The Official Website of Steven Maus

Madeline City is published!

True, big retailers like Amazon and Barnes and Noble won't have it completely in their systems for another few weeks or so, but that's hardly the point! The title is partially up on Amazon, and soon to be available through bookstores and online sellers, just as Branchwater is. Not bad timing either, since last night I finished addressing fifteen envelopes to newspapers around Arizona. I still have to address a few to radio stations around the state, and once the title is fully up and available everywhere, those envelopes will be filled with press releases and sales sheets and will be mailed out. If I'm lucky, they'll be read by interested people who are in positions to communicate with large portions of the public.

In the near future I'll be ordering myself several copies to send out to reviewers and hand off to friends as gifts and such. A fair amount of non-writing (but writing-related) work is ahead of me, and though I'm not particularly crazy about it, the cause behind it brings me a joy unmatched.

The last week or so I've been going through the manuscript proofs for Madeline City and Other Tales, making notes on things to edit and such. The cover proof looks iffy, as do many pages of the manuscript, and my general concensus is that it's not ready for publication, that it's horrible, that I must be a total waste if I really do write that bad, and so on. But then that wonderful voice of my ego perks back and reminds me that I'm badass. "Oh yeah..." I say quietly, my eyes growing wide with the realization, and I soldier on. I suppose that technically Madeline City won't be the worst book ever published; grammatically speaking, plot-wise, or in any other fashion. I suppose. Either way, I have another week or so until my changes are due, and then the publisher will go with them, redesigning the manuscript with my changes being applied, at which point it'll be back to waiting for me.

With the semester coming to an end, I should be working hard on various academic projects, polishing a few different papers for a few different classes, working on researching info for one of those papers, worrying about finals... but I'm not. As it looks now, any conviction within me to actually do my schoolwork has died just short of the semester end. More on this as it develops.

Once upon a time I was riding in the family van, a white and teal chevy with two bucket seats in the middle and a bench seat in back. I was sitting in the bucket seat behind the driver's seat, and I was scrawling on paper, a line or two here and there, because if I focus on words for too long while in a moving vehicle, that good ole nerdy affliction acts up; carsickness. I was working on the control scheme for a video game that I was thinking up, and along with the names of characters and places, I had to think up a story. Suffice it to say that in that chevy van, Branchwater was born. Six years ago, as the necessary plot to a game focusing on medival-action (a game that never saw it past a few failed attempts on RPG Maker 2), my baby has its origins.

A year or two later, I had a dream, and to this day it is the only dream that I have put down on paper. As a rule, I hate dreams, and I ignore them as much as I can. But this one was different. I detailed this one in a five-page short story that I still plan to use in a future novel. Three years after I was flirting with carsickness in the bucket seat of a chevy van, I was living with some co-workers and reading the first draft of one of my sister's novels. It was while reading pouring over this manuscript that I realized "I can do this."

Now, my second book is only a few months away from publication, I'm well-underway with my third, which is a continuation of the Branchwater story, and I'm as poor as I've ever been. Not only that, but I've acquired a need to travel and see new places. But I do have one advantage, and that is time, and I'll be damned if I'm going to waste it staying in one place, doing the same thing for the rest of my life. Now if only I could figure out an affordable, interesting way to change things up...

The semester is over half-gone, and I'm checking the journalism syllabus for which days I can ditch out on without incurring severe loss of learning. The tests are nothing but memorization, and so as long as I pick up a copy of the study guide at some point, I can go over the questions in the book at home and in about five hours learn the equivalent of several weeks of class, thus acing the final. Not the easiest way to spend the weeks before Christmas, but one that leaves me with a sense of accomplishment, like I just whupped that class in the ass, and used a lame rhyme in the process.

At least the amount of schoolwork is going to lessen towards the end of the semester. I know that having one big assignment to work on is supposed to be more difficult than a myriad of smaller ones, but honestly, the small ones are just a bother. It takes more work to keep track of them all than it does to complete them. Of course, when given one big assignment I'll slack off until I need to rush to complete it, and so ironically, the simplest assignment becomes the most difficult.

As always, my own work takes precidence over anything a teacher could assign, and so I plug ahead on Edgewood, writing a healthy amount each day, and taking down ideas and inspirations as they come.

This past Friday I began that which I'd been looking forward to for so long; the start of Madeline City's publication process. I'm working with Outskirts Press to get the book out, and based on my most current info, the book will be out around late January or early February. Already Outskirts has been much more helpful than iUniverse was, and that coupled with the significantly lower price makes me more than happy. I'll be putting up an excerpt of Madeline City on my website pretty soon, and be sure to check there for news on the process as well.

Midway through the semester, and it's as boring as school has ever been. Service learning, tests, memorization of grammar rules and news terms... Sigh. But that's all part of it - it being my quaint little life - and so I buckle down and ride out the boring parts, thinking ahead to fall when I'll be able to dip back into my own subject; fiction writing.

This week marks a few things, some of them important, and some of them not. Let's just focus on the imporant things, shall we?

First off, on Friday the 24th Saw V will be in theaters. This series - though it has consistently challenged the viewers ability to take it 100% seriously (and not in a good way) - is one of my all-time favorites. Not only are the "holy shit, I did NOT see that coming!" moments at the end of each film really cool, but the main actors and actresses are all top notch. Tobin Bell and Shawnee Smith are absoluetly stellar, Betsy Russell is a substantial knock-out, and when Scott Patterson gets pissed, you feel it. And who could forget Donnie Wahlberg? How about Cary Elwes and Dina Meyer? I love them all. The other big reason that I love these movies is that at the end of each one all the details that you thought were just fluff actually figure into the story. There isn't a line of dialogue or a flippant gesture that doesn't contribute to the relevance of the final scene. It is true; not all the plot twists make a world of sense, but that's a problem shared by countless movies. The Saw films hold themselves together just fine, and in the end they're a thoroughly enjoyable experience. And isn't that the most important part? I mean, sure, you can listen to classical music and appreciate the melodic and mathmetical precision of the score, but isn't it more fun to listen to Safety Dance?

The second significant thing that's happening this week is the beginning of Madeline City's journey to publication. Once I take care of a few more details, read a little more literature on the publisher, and feel that I've fretted enough, then I'll be sending in the manuscript, and then it'll be a waiting game. February or March, my friends; let's all hope for the former. This thursday I'll be reading from the first chapter of Madeline City at the open mic event at CGCC. I figure that I can put the chapter eight battle scenes of Branchwater to rest for a while (I've read them on four separate occasions) and give people a glimpse of something a little more exciting.

Last week, partly from boredom and partly to keep from going crazy, I started writing Edgewood, the next part of the Branchwater story. A month or so ago, after I finished Children of Cramburg (the last of the material to be published along with Madeline City), I sat back and relaxed, which is good to do if you've just finished writing a book. But trying to force myself to relax eventually resulted in a streak of subtle bordom that grew until I adopted an attitude of "why the fuck aren't I writing?!" Once I had asked this question of myself, I realized that there was no a good answer, and so I went home and started in on Edgewood.

This past weekend I went and saw City of Ember. Having read the book (and having loved it) I had the usual anxiety of someone who is about to witness something they love being tampered with. Simply put, it was an excellent movie. The story was preserved, the characters were wonderfully cast, the actors and actresses all did extremely well, the music perfectly complimented the mood that was already set by the splendid acting... It really was an awesome movie. Engrossing, fearful, and with a powerful sense of dread, City of Ember was everything that I hoped for.

On Wednesday, Michael Jaime-Becerra (author of Every Night is Ladies' Night) will be visitng the CGCC Pecos campus, and it will be my pleasure to meet and greet him, hear his views, opinions, and beliefs on writing, and of course, to get my book signed.

In my own news, on the 24th of this month the publishing journey for Madeline City will get under way, and the anticipation will grow to the next frenzied level. Today and tomorrow there is a job fair at the Val Vista and Baseline Barnes and Noble, and I'll be heading on over, seeing about securing another part-time job. Yes, the financial blues continue, though they are easier and easier to drown out with the approach of Madeline City.

It is always wonderful to hear that my writing has influenced people in a good way, and over the weekend an old friend approached me to tell me that I had done just that. Whether as a tool of escape, or as a hobby that compliments an already perfect life, or as one of those countless, wonderful, in-betweens, writing gives hope to those who have none. It enters into the room and changes the people within. It winds around the mind and pokes and prods until the writer breaks down and thinks honestly. Or dies trying.

One more month, and the publication process for Madeline City should begin. After that, it'll only be a matter of months until the finished product is ready for purchase. At the latest, I anticipate that one might be able to celebrate St. Patrick's Day by going on amazon and ordering a copy, but ideally you'll be able to make use of the book as a Valentine's Day gift to that special someone. Or should I say, that perfect someone - a girl that keeps fantasy worlds at the front of her mind.

Next month my website transition will be complete. While you can still visit my humansandmantliks site, it informs you of its own impending demise and directs you to my new freewebs site. This is a change brought on for economical reasons, and as my new URL suggests, it's a cheap one.

A second job? Those make life really hard to coordinate. Not only do I need to find one that I like (that's not too hard since there is a new Barnes and Noble opening near my house in November), but I also have to find one that is satisfied only giving me twelve to fifteen hours a week. At the CGCC bookstore, my lack of hours is only temporary, but then, so is the rush of hours that I'll be getting at the beginning of next semester, and every semester, for that matter. For Barnes and Noble to work out for me, I'd have to convince them to give me the hours I want on the days that I want, and what employer wants to do that for a new employee?

Granted, I could go back to any of my previous jobs (except Disney) and convince them to hire me for whatever days and whatever hours I wanted, but that's a different story. At those previous jobs, I have proved myself, and they would be happy to accomodate me. At Barnes and Noble there would be no prior knowledge of my excellence, and as such I would be hard-pressed to take what I want from them. On the other hand, I laid out a plan for the bookstore on campus and wound up getting what I wanted...

Perhaps the application will speak of me eloquently enough so as to secure me what I need. Perhaps they really need people who can only work three or four evening a week. Or, perhaps I'll just do the next thing that sounds like a good idea at the time. I'm a fan of that strategy; it's what gotten me where I am today.