An Example of the Editorial Process.

Hey, guess what, Children of the Internet? Rejection is not only a reality, it's also a necessity and, honest to goshness, it's okay and you'll survive to be rejected again. So, instead of immediately accusing editors of being evil gatekeepers trying to prevent new talent from being seen (in reality their job is the exact opposite) and running to Amazon's self-pub crutch, try accepting the feedback and fixing the submission's issues.

That's what old Chris does, and it often pays off nicely. I'll give you an example, assuming you're still reading at this point. eFiction recently rejected a story I sent them, but were kind enough to advise me the story had potential and they'd love to take a second look at it once I'd done a rewrite. They even provided a link to an online writers workshop via their site so I could have someone go through it!

If a writer is unwilling to take advantage of that kind of resource, he or she might as well start writing pamphlets. Below are some of the comments the editor who workshopped my short story sent me:

"Jesus, I am loving this story, but you are missing an awesome moment." 

"You have a few problem areas that need to be fixed, but this story is where it is at. Good on you... damn it, I love being wrong when something turns out so wicked."

"To tell you the truth... you do not need another book to help your story. Your story can hold its own without mentioning someone else's work... but I love how you are informing us of another writer. So, make me understand what I don't."
"Freaking loved it!"
"Christopher Nadeau,

You evil bastard you.

Your's is the third that I've workshopped in conjunction with efiction. The first two I couldn't make it halfway... story is very important to me - more so than grammar.

It was midnight when I got off my eight hour factory shift and it is 2am now. I've spent two hours and three 22 ounce Cheladas reading your story.

I am extremely impressed. You have some definite problem areas that need to be corrected and I have thrown in a few suggestions here and there.

I want to see this story in the October edition of efiction - it deserves to be there."

Frankly, his comments are more entertaining than my story! I've only included a few here but he sent me five separate emails. Naturally, not all responses will be so positive, but without this type of feedback you're basically singing in the shower when the house is empty and expecting people to consider you a professional singer~

On the Death of Intelligent Discourse.

Somewhere along the line, due in no small measure to the Internet and social networking, people got the mistaken notion that one shouldn't discuss a topic if one isn't on the "right side" of it. In this case, my comments on where I was when former Princess Diana's untimely but probably planned death occured in 1997.

In a sea of "I was so sad" replies, mine naturally stood out among a select few who were basically unaffected.

The exact question on this particular message board read as follows:

Today marks the 15th anniversary of Princess Diana's death.
Where were you when you found out she had been killed in the now infamous car crash?


My initial reply is below:

Dealing with my mother's death and not caring about this screwed up woman.


Here are some replies to my comment:

"Wow if you don't have anything nice to say then just move on! So many ugly, hateful people anymore!"

 

"@ Christopher --- sorry for your loss, ... been there done that!! ... BOTH parents.... but you don't have to be so cruel, and say ANYTHING then! .... >:("

 

I could handle the first one, no big deal. But the second one required a response, one I felt was diplomatic and in no way incendiary:

 

" Thank you. Sorry for yours too. I lost both parents before I was 30 so I also have been there, done that. To your second point, this is general deiscussion board asking people what they were doing. Not all responses need to be of the 'OMG I was so bummed"'category. Many of us didn't care for or about Diana and our views are just as valid."

 

You'll notice I not only acknowledged her acknowlegement but expressed my condolences as well, despite my resentment of people who think they're the only ones who've lost both parents. Her reply is below:

 

"@ Christopher!! .... THEN .... YOU DON'T NEED TO SAY ................ ANYTHING!!! ... shut! up!! ... and LEAVE the subject moron!! ... jeeeez!"

 

Gloves off at this point, I replied:

 

"I thanked you for what you wrote to me and expressed sympathy for your loss and your response is to call me a moron? You're a classless imbecile with no concept of intelligent discussion and no longer worth my time or the oxygen a tree could use. To hell with you and your narrow-minded stupidity."

 

No response came to that one. I could've been a lot ruder than I was, but I realize these people are like boils on the ass of humanity; symptoms of a greater disease.

POST#300! My Latest Novel.

I swore I wasn't going to post anything on here that wasn't a big news item since the very next post available to me was a landmark number 300. As it turned out, I only had to wait a few days after my previous post to receive something worthy, namely a first look at the cover of the next "Infinity's Core" novel, due out in September!

The cover is below. I love how it incorporates elements of the first book but establishes itself as something very different, which is exactly how I feel about the novel itself. Take a look:

More updates as they come in~



Order the first book in the trilogy here.

Uncle Mike.

My Uncle Mike, who unfortunately moved to Georgia a few years ago has been struggling with cancer recently. He says he's in recovery and planning to move out of the Confederacy and back to Michigan and soon as he's able.

He was always my favorite Uncle, the "cool" one whose own creative output was phenomenal. He, along with my other uncle, worked as a professional musician in the Sixties for Motown until they went to California. Uncle Mike stuck with it but some things in his personal life prevented him from going all the way. One night while sitting in his car, my Uncle Mike told a 15-year old me not to ever give up on my creative choice. I won't tell you why he told me this because it isn't for me to say, but he made me swear to him I never would.

Uncle Mike is now one of my most devoted readers. That means a lot considering my parents died before I was published and he was a very influential male figure in my early years. Because he is still recovering from cancer and because he refuses to get a computer, I have started mailing him copies of stories I've had published.

Recently, I sent him a text message advising I was about to send another one and received the following reply:

GREAT! It sure fills a void! By the way, I don't know if I told you, But I'm very proud of U!

I have no words~

An Example of a Class Act.

The following is an email I received from one of the editors of an anthology that rejected a story of mine. The story has since been accepted elsewhere. I was most impressed with the sincere follow-up:

Dear Dark Faith 2 Submitter,

After I wrapped up work on the original Dark Faith anthology, I wrote a note to all the writers that took the time to send me a story. Now that the second volume is headed to the printers, I can take a moment to say thank you. Whether you wrote a story specifically for us or already had one on hand, Maurice and I appreciate both your interest in our anthology and the time and energy you put into your work.

If you’re interested in a peek behind the scenes, I wrote a blog post on the process of making Dark Faith 2. It includes a breakdown of the number and type of submissions, the process we went through to get to a final table of contents, and an analysis of the stories we accepted.
We suffered from an embarrassment of riches when it came to this book and had to pass on far too many terrific stories. To that end, I asked the publisher if there was any way we could offer you a discount on the new book. I’m happy to say Apex agreed to give submitters a 20% discount and free shipping on preorders. So if you’re interested in picking it up, follow this link to the Apex store and enter the discount code:  (Code removed for obviously reasons)
Thanks again for your submission. I hope you’ll consider sending us more stories in the future.
Best,
Jerry Gordon
Co-editor, Dark Faith Invocations

She said it, I Didn't!

				A Feast of Frights from the Horror Zine Price: $4.99 Availability: Auto-delivered wirelessly		196 used & new from $4.84
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful exceptional quality of the stories, April 21, 2012 This review is from: A Feast of Frights from the Horror Zine (Kindle Edition) I was so pleasantly surprised by the exceptional quality of the stories included in this collection. The scary, scary ideas were rich in quality and uniqueness. This book also includes lots of commentary, interviews with famous authors, articles, poems and artwork. There is really something for everyone, as long as you like horror! Some of the work is reprints, but most is original. Joe McKinney is fast becoming a favorite author of mine. All his writings are chilling and smart. Joe R. Lansdale is also so incredible. I like a lot Jeff Strand and Ed Gorman and others. Oh, the book is a good mix of best-selling authors and young authors, too. There are many in this book that are new writers to watch for success. Eric J. Guignard is really amazing and also Christian A. Larsen and Christopher Nadeau and Taylor Grant.

Quote of the Week.

"Free speech isn't about freedom from consequences. It's about a willingness to be held accountable for when you say stupid and ugly things. Your actions in the real world are not immune from consequences." 

                                      -David Gerrold, the man who gave the world Tribbles

Quote of the Week.

"There's only two places where the laws of the universe randomly change for no reason in the middle of a story, and that is a dream or a David Lynch movie, neither of which anyone really wants to watch."

- Christina H, Cracked.com

The Amazine Spider-man. A Review.

Let's get this out of the way: I was a huge fan of the original Spidey trilogy and truly felt Tobey Macguire captured the essense of the early Peter Parker. I felt a reboot was unecessary and a slap in the face, motivated more by Paramount's need to get another film released before they lost the licensing. I never planned to see the film, but my wife and a free ticket could not be denied.

I went into the theater fully expecting to hate the movie as much as I'd hated "The Dark Knight" four years previous. It had all the earmarks of the kind of film I hate: A too-soon reboot, a pretty boy teen dream as its star, and an attempt to darken the franchise because nobody seems to think any other kind of superhero film is valid anymore.

Thus we return once more to Spidey's origins, this time with a sub-plot involving his parents and their mysterious disappearance. That's one of a few storylines that fails to pay off in this movie, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

This Peter Parker grew up in the post-Grunge ear, so he's emo as all hell and, despite his looks and rock star build, is a social outcast. Also, unlike the Peter of early comics lore, he's not a "milksop." When he sees school bully Flash Thompson kicking the snot out of some kid, he leaps to his defense and refuses to photogaph it. One would think he'd want to get some evidence, but that would make sense and prevent Parker from also getting his ass handed to him.

This Spidey film follows the love story more closely to the comics. Gwen Stacey, she of the yellow bangs and short skirts, was Pete's first love, not Mary Jane. Not to spoil the future, but she's also the second person he's unable to save from a horrific death, but that doesn't happen in this movie. Gwen is also a genius science student who works for Curt Connors, the scientist all true Spidey fans know is the bad guy in the movie as soon as they hear his name or see he only has one arm.

The stage for intrigue is set when Pete finds his dad's old attache case and runs across some files with long equations. When he sneaks into the Oscorp building to meet with Connors, all the sets fall into place and we got us a Spiderman movie.

Mostly.

Part of the problem lies in inferior casting choices. Sally Field is a great actress, one of our finest, but she's more miscast here than ever as Aunt May. She and Martin sheen, whose Uncle Ben is excellent, also have zero on-screen chemistry. Then there's the husky-voiced Emma Stone as Gwen Stacey. She's not at all a bad actress but she often seems to be in a different movie until the final act.  The choice of Welsh actor Rhys Ifans as Connors is an odd once that has mixed results. As he changes from the good-natured humanist into the insane creature, his scenery chewing is sometimes painful to sit through.

That brings us to Andrew Garfield. How is he? Not bad, actually. His Peter Parker isn't the one from the previous films anymore than Christian Bale's growling Batman is the same as Michael Keaton's more refined version. As Parker, Garfield is effective, although it's obvious at times he's acting. As Spidey, he's a mixed bag of nuts.

Sam Raimi and MaGuire wisely chose not to have Sidey wisecrack too much while this film tries to show-horn in the one-liners. Garfield is not up to the challenge. His delivery is forced and the lines aren't very good. And perhaps that's the fault of the screenwriters. The dialogue in this installment is nowhere near the level of, for instance, Michael Chabon's in Spiderman 2.

That brings us to the visuals and effects. Frankly, they're lacking. The Spiderman suit...OY! I just became Yiddish to express how ugly it is. Then there are the webs. Whoever designed the effects for those should be backlisted. It's absolutely terrible. Not only do they look fake, but half the time they don't even seem to be coming from Spidey's web-shooters! They just appear on the screen.  And the Lizard looks as fake as the Scorpion King from ten years ago.

Director Mark Webb has nowhere near the action sensibilities of prevoius director Sam Raimi. The fight scenes are paint-by-numbers and uninspired and the webswining scenes, so effective in the other films, seems functional and serviceable in this one.

Bottom line, I didn't care as much what happened to anyone in this film as I did the originals. Dramatic misfires such as the way Uncle Ben dies like a bad-ass vigilante or the lack of closure on Pete's parents and the man who killed his uncle just make the movie feel incomplete. The epilogue during the credits backs that up.

All in all, it was a decent effort that would have been much better with the original creative team involved. I'd see a sequel, but much like Batman Begins, I might hate the second one to the point where the entire franchise is ruined permanently.

At least it was free~

Why a Writer’s Conference?

In this age of self-starters connected via social media to the entire industrialized world with the ability to self-publish through sites like Amazon and LuLu, many wonder why the older way of doing things, namely conferences, are even necessary. We’ll answer that question with another question:

Have you seen what the majority of writers who think they can go it alone produce?

At the risk of offending the self-publishing movement, (a.k.a. the “Indie writer” movement) there are no mythical “Gate-keepers” attempting to prevent new talent from thriving. On the contrary, the publishing industry thrives on new talent.

Are there close-minded publishers and editors out there? Absolutely. They’re human beings, not evil, inter-dimensional snobs bent on preventing the free flow of ideas. There’s often a legitimate reason your story or novel was rejected. The concept of letting work that isn’t up to snuff through the supposed “gates” so “the people can discover it” is just an endorsement of laziness.

This is not to say all self-published writers turn out an inferior product. Some well-known traditionally published writers have turned to self-publishing their more controversial work, such as award-winning science fiction author Norman Spinrad. However, without professional involvement and input, the likelihood of not reaching one’s potential is vastly increased.

If you chose to become a surgeon, you wouldn’t (we hope!) buy a bunch of books on the type of surgery you found most interesting, absorb them and start cutting into someone. Why should writing be any different?

The answer, of course, is it shouldn’t. Writer’s conferences are there to help you, to guide you, and to ultimately provide for you a venue in which you can thrive while learning. Sitting in your home office uploading files can never substitute for that experience!

Quick Thought on Audio Books.

Some people consider themselves having actually read a book if they listened to its unabridged audio adaptation. I don't, but I can see their point as a valid one even I don't think it qualifies as actually reading.

Much like what Roger Ebert said when digital film was first on the rise, I'm not sure the brain processes the information the same way. In fact, I don't believe it does. Still, that doesn't mean I don't enjoy the occasional audio book. I just tend to listen to the ones I've already read.

That brings me to quality. Too often the chosen reader is quite terrible. I remember back when my mom was still alive and experiencing difficulty holding books due to her advanced Diabetic Neuropathy. I bought her scores of audio Star Trek adventures, most of them abridged and read by some cast member or another. They were excellently done, but they were the exception.

Disqualifying dramatized audio books that have full casts in them, which my friend and colleague P.S. Ramsey absolutely despises and I happen to adore, a straight read-through of a novel is a precarious thing, especially when the reader is selected to read a famous, well-loved work. I submit the ridiculously awful selection of Ethan Hawke to read Vonnegut's Slaughter-House Five.

Don't get me wrong; I respect the hell out of Ethan Hawke. I like his politics, his acting and, while I've never had occasion to read it, I hear his writing is also quite good. But his reading of Vonnegut's seminal masterpiece is painfully dreadful.

Maybe it's me, but Vonnegut's work tends to havea certain up, clipped tonality to it, does it not? His sparse prose and blunt phrasing lend themselves to an almost gleeful celebration of the mundane and inhumane. Yet Hawke reads it as if he's auditoning for the narration of "Apocalypse Now." He sounds tired, withdrawn, sleepy, even hungover.

Naturally, if I'd never read the novel I'd have no idea what cadence to expect, and for those weirdoes who still haven't read Slaughter-House Five, I suppose that makes his reading just fine and dandy.

For a fan of the book, however, the entire appeal of the narrative is wrecked beyond all recognition. There are few really good readers of audio books in the business. Most of Stephen King's books are exceptionally well-read, including those read the by the author himself.

"Exceptionally" is the operative word, however.

I've been told I'll be reading my own "Dreamers at Infinity's Core" someday in the near future for downloadable audio. I will, of course, read it the way it's supposed to sound and nail ever nuance and stand-out moment.

Be kind~