Category: The Ramble (page 161 of 462)

Self-doubt is one of those things you’re going to contend with as a creative person. It’s just how it is. It sucks. I know. And I’m sorry. Thing is, this isn’t math. Creative projects do not have an easy DO THIS, THEN THIS HAPPENS outcome. Like many careers, it’s wildly unpredictable, and given over to forces beyond your control — worse, we can easily doubt the parts we do control. We don’t trust ourselves and we fail to have faith in ourselves, and self-doubt worms its wormy fingers into the gaps and starts pulling us apart.

I spoke about this the other day on THE TWITTERS, and this is the result:

[EDIT, DAMNIT I DID THIS ONE ALREADY.]

[This is why writing posts early Monday before I’ve had coffee is a doomed plan.]

[Let’s try this again.]

[Okay! New mushroom photo. Much better. This one is one you can actually eat.]

First, both Atlanta Burns (book 1) and The Hunt (book 2) are on sale for $1.99 each for your Kindlemachine. A girl, her dog, her gun, and a town full of bullies await. Please note, though, that these books should be considered piled high with trigger warnings. Of all varieties.

Second, you saw my NYCC sked, right? Well, if you can’t make it to NYCC (or even if you can), Penguin Random House is having a Monday, post-NYCC coffee klatsch at their offices starting at 11AM. I’ll be there, along with some other amazing authors: Daniel Older, Myke Cole, Seanan McGuire, Naomi Novik, Sarah Kuhn, and more. You have to RSVP (details here), and note that they will not be selling books — you’ll have to bring your own if you want ’em signed.

Third, if you’ve ever read any of my books and liked ’em, boy howdy I’d sure appreciate a review somewhere. If you read them and didn’t like them, you should also leave a review, but in this case, you should yell the angry review into a pillow, or at a passing bird. The bird in particular will surely bring the review to me so thanks for your honesty.

And I think that’s it.

NOW GO FORTH AND HOLD MONDAY ACCOUNTABLE FOR ITS SINS.

IT IS NEARLY OCTOBER.

The time of Pumpkin Spice.

The time of Candy Corn.

AND THE TIME OF VISCERA-FILLED SCARECROWS WHO RISE UP FROM THE GROUND TO EAT YOUR EYES AND YOUR TONGUE AHHHHHH.

What, just me? Whatever.

Throughout October (and starting now), we’ll be going with the spooky Halloween vibe, and to start, I want you to write something non-fiction. I want you to remember a time where you were scared, where you felt you were experiencing something strange or supernatural or preternatural — some “glitch in the Matrix” moment, some scary, unreal event.

Due by 10/7, Friday, noon EST.

Write it here in the comments or at your blog with a link.

Time to sit around the campfire and tell some stories, folks.

I will not be watching the debate tonight.

I mean, really, what’s the point? I’m already an informed citizen. I know the candidates well.

I know one is a highly-qualified, globally well-respected figure, and I know the other is a greasy orange rectal discharge that came to life when struck by lightning one Halloween night.

One is complicated and flawed; the other is a demonic carnival barker.

One is a politician. The other, a plague unto man.

The debate’s gonna stress me out. Here’s how it’ll play out: I’ll put the tiny human to bed and then sit down for a warm, comforting, relaxing sleepy-time presidential debate, which will pull me tighter than a hangman’s rope. Christ, I’m already battling a bout of insomnia. Watching the debate just before crashing out, I might as well hoover up a bindle of cocaine and settle in for the NEVERSLEEP NIGHTMARE RIDE.

I know what happens at the debate. I know. We all know.

I’m going to watch Hillary being nuanced and clinical, and I’m going to watch Trump bloviating and blowing oily chunks of word-vomit into everybody’s mouths, and I know the Political Commentary Corps will ding her for being imperfect and celebrate him for not calling the moderator a racist epithet. (“It’s very presidential how he did not use bigoted language tonight. Though he did stomp on a bag of kittens, but sometimes being a president requires tough decisions. Did you see him on Fallon? So chummy! Hillary, on the other hand, did not successfully convince us that she is not dying from a secret monkey-flu. And would it kill her to smile once in a while? Even though when she smiles, we then say we wish she wouldn’t smile, and we use hilarious memes to mock her. Women are so silly, thinking everybody is always sexist.”)

The other day I suggested that Trump was an antibiotics-resistant strain of gonorrhea, and though that was a joke, the more I think about it, the more I consider the metaphor apt. We are used to politicians fitting a certain mold, and Trump doesn’t. In a given day, The Donald does ten things that would’ve handily disqualified more qualified candidates. Think Howard Dean’s YEEEYAAAY scream, for instance. Trump, though, threatens nuclear war before breakfast. He’s going to court for like, 357 different things, one of them being child rape. And yet, he persists. Because we weren’t ready. We built up antibodies for politicians. We have no antibodies for this oily fuckmonster. We don’t know how to defeat a reality TV star. His antics got right past our defenses and now he’s inside the system, like a septic infection.

So, I know who I’m voting for.

Just the same, I have to be willing to admit I’ll change my vote if Clinton really does fall down in some areas, and I thought it useful here to highlight what those things might be, just in case she’s reading this. HRC, you do any of these things, you have lost my vote:

1. Rip off your face and reveal the pale grinning 1980s-smarmy rich-kid movie villain rictus of Donald Trump, Jr. “And I would’ve gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddlesome fact-checkers!” Ha ha ha, just kidding, nobody’s going to fact check this debate.

2. Kill one of my pets or children on stage.

3. …

3. uhhh

3. whhh

3. *clears throat*

Okay, that’s literally it. There is no number three.

I tried thinking of other things like, “What if she set fire to the moderator,” or, “What if she answered every question with a line from a Vanilla Ice song,” or “What if she left a one-star review of one of my books,” and y’know, nope, sorry, still gonna vote for her. Because Trump is the worst candidate in my memory, and likely the memory of all American history. The guy is a Grade-A Narcissist who will chop this country up and sell the spare parts to Russia. Hillary — who I like, who I respect, who I do not consider the lesser evil — could literally be a new model of Terminator Robot sent to Earth to destroy us and I’d still be like, “Well, at least our deaths will be quick and clean, and maybe we can change her like we did the Cyberdyne Systems Series 800 Resistance Infiltrator, and she can say things like, HASTA LA VISTA, DONALD and we’d all have a good laugh and a good cry as lava consumes her metal exoskeleton.”)

And of course I’m not going to switch my vote to a third-party candidate because I’d have better luck trying to defecate a living, breathing unicorn. As much as I wish we had a viable third-party system, we don’t, and the possibility of electing a third-party candidate — without electoral reform! — is a hair’s breadth from zero. (Never mind the fact that these two third-party candidates are a pair of chuckleheads anyway. Neither is qualified to lead a country line dance much less the actual country.)

So, my vote is set.

Pretty much no matter what.

Enjoy the debates. I’m gonna watch cartoons and eat a bowl of cereal.

Hillary, please don’t kill my pets, please and thank you.

AUTUMN HAS ARRIVED.

It is 42 degrees out — the temperature of life, the universe, and everything.

Normally, I hate when it gets cold, but fuck it — the summer overstayed its welcome.

So, here we are.

And today’s macro is a dead leaf with with droplets on it.

Here’s a couple things —

Tomorrow, I’m with the incomparable and unparalleled FRAN WILDE at the Rittenhouse Barnes & Noble in Philadelphia starting at 7PM to host the launch of her newest, Cloudbound.

Next week, I’m at NYCC, and I’ve got my schedule all buckled up for ye:

Thursday, October 6

4:00 – 4:30 PM

ZER0ES SIGNING (free book! come get!)

Location: HarperCollins Booth # 2118-2119

*

5:00 – 6:00 PM

STAR WARS SIGNING

Location: Star Wars Booth 2108

Friday, October 7

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM

PANEL: Star Wars Publishing

Location: BookCon @ NYCC – 500 W 36^th St

Details: Some of the biggest and best Star Wars authors such as Timothy Zahn (Heir to the Empire, Thrawn), Chuck Wendig (Aftermath, Life Debt), Jim Luceno (Tarkin, Catalyst), E.K. Johnston (Ahsoka), and Charles Soule (Lando, Obi-Wan & Anakin, Poe Dameron), will be on hand to discuss their approach, process, and reception to writing stories set in a galaxy far, far away. Plus, exclusive sneak peeks into the future of Star Wars publishing, and more! Moderated by Lucasfilm’s Michael Siglain and Jennifer Heddle.

*

12:15 PM – 1:15 PM

STAR WARS SIGNING

Location: BookCon Autograph Area (books for sale)

*

5:00 PM – 6:00 PM

STAR WARS SIGNING

Location: Star Wars Booth 2108

Saturday, October 8

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM

STAR WARS SIGNING

Location: Star Wars booth 2108

Sunday, October 9

11:30 PM – 12:30 PM

STAR WARS SIGNING (with Timothy Zahn)

Location: Star Wars Booth 2108

Monday, October 10

Something secret and special and as-yet-unannounced…

* * *

So, there you go.

And holy crap I get to meet and hang with Timothy Zahn. How exciting is that? (Answer: very.) Zahn is fundamental. Historic. And also writing a new Thrawn book, so…

And OOH one more thing, one more really cool thing:

My novella, The Forever Endeavor, is coming out October 25th from Fireside Fiction.

You can preorder it here:

Kindle | iTunes | Kobo

It’s a book about Dale, an addict who finds a box that lets him time travel back in time ten minutes — but, spoiler warning, when he goes back, he discovers that he is no longer the Only Dale in town. And it’s a book about Walter, the cop who finds a pumpkin patch filled with dozens of dead bodies — dead bodies that appear to belong to the one guy. And it’s about how these two stories, um, intersect with the push of a button a time-traveling box.

(It also contains a bunch of little references to the Wendigverse.)

Anyway.

I think that’s all she wrote.

*explodes in a pile of autumn leaves*

*and millipedes*

The Pelee Island Writer’s Retreat has four more days left on the clock.

You can, right now, go there and sign up for a week-long writing retreat on the island with either Margaret Atwood or myself as your instructor. Margaret asked me to be a part of it, and in my experience, when she asks you something like that, you say yes. She could pull up in a wizard van full of mysterious birds and, you know, c’mon. You say yes to that adventure. You just do.

So, I said yes. And I want to teach the class, but I need a class to teach.

It’s on an island. In a lake. In Canada. It’s also an island with a bird observatory.

BIRDS, GODDAMNIT. BIRDS. I love birds! So exciting.

You buy the perk, you get room, food, and we get to hang out for a week to talk about how our stories work inside — and transcend — the boundaries of genre.

This will be huge. And fun. You should go.

Listen to Margaret Atwood! Join us! One of us! One of us.