Author
Over on twitter, Michael Thomas (@michaeldthomas) said: Now I want to see side by side pics of SF pros in and out of makeup.
So, on the left we have the without picture, and on the right with
Photo credit: Tesla (Aldrich) Seppanen on the left, Matthew A Kuchta on the right.
Hey All,
I find that occasionally stating my goals helps me get more accomplished, especially if I put them up someplace public. So, here goes.
Front and center:
My current project is a historical fantasy trilogy set in an alternate World War II with most of the action of the first two books set in Edinburgh and the third traveling from there to Dachau. It’s quite dark and it’s YA. The Black School which is the first of them is my second YA novel so far, as cracking the YA market is my next major goal. I’m hoping to knock off six thousand or so words of that in the next couple of days. I’m really excited about this one.
Running Second:
Submission Novels: This is the stuff that’s out looking for a home or waiting for a response, any of which could become my main project with no warning. That includes Cybermancy, the WebMage sequel, contracted and handed in but as yet unread by my editor. The Urbana and Uriel, both being held by my editor for further consideration. Winter of Discontent, out with another editor. Numismancer, likewise. And Chalice: Artbreak, the aforementioned other YA, on the desk of my agent who plans to get it in the mail shortly.
Complete Shorts: At the moment I’ve got exactly zero short stories out and I need to fix that, so some time in the next month or two I need to sit down, re-read all my shorts, make some adjustments, and figure out who might be interested in what. I’d like to have at least ten stories back in the mail by the end of October.
Unfinished Shorts: I’ve got about six shorts that need to be completed or rewritten, but I have no idea when I’m going to find the time.
Unfinished Novels: I have a several chapters of a contemporary fantasy novel, Outside In (a secret history of architecture), sitting and waiting for me to get back to it. Likewise a mystery, Ave Caesar, which is supposed to be the first of series of light murder mysteries set in theater and film productions with an actor as the detective.
Trunk Novels: Apprentice Assassin, book I of the Assassin Mage trilogy (written three years before the appearance of the Robin Hobb book of similar title and bearing no resemblance to same). This one is awaiting a rewrite to convert it from a high fantasy general market book into a YA and is my lowest priority at the moment since it’s the first of a trilogy I’m not up for finishing at the moment. The Swine Prince, a high fantasy farce that’s ninety percent rewritten. It just needs a new first three chapters to get it out the door, so maybe ten days worth of work counting reread and rewrite. I’m hoping to get to that one within the next year so it will stop giving me guilt-inducing looks whenever I pass it in my files.
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog Sept 11th 2006. Reposted as part of the reblogging project )
Following up on the current state of the above: I finished The Black School and its sequel The Eye of Horus. That project is still looking for a home and it contains some of my best writing and worldbuilding to date. Cybermancy is currently going into a second printing, which makes at least two print run for each of the five WebMage books (WebMage is in its 5th or 6th run). Uriel is more or less permanently trunked. Winter of Discontent, The Urbana, and Numismancer are all still all under submission, currently as a package deal. Swine Prince is out somewhere as well. Apprentice Assassin did not get rewritten but it did get stripped for parts for the Fallen Blade books. Outside In and Ave Caesar are both benched, though I still have vague hopes of finishing them in my copious free time. I stopped writing and submitting short stories almost entirely, though I have published one of my backlist shorts since then and written another on request which will be out soon.
(The original post also included questions, but, as I’ve elected not to enable comments at kellymccullough.com, I’m separating them out below and people’s answers can be found at the Wyrdsmiths version):
What are y’all working on? What do you hope to get done soon? What’s sitting in your trunk making rude noises and inducing writer’s guilt?
Like all writers, I occasionally reach a point in a story where I stop moving. I won’t call it writer’s block because I know people who have suffered from the real thing, and this is nothing like as severe. For one thing, I rarely come to a complete stop, I just slow down a lot. For another, the duration is usually pretty short, somewhere between an afternoon and a week. It generally depends on how long it takes me to notice that I’m really not getting anywhere and figure out why. For me, it’s always the same reason—I don’t know what happens next.
Once I’ve identified the problem, my traditional method for solving it is to lie on the couch on my back porch and stare out the window and daydream while occasionally mumbling to myself. (May I just note that I love that part of my job involves daydreaming and talking to myself) A particularly vexing problem might involve me wandering around the house, pacing and talking aloud to whichever cat I happen to pick up.
Then, when I know what’s coming, I write it all down in mental shorthand and start moving again. Or, if it’s a really big issue, I write it all down, call up another writer friend and rant about what happens next for a while, and then start moving again. Usually Lyda is the person who hears these rants, but occasionally it’s Sean or Shari (S.N. Arly). It’s always someone who has read at least some of the story to date.
So, I have a system that works well for me, but lately I’ve been trying out a new variation. My friend and fellow writer, Philip Lees (we were at Writers of the Future together) often goes for a long walk when he’s stuck, refusing to turn around and come home until he’s got it. This is a twofer–not only does he get good exercise, but he puts himself in a position where he has plenty of time to think past the immediate issues as he’s walking back. And he usually arrives at the keyboard not just ready to write, but eager to do so.
So, lately I’ve been adopting Philip’s method, which is really quite close to mine, and it’s been fabulous. Yesterday I got a four mile walk in along the beautiful Red Cedar river, solved my immediate writing problems, arrived home eager to work, and didn’t have to feel in the least bit bad about dessert.
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog Aug 31, 2006. Reposted as part of the reblogging project )
The original post also included this question, but, as I’ve elected not to enable comments at kellymccullough.com, I’m separating it below and people’s answers can be found at the Wyrdsmiths version:
What about you? What do you do when you’re stuck?
Oh, and seven years later this is still pretty much what I do when I’m stuck, although I’ve added a voice recorder to my tools so I can mumble to myself as I walk out the plot.
Sometimes the sheer weight of dour posts by writers lamenting the existential awfulness of writing makes me want to bang my head on the wall.
I like my job. I like writing. It’s fun. Writing is joyous and freeing and an absolute delight. I play make believe every day, and people pay me for it. If you had told me as a child that was an actual job, I would never have been in any doubt what I wanted to be when I grew up. Seriously, I am excited to go to work almost every freaking day.
I am a lifelong fan of science fiction and fantasy. I love magic deep down in my bones, and being a writer is magic. I conjure magical realms into existence before breakfast, invent alien races while my tea brews, and convince other people that my invisible friends are their friends too, giving them a life beyond the confines of my imagination.
Sometimes, I write myself into a corner with no apparent exits where I can’t see any way out. And that’s fun too because then I get to be Houdini and make the impossible escape. It can be dark and scary and hard then, but I like solving difficult problems and pushing myself to do things I didn’t know I could do.
Do I have days where it is hard? Of course. Do I have days when I am depressed? Likewise. Do I have days when I get stuck in a story and it’s extra hard and extra depressing? Yep. Do I acknowledge that I am particularly neurochemically fortunate in that my depression is usually a mild and passing thing, and that many other artists are less fortunate? Absolutely.
None of that changes the fundamental truth that my job is ball.
As Eleanor mentioned, I get some of my ideas from dreams. I thought it might be interesting to talk about that at least a little bit more both in terms of story development and why I think this happens. I have very vivid dreams, but only if I’m between writing projects or it’s been a couple of days since I’ve written.
This is either a subconscious manifestation of something my wife calls “leaking weirdness,” or leaking weirdness is a conscious manifestation of the subconscious phenomena. In either case, if I go for more than a couple of days without actively working on my fiction, I start to get a little strange. The longer I go, the stranger I get, and the stranger I get, the more frequent are Laura’s suggestions that I “go write something and get it out of my system.”
Basically, as far as I can tell, I need to tell stories, to invent new worlds and people and share them. If I’m not working and I can’t get them down on paper, they start to leak into my dreams and out of my mouth, especially first thing in the morning. This has led to such bizarre leaking weirdness ideas as llamoflage, and Robert the Bruce Springsteen-you can take our lives but you canna’ take our guitars.
It has also led to some of my better story ideas on both the dreams front and in terms of leaking weirdness. Basically my brain, seemingly independent of my conscious will, starts to put things together that might not normally go together, like goblins and laptops in WebMage, or food fights and the twilight of the gods in the short story FimbulDinner.
One final note on process, and then I’ll end this ramble. The ideas I get from dreams almost never come complete and coherent. I’ll get one really striking image in a big mish-mash of dream-story that resonates for me. Then, when I wake up, just past the edge of dreaming, I’ll try to identify what’s so cool about that image by telling myself a story about it, filling in a background and future developments that were missing in the dream, and converting impression into narrative in a very conscious way. The dream provides the seed, but I have to plant it and nurture it arrive at something that’s worth sharing with others.
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog Aug 26, 2006. Reposted as part of the reblogging project )
The original post also included these questions, but, as I’ve elected not to enable comments at kellymccullough.com, I’m separating them out below here.
So, as Eleanor asked, where do you get your ideas? Do your dreams whisper narrative in your ear? Do billboards mix with Celtic mythos and drink recipes in your waking mind? What makes you a writer of the fantastic?
This is one of those things guys aren’t supposed to talk about, which is, I think, a good reason to talk about it. I cry easily. Always have. Sacrifice scene in a book? I bawl. Poignant story on the news. Bawl. That’s under normal circumstances.
In the last 12 months, I’ve said a final goodbye to one of my oldest friends, a beloved aunt, and two of the finest dogs it’s ever been my pleasure to associate with. I’ve also had my most successful year ever in terms of my career and ability to produce art that I’m proud of. It’s been a huge emotional roller coaster, and it’s a rare day where I don’t at least tear up a touch and go rough throated.
My point? That that’s fine. Crying has been a safety valve and a solace. I miss those I love that I have lost, and the tears are honest tribute. It’s part of saying goodbye to Mike and Lee, and to Cabal and Moonbear.
(Originally posted to Facebook Feb 12, 2013. Reposted as part of the reblogging project)
First, this awesomeness is a thing:
Now, let me explain. This weekend my friend Kyle Cassidy was in town for the 50th birthday of another friend, the Fabulous Lorraine Garland. Kyle is a fantastic professional photographer and always up for doing cool and silly stuff involving pictures. I’ve been wanting to get him together with my photographer/geologist friend and frequent co-conspiritor Matt Kuchta for ages. I figured this was a perfect time, and since both of them had been hoping to meet at some point too, it was a low risk, low effort plan.
With some back and forth on twitter it was decided to go with high speed video madness rather than straight up photography—Matt and another friend, Todd Zimmerman, both work in my wife’s physics department and have been doing some amazing work with an incredible high-speed video camera that the department bought for the doing of SCIENCE. Kyle’s really liked what he’s seen on that front and wanted to check out the cool toy. Add in another friend, Dill Hero, husband of yet another friend, Joan of Dark—both also up for Fablor’s birthday—some quick thinking, and Castle Gaiman as a backdrop and you get SCIENCE + ART + SILLINESS with Matt and Todd behind the camera, and Kyle, Dill, and me in front of it.
The end result is Snow-Motion Science*
(click on space above if video doesn’t appear immediately)
*Linked for those who can’t see the embedded video.
Announcing ALL THE THINGS:
There will be at least two more Blade books after Blade Reforged, which comes out in June. The new books should be out around Dec 2014, and June 2015 respectively.
I’ll also be writing my first YA novel this year: School for Sidekicks: The Totally Secret Origin of Foxman Jr. which will be coming out from Feiwel and Friends (Macmillan) probably summer 2014.
Finally, I’ll be a keynote speaker at the Literary and Fine Arts Festival in the Charlotte NC area, in early April as a guest of Rowan-Cabarrus Community College. My sessions will be Thursday morning, April 11, 2013. Session 1: 10am to 10:50am, Session 2: 11:00 to 11:50am.
With the holidays coming up, it occurs to me that you might want to find signed copies of my books as gifts. Should that be the case, they can usually be found mail order on my page at Uncle Hugo’s. And, if I happen to be doing a signing there, as I am on December 1st, you can also put in a special request for personalized signatures, and they can often make accommodations.
I wrote this as a response to my friend Kyle Cassidy’s recent post on realizing that he’d somehow gotten overweight and needed to do something about it. He asked people to share their fitness/weightloss/body image stories.
Here’s mine:
Maybe 5 years ago I found myself having an issue with my hip going out. I also found my knees bugging me. They haven’t been great since I tore the cartilage in my late teens, but had been much better after surgery shortly after I turned thirty. I knew that I’d put on some weight both from the fact that my pants size had crept up to the high end of 38″ from 36″ where I like to keep it and because the scale told me so. I was hitting 218, which was three pounds higher than I’d ever let myself get before.
But still, only 2 inches extra around the waist, how bad was that? I wasn’t really that heavy… But I figured that losing some weight would make my knees and hip happy. I scheduled an appt with my doc, and told him what was up, and that I thought maybe if I lost 20lbs I’d solve the hip and knee problem. He just nodded and said, “yep, that should do it.” And, “every pound you carry has an effect of two pounds add strain on your hip when you walk and three on your knee.” It was a sobering moment, and I started to get much more serious about both exercise and diet.
I’m a writer by trade, so I spend most of my day on my butt on the couch. I mostly stopped driving to anyplace within two miles—which was also an environmental choice my wife and I had been talking about for a while—and started shifting my diet away from my bread heavy ways. I love bread and carbs but I can eat them in vast quantities and then two hours later I’m hungry again.
I didn’t do it all at once, because I wanted to deeply inculcate actual lifestyle changes, not just crash diet the weight off. I lost ten pounds fast, then another ten pounds slowly. Five of that kept coming back then sliding off ad infinitum. Then I signed a deal for three books that needed to be written in 18 months.
By the 2nd month of the 2nd book I knew I was starting to fall behind. I cut myself a deal. If I got 2,000 words in before afternoon I got to go for a sunny snowshoe in the woods with my friend Neil’s giant white dogs. It was a good deal. I was hitting my word marks again and I was also losing two pounds a week. By the time I was finished with the book I was under 190 for the first time since my late teens. I was also borrowing Neil’s weight machine in there and I was trading pounds of fat for pounds of muscle.
2 years on from there and the dogs and the weight machine are still a part of my routine and I’m hovering just over 185, which is my ultimate goal and 33lbs lighter than when I started—it’s what I weighed when I was a two hours a day martial artist at 17. I’m also routinely benching my own weight and running a mile or two every day, which is at least half a mile farther than I’d ever run before getting fit this time around. I recently added a weight machine, an elliptical, and a recumbent exercycle to the treadmill in my basement to make a real gym down there. The plan is to add additional bite-size exercise sessions to my main workout in the afternoons, not supplant them.
It’s been a long slow steady slog and has required significant permanent changes to my eating and exercise habits to get here, but I’m very close. These days, I get very antsy if I don’t get my workout in and my waist size is back to 35-36″.
Fwiw, I found two things of particular value to me in getting here. 1) I do much better on a diet heavy in lean protein and light on carbs. I need less food and I don’t get hungry again nearly as fast. 2) Coming to understand that I was never going to get the endorphin high some people get form exercise and to get over that. I don’t like running, not even a little bit, but I do like the strength and stamina that I get from running.
All that said, I should probably note that despite putting in a ton of work to get here and making major lifestyle shifts, I know that I was also lucky. I’ve always been something of a natural athlete. I pack on muscle easily and that ultimately makes losing weight easier. I’ve got a job that allows me to build a big workout in at the best time of day for me. I have friends whose resources I can tap. I also have the personal resources in space and funding to put in a home gym. The four machines cost me a grand total of $175.00 but that was more luck. It’s not easy even when you’ve got a ton of preset advantages.