Cover of War of Knives, Book 2 in Matty Graves series
I’ve been watching the “The Next Big Thing” thing making the rounds of authors’ websites as one writer after another gets tagged.
I’ve been tagged at last, yay. Lisa Jensen, who tagged me, recently sold her reimagined Captain Hook novel, Alias Hook, to Snowbooks in the U.K. It’s due out in May 2013. I had the pleasure of reading it in manuscript, and it’s filled with the same cutting wit, swift violence and tender eroticism that distinguished her Tory Lightfoot novels. I recommend it highly.
What is the working title of your book?
The Crazy Adorable Faces. It was Four Little Kids and How They Die, but I decided to limit the point of view to one kid, so that didn’t work anymore.
Where did the idea come from for this book?
I was trying to weave some short stories together that were all set in the same seaside town in the 1970s. The common element was a girl who sees ghosts but doesn’t believe in them. So I gave her a couple of ghost hunters for parents, had them go missing and sent her off to look for them.
What genre does your book fall under?
Supernatural historical with some YA appeal.
How long did it take to write the first draft?
I’ve been working on it evenings since July and am just now at the end of act one, but I spent most of that time just working on the plot. I only started the actual writing fairly recently.
What actors would you use for a movie rendition of your book?
Chloë Grace Moretz, maybe? If Wednesday Addams were a real person who could act and was 14, she’d make a pretty good lead. If Lou Diamond Phillips could travel back in time to when he was 14, he could play the other kid.
What is a one-sentence synopsis of your book?
A teenage girl overcomes her skepticism about the afterlife while searching for her ghost-hunting parents.
Will it be self published or represented by an agency?
I’m assuming my agent will rep it. I ran the idea by her and she made encouraging noises, but I haven’t showed her any pages yet.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
I grew up in a haunted house.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I’d like to say The Haunting of Hill House, but that wouldn’t be true. I just like that book a lot.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Grace is being raised rather haphazardly by her alcoholic, dope-smoking aunt, who loves her a lot but isn’t much of a role model. Grace makes mistakes because she doesn’t know whom to trust and when to trust them.
_____
And now comes the part where I provide links to five other authors.
But.
I came to the “The Next Big Thing” thing pretty late. Oh yes I did. Was I a skinny, nearsighted kid who got chosen next to last for softball? Why, yes, I was. And did I later get bumped down to the spaz class, where I became King of the Spazzes and we beat the varsity baseball team at Russian baseball? Why, yes, I did.
Anyway.
Most of my writer friends have already been tagged, refuse to be tagged, don’t have a website or simply don’t bother with blogs.
KW: “I haven’t blogged since like February.” (Me: “What year?”)
RS: “I’ve been tagged three times already. It’s kind of cheesy, don’t you think?”
KM: “My time is better spent actually writing. Especially since my publisher wants me to pump out a book a month!”
So, no links to authors I actually know. Instead, here are some things I like a lot:
Philip Kerr: The Bernie Gunther Novels
M.T. Anderson: Feed
Paolo Bacigalupi: Windup Stories
Chris Wooding: The Black Lung Captain
Scott Lynch: The Gentlemen Bastards Sequence
Sailing out of the harbor at Oxnard, Calif., May 2012
I don’t think it’s true that a lousy day sailing beats a great day at the office. I’ve had really crap-ass days at the office where no one drowned, for instance. But even a mediocre day sailing beats the pants off a great day at a desk.
This day was crazy crackers out on the water, with a brisk wind and five-foot swells out of the northwest. Mark had the helm most of the way — he’s the club member and I usually prefer crewing anyway. It was a boss day sailing, even though I missed the huge fish Mark saw.
Amazon pretends we don't exist
Alex Skutt, publisher at McBooks Press, sent out an email today to say that Amazon has “abruptly removed all McBooks Press Kindle e-book editions from its website.” He continues:
Our distributor, Independent Publishers Group, refused to bow to Amazon.com’s demands that Amazon receive higher discounts on both “physical” books and e-books than any of its competitors.
We hope that a fair agreement will soon be reached between the parties, but until then, please remind your readers that your physical books and e-books are available at local independent bookshops, www.BarnesandNoble.com, www.indiebound.org, iTunes, Kobo, and elsewhere. Your e-books are not currently available in Kindle editions.
Amazon.com now wields monopolistic power in the American booktrade, and it is abusing that power. This afternoon I called the New York and Washington offices of Senator Charles Schumer (Dem.-NY) to alert him to this situation.
I admit I have a dog in this fight. McBooks is my publisher. They’re good folks and don’t deserve to get strong-armed by Amazon.
I stopped using Amazon a while back because their not paying sales tax gives them an unfair advantage over books-and-mortar bookstores. Primarily that means Barnes & Noble, but there are still some independents around. Please patronize them whenever possible.
Remember, buying local helps your neighbors—which might put them in a position to help you someday.
And, as Alex points out, the Matty Graves books and e-books are available at local independent bookshops, www.BarnesandNoble.com, www.indiebound.org, iTunes, Kobo, and elsewhere.
You can even get them through interlibrary loan if you’re a cheapskate. Or—and here’s an idea!—from me. I’ll sign it and maybe even draw in it for you.
I have to write SEO stories for the magazine I work for. They rarely have anything to do with the magazine’s beat. They’re just supposed to draw eyeballs.
I used to worry about this. No more.
I figured I might as well have some fun. That way, maybe someone else will, too.
Which is what happened here:
Cher Not Dead — Is Kim Kardashian Next?
If you click through — and I hope you do — you’ll notice that the headline is waaaay too long. Had to get in “Cher,” “Kardashian,” “Dead” and “Twitter” all in one go.
More SEO nonsense. Callista Gingrich was trending, and she looks fucking goddam weird, so what the heck, hey?
Callista Gingrich’s Hair: Explaining the Unexplainable.
No photo, unfortunately. But Inquisitr has a great one.
Los Cheez-tones was a sort of proto-Polecats band that was mostly me and Marty Stevens, with Richard von Busack wandering in and out as he chose. Marty and I had some gigs, but I think we had a band with Andy Average called, variously, El Rancho Dressing, the Radar Rangers and Los Buckaroobs before the Polecats formed. I remember Dave Lowery of Camper van Beethoven sat in on drums at the reception when Sharan and I got married. I don’t think he’d ever played drums before.
Anyway, whatever we were called, Caballero was one of my favorite songs from that band.
Personnel: Marty Stevens, high vocal, rub board; Broos Campbell, not as high vocal, guitar; Richard von Busack, accordion.
Frank Lawrence recorded this at a house on McGee Street in Berkeley way back when God was a pup. All I remember about it was crawling out the back window to smoke. I think there was a concrete patio out there.
I particularly like Richard’s chugging accordion workout here. It gives the song a lot of needed jauntiness that nicely underscores the lyric, which I partly stole from some Jack Kerouac poem from a City Lights book I had when I was a kid. I remember it had a black-and-white photo of him in a cap, taken in North Africa somewhere.
Words and music copyright © 1986 Broos Campbell. All rights reserved.
Beer Barrel Polecats at San Francisco house party, ca. 1992
I’ve been humming “Please, Daddy, Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas” for several days now. For why? Because it gets me in the holiday spirit and keeps me out of the spirits, that’s for why. Also because the Beer Barrel Polecats sang it at the Metro holiday talent show one Christmas lo these many years ago.
We also did RvB’s tender paean to the yuletide, “Xmas in Belvue,” with its hauntingly prescient opening line: “Even the Queen of England says it’s been a horrible year / And she’s living in her palace, and me, I’m stuck down here.” Kabillionaire bankers whining about rightly chastising the great unwashed for boo-hooing over income inequality, take heart. Marley would be proud! And I don’t mean Bob.
Anyway, here’s “Xmas in Belvue,” which was about as far as we got on our Christmas album. Photo by Don Hines, with remarks:
”33rd ave. on San Francisco’s Outer Richmond district, 10 blocks from the Cliff House. Jerry Dolezal, me, and one other shared a HUGE 3Br/2b flat for $1600/mo. Ocean vu on one of the 5 sunny days all summer. I think that y’all still lived in Japantown then. This was my birthday party, because Mike Monihan gave me a Sgt. McGruff barking dog record to discourage prowlers. Such, such were the times.”
See what you kids missed by being late toeing up at the birthing line?
The photo is 3/4 of the original lineup of the Polecats. The version on this recording was the more or less permanent one: RvB, accordion and vox; Broos Campbell, guitar and vox; Chris Mondt, bass and vox; Don Piletic; crazy windup monkey drums. Or conga, in this case.
If you missed the several chances to click on the song, here it comes again:
Words and music © 1997 Richard von Busack. All rights reserved.
Barefoot on the beach at Christmastime
I like to go to the beach at Christmastime. I don’t call my friends in New York and Montana to rub it in anymore, though. I’ve grown up a bit.
It wasn’t that warm out anyway. I had to go back to the car and get my sweatshirt and give it to Juju. For why? Because I’m the man, and when there’s only one warm thing to wear, the woman gets it.
Also because I didn’t see her sweatshirt in the backseat.
Palm frond reindeer
Somebody puts these up along Pierpont down by the beach in Ventura every year. Well, not every year. I think they weren’t up last year, or maybe the year before.
A few years back they were just googly eyes and red foam clown noses, and there were maybe a dozen of them. They’re fancier this year, but not so many.
I like the peace sign.
Henry and Farley at the beach
We took the boys to the beach as well. Who’s happier than a dog at the beach? Beats me.
Black Lung Captain by Chris Wooding
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a way fun mashup of steampunk, pirates and sci-fi. I really need to order the first book — through the local bookstore of course.
