Jay Lake: Writer

[awards|repost] Obligatory story pimpage

I didn’t publish much short fiction last year, due to the effects of my cancer journey on both my productivity at the keyboard and on my focus on marketing. Such writing time as I’ve had has remained focused on my novels. Nonetheless, a few things have squeaked out into the marketplace.

For my own part, I think the best of these is my Sunspin novelette, “A Long Walk Home”, which has been selected for Year’s Best Science Fiction volume 29. If you’re a Hugo or Nebula voter, I hope you’ll give it consideration.

Anyway, here’s the list.

Novels
Endurance (Green, volume 2), Tor Books

Novelettes
“A Long Walk Home“, Subterranean Online
“The Decaying Mansions of Memory”, Untold Adventures

Short Fiction

“The Blade of His Plow”, Human for a Day, ed. Martin H. Greenberg and Jennifer Brozek
“A Critical Examination of Stigmata’s Print Taking the Rats to Riga” The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities: Exhibits, Oddities, Images, and Stories from Top Authors and Artists, ed. Jeff and Anne VanderMeer
“‘Hello,’ Said the Gun“, Daily Science Fiction
“A Place to Come Home To” (with Shannon Page), When the Hero Comes Home, ed. Gabrielle Harbowy and Ed Greenwood
“They Are Forgotten Until They Come Again”, River, ed. Alma Alexander
“Unchambered Heart”, ChiZine
“You Know What Hunts You“, The Edge of Propinquity

Tags: Awards, Books, Endurance, Repost, stories, Sunspin

Posted: 6:38 am Mon February 06 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad enjoyed the reading

A reader reacts to Endurance — I think they liked it.

The Self-Sabotaging Writer — Kameron Hurley on the perils of being a writer. (Via Steve Buchheit.)

What the Nook Means — A new Nook’s on its way. Can it save books?

The Milhous Collection — A meticulously assembled selection of mechanical musical instruments, vintage automobiles and more. (Via danjite.)

Cloud Cover’s Role in Exoplanet Studies

Study measures mammalian growth spurt — It takes 24 million generations for mouse-sized mammals to evolve into elephants — but shrinking back is much faster.

Mind-reading program translates brain activity into words — The research paves the way for brain implants that would translate the thoughts of people who have lost power of speech.

cassiealexander on Rick Santorum, privilege, healthcare, and sick kids — What she says.

The End of Health Insurance Companies — I don’t think I actually believe this piece, but it’s a nice thought.

Inside the heresy files — Interrogation. Surveillance. Ethnic profiling. Censorship. The words come from 21st-century headlines, but they have an ancient pedigree. Cullen Murphy on how the Inquisition ignited the modern police state. (Snurched from Scrivener’s Error.)

McConnell’s Revisionist History: Congress Gave Obama Everything He Wanted! — Can he possibly believe this? McConnell, of all people? More to the point, why does anybody else believe this?

Marsh on Obama: The Party’s Over — Sigh.

Delusions of Obama the Idiot — It’s amazing that the GOP has somehow convinced itself that Obama is some kind of beguiling intellectual lightweight. Once you accept that ideology trumps reality, it’s easy to put faith in any whackdoodle idea that enters one’s head.

Gingrich, Romney, and “Reckoning with the Base”

Romney versus Gingrich slugfest is harbinger of Republican civil war — We can only hope. Meanwhile, I continue to marvel at the Republican base’s vitriolic view of liberals, who are guilty of bringing America such heinous sins as the forty hour work week, paid vacations, child labor laws, clean air and water, and other such violations of our civil rights, all over the strong objections of conservatives.

Welfare Drug Testing Bill Withdrawn After Amended To Include Testing Lawmakers — Don’t worry, it will be back. Oppressing the poor is a club sport for the GOP.

Huh? Mitt claims Newt outspent him in S.C. — Huh. Republicans lying about each other. The candidates and party leadership know it doesn’t matter. The message always trumps facts. The low information voters who make up the GOP base will just nod and follow along like they always do.

The Myth of the American Political Intelligence Gap

?otd: When’s the last time you attended a live reading?

2/1/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.0 hours (Sunspin revisions)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 6.5 (solid)
Weight: 228.8
Currently reading: The Man in the Moone, and Other Lunar Fantasies ed. Faith Pizor

Tags: Books, cars, Cool, ebooks, Endurance, healthcare, Links, music, Personal, Politics, Process, Publishing, Religion, reviews, Science, Videos, Writing

Posted: 6:23 am Wed February 01 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad listens to some REM

A reader reacts to Green — I think they liked it.

A reader reacts to Endurance — I think they liked it.

Gianmaria Franchi on sliding book advances — (Via a mailing list I am on.)

Getting It Wrong — sandratayler on the value of getting it wrong,

How the craziest f#@!ing “theory of everything” got published and promoted

Psychics Say Apollo 16 Astronauts Found Alien Ship — Also, there is an alien base in the trunk of my car. Don’t tell anyone.

New drone has no pilot anywhere, so who’s accountable? — The Navy is testing an autonomous plane that will land on an aircraft carrier. The prospect of heavily armed aircraft screaming through the skies without direct human control is unnerving to many. What could possibly go wrong?

US plans Mid-East ‘mothership’

Jobs, Jobs and Cars — Krugman on economic geography and Republican idiocy.

GOP Hates Citizens United, Too — Tough cookies, GOP. You wanted this as tool to bash Democrats, you celebrated the SCOTUS decision. Like many of the beds conservatives make, they don’t want to lie in it.

How Newt Gingrich Gets Away with ‘Class Warfare’ and ‘Race Baiting’

The Great Right Hope — The conservatives who hate Mitt Romney the most have it wrong. Why they’d love him in the White House.

What would Mitt Romney’s offshore account filings show? — It’s called ‘tax avoidance’, and just about everyone with Big Money does it. Also, millionaires avoiding paying taxes is completely consistent with Republican principles, so why is anyone complaining?

?otd: Is that you there in the corner?

1/28/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.5 hours (Sunspin revisions)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.75 (solid)
Weight: 226.8
Currently reading: Scourge of the Betrayer by Jeff Salyards

Tags: Books, Culture, Endurance, Green, Iraq, Links, Personal, Politics, Process, Publishing, reviews, Science, Tech, weird

Posted: 7:32 am Sat January 28 2012 | Comments(0) |

[conventions] I will be reading at SF in SF, February 11th, 2012

Ok, not really a convention, but I don’t have a tag for ‘events’ or ‘readings’. I probably should, huh?

At any rate, I’ll be reading at SF in SF on Saturday, February 11th, 2012, along with K.W. Jeter, hosted by Terry Bisson — two of the more interesting people I know. My appearance there is being sponsored by my publisher, Tor Books, as part of a tour for the recent release of my second Green novel, Endurance [ Powells | BN ].

We’ll be appearing at The Variety Preview Room at 582 Market St. @ Montgomery, 1st floor of The Hobart Bldg. [ Google Maps ] Doors open at 6:00 pm and the event starts at 7:00 pm. I believe I’ll be reading something connected to Sunspin. If you’re in the Bay Area, come on down for an evening of live science fiction reading and discussion.

Hope to see you there!

Tags: Books, California, Conventions, Endurance, Green, Sunspin

Posted: 6:44 am Wed January 25 2012 | Comments(1) |

[awards|repost] Obligatory story pimpage

I haven’t published much short fiction this year, due to the effects of my cancer journey on both my productivity at the keyboard and on my focus on marketing. Such writing time as I’ve had has remained focused on my novels. Nonetheless, a few things have squeaked out into the marketplace.

For my own part, I think the best of these is my Sunspin novelette, “A Long Walk Home”, which has been selected for Year’s Best Science Fiction volume 29. If you’re a Hugo or Nebula voter, I hope you’ll give it consideration.

Anyway, here’s the list.

Novels
Endurance (Green, volume 2), Tor Books

Novelettes
“A Long Walk Home“, Subterranean Online
“The Decaying Mansions of Memory”, Untold Adventures

Short Fiction
“The Blade of His Plow”, Human for a Day, ed. Martin H. Greenberg and Jennifer Brozek
“A Critical Examination of Stigmata’s Print Taking the Rats to Riga”, The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities: Exhibits, Oddities, Images, and Stories from Top Authors and Artists, ed. Jeff and Ann VanderMeer
“‘Hello,’ Said the Gun“, Daily Science Fiction
“A Place to Come Home To” (with Shannon Page), When the Hero Comes Home, ed. Gabrielle Harbowy and Ed Greenwood
“Unchambered Heart”, ChiZine
“You Know What Hunts You“, The Edge of Propinquity

ETA: I suppose I’m also eligible for Best Fan Writer, if you happen to like this blog a lot.

Tags: Awards, Books, Endurance, Repost, stories

Posted: 5:29 am Wed January 11 2012 | Comments(0) |

[personal|writing] 2011 productivity, a bit on 2012 writing goals

In 2011, I spent May and June, and September through December, on chemotherapy, six months out of my year. I also underwent a liver resectioning in July to remove a metastatic tumor. In August, along with kenscholes, I co-hosted the Hugo awards ceremony at Renovation, the 69th World Science Fiction Convention. In September, I had the “A” interview and cover of Locus magazine. Those were pretty much the high points of my year.

However, even with spending eight months under serious medical care and running around on stage in the middle of all that, as well as holding down a full time job from which I never took a leave of absence, and parenting my daughter, I did manage a little bit of writing and marketing. It’s been a fairly thin year by my standards, less than I would usually expect from myself, but I did produce a total 243,100 words of first draft fiction and related nonfiction. That’s 198,500 words of first draft on my Sunspin project, along with 38,200 words of short fiction and 6,400 words of nonfiction. I also executed revisions to much of this material, including both Sunspin‘s outline and manuscript, and the revisions and final turn-in of the third Green book, Kalimpura. Plus seeing the release of Endurance, the second Green book.

This is far short of my original goal of 600,000 words on Sunspin first draft this year, but cancer pretty much ate my life and stranded me at the 243,100 mark. Likewise it interfered with my marketing of short fiction. Nonetheless, I managed 26 submittals of original short fiction, with 10 acceptances, 14 rejections and 4 outstanding. (The math doesn’t quite add up because of year-to-year overlap.) I also managed to submit 12 reprints for consideration, of which 7 were accepted, including two Year’s Best. 4 nonfiction pieces were accepted as well. In addition there were various foreign rights sales, the most notable of which was a three-book deal in the German market.

My 2011 convention and conference schedule was severely curtailed by my medical issues, but I did make it to Rain Forest Writers Village, Norwescon, the Locus Awards, ReaderCon, Worldcon, and (briefly) Orycon.

For 2012, if I can stay out of the oncology unit, I plan to write the other 400,000 words of Sunspin, revise the first two volumes for submittal and publication, and write several requested novellas and short stories. For financial reasons, my convention attendance will be severely curtailed except where I’m being sponsored to appear, unless fiction sales pick up enough to refill my travel budget. I do currently expect to be at Confusion, RadCon, Rain Forest Writers Village, Norwescon, Orycon and Surrey. Additional appearances to be confirmed/announced as time and resources permit.

Even if I do go back into cancer treatment, experience shows I can still be reasonably productive. If I metastasize yet again, I still plan to write another 100,000 words of Sunspin, as well as revise the first two volumes and write the requested short fiction.

I’ll be discussing 2012 goals and my thoughts on them in more detail with another post. For now, this is the 2011 round up. I hope it’s been informative.

Tags: Books, Child, Conventions, Endurance, friends, Green, Kalimpura, Personal, stories, Sunspin, Travel, Writing

Posted: 8:52 am Sat December 31 2011 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad dances the cotton-eyed joe

A reader reacts to Endurance — They liked it. Interestingly, they read and enjoyed this book without having previously read Green. That pleases me.

The Tweets of War: What’s Past Is Postable — Re-enacting historical events on Twitter with realtime WWII. (Via my Dad.)

Fluorescent Spray Could Help Surgeons Identify Cancer Quickly — Having been the recepient of an erroneous surgical procedure which also missed an existing tumor, this might have saved me immense trouble. Though I wonder how much good it does for tumors embedded within healthy tissue, as opposed to on the surface of an organ.

Virtually indestructible robostarfish penetrates tiny cracks

Reverse Mentoring Cracks Workplace — Top Managers Get Advice on Social Media, Workplace Issues From Young Workers. I don’t normally bother to link to the Wall Street Journal, which is basically FOX News for the 1%, with all the same lies and distortions of reality, but this is interesting and nonpolitical.

Flaming Napalmed Knickers — Language Log (again) on the completely and objectively false conservative meme that Obama uses “I” more often than other presidents, and is therefore a narcissist. I especially like this comment, which could apply to virtually all conservative allegations about Obama: Frankly, I’m disappointed in these people. Can’t they invent new fabrications instead of tediously repeating old ones?

God and man and William F. Buckley

When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality? — Conservative David Frum: I can’t shrug off this flight from reality and responsibility as somebody else’s problem. I belonged to this movement; I helped to make the mess. Something very, very few conservatives are willing to say. Good for him for at least partially owning up to the hideous monstrosity the GOP has become.

The Price of Intolerance — It’s early yet for a full accounting of the economic damage Alabama has done to itself with its radical new immigration law. And it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of small-minded conservative bigots. But I repeat myself. Reality, meet ideology. More on this in other Southeastern states pushing little brown people out in the name of pursuing immigration ‘reform’.

Secret Bill To Be Voted On Today Would Allow The Military To Sweep Up US Citizens At Home Or Abroad — This is beyond disgusting. Where are those self-proclaimed Constitution-loving conservatives now? (Via danjite.)

?otd: Would you have been married a long time ago?

11/29/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.0 (fitful)
Weight: 211.0
Currently (re)reading: The Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold

Tags: Books, Cancer, Culture, Endurance, healthcare, history, Language, Links, Personal, Politics, reviews, Tech

Posted: 6:00 am Tue November 29 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad couldn’t be paid to stop there

A reader reacts to Endurance — And likes the book quite a bit.

To Develop Expertise, Motivation is Necessary but Insufficient — There’s a lesson in this piece for both aspiring writers and working writers.

CO2 climate sensitivity ‘overestimated’ — Global temperatures could be less sensitive to changing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels than previously thought, a study suggests. Interesting stuff.

We Are the 99.9% — Paul Krugman on income distribution and productivity.

NYT Claims Increasing Bipartisan Support for Plans that Could Raise the Cost of Medicare Policies by $34 Trillion — Mmm, that conservative privatization fetish is really going to pay off this time!

?otd: Ever been to Cleveland?

11/26/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 11.5 (solid sleep plus napping)
Weight: 207.8
Currently (re)reading: I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Books, climate, Endurance, healthcare, Links, Occupy Wall Street, Personal, Politics, Process, reviews, Writing

Posted: 8:14 am Sat November 26 2011 | Comments(1) |

[personal] Reading, infusion

The Endurance reading went well last night. We had about 12 for dinner, and about 35 at the Cedar Hills Powells. I wore the spiffy new hat that janetl sent me with her custom-made patch on it that says “Virtual Mohawk”. Came home, crashed out and slept over nine hours. Go, me.

Off to breakfast with Dad shortly, then chemo. Y’all play nice while I’m gone.

Tags: Books, Cancer, Endurance, family, health, Personal

Posted: 8:38 am Fri November 18 2011 | Comments(0) |

[writing|cancer] Plowing ahead with books and chemo

Yesterday my oncologist informed me that I had lost all my nose hairs. Full nasal Brazilian, that’s me. Which explains the odd booger-to-finger ratio lately, as I commented on my Twitter and Facebook feeds. And the perpetually runny nose. It’s like being three years old again. I shall attempt to maintain nasal dignity at tonight’s Powell’s reading and signing for the release of Endurance [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]. Do come if you’re in the PDX area. Given that I actually slept well last night, I might even be lively!

The postponed chemo ten of twelve starts tomorrow. I passed my blood tests yesterday, and we discussed whether my ongoing head cold was of concern. So long as I don’t run a fever or slide back into GI terror, they’re going to plug and run me.

Meanwhile, plans are stirring for the spring. I expect to have the first volume of Sunspin, Calamity of So Long a Life, revised and back to my agent by the beginning of March so it can finally go to market. I have a few travel itineraries coming together. Look for me at RadCon, unless I’m feeling desperately broke in February, with other appearances to be announced.

I don’t have my writing brain or my normal life back yet, but I can see them from here. Tonight’s reading and signing will be a nice reminder.

Tags: Books, Calamity, Cancer, Conventions, Endurance, health, Personal, Sunspin, Travel, Writing

Posted: 6:46 am Thu November 17 2011 | Comments(6) |