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January 27 2012
Because it's a FAQ: some thoughts on self-publishing
Reader M asked me:
I was wondering what your experience with Lulu.com has been to self-publish your books?
Did you engage (heh) them for marketing? For editing? Or simply for publishing??
This sort of inquiry is pretty much a FAQ at this point, so I thought I'd share a slightly-edited version of my reply to him with the rest of the class:
Hi M,
I've been really happy with Lulu. Everyone I've ever talked with there has easy to work with, and very supportive of my work.
When I first took my work there, they reached out to me and offered to do some marketing for me, because it was the kind of relationship that made sense for both of us: I got good marketing and support, and they had a moderately high profile example to show prospective self-publishers what their marketing and support could do.
Remember, though, that the responsibility to promote falls on the author's shoulders, and a book will sell as well as you promote it. A publisher can only get you in a place where you'll be seen and then support you once you're there; nothing is guaranteed.
Also, it's a little cart-before-the-horse to be worrying about marketing and publicity when you're on the first draft. All the marketing and publicity in the world won't matter if you don't write a compelling story that engages (ha. ha. ha.) your readers.
As far as editorial goes, a content editor is a VERY personal and important relationship to have, so I wouldn't grab one at random, or stay with one who doesn't work as hard as you do. You should work with someone who understands what kind of story you want to tell, has experience editing that kind of story, and who has earned your respect. Your editor is someone who you're going to be accountable to, who is going to help you make your work better, make you a better writer, and ultimately be more of a partner than you ever though they would be. Do not rush into an editorial relationship, especially when you're self-publishing.
Copy editors, though just as important as content editors, aren't as personal. You still want someone who is going to let your voice come through, so that's important, but they're mostly going to make sure those inevitable spelling and grammar errors don't end up in your final manuscript.
I've also learned that it's really important to have a designer layout your final book. After publishing a lot of books, I can tell you that we writers are good at putting words together, but we're not as good at laying them out on the page as we think we are. If you're doing an eBook, you can probably do it yourself in Sigil or whatever your preferred markup editor is, but for print, you absolutely want to work with someone who can build you an interior design that looks great.
I encourage you to make sure your work is available for Kindle, Nook, and iBooks, as well, because people read in a lot of different places and formats these days. It's also a really good idea to establish relationships with indie booksellers and librarians, because they are awesome.
If you haven't, I recommend reading Dan Poynter's book on Self Publishing, as well as the Complete Guide to Self Publishing by Tom and Marilyn Ross. If you're on Google Plus, go add Evo Terra to a circle RIGHT NOW because he's the smartest indie publishing guru I've ever listened to.
I hope this helps you a little bit.
Good luck!
Wil
My only disappointment with Lulu is that the company stopped doing digital files like audio books, but I understand that since they returned their focus to only books, it's been good for their authors. Finding a new place to host and sell my audio books has been a real pain in the ass. The Audible agreement is unacceptable to me, and everything else I've been able to find seems to be geared toward bands, so I'm still mostly in the wilderness at the moment (I say mostly, because Scott Sigler pointed me to what looks like a perfect solution for me, but nothing's been set in stone, yet.)
So there you go. This isn't exhaustive by any means, and while I'm not an expert, I have had a lot of experience so I mostly know what I'm talking about. I hope this is helpful for indie authors who Get Excited and Make Things.
If you have personal experience to share, or advice that's been helpful to you as an indie creator (not just authors), I'd love it if you'd leave a comment.
January 19 2012
The Minecraft Marathon is awesome, made a giant Evil Wil Wheaton, and raised money for Child's Play
Some of my friends raised money for Child's Play Charity by doing a Minecraft Marathon. I meant to link to it when it was happening, but mumblemumblesomething.
Anyway, here are two of the many amazeballs things they got excited and made:
(Click images to embiggen at Flickr)
I wish I hadn't mumblemumblesomethingcough, because it would have been awesome to see this happen in real time, but if you like what you see here (and here and here and here), then please consider making a donation to Child's Play Charity.
January 18 2012
Today the US Senate is considering legislation that would destroy the free and open Internet.
“Why is it that when Republicans and Democrats need to solve the budget and the deficit, there’s deadlock, but when Hollywood lobbyists pay them $94 million dollars to write legislation, people from both sides of the aisle line up to co-sponsor it?”
--Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian on CNBC.
I put this on my Tumblr thing earlier today, but I'm reposting it here, because it's important to me. If you don't know what SOPA and ProtectIP are, read this technical examination of SOPA and ProtectIP from the Reddit blog and come back when you're done.
SOPA Lives -- and MPAA calls protests an "abuse of power."
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has looked at tomorrow’s “Internet blackout” in opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)—and it sees only a “gimmick,” a “stunt,” “hyperbole,” “a dangerous and troubling development,” an “irresponsible response,” and an “abuse of power.”
“Wikipedia, reddit, and others are going dark to protest the legislation, while sites like Scribd and Google will also protest. In response, MPAA chief Chris Dodd wheeled out the big guns and started firing the rhetoric machine-gun style.
“Only days after the White House and chief sponsors of the legislation responded to the major concern expressed by opponents and then called for all parties to work cooperatively together, some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging.”
Can I interrupt for a moment? Thanks. When you complain that opponents didn’t “come to the table to find solutions”, do you mean that we didn’t give NINETY-FOUR MILLION DOLLARS to congress like the MPAA? Or do you mean that we didn’t come to the one hearing that Lamar Smith held, where opponents of SOPA were refused an opportunity to comment? Help me out, here, Chris Dodd, because I’m really trying hard to understand you.
“It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their services. It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today. It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.”
Oh ha ha. Ho. Ho. The MPAA talking about “skewing the facts to incite” anyone is just too much.
“A so-called “blackout” is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals.”
Except for the part where this is completely false, it’s a valid point.
“It is our hope that the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to stage this “blackout” to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy.”
Riiiiiiight. Protesting to raise awareness of terrible legislation that will destroy the free and open Internet is an abuse of power, but buying NINETY-FOUR MILLION DOLLARS worth of congressional votes is just fine.
I’m so disappointed in Chris Dodd. He was a pretty good senator, wrote some bills (like Dodd/Frank) that are genuinely helping people, and is going to be on the wrong side of every argument as the head of the MPAA. What a wasted legacy.
===
I am 100% opposed to SOPA and PIPA, even though I'm one of the artists they were allegedly written to protect. I've probably lost a few hundred dollars in my life to what the MPAA and RIAA define as piracy, and that sucks, but that doesn't come close to how much money I've lost from a certain studio's creative accounting.
The RIAA and MPAA are, again, on the wrong side of history. Attempting to tear apart one of the single greatest communications achievements in human history in a misguided attempt to cling to an outdated business model instead of adapting to the changing world is a fucking crime.
A free and open Internet is as important to me as the bill of rights. I don't want the government of one country -- especially the corporate-controlled United States government -- to exert unilateral control over the Internet for any reason, especially not because media corporations want to buy legislation that won't do anything to actually stop online piracy, but will expand the American police state, and destroy the Internet as we know it.
Please contact your Senators and US Representatives, and tell them to vote NO on SOPA and ProtectIP. The future of the Internet -- and the present we take for granted -- depend on it.
January 13 2012
the obligatory post-audition reflections
The directions to my audition were simple: two freeways, one off-ramp, two left turns.
In practice, finding a parking spot and making my way into the actual waiting room were slightly less complicated than getting The Babelfish (kids, ask your parents), so I actually walked into the room for my 1415 audition at 1425, having arrived at the actual location close to 1400.*
Luckily, everyone else was having a similarly difficult time figuring out how to thwart the top of the room cleaning robot, so we were all more or less equally late, essentially time shifting the entire session, as if our future selves had planned the entire thing.
I sat in a long, featureless hallway on the same kind of office furniture I've been sitting on for 30 years, and ran my lines to make sure they were properly in my head. Another actor, older and better looking than me, came in while I was waiting and signed in.
Before too long, the door to the office opened, and another actor, also older and better looking than me, came out. I looked up at him and smiled. It took him a few seconds to figure out who this weirdo with the beard was, and why he was staring at him, but when he did, he opened his arms and walked toward me.
"Holy shit, dude," I said. "It is so good to see you!"
It was Michael Cudlitz, an absolutely sensational actor who I worked with in the early 90s on a movie that, while it didn't completely suck, wasn't some of my best work.
"How are you?" He asked.
"I'm good," I told him. Then, I wrapped up almost 20 years in about a minute while the casting director stood in the doorway, looking amused.
"Started a blog ... got married ... raised two kids ... Ryan just graduated from college and moved out of state for his job ... wrote a bunch of books ... comics ... columns ... [Super Secret Project] ... Leverage ... Eureka ... The Guild ...
"So life is really good," I concluded, "and every day I'm afraid I'm going to wake up from this wonderful dream."
Realizing that I was wasting her time, and the time of the actor who was also waiting to go in after me, I give Michael my email address. "I'd love to catch up over a beer or a coffee or something, if you want to do that." He took my address down and said he'd get in touch.
I went into the room, apologized for making her wait, and got to work.
"Do you have any questions?" She asked.
"No," I said. "I think the scenes are quite clear, and I've made some choices. If they're not what you're looking for, just let me know and I'll adjust."
"That sounds great," she said. "Go ahead whenever you're ready."
I read the first scene. It felt okay, but when I was reading with another person and actually performing, instead of just running the lines on my own in my house, the scene came alive, and something wasn't quite right. She gave me some notes and direction and asked me to do it again. I did it again, and it it felt considerably better. "Great," she said.
I read the second scene. She gave me notes and direction, and asked me to do it again. I did it again, and she told me it was wonderful.
I was intensely grateful that she was invested in the process, and was giving me notes and direction. That just doesn't happen very often, and when someone is as rusty at auditioning as I am, it would be easy for a casting director to just write me off for making a character choice that wasn't what they were looking for. It bolstered my confidence and let me relax away some of the tension I didn't realize I had.
I started to read the third scene. A few lines in, I stopped myself. "I'm sorry, I went to Mars there for a second. Can I start over?"
"What you were doing was actually perfect for what's going on in the scene," she said, "but go ahead and start over."
I started again, and just felt a little more focused and connected to the material. I can't say anything about the scene (or the project), but there's a lot going on between the two characters, and finding the moments while I was sitting on a folding chair in an office wasn't the easiest thing in the world.**
"Really, really nice," she said.
"Thanks," I said. I began to pick up my phone and sunglasses (which I'd put on the floor when I came in) and before I realized the words were coming out of my mouth, I added, "I have to thank you for giving me notes and direction. I'm 40 this year, and I've been doing this since I was 7. Something's changed in the last five or ten years... it's just like hardly anybody cares if the actors are comfortable, or if we're doing our best work. I've had auditions where casting makes me feel like I'm imposing on their time simply by being there, and whatever performance I give doesn't matter.
"It really means a lot to me that you gave me an opportunity to adjust, and I felt like you wanted me to do my best work. So thank you."
She looked at the other casting associate in the room and back to me. "It's depressing how easy it is to make actors happy these days," she said, "We want to have fun in here, and we want you to do your best work. There are a lot of different choices an actor can make, and I know what the producers are looking for, so if you've made a different choice, I can point you in a different direction. So thank you, and you're welcome." She smiled at me.
I'm probably not going to get this job. I think I'm too young, and the other actors there were all handsome manly men. But I don't feel like the time was wasted, because I got to do my best work for someone who cared to see it. It's rare that I feel respected as an artist when I audition, and if every audition felt as good as this one, I'm positive that I -- and other actors -- would book many more jobs, simply because we've been given a chance to do our best, instead of feeling like a widget on an assembly line.
I walked out of the office, dropped my sides in the first recycling bin I found***, and made my way to my car, babelfish jammed securely into my ear. A bowl of petunias appeared in the sky above me, and I knew exactly where my towel was.
*24 hour time is used in this case for the purposes of confounding Americans while slyly winking at the rest of the world. How you doin'?
**Believe me when I tell you that auditioning is a skill, and the some of the best actors on the set have an incredibly difficult time finding that level of performance in a casting office.
*** I always do this, because it allows me to let go of the audition. I've done what I can do, and since the entire process is out of my hands, there's no good reason to hold onto the sides. If I get called back, I'll get a new set.
January 11 2012
in which i have an audition for a feature this afternoon
I composed a post in Firefox all about how I have this awesome audition this afternoon. Then, when I tried to publish it, Firefox hung for ten minutes before it crashed.
I've been spoiled by stability, so I didn't do the ctl-c that was so pretty much automatic a few years ago... so here's the tl;dr: I have an audition today for a movie. The script is fantastic, the people involved are Top Men, and they have a sensational track record in the genre. This movie will be a massive hit with its audience, and I hope I get to be part of it.
Posted from Chrome, which is now my default browser goddammit.
January 09 2012
I'll be the one with my heart in my lap
I put this on Tumblr earlier today. It deserves to be here, too, I think:
Two things jump out at me in this picture:
1. Holy shit those shoes are huge.
2. I don’t look nervous or uncomfortable; I look genuinely happy. That, combined with my haircut, makes me think that this must have been taken when I was 14, perhaps in the Spring just before I turned 15. This is probably right when Star Trek was starting.
When I look at these cheesy teen magazine pictures of myself— wait. That sounds creepy and weird and awful. Let me try again: When I gaze lovingly at these old pictures, I remember how sad and unhappy and uncomfortable I was for most of my teens, and how much I hated all the posing for pictures and attention from magazines. I was shy, I was uncomfortable in my own skin, I was nerdy and anxious and weak and weird, and being put under the Teen Media spotlight just made me want to crawl into a hole and die.
But this picture reminds me that it wasn’t always overwhelming and weird, and I’m glad to be reminded of that, because it’s way too easy to focus on the awkward and uncomfortable times I really wanted to be alone playing Blades of Steel on my NES, but I was at some teen cheese thing, trying to fit in.
In a lot of the teen magazine pictures, my smile never reaches my eyes, so I'm grateful for those rare occasions when it did.
(Thanks to Chambers1986 on Tumblr, who originally posted this picture.)
it's just this dream he keeps having
There's a moment every day when I think, "I should have written about that in my blog," but then I realize that instead of planting the seeds that would grow into a story, I put them in boxes on a shelf called Twitter, or Tumblr, or Google Plus.
They're nice seeds and all, and they look great in their individual boxes, preserved for years to come, but they never get a chance to grow into something more than just seeds. That's sort of sad, I think, and I always promise myself that I'm going to come back here and write something every single day, and give myself one assignment and deadline a week... but I'm just not disciplined enough to do that right now, and I haven't been for close to a year.
It's not that I don't love telling stories, but I sort of feel like a band that's been on tour so long -- and having so much fun doing it -- they haven't gone into the studio to cut an album in so long, they've forgotten how to do it.
January 03 2012
2011 Reddit Secret Santa - I got 4 + Q Gifts, but it was the non-gift in the box that was the best of all
Last year (also known as two weeks ago) I participated in the Reddit Gifts Secret Santa exchange. My giftee is a Batman fan, so I gave him a copy of Gotham Central, autographed by my friend Ed brubaker, who wrote it. I also gave him a copy of DC Universe Online, because it's really fun to pretend you're a superhero (or villain) and when you go to Gotham City in the game, you can play with me (I'm the voice of Robin in the game.)
My Secret Santa hit it out of the park, and shipped me a box of awesome. Yesterday, I finally put pictures of my gifts into the gallery.
My Secret Santa looked deep into my soul, and gave me four + Q gifts that nailed the four points of my inner compass. There was also a Snickers bar in there, in case I needed a nougat boost during the opening of gifts. They were all awesome, but it was the one non-gift in the box that was the best gift of all.
My gifts were all individually wrapped and labeled so that I would open them in the proper order. Go ahead and flip through the gallery to enjoy them the way I did.
Head on over to RedditGifts to see what I got, and Happy New Year!
December 29 2011
I still don't know very much about brain scans...
Here are three Star Trek-themed things that have come up recently. All of them made me laugh so hard I pooped a little, so they need to be preserved here for the ages.
First, from Jimmy James, Inc:
For the record, Wesley's dance crew was called Jiffy and da Popz.
Next: Last night, Paul of Paul and Storm made WesLOL Crusher:
It's a little uncanny how much it fits with the original image, isn't it?
Finally, this place is real and exists:
For those of you who are scratching your heads right now, that's the intersection of Crusher Avenue and Picard Lane, around the corner from WARP DRIVE. WARP-FUCKING-DRIVE!
BAM!
December 23 2011
In which I am a Trolldad
Ryan's home for the holidays, before he moves far, far away for his new job (hey, check out my son! He graduated college last week, and he starts a great job in two weeks! Go Ryan!!)
The first night he was home, I told him that the warm covers for the bed he's sleeping on were in the dryer, so he could get them out when he was ready to go to sleep.
The conversation went something like this:
Me: Hey, it gets cold in my office overnight, so don't forget to put the comforter that's in the dryer on it before you go to sleep.
Him: Okay. Thanks. G'night.
Me: I love you, kiddo. G'night.
I went to bed, and the next morning at breakfast he told us how cold he was overnight, because we didn't give him any warm bedding.
See, even at 22, the damn kids still have brain damage.
I reminded him of our conversation. He recalled it (having apparently forgotten it, immediately after I told him goodnight, likely because that part of his brain is the part that also processes requests to put his goddamn dishes in the dishwasher), and that was the end of that.
Flash forward to later yesterday afternoon. Ryan and Nolan were out with some of Nolan's friends, and Ryan texted me, "Will you put the covers on the bed, so I don't forget them again?" I told him that I would do just that.
...then I got this idea to be a Trolldad. Instead of making the bed, I put the covers in a neatly-folded pile at the foot of the bed, and made this picture, which I printed out and put on top of them:
(Click all images to embiggen at Imgur)
I thought that was so stupidly funny, I made this picture, and put it in the middle of the blankets:
I was having way too much fun, so I put this on his pillow:
And finally, this was folded up and put under the sheets where it would crinkle and make him get out of bed after he thought he was getting into it to go to sleep:
When he woke up this morning, I asked him if he got my notes.
"Oh my god, that was hilarious," he said.
"It was pretty amusing to me," I said.
"The best one was the last one, because I thought I was done with your notes and I could just go to bed, and then I was all, 'OH GODDAMMIT!'"
"That was the idea," I said.
"Well done, sir," he said.
"I spent more time making those stupid pictures than I would have spent making the bed," I said. "I'm very proud of that."
"Oh, I'm sure you are. Good job," he said.
As we parted ways and I walked out of the living room toward my bedroom, I heard him say, softly, "...and it is on."
So I have that to look forward to for the next two weeks.
December 19 2011
it's a festivus miracle
If you can't watch the embedded clip, you can see it here.
You can see the whole thing on the Nerdist Holiday special, Christmas Eve on BBC America.
December 14 2011
on the importance of making time to play the games you like with the people you love
In the introduction to my short collection of gaming essays called Games Matter, I wrote:
Of all the things that make me a geek, nothing brings me more joy, or is more important to me, than gaming. I am the person I am today because of the games I played and the people I played them with as I came of age in the 80s.
Playing games -- from video games to role playing games to hobby board games -- has been as much of a constant in my life as acting and creating stories. This isn't surprising to me at all, because gaming and acting and storytelling are all interwoven in my life.
About a year ago, my gaming group, who I've played with since high school, suffered a TPK. It's complicated, and it's genuinely tragic, but it's the reality I now have to deal with: getting a group together to play games is, for the first time in my life, much harder than simply sending out an e-mail or making a few phone calls.
I know, I know, #nerdworldproblems.
Still, I miss pulling a huge stack of boardgames out of my closet, putting them on the dining room table, and wondering what we're going to end up playing when everyone gets here. I miss investing in an RPG character I'm playing, or a campaign I'm running, and looking at that day on the calendar when we'll be back in that game's world.
Being a capital-G Gamer, it isn't surprising to me that I miss gaming with some degree of regularity... what does surprise me is realizing that I miss gaming as much -- and with the same sense of emotional loss -- as I miss acting and writing when I'm not doing those things.
For the last few days, I've been lucky, and I've had some friends around to play the hell out of a lot of games. We've played Last Night On Earth, Settlers, Ticket to Ride, Say Anything, Small World, Munchkin, Chez Geek, and more.
Last night, as I was falling asleep after an evening of gaming, beers and pizza with some friends, I realized that before this past week, I hadn't played games in so long, I had forgotten how much I need to play them. I realized how much I missed playing them, the way you miss a person you love when you don't see them for weeks or months at a time.
In a weird way, I'm grateful for the sadness I feel when I think about having three bookshelves that are filled with games I probably won't get to play as much as I want to, because when I finally do get to play them, like I have recently, I appreciate it that much more.
So let me close this by going all Voice of Experience on you: Keep playing games. Make time to play games with your friends and family, because it's surprisingly heartbreaking to wipe a thin layer of dust off a game you love, before you put it back on the shelf because the real world is calling you.
December 05 2011
From the Vault: ...the irrational immortality of youth
While I was digging through my blog archives yesterday for stories to tell at last night's Wil Wheaton vs. Paul and Storm show at Largo*, I found this post I wrote in September of 2009. I like it, and felt that it was worth reposting:
...the irrational immortality of youth
I didn't have to look at the weather forecast to know that a storm is on the way; I could feel it with the first step I took outside this morning with my dog.
As I stood on my patio and watched the steam rise off my coffee and swirl up through golden shafts of golden morning sunlight shot through a cloud-filled sky, I remembered a day like this one fifteen or sixteen years ago.
I'd just gotten home from Nice, where I'd lived and worked on a film called Mister Stitch for a few months. It wasn't the most pleasant movie in the world to work on (the other lead actor was an unprofessional nightmare) but the time I spent there working on it remains some of the best time in my life. I'd been acting since I was a child, but it wasn't until I lived in Nice and worked on Mister Stitch that I truly felt like an artist. I was fundamentally changed by the experience, seeing the world - especially entertainment - differently than I ever had before.
The day I got back from location, sometime in mid-January of that year, my friend Dave picked me up from LAX, and we went directly down the road to Manhattan Beach, to wait out the terrible rush hour traffic which stood between the airport and my house. After ten hours on an airplane, another 120 minutes to crawl 40 miles up the freeway wasn't exactly an appealing notion.
We parked in a mostly-empty lot and walked down toward the water. There was a winter storm on its way, driving powerful waves ahead of it that were so huge, they crashed up against the bottom of the pier and occasionally broke over the end of it. Wrapped up in the irrational immortality that's endemic to 22 year-olds, we walked dangerously close to the end of the shuddering pier, angry waves boiling beneath, and dared the Pacific Ocean to reach up and touch us.
I don't recall specifically what we talked about - I'm sure I regaled him with slightly-exaggerated tales of glamor and excess and artistic awakening along the French Riviera - but even now I can I clearly recall the terror and exhilaration I felt whenever foamy, freezing sea water splashed up through the spaces between the planks and soaked into the tops of our shoes.
Since I grew up and became a husband and a father, I've gone out of my way to avoid anything more dangerous than driving on the Los Angeles freeway system, so I can't imagine defying a Pacific winter storm like I did when I was in my early twenties ... but standing on my patio in my late thirties, not really defying as much as tolerating the morning chill, I was grateful for the memory.
Someone on G+ pointed out that my son is now the same age I was when I stood on the end of that pier. Now I need to call him and remind him that he's not as invincible as he thinks he is, even though I know he'll think I'm just being paranoid... exactly the way I would have felt when I was his age.
Sigh.
*I took some silly video of our backstage bullshit, and I shot some film of Paul and Storm from the side of the stage. I broadcasted it live on Ustream, and you can see it in my channel archives.
December 03 2011
Further adventures in Homebrewing
It was warm on the patio, and a gentle breeze stirred the trees in the back yard. The Postal Service played on the Sonos. A Stone Pale Ale sat on the patio table, condensation beginning to bead up on the neck and run down the bottle. Next to it, the 10 gallon cooler I’d turned into a mash tun with judicious use of weird plumbing things that, 24 hours earlier, had been as relevant to my life as a musket. Just behind the mash tun, in a paper bag, nearly 13 pounds of crushed grains waited to go into the mash tun.
I looked at the brewing kettle on the propane burner to my right. The water was beginning to stir, small bubbles rising from the bottom as science happened. I took out the thermometer and checked the temperature: 155 degrees.
“Well, here goes nothing,” I thought, in the digitized voice of Lando Calrissian from the Return of the Jedi arcade game. I picked up the bag of grains, and poured it into the cooler-cum-mash tun. It filled it about 1/3 of the way in a small cloud of fragrant dust. I turned the heat off on the burner, and stirred the water. I checked the temperature again: between 160 and 162. Perfect.
I lifted the kettle off the burner, and carefully poured most of the water into the grains. I stirred them around, making sure they were all wet, and then added the rest of the water. I set the timer for an hour, and recorded all the steps I’d taken in my brewing journal.
Project 9. I wrote. Stone Pale Ale. First All-Grain! 11/3/11 2:10 PM.
When Ryan suggested that we make beer together this summer, I thought it would be an awesome father/son project, an excuse to spend a lot of time together, and something that would end with us having our own beer.
All of those things happened, and they were all awesome. Mission accomplished.
What I didn't expect, though, was that I would be here, a few months later, working on my 9th batch of beer. I didn't expect to find myself in a hardware store last month with a diagram in one hand and a bunch of weird plumbing bits in the other, planning to convert a 10 gallon cooler into a mash tun. I didn't expect to know what a mash tun even was, in fact.
And yet here I was, using one I’d built myself, to make my friend’s beer, following a recipe out of his book. It was exciting, exhilarating, and a little frightening.
Relax, don’t worry, have a homebrew, I reminded myself as I took the temperature: 160. Still too hot. Shit. I should have let it cool more.
I went into the house and grabbed a pint glass out of the kitchen. I poured my beer into it, and took a nerve-settling drink. If everything went according to plan, in about 5 or 6 weeks, I would have a homebrew version of it that I’d made myself, entirely from scratch.
I checked the recipe again, confirmed that I had everything set up the way it was supposed to be set up, and checked the temperature again. It was 155, still hotter than the 152 it was supposed to be.
Relax. Don’t worry. Have a homebrew. I took another sip of my beer, smaller this time, and looked around the yard. It was unseasonably warm for early November, the breeze carrying the slightest hint of autumn in front of it. My dogs came out of the house and began chasing each other around the yard. I took the temperature again: 152. I really did relax, and stopped worrying.
About an hour later, I opened the spigot on the mash tun and began collecting my sweet wort. Just like the book said, it began cloudy, with some grain hulls in it, but quickly cleared. I stopped the flow, poured the cloudy liquid back into the mash tun, and opened the spigot again. I noticed that it was leaking a little bit where I’d failed to make a perfect seal against the wall of the cooler, but a little jiggling and prayers to Hanseath stopped it up pretty quickly. I’ll have to figure out a way to fix that, I thought.
As the liquid drained into the brewing kettle, I picked up a pitcher of warm water at the prescribed ratio of liquid to grains, and began my sparge. I’m sure this is nothing for experienced homebrewers, and for non-brewers it probably doesn’t mean anything, but it felt like a major achievement when I saw the sweet wort that I’d created by mashing my own grains begin to fill my brew kettle. That’s going to turn into beer, and I’m doing it entirely on my own! I made this! I thought, in the old X-Files voice.
The sparge happened a little faster than I wanted, but I collected almost six and-a-half gallons, nearly filling the brewing kettle to the top. To prevent a nasty boilover, I drained off about a half gallon, which I took into my kitchen in a small jug. I set it on the counter, and took a long, deep smell… it was wonderful, just the way it should smell. I poured some into a little glass I have with a monkey on it, and took a cautious sip. It tasted very similar to the sweet wort from the first batch of beer Ryan and I made during summer, but this came from grains I crushed and mashed myself, instead of extract. I felt a tremendous sense of achievement, and wondered if it would be weird to drink it all on principle.
I went back onto the patio. The dogs had tired themselves out, and were snuggled up together on a piece of carpet they claimed after we put out there to be thrown away six months ago. On the Sonos, The Postal Service gave way to Tegan and Sara. I fired up my burner, and hit the countdown timer on my phone. For the next ninety minutes, I stirred like a boss, added hops on schedule, and never had a boilover. The patio smelled heavenly, and I wistfully wished that I could bottle the aroma as well as the beer.
When the boil was finished, I put my copper wort chiller into the kettle, and began cooling it. It only took about 25 minutes and around 15 gallons of water (which I collected and used to water plants for a couple of weeks after) to get down to 70 degrees. I was astonished by how smoothly everything was going, but I didn’t stop to think about it too much, having grown up in a place where the simple act of declaring “Hey, the traffic isn’t too bad,” will instantly result in a Schumacheresque multivehicle explosion a mile ahead of you that snarls traffic on every freeway in the city for twelve hours.
I picked up my journal and wrote Boil w/o incident for 90 min. Wort chiller worked perfectly. 25 min to 70.
I took the chiller out, and gently put my hydrometer into the liquid. This was the moment of truth: this was when I found out how closely I got to the target gravity to 1.056. I gripped the glass between my thumb and forefinger, and spun it with a snap of my fingers. I felt like I was watching a roulette wheel, knowing that I’d placed the mortgage payment on black.
The numbers blurred, and it pushed tiny ripples outward to lap against the side of the kettle. A few eternal seconds later, it slowed and bobbed freely in the center of the wort. I held my breath and looked closely at it.
1.055. Adjusted for temperature, it was actually 1.057.
I may have let out a victorious cry that drew the attention of my dogs, who may have quickly lifted up their heads in a jingle of collars and tags. I may have pumped my fist like a fool. I may have looked again, more closely this time, to confirm that I hadn’t imagined it. I may have taken the hydrometer out, put it back in, and repeated the entire process, just to be sure.
It’s been a few weeks, so I can’t confirm or deny that those things did or didn’t happen… but I do know that in my brewing journal I wrote in large, excited, vigorously underlined script: OG: 1.057!!!
I took the hydrometer out and set it carefully on the table. Those things are so delicate, it’s a miracle someone as clumsy as me doesn’t break them every time he looks at them. (I’m on my third, by the way.)
Then, I opened the spigot on the kettle and let the wort flow into my fermentation bucket. When it was done, I stirred it like crazy with a wire whisk and a spoon until the surface was thick with foam, and then I stirred it some more. When my forearms were sore and my back ached from leaning over, I let the spinning wort settle down, and then I pitched my yeast. The Longwinters began to play on the Sonos.
“Go to work, little yeasties! Eat all the sugar and turn this into beer! I believe in you! You can do eet!”
I put the lid on my fermenter and put an airlock into the top. I moved it all into my office, and began the waiting game.
(Waiting game sucks.)
Ten days later, I racked the beer into a carboy to clear. Ten days after that, I bottled just over four and one-half gallons of my very own Stone Pale Ale. I checked my final gravity before I added my priming sugar, and may have scared my dogs (and all my neighbors’ dogs) with the victory scream I let out when I saw that the final gravity was 1.015, exactly where the recipe said it should be. I did some math (math is hard) and calculated the ABV to 5.5%, exactly where it should be.
Now, I’m playing the waiting game again until around December 12th, when I’ll be able to open my first bottle of this beer and find out if the final is as close to where it should be as it’s been every step of the way.
Making beer is this wonderful intersection of science and art and cooking that is more fun and rewarding than I ever expected it to be. It’s so easy, and so rewarding, if you like art and science and cooking (and beer) you should totally make some of your own.
Even if my Stone Pale Ale isn’t exactly where it should be, I’m happy that I made it and enjoyed the process. Even if it isn’t exactly what I am expecting, I’ll keep on making more beer, learning something new from each batch, because I've found a hobby that I'm going to love for the rest of my life. If I could make beer every weekend, I would. If I had the space to build a big old system with fancy things and a whirlpool and a cooler for lagering and -- okay, maybe I wouldn't do that ... this year.
Post Script: After I made this batch of beer, Anne and I went to the Stone Bistro and Brewery in Escondido. As we were walking up to the doors from the parking lot, the smell of brewing washed over us.
"They're making Stone Pale Ale," Anne said.
"How do you know that?" I asked.
"Because it smells exactly like our patio smelled a few days ago when you were making it."
I can't say for sure, but I in my head, I may have been done the Snoopy Dance.
December 01 2011
Watch about a stupid live tour of my messy office, and hear me tell you a story.
I made a stupid cellphone video that was actually a live stream tour on my Ustream channel of my messy office. Then I read a short story. Yaaaaay!
The stream was broken once when Paul called me (way to steal focus, Paul!), so there are two videos:
If you watched it (live or recorded, please tell me), I'm very interested in your feedback. I'm considering doing more of these in the future, from various locations and events, and it's useful and awesome to know what viewers like, don't like, and want to see more of.
Thanks for watching and thanks for your feedback!
November 20 2011
title of the blog post
When I was reading back through my archives in preparation for Wil Wheaton versus Paul and Storm last week, I thought, more than once, "I really need to write more." Each time, though, my calendar grabbed focus and shouted at me like Jules in Pulp Fiction until I begged it to stop.
I miss writing every day, even though I'm grateful for all the other work I have had and continue to have that gets in between me and filling my stupid blog with stories about life, the universe, and everything. The truth is, I've been working on projects that I won't be able to talk about for months, so the majority of my life at the moment is Off The Record. Whatever I can talk about, I sort of do in mostly real-time on the Twitters and the G Plusses and the Tumblrs, which leaves me with nothing much to write about on my blog except crap like this.
But today, it is Sunday, and I have a bit of time to write. I don't know why, but I only needed to sleep for 5 hours last night, and I've been up since 6am. I have had a coffee, I'm eating some steel cut oats, and the rest of the house is asleep. I could read this stack of comics that's been piling up for two months, or I could settle into the couch with A Game Of Thrones (I'm 60% finished after reading until 1am)... but I feel that need to write that I hear real writers have, so here I am, writing about nothing so I can at least write about something.
Our trip to Portland and Seattle was amazing. Anne and I got to PDX a day early so we could go to Ground Kontrol and see some of our friends who live up there. Paul and Storm and Liz and Logan (and Ted and Carol and Alice) all came down a day early, as well, so we ended up having one hell of a goof off day before we had to work.
Our plan was to eat dinner at Deschutes before going to Ground Kontrol, but Deschutes was having their Abyss release party, and the wait for our large party was going to be a minimum of 90 minutes when we got there. I called Rogue, which is just a couple of blocks away, confirmed that they had room for us, and we went there instead. The food was pretty good, but the beers were just spectacular. I had the YSB, the Smoke (which won Gold at the Great American Beerfest for a very good reason) and samples of the Double Mocha Porter (ZOMG) and the Double Chocolate Stout (WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE).
Yep, this is real. We sat in a room with a red neon sign that said WILLS ROOM.
Storm drank all the things, and we all staggered (some of us *cough*Storm*cough* more wobbly than others) to Ground Kontrol, where we played video games for about two hours.
This is the part where I'd try to write a narrative to recreate the awesome time we had, but the part of me that creatively needs to do that isn't responding at the moment, so here are a couple of pictures, instead:
Ground Kontrol to Major Us
I was a Robotron Hero, with Stars in my eyes.
Avoid spikes!
I beat Storm at Joust, even though I was feeling a little... blurry.
But Storm came back and OBLITERATED me in Dig Dug, even though he was playing from the bottom of about six beers at the time.
I suck at Punch Out, but that's never stopped me from playing it.
I signed their TNG pinball machine, then played the hell out of it. I never ranked higher than Ensign, though. It was like the machine knew, or something.
All pictures taken with Vignette and © 2011 Wil Wheaton.
It was an incredibly fun night, and when I fell into bed around 1am, I slept the sleep of the mostly victorious.
The next day, we slept late and took our time getting going. We ate breakfast at Mother's, one of my favorite places to eat in PDX, before going back to our hotel to take a nap. Yes, that's exactly what happened, and it's how I know I'm getting older: I love to take naps. Normally, I wouldn't take a nap when I'm visiting a city I love, but I was tired and knew I had to perform that night, so I was responsible, which is another way I know I'm getting older.
The show at the Aladdin was fantastic. Local musical duo The Doubleclicks opened for us, and -- just as Paul promised -- they stole the show in 15 minutes. Here, listen for yourself and be amazed.
The Doubleclicks are my favorite. They're sisters, they play the ukulele and the cello, and they sing about nerd stuff like D&D, dinosaurs, WoW. They are just delightful people, too, and I can't wait to perform with them again.
The audience in Portland was, as always, great. I told stories about gaming and how much I love my wife before Paul and Storm joined me to provide music for my final two stories about playing T-ball when I was 6, and WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER.
Anne and I took the train up to Seattle the next afternoon. It's a beautiful trip, and if you ever need to travel between the two cities, I highly recommend it.
Seattle was freezing cold (literally), raining and snowing when we got there. We dropped our stuff at our hotel and went to the Triple Door for soundcheck before the show. The Triple Door is fucking FANCY, man, and we sold that bitch out! Team Seattle turned out in force, and gave me many gifts of local craft beer to take home.
It was another great show, even though I think we went a little crazy with the Captain's Wife's Lament... but I blame John Roderick for bringing the Steamfunk groove back so many times. If you were there, I'm sure you understand (and I'm sorry.)
I told different stories than I told in Portland, including two things I've never done in public before (that was scary for me), but it seemed to go over better than I expected. After the show, we stayed out until 3am with everyone from the show. When I slept, I slept the horrible sleep of someone who is snoring because he's so tired so he keeps waking up his wife and she keeps waking him up so he'll stop snoring.
Our flight home on Friday was uneventful, exactly the way I like my flights to be. I finished reading Petrograd from Oni, (I highly recommend it), and then I fell back into A Game of Thrones until we landed.
Thank you to everyone who came to both our shows, and a very special thank you to The Doubleclicks, John Roderick, Molly Lewis, and Jason Finn for joining us.
November 15 2011
living in another world
Well, last week really got away from me, didn't it? I meant to write some blog stuff last week, but I was too busy working on [AWESOME SECRET THING] and [OTHER AWESOME SECRET THING THAT'S DIFFERENT FROM AWESOME SECRET THING]. It looks like my plan to sell some books will have to wait for a few days, too, because all of a sudden it's Monday and I'm leaving for Portland and Seattle tomorrow to do a couple of Wil Wheaton vs. Paul and Storm Shows.
I spent most of today working on [AWESOME SECRET THING], and then got down to putting together my setlist for the shows. I had a pretty good idea about what I wanted to do, but I went looking through my blog archives anyway, just in case there was something I'd forgotten about that would be fun to perform.
Going through those archives is weird and wonderful. I don't remember writing most of the posts, but I clearly recall the events that inspired them. What started as a quick skim through the archives turned into a couple of hours spent reliving the high points of the last couple of years. It was time very well spent.
While I combed the archives, I found some flash fiction while that I thought was worth reposting, because it's super short and I don't think it sucks:
Ian missed living in a city that didn’t keep any secrets from him, where everything was out in the open: junkies, hookers, pan handlers, rich snobs and bad cops. You knew where you stood with everyone in the city, and everyone in the city knew where they stood with you.
In the suburbs, though, everyone had a secret. Two houses up, the Doyles were overdue on three months’ of bills, but they kept paying the gardener to come and keep up appearances. Across the street, Mrs. Canton practically begged every delivery boy who came to the door to fuck her, except on Sunday when she went door to door, passing out bible tracts. Next door, Doctor and Mrs. Thompson argued quietly and intensely almost every night about their son, who they’d put into a group home for troubled youth.
Day after day, Ian smiled and waved to his neighbors, while recording all of their secrets in journals and photo albums.
When the police finally found the bodies buried in the loose dirt of his basement, his neighbors were shocked: “He was quiet,” Doctor Thompson said. “He kept to himself,” Mrs. Thompson added.
“He never left his garbage cans out. He kept a lovely lawn,” The Doyles told investigators.
When the handsome young reporter from Channel 6 came to her door, Mrs. Canton smiled carefully and said, “Would you like to come inside and talk about it over a cup of coffee?”
+++
The best part of my day? That’s easy: those few blissful seconds right after I wake up, when I just feel my head against the pillow and the warmth of the blanket, before it all comes crashing back down on me and I remember where I am. That’s when the worst part of the day begins.
There are guys in here who talk about their dreams. Not like what they want to do with their lives or what they’d do with a million dollars; I mean their actual dreams, where they can fly and talk to animals and shit, but I never remember mine. I haven’t remembered a dream for … well, long enough that I can’t remember what the last one was, and I have a pretty good memory. Like, when I was a kid, there were these smokestacks that I could see from the motorway when we were getting close to home. They were tall, with four rings of red lights around them every five meters or so. The top ring of lights blinked slowly, and on nights when the weather was bad, I could still see the red glow reflecting off the clouds, even if I couldn’t make out the smokestacks in the dark. I would tell my mum, “I can see the smokestacks, mummy!” And she would reply, “That means we’re almost home, darling.”
On cloudy nights, I lie back on my bed, look out through the bars, and imagine that I can see a soft red glow slowly blinking against the orange reflection of the lights, telling me that I’m almost home.
+++
These short short short stories aren't perfect. I think 239 is the stronger of the duo, but there's some nice imagery in Perchance to Dream that makes it worth reposting.
But the point isn't to be perfect. The point is to get excited and make something creative. I need to remind myself of that from time to time (in this case, "time" being every day or so) or I'll get so stuck trying to get to the mythical Land of Perfection that I'll never leave the station.
I was talking to my friend Ed today, and unexpectedly remembered an idea I had months ago for a story that I think is pretty damn cool, that will be a lot of fun to write and tell. A year ago, I would have been paralyzed with fear about even attempting it, but something happened between then and now, and I'm not afraid any more. I don't feel like a fraud when I make something up and write it down, and I don't hear Carrie's mother holling "They're all going to laugh at you!" when I think, "You know, this would be a fun story to tell."
That bitch yelled at me for years, and it feels pretty good to nail her to the wall with a bunch of shit that I shot right out of my mind.
Making stuff up and writing it down is a lot of fun, but having the courage (or audacity) to show it to other people... well, the risk is worth taking.
November 03 2011
I'm selling some autographed books next week
Anne and I unloaded a lot of stuff from storage last week, and I discovered that I have a lot of books that probably want to find a new home.
So this is just a heads up: next week, I'm going to offer signed copies of the Games Matter chapbook I made for PAX this year (I have about 40 copies) and 50 copies of the sold out Subterranean Press edition of The Happiest Days of Our Lives. They'll be available on a first come, first served basis. I'll give about 24 hours advance notice so you'll know when I plan to push the Big Red Button.
I'm also working on putting both of those books into the Kindle store, as well as getting all of my eBooks into the Nook store. (BARNES & NOBLE Y U NO MAKE IT AS EASY TO PUBLISH IN NOOK STORE AS AMAZON DOES IN KINDLE STORE?)
I found out last week that Lulu took all audiobooks out of my store (they're only doing books, now, sadly), so at the moment, there's no (legal, support-my-work) way to get them. I'm working on fixing that, too, and hopefully next week will find them available once again.
Yesterday, I turned in the first draft of [AWESOME PROJECT I LOVE AND CAN'T WAIT TO TALK ABOUT], and now I'm going to reward myself by brewing a batch of Stone Pale Ale using the recipe in the Craft of Stone Brewing Co book.
October 31 2011
Just in time for Halloween: the animated Dark Dungeons
If you're of a certain age, you may remember the infamous Jack Chick tract Dark Dungeons. For those of you who don't, here's the tl;dr from the Escapist:
Dark Dungeons is possibly the most widely distributed piece of anti-game propaganda in the history of gaming. It was first produced by Chick Publications in 1984, during the heyday of anti-RPG paranoia, and print copies were available on request from Chick as recently as the mid-90s. Chick Publications, headed by reclusive comic author Jack T. Chick, also brings us booklets on the evils of everything from Catholicism and Buddhism to Halloween and reincarnation. Chick takes no prisoners, and isn't interested in playing nicely; they'd much rather convert you to their narrow world view, and possibly get you to sprinkle the world liberally with more of their pamphlets.
Dark Dungeons touches many of the bases of mid-80s anti-RPG paranoia. Most of the cliches and urban legends are here; the dark, seductive lady who acts as DM for a group of younger players, the gamers who identify far too much with their characters and become deeply troubled when a character dies, the "real spells" contained in the books, the obsessive playing at the cost of a healthy social or spiritual life, the eventual induction into a witches coven, and of course, the inevitable suicide. About the only legends they miss are drugs, rape, murder, and lead figures that scream when you throw them into the fire. But to be fair, you can only give so much story in 21 pages.
Now, for all of us... an animated adaptation from the mad geniuses at Boolean Union Studios that will amuse and delight you!
(via my friend Ariana, who has a fantastic story about how Dark Dungeons affected her life on her G+ thingy.)
October 24 2011
in other words...
Marketing email I just got: "Do you ever wonder which apps influencers (like yourself), celebrities, or Jersey Shore castmates have on their phones?"
My response:
Maybe Soup is currently being updated? I'll try again automatically in a few seconds...
