News Posts
Old news from Wibbly 2.0
'The 12 Days of Wibblemas' Project
It’s that time of year, folks. Love it or hate it, Christmas is only a month away and Wibbly Press are looking to capitalize on it like the cheap new media whores we are!
How, you ask? By introducing the first of what is no doubt going to become an annual event:
‘THE 12 DAYS OF WIBBLEMAS’ PROJECT
Sometime during the holiday season (exact dates to be announced) we’re looking for 12 writers to volunteer, whether they be a site author, regular participants or not, to come together to write one or several Christmas stories featuring characters from the Wibbly Press titles.
Some of the finer details have yet to be worked out and will be debated in the comment thread of this news post. To any aspiring writers out there, this would also be a good time to put your hand up.
Idea #1:
For each of the 12 days of Wibblemas the 13 nominated writers will write an improvised story, each writing a single chapter of 50-150 words in a given order. On the first day one author will put out the first chapter, then the second by another author with a continuing story and so on in round robin style.
Idea #2:
For each of the 12 days of Wibblemas one of the nominated writers will put out a Christmas story set within one of the Wibbly canons. (This one is my personal favorite as I was going to write short Shimmer and London specials anyway, but they might be separate yet.)
Ultimately it’s up to you. We want to know what you think and what direction you would like to see this project take. We can do one or another, or maybe even both if even can get enough volunteers behind us.
So what do you say, Wibbly? Give us your thoughts.
PS. To all applicants, talent need not apply.
*Bufi appears*
Uh, hi. I know I haven't been around over the past two months. Things have been... ugly on my end, to say the least. I've pretty much been in a little dark place this whole time, but things are beginning to look better (either that, or I've developed night vision).
Anyway, I think I'm back. Many thanks to Stormy and AL13N for being so patient with me. You guys are really awesome.
I'll try not to drop off the face of the planet again any time soon. And I'll have a chapter out in the near future too.
Love and cookies,
Bufi
12 Days of Wibblemas - Thursday Update
Friday Update: We need ONE more author, just one, don't be shy!
We're still in need of four more authors - sorry for the second reminder, we're just trying to avoid double-ups.
More importantly...if we fill the roster by the 12th, AL13N might, and I quote "have an evil surprise" for us all.
More information by clicking the link on the left there, and keep in mind, it doesn't have to be long, it doesn't have to be good, it just has to be a bit of fun and done for the purposes of sharing and giving us all a bit of a lol or an aww or an O_O. :)
12 Days of Wibblemas - Update
Ok guys, we've got five spots left, I'll be taking one of those (whichever is left over, I'm not picky) so...
We need four more Wibblemas authors.
It doesn't have to be long, it doesn't have to be good, it doesn't have to be words, it just has to be fun. It's all about celebrating and having fun with the rest of us Wibblies. So, throw your name in the ring and sign-up to be a part of the first Wibblemas.
(Seriously, you can do a stick-figure comic...cause it would be kind of awesome if someone did one of those...).
You don't have to be scared (this is wibbly...there's no place for fear here. Wait. Reason. I meant reason. There's no reason for fear here. :P), just volunteer. It's not like we're going to lock you in a room with some sort of hideous alien-grim reaper-Carbon Man-Taylor hybrid. Really, we're not.
Promise.
And if we do, he'll be wearing a Santa hat.
Covered in blood.
...
I'm not putting you at ease, am I? >_>
A Very Wibbly Christmas To All
So it's Christmas morning at Wibbly House. Randi's already off to see family for the day, much to her regret. Stormy and I are getting the really messy house ready for her family to visit for lunch. My family's coming over on Saturday.
We're roughly speaking an agnostic bunch here, so the religious aspect of the holiday is lost on us. We're only a little materialistic, so presents are just tokens of affection, not goals or obligations (well, they are a bit obligationy for Stormy, but she's the most materialistic of us >_> ). For myself, and I think largely for the others, the season is about cherishing friends and family.
Wibbly Press is a family unto itself and we like to think of our audience as friends. We all hope you have a happy and stress free Christmas and continue to stay with us into the new year.
As an aside, I'm now officially Wibbly's internal promotions monkey. I'll be handling the Weekly Wibbly and maybe some other things. I promise you'll see more regular updates and more extensive news about the world of Wibbly.
A wild Stormy has appeared...
Hey guys - sorry for the sudden disappearance, blame the sudden death of my laptop (well, the charger anyway), due to this my net time has been rather limited. That problem will be rectified, until then, have a couple of chapters. :)
Aftermath...
So I was pretty much a deadie girl on Monday (seriously, I slept in till 11am, I never do that O_O) (Ok, I got up at 5am for a couple of hours, then went back to bed, but still the point remains the same!).
...anyway...
The dead have been buried. The money has been counted. The tiredness/fear/excitement has mostly been slept off.
Wibbly did well.
No, really, we did. I mean, it wasn't the SUPER-FANTASTIC-AWESOME amount of well I was hoping for, but that's the curse when you're a table-owner, you always think the convention is going to bend to your will and that you'll sell out in a few hours. We did a lot better than some stands, I know that for a fact, and we met a lot of awesome people. And...we've basically learned what we needed to learn in order to be SUPER-FANTASTIC-AWESOME at the next con (which looks like it'll be GenCon).
We gave out over a thousand flyers for this place. ^_^ Though, hopefully they'll be using the newly-refurbished .mobi site as well, cause that thing is just waaaay too much awesome.
^_^
An Indie Pledge
This is an article about the last con I attend – Brisbane Supanova in April.
It had the usual gamut of awesome celebrities, cool stuff for sale, expensive fried food, crushing crowds and artist alley.
Artist Alley gets called different things at different cons, but I assume you all have an idea of what I mean - they're the indies, the smaller guys who can't afford a larger booth (or simply don’t want a larger booth because they don't have the merchandise).
I like to support independents - we're indies ourselves and anything that helps the indie market indirectly helps us by raising awareness (ya, I know most of them are those filthy comic people with artistic abilities that make us want to smash out keyboards in jealously but I digress). However, I found a big problem this year that I hadn't been noticing before...
They weren't engaging. Most of the people were simply sitting behind their tables staring forlornly at their merchandise. People were walking past them like a beggar on the street, ignoring them outright.
I was wrangled into being a booth hussy for a while last year, for a manga anthology, and while their table is usually fairly busy anyway (quite well known in the community, selling art supplies etc), I made use of their promotional stuff and was actively giving it to people as they went past. This made people stop and enquire as to what was going on – some of them bought the magazine, or some of the cute buttons etc - people that wouldn't have stopped otherwise.
During the course of the weekend, not one artist alley table actively tried to give me a freebie (postcard, bookmark, sticker etc) or even a flyer/card with a URL on it.
I know these things cost money – I've done a lot of researching into it. However, wouldn't it be better to spend $50/100/150 on freebies (depending on what you want to give away), as lures for potential sales, or future visitors to your site (which can then turn into potential customers) than paying a few hundred dollars for a table and only making a few pity sales?
Even $20 - with $20 you can make around 200 B&W A4 photocopies. Doubling up a design on said sheet gives you 400 little flyers to hand out. A catchy image or some interesting text is all it takes to grab people's attention. And it, I dunno, shows willing? That you're willing to go out on a limb for your project by encouraging people to be interested in it.
Sitting meekly behind a table with a few books for sale doesn't exactly scream "This is a good work that is worth your time!" If you don't appear to have faith/interest in your own work, why should someone else?
Next year, the Wibbly stand will have at least one novel for each the Mirrorverse, Shimmer and Secret Vocab (two of which are being edited as we speak), possibly an anthology or two, and perhaps some other merchandise, dependinging on what we think will sell well.
We will be handing out bookmarks and flyers, we will have posters up and little pieces of cute merch for sale. We will be grabbing (not literally of course) people as they go by and making them interested.
That's my pledge as an indie.
Announcing... SHIMMERFALL!
You may have noticed in the comments Randi hinting at something called Shimmerfall, something that promises awesomeness and crossover craziness.
(And to quote her: if two consenting fandoms want to come together, who are we to say otherwise?).
This will be a crossover of epic proportions, though the method of crossover is not one you would suspect, with ramifications you wouldn't predict and an ending you won't see coming.
So, basically, strap yourselves in, it's going to be a hell of a ride.
[Full disclosure of this being: this is a non-canonical crossover and the presence or absence of certain characters from both 'verses is in no way an indicator of their present or future status.]
MH Update
I'm putting this here because I can see I'm getting live traffic as I update.
#36 isn't the last chapter, #37 is, don't run away till you've read #37, you won't know exactly how much you want to hurt me until you've read till the very end.
*runs and hides*
Content, content, where are you?
Ok, fine, we've been a little skimp on new content lately, and for that we apologise. Miranda already apologised, and she's been honestly busy (and is apparently working on some new stuff, as well as new London. As well as Shimmer of course).
Nat, the strange, shadowy figure and mind behind Secret Melbourne may be resurfacing soon, with something that isn't cannibalistic wizards. It's shiny, that's all I can say.
Me? The one you want to poke with a stick so you get new Mirrorfall? I honestly have no excuse. Well, other than the fact that I've been completely consumed with inspiration for a side project. (It's in the Mirrorfall 'verse, but that's all I can say). And I've been kind of really obsessed with that. I can't say anything more at the moment, but soon.
I've also been writing plenty for book #3, which is just a ton of fun. So, content will be pretty constant after Mirrorfall #1 finishes (I'm sorry, the rewrite for #1 was a lot more extensive than I had imagined).
So that's the little update. Please bear with us, things will be back to normal* soon.
-Stormy
*whatever that is...
Ebooks and Stuff
Since we’ve got a couple of new people, I’ll say this: There are some spoilers for everything up to now included in this.
Ok, so it’s been a while since I talked about plans for the future, so I thought I’d give a bit of an update.
I sort of got carried away writing OUB, so I stalled on MF edits (I was also looking for excuses to procrastinate, but more on that in a minute).
In a nutshell: I intend to serialise the ebook releases.
Cracking the nut: I don’t write fast enough to release several novels a year (at least I won’t until I can write full time, which this will help with), and I loathe the idea of my backlist only gaining by like one book a year (and a couple of short stories, maybe), so I intend to serialise.
No, not one chapter per ebook, that’s just stupid and will piss so many people off it’s not funny (and apparently Amazon doesn’t like the idea). What I’ll be doing is cutting each book into like 10k word chunks (may be more, will not be less, I intend to maintain value for money). This will give me more time to edit each book, as I’m only dedicating myself to one a month.
And it will be one episode a month, which will definitely help gain and maintain a new set of readers – there’ll be “buy Mirrorfall day” each month, and it’ll be something they can look forward to, and it’ll be the only thing resembling a scheduled update that we’ll ever have. :P
Content will stay here, and I’ll keep releasing here, so you won’t suffer for having been long-term fans (or short-term, but-longer-than-newbie fans).
So basically, one a month new ebooks, starting with MF, in 10k-ish chunks, edited and all pretty and etc, with new, draft content going up here at the same erratic schedule you’re all used to. This works, because I don’t want to stop writing new stuff, and sometimes things need to just sit for a while before I can go back to them and actually tweak them.
On that subject, MF won’t have the substantive edit that I was always talking about, upon rereading it, I actually don’t hate it as much as I thought, but it will be streamlined a bit – mainly giving Curt a bit more screen time and removing the Enid pseudo-subplot as it never went anywhere – I had intended to do something with it, but it didn’t eventuate, so I’d rather cut it than leave it hanging. I will probably recycle that stuff into a standalone novella to explore Madchester a bit.
Doing that also cuts Madchester out of MH, which will allow for a bit more Court of the Lost stuff, so it feels more together, and Hook won’t quite come out of nowhere at the end like he does now.
MH needed a bit of an overhaul, but it will largely be the same book, just include more Lost stuff, delve a bit more into Ryan a bit.
MS…edits here and there, but there’s nothing major that needs changing.
GE…I’m not going to say nuke from orbit, but I will say that you’ll need to read it, since it will be very different to what’s there at the moment. Hell, my plan at the moment is to frontload it with a three (number subject to change) episode block of Maggie backstory, rather than sprinkling the flashbacks throughout, plus now some of that history (which I was going to save for her next book) will now be relevant to GE. And that makes no sense, come back and read this in a couple of years, and you’ll totally know what I mean.
OUB…I haven’t even finished the first draft, give me a break. :P
So far, no one has managed to really serialise in this fashion with ebooks – the general feeling that I’ve managed to see when other people have brought it up is something along the lines of: people don’t want to buy “part of a book” when they can buy a whole book. There’s a couple of ways in which I think I can make this work for us.
The MV really is meant to be consumed in a serial format, it’s how it’s written, it’s how it’s been read up until now, sure, you can archive binge, but you know once you’re done with the archive binge, you’ll be stuck waiting for the author to get off her butt and write the next chapter.
[Seriously: has anyone here just read the complete books and then come back when the next book has finished? Or may you started with that idea, but got sucked in and read everything that was up?]
So pretty much the fact that’s rather addicting will work in our favour. :D
I tested myself with this, with a few books I’ve bought on the Kindle. Read a section, ask myself if I’d pay 99c to get the next chunk – most of the time, even if it’s a book I wouldn’t rate as five stars, or four stars – I’ve read some crappy YA PR that yeah, I’d pay to keep reading. >_>
(And how many people would have willingly paid for 99c of each chunk of the latest ASOIAF book, instead of waiting however many years for George RR Martin to finish it? I’m not comparing myself, I’m just saying some of you used to threaten me with various weapons when I didn’t get updates out >_>).
I also don’t conceive the series as separate books, not so much. I mean, obviously there are distinct books within the series, but it’s all character based which is why it’s so malleable - hence why we’re essentially getting book #7 now, because I can fsck with the timeline like that, other authors I think would have a harder time because their books are designed as whole things, even if they are part of a series (if that makes sense, I’m only an author, I’m not supposed to be eloquent >_>).
It would also allow me to take diversions, say it’s a Stef/Ryan/Curt plot, and not an Angelpie plot, but I wanted to do something with Mags and Taylor, I can do an Angelpie episode, then jump back into the main plot. Or a Parkers episode. Or anything I want. With this format, it feels a lot easier to divert, but that could just be me. (I can also do these as standalones, and just mark when in the timeline they come, if for some reason there needs to be a break from the main plot, and/or filler between books).
Compilations will obviously be available after the episodic versions have finished releasing – so for the people who will inevitably complaint that they don’t want to buy bits of a book, or feel ripped off because they’re paying like 10x99c, they’ll be able to buy the completed volumes for $2.99 (standalones will remain 99c, only some will be collected, but we’ll sell those bridges when we get to it).
My plan at the moment:
Release Ep 1 of Mirrorfall on Stef’s birthday, the 13th of October. Release it for free.
Reelase the rest of the MF episodes (also for free) in a weekly format to frontload the fanbase, and so they’re eased into the idea of having to wait for their next cookie-laden instalment.
That will put us in December, so release a Cookiemas special.
Release Ep 1 of MH on January 13, for 99c. Release monthly from then, for 99c.
Somewhere in the Christmas period, put together the MF compilation edition and Createspace (dead tree version) edition.
Approximately:
2012 will be MH.
2013 will be MS.
2014 will be GE.
2015 will be OUB.
I know that sounds like a scary long time in the future, so we’ll see what we can do about increasing the schedule – if I can make enough money off this to do it full-time, then it will automatically increase, but I may also release extra episodes for meeting certain goals (we get out 10k’th like on FB, we reach comment 100k on RC, I sell certain numbers of books [it’ll be like sales Kiribans, instead of views]).
I think it would be silly though, to move it to more than a bi-weekly schedule, unless I work up, like a year’s worth of backlog so I can be sure to maintain it. (*calculates, that’s 26 episodes, 260k words at least* *is scared*).
I’ve also got cover woes, but since this is already as long as a chapter, I’ll talk about that later.
Questions to you:
*Do you like the episode idea?
*Do you hate the episode idea?
*Do you think it’ll work? Why?
*Do you think it’ll fail? Why?
*Is 10k sufficient value-for-money?
*Will you be buying the episode (intention to buy, even when finances may not permit counts as a yes)?
*Any other thoughts/queries/comments/cookies/etc.
End of Mirrorfall
Ok, somewhere in between fever dreams and feeling like crap, I've been poking and prodding at Mirrorfall (thank god I have a laptop), and as you might have noticed, there's been a content explosion.
There were a few updates yesterday, and this morning, I've put the rest up. And for once, the chapter list is up-to-date, and I think all of the links are working, give me a shout if I've missed something.
Now, onto the important thing. The thing where you don't kill me.
The last time I finished Mirrorfall, a lot of people got really, really angry at me, because of SPOILER X (go finish reading the story, then come back and read this). SPOILER X made a whole bunch of people stop reading, and never come back.
The important thing for you to do is to read all the way to the end of #46, and to remember that you trust me. Okies? It's a lot less effort than picking up burning sticks and pitchforks, I promise.
I'm going to crawl back into bed and nap some more, cause my head is really, really spinning, but there's a couple of things you can do in the interim.
First, you can listen to this if you haven't already.
Second, you can well, I dunno do something, ignore the man behind the curtain.
I'll be taking a little break before I start uploading the second story, like a couple of weeks (ok, fine, I'll probably break and upload it sooner, especially if I get an offer of cyber-cookies), while I work on something cool with the tagging system, and possibly a revamp of the forums.
-Stormy
From on high...we say...Praise Flexy!
You will notice that something awesome has happened to the way that you're replying to comments. This is because he's awesome and...wrote a Drupal module to allow us to do so. o_o
I know I've said this before, but since it's live, I'll say it again. PRAISE FLEXY!
Happy Birthday, Stormy!
July 2nd is Stormy's birthday, and to celebrate, here's a preview of the first chapter of Mirrorfall as read by me. More to come, most likely through Podiobooks.com or something similar. :)
It's Thursday today, I think.
Ok, so I didn't get the new chapter up as promised - sorry for that, instead you got the first instalment of Stef's advice column (...those are still three words that don't sound very good together), something for which you have to blame Randi. (Seriously, she just walked into my room and said "Stef should have an advice column, and ideas unfortunately generated from there, and more so when she sent in the fist letter).
Feel free to send in your questions, that email address listed at the bottom of #1 is real (and has been real since revealed in like...MF#22 I think, as well as for several years before that). [It was part of a plan I had to make online paper trails for some of my characters, but it flopped, but the email address exists, so it's all good].
Anyway, will work on chapter probably today, it first half is fine, second half needs to be worked on (and I've worked out where I can surgically add in something I had to chop out before, and that makes me happy, also it possible makes me the authorial version of Doctor Frankenstein, but you know what, I'm cool with that).
Ok, onto serious business, which is mainly business, and not so serious, but more curious, but thinking CURIOUS BUSINESS in my head doesn't work as well. >_<.
What kind of merch would you guys like to see Wibbly sell?
I've got a badge/button machine, so those are really easy to do - if we had badges, would you want general geeky ones, or more specific MF/Shim stuff? (Or a combination of both?).
T-shirts, bags, cups, *headdesk* pillows are all a possibility, but is there any interest here?
Also, if I got a plushie run done next year (likely in time for my local convention), would anyone be interested in a Stef plushie? (Again, no promises, just trying to gauge interest).
Also, I have a job interview today. *kinda scared, kinda excited*
Here's a pic
Live From Supanova
And here we are with T Minus twenty minutes until the con opens...
This weekend, despite the (wonderful) rainy weather, Supanova's projecting record attendance for Brisbane. We've got our table here in Artist's Alley, brimming with zines (one Mirrorfall, one London and one Shimmer), badges galore (and the machine to make more!) and half a table of our wonderful webmaster's old manga.
So, wish us luck, and if you're one of the lurking Brisbanites that read the site, drop by and say hi! ^_^
News for Thursday
First of all, Happy Guy Fawkes day. ^_^ (That means it's "Watch V for Vendetta day at Wibbly House).
Second, a major problem that I was about to face has just gone away thanks to our kind hosts (let me purchase one month's hosting instead of an entire year while I'm getting over the "being jobless" thing). So yeah, no disruption in your wibbly content. :)
Third, there are talks and plans being made with our friends from http://www.ultima-java.com/ - plans of the non-evil variety which only mean good things for the future. :D
Fourth, my new job search has begun, wish me luck. :)
Edit for Friday: We've got new crack!fic, click below (no sex or violence in this one, so you're safe!).
Regarding the .mobi site...
Ok, so as many of you are aware, we had a .mobi site attached to the old version of this site, it expired a few weeks ago and I haven't bothered to renew it, given the fact that we were changing over to here, and reconfiguring it twice would have been more trouble than it was worth.
First though, for those of you who don't know about the .mobi, basically it's a stripped-down version of the site meant to be viewed on smartphones etc, it's easier to load, no/low graphics and makes it entirely possible to read while on the way to work/school/etc.
The question is...how many of you were actually using it? (Or, if you didn't know about it before, and we had this feature, would you use it?). I don't want to have extraneous features that no-one uses, though even if only a few people want it, we'll probably bring it back, because it was kind of nifty.
Poll is below, and to the sides, vote away!
Update
Hmm...the consensus so far is that we don't need it (kind of shocked it's weighed so heavily in that direction though), I'll leave the poll up for a couple more days, see if the percentages shift, but so far, looks like it's something we don't have to worry about recreating.
Review: The Gone-Away World
The Gone-Away World
Geek nirvana my arse.
Sometime before moving, I signed up to Random House's newsletter, in return, I received a free copy of Nick Harkaway's The Gone-Away World. The blurb was brilliant, the tagline was better: "Part Adventure" (hey, I like adventure) "Part Comic Opera" (sounds like fun) and the major selling point "Part geek nirvana". I'm a geek, consider me sold, gimme my free book and I'll seek out the matching t-shirt and the author's blog.
I will return to the issue of "geek" later. For now, the book.
Physically, it's "C" size, one of those large trade paperback sizes - at five-hundred-something pages, that's one hefty paperweight, also uncomfortable. That size works well with thinner books, or in hardcover. In softcover, you end up with a bent cover and sore hands.
The first chapter begins with a small italicised sentence, summarising the chapter and telling us what to expect. This is a good sign - other, very good authors have done this. In the first paragraph, you realise that he is not one of those good authors. It has something to do a bad cover story about the heretofore unknown magic ability of beer to create bald spots on pool tables.
[As an aside, when I gave this book to my fiance, who is in some aspects, more learned than I, this is where he stopped, and was unable to continue, even when I asked him to continue...in the name of science!]
The prose is from a nameless, first-person POV. First-person is a stylistic choice that I have no problem with. Keeping the narrator nameless is a quirk, one that distances you a little from the story, but again, is a stylistic choice. [The protagonist of The Time Machine in the original novella was nameless, referred to only as "The Traveler"]
Reading from this character's point of view is, honestly, like observing a Kevin Smith character afflicted with ADHD - tangents are traveled down until they are run into the ground, metaphors can go on for more than a full page, and we are given little factoids about the cadre of characters in the bar (many of which could have waited until a later point).
Morpheus, the Sandman may collect names like some people collect friends, but unfortunately we're not him. Somewhere in the vicinity of a dozen names are tossed around in the first half-dozen pages, some mentioned once in passing, along with a piece of information about the character, but not again for a few pages. It makes for an unpleasant jumble.
The other unpleasant jumble is that the story is front-loaded with world building. I understand that the world is post-apocalyptic, but streamlining information, and only giving it when it is pertinent is the mark of a good writer. I felt bogged down by the facts presented to me, and along with the names, made me felt as though I was looking at the author's story bible, and not a complete one at that. Leaving apart the stylistic choice to leave the narrator nameless - no dates are mentioned, nor even what country we are in. Because of the author's voice, and thus the narrator's choice of words (eg: "pound store clothes") - one can assume England, or elsewhere in Britain.
Oh, and on page 23, a conspiracy is introduced.
After very nearly throwing it across the room (several times) I summoned courage and read on, thinking that surely it would get better. It had to get better, right? Random House was giving away 500 copies just to people who signed up to their newsletter, so it's got to be good right? Traditional publishing doesn't throw their money down the drain on untested, untried commodities, right?
I got to page 25 and gave up.
Downing half a cup of Mountain Dew to steady myself, I turned to Google and began to research. I'm human, and when disappointed (I had been looking forward to reading this book for a few weeks now), can have a disproportionately negative reaction. I also considered that I may not be in the target audience (despite the tagline proclaiming itself to be of the geek). These things in mind, I plugged in the book title and searched.
I discovered several things, one of which was the documented possibility that the first chapter may have been a misstep, as after that chapter the book drops into flashbacks for 250 pages.
I'll let that sink in for a moment. It, in ~30 pages, sets up (albeit clumsily) a post-apocalyptic world, almost thirty characters and a conspiracy. Then all of that is completely dropped to explain how all of it came to be.
I can appreciate framing, but come on, that's a bit rich. It could have been done in sections (Part One: The World, Part Two: The Gone-Away World, Part Three: The New World, Part Four: The Attack of the Killer Rabbits, etc, etc), or the flashbacks could have been done in the style of the "Coming to America" sections of American Gods - neatly detailing history without detracting from the main story. Cause...with that title, that's got to be the main story, right? It'd be marketed differently if it was a character exploration piece, right? The marketing crew didn't bend the book to meet their needs, right? (wait...).
Apparently, somewhere in those 250 pages, there are apparently a bunch of interesting characters, including a kung-fu master called Master Wu (and even though the pop-culture references are shallow, a part of me wonders if it is a deliberate reference to Woo Ping, the wire-fu genius - who would be familiar to a lot of people because of his involvement with The Matrix trilogy, and this is brought full-circle by Neo's immortal line "I know kung-fu"). There are also mimes.
I judged this book on its own merits, I knew nothing about it until I started to Google for reviews and information after being disappointed. Several facts to note: Nick Harkaway is John Le Carre's son - the author who wrote such books as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. That alone adds a shade to the story, the advance adds another. The Gone-Away world reportedly received an advance of £300,000.
In terms of book advances, that's huge. For comparison, let's use a book everyone knows. Reports do vary, but for the first Harry Potter book (stating what a phenomenon that book became would be superfluous, but keep it in mind) JK Rowling received between £1,500-2500.
Even if Harkaway becomes the new Kerouac or Vonnegut that some of the reviews are proclaiming him to be, it's unlikely that this book will become the new Harry Potter phenomenon. (It's interesting that some of these reviews decrying the book state that one should read the originals, that they do it better, with more passion, and in 200 pages less).
In the interest of keeping my honour intact I feel that I should point out that this isn't about jealousy. There isn't an author alive who wouldn't like an advance that large, and if you're writing and someone, somewhere isn't jealous of you, you're doing it wrong. (Small press authors want to be mid-list authors, mid-list authors want to be bestsellers, bestsellers want to be proclaimed modern gods, etc, etc).
So...nepotism. Many of us have probably used it in some small degree or another during our lives - used a family's employee discount, gotten a child/sibling employed part-time, overlooked one of their mistakes if you happen to be their supervisors, organise for extra discounts, or face time with someone they need to talk to. That, that's called life.
However, when it's on a scale of this size, it can give the whole affair a bitter aftertaste. The one thing that immediately came to mind was Eragon.
Eragon is, as we all know, a book written by a teenage boy. It sky rocketed through the charts, and even became a movie. His parents published it. There, blunt, but true. The original runs of Eragon were done by his parents, who owned a publishing company. That, combined with an aggressive marketing strategy is what made it work. After Knopf bought the rights, they did an extensive edit (some reports that that up to twenty-thousand words were removed, along with numerous other changes).
The Gone-Away World could have done with a Knopf-style edit. Sad, considering that the author used to be a copy editor.
The marketing campaign also needed an edit.
"Part Adventure" I can give them this. Adventure is a nice broad term. "Part Comic Opera" that's subjective. "Part geek nirvana" as stated before, this is where I have a problem.
In the 25 pages I read, nothing tweaked my geek meter. And I have a broad geek meter. If it's the fact that it's a post-apocalyptic setting, then...meh. If I want a geek-licious post-disaster world, I'll go read Warren Ellis' Freakangels, thankyouverymuch. Wait, sorry, there was one mention of Captain Ahab...and you'd have to get a very broad-mined judge to accept that as geeky.
There are mimes, there are ninja, I think there's a pirate. These things are not geeky. Maybe if you had a monkeyrobot and a panel of mimes judging the "pirate vs ninja" (btw, ninjas!) argument, we could negotiate, but on their own, no, not geeky.
One review says that the geek is used as a functional shorthand - referring to people as Red Shirts (ala Star Trek) or acknowledging certain tropes (like the habits of mooks). For the Red Shirts, they're pretty much a part of a public unconscious (there's a motivation poster, "Kirk, Spock and Ensign Jimmy(?) beam down to a planet, guess which one isn't coming back?), the same with the common action tropes - it's the equivalent of saying "if we were in a movie, this wouldn't happen" or even the dreaded "I've got a bad feeling about this".
If I want ninjas, I'll watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. If I want pirates, I go read Peter Pan. If I want mimes, I'll play On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness.
It's sad, but if something is labeled "geek", it's going to sell. It's not that we're desparate, it's not that we're being misled like the readers of chick lit, it's just that we like to be acknowledged. We are geek and we are proud.
And we don't like it when someone uses the word for nefarious purposes.
I want my money back. And a cookie.
Saturday? I thought it was Sunday...
...I'm really, really losing track of time this week, that or there's some localised temporal anomalies (i.e. Time's playing silly buggers cause he's bored).
Anyway.
Mostly I wanted to do a new news post because the other one was a bit long (with the pic and everything) and I thought it might be annoying for you to have to scroll that much to check out the recent comments box. (But now you can use the RSS feed ^_^).
However, that's my point: what other Wibbly features would you like guys like/feel we need? Our dear webmaster wants to rebuild the site, so now would be the time to give us suggestions and stuff, so Wibbly 3.0 can be even cooler. :)
Also, is there any other types of content that you guys would like? The U&U posts seem to be getting a few lols, and there was the suggestion of a MF encyclopaedia/dictionary, so what else? (Yes, this is the part where you can try and get us lazy authors off our metaphorical bums). ^_^
Small Rant to the World...
This is inspired by something that I read on another site, and every other time I've seen red because of this misconception. Say it with me now:
Urban Fantasy =/= Paranormal Romance.
Yes, I even want you to pronounce the slash.
Look, these two genres play well with each other. When writing a series one can easily morph into the other (authors, you know who you are), but they are not the same thing. Just because you have fantasy that's urban, doesn't mean that the heroine (small rant on that in a second) is, to quote our dear hacker girl, doing the sticky-icky with a vampire/wereduck/angsty-halfbreed of the week. There are plenty of valid reasons that involve using a city, and not all of them are for the convenience of clothing stores and nightclubs.
Urban Fantasy with male leads are never mentioned in these articles bashing UF, or aligning it with PR. The Dresden Files, for example, if mentioned is usually given some sort of excuse that it doesn't really belong with the rest of the dregs, and can sit in play in it's own little box over *there*.
They complain about the sexy girls in leather on covers - this, I will give them, because I'm sick of that as well, but don't they realise that sometimes cover art is just cover art, and like most issues of comics, it may actually have nothing to do with what's inside.
There's an example I remember hearing about once - and this is paraphrased, so I apologise. The cover shows a knight and a maiden on horseback, and the story is actually much more about the time travel aspects of the book than it is about the romance element.
Cities are also familiar places, a lot of us work in cities, and almost everybody would have been to a city at least once. They're a nice, common reference point for everybody. Not everyone wants to read about the...Golden Fields just near the Purple Singing Mountains [open 2pm-7pm daily]. Not everyone wants epic fantasy, and if they do, that's fine, they can go read it.
It's easy to identify with urban fantasy, since the concept (if not the city in particular) is something that's easy for us to grok onto. You're gonna have coffee shops (you're probably even going to have a Starbucks or twelve), you're gonna have the weird city-sponsored statues (a couple of the ones in Brisbane I'm going to include in future stories, as they're just that weird O_O), and the little knick-knack shops. They are what most people know. Most people don't have a frame of reference for epic landscapes (filmed in New Zealand, naturally), or even necessarily the want to experience them, even in fiction.
This, generally is where the accusation of "easy worldbuilding" comes in. And I say this to you in an indignant voice: "HA!".
Ok, I'll use death as the example I bring to the floor, for my urban fantasy book, I had to figure out the following:
*Is there an avatar of death? If so, traditional reaper or other?
*What happens when someone dies?
*What happens when someone commits suicide?
*What happens if someone wants to come back, and if/when this option is available?
*What happens if a child is stillborn? Or suffers a SIDS death?
*What happens if a pregnant woman drowns?
*What sort of afterlife/afterlives are there?
And there's probably more things, but that'll do for now. Lazy worldbuilding my ass.
For a paranormal romance book, the worldbuilding may not be as extensive (I said "may", since I'm not going to make the same mistake of painting everyone with the same brush), but in a PR book, the focus really isn't on the world is it? The focus is more on the characters, and the extent to which they interact with the rest of the worldbuilding elements may be very limited.
An example: if you have a romance between a cop and his vampire-cop girlfriend, you really aren't going to have to establish why exactly there's no more unicorns.
Another example: if you have a monster hunter doing the sticky-icky with the half-vampire that lives down the street, the origins of the universe aren't going to be important.
Example number three, because things are supposed to come in threes: if you have the chick from the X-files-analogue stepping out with the werebunny, there's no point in discussing what happens when a planet dies.
All three of these PR examples could just as easily take place in an UF story, but the difference is where the focus lies. If the focus is on the relationship, on the romance, then the more extraneous elements are going to be just that, they aren't going to be important, they aren't going to be focussed on and they (probably) aren't going to be in the author's worldbuilding document/story bible.
With urban fantasy, the focus is generally broader, so the worldbuilding has to be there to keep everything in place, and fill in all the little holes, if even by inference. Writing a story set in a city doesn't make you lazy, it's what you decide to do in and around that city that shows your work ethic.
It's simple, really, they are two different genres, and I don't want my work lumped in with stories whose only purpose is for the leather-clad, completely capable heroine to get it on with whatever beastie crawled out of the sewer.
Mirrorfall is not a story about sex, it was never designed to be about romance, and never will be. My poor little hacker girl isn't going to get bashed on the head, fixed and start dating because that's what girls are supposed to do when faced with the prospect of living in a city that happens to contain magic. I'm quite happy to keep her as the horriffically scarred (hey PR cover artists, try putting Stef in something shows off a lot of skin! >_>), asexual, dateless wonder that she is.
So yeah...Urban Fantasy =/= Paranormal Romance. They are two separate genres, with different people that they appeal to, people can like both genres, but they can also like to read hardcore sci-fi and space opera, buying demographics don't determine genres.
Two different genres, it's really not that hard, please stop lumping me in with Anita Blake.
[...and I'm totally not considering doing an omake chapter to see what MF would be like as a paranormal romance. Of course not.]
The Rumours of our Death have been Greatly Exaggerated
[author = jake]
If you are a frequent visitor to this site, you may have noticed a few changes as of late; changes such as the entire site being replaced with a 403 error. We have valiantly sought a solution to the problem and finally resurrected Wibbly Press with a combination of l33t h4xx and black magic by placing a shard of mirror on our server and singing 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' with a group of cheerleaders. As to why Wibbly went down in the first place we don't quite know for sure, but we're blaming vampires. All that aside, the site is now relatively working again even though we've probably lost a bit of functionality and the page layout looks horrid. I promise, readers, that I will diligently work to solve each and every problem until Wibbly is back to its previous glory.
Yours truly,
Your friendly neighbourhood webmaster.
P.S. Vampires who comment are still welcome, we'll save the holy-water-laced cookies for another time.
The Weekly Wibbly #2
Yes...I know it's been more than a week since the last one (depending on how you measure a week of course...I wonder how long a Jovian week is?).
So. News.
Mirrorheart has come to an end, and the author is taking a break.
The store is now working, shipping and all (some images are having issues in Chrome, we're working on that). New badge designs will be going in soon.
Plans for next year...well, for starters we will be attending all east coast Supanovas (Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney in order). Doujicon unfortunately doesn't seem to be going ahead, so we won't be there.
Also on the subject of selling stuff, we're going to be starting a regular market at the Brisbane Southbank markets (pending approval of course) - it'll be a great place though, as those markets catch all the people going to the nearby IMAX theatre.
Publishing schedule...up in the air at the moment. Randi has some rewriting for Shimmer to do (but the cover art is done). Mirrorfall...well, there'll be a news post on that soon.
2009 is going to be a good year though...though it will likely be outshone by 2010 (and we'll be divulging more facts about the 2010 flagship series as time goes on).
For now, I'll leave you to hurriedly get around to wrapping your last minute Christmas presents while I stare at some of the 100+ cookies I made today...
Update For Saturday
Lots of stuff to get through, so I'm going to breeze through it before the UJ crew shows up.
First, unless you're blind, you've probably noticed the twitter feed on the left there *points*, I think I'm going to tone it down and make it more closely match the site's theme, but give me a break, it's my first one. -_-
Second, yeah, we got a twitter, I'm also playing around with the concept of a Wibbly facebook, but I'm really opening this up to you guys: what would be of the most use to you, or which would you actually follow/fan/check? I'm kind of leaning towards the twitter, cause it's easy to follow, and you'll have a (mostly) reliable source to tell you when new chapters go up. These are for your convenience, so tell us what's best for you.
Third, MH is finally done, the insane emotional roller-coaster is over, so take a few, breathe, then go do some wild mass guessing in the forums about Mirrorshades (given the new information in the last chapter), it's fun to speculate. ^_^
Third and a half, when MS rolls around, I'm thinking of moving back to a chapter-a-day update schedule (smaller chapters, of course, probably around 500-750 words) like back in the first days of Wibbly, does anyone have any objections to this? (I'm kind of doing this so I can force a regular update schedule on myself and so I don't skip a week so I can pump out a 4000 word chapter).
Three and three-quarters, *hides*
...
Ok, there's going to be a gap, so this is the time for you to send in fanfic! Write crazy, write cracky, write srs bsns, ship whoever you want, do whatever you want (within the limits mentioned on the fanfic page) and send it in! Entertain your fellow fans as we revel in my laziness at not starting on new story straight away!
Fourth, new London is up. Go read this. Seriously, go read it. This chapter is absolutely kick-ass, and should make you go O_O (in the good way, of course), plus, REDFERN! (*huggles Redfern plushie*).
Fifth, thanks to a crazily generous donation by our dear friend AL13N (dude, I don't know what it is, but I keep spelling your name with a 4 whenever I type it), we've got more than enough to pay for hosting for the next year, though I'm going to switching over to a new host...exporting Drupal, yay (if anyone has any tips, feel free to share). Also, buy the man a drink, this was an amazing favour.
Sixth, so yeah, there's not going to be any MV content from me for a couple of weeks, I need a tiny break before starting MS, though I may dig through my harddrive and see what I can post (may be old short stories, or may be old-crappy-abandoned stuff that I'll throw into the forums, just so you can see what could have (but definitely shouldn't have) happened in various points during the series.
Seventh, send cookies in Randi's direction so she pumps out Shimmerfall sooner (I don't know what it is, but when she writes stuff for me (and I count London in this) it's kind of like crack..just want more and more).
Eighth...actually I think that's it, I'm gonna chuck on my shoes and run down to the station to collect the guests.
Update for Sunday
Don't read too much into it, just because I uploaded a chapter doesn't mean it's starting, I just felt like being nice. :)
When you think "Require: Cookie"...
...is this the kind of cookie you imagine?
Just trying to see if what we imagine when to cookies is all on the same wavelength. :)
Where I am.
I'm jobless.
It was for the best, but I'm still kind of dealing with the emotional/psychological fallout (being there was driving me crazy and not in the good Stef way), but now I'm scrambling around trying to get everything sorted, worrying about the RL stuff and basically finding it much easier to hide in WoW than to worry about trying to make a dent in anything.
I have such big plans for Wibbly, but right now I'm not able to handle anything more than levelling my gnome.
So yeah, not pregnant, not dead (except possibly emotionally), just kind of trapped in my own shell for the moment.
This is probably a little TMI, but it's better than saying "lol, im sick, kk?".
-Stormy
You've all been DRAFTED! *
Yes, you're reading it right, you're all drafted!!!
(* With all, I mean the ones who volunteered (or some have been volunteered) for 12DoW.)
Some of you might remember the round-robin idea that we had. Well, you're all drafted for a round-robin story about wibbly'verses.
What's the big idea?
Well, duh! To have fun!
What do I have to do?
Not much, just write a part of a story, depending on what your predecessor wrote and continue the story. The idea is to have around 250-500 words. You'll have 23hours to write it and submit it to Stormy, who'll post it, so that the next person can start.
What is it about?
The idea is to have a so-called "sub-reality" , ie: We forget all the timings and backgrounds, and we'll just say that every character from Wibbly is living in the same town at the same time, and they all know each other.
When is this great event?
In order to have continuous content, we will do this before the stories of 12dow. That means the first story is posted on December 13th at 0700 Brisbane time (December 12th 2200 CET) and the last story is posted on December 25th at 0700 Brisbane time (2200 CET). That also means that your deadline is always at 0600 Brisbane time (2100 CET). The times have been chosen as to when the most people apparently are online.
...
Now that I think about it, that's tomorrow! O_O
When is my turn?
I've chosen a fixed schedule, but you may swap with other persons, just let us know, and we'll fix it here.
DO NOT FORGET! These are Brisbane times!!! so in EU and US, it is actually THE DAY BEFORE!!!
- December 13th: AL13N (in EU and US, this is December 12th!!!)
- December 14th: Bufi
- December 15th: Randi
- December 16th: Matthew
- December 17th: Zanaku
- December 18th: Lucian
- December 19th: *Mystery Guest*
- December 20th: Maeson
- December 21th: Al
- December 22th: Hammermeister
- December 23th: daymon
- December 24th: Flexer
- December 25th: Stormy
Why are you blessed with the first position and who is this mystery guest?
Because it was my idea for you guys to be drafted, Stormy says that I'm to be punished with first position. And the mystery guest is a mystery :-).