harvest of fire

I’m supposed to be working

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So of course I’m typing this instead. Here’s my life in convenient bullet-list form, which is how I experience it myself.

* I uploaded a larger jpg of the Game of Cages cover, so anyone who missed it the first time or thought it was too dark or small can really see it now. It’s practically actual size.

* I just put the signed contracts for Russian language editions of CoF and GoC in the mail. Yay! Last night I took a deep breath and sat down to read through them, only to discover they were a civilized two pages long, with one column in Russian and one in English. Easy-peazy.

* As evidence that I am still not caught up on my sleep, I just used the phrase “easy-peazy” for the first time in my life. No, I have not been transformed into an adorable urchin in a 1950’s sitcom. I’m just feeling odd and out of sorts.

* Yesterday I got back on the “read faster” bandwagon with my current library book. As I mentioned before, I read more slowly than any novelist I’ve ever heard of, and at this point it’s a real hindrance on my productivity. The polish of Man Bites World I’ve been working would have been finished long ago if I were someone else; as it is, I’m on page 115 of 381. After I finish this post and one or two other online duties, I’ll post how far I’ve gotten at the end of my work day. Shame is a great motivator.

* If anyone is curious about the book I’m reading, it’s Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, And Why by Laurence Gonzales. It’s a bit of a narrative wander, but the subject is fascinating. So far, I recommend it highly, especially if you’re interested in why people seem to do exactly the wrong thing in stressful situations.

* Someone on Justine Larbaletier’s blog recommended Mac Freedom, a free software download that turns off a Mac’s wireless for any length of time the user wants. My eyes bugged out of my head, because this was the thing I’d always wanted without knowing it. I headed to download.com to read their review of it first, and was startled to see the review say it was a silly program because a Mac’s wireless capability was trivially easy to turn off already.

It took me a moment to realize they meant clicking the little fan in the upper toolbar. Yeah, it’s trivially easy to turn off, but it’s also easy to turn back on when I’m stuck or frustrated. Do they expect me to have some sort of self-control? I’m not made of stone, people!

Okay. More coffee, then on to page 116.

GoC Cover Art!

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One of my LiveJournal commenters (thanks, geniusofevil!) mentioned that the cover art for Game of Cages is on the Amazon.com site, which I’m taking as explicit permission to post the art here:

Whoo-hoo!

Game of Cages

Mysterious house? Check. Red lightning? Check. Windbreaker and t-shirt in the dead of winter? Check. A facial expression that suggests someone needs some killin’? Check-check!

And, because this image is a little small, the text under my name says: “Author of Child of Fire, a Publishers Weekly best book of the year”

Thank you, generous PW peoples!

Side notes: the polish of Man Bites World continues–actually, it’s picking up pace as certain distracting domestic sleep issues have been resolving. Also, I received the contract for the Russian sale yesterday. I’ll read through them tonight and mail them back tomorrow. Then, more money!

I’ll call this a good day (so far).

UPDATE: I uploaded a larger image so it’s easier to see.

Woo-hoo! Child of Fire Makes Another “Best of 2009” List!

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This time the list is at PopSyndicate.com. Here’s the link.

The author added an “e” to my last name, but hell, everyone does that; at least she’s done it in an unusual way. Here’s a quote:

“This one has some delicious creep factor to it, and Lilly is a protagonist that you find fascinating.”

Did you hear that, universe? You find him fascinating!

Hee. I’ll write a grownup post sometime soon. :)

Reviews for Child of Fire, part 9

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This time I have some interesting ones, but they’re still… Behind the cut! Continue reading

New morning, new year

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This past year saw a lot of changes for me. Child of Fire (Amazon.com | Indiebound.org) came out, obviously, which is a goal I’ve been working toward for a long, long time.

But I also went through a round of major revisions on Game of Cages (Amazon.com | Indiebound.org) which was extremely challenging and made me question myself and my actual writing/career plans. I went to San Diego Comic Con and endured the press of a hundred thousand people. I did face-to-face interviews. I did a signing.

Basically, I came out of my shell (a little). I can’t say I liked it much, but I’m willing to do what I have to. Let’s call it a year of personal growth opportunities (translation: I was pushed into a lot of uncomfortable situations).

One thing I didn’t do, which I’d planned to do, was steal time from my schedule for exercise. I’m not any bigger than I was at the start of the year, but I’m holding steady at a point I don’t want to be in. More on that later.

One thing I learned that I didn’t expect was that I don’t read fast enough to be a writer. It’s not just that I take forever to do my research, I take forever to do my revisions, too. I only read 15 books a year.

It’s untenable and has to change. I’ve already started working on this, but I’ll have to put more effort into it this year.

And, since so many others are doing it: Ten years ago, I was working for Children’s Hospital in Seattle (temping, actually), while they stocked up on medical supplies in anticipation of Y2K. In the years since, I tried to move to Los Angeles to pursue screenwriting, ditched that idea. I tried my hand at low-budget filmmaking but found I wasn’t suited for it. I started writing novels and found success. My family came damn close to bankruptcy because of health care issues, but we came through it, stronger than ever.

And of course my son was born. I don’t talk about him too much here for his privacy’s sake, but he changed my whole life; I remember the time before he was born as though it had been lived by a different person.

New morning, new year. I’m going to start working on book 3 now.

Child of Fire Reviews, Part 8

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Even more reviews! Behind the cut, ‘natch. Continue reading

I’ve been avoiding substantive posts lately

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Mainly because of I’ve been damn busy. Also because I’m slow to comment; often, by the time I have my thoughts together well enough to weigh in on a topic, someone else has done it better. It’s the curse of the slow writer.

Also because I’m still feeling disjointed and spacey.

Anyway, tomorrow is Christmas Eve. There’s a Borders down the street from my day job and they finally had the December issue of Locus in stock, one of which is lying next to me. I might have mentioned this before, the Child of Fire was reviewed in there for a second time (it’s complimentary, and I’ll note it in a reviews post) and I wanted a copy. Plus, Christmas.

As a bit of additional good news, they ordered another seven copies of my book for the shelves. I didn’t offer to sign them because, you know, Christmas, but I’ll swing by next week.

But this isn’t going to be yet another post about CoF. In fact, I’m not sure what it’s going to be a post about. I watched WATCHMEN yesterday, finally, and thought it was pretty dreadful, all told. The parts that were fun didn’t fit together, and the parts that were lame were all of a piece. I’m revising Man Bites World, along with inching toward a real title, and playing around with the goof on New Project.

And jeez, how sweet it is to play with a new project. Just the act of sitting down and typing the ideas I’ve been noodling over prompts a surge of new concepts and character ideas. It really is amazing how easily a story will acrete if I sit at a computer and type out any old idea that comes to me.

The only concern is that the ideas aren’t always what you’d call “stellar.” I have to be careful not to become too attached to a decent idea when I ought to push for a much better one.

Actually, that’s not the only concern: a bigger concern is that the shiny fun of brainstorming a new idea will take away from desperately-needed polishing of MBW. I’d much rather be hashing out a new setting than squinting at my lap top screen, muttering “Who put all these fucked-up sentences in here?”

But there you go. I’ll be taking Christmas day off from writing, spending it with my wife and son. It’ll be a quiet day, with lots of time for reading and cooking, and if I’m lucky we’ll light a fire.

More later, I guess.

You know what’s weird?

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Skimming through a long post about last July’s Comic-Con–with pictures–looking at all the film and TV stars, then suddenly seeing a picture of myself.

And it’s a picture I don’t hate, which makes it even weirder.

Three things:

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First: Child of Fire is on the bestseller list for Mysterious Galaxy. Yay! Dear Internet, please bring me more news like that.

Second: My wife had a sleep study appointment tonight. We hired a babysitter, went out to dinner, I dropped her off at the room, then headed out to the bus stop to put my son to bed. Ten minutes before I arrived, at 9:15, my wife called to say the technician had called in sick and the study was cancelled. She had to take two buses home and this is not the first fuck up in scheduling this study.

Third: I forget the third thing. I’m tired. Good night. Oh wait! No I don’t! For dinner, we went to a German pub/restaurant and had spaetzle, fried pickles, a big fresh pretzel with sinus-clearing sweet hot mustard, pork with mushroom sauce, and other delicious things. I had two German beers (Kostritzer, which is a black lager and Radeberger Pils)–typically, I’m not a fan of lagers, pilsners and such, but these were really, really good.

Now I’m tired. Good night.

De-stressing

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After a touch day, you know what makes things better? Riding a carousel with my wife and son, visiting the Pacific Place mall shopping center to watch their indoor “snow” fall–really just a bunch of bubbles, but it looked great and the boy loved it, checking out this year’s gingerbread house displays at the Sheraton (very nice!) and dinner at the boy’s new favorite restaurant. Pictures will be forthcoming.

I also discovered that Barnes & Noble has sold six of the nine copies of Child of Fire they stocked. That’s nice, too.

That said, there’s one more note to be dealt with in my book. I’ll reproduce it here in full:

[these empty lines suggest I meant to expand this scene, but after a month and a half I can’t remember what it was supposed to be. Note to self: make notes to self.]

It’s been longer than a month and a half now, but for the life of me I can’t remember what I was supposed to put there. Must have been important, huh? I’ll just delete the note and call it done. Tonight I’ll prep it and send it to my agent; I’ll polish while she reads, and thank Pikachu that this think is nearly done.