Chris Barili

I’ll be participating in MileHiCon October 27-29, and after I announced that, a fellow writer surprised me by asking what MileHiCon is. This fellow writes fantasy and didn’t know about Colorado’s top Fantasy and Science Fiction literary convention. It made me wonder how many people don’t know what cons, or conventions, are and what they can do for your writing.

In this case, I am attending MileHiCon, a literary convention for the Science Fiction and Fantasy genre. A literary convention centers around books, for both writers and readers. Thus, they tend to be a good place to sell books, network, and learn craft. Most genres have them, including some here in Colorado. The Colorado Horror Convention happens in Denver at the end of October/early November. Colorado Romance Writers hold a mini-con in August. And the Colorado Mystery Convention takes place in early October. There are also writers conferences, which tend to be non-genre-specific, but are great places to network, pitch, and learn from broader, more generalized skillsets. Most people know about Comic Cons, which celebrate comic books. Most cities have them now, and while they aren’t the best place to learn about writing or network, you can sometimes sell a good number of books there, especially if they’re in the speculative fiction genres.

So what does a writer do at a convention? I’ve only been to a few now, but they’ve been spread across the spectrum of cons, so between what I know and some of my more experienced friends know, I think this is a good starting list:

1. Get a table and sell your brand. Sell your books, yes, but sell your brand, the image you want people to have of you as a writer, too. Use book marks, stickers, handouts, cards, and whatever other professional publicity items you come up with. A con-savvy friend of mine handed out 4″ x 6″ cards with a flash story on the back so readers would get to know her style. Brilliant!
2. Network. Not just with readers, but with other writers, editors, agents, and publishers. Again, get your brand out there, and for goodness sake, whatever you do, follow the Golden Rule of being an author: don’t be a jerk. Be polite, even friendly. I know, you’re an introvert and hate people. Get over it. This is business.
3. Get on Panels! Even if you’re not yet published, you’re still a writer, and your viewpoint is unique. Try to get on panels you feel strongly about, but that you can discuss logically and professionally. Ones that you have some experience with. At MileHiCon this year, I’m on panels about transforming characters (several of my Hell’s Butcher Series characters transform), and another on what happens to a story when you add a romantic subplot. Panels get you exposure to a combination of industry professionals and readers, so they do double-duty for you.
4. SOCIALIZE. Every con has what they call Bar-Cons, usually on Friday and Saturday nights. This is the time a lot of schmoozing gets done, and when many people who aren’t formally attending the con show up to meet up with cohorts and friends. Stay sober, and mingle. Circulate, talking to as many people as possible. Or even better, have a more experienced friend show you around and introduce you to people.
5. Be ready, and swing if the pitch is right. Basically, have your elevator and long pitches ready, so if some editor or agent wants to hear about your stuff, you’re ready on a moment’s notice to make them want your work. And if that chance comes up — DO IT. You won’t regret it, even if it flops.

Conventions can be a great way to sell your work, promote yourself, and meet people in the business of writing (and selling) stories. They can be intimidating at first, but once you get out there, they’re a lot of fun, and can help you grow as a writer.

The passing of Carrie Fisher this week plucked a somber chord on my heartstrings, a good bit sadder than most of the other icons we’ve lost this year. I saw the original Star Wars seven times the year it came out, and it didn’t take long to figure out that Princess Leia was a major reason why.

Sure, every adolescent boy had a crush on the strong-willed rebel royal. Why wouldn’t we? She was beautiful, fiery, and compassionate. But she was also strong. Incredibly strong. A princess who, if left alone, would eventually have rescued herself. So sure, I had that same boyhood crush on the character Fisher brought to life so well. But I had just dipped my toe into the waters of writing fiction at that age, and Carrie Fisher’s amazing portrayal set a tone in my heart that would affect my writing–and my life–for years to come.

You see, Princess Leia was one of the first widely accepted “strong female characters” out there. She shot a blaster with the best of them, exerted her royal will like a champion arm wrestler exerts their strength. And Fisher–whose personality was much like the character she portrayed–brought that to life like no one else at the time could have. She showed the world that women could not only be as badass as men, but could be more so. And could do it with a grace and beauty that most men could not begin to achieve. And Fisher handled everything in her life that way, from addiction to mental health issues. She faced them all, blaster in hand, and fought her way through.

So Carrie Fisher’s performance sparked in my mind a strong affection for women of strength. From that moment forward, I admired women who could put anyone–myself included–in their place. Women who didn’t need a man to rescue them, and could tussle with the best the male gender had to offer.

This bled over into my life as a military professional. Women were just starting to be more integrated in the military in the 80s, and some guys had trouble working with them, much less for them. Not me. Most of the bosses I remember fondly are women. Anytime they showed a little spark of that Leia strength, anytime one of them showed charisma, grit, or power, it wasn’t foreign to me. It was a trait I’d already learned to admire. In fact, when it came time for me to retire from the military, I chose a female colonel for whom I had a ton of respect to officiate my ceremony.

But Leia’s strong personality fused with my writing, too. When I was fourteen, I started writing my first fantasy novel. (No, you may not see it. Ever. Never ever ever ever. No.) A portal fantasy, it took a male protagonist from our world and dropped him in a medieval fantasy world where he was alone and clueless. The first person he met in that world was a redheaded woman on the run from the king’s justice, a woman who not only defeats four men in armed combat during her opening appearance, but through sheer strength of will, makes the protagonist face and defeat his own inner demons.

And most of my stories since–no matter their genre–have featured strong female characters. Women who don’t really need Luke or Prince Charming or anyone else to rescue them. I don’t think I’ve ever written about a woman held hostage in a tower, or waiting for a man to come rescue her. Why? Well, because that’s not what Leia would do.

So losing Carrie Fisher–and now, as I write this learning her mother Debbie Reynolds has also passed–draws more than a few tears from me. We toss around the word “icon” pretty freely these days, but Carrie truly was an icon. And she left an indelible mark on my writing and my life. She will be missed.

Hey, everyone! The hardest and most time-consuming part of self-publishing a book is, without a doubt, marketing and publicity. Most of us who write stories aren’t natural sales people, so we struggle when it comes to pushing our stories, no matter how strongly we believe in them. And every minute we spend working on that is a minute not spent writing, so we tend to shy away from the marketing side of self-publishing.

As I said earlier, Hell’s Marshal went on sale (Kindle version) on the 14th for $1.49, and dropped again to 99-cents a few days later as part of a marketing push to get sales rolling. Since going on sale, it’s gone back and forth in Amazon’s western horror sub-genre, ranking between number 7 (where is as I write this) and number 13. I’d love to get it into the top 5 and keep it there for a while, so I’m asking you for help. It’s really easy to do:

1. The easiest way to help–buy a copy. For under a buck, it’s painless, and has the most direct influence on ranking.
2. If you liked it, leave a review. Doesn’t have to be more than a few words, really, and a star rating. After purchases, reviews are next in the Amazon algorithm hierarchy of important data.
3. And finally, recommend the book. You can do this by word of mouth, or be sharing a post like this, so more people buy the book. (And ask them to review it too.)

It’s that simple.

And for those wondering, Hell’s Butcher (Book Two) is undergoing my revisions right now. It’ll go through beta readers around Thanksgiving, then through my editor (the amazing Jen Severino from Twitching Pen Editing) in early December. That’s about the time Michelle Johnson from Blue Sky Designs will start on the cover art, too. I expect this book out in early spring. In this volume–which is a bit longer than book one–Frank and his posse end up on the sophisticated east coast, tracking an infamous assassin and his gang as they try to stir up trouble in the nation’s capitol.

As a special installment, I hope to have Guilty, the pre-quel to Frank’s adventures as Hell’s Marshal, out in late spring, so everyone can know how he came to be the marhal he is!

Thank you!

Here’s a link to the Kindle Version of Hell’s Marshal: Buy on Amazon

I’ve been a Buffalo Bills fan since 1986. I’ve taken the Bills with me all around the world, using them as my connection back to my roots. Sundays have always been set aside for watching them, even when I was overseas and had to get up at midnight or 2 a.m. to watch whatever game the Armed Force Network had on, just to see updates on Buffalo. And I’ve always written stories, since the ripe age of 14, even during my twenty years of military service. Stories were my escape, my happy place.

Fifteen years ago today, just before the second week of the 2001 NFL season, I was on active duty with the US Air Force, stationed at Schriever AFB, outside Colorado Springs, CO. I was the NCO in charge of the Intelligence Division there, and we’d just finished our morning intel briefing to the commander and his staff when CNN came on, showing one of the world trade center towers burning. They said it was an accident, that a “small plane” had crashed into the building, but that seemed wrong, somehow. A few minutes later, I watched live as a plane struck the other tower, and I knew in a heartbeat we were under attack.

My first call went to our security personnel, to warn them of the situation. The second was to my wife, to have her get all our kids out of school and home immediately. The rest of that day is a blur. I remember snippets. Comforting a frightened security forces troop outside out building. Watching the first tower fall. Seeing a seasoned federal agent in tears. I finally got home to my family the next morning, after twenty-four hours on shift. I held them all, reveling in what I had, grateful they were all OK when so many other parents had lost so much.

At the time, I feared how the attacks would fundamentally change our nation, how they’d make us less of what we were. I thought for sure that the attackers had caused a wound that would never heal. The next weekend, I didn’t get to watch my team, the Buffalo Bills, something I did every Sunday, with few exceptions. And I didn’t care. Football seemed unimportant, like it might never be important to me again. I didn’t have time to write that week, either. Or the one after. Writing seemed unimportant at the time, a luxury I could no longer afford.

Now, fifteen years later, I look back and realize just how badly the attackers failed.

I got back to writing that month, though a lot of my effort went into journaling about my emotions at the time. Writing is a natural catharsis, a drug that dulls the pains we carry with us through a kind of emotional blood-letting. And sure enough, the more I did it, the less I hurt, and the more I got back to writing fiction instead of journals.

And I got back to watching football, too. The attackers hit me close to home, as a native New Yorker, and the Bills were still my connection to that heritage. In fact, a month after the attacks I watched the Bills again, and I haven’t stopped since.

Now, fifteen years after those attacks, I’m retired from active duty, but I’m still sitting down on my couch to watch the Bills. I’ll grill wings, drink beer, and yell at the TV like I did all those years before the attacks, and all the years since. This will be a tougher-than-normal year, with games happening right ON 9-11, but I’ll watch and I’ll cheer. And probably I’ll cry. The memorials will be going on, and I’m sure they’ll show them throughout the game. And they’ll make me remember.

But they’ll also remind me that we continue on. We’ve changed, and we’ve suffered, and we’ve lost a lot. But we’re still watching football on Sunday. Writers still write, and readers still read. Players still play, and fans still cheer. And cry. But mostly cheer. Because they failed—we’re still here.

With the paranormal romance Smothered just two days from release, B.T. Clearwater (my romance-writing alter ego) thought it might be a good time for an excerpt. Check it out on the B.T. Clearwater blog:

http://btclearwater.blogspot.com/2016/09/well-with-release-of-smothered-just-two.html

Since I’m expecting edits back on my paranormal romance novel Smothered anytime now (as B.T. Clearwater, through Winlock Press), I thought it might be a good time to talk romance a bit. I know the romance genre gets a good bit of snickering and skeptical looks, especially when you toss “paranormal” or “supernatural” into the mix. That’s why some readers used to hide their romance novels with covers from other books, and part of the reason e-readers are so incredibly popular with the romance reader crowd. It allows discretion in the face of widespread derision.

Much of that derision comes from a lack of understanding of the genre itself, and part from the perception that the average romance reader has no romance in their own life and has to substitute fictional romance and love for the real things. Finally, at least among the author crowd, there’s some down-the-nose looks at the genre because it’s viewed as formulaic and of little literary value.

So first off, the genre is one of the most complex out there, with sub-genres like paranormal, historical, thriller-romance, fantasy-romance, medical romance, crime romance, and more. And that doesn’t even get into the types of relationships covered: straight, male on male, female on female, and so on. While there is certainly some use of formula, that’s true of any genre. Did anyone question why Star Wars (IV or VII) was pretty much  the hero’s journey from start to finish? Or why the story lines in The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and Divergent were so similar? Nope, but heaven forbid romance writers follow a successful formula.

As far as the reader using romance to substitute for something lacking in their own lives, how’s that any different from any other genre? We read to escape our hum-drum lives. Does anyone think a fantasy reader runs around slaying trolls, or that a crime reader solves murders every day? Every work of fiction ever written filled a void for its readers, so why is romance any less valid for filling one?

Finally, let’s not forget that some of the all-time literary greats are romances. Pride and Prejudice, Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, Madame Bovary. Even The Princess Bride (OK, I threw that on there as  one of MY all-time favorites). So to say they have no literary value, or to diminish their value based on genre alone, does the genre and its readers a great disservice. In fact, almost every full-length story ever written has some sort of romantic sub-plot in it. Why? Simple–it’s universal in its appeal and its empathy. Everyone understands love and the desire to be loved, so that kind of subplot–or main plot in the case of romance stories–brings people to the story who otherwise might not read it. Or it at least gives readers a story that they’re almost guaranteed to care about, no matter what they think of the rest of the book.

Romance corners something like 65% of the profits in the fiction world, so by sheer monetary value, numbers of readers, and volume of sales, it is a significant genre, like it or not. You can’t just write off numbers like that.

So here’s an exercise for you that should demonstrate the value of romance in storytelling. Make a list of ten novels that contain NO romantic sub-plots or relationships at all. If you can list ten, you’re probably doing better than most people.

If nothing else, it’ll be a difficult thing to do. By the end of it, I’ll bet you appreciate romance a bit more.