1) Hoarding TV shows cured my hoarding.
2) Old comic book Hostess and Twinkie ads repurposed for the KFC Double Down.
3) An old Randomness entry revisited: House made of Lego blocks destroyed.
4) Propaganda posters for 80’s arcade games.
5) 3D without the glasses. Not for folks who are drunk, hungover, or slightly queasy.
You know that annoying thing writers do when they announce that they have something awesome in the works but can’t talk about it yet? A Soopah Sekrit Project? You know how they do that thing?
Well, I’m doing that thing. It’s totally exciting and I hope I don’t fuck it up.
In other news, what happened to memes? I used to see memes cruise through my friends list all the time, but I almost never see them now (and I’m hankering to do something simple in a post). Maybe I should create one.
Does anyone reading this use MacSpeech Dictate? How’s it working out for you?
Don’t worry, I’m not going to describe my dreams to you. I am going to point out that I’ve had three days in a row of rest and rehab and paying back my sleep debt. Yesterday, for instance, I woke at my usual alarm-clock time (just before 5 am) and went into the living room with no writing work on my plate. Man Bites World is turned in and awaiting editorial notes. My proposal for Project Number Next is in the mail. I even shipped off a couple copies of Child of Fire for reviews. I could have revised an old short story I never sent out, but I didn’t feel any urgency on that front at all.
And this complete lack of any kind of deadline pressure must be why I dreamed the opening of a new short story, in text, just as I woke up.
I’m not ready to write the story because all I have is the opening lines, but it’s sitting on a back burner cooking down. In the meantime, I read the end of my current book, then took a nap on the couch. Does it count as a nap at 6:15 am, or is that technically “going back to bed”? It doesn’t matter. I read, relaxed, slept, and even played a little bit of computer game later. Nice! A day off.
It’s also nice to remember my dreams. Usually, my alarm clock drives them out of my memory.
Does anyone else dream in text? I only do it sometimes, but I’m curious.
Okay, stop laughing. I know I have more than one bad habit. Right now I want to talk about the one.
I have this habit of warning people they might not like my book.
Which is stupid, I know. I should talk UP the book, and if they happen on something they don’t like, they can decide that for themselves. Still, it’s an incredibly hard habit to break. I only did it once yesterday at the signing[1], but that was enough to catch myself and shut my mouth for the rest of the afternoon. Unfortunately, I also did with Jim Butcher at his signing.
I know where this comes from. I hate the idea of doing something that might make someone else uncomfortable or unhappy, and if I think my book might do that[2], my first instinct is to warn them off. It’s a habit I have to break, though.
[1] BTW, signing results: B&N set up 10 copies of Child of Fire and after three hours they were all sold. However, most of them sold to the other authors who were there or to people they knew. I only managed to sell two or three copies to random customers[3]. The bookstore staff, though, were wonderful. Some pix of the event: One. Two. I’m the bald guy.
[2] Attn potential Game of Cages readers! You might be put off by the plot if you are a [deleted] or [deleted] [deleted].
[3] It’s amazing how little time it takes to realize that J. Random Customer is never going to buy a book, no matter how much of your attention he demands.
1) Want Star Trek gear? A warehouse full of ST: The Experience props and costumes is up for auction.
2) Nicolas Cage’s Ugly Mansion. Eight pictures, each worse than the last. No, actually number four is the worst. This living room is a disaster, though.
3) These aren’t new, but maybe some folks haven’t seen them before: Recut move trailers that make kids movies seem like horror films, and horror films seem like domestic dramas. SCARY MARY is my favorite.
4) Businessinsider.com offers 15 charts about wealth and income inequality in America. Some of the charts have small text, but there’s a link beneath that’ll take you to a larger version. Also: Wow. via Ezra Klein.
5) One unfortunate way to express displeasure over medical advice.
6) “Who put these unpeeled grapes in my fruit bowl!” In which John Scalzi lives a blessed life–one he’s totally earned–and that’s a beautiful thing.
Last reminder: I’ll be at the Tukwila B&N today at one o’clock with three other fine writers. I hope to see you there.
Andrew Wheeler went through Publishers Weekly’s list of best-selling books from 2009 and took out everything that wasn’t sf/f. The list of most popular sf/f books is here.
I don’t have a lot to say about the content of the books. You have to go pretty far down the list before you find science fiction. Fantasy and Horror dominate.
Another thing I notice at first glance is that there aren’t that many writers listed once on the list. Most of the slots are books from authors with at least one (usually more) other slot on the list. In Donald Maas’s The Career Novelist (there’s a free pdf of the book at the end of that link, btw) the agent took a look at which of his writers were earning six figures every year, and what they had in common.
He said the authors earning those big bucks weren’t getting it in advances. Most of it was coming from backlist sales, and they had to write about ten books before they reached that point. Interesting stuff.
And no, my book is not on the list. Yeah, I checked.
1) Which is nerdier: Dr. Who or the X-Men? From the Extremely Bad Advice column.
2) Barack Obama looking at awesome things. via @Scalzi
3) Tricks for better Google searches.
5) How MMORPG designers keep you playing, even when you’re not having fun. More about this later, I think. via Kate Nepvue
6) An instance of Nerd Rage examined. –although this isn’t relegated to nerds (“geeks” whatever you want to call them). The Kindlegarteners dropping one-star reviews on Amazon.com because they can’t buy a Kindle edition in Australia, or because they think the price point is too high are no different than these bitterly angry LOTR fans.
7) 11 Tips for bookselling success at brick-and-mortar stores.
