Analog likes my style

I was beginning to despair of my writing career (nearly 40 submissions since I started keeping track in 2013, and not so much as a whiff of interest). Then, one of the editors at Analog Science Fiction & Fact sent me this email on November 23:

Dear Andrew, 

Thank you for letting me see "Mother Knows." I'm sorry it didn't strike me as quite right for our present needs. 

I rather like your style of writing and suggest that you try us again.

Whoa, hold on. Did one of the editors of Analog, one of the most famous, widely-read, and respected sci-fi mags in the world, just tell me he liked my style?

Yes he did.

You'd best believe I whipped something off to him post-haste. I'll let you know how it goes.

back from the UK

Here's the short version, in case you're pressed for time and don't want to read the rest of this post:

     1. Miss H and I went on our trip to the British Isles and Ireland. It was Fun, with a capital "F." 

     2. A couple of days ago I queried Ethan Ellenberg with a 50-page excerpt of New Model Earth, which is the new title I've chosen for Revival, my sci-fi magnum opus.

     3. Miss H and I are moving. We're staying in Henderson, but we're switching apartments.

I told myself I'd write a post for each leg of the trip Miss H and I took to Europe, with oodles of delicious pictures for you to drool over. This is a travel blog, after all. But to be honest, I can't be bothered. There's too much going on right now. We're moving, as I mentioned. And I'm still trying to do three things every day: write, read, and exercise. So far I've been failing miserably, but not for lack of trying. Well, okay, maybe for lack of trying. But not for lack of wanting. So I'll just give you the picks of the litter: 

Black Linn waterfall, near Ossian's Seat in the Scottish Highlands.

I shouldn't have to tell you what this is.

The obligatory Big Ben selfie.

Tower Bridge ain't falling down...

The Titanic's original slipway in Belfast, Northern Ireland. 

Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.

Trinity College Library, Dublin. 

The view from Dundrum Castle, County Down, Northern Ireland. 

The Giant's Causeway, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.

All done drooling? Great. The trip was luscious. Heather and I had a long layover in Miami on July 3, and spent a sultry afternoon in South Beach lying on golden sand and swimming in bathwater-warm seas and stuffing our faces with Cuban food and ducking self-professed heroin addicts on Collins Avenue. The bachelor party ("stag do") in Edinburgh was a blast; the boys and I pub-crawled across town, buying cheese from a bona fide cheesemonger and whisky from a bona fide whisky monger and mowing down while we roamed the streets. I ate haggis pizza and got to try a beer that was 44% alcohol. Jeff and Jenn's wedding ceremony was beautiful. They had a double-decker bus with their names on it, and got married in a friggin' castle, and the reception dinner was just amazeballs (game terrine, beef Wellington, and apple and berry cobbler), and a fun time was had by all. Then Miss H and I walked from one end of London to the other, and then flew into Dublin and did a private pub crawl of our own, and then had an 18-hour layover in Boston that left a fine taste in our mouths (as did the fondue and pisco sours at Stoddard's). And that was the trip. 

It was, however, ludicrously expensive. 

So expensive, in fact, that Miss H and I have been living paycheck-to-paycheck since we got home. 

Our lease is up, and Ventana Canyon Apartment Homes will be increasing our rent. They claimed it was because there was "development" going in next door to our apartment complex and that's upping the property value. The "development" they speak of is the construction of another apartment complex. I was no great shakes at economics in school, but doesn't an increase in supply and a corresponding decrease in demand mean a drop in price...?

Anyway, we selected a one-bedroom apartment at a complex just a mile and a half away, around the corner on Gibson. It'll mean a downgrade in living space, but much cheaper rent. Frankly, the complex is much nicer: a five-foot-deep heated pool, an indoor racquetball court, and a host of other amenities Ventana can't offer. I won't tell you the name of our new complex, however, because I expect to become a world-famous author soon and I'm keen on privacy.

Yes, I said "world-famous author." I haven't been bone-idle since I got back from the UK. I busted my hump, and with the help of a few erudite beta readers, I whipped the manuscript for Mugunghwa into shape. I'm publishing it for the Kindle...well, hell. Maybe tonight. Depends on how convoluted the KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) process is. I've already formatted my novel the way they want it and saved it HTML, and now all I have to do is pick a cover design and set a price, as far as I'm aware. Then it'll pop up on Amazon 24-48 hours from when I click the "publish" button. Fame and fortune will follow.

...but just in case it doesn't, I also prepped my manuscript for New Model Earth (which I shall hereafter refer to as NME) and sent a query letter, a synopsis, and an excerpt off to the folks at Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency. These are the same folks who picked up John Scalzi and published his works, so I have high hopes. 

Before 2015 is out I intend to start writing freelance opinion articles for the Pacific Standard, The Awl, and any other online periodical that likes my pitches. Might as well start working as a freelance writer, especially while I'm waiting to hear how my novel ambitions pan out. 

I've also taken proactive steps to get my flying career in order. Rather than lament my persistent lack of funds, I set up a GoFundMe campaign (click here or see the badge at the top right of this page). I need $25,000. That's to get current, get my high-performance rating, rack up 100 hours PIC and 50 hours cross-country flight, do my commercial checkride prep, take my exam, and then become a commercially-licensed pilot. And hopefully get snapped up by Grand Canyon Airlines shortly thereafter. 

I'm taking this campaign seriously. I've shotgunned it out over Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail, and I've even printed out flyers—actual, physical pieces of paper—to post up at the small airports around Las Vegas (North Las Vegas, Henderson, and Boulder City). I'm doing that this weekend, if there's any time after the move. 

If you really love me, you'll save this and send it to everyone you know. Even that hated coworker you have to stand next to in the elevator each day on your way to work. 

farewell to Korea...again

It's 7:15 a.m. 

The sky is still pitch-black. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm in Bellona, the nightmarish, eternally overcast city from Samuel R. Delany's novel Dhalgren. 

In one hour, I shall be boarding a China Eastern flight to Shanghai (Pudong). After a five-hour layover, I'll jump another jet plane for San Francisco, where my parents will pick me up and take me back to their new place near Sacramento. After a few days with them, I'll drive down to Las Vegas on the 13th of January to reunite with Miss H after four long months...and have a job interview with a tech start-up the very next day.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, I depart Korea for the second time, this latest stint having lasted three years. Was it time wasted? I think not. I made another bucketload of disreputable friends, proposed to the girl of my dreams (in Tokyo, but hey), wrote two-and-a-half novels, began to take my writing career seriously, kicked off the quest to get a book published, and (completely by accident) fulfilled my childhood dream of becoming a professor in a foreign land. 

Now it's time to move on to a new set of dreams: marriage, family, a writing career, a commercial pilot's license (and a floatplane rating)...and after that? A steady writing job in Las Vegas, seasonal work with Grand Canyon tour companies, a published novel, a dozen syndicated short stories, two or three troublemaking kids, and a big mongrel dog. Wish me luck.

So long and farewell, Korea. You were awfully good to me and mine. I'll see you again someday. Let's do gimbap. 

2014...as it relates to 2015

The Akashic Records. Okay, no, not really. It's actually Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. (Photo courtesy of navitascoach.com)

Once again it's time for my customary look back at the previous year, and a peek ahead at what's to come next year. Without further ado, here's a list of the things I accomplished in 2014: 

•  brewed a bunch of beers with the guys, including a lip-smackin' ginger IPA
•  completed The Art of Manliness's 30 Days to a Better Man challenge (January)
•  submitted a query, along with 10 pages of my manuscript, to Ace & Roc Science Fiction & Fantasy in January; sent in the full manuscript in August; rejected in October
•  took a trip to Sapporo, Hokkaido in February
•  rode the train through all the way through Japan (took a full day and then some) 
•  said farewell to Adam in Busan
•  moved to Gangnam-gu in March
•  got my appendix out in May
•  sent my full manuscript to Baen Books in June; rejected in December
•  traveled through Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong from July 12 to August 7
•  took the Reunification Express through Vietnam, from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City
•  ate lo mai gai, bun cha, banh mi, and pigeon-heart pho in Vietnam
•  traveled across Cambodia by bus, and ate khmer amok and beef loklak
•  drank cocktails at the top of Bangkok's tallest building and watched a thunderstorm
•  took the train from Bangkok to Butterworth, and hung around in the Hong Kong Bar on Penang Island, drinking cheap Tiger beers and talking to Chinese, Brits, Russians, and Brazilians 
•  rode a miserable bus through Malaysia
•  spent a hot, humid, overpriced weekend in Singapore drinking eponymous slings and riding open-top buses (and the Flyer)
•  met up with Miss H in Hong Kong and spent four lovely days there, eating Hokkaido ramen and Moroccan lamb and MSG-laden Cantonese and English beer (and going to Disneyland)
•  saw Miss H go back home before me in September
•  moved into a oneroomtel in Gwangjin-gu that same month
•  finished reading Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina in November
•  read The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, The Terror by Dan Simmons, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star and Kowloon Tong by Paul Theroux, Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks, Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, The Korean War: A History by Bruce Cumings, Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad, Dune by Frank Herbert, The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, The Book of Wonder by Lord Dunsany, and some other stuff
•  found the best burger in Seoul (at Bartwo, a beer-and-burger pub in Oksu-dong)
•  ...and the best Mexican in Seoul (Gusto Taco, near Sangsu Station in the Hongdae area)
•  tasted seolleongtang, makchang (large beef intestines), fermented soybean paste, hoe deopbap (raw fish over rice), chicken bulgogi, shrimp gimbap, and barbecued ox hearts
•  ate at the Casablanca Sandwicherie in Itaewon (lamb chili sandwich and a Berber omelette, yum!)
•  completed the shooter challenge at Gecko's Terrace in Itaewon, and now have my name inscribed on a brass plaque above the bar with the following motto: Bibo Ergo Sum
•  discovered Jack White, The White Stripes, Jeff Buckley, Sky Sailing, Cage the Elephant, Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis
•  took up pipe-smoking and honed my appreciation for good pipe tobacco (with a nip of bourbon or rye)
•  completed another NaNoWriMo and took my first steps toward becoming a paperless writer 
• started two new novels and abandoned a third
•  submitted ten short science fiction stories to Clarkesworld, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Asimov's Science Fiction, Space Squid, Daily Science Fiction, 3LBE, and Fiction Vortex (all rejected)
•  joined Twitter (11 followers so far!) and revamped my blog and Google Plus pages (to build my writer's platform)
•  added some delicious dishes to my cooking and baking repertoire, such as chicken piccata, vegetarian lasagna, penne pasta with vodka sauce, New York cheesecake, and stuffed bell peppers
•  wrote and submitted pieces to ElectRow magazine
•  went to the HBC Festival and drank beer and ate doner kebab
•  rode my bike all the way to Gwacheon 
•  walked from Gwangjin-gu to Itaewon 
•  walked 10 miles in one day 
•  went to the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art
•  hiked Achasan and Yongmasan
•  hiked Namhansanseong, the ninth of Korea's UNESCO World Heritage sites I've seen (out of 11 total)
•  tried the hamburgers at Fire Bell, Libertine, and Left Coast
•  visited the doctor about some heart palpitations, and started taking magnesium supplements for excessive stress
• on a related note, I lost 20 pounds between August and December
• visited a buddy in Gunsan, North Jeolla (and rode first class on the KTX back to Seoul)
•  planned a wedding in April 2015 (my own!)
•  scored an interview with a tech start-up in Las Vegas 
•  made dozens of new friends in seven countries
•  finished my final semester at Sejong University
•  prepared to depart Korea on January 7, 2015

And here's what I hope for 2015: a job in January, a wedding with the love of my life in April, a wedding in England (congratulations, Jeff & Jenn!) in July, Wasteland Weekend in September, a literary agent by December, and burning off the rest of my gut at the gym. And keeping it off. Twenty pounds gone already, as you saw above.

Postie out. 

writing updates, 12/24/2014

Baen Books has rejected my manuscript. 

...but also very gently.

I got back to my apartment after stepping out to see The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (overlong and excruciatingly over-acted) and I see this email in my inbox:

Dear Mr. Post,


Thank you for your patience as we considered your novel. While your narrative style was entertaining, unfortunately we will not be able to find a place for this story in our lineup.

Due to the volume of manuscripts we receive and the press of other business it is impossible for us to go into particulars. Please do not take this rejection as necessarily a reflection on your work; we can accept fewer than one percent of the manuscripts submitted to us.

Best of luck in another market. We hope you will consider submitting again, when you have another story you think will fit the Baen line.


Sincerely,

Gray Rinehart
Contributing Editor
Baen Books

While not as detailed as my rejection from Ace & Roc, this is still benign. Benignity is probably par for the course for these things, I realize. People are so hypersensitive these days that one whiff of brusqueness from an editor would invite an expletive-packed tirade from the irate, insecure author. Editors have probably learned to tiptoe quite carefully around a rejection email like this one, hand-picking the most vaguely encouraging euphemisms. 

Even so, Mr. Rinehart didn't have to say that my narrative style was entertaining. That was mighty big of him. I guess that earns me one point in the cosmic scheme of things. Huzzah!

That wasn't all, though. Today I received a rejection email from Daily Science Fiction, letting me know that they weren't interested in my 1500-word short story "Letter from the E.T. Killer."

My own stupid fault, really. Stories about serial killers are a dime a dozen. I should have realized that before I wrote it. Oh well. I can't help what my Muse tells me. 

[sigh]

So that's it. No more lines in the water. The manuscript of my first novel, my baby, my magnum opus, the reason God or Zeus or the Great Green Arkleseizure put me on this planet, the glorious creation I was brought into existence to bring into existence, has been rejected by two major publishers. Every story I've written and/or submitted this year has been hurled back in my face with an F.O. letter attached. 

Bummer, dude.  

But let's recap. Since I began keeping track of my submissions in late 2012, here's where things stand: 

1. Tues, 12/11/12 - Daily Science Fiction ("The Maze," 770 words) - REJECTED

 2. Sun, 12/23/12 - Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine ("Incommunicado," 3,440 words) - REJECTED

 3. Fri, 1/4/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("Liquid Courage," 1,140 words) - REJECTED

 4. Wed, 1/16/13 - Fantastic Frontiers ("Liquid Courage," 1,140 words) - NEVER HEARD BACK

 5. Fri, 2/8/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("Plea Bargain," 1,130 words) - REJECTED

 6. Fri, 4/19/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("The Time Gun," 2,830 words) - REJECTED

 7. Thurs, 6/03/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("The First Twenty-Five Years," 1,740 words) - MADE 2ND ROUND OF REVIEW - REJECTED 

 8. Fri, 6/26/13 - Daily Science Fiction ("Only One Boot," 980 words) - REJECTED

 9. Wed, 8/14/13 - 3LBE ("Liquid Courage," 1,140 words) - REJECTED

 10. Wed, 8/14/13 - Space Squid ("The Time Gun," 2,830 words) - REJECTED

 11. Thurs, 1/23/14 - Asimov's Science Fiction ("Plea Bargain," 1,130 words) - REJECTED

 12. Wed, 1/29/14 - Asimov's Science Fiction ("The First Twenty-Five Years," [revised] 2,700 words) - REJECTED

 13. Wed, 1/29/14 - Ace and Roc Science Fiction & Fantasy ("Revival," 112,000 words) - REQUESTED MANUSCRIPT 8/27/14 - REJECTED

 14. Mon, 2/10/14 - Daily Science Fiction ("The First 25 Years," [R] 2,700 words) - REJECTED

 15. Wed, 3/12/14 - Daily Science Fiction ("The Body Politic," 2,600 words) - REJECTED

 16. Tues, 3/18/14 - Analog Science Fiction & Fact ("Plea Bargain," 1,130 words) - NEVER HEARD BACK

 17. Mon, 4/21/14 - Daily Science Fiction ("That's Gratitude For You," 1,130 words) - REJECTED

 18. Fri, 5/2/14 - Daily Science Fiction ("Boxing Day," 1,080 words) - REJECTED

 19. Mon, 6/30/2014 - Baen Books ("Revival," 114,500 words) - ID No: 10240 - REJECTED

 20. Mon, 10/20/2014 - Daily Science Fiction ("Emeritus," 1,630 words) - REJECTED

 21. Thurs, 10/30/2014 - Fiction Vortex ("The First 25 Years," [revised] 2,700 words) - REJECTED

 22. Mon, 11/17/2014 - Clarkesworld ("The First 25 Years," [revised] 2,700 words) - REJECTED

 23. Mon, 12/8/2014 - Daily Science Fiction ("Letter from the E.T. Killer," 1,500 words) - REJECTED

Well, looky here. Two measly submissions in 2012. Eight in 2013. Twelve in 2014...getting better. And two (going on four) more novels written since then. 

I guess I must be serious about becoming a writer, huh? 

Twenty-three submissions, twenty-three rejections. I'm going to try to triple that next year. My New Year's resolutions for 2015 are: write every day; submit at least two or three times a month; finish up Novel #4 and Novel #5, and finish Novel #6 (whatever that may be). Do another NaNoWriMo (Novel #7, I guess). And most importantly, find an agent. I've decided to start querying them anyway, even if I don't have a body of published work. I may be shouting into the void, but there may be a faint echo. Who knows? 

Wish me luck. 

Paperless? Who, me?

So here's the deal: I won NaNoWriMo. Yay me.

But the novel itself is far from finished. I get the feeling the word count'll be 120-150K by the time I'm through. A beast such as this requires some planning. My pantsing days, I've come to realize, are long over. 

Second, while I've based books and stories on historical events before, Charlie Ward is the first project I've ever based on a person: Frederick Townsend Ward, an American sailor and soldier-of-fortune from the 1850s. I moved the setting into outer space and made the titular character female, and Charlie Ward: Interstellar Soldier-of-Fortune was born. 

My productivity since November ended has been abysmal: I think I've added a mere 5,500 words to the manuscript since December began. (Blame final exam prep.) My MC is currently slogging her way through the frozen mud of the Crimea a gigantic Earth-like planet where the Crimean War a great interplanetary war's going on between Russia, Turkey, France, and England four mighty planets battling for territorial supremacy and a warm-water port mineral rights and economic posturing. 

As you might expect, it's proven difficult to remain faithful to the source material and still portray futuristic space combat realistically. That, and I know jack-squat about the life military. Yesterday I had to call up an old high school buddy who was in the army to get help with the lingo, abbreviations, and politics. 

That means I've had to take a lot of notes for this story. Fred Ward's life (with a few strategic embellishments). Military abbreviations and SOPs (that aforementioned buddy of mine sent me the whole dang U.S. Army field operations manual—all 213 pages of it). An entire fictitious regiment and its captain, lieutenants, sergeants, and forty-odd privates, all with first and last names, disparate personalities, family histories, and unique homeworlds. The political climate of the eighteen or so planets I've had to invent for the purposes of this story, not to mention their masses, rotation speeds, meteorology, ecology, economics, culture, sociology, biology, and geology. Technologies out the wazoo, like a Podkletnov device for anti-gravity, a negative-mass particle generator for warp drive, MAHEM guns for ship-to-ship combat, a skyhook, robotics, communication devices, antipersonnel weapons...sheesh. And I haven't even gotten to the bit about ground warfare yet, or mining technology, both of which I'll need to mention in some detail for the first big land-battle sequence to make sense. 

Notepad just wasn't going to cut it this time, and I knew it. 

So I made the quantum leap to Evernote.

And it is simply splendid.

Click the pic to expand it and take a good, hard look—everything's right where it needs to be.  On the left are my separate notebooks, organized however I like them. I only have one notebook so far, for this particular story. Inside that notebook are five notes: some research I've done on space warfare, a page devoted to random snippets of quotes and dialogue, a discussion of planets and stations that populate this galaxy I'm building, a list of Charlie's unit on Achore (which is visible there on the right, as it's the one selected), and a rough outline of the story. 

Formerly, I kept all this crap in one single Notepad (.txt) file, and had to scroll up and down and poke through it every time I needed a bit of information for a story. No more. It's all in one place, organized and easily accessible. "Convenient" is simply not the word to describe it. "Heaven-sent" would be more like it. 

I'm going to take a day here after finals week ends (and I'm not busy in Seoraksan National Park or the nearby city of Sokcho over in Gangwon Province, or down in Gunsan in North Jeolla Province with my buddy Beau) and transfer EVERY FREAKING ONE of my Notepad files concerning the Revival series and Mugunghwa (my historical novel) onto Evernote.

Next step: find out what Scrivener's all about. I'll do a post about that soon, too. 

walking to Oksu

Hey there, blogsphere.

I'm going to start posting on this here blog more regularly. One of my Facebook friends put me on to Young Adventuress, and I tell you: it's hard to find a cooler travel blog. I've visited lots and they were all pretty insipid, or were glorified travel brochures, or spent way too much time trying to look cool instead of focusing on the important stuff like quality writing. YA doesn't bother too much about that crap. And she belongs to the same philosophical school of blogging that I do: nice, long, wordy, florid, descriptive, opinion-driven posts with scads of luscious photos, breezy language, profound ideas and whatnot. So hey, follow along. She's gotten some intense recognition for her blog 'cause she works darn hard at it. 

Anyway, she also offers advice for wannabe travel bloggers, and part of it is to blog frequently and build a platform (Instagram, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest...everything). Awful similar to the advice I keep reading for wannabe novelists, too. Build that platform, build that platform. Create ways to get seen and get contacted. 

So I decided to get serious. I now have a Twitter account, and I went through and revamped my Google+ pages (both my writer's page and my blog's page). As soon as I get home and get a smartphone I'll update my Instagram account and start posting photos regularly there and let you folks know how to find me. I've updated my contact info on this page, too—see the about me page just underneath the big title up top. 

So...what to post? I don't believe I've shown you nearly enough of South Korea or Seoul. So here's some pics from another long walk I took on Saturday, November 8. All told it was about 7.3 kilometers, or 4.5 miles, on a grey, misty day that couldn't really decide what it wanted to be and just sort of hung there like it was waiting for its ship to come in.

I love walking around this town. Since I started doing all these long walks last month, I've discovered so many strange and wonderful things hiding just around the corner. A couple of weeks ago I saw a guy sitting on a bench by the Jungang Stream with a big blue macaw on his wrist. No explanation, no signage, nothing. Just a guy and his parrot. This particular Wednesday, as I walked from my oneroomtel to my new favorite burger joint in Oksu-dong, Seongdong-gu (near Oksu Station on Line 3), I saw this—some kind of dredging operation going on near the northern bank of the Han River, about level with Seongsu-dong, not far from Seoul Forest. 

Looking east along the bicycle path on the northern shore. You can baaaaaarely see the incomplete Lotte World Tower in the misty distance, in Jamsil.

Looking west, downriver toward the Seongsu Bridge.

Han River Park beneath Gangbyeonbuk-ro (North Riverside Road) in Oksu-dong.

Now I simply must tell you about this burger place, kids. It's called Bartwo. It's a beer-and-burger pub, and one of the absolute finest places in Seoul to get a goddamn good burger. It's right at the interesection of Deoksodang-ro and Hallimmal 3-gil, just a few steps up a hill from Oksu Station (go out Exit 4, turn right, pass the Paris Baguette on the left, and walk up the hill; it'll be on the right at the T-junction). I've been there a few times and have never been let down. The owner, Jeremy, is a gyopo and speaks really good English. He's a friendly dude and he keeps his bar stocked with excellent West Coast craft beers like Ballast Point and North Coast, and some I'd never seen in Korea before (Widmer Brothers anyone?). The Bartwo draft beer is only ₩2,500 a pop and tastes surprisingly good. The extensive menu includes stuffed peppers, tortilla pizza, chips and salsa, hot dogs, burgers, sandwiches, and salads. Also these, the fried mandu (Korean dumplings) with homemade salsa, three for ₩7,000: 

One word: INCREDIBLE.

The crowning glory is the Oksu Burger, ₩9,000. Beef patty cooked to perfection before your eyes, fresh red onion, lettuce, dill pickle (not sweet), tomato, melted cheese, fresh bun, a pile of fries, and all the ketchup and mustard you want. Add in the seasonal import beer (Sam Adams OctoberFest, ₩8,000) and the pickles I got as a side order (₩2,000) and my total bill came to ₩27,000 for one evening's debauch. 

  

How's that for a slice of fried gold?

I'm doing NaNoWriMo 2014

In the wake of Ace & Roc's rejection of my first novel, Revival, I've done a lot of soul-searching, self-persecution, and agonizing about the precise reasons why. What I finally hit upon was this:

I've lived my entire life under a cloud of puerile delusions—which were pretty typical of my generation, but that doesn't make having them any better. I grew up with two simple goals: (a) to make my mark on the world, and (b) to have fun and never work hard. I realized a couple of days ago that those goals are mutually exclusive. Up to this point I looked at both my journalism career and my writing as mere games—cheat codes to get me out of doing any heavy lifting in life. I should have seen them for what they truly were: real jobs requiring real effort. If I had just treated my career and my writing with a bit of respect and seriousness, taken some initiative, had an ounce of industriousness, put in a drop of effort...maybe I'd actually have a career right now. I'm due to go back to the United States in early January 2015, never to return to Korea, and I'm going back with no prospects, hardly any job experience, and not a whit of marketability. Who knows what I'll wind up doing, or even if I'll find any meaningful work at all? If I'd just tried harder in my youth, perhaps I'd be published already, and working as a respected magazine columnist or radio talk show host, with a first novel printed and another slated for publication, with savings and investments and mortgages and a 401k...instead of, you know, utterly wasting the first thirty years of my life trying to ensure that said life was as fun as possible.

So I've decided that, from now on, I'm going to put more conscientious effort into my work—both my nonexistent career as a journalist and my writing skills. 

To that end, I decided to do NaNoWriMo this year. The reasons are fourfold: 

Reason #1: I need to get back in the habit of writing every day. Ace & Roc probably rejected me because my writing was almost good, but not quite. It was sterile and clumsy enough to preclude any chance I had of publication. There was too much fixing that would have had to be done before the thing was fit for the press. I haven't been writing every day, not for a year or so now. NaNoWriMo is a great way to jump-start the habit again. I need to sharpen my skills—reforge the swords, so to speak. And NaNo is the furnace. 

Reason #2: It's a good way for me to stretch some new writing muscles as well as the old ones. The novel I decided to write this November involves a female protagonist. I've never written anything from a female's first-person perspective before. I get the feeling that the lady characters in Revival are pretty sterile and flat and weak-chinned, so I'm gonna use this NaNo to train my brain in the subtle art of writing strong, intelligent, and engaging women. 

Reason #3: I did some clicking around over on Robert J. Sawyer's blog (he's none other than the president of freakin' Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America). I discovered something earth-shattering: Revival, my first novel, the first entry in what I had hoped would be an epic science fiction series...is not science fiction. Nope. It's got some elements of the fantastic and the metaphysical, and what science is involved is rather soft stuff, even pseudoscientific. That puts it firmly in the realm of speculative fiction, perhaps even fantasy. Small wonder Ace & Roc rejected the manuscript! All this time, since the age of 19, I thought I was writing science fiction, and it turns out that I wasn't. That made me question what I knew. Do I really know what sci-fi is? Did I ever? 

Obviously I need to get reacquainted with my chosen genre. When I get back home in January, I'm going to buy up as many Hugo- and Nebula-winning novels as I can, read through 'em, and find out what great science fiction is really all about. I'll shelve the Revival series for a while and focus on writing and publishing short science fiction to build up a solid foundation of writing credentials—enough to attract the attention of a literary agent. After I get that agent, then I shall focus on finding Revival a home. I know it'll have a home somewhere, but probably not with a traditional science fiction publisher like Tor, DAW, Ace, or Baen. 

But for now, for the month of November, I'm writing a science fiction novel. A real one. Hard science fiction, where facts are facts, the science is sound, and there's no fluff or fantasy. I want to see if I can do it—if I actually know what sci-fi is, and if I can write it. The best way to learn is to do, right? I'm using NaNoWriMo to relearn the nuances of my craft so I don't make the same genre-busting mistakes I did with Revival.  

Reason #4: Simply put: writing hasn't been fun lately. That's probably why I haven't been doing it on a daily basis, why I let it slide. It's become a chore. Even before I decided to look at it as a job that required real work, it already felt like a toxic bore. I couldn't tell you why. Maybe I felt hemmed in by all the rules and characterizations and plot lines I'd spent years constructing for the Revival series. Maybe that same series was sapping all of my creativity. Maybe I'd gotten so wrapped up in publication fever that I was looking at every writing project as a potentially salable piece, and putting enormous pressure on myself to make it perfect and right and good with the very first draft and psyching myself out. Probably some combination of the three.

I need to pull back, take a breather, and remember why I want to be a writer: because it's fun, dang it. Crafting worlds, playing God, moving pieces around on a chessboard, and all that rot. Oh, and potentially creating something that other people will see and love, and might inspire them to create something themselves. 

And you know what? NaNoWriMo, so far, has been exactly that. FUN. 

It's November 2. Yesterday afternoon, I commenced writing Charlie Ward, Interstellar Soldier-of-Fortune, a space opera. This story has been a blast so far. The thing is practically writing itself. Words are rolling off my fingertips. My brain is a blast furnace. My knuckles are oiled and ready. My mind is teeming with words. On the first day I did 2,500 words in less than an hour. Finished the first chapter. Ka-BOOM!

This is the only image I could find on Wallpaper Abyss that approximated my MC's appearance and demeanor.

So here's to getting back into the daily writing game, sculpting my first female protagonist, reacquainting myself with my one and only literary love (science fiction), and just having a ball with writing again. I'll keep you posted about how it all goes. 

This is the refreshed and rejuvenated Vaunter, signing off. Gotta go do another 2,500 words. 

writing updates, 10/27/2014

Ace & Roc Science Fiction & Fantasy has rejected my manuscript.

...but very gently. 

You remember how I interrupted the tale of my Southeast Asia tour to tell you that A&R liked my query and wanted to see the full manuscript of Revival? 

Well, they sent me this email on October 14:

Dear Mr. Post,


Thank you for submitting Revival to Ace / Roc. I apologize for the continued delayed response—but part of the delay was you were under consideration for longer! I appreciate the opportunity to read your submission, but I’m sorry to say that in the current crowded market, this does not sound to me like a book that we can make into a success.

Your novel shows potential in you; perhaps you should try to find an agent. A literary agent can be a great way to start on the road to publishing, as they can offer writing guidance and help you find the best publishing houses to submit your work to. THE WRITER’S MARKET (www.writersmarket.com) lists literary agents, as does PUBLISHERS MARKETPLACE at www.publishersmarketplace.com. SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) has information on finding reputable literary agents (and avoiding scams) at www.sfwa.opg/for-authors/writer-beware .

You can also look to find writer’s groups in your area, who can help you to develop your own writing.

We do wish you the best of luck with other publishers, and thank you again for thinking of us.



Regrets and best wishes,

The Editorial Staff

Ace/Roc Science Fiction & Fantasy 

A rejection, yes. But as kind and encouraging a rejection as any aspiring writer could hope to receive. 

It was also a wake-up call. I'd been mighty puffed up and hadn't realized it. I shouldn't have ignored Moonrat's advice to never submit without an agent. 

It was also a seminal moment. This is the first time that I've ever been rejected and still felt that the work in question was worthwhile—that it wasn't a steamy pile of crap and should be burned to a crisp and scattered to the four winds. I haven't had the urge to go back and gut the story, rewriting and editing for endless hours until it's fit again for human eyes. It seems Ace & Roc just didn't think it was a paying proposition, that's all. That doesn't mean the work itself was irredeemably awful. It has potential. 

Well, I guess you know what this means, folks. It's time for ol' Andy Post to square his shoulders, edit Novel #3, finish Novel #4, commence Novel #5...

...and wait to see what the editor at Baen Books says. 

They've got my manuscript now too, remember? I sent it off to them in late June, when I thought that Ace & Roc would never get back to me. Baen's reporting time is 9-12 months, so I've got to sit on my laurels for a while.

But I won't be idle. I'll be writing short stories (a 1,600-word piece entitled "Emeritus" was sent to Daily Science Fiction last week) and working on the aforementioned novels. I look at my first rejection by a major publisher as a blessing in disguise. Thin disguise, in fact. 

Oh, and in other news...it looks like Stephen King totally ripped off the title of my magnum opus for his next novel! Why, that ham. My idol has stabbed me in the back.

Postie out. 

let not dreams be your master

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim...

                                                                               --- Rudyard Kipling, "If" 
       

Would you like to hear a funny story (and by "funny" I mean "relevant to my career, and yours too if you're a writer")? 

My hobby is trapshooting. It's where five people get together in a line and stand a set distance away from a small mound. Beneath this mound is a mechanical launcher which, at the first shooters' word, slings small discs made of frangible clay into the air in different directions and trajectories. The first shooter puts on his shooting glasses and earplugs, raises his gun to his shoulder, and shouts "Pull!" The scorekeeper, typically seated on a chair behind the shooters, presses a button and activates the launcher, which throws a random bird out from beneath the mound and into the line of fire. The first shooter does his best to blow the little target out of the air with a shotgun blast. If he or she hits it, then the fragile disc disintegrates into a million tiny pieces and falls to earth in forlorn fragments. If the shot was a miss, the disc wings off into the distance and shatters on impact with the ground. Then the second shooter raises his gun to his shoulder, shouts "Pull!" and the whole process kicks off again, and continues until each of the five shooters has shot at 25 "birds." 

It looks kind of like this:

I've done this dozens of times, and I've never gotten a perfect 25. 

Why?

Because I always psych myself out. I get to 24, and then I start to sweat and grit my teeth and clench my gut and think of that lovely "25" patch I could sew onto my shooting vest, and I invariably jerk the trigger too hard and miss the final bird. 

Sloppy. Eager. Shaky. 

Too much speed and too much noise.

Today I realized that I have been approaching my writing in the same way.

Most of you guys know by now that I'm a science fiction guy, but I do fantasize about mainstream fiction occasionally. One of my favorite books is The Sand Pebbles, by Richard McKenna. It paints a dynamic and emotionally moving portrait of the life of a simple machinist's mate Jake Holman, who serves aboard the U.S. Navy gunboat San Pablo. The vessel and her dedicated crew of "Sand Pebbles" patrol the Yangtze River in China, mostly a dog-and-pony show to intimidate bandits and warlords who are keen to rough up American businessmen and missionaries in the area. The book also brings to life the grand scale, social mores, political upheavals, and intimidating personalities at work in China in the 1920's. The action takes place right on the eve of Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition, and the Kuomintang and the unification of China are central themes. More than a simple novel of an ignorant country boy at sea amid the oppressive hostility of the Orient, however, The Sand Pebbles is also an insightful commentary on the human condition: the raw power (and irrationality) of love, the madness and chaos of war, the eternal struggle of old traditions and new ideas. 

It's precisely the kind of historical fiction I wanted to write. So, in 2012, between penning the first and second novels of my epic sci-fi series, I did NaNoWriMo. What I wrote was a 52,000-word piece called Mugunghwa (the rose-of-Sharon, Korea's national flower). Apart from a few lackadaisical edits here and there, I haven't touched the manuscript since. 

Then, just recently, I picked up Paul Theroux's Kowloon Tong. Not historical fiction by any means—it was published in 1997, the same year that the U.K. handed over Hong Kong to mainland China. This handover, while merely a peripheral event in Theroux's novel, nonetheless forms the catalyst for much of the action. I'll give you the Wikipedia summary: "Kowloon Tong is a novel by Paul Theroux about Neville "Bunt" Mullard, an English mummy's boy born and raised in Hong Kong. The story is set in the days leading up to the handover to China of Hong Kong from the British. Bunt is made an offer for his textile factory by the shady Mr. Hung from the People's Republic of China, and has no choice but to accept, when it is made clear that Mr. Hung knows all about the part of Bunt's life that he has kept secret from his mother Betty, namely his frequenting of the 'blue hotels' of Kowloon Tong and furtive sex with one of his workers, Mei-Ping."

Sounds quite tawdry and sinister, don't it? And it is, certainly. But more than that, it does precisely what The Sand Pebbles (published in 1962) managed to do: paint a vivid picture of a time, a place, and a savage cultural clash. I'm halfway through it and I can't put it down. The backdrop of Hong Kong is enticingly exotic (and lewd) and the characters simply sizzle off the page like bacon fat jumping from an overheated skillet: the weak-chinned Bunt, his overbearing mother Betty, the vicious Mr. Hung, the shy and vulnerable Mei-Ping, the slimy lawyer Monty, and the lascivious Filipino prostitute Baby ("Let we make fuppies!"). Here is yet another type of mainstream novel I should like to write: one set in a foreign country (an Asiatic one), concerning a culture utterly foreign to the reader, and yet which manages to faithfully portray the nitty-gritty details of that culture with beautiful, vivid detail—with a pressing social issue as its canvas and inborn human nature its paints. 

So I came up with a timely idea which I could write about: the plight of North Korean girls who decide to escape to China and the promise of work and income, only to be coerced into slavery by unscrupulous Chinese and sold to rural farmers in the northeastern provinces, and there sexually abused and worked like cattle.

Whatever. The idea isn't what's important.

What's important is the undue stress which reading Kowloon Tong caused me. 

I am a weak, insecure, spiteful, and needy man. I put too much pressure on myself. I read something good and I immediately want to emulate it. No, not just emulate it—surpass it. That in itself isn't a bad thing, but I go to extremes. I tell myself that I'm a failure if I don't manage to write something at least as good. I question my own worth and talent. I rail at myself that I'm not as keen an observer of culture and linguistic subtleties as I should be. Moreover, I'm usually in an all-fired hurry to complete the work. Paul Theroux wrote a damn good book, and I need to produce something similar now, NOW, d'you hear me, or my life as a writer is fucking over. This, or something very like it, is the loud, insistent, humbling message which my id splatters all over my craven ego. 

I put way too much pressure on myself. 

I've written three books and am halfway through another. (One of those books—the complete manuscript—is currently under review by the editors at Ace Science Fiction, an imprint of the Penguin Group.) I've penned dozens of short stories. But I remain unpublished. And that, to my mind, is simply not good enough. 

I put way too much pressure on myself. 

Now that one of my books is under review by a major publishing house, I feel an insistent need to edit the sequel into a refined state of readiness, while simultaneously finishing and editing the third installment and even the fourth. And these aren't short books, either: both the first and the second novel manuscripts turned out to be about 110,000-115,000 words each.

I put WAY too much pressure on myself. 

But I've been in a slump lately. I haven't written anything new since my appendectomy last May. I haven't touched my second novel manuscript; the writer's block just won't go away. 

And then I realized that it wasn't writer's block. It was that pressure. It was the background noise. It was me thinking about leaving Korea, moving to Las Vegas, missing Miss H, getting published by Penguin (or worse, not getting published by Penguin), winning the Hugo & Nebula Awards (or worse, not winning the Hugo & Nebula Awards), feeling inferior to Paul Theroux, wondering if I was even capable of writing something as good as Kowloon Tong or The Sand Pebbles, wondering, wishing, waiting, worrying. 

Enough. Enough already. 

I was taking notes on my new idea (about enslaved North Korean women) and I realized something. There was a feeling in my chest like a great big ship's boiler, overheated and ready to burst. My veins felt like cracked valves and my head was constantly pounding. To my shock, I discovered that this wasn't a new sensation: that knot of roiling, boiling pressure had been there for weeks. No matter how many bike rides I took along the Han River or the Yangjae Stream, no matter how many walks through Ttukseom Resort or Seoul Forest, no matter how many of my students wrote perfect descriptive paragraphs because I'm an awesome teacher, I was still stressed out. I was going to bed stressed and waking up stressed, stressing out with every word of every great author's that I read. And I was about to commence writing a fifth book with that lump in my chest. I was about to write it the same way I've been writing every short story and editing every novel manuscript: too quickly, too eagerly, and with too much background noise in my head. 

No more. 

The dam broke this morning. Something snapped inside me. My stress washed away, my head cleared, and I caught myself before I fell. I looked down at my notes and an inarticulate thought trickled into my skull, like sunshine after a rain shower. 

"Even if this isn't as good as anyone else's, it'll still be fun to write, won't it? I should just focus on having fun."

I don't know why it took me so long to remember that. Writing is supposed to be fun, you know. Even when it isn't. Even when it's agonizing and painful, like childbirth, or humdrum and dull, almost like work. It's still cathartic. It's still an escape. It's still a kick in the pants. Somewhere along the line I forgot that. I put too much pressure on myself to write a lot and write it well, better than anyone else. As an egocentric male, and as a human being who wants to leave this world richer than he found it, I stressed myself out trying to succeed on the first try. And predictably, my creativity suffered. I have to remember —and something tells me that I will from now on—that writing is not (just) about the destination. It's about the journey. 

Writing is like driving. You have to do it often to stay in practice. If you're only doing it to get paid and eat, it's no fun. It's nice to just take a quiet, pleasurable Sunday drive and see where you wind up. But not too fast: if you keep stomping the accelerator, you'll get frustrated and sloppy. You'll probably burn out your engine, too. Oh, and turn that radio down. It's good to listen to the sounds of the road. Too much background noise and you can't concentrate on what's important. If the engine starts acting up and you slow down, then it's time to take that baby to the repair shop—maybe even trade it in for a newer model. Get the picture?

Long story short, writing is an act of creation. And any act of creation, be it sculpture, oil-on-canvas, sand castles, babies, or fictitious worlds, should be a pleasurable one. 

Revelation over.