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Category: Personal

Penultimativity

Published by Tim Pratt on August 9, 2010

I’m home sick, having been given a lovely cold by my son, who was sick on Friday. He promptly got his mom sick, too, though she’s over her illness now as well… but I caught it last, and I’m still feeling it. At least I know I should be better in a day or so. I rose from bed to hydrate and eat something and figured I’d update here while I was temporarily vertical.

I just posted chapter 23 of Broken Mirrors, the penultimate chapter, which resolves the principle conflict between my main character Marla and her dark doppelganger the Mason. There’s still one chapter to go, though it’s more than mere falling action…

I’m considering putting up my unsold science fantasy The Nex as a serial/e-book. I think it’s a good book, even though none of the publishers I’ve sent it to want to buy it. It’s gotten lots of complimentary rejections, but the problem seems to be that despite having a young (12 years old) protagonist, it doesn’t really read like middle grade — it’s got lots of adult characters, for one thing. I grew up reading stuff like The Talisman, books where there were young characters but that weren’t necessarily meant for young readers. I may have created something along those lines. I didn’t set out to write a middle grade — it’s a genre I’m pretty ignorant about — and, well, it looks like I succeeded in not writing one!

It’s possible it didn’t sell for some other reason entirely. But I love the book a lot, and would like to see it find an audience. Anyone interested in a non-Marla Mason reader-funded serial from me? The novel is set in the world of my story “Dream Engine”. Could be fun.

Heaven on a Desk

Published by Tim Pratt on August 7, 2010

As I write this, I am enjoying a small slice of heaven:

A cup of freshly-brewed Blue Bottle coffee.

A fresh-baked sweet corn muffin (which my two-year-old helped me bake — he’s good at stirring).

A dab of honey butter for the muffin.

Weekends are good.

Social Labyrinths

Published by Tim Pratt on August 6, 2010

It’s been an extremely social week, especially by my hermitlike standards. Had a great afternoon out and then dinner on Tuesday with my wonderful agent Ginger, who took my wife Heather and I to Limon, one of our favorite restaurants. Truffle mac and cheese oh my yum.

On Wednesday Heather and my boss and I all went up to Sonoma to have dinner at the indescribably lovely home of a certain poet (and former head of a major arts institution) with whom I’ve corresponded for years but had never met. A couple of prominent science fiction writers of my acquaintance were there, along with other fascinating people. (Afterward my wife noted that, given the people we’d met at the barbecue, we were now only a single degree of separation away from both George W. Bush and Jorge Luis Borges…)

Last night I had dinner with my producer friend Anne, who has the film/TV option for the Marla Mason series. There are no developments I can report, but she has many interesting irons in the fire. It was a pleasure to see her, too, as always, even if the service at the restaurant was so bad it was literally comical. (Like, order a vodka martini with a lemon twist and get gin with olives in it kind of bad. I stuck with beer — it’s hard to screw up beer. Even if you get the wrong beer, it’s still beer.)

I enjoyed every one of those outings, but my introvert tendencies are nevertheless happy that I’ve got no particular plans for the weekend besides writing, and can pretty much stay home.

***

There are only two weeks left before Broken Mirrors is over. Sadness! The last chapter goes up on August 16, and I’ll stop giving prizes for donations after August 22. (After that I’ll still happily take your money — you just won’t get signed books or prints or chapbooks or bookmarks or artwork or any of the other goodies.) The Kindle edition should go up right after the serialization is done, with other e-book formats to follow (I hope). And the print edition will be along later this fall. Whee!