Tim Pratt's Blog, page 24

I Like Trains

I'm up to 145 -- wait, now it's 146 -- individual donors for Broken Mirrors. Donor #150 will get a special treat, so if you've been waiting to donate, now's a good time to give. There could be fancy chocolate in it for you. (Or something else if you hate chocolate. I'm not a monster.)

The novel is proceeding at a good clip. I just passed 70,000 words last night, which means I have a mere 15K left to write. Should be done in a week or two. (Though it'll be like ten more weeks before it's all...

Stop, I'll Blush

It's Tim Pratt Week (alternatively known as Everybody Loves Tim Pratt Week, though that may be overstating the case a smidgen), at least according to a pair of podcasts: Podcastle and Drabblecast are doing a cross-promotional thing this week centered on, ahem, me. You can listen to my story "Little Gods" at Podcastle, and you can hear my story "Jubilee" at Drabblecast, along with embarrassingly nice commentary about my work from both. So, to quote one of the intros, go listen and "take...

WisConward

I'm off to WisCon in, um, 12 hours. I'll sleep all the way to Memphis, I hope, then blearily ingest coffee and some kind of breakfast-type food for the 90 minute trip to Madison. Will arrive mid-morning, get to hotel as fast as I can, stow my bags, and sit in on an interview for A Certain Magazine (I am contributing not my non-existent interview skills but merely my encyclopedic knowledge of the subjects' work). Then I'll be running the A Certain Magazine table in the Dealers' Room. Come...

Intangibles

Let's see now. My story "Antiquities and Tangibles" (AKA "The happiness story") sold to Subterranean; yay! I mentioned this story back in 2006, though even then I called it an "old, half-written novelette." I think I actually started trying to write it in the mid-'90s. The version I just sold retained nothing but the basic concept from that original story, though... the earlier hand-scrawled half-done iteration is probably nestled among my juvenilia at Northern Illinois University, or else...

Miscellaneous Maximus

We're all moved in to our new place, though a long way from entirely unpacked. Still, the house is habitable, the neighborhood is great, and the whole family is happier.

Things have been busy, hence the lack of entry-making -- paying words get priority. I've updated Broken Mirrors a few times since my last blatheration here, and ten weeks in the response continues to be very favorable. Donations have fallen from the dizzying heights of the first two weeks but have settled down since then...

Turning Ten

Tropism, my online journal, turns 10 years old today. I posted my first entry on April 20, 2000, nearly 1/3 of my life ago.

And I'm way too busy at work and home (we go to press tomorrow, and we're also MOVING) to have a long leisurely look back. So I'll just say: Whoa. Ten years. Long time, man. Long time.

3K

Chapter 7 of Broken Mirrors is live: the Parasite Road Show begins.

You know what I'll say next: please read, and tell anyone you think would be interested, and if you like what you see, toss some cash my way for groceries and preschool tuition and health insurance. (I like this chapter a lot. It probably has the highest body count of any single chapter of the whole Marla series.)

The weekend was spent moving stuff to the place my son calls New House. About 3,000 books, and several...

Can't Sleep Boxes Will Eat Me

Behold, Chapter 6 of Broken Mirrors is live. Outrageous demands, liquid glass magic, private jets, momentous decisions, and some foreshadowing. Go, read, tell your friends -- hell, tell your enemies -- and donate if you can. (Seriously, if you've been thinking about donating? This is a good week to do it. Between the expenses of moving to our new apartment and paying the balance of last year's taxes and paying this year's quarterly taxes, I have a hand cramp from writing so many GIANT...

You Go

Laura Miller of Salon favorably mentions my Marla Mason series in her piece on the iPad as e-reader. Makes me wish I'd finished that website redesign for MarlaMason.net I've been meaning to undertake. Ah well.

In other exciting news, the Hugo Award nominees have been announced, and, wow. Juliet Ulman made the Best Editor Long Form list even though she had the questionable taste to edit one of my 2009 publications. Daniel Dos Santos is up for best professional artist, and he's done four of my...

Peep Peep

Chapter 5 of Broken Mirrors is up now. Featuring poached eggs and bloodshed.

In more personal news: We got the apartment! More importantly, we get the yard. So this will be an exciting month of packing, carrying heavy things, and unpacking. Oh well. You have to suffer on the way to the promised land...

We've started packing books. We went through two bookshelves and culled, I dunno, maybe fifty books, which we sold off to Half Price Books on Sunday. It's possible to make more money selling...