Growing up, I was known for 2 things: acting and writing. In high school, I starred in plays, won medals at speech meets, and was president of the writing club. No one, except a few close friends, even associated me with programming or computers, and I sucked at math! So, when people from my childhood find out what I do for my day job, they often look a little confused. Technical people have the same reaction when they find out that I am also a writer. After all, aren't those two worlds mutually exclusive?

The short answer: No.

A few days ago, a friend on Facebook posted a link to a recent article in the Washington Post regarding a study done by Google on the most important skills for programmers to have. The study concluded that (GASP!) programmers with creative backgrounds were much more effective than programmers who were solely STEM- (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math) focused. My Facebook friend commented that maybe she would let her son pursue his newfound interest in acting, after all. I told her that she should.

The thing is that most people think of programming as a purely logical exercise. They figure all you need to be good at it is a ton of math. While it is true that there is a lot of logic in programming (okay, ALL programming is logic), you usually don't think about it while you are doing it, and the fact that programming code is primarily Algebra really doesn’t come into play on a day-to-day basis. Case-in-point, I’d been a programmer for over 5 years before I realized that I was using the very thing I almost failed in high school!

How did I manage to miss the fact that I was using Algebra? Simple: it didn’t look like Algebra. In high school we learned that x + y = z. But what does that mean? What is x? What is y? Who cares? They are just letters without any substance or context. On the other hand, currentAccountBalance + newDepositAmount = newAccountBalance means something and, more important to me, there is a story behind it.

What most don’t realize is that programming is really just storytelling. Granted, all the stories are about data, but they are still stories. And when you can make code do something you didn’t think possible, or when you get past the hurdle that’s been keeping you from accomplishing some task, you feel just as much a rush as when you figure out a character or a plot point. And you better believe that shipping software is just as exhausting and exciting as shipping a finished story.

So, while programming is logical and math-based at it’s core, it is also creative. STEM-focused programmers often get into a rut thinking that there is only a single, logical solution to programming problems. Creative programmers, on the other hand, know that there are hundreds or even thousands of ways to accomplish something. They have that undefinable ability that The Giver called “seeing beyond.”

To fully cement my nerd-cred, I will compare it to Star Trek: The Motion Picture (often known as “the boring one,” though I actually enjoy it quite a bit). In that movie, they encounter a completely logical being: V’GER. The crew of the Enterprise discovers that V’GER is a sentient mechanical construct on a quest to catalog everything it encounters. It has reached the extent of its programming and yearns for the ability to see and to believe in things that stretch the bounds of logic—in other words, it seeks creativity.

While Star Trek is fantasy, V’GER’s plight is a reflection of something very real: logic, as great as it may be, is not enough. Spock isn’t in charge of the Enterprise because he lacks the passion and the creativity to be a good leader. He needs Kirk (they also need Bones, but that is for another discussion).

In my 20 year's experience, programmers that are solely STEM- and logic-focused are also limited. They get stuck in the rut of thinking that problems have a single solution. Creative programmers, on the other hand, can see problems from different viewpoints and angles and can better communicate and work with others, all critical skills for any software developer.

That is why I advised my friend to let her son pursue his interest in acting. The creative experience will be a huge benefit, if, in the end, he decides to go the STEM route after all, and, along the way, he’ll have a lot of fun.

Ah, November, that special time of year when the smell of pumpkin spice mixes with the smell of cinnamon pine cones and the radio starts playing Christmas music and the brisk air turns brisker (except in Arizona, where the hot summer air turns into perfect fall air, but I digress). Maybe it is because my birthday falls in this month, and maybe it is the magic of Thanksgiving, 

For the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. During this month, novelists and aspiring novelists around the globe struggle to write a 50,000-word novel in just 30 days.

Those of you who do long-division in your head have already figured out that, to achieve this goal, you must write an average of 1,667 words per day. For some, that may sound easy. For everyone else, that is a huge challenge.

You might be wondering why anyone would afflict this on themselves. I think everyone does it for a different reason. Many have wanted to write a book their entire lives and are finally committing to it. Others just want to have some fun. Still others just want to be able to say they did it. Whatever the reason, I think they are good ones.

The book I just created was a NaNo attempt, though it turned out to be 90,000+ words long and took 2 months to complete. Still, I don't think I would have gotten that far without NaNoWriMo helping me focus. I'm using this year to write book 2!

So, while many of you may be getting nostalgic and anxious for the coming holidays or just the cooler weather, I'll be holed up, hammering away at a keyboard putting words to paper.

It is, after all, a magical time of year.

You can track my NaNoWriMo2017 progress on Twitter or on my NaNo profile page.

Over the last two weekends, I attended 2 separate writing conferences: the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Colorado Gold conference in Denver, and the Arizona Night Writers Association conference in Gilbert, Arizona. I met awesome people at both, and also saw some really amazing panels and workshops. Over the next couple of weeks, I plan to share some of the things that I learned. Today, I am sharing my notes of the most useful presentations at the RMFW conference about editing.

The presentation, called "Coal to Diamonds: How to Edit Your Manuscript From First Draft to Final Polish," was given by bestselling ninja mystery author, Susan Spann (who also gave me invaluable advice about pitching my own novel!). In the presentation, she explained her writing/editing process in detail. That process, she explains, involves 7 individual drafts (she defines a draft a a full edit from beginning to end). Let's break them down one-by-one

Susan writes her first draft as word vomit. There is no filter. Everything goes on the page as quickly as possible. The goal is to get the story in some form onto the page. It will be rough, it may lack important details, but it is written down. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Three things are important for this draft:

1. No editing. Just write. Get it out.

2. Set a word limit that you will reach per day and stick to it. Susan's limit is 6,000 words (she writes her first draft in 10 days!). Most writers can't handle that, so she advises to pick a limit and stick to it until you've mastered it and then up it. She started with a limit of 250 words and built up.

3. If you get stuck, think of the most improbably thing that can happen in your world and shoot for it. Try killing off a main character (or almost doing so) or something along those lines. This will help spark your creativity, and you can get through it.

When Susan has questions that require research or discovers places that need more detail during the 1st and 2nd drafts, she notes them in her manuscript and moves on. Now is the time to go back, do the research, and add that detail.

Another focus of the 3rd draft is to bring in the emotional impact of the story. This is often found in the details in how characters move and speak. Dialogue and mannerisms start to become very important here.

Susan reads her 5th draft out loud. When she finds a place that causes her to stumble, she fixes it. This is one of the best ways to ensure that the words flow.

The goal for this draft is to add your unique voice to your story. It is also to check for grammar, sentence structure, and echo words.

The book finally goes out for critiques. Most other writers would consider this the alpha and beta reader stage. I'm not certain whether Susan takes partial work to a critique group, but it didn't sound like it from her presentation. In her words, this is when the story is finally read by others.

Most authors find this stage very difficult. Susan's advice is to remember that there is nothing your critique partners can say that will be as mean as someone on Amazon. In other words, as a writer, you need to learn to take it.

Once the critiques come back, Susan goes through them and incorporates comments she believes are useful into the book. While she doesn't use everything, she does think about each comment and asks herself what made the commenter say it.

The final draft, a last pass through the story for spit and polish, and then it is off to the agent.

Writing is very personal. Every author must find their own process and their own voice. However, learning the processes that work for others can be very instructive. I was surprised to discover that my own process is similar to Susan's, but I learned some new things that I will try as well.

What is your process?

My head was pounding. My heart was thudding. My hands were sweating. My throat was dry. And that was just for the pitch coaching session.

​Last week, I gave my first, honest-to-goodness author pitch to an agent. It was one of the most terrifying, anxiety-inducing experiences of my life. Two weeks earlier, I had no idea what a pitch WAS, much less how to write and deliver one. What I found online was contradictory, and in spite of the assurances of my critique group, I felt woefully unprepared.

Spoiler, the pitch went well. I didn't keel over dead, and the agent asked to read my manuscript. Woo!

Along the way, I learned a few things that I think will help other writers looking to pitch.

First: Your pitch needs to be short.

Everything I found online suggested that a pitch should be a couple of paragraphs. So that was what I prepared. I took it to my pitch coach the day before my pitch and she scrapped the whole thing.

"It's too much detail," she said.

She had me tell her about my story and wrote down details. Afterwards, she constructed a single sentence:

"A group of engineers in the Arizona desert loses contact with the outside world, only to discover that they are being hunted by a creature of animated stone who feeds on the blood of the living."

It was simple, straightforward, and incredibly accurate. It also highlighted the primary conflict (overcoming the creature) and the main characters (the engineering group). Even better, it focused on what makes my story different (a creature of animated stone). It was also easy to remember (a HUGE plus).

When I repeated this line to the agent, her eyebrows went up, she wrote some notes and asked for more.

Second: Be ready for a conversation.

After rewriting my pitch, my pitch coach (the awesome author Susan Spann) walked me through a conversation about my book. She helped me identify the key points I want to raise: where the creature comes from, why the engineering team is in the desert, what books/movies/TV shows are comparable to my book.

While not every one of these questions came up in the actual pitch session, some did. It also made me think about short, to-the-point summary sentences that helped me pitch better.

Third: Practice, practice, practice.

The night between my coaching session and my pitch, I practiced. A LOT. The morning of my pitch found me making laps through the conference hotel halls repeating my pitch line and reenacting potential conversations in my mind.

Another conference attendee saw this, recognized what I was doing, and stopped me to talk. She asked me for my pitch and engaged me in a conversation. It was awesome, because it helped me see that the pitch worked OK for others. I don't remember her name, but I am very grateful for her help.

Finally: Just do it

In the end, you just need to do it. The very next week, I found myself at another conference. I had a chance to talk to other writers and agents. I used the pitch. The result was some awesome conversations. More important, I will be better prepared the next time.

I'll probably still be terrified.

Sixteen years and one week ago, I was walking across a parking lot when a plane flew overhead. I froze. My heart beat faster, and a chill went through me as I turned to watch the very normal 747 make it's way toward the airport. I watched until it had completely disappeared from view.

It was the first plane I'd seen since 9/11.

The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, were horrific and all-but indescribable. For weeks afterwards, I walked around in a haze, a hollow pit in my stomach. I subscribe whole-heartedly to William Faulkner's declaration in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech: "I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail." I tend to see the best intentions, even if I don't agree with the actions (even for politicians). So 9/11 shook me to the core. I couldn't believe that humans could be so violent and filled with hate. It was, in short, an eye-opening, life-changing event.

The shadow of 9/11 would haunt me for years. Later, it would become the focus of my research as I looked at how it impacted our world through the lens of superheroes, which I published in my first (and only) non-fiction book: The Superhero Response. In that research, I learned a lot about heroes and a lot about villains. Because of that, I remain more convinced of the goodness of men and women than ever before.

The night of 9/11, President George W. Bush said: "Today, our nation saw evil -- the very worst of human nature -- and we responded with the best of America." In so many ways, that was true, though it extended well beyond America's borders and culture. Over the last sixteen years, it has felt like our world is under siege from man-made threats, to natural disasters, to political upheaval, to cultural wars. It feels like the world is so much darker than it was even twenty or thirty years ago. This feeling of darkness resulted in a large number of people hoping to "Make America Great Again" and caused many others to rise up stronger than ever against perceived oppression. I am convinced that Charlottesville and other moments like it are the inevitable result of this growing perception of darkness.

But darkness cannot exist without light, and the darker things are, the brighter the light shines.

Even as our world seems to grow darker, we have seen heroes rise up to stand against it. For every evil or terrible moment, there are countless deeds of heroism and kindness that counteract it. Hurricane Harvey was devastating, but led to an outpouring of support. Charlottesville brought thousands into the streets to protest racism and white nationalism. And on and on and on.

Sixteen years ago, watching that plane fly across the sky, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I didn't know if I could ever restore my faith in humanity. Now it is stronger than ever.

Today, as we remember that awful morning that revealed so much evil to the world, let us also remember, that we are stronger than the darkness and better than we believe.

A few years ago, my very astute children coined the term: "Nervicited." It describes the state you are in when you are both very nervous and very excited about something. It also describes exactly how I've felt all week.

Late tomorrow, I'm off to Denver to attend the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Colorado Gold Conference (#RMFW2017) for the rest of the week. This will be my very first writers conference and I'm very, very excited to meet all the awesome people I'm certain will be there and to spend 3 days focusing on nothing but writing. While I'm there, I will be participating in a critique group with a real agent, pitching my book to another agent, and reading the first chapter to a ballroom full of strangers.

I. Am. Terrified.

I don't know if non-artists fully appreciate how difficult it is for artists to share their work with others who might criticize it. My writing is a part of me. If you don't like it, that can feel very personal, even if it isn't.

I know. I know. What's the worse that can happen? Probably nothing. I'm going to have a cool experience no matter what, but knowing that hasn't reduced my anxiety even a little bit.

Maybe I'm just overly dramatic.

Maybe I'm just nervicited.

Wish me luck!

It's fun to tell people you've written a 100,000 word novel. Their eyes grow huge and they stare at you like you are some kind of freak of nature.

"I could NEVER write that much," they say with an expression of awe usually reserved for rock stars or Deity. We can discuss my opinions of THAT statement another day, but in a way they are right: Stringing together 100K+ words into a coherent plot is a challenge, not to mention the difficulty of actually making said 100K+ words good. But even that is nothing compared to trying to write a pitch.

For those of you not in the know, a pitch is a 1-2 paragraph description of your book designed to hook an editor or agent. I will be pitching my book to an actual agent at the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Colorado Gold Conference next week (I'm very nervous), and so I've spent many hours over the past few weeks writing my pitch.

It is so hard!

How am I supposed to distill 350 pages of sweat and tears and ups and downs and life and death into a couple hundred words? And then, to top it all off, YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO MEMORIZE IT!

I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if it didn't feel like so many of my hopes and dreams are tied up in these 2 paragraphs. This feels like make-or-break time. Do or die. Fish or cut bait. Paper or plastic!

Okay. Maybe that's a bit much, but it is still amazingly hard.

Incidentally, I'd love to share my pitch with you, but I can't. An unfortunate reality is that, by its nature, it has to spoil the ending. So you'll just have to wait to read the book.

The last couple of weeks, I have been working on incorporating beta reader feedback into my book. It has been an amazing experience.

For those of you not in the know, beta readers are readers who get to read a manuscript before it is pitched to an agent or publishing house. They provide feedback to the author on what they liked, what they disliked, and any suggestions on improving it.

Handing your manuscript off to beta readers can be nerve wracking. Imagine handing off one of your children to someone else and asking them to tell you everything wrong with that child. Beta reading kind of feels like that. At the same time, it can be awesome.

If they like your book, you get some awesome praise. Authors love praise. Some of the praise I received included:

Or how about my wife's comment after finishing the book for the first time:

And one of my favorites:

And then there is the ultimate compliment for any writer:

And then there's the part where they make your story better. My beta readers found a couple of small plot holes. Filling them has really improved the story, even if they weren't gaping craters.

So, even if they can be absolutely terrifying, they can also be one of the best parts of writing.

Last week's post got me thinking about genre again (it's surprising how many things do that). Specifically, I was thinking about the horror genre and the age old question: what makes something horrific?

I don't know that there is a real answer to that question, but my personal favorite is a quote I read somewhere that I can't appropriately attribute because I haven't found it since (though I think it was credited to either Alfred Hitchcock or Guillermo del Toro). It's a very simple definition that I also think accurately sums up what I find horrifying (please note, I'm paraphrasing because, as I said earlier, I can't find the actual quote):

I LOVE this definition! Think about the most horrifying movie you've ever seen. Which parts were the most terrifying? Were they the moments when you fully saw the monster? No, usually, they are the parts you can't see.

Due to serendipitous technical difficulties, Steven Spielberg's Jaws became the masterpiece that it is because they couldn't show the freaking shark! While seeing a fin heading toward a boat would have been scary, it was far scarier to see the barrels pop up out of the water and head toward the boat. Or, even worse, when the barrels disappeared when that should be impossible! An amazing bit of horror.

An interesting example is the old miniseries of Stephen King's IT, which is appropriate given the upcoming movie. I saw this miniseries on VHS when I was in high school--probably a sophomore. I hadn't transitioned to my enjoying horror phase, yet, so watching with friends was an act of stupidity I lived to regret (going into gym locker rooms still gives me the shivers). In my opinion, the first two-thirds of that movie worked exceptionally well. True, you did see Pennywise (sometimes), but he was so out-of-place, so "something that is present that should not be" that he was absolutely terrifying. The same thing with the balloons. In-and-of-themselves, they are not scary, but put them in a sewer with the words "We all float down here" and suddenly your skin crawls. And yet... And yet the last third of that movie was a major disappointment. Why? Because we finally saw the monster and it just wasn't that terrifying. It felt in-place in the deep underground, and we were expecting it (sort of). So in the end, it just wasn't that scary.

The trick, I've found in writing, is how do you create that feeling of alienness about something normal. Even a jar of peanut butter in the right setting with the right description can be horrifying. If you can figure that out, poof, you're a horror writer!