The contest is the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

I made it into the top 1,000,000,000,000 and am therefore pretty sure to win.

OK, really it’s only the top 1,000. It was based solely on the book pitch (short summary of the book). This is good. Next they narrow it down to the Top 250 (reading an excerpt from the book).

It’s like American Idol except with no idols or Americans and it’s non-sexy writers like me with pale skin and agoraphobia who only go out when the next Star Trek sequel is in theaters.

Here are the top 1,000 if anyone wants to scroll down and find my name (don’t really do that, Mom).

I’ll be sure to update everyone when I crash and burn in the next round.

Two friends made it into the second round as well: Robert Treskillard and Pete Peterson. Congratulations, fellows!

Thanks for all the nice remarks on Facebook yesterday!

Possible cover for my novel?

Note: Previously posted at the Rabbit Room.

As a reader of books who also writes, I often feel a distinct, conflicting emotion when I read great books written by great writers. There is the delight, of course. Here is a person made by God doing something beautiful.

Then there is the (often very slight) tinge of despair as I recognize I could never do this. This is less pointed when the genre and style are out of my own vein of writing (such as Patrick O’Brian’s books, which are, for me, an unmixed joy I hardly experience in any other fiction).

I have written before on, and firmly believe in, the well-worn wisdom that it’s no use in copying others, or feeling bad about how you compare. It’s best to find your own voice and write what only you can.

But still that feeling comes. “Am I kidding myself? I can’t write like this. This is art. This is compelling.”

I guess part of it is simple envy, ordinary coveting. This of course, like all sin, must be rejected.

I want, rather, to be the kind of man who says in his heart, like Robin Hood to Little John in the Errol Flynn film, “I love a man who can better me.”

This runs quite counter to the self-important manure which passes for a philosophy of life for many in our envy-based culture.

May it not be so in us.

“These days, you need to deliver not just the manuscript but the audience.”

Jim Levine

This informed quote was snagged from Rachel Gardner’s post about how authors need a platform. I haven’t really talked about the idea of platform much here. But this blog is, in fact, part of my efforts to “build a platform” (among other things, of course).

A “platform,” for those who haven’t heard the term, is all the ways that an author has connected with an audience and stays connected with that audience. Literally, I guess it’s kind of like being in front of people, or before them, or visible in some way. Or it might be about forming plats. Not sure.

The relevant point being that the smaller your platform is the more risk the publisher has to take on you. The larger your platform the less risky it is for the publisher to publish your book. They see that there’s an audience there.

This is a big reason why authors maintain blogs, Facebook pages (fan or otherwise), Twitter accounts, send random people money, and connect with their audience in various other ways.

I used to view this kind of thinking as manipulative and vain. But I have changed my mind a lot on that front. I now see the value of being knowable, accessible, of serving your readers by helping them connect to you. Of course this is an enormous benefit for the author on many fronts.

I don’t know how a publisher would quantify the value of my own platform as an author. I would say that it has certainly grown considerably over the last year, or year and a half (corresponding to when I began to make efforts that direction). I have put some effort in on that front and have gone from being virtually unknown, to having a fairly good-sized group that I feel connected with (on various levels).

I have enjoyed connecting with so many people, from the Rabbit Roomers to old South African friends on Facebook.

It used to be that you were VERY limited on options for connecting to an audience. That has changed dramatically. I am thankful for these opportunities, and I hope to use them for good and not evil. Much like my use of that magic pot of beans I found in a unicorn’s cave.

Is this West Virginian in my audience? One hopes.

After reading a particular portion of my novel my agent expressed an intense wish to defenestrate me.

That’s the kind of thing that happens when your agent has a fancy Ph.D.

To be fair, he was so very right about the section. Snip snip.

Note: Sure, it sounds great and all to have a learned agent, but I was literally raised in a “holler.”

I shall go and take a stab at it

That is what I shall do

We shall later see if this, my thrust

Is found to have been true

Nathan Bransford, who is some big-time agent, has a great post about what is up with publishing these days.

Mostly it focuses on how the power in publishing continues to shift. Very informative.

It’s called Moving the Needle.

Writers, check it.

What makes for great art? I won’t say I have no idea, but I am certainly on the shallow end of the pool, treading slowly and carefully deepward. One thing that does appear essential to me is the idea of limits. Without limits, and maybe more importantly, contrast, we don’t have much to show that will harmonize with reality on any level. Nevermind delight.

When I had the rare chance to learn from the brilliant Orson Scott Card, one thing he emphasized in world creation was this idea of limits. Our group had a long, involved, discussion that he directed on the limits of magic in stories. He emphasized that characters who can do anything and are not opposed by evil, even strong evil, are not memorable, or worthwhile.

He pointed out that Superman, at one point, had blown out a sun with his breath (like a candle). Boring. Good job Superman, but what now? Can this be the least bit interesting from here on? He said that shortly after that kryptonite was introduced, saving the character. This is why, perhaps, Batman is so much easier (seems to me) to tell a good story about than Superman.

Give me a limited, even a self-limited, character any day.

Limits are essential; cost is essential. Pain, suffering, and struggle are central to all worthwhile storytelling.

And so it is with the life of man.

We are, after all, art.

“When we are born, we are granted by God a specific number of exclamation points. When we use them up, it is our time to go.”

Dean Koontz

HT: @RachelleGardner

In the spirit of my post Tuesday –The Hunt for (a more widely) Read October– and on the anniversary of my first year at the Rabbit Room, I am posting this original essay which first appeared one year ago today on October 2, 2008 in a dimly lit corner of said Rabbit Room. The regulars laughed. Some walked out. But some stayed and some new chaps came and started small fires which caused hundreds of quid in damages. The original RR post is here. -sam

“Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree.” –Joyce Kilmer

There are few finer pieces of practical theology I have read (outside of Scripture) than those tremendous words. I want to consider them in light of the Word of God, and alongside some thoughts by three guys I met at a football game -guys named Lewis, Tolkien and Milton. OK, to be honest, it wasn’t a football game. It was in books. Books are things people used to read before they invented text messaging. Sadly, these three amigos are unlikely to appear at any football games I may attend. But if my fantasy life is ever fully realized then you may see Jack Lewis coming on to kick the game-winning field-goal for the West Virginia Mountaineers with an able hold, laces out, by “Tollers.” Milton, blind as a bat, would be the long-snapper.

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Writing is a business fraught with innumerable obstacles and marked by disappointments. No, it’s not like fighting-a-war hard, but it is simply very challenging if you are serious. That may seem silly but it won’t to anyone who has ever tried to get beyond the “I have a few ideas” stage and actually set to work. I don’t say that to garner pity (alone) but to say that it is easy to get discouraged about a lack of progress. I have been fighting that feeling off with varying degrees of success lately, and trying to keep my frustration in check. Then here comes October.

This October reminds me of last October. Last October was a good month for me in my efforts to be a “real writer.” I got my first paying gig writing fiction for West Virginia South magazine as they accepted my proposal to publish The Fledge Chronicles. The first story was published last October, “The Lion, the Bridge, and the Wardrobe Malfunction.” Since then they have continued to publish an installment of the serial in each publication. I am very thankful for Audrey Stanton, the editor of WVS, for being willing to publish the stories, and for her abundant supply of enthusiasm for them.

Last October I also debuted at the Rabbit Room, by the whimsical invitation of Andrew Peterson. I have posted two, or three times a month there (as AP requested) for the last year. It has been a joy to be in the company of such incredible artists and to get to know some of them a lot more betterer (see, writing is hard). The readers and posters over there have been a big encouragement to me, and I am so thankful to Andrew, and to the whole gang.

So, all in one month, I was being read by a lot more people and getting paid for it. Reflecting on this has been humbling for me this October. Who knows what awaits for me this October? Maybe more literary success. Maybe not. But I have reasons not to grumble.                 

Further, God seems to be kicking me in the pants with numerous exhortations to be grateful. Reminders of the mercy I’ve been given are jumping out in front of my car in a way impossible to miss. Mainly it’s the Gospel –pardon and peace with God! But it’s also babies, books, and bluegrass and many other things all singing from the same sheet music.

So October comes again. It’s another reason for skipping grumbling and going straight to gratitude. Who gets thanks? The God of Abraham.