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Author: Bradley Beaulieu

Steampunk vs. Aliens – 5 Questions with Joshua Palmatier

Steampunk vs. Aliens – 5 Questions with Joshua Palmatier

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Zombies Need Brains, the new small press started by Joshua Palmatier and Patricia Bray, has officially launched its first title via Kickstarter, a new anthology called Steampunk vs. Aliens. I sat down for a virtual chat with Joshua about the new project and the new press.

The project is running now on Kickstarter, and it’s been going great. As of this writing, it sits only a bit over $600 from its funding goal, with over two weeks left. Full disclosure, I’m involved with the project, but I’m also very excited about seeing this reach the market and finding fans of Steampunk and old-school science fiction. There are a ton of great rewards for the Kickstarter and lots of great stretch goals ahead.

Find out more by visiting the Kickstarter page for Steampunk vs. Aliens.

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How to Run a Successful Kickstarter – Part II

How to Run a Successful Kickstarter – Part II

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This is Part II of a two-part series on How to Run a Successful Novel Kickstarter

Find Part I here.

For years, I’d been planning on pulling together my short fiction into a collection of some sort to get it out and into the world. And for years I hemmed and hawed about actually doing it. I didn’t have time. It wouldn’t do well. My time would be better spent on my next novel. You’ve probably said many of the same things yourself.

Well, late last year, a few things changed. One, I wrapped up my debut trilogy, The Lays of Anuskaya, which finally freed up a fair bit of time for me to work on something besides novel-length work. And two, Kickstarter happened. What do I mean by that? Well, Kickstarter had been around for a while, but more and more I was seeing successful projects being started and completed on the platform. I saw how impressive some of them were, how caught up I got in the “community” that successful projects could bring about. I saw how effective some project owners were about running the Kickstarters during the ‘Starter itself.

And it got me to thinking: it may take some time and effort, but if they can do it, so can I.

And if I can do it, so can you.

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How to Run a Successful Kickstarter – Part I

How to Run a Successful Kickstarter – Part I

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This is Part I of a two-part series on How to Run a Successful Novel Kickstarter

For years I’d been planning on pulling together my short fiction into a collection of some sort to get it out and into the world. And for years I hemmed and hawed about actually doing it. I didn’t have the time. It wouldn’t do well. My time would be better spent on my next novel. You’ve probably said many of the same things yourself.

Well, late last year, a few things changed. One, I wrapped up my debut trilogy, The Lays of Anuskaya, which finally freed up a bit of time for me to work on something besides novel-length work. And two, Kickstarter happened. What do I mean by that? Well, Kickstarter had been around for a few years, but more and more I was seeing successful projects being started and completed on the platform. I saw how impressive some of them were as well, how caught up I got in the “community” that successful projects could bring about. I saw how savvy some project owners were about running the Kickstarters during the ‘Starter itself.

And it got me to thinking: it may take some time and effort, but if they can do it, so can I.

And if I can do it, so can you.

The first Kickstarter I ran was for Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories, my premiere short story collection.

The second Kickstarter I ran was for the third book in my Lays of Anuskaya Trilogy, The Flames of Shadam Khoreh, and it came about all quick-like. That is, I hadn’t planned on running a second Kickstarter, but there were a few, well, “issues” with my publisher, Night Shade Books.

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My surprise date with Amber Benson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Pat Rothfuss, and Terry Brooks

My surprise date with Amber Benson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Pat Rothfuss, and Terry Brooks

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So yesterday afternoon I got a phone call. It was from the Madison, WI area and I was like: I don’t know anyone in Madison. So I let it go to voicemail.

A few minutes later, I get a private message on FaceBook…

Cool surprise number 1: It was Pat Rothfuss. He’s like: give me a buzz. So I do (realizing that the missed phone call was probably from him). Pat answers and says there’s been a bit of a mix-up and he’s sorry for the short notice, but would I like to be on his new Geek & Sundry show, The Story Board.

What follows is a dramatic presentation of the two seconds that followed that question:

Me to anyone watching at that moment: O.o

Me in my head: Hell yeah, I’ll be on your show.

Me on the phone: I’d be delighted.

So we exchange all the details. I knew about his new show. A few weeks ago, I’d watched part of Episode 1 with urban fantasists Diana Rowland, Emma Bull, and Jim Butcher. And back then, I was all like: man it’d be cool to be on a show like that.

Little did I know…

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Read an excerpt from Bradley P. Beaulieu’s The Straits of Galahesh

Read an excerpt from Bradley P. Beaulieu’s The Straits of Galahesh

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galahesh-cover-v2-medWith the release of The Straits of Galahesh imminent (it hits shelves April 3rd), I’m grateful to John O’Neil and Howard Andrew Jones for having me by to share an excerpt. The Straits of Galahesh is the second book in my epic fantasy trilogy, The Lays of Anuskaya. The story picks up five years after the close of the first book, The Winds of Khalakovo. (And by the way, if you don’t already have a copy of WINDS, it’s available for FREE in the US from the Amazon Kindle Store until the end of the month.)

Here’s the cover blurb for STRAITS:

West of the Grand Duchy of Anuskaya lies the Empire of Yrstanla, the Motherland. The Empire has lived at peace with Anuskaya for generations, but with political turmoil brewing and the wasting disease still rampant, opportunists from the mainland have begun to set their sights on the Grand Duchy, seeking to expand their empire.

Five years have passed since Prince Nikandr, heir to the scepter of Khalakovo, was tasked with finding Nasim, the child prodigy behind a deadly summoning that led to a grand clash between the armies of man and elder elemental spirits. Today, that boy has grown into a young man driven to understand his past – and the darkness from which Nikandr awakened him. Nikandr’s lover, Atiana, has become a Matra, casting her spirit forth to explore, influence, and protect the Grand Duchy. But when the Al-Aqim, long thought lost to the past, return to the islands and threaten to bring about indaraqiram – a change that means certain destruction for both the Landed and the Landless – bitter enemies must become allies and stand against their horrific plans.

Can the Grand Duchy be saved? The answer lies hidden within the Straits of Galahesh…

I also wanted to let the readers of Black Gate know that I’m holding a giveaway to help promote The Straits of Galahesh. Everyone is welcome to come by and enter. I’m giving away a Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet (winner’s choice), a Kindle Touch or Nook Simple Touch (winner’s choice), a rare ARC of The Straits of Galahesh, and ten SETS of the first two books in both physical and electronic form. The details, including how to enter, can be found here.

One last item of note, if you enjoy the excerpt below, you can download the first eleven chapters from my website.

So, without further ado, here’s the prologue from The Straits of Galahesh.

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Finding the Balance: Workshopping

Finding the Balance: Workshopping

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galahesh-cover-v2-medOver the past year, and as I prepare for the release of my second book, The Straits of Galahesh, I’ve been interviewed a number of times. I’m often asked about the process of writing and how I cut my teeth as a writer. I went fairly “workshop heavy,” and I thought this would make for an interesting discussion for those who are just getting into writing.

I started workshopping not with a local group (I was traveling too much for that), but with an online community—Critters, to be specific. After a few months with Critters I moved on to the Online Writing Workshop, which worked very well for me for years. In terms of instructor-led workshops, I’ve been to Viable Paradise, Writers of the Future, Orson Scott Card’s Literary Bootcamp, and Clarion. I took a bit of a break after Clarion, but then attended Starry Heaven I and II in Flagstaff, AZ, a peer-to-peer workshop run by S.K. Castle that was modeled off of Charlie Finlay’s Blue Heaven. I enjoyed those so much I started Wellspring, another Blue Heaven offspring. I ran the first last summer in Lake Geneva, WI, and I’m running the second this coming summer, just before WorldCon in Chicago.

If it wasn’t obvious from that list, I strongly recommend workshopping. If you come with the right attitude and the right expectations, it will take your writing much farther than you could have brought it on your own. The greatest strength of workshopping, in my opinion, is the wealth of knowledge that others will bring to the table, things your own set of experiences and knowledge haven’t led you to.

Strangely, when you workshop you’ll find that you’ll gain insight from what other writers find in your work, but you’ll soon learn that you get as much benefit or more from critiquing work that others have also critiqued. You won’t be working with your own material, where you will inevitably have blind spots. You’ll be working as a first reader, as will the other writers, and it’s in comparing how well (or not) you found issues in the writing that you’ll learn. And so, pay close attention to what others have said about work you’ve also critiqued. See what you missed and then start taking notes. Identify your blind spots and then create stories that expose those weaknesses. Actively work to strengthen those muscles, and soon you’ll find them becoming strengths, or at least not liabilities. What I said about experimenting earlier? This is why you experiment. To become stronger in your craft with targeted exercises.

In these early days, enter with an open mind and an open heart. Learn from the other writers. Try not to get defensive. Absorb. And for the love of all that is good, experiment. You may want to write a particular type of fiction—for me it was epic fantasy—by try other things on for size. It will only help you as you progress.

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Checking in on The Hobbit

Checking in on The Hobbit

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hobbitThere’s a movie version of The Hobbit coming out. You knew that, right? But if you’re like me, it’s not something you keep tabs on every day. Don’t get me wrong, I love all things Tolkien, but movies move at a glacial pace, especially a highly anticipated movie like this one, and especially during pre-production. So I thought it would be interesting to talk a bit about it and update everyone.

So, after The Lord of the Rings movies, there were rumors aplenty that The Hobbit would be filmed as well. I was really psyched about this news. But then I read that Peter Jackson was in a dispute with New Line Cinemas regarding his contract for The Lord of the Rings and, considering that, couldn’t in good conscience agree to speaking about another movie with them until these issues were resolved. Jackson and New Line eventually came to some mutually beneficial agreement. Not only was the lawsuit by Jackson dropped, but he signed on to act as executive producer for The Hobbit film.

Then, early in 2008, I came across some news releases that reported about a new dispute with New Line, this time from the Tolkien estate. The allegation was that to date they hadn’t been paid a single penny for the movies. Wait a minute. What? The movies, which grossed more than the GDP of plenty of countries, haven’t resulted in any money for the Tolkien estate?

From the estate’s release:

The cumulative worldwide gross receipts to date total nearly $6 billion. Notwithstanding the overwhelming financial success of the films, and the fact that the plaintiffs have a gross participation in each of the films, New Line has failed to pay the plaintiffs any portion of the gross profit participation at all.

And this (emphasis mine):

The complaint seeks, among other things, in excess of $150 million in compensatory damages, as well as punitive damages, and a declaration from the Court that the plaintiffs have a right to terminate any further rights New Line may have to the Tolkien works under the agreements, including The Hobbit, due to the serious and material nature of the breach of the agreements.

Now, this is only one side of the story, of course. But being an author myself, and being such a fan, I quickly jumped to the defense of Tolkien. I’d heard about crazy accounting practices on the part of the studios to avoid having to pay royalties, but this? And, as a fanboy, I was pretty miffed that those (allegedly) greedy practices were going to prevent my beloved Hobbit movie from reaching the silver screen.

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Hook ’em and Don’t Let Go

Hook ’em and Don’t Let Go

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windsofkhalakovocover_smSelling novel-length fiction is tough. Really tough. Anyone who’s been in it for any length of time can tell you how competitive it is, how quickly the rejections can stack up, how frustrating it can be to get someone to even look at your manuscript. If you’re like me, you’ve tried submitting dozens of query letters in hopes that someone will at least ask for a few pages of the work itself. I mean, that’s fair, right — to at least look at the stuff before you reject it?

Trouble is, agents and editors receive many, many more queries than they can possibly accept. It’s not uncommon to find agents receiving 75 queries or more per day. Can you imagine trying to read partials from all of them? Impossible.

This brings to light the importance of the query letter. It is your knock at the door, your two seconds to say what you want before the door is closed with you still on the outside. So let’s take a closer look at the letter, this introduction of yourself and your work. It usually has three main sections: an opening which contains a hook, a brief description of the work, and your credits. The focus of this article is that first little section, where your hook will lie.

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Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers, and Fans

Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers, and Fans

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speculateSpeculate! is a podcast for writers, readers, and fans, run by Gregory A. Wilson and Bradley P. Beaulieu, two writers of speculative fiction. Speculate! will be sharing podcasts of several different types, including:

  • Fiction Reviews – discussions of novels or short fiction.
  • Author Interviews – interviews or roundtables with some of the great and new voices in speculative fiction.
  • Writing Technique – nuts and bolts discussions of writing technique that stem from the works we’ve reviewed.
  • Artist Interviews – just to shake things up, we thought we’d include some interviews with various artists in the speculative fiction arena.

In general, though we may not always stick to this formula, we’ll be discussing a particular set of short stories or a novel, then we’ll interview the author(s) in the following episode, and will finish up with a show where we get into the more nitty gritty details of writing technique. This allows us to dig deeper into the fiction we’re discussing, and it hopefully allows you, the listener, to be both entertained and informed. We’re always looking for suggestions for improvement, though, so if you have any thoughts on new topics or even authors we might interview, please feel free to discuss in our posts or send us an email through the contact page.

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Fantasy Game Review: Ascension – Chronicle of the Godslayer

Fantasy Game Review: Ascension – Chronicle of the Godslayer

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ascensionlogo

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer is a deck-building game from Gary Games. “What is Ascension?” you may ask. Here’s a quick intro from the Ascension website:

Ascension is a fast-paced deckbuilding game that’s quick to learn, easy to setup, and packed with endless hours of replay value! Our goal with Ascension was to make a game that we would bring out again and again for our own game nights. With an all-star team working on design and development, including Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour Champions Justin Gary, Rob Dougherty, and Brian Kibler, we spent the better part of a year making a game that will appeal to fans of the board games, trading card games, and non-gamers alike.

It’s also useful to have a bit of the background for the world in which the game is set. Again, from the Ascension website:

The game takes place in Vigil, a world that has been protected for millennia by the Great Seal, keeping the realm free from divine influences. It was put in place after an ancient war with a corrupt god, Samael the Fallen, when it was decided that none of the gods should be able to interfere. But now, the Seal is failing, and nightmarish Monsters that had been forgotten are breaking through. Your job, as a hero of Vigil, is to take your small, ragtag band of Apprentices and Militia, and gather an army powerful enough to lead you to your destiny as the Godslayer, and in doing so, slay Samael once and for all.

The next obvious question is: what is a deckbuilding game? Deckbuilding implies that you do not start with a predetermined deck, i.e. one of your own choosing before the game begins. Rather, you begin with a starter deck and customize your deck through the course of the game, hopefully in such a way that allows you to outplay your opponents, who are customizing decks of their own.

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