Like Glass Editing – Round 1 Finished
Almost finished running through the first edits for Like Glass, and I’m stoked. Very few changes – not counting ‘translating’ from US to British English (most of which seemed to be replacing ‘z’ with ’s’, as in ‘realizing’ to ‘realising’). Very exciting to get it back from a ‘real’ editor and not have to rewrite the whole book…
Now, if only the same could be said for Shattered. Don’t get me wrong – they gave me a lot of great feedback and ideas, but there’s a ton of work that needs to be done to it and not a lot of time to do it in. I think I’m up for vacation at work here in a couple of months; I’ll have to see whether or not it’d be a good idea to spend that on editing or save it in case the wife and I try to take a ‘real’ vacation of some kind.
Anyways, I need to get back to finishing up the edits. Catch you on the flip side.
–Matt
Like Glass and Shattered To Be Published
Well, I haven’t written a whole lot on what’s going on with Like Glass in a while, and that’s mainly because I’m trying to learn from the mistake I made last year when I first thought I might have a publisher lined up. Namely, I started talking about the book getting published, then the deal fell through and I felt a bit like a jackass for getting so excited about it.
This time around, I’d promised myself I’d wait until everything was signed, sealed, and delivered before I made any kind of a fuss about it.
That said, I love setting myself up to look like an idiot, so I’m going to break that promise to myself 
Here’s what’s happening (keep in mind that this is still preliminary, though most of the details have been worked out as far as I’m aware):
1) Like Glass will be published by H and E Publishers in the U.K. with a release date set for November 25th, 2010. (In an earlier post, I’d said it was going to be 2011; they were able to fit it into next year though.) A U.S. release date is pending, but it will probably be about a year after the U.K. release.
2) Shattered will be published by H and E Publishers, though no details regarding the release have been set. Odds are (and this is just a guess — this hasn’t been discussed at all) it’ll probably be released in the U.K. a year after Like Glass, and in the U.S. a year after Like Glass is released in the U.S.
3) If I can ever get around to working on Broken Peaces, the third book in the series, H and E will probably handle that one too. Since this book hasn’t even been written yet, don’t expect any release details any time soon.
I don’t have any other details worth giving at the moment, but I will post what I can whenever there’s something worth posting.
Need to get back to having a lazy Saturday, so I’ll catch you on the flip side.
–Matt
NaNoWriMo — Getting Warmed Up!
Alright, we got one week left before NaNoWriMo — National Novel Writing Month — gets underway. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting stoked. This is going to be my second year participating, and my first time working on a novel while I’m working full time. I’ll admit I’m a little nervous about that too — every time I’ve tried to write without being able to focus entirely on the book, it’s fallen flat. I’m hoping that this year I’ll be able to use NaNoWriMo for motivation to keep me going.
I’m going to be working on Broken Peaces, with hopes I can finish the series up by Christmas — that’s the goal, at least, and we’ll see what happens. I’ve got some ideas to work out, and I wish I could bounce them off this thing, but since Shattered isn’t out yet, I’m going to keep my mouth shut for now.
Okay, it’s getting close to my bedtime and I need to get an email or two out, so I’m going to wrap this up. Catch you on the flip side.
–Matt
A Spark Arises
Well, the old fires are starting to spark up again. Maybe it’s because it’s nearing November, which as any writer who’s spent any reasonable time online can tell you, is NaNoWriMo. Maybe it’s just the changing of the weather — colder days seem to draw out the creative juices a little better for me for some reason. Or maybe it’s just because I’ve taken enough time away from it that I’m starting to miss it and get tired of coding all day again.
Regardless of the reason, the writer in me is starting to stir around again, and I’m once again fleshing out ideas for Broken Peaces. Of course, I’ve still got to get Shattered up to specs, but I think most of Shattered is pretty solid. It needs some clean up — there’s a lot of typos and a lot of stuff that could be worded better — but it’s … well … solid.
The main thing I’m having a bit of trouble with right now is how to come up with a story that can top the drama in Shattered. Like I said quite a bit last year, Shattered is a lot darker than Like Glass was. A lot darker. I was re-reading the last third or so of the novel today, wanting to bring myself back up to speed on that world so I can dig into Broken Peaces, and I was pleasantly surprised at it. It’d been a long time since I’d looked through any of it, let alone the tail end where things really go to hell, and while I’d remembered the genera idea of the plot (i.e. who does what to whom and for how much), I’d forgotten the overall gist of it. It’s kinda like the difference between just hearing a song’s melody and hearing the song with the full band behind it.
Anyways, I’ve got a couple of decent ideas for things that could … well … go wrong. And let’s face it: stories where things go right are pretty boring — something has to go wrong in order to get your interest. The girl has to dump the guy. The aliens have to invade. The super villain has to have his plot to destroy the world unless the world governments are going to pay … one million dollars (where the hell is the Dr. Evil pinky-to-cheek emoticon when you need it?). Otherwise, it’s a yawn fest.
And for what it’s worth, I already know how Broken Peaces is going to end. It’s just a matter of getting there — the journey’s the best part.
It’s going to be interesting to see how I’m going to pull it together though, now that I’m working full time at a job I actually enjoy. When I wrote Like Glass, I was working from home, so I could write while I had some down time. When I wrote Shattered last year, I was taking a leave of absence for personal reasons. Where I’m at now though, I couldn’t take the time off, nor do I even really want to — the job’s actually pretty good.
That probably also has a lot to do with how I’m looking at Broken Peaces and why I’m having such a hard time getting my brain fired up for it. I’m in a much better mind set than I was when I wrote Like Glass, and worlds better than when I wrote Shattered. Now I don’t quite have the same emotions to build from, so getting the juices flowing is going to be a lot different this time around than last time.
At least there’s one thing in my favor for this: I’d never planned on Broken Peaces being anywhere near as dark as Shattered. Probably not as dark as Like Glass either, but definitely much lighter than the last venture into Rob’s world. So that should make it a bit easier to get going. We’ll see though.
Well, I’ve got about three weeks to get things in order before NaNoWriMo starts, so hopefully that’ll be enough time to get the fires lit properly and get some good ideas flowing.
In the meantime though, it’s nigh on bedtime, and I’ve got a couple of projects due at work in the next couple of weeks, so I’d better start heading along. Catch you on the flip side.
–Matt
Health Care and Cable
Before I get started, I want to throw a disclaimer out: Generally speaking, I despise talking about politics. It’s pointless, and all it does is get people riled up and pissed off, because — from my experience, at least — no one ever agrees on anything. I also have other things going on in my life that I’d rather devote my time to, like work, my family, relaxing, whatever. I don’t want to sit around and listen to someone get bitchy because things would be so much better if so-and-so were running things. And, for what it’s worth, if I absolutely had to label myself as one or the other, I’m probably more of a liberal than a conservative. I don’t think it’s right to pigeonhole one’s self into one category or the other, but everyone else seems to think you have to, so what the hell.
That said, I’ve been doing some thinking about the recent health care debate because of some comments that a friend of mine posted on Facebook. Actually, let me narrow that down: it’s a single aspect of it, and a single comment (one that I’ve heard thrown about in a few other corners of the internet as well).
My understanding — and I well could be wrong in this — is that the new health care legislation will mandate that companies provide health insurance for their employees, or they’ll be fined. If this is wrong, well, the rest of this post is probably invalid, so go ahead and skip it. I’m going to continue on the assumption that it’s correct though.
The argument I’ve heard against that is that the fine will be less than the cost of providing health insurance for the employees, so companies that currently provide insurance are going to just drop it like a bad habit.
At first glance, there’s some sense in that: why pay (for example) $300 a month per employee, when I can just shell out $150 (or whatever) a month to the government for each employee? As a business owner, you’d have to be stupid to want to pay more to provide health insurance, if you could get away with paying a smaller amount to the government as a penalty, right?
Or — how about this — what if you could get by with paying nothing at all, either to the government or to the insurance companies? Let the employees themselves foot the bill for their own health coverage. From a business perspective, wouldn’t that be best of all? Hell yeah, I say — that eliminates a hefty chunk of overhead right there. Guess what though: you can do that right now.
As far as I’m aware, there’s no federal requirement for a company to provide health care (and if I’m wrong on that, let me know, cause I’ve got a few companies I’ve worked for that would have a decent lawsuit coming). And yet, strangely enough, companies do pay X-amount-of-dollars to make sure their employees have health, dental, optical, even life insurance. It helps the employee out, makes them more loyal, and it’s definitely something that a lot of people consider when they’re looking for a job.
But, from what I hear, if this bill gets passed, companies are going to stop their benefits packages and through money at the government instead, simply because it’ll be less money. Never mind that the money no longer provides anything for their employees — and then to the company, in a way. Never mind that they’ll have to worry about whether their employees get sick and can’t get reasonable health care, so they end up taking more time off than they would have had they been able to get appropriate medical treatment. And never mind that their employees will be more willing to jump ship if there happens to be another company with an opening that just happens to provide some kind of benefits package.
It’s cheaper to pay the government than to pay for health insurance, so that’s what we’ll do, right?
Let’s look at it another way, in a more personal light, since I’m betting most anyone who reads this is more of a person than a company. For example’s sake, let’s say you pay $30 a month for basic cable. The next bill that gets passed mandates that everyone must have basic cable (at least), or else they pay a $10 fine. What would you do? Would you drop your cable — something you’re already paying for every month, and something that you use — just because you can pay $10 instead of $30, although you then wouldn’t have any cable? (If you would, why the hell are you even paying for cable in the first place?)
The way I see it, the companies affected by this bill — in this manner, at least — would break up into three categories:
- Those already providing health insurance for their employees. These companies would just say “Fuck it, I’m already paying it every month, it makes my employees happy. Doesn’t matter to me.”
- Those companies that are either too small to afford or too cheap to provide health insurance for their employees. These guys will just pay the fine.
- Those companies in the middle who aren’t providing health insurance but could. These guys could go either way, but I’d wager they’d be more apt to put their money into something that could give them returns (i.e. benefit packages for their employees) than just throw it away to the government.
This argument is a case-in-point as to why I hate politics. As soon as some of the facts come out, everyone just flies off the handle and makes assumptions without bothering to try and think about what could really happen. 9 times out of 10, things won’t change as drastically as everyone fears. And instead of trying to come up with a better compromise, people just get angry. Let’s say the original argument was really what would happen — why not lobby to raise the fine to a point where it would be better for the companies to provide benefits? No, because that would be giving in to those damned, bleeding-heart, socialist/commie/hippie liberals.
On the other hand…
Your Argument is Invalid
Exhausting Weekend Over in Time for the Work Week
Whew… Finally have a few minutes to breathe. Been a busy weekend, but we’re finally moved. Well, mostly moved, I should say — there’s still some odds and ends at the old house, but everything important is here. Which means my laptop, the internet connection, and the bed. Oh, yeah, and the wife and the cat and dog. I guess they count too
The new house is definitely different. No garage, which means I don’t get my morning coffee/cigarette/laptop combination. And it also means that Chloe is going to be spending more time as an outside dog. I have mixed feelings about that. I mean, it’s great she gets to be outside and get some fresh air, but it’s El Paso. Even in the shade around this time of year, we’re talking 95+ degrees. Of course, the other option would be to make her a completely “inside” dog, but you know how dogs can get when they’re left to their own devices. The minute you walk out that door, they have all their friends over, drinking your booze, ordering dirty movies…
The place is smaller than where we were too, but that’s not that big of a deal — just took a little creative decorating (hey, who the hell else has their own dresser in their office?) and we got it all taken care of.
Other than that, just been worrying about work lately. There’s a project that needs to get done this week — and it’s a group effort, not just me — and if it doesn’t happen, then it appears I’ll have much more spare time to work on my next novel. Can’t say I’m terribly crazy about the idea, but at the same time I can’t really go into details about it. Suffice to say it’s one of those situations where it just ain’t fair, but there ain’t a damned thing you can really do but cross your fingers. (I’ve been trying that, but it makes it a bitch to type, which is a rather large job requirement for a software developer.)
Let’s see… Novel stuff… Ok, no recent news regarding Like Glass, but the publisher’s a little busy at the moment. The told me they’ll be able to focus on the book later this year, maybe start talking contracts next year. A little disappointing, but what can you do? Besides, I’ve got plenty else on my plate at the moment and not having to worry about the novel is a bit of a nice break. I’m also still throwing around ideas for book #3, minor sketches and a scene or two, but nothing that’s really catching my eye. Maybe the change of scenery will help with it.
Anyways, I’m exhausted and I need to shave and shower and all that happy crap. Catch you on the flip side…
–Matt
Another Day In Paradise
Okay, got up way too early this morning for a Monday, but it’s all good: one of the downsides of trying to work with someone in the UK is the ~7 hour time difference, but over the years I’ve become more of a morning person than I used to be. Coffee is my friend, and it’s a friend I cherish deeply.
Nothing really to report on the publishing deal yet, except for the fact I’ve discovered how different mailing addresses are in the US vs. those in the UK. The publisher wants a hard copy of Like Glass, and the other day I tried to start an order from Amazon to get an idea of how much it cost. Fifteen minutes later, I think I might have gotten it to accept their address, but I’m a little leary of sending it out. For roughly $50 total (w/ S&H), I’d really rather not take a chance on it coming back and having to send it again.
Also, I’m wanting to discuss the options we might have available for working on Shattered and Broken Peaces together — those are the other two books in the Like Glass series. We’ll see what happens with that. Not really getting my hopes up, but hey: stranger things have happened, right? At least Shattered is technically finished. It’s a mess at the moment, but mainly because I haven’t had any need to work on it (and I’ve had more pressing issues to deal with, like “real” life). If there were interest in it, I could probably have it polished up to a pleasant shine in a couple of months. Broken Peaces, now… that would take a little time. But hey, even if we signed the contract today, Like Glass wouldn’t come out for another couple of years, then Shattered would have to make it’s rounds, probably a year or so after Like Glass, and then we’d have to worry about where the final book in the trilogy is.
Aside from that though, things are trucking along. Work’s getting … interesting, to say the least, and quite hectic as project deadlines loom.
The missus and I are moving — did I mention that? Nothing major, just moving across town. Cheaper rent, and I’ll be a little closer to my old stomping grounds. Longer drive to and from work, but you can’t have everything, can you? Gonna get that taken care of this weekend — thankfully we’ve got some movers lined up, and that’ll make things a lot nicer.
Other than that, just another day in paradise. Need to start getting ready to get back into the grind, so I’ll catch you on the flip side.
–Matt
Like Glass Update
Okay, don’t have much time so I’ll try to make this quick.
It’s been a while since I really said anything about Like Glass (that’s my novel, if you don’t know). I’ve been trying to move on, focus on work and “real life” for a while. Things have been moving a little bit in the background though, and I thought I’d share some of the details as to where it’s going right now.
Actually, “where it’s going” is interesting enough in it’s own right. It’s “going” across the Atlantic to England, where a British publishing company has decided to pick it up. Right now, they’re currently looking at a UK release of 2011, with a US release of 2012. That gives me the warm fuzzies — I’m going to be an internationally published author before much longer
It’s still really early in the game though — nothing’s been signed or anything, just “verbal” (well, email) discussion about it — so I can’t really say much of anything else. But trust me, I’ll keep you posted as things happen (either on here or on Facebook — look me up if you’re on there, and if you want to “friend” me, add a personal message to let me know you came from my blog or else I might not accept if I don’t already know you).
Alright, need to run to work. Catch you on the flip side.
–Matt
A Decent Day
Had some free time tonight, so I figured I’d try my hand at plotting again. A bit rough to start with, but it was great. Got that neat little tingle when ideas start flowing. Maybe I’ll be able to keep this one moving along. If only I could break my addiction to Mafia Wars… (That’s a Facebook game, for those that don’t know.)
Got assigned a new project today — a small one, thankfully, and relatively easy compared to some of the other stuff I’ve been doing. That brings my grand total of “active” projects up to three; including what I have going on that I’m waiting on someone else, that makes at least six projects — all of which have to be done yesterday, of course — that are currently up in the air or in the works. Fun stuff It’s great though — the company’s decent, the people are decent, and there’s rarely a dull moment.
Think I’m about ready to call it a night though. Been a long day — a good day, but a long one — and it’ll be nice to just chill and read for a little bit. I’m back in on the Idlewild series by Nick Sagan, on book #2 now (Edenborn). Good series — I highly recommend it if you’re into sci-fi or post-apocalyptic stuff .
Yet Another Blogger on Jon & Kate
It’s not very often I talk about the entertainment world, but I’ve been wanting to post something about the whole “Jon & Kate” fiasco since June, when they aired news of their divorce for the world to see. I actually woke up early enough to get my Facebook gaming out of the way, so I figured what the hell; I’ll throw my two cents into the mix as well.
First off, don’t get me wrong — I was never a huge fan of the show. The missus watched it pretty regularly, catching it whenever she could, and I’d watch along if I didn’t have anything better to do. I had a lot of respect for the Gosselins, as I doubt my wife and I would be able to easily handle one kid, let alone eight of them. But a fan? Not really.
And, as much as I hate to admit it, I have to: I was (and to a lesser degree, still am) wrapped up in all the drama that came out of their separation. I mean, here’s this couple who impressed me by being able to keep their marriage going in spite of having tv cameras hovering over them and their large number of children 24/7, and suddenly everything’s falling apart. Yeah, it’s the same side of me who likes to rubberneck at accidents and gawks when an ambulance is parked down the road. I’m not proud of that side, but I’m not going to deny it.
Anyways…
I have no problems with them getting a divorce, per se. I know as well as anyone that people change over time, and sometimes a marriage just doesn’t work out — even under “normal” circumstances. And I’m not a very firm believer in the whole “stay together for the kids” philosophy. If you can maintain a loving front, then it’s great, but the kids would be better off with single parents, or parents who find someone that they can love, rather than sitting around in their bedroom trying to drown out their parents’ arguing.
That said, I think they could have handled it much better than they did. I’m sure the public doesn’t know the whole story, but it sure’s to hell doesn’t seem like they tried very hard to work things out.
First off, kill the show, or at least put it on hiatus. Yeah, it’s the breadwinner and the key to their current lifestyle, but having production crews around all the time and constantly being in the public eye has to be hell on your life. Take a break from it, take some time together to reconnect in the marriage. Even if it means hiring a nanny and going on a vacation for a week or two without the kids. Get that up to specs, then think about getting back into the swing of things.
If that didn’t work, get some counseling. It’s not terribly expensive, and if you find a good counselor, then every dime you spend is well worth it in the long run. I’m not sure what the divorce laws are in Pennsylvania, but I believe there’s at least a handful of states out there where counseling is required before a divorce. And I’m pretty sure they didn’t try that; at least, I didn’t hear anything on the few gossip shows I catch and in the entertainment sections of the news sites I occasionally read, and I’m pretty sure that would have made some kind of headlines: “Reality Stars Jon & Kate Seek Counseling; is Their Marriage in Trouble? Film at 11.”
And if they made an honest effort to work it out — or even just fake it for the public eye — then hell, get the divorce. Life goes on. But they didn’t even take a break (unless you count the off-season) until after they publicly announced their divorce on television.
It’s a shame they didn’t handle their revenue from the show better, or else they could have just come out and said “Hey, things aren’t working out with the family life here, so we’re calling the show off for a while.” It’s not unprecedented — remember Ozzy Osbourne’s show? They killed it because it was stressing out their family too much. That’s a family that’s at least somewhat used to being in the limelight — Ozzy is, at least — and they couldn’t hack it. How much stress could it be on a “normal” couple raising eight children?
So, instead of putting the money away for a rainy day, or even just for the kids’ future, they’re out getting tummy tucks and hair plugs, and when things start to get rough in their marriage, they bail.
Anyways…
I need to start getting ready for work; just had to get that off my chest. Catch you on the flip side.
–Matt
