Greg Van Eekhout's Blog: Writing and Snacks - Greg van Eekhout's blog, page 20

2010, maybe

I often do a year-end journal entry, summing up the things and events and weirdness and niceness that define a year, but I dunno. I was talking to my friend Aaron last night and what came out of that conversation is that I'm mostly just happy to have gotten through 2010 without any massive disasters. It was a weird year with some really stressful parts, but also some really good parts. Kid vs. Squid got published, and I wrote most of The Boy at the End of the World (which I hope people will really like, because I'm proud of that book), and I sold the Osteomancer trilogy ... But at the same time, I feel like I should have done more, achieved more ... I dunno. Weird year.

Maybe I'll feel like doing a proper year-end (not to mention decade-end) wrap-up. But if not, I'll leave it at this picture of a chicken pie I ate in Fresno. It was a freaking AWESOME pie.

From Grandmarie's Chicken Pie Shop - Fresno, CA

Don't unwrap

From Drawings

My warmest thoughts to you and yours on this holiday which I celebrate but maybe you don't, but nonetheless, I wish you comfort and happiness today.

If you're looking for a mood booster or some giggles or just a fun holiday story, check out the PodCastle production of The Christmas Mummy, written by my dear friends Tim Pratt and Heather Shaw.

As Ringo says, Peace and Love.

John Kenn

I became of aware of John Kenn's work several weeks ago, and I could just not love his stuff any more than I do, which is a lot. When I first started looking through his gallery, I could only check out a few drawings at a session, because they made me so envious.

His fine line work is obviously influenced by Gorey, but his monsters are even more atmospheric and emotionally resonant. They often appear in the same frame as children, and they seem mutually absorbed or frightened, or as if the monsters and children have reached a stalemate or have made some kind of accommodation.

Kenn draws on yellow post-it notes, and the color of the paper and the black pen lines conspire to give the drawings an aged look, like you've discovered them buried in a chest, in a dark corner of the attic.

I love his monsters, but also his trees and his bridges and his stones and his cottages. Everything in his drawings looks right, strange, and moody.

Somebody get me some John Kenn post-its, please. Look for yourself and you'll want some too.

New fiction project

This is a fun one. Tim Pratt, Jenn Reese, Heather Shaw, and I have written 26 short-short stories that'll be published starting next month in Daily Science Fiction. And then a while later they'll be at PodCastle as a special audio download with the addition of some extra stories.

Tim's got the skinny on how this project came to be here, and PodCastle's Dave Thompson talks about his connection to the project here.

This was a really fun thing to work on, and I hope people enjoy reading and hearing these stories.

Mirrored from Greg van Eekhout. You can comment there or here.

California King and whatnot

Hello. How are you? December treating you humanely? I hope so. I'm having a pretty good December so far. Things have been pretty disjointed since around August -- just family stuff and whatnot -- and I'm wrestling with the dual urges to hunker down and nest and not leave the apartment for several months versus wanting to throw some necessities in a bag and get in the car and hit the open road. Maybe I need an RV, is what.

I've been working on some freelance stuff the past couple of weeks, for a client that pays pretty well for what they're asking, and the work is agreeable and pretty much dead-center in my skillset, so that's good. It's for an educational publisher, and I think if read a certain way, the stuff I just turned in could be considered rather subversive, so I hope the client doesn't read it that way.

Also, I've been working on Osteomancer's Son. I've got a completely doable contracted deadline, but a very aggressive self-imposed deadline. I can't really afford to get stuck or go down false paths. But I say that as if I had control over things. This is my fifth novel (counting the trunked one), and if I've learned one thing about novel writing, it's that the book will get written in the way it gets written, and as long as it gets written, it's a win.

In the hype department, PodCastle just posted California King, a story I wrote with Mike Jasper several years ago. I still remember Mike calling me one morning to tell me that Asimov's was buying it. That was my first fiction sale to Asimov's (I'd already sold them a poem, of all things), and I remember how landing a story there felt like a big confidence booster.

PodCastle editor Dave Thompson ( krylyr ) does the reading, and as always, he does a great job. I love the way he performs the voice of the hero's father. So cheery and creepy.

And on that note -- noting that Dave is cheery and creepy -- I leave you to your day. Hugs and smooches.

Yours,
Greg

Celebratable

This is the Bloomsbury & Walker Spring 2011 Books for Young Readers catalog, which gets sent to booksellers and librarians and the people who buy the books that you buy or borrow before you buy or borrow them. I point you to the page featuring The Boy at the End of the World, because I'm a celebrate-every-step-of-the-journey guy when it comes to books.

Well, not every step. I don't celebrate returns. But if it's celebratable? Then I'm all over it.

Mirrored from Greg van Eekhout. You can comment there or here.

Another soup

In the new book I'm writing, one of the ways wizards work magic is by making soup. To research Norse Code, I battled giants and trolls. For Kid vs. Squid, I got myself swallowed by a fish and ate cheese spray from a can. And to do Boy at the End of the World right, I spent some time as the last human being on Earth and was chased by giant killer death parrots.

For the new one, I made soup. Ham and navy bean soup, to be specific. I don't know if it's coming across in the pic, but I want to bathe in this soup and then drink the soup I'm bathing in. Okay, that's gross. All I'm saying is that this is the best pot of soup I've ever made.

Mirrored from Greg van Eekhout. You can comment there or here.

Do what the toy store tells you!

Okay, just to make sure we're all clear on this:

Obviously, these kids are doing it wrong:

Mirrored from Greg van Eekhout. You can comment there or here.

Not my biggest anxiety, but still

World Fantasy in San Diego next year is at an awkwardly located venue and the only off-site eateries within walking distance are chains at the mall next door and I don't know where else they can put a convention the size of WFC because the place where they hold Comic-Con is way way way too big but the WFC site just isn't very good and I'm afraid people will come to San Diego next year and think poorly of the place and even though I've only lived here three years I don't want people to think poorly of the place.

There, I said it.

(My advice will be to take the trolley to the Gas Lamp, which is touristy but fun.)

(Or share a cab to Ocean Beach for its funky and slightly seedy charm and cheap eats. They shoot Terriers there.)

(Veteran locals will probably have other ideas.)

Writing and knitting

I like to wear fun socks. And I would like to be able to make my own fun socks. So I'm trying to learn how to knit. I've looked at a number of knitting websites and watched a number of how-to videos, and I've manged to learn how to make a slipknot and cast-on, but beyond that all I've basically been able to manage is masses of hopeless tangles. So this morning I sought out the services of a knitting professional grandmother.

I warned her that I'm kind of an imbecile with poor spatial intelligence, but I don't think she quite understood the degree to which I was stating the simple truth.

Lisa came along more or less as a lark and not surprisingly got the hang of it more quickly than I did. The knitting professional grandmother remained patient and encouraging with me, but after a while she let slip a few "Well, knitting's not for everyone" comments.

At the end of the lesson, I yanked the yarn off my needles, thinking when I got home I'd practice some more, starting back at the very first step with the slip knot, but the knitting professional grandmother's eyes bugged out a bit, and she went a little drill sergeant on me. "Are you QUITTING? Is that how you write your novels?? By QUITTING? Do you get a word wrong and erase your hard drive? Is that what you do, MAGGOT, you QUIT??!!??

Despite the fact that I'm completely making up what she actually said, she had a point.

No, I don't erase my hard drive. I just work at it and work at it and work at it until I have a scarf or fun socks or a novel. And then once I have my scarf or fun socks or novel, I wave it in the face of naysayers, even if the naysayer is myself.

I also told the knitting shop proprietor that I'm going to knit a SCUBA suit, but that was just me being silly.

Mirrored from Greg van Eekhout.