five quick things I think you’ll like

Posted on By Wil

I'm doing something fun and geeky this morning, but I need to close some tabs before I can really get into it, so I'd like to tell you all that John Scalzi's book Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded, for which I wrote the introduction, is now available in trade paperback. I genuinely loved this book, and they even quoted me on the back:

John also wrote an absolutely brilliant dark fantasty novella called The God Engines, which recently became available. He put the first chapter on his blog for everyone to enjoy.

Remember John Carpenter's The Thing? It's one of my favorite Sci-Fi movies of all time, and I just loved reading a story from The Thing's point of view.

I found some basic advice to self-published authors from a book publicist. This is getting printed out and added to my personal reference library.

Finally, in the comments to my last post, reader Michael asked:

As a writer, do you find yourself looking at the world a bit differently than before? Do you catch yourself being a bit more observational — trying to take in all of a given place/scene/moment instead of just "being" somewhere? Have you caught yourself running through the description of a place in your head?

I answered:

All artists are compelled to do what we do, whether it's music or storytelling or painting or whatever. I don't know what it's like for other artists, but I'm only happy when I'm creating things. A big part of creating things as a writer is staying open and observant, so when I need to create something for a reader, I have memories and experiences to draw upon. This is especially important as a narrative non-fiction writer, where I can't just make something up to bridge a gap or make a story better.

I struggle sometimes to find a balance between just "being" somewhere and mentally recording what it's like to be there, butI don't really have a choice in the matter; I was doing this as an actor long before I was a writer, because I needed to have as big a mental library as possible to aid in the creation and realization of characters, and I'll keep on doing it until my last breath, I imagine.

But, to answer your question more directly: on the one hand, staying observant and really keeping all of my senses as heightened and open as I can is just part of my life, but on the other hand, it *can* make me feel like I'm the guy with the video camera who is in the room, but not really part of what everyone is doing.

I'm reprinting it here because it's a a fairly frequently-asked question, but also because I want to hear if other writers/actors/creators feel the same way.

Okay, I'm off to get my geek on. I should have something geeky and awesome to show off later today.

From the Vault: a convenient literary metaphor

Posted on By Wil

This was originally written in 2003, after I'd published Dancing Barefoot, and was still working on Just A Geek. At the time, I wasn't sure if I was a writer, an actor, or some combination of the two, though I was trying very hard to convince myself (and the Voice of Self Doubt) that I was just going to be a writer. 

I enjoyed writing narrative nonfiction, and the feedback I got from my narrative nonfiction work was overwhelmingly positive, but it was (and is) very important to me to be a fiction writer. I had some ideas for short stories, but I just couldn't overcome my self-consciousness long enough to turn the ideas into anything more. It was frustrating to me, so I went to Old Town, determined to get some kind of narrative story out of the experience.

I still haven't written the short stories I was trying to create back then, but I think that what I did write that day has a clear narrative voice and holds up rather well.

"Can I get food at the bar?" I ask.

"Of course!"

"Thanks," I say, and take a seat.

The waitress working the bar appears to be about the same age as me, in stark contrast to the other girls who look like they're all in their early 20s. There are heavy bags beneath her tired and sad eyes.

"What can I get you?" she asks.

"A Guinness and a cheeseburger," I say.

She turns, and pours me a pint. It's still settling when she puts it in front of me.

"Not many people drink Guinness in the middle of the day," she says.

"Is that a fact?" I say. In my mind I'm Sam Spade or Phillip Marlowe, and I'm in a 1920s Hollywood speakeasy.

"It is," she says, "I think this is the only pint I've poured all day.

"Well, I don't like to drink beer I can see through," I say, as I lift the now-settled glass to my lips.

Her laugh doesn't make it to her eyes, but it's still friendly. I find a kindred spirit in her sadness. We're both in a place we didn't expect to be. I bet I'm the first guy she's waited on all day who hasn't stared at her skimpy outfit while talking to her.

"Hey, honey, can we get another pitcher of Bud over here?" calls a guy in a George Zimmer signature suit at the corner of the bar. His tie is loose and he bounces his leg on the rail. It shakes under my foot. I don't like that at all.

I look around the restaurant. I've never seen it this full during the day. John Fogerty tells me that there's a bad moon on the rise.

"Sure," she says, and walks down to the taps.

Two young girls turn heads as they walk in and sit at a table behind me. "Oh my god! Your eyebrows look so great!" the tall one says.

"Don't they? I totally had them tattoo'd on," she says.

I tune them out and count the rings down my glass: one . . . two . . . three.

Four.

I look down the bar and see Men's Wearhouse and his business partners putting their best midlife crisis moves on the waitress — my waitress. Brown Suit stares at her chest while Blue Suit flashes a capped smile at her. She giggles and fusses with her hair, and fills their glasses.

"Hurry back!" Brown Suit says, as she walks back up the bar.

Five. I stare at the top of my beer. It looks like clouds over a black sky.

"So what do you do?" she asks.

" . . . I guess I'm a writer."

"You guess you are, or you are?"

"I am. I'm blocked today."

"By what?"

"The Bogeyman."

"What's that?"

"A convenient literary metaphor."

"You are a writer."

I laugh. "Yeah, I guess I am."

"Have you written anything I've read?" she asks. A loaded question.

"Probably not," I say, "I wrote one, and the people who read it seem to like it, and I'm working on another one."

"But you're blocked today," she says.

"Yeah. This place is sort of involved in my career choice, so I thought I'd come here and try to break the block."

"How's that working out for you?" she asks. A flicker of mirth passes her eyes.

"Well, at the very least, I'll get a Guinness out of the deal."

This is, without a doubt, the coolest thing I’ve seen all year

Posted on By Wil

Reader Robin Got Excited and Made 100 cupcakes. 

I know what you're thinking: "Well, that's a lot of cupcakes, but so what?"

Well, doubtful-person-I-just-invented, let me tell you what: each cupcake depicts a different board or video game, and she put them all up on a website where you can identify as many of them correctly as you can, with a mouseover button to reveal the answer. 

Allow me to share just two of my favorites:

Defender
 

Scrabble  

Trust me on this: you simply must go spend a couple minutes and check them out. I promise that you will have your mind blown at least once.

the weight is the gift

Posted on By Wil

I can't say anything specific about the job, but I got to be a voice actor again today, working with people I love, on a show that I love. 

While we were all in the booth together between acts, waiting to hear from the director about our pickups, I took a moment to look around and appreciate where I was, who I was working with, and what I was working on. 

I talked a little bit about truly appreciating things a little bit on this week's Radio Free Burrito. My biggest regret from my years on TNG is that I was too young and immature to truly and fully appreciate how lucky I was to work with such wonderful people, even though I was able to enjoy it while I was there. I guess the only way to unlock the "appreciate" ability is by leveling up your Wisdom attribute, in other words.

In my life experience, I've come to believe that enjoying something and appreciating something each involve a sense of gratitude, but when you put both feelings together, you end up with something that is greater than the sum of its individual parts. The two don't go hand-in-hand unless you actively make the effort, but when you do … well, you end up having a day like today, where I enjoyed working with wonderful people while creating a fantastic characters, and I also appreciated the opportunity to be there.

In which the audio versions of Happiest Days and Just A Geek get a new home

Posted on By Wil

I've had such a great experience using Lulu to sell Sunken Treasure and Memories of the Future, Volume One, I have decided to start out 2010 by moving the audio versions of The Happiest Days of Our Lives and Just A Geek to Lulu. It made a lot of sense to me to keep all of my self-published work together in one place, and hopefully this will make ordering even faster and easier than it already was.

Now, for the sake of completeness and making a post that's more than 70 words, here's a little bit about my audiobooks, which I yanked from the Audiobooks tag on Wil Wheaton Books dot Com:

The Happiest Days of Our Lives

You can buy the audio version of The Happiest Days of Our Lives right here, for just $19.72. "Why $19.72?" You ask? Because that's the year I was born, and since nobody else is the boss of me, I can do that sort of thing. "How long is it?" You say? "That's what she said!" I reply. Then I tell you that it's about three and a-half hours long, and we laugh and laugh before the episode ends with a hilarious freeze frame.

Like the audio version of Just A Geek, this is a super-annotated edition, filled with tons of what I call "audio footnotes" for lack of a less stupid-sounding term. I hope we've created something that's more like sitting down in a room with me while I tell you stories, than it is a typical audiobook. I don't think a traditional publisher would let me get away with doing it this way, which is a big reason I do these things on my own. If you've ever heard meperform my work at a show, or listened to any of my podcasts, you should have some idea of what you're getting into.

Just A Geek

I'm very proud of this, my first audio book. I've talked in the past about what a huge letdown my experience wih O'Reilly was on the print version of the book, and much of the joy I'd hoped to feel with its release has instead come from the recording of the audio version, which ended up being a performance, with asides, commentary, and reflections on the material that aren't in the print version of the book. I guess it's like I'm reading the book to you, and occasionally setting it down to give some meta-commentary on various passages.

So if you liked the print book, my PAX keynote, my performance of The Trade, or if you like my podcasts, I'm pretty sure you'll dig the audiobook.

For the Lulu release of Just A Geek: The Audiobook, I was able to include a PDF scan of the booklet I created for its previous release, which I think is pretty cool. (If you already own the audio version of JAG and would like a copy of the PDF booklet, just e-mail me and I'll get it to you as quickly as I can.)

My audiobooks are quite different from traditional audiobooks. Rather than create a dramatic interpretation of the literal text, which is what I do when I voice another author's book (Like Peter & Max: A Fables Novel, which I did for Bill Willingham), I am able to use my experience as an actor to bring the words and characters to life while adding my own commentary. The result is much closer to hearing or seeing me perform my material live than getting an audio version of the text.

For both of these books, I worked with my friend David Lawrence, who in addition to producing them, participated in some interesting conversations along the way. In fact, we added so much material through our conversations and my additional commentary, we only half-jokingly call them superannotated versions of the books. It's the sort of thing that I doubt I'd be able to get away with if I wasn't doing this entirely on my own, and I'm really glad that we did the books this way, because I think it makes them special and unique. The feedback I've gotten from customers is overwhelmingly positive, and it appears that my goal of making the listener feel like we're sitting down together while I read to them has been successfully achieved.

Okay, before I sign off, I'm going to address a couple of FAQs that usually come up when my aubiobooks are mentioned:

Q: How about some stats, man?

A: Happiest Days is $19.72, about 3.5 hours long, and is about a 200MB download. Just A Geek is $20.00, about 9 hours long, and is about a 400MB download.

Q: Why is Just a Geek only 28 cents more if it's so much longer?

A: That's what she said! Oh, um. Sorry. Because it's been available for so long, and the old pricing model we used when it was originally released needed to be updated. Look, I know that people can just steal it if they want to, so I figured it was better to make it more affordable for people who want to be honest.

Q: How about a discount if I get them together?

A: I wish I could do that, but I'd have to make a whole new project at Lulu, and I don't think there's enough market demand for that.

Q: Can I get this from Audible?

A: Not right now.

Q: Why not?

A: Two main reasons: Audible takes a huge cut of the purchase price, and for an indie guy like me it's not worth it. Audible also requires DRM, which I'd like to avoid as long as possible. Now, to be super-clear: if Audible could somehow open up my work to tens of thousands of new customers, I think it would be a fair trade off. However, my experience in traditional publishing leads me to believe that that isn't going to happen. I think I can reach 

Q: So why not do it anyway? Why not sell them directly yourself and also use Audible?

A: Hurm. That's a good question, and I can't come up with a very good reason that's more comprehensive than, "because I don't want to deal with the hassle and potential rejection from Audible." 

Q: So you're going to eventually do that?

A: Well … it seems silly not to, now, doesn't it? Tell you what: once I get everything I need to do under control and I'm not behind on a crapton of deadlines, I'll look into Audible, assuming that they'll even be interested in having me.

Q: So should I just wait, then?

A: Facepalm.

Q: Are you going to do audio versions of your other books?

A: I've meant to do a Dancing Barefoot for years, and just never got around to it. If enough people are interested, though, I will. I bet I could give Barefoot a really neat superannotated treatment, especially since I've leveled up so much since I wrote it.

Q: What about Memories of the Future?

A: I really don't know. It takes a lot of time and energy to produce an audiobook, and I don't know if there are enough buyers to make it worth the time it would take to create a Memories audiobook all at once. I've thought about doing it episodically, so if only 20 people are interested, I've only wasted two hours instead of forty, but I'm not sure that would work. But there's always the Memories of the Futurecast, guys.

Q: Hey, is it weird to essentially have a conversation with yourself and present it as a FAQ?

A: Keep your questions on-topic, please.

Q: It's just that, I think it's kind of weird.

A: That isn't a question.

Q: Oh, so the voice in your head can say you're awesome and you'll let that slip by, but if I point out that it's a little weird, you're just going to blow me off?

A: Pretty much. Yes. Okay, um … you in the back?

Q: Hey, I don't have a question, but I just wanted to say that you're awesome.

A: Why thank you. That's very kind of you.

Q: And tell us, once again, where we can get these fabulous audiobooks, please?

A: Great question. You can go to my storefront at Lulu to find just about everything I've recently published, or you can go directly to Just A Geek: The Audiobook or The Happiest Days of Our Lives: The Audiobook.

Annnd, scene. Thanks for reading and (hopefully) listening. Remember to tell all your friends, and be sure to drink your Ovaltine.