officeboy dialogue – Tim Pratt

Things! Of! Note!

Published by Tim Pratt on May 14, 2013

First, there is now an audiobook of The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl available for your listenings! Narrated by Marguerite Croft, and with a great cover by Jenn Reese. Go, download, listen, enjoy. (And go ahead and get some of my other audiobooks while you’re at it.)

I have begun a Tumblr to collect all the various Officebaby/Officeboy quotes that have appeared in scattered places online for years: The Officeboy Dialogues. I’ll update it somewhat regularly with new and classic utterances until he stops saying cute things or gets old enough to be annoyed by the site, whichever comes first.

My Pathfinder Tales novel City of the Fallen Sky is a finalist for the Scribe Awards in the Original Novel category. Very cool, especially since I’m writing another book about those characters this summer.

In other news: I’m 65,000 words into Bride of Death, and expect to have a complete first draft by the end of the month. It’s going really well now; I’d rather be writing it than doing most other things, including those actions necessary to maintain life. In June some other deadlines will begin racing rapidly toward me, so it will likely be September before I can revise the novel. Then there’s copyediting and proofreading to do, so I’m planning for publication in November, most likely. The e-book at least will be out by year’s end for sure, barring unforeseen catastrophes. Onward, ever onward!

Officeboy Dialogue: Smallest Room in the House Edition

Published by Tim Pratt on March 20, 2013

Let me give some background: Our house has one (1) bathroom. Our son has an uncanny ability to decide he needs to use the bathroom exactly when one of his parents is already in there, and often hovers outside the door making loud demands while the room is occupied.

Officeboy, in tones of wonder: What if we had THREE bathrooms?

Me: One bathroom each! That would be pretty great.

Officeboy, warming to the subject: What if our living room was a bathroom? And the room where you wait to go to the bathroom was a bathroom? And also the BATHROOM was a bathroom?

(I love that he refers to that space as “the room where you wait to go to the bathroom,” which for him is its chief function, I suppose.)

On another occasion:

Officeboy: We need more bathrooms.

Me: It would be nice. But it could be worse. When I was a kid, we had five people in the family, and we only had one bathroom.

Officeboy (Demands a full accounting of who those other four people are, where they live now, why he doesn’t visit them more often, if they’re all still alive, etc. Then says): What if you all had to go to the bathroom at once?

Me: Well, we lived out in the country, so the boys could just go out in the back yard and pee.

Officeboy (Thinks deeply): Can I pee in OUR yard?

Me: I don’t think your mother would like that. Or the neighbors.

The Birds and the Flies: An Officeboy Dialogue

Published by Tim Pratt on January 26, 2013

An Officeboy dialogue, which occurred more-or-less as written between my son and myself last night.

Officeboy: “Flies are bad bugs.”

Me: “They don’t do us much good, it’s true.”

OB: “If there’s poop outside, flies will walk in poop, and then bring poop inside your house on their feet.”

Me: “I suppose so.”

OB: “So they’re bad!”

Me: “They’re part of the food chain though. I guess birds eat them.”

OB: “Birds eat flies?”

Me: “Sure.”

OB: “Flies eat poop!”

Me: “Indeed.”

OB: “Birds eat poop!”

Me: “Well, indirectly… but we eat birds.”

OB: “We do?”

Me: “Sure. Turkey, chickens, those are birds we eat.”

OB: “But not when they’re alive.”

Me. “Um. Correct. We do not eat birds when they’re alive.”

OB: “The birds’ owners would be mad.”

Me: “Ha. I bet they would.”

OB, confidently: “They would call 911.”

Me: “… Yes. If someone looked out their window and saw you in their yard eating one of their chickens alive, it would not surprise me if they called 911.”

Monkeybars

Published by Tim Pratt on July 31, 2012

The Antiquities and Tangibles Kickstarter is going well. 150% funded in the first day! And I hit my first “stretch goal,” so I’ll be writing two new stories for the collection. (I do have a way of creating work for myself.)

I just have to figure out which reprints to include in the book. I know some — the award nominees, the ones that have been in year’s bests. Still thinking about which other ones to include. I want a good balance of long/short, light/dark, sentimental/brutal, etc. (Here’s my bibliography. Anything published in 2007 or onward is fair game. Suggestions/demands are welcome.)

On an unrelated note: This morning Officeboy said, “Do you know why I’m excited to go to school today? Because I get to do the monkeybars! I learned to do them yesterday! I couldn’t do it before and then I could! I can go up and down! Do you know how long it took me to learn? Zero minutes! I just watched people who could do it, and then I did it!”

I appreciate his enthusiastic joy in the little things, and seek to emulate it in my own life.

Officeboy Dialogue: You’d Prefer an Astronaut

Published by Tim Pratt on July 24, 2012

While driving home today:

Officeboy: I want to go to the moon. Also to Mars!

Me: Well, people have been to the moon before, and we’ve sent robots to Mars. We might send people to Mars before too long.

Officeboy: I want to go!

Me: Okay. Study hard in school and work hard, and maybe you can be an astronaut. It’s a hard job, but if you want to do it, you should try.

Officeboy: I will do good in school.

Me: Especially math and science.

Officeboy: What’s science?

Me: Well, it’s a way of learning about the world —

Officeboy, confidently: I will learn about the world and be an astronaut. And I already know math! Five plus five is ten! Ten plus ten is twenty!

Me: Very good!

Officeboy: Seven plus seven is… that’s hard. [Inaudible mutterings.] Fourteen!

Me: Perfect!

Officeboy: Am I an astronaut now?

Me: You’re on your way.

In Which My Son Defeats Me With Logic

Published by Tim Pratt on February 9, 2012

A dialogue yesterday morning with my four-year-old son:

Him: “Daddy, do girls die?”

Me: “Well, yeah. Everybody dies, eventually.”

Him: “Will YOU die?”

Me: “Not for a long time, until I’m very old. Don’t worry about it.”

Him: “But does EVERYBODY die?”

Me: “Yeah, so far.”

Him: “But Santa Claus doesn’t die!”

Me: “Uh… Yeah. Wow. That’s a good point. You’re right. He doesn’t die because… he’s magic.”

Him: “Can I be magic?”