David A. Harding
Saturday, 15 Dec 2007
I want to start by saying the allegations that I use steroids are
false,
said award-winning science fiction author John Scalzi at the
Philadelphia
Science Fiction Society (PSFS) on
Friday the 14th of December 2007.
I took a few notes and pictures during his speech which I hope you'll enjoy.
The Old Man's War Back Cover Photo
One of the audience members, the husband of a PSFS member, looked just
like John Scalzi; I was fooled, and so were many others. Scalzi decided
to start here.
There's a doppelganger in the audience tonight ... someone who looks
more like me than I do.
Why does he look more like Scalzi than
Scalzi himself? Because Scalzi took the cover photo
for Old Man's War in haste.
Patrick
Nielsen Hayden, Scalzi's editor, called Scalzi one morning
and said, Hi John, we need a picture of you. And it would be great
if you could do that in the next 12 minutes.
Scalzi jumped outside, held out his camera, squinted into the sun, and
took the picture. Because the picture only captures Scalzi from the
shoulders up, because Scalzi is grimacing, and because I think I have
a thick neck,
everyone who sees the picture thinks Scalzi is much
larger than he is.
I'm five foot eight [inches], but people who see the picture and read
Old Man's War think I'm a bad-ass ex-marine.
Scalzi dropped his
voice an octave, I kill people every day ... I kill for
fun.
How to Sell a Book
John Scalzi's three step plan for selling your first book:
Get editor smashed
Get camera
Get badgers
Badger, Badger, Badger, Badger, Badger, Snaaaaake!
* * *
As a non-fiction writer, it took Scalzi 7 years to sell his first non-fiction book. He's seen fiction slush piles as tall as he is and growing by a foot everyday. After writing Old Man's War, he didn't want to fight the slush pile. He instead hid his book in a drawer for a year.
But in December 2002, Scalzi serialised the book Old Man's War
on his blog. He published one chapter each day, and on December 28th,
Patrick Nielsen Hayden calls Scalzi and says, I know you're really
into this blog thing, but I'd like to buy your book.
Hayden also wanted to buy a second book. Scalzi suggested a book with
the following plot: Man solves diplomatic crises through action and
snappy dialogue.
Hayden bought it. That book is The Android's
Dream.
CONstipation
Hayden told Scalzi he would publish Old Man's War in six months.
To promote his upcoming book, Scalzi decided to begin attending science fiction
conventions. He first went to TorCon (Toronto [Science
Fiction and Fantasy] Convention).
Scalzi's only previous experience with fandom was a Trekker Convention he covered for a newspaper. The editor wanted to know if the Klingons spoke Klingonese or if they sometimes surreptitiously spoke Romulan.
His first revelation happened at the airport. Did you know Canada is a
separate country?
The airline wanted Scalzi's passport. Scalzi
didn't have it with him, and it had expired, and it had a picture of him
with a mullet, which Scalzi didn't want seen anyway.
Scalzi got in his car in Dayton, Ohio and drove to Toronto in two hours.
Ok, not really,
but he did arrive 15 minutes before his first panel.
After the panel, Scalzi walked around and noticed that a lot of people
were in costume (and it wasn't time for the masquerade ball).
When his wife calls, he says, I'm at the convention of misfit toys.
Scalzi runs into Hayden at the convention, who asks, how's it going?
Scalzi says, Ok, but I don't know anybody here.
Hayden reaches into the busy passage way, grabs a passerby like a bear
grabbing a salmon out of a stream,
and says to Scalzi, this is your
Con Buddy.
Who is it? Cory Doctorow.
Doctorow took pity on Scalzi. Scalzi was a new author, and nobody knew he existed, but the convention organisors scheduled him for a reading. Doctorow, knowing nobody would attend Scalzi's reading, brought a few friends.
The following people attended Scalzi's first reading:
No pressure,
said Scalzi.
What did Scalzi choose (in advance) to read? The first chapter of The
Android Dream, which begins with the following line: Dirk Moeller
didn't know if he could really fart his way into a major diplomatic
incident. But he was ready to find out.
The entire chapter is one long fart joke.
On Writing Well, Or Not
Why did he write a chapter-long fart joke? There is a a sad
dearth of chapter-long fart jokes in science fiction.
Scalzi wrote Old Man's War in Robert Heinlein's style as a
testament to the late Grandmaster and because Heinlein was good at
selling books. But Heinlein's style isn't Scalzi's style. The prose in
The Android's Dream is Scalzi's style, and when Scalzi read the
first chapter to his father-in-law, his father-in-law gave him a look
that said, why did I let you marry my daughter?
The good news is that he gave the chapter to his wife and she said, I
don't know how you pulled this off.
She was impressed, and that's
good because she'll be the first to criticise Scalzi's humour.
Scalzi was a humour columnist; he started at newspaper and moved to America On-Line (AOL), and he recalls his wife's involvement in one particular story. When somebody got into a fight in Antarctica, and they flew in a U.S. Marshall to apprehend the offender, Scalzi wrote an article for AOL including a mock telephone call between the U.S. Marshall office and the person reporting the fight, and the punchline was that it was a penguin calling.
This was before March of the Penguins. I was doing penguins
before penguins were cool.
Scalzi's wife calls him and says, I'm confused.
Why are you confused?
I'm reading this article with the penguins.
Un-huh.
It sucks, and your name is on it. Has there been a mistake?
I thought it was clever.
No, honey, no, that's not clever.
* * *
In High School, Scalzi was known as the little writer. He wrote a set of
stories about the serial murders of school teachers. I'd never get
away with it today ... Now I would be expelled and put into jail.
But
at the time, it was a source of amusement for Scalzi and his teachers.
Each teacher was killed in a way reminiscent of one of their defining characteristics.
Scalzi's history teacher, who Scalzi says had a not unreasonable
hatred of James Buchanan (the Fifteenth U.S.
President), approached him and
said, I hear you killed me.
Yes. Yes, I did.
How did you kill me?
You were found dead with a profile of Buchanan carved into your forehead.
The teacher loved that.
Scalzi's High School writing hobby motivated him to write a novel
before his High School reunion. He didn't want anyone to laugh at him
for not having written a book, and so he wrote his first novel,
Agent To The Stars, so I could stick it to the people I hated
in High School.
He finished the novel, printed it, and plopped it down on
the table in front of his wife. Here you go, honey.
But he's thinking about the penguin incident and wondering, what
happens if [she] hates it? ... What if she says, `your 100,000 words of
toiling needs to be shoved into a furnace and never seen
again?'
That wouldn't be good. That would definitely affect the marriage,
he said.
Luckily, she thought it was ok. Scalzi was relieved.
Family Matters and Zoe's Tale
At 5 foot 10 [inches], my wife is stronger and meaner than me. ...
She is the reason I get paid as well as I do.
He mentioned to his wife, Kristine, that his non-fiction publisher,
Rough Guides, was behind on a payment. His wife said
call
. He called his non-fiction agent, Robert.
Robert: they're behind on payments. Kristine wants the money.
Holy shit,
replies Robert.
Robert calls London, says Kristine wants the money.
Holy shit,
replies the publisher.
They wire the money the next day,
says Scalzi.
* * *
Scalzi's daughter, Athena, likes to play chess. But she talks trash.
Scalzi will move a pawn.
Are you sure you want to do that, Daddy?
Are you really sure, [Daddy]?
I'll let you take it back, Daddy.
Then she moves her horsey-thing
and quashes the pawn.
Poor daddy. It's so sad.
They'll play competitive Dance-Dance Revolution together. Scalzi has dance training, but Athena is eight and often wins.
Poor daddy. Poor old daddy. Would you like a nap, Daddy?
* * *
Scalzi's currently writing Zoe's Tale, a novel about a 16
year-old girl set in the Old Man's War universe. I'm
writing Zoe the way I imagine my daughter will be [when she's a
teenager].
I know [Athena] is smarter than me. She's going to own my ass.
Zoe's tale is me modeling how teenage girls think.
But that's a hard
thing to model. You need to do research. You can spend a lot of time
around teenage girls. But [hanging around teenage girls] is not good for me.
Some people say, all you need to do [for research] is go on MySpace.
But you can't watch the 16 year-old girls on MySpace—they're
all cops.
Any errors or omissions are entirely my fault. I thank John Scalzi and PSFS for a wonderful evening.
