One of the cool things about yesterday's big post (other than the fact that I didn't get much work done at my day job, I was so distracted with the news), is that I found a nice reader review of THE WANNOSHAY CYCLE from Rambler's journal. Here's a nice snippet of the review:

I will say, though, that the depiction of aliens is up there with Niven's Ringworld aliens, in my opinion. It is superior to those, in some ways. I felt like I *knew* these creatures better than I ever knew the Puppeteer or the other alien from RINGWORLD. I could visualize them much better than I could the alien beings in Asimov's THE GODS THEMSELVES, and the aliens in Robert Sawyer's CALCULATING GOD were less well described, I thought.

Jasper's vision of the near future, an Earth where things like You Tube and blogging have been extrapolated to one possible logical conclusion, where the government's response to terrorism has become a way of life in itself, sort of, where designer drugs evolve into Blur, was both familiar but yet clearly IN the future. I thought it was very well imagined and described.

It's a good, insightful review, and I'm pleased to see that Rambler really appreciated some of the themes I tried to put into the book. Plus it really made me feel good to read that my aliens were in some ways better than aliens created by SF master Isaac Asimov as well as Larry Niven and Robert Sawyer. Major ego-boo there!

Rambler -- Thanks for reading. You made a really good day even better. Later.

Okay, so I can finally tell everyone what I've been dying to share for a while now -- I am now represented by Colleen Lindsay of FinePrint Literary Management.

Let's take a few moments to let that sink in, shall we?

...

...

...

Okay, now -- Woo hoo!

Here's the official word on Colleen's blog. I'm very excited to be working with Colleen -- she knows the industry inside and out, she has some great, great ideas about where I should go with my writing career, and she's already lit a huge fire under me about my novels-in-progress.

Huge, huge thanks to writing pal Kathy Sedia, who talked me up to Colleen (and without any bribing needed on my part!) to get the ball rolling. I owe you a couple rounds of drinks now, Kathy!

Special thanks to my buddies Cinque and Tammy for their mad contract-reading skillz as well. You guys rock, and please don't bill me!

Wow. What a crazy few days these have been. Okay, now. Back to work! Later!!!

We've come across a good run of movies on Netflix recently. Now that Mr. "I Don't Nap Anymore, Thanks" Drew goes to bed around 7:30 or 8 (versus 10 p.m. when he used to take an afternoon nap), Elizabeth and I actually have time to WATCH a movie, once the boys are asleep. Now, to get Mr. "Almost Six Months Old" Mitch to sleep all night. One challenge at a time...

So here's my take on the good flicks we've seen lately:

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Following the auspicious lead of Sean W and Kathy S, I wanted to let people know that if you'd like to read my novel A Gathering of Doorways in its entirety (now, months before anyone else!), just let me know. You can email me at mjasper@gmail.com or leave a handy-dandy comment.

If you're interested, I'll send you a PDF of the whole durn book -- featuring half-men, packs of feral greyhounds, magical black balls, lost kids, nightmare cities underground, a dragon, and more.

All I ask in return is you review or just mention the book in your blog or FaceBook or MySpace page, or even just tell your neighbor or your local bookstore owner, sometime close to the September 2008 release date of the book.

Okay, that's all from me, for now. Buh-bye. Later!

So, the bookshelves are assembled and filled with books:

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... I miss writing. Writing fiction, that is. Not tech writing or writing checks.

Maybe one'a these days I'll get back to it. Maybe.

That is all.

We made it back from Ocracoke yesterday, after a lovely four days and three nights of fishing, eating, drinking, and chasing after the kids. Very fun. I even made a little cash (which paid for our meals out!) at the always-awesome Books to be Red bookstore by selling copies of all three of my books. Sweet.

I even caught a fish, out near Teach's Hole on the Pamlico Sound (an eight-inch trout, which we tossed back).

The kids were great, though the two toddlers had their moments of High Drama, let me tell you. Mitch was an angel, except for the last night there, when his new teeth he was cutting bothered him and made him get up THREE times. We got to celebrate our friend Jennifer's birthday and relax on the boat and in the house. And the kids ran and ran on the sand and in the (chilly) surf.

Here's the sun setting, from John's boat:
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Well, so much for getting a first draft of this book done by May...

Instead of stressing and feeling all-around grumpy about this fact, I'm instead giving myself permission to not write, to not worry about writing, and to just goof off for a while. Sounds weird, I know, but it's been a crazy month or five. With two youngsters in the house, everything becomes a challenge, even finding time to walk the dog.

But in spite of the hectic-ness of it all, we've been getting a lot of items knocked off our ToDo list, like painting my office (still loving the Bungalow Blue, which I keep wanting to call Burgundy Blue, which of course makes no sense at all), dropping off a pile of stuff at Goodwill and the Habitat "ReStore" so the garage is organized, and starting work on my bookcases.

We were thinking about building them ourselves, with my dad's help, but I didn't want to wait, and I knew we wouldn't have the time. I found some nifty, affordable bookcases at Target, and as soon as I get my advance moolah, we're buying the other three so we can have a wall o' books in the Burgundy Blue office.

Here's the first one:( Read more... )

The following links are for Jamie, aka memory39:

• In honor of Jamie Bishop


• Things to do


• Through Virginia Tech death, a life is reborn


• Va. Tech families, survivors turn grief into action


• Light a candle for victims of gun violence

I don't have much to say beyond that. Just this: take care.

Oh my, this journal has become so self-centered lately, I have to apologize. I really do have to come up with some better content these days, but with the newly five-month-old critter still waking up 1-3 times a night, I have yet to get on a good writing schedule.

I long for the times when I could get up at 4:45 a.m. and sit down and actually write. If I do happen to muster the energy to roll out of bed early, it's rare I have the desire to be creative. I usually end up doing bills or something...

But sometimes the universe comes around to kick you in the butt. That happened today when I saw the following piece of an in-depth interview with publisher Sean Wallace, talking about his upcoming books for 2008 and beyond:

For September we have two scheduled: A Gathering of Doorways, by Michael Jasper, which resonated really nicely for me, and which I’m proud to publish, the story of a missing child who leads his parents on a quest on and underneath their land. This is actually the first of two books (the other being Maps and Legends) that I’ve bought from Jasper, and both are stunning in their own right.

Sweet. Maybe I can remember this early in the morning tomorrow when I'm tempted to stay sleeping instead of getting up and finishing the latest Chapter That Would Not Be Finished (that is, chapter six). Later!

Last night, after Lizzie and Drew had both crashed for the night, Mr. Mitch decided he wanted to stay up for a while. He was all fidgety, so I put him in his Exersaucer and checked email and surfed around for a while. Ever since we painted it, my office has been really dark at night, and I just had one lamp on. Mitch loved it -- he'd bounce around, find something to chew on, make noise every now and then. And whenever I'd look over at him, he'd look up at me and give me the biggest grin in the world. Too cute.

And then he proceeded to sleep from about 9:30 p.m. to 4 a.m.

I think he's getting the hang of this sleeping-at-night thing, at last (knock on wood). We've had a couple good nights like that, and I'm tentatively hopeful. The trick now is getting him to sleep -- his eyes flick open at 7 or 8 p.m. every night and he looks at us like he's just had a double cappuccino. The kid gets wired right before he crashes.

The nice thing is that his good sleep is helping me get good sleep, and I actually rolled out of bed early and got a couple pages done on the novel, after a week or so away from it. I'm just forging ahead at this point, slapping words down willy-nilly and hoping they make sense. I have to keep reminding myself not to go back, but keep moving ahead. I just have to get the story down right now, even if it's rough and ugly-looking and a bit smelly sometimes...

Now, to continue this process again tomorrow, and the next day. Later!

Not a lot of writing going on lately, but busy with stuff with the house (our garage, it is organized!) and day job stuff, and trying to find time to do some reading now and then. At some point I'll get going on the early-morning writing sessions again. I hope!

Just surfing around tonight, I found this nifty review of the Wannoshay novel, and I had to share:

Michael Jasper's first novel is a first contact story, opening with the crashing of alien spaceships in North America. In a sequence of events vaguely reminiscent of the Alien Nation movie and television series, the survivors are slowly being integrated into human society when an unfortunate incident suggests they are dangerous. As a result, they are sequestered in detainment centers. Some of the champions of the aliens suspect that they were not responsible for the disastrous incident and set out to find the truth. Their investigations take them to one of the ships where they discover the truth about the aliens' culture and physiology. I've always liked first contact stories because they provide a way of examining the human condition from a slightly, or sometimes greatly, altered point of view. Jasper has a clear, crisp prose style and and nice feel for his characters. The story moves smoothly and without loss of momentum. I thought it might be just a hair too long for its premise, but it wasn't bloated. I'll be looking forward to his next. 12/17/07
-- Don D'Ammassa

That came at a nice time -- I was feeling a bit down about my own writing lately, not feeling inspired. It's amazing what a nice word or two can do for the ol' pride. Later!

(the new and improved version, with ExerSaucer!)
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I'm about ready to roll out of here -- I haven't been able to get a whole lot done, because in about 12 hours, our little 4.5-month-old will be heading into surgery. Ugh. Mitch is getting tubes tomorrow morning, since he's had five ear infections already, and we're really hoping that surgery -- which is really pretty minor and won't take long at all -- will help him get and stay healthy. The poor guy has been sick, either with reflux or ear infections, since Day One.
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Whew -- just finished writing up a list of the copy-edits to my Doorways novel, and I'm not saying how many typos I had, but let's just agree it was a bunch. Damn. I'm embarrassed at how many times I used the same word in the same sentence or adjacent, or how many times I had a character's words "catch in his throat" or had their face grow hot. My favorite was "sudden sandals" instead of "sodden sandals."

But I digress. What I'm really here to tell you about is the release of the Paper Cities anthology from Senses Five Press.



This book contains 21 "urban fantasy" stories from a pile of talented writers, and somehow my story slipped in there too. Urban fantasy is a pretty fast-and-loose term for stories taking place in a city, with some sort of weird or speculative twist to them.

My story, "Painting Haiti," is set in Raleigh, just a few years ago, when the government of Haiti was in turmoil once more. My main character, Claudia, is from Haiti but living and working in America, sending money to what's left of her family back home. And then something bad starts happening to the people she knows in downtown Raleigh.

Big big thanks to editor Kathy Sedia for working with me on the story and getting it into its final form, and big thanks too to publisher Matt Kressel at Senses Five Press. Hope ya like it!

Here's the complete line-up of writers: Forrest Aguirre, Barth Anderson, Steve Berman, Darin Bradley, Stephanie Campisi, Hal Duncan, Mike Jasper, Vylar Kaftan, Jay Lake, Paul Meloy, Richard Parks, Ben Peek, Cat Rambo, Jenn Reese, David Schwartz, Cat Sparks, Anna Tambour, Mark Teppo, Catherynne M. Valente, Greg van Eekhout, and Kaaron Warren.

Check out the Paper Cities site for a Table of Contents and a slew of wonderful reviews.

P.S. This is no April Fool's joke. :) Later!

Of interest to probably nobody but me, I finally got around to compiling a CD of songs related to my novel-in-progress, Maps and Legends. Anyone notice a theme?

"Until the End of the World," U2
"World on Fire," Sarah McLachlan
"Without a Trace," Soul Asylum (maybe one of the top 10 songs from the '90s, in my humble opinion)
"When the World Ends," Dave Matthews Band
"Waiting for the World to Change," John Mayer
"Strange World," Sarah McLachlan
"Spirits in the Material World," The Police
"Secret World," Peter Gabriel
"Power of Two," Indigo Girls
"Perfect Blue Buildings," Counting Crows
"The Passenger," Iggy Pop
"The Painted Desert," 10,000 Maniacs
"Of the Girl," Pearl Jam
"Maps and Legends," R.E.M
"In This World," Moby
"Here's Where the Story Ends," The Sundays

Interesting. Like any mix tape, I think there are probably some places to tweak yet, but it'll do for now. I'm sure there'll be a part 2. (It was so easy with the previous book, because I just keyed up some techno music...). Later!

Things are picking up 'round here, so it's probably a good thing we're getting some fairly decent sleep in the Jasper household. Of course, "decent" is a relative term. And by "getting" I mean the sleep I got last night.

It's a day-to-day thing when you have a four-month-old who is prone to colds and ear infections. Poor Mitch slept last night -- the whole night -- in his swing. He's got a good ol' head cold, and he's snotty as can be (in a runny-nose kind of way, that is). And let's not even talk about Tuesday night, when I had to take him for a drive in the car at 10 p.m. to get him to sleep...

But anyway, as I was saying. Things are picking up. I've got the PDF of my Doorway novel sitting on my hard drive, fresh from Prime Books. It looks fantastic (I just printed out the first chapter front-and-back here at work -- don't tell!). Somehow, putting a bunch of words in a nice font, aligning both sides of the text so you have a nice column of words running down the page, with all the italics and scene breaks added (with a nifty little curlicue) really makes it look like you've written something awesome.

I just hope my words live up to the formatting!

I'll know for sure this weekend, as I dive into my copy-edit of the book. So far so good. I keep thinking to myself, "Hey, this is good stuff! Who wrote this again?"

I'm also at the point in the new novel where I'm steaming full-speed ahead, and not looking back unless I absolutely have to. I finished up the evil, evil chapter five yesterday -- a chapter that I got stuck on for a month, I think -- and now I'm a couple pages into chapter six. It's getting fun again, and waking up early to write before work is getting easier and easier, and as a result, everything in the world seems shinier and cooler.

Or maybe that's just the excess of sleep talking... Who knows? Later.

Today is a dual Book Day -- one for my buddy Tim "call me T.A." Pratt and one for fellow writer-guy (who I've never met in person) Barth Anderson. Both of their books come out today, so go order on Amazon or get crazy and purchase them at a real book store. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on both of 'em!

I had the distinct pleasure of reading a draft of Tim's book, Poison Sleep, the second book in his series about kick-ass sorcerer Marla Mason and her gang of magical pals. Each book in this series gets better (and the first one, Blood Engines was really, really good), and just wait 'til the third one (got to read that one too, as a manuscript!). Urban fantasy with a great protagonist and twists galore.

I haven't read an early copy of Barth Anderson's The Magician and the Fool, but from what I've read of his short fiction and the advance reviews of this book, it's going to be one I really like. Dumpster diving? Tarot cards? Magic? International intrigue? I am so there.

(Could this novel be related to Barth's story "Bringweather and the Portal of Giving and Taking"? I hope so!)

And man, all these books have amazing covers. Those Bantam people know what they're doing. So go, order, and buy! Later!

Just a quick link here to the latest nifty map found by the good people at the Strange Maps blog.

This awesome map shows the paths taken by the first men on the moon. Apparently they didn't walk very far -- barely the distance of a baseball field. This map compares their amblings with a major league ball diamond (and no -- there wasn't already a ball field set up on the moon, with a crater for home plate!).

Click the map for a bigger version. Now that I think about it, I probably wouldn't have gone too far on that landing, either...

This map reminds me -- I've got some writing to do on that map-related book. Later!

For some reason, this initial novel draft is not coming easily for me. I was hoping to be on the home stretch by this point, finishing up by the end of March, but now I'd be really happy to be done by the end of May. Too many stops and starts, and not a clear enough idea of where I was headed with this book.

So I sat down and did the slog of breaking down each chapter, figuring out what I'd done so far (not much -- just 4 chapters!) and how to structure the rest of the book. That way I have a skeleton of the story to fall back on. With all the stuff going on right now, with work and the kids and trying to get a good routine going, I need to make this as easy for myself as I can.

So now I have all my chapters from start to finish laid out, and I can start the fun process of jamming out the messy first draft.

And I finally hit the one-quarter-of-the-way point today. Woo!



Later!