Category: Writing

Beach Life

Published by Tim Pratt on May 30, 2011

So much news, really, it’s a bit ridiculous.

My novels Bone Shop and Broken Mirrors are going to be audiobooks, available from Audible.com! I’ve known about this for a while, but was waiting to announce until contracts were signed.

Cool things: Jessica Almasy will be the narrator again, as she was on the first four audiobooks in the Marla Mason series. And! Audible has commissioned Dan Dos Santos to do new, original covers for the audiobook editions, so there will be consistent cover art for all six volumes. I am SO EXCITED. I talked to Dan a bit last week about possibilities for illustrations, and he has some fantastic ideas. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with.

No idea when the audiobooks will be available. (I mean, they have to actually record them and everything.) You’ll know when I do.

In new fiction news… A bit over a week ago I wrote a story, “The Secret Beach,” at a playground while my kid napped in his stroller. Most of the stories I write these days are commissioned and written with a specific market in mind, but this was like the old days: an idea, some images, a few phrases, a character, and just writing as fast as I could. I typed it up that night, revising as I went; did a couple of read-throughs to clean up the language; got my wife’s opinion; sent it off. Six days after I wrote the first line, I had an acceptance: look for it in a future issue of Fantasy Magazine. Yay! I had a story in their first issue, back when they were still print. It’s nice to be back. (That was actually the second place I submitted the story — the first gave me a “close but not quite.” Rejections never stop entirely, y’all, but they mostly stopped stinging after the first two hundred or so.)

My Memorial Day weekend has been spent largely in thrall to my novel Briarpatch, making what are (I hope) the last changes before it goes to copyedits. Lots and lots of little things, and a few big things, and it’s a better book for it. Draining work, though. I still love this book. My most personal novel since Rangergirl. I’m glad you’ll all get to read it.

I also laid down a few words on City of the Fallen Sky, which is moving along nicely, if not quite quickly enough. I still have two months to finish. It’s enough, but it won’t leave me much time for video games or TV show marathons in the evenings. After that deadline, I have six months before another book is due, so I’ll be able to take it easy in the back half of the year.

Unless some irresistibly interesting project presents itself…

One Stitch for Every Year He’s Been Alive

Published by Tim Pratt on May 16, 2011

Last week was drama-tastic. On Monday River had a mid-playground head-on collision with another kid at preschool. He got a pretty bad gash, possibly from the frame of his glasses cutting into his flesh. I had to pick him up and take him to the hospital so his head wound could be treated. The pediatrician initially thought she could glue the cut over his eye closed, but, nope, they deemed it too deep, so we were sent to the Emergency Room. He got three stitches. Poor kid. He was a trouper, though. The doctor and nurse were prepared for a problem child. I tried to tell them, “No, he’ll be fine, he had his first surgery at four months old and many since, he’s not scared of doctors or medical procedures.” But the doctor said, “He’s going to kick and writhe like crazy when I inject the local anesthetic,” and they swaddled him in a sheet and had the nurse and I hold him down. All unnecessary, of course, as he was hardly bothered a bit. He actually fell asleep while the doctor was stitching up the wound. Tough little guy!

Then on Tuesday night he got an upset stomach and puked a lot, so I stayed home with him on Wednesday to make sure he was better. Not fun, but it was even less fun for him than it was for me. Fortunately by the weekend he was our usual happy guy again, and he got the stitches out on Friday. He’ll have a small scar. I told him to tell everyone he got it saving a puppy from bikers.

***

I’m a bit over 10,000 words into my Pathfinder Tales novel City of the Fallen Sky, most of that written over the weekend, and it’s going well. Writing from a detailed outline is odd, and contrary to my usual make-it-up-as-I-go approach, but it’s working out. I had a couple of false starts on this book, but I’ve settled into a voice that seems to work. And now it’s a tenth of the way done! (Maybe even a ninth.) I’m a lot less panicked now. Indeed, I’m a fairly cheerful guy in most respects. (This probably means something awful will happen soon.)

***

The weekend wasn’t all spent writing. David Moles came over for dinner one night, and Heather made an awesome pasta dish with leeks and eggs and bacon, yum. We drank beer and wine and chatted about life and books and other good things. I’m seldom social these days — both busy and reclusive, but it was nice to have a friend over.

During dinner a guy knocked on the door to tell me he was going to be renting the upstairs apartment and using it as a halfway house for a rotating cast of homeless men, and wanted to make sure I’d be okay with that, and that if I had any problems, I’d talk to him, and not bother the landlord. (This worried me, as it seems like the kind of thing you say when you’re anticipating problems, and don’t want word of said problems getting back to the landlord.) I responded with a resounding, “Uhhhh….” I talked to the landlord later, and he said the guy hadn’t even put in an application yet, and had made no mention during their conversation about using the place in such a way, and that he wasn’t interested in renting the place out for such a purpose.

I felt kind of bad for my reaction — I don’t want to be all “not in my backyard,” and finding housing for the homeless is a noble thing, but I do have a very trusting three-year-old who spends a lot of time running around literally in my backyard, and the prospect of a shifting group of strangers coming in and out of the place upstairs — with which we share that yard — would have given me a lot of stress and worry and anxiety. (A homeless guy, or a homeless family, no problem — but the halfway house aspect, with new people coming in and out, was troubling.)

I’m selfishly glad it’s not something I’ll have to deal with, but I’m also reminded how lucky I am to be able to worry about stuff like that instead of, say, having a place to sleep at night.

Bite-Sized Stories

Published by Tim Pratt on May 16, 2011

I’m experimenting with selling some individual short stories as e-books for 99 cents, starting with my Hugo Award winner “Impossible Dreams”. I’ll try to put more up, once or twice a week, for Kindle and the Nook. (The Nook version of “Impossible Dreams” isn’t ready yet; I’ll link when it is.)

My friend Tobias S. Buckell is doing the same thing (here, go buy his “Aerophilia”), as is Sarah Prineas (now go buy her “The Red Cross Knight”). So that’s 3 great stories (well, two great stories, and one of mine) for under three bucks.

Better than a small latte, I bet, and more nourishing.

First Laws First

Published by Tim Pratt on May 6, 2011

This weekend, I have… a few things to do. I need to write a short story. (I am telling myself I will keep it short. 3K-5K words. Brevity is not my strength, but I am going to try.) I also need to get some momentum going on this novel that’s due in August, as so far I’ve just been plinking away at it in a distracted way. It has a pretty extensive outline, at least, so I should be able to get a goodly number of words down. I’ve been absorbed in reading Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy in every spare moment, so I haven’t been writing as much as I should. But I finished reading that last night, and now I can devote my full attention to my own fictional world. (Or rather, my contribution to the fictional world of the Pathfinder Tales.)

Speaking of the First Law: wow, is that a bleak series. There’s some nice camaraderie among the protagonists (not, mostly, “heroes”) earlier, especially in the second book, but those rays of sunshine largely vanish in book three, and things get harsh. I mean, George Martin is famous for ruthlessly murdering characters you care about, but Abercrombie doesn’t even always give his characters the sweet release of death — they just get trapped in horrible ongoing situations that they can only bear by going to great lengths of self-deception. (Then again, they’re better off than all the little people who just get shot with arrows or eaten by cannibals or crushed by falling rocks.) That’s not to say I didn’t like the series — I did, immensely — but wow. Nice guys finish last and evil guys don’t do much better.

I especially like Abercrombie’s inversion of the “wise old wizard” trope. Powerful immortals would almost certainly be vicious uncaring bastards, after all. And he really plays with notions of “good” and “evil,” especially in the follow-up standalone Best Served Cold (which I read first, though I don’t recommend doing so, as it provides some spoilers for the trilogy, being set a few years afterward). The powerful oppositional figures pulling the strings in his world aren’t “good” and “bad,” any more than two chess players are. But it sure sucks to be a pawn… Nothing left to read now but The Heroes, then I’ll be stuck like everyone who’s been reading him from the beginning, waiting 18 months between books. Long may he write.

Sunday is Mother’s Day, so I won’t be working too much then. I’ll take my wife to get some brunch and then we’ll do something fun as a family (as per my wife’s request). It’ll be a nice break from writing about my own crew of vicious fantasy bastards. (Actually, only one is really vicious. Another is a self-absorbed know-it-all, and the last has a certain flexible morality.)

If I May

Published by Tim Pratt on May 3, 2011

Compared to the brutal brutality of endless work I wrote about last time, the past few days have been quite mellow. Worked a bit on my novel City of the Fallen Sky, wrote a review of Mira Grant’s Deadline for A Certain Magazine (short form: go read it, after you read the first book in the series, Feed), and did a personal essay about why I’m so excited to be in Welcome to Bordertown which will appear, uh, somewhere, at some point. I also got a mental handle on the story that’s due May 15, so I should be able to draft it soon.

Got a good chunk of money from France for the first two Marla Mason books. Used it to pay down credit card debt. We’re broke again, now — but the hole we’re in is just that much shallower. The goal for the next couple of years is to murder debt. Every book I write is a step in that direction.

Readingwise, I’m almost done with Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy. Then all I’ll have left of his to read is The Heroes. Sob! What gritty-fantasy-with-minimal-magic should I read next? (I asked the same thing on twitter yesterday and got some good suggestions.) I’ve read K.J. Parker’s oeuvre, and await the next George R.R. Martin, but beyond that, I’m looking for more.

My nephew (8 years old) stayed with us for a couple of days. We took him and River to Adventure Playground over by the marina: a fenced-in lot full of scrap wood, bits of metal, barrels, broken rowboats, old tires, sheet metal, rope, and other stuff, where the kids build their own play structures. Pretty awesome. My nephew adores the zipline. River is too young to do any building, but he painted a bit and climbed on some of the multi-story kid-built edifices and generally marveled at everything. We had a picnic and splashed a bit in the waters of the bay too. A nice afternoon out. It’s pretty much summertime here. Oh, May, you’re very welcome after all that rain. Loveliness abounds.

In Which I Am Not Crushed

Published by Tim Pratt on April 26, 2011

That thing people, especially writer types, do, where they say “I have good news but I can’t tell you!” Well, consider this that. Suffice to say my mood has been improved over its usual baseline in recent days. Details will be shared when I can, but, shock: it’s about a new book, and there’s some separate cool news involving existing books. But until contracts are signed, I keep quiet publicly when it comes to specifics.

My good mood hasn’t been that discernible, probably, because I’ve also been crushed by work. Now, I like work. I do. I get bored and restive and difficult to live with when I’m not working on some creative project. But as I mentioned earlier, I had a perfect storm whereby I received editorial letters (that is, a list of queries/concerns/demands for revisions from an editor) for two different novels from two different publishers within two days of each other. This was during the same week when I had to write a short story.

That week was last week.

As previously reported, I got the story written, and revised (still awaiting the editor’s verdict); the easier of the two novel edits was dealt with in a day or so, and has already met with the editor’s preliminary approval; and the more difficult set of edits took me pretty much every moment of my four-day weekend not spent parenting, holiday celebrating, or playing Portal 2. (A gift from my wife, and my reward after each long day of word-slog.) But that book, too, was finished, and sent back to the editor, though we may need another round to clear up any remaining ragged edges. Not sure yet. I also wrote the introduction for an ebook story collection by Michael Canfield, which I’ll point to when it’s available for sale. Anyway: I feel kind of epic, honestly, for getting all that stuff done. It was a pile of work so daunting that I literally, audibly whimpered when I first gazed upon it.

(Oh yeah: I also beat Portal 2, in single player mode. Good game. Haven’t tried co-op yet. Trying to convince my wife she’ll love it.)

I’m expecting edits on a third novel this week. I also have a short story deadline on May 15. I sort of know what the story’s about, but haven’t touched it yet. And my Pathfinder novel City of the Fallen Sky is due in 13 weeks. I maybe oughta think about starting that. I sure don’t have many chances to get bored.

Eleventine

Published by Tim Pratt on April 22, 2011

Taking a break from editing to do a little scribbling and catch-up here. My online journal turned 11 years old on April 20 — entirely coincidental that it shares a date with Stoner’s New Year, as I was always far more into ingestible hallucinogens than smokeable euphorics, but it does make the occasion easy to remember. Eleven years ago I was in Boone North Carolina, living at the house on Jake Miller Road with my friend D and the rest of the boys, trying to direct my life post-college-graduation, hoping to be a published writer someday. I’ve been documenting my life online, with varying degrees of completeness, for nearly a third of my life now. At some point the future happened. Now I’m just living in it.

The beginning of the week was a bit rough. My kid’s school is closed for spring break, and we had to finish the May issue of the magazine, so we had the combo of deadline pressure AND all-officeboy-all-the-time. He was pretty good, considering he was bored senseless much of the time and everyone was too busy to play with him much. We got the issue finished on Wednesday, and then: my four-day weekend began. (With Thursday my delayed day off, and today a holiday.) Oh bliss. Well, work-and-bliss.

Yesterday morning began inauspiciously. My son started the day by throwing up, but didn’t seem sick otherwise, and didn’t repeat the unpleasant exercise — still, it lent a tinge of worry to the morning. While the boy breakfasted and played and so on, I revised my story “We Go Back” and sent it off to the editor. Let’s hope it meets her liking. Then I turned my attentions to the beautiful day and set off with my son. We went to the library and the playground and the post office and got some groceries. Thanks to the existence of the $1 a scoop ice cream place (four quarters gets you a good-sized cone) I was able to bestow infinite joy on my child despite being pretty broke. He had a scoop of banana nut. Oh, to be three years old, with so many ice cream flavors yet to be tasted…

In the evening, after the kid fell asleep, I tackled the simpler of the two editorial letters in my inbox, and got one novel revised and sent back. One down, one to go. (At least until I get the third editorial letter I’m expecting, probably next week. A writer’s work is never done etc.)

The kid doesn’t seem sick today… but he woke up around 4:30 a.m. and couldn’t be coaxed back to bed for more than half an hour. So… a rather earlier start to the day than I’d envisioned. I decided to take advantage of all these unexpected hours by working on the other novel edits, but my brain is protesting. Coffee may be in order.

Double-Barreled Infection

Published by Tim Pratt on April 13, 2011

The latest story in the Alphabet Quartet to be posted online is one of my faves: “N is for Nevermore Nevermore Land”. Subscribers to Daily Science Fiction got “O is for Obfuscation” in their e-mail today.

There are still some good things left in my big book sale, though various titles have sold out. I made enough yesterday to cover the shortfall in my tax bill and pay for the kid’s doctor appointment and medication — infections in both ears! — so thank you, thank you, thank you everyone who bought or spread the word. I’ll keep taking orders through tomorrow, probably, and will pack stuff up and mail it in the next few days.

My wife was also pleased to see the giant pile of books in our living room is now small enough that we can actually see the wall behind it. She wants to hang a picture there. Presumably to keep me from piling up more books later. Futile hope.

Despite all that time spent at the doctor yesterday, it was a good day off. The kid was in good spirits once he got some children’s Tylenol in him, and we did some grocery shopping and went to the library and ran around the park. I love my days with him. So glad I’m able to do that.

Life is about to get busy. I’m expecting editorial letters this month for Briarpatch, my Wizards of the Coast novel, and a pseudonymous book. So there are revisions in my future. I also have two short stories to write. (In my defense I’ve been thinking about them… but not so much writing.) Last weekend’s vacation was fun but, uh, yeah. Vacation’s over. Back to the pixel mines.

Wishing Makes It So

Published by Tim Pratt on April 6, 2011

Great review of Welcome to Bordertown from Colleen Mondor at Bookslut! Here’s what she says about my humble contribution:

In Tim Pratt’s “Our Stars, Our Selves,” Allie Land, “lesbian future rock star for hire,” is offered one of those classic fairy tale boons — an actual wish for anything she wants. Of course she learns a lesson but not the one you’d think, and her decision is the least lame one I have ever read in the wish-accepting business. Belligerent and ballsy, Allie is a standout heroine.

Yeah, I’ll take that.

Our trip to LA for Literary Orange and Disneyland looms. Just have to get our key to the cat/housesitter and pack our bags and find the cooler and print out our maps and and and… So excited. It’s just four days, and a good 12-14 hours of it will be spent driving, but it’s the closest thing to a vacation we’ve had in ages, and I can’t wait.

Behold the Blather

Published by Tim Pratt on March 31, 2011

A few weeks back Patrick Hester was kind enough to invite me to the SF Signal Podcast for a conversation with him and Karen Burnham, and the podcast is now live! (I am longwinded and arrogant, as per usual.)

On the podcast, I blather at length about the Alphabet Quartet. You can read all the stories so far here, and you can comment on those stories, and others, at the Daily Science Fiction Facebook page.

I also go on about The Nex, natch. I’ve sold 98 e-books this month. I’d be delighted to sell 100, because, um, I have an irrational fascination with round numbers?