moi?

Wasted hours

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Yesterday I was feeling like death warmed over, and I told my wife to make sure I got to be early. (I have a habit of puttering when I’m tired or depressed). After dinner, I put away the leftovers, loaded the dishwasher, checked my emails, made suggestions to my son on his dirigible designs, then said “I’m going to bed now.”

My wife, who’d twice said we had to wrap thing things up early so I could go to sleep early, looked surprised. It wasn’t even 7:30 yet.

But I put Saturday clothes out in the living room and crawled into bed. Ten hours later, I was up. I changed, ate and hit the bus stop. And god, I feel so much better. Not well mind you; I have way too much sleep debt for that. But I honestly feel better. If only I could quit my day job, I’d be practically healthy.

Now, work!

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.

God help me…

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I just created a Mii character called Ray Lillii. Once I look up the steps for connecting our Wii to the web, I’ll try to post a pic of him. And of my Mii.

Also, I joined SFWA. I thought I’d give it a try. If it works out, I’ll be glad. If not, I get to quit in a huff or whatever.

edited to add: That’s too glib, actually. I’m pleased to have joined SFWA; it’s something I’ve wanted to do for many, many years. Over the last few I’ve been doubtful, mainly because I’ve learned that I don’t join very well, but we’ll see.

I don’t believe in favorites…

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… But I do believe I have a new favorite email subject header.

It’s “check to send.”

Please use this subject line in all future correspondence with me.

A link for you:

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Scratch.

What is it, you ask? It’s a free, simple, entry-level animation program that allows anyone (although it was designed for kids) create short videos, games, or whatever else you want.

The program was designed at M.I.T. to give young people the ability to create their own media. I myself am not “young” by any stretch of the imagination but I downloaded it (for my, um, son. Yeah, that’s right. My son.) and found it surprisingly easy to use.

If you’ve ever wanted to make your own goofy videos or games, check it out.

Who is this guy?

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The original version of this post was a jokey fake bio, but apparently people hate that? For some reason?

So, here’s my real bio, which is so unbelievably dull that you’ll all long for the stupid list of potentially lethal non-adventures that used to be here:

I was born and raised in Philadelphia, where my formative years were influenced by Dr. Shock, Wee Willie Weber, and my big sister’s sf/f collection (not necessarily in that order). I graduated from Temple University (which was a mistake) which led to pretty much no gainful employment at all.

In 1989, I moved to Seattle. Gainful employment was still thin, but the internet gave me what I needed to make my life-long dream of writing fiction for a living come true. For now, anyway.

I’ve spent the last 20+ years with my amazing wife and we are homeschooling our only child. I’m a huge fan of our wonderful local library system, which I support through book donations and the occasional late fee.

My books are (mostly) a mix of fantasy and crime novel. If that sounds interesting to you, why don’t you click on that link in the sidebar all about them?

My first three published novels were put out through Del Rey. My current publisher is me. My agent is Caitlin Blasdell at Liza Dawson & Associates.

If you need to contact me, check out that link in the sidebar.

Hey, out there!

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Let me introduce myself: My name is Harry Connolly, and I live in Seattle with my wife, son and no cats. I also have a three-book deal with Del Rey. The first novel is called Child of Fire and is due to come out in September, 2009.

As of the day I’m writing this, book two has a working title that doesn’t really work, and is nearly ready to turn in to my editor.

I don’t want to talk about book three yet.

I don’t have any specific plans for this blog–it’s not going to be all about funny wedding cakes or unfair media coverage of chickens–but I know it’s not going to be 24/7 promotion of my novels.

So, until I figure out how I’m going to use this space, have a link: PostSecrets has this week’s set of postcards up.