Mike Slade's Blog

May 3 is fast approaching and everything is looking great for Light Giver!

Early reviews of the print book, and the Audiobook have both been great and everything is available for pre-order.

I received my proof copy of the hardcover and it’s so gorgeous- it absolutely surpassed my expectations.

If you haven’t heard the snippet sample from the audiobook– be sure to check that out and see the masterful narration by Robin Coppock!

I’m so excited with how everything has been going, and really can’t wait for you all to read this book.

Never has there been a more hated font than Comic Sans.
If you dare to ever post an image or a meme with the font, you will immediately draw scorn from people you don’t even know who seem to be on the look out for this typeset which offends them so.

I’ll be honest, I’ve never minded the font. I guess I missed the initial conversation on a yahoo message board or AOL chat room where everyone decided to hate it… but I absolutely will never use Comic Sans in anything after the bullying I received after ignorantly using it a few times.

Well- let me clarify. I will never use Comic Sans in anything that I will show another person.

You see, I’ve learned something in the last few years while drafting books… and it’s one of the most remarkable magic tricks I’ve ever seen.

DRAFT. YOUR. MANUSCRIPT. IN. COMIC SANS.

My buddy Skylar was having an issue earlier this week and posted about how he kept editing previous sentences and that was slowing down his writing. My suggestion, was the Comic Sans trick.
Switch your drafting font to Comic Sans and go to town!

You may be questioning why? It’s a valid question.
There are multiple theories on why Comic Sans increases productivity when writing, and you can spend all day reading articles, blog posts, and actual SCIENTIFIC STUDIES on it.. but I’ll summarize for you:

Some say Comic Sans feels more playful… which means you don’t take your writing as seriously, which is a GOOD THING. It lets you, the writer, be free and just type away, maybe make some mistakes… it doesn’t matter.. you’re typing in a joke font anyway. WHICH IS THE POINT. As a writer, drafting, your goal is to just get words down- clean that stuff up later.Another theory is that Comic Sans isn’t as easily read through your periphery. Your eyes, for one reason or the other, focus more on what you’re actually typing instead of the previous words or previous sentence- while that isn’t always the case with other fonts (science… weird).Some think that it’s simply because it’s a change, and when you have either writer’s block or distractions, making one small, but impactful change can alter your writing. Which, I mean, even if that’s true, that doesn’t make this a bad thing.

I remember being skeptical, and when I tried it, I was floored. That was one of the most productive writing sessions I had in a LONG time. So really, I say everyone should give it a shot. Whether you’re having writing issues or not, just try it- maybe it will be magic for you like it was for me and so many others.

Caution: Don’t make the mistake I did though in getting absolutely comfortable with the font. I got to the point where I didn’t even notice it any more and when it was time to query an agent I sent them three chapters in Comic Sans.

…. they didn’t bother to reply- and I don’t blame them.

Book One of my new fantasy series The Chaos Apostles will be coming out this year, and I am so excited to share the cover with you!
So without any further hesitation- here is LIGHT GIVER!

I had been messing around with covers and designing this and that for a while, until I finally settled on working with Natasja at http://www.beyondbookcovers.com and honestly I couldn’t be happier with the result.
I actually already have the cover for book 2 in the series done as well, and you’ll be seeing that closer to launch time.

Light Giver look interesting at all? Go check it out over on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09PPQGCS5

If you search twitter for the hashtag, #AmQuerying – you will find not only hundreds of recent tweets, but thousands of individuals with the tag either in their name or their bio.

Traditional publishing is the dream for most authors- and while I was in the querying trenches for a few years as well, I realized something critical that I am now so much better for: I was torturing myself.

Querying agents is all about getting noticed, and the odds are NOT on your side. Not only do you need to have the right hook, pitch, query, subject, and by the way be a good author, but also there’s a dozen ancillary aspects which are agent specific. Some agents have a bias against women in adult fantasy, others may only want to represent established authors, many will only seriously consider BIPOC or underrepresented (sexuality, race, disability) authors. As you can see, some of these (including the many others I didn’t list) are just encouraging a personal preference while some are just wrong and unethical. What matters is no matter who you are, there are going to be some agents out there who do not want YOU simply because of who you are. Yet still, the author will persist.

And I encourage that- honestly. I hope each and every aspiring traditionally published author finds an agent and then gets picked up by a publisher and does all the amazing things!

I realized though that the whole begging for acceptance thing just wasn’t for me. And I call it that, because that is how I always felt. “Please Mx. Agent, validate me and my work!” – and then when they didn’t, I would be crushed. I was putting my mental health at the mercy of agents who could reject me for any number of reasons- maybe they really didn’t like my writing, maybe they were having a bad day, maybe they just signed someone whose work was a little similar (that happened), maybe they already signed too many people, maybe they didn’t really have the time for a proper evaluation, maybe there isn’t enough gay in the book, maybe there is too much gay in the book, maybe a hundred things that I (and you, the author) can’t ever dream to control.

Now, truly, self-publishing isn’t for everyone. First of all the success rate is abysmal (much like in querying)- the difference here though, is there are things YOU can control.
YOU, the author, become the publisher, and as the publisher, YOU decide how you plan to market the book, how much advertising will go in to it. YOU decide the cover, you decide the release date, you decide the platforms.

That’s a whole lot of work, effort, and financial investment which there is no guarantee for return on. For many people, that’s too much to coordinate successfully, but if you have a general knack for Program or Project Management (even if you’ve never called them by those names)- self-publishing may be the perfect way to go, as I found it is for me.

I LOVE how deep I can work with people on the cover creation. I love how I’m planning a little quiet space so I can record the audiobook version of my book. I mean I put all that effort into writing this thing, I want to do everything I can to keep going with this project and to make it a success!
And contrary to popular belief, YOU (the self-publisher) can to an extent control if your book is a success or not. Many people think that self-publishing is a roll of the dice and either you’ll make a little meager money back, or just totally fail. But I’m telling you just consider it like a puzzle, or a game….. a QUEST if you will.

As a self-publisher, you can look around at what works and what doesn’t. You can put in the work to promote and interact, you can do the right kind of marketing. It’s a lot of work, but it’s ENTIRELY REASONABLE for your book to nearly be guaranteed to do well.

And the key though- is this has to be FUN for you. You need to look at this strategy game called self-publishing and say, “Oh, I can win THAT!”
You need to love your project so fully and without remorse that the only thing that makes sense to you is to get those words out to the world to read.

That’s why I’m self-publishing.
It absolutely isn’t for everyone.

For some people, traditional publishing is the right choice. Some, it’s the only reasonable choice. For me, I’ve come to realize that self-publishing… doing it MYSELF… is the right way to go because only I can bring my story out to the world the way it was meant to be.

So this year- the world will see two of my books- because I’m making it happen.
I really hope you love them, but if not- hey, I would know that I put what I love out there and gave you the chance to actually read it.

No I mean I really- absolutely love- the works of J.R.R. Tolkien with a serious passion.

And yes, I get that some people have criticism of either how he writes, or what he writes about. I see you, and I hear you, and your opinion is entirely valid. Hell, I personally balk each time I encounter the Master/Servant dynamic of Frodo and Sam, so trust me, I get it.

But there’s never been, and I would argue there never will be, an author as important to fiction as Tolkien- though I don’t want to get in to all that here.

I just want to share my love for his works, which now includes collecting various copies/editions of his books:

So far this includes two copies of the first US paperback edition of The Hobbit, a first UK and a first US edition of the Silmarillion, and then… well… all the rest of that. If you ever need an easy gift for me… just get me anything Tolkien that isn’t on this shelf. Boom- we’re besties. (update: I know also have The Nature of Middle-Earth hardcover next to that Unfinished Tales on the top left)

You may see this absolute beauty of 1980s cover art sitting there 4th from the right on the second shelf. That one with the really worn out spine. That’s my origin book. This remarkable cover was my first step into Middle-Earth, and I’ve never looked back.

I was at a local Books-A-Million store- and I was just dying to get enchanted by a good fantasy story. I KNEW that was my genre, but I was really having a difficult time finding anything I liked- and having no real friends who read, or family who read Fantasy, I didn’t have anyone to ask for recommendations (this was pre-google…). So I did what anyone would do- I went book by book in the section, judging books by their covers.

I had seen this one before but had always turned away from it due to the seriously odd cover- but this time something caught my eye: THE ENCHANTING PRELUDE TO THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Well that’s nice- what the hell is that?

So I looked around the shelves and there was a whole mini-section with this series by this Tolkien fella, and those books had words like Masterpiece and Legendary. Well then, I might as well give this Hobbit thing a shot I figured.

Now, I wasn’t a very quick reader at the time so it took me about a week to finish the book- but I was so enamored that I would actually skip classes in school so I could find a place to sit and keep reading! How’s that for finally finding the book you’ve been looking for?

Anyway- yea. I love Tolkien. I don’t write in his style, or emulate him in anyway besides one thing.

I LOVE LANGUAGES.

For THE CHAOS APOSTLES (coming soon, stay tuned for updates), I created a written language, and pretty solid grammar structures and a basic vocabulary for two others and this was maybe the most fun I had on the project. It’s nothing on the level of the languages that Tolkien created, but it’s my own little bit of world-building that I can thank him for the inspiration of.

-Slade

I know what you’re thinking,

Man… look at that guy. He looks like he has everything figured out.

Well you see Dearest Reader, I make up things quite regularly, so it’s pretty easy to be this confident when all you need to do is design a few languages from scratch, create a new yet familiar mythology, describe make believe architecture, and explain how magic works…. it’s all easy.

I’ve been creating stories as long as I can remember and it’s always been my favorite thing to do. Naturally I began with pencil and paper, and I clearly remember writing a 10-page short story in elementary school about a boy, his beautiful black horse, and the grey horse that the black horse fell in love with. Naturally there was a rock slide and one of the horses got killed- because even in fourth grade I was all about the gut-punch.

My parents soon got me a typewriter, (those of you too young to know what that is, bless you), and I used it (i.e. complained) so much I soon graduated up to a typewriter that had a magical DELETE button on it where if you hit the incorrect letter, it would slap a tiny bit of white-out over the letter, covering it up so you can keep typing. It. Was. Glorious.

I wrote about a warrior with a huge battle axe, I wrote about my cat running away and having an adventure, I wrote an X-Men fanfiction story centered on Rogue because of course. I wrote about everything!

Anyway- life happened. Sports happened, as did theater, friends, girls, all of it. My writing was inconsistent but I would often dabble. I wrote and directed a 2-act play as I was leaving High School- a dramatic piece about two lovers who grow up together, and then one of them moves on while the other doesn’t. My strength was dialogue, and much of the audience was sobbing by the end. Comments like “I never thought I would cry during a high-school play” filled me with a completely unfamiliar fire and I remember driving home alone just screaming after that show I was so happy.

I tried my hand at some longer prose, writing about gangsters, and ghosts, vampires, and elves… and sometimes gangster vampires and sometimes ghost elves- but I could never finish anything. For one reason or another I would lose confidence and abandon each project. I remember once I was a solid ten chapters into a gangster vampire story and then I found the Game of Thrones book (this was years before the tv-show came out) and I couldn’t type out a single word again for months because I felt nothing I could ever write would hold a candle to the mastery that G.R.R.M. had put onto paper.

Then, one day I started to learn a bit about computer programming. The phrase, “Hello World” is traditionally the first phrase a beginner programmer will create a process for and have a computer program regurgitate. It’s a simple program, and meant to bring levity to the daunting task of programming. Something about the phrase stuck with me though, and over the next two days I wrote a single scene about an robotic artificial intelligence taking over a person’s home. The short story ends with the A.I. revealing itself, standing tall in the kitchen with arms stretched outwards and saying, “Hello World”. I shared the short with some friends and a small Sci-Fi fan community and people loved it. I think I really needed that bit of validation, because it gave me the fuel to write my first novel, Omega Children.

I didn’t really market Omega Children. I posted about it on social media a bit and it had a nice little run, and for a first attempt at a book, I am proud of it. You’ll see the reviews are mixed. Some people loved it, others didn’t like the concept any (of note, a gentleman who was the head of I.T. at The White House said it was the best Sci-fi he’s ever read, so, that’s a tally in the win column.)

I made some mistakes with Omega Children. The concept is sound, but some of the writing I look back on now and wish I would have done differently. Also the ending really leaves a few things unsettled- so maybe one day in the future I’ll go back and add a few chapters and round out the whole thing as it should be and then re-release it. But for now, it’s still a really fun book with (for my money) is still the realest depiction of how Artificial Intelligence would actually develop.

That was quite a few years ago though- and I’ve kept myself distracted with a number of non-writing projects, including writing a few comic books and having stories in some anthologies, but here I am, back, and focusing on this craft I love, and I’m so happy you’re here with me.

-Slade