the auntie mame files

Today is my birthday

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Well, really it’s my not-birthday (ob repetitive explanation: My wife and I share a Bday, which sucks, so I bumped mine back a month). But that doesn’t matter, right? It’s just a date, and I’m supposed to celebrate the new year.

You don’t have to ask. I’m 46.

Anyway, I was up way, way too early to write, and write I did. After having almost zero idea how I was going to end A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark yesterday I bumped against the frontier of my synopsis and started brainstorming ideas. Within an hour, I had the end all worked out, and as I was smoothing it out this morning (connecting the plot points clearly, I mean) I had several more good ideas.

That’s all recorded, and at this point it’s a race to the end of the draft. I’ve already made today’s long-goal; hopefully I’ll be able to do another thousand words or so before I go home.

There will be no cake tonight. I don’t like it, and neither does anyone else in the family. We’ll be having melon-free fruit salad, instead, which is the tradition for my bday. What other efforts will be made on my behalf I do not know. I just hope I get a nap.

Anyway, I get a little more time to goof around online, then it’s back to the word mines. Have a great Friday and Happy Canada Day, you wonderful Canadians.

Boy yesterday’s post seemed cranky, didn’t it?

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I didn’t think I was being all cranky, but it geez.

Anyway, I’m not online much because of the book-writing. Both yesterday and today were big days for me. Doing 2.5K words is a modest goal for many writers, but for me it’s nearly unthinkable. Hitting that mark two days in a row, with extra time to revise an old short story? That’s practically a breakthrough. I may have transformed myself into a totally different person. I’d better oversleep tomorrow and waste the whole day on Twitter or my wife and son might not recognize me.

Anyway, it’s not even one o’clock, and I’m done for the day. ::thumbs up::

“They’re so funny. They use the subjunctive when they ought to use the nupative.”

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Let’s make this a quick list of items of interest, okay?

First of all: Hey New Yorkers! I’m going to be in New York City next week, visiting Manhattan with my wife and son. Yes, I’m also going to meet up with my agent (first time face to face) and my editor (not first time). And others, too, if things go well.

Publishing people! Who use the subjunctive correctly! And who probably also know how to use the nupative, even though that doesn’t even exist, except in last night’s dream about condescending NY grammar fundamentalists. (See subject header)

Anyway, I’m also planning to attend the KGB Fantastic Fiction Reading Series on June 15th. I don’t know either of the authors who’ll be reading there, but that just makes it more exciting.

Are you in New York? I’d like to meet there, and maybe do something after. I look like this. If you see me there, don’t hesitate to introduce yourself.

Second: I mentioned this on Twitter last week, but haven’t here; Twenty Palaces, the prequel to Child of Fire, is 100% done! Well, unless Del Rey buys it and my editor has notes. And except for the copy edits. And galleys. And another polish, if I want to give it one, (and I always do).

Still: One. Hundred. Percent. Done. I’m back at work on A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark (aka: The Auntie Mame Files). I like this book, although I suspect it’s going to be a stand alone. We’ll see.

Third: On the advice of a friend, I’ve started polishing up some old short stories to self-publish them. I mean, why not? Several have been published before and several will need substantial rewriting, but it will be nice to have something new to put out into the world.

Fourth: Look what came in the mail over the weekend?

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It had this in it:

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I’m going to assume he meant “this book,” to mean “the book for Harry Connolly.” Seems obvious, right?

I sorta expect a significant proportion of this text to be right out of his LiveJournal, but with luck I’ll pick up some extra tips for writing short work for small checks, rather than doing these months-long projects on spec, which sucks.

Fourth: Is it completely ridiculous for me to record all the Bookscan numbers I get from Amazon.com into a spreadsheet? I mean, I can’t even keep my characters’ names straight, but I’m fastidious about this?

Fifth: I still have a lot to do before I head to NY. Good thing I finished those Dungeon Quest books (by Joe Daly). Now that the hilarity is over, I can get some shit done.

Sun!

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It’s almost seven am, I’m freshly breakfasted, the hummingbirds are floating outside my window, the stellar jays are squawking, and the sun is shining.

I’m going for a walk.

But it’s not going to be a “fun” walk; it’s going to be a vigorous exercise/plot walk. A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark has been a bit difficult lately and I’m not sure where it should go next. This walk will be a chance to plot a course forward. Which I need.

Also, did I mention that the sun is shining?

Hopefully, I won’t see you guys around the interwebs for a few hours.

Man With High-Paying, Prestigious Job Expresses Interest In Extending Current Employment

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This is the sort of story that annoys me, I have to admit. For those who don’t want to click, it basically says that Taylor Lautner would be interested in continuing his role in the TWILIGHT movies, if the author decided to write a spin off series.

And how is this news? The guy’s an actor. Actors want jobs. I imagine Lautner has a whole SHARKMAN AND LAVAWOMAN pitch carefully folded in his pocket, just in case he runs into Robert Rodriquez at a party or something.

You know what would be news? An actor who said they hated a role and never wanted to do it again. Even better: An actor that loved a role so much that they were raising funding to pay the novelist to write a sequel. Wake me up when that happens.

In more personal news, over on my LiveJournal account, user Ms_King asked me about outlining, and I answered, describing my odd way of pseudo-planning the books I write. So naturally, what should happen? Later that morning I realized I had rushed into the draft of A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark, before I was ready because I had some half-baked character interactions and not nearly as much of the book worked out as I needed. In fact, I was almost at the end of my synopsis at only 34K workds.

No worries, though. I have plot elements and under-utilized characters, so I’ll just have to work out how they all come together, and I’ll be ready to draft again. Today is a long(ish) writing morning, so I’ll be on that for the next few hours.

Also, Twitter, where I’m @byharryconnolly.

Spent the morning writing

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And you know what? It feels great.

I sorta expected my wife to push me to return to the convention today and make another go of it–socialize! network!–but no. Today has been work day, and I’m happy about it.

Anyway, regarding something said during a panel at Norwescon yesterday: Lou Anders was talking about ebooks, paper books, and pricing, and he said that one of the things keeping prices of paper books low was large print runs. If ebooks drive down sales of paper books, he’ll have to choose between a) smaller, more expensive print runs, which means higher prices, or b) the same old large runs of books, but with most of them stored in a warehouse and earning him a tax hit at the end of the year.

But I thought there was a c) that he was missing. If printers want to keep their businesses alive, they’re going to need to adapt to smaller print runs and downward price pressures. It seems like new technology would be the ticket here. (note: I know next to nothing about the current technology used by book printers, so clearly I’m typing this with my ass.)

I don’t mean printers in stores (although that would be tempting) because that takes forever. We’re a long way from having one or more of those in a store, handling large numbers of books at once.

But I suspect the price pressure from ebooks is going to hit printing presses especially hard. Is anyone familiar with the current state of their technology? So much has changed with printing at home in the last ten years (although obviously that’s very different) has book printing tech been changing too?

N Things Make a Post

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n-6 ) I want to say thanks to everyone who answers my hypothetical posts. I don’t always respond to every comment mainly because I don’t want to do a bunch of “Cool!” or “That’s a great idea!” replies, but that’s pretty much what I’m thinking. However, my filmmaker friend Steve Barr left this comment, which probably deserves its own story seed spot.

n-5 ) “Then you are prejudiced, Timmy, because Steve is your filmmaker friend, and not your friend.” (I suspect that the only people who’ll get that reference are readers Of A Certain Age.

n-4) According to Twitter, ARCs of Circle of Enemies have been spotted in the wild. Yay! (gulp!)

n-3 ) Norwescon starts today but I’m not going. I have some stuff to do, and I have other plans for tonight. Here’s my schedule for the rest of the day: 1. Finish this post. 2. Email agent to let her know Twenty Palaces is on the way. 3. Walk to the post office on this chilly, sunny day to mail said book. 4. Go to library to drop off books and write a few pages of A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark. 5. Return home to have dinner (burger salad tonight!) 6. Kick back with a book and read for most of the evening. God, I’m so looking forward to reading again.

n-2 ) This deserves its own post, but R.I.P. Elisabeth Sladen. She was the costar of the first Dr. Who I ever saw, and every costar since has had to measure themselves against her. She was wonderful in the role, and I hope that she had good, happy, satisfying life. Too soon.

n-1 ) I’ve talked before about the Bookscan numbers Amazon.com shares with authors, and the fact that the numbers for my books were improving after I guest-posted at Charles Stross’s blog. Well, last week the numbers had nearly returned to the levels they were during my stint at antipope.org, and I wondered over it. This week, the numbers have jumped even higher. Like, much higher, about triple what they were before my guest blog. At this point, I don’t much care why. I just want it to keep going on.

n) I haven’t seen GAME OF THRONES and I’m not planning to. The problem with having a kid who’s a night owl is that I can’t spend late evenings watching grownup shows with the volume down while he sleeps. Instead, I spend them sitting beside him, gently suggesting he shut his damn eyes and lie back down. I’m seriously excited for the next book, though.

Five things make a post.

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First, early reaction to the sample of A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark is pretty good. I have to write much more of it before submission (it’s about 30% finished) but early signs are positive.

Second, there’s a gorgeous sunrise outside my window, all blue and pink. The sun will be above the cloud level soon, turning the day into the usual dismal gray, but this was nice.

Third, I’m making good progress on the synopsis of The Twisted Path aka Twenty Palaces 4

Fourth, I’ve seen exactly two of the movies on the Oscar nomination list, and both of those are up for less showy awards. I’m not particularly embarrassed by this lack but it does mean that I’m unable to take part in the blog discussions of it. See also:

Fifth, I skipped last nights State of the Union address, so I can’t comment on it. See? No blog material.

Back to work.

“If every other writer jumped off a bridge, would you?” (repost after WP problems)

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Don’t mind me. I’m just hanging up this dirty laundry. It needs airing.

You know how I discover that the Hugo and Nebula nomination season has opened? Dozens of writers start listing their yearly sales to say “Here’s my eligible stuff!”

Which is fine. It’s important to them and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. And really, Pikachu forbid that I or anyone else tell people what they write on their own blogs, which I choose to read without paying a penny.

But I’m not going to do that, not this year or any, because the sort of books I write don’t win those awards. And that’s cool. I think of Hugo and Nebula awards as things of importance within the science fiction community and I’ve never really been part of that. [1] It’s like seeing the BAFTA winners, I guess; I’m happy for those people in that foreign country.

It does prompt me to look back over the year, though. Game of Cages came out at the end of August, of course, and it’s been doing pretty well. I also took part in A Glimpse of Darkness. But that’s it.

Many of the other writers I see out there had a couple of novels come out in 2010 along with a string of short stories. I envy them their productivity. Me, I had a tab open on this computer for three days which held an article about being productive and getting things done, but I couldn’t find time to read it, so I just closed it. (Not kidding).

So, my 2010? It’s been a frustrating year for me, writing-wise. The publishing end of things has been great–Del Rey has been doing a terrific job with my books, and I was glad that Child of Fire got a second printing.

But the first third of the year was spent finishing up Circle of Enemies, seven months past deadline. Yikes. I did not want to be that writer, and yet, there I was. I think it’s a solid book, maybe the best thing I’ve ever written, but it took so much time…

After that I spent months working on a proposal for The Buried King, a Harry-Bosch-in-fantasyland rhino killer, done my way. But there was something wrong with it–I’m not even sure what. I knew it would be difficult to translate a procedural to a second-world setting (a major part of the appeal of a police procedural is iron clad research and a glimpse into a privileged world, but how does that work when the author is making it all up?) but I guess I didn’t the the solutions in place. It didn’t get very far.

Then I went to work on A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark and… Jesus, what am I thinking here? Do people really want an urban fantasy with a 65-ish year old heroine? Who’s a committed pacifist?

I took a whack at the story once already, but none of it held together. right now I have, here beside me at the coffee shop, nearly 200 pages of manuscript for The Auntie Mame Files, about 30K words. I’m about to drop it into the mail for my agent.

If she can’t sell it, 2010 will have been a total wash, writing wise, except for the short chapter I wrote for A Glimpse of Darkness.

What the hell, right? It’s what I did. Hopefully, when the end of 2011 rolls around, I’ll be able to look back on a more productive year.

[1] That’s not meant as a condemnation. I’m just not much of a socializer

Just got back from our “tour” of Seattle gingerbread house displays.

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They were beautiful, but there weren’t very many to see.

For me, I was hoping to have A Key, and Egg, An Unfortunate Remark ready to send to my agent before I left for upstate NY. I leave on Monday (by train!) but looking over the number of words left to revise, I know it’s not going to happen. Sorry, [my agent]. Maybe at the start of the new year? I feel almost like I have a handle on the voice at this point, so revisions are doing much better than expected.

Now I’m off to help pack. We have quite a bit to do before we go, not least of which is prepping enough activities to occupy an 8 year old on a long train trip through the snowy northern U.S.

Meanwhile, check out these pics of the gingerbread houses. Everything is made of food (mostly candy, gingerbread, and icing).

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The Fremont Troll!
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More at the set.