Audiobook for The Flood Circle available for pre-order, plus a very happy surprise

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On Tuesday, June 20th, the audiobook for The Flood Circle will be available. This is the Amazon/Audible link. Links to other vendors are already in the main post for this book.

If you want to pre-order it, you can do that now.

In other, unrelated news, the next issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction will have  a review of A Key, an Egg, an Unfortunate Remark, which I (self-)published more than eight years ago. Even more surprising is that it’s a positive review, from multi-award winning author Charles de Lint!

I have said a lot about this book over the years, but for once I’m going to let common sense take hold and shut the hell up. I’m extremely pleased to see this review and I refuse to bad mouth myself for a joke that no one will laugh at.

Please check out the review when the next issue drops, on June 27th, and the rest of the issue, too.

Living in the Future

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Sometimes I like to imagine that I could time-travel back to the 1950s and write a science fiction novel about my life here in twenty-first century America.

The more I think about it, the more certain I am that my book would be received as a dystopia. For ex:
• Punishing heat waves and flooding thanks to climate change.
• Massive disinformation campaigns orchestrated by the Russians, by one of our two major political parties, and by individual bad actors
• Pervasive social media that encourages and monetizes outrage and fury
• Several massive “islands” of discarded plastic swirling in oceans all over the world
• Billionaires riding rockets to the edge of the atmosphere as a vanity project while police toss the property of homeless people into Dumpsters
• Wildly addictive opioids

Even the changes that I think are positive social advances would have seemed like dystopia to them. When the Supreme Court decided Loving v Virginia in 1967, 98% 80% of the country was against interracial marriage. I’m not sure most ever imagined gay marriage, except as outlandish satire. The fact that we have Black Lives Matter protests–and that we still need them in 2021–would have been dystopic all in itself.

Me, I’m glad we’ve made those steps. It’s a slightly better world now that we have kids tv with same sex couples in them, for example. Readers in the 50’s though? Eh.

Sure, there’s stuff they’d be glad to see, like Wikipedia, or Shakshuka recipes on YouTube. Maybe artificial hearts. Maybe smart houses that let you switch off the lights with a voice command (never mind that the same smart house will record everything you do and say, Big Brother-style, for the corporations at the other end. Including your noisy sex).

Anyway, as I’ve mentioned before, we have moved recently, but only a few blocks from our old apartment. We’re higher on the hill now, and have fewer plants outside to muffle the noises of the neighborhood. New place is newer, with burners and light switches and bathroom vents and door latches that actually work, but I still would have preferred to stay in our old place.

It’s helpful that cafes and libraries are re-opening, because it means I have been getting out of the apartment and really getting work done. Progress on The Flood Circle has kicked into high gear, and let me tell you, that feels really fucking good, even if I have to wear a mask the entire time.

It’s nice to have that, at least.

Take care of yourselves.

So, we moved recently

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So, we moved recently.

It always sucks to move but this was particularly terrible, because it happened during that massive PNW heatwave from four weeks ago. Here’s a short version of the story.

At the beginning of June, we chose Monday, 6/28 as our move date so we could be into our new place (and out of our old) by July 1. Our old landlord was nice enough to hire a moving company to help us out.

The Thursday before, we started hearing about the heatwave that was coming. We were supposed to be getting temps in the upper 90s on Sunday, then hit a high of 108F on Monday. I contacted the landlord to suggest we reschedule to a day where the movers were less likely to fall over dead as they carried our sofa up the back stairs, but he said they still wanted to do it on that day.

Boss wouldn’t give up an earning day, I guess.

By Saturday, I got an email saying the movers would start an hour early and knock off before temperatures got too hot, like noon or one. I don’t remember how things work in other cities, but in Seattle, the hottest times of the day come in late afternoon, around 5ish. That still seemed ridiculous, but whatever.

That weekend was a nightmare of packing up the last of our things in 98F temperatures, guzzling water, sweltering. We’d do one thing, sit down, then get up and do one more thing, then sit down again. Also, the heat was getting on top of me, making me woozy and a little nauseated.

Then moving day came, and mere moments before the movers were supposed to arrive, they cancelled.

I immediately got online to find us an air-conditioned hotel room for the night, but everything was all booked up. We sat in our apartment and sweltered.

One piece of advice they give you during a heatwave is that you’re supposed to leave your windows open all night, letting the cool air in. Once the run rises, you close everything up and pull the blinds to trap the cool air in place and keep the heat out.

Except our Seattle apartment had little cross ventilation. The windows were tiny and the air flow was minimal. What cooling we did get–which was not a lot because night time temps didn’t drop that much, another deadly aspect of dangerous heatwaves–was quickly overwhelmed by body heat and carbon dioxide.

Having prepped a bunch of ice cubes, we put steel bowls full of them in front of our box fan. We sat and we did nothing. We hid in the dark.

I didn’t do that well. I felt sick most of the day. My hands swelled up a bit, and my feet swelled up a lot. Like, a scary amount. I had a hard time keeping awake (not that I really wanted to) and I found myself in a kind of thoughtless daze through much of the day.

The best remedies I had for the temperature was to wear a soaking wet T-shirt (and not in a sexy way) and to put my head under the shower with the water set at its coldest.

The latter was a revelation. It was the best possible kind of pain, making my skin tingle down my back, and I could actually feel the cold water drawing heat from the inside of my skull, along with lethargy, confusion, and exhaustion. It was a really strange sensation.

The movers didn’t finish completely until Saturday. They managed the boxes on Tuesday, but were short-handed and couldn’t bring over the furniture. The landlord, knowing this wasn’t going well, helped us by driving over the mattresses in his jeep (we don’t have a car). At least we had something to sleep on.

That’s the short version. Things sucked for about a week and a half, and over on my 20 Palaces Kickstarter, I had mentioned that I thought our move would interrupt my writing for a few days before and after the move, but that turned out to be a terrible guess. Laughably terrible. The disruption was much longer and more profound. Luckily, I’m back to my old, pre-pandemic pace. More on that in an upcoming post.

As for the new place, it’s newer and brighter than the old, with larger windows that allow for actual air circulation. It’s also slightly smaller than our old apartment, especially the fridge, which drives my wife to distraction.

Also, although we’re farther from the train yard than the old apartment, that place had a smaller front slope with lots of greenery, so we had foliage and buildings across the street to block the noise. The new apartment sits on a bare hill and has a nice terrestrial view, and it’s the loudest place I’ve ever lived.

Anyway, I’m still settling in. My wife is trying to, but she hates to settle for anything. As for my son, well, this is officially the second place he’s ever lived in his life, and he’s about the right age for this move, so he’s doing pretty well. Except for the ants. Did I mention that the new place has ants? Bugs give him the willies, so we’re dousing the outside wall with vinegar and…

Well, this blog post could go on and on, but I’m going to stop typing about it so I can write today’s pages. As I mentioned above, I’ll post about my improved productivity and the pandemic soonish.

Thanks for reading.

State of the Self, 2016 (aka, the “We’ll see” post)

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On Tuesday, I hit 100K words on the work in progress, currently titled ONE MAN, so I thought I’d take a few minutes to assess where things stand in a general way. No encouragement or advice, please, especially about the medical stuff.

Me, personally

I turned 50 last year, which I guess is supposed to be a big thing but it didn’t feel like it. Mostly, it felt (and continues to feel) like a timer ticking down. As more and more of “my” pop culture figures pass away (and more and more of them are closer to my own age) I’ve become increasingly aware that my own time is growing short. Right now, somewhere inside me, I probably have a cancerous tumor that’s lying quiet, small for the moment, but ready to expand aggressively under the right circumstances. If I’m very very lucky, I’ll live long enough to see my son married and living a stable life, to have earned a sense of accomplishment with my work, and to feel as though I’ve lived enough.

I can’t really imagine that, but that’s my hope.

The petty medical issues that have plagued me since 2012 haven’t gone away, but I’ve decided to work through them to focus on my weight. I’m down 10lbs in the last two weeks and plan to continue. The first few are always the easiest, of course. We’ll see.

Finally, for a long time I’ve pretty much avoided social situations. I talk to my wife. I talk to my son. I order coffee at the cafe. Beyond that, it’s extremely rare for me to speak to anyone aloud; all my interactions have been online. I guess the only exceptions have been the two-hour SF2W meetups that Django Wexler arranges, and I’ve been to, I think, two in the past year. Once in a rare while a reader drops me a note and we’ll meet face to face. Very rare.

Aside from that, I’ve been actively avoiding social events. I don’t go to conventions. I haven’t contacted the roommates I had 20 years ago to suggest we grab lunch. It’s been a very quiet life, and I like it.

But a week ago I cashed in the Christmas gift that my niece gave me: a tour of some of her favorite brewpubs in Ballard. It was extremely mellow, and we got the chance to just hang out and talk, which I don’t do much.

The following Friday, I had the event at the UW Bookstore, where a number of authors in the anthology Unbound signed books for readers. I suspect most of them were there to see Terry Brooks, but people were nice and it was good to talk to them. It had no noticeable effect on my book sales, but I enjoyed myself, and I enjoyed hanging out with the other authors afterwards. (What I could hear of it, anyway. People in bars are noisy.)

So I’m thinking I should put more energy into that sort of thing. Talking to people. I dunno. Maybe.

Family

My wife is doing pretty well, especially now that she has an APAP machine to help her sleep through the night, which she can do now, sometimes. She’s also spending more of her time painting. Making art was hard for her after her father died. She and her siblings inherited his canvases, which no one outside the family wanted and no one inside could bear to dispose of.

She began to feel the same way about her own work. Our apartment is already crowded, and she didn’t see a point to creating more stuff that her kid will have to deal with when we die. Slowly, she’s moved past that and is doing the work for its own sake, which is fantastic and makes me very happy. She’s also gotten into a couple of shows. Did I say it makes me happy? It really really does. Now I just need to write a hit book so we can afford a place with a studio. North-facing, naturally.

My son turned 14 a few months ago and starts high school in the fall. Homeschool is coming to an end, and I’m hoping that a) he’ll make more real life friends and b) I’ll have more writing time. It’s going to be a rough transition, but he’s ready for it. His sleep schedule might not be, but he is.

Games

I’m still playing Sentinels of the Multiverse on Steam. In fact, I’m playing it too much. I should probably download a program that will block Steam for most of the day. I’d get more done, and do less obsessive clicking.

BUT! I should say that, when I’m playing SotM, I don’t feel hungry, or itchy, or sad. I’m almost completely absorbed, even moreso than when I’m writing. It’s worth keeping around just for that. I just wish it was less irresistible.

Reading

After several years of feeling burned out on reading inside the fantasy genre, I’m finally feeling burned out on crime and mystery. It doesn’t help that I tried to shift from old classics to books that are popular and current, and really really did not enjoy them.

Django Wexler’s The Thousand Names, which I picked up solely out of a sense of gratitude for the social events mentioned above, is a flintlock fantasy that I enjoyed way more than expected. Recommended. At the moment, I’m reading Steven Erikson’s Gardens of the Moon because everyone on reddit loves those books passionately. I’m 80 pages in and mostly enjoying it, despite the fact that I’m not usually fond of high magic settings.

Watching

I took the family to DEADPOOL, which is an objectively bad movie, but hugely enjoyable anyway. It’s been a while since I saw a modern Hollywood film (that wasn’t SPY) that made me laugh really hard. Now I hear that the people behind Batman v Superman are planning an R-rated version, because… I don’t know, they think it was the rating that made DEADPOOL a hit and not the humor? Don’t know. Don’t care all that much.

I’ve also dropped a number of TV shows that I was watching through sheer momentum, not because I enjoyed them. Most of what I found compelling in season one of ARROW is long gone, and I just don’t have space for it anymore. After trying both LUCIFER and LEGENDS OF TOMORROW, I’ve decided that they aren’t going to do that Star Trek thing where it takes them a little while to find their rhythm and they become awesome. Both are dropped. At this point, I’m only watching ELEMENTARY, FLASH (which has been way less fun this season) and AGENTS OF SHIELD (which has been improbably improving).
I’m looking forward to season 2 of DAREDEVIL, even though it will probably be a disappointment. We’ll see.

No one in my family is remotely interested in the upcoming DC adaptations. We’ll see, redux.

Writing

As I mentioned above, last week I crossed the 100,000 word mark of ONE MAN. What I didn’t mention is that last August 26th, I was at 31,000 words.

I know this because of this horrible new record-keeping that other authors suggested I do. All it does is tell me things that make me unhappy.
For example, last fall I took a month-long trip to Portugal, and my plan to squeeze out a few pages during quiet moments never worked. I got zero new words done that month.

After Thanksgiving, I stopped writing the first draft and went back to revise what I had. Revise it extensively, which took a month and a half.

When that was finished, I realized the game supplement I promised my Kickstarter backers was way overdue, and I spent three weeks revising that.
When I returned to ONE MAN, I re-outlined the rest of the book (using the virtual whiteboard app Scapple, which I like) and now things are tearing right along.

It’ll take another long revision process, and it’s going to be a long-ass book: at 100K words, I’m still looking ahead to the beginning of the climax. Still, I feel like this is good work. I just hope the market agrees.

I haven’t decided what I’m going to work on after that. The next book in the series is TWO DRAGONS, but I have a short story due for an anthology (soon) and I might want to write something else in between. Plus there’s that game supplement.

I wish I could be more prolific.

And that’s where things stand.

I have a story up at Podcastle(!!!)

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Well, how about that!

The story I wrote for John Joseph Adams’s HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY!!! and Other Improbable Crowdfunding Projects has been turned into an audiobook (audiostory? audiofic? radioplay?) and is live at Podcastle right now–“Help Summon The Most Holy Folded One”, my Lovecraftian Taco Kickstarter story.

I guess it should be listed as a radioplay, since they have an actual cast, not a single reader. And that cast has some names in it. Yikes. Imposter Syndrome, ACTIVATE!

I’m listening as I type this, and… is it embarrassing to announce that these guys made me laugh aloud?

Give it a listen, and check out the other stories they’ve done: for example, there’s an N.K. Jeminsin story that includes the disclaimer “Rated X. Contains sex and wolves.” ::sprains mouse clicking finger:: (My story is PG.)

Silence falls

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I’m really sorry, folks, but I’m turning off comments on my main blog again. I cleared my spam trap last night and when I woke up it was full again. You guys don’t see it because Akismet works pretty well, but occasionally it hoovers up a real comment and I don’t have time to search for ham in the trap.

Folks can respond to me on Twitter and LiveJournal, and I’m thinking of creating a Facebook fan page where people could interact without all the bullshit.

Sorry, but time is precious and I have to hoard it.

updated to clarify this is my WordPress blog on my main website I’m talking about.

This blog post will not change your life.

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Ever since I returned home from dealing with my father-in-law’s death my WIP, A Blessing of Monsters, has been sorta stalled out. I’ve been making progress, but it’s been slow going, not nearly as steady as December and January.

Today I’ll be powering up Mac Freedom and going offline for most of the day. I just discovered a plot hole in the story (stupid magic spells) and I can’t just make a note to myself and go back to it later. The change means the relationships between all the characters have to change, and those relationships are what the book is about. So, vomit draft revision, which I hate but end up doing every time.

Not only has my writing been struggling, but the funeral caused a long delay in replacing my son’s eyeglasses. Folks might remember the end of last year when I put Lord of Reavers on sale through my site to help offset the costs. Thank you, everyone who bought a copy; I hope you enjoyed the story. With luck, he’ll have settled on a pair of frames he likes and I can post a pic by the end of the month.

I also have to do that Seattle thing where I wear shorts and an ugly sweater when I go for my walk. The landlord hasn’t gotten the washing machine fixed, and we’re coming up on… what? two weeks since we got back? I’m sure there’s a law stating when a washing machine has to be replaced or whatever, but I’d rather wait for a repair. Whenever we get something new around here, it’s the cheapest possible thing and doesn’t work well. Or it’s smaller. Or it’s just generally not good.

So we’re just looking at laundromats and laundry services, and I’m out of long pants to wear.

Finally, the Cage Match between Ray Lilly and Anasûrimbor Kellhus ends today at 5pm EST. I’ll be offline most of the day and will probably not see the numbers until after it’s over. It would be nice to see Ray vs. Tyrion, but if not I’ll be glad to work on my new book this weekend instead. And I’m glad the comment section has settled down and gotten less nasty.

But if Ray wins, I’ll bring in Annalise for round 2, and I’ll make the writeup lighter in tone.

And now I’m out of here. Hope you guys have a great day.

Know someone who’d like to read some fantasy this Christmas?

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Here’s the skinny: This week I did the final revision on a novelette I’ve been writing off and on for several months. It’s available right now on my website right here:

[Deleted: this story is now available in my short fiction collection.]

The only place you’ll be able to buy it for the next month, at least, is right here on my website. Why? Well my landlord has just raised our rent and my son needs new glasses (we don’t have vision insurance). On top of this we have holiday foods, gifts, and travel, which we’d already budgeted for, but this makes it a little tight.

Luckily, the rent increase won’t start right away. But! I do need to make a little extra money.

Therefore, if you know someone (or several someones) who would like a short sword and sorcery tale for the holidays, let me humbly suggest the link above. I’m selling them in epub, mobi and pdf formats, which should work on every ereader from Kindle to Kobo. In fact, if you’re planning to give an ereader as a gift to someone who likes fantasy, this story would be easy to preload.

So! You can buy one copy and send it to everyone you know, or you could pay for each copy you plan to share. Maybe you’d be more comfortable with something in between. Whatever you think is best.

Sorry I couldn’t set the price at the traditional 99 cents, but PayPal insisted on tacking on a $1 S&H fee and I couldn’t get them to take it off.

Happy Holidays, folks. I hope you enjoy the story.

New story, email issues, party party partay!

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My email is being cruel cruel to me, so don’t be surprised if it takes me a while to respond.

Also, I’m going to have a S&S story online very soon, hopefully today.

But first I have to go home and attend my son’s birthday party. It’s not his birthday, but it is his party. The little guy has everything planned out.

Also, I met my small goal today, even though it’s a big goal day. It’s weird; I used to thrive in a sleep-deprived trance. I’d come at my writing in a weird exhausted state when everything felt heavy, and that would help me silence my internal editor.

But over the last year I’ve been trying to get enough sleep as part of my plan to live past 50, so today, one of the first trance-days in months, I feel utterly useless. It’s weird.