I just got a great blurb from Jim Butcher for Child of Fire. Check it out:
“[CHILD OF FIRE] is excellent reading and has a lot of things I love in a book: a truly dark and sinister world, delicious tension and suspense, violence so gritty you’ll get something in your eye just reading it, and a gorgeously flawed protagonist. Take this one to the checkout counter. Seriously.”
Holy crap! Happy!
We had a slushing of snow last night (which is like a dusting, but sloppier) which we weren’t expecting and only discovered when we received an automated call telling us school would be starting 2 hours late.
Now I’m behind on everything I need to do today. For instance:
I have to finish up the chili I put in the crockpot last night and jam it into our refridgerator somehow.
I have to vacuum. A good half hour was spent fixing the damn thing yesterday, and that’s after more than a week of struggling with it. Our carpet is really, really in need of a vacuuming right now, and that’s what I’m going to do next.
Recycling needs to be done.
And so on.
But before I get to the vacuuming and writing my words for today, I have to post this for geniusofevil:
When I came back to writing as an adult, and decided to pursue it seriously, I was trying to write for the movies. I wrote thrillers and zombie space comedies and alien invader scripts and so on. Twice I tried to make the move to L.A. but punked out both times. Once back in Seattle, I got together with a friend to make our own low budget horror films, but that didn’t work out well for me.
And I realized I had changed in the last few years. I now preferred books to movies and so I went back to writing fiction.
So! When I received a note from my editor that I should hold off on writing book three because she had a concern about the proposal, I felt a little sick. I couldn’t help thinking of that scene in SUNSET BOULEVARD where the producer wants to change the writer’s submarine thriller in a comedy about women’s baseball. And I was remembering going through the script I wrote for our horror film with my director, and all the changes he wanted me to make.
But I was startled by the notes I actually received. It wasn’t “Make sure [supporting character x] appears by page fifty and stays through to the end. We like that character.” Nor was it “This setting won’t work for us. What else do you have?”
It was all suggestions about making the book work. Very polite suggestions, too, (which makes me want to take them all the more). “This sounds interesting and should make a good contrast with the previous books.’ “Will this character be appearing?” “Be sure to tell us if [minor character y] survived book two.” “I’d like to see more exploration of the group they belong to.”
And so on. All good ideas, even if I’m not sure I have room in the book to implement them, and all designed to make it a deeper book than I would have written otherwise. Not once did she suggest that I add a sexy, sexy love interest or a zany chimp, and Pikachu help me, I don’t know why I expected it.
Okay. I’m off to work.
And it has to be quick because I’m sick and sleep-deprived. I slept 9 hours last night and I’m already fading.
I felt like the crap yesterday, but we still went out. I had to cut less from Man Bites World than I expected, and instead spent most of my time filling in paragraphs that had been too sketchy. I must remember to write when I’m writing.
After that, we all went out to the REI flagship store for various things. I could not buy a Wenger backpack (they had none, which surprised me) but I did get a nice one out of the clearance bin for under $20 bucks. We also picked up new shoes for the boy, he did an ascent on the climbing… thingee (and did I remember the camera? I did not. Shame shame). And we went out to dinner.
Now, I was feeling extremely run down, but we ate a Racha Noodles on Queen Anne, which is nice without being too too nice. I had the Duck Curry, which was spicy and fantastic. I left there feeling better than I’d felt all day.
Then the sleeping, which I already mentioned. Today I did the cleaning we didn’t get to yesterday, and I fixed the vacuum cleaner. With fire.
That’s right. There aren’t many problems in the modern world that you can fix with an open flame, and even fewer you can write about in your blog without terrible consequences, but long hairs jamming up the roller brush is one of them.
Now: two links. The first is for Affinity8: The the impotence of proofreading, which is pretty funny.
The second is about a guy who used Google AdWords to test market his book’s title to good effect. (Quick disclaimer: I haven’t watched the video on that site because it’s an hour long). Considering how much trouble I had picking a title for Child of Fire, and since Everyone Loves Blue Dog looks like it might have the same problems, I just might let the reading public decide for me.
OMG. To bed. I’ll try to be more interesting tomorrow.
I have a bit of a day planned for tomorrow. First thing in the morning I have to delete a bunch of the work I’ve done on Man Bites World, then try again. As I mentioned, I received my notes for this one, and they were not what I expected.
After that, I have to run some errands, eat lunch, and then the family and I will head out to REI’s flagship store. I’ll dig up a new backpack (hopefully a Wegner’s–thanks for the suggestions!) and the boy will get new shoes.
Then we’re all off to dinner to celebrate the one year anniversary of my publishing contract with Del Rey.
Holy crap. Has it really only been a year?
Questions at the bottom of this post.
Jay Lake posted a couple days ago about “psychotic persistence”, the quality a writer needs to perservere in the face of rejection after rejection. And it’s a good post, although I wouldn’t say I kept writing and submitting because I’m “persistent.” Frankly, I think persistence is the outward appearance; the deep reasons a writer gives up are something else.
In my case, it would be more accurate to say that I’m a secret egomaniac–I always believed I would be published. Right now, seven months before my novel comes out, I expect to be a best-seller and win all sorts of awards, and if it doesn’t happen with that first book the next one will do it, certainly. Or the one after that. Luckily, I have enough common sense to keep that to myself (oops).
So, speaking only for myself, persistence? That’s not what it was. It may have looked like persistence to my wife (poor, suffering woman), but the real fuel was the belief that I was good at this–or at least that I would be good at this with a leetle bit more practice, even in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Others, I’m sure, persist for other reasons.
One other thing I wanted to comment on is his obligatory jealousy comment. Usually, I enjoy Jay’s posts and comments very much, but I find his comments on this subject a little irksome. For instance.
Now, I imagine he has a personal history with writerly jealousy (actually, am I remembering that he wrote a post about it? I’m not sure) and maybe it’s a painful one, but I think it’s crap to tell people to stop feeling what they’re feeling. They’re human beings. Human beings have emotional reactions. Sometimes? They’re strong reactions, and sometimes they seem to come out of the blue.
Saying “blah blah rooted in irrationality” doesn’t do anything except make the speaker feel calm and sensible. “Thank you for being wise,” is… okay. I’m going to let that go without comment.
What writers need to do is control their behaviors, not their emotions. When I felt the sting of jealousy at a friend’s success, I used it as impetus to buckle down. I knew that guy was succeeding because he was doing something I wasn’t, and I tried like hell to figure out what that was.
I didn’t attack him (or her, depending on which time it happened). I didn’t tell him he’d obviously succeeded because he was buddies with someone or blew the right bigwig. That would be stupid. But I knew I wasn’t “divorced from reality.” Reality was slapping me and my secret egotism right in the face–my buddy was a pro. He knew what he was doing, and I, for all my long hours, lost sleep, and struggles, was not.
That shit hurts. Don’t purse your lips thoughtfully, stroke your chin and tell me you understand my baffling, irrational feelings.
/rant.
Can I append one note to that? I like Jay Lake’s blog. I liked Rocket Science very much and plan to read more (someday, if I can ever catch up on my reading, christ). I suspect I’d like him, too. It’s just this one thing, where he poo-poos basic human emotions that really bugs me.
And now: questions! I need to replace my laptop bag. I’m hoping to get a backpack that will hold my Macbook and have enough room for my lunch and gym clothes. Anyone have a big laptop backpack they can recommend?
Next: A co-worker here at my day job is involved in fandom, and she has suggested several times that I attend Norwescon in April. “It would be a good way to promote your book,” she tells me. Personally, I’m dubious about that. Even if the convention wasn’t five months before my publication date, I don’t know how many new readers I’d earn by attending a huge SF convention (especially since I’d only be able to go on Saturday).
Go to a convention: Y/N? I wouldn’t know a soul there except this co-worker, and I’m leary of attending a big party where everyone else knows everyone else. I’m also leary of becoming part of fandom, for reasons having to do with my unease with large groups (see also: SFWA).
“… Language itself is a form of virtual reality.”
First, I’m sure Nick Mamatas will mock this article as soon as he hears about it. I haven’t finished it yet (I’m at work) but so far it looks interesting.
This Letter to an MFA is a very interesting little treatise on creating a story. It’s short, too. Check it out.
Both links above are from here. You’re welcome.
And, because I know you’re all dying to know, I received my notes on the book three proposal today. They’re good, too, and not at all what I was expecting. I can’t respond to them here, though, so I have a lot to do tonight.
I was planning to write a post about the fast, and about what I learned about myself in that day and a half, but I suddenly don’t care and think it would be crazy boring.
Instead, check out CC Finlay’s new novel! His new novel comes out in April, but you can download the whole thing right here as a .pdf. It’s historical fantasy, set during the American Revolution.
You know you want to read it. Check it out.
Ugh. I was going to collect a couple of links to post together, but this one is so ugly that I’m going to let it stand on its own.
Anyway, I’m not sure how I missed this story about a ten-year-old Yemeni girl who filed for divorce from her abusive husband. One thing that stood out for me in this story, aside from the genuine awfullness of human animals, was that the girl wanted to cut her trip to Paris short so she could go back to school. At first, I thought it was sad that she was going to miss out on seeing more of the city, but then I read the last sentence in the article and I thought “Oh, fuck, I’d want to get away from those assholes, too.”
That ten-day fast I was on? It turned out to be a one and a half day fast. Excuse-making, rationalizations and other specious pseudo-arguments will be made later. Meanwhile… Look! People who are crazy about cats!