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BOOK TWO…TIME…TICKS…BY

Between August 12 (the publication date of The Ultra Thin Man) and mid-September, or about a month, I did zero writing. (Not much blogging, either! Apologies.)

Part of the problem for me was being on tour and traveling in August to promote the book, and then by the end of August and early September, I was preparing for the new school year. A few weeks into the school year, I finally carved out some time to write on book two. I’d hoped to have a rough draft completed before August 12. Now the goal is before the end of the year, and hopefully sooner. Time keeps on ticking (ticking, ticking), and book 2 (a sequel) needs to be complete when Tor is ready to look at the numbers and calculate whether they can make a case for publishing it.

I still have struggled to get the time to write, and since mid-September, it’s been about once a week at best. (There’s a reason why I never attempt NaNoWriMo.) I’m pretty certain, now, that I’m within a couple chapters (and an epilogue) from completing the first draft. At the moment, the word count sits at 94,000 words. The Ultra Thin Man went in to Tor at 96,000 words. (After edits, it ended up at 107,000.) So I’m close. It’s just “endgame” stuff now, but it’s a tricky juggling act in this case.

I’ll keep you posted. With a post. (And with fewer parenthetical asides.)

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CREATIVE DAYDREAMS & THE MCFLY EFFECT

When I was writing in high school and college, I had a reoccurring dream.

Actually, it was a waking dream.

Okay, still not right. The most accurate term for it is “creative daydream.” Years later, the term came to me, and it seemed right. It’s something I still do today.

So…what’s a creative daydream, and what about that reoccurring one?  There’s plenty of research out there that suggests daydreaming is good for creativity. In a book published about a year ago, Creative Confidence, author Tom Kelley explains how studies show “prolific mind wanderers score higher on tests of creativity.” Supposedly, too, it’s nifty for boosting our working memory.

From an early age, I’ve taken spare moments to creative daydream. It’s like meditation, clearing the mind and letting new ideas spring to life. Except, it hasn’t always been about new ideas. In fact, I knew exactly what I wanted to daydream about.

So back to that reoccurring dream. What was it about? Well, it was all about the life of a writer.

Someday I’d finish a book. And…THEN WHAT? What might happen the day I sold a novel? Obviously this scenario lived in the “this is all I know about it right now” world. I would purposefully daydream what would happen, and as I matured as a writer, as I took classes and workshops, when I later on started publishing a magazine and other writers’ books, I learned what the actual process would look like.

So the dream morphed. It gelled until it entered a rather detailed scenario, but the basics always were: The deal with the agent. The call from the editor wanting to buy the book. The contract deal. (It was always for plenty of money, of course.) Finding out about the cover art, and so on. Oddly (or maybe not so oddly), I never factored in any actual post-book deal editing. That would be more work!

But here was the best part of my dream: Finding a box on my doorstep filled with copies of my novel. And it was always November or early December. Why? Because I could surprise my family with them for Christmas. In my mind, it was the perfect situation: I saw myself, over and over, celebrating success during a time associated with love and giving, and I saw myself, over and over, sharing that success with the people who mattered most to me.

You may think it weird that what I have always loved the most about the film Back to the Future is the strange and wonderful George McFly, father to Marty. Why George McFly? Because he has a dream of becoming a best-selling author, and at the end of the film, George opens up a box of his first novel in front of his family: A Match Made in Space, a science fiction novel.

Oh, that moment. That moment when the seemingly unassuming George McFly with the weird laugh sees his dream come true is so full of NERDY AWESOME.

Creative daydreaming has always been a way for me to rehearse new possibilities and visualize success. A motivator. A confidence builder. When copies of The Ultra Thin Man arrived on my porch, in a box, I thought of Back to the Future, and realized my own “dreamed of” future had arrived. Except…it happened in August, not during the Christmas season. Close enough.

I have other creative daydreams I still work on today. I imagine that most of them, at some point in my life, will come true. Why not? It worked for me before. When the stress of daily life hits, when the things that I need to have happen seem next to impossible, when I can’t seem to make any progress on something and can’t figure out how to solve those really difficult problems, that’s when I need to RELAX.

The only way for it to happen is to stop searching for it, and pick up a creative daydream and get to work.

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TOUR OFFICIALLY ENDS

What a whirlwind.

And I wasn’t even on a BIG tour. Fellow Tor author, the inimitable John Scalzi, is in the middle of an intense 4-week tour, 23 different cities and dates! I felt extremely lucky with my debut novel to have about 10 events spread out sporadically over  the last month. I also had a blog tour with over a dozen guest posts and interviews. I’ve put links to all the posts and interviews together in a list on the Appearances page. A big shout out to my publicist, Ardi Alspach, for her work on the whole shebang!

My final event was this past Saturday at my local cozy bookstore, A Good Book Cafe; it was a three hour sit-down signing with fellow author Mark Teppo. This allowed staff and some of my students from the high school where I teach to come on down and buy a book and get it signed.

A little over a month has passed since the debut of The Ultra Thin Man. During this time I’ve been quite jazzed to see some fabulous reviews. I have a smattering of them, snippets from fuller reviews, along with pre-publication quotes, on the book page for the novel. Customer reviews at Amazon have been quite nice. Some very decent ones over at GoodReads, too, although that also tends to be the venue for more …. “less than stellar” thoughts about the book! But this sort of thing is to be expected.

The 2014-15 school year started on September 3rd, amidst all the hoopla of the tour and blog posts, and it was a bit difficult getting my classroom ready, but everything is in full swing now. I also found it difficult to work on book two during the book release window, so now I hope to get back to it and knock out the ending, as I approach 90,000 words. (The Ultra Thin Man went in to Tor at 96,000, and ultimately ended up around 107,000).

I have announced this next news during a number of interviews and podcasts, as well as some book events, so I will also mention the working title of the sequel here on my blog: The Ultra Big Sleep. Yes, it’s another nod to noir, the famous novel by Raymond Chandler. And by gosh and by golly, it totally fits what’s been happening as I plow through the first draft!

So that’s the latest. Thank you to EVERYONE who came out to see me and to check out The Ultra Thin Man. I can still use your help getting the word out about it….particularly if you really liked the book!

Here are a few new pictures from events and book spottings!

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ONE YEAR LATER

Just over a year ago (August 15, 2013), this personal author site went live. Thanks again to the fine folks at Clockpunk Studios, and in particular, Jeremy Tolbert, for the wonderful work. I couldn’t be happier with the look and feel. If you’re a writer and looking for a drop-dead awesome site, check them out.

Now, a year later, the debut novel is out.

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What an absolute thrill it has been! I’ve had three book signings thus far, and I’ve written 9 guest blog posts, with a few more to do. I’ve had several interviews, and I still have a couple of signings and readings coming up in the next few weeks. This Thursday I’ll be in California: San Diego and San Francisco. And then I’ll be back home the first few days of September, with several other book events on the horizon.

At the same time I get to start up the new school year and prepare myself for teaching: my 30th year on the job! I started off teaching a combination of high school band and English. Here I am standing in the back of some of my high school band members in 1989 at Disneyland during a day off from a tour. (Future so bright I had to wear shades.)

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I’ve been teaching full-time English for the last 22 years. Here’s a stand-on-my-desk moment from two years ago. I’m not sure what I was thinking of saying!

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So bring it on, new school year, and bring it on, book two. I’m trying like mad to get the sequel to The Ultra Thin Man done before too long (meaning, before the school year totally sucks me in), and, hopefully, someday within the next year or so, have some spiffy new book cover to put on the front page!

 

 

PUB DAY IS PAST!

August 12.

A day that will live … well, at least in my memory. It started with well wishes from friends and family. I could hardly keep up with tweets and posts and emails!

On the horizon was the debut signing at the University Bookstore, to be followed by a release party at the District Lounge a few blocks away. I had already ordered a cake, because what would a book release party be without a cake with the book cover on it? I picked it up in the afternoon and put it in my fridge until it was time to get a head start to North Seattle for the signing. Traffic ensued, by I had time. I stopped at The District Lounge and dropped off the cake and my vinyl sign of the book cover, which I set up on its stand before heading to the bookstore. I was there about an hour early. A few attendees of the reading were already milling around the signing area. And I saw that the store was ready for me:

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I had also brought some treats for the reading itself and set up a platter. Dang! Forgot to take a picture of said platter. But here’s a picture of the treats. Yes: ULTRA THIN cookies and ULTRA THIN pretzels.

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It became evident early on that the crowd would be pretty decent. Events personnel were moving more tables out of the way and setting up more chairs. At 7:00 I was introduced by SF buyer Duane Wilkins, and I went on up with my camera video rolling. It was my Comic-Con moment, taking video of the awesome crowd. I took a few pictures of the crowd, but I had them pretend they were on a rollercoaster ride at an exciting part and act accordingly:

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I took some time to thank my family (my mom and one of my sisters flew in from Montana to be there, for example), and past students of mine who were also there, and maybe I told a few jokes. It’s a bit of a blur now. Soon enough it was time to read. I wowed them (I hope) with Chapter 1 of The Ultra Thin Man, and left them with a cliff hanger. (Or was that a tower diver?)

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Q&A was next, and I answered some good questions. Luckily, I wasn’t stumped.  I was asked about my influences, about what writers I liked right now, about my writing process, and other questions I’ve forgotten.

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Then it was time to sign books! This young lady I didn’t even know (Pepper Jean!) came up to me as I started to sign her dad’s book, and said, “I’m getting my picture with you!” And she grabbed my arm, put her other arm around my shoulders, and leaned in for the photo op. SOOO cute.

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Also, I found that as a lefty, my method for signing kept flashing that lovely book cover to the front all night!

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I used this student’s last name for a side character in chapter 1. He thought it was pretty cool, once I pronounced the name correctly.

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Folks started to go over to the afterparty when they had their books signed. I was, of course, about the last one out of there. But when I arrived at the District Lounge, the cake was waiting for me, uncut, people having some dinner and drinks, waiting patiently for me to arrive. Then it was down to the last handful of us.

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Today I spent more time with my mom and sister at my townhouse, and my sister gave me an appropriate gift:

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Several guest blog posts I wrote went live, and a few new good reviews popped up, and later in the evening I had a Twitter interview.  And now I’m typing this, sort of caught up with everything. Tomorrow I have a signing at Third Place books in North Seattle.

The dream continues.

 

 

 

 

 

MISSION: MY COPIES

Because I must. This instant. Show you the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in a long time. More thoughts about this experience and a long-time dream I’ve had, in a later post. But for now:

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2 WEEK WARNING

Yesterday, glancing at the calendar, I realized  I was exactly two weeks away from the official pub date of The Ultra Thin Man. The wait is nearly over.

In fact, I think I might see my own personal copies before then. It might depend on the timing, since I’m headed to Calgary for When Words Collide on August 7. The box could arrive that day and it’d be sitting on my porch for four days! I may have to call in a favor from a good friend who lives nearby. But honestly, I sure hope I have something to show off in Calgary.

ChecklistTwo years and two months ago, I thought: this is going to take forever for the book to come out. An eternity. But it’s gone by faster than I expected, and along the way, I’ve enjoyed a lot of great “firsts” related to this novel’s publication. When I think about things logically and compare this wait to the longer stretch of time it took to finally finish the book and send it out, the process of turning a “Yes, I want to publish it” to a finished product has been more like a blink of an eye.

So excuse me while I start to get a wee bit excited. I hope to see many of you at various signing events along the way!

ULTRA SWAG

Over the years I’ve seen a lot of book swag. Mostly at conventions, piled deep on freebie tables: catalogs, postcards, bookmarks, magnets, book plates, samplers.

Some of this stuff is given out at book signings, or it’s used for giveaways. I’ve seen a lot of promotion going on. Trading cards. Pens and pencils. Little LED lights. Stress balls. Buttons. Rubber wrist bands. Stickers. Keychains. Calendars. Chapsticks. (Yes, I’ve seen chapsticks!) Miniature book charms. One romance author I saw online gave out nail polish in the same shade as her book cover.

UTM bookmarkHonestly. How much of this stuff do readers keep? How much does it help the author by giving it away to people? Authors new and old have passed me those postcards and trading cards. At the end of a busy convention, at the end of a signing, I often find myself recycling most of these things. Even business cards. I keep only those I know I’ll want to contact, or remember to search for something online. Now, bookmarks, at least, have a somewhat related purpose. I’m more likely to keep a promotional bookmark, particularly if I have a book I’ve been reading and my place is being kept by a pen, or my own business card.

I ask again: How much of this stuff do you keep?

Next month, The Ultra Thin Man comes out. What to do about swag? I’ve had business cards for a few months now. And in last week’s mail I received bookmarks that I designed. Anything else? I doubt I will. I did design and order a decent-sized vinyl banner of the book cover that looks great. But I’m not giving it away. Because of my own small press, I’ve got several stands that will fit the banner. A nice extra to take to a reading when appropriate, and later I’ll probably find a good wall to put it on.

For my release party on the 12th after my first signing, there will be cake swag. Um. That’s right, win them over with food.

But seriously, maybe I should create some plush Helk aliens with T-shirts bearing my book cover. Or miniature black Conduit tower erasers. Or how about drink coasters featuring the eight planets of the Union of Worlds?

Okay. Well. I’ve got my bookmarks ready.

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REVIEWS & CHAPTER 1 EXCERPT

Actually, the whole chapter 1 is up! I’ve put it as an extra on the novel information page on this site:  Chapter One   It also appeared today on Tor.com.  (Along with bonus chapter, Chapter Two!)

What else? Well how about the book being selected as a “Fantastic First” and a staff pick over at Mysterious Galaxy? And while I’m at it, because I’m all about these “firsts” in the publication adventure, the very first rating over at Goodreads was 5-star, and a nice little review to go with it.

I caught wind of another review from Booklist, and although I can’t get to an online link that I can read, my publicist sent along the review. Pasted below:

“Dave Crowell and Alan Brindos are former private investigators, now contractors with the Network Intelligence Organization and assigned to investigate the terrorist Movement of Worlds organization. The investigation that begins it all centers on the death of a woman who is suspected of being involved with the Movement’s leader, Terl Plenko; Crowell sends Brindos alone to the planet Ribon to work that angle. Meanwhile, Crowell ends up embroiled in an elaborate frame-up and conspiracy that threatens to shatter the security of the Union. They are separated, mostly unable to communicate, questioning their allies and everything they thought they knew. Nothing—and no one—is what they seem. The characterization and world building start off a little rough, but the thriller pacing carries the story along until the structure of the conspiracy becomes clear. By the epic finale, the universe is fleshed out enough to make the ultimate question—Who is behind this chain of events?—one worth answering. All in all, an entertaining piece of storytelling.”  — Regina Schroeder, Booklist

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