The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Achewood => Achewood => Topic started by: Oranjeboom on November 14, 2007, 02:46:01 pm
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Forgive my total n00bness, but searching the forums hasn't told me what I want to know.
WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH THE NEXT BOOK(s)? Been reading Achewood for a while now and digging on it. Want to buy the books, and make my wife read them. They only go through Dec 2005 and there's been a ton of great arcs since then. I don't want to buy a 7-book set. I want to buy an 8-9-10 etc book set. I want to buy several and give them as gifts. I want to chill in repose with some Stellas and Manchego and savor the wisdom., and then spread the light unto those dudes who still labor in the bleak grey of unremitting circumstances.
Is there any word on what the book situation is? Help out a fellow with some talk of hope and it would be a thing.
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Good work Ash, never let the outsiders know about our ability to read Chris Onstad's mind.
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Dude, I am not being a dick with this advice, OK?
Email (http://www.achewood.com/shop/shopfaq.php#contact) the man his ownself.
Seriously, for that kind of question I think you'd get an appropriate response.
s'allright. Thought he might get that thousands of times a day and wouldn't that time be better spent working on the book? Besides, I figured he'd just say "Go read the forums, you yutz. Gosh!". Get mocked either way. Don't you feel honored I decided to waste your time instead of his? >snort< Thanks though, I'll do just that. I'll even share any good news, as that is just the kind of thoughtful, gracious, considerate (and modest and self-effacing) individual I am.
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We are a rogue forum, after all.
Our admins and mods are LITERALLY rogue leaders.
Some kind of falling out happened a long time before I got here and now this is the home of the Rebel Alliance, somehow.
Assbar is building some kind of giant weapon but, luckily, we have the schematics. They have a weakness for venting ducts, you see.
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We are a rogue forum, after all.
Our admins and mods are LITERALLY rogue leaders.
Some kind of falling out happened a long time before I got here and now this is the home of the Rebel Alliance, somehow.
Assbar is building some kind of giant weapon but, luckily, we have the schematics. They have a weakness for venting ducts, you see.
IT'S A TRAP!!!
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We are a rogue forum, after all.
Our admins and mods are LITERALLY rogue leaders.
Some kind of falling out happened a long time before I got here and now this is the home of the Rebel Alliance, somehow.
Assbar is building some kind of giant weapon but, luckily, we have the schematics. They have a weakness for venting ducts, you see.
I think you're givng them too much credit. They have a weakness for being overtaken by small, furry creatures. Creatures collectively known as Ewoks asshattery.
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We are a rogue forum, after all.
Our admins and mods are LITERALLY rogue leaders.
Some kind of falling out happened a long time before I got here and now this is the home of the Rebel Alliance, somehow.
Assbar is building some kind of giant weapon but, luckily, we have the schematics. They have a weakness for venting ducts, you see.
If they're the Rogue Leaders, does that make us the Rogue Squadron?
Also: Stad loves this forum! I bet he's actually Keith Hernandez.
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"'Stad had a book deal go down the tubes but is still probably using that material to broker another project.
Ah, this makes sense. He does have an agent - a while ago I happened to find him on the client list of an agency in Brooklyn, which if you didn't know is where all the cool new literary kids are these days.
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Dogs, client lists...I...I...I love you...internet figment.
Aw shucks.
Seriously though - I hate to spoil it but I wasn't stalking him, I was looking for an agent. (I now have one who is a different one of the cool kids in Brooklyn and I actually can't remember the name of his.)
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If I ever finish this damn book-thing and if I ever come up with a title for it, I will have to ask your advice, then, down the road.
About this whole fuck*ng "getting an agent" thing.
I've utterly failed at it as a screenwriter, I'll need all the help I can get if trying to become a prosewriter, I imagine.
I am now on, like, the fifteenth working title "Wish You Were Here".
However I am at 103 pages, 14 chapters and 45000 words in. Which... is weird because I am told by NaNoWriMo types that 50000 words equals 175 pages so, like, apparently I'll have no idea how long my book "actually" is until I'm done and try to put it together into some kind of novel formatting.
I have this sneaking suspicion that I am actually writing a much longer book than I thought I was, at any rate.
It's going to come out to 300-350 pages of singlespace pages in Microsoft Word, in Times New Roman 12... but... I have no idea what that will/would mean in terms of real pages. Maybe more like 500?
I had been shooting for a... Vonnegutian length, you know? Definitely novel sized but not an overly long novel.
Ah, perhaps it's all crap and I won't have to worry about these things. Won't know til I finish a draft, I suppose.
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My understanding is that you're going to be talking about it in terms of word length anyway (your query to an agent will state its length that way, for example, not in number of pages.) So it doesn't matter.
Also, it's supposed to be harder to get a first novel published if it's incredibly long, so watch out. (I guess because it just really does cost more to print more pages?) I mean, not that I have any reason to think that you would write at a great length or anything...
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Hm, really? That's interesting.
I wonder what the mostly-agreed-to word-count for "too long" is.
Happily, this thing is going to be very modular, I think that I could definitely pull out parts without hurting the overall work too much, there are definitely asides here and there that could be cast out without the entire thing suffering greatly.
I mean, though, it's not like I'm writing "War and Peace" or some of Stephen King's crazier projects or something.
If it turned out to be 150,000 words... say... is that insanely too much?
I know so little about this kind of writing, it's in no way my field of training, I think that's part of why it's so fun.
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I think 150,000 is a little long but maybe not crazy. Someone once told me 120,000 was pretty normal for a novel and that was how long my first version was. Later, agents said that for my genre it should be shorter, so now I'm working on keeping stuff under or around 100,000.
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My understanding of the matter is that anywhere between about 60,000 and 100,000 words is a reasonable novel length; anything deeper is pushing into uncomfortable places, as I've been told. Then again, this may well have been for genre fiction.
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I looked at the latest Michael Chabon novel at the bookstore yesterday and it was hell of big letters and lots of drawings. Probably like 17 words total. When you win a pullitzer, you can just say "fuck it" and start doing pulp adventure novels. Which is totally rad.
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So basically what I am saying is win a pullitzer and you won't have to worry about length anymore.
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Or get into a genre where people expect 900 pages. Will your novel have any of the following on the cover: dragon, guy with sword, woman in chest plate, man in robe with staff?
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My understanding of the matter is that anywhere between about 60,000 and 100,000 words is a reasonable novel length; anything deeper is pushing into uncomfortable places, as I've been told. Then again, this may well have been for genre fiction.
Yeah, that is for 'genre'. Those snooty literary novelists - and Cort's books with the guy in a robe riding a dragon on the cover - they're allowed to kill more trees.
Anyway, I think for LFM fiction, keeping it under 150,000 is a more achievable goal.
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Nah. There are definitely no dragons, guys with swords or women in chest plates in this story. If I really wanted to stretch things, one of the characters could be in a bathrobe with a mop but he's not exactly wizardly.
Genre-wise it would be probably considered half character-driven-sci-fi and half history-junkie historical fiction. Sorta "Slaughterhouse-5" meets "The Plot Against America" with a little bit of "Heart of Darkness" thrown in there for good measure. I ain't got a story about wizards or elves in me, I'm pretty sure of this. I am firmly on the sci-fi side of the sci-fi/fantasy divide.
If I had to design the cover, it would be all white except with one long unbroken thick black line creating a rough outline of the New York City skyline if New York City was ravaged by war and the only buildings left completely in tact were the Twin Towers.
And then the book's name and my name, of course.
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So basically what I am saying is win a pullitzer and you won't have to worry about length anymore.
This also applies when picking up women.
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"Hey baby, ever seen a Pulitzer before?"
Also, anyone who has ever won an Oscar and claims that they didn't at some point use it as a sex toy on them or on their lover is a dirty dirty liar. You'd just... have to. Have to.
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Hell we'll be getting somewhere if we can get LFM to keep his posts under 150,000 words.
I have no literary experience but my gut says it will be however long it will be. Worst case scenario that means you've got a lot of raw material to work with when an agent says 'It's fuck*ng terrible, turn it into a 100 page romance for the YA section and maybe we'll talk.' Write first, edit later.
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I... I am getting the sense that y'all might consider me wordy. haha.
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I... I am getting the sense that y'all might consider me wordy. haha.
Of course not, Captain Prolix!
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I for one do not mind the wordiness. You've made me chuckle on multiple occasions.
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Oh hey, I wouldn't mind the million-word posts if I could just stop myself from reading them.
I hope this is complimentary.
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I for one do not mind the wordiness. You've made me chuckle on multiple occasions.
QFT. (quoted for truth).
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Oh hey, I wouldn't mind the million-word posts if I could just stop myself from reading them.
I hope this is complimentary.
Dude is like the anti-Ayn Rand. You can't stop reading long LFM posts even if you want to and you can't start reading Ayn Rand without the threat of violence.
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Dude is like the anti-Ayn Rand. You can't stop reading long LFM posts even if you want to and you can't start reading Ayn Rand without the threat of violence.
::THE NAME OF AYN HAS BEEN EVOKED::
Ayn Rand's 2 most famous novels are over 600 pages long and they were just stylized philosophy. She was the Queen of long posting, and LFM is a joker of the court.
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Oh, man, Ennewhy. Maybe I AM the anti-Ayn-Rand.
So much of this thing I'm working on is about the philosophy of empathy and non-violence and being all in this together and how every perspective on reality is completely different and completely valid and... how helping get each other through the collective human condition of suffering, loss and mourning together is the most important mission in a human life... I hadn't through of it that way, before, but it kinda IS the anti-Fountainhead.
Oh man. If I ever get it published, I'll need to pay someone off to call it the anti-Fountainhead so that I can put that on the back cover in the "praise" section. That'll definitely make sure that I get the reaction I'd want.
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Oh, man, Ennewhy. Maybe I AM the anti-Ayn-Rand.
So much of this thing I'm working on is about the philosophy of empathy and non-violence and being all in this together and how every perspective on reality is completely different and completely valid and... how helping get each other through the collective human condition of suffering, loss and mourning together is the most important mission in a human life... I hadn't through of it that way, before, but it kinda IS the anti-Fountainhead.
Oh man. If I ever get it published, I'll need to pay someone off to call it the anti-Fountainhead so that I can put that on the back cover in the "praise" section. That'll definitely make sure that I get the reaction I'd want.
Uh, Im guessing youve never actually read anything shes written. She is absolutely about non-violence. She is completely about the common good through individual action. And are you seriously proposing that the mission of human life is to mourn death? Seriously? Cmon man. Your book is not the Anti-Fountainhead, stop trying to inflate yourself by evoking the name of a genuinely legendary author.
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Ayn Rand: She can bring home the bacon, fry it up, and write 400 pages about it.
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My rough estimation of the mission of human life, granted in my short 28 years on this rock and as a part of this damned human race, is to ameliorate the suffering of each others' lives... to ease each others' pain.
In the context of what I'm working on and in a lot of the things I write, mourning shows up as the type of suffering that needs to be eased, yeah, but that's just because of... my own particular demons chasin' me in my nightmares, y'know, like the Red Knight on his Fire hoss in "The giraffeer King".
Individualism as a theory is nice but in practice it causes most people to just get obsessed with themselves and with owning stuff and shoring up their own particular comforts. That is not what we are here for, in my... again... rough estimation.
It'd make more sense if I had this thing done and could just give you a copy, Ennewhy, seriously.
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My rough estimation of the mission of human life, granted in my short 28 years on this rock and as a part of this damned human race, is to ameliorate the suffering of each others' lives... to ease each others' pain.
In the context of what I'm working on and in a lot of the things I write, mourning shows up as the type of suffering that needs to be eased, yeah, but that's just because of... my own particular demons chasin' me in my nightmares, y'know, like the Red Knight on his Fire hoss in "The giraffeer King".
Individualism as a theory is nice but in practice it causes most people to just get obsessed with themselves and with owning stuff and shoring up their own particular comforts. That is not what we are here for, in my... again... rough estimation.
It'd make more sense if I had this thing done and could just give you a copy, Ennewhy, seriously.
what are you eating for dinner? Did it come from a food store? a restaurant? In any case, it came from a person self-interested. And as a result, society as a whole gets food.
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We all act out of self-interest -- it's unavoidable. However, if we act only in our own self-interest we suffer both individually and as a species.
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We all act out of self-interest -- it's unavoidable. However, if we act only in our own self-interest we suffer both individually and as a species.
WTF are you talking about?
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Taking the short-term individual self-interest often shoots to shit the long-term collective-self-interest that could individually benefit your (and everyone's) self-interest down the road, Ennewhy.
The problem with acting out of self-interest is that it is inherently short-sighted much of the time.
Having less taxes out of my paycheck would SEEM like a good thing... but having police around has probably helped me from getting robbed at some point that I never knew about because they proactively prevented it.
Things like that.
Taking the quick self-interest often fucks everyone... yourself included... down the road.
I believe that this is what the august August is refering to.
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WHOOOOOSH
Dude's hat just blew off into that ravine over there.
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you are rad. welcome.
inaugural tiny can!
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I choose to believe the man in your avatar has Scary Shiny Glasses (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScaryShinyGlasses).
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Dammit people. I turn my back for three days and this is what happens?
At least in the process of scaring off one newbie you brought in another.
And with regard to this board being the home of the Rebel Alliance, I just want to say: JOUGH SHOT FIRST.
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Welcome to the board, Harlock Hero. If you really want to debate Ayn Rand, there's plenty going around, but you're also welcome to stay and talk about the strip or small mammals or what-have-you.
Also, who's the dude in your avatar? He looks familiar, but it's bugging the hell out of me.
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Also, who's the dude in your avatar? He looks familiar, but it's bugging the hell out of me.
It's a little self-portrait I did of myself one night back when I was working security. I had been doodling and it got all foggy outside, making the windows pretty reflective, so one thing led to another.
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Reminds me of the Greatest American Hero.
That's a compliment, BTW.
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Back to littlefallsmets's book: Times New Roman 12 is the standard font setting for manuscripts, I heard, but make the lines double-spaced (not only it makes reading easier for the editor, it boosts your ego when you see your manuscript suddenly doubling in length. And that's not cheating: It actually brings your manuscript to a more accurate reflection of how many pages the thing's gonna have once it's published). Of course this is always a fluctuating estimative, but, say, a 250 pages long manuscript in T N Roman 12 with double spaced lines would yield a book of roughly that same length.
Pardon me if this information isn't new to you; I figured I should try to sneak as many useful information I could (like, do not justify your margins, editors don't seem to roll that way either).
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Not to be all contradictory or anything, but I heard from a few sources that double-spaced Courier 12 is the closest way to approximate manuscript-to-printed page counts. 1 inch margins all around, and definitely no justification, yeah.
Of course, the editor I work with out of the UK demands only Verdana 11, so I imagine that this is very dependent upon the actual publisher.
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Courier New is the best, just from a personal preference type of trip.
also, what is justification the way you all are using it?
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also, what is justification the way you all are using it?
Justified type is like what you see in a book, where the letters are subtly stretched or squashed so that the ends of the lines or type line up perfectly up and down both the left and right sides (as opposed to having a ragged right hand margin).
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I have been using Times New Roman 12 in a standard Microsoft Word page without any kind of modification. Tabbing in a half-inch for the opening of a paragraph and writing single space except for a double-space between different ideas.
You know, three or four related ideas run together single-space and then... a double-carriage.
Similar to how I write here except with an indent at the beginning of each paragraph.
It's not like screenplays, you know, where the formatting rules are easily learned and obvious.
Hm.
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Quit worrying about typography.
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Quit worrying about typography.
Indeed. Unless the point of your book is that it's formatted in the way of a jerk, format it in any way that's not the way of a jerk and you'll be fine.
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What about Poem Concrete? ( I think I am confusing it with Poeme Electronique by Edgard Varese, and don't really know what the thing I am talking about is called). Anyways, like, the song Bat Macumba by Os Muttantes that actually looks like a bat on paper.
Okay, it is called concrete poetry and I think it might only be a Brazil thing.
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Okay, it is called concrete poetry and I think it might only be a Brazil thing.
Indeed it is and we're[1] much ashamed of it, kinda just waiting until everybody forgets about it. I mean Christ, the rest of the world had been playing with ideas and emotions in verse for centuries and there we came along with the equivalent of playing with letter blocks ("alphabet blocks"? I don't know the proper nomenclature). Sheesh...
As for not worrying about typography... it's not "typography", it's a set of practical procedures one has to take when comes time to send the thing out in an accepted format. Indeed, littlefallsmets doesn't have to worry about that *now*, but he'll have to worry about it at one point, if he wants his manuscript to have a fair chance between the piles of material clogging the editors's desks. They are required by profession to be fastidious fucks, and it's all about saving time, really: Standardization means that the editor won't have to adjust his reading habits to each manuscript he cracks open to read. Non-standard formatting will work *so hard* against you, you have no idea...
[1] - by "we" I mean the younger generation of writers and poets. We actually roll eyes when the subject pops up in conversation.
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I thought it was really cool, but, uh, I guess I don't know what the words in the song mean.
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when I was in 4th or 5th grade I made a poem about Christmas that was in the shape of a christmas tree. it was pretty rad at the time.
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It probably was.
it
is the
christmas
time when gifts
are given to loved ones
christmas is the time of year that the
Romans said was Jesus' Birthday to stop the pagan
mushroom holiday Even the reindeer ate the mushrooms
that were red and white like santa claus. Love is the best gift to give to
someone you love. Jesus
was love, understand?
I want a gift card
Sorry, I am supposed to be writing a huge capstone paper. Also, It looked more like a tree in the edit box.
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As for not worrying about typography... it's not "typography", it's a set of practical procedures one has to take when comes time to send the thing out in an accepted format. Indeed, littlefallsmets doesn't have to worry about that *now*, but he'll have to worry about it at one point, if he wants his manuscript to have a fair chance between the piles of material clogging the editors's desks. They are required by profession to be fastidious fucks, and it's all about saving time, really: Standardization means that the editor won't have to adjust his reading habits to each manuscript he cracks open to read. Non-standard formatting will work *so hard* against you, you have no idea...
No question, but the time to worry about that is after the manuscript is written.
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Like I say, muttering to myself over formatting isn't slowing me down, either way.
I'm over 50,000 words in from very late September to the middle of November.
I just... I dunno. I think too far down the road sometimes, I guess.
Thank you all, by the by, for putting up with this very self-centred line of questioning of mine.
If there was a "can everyone" function, I'd surely use it.
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I thought it was really cool, but, uh, I guess I don't know what the words in the song mean.
Oh, I have no doubt that as a song it works all fine and fun, or that theinev's poem rocked a silly bunch.
My exasperation stems from the fact that down here there has been an organized (and thoroughly successful) effort of academic validation of this movement as a respectable form of poetic expression[1], as a worthy specimen for the annals of big league literature, which it so obviously isn't... Just a gimmick - which is not without its merits (George Herbert used to shape some of his poems to reflect their subject matter, like "Easter Wings", which look indeed like wings. But of course that was a bonus that he threw in, it wasn't the fuck*ng *main feature of the poem*).
[1] - Since the 50's, to be sure... the damage is already done. But at least now we're distanced enough to just pretend they never existed.
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Like I say, muttering to myself over formatting isn't slowing me down, either way.
Well, see that it don't.
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Oh, I have no doubt that as a song it works all fine and fun, or that theinev's poem rocked a silly bunch.
My exasperation stems from the fact that down here there has been an organized (and thoroughly successful) effort of academic validation of this movement as a respectable form of poetic expression[1], as a worthy specimen for the annals of big league literature, which it so obviously isn't... Just a gimmick - which is not without its merits (George Herbert used to shape some of his poems to reflect their subject matter, like "Easter Wings", which look indeed like wings. But of course that was a bonus that he threw in, it wasn't the fuck*ng *main feature of the poem*).
[1] - Since the 50's, to be sure... the damage is already done. But at least now we're distanced enough to just pretend they never existed.
are poems whose
xxx i screwed up xxx
so there main thing
wait is looking
like the
idea or
something
that they
are trying
to get
across
is that
right?
Edit: Don't hurt me.
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This was a staple of late 70's middle school English textbooks.
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Man, I hate to do this -- it's not nearly roguish enough -- but I'm actually going to try and answer the fellow's question. (if someone already wrote this, sorry I missed it.)
WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH THE NEXT BOOK(s)?... They only go through Dec 2005 and there's been a ton of great arcs since then.... Is there any word on what the book situation is? Help out a fellow with some talk of hope and it would be a thing.
According to The Onion AV Club's interview (http://www.avclub.com/content/interview/chris_onstad) with Onstad:
ONSTAD: I am actually working on a book... I've got all this content I'm talking about with kind of a major publisher. You know the "Great Outdoor Fight" story arc? I'm putting together… not quite a graphic novel, but I'm laying it all out as a linear story and adding new content and a ton of writing and background on what The Great Outdoor Fight is, and I'm hoping to publish that as some sort of perfect-bound, color-cover, proper edition. I'm just finishing the writing up for that. I think that will go over really well. Critically, I think, that was our finest hour. It really had a good response from people, which surprised me, because it was the first time I've really asked the audience to have patience, because they weren't one-offs every day or gag strips every day. It was a three-month narrative that really paid off, and I was really pleased, because I was afraid to do it at first.
And in this interview (http://www.orato.com/node/2332?page=7), he ups the ante by adding that there's a Hollywood deal in the offing, as well:
I would certainly like to see myself branching out into other media with this particular project and also with other projects. Today I was working on a screenplay. You know, where Ray and Roast Beef went down and fought in the Great Outdoor Fight. We've got a couple studios interested in the script, so we're trying to finish that up and get it sold.
Putting it all together, the holdup seems pretty obvious:
"The Great Outdoor Fight" -- hell, that whole year of the strip -- was such a huge hit that Onstad got some Hollywood and publishing attention. From the sound of things, he probably got a major publishing deal to re-release the entire comic series in some sort of deluxe edition you'll be able to buy at Barnes & Noble and Borders. I'm guessing the first release will be the "Great Outdoor Fight" arc, which will then be tied to the Hollywood deal, as comics-to-movie adaptations are still vaguely hot. All of this will probably be announced in the next six months or so.
However, it's probably taking forever for Onstad to set it all up, with his lawyer working to make sure he retains copyright and the WGA writer's strike and all that crap -- and that's why all the micro-content (like the 'zines) has been released, in an attempt to fill the void while something really big and nationally multi-platformed gets set up.
Of course, you could also e-mail Onstad and ask. But that's my theory.
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if they make a movie, I will cry and see it 10 times.
also: this past week I found out that a music promoter I've talked to for my job every week this semester is a huge achewood fan. Also, his company is looking for interns over the summer? Hmm. Boston or NYC. hmm.
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if they make a movie, I will cry and see it 10 times.
also: this past week I found out that a music promoter I've talked to for my job every week this semester is a huge achewood fan. Also, his company is looking for interns over the summer? Hmm. Boston or NYC. hmm.
Boston is an ass hole of a city. I was born there, and look what happened to me.
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Boston is an ass hole of a city. I was born there, and look what happened to me.
Clearly this is more than a feeling for you. You left the city and you don't look back. I'd think that it's been such a long time since you lived there that you'd have some peace of mind about the place, but I guess that's a man you'll never be. Anyhow, so long as you're feeling satisfied, it's all good.
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Clearly this is more than a feeling for you. You left the city and you don't look back. I'd think that it's been such a long time since you lived there that you'd have some peace of mind about the place, but I guess that's a man you'll never be. Anyhow, so long as you're feeling satisfied, it's all good.
Its not like I left Boston upon birth and never went back to the place. Ive been back to Boston and based on my interactions with the city, it is bullshit - IMHO. Im satisfied that boston is hundreds of miles away from me and thats where it will stay.
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Its not like I left Boston upon birth and never went back to the place. Ive been back to Boston and based on my interactions with the city, it is bullshit - IMHO. Im satisfied that boston is hundreds of miles away from me and thats where it will stay.
It's a 70's thing, you wouldn't understand.
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Wait... Oh... fuck.
Clearly this is more than a feeling for you. You left the city and you don't look back. I'd think that it's been such a long time since you lived there that you'd have some peace of mind about the place, but I guess that's a man you'll never be. Anyhow, so long as you're feeling satisfied, it's all good.
..... I.... don't know how I missed that. Im an idiot.
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my dad and his whole family are Bostonians. He used to have an accent, and apparently it comes back when he drinks. So maybe one day I will hear it.
Boston seems awesome, based on my understanding of it.
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AW: so smooth, so cann'd
QFT