harvest of fire

Live near Seattle? Want to see a movie?

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Back in 2004, I wrote a screenplay designed to be made on an ultra-low budget. In 2005, my friend Dan Moore shot it. Now, in 2010, it’s ready for release.

On May 20th, at NW Film Forum, the indie film I wrote will have its world premiere. It’s called THE DEAD FEED, and here’s a 21-second preview:

The Dead Feed Teaser from Blaine Street Productions on Vimeo.

Facebook users, that’s an embedded video. You’ll have to click through to the blog to see it. Did I mention 21 seconds?

Will the movie be awesome? I hope so! I haven’t been involved in post-production at all, and haven’t even seen a rough cut in the last couple of years. I will be there with a camera in hand to record the responses of the audience members. After, I will post them, even if their faces are full of boredom or scorn! If folks love the movie, I will bask in the accomplishment. If they hate it, I will flush with shame.

Have I mentioned that making this movie is what drove me to write novels? Seriously. I’d long planned to go into movie-making and once I realized I was going to be a Seattle resident long-term, I teamed up with Dan to take control of our careers and make our own. (Never wait!)

But I was terrible at it. Making a movie is a real pain in the ass and I discovered I didn’t have the skill set or the temperament for it. Immediately after production wrapped, I started work on Child of Fire. Novels FTW!

But Dan never walked away. He’s been struggling with that film for 5 years, and in that time he lost his job and became homeless. All sorts of rough shit happened to him, but he stuck with it and now he’s sending it off to film festivals.

The evening of May 20th. (I’ll post more details when I confirm them.) Want to join me there?

Update: Jeez, I forgot to say what the movie is about! Quick description: a group of friends begin receiving a mysterious video feed showing one of them being murdered… before it happens. (dum dum DUMMM!)

And now I abandon my child to share some news with you

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My German foreign language agent has just sold worldwide German rights to Otherworld Verlag Krug Keg. They’re an ambitious small(ish) press out of Austria, and it’s incredibly exciting.

That makes Russian, French, and German sales. So far.

:D

Five things for a Friday

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1) Important indicator of an improving economy: The line at Starbucks is getting way long. I had to skip my refill this morning to get to day-job on time.

2) Remember that editorial note I mentioned before? The one that’s kicking my ass? I skipped breakfast today to get extra time to work on it, and I’m still losing. I’m doing something wrong, but what I don’t know.

3) Medical and dental insurance costs for my family and me for the year: $23,381.28. One year. Three people. Core plan. And that’s just the insurance–it doesn’t include what we’ll be paying for copays, deductibles and care that’s covered at less than a hundred percent. Outrageous? You bet it is. I hope Obamacare does something to bend the curve, but if it’s not enough, Congress should get back .

4) I’m collecting recipes for the Week of Pizza (aka, the week my wife is out of town). Cream cheese, sugar and fresh fruit? Check. Olive oil, capers, pepperoni, salad fixin’s? Check. Olives, pineapple and ham? Check. Bacon and eggs? Check. It’s going to be an odd week.

5) Currently, the Amazon.com sales ranking of Game of Cages is better than the ranking of Child of Fire by a factor of two. Yeah, I know the rankings “don’t mean anything” but I wonder if it’s time to switch my most prominent user icons from the CoF image to the new book:

Game of Cages

Usually, I would post this in a review roundup…

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… but I want to talk about it a little. The blog linked below doesn’t list the reviewer’s name (at least not where I could find it) but the Google Alert that directed me there said it was written by one “David Marshall.” Check this out:

There’s a fantastic market for spin-offs, sequels when one story arc has finished, and prequels. And those prequels can go back as far as you want into childhood. Hey, you could even write some for the YA market. Get them hooked on your heroes young and they’ll follow in lockstep into the adult serial. It’s a trail of breadcrumbs to riches. That means never starting at a beginning because, by our definition (on our contract terms to be negotiated) there’s no such thing as a beginning, just a point of origin tetralogy.” So poor unpublished Harry Connolly looks at the dollar signs written into the contract for his first novel, acts on what the publisher says, changes the title and sells his second novel.

“Poor unpublished Harry Connolly” pretty much describes me when I was doing the last polish on Child of Fire. I would have made “Poor” my first name and “Unpublished” my middle if I could have afforded the courthouse fees. But I couldn’t. I was poor.

Of course, now that I’m published, I’m as rich as a Wall St. con man, and I’m famous on the internet. The review I linked to above is a pretty positive one, all things considered, so why comment on it? There are lots of reviews out there. What strikes me here are two distinct points the poster is making (roughly speaking):

1) That I published Child of Fire, which is not the beginning of Ray’s story, for a big wad of cash, with any existing prequels held back for even larger wads later on, and

2) That I structured Child of Fire as a thriller for commercial reasons but I could have written something more satisfying (which I read to mean “not a potboiler” and “more art/less formula”).

Formula!! ::clutches pearls and faints::

Let’s break it down! (Detailed blathering, including the bad-literary version of Child of Fire behind the cut) Continue reading

Child of Fire reviews, Part (lucky) 13

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Behind the cut, as always: Continue reading

I have this one bad habit…

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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.

See you at the bookstore

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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.

Bookstore appearance reminder

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This is just a reminder that I’ll be appearing at the Tukwila Barnes and Noble. 1:00 on Saturday, April 10th with authors Mark Henry (Battle of the Network Zombies), Gayle Ann Williams (Tsunami Blue), and Jessa Slade (Seducing the Shadows). We’ll be hanging out, chatting, and generally being an extrovert. If you’re in the area, drop by and say hello.

Bookstore appearance

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I’ll be appearing at the Tukwila Barnes and Noble. 1:00 on Saturday, April 10th with Mark Henry (Battle of the Network Zombies), Gayle Ann Williams (Tsunami Blue), and Jessa Slade (Seducing the Shadows). There isn’t going to be a reading, but I’ll be signing books and we’ll be giving a talk.

I think. I’m not sure exactly how it will all shape up, but I know I’ll be out talking to readers. If you’re in the area, drop by and say hello.

5 Things Make A Friday Post

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1) I finished up chapter one of Key/Egg/Remark this morning. Actually, I was slightly late to day job because of it. But doesn’t it feel good to start a new project? Hell yes. I’ve been writing Ray Lilly stories for years (and I hope to write more of them–buy my book) but it’s such a relief to go into another voice, another setting, another tone.

2) And yeah, as the previous point demonstrates, I have a working title for the next project. The plan is for it to be lighter in tone, much less violent, much more conversational, and slightly closer to the urban fantasy mainstream (although tweaked in the ways I like to tweak things–most of the characters, and especially the villains, will be human beings). I hope the working title does what it’s supposed to do, which is keep the tone light and the story clever; it’s too easy for me to go dark.

3) A few weeks ago, someone pointed out that Kindle owners were putting one-star reviews on books that didn’t have a Kindle edition, or that were priced above ten bucks. The reviewers even said, in the review, that they hadn’t read the book and weren’t going to until the price and format were to their liking. I clicked the “report this” button and within a few days the review was gone.

Well, Amazon.com has stopped taking those reviews down. I guess it’s because they think those angry Kindlegarteners are doing something useful for them. They could, if they wanted to, limit reviews to people who have bought the book from them. They could, if they wanted to, post a request in the forums asking people to stop, and to use the link under “Tell the Publisher!” But they won’t.

Because they’re dicks.

4) Back to items one and two: Key/Egg/Remark is totally on spec right now. I haven’t even run the idea by my agent yet. In truth, I suspect it has some… let’s call them “non commericial elements”

Am I a fucking moron? You bet! But it’s what I want to do. And rather than talk about the idea with my agent, I’d like to try to win her over with the story.

God, I’m an idiot. I should just write a steampunk YA about a teenage inventor and track star who teams up with his roboticized girlfriend to steal a military dirigible and raids an arctic lab to recover her human body. And the villain would have an implanted monocle-like eye piece and a hyper-intelligent talking cat who switches sides at the last minute.

5) I forgot to mail my taxes today. Duh. I’ll do it tomorrow.