It can finally be announced, Part 2!

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My franchise agreement with the Lego Corporation continues to be a fruitful source of revenue for both of us. The Child of Fire Lego set sold well beyond expectations, and they’re coming back for another round (naturally).

Here’s the cover for the new novel, coming out in August:

Game of Cages

And here, revealed to you for the first time ever, is the early concept art for the box the Game of Cages Lego Set will ship in:

Game of Cages Lego Cover

I like how they made the lightning shoot sideways, like it’s coming out of the house, although I *told* their designers last time that they had Ray’s hair color wrong, but did they remember to change it?

Ah well.

The good news is, this deal is making me filthy rich, and pretty soon I’m going take of from rainy, miserable Seattle and settle down with my family in an Italian vila. Mediterranean, here I come!
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Once again, just joshin’. This image was created with Lego Digital Designer, a CAD program (of sorts) that lets you design a Lego model virtually, then upload it to their site and have the pieces mailed to you. The nice thing about the LDD joke for this second book is that I’m such a big cheese writer now that I can offshore the actual creation of the image to South Korea my 8-year-old son. He did a great job, and it would have taken me hours to do it myself.

Quick note for Mr. Headache

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Drink some water.

Chatroulette

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Here’s the “Safe For Work” version–an article in the NY Times describing the program. Short version: it’s social networking with complete strangers. You and your webcam get onto video chat. You click “Next”. A completely random person from anywhere in the world appears in their webcam image. You chat with this stranger.

Of course, you could be looking at a guy in a cat suit (see link above). Or a naked fat guy. Or some dude’s penis. Or a woman sitting on the toilet. Or someone in a freaky mask.

Here’s the NSFW version, with screencaps of unlikely/unfortunate/basically weird interactions between strangers.

Seriously, that’s NSFW. Don’t even open that link with kids in the room.

Randomness for 2/22

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1) Part two of the screenwriter stalker story! with bonus Brad Pitt at a urinal. And here’s Part 3. (Here’s part 1, in case you missed it.)

2) More OKCupid data crunching: this time about “older” women.

3) Remember the American version of Godzilla from 1998? Well, an early draft of the script was written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, the guys who wrote PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, SHREK, MASK OF ZORRO and ALADDIN, among others. Although their script was very different from the version that was filmed and released, some elements were kept and they ended up with credit. Sometime in the last 12 years, they posted their final draft online so people could compare the work they did with the finished movie. Well, someone has taken it upon themselves to turn that script into a webcomic. It’s not finished, but it is pretty cool.

4) Hot dog salad dressing??? 20 Unholy Recipes, Dishes So Awful We Had To Make Them. via Jay Lake

5) An insider’s guide to writing for Mills & Boon. Interesting stuff.

6) That “Ten Rules For Writing” article in the Guardian Part one, Part two. Those are fun to read, even the ones I disagree with.

7) Bertie Wooster as Bruce Wayne.

Dang-it

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I was about to post a link to a one-star review in honor of John Scalzi’s latest post on the subject, but I see I already have, way back in November. Ah, hell.

So instead, I’ll post this: The book I’m reading is The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston. It’s an interesting book–excellent in a lot of ways, and mildly disappointing in others. I get the impression it’s made for readers with buttons in different places than I have.

But that’ll have to wait until after I finish reading it. What I wanted to mention was a scene about two-thirds in where Protagonist’s Best Friend is talking to Screwed-Up Protagonist about his screwed-upness. SUP has a Mysterious Terrible Event in his past that has him acting like a contemptuous jerk throughout the book, and PBF takes the brunt of it. Eventually, PBF says this:

I read these books on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, they described you pretty smack-on.

And I was immediately thrown out of the story. My brain went straight to “Author did research. Research in book” and suddenly it was like I was smelling plastic flowers.

Which isn’t fair to the author, because the scene is completely earned and totally in character, but who ever said reading is fair? It was a clunker moment, and it hurt. I’ll want to write more about this book later.

Let me wrap up with this: After I wrote my “Review-down” post on Saturday night, I started feeling pretty rotten. Wisely, I announced this to my family and went to bed at 10. By 4 am, I was up again, thanks to muscle aches and a sore throat. I gargled with Listerine, took some Tylenol and played Meebling until the drugs kicked in (no link to Meebling, because your life is made of time, and both are so very precious). Then it was back to bed until–no kidding–ten am when my wife dragged me out of bed. Sleep! How good to see you again!

I still feel sorta awful, and I’m going to see if my good buddy Bed Rest can do anything about that.

Blog to LJ/Facebook/whatever

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Unlink your feeds, a manifesto. I wonder what folks think of this, especially folks on Facebook. Is it too much? Should I unlink my own feeds?

Man Bites World Revise-down!

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Today I am a dumb person.

I started late this morning–waking at 6 am–and caught a bus to the Starbucks. I worked until 11, had a quick lunch, then hit the library at 11:45. I worked there until they closed at 6 pm.

How much work did I do? I was five pages from the end of the stinking book when they threw us out. I couldn’t wrap up for the day so close to the end, so I went *back* to the Starbucks, bought a little food, and finished writing the new (much less dark) ending.

Success! Finish! All I had to do was note the changes I made in the change file, and cross off the notes I’d accomplished in my revision file, and I could call it done!

Except I opened the revision file and found one last note I need to address. One huge note. It’s not something I can fix in one scene; it’s spread throughout the whole book.

This shit wasn’t almost done. I still have an assload left to do. And I worked nearly 14 hours today. Jesus. I don’t mind having work to do on the book, I just wish I hadn’t convinced myself I was almost at the finish line when I came around the bend and saw a long stretch of road ahead. That shit is demoralizing.

I’ll try to post something interesting tomorrow.

Apropos of nothing at all

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How to fold a fitted sheet:

And I’m back

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Thank you, Mac Freedom! At about 8:45 this morning, I set it to block internet access from my laptop for 6 hours. Then I got down to work.

With interruptions, of course. My local library branch is closed on Fridays due to budget cuts. I ended up working at home instead, which was fine because I’m still not feeling so hot. And for once, my family let me work relatively undisturbed. Also, the Mac Freedom timer stops when the laptop goes into sleep mode, so I get a genuine six hours of temptation-free work time. :D

Also, our local atm no longer uses envelopes when making a deposit. Who knew? You slip the check into the machine, it scans the numbers and asks you to confirm the deposit amount. Easy, right? Except that it’s slow as hell and completely annoying.

Anyway, I tore off a big chunk of the end of this book. I also rewrote 8 critical pages that my agent told me weren’t working (and she was so very right). I kept a lot, changed a lot and generally wrote a spookier, crazier scene than what I had before.

Tomorrow, the ending. Well, as much of the ending as I can manage. I have a bunch to change there, too.

Nebula Awards

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The Nebula Award nominees are here.