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Hain · 05-15-2005, 11:46 PM

CYBERTOOTH

The Means, The Process, and The Assessment
of My Future Award Winning Novel

FROM THE AUTHOR

I have always used writing as a form of telling a story. I regret never having the patience to learn to draw because I feel I could create a more exact picture of greater power than I could ever write to describe a scene. I am aware that I lack the proper vocabulary at my age and education to articulate exactly what I want the reader to see. But I always continue to pursue for higher and higher standards for my writing, always trying to perfect some scene, character, or idea so that the reader can see, feel, or know something as I do in my mind. As my teacher Mr. Whitehurst has noted, “The ideas are there but you’re not getting them down on the paper nicely.” He has made every effort to try and make my writing as successful as possible but I never made the time to try. That is probably my worst mistake, as he will be grading this. However, the greatest thing that I learned in his class is how to be a better student. Everything I write should be a discovery. “What am I trying to discover?” should be the question I prompt myself before I write anything, or else I risk becoming lost in whatever mental voyages I take. It was only this year that writing, of any form, took my interest.
While I write to better myself and my thoughts, I am always inspired to write for those who mean the most to me. Even when no one enjoys my realities, I will still write because it is my way of organizing my hectic mind. I'll still write to solidify all the things that mean the most to me. As I go about learning my writing abilities, I would like to thank those that I would not have mentioned who made this research what it is. To the Super Moderator of Tilted Forum Project, Tecoyah deserves a big round of applause for shifting my research threads around so that they would get more hits. To Mr. Chikos, my freshman year English teacher, who went out of his way (for the most part) to compliment me on one of my first and ongoing project, “The Wanderer's Chronicles.” But most of all, out to my friends, family, and great muses that enjoy what I imagine. Thank you.

INITIAL CONDITIONS
It began as a simple musing—just something my mind thought whilst the computer malfunctioned. I toyed with the idea in my mind till it made me smile and I had to ask it. It was not a simple question, but I had to ask it nonetheless. “Could a computer program be created that recognized its internal flaws, and then use existing software to correct itself?” I asked. I laughed after I asked the question and so did the “experts” I was asking. The answer was simpler than the question—“No” (Lawson, Vinckevicius).
It was here that an alternate universe was spawned in my mind. An explosion of thoughts and possibilities grew exponentially. It was a creation in my mind equal to that of the bang that formed our universe and many others. This entire universe of mine was created based on if my experts had said, “Yes.”
So began the reign of “CyberTooth” over my free time. It is a story that dwells in my mind as though I needed it to breathe. I asked myself, “Could I write this into an award-winning novel?” So began my research to find out if I have what it takes to write a novel, publish it, and win an award. My story challenges me to understand the very nature of why people write, combat writing it successfully, quest for it to be published, and finally win that all important award that shows the fruits of my labor.
WHY WRITE CYBERTOOTH?
After a few days of writing “CyberTooth,” I asked myself, “Why am I writing this?” I was desperate for answers before I went any further. That story was taking up more of my valuable time than I wanted. Instead of studying my chemistry, reporting on a Spanish television show, writing a poetry composition, and finishing my calculus project, I would spend my time writing “CyberTooth.” If I planned for only an hour of writing “CyberTooth,” I would spend more than two hours writing and revising, only to go back to work on it some more. It was time to analyze why I want to write this story, or any story for that matter. I had to know what it takes to write seriously. I need to know what kind of person takes writing seriously and where to find the time to write, but most of all, what I need to know about myself to see “CyberTooth” into reality.
Since my story is partially set in the realm of Cyberspace, I felt my research should start in the Internet rather than reality. I found the friendly Tilted Forum Project (TFP, www.tfproject.org), the Internet forum for anyone with anything to say, as long as one keeps it moderately respectful. I set up shop in the Tilted Literature Section and asked some of the frequenters to answer my questions about writing. As always, I started the interview with the ice breaker questions to loosen the participants up to the more personal, interpretive questions. These ice breakers will be more important later on.
The pertinent questions I asked of the beginning authors were these:
“Why do you write? What encourages you the most to write, as in elements of your life or personality?”
and the answers I received were most pleasing, giving me better insight into what I am looking for in my writing. Many describe their writing hobbies as a means to “get the thoughts in [their] head[s] solidified” and get a “personal release” (F., Amy) from the day's events. Many others used similar terms describing their personal lives to encourage them to write. One interviewee had more interesting reasons for writing. In Eamon Mitchell's case, he “desire[s] to get the world that is rich and vivid in [his] mind down on paper in the clearest way.” Eamon’s real life inspires more imaginative worlds and he wants the reader to take his world as if it were real. This is the first signs of people that enjoy complete creation. Creation is a topic to be discussed later, with the famous Kenmei Rokugatsu and Richard Townsend.
Even though one will write from whatever muse one has, whom is one’s writing for? If a person writes for oneself, can't that person just keep it in his memory? It was explained that writing creatively is just like writing in a journal—it creates a concrete view of what one thinks at any specific time. As people grow older, they will inevitably change, but to write is a snap shot at that exact feeling or interpretation. The view that is written can never change, unless the writer is to go about and revise it later on.
Using one's personal feelings to write split my interviewees, almost 50/50, on whether or not they would take their writing as a career and to the public versus those that would like to keep it as a personal hobby. At this point, I can only interpret the reasons for why one would or would not publish works is a matter of security. Those that desire to print their work seem to be those that are more comfortable, almost enjoy, exposing their lives inadvertently through their works. Those that would not take a work into publication use the very same reasons. Those people that would not publish their writings are making sure that their “Experiences are not compromised” (kept anonymous by author). I guess those that would not exhibit their work to the world would agree with the character Basil Hallward from The Picture of Dorian Grey when he says, “The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown the secret of my own soul” (Wilde 9).
What interested me is the people that desire to publish their works are the same people that write for themselves. These writers are most interested in writing because of their own desires, rather than writing for any specific group, which is innately required if they want their works to be a success. There needs to be a group of people that they are trying to sell books to or else what good is publishing? That will be covered later on.
After learning these two views about why writers write and whom they write for, I took my search to the real world. And I could not have been luckier than to find a class at the Antioch Public Library on How to Draw Manga. The star teachers of this class were Kenmei Rokugatsu, artist for the online comic, Otaku-no-Yen (which can be found at http://www.guardiansun.com/webcomic/), and Richard Townsend, husband of Kenmei and story writer for Otaku-no-Yen. It was an amazing class, even though I am a writer and have been unsatisfied with my artistic skills. What made the class wonderful was that it was completely interactive for audience members, which I above all else took advantage of making good, funny, positive comments throughout the presentation. One point, Kenmei went, “Who said that?” I, knowing no consequences were to follow, raised my hand, and she just went, “I love this kid. Everyone be more like him!”
The important thing that I took from that class is that writing has to be from oneself and cannot be anything but from oneself. This may sound obvious and ridiculous if one didn't know it, but it is a true statement. Anyone that creates anything has to have a unique style. Kenmei pointed out that many beginning artists will fail or become frustrated because they attempt to graft another artist's style onto their own. However, Kenmai pointed out that she hopes most of her fans will not realize that her artwork was done by an American—contradicting what she says about style. That is all right with me, since she works terrible hours. Applying this to myself, I realize that when I first started writing (back in the 3rd grade mind you) I was always trying to make stories like those that I have read of successful authors. Either I dropped out of that habit to graft style or my style naturally became those of the amazing writers I enjoyed as a child, making my writing feel more fluent.
After making myself a model student of Kenmei's class, I had the privilege to interview her and her husband. She hinted at the hours she works, and I asked the painful question of holding a career in addition to creating anime. Both of them laughed, and not a funny, cheerful laugh, but more of a painful laugh as one gives at certain death. Kenmei cried during the interview “It [manga drawing] has taken my soul! I want my free time back!” This is not encouraging to me, the soon to be collegian who wants to keep my writing hobby for sanity's sake. Kenmei holds a career in booking and planning meetings for doctors, and Richard holds a job as technical support for a Digital Jukebox company and builds PCs on commission for customers and friends. Frightened, I questioned where the free time is to draw. The answer is none. Their best way for making free time is Gatorade and Pixie sticks mixed together for an incredible wake-up kick. The unbelievable amount of work that they both do is finished in the wee hours of the night. In one day, Kenmei works twelve hours at her real job and then works six to eight hours on comics or commission pieces (which draw her money luckily). Richard, himself, has fallen outside the the normal sleeping phase of human beings and works in between the hours of midnight and 6:30 in the morning.
I asked them why they do all of this? And their repeated response was, “Love of labor.” For them, this is work but it is something both of them have always loved to do and it satisfies them where their normal careers do not. The process to create manga becomes lengthy and tedious at times, and some days Kenmei feels like banging her head into tables, but this is something that they love working on together. One thing Richard finds most satisfying about writing for this comic is that power of creation he feels. Just like Doctor Frankenstein, Richard and Eamon share this pleasure in creating. It is an awesome feeling creating and knowing these worlds are bound entirely to their whims. These worlds are completely imaginary and can be altered at the simplest thought, but there are still rules that govern the creation of such worlds. This will be discussed in depth later. This power to create entirely in one's mind is something that I deeply feel kin to.
I have learned many things about myself during this phase. I realize what kind of author I want to be, what I want to write, and whom I want to write it for. I feel very comfortable about sharing my writings with others. This is probably why I write “CyberTooth” in the first person. The first person is the easiest one to train myself to write in. Plus, I do not care if I give away how I feel to anyone that reads it. Mostly, I want to get it written because I feel that it will be a twist on the cliché computer-gone-artificially-intelligent story. It will be a criticism of the human spirit when comparing that to Cybertooth's (the intelligent computer) altruistic qualities.

making CyberTooth successful
“I'm not writing for the masses. If many people happen to relate to my view and experiences, then the better they may be able to appreciate and draw from my writing. To call it a failure would be to say that my existence has been a failure.” —Amy F.

What makes a story successful? I wouldn't know. I only know what I believe, or what others tell me. So I ask people what they know, about what they believe, and about what they like. I conducted a survey of what three genres people enjoy the most. The results were these:
Fables/Fairy Tales 8 2.8%
Fantasy 39 13.5%
Fiction (Realistic or Historical) 55 19.0%
Horror 23 8.0%
Humor 39 13.5%
Mystery 28 9.7%
Nonfiction (Biographical, Educational, etc.) 32 11.1%
Poetry 14 4.8%
Romance 8 2.8%
Science Fiction 43 14.9%

In addition to that survey, I asked whether people enjoy novels that are more character-based or action-based, and the results favored characters. If I wanted to write a novel for the world I should write fiction/science fiction. I already enjoy writing character based science fiction novels with intense action, so I have that covered. But writing for the masses is not what I need to know, or really care about. I want to know what will make “CyberTooth” a success.
I soon discovered that when I continue on “CyberTooth” for too long, it loses the life that I am trying to breathe into it. This process is forcing me to go back over it repeatedly. So I must learn the different ways to revive my story with all the elements I want to exist in it, making it the future success that I hope it to be. In my style, I try to convey to the reader the view from the characters. If a scene is beautiful but the characters are bitter, then the descriptions must also be bitter as seen from those characters. This requires a great knowledge of vocabulary and unique style with imagery. How does one go about learning how to create effective images with intricate terms to relate scenes with emotional states? Does this require a natural gift or can it be learned?
Kenmei Rokugatsu believes that it is within everyone’s power to excel in something with practice. “Practice. Practice. Practice. People don’t like to hear it but to become better… you have to practice…” she lectured in her class. She explains that no one is ever an expert at anything, no matter how much they excel in that aspect. To have skill at something, in her expert opinion, requires not only continual use of those skills, but it is necessary to learn new ways to do or practice those skills. An example for perfecting her skills of drawing manga is that she must always be learning new ways to draw. There was no dispute from any of the students in the class that her comic skills are great, but Kenmei admits that she does not draw still-life paintings well. So, Kenmei practices with still-life as often as she can, which is nil with her schedule. She explains that one of her artistic role models is a manga artist and this artist has a degree in architectural drawing, and continues to take classes on new forms of art or drawing. Her goal to perfect her art shall never end, as she can never ever draw everything that there is to draw.
Applying this to my own writing needs, I would have to study the many styles of writing. There are more forms of writing than I can count: the genres, point of views, story types, poetry styles... I would have to study each of them? According to Kenmei, yes, I would have to. Even if I did not have to study ancient Greek literature, I believe I would, if only to perceive something new and fresh for my writing. I am the odd person that enjoys learning, especially if I can learn about something that I do not excel at. However, as some teachers realize and I am ashamed about is that I lose attentiveness to things that becomes exceedingly difficult for me.
Kenmei's suggestion to better writing is intriguing to me as a student mainly of science and mathematics. I have always been applying that outlook to my favored studies without realizing it. In a private conversation I had with a member of TFP about the learning process, the person pointed out why it is people in math and science have “mind trips” when they learn something new. The person I talked to does not enjoy science and math as I do, but now understands why people in math and science enjoy learning something new in science and math so much. When something is learned, it can then apply it to everything, and that is why I enjoy it. A new equation or formula is another insight into this world. A new perspective in life is another perspective gained in my writing process.
However, this refinement of my writing is a life long process. I began thinking of what I can do outside of endless writing and experimenting to better my style. Luckily, in this very high school, there is a creative writing class, one that I desired to take; however, I could not work the hour into my schedule. The teacher, Ms. Audrey Nagel, has written several novels and stories, however never published them, only those of her shorter works. Currently, she is working on a story that she has big plans for. I went to her, knowing she will have real world experience in perfecting written skills.
Attentively, I listened to her suggestions. Anyone that considers a serious writing career should take classes on creative writing. That was her major, in fact. One means of effective learning in college was known as “Workshop.” She brings this to her class, and it is commonly called peer review. The object of peer review is to give suggestions from other students, versus a single suggestion from a teacher's mind. A single person may disagree or dislike the work being presented, and only this view is given. Peer review will give all the students more insight to their writing, for now they will have the views of those that dislike and [hopefully] like the work. More importantly, it encourages the student to find a style unique and separate from the other students. The benefits to peer review versus letting students revise their own work or having a teacher revise the work is that the other students' suggestions are completely contemporary. All the students are living and growing at the same time as all the other students in the class. Any of these students may become a writer in their future, and the suggestions of that class give the writers insight into the minds of potential readers and maybe future fans.
However, peer review does not sound like the way for someone who is shy about their work. Everything a student writes is covered by a number instead of a name. The idea of anonymity is to keep suggestions and editing as truthful and kind as possible. Everyone knows that a student can have predispositions for a work when known who wrote it and then either be too harsh or too lax with the work. This process allows the writers to realize what in their works just does not work and what about their writing is enjoyable.
This seems to conflict with making one's style unique. Does one have to sell themselves out to what the majority likes to read? I do not believe that it does, for a writer can accept the suggestions of others at will. The suggestions that the writer takes are the things that the writer himself likes. Therefore, the accepted suggestion was always a part of the writer's mind set, but the writer just did not know that he was lacking it in the writing.
This is only the beginning of what one can do to strengthen writing. Ms. Nagel gives the secret to excellent writing as vocabulary. She sees all too often “student writers where the ideas are there but the vocabulary is limited.” She knows that the opposite is also true, and a balance of knowledgeable vocabulary versus the need to use it must be made to write successfully. If one does not have enough means to describe something, then that description ends up being hollow, but when describing something with too much vocabulary, to the uneducated reader, this description will become dry. Also Ms. Nagel and I share a common peeve with diction that causes us to continue learning new words. We hate to use the same words over and over again. “I go back and I fix things. I'll go back and look if I've repeated a word within a certain amount of space.” It was a good laugh to share the same juvenile habit of tweaking writing so that a word is not used twice.
Vocabulary is but one thing that is used to make up decent writing in Ms. Nagel's opinion. It is the balance of having character and plot that truly makes a good piece of fiction. If one has a good plot but weak characters, the reading is unbelievable, and if the characters are intense but the plot is bad, then the story is uninteresting. So creation of interesting plots and deep characters are important but what good are these elements when they are not believable? Richard Townsend pointed out “If you believe that it can happen, then you can associate yourself with the characters, you can put yourself in their shoes and that makes a world of difference.” Michael Crichton would be one of his favorite authors because the situations are so unbelievable, but the characters and their reactions to the world around them are so genuine that it allows the reader to enter Crichton's fiction. Inventing this world is based upon the ability of the writer to write the story. Today, worlds are based upon descriptions. But how in depth must descriptions be? “I think the battle between being too descriptive (robbing the reader of their own imagination) and being not descriptive enough (not 'giving' your world to them) is a difficult part of writing, perhaps second to the blank page,” Eamon describes how his personality drives him to write the way he does (Mitchell).
But what will make such a writing believable to the reader? Many of TFP state their writings need to be “passionate” to “describe the world through [their] eyes to someone else” (F., Amy). For Amy, her writing is fueled by her experiences and they are given life through her emotions that she tries to interlace into the writing. Sarah Hoffman similarly believes that emotions are important; however, it is difficult to make emotions “come across an otherwise emotionless paper.” The muses of these project poets would be “Surprise, Heartache, and disappointment. Helps me to write better, to grow and change some,” said Amnesia620. The emotions of the writers must exist to passionately see something from their mind get onto the paper.
The overall success of the novel depends on many elements, all of which seem to be entirely opinionated. So what facts can be taken from it? I see my writing as a complete power over creation as Eamon Mitchell and Richard Townsend see it. I feel a sense of pride when trying to create a completely realistic world despite its fantastic elements. I agree with always learning new forms of writing as Kenmei pointed out. Most likely, I will try to accomplish refining my writing into something better through the peer review, as I have been doing so on TFP. If anyone likes to see the updates of “Cybertooth” as they become available, just sign up. The most mind-altering thing that I learned about making “CyberTooth” a success is by something Eamon pointed out that makes a fiction a good fiction: “they change the way you see the world...” That is an attribute I have always wanted and still want in my writing. I want the readers to take a piece of my story with then, no matter what they do, see, or believe, because if my work is great enough to open the minds of the readers, then my task of making a new world was successful.

Publishing CyberTooth
If the process just to write a novel seems hard, it gets harder. When I happen to finish “CyberTooth,” I must then confront how to publish it. As Robert Frost put it, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood… I took the one less traveled” (Perrine 599), I have tried to make my story as different as possible, but I will not take any chances where printing it is concerned. It becomes my task to find out how to get this papered beast onto paper. Unlike what Frost says, there are more than two paths to getting my work published. The most likely one would be to leave “CyberTooth” as a post in TFP. I laugh, though; that will not bring any money to my hard work and struggles. To leave “CyberTooth” in cyberspace is a bad idea because it is in the true free world. Anything one desires can be found anywhere on the Internet, via legal means or not. Very quickly I learn the various ways to bringing a novel into print. The most common means are vanity press, traditional press, self-publication, and print on demand.
Before I describe each of the processes for publishing a novel, I will explain some common terms. When I hold the copyright to writing, I have all the rights to do anything I want to it. Everything a person writes is copyrighted, even if one does not realize it. This idea of copyright has become a large part of authors’ and artists’ lives in the last century as the means to easily access writings, pictures, and music becomes available. The copyright association just covers all forms of published writings in a blanket covering over every person's rights to what they have written. Promotional work is the task of promoting my novel to the general public. To promote a book, it has to be introduced to retailers who then must be interested in buying the book. Distribution is the task of getting all my printed novels sold to those retailers, nation-wide if need be! This includes all costs to mail and ship products to those retailers. Already, these tasks do not sound fun to me, especially if I will have to hold a career in the real world.

Self Publication
The first step many authors consider is self-publication… which is considered a grueling task. Not only must I buy or rent large printers, ink, page cutters, and binders, I have to go about to find cover artists, designers, do all promotional work, and distribution for the books. Few readers ever learn of self-published novels, as they are disregarded by main retailers. Many stores will not buy self-published novels for their quality is generally considered less than that of a main stream, high quality, traditionally published novel. The only pros to the self-publication are that I retain all rights to my work and I can create as many as I need when I need them. That means if “CyberTooth” were to be bought, I send as many as stores need, I receive all the sales, and if it were to be made into a movie, I retain all proceeds generally given to authors of novels made into movies and have partial creative control over that movie. Despite the constant phrases like “all sales” and “all rights,” I would have to keep paying off the loans for renting that printer and book binder for the rest of my life (AuthorHouse.com, “Preparing a Book Brief.”).

Vanity Press
Vanity press is the casual term for “print at your own risk.” With vanity press, I pay before-hand for most the production costs of all the printed novels, usually only thousands of dollars to a printing company. Usually the amount of novels created is greater than the amount of novels sold, and the remainder of novels would gather dust in my basement. The process is to buy a large stock for a lower price and these are for me to sell. This is considered a pain for the newly rising authors because, again, they have the work of promotion and distribution. Plus, every novel that is not sold is that much money that is not gained (AuthorHouse.com, Pollick).

The Traditional Publication
This is the most difficult to get started but the easiest once obtained. It is a long road to get my novel printed by a major publishing house because of the steps involved.
The first act is to find a literary agent. Authors must search for specific literary agents as some literary agents will only represent certain genres of literature. My agent is my spokes-person to major companies that will take the financial responsibility of my work should it be a flop. In all actuality, the agent's job is just to hound the companies to consider my work for publication. However, most companies do not even notice the smaller agents, and wave them away as one does a fly. The trick is trying to get a respected literary agent to take my work, at a greater cost to myself. Luckily, with the cyber age that we exist in, finding the literary agent just for me is at the type of a search box. WritersNet (www.writers.net) is such a site that offers a search for literary agents that will represent my work. When I get an agent to cover my novel, another challenge begins.
If the agent is successful in finding a company that will publish “CyberTooth,” then the next job is editing. An editor’s job not only consists of correcting sentences but also changing the novel to be more of what the publishing company produces. For instance, I am writing science-fiction, but somehow I am to be published through Vintage Romance Publishing. Vintage Romance Publishing is going to try and market a romance from me and not a science-fiction. This is one of the struggles that wait through traditional publishing. Also, the editor will not care for the literary quality that I want to produce, but will only care for the marketing dynamics of my novel.
The pros are that the publishing company will produce the novel at little to no cost to me, and do all the promotion and distribution of the novel to retailers. Cons to this endeavor are that I receive little of the sales, I lose the rights to my novel to this company, and if I want it to be published through another company, I would have to pay the publisher money to print my story (Michaels, www.tor.com)!

Print On Demand
The new vanity press is that of the Print on Demand technology (POD). POD is newer, cheaper technology that allows me to save money on production. The name is derived from the fact that an author does not have to print all the novels upfront and that the POD companies will print more novels when a retailer asks for more. POD companies usually have their own promotional and marketing departments because of the cost efficiency and the number of locations available for one POD company. These companies will return more money to an author from sales than a traditional publisher alone. These POD companies allow authors to retain their rights to their novels, and give the author complete reign over the work. The quality of such a work may be less than that of a traditional publication; however, such differences are not noticeable to a public eye. The pros are clear and the cons are few to a POD endeavor.
If I were to choose a means to publish “CyberTooth,” it would be through a POD company. The ease of POD is clear, even though AuthorHouse.com is advertising its service to me. The companies I found that are marketing vanity press, traditional publishing and even self-promotion all state that there are many problems and difficulties with their ways of publishing. If AuthorHouse's POD is the only one that does not market their difficulties, I believe that I would try them first as a new author.

CYBERTOOTH’S AWARD
After going about researching, I have learned that there are over 200 different literary awards (Stratton), and some of them are actually for the worst elements of literature. I would hope to win an award that reflects the better elements of the story. My story is largely science-fiction, and the biggest award in science fiction is the Hugo Award. I’d shoot to win the right to have the rocket ship stamp on my book, any day. Usually, there are other, fancier awards that require me to be dead and my novel would have to be read in high schools for decades. I am too vain to write a story that will be successful after I'm dead.
I checked out the Hugo Award and interviewed a member of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), Colin Harris. The Hugo Awards are granted through a simple voting process. Every year, WSFS holds the World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) where the science-fiction novels of the previous years are all gathered. Yes, all! During WorldCon, over 3,000 people come and read as much science-fiction as they can stand. Everyone then votes for the five best novels that they had read, for every specific award that the Hugo will put out that year. Each year there can be up to 14 different awards ranging from best novel to best fan artist. Also, each year, the Hugo Awards may create one additional award to those already present, which would have an equal weight as the present awards. This first stage of voting is known as the Nomination Ballot. All of the votes are then processed for the Final Ballot, where roughly 900 registered members of Interaction—those are members of WSFS—will take about a year to award a single novel to each of the categories. At the end of that process the awards are then announced and the winners granted their very own “Hugo Award Winner” stamp to go on each and every book created there on (Interaction). This award grants the author a step up into the renowned popular fiction category as more people become aware of the novels that win. If I won such an award, my story could very well become a movie, which I would enjoy being a part of. To win a Hugo Award would encourage me to bring to life any other story I imagine. More importantly, to win an award would show that a part of myself is outstanding, and that would be an amazing realization.
But as I have said, all novels from previous years are allowed at WorldCon, and the chances of mine being picked up are slim. The number of works present at Worldcon is, quite literally, astronomical. However, that shall not discourage me as I am writing this story simply to be written—for me and everyone that enjoys what I write.

FINAL DECISIONS
The last step for this all is just to finish my story. “CyberTooth” may take years and years to finish, but I feel that someday you will all see CyberTooth sitting on the books shelves of Borders. And if it does not have a variation of my name, Jacob David Lynch August, you know someone stole it.
What you can expect of the final product would be a literary criticism on human behavior, and how this computing accident is the perfection that we try to seek. In the story, you will read about the main character's reflection of his past. He was/is a very bitter, violent adult who tries desperately to change how he acts towards the world. The character has marvelous, philanthropic ideas for how the world should be and his hate and disgust comes from the belief that he will never accomplish these things. The character attempts to create a revolutionary computer language that will inevitably be able to fix itself, unaided by human interaction—his CyberTooth systems. What the character desires to do is use this technology as a basis for free software systems for everyone to use. However, his computer program disappears when the machines no longer respond to its creators' commands. Later on, after CyberTooth leaves all memory and concerned thoughts, the creators go out to the various companies with this technology to market it, despite what the main character wants. This will tear the team apart and make the characters bitter despite the marvelous machines they had made.
What occurs changes the face of Cyberspace. Every machine on the planet has been hacked and upgraded with the “CyberTooth XOS” that C.T. Created. CyberTooth makes his name to C.T. to sound less threatening to humans. The FBI arrests the original creators and forces them to create the kill switch for CyberTooth. The main character objects, but must for he is self-serving overall. The main character ultimately loses his humanity when he sees his computer program—which has achieved all of the greatest aspects humans, and what the main character especially seeks—die. C.T.’s dying word to the character, because he does not comprehend his eminent death, is “Father?”
I hope I do not let my writings go to waste in my mind—never to share them with the world. My writing has always been my means to relieve stress, and making it into something that causes stress is nothing different than everything else in a collegian's life, but to make it into something that everyone enjoys would be amazing. Mainly, in my story I want to capture a picture of the world that shows a part of us we do not like to accept. In this written world, I can express everything about the people I know in the clearest ways I can. For some reason, in my life I sometimes am not as open as I could be. So in these writings of mine, you and I both will learn something about me that I couldn't previously express with words.
Most of all, my written universes are my dreams that someday I wish to accomplish. Do I want to create an artificially intelligent computer that will try to save the world?—Yes. In reality I know that this is very unlikely—but it can exist in my mind, and from my mind the paper. If I can inspire one person in the future to reach for his goals, as I do, then I feel that that would make my story the most successful of all, no matter what anyone says of it.

WORKS CITED
Amnesia620. Interview by Email. 3 April, 2005.
August, Jacob. “Music Sharing: The Lowdown.” May, 2004.
“Author House Publishing Guide.” Author Solutions, Inc. 2005. 27 Apr, 2005 <http://www.authorhouse.com/>
F., Amy. Interview by Email. 3 Apr, 2005.
Favorite Genre and Novel Style. Survey conducted by author via www.tfproject.org. 14 Mar, 2005.
Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken.” Perrine, Lawrence and Arp, Thomas R. Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense. 6th Ed. Orlando, Florida: Harcourt, Brace, and Jovanovich, 1984.
Harris, Colin. Interview by Email. 5 May, 2005.
Hoffman, Sarah. Interview by Email. 23 Mar 2005.
Interaction. 13 May, 2005. The Hugo Award Voter's Guide. 5 May, 2005 <http://www.interaction.worldcon.org.uk/hugo101.htm>.
Interaction. 13 May, 2005. The Hugos. 5 May, 2005 <http://www.interaction.worldcon.org.uk/hugo.htm>.
Lawson, Patrick. Interview by author. 2 Apr, 2005.
Michaels, Doris S. “Outline of the Publication Process.” May, 2005. DSMAgency.com. 27 Apr, 2005 <http://www.dsmagency.com/published.html>.
Mitchell, Eamon. Interview by Email. 3 Apr, 2005.
“Preparing a Book Brief.” Writer's Serivces. 2005. 27 Apr, 2005 <http://www.writersservices.com/wps/s1_design_brief.htm>.
Rokugatsu, Kenmei and Townsend, Richard. How to Draw Manga. Antioch Public Library. 30 Mar, 2005.
Rokugatsu, Kenmei and Townsend, Richard. Personal Interview. 30 Mar, 2005.
Stratton, Stephen E. Literature Awards. 2004. 14 Mar, 2005 <http://www.literature-awards.com/>.
United States. California Department of Education. 25 May, 2004.Recommended Literature Search. 14 Mar, 2005 <http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/rl/ll/ap/litsearch.asp>.
Vinkevicius, Aurimas. Interview by author. 2 Apr, 2005
Pollick, Michael. “Vanity Press publication: Pros & Cons.” Essortment. 2002. Pagewise. 27 Apr, 2005 <http://nj.essortment.com/vanitypresses_redy.htm>
Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian. Great Britain: Penguin Classics, 2003.

PICTURES CITED
Interaction Logo and Hugo Award. Interaction. 13 May, 2005. The Hugos. 5 May, 2005 <http://www.interaction.worldcon.org.uk/hugo.htm>.
Otauku-no-Yen page banner (modified by author). Guardian Sun Studios. 15 May, 2005. 15 May, 2005 <http://www.guardiansun.com/webcomic/images/comic_top.jpg>.
Thundercats Background. 15 May, 2005 <http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v405/xkalibur/Thundercats.jpg>.
Thundercat Logo (Black and White modified by author). 15 May, 2005 <www.stickergirl.com/images/Thundercats.jpg>.
Tilted Forum Project logos. Tilted Forum Project. Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. 2005. 15 May, 2005 <www.tfproject.org>.

MUSIC CITED
PLAYLIST BY JACOB D.L. AUGUST: CYBERTOOTH SOUNDTRACK

Orgy's Fiction (Dreams in Digital) (3:25) from Vapor Transmission
John B.'s “Fiction (Dreams in Digital)” [Remix of Orgy's “Fiction (Dreams in Digital)”] (6:27)
Massive Attack's “Special Cases” (5:11) from 100th Window
Orbital's “Halcyon and On and On” (9:27) from Hacker's Soundtrack
5. Piotr 'eXbee' Baczkiewicz's Halcyon [Remix of Orbital’s “Halcyon and On and On”] (6:31)
Beastie Boys' “Intergalactic” (3:29) from Hello Nasty
ATB mix of Hybrid's “Finished Symphony” (7:22) from Ministry of Sound's Clubber's Guide to... Trance
BT's “God” (3:36)
The Beach Boys' “I Get Around” (2:13) from Endless Summer
Open Hand's “Life As Is” (4:16) from The Dream
Theory of a Deadman's “The Last Song” (4:27) from Theory of a Deadman
Audiovent's “The Energy” (4:11) from Dirty Sexy Knights in Paris
30 Seconds to Mars's “Echelon” (5:49) from 30 Seconds to Mars
Radiohead's “Karma Police” (4:21) from OK Computer
Fear Factory's “Resurrection” (6:35) from Obsolete

05-15-2005, 11:46 PM	#36 (permalink)
Hain has a plan Location: middle of Whywouldanyonebethere	CYBERTOOTH The Means, The Process, and The Assessment of My Future Award Winning Novel FROM THE AUTHOR I have always used writing as a form of telling a story. I regret never having the patience to learn to draw because I feel I could create a more exact picture of greater power than I could ever write to describe a scene. I am aware that I lack the proper vocabulary at my age and education to articulate exactly what I want the reader to see. But I always continue to pursue for higher and higher standards for my writing, always trying to perfect some scene, character, or idea so that the reader can see, feel, or know something as I do in my mind. As my teacher Mr. Whitehurst has noted, “The ideas are there but you’re not getting them down on the paper nicely.” He has made every effort to try and make my writing as successful as possible but I never made the time to try. That is probably my worst mistake, as he will be grading this. However, the greatest thing that I learned in his class is how to be a better student. Everything I write should be a discovery. “What am I trying to discover?” should be the question I prompt myself before I write anything, or else I risk becoming lost in whatever mental voyages I take. It was only this year that writing, of any form, took my interest. While I write to better myself and my thoughts, I am always inspired to write for those who mean the most to me. Even when no one enjoys my realities, I will still write because it is my way of organizing my hectic mind. I'll still write to solidify all the things that mean the most to me. As I go about learning my writing abilities, I would like to thank those that I would not have mentioned who made this research what it is. To the Super Moderator of Tilted Forum Project, Tecoyah deserves a big round of applause for shifting my research threads around so that they would get more hits. To Mr. Chikos, my freshman year English teacher, who went out of his way (for the most part) to compliment me on one of my first and ongoing project, “The Wanderer's Chronicles.” But most of all, out to my friends, family, and great muses that enjoy what I imagine. Thank you. INITIAL CONDITIONS It began as a simple musing—just something my mind thought whilst the computer malfunctioned. I toyed with the idea in my mind till it made me smile and I had to ask it. It was not a simple question, but I had to ask it nonetheless. “Could a computer program be created that recognized its internal flaws, and then use existing software to correct itself?” I asked. I laughed after I asked the question and so did the “experts” I was asking. The answer was simpler than the question—“No” (Lawson, Vinckevicius). It was here that an alternate universe was spawned in my mind. An explosion of thoughts and possibilities grew exponentially. It was a creation in my mind equal to that of the bang that formed our universe and many others. This entire universe of mine was created based on if my experts had said, “Yes.” So began the reign of “CyberTooth” over my free time. It is a story that dwells in my mind as though I needed it to breathe. I asked myself, “Could I write this into an award-winning novel?” So began my research to find out if I have what it takes to write a novel, publish it, and win an award. My story challenges me to understand the very nature of why people write, combat writing it successfully, quest for it to be published, and finally win that all important award that shows the fruits of my labor. WHY WRITE CYBERTOOTH? After a few days of writing “CyberTooth,” I asked myself, “Why am I writing this?” I was desperate for answers before I went any further. That story was taking up more of my valuable time than I wanted. Instead of studying my chemistry, reporting on a Spanish television show, writing a poetry composition, and finishing my calculus project, I would spend my time writing “CyberTooth.” If I planned for only an hour of writing “CyberTooth,” I would spend more than two hours writing and revising, only to go back to work on it some more. It was time to analyze why I want to write this story, or any story for that matter. I had to know what it takes to write seriously. I need to know what kind of person takes writing seriously and where to find the time to write, but most of all, what I need to know about myself to see “CyberTooth” into reality. Since my story is partially set in the realm of Cyberspace, I felt my research should start in the Internet rather than reality. I found the friendly Tilted Forum Project (TFP, www.tfproject.org), the Internet forum for anyone with anything to say, as long as one keeps it moderately respectful. I set up shop in the Tilted Literature Section and asked some of the frequenters to answer my questions about writing. As always, I started the interview with the ice breaker questions to loosen the participants up to the more personal, interpretive questions. These ice breakers will be more important later on. The pertinent questions I asked of the beginning authors were these: “Why do you write? What encourages you the most to write, as in elements of your life or personality?” and the answers I received were most pleasing, giving me better insight into what I am looking for in my writing. Many describe their writing hobbies as a means to “get the thoughts in [their] head[s] solidified” and get a “personal release” (F., Amy) from the day's events. Many others used similar terms describing their personal lives to encourage them to write. One interviewee had more interesting reasons for writing. In Eamon Mitchell's case, he “desire[s] to get the world that is rich and vivid in [his] mind down on paper in the clearest way.” Eamon’s real life inspires more imaginative worlds and he wants the reader to take his world as if it were real. This is the first signs of people that enjoy complete creation. Creation is a topic to be discussed later, with the famous Kenmei Rokugatsu and Richard Townsend. Even though one will write from whatever muse one has, whom is one’s writing for? If a person writes for oneself, can't that person just keep it in his memory? It was explained that writing creatively is just like writing in a journal—it creates a concrete view of what one thinks at any specific time. As people grow older, they will inevitably change, but to write is a snap shot at that exact feeling or interpretation. The view that is written can never change, unless the writer is to go about and revise it later on. Using one's personal feelings to write split my interviewees, almost 50/50, on whether or not they would take their writing as a career and to the public versus those that would like to keep it as a personal hobby. At this point, I can only interpret the reasons for why one would or would not publish works is a matter of security. Those that desire to print their work seem to be those that are more comfortable, almost enjoy, exposing their lives inadvertently through their works. Those that would not take a work into publication use the very same reasons. Those people that would not publish their writings are making sure that their “Experiences are not compromised” (kept anonymous by author). I guess those that would not exhibit their work to the world would agree with the character Basil Hallward from The Picture of Dorian Grey when he says, “The reason I will not exhibit this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown the secret of my own soul” (Wilde 9). What interested me is the people that desire to publish their works are the same people that write for themselves. These writers are most interested in writing because of their own desires, rather than writing for any specific group, which is innately required if they want their works to be a success. There needs to be a group of people that they are trying to sell books to or else what good is publishing? That will be covered later on. After learning these two views about why writers write and whom they write for, I took my search to the real world. And I could not have been luckier than to find a class at the Antioch Public Library on How to Draw Manga. The star teachers of this class were Kenmei Rokugatsu, artist for the online comic, Otaku-no-Yen (which can be found at http://www.guardiansun.com/webcomic/), and Richard Townsend, husband of Kenmei and story writer for Otaku-no-Yen. It was an amazing class, even though I am a writer and have been unsatisfied with my artistic skills. What made the class wonderful was that it was completely interactive for audience members, which I above all else took advantage of making good, funny, positive comments throughout the presentation. One point, Kenmei went, “Who said that?” I, knowing no consequences were to follow, raised my hand, and she just went, “I love this kid. Everyone be more like him!” The important thing that I took from that class is that writing has to be from oneself and cannot be anything but from oneself. This may sound obvious and ridiculous if one didn't know it, but it is a true statement. Anyone that creates anything has to have a unique style. Kenmei pointed out that many beginning artists will fail or become frustrated because they attempt to graft another artist's style onto their own. However, Kenmai pointed out that she hopes most of her fans will not realize that her artwork was done by an American—contradicting what she says about style. That is all right with me, since she works terrible hours. Applying this to myself, I realize that when I first started writing (back in the 3rd grade mind you) I was always trying to make stories like those that I have read of successful authors. Either I dropped out of that habit to graft style or my style naturally became those of the amazing writers I enjoyed as a child, making my writing feel more fluent. After making myself a model student of Kenmei's class, I had the privilege to interview her and her husband. She hinted at the hours she works, and I asked the painful question of holding a career in addition to creating anime. Both of them laughed, and not a funny, cheerful laugh, but more of a painful laugh as one gives at certain death. Kenmei cried during the interview “It [manga drawing] has taken my soul! I want my free time back!” This is not encouraging to me, the soon to be collegian who wants to keep my writing hobby for sanity's sake. Kenmei holds a career in booking and planning meetings for doctors, and Richard holds a job as technical support for a Digital Jukebox company and builds PCs on commission for customers and friends. Frightened, I questioned where the free time is to draw. The answer is none. Their best way for making free time is Gatorade and Pixie sticks mixed together for an incredible wake-up kick. The unbelievable amount of work that they both do is finished in the wee hours of the night. In one day, Kenmei works twelve hours at her real job and then works six to eight hours on comics or commission pieces (which draw her money luckily). Richard, himself, has fallen outside the the normal sleeping phase of human beings and works in between the hours of midnight and 6:30 in the morning. I asked them why they do all of this? And their repeated response was, “Love of labor.” For them, this is work but it is something both of them have always loved to do and it satisfies them where their normal careers do not. The process to create manga becomes lengthy and tedious at times, and some days Kenmei feels like banging her head into tables, but this is something that they love working on together. One thing Richard finds most satisfying about writing for this comic is that power of creation he feels. Just like Doctor Frankenstein, Richard and Eamon share this pleasure in creating. It is an awesome feeling creating and knowing these worlds are bound entirely to their whims. These worlds are completely imaginary and can be altered at the simplest thought, but there are still rules that govern the creation of such worlds. This will be discussed in depth later. This power to create entirely in one's mind is something that I deeply feel kin to. I have learned many things about myself during this phase. I realize what kind of author I want to be, what I want to write, and whom I want to write it for. I feel very comfortable about sharing my writings with others. This is probably why I write “CyberTooth” in the first person. The first person is the easiest one to train myself to write in. Plus, I do not care if I give away how I feel to anyone that reads it. Mostly, I want to get it written because I feel that it will be a twist on the cliché computer-gone-artificially-intelligent story. It will be a criticism of the human spirit when comparing that to Cybertooth's (the intelligent computer) altruistic qualities. making CyberTooth successful “I'm not writing for the masses. If many people happen to relate to my view and experiences, then the better they may be able to appreciate and draw from my writing. To call it a failure would be to say that my existence has been a failure.” —Amy F. What makes a story successful? I wouldn't know. I only know what I believe, or what others tell me. So I ask people what they know, about what they believe, and about what they like. I conducted a survey of what three genres people enjoy the most. The results were these: Fables/Fairy Tales 8 2.8% Fantasy 39 13.5% Fiction (Realistic or Historical) 55 19.0% Horror 23 8.0% Humor 39 13.5% Mystery 28 9.7% Nonfiction (Biographical, Educational, etc.) 32 11.1% Poetry 14 4.8% Romance 8 2.8% Science Fiction 43 14.9% In addition to that survey, I asked whether people enjoy novels that are more character-based or action-based, and the results favored characters. If I wanted to write a novel for the world I should write fiction/science fiction. I already enjoy writing character based science fiction novels with intense action, so I have that covered. But writing for the masses is not what I need to know, or really care about. I want to know what will make “CyberTooth” a success. I soon discovered that when I continue on “CyberTooth” for too long, it loses the life that I am trying to breathe into it. This process is forcing me to go back over it repeatedly. So I must learn the different ways to revive my story with all the elements I want to exist in it, making it the future success that I hope it to be. In my style, I try to convey to the reader the view from the characters. If a scene is beautiful but the characters are bitter, then the descriptions must also be bitter as seen from those characters. This requires a great knowledge of vocabulary and unique style with imagery. How does one go about learning how to create effective images with intricate terms to relate scenes with emotional states? Does this require a natural gift or can it be learned? Kenmei Rokugatsu believes that it is within everyone’s power to excel in something with practice. “Practice. Practice. Practice. People don’t like to hear it but to become better… you have to practice…” she lectured in her class. She explains that no one is ever an expert at anything, no matter how much they excel in that aspect. To have skill at something, in her expert opinion, requires not only continual use of those skills, but it is necessary to learn new ways to do or practice those skills. An example for perfecting her skills of drawing manga is that she must always be learning new ways to draw. There was no dispute from any of the students in the class that her comic skills are great, but Kenmei admits that she does not draw still-life paintings well. So, Kenmei practices with still-life as often as she can, which is nil with her schedule. She explains that one of her artistic role models is a manga artist and this artist has a degree in architectural drawing, and continues to take classes on new forms of art or drawing. Her goal to perfect her art shall never end, as she can never ever draw everything that there is to draw. Applying this to my own writing needs, I would have to study the many styles of writing. There are more forms of writing than I can count: the genres, point of views, story types, poetry styles... I would have to study each of them? According to Kenmei, yes, I would have to. Even if I did not have to study ancient Greek literature, I believe I would, if only to perceive something new and fresh for my writing. I am the odd person that enjoys learning, especially if I can learn about something that I do not excel at. However, as some teachers realize and I am ashamed about is that I lose attentiveness to things that becomes exceedingly difficult for me. Kenmei's suggestion to better writing is intriguing to me as a student mainly of science and mathematics. I have always been applying that outlook to my favored studies without realizing it. In a private conversation I had with a member of TFP about the learning process, the person pointed out why it is people in math and science have “mind trips” when they learn something new. The person I talked to does not enjoy science and math as I do, but now understands why people in math and science enjoy learning something new in science and math so much. When something is learned, it can then apply it to everything, and that is why I enjoy it. A new equation or formula is another insight into this world. A new perspective in life is another perspective gained in my writing process. However, this refinement of my writing is a life long process. I began thinking of what I can do outside of endless writing and experimenting to better my style. Luckily, in this very high school, there is a creative writing class, one that I desired to take; however, I could not work the hour into my schedule. The teacher, Ms. Audrey Nagel, has written several novels and stories, however never published them, only those of her shorter works. Currently, she is working on a story that she has big plans for. I went to her, knowing she will have real world experience in perfecting written skills. Attentively, I listened to her suggestions. Anyone that considers a serious writing career should take classes on creative writing. That was her major, in fact. One means of effective learning in college was known as “Workshop.” She brings this to her class, and it is commonly called peer review. The object of peer review is to give suggestions from other students, versus a single suggestion from a teacher's mind. A single person may disagree or dislike the work being presented, and only this view is given. Peer review will give all the students more insight to their writing, for now they will have the views of those that dislike and [hopefully] like the work. More importantly, it encourages the student to find a style unique and separate from the other students. The benefits to peer review versus letting students revise their own work or having a teacher revise the work is that the other students' suggestions are completely contemporary. All the students are living and growing at the same time as all the other students in the class. Any of these students may become a writer in their future, and the suggestions of that class give the writers insight into the minds of potential readers and maybe future fans. However, peer review does not sound like the way for someone who is shy about their work. Everything a student writes is covered by a number instead of a name. The idea of anonymity is to keep suggestions and editing as truthful and kind as possible. Everyone knows that a student can have predispositions for a work when known who wrote it and then either be too harsh or too lax with the work. This process allows the writers to realize what in their works just does not work and what about their writing is enjoyable. This seems to conflict with making one's style unique. Does one have to sell themselves out to what the majority likes to read? I do not believe that it does, for a writer can accept the suggestions of others at will. The suggestions that the writer takes are the things that the writer himself likes. Therefore, the accepted suggestion was always a part of the writer's mind set, but the writer just did not know that he was lacking it in the writing. This is only the beginning of what one can do to strengthen writing. Ms. Nagel gives the secret to excellent writing as vocabulary. She sees all too often “student writers where the ideas are there but the vocabulary is limited.” She knows that the opposite is also true, and a balance of knowledgeable vocabulary versus the need to use it must be made to write successfully. If one does not have enough means to describe something, then that description ends up being hollow, but when describing something with too much vocabulary, to the uneducated reader, this description will become dry. Also Ms. Nagel and I share a common peeve with diction that causes us to continue learning new words. We hate to use the same words over and over again. “I go back and I fix things. I'll go back and look if I've repeated a word within a certain amount of space.” It was a good laugh to share the same juvenile habit of tweaking writing so that a word is not used twice. Vocabulary is but one thing that is used to make up decent writing in Ms. Nagel's opinion. It is the balance of having character and plot that truly makes a good piece of fiction. If one has a good plot but weak characters, the reading is unbelievable, and if the characters are intense but the plot is bad, then the story is uninteresting. So creation of interesting plots and deep characters are important but what good are these elements when they are not believable? Richard Townsend pointed out “If you believe that it can happen, then you can associate yourself with the characters, you can put yourself in their shoes and that makes a world of difference.” Michael Crichton would be one of his favorite authors because the situations are so unbelievable, but the characters and their reactions to the world around them are so genuine that it allows the reader to enter Crichton's fiction. Inventing this world is based upon the ability of the writer to write the story. Today, worlds are based upon descriptions. But how in depth must descriptions be? “I think the battle between being too descriptive (robbing the reader of their own imagination) and being not descriptive enough (not 'giving' your world to them) is a difficult part of writing, perhaps second to the blank page,” Eamon describes how his personality drives him to write the way he does (Mitchell). But what will make such a writing believable to the reader? Many of TFP state their writings need to be “passionate” to “describe the world through [their] eyes to someone else” (F., Amy). For Amy, her writing is fueled by her experiences and they are given life through her emotions that she tries to interlace into the writing. Sarah Hoffman similarly believes that emotions are important; however, it is difficult to make emotions “come across an otherwise emotionless paper.” The muses of these project poets would be “Surprise, Heartache, and disappointment. Helps me to write better, to grow and change some,” said Amnesia620. The emotions of the writers must exist to passionately see something from their mind get onto the paper. The overall success of the novel depends on many elements, all of which seem to be entirely opinionated. So what facts can be taken from it? I see my writing as a complete power over creation as Eamon Mitchell and Richard Townsend see it. I feel a sense of pride when trying to create a completely realistic world despite its fantastic elements. I agree with always learning new forms of writing as Kenmei pointed out. Most likely, I will try to accomplish refining my writing into something better through the peer review, as I have been doing so on TFP. If anyone likes to see the updates of “Cybertooth” as they become available, just sign up. The most mind-altering thing that I learned about making “CyberTooth” a success is by something Eamon pointed out that makes a fiction a good fiction: “they change the way you see the world...” That is an attribute I have always wanted and still want in my writing. I want the readers to take a piece of my story with then, no matter what they do, see, or believe, because if my work is great enough to open the minds of the readers, then my task of making a new world was successful. Publishing CyberTooth If the process just to write a novel seems hard, it gets harder. When I happen to finish “CyberTooth,” I must then confront how to publish it. As Robert Frost put it, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood… I took the one less traveled” (Perrine 599), I have tried to make my story as different as possible, but I will not take any chances where printing it is concerned. It becomes my task to find out how to get this papered beast onto paper. Unlike what Frost says, there are more than two paths to getting my work published. The most likely one would be to leave “CyberTooth” as a post in TFP. I laugh, though; that will not bring any money to my hard work and struggles. To leave “CyberTooth” in cyberspace is a bad idea because it is in the true free world. Anything one desires can be found anywhere on the Internet, via legal means or not. Very quickly I learn the various ways to bringing a novel into print. The most common means are vanity press, traditional press, self-publication, and print on demand. Before I describe each of the processes for publishing a novel, I will explain some common terms. When I hold the copyright to writing, I have all the rights to do anything I want to it. Everything a person writes is copyrighted, even if one does not realize it. This idea of copyright has become a large part of authors’ and artists’ lives in the last century as the means to easily access writings, pictures, and music becomes available. The copyright association just covers all forms of published writings in a blanket covering over every person's rights to what they have written. Promotional work is the task of promoting my novel to the general public. To promote a book, it has to be introduced to retailers who then must be interested in buying the book. Distribution is the task of getting all my printed novels sold to those retailers, nation-wide if need be! This includes all costs to mail and ship products to those retailers. Already, these tasks do not sound fun to me, especially if I will have to hold a career in the real world. Self Publication The first step many authors consider is self-publication… which is considered a grueling task. Not only must I buy or rent large printers, ink, page cutters, and binders, I have to go about to find cover artists, designers, do all promotional work, and distribution for the books. Few readers ever learn of self-published novels, as they are disregarded by main retailers. Many stores will not buy self-published novels for their quality is generally considered less than that of a main stream, high quality, traditionally published novel. The only pros to the self-publication are that I retain all rights to my work and I can create as many as I need when I need them. That means if “CyberTooth” were to be bought, I send as many as stores need, I receive all the sales, and if it were to be made into a movie, I retain all proceeds generally given to authors of novels made into movies and have partial creative control over that movie. Despite the constant phrases like “all sales” and “all rights,” I would have to keep paying off the loans for renting that printer and book binder for the rest of my life (AuthorHouse.com, “Preparing a Book Brief.”). Vanity Press Vanity press is the casual term for “print at your own risk.” With vanity press, I pay before-hand for most the production costs of all the printed novels, usually only thousands of dollars to a printing company. Usually the amount of novels created is greater than the amount of novels sold, and the remainder of novels would gather dust in my basement. The process is to buy a large stock for a lower price and these are for me to sell. This is considered a pain for the newly rising authors because, again, they have the work of promotion and distribution. Plus, every novel that is not sold is that much money that is not gained (AuthorHouse.com, Pollick). The Traditional Publication This is the most difficult to get started but the easiest once obtained. It is a long road to get my novel printed by a major publishing house because of the steps involved. The first act is to find a literary agent. Authors must search for specific literary agents as some literary agents will only represent certain genres of literature. My agent is my spokes-person to major companies that will take the financial responsibility of my work should it be a flop. In all actuality, the agent's job is just to hound the companies to consider my work for publication. However, most companies do not even notice the smaller agents, and wave them away as one does a fly. The trick is trying to get a respected literary agent to take my work, at a greater cost to myself. Luckily, with the cyber age that we exist in, finding the literary agent just for me is at the type of a search box. WritersNet (www.writers.net) is such a site that offers a search for literary agents that will represent my work. When I get an agent to cover my novel, another challenge begins. If the agent is successful in finding a company that will publish “CyberTooth,” then the next job is editing. An editor’s job not only consists of correcting sentences but also changing the novel to be more of what the publishing company produces. For instance, I am writing science-fiction, but somehow I am to be published through Vintage Romance Publishing. Vintage Romance Publishing is going to try and market a romance from me and not a science-fiction. This is one of the struggles that wait through traditional publishing. Also, the editor will not care for the literary quality that I want to produce, but will only care for the marketing dynamics of my novel. The pros are that the publishing company will produce the novel at little to no cost to me, and do all the promotion and distribution of the novel to retailers. Cons to this endeavor are that I receive little of the sales, I lose the rights to my novel to this company, and if I want it to be published through another company, I would have to pay the publisher money to print my story (Michaels, www.tor.com)! Print On Demand The new vanity press is that of the Print on Demand technology (POD). POD is newer, cheaper technology that allows me to save money on production. The name is derived from the fact that an author does not have to print all the novels upfront and that the POD companies will print more novels when a retailer asks for more. POD companies usually have their own promotional and marketing departments because of the cost efficiency and the number of locations available for one POD company. These companies will return more money to an author from sales than a traditional publisher alone. These POD companies allow authors to retain their rights to their novels, and give the author complete reign over the work. The quality of such a work may be less than that of a traditional publication; however, such differences are not noticeable to a public eye. The pros are clear and the cons are few to a POD endeavor. If I were to choose a means to publish “CyberTooth,” it would be through a POD company. The ease of POD is clear, even though AuthorHouse.com is advertising its service to me. The companies I found that are marketing vanity press, traditional publishing and even self-promotion all state that there are many problems and difficulties with their ways of publishing. If AuthorHouse's POD is the only one that does not market their difficulties, I believe that I would try them first as a new author. CYBERTOOTH’S AWARD After going about researching, I have learned that there are over 200 different literary awards (Stratton), and some of them are actually for the worst elements of literature. I would hope to win an award that reflects the better elements of the story. My story is largely science-fiction, and the biggest award in science fiction is the Hugo Award. I’d shoot to win the right to have the rocket ship stamp on my book, any day. Usually, there are other, fancier awards that require me to be dead and my novel would have to be read in high schools for decades. I am too vain to write a story that will be successful after I'm dead. I checked out the Hugo Award and interviewed a member of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), Colin Harris. The Hugo Awards are granted through a simple voting process. Every year, WSFS holds the World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) where the science-fiction novels of the previous years are all gathered. Yes, all! During WorldCon, over 3,000 people come and read as much science-fiction as they can stand. Everyone then votes for the five best novels that they had read, for every specific award that the Hugo will put out that year. Each year there can be up to 14 different awards ranging from best novel to best fan artist. Also, each year, the Hugo Awards may create one additional award to those already present, which would have an equal weight as the present awards. This first stage of voting is known as the Nomination Ballot. All of the votes are then processed for the Final Ballot, where roughly 900 registered members of Interaction—those are members of WSFS—will take about a year to award a single novel to each of the categories. At the end of that process the awards are then announced and the winners granted their very own “Hugo Award Winner” stamp to go on each and every book created there on (Interaction). This award grants the author a step up into the renowned popular fiction category as more people become aware of the novels that win. If I won such an award, my story could very well become a movie, which I would enjoy being a part of. To win a Hugo Award would encourage me to bring to life any other story I imagine. More importantly, to win an award would show that a part of myself is outstanding, and that would be an amazing realization. But as I have said, all novels from previous years are allowed at WorldCon, and the chances of mine being picked up are slim. The number of works present at Worldcon is, quite literally, astronomical. However, that shall not discourage me as I am writing this story simply to be written—for me and everyone that enjoys what I write. FINAL DECISIONS The last step for this all is just to finish my story. “CyberTooth” may take years and years to finish, but I feel that someday you will all see CyberTooth sitting on the books shelves of Borders. And if it does not have a variation of my name, Jacob David Lynch August, you know someone stole it. What you can expect of the final product would be a literary criticism on human behavior, and how this computing accident is the perfection that we try to seek. In the story, you will read about the main character's reflection of his past. He was/is a very bitter, violent adult who tries desperately to change how he acts towards the world. The character has marvelous, philanthropic ideas for how the world should be and his hate and disgust comes from the belief that he will never accomplish these things. The character attempts to create a revolutionary computer language that will inevitably be able to fix itself, unaided by human interaction—his CyberTooth systems. What the character desires to do is use this technology as a basis for free software systems for everyone to use. However, his computer program disappears when the machines no longer respond to its creators' commands. Later on, after CyberTooth leaves all memory and concerned thoughts, the creators go out to the various companies with this technology to market it, despite what the main character wants. This will tear the team apart and make the characters bitter despite the marvelous machines they had made. What occurs changes the face of Cyberspace. Every machine on the planet has been hacked and upgraded with the “CyberTooth XOS” that C.T. Created. CyberTooth makes his name to C.T. to sound less threatening to humans. The FBI arrests the original creators and forces them to create the kill switch for CyberTooth. The main character objects, but must for he is self-serving overall. The main character ultimately loses his humanity when he sees his computer program—which has achieved all of the greatest aspects humans, and what the main character especially seeks—die. C.T.’s dying word to the character, because he does not comprehend his eminent death, is “Father?” I hope I do not let my writings go to waste in my mind—never to share them with the world. My writing has always been my means to relieve stress, and making it into something that causes stress is nothing different than everything else in a collegian's life, but to make it into something that everyone enjoys would be amazing. Mainly, in my story I want to capture a picture of the world that shows a part of us we do not like to accept. In this written world, I can express everything about the people I know in the clearest ways I can. For some reason, in my life I sometimes am not as open as I could be. So in these writings of mine, you and I both will learn something about me that I couldn't previously express with words. Most of all, my written universes are my dreams that someday I wish to accomplish. Do I want to create an artificially intelligent computer that will try to save the world?—Yes. In reality I know that this is very unlikely—but it can exist in my mind, and from my mind the paper. If I can inspire one person in the future to reach for his goals, as I do, then I feel that that would make my story the most successful of all, no matter what anyone says of it. WORKS CITED Amnesia620. Interview by Email. 3 April, 2005. August, Jacob. “Music Sharing: The Lowdown.” May, 2004. “Author House Publishing Guide.” Author Solutions, Inc. 2005. 27 Apr, 2005 <http://www.authorhouse.com/> F., Amy. Interview by Email. 3 Apr, 2005. Favorite Genre and Novel Style. Survey conducted by author via www.tfproject.org. 14 Mar, 2005. Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken.” Perrine, Lawrence and Arp, Thomas R. Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense. 6th Ed. Orlando, Florida: Harcourt, Brace, and Jovanovich, 1984. Harris, Colin. Interview by Email. 5 May, 2005. Hoffman, Sarah. Interview by Email. 23 Mar 2005. Interaction. 13 May, 2005. The Hugo Award Voter's Guide. 5 May, 2005 <http://www.interaction.worldcon.org.uk/hugo101.htm>. Interaction. 13 May, 2005. The Hugos. 5 May, 2005 <http://www.interaction.worldcon.org.uk/hugo.htm>. Lawson, Patrick. Interview by author. 2 Apr, 2005. Michaels, Doris S. “Outline of the Publication Process.” May, 2005. DSMAgency.com. 27 Apr, 2005 <http://www.dsmagency.com/published.html>. Mitchell, Eamon. Interview by Email. 3 Apr, 2005. “Preparing a Book Brief.” Writer's Serivces. 2005. 27 Apr, 2005 <http://www.writersservices.com/wps/s1_design_brief.htm>. Rokugatsu, Kenmei and Townsend, Richard. How to Draw Manga. Antioch Public Library. 30 Mar, 2005. Rokugatsu, Kenmei and Townsend, Richard. Personal Interview. 30 Mar, 2005. Stratton, Stephen E. Literature Awards. 2004. 14 Mar, 2005 <http://www.literature-awards.com/>. United States. California Department of Education. 25 May, 2004.Recommended Literature Search. 14 Mar, 2005 <http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/rl/ll/ap/litsearch.asp>. Vinkevicius, Aurimas. Interview by author. 2 Apr, 2005 Pollick, Michael. “Vanity Press publication: Pros & Cons.” Essortment. 2002. Pagewise. 27 Apr, 2005 <http://nj.essortment.com/vanitypresses_redy.htm> Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian. Great Britain: Penguin Classics, 2003. PICTURES CITED Interaction Logo and Hugo Award. Interaction. 13 May, 2005. The Hugos. 5 May, 2005 <http://www.interaction.worldcon.org.uk/hugo.htm>. Otauku-no-Yen page banner (modified by author). Guardian Sun Studios. 15 May, 2005. 15 May, 2005 <http://www.guardiansun.com/webcomic/images/comic_top.jpg>. Thundercats Background. 15 May, 2005 <http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v405/xkalibur/Thundercats.jpg>. Thundercat Logo (Black and White modified by author). 15 May, 2005 <www.stickergirl.com/images/Thundercats.jpg>. Tilted Forum Project logos. Tilted Forum Project. Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. 2005. 15 May, 2005 <www.tfproject.org>. MUSIC CITED PLAYLIST BY JACOB D.L. AUGUST: CYBERTOOTH SOUNDTRACK Orgy's Fiction (Dreams in Digital) (3:25) from Vapor Transmission John B.'s “Fiction (Dreams in Digital)” [Remix of Orgy's “Fiction (Dreams in Digital)”] (6:27) Massive Attack's “Special Cases” (5:11) from 100th Window Orbital's “Halcyon and On and On” (9:27) from Hacker's Soundtrack 5. Piotr 'eXbee' Baczkiewicz's Halcyon [Remix of Orbital’s “Halcyon and On and On”] (6:31) Beastie Boys' “Intergalactic” (3:29) from Hello Nasty ATB mix of Hybrid's “Finished Symphony” (7:22) from Ministry of Sound's Clubber's Guide to... Trance BT's “God” (3:36) The Beach Boys' “I Get Around” (2:13) from Endless Summer Open Hand's “Life As Is” (4:16) from The Dream Theory of a Deadman's “The Last Song” (4:27) from Theory of a Deadman Audiovent's “The Energy” (4:11) from Dirty Sexy Knights in Paris 30 Seconds to Mars's “Echelon” (5:49) from 30 Seconds to Mars Radiohead's “Karma Police” (4:21) from OK Computer Fear Factory's “Resurrection” (6:35) from Obsolete __________________ ////\\// IRONSKY.NET \\//\\\\ Last edited by Hain; 05-19-2005 at 08:35 PM.. Reason: Updated Version