Little Known Author

[Geez, I just had a lengthy post here, but then I stuffed up the computer, and lost the whole thing. Bugger.]

If you’ve been coming here long enough to be asking, "Is the blog dead? Can I eat it?" then you’d know that I really have no real idea what I’m going to do with this site. I’m inclined to keep it, but I don’t know what to put on it. The blogging urge has largely passed, for the most part, although it’s also true that I do still blog, of a sort, on my Facebook page, where I post very brief items about what I’m doing at a given moment. Not Twitter-type brief, but brief nonetheless. One from yesterday, for example, indicated that I was currently watching an episode of Inspector Rex . Not the stuff of gripping reports, I know, but it’s what I was doing.

Thing is, I know there are people who read this site and who are not also Facebook members. This is very likely to their enormous credit. Facebook is a huge time-suck. I spend a huge amount of time on it each day, but then, that’s pretty much my social life these days. I spend most of each day on my own (other than the snoozing dog or the snoozing bird), and since I’m not much for going out and being all extroverted, socialising with people via brief comments on Facebook pages suits me fine. Which is great for all of that, but it doesn’t help those of you who come to see what I’m up to here.

So. First, my apologies. I will try to do a better job of posting here as well as on Facebook.

Second, there is a bit of news, which if you only looked for me here you might not already know: Publisher Brian and I have sold TIME MACHINES REPAIRED WHILE-U-WAIT to local publishing house Fremantle Press . This October they will release a shiny new edition of the book (with some minor changes) here in Australia and in New Zealand. It’s pretty exciting, and I’m looking forward to doing library readings/signings, etc.

Third, the other big news lately is that I’ve started a new book, a sequel to TIME MACHINES, tentatively titled TIME NEVER SLEEPS. Today I finished the first full week on the job, with 7500 words, and the conclusion of the first chapter. It’s a year after the events of the first book, and things in the world of time machines have and are changing fast. Spider’s got a new boss, for one thing, but worse than that: he’s been infected with some ghastly disease and as of the conclusion of the first chapter, is languishing in a hospital isolation unit, worried out of his gourd. And things are about to get much worse. [evil laugh]

Otherwise things are okay, mostly. I say "mostly" because it appears that my headaches are back, in a big way. Wednesday night I had one so bad it made me throw up everything I’d had to eat that day. Pretty grim stuff. Last night I had another one, not quite as bad, but plenty bad enough for my taste. Why are they turning up now? Is it related to me starting a new book? I don’t know. Hope not. In other medical news, or non-news: I still know nothing about whatever the hell it was that happened to me last December, and which put me in hospital with a suspected heart attack. It wasn’t my heart, but we have no clue what the hell it was.

Michelle is blasting through at least 1000 blood specimens each shift nowadays, and is putting in some very late nights. She’s pretty tired, and has a lot going on, but is bearing up okay. The global financial crisis isn’t affecting us yet. Our mortgage interest rate is down to record lows, which helps, too. All in all, things are pretty decent. I worry about my parents, I worry about Michelle, and I worry about myself, too. Doesn’t seem to help much, all this worrying, but it’s what I do.

Things have been a bit lively since last I posted here, so here’s a bit of an update.

1. I didn’t complete Nanowrimo. At first I thought it would be great sitting there writing absolutely anything I fancied, regardless of whether it made sense or not. And the first few days, scribbling the very silly adventures of Mr Ian Wrimo, Master Sleuth, was pretty good. But it wasn’t long before I found myself feeling guilty (yes, guilty) that I was wasting my time on rubbish when I could have been working on something saleable. So I bailed.

2. I spent five days in Joondalup Health Campus around the beginning of December, being tested really quite extensively to find out just why I’d had those mysterious chest pains and shortness of breath. It’s now quite some time later, but still, nobody knows. The pains and other symptoms have not returned, I’m pleased to report, but I would like to know what the hell happened. That day, on my own, having to call an ambulance, wait for it, thinking, “Hmm, I should update my Facebook page, but what if I get up to  go and do that, and I drop dead in the middle of something like, “Adrian Bedford is jusldkasjdkljdh;agkljjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjds” I decided to skip the update. The whole experience was deeply, surprisingly upsetting. Michelle and my folks have been brilliant through the whole thing. The day I came home my dad hugged me—my dad who’s never hugged me in his life. It was a big deal. Last week I had a CT scan to measure my calcium score, or something, which should tell my cardiologist whether I have blockages, and how big they are, or what. I’ll be going to see her next week, probably.

3. I posted here a few times about a new book idea I’d been working on since late last year. Sadly, the bottom fell out from under it. It proved unviable. This was very depressing, and I moped a long time, even after getting what so far seems like a better idea (this time for a possible Time Machines Repaired follow-up volume). I haven’t started actually scribbling yet, but it’s going well.

4. I heard recently that my book has made the shortlist for the Philip K. Dick Awards. Holy frakking heck! Am very worried. This past Saturday evening, in Brisbane, my book won the 2008 Aurealis Award for Best Australian SF Novel. Michelle and I were there for the big event, and it was terrifying, the tension (and the humidity) unbearable. I don’t know how my legs got me across the vast gulf of the stage in front of all the clapping people. I remember blinding lights, happy people, thanking lots of people, particularly Michelle, and not much else. The award is very shiny indeed.

5. Am trying the Windows 7 beta on my laptop, and in fact using the Windows Live Writer service, linked through to my Wordpress blog, to post this. So far I’m liking Windows 7 a great deal (it helps that I got it for free, of course), and may keep it here on the laptop. My desktop is still running Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid Ibex”, and Linux remains my True Love. Win7, though, gives it a good run for its money.

6. I’m reading lots of books lately. I’ve been posting mini-reviews of most of them through the iRead service on my Facebook page (look up “Adrian Bedford”).

First, a huge thank you to everyone who posted a comment here or on my Facebook page with wishes and thoughts for me while I was in hospital.

I plan to write a post about the whole thing, but for now I can report that I’m back home, my heart is fine (my lungs, too), and I got the biggest hug ever from my dad (who never hugs me). The thing is, we still don’t know what the hell happened last Saturday afternoon. Out of nowhere I suddenly felt a squeezing, dull ache in my chest, and it hurt when I breathed in, and had a lot of trouble taking deep breaths at all. We’ll be taking this up with my GP probably this next week. I also have to see my cardiologist (ye gods, I have a cardiologist now) in a month’s time.

Right now, I’m fine. No pain, nothing. It’s weird.

Adrian is having part two of the stress test today. We’re hoping that he’ll be allowed home today.

He’s in good spirits and looks forward to a good coffee.

Michelle

Hi everyone,

I just thought I’d let you know about Adrian’s visit to the hospital. Saturday he was taken to hospital with chest pain and spent most of the night in A&E.

He’s still in hospital, but all the tests, so far, have been negative. He has to wait until Wed for the final scan that will show whether it was his heart or something else. I’m sure that he’ll tell you all about it once he’s back home.

Michelle

I’m all signed up, and you can find me on the nanowrimo.org site (once it becomes available again; I think at the moment it’s feeling all very "tired and emotional" and needs a lie down) as "adrian.bedford". If you’re a regular reader here, and you’re crazy enough to be tackling this thing as well, please feel free to add me as your "NanoBuddy". Aww, how cute.

Meanwhile, exactly what I’ll be writing about, I still have no idea. I have a few vague notions, but no real plans. Then again, I’m told that no less a writing legend than William Gibson starts all his books without any clue what they’re going to be about, and just writes stuff that comes to him, often after perusing his "novelty aggregators" (strange magazines, usually). So maybe I’ll try that. Hey, if it works for Bill, right?

Wish me luck. Gonna need it.

This just in from Amazon.ca. TIME MACHINES REPAIRED WHILE-U-WAIT, my new book (you did know I had a new book out, right? :) is currently doing this:

Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #1,942 in Books

(See Bestsellers in Books )

Popular in these categories:

I love Canadians. Thanks, guys. That’s the best sales rank figure any of my books has ever achieved. Phwoar!

The new book project died on the table today. Which is to say, I admitted that it was chock full of bits that didn’t go together at all well. I’m feeling pretty glum about it, but consider that it would be worse if I had a repeat of the UMBRA fiasco, where I actually finished the damn thing before discovering it was a giant bag of steaming poo. So it could be worse.

I know if were to talk to my psychiatrist about all this and tell him that I’ve been thrashing about with this new project for, now, a couple of months, without getting anywhere with it, he’d tell me, "So stop. Have a rest." Which is what he told me after I spent several months at the end of the year before last thrashing about trying to find a way to rewrite UMBRA into something better. I told him how frustrating and depressing it was, and he just interrupted and told me to stop and take a break.

I got the idea for TIME MACHINES REPAIRED the next day. It was just that sudden.

Not that I expect similar results this time; I’m not standing by with a notepad in case dazzling inspiration should strike tomorrow just because I’ve officially given up on a bad idea. Of more concern is the "have a rest" part of the equation: ever since finishing TIME MACHINES REPAIRED I’ve been doing a lot of resting. I’m doing nothing. Reading lots, really lots and lots, but it doesn’t feel very productive.

Bugger.

I heard from Charlie Stuart and Cheyenne the other day about this: the Japanese government has announced that they’re going to take a crack at actually building a rooly-trooly space elevator .

Holy crap!

This is very cool news indeed. I knew there were some US companies interested in at least researching what might be needed to build one, but I was given to understand that the difficulty of building carbon nanotubes more than a few millimeters long was going to be a major stumbling block for the forseeable future. And, this article suggests that this difficulty hasn’t gone away. I’m guessing the Japanese figure that if they just blast the problem with the finest scientific and technological brainpower they’ve got a solution will turn up. And I hope they do crack it! What a gobsmacking thing to attempt!

Thanks, Charlie and Cheyenne, for letting me know about this. Amid all the apocalyptic financial news swirling about at the moment, it’s good to hear something like this.

In other news: work continues slowly on new book project. I’m still very much in research mode, trying to learn as much as possible about what it’s like to be a taxi driver here in Perth. To this end today I sent an email to the Taxi Council of WA , the industry’s peak body, with a list of questions I figured they might be able to help me with. Otherwise, I’m spending time scribbling about the background world my hero inhabits, working out the details. Even though the idea is that the story is set in more-or-less present-day Perth, there’s still a very great deal to sort out.

Last: this coming weekend is the Queen’s Birthday long weekend (not actually the Queen’s actual birthday; that’s in April, but a government a long time ago decided we didn’t have enough long weekends in the second half of the year, so arranged for us to have a long weekend at the end of September), and we’re heading off to Mandurah in our shiny new (to us) ca r . We’re staying here . The weather this weekend is forecast to be a bit on the rainy side. I expect we’ll spend a lot of time in very nice cafes, sipping good coffee, reading newspapers, playing games, and having a spiffy time in general.

There’s a lot to talk about today, so let’s get straight to it:

Item 1. Check this out:

Once written, it is the book that has the relationship with the reader, not the writer, and it is the minute that I see that actual book… the finished thing - I realize that if I’m holding it in my hands, that more copies of this book are being sent to real people right this minute (and some of them even pre-ordered, and how terrible is that going to be when it sucks) and that from this moment forward - for the rest of my life- this book has made it absolutely certain that some people are going to stand around in yarn shops talking about how I’m a complete moron, I don’t deserve to earn any money (even a fraction of a dollar per book), and that frankly they wish that I wasn’t so full of myself that I thought I was special enough to write books at all. When I hold this book in my hands, that’s what I know.. and since every person has a voice inside them, the voice of their supremely unsuccessful self (a 16 year old short- skinny-bad hair-braces low self-esteem self, in my case) saying that anyway, the fear catches, and coalesces into nausea and a certainty that this can’t end well.

It’s an extract from a phenomenal essay by "The Yarn Harlot", Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, who writes books about her knitting experiences, her life and family, and everything. She’s funny, perceptive, truthful, always unfailingly honest, and someone whose blog Michelle and I have been reading now for years. We love her stuff. And I don’t knit. I’m honestly not that interested in knitting (though I’ve developed a fair understanding of it), but I love the way the Harlot writes about writing. She understands exactly what it’s like to be a writer, the good and the bad, the anxiety, the sheer terror, the bliss, the pain, everything. In this essay she’s writing about the publication of her latest book of essays, and it’s just exquisite, the way she opens herself up and tells the truth about this whole "published author" thing. Go and read the whole thing. Heck, read the whole blog.

Item 2:

American author David Foster Wallace , aged 46, died this week, apparently a suicide, possibly related to long-term depression. It was a stunning thing to hear about. I’ve loved his work for years, ever since reading his novel, INFINITE JEST , perhaps the most maddening, frustrating, elating, wonderful, overwritten novel I’ve ever encountered. At a whopping 1079 pages, plus 100+ pages of fine-print footnotes which are as fascinating as the main text, it was a tough thing to read, a marathon, sitting there day after day, letting this extraordinary story unspool itself through my head, following, one one hand, the intensely imagined lives of teenage tennis prodigies, and on the other hand, the equally intensely realised lives of drug addicts, and, for good measure, on the third hand, the bizarre French Canadian separatist terrorists who are searching for a videotape, a film, said to be so entertaining you die from the sheer pleasure of watching it. Rarely have I read a book that so cried out for serious cutting, but which also presented such a uniformly amazing/frustrating text that you couldn’t decide which parts to cut, even if you could bring yourself to do it.

In the wake of Wallace’s death, I’m now sorely tempted to go and re-read it. No amount of description or discussion about the book is ever going to do its extraordinary gonzo strangeness justice, but in the past couple of days plenty of other writers have been trying to do just that. It grieves me that there will be no further such volumes from this author. His work reminds me that fiction, and perhaps especially science fiction, can and perhaps even should be so much more than what it usually is. I know in my own work, I’m usually satisfied if I can manage an exciting sequence, a well-visualised image, conveying some degree of appropriate realism. Next to Wallace’s work (and certainly his work is something of an acquired taste), his towering ambition and evenly matched ability, I do feel like a damp squib.

Item 3:

Today work on my own new project, EVEN STARLIGHT BURNS, continues to accumulate. I’m at the point where I’m starting to get a sense of the other characters in my protagonist’s life (unlife?), and what they might mean to him. There’s quite a crowd of these people, too, and that’s not even counting the assorted ghosts and ghost fragments who show up, wanting rides around the city in the middle of the night. I was very concerned that the lot of a taxi driver, particularly one who drives full-time, was such that he wouldn’t have much time for being the protagonist of a story, so to speak; since then Charlie Stuart suggested that this problem could in fact be a plus: yes, the protagonist doesn’t have time for adventuring or chasing down story-related stuff. He has to earn his living or he doesn’t have a place to stay, etc–and yet, stuff is still happening. He is drawn towards finding out about his past, about who made him a vampire, and maybe finding out about the strange war brewing out in the Red Centre. So good on ya, Charlie! You really helped me out.