Debut Novel Announcement: Contract of Defiance

Wow, I don't really know what else to say, except that my novel, Contract of Defiance, is finally out. This little labor of love has been a work in progress since December 12th, 2005 (yep, I remember the day I started working on it), and has gone from a red-faced screaming infant, to a well-mannered (sorta), groomed, and presentable adult. Please visit my blog page to read more about it. For an insider peek at what the process of writing this novel has been like, my very good friend and mystery author, Susan Spann, has posted a conversation/interview between us on her amazingly informative blog. We study the ideas that form and differences between science fiction and speculative fiction, and take a deeper look into genres and how to make them fit.It's a great day! Hope everyone enjoys it and has the time to sink your teeth into whatever it is you love to read!

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

Author Spotlight: Susan Spann, Mystery Writer

Two years ago, I had just moved to Colorado and wanted to meet more writer-types like me. As luck would have it, the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writer’s conference in September was just down the road, so off I went. For those in the area, I highly recommend attending this one if you can. There is so much great information shared by both local and national professionals, you just can’t help but finish the three day event feeling more pumped to keep writing than you ever have!The speakers and events were excellent, but I have to tell you, the best thing of all was getting to meet some fantastic—and by fantastic I mean INCREDIBLY AWESOME—people. Susan Spann, mystery writer and publishing attorney, is exactly that. Knowing her and seeing her reach her publishing goals has been one of the coolest experiences for me. She is hands down one of the warmest, smartest, and funniest writers you’ll ever meet, and I feel fortunate to call her a friend.So without further ado, an interview with Susan.First, tell us about yourself. Your background, your writing history, what you’re writing right now and what it’s about. Most of all, tell us all the juicy details about your exciting publishing contract!I am a transactional publishing and business attorney, which basically means I specialize in contracts. I represent a variety of publishers and authors (both traditionally and independently published). I also speak at writers’ conferences, blog and tweet about writing issues, in the hope of helping share information with authors at all stages of their writing careers. I see the transfer of information – to clients and interested authors both – as an important facet of my legal career.As an author, I write mystery novels. My current series focuses on the adventures of master ninja Hiro Hattori, who solves crimes in 16th Century Kyoto with the assistance of his friend and sidekick, a Jesuit priest named Father Mateo. The first three books in the series recently sold to Thomas Dunne publishers, and the first novel (currently titled SHINOBI) is scheduled for publication in Spring 2013. I’m very excited to see it in print!On to more general, writer-ly questions.How long have you been writing?I plagiarized my first book when I was five. Not, perhaps, the most auspicious start for a future author and intellectual property attorney, but I loved birds and “The Bird Book” was one of my favorites. I spent a week copying the pictures (and some of the words) onto construction paper, tied it with yarn and “created” a version of my own.I’ve been making up stories ever since. Fortunately, my originality has improved.What made you first pick up a pen (or laptop, computer, etc.) and want to write?I’ve made up stories in my head for as long as I could remember. My practical inspiration for writing fiction came from my ninth-grade English teacher. Her “short story” assignment prompted me to refine a fantasy world I’d been building in my head for several years. In the end, I asked her if I could turn the short story into a novel-length manuscript, and she agreed to read it. By the end of the year, I’d written almost 50,000 words. I was hooked on writing novel-length fiction, and in one form or another I’ve been writing it ever since.Why mystery? When we met, you had written at least one historical fiction book; have you written in other genres? What type of story do you have the most fun writing?I’ve written full-length manuscripts in fantasy and historical fiction as well as mystery, but I self-identify as a mystery author. It took me several manuscripts to get there, but once I started writing SHINOBI I realized that mystery is really “my thing.”  I love the puzzle element and all the “moving parts” – and I enjoy murdering my imaginary friends. (Sick, but true.) I still love the other genres, and read widely, but when it comes to writing I’m going to stick with mystery for now.What or who are your inspirations and influences?They are far too numerous to list, so I’ll give you a sampling.  A list of my writing influences would have to include both Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game is one of my all-time favorite novels) and James Rollins (author of the Sigma Force thrillers). I’ve probably read Ender’s Game a dozen times, and it never loses its power to captivate me and make me think. I’d love to write a novel that impacted readers that way.James Rollins is an inspiration on both a personal and a professional level. I’ve met him and seen him present at writers’ conferences – he’s a New York Times bestselling author, but he genuinely cares about helping other authors and about talking with writers, even those at the beginning of their careers. He also writes a rollicking good story. I own every one of his novels and most of them are tattered from multiple readings. I aspire to write as well and to interact as personably a she does.Is being a soon-to-be-published writer what you thought it would be? What expectations did you have for yourself, and how is your current trajectory comparing with that?I’m really enjoying the process. I see so much of publishing in my day job that I have a fairly accurate impression of the process, but there’s a surreal quality about it happening to me. The morning after I learned my novels had sold to Thomas Dunne, I literally woke up and told myself “Curiouser and Curiouser” – because life looks very strange on this side of the looking glass.The biggest surprise to me was discovering that publication doesn’t actually move you along the “worry curve” –it merely shifts the curve along the spectrum. Before an author finds an agent, she worries whether she will find one. After she finds an agent, the worry shifts to finding a publisher … and from there, to whether anyone will actually like the book. Since I spend a significant part of my professional life counseling other authors not to worry, it surprised me to find that I wasn’t immune to the emotional effects.Why do you write? What motivates you?I write to silence the voices in my head.In some ways, that’s literally true. When I don’t write for a day or two, I feel a pressure in my mind, as if I need to sit down and get back to the writing process. That feeling, and the motivation that accompanies it, have grown stronger in the last four years since I made the decision to focus on my writing and work toward publication.I don’t literally “hear voices” – but I’m not truly happy if I haven’t spent some part of my day on writing (or editing, which counts as writing where I’m concerned).In your opinion, what makes a great story?Anything that keeps me from thinking about the dirty laundry.For me, a “great story” keeps me up at night when I should be sleeping, and stops me from remembering there’s laundry in the wash. In some cases, it’s the characters that draw me. In others, it’s the plot or pace. Mostly, though, a great story is defined by an author’s ability to draw me into a world that replaces my real one while I’m reading and makes me long to return there after I’m through.What are some of the challenges you experience with writing?I have the attention span of a hyper-caffeinated squirrel. I am easily distracted by shiny objects, the Internet, my aquarium and cupcakes. Mmm…cupcakes. My biggest challenge is keeping my behind in the chair.Who are your favorite authors or books in your genre? In other genres?In addition to Orson Scott Card and James Rollins, I’m a big fan of Lee Child (who writes the Jack Reacher series), and P.D. James (who I consider one of the masters of modern mystery). In nonfiction, I like Jon Krakauer (Into Thin Air is a good one) and John Elder Robison. I think Be Different is mandatory reading for authors.What is your writing process? Are you a dedicated everyday writer, or catch-as-catch can? Do you have any special rituals or activities you do that help you prepare to write?I write first drafts without editing. I don’t allow myself to make even minor changes until the entire draft is complete. Then I go back and revise. The first 4-5 drafts are for my eyes alone. The next 2-3 drafts pass through my peer editors and critique group, and by draft 8 or so I’m comfortable calling the work “complete.” On balance, I’d say 80% of my writing hours are actually spent in editing.I try to write (or edit) every day, even if only for an hour or two. My daily goal is 5,000 words (if I’m working on a first draft) or 2 chapters (if I’m editing). Five days a week I write at the office, after I finish my client work for the day. Five days a week I write at home (three weeknights and two weekend mornings). The other evenings a rededicated family time with my husband and son.I don’t know if I’d call it a ritual, but I usually feed my seahorses before writing. It keeps them from banging their noses against the aquarium glass while I write. Also, I drink coffee. Lots of coffee.What made you decide togo the traditional publishing route of becoming agented then going through a publishing house over the new wave of self-epublishing?I made the decision to pursue a traditional road after considering all of the benefits and disadvantages – on balance, traditional publishing met my goals and needs better than the independent road. For example, as a publishing attorney I do business with other authors and publishers every day. It’s easier for me to avoid conflicts of interest if someone else is proposing my work to publishers – and I couldn’t think of anyone better for that job than my agent, Sandra Bond. I trust her completely and am thoroughly pleased with our business relationship. In addition, having a publisher handle typesetting and production frees me up to focus on my clients’ needs.Ultimately, I think the decision to pursue traditional publishing was exactly right for me. I also think it’s avery personal decision that each author needs to make for him-or-herself – and I’m doing a lot of blogging and personal appearances this year to help authors learn how to make that very decision.You have been speaking at writer conferences about the legal side of publishing for authors. Is your law background in copyright/intellectual property law? What has your experience as a speaker been?My practice has focused on intellectual property and publishing law for ten years now, and I’ve seen a lot of changes during that time – far more than I’ve seen with regard to my other business clients. I love being on the “cutting edge” of publishing and helping authors –published and unpublished – learn more about publishing and copyright law. That’s one reason I enjoy speaking at conferences – authors are generally bright and eager to learn as much as they can about managing their careers.More and more often, I’m finding that venues (writers’ conferences, blogs, libraries, and radio shows) are asking me to speak about the various options available to writers and how authors should choose among them. The message has shifted from “this is how you do it” to “how you decide what to do” – and I’m pleased to see authors taking responsibility for managing their careers as they would any other business.You also started the brilliant and invaluable #publaw hashtag on Twitter and your blog. I personally want to thank you for bringing such immeasurably important information to the writing world. What has your experience with this feature been like? Do you get the sense that you’ve been able to help a lot of writers who otherwise might not have had access to this kind of legal advice and information?Thank you for the compliment! I started the #PubLaw hashtag to fill a void in Twitter’s otherwise strong support for the writing community. Twitter’s hashtag system offers fantastic resources for authors – from community building (#MyWana and #AmWriting to name two), to agent advice (#AskAgent and #10QueriesIn10Tweets) and much more. I started #PubLaw to offer information about contracts and publishing law, as well as are source for authors with questions best answered by an attorney.I do have a sense that #PubLaw is filling a gap in a positive way. It lets me reach a broad audience of authors who might otherwise have no access to legal information – and I think that’s a very good thing.Do you have any advice for other writers? Anything else you want to mention or elaborate on?Nora Roberts probably said it best: “Ass in the chair.”Writers write. It’s what we do. Even if you have to start slowly – 10 or 15 minutes at a time – the only way to make progress is to write. And edit – under-editing is like under-baking a cake. Youmight call it dessert, but if it’s indistinguishable from the soup course, nobody’s coming back for seconds.Thank you so much for having me here – I’ve really enjoyed the interview!**Thank you again, Susan. It’s been a treat to have you on my blog and spend more time getting to know you. For everyone reading, please visit Susan’s super-informative blog here, talk with her on Twitter @SusanSpann, and don’t miss #PubLaw on Wednesday afternoons. And mark your calendars for the debut of Shinobi in Spring 2013!UPDATE: Susan will also be speaking at the 2012 Rocky Mountain Fiction Writer's Conference for the second year in a row! W00t! Her two scheduled talks will be on how to choose between publishing options, and a class called "Law for the Lone Wolf," giving business and legal advice for independent and self-represented/self-published authors. The conference is September 7-9. I hope to see some of you there.

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Publishing Pains: Part Two

As mentioned in my last post, this post will be a discussion of the steps, software, and distribution sources I used to epublish my first ebook, On Hearts on Scorpions. Isn’t that egreat?Note, everything I’m going to talk about is based on the features and functionality of a Mac computer, but mostly it’ll be the same on a PC. This article also assumes you’re already familiar with the types of files used in ereaders (i.e., .epub, .mobi, etc.), and have a vague idea of their structure. If not, I recommend reading more on that here.The biggest takeaway is that, with a reasonable grasp of HTML and CSS, anyone can design and create their own ebook. This is a great option for someone who doesn’t want to, a) pay someone else to do it, b) lose the flexibility of having control over your own words and art; and who does want, a) to keep the maximum amount of royalties offered through distribution sources like Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and b) to save money and simply know what the heck it’s all about.First, a list of the different types of software I’ve used. Adobe InDesign ~ traditionally used to design printable materials such as books, newsletters, brochures, etc. InDesign works beautifully and mostly seamlessly with other Adobe products and can be the creation tool for extraordinary printed materials. However, as I’ll discuss, using it to create an ebook is a little like using a bulldozer to repot a houseplant.Sigil ~ my new favorite open source software. Sigil works like a text file application and will open everything in an .epub file (except the .ncx and .opf) to allow you to edit. The on-high-awesomeness of it is that it gives you three view options: the actual appearance of your final output file, a code view, and a split view. It updates in real time so you can see if your formatting is working. It’s a beautiful thing.Calibre ~ another handy open source tool that can convert your .epub or .mobi file into another format. It’s also useful for just serving as a free ereader for your computer. I primarily thought it would come in handy for converting my .epub to .mobi, but with the new Kindle 8 formatting requirements, I’m not sure it’s still an option.KindleGen ~ fortunately, this free program from Amazon does a good job of converting your .epubs to .mobis.Kindle Previewer ~ also from Amazon and integrated with the KindleGen application for viewing your .mobis. It's nicest feature is that it shows you what your ebook will look like on the different generations of the Kindle platform, including the new Fire.Adobe Digital Editions ~ the most recommended viewer for testing your .epub files. Free from Adobe.com.TextWrangler ~ a supremely sweet text editor for Mac. Allows multiple file editing and loaded with features that assist in code development.MS Word ~ for the epubbing biz, the most widely accepted word processing application.The ProcessI’d heard InDesign CS5.5 could output a book directly in .epub format and naively believed that its *cough* ease of use would make the entire process a breeze. In all seriousness, anyone who knows Adobe products knows that there is a steep learning curve to really grasping how to use all of their infinite features. Once you have a relatively solid understanding, however, things become much more intuitive. And this stayed true...until I saw the .epub output. Yikes!While it is true that, depending on how you format your InDesign document, you’re output is the precise file structure needed for an .epub file, the downside is that the more work you do on styling your document before exporting to .epub, the dirtier and more obscenely overwritten the HTML is. The software writes new HTML for every small stylistic tweak you implement and doesn’t unwrite it if you choose to back out of something. As a consequence, the CSS is loaded with so many generically named classes that it’s like a bowl of badly deformed Skittles. An example of their sloppy HTML is, instead of using block < h1 > type tags, it gives headers a < p  > tag and a “Heading” class. o_O As ereading technology is still relatively young, you can imagine the errors and issues this messiness would introduce across the many platforms.I was able to buy the Adobe Creative Suite CS5.5 (with InDesign and Photoshop, plus a couple of other Adobe products) using a generous educational discount, but the average purchaser would have to shell out around $300 bucks for it. It’s not worth it.Biggest Takeaways: Use InDesign, if you have it, to output a very basic, unstyled .epub file, then use Sigil to make changes to and format it with specific focus on bringing the HTML to industry standard. InDesign also outputs to .rtf, which is handy if you’re planning on using Smashwords as a distributor. More on them later. Also, most ereaders do not support drop caps, so don’t waste time creating these.After many trials and errors with the InDesign output, I got a file I could live with and moved on to Sigil. The nice thing about Sigil is that it will open the guts of the .epub without you first having to convert the .epub to a .zip, then uncompress the .zip to get at what’s inside. The downside to it is that you can’t edit the .ncx (table of contents) or .opf (content and manifest) files, or add any new files, such as art or css templates. You can, however, add new chapter breaks (which are new files that you’ll have to then add to your .ncx and .opf files).After doing what I could in Sigil, I used TextWrangler (after the aforementioned conversion to .zip and uncompressing) to make final changes to all the files. The next big step was to recompress and change the file back to .epub, then convert the .epub to .mobi for Kindle. As many of you know, Amazon is the biggest retailer for ebooks, and if you want to be a success at self-publishing, you really have to play in their playground. They bought the Mobipocket reader software when ebooks were still relatively new and are holding onto this file format for the time being. Rumor has it, however, that they will move to the more universally accepted .epub format in time. Cross your fingers.My biggest mistake was reading the documentation for how to create .mobi files a little over a year ago, and technology, being technology, has changed. Therefore, I wasn’t sure if what Calibre once did to convert files from .epub to .mobi would still be viable. Fortunately, as mentioned, Amazon has made the KindleGen conversion and Kindle Previewer software freely available to download, and they worked perfectly. Amazon also provides some of the best instructions going for how to get this step done. I’m not sure Calibre would ever be needed at this point, but it’s still nice to have as a back-up to the Adobe Digital Editions viewer. Here’s why:Your .epub output from InDesign and Sigil work seamlessly with the recommended Adobe Digital Editions viewer. But after unzipping-rezipping the modified .epub originally exported from InDesign, it can no longer be viewed with Adobe DE. I have no idea why this is, and it frustrated me for awhile. After trying a few fruitless ideas, I brought the modified .epub into Calibre and set the conversion instructions to convert from .epub to .epub. It worked fine in Adobe DE afterwards. My instinct is that this may be a problem that’s exclusive to a Mac.Biggest Takeaway: The more tools you have in your toolbox, the more likely you are to get what you want, and the more troubleshooting options you have to draw from.Brief as that rundown of the software is, the fact of the matter is that you’ll have to patiently test-retest-re-retest and re-re-retest your own files before they’ll be ready to submit to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or the iBookstore. The easiest distributor of all to work with is Smashwords. In fact, they are so simplistic in their standards for submission that they won’t even take an .epub file. With Smashwords, it’s MS Word only.Quick rundown on the distribution channels I’ve explored (I'm sure there are others that I haven't):Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) for Kindle ~ author royalties at 70% (for this and all following, these figures are as of this writing and will certainly change as ebooks become more the norm).Barnes & Noble’s PubIt! program for Nook ~ author royalties for ebooks with a list price at or between $2.99 and $9.99→ 65% of the list price. For ebooks with a list price at or below $2.98 or at or greater than $10.00 (but not more than $199.99 and not less than $0.99) → 40% of the list price.Apple’s iBooks ~ author royalties at 70%.Smashwords ~ author royalties at 60% if sold through distribution partners such as Amazon, 80% if sold through Smashwords.Bookbaby ~ 100% royalty to authors after an up-front fee of $99 and up.More discussion on the royalty wars can be found here, here , and here.Though on the surface Book Baby seems to be the best deal given it’s 100% royalty return, I decided not to use them for simple reasons: loss of control on the book creation, and they charge more for every incremental additional feature. For instance, should you go with their basic $99 package, if the first file you give them doesn’t turn out right, you must then pay for revision. If you require multiple revisions, you automatically go up to the $199 premium plan. So, before you even get your book published, you’re out $200. Also, you pay them $19 for an ISBN, which is a requirement to distribute with Apple or the Sony Reader, but this price only applies if you use their services to create the ebook. A single ISBN costs $125 and a batch of ten is $250. So, for approximately the same price as Book Baby charges for a premium plan, you get ten ISBNs instead of one, plus retain all the flexibility and control of each of your books’ creation and modification.I should mention that there is, of course, an ample time commitment for learning all of the tools and standards, but once you’ve done it, you’ve done it. And think of all the geeking out you get to enjoy! You’ll only add to your knowledge as the technology changes and advances, but it will always cost you the same: nothing.Once I had my .epub and .mobi files, Amazon and Barnes & Noble were quick and painless to upload, test, and distribute through. They each had my book on their sites within twelve hours.After getting those two going, I turned my attention to Apple. Apple is the least helpful, and I have not yet succeeded in getting my book up in the iBookstore catalog. The error messages delivered through their proprietary uploader are painfully vague. Instead of beating my head against them, and knowing that Smashwords is an approved Apple iBook aggregator and part of their distribution network, I decided to move onto the task of reformatting my book for Smashwords, and just accept the 10% reduction in royalties from any book sold through the iBookstore.Smashwords is a little like that mothball-smelling, blue-haired, high school math teacher that you had to be polite to because your parents taught you to be nice to your elders, and if you didn’t, you’d flunk ninth grade. It is a great option for authors who want to self-publish thanks to their nearly Luddite technological requirements, but their website is clunky and their service is slow, slow, slow. It’s been almost a week since I submitted my book file to them, and it still sits in the review queue. Additionally, emails to their help department have gone unanswered. Thus, I have no idea what the finished product will look like.The reason I call them almost Luddite is because the only type of file they will convert from is MS Word .doc (not .docx). Therefore, none of the work you did to create your .epub file for other distributors can be applied, and you have to completely strip and reformat your document—including things like complex MS Word styles, and even italics or bold fonts—then reapply them using Smashwords’ strict guidelines. Going from MS Word to an .rtf text file to strip out all of Word’s under-the-hood code, and then putting the document back into Word to employ Smashwords’ guidelines is the most reliable option. If you’re handy with Word, this isn’t too terribly bothersome, but if you’re using Open Office or other word processing software, or are not even sure what a Word style is, it could get very cumbersome.Then there is this: all ebook distributors require an interactive table of contents (understandably). Smashwords has guidelines for how this must be created in your Word file using bookmarks and hyperlinks, but (I don’t think they know this) you must have MS Word for Windows. Word for Mac does not have the required features for accomplishing their requirements. This is the issue I’ve emailed them about and not received a response. Fortunately, I have access to a PC that would allow me to complete this step.The really nice thing about Smashwords is their coupon feature that allows you to reduce the price or make free copies of your book for special people or for promotions. They are also very flexible as to how you want your book distributed; for instance, you can set it up to distribute to Sony, Kobo, and Apple, but continue to manage your own distribution to Amazon and B&N. Sweet.This is a giant bombshell of a post and I commend anyone who got all the way through to the end. There is so much more that can be discussed for each of these points, but it would be an endless conversation. I encourage anyone who wants to know more about self-publishing in general, and epublishing specifically, to visit the blogs of JA Konrath, Bob Mayer, David Gaughran, and Barry Eisler (whose name always makes me think of Bernie Eisel, but that’s a whole ‘nuther topic). I hope folks get some helpful information from this post, and feel free to continue the discussion, point out any mistakes I may have made, or post questions in the comments.**For an update and the Final Word on the process, please visit this more recent post.

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

Publishing Pains: Part One

It happened. The book thing. Finally. Happened. And wow, believe me when I tell you, the easiest thing about self-publishing is doing the writing. Think of all the work a publisher does that you, as a writer, never have to worry much about. Typesetting, image and cover creation, editing, ISBN purchase and assignment, distribution, and *gulp* marketing. This writing gig is definitely a full-time occupation, and that’s for everything BUT the writing.But, it’s a labor of love. Why else would anyone do it? Don’t answer that. Love can be defined in many different, and let’s be honest, surprisingly crass and distorted ways. One of the genres I read and write in is horror, so I have a truly deep appreciation for these distortions. Which brings me to my first book.Just a quick history. I wrote a novel that was inspired by two of my favorite genres, science fiction and action, and completed it (as much as any book can ever be complete) about three years ago. It’s a really good story, you can take my word on that (wink, wink). I did the traditional things: submitted it to a contest (which it won o/), and shopped it out to a few agents with all the naive certainty of a fledgling writer. This resulted in a booming, yet polite, silence, to my utter shock.As I was going through this process, I tapped into the publishing world and tried to learn as much as I could about it. It is a bit soothing to the ego to realize that the reasons a book doesn’t get picked up are not completely based on the quality of the writing; it’s also very much about what’s “hot,” what can sell, what grabs an agent’s attention in the first place based on their subjective preferences, and many and sundry other factors. Almost no one read Moby Dick until a hundred years after Melville’s death. Perhaps he’d have had better luck if he’d taken the...um...whale by the horns and done the job of marketing and promoting himself. It’s possible.So as you can see, inevitably the arguments for epublishing began to work their way into the dark recesses of my brain, plant roots, and grow. The DIY punk in me could not resist the overall control that comes from being solely responsible for the babes of my own creation. Anyone who writes knows how far your own words sink into your psyche, and letting any giant, faceless, impersonal company twist them for their own ends feels a bit like pimping out your soul. Or maybe I’m being melodramatic. And maybe there’s nothing wrong with pimping out your soul. Who can say? Suffice it to say, after hearing the arguments in favor of being the master of your own publishing fate from such successful mavens of epublishing as Amanda Hocking, Barry Eisler, Bob Mayer, and Joe Konrath, I was convinced it was the right way. Which, again, leads me to my first epublished book.Patience! You knew I’d get here eventually. Anyway, my first epublished book was supposed to be the science fiction novel, but getting it ready has been a collaborative effort with Mr. Universally Talented, who is creating the cover, and who is also far more of a perfectionist than I previously realized. (The good news is that it will be out next month!) In the meantime, a writer friend, the zombie connoisseur Mark Morehead, put out a selection of his works as single shorts on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and the light of inspiration went on! I have a number of short stories sitting around, some previously published (which have matured past the exclusive rights clause), some not. I’ve always felt a bit sorry for these little gems languishing in anonymity, and began to explore the idea of epublishing a few of them in a sort of trial run, a way to get my feet wet in the DIY process of creating my own ebooks. As I revisited my archive, I realized that I had four stories that shared a central theme: love and romance.Those of you who know me are laughing right now. The thought of me, the girl who makes gagging sounds at the mere mention of Drew Barrymore films or Nicholas Sparks books, actually writing lovey-dovey stories is pretty much a knee slapper. Never fear, I have not been possessed by naked, cherubic, arrow-slinging demons. These stories are about the aforementioned kind of romance: distorted, dark, and decidedly not chocolate-hearty-and-red-rosey.With the help of a number of friends, especially Jeannie Stevenson, and Mr. UT, these separate stories coalesced into my ebook On Hearts and Scorpions. It may not be Hemingway or Dante, but the blood, sweat, and tears that went into first writing the words, then turning them into a published work is very much a universally shared agony for all writers (okay, Ernie and Dante may not have had quite the same experience in regards to ebooks). In my next post, I will regale you with the details of the specific trials and tribulations of my process for getting the ebook in publishable format. I’ll discuss the software I used, including the pros and cons of each, the different distribution organization’s I explored, and what I learned along the way. For those of you considering going this route, maybe you’ll be able to take away a few helpful tidbits that will lessen the leakage of your own systemic fluids.

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Movie Review: Act of Valor

When I grow up, I want to be a Navy SEAL.

You guessed it, I saw the movie Act of Valor recently, which is easily the best hour and a half recruitment video the military could have ever wished for. If the Navy and Army don’t see a thirty percent jump in enlistments in the next year, I’ll eat frog legs. (Frog legs, hehe, get it? Mmmkay, bad joke *rolls eyes at self*.)

Put quite simply, this movie will not disappointment anyone who enjoys action, explosions, and a healthy dose of patriotic seasoning (even on their frog legs). Act of Valor offers not only these usual genre standbys, but also takes authenticity in moviemaking to an unprecedented level. By now, most everyone interested enough in the film to be reading a review of it knows that the main characters are all real active duty SEALs, and that they filmed much of the movie using live and battlefield-current munitions. Which, of course, is what made the whole thing so damn good.

[Side story: the main weapon the SEALs carried throughout the movie is the M4 rifle, which was just coming into wide use back in 1998 when I got out of the Army. I had to ask a gun-nut friend if that was what it was because the ones carried in the film were heavily bedecked with different types of sights, scopes, stocks, camouflage, etc., which, as I understand it, are options each special operations soldier gets to personally decide on. If I ever need to accessorize an M4 (and who doesn't at some point need to?), I believe I might go with this feature.]

I have to admit, however, that this level of realism had an unexpected effect. It was eerie and dark, close enough to reality that it actually made me uncomfortable. In some scenes, it felt more like witnessing real footage from a terrorist attack; the opening scene was particularly disturbing. The blood, the splatters, the explosions, and the SEALs’/actors’ calibrated precision—knowing that these experiences aren’t far from the truth for these guys—REALLY—made it a bit hard to watch. There is something about looking into the face of a person who has personally seen, and perpetrated, violence and death and witnessed the darkest parts of the human psyche that can take the ooh-aah-show-me-more factor out anything.

Fortunately, the directors, Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh, and writer, Kurt Johnstad, seemed to understand that there needed to be a lighter side to give the film more “entertainment” value. The banter between the two lead SEALs, LT Rorke and Chief Dave, provided most of this comic relief, but also did something much more important and meaningful; it gave us viewers a sense of the granite-strong fraternal bond formed between people who live and function in a world of danger and chaos. In many ways, this subtle but powerful subtext may be more of a draw for potential new enlistees, as well as moviegoers in general. I suspect it is the same magic that moved so many war veterans who saw Saving Private Ryan. Explosions and splatter-patterns of brainy goo on walls go a long way (if you’re as much of a gore whore as I am), but what makes a person truly connect with a movie, a book, or even just a catchy image is feeling that emotional tug. And really, I’m not even sure a die hard anarchist’s eyes can stay dry at the sound of Taps on a bugle.

I’ll end with a nod to the filmmakers for doing their best to incorporate some female characters with more complexity than the stereotypical “wife left behind.” I won’t reveal any spoilers, and of course, it still doesn’t get a pass on the Bechdel Test. But in a movie based on an all male tactical team, you can hardly expect it to.

If you plan to see this movie, prepare yourself by doing two things: Bring Visine because the action and excitement are so non-stop you won’t blink the entire time. And stuff some tissue in your back pocket just in case your eyes get a little more teary at the end than you’ll feel like admitting. You can blame it on the Visine.

One last point, why does everyone refer to “the elite Navy SEALs”? Navy SEAL is the definition of elite.

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

How to Avoid the Red (Pen of) Death

Last week I read a blog post from author Molly Greene (@MollyGreene on Twitter) describing a method she uses to edit her manuscripts before sending them off for public scrutiny (and only an author, and maybe Rick Santorum, can truly understand the horrifying implications of the words “public scrutiny”). As one of those poor souls who agonizes for far too long over which word would be precise enough to describe something, or how best to leverage a comma to get my meaning across, or at what point to italicize vs. bold face a word, I have a deep and compulsive (obviously) appreciation for, at least, technical perfection in what I write. In other words, I cultivate and hoard editing tips the way gamers hoard Red Bull and joystick combinations (the last video game I played was on Nintendo, whaddya want?).Molly’s post got me thinking of the different ways I’ve tried to weed out every last typo, grammatical faux pas, and silly word choice in my writing, and I thought I’d quickly share them with you all. Let's start with her lesson, which is rather brilliant.1. Simply turn your manuscript into paperback format. This enables you to get a picture of the work that is as close as possible to how it will appear when it is a book (if you plan to publish in a print medium). Her post more fully explains the gist of this concept, which she originally borrowed from Christine Nolfi (@ChristineNolfi on Twitter) and gives step-by-step instructions on how to accomplish this with MS Word.2. I’ve heard from a number of authors that simply changing the font of your manuscript when you’re ready to do a line edit is enough of a visual “flicker” that your brain is able to see things it’s never seen before. This, of course, is incredibly handy when you’re going over a page for possibly the hundredth time, and every word you read is already inscribed on the meat of your mind like a cattle brand. When you look at something enough, you really do lose the ability to pick out details. We all know that feeling when someone in our critique group hands us back a red-penned copy of our last submission, every last extra word or typo gloating from the page as if to say, “What are you—blind and illiterate?” If you’re like me, you die a little inside when you see all that red pen.3. Which is why I tried this next thing. Because we humans have such sophisticated and helpful brains that enable us to comprehend things better by “autocorrecting” missing or misspelled words as we're reading, it truly does become somewhat impossible to accurately read our own work. For short pieces, a coworker once taught me that reading the project backwards will help suss out typos and misspellings. Imagine trying to do that for an entire novel though. Gah. Instead, what you really need are new words. Or at least, all the same words in your manuscript set out in a different order. Let me explain.Maybe this happens to you, too. When you start that final edit of your manuscript, you’ve read the whole thing so many times that you find it very, very easy to slip into a lazy mental cadence that fools you into thinking you’re already done, there’s nothing new to see. The story itself is so familiar that you’re really barely reading it anymore, your eyes just skim the paragraphs and relive the story, yet again. To break out of that cadence, I simply rearrange all the paragraphs in the story. This way, there is no storyline anymore; it’s all just a jumbled mass of unconnected paragraphs that are each forced to stand on their own.  This has helped me read each paragraph more closely, get a better sense of the way the sentences are flowing and linking, catch those missing words (usually articles like “the” or “an”) or inappropriately used punctuation, and assess overall comprehensibility.Here’s how you do it in MS Word (using Mac commands).

1. Open your document and select all (Cmd-A).
2. Go to Table - > Sort - > By = paragraph, type = text.
3. Then start your edit. Here’s where personal preference comes into play. You can either print and edit by hand, or, like I do, use the MS Word track changes feature. The most important thing is that you save this mixed up document AS A NEW FILE.
4. Once you have edited the entire work, the final step is to open up your “real” manuscript and start applying all of your changes. I generally search the real manuscript for key word phrases that happen in the paragraph I have to make changes to, then fix the mistakes.

Yes, this is incredibly time consuming. But if you don’t do it, who will?Lastly, I have a few elements I always check again. I do finds for all the following words and just make sure…

• They’re, their, there
• It’s, its
• Your, you’re
• May, might
• Compliment, complement
• Fewer, less
• Each, every
• Further, farther
• Em dash vs en dash vs hyphen, making sure they’re all the type of dash they are meant to be
• And you can add to this list with any other strings of words, characters, or grammatical ticks you personally have. Always, always, always give them one more check. If you don’t, a little more of you will die inside once the horrible red pen of death is let loose on your submission by your critique group or editor.

Incidentally, I also tried the “friend method" for editing, which was to send a single chapter of my first novel to a twenty or so different gullible schmucks friends, and ask them to proofread it for me. This had very, very mixed results. I definitely don’t recommend this method. Your friends will be frustrated with having only a disembodied bit of story to read, and you’ll be frustrated with both what they do find and what they miss. Remember, no one but grammar snobs and word nerds—like you and I—actually enjoy proofreading. Trust me on that.PS: If you find a typo in this post, I beg you not to print it, red pen it, and send it back to me. Funeral make-up really doesn't become me.

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

Skirt Sports: Show Me The Money!

Image attribution: http://www.skylinecrossfit.com/

I have wrestled and strained; tossed and tussled; agonized and grappled; even done the unthinkable—asked others what they thought—about how to approach the subject I'm about to cover.

That's right, gentle reader, I'm about to get all feminist and political and antagonistic and argumentative and...well, none of those actually. Okay, not much. I AM pissed, but I've opted for keeping it civil and brief-ish. What has me all riled up this time? It's the damn world of sports and how much inequity there is in when it comes to girls vs boys and women athletes getting paid for being awesome.

Did you know that not one, but two time female world cycling champion, Giorgia Bronzini, was only paid 3’833  euros for her championship title last year? And that the Manx Missile (also voted the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year out of a list that included a total of ZERO women finalists), was paid 7’667 euros, twice as much? [Source: Page thirty-four of the UCI 2011 Competition Guide.] And let's be clear; he's won the title only once. A heinously obvious case of pay inequality in the sport of professional cycling.

Let me go back to the SPOTY issue for a moment. Naturally, there was loud outcry among women who know a thing or two about sports (despite the stereotype that women don't know a football from a tennis racket) at the complete lack of acknowledgment of women's inclusion in the 2011 list of finalists. It's as if the panel of judges for this award are going out of their way to turn a blind eye to women's contributions to sports. Is this because women are less masterful at their chosen sport? Do women just have less “personality” than men?

 

Photo Credit: Adrian Valenzuela

 

Let's play devil's advocate for a moment and take a look at one woman-based sport, say, Roller Derby. I mean, of all the sports women play, doesn't Roller Derby exemplify everything that is bland and boring about women athletes? Doesn't it? Er, right. No one with eyesight and half a brain could claim Roller Derby as a sport and the players who do it lack personality. Pffft. Come on SPOTY judges, you really have no excuse for this kind of discrimination. (Especially in a year that saw the first ever Derby World Cup.)

And then, of course, there was the issue of the International Amateur Boxing Association wanting to require women boxers to don more appropriate attire for the sport.

Like skirts.

Yes. Skirts.

And you thought boxing was about agility, strength, and strategy. Silly boxing fans.

All right, so I'm holding back from a grossly expulsive rant here, but I just hafta ask: WTF is it with the sports world? Are women such a threat to the traditionally male realm of physical athleticism that some loosely organized and nefarious consortium of Male Privilege Saviors are doing everything in their power to just make women go away by perpetuating low pay and sponsorships, outright dismissal, and ridiculous rules about attire? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there an entire culture of voyeurism based solely on turning the female body into an object of the male gaze? What could be better than super-fit chicks in spandex?

I don't have the time or stable enough blood pressure to look for similar disparities in other sports, but no doubt they are there. However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that light uses the ambitions and talents of women athletes as fuel. Just take a look at Rebecca Rusch and all she has achieved, not least of which is the SRAM Gold Rusch tour. And a hearty cheer of respect to SRAM for sponsoring it.

As sports fans, it's up to us to look at the reasons why we watch our sport of choice, and make a conscious decision to put as much energy into and pay as much attention to women's teams as men's. In a perfect world, an athlete would be appreciated for their athleticism, and sports organizations would pay athletes based on their performance, not their gender. But because, like politics, it's all about money, if there's no one watching women, then there's no attention to and thus no profit for the big companies that sponsor athletes, events, and prizes.

Regardless, women athletes will continue using their bodies as playgrounds for the sports they love. Bullshit pay disparities and active disdain from sports organizations are no match for full-on guts, glory, and pain, and women eat that shit like Clif Bars.

Further reading: http://espn.go.com/espnw/athletes-life/8520645/riding-pros-vicious-cycle-professional-female-cyclists

And another fantastic article on being female while cycling from Jen See: http://the-toast.net/2013/07/22/on-the-bike/

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

Movie Review: Haywire

What happens when you throw a nearly undefeated mixed martial arts champion into the "ring" with director Steven Soderbergh and such heavy-hitting Hollywood giants as Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, and Ewan MacGregor? Yep, pretty much what you'd expect.If you saw the trailer to Haywire, then you already know exactly what the movie is about. Exactly. A woman working as a gun-for-hire gets burned by her employer and must piece together why while trying to save her own skin. That's it.Haywire dances around the cage, never quite landing on being either an action movie or a thriller, but throws eye-watering punches every time the audience starts to get a bit bored. And I mean this almost literally. The film's sequence of events can easily be summed up in one line: stuff happens, Gina Carano kicks the shit out of some hapless mutt who's in way over his head, more stuff, more Gina battering men as if she were the vengeful ghost of every domestic violence victim in all of history, a little more stuff, and Gina finally gets her man. The plot surrounding the fight scenes in Haywire seems only to have been necessary in order to have the film show up on movie theatre screens instead of a giant cagefighting stage at the MGM or Ceasar's in Las Vegas, and it's meandering simplicity reflects this.Director Steven Soderbergh stayed very true to form by keeping every scene, with the exception of the fight scenes, yawningly subtle (think Solaris or Sex, Lies, and Videotape). The audience is almost duped into thinking there is more going on under the hood than what appears. He must have realized by the end of the film that he'd cut too many threads loose, and attempted to neatly tuck them all back in during one final scene of revelation. If not for this, the audience would have left the theatre feeling just as dazed as if Carano had landed one of her signature Muay Thai kicks to our heads.Do not get me wrong. Even though Haywire is by no stretch of the imagination analogous to a female lead Bourne-type film, Gina Carano's blazing fists-of-fury awesomeness goes a long, long way. I highly doubt anyone who is interested in seeing this film is going because they expect Oscar-worthy writing or performances. Despite the great actors mentioned, the movie revolves completely around showcasing Carano's undeniable talent as a fighter and being one sexy woman. Throughout the entire film, my own girl crush on her was doing the equivalent of a teeny bopper at an Elvis show.One thing I will give Haywire that might surprise you is something you don't get from your usual Hollywood heroine; and that's authenticity. Unlike, say, ninety pound and nearly muscle-free Zoe Saldana or Angelina Jolie, when Carano slams a knee or fist into someone's guts, you're really hoping she doesn't mis-time her strike and knock her sparring partner into oblivion. This is a woman that could easily--like in her sleep--turn your average person on the street into a crying mound of quivering wuss-flesh before they could shriek "tap out". Her illustrious MMA career made the fight scenes in Haywire almost as good as being ringside.Haywire, of course, comes nowhere near passing the Bechdel Test (there were only three scenes throughout that had any other women, and these were mostly just crowd), but it's essentially a technicality that fails it. Carano's character is at least the lead, and the movie isn't a romantic comedy (gag!). The good news is that Gina is a natural at showbizness, and her acting abilities are not as bad as they could be (think Jean Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal). Though for her first big Hollywood film, she may have been better featured in something a little more down-to-earth, like Michelle Rodriguez's Girlfight (an all time fave of mine).If you're an MMA fan, or just like watching women fight like gladiators, this one is definitely for you. But, if you're hoping for an in depth, complex, and rich thriller/suspense film, you'll be better off waiting for the next Bourne (which, rumor has, will feature (girlish squee of joy), Jeremy Renner).Gina doing her thang.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFHX2V0qGyU]

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

All I ever needed to know about human nature, I learned from riding my bike

 The rules of human perception seem to be as follows:

Perception of Cyclists:

While I am riding, if you are slower, a pedestrian, a child, a pet, or a badly maintained road, you are an impediment to the freedom and purity that is cycling and a total waste of space and/or oxygen.

Perception of Vehicle Drivers:

While I am driving, if you are smaller; slower; a cyclist; a deer; squirrel, or raccoon; or any other animate or inanimate object, you are an impediment to the entitlement of all like me who choose to display their detachment from reality by bludgeoning into a salsa-like pulp said impediments in much the same way a rampaging Hun on cocaine with a one-ton-plus steel projectile would.

Perception of Pedestrians:

What? There are other objects in the universe that move at a greater velocity than me as I casually stroll into your path? You must be kidding.At least, this is what I perceive on my bike commute to work.

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

Winter Distance Series: Rudolph's Revenge 5K Results

Just a quick race update. The race was Saturday, and it went surprisingly well for someone who has barely run in the last few months. The weather was, as expected, a nice balmy 25 degrees (what doesn't kill you...). My toes weren't present for any of the run, having decided to take a quick jaunt to somewhere lacking any and all sensation. But it turns out, I didn't really need them. I didn't anticipate the competitive streak that erupted at the sounding gun (LIES!) and did my first mile in about 7:20.The one thing that you'll see in a 5K that you won't see in longer races is drunken frat-boy types who started imbibing early in the a.m. so as to be plenty fueled for the run. There were three on this particular day. They shouted and skipped around like mentally challenged, er, frat boys, for awhile, making asses of themselves and probably irritating the hell out of many of the other runners.I settled in behind them at the beginning of mile two in order to take advantage of the free entertainment but then passed by when they started to flag. A blue-shirted woman went by me at about a mile and a half, which set off teeth-gritting frustration. So after going around the frat boys, I held onto her footsteps for the last mile. She and I hit the last hill at the same time and I kicked into high gear, completely leaving her behind. Yes, I enjoyed it.I finished 77th overall out of 661 runners; 21st of 396 in my gender; and 7th out of 76 in my division. My compadres, the Torpedo and the Cruiser, seemed equally happy with their times. We drove the hour back home and were treated to biscuits, gravy, scrambled eggs, and bacon by Mr. Universally Talented who slaved all morning, thus ensuring that we had to run at least another ten miles if we planned on equaling out the calories in-to-out ratio. Instead, we opted for a long and promising day of perfecting our between-race slacking techniques.The next race is actually only five miles, not the 10K I thought it was, on January 21st. Perhaps I'll attempt another straight-from-the-couch run, and see if I can PR with that strategy. Or maybe I'll be smart, perhaps even run and interval or two before then.

Snapshot of the other races I've kept track of. This is Athlinks, a pretty decent online tracking tool.

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

Run, Slacker, Run

I didn’t come to enjoy running naturally. It was forced on me in my teens by angry store clerks trying to chase down my punk shoplifting thug-butt (eventually, I learned the hard way that this “pursuit” was something I should probably discontinue).Let me back up. I did run a fair bit as a little girl, with that same joyous abandon most kids experience. Until one day, my dad, who was a world class track athlete and coach, challenged me to a race. Naturally, he didn’t let me win, preferring to teach me to get tough through experiencing bitter disappointment (still trying to puzzle out that lesson). But he did pass on some, er, dubious, advice: during a race, run as hard as you can and keep running, even if it hurts. As seven-year-olds are some of the wisest people on the planet, me being no exception, I thought to myself, “Are you smoking crack, dear father of mine? Why would I intentionally do something that hurts?” Okay, granted, I didn’t really know what crack was, but you get the idea. Hence, my dearth of running until my teens when not paying for cigarettes and Doritos was more appealing than, well, paying for them, and I undertook my short-lived grocery store sprinting career.After giving up the shoplifting and the smoking, I kept running when I had to, but I never really got that sense of pleasure from it that hardcore runners tell you about. Still, I had some of the greatest running mixed tape compilations for my Walkman ever made (for anyone reading this who was born after 1990, a Walkman was a small, portable tape player that preceded iPods and Zunes. What’s that? What’s a tape? Uh, nevermind...).So why do I run now? A person with my woefully short attention span can't be limited to just one physical activity, and I need something to supplement roadbiking. I choose running because it is much less dangerous than mountainbiking, a sport that requires both balance and the ability to think while moving at speeds that exceed 30mph, all the while dodging killer rocks and roots, stumps and fence posts, cacti and branches, and...you get the idea. I’m enough of a hazard (see photo) to myself on two legs; add speed and an elevated center of gravity, combined with all of the “gifts” of Mother Nature, and I’m pretty much a rolling corpse on a mountain bike.The other reason, however, is more sublime. I’ve never been fast, but somewhere along the line, I learned to enjoy the consistent rhythm of running. Apparently my endorphin glands finally hit a growth spurt when I quit sky diving and my adrenalin glands withered. Human-powered sports, including roadbiking, backpacking, and rockclimbing, have always felt right to me, and running fosters such an epic sense of freedom and resiliency. Getting somewhere under your own steam and having the time and opportunity to enjoy the sights and sounds as you go is truly one of the best feelings you can't buy in stores. It’s not unlike writing a book or a short story; there is a lot of suffering and self-doubt as you move along the continuum towards the end, but when you get there, you feel like shouting for joy and hugging a complete stranger, even if they smell kinda bad. Endorphins, baby, blame the endorphins.Which all leads to the reason for this post. I hadn’t planned on blogging again until next year, but suddenly this winter, I found myself questioning my toughness (damn you, dear father). You see, it’s frickin’ cold here. COLD, and I’d all but quit running. As an illustration, I ran the Continental Divide Trail Run in Steamboat Springs in August—sixteen miles of suffering through some of themost gorgeous scenery to ever behold—and have run a grand total of twenty or so miles since. Yep. In my defense, I have the most wicked new bike trainer ever, which has been getting some extreme use, so it’s not as if I’ve been a total slacker.But I couldn’t do it; I couldn’t live with being confined to the indoors due to the potential for a little tiny bit of frostbite. I mean c’mon, if Beck Weathers could lose most of both arms and feet, and his nose to the cold, what’s losing feeling in my hands for a few hours? So I convinced a couple of friends—I’ll call them the Cruiser and the Torpedo—to come suffer in the frigid temps with me during the Littleton Winter Distance Series. I’ll post summaries ofthese races as they occur.Plus, I needed some more t-shirts. First race is December 17^th, so I better go run.

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

There Are Ways to Cope With Rejections

And then there are better ways. Dylan Moran on how best to respond to a novel rejection.

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Movie Review: The Debt

If you were a movie star, is there anyone you’d rather be than Jesper Christensen? Playing along side such fantastic, talented, and gorgeous women as Dame Judi Dench and Dame Helen Mirren would be any actor's dream come true. Few film stars have such grace, such presence, and such exquisite depth and charisma as these two marvels.

But Jesper’s no scrub either. As a doer of evil, there may be no equal (except of course, Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood), and his role  in Labor Day’s new release The Debt has proven that there is just not enough of this master of the diabolique in current film.

Of course, I admit, I have an over-the-top bias for Danes and Danish cinema. Susanne Bier is probably the best thing to ever happen to movie-making, and for dark humor, does anyone come close to Anders Thomas Jensen? Coming from a movie culture such as this, it’s no surprise that viewers get the caliber of darkness and brutality that Christensen emotes.

The Debt is the story of a team of three young Mossad agents in the ‘60s that are assigned to take captive the Surgeon of Birkenau (Jesper Christensen), a WWII-era monster loosely based on Dr. Joseph Mengele.  The team, comprised of a beautiful translator (Jessica Chastain), an ambitious unit commander (Marton Csokas), and a driven yet damaged operative (Sam Worthington), all too quickly falls into the inescapable games of humanity, and are tormented to the breaking point by their charge.

On the surface, the first movie you may think of to compare this to is 2005’s Munich. Same dark theme, same driven yet guileless characters. But a story that more readily compares is 1994’s Death and the Maiden, a similarly haunting tale of  victims of Nazi ruthlessness facing their demons. The Debt has the same intimate feel as the Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley film, folding us viewers into the delicately intertwined hands of the young, idealistic protagonists who only know they want to do right, but have not yet learned how to comfortably categorize right into simple terms of black and white.

Director John Madden has done a brilliant job, much as Roman Polanski did in Death and the Maiden, of ratcheting the tension tighter and tighter in every scene of this movie. From the relationship between the three agents, to the plotting and violent capture of Vogel, and on to the mounting tedium, uncertainty, fear and hatred the agents endure while holding Vogel captive, this film lets viewers personally and intimately experience the slow spiritual and emotional decline that grows from hopes for justice into acts of violent revenge, and finally, prayers for redemption.

While you won’t leave The Debt feeling good about, well, anything much, you won’t be left with a lack of deeply moral and philosophical questions to explore for the next few days. Some of those I took away include: Is a man’s death fair justice to those he has killed, or is it merely a tentative salve that hides surviving victims’ wounds for ever so brief a time? Also, is it fair to expect a few people to sacrifice their innocence, or even lives, for what may be, but is not guaranteed to be, a happier, safer future for others?

On the lighter side, the big shocker of the film is that Sam Worthington is indeed a human being after all. After shooting to stardom as first a robot, then a demi-god, and finally a giant, blue, über-humanoid, it was a bit surprising to see him in a role where he’s just a regular Joe who can’t crush cars in his fists or jump from 700 foot high cliffs onto the back of flying pterodactyls (or whatever those were). Despite such a long hiatus from roles that required much more besides fighting, yelling, and looking pissed off, it was surprising, in a good way, to see him show a range of emotions. Of course, playing the younger version of the character also played by eternally melancholy Ciarán Hinds helped his credibility a great deal. Hinds practically bleeds gravitas and despair with merely a simple shift of the eyes or dip of the chin. With Tom Wilkinson and Helen Mirren playing the older versions of the other two protagonists, you know that the film is going to be teeming with volatile emotional conflict and intensity.

There is nothing about this film that would keep a person seeking something serious, dramatic, and deeply thought-provoking from writing off a couple of hours some evening this week to watch it. Love, revenge, genocide, hate, truth—your tragic themes know no end. Just be sure to bring your tank of helium. You’re going to need something to make you laugh after it’s over.

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

USA Pro Cycling Challenge Turns Simple Girl Into Blithering Fan-girl

The Boss

Holy Awesome Cycling Race, what a week it’s been! Since last Sunday, Colorado has turned into one of the finest cycling destinations in the world. The new USA Pro Cycling Challenge (aka the Sandwich Race) has drawn two of the finest things about sports to this little mountain state: some of the greatest athletes in the world and even more of the greatest fans in the world. Sure, some people get a little out of control and tend to piss off the riders, but these guys are not without their defenses. Watch this video carefully as Team Radio Shack rider comes over Swan Mountain during Stage 5.

Us simple Rocky Mountain High-ers were favored by the appearance of such greats as this year’s winner of Le Tour de France, Cadel Evans, whose massive jaw was also invited despite the team having to reserve it it’s own seat on the international flight over; second and third place runners up of the Tour, Andy and Fränk Schleck, aka the Wonder Twins, aka Frandy; Jens Voigt, the hardest man in cycling; and of course, Levi Leipheimer, he of the diminutive stature but massive mountain-, time trial-, and overall road-crushing skills. Team Garmin-Cervelo knocked it out of the park with their fantastic team strategy, and many other amazing riders displayed their grit, endurance, and pure ferocity in the blistering heat and altitude that is a Colorado summer.

Needless to say, I had to extend my own deadline for allowed cycle race watching this year just to catch this inaugural event. The race’s details can all be found at any cycling site you choose, but the real highlight--I think anyone who was there can agree--was seeing part of this race in person.

A few pics to commemorate the occasion (mostly taken by Mr. Universally Talented and Prepared, as not only did three of my camera batteries die, but also my iPhone).

Undie Guy: A Fan

Gobernacion's Alejandro Ramirez

Le Peloton

Levi and Peloton

HTC's Lachlan Norris

HTC's Peter Velits

BMC's Hincapie and Brookwalter and Peloton

Rabobank's Ten Dam

My nerdy signs

 

And for the icing on the cake, I leave you with the best cycling fan video ever made.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn0FF1KwL4I]

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

Probably the Most Moving Moment of Gratitude EVER

Thanks to John Scalzi, I paid a tiny bit of attention to the Hugo Awards this year. If you don't know what they are, you're not an ardent science fiction fan, but I won't hold that against you. From Wikipedia, the Hugo Awards are described as follows:

The Hugo Award is one of the most prestigious science fiction awards, and has been termed as "among the highest honors bestowed in science fiction and fantasy writing". Works that have won the award have been published in special collections, and the official logo of the Hugo Awards is often placed on the winning books' cover as a promotional tool.

And from the Tor.com website:

The Hugo Awards have been given since 1953, and every year since 1955, by the annual World Science Fiction Convention (the “Worldcon”). The first Worldcon occurred in New York City in 1939, and Worldcons have been held annually since then except during World War II. ...

Cool, huh? To give you an idea of what kind of writing wins a Hugo, check out The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, if you haven't. Seriously one of the finest stories, and most amazing imaginations of our time. This year's winners for the best fanzine are Christopher J. Garcia and James Bacon of The Drink Tank. Check this funky little number out here. Sorry, I can't tell you more about it because I have never read it myself. But after this amazing display of gratitude, I may have to start. Anyone who can be this overwrought and moved definitely has a voice to listen to. This is just great. Really. You should watch it, and remember all the things that make you this happy. Imagine if we could all be this moved every day. How wonderful would that be?

[ustream vid=16783348 hid=196385 w=480 h=296]

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

It's Only a Problem if it Kills You

That's become my mantra while running through this devilishly hot summer. Ninety degrees in the shade and seven miles to work makes a girl a bit cranky. Except it doesn't. I kinda like it. In fact, I look forward to it a couple of times a week the way a crack baby looks forward to another rock. There's clearly something wrong with me.

And there's something else. The thing that may epitomize my running problem. You know it's weird when you start looking forward to getting a new piece of gear that when wearing it, makes you look as if you're a ninety year old woman who is suffering from a mad case of gravity overkill in the chest area.

Yup, the Ultimate Direction Wasp Hydration Pack has that stylish feature, and more! Now I'll be able to run longer and farther before total collapse, and with the handy pockets located just below my boobs, I won't even have to stop to dig out my GU packages or cyanide capsules when it becomes clear that suicide is a better option than the back part of a 20 mile out and back.

Now if I could just figure out how to install an air-conditioner in the thing, I'll be set for the rest of the season.

UPDATE: Well, the bodacious bota bag arrived in the mail yesterday, and wouldn't you know it: it's too large. Curses to my smaller frame! Even with all the straps tightened to the max, the shoulders still sagged and the front pockets stuck out so far that my arms hit them when they swing. Sooooo...back it goes. The saving grace is that it is indeed an awesome design, AND they make a smaller version for us little 'uns.

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

There's No Place Like Home

You know you're a either a Cure lovin', skinny jeans wearin', Prozac poppin' emo girl, or a  true Oregonian when you're looking forward to spending a week in weather like this:

I'm heading home to beautiful wet Oregon for a week and super excited about it! See ya on the other side of the Tour blogosphere.

Wait, I do love The Cure...

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

America is the World's Worst Flatmate

At least, according to Dylan Moran. And in truth, it's not a bad analogy, is it?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0rUtSLZTlc]

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

Tips for World Traveling #5: France

Driving tours are often exciting and interesting, allowing travelers to see an entire country in just a short time. In a history-filled and beautiful place like France, this can be many people's dream come true. However, France goes above and beyond the simple and quaint countryside scenery and castles. They also provide a moving road targets for motorists to smash into barbed wire fences and hard tarmac. You know, just to keep things fun. Or at least, that's what some idiotic drivers for the media that are covering the Tour de France seem to think.[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWT8yeHGA0U][youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld9ah5cFVfI]Disgraceful. Unbelievably, in both crashes, all three riders got back on their bikes and finished the stages. Talk about tough.

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.

Tips for World Traveling #4: Japan

Recommended travel items when using the Japanese subway include a crowbar and Avalung.[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0A9-oUoMug]

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All content copyright unless otherwise specified © 2008-2013 by Tammy Salyer, writer. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to use short quotes provided proper attribution is given.