There is something special in a writer’s first advance check. Many of you probably have an idea what that is: when a publisher makes a deal with an author, they lay down what is called an advance. This is money paid in advance to the author, in the hopes that his or her book will earn it back; following publication, the royalties an author earns off book sales slowly repays it. The original concept of an advance was probably so the author of old, being intrinsically penniless, might at least avert starvation long enough to finish the book.

Though I signed the contract a while back, and sent it in, there is such a long process on the publisher’s end that it usually takes a few months to get it back with their signature, as well as the on-signing advance. By getting those back in the mail, all has been signed and sealed, and now all that’s left is to prepare the book for publication! Some photos:

Me, signing the back of my first advance check. The Unwritten Manual of Authorly Proceedings & Conduct dictates (Section 2, Article C) that an author should always use a unique pen to sign their checks and contracts, as here seen in the pen-made-of-awesome my agent gave me:

While I was writing, I read dozens of writer blogs, and I always wanted to know what exactly a full manuscript looked like, before all the edits. Never finding one, I told myself I’d put one up for anyone else out there like me (by the time I’m through editing, picture about 2/3 this size):

There is one line in this book deal that represents 6 years of work, a box of notes, a dozen notebooks, two drawers in a filing cabinet, and countless days and nights spent with characters and ideas. That line is this:

AGREEMENT made by and between Kaleb Nation…hereinafter referred to as “author”

The signed contract, with the check hiding in the back.

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Posted in About Me, Bran Hambric, Writing
Tags: Bran Hambric, Writing

Today was the day I received my first Editorial Letter for Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse, and I realize that since loads of the people who read this site are writers as well, some of you might find this interesting.

An Editorial Letter is the first professional edits that an author receives from their publisher for the manuscript. Its purpose is to take my writing and make it the best it possibly can. Authors have a tendency to love their own work and ignore its apparent flaws (we have to love it, otherwise there’d be no point in writing it). Editors, however, have trained eyes for how to make things better, and work their hardest to make newbie writers like me sound professional. It is of great importance, as demonstrated by the below illustration:

This editorial letter is the first step in getting the book ready to be published. Editorial letters do not go into punctuation or spelling mistakes (which happens later with a copyeditor) but rather overall plot and concepts and larger parts of the book which need tightening up.

I shan’t show you my editorial letter, but this might be what part of someone else’s could look like:

- Sherman P should know that Granny’s Magic Box will destroy the universe 100 pages earlier than you have it. Otherwise, he would have tossed it down Mrs. Lovett’s Corpse Chute.

- There is a certain monkey in every chapter until chapter 23, when he unexpectedly jumps off Mount Slowmore. I am curious as to the point of wasting words on him if he does nothing.

- Change Edlardo Chullens’s name to something more palatable. Like…Edward something.

- There is already a famous frog named Kermit. He will always be more famous than your frog named Kermit. Change his name. Or turn him into a mutant turtle.

- Chapters 13-17 become slow when Protagonist tells the Long Saga of Grandmother’s Achy Breaky Bones.  Fix that, unless this is intended as an intermission time. I realize some people might enjoy taking naps through books here and there. If intentional, good idea.

- Your major villain happens to share my name.  I’m hoping this is a recurring typo.

(all snarkiness courtesy of me and bearing no resemblance to my editor’s own polite notes)

The changes are more so a broad overview of tiny tweaks to be made to make it better.

Mine are thankfully very merciful, well-directed, and I can already imagine the wonders they will work. I have heard horror stories from other authors who received 3-ring binders filled with post-its, blue ink, Sharpie markings, and chocolate to alleviate the murderous rage subsequently directed towards their editor. I got the impression that the aforementioned 3-ring-binder was immediately tossed into here:

Mount Doom

I, on the other hand, have been looking forward with great anticipation to get to these edits.  It is not every day, obviously, that a professional spends enormous amounts of time to make Your Book the best it can. Which makes editing this a labor of love . I shall keep you all updated on future progress.

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Posted in Bran Hambric, Writing
Tags: Bran Hambric, Writing

What a few of you may still not know is I lead a double life. Over here, I am Kaleb Nation. Somewhere else, I am The Twilight Guy.

Recently on my other blog I have been helping get a new Twilight-themed Youtube channel started and promoting their auditions for new members. Today, weeks later, they picked the members who made it, out of over 70 auditions. So, as a congratulations to the winners and all the wonderful talent who tried out, I made this video:

If you haven’t read any of Twilight or are in the dark about Stephenie Meyer’s books (and my journey reading them…as a guy), you probably won’t get all of it. Along those lines, I must state that if you haven’t heard of Stephenie Meyer, you must not check the bestseller lists, or walk into any bookstore, or in fact not talk to 90% of girls and moms these days.

However, you still get to see me with a pot on my head. And I play the harmonica. You might need earplugs for that part

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Posted in Twilight, Videos
Tags: Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, Videos

You wouldn’t believe all the junk we writers keep around. It’s not that we particularly have more things than most people, it’s just that writers always seem to have more pressing things to do than keep their humble abodes clean, such as getting an overdue manuscript in, scratching out 4,000 words on some draft, rewriting a scene where everyone has green hair, etc. The unimportant things in life such as eating, sleeping, and keeping our living conditions up to par with health and safety inspections just fall to the floor.

I decided it was high time, whilst awaiting the revisions from my editor, to give my room a good solid cleaning. After all, I’ve lived here for six months and as you can see, there’s still loads of things in boxes. The reason for this is that the moment I got here I immediately hopped on Youtube and haven’t pulled myself from it since. Oh, and there was that book deal thing. And the college thing. But after I went to my Big Junk Drawer and couldn’t find my box of favorite pens, I realized that I was living as messy as Ernie, and something had to be done about it.

Anyhow, I got set on cleaning stuff out. Writers have a thing with pens, paper and notebooks. I have boxes and filing cabinets filled with them. I can understand that, but what I don’t understand is why I need 43 sales receipts from various stores stuffed in my dresser drawers. It’s not like I don’t have stacks of free note pads lying around from college salesmen (college salesmen are those folks that come around campus trying to get you to pay more fees for learning overseas, special classes, new computers, etc, and love handing free stuff out). My junk drawer in particular had grown out of hand:

Yes, that is a cassette tape. No, I didn’t throw it away.

Whilst cleaning, I realized that when I come in, I always drop all my change into the drawer and forget about it. Imagine my surprise when I pulled all the junk out to find this at the bottom:

I felt like Ali Baba stumbling upon the treasury of the forty thieves. Then, I found something else stuck between the lid of a box:

I can’t imagine how it could have gotten lost in the drawer. Maybe I should start cleaning things out a little more often…

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Posted in About Me, College
Tags: Bert, Cleaning, Drawer, Ernie, Junk, Money, Sesame Street, Stuff, Writers

In the aftermath of The Lasagna Burglar, this has been placed in my freezer:

If these disappear, next time I will try the Anvil Approach. When someone so much as breathes on my lasagnas, a 100lb Acme Anvil will drop from the ceiling onto their burglary-brained heads.

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Posted in College
Tags: The Lasagna Burglar