Scott Westerfeld's Blog, page 23
October 31, 2011
NaNoWriMo Preparations!
As we approach the month of November, many of you are no doubt getting ready for National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo! In this yearly ritual, tens of thousands of bookish folk declare their intent to write a whole novel in a mere thirty days. (Or at least 50,000 words, which is certainly on the way.) Doing NaNoWriMo is a great way to take a stab at finally writing that novel in your head, or to test your own discipline, or simply to understand better what your favorite novelists go through on a daily basis.
Thinking about doing it yourself? Go here for NaNoWriMo's Young Writers Program, and sign up!
Two years ago, Justine and I did a whole month of writing advice posts in honor of all you brave NaNoWriMoers. We're too busy to repeat the effort this year, but below is a handy set of links to all our advice of 2009.
The odd-numbered posts are mine, and the evens are Justine's.
Best of luck to you all!
(Also, I just signed a metric buttload of books at Books of Wonder here in NYC. Click here to mail-order these signed copies. There are some of every series I've ever written, so call them if you don't see the one you want.)
And now here at the tips!
NaNo Tip #2: The Zen of First (Zero) Drafts
NaNo Tip #3: Dialog Spine Analysis
NaNo Tip #4: Word Count is Not Everything
NaNo Tip #5: Write Your Way Out
NaNo Tip #6: Emergency Unstucking Techniques
NaNo Tip #7: Stealing from Chandler
NaNo Tip #10: Don't Skip the Tricky Bits
NaNo Tip #11: Passages of Disbelief
NaNo Tip #12: Turn the Internet Off
NaNo Tip #14: Procrastination Can Be Your Friend
NaNo Tip #15: Take the Day Off
NaNo Tip #17: Making Writing a Habit
NaNo Tip #18: Breaking with Stereotypes
NaNo Tip #20: Don't Wait for the Muse to Strike
NaNo Tip #23: Change Your Brain
NaNo Tip #24: Writing While White
NaNo Tip #25: Read it Backwards
NaNo Tip #28: Take Care of Yourself
NaNo Tip #29: Finish Everything
October 28, 2011
Fan Art Friday, Goliath Tour 2
It's Friday and time for another FAF. This is the second of three FAFs dedicated to fan art given to me during the Goliath tour.
But the concluding tour-FAF will not be next week, because next week is CosPlay FAF! This is Halloween weekend, after all, so many of you will be dressing up. If your costumes are based on any of my books, please send them here! (Click the Contact button in the right panel, way down.)
And NOW . . . some fan art. My apologies that I don't know/remember the names of the folks who handed these to me. Tour is a memory-melting experience.
These first three pieces were given to me in Kansas City, I think.
Yes, that appears to be a Twilight reference, plus there's a bit of Full Metal Alchemist in there too.
Half Deryn, half Dylan! I've seen a few of these around the interwebs. Is it that you all want to see Deryn in a dress?
This was handed to me right before I went to the airport. THE AIRPORT, WHERE THEY LOVE IT WHEN YOU BRING IN STEAMPUNK GUNS. But it was made of plastic, so I'm not blogging from Gitmo.
This next one was done by the staff of the Wild Rumpus in St. Louis.
Wild Rumpus actually has a ferret named Ferdinand. And given Leviathan's hero's father's name, I demanded a bonding session with the beastie.
It turns out if you hold ferrets this way, they think you're their mother and go to sleep. So Ferdinand is not dead, okay? Just resting. (Pining for the moors, maybe.)
This piece is from that very visit, and was one of those artsy kids who drew it while I talked, then gave it to me.
It's very light here, but in person the lines were very beautiful and aerodynamic.
And finally, a bit of fanfic. Well, not fiction at all, really. More in the persuasive writing category. But you can see that this young wordsmith knows the value of repetition.
Okay, that's it for this week. early next week I'll give you guys a more formal tour report, with lots of numbers. It might be interesting. Or maybe not.
Don't forget to send me your costume photos! And if you're on FaceBook, you can also take a picture of yourself with one of my books and enter the Show Us Your Steampunk contest. Win the actual aviator caps and goggles from the cover photo shoot. Click here for details, or just to look at stuff.
October 25, 2011
Scored – A New Dystopian Novel
Today is the book birthday of a wonderful novel called Scored, by Lauren McLaughlin. It was sent to me a couple of years ago for a blurb and, as you can see below, I gave it one.
Scored is what the kids these days are calling a "dystopian novel." But it's not set in the far future, like, say, Uglies. It takes place only a few decades from now, and the biggest change isn't some huge civilization-ending meltdown, but a little thing called the Score.
In this future society, everything you do until age 18 is carefully monitored by surveillance cameras, and all of it adds up to your score—a number between 1 and 100. As Lauren puts it here:
How you walk, how often you swear, who you hang out with, how much time you spend on homework are all fed into the system. The software constantly learns from these observations, fine tuning its scoring algorithm until its results are indisputable. The highest scorers get into the best colleges, qualify for the best jobs, earn the most money. The lowest scorers fulfill their destiny as misfits, delinquents, and the permanently dependent. No one can argue with the accuracy of the score because there are no exceptions to the rule. Society doesn't allow them any more.
It's one of those books that, like Uglies, might seem to be a straightforward exaggeration of today's world. High school students live and die by their SAT's, after all. You can't get into a good school, and thus have a good future, without a high score. (Everyone tells you so, anyway.) And, of course, cameras are popping up everywhere these days.
But worrying about high-stakes testing and surveillance cams is different from living in a world where they've become all-powerful. And that's what a good dystopian novel does, it takes you into a future and shows you what it's like to live there.
The main character of Scored is Imani, a high school senior whose score has been in the 90′s her whole life. In other words, she's a good student and a good kid. But her best friend Cady has started hanging out with an unscored boy, which means Cady's score is falling fast. And since Peer Group is one of the five pillars of the Score, Imani's own standing will soon suffer. I won't spoil anything else, but trust me, the story gets much more intense and complicated as it heads toward its conclusion.
If you're facing the SATs (or whatever test your school system uses to create your "permanent record") you should check out Scored. It will be in bookstores everywhere, online and in the real world, starting today.
Click here to read more from Lauren herself.
(Also, I just signed a metric buttload of books at Books of Wonder here in NYC. Click here to mail-order these signed copies. There are some of every series I've ever written, so call them if you don't see the one you want. They probably have it.)
October 20, 2011
Fan Art Friday Returns!
The Goliath tour is finally over, and that means the return of Fan Art Friday. Because I've missed so many in a row, I decided to do it a day early!
Of course, for me tour's end means many other reasons to celebrate, like eating much less cheese. (Vegetarian + room service = cheese. It's a fact.) I realize, of course, that complaining about touring is churlish. Traveling across this continent and seeing so many of you was both a pleasure and a privilege (a highly cheese-filled privilege). So my thanks go out to everyone who came out, dressed up, and otherwise made my tour a great experience. (And special thanks to the Moonlight Hotel in St. Louis, who had non-cheesy vegetarian food on their menu even late at night when authors return exhausted to their rooms.)
But enough about cheese. Let's get onto the fan art. Lots of you sent me art while I was on the road, and I will eventually get to all of it. But for the next few editions of FAF, I'm going to stick to art, signs, and costumes I encountered on the road. Hope you enjoy them!
Let's start with a beautiful piece by skeithe at DeviantArt. She handed a printed out version of this to me, which I'm going to get framed!
Everyone loves holding hands, right?
Here's an incredible piece of not just fan art and cosplay, but fan engineering by the amazing steampunk crew at Austin Teen Book Festival in Texas. Check out their life-size Huxley!
Um, all I have to say about this is pretty much . . . whoa. I can't imagine how much effort and planning goes into something like this, because I am a mere typer of words, not a builder of things. Luckily there were about 2,400 people at ATBF to see this magnificent fabrication, so the effort was mightily rewarded with many ooohs and ahhhs.
One of the cool things about writing books is how readers glom onto certain lines in a novel. Out of thousands of sentences, one will somehow resonate with lots of people. (I'm looking at you, "The things you do, the way you think, makes you beautiful.")
Here's a lovely example of that, an illustrated quote from page 13 of Behemoth. This one simile stuck in someone's mind until it they were forced to make it an image in the real world.
And now for some cosplay. Three girls came to the Wild Rumpus Bookstore in Minneapolis dressed in Edwardian finery, and proved their mettle. They stayed in their velvet smoking jackets (and one cold-weather aviator cap) even though it was barking hot in the store! Plus, they looked awesome.
Speaking of cosplay, don't forget the Show Us Your Steampunk contest over on FaceBook. Enter to win the goggles and aviator cap from the Leviathan photo shoot, and signed books too!
I've noticed that on all my tour appearances since writing Leviathan, there are a few people in the audience who sketch while I talk. You know, artists making art as a way to concentrate. And at the end they hand me the finished works. Here's a lovely example from Joliad/Jurodo:
And, hey look! I just found a finished version of this pose over at Jurodo's DeviantArt page!
Wow, I always love the transition from sketch to full-blown artwork.
Here's another cool bit of fan engineering: Ben in Austin created this wonderful remote control Leviathan model. It's flying out over the audience assembling for my Austin Teen Book Festival keynote. Sorry about the darkness.
Watch it bigger over at YouTube.
Okay, that's it for this FAF. But don't forget: my final US event will be at Books of Wonder in NYC this Saturday. And even if you don't live in NYC or even in the US, you can get a book signed and personalized by me through the store. Just order before Saturday, and I'll make sure to sign it for you while I'm there. If you want a personal message (like, "To Airship Ninja!") just say so in the comments field when you order. Books of Wonder will ship anywhere in the world.
Just click here to order one. You can also search my last name on that page for ANY of my books, signed and personalized.
Event details:
Saturday, October 22
Noon-2PM
BOOKS OF WONDER
18 West 18th Street.
New York, NY 10011
Also appearing: Maryrose Wood, Jeff Hirsch, Sarah Beth Durst, Jon Skovron, Elizabeth Levy, and Mordicai Gerstein.
October 17, 2011
Cosplay Contest!
So you may remember this post about the Leviathan series cover shoot. Well, all those aviator caps and goggles from the shoot have just been sitting around, and my publisher doesn't need them anymore. So we decided to have a FaceBook contest and give them away, along with signed copies of my books!
Here's what you can win in the Show Us Your Steampunk contest:
First Prize: Deryn's flying goggles and hat featured on the cover of BEHEMOTH and GOLIATH, a signed set of the Leviathan trilogy, AND a full set of the UGLIES series!
Second Prize: Alek's flying googles featured on the cover of LEVIATHAN and GOLIATH and a signed set of the Leviathan trilogy!
Third Prize: A signed set of the Leviathan trilogy!
So what do you have to do to enter? Just go here and upload a photo of your steampunk-costumed self, holding one of my books. That's it!
You don't have to be dressed like a character from Leviathan, any airship pirate or pith-helmeted adventurer will do. (You do have to have a FaceBook account, however.)
And even if you don't feel like dressing up, you can always check out the costumes and vote for your favorites. Here's that link again.
In other news, I am back from tour and will be starting up Fan Art Friday again THIS VERY FRIDAY.
My tour does have one more US stop, of course, here in New York City.
Saturday, October 22
Noon-2PM
BOOKS OF WONDER
18 West 18th Street.
New York, NY 10011
I'll be appearing with Maryrose Wood, Jeff Hirsch, Sarah Beth Durst, Jon Skovron, Elizabeth Levy, and Mordicai Gerstein.
You can also order a copy of Goliath from Books of Wonder and I'll sign it for you on Saturday.
And to finish up, here's a lovely Goliath fan-trailer made by Darklighter152.
October 9, 2011
Yo, Canada (and NYC too)
I'm on the last leg of my tour! w00t! Here's the rest of the info!
VANCOUVER
Tuesday, October 11
7:00PM
West Point Grey United Church Sanctuary
4595 West 8th Avenue
This event is through Kidsbooks in Vancouver. Note that this is a ticketed event. "Due to the popularity of this event, every person must have a ticket to attend. Tickets are $5.00 each and are fully redeemable toward the price of any of Scott Westerfeld's books on the evening of the event only. (Please note: if multiple tickets are being used to offset the purchase of the books, one ticket per book can be applied.) For more information call 604-738-5335 or email general@kidsbooks.ca."
NEW YORK CITY
Thursday, October 13
11:00AM
BARNES & NOBLE #2278
150 East 86th Street
New York, NY 10028
This will be my last solo appearance in this tour, and thus my last time speaking extensively about the Leviathan series. This B&N also has great event facilities, with a big screen to show Keith's pictures on. So if you've ever wanted to see my dog-and-pony steampunk show, you should do it here. It'll be your last chance.
Friday, October 14
1:15PM
The Del Rey Spectra Steampunk Zombie Jamboree
with me, Naomi Novik, Peter Brett, and C.E. Murphy
New York Comic Con
Room: 1A23
Javits Center
New York City
You must be a con attendee to come to this panel.
Saturday, October 22
Noon
BOOKS OF WONDER
18 West 18th Street.
New York, NY 10011
Not only me, but Maryrose Wood, Jeff Hirsch, Sarah Beth Durst, Jon Skovron, Elizabeth Levy, and Mordicai Gerstein. Tons of authors!
That's it, y'all. Thats my US tour. I'll be headed to Australia soon, and then we'll see what happens.
October 6, 2011
Headed up to Ecotopia
Yes, I'm still on tour. So. Very. Tired. Well, this is an auto-update. But I assume I'll be tired by then. I mean now. Um, whatever.
Below are my next few events, in Washington, AC (the one Above California) and Oregon.
SEATTLE
Friday, October 7
7:00PM
Not 5PM as previously advertised!
Central Library
1000 Fourth Avenue
Seattle, WA 98104
This is a Secret Garden Bookstore event, so you'll be able to buy books.
Saturday, October 8
2:00PM
GEEK GIRL CON
Seattle Center
305 Harrison Street
Seattle, WA 98109
In addition to the solo appearance at 2PM, I'll be doing a YA panel with Nancy Holder, Cecil Castelluci, and Hope Larson at 12PM.
Only Geek Girl Con attendees can enter, but this looks like a really cool con, so you should check it out and maybe come.
OREGON
Sunday, October 9
1:00PM
BARNES & NOBLE #2262
12000 SE 82nd Avenue
Portland, OR 97266
Sunday, October 9
5:00PM
WORDSTOCK BOOK FESTIVAL
Oregon Convention Center
777 NE MLK Jr. Blvd.
Portland, OR 97232
Wordstock Festival Site. Note that it's $7 to get in, but it's free for anyone 13 and under.
Check my Appearances page for all tour data.
October 2, 2011
My Signed Books, Anywhere
Did you miss me on tour? Have you always dreamed of a book signed by me to you personally? To "Sally-wa" or "Space Ninja" or "Admiral Choking Hazard"? Or just your regular boring name?
Then keep reading.
Before my signing at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, AZ Monday night, I'll be signing books (and personalizing them) for anyone anywhere in the world.
That's right, I will not only sign the books for you, I will write whatever you want in them. (Within reason!) To take advantage of this just go to this link, order a book, and remember to put your personalizations ("To The Love Doctor!") in the comment field of the check-out screen.
Changing Hands ships almost everywhere in the world. If it seems from their website that they don't ship to your country, just call them and check. This includes all Leviathan series and Uglies series books.
But you must do this before late Monday night when I leave the store! That time will depend on the crowd size. So don't mess around! Do it now or during the day Monday!
You have roughly 24 hours, just like in a spy movie.
Of course, if you live around Phoenix, you can just come and get one, plus you get to shake my hand.
Monday, October 3
7:00PM
CHANGING HANDS BOOKSTORE
6428 South McClintock Drive
Tempe, AZ 85283
Wednesday, October 5
7:00PM
BARNES & NOBLE
1758 South Val Vista Drive
Mesa, AZ 85204
See you soon, Arizona!
September 30, 2011
Southwest Touring
Still on tour—headed for Texas and Arizona next. Here's my info for the next few days.
TEXAS
Saturday, October 1
10:30AM
AUSTIN TEEN BOOK FESTIVAL
The Palmer Events Center
900 Barton Springs Road
Austin, TX 78704
This is the festival site and this is the BEST POSTER EVER:
And I'll be in Texas a second day:
Sunday, October 2
2:00PM
BARNES & NOBLE #2009
2701 Parker Road, Suite 700
Round Rock, TX 78681
ARIZONA
Monday, October 3
7:00PM
CHANGING HANDS BOOKSTORE
6428 South McClintock Drive
Tempe, AZ 85283
This store is working with me to send signed and personalized books (almost) anywhere in the world. That's right, I will not only sign the books for you, I will write whatever you want in them! (Within reason. Ahem.) Go to this link for details. Remember to put your personalizations (like, "To Space Ninja!") in the comment field of the check-out screen.
Wednesday, October 5
7:00PM
BARNES & NOBLE #2143
1758 South Val Vista Drive
Mesa, AZ 85204
That's it!
Check my Appearances page for the rest of the tour info.
September 25, 2011
California!
I'm on tour and not posting much, because Goliath just came out! But my auto-updator keeps clanking along, and today's update is the info for my California events. (Check my Appearances page for info about the whole tour.)
What will you use this comment thread for? I don't know, but don't put spoilers here. Put them in the comment thread of this post!
Monday, September 26
5:00PM
MRS. NELSON'S TOY AND BOOKSHOP
1030 Bonita Avenue
La Verne, CA 91750
Click here for info on the event.
Tuesday, September 27
7:00PM
BOOKS INC, Laurel Village
3515 California St.
San Francisco, CA 94118
Wednesday, September 28
7:00PM
KEPLER'S BOOKS AND MAGAZINES
1010 El Camino Real
Menlo Park, CA 94025
Thursday, September 29
7:00PM
COPPERFIELD'S BOOKS
140 Kentucky Avenue
Petaluma, CA 94952
Event info will eventually appear here.
That is all.
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