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tim_pratt's LiveJournal:
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| Monday, November 23rd, 2009 | | 10:58 am |
Kindling
I emerge briefly into the light to tell you that Bone Shop is available for the Kindle. So everyone who asked me to do that -- go buy it!
Still working on the print version, hope to have it ready in a week or two, we'll see.
I took a long weekend and went down to San Diego to visit Greg van Eekhout (and Dr. Lisa) for a few days of beer, pizza, fancy breakfasts, walks by the ocean, complaints about the publishing business, writing in coffee shops, lamentable encounters with drunks singing karaoke, beer-battered French fries, superhero cartoons, comic books, and looking at seals. Very nice, very restorative, though it was nice to get home to my wife and kid last night. I missed them. | | Saturday, November 14th, 2009 | | 8:32 am |
This is your 6:30 wake-up call. Have a great day in Oakland.
Thus begins day three of my solo parenting sojourn, the Saturday edition: not with a bang but with a hollering toddler. I don't recall ordering the 6:30 a.m. scream wake-up call, but there it is.
My lovely wife is off in New York visiting friends (and having lunch with my agent, something I haven't done in years!). It's only fair. I'll be abandoning her to visit friends in San Diego next weekend. I have a fun-filled day of running errands, playing in parks, and visiting the library planned. River had to go with me to the office on Thursday and Friday, so giving him lots of fun today seems merited.
My novelette "Troublesolving" is up at Subterranean, and everyone should go read it -- it's science fiction! By me! A rarity! I think it's one of my best stories. Certainly it was one of the most fun to write. (After writing about 350,000 words of Marla Mason stories, I wanted to write a heroine who didn't use violence to resolve her problems. Thus, Cameron Cassavetes was born. I may write other stories about her.) This is the story I read from at World Fantasy, so if you heard that, you can see how it ends. (World Fantasy was fun. That constitutes my con report.)
This qualifies as one of the most interesting honors I've ever had: a yarn pattern named Poison Sleep in honor of my novel! The yarn was for sale, but I don't see it in their shop now, which I can only hope means people bought it up to knit their own cloaks...
Speaking of Marla, I put Bone Shop online as a single HTML page, so you can read it without all that tedious pointing-and-clicking. Print edition, kindle edition, etc. are forthcoming. Watch this space.
Most of my mental processing cycles are being devoted to a work-for-hire project I'm doing, which will be out next year sometime under a pseudonym. It's basically me executing someone else's vision, but within certain broad parameters I have a lot of freedom, and I'm enjoying it immensely. I have a March deadline which means I have a lot of writing to do, but it's humming along nicely so far.
I did manage to break my hermitlike existence long enough to join Jason and Jeremy of Night Shade Books and my former editor/current friend Juliet at a hookah bar in San Francisco last week, which was nice. I don't require much in the way of a social life, being basically a cranky recluse, but it does me good to be exposed to adult conversation beyond my family and co-workers occasionally.
All right. Time to venture into the great wide world. You guys have fun while I'm gone. | | Monday, October 26th, 2009 | | 12:45 pm |
Endings, Beginnings, and General Flailings
Notes of some interest:
Bone Shop is done, done, done. I think it turned out well, and I do plan to do a print/ebook/Kindle/audio version (with the help of some wonderful people who will be acknowledged and praised to the skies when the time comes). Details will be posted here, on the Bone Shop page, in the RSS feed, etc. etc. I'll miss writing it. Donations had trailed off in recent weeks (understandably!) but they were still trickling in at the rate of around $100 a week. In total the book has brought me nearly $4,000 so far, and I can't thank you enough, all who donated. You paid for my kid's health insurance, and you bought all our groceries for the past four months. You kept us healthy and fed. The response overwhelmed and heartened me. I hope the story was worth it for you.
Heather has to do a phone interview with the Unemployment Insurance people in a couple of weeks; we have no idea why. But in the meantime, they're not sending checks, which means we're missing at least a month of her payments, which means OH GOD FINANCIAL TERROR. We can survive, assuming they reinstate her benefits after the phone interview, though it'll be a tight month in the interim. And if for some reason they don't reinstate her payments... I don't even want to think about it. Let's all hope she finds a job or I sell a novel to a big publisher soon, okay? (After hearing about the paused payments, I dreamed I was being drowned by a kelpie, to which I can only say: way to be subtle, subconscious.)
I keep thinking something has to happen, that something will develop to save us from financial ruin, but, of course, that's just silly magical thinking. People do get ruined. It could be us. Fortunately we have friends and family we can fall back on -- we're unlikely to become homeless -- but it's entirely possible we'll go bankrupt, have our credit ruined, have to sell most of our possessions, etc. We can get along for another four to six months, I'd guess, but after that, the outlook is murky...
But life is not all sadness and endings and worry. It does look like I'll be doing a weird/fun pseudonymous work-for-hire gig, though I don't know how many details I'll be able to make public. It's not a lot of money, but it's some money, and it's an entertaining project, so it was easy to say 'yes' to. Gonna keep me very busy for the next few months, too.
I'll be at the World Fantasy Convention this weekend with my wife Heather and (occasionally) our son River, though he'll be getting babysat some of the time. I'm doing a reading at 1:30 pm on Friday, so you can definitely find me there, or at various parties, or in the bar, or the book room... I'll be around. Don't know what I'll read yet. Maybe a chunk of my novelette "Troublesolving" that's upcoming at Subterranean.
The reading at Dog Eared Books last Saturday was fun, if not terribly well-populated. (Helpful hint: don't do a reading in the Mission the weekend after LitCrawl; people are sick of going to readings on Valencia Street!) But the audience was friendly and appreciative, and it was nice to meet them all. Greg Gerke (who invited me to read with him) is a fun and interesting writer; check out some of his stuff at the link back there.
I've been reading (reading is cheap entertainment!): Blackout by Connie Willis is wonderful, but such a cliffhanger! It's really half a book, and part two, All Clear, won't be out for a while. Ken Bruen writes some of the most depressing, dark detective stories I've ever read. Also been reading a lot of books for that work-for-hire project I mentioned, of which more anon, probably. | | 7:51 am |
| | Monday, October 19th, 2009 | | 7:50 am |
| | Thursday, October 15th, 2009 | | 2:08 pm |
Copingly
So it appears one consequence of finishing a book is that I'm blogging more. Those words gotta go somewhere, and fond as I am of twitter (quite fond), I might as well splash some wordage around here too. Herewith, some old school journaling-about-my-life.
The state of things: still kinda dire. My wife has now been laid off for four months. We haven't completely burned through our savings, she's got unemployment money coming for a while yet, and I'm expecting a significant fraction of my year's writing income to arrive in the next few months, so we can keep the wolf from the apartment door into at least early 2010. Here's hoping a job shows up before then -- or else a book deal. If I sell a novel for decent money, that'll buy us more time, too.
We're fortunate in that we qualified for subsidized COBRA, and our monthly health care costs for Heather and River are actually less than we paid out of pocket when she still had a job; hurray for stimulus money! But that won't last forever either.
Both of the potential work for hire gigs I was pursuing (a video game and a novel project) failed to work out, though I did get paid a decent chunk of surprise money for my trouble on one of them, and I think they'll keep me in mind for future gigs, which is cool.
Weirdly, despite not selling any novels, this has been a pretty good year for writing money -- some foreign sales, some lucrative short story sales, the anthology-editing money, etc. If Heather hadn't lost her job, I would've been able to make a nice-sized dent in our credit card debt with that income. But alas, alack, etc. At this point, the emphasis is on paying rent and bills, not crawling out of the debt-hole.
And yet, I'm optimistic. The response to Bone Shop has been heartening (remember, your donations buy food for my family!). I've published some good, well-received stories this year, with more forthcoming. I've picked up my old steady freelance reviewing gig again after a few months without it.
In a larger sense, the publishing industry seems to be loosening up. One of my day job duties is writing the People and Publishing column for the magazine, which, among other things, lists sales -- and there are more sales, and more debut novelist sales, than there have been in months. So I'm daring to hope I might sell one of the three projects that I have out on submission... but not counting on it.
For the time being, though, we can pay the rent, and eat well (though not at restaurants; it's better for us to cook at home anyway), and Heather's using this time off to get tons of work done on her (very awesome) novel, and she gets to spend time with our son every day, which is something many parents don't have. Our situation isn't ideal, and it's not sustainable in the long term, but we're getting all the benefits out of it that we can in the meantime. When life gives you lemons, you should make citric-acid batteries, after all. | | Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 | | 3:31 pm |
The End is Nigh
Yesterday I had an awesome writing day. Did about 1500 words of freelance reviewing, and then -- in a couple of sessions at the keyboard -- another 8,000 words on Bone Shop...
And I finished the thing. It turned out to be a short novel, about 65,000 words long total. I'll post the final two chapters, one on Monday the 19th, the last on Monday the 26th. I felt rather wrung out when it was done, but I'm happy with it. I've been waiting to write some of those final scenes since I first started writing Bone Shop. And I fulfilled my goal of writing a story that takes Marla from a teenage runaway to the new chief sorcerer of Felport. It's a period in Marla's life I may return to for short fiction -- there are lots of cool stories from those years I didn't have time or space to tell in this format.
But anyway: it's my 12th finished novel! And my sixth published novel. The rest are either trunk books (my first four) or else currently on submission to publishers. Though I feel strange saying this book was "published" when I did the whole thing myself. Then again, the book has paid as well as a sale to a small press would have, so I'm not complaining. Thanks to everyone who's supported the book with publicity or donations. And if you've been holding off on donating, well, there are only two weeks left!
There are plans to do a downloadable audiobook version (details are pending, I'll let y'all know), and I'm thinking of putting together a print version, as many people have said they'd like to have it on the shelf. I can do the interior layout and publish it via Lulu.com or something, but I'm a bit stumped when it comes to cover art. I can't afford to pay an artist like the amazing Dan Dos Santos (who did the Bantam covers), which is a shame. Really, I can't afford to pay anybody. So it may be a simple typographic cover, or something with weird public domain art... I dunno. I'll think about it. I'll try to have it ready by Christmas.
Now that Bone Shop is done... what am I going to do with all my free time?
Guess I'll write some short stories. | | Monday, October 12th, 2009 | | 7:09 am |
| | Monday, October 5th, 2009 | | 7:40 am |
| | Thursday, October 1st, 2009 | | 2:48 pm |
Four
Four years ago today, I did the smartest thing I've ever done in my life: I married Heather Shaw. In the intervening years we've written some books, had a baby, learned to cook new and exciting meals, gone on trips to wonderful places, and had more fun than I can possibly describe. I wrote about the wedding day here, and four years later, I can say: We are still dreaming the same dreams.
Traditional (US) gifts for the fourth wedding anniversary are linen and silk. Heather got me a pair of lovely linen shirts, and I got her a silk robe. Saturday night (with the help of our wonderful friend and frequent babysitter Amelia, who's taking care of the kid), we'll go out to dinner at one of our favorite fancy restaurants, and see a movie, and basically be one of those disgustingly happy married couples you sometimes see.
Heather: Thanks for having me, babe. | | Monday, September 28th, 2009 | | 8:08 am |
| | Monday, September 21st, 2009 | | 7:55 am |
| | Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 | | 8:34 am |
Some Silver Linings
My wife is out of town (and our son is currently lying on his stomach, looking under the couch, and yelling "MOMMY!" in case she might be hiding under there), and so it's been a lonely few days. She gets back next Sunday. Which is a looong time, and I miss her. But I'm trying to focus on the positive, so some good things:
My story "Silver Linings", went online today at Tor.com. Great illustration by Thom Tenery, too. There's also audio of me reading the story, which (let's put this politely) privileges authenticity over polish...
My story "Restless in My Hand" and my unpublished flash piece "Uchronia" will be appearing on Podcastle at some point. The editor wrote to me asking for the stories, which is always nice. She heard me read "Uchronia" at an event a while back.
Jon Armstrong (author of the weird and wonderful fashionpunk novel Grey) interviewed literary agent Ginger Clark -- who represents me (and Jon, for that matter) -- for his podcast, "If You're Just Joining Us." Good funny stuff, though it made me miss hanging out with my agent in person, which I haven't done in years.
After a hiatus of three months or so, I'm getting back into the porn reviewing business, which is good, because I felt like a chump watching porn for nothing. The money will come in immensely handy.
My online serial novella Bone Shop accidentally became a novel this week, crossing the magical threshold of 40,000 words that (according to SFWA) separates very long stories from very short books. It's got another 15 or 20,000 words to go, too. So I'm now engaged in writing what will be my, hmm, 12th finished novel. (Of the others: five were published, four trunked, two are on submission currently.) I guess that's an accomplishment? Accidentally writing a novel? (Though this means I've still never managed to write a novella! Gah! The form eludes me!)
Other good things: I made a steak and a pile of sauteed mushrooms for dinner last night, a meal that is highly unlikely in my usual life, since Heather doesn't eat red meat. And I get to sleep sprawled out in the middle of the bed. And, um... Nope, that's it. Otherwise there's no upside to the absence of my best beloved. Not a good trade. | | Monday, September 14th, 2009 | | 7:22 am |
| | Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 | | 1:46 pm |
Lakewise
My agent was happy with my novel proposal, and is going to send it out, so that's exciting. I need to cobble together a couple paragraphs for the potential sequels I have in mind though.
The wife had a job interview that went quite well, so we're hopeful. She thinks she'd really like the job.
My long Labor Day weekend was pleasant. Lots of reading, playing video games, enjoying the weather, wandering around, spending time with the wife and kid, eating apple pie ice cream, etc.
My mother-in-law is in town, so yesterday we all went over to the Lake Chalet, the new restaurant that opened in the historic Lake Merritt boathouse. It looks great in there, very upscale, though we ate in the sub-restaurant called the Dock -- which is literally the old dock, extending out into the water, where they've got great shaded tables and first-come-first-serve seating and a limited menu. But Tuesdays out there are Taco Tuesdays, with cheap(er) margaritas and $2.50 fish, veggie, or carne asada tacos. We feasted.
River needed a break partway through, so I went with him so he could run around in the grass in the surrounding park. Which was fine until he belly-flopped into fresh goose poop. A costume change was in order. Otherwise it was an unmarred afternoon.
On Saturday, my wife leaves me for the Blue Heaven writing workshop. I'm happy for her, and jealous, and worried about a week of solo parenting. At least I'll have grandma babysitting services!
Elsewhere on the internets: Scott Lynch battles the angrily entitled, and there's a great new episode of Shadow Unit: "Smoke and Mirrors" by Elizabeth Bear. (Though it makes more sense if you've been reading all along, so if you're new to the site, why not start at the beginning?) | | Monday, September 7th, 2009 | | 7:04 am |
| | Friday, September 4th, 2009 | | 9:47 am |
2,666.666...
I wrote 16,000 words over the past six days. (From 8/29 to 9/3 -- I did not write, and do not plan to write, anything other than this journal entry, some tweets, and stuff for work today.) What I accomplished:
Wrote two book reviews.
Wrote chapter 10 of Bone Shop.
Finished sample chapters and a proposal for a novel tentatively titled Death (and other afflictions)
Finished sample chapters and a proposal for a book in a totally different subgenre tentatively titled An Arrant Thief
Did revisions to a work-for-hire audition piece.
Fly away, little books, and write when you find work!
All of that stuff had either hard deadlines (as in, readers or editors were expecting them) or soft deadlines (as in, my agent was hoping to get stuff from me before Labor Day weekend) at various points in this past week.
It was a lot of work, but I still found time to read a couple of good books (Alan DeNiro's Total Oblivion, More or Less, Alex Bledsoe's The Sword-Edged Blonde; now reading Daniel Abraham's The Price of Spring), and play some World of Warcraft, and hang out with my wife and kid (the latter now knows words including go, climb, orange, red, green, car, where we goin'?, and more).
I have some work to do the rest of this year, though not immediately -- I have two stories promised to editors in early 2010. One is a Marla Mason story.... and the other is a Bordertown story for the new anthology Welcome to Bordertown edited by Ellen Kushner and Holly Black! The Bordertown books were a huge formative influence on me when I was a 12, 13, and 14-year-old reader, and the chance to contribute to the revival of that world is awesome.
And the wife has a job interview next week that we're hopeful about, so things are, at least potentially, looking up. | | Monday, August 31st, 2009 | | 9:16 am |
| | Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 | | 10:59 am |
Is This Thing On?
I used to keep meticulous paper journals, writing every day; then I started blogging, which was the death of my paper journal; and now tweeting seems to have killed my blogging! Anything I have to say, I merely tweet. Eventually I will probably move on to writing a single word on a fogged mirror every three months. But I do miss blogging, so, here I am.
Actually, I have a better excuse than mere technological migration. I've been work-work-working. In the past two weeks I wrote about 10,000 words of a new novel project, which -- once I revise it and put together something resembling an outline for the remainder -- I'll send to my agent. (Sent it to a couple of first readers last night, and they got back to me already -- their responses were hearteningly positive. And I'm having the time of my life with the story.) If she likes it as much as I hope she does, we'll start trying to sell the thing. I hope somebody snaps it up. I'd love to finish it.
I've done about 6,000 words of another novel, in a very different sub-genre, too, and need to do a few thousand more words and an outline for that as well.
I've been finishing up the last loose ends on my Sympathy for the Devil anthology (still waiting on four or five contracts to come back to me, and I need to write an intro and maybe brief story notes). That's almost done. And I have some minor revisions to do on a work-for-hire audition piece by the 4th of September.
All that stuff should be wrapped up in a few weeks, and then: I can write stories! I've got a couple of pieces promised to anthology editors that are due in earlyish 2010, and a couple of other story ideas I'm eager to write just because. That should keep me occupied through year's end.
And, of course, Bone Shop chugs along at the rate of 3,000 words a week or so. It's about halfway done now.
I'm having fun with all this. Things are still kind of terrifyingly precipitous in other ways, but my wife's got an interview for a very cool job next week, and we're really hoping that works out. She'd enjoy it, and it would pull us back from the brink of financial catastrophe. And, honestly, then life would be just plain good. | | Monday, August 24th, 2009 | | 7:45 am |
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