How important is a platform for writers seeking publication?

Building a platform is one of the farthest things from your mind when you first start writing. Maybe your even still asking...what is a platform?

Well, let me start with an example. Andrew Peterson, the author of North! Or Be Eaten had a platform before he ever submitted his manuscript to a publisher or agent (Yes, agents look at platform too).

Peterson's platform...he's an accomplished Christian musician with 12 albums released thus far. (He's also had a top ten radio hit and was nominated for a Dove Award).

So when Peterson submitted his manuscript, he had a leg to stand on. Now when I say "a leg" I do mean only one. He had to have another thing to stand on...and that's a great story! But having that combination of platform and story is a one-two punch. (To check out detailed reviews of North or Be Eaten, scroll down to the bottom of this post and check out some of the great blogs talking in depth about Peterson's book. And from what I'm hearing, its a wonderful book!)

Not all platforms are alike (most of us don't have a spotlight on us as musicians or pastors do) and we're certainly not celebrities who can get whatever we write published. There are other ways for ordinary people to build up their writer's resume to become more appealing to publishers and agents.

1) Creating a blog is a great way to start telling people about your writing. (However, I must warn you that blogs wind up being much more than just a platform, you end up making lots of friends as well as great connections in different areas of the publishing industry). Eventually, if you have a book published, your blog can become a sort of news outlet for your readers, as well as a means of interaction with them. We humans were made to interact and have relationships; that's what makes blogs so endearing.

2) Short story publications. These are key! To have your short stories published accomplishes three things. First, they provide a credit to put on your resume. Second, they show the world what type of writer you are, and readers might be drawn to follow you along when they fall in love with your writing. Third, they help polish your own writing. We writers are constantly learning and growing, and with each story, we build upon our knowledge and stretch ourselves.

3) Networking. I personally never imagined how easy it is to network....the hardest part is trying. Let me give you some examples in my own life. Why not join a local writers group? You are bound to come away with not only great friendships and stronger writing, but also contacts who can help direct your writing path. For instance, I was fortunate to join a group in my city led by Bruce McAllister (twice nominated for the Hugo Award) and a man whose had dozens of short stories published in top magazines, and had a Hugo nominated novel come out by DAW in the late 80's. He gave me tons of great wisdom and inside thought.

Another networking example. Mike and I wrote an archeological adventure novel and decided to shoot for the moon and contact a well known figure in the field who was both a published author and an adventurer who starred in several biblical archeological documentaries. It was while I was watching one of those documentaries when I thought, "hey, this guy might like my book". Well, I emailed the institute which he founded to see if I could get his email. To my shock, they gave me his phone number!!! I hardly knew what to do, and I had my co-author Mike call him (because I was too nervous to do it). To make a long story short, he wanted us to send him the novel, so we did, and after he read it, he gave us a glowing phone call in which he told us how much he loved it and promised to give us a quote for the book. He also offered to give it to his agent--talk about a recommendation! If Mike and I didn't already have an agent, we'd have jumped all over that offer.

Now the three examples above of platform building are just the essentials. Writers can use their personal skills, talents and personalities to create other platforms for their writing. But, remember, platforms provide only one leg (unless you're a celeb), the other leg is a great story with good story-telling, and in the end, it's the story-telling leg that is the most important.

I hope this little overview helps. I also want to direct you to Moonrat's editorial blog post that touches on this very topic. It's VERY enlightening about the publishing industry!

For those of you who want to find out more about Peterson's novel, North! Or Be Eaten, check out the following blogs!

Brandon Barr
Justin Boyer
Amy Browning
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Todd Michael Greene
Ryan Heart
Timothy Hicks
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Rebecca LuElla Miller
New Authors Fellowship
Nissa
Donita K. Paul
Crista Richey
Chawna Schroeder
Andrea Schultz
James Somers
Steve and Andrew
Rachel Starr Thomson
Robert Treskillard
Fred Warren
Jason Waguespac
Phyllis Wheeler
Elizabeth Williams
KM Wilsher

The difficulty of starting a novel...

I felt I had to get some writing thoughts out to my blog readers...for a little sympathy, advice, and perhaps a few, "I feel the same way('s)"

I've personally found starting a novel very, very difficult. I don't know if I would have ever attempted novel writing if it weren't for Mike Lynch, getting me into the action. Mike never seems to have trouble (he's a machine) (from the Andromeda galaxy actually, isn't that right Mike? j/k). So far I've co-authored three novels with him, but never have I sat down and written one on my own.
Book one, When the Sky Fell, was written by Mike entirely, and then I came and edited and trimmed and gave my two-cents.
Book two, American Midnight, we went every other chapter
Book three, After the Cross, same thing, every other chapter.

Book four...it's my solo project. I've had this story rollicking around in my brain for five years now. I wrote it as a novella, then wrote five scenes from the novel I had in my head. After that I scrapped those, and changed the world from far future sci-fi to near future sci-fi (or modern day sci-fi). Since this switcheroo I've written three false starts, scrapped them, and now finally, I think I have the full vision. And I'm super excited!!! All the previous drafts just didn't feel right...something wasn't quite right.

Monday morning, the 25th of January, I got 600 words down in 4 hours of writing. That's normal for me when starting a novel. I really fine tune things at first. The beginning is the birth of the main characters and I can't be lax with that.  So I imagine until I get about 5,000 to 10,000 words down, that I'll be going pretty slow. Then maybe I'll be able to attempt doubling my output... I'm a slow writer compared to most (or maybe you're slow too, like me!). If I get down 1,000 words in 5 hours, I'm very, very happy.

Well, just wanted to let you know what I've been toiling over the last few months...any thoughts??

How do you go about starting your novels? Do you find the process difficult?

My short story now an audio production!!!

"At the End of the Time Jump" is a short story I wrote back in 2005, and to my delight, it's now out in AUDIO form!

Paeter Frandsen over at Spirit Blade Productions is putting out some awesome audio stories in the sci-fi/fantasy/horror genres that revolve around a Christian worldview. I am honored to be a part of that now!

My story is read by talented voice actor, Christina Boyd. Produced by Taylor Kent and Paeter Frandsen. And mixed and directed by Taylor Kent (who runs Snark Tank Productions)

Here's the link to my story "At the End of the Time Jump"  Enjoy!

Christian movie review of Avatar

First off, Sorry this review is so LATE! As usual I waited for the crowds to thin out before I went to check this film out. Going into the movie, I didn't know too much about it. Yeah, I'd heard it was supposed to be visually stunning, and yeah, I heard it was big budget, but I've seen many movies given those titles in which I left the theater utterly disappointed.

So how did Avatar measure up?

Message and themes behind the movie...this was its weak point. As a Christian, it was a mixed bag for me. But lets start with the good stuff...and there is LOTS of it!!

1) Lets start with the visuals. I watched the movie in 3D, and it really was like nothing I'd seen before. Computer graphics...what computer graphics? Those were real aliens...real mech suits...real floating mountains. It was beautiful. The world that Avatar captures is filled with wonderful intricacies that come alive. Strange and fascinating alien creatures fill the story...In essence, the creativity was off the charts, and the execution of the graphics was seemless.

2) The story. The moon Pandora is rich with a extremely valuable mineral sought after by a large mining company. But on Pandora are tribes of large, blue skinned natives called the Na'vi. The mining company spots a motherload of the precious mineral underneath the hometree of a local Na'vi tribe. Attempts to prompt the natives to move fail because the hometree is a highly spiritual place and the Na'vi are intimately attuned to the "energy" of the land.

The scientists with the company have tried to get to understand the natives using Avatars--vat grown bodies of the natives that humans can control by linking them to their minds. When the scientists behind the Avatars get to know the natives, they wind up caring for them far deeper than the company would like. The tribal aliens are humanoid, intelligent, and sentient, so the scientists find no way to justify forcing them off their land.
The mining company has different plans though...and the scientists must choose which side to stand on.

There is a GREAT deal more to the story, but that's the nutshell version. For a full (Spoiler ridden) version, Check out Wikipedia's Avatar summary titled "plot".

3) Characters. Cameron did an excellent job fleshing out the characters in his movie. I have to say this was the one of the best character sci-fi films I've ever seen. Paraplegic marine Jake Sully is wired into an alien body which he controls with his mind. One of the charming things about this is that he now has a pair of legs--alien legs, and he is able to live normal when hooked up to his Avatar. Well, he meets Neytir, one of the alien Na'vi. Neytir's character is beautifully created with Cameron's graphics department. She is the princess of the tribe and is told by her father to train Jake Sully in the ways of the Na'vi. The relationship that develops between the two turns romantic...but only after Jake Sully proves that he is willing to risk his life to become part of the Na'vi. I never felt at any point that Cameron hadn't earned something...each character arched and there was no pushing the plot along with unearned lines. (However, I've read other Christians reviews who said the lines in the film were laughable...all I know is at no point did I feel this way. More on the Christian reviews later.)

There are a number of other characters who were fully alive. The foremost in my mind was the movie's bad guy, the head of the mining company's military outfit. Though we don't dig into his character much, I found him a great bad guy! He was like the terminator in his rigid mentality as well as his brute strength...which was pretty frightening. By the end of the movie, you really want to see justice done to him!

4) Messages and themes in Avatar. This is the area where I felt let down. Unfortunately what could have been one of the best sci-fi movies I've ever seen was underlaid with allegories of twenty-first century politics as well as spiritualism. The second (spiritualism) I can at least expect/understand from a secular movie, though I don't like it, but the politics...come on, they should have more respect for the audience.

The Iraq war lines. Several lines in the movie are parallels of modern day slogans used for the Iraq War. "shock and awe campaign," "pre-emptive action," and the suggestion to "fight terror with terror" is clearly a dig at the "War on terror". These only served to cheapen the movie. Whether one was for or against the Iraq War, it shouldn't matter, because the parallel's between the Na'vi and the mining company don't match at all the complexities between the Iraqi's and the Americans and why war broke out. The Na'vi are clearly innocent...they've done nothing wrong...they are peaceful...so paralleling them to Iraq is completely absurd. To enjoy the movie, I had to push these lines in the back of my brain for later. Once I did that I was still able to completely enjoy the movie and then later talk over the issues with family.

The spiritualism. The Na'vi came across to me as a mixture of tribal Native American's and African's, and incorporated into their culture was the belief that the earth is alive, and all living things have energy...you know, the basic New Age stuff. Well, as a Christian I could have certainly done without this, but I could have hardly expected the non-Christian filmmakers to make the Na'vi religion monotheistic in a Judeo/Christian worldview. Lets face it, the monotheistic view of God is really unpopular right now because it reminds everyone of Christians...and we're deemed pretty unintelligent by the political left (who this film is tailer-made for).

I was willing to put up with this spiritualism, because I know what is truth and what isn't truth. The danger I see is in the hordes of "Christian" teens who see the film...these teens come from "Christian" families which don't teach a comprehensive biblical worldview. This is sad, because teens, if parented by a mom and dad who really teach them (scientifically, logically, philosophically, archeologically, etc.) that the God of the bible is the being behind the reality in which we live--that teen could watch Avatar, have a great movie experience, and come away discussing with his parents where the movie had bought into a false religion. Seriously, this movie could make a great discussion starter...I know it did for me and my wife. I recommend the movie for Mature Christians only--and that includes adults. Since there are lots of underlying messages, the viewer needs to be sophisticated enough to see them, otherwise they could soak them up without knowing it.

5) Christian reaction to the movie. I found some reviews that I felt were good and balanced over at Christianity Today and CBN. I also felt Focus on the Family did a good job in review, and if you want to know every bad word or sexual innuendo in the movie, they list them all!

But I was greatly disappointed with other Christian reviews... imbalanced. Here's some quotes from them...

I want to put this as plainly as I can. This film is so uniquely awful that it should be legal for me to enslave and neuter any movie critic who gives it a positive review. -Good News Film Reviews

My response: Um...after skimming this guys rant-laden review, I now know not to ever rely on this site again! I can't say this guy comes across as a "loving" Christian. I'd say this guy is a shining example of how Christians can go the extra-mile to be divisive. 

Should you see Avatar? The intense publicity surrounding the film, as well as several ecstatic early reviews, have set the bar very high. For this critic, Avatar doesn't come anywhere near clearing that bar—not in the performances, not in the lavish visuals and certainly not in the film's entirely derivative storytelling. In order to attain even a modicum of satisfaction from the film, one should see it only on a big screen, preferably in 3D. -Crosswalk

 My response: This guy just said the "lavish visuals" didn't meet his expectation!?! He has just discredited his entire review by showing he is utterly biased!!

If you think Pandora looks like a great place to live, consider the beginning of what's known as the Lord's Prayer:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.

What do you think life on earth would be like if God had his way? Children would grow up in homes with two loving parents, employees would be impeccably honest, employers would be generous, crime would not exist, there would be no pedophiles, scamers, spamers, or drug dealers. There would be no addicts, no gamblers, no AIDS or herpes. Imagine the prosperity that would be possible.

You can hug all the trees you want and nothing will do more to help the planet earth than a revival. -Movieguide: Capitalism, Christianity and Avatar

My response: Okay, like many of the negative reviews I read, these reviewers totally don't get sci-fi/fantasy. It's make believe. This reviewer felt like the movie was trying to make the Na'vi homeworld better than God's plan for the earth...this entire review actually read like the reviewer thought the movie was proposing an alternate truth--not fantasy--but truth. It's clearly a fantasy (even though I do agree it has underlying messages that I don't agree with) the fact is almost all secular made movies have messages I don't agree with. Why get extra mad at Avatar? Most movies are set in the real world--and thus speak more directly to the real world, but Avatar is fantasy...

AVATAR is a visually stunning, but slow, shallow and abhorrent, science fiction adventure pitting evil human capitalists against heroic, spiritually sensitive aliens on the planet Pandora, who worship a false deity and nature. Too graphically intense for children, AVATAR has an abhorrent New Age, pagan, anti-capitalist worldview that promotes goddess worship and the destruction of the human race. -Movieguide: Get rid of Human Beings Now!

My response: Shallow? Abhorrent? I don't know what to say. The anti-capitalist was a theme in several of the Christian reviews above, and I totally don't get why they say that. Yeah the movie had a bad company who wanted this special mineral so badly they were willing to do evil to get it, but that doesn't make the movie anti-capitalist! What, we can't have any movie with a bad company in it??? And then there is the claim that it promotes the destruction of the human race...well, just because the few humans in the bad company were...um, bad, doesn't mean the movie was saying all humans were bad. I find this over-the-top!

In conclusion, I'm certainly glad I saw the movie, and I want to see it again! It's a great story with characters that I cared about and set in a beautiful world that's utterly brought to life. I just wish Cameron hadn't put so much agenda and politics into the background and disrupted his otherwise breath-taking film.

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Unlike Episode One, Jar Jar Binks isn't an issue. Sure he's given the position of senate representative (something he's clearly unqualified for), but at least he's undergone some serious intelligence training and--for the most part--no longer plays the bumbling fool. Overall, Attack of the Clones is a slight improvement over Episode One.

The good:
 We've got more great visual effects. Like the first movie, it's a joy to see amazing new worlds both beautiful and hostile. Theirs something plain cool about the mixing of untamed planets and advanced technology. Theirs something fascinating about exploring new worlds, but to be able to do it in a sweet spaceship, that's totally rad...

I also enjoyed Boba Fett the bounty hunter...he was an almost sympathetic bad guy. Especially so since he had his son with him. Then there was the epic battle at the end with three fun monster-aliens, tons of jedi, the clone army vs. the droid army, and of course Yoda battling Count Dooku (I remember the audience going wild when I first went to see it in theaters).

The Bad:
Again, poor character development. The first movie was so-so, but this one was stiff. The lines were often simplistic and lacked depth. And then there was the romance between Anakin and Princess Amidala. It was totally forced. She had no reason to be so in love with him, and he had no reason to be in love with her. Anakin was just a kid in the first movie, why would he be desiring her...he barely new her...if he'd been a teen, then yeah, but he was just a boy. She'd have koodies still. And then on her end, why would she fall for him with all those cheesy lines he gave her. As a viewer, nothing in the romance was earned. My wife even protested saying: "What has he done to make her say that!"

So in conclusion, Attack of the clones was better than Episode One, but a far cry from what it could have been. But I'm looking forward to watching Episode Three...I remember it being the redeeming gem in the bunch!

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

I've decided to go back through the entire Star Wars series (all six, new and old), and take a close look at what made some of these movies so fantastic, and others so...problematic.

Unfortunately, The Phantom Menace falls under the second category. I find it incredibly difficult to mess up Star Wars...we've got Jedi with lightsabers, really cool looking space ships, bizarre creatures from thousands of worlds, exotic locals of various planets and solar systems, and not to mention the story itself...so how did they manage to ruin a sure shot movie?

 Insert Jar-Jar Binks and the Gungans.

As far as I'm concerned, The Phantom Menace would have been a great Star Wars contribution if it weren't for Mr. Binks and the moronic Gungans. This ridiculous race single-handedly managed to ruin an entire movie.

For one, Jar Jar himself is characterized as a fool. Just listen to the way he talks, and sadly the entire degenerate race of Gungans talk as Jar Jar does. And how does he talk? Like a fool, a half-wit. I guess George Lucas was willing to sacrifice every adult and teenage Star Wars fan's love for the series for the sake of fourth grade fart humor...which is what Jar Jar amounts to...(sigh).

I found myself over and over mumbling angrily during the movie, "Kill it! Somebody please! Put it out of its misery!" My wife elbowed me a few times, but then I think she began to side with me as the buffoon continued to ruin Star Wars.

As I watched, I asked myself...Why on earth did Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi ask the creature for help?  Surely their Jedi wisdom would have warned them that this was a foolish creature in desperate need of a quick lightsaber swipe to the neck...

Again and again the Jedi take Jar Jar along when they should have--at the very least--left him behind.

Then to make matters worse, during the climactic battle scene, we have Jar Jar, the prince of fools, doing all sorts of stupid, klutzy things and gibbering like a brainless salamander, and then what happens!?! All his foolishness amounts, not to his desired demise, but to him helping win the war. As the flappy-eared caricature stumbles over droid parts in a dance of uncoordinated buffoonery, he accidentally kills approaching droids by haphazardly discharging their weapons, thereby saving his own life (to my utter frustration). And then, again, when he should have been crushed to death by bouncing blue energy balls which he accidentally unloosens, he winds up, instead, knocking out large droid fighting vessels (and he of course survives).

The entire race of Gungans should have stayed in the swamp. Jar Jar was not an exception to his race, he seemed to be the rule. The Gungan King was a blathering nonsensical being who acted like a child. He even spit raspberries into the air when he was excited.

In conclusion, the movie was great, except for Jar Jar and the Gungans. I know I don't stand alone in this conviction. The massive number of anti-Jar Jar websites is a testimony to that. It seems Jar Jar annoyed just about everyone...except for the elementary aged audience.

American Midnight Cover!!

Alright, Here it is, the long awaited cover for American Midnight...

American Midnight teaser:

"A family torn apart, a country under siege from within, terrorist schemes on many levels, and it's all coming to a head in a quiet little town in Iowa." -Cathi Hassan

I have a whole host of great endorsements that will be featured inside the first page of the book. But I'm going to save those for the publication date...don't want to get anyone too excited when the release date isn't yet here.

When is the release date you ask...all I can say is 2010...that might mean February...or it might mean a later month.

Here's a link to my November blog post where I show other pictures taken for the front cover HERE.