Blarg!

Bill's blog. Writing, guitars, gratuitous Simpsons references, you'll find i​t all here. Almost certainly a waste of time for both you and the author. On the internet, that's actually a plus.

New Column: How to Defeat Impostor Syndrome

Photo credit: Petteri Sulonen

Photo credit: Petteri Sulonen

This month, I tackle impostor syndrome. It's something that people in lots of careers experience, not just writers. Here's a quick excerpt:

Impostor syndrome is like an earworm; it gets stuck in your head till it drives you crazy, and the easiest way to get rid of it is to give it to somebody else. Mention to a friend how similar their novel is to one of your favorites, the one that everybody has read and is now sick of. Point out how the magazine that published their latest short story is going under because their terrible stories made their subscribers set themselves on fire.

How to Defeat Impostor Syndrome

New Column: DIY Writing Retreat

I'm gonna walk you through the process of setting up a do-it-yourself writing retreat on the cheap.

Photo by Les Haines

Photo by Les Haines

  • Spend the first hour socializing with your fellow writers. You will know a great many things about each other before you’re through.
  • Take a quick hike through the woods to get the lay of the land. Smell the fresh air. Relieve yourself as the animals do; there’s a reason forests are known as God’s toilet. This will also mark your territory in case a wandering pack of writers tries to horn in on your retreat.
  • Vow to just let things happen. “Retreat” implies surrender. Submit yourself to the muse, let her take you where she will. Listen to her whispers—Immerse yourself in the mossy pond, she says? Then thrill as the cold water awakens every nerve in your body. Withdraw to the kitchen for a craft beer at 9 a.m., she says? There’s a bottle opener in the kitchen drawer, the one with all the knives. Trust the muse, she knows her work.

Read the whole thing here.

New column at Writer Unboxed: Are You a Real Writer?

The hot topic on Twitter among writers this week was whether you had to go to a fancy workshop like Clarion in order to call yourself a "real writer." In my column, I weigh in with some Very Serious answers on this Very Serious topic.

This week, the illustrious Neil Gaiman tweeted an endorsement of the Clarion Writer’s Workshop, a pricey, six-week writing retreat in California:

Whoa, wait a minute! Did he mean “need” in the same sense that we need oxygen to breathe?

The answer is yes, that’s exactly what he meant, and if you don’t have six weeks and a few thousand bucks to spare, there’s no daily word count that will save you, poseur.

This revelation ignited a firestorm among the common rabble. Many writers argued that Famous Author Neil Gaiman had forgotten that not everybody goes to bed with a rock star on top of a pile of money, and that many writers have various personal and financial obstacles preventing them from attending such programs—obstacles that Gaiman works tirelessly from the shadows to keep in place. Tough job market? Rising child-care costs? Debilitating disease? If you knew how much power and influence he and his fellow Real Writers have over your day-to-day lives, you’d never pick up another book again.

Go read the whole thing here.

Are You a Real Writer? at Writer Unboxed

Come see me at Illogicon V this weekend

I'll be at Illogicon this weekend in Durham, NC January 8-10. Come on down to the  and hear me say something dumb. This year, I'll once again moderate the "The Sporting Geek" panel about where sports fandom and geeky fandom collide (see below for full descriptions). I'll also be a panelist on the "Writing Stand-Out Superheroes" session. As per usual, I'll be paneling with some pretty smart folks, so it'll definitely be worth your while.

Friday, January 8

  • The Sporting Geek - 6-7 pm (I'm the moderator!)
    Being a nerd doesn't mean you have to shun sports. Sure, we'll talk mainstream stuff like basketball, football, baseball, and hockey, but we'll also delve into geek-friendly activities like rock climbing, running, and disc golf. Anything that's nerdy and sporty is fair game, from sabermetrics to fantasy sports like Quidditch and Calvinball. 

Sunday, January 10

Writing Stand-Out Superheroes - 10-11 am
I don't have a description for this session, but it's pretty much what it sounds like.

New Column: The Dumbest Mistakes New Authors Make

Read my latest Hacks for Hacks column at Writer Unboxed, "The Dumbest Mistakes New Authors Make." Here's a Costco-sized free sample: 

Beginning in the wrong place. A lot of newbies have perfectly good stories, but don’t start them in the right place. Where’s the right place? I recommend you begin writing in a nice coffee shop so everybody can see what a busy and creative author you are. It’s the perfect atmosphere to pen the 10,000-word prologue about your protagonist’s great-great-grandparents.

Not knowing your audience. If you want to please readers, you’ve got to do your homework. Get to know your readers by approaching strangers in bookstores. “Hey!” you’ll say in a loud, cheery voice. “I see you’re perusing the erotica section! I myself am working on an erotica novel! Can I run some ideas by you? No need to get the manager, this is market research!” When the security guards inevitably show up, pick the officers’ brains about what they look for in a police procedural.

The Dumbest Mistakes New Authors Make

New column at Writer Unboxed: Applying to MFA Programs

Photo by Lordcolus

Photo by Lordcolus

I'm a big fan of higher learning, which is why my new column at Writer Unboxed is about Applying to MFA Programs. Here's a quick excerpt:

To find the program that’s the best fit, you’ve got to do your homework on prospective schools.

  • Look up their acceptance rate, which at some schools is so small that they can only be seen by microscope. Less selective institutions might have an acceptance rate as high as 20 percent, meaning your odds of failure are only four out of five! Those are lousy odds, but if numbers were your thing, you wouldn’t be applying to MFA programs.
  • Do they have famous faculty or alumni? This is crucial for name-dropping purposes at cocktail parties.
  • How much financial aid is available. Are there fellowships? Teaching assistantships? There are always student loans; as your MFA pays dividends the rest of your career, so too will you write checks to Nelnet for the rest of your miserable life.

Go read the whole thing, then get those applications in the mail.

Applying to MFA Programs via Writer Unboxed

Read my new column: "How to Get the Perfect Author Photo"

Say "Cheese!" and smile for the camera, not necessarily in that order. Head over to Writer Unboxed to check out my new column, How to Get the Perfect Author Photo.

What is an Author Photo?

Let’s start with why we’re going through this rigmarole. An author photo is a selling tool designed to let your fans know what you look like so they can properly throw themselves at you when they see you. To do that, you’ll need to…

Hire a Photographer

No, that blurry selfie you use for your Twitter avatar isn’t going to cut it. It’s time to go to a professional. That means someone with AT MINIMUM 500 followers on Instagram. This will not come cheap, but it’ll be the best twenty-bucks-plus-a-case-of-Pabst you’ll ever spend.

It’s time to go to a professional. Look for someone who has AT MINIMUM 1,000 followers on Instagram.

Any reputable photographer should be able to guarantee you’ll get some action as a result of this photo. Ask them about this specifically.

How to Get the Perfect Author Photo

New Hacks for Hacks column: "How to Win a Twitter Pitch Contest"

Come see my new column at Writer Unboxed, "How to Win a Twitter Pitch Contest." Here's an excerpt:

A good Twitter pitch reduces a story to its juiciest, most primal elements. It’s gotta have a protagonist, a conflict, and most importantly, the correct hashtag. Here are some examples to give you an idea:

The Lord of the Rings
The chosen one fulfills the prophecy to defeat the evil overlord. #pitchmas

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The chosen ones fulfill the prophecy to defeat the evil overlord. #pitmad

Example pitch: Ulysses–An MFA student tries to impress girls at a party by pretending to have read a literary masterpiece. #pitfall

Now that you know the format, write pitches for other popular media for extra practice:

“There’s a Hole in the Bucket”
Liza and Henry relate a recent spat to their marriage counselor. #pitchthing

“A Boy Named Sue”
A son overcomes a lifetime of adversity to reunite with his estranged father. #pitchandcatch

Ulysses
An MFA student tries to impress girls at a party by pretending to have read a literary masterpiece. #pitfall

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
The chosen one is filled with metaphysical microbes, becomes the evil overlord. #pitachips

Go read the whole thing, why don't you?

How to Win a Twitter Pitch Contest via Writer Unboxed

Would you like to beta read my novel?

I finally finished writing my new novel, Challengers. Now comes the part when I send it to people I trust who'll read it and tell me what works and what doesn't. That said, I also need to hear from people who are less familiar with my work so I can see how it sits with a wider audience. If you're interested in being one of those people, here's the gist of the book:

tl;dr version: X-Men meets Friday Night Lights

Longer version: Eighteen-year-old Cody Hawthorn had waited his whole life to go to college to learn to be a superhero. Sadly, he's just not super enough. Top-tier universities find his 2,000-pound bench press rather pedestrian. He can run 40 mph? Yawn. They'd love Cody if he still knew how to fly, but a nasty injury cost him his ability to get airborne.

Cody had resigned himself to studying history and teaching high school in his hometown until Piedmont State University finally offered him a scholarship to double-major in history and heroics. When he gets to campus, Cody wonders if he made a mistake--among his new team of magicians, gravity manipulators, luchadors, and a cybernetically enhanced bear powered by Google Android, Cody's the worst student in the program. At least Cody gets to study under his childhood idol, Orion. 

Orion, the greatest and most powerful hero the world has ever known, is retired from active duty at forty-one years old. In his prime he had the strength to move mountains and the toughness to withstand an atomic bomb. However, his career of fistfights and crashing into buildings has left his body a wreck. When he's not nursing a dependency on painkillers, he stays busy as a faculty member at Piedmont State. However, it's a much tougher place to work than he'd expected. Piedmont State is like if you infused Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters with the bloated bureaucracy of a public university, and replaced Professor X with Bear Bryant. Orion's clashes with his boss (and the fact that, as an educator, he couldn't teach a dead man to sit still) have him on the verge of getting fired.

Both he and Cody are going to have to get their acts together because Orion's old nemesis, Claude Lafitte--the self-proclaimed Emperor of Louisiana--is still in his prime and planning to start a second Civil War. But how can either Cody or Orion save the day when they can barely keep their positions on campus?

Sound interesting? Want to take a crack at this? Read on.

What I'm looking for:

  • Your overall impression
  • What you liked
  • What you didn't like
  • Places you got bored
  • Stuff that confused you/didn't make sense
  • Characters you particularly liked and disliked
  • If people do anything unbelievable or ridiculous
  • Do the plot twists work, or did you see them coming?
  • Whatever else you feel like mentioning

What I'm NOT looking for:

  • Proofreading. Obviously spelling and grammar are important, but the book will probably change a lot between now and the final version. Pointing out the comma splice on page 137 won't be a good use of your time if I end up overhauling or deleting that entire chapter anyway.

My ballpark turnaround time is by mid-August. If this sounds like your cup of Gatorade and you've got some spare time, fill out the contact form and I'll send it your way. Either way, thanks for stopping by, and I hope you're reading something you enjoy.