surprises here for him, but that was before he met Lia. He'd never given much thought to time travel, but now he needs to convince this woman to give 2050—and him—a chance.

St. Patrick's Day Myths Debunked

At Random

Kind of in keeping with the education/learning theme from Tuesday, that audio book I'm listening to that mentioned brain acuity had a great suggestion. Set up a random Wikipedia page as your browser home page. This way every time you open the browser, you have a chance to read something new.

The link to do that is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Randompage

I'm going to try this out. It's actually an intriguing idea since I'll never know what's going to turn up and it's an opportunity to expand my horizons in directions I wouldn't think interesting. When I stretch, I usually do end up learning something interesting.

Like the time I was flipping through the stations on television and ran into the show about container shipping. I never expected to actually watch the full hour. What could be more boring than watching a program about shipping goods around the world?

It was riveting. I learned things I'd never considered. I'm hoping for the same thing with the random Wikipedia page. And who knows? Maybe it will percolate itself into an idea some day.

Brain Aerobics

I was listening to an audio book last week that talked about mental acuity and how it declines after we're out of school. The fall off is gradual, and people who've attended for college delay the issue for about a decade, but it happens with subjects you don't use. Like algebra.

I did notice the math decline, but I guess I really don't care much about that. Math was never my best subject and I had to work my tail off to get As in that class. In high school. I never took any math in college.

This is something I hadn't read about before, but I knew it happened. When I considered going back to college I decided against it both times because I didn't think I could study like I did while I was still in school.

(The first time I considered going back was to get a second degree. This was a few years after I finished college. The second time, I considered going back for a masters degree, maybe about five years ago. I ruled that out partly because of fiction writing and partly because they didn't have a part time program in the masters I was looking at.)

But I felt better about all of this when I realized how much learning I continue to do. The audio books I listen to are nearly all non-fiction. There's all the research required as a writer. I've read up on all kinds of things including nanotechnology and M Theory (physics) to name just two topics.

Then there's my decision to take Spanish lessons and I've signed up for Excel classes. Through iTunes U I've taken multiple geography classes from Stanford and an earthquake class from Berkeley. I'm listening to podcasts on the history of English and I have some science podcasts up next in queue. Then there's my constant computer geekiness and how I troubleshoot everything myself--both at home and at work.

I don't do any of these things because I'm worried about my brain atrophying. I do them because I really am a geek. I love learning and I always have. I'm also pretty anal about getting facts right in my books. I figure with these things in my favor, I don't have to worry too much about losing mental acuity. Unless the Spanish Ser form of To Be makes my head explode. And it might.

Geeking Out Over Hubble

Hubble far-field view video. Just incredible.

Five Lessons Writers Can Learn From Jaws

It must have been my weekend for movies. In addition to watching 13 Going On 30, I also saw a show on the Biography Channel about the making of the movie Jaws. There were a lot of interesting things shared about the movie and some of them made me think of what they mean for writing books.

1. The shark was supposed to appear a lot more than it did in the movie. Steven Spielberg had it all storyboarded out, but the mechanical shark didn't cooperate. It was constantly broken. Because of that, he was forced to imply the shark was there. It made the movie much scarier because the audience was supplying the visual with their imaginations.

Writing Lesson: Your readers will bring their imaginations to what you write. It's a collaborative effort, so help them engage and then get out of their way. No one needs 10 paragraphs of description.

2. The original soliloquy where Captain Quint (Robert Shaw) talks about his navy ship going down and how 1200 men went in and only 300 came out was 8 pages long. It was Shaw who cut it down to 4 pages, which made it something that could be added to the movie. It was also an extremely powerful scene.

Writing Lesson: Edit, Cut, Revise, and Repeat. Your work will be stronger for it, especially in emotional scenes.

3. Originally Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) was supposed to die in the movie, but the team filming live sharks in Australia got an absolutely incredible shot of a Great White attacking an empty shark cage. It was too spectacular not to use in the movie, so Spielberg changed things. He had Hooper escape and hide on the bottom so that it made sense to show the shark attacking the empty cage.

Writing Lesson: When the muse or serendipity or your subconscious gives you a gift, something that makes your story more awesome, don't discard it because it doesn't fit what you plan to do. Change your plans.

4. The script wasn't completely ready to go when filming began, and because of shark malfunctions, the scriptwriter was writing the next day's pages the night before shooting. The actors all offered ideas on how their characters should be portrayed. One of the people interviewed for the show (sorry, I can't remember who it was) said he'd never seen so much actor collaboration on their characters before this.

Writing Lesson: Your characters are going to assert their personalities as you write. Don't fight them. I'm a character driven writer and I know a lot about my people before I ever sit down to write, but they still surprise me and do things I never would have guessed they'd do. I used to tell them they couldn't do that--I always lost the argument. Now I go with them and let them expand who they are on the page.

5. The woman who edited the film and put it together was a genius at finding small clips from the shoot and using them to enhance transitions and other scenes throughout the movie. Her input strengthened the story and the impact it had on moviegoers.

Writing Lesson: A good editor can help you make your work stronger than when you finished. He or she will point out what can be fleshed out more, what doesn't make sense, and point out things that distract from the story--among many other things. Any writer who thinks a good edit won't benefit them better do an ego check. If Steven Spielberg realizes a talented editor can improve his work, you should realize the same thing about your writing.

There you have it, five lessons on writing from watching the Jaws documentary.

13 Going On 30

Over the weekend, I got a little bored. Since I was still recovering from the virus, I wasn't good for too much yet and headed over to On Demand to see what free movies were playing. After paging through all the options, I chose to watch 13 Going On 30 and I'm so glad I did.

This movie came out in 2004, so there will be spoilers. You've been warned.

Jenna Rink is 13 and wants to be one of the popular girls. Her best friend, Matt who's always photographing something, doesn't understand why she wants this. And because they pick on him, who can blame him?

On the evening of her birthday party, he brings over a gift for Jenna. He built her a dream house and filled it with things for her. Then he opens up the wishing dust and sprinkles it over the top of the house. Then the popular kids show up, and once the leader Lucy who's called Tom Tom gets the paper she conned Jenna into writing for her, she prepares to play a nasty trick on her. She ties a blindfold around Jenna's eyes and sends her into a closet, telling her that one of the popular boys wants to join her. That, of course, isn't what happens. Devastated, Jenna wishes she were thirty and some wishing dust from the dream house falls on her.

The next thing Jenna knows, she's waking up in a strange bedroom that's inside a strange apartment and she's 30. As she's trying to come to terms with all this, a man (grown-up Jenna's boyfriend that transplanted Jenna knows nothing about) comes out in only a towel. When he drops it, she flees and waiting for her in front of her Manhattan apartment building is her coworker, Lucy, with the limo to take them to work. Jenna, it turns out, is a high-powered magazine editor.

Jenna calls her parents and finds out they're on a Caribbean cruise, so as soon as she can, she finds her best friend, Matt, looking for some help. Matt has turned into a prince, but she soon learns they aren't friends anymore and haven't been since her 13th birthday party when she threw the dream house at him.

That's only the first of many revelations teenage Jenna learns about the woman she's become. There's a whole bunch of not very nice stuff including stealing people's ideas at work and then firing them, sleeping with married men, and sabotaging her magazine to help a competitor sell more copies. You see, if they reach 1 million in circulation, Jenna will be editor-in-chief of the competing magazine.

I honestly didn't expect much from this movie. I figured it would just be some average teen flick, but boy was I surprised. I loved 13 Going On 30 and I am hugely picky about movies.

Grown up Jenna is played by Jennifer Garner who did a great job acting like a 13-year-old trying to act like she's 30. As the story progresses, she loses some of her naivete, but not her innocence. She's disappointed by who she's become and doesn't want to be that person. And when she seems on top of the world, as if she can be this genuine Jenna and still succeed, the bottom falls out.

This film had heart. Thirteen-year-old Jenna is very easy to relate to. Who didn't want to be popular when they were that age? But it was once she fast forwarded to 30 that things became more interesting. Thankfully the script didn't spend a whole lot of time with Jenna foundering around. Yes, at first things aren't easy, but she adapts. Maybe a little too quickly to be believed, but I was happy to overlook that since I'm not a huge fan of characters that don't smarten up. Jenna did and she stepped into her adult life...well, if not spectacularly, at least honestly and ably.

Along the way, as Jenna learns who she's become and is disillusioned by it, she grows up in ways that aren't physical. She reconciles with her parents, who she's kind of blown off. Jenna spends Christmas in St. Bart's with friends, not home with her parents. She realizes what she gave up when she lost Matt as a friend, and when she tells him how she feels, well, he tells her life has moved on and he's marrying his fiancee. I liked this, too. It would have been too easy for the writers to have him dump the fiancee and give them a happy ending, but that wasn't our payoff.

As you'd expect, Jenna gets sent back to the night of her 13th birthday, and this time, she kisses Matt instead of throwing the dream house at him. And her entire life gets rewritten.

My favorite scene in the movie is the one where Jenna dances to Thriller at the swanky magazine party and so many people join in. There were other great scenes, too, of course, but this is the one I want to watch again and again. I also loved grown up Jenna singing Love is a Battlefield with a bunch of 13 year olds during a slumber party.

The biggest disappointment for me? When Jenna returns, we go from kiss with Matt to grown up Jenna and Matt on a completely different life path than what they'd had before. I would have liked to have seen some more of these differences that Jenna made the second time around. Like did she become a magazine editor again? Did she and Matt date all the while between 13 and 30 the second go around or not? I really missed having a bit more epilogue to the ending.

But despite my disappointment in not getting more information, the ending was still near perfect for the movie. It was a very satisfying conclusion.

As you can guess, I'm giving this film two thumbs up. I highly recommend.

How a Hurricane Is Born

It's pretty incredible to think that a hurricane could start by something so small and simple half a world away.