You shouldn’t be surprised to learn that never happened. (Although I’m still taking applications for the handmaiden. Must come with log cabin and internet access.)

We all have these daunting life goals that we think we’ll figure out “someday.” Someday you’ll write your novel. Someday you’ll go to Ireland. Someday you’ll hold a penguin like a baby.

As we build up these goals, we actually get further away from realizing them. That is, until we look around and see other people realizing the same dreams all the time. 

Over the last few years, I’ve seen writers all around me completing novels. Talented, albeit mostly unpublished authors. In fact, they’ve all written multiple novels over the last few years. They live busy lives, and yet they find the time to write. Nay, they make the time to write. Time isn’t going to find you. You have to grab it by the corset and make it yours. I’m talking about you, Anne, Trisha, and Regan. In terms of the novel writing. Not the corset grabbing.

So I gave myself two months. If you can’t commit to doing something in two months–something that means the world to you–then it probably doesn’t mean the world to you, and it’s probably never going to happen. Give it up and move on to new dreams. (The one exception to this rule is having a baby. Give that 9 months.)

This isn’t meant to be a self-congratulatory post (I already did that on Facebook), but I completed my goal. At 11:15 pm on Saturday night, I got to write “The End” at the end of a 74,226-word novel.

I have to admit, it felt amazing. I was beside myself with joy. There may or may not have been some sing-talking of “Call Me Maybe.”

I have a lot to say about the Two-Month Gauntlet, because I want to inspire people to give it a shot. It will be one of the most gratifying things you ever do. Blog reader Emma took the challenge and started a laughter yoga club, as did another writer friend of mine, so I’m not alone here. It can be done.

Just to be clear, I don’t mean this in a vague, ambiguous, inspirational speaker, “you can do anything if you put your mind to it” kind of way. I mean that you should pull out a piece of paper right now and write down five dreams you have, pick one, and start working on it tomorrow. I really mean this. Stop holding yourself back and make one of those dreams happen–not “someday,” but in two friggin’ months. Start out with a small one if you want.

Here’s how:

1. Pick a goal for which you have control over the outcome. For a long time, my goal was, “write a bestselling novel.” In hindsight, that was ludicrous. I have very limited control over whether or not my novel is a bestseller. I can write a great novel and promote the hell out of it, but it may not matter. What I do have control over, however, is actually writing a novel. So that was my goal.
2. Pick general, attainable daily goals that add up to the overall goal after two months. My goal was write 1,000 words a day. Your goal may not be a creative goal–maybe it requires money. Do something every day to save money (see my post from two years ago about planning for spontaneous travel), and something every day to make money. Even just a few bucks. There’s a lot of variation here depending on your dream, but the point is that you spend an hour or so every day working towards your goal. If the dream is worth it, it’s worth an hour a day.
3. Move forward every day. I wanted so badly to go back and edit every day, but it would have been way too easy to get caught up in editing instead of moving forward. Focus on forward momentum, and in doing so, let go of perfection. Wouldn’t you rather accomplish something great in an imperfect way than not accomplish it at all? (Exceptions: bowling a perfect game and getting engaged. Shoot for 300 on both of them.)
4. Give yourself a way to productively procrastinate. If you’re a master procrastinator like I am, use it to your advantage. Find something else that you should be doing over those two months and put off doing it. Pick something legitimately important, and every time you find yourself about to do it, procrastinate and work on your goal instead. I’m dead serious about this.
5. Don’t overplan. Surprise yourself every day. It’s human nature–this is why we gamble. We don’t know what the next roll of the dice is going to be, but we’re thrilled to find out. With my novel, I wrote about a chapter a night, and at the end of the writing session, I wrote down a few ideas of what was going to happen in the next chapter. Beyond that, I had a few tricks up my sleeve, but I really didn’t know where my characters were going. Which sounds like total writer’s BS, I know. But it’s true. And it let me be surprised every day by what happened next. You know how I describe “the chase” as being the best and most elusive part of a relationship? My novel was one two-month chase, and I bet you can apply the same theory to your dream.

So yeah, I’m quite serious about this. I want this for you. I want you to dance to “Call Me Maybe”  too (wait, did I mention the dancing? Am I teenage girl?).

If you read this and have the balls to pick a dream–and if you’re serious about it–send me an e-mail at jamey.stegmaier@gmail.com. Or post it in the comments if you’re ready for public accountability. Specifically, tell me your dream and your daily goals to get there. If I have any thoughts, I’ll share them, but most likely you’ll just know that someone else out there is rooting for you. And I’d love to write about your experience on the blog in two months.

What’s next for the novel? Well, I’m sitting on it for a few days, and then I’ll read it for the first time and make any necessary sweeping changes. Then I’ll send it out to a few beta readers to see if it’s any good. If it is, I’ll send it out to a few more beta readers to give it a hard edit. Then I’ll send it out to one more beta reader to really show my manuscript who’s boss. And then we’ll see.

So go ahead and pull out that piece of paper. Write down a few dreams. And then, if you dare, circle one and make it yours.

However, there’s one key component of the show that I don’t quite understand: Almost every character is trying to be king of the world (or Westeros). Hence Game of Thrones. 

We see this motivation a lot in summer movies. In The Avengers, the main bad guy wants the world to bow to him. In fact, as Netflix reminded me when I added The Avengers to my queue a few minutes ago, the Uma Thurman and Ralph Fiennes version of The Avengers has the following plot: “Their impossible mission: thwart Sean Connery’s diabolical plan to bring the world to its knees by controlling global weather.”

Why are all of these people motivated by taking over the world? Don’t they know that once you get to the top, people are going to try to do everything they can to knock you from the throne? It puts the biggest possible target on their back.

I guess I just don’t buy it. People are motivated by plenty of things–money, influence, sex, fame, etc–but complete control of everything in the world? Sure, you could get all those things, but the job of running the world must be exhausting. And I’m sure it breeds the most extreme of paranoia.

So yeah, I don’t buy it. Whenever I see a character in a movie or a book who wants to take over the world, I lose my ability to suspend belief. Give me a real, human motivation and I’m all in. You’ll see that in my novel, which doesn’t exactly have bad guys, but it does have people who are willing to take less moral and ethical paths to get what they want than other characters.

What do you think? If  you had the option to be king of the world, would you take it?

Despite that, sometimes I wonder about the point of books.

I say this as a reader, writer, blogger, and publisher. I love books, particularly novels. But there are two things that worry me about the present and future of the medium:

1. The alternative is easier, and sometimes better. The truth of the matter is that a picture is worth a thousand words. I can spend pages upon pages describing a character, or I can show you a photo of the character and save you the time (more on this later when I contradict myself). I experience this even more often when the picture is moving. Think about all the details packed into an episode of 30 Rock or Community. There are layers upon layers of visual and verbal details in every scene. It’s clearly better than if you had to sit on your couch and read through the script every Thursday night. Even video games have these amazingly detailed narratives now that fully immerse you in new worlds.
2. There are so many forms of live media that are cooler than books. Think about the last concert you went to. Now think about the last book reading you went to. Which was cooler? I thought so.
3. There are so. Many. Books. Guess how many books are published each year? About 300,000. Personally, I probably add about 50 books to my must-read wishlist every year, and I end up reading about 20 of them. I can never catch up. It’s daunting as a writer to attempt to enter the fray, and it’s even daunting as a friend–how can I possibly recommend a book to someone else when they literally have millions of other books to choose from? Why is the one I recommend any better than the others?

If Biddy believes in reading, so can I.

So yeah, I was wondering about the whole point of books for a while. And then I attended a book reading at Meshuggah on the Loop, and something interesting happened.

A woman was reading from her novel in front of the crowd (a “crowd” at a coffee shop book reading is about 15 people). She didn’t introduce the book or give us context–she just jumped in and started reading about a married guy going to a strip club.

The scene was dripping with tension and sexuality. The author had a real way with words, completely transporting you to this strip club where this man waited in anticipation for his favorite dancer to take the stage wearing nothing more than a leather g-string.

I’ll admit it–I was a little turned on.

Then the author called the stripper by name for the first time: Steve.

I think every heterosexual man in the coffee shop felt very, very uncomfortable after that.

And it wasn’t because we were listening to a scene in a male strip club. It was because we all assumed that the stripper was a woman, and that image provoked a hormonal reaction in us. Then the world was turned upside down. It’s kind of like the blog entry I wrote about admiring a female jogger’s slender legs until you realize it’s a dude. It’s confusing for a second.

The point is, no movie could do what the author did in that scene. When it comes to unraveling information, books are unparalleled.

George R. R. Martin, author of A Game of Thrones, reminded me of another reason why books are more powerful than movies: When you write a book, the budget for each scene is unlimited. Martin used to write for TV, but he got frustrated with the limited budgets, so he turned to books. No more constraints. If he wanted a giant battle, he got one without haggling with his producers. Easy.

Ever since those two revelations, I’ve rekindled my appreciation and hope for books. Here are a few quick reasons:

1. Imagination. Sure, a picture is worth a thousand words as I said above, but the pictures you paint in your mind are even more valuable.
2. Backstory. In a movie, you often have to take a break from the plot to get backstory about a character. In a book, it’s much easier to present backstory in a manner that lets the story continue to move forward.
3. Reveals. As I mentioned above, the author is in full control of the information shared with the reader, providing a myriad of twists and turns.
4. Escapism. Sure, a book might take 10 hours to read…but that’s a good thing. How many times have you read a book and thought, “I wish this would never end!” Books let you escape from real life one chapter at a time, at your own pace. You don’t have to wait a week for the next episode of Fringe to come out–just turn the page when you’re ready.

Last, I mentioned the problem of quantity. Really, though, that’s not a problem with books alone. There are so many movies, TV shows, games, and songs out there, and you can get any of them within a few minutes. Supply is diluted, and it will forever be diluted. That’s okay. It just means that finding good recommendation engines (whether they’re digital or human) is more important than ever before.

What’s the last truly great book that you read?

Hunger Games

I love dystopian fiction because it takes a familiar world, turns it on its head, and gives me the chance to explore one potential future and the reasons it became that way.

However, dystopian fiction is inherently sad. You’re basically reading about the end of the world as we know it, about how bad things can get. It’s a little discouraging.

Thus it was refreshing to read this over at David Anthony Durham’s blog about a month ago:

[A related post about positive futures in sci fi writing] leaves me hankering for a big, hopeful, bold novel of a future that we can aspire to. I like dystopian fiction as much as anyone, but… it might be nice to find a way to feel positive about a possible future – and challenged to achieve it.

YES. Why is the future so terrible in fiction? If a writer creates a hopeful future, something we can aspire to, doesn’t that mean that we might actually make it happen instead of devolving into Hunger Games savages?

So when I sat down to start writing my novel 25 days ago (I’m at 35,000 words now, so I’m on schedule), I kept Durham’s words close at hand. I knew I wanted my story to take place in the not-so-distant future, and I didn’t want the world to look all that different from present-day. And most importantly, I wanted the future to look better than 2012, and I wanted there to be specific reasons for why it gets better. Not that 2012 is so bad–in fact, for the most part it’s quite good–but the key is that things get better instead of getting really bad.

My novel isn’t utopian, and it definitely isn’t dystopian…perhaps anti-dystopian is the best classification. Either way, I’m not done yet, so who knows what the world will look like by the end of the novel?

What significant improvements do you foresee happening in the next 80 years? What will be completely different in 2092? And I’m not just talking about technology; I’m talking about government and the environment and relationships and pets and entertainment, all of it. What are your predictions? I’ve actually incorporated one idea that a reader brought up in the comments section a few weeks ago, so if one of your ideas hits home with me, it might end up in the novel, and I’ll be sure to credit you.

I started writing 14 days ago. I now have over 15,000 words.

I’ve had the idea for the novel for a while, but it didn’t really come together until two weeks ago. I was sitting around not writing, and it hit me: I’m never going to write a novel if I don’t give myself a tight deadline.

You see, I’ve tried to write novels before. Two of them, specifically. I approached both as epic projects, projects that would take years to complete, projects for which I’d have to set aside significant amounts of time to complete.

I got about halfway through both before I gave up. Other things took priority.

It’s only been in the last year or two that I’ve realized that a novel doesn’t have to be some epic undertaking for which the rest of your life grounds to a halt. I have writer friends who have written multiple novels in the last year. Writer friends with kids. And jobs. And other passions.

Also, I recently challenged a Blank Slate Press applicant with whom I’ve worked for the last 8 months to actually finish his novel. He’s a talented writer, but he’s spent those 8 months reworking the first third of his novel instead of writing the last two thirds. I recently threw down what he called “the gauntlet”: Finish his novel in two months. Just do it. Finish it.

So I’m taking a taste of my own medicine and doing things differently this time. I’m writing 1000 words a day, more if I can, and definitely more on the weekends. I’m revising very little along the way, lest I lose my forward momentum. My goal is to finish, to write a novel for me, and then go back and revise it and make it something that people actually want to read.

I’m also not planning out the whole novel before I write it. Sure, I have a rough idea of things that might happen, as well as some twists and reveals, but for the most part I’m clearly defining my characters’ goals and letting them lead me instead of trying to figure out what I want to happen.

Last, I’m taking a tip from ScriptShadow and making sure that every chapter moves the story forward. No fluff. If I could remove a chapter and the story wouldn’t change, I’m not going to write it.

There are a few other guidelines I’m following that I’ll share in a future post, but for now I’ll leave you with my current pitch (which totally sucks, but I’m not hung up on it): The Hunger Games meets Harry Potter meets The Time Traveler’s Wife meets Oryx and Crake. My novel isn’t a mashup of all of those books, but my book happens to have elements of each.

I’m really excited about this project. I’m not sure about the best way to keep you all in the loop, because you really shouldn’t give a damn unless I actually finish the novel. There are two types of people in the world: Those who want to write a novel, and those who finish writing a novel. I want to be in that second group.

What do you keep putting off or half-assing in your life? I dare you to accept my two-month gauntlet challenge of actually completing that goal. If you do, I’ll feature you on a special entry about successful people.

A few years ago there were a rash of books about people who tried to do something to the extreme for one year. I found the concept fascinating, and I read a few of them, most notably The Year of Living Biblically (a guy follows all of the rules of the Bible–as zany as many of the more obscure ones are–for one year to see how it affected him personally and spiritually).

My book idea is in the same vein. The concept is that for one year, I would act on all advice that scientists give us about living longer.

You’ve probably heard some of this advice:

• Drink a glass of red wine a day and you’ll live longer.
• Take an aspirin a day and you’ll live longer.
• Eat a few pieces of dark chocolate a day and you’ll live longer.

My ears always perk up when I hear this type of advice, especially if it’s easy to follow. And some of it goes well beyond eating a piece of chocolate. For example, there’s a small town in Italy where fatty foods comprise 41% of their diet, but bonds and support that are an integral part of this close-knit community gives its residents one of the highest life expectancy levels in the world?

The book would explore why, exactly, we want to live longer–if not forever (think vampires, religion, the fountain of youth, etc). What’s so appealing about immortality? And what about the aging of your body versus that of your mind–what do you value more? We spend so much money trying to look younger, but what is it about aging that we so despise?

So this is something I’m thinking about doing. Some of the advice I already take by coincidence (i.e., you live longer if you have a pet), but there’s quite a bit that I’d need to add into my life. And it’s not just longevity advice–there’s also mortality advice. What good is eating legumes every day if you get eaten by a grizzly bear on Day 18?

One gimmick I’d like to include in this book is that I want to take more than just the advice of scientist. I also want to take (if only temporarily) any advice that you’ve ever heard about living longer. If your crazy uncle once told you that you’ll live longer if you eat a spoonful of peanut butter upside down every day, I want to do it.

So if you have a minute, let me know any longevity advice that you’ve ever heard. That’s a very good chance I’m actually going to take this advice, and I’ll give you credit in the book. Keep in mind the distinction between being healthier and living longer. There’s a lot of overlap between the two, but I want to specifically focus on advice you’ve heard about longevity. An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but does it add a year to your life?

Thanks for your help, and have a Merry Christmas!

But what if something different happened during that hour? What if that hour was a freebie, a blip in time, an hour that happens but isn’t “real”? What would you do with that hour?

I’m over in Ireland working on a story that I’ve been playing around with for a week (I took the photo on the right while writing tonight in my castle hotel). I have a myriad of concepts and characters I’m piecing together for a series of connected stories ala A Visit from the Goon Squad, but I’m curious about what you’d do with that leap hour. Who knows, your brilliant idea might end up in the book (I’ll give you a concealed credit).

So here are the rules behind the leap hour:

• It’s a real hour that happens to everyone at the same time every year. However, it takes place in an alternate timeline, kind of in a bubble of reality that is completely separate from the reality you experience and perceive every day.
• You do not remember anything that happens during the leap hour. In your primary timeline, you see the clock turn from 12:59 to 1:00 without knowing that there’s an extra hour in there (you only know that hour exists because scientists have proven it to you).
• Nothing that happens during the hour has any consequence on real time. For example, in the alternate timeline, you could go streaking through the streets of St. Louis, be seen by tons of people (perhaps they’re doing the same thing), and be caught by traffic cameras everywhere…but when the hour is up, you’re sitting on your couch like you were before, with no memories or evidence that you went streaking. It simply doesn’t exist as an event that happened in your life.

I’ve also discovered (this was a while ago), that like The Notebook, True Blood is an excellent show to watch on a date. Let’s just say that it gets the ladies in the mood…

The writing in True Blood is actually quite good, with one huge exception: dream sequences. You know what I’m talking about. You’re watching the show, and there’s a scene where the girl finally admits to herself that she wants the guy she’s not with, and they ravage each other in bed. Finally.

And then…she wakes up.

Dream sequences are flat-out bad writing. If you want to show your audience that Sookie secretly wants Eric, let the actress do her job. We don’t need to be spoonfed those hidden desires. Sure, the visual is handy, but once we realize it’s not “real,” we feel cheated. Manipulated.

Now, the occasional dream sequence where it is abundantly clear from the beginning of the scene that it’s a dream isn’t so bad. But when you’re given no sign that it’s a dream, you end up starting to wonder if every scene is a dream. You start to doubt the reality of what you’re watching–and when you’re watching True Blood, everything is so far from reality that those doubts come quickly.

So writers of the world, please stop using dream sequences. You can do better than that.

A month ago, my little publishing startup, Blank Slate Press, launched a Kickstarter campaign to support our 2012 author selection. Since then, we’ve decided to add one specific author to our docket (we sent him the contract today), and perhaps one other author later in the year (she’s doing a significant rewrite on her novel before we decide). We’ve reached our goal thanks to some tremendously generous contributors, but with a day left (35 hours, to be exact), I hope you’ll consider contributing to the campaign for the following reasons:

1. You’re looking for a good summer read. Any contribution to the campaign gets you digital copies of our two debut novels. One is a page-turner with huge twist, and the other is a literary character study.
2. You enjoy reading this blog. Does my blog make you smile from time to time? Maybe even think about things on occasion. I’m endlessly flattered that people choose to read my blog every day. It costs me about $100/yr to keep this blog up and running, and I’d never ask you to help alleviate those costs. But I’d be honored if you’d support this passion project of mine.
3. You’d pay $2 to watch me make a fool of myself. Okay, technically you can watch the Kickstarter video of me for free, but the lowest giving level is $2. Every penny counts.
4. You’re a Kickstarter virgin. Kickstarter is one of the coolest web startups that I’ve seen in the last 5-10 years. Even if you don’t support the campaign, Kickstarter is worth exploring. What type of project could you see yourself launching there someday?

Thanks for your consideration. The clock is ticking! The campaign will end on Friday, July 1 at 9:55 am Central time. And thank you so much to those of you who have already chosen to support this passion project of mine.