Thursday, January 29, 2009
Deep Thoughts With Jeff: Writing Advice
Running a bit late as usual, I wanted to direct everyone to this week's Mind Meld over at SF Signal, where I took part in an amusing round-robin with plenty of other pros about What's The Best Writing Advice You Ever Received. Don't listen to Paolo, btw. That guy's crazy. ;)Labels: SF Signal Mind Meld, writing advice
Friday, January 23, 2009
German "Plague War" cover art
After yesterday's screed, naturally I'm going to start posting every day! Hourly!Here's an advance look at Piper Verlag's edition of the second Plague novel, due this August in das Vaterland. I think it's both moody and striking, which hits the tone of the book perfectly... although I confess I'm not sure exactly what's happening here. Something dramatic on a mountaintop, yes. Plus I love the title design. Scary! This book will make a nice set with Nano.
I'm also very curious to know where they'll go with naming the third book. Nano is obvious. Plasma makes sense because a main thrust of the storyline is sharing nanotech-laden blood. And to cap the trilogy? "Brain." "Skull." "Cortex." I dunno! :)
Labels: German edition PLAGUE WAR cover art
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Alas, Poor Yorick… To Blog Or Not To Blog, THAT Is The Question!
Nixon voice: "I am not a Luddite." Nevertheless, one of my resolutions for 2009 is to become the Contra Blogger. WhoooOOoooo! [ghost sounds] Be afraid!
I enjoy back-and-forthing with people and I’ll continue to post here as I’m able, especially sneak-peek cover art, advance news on the books, and fun writing tidbits — but therein lies the heart of my decision. There are only two things happening my life right now — my family and my writing — and I’m not interested in chatting intimately about my children on the net. Doing so would make me uncomfortable, which leaves only my writing, and, honestly, how much writing news can anyone take? “I sold this.” “I finished this.” “I’m wrestling with a subplot in Chapter 7 but I can’t tell you about it because it would involve spoilers and wouldn’t you really just rather read the book when it’s out?” Bleh.
Everyone should have a funny, insightful blog like John Scalzi. If I’m going to blog daily, his style and frequency would be my goal — and his readership. We all dream of such numbers, yes? But I can’t imagine where he finds the time to hit it so hard every day, day after day. John is a freaky supersize genius in the cabasa, of course. That helps! So does having only one well-grown kid. Also, I’m sure he doesn’t sleep. Ever.
Here’s the thing. John’s been at it for 10 years. He also benefited from the cross-pollination of writing big corporate-sponsored blogs during a lot of those years. If I could build a time machine, hop back to 1998, kidnap John, and hire MI6 to transplant my brain into his body, I’d do it. Or do I mean his brain into mine? Hmmm.
For my money, I see too many would-be or early-stage writers like myself investing oceans of sweat into their blogs, bleeding away their time in every effort to be entertaining, unique, and wise, straining just to earn one or two new readers each week... or month... or year.
I don’t get it. This is a tail-trying-to-wag-the-dog effort, especially for the would-be writers who have yet to sell anything. Quit goobling around on the net, people. I don’t even buy the argument that they’re honing their writing skills. Yes, I’ve seen blogs that include some well-crafted essays. Awesome. Most of it is fluff and dreck. If you want to write, you should be working on real, saleable material.
That’s just me. Playing my own devil’s advocate, let’s point out that I’ve never text messaged anyone in my life, don’t Twitter, don’t poke or wink or fill out superhero quizzes on Facebook. For a tech-minded science fiction guy, I’m a caveman. I correspond with a number of friends and other pros scattered around the world — email is kick-ass — but my real friendships are with the people I see regularly.
In the meanwhile, if I have time either to write my books or to doink around on my blog, which would you prefer? You prefer more books, I hope.
This is how committed I am to my family and my career: I don’t even read blogs except when I’m brushing my teeth at night. Crazy like a fox, that’s me. I put about four minutes into the net before bedtime. Even then, I only skim a few industry-related sites such as Nathan Bransford, Editorial Ass, and Scalzi’s Whatever. Yes, I consider Whatever an industry bellwether. Also, he makes me laugh with stuff like this.
Fortunately, it’s a rare day when these blogs actually have anything of interest to me such as this or Bransford’s sweet industry round-ups like this. Usually they’re covering subjects I already know, like query letters or awards lists, etc. I want to stay current, but I don’t have 20 minutes to doodle around every day, much less hours. I peek. I leave.
If you don’t have kids, you must think I’m crazy. (But I’m not. I’m colorful. That’s what happens to you when you live alone in Bolivia for ten years. You get colorful. Blam!) People who don’t have children are fundamentally incapable of grasping what a staggering time suck those gorgeous little monkeys can be. At the end of the day, childless people go home. Sure, they’re tired. Maybe they even feel busy because they need to hit the grocery store or the dry cleaner’s or write a few bills. For my wife and I, we go home (right, I know, I work at home) and another job begins. It doesn’t stop after the boys are in bed, either. There are always lunches to be made, laundry, cleaning, plus all of the normal stuff like groceries and dishes and bills — just more groceries to put away, more dishes to wash, and more bills to write for school or dentists or all those giant bags of food. Nor are the weekends any sort of end to the week. It’s relentless. Sports. Playdates. Everyone wants a piece of you for every freaking holiday you can imagine, and the grandparents especially are upset if you can’t be in two places at once.
I love it.
Having kids is the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I’m a better person for it. No, I wasn’t a shovel-murderer before, but having kids has caused me to be more invested in the world, more selfless, and more focused. Man, I’m exhausted all the time, but I’m having a lot of fun running around non-stop.
It’s January 22nd. We haven’t even gotten our Christmas cards out yet. That’s not a joke. We haven’t done any yardwork since May. I have writing projects stacked up like air traffic over LAX. We’re two years behind on photo albums. (Yes, we’re so infatuated with our kids, we want hard copy photo albums with every ski ticket and train-ride pamphlet included. That’s parenting.)
So that’s my story. I only started this blog because my publicist at Ace begged me to get on the cutting edge. Increase your audience! Connect! She instructed me to jump onto every popular blog I could find and leave pithy comments and funny pictures and smiley faces. Network! Schmooze!
Uh, no?
When the heck was I going to write my next book? Shouldn’t I be doing that right now?
I think a lot of people gain a false sense of control or success from blogging. Sure, I want to be popular, too, and my ego is the size of a gray whale. Getting fan mail is outrageously cool. I love the sense of community in genre fiction. But I’m a writer, Jim, not a politician.
My energy goes into my books. They’re available in stores and on Amazon, and that’s why I got into this circus to begin with — to communicate through the novels, not the constant dissection of my writing process or my politics or the remarkable idiocy of my neighbors. (No, not you, Steve, I mean the other guys.) Short of finding 200 comments here imploring me to blog my brains out, I intend to trim it back to once or twice a week.
More soon!
I enjoy back-and-forthing with people and I’ll continue to post here as I’m able, especially sneak-peek cover art, advance news on the books, and fun writing tidbits — but therein lies the heart of my decision. There are only two things happening my life right now — my family and my writing — and I’m not interested in chatting intimately about my children on the net. Doing so would make me uncomfortable, which leaves only my writing, and, honestly, how much writing news can anyone take? “I sold this.” “I finished this.” “I’m wrestling with a subplot in Chapter 7 but I can’t tell you about it because it would involve spoilers and wouldn’t you really just rather read the book when it’s out?” Bleh.
Everyone should have a funny, insightful blog like John Scalzi. If I’m going to blog daily, his style and frequency would be my goal — and his readership. We all dream of such numbers, yes? But I can’t imagine where he finds the time to hit it so hard every day, day after day. John is a freaky supersize genius in the cabasa, of course. That helps! So does having only one well-grown kid. Also, I’m sure he doesn’t sleep. Ever.
Here’s the thing. John’s been at it for 10 years. He also benefited from the cross-pollination of writing big corporate-sponsored blogs during a lot of those years. If I could build a time machine, hop back to 1998, kidnap John, and hire MI6 to transplant my brain into his body, I’d do it. Or do I mean his brain into mine? Hmmm.
For my money, I see too many would-be or early-stage writers like myself investing oceans of sweat into their blogs, bleeding away their time in every effort to be entertaining, unique, and wise, straining just to earn one or two new readers each week... or month... or year.
I don’t get it. This is a tail-trying-to-wag-the-dog effort, especially for the would-be writers who have yet to sell anything. Quit goobling around on the net, people. I don’t even buy the argument that they’re honing their writing skills. Yes, I’ve seen blogs that include some well-crafted essays. Awesome. Most of it is fluff and dreck. If you want to write, you should be working on real, saleable material.
That’s just me. Playing my own devil’s advocate, let’s point out that I’ve never text messaged anyone in my life, don’t Twitter, don’t poke or wink or fill out superhero quizzes on Facebook. For a tech-minded science fiction guy, I’m a caveman. I correspond with a number of friends and other pros scattered around the world — email is kick-ass — but my real friendships are with the people I see regularly.
In the meanwhile, if I have time either to write my books or to doink around on my blog, which would you prefer? You prefer more books, I hope.
This is how committed I am to my family and my career: I don’t even read blogs except when I’m brushing my teeth at night. Crazy like a fox, that’s me. I put about four minutes into the net before bedtime. Even then, I only skim a few industry-related sites such as Nathan Bransford, Editorial Ass, and Scalzi’s Whatever. Yes, I consider Whatever an industry bellwether. Also, he makes me laugh with stuff like this.
Fortunately, it’s a rare day when these blogs actually have anything of interest to me such as this or Bransford’s sweet industry round-ups like this. Usually they’re covering subjects I already know, like query letters or awards lists, etc. I want to stay current, but I don’t have 20 minutes to doodle around every day, much less hours. I peek. I leave.
If you don’t have kids, you must think I’m crazy. (But I’m not. I’m colorful. That’s what happens to you when you live alone in Bolivia for ten years. You get colorful. Blam!) People who don’t have children are fundamentally incapable of grasping what a staggering time suck those gorgeous little monkeys can be. At the end of the day, childless people go home. Sure, they’re tired. Maybe they even feel busy because they need to hit the grocery store or the dry cleaner’s or write a few bills. For my wife and I, we go home (right, I know, I work at home) and another job begins. It doesn’t stop after the boys are in bed, either. There are always lunches to be made, laundry, cleaning, plus all of the normal stuff like groceries and dishes and bills — just more groceries to put away, more dishes to wash, and more bills to write for school or dentists or all those giant bags of food. Nor are the weekends any sort of end to the week. It’s relentless. Sports. Playdates. Everyone wants a piece of you for every freaking holiday you can imagine, and the grandparents especially are upset if you can’t be in two places at once.
I love it.
Having kids is the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I’m a better person for it. No, I wasn’t a shovel-murderer before, but having kids has caused me to be more invested in the world, more selfless, and more focused. Man, I’m exhausted all the time, but I’m having a lot of fun running around non-stop.
It’s January 22nd. We haven’t even gotten our Christmas cards out yet. That’s not a joke. We haven’t done any yardwork since May. I have writing projects stacked up like air traffic over LAX. We’re two years behind on photo albums. (Yes, we’re so infatuated with our kids, we want hard copy photo albums with every ski ticket and train-ride pamphlet included. That’s parenting.)
So that’s my story. I only started this blog because my publicist at Ace begged me to get on the cutting edge. Increase your audience! Connect! She instructed me to jump onto every popular blog I could find and leave pithy comments and funny pictures and smiley faces. Network! Schmooze!
Uh, no?
When the heck was I going to write my next book? Shouldn’t I be doing that right now?
I think a lot of people gain a false sense of control or success from blogging. Sure, I want to be popular, too, and my ego is the size of a gray whale. Getting fan mail is outrageously cool. I love the sense of community in genre fiction. But I’m a writer, Jim, not a politician.
My energy goes into my books. They’re available in stores and on Amazon, and that’s why I got into this circus to begin with — to communicate through the novels, not the constant dissection of my writing process or my politics or the remarkable idiocy of my neighbors. (No, not you, Steve, I mean the other guys.) Short of finding 200 comments here imploring me to blog my brains out, I intend to trim it back to once or twice a week.
More soon!
Labels: Contra Blogger, Jeff Carlson
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Philip K. Dick Award
For you cultureless heathens who don't already know, Philip K. Dick was a prolific science fiction writer who saw little commercial success in his lifetime but has since become Hollywood's love muffin, his novels forming the basis of movies such as "Blade Runner," "Total Recall," "Next," and "Minority Report." Most of his novels were paperback originals. The PKD is a juried award with a twenty-five year history, presented annually to the best science fiction paperback original, which leads us to Plague War. Wednesday morning, when I got online, I had several emails that War had been shortlisted.
Previous winners include several of my favorite writers, such as William Gibson, Robert Charles Wilson, and Richard K. Morgan. Wow. It’s really, really nice to feel like I must be doing something right — you know, despite the lady who fed Plague Year to her dog, took pictures of it, and sent them to me. Nice!
As you can imagine, we’re very excited. My family. My editors. My agents. Heck, I got congratulatory emails from my publishers in Europe, who must skim the sf news sites with their evening drinks.
Even better, I'm sort of competing with myself. I’m on the ballot 1.14 times, which must be unusual. One of the other five contenders is Pyr Books' Fast Forward 2, which includes my short story "Long Eyes" along with thirteen other pieces, hence the .14, although maybe it should be .15 with another sliver cut out for Lou Anders, the mastermind behind the anthology.
Looks like a tough crowd this year. The envelope, please... Oh, wait. It won't be opened until April 10th at Norwescon!
Labels: Philip K. Dick Award finalist, Plague War
Friday, January 16, 2009
Actually, I'm Still Alive
But I look like this. Again. I’m sorry to have fallen off the map. It was Christmas. It was New Year’s. I had a 570 page manuscript that needed to become 480 or my publisher would freak. Mind Plague is at 495 right now in third draft. The fire is out. Life is good. I plan to hit it again next week and get that baby slim and mean. This is going to be the best Plague novel yet — bigger, scarier, with planes chases, gunfights, sex, betrayals, freaky new nanotech, politics, and worse — sometimes all in the same scene at once! Whoa, Nelly.In the meantime, it’s been a good week. I wrote “The End,” which always gratifying. I also found out that Plague War has been shortlisted for the Philip K. Dick Award. That’s rare for a sequel and so doubly exciting. More on this soon.
In the meantime, I only had two New Year’s resolutions. One is to get more exercise. The other is semi-retire this blog. I hear thousands of people screaming “Nooooo!” Uh, do I? No. Unless a surprisingly large crowd suddenly delurks and hollers for more Deep Thoughts With Jeff, I’m not sure I see the point. I appreciate the banter with you guys who’ve been hanging around. My original intent was to put six months into Ketchup and then reassess the matter. Clearly, I just don’t have time for it.
Having said that, I’ll also post more on this subject asap. For the moment, I just wanted to establish that, yes, I still live!!!!
Labels: Philip K. Dick Award finalist, Plague War, the writing life
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