I realize that I buried this in a previous post, so let me repost it here:
If you want to get a free signed ARC of Child of Fire, Suvudu is giving one away–along with a bunch of other books–in a sweepstakes. You have until August 21st to enter.
If you’ve read the Sample Chapter and can’t wait for the rest, well, here’s your chance to get an early copy.
(Okay. That’s as much hucksterism as I can manage. Too much?)
I give you this sad and tender song about GI Joe and Cobra, at the end of the day.
Which is freaking hilarious! I wish I were better at recognizing all the stars doing cameos here.
I can not understand why the characters in this book insist on chatting so much. Can’t we just jump straight to the violence? Please?
Also, I can not make the links on the right sidebar (on my blog, for those reading this on LiveJournal) rearrange themselves into the order I want.
I attribute both problems to a sleepless night and really awful dreams.
I have a post about breaking in to professional publishing (at least, how I did it) and why I’m writing about it, but I finished it so late that I knew it was an ugly first draft and would have to read it again before I posted it.
In the meantime, Suvudu.com is giving away a signed copy of Child of Fire as part of their sweepstakes promo. Lots of other books there. Check it out.
Also: the online press kit. I’m going to get me one of these, and I’ve already sent a couple notes to my PR person at Random House to see what he thinks I should include. Seen via LJ user marthawells.
And arguing about Hugo winners, I will continue with my lifelong quest to be behind the times by posting… San Diego Comic Con photos!
Most people see a person in costume and ask them to pose for the picture. Which they do. Me, I liked taking pictures of them while they were looking at their watches, impatiently waiting for a pal, or sitting in a corner for a rest. What I wanted most was a picture of a cosplayer eating one of those sandwiches out of the plastic clamshell, or maybe a hot dog, but it was not to be.
Candid!
But here’s one picture that’s not candid:
Yeah, that’s me posing beside a poster for the book
You can see pictures of my panel, my signing, and the people at the con by skimming through the set.
I know. It sounds like a impolite euphamism, doesn’t it?
This weekend, bittercon is going on, and as part of my general desire to procrastinate on Man Bites World I’m going to write about a topic I’ve wanted to cover for quite a while.
It’s a type of protagonist I think of as a “Peter Parker,” the secret identity of Spider-man. For those who don’t read a lot of comics and have never bothered with the movies, let me make a brief list of qualities a Peter Parker would have:
* – always tries to do the right thing, usually at great personal cost.
* – does not receive just rewards for the good they do.
* – often have tremendous personal troubles unrelated to their do-gooding activities
* – while skilled or powerful, they aren’t the *most* skilled or powerful, usually getting by on cleverness or grit
Harry Dresden, to take one example, started off as a Peter Parker hero. He never backed away from doing the right thing, even when everyone else around him thought of him as a villain.
Peter Parkers stand in opposition to other hero types. There are the Clark Kents, who are quite powerful in their own right, extremely idealistic and concerned with living by fair and just rules, and who receive the accolades they deserve for the good they do. If they have personal problems, they stand in stark contrast to their near-invincibility in their realm of conflict. Captain America is a Clark Kent (in fact, I was tempted to call this type the Steve Rogers, but I figured Clark was more well known). Quite a few TV cops fall into the Clark Kent mold, too, including Swoozie Kurtz’s character in THE CLOSER.
Another type is the Bruce Wayne–a hero who is extremely skilled/ powerful and tremendously efficient in the realm of conflict. Whether they receive accolades or not is beside the point for this type, because they are an authority figure apart from other types of authority. The Bruce Wayne characters are less about admiring a character for doing the right thing no matter the personal cost as they are (often brutal) power fantasies about extreme competence in the face of terrible danger. James Bond is a Bruce Wayne type, for instance.
For them what wonder, I chose comic book character names for the label because they are long-lasting, well-known and relatively static.
What do you think? Any other heros you’d like to categorize or any other categories you’d like to create? Personally, I’ve been trying to decide where Indiana Jones would fit in, or whether he deserves his own category.
And my wordcount on Man Bites World is currently lower than when I started. ::sigh::
In happier news, my email was correctly backed up, and I haven’t lost any of it. Yay!
Also, my website needs many changes. Many. Good thing I have so much free time. X___X
do not watch this
Part of me hopes it’s fake.
1) For those who missed it, I posted the first chapter of Child of Fire on my site yesterday. You can read it here. If you like it, tell your friends. If you hate it, tell your enemies.
2) Woman getting married to fairground ride. According to the article, she says she has “objectum sexuality, a condition that makes sufferers attracted to inanimate objects.” I avert my gaze as I hurry past the obvious joke there.
3) “Nurse of the Year” in Connecticut, who gave injections and dispensed medical advice, not actually a nurse. Remember, all failures of private industry are individual cases, but all failures within a government program reflect badly on every government program.
4) Drug buyers call the cops on their own dealers. Not because they were ripped off or because the drugs were bad. It was because the dealers were setting up squirrel traps in the park where they operated, and taking the fresh meat home at the end of the day. The drug buyers didn’t like that and dropped the dime on them. Fun note: When I first moved to Seattle, I lived very, very close to that park. It’s a beautiful place. via matt-ruff
5) I’ve always had trouble remembering faces and recognizing people, but man, I have nothing on Ryan O’Neal.