Fanmail Q&A – Beta Readers

Dear Pat,

I read your post about book two, and I just wanted to say thanks for letting us know. It’s nice having a real date.

I noticed that you aren’t posting much on facebook or your blog these days, and I hope it’s not a result of people shitting in your cereal. (metaphorically speaking.) I don’t read any blogs other than yours, and I’d hate for you to quit writing stuff online just because of a few dickheads.

I’m actually writing because I was curious about a term you used in your previous blog. You said that you were wondering about who you could still use as beta readers. I hate to sound ignorant, but what’s a “beta reader”? Is it a different name for a copyeditor?

Hugs and kisses,

Simon

Heya Simon, thanks for being patient. I appreciate it.

I’ve been offline a little more these days partly because I’m focusing on revisions, but also because my main computer is in pieces in my closet right now. These days I’m getting my internet access the way our neolithic ancestors did, by hanging out in coffeeshops, using the public library, and viciously stealing unsecured wifi from my neighbors late at night.

To tell you the truth, I don’t remember when I began using the term beta reader. I might have picked it up from other writers, or I could have started using it on my own. If I had a better internet connection right now, I’d do a little research into it, but I’ve only got 35 minutes before I have to give up this computer (I’m in the library right now.)  

Wherever I found it, I’m pretty sure I’ve been using the term in one way or another for about 6-7 years .

When I say beta reader, I’m talking about someone who reads an early version of my book and gives me feedback on it. Sort of the same way a beta tester gives a software developer feedback on a nearly-finished game.

I also have people I call alpha readers. They read very early, very rough versions of the book and tell me what they think.

I have gamma readers too. They read my solid, almost-finished drafts.

I don’t go any lower than that, simply because I worry that some of my friends would be insulted if I referred to them as Epsilon readers. Plus, every time Kvothe climbs on top of a building, I know I’d have a slew of them writing “Roof! Oh Roof!” in the margins of my manuscript.

Alpha readers are hard to come by, and I only have a handful. These are people who know the book really well. They tend to be old friends who have been reading my stuff for years, if not decades. Many of them have read all three books. Many of them have role-played in my world, back when they lived closer to me and I had the spare time to run games. 

Brett, the guy who draws illustrations for the blog, is one of these. He read an early version of my book back in 1990’s when we were both students at UWSP.

Sarah is also an alpha, and she’s been helping me recruit another future reader:

This is Sarah reading a beta version of The Wise Man’s Fear a couple months back. She reads it out loud to Oot sometimes.

Click to embiggen

Oot:  “Is that a comma splice Momma?”

Sarah: “They’re all comma splices, sweetie.”

From what I’ve been able to gather, I work differently than a lot of other authors, in that I like to get a lot of feedback on my book while I’m revising. A lot.

Also, generally speaking, I prefer my test readers to be just regular readers, as opposed to other writers. 

Note that this isn’t a hard and fast rule. Brett, for example, is a great writer, and one of my favorite alphas. But generally speaking, I prefer getting feedback from, say, plumbers. Or chemical engineers. Or actors. Or historians.

I have several big reasons for this, but the biggest one is this: after my book is published, the vast majority of people who read it won’t be writers. They’ll be teachers, or fry cooks, or programmers, or soldiers. If I only gathered  feedback from other writers and slowly shaped my book according to what they said, I’d end up with a book designed to please writers. Personally, I find that thought vaguely terrifying.

Anyway, my time’s about up on this computer. Hope this answers your question, Simon.

Hugs and kisses to you too,

pat

Posted in Fanmail Q + A, Oot, Sarah, the craft of writing | By Pat115 Responses

There and Back Again….

So I’m back from Penguicon and the signing off near Detroit.

Both events were a good time. I had the chance to read the Princess Book to a few people, hung out with other author types and talked geeky writing talk. It was fun. I’ve even got a few pictures to share…

I’ll post those things later. Today I’m going to talk about part of the convention that usually gets glossed over: The traveling.

The truth is, traveling is one of the hardest parts of going to conventions. It is for me at least.

Conventions themselves are easy for me. I meet people, sign books, talk on panels, and do readings. It’s exhausting, but it’s not hard. I’m a fairly decent public speaker, and I like meeting fans and other authors. So conventions are a treat for me. They’re a break from my otherwise rather unsocial and solitary life.

But the traveling isn’t fun. It’s expensive, irritating, and time consuming. Worst of all, I seem to get sick every time I go on an extended plane ride.

That’s the main reason that I do so many events here in the midwest. And that’s the reason that I decided to drive to Penguicon.

It takes about 8-9 hours to drive from central Wisconsin to Troy, MI. Still, given check-in times and layovers, that’s only a couple hours longer than a plane. Plus it’s cheaper and I don’t have to worry about people groping through my luggage.

The trip to the convention was relatively uneventful. I made a pitstop in Madison to hang out with some friends I don’t see nearly often enough and helped one of them move some furniture around in his new apartment.

Have I ever mentioned that I used to be a professional mover? It was only a summer job, and I was in better shape back then. But still, it’s nice to keep my hand in, just in case this whole writing thing doesn’t pan out for me in the long run.

It’s on the way back from the convention that things get interesting. After my library reading I hop in my car, enter my home address on my Magellan, and start driving.

I feel I should mention here, in yet another tangent, that I feel morally conflicted about the Magellan. I got it as a Christmas present from my dad, and it’s wonderfully convenient. But at the same time I believe devices like this are actively endumbening the populace. You should be able to read a map, folks. You should know which direction north is.

Did I ever mention I used to be a delivery driver too? I was. I can read a map. What’s more, using a brilliant mixture of zen navigation, Aristotelian logic, and pure rage I can get you your package and/or delicious sandwich relatively close to on-time.

That’s another fallback career for me.

That said, I do use the Magellan when I’m in unfamiliar territory. I don’t have a map of Detroit. It’s quick, easy, and usually accurate.

Note the *usually.*

The Magellan tells me to turn right, then left, then right. I just follow along, as most of my attention is focused on listening to Warren Ellis’ Crooked Little Vein on audiobook.

But something doesn’t feel right. I look at the one of the passing signs and see that I’m heading north. I pull over in a gas station and have a discussion with the machine:

Me: What the fuck, Magellan?

It: Calculating Route.

Me: No. Seriously. What the fuck?

It: Turn right onto North 74.

Me: North isn’t the right way to go.

It: Ding!

Me: I’m going to Stevens Point. In Wisconsin. Through Madison.

It: Calculating route. Stevens Point is 974 miles away.

Me: The fuck it is. Go south.

It: Ding! Turn right onto North 74.

So I throw the thing into the footwell of the car. I throw it hard, too. So it knows who’s in charge. You people might have to deal with that sort of insolent backtalk from your machine overlords, but not me. I work with machines in one way: they do what I say or I fucking destroy them and do it myself. I consider myself a Darwinistic force in machine evolution. I’m encouraging them to evolve along more helpful lines.

The gas station is depressing. The woman behind the counter doesn’t know which road leads back to I 94. She doesn’t think the gas station has any maps to sell. She suggests I get directions from someone who has an iphone. She has one eyebrow. Not kidding.

So I find the maps myself, buy one, and get back into the car. Using the map and eight seconds of rational thought, I find the sensible route home.

After two hours the Magellan’s battery starts to die and it chirps at me pitifully from the passenger-side footwell. I let it starve for another ten minutes then bring it out and we have another conversation.

Me: How far away is Stevens Point?

It: 820 miles?

Me: What’s your name?

It: M-Magellan?

Me: No. Your name is bitch. I’m asking you one more time, how do you get to Stevens Point?

It: You should head south through Chicago on I 94.

Me: That’s right I should.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that an hour later, after paying a toll, my driver side window refuses to roll back up. Machines tend to stick together like that.

So I pull over at another gas station and kick the hell out of the door for a while. I do this partly in case it’s a loose wire or something that can be fixed by kicking, but also as a warning for any other machines nearby that are considering insubordination.

Then I go into the gas station and explain the situation. I don’t want to drive another three hours with damp, 50 degree air blowing into my ear. Cardboard and duct tape isn’t good either, as it would limit my visibility too much. The attendant there is cool, and lets me poke around in back looking for useful supplies until I find a roll of that plastic stuff you use to wrap up pallets.

Did I ever mention I used to work in a warehouse? I did.

I have to say, even though I’ve been out of the game for about two decades, I still have some mad pallet-wrapping skills.

Then I went home.

Everything said, it was still way better than flying.

pat

Posted in being awesome, conventions, day in the life, tangentality | By Pat94 Responses

I said I’d tell you when I knew….

So my editor has finished reading the great beastly draft of The Wise Man’s Fear I sent her a while back.

It’s the third draft she’s read, but it’s the first one I’ve really had any confidence in. The first one was pure crap. The second one was mostly complete but still pretty shaky in parts.

This draft was good. I’m verging on being proud of it. It still has a few problems, but they’re manageable problems.  They’re problems I can percieve and get my head around, and that means they’re problems I can solve.

So Betsy got back to me with her feedback on the manuscript: a list of 27 things she felt needed attention in the book, arranged in nicely worded bullet points. (The formatting was at my request. I’m fond of bullet points.)

Some of her 27 points are small things. Some are bigger issues. We agree about most of them. Two or three will require a bit of negotiation.

It’s really not a long list, especially when you consider that my own list of things-that-need-fixing-in-book-two currently stands at about 50 or 60 items.

Every time I sit down to work on the book, I try to resolve a few of those issues. Sometimes I fix something and cross it off the list. Other times, a beta reader will bring something to my attention and I add it to the list. As I work, sometimes new problems occur to me, and I add those to the list as well. Sometimes I fix something, and that causes a new problem. So I cross something off and add something at the same time.

It’s kinda like trying to iron all the wrinkles out of a shirt. A huge, living, n-dimentional shirt.

As an example: tonight I worked on the book for about 9 hours. I crossed off four things on my list and added six things. But most of those six things are small, while two of the things I fixed were moderately big and complicated. So it was a good day’s work. (Unfortunately, because one problem tangled me up for four hours, I didn’t get home until 1:30 AM, which means I didn’t get to say goodnight to Oot, which sucks.)

Anyway, earlier today I talked on the phone with my editor about the book. We talked about her 27 points.

My editor asked me if I could have the book done by September.

I thought about it. I thought about her 27 points and my ever-changing 50-60 points. I thought about who I can still use as beta readers, and how many drafts I’ll be able go through in four months. I thought about how many times I will personally be able to read the book in four months.

I said I was sure I could finish it by September.

She asked me if I was sure. Really sure.

I thought about it. Back in 2007, I was sure I’d have the book done by 2008. But I was hugely ignorant and optimistic back then. So I was dead fucking wrong. That caused a lot of grief.

I told her I was really sure I could have it finished by September.

Come hell or high water? She asked me.

Come hell or high water, I said.

So we agreed that I’d have the book finished by September. It was nice. It made us both happy.

So that’s part of the news, that I’ll be finished writing The Wise Man’s Fear by September.

But here’s the rest of the news: that means that the book can’t come out until March of 2011.

Why? Well, for a bunch of reasons. Mostly because there are a lot of things that have to happen before a mass of text becomes a printed book on a shelf. It needs to be copyedited. The edits need to be confirmed.  It needs to be proofed, checked for consistency, fiddled with. Fonts need to be chosen. It needs to go through layout. Then it needs to be proofed again. Marketing needs to happen. It needs to be sent to reviewers, and the reviewers need to have time to read it before they write the reviews. It needs to be put into catalogs of to-be-published-books so people who run bookstores can learn about it and order copies for their stores. It needs to be printed, boxed, warehoused, shipped. We need to sacrifice a black she-goat and pray to strange and terrible gods. Then we need to proofread again.

A lot of these steps are going to take longer than normal because my book is 2-3 times longer than most ordinary novels. Other things are going to take longer because this book is kinda important to a lot of people, and we want to make sure everything gets done just right.

The simple truth of the matter is this: that’s just the way it is. I wish it could be sooner, and I’m guessing many of you feel the same. Believe it or not, if the publisher could wave a magic wand and make that happen, they would. (Remember, they don’t make money on the book until they can sell it.)

But there’s no way the book can come out earlier and still have it be the best book possible.

So that’s what happened today: I found out the publication date for The Wise Man’s Fear – March 1st 2011.

Honestly, it would be way easier for me to sit on this information for a while. I could wait until the date was a little closer, thereby avoid some of the great wailing and gnashing of teeth I expect will follow this announcement. That shit brings me no joy. It damages my calm and makes it harder for me to write.

But I promised y’all I would pass along the *real* publication date as soon as I knew it. So that’s what I’m doing.

March 1st 2011.

pat

Posted in book two, Things I didn't know about publishing | By PatComments closed

Signing in the Detroit Area

Is it just me, or does the phrase “Detroit Area” seem like some sort of horrifying euphemism?

Most euphemisms are kinda friendly, playful even. It’s easy to say things like “my privates” or “my special purpose.” That’s the whole reason behind a euphemism, to give us a way to refer to indelicate things in places where we can’t simply say, “genitals” out loud.

But man, “Detroit Area.” That has the opposite effect, doesn’t it? What sort of wretched, demented individual would use the term “Detroit Area” to refer to their nethers? In what context would that be considered even remotely appropriate? I can’t help but think of dimly lit alleys and phone-sex hotlines that charge 29 cents a minute.

Gech. I can’t stop thinking about it now. This shit’s gonna give me bad dreams…

What was I talking about again?

Oh. Yeah. I wanted to tell you that I’m going to be in the… out there. In eastern Michigan.

I’ll be attending a convention Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, then doing a my usual reading/signing/Q&A combo at the Baldwin Public Library on Sunday afternoon.

The details, as always, are over on the tour-schedule page of my website and on facebook, but I know how lazy y’all are, so I’ll just cut and paste the upcoming weekend’s events here for those of you who pay for your internet on a per-click basis.

PenguiCon 2010
April 30th – May 2nd
Panels, Signings, Q&A
Troy Marriott
200 W. Big Beaver Rd.
Troy, Michigan 48084
Website

Reading, Signing, and Q&A
Sunday, May 2nd 2:00pm – 4:00pm
Baldwin Public Library
300 West Merrill Street
Birmingham, MI 48009
Website

I’ve never been to PenguiCon before, but I have high hopes. The last time I went to a convention in Michigan this happened:

[Edit: for those of you who are curious, that’s John Scalzi in the middle of this freaky little love in. Jim C. Hines is on the left. I’ve mentioned his Goblin books on the blog before. He’ll be at Penguicon this weekend too…]

There, now we’ll both have trouble sleeping tonight…

pat

Posted in appearances, tangentality | By Pat76 Responses

Books for Boobs

Sometimes I write a great blog and then struggle over the title for a ridiculous amount of time before eventually settling on something vaguely mediocre.

Other times, I write the title first and then think to myself, “Well, that pretty much says it all. Everything is going to be downhill from there.”

This is one of those times.

Earlier today someone sent me a message saying, “Are you going to blog about the books for boobs thing you did?”

My first thought was, “What the hell are they talking about? Was this something I did at a convention when I was really sleep deprived and crazy on sugary mochas? What did I do?”

I thought about it for a minute and dragged up a memory from a convention last July. “How the hell did they find out about that?” I thought to myself. “Did someone get pictures and post them on their blog?”

Luckily, it turns out I was thinking of something entirely different. But that, as they say, is a story for another time.

Books for Boobs is a charity event I donated a book to last year. They’re auctioning off stuff from different authors, including Jim Butcher, Brandon Sanderson, my mortal enemy Anton Strout, and the recently mentioned Amber Benson.

I recommend you go and check it out if only because I look kinda good in the picture they took of me. Forgive me my tiny moment of vanity, but it’s such a rare treat for me to see a picture of myself that doesn’t make me look like a bloody shambles.

Here’s the link.

Have a great weekend everybody….

pat

Posted in a billion links, conventions, Jim Butcher, my beard | By Pat46 Responses

The Adventures of Sexton Blake

Let’s get right to the point here….

This, is awesome.

If you like things that are awesome, you should buy it, listen to it, then probably buy it again just to give away to your friends who also like things that are awesome.

Need more reasons? Fine, here you go…

First, it’s BBC. So you know it’s not crap right off the bat.

Moreover, it stars Simon Jones. (Who many of you know as Arthur from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.) He absolutely nails the comedic timing of Blake all the way through this.

Secondarily, this is the best the best radio drama I’ve ever come in contact with.

Sixth and lastly: It’s cleverly written, brilliantly acted, and directed with a smooth, fast-paced clarity I’ve never experienced before.

Thirdly, I have bought no less that eight copies and given them all away as gifts.

And, to conclude, I’d like to officially add the director, Dirk Maggs, to the very short list of people I would unreservedly trust to do an alternate-media version of The Name of the Wind.

pat

Edit: I’m removing all “First” posts in order to nip this behavior in the bud. I did it as an ironcial-type joke in the last blog, and didn’t mean to establish a trend.

Posted in audiobooks, cool things, recommendations | By Pat56 Responses

And it’s off to the printer….

For those of you who haven’t heard the news, my new pet project is going to be coming out at the end of June.

While I’ve mentioned the book on the blog before, it’s only been while talking about something else, like the fundraiser or my recent road-trip.

Today, after talking about the final edits before we send the book off to the printer, I figured it was time that I give The Princess and Mr. Whiffle its very own blog. Especially as it will be coming out in just a couple months.

The other reason I wanted to mention it here is so that you folks who care enough about my stuff to check the blog regularly have a chance of actually buying one.

So here’s the brief pitch. It looks like a children’s book, but it’s really not. Seriously. It’s more like an old-school faerie tale, and I’m profoundly, almost ridiculously proud of how it’s turned out. If you have a dark sense of humor, odds are you’ll enjoy it. If not, you probably want to avoid it.

Here’s the deal: this book’s print run isn’t very big. And I have a lot of readers. That means there’s a very decent chance that the book will sell out.

In fact, there’s a good chance it might sell out really, really quickly.

That means if you want to make sure you get one, you should probably pre-order a copy. Here’s a link to the publisher’s website.

And before somebody says, “why don’t you just print more books?” let me explain that I’m just the writer here. The publisher makes all those decisions. I don’t have any say in how big the print run is.

Okay. My work here is done. Consider yourselves fairly warned.

Hope y’all have a lovely weekend, folks. Myself, I have to go dress up as Zeus for a parade….

pat

Posted in cool news, Nathan Taylor, The Adventures of The Princess and Mr. Whiffle, upcoming publications | By Pat132 Responses
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