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Aeronaut’s Windlass- You need to read this book

Jim Butcher took the world by storm over a decade ago with his Dresden Files, a series that I and all my friends love dearly. He writes the kind of books I will eagerly buy in Hardback, and will sacrifice sleep to finish.

You can imagine how excited, and how nervous, I was when Butcher announced that he was releasing a new steampunk series. This was even more important to me, because I have a steampunk series coming out in 2016. If Butcher could pull off his Cinder Spires, then authors like me might be able to ride his coattails.

So I bought Aeronaut’s Windlass, and started reading. The book hooked me right from the prologue, and the sense of wonder lasted until the very last page. The characters are amazing, numerous, and fun as hell.

Aeronaut’s Windlass clocks in at over 600 pages, which was wonderful as it allowed me to savor it for a few weeks. Now that I’ve finished I’m saddened that I’ll have to wait for the next book, which reinforces what a master craftsman Butcher is.

So what makes the book so amazing? Butcher creates an entirely new mythos, but he draws on familiar elements I’ve always loved. If you like naval battles, you’ll love the Horatio Hornblower style airship combat.

If you like cats, you’ll love the way Butcher has brought them to life. Every cat owner will instantly recognize Rowl and the other cats as being similar to our own feline friends.

Even the magic system is incredible. It relies on etheric energy, ethersilk, and even explains why the goggles we steampunk lovers wear would be necessary.

I’m going to keep this review short, because just about anything else I might tell you about the book is a spoiler. If you love fantasy, science fiction, steampunk, or any of Butcher’s other work, then you owe it to yourself to read the Cinder Spires.

Aeronaut’s Windlass is the best book I’ve read since Way of Kings or Name of the Wind, and the series might end up being better than both.

Hero Born cover reveal

Hero-Born-2500x1563-Amazon-Smashwords-Kobo-AppleMany people have asked what the heck is going on with Project Solaris. You can see the cover above in the banner, and it’s been there since I finished the 2nd draft back in May. So what gives?

I decided to write the first three books and release them close together, and as I wrote the series morphed a bit. The first one is slated for a December 16th release, and the 2nd one will be out in January. Here’s the cover, and the blurb is below:

I write software at a San Francisco startup. I have my dream job, but I also have a secret.

We are not alone. The last time I was taken I was fourteen. Three weeks ago I celebrated my twenty-first birthday, and I know that the grey men will soon come again. I devoted my life to technology so I’d be ready when they returned. Others have prepared too, and I will find them.

Together we will harness the abilities they have given us. We are Project Solaris. It’s time to fight back.

“It’s Heroes meets X-Files. Holy crap you need to read this.” – One of the author’s totally biased friends.

You Must Write

This article is for anyone who has given in to the Great Lie, that Great Writers ™ are born, not made. It’s a commonly accepted fact that some people have innate artistic talent, and others do not. That only the chosen few can reach the lofty height of the Great Writer.

It’s also horse shit. Great Writers are forged in the crucible of discipline. They hone their craft through endless hours of brutal work, cranking out hundreds of thousands of words that will be sacrificed on the altar of skill.

These early words will never see the light of day, and it is for this reason that most people abandon their craft before achieving mastery. Ira Glass has an amazing quote about this:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you.”

Everyone sucks at the beginning, and the only way to escape that is work. Lots and lots of very hard work. It means constantly learning, constantly striving to be better than you were the day before. It means embracing that your work sucks, but also knowing that eventually it won’t. Understanding that the Great Lie is a lie. If you stick with this and commit to learning you too can become a Great Writer.

You’re going to generate a lot of word turds before you produce anything worth reading. That’s okay. That’s expected. What’s more, every author you love went through this same phase to reach the point where they could produce the books that captivate their audiences.

5000-Words-per-hour-300x200It’s for this reason that I chose to write books for authors, because I don’t want other writers to fumble about blindly like I did. There’s a damn good reason that the first two are 5,000 Words Per Hour and Lifelong Writing Habit. Almost everyone I talked to said I should write books about plot, or characters, or self-editing. I will someday, but those books are NOT the first thing a new writer needs.

Before you learn those skills you need the most vital one of all. You must write, and you must write every day. You must build a strong writing habit, or you’ll never crank out enough words to hit escape velocity into true skill..

I know. I know because I’ve quit writing twice in my life. Both times because of exactly the circumstances Ira Glass was talking about. My work sucked. I knew it sucked. I despaired and convinced Lifelong-Writing-Habit-300x200myself that the Great Lie was true.

If you want to be a writer, then you must write. You’ll suck at first, just like everyone else. No one will want to read your work, because it’s terrible. But you need to write through that. You need to keep writing until you master your craft.

Pick up books on craft. Learn about plotting, characters, emotion, and viewpoint. Learn about setting, narrative voice, and conflict. Study the work of others. Watch movies and read books with a critical eye.

In time you will master each of the necessary skills, and when it all gels you’ll finally be able to weave the kind of story you’ve always wanted to. It will be difficult, and you may have to labor for years, but you will get there as long as you keep writing.

The question you need to ask yourself is this. How bad do you want it? Because if your dream is to become a novelist then I’m here to tell you that it’s possible. Every journey begins with a single step. Take yours.

Return to Civilization

A month ago today I began the most epic adventure of my life. I decided to hike the John Muir Trail, over 220 miles of high altitude hiking. It meant climbing mountain after mountain, all with a 40 pound pack on my back.

We carried our own food, went without showers or toilets, and had to filter our own water every day. It was the first time in life that I had to tend to my daily survival without all the modern conveniences I took for granted.

The trip changed my perspective on almost everything, from how much water we waste in society, to my stance on social media. I had 12+ hours a day to do little more than think and hike. Despite hiking with two other people I grew used to long silences, and the solitude awakened a part of my mind that’s been dormant since I was a child.

My imagination ran wild, and I had countless adventures in my own head. Everything from fighting dragons to blowing up space stations. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Below you’ll find a brief walkthrough of the trip.

As you’ll see the early days involved a lot more humor. That gave way to introspection as we got further into the trip, because we ended every day exhausted and in pain.

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Day 1

We started out in Tuolumne Meadows. This video takes place before any hiking has occurred. We were still acclimating to the altitude, a smart move before we tried any exertion.

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Day 3

Still feeling funny. By now we’ve hiked a good 15 miles at high elevation. It was tough, but I was in high spirits because I’d managed to keep up with the group.

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Day 6

Things were tougher by this point. We’d had five hard days of hiking, but I’d survived. Today Kathy and Mary departed us, and we left the last bastions of civilization behind. From this point forward we were on the true JMT, and there was no turning back.

Note that this campground was going to be closed the next day due to the frigging bubonic plague. I didn’t even know the plague still existed, but apparently it does and is transmitted by fleas brought in via squirrels.

There was an outbreak in our campground. Yikes.

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Day 7

This was our first real pass. There are many mountain passes on the JMT, each tougher than the last. We were in high spirits for this one, and reaching the top was one of the most thrilling experiences of my life.

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Day 8

By now things were getting extremely difficult. I was exhausted all the time. I went to bed exhausted. I woke up exhausted. The pain was constant too. My feet ached in the morning, and were on fire every night.

The only thing that kept me going was determination. This was, more than anything else, a test of mental fortitude.

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Day 9

This video was shot after a grueling 13 mile hike through 98 degree heat. We trudged into the first real camp site we’d seen in days, and were thrilled by running water and toilets. It was amazing!

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Day 11

This was the second big pass we climbed, even tougher than Donahue. Yet we were in high spirits, because we’d gotten into a groove. Sheer determination kept us moving, and at this point we believed nothing could stop us.

We were wrong. This next video was shot after we got to the top of Silver Pass and descended into the wall of smoke on the other side.

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Day 12

As you can see in the video we had no choice but the abandon the trip half-way through. We’d gone almost exactly a hundred miles at this point. The next video is a shot of the ‘ferry’ coming to rescue us.

You can’t see it in the video, but because the water was so low in the lake we swerved around rocks and scraped the bottom more than once. It was more than a little terrifying. Once we reached the far side they tosses us into a ‘how to catch a predator’ style van, which had no handles on the inside. This final video shows a little of the inside.

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Conclusions

As I mentioned in the beginning this trip shifted my perspective on a lot of issues. Every time I turn on a faucet I gawk. Every time I flush a toilet I sigh in relief. Showers are wonderful. I don’t have to filter my water, and I can breathe without sucking in smoke!

That said, I do miss the simplicity of the trail. You knew what you had to do every day, and you just did it. There was none of the confusion and conflict you face in every day life, and that break really made me reconsider what’s important in life.

We failed to complete the trail due to the final fire, but I learned a hell of a lot in the process. We’ve decided to do the trail again next year, picking up right where we left off. I can’t wait.

As a final note I am now in the best shape of my life. I lost eight pounds in twelve days, and have lost another two since returning home. Yay!

The Value of Time

Mount_Whitney_2003-03-25It’s been a while since I’ve done a random blog post, but since I’m leaving to hike the John Muir Trail on Sunday I figured now was the best time. For those unfamiliar with the John Muir Trail, it’s over 200 miles of high altitude hiking. The trail ends at Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States. More on that later. Let’s get back to the purpose of this post, which is about time.

Time is the most valuable resource we have. It’s the one thing we all know for damn certain there’s a finite supply of. Some day you’ll die. Every second you have one second less remaining. That fact, more than anything else, should determine how you live your life.

This provoked some very deep exploration the first time I considered it. I remember vividly the day that it happened. I was almost 100 pounds heavier. I hadn’t dated in over three years. I hated my collections job, which didn’t pay enough to make ends meet. I hated my home situation. My life was pretty dismal, and the only shelter I could find was in obliterating my consciousness with marijuana and video games as often as possible.

I did it to blot out the pain, to ignore what I’d let myself become. It worked for a long time, for years in fact. But the moment I understood time, the veil was lifted and I had no choice but to change my life. I couldn’t hide any more.

I faced what I call the Shawshenk choice. Get busy living, or get busy dying. I chose to live. I chose to make changes, to grow as a person. It was hard, especially at first. I spent months working my tail off, but progress was slow.

There were so many times I wanted to give up, and in the past I would have. But a good friend of mine really drove home the concept of limited time. He’d been in college for eight years, taking a class or two at a time while working a full time job and being a devoted husband. We had a weekend get together to celebrate the launch of Starcraft II, and I remember vividly asking him why he worked so hard.

He said the time is going to pass anyway. He was right. The words had a profound effect on me, and really made me consider the future.

If I gave up like I had every time in the past, then I’d be in the same place when I turned 35. The same place when I turned 40. The same place when I turned 45. Nothing would ever change. That knowledge was life-changing.

I chose not to give up. I kept pushing. I kept learning. Within a few more months the weight started to come off. I picked up a book on programming and taught myself to develop apps for the iPhone. I started going to Toastmasters, and before long I was winning speeches.

It didn’t take long to develop momentum. Once I succeeded in one area of my life it was easier to succeed in others. I dropped the minimum wage collections job in favor of a six figure software engineer job. I paid off my debt. I put money in savings.

I dropped the weight. All of it. I found my confidence, and I started dating. Eventually I met Lisa, and we’ve been together ever since. Finally, I turned my attention back to writing. I started cranking out novels, and will publish three in my first year (plus two non-fiction books).

All of this came about through the simple understanding of the importance of time. If you take no other lesson to heart, take this one. Spend your time wisely. Time will pass anyway. How do you want to spend it? You can’t ever get it back. You can’t ever replace it.

What do you want to change about your life? What’s your next challenge? Where do you want to be in a few years?

As for me, I’m resolved to keep growing, and to keep improving. I’ve spent the last two months getting in the best shape of my life. I’ll spend the next month hiking the high sierras, and at the end I’m going to climb the largest fucking mountain in the United States.

Get out there and conquer life, people. Your dreams are waiting.

My 2nd interview on the Rocking Self-Publishing Podcast is up!

RSP was the very first podcast about indie publishing I ever stumbled across. I’ve learned more there than any other single place, and if you’ve read one my books odds are good that never would have happened without RSP.

I was first on the show back in January, and just had my 2nd appearance. I can’t believe how far I’ve come in such a short time. Thank you all so much for the support, and for reading my books. Feel free to check out the interview if you’re so inclined =)

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