Cherie Priest's Blog: It's awards season, so here comes the shameless self-promotion, page 33

Fiddlehead Excerpt

Say hypothetically you were interested in my upcoming Clockwork Century novel Fiddlehead.

Perhaps you'd say to yourself, "Self, it sure would be cool to get a peek at the first chapter, a few weeks before the book actually hits shelves. That would be pretty kickass."

Well then. Has Tor.com got the hookup for you.

Just click here to preview the hell out of that thing!

In this introductory chapter alone you'll find a genius inventor and his uncanny calculating device, racist assassins, Science!, misdirection through chemistry, a long cold hike, and a not-dead ex-president who still has plenty of strings to pull.

Have at!

Bluegrass Bound

Holy crap, you guys - I have now officially sent off Draft One of Maplecroft to its marvelous editor! It is off my plate! For now!

[:: glitter confetti bomb ::]
[:: tee shirt cannon goes boom ::]
[:: dancers twerk wildly ::]

Now all I have to do is get back to Princess X and wrap up a draft of that by oh, say, the end of the month or so. Thanksgiving at the latest. Because I need to get a serious start on Jacaranda before the New Year. No rest for the wicked, etc. etc. etc.

And of course, we're about to pack up and leave town for a week. With the animals. Which is kind of an undertaking.

So the last day or two have been devoted to getting my housesitters up to speed (many thanks to my cousin and her friend, for holding down the fort while we're gone) ... handing out keys, making sure everyone has emergency numbers, and leaving STRICT INSTRUCTIONS for NO WILD PARTIES in our absence. There might be some obnoxiously loud bathroom demo, but there should be NO WILD PARTIES.

(Yeah, we're finally doing something about the Unfortunate Master Bath. Click that link for the before pictures. Hopefully I can offer some nice "after" pictures in another few weeks. Yes, the housesitters and the renovators are aware of one another. It'll be a little high-traffic around here while we're out of town, but all will be well.)

So where are we going? To Kentucky, that we may hang out with my dad and stepmom (and their two giant dogs, and their fluffy cat) for a bit. We can't make it up there for Thanksgiving or Christmas, and this is the week my dad has mostly "off," so there you go. And here we go.

Expect many dog pictures. Likewise some cat pictures. Maybe even some family pictures. You never know, it could happen. But don't expect much blogging. Again. This week. Like the last one. FOR DIFFERENT REASONS, THOUGH.

You know how it is.

Channeling angels in the new age now

Still toiling away in the editing mines (Maplecroft I shall make you GLEAM do you hear me GLEAM before I hand you in) ... but it's been a good weekend here all the same.

Yesterday, during Greyson's morning walk, we wandered into a "blessing of the animals" at the nearby Methodist church. I'd forgotten it was going on, but it's right in the middle of our usual walking route - and Greyson saw his buddy "Taco" in the crowd, so he decreed that we were STAYING.

In addition to the minister's prayer, Greyson picked up a goodie bag with some dog cookies, a St. Francis medallion, and a portable water dish; and he made a whole slew of new friends, both large and small. (Though he failed to befriend a bearded dragon, who he deemed "very scary." Because he is a giant chicken.)

Anyway, I think this means my dog is a Methodist now.
Be advised. Or something.

RIGHT. So. In other news, a Very Kind Person was awesome enough to forward along something truly nifty: Publishers Weekly's review of the upcoming Fiddlehead! And it's lovely! Here, I shall reproduce it in its entirety, for I am well and truly chuffed:
Priest’s final Clockwork Century novel (after The Inexplicables) wraps things up nicely, once again turning a mash-up of too-worn genre tropes (steampunk, alternate Civil War, zombies) into a work of entertainment laced with social criticism. In 1879, as the Civil War continues to rage, scientist and ex-slave Gideon Bardsley’s invention, a massive computer called the Fiddlehead, has predicted that the zombie outbreak from the Northwest will overwhelm both sides if they don’t end the war. Working with ex-president Lincoln (long disabled from an assassination attempt), he enlists the Pinkertons, including their agent Belle Boyd, in an attempt to find allies in the South. Meanwhile, amoral businesswoman Katharine Haymes attempts to prolong the war for her own reasons. Priest again throws in a huge cast of characters, and the historical figures (Boyd, Lincoln, Grant) are as interesting as the fictional ones. New readers would benefit from starting at the beginning of the series, but returning fans will be satisfied by the elegant conclusion and will regret that a great series has ended.
Many thanks to the fine folks at PW! They do great work over there.

[Edited to add: As a slight clarification, yes - Fiddlehead wraps up the main arc and is the last of the full-length Tor productions; but next year's Subterranean novella Jacaranda will likewise be set in the Clockwork Century universe. That said, it is set some years after the other tales, and will not be part of the main story line.]

Anyway, that's all the news that's fit to blog over here. Have a good one, everybody - and thanks for reading.

The funk of 40,000 years

I'm back from NOLA! Actually, I've been back for a couple of days, but you know how it goes. And since almost any recap of New Orleans will boil down to "what I ate" and "what I bought/wore," you can click here to see a few pictures . Each one worth a thousand words, or so I'm told.

Anyway, the pics almost entirely sum up the mini-adventure, except that I somehow neglected to nab a selfie with Victoria Schwab - who accompanied me on a very soggy sight-seeing morning through the French Quarter on Saturday. And SPEAKING OF MS. SCHWAB: Happy book-birthday to her, for Vicious debuts today! High fives on that one, ma'am.

So yes, I've been home since Sunday afternoon - but things have been pretty packed over here, thus my failure to provide an update.

Off the top of my head, in the last two days I've chased down (via shouty phone calls and emails) a set of receipts and paperwork re: a billing SNAFU at the hotel; filed said receipts and other assorted bits of paperwork; made an appointment with a new eye doctor as I've had a recurring infection for a couple of weeks now, and anyway I need a new prescription; took two (bought in NOLA) dresses to a seamstress to have them tailored a bit; made a Walgreens run; went grocery shopping as I desperately needed pretty much everything; did I-don't-know-how-many loads of laundry; cleaned the house; and took the kitty for her routine Little Old Lady Cat checkup at the vet. Never mind the half-dozen time-sucking Really Important Other Assorted emails that required my attention upon my return.

And boy, are my arms tired.
Yeah...

IN OTHER NEWS. Long-time readers may recall that I have a (signifcantly younger) brother who is basically the kind of guy who will take over the world if you give him a case of Red Bull and an internet connection. He's been in D.C. for the last few years, but it looks like he's moving on up! Or out. Or over, as the directional case may be. Long story short, he's headed for San Francisco to take a different gig within the Uber transportation company.

I very much hope that the city is kind to him, and I hope that my SF local peeps will find him as much fun as I do.

Hm. What else? Let's see. The next few weeks will be eaten up entirely by Maplecroft revisions, for I owe a draft of that project before October 15th. I have a complete Draft Zero, yes - but I'd very much like to produce a Good Draft One rather than subject anyone to the horror that is my preliminary effort...much less a very nice editor. Editors deserve better, they do.

So that's what I'm up to for the next little bit. Forward progress on Princess X can and will resume once I've handed in Maplecroft, but no sooner, I'm afraid. Yes, I'm running a little behind this year - but only a little. It'll all be fine. I bet.

Right. Well. Thanks for reading, everyone.

Going South

All right, folks - now that you've had plenty of time to absorb the previous post's awesomeness, it's almost time for me to dash off to the SIBA trade show in New Orleans. So at present, I'm playing catch-up on writer business and trying to get all my assorted ducks in a row before I fly out on Thursday.

(There's been a lot of writer business this week. None of it bears a dry retelling, but all of it was good and necessary, so I'm a happy camper over here. Except that I still have a bunch of laundry to sort, wash, and fold. Which is unrelated.)

So. Long story short, there's nothing much to report except for clean underpants and another impending absence from everything but Twitter and maybe Facebook, depending on how well that app cooperates. After all, I probably won't bring my laptop; there won't be time to get any writing work (or blogging) done, anyway.

Thanks for reading, and I'll catch up with everything and everyone come Monday or so.

News!

(All right, LJ people. Loud and clear! I'll keep cross-posting over here.)

Yesterday afternoon I made the big announcement over on Twitter and Facebook - and now I finally have a minute to sit down and post it here, too: It's official! I get to write two more books for Tor! TEAM CHERIE AND LIZ SHALL RIDE AGAIN! Or they shall KEEP ON RIDING, as the case may be!

[:: confetti gun ::]
[:: tee shirt cannon ::]
[:: fireworks ::]

It was a short announcement, as you might guess by its preliminary release format of 140 characters or less. When I got the news, I barely had time to chant TWO MORE BOOKS and promise details to come before I had to log off and head out; but now I'm back, and now I can take the time to answer the most frequently asked questions that have piled up overnight.

TO WIT.
MORE STEAMPUNK? No. Fiddlehead will wrap up the major arc of The Clockwork Century, and you'll see that one this fall from Tor; and then comes Jacaranda, another side project via Subterranean Press late next year (precise scheduling TBD). After that, no more steampunk for awhile.

MORE VAMPIRES? No. These are not related to the Cheshire Red books.

In short, these books are all new - unrelated to anything else, even each other. To tell you the truth, we're still working out what the second one will even BE yet ... but the first will definitely be [:: drumroll please ::] ... a dark modern fantasy called Godbothering .

I am hella-keen on this project; I've been developing it for the last year or two, drawing it up for change of pace from all the historic stuff (which I also love, but you know what they say about variety, spice of life, etc. etc. etc.). The only downbeat here, is that it won't hit the streets until 2015 at soonest. Between now and delivering Godbothering, I have four other projects to write and shepherd through production - so that's just the way it's gotta be.

It's like I always tell people: Ideas are never the problem. I am lousy with ideas. It's the finite number of hours in a day. That's the problem.

SO. What's Godbothering about, you ask? Well I'll tell you. I'll go ahead and put it behind a cut tag, lest this post eat a crap-ton of column inches - so click the link below to keep on reading; but if you've clicked directly to this entry, you can just scroll down.

Click here to read the rest...

An experiment.

New blog post over on my webpage. Linked here rather than reproduced because frankly, I'm not sure anyone's reading from LJ anymore.

[Edited to add: There IS a feed for my website over here on LJ, you know. Right here. I completely forgot about it until just now.]

Difficult Decisions

One of the neat and useful perks of attending a convention is how I get to have coworkers for a few days. Writers (or perhaps, people who work from home by themselves in general) don't have coworkers like normal folks; we get editors, agents, and so forth. Editors, agents, and so forth are great ... but they aren't often around to talk shop over fantastic martinis called "Smoky Patron" or "High Rise," so I mean, really. They're amazing folks, but our interactions with them tend to be limited and somewhat scheduled.

So when I do a convention, I'm always tickled to have coworkers around. Even when having coworkers around makes for extra work. A lot of extra work. Like, an ASSLOAD of extra work for me, personally.

Okay, it goes like this: in the wake some shop-talk at DragonCon, it became blindingly apparent to me that Princess X has no business whatsoever being a first-person narrative. Its story needs to be told in third-person, to allow room for tension and characters to build and grow, and this was a godawful realization to stumble upon whilst halfway through the damn manuscript.

[Note: I'm not crapping on first-person narratives. I've written some myself. I'm just saying that this particular project was suffering mightily from the constraint.]

But there it is. The whole thing basically has to go out the window, and be rebuilt. Oh, the story is the same, yes - and telling it will be vastly richer and easier from this vantage point, however, this does not change the fact that making this decision means I'm going from "right on schedule" to "oh shit totally behind schedule."

That said, today I tossed out, reworked, and rewrote the first chapter - and the results have wildly validated my decision. It works SO MUCH BETTER. You guys, I can't even. I feel like a dumbass for not doing this in the first place, that's the long and short of it. But there it is.

I've already spoken with my editor, and she's given me the thumbs up - so now I just have to buckle down and deathmarch my way forward, restructuring and rewriting like the wind, my friends. And naturally, it means that my "daily word metrics" are going to be totally b0rked. So henceforth, I'm going to stall them until I reach the point in the story where I recently left off. Then I'll catch everything up. The math will be screwy, but it'll be okay.

Right. Yes. Well. Headlong into the fray I dive. Next time I come up for air, I'll report my progress.

[Edited to add: Because people are asking for specifics, this is 35,595 words that I'm (essentially) trashing in order to start over. It's not as bad as it could be, but it sure as hell could be better.]

The Aftermath

I am home from DragonCon, and I'm almost done catching up on everything I missed while I was gone. First and foremost, I want to congratulate all the Hugo and Campbell Award winners who were crowned over the weekend. There are many friends on that-there list, and I feel bad that I only just noticed their shiny new rocket-bling; but rest assured, I am delighted for the bunch of them, and I wish them all the very best.

As for the rest of the catching-up, it's mostly personal and boring.

Since finding my way home yesterday I've performed such thrilling tasks as paying my taxes, going to the post office and mailing my dad's birthday present, cleaning the house, going shopping for a few necessities, hitting up the pet store to restock the pet stuff, running by the bank and the pharmacy, and doing load after load of laundry.

Like I said, boring. And time-consuming and attention-eating. So I beg the pardon of anyone who's been awaiting a response or otherwise wanting my attention for the last week or so.

As for DragonCon itself ... wowzers. Epic in every way, even more so than last time I attended - and friend-anecdata suggests that I'm not alone in that assessment. Huge shout-out to the track directors who made the programming such a bang - notably Derek Tatum, Carol Malcolm, and the inimitable Q - and to all the other fine folks who work behind the scenes to keep the world (or at least 5 blocks of Atlanta) turning.

I had an excellent time, and I'm glad I went.

That said, it was probably the most exhausting long weekend of my life. I spent about 90% of my non-sleeping time (quite literally) either in programming, or struggling to reach my scheduled programming - swimming upstream against a few thousand of my closest friends. I didn't catch any of the stuff I wanted to see as a fan, for it simply wasn't an option when the travel time between hotels was factored in (much less the waiting-in-line to maybe get inside time); and likewise, I saw scarcely a third of the people I wanted to meet up with. Once we were all free of programming, I was too sacked out to hit the bar and be sociable. Hell, by the end of Saturday night, I was so catastrophically tired that I'd lost the ability to be civil to people who were being kind to me.

Nice person: Can I get you some water?
Me: GO AWAY LEAVE ME ALONE ARGH [:: flips table ::]
Nice person: O_o
Me: Oh crap. I'm sorry. No, thank you. Sorry. I'm so sorry.

Let me put it this way: last night I went to bed around 10:30, and I didn't get up until 10:00 this morning. And I'm still not quite as lucid as I'd like to be. But I'm working on it. Chilling out between the catching up. Playing a video game or two. Being a tiny bit lazy, despite all the work I have to get done by the end of the year. Never mind the back yard, which has junglefied in just the short time I was gone. Oof.

Anyway.
Onward. Upward.
Word metrics and the daily grind to resume tomorrow, I should hope.

I guess we'll see...

DragonCon: Here I come!

Tomorrow, anyway. I'm driving down to the ATL and you can catch me these times, these places . All the usual rules apply - come up and say hello, I'll cheerfully sign anything you've got on hand and/or any body parts that aren't ordinarily covered by a bathing suit, and no, you're not bothering me.* I'm at the convention for you, the readers! Well, you ... and maybe the costumes and the socializing and the celebrity line-up and okay FINE. But you are still the PRIMARY reason I attend these things.

So I hope to see some of you there!


* Unless you catch me in a bathroom or trying to eat. Otherwise, we cool.