At quarter after nine at night, no less!
It’s the real and final version of Child of Fire, fresh from the press!
I love that they added “A Twenty Palaces Novel” to the cover. Also, the top and right side of the letters in the title have a thin orange highlight to them. While I love the shadow behind my name, that orange highlight makes it look like you could cut your fingers on the corners.
Yay! (holy crap!) Yay!
1) People, I ask you: if we’re going to promote AIDS prevention, should we really be turning to Adolf Hitler pron?
2) How content aggregation explains that the upside of contracting AIDS is “The Spanish Civil War.” seen via tnh’s Particles.
3) New Japanese prime minister’s wife once flew on a space ship to Venus. I’m just going to assume the sex is fantastic.
They’re at work, they’re dealing with people all day, making them food and drinks and socializing a little bit. And it’s a coffee shop, not a library. People talk, they laugh, music is playing.
What I do mind is the guy sitting across from me complaining about the noise they make, calling them “ninnies.” When they talk and laugh, they’re doing it with each other–it has nothing to do with me and is easily ignored. But when a dude addresses me directly, *that* breaks my concentration.
Quick note for everyone who works in coffee shops: You are not in a library.
You know what freaks out my son? Giant spiders.
Last night after rough-housing with him a bit, I was feeling a bit… musty. Shower time!
Except we had a visitor in the bottom of the tub, and my kid freaked right the hell out. This is the best pic I took of our intruder (Mike C and other arachnophobes, do not click.)
I wrote this as part of the promotional stuff I’m doing for Del Rey/Random House, but they asked me to cut it way, way down. So I did, and now I’m posting the full version here.
This is what it’s been like for me to be a debut author.
It’s funny; years ago, when Miss Snark was blogging (all her entries are still online–every aspiring writer should read them) she made a point to tell people, several times, that signing with an agent would not make the agent your new best friend. It was a business relationship, not a personal/emotional one.
At the time, I thought that was weird. Is that really something people need to be told?
Much, much later, when I was about to ditch the whole idea of writing professionally–because a life of daydreaming about monsters and filing rejection slips was fine for a yutz like me, but my wife and son deserved so much more, and hello, grad school, I’ve heard you offer this thing called a “career”–at that point, I received offers of representation from a couple of agents.
Each one of them felt like a hug. Weird, but true.
(Quick note to my agent, in case she ever reads this: I don’t actually expect or want a real hug. I don’t much like hugs except in very specific circumstances, and like Miss Snark said, business, not personal. I hope that’s not creepy.)
Actually, that only covers the first few seconds and doesn’t really answer the question. For me, being an unpublished novelist was like being stranded on a desert island. I was stuck there for years, hoping that someone would see the huge “GET ME OUT OF HERE” messages I dug into the beach. Year after year I survived on berries and wild pigs while planes flew overhead and never circled back.
Then one day I looked up to see a helicopter setting down on the beach. Out jumped my agent with a set of clean clothes and a pepperoni pizza. “We’ve found you,” she said. “Now we can take you away from here.”
And then I was looking out the chopper window as we lifted off. I had put my new suit on, and the pizza was way better than the charred pork I’d been eating. The only reason I wasn’t weeping like a beauty pageant winner was because I was in total shock.
At which point the helicopter touched down on the mainland and someone slapped a shovel into my hands. “This trench has to be finished by the end of the year,” they said, and I stumbled off the helipad into a huge crowd of rescued castaways, all working with their picks and shovels in the blazing sun. Get busy! There’s digging to be done!
So what I’m saying is, it’s the most fantastic thing ever.
The only vacation I had this year was my trip to L.A. and San Diego. The L.A. part of the trip was nice, because I got to see friends, but my time in SD was spent at the Comic-Con, which was crowded and uncomfortable.
And that’s all the vacation I’m getting this year.
Someday I think I’d like to visit an Italian villa by the Mediterranean–a little beautiful estate to walk on, cool breezes, unusual foods (for me, at least) and a lot of quiet time to read and play.
What would be your perfect vacation?
I’m at the Starbucks, writing. The guy across the table working on his laptop is humming to the music, and doing it in a way that makes me think it’s not conscious at all.
Argh. Must focus.
I guess I’m a real boy author now: I have a Harriet Klausner review.
The review contains spoilers, several of them for the book I actually wrote. If you like, though, I can quote the only parts you truly need to read:
“… exciting story line.”
“… an exhilarating High Noon paranormal thriller.”
Still, as much as I joke, I’m grateful that she took the time.
I also have a bunch of reviews on Good Reads now. It’s kind of exciting, but I’m going to have to stop reading them soon.
1) Migrating my profiles, files and settings from my old computer to my new one.
That’s it. That’s the list.
It’s weird to deal with computer problems. For me, at least. It just sucks the life right out of me. I want the magic box to keep doing magic, and I feel so betrayed when it fails.
Cross your fingers for me.
