I really worked on the book yesterday.

I really worked on Tuskers II yesterday.

Well, don't I always?  Not really.  I try not to let it get to that point.  But sometimes it can't be helped and the only thing that works is work.

Always nicer when it just, you know, comes to me.  God forbid I should actually have to work at it.

Another word for "work" is "rewrite."  I'm not talking about copy-editing, or making small changes here and there.  I'm talking about taking the structure of the book apart and reassembling it.

Just like writing, the rewriting is always different.  Sometimes I can really get into it, sometimes I start to scratch the surface and immediately get immensely bored with the process.

Anyway, I had some ideas that I thought would really improve the book.  More importantly, I needed to change things to make the plot of Tuskers III viable.

So I took a book that was already complete and -- you know, pretty good --and took it apart, and that's a dangerous thing to do.  I have to weigh the improvements versus the possibility of complete disaster.  (Of course, I always save the previous version just in case.)

But I also always feel a great deal of satisfaction when I complete this kind of work, no matter how stressful it is when I'm doing it.  (I've been struggling with these two chapters for weeks...)

For instance, there was a point in Led to the Slaughter when the book was basically done.  There were a couple of niggling things that bothered me, but I was afraid to mess with it.  Then one of my editors came along and pointed out a couple of other things that would help but weren't crucial.  Finally, I convinced myself that since this was the first book out of the gate, I had to make improvements if I saw them.

Of course, things can always be improved, at least for me, because I can make endless changes, but there comes a time of diminishing returns, when it's best to leave well enough alone.

When it bothers me enough -- well, then I have to change it, no matter how much work it is.  So I went ahead, risking taking a good book apart  and trying to make it better, and it turned out well. I feel very satisfied that Led to the Slaughter is the book I wanted.

Rewriting helped the book.  

Faerylander is the best example of that.  I've had something like 15 versions of that book, any one of which I could have convinced myself were good enough.  But each time, I felt there was something off, or something missing.  And sure enough, each time I've written it, I've improved it.  But it still isn't quite ready.  Arggh.

Anyway, I got the two biggest problem chapters of Tuskers II worked  out.  They're still rough, but are more or less there.  I got what I wanted out of them, and now it's just a matter of improving them.

I have half a dozen other chapters that have to be changed, but mostly these chapters just need to be cut down.  These chapters were originally in Tuskers III.  I have a lot of zombie action in them, which can't happen because zombies don't show up until the end of book II.  (Yes, zombie wild pigs...)

Anyway, the only way to deal with working on problem chapters is take them one at a time and keep working on them until they work. It can seem overwhelming at times when you're elbows deep in shit, but you just keep chunking spoonfuls over your shoulder until it's gone.  (Wow, that's an inelegant metaphor...)


Rushing toward Ragnarok.

Turns out, I'm not inching toward Ragnarok, I'm almost there.

To use a more humdrum metaphor, I thought Tuskers was on the back-burner, to be published "sometime" next year, when in fact it has already been edited by the publisher and the ARCS have been created, ready to send off.

(I had to ask what an ARC was -- Advanced Reader Copies.  I may have written a number of books, but I'm still a newbie at this, somehow.)

They have a picture of the cover at the bottom of their main page, and it has garnered some nice comments.  People seem to really like the idea of a Wild Pig Apocalypse. The cover by Mike Corley really sells it.

They even have a preliminary date for publication: January 12, 2015.

So that is pretty exciting.

I spent much of the day confabulating with Tim Marquitz, the editor-in-chief of Ragnarok Publications.  I'd thought I had one more draft to do...which was just a little extra step with a few small changes.  They thought I'd given them the final copy and had already edited it.  Tim said, it was a "very clean" copy and that both editors "loved" the book.

So I was totally OK with them going with the version they had -- except, I'd written a new chapter which I thought improved the book, and especially helped set up the second book, and Tim was totally cool about adding it in.

He said: "I see no reason for us to put out a version that is not what you wanted it to be." Which is very reassuring for an author.

I then got hold of Lara Milton, of Spectrum Editing, who went over the new chapter for me, and I sent it off.

Tim mentioned that Tuskers will be the first book in a "new imprint" for Ragnarok Publications.  I'm not sure what this means or what it portends...I suppose I'll ask, eventually.

Tim also asked for a back cover synopsis for the book, and this is what I came up with:  "Barry had created a little piece of paradise in his southern Arizona backyard -- until the javelinas came. His battle with the wild pigs soon escalated into a war for survival. Too late, he realized that these weren't ordinary animals. They were something new, something meaner and smarter. These pigs weren't just at war with him; they were at war with the human race. And the humans were losing."

So this book is coming, and I'm pretty excited by it and by the publisher's enthusiasm for the project.

Inching toward reality. The Ragnarok.

Things are slowly happening.

I've been added to the author roll at Ragnarok Publications  http://www.ragnarokpub.com/,  so that's happening.

http://www.ragnarokpub.com/#!authors/c22tz

I'll be completely finished with the final edit of Tuskers by mid-month, unless the editors at Ragnarok want changes. 

Mike Corley, my friend who did me the favor of doing
the cover to Tuskers, did the cover to the latest Hugh Howey book, The Shell Collector  http://www.hughhowey.com/  and is highly praised by the author, and it is a pretty cool picture.  Hugh Howey is a best-selling author and a proponent of indie publishing.  So congrats to Mike.

(I'm reading Howey's breakthrough book, Wool, right now, and it's a good read.)

Still waiting for The Dead Spend No Gold: Bigfoot and the California Gold Rush to be published by Books of the Dead Press  http://www.booksofthedeadpress.com/.

Been told it will be "soon."

I get the sense that all these indie publishers have gargantuan tasks to complete.  I'm in the line, but they have things in front of me.

I just keep on writing.  I'm mid-way through the rewrite of Tuskers II and I think I'm improving it.  I was 2/3rds of the way through Tuskers III before I realized I needed to resolve some narrative issues with book II.  I'm hoping to be back to that book by the end of the year.

So things are inching toward reality.

Meanwhile, my published books have been out for awhile and could use a little boost in sales, so any of you who have been hesitating, maybe now's a good time?

Maybe send my books to friends and family as gifts for Christmas?

Here's my Amazon webpage. ww.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&field-author=Duncan McGeary&search-alias=digital-text&sort=relevancerank

Also, any of you who have read any of my books and liked them, I can't emphasize how important positive reviews are.  Just a single comment is enough.  This is how people choose to read books, and it's completely understandable.

Thanks to all of you who have shown interest in my nascent writing career, and I hope I haven't bored you with all the details.  Those of you who have been reading this blog for years have seen the whole thing from my first inkings of coming back to writing.

It's pretty amazing to look back on the last two years and see all that's happened. Really, who knew?

Changing an established storyline.

I continue to struggle with my rewrite of Tuskers II.

But I can see that what I've done so far is an improvement. 

What I'm doing is just setting apart time and then just staring at the screen, hoping that somehow it will all come together.  It's taking longer than it should.  I could probably write another book in the time it's taking me to fix book II and III.

The temptation is to go with the already finished and edited II, which is "good enough." 

But I swore when I came back to writing that I wouldn't settle for "good enough."  So I struggle.

I've got plenty of time.  Hell, The Dead Spend No Gold hasn't even been published.  Don't know what is taking so long.

I have completely finished Tuskers I.  I added a last minute chapter from the viewpoint of Razorback, the 'Big Bad' Tusker.  I also decided to give the town a name (Saguaro) and the valley (Morrow Valley.)

The chapter yesterday was an improvement in the story.  Developed some of the characters as well as advanced the plot.

But I was in despair for most of the day because I just couldn't figure out what to do.  It gets so complicated. Multiple versions of the scene I was working on.

Finally, I just outlined what the chapter was supposed to do, wrote some new material to frame what I'd already written, tried to pick the best version of what I'd written, and then tried to find the proper sequence.

I probably just need to be more ruthless cutting some parts, and simply write new material.  It's hard to let go of the original storyline, even when you know you need to.  The original storyline seems like its the real world, so you have to replace it with an equally valid and hopefully improved world.

Turning to escapism.

I've always read for entertainment, for escapism.  I like non-fiction material because I like learning things, but when it comes to fiction, I read to delve into another world.  When it comes to fiction, the more removed from real life, the better.

But for some reason, I've just lost all interest in "serious" books and movies and TV.

Soprano's, Breaking Bad, that kind of thing.  Movies like Gone Girl or The Master or 12 Years a Slave.  Just not interested.

The last few "literary" novels I read bored the hell out of me.

Sure, I know they are great and I'm sure I would enjoy them, but I just don't want to go there.

Art is what art wants to be.

Watching a documentary on the German painter, Gerhard Richter.  He's painting an abstract.  He slaps some paint on a canvas, steps back, then slabs some more on, then steps back, crooks his head, steps forward and slops it around, steps back.

"Not at all what I planned," he says (something like).  "But a painting is what a painting wants to be."

I feel the same way about stories.  When I start worrying about what the outside world wants, I get in trouble.  When I turn it around and only worry about what the story wants, I'm on firmer ground.

The way I think of it: This story really happened in some alternate universe and I've been granted a glimpse of it and my job it to try to write it down as close to the way it really happened as I can.

I basically nestle into the story and settle in and feel it as much as I can.  Which is why I need time, why I need space and lack of pressure.  I'm coaxing the story to come to me, or trying to catch glimpses through a deep fog.

So half the battle is getting my head into that space.  The writing is just the tool, and sometimes I'm clumsy with the tool and sometimes I'm surprisingly adept.

I remove ego from this, and whether the outside world will like something, by saying to myself -- "This is surprisingly good."  Because, no matter the outside standards or the inside standards, to me, anything that comes out is "surprisingly good" in that it works at all.  I mean, that it isn't dead on the page and feels real means it's "surprisingly good."

The whole thing surprises me, and that's good.


Black Friday sales report.

The Friday sales were good, about the same as last year.  Saturday was not as good, though obviously above average.  Still...'Small Business Saturday' didn't seem to have the slightest effect.  Same as last year.  And also the same as last year, Sunday was actually below average.  (One thing no one tells you about these Big Days -- they are often preceded and followed by slower days.)

Pegasus Books had a huge Christmas last year -- a record.  But I'm not expecting that this year.  I'm actually planning for a more normal Christmas, which would be about 20% less than last year.  At this point it is more about what I actually spend than what I make.

The store is the best stocked it has ever been.  Every single category has been stocked this year, to the fullest.  I need only keep the stock up from this point on, which is easier than building it.

Meanwhile, November this year was pretty awful.  My first down month in over a year.

It was the weather, obviously.  Normally I hate to blame the weather, because -- you know -- weather happens.  But it was pretty clear this year, in the two weeks following that first snowfall.  Nobody came in. 

Which was weird.  That isn't the way Bendites used to respond to snow.  Oh, maybe a day or two of shock, but then back to normal.  Not this time.   Over two weeks of pathetic sales. 

So I'm going to be very leery of Christmas.  I can't help but wonder what would happen if there was a similar occurrence the week before Christmas. 

If I could plan for the best or even the average, I could build the perfect store.

But I have to plan for those ten days to two weeks of nobody showing up.  Because it happens on a periodic basis and is completely unpredictable.  Bills on the other hand, are completely predictable and have to be paid, snow or no snow.

Pinning the tail on the shaggy dog.

Well, I tried ripping apart and jamming all the disparate parts of Tuskers II and III together and probably made a mess of it.

I probably would have given up if I hadn't been drinking a little wine at the same time.  I don't know that drinking helps writing any, but it does help keep me rooted to one spot for hours on end doing something I'd rather not do.

It's a huge game of Concentration.  Lots of shaggy dog tails hanging off the end of chapters that make no sense anymore.  Lots of duplications and things out of place.

But the overall structure feels right.

Tomorrow I'll see if the reorganized chapters make any sense.

I was careful to keep the original versions of both books.  The only thing really wrong with them was that one book was a good one third shorter than the other book, and I'd prefer to have the books about the same size.

Why?

I don't know.  Just seems like that's the way it should be.

I think having to reorganize can be a good thing, as it can challenge me to be better.  Forcing me to rewrite.

Then again, I don't mind it when a book just falls together either, as Tuskers I did.

Anyway, I'll spend a week or two trying to eliminate the inconsistencies and in-continuities.  Only then, when I read it straight through, will I know if it reads right.

"Self-consciousness is the end of creativity."

Just saw a documentary on some musicians putting music to the words of lost Basement Tape lyrics of Bob Dylan.  T. Bone Burnett is the man behind the gathering, and at one point -- as one of the musicians is struggling with the pressure -- he says, "Self-consciousness is the end of creativity."

That's it exactly.  I was never freer with my writing as when I was spending a year without any regard to anyone else reading.  Even after I started sending material out to publishers, I felt pretty free because nothing much was happening, and I didn't expect anything to happen.

Somehow, though, just recently, I've started putting harder expectations from myself.

So today I woke up and decided, I'd just keep a light touch.

A nice light touch.

No more Star Wars spoilers.

I'm going to avoid all things Star Wars from here on, so that I go into the movie fresh.

I always regret that I was so up on the Lord of the Rings images before I saw the first movie.  I'm pretty sure the movie would have had more impact on me if I hadn't done that.

I avoided all Gone Girl posts for months, because I knew it had a twist or two and my mind just really picks up on the slightest hints and figures it out.  I mean, every O'Henry movie there is, (Sixth Sense anyone?) if I hear anything about it, I figure it out. 

Ended up not going to Gone Girl in the end, because I just was never in the mood.  I'm not in the mood for serious movies these days, whether it be 12 Years a Slave or The Master or whatever. 

Yes, I know they are probably great movies, but right now...not so much.

Star Wars Again.

Let me rephrase that.  STAR WARS AGAIN!

That's more like it.

I can still get excited by this.  I saw Star Wars the opening weekend in Oregon, at a big theater in Portland, front row. Within the first 30 seconds I knew that someone had finally done S.F. right.

The next Star Wars movie is still a year away, which gives us a year of anticipatory selling at my store, Pegasus Books, which is the best kind.  Things always sell better in advance if it's a well-known license.  (Things sell better after the movie if it catches people by surprise...but usually if it catches people by surprise, there isn't any ancillary product to be had.)

The first Star Wars trailer comes out tomorrow.  Oh, boy.

Anyway, Cameron and I are doing the orders for January, and up pops the #1 Marvel comics version of Star Wars.

January 14, 2015.  

Wind back a bit.  Marvel had the license to the original Star Wars movies, but let them go after they figured the excitement had faded.  Hard to remember now, but that's the way it worked then.  A  movie came, it was a big hit, and then it faded.  There was a small nostalgia market maybe, but it wasn't a world where Star Trek or Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, or Doctor Who existed independently whether or not there were any current versions of them in the marketplace.

It turns out that comics are a great place to keep the excitement simmering, even if the movies aren't being made.

When Dark Horse picked up the license, I had a feeling that the excitement hadn't faded, it was just sleeping.  I ordered what, for Pegasus Books, a huge number of #1's, and they sold well...and they continued to sell for years, at higher prices.

The whole thing got diluted down a little by the myriad titles and storylines, but added together they are significant enough to have their own little corner in my store devoted to nothing but Star Wars.

So there is no shortage of Star Wars material.  Not only that, but Dark Horse did a pretty good job of it.

So a new Star Wars comics shouldn't be a big deal.

And yet I think it will be.  Because it will be done by Marvel, who is owned by Disney, who owns Star Wars (frightening when you put it that way...)  This will be officially sanctioned, connected to the movie stuff.

Marvel is also having one of their "Party Packs," which I have always ignored.  These are packages that you get if you host a "party" on the day of the release. (We would do it after store hours.)

But I'm actually going to do it this time, because I have Cameron and Matt who seem excited to be able to host the event.  The Party Pack gives us material to give away, and we'll be getting a bunch of variants that we can use as prizes.  I'm thinking we should have a Cosplay contest, and maybe a trivia contest, and maybe a drawing.

My biggest concern is the lack of space we have in the store.  So I expect it will get ridiculously crowded and will spill out onto the sidewalk.  But, even if I personally avoid the whole thing which I probably will, (introvert!) I can still kind of thrill to the idea.

I'm going to order a ton of these #1's.  Which cost 4.99!  And as many variants as I can qualify for.  My reasoning is, I can sell these for years, because my assumption right now is that the first Star Wars movie will be the biggest movie ever.
 


Successively instead of concurrently.

I've now had two occasions where in writing the third book in a trilogy, I've needed to go back and rewrite the second book.  (Thankfully, the first books usually seem to stand alone, for some reason.)

It's fine.  It's a good reason to write the whole trilogy before I do anything with them.  The hardest part is when the trilogy represents one storyline.  I prefer to have each book stand alone, but there is usually a larger plotline going on that has to be tied together.  Which is pretty complicated.  Each book usually has it's own theme and characters, and they all have to be brought together in a way that makes sense and is satisfying.

This is different from the Series where I have may have a unifying character and world, but there isn't one over-arching storyline.  I can write the Virginia Reed Adventures in such a way that a reader can read them out of order and not lose anything.  The same is true of the Lander series.  Each book stands alone.

The Vampire Evolution Trilogy and the Tuskers Trilogy are each one big story, which turns out to be a pretty challenging thing to do.  Though there is something satisfying about it.  (Not least that when I'm done, I'm done.)

Anyway, I'm stuck at 2/3rds of the way through Tuskers III.  Partly because I know I'm going to have to rewrite Tuskers II, and I feel like I should do that first before tackling the end of III.

I'm waiting for the editing of book II to come back before I tackle II.  I've learned a lesson over the last few books -- that having multiple versions and then trying to consolidate them is a nightmare.  It isn't terribly efficient and no matter how hard I try, I tend to drop a few nice sentences or plot points by accident because it is incredibly complicated.

So I've decided from now on that if I have multiple editors (including myself) that I will edit these books successively instead of concurrently.  It will take longer waiting, but should make things much easier.

I also woke up this morning determined to finish the first draft of both Tuskers II and Tuskers III by the end of the year, no excuses.  Just do it.  I think more than anything I've been missing the resolve.  So my goal over the next few days is to jump full speed into writing on December 1 and finish these books.  


8 years of blogging.

I started this blog on November 26, 2006.

I haven't missed a day since.  Not every entry has been important and profound.  But I always seem to have something to say about something.

I've enjoyed it.  It hasn't been a chore.

It started off as a "bubble blog" because I was convinced the economy was on the verge of a collapse.

I wasn't wrong.

In the last few years, this has mostly been about writing.  Because that's what I'm doing.  Writing all the time.  I don't think I have as many readers as I did at first, but that's OK.  It never really was about that.  It was just me expressing myself.

I think letting myself write whatever I wanted to write might have even led to my re-entry into Fiction writing.  I have a different, lighter approach, which was at least partially attributable to the blog. 

So I'm going to just keep going, because that's what I do.

I'm nothing if not persistent. 

Another idea for a book.

I've got plenty of ideas for books.  I have three or four fresh ideas I'd like to explore, as well as continuations of the worlds I've built.

So coming up with ideas isn't a problem.

It's more a matter of time and timing.  What do I write next?  What would be best for my career?

I do want to spend more time thinking about next book before I write it.  And I'm kind of wanting to write a standalone book, something other than what I've been writing.

So I just have to choose which idea to pursue.

One idea is a modern fantasy.  Maybe with a little satirical element.

One is a dystopian S.F.  Might as well make it Y.A. while I'm at it, no?

And the third is sort of Steampunk.   Deep and dark and strange.

I've not done any of these three genres yet, though I love reading them.  So they would be fun to try.


Breaking the formula.

Saw a crazy Spanish movie last night, Witching and Bitching.  Loved it.  Over the top humor and some interesting satirical ideas on the battle between the sexes.

Anyway, a review of the movie caught my eye.  From Matt Donato; We Got This Covered.

 "Witching & Bitching is a perfect example of how Video On Demand horror movies are making Hollywood's mainstream titles look like bargain bin garbage in comparison."

I think this is exactly right.  I consistently find more interesting movies on Netflix than are at the theaters.  Many of these movies never made it to the theaters, but are way more fun than many of the formula Hollywood movies.

I keep going back to my experience at writer's group of a new member who insisted that there was only ONE way to write a book, and it was by THIS formula.  He was absolutely convinced that any other way of writing was a waste of time.  Whereas I couldn't imagine doing it.  I mean, I love writing my stories because of the way they just happen, without regard to any pre-concieved standards.

It was like we were living on two different planets.  

I think that the new media is going to end up creating more creative material than the old media ever could.  Because you can write a crazy book, make a crazy movie, and find an outlet for it.  It doesn't have to make millions of dollars to be valid.

I've always thought that comics are consistently more creative than any other media I consume.  I think it's because it is such a small medium, there is not as much at stake.  People just let it go.  It's no accident that so many movies -- and not just superhero movies -- are made from comics.  They break the formula all the time.  (Don't get me wrong -- the vast majority is formula, but there is still much more acceptance of non-formula material.)

I think traditional book publishing also operates by formula, more or less.  No matter what they say.

But indie publishing is going to bring out a lot of fresh, original ideas because there isn't anyone who's going to say, "You can't do that."

I'm not saying my own books are incredibly different; I think I've absorbed many conventions by osmosis, by my reading.

But I don't set out to write a book by some formula.  I write what I want to write.  The story has to be internally consistent, not bent to meet some outside standard.  That is creativity to me.

I admire people who can write formula well.  Any Star Trek or Star Wars or Doctor Who or any other licensed property is going to be formula, almost by definition.  There are people who can take the formula and be brilliant.

But I couldn't do it.  I have to write what comes to me and it doesn't fit the formula, well...I can't do anything about it.

Alone with my thoughts.

My moratorium on Internet browsing from 11:00 to 7:00 each day has been interesting.

I'm not sure that I'm not wasting just as much time, but at least I'm aware that I'm wasting time.  What becomes obvious (even more obvious that the obviousness it already was) it that the Internet is a constant distraction. (duh)  Once I close that window every day, it's as if I'm alone with my thoughts again.

I don't know that being alone with my thoughts can be considered a waste of time.  It centers me.

I'm also learning that I'm not missing anything.  I can easily get just as much information in the time before and after my moratorium hours.

I was hoping I'd get some writing done on Tuskers III, which 2/3rds done.  I'm afraid the further I am from writing, the further I'll get.  It's hard to pick up the story threads, the longer it goes.  But I'm also leery of going in the wrong direction.  I at least want a strong feeling of where the story goes next before I start writing again.

I'm also leery of struggling and failing, struggling and failing, which only leads to struggling and failing some more.

I have a crude example of that.  I tried quitting smoking for years, and I'd struggle and fail, struggle and fail, until that became the expected result.

So I told myself, no more attempting to quit and failing.  When you are ready to quit, then do it.  So a few more years went by, and that's what I did.

I trust there will be that moment when I know I'm ready, when the story is ready to proceed.

I think I've had so much trouble with Faerylander because I forced the story, and it went in an unnatural direction.

I need a good, solid sense of where the story is and where it is going before I start again.

Diversity and competition.

My store, Pegasus Books, is so diverse now that I don't worry about one-to-one competition the way I used to.  Not only am I carrying between 7 and 15 different product lines (depending on how you want to define them) but there is so many different brands within each product line that it is impossible to delineate.

There was a time when I was basically selling two things -- sports cards and comics.  Sports cards got so big, I was advised to drop comics altogether.  Comics were taking up more than half the space and yet only bringing in 15% of the revenue.  Thank god I ignored that advice.

Because I was only selling two product lines, and the diversity within those product lines was limited, I was at the mercy of price (and other) competition.  For sports cards, there were the 3 sports and a number of brands, but it was pretty uniform over the industry.

What I didn't see was that what I considered a 'specialty' product could so easily be transformed into a 'commodity.'  Anyone could carry it, and the only thing that distinguished it was price.  I simply couldn't beat the suicidal fly-by-night competition, nor could I compete with the big chain stores in price.

I was screwed.

In comics, it was DC and Marvel, more or less, and mostly only comics.  Again, I was vulnerable to the industry ups and downs as a whole.  Any comic store that opened was probably carrying exactly the same stuff, and could steal competiton by bigger discounts.

In both cases, there was a bubble that popped, almost taking me with them.

There was a moment in 1997 when I simply didn't have enough viable product lines. I had no reasonable access to books or games or toys or any of the other things I carry now.

These products became available to me only over time.  The Internet, of course, made it all available.  (I should say, the product was available, but the difficulty factor was high.  Everything was done by snail mail or phone, the minimums were high, the distributers didn't want to deal with small stores, and so on...)

Hard to imagine now.

In each of the seven product lines I carry, there is so much saleable product that I simply can't carry it all.  I have the luxury of picking what I carry.

Back then, when a competitor opened, the customers could do a more or less direct comparion, and inevitably I would lose customers for any number of reasons, most of them out of my control.

Now?

Well, I have my regulars, and I would hate to lose any of them.  But another large part of my business is connected the thriving downtown area and how many people I have coming in off the street.

There is no one-to-one competition for their business.  They either see something they like or they don't.

Almost all my book business is like this.  They come in and they see a book they've been wanting to read and they buy it.  I'm not a destination store for anything but comics.  Everything else is due to my diversity.  In other words, a customer comes in and buys something he or she didn't even know they wanted.  Toys, games, books, graphic novels...most of them are impulse buys.

Turns out, impulse buys, spread out over a large diversity of product, is actually more reliable in some ways than a destination buys.  Which is counter-intuitive.

So when people complain about too much product -- too many books, too many comics and graphic novels, too many toys, too many of everything -- I understand what they are saying from a psychological standpoint, but from a business standpoint, the sheer volume of selection protects me to some extent from destructive competitors.  

No one is going to replicate what I've done.  It's based on my own ideosyncratic tastes, which even I can't explain.  But I know what I like, and I have confidence there are enough other people who like what I like to have a viable business.


Female narrators.

I've been super happy that female readers like Led to the Slaughter.  The main protagonist is a 14 year old girl, Virginia Reed, and she just came alive for me.  I felt like she was a fully developed person, perhaps because she really existed.  It was like I was just listening to her.  I really liked her and admired her.

Anyway, she's the real hero of the story.  She's also the main character to the sequel, The Dead Spend No Gold.

I don't question who the protagonists are in my books.  In Tuskers, the main protagonist is a middle aged white guy, like me, but not like me.

But I do seem to have my fair share of female narrators.

People are people.  As long as I don't pretend to be all teenage girly or whatever, I think I can be authentic.

Stealing my idea?

I don't worry about anyone stealing my ideas.  But I do worry about being trumped.  Perhaps inadvertently, but having the idea become less strong because someone else has done something similar.

Last night, Jon Stewart had a skit about pig 'gestation cages' and about the "Rise of the Planet of the Pigs."

I just swore at the screen, because that's how I think of my Tuskers novel, as a kind "Planet of the Pigs."  I even use the 'gestation cages' as the motivating factor in the first rise of the rebellion.

So I thought maybe I'd have a bunch of people notice that and tell me on Facebook.  But...well, maybe this too will pass.  Kind of like when I noticed that there was a Kevin Smith movie called 'Tusks' coming out.  Well, that came and went without much notice.

It's a matter of timing.  Of catching the zeitgeist.  I believe that a Wild Pig Apocalypse story is inevitable.  Probably has already been done, who knows?

I spent a year on a book entitled Almost Human and was just finishing a draft when a TV show was announced called -- "Almost Human." 

That kind of thing.

Once I've written a book, I want it out as soon as possible.  But by going to publishers, it is taking months and months longer than it might otherwise have.  And I worry that someone who pull the rug out from under me.

But really, there is no new idea in the world, just variations.  I have to keep the faith.