Christopher Ruz's Blog, page 2

Smashin’ out Rust 4

God Factory? On submission with international agents. Century of Sand 3? With beta readers. Rust 4? Just passed 46,000 words (out of an estimated 80k). Ruz? About to go on two weeks of writing holidays. Expect books soon, friends.

Nine years later…

I’ve just wrapped the first draft of Century of Sand 3. This is the longest it’s ever taken me to write a book. The first draft of God Factory took six months. The first draft of CoS1 took eight. Nine years, though? To be fair, I started CoS3 while I was still drafting CoS1. The whole trilogy formed as a whole, and I wrote the final, final scene of CoS3 (in an embryonic form) some time in early 2008, before I even knew the main character’s names. Even so. Nine years is a long time to sit in one world. I don’t know if CoS3 is any good yet. If it’s anything like CoS1 and 2, it’ll take a couple more drafts (and a couple more years) before it’s passable. But it’s DONE, damn it. It’s finally done. I have something I can hold. Feels good, man.

God Factory is done and I’m looking for test readers

What feels like ten million years back I posted the opening scenes of a scifi novel called, at the time, Project Goma. I’ve now taken that novel through four complete redrafts and the finished manuscript, God Factory (AKA Hacker Sapper Soldier AI), is pretty damn tight. I’m now looking for test readers. If you’re up for 120k worth of scifi shenanigans set on a machine planet, full of pewpew and explosions and deep thoughts, sound off! I’ll get you the MS in whatever format you prefer. The first chapter is attached below. Hope you like it! Note – this story isn’t going to be self published. I’m taking this one to traditional agents and publishers. I think it has those sorts of legs. Thanks in advance! – – – The church at the roof of the world is protected by four-factor authentication, starting with keycodes and ending in biometrics. Abel and Wren cut through the first three layers no problem, but the severed finger they bought from the dockside chop-shop won’t scan. “I think we got screwed.” Wren Bristow – slim, flame-haired, the shadow of a moustache dusting his upper lip – thumps the controls. “Easier to blow the doors.” “Didn’t bring you this far just so you could throw a tantrum.” Abel Dei snatches the finger. The ragged end is leather-dry, so she breaks it in half with a chicken-bone snap and presses the raw meat to the pad. “It’s not a fingerprint scan. It needs sweat, fluids.” The […]

Writing on the road AKA how Ruz got his groove back

I’m on the roadway now, navigating a traffic jam. My phone is in my breast pocket. Hopefully, it’s recording everything I say. I can’t check that of course, because pulling your phone out of your pocket to see what the app is doing while navigating heavy traffic is suicide. Nevertheless, curiosity and the need to write at least 1000 words a day despite the job (sometimes gripping me from 630 in the morning at 10 o’clock at night) drives me to experiment in any way, shape, or form. This blog post was dictated. Not dictated in a quiet study, or the insulated security of my bedroom (which is where I dictated most of Century of Sand 1 when my right wrist began suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome), but on the highway. My phone records my words, and DragonDictate transcribes when I get home. In the past week I’ve written almost 6000 words this way. Most of them were nonsense, but I think I’m getting closer to an accurate solution. I’m sharing this with you because I can’t be the only writer desperate for more time. I can’t be the only writer who spends two hours a day (2 1/2 if I get out late) thinking desperately, if only I could attach a notepad to the dashboard. If only I could afford a self driving car I could type away on my laptop during the long commutes. If only I had time. We all get the same amount of time each […]

The Good Samaritan, Chapter 1

“You understand,” the deputy principal said, “that teachers cold-cocking their students rarely sits well with the P.T.A.” In Bobby Graves’ defense, the kid threw the first punch. There were twenty witnesses in the classroom who’d testify to that. Shit, Bobby didn’t even mean to hit back. Just brought his fists up fast, old army training kicking in, trying to block and trap. But his instincts were rusted, and the kid – Anton Tripp, seventeen years old, built square and heavy like an oncoming truck and pumped up on whatever hormone-saturated garbage teenagers ate those days – was swinging wildly, throwing himself across the class, and before Bobby could pull back he’d smacked Anton in the jaw. The kid went down. The students erupted. A typical Wednesday at West Washburn High. “It’s a delicate situation, of course.” The deputy rooted through the tangle of papers on his desk, found a phone number printed on a post-it, frowned, balled it up and threw it away. “Regardless of what provoked the conflict or who instigated, it’ll end in an investigation.” Bobby had heard a messy desk was the sign of genius. Bobby’s desk, by comparison, was surgically precise. He itched to reach across and straighten the scatter of banana-yellow pencils. “Anton’s parents have let me know they’ll be talking to their lawyer.” Bobby only nodded. “You don’t seem concerned.” He kept his hands flat in his lap, fingers splayed, because if he didn’t then they’d ball up again. It’d been hours since the […]

Agent 806, free for mailing list subscribers!

To celebrate the release of Olesia Anderson #8: Wetwork, I’m giving away the first Olesia Anderson omnibus to all new and existing mailing list subscribers! It’s seriously simple: 1) Sign up to my mailing list 2) You’ll get a confirmation email with direct download links for Agent 806 in DRM-free .mobi, .epub and .pdf formats 3) Enjoy! It’s my way of saying thank-you for being such brilliant readers and fans. I wouldn’t have made it to Olesia #8 without your support. Tell your friends! Tell your family! And stay awesome!

Olesia Anderson #8: Wetwork hits Kindle!

After TEN BILLION YEARS, the next episode in the Olesia Anderson thriller saga has launched on Amazon. Wetwork sees Olesia and her team of miscreants gunning for revenge after their narrow escape from Venezuela. They’re headed to D.C., in search of an old spook who can point them to Olesia’s nemesis, Patrick ‘Rat’ Burroughs. But D.C. isn’t the place Olesia remembers. It’s a warren of spies and senators, mercenaries and murderers, and Burroughs has them all in his pocket. He knows Olesia’s team is coming, and it’ll take all their collective skill to get out alive… Wetwork is the longest Olesia Anderson novella so far: a neat 40,000 words of scoped rifles, explosions and political throat-slitting. I think it’s a damn good read, and I’m sure you’ll have a great time seeing what sort of trouble Olesia, Kay and her father can get up to now that the gloves are off. You can grab Wetwork today for $2.99 on Kindle! Also coming soon – the omnibus collection of Snowblind and Blackout Pt 1 & 2. Been holding off on buying the individual stories? Keep your eyes peeled!

Inch by inch

Another month passes. Still no new releases. What’s going on at Ruz HQ? A lot of writing, actually. This ugly-as-sin diagram shows where I’m at with my three primary projects. Olesia Anderson #8 is currently a 37k word manuscript, will probably hit 40k, and is already 2/3rds revised. It’ll be with test readers soon. Century of Sand 3 is further away from finished – it’s currently a 140k MS, projected to hit 160k (how did it get so big?) and very little of it has been revised for test readers. As for Rust 4… Let’s not go there. BUT. Things are moving. They’re moving every day. A thousand words here, two chapters revised there. My work is scattered across too many projects at the moment, but as soon as I have Olesia #8 done, the work will focus. Century of Sand 3 will be next, which concludes that trilogy. And then it’s time for Rust. It’s getting done. Slowly. If you’d like me to hurry, you can always yell at me on Facebook or Twitter, but if you REALLY want me to write harder… tell people about my books. Introduce a friend to my work. Make them a fan. And then have THEM yell at me.

Why horror?

The question a lot of horror authors get is, “Why do you have to write such terrible things?” And my answer is usually, “Um, ah, well, it’s entertaining?” But that’s not really why. I’ve been thinking about what drives me to write horror, and what inspired my series Rust. I could cite a lot of books and shows that I’ve loved (Uzumaki, Twin Peaks, The Ruins) but my love of horror goes all the way back to childhood. And where’d that begin? The lazy answer would be, “My Dad let me watch Alien when I was six” (true) or “I read Pet Semetary when I was eight” (true) but that doesn’t get to the core of why I write horror. Why I want to scare people. Why I want to scare myself. What truly scares me. So here are some images from my childhood that’ve never left: I was on holiday with my parents in Queensland, staying with a family friend. I was maybe six years old. While browsing a bookshelf in a hallway I was startled by the image of a green claw reaching out of a rain-clogged drain. That was the original edition of IT. On that same holiday, I watched a Saturday morning cartoon where a villain sprayed a city with a chemical that turned everyone into screaming, rooted plants. It kept me awake that night. On my father’s bookshelf, while browsing for science fiction, I was transfixed by a howling face unwinding on an old cover […]

New release! WEARY hits Kindle for 99c!

After a fantastic debut in Apollo’s Daughters (edited by the esteemed Bryan Young), my cyberpunk novella WEARY is available now on Kindle for 99c. That’s less than a KitKat Chunky, the undisputed king of chocolate bars. Weary is a military scifi with cyberpunk undertones that follows a returned soldier, Diana Yossole, working in the ruins of post-war Melbourne. Her deployment in China has left her mostly machine, a well-tuned military engine better suited to destruction than peacekeeping. So when she’s sent to assist the local bluecaps in an infant kidnapping investigation, things get a little messy… I loved writing Weary. It’s one of my favourite works, and has gotten great feedback from scifi fans and newbies alike. I’d be honoured if you gave it a shot. Grab Weary now on Kindle!