Less than a week until Child of Fire officially publishes, and I’m in a confused, detached state of anxiety. Today, sending an email to someone, I fussed with the text of it so much that I ended up sending a completely blank message. Seriously, there was nothing in it at all.
Blah blah about a first novel and stress behind the cut. Continue reading
1) qotd: “I don’t mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface.” — James Nicoll
2) Best Fiction Generator Ever.
3) Reverse image search. Pretty cool.
4) What are the effects of killing all the pigs in Egypt? via Jay Lake
5) “Writers want to write short fiction and they’re going to keep finding ways to get them to readers. Writers seem willing to keep writing, even in the face of comparative commercial indifference.” Short fiction as loss-leaders for novels? As hobbyist activity? via matociquala
6) Real estate agent sends listing to sf/f lit agent for two and a half million dollar mountaintop retreat, because of course her millionaire genre writers will want to snap that right up. I wish she’d linked to the listing; I’ll bet Castle would look great perched on a rough wooden bench, staring thoughtfully into the morning mist.
6a) How to get rich as a writer? (geniusofevil, skip this part) Donald Maas’s free e-book has some interesting conclusions about the things writers do and don’t do to make a six-figure salary. I can’t help but wonder if he’d get the same results if he ran that survey again.
7) International Beard and Moustache Championships. Honestly, some of these make me a little sick.
8) Homes with cats 8 times more likely to contain mrsa. Not that it isn’t totally worth the risk!!! More interesting are the things listed that do not increase the germ risk.
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.
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.
I have my first interview tomorrow, over the phone, for these folks.
Nervous? Me?
I will try to be animated (ie: not drone) and try to avoid inadvisable jokes. We’ll see how it goes.
Oh, and I got my first review through the Amazon.com Vine program. It’s five stars.
“This is a great fantasy story plus a noir mystery with a complex plot. I read it in one sitting!”
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.
We have our first muggy, rainy day in a while, and after a short, brisk walk I find myself… sticky. Gross. Time to go home for a shower.
For some reason, I’m still struggling with the end of Man Bites World. I have no idea why, but I’m pretty unhappy about my progress. Usually, I struggle with a scene because I’m doing something wrong with it, somehow, but in this case I’m pretty sure I have it worked out nicely. I just can’t seem to focus on it. Bad me.
Earlier today, I dropped off a copy of Child of Fire (Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble online, Borders, Powell’s, Mysterious Galaxy, Indiebound.org) with the owner of the bookstore that’ll be hosting my signing. I wanted her to see what she was getting in for, not to mention ask if there was anything she’d need. As it turns out, I need to print up a copy of my author photo for her. No biggie.
Now I need to pick up some thank you cards, my library holds and head home. I have to introduce my son to Godzilla movies and get started on those speed reading books I’ve been meaning to tackle.
Here’s something that bugs the hell out of me in books:
Say you have a character who is an experienced bad-guy-fighter. Also say your character is facing bad guys who are desperate or ruthless. Here’s a new rule: Don’t tell me your protagonist is shocked because the villain has done something that “breaks an unwritten rule.” Don’t tell me they’re outraged at the crossing of a line that “everyone knows” shouldn’t be crossed.
It makes them sound sheltered and naive. It makes them sound stupid.
Suppose two characters are fighting in an alley. One thinks the fight should be a fair one, following the rules of a boxing match. The second goes straight for a crotch-kick.
When that first guy is lying on the ground, covering his exploded balls with his hands, should he be griping about the unfairness of ti all? Well, maybe, if you want him to come across as a fool.
Most people are decent, but there are always a few who will do any damn thing at all. They beat their aged parents and steal their money to buy beer. They kidnap little girls off the street and hold them prisoner for decades. They lynch. They rape. They burn your house down.
So if your character is going to be shocked shocked that their drug dealer shows up at their day job for their money, or that the secret vampire arch-duke will try to get at them by biting their delightfully-quirky grandmother, I’m going to think they’re… well, see my comment above about “sheltered and naive.”
There are ways to make that work, of course. If the drug dealer is harassing you at work because your son owes him a lot of money–something you didn’t know about–that might work. If two brothers get into a fight over a woman, and one brother tries to avoid permanent harm right up until the other pulls a knife, that would work, too.
But that’s the context. If you’re writing about a vigilante, a cop, or some kind of hired muscle, they should be expecting their enemies to cross lines and break rules, unwritten or otherwise.
Over the weekend, my wife and I sat down to watch Spectres of the Spectrum, the agitprop collage film by Craig Baldwin from 10(?) years ago.
It’s an odd experience, as you would expect. The film is largely made up of old footage from cartoon, educational films, commercials, terrible 50’s science fiction movies, and any number of other obscure sources. Tying it all together is original footage shot on a microbudget and relentless, unending narration.
For what it’s worth, the story revolves around a father and daughter, both telepaths and both part of an underground resistance movement struggling against the electromagnetic control of the New Electromagnetic Order. Together, they mine old media looking for a hidden message left by their mother/grandmother telling them how to thwart NEO’s plan to electromagnetically erase the memory of everyone in the world.
But that’s just a frame to hang a long string of juxtapositions. The two leads, being telepaths, “beam” their thoughts at you directly through narration. And the narration is largely taken up with narration about the history of science and technology, with no distinction made between the legit stuff and pseudo-science.
It is, essentially, a conspiracy theorist’s rant, and it’s backed up with images from Grade Z sci-fi monsters and footage of awkward white men in lab coats or military uniforms that undercuts the sincerity of the narrators. It’s simultaneously a critique of modern society and a lampooning of rabid conspiracy theorists.
Part of the fun is sussing out how closely this world is supposed to resemble our own–the narrators are extraordinarily effective at being unreliable voices. Are they the only people able to resist NEO’s “electronic miasma”? Are they schizophrenics living deep in a made-up world, talking with imaginary co-conspirators (including one guy who lives in an orbiting satellite(!)? Or are they living in a separate but similar world, with nuclear zombies and Airstream trailers equipped for FTL space travel?
Did I mention that it’s funny, too?
I’m glad I watched this with my wife, because there was a point in the middle of the film where the urgent, goofball narration became oppressive. I wanted a break from it, because it was draining me the way an obsessive party guest who bends your ear on his favorite topic for an hour can be draining. But she was interested, so I stuck it out and I’m glad I did. The ending was startling and fun.
Check it out.