| Diet Soap Podcast is out |
[29 Oct 2009|05:53am] |
We've all survived our dance with the Piglicker Flue over here. This was not the year to partake of the Kiss a Pig For Charity booth at the Country Fair, just sayin'. All we have to show for it is stronger immune systems, one rather mundane (in the end) visit to the ER, and lots of conversations where we sound like old Soviet women who have worked for decades in the industrial factories. Such lovely party gifts. Thanks, swine flu; don't bother stopping by next year.
I'm packing lunches and a suitcase this morning, so all I've got is a picture and a podcast.
Mark Henry lists Lightbreaker in his weekly 'Shopping List for People Who Don't Suck', where it is #3 or #4 (depending on how you read his list). He also mentions that it is now in 'wide release,' which is code for saying that you can (finally) get it at Barnes & Noble. If our local stores are an indicator, they've brought in more than a handful for the shelves, so if you haven't picked up a copy of the book yet (or need a second one to giveaway, 'sallI'msayin'), show B & N a little love for playing catch-up.
Also, Doug Lain over at Diet Soap has posted their latest podcast, which includes a conversation with me on Lightbreaker and other occult topics (link). Go and listen to me mispronounce Aleister Crowley's name and try to dodge the tough religious questions. I do these sorts of gaffs to appear as a dilettante, mind you. It worked for Lamont Cranston and Bruce Wayne; and remember, if you claim to a Rosicrucian, you probably aren't. It's the ones who appear like idiots that you have to watch out for.
For those who are going to WFC, I'll see you in the bar in a few hours.
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| World Fantasy Convention Schedule |
[26 Oct 2009|10:53am] |
Breaking radio silence to update everyone on my World Fantasy Schedule this coming weekend. In case someone has trouble finding me.
FRI 8:30 PM >> Regency Ballroom >> Group Autographing
I'll probably drop by here for an hour or so. Until I need a drink more than I need to watch people read my name and get that funny look of "who is he?"
FRI LATER >> Night Shade Party
No idea where. No idea when it starts. No idea how long it runs. All I know is that I'll be having a couple of these:
There's other homebrew as well for the non-IPA fans in the room. For the record, I had nothing to do with this. I believe the beer is all courtesy of Bizarro Central.
SAT 4:00 PM >> Crystal Room >> The End of the World
I'm on a panel with Lisa Mannetti, Loren Rhoads, John Shirley, and F. Paul Wilson where we'll be talking about Horror--both upper and lower case--as it applies to the end of the world (or not, as the case may be).
MON 6:30 PM >> BORDERLAND BOOKS (in SF) >> Group Signing
Monday, I'll be up in SF, taking part of the Borderland Books event, along with Paolo Bacigalupi, Ellen Datlow, Nina Kriki Hoffman, Cecelia Holland, Mary Robinette Kowal, Laird Barron, Marie Brennan, Lynn Ceasar, Nancy Etchemendy, Cody Goodfellow, Elaine Isaak, Nick Mamatas, Diana Paxson, Tony Richards, Michael Shea, John Skipp, and others. Bunch of authors, packed in a room, armed with pens.
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| Interviews, Reviews, and the Long Glide (planning thereof) |
[03 Sep 2009|01:24pm] |
Firstly, Michael at the Mad Hatter's Bookshelf has posted the interview he did with me about Lightbreaker and other sundry things (including a reveal about my secret food loathings and the two-line pitch of the new book project). He was quick on the asking of questions and so has ended up with some squeaky little tidbits that look a lot like . . . exclusives. So, click on over and give it a read. Show him that you care.
Secondly, Tim Pratt was kind enough to come out of a reviewing nap and do up a few hundred words about Lightbreaker for this month's Locus, the industry's trade magazine. For which I am very grateful and very pleased. Typically, their reviews are print-only (my first!) and so I'll have to excerpt it here for you.
"Though the piling-up of occult details does make this world's magical system seem intricate and believable, Markham's ruminations and visions can go on too long, and aren't nearly as much fun as the various set pieces involving electrified iron maidens, booksellers transformed into Milton-quoting oracles, brutal magical duels, shambling soulless zombie hordes, and scene of truly impressive magical devastation. Still, Teppo's preoccupation with profound questions of human purpose and potential make this deeper and more thought-provoking than your average urban fantasy."
Thank you, sir. I do hear you on the obsessive detailing of occult marginalia. It may be a fatal character flaw on my part. We'll see.
And, speaking of that character flaw, I've been thinking more about the phrase I mention in the Mad Hatter interview: the "occulture critic" (I got it from Erik Davis, who is a righteous believer in the truly fantastic). Twitter seems as good a place as any to try out some new things, so I'm going to try to be more active on the #amtarot and #pmtarot hash tags. Twice a day, thetarotlady draws a card. Those of us following offer interpretations. So, if you're curious, tag the tags and watch the fun.
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| Reading, Review, and Rest |
[25 Aug 2009|08:28am] |
A reminder that I'm reading at Third Place Books (the Lake Forest Park store) tomorrow evening at 7pm for those in the Seattle area.
The Mad Hatter's Bookshelf reviews Lightbreaker, and gives me 8 out of 10 hats. He's also asked for an interview and I send back the questions yesterday so that should be posted in a week or so.
And, finally, I also sent back the CEM of Heartland last night. So, baring any final discussion of edits, book 2 is done. Amazon thinks it is back-ordered already, but, really, publication date is Feb 2010.
Now, I rest. For a day or so, and then it's on to the next project.
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| Reading Reminder |
[17 Aug 2009|02:01pm] |
Just an early reminder that I'll be reading next week at Third Place Books (the Lake Forest Park store) next Wednesday at 7.00pm. Depending on whether or not they put me out in front of all the random kids wandering around, I may even read something from the sekrit projekt, in addition to the normal Monkey Juggling Starfish routine.
Third Place Books
17171 Bothell Way NE
Lake Forest Park, WA 98155
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| Mamet and Disney |
[12 Aug 2009|01:50pm] |
Variety reports that David Mamet is to write and direct a new film version of The Diary of Anne Frank. For Disney, no less. The article says: "Mamet brings his own original take on the material that could re-frame the story as a young girl’s rite of passage."
I mean this with no disrespect to Mamet, whose work I really admire for its, well, density and brutality of language, but I have to wonder who is in for more of a surprise: Disney, for thinking that Mamet is going to "re-frame the story as a young girl’s rite of passage" in a way that will not emotionally scar your typical Disney audience; or the audience, for thinking this'll be a happy Disneyified version of Anne's life.
Mamet's last film, Redbelt, is a subtle piece of work that gels more and more the longer it sits in your brain. Not a happy ending, necessarily, but one that resonates quite solidly. Very much a writer's movie.
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| Payday |
[11 Aug 2009|06:15pm] |
The Check That Is In The Mail? I got it today. Along with a note from my agent that says (and I'm going to quote him because it speaks very highly of Scribe's perseverance): "One of the original state goals of Scribe when we first started out was: find that one guy who wrote that cool ass book and get it published. That 'one guy' was of course you, and the 'cool ass book' was Souls of the Living."
For those who haven't heard the story, Kris first read Souls when it came across his desk during his intern days at [redacted so not to embarrass a certain New York publishing house that missed their chance early on]. He pushed for it then, and wasn't able to convince his people to move on the book. He went off and started Scribe, TRACKED me down (and this was several years later when I had gone off to do other things, figuring the book would never sell), and let me do a complete from-scratch rewrite of the book (that he thought was sellable AS IT WAS).
The book is now published, and you all know it as Lightbreaker. The first outline of the book was written around the end of March, 1995. The first draft was written in a 60 day binge shortly thereafter. Fourteen years later, it is on the shelves.
It is there because Kristopher O'Higgins never gave up. Thank you, sir.
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| Updates All Around |
[10 Aug 2009|11:10am] |
I have been remiss in updating so I'll chunk out a bullet list and we'll move on from there.
(*) Lightbreaker is in stores (mostly; B & N appears to have gotten caught short, but they're hanging their heads and waiting for their orders to disperse to the stores). Heartland is moving through the editorial process and is on track for Feb 2010 release. Huzzah!
(*) Reviews of Lightbreaker are starting to trickle in. I'm updating the all you need to know page at the CODEX site with the good ones. The Publisher's Weekly review, which uses the phrases "pretentious passages of overblown monologue" and "beats metaphors into the ground" to otherwise distract from things like "dramatic premise" and "strong characters," is, well, a review from Publisher's Weekly. They don't hotlink to individual reviews, so you'll have scroll down the page to find out how these words are all strung together.
Monsters of Filmland, on the other hand, say: "Lightbreaker is the best book about magic that I have read since Peter Straub’s Shadowland. This book is simply amazing." I'll take that one, thank you very much.
(*) Book 3 is called ANGEL TONGUE (as you may have noticed from the inside page of Lightbreaker. It brings Markham back to the States after his trip to Paris and deals with floating heads, Enochian transmission stations, crop circles, and apocalyptic faith healers. It'll also introduce a couple of re-occuring characters as we get this series more underway. (And, yes, I know the title to Book 4, but I'm keeping it quiet for a while yet.)
(*) Upcoming Appearances. For those in the Pacific Northwest area, there are two appearances scheduled for the next months. I'll, of course, brow beat everyone about them as they get closer, but for those who wish to mark their calendars now: August 26th, 7.00pm @ Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park; and September 18th, 6.00pm @ Barnes & Noble in Tukwila.
(*) Also, the Esoteric Book Conference, Sept 19 & 20. My wallet is crying already. I'll be geeking out heavily.
(*) Oh, and my pal, John Klima, won a Hugo last night for Best Fanzine. Well, technically Electric Velocipede won, but as the magazine has been the result of his blood, sweat, and angst for the last eight years, I think he can call it "his." Hey, John, I guess you can update the header bar of your EV Blog now. That's "Hugo Award winning and World Fantasy Award nominated."
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| The Night Shade Interview |
[14 Jun 2009|06:33am] |
In preparation for Tuesday's reading at Borderlands Books, Night Shade was kind enough to do an interview for their website, wherein I ramble on about all things LIGHTBREAKER, including giving a brief overview of what is to come in later books.
Additionally, Rick Kleffel at the Agony Column has posted some commentary on LIGHTBREAKER, where he says, among other things: "It's steeped in a dense mythology the author uses to transform and subvert the mystery genre into something both tougher and more fun. Markham's a great guide to Teppo's universe, which feels appropriately Hermetic, self-sealed and internally consistent. Teppo has clearly done his research, but more importantly, he enjoyed it, and readers will get that sense of joy and exploration."
Amen to that. More often than not, we forgot how much fun we're having when we're doing the long march to the end of a book, and assuredly, the CODEX books are a hoot to write.
For those of you in San Francisco area, hopefully I'll see you Tuesday night--7pm--at Borderlands Books. A reading and other hilarity with ensue.
UPDATE: And, for those who are elsewhere, I happily direct you to an Amazon link for Lightbreaker where you may read those magical words: "IN STOCK."
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| Reading in SF (June 16th) |
[31 May 2009|08:07pm] |
Celebrating the release of Lightbreaker, there will be a reading on June 16th at Borderlands Books, in San Francisco.
Borderlands Books
866 Valencia
San Francisco, CA
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Time: 7:00pm
Tell your peeps. Spread the word. It's a weeknight reading (I know), but it's what worked with my schedule. We take what options we have, don't we? Anyway, tell your friends. Come on down. I'd love to see you and finally have a book to sign for you.
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| Blue Tyson reviews Lightbreaker |
[08 May 2009|07:49am] |
Blue Tyson does his mini review of Lightbreaker at his Not Free SF Reader site. "An urban fantasy novel that is a lot more Hellblazer, Mage and Highlander than it is high heels, hot pants and horizontal vampire mambo." This makes me laugh, and I'm glad he's offered such a concise distinction.
You really need to read the rest of his reviewthough, as it gets funnier (and true). I seem to have hit all the right buttons with him. Excellent.
How has he read it, you ask? Probably via the e-book edition out via Night Shade's relationship with Baen. The latest word from Night Shade HQ is that physical books will be on hand and shipping May 19th.
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| So Freakin' Close |
[27 Apr 2009|10:35pm] |
Twenty-four pages left. 2 - 4. Mostly minor line edits with one or two holes to fill, and HEARTLAND will be wrapped. Man, talk about close.
I do love Maureen McHugh's chart on Writing The Novel. So true. So very true. I'm discovering there's a corollary that comes with the second draft.
1. The first third will lull you. Line edits will go pretty quickly, the story will hold together fairly well, and you'll think, Yeah, okay, I can do this; this won't be so bad. You'll blow through a hundred pages in a day or so, and suddenly, this book will almost be DONE.
2. The middle third will remind you that of that aphorism that Gene Wolfe offered to Neil Gaiman: "Every book is your first book." Your pace will be halved (if not cut to a quarter), and you'll wonder what you were trying to do with introducing an entirely new character and plot arc at the 50,000 word mark. Is this really the time to work out that impulse to do an experimental tone poem or a Shakespearean pastiche? Really? Couldn't you just have stuck to the formula and cranked this fucker out?
3. The last third will try to kill you. It tried once already on the first draft, and you cleverly got away from its tentacled grip by the cunning use of magic tricks. Little things like: "INSERT PARAGRAPH HERE THAT SUMS UP THE THEMATIC THRUST OF THE BOOK," and "TIE UP LOOSE ENDS HERE," and even "FUCK, I DON'T KNOW. AND THEN MAGIC HAPPENS, AND EVERYONE GOES OFF TO HAVE SEX." But now? You have to fill those holes.
I swear it feels like I am writing at a serious, serious clip here, but at the end of the evening, I've only vetted four pages of the manuscript. But I think the whole thing will stand on its own now. Almost.
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| The Weekend; How Was Yours? |
[19 Apr 2009|06:50pm] |
This weekend, summed up in two tweets.
SAT: File Under 'Marvelous Things': Zee dancing madly on the couch while the Beatles are singing "All Together Now" at the end of Yellow Sub.
SUN: Dear small birds who opted to put their delicate blue-green eggs in my dryer exhaust vent: Sorry. I am an ogre. #coexistingwithnaturefail
Oh, and yeah, first 30K of HEARTLAND line-edited.
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| Norwescon Roundup |
[14 Apr 2009|08:18am] |
I survived Norwescon and had quite a bit of fun, actually. Panels went well, and I met some delightful people on them and at them. VP-alum pal Jeff Soesbe and I had one on how to properly celebrate your first major sale; there were a pair related to mythic structures and fantasy; and one on brain extensions, which happened to be the best attended of my bunch.
Night Shade sold out of Lightbreaker around noon on Sunday so there was a couple of hours of people not being able to get a copy, which makes the Evil Overlord in me cackle with delight. Soon, though, it'll be everywhere, and I will stop trying to track every copy, but for right now, the fifty or so of you? You are my favorites.
Members of Team Seattle were in attendance and I had a chance to bask in their glory. Mark Henry read from Road Trip of the Living Dead, his latest Amanda Feral zombie socialite adventure, and trying to describe how sick and wrong it all was will not do justice to the proceedings. And then he read from something even freakier. Richelle Mead read from the soon to be released Succubus Heat, the horrifying adventures of Georgia Kincaid in Canada (I know, the Horror! the Horror!). Both are filled with Teh Funny. Lots of it. Lisa Mantchev was flaunting ARCs of Eyes Like Stars, her YA theater fairy book--one, I have to admit, I'm looking forward to, thereby killing my cred with the occult crowd. I picked up a copy of Underground, the Kat Richardson book I didn't have and had her sign it (fanboy moment of the day).
And then there were Steve and Vladimir from Third Place Books, both of whom are filled with all manner of bookseller enthusiasm and I do need to get up north and see their store. Vladimir and I had two panels together and discovered that we could both name drop Eliade like we knew what we were talking about. (Oh, and Steve: It's Atomik Circus that I was talking about.) There were many other fabulous people whom I ended up on a first name basis with: Jenna Waterford, Tiffany Trent, Warren Hammond (who I met briefly in the autograph session and he and I and Kat shared our love for Chris McGrath; I still think Kat got the better atmosphere and Warren the better burned-out noir hero, but I'm not complaining too much), Gigi, Lance, J- (whose name has multiple syllables and an apostrophe, and as I will get it wrong, I'm just going to abbreviate it to "J-" for the time being), Gary, Garth, that guy with the--okay, yes, I suck at names. Forgive me.
Anyway, lots of fabulous people. It's nice to discover I don't have to go far to find a hotel full of entertaining souls. All of whom played along nicely with my publisher/carnie barker when he turned the Presidential Suite bathroom at the WOTC party into a glorified game of quarters with the bathtub. It was NOT my idea. Stop looking at me like that. Go look at the pictures instead.
The kids were waiting for me when I got home, and so we had Easter later in the day, much to their delight. After that, I shucked off the monkey suit and finally relaxed. It was good to be home.
(Picture taken by my five-year old son. Yes, he is better with the camera than I am, and half of the decent pictures taken Easter afternoon were taken by him. God help us all when he actually figures out how to read a manual. Which should be some time next week.)
I've got a head full of ideas too. Finished off the epilogue to HEARTLAND yesterday, so that's officially a draft. 121K. Most of which were written since January. Where do I find the time? I have a couple of weeks before the editorial calendar opens up, so I'm going to polish and fill in some holes, but baring huge problems with the ms., we're on track for a fall release. Which, in turn, means I should start thinking about ANGEL TONGUE and GHOST SPEAK now rather than later, but I think I need a bit of a break. (And hmm, I need to decide if GHOST SPEAK is going to be the title of the fourth book; it's one of my least favorites of the series.)
That, and there's this new book trying to bust out of my head. Man, it wants out. I have no idea if there is even a viable market for this sort of thing (and yes, it does keep insisting that it has the legs to be a series), but I'm going to see if I can lock the story down a bit and get enough on paper for it to be my agent's problem for a few months.
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| Half Page and Half Chapter |
[07 Apr 2009|09:41am] |
I picked up April's Locus and discovered that Night Shade Books has given Lightbreaker the half page spread of their ad. Half. Page. Ad. In Locus. For my little book.
That makes my day.
Norwescon this weekend for local peeps. My schedule is a few entries back, for those who'd like to stop by and say hello. Other than those times and locations, it'll probably be BarCon.
Half a chapter to go in HEARTLAND. I can almost taste the blood.
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| I Am In Trouble, Reason #345 |
[30 Mar 2009|07:33am] |
This morning, Zipporah's bedroom light is on when I go in to get her up. "Why is your light on?" I ask. She looks up at it and says, "Because it is."
She's not yet three.
I am doomed.
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| The Rapture of Repetition |
[25 Mar 2009|12:23pm] |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) barthanderson pointed me toward one of the more fascinating uses for Twitter the other day. Weiser Books is pulling a tarot card twice a day (#1card and #nightcard). Tarot devotees are responding with interpretations (tagged with the corresponding tag, of course). I wasn't going to get sucked in, until this morning's card. The Moon. To which I had to write:
THE MOON: Blood in the water. Yours, or mine? I'm not sure. Our hands betray what we have done. Father, I'm sorry. #1card
I was sitting in Starbucks at the time I saw the card come up, thinking about the next bit in HEARTLAND, and ruminating in the back brain about reoccurring phrases. How there are certain sentences and phrases that become loaded with enough meaning that their placement in the novel isn't accidental. This is an out-growth of The Potemkin Mosaic actually, where the use of a certain word was rife with the linking structure that came with that word.
The Moon is central to Lightbreaker, and it is a card I spent a lot of time with when I was sorting out a sequence of events near the end of the book. And, in the section I'm currently working in HEARTLAND, Markham has just passed between two pillars, across a threshold, and into another world.
All of which is a rambling way to say that the above interpretation applies to both LIGHTBREAKER and HEARTLAND, via links created by some of those phrases. And I'm realizing that one of the central phrases that drove Markham through the first part of LIGHTBREAKER is going to be the thing that will cause him much pain in Book 4 (and following).
But what are these phrases? They're little aphorisms that we mutter to ourselves, that we swear by. They are the tiny rules that allow us to function throughout the day. They are our excuses and our justifications. And I think it's one of the fascinating things about exploring characters, when you find these little truisms that define them and see how far they'll go. How long will they hold them dear? How long will they rely upon them? At what point does the ritual of this phrase, repeated over and over, become meaningless?
And what do they do then?
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| Norwescon 32 Itinerary |
[23 Mar 2009|09:12am] |
I received my itinerary for Norwescon over the weekend. So that you may plan when and where you might ambush the Bunny Magus, here's the run-down.
Thursday
I Just Sold My First Story/Novel! Whoopee! [6:00 PM @ Cascade 8]
I sat in on this panel last year (along with Lisa Mantchev and Michael Ehart), and we managed to pack the room and keep everyone entertained. Hopefully, me and Mike and Jeff and John will do the same this year. Jeff (Soesbe) and John (P. Alexander) can probably still remember that first blushing excitement. Mike (Moscoe) will probably play the old curmudgeon ("I remember the days when we cut down the very trees that made the paper that went into our books!"), and I will try to pretend that I'm not as long in the tooth as he is (while I was off being fussy about 'art', he was actually selling books; crazy old man).
Friday
Extending the Brain [11:00 AM @ Cascade 5]
I signed up for a few science-type panels because I was trying not to be that guy who "just wants to talk about writing." As a result, I will be making shit up as fast as I can in front of a room full of people about cognitive corelation theories, quantum personality loops, and Very Small Things That Can Get Lost In Your Ears(tm).
The other three panelists may be bullshitting you as much as I am, which will . . . (wait for it) . . . extend your brain.
Magic Realism VS Fantasy - Fight! [Noon @ Cascade 7]
This one I'm actually keen to participate in. The panelists--Mimi Noyes, Mark Ferrari, Mark Teppo, Vladimir Verano, and Bruce Taylor--look to be a lively bunch who will happily take sides on this one. Bruce Taylor is going to surprise all of us by showing up in black chainmail and then debunking Magic Realism as a load of crap that only narrow-minded elitists waste their time with when there are so many faerie kingdoms to crush beneath our iron heels!
Myth, Legends and Fairy Tales [4:00 PM @ Cascade 10]
I'm going to invoke the spectre of Claude Levi-Strauss and get thrown off this panel for bringing an academic to the discussion. Though, to be honest, the rest of the panelists will probably bring their favorite dead professor too. After all, we're supposed to be talking about how myths, legends, and fairy tales find their way outside the traditional prisons of fantasy.
After that, it's BarCon and the Writer's Workshop for me (a couple of short stories to critique on Saturday and a novel excerpt on Sunday morning). So, if you're going to Norwescon this year, say hello. I'll probably be in a real daze as copies of Lightbreaker will be available in the dealer's room, which means I'll see them some place other than my house. Which'll be a trip.
I am NOT, at this time, scheduled for a reading. Though, as we didn't read at the University Bookstore event last week, I may try to find an open slot on the schedule and see if I can't do one. I'll post something here if that works out.
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