Ice Hockey and the Slipstream + Oculus Connection

I like writing about sports in fiction. J.K. Rowling did it with quiddich (or however it's spelled). I didn't want to make up a sport because that sounds too hard. So I chose one that I watch and understand. Ice hockey has a role to play in my first two books, and I'd like to explain why.

In SLIPSTREAM, the first book in my series A Crisis of Two Worlds, the entire plot hinges on Jordan getting an invite to a rather exclusive party that squad members from a professional team on an alternate Earth receive. It's his only way to get to a place so guarded, that other "secret agents" who tried to do so just got murdered. The sport you get in the first book is "wayyyy" out there intentionally. The sport you get in the second is down-to-earth, although I write about four separate games and in each one something sensational happens that you would rarely ever see.

In OCULUS, the sequel to Slipstream, Jordan must play hockey to attend Cornell University. Jordan needs Cornell like a man needs air to breathe. It's the only university that has everything he requires for his "quest". They have a particle collider. They have a scientist examining Antarctic ice cores for a climate change model. It really goes well together.

Here's the rub. Cornell has so many applicants every year, that they can pick and choose who they want. They are under no pressure to choose anyone at all. They don't need Jordan, but he needs them. And Jordan isn't rich. He has no "connections".

In the opening chapter of OCULUS, I speak of Jordan's S.A.T. scores. He got a perfect score in math.  But his other two areas were average. What gets him in are his hockey laurels. He gets a "likely" letter from the coach of the Cornell team and it is the coach who gets him qualified for a need-based scholarship (the only kind the Ivies have--they do not offer athletic scholarships).

OCULUS is the book where I amplify Jordan's stress to almost "stroke-inducing" proportions. His pride is to his doom. He won't ask for help. He won't cheat. And he won't take out loans. "Why?" you might ask will a student not take out student loans.

Jordan believes that his quest may kill him before he's 21. He's a proud person. He doesn't want to borrow money and never pay it back. So realizing that the odds are not weighed in his favor, Jordan refuses to borrow money. It's taking the whole "honor" thing to a dangerous extent.

It sounds ridiculous right? But THAT'S how stubborn he is. That's Jordan.

Jordan also knows that the only reason he's even in the college is to play hockey. So he feels that if he doesn't give it 150%, then he lets down someone that had faith in him--enough faith to save him.  Using the particle collider is really his only hope to succeed in his quest, so this is a pretty big deal.

I write with big stakes.  If Jordan doesn't complete his quest in Oculus, it will result in the destruction of Earth and the death of billions of people.

But again...even with all that at stake, he refuses to ask for help.

That's a lot of stress, don't you think?

Anyway, that's the ice hockey connection in my series thus far.

Excited and hopefully not misunderstood

I'm excited. My first book is already on sale on Amazon and other websites. But I have apprehensions, and I thought about Ken and his note to the other toys on Toy Story 3. At how they probably don't understand him (as colorful and wonderful as he is).

When in your excitement, you write something

But the people that read it have gotten

the wrong impression of who you are as a person.

You are just being you. You try

to convey it through your blog.

But might be sorely misunderstood by those

who have never seen your kind before.

So...I hope this doesn't happen. My story is about a boy. He's seventeen. He's cute. He's smart. He's athletic. He has six pack abs, blond hair, and blue eyes. But unlike random chance, there are reasons for all of these things. But all is not perfect for him.

He does a lot of hard drugs. He makes awful choices.

He is immature, self-centered, but lonely.

He's gay, but it's not something he admits right away.

He's bright and that sometimes makes him smug.

He's proud to the point of it being a vice.

He falls for a very bad boy.

He loses his virginity; it's not a lovely experience for him.

But he helps broken people.

He redeems them. He fixes things.

And in so doing, he learns to understand who he is.

And maybe, he can learn to fix himself.

The world of SLIPSTREAM is dark and evil.

I'm excited for you to read it. But I'm also afraid. Please don't misunderstand who I am. SLIPSTREAM is not a book written for Catholic nuns. Senator Rick Santorum would hate my book. Michelle Bachmann would decry it.

No matter what our differences are, I think you are wonderful. Thank you, from this "Ken" who hopes you are on the same page as me. But even if you aren't, I appreciate you anyway.

Slipstream Cover Reveal and Double Dragon Publishing

I already did my "C" post for "Cars" but as it is still Tuesday, I can also use the words "Cover Reveal", right?  Ladies and gentlemen, this is my book. I'm extremely happy with how it turned out. Deron Douglas (the artist) is quite talented and all my fears have been laid to rest. I'm leaving this post up tomorrow for "D" as well.  "D" can stand for Double Dragon Publishing, Deron Douglas, and the delight I had at opening this attachment in my email.

I think it's just perfect. The people that read my ARC should agree with me. The green color is symbolic of Life Green, the glass spider is a symbol of just about everything taking place in my book, and the technology in the background is both a symbol of the A.I. and the differences between the two worlds.

If you want to mark it "To Read" it's on Goodreads, follow this LINK or click the cool button.


It is available for purchase as a downloadable ebook on my publisher's website HERE. 


It's on sale for $5.09.

Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other sites will be coming soon :)

I'm being interviewed by the amazing Donna Hole

Hello and good Tuesday morning to all of you. Today I've got a guest post and a review of my book up at Donna Hole's blog<<<CLICK. Please go and visit if you don't already follow Donna. She's amazing. I also talk about my writing.

Today, I'm going to share one of my deepest fears:

What do you fear?

Have a great Tuesday.

I'm Hearing Voices Day One

It's time for day one of the I'm Hearing Voices blogfest. Go here for details. I will be interviewing my main character from my upcoming book.

SLIPSTREAM is on Goodreads and shall be published in May.

Please go HERE and mark the book "to read".

Have a great Monday.

When something is wrong and something is right

First off is the something right. My book SLIPSTREAM got reviewed by Jeff Adams over at his blog. He's a New Yorker that I made friends with via twitter, plays ice hockey, and he writes books for Dreamspinner Press. I really liked the review I got so if you would, please go check it out (warning there are some details that could be considered spoilers).

It's February 1st and it's Wednesday. It's time for Alex's IWSG from the man that may not have invented blogging, but has certainly defined it.

Because Valentine's Day is almost upon us, this month's insecurity is about love...loving your characters and/or secondary characters too much. My editor finished with my sequel (called Oculus) and remarked that my pacing seemed "off" in it. However, she couldn't pinpoint exactly what made her think this (and a pacing comment can be as general as they come).  It's like referring to something as "interesting". So yeah...this is the "something wrong" hinted at in the title above. Meaning that I know something IS wrong, but have no clue on how to go about finding it.

"That's so...interesting...hmmm." <== what exactly

does this mean?

So, I've had some serious pondering to do. And I've been doing this brain crunching for months while I've completely avoided writing anything other than blog posts and preoccupying my mind with television, movies, and books. Unrelated segue...you should watch the "Touch" pilot because it's amazing.

So now that it's almost spring, have I come up with anything?

Well, maybe.

I think that it has to do with two or even three characters that I stuck into the book that probably take up 5,000 words in the overall story and really have no purpose other than to irritate my protagonist (he finds them annoying). Why would I want extraneous characters? Well the intent is to have them available so that I can explore their potential in sequels. In other words...I have no official plan for them in the book I wrote right now. But having them there with no real plan is possibly behind the derailment of the pacing.

Maybe. That at least is my "idea".

But, I don't want to get rid of them. I like them. I find myself feeling repulsed with the thought of unmaking these fictional people. Especially if I'm wrong. Could I be wrong?

It's always possible.

I wish she was my editor right now but she

probably would charge thousands of 

dollars of which neither I or my publisher

could possibly afford. My publisher hires

people with barely a high school education

after they pass a grammar test. I imagine it's the

same with most small pubs (with few exceptions).

So anyway, it has me insecure and apathetic at the same time which is why I sit around watching television and reading books. I think I may start to tinker with it, and see if I can more closely identify what she "sensed" when she herself couldn't precisely identify what was at issue. To clarify a little, my editor is what I call "decent". This is the same word I would use to describe the food at 7-Eleven. You go in, drop a few bucks, get a slice of pizza and some wings and you are good to go.

I honestly wish I didn't have a "decent" editor right now. I wish I had a no holds barred kick-ass one. A stellar one. One that could eviscerate a manuscript and identify everything that isn't working and wouldn't care about tact. I imagine this glorious person looking like Elektra from Marvel comics, only with huge sharp fountain pens rather than a pair of oriental sais.

To use a food analogy, how would this compare to food from 7-ELEVEN?

Well for one, it wouldn't. That's like comparing frozen dinners to eating at a four-star restaurant.

The kind of help that I imagine Big Six authors get with their books is something akin to a dining experience at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. It's fine dining, you get a wonderful experience, blow a few hours with a date, and eat healthy food that doesn't make your skin greasy and has no chance of making you sick. I'm a poor bastard that simply doesn't have access to that and my publisher doesn't have the money to hire that level of talent.

But that is just how the cookie crumbles, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is my insecurity of the month.

Insecure Writer's Support Group 2012

Today is yet another Insecure Writer's Support Group post. This blogfest is one that never ends. It is the brainchild of self-titled "super ninja captain" Alex J. Cavanaugh, friend to everyone that writes, and the man that happens to be just about everywhere online. The rules are simple, post your insecurity on the first Wednesday of every new month. If you are a writer, I encourage you to join by visiting his blog here.

My insecurity this time around is cover art. Deron Douglas is the C.E.O. of Double Dragon Publishing, but he's also the one and only cover artist.  I tend to like "most" of his cover art. But some of it doesn't turn out all that great. And it's been my experience that whenever anything bad happens, it always happens to me. If there was a 1 in a 1000 chance that someone could get the plague from drinking water, I would be the one that got the plague, etc.

He's going to begin doing my cover design in February, and I'm a little nervous. I guess if I hate it I can just talk to him about it, but I signed an agreement that said that I essentially have no say in the cover. So if I don't like the result...tough cookie.

Ah well, it's what's inside that matters, right?

Thanks for listening to my insecurity and have a wonderful Wednesday :)

A note on my banner...

I have always loved blue eyes. I blame
where I was raised. No one in Utah looks
like me being half-Japanese.

I got a few comments this week regarding the new look of my blog.  I chose the wolf eyes banner up top simply because it's all wintry in Salt Lake City now and the eyes are a pretty blue. I like blue eyes and have since kindergarten. I remember my teacher handed out papers to all the kids. She asked us to take a crayon from a box and write what color we thought our eyes were.  I wrote down blue because I loved blue. Then she passed out a mirror and told us to take a look and see.  I looked in the mirror and saw brown eyes the color of dog dung. I was traumatized. But I'll never forget it. Prior to that time period, I don't even think I was aware of what I looked like really.  Maybe it was the start of my body image disorder. I have no idea.

So yeah...it has nothing to do with my book. I wanted to make a banner that could reflect my book. Then I realized how impossible that seems without custom artwork. In one sentence I would pitch my book as Schrodinger's cat only with hockey sticks, glass spiders, and monsters from the id. Only no one knows what that means.  Maybe the wolf eyes might work in one aspect. They're more serious than goofy penguins. If I had to rate my book with MPAA ratings, it would get a R-rating.  The penguins that I used before might make people think, "Oh Mike's book is great for kindergartners!"... which is a resounding..."ummm noooo."  I have the goofy penguins banner on my computer hard drive if I ever want to resurrect it. But I think I'll try the wolf eyes for a little while. Who knows...maybe when spring rolls around I'll switch to bunnies.

My story has been as challenging as this for me to define.

Also I finished my final edits on my book and sent it back to DDP. I say final because I've read through it twice (in the last two weeks) and fussed and fussed with it and it really needs to just get out of here. If it stays here more, I'll start changing some things.  I'm really happy at this very instant with the way it looks. I can't say that I'd feel that way tomorrow or the next day. So I'm not ever going to reopen it. I'm just going to let it go. I don't want to edit anymore. Not on this project. To give you an idea of how much editing this book has gone through I will tell you. I wrote a first draft in 2008. A beta reader that I trust pointed out glaring things wrong with it.  So I rewrote 3/4 of the book. Seriously. Then I hired a private editor and edited it line by line. Then I edited it myself. Then I went on query and submission. DDP picked it up. Then I edited it again with a professional full grade editor line by line. Then I just now edited it again on my own as a final look through. And then I re-read it twice in two weeks and changed more stuff.  Last night, I rewrote the opening paragraph fifteen times.  I think everything is perfect. So I'm done. I'm letting go.

As writers, there can be a point where we edit something to death.
I think I've gotten close to this point with my current manuscript.

In a few weeks I may have some advanced reader copies that I can give out on my blog. They'll be paperback with no cover art.  Paperback with cover art won't be available probably until summer 2012. Ebook release will come first in May. That's just how DDP does business. I know I've got some people who have been extremely loyal to the blog so if they want a free copy of said book with no cover art to read before the release date, I think I can make that happen.  Plus I can start querying some of the sites that review Fantasy & Sci-Fi stuff and see if I can get in their queue.

Have a great weekend. I'm off to see Immortals!

Get your short story published, enter a contest and win $500 for Christmas

I grabbed the following post from the Double Dragon Publishing blog.  BTW, my book is now on Goodreads with no cover art. If you have a goodreads account, even if you never intend to buy it or read it, a click on the "to read" button would feel like Christmas :) because I could pretend people liked me :). I also haven't set up the author portion of it yet. I'll do that this weekend when I'm drinking coffee and have time. It won't come out 'til May 2012.

From the DDP website ==>TALES OF FORTANNIS: A BARD’S EYE VIEW was published last year by Double Dragon, and features a number of excellent fantasy stories in the magical world of Fortannis.

The sequel is being prepared now, and submissions are open for short stories of under 10,000 words.

Unpublished authors are encouraged to submit, but will still face the same standards for submissions as the published authors.

All stories should be double-spaced in word or rtf format with 12 point Times Roman font. There should be no spacing after the paragraphs. The first page must contain the name of the story, the word count, and your name, address, email, and phone number. Your cover letter should list any previous publications.

Keep in mind that although these are fantasy stories, you are not limited to telling tales of adventure, with knights fighting dragons and wizards casting powerful spells. The world is merely the setting for the stories.

The first book, while containing plenty of adventures, has much more. There is one story about someone trying to steal the recipe for his favorite pie. Another concerns three goblin children spying on the curious humans. A third involves a con artist trying to mislead a nobleman. The theme of the TALES OF FORTANNIS series is the fantasy world, not the type of story.

Proposals and inquiries must be emailed to michael.ventrella@gmail.com.

Also... there's a short story contest being run by Lulu.  Here's the details from their blog:

Throughout the month of November, Lulu is offering big prizes for quick creativity. All you have to do for a chance to win $500 cash, a professional review, a Barnes and Noble NOOK™, free distribution to the iBookstoreSM and Barnes & Noble NOOK Bookstore™, and free mentions in upcoming Lulu publicity is submit a 600-word short story.

Pretty easy huh?

To find out how you can play just visit the lulu blog.

Winners will be selected by a panel of Lulu judges and announced mid-December after review of all submissions. Bring on your remarkable stories for a chance to win some amazing prizes!

==> My words... if you are sitting on a short story...send it in. Get published. Don't let it sit in a drawer. The worst that could happen is a "no" and a rejection. It's not like we don't suffer through those already on a daily basis.

Have a great weekend.

My Third Insecure Post

Boy, one thing that I didn't expect of this blog hop that Alex started three months ago is how fast it makes me realize my life is passing by.

Ladies and gents...it has been a quarter of a year already! Yowsa.

So here's my November 2011 insecurity about writing. It's this:

I know I'm not the only one.  I've seen writers blog about their Big Six publishers and bemoan that their book is going straight to paperback.  I have a mid-size publisher...but the way they do business is based on what works for them with a ten year history.  I see how others do business, and it seems a smidgen ass-backwards, but I tell myself that I'm just being insecure.  Just because other people have things doesn't mean that this is the best way.  Why do I always compare what I have to what other people have? I need to be more appreciative of what I've achieved.

But it's hard.  I guess I always find myself from time-to-time looking at what another person has gotten and asking why I don't have the same thing.

So if I or anyone else can take away anything from this post, it's this:  We're never happy with what we have and only interested in what we lack.  Awareness is everything.

Official Publishing Date and a Meme

I got an email from Double Dragon Publishing on Friday. It looks like my book SLIPSTREAM will be e-published in May 2012, so basically a year sooner than I expected.  I think that they make it into a Print-on-Demand file at some point...probably a month or two later but DDP's print books seem to be God Awful expensive. I don't really expect to sell any paperback books anyway which fits with the whole e-publisher thing. Now, I'm working on edits/issues with it before the May date. I've got several months so I'll probably just work on it during weekends.

I also got tagged by a meme from Charity Bradford.  So here it is:

1. If you could go back in time and relive one moment, what would it be?  I would have eggs benedict at the Main Street Deli in Moscow, Idaho for Sunday brunch one more time. Their hollandaise sauce was sooo good. They're out of business now so I'll never get to eat there again :(.
2. If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be?  I would go back and give myself the winning lottery numbers for a huge powerball.
3. What movie/TV character do you most resemble in personality? I think I resemble Harriet in Harriet's Law as far as personality goes. We are both allergic to bullshit.
4. If you could push one person off a cliff and get away with it, who would you choose? Fred Phelps from the Westboro Baptist Church.
5. Name one habit you want to change in yourself. Overeating.
6. Why do you blog? To stay informed.
7. Name at least three people to send this to:

• Briane Pagel at Thinking the Lions
• Rogue Mutt at The Grumpy Bulldog Blog
• Andrew Leon at StrangePegs

Want to get paid for editing? My publisher is hiring.

In the yahoo group that my publisher runs, Deron Douglas, the CEO of Double Dragon Publishing posted this:

Hello All,

DDP is looking for new editors to help with the edit of 2012-2013 titles. If you know someone with experience and the need to make a difference, please have them contact me directly at deron@double-dragon-ebooks.com

Cheers,

Deron

I figured I'd post it for anyone that may have a little time on their hands that wants to make some money on the side and find out a little about how the publishing business works. I have no idea what they pay and nothing aside from this post on what is entailed. But if I had to "guess" it would be that they email you a Word document in .rtf form...maybe chapters at a time...and you go through and edit them using the "review" options in the word processor, making notes on the side and then when those are done, shipping them off to the writer.  Then I also assume that you would be paid through Paypal which is how they seem to conduct business for the authors. So, I'm thinking you would need a Paypal account. However, please don't quote me on this because I'm just "guessing".

Also on the marketing front, I found out that a guy named John Klawitter (Find his website here) is producing a radio show for Double Dragon authors (again through our Yahoo group). It's a one-hour thing and provides exposure by featuring a short story or flash fiction read aloud over the radio with a plug for the author's book after the reading (paid for by Double Dragon).

In my opinion, it's pretty original marketing, and I was intrigued by it because of the different approach.  I'm telling you guys simply because it gives a glimpse "behind-the-scenes" on a mid-size publisher and their attempts at helping authors to market their work...kinda like the "Little Engine that Could."  I'm not complaining because I think the idea is pretty awesome and when it starts up in either January or February I'm gonna tune in to it to see how well it is done.  I mean...this is not a Big Six publisher...they don't have billions of dollars so really any marketing that they do shows an "attempt" at selling their books rather than just sitting there like a limp noodle.

Now if only I could prod them to use their twitter account...

Word Count Fail

I think I have George R.R. Martin's disease which is bad for a beginning writer.  I call this Iwritetoomuchaboutthingsthathavenothingtodowithplot.  It's horrible, and I think it's contagious.  I hope you don't suffer from it because the cure is painful.  Not the kind of "stick you with a syringe four times because you have rolling veins" kind of pain but an emotional kind of pain because this disease robs you of objectivity and makes it difficult for you to have perspective on your work.

After I got notification from DDP that I had been picked up for their 2013 release schedule, one of the things that really made me smile was that I would get to revisit my favorite world in these things called "sequels".  It really is fun to write, and unfortunately, the words just pile up.  I mean seriously...when I say the novel writes itself...IT REALLY DOES seem to write itself.  I had days where I would do 6000 words in like three hours because I couldn't stop.

I had no problem coming up with content...like 120,000 words of content.  And here's the problem. I'm only 3/4 through my story arc of the second book and I'm already at that word count.  To quote my friend Steph Schmidt..."EEEEP!"

Luckily, I started this project last year about this time because I was bored.  This was before I had ventured into the world of blogging which happened in late January 2011.  Well, back in September 2010, I stopped working on that project because I realized that it may never see the light of day unless I published it myself or put it on a website somewhere.  So I threw it in the closet, mothballed it, and wrote another book.  This was a simple fantasy that topped out at 80k words that I started to query only recently.

Well, with the news from DDP...I threw that fantasy back in the closet and dusted off the ole sequel to re-read, edit, and finish so that I could send it to the editor that helps me get manuscripts ready for professional editors to look at :).  As I'm re-reading and editing it myself, I see all over the place where I have taken liberal tangents.  I still love these tangents, but if I have no intention on following up on them, they really don't belong in this novel.  And my story is so huge that it will take multiple volumes to tell it right.  I know I really shouldn't wander like this.  So I'm having to slash paragraphs, pages, and even maybe a chapter and it's hard...it's really hard.  However, I think I can slim this beast to 115,000 words and then finish it in another 25,000 words.  140,000 words is huge, I know.  But it is a sequel, and the first book is 120,000 words so this is only stretching that quota out by 20%.  That's acceptable, right?

When I finally get the courage to talk to my publisher about it, probably closer to this time next year, I hope that they don't mind that I write fat novels.  Really, as an author, I despise word count. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. Why oh why must brevity be my Task Master?

Is anyone else out there like me? Do any of you writers struggle to fit within certain word counts?

Microsoft Word 2010 Is Your Friend

As Rogue Mutt has bitched about on his blog (for the record I agree with what he says), submitting manuscripts to small and mid-size publishers can be really hard. Before I went to Double Dragon Publishing, I went to Samhain first, then Mundania Press, and then Dreamspinner Press, and after the third rejection I almost shelved my sci-fi manuscript. I knew about Double Dragon, I knew that it was probably THE best fit for what I wanted to do...but their submission application was daunting. One night at my p.c., I just decided to hell with it and set about seeing if I could do it.  Here's there list of what they require and I'll tell you why Microsoft Word was my best friend:

1) Length of Manuscript. In short they wanted nothing beyond 90,000 words with a disclaimer that they'd look at larger works if they were exceptionally good. I stared for a while at my fat word count of 120,000. There is no way I can cut anything out of this beast. It is plot, plot, plot the whole way through. Why? It used to be 170,000 words. Yes. I said it. I actually thought back in the day that a 170,000 word novel was marketable by a debut novelist. How did I figure this out? I read Stephanie Meyer's blog. She said that Twilight almost didn't sell at 145,000 words. I thought...holy shit...if Twilight almost got rejected at 145,000 words there's no freaking way in hell I'm going to stand a chance. I spent a month trimming and rewriting my book to fit neatly in 120,000 words. And it wasn't neat. I hired an editor for $300.00 (she's damn good by the way) and we cut every single useless word that we could find out of my book. We replaced the weak verbs with powerful ones to shorten sentences. In the end...almost 120,000 words exactly. So yeah...I totally ignored this part of the submission and send to hell with it...not like I haven't seen rejection already.

2) Formatting. I had to use .rtf format...easy and done.

3) Include a short, one-paragraph note in the body of the email, so as to introduce yourself, if you are submitting to DDP for the first time. Okay...I thought what can I say about myself that's interesting? Then I realized I had already done this in the "about me" section of my blog and a commenter had said it was funny. Cut and paste and done. Lesson...you should do an "about me" section in case you ever need to cut and paste, or in the event you need it for other websites. It'll save you so much time.

4) More formatting guidelines. Here was the hairy stuff. A single .rtf file. Oh boy. And it needed all of this:

A. Format, Font: Times New Roman, regular, 12 point.
B. Format, Paragraph, Indents and Spacing, General: Alignment = left, Outline Level = body text. Indentation: Left = 0, Right = 0. Special = First line, By = .5. Spacing: Before = 0 pt. After = 0 pt. Line Spacing = single.

1. Do not put blank lines between the paragraphs of text.
2. Do not use headers or footers, and do not number the pages.
3. Use one-inch margins.
4. Leave two spaces between sentences.
5. Thoughts expressed by a character, as opposed to spoken words, must be italicized rather than placed within quotation marks. Foreign words or phrases, and words that the author wishes to emphasize, must also be italicized. Do not use underlining for this purpose.
6. Do not press the Tab key at the beginning of each paragraph! Doing so will double the degree of indentation. If you habitually do that, and are now putting a completed manuscript into the format we require, please remove all the Tab arrows at the beginning of each paragraph. To render those Tab arrows visible, click on the Show/Hide icon in the Standard MS Word toolbar. (You can use Find and Replace to remove the Tab marks. Click on Find, More, Special, Tab Character. Click on replace. Leave Replace blank. Click on Replace All. The Tab arrows will all vanish.)
7. We strongly recommend that you get into the habit of activating the Show/Hide icon on the Standard MS Word Toolbar as you write, so as to see not only the arrows made by the Tab key, but also the dots representing spaces and the symbols representing paragraph marks.
8. Try not to leave two spaces at the end of the last sentence of a paragraph. Those wrap around. In some formats used by publishers, those wrapped-around spaces can cause trouble. We urge you to perform the tedious task of removing those, if they abound in your manuscript, before sending it to us

Okay...so I wasn't going to read through my whole manuscript and fix this. No frickin' way. But I didn't have to because Microsoft Word has replace features. ^t is the symbol you use for tab. Replaced all of them with nothing and used the indent feature. Done. ^p is the carriage return symbol. So I replaced all the ones that had excess spaces with ones that didn't. Additionally, I replaced all of the "." with one space after them with a "." with two spaces.

So yeah, Microsoft Word is your friend. It's powerful. Know how to use it. You may need it for submitting to agents, publishers, editors, or whoever.

Oh and writing those query letter and the synopsis is something I don't think a writer can ever get around. I used my query as a short synopsis when I submitted my manuscript and then I already had the regular synopsis done so that wasn't a headache either. I'm thankful that I spent a year querying agents because it really wasn't that hard when the time came down to it to put together the package. It only took like four hours work tops.

I Signed With A Mid-Sized Publisher

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I got a nice surprise in my email box on Friday. My sci-fi novel called SLIPSTREAM is going to be published by Double Dragon Publishing and Media Group in 2013. I know it's not one of the Big Six but getting an agent for my sci-fi novel is impossible. I have no idea why. Maybe it's because of the subject matter (there's gay people in it...shhh don't tell anyone :P), or maybe it's because I'm a nobody, or maybe it's because I put a second space after a period in my query letter. Whatever the reason, it has resulted in nothing but rejections, many of them of the form variety. Some even arrived like fifteen minutes after I sent them...talking about blazing fast return. I don't think my query is bad (you can view it in the "Books" tab above as I'm using it to explain what SLIPSTREAM is about). I whittled it down, read Janet Reid 'til my eyes bled, wrote, waited, revised, and wrote again. Two partials and one full manuscript request and 70 some odd rejections later, I decided to look at other options. Just as an f.y.i...one of my partials came with a one line rejection: "LOL. I can't represent this." I've struggled to understand exactly what the agent meant by that especially with the "LOL" attached to it.

Now...just to be clear...this isn't the novel that I said I would be querying in an earlier post a couple of weeks ago. That particular book I'm still hopeful for. I sent out 8 queries to 8 agents and have gotten four rejections. Why only eight? Because, I'm slow, I like to watch t.v. and my friend Stephanie Schmidt has it right (I think) when she advised "don't blanket the world with queries so you can catch mistakes later." So yeah...I'm still querying that other project.

So I got the email from C.E.O. Deron Douglas himself. This is what it said:

Hello Michael,

I'm sorry it has taken so long to get back to you. I've been away from
the office most of the summer. In any event I would be pleased to
offer you a contract with Double Dragon Publishing. If you are still
interested, let me know and I can forward a contract to you.
 
Cheers,
Deron

I read it twice just to make sure that it wasn't another rejection. Then I said yes. :)). So without further ado, here's a little about Double Dragon Publishing gathered from their Facebook and website:

Double Dragon Publishing is a medium-size publisher with an expansive catalog of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror titles. Many of our authors are award winners with "Best Seller" track records that extend over a number of years. You can purchase from our website, or from an extended retail network which includes Fictionwise, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Sony, Kobo, MobiPocket or Apple to name only a few.

Double Dragon Publishing is a Canadian company responsible for the publication of many top rated eBook titles in a variety of genres. Composed of a number of imprints, Double Dragon eBooks is by far the largest division under the DDP umbrella with over 1000 titles and 8000 editions. This is our flag ship imprint established in July 2000.

If you're wondering how I found this publisher, I actually got led to it by Piers Anthony, an author that I've widely read and one who had nothing but good things to say about them on his website. Additionally, I checked these guys out online with the Absolute Write Water Cooler and they are legit. This seemed good enough for me.

What can I expect?
1) Professional editing. I will get assigned an editor sometime in 2012 that will go line by line through my book. I get the impression that it will be edited by multiple people and proofread exactly twice before publication. I can't tell you how good this is. I'm an excellent self-editor but I miss stuff. Plus I hired an editor at my own expense and in the future, I won't have to. All sequels that I write will automatically be accepted for publication. This is such a relief because I feel like I've been writing in the dark for years and I have a huge story to tell with A Crisis of Two Worlds.

2) Cover Art. I read Patrick's blog and he occasionally talks about cover art. Cindy Borgne does too and I had no idea what I would do for cover art. I would like it to be simple...ideally just a glass spider giving off silver light sitting on a brick wall. That'd be perfect. But I have no idea how to draw a glass spider or fill it with shiny gears and switches. Nor do I know how to paint webs that carry information like fiber optic wire. Meh. I also really like the cover art that is gracing many of the Double Dragon books so that is another plus. Here's a sample from one of their books:

3) All the usual formatting and primping and placing of the book in the usual online areas. They even do some advertising but I've no idea what kind they do yet. Marketing will be mostly up to me and I don't really have a problem with that. And I've made a lot of blogger buddies so I'm hoping that in a year or so (if I get a little countdown widget) that some of you may help me by posting it in a sidebar just to get more exposure.

On marketing, another thing that I like about being published by Double Dragon is that I can still go to the book bloggers that I was going to target because they accept manuscripts produced from mid-size publishers. They just won't accept any from self-published authors. So I have doors that are open in that area and I think that's a good thing.

As I've spoken to some of my close friends this weekend, I think that for me, in order to get anywhere, I needed to start somewhere. If I get published and get a name out there, I will be more attractive to agents in the future (with unrelated writing projects) because an editor actually saw merit in my work. Additionally, Double Dragon has made a name for itself as the largest e-publisher of science fiction in the world and has grown to encompass 8 imprints which doesn't seem shabby to me at this stage. Heck...what do I know about publishing? I do feel a little more validated though. Agents only ever gave me basically eight sentences to win them over. As you can see, my eight sentences suck. But when a real world editor actually read my book, he liked it, and decided to invest in me. Some of their authors have hit as high as #53 on Amazon.com's list of books. I think that's pretty decent and shows they get behind their writers. Anyway, seeing as my book is science-fiction...and this seems to be a strong science-fiction centered publisher, that maybe my book is best here after all. What do you guys think?