Vince Veselosky

According to Hofstadter's Law, every project takes longer than you expect it to (even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law), and my latest book project is no exception. But, as of today, Summoning Courage: The Piero Codex Book Three is available at ebook retailers everywhere!

I am delighted to announce the release of this conclusion to The Piero Codex trilogy. These were my first novels, and it has been an incredible learning experience for me to produce them. Those lessons learned will make my next series even better.

Now that the edits are done and the cover is attached, I'm going to take a little break from writing to try to close out another very late project: the remodel of Albatross House. I'm going to stay focused on that project until it's done, so I probably will not be releasing another book in 2019. However, I have about 80 thousand words already banked for my next series; there will definitely be another release in the future!

Thank you for following along with my creative journey. I sincerely hope you are enjoying it!

Your author friend, Vince Veselosky

Two years ago I wrote a post about Creating a Creative Process. Since then, I have completed three novels and am in production on a fourth, with many more in the pipeline. I have learned a lot of lessons through trial and error. I still have a lot more to learn. But after two years, I figured it was time for an update.

Note that this post is not titled "How To Write a Novel". This is a snapshot of my own process at a specific time in my writing journey. Maybe it will be helpful to other writers, but it's not a prescription nor a recommendation. I'm just sharing my experience.

So much can change in a year!

This has been a year of massive change for me, and we'll discuss that below. But first, I participated in National Novel Writing Month again this year, and as last year, this is my report on how I performed. Short story: I didn't "win" by writing fifty thousand words, but I did make a very good showing. Here's my word count graph for 2018.

As you can see, my NaNoWriMo project capped out at 31,168 words. Not bad. I drafted twenty-one days in November, so my average was below the required "winning" pace. Still, I averaged a thousand words per calendar day, and I feel pretty good about that.

I know what you're thinking. Didn't Vince say he was going to give me the conclusion to The Piero Codex trilogy in July? Where is it already?

Well, have you ever heard that quote about where the best laid plans often go? Yeah. Summoning Courage WAS planned to ship in July, but as it stands today, the draft is only about half complete. I'm working on it and making steady progress, but the muse and I are having disagreements that have slowed things down. Give me another couple of months to iron out the kinks, m'kay?

But I would hate for you to have nothing to read for all that time! If your "to read" queue is looking a little dry, let me give you a recommendation to tide you over. Since you enjoy my books, I feel pretty confident that you will love Dana Cameron's Seven Kinds of Hell, the first book in her Fangborn series. It has a lot of the elements you love: dark magics, secret societies, ancient relics, and a fresh take on the "vampires and werewolves" concept. I encourage you to check it out!

You can stop holding your breath! Shifting Loyalties: The Piero Codex Book Two has been released! (Okay, I know you weren't really holding your breath, but I was!) This is my second novel, as well as being the second book in The Piero Codex series.

I'm excited to introduce shape-shifters into the Seers Guild world with this release. You have some new characters to meet (including the mysterious ex, Marina), some secrets of the Codex itself will be revealed, and Mack is going to get into a whole new mess of trouble! This second installment has more action, more magic, more pages, and possibly more bourbon (I didn't count the drinks). Trust me, it's even better than the first one!

If you pre-ordered the book, you should have it on your reading gizmo already. If you didn't, hit your favorite ebook retailer and grab it today (links below for your convenience)!

I'm currently hard at work writing Summoning Courage: The Piero Codex Book Three to wrap up this trilogy. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy reading Shifting Loyalties!

TL;DR: There is some genius in this theory, and possibly some madness. Every writer should at least understand Dramatica's four through-lines, its definition of character archetypes, and the two helpful concepts of character resolve and story limit. If you go deeper, prepare to be confused.

Big announcement! Shifting Loyalties: The Piero Codex Book Two is now available for pre-order on most major ebook retailers!

Barb from CoverInked really stepped up her game on this cover, don't you think?

When it’s a matter of life and death, how do you know who to trust?

Mack was never good at trusting people, even before he went underground hiding from the Seers Guild. But when the former love of Mack’s life (Marina) goes missing, and an unknown organization makes dramatic moves against the Protectors of the Piero Codex, he needs help.

Maybe he can trust Recca, but she still seems to have a hidden agenda of her own. Maybe he can trust Lilly, but will involving her just get her killed? Maybe he can trust Marina’s husband Richard, but how is he supposed to work with the guy who stole his girlfriend?

With the enemy closing in, and time running out, turning an enemy agent seems like the best option. But when you can’t even trust your friends, how do you trust an enemy? Even if he manages to make all the right choices, how is Mack going to convince the other players to trust him long enough …

Cursing Fate: The Piero Codex Book One, is now available for pre-order on most major ebook retailers! This is the first book in my urban fantasy thriller series, The Piero Codex. Books two and three will follow quickly in a rapid release schedule, so don't worry, you won't have to wait long to read the whole trilogy.

I am unspeakably excited that my first book is finally available to the world. In fact, I'm so excited that you can call me Giveaway Bob, because I'm giving them away!

For a limited time, just for being an early fan, you can get the

Cursing Fate ebook for FREE! Click here to get it!

And if you need convincing, check out this gorgeous cover (by Barb Hoeter at Coverinked)!

I wanted to record for posterity my first experience of "winning" National Novel Writing Month. As you may know, NaNoWriMo is a self-challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

Throughout 2017, I have been tracking my writing statistics (screenshot provided). As you may see from the screenshot, before November, I never got anywhere near 50k words in a single month. So I took NaNoWriMo 2017 as a true challenge to get my word counts up and make some real progress, to prove to myself that I could truly improve both speed and quality.

I always aspired to being an author. In my teens and early twenties, I probably started a half-dozen "first novels" that never got finished (and that was probably for the best). When I started writing software, though, that became my creative outlet, and I stopped writing fiction. I even stopped reading fiction for many years.

In 2015, I decided to pick up that dream once again, and I determined to set myself to finishing a first novel. I dusted off some old ideas, tossed in some new twists, and began putting words down.

And I quickly realized that it wasn’t going to work.

Most people like to post on the Internet about their successes. I want to talk about failure. I can assure you, I am fully qualified to talk about failure. I’m an expert with thirty years of experience.

You see, the past few months I have been thinking pretty hard about where I am in my life, especially in relation to the dreams and aspirations I had as a teenager. I’m forty six years old now. Thirty years ago, I was sixteen, and I had big ambitions. I wanted to publish books. I wanted to make money in real estate. I wanted to find love.

So thirty years on, how am I doing? Two failed marriages, with a handful of failed relationships that never got that far. Finding love? FAIL. Two real estate purchases, one that ended in foreclosure, the other is worth less now than when I bought it, yet I owe more than I paid for it. Making money in real estate? FAIL. Number of books published: zero. Number of books written to completion: zero. Number of failed attempts: [I’ve lost count.] So, publishing books? FAIL.

You might be thinking, dude (or some equivalent form of casual address), you’ve …

Something I have been struggling with during the work on my (current) first novel is this: I am very likely producing the worst book I will ever write.

Assuming I finish it — which given past history is not a foregone conclusion — suppose I find the whole thing too exhausting to do again? Having written only one, it would, by default, be the worst one (and the best I suppose). If I go on to write the second, I should have learned much from writing the first, and the writing should improve. Skills are supposed to improve with practice, are they not? So I am destined to look back on this book and recognize how bad it is.

But there’s no getting around that. It was the same thing when I was learning to write computer software. Every six months, I would look back on my code from six months prior, and be disgusted by how bad it was. Most programmers recognize this feeling. It’s how we know we’re getting better. If ever we look back on old code and feel satisfied with it, it’s a sign that we’ve stagnated, and maybe it’s time to look for a different …

For nearly twenty years, the most concise description of me was "the guy with the really long pony tail.” That’s no longer the case, and I am frequently asked why. I find it curious that there is such a widespread assumption that a person needs a reason to change their hairstyle, but as it happens, I do have one. This is the story of how it came to be, and why it is no more.

Facilitate the flow of information to the point of its highest value.

The media industry at large has lost its path. Most media companies are heavily tilted toward media as entertainment, rather than media as information. As a result, they are engaged in a digital race to the bottom, where falling ad CPM drives them to seek higher page view numbers on thinner margins, focusing on quantity rather than quality, on usage rather than utility. This has left a huge, blue ocean of market opportunities in focused information services open to software and technology companies, who are growing at exponential rates while traditional media companies struggle to slow the rate at which their business is shrinking. Media businesses can stop drowning and start growing again if they recognize and adopt the mission statement above, the mission that media organizations have always had.

As a media organization, your mission is to facilitate the flow of information to the point of its highest value.

That doesn’t just mean its highest value to you, the business, but the highest value over all to the community you serve. Journalism can be seen as a fulfillment of this mission, because information about corporate malfeasance …

How good is the mileage on your car? I just did the math, and I travelled 2,288 miles in the past 4 months on 15 gallons of gas, so I’m getting 152 mpg. And I don’t even drive a hybrid!

How is that even possible? Here’s how I did it.

As I write this, I sit in an apartment in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward, just a few blocks from where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached to his congregation. I cannot express in words the gratitude I feel toward Dr. King and all the thousands of people who marched with him to demand equal rights for all Americans. Since its birth, America has been a nation that aspired to high ideals of equality, and since its birth, America has struggled and failed to live up to those ideals. People like Dr. King are the most important people in America, people who serve as a national conscience, who remind us of the ideals we aspire to, and insist that we try harder to live up to them. Dr. King made us better as a nation.

If you are a manager, you need to understand the ideas of W. Edwards Deming. Deming wrote several books about management, in which he chastised American business schools and American corporate management for perpetuating a failed philosophy and failed management techniques.

Deming proposed a new philosophy of management motivated by quality and grounded in systems theory. The Deming philosophy is too deep, too broad, and too rich to be explained in a mere blog post. Volumes have been written about it, and as I read those volumes I am sharing my thoughts through this venue (with apologies to Mr. Deming if I misrepresent anything, I am still learning.)

In my previous post, I wrote about David Allen's Getting Things Done book and productivity system. If GTD has a weakness, it is that, although the book describes the system very well, it does a poor job of describing the change of daily habits you'll have to perform if you really want to implement the system. The major reason people fail at implementing a GTD-style productivity system in their lives is that, no matter how simple the system may be, it's a big change from what they are used to.

David Allen's Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity is a phenomenon in the tech community. If you're reading this blog, you've probably already read the book, or at least know something about the productivity system that it defines. I read it years ago, but like many readers never put into practice more than a tiny portion of the system.

As 2012 drew to a close and I looked back on all the things I meant to accomplish, I decided that I should give this productivity bible another look, in the hopes of getting more things done in 2013. I won't bother to summarize the system that David Allen defines. The book is very readable and does a much better job than I could. Instead, I'm just going to note how I decided to apply the principles of his system in my own life, especially given the changes in technology and lifestyle since the book was originally published a dozen years ago.

Step 1: Spend 30 minutes unpacking boxes, peeling plastic, and connecting cables.

Step 2: In breathless anticipation, press the power button.

Step 3: Spend another 30 minutes hunting for the Windows Product Key so you can access the computer you just bought. Find it, finally, on an indelible sticker on the far side of the computer's case.

Step 4: Enlist an assistant to type the Windows Product Key while you hang upside down under the desk using a flashlight to read it out.

Step 5: Insert CD to install hardware drivers, because Windows does not know how to use the network card in your PC.  Try to convince Windows that you know what you are doing and yes, you really want to run that program from the CD.

Step 5b (optional): Wonder at how Windows has not only failed to improve, but has actually gotten worse in the 10 years since you last bought a PC.

Step 6: Using a clunky-looking "wizard" from the CD, attempt to connect to wireless network. Be unable to find your wireless access point in the list because you live in a crowded apartment building, and the list is sorted randomly rather than by signal strength …

How does a large company create an environment that encourages and leverages internal innovation? Here is my checklist of prerequisites for "enterprise" innovation:

I was surprised when I read some of the things writer Terry Pratchett wrote or said about developing PCA, a form of dementia. I cannot now find the original source that I read, but there are several similar articles. He described some symptoms of the disease slowly robbing him of his own mind. The inability to see certain objects when they are right in front of you. Walking into a room but having no memory of why you went there in the first place. Difficulty comprehending written text despite recognizing every letter and word. Difficulty recognizing people's faces.

I was surprised when I read this, because these "symptoms" have affected me, well, pretty much my whole life. I thought they were normal.

I figure any phrase that people deem to be a "law" and find important enough to attribute to a specific person (even if incorrectly) probably contains some real wisdom. Here's a collection of Eponymous Laws from Wikipedia, all of which I have found to be true in my own experience.

The science of management in the industrial age was all about efficiency. It had to be. The whole concept of capitalism is based on efficiency. An entrepreneur acquires capital at a cost, and that capital must be made to produce profit at a rate higher than the cost of capital. If you borrowed money at 10% to start your business, you had to make it earn 11% at least. That meant controlling costs ruthlessly and milking every bit of productivity from every penny's worth of capital.

But talk to a systems administrator about efficiency. She'll tell you that, in terms of percentage of server utilization, there are two numbers you never want to approach, numbers that will cause midnight pages and pale-faced panic. The first number, of course, is 0%. Everything is down! The second, more surprising but equally frightening number is: 100%! At 100% utilization, everything breaks, because you have no more capacity for work.

When I hear newspaper industry veterans talk about getting paid for content, it makes me want to cry. Case in point, this speech from Bill Monroe to the Midwest Newspaper Summit in Des Moines, Iowa, given Feb. 4, 2010.

What’s missing in today’s marketplace is a way to enable newspapers to protect that content and to profit when others reuse it. – Bill Monroe

I’m sorry Mr. Monroe, but I must disagree quite strongly. The reason journalism should be free is that journalism is extremely valuable. Sound counter-intuitive? Not at all.

Your newspaper is Seth Godin's Meatball Sundae — full of valuable stuff, but not a product anyone wants to buy.

I hear the same sentiment from executives all over the media industry, and especially from newspapers. “We deserve to get paid for our content.”

Dear Media Executives: You’re doing it wrong!

Last week, the New York Times announced plans to start charging certain readers for access to their web site. Reaction was predictable: Jeff Jarvis complained, TechCrunch ran some numbers, and Mashable used it as an excuse to talk about a rumored but still unannounced Apple product (seriously Mashable? come on).

One business model for online news that has been suggested, tried, and failed, is to make the news free for some short time, and then archive it behind a pay-wall. There is more than one reason why this doesn’t work as a business model, but the most obvious one is an old adage that should have been well known in the newspaper industry: yesterday’s news wraps today’s fish.

"Help me, Obi-wan Tablet. You're my only hope!" says old media. But these are not the droids they are looking for.

There has been so much hand waving in the last month about 2010 being “the year of the tablet”, it boggles the mind. Much of the buzz has centered around the anticipated announcement of a tablet device by Apple, makers of the much-admired iPhone. However, media industry wonks are all abuzz about how the new platform will redefine newspapers, magazines, and other print products.

Every media business is built around at least one of three key content activities: creation of content, curation of content, and compilation of data into content. Many media businesses, especially the large ones, make all three of these activities core competencies. Which sounds most like your business?

Many still doubt the utility of social media. I myself was among the doubters until I was forced onto Twitter and Facebook to test the social media integration for a web site I was developing. That’s when I discovered that, although Sturgeon’s Law applies to social media as much as anything else, the small percentage of “good stuff” is exceedingly valuable.

Case in point is this article: In a pinch, Twitter found a long shot source | By Daniel Victor. Stuck playing catch up on a story on a Sunday evening, with deadline looming, journalist Daniel Victor turned to Twitter in a last ditch search for sources. Long story short, Twitter came through for him.

The value of social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook is not immediately obvious to some (it wasn’t to me), and may even be counter intuitive. I’ve heard complaints that it’s difficult or impossible to form deep relationships through digital media, and Luddite sentiment that we should turn back to “face time” in our relationships. I disagree with the idea that deep relationships cannot be formed online, but the real value of social media is not in the deep relationships. It’s in the weak …

Time was, newspapers owned the local classified ads business, and it was their cash cow. Many people bought the paper just for the classifieds, and it was by far the most valuable real estate of the paper. In recent years, free Internet- based alternatives like Craig’s List decimated their business and contributed greatly to the decline of newspapers.