I was planning to post about the 2008 bestseller list

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But hey, something else came up. What was it, you ask?

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Why, it’s the advanced reader’s editions of my book!

Holy crap! I am holding my first book in my hand and I am walking on air. When I took them out of the envelope, I was stunned to see that they had covers on them. I don’t know why I assumed they’d have plain covers like those stacks of books I saw that time at The Strand, but I just stared and stared at it.

And I thought Christ! It’s huge!

I seriously thought it was the biggest mass market paperback I’d ever seen, and I had to compare it to the books on my shelf to convince myself it was the normal size.

Oh, hey! Wanna see the whole cover?

Child of Fire All Cover

It’s a little hard to read that text, but if you want to read the back cover text, check out this larger version of the file. It’s three copies of the book photocopied together, but I’m not tearing one apart for my blog. At that link you can see the blurbs from Jim Butcher, Terry Rossio and Sherwood Smith, and the back cover copy, too.

And now I’m going to bed. I have a scene to revise tomorrow, and suddenly it doesn’t feel daunting at all.

:-)

More lol-ing at trainwrecks.

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I’m going to keep this one short so you can get right to the WTF?/gape-mouthed expressions of astonishment/guffaws.

Literary agent Janet Reid: What not to say when you’re pitching an agent. Number three is the one that really dinged my bell.

Yay!

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I’m going to San Diego Comic-Con as a professional. (!) That means I can go to all four days, if I want.

You know, I’ve never been to a convention before. From what I understand, this one is at the far end of the bell curve.

Have I mentioned how much I dislike jumping into the deep end? Not that I’m nervous, or anything.

Quick links and notes

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First: I’ve mentioned before that I cut my writing teeth on Wordplay, a screenwriter’s site, and I maintain a friendship with many of the people I met there. Well, another Wordplay alumnus, Keith Calder, has a movie coming out this weekend: Battle For Terra. His previous film was The Whackness, and if that doesn’t say “this producer has a wide range of skills and interests” what would? It opens this Friday, and I’m planning to take the whole family.

Next: this is what the term “office hijinks” was created for.

Next: I passed the halfway point of the revision of Everyone Loves Blue Dog, and I’m about to start a scene that will need heavy changes (for the better, I suspect). As soon as I finish this post and a little more kitchen work, I’ll be back at it.

Next: Tonight we have a taste test of the three pizza crust recipes posted in my LJ last week. The family decides tonight!

Next: Andrew Wheeler posts the genre bestsellers of 2008. Hmm. If each hardback sale earns about two bucks for the author…

Next: The deadline to opt out of the Google/Author’s Guild settlement is May 5th. Find out more about it.

Next: I’m on Dreamwidth as burger_eater. Currently, I have no idea what I’m going to use the account for, but once a WordPress cross-poster comes into the world, I may start copying everything over there, too.

Finally, on Saturday we took a couple buses across town to check out the final weekend of Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur. It was beautiful, and I loved the idea of paintings where the same characters appear several times in different places, each different image coming together to tell a story. Amazing stuff.

You’re the expert

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Typing this quickly, because it’s sunny and I want to go for a walk on my break.

This morning’s work session was terrible. I read a particular sequence in Everyone Loves Blue Dog over and over, trying to find ways to trim or improve it.

But you know what? I think it works pretty damn well just as it is. I’ve decided to take the stance that I am the expert on my own story. It works, and I’m not going to break it.

Hell, I even have the T-shirt, which isn’t available any more (but other items are). I think I’ll take that T-shirt out of my bottom drawer for my trip to San Diego Comic-Con.

Have I ever mentioned that I started off in screenplays? Most of my learning-to-make-story training happened on screenplay forums (ask me why if you’re curious) and I spent years on it. That’s why my IPSTPW Day offering was a horror script. I learned a helluva lot on the Wordplay site, back in the day.

Tomorrow, I’ll be up extra early and start on the next section of book. I’m already giving Important Supporting Character additional juice in her scenes, and I have a couple of other changes in mind.

Now, I’m off to the sunshine!

Exciting!

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Some friends of mine are planning to make a low-budget sf film. I have the script at home waiting to be read, and I know–know–it’s going to rock. No cheapo aliens, Ed Wood monsters, or SiFi Originals-level acting for these guys. They’re smart and clever.

The title is NEWTON’S CRADLE, and I can’t wait to read it.

So! For my own contribution to the glittering screen, I offer a failure-proof of my idea for use in any Hollywood mega-production. For free!

Because you know it’s good if it doesn’t cost you anything.

The movie will be called JIG, and it’ll be about a woman who collects rare jigsaw puzzles–you know, for the art–who discovers a WWII era German jigsaw artist who hid clues in his many puzzles that will lead a clever puzzler to the location of Secret Nazi Gold. It’ll be just like a Dan Brown novel, but with pretty pictures of leaping dolphins and homey villages populated with anthropomoriphized kittens.

Our Heroine teams up with the smoking hot great grandson of the jigsaw artist–a detective with a love of Nazi puzzles–in a race against [mumble mumble] to find the secret treasure. But was the jigsaw puzzle artist really a secret Nazi and a killer? And is his great grandson one too????

See? It writes itself. And after people left the theater, they could tell all their friends they “Saw Jig.” Heh heh. Get it?

Call me, Hollywood!

International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Wretch Day

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This year, I’m posting a screenplay.

Five years ago, a friend and I decided to make our own ultra-low budget horror movie. Our plan was that we’d make a solid story and people would overlook whatever shortcomings our budget brought us.

It’s called The Dead Feed (pdf file – html file — the pdf is easier to read, but I know some people hate that format) and it’s not a standard hungry zombie movie.

And! As I give away my writing for free, I also link to a roundtable of sf/f book reviewers on the recent changes to newspaper book reviews and book review sections. Check it out.

Quoting agent Amanda Urban

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“When [Toni Morrison] finishes it, you know, a very polished first draft, which means it’s probably her seventh or eight or tenth draft, she gives it to Bob Gottlieb, her longtime editor and me, and we read it, and amazingly she is always open to comment. The best writers are. They want reactions and if somebody has something smart to say about the book, they’ll go back and rework it. It’s very interesting. She’s great to work with – she’s very easy to work with and she’s so brilliant and she’s so much fun.”

Bicycle Parkour

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It’s fantastic. via mighty_god_king.

Bleh

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Not feeling all that well today. This morning’s work on my (final?) revision of Everyone Loves Blue Dog was cut short by a need to return home early. It didn’t help that the homeless lady sitting right next to me was clipping her nails, swabbing beneath her bandages and wiping her toes clean. Uck. Starbucks, please don’t be gross.

Today’s work involved the first really major sequence in the book. It’s supposed to be a transition from one section to another–changing the setting, the relationship between the leads, and expanding the stakes. Unfortunately, the last round of notes pointed out a problem there.

Now, as a reader, I have certain kinds of text that I skim. Those long travelogues in Fellowship of the Ring with detailed descriptions of the landscape? Skim. Car chases? Skim. Super-tense slow-moving characters checking out that strange noise in the basement? Skim. Some fight scenes, too.

I skim right over them until I get to something that might actually change the story.

That can cause problems. I skipped over the dream sequence in Red Harvest because I didn’t realize that some of it wasn’t a dream, and later had to backtrack to review it. Still, it’s how I read and how I think a lot of people read.

And the latest round of notes indicated that this whole sequence was skimmable.

“Be interesting,” is the number one law when I’m writing, and I’m not seeing the skimmable parts here. I’ve trimmed some minor sentences and reordered paragraphs to string like information together (which also slows the pacing, but that’s okay right now) but I’m concerned that I’m just too close to the text.

Hell. I’ll power up the laptop and sit by the big window. It’s a beautiful sunny day today, and even if I’m not feeling well, I can listen to the birds and look at the blue sky while I fret.