Secret Service: LA (NaNoWriMo 2014)

This is the working cover for Secret Service:  LA. (Thanks to everyone who voted on the poll!)

My profile on NaNoWriMo is now complete, and I'm ready to start writing on Saturday.

This is the excerpt of the novel that appears on the NaNoWriMo site:

The late afternoon LA sunlight casts a golden hue on The Southland. Maybe it’s the way the angled light reflects off the dust and smog particles, but it bathes everything it touches with a golden sparkle, a chiffon veil that masks little imperfections with its diffusion, like an airbrush that perfects beauty in a high-def world.

I try not to think of this as a metaphor for this town. But it is. LA: where celebrity comes to craft its image. This is where the action is. That’s why the Secret Service’s largest field office is here.

I love this time of day, though. The afternoon sun is one of my favorite things about living in LA. It brings over me a feeling of calm. It helps me appreciate the subtle beauty of the scrub and dry summer grass (fuel for brushfires as it is) that blankets the hills of this Mediterranean chaparral climate--at least, these grasses blanket the few hills preserved against development.

This gossamer lens almost restores the marred beauty of the recently deceased, nearly topless celebrity in front of us. She lay back against the hill as if she had merely been sunbathing in the dry, calf-high grass. However, the scratches, bruises, and bloodstains told another tale. The mangled car and the broken railing on the road above echoed her story.

The annoying crime scene bots had just cleared the area for our inspection, and Jackie Roberts, my partner, was docking them into the hydraulic lifts that retracted into the trunk of the car. It was her turn.

I reviewed the bots’ findings while Jackie chased after the capricious things, threatening to shoot them. I can’t understand how they manage to creep over a crime scene so meticulously but then try to escape as soon as you send them to their docking stations. I was almost done when she finally got them all docked and walked over to join me.

“At least she died happy,” said Jackie.

“I don’t think she was that high. . .” I said, flipping back to the toxicology report.

“She still has the rear-view mirror in her hand,” Jackie explained.

Cause of death: Vanity.

NaNoWriMo 2014 Excerpt & Cover Art (Poll)

I am calling the winner of the poll: Secret Service/LA!

I've added an excerpt of Secret Service/LA to my NaNoWriMo profile, and I'd like some help choosing cover art. Please vote to select the most fitting image for the story. You may wish to read the story's excerpt first. The images are below the poll (You can vote for multiple).

Thanks so much to all who voted on my next novel - I really appreciate your support! The article set a record for how quickly it got page views. It rose to my #2 post within just a week (136 page views). Here is the vote tally as of today:

• Secret Service/LA: 10 votes
• Unwinder: 6 votes
• Culture War: 4 votes

NaNoWriMo encourages attaching a cover image to the novel's profile. I happen to have a couple left-over credits on iStock, and thought it might be cool to use one of these stock images as "working" cover art for the novel.

I selected the images of LA Sunsets to reflect the golden afternoon LA sunlight described in the opening scene and excerpt. (There's an interesting essay in LARB on David Lynch and LA's magical lighting, an aspect of LA that I fell in love with about 20 years ago). The images of a scantily clad woman hitchhiking to Hollywood represent the sensationalistic voyeurism that is central to the story's world-building.

Choose your favorite "working" cover images for Secret Service/LA.

Sunset 1 (Skyline)

Sunset 2 (Palm/Car)

Hitchhiker 1 (Standing)

Hitchhiker 2 (side)

 Hitchhiker 3 (front)

NaNoWriMo 2014 (Poll)

As I wrap up revisions to my first novel, I'm planning to participate in my first NaNoWriMo this November. I’d like some help deciding which novel idea to work on next. Please vote for your favorites. I’m happy to answer questions (e.g., by Facebook, twitter, email, etc.) about the projects if you’d like to know more.

Thanks!

Which novel would you be most interested in reading?

Note: Secret Service/LA will consist of a series of cases which the detective will work. I have already drafted a 14K word novelette where society's demand for reality/voyeuristic entertainment (YouTube, etc.) and the perils of fame have decimated the US population and forced the government to become the biggest advocate of privacy. That will serve as the first case. The second case is titled "(CS)I Robot," about the moral and legal problems, and general shenanigans, that arise when crime bots start editing their own code. The third and final case is the one that ties all the stories together and is described in the poll.

Legacy of Traydus: Prologue

I read this excerpt from my novel, Legacy of Traydus, at Cellar Door Books over the weekend. This work in progress is currently 100,000 words. I recently workshopped it at Potlatch, and with two writers groups. (Thanks to all the writers who gave critiques!) Readings at Cellar Door may be a regular thing, so I'll post notices prior to the next one.

Hiding in the steamy shadows of a bush with wan, yellow, hand-like leaves larger than his head, Traydus tries his best to breathe quietly. A dewdrop tickles his neck, and he has to hold his breath to keep from making a sound. The dragon is coming!

"Here comes the dragon. Where is the baby?" says Mama in that beautiful sing-song voice, the pride of the clan.

Hide-From-The-Dragon is Traydus's favorite game. Sometimes, in the canopy gardens where young elves spend their days with the shes of the clan, Traydus could get older youths to play with him. But Mama plays the best dragon.

Giggles make little grunt-like noises in the back of his throat. A giggle escapes.

"There he is!" Her green hand thrusts through the leaves, closing on empty air like jaws.

Traydus laughs out loud as he dodges her hand.

Finally, Mama grabs him, and lifts him up, tickling him as she hugs him, saying "Chomp! Chomp! Chomp!"

"Come on, Tray," says Mama, "We've got to get to the canopy. See how quiet you can be now. You know I don't like to play on the way."

Tray thinks about playing with his friends, Nikrehl and Milzae, as he walks with his mommy in the misty air and warm glow of the green leaves far above. They'd be there soon.

Just then Mama says in a soft, urgent voice, "Tray," and Traydus freezes in his tracks.

The birds and monkeys are quiet.

Tray looks at Mama, sees her turn her head until her eyes lock onto something.

There it is. He's never seen one before. A sour taste burns the back of his throat.

It's bigger than the biggest fruit tree he's ever seen. Its scales are brown like bark. It has no leaves, but feathers on its back that are the colors of leaves. Green, yellow. It stands on its rear legs, the front legs too small and the long tail behind it.

And it has small eyes in a huge head. It sees them. He knows it. The mouth opens soundlessly, and he sees the slimy, sharp teeth.

Mama slowly walks forward and picks Traydus up, carrying him so that he can't see the dragon.

Then there's a sound. It's like a strong wind blowing through the trees, stirring up leaves and breaking small branches. The dragon is running.

And Mama's running, too.

She runs behind a bab-bab tree, with its giant knotted roots, like the gnarled hand of the clan's elder, greedily digging her fingers into the soil to yank out a tuber. The roots are taller than mama's head, making dark hollows at the base.

"Hide here, Traydus!"

Mama's footsteps flurry around the tree as Traydus digs himself into a depression between the roots, covering himself in cool wet leaves and moss. Tears streak down his face, but he is quiet this time.

The giant wind comes, but it is on the other side of the tree. How could something without wings make such a windy sound? With his head against the earth he can hear the thumps of the agile, padded feet of the monster.

Then he hears his mother's voice. She doesn't scream for long.

A terrible hunger devours his will and gnaws at his fear when he finally stumbles out of his hole.

He is lucky. Even though he cannot find his way, he hears the bleating of baroma. He follows it to find a friend of his father, returning to burrow late from grazing his herd in a clearing. The family cares for him that night, and takes him to his already grieving father in the morning when it is safe. That night his father holds him in his hammock. It is the first night he sleeps.

No elf had ever killed a great dragon. When Traydus awakens the next morning, he swears to himself, "I will find a way."

 

Cool Tech for Back-To-School

I was quoted in Information Week article on tech tools for college students going back to school. Items 4 (Tablet/Laptop Hybrids) and 5 (LinkedIn University Pages) are where I was quoted. I also suggested item 6 (Portable Power - rechargeable batteries with adapters to recharge your portable devices).

LinkedIn University Pages

I was quoted in an article in Information Week that announced LinkedIn has recently launched University Pages, a new service for higher education institutions. (I was involved in the University Pages beta test, and I put on a small conference at UCR with several speakers discussing LinkedIn, including John Hill, LinkedIn's Higher Education Evangelist). This is the first time LinkedIn has really pursued specialized services for a vertical market. LinkedIn also opens up their service to high school students on September 12, and they've been trying to attract more college students for a long time

This focus on Higher Ed is interesting, particularly as I read more and more articles on LinkedIn saying that a college degree is unnecessary, and lots of news articles reporting that college degrees are not cost-effective. The Obama Administration is also coming up with standard ratings to compare colleges based on outcomes, including the employment of alumni.

This could place LinkedIn in a great position. They already have a database that includes employment information and college degrees. If the government requires schools to provide employment statistics, LinkedIn will be in a position to broker that information. If alumni can be given a sufficient incentive to allow LinkedIn to share the information with schools, LinkedIn will be an essential institution, imbedded in the fabric of our society.

What would be an adequate incentive? Is it enough to help your alma mater comply with a federal mandate to track employment information of alumni? How about a certification of your degree (maybe even your GPA, if you wish to show it off) on LinkedIn - as good as a transcript to prospective employers?

Schools would love to get access to current contact and employment information for a variety of purposes. Alumni are a valuable resource, whether they volunteer or attend events (especially athletics) on campus. They're also a great source of donations, although the trend has been for alumni to give less and less over the years.

It should be noted that the number of contactable alumni and the number of alumni donors are factors that affect a college's US News ranking. With high school students on LinkedIn, and all this valuable data on colleges and their alumni (some of which might not even be available to the colleges), will LinkedIn develop their own ranking system?

There may be a number of legal and practical obstacles (like getting a majority of colleges to participate with LinkedIn), but there are some exciting incentives here, and LinkedIn is clearly pursuing strategic ways to leverage their data and provide value to its members.

Profile of my work in UCR Advancement Services

Thanks to my friends in Strategic Communications at UC Riverside for this nice profile of my work in University Advancement at UCR. My favorite bit:

Just call Ralph Ambrose (’97) the efficiency expert. Except that unlike the efficiency expert from the movie “Office Space,” Ambrose... sets out to save your day, not make it worse.