Behind “Andrew vs. The Collective” on Kickstarter & an update
The Kickstarter Blog has just posted an interview with me about Andrew vs. The Collective. Here’s a quote of myself, in block quotes from another site, selected by myself:
The way I see it, each Kickstarter project’s backing period plays out like a story. You have the main narrative arc (“Will this project reach its funding or not?”), but in order to keep attracting new people, you have to build in some subplots. Some story beats.
Andrew vs. The Collective was essentially a seven-act story: the introduction and then each of the six short stories. Each week the narrative was: “Can Andrew finish this week’s story?”
Meanwhile Project Lazarette is going swimmingly. The book is outlined in detail and I have been cranking through the word creation. It is, like its subject, a monumental task that requires a lot of time just working on it. No silver bullets, just hours of work.
This is what I can tell you so far: There are two main characters. Their names are Daniel Penn and Meg Percy. There are three total parts to the book. I am, today, closing in on the end of the rough draft of the first one.
Word count: 32,093.
Disinteresting the Base: How Whitman Is Going to Beat Brown in November
I watched a lot of local news last night with the Mehserle decision coming down. And thanks to that I saw this ad a lot:
It’s a pretty intense hit-job on the once and future Governor, but I’ll say this: it’s really, really well-produced. Where most political ads slide across and away from my consciousness, this one caught and held my attention.
I don’t think the audience for this ad is the independent vote that could decide the race (though I’m sure Meg’s camp would be happy to see those folks won over), the real audience is the hip, urbane, young Democratic base in the media-savvy enclaves. The message of the ad is not “Vote for Meg” it’s simply, “Hey young Dems, just don’t bother voting.”
And I think that strategy could actually work. Brown was unopposed in the Democratic primary. An unopposed Democrat in California! Did you have your eye on a rising party star? (Newsom? Villaraigosa?) Too bad. You got Brown on the ballot and Brown only.
I would argue, contrary to the standard political wisdom, that not being contested in the primary will hurt Brown in the long run. No one had a chance to get excited about Brown – and excitement, we saw in the 2008 Presidential, is crucial to energizing the young Democratic base. (And also to ginning up one of those small donation money machines like Obama had.)
And so despite the independent voters the pundits will talk about everyone chasing, Meg (who doesn’t need anybody’s money except Meg’s) just has to do one crucial thing between now and November: Disinterest the Democratic base.
And with media buys like this, I’d say she’s off to a good start.
(Caveat: The X factor in November will be legalization. There are an awful lot of those same young Democrats who, smokers or not, will want to cast their vote on such potentially historic legislation. And maybe, just maybe, pot will save Jerry Brown in the end.)
Big News: I’m leaving Current
Last week I alluded to some big news coming up – and it’s here: This week will be my last week with Current TV.
I’ve been with Current since the month it launched, have had the opportunity to work on some of the most interesting projects in media in the last five years, and have learned and grown more from this one company than I could have from five different companies in quintuple the time. But for me, right now, it’s time to move on.
Why? What am I leaving to go do? Well, honestly – to write! I’ve got a lot of momentum going and I want to capitalize on that. For the next few months I’m going to be a full-time writer. (Crazy, right?) What will I attempt to accomplish in that time?
- Write the first rough draft of the newly-christened Project Lazarette (thank you Amanda for that awesome name and my new nautical project naming system). It’ll be my second full-length novel and I think it’s shaping up to be a really great one.
- Find myself a literary agent who’s willing to help find me some support/outlets for what I think is going to be a pretty prolific next few years.
- Find some sort of greater perch for The Collective – either as the self-published book it is now, or by finding it a home with a publisher.
- Exercise a lot and learn French.*
This Thursday will be my last day in the Current offices and then I’ll waste no time in getting started on Lazarette over the holiday weekend. I plan to give America 10,000 words for her birthday!
And for all you fans of collaborative participatory journalism, don’t worry, I’m not abandoning the good fight – I’m just taking a break!
Look forward to lots more blogging around here!
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(* I have this persistent image of the page Nick Carraway finds in Gatsby’s book with his childhood daily schedule. The range of regimented activities he’d undertake for one half hour or quarter hour at a time. My temptation is to make such a schedule, though everyone tells me it’s folly. That said, I’m totally serious about the exercise and the French.)
“FNC Commentator is the New GOP Presidential Candidate”
Amid all the hullabaloo over Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s off-the-cuff quotes in Rolling Stone’s The Runaway General, I found my brain hazily remembering some offhand commentary from a few weeks back that the Right would consider him a strong contender for a 2012 GOP run. Consider that. Could an ex-general take on the incumbent President who fired him? In this political climate? Hell yes. Which got me thinking about what some of the other 2012 GOP hopefuls are doing to bide their time before kicking back off: being commentators on Fox News.
So if McChrystal is fired – how long does it take for him to show up on Fox as a commentator? Months? Weeks? Hours? Tim Carmody of Snarkmarket asks if that might have been his intention all along. A well-executed maneuver if so.
Is it ethical? A fired general becomes the government’s critic on the opposition media outlet? I’m not familiar with American military ethics, but my gut tells me it would be frowned upon. But, these days, completely plausible. (Tim says, “it’s like an ivy league kid getting a job at Goldman Sachs”) And before we throw stones at Fox, CNN picked up Ret. Gen. Russell Honoré to talk about anything Gulf-related.
As a sidenote – I found the article itself really interesting. A good, tough look at the efforts of the counter-insurgency effort in Afghanistan. It’s politically inexpedient for McChrystal to shit-talk his civilian bosses in print, but honestly the piece made me appreciate the work he and his team are doing a lot more. (Open question as to whether or not his strategy is working.) This was a particularly great scene that I was surprised to find a little endearing:
The general’s staff is a handpicked collection of killers, spies, geniuses, patriots, political operators and outright maniacs. There’s a former head of British Special Forces, two Navy Seals, an Afghan Special Forces commando, a lawyer, two fighter pilots and at least two dozen combat veterans and counterinsurgency experts. They jokingly refer to themselves as Team America, taking the name from the South Park-esque sendup of military cluelessness, and they pride themselves on their can-do attitude and their disdain for authority. After arriving in Kabul last summer, Team America set about changing the culture of the International Security Assistance Force, as the NATO-led mission is known. (U.S. soldiers had taken to deriding ISAF as short for “I Suck at Fighting” or “In Sandals and Flip-Flops.”)…. By midnight at Kitty O’Shea’s, much of Team America is completely shitfaced. Two officers do an Irish jig mixed with steps from a traditional Afghan wedding dance, while McChrystal’s top advisers lock arms and sing a slurred song of their own invention. “Afghanistan!” they bellow. “Afghanistan!” They call it their Afghanistan song.
McChrystal steps away from the circle, observing his team. “All these men,” he tells me. “I’d die for them. And they’d die for me.”
UPDATE: Tim blogged about it too! He expands on his theory that this was planned by McChrystal, AND is pretty sure that Obama is Billy Crudup.
Researching is a Massive Public Work
A lot going on – and big news/updates to come – but I wanted to talk a little bit about research. I’m busy getting ready to write my second novel (but I guess my third book?). And this time I’m trying to do everything about this process “right.” The Collective, you remember, was a National Novel Writing Month book. I jumped in with eyes squeezed shut, outlining as I went, discovering the plot as it flowed from my fingers. That process was a lot of fun, but it meant the editing process, once I started to try to make sense of what I’d written, was a 12-month chore.
With this next book I want to cut that time down – and I aim to do it by smartly outlining and researching ahead of time. (Like a real book!) That’s the part I’m in right now – and it’s been a lot of fun, actually. I’ve got books and movies in a big long list. I’ve got a Scrivener document with ideas for scenes and characters. And I read for hours at a time and feel like I’ve accomplished much. Of course the danger is to get sucked in and research for forever. But I’ve set myself a due date – I’ll start writing in earnest on July 2. (Happy Birthday America, I got you 10,000 words!)
What’s the research been? Massive earth-changing projects. I read Dam! about the Hetch-Hetchy and right now I’m reading Path Between the Seas about the Panama Canal. (PBTS, BTW is an incredible book. The founding of the Republic of Panama reads like a Joseph Conrad page-turning spy thriller.) Next up in my queue: a book on Baron Haussmann remaking Paris and Ferdinand de Lesseps digging the Suez Canal.
Anything else you think I should read?
Also – I guess I should come up with a Sloanian codename for this next project, huh? That’s to come (though let me know if you have any suggestions).
The Collective is for sale!
Today I finally mailed the last of the copies of the books for my Kickstarter backers. Which means…
At long last my novel is for sale online! You can buy it in the Lulu marketplace.
If you’ve already got a copy, leave me a review! Let everybody know what you thought of the book. Or at least the good bits.
A new look for Current and 48 hour magazine
It’s been a while since I blogged, and boy have I been busy. I had all those books to mail for Andrew vs. The Collective (address-sending stragglers, yours’ go out this weekend!) and things have been busy-busy at the old office.
A personal highlight: I had a story picked up for 48 Hour Magazine! It’s called “Meet, Prey, Kill” (thanks Alexis for that title) and you can read it in print if you buy the magazine!
And then then on professional side: I’ve been running the homepage editorial for Current.com for the last few months and just last week that took an exciting new turn: this beautiful creation:
Look at that marquee! It’s gorgeous! The new design is courtesy Current’s longtime online designer Rod Naber who after five great years is leaving at a high point to go join the startup Rdio. Congrats Rod!
That’s not all the big news for Current. Last night we premiered a half hour special where Laura Ling talked about her imprisonment in North Korea. Powerful, heart-wrenching stuff. (You can watch that online here.) And next Wednesday the Vanguard documentary series starts up again with Missionaries of Hate about the Uganda anti-gay legislation and the influence of American evangelical leaders. That’s reported by Mariana van Zeller who just won a Peabody for her work last season. (Go Mariana!)
All right, all right, enough work-stuff. What about me? My book-designing, printing, shipping hiatus from writing is at last coming to an end. I’m beginning research this weekend on what will be my next novel.
I’ve decided with this one to pursue a relatively traditional path both of writing (no Collective, no NaNoWriMo) and distribution (agent –> publisher –> your local bookstore). So, if anybody has any agent/publisher friends/acquaintances they’d like to introduce me to – I’m looking!
The day I realized I’d never escape 1940
Via Gizmodo: Time Traveler Captued in Museum Photograph
The day I went to see them open the bridge was the day I realized I’d never escape 1940. Or at least, wouldn’t escape it in any way but the normal byway into 1941 and subsequently the war and 1942 and beyond. I’d never see 2006 again, not for a long, long time. After Mary Sue flung her chubby little hand out toward the dashboard, slapping open the glove box and breaking the fragile plastic tube that kept the Ununhexium inert and in this dimension, I felt the dread certainty of a man marooned. Don’t fool around with the local talent, crazy Uncle Waldo used to tell me. They called him crazy because before he married my aunt he claimed to be from the next century. From the 2000s. He got back there all right. A grey-haired curmudgeon with a tinkerer’s hand and pied piper’s skill at entrancing his little nephews. Local talent. Sheesh. I’d have to adopt a crazy Austrian accent too, pronounce the first letter of my name as a V instead of a W. Hmm, maybe I’d wait another five to six years first.
I’m really into stories of time travelers caught in image. I might write a book of their stories one day. If you see any – send them to me!
Also, in microfiction: Robin Sloan’s new volcanic brainstorm: Ash Cloud Tales.
