publishing

Interview today, and other stuff

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I had my interview with Sohaib Awan at http://www.fictionalfrontiers.com today. It went pretty well, I think. I was damn nervous, but I didn’t stammer too much, and I don’t think I did the quiver-breathing thing I sometimes do.

It will probably air next Monday (or the Monday after that) between 5-6 pm, on WNJC 1360AM Philadelphia, simultaneously webcast on http://www.wnjc1360.com/. After that, there’ll be a podcast to listen to, if you can’t catch it live. I’ll post a link when it’s available.

Also, the first thing I did this morning was to give one last read-through of my Big Idea essay for John Scalzi’s blog. Good thing, too, because Christ was that opening paragraph stilted. It’s been sent off now. Hopefully, it’ll be well-received.

Today I mailed out the first batch of books, too. I called Random House to order more, but I’m thinking I need to have some sort of plan targeting where I’m going to send the rest.

And, finally, I had a morning meeting with my director buddy, about the movie we (mostly he–I just wrote it) made, and what the next step for him was going to be. He has another one of my scripts, a vampire script about infidelity and bad marriages, which he’s hoping to set up somewhere, but he first needs to find out what he can get from the walking-dead-on-TV movie we already shot. In any case, it was good to see my friend again.

Randomness for 9/21

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1) Parasite eats fish’s tongue, then lives in its mouth feeding off its food. This one gives me goosebumps.

2) For The Love Of Scottie McMullet — Romance novels retitled to match their covers. I wish they’d do some sf/f/h novels.

3) PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, a micro-budget horror film from a few years ago, is finally going to get a release. Check out the trailer, too.

4) Making your own video game monsters. I don’t know a thing about Bioshock, but even I know this is cool.

5) OMG, one week until Child of Fire‘s book release day.

Online backup

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I downgraded my Dropbox to a free account and signed on with Mozy.com. Dropbox is a great service for backing up and syncing my writing between two computers, but for backing up my family photos and videos online it just doesn’t work. There’s no way to back up files without also putting them on both computers, and my laptop doesn’t have space for all those files. With the free 2GB version, though, I back up my writing and everything is good.

Mozy.com offers unlimited backup from one computer for five bucks a month. That works out perfectly: I save the file on my laptop, dropbox copies it to the desktop (as well as keeping an online copy) and then Mozy backs it up again. I also have a 2 TB Time Capsule drive running Time Machine at its regular pace.

I hope that covers it.

Only downside is the initial backup to Mozy. I started it yesterday afternoon, and the download window says it still has three days, thirteen hours to finish.

Crowd-sourcing my brain

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Most writers hold some sort of contest when their books come out, yes? As a promotional thing?

I feel a vague urge to do the same thing, but I’m not sure what I should do. I’m not planning to give away a tooth, like that horror writer from a couple years back.

So I’m asking you: What should I do, and what sort of prize should I offer? I have copies of Child of Fire sitting around now, and could offer them as prizes, but that sounds… presumptuous. (I know, I know. I’m the worst self-promoter ever. Don’t judge me.)

I have other books and stuff I could give away. Alternately, I could convince my wife to make a sketch to include with the book.

Another option is to give away copies of the book in exchange for reviews.

If I were going to be honest, though, I’d admit that I’m dubious about the value of this sort of thing, and time has been really, really tight lately. What do you think?

Look what just arrived!

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At quarter after nine at night, no less!

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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!

An R-rated Harry Potter

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Over on his blog, Nathan Bransford is asking people if children’s books should have ratings, the way films and video games do.

Me, I think this misses the point. Books don’t need ratings stating which age groups they are appropriate for. All that does is embarrass readers who are enjoying a well-written adventure that lacks cursing or violence, and makes kids seek out forbidden ratings.

What I want are labels. Here is my suggested list:

Rated S: Contains stereotypes
Rated HP: Contains “helpless princess” characters who must be rescued by a male character.
Rated J: Contains Jingoistic attitudes toward foreign peoples/governments
Rated MN: Contains “Magic Negro” character with no life beyond the assistance character gives to Our Hero
Rated DA: Contains dead animal for purposes of unbearable pathos
Rated DV: Contains characters and plotting that you’re seen a hundred times before, but might be new to an 8-yo.
Rated LM: Lacks Monsters or other supernatural elements.
Rated MBS: Mocks Belief Systems
Rated NF: Not as Funny as it thinks it is.

Any others I should have included?

State of the self

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As Monk often says: “Here’s the thing…”

One of the quirkly little personality traits that so endears me to my wife is that I can be extremely stressed-out or depressed without knowing it. I get sullen, crabby, pessimistic, and withdrawn for anywhere from two weeks to a month, eating badly and staying up too late, then it suddenly dawns on me that hey, maybe I’m depressed.

“Denial,” she calls it.

Anyway, this is an actual conversation I had at work today.

Co-worker: Your book comes out this month, right?
Me: Yep. Just under three weeks from now.
Co-worker: Omigod! Are you excited?
Me: No.

Which… yeah. Denial. I’m not jumping around or drumming my fingers on my knees, but I am vaguely naseous and stressed out. I have been kicking my own ass for my lack of productivity lately (Man Bites World has been impossible to write–it’s like rolling a giant ball of sloppy wet clay uphill.) but hey, maybe that’s because I’m nervous? Maybe because I’ve been writing since I was very, very small and now, 35+ years later I’m about to finally be put to the test?

And that if I fuck this up I’ll have to start over again?

It’s a lot easier to deal with my stress when I recognize that it’s there. At least, I hope it will be.

I should have done this a while ago

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Actually, maybe I have and just don’t remember.

Anyway, I thought people might be interested in seeing the query letter I wrote that caught the interest of my agent (and a couple others besides).

Here it is with the addresses stripped out:

Dear [Agent’s Name]:

Ray Lilly is just supposed to be the driver. Sure, he knows a little magic, but it’s Annalise, his boss, who has the real power. Ray doesn’t like driving her across the country so she can hunt and kill people dabbling in dangerous magic, but if he tries to quit he’ll move right to the top of her hit list.

But Annalise’s next kill goes wrong and she is critically injured. Ray must complete her assignment alone; he has to stop the man who is sacrificing children to make his community thrive, and also find the inhuman supernatural power fueling his magic.

Harvest of Fire is a completed 99,000-word contemporary fantasy in the tone and style of a crime thriller.

I have sold several short stories to the magazines Black Gate and On Spec. The latest is “Eating Venom,” due out in the next issue of Black Gate.

Thank you for your time,

While I’m proud of those short fiction sales, I’m not sure they did much to catch anyone’s interest. At least, editor and agent both convinced me to publish my novel under a different name than those shorts.

Also, the synopsis covers only the characters, setting and the big plot twist that finishes the “first act” of the novel, which falls around page 30-50. That recommendation came from “Agent Kristin” who runs the “Pub Rants” blog (pubrants on LJ) and it really works.

For the synopsis, I described the whole book, right up to the end, ‘natch.

Notice also that I used the word “magic” three times in two paragraphs–word echoes are my enemy.

Anyway, I hope that’s interesting or useful.

Added eight years later: I don’t have a lot of analysis in this old post, but then I’m not sure it needs it. It bugs me (still) that I used the word “magic” so many times, but word echoes are one of the crosses I have to bear.

Many years ago, there was an account called Evil Editor who would read queries, snark about them, then give advice. The query I wrote or Twenty Palaces, the book before this one, is here. EE didn’t ask me to change much, but they still had fun at my expense (all in good fun). Apparently, “ruthless vigilante sorcerers” became a thing on the site.

I think that query is too long, but it didn’t matter because the book wasn’t ready. It wasn’t until I had my Road to Damascus moment while revising Child of Fire that I began stringing sentences together in a reasonable way.

Random House didn’t want this, so I’m giving it to you

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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.

Getting published

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Let’s say you’ve got Reggie Jackson willing to give away hitting tips, answer questions about breaking into the Major Leagues. And someone says, “Hey, Reg! I want to be a pro ballplayer — but my local Thrifty doesn’t carry batting gloves. Where can I buy a pair?” I think most people would recognize that question as a waste of time for all parties involved.

— Quote from here.

I wasn’t really planning to write this post, but my editor suggested it. (Or did she? I remember that she did, but I was getting a lot of input at the time, so maybe I misremember.) Here’s the story behind that suggestion:

I had just finished the “Escapist Fantasy” panel at San Diego Comic-Con, and I knew I had stammered and lost the thread once or twice, but I’d also made a decent point or two. While I’d been up there at that long, long table, I’d seen my editor out in the audience. We’d never met, but thanks to the power of Google, I knew what she looked like. Hey, no pressure, right?

Also, during the panel, the moderator mentioned her by name, saying something like: “We have Betsy Mitchell, editor-in-chief at Del Rey, in the audience today. What do you think, Betsy, about…” and outed her to the whole room.

After the panel ended, I thanked folks and made my way down to the floor. I was meeting my editor face-to-face for the first time–and I hadn’t done as well as I’d have liked on the panel, so I was all set to apologize, plus I was on my way to my first signing, and I was trying not to be a complete goof–but before we could get past the pleasantries, a guy butted in to say “Hi, I’m an aspiring writer and I’d really like to be published with your company. I’d really appreciate any advice you could give me.” Or whatever.

Now, I was sorta annoyed by this, because that was not the conversation I needed to be having at the moment. Betsy gave him a brief answer, stating that they only accept agented submissions, then she turned to me and said: “You broke into publishing recently. Do you have any advice?” Continue reading