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Posts Tagged ‘novels’

old ghosts

There’s something deeply odd about revisiting a text you wrote when you were fifteen, with
an eye toward revising it into something worthy to see the light of day now. (I might have
been sixteen, but I don’t think so. Certainly I was in high school.) It’s not purely
craptastic, though it comes close; large chunks of it are getting deleted without a second
thought. But I had a few worthwhile turns of phrase, buried in amongst the chaff. And the
idea still has some compelling force, which is why I’m revisiting it in the first place.

Should this end up seeing the light of day, it will displace Doppelganger as my
earliest idea to successfully reach print. I can only think of one other thing that stands
even a faint chance of defeating this for that title, and that one thing will be so heavily
modified by the time it does so that it would only barely qualify as the same idea I had when
I was fourteen.

Still. Kee-rist. I was fifteen when I thought this up. If I thought it was weird
admitting I wrote Doppelganger when I was nineteen, this would be substantially
worse.

wiki-me

Got a delightful e-mail from a reader today, alerting me that he has made a page on Wikipedia for Doppelganger.

It’s odd little things like this that convince me, yes, I really am a published author. (Not that I thought the boxes of books were hallucinations or anything, but ya know. It can use reinforcement.)

a window into my life

There’s nothing quite like curling up on a cold, grey Sunday afternoon to read Maoist tracts on guerrilla warfare for the fantasy novel proposal you’re working on.

*^_^*

back to press!

Here’s some good news I do understand: Doppelganger is going back to press!

It’s fantastic to have this happen to my first novel. This means that, while probably not every single copy of the first print run has been sold yet, it’s come close enough that they’re making more. In other words, it’s selling better than expected, by a lot.

I believe the word is “wah-hootie!”

I haven’t the faintest idea what this means, but it sounds good.

According to my editor, Warrior and Witch hit the Barnes & Noble mass market bestseller list at #37. Bookscan, the program that tracks point-of-sale at many stores, puts me at #10 on the fantasy bestseller list, and #4 for mass-market fantasy.

I am completely lacking in the experience needed to translate those facts into something meaningful, but damn, they sound good. And if my editor’s e-mailing me about them, they’re probably good enough to be worth taking note of.

So yay!

Happy Street Date Day!

Today is the official street date for Warrior and Witch. Not that this means all that much, since bookstores are rarely rigorous about enforcing such things, but y’know. Go buy the book. ^_^

Also today — since they put up their new issue on the first of the month — you can go read my interview with Sequential Tart. Mostly they do comics stuff, but the Culture Vultures cover other material, and one of them was kind enough to get in touch with me. Writing, gaming, academic life — the interview covers it all.

We have a winner!

Kasi Spyker wins the tuckerization contest, having sent me the following picture:

I think I’ll have to make her one of the senators or representatives that’s on the less shady side; “Spyker” as an antagonist’s name just wouldn’t be subtle. 🙂

For posterity, I will note that hers was not the first picture I received, but I told Kurayami-hime that family were disqualified. Nonetheless, it’s good to see that there are quite a few copies on the shelf in this store, and even one of Doppelganger:

Send me more pictures! I’d love to know where the book has already made it into the wild.

more excerpt, and a contest

One week to go until the official street date for Warrior and Witch. You can now read a sample of Chapter Two online. (Sorry for cutting off where I do, but my contract limits me in how much I can post.)

Also, we return to the land of tuckerizing! The deal is the same as it was with Doppelganger: be the first person to e-mail me a picture of Warrior and Witch in a store, and I’ll name a character after you in the urban fantasy I’m working on. (You’ll probably be a senator or representative.) And even if you’re not the first, I very much appreciate reports (with or without pictures) of sightings in different places. Go forth, and find my book!

excerpt and other goodies

If you’ve read Doppelganger already, then check out the page on my site for Warrior and Witch, newly updated with all kinds of goodies — including the first chapter of the novel! It’s the revised version of what got printed in the back of the first book, and next week (one week from street date!) I’ll be adding a section from the second chapter.

If you haven’t read Doppelganger already, then please don’t follow either of those links, as they lead to spoilers that make Baby Jesus cry. Go read the first book instead.

Christmas in June

My god, is it that time already? I came home from lunch today to find a box on my doorstep, full of Advance Reader Copies of Warrior and Witch. Book ain’t coming out for three months, but apparently the ARCs are already in circulation. I shall have to think of something to do with them.

Then, about five minutes later, the doorbell rang. Found a box waiting on the porch, and in it — EEEEEE!!!!!! My costume for the second Concordia game is here. I cannot wait for that game. To hell with the plot; I just want to show off the pretty. ^_^

In other news, since I’m now registered and everything, I should mention that I’m going to be at Readercon next weekend. At present I’m not on the program (having decided way too late to go), but I’m going to e-mail them and volunteer to fill any holes they might find themselves with. Regardless, come say hi to me if you’re there.

News!

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to announce the latest development in my writing career: I have sold two more books to the Hachette Book Group (formerly Warner Books).

Yay!

What two books are these, I hear you ask?

Search me.

<g> The deal is open-ended: two novels, title and content of said novels to be determined later. I have ideas for what I’d like to do, but none of that is settled yet. The contracts, however, are drawn up and on their way to me, so it’s official. I’ll make further announcements when I know just what I’m going to be writing.

I should have been doing this a month ago

Untitled Sequel to the De-Titled Urban Fantasy

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meterZokutou word meter
2,024 / 120,000
(0.0%)

I’m way behind on the plan for this thing, but hey, I wrote tonight. Good for me. I think I’m at the stage where I need to pat myself on the back for that, and not beat myself up for the prior slacking.

Problem was that I just didn’t know how much I should be letting them talk about in this first scene. Problem was solved by letting Kim talk politics. Problem with that is that Kim’s apparently itching to become a rabid activist, about half a novel too soon. Must alter calculations accordingly.

A Cautionary Tale

If it should ever happen to any of you that you come up with an idea for a novel when you’re seventeen, write the novel when you’re eighteen, pull something of a strange point of view trick in it, shop it around for a while, thoroughly rewrite it when you’re twenty-one but leave the strange point of view trick in, shop it around some more, sell a different novel and its sequel, come back to the aforementioned novel with its strange point of view trick, and realize that the only way to make the strange point of view trick work is to give one of the characters more point of view scenes earlier in the novel, be warned: this is what you’ll end up with on your library floor.

I’m hoping that having the entire bloody novel laid out, chapter by chapter and scene by scene, in visual format, will help me figure out where I can arrange for the necessary scenes. Because there’s graven in stone, and then there’s what this novel is in my head.

And don’t even get me started on the need for a new title.