Posts tagged as “The Clockwork Time Machine”

Eight Hundred Fifty Thousand Words

Published December 1, 2015 by centaur

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So another Nanowrimo draws to a close. The title says HEX CODE, but today’s writing was finishing out a few details in scenes in BOT NET (the second part of the Spellpunk trilogy manuscript I’m working on) and then a new beginning for ROOT USER (book 3). That new beginning, which played out a scene I’ve had in my head a long time, was very easy to write.

“That’s a damn shame,” says a distant voice, “so large an animal, in so small a cage.”

Muzzily, I grogs awake. What the fuck? Can’t they see I’m sleepin’? But then the words they’ve spoken starts to set in, balls in a Pachinko machine, rattlin’ in through the Pascal’s Triangle patterns in my brain to rack up a score of maximum annoyance.

The cage, you see, is large, for its type—a safety cage. Eight by thirty, made of elaborate wrought-iron vines, fashioned special from a welder we knows in Little Five Points, the safety cage is the largest and nicest I’ve ever been in—and the largest we could fit on our front porch.

The porch is big, and Southern, in front of a house big, and Southern, a third of the way down Fairview from Moreland, not three blocks from L5P. Pretty big even by Atlanta standards, but county code sez leave the front door unblocked, so thirty feet wide is was the cage limit.

Not that it feels limiting; there’s lamps and books and ferns and an ahw-SOOOME sectional sofa we found at an outdoor patio store, which stretches almost from the porch door on the left to the <regulation width with code #> stair down to my den.

It’s a full fourteen feet of sofa, fully twelve feet of it usable—which is a good thing, because stretched over it right now, covering just about its full length this very instant, is the enormous animal that the annoying interpopers have named.

Me.

That’s why the last day of Nano has that spike: let your inspiration flow!

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That brought me to over 65,000 words, the most I’ve done in Nano, as far as I know, ever:

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SO I have a new record to beat. But I also cracked 700,000 words on my spreadsheet … which means, since I’ve done Nano at least three times before, my total Nano total is 850,000 words.

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I feel pretty happy about that. Nano has brought so many creative ideas to the table, I can’t even begin to describe it. Easily a half dozen completely new ideas came to me this month - one even within the final writing session just before midnight tonight. I have to credit Nano for giving me this inspiration.

Now, onward to the next round of edits on THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE … and the 50,000 other projects I’ve been putting off, like my library … though I *might* take out a little time to play a video game, or, perhaps, read a book … you never know ...

-the Centaur

Overwhelmed

Published November 1, 2015 by centaur

So, wow, long time no post. What’s been up? Well, I’ve been busting my ass to finish the edits to JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE, which I finally sent back to Bell Bridge last Saturday at midnight. Then Sunday I finished up a pair of Jeremiah Willstone stories to the editors of THIRTY DAYS LATER, an upcoming anthology. Then on Monday I finished up writing up my comments on the audio version of LIQUID FIRE so Traci Odom could finish her reading. Then I joined a new team at work.

Phew.

This week, I’ve spent a little time cleaning up Dakota Frost #4, SPECTRAL IRON, but today, I started diving back into Cinnamon Frost #1, HEX CODE, for National Novel Writing Month. So, so much is going on I barely have time to blog. I hope to say more about all that’s going on shortly, but in case I don’t, I wanted to take a few moments out to fill you all in. Coming off the stress of all those projects has left me rattled - people ask how I’m doing, and I say “Fiiiine,” and have to clarify that yes, I am fine, but my body hasn’t yet adjusted to being in a situation that I’m fine, so I’m still feeling strung out. But objectively speaking, things ARE fine.

So I rewarded myself with a nice dessert at dinner, and had fun at a truly epic haunted house with my wife.

So all is right with the world. Sorry to be incommunicado for a while; More in a bit.

-the Centaur

Now THAT Was a Book Reading

Published August 30, 2015 by centaur

So my book reading at Books Inc in Mountain View happened, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. We had a lot of people show up - more than at first I thought - and there was a lot of positive energy from the people in the audience which made it easy to read. (Note: I took pictures before the event, but not during, because I was the speaker, and that would be just rude).

I actually was less nervous and stuttery speaking to this crowd than I was when I was sitting alone in my great room reading the passages I had planned. The thing I'm happiest about, however, is that I planned what I was going to read deliberately.

Normally I read, by reflex, the first section of whatever new thing I've got. But sometimes the setup is not that interesting, so I've tried reading really exciting bits. But that doesn't seem to work either - people demand context.

That led to a brainflash: I decided I should think not about what I wanted to read but what I wanted people to get out of the reading. I chose the first page and a half of FROST MOON to set the stage. At the last minute, I also decided to read a page and a half of BLOOD ROCK, filled with police, magic and vampires, to show progression in the world (and unabashedly to show off what I thought was a nice bit of writing). And then I chose to read the first half of a chapter out of LIQUID FIRE, tuning again at the last minute, to show off the action and adventure of "The Battle of Union Square." People seemed to love it - I even got applause.

What's more, the sequence of selections enabled me to talk about various aspects of the world I'd built - setting it in a time and place, making the action realistic, exploring consequences - and led into a really good Q&A session. Finally, I left a little time out to read the first chunk of THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE, which also seemed to strike a chord. At the end, we had a line of people for signing, including one who bought a copy of the whole trilogy; many of those joined us for a victory dinner.

Wow. I am so happy that you all came, and that you all liked it. You really made my day. Thank you.

At first I thought just enough people showed up to fill half the seats, but I was wrong - there were actually many more people standing and watching who didn't sit down because they were late. I didn't see them because I was paying attention to the nearer audience, but I know this because some of them came up afterward to talk to me … and others took pictures and sent them to me.

What a wonderful event. I want to send my sincere thanks to Alex, the whole staff of Books Inc, and the staff of the upstairs Cafe Romanza, who have not only made this a great experience for me, but also have made this environment one of the best places I know to sit down, to get some good coffee, and to find and read a good book - or to imagine and write one.

-the Centaur

Reading LIQUID FIRE at Books Inc

Published August 24, 2015 by centaur

So it's crept up upon me: the first author event for Dakota Frost #3, LIQUID FIRE, this Wednesday the 26th at 7pm at Books Inc!

Well, as I recall, we had a small reading at Clockwork Alchemy, but this is the official premiere of the book! What's more wonderful is that this reading will be in the bookstore that hosts the cafe where a goodly chunk of LIQUID FIRE was written!

http://www.booksinc.net/event/anthony-francis-books-inc-mountain-view

Local author Anthony Francis shares his latest urban fantasy, Liquid Fire. Filled with spectacular magic, pyrotechnic action, and kinky romance, Liquid Fire is the action-packed third installment in the Dakota Frost, Skindancer series.

I'll likely read a bit of FROST MOON to set context, then some of LIQUID FIRE, take questions, and finish up with a preview of something special coming soon!

So please drop in and support your local independent bookstore … and your favorite magical tattoo artist!

-the Centaur

The Centaur at Dragon Con

Published August 5, 2015 by centaur

So I'll be at Dragon Con this year, the convention I've attended the longest. It's where I sold my first book, it's where I've served on endless panels, it's where I'm an Eternal Member, of course, but this year, I'm a bit more: I'm an attending professional, which means I finally rate my own tiny, tiny little space in the program:

By day, Anthony Francis works on search engines and robots; by night, he writes science fiction and draws comic books. He's the author of the Dakota Frost, Skindancer series including Frost Moon, Blood Rock, and Liquid Fire, and is the co-author of the 24 Hour Comic Day Survival Guide.

And the really good news is, I'll be having a reading to celebrate the release of my latest novel, LIQUID FIRE, on Friday at 2:30PM! If you're a fan of Dakota Frost, you should definitely come by, because I'll read selections from LIQUID FIRE, answer questions, give away swag, and read preview versions of other future books in the series!

Title: Reading: Anthony Francis
Time: Fri 02:30 pm Location: Edgewood - Hyatt (Length: 1 Hour)

From my perspective, however, what's even more important is that because I'm an attending professional, I actually get to know my schedule in advance! (At least most of it!) That means I can not only show up at my panels with more than a minute's preparation, I can actually, like, tell you all about them! I'm tentatively scheduled to appear on three panels:

Title: Steampunk/Magepunk/Dieselpunk?
Description: Steampunk branches out! Tips for the market for the Punk genres.
Time: Sat 08:30 pm Location: Embassy D-F - Hyatt (Length: 1 Hour)
(Tentative Panelists: Lisa Mantchev, Stephen L. Antczak, Gail Z. Martin, Anthony Francis)

Title: Steampunk and the TARDIS
Description: Victoriana and retrofuturist Steampunk themes are popular in Doctor Who.
Time: Sun 05:30 pm Location: Augusta 1-2 - Westin (Length: 1 Hour)
(Tentative Panelists: Dr. Scott Viguié, Anthony Francis, That Darling DJ Duo, Ken Spivey)

Title: World Building, Part 2: The Multicultural Multiverse
Description: This Q&A covers the wide world beyond Britannia.
Time: Sun 07:00 pm Location: Augusta 3 - Westin (Length: 1 Hour)
(Tentative Panelists: Michael J. Martinez, Milton J Davis, Anthony Francis)

There's a chance I may be on a few more, but for that, stay tuned. Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you at my reading!

-the Centaur

From My Labors Rested

Published July 30, 2015 by centaur

Well, another Nano has come to an end. I've added over 50,000 words to the HEX CODE manuscript, succeeding at the month's 50K as of a few days ago, and last night I added the framework for the last few scenes that the revised story still needed, putting me way ahead of the game. Calling it done … for now, that is.

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It's interesting to compare this with previous months, as I did before. Even after the huge push near the end, I didn't quite catch up to the last time that I worked on HEX CODE. I must have been going gangbusters!

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I'd love to keep going, but I now see why in the past, whenever I hit the limit, my writing rate dropped off. By my calculations, I have five novels due over the next two years - one down into the final edits, one in rough draft, one (HEX CODE) almost complete, and two more in lesser stages of completion. So it's good to take a breather … after climbing the mountain.

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Now, back to CLOCKWORK ….

-the Centaur

Viiictory the Twelfth

Published July 26, 2015 by centaur

As of this afternoon, I have completed an additional 50,000 words on my Cinnamon Frost novel HEX CODE … making me an official winner of the Nanowrimo challenge twelve times. Woohoo!

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This was a good Nano, in that I stayed ahead of the game more than I thought I had. Even a couple of days I got physically sick helped me, as I holed up with my laptop and typed. Paradoxically, some of the best-feeling personal days I had this month I got no writing done at all. Yet, in the end, I managed to stay ahead, way ahead.

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But, while analyzing this data, I found out something else … I haven't tackled Nanowrimo twelve times with one failure; I've tackled it fourteen times. You see, I remembered all the times I tackled Nanowrimo in November, and all the times I tackled Camp Nanowrimo, and even Script Frenzy. But ever since 2009, I've kept day-to-day word counts, and I found at least one more time I've tried Nano, in December of 2010. I was apparently having so much fun with CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE that I decided to keep going. Putting all this data together revealed something very interesting: this hasn't been my best month at Nano.

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In a recent post, I said I thought I'd never been this consistently far ahead for this long, but was I wrong. Way wrong. In 2011, when I was tackling HEX CODE for the first time, I was so far ahead it's crazy: several thousand words ahead of my best times on all the other months. Apparently I was going gangbusters. This month was close, up till Friday and Saturday where I fell off a bit and then had to take a day of for writing business stuff, but today after writing 4,500+ words I ended up only 8,000 words ahead, but at this time in November of 2011 I was almost 13,000 words ahead.

Cinnamon is such a delightful character, it doesn't surprise me - though it does hurt your brain writing tens of thousands of words in broken English. Still, I'm really happy with how this book is developing. I realized, partway through this month, that this manuscript is actually the whole of the Spellpunk trilogy, and I reorganized it so the parts of #2 BOT NET and #3 ROOT USER were downstream of where I was writing, letting me focus on the story of HEX CODE #1, giving its own problems and climax. I think it's gone quite well, giving the story room to breathe, making certain events more rational because they can happen over time in a natural sequence … and giving Cinnamon even more time to shine.

I'll probably keep going on HEX CODE for a few more days making sure I core dump the rest of my story ideas, but then it will be back to editing THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE in time to send it to Debra, then revising SPECTRAL IRON in time to send it to beta readers, plus two stories for an upcoming anthology, then an essay, plus conference travel, oh finishing the Hugo reading and voting, plus that wedding, and wait shouldn't I pay my bills aaaaaa ….

It's a wonderful life. Back to it!

-the Centaur

Thinking Ink Press Instant Books at the Arsenal

Published July 5, 2015 by centaur

It's amazing how things come together! Several of the Instant Books created by Thinking Ink Press, the small press of which I'm a part, are now on display as part of the local book section of the Arsenal artist-owned art store in San Jose!

One of the great things about Instant Books is that they seem to be opening new doors. I really enjoy working with traditional publishers and editors like Debra Dixon at Bell Bridge Books, and all my novels are published that way, but working with the writers and artists at the Write to the End group has really opened my eyes to the physical joy of handmade books.

Sure, I've done a couple printed chapbooks for my own amusement, but author and paper artist Keiko O'Leary introduced us to this folded format. Fellow flash fiction author Betsy Miller and I started thinking about the stories we had that fit the format. Writer and editor Liza Olmsted helped us prepare them for publication. Keiko, my wife Sandi, and I provided the art. And creative barrier-buster Nathan Vargas gave us important feedback that helped us push the project home - telling us how the prototype books had an awesome feel, like "snack books" that you can read in a single sitting but still get the feel of reading a traditional book.

Except on much, much nicer paper. It matters. It really matters.

My two titles are the flash fiction collection "Jagged Fragments" and the steampunk chapbook "Jeremiah Willstone and the Sorting of the Secret Post", and Betsy has the flash short "Bees.

So drop in on the Arsenal and check them out, or stay tuned to Thinking Ink Press for more awesome books!

-Anthony

Climbing the Mountain Again

Published July 1, 2015 by centaur

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Well, I haven't finished editing THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE in June like I wanted to, but it's now July, and I'm out of time. So it's back to another Nano challenge, the Camp nano challenge for July, in which I'll write 50,000 words of the Cinnamon spin-off novel, HEX CODE.

After much struggling, I have come to accept that this Cinnamon Frost novel, which comes between Book 4 and Book 5 of the Dakota Frost series, can go nowhere else other than between Book 4 and Book 5. if HEX CODE had happened before Book 4, SPECTRAL IRON, the story would collapse: Dakota could solve the problem with one phone call, if that, and my 150,000 word book would collapse to a 30,000 word novella. Same thing with PHANTOM SILVER: if HEX CODE hadn't happened immediately before Book 5, half the plot would collapse, and I'd need to contrive reasons to do things which are completely natural.

But I still owe THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE to Debra sometime before the end of August for the book to come out this year, and I still need to get SPECTRAL IRON to Debra by January 31st of 2016 so it can come out in 2016, and PHANTOM SILVER to her by January of 2017 so it can come out in 2017 … which means HEX CODE needs to be done in the middle of 2016 so we can get that book out between Books 4 and 5. That means I need to write something like 50,000 to 100,000 words in the next six months, and edit the draft, and send it to beta readers, and edit it again, all on top of everything else I'm doing.

I sure do live in interesting times.

But I'm done with my word count for today, so I'll be diving back into CLOCKWORK for the rest of tonight. And I've got a long weekend coming up, with all next week off leading into Comic-Con, with no responsibilities for Comic-Con itself this year (thank God) other than showing up and having fun, so … perhaps this is going to work out.

Oh, right, an excerpt! I think that's safe in this case. From today's first draftiness:

I tenses up. I knows where this is going.

“I,” Mom says, whapping my leg, “am not my mother. I remember fighting monsters and wizards with you. You are reckless and amazing, and I’d love to say you can definitely take care of yourself … but I also remember you’ve been kidnapped, and you nearly set the city on fire.”

“Yes, Mom,” I says. “Sorry, Mom.”

“You are not formally grounded,” Mom says. “But I don’t want you going on a run—”

“Aww, man,” I says.

“—don’t want you going on a run until the situation and your vitals are more stable,” Mom says, pointing at the heartbeep machine. “Not until we can get more security for the house, and coordinate a plan to keep you safe away from the house—”

“Aww, Mom,” I says, “that spoils it. I gotta run by myself—”

“You run with Tully,” Mom says. “You ran with hunts at the werehouse. Did any of that spoil it? Look, Cinnamon, I’m not stupid. I will find out if you have snuck out … but I can’t stop you from sneaking out. You’re an experienced and stealthy street tiger who can turn invisible, and I’m a weak mortal human who needs to sleep. You will get out if you want to. But we’re in a difficult and terrible situation in which our friends are literally exploding and you were attacked so hard it put you in the hospital. All I ask is that you not go for a run until you heal up and the situation calms down, and that if, God forbid, you’re crawling the walls so much you can’t stand it, find a friend from the werehouse and go on a run with a partner.”

I set my lip. I wants to run free. I can outrun anybody. I wants to run free.

“Fine,” I says at last, fuming. But I’m really smart … and I’ve seen the escape hatch.

Mom stares off in the distance. “I know you’re really smart, so I want you to think about what our friend Special Agent Philip Davidson would call operational security. Think about what you can do to make it hard on the bad guys. Change your time, change your route, run with a friend or even a whole hunt—and text me your location. I promise not to freak. In fact, if you’ve done something bad and you need my help, I want you to say that. Tell me, “don’t freak”—but tell me, or I swear to God I am going to ground you until the heat death of the universe.”

Only 48,000 words left for the month of July. Onward!

-the Centaur

Jeremiah Willstone and the Sorting of the Secret Post

Published May 21, 2015 by centaur

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If you love steampunk, flash fiction, or cool things printed on paper, come by Clockwork Alchemy this weekend. I'm pleased to announce that Thinking Ink Press is printing two pieces of ephemera for the con - the flash fiction Instant Book "Jagged Fragments" and the short story Snapbook "Jeremiah Willstone and the Sorting of the Secret Post."

I had hoped we'd have JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE ready for Clockwork Alchemy, but Debra, my editor at Bell Bridge Books, thought we should focus on getting Dakota Frost #3, LIQUID FIRE, out first - and she was right. That's out right now, in fact, just in time for the con - I got the books early this week.

But Betsy Miller of Thinking Ink Press suggested that I put something together for the con, thinking of three pieces I already had - the flash fiction pieces "The Secret of the T-Rex's Arms" and "If Looks Could Kill" and the essay "The Rules Disease". Not to be daunted by taking on too much, I decided I wanted a piece teasing THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE.

So I wrote a brand new short story just for the occasion, "The Sorting of the Secret Post".

Hand-printed copies of these books will be available at the con. We aren't sure what we'll do with these in the future - the beauty of instant books (books printed on a single sheet of paper) and snap books (chapbooks printed on conventional printers) is that they can be printed on demand for an event. We call them "ephemera" and they enable us to experiment with the printed word.

Here you see Keiko O'Leary of TIP folding instant books (and Liza Olmsted of TIP scowling at a tax form). The editions we've produced this time just came together in time for the con. You can't even have the first ones - Nathan Vargas of TIP bought the very first copies of both books, one-of-a-kinds that will never come around again.

"The Sorting of the Secret Post" in particular is a direct prequel to THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE, but it isn't clear whether we'll reprint it once the book from Bell Bridge is out (though I hope we will, we haven't decided). So come on down and get your copies … because whatever they become in the future, they'll be something different.

-the Centaur

At Clockwork Alchemy this Memorial Day

Published May 18, 2015 by centaur

This Memorial Day weekend, I'll be at the Clockwork Alchemy conference in the Author's Salon. I'll have on hand the new steampunk anthology TWELVE HOURS LATER, plus of course the newly released third Dakota Frost, Skindancer book LIQUID FIRE, which, despite the presence of an airship, is firmly an urban fantasy novel.

If I'm not at my table, I will likely be appearing at:

The Science of Airships Saturday, May 23 from 2pm - 3pm in the San Juan Workshop Room
Steampunk Comics Saturday, May 23 from 6pm to 7pm in the Author's Salon.
Writing Steampunk: Sunday, May 24 from 2pm to 3 pm in the Carmel Fashion Room

In addition to TWELVE HOURS LATER and LIQUID FIRE … I may have something else at the table. Stay tuned.

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-the Centaur

LIQUID FIRE and TWELVE HOURS LATER

Published May 6, 2015 by centaur

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I think I'll be posting this everywhere for a while … LIQUID FIRE, my third novel, is now available for preorder on Amazon. I talk a bit more about this on the Dakota Frost blog, but after a lot of work with beta readers, editing, and my editor, I'm very proud of this book, which takes Dakota out of her comfort zone in Atlanta and brings her to the San Francisco Bay, where she encounters romance, danger, magic, science, art, mathematics, vampires, werewolves, and the fae. It comes out May 22, but you can preorder it now on Amazon! Go get it! You'll have a blast.

And, almost at the same time, I found out this is coming out on May 22 as well…

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TWELVE HOURS LATER is also available for preorder on Amazon Kindle and CreateSpace. Put together by the Treehouse Writers, TWELVE HOURS LATER is a collection of 24 steampunk stories, one for every hour in the day - many of them in linked pairs, half a day apart … hence "Twelve Hours Later". My two stories in the anthology, "The Hour of the Wolf" and "The Time of Ghosts", feature Jeremiah Willstone, the protagonist of "Steampunk Fairy Chick" in the UnCONventional anthology … and also the protagonist of the forthcoming novel THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE from Bell Bridge Books. (It's also set in the same universe as "The Doorway to Extra Time" from the anthology of the almost identical name).

And, believe it or not, I may have something else coming out soon … stay tuned. :-)

-the Centaur

Hustle and Bustle at the Library

Published May 6, 2015 by centaur

I've felt quite harried over the past few weeks … and talking with another author, I realized why.

In April, I finally finished my part of Dakota Frost #3, LIQUID FIRE - sending comments to the publisher Bell Bridge Books on the galley proofs, reviewing cover ideas, contributing to the back cover copy, writing blogposts. I also as part of Camp Nanowrimo finished a rough rough draft of Dakota Frost #4, SPECTRAL IRON. But at the same time, I had recently finished a short story, "Vogler's Garden", and have been sending it out to quite a few places.

In May, we expect LIQUID FIRE will be out, I have two stories in the anthology TWELVE HOURS LATER, and I have three guest blog posts coming out, one on "Science is Story: Science, Magic, and the Thin Line Between" on the National Novel Writing Month blog which has gotten some traction. And I'll be speaking at the Clockwork Alchemy conference. Oh, and I'm about to start responding to Bell Bridge's feedback on my fourth novel, THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE.

Holy cow. No wonder I feel so harried! But it's all for a good cause.

-the Centaur

Pictured: a friend at work shattered his monitor and inadvertently made art.

I stand corrected

Published May 2, 2015 by centaur

I stand corrected. I thought I'd succeeded at Nanowrimo eleven times, and technically that's true. But it turns out that I've taken on a Nano challenge thirteen times and succeeded at it twelve - because of Script Frenzy.

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Script Frenzy was the event that predated Camp Nanowrimo in April - a challenge to write 100 pages of a script in the month of April. I took on Script Frenzy once, in 2012 - I think that may have been the last year that it ran. Since 2014, I've been doing Camp Nanowrimo, and won at that twice. So every time I've taken on an official Nano challenge, I succeeded.

That's a little over a half a million words. Wow.

But I took on Nano one more time, on my own - in August of 2014. Perhaps because I lacked the support of the community - this was an "unofficial" Nano on my part - or perhaps because the book needed more editing than writing, I only got 10,000 words into the challenge that month. But I'm still very happy how it turned out.

So, to confirm: viiictory, twelve times.

-the Centaur

Viiictory the Eleventh

Published April 29, 2015 by centaur

Woohoo! I just completed Camp Nanowrimo 2015, writing an extra 50,000 words on my novel SPECTRAL IRON! And, for special bonus points, I basically ran out of novel - I finished the end to end rough draft a few days ago, and to get the final few thousand words I had to actually go back through and start fleshing out and polishing! Double woohoo!

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This makes this not just the eleventh time I've finished Nanowrimo, it makes it the first time I've finished a novel during the month. This draft will need a heck of a lot of editing, but it is finished end to end and I had to come up with some very inventive stuff to get it there in the month - which, as always, is the beauty of Nanowrimo.

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As you can see, I spent most of this month in the red, because I started off dealing with nine kinds of crazy. I actually can't remember all the stuff that happened - I remember editing on LIQUID FIRE and nonsense at work and disasters at home and a truly horrific tax situation - or wait, i do remember it all, I just don't want to.

Regardless, I was able to power through in three big chunks, getting close to 3000 words a day most days and 4000 to 5000 words a day when i really cut loose. And some of the things I discovered as I churned forward, cleaning up the plot, took the book from "where is this going" to "I can't do that, can I?" to "O.M.G. that's an AMAZING idea!" which I now love.

Lots to do to clean this up. Can't really show an excerpt - all of this stuff is too near the end of the book. Spoilers.

But still … viiictory.

Now, on to the edits of … THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE! After a nap.

-the Centaur

Climbing the Mountain

Published April 24, 2015 by centaur

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I recently was talking with Debra Dixon, my editor for the Dakota Frost series, and we realized that if we wanted SPECTRAL IRON, Dakota Frost #4, to come out next year, we needed to get a final book (from me) in her hands by January to have time to edit it before year was out.

Given that when we had this conversation we had not yet finished LIQUID FIRE (book 3) and I have yet to edit THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE, this caused some understandable panic.

So, rather than keeping to my schedule to work on part 2 of PHANTOM SILVER (book 5) during this April, I decided to bump up my schedule and work on part 3 of SPECTRAL IRON so I'd have a draft done early this year.

I think it's working - the story is coalescing - but as you can see from above, the copyediting and page proofing of LIQUID FIRE ate up a lot of my time to write SPECTRAL IRON.

So I'm scrambling. Probably few blog posts until this month's 50,000 added words are done.

Onward!

-Anthony

Oasis

Published March 3, 2015 by centaur

One of the roles conferences fulfill in my life is a chance to recharge. I'm driven to pursue writing, art, comics, software, entrepreneurship, publishing, movies - but I was raised to be responsible, so I have an equally demanding day job that pays the bills for all these activities until such time that they can pay for themselves.

Sometimes I describe this as having four jobs - my employment (search engines and robots), writing (primarily the Dakota Frost and Jeremiah Willstone series), comics (mostly related to 24 Hour Comic Day through Blitz Comics), and publishing (Thinking Ink Press, a new niche publisher trying to get awesome things into your hands).

Having four jobs means that you sometimes want to take a break.

That's really difficult if you don't have an excuse. There are literally hundreds of items on my to-do list that I could work on right now, all day and all night. If I finish one, a dozen more are clamoring for my attention - and that's not counting the time I want to spend with my wife, friends, and cats, or the time I need to spend on exercise, bills and laundry.

But a few oases exist.

Layovers in airports are one of those: I deliberately arrange for long layovers, because between plane flights you have nothing else to do other than grab a bite and a drink in an airport restaurant, chill out, and read something. True, I often work on writing during layovers, but it's big-picture stuff, researchy, looking at the picture on a scale larger than I normally do.

Conferences are even better. Whether it's GDC, AAAI, Dragon Con, Comic Con or Clockwork Alchemy, conferences are filled with new information, interesting books, even more interesting people, which spark my imagination - right at the time that I'm in an enforced multi-day or even week-long break from my schedule.

For a long time, conferences have been a great time to pull out the laptop and/or notebook to write or sketch. The idea for the Jeremiah Willstone series started after I saw some great steampunk costumes at Dragon Con; I sold the Dakota Frost series after Nancy Knight saw me writing at Dragon Con and pointed me to my editor Debra Dixon at Bell Bridge Books.

More recently, I've been adding to this the power of ruts. This is something that I need to expand at greater length, but suffice it to say I used to think I simply had to do something different every day, every week, every month. I used to keep lists of restaurants and tried to make sure that I never went to the same one two days in a row, trying new ones periodically.

But then I noticed that I really enjoyed certain things, but didn't always fully take advantage of them because of this strategy - great places to eat, cool coffee houses, and nice bookstores that I simply didn't visit often enough. Often, on top of this strategy, my schedule would change, making it hard to visit them - or worse, they'd go out of business, and those opportunities were lost.

So I've started cultivating habits - ruts - to do the things that I like. Not too frequently - you don't want to burn out on them - but if you do the same thing all the time, then you can be free to miss it any time. Even better, if you find a great thing that's efficient - like a place to eat near work, with a late night coffee house conducive to writing - take advantage of it regularly.

Because one day it may be gone.

At conferences, I employ this strategy with a series of life hacks - go to breakfast before the conference to up your energy level and organize your thoughts, pick the best breakfast place for writing and reading, break for lunch at 11:30 to 11:45 to miss the lunch rush, and also find the best place where there are no lines and concentration can be had.

At GDC, I've found a good set of hotels near the conference, a few good breakfast joints on the walk to the Moscone Center and a few places to eat slightly off the beaten path that are pretty empty just before noon - and I hit these places again and again, pulling out my notebook and tackling problems which are really big picture for me, mostly related to future game projects.

At Dragon Con I do similar things - hitting the Flying Biscuit breakfast joint that appears in Dakota Frost, getting coffee at the Starbucks in the Georgia Tech Bookstore, hitting the Willy's lunch counter that inspired the Jeremiah Willstone story "Steampunk Fairy Chick," et cetera, et cetera; and at each one I pull out the notebook and work on big picture story ideas.

These places are real oases for me: a break within a break, a special place set aside for thinking within a special time already set aside for recharging. Because of how human memory works, sometimes I can even pull out a notebook (or an older notebook), find my place from last year, and pick up where I left off, plotting my future in an oasis of creative contentment.

This, of course, is my strategy, that works for me - but it works so well, I encourage you to find a strategy that works for you too.

-the Centaur

It was a good weekend …

Published May 28, 2014 by centaur

… and not just because I sold 22 copies of my books at Clockwork Alchemy. Though that was a big part of it, the sales themselves aren't what really mattered to me; it was that 22 copies of my books are in people's hands, and they were in people's hands because for the very first time, I had an author's table.

For the four days that I sat behind that author's table, behind a fort of my books and my postcards and my wife's steampunk gears and shelves and even a small tiger, I became part of a community of people - and not just even the wonderful people at the Clockwork Alchemy author's alley, whom I hope to see again for years and years to come.

No, I became a part of the broader community of science fiction authors, connecting with their readers through science fiction conventions, the way I myself first really connected with the science fiction community, after many years of reading alone. I've been a published author for years, and written in a small community for longer, but now I feel connected as never before.

This is a new level of interaction, a new level of connection, a new opportunity for a whole family to create an author's delight by buying their books and holding them over their heads like mouse ears. Somehow, everything feels more real to me, and I am more inspired than ever before to keep writing and to get the ideas in my head out … and into yours.

I hope we both enjoy it! God bless,

-the Centaur

Sunday’s Events at Clockwork Alchemy

Published May 24, 2014 by centaur

Today's talk on Real Women of the Victorian Era, led by the redoubtable T.E. MacArthur, went well. In a weird bit of synergy, an audiobook I was reading, Victorian Britain in the Great Courses series, had a section on Florence Nightingale which was not just directly relevant … it played just as I was driving up to the hotel. Perfect.

Tomorrow, Sunday, May 25th, I will be appearing on the panels Avoiding Historical Mistakes at noon in the Monterey Room (it is rumored that Harry Turtledove will be on the panel as well) and Victorian Technology at 2pm in the San Carlos room (not 1 as I said earlier), and giving a solo talk on The Science of Airships at 4pm also at San Carlos.

The rest of the time, I will largely be at my table above, which will look more or less like you see it above, except I may be wearing a different outfit. :-D

-the Centaur

I Have Landed at Clockwork Alchemy

Published May 24, 2014 by centaur

I have landed at Clockwork Alchemy. (Technically, I arrived yesterday). In 11 minutes, I am appearing on a panel on Real Women in the Victorian Era, even though it is not listed on my personal schedule.

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Oh, and I almost forgot: this is my very first booth of my own!