2008: A Reflection
Wow. No matter who you are, that was quite a year, wasn’t it?
In addition to going through one of the longest, most grueling, petty, and tedious election cycles in American history, we had another housing crash, war in the middle east (though that’s every year, really), countless bankruptcies and layoffs, two criminal US governors, the Bernard Madoff $50,000,000,000 Ponzi scheme, and the sudden realization that our entire banking and finance industry was little more than a Ponzi scheme, itself.
I could have told you that a long time ago, but no one listens to me.
On the other hand, OBAMA!! Whoot! The endless Bush nightmare is OVER!!!
What? He’s still president?
Shit.
Anyway, I tend to wax nostalgic on New Year’s Day (which is when I started this post, apologies for taking a couple of days to finish it), so I will reflect on how the year went for me. It was a doozy.
For starters, I think I made a New Year’s Resolution last year that I did a pretty good job of keeping. I’ll try to be even better about it this year.
Another interesting thing I noticed while going through last year’s blog posts was how I thought at this time last year that I would be done with The Desert Spear by June or July of 2008. BWA-HAHAHAHAHA! I was really kidding myself. (Seriously, though, it’s almost done. Promise. 4 chapters to go, and they probably won’t be long ones. Just demon killing and sex and stuff. Easy peasy.)
I became an uncle again at the beginning of the year, welcoming my first (and currently only) neice, Olivia. She’s grown a lot in the last year, and is looking to inspire my next book. Here is video of her acting like a monster:
Soon after Olivia arrived, Dani and I found out we were having a girl, as well. It made me really happy to know the cousins would be so close in age, and could have tea parties and watch High School the Musical together and whatnot.
At NY ComicCon, I got a chance to meet my childhood idol, Terry Brooks. He apparently liked The Warded Man. BTW, I’m totally psyched for ComicCon this year, too. which falls on my birthday weekend, and where I will be appearing on panels and doing a big signing at the Del Rey booth, where they will be giving away free copies of The Warded Man, as well as temporary Ward tattoos and other goodies. Buy your tickets now, before they sell out!
The the advance copies of The Painted Man arrived. Oh, what an amazing day that was. The culmination of a dream that began a quarter century ago. Here’s a pic of me with the ARC. I am holding an American quarter next to it for scale:
After that came the news that translations of the book sold in Spain and then the Czech Republic, giving me excuses to travel to two more beautiful countries at some point in the future.
After that was the birth of Luca (the Palooka) D’Entrone, who is practically family, and can be seen here on New Year’s Eve giggling like a maniac as Dani makes faces and Cassie and I watch in the background:
After that I became an uncle again, this time to baby Zack, born to my brother in law Mark and his wife. The baby thing was beginning to become an epidemic, and then it culminated with a climactic crescendo as I became a daddy. That’s right. Me. A father. It’s mind-boggling. Check this shit out:
I live for those giggles now.
Right around then, I started getting fan letters. Getting fan mail is even weirder than being a parent. I’ve gotten a few dozen letters now, and I am still shocked and thrilled every time one pops up in my inbox. You people know I’m just some dork that played too much D&D, right?
The Painted Man launched in September in the UK, the worldwide first edition, and my friend Myke and I flew out for the big event. We saw London. We saw France. Didn’t seem much in the way of underpants, but I did step in vomit. Ah, Camden Town! A class act if ever there was one. I also did my first public book signing, had a fan make a YouTube book review, and did my first (and so far only) video interview.
The book has done amazingly well, exceeding everyone’s expectations. It made the Bookscan and Amazon UK bestseller lists, and actually sold out and needed to go back on press. Even the second printing is flying off the shelves; Amazon keeps selling out. It was named one of Amazon.co.uk’s 10 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2008. I was also nominated for the David Gemmell Legend Award (voting is still open! Get in on that!).
But the fun didn’t stop there. I got to be on the radio in Australia, and then had the book translated into Japanese (by the nicest translator in the world) and published in Japan by Hayakawa Press. I love the Hayakawa editions; they split the book into 3 parts and released them as manga-sized booklets with fantastic cover art and some internal illustrations. Awesome.
Jay and I went to Albacon and World Fantasy in Calgary to promote/network, and then in November, the Polish translation of the book, Malowany Czloweik, went on sale, and judging from the traffic on my website and the letters I am receiving from Polish readers, it is going over quite well. It doesn’t hurt that publisher Fabryka Slow did an amazing job advertising and illustrating their version.
And did I mention the cover Larry Rostant did for The Desert Spear? It’s fricken’ amazing:
In December, yet another baby came into my life, born to another very close friend. And this one came with a special twist. They named him “Brett”! Sure, maybe he wasn’t technically named “after” me, but I’ll take what I can get. I can’t wait to meet him before he loses that new baby smell.
All in all, for me at least, 2008 was an amazing year. In fact, I am not even going out on a limb to say it was the best year of my life to date. To the point where I feel a little guilty, because I know how it sucked for millions of other people. I know I’ve had my sucky years (lord, have I ever), and it all balances out in the end, but it’s been really hard seeing people I care about going through hard times this year when things are going so well for me. Here’s hoping that 2009 brings good fortune and smooth sailing for all.
There will be some new exciting announcements expected early this year. Stay tuned!
Oh yes I was meaning to tell you, I finally got the file of the YouTube video off my computer at home so I can send it to you whenever 🙂
Crap! I forgot to hyperlink your video in the post. It’s fixed now. I was going to embed it, but WordPress and YouTube don’t work well together, and the baby videos had me frustrated enough.
I would love a copy of the video! How big a file is it? I saw YouTube deleted some of your other vids. I hope you didn’t lose anything permanently.
The file’s not too big, it should hopefully be small enough (if not I’ll find a way to send it, and thanks for the mention in the post by the way!). I store all my videos so I didn’t lose anything permanently, it’s just this annoying thing that the music industry’s doing right now even though videos like mine advertise their stuff for free. Oh well.
P.S. LOVED the baby videos.
Everything seems right but one thing you wrote bugs me extremely.
I’m talking about the last 4 chapters of the Desert Spear. You’r summing up that it would be about sex and demon killing and that you will end it quickly. From this place I beg you – don’t hurry up with writting it. I want to relish the book and a quickly fixed ending bugs me in books. Expecially in those which were kick ass at the beginning. You know the saying: It doesn’t matter how you begin but how you end. I’m completly hyped thanks to the Malowany Cz?owiek and I want to stay that way when I will be reading through W?ócznia Pustyni (if Fabryka S?ów translate it that way).
About you being a D&D fan and having a child. Have you bought a rompers for your child with printed Lvl 1 Human printing on it, yet? XD
Don’t worry about the ending to the Desert Spear seeming rushed. There are several checks in place to prevent that. First, I have known more or less how it ends for two years now, so it’s not like I’m rushing to make up an ending. Also, when I say the book is almost “done” I mean the first draft of the book. It will then go to test readers, after which I will do a rewrite with their comments in mind. After that, my editors at Del Rey and Voyager will give their recommendations, and I will do another rewrite. Then there is the line edit, and the copyedit, and the proofread. The draft that sees final print will likely be the 5th draft, and by then all the rough edges and any inconsistent pacing will be evened out.
I just got my copy of Malowany Czloweik, and was surprised to find that it’s only half the book, and that Fabryka Slow is publishing the other half in February. My Japanese publisher, Hayakawa, did something similar (they split the story into three volumes), but I had no idea Poland had done so until I received my own copy. I’m very eager to see the illustrations in part two!
We don’t have a Lvl 1 Human romper, but we did buy her a Bib +1.
Yep, only half – now you know why I was so eager to read the original. Even so I’m waiting for the second part.