Ketchup

It's crunch time. My deadline approacheth! I'm very happy with the plot, the characters, the surprises, the losses and the victories... but I've still got to write the epilogue and do a TRUCKLOAD of editing. So I've given up exercise and shaving, much less wrapping Xmas presents. Or buying them. Screw you guys! I'VE GOT TO FINISH THE BOOK!!!!

In the meanwhile, if by chance you haven't seen it, this short film pretty much summarizes where my head is at these days. ;)

Labels: book trailer, Mind Plague, the writing life

Well, sort of. Here's the first draft of the second map set to run in the front of the book. With corrections. If you click on it here at Ketchup, I believe a larger size image will pop up for close, eagle-eyed scrutiny.

What's happening here? "Motor Pool." "Fences." "Ruth's Hut." It's a mystery. A tantalizing run-to-the-store-and-right-now-and-buy-it mystery! Remembering of course that the book isn't slated for release until December 2009. Woof. Wait a wait.

That is all for now. Bwah HA ha ha ha ha! ;>

Labels: Mind Plague, the writing life

This is no surprise to anyone, ha ha, but in particular I mean that I have a problem with this giant beast of a book. As of today, I have a 500 page manuscript with still the final chapter and an epilogue to write. This is very bad. My editor and my agent will both frown in stern disapproval if I deliver such a monster.

Too much action! That's the issue at hand. I do love to blow me up some helicopters and nuclear warheads, don't I? Yes. Yes, it's true.

Now it's time to buckle down. I'm very happy with the characters and their personal growth, tensions, hopes, failures, and dreams. The plot is nicely tangled and full of high points and reversals. It's the running around shooting each other in the head that needs to be boiled down and tightened up. Still... what to do with those pages?

I was thinking about adding a short list of Deleted Scenes to the Free Fiction page on my web site. But if anyone read them now, it might ruin Mind Plague for them. No sneak peeks allowed! ;P

Labels: Mind Plague, the writing life

For those of you who don’t already know, November 1st marked the start of this year’s National Novel Writing Month, a fun if gimmicky event designed to motivate people to crank out an entire book in four weeks. Why? Beats the heck out of me. Most writers could make more money working at Burger King than banging away at our keyboards -- and you get free food, too! For years I considered this career change myself. It's only through insane persistence and good luck that I'm not asking you if you want a large fries with that.

The goal of National Novel Writing Month is 50K words, which is actually just half of a book unless you’re writing YA, but their catchy acronym is NaNoWriMo. If it was National Half-A-Novel Writing Month, they’d be left with NaHaNoWriMo. Or NaThirNoWriMo if you’re writing those door-stopper epic fantasy novels, in which case 50K is barely more than a third of your manuscript.

Anyway, it got me thinking, and I ran some numbers to see if I could compete -- and I can’t. Even when I have a week without interruptions, which is exceedingly rare, my personal best is 30K words in a month. Typically, I’m more like 20K, and my surprise for you today is that I actually prefer the 20K months.

One manuscript page is 250 words, btw. My daily goal is 6 pages minimum. I shoot for 8, 4 is considered mediocre, and I’m usually mad at myself if I don’t hit the 6 page mark, although if I only achieve 3 or 4 pages in a day but write a particularly evocative or technical scene, I’m glad.

Yes, it’s a fun, heady feeling to crank out 10 – 12 pages in a single day. Yeehaw! But I’ve found that what I write on those big days is often the same stuff that needs the most work later on, so it comes out the same. Either you blast it out fast and do more editing later, or you find a happy medium and get it mostly right the first time. My editor considers me a “clean” writer, which is flattering. She means that my manuscripts aren’t full of typos, unclear sentences, continuity lapses, or plot snafus. Naturally I hope to keep it that way, so my preference is a quick but steady pace, not sprinting.

20K words is a fifth of a book. After five months like that, you’ve got a complete novel, although I typically need at least another month to clean up the manuscript, add a few nuances here and there, and brightly polish the line-by-line writing.

So why aren’t I publishing two books a year? Well, this year I wrote two books, more or less -- 80K for Colony High, and 115K for Mind Plague, despite the distractions. I have family, and a house and a yard, and the business part of writing seems to be encroaching more and more on my time; contracts; interviews; research; conventions; preparing for panels and classes at conventions; fan mail; outlining future books; etc.

I know, I know -- these are EXCELLENT problems to have!!! I’m not complaining. But for me, at least, 50K a month just ain't realistic.

Labels: Mind Plague, National Novel Writing Month, the writing life

I’m on fire. I’ve written 30,000 words in the past four weeks, which is awesome, except that this is the price ya pay. Here's what I look like. And, yes, those are ice packs on my smoking hot wrists. Ouch!

It’s been especially psychotic. Land Wars. Halloween. Grinding out Mind Plague. In my last Catching Up, I forgot to mention that I also had a gig last week at the library in Tracy, which is about an hour’s drive from home. The evening went well. Yes, two of the warm bodies in attendance were my parents, but there were eleven total, with lots of good energy and questions. We sold some books and I was invited back to perhaps teach a writing class this spring, so although the event was a bump in my routine, I felt it was worth it. Plus it’s always fun to get out into the real world and talk to real people.

This week I also fielded an interview request from German web site Phantastik Couch, who will soon be featuring Nano as their book of the month. I also learned that a trade journal called “Technology Review” featured a big thumbs up of the book over there. Can’t beat that! I believe the Phantastic Couch transcript will be translated into German, but, if so, maybe I’ll post the original version here, too, if anyone likes?

More soon.

Labels: Mind Plague, NANO, the writing life

It's been a crazy week. The good news is that I'm turning the final corner into the big explosive end-game of Mind Plague, which feels great. I've said this before, but, man, do these people get into a lot of trouble! Ha ha.

I'm having a great time following this new adventure, but it will be a strange milestone in my life when this book is done. I really, really like my heroes and their supporting cast, so I'm both sad and excited to start thinking about wrapping up the trilogy.

The bad news from Bonerville, unfortunately, is that I've sunk waaay too much time and energy into a minor war on my street.

We live on a quiet dead-end road up against several square miles of open space, which is awesome. There are eleven houses here, most of them dating back to the early 1960s, and Diana and I are the newcomers on the block even after having moved here in 1998. Some of these families are the original builders who bought their half-acre lots in the now-pricey hot spot of the east San Francisco Bay Area for $3000. That's right. A half-acre in surburban SF Bay Area for three grand. W0w!

There are no less than three homes on our street where three generations have lived or even still live. Those roots go deep, and, of the other eight households, no one else has been here for less than twenty years now.

Except for one lot. About two years ago, a pair of brothers bought one of the old houses after the owner passed on. It was barely more than a shack, really, maybe 1300 square feet, one tiny building on a big, sweet parcel.

They swore up and down that they had no intentions of knocking it down and building a new house, to which we all wrinkled our foreheads and said, "Uh huh." Sure enough, they knocked it down and started building. Slowly. Painfully. It's been thirteen months and they're only now getting close to done. In the meantime, there have been endless trucks up and down the street, and, jeez, why are people so dull and inconsiderate? Often there were so many vehicles parked helterskelter on both sides of the road in front of the site that you were lucky to squeeze through at all. Sometimes we even had to stop, get out, and find the one particular boner who'd left his fender sticking out into the narrow lane. Duh.

In the meantime, the brothers also continued to lie to our faces about their plans. For instance, they explained that the house would be one-story so as not to affect the views of the folks uphill, except to say that "there will be some rooms on the second floor beneath the roof." Right. Aren't the rooms in a house typically under the roof?

They've put up a gigantic 5000 square foot two-story monstrosity. They also had the street ripped up (and badly patched) in three places while making upgrades to the sewer, gas, and water lines... but they say it's not their fault, it's the utility companies, as if the utility companies came along at random and the work is wholly unrelated to their new construction.

Some of the folks on the street are super pissed.

But it gets better. These guys have also run their landscaping out nearly onto the roadside, ignoring the easement requirements of our private little homeowners' association. Just about everybody has been down there talking to these guys more than once, explaining that they're creating a bottleneck in the road and that there really needs to be off-street parking available. They'll be asking $2.3 million for their mountain-sized mansion, which is big enough for at least two families, and we've pointed out that the buyers may have teenagers or maids or, you know, friends, not all of whom will be able to park in the driveway. So where will they park? Right in the street?

These guys are hilarious. They know exactly where the property line was found. It was surveyed and marked, but one of 'em must have had a bright idea afterwards. They extended well past their line into the common property of the thoroughfare.

All they want is a giant yard to help sell their boondoggle of a home, for which they're over-budget in a bad market, but they say there's no problem. They even suggested that the buyers of the house will just have their visitors park on the lawn, as if people who buy $2.3 million dollar homes would dream of rolling their Beamers through the landscaping! When I called them on this bullshit, they claimed that what they'd really said was that we (the other residents of the street) would park on the lawn, which makes even less sense. Why would I park on the mansion's lawn? I have ample parking on my own lot up the street.

At last, these turkeys graciously allowed that they'd run the landscaping out too far and that they would move it back one foot. Only one foot. And only if we dug up the sprinkler system ourselves and paid for the new PVC etc. ourselves. Moving five sprinkler heads back twelve inches would run about fifty bucks in labor and material, a nickles-and-dimes joke that they could absorb without wasting one breath, so it was nothing but a slap in our collective face.

You can imagine how well that went over.

It's been talked to death, and everyone's irritated as hell, and I have better things to do. Fortunately, because we live on a private street and in a tight neighborhood, the homeowners' association is passing a new addendum to our bylaws to specifically deal with this parcel's infractions of the easement requirements at their expense. Democracy in action. If they don't comply, they'll find themselves in civil court, which isn't going to help sell that monster, either.

Did I mention that I have better things to do? I'm glad we're finally closing down on this b.s. How was your week!?!?

Labels: Catching up, Mind Plague

This week I was hoping to bang out my world-changing blog about juggling multiple projects versus focusing only on one, but, well, I've been so focused on one project, there wasn't time for anything else!

I've been away. Imagine a business trip to a parallel future. Mind Plague. It's rather dark there and the body count is steep, but the people are interesting as hell, wounded and tough and smart and active. I am really having a good time with these characters and in a lot of ways I'll be sorry to move on when the book is a wrap and it's time to start and/or resume other projects.

More on that soon. I promise. How was the rest of your week?

Labels: Mind Plague, the writing life

It’s a mixed bag this week. I had an email from my editor to say that Plague Year has gone to its third printing, which is excellent! The book has legs. Obviously we’re all very excited. In fact, with the new run, I’m now very close to having 100K books in print.

That’s not a huge number, and it includes the Spanish and German editions overseas. I know plenty of writers whose print runs for a single novel just here in North America are two or three times that much, so my head still fits easily through the door... but, hey, I’m just starting out. My second novel is only two months old, and the six figure mark will be a nice milestone.

Our quest to close the last small gap to 100K may have taken a brief detour, however. It looks like it'll be another foreign edition that takes me to that mark. My editor here in the U.S. also said that, due to some “scheduling Sudoko,” Mind Plague is now slated for a December release. In 2009. No, that’s not a typo. We’re not talking about this December. We’re talking about next December.

That sounds scary, but it's only a jump of two months. Originally, they were talking about October 2009. Publishing books is akin to landing planes at LAX. You’ve got a lot of traffic and only so many runaways. Sometimes the books, er, planes stack up.

I have a killer blog to write about the turning of the wheels in publishing and why I'm off the summer schedule that saw both Year and War out in August. I’ll try to get to that next?

In the meantime, I see this as good-news-bad-news. We’re excited to have the book out during that time of year when people need to grab a lot of Christmas stocking stuffers for family and friends... Ooh! How about some nice paperbacks? On the other hand, I also worry that everyone will have completely forgotten about me by then. That's a long wait!

Maybe next fall just before the book is out, if I light myself on fire, naked, with Paris Hilton, also naked, on Wall Street, while throwing out free $10 bills stuffed inside fire-seared blueberry muffins... we’ll scrawl the title of the book on the money... well, you can’t beat publicity like that, right? With puppies. And music by Van Halen. Stand back!

Labels: Mind Plague, Publishing, the writing life

It's been nuts. I was gone over the weekend for the 24th annual Central Coast Writers' Conference, which takes place in San Luis Obispo, about three and a half hours south of the SF Bay Area. It was cool. I've never taught classes before, although I've done a bunch of book events and I figured the two things were rather similar. You want to be entertaining and knowledgeable, probably in that order for a book signing but in the reverse for a class, right? I was well-prepared with hardcore single-spaced ultra-dense double-sided handouts, which also functioned as speaking notes for myself, and none of my three classes had less than 30 attendees. In fact, the Friday night class was held in a big auditorium with 50+. Wow. Fortunately, I caffeinate well, and blabber on without much encouragement, and I got several good laughs and felt like I imparted what wisdom I have on the subjects of breaking into publishing, writing short fiction, and crafting suspense. Oh, and I got to sleep in both Saturday and Sunday mornings, which was gorgeous, especially because I've been nursing a head cold. Yummy.

I was out of it yesterday. Got some good editing done on Mind Plague, then turned my attention back to furthering the manuscript this morning and had a solid 2000 word day. More tomorrow. I'd like to get back into a groove and stay there until I have a complete first draft. No doubt there will be other interruptions.

Ketchup.

Labels: Catching up, Central Coast Writers' Conference, Ketchup, Mind Plague, the writing life

Running late as usual. It was one extra crazy week. There were a bazillion distractions with the release of the book trailer, plus we’re gearing up for a book release party at my local Borders. If you live in the east Bay Area, come and stop by! It’s Tuesday night, 7/29, starting at 7pm at the Pleasant Hill store

One of those distractions was an email from a producer of a radio station who’d seen the trailer and wanted a live interview on their morning show… on Kiwi FM in New Zealand. That was a first! Naturally I said yes, and I think it went well, except that I forgot until afterwards that it would have been polie to translate my measurements into metric. 10,000 feet is 3,024 meters, I believe.

The DJ had an outrageous accent, which was hilarious, and he’d watched the trailer, too. He thought it was obvious that the Plague books would make an excellent movie and an excellent video game, and I can’t argue with enthusiasm like that.

In the meantime, I did manage to have a solid if not spectacular week writing. That’s proving to be the biggest challenge for me – getting enough sleep, keeping my head straight, and minimizing distractions. It’s a lot of fun to hype your work and get hundreds of excited, exciting emails and exotic interview requests, but the main thing is to keep producing. I’m on a deadline! And I have a lot of other projects I’d like to get to next.

That’s sort of an interesting feeling. I’m very much enjoying Ruth and Cam’s next adventure (man, do those guys get into a lot of trouble!), and yet at the same time, there are other people and scenarios waiting to come to life in my brain.

I didn’t quite finish the chapter I was working on, which was frustrating. Those damn New Zealanders! Interrupting my Thursday! But (again) it turned out that this particular chapter is running over thirty-five pages, so I found a nice high point in the middle of it and lopped that baby into two. Shazam. So this week, suddenly, it turns out that I finished an entire chapter and nearly completed a second besides.

If I could just write four-page chapters, I would have written five of ‘em just this week! Ha ha.

Labels: book signing, Mind Plague, radio, the writing life

I’ve had several emails lately encouraging me to talk about what I’m working on now, my writing process, and so forth, so here it goes. I’ll try to make this a regular feature of the blog.

Colony High is mostly done. David’s even busier than I am, though, which is frightening, but our agreement was always that CH took second place to our solo work. We’re currently in editing mode. The manuscript is out to our pre-readers for comments and feedback. It still needs the final chapter, too, which I can safely say without ruining the story is full of gigantic scary curl-your-nose-hair action. Yes, it’s that good. In fact, you may actually need to shave your entire body after reading it, just to avoid becoming ensnarled with your clothes. Nice! Also, I don’t anticipate any trouble whatsoever in banging through the final scenes, because that’s the best fun of the book. I’m very excited about seeing Colony High breathed into life, but I can’t say yet when it will be available. Ideally in 2009.

I have a detailed outline for my fourth novel that I’m continuing to expand and polish. Alas, this project is top-secret project. I won't even tell you the working title! All I’m willing to say publicly at this point is that the concept is bigger and more Earth-shaking than the idea that the only safe places on the planet are above 10,000 feet. That’s right. Be afraid.

As for Mind Plague, I’m currently a third of the way through the first draft, which by my reckoning is at least a fourth of the way home. What? Well, it’s the third book in a trilogy that’s seen five billion people dead, thousands of animals species extinct, adventure, betrayals, romance, nanotech weapons and… oh, wait… you haven’t read Plague War yet, have you?

(Being a writer constantly involves time travel. In the next few weeks, I'll begin a series of summer book signings to promote Plague War, talking about a book that, for me, was finished nearly a year ago, which is especially mind-croggling when you're currently writing another book set in the same world with the same people. Me and them have already gone places that no one else knows about, but I can only talk about where we've been.)

Anyway. Plague War. It's safe to say there’s going to be a war in that book, right? So now that I'm writing Mind Plague, which follows Year and War, there’s a lot of back story to cover and characters to reintroduce, all without bogging down, and yet at the same time Mind Plague needs to work as a stand-alone novel for those readers who (foolishly!) haven’t read Year and War. It can be a real juggling act to get the book like that off the ground, especially when you want it to be a blood-pumping non-stop thriller...

What all of this means is that, for me, the opening is the toughest part.

Fortunately, by this time I’m very comfortable with the setting, the pacing, and the characters of the Plague books -- the characters who are still alive, you know. ;)

I really hit this book running. In seven weeks, I wrote seven chapters. Shazam. The mayhem continues for our poor survivors. Unfortunately, two weeks ago, I hit a speed bump. It’s been nine weeks now and I only have seven and a half chapters. Why? Well, I have a life, for one thing. And then last week was the Fourth of July. Sleep deprivation robbed me of Tuesday, because my brain moves no faster than a sea slug pickled in maple syrup when I don’t get enough rest, and then Friday the schools were closed, grumble, grumble, and I ended up spending Wednesday and Thursday talking or corresponding at length with a mechanical engineer, a real-life nanotech researcher, and a Special Forces major.

Yes, research. It’s got to be done if you’re not writing about boy wizards and ring-hunting elves. Hairy-toed dwarves. Whatever.

Life intervened again this week, robbing me of one working day, and I typically only have four days a week to write. Yep. That’s why I was so damn smug with myself for seven chapters in seven weeks. They’re short weeks!

Anyway, I had to go back and fix a couple scenes for authenticity. This did not involve ripping them out completely, which might have been easier, because, alas, I’d gotten most of it right. But I had to work my way through again correcting some technical details, which in one instance had a cascade effect on the rest of that chapter. Mind Plague will be the “fastest” of the three Plague novels. Plague Year covered a time span of thirteen months and change. Plague War, as you’ll see, happens in about eight weeks… and Mind Plague will take place in a few days. A compressed time-line like that is another juggling act right there when you’re balancing multiple points of view in different locations. Everything needs to match up. It’s all about the details. Fortunately, I’m a detail freak. I like focusing on every little part of the puzzle and trying to hold it all in my brain at the same time.

Jedi Master, that’s me. More soon.

Labels: Mind Plague, the writing life