Writer's Grove

Congratulations to ROB, winner of the sketch of Atticus and the Morrigan! I did one of those sequence generator things on Random.org, and it looked like this:

Rob was comment number 30, so congrats, sir! Please send me your address immediately using kevin at kevinhearne dot com and I’ll get it in the mail to you!

In other news—remember I’ll be at the Velma Teague branch of the Glendale Public Library next Saturday at 2pm! Would love to see you there! You can bring stuff (books, babies, etc.) for me to sign or  you can buy books there! You can also just chill out and chat if you like. I’ll be talking a wee bit and more than happy to answer questions afterward!

In other, other news—I just got the UK version of HEXED in the mail. ‘Tis beautiful! I’ll probably run another contest soon for five signed copies. It will be US only because I can’t afford to send packages all over the world—sorry. But stay tuned for details!

Stuff has been happening! Like, you know, life. Haven’t been able to blog as often since school has started, but I’ll still try to keep up with once a week. Here we go—

1. I’m going to make a personal appearance thingie soon. I feel weird saying it like that, as if my “appearance” is some kind of magical event. But no, it’s pretty mundane. People say, “Dude, can you chill with us for an hour or so on such a date and such a time?” and if I’m available, I’ll probably say heck yes, because I’m a nerd and extremely grateful when people want to chill with me. So that’s why I’ll be at the Teague Branch of the Glendale Public Library on Saturday, Sep. 17, at 2 pm. Full address n’ stuff here. I’ll talk a wee bit, and you can ask me whatever you want, and then if you’d like me to sign something I’ll do it. They’ll have copies of the series for sale there, but you can also bring copies you’ve already bought, have me sign your e-Book cover, whatever. Basically I’m going to be happy to see you if you take the trouble to come see me. :)

2. I just finished the third version of TRICKED and sent it off to my editor, Tricia. We’ll see how she digs it, but for you keeping score at home, this draft is 99,487 words; the first draft was 81,666. Tricia and I will be doing a joint blog post in the future about the revision process from a writer’s perspective and an editor’s, but the extremely short version of my perspective is this: I love revising, because I can see the book getting better.

3. My publisher, Del Rey, is on Facebook as Del Rey Spectra. If you “Like” them, then you’ll find that you don’t just get updates on books (though that is cool): they also do polls and discussions on various geeky topics and hold some pretty rad giveaways. They’re 10 away from 2,000 likes, and they’ll be doing some giveaways soon to celebrate that milestone, so there’s never been a better time to click Like.

4. I just got 1,700 likes on Facebook, so thank you to everyone—I appreciate the love. To let you know I love you back, I’m having a wee random contest to celebrate this rather random number. Open internationally, folks! The prize is a signed sketch of Atticus and the Morrigan, seen below. (I’m only a mediocre artist but people seem to like sketches for some reason, so why not, they’re fun!) To enter, just leave a comment about what roleplaying or video games you enjoy. I’m kind of curious what everyone’s into. I’m into a tabletop game called HORDES these days, but I also do Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. No video games for me right now—I’d never get my writing done!—but I used to play. If you don’t play games, you can leave a comment about what SciFi/Fantasy books you’re into right now, and that’s fine too. Rules: I’d like this to go to someone who’s never won stuff from me before, because I like to share the love. Must enter by 6pm EST on Friday, Sep. 9. I’ll announce the winner—chosen randomly—on Saturday morning on a new blog post. If you enter, please check back on Sep. 10 to see if you won, then contact me with your mailing address. Good luck, and thanks again for reading my books. :)

Sometimes (okay, oftentimes) I feel the need to indulge the Urge to Silliness. You may have noticed this if you’ve read my books. Parodies amuse me quite a bit; I think Weird Al Yankovic is a genius. I like writing parodies of poems—especially “important” ones, like T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.” I wrote a full parody of that complete with footnotes once, all focusing on teaching high school and making numerous allusions to 80s movies. Like, maybe twenty people have read it, and that’s fine, because it made me giggle, and if you can’t nerd out once in a while then what’s the point?

So here we are now: On Twitter and Facebook, I thought it would be funny to write some lyrics to “Stairway to Heaven” that Oberon would appreciate. The title instantly became “Stairway to Sausage,” of course. On Twitter, I got this excellent first bit from @Priscellie:

“There’s a wolfhound who’s brave
And so loyal and good
And he’s climbing
A stairway to sausage.”

I continued from there:

When he gets there he knows
If the brats all are gone
With a bark he can score
Some hot andouille.

Awooo oooh, oooh, ooh oooh and he’s climbing the stairway to sausage.

BUT time didn’t allow me to go any further. I left the rest up to the peeps on Facebook, and there’s some great bits in there that made me laugh, you should check it out if you haven’t seen it. But I have to give major props to Isaac Sher, who did the WHOLE SONG, and it deserves to be appreciated. With apologies to Robert Plant and the gang:

There’s a wolfhound who’s brave, and wears jumpsuits of gold
And he’s climbing the stairway to sausage.
When he gets there he knows, if the stores are all closed
With a woof he can get what he came for
Arooo, ooo, and he’s climbing the stairway to sausage.

There’s a fridge in the house, but he wants to be sure
‘Cause he knows sometimes sausage is turkey.

In a house ‘cross the street, there’s a neighbor who spies,
Sometimes dogs leave surprises in his yard.
Aroo, it makes me hunger
Aroo, it makes me hunger

There’s a feeling I get when my belly gets rubbed
And my bathtime is funtime for stories.
In my dreams I have seen Ghenghis Khan on the plains,
And the whimpers of poodles are calling.
Aroo, it makes me hunger,
Aroo, it really makes me hunger.

And it’s whispered that soon if he scoops meat with a spoon
Then the druid will fry us a patty
And a new meal with dawn for those who have stood long
And the desert will echo with munching

If there’s a raven in your storefront, don’t be alarmed now,
It’s just the rival of the Celt Queen.
Yes, she is scary and has red eyes, but in the long run,
She won’t take away my bestest friend.
And it makes me hunger.

Your tummy’s rumbling and it won’t go, in case you don’t know,
The druid’s calling you to join him,
Dear lady, we’ll go hunt sheep bighorn, and did you know
My sausage cooks on the sizzling pan.

And as we hunt on down the road
Our tummies fuller than our bowl
There walks a Druid that I know
Who makes me tea and wants to show
Fun movie shows that I can quote
And if you listen very hard
The quote will come to you at last
When Prime would say “Till All Are One”
Was in the old Transformers show.

And he’s buying a stairway to sausage.

Isn’t that fun? I think Isaac deserves a treat. Isaac, email me your address and I’ll sign something and send it to you for writing such a great parody. Thanks, man!

Sometimes writing is like spelunking; you go down what seems to be a perfectly sound passage, there are cool little stalactites and bioluminescent organisms and micro-evolved blind fish and everything, and then suddenly it just gets too weird or it goes nowhere and you have to turn around.

That happened to me while I was writing Hammered. Thought I’d share this little episode for writers (and for readers, too) to illustrate how you can write something that sounds okay on the surface, but has to be jettisoned because it doesn’t work for the story.

WARNING: if you haven’t read Hammered yet, what follows is going to be full of spoilers! It’s best to actually bust out  your copy of the book to fully appreciate what’s going on here.

What happened is that I wrote 3,700 words that I had to chuck because the plot was going in a direction that made no sense for the overall book. I took bits and pieces of the material and worked it into the book later on—you’ll recognize some passages about the nature of vampirism, Atticus taking Leif to a baseball game, and even Oberon’s professed love for The Boondock Saints. Basically, when Leif asks Atticus to go with him to kill a bunch of vampires in the Phoenix metro area the night before they leave for Asgard, Atticus agrees instead of protesting that he needs to stay fresh for the coming journey. So here’s this story about Thor and Asgard, and I have my main character dropping everything for an extended session of vampire slaying, going out to University of Phoenix Stadium and laying about with Fragarach. The passage ends very abruptly, because that’s when I asked myself, “What the fuck am I doing? He’s supposed to be going to Asgard!” There were too many other things Atticus had to do before I could get him to leave and confront the Norse, and this was an unnecessary episode that I could simply have Leif report on later.

If you’d like to follow along, turn to page 84 in Hammered. Two thirds down the page, you’ll see Atticus say to Leif: “I see. And you’d like my help? As in, tonight?” Leif says “Yes.” Instead of continuing with “That was precisely what I’d been afraid of,” because that’s obviously what I wound up writing instead, continue reading from the PDF below. Have fun spotting the bits that made it into the book, but you’ll also see some more stuff about Phoenix that I’m kind of sorry I couldn’t work in somehow.

Vampire Derailment

Most writers (I can’t say all) have probably dealt with something like this—some of them many times, on a much larger scale. You can spend days and days on something and then realize that it’s not going to work, and you have to chuck it all and start over in the service of the story. Occasionally people get the impression that writers just sit down and the novel flows out perfectly from beginning to end, but that’s even a bigger fantasy than the collected works of Tolkien. Writing a novel is a never-ending series of cock-ups and happy accidents supervised by our own private collection of neuroses and occasionally our editors. You have to respect that process in order to produce something worth reading. And sometimes that process can take a while.

I’m currently revising Tricked and working through issues that I didn’t see as I was writing—my editor is brilliant and I’m so glad she can see all of my blind spots. We still have a way to go in the process, but right now it’s looking like Tricked will be a bit longer than Hammered. (A friendly observation: telling an author to “write faster” is akin to telling a baby to “gestate faster!” Novels and babies can only grow as fast as nature allows.)

If you’re in Arizona, please check out my Events & Appearances page. I’ll be appearing at the Teague branch of the Glendale Public Library on Saturday, September 17, so I’d love to see you there if you can make it!

I get asked semi-often where I came up with the idea for The Iron Druid Chronicles, and I respond, quite truthfully, that it started out as a webcomic based around a guy who could talk telepathically with his dog. I was going to call it American Druid. It was always about Atticus and Oberon, and all the worldbuilding and mythology came into it much later. Until now, however, I’ve never been able to “prove it,” because the computer on which I was doing all my illustration died abruptly with no possibility of recovering a damn thing. Did I have backups? Nope. Damn damn damn. But I always figured, hey, it’s no big deal, because I abandoned that project anyway after six pages and started writing Hounded instead. BUT GUESS WHAT!

I was cleaning my house (I know, right?) and tucked away in a box were the paper-and-pencil layouts for my webcomic! It was such a trip to find them, especially since I haven’t seen them since 2008 and now here we are with three novels about Atticus and Oberon out on the shelves. For me, it’s fascinating to see what made it into the novel and what didn’t. The first four pages show Atticus and Oberon hunting bighorn sheep at Papago Park without Flidais. Page 4 is the big splash page, where Atticus shifts from hound to human and you see him standin’ there nekkid with all his tats on display. Page 5 is where we really get introduced to them as characters and see their relationship, so I’ve scanned it for you and included it below. You can click to enlarge. Be warned, however, that I kind of suck at drawing dogs, and even though I’m a bit better at it now, arrgh. It’s a good thing I didn’t try to pursue the comic any more after this! I think you’ll have fun recognizing some stuff from the books, though!

Fun, huh? On page six they kind of sneak into the kitchen and find Flidais there trying to figure out how to make a strawberry smoothie. So much of this made it into the book in one way or another—the story arc that I had planned for several issues of the comic just got absorbed into the novel. Keep in mind that this was drawn two or three months before I decided to write a novel instead; I did a lot more research once that decision was made, and obviously I chose to begin Hounded inside Third Eye Books & Herbs instead of at Papago Park. Different mediums suggest different ways to tell stories. I also don’t draw Atticus this way anymore; my image of him changed as I wrote the book. Anyway, I made a copy of page 5 and wrote some comments on it for funsies.

So glad I cleaned my house! I loved finding these old pages :)

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these: I haven’t been able to, quite frankly, bein’ so busy with trips here and there and finishing up TRICKED. If you didn’t hear it elsewhere, I’ve just delivered TRICKED to my editor and made a start on TRAPPED. There’s a new progress bar thingie on the sidebar and everything! Look!

TRICKED isn’t completely finished, of course; my editor and I will be working on it for a while, and after that the copy editor will take a hack at it and so on. But we’re on schedule for that April 2012 release, and I’ll keep you posted on developments like the cover and all that good stuff as it comes in. :)

I’ll be back to teaching again next week, so my summer’s pretty much over. My back-to-school meetings begin on Friday, so that means I have today and tomorrow to get all my summer reading in! Think I can do it? Here’s what I’m going to tackle:

These authors are all auto-buys for me. If they wrote “Get more beer” on a bar napkin, I would buy it. And then I’d probably follow the instructions on the napkin. L-R, we have Jim Butcher’s GHOST STORY, Kelly Meding’s ANOTHER KIND OF DEAD, Nicole Peeler’s EYE OF THE TEMPEST, and George R.R. Martin’s A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. Like many of the rest of you, I have been waiting for these for quite some time. Hope you’re enjoying your summer reads!

Sorry I didn’t get to update earlier, but you know. It’s tiring taking in so much awesome. Had to sleep a wee bit!

So, on Friday I got a lot of shopping done and checked out the floor. I got onto the floor early (my badge was special and shiny) and snapped a bunch of pictures without hordes of people in the way. Rather than post a buttload of those here, I’m going to do that in an album on my Facebook page, so please check over there after a wee bit. There were lots of miniatures and mind-blowing mega statues and of course cosplay costumes. But look, for me, there’s one costume that blew the others away—I’ve been wanting to see this ever since the release of The Phantom Menace:

I got to meet David Petersen again, writer/artist of the excellent series Mouseguard, and got him to sign a couple o’ books for me plus a poster. Also scored a Con-only Hordes Trollblood warlock for my friend Alan, and got my daughter a Con-only Monster High doll called Ghoulia Yelps. Had a signing at 11 and met hundreds o’ people. Lots of them were new to the series, so hopefully Atticus and Oberon will snag a few more fans. Late that night, the Del Rey Spectra panel was well attended and the highlight for me was the art reveal of the comic adaptation of Game of Thrones coming out soon. But apparently I said some things there about Eternal Bacon that got people interested in me, so lots of them came by to see me for my signing on Saturday.

Before said signing, there was all kinds of awesome going on at the Suvudu booth. Like George R.R. Martin hanging out:

And then I got to meet so many folks. Lou Anders from Pyr Books, J.F. Lewis from The League of Reluctant Adults, and a couple of very nice editors from Ace/Roc. Fellow Leaguer Diana Rowland stopped by to say hello—her latest, My Life as a White Trash Zombie, is my favorite fun read this year—and I also got to meet Tor fantasy author Peter Orullian, whose debut, The Unremembered, came out in April. Here are we three happy nerds:

Peter and I were waiting around to meet Jim Butcher. Yes, Jim Butcher! He surprised me by knowing who I was and chatted awhile with Peter and I about LARPing and adventures in haircutting. He got his cut a while back, in case you didn’t know. I haz proof:

How did I get so fortunate as to meet him? Well, he was engaged in a Battle of 100% Concentrated Spiffy with none other than Patrick Rothfuss at the Suvudu booth.

After my signing, I went into the Gaslamp Quarter and hung out with my alpha reader and his wife and Jessica from The Spinecracker. Then I got to hang out with my editor a bit far from the madding crowd (Did you see that? Two points for alluding to Thomas Hardy!) and we were startled by a huge fireworks show. Since Lucasfilm was having a big shindig at the time, we decided they must have just destroyed the Death Star again.

It was a completely geektastic weekend, so glad I got to go!

Received two bits o’ news while there: I will be attending the Tucson Festival of Books next March, and I’ll be a guest at InConJunction (that’s in Indianapolis) next July 6-8. If you’re in the midwest and you’d like to say howdy, that would be an excellent time and place to do so! They’ll have my info on the site soon…I haven’t sent them a bio yet. :)

Oh! Almost forgot! I also got interviewed by Suvudu! You can laugh at my mannerisms here.

OK. Most of this day was a boring drive across a featureless desert. Seven hours of blearggh.

BUT THEN IT ABRUPTLY STOPPED SUCKING.

I honestly didn’t see much of the Con today. Not a single panel or event thingie. I just got to my hotel, then the Con, and made my way to the Random House booth and met a whole bunch of folks whose names I’d heard before but had never met in person. Super spiffy people like the publisher and my marketing dude and a couple of editors, as well as some lovely folks from Suvudu. I signed a buttload of bookmarks to hand out, and a few people who had heard of me actually stopped by and I got to meet them too. I got interviewed by a nice lady from a bookstore in Sweden (Yes, Sweden!) and her accent was adorable. I kept hoping she would ask me more questions and was sad that I was supposed to do most of the talking. I also saw a rather gigantic poster of my books, which was a really surreal moment. Wish my dad could have seen this. He would have enjoyed it very much.

I took an extremely brief  (like, a ten-minute) walk out on the floor and snapped a few costume pics. Here are a few:

(I’ll take more tomorrow.) Then the parties began. First, Brilliance Audio, where I finally met the guy who brought you the series on audio, John Grace. In case you haven’t heard, he’s also made sure the series will continue with Luke Daniels narrating, so incredible kudos to him for doing so—Luke has done a fabulous job. I also tried some unusual Scotch there and realized that I really need to stick to the Irish. Also had lovely conversations with a few people from other publishers and enjoyed chatting with them.

Then, the Del Rey party. Ye gods! I had no idea I would be meeting some of my favorite writers ever!

I met George R.R. Martin! Daryl Gregory! Christopher Paolini! And EEEEEE! Patrick Rothfuss!!

Gentle Friends, I love the Kingkiller Chronicles. For me, it is The Good Shit. My opinion (with which no one need agree, but which I suspect many will) is that Patrick Rothfuss and Neil Gaiman are the best storytellers walking the planet right now, and I told him that. He was very kind in dealing with my Effusive Praise. I did not actually squee at him—the squeeing happened afterward. And that is because he took a Crazy Eyes Picture with me. And Patrick’s Crazy Eyes are fabulous. Behold:

And not only does Mr. Rothfuss write epics, he lives them. On top of mechanical bulls. He rides epically. I jest not. PROOF:

Only at Comic Con. I’ve heard it’s infamously difficult to get tickets to this Con, and now I understand why. It’s turbo awesome and I haven’t even seen the stuff I’m supposed to see yet! By the way, Mr. Paolini also rode very well, but I was not quick enough with the camera to catch that. Anyway. I’ll give you another late night/early morning update tomorrow on Day 2. More pics! Promise!

May the Nerds be with you,
Kevin

So, the Glorious Geekout and All-Nerd Hootenanny is going to happen next week in San Diego. It will be my first huuuge Comic Con and I’m turbo-excited because I mostly get to walk around and be a fanboy. Not many people know who I am yet, and since I won’t be cosplaying, all eyes will slide off me and land on somebody’s tights nearby. I will be just another nerd in the herd, hoping to catch a glimpse of Patrick Rothfuss.

IF you are going or IF you know someone who is, here’s my schedule:
Friday, 11-noon, signing and giveaway at Random House booth #1515. Del Rey is giving away copies of HOUNDED, and I’m giving away my neato-schmeato bookmarks. I think Del Rey will probably help me give those away whenever, so please do stop by and say howdy whenever your schedule allows.
Friday, 8pm, Room 23ABC, Del Rey/Spectra panel with Kim Harrison, Harry Turtledove, and EDITORS! For one hour, you can ask us stuff and we’ll answer! Though that is pretty much how I operate all the time. What makes this special is that it’s okay to squee whenever you like, especially if Patrick Rothfuss walks in. We understand and support squees. You will be safe there.
Saturday, 4-5 pm, signing and giveaway at Random House booth #1515.

See? I won’t be that busy. Much of the rest of the time I’ll be boppin’ around doing my own thing, but I’ll also be doing some interviews and such, which will appear on Suvudu at some point along with a ton of other zany Comic Con content, so definitely bookmark the site and visit early and often!

Next: Progress continues on TRICKED. Wanted to let you all know that it’s now scheduled for publication April 2012, not May as originally reported when I announced the new deal with Del Rey. This is not because I am suddenly writing faster. This is because Del Rey is going to be speeding things up on their end, so major kudos to them! I’m delivering in August, and they’re getting it on the shelves in April. Nine months is pretty fast in this industry from what I understand. It takes six months just to get their poo together with online retailers and get an ISBN assigned. The cover artist needs time to work his magic, and I can tell you they’re already working on it though the book isn’t finished yet. Then there are several rounds of content editing, followed by copy editing, typesetting, proofreading, and presumably some beard grooming. It’s a Whole Lot of Stuff, and I thank you in advance for being patient. I also want to thank you again for your enthusiasm for the series and telling your peeps about it; it’s because of you I get to write more as fast as I can. :) Hope to see you in San Diego, or failing that…somewhere else!

May your sausage be fat and your pint glass full—

As one might imagine, whenever I get together with my editors, we tend to Plot Shenanigans of a Sordid Nature. Raucously. Drunkenly. Boorishly, even. Peppered with Evil Sniggers. And we leave our servers wondering how we ever managed to get ourselves Gainfully Employed. More on this below…

The first thing I did when I entered the Random House building on July 5, the release day for HAMMERED, was thank the nice security lady who saved my life the previous year from the dangerous vagaries of their turnstile system. She did not remember me. She saves lives EVERY DAY, so I was just another face in the crowd for her. But she was special to me, and I let her know.

Next I got to jump up and down and squee with my editor, Tricia, because HAMMERED was already doing well on Amazon and had gotten some kind reviews. And then we went down to see the Beast of the East, Viking Mike, and deliver a comic I drew of him and Atticus O’Sullivan slaying demons together. Here it is—you can click to enlarge:

I want you all to know that my representation of Mike is only slightly exaggerated. Random House policy prohibits him from wearing a horned helmet and bringing a double-bladed axe to work, but otherwise you see him in his daily costume: a kilt and giant nipple ring. He is a hardcore badass, and he brings that ruthless energy to his editing.

Next we traveled down a couple of floors (we were on the 24th, but we went down to 22) and warmed ourselves in the cozy glow of the giant fire pit where they burn unsolicited manuscripts. The blaze is watched over by a nervous intern and the smoke is carried out through one of those giant industrial vents you see on cooking shows. On that floor I had the great pleasure of meeting Gina and April, so shout-outs to both of them!

Mike, Tricia, and I took off to a neat place nearby for lunch called The Three Monkeys. (Mike put on a shirt for this.) They had some ridiculously good food and beer there. My first inkling that this could be a very good lunch was provided by the variety of taps:

I ordered a German hefeweizen with the long name on the glass. They claim to be the world’s oldest brewery, but we know that’s not true. That would be Goibhniu’s brewery in Tír na nÓg. Anyway, it tasted of bananas and cloves, people. Delicious.

Oberon would have been overjoyed by the Chicken Truffle Sausage, served with grilled onions and mashed potatoes. Proof:

We then began to Plot Shenanigans of a Sordid Nature, so we had to don ski masks to preserve our anonymity in case anything was overheard. And of course, because we were celebrating the release of HAMMERED, and Atticus does an Irish Car Bomb with Jesus in Chapter 11, we had to do an Irish Car Bomb ourselves. Ever had one? You take half a pint of Guinness, drop in a shot that’s part whiskey and part Bailey’s Irish Cream, then chug it fast before the Bailey’s curdles. If you do it right, it tastes like chocolate milk. Nom nom nom! Here is what they look like before you chug ’em:

Isn’t that one of the prettiest pictures you’ve ever seen? Here are We Three Conspirators preparing to pound ’em down—I’m the one in the mask:

That’s something you don’t see every day. And it’s probably best for your sanity, to be truthful.

What did we plot? Well, the possibility of a short story coming out sometime before the release of TRICKED to tide you over until April 2012. The possibility of getting the same cover model for the next three books and casually inquiring whether he’s single, because everyone wants to know. And since construction of our dragon ship  is nearly finished, we made preliminary plans for pillaging the coast of Nova Scotia.

I had an utterly lovely time at Posman Books in Grand Central Terminal (‘Sup, Stacey?) later that night, and then I went out with my agent to drink some more at an amazing place called The Ginger Man. We toasted and caroused and talked beer with the very knowledgable bartender, Nikki. She knew her stuff!

Anyway. Today I’m back on a plane for Arizona. I have a book to finish and lots of packages to mail and stuff like that. Want to thank all of you for your enthusiasm for the series; I’m sincerely grateful and so glad I get to write more!

Next up: San Diego Comic Con! I’ll be on a panel at 8 pm on Friday with Harry Turtledove and Kim Harrison! Woohoo! :) See my Events & Appearances page for other goodies! Peace.