Tate Hallaway's Blog, page 32
March 22, 2011
Uh... WHATever...
Sorry to be all about my alter-ego lately, but I (as her) am the featured "Big Idea" over at John Scalzi's enormously popular Whatever Blog. Ironically, I so deeply nervous about this post that I kind of hope no one reads it -- though that kind of defeats the whole point....
I am hoping to continue to blog (with pictures!) about the places around St. Paul that are featured in my Ana books. Just last night I wrote a brief scene that happened outside of this St. Paul landmark:
March 21, 2011
Places I'm Writing About -- Ax Man and Porky's
One of my seekrit agendas when I proposed the vampire princess of St. Paul books, was to feature various cool locations around St. Paul. Minneapolis has been written about extensively. When I was in college, I devoured Emma Bull's WAR FOR THE OAKS. The book was especially cool because I could drive past places where events in the novel took place. I've always wanted to do that with much much less celebrated St. Paul.
I live not far from Ax Man on University Avenue. Despite what my friend Ember used to think, they don't sell axes there -- not the wood chopping kind nor the musical variety. They just sell... weird stuff. It's actually very difficult to explain what you might find inside Ax Man. The University Avenue store, for instance has an iron lung and paper clips and tires and... weird stuff. It's whatever they get that's been remaindered or "surplus." In other words cool junk.
Unfortunately, Ana doesn't go IN to Ax Man in the current novel. It makes an appearance as a landmark to another University Avenue destination.... Porky's.
March 17, 2011
Stuff I'm Up To
First of all, Happy St. Patrick's day for those of you who celebrate it!
I thought I'd drop a quick note to remind all y'all of the various places you can catch me doing my publicity thing.
This weekend, Saturday, March 19 from 2:00 - 3:00 pm, I'll be teaching my "Mars Needs Writers" workshop at the Bloomington Art Fair's "Writer's Workshop."
On Tuedsay, March 22, in my guise as Lyda Morehouse, I will be the featured "Big Idea" author at John Scalzi's Whatever Blog.
Saturday, March 26 from 1:00 - 2:00 pm, again as Lyda, I'll be signing the newly released Resurrection Code at Uncle Hugo's. Uncle's is located at 2864 Chicago Avenue South in Minneapolis, but, even if you're not local, it's not too late to put in a mail order with Don for a personalized, signed copy from me! Check out details about Uncles at: http://www.unclehugo.com/prod/!
Then in a bit of multiple personality shuffling, I will be both Lyda and Tate during an interview on KFAI's "Write On Radio" show on Tuesday, April 5 from 7:00 - 8:00 pm CDT. KFAI broadcasts at 90.3 FM Minneapolis/106.7 FM in St. Paul. If you want to listen in even though you are in another time zone, you can check out http://www.kfai.org/ for live, streaming options and/or their archives which are usually updated the very next day.
In case you can't make ANY of those other dates, I as Tate will also have a signing at Uncles on Saturday, May 7 from 1:00-2:00 pm.
March 8, 2011
Free Words Tuesday!
March 1, 2011
Mouse Tuesday
I'm committing fiction over on my LJ.
As I'm one of those people who takes great comfort in working during stressful periods, I actually wrote this little section while waiting for the cardiologist to tell us what was going on with my partner's "failed" stress test.*
I was thinking about this as I wrote it, because mood affects writing. I suspect this scene would have be a lot scarier, if I wasn't already overloaded on that particular emotion. I don't buy into the myth that you have to be in the right "mood" to write, but I *do* think that where you are emotionally creeps into what you write.
See if you agree.
* Everything seems to be okay. We probably got a false positive reading, though we're scheduled to go back and take a "stress echo" today sometime just to make sure.
February 23, 2011
Kids and Writing (the Plus Side)
Just want to note that, while there are a lot of panels out there in the SF/F community about the struggle of writing with kids, there are some bonuses too. Mason is sitting across from me at the Coffee Grounds reading the advance review copy of ALMOST FINAL CURTAIN giggling. This is his third time through (and he tells me, it's not his favorite. He still likes ALMOST TO DIE FOR better.)
Also, last night as I was trying to write while watching TV (a bad idea, btw,) he poked his head in a couple of times to read over my shoulder. He kept asking me, excitedly, what was happening and what would be coming next.
I know that it's a little like having your mom like your writing, but it's still cool. And some days, it's enormously satisfying to live with one of my greatest fans.
February 22, 2011
Tuesday Fiction
February 18, 2011
Signing Update!
February 17, 2011
February 15, 2011
It's Tuesday...
...which means my alter ego has some free pre-prequel fiction on offer over on her LJ.
In case you missed the previous installments you can read them in order:
Enjoy! In case you are tuning in for the first time, let me explain. I write science fiction under another name. I had four books published in what I called the AngeLINK series. The books take place in a relatively near future where, thanks to a devastating world war, science has fallen out of favor and religions of all stripes have become even more dominant in politics than they are today. My books start in America, but span the entire globe. One of the characters that a lot of people really enjoyed was an Egyptian Sunni Muslim computer hacker named Mouse. The prequel follows his story. But there are also angels, devils, ghosts and mutants called Gorgons in it.
