harvest of fire

You know what I need?

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Organization.

I don’t know how many times I’ve been writing a book and I had to stop myself with a Wait a minute. What car is [protagonist] driving?

Because he has his own, but sometimes he’s forced to leave it somewhere and “borrow” someone else’s. Has he gone back for his little Ford or is he still driving that stolen Land Rover?

And what about cell phones? I know he ditched his early in the book, but he stole one, didn’t he? And his boss gave him a new one. Has someone else taken it from him since then?

I don’t even want to start on guns.

I need a simple way to keep track of the things Ray carries in his pockets. I could leave a separate file open on my desktop with a running tally of the things he’s picked up and discarded, but I know myself: I’d forget. What I need is bookmarks or footnotes or something.

Also, I’m planning to write an essay for John Scalzi’s “Big Idea” series, centering on Al Held’s painting “The Big N”. Lots to do and so little time.

I return

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My plane got in last night, and far from the cool summer of the Pac NW I was expecting, we had temps in the 90s. Today we’re supposed to be in the triple digits, which is rare stuff for this part of the world. Sitting around the table with my family last night at 10 pm, sweat was running down my face.

Luckily I’m currently at work, where we have “air conditioning.”

And! To commemorate my return, I give you a pair of links: Maker Time and Manager Time and the Freakonomics blog entry on the article. Personally, I think you can train yourself to enter maker time in short bursts. It’s not easy and it’s not optimal, but it works (and has worked for me).

I’ll never catch up with my whole friend’s list, but I’m reviewing it. If there’s something you think I should know about, let me know.

Finally, my weirdest moment at Comic-Con: I was signing books at the Del Rey booth, and a father brought his son to the table for a signed copy of my book. I’m terrible at guessing ages, but I’d say he was 8-10 years old–imo, way to young for the book I wrote.

His father had a copy of his own, though. Would he read it himself first? It’s not really my place to make that decision for them. I just signed the book and handed it over. Still, it felt wee erd.

I leave San Diego today

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Today I will be taking the train out of San Diego back to Studio City. Yesterday’s signing went well–I even got to sign the poster!–and lunch with my editor and publicist went very nicely.

Yesterday was also the day my credit card forced its way out of my wallet and I spent some money down on the exhibitor floor. Nothing crazy–I certainly didn’t buy the 100 dollar lightsaber that changed color–but I did pick up some nice books at the Mysterious Galaxy booth and some magazines for my son. I also picked up the Call of Cthulhu movie (Yay!)

Famous people sighted yesterday (in chronological order): Joshua Jackson from FRINGE, Woody Harrelson from the upcoming ZOMBIELAND, Amanda Tapping from SANCTUARY and various STARGATE series, and Grant Imahara, one of the MYTHBUSTERS.

More importantly, I got a call from my wife yesterday–she’s back from her camping trip in the Olympic Peninsula, and called me here at the hotel. It’s been almost a week since I talked to her, and… yeah. I miss them both. I’ll be back in Seattle soon enough.

Just finished my panel and signing

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I did not puke, wet my pants with fear or soak through my shirt with flop sweat.

Actually, it went pretty well, considering. I didn’t manage to take my editor’s advice on the panel (which was “Be amusing, dammit”) but I didn’t stammer too much and I, you know, said things. Juliet Blackwell is a hero of the revolution for talking to me as though I was doing something completely normal–that really eased my nervousness. Everyone should go buy her new book.

Afterwards, I had a chance to chat briefly with Betsy Mitchell, my editor, as we walked to the signing. On the way, my buddy Jim came up behind us as said “Mr. Connolly! Mr. Connolly! Would you sign my girlfriend’s breasts?” Betsy laughed, thank Pikachu.

The signing went well, too. (It’s easy to get people to take free books, is all I’m sayin’.)

And the other authors were super-nice. I’m afraid I was a little nervous about the whole thing and didn’t talk all that well, but I survived.

Now I wander around the con until 1:30 when I go the the Lego panel I promised my son I’d attend.

Still not reading blogs and such.

Items of (dubious) interest

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From a former book publicist: What should air on C-SPAN’s “Book TV” this weekend. Well, I thought it was funny.

Twenty Best Cthulhu Tales–I’ve only read a fraction of the stories on this list, but I’m copying it here so I can reference it later. Mythos! I love it.

Man writes book that will take a thousand years to read. Embarrassingly, after 750 years, readers will discover that he used “it’s” when he should have written “its.”

This next one is off the (accidental) book theme of this post, but I do hope you’ll all read it: Urban Farmer finds success. So cool.

As for items of a non-linking variety: Tomorrow I get one of my birthday gifts–reading time. Just like Father’s Day, I’m going to spend a significant amount of time sacked out in bed with a book. I still have Spirit Gate by Kate Elliott on deck, and I hope to make a sizable dent in it.

Also, I’m told that Child of Fire will have the opening chapter of book 2 at the very back. Now, this is cool news, but I should come right out and say that I never read preview excerpts in books.  Invariably, I buy the excerpted book, put it on my shelf for a couple months (or years) and when I finally start it, I get a disturbing reader’s deja vu.  “Have I read this already?”  Since I’m terrible with titles, I can never be sure. 

Eventually, I just swore off the practice. 

And book 2, Everyone Loves Blue Dog, will soon have a new title.  There’s a current front runner, but I don’t want to talk about it until things are settled.  The happiest part for me is that I like this title and it doesn’t turn up in a Google search. 

With that, I’ll sign off to enjoy the holiday.

No writing today

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Shit. I went to the Starbucks across the street from day job, sat down with my laptop and coffee, and promptly spilled the whole thing over the table. Spirit Gate by Kate Elliott is soaked through and my computer kept flashing to a white screen.

I say again: Shit.

Now I’m sitting at my desk at the day job, with computer and book resting on the air conditioning vent beside me, drying out. ::fingers crossed:: Instead, I guess I’ll work on some of the publicity stuff I’m supposed to whip up by the end of the month, and thinkerate on the characters and plot.

In which I ask for a favor

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I’m uncomfortable asking for favors, and when I’m uncomfortable, I preamble.

I don’t have an RSS feed. Every blog I follow is on my LiveJournal friends list. A couple years back, I had an author on there with a strong, interesting voice and outspoken opinions. We probably wouldn’t have gotten along in real life, but I enjoyed her LJ.

Then she made a post that (paraphrasing) suggested she expected people who were reading her LiveJournal (“for free”) should also buy her novels. I dropped her from my list immediately. See, I’d already read one or two of her books, and I didn’t care for them, but I was very interested in the way she talked about current events.

Anyway, I would never ask anyone reading this to buy my book. If it seems like the kind of thing you’d be interested in and you have the eight bucks, then cool. *I* certainly think it’s worth it, in my completely and thoroughly unbiased opinion, but what else would you expect me to say?

However, I would like to ask a favor (he said, 170-some words later): Today, June 29th, is exactly three months before the publish date of the Child of Fire. I just went over to my public library web site, clicked on the “Purchase Suggestion” link at the bottom of the page and asked them to order the book.

Would you please do the same at your local library?

Many of them have a way for you to do it online, and if you need to find the ISBN or other information, you can get it off Amazon.com at this link.

Every library in the country is scaling back their acquisition budgets, I know, but money is tight for readers, too. I’d love for my book to be available to them. And, of course, I’m a big fan of libraries in general.

Anyway, if you can take a few minutes to put in this request, I’d be grateful. Thanks.

OMG, I have a schedule.

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So… this is weird.

Many times over the years I’ve seen authors publish their convention schedules. Well, here’s mine for the San Diego Comic-Con:

I’ll be on a panel on Thursday morning, 7/23, ten am, in Room 10. The title of the panel is “Escapist Fantasy” and I have a list of other authors who’ll be there, but I’m not sure if it’s 100% up to date.

Panelists: Juliet Blackwell (SECOND HAND SPIRITS); Marjorie Liu (DARKNESS CALLS); Jackie Kessler & Caitlin Kittredge (BLACK & WHITE); Diana Rowland (MARK OF THE DEMON); Sina Grace (CEDRIC HOLLOWS IN DIAL M for MAGIC); and Harry Connolly (CHILD OF FIRE).

Moderator: Maryelizabeth Hart, Mysterious Galaxy

That’s not all! I’ll also be signing ARCs of Child of Fire at the Del Rey/Spectra booth on Saturday, 7/25 from 11am to 11:30.

I promise nothing but nervous stammers and flop sweat! But if you want your book truly personalized, after I sign it, I’ll be happy to bite it hard enough to leave my one-of-a-kind tooth marks on the cover. How can you miss a chance like that?

Five things make a Friday post

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1) Child of Fire is now at 340K in sales rank at Amazon.com! What is that, one sale a month? Not too shab for a book that won’t come out for more than three months.

2) I’m already checking Amazon.com sales rank numbers! I’m doomed!

3) The Best Discount Gun Shop for Kids in Seattle–which is too bad, because that is a rocking park. Mango Eater and I had a blast there one day, just walking the paths.

4) A bookseller meets with a Random House sales rep to discuss orders from the fall catalog. Strangely, my book wasn’t mentioned. I know! Crazy! (seen via pubrants)

5) To wrap up the most narcissistic five things post ever, I’m now on Facebook. No, I won’t play Mafia Wars. No, I won’t take a quiz to find out how girly I am. I didn’t want to join, but my sis-in-law puts pics of my nephews there, and the only way to see them is to fork over my identifying information. Grrrrr, Facebook. Hate.

7 Things Make a Friday Post

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1) Dance craze outlawed because it caused “broken penises.”

2) John Scalzi rants lightly about fan “ownership” of public figures.

3) Russia accuses Poland of starting WW2. How dare Poland stand up for itself! They deserved to be attacked for not acquiescing immediately! Note the last paragraph in the article about pending legislation which would make it a crime to state that the Soviet Union occupied Poland or any other Baltic state, punishable by five years in prison.

Russia=still fucked up.

4) I’ve been invited to be on a panel at Comic-Con! More details when everything gets firmed up. In the meantime, let me share the advice my editor gave me: “Be amusing, dammit.”

:-)

5) “But watching conservatives mock liberals for being PC, is like watching the morbidly obese mock Weight Watchers for its system of points.” — Ta-Nehisi Coates (I suggest reading the whole thing, including the author’s replies to comments in the thread below).

6) Oh, God. As much as I’d love to see it revived, I’m not sure I can get behind this project. I mentioned last year that the gift I bought myself when I cashed my first check from Random House were the books I needed to complete my set of Chill, first ed. But they’ve been talking about this third edition for years, and I’m not ready to blithely accept that it’s the economy that delays the game. And $25K??? I dunno. I suspect I’ll pledge my forty-five bucks, but I don’t have a lot of hope.

7) And now, to bury the lede, Child of Fire has been accepted into the Amazon Vine program. Essentially, Del Rey will send 50-75 ARCs of the novel to Amazon.com, who will distribute them to reviewers with a lot of reviews and high rankings. They get to read the book early and their reviews will appear on the Amazon.com site two weeks or so before the publication date.

Normally, reviews can’t be posted until the book drops, so that’s a good thing. Also, Amazon.com rarely takes mmpb for this program because the profits are small per unit, but a sharp gentleman in the marketing department pitched it to them and they signed on!

So, that’s really good news. :D