Jay Lake: Writer

[links] Link salad checks in from Michigan

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

Only Forward — Paul McAuley on writing first drafts and the perils of revising. This. (Thanks to Rick York.)

Ghillie Suit — Art guru James Gurney with an interesting entry, including an IKEA ghillie suit.

Depression Defies the Rush to Find an Evolutionary Upside

Computer Model Replays Europe’s Cultural History — A simple mathematical model of the way cultures spread reproduces some aspects of European history, say complexity scientists. Paging Hari Seldon.

X and Y chromosomes — A beautiful photo of our gender-selective chromosomes. (Via scarlettina.)

Dracula-esque monkey long thought vanished reappears

NASA still not hiding aliens: Triangular ‘UFO’ debunked — Well, darn. Where are they?

Picture of the Day: The Planet Heats Up — More of that pesky, liberally biased data from the reality-based world. More on this from NASA’s Earth Observatory.

Gingrich’s Ex-Wife and the Republicans’ Predicament — Conservative commentator Daniel Larison on Gingrich. If they were voting based on character, they wouldn’t have chosen him in the first place. I’m old enough to remember when the GOP was angrily telling us (about Clinton) that “character counts.” Not so much when it’s your own guys, eh?

?otd: Chilly yet?

1/20/2012
Writing time yesterday: 2.5 hours (revisions to Sunspin)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 8.25 (solid)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: The Atrocity Archive by Charles Stross; The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore<

Tags: Books, climate, Cool, Culture, Europe, Funny, healthcare, Links, Mainspring, Personal, Photos, Politics, Process, reviews, Science, Writing

Posted: 8:31 am Fri January 20 2012 | Comments(1) |

[links] Link salad heads out for Confusion

Die Räder der Welt — Check out Mainspring‘s cool German cover.

Time experts debate whether to abolish the leap second

Statt Schurkenstaat nun Schurkenseite? ›SOPA‹ und ›PIPA‹ — A German article on the current American Internet kerfuffle, in which I and a number of other American authors are quoted.

Web Protests Piracy Bills, and Senators Change Course

The rise and fall of personal computing — A handy infographic. (Via Curiosity Counts.)

What the GOP’s “Market-Based” Health Care Looks Like — This. And I am one one of the lucky ones.

Scotland to the Rescue: Seeks 100% Renewable Energy by 2020 — Scotland is looking to reduce the cost of offshore wind generation and distribution by 20%, which would make it competitive with hydrocarbons. (Actually it is already competitive because no one takes the dire effects of global warming into account in the price of oil and gas. What would you estimate Miami is worth?)

Migrating Siberian Shrubs — More pesky climate change facts. Warning: Data not valid if you are willfully ignorant.

Japan’s push to restart nuclear plants sparks public anger — Gee, I wonder why.

Dear Andrew Sullivan: Why Focus on Obama’s Dumbest Critics? — An interesting piece, though I object to the false equivalency drawn between critiques of George W. Bush from the left and critiques of Obama from the right. Bush’s most unhinged critics were largely marginalized in the media and the public opinion. Obama’s most unhinged critics come from the heart of the GOP establishment, including many sitting senators and congressmen.

The Secret of South Carolina — David Frum’s notebook on what the elections in South Carolina may hold for the GOP candidates.

?otd: Are Troy’s towers topless?

1/20/2012
Writing time yesterday: 1.75 hours (revisions to Sunspin)
Body movement: Airport walking to come
Hours slept: 5.75 (solid)
Weight: 223.2
Currently reading: The Atrocity Archive by Charles Stross; The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore<

Tags: Books, climate, Culture, Germany, healthcare, Links, Mainspring, Personal, Politics, Science, SOPA, Tech

Posted: 5:46 am Thu January 19 2012 | Comments(2) |

[writing|process] The outline for Mainspring

Since people seemed to like my recent post with the outline to Alternating Current, I thought I’d post the outline to Mainspring, my first trade novel, which was released by Tor in 2007. Note this book didn’t sell from outline, it sold from finished manuscript, but the outline is still an important sales document even in that context. This was originally written at a workshop as part of an exercise at a writing workshop, but I returned to it later. What you see below is the revised outline.

It also occurred to me while drafting this post that I’ve never revised an outline after the fact to match the finished manuscript. More to the point, I’ve never bothered to. I find myself wondering if revising the outline (or possibly even rewriting it from scratch) after the first draft and before the revision passes would be productive. Have you ever tried that?

Note this outline comes more recently in my career than Alternating Current, and it helped sell a novel in New York. Also as discussed above, this was not revised post-drafting to match the final product, so if you’re familiar with the finished book, you’ll seem some variances. Another interesting exercise would be to go through several writers’ outlines and look at their variances — it would tell you something about their individual processes, I think.

And the outline… Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Books, Mainspring, Process, Writing

Posted: 5:42 am Thu January 12 2012 | Comments(3) |

[links] Link salad is chilly

A reader reacts to Mainspring — Including a comment on my author photo.

Mid-career surgeons ‘are safest’

Alone Again, Naturally — Some good stuff in this article. Also some pretty annoying generalizations about male behavior.

Gaming Tablet Suggests New Form Factor

Where the Trees Are — You can actually see Oregon’s Willamette Valley in this image, if you know what you’re looking for.

The TSA Posts Its ‘Top Good Catches Of 2011′ List, Not One Of Which Is An Actual Terrorist — Sigh. (Via danjite, who also sent along the sigh.)

Businessmen and Economics — Really, business and economics are not the same thing.

Appeals court affirms order blocking Oklahoma sharia law ban — A federal appeals court upholds a 2010 ruling preventing the implementation of an Oklahoma constitutional amendment that would bar judges from considering international or Islamic law in decisions. Hey, look, a brief moment of sanity from our court system! I’m sure the Supremes will smack this down in due time, unfortunately.

Huntsman would pose big threat to prez, experts say

Why Rick Santorum Can’t Just Say: God Doesn’t Want You To Be Gay — Gay rights and the collapse of pseudo-secularism. An interesting analysis of the religiously-sanctioned bigotry of Senator Frothy Mix. (Via scarlettina.)

Can Romney be more than an opening act? — He’s not actually pulling a lot of votes yet, he has the advantage of a split opposition.

Romney’s Dreadful Inevitability: How Did It Come To This? — Conservative commentator Daniel Larison mulls Romney.

?otd: Is it cold where you are?

1/11/2012
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (work related evening social function)
Body movement: 30 minute suburban walk
Hours slept: 7.25 (fitful)
Weight: n/a
Currently reading: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

Tags: Books, Culture, healthcare, Links, Mainspring, nature, Oregon, Personal, Politics, Religion, reviews, Tech, Travel

Posted: 5:26 am Wed January 11 2012 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad for a frozen Sunday

A reader reacts to Mainspring — Really, really not with the liking. At some length.

Everyone Speaks Text Message — Technology and ‘heritage languages’. (Via my Dad.)

The dos and don’ts of Googling people

NASA: Earth’s Prehistoric Record Warns of Nearing Rapid Climate Change — Yeah, except that since the Earth is 6,000 years old, this can’t possibly be true. Take that, reality!

Study: Greenland faces land crisis as global warming heats up

Searching for Meteorites in Antarctica — A cool APOD photo. I can’t wait for my brain to come back online post-chemo so I can work on my own Antarctica project.

You Press the Button. Kodak Used to Do the Rest. — Kodak saw the shift from analog to digital photography coming. Here’s why it couldn’t win. Young Sidney Kodak will never come to be, I’m afraid, Mr. Bester.

Evolution: The Natural History of Animal Skeletons, Stripped Down — What a flamingo, a capybara, and a guinea pig have to do with the beginnings of recorded time. Offer not valid for the willfully ignorant. (Via Curiosity Counts.)

Won the battle and lost the war? How about lost the battle and won the war? — elusivem on the normalization of being gay.

Imaginary Farm Dust Regulation Banned By House — Ah, conservative “reality”. Where the sky is occasionally blue, even.

There Will Be No Spoilers in 2012 — Conservative commentator Daniel Larison on the GOP ticket. If conservatives were not motivated enough to rebel against the GOP in 2008 at the tail end of one of the most disastrous Republican administrations of the last eighty years, they are hardly going to start casting protest votes in large numbers when there is an opportunity to defeat a Democratic incumbent. In a rational world, after the miserable failure that was the Bush administration, the GOP shouldn’t be able to elect a dog catcher. Their incompetence at governance has solid, very expensive proof.

Mitch McConnell flunks College — So what is Mitch McConnell on about? Does he not know his Constitution? Is he merely pandering to the crowd he was addressing? Hello? He’s a Republican. Both of those things are true pretty much by definition in the GOP these days. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

?otd: Billy or ice cream?

12/11/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 11.0 (badly interrupted plus napping)
Weight: 207.8
Currently (re)reading: Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold

Tags: Antarctica, Books, climate, Culture, gay, Language, Links, Mainspring, Personal, Politics, reviews, Science

Posted: 7:42 am Sun December 11 2011 | Comments(0) |

[links] Link salad spills hot tea where the sun rarely shines

An Italian reviewer who doesn’t like Mainspring so much — What amazes me is that he dismisses the book as “a pamphlet for intelligent design.” Which is pretty much the diametric opposite of my intent for the text, in which I am mocking Intelligent Design. The story belongs to the reader, however much I may disagree with their interpretation of it.

Canary Islands Eruption: Undersea Volcano Now Just 70 Meters from Surface — It came from beneath.

Archeologists Discover Vampire Skeletons in Ireland — Or something. (Snurched from Steve Buchheit.)

Sunspot Castle — A lovely image from APOD.

Protesters occupy home facing foreclosure — Slacktivist Fred Clark on a fascinating expansion of the Occupy movement. As the man says, If this becomes the next big wave of Occupy protests — fighting foreclosures house-by-house, then I can’t see the protesters losing the battle for public opinion, even if they don’t always defeat a particular foreclosure effort.

How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the OWS Protests — Much more than a movement against big banks, they’re a rejection of what our society has become. (Via tillyjane.)

Start-ups and Safety Nets — The United States ranks 23rd in business startups, specifically because of our lack of social safety net. The leader? New Zealand. Where a person can start a business without having to go without health coverage. Hardly the libertarian paradise so many on the Right long for.

Chart of the Day: Reagan Loved Tax Hikes

‘Personhood’ effort still alive after Miss. defeat — Apparently vicious, punitive vileness never goes out of style with the Family Values crowd. I think this is what Christianists call loving thy neighbor. Reason number 3,419 I’m not a conservative. I couldn’t live with myself if I were on the same side as these lunatics.

Bushism vs. Conservatism — Conservative commentator Daniel Larison on W. The self-serving narrative was a way of claiming that movement conservatives had somehow managed to remain principled and conservative while the Republicans they supported had gone astray. This weird idea that Bush was some kind of leftist is one of the more bizarre things I’ve heard wafting over from conservativeland lately. The Party cannot fail you, only you can fail the Party.

How to be a Retronaut

?otD: Did time stop for you?

11/12/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: n/a (too sick)
Hours slept: 10.0 hours (solid)
Weight: 211.2
Currently (re)reading: The Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Books, Christianists, Cool, Culture, Links, Mainspring, Occupy Wall Street, Personal, Photos, Politics, Religion, reviews, Science, weird

Posted: 9:06 am Sat November 12 2011 | Comments(0) |

[publishing] Out of contract blues

Now I’m going to complain about something that will probably irk some of the aspiring writers who read this blog. It’s one of those established writer problems that can look ridiculous from the outside, but is perfectly real and serious from the inside.

I’m out of a trade publishing contract for the first time since 2006. And it feels very weird to me.

Mainspring was originally contracted by Tor in 2006 for a 2007 release, along with a second book to be named later, which was eventually Escapement. Near the end of that contract cycle, Green and Pinion were contracted. Near the end of that contract cycle, Endurance and Kalimpura were contracted.

Well, now it’s 2011 and I’ve delivered Kalimpura for 2012 publication and, well, here we are. It’s not that Tor and I have parted ways. It’s not that we haven’t parted ways. We simply haven’t had the discussions, nor have I entered into discussions with any other trade publishers.

Some of this is my own doing, as I decided to write the Sunspin series as spec books rather than proposing them to Tor. Some of this is the cancer, which has stolen half my writing time in past two years, slowing down my ability to deliver a spec book in time to propose it to Tor, or anyone else, within my usual contract cycle. Longtime readers may recall that had I not experienced another metastasis this year, I had planned to write all three volumes of Sunspin by this fall. The book package would have been ready to go to market last summer, except for cancer.

And now, thanks to the travails of chemo and my resulting inability to execute on important revisions recommended by la agente, Sunspin‘s first volume won’t be ready to go to market before next February or March at the earliest. So I’m going to stay out of contract for quite some time to come, unless we take the rather unusual step of trying to sell on proposal plus unrevised draft.

All of which makes me feel very weird and insecure about my career. I’m in danger of missing the 2013 publishing cycle. I’m going to take a financial hit, to boot, simply because of delayed contract and payment timelines. But mostly, I worry about simply disappearing from view.

So I’ve got the out of contract blues, magnified by my cancer woes. And it doesn’t make me very happy. Another penalty of cancer, another thing being taken from me by this disease.

Tags: Books, Cancer, Endurance, Escapement, Green, health, Kalimpura, Mainspring, Pinion, Publishing, Sunspin

Posted: 5:53 am Thu October 27 2011 | Comments(2) |

[links] Link salad goes right to the moon

Sympathy for the Devil, ed. by Tim Pratt – Ray Gun Reviews — With a passing favorable mention of my story “The Goat Cutter”.

Steampunk Ebooks for $2.99 — Getcher Mainspring ebook on the cheap from tor.com.

Murakami on Fiction, Truth, and Lies

How translation software helped crack ‘unbreakable’ code in 1866 secret society manuscript

‘Android Dreams’: Time-lapse video of Tokyo set to ‘Blade Runner’ soundtrack — In case you needed some cool in your morning.

Why Names Matter — SCIENCE! It works, bitches. And a serious discussion of the same issue.

Time – and brain chemistry – heal all wounds

Panel recommends that 11- and 12-year-old boys get the HPV vaccine; now given to girls — I have a question for all you folks who oppose the HPV vaccine because “oh noes, kidz and teh sex!” We’re talking about lifelong protection here. Do you seriously want your children to grow up and never have sex? Stunted lives and no grandchildren is the logical result of your objections.

US dismantles most powerful nuclear bomb

NASA Is Considering Fuel Depots in the Skies

In, Through, and Beyond Saturn’s Rings — Another awesome APOD photo.

Hardiness Zone Changes — More liberally biased facts about climate change. Which is ridiculous. Climate change wouldn’t be a partisan issue if right wing ideologues hadn’t made it one. I can even understand why evolution denial, as fundamentally moronic as it is, has become an issue. But climate change denial? It doesn’t even make as much sense as Christianist tripe, which at least comforts some wilfully ignorant people who are scared of the future.

Rand retracts report on pot clinics and crime — Think tank says researchers failed to realize that data used in the study did not include LAPD statistics. It plans to recalculate its analysis. WHo’d a thunk it? Distortion and hysteria over pot use. I don’t do 420 myself, but I’ve never seen the point of criminalization of pot.

Chart comparing Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party — Heck, yeah.

Goldman Sachs Global Rage Fund — Some seriously funny snark.

Islamic Law not a problem in Bush’s Afghanistan & Iraq, but a Problem in Libya? — If secular, communist Afghanistan was made fundamentalist by Reagan and Bush, or if the relatively secular Baath Party of Iraq was overthrown by W. in favor of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Islamic Call Party and the Bloc of Ayatollah Sadr II, that is unobjectionable and not even reported on. But if there’s a Democratic president in the White House, all of a sudden it is a scandal if Muslims practice Muslim law. Not a Democratic president, a Kenyan Muslim socialist president. Just ask our friends in the GOP and Your Liberal Media.

Televangelist Pat Robertson Calls GOP Field Too Extreme to Win General Election — You know you’ve hit rock bottom when one of the most radical, hate-spewing figures in America calls you “extreme.”

Michele Bachmann’s misstatements may be catching up to her — The Republican presidential candidate’s supporters seem to like her mastery of what she presents as facts — but they often aren’t. Hey. Someone finally noticed.

?otD: Ralph or Norton?

10/26/2011
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (chemo fatigue)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bike ride
Hours slept: 7.0 hours (solid)
Weight: 217.4
Currently (re)reading: Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett

Tags: Books, Christianism, climate, Cool, Culture, drugs, ebooks, healthcare, Iraq, Japan, Links, Mainspring, Occupy Wall Street, Personal, Photos, Politics, Publishing, Religion, reviews, Science, sex, stories, Tech, Videos

Posted: 5:39 am Wed October 26 2011 | Comments(0) |

[writing|process] Poetry and fiction

Yesterday, the inestimable jimvanpelt made a terrifically interesting post about recasting prose as poetry in order to more effectively see what kinds of language choices the writer had made.

Being me, I of course immediately had to try this. It’s, well, interesting. I give you several examples.

The opening to Mainspring, recast as poetry.

The angel
Gleamed in the light of
Hethor’s reading candle
Bright as any brasswork automaton
The young man
Clutched his threadbare coverlet
In the irrational hope
That the quilted cotton scraps
Could shield him
From whatever power
Had invaded his attic room.
Trembling
He closed his eyes

The opening to Green….

The first thing I can remember
In this life
Is my father
Driving his white ox
Endurance
To the sky burial platforms
His back was before me
As we walked along a dusty road
All things were dusty
In the country of my birth
    Unless they were flooded
A ditch yawned at each side
To beckon me toward play
The fields beyond
Were drained of water and
    Filled with stubble
Though I could not now say
Which of the harvest seasons it was

The opening to Death of Starship…

“Z-flotilla’s gone over to the rebels!”
Shouted one of the comm ensigns
Sweat beaded on the boy’s
Shaved head
He was still young enough
    To be excited by combat
NSS Enver Hoxha‘s battle bridge
Was wedge-shaped
Command stations
    At the narrow aft end
A giant array of displays
    At the blunt end
All finished out in military-grade carbonmesh
    And low-intensity gel interfaces
A dozen duty stations
Arrayed before and below Captain Saenz
Eighteen officers and men
Laboring wet-backed and trembling
In the service of their own
    Imminent death
Everything reeked
Of panicked men
And distressed electronics

That last one’s a little strange, but I think they all three hold up okay. Am I poetic? Lyrical? Who’s to say from three opening passages?

How does this work on your fiction?

Tags: Books, Green, Mainspring, Process, Starship, Writing

Posted: 5:51 am Wed October 12 2011 | Comments(1) |

[books|writing] Keeping score on my novels

Not that anybody was asking, but in an attempt to corral my own thoughts, here’s a list of all the novels I’ve ever written/co-written or am committed to writing, time and my health permitting. I make this seventeen completed manuscripts, two in-progress manuscripts, and six on the table to be written. In addition to all of the below, kenscholes and I have discussed doing a YA gonzo SF trilogy together, once he’s done with the Psalms of Isaac.

Who has time for cancer?

Written but unpublished

The January Machine (time travel/millenial SF, project abandoned)
Rocket Science (zero draft)
Death of a Starship (zero draft)
The Murasaki Doctrine (space opera/military SF, could not sell)
The Heart of the Beast (with Jeff VanderMeer, project abandoned)
Our Lady of the Islands (with Shannon Page, at my agent)
Other Me (YA lost colony/identity paranoia SF, awaiting rewrite)

Written, in progress or planned

Rocket Science

Death of a Starship

Mainspring
Escapement
Pinion

Green
Endurance (forthcoming)
Kalimpura (forthcoming)

Trial of Flowers
Madness of Flowers
Reign of Flowers (not a committed project)

Calamity of So Long a Life (in progress)
The Whips and Scorns of Time (to be drafted in 2012)
Be All Our Sins Remembered (to be drafted in 2012)

Original Destiny, Manifest Sin (American Old West fantasy/AH, to be drafted in 2012 or 2013)

Black Tulip (Dutch historial thriller/mystery, to be drafted in 2013)

The Rockefeller Plot (1970s diplomatic thriller with Ambassador Joseph Lake, in progress)
[untitled Biafran war novel] (1960s diplomatic thriller with Ambassador Joseph Lake)

Tags: Books, Calamity, Endurance, Escapement, Green, Kalimpura, Madness, Mainspring, ODMS, Pinion, Publishing, Sins, Sunspin, Trial, Whips, Writing

Posted: 10:35 am Sun September 04 2011 | Comments(2) |