Twenty Palaces

Sometimes you just have to walk away

Here I am at my computer, and what do I need most? To not be at my computer.

I’m refreshing my email inbox to search for new comments, searching for places to send review copies of Game of Cages, checking Twitter to see if anyone has re-tweeted the announcement that chapter 3 is online, refreshing the book’s Amazon.com page…

And you know what? I’m not going to do that anymore. I’m not going to check the Amazon.com or B&N page again. I’m not going to do an Icerocket search looking for reviews to link to. I’m certainly not going to go back to the Random House page, sort all their sf/f books by “bestsellers” and search through until I find where my book lies. No. It’s a waste of time.

Any marketing I do now, today, will have a tiny effect. The most effective marketing I could do was finished months ago when I turned in the book. The rest is up to readers and fate and dirty stinking luck.

So! I have two more emails to write, then I’m going to step away from the computer. First, I’ll clobber some hapless sword-wielders on Wii Sports Resort. Then shower, vacuum, clean the kitchen, clean the bathroom, make some pizza dough (or pretzel dough–I haven’t decided). But I have to get the hell away from my computer for a few hours. Jesus!

Writing, Health Care, and Job Lock

I was going to write about this later, but I just had a woman cry on the phone to me about this, so I don’t want to put it off any longer.

I’m a writer. (No kidding, right? Check out the images of book covers all over my website.) As a pro, I get all sorts of things from Random House, my publisher: I get deadlines, and publication dates, and a smart editor who gives me fantastic notes, and a copyeditor who cares about the difference between “among” and “between”, and publicity, and front-of-store displays, and a beautifully-designed book (seriously, wait till you see the inside of GAME OF CAGES) and I get those covers. Did I mention the covers?

What I don’t get from Random House is health and dental benefits for my family. more »

Great review from Locus!

Pertinent quote: “This has become one of my must read series.”

Yeah, that makes this a good day.

The Channelled Scablands

Last weekend my wife, son and I drove out of the city (in a rented car! Luxury!) to see a natural formation that’s unique in the world: The Channelled scablands of central Washington. Great name, huh? For those of you who don’t know about the scablands, Dry Falls and Lake Missoula, here’s a quick ‘n’ dirty explanation: Thirteen thousand years ago during the end of the last ice age, much of Montana was covered by a body of water we now call Lake Missoula. Ice dammed a river valley in Idaho, creating a body of fresh water larger than several of the Great Lakes.

You won’t be surprised to hear that eventually, the ice melted, the water broke through the dam, and the largest flood ever in the history of our planet was unleashed. Over the course of three days, a 300-ft-deep flood raced across Idaho, Washington and into Oregon as it raced to the sea. The effects of this flood are still most prevalent in the central Washington area near Grand Coulee. There was a Nova program that covered this: Mystery of the Megaflood, but it doesn’t appear to be one of the shows they offer for free online. Maybe you can borrow it from the library, like we did.

What this means is that, out in the desert of central WA, are the effects of floods of water writ large. You know the ripples you see in sand when waves flow over them? Well, look at the land formation above this small town:

Those gigantic humps are marks of the flood. Crazy, isn’t it?

More below the cut, including Dry Falls, an ice age waterfall ten times larger than Niagra Falls. more »

Another training day today

I won’t be online much. Try to enjoy yourselves without me, somehow.

Today in day-job land…

Today I’m not going to be in the office. I have to report to another building across the city for training in some new software program we’re supposed to use in our new jobs.

Not that we’ve been hired for new jobs. They still have us in the dark on who will get hired and who won’t. I’m pretty sure I’ll have a job come Halloween, but no one in authority will confirm it for anyone.

I imagine that, if I act confused or unable to handle the new software, I won’t be offered a position in the new department; I’m looking at the training we’re getting today as part of the interview process. Never mind that I haven’t shaved in days–we can go to an “interview” with a few days’ growth, yeah?

Anyway, I don’t expect to be online much today. No twitter, LJ or blog comments. I’ll catch up to email during lunch and later this evening. Have a great day.

Dear Day: Whoa.

Today was tough. Day job was crazy–one of the clinics had a fire the night before. No one was hurt, but the doc in charge decided they would open to see patients anyway, never mind the ten foot hole in the roof or the fumes in every room that made people’s skin sticky.

They closed eventually, and will be closed for several days, but there were a lot of patients to call and reschedule. Yes, the phones have been crazy.

Also, I went to be early last night, woke up early, and started writing early. Sekrit Project 1 is nearly done–with luck, I’ll finish tomorrow and move on to the essays and interviews I have to do.

I’m still at skip=90 on LJ and I’ve barely looked at Twitter today. The book giveaway posts are already written and scheduled (for this week, at least) and the first book (the Pagels book about Satan) has been won. Tonight I’ll roll a die for Thieve’s Kitchen.

And now it’s time to catch a bus home. Supposedly, traffic accidents have blocked part of my neighborhood–I’m not sure the buses will be running. The Blue Angels have been buzzing downtown all day, so I’m planning to look up as I walk to my bus stop.

Oh, and have I mentioned that I have an ARC of DREADNOUGHT (Cherie Priest’s sequel to BONESHAKER) in my greedy little hands? I haven’t? Well, now you know to be jealous.

I’m off for home. Hope everyone has had a fantastic day.

Bullet points make a post

* ‘Sfunny, when I’m writing a first draft, I sit down for a specific time to write, and when I’m done for the day I’m done. When I’m doing a polish, it’s like an all-day thing. I keep dropping back into the file, reading a few lines, tweaking sentences. It’s kinda annoying, especially since it makes me feel as though I’m not accomplishing anything.

* Yesterday I got word that my Russian language rights money was on its way. Hooray! I’m really looking forward to posting scans of the foreign language translations of my books.

* I’ve decided to wait 3 days (or 24+ hours of inactivity) before announcing the winners of the book giveaways. I’ll roll a die for the first one tonight, maybe the second, depending. Also, I’ll announce it when someone has won.

* I have a couple Sekrit Projects to work on. Those are nicer than my public projects, because I enjoy them just as much but you, blog reader, don’t have to listen to my complaints.

* I have a bunch of interviews and essays to write. If I owe you one, don’t worry I haven’t forgotten. I have an SP to breeze through and then I’ll be all over it.

* Thank you, Judge Walker. The ruling still needs to go through the 9th District and Supreme Court, but this is the right step.

* I’ve been contemplating a post about all the ways the Obama administration has disappointed me, but honestly, I have better things to do. I knew the administration would disappoint me when I voted for him, but I didn’t anticipate the manner.

And just how busy do I have to get before I accept that I’m honestly busy? My LJ friends list is currently at skip=120, and that’s only after a day of dedicated downtime-at-day-job reading. Really, Obama can wait.

* It’s now less than 4 weeks until the publication of Game of Cages, and I feel sick. There’s so much to do and (seemingly) so much at stake and the economy is still in the crapper and I may be laid off from my day job and I may have to stay at this day job and I’m not sure which is worse and I just want to stand up, go home, take a shower and go to sleep for a very, very long time.

But other than that everything’s great.

A spider has set up home on my desktop computer

It’s awfully cute, hanging there, and I supposed I could take plotty inspiration from the complexity and interconnectedness of its web, but it’s also anchored to my reading materials. I’ll have to sweep it up and dump it outside eventually, but I’m willing to wait until it warms up out there.

Besides, it may help keep my son off YouTube for a little while.

If you can read this, you’re invited.

I’ll be having a book signing for my new book, GAME OF CAGES, at Magnolia’s Bookstore, on Saturday, Sept 4th from 1 pm until Tears of Loneliness pm. My signing hand will be limbered up and ready to scribble pithy remarks on the title pages of my second novel.

Here it is!

All are invited. I won’t be doing a reading or anything, just sitting, signing and chatting. Hope to see you there.