Attack of the Yeti is finally finished. I want to thank you all for you patience. I really hope you enjoy it. For those of you who haven’t read Son of Santa, you can read it here.

Finishing this story brings a huge sense of relief for me. It was the last thing to write before I could start seriously working on the Special Editions. More info on them as time goes on. I’m still not sure how it is going to work, but they will for sure be out for the Holiday season so you can buy a bunch of copies for Christmas presents. But in the meantime, please enjoy Attack of the Yeti.

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I want to say this here for the online versions because there wasn’t really a place to do it on Fiction Press. The following people deserve my deep thanks for their contributions and support during the writing these stories. Al Creed, Chris Roberts, Danny Chadwick, Lissa Stinson, Melissa Poole, Sarah Day and Vincent Ferrari. You guys are the absolute best. Without you, these stories would not be what they are. Happy Valley is dedicated to Grandma Joyce. Son of Santa is dedicated to Mom and Dad. The Tumbleweed Dossier is dedicated to Abbi.

Okay, now that all that is over with, on with the stories!

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The Tumbleweed Dossier Cover Gallery

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Happy Anniversary, Al! Many happy returns.

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Attack of the Yeti – I finally got this Son of Santa short off the ground. It took me a long time to realize what this story should be, but I think I finally got something solid going. Hopefully it should be done before June. If it isn’t, it will be done shortly after that. Can’t give you an exact date, sorry. But it will definitely be done sooner rather than later.

Happy Valley Movie – No change from the last time I heard about it. Things should still be on track for filming to begin in early 2010.

Plain City Movie – Things are still on track to start shooting this summer.

New Novel – Okay, this is where things get a little iffy. I still don’t have a solid idea for the 2009 novel, but I want to start writing it in July. July 2007 is when I started writing Son of Santa and July 2008 is when I started writing The Tumbleweed Dossier, and both projects were done and available before November. But this year I want to do things differently. Remember how I bailed out of the serial novel project in January? I want to redeem myself by making this year’s novel an online serial, only I would do things differently than I had planned for the January serial. Firstly, IF I did this, there would only be one update a month. Something like the last Friday of every month there would be an update of about ten thousand or so words, the equivilent of an Act/Stave/Part of my previous books. There would be six parts in total and it would run until the end of the year. I’m not commiting to this right now, though, because any time I commit publicly to something it ends up falling on its face. But it is an interesting notion, seeing as how I have been able to come up with a ten thousand word short every month since March. That amount of words at that pace seems just about right. We’ll see where I am with all this after AotY.

And that’s about it. I’m going to be going overseas in June, so you probably won’t hear a lot from me on the website until July. It’s a living, y’know. What can I say? If you have any suggestions or just want to tell me I suck, the comments are always open.

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Like Scruffy’s Revenge did with Happy Valley, this story contains spoilers from The Tumbleweed Dossier. Those who want to read TTD first, I advise you to click, buy, read then read this story. If not, enjoy!

The Strange Case of Felix Faraday

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It’s nothing to be ashamed of, privately (but I wouldn’t go out and advertise the fact that you write fan fiction if you are trying to find a literary agent.) Many aspiring writers try their hand at fan fiction. I sure did. At the very least it helps them home their craft so they can begin writing original works. But for those who want their fan fiction to be taken seriously, that’s where the dream ends. fan fiction gets a bad rep for a reason, and that reason is most of it sucks. Another reason authors of fan fiction aren’t taken seriously is, beyond the legal aspect, because agents and publishers think that they are too lazy to come up original characters, settings, stories, etc. That, and fan fiction authors are viewed as over-excited fanboys/girls who haven’t taken the right dose of medication.

But there is a way to beat all that! Fan fiction, when done right, isn’t really fan fiction. It’s original work! Yes, I know that must be very confusing, so let me break it down for you. Here is how you can write fan fiction, have it not suck and still be able to attach your name without being called a hack, a nutcase or an intellectual property thief.

1. Choose a character or property you love. Or maybe even two or three.
2. Come up with an original story for them. You have to give your audience a reason to read your work. Don’t rehash old events and give it a twist ending, or tell vignettes that take place in between seasons/episodes/books/issues/etc. Come up with a completely original and complete story with a beginning, a middle and an end.
3. Make the characters your own. Tweak them slightly or even dramatically. Change their names. Give them their own original back-stories. This is key to not being sued, and is what gives your umbrella of legitimacy.

Now all that may sound like a no-brainer, but many fan fiction authors can’t seem to grasp onto the concept of originality. I know what you’re saying. “But people will think I just ripped off the idea from such-and-such!” Yeah. So? Having that stigma is much better than having the stigma of fan fiction attached to you. Plus, if you use original characters, you are not bound by pre-existing facts and events to tell stories. You have a complete license to do whatever you want with them! They are YOUR characters, so make them your own! Characters are what make a good story. If you don’t have good, interesting characters, then nobody is going to care about the story that you are telling.

But, if you simply MUST cling to your beloved characters in their true and unaltered form, there is a way to do it and stand out from the over-stunk landfill of fan fiction.

1. You must not suck. You cannot lie to yourself about your writing abilities. If you suck, then you’ll go nowhere. If you are good, or even great, it makes it easier for the audience to hold their nose to avoid smelling the putrid fan fiction fumes while they read your work.
2. You HAVE to tell an original story. This is the same as step two above. Originality is what separates you from the rest of the landfill.
3. You have to know the characters intimately. No, I’m not talking about having imaginary sex with them (which I KNOW some people do in their minds. Blech!) I am talking about knowing who they are, what motivates them, and why they do what they do. This is why back story is so important. The character’s past influences who they are, and without that knowledge you are going to be flailing badly, and all the fanboys will be able to tell. And you should care what the fanboys think because they are the only ones reading your stuff.

So, with all that in mind, get out there and write yourself a good story. It is all about the story, after all, so write the best one you can.

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Anyway, I totally stole this idea from him. There’s this website called FaceBook that everybody loves, and you can become fans of things on it. So I figured (after Al had already done it) “Hey! I can use the FaceSpace to sell books and to let all my adoring fans tell me how great I am!” Clicky-click to become a fan. All the cool kids are doing it.

Oh. Also: new story on Monday. It’s TTD related, so I hope you’re all excited.

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Cory Doctorow said “The reality is that the biggest threat to book-writers and publishers is that their works are simply invisible to people who get all their information from the Internet. …[The] biggest threat as an author isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity.” He said this as a way of explaining why he released his novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, under a Creative Commons license, which essentially means he gave it away for free online. My books, as awesome as they are, are still an obscurity. I want to change that. Here is what I have decided to do.

1) Write one more 50k word story in the style of Happy Valley, Son of Santa and The Tumbleweed Dossier.
2) Write a bonus short story related to each of the four books. (Scruffy’s Revenge, the Happy Valley related story, is already finished.)
3) Publish special editions of all these books with the short stories as bonus material. This will be the only printed edition of the fourth book.
4) Make the text of these special editions available on this website, as well as free downloadable PDFs.
5) End the printing of any and all previous editions of these titles.
and 6) Retire this format.

That is the plan and I am committed to it. This will not be easy, nor will it take place immediately. I hope to have all this accomplished by the end of the summer. Hopefully, this will help me raise out of obscurity a tiny bit. “But how will you make money off this?” Good question, stupid! Here’s an answer! There is no guarantee that this will generate any income. I am going to set up a Tipjar, and hopefully people who still like the old fashioned way of reading books will still buy the hard copy versions of the new special editions.

“So, what’s your end game?” Best case scenario: SRD.com takes off and the special editions become online bestsellers. Letters from agents and publishers fill up my inbox, begging me to write something exclusive for them. If any of that happens, my wildest expectations will be exceeded. Worst case: Everything stays the same and all the hard work was for naught. I really can’t lose, as the only thing I will be losing is time, which I probably would have wasted anyway. I’ll keep you all updated as things move along. Like I said, I’m hoping to have all this ready before the end of the summer.

Okay, now for some movie related news.

Happy Valley movie: No change. Things are apparently still on target for filming to begin in Spring 2010. I still have very little to do with the project other than provide the source material.

Plain City: This is the script I wrote for my brother, Danny, earlier this year. It is going to be a short film that spoofs overly complicated television dramas, specifically Twin Peaks and 24. Rehearsals for this thing start next weekend. Again, I have very little to do with the project besides having written the script.

So, that’s it for right now. Sorry I didn’t do a super-special April Fool’s Day prank, but you probably got enough of that all over the internet anyway. Anything I would have come up with would have been grossly disappointing.

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So with none of my back material to back me up, I am moving forward from this day on! It is a brand new day, and a brand new blog (sort of.) Today represents new beginnings. The focus of this website will be to promote my fiction and sell books. And in that spirit, I have a couple of awesome Happy Valley-related announcements.

Annoucement the first: Happy Valley has been officially optioned to be adapted into film. You heard right, folks. There is going to be a Happy Valley movie. My good friends over at Solar Shock Pictures expressed interest in taking on the project last fall, and we signed an agreement last week. As it stands right now (it could change later) I have very little to do with the project. My only official jobs are to criticize and complain about everything, which I am GREAT at. From my understanding there will probably be a script by late summer and filming will begin in Spring 2010. I will keep everybody posted on the progress of the project.

Announcement the second: Scruffy’s Revenge, a Happy Valley related short story, has been completed and is available for your immediate and cost-free consumption. Some of you may remember the first half of this story being posted on Halloween. Well, I actually finished the story. Personally, I love it and want to share it with the world. I must warn you that Scruffy’s Revenge contains several spoilers if you have not yet read Happy Valley. This was done so that those unfamiliar with the events of HV would know what the hell was going on. I think that this story may be the best thing I have ever written to date.

You probably aren’t asking yourself “What can I do to help SRD and his forward-looking revival?” but I am going to tell you anyway.

1) If you haven’t already, buy my books and read them. 2) Post reviews on Lulu and Amazon. Let everybody know that these books are awesome. 3) Comment here on the website. But don’t comment just for the hell of it, say something interesting, insightful or fun. Anything else is just, you know, dumb. And 4) Invite your friends. The more the merrier.

Now, I know for a FACT that some of you are saying “Well, gee, SRD. You’ve said you have had new beginnings before, and you totally flake out and hit your DELETE EVERYTHING NOW button. What makes this time different?” It’s true, I have attempted to jumpstart/reboot the website before. But here is why you should trust me this time. 1) While I will update regularly, I won’t just post stuff just for the sake of posting it. You will only get updates when I have something to say/announce. Trust me, it’s better that way. 2) Actually, that’s the only reason. But it’s a damn good reason!

So, here’s to looking forward and whatever! Huzzah for the internet!

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