Chasing the First Sale (Part 1): Wherever You're Standing

Before we begin, a story:

It was winter 2005 in Wyoming. I was dirt poor, living with my in-laws, and driving a 50 ft. bus full of coal miners to and from the mines in the most god-awful, 20-below, white-out snowstorms you could imagine.

We're there. I think.

I was 15 hours away from everyone I knew--except my newly-minted wife of just over a year--and I was depressed in a way I had never thought possible. The only escape were library audio books, mostly Stephen King, piped into my head through a dangling earbud as I drove the same Wyoming roads twice a day, back and forth, with only 7 hours of down time between runs. On my days off, cramped in our small basement living space, I was discovering alcohol, and my life had become something I didn't recognize.

It was here that I wrote my first good story.

It was a simple premise: a man trapped in a failing marriage is gifted with horrible nightmares in which he murders his wife over and over; the imagery is so awful, it prompts him to treat her well in real life, thus saving his marriage. It wasn't great, but it was passably good, the first good thing I had written, and it was the first time in my life I thought maybe I could be a writer.

I had told stories my entire life in one form or another. As a kid, I recorded fake news broadcasts with my brothers, made up superheroes whose adventures we acted out in the front yard, and blatantly ripped off Jim Davis' Garfield comics in my own series of strips, "Little Bo," about a Zebu calf and his half-water buffalo guardian. (We'll talk more about Little Bo later in my series "Owning Comics.")

We made asses up just so we could kick them.

When I was nine, I started making up my own ghost stories (blame this) and having my dad type them out in language that didn't sound so nine year-oldish. (I have the coolest Dad in the world, by the way.) Soon, though, I didn't want to write on Dad's schedule, so I struck out on my own, hunt-and-pecking out pages and pages of utter shit practice stories. I was frustrated with my limitations, but there was something about making stuff up that had me hooked. It was like everything else--school, church, chores--was in black and white, and any opportunity to be creative made the world explode with color.

But it wasn't until I was fifteen--sitting in an upstairs bedroom at my grandparents house over Christmas, fan blowing in my face, the toasty smell of the furnace from downstairs all around--that I read The Hobbit, and for the first time, I realized what I wanted to do with my life.

I told you all this for a reason. If you recognize my life because you're living your version of it, if you say, "Yes, that's me," (amen, hallelujah) then I want to help you. Maybe you're where I was after writing my first good story that winter in Wyoming, flipping through the Writer's Market, feeling totally overwhelmed and lost and small, wondering if your work will ever see print. Maybe you're where I was after reading The Hobbit, full of enthusiasm and desire, but not really sure where to start learning your craft. Maybe you know you want to create things, but you're still trying things out, searching for your medium.

Those are all great places to be, and they're all frustrating places to be. I want to help you enjoy and escape those places. I want to walk alongside you, from wherever you're standing, right to the threshold of your first professional short story sale. I want to tell you what nobody told me and--this is my hope--to save you a year or two of your writing life.

(If, on the other hand, you've sold some pro stories or a novel already, chances are this blog series won't be of much use to you, except maybe as an amusing trip down memory lane or a surprising look into another writer's process. If you're at a place where most of the advice in this blog doesn't apply to you, I hope you'll share it with someone you think might need it. We all started a zero, after all, and we've all asked for this kind of advice a time or two.)

This is not a writing course; it's an early career how-to. It's a step 1, step 2 process. I'll be getting into the craft of writing and what a pro story is (if you don't learn this, the rest won't matter), but I'll also be blogging about what markets to send to, how to learn from your idols (sometimes literally from them), how to meet other pro writers who will actually help you in your career and not hurt you (sorry Local Writing Group; if you're not helping each other create selling work, you're doing it wrong), and how to plan your career so you have the best possible chance of winning beginner/new writer awards that could mean big money and exposure. (Wish somebody would have clued me in!) We'll even take a look at that "next level" beyond the first sale, what that means, and how to reach for it.

Repeat after these jackasses:
"There's hope! Zaba-zoot-ZOW!"

Do you feel that? That's called hope. And it's fine to let yourself feel it. If you've ever thought selling a story felt impossible, like a far-off hypothetical thing, I can tell you, a day will come when you will look back on it, when it will be something you did a few years ago, and it will feel so small and so easy, you'll forget what the big deal was. When that day comes, I want to ask you a favor:

Don't forget. Remember how hard it was. Then help other people get where you are. (And don't forget to keep learning from the people who are where you want to be.)

Can't wait to get started, my friends. See you next Monday when we'll get into "Chasing the First Sale (Part 2): What a Pro Story Is."

Owning Comics (Part 1): Tearing Down Walls

You know you loved it.

It happens all the time. I'm talking to someone, we start discussing comics, and this look comes into their eyes. Occasionally, it's a condescending glance that says, "Comics? Aren't those for kids? Or musky nerds living in their parents' basements?" Which is always easy to deal with; I have no qualms about dismissing dismissive people. But most often, the look I see in people's eyes when discussing comics is a kind of self-conscious embarrassment. It's almost as if they're afraid of being called out. They might enjoy the idea of comics, they probably loved the Avengers or Dark Knight, and they almost certainly have a favorite superhero or two, but I suspect many people are timid around the subject of comics, because they only know them through movies or cultural osmosis. In a time when comics are pushing their way into the mainstream, many people haven't read the source material (I'm convinced nobody has read all of it), so they feel like a casual fan, an unread fake, as if their enthusiasm isn't valid or won't hold up in conversation with "real fans."

If you've ever felt like this, let me let you in on a little secret: there are no "real fans." Or more accurately, we're all real fans. You have just as much of a right to enjoy The Avengers as the guy who's been reading Marvel stuff since he was a kid. And you have just as much right to enjoy comics. They belong to everyone, not everyone else. And they're worthwhile. Neil Gaiman (if you don't know him, you will) is always explaining to people that "comics are not a genre; they're a medium." In other words, they're like books and movies themselves, not certain types of book or movies. Comics are an "empty jar" that you can put any kind of story inside. They are the container, not the contents.  For example, if you don't like superheroes (yet), that doesn't mean you don't like comics. Maybe you just prefer horror comics, or romance comics, or literary comics, or historical comics...the list goes on.

To put it another way, comics are just a storytelling form, a canvas. Like any canvas, you can use them to paint something genius or you can slap down a pile of complete shit; comic writers and artists have done plenty of both over the years. As a reader, it's just a matter of sorting the bad from the good, learning about yourself, discovering what you like. And if you're still tempted to say, "I just don't like comics," I'm going to boldly disagree with you. I'm going to put my foot down and claim I know you better than you know yourself. Because you're a human, baby, and we love pictures almost as much as we love stories. Keep an open mind through this blog series, and I guarantee you'll find something you like. (If you don't, I'll let you put on a glove and punch me in the face as hard as you can.*) And in the process, you might discover you like the shape stories take when you put them in comics form. You might discover a whole new way to entertain and enlighten yourself. That's worth a little time and effort. (I certainly think it's worth the effort of writing this post.)

This brings me to another objection I run into. It's not very often that someone articulates it, but I'm convinced it's there all the same. It is the fear of being one of them. You know who I'm talking about. The guy in the faded Transformers t-shirt with the sweat stains. The thick glasses. The bad facial hair. The nasal voice jabbering on and on about power levels and release dates and a bunch of other shit that just. really. doesn't. matter. I'm sure just about anybody who has spent time on the internet and interacted with--ugh--"fandom" has entertained this stereotype.

This isn't what it looks like.

First of all, shame on both of us. Follow along with me: Extend your right hand and firmly swat the top of it with your left. Can we agree it's bad to play the judgmental asshole? Even the most awkward of comic book fans are real people. For all we know, some of those guys are going through a hard time, not doing well socially, getting older and wondering if they're going to end up alone, having a tough time adapting to adult life. Can you blame them? It's tough out there, so who are we to look down on them for taking solace in something they enjoy? Nobody is who, because we do the same things...in different ways perhaps, but we do them. And do you know why comics become a solace for people on the fringes of society? Because comics are a fundamentally human form of expression; they touch us. The move us.They can provide us a community to belong to. They can even heal us. (Have you ever heard someone say, "Music saved my life." Boom. Art is powerful, and comics--in every way that matters--are art.) These are good things. Let's not waste another minute looking down on other people; all that accomplishes is robbing us of the freedom to enjoy something truly enjoyable. So don't worry about looking like somebody else or being lumped into such-and-such category. Just have fun, and realize that reading comics doesn't make you who you are...and for that matter, neither do other people's opinions of your hobbies. Life is too short not to love things like a kid.

And if it makes you feel better (I don't mind reminding myself of this from time to time), there are so many talented, intelligent, socially-adept (even sexy?) people who read and write and draw comics, it blows my mind. I don't know who you are, but I'd put money on the fact that you're not as cool as Neil Gaiman. If he likes comics, you can like comics. I'm sure Neil would even give you his permission. (Go ask him on his twitter if you don't believe me.)

There's always someone cooler than you...
...unless you're Neil Gaiman.

But what if you don't have time? Or money? What if you'd love to get into comics, but you just can't squeeze it into your life. Fair enough. But if you can find time in your day to watch TV, to check your Facebook, to read this much-longer-than-I-anticipated blog post, chances are you can find some time to try something new. If you ever find yourself saying, "There's nothing on TV," that might be a great moment to pick up comics. Because in the comic world you pick what you read, and something good is always, always on.

So if you're willing to give it a shot, if I've sufficiently hounded you into trying this comics thing out, I'd love to be your guide for the next few weeks. I'd like to show you some different paths of getting into comics, some places to start, and you can decide which sounds right for you. Maybe you're a book snob (guilty!), and you want to read the best and brightest that comics have to offer. Maybe you love anime, but haven't really given Manga (Japanese comics) a chance. Maybe you love superheroes, and you want to know more about them, but you don't know where to start. We'll get to all of that in the coming weeks. And, of course, I'll be telling you about my own journey with comics.

After we get you good and hooked (or just comfortable and educated), I'll probably begin reviewing individual titles. But not yet. The next few weeks are all yours, my blog-reading friend. I, for one, can't wait to get started. :)

*Really. 

Don't forget, my next blog post (on Monday) will kick off a beginners' series on writing and selling fiction called "Chasing the First Sale." The next post in this series--"Owning Comics (Part 2): Begin with the Best"--will be up sometime around the middle of next week.

Comics, Advice, and Whaddup

It's been a long time, but I have to tell you, it's nice to be blogging again. I've been thinking about how to focus this blog for months, and I only recently settled on a good answer in mid-April. A friend and I started a comic book discussion group on Facebook, and suddenly, I found myself writing reviews practically every day, sometimes three or four at a time, and I started thinking, "Man, I wish my blog was about comics." Which, of course, led me to, "Why not blog about comics?" Turns out, when you're writing about the things you enjoy in your free time, it doesn't feel like such a chore to sit down and pound something out on the old blog. In the future, you can expect comic book reviews (sometimes outright endorsements--I get excited) and other comic-related news a couple times a week. If you've always loved the idea of getting into comics, but didn't know where to start, this might be a great time to subscribe or follow me on Twitter.

Also, every Monday morning, I'll be doing a series of blog posts intended to give straight answers to brand-new writers on the path to their first pro story sale. I remember writing stories and wanting to sell them as far back as 2006. I was reading piles of writing books, flipping through the Writer's Market, trying to rough out some idea what getting paid for your fiction was like. Back then, I didn't want vague advice or even simple encouragement; I wanted a road map I could follow. I wanted strategies, markets, ways IN. I'm pretty green compared to a lot of people I know, but compared to the guy I was in 2006, I'm a freaking guru. So if you're a young (or just new!) writer who's looking for the first step...swing by the blog Monday morning. I might be able save you a year or two. I'm looking forward to it!

The above is all I was planning to post today, but it occurs to me some of my family and friends might want to hear what I've been up to during The Long Blog Silence. I'll take a few hundred words to do that now. If you don't need to know this crap, feel free to surf the web now. They've got some free UFC fights on Youtube these days, and I hear Lumosity can really sharpen you up. And there's always porn.


WHAT STEVE HAS BEEN DOING:

September: I finished my first novel. It's currently in revisions--still, because I waited a small eternity to start them. They say to let work breathe for 1-3 months before touching it again, but 7 months works too, right? Anyway, I think it'll be damn salable once I rewrite the first three chapters.

October: I attended World Fantasy and met some people whose names are totally worth dropping. I talked with Pat Rothfuss and held the camera while a friend did a backflip next to him--it was weird. I listened to Neil Gaiman read his stories, laughed, cried, and even shook the man's hand. I drank beer and ate pho with Ted Chiang, then got home, read his work, and retroactively geeked my geeker off. But most importantly (sorry, Famous People), I saw the publishing world at work. I sat and ate steak while I watched people collect World Fantasy Awards. I remember thinking these people would go home tomorrow, wake up in their pajamas, sit sleepily in front of their keyboards and just...start...writing. In a way, I realized, no person in that room ever really leaves. In a way, all writers are in that room, all the time; it's just some of us are better at remembering that than others. It's a thought that has both paralyzed and motivated me by turns. (I'll ask my therapist what she thinks of it.)

November: I worked on developing a graphic novel series called Spooky Paint, a playful cyberpunk story about street artists trying to change things in a warring city (and one artist whose paint can literally change things). The series wouldn't ultimately end up drawn beyond page two, but the brain work is done, and the characters are still there in my head, waiting for the right time to jump out and "get up" all over my monitor. (It's not quite as bad as it sounds. Although, I would probably need a new monitor.)

December: CHRISTMOOOHs!

January: I took part in Weekend Warrior, a five-week flash fiction contest on Codex and actually won the bastard. It was the most participants the contest had ever had (over 50 pro and neo-pro writers), and I had one of the highest cumulative scores ever. I'm not ashamed to brag about that, because damn it, I worked really hard. At the beginning of the month I told Lynna, "I'm going to make it my mission during the next five weeks to win this thing." And there's nothing quite like meeting a goal through hard work. I've sold two of the five stories I wrote for Weekend Warrior, and I'm expecting to sell at least one more. That's not bad for ol' January.

February and March: It's a hard truth, but sometimes, it's harder to get things done after a success than after a failure. These two months were full of false starts and sudden stops. I tried to take part in another Codex contest right away, but my entry didn't work at short story length, and I realized (after submitting the first 500 words) that I was writing a novel. Then I worked with my buddy Rusty Raymo on a story for an anthology Eric James Stone was editing about the Three Billy Goats Gruff...and accidentally outlined another novel. Realizing now was not the time for either one of those accidental novel projects, I crawled out of March on my hands and knees feeling defeated. <--Part of the game.

April: My brothers and I had a show coming at an Earth Day festival here in town, so I spent a fair piece of April trying to make myself feel any kind of prepared for that. But the main event for April was C2E2. I traveled to Chicago, ate the best pizza of my life at Pequod's, went to a comics convention and treated it like school, and came home changed. I had always wanted to work in comics, but suddenly, I REALLY wanted to work in comics. (I'm not sure why it took me so long to realize this. I mean, hell, I was doing comics and putting them in the local paper when I was 11.) I still do, and I'm taking steps to make it happen.

May: Here we are. I'm working on some springboards and sample scripts for DC and Dynamite, and I'm reading as many comics as I possibly can in my spare time. The novel is next once my submissions are out the door, and there's this ol' blog to whip into shape. Here's to a productive summer, ya'll. If you made it down this far, you deserve something awesome. Unfortunately, all I have is this picture of a baby pig:

Be sure to check in periodically for comic reviews/news, then Monday mornings for my series on finding that first sale, which we'll begin on the 21st.

Stay jiggy.

2012 First Quarter Blogging Year-in-Review

I should post something.

...

Maybe later.

(^My relationship with my blog so far in 2012. I should do something about this. ... Maybe later.)

Oooh! It's Christmooohs!

If you don't know what Christmooohs* is about, you will. YOU WILL. It's taking over, and you can help. Post your own OOOOH! face all over the place, and let's put the "OH" back in "ChristmooOHs."

Now snap that shizz and share it on my facebook!

*For continuity purposes, it should be noted "Christmooohs" has three O's, unless it is being lengthened for pure OOOOH! purposes. Christmooohs is pronounced like "krist-most" minus the last T. Krist-mohs. Now say it like an excited bro, the way you would say "Rock Chalk!" or maybe "To the windooow, to the WALL!" Variations may include "kriss-moss" and "kriss-moos," but "krist-mohs" is standard. Don't be that guy. Get it right. Or Santooohs will give you a lump of coal.

Quick Update

A lot has been going on with me. I've sold a story to Red Penny Papers. I've completed my novel. I attended the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego and had my mind proper-blown. More on all this later when things calm down. For now, here's an interview on Annie Bellet's blog with yours truly: Neo-Pro Interviews: Steven R. Stewart

The Great God Pan

It has been too long since I posted. I'm hard at work on my book, so some of the peripheral things (like this blog, sorry to say) have gone on the back burner. A few interesting things have happened since my last post, though, and I wanted to share those with you:

First, my "Labadie Mansion" post was featured by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, something that caught me completely by surprise and pleased me immensely. (I'm not even eligible to join SFWA, yet! You can see the entry on their website here.) It's probably one of the reasons I didn't update for a while--I didn't want to have to top my previous post. Eventually, I just decided I could either sit on my hands and enjoy the Labadie post forever (my sense of satisfaction growing more distant with every day that passed), or I could get on with my life and my blog, which is what I am doing now.

Second, my story "Fool" appeared in Brain Harvest in late April, and I was super excited to share it with people. (Its theme is strikingly similar to the song I'll be talking about later in this post) Read it if you haven't already; it's short and free.

Third, I'll be headed to World Fantasy Convention on October 26th, so if you're attending, shoot me an email. Maybe we can get a beer or something. Also, I'll be doing a little bit of agent hunting--my book will be complete by then--so if anyone knows somebody good ("good" being an important word), I would love to meet them.

Lastly, I had the opportunity to visit Joplin, Missouri a week after the tornado there. I took along my brother Paul to take photographs, and we spent the better part of a day walking around and talking to people. I had planned to write a blog entry on it the evening we got back, but the scope of the events were too huge, too immediate for me to feel like I had anything worth saying. That entry is still percolating in the back of my mind, and I think I will write and post it sometime soon.

The rest of this entry is a repost of a note I wrote on Facebook when my brothers and I release our album last year. Here is the song itself. I've always believed that a song with a story behind it is doubly powerful, and the effect of knowing the intent behind a work trumps any downside. So here they are, with complete transparency, my thoughts on "Great God Pan":

---

First of all, let's just get this out of the way. The title of this song is not "Great God Plan," as some people have mistakenly thought. While I'm not opposed to God having plan (I do wish he would share it with me), this song is definitely not about that. The title is actually inspired by the 1890's horror classic "The Great God Pan." In the story, two men perform brain surgery on a woman in hopes of opening her eyes to the spiritual realm, with the following result:

Suddenly, as they watched, they heard a long-drawn sigh, and suddenly did the colour that had vanished return to the girl's cheeks, and suddenly her eyes opened. ... They shone with an awful light, looking far away, and a great wonder fell upon her face, and her hands stretched out as if to touch what was invisible; but in an instant the wonder faded, and gave place to the most awful terror. The muscles of her face were hideously convulsed, she shook from head to foot; the soul seemed struggling and shuddering within the house of flesh. It was a horrible sight ... as she fell shrieking to the floor.

Three days later Raymond took Clarke to Mary's bedside. She was lying wide-awake, rolling her head from side to side, and grinning vacantly.

"Yes," said the doctor, still quite cool, "it is a great pity; ... However, it could not be helped; and, after all, she has seen the Great God Pan."

--Arthur Machen's "The Great God Pan" 1890

When the woman's eyes were opened, she came to face to face with what lurked behind the curtain. In the world of the story, what poor Mary found behind our visible reality was, well, nothing good. Similar to H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, the spiritual realm (and in fact, the whole universe) of Machen's story is a hostile place full of nightmarish pagan beings. The universe is not the work of a loving creator, but rather a place of deep, unknowable evil.

In our darkest moments, life can feel like this.

On October of 2006, my wife woke me in the middle of the night with a strangled scream. She was having a seizure, her first, and in the darkness of the room, it looked like she was fighting an invisible being. Like the character in the Machen story, "The muscles of her face were hideously convulsed, she shook from head to foot." I was terrified, but somehow managed to switch on the light and keep her from choking on her tongue. I watched as she stopped breathing, and didn't breathe again for ten seconds. They felt like ten years. I cried and said the kind of movie lines you would expect: "No, no, no, Lynna. Lynna, please God, stay with me."

She survived that night; so did I. Then, 24 hours later to the minute (I kid you not--hearing this would trip my bullcrap reflex too if I hadn't witnessed it myself), she had another one, identical to the first. In the moments during the seizures, I understood why they are often mistaken for demonic possession. It is the most horrible thing to witness, and I hope none of you reading this ever have to go through it. It took me weeks to recover. I didn't even want to sleep in the same room with her, so I would sit up at night and watch over her, jumping every time her breathing changed. (And all this only months after going through a miscarriage.) During those days and weeks, it felt like something evil and hateful inhabited every shadow, every corner. It felt like we were living in a hostile universe.

Sometime later, Lynna almost drowned in the Atlantic Ocean. We were swimming in the Outer Banks in North Carolina, and coolly (stupidly) ignored the wooden warning signs posted every hundred yards or so on the beach. The waves were huge, dark, and rough, but it wasn't every day we got the opportunity to visit the ocean, and we really wanted to swim. Lynna wanted to swim out past where the waves were breaking. She told me she was fine, that she could manage on her own, but being the worrier that I am, I stayed close.

I remember how the mood changed. One moment I was asking her if she was okay, to which she nodded and said, "I'm fine." It seemed like only seconds later, the waves were smashing us both in the face, and Lynna's eyes were as big as saucers. We tried to swim back, but the undertow was carrying us further and further out. I remember when Lynna got enough air once to gasp, "Steve!" I told her not to panic, but I'm not even sure she heard me. I'm not sure I heard myself. I told her to grab onto my shirt (fat guys swim in a shirt; it's in the code), and somehow I got us back to shore. I knelt in the sand, shaking, and thought, "She's pregnant with our baby. I almost lost them both." To this day, Lynna gets very uncomfortable watching rough waves in TV shows and movies. (That's How to Develop a Phobia 101, people.) Again, the universe had felt like a murderous, indifferent place.

Fast-forward and Lynna is lying on a hospital bed, 13 hours into labor. She is in an enormous amount of pain in spite of the epidural, straining, looking at the ceiling with eyes that are not really seeing anything. Every time she has a contraction, the baby's heartbeat slows to a crawl. More than once, the nurse runs into the room when the "beep, beep, beep" all but disappears. I'm standing by the bedside, holding Lynna's hand, not able to do anything. I might lose my unborn daughter. I might lose them both. And all I can do is hold her hand.

That's all we can do, sometimes, when the world looks its darkest. Thick and thin, hostile or benevolent universe, everything aside, I was not letting go of Lynna's hand.

Then a miracle happened: my daughter came into the world. Our two became three. And although Lynna was still in pain, I realized I was seeing something beautiful. If what I had witnessed during the seizures was "The Great God Pan," the dark, hostile face of the universe, then now I was seeing nothing short of "The Great God" himself, the benevolent, merciful, generous being that had given me life, given me Lynna, and given me a brand new daughter. I was seeing things as they were meant to be. And I realized the "Great God Pan" I had feared was actually something quite simple: difficulty.

There is no escaping difficulty. One day, each of us will die. We will lose our parents and our siblings (or watch our siblings lose us). Dreams will go unfulfilled. Pain will wash over us in a way that will threaten to drown us. All we can do in those moments is hold on and be brave. Love without reason, without context. Love because you love, and hold hands, and when it is finally time, let go. Let go and be grateful. In the words of the Avett Brothers, give your body back to the earth and not complain.

In short (brevity doesn't come easy to me, you might have noticed), "Great God Pan" is a song about standing strong in the face of loss, or in moments where loss seems inevitable. There will be beautiful, "good" moments that vastly outweigh the horror you feel in the difficult times. Be strong. Survive, together. I guess that's what I wanted to say with this song.

You can read Arthur Machen's story, "The Great God Pan" in its entirety here.

---

Thanks for bearing with this very long post. After giving it a second read, I would have to say it is preachier than I had remembered, but it's still a good snapshot of that period in my life. I've been wanting to share it for a while, and I'm glad I finally have.