Rewrites

Got a lot of useful comments on the first draft, now in rewriting mode. Lots of things to think about, because my view of the settings, characters, and story evolved over time. Do I try to recapture my initial impressions and stick to that vision? Or do I reset everything to adhere to a new vision? My gut tells me to go with the path of least resistance, the one that will go faster. Unfortunately, my gut doesn't know which path that is! We shall see...

In the meantime, reading recs:
Lynn Flewelling
Ricardo Pinto
Beth Shannon
Martha Wells

Time flies

(“I would but I don’t have a watch,” is what we would always reply when I was a kid. No idea where that old gag came from.)

Work on the new book progresses, but not as quickly as I wanted.

Wanted to share this link from the New York Public Library blog: Not Just Coming Out Stories. To the list of fantasy authors recommended in a comment, I would add Lynn Flewelling, whose Nightrunner series of books remains a favorite that I reread (and I’m not a big rereader).

Book rec

Breaking the Line: The Season in Black College Football That Transformed the Sport and Changed the Course of Civil Rights
by Samuel G. Freedman

Compelling look at the football programs at Grambling and Florida A&M from prewar origins to the late 1960s. Straightforward about the effects of segregation on college academics, sports, facilities, and on the post-college prospects of the players. It really wasn't that long ago. A fascinating, sobering read.

Postseason musings

The regular NFL and college seasons are already over. It's still frustrating not to see my favorite teams' games because I don't live in a particular area, and the highlights on NFL Network recaps aren't good enough. I can't predict who will make it to the Super Bowl, although there are definitely some frontrunners in the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks. But anything can happen during the playoffs!

An interesting link: Gay players on the 1993 Houston Oilers.

A current read: Death Below Zero by Richard Anderson. I love mystery novels, and the unusual setting intrigued me.

An upcoming read: Fair Catch by Del Darcy.

Manuscript watch: I hope to have a little something released in the winter/spring of 2014. The first draft is in revision, and I've reached out to the same wonderful artist who designed the cover of Safety Net and hope to get another beautiful cover.

I have another story in mind, entirely new. It's in the "gel" stage: the elements need to come together and I can start writing. Once I get at least one scene clearly mapped out, I can start -- even if that scene ultimately never makes it into the story.

Happy New Year! Best wishes for 2014.

Preseason musings

If I were in charge of NFL football on television:

• on-demand available for any regular season or playoffs game.
• on-demand season subscriptions available for any team. So if, say, you are a Buffalo Bills fan living in New Mexico, you could watch all their games and not simply hope they play an occasional game well enough for NFL Network to rerun it (edited) later in the week.
• the on-demand versions could include enhanced content to make them tempting upgrades from the ordinary Monday Night Football or Thursday Night Football broadcasts.
• regular season announcers would be replaced by the preseason announcers, who actually talk about the game they are there to announce. It is amazing to me how awful the regular season announcers are. They talk about their own careers, about players who haven’t played in the NFL for years, about whatever gossipy scandal is in the headlines, about the other games being played… In short, they talk about anything other than the game they’re at.

The NFL does offer seasonal subscriptions, of a sort, through streaming video. But even in 2013 streaming video still sucks, and I’m not certain these are entire games or just “every touchdown.” If one enjoys watching defensive plays, “every touchdown” is not the same thing as seeing a game.

Currently reading: Sports Illustrated Blood, Sweat and Chalk: The Ultimate Football Playbook: How the Great Coaches Built Today’s Game by Tim Layden.
A nice summary history of the major plays and schemes used in modern football, starting with the old “single wing” formation and moving forward. It is really interesting, although I wish there were a bit more about the various rules changes and how that affected certain plays.

I was meant to finish up some classwork today, but instead wrote 2500 words of fun stuff. I’m not sorry. I’ll attack the classwork tonight.

Quiet but not inactive

I can't believe it's been over two months since my last post! Oh, dear! But I have been quietly busy with writing, traveling, and reading. Stay tuned for the outcome(s) of writing...

Travel: Los Angeles and Pasadena, to make a pilgrimage to the Rose Bowl and the Coliseum. (Okay, not really. But we did drive by both and were suitably impressed.)

Reading:
I finished reading the Vorkosigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold
Bone Rattler and Eye of the Raven by Eliot Pattison

Site news:
I bought my own domain and have copied this blog over as a WordPress site. For now, I'm updating both blogs and comparing ease-of-use and how well I like them. Like WordPress better? Check out this blog on: http://sakana17.com/blog.
Future non-blog content will be on sakana17.com.

NFL training camps are later this month. That means football season is just around the corner!

On typos

I hate finding typos in Safety Net! I do correct them -- in batches -- as I find them.

That being said, in the portions of the book that are meant to be the characters texting each other or meant to be online comments, there are deliberate typos, abbreviations, and lack of punctuation and capitalization. I did this to convey a more realistic portrayal of written communication in today's world. If you find this type of intentional mistake too distracting, Safety Net may not be your cup of tea.

Ambient reading:
The Life of Symbols. Edited by Mary LeCron Foster and Lucy Jayne Botscharow.
Very interesting. So far, my favorite chapter is about the origins of counting.

Coming soon?
A short "missing scene" story from Safety Net.

Reading list

Chris Kluwe, punter for the Minnesota Vikings, continues to be an articulate and outspoken ally of gay athletes. His latest opinion piece: "An openly gay player in the NFL is not a distraction."

Current fiction reading:
Floats the Dark Shadow by Yves Fey
The Sun and Stars by Elizabeth Adair

Just finished:
The Books of the Raksura series by Martha Wells: The Cloud Roads, The Serpent Sea, The Siren Depths.
Engrossing stories, fascinating world-building, interesting and compelling characters. I couldn't stop reading these books once I'd started them.

Word clouds

As part of brainstorming for the blurb, I generated two word clouds from portions of Safety Net:

Ambient reading: transcript of an NPR interview about gay athletes coming out. One of the interviewees is former NFL player Wade Davis.

Reviews are dangerous

As a reader, I know that reviews are for other readers; they are not for the author. Even so, I couldn't resist the temptation, and was pleasantly surprised to find positive reviews of Safety Net on Amazon. And now I must never read the reviews again because this is a dangerous temptation for an author. Reviews are for readers (note to self: remember this).

I have to agree with the faults mentioned by some reviewers -- I had doubts about the same issues before publishing, and my editor had excellent suggestions I chose to ignore. On the other hand, I'm glad the price ($4.99) seems to be acceptable. I've probably bought drinks at Starbucks for that price, and it's a price point I find tempting as a reader. A dollar or two more makes me rethink my impulse to buy.

One reviewer wondered if NFL players could have such privacy in their lives. A good question! I think it may depend on the team, the location, and the players themselves and how devoted they are to retaining a private life. But it's undoubtedly harder for players in today's social-media and always-connected world to find privacy.

In the news: NFL prospects claim teams asked them about their sexuality.

I spent last weekend talking to some friends about the possibility of attitudes changing in pro sports, and I'd like to think Chris Kluwe is right: as the older generation retires from sports, there will be more tolerant attitudes. But news like this proves there is still a very, very long way to go.

Book behind-the-scenes:
* The first scene I imagined never made it into the book. In it, Lowell encountered Erick walking his bike across campus in the rain. They walked together and talked and it was to be the first moment when Lowell understood his feelings for Erick. I never wrote this scene because the book took a different shape.
* I wasn't sure how the book would end and if Lowell and Erick would stay together until I was perhaps 75% finished with the first draft. There was a long interval when I was afraid no one would end up together and it was going to be a very unhappy ending.
* As is likely obvious in the book, I fell in love with Candace. Originally she wasn't going to be a major character, but a summer fling for Erick. I quickly realized Candace wouldn't stand for being a summer fling, and it was also out-of-character for Erick to drift in and out of a relationship so quickly.
* I can't decide whether to love or hate Erick's mother. Either way, I'm extremely thankful that she's not my mother.

Relevant reading

Here's a timely interview relevant to the later chapters of Safety Net:

"Necessary Roughness" Goes Gay: http://www.buzzfeed.com/kateaurthur/necessary-roughness-goes-gay

Manuscript: Rewrites!

This week I got the manuscript back from my editor and had a long phone call with her about structure. Then another long phone call with a supportive friend who helped me bounce ideas back and forth. I've finished the copy-editing corrections and now it's time for rewrites. Eeeeek and/or yay? It'll be interesting to get close to the characters again after all this time. I started the manuscript last Thanksgiving. Time flies.

Ambient reading:
Take Your Eye Off the Ball: How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look by Pat Kirwan.

Manuscript: The Horror of the Notes

A few notes to myself during the writing stage. I also have a bunch of research material saved as PDFs or TIFFs.

Manuscript watch: Sent to editor! Still waiting to hear back. I changed the working title. And I may have found a book cover artist. If only I had ideas for what the cover should look like... 

Ambient reading:
Bissinger, Buzz. "Why College Football Should be Banned." The Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2012.
Branch, Taylor. "The Shame of College Sports." The Atlantic Monthly, October 2011.
Hinton, Matt. "Billionaire Ball: Epitaph for the Student-Athlete." The Baffler, No. 20, July 11, 2012. [Full-text available for pay-per-view or to subscribers]

Manuscript: The Soundtrack

Manuscript watch: at the 90% mark in the latest read-through before sending it to the editor. (Oh, I am so happy I found an editor!)

Current reads:   
* And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible's Original Meaning by Joel M. Hoffman
* Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World by Nicholas Ostler

I'm reading a lot of general books about linguistics lately, because it's fascinating. I've always been interested in languages and wished I could be more than monolingual.

Recent reads:
* Bowled Over: Big-Time College Football from the Sixties to the BCS Era by Michael Oriard
* Home & Away: The Rise and Fall of Professional Football on the Banks of the Ohio, 1919-1934 by Carl M. Becker


Some other time I will write about the origins of the manuscript, but right now it's soundtrack time. I don't write to music, but listening to music helps me write, get ideas, and find inspiration. The soundtrack while writing began with Bryan Ferry's Olympia album, but then I spent a long time with this playlist that iTunes calls "Fire 2":
Fire - Kasabian (West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum)
Reason or Rhyme - Bryan Ferry (Olympia)
Paradise - Shinhwa (State of the Art)
Light Travels - Simple Minds (Graffiti Soul)
Empire (Album Version) - Kasabian (Empire)
Bloodsport - Killing Joke (Killing Joke (remastered))
Breakdown - Epik High (Breakdown)
Higher Love - Depeche Mode (Songs of Faith and Devotion)
Moscow Underground - Simple Minds (Graffiti Soul)
T.O.P. - Shinhwa (My Choice)
Me Oh My - Bryan Ferry (Olympia)
Stillness of Heart - Lenny Kravitz (Lenny)
そらいろ - Porno Graffitti (Porno Graffitti)
More Than This - Roxy Music (Avalon)
Stars Will Lead the Way - Simple Minds (Graffiti Soul)
Alphaville - Bryan Ferry (Olympia)
Fast Fuse - Kasabian (West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum)
Last Trip - Kasabian (Empire)

When the first draft was finished, I moved on to Shinhwa's The Return album, and lately the soundtrack for re-reads and edits has been Neil Finn's Try Whistling This album. I hadn't listened to it in years, and suddenly it popped into my head and I had to listen to it again. What a wonderful album. A real treat to return to after a long silence.