So…I just finished a very rough draft of The Red: Trials, the follow up to The Red: First Light. There is A LOT of fixing up, figuring out, and filling in to do — and maybe there will be fatal flaws, I don’t know — but this was a very difficult book for me, so getting to this point is a triumph.

For those of you who are writers, I thought I’d share my experience of how I finally got those last pages done, in case you might find it helpful someday.

With many writers it’s common to write faster as you approach the end. That’s usually the case for me, but it didn’t happen this time. I was still slogging through it, even though I really didn’t have that far to go.

This has happened to me before. Long ago, when I was writing the first draft of my novel Vast, I was stuck. I was maybe 80% through and I couldn’t write anymore. I had a decision to make about how the end would work, and the uncertainty of what that decision would be worked to hold me back. I’m a very linear writer. I write chapter 1, then chapter 2, and so on, through to the end. I don’t jump around — until I got stuck writing Vast, that is. Eventually, out of desperation or despair, I jumped ahead and wrote the climactic end of the novel–and after that, writing the rest of the draft was relatively easy.

Every novel is different. With Trials I wasn’t facing a decision about the end. I knew how it would end — the generalities anyway, if not the details — but as with Vast, it turns out I needed to write the climactic ending scene before I could write all the scenes leading up to it. After a terrible writing day, I sat down on the evening of November 21, and skipped to the end. 1500 words later I felt far, far better about things. Over the next five days I added another 8500 words to create the missing scenes. I won’t say the writing was painless, but it was much less of a struggle than almost all the rest of the novel.

So this is the Vast method: when you’ve struggled close to the end but the story still isn’t writing itself, try writing the climactic scene first, and then drop back and fill in the rest.

Sometimes it works.

Over the past year or so I’ve read several disparaging comments about my favorite kind of science fiction — the hard stuff. So I thought I’d address some common misconceptions about the sub-genre in a post that published today at io9.com. Please check it out and let me know what you think.

I’m pleased to report that the War Stories Kickstarter successfully funded yesterday, two days before the deadline! This means the anthology, edited by Jaym Gates and Andrew Liptak, will move forward, and see publication in 2014. It will include my story “Light and Shadow.”

So a big thank you to everyone who supported the project and who helped to spread the word!

Today is my birthday. I’m fifty-three years old. I’m sure that sounds ancient if you’re in your twenties or thirties, and terrifying if you’re in your forties, but honestly, it’s not bad. My advice to anyone of any age is to get in shape and stay in shape. The journey’s a lot more pleasant when you take care of yourself. Go check out this book: Younger Next Year by Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge, M.D. Very inspirational.

So what did I get for my birthday? An `ōhi`a tree, because we’re weird like that. 🙂

This is a tree native to Hawaii and very common in the mountains where native forest lingers. The new tree has yellow flowers. It will complement our much older `ōhi`a tree, shown below, which has vermilion flowers:

After I took the photo above, I noticed an odd green color right in the center. This required investigation, so I took another photo with increased telephoto:

Yes, just as suspected, a Jackson chameleon photobombed my `ōhi`a pic!

Here’s a closer shot, taken from underneath the tree:

I’m happy to report that the mature tree was absolutely buzzing with honeybees. We still have a healthy bee population in this neighborhood.

But — as this little photo-excursion demonstrates — I am easily distracted from the real business. I need to finish both an essay and a novel — so back to work!

The sale is done now. Thanks so much to all who participated and who helped to spread the word. If you enjoyed MEMORY and would like to see a sequel please let me know. And do sign up for my newsletter (“New Book Alerts” at the top of the right hand column)–it goes out only a few times a year.

“[A] kick ass big idea, hard SF novel…Yes, I’m raving. But I seriously love this book.” —Tobias Buckell

Many of my readers consider Memory to be their favorite among my novels, and I would love to write a sequel, but I’m going to need the support of a lot of readers to do it. This will probably mean doing a Kickstarter to make sure the interest is there. In the meantime, I’d like to persuade more of you to read Memory, so for a limited time I’m offering it for only $3. Thanks for considering it!

The reduced price is available at Amazon US and Amazon UK, so if you’re a regular Amazon customer (and you don’t live in a country where Amazon tacks on extra fees) please purchase there. This will help the novel’s rank and give it more visibility to other customers. The reduced price is also available at my Mythic Island Press webstore, to buyers worldwide.

If you’re a regular customer of Kobo Books, here’s the link to their website

With luck the lower price will also become available at Barnes & Noble, but they tend to be slower about updating their listings, so no guarantees.

For news of upcoming books (and possible Kickstarters!) PLEASE SIGN UP FOR MY VERY OCCASIONAL NEWSLETTER.

And if you read Memory and enjoy it, please consider reviewing it at Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or otherwise spreading the word — because word of mouth is the best way to sell books, and I need all the help I can get! 😉

Until recently, I’d never heard of the movie Moon, directed by Duncan Jones and released in 2009, but over the past year I saw it mentioned several times in social media in a generally positive way — so last night I finally sat down to watch it.

Did I like it?

I think so.

The trouble is, I really didn’t like the beginning. The opening of the film created a lot of mental resistance in me of the “I am totally not buying this” variety. But deep into the movie it suddenly became very interesting. It was as if the director wanted the opening to look like cliché (and succeeded all too well!), the better to surprise viewers later on.

* * * * SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW * * * *
Read the rest of this entry »

This post was originally published at Book View Cafe.

It’s dangerous out there, people. There are risks involved in reading the wrong sorts of science fiction, and while advice and counsel is available around the web, the time has come for a concise glossary of the most common debilitating parasitic memes, most frequently referred to as “cooties,” that are known to infect vulnerable readers. Knowledge is power. As a writer who has risked association with ALL listed varieties, I felt compelled to share my observations and experiences.

This book is known to contain the following varieties of cooties: girl, hard SF, military SF, male protagonist. Read with caution!

GIRL COOTIES
Found in: science fiction written by girls
Who’s at risk? boys
What happens if you catch them: possible loss of manhood generally through exposure to romance and excessive clothing descriptions; moderate risk to self-image in cases where female characters are not competing to win attention of male characters; possible nausea when female reproductive issues (non-coital varieties) are involved; in general, subversion by the alien female.

HARD SF COOTIES
Found in: science fiction that attempts to extrapolate from known science
Who’s at risk? girls
What happens if you catch them: possible loss of womanhood with severe risk of personality collapsing into cardboard, resulting in long-term loss of emotional empathy. Occasionally associated with right-wing conversions.

MILITARY SF COOTIES
Found in: science fiction about military service; rarely: found in association with Hard SF cooties.
Who’s at risk? girls and boys
What happens if you catch them: possible loss of empathy for those outside your unit, frequent development of might-makes-right approach to problem solving; reduction of color vision—in worst cases even shades of gray are lost.

FEMALE-PROTAGONIST COOTIES
Found in: science fiction with a female protagonist
Who’s at risk? boys
What happens if you catch them: Little-to-no risk has been found with the “kick ass” variety of female-protagonist cooties. For risks of other varieties, refer to the listing for girl cooties.

MALE-PROTAGONIST COOTIES
Found in: science fiction with a male protagonist
Who’s at risk? girls
What happens if you catch them: effects vary greatly. Some male-protagonist cooties are benign, some induce a severe allergic reaction. The most potent induce a hallucinogenic state wherein the victim comes to feel empathy for the alien other.

Warning: some science fiction is known to be infected with multiple species of cooties and should be considered especially hazardous. Read with caution!

Every week, SF Signal poses a question to a collection of writers. We answer separately, and the results are posted on Wednesdays. This week I got to participate. The subject: How has reading science fiction and fantasy changed you as a person or changed your life?

The other authors who answered this week’s question are Myke Cole, Evie Manieri, Gillian Polack, James Patrick Kelly, Howard Andrew Jones, Michael J Martinez, Ken Scholes, E.J. Swift, and Abhinav Jain.

Find this week’s Mind Meld here: How Science Fiction Changed Our Lives

In prior posts I’ve mentioned the upcoming War Stories anthology, edited by Jaym Gates and Andrew Liptak. War Stories is an anthology of military science fiction, to be published by Apex Publications, and will include my story “Light and Shadow”–if it goes forward.

This anthology is a Kickstarter project, with a funding campaign that launched today! Please stop by the Kickstarter page and while you’re there be sure to check out the video. I hope you’ll consider supporting this project. I’d love to see this anthology become reality.

Thanks!

In my last post, Why I Self-Published The Red: First Light, I talked about why I decided to independently publish my newest science fiction novel. This time I want to talk about the process.

In the spring of 2012 I wrote a short story called “Through Your Eyes.” I intended it as a stand-alone piece, but I couldn’t get the protagonist out of my head. I wanted to know what became of him, and The Red: First Light is the result.

From the start I knew the novel would be problematical from a marketing perspective, for the reasons noted in my last post, but I wanted and needed to write this book.

I started working on the novel in early June 2012—a week or so after sending the short story off to market—and finished a very rough draft at the end of September, ironically, about two days before the short story sold to Asimov’s.
Read the rest of this entry »