Mixy business.

Another of my shots from Ignite Lansing 4. This one is of the talented DJ Rachel doin’ her thing.

I love the light I got in this shot. Also: I love my 50mm prime lens.

"What, no hot tub?"

The set up plan for Ignite Lansing 4. I was a part of the photo team.

Writing nonsense after the break.

I self-published my first novel, the Magic of Eyri, three years ago (has it been that long? Yikes). I started writing it in the fall of 2005, so it took me about two years to get the thing finished.

Since the fall of 2008, I have been working on my “next” novel, which I had been calling Night of the Lonely Werewolf, but now I am calling Drake (after the main character). At least for the moment.

I get asked from time to time what writing your second novel is like. It is difficult,  because I had the pleasure of ignorance the first time around.

I don’t really have that now. I “know” what I’m doing (to some extent) this go around, and I have a (slightly) better skill-set too.

Think of a garage band throwing together their first album, and relying on raw energy and determination just to get the thing done.

But now that they know what they are doing, and have some better gear, they examine every aspect of each track on their second album.

That’s what I’m in the middle of right now.

And that’s OK.

After reading through the first draft of this next novel, and making notes, I realized I needed a total rewrite.

And that’s also OK.

A brand new rewrite/story doesn’t scare me, in fact I am very much looking forward to this process.  I had some ideas for my characters that I didn’t even come up with until the final third of the novel (I almost typed “album” there, sheesh).

However this does mean a bit more world building and outlining, so I’m stuck with a bit of extra prep work.

And that is still OK.

I’m spending more time getting to know my characters and figuring out what I want them to do in this new adventure. I’m re-visiting a few writing books that helped me write Magic of Eyri, and it is aiding in this process considerably (books on mythic structure, etc).

And the more work I do, the more I know that the plot is going to be totally different. I may recycle the story from the first draft at some point, but I feel it is best to go a totally different route (but keep the same “world” and characters).

I was having problems keeping the plot together while reading through the first draft.

And that isn’t OK. At all. The plot was too complicated and murky. But remember, I’m a big proponent of “Your First Draft can be Crap.” And it was  (although I was proud of a few paragraphs).

So, I’m doing an “Apple+Z”* on Night of the Lovely Werewolf, and starting over with Drake very soon.

And that’s super-OK. To the max.

* = that’s “Undo” for you squares. Yes, I just made a Photoshop joke.

In this version you can see me work the stage and rock the mic*.

You can join the hundreds of viewers in wondering “Why is he wearing an eye-patch?” or “What’s with the one glove?”

In other news, I just go back from a (much needed) vacation in San Francisco. I’m still “on vacation” today, even though I am home. I wanted a day to recover from jet lag and the red-eye flight back to Ol’ Mitty.

A day-by-day blog series about the trip, with plenty of photos will be happening soon.

*results may vary.

Before you gasp and say “499 pages?!”, keep in mind this is the printed out version–double spaced, 12 point font on normal sized pages. The total word count was somewhere in the neighborhood of 90,000. To compare, Magic of Eyri was 170,000+ words and 919 pages printed out in the same format.

Yes, I’ve killed quite a few trees lately.

Will I self-publish this one? Nope. I’ll get this baby ship-shape and start shopping it around in a few months (hopefully) to agents, etc.

My first thoughts after reading the last page and setting aside my red pen?

1. There are a few sentences I’m proud of.
2. It certainly is a first draft (as in, a good sized portion is “crap”).
3. I can see its potential.
4. I have a lot of work to do.

The most interesting thing about this novel is that I stopped writing it about halfway through and didn’t start up again until at least six months later (life happened). And it shows in some parts. Getting the story going again was rough, and in some sections it was apparent that I didn’t care how the characters got moving, as long as they were doing something.

But, towards the latter half, I found my groove once again. There are some great ideas that came to me then–ideas that will make me go back and completely change the first half of the book, for the better.

This is why, when asked for writing advice, I tell people to just finish, for better or worse (to wit, see my Ignite Lansing 3.0 presentation). I wrote scenes in the last 30 pages that I didn’t even have ideas for in the first 200 pages. I came up with a huge change for my main character in those last 30+ pages or so, and it’ll make the first part much better.

Had I stopped half-way through, I would have never come to that revelation. Better still, a few lines I wrote in the last few pages may end up going to the BEGINNING of the story. They set up my main character really well.

Sure, going back and rewriting most of the book with this new focus will be a bit of a chore, but I don’t care. It’ll make the story better and honestly, I’m not happy with how I wrote some of the early sections anyway (lots of info-dumping).

Next step: going through and taking all the notes from my marked up manuscript and putting them all in one notebook or sketch book.

Until then, feast on this:

To Listen: click on the gray play button below.

To Download the MP3: Right Click on the Download link, choose Save Target As or Save Link As from the menu and then choose where to save the .MP3 on your hard drive.

Show Notes

First Segment
00:00-03:36 (News, Ads). We start at 03:36.

03:36 – 14:00 Ignite Lansing, Daniel’s presentation, John Schnider’s article about Ignite, the ensuing backlash and Ari Adler’s response.

14:00 – 16:00 We chat about Jillian Granz, the MSU student who designed a dress for James Cameron’s wife to wear in the red carpet at the Oscars.

Second Segment
16:00 – 28:00 Interview with Ivy Hughes about Capital Gains, traveling and being a transplant from Colorado.

Third Segment
33:50 – 45:50 Interview with Ryan Knott about Lansing Happy Hour Club (you can search for the #lhhc on Twitter too), and as a performing singer/songwriter we ask him for advice on what not to eat or drink before going on stage (count how many times he says mucus).

Fourth Segment
48:30 – 59:59 Reading Month is the topic and here is  Daniel’s pick, Trizophrenia: Inside the Minds of a Triathlete by Lansing native Jef Mallet , who also draws the comic strip Frazz.

Julielyn talks about the Nook by Barnes and Noble and Daniel makes a terrible joke about “Waiting for the Schuler Schnook.” Julielyn’s book is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.

After the books, Julielyn talks about March also being National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month – and the importance of being screened.

What’s on Your iPod? – Daniel’s pick for this week, David Bowie’s Moonage Daydream (Live). Julielyn then subjects us to the Glee! version of Don’t Stop Believin‘ by Journey. Daniel is not amused.

Daniel and Julielyn share some of their favorite afterwork activities and we read some listener ideas off Twitter (use the #LansingNext tag) and Facebook.

I arrived on scene at 6:00 PM as the speakers were told to do, the interior of the Knapp’s Building was a buzzing hive of activity. Lights. Lasers (yes, laser). Cameras. They were all alive.

I had my pre-show briefing with show runners (Nick, Ben), the MC and the stage manager, Melissa. I was happy to see I could use a hand held mic, as I wanted to be mobile during my speech.

Around 7:00, the floodgates opened and attendees started arriving. It was energetic chaos (I mean that in a good way). Dozens filled the line for the Cravings Popcorn bar (my LansingNext co-host Julielyn helped as a volunteer).

The evening was pretty much a blur for me until I had my cue to head for the stage around 9:00 PM. I was in Group C, the last of the three groups of presenters. The crowd had thinned a bit by this point, but it was still very much a packed house.

I was pumped, primed and ready.

I took the stage and killed. My choice to go for the silly, crazy presentation worked. Had a lot of great crowd reactions (although my spork joke at the open didn’t seem to go over that well). I’m glad I decided to wear an eye-patch and to do a “character voice,” the crowd ate it up.

Five minutes later, it was all over. I received scores of compliments afterward, both in person and online.

Better still, I took First Place for my group. Bam.

I think I had third place overall. I don’t know when the video will be on YouTube, but I will post that asap once it becomes available.

Thanks to everyone at Ignite Lansing for putting on a great event!

This scene from ERNEST SAVES CHRISTMAS inspired my presentation a bit.

For those unfamiliar, the Ignite events are held around the world and the idea is you get people together and share ideas in five minutes.

That’s right, five minutes.

Five minutes, 22 slides, 15 seconds a slide. That’s a lot of information to cram into such a brief amount of time.

And of course, being the crazy person I am, I signed up to be a presenter. Visitors to the Ignite Lansing website voted on which presentations they wanted to see. I was fortunate enough to be chosen.

I am equal parts nervous and excited about this opportunity. I’ll be speaking in front of a group of hundreds in the building, as well as being streamed online. Afterward, the presentation will be archived for all to see on YouTube. The presentations can be watched at video.ignitelansing.com (I go on at 9:15 PM EST).

So yes, I’ll be speaking in front of a crowd nearing 600, not to mention many more watching online. This is quite a bit of pressure, but I’m up to it.

My presentation is called How to Survive Writing a Novel.

Now, I do not plan for this to be a five minute promotion of the Magic of Eyri, I am not that shameless of a self-promoter. I do list myself as the author of it on my title slide, but I felt it was necessary to show the audience that I actually wrote a novel.

I am taking a very funny, zany approach to this and I don’t want to give too much away ahead of time. Although I have been dropping hints here and there, especially on this week’s episode of LansingNext.

My goal is not to be boring. I am treating this as more of a performance piece than a presentation, if that makes sense. I’ll be digging into my improv comedy toolbox a bit, and just having fun.

If I can share information and entertain at the same time, awesome.

I shall post a link to the YouTube video once it is online. Wish me luck!

If you aren’t in know, it is a weekly talk show I do with Julielyn Gibbons. It streams each Wednesday at 11:00 am (EST) at TalkLansing.net.

To Listen: click on the gray play button below.

To Download the MP3: Right Click on the Download link, choose Save Target As or Save Link As from the menu and then choose where to save the .MP3 on your hard drive.

Here’s a quick breakdown of each of the segments.

Segment 1
-Downloads, fans, feedback.
-Olympics and Ryan Miller, pride of East Lansing.
-Google fiber follow-up.
-Knock out JL as Mayor of Cravings Popcorn by March 28th and win popcorn for a year.
-JL and pay it forward (no, not the movie).

Segment 2
-We talk to Kelly Steffen about Eve of Ignition, Spotlight Campus and the Hatch.

Segment 3
-We talk to Carla McWherter about Lansing Give Camp.
-Carla and JL talk about how much they adore Daniel’s hair.

Segment 4

-Ignite Lansing 3.0
-Daniel presenting at Ignite.
-The lolrus. Seriously. Kthxbai.

Segment 5
-We Rick Roll our listeners (per another’s request).
-”What’s on Your iPod?”
-Shout outs.
-MI Entertainment Oscar Party this Sunday at Lansing Mall Cinema.

To Listen: click on the gray play button below.

To Download the MP3: Right Click on the Download link, choose Save Target As or Save Link As from the menu and then choose where to save the .MP3 on your hard drive.

We talk about Smoke Free bars/restaurants in Lansing, urban chicken farming and Foursquare. We also talked about Ignite Lansing 3.0 with Nick Kwiatkowski and Lansing’s global appeal with Suban Nur-Cooley.

Keep in mind this is very much a work in progress, so things are a bit rough around the edges. I also apologize in advance for all my horrible jokes.

Heads up, there are commercials with our sponsors (and PSAs) and, full disclosure, Julielyn and I do get a cut of that money.

Lastly, unlike the Magic of Eyri Podcast, I was only the “talent” for this show–I didn’t do any of the engineering or production duties. I gotta say, it was nice not to have to worry about any of that for a change.

Make sure to become a fan of the show on Facebook.

GarageBand makes it pretty easy to create and tweak your own effects.  It reminds of a time when a friend told me about a digital effect pedal he got for his guitar, he said getting the pedal set his learning guitar back by a year due to spending all of his time playing with the pedal’s effects.

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Friday night was the Ignite Lansing event here in town.  It was an amazing sight, but sadly I was stuck at work and wasn’t able to watch any of the presentations.  I had a break and was able to swing by for a little bit as things got started.  Seeing lots of creative people in one spot was great.

The event was held at what used to be the Temple Club–an old church that was turned into a music venue.  It was a great place to see a show: I saw Electric Six there twice and both were fantastic shows. However, the Club did not survive and Lansing lost of its unique (and honestly, best) music venues.  Currently it is being turned into office space, and while I’m glad the building is going to be used again, it isn’t the same.

The word on the street is that Ignite Lansing 3.0 will take place in March.  I’m considering signing up to do a presentation on podcasts.  You suggest a topic and people vote on the topics they want to see–if you win, you have to give a presentation on that topic in five minutes, using twenty slides.  Lots of pressure, but I think I could do it.