Tropism

16200

tim[at]tropismpress.com — Mon, 8 Feb 10 06:16:00 UT

Kid's sick again, though he slept through the night last night, pretty much -- until 5:30 am. As opposed to Saturday, when he was up from 2 to 6:30 am cranky and feverish. He seems to be feeling fine now, so let's hope it was just a brief cold. Glad he didn't pull another all-nighter, since I have to go to work in a couple of hours and write an obituary for Phil Klass (who wrote as William Tenn). I met him once or twice, and he was a brilliant satirist. A great sad loss.

Other than the kid feeling poorly, it was a good weekend -- great, even. I had my best writing day in ages on Saturday, producing 12,700 words, and getting within a chapter of the end of my current project (a work-for-hire book I can't really say much about, except: it's fun!). It's nice to write one-eighth of a book in a single day... I did a little writing in the morning. Heather took the kid (who was not noticeably sick then) off gallivanting so I could have some afternoon hours to write. I did a little more in the evening. A couple hours here and a couple hours there and a couple more hours over there really add up.

I snagged some more time (thanks again to my wonderful wife) on Sunday to finish my draft, getting another 3500 words down and reaching The End. After converting myself almost entirely to a slow-and-steady writer since becoming a father, it was nice to get some old-school binge-session chasing-the-finish writing done.

I also watched Jennifer's Body, which was enjoyable, and read Charlie Huston's Caught Stealing, which is the first thing I've picked up by Huston that's really pulled me in. I couldn't get into his hardboiled vampire novels, but I might try more of his non-vampire crime stuff.

And Sunday -- unlike Saturday -- I even managed to go outside, taking the kid for a walk in the stroller because he was going stir-crazy and he seemed to be feeling better and didn't have a fever at the time. (Fever came back later, sigh.) The weather was absolutely gorgeous.

I still need to revise the project I just finished, but that shouldn't be too tough, and I have a few weeks to do it. So now I get to move on to some of my own stuff -- Broken Mirrors, short stories... It's exciting. I want to keep up with this newfound writing-nearly-every-day habit I've developed.

Some Days in the Life

tim[at]tropismpress.com — Thu, 4 Feb 10 09:34:00 UT

Yesterday I was thinking, "Man, I work a lot," and decided to break it down. So here you go:

My average work day:

Begins between 5:30 and 7:30, usually, depending on when the baby gets up, and whether it's my turn or my wife's turn to get up with him; 7:30 at the latest.

7:30-8:00: Shower, make coffee, get ready to leave.

8:00-8:30: Go to work. (In the future this will involve "take kid to day care" some days and I'll have to get up and leave earlier.)

8:30-5:30: Day job stuff, which includes a lunch break during which I usually get to read for half an hour, though if I'm up against a deadline I write during that time.

5:30-6ish: Drive home.

6:00-6:30: Clean kitchen, make baby's dinner. (He usually eats either our leftovers from the night before, or something quick like grilled cheese, scrambled eggs, etc. We're trying to have more family dinners, but the logistics are tough.)

6:30-7:30: EITHER clean up baby-devastated living room and make dinner for myself and wife, OR give baby a bath and put him to bed, depending on whether it's my turn or my wife's turn to put the baby down.

7:30 to 9:00: Eat dinner with wife, watch TV, read, fart around online, do World of Warcraft dailies with wife, whatever. Free play!

9:00 - 11:00: Write fiction/ revise fiction/ write freelance non-fiction/ do administrivia/ other work stuff.

Then I either go to bed, or, if I don't have to get up with the baby the next morning, read or watch TV for another hour.

Average schedule for weekends/day off (which is only a day off from my day job, not work in general; usually Tuesdays):

Begins between 5:30 and 9:00, usually. 9:00 at the latest. (My wife and I take turns so we each get one day to sleep in each weekend)

If I get up with the baby, I feed him breakfast, entertain him, etc. until my spouse gets up. IF the baby got me up at 5 a.m. or something, I go back to bed for an hour or two. IF the baby got me up at a reasonable hour (6 a.m. or so), I just stay up.

9:00 to 10:30: Drink coffee, eat breakfast, play with kid, answer e-mails, pay bills, do administrivia, manage story submissions, etc. It's easy when the kid is feeling self-directed and playing with blocks or whatever; it's hard otherwise.

10:30 to 1:00: Take a walk to a park with the kid. Run around and play. Go to the library to turn in/pick up books. We used to get brunch; lately we've been too poor for that. Do some grocery shopping.

1:00-3:00: In a perfect world, the kid naps. Sometimes he naps longer, or later, or not at all. Usually we get at least 90 minutes of nap though. During naptime: write, write, write. Fiction, freelancing, whatever. This is the prime chunk of daylight work time and is pursued vigorously.

3:00-6:00: Play with kid, do household chores, try to read if the kid will allow it, etc.

6:00 onward: same as other nights, except if I get to sleep in until 9 the next day, I usually stay up until 1 a.m. or so. Sometimes I get to watch a bad horror movie then!

Often on weekends my wife and I will divide the day in half -- she'll take the kid in the morning so I can work for some uninterrupted hours, and I take him in the afternoon so she can work, and we co-parent in the evening.

Sometimes when I'm burned out I take a night or two or three off writing... and make it up by working more later, usually. This is pretty much the peak schedule, when I have deadlines. When I don't have deadlines -- other than weekly freelancing, which I always have -- I can ease off on the writing a bit, and do.

Thinking about this makes me tired. I used to have more time for video games.

Broken Mirrors, Donation Models, etc.

tim[at]tropismpress.com — Wed, 3 Feb 10 12:28:00 UT

The response to my straw poll was quite positive. So it looks like Broken Mirrors will happen, though I'm not entirely sure when. I could start writing it as soon as next month, and posting it a month or two after that, depending on how well the writing goes. I've thought about the book a lot -- I mean, I expected to write it last year -- so I don't think it'll be too tough.

Still pondering the donations model. Doing it like I did with Bone Shop -- free to read, pay whatever you want -- is certainly easiest. The hostageware thing (where I only post a new chapter if I get paid enough for the last chapter) works well for some writers, but I'd feel bad for the people who did pay if donations fell off and it didn't all get posted.

So I'm thinking I might offer premiums for donations at various levels. Something like this (not final, subject to change, might do something completely different, etc.):

Donations:

Here's what you get, in addition to free chapters. (Every successive level also includes the goodies from the previous levels, so the more you give, the more you get)
Below $10: My heartfelt thanks, because it really does add up.
$10 and up: Your name in the acknowledgments of the print version and online.
$25 and up: A signed limited edition chapbook featuring a new, never-before-published Marla Mason story, to be sent by the end of 2010. It won't be a short-short, either.
$50 and up: A free, signed print copy of Broken Mirrors, also probably out by year's end.
$300 and up: I name a character -- or spell, or aircraft, or something else in the book -- after you (or I'll use a name we mutually agree upon). Yeah, it's pricy, but if I set the threshold too low, I'll end up with all my characters named after people's cats, which could get silly. (And if you donate this right before the last chapter goes live, well, I'll do my best to squeeze your name in somewhere!)
$5,000 and up: I'll dedicate the book to you.
$10,000 and up: I'll hand-deliver a print copy to your door and make you a nice dinner at a time of our mutual agreement and do a reading for you and your friends, if you want.
Amounts are cumulative, so if you do many small donations, you get rewards based on the total you donated during the months the book is being posted.

What do you think?

Should I Write the Next Marla Mason Novel?

tim[at]tropismpress.com — Mon, 1 Feb 10 11:14:00 UT

I'm debating whether or not to write Broken Mirrors -- the fifth full-length Marla Mason novel, which will resolve the cliffhanger in Spell Games -- this spring, to be published online as a reader-funded serial in the summer or fall.

If you're interested in reading that (and more importantly interested in donating, so I can actually afford to spend time writing the book instead of hustling up paying gigs), send an e-mail to tapratt@marlamason.net and tell me. I'll put you on a mailing list and notify you when/if the book goes up. (Comment and include an e-mail address and I'll put you on the list that way instead.)

I suspect I'll use this model: I'll put up the first chapter, and post subsequent chapters as soon as I receive a certain amount in donations for each chapter (probably between $200-$300 depending on how many chapters there are), not to exceed one chapter per week. (Probably be around 25-30 chapters, but it's hard to say until I get into it. Making $7500 on the book would make it worth my while -- that's only about five grand after taxes, for probably three months of hard work -- so I'd aim for that as a minimum total.)

If I get a pretty healthy response to this call for interest, I'll do it. If I only get a handful of responses, well... I probably won't, because even though my wife got her old job back (yay!) we're still broke from her half a year of unemployment, hospital bills, the new need to pay for part-time day care, etc. I can only do this if I'm reasonably sure enough people want it and are willing to pay for it. So if you're dying for book 5, tell me, and tell any of your friends who might be interested.

I would probably follow up the online serialization with e-book versions and a print version. I'd also want to offer people who donate over a certain amount some kind of freebie -- like a signed never-before-published Marla Mason chapbook. Details to be worked out if this actually happens.

And if I get a really good response to book 5, I might even decide to do book 6 next year...

Good to Get the First Failure of the Year Out of the Way

tim[at]tropismpress.com — Fri, 8 Jan 10 10:40:00 UT

I had a sort of kinda halfway goal of writing every day this year, which I managed until yesterday. Got some bad news in the evening (a relative in intensive care back home, not expected to pull through), and that messed up my concentration pretty well -- I sat down to write last night as usual but just couldn't focus on the imaginary lives of those imaginary people that suddenly seemed so trivial.

My usual response to failing at a goal is to say "Bah!" and declare that the whole enterprise was futile and a waste of effort and then give up trying, but I'm trying to be a bit more mature (in that respect, at least) and just call it a temporary lapse and move on as if it hadn't happened. (Also: I have some looming deadlines, and writing every day will make them a lot less difficult to hit.)

I've got a cold, actually my second cold of the year (with slightly different symptoms from the first cold!). Mostly just a lot of sniffling and being overtired, though I was making white bean/turkey sausage/tomato soup last night and couldn't get it to taste right, kept adding spices, etc.... until finally realizing my sense of taste was blunted unto uselessness by the cold. Fortunately I stopped before I ruined the dish completely. I ended up putting several squirts of Vietnamese hot sauce into my own bowl just so it would taste like something, even if the something it tasted like was: burning.

So, not the best start to the year, really. Fortunately I have some good friends visiting this weekend, and my friend D. will be staying with us for a week later this month, which should improve my life.

Yield to Stern Resolve

tim[at]tropismpress.com — Fri, 1 Jan 10 12:57:00 UT

As I do every year, I'm taking time for some introspection and course-corrections in the form of New Year's Resolutions/goals. A look at last year's resolutions:

Be nicer to my body. [Intermittently successful. Eating much better overall, but a bout of bad news and stress-eating made me the fattest I've ever been. I scaled back from that one-eighth-of-a-short-ton weight to my usual normal overweightness. Ah well. Being too poor for my gym membership hurt too. Will try to be better this year... and treat individual failures as interruptions, not endings.]
Write better stories. [I had an awesome writing year. Lots of new stories, including some of my best work ever.]
Write joyfully. [Had to write with more urgency than joy this year, to make money, but I'm mostly still having fun.]
Sell another novel. [Sorta -- I'm doing a work-for-hire novel. But not one of my original books with my name on it. Wish me better luck next year. This is a dumb resolution, anyway; better resolve to write books/synopses/packages and get them submitted, as that's all I can control.]
Be a good husband. [You'd have to ask Heather, but I really tried.]
Get the house a bit more organized. [Again, more incremental progress, but things are improving, especially in the baby's room.]
Be a good father. [I yell a bit too much when frustrated -- which is pointless, since my kid thinks yelling is fun -- and must get the casual profanity under control as he repeats things now, but: I spend a lot of time with my kid, and we love one another's company, and his face lights up when he sees me, and I intend to enjoy that as long as I can.]
Pay off the remainder of my credit card debt. [Ha. Considering that my wife was only employed for about half the year, I count it as a rousing success that our debt didn't increase. This one changes to "Pay down as much debt as possible."]

With some modifications, those all carry on to next year; many of them aren't meant to be resolutions I can finish and call done, but reminders of what's important in my life. I used to always say Love and Art were all that mattered to me; now it's Love, Art, and Family. (One could argue that Family is a subset of Love, but I pretty much meant Romantic Love with Associated Sexytimes, so the distinction is useful to me.)

Last year I said "2008 was the hardest year of my life." Wow, I had no idea what I was in for -- 2009 was so much worse. I really hope things improve in 2010. Sure, the distinction between years is arbitrary, but humans are great at infusing the arbitrary with significance. I'd say it's one of our core strengths.

A Decade

tim[at]tropismpress.com — Thu, 31 Dec 09 09:45:00 UT

A decade ago -- December 1999 -- I was working in a well-paying advertising job in the mountains of North Carolina, dating a sweet girl and living with my college housemates, writing a lot and publishing poetry and a tiny bit of fiction in the very small press.

Since then I:

Moved to California (Santa Cruz for a year, Oakland ever since)
Met and fell in love with and moved in with and married Heather Shaw
Had a son, River
Had some great vacations: Hawai'i (twice), wine country, camping, Portland, etc. (international travel will have to wait for the next decade I guess)
Started working for A Certain Magazine, where I'm now a senior editor
Moved to an apartment with a view of a lake in a neighborhood I love with a passion that surpasseth all understanding
Read somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 books
Wrote over two million words
Sold about 85 short stories and around 45 poems
Had stories reprinted in anthologies I'd read and loved for years, like The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Year's Best Fantasy, and The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror; and in an anthology I never imagined I'd get into, The Best American Short Stories
Reviewed scores of books and a few hundred porn movies
Wrote a weekly online column about sex-related weird stuff online for two and a half years (late 2006 to mid 2009)
Edited a big fat awesome reprint anthology of stories about the Devil
Published collaborations with some of my favorite writers (Mike Jasper, Greg van Eekhout, Nick Mamatas, Heather Shaw)
Attended awesome professional writing workshops
Done approximately a bazillion readings
Co-founded, co-edited, and closed a respected (if tiny) literary 'zine, Flytrap
Started going to conventions (notably Wiscon, but also the odd Worldcon, World Fantasy, and regional conventions)
Published 5 novels with a major publisher and self-published a sixth as an online serial experiment
Published two fiction collections and a book of poems
Won a Hugo Award for short fiction and a Rhysling Award for poetry and a Joshua Norton Award for best Bay Area novel and an Asimov's Reader Poll
Got nominated for a Campbell Award for Best New Writer; a World Fantasy Award; a Nebula Award; a Mythopoeic Award; a couple of Gaylactic Spectrum Awards; a Seiun Award; and a Stoker Award
Learned to cook something other than lasagna
Learned to appreciate wine that doesn't come out of a box
Documented just about the whole decade -- except for a few months in early 2000 -- in this very online journal/blog
Gained about 40 pounds
Stopped taking so many hallucinogens

Apart from the last two, I'm pretty much living my dream life (except for the current financial crap, which will, with luck, be temporary). I'm only 33 and I've done the thing I most wanted to do, since I was eight years old: I became a writer. I also got something I was too dumb to realize was even more important when I was 8 years old: a wonderful family.

Now to figure out how to spend the next forty or fifty years. I think I'll concentrate on having a really awesomely good time. And maybe losing a few pounds.

The Year in Review

tim[at]tropismpress.com — Tue, 29 Dec 09 13:12:00 UT

I'm doing this a couple of days earlier than usual, because I have time now, and I don't anything momentous will happen in the next two days.

2009. Most crap-ass year of my adult life. (Possibly of my whole life.) People I care about (and people close to people I care about) died. We've been poor all year -- in the first part of the year we were slammed by a combination of taxes and hospital bills which made it impossible for me to attend a writing workshop, made us cancel our trip to Wiscon (first one we've missed since we started going in 2001), etc. We were just barely getting our heads above water again when my wife got her hours cut at work, and soon after she was laid off from her job, plunging us into a financial panic that continues... and indeed accelerates, as our savings dwindle. My urban fantasy series got dropped by my publisher, and I couldn't sell any other novels (there are a couple sort-of exceptions, to be detailed below). Some of my best friends moved away. I didn't get any stories in Year's Best anthologies for the first time in ages. (Admittedly, I didn't publish much short fiction last year, but still.)

Thing is, the end of 2008 sucked, too, so this has been well over a year of serious anxiety. I said in my last year-in-review that "I've probably had more anxiety, stress, and worry this year than in the past several years combined, and a lot of that anxiety is ongoing." Whaddya know! That still stands.

But it's not all doom-and-gloom-and-sturm-and-drang. The good things are also plentiful, and indeed, if not for my wife being laid off and the subsequent financial nightmare, I'd call this a good year, even without novel sales. Our son is healthy, and happy, and developing just as he should, and even his glaucoma seems to be in good shape -- he didn't need surgery this year (though he went under anesthesia for exams), which is a huge relief. We took our son camping for the first time ever, on a trip with some of the aforementioned dear friends who moved away, and those are memories I'll treasure for a long time. We went to World Fantasy (got some surprise money to pay for the hotel room, and it was driving distance), so that was fun. I visited my friends Greg and Lisa in San Diego. Somebody named a yarn pattern after my novel Poison Sleep. Blood Engines was given away as a free Kindle e-book, and got me a ton of new fans. I found out Felicia Day (one of the very few celebrities I have a crush on) has read and liked a couple of my books. I read a ton of awesome books and cooked some awesome meals and had some awesome dinners and celebrated the successes of some awesome friends. See? Good stuff.

In more pure writerly accomplishments: My collaboration with Nick Mamatas, "The Dude Who Collected Lovecraft", was a Stoker finalist.

I finished my first ever anthology, a big fat reprint volume of stories about The Adversary called Sympathy for the Devil, and delivered it to Night Shade Books just a little bit ago.

Got another anthology gig, doing fiction editing for future sex antho The Naked Singularity, which doesn't need to be delivered for a few months yet.

Sold Blood Engines and Poison Sleep to Germany. The Marla novels were optioned by an independent producer, so the Hollywood thing continues to be something I can daydream about.

I serialized Marla Mason novel Bone Shop on my website, making enough money in donations to pay for groceries and health insurance for many months. I was overwhelmed by the generosity of my friends and fans; thank you all. I also did a print version for Lulu.com, and there's a glimmering of a chance of a possibility that there may be a print version coming from a small press in the future, though it's in the very preliminary "Hey, this could be cool" stage of discussion at this point, and it may not come to pass.

Wrote a rather awesome synopsis-and-sample-chapter package for my agent to shop around. Wrote another that's waiting in the wings to go out in the eventuality that the first one doesn't get work. Also revised my middle grade science fantasy adventure novel, which is also going the rounds. It's tough times in the novel-selling business, so the lack of bites so far, while disheartening, isn't totally demoralizing. Lots of good books are having a hard time finding homes.

Got a gig doing a pseudonymous high-concept work-for-hire novel that's very fun, and occupied much of the last two months of 2009 (during which I wrote close to 50,000 words on the project).

I also got a shot at writing a storyline for a video game; they didn't end up choosing me for the project, but paid me several hundred bucks... just because, as far as I can tell. And since they ended up shelving the project, I may have gotten more money than the person they did hire. I auditioned for another work-for-hire project that fizzled without providing any bonus money, alas. But even that was good practice in generating copy at high speed.

Enough reminiscence. Some 2009 stats:

Number of words written: about a quarter of a million. (I have some more writing ahead of me before year's end, so I can't be exact, but at least 250K.) That includes freelance non-fiction, novels, and stories. I don't count e-mails, blog posts, etc, just work that is (theoretically) going to be sold. It's about as many words as I wrote last year, and the year before, and the year before that. I may have achieved my comfortable cruising speed.
Stories written (all sold!): "Troublesolving" (to Subterranean), "Another End of the Empire" (to Strange Horizons), "A Programmatic Approach to Perfect Happiness" (to Futurismic), "Silver Linings" (to Tor.com), "Little Better than a Beast" (A Marla Mason story for an occult detective anthology, forthcoming), and "Our Stars, Our Selves" (for the Bordertown revival anthology, forthcoming). I'm working on another story now, but doubt I'll finish it by year's end.
Stories that came out this year that I wrote, you know, earlier: "Over There" on Intergalactic Medicine Show; "Unexpected Outcomes" in Interzone; "Her Voice in a Bottle" at Subterranean; an original short (written in the form of a monologue), "Origin Story," at Escape Pod; some original flash fiction pieces to Podcastle; also a slew of reprints to various podcast publications; and some foreign sales.
Novels written: Bone Shop (a short novel), and the first half of a work-for-hire book.
Books read: 177, most of those mystery/crime novels, which I read fast. Since last year I read only 39 books, this is what you might call a small improvement. I honestly don't know where I found the time -- the kid is a bit more tolerant of people reading on the couch while he plays on the floor nearby, so that helped. Almost all those books came from the library, which has become a big part of my life this year.

And that's it! May next year be better than this one was.

Unboxing Day

tim[at]tropismpress.com — Sat, 26 Dec 09 12:38:00 UT

Christmas Day was lovely, if exhausting. Rose with the baby and wife around 7 a.m., and he saw that Santa had come, and left him an igloo tent and a tiny baby bed with a doll sleeping in it. Then we loaded up the car and headed up to my sister-in-law's for more presents, cooking, and other adventures.

River went into a present-opening frenzy. He had the biggest pile (many of our friends sent him gifts; thank you), and he tore through it like a tiny hurricane, saying "Presents!" and "More more more!" and generally pausing only briefly to look at the contents of the wrapping paper before moving on to the next package. He was definitely more enamored of the process than the contents, though later he was appropriately appreciative of the actual gifts inside.

I got lots of nice stuff -- many good books, Left 4 Dead 2, and, best of all: Heather made me a Marla Mason action figure complete with dagger and reversible purple-and-white cloak! (She got me a silver stag-beetle pin too.)

We had the traditional big dinner, and drank various boozes, and finally loaded things up to come home a bit after 4. River promptly fell asleep in the car -- hours past his usual naptime -- and I sat down in the garage with him while he snoozed.

Once we got upstairs, we performed a TTR procedure (That's "Total Toy Replacement"). Pretty much all River's old toys, excepting some enduring favorites and his birthday gifts, got put into storage to make room for the HUGE quantities of new toys he acquired today.

After the kid went to bed Heather and I pretty much collapsed into a heap and watched some TV. And I spent some time slaying zombies into the wee hours.

Happy Boxing Day!

Evetastic

tim[at]tropismpress.com — Thu, 24 Dec 09 17:39:00 UT

Look at me updating on Christmas Eve itself! Truly I am a paragon of updatery!

Got word from one of the anthology editors I wrote "Our Stars, Our Selves" for that she really likes it, so that's good. Also got some expected writing money, which will make, er, the IRS happy, I guess, since I should give it all to them for my quarterly taxes in January. Not the most fun use of funds, but better than not having the dough, I suppose.

Also got the glasses I ordered from 39dollarglasses.com, and I gotta say, I'm impressed -- they came quickly, they work right, and they seem just as nice as my old pair (which I paid WAY more for). I'd been putting off getting much-needed new glasses (my old ones are all blotchy and scratchy) because we're poor, but I figured I'd take a risk on the internet for the cost of a Thai delivery dinner. Glad I did.

The baby woke at 6:30 a.m. for some terrible reason; he may have had a bad dream, as he was pretty freaked out. I coaxed him back into bed with a cup of milk and a nightlight and warm blankets, and he chilled out for another 20 minutes or so, but then he was ready To Be Up.

Fortunately I had errands to run anyway, and he accompanied me to the grocery store (which was pretty busy for not-yet-eight-a.m.!) for a few last-minute necessaries (dinner rolls, diapers, etc.). Then we headed over the Post Office to pick up some packages from my Dad (who always sends the Christmas candy of my childhood; yay Dad!). We were there ten minutes before the pickup window opened, maybe sixth in line. Two-year-olds do not traditionally do really well with lines, but the kid was pretty cheerful, pointing out all the doors, and windows, and stairs, and naming the colors of things. He drew the attention of the cute brunette in line in front of us, and her friendliness also served to distract him. (He acted all shy and bashful, which she found adorable. Works every time.)

And he only tried to crawl in through the pickup window three or four times.

We got our packages, returned home, woke up my lovely wife, and then I made the traditional Anderson family holiday breakfast: eggs, cheese, and sausage all scrambled up together.

(A note on surnames: though mine is Pratt, and my wife and son are Shaws, my family growing all had the surname Anderson -- my siblings are technically half-siblings, and my Dad is technically my stepdad, but he and mom got together when I was 5 or 6 years old, so he's always just been Dad. I kept Mom's maiden name. See why I didn't care to pass on the Pratt name to my son? Nobody else in any of my family Venn Diagrams has it, except my maternal grandfather, who I've met exactly once that I recall, when I was a teenager.)

Heather had just scrambled eggs. River had scrambled eggs and then some of Heather's scrambled eggs and then some of my scrambled eggs and cheese. He's ravenous lately. Delicious, and artery-clogging, and it's probably good I only really crave it once a year.

It's been a fairly lazy Christmas Eve. Played with the kid, took a nap, snuggled with my wife, played video games, re-read a Terry Pratchett novel (not Hogfather, though that would've been more seasonably appropriate), etc. Heather took the kid up to her sister-in-law's (AKA The Ranch) to visit his cousin, grandma, etc. I hung out here with the intention of doing something productive but, uh, writing this journal entry is as close to productive as I've come.

But that's okay. It's a holiday. Hope you're all having a happy day!

Eve Eve

tim[at]tropismpress.com — Wed, 23 Dec 09 14:28:00 UT

It turns out that, due to scheduling confusion, I actually have Xmas Eve off work (instead of New Year's Eve, which I don't mind working, as I can't get drunk until after the baby goes to sleep anyway). Which means this is my last day at the day job before a glorious four-day-weekend of food, wine, spirits, and family. And I can do some cooking in advance, which always helps. Our responsibilities are turkey, potatoes (mashed garlic and sweet), and pie. Mmm delicious pie.

I like Christmas day, though my circumstances are rather stress-free: we just go up to my sister-in-law's place in the hills, eat, open gifts, drink, and hang out. No huge travel involving snowbound airports or icy roads or any other sorts of hassles. And for whatever reason I don't get too stressed out about getting people gifts, usually. (The existence of online wish lists is a great boon to the latter problem, as is the fact that we're too broke to get stuff for anyone other than close family and friends -- and even some of them have to make do with cards and baked goods alone this year.)

Plus, at 2-and-a-bit, our son is old enough to have some clue what's going on this year. He looooves opening presents, and shouts "Birthday!" when he encounters gifts. The nuances of the holiday can wait. (We're about as secular as you can get anyway; it's just about food, family, hot beverages, presents, and defying the winter for us.) It'll be his third Christmas, but the first one where he has some clue what's going on. Having a kid really does add a whole new level of fun to the holiday.

Writing continues, as it must, because deadlines care not for your mortal holidays. Yesterday I got some freelance reviewing done, and then jumped back into the work-for-hire novel. The second section is FUN, if a bit logistically and structurally tricky.

I should hit a quarter of a million words of writing for the year by the time all is said and done (and that's just fiction and freelance non-fiction -- who knows how much writing for work, blogging, tweeting, etc. I've done on top of that). A pretty good year.

Christmas Stories

tim[at]tropismpress.com — Tue, 22 Dec 09 11:05:00 UT

There's a new Christmas story by Charles Stross, set in his Laundry universe of secret-agents / institutional government bureaucracy / Lovecraftian indifferent cosmic monsters: "Overtime". Reason for rejoicing!

Other Christmas/fantasy/science fiction stories I adore (and read yearly):

Greg van Eekhout's "In the Late December", also listenable at Escape Pod.

Elizabeth Hand's wonderful novella "Chip Crockett's Christmas Carol," from the late lamented Sci Fiction, but still available serialized on Hand's journal: Part one, Part two, Part three, Part four, Part five, Part six, Part seven, Part eight, Part nine, Part ten, Part eleven.

I also re-read Connie Willis's "Miracle", my favorite of her many fine Christmas stories, which I don't think is (legitimately) available online.

Got any favorites you'd like to share? (I'll also accept Solstice stories, Mithras/Invictus birthday stories, Hanukkah stories, Kwanzaa stories, Winter Festival stories, etc. etc...)

Deliverance

tim[at]tropismpress.com — Mon, 21 Dec 09 11:55:00 UT

This weekend I wrote a story! Titled "Our Stars, Our Selves," about 8600 words long, for a certain anthology to which I was invited... I'll say which one if and when the editors actually accept the story, though I need to go over it a couple more times before sending it in. It isn't due until February 1, though, so I'm actually way ahead for once. It is a rare sensation, and one I shall savor, as it is unlikely to be repeated. (I almost never miss deadlines, but I tend to hit them squarely or finish at most a couple of days ahead.) I will say it's about a gancanagh (a lovetalker), and has a protagonist I've been trying to write a story about for literally a dozen years. So it's nice to have that done.

My short-short "Uchronia" is up for your listening enjoyment at Podcastle today, read by the awesome MK Hobson, so if you've got three minutes, check it out.

Apart from writing this weekend, I didn't do much of note -- took a walk with the kid on Saturday, let him run around the park, got some brunch with him and the wife, etc. Played some World of Warcraft. Made four loaves of banana bread from a bunch of ripe-nigh-unto-blackness bananas, which Heather gave as gifts to our neighbors. (Like we were gonna eat four loaves of banana bread ourselves.) Watched Hostel and Hostel Part Two -- the Fear.net free movies on demand could pose a danger to my overall productivity.

Sunday night we ordered pizza, and the pizza guy got trapped in our temperamental elevator for a while, so that was, um, exciting. Or actually rather boring, and resulting in cold pizza. Wonder if they'll come next time we call?

Today we're finishing up the January 2010 issue of A Certain Magazine, so it'll be a festival of work. Tomorrow's my day off, then I go to work Wednesday and Thursday, but it'll be quiet and low-stress, and then: Christmas Day! Behold: reasons to be cheerful.

Birthday, Boy

tim[at]tropismpress.com — Sat, 19 Dec 09 09:18:00 UT

On Thursday our housesitter at the office (which is actually a house, because life is complicated) was packing her things for her imminent departure. She'll be missed. We took a pause in the middle of the day to have some champagne and say our farewells. In the late afternoon a local writer came over -- bearing pizza and wine! -- to say her own farewells, so at least the long day ended happily.

After that, I joined my wife, son, and mother-in-law to drive up to my sister-in-law's house on the horse ranch to celebrate my nephew's seventh birthday. He chose the menu: hot dogs, tacos, broccoli, salad, and plain pasta. An eclectic but sufficiently satisfying meal. Gifts were opened, songs were sung, candles were blown out, cake was consumed, and everyone was merry. We didn't get to stay long, since our kid's bedtime is 7:30, so we headed home and did the sleepytime ritual.

After which I collapsed into an exhausted heap on the couch. We watched some more Jekyll and some Criminal Minds. Eventually I roused myself from my torpor, thinking I should try to write, so I dragged myself over to my computer and put on my headphones.

Everything clicked nicely, and 40 minutes later I had 2,000 words written, putting me past the 40,000 word mark, and concluding part 1 of my work-for-hire novel (Part 2 should be about 20K long, and part 3 another 40K, for a reasonable 100,000 word total). My usual cruising speed is about 2,000 words an hour -- assuming I know what I'm supposed to be writing, and what happens in the scenes, and etc.; otherwise it's, ahem, rather slower -- so I'm pleased to be zipping along at such unusual velocity. The book has a definite and distinctive voice, which helps. If I can get into the voice, it tends to flow.

Unlike yesterday, when I wrote about 5,000 words of news at the day job, and also did some layout work, and came home pretty much exhausted, and didn't write a lick of new fiction, because typing was mine enemy. But perhaps I'll accomplish more this weekend.

Blitz(en)

tim[at]tropismpress.com — Thu, 17 Dec 09 23:07:00 UT

I'm not managing daily updates, but it's nice to be back in the habit of semi-regular updating anyway.

Spent some time yesterday evening on making rather boring customer service calls, which ate into my writing time, alas. I only managed to scribble a couple hundred words, which, for me, is barely the equivalent to throat-clearing; I need a few hundred words just to get up to cruising speed. Still, any forward momentum is good. I need to average about 6,000 words a week on this book to meet my March deadline (I also have a short story, about one-sixth written so far, that's due in February), which is certainly doable. I just have to, you know. DO it.

Of course, I could have refrained from playing so many video games last night and gotten much more writing done, but let's not wander into the dangerous realms of personal accountability and responsibility, all right?

My wife and I watched the first episode of Steven Moffat's BBC show Jekyll and really liked it; I quite enjoy Moffat's writing, and it's cool to see what he does on his own, rather than playing in the Doctor Who universe. Plus: Paterson Joseph! Always a joy to watch, especially as a villain, even when putting on an American accent.

Reading Blitz by Ken Bruen, first one of the Brant books I've tried, and it's not particularly grabbing me so far; seems more formulaic than most of his books, though I'm not very far along, so it might well surprise me.

The magazine is busy, busy, busy. Lots of obituaries this time, lots of interesting news, lots of writing to do, and a short schedule because of the holidays. Nothing like a little neurochemical burn and deadline pressure to remind you you're working for a magazine. But it'll all be over end of day Monday, and then I've got two short weeks (three days next week, only two the week after that), so that's some relaxation to look forward to. And a chance to catch up on that writing I should do.