Daniel O'Malley's Blog, page 3

I am Pestilent

Blurgh, don't come too close, and don't lick your monitor, because I have the plague. It's manifested itself in the form of an incredibly sore throat, and very itchy ears, and a sort of mucous-based hostile takeover of my skull. And on the weekend, no less. There really is no justice. I have spent the day in bed, dosing myself with cups of mint tea and water and Codral Day & Night, and making pathetic bugling sounds. I have to be well enough tomorrow to go to work, so that I can flex the next day off and go down to Sydney to have lunch with a friend who's visiting from the States.

The upside, however, is that I've gotten a fair amount of fiction down on the page, working through the list of ideas that I came up with earlier in the week.

One of the things about really getting into the writing of a novel (I've found) is that the novel tends to squat in the back of your mind on a near-constant basis, colouring all your perceptions. As a result, when asked in a seminar "what can you do with a manager who is unpleasant to his subordinates?", I unthinkingly replied "Kill him", which earned me a few nervous titters and sidelong looks. Sorry, kids, but I'm working on an assassin novel.

On the other hand, everything you see and learn seems like something you could possibly put into the novel. The lessons I was learning in my project management course really do lend themselves quite well to planning and executing assassinations: Laying out the scope of the project, Consulting with Experts, Execution (as it were), Reviewing Results and Lessons Learned. It's all as applicable to paid murder as it is to Public Service tasks.

Now, as a bonus, if I can figure out how the internet works, there should be a photo here featuring what a temporary Rook tattoo from New York Comic Con looks like when it is applied to my corpse-white wrist. And may I say that it is supremely difficult to take photos of a tattoo with white bits on a white wrist with a right-handed camera when you're left-handed, and trying to cover the flash with your finger, because you can't figure out how to turn it off? Because it is.

Conference Calls in the Dark

So, on Friday morning I had to go into work late. This was because I had to be in my house at 9:00 am to take part in an international conference call, which is a much more dignified reason than accidentally sleeping through my alarm. The call consisted of me (in Canberra) and my agent and editor and some of the publicity team who would be spruiking The Rook (in New York. I mean, they're located in New York, they won't just be promoting the book in New York.) This conference call stands out among all my Rook-related conference calls (and there have been a few) because it took place at an hour when I was entirely awake.

When my agent started putting The Rook out in the world for various publishers to consider, I was a little startled to learn that the publishers would be interested in talking to me. After all, they were thinking about buying the book, not employing me for my speaking abilities. It's possible they wanted to ensure I wasn't a complete psychotic, or they wanted to check if I had an endearing Australian accent. (For the record, I don't. Despite being born in Canberra, the combination of American parents, Sesame Street, the Ninja Turtles cartoon and six years of higher education in Michigan and Ohio have ensured that I have a solid American accent.)

In any case, there were to be conference calls, during New York City business hours. Which meant that they were during Canberra sleeping hours. I didn't mind this at all because, well, they were publishers, and I wanted to be published. But it did mean that I took several potentially life-changing phone calls at 5AM, sitting on the floor in a darkened hallway, and striving frantically to sound erudite while wearing my t-shirt and undies, and yawning madly.

For the record, however, I was fully dressed for work in a suit when I got the call that let me know that Little, Brown & Co. were going to be publishing my book.

Anyway, the call on Friday was at a c ivilized hour in Canberra, because everyone in New York was willing to stay beyond regular business hours. Which was very considerate of them. They have some very exciting plans for promoting The Rook, and it looks as if January 11th, 2012 is going to be a pretty cool day. Oddly enough, I will be in Japan on that day, attending a friend's wedding. But, they have internet in Japan, so I expect that I'll be able to keep abreast of all developments.