Colin Harvey – author

Well, here we are and it’s the 31st of August.

To celebrate the official US release of Winter Song (yes, really! Have I mentioned it already?) the lovely, intelligent and charming Sharon Reamer has updated an interview with me that orinally ran in Allegory magazine a full twelve months ago.  There’s plenty more where that one came from!

In fact, I’m not quite sure whether it’s actually in the shops, or just means that it’s officially in a warehouse in Omaha, or Oregon, or…

And this morning I finished the wip. 613 words over, but that’s not bad for a 105,000 word novel. It’ll be put to one side now, while I think about re-writes for a month.

Finally, but equally importantly, I wrapped the last of Kate’s presents yesterday.

All done and on target — a nice red letter day!

I’ve been concentrating lately on ticking off the multiple deadlines falling on August 31st.

It’s starting to come together, and to celebrate Winter Song‘s realease into the wild in the US with a series of links and teasers over at Suite101.

More tomorrow, this time on Dark Spires.

It’s now 14 days until August 31st, a date which grows increasingly significant with every day. That’s because organizations and individuals target the first and last days of the month, so the 31st is always busy with some deadline or other.

It’s also the day before Kate’s birthday, by which time I need to have sneaked any goodies into the house and wrapped them. So usually in August I’m getting a little stressy. Although this year, I no longer have the annual influx of applications for the SLF‘s Annual Travel Grant.

Still, when I planned my summer workload it seemed to be against a view of one looooong siesta as I dozed beneath the apple tree from the end of the 1st year in May, to the 2nd year in early October.  I calculated that if I could finish the draft of Ultramassive by August 31st, I could take a month off before going back to uni. So far, so good; I’m 80% of the way through, and if I can keep producing my target wordage, I’ll make it, bang on schedule.

And although Dark Spires is to be launched at Bristolcon, the printers only need a couple of weeks, so I figured that with any luck I could even write the story for it in early October — at least, if I was lucky… if not, then late September. 

Ah, I thought smugly. A plan is hatched…

The first flaw came at the end of May. Angry Robot announced that they were gearing up the US launch to start with Winter Song. They are launching in September, but monthly deliveries go out on the last Tuesday of the previous month, which is….de de de de de de de…August 31st. (It’s actually great news, but it was about two or three months earlier than I’d expected, and Leeee keeps shouting at me for more interviews and more blog material!!!!)

Now, having thought that I could get away with a gap before turning my full attention to Dark Spires, it transpires that WTP’s lovely copy editor is expecting her first child soon, and we need to get all the editing done soonest. Last Friday I learned that it’s due…August 31. 

And that first annual deadline hasn’t gone away — at some point I need to get Kate’s birthday presents before she returns from holiday on…August 31st. (Can anyone recommend a mains-operated DAB radio that also picks up FM?) 

I know, I know. I could be writing, blogging, editing or…ew, shopping…instead of whinging about it. But hey, my therapist tells me it’s good to share.

But if anyone else has any deadlines for this date, keep them to yourself — at least until September the 1st.

Please? Pretty please?

You may have noticed a distinct lack of bloggage lately — not only have I been head down on Ultramassive (three-quarters of the way through), but I’ve also been flat out editing the subs for Dark Spires, and on top of that I’ve had Leee at Angry Robot c-cracking the whip.

But now I’m within 19 days of finishing the Ultramassive draft, and the last sub  for the anthology is in, so come September I might even take a day or two off. Although there’s Mrs H’s birthday to sort out.

So I’d better get on with some shopping….

I got back at about midnight from London, where the wonderful Lauren Beukes of Moxyland  fame continued her tour to promote her new novel, Zoo City with an evening at the BSFA. Not only does she write like a demon, she reads marvellously as well, putting real feeling into it. The room was packed, and the audience responded with some stretching questions.

But getting back at midnight, and rising at 5.30 does not make an ideal situation in which to put the novel aside, and to start working on a story for Dark Spires.

Still, it has to be done so I gritted my teeth and with the ease of giving birth, ground out 2250 words this morning. That’s actually about 50% more than I planned, but I found the first 1500 so tough that it was only when I passed target that the words began to flow with anything approaching ease.

And now they’ve started to slow again, so I shall put it aside, and maybe read some review material this afternoon. Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker arrived this morning, and yea verily, it looks good.

I’ve not got much work done the last 24 hours or so, although I’ve managed to write my 1400 words for the day, so the only thing I’m behind on is the various guest blogs I’ve promised people for September to support the Angry Robot launch.

Yesterday I had to shoot into Newton Park to drop off my second consecutive change of course form, as I managed to balls-up the first. Because my academic grades were insufficient to qualify for the BA course, I had to take the DipHE in the first year as the equivalent of academic probation.

So last week was about changing up to the BA course, but the more I thought about it, the more I debated whether to continue with Media Studies, which is interesting but demands most work for lowest return in terms of grades. So I’ve switched from a joint to a single degree, but that meant printing out and completing a second change of course form, which meant a second consecutive visit to the Ghost Town (cue the Specials aka) that is NP.

While I was there I printed out my interim timetable, which was immediately obsolescent  as soon as the Head of Department signed the change form.

So unless I can suddenly access the timetable network remotely, I shall need to make a third visit to the site!

Meanwhile Kate’s taken the day off, which meant a lovely lie-in; with no alarm I slept through until the decadent hour of 7.30. So now I’m running about two hours late. Not that I’m complaining, you understand — the extra sleep was loverly…

Although I’ve dully completed my 1400 words this morning, focusing on the wip has been quite tricky, as a lot of stories seem to be breaking at the same time. I’m not the only one who’s been busy…

First of all, the inaugural Angry Robot podcast is up at their website. It sounds as if Marco and Leeeeeëe are having way too much fun in their padded cell, and Mrs H and I chortled at the note of bemusement that host Mur Lafferty tried -and failed- to keep from her voice as she tried to bring some sanity to the proceedings.  Joking apart, there are some great insights on the state of publishing and some of its possible futures.

Secondly, huge congratulations to fellow author Gareth L Powell, who has been equally busy in a less obtrusive way; yesterday he announced the sale of his novel The Recollection to Solaris Books, who had this to say. The beers are on you on Monday week, Gareth…

And lastly, Cheryl Morgan has also been busy. She’s announced a new venture, Wizard’s Tower Press. The new company will publish a new non-fiction magazine, Salon Futura, as well as a number of out-of-print works, and a small number of new books. The first of those new books will be Dark Spires, edited by Yours Truly. More details are here and will follow as we get a ToC. 

As well as blogging, interviewing and pimping cons like Bristolcon and London 2014, Cheryl does a huge amount of work behind the scenes, and Wizard’s Tower Press deserves to succeed. Good luck, Cheryl.

Over at Suite101.

It’s been a pretty damn fine morning so far.

Outlined a novelette for a forthcoming anthology; afterwards wrote the daily 1400 words of the wip. As twittered earlier, managed to read the first chapter of each of the Angry Robot novels without Tourette’s Dog taking off vertically with nil warning (as she often does and) unleashing an unprovoked barrage of canine abuse at the world in general. Then -best of all- got the release dates for the books.

Winter Song will be out on August 31st, which is terrific since I can start book-specific rather than general blathering. And it’s only eight weeks away.  There’ll be more news on books in the wild in the next few weeks, but I’m going to eke out every nugget like a miser.

Let’s see if this afternoon can be as good!

There’s a fascinating guest blog on the Angry Robot website from Harry Markov about the increasing fragmentation of speculative fiction. What’s interesting, and perhaps unique to SF is the amount of time that genre readers spend analyzing and debating what it is that they’re actually reading. That said, while what much of Markov has to say is interesting, I’m not sure that I buy into ‘SF is dying,’ particularly as he produces no supporting argument for such a sweeping assertion. 

I may be biased, of course, since I write SF. Two thousand more words of it written this morning to make up for yesterday’s relatively unproductive day. I’m back on track again.