Hugh Howey's Blog, page 94
May 8, 2012
This can’t be right…
I remember back in October of last year jumping up and down when the first Wool, which was a short story, cracked a top 100 list. It appeared at #99 in Anthologies, which was what Amazon picked for me when I clearly tagged it as a “Short Story.” (Amazon still does this. Don’t ask me why).
I figured it would soon disappear from said list, so I took a screen shot. So began my obsession with taking screen shots, ever convinced that each milestone would be the last. I was like the daredevil pilots of yore who wanted to log the max reading on their altimeters for bragging rights and rounds of beer later. Always expecting an engine to stutter, for gravity to notice that something was amiss and aim to correct it.
I’ve been obnoxious with these captures on FB. I’ve been slightly obnoxious here on my website.
Get this nonsense: I just cracked my first top 100 list for a PHYSICAL BOOK. Yeah. What the hell and tarnation and all that? I also noticed something a little freaky. When you go through the general top seller lists, it includes physical AND Kindle versions. The Kindle list excludes the physical books. Which means the overall list for Science Fiction > Adventure has the Wool Omnibus TWICE. Once at #7 for the e-book and again at #99 for the physical.
Of course, I assume that the cosmos has noticed this intrusion and has since corrected itself, but no matter. I, ever the wasteful one with my time and energy, captured the altimeter before the spring broke.
(This blog entry is a slightly modified KB post from today, because my blog was sad and lonely)
May 7, 2012
More Mike Tabor Goodness
The cover of I, ZOMBIE, which is coming along nicely.
The Misery of Opaqueness
These last few weeks have been torturous for me. One of my greatest thrills during this writing process has been including you all on every turn of events, every little milestone or shred of good news. I love the transparency of it all. Posting sample chapters, allowing you to read rough drafts, letting you know what I’m working on (even how many words into each project I am). I love it. That’s why, when I have crazy cool news looming but I’m not allowed to say anything, it absolutely drives me nuts.
I’m hoping that changes over the next few weeks. It sounds like one of the pieces of gossip will be officially announced sometime next week (I hope), which means you’ll see me blasting it right here. A second cool development could fall into place around the same time, but there’s no telling when it might be announced. It’ll be a difficult one to sit on if that’s what I have to do.
These, my friends, are the mixed blessings of working with others. When you’re 100% independent, you can gossip all you like. As soon as there are deals and teams in place, you have to abide by their timeframe. Which I totally understand, of course. But understanding this doesn’t make it any easier.
May 6, 2012
My poor back…
I’ll probably never stand up straight again. Amber and I did a ton of work this weekend as we prepare for the big move. 50 boxes of books were moved into a little storeroom off my mother’s mountain home’s bathroom. That’s in addition to the 20 or so boxes that were already there. It leaves 30 or so boxes to accompany us to Florida and 10 or so that we’re leaving with the house.
Bring on the e-books, I say!
After all of this, we came home today and pulled everything out of the toolshed — organized, sorted, and boxed things up — swept out all the sawdust, then put things back in so they’d be ready to load on moving day.
Rest of the day was spent sorting items in the house. Exhausting. But, with just four weeks to go, we’ve got most of the hard stuff out of the way. It’s making the move feel imminent. Now, I can just look forward to June 1st, ConCarolinas in Charlotte, and then hauling our stuff and ourselves to Jupiter, Florida for our next big adventure.
May 3, 2012
How do you sign e-books, Hugh?
Glad you asked!
Tongjai and Andy Bell
I wanted to follow-up on my incredible and moving exchange with Andy Bell now that FIRST SHIFT: LEGACY has been released. If you notice the dedication in that book, it was inspired by an interaction with a reader on their Amazon review. You never know where innocent replies will lead. The story is right here if you want to catch up.
After posting that entry, I heard from Andy, who was moved similarly to how his comments moved me. He shared the following, and said I could post it on the site. This is what was put together by Tongjai’s and Andy’s children and read at her too-soon funeral. I think it paints an incredible picture of this amazing woman, wife, and mother.
We thank God for her life.
It is not possible to give anyone who didn’t know her, a sense of the essence of Tongjai Bell. How do I summarize in a few minutes the person who was the heart of our family, the sun around whom the rest of us revolved, the rudder of our lives. We are adrift.
She was the strongest personality in a family that includes my Dad. That’s saying something.
Here are some words that may give you just a trace, a whisper, of this vibrant woman.
Beautiful -Mom was the type of beauty who didn’t think she was attractive. Dad always wondered what such a beautiful woman was doing with him. She turned heads wherever she went. Her smile was dazzling. Dad says it was her smile that hooked him the first day he met her. The lifelong bachelor was done for. She will always be beautiful.
Funny – Mom loved to make people laugh. She had a childlike sense of humor. She especially got pleasure out of making Dad laugh when he was grumpy or too serious.
Adventurous – Who else would marry a man from the other side of the world and months after meeting him fly to the heart of the Middle East with him?
Honest – She just never lied. Period. We sat around trying to think of a time that she was dishonest. We couldn’t think of one instance. We could think of plenty of instances where we had been dishonest.
Entrepreneurial – Mom figured out a way to sell pork bacon to westerners in the middle of Saudi Arabia where it is outlawed. Dad always said he took all the risk and she made all the money. She always had a money making scheme in the works. From giving massages to old folks in the neighborhood when she was a child to raffling off gold jewelry in a taxi to Asian nurses in Saudi Arabia.
Brave – In her final hospital stay after the doctor left who told her and Dad that she would not survive, she pulled the sheet up over her head. When Dad asked what she was doing she said, “Practicing” and started laughing.
Proper – Mom always taught us to act properly, politely and respectfully in public. She taught us and Dad not to “Break her face”. Whenever Dad acted inappropriately in public she would tell him, “You have a face like a concrete” meaning it was impossible to embarrass him.
Forgiving — Mom always forgave people that had wronged her instantaneously, even against the advice of Dad and us kids and even after having been mistreated by the same people previously.
Generous – It is customary in Thailand, if you don’t have means, to loan your children out to relatives. Mom didn’t live with her mother and father until she was 14. She lived with various relatives doing chores for their families for her keep. However, she always felt an obligation to her parents. The eldest daughter in a family of 3 boys and 2 girls she always found a way to support her family. In her late teens and early twenties she started a business that employed her parents, her brothers and her sister. She bought them a house, provided them healthcare and provided for their other needs. She left them a substantial amount of money and Dad’s promise to continue to take care of them. At a time in her life when she was destitute and the business she created was taken from her through no fault of her own, she refused to loan her children out to relatives. The family blamed her for losing their livelihoods. They didn’t treat her very well. Somehow she kept her children with her. Raised a Buddhist, she prayed to God to send her a good man. Dad met her within a year of her losing her business. She held no grudge against any of her family members and resumed helping them.
Mom never passed a street person she didn’t stop to give money to. She once tried to give $20 dollars to a rumpled construction worker who was only waiting for a bus.
She loved animals and animals seemed to love her. As a kid she would get kicked out of the market because every stray dog in the neighborhood would follow her in.
Tough – Mom lived a rough life growing up in Thailand. She never complained. She laughed, she danced, she made the best of it. She lived through and survived some things we in the west would have trouble comprehending. She taught herself to read and write English. At the top of her class thru grade 7, there was no money to allow her to continue her education. She was resolute that she acquire the means to give her children the education she was denied. She succeeded.
When she was diagnosed with cancer she told Dad simply, “If you have to die, you have to die.” She became a Christian and wanted a Christian funeral service because, as she told Dad, she wanted to be sure she got into the same heaven as Dad so she could be with him forever.
Toward the end, when the pain got bad, she would look at Dad with mournful eyes and just say one word – “Suffering”. She is suffering no more. Heaven is a brighter place because it is now the beneficiary of her smile and her irrepressible personality. We thank God for her life.
I, ZOMBIE Cover Art!
I’ve been dying to share this with you peeps. I, ZOMBIE has received some Mike Tabor lovin’ and is sporting the final cover art. Rather than reveal it here, I’m asking you to head over to HorrorNews.net and check it out in the interview they did with me. Be sure to leave a comment or share the link on Facebook and Twitter. Send them some traffic, yo!
I’m a fan of my fans
This is a strange position to be in. I may be a bigger fan of one of my fans than they are a fan of me!
I’ve been spoiled by the outpouring of artistic talent my readers have let forth lately. Promotional posters and book covers have been spawned (and paid for) through this awesome social network interplay. I’ve felt blessed.
Well, now I feel like a kept man. I feel like Julia Roberts in PRETTY WOMAN. I feel unworthy, dirty, a slutty, trashy man trying to make sense of this dapper millionaire sitting across fine linens from me. I feel like a teenager being courted by an older man. I’m that girl from 50 SHADES OF GREY (haven’t read it, just hypothesizing).
Here’s what showed up in my inbox like a box of chocolates with every chocolate gone and replaced with canary diamonds:
Jaw, meet Floor. Floor, Jaw.
Someone drew this. Look at it again. Someone drew that. As in, the screen was blank, there were some menus and a color palette, a toolbar. They created a few layers, took digital pen to digital tablet and frickin’ drew that.
Look at her eyes. Look at the bodies on the ground (spoiler alert!). Look at the ruined city, the colors, the lighting. This isn’t mere fan art, this is a professional. Dabbling. Blowing my mind.
I’m still awed by it, every time I look at it. A-Mazing.
And wait, there’s more:
Jaw, Floor, you remember each other, right?
I got emotional when I saw this. The Wool cover might get all the FB comments because more of you have read it, but Molly fans will flip out to see their heroine for the first time. That’s her. There she is. And Anlyn to boot. And Molly’s bunk on the Parsona. I really did tear up seeing this.
So here’s the question: who is this Rembrandt Reader? How in the world did someone draw those hands and feet, the lighting on those legs, the shadow behind her head, the translucent tail on Anlyn? Who?
His name is Jasper Schreurs. He’s a professional artist who does storyboarding and art work for major companies (Adidas, Unilever, Philips, Shell, and the like). He has apparently lost some sleep to the Wool and Molly books, and with a few days off work, decided to “brush up his digital art skills.”
Jasper, you’re done brushing, my man. You’ve done brushed up against perfection.
Jasper grew up in Africa, but returned to Holland at the age of 14. He says he was sucking at school, so they threw him into art academy. His natural gifts became readily apparent. He did two years of masterclasses before a Dutch Baron who could trace his ancestry back a thousand years sent Jasper around to museums to do reproductions of his ancestors. I believe it was at this point that Jasper accidentally flicked a splotch of yellow paint onto a Rembrandt, which led to a bit of drama and a meeting with the very pleasant museum director. Yeah, this guy has defaced a Rembrandt and lived to tell about it.
After a stint in London working in advertising, Jasper finagled his way to Fiji where he lived for 13 years, married, raising his daughters, and doing magazine covers and illustrating books. It was while here that Jasper formed a counterfeiting ring.
Okay, actually, he was commissioned by the government to design and draw two of their bills. He did the 2 and 2,000. Figuring one would have more circulation, he managed to work his daughter onto the twoer (that’s her with the hat at the top right).
I asked Jasper if I could lop off an ear and send it to him in fealty. I asked Amber if we could have kids so I could send him my firstborn son. He said to forget about it and send him some signed books. I put a box in the post today to the Netherlands and sure hope it gets there.
Ladies and gentleman, I can’t tell you what this has been like for me. Not just with Jasper but with Nicole and Mike and Marianne and Kate and everyone else. With the crew of the USS The Sullivans. All these gifts and contributions, it means the world to me. I feel like a hack dabbling in wordplay over here. You people have real talent and are doing amazing things. I mean, look at that Molly Fyde cover. That’s Molly. I could cry right now just looking at it. And wait until you see the I, ZOMBIE cover that Mike Tabor put together. It’s all just too much.
Thanks, Jasper, and everyone else, for making this the craziest handful of months of my life. I’ll never be able to repay you. Any of you.
But I do have this ear, here, and I’m not putting it back on. Since Jasper has no need for it, I’ll send it to the first person who raises their hand.
This one still tickles me…
For anyone who’s 2 books deep into the Molly Fyde series.
Embedding is disabled for this video, because some companies suck ass and care about DRM and other nonsense.
