progress

Yes, I am that sort of person

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It’s the fourth day that Child of Fire has been on sale. Yes, I am still visiting Amazon.com twenty times a day. Yes, I’m still checking for new reviews. Yes, I’m still glancing at the “sales rank.”

No, you don’t need to tell me that Amazon.com’s sales rank numbers are pretty much meaningless. Really, don’t. I already know that. But it’s one of only two ways I have of judging public interest in my book (all copies at my library are checked out or on hold) so I keep looking at it.

Before the release, the sales rank was in the low six-figures. On release day and after, it hung around 3K. At this point, it’s ping-ponging between 10K and 15K. I don’t care that it isn’t a good judge of how the book is selling. It’s the only input I can look at.

Am I the sort of person who makes an excuse to wander into Borders to see if there are fewer books on the shelf? (Apparently.) Am I the sort of person to linger by the shelf because a guy is standing right next to my book with a paperback in hand? (Yes.) Did I see a complete stranger carry my book to the register? (No. Congrats on the sale, Seanan McGuire!) Am I the sort of person who buys other books to hide the fact that I’m basically skulking around the store? (Oh, hell yes. And Mastercard is damn grateful). Were there, in fact, fewer books on the shelf? (Yes!)

Anyway, it’s weird. As Betsy, my editor, mentioned in the chat I linked to earlier in the week, Del Rey acquired my book with a pre-empt–before financial deregulation sent the economy into a nosedive. There are expectations for this book, and it has come out at a time of nearly 10% unemployment.

Which… okay. Perspective: millions of out-of-work people around the world is a bigger problem than the possiblilty that my book will underperform, but I can’t help but link them.

I keep wanting input but it’s slowly fading. I’m going to have to shrug it off soon and put it behind me. Soon. Don’t I know that it’s pretty much out of my hands now? (Yeah, in fact, I do.)

In other news, I hope to finish the rough draft of book three tomorrow morning before the signing. We’ll see.

Randomness

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I’m going to compile a bunch of random things into this post and publish them all at once.

1) via geniusofevil: Heat Wave: Richard Castle is a real writer!

2) I’ve been going back and forth on some common euphamisms. Yesterday, in a comment, I used the term “godsend.” Is that a word an atheist should use? I think not, obviously, since it bothers me. In the few stolen moments I had to type out the comment, I couldn’t come up with an alternative that said the same thing.

Except there’s “ghu” or “ghod” but I think of that as an SF fandom thing, and I’m not part of that community, either. Sometimes I write “Thank Pikachu” or whatever as a joke, even though at this point I’m the only member of my household who thinks Pikachu is cool.

I don’t really have a point. This is just something I’m thinking about.

3) Nicholas Kristof on the myth that government can’t do health care. And yeah, I spent way too much time yesterday arguing health care on John Scalzi’s blog.

3a) Arguing about health care on the web makes me hate the universe!

4) PW’s newly focused blog, Genreville (verdict: interesting so far) offers Lev Grossman the opportunity to knock over some straw men. He accepts.

5) Inglourious Wizerds

6) Man builds house out of Legos.

7) Work on Man Bites World continues slowly, but this is a really difficult section. Very different from what I’ve been doing before, and I’m going to have to revise it significantly once I straighten out in my mind how the protagonist would react to extremely strange events.

Not that you asked

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But Man Bites World has been difficult lately. I have a great deal of work left to do with it before I send it to my agent, but that’s not going to happen unless I can start making my daily goals.

Actually, I’ve been hoping to double them. Ha!

I’m sure things will go better once I establish a groove.

ARGH!

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I’m at a very difficult, very painful part of the book, and I have to stop right now or I’m not going to get home in time to relieve my wife of parenting duties. I can’t make her late for work because I wanted to reach the end of a scene.

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

In other news, I’m really amazingly happy with the way Man Bites World is wrapping up (which means my agent and editor will probably be horrified).

I’m writing

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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.

Oh, fer…

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I can not understand why the characters in this book insist on chatting so much. Can’t we just jump straight to the violence? Please?

Also, I can not make the links on the right sidebar (on my blog, for those reading this on LiveJournal) rearrange themselves into the order I want.

I attribute both problems to a sleepless night and really awful dreams.

I’ve been writing for 45 minutes

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And my wordcount on Man Bites World is currently lower than when I started. ::sigh::

In happier news, my email was correctly backed up, and I haven’t lost any of it. Yay!

Also, my website needs many changes. Many. Good thing I have so much free time. X___X

this is not a subject line

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Finished today’s work and yesterday’s, too. The book wants to be written now, and is helping me push it along.

I also “finished” some promotional stuff Del Rey asked me to do for Child of Fire, for certain values of “finished” that involve another read-through to polish it up.

I was supposed to also work on Cool Thing That Would Be Awesome If It Worked Out, but time has already left, and so must I.

Old ending… history!

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New ending… plotted!

There are still some blank spaces to fill in, but I just finished reworking a whole new ending for Man Bites World.

Take that, book that doesn’t want to be written!

As a followup to my previous post

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There are few plot problems that can’t be solved by asking Who are these characters and what do they want?