Getting Published Right and Left

I've been having some good fortune with publishing lately. 

On the fiction front I've had my short story "Lightning Flashed" accepted for a November 10 release at Dark Futures Magazine (3rd paid pub for this story) and I have a couple other stories short-listed various places, including my first ever literary fiction piece. 

Nonfiction has been even more exciting. I had my graduate thesis published in June and I just got word that my first manuscript has been accepted by "The Journal of Fish and WildlifeManagement" and could be published as early as March. That's huge for me. Getting published is hard but especially so in academia. 

Also nonfiction, my beer centered documentary project "Hopstories" has been cruising along. We've released 6 episodes, a 7th is due out next week, and we just released our 1st collaboration story. We're also planning to roll out our new website soon and we're always looking for our next brewery to work with.

So I've had a little luck lately. But more than that, I've learned that the most important thing if I want to get published is persistence. I have to be bull headed. I have to stubborn. I have to hone my craft and continue to improve, of course. But most important is persistence. 

Hopstories Collaboration #1: Norman and Calapooia Brewing from Eric Buist on Vimeo.

Climate of Fear Comic

Time for another geeky comic!

If you missed my first one, check out my Mesopredator Release Comic.

This one probably requires a little science lesson in order to put it into context.

One of the sexiest issues in wildlife biology today (by sexy I mean new, packed with buzz words, and full of controversy) is the concept of Trophic Cascades. "Trophic" refers to the food chain. Plants are on the 1st trophic level, herbivores are on the 2nd, predators on the 3rd, etc. When a predator (e.g. wolf) effects the abundance of the organisms in a lower trophic level (e.g. grass), by changing the abundance of an organism in an intermediate trophic level (e.g. deer), that's called a trophic cascade.

Basically, wolves don't directly control the amount of grass because they don't eat grass. But if wolves move into an area that has a ton of deer and very little grass (because the deer eat it all) and the wolves eat a bunch of deer, then the grass will come back (because there's not as many deer there to eat it). That's a trophic cascade. It's a form of "top down regulation". Predators (the top) regulate the bottom (the grass) by regulating the middle (the deer). The recovery of the grass is a type of "density mediated response". The deer population is less dense so the grass responds.

Still with me?

This is all well and good. I get all this. It works for me. The part I have an issue with is called the "Climate of Fear Response". This hypothesizes that the predators might actually effect the lower trophic level simply by scaring the middle trophic level away. Basically, the grass comes back because the deer are to scared of the wolves to stick around and eat, regardless of how many deer there are. It sounds fairly intuitive but the jury is still out about the science. I, for one, don't hold to it. 

That having been said, here is my Climate of Fear Comic!

Mesopredator Release Comic

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been doing a little drawing, mainly geeky-science comics. I enjoy the process and how important it is to tell a story in just a few words. It's a blast.

Before you can get my comic, you need to know a little bit about the biological concept known as "mesopredator release". Basically, this theory states that when large predators are removed from an area (bears and wolves for example) populations of small and medium sized predators  (like foxes and racoons) will increase, often to the detriment of their prey species (small herbivores like mice and rabbits, for example). You can read more about it here.

That being said, my comic doesn't actually have anything to do with mesopredator release. It's just a play on words.

So without further ado, here is my first science-geeky comic titled "Mesopredator Release".

I hope you like it.

P.S. - If you're a science-geeky type that likes my comic and wants to use it in a presentation or something, you're welcome to. Of course, I'd love to hear about it so let me know at adamg73 (at) juno.com. Thanks!

Shout Out Friday

It's been a while since I've posted any shout-outs and I think today is a good day for it.

First off, the always interesting Veronica Sicoe posted a great piece asking how much science (and scientific plausibility) is necessary in science fiction?

Along the same thread, check out the 2012 Hugo winning Fan-zine SF Signal for tons of cool science fiction content.

Baby rhinos are so cute! Photo by Han van Hoof.

For those folks interested in actual science, here's a very cool story about tainting rhino horns in order to deter poachers. Very cool!

For those of you wanting to get a manuscript out to agents in a new and exciting way, be sure to check out Miss Snark's First Victim's "Bakers Dozen Challenge" where 60 stories will be selected to have their first 250 words posted for agents to "bid on".Nice!

Want a laugh? Check out OFW's "Ten Gifts You Should Never Give a Writer". Brief but hilarious!

Finally, I've had to update my "My Fiction" page because I've had another micro-fiction (I think that's the most appropriate term for it) piece published on 140fiction.com. Please check out my story "God's Plan".

Have a great weekend!

Have You Been Saved?

Am I talking about tent revival, dance with venomous snakes, sell all your worldly possessions and tour around the country warning the public about the all-too-soon rapture kind of saved?

No.

No, no, no. Noooooooooooooooooooooo.

I'm talking about Deadliest Catch type of saved. Have you seen this show? It's a Discovery Channel reality series following the lives of Alaskan crab fishermen. I'm pretty anti-reality show but I can't help but like this one. I find it fascinating. I've worked some pretty dangerous jobs (more on that in a minute) but nothing compared to crab fishing. It's some scary shit. Just listen to Wikipedia:


"Commercial fishing has long been considered one of the most dangerous jobs in America. In 2006, the Bureau of Labor Statistics ranked commercial fishing as the job occupation with the highest fatality rate with 141.7 per 100,000, almost 75% higher than the fatality rate of pilots, flight engineers, and loggers, the next most hazardous occupations.However, Alaskan king crab fishing is considered even more dangerous than the average commercial fishing job, due to the conditions of the Bering Sea during the seasons they fish for crab. According to the pilot episode, the death rate during the main crab seasons averages out to nearly one fisherman per week, while the injury rate for crews on most crab boats in the fleet is nearly 100% due to the severe weather conditions (frigid gales, rogue waves, ice formations on and around the boat) and the danger of working with such heavy machinery on a constantly rolling boat deck. Alaskan king crab fishing reported over 300 fatalities per 100,000 as of 2005,with over 80% of those deaths caused by drowning or hypothermia."

As you can imagine, working in such dangerous conditions involves a lot of saving. Guys are constantly pulling one another out of harms way. As dangerous as crab fishing is, it would be a lot worse if fishermen didn't look out for one another.

Which brings me to my saving moment.

Years ago I worked for Quality Beam Corp. in Salmon, ID. For a detailed description of my time at the beam plant, check out one of my oldest blog posts. In short, the work involved gluing boards together to make large wooden beams used in building construction. It's hot, dirty, dangerous work and I worked in the hottest, dirtiest, most dangerous department: the glue room.  That's where we applied glue and used huge metal bolts to squeeze the wood together so that it could dry under the massive heaters that kept the room hovering right around 100 degrees.

My first day on the job I watched a coworker lay open his side with a chainsaw. Shortly before I left I saw a guy get bent backwards over a piece of machinery, breaking his spine and rupturing his spleen. Those kind of major injuries were relatively rare though. Busted fingers was the common injury. Guys were regularly getting fingers smashed between the fast moving and heavy boards. That was just part of the job. A lot scarier was the number of guys that were missing fingers. Some guys would get them torn or cut off by a piece of machinery but the most common way to lose digits was to get them caught between the wood and one of the large metal braces we used to squeeze the glued wood together for drying. Once you hit a bolt with one of the pneumatic wrenches, anything between the brace and the wood would be ground to powder. No chance of reattachment.

We worked 10-hour shifts assembling dozens of beams a day, using the pneumatic wrenches constantly. It was one of those situations where one moment of inattention, one bad decision, could cost you big time. One day we were rushing through an order and I picked up a large metal bracer the wrong way. The guy on the other side of the 7 foot tall stack of lumber couldn't see me. He went to hit the bolt with his pneumatic wrench as I was sliding the bracer onto the bolt, my fingers between the wood and the bracer. One of my coworkers, Jared, saw what was about to happen and kicked the wrench out of the guys hands the same moment he hit the trigger to tighten the bolt. Even in the split second (literal fraction of a one second) the wrench was on the bolt it tightened enough that my hand was squeezed between the wood and the brace. Another fraction of a second and I would have lost all the fingers on my left hand. We backed the bolt off, examine my bruised but functioning hand, I gave Jared a hug (what can I say, I'm a huger), and we got back to work.

Saving is a prevalent theme in many stories. Someone is always saving someone else from physical, emotional, or mental harm. In my manuscript, there are at least 7 life-saving scenes. With something that's so common in fiction, it's easy to become complacent when writing these scenes. They can become shallow, especially in battle heavy genres like Fantasy and Science Fiction. Believe me, there is nothing shallow about being saved. The sense of gratitude that I feel at being able to sit down and type this post with two hands is profound. The sense of gratitude, relief, and obligation your characters feel when they're saved should be profound as well.

Give saving the weight it deserves and your stories will benefit from it.

Award Catsup

"The blog awards poured forth across the earth smiting all manner of beast and man. They smote creatures that crawl in the dust and creatures that fly in the heavens. Then, for good measure they smitted some fish, because they could and fish are slimy. Finally they converged upon the lowly blog of a writer of questionable hygiene with every intent to smite the living bejesus out of him. But the odd looking writer was crafty and built a fortress forged from stacks upon stacks of rejection letters, holding the smite-happy blog awards at bay. Finally a truce was agreed upon involving banana pudding and peace fell over the land. The writer and the blog awards lived happily ever after. 

-The End-  

I was super busy last week and didn't get the chance to post much so I'm playing catch up. While I was off taking and grading finals, several generous individuals were kind enough to bestow my humble blog with an award! 

Pamela over at The Death Writer  and T.Z. Wallace at One Year Until Book Launch both bestowed me with The Versatile Blogger Award! 

Rather than follow the rules I'm going to follow Pamala's lead and post a picture of myself (and my beautiful wife) with a cigar.

Honeymoon Cruise!

Also, L.G. Keltner at Writing off the Edge was kind enough to give me the Fabulous Blog Ribbon and the Stylish Blogger award!

 

Again, rather than follow the rules, I'm just going to post a few pictures of some of my study animals because they are both stylish and fabulous!

Spawning fish.

Beaver live-trapping.

Sleepy elk.

Grizzly bear cub (drugged, not dead).

Curious deer.

Thanks to everyone for the awards! 

Losing the Lorax

I have a couple interesting science/writing related bits-of-interesting to share with you today that I picked up from Conservation Magazine.

The first is an article reviewing a study (Williams et al, 2012) tracking the decline of nature-based characters, settings, and themes in children's books titled "Losing the Lorax".

This is a trend I find a little disturbing. As a child, some of my favorite books were nature based. For example:

Pickle Chiffon Pie was all about appreciating nature without dominating or altering it.

Or my all time favorite children's book, Make Way For Ducklings, taught us that sometimes nature needs a helping hand.

This study makes me wonder, where is this trend coming from? Do you think the loss of nature in children's books reflects a change in our societies priorities? Are children's book authors writing fewer nature themed books or are the publishers publishing fewer? Any thoughts?

The other cool science story really has nothing to do with writing it's just...CHECK OUT HOW TINY THIS FROG IS!!!

At less than 8 mm long, this little guy the smallest non-fish vertebrate known to man. You can learn more about the frog and its discovery from the aptly titled article "Downsizing". Enjoy!

Catching Up

The ladies say "Hi".

I just got back from a week out at one of my field sites in eastern Oregon and in addition to having no internet access (which was a nice break) I got to see some of my ladies (elk). The fur is flying out there (literally- they're shedding their winter coats) and the whole place is a mud hole but I had a good time, saw some cool wildlife (great grey owl, ermine, bald eagle, etc), and had a wonderfully quite setting to FINISH MY WIP!  That's right, after countless rounds of revision I am calling my current epic fantasy WIP ready for query. I'll probably be posting my query letter and asking for feedback soon so stay tuned.


Also, I know we're not supposed to talk about our rejections on our blogs (I promise, I won't do it again) but I received my first ever official rejection letter a couple days ago. I'm sure I won't feel so enthusiastic about all of my rejections but for this one, my very first, I had to celebrate the milestone. Now I'm a writer for sure!

In other news, I wanted to thank the always wonderful Veronica Sicoe for mentioning me on her blog and I encourage everyone to check out the site On Ficton Writing where Veronica is an editor. It's a great resource for writers.

Finally I would like to thank everyone for stopping by my humble writing blog. It's been a little over a month since I dusted the cobwebs off this thing and changed it from a me-bitching-about-politics blog to a writing blog. Since that time I've had roughly 1,000 page views, over three-dozen comments, and I'm up to seven followers (hooray followers!!!)! Thank you to everyone who's visited and commented. I'll do my best to keep saying interesting...stuff.

Pippin is excited!

A Little Non-Fiction: An Abstract for My Graduate Thesis

Time for something a little different. As I've mentioned, I'm a wildlife graduate student so I though I would share part of my research. This is an abstract I used for a conference where I presented some preliminary results from the elk portion of my study. Enjoy!

A couple of my ladies.

Ungulate behavior has been widely studied, however directly observing activity of multiple, free-ranging animals over long periods of time and large geographic areas has been prohibitively difficult. Recent improvements in technology, such as motion-sensitive activity monitors coupled with GPS collars, provide researchers with an alternative means of collecting activity data. Variations in motion associated with different activities necessitate calibration for each species of interest. To date, no calibration has been conducted for dual axis activity monitors for Rocky Mountain elk (Cervus elaphus nelsoni). We conducted controlled field trials to collect detailed behavior observations of collared tame elk. We then used discriminant function analysis to couple our field observations with data collected by the activity monitors worn by the elk in order to determine what behaviors can be accurately classified. Preliminary results indicate that collar output can be used to distinguish among passive (i.e., lying down and standing still), feeding (i.e., grazing and browsing), and running (i.e. trotting and galloping) behaviors but that finer scale classification (e.g., between grazing and browsing) may not be possible. Better understanding the capabilities and limitations of these activity monitors will allow researchers to better design and interpret future behavior studies for Rocky Mountain elk.