Tate Hallaway's Blog, page 50

A Review of Dead Sexy

What's that old phrase? You can't please all of the people all of the time? Well, this review over at "The Good, the Bad and the Bookish" seems to start out favorable and ends with an "eh."

She says she wouldn't seek out the next book in the series, but if she happened across it she wouldn't scream. (um, ouch?) So I offered to send her one. I hope she takes me up on it.

But, you know, it's kind of instant karma in a box, innit? Given my reaction to Beckett's book, I can't expect the Universe

Reading and Writing

A long time ago, back when MiniCON was big, I attended a panel that Alan Steele was on. I no longer remember what the panel topic was, but I remember him talking about how he had these tremendous periods in output (writing) followed by a cycle of input (reading.)

Well, even though I'm still in the middle of writing my young adult novel, my input valve must be stuck or something because I've been reading like CRAZY. I've just narfed a bunch of graphic novels in the manga series HIRAKU NO-GO (about

New Review: DIID

Vampire Genre has a short, but very complimentary, review of Dead if I Do up at their site: http://www.vampiregenre.com/2009/08/22/tate-hallaway-dead-if-i-do/

Safe

Yesterday afternoon, I was laying on the bed thinking I should either nap, meditate (which is really, for me, just guided napping,) or start writing. Since I could barely keep my eyes open I went for meditation/napping. I settled in on the bed, plugged in to my mp3 player, but I paused because I heard the sound of a train rattling in the far, far distance. I thought: "Huh, a train," because, a train passes quite close to our house and we can often heard it rumbling through the neighborhood.

Killing the Muse*

Jim Butcher recently joined Twitter. Encouraged by many of the people I already "follow," I checked out his tweets. His very first one was strangely profound. He wrote something to the effect of "Author kills Muse. Film at 11." Subsequent posts made it clear that his reason for "killing" his Muse is that he's behind on his deadline and he can no longer afford to wait for inspiration to strike. He's just got to knuckle down and write.

Like I said, I found that surprisingly insightful.

I always thou

Summer in Full Swing

I've been lax about posting here because summer at Chez Hallaway is in full swing. In fact, I think my family is still recovering from an exhausting (yet relaxing) weekend up at our friends' cabin in Siren, Wisconsin. It was exhausting because the weather cooperated and so we spent oodles of time in the water -- swimming, floating, playing beach tag, building sand castles, kayaking, and generally exhausting the grown-ups.

Yesterday, we were all so cranky at being back in the real world. It sucked

Writing Biorhythms

Do you have a time when your brain is better suited for writing?

I know I do. As a professional writer, I've trained myself to write any time, any where. However, the fact remains: I write better during daylight hours, preferably between 9:00 AM and noon.

Yesterday, I took Mason to the beach for three hours. We played and played and I thought for certain he'd be tired by the end of the day after all that healthy sunshine and exercise. He did get to bed at a reasonable hour, but then guess what? I

Tuesday Plans. Yours?

This morning started out with the whole family at the eye doctor. Mason has been adjusting his glasses a lot, and at his yearly physical had some trouble reading the eye chart with his glasses on.... so, no surprise, his perscription has changed. Alas, he and mama had some disagreements about which glasses looked best on him. Mason is a lot like me. If he had his druthers, he'd wear glasses festooned with a lot of BLING. And they'd be hot pink.

Mama is a bit more conservative to say the leas

YA Back Cover Copy!

Last week I approved the back cover copy for the young adult novel I'm currently working on called ALMOST TO DIE FOR. It's a new series for me. It's not in the exact same universe as Garnet and Sebastian as you can see from the bits below, but it still has plenty of witches and vampires. According to Penguin USA, it will be out in August 2010.

Here's the back cover copy:

On her sixteenth birthday, Anastasija Parker's present winds up being the shock of a lifetime. When her mom referred to her abse

"Murphy's Law" for Writers

The last couple of days since Mason has been off school for the summer, I've been pressed for time to write. Most of that is a problem of my own making, because, since he only has a month off in his year-round school schedule, we've been making the most of what we have by going on "adventures" to the local wildlife parks, etc. It's been great fun. Tiring, but great fun.

I haven't written much of note, however.

So what happens? The last few days my brain has bombarded me with ideas for short sto