Tim Pratt's Blog, page 10

The Grim Tides Kickstarter is done! I raised $11,241.00. That's a pretty good advance, you guys. Better than I've gotten for any of the other novels I've sold in the past few years. Thanks to everyone who donated or spread the word. I am so happy to be writing more about Marla, and getting paid for it. This will help with the kid's preschool tuition and pay down the ever-present hospital bills, and we should be able to take a bite out of the family debt. (And have a nice meal or two as well.) Life is good!

Last night I crossed 20,000 words on the first draft of Grim Tides. Since the Marla novels run around 85,000 words, that's pretty much a fourth of a book! Since it seems likely the whole thing will be written by the time I start serializing it in January, I may update with two chapters a week instead of one, on Mondays and Wednesdays. So the whole thing would be posted over three months or so, instead of six. What do you think?

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.

This is a big day:

The Kickstarter for Grim Tides ends at a minute before midnight tonight. This is it. Now or never time. (Well, okay, I'm sure I'll have a PayPal button up when it's serialized, for anyone who wants to give then. But why wait?)

And: My new book Briarpatch is out today (in theory; it's still listed as pre-order status at some sites, but order it anyway, and it oughta be along soon). You can order a copy at Amazon or Powell's or a bunch of other places. Please do. This is my baby. Most ambitious thing I've ever published. I want people to read it.

And: Quarterly estimated taxes are due today. Farewell, savings account! Nice knowing you!

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.

Tuesdays are trash days at work. (That also used to be my day off; I didn't have to help take out trash and recycling for ages. It was awesome. Oh well.) Yesterday we all forgot to do trash, until I was the last one in the office. At 5:25 a co-worker called, having remembered, so I sighed a heavy and long-suffering sigh and said, "Oh, I'll do it."

I gathered all the recycling and lugged it outside to the big gray bin. I gathered all the trash and lugged it out to the trash can. Then I picked up the little green pail of organic waste, took it to the big green waste recycling bin, lifted the lid…

And saw a filthy, shit-covered, terrified, twenty-pound raccoon staring up at me. I shouted profanity and jumped back about a few feet, letting the lid fall closed. Then I pondered my options. Leave it as a surprise for the trash guys in the morning? Open the lid again and risk getting a face full of leaping terror with needle teeth streaked with panic feces? (Keep in mind: I had to pick up my kid by 6 o'clock in order to avoid a $10-per-minute late charge at the preschool, a 15-minute drive away, so I had a ticking clock situation.)

Eventually I just gently tipped over the bin, flipped open the lid with a broom handle from a safe distance… and waited. The raccoon didn't come out, its nightmare of confinement now made even more scary by the arrival of a roaring giant. So I banged on the can a bit to encourage it, and that just made it crawl deeper inside. I stood around for a while and tried to make myself unobtrusive and eventually the raccoon scurried out, caught sight of me, freaked out, and ran into the neighbor's walled yard.

Who knows how long it had been trapped in there — less than a week, surely, but otherwise…

While I was picking up the green bin (and finally throwing out our old eggshells and coffee grounds), a large female deer wandered up from the woods and stood about four feet away from me, as if expecting to be hand-fed. We see deer a lot here in the hills, but they tend to be a lot more skittish than that. I said, "S'up, deer?" And the deer walked off, also into the neighbor's walled yard. I was like, "Is there a Disney princess in there or something?"

In fact, the whole experience of my workplace has the flavor of a Disney movie, as directed by David Lynch. I know that, sounds extreme. But I haven't mentioned the insane pregnant squirrel who lives in our plum tree. One of my co-workers has been feeding the squirrels peanuts, which has made them fat, complacent, and confident. But the pregnant squirrel has gone mad, and is so aggressive she chases people up the stairs, stands on the thresholds of doors chittering wildly, and will occasionally rear up on her hind legs and gaze at us through the sliding glass doors for minutes at a time like an obsessed stalker. The other day she came at me frantically, so I tried to shoo her with a broom, and she started climbing up the broom. I ended up having to shove her right off the edge of the deck, where she promptly ran up a tree and started screaming at me.

Next time, I'm getting help to take out the trash.

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.

In the Marla Mason books, there are characters who can summon oracles to answer questions, provide direction, and interpret prophetic dreams — all for a price, which varies from the minor to the major, depending on the magnitude of the service rendered.

They are crazy fun to write.

I've had a minor god of disease emerge from a trash can, a ghost in a drain, a demon named Murmurus who demanded old books in exchange for answers, and the djinn from my story "Unfairy Tale" summoned from a jar of ancient wine, among others. In Grim Tides so far I've got a dark sea-god in the form of an immense puhi (moray eel), and I think I'm going to drag up the disemembered ghost of Captain Cook pretty soon, specifically to warn about an invasion by outsiders. I'm hoping to work in a third oracular appearance (threes are always good), possibly one where the summoner gets a MUCH bigger supernatural figure than they wanted or expected — maybe Pele, or Lono, or Uli.

I just love the opportunities for weirdness presented by these oracles, and they're good for setting things up in the plot — and cryptic foreshadowing is my favorite kind.

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.

Busy weekend. I had lunch with Nick Mamatas on Saturday, then interviewed him for a future issue of A Certain Magazine. It was my first time interviewing an author (though I've sat in on a few interviews), and I think it went all right. Nick doesn't hesitate to voice strong opinions (I know! You're shocked!), which helps.

Heather took our son to the circus that morning, so when they got back in the afternoon, I gave her a reprieve from parenting, and the boy and I went for a long walk, stopping for ice cream cones and then trekking to Totland in North Berkeley, where he played with appropriate frenzy. (I realized later that, with the trip to lunch and back, and to Totland and back, I walked seven miles on Saturday. I like walking.)

We went to the Solano Stroll on Sunday. (It's a fairly epic street fair.) The kid rode lots of rides, and rode his first pony, and we all ate the sort of food that one generally enjoys in the moment and only later comes to regret — garlic fries, Italian sausage, greasy pizza slices, etc. Heather's Aikido school was there, so she and the kid did a fair amount of flipping around and somersaulting on the mat while I finished reading Hunter S. Thompson's The Curse of Lono. (I might have to give his Samoan war club a cameo in my next novel.) A pleasant afternoon all 'round.

Didn't write a ton (obviously, being busy), but I managed to finish chapter four of Grim Tides. This book has my favorite villain ever.

And speaking of: only three days left for the Grim Tides Kickstarter. Prizes, people! You can get prizes!

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.

The good people at Kickstarter have made Grim Tides the Project of the Day today, which is very cool. Only six days to go. (So if you're sick of hearing me talk about the Kickstarter — I'm almost done!)

I wrote another couple thousand words of the book last night, and now the first three chapters are done, at least in lumpy first drafts. Last night I set up some truly vicious villain stuff. My general goal is to do at least a thousand words a day during the week, and 2k a day on weekends. As long as I can average about 10,000 words a week, I'll be happy — that would be a draft by Halloween, basically, and it's a non-murderous pace. It's so fun to be back in this world, playing with these characters again, and making their lives miserable.

I finally found a way to use a villain I've been mentioning in the novels for years, so that'll be fun. It's a big bad as dangerous as the Mason from Broken Mirrors, but with a radically different personality and approach.

The only downside is, writing this book makes desperately want to return to Hawai'i, which I can't afford (in terms of time or money, really) just now. Oh well. I'm planning to take my wife on a vacation there for her (mumble) birthday in 2013, so it's something to look forward to.

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.

I'm pleased to announce that artist Lindsey Look will be creating original cover art for Grim Tides!

Lindsey is no stranger to Marla. She works in the studio with my longtime artist Daniel Dos Santos, and actually collaborated with him on the new covers for Bone Shop and Broken Mirrors, created for the audio editions.

Lindsey's a fan of the books, and she's excited to be working on the project. I'm confident she'll do great artwork. Thanks to all who donated for making this possible!

There are eight days left in the fundraiser if you want to give a little to get some goodies…

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.

You can now download the audiobook versions of Bone Shop and Broken Mirrors at Audible.com! Go forth and buy! (If enough people do, maybe they'll publish Grim Tides too when the time comes…)

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.

I broke $10K in my Kickstarter fundraiser for Grim Tides over the weekend. (Holy crap. And thanks to Kevin Hogan for putting me over the top.) So that means I'll commission original cover art; once I confirm that the artist I have in mind is still available and interested, I'll announce details. Whee!

Nine days to go. Lots of prizes still to be had. Can't wait to see what the final total turns out to be!

Over the weekend I wrote the first chapter of Grim Tides (and half of chapter three, because I wanted to write about my villains a bit), and I'm really pleased with how it's going. Murder, wave-mage hive-mind surfer/sorcerers, a magical bookshop with kleptomaniac tendencies, a giant eel oracle, the return of Marla's valet Pelham… and that's just the first couple chapters. This one's gonna be fun.

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.

New story online: "A Void Wrapped in a Smile" at Basement Stories. A novelette! Meant to be a standalone, though also sorta kinda a Marla Mason story (though she's only in a scene or two) — it's about Joshua Kindler, a character from my novel Poison Sleep. (Thanks to Arachne Jericho for asking me to write a story about Joshua. I'm not sure I managed to make him sympathetic, exactly, but I tried to make him comprehensible.)

Speaking of Marla, Grim Tides made the front page of Kickstarter today as the featured fiction project. Sweet!

We got a final copy of the trade paperback of Briarpatch at A Certain Magazine today. Holy crap, is it gorgeous. I'm so happy.

I thought I had another novel to announce imminently, but the publisher has asked me to keep the pseudonym a secret until after it comes out, so, uh, I'll tell you in a year or so? This will be the fourth separate byline I've had on a novel (counting T.A. Pratt), and my fifth byline total, including the 'nym I use for porn short stories. I don't really mind; at least I'm working. And I have a few books coming out under my own name next year anyway. I remain a Man of Mystery.

Originally published at Tim Pratt. You can comment here or there.