Brandice.net Blog

I will be attending another local author event next weekend to promote Columbus Groove and meet other local authors.

From the website:

The Canal Fulton Public Library is holding an Author Fair on Saturday, March 13, 2010 from 11am to 2pm. This your opportunity to meet and talk with many authors from our area. They will also bring copies of their works for sale. Each author will read a selection from their book. Participating authors include: Anita Graber, Marty Drexler, Tiffany Miller – aka Smiling Mousie, Melody Lee, Namiko Golden, Stan Purdum, Mike Johnson, Jeff Maximovich, and Brandice Schnabel.

Looking forward to another local event, and I hope I’ll be seeing some of you local readers there! I don’t know if the final plan for readings or where I’ll be sitting has been made, but it should be a good time regardless, and I’ve never been to this particular local library, so exploring should be fun. Stop by!

If you’re going to be one of those people that complains about all the Nanowrimo talk during November… shoo. Go ‘way. Not interested. It’s what I do each year, and it’s AWESOME.

For those of you who don’t know, I am the Municipal Liaison for the Canton, Ohio region of National Novel Writing Month, and this is my seventh year with that title (my eighth year doing Nano). If you’re enjoying the madness, friend me up on the site! :)

This year has been really interesting so far, because I started at midnight last night with a specific novel in mind, a serious novel with a lot of heavy topics planned, and it completely TANKED before I hit 500 words. I discovered in short order that completely turning away from my Nanowrimo writing style was absurd and counterproductive, so I took a restroom break and returned to the table with zero plan and a lot of determination.

Now I have 1175 words of a novel that just materialized as I kept writing, and it would appear that I’m now writing about a cyborg man named Wendell who refuses to fight crime and save the planet because of a manufacturing mishap that has resulted in his constantly craving french fries. Since he was supposed to be the planet’s last ditch effort to same humanity, his creator, Peter Stimple, is in seriously trouble with his higher ups, and chaos will surely ensue.

The midnight kickoff at Denny’s last night was awesome overall. There were a few of us who’ve been doing this together for a while now, and new people popped in right at midnight and joined us. Pretty good turn out for the midnight event, so I’m sure today’s kickoff event will be a huge success. :) Happy noveling!

(If slideshow doesn’t appear, photo set is here.)

This interview with Doctor Anonymous was a WONDERFUL experience and allowed me to really explain a lot about my process, my creative journey, and how I got to this point in the self-pubishing process. I open up a bit about the collection, the significance of the poems chosen, how the title came out, and a lot of other really fun tidbits that make this book important to me.

Thanks to Doctor Anonymous for having me on the show!! Please give this a listen if you’d like to really understand the book and what I wanted to accomplish with this collection:

Linkage:

Doctor Anonymous Show
Interview Preview and Interview Announcement

Come down to the First Friday festivities on September 4th and I will be on the second floor of 2nd April Galerie signing copies of Columbus Groove. It would REALLY mean a lot to see friends and family at this event, because I’m nervous and have very little time to prepare myself for such a quickly arranged signing.

Signing Date: Friday, September 4, 2009
Time: 6:00pm – 10:00pm
Location: 2nd April Galerie

Come purchase your copy and enjoy all the great stuff going on downtown. First Friday is a lot of fun, with live music, food vendors and a ton of special monthly events! Even if you already have a copy of the book, the evening will be a great time!

I’ve been really busy lately with a fun project, one that I’ve been revising and fiddling around with for close to a decade. I’ve been seriously working on it for a few months now, and it is ready to be revealed…

I’m publishing a book of poetry.

I have a collection of poems that I’ve compiled into a cohesive collection, all centered around relationships, love, heartbreak, and the journey we take to find “the one.” I’ve added poems over the years, cut poems over the years, and I finally have the nerve to take the collection and share it with the world, because really… why the hell not?

Stephanie Smanto jumped on board with some amazing graphic design talents that have only made these poems look better. She typeset the inside and designed the cover, which I am truly in love with. I’m endlessly grateful to her for her patience and her creative eye. The book wouldn’t be what it is without her role in the publishing process.

I feel confident enough that this last proof is the final proof that I’ve released the book for pre-order on the website. Check out the site, which has a description of the collection and a page for pre-ordering Columbus Groove. It will also have ongoing news, such as book signings in the Ohio area and announcements when the book is available on sites like Lulu.com and Amazon.com. There will be a digital format available for purchase as well (stay tuned on the book’s site for info on getting that for free if you purchase the hard copy).

I’ve really been hesitant to talk much about the book, because I’ve let silly insecurities get the best of me up until a week or so ago. Telling people you’re self-publishing can open you up for a long of ignorant and hurtful criticism, usually by fellow writers who want to accuse you of cutting corners or simply not writing anything good enough to be published traditionally. I’ve been lucky enough not to field those comments since announcing this project to writing friends, but I’ve heard the comments all too often before becoming a self-publisher myself.

The truth is, I haven’t submitted this collection to a single publisher, and the process I’ve gone through has not been easy. In choosing to have ownership over every part of this process, I have been completely responsible for the product I’m releasing, including editing, obtaining and approving the best quality design, choosing an appropriate price, submitting the work to the copyright office, and figuring out how and where to sell this baby.

This is much more than just the content of the book for me. I’m releasing a product, complete with packaging that has taken months to perfect, fonts that were painstakingly chosen and approved, page ordering and author bios that were redone a million times, and a game plan that I’ve had to finalize largely on my own, with zero help from a big publisher or an agent.

I’m finally done with the insecurity and I’m really proud of that. I’m proud of the collection, I’m thrilled with the whole package, I’m grateful for the support I’ve received, and regardless of the reception from this point out, it took guts to get this project off the ground. I hope you’ll enjoy the celebration with me. :)

And so now, on the last day of NaNoWriMo, it’s time to admit it publicly… I dropped out of Nano.

For the first time in five years, I didn’t finish my novel, and while I regret not being a better example for my region (since I’m the Municipal Liaison), I don’t feel guilty for concentrating on other things, like STeaP, like the new Warcraft expansion, like work, or simply my own sanity.

I’ve been through a lot of changes this year, changes that I’m incredibly thankful for, but finishing grad school, passing my board exam, getting married, starting my first “big” job, losing a co-host on STeaP, AND trying to muster up the energy to write a fifth novel this November just wasn’t going to happen.

I need time to breathe.

It’s part of the reason (among others) that I no longer work at Viddler… I just want to settle in and relax for five minutes. My brain and my body are simply done with big projects for this year, and I had just started to settle down into a calmer life when Nano started, which was horrible timing. Mix the timing in with some regional drama that just sapped a lot of my enjoyment out of the local events, and you have a recipe for failure.

I’m surprised that I so easily put Nano aside when I realized that I wasn’t enjoying it, and that I haven’t felt guilty. I’ve still gone to all of the meetings and rooted others on, but many of the locals have thrown in the towel as well. It seems that writing a 50,000 word novel simply wasn’t in the cards for several of us this year, and I’m glad that I can say that and feel okay about it.

Next year!

Oh, and there’s always Script Frenzy in April. I have some big plans for this year. :)

Random excerpt of the day:

All three of the scientists got down to business, Rigec and Jaco taking the second specimen back to the ship’s lab while Doctor Kimlynk Coh continued to wander the area looking for further plant life. Peter Xylim and Jomy passed the doctor on their way around the perimeter area just as Jomy was nearing the end of his patience.

Jomy sighed. “There really doesn’t seem to be any danger, Peter. We’ve been around the ship perimeter about four times so far, and we haven’t encountered any sign of life forms at all. I think this area of the planet is deserted.”

As aggravating is it was to admit that Jomy might have had some useful insight after the utter chaos he had created earlier in the day, Peter had to admit that Jomy had a point in suggesting that they were likely to be completely alone in this area of the planet. They really hadn’t seen a single living organism in quite some time, other than the plant life that the scientists were already investigating.

The fact that they were alone wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, because generally when you’ve landed on someone else’s home planet, avoiding the inhabitants of said planet can sometimes avoid deadly confrontations or just generally unpleasant relations. Peter was rather encouraged by the idea that they might be able to land here on Earth, quietly fiddle with the native plant life, and then be on their way again without any confrontation at all, but if their previous attempts at this particular mission were any indication, they should really be looking for whatever complete disaster was currently lying in wait.

From Chapter 8:

The sun had risen already by the time Esther rose the next morning, because solar time generally isn’t decided by when the local sociopath rises from her quilt covered bed to join the rest of the world, so when Esther rose, she peered out her window in the a sunny back yard and contemplated her first move in her new “win over the neighborhood” campaign.

It would have to be something good now that she had hopped like a loony in her blackberry patch, so she was going to need to turn on the sweet old lady routine for a bit. Her neighbor Fred would be the first target, and then she would be stopping over to see her other neighbor Priscilla and the married couple across the street, Tony and Lila. Fred was the witness to her unintentionally bizarre behavior yesterday, so he was the priority.

Esther glanced over at Jiblet with her typical calm. “I’ll have to kill him if this doesn’t go well, you know.”

Jiblet knew. He also knew that, as a cat, he really didn’t have an obligation or a desire to do anything about any of it, so he remain nestled on his window cushion, completely noncommittal.

Esther continued to look at the garden. “Hmm… perhaps I should look at what the last tenant had planted in the garden. I can’t begin to know how to take care of all that nonsense, but I can certainly pick vegetables and fruits and other edibles and make something reasonably tasty to take with me.”

Jiblet continued not to care.

Because you all asked for it, here is the prologue to my 2008 Nanowrimo novel. I am in no way responsible for what may happen to any of you as a result of reading the beginning of what has become quite a work of utter and complete crap. I’ll try and only share the slightly readable bits, so enjoy (or hate) the beginning.

PROLOGUE (or The Way This Whole Mess Began)

Somewhere, in the very vast reaches of the deepest of deep space, there is a very tiny planet. The planet is small despite laws in the universe that would seem to indicate that planets cannot possible be this small and still withstand the forces of space, but there is also some evidence that would point to a mishap in intergalactic mail that should have been speedily delivered to this planet at the time of its creation to alert its inhabitants that the planet would simply not do. This type of communication is often lost in transit (damn meteors), or is delivered prior to the planet’s inhabitants being fully evolved to the point of being able to decipher the communication, which is how the square, invisible planet in the middle of the Milky Way continues to exist despite the impossibility of said existence.

The planet is called Myklox Prime by its sentient inhabitants, the Zomi people, and the inhabitants are sadly unaware of the fact that their planet is in total and complete violation of universal size-related guidelines. While the inhabitants themselves are also quite tiny, they are unaware of anything amiss with their little world, and they have lived in peace for a few million years.

Until five years ago.

Five years ago, a devastating evolutionary process took away the Zomians’ beloved delicacy, snum goi. It wasn’t so much evolutionary as it was an accidental result of an experiment by a very cocky scientist with too many test subjects who escaped his cocky lab and commenced in spreading an accidental snum goi-killing bacteria throughout the tiny planet. It really didn’t take long since the planet is only the size of Texas, and the Zomi people quickly found themselves without a single bit of snum goi.

Not only were they without their beloved snum goi, they were unable to grow it any longer due to the elusive and fancily complicated nature of the quickly dispersed bacteria. The bacteria could not be contained, the snum goi could not be grown, and the very cocky scientist was quickly fed to an animal of great ferocity and enormous size (at least when compared to the rest of Myklox Prime’s inhabitants). Zomians around their tiny globe were extremely displeased.

It was decided that a team of researchers, scientists, and other useful Zomians would need to leave the planet in search of similar plants that could be genetically altered to recreate their beloved snum goi. Several of the very sensible, reasonable and intelligent scientists on the planet suggested that this was a very silly solution to a stupid problem, but then quickly found themselves recruited for the space voyage themselves because they were the best scientists on the planet. It was quite a bad situation for the lot of them, but then you really should avoid openly disagreeing with snack-related opinions on a small planet, no?

The voyage was planned, and the scientists flitted off to the nearest planet to look for snum goi, quite disgruntled and unhappy. The first trip was to the planet Wontwyrk, which was inhabited entirely by sentient talking tree moss that had evolved to a point where trees were no longer needed. Had the Zomians known about astro turf football fields, this planet would have been a large mass of evolutionary irony, but the Zomi scientists simply threw up their hands and headed to the next planet, Stylwontwoark. Stylwonwoark had a plant very similiar to the snum goi berry, but when the scientists tried to alter the plant’s makeup to make it more like snum goi, the berries went feral, gained intelligence, and took over the entire planet in a matter of three days.

Things were clearly not going very well for the very unmotivated snum goi non-fan scientists, but upon communicating their double failure back to Myklox Prime, they were sent even further out into space, where they were knocked off course by a very tiny space particle (remember, they are very tiny creatures in general and their spaceship is incredibly miniscule) and ended up on the planet Direnshelpaltina.

The plan on the intended destination planet had been to cultivate a certain plant that they knew existed that was almost identical to the snum goi berry plant, and when they unknowingly landed on a different planet, they found what they believed to be the correct plant and made the adjustments they’d already designed and planned in transit. The results were quite terrible, and no one speaks of what happened or why T’im the ship janitor disappeared.

Now, three failures behind them, a tiny crew of Zomian men have begrudgingly set off a fourth time, heading for a planet named Earth, hoping that they will finally be done with their snack finding endeavors so that they can return home and provide their famished people with the snum goi they have gone without for half of a decade now. No matter that a snack food is a silly reason to voyage through out the dangerous vast reaches of the universe! No matter that none of them really wanted to go in the first place! This last voyage will bring victory, fame, and the conquest of the furthest planet the Zomians have ever managed to reach via space ship.

And most importantly, it will produce tasty treats, or they are all likely to be fired and told to stay on Earth.