Adventures in PC Migrations

I've been stuck in computer move mode for the last few days.  My faithful but aging Dell XPS entered his retirement, where he will serve as a backup machine and step back into the fray if, Cthulhu forbid, my shiny new homebuilt job has issues.

All my writing files were swapped over to the new machine first, of course.  Then photos, various programs, and of course music, which is still a work in progress.

But I've now got a sweet dual-monitor setup, which means I don't have to squint and lean any more.  And the new homebuilt rig has a quad-core processor so I can run as many things as I please, all at the same time.  I predict this will allow me to confuse subject/verb agreement 38% faster than ever before!

I have to say Windows 7 has been a pleasant surprise.  I haven't foamed at the mouth or punched the keyboard in rage a single time, which is quite different from the last time I moved a whole system from one hardware platform to another.

I've been asked why I don't work on a Mac.  Nothing against Macs, really, it's just that A) you can't get decent games for the things and B) I want to swap out my own parts and I don't even know where to buy a Mac motherboard, for instance.  Do Macs even have motherboards?  Or do they run on the captured dreams of unicorns and a single tiny gleam from Steve Jobs' eye?  Not sure, but I don't think NewEgg sells either.

So now that I'm all set up it's time to get back to work on the new Markhat novel.

Oh, one last note.  My fictional steamboat the Brown River Queen is based on a real steamboat, the American Queen.  Turns out the American Queen is being relocated to nearby Memphis, Tennessee, where after a year of renovations she will ply the muddy Mississippi as a cruise boat.  I plan to visit her, and see how close I got in describing the real thing.  Sure, the American Queen won't be stoked by ogres or be lit by magic, but otherwise they're much the same.

SyFy Channel Makes More Wise Decisions

Remember a show called Farscape?


Anybody else love Stargate Universe?


Well, if so, you can add Eureka to the list of good shows the SyFy Channel has canceled.

I'm pretty pissed about it, too.  Sure, the science on Eureka was often, um, well.  Wrong is such a harsh word.  But I didn't mind, because the show was funny and bright and able to wink at itself.  It had engaging characters, all well-written and masterfully portrayed.  It was entertaining, and I'm not the easiest guy to entertain.

And now it's gone, because some blubbering dunderhead at SyFy decided it was too expensive to produce.

I'm sure it was expensive.  Quality usually is.  And I wouldn't be so angry about the cancellation if I had any confidence that Eureka would be replaced by something other than a lame supernatural reality show or a half-assed reboot of some obscure 80s failure.

Or, Chthulhu forbid, more wrestling.  


This just in --

(AP)  An interview with SyFy Channel executives regarding the cancellation of 'Eureka' revealed that the network is moving toward a "drunker, more violent, criminally-insane demographic" which prefers shows centered around "wrestling, improbably large reptiles, and frequent appearances by semi-nude WWF celebrities liberally covered in body oil."


"We understand that some Eureka fans are upset, but frankly we don't give a crap," claimed one executive. "Have you seen my drink?"


"Isn't sci-fi supposed to be about giant snakes anyway?" asked another, as he fumbled with his bong. "Giant snakes and that Tiffany chick, right? Super."


The show destined to replace 'Eureka' in its Monday evening time slot, 'WrestlerSnake EXTREME," is already in production and will begin airing early next year.

London Burning

All my British friends are aghast at the violence sweeping parts of London tonight.  From what I see on Twitter, mobs are setting shops and homes aflame after looting them.  They're using Blackberry phones to coordinate their attacks, and I've also seen rumors that the rioters are targeting witnesses who tweet about it with Twitter's location feature.

The mob is composed of the ever-popular generic 'youth.'  The rioters call themselves protesters, angry over a police shooting.  Everyone else calls them looters, because anger over a police shooting is hard to equate with stripping the shelves of the nearest Best Buy before charging off to find a tennis shoe store.

The British police have thus far been over-run or reduced to standing around watching the flames.  Which might beg the question 'Why don't cops have guns?' but since I'm not British I suppose that's really none of my business.

I do wish all my British fans and friends safety and peace.  I hope you all emerge from this mess unscathed, unlooted, and un-arsoned.

These are difficult times.  I fear that before it starts getting better it's going to get a lot worse, for all of us.

Stay safe out there.

Google +, Boom or Bust?

I've spent about two weeks on Google+, which is of course Google's attempt to unseat Facebook as the most popular social networking site around (MySpace was last seen loitering, unkempt and alone, in a pawn shop parking lot on Detroit's notorious Eight Mile).

I like Google+.  I like the idea of sticking this person in one circle, and this other person in another, and knowing that people in my Work circle, for instance, won't see the endless stream of 'buy my book' begging I inflict upon my Fans circle.

There's also none of this adding friends business.  Facebook forces you to send potential 'friends' a friend request, which they must accept before any other communication commences.  With Google+, I just add any name I want to any circle I want (and you can create your own), and if that person gets tired of my inane ramblings they can quietly block me.  I'll never know it.  No muss, no fuss.

Google+ has just as many -- more, really -- bells and whistles as FB.  Better ones, too.  And you know what Google+ does not have?

Farmville.  Mafia Wars.  None of that.  I haven't been pestered by a single game app.  No one has encouraged me to 'Click here to see real pictures of Casey Anthony killing Osama bin Laden!'


I haven't seen a single poorly-worded exhortation that I repost some sophomoric bit of patriotic doubletalk or all-caps religious dogma.

Do I think Google+ will send Facebook packing anytime soon?

No.  But I do see a migration of some of FB's users to Google+.  A lot of people may find the relative lack of lame game apps and tee-hee joke reposts refreshing.

In fact, a mass migration of FB users to Google+ might be a bad thing, because it would inevitably bring Farmville and the like right along with it.

I still have a couple of Google+ invitations left.  Email me at franktuttle@franktuttle.com if you'd like one.  If you're already on Google+, say hi to me there!  Just make sure you talk to me -- there's another Frank Tuttle there.  He's a photographer, and a good one.

I'm also trying to become more active on Twitter.  Look to the right of this blog post - somewhere over there you'll find a FOLLOW ME button.  Click it if you're interested!

Edits Away!

The final edits for The Broken Bell are done and away!

Which is good.  Final edits done, I've seen an absolutely stunning sneak peek of the book cover -- it's been a good weekend to be a writer.

Tonight, I'm going to eat some vanilla ice cream with chocolate on top.  Karen and I will watch Leverage and Falling Skies.

And tomorrow, I'll start another book.

Writing is work, make no mistake.  There were times I almost threw in the proverbial towel.  But days like this make all the work worthwhile.

For everyone who's bought a Markhat book, thanks!  I hope you've enjoyed reading them.  I got an email today in which the sender asked if I planned to keep writing Markhat books.

The answer to that is a resounding yes.

Take care, all, and look for The Broken Bell in December!

Sneak Peek at All the Paths of Shadow

All the Paths of Shadow is due out in September of this year.  You can't see me right now, but I'm throwing confetti and blowing into one of those New Year's Eve noisemaker things.  I believe announcements about book releases deserve a bit of celebration.


Now I am happy to direct you to the following link, which leads you to a peek at the cover!

All the Paths of Shadow is here, at Cool Well Press site.  The cover is by Anne Cain, the same brilliant artist who did several Markhat book covers (you can see them here and here and here).  I love the way she can capture the mood of the book with her covers, and the way she slips important items from the story into each.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering -- is that brooding rangy fellow in the trench coat and the hat in the Markhat covers me?

Why yes, yes it is.  And when I say yes I mean no, I am lying through my keyboard, because I could wear the best hat in the world and never look that could.  But that's the magic of fiction.

So go, check out the cover for All the Paths of Shadow, and the other books Coming Soon on the Cool Well Press site too.

Time to start saving those pennies!

Hummingbirds and Random Images

The image above is of a mimosa tree bloom.  We have a big mimosa tree in the backyard, and every summer those blooms call every hummingbird from a hundred miles around.

Watching dozens of hummingbirds dart and weave and twist and turn amid the branches of that mimosa tree makes standing out in the heat almost worthwhile.  There must be ten thousand fat lush blooms on that tree, but all the hummingbirds do is fight over the same two dozen blooms.

There's probably a moral or some deep cosmic truth buried in that statement.  Or maybe hummingbirds just like to fight.  It's hot and frankly I don't care to ponder the matter further, but I thought a few of you might enjoy the picture.  That subtle glow that seems to emanate from the bloom's heart?

That's either a glimpse of the very life-force that infuses all living things, or I took the photo with the F-stop set wrong.  You decide.

I sent the edits for All the Paths of Shadow off last week, so I've spent this weekend working on a short story for a horror anthology coming out later this year.

Honestly, I was a little worried that I'm no longer able to even write short stories.  As far as I can tell the last time I wrote an actual short was in 2004 or so, which in writer's years equals 2,752 fortnights, or 12,000 half-penny furlongs.

A long stretch, in other words.

But I'm happy to report that things are going quite well with the short piece, which is entitled The Knocking Man.  I'm halfway done, the story is appropriately creepy and spooky without being overtly gory, and I think no one is going to expect the ending (though by this point the reader will think they've got it figured out, though they don't).  So I'll get my first short piece in years out well before the deadline.  Hopefully it'll be good enough to make it into the anthology.

And then it's back to the novels!  Markhat and Darla are getting impatient.  They heard something about a trip down the Brown River on a luxurious gambling boat and they're eager to get underway.

Me too.

Progress Report

My part of the second round edits for All the Paths of Shadow is nearly done.  I'll be shipping it off in a day or two, much improved I hope.

I really like this book.  It's a complete departure from the Markhat series, but I think it has a charm all its own.  I hope readers agree, when it hits the stands later this year.

The target audience for All the Paths of Shadow is young adult, and believe me, that's a tough crowd.  I'll be competing with a wild variety of flashy electronics and social media for their attention.  I think I would have loved the book, as a kid, but then I was a pretty weird kid so my opinion is almost certainly worthless in this regard.

I tried to make my characters strong ones.  I think that's one aspect of the Harry Potter books that made the series such a commercial juggernaut.  Harry and Ron And Hermione are loyal and brave and true to each other.  Hermione is a wonderful female character, too -- she's smart, tough, and self-assured.  Contrast Hermione with Bella from Twilight, and I think you'll see what I mean.  Hermione will never let her self-worth be dependent on some dude, vampire or other.

I'm not directly comparing my book,  All the Paths of Shadow, to the Harry Potter series.  They are wildly different; mine has elements of steampunk, for instance, and my protagonist is 18 when the story begins.  I didn't set my book on Earth.  My magic is a lot more like electrical engineering.  Heck, at one point Meralda the heroine even does math as part of the magic.  She also invents the electric light shortly before the book begins.

So I guess I'm hoping geeks like me will flock to the book.  Ladies too.  I purposely put Meralda down in the middle of a grumpy, bearded Old Boy's Club setting so she could set out to prove she was as smart as any of them.

But I should shut up about Paths of Shadow now.  Readers will vote with their wallets when it's released, and no amount of blathering on my part will affect that event in the least.

In other news, my persistent post-pneumonia cough is nearly gone.  I can breathe again without sounding like a mortally wounded bagpipe.  I feel ready to take up the chainsaw again, and start whittling away at the storm debris still lingering in the back yard.  Maybe this weekend.

One final note -- if anyone out there is on Google+ and feels like adding me, I'd be very grateful.  I need to keep up with the latest things you crazy kids are doing on there here Interwebs.

So email me!  franktuttle@franktuttle.com

Thanks!

Passing the Narrows

People seemed to enjoy The Powerful Bad Luck of DD Dupree (posted a link to the story a few blogs ago -- if you missed that one, click here to read the whole story, for free) so I'm going to post the first part of another Haunted South story in today's blog.

This one is called Passing the Narrows.  It was first published by Weird Tales in the spring of 2000, where it was later voted favorite in the issue.  It's one of my favorites too, because it's the closest thing I've ever written to a straight horror story.

Landing a sale to Weird Tales was a milestone for me.  That was no easy market.  Big names made regular appearances in those pages, Stephen King among them.  

I think I'd submitted one other piece to Weird Tales before putting Passing the Narrows in the mail.  That piece was The Mister Trophy, which they liked, but wouldn't run because it was too long.  I went on to sell The Mister Trophy twice, once to Adventures of Sword and Sorcery, and then again to Samhain Publishing as part of the Markhat series.

The editors at Weird Tales were sticklers for historical accuracy.  Even though Passing the Narrows is set in an alternate South where magic works, the folks at Weird Tales were insistent that every detail of the story was consistent with historical and geographic fact.

That insistence had me sweating.  I'd written the story after a cursory glance at a couple of maps and a brief remembrance of canoeing down in south Mississippi.  I'd looked up the names of a few famous Civil War generals and sprinkled them here and there.  

Painstaking research?

Um, no.  

Given the enthusiasm and knowledge of Civil War buffs, I was taking a huge risk with my casual attitude.  One wrong name.  A single misplaced river.  A battle put a few miles too far one way or another -- any of these mistakes could have seen me torn to whimpering little shreds in the letters section of Weird Tales magazine.

The editors knew that too, so they checked my fictional downriver route against maps.  They checked the names.  They made sure I had my riverboat references right.

I got lucky.  The story passed muster, and saw print, and I learned a valuable lesson about research, which is that blind dumb luck is a perfectly good substitute.  Once.  And I've used my free pass!

I'm pasting the first part of the story below.  If you like it, well, it's for sale here (about a buck) at Amazon, if you have a Kindle (or you have the free Kindle app on your PC or other device).  

Anyway, enjoy the excerpt!

                       Passing the Narrows

                         by Frank Tuttle

     The Yocona surged ahead, paddle-wheel churning, cylinders beating like some great, frightened heart.
     "Dark as Hell and twiced as hot," muttered Swain from the shadows behind the clerk's map-table.
     A ragged chorus of ayes answered.  The Captain checked his pocket watch; ten o'clock sharp.  Old Swain and his hourly announcements hadn't lost a minute in twenty years.
     The Captain snapped his pocket watch shut and peered out into the darkness.  There, to port, loomed a hulking mass of shadow twice the height of any around it -- Cleary's Oak, last marker before the riverboat landing at Float.  "We're an hour from Float, Mr. Barker.  Notify the deck crew we'll be putting in for the night."
     "Aye, Cap'n."
     "She won't like that," said Swain, whispering.  "Fit to be tied, she'll be.  Full of fire and steam."
     "Who, Swain?"
     "You know who.  The wand-waver.  The Yankee."
     "Go back to sleep."
     "I heard her talkin' while the boys were hauling me up the deck," said Swain, gesturing with the stump of his missing right arm.  "Said she was aimin' to make Vicksburg 'fore the moon came again.  Said she had orders, and papers, and -- "
     "I give the orders here, Swain.  Not any damn Yankee wand-wavers."
     Swain cackled.  The Yocona churned past Cleary's Oak, picking up speed as the Yazoo River turned narrow and straight. The Captain rang three bells, and the thump-thump-thump of the pistons slowed.
     The Yocona’s running lamps began to touch the trees on each bank of the Yazoo River.  Shadows whirled and twisted, caught mid-step in some secret dance before fleeing back into the impenetrable murk beyond the first rank of trees.  Some few seemed to run just ahead of the light, capering and tumbling like shards of a nightmare given flesh and let loose to roam.
     The shadows reminded the Captain of Gettysburg and Oxford and a hundred other haunted ruins left in the wake of the war. The Yazoo River was the only safe route through the countryside now, unless you were a sorcerer, a Yankee, or a fool.
     "Eyes ahead, boys," said the Captain, softly.  "They're only there if you look."
     The pilothouse door flew open and slammed like a rifle-shot. The Captain whirled, cursing.
     In the dim red glow of the pilothouse night-lamps, the Yankee in the doorway looked little more real than the shadows in the trees.  A long blue Union sorcerer's robe and hood concealed all but angry green eyes and long, pale hands.
     "Why are we stopping at Float?" said the sorceress.
     "Warned you," whispered Swain.
     The sorceress stepped forward and glared down at Swain. "You are the Captain of this vessel?"
     Swain guffawed.  "No ma'am," he said.  "I'm the clerk.  If you want a freight book marked or a Federal river-map copied I'll be happy to oblige."  Swain cocked his head.  "Tell the truth, now -- don't them robes get awful hot?"
     The sorceress turned, traded frowns with the Captain.
     "You gave the order to put ashore at Float?" she said.
     "I did," said the Captain.
     "You will rescind your order.  We will proceed on to Vicksburg.  Tonight.  With all possible speed."
     The Captain turned his back to the sorceress and listened to the paddle wheels for a time.  Far off in the night, he heard the shriek of another riverboat's steam-whistle.
     "Get off my bridge," said the Captain, staring out into the shadows.  "Get off, and stay off."
     "We go to Vicksburg."
     "Tomorrow.  First light.  Not before."
     The sorceress stepped forward.  "I am an official representative of the United States government," she said.  "I have Papers of Empowerment which authorize me to commandeer this vessel, if necessary.  Is it?"
     "Just like a Yankee," said Swain.  "Commandeerin' stern-wheelers without no notion of how to steer one.  How far you reckon you'd get before you found a sand-bar or a snag?"
     "Vicksburg," snapped the sorceress.
     "Hell," said Swain.  "In pieces, you might." Swain scooted himself sideways on his bench, grinning as he saw the sorceress look down at the stumps of his legs and then look quickly away.
     Another steam whistle rang out, and another.  "Hear that?" asked Swain.  "Two more boats puttin' in at Float.  Probably twenty there, maybe more, every one of 'em losin' time and money by stoppin' for the night."  Swain cackled.  "Ain't many things tighter than a Mississippi river-boat master's fist, wand-waver, and there's some that would steer for Hell itself if they thought the devil had a penny in his britches.  But not a one of 'em will pass the Yazoo Narrows without a moon, and that's a fact."
     "One will tonight," said the sorceress.  "Or he'll get off and watch me take his craft.  I don't care which." Papers rustled.  "This is a Presidential writ, Captain," she said.  "This craft and my cargo are going on to Vicksburg.  Tonight. Any further obstruction will be met with force.  Is that clear?"
     "Go to Hell," said the Captain, not turning.  "Go to Hell and take Lincoln with you."
     Paddle-wheels churned.  Tiny flickers of light played over the backs of the sorceress's hands.
     "We'll need half a hour at Float to unload the passengers and such of the crew that ain't eager to die, ma'am," said Swain. "Course, since Yer Mightyness is in a hurry, we could just throw the women an' babies off now."
     The sorceress let out her breath in a long weary sigh.  The glow at her fingers vanished.  "You may have half an hour at Float," she said.  "No more."
     The Captain was silent.  The sorceress turned and stepped through the open door and then turned again to fix the Captain's back with a glare.  "I will forget your insubordination if there are no further difficulties between us, Captain," she said.  "And I may have neglected to mention that you will be reimbursed for any losses you incur if passengers remain behind."  The Captain didn't stir.
     "The War is over," muttered the Sorceress.  "Why can't you people accept the peace?"
     "I reckon," said Swain, nodding toward the haunted night beyond the pilothouse, "because it ain't any too peaceful south of Memphis these days, yer Yankeeship."
     The door slammed.  The sorceress's heavy footfalls faded, buried under the Yocona’s steady throbbing.
     "Well, Captain," said Swain quietly, "Guess I just saved your ass from the Yankees.  Again."
     The Captain shook his head and lit a cigar.  Purple-grey smoke drifted wraithlike through the pilothouse.  "You believe the stories about the Narrows, Swain?"  asked the Captain. "Because if you do, you just sent us all to Hell."
     Swain pulled himself back into the darkness behind the map table.  "Bound for it anyway, ain't we?"  he said.  "This way, maybe we get to take a Yankee wand-waver with us."
     The Captain took a long draw of the cigar and watched the shadows tumble all the way to Float.

Click here to purchase Passing the Narrows!

Editors and Editing!

This latest round of editing on All the Paths of Shadow has taught me one thing.  Well, two things.  First of all, I need to pay more attention to Point-of-view (POV) shifts.  And second, I need to stop using the word 'gaggle' more than once a week.

It doesn't bother me to jump from one head to the next in a book.  Probably because I run through at least nine different personalities in my own head each and every day.  There's Work Frank, there's Hungry Frank and Grumpy Frank, there's Distracted Frank and Frank Who Is Listening To Pink Floyd In His Head And Who Can't Be Bothered With Anything Else Right Now.  Mainly the latter.  I like Pink Floyd.

But that's no way to write a book.  Pick a POV and stick with it, unless you have a good reason to switch, and just cracking a joke is not a good reason.

And repetition of words.  I'm bad about that.  Worse, I have trouble spotting the repetitions later, which means they slip past my own internal editor, who is apparently spending a lot of time with Frank Who Is Listening To Pink Floyd In His Head And Who Can't Be Bothered With Anything Else Right Now.

Which is why I'm lucky that my books aren't self-published.  Because if they were, I might never have spotted some serious issues with the prose and the structure.

Fortunately, I'm paired with some very accomplished editors (Beth at Samhain, Christine at Cool Well) who see what I don't or can't, and flag it for discussion.

I've read a lot of comments by self-pubbed authors who claim they're glad they don't have to submit their works to any sort of editorial process.  This gives them full creative freedom, they claim, and I suppose they have just that.

Maybe it works for them.  But I've come to realize that it most certainly does not work for me.

Markhat wouldn't have Darla, for instance, if Beth hadn't suggested that certain events in the original manuscript of Hold the Dark play out quite differently.  And Beth was right -- if I'd insisted on keeping the original chain of events, the whole series would be floundering right now.

We're still editing All the Paths of Shadow, and already it's much improved from the original because Christine has spotted several gaffes I'd have gleefully left intact.

It's not that I'm a sloppy writer.  I'm not.  But I'm human, and I make mistakes, and then later I tend to read what I meant to write, and not what's actually on the screen.

My point, if indeed I have one, is this -- the next time you read a really good book, say a quick word of thanks to the editor who helped bring it to life.  Even if the editor's name isn't on the cover, I assure you that they helped shape the book just as surely as the author.

I'm not against self-publishing, mind you.  I've self-pubbed a few of my own previously sold titles just for fun.  But when people ask me now why I don't just go straight to Kindle, I'll have a better answer than 'Uh, well, er, hmm.'

Two heads are indeed better than one, especially when one of the heads in question is mine!