You know you’re in good hands when they feed you cupcakes

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting the marketing team at Random House for a little Powerless pre-publication pow-wow (alliteration, anyone?).  They were gracious, enthusiastic and made me feel like a real honest-to-goodness author.

And they fed me cupcakes.

I suspect that this is a privilege reserved for only the select few.  I suspect there are a whole host of authors out there who, upon reading this, might place a frantic early-Monday morning call to their agents and editors demanding to re-negotiate their contracts to insure a cupcake clause.  But I am sorry to share the following, daunting publishing facts with you:

• Of the percentage of writers who garner the majority of their income from writing, less than 5% are given cupcakes.

• Of that 5% (let’s call them the cupcake class), less than 3% are offered a choice of vanilla OR chocolate, and their quantities are severely limited.

• This leaves a minuscule 1.5% of published authors who are provided a choice of cupcake flavors and encouraged to eat their fill.

Them’s the tough facts, folks.  So what I’m saying is – don’t quite carrying around your own snack cakes.

Random Bits on New Year’s Eve

As winter break comes to a close, I’m spending these last few days spending time with family, lesson planning for next semester’s classes, and writing.  The new book is going well, though it’s no longer called the 100 Year-Old Bookclub, in fact there isn’t  book club to be found (though the hundred years still has some significance).  The working title is currently, The Last Explorer.  Not nearly as cool, but there it is.

One of the things we have been doing over this break is a cleaning of the bookshelves for our (mostly)annual book donation to Housing Works.  This serves a dual purpose of going to a very good cause as well as keeping our smallish New York apartment from being overtaken by books.  Keeping the corners free of stacks and stacks of books has become extra-important now that Will is getting ready to walk.

So which books do you keep?  Which do you give away?  At times like this I always try to impose some kind of rule, such as “If it’s been on my shelf for more than two years unread then it goes.”  or “All previously read paperbacks must go”.  I know, nice try.  What about that well-worn Henning Mankell  collection that a friend gave me several years ago?  I haven’t worked my way through all of them yet, and they look so nice together on the shelf . . .  and what about the battered paperback of A Game of Thrones?  I’ve read it twice and some day might go back for a third.  I might.

So in the end there is no rhyme or reason.  But today I will be braving the cold and the snow to deliver bags of books downtown, some of which are bound to be well-loved, earmarked and creased, others will be like-new.  You decide which are the better finds.

Since I already did the 2008 reflective post, so here are some random links of interest to me, some of which are long overdue:

Christopher Barzak has some interesting thoughts about the book recession and its effect (or lack thereof) on the YA market.  I think he’s on to something with the price issue.

Forget Jurassic Park, a scientist has discovered a 140 million year-old spider web encased in amber.  How creepy would that movie have been?

An old friend of mine recently brought the blog/review site Guy’s Lit Wire to my attention and I’m really enjoying it.  (The fact that her husband is a contributor did not sway me a bit.  Not a bit.)

This post by fellow Fantastic Salooner Justin Howe made me spit coffee through my nose.  Christmas in Tokyo and Atrocity Meat.

Have a Happy New Year’s Everyone!

Happy Wren’s Day

Here in the States, another Christmas has come and gone.  But there are still places in the world where the Twelve Days of Christmas are still going strong.  In certain, more celebritory, parts of the world this time of year is a series of festivals and feasts (unless you happen to be the unfortunate family in a Susan Cooper novel, then the Twelve Days are a long battle against The Rising Dark).

So to those of you who can’t do it cold turkey, who need a little soft come-down from the holiday crack, I say Happy Wren’s Day!  (Or happy St. Stephen’s day, if you prefer a less pagan observance).

In Irish traditions past, Dec. 26 would see a great hunt for the King of All Birds, the treacherous Wren.  Having been chased down by groups of rampaging boys (or simply dying from exhaustion) the wren would then be dangled from a stout staff and used to beg for treats as the Wren Boys, dressed in wren masks and face paint, caroled from door to door.

Today, the wren is hung in effigy and the King Bird allowed to sit upon his throne unmolested ( for the most part).  The wily Wren Boys still sing a variation of this rhyme:

The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,

St. Stephen’s Day was caught in the furze,

Although he was little his honour was great,

Jump up me lads and give us a treat.

As I was going to Killenaule,

I met a wren upon the wall.

Up with me wattle and knocked him down,

And brought him in to Carrick Town.

Droolin, Droolin, where’s your nest?

Tis in the bush that I love best

In the tree, the holly tree,

Where all the boys do follow me.

Up with the kettle and down with the pan,

And give us a penny to bury the wren.

I followed the wren three miles or more,

Three miles or more three miles or more.

I followed the wren three miles or more,

At six o’clock in the morning.

I have a little box under me arm,

Under me arm under me arm.

I have a little box under me arm,

A penny or tuppence would do it no harm.

So if the Wren Boys visit your home tonight, please spare a penny or two, or a cake or other sugary treat.  Here in the Cody-home, we’ll probably be watching HGTV.

Will is turning one tomorrow, which means that I’ll have to change my categories from “Babies” to “Toddlers”.  This is absolutely breaking his poor mother’s heart.  She is wandering around the apartment wondering where her little handful of a baby went (actually he was never a handful, he was nicknamed the Champion by the hospital nurses).

Me, I’m all reflective and nostalgic.  The end of the year has come early for me – its a milestone.  This has me thinking a lot about 2008 and trying to figure out what it a was all about.  2007 was easy to figure – it was a big year.  In 2007 my wife got pregnant, I signed my first book contract, went to Clarion, had a crazy health scare that had a happy ending and, of course, Will was born.  Big freaking year.

2008, on a personal level, was much less momentous but just as important.  Powerless is done and ready to go but we are still 10 months away from publication.  At home its been all about raising Will to be a happy, healthy one-year old who gets all twitchy when he sees daddy’s original Millenium Falcon (proud of that, thank you very much).  2008 was not my most productive year as a writer, but in some ways I attribute that to all the really interesing stuff that was going on around me.  With the historic election, the financial meltdown, Phelps the Dolphin-Man and the cries of “apocalypse!” in publishing world, there was just too much distracting real-world stuff to look at.  In many ways 2008 has been about nesting in against the turmoil of the world outside and enjoying the stability of family (albiet a sleep-deprived stability).

In 2009, my first book will finally come out and I’ll finish writing my second.  Will’s going to be walking and talking.  I cannot wait to hear what he has to say.

Fall, Pumpkins and Carousels

It should come as no surprise that this is my favorite time of year.  I suspect that if you polled writers in general you’d get the same answer as often as not.  There is something about the chill in the air, the early evenings and the changing leaves that sparks the imagination.  Bradbury captured this time of year wonderfully in Something Wicked This Way Comes, devilish, time-reversing carousels and all.

It’s the season of stories really – beginning now with ghost stories at night by the fire (or for us city folk, by the radiator), stories of thankfulness and remembrance in November and, of course, tales of Christmas and Hannakah to usher in the long winter months.

Today was sunny and crisp – jacket and long scarf weather outside.  Tea and warm socks weather inside.  It was the perfect day to stay in and finish that space story I owe my writers group.

Instead, we went to the carousel.  Thankfully, everyone was the same age getting off, as they were getting on.

I’ve been (mostly) working.

I’ve been gone a long time, but due to the demand of thousands of worried readers (well, one) I’m back for some more intermittent nonsense.  By the way, check out Kater’s story in this creepy-cool anthology, hot off the presses!

I’ve been teaching nights in an English immersion program at LaGuardia Community College – a really wonderful city initiative that is rewarding and a whole lot of work.  The plus side is that I’ve now got my days free to spend with my baby boy, and I will proudly brag that his first words were ” Da-Da”.  Snap.

Some updates on Powerless:

Final edits on Powerless have been approved, I’ve seen some terrific cover art and now I’m just waiting on notes from the copy editor.  We’re still looking at a Fall ’09 release, but I hope to get advance copies before the NY Comic-Con.  I don’t know if we’ll be able to swing that but it would be nice to hand out a few copies to the kiddies and chubby stormtroopers at the con.  I can’t wait to see it in actual book form.

I’ve also begun two new novels, which is incredibly frustrating because I only have one brain and seeing as how its a rather small and feeble brain anyway I’m having a hard time focusing on one.  I’ve been showing bits and pieces of both to my agent, my editor and, of course, my wife.  Hopefully they will provide some objective perspective and I’ll get cracking on just the one book.

So I’ll either be spending my autumn with American revolutionary magicians or steampunk explorers.  Both sound like good company right about now.

On that note, here are some more Steampunk Star Wars figures.  Check out the Ewok!

oh, and I started playing City of Heroes this weekend.  So, you know, goodbye writing career.  Goodbye family . . .

My boy.

Seriously.

Obviously my baby wants a Kindle

This weekend was spent mostly hanging out with Baby Will, and we had a grand old time together reading, giggling and making spit bubbles. (I’m a slightly better reader but Will has got the giggling and spit bubble parts down pat).

It is remarkably hard to tear myself away from that little sprout and write. I often walk around the apartment moaning that “if I only had an office, I’d get so much more done” but I suspect that this is a bit of bunk. If I had a room down the hall, I would just be that much closer to the cute and therefore more easily tempted by it’s spit-bubble making trickery. The only thing the office would be good for would be displaying all of my geeky stuff. Comics, books, statues . . . on second thought the office is a fine idea. I’m back on the office train!

It’s a thing, I suppose. Time spent with Will is probably the most important job I have right now, but it’s a slippery balancing act. You’d think they would have licked this family/career thing long ago. Someone needs to get back to work on that, please.

Drafts delivered and a ripping good yarn

So I’m sorry that I’ve been MIA lately – between finishing edits on Powerless and watching the unbearable cuteness that is my son I have had little time to blog.

But I have been reading and man it’s a good one. The Lies of Locke Lamora is one of those door-stopper sized fantasy novels that intimidate 98 pound readers like me. But I am about 400 pages through it so far and I am loving every page. No “chosen one” farmboys here, no axe-wielding orcs and Scottish dwarves or boy wizards – just good old fashioned skullduggery! Think Ocean’s Eleven set in a fantastical Venice filled with wit and adventure. The writing is superb. The story is absolutely engrossing.

What a great read. (so far, if the ending blows I’ll find Scott Lynch and hammer him to death with this twenty-pound monster)

Kid, it’s only going to get worse