Friday, May 16, 2014

First And Last

Quoted by Nalo Hopkinson in a recent tweet, here's Samuel R. Delany pithily summarising how his dyslexia affects his writing, in answer to a question put to him by Junot Diaz: 'I'm a very bad writer. What I am is a good rewriter.'

Actually, I don't know many people who write near-perfect first drafts. I certainly don't. Well, okay, I have written a few short stories more or less straight out, but that was a rare confluence of luck and inspiration, and they were very short short stories. But with novels I find the trick is to keep going to the end, and to resist the temptation to start revising halfway through. To keep pushing forward, somehow. To let the narrative and characters find their own logic and flow (and to let them surprise you: I'm still childishly delighted when they do). And when I reach the end of the first draft, the real work begins - making the story comprehensible to itself, and to others. It doesn't finish until the proofs are pried from my hands.

Right now, I'm at the ante-penultimate stage with Something Coming Through: folding in the notes and comments and corrections from my editor, and polishing the text one last time. In some ways an oddly nostalgic task, like reading the diary and looking at the photographs of a holiday you took in some other country a couple of years ago. That odd roadside shrine, that beach, the cafe where you ate breakfast every day, the little lizard basking on a stone . . . Meanwhile, the difficulties you had getting there in the first place are all forgotten.

Monday, May 12, 2014

In Print Or Pixels

Sometimes I'm asked by US readers whether they can buy a particular title of mine. So I thought it would be useful to list what's available in print and ebook in the UK and the US so that I can point enquiries towards it. Apologies in advance: this is going to be a post that's a) pretty listy and b) completely self-promoting.

In the UK

The following titles are available in print and ebook form (although older titles may be a bit hard to track down outside of online or specialist bookshops):
Four Hundred Billion Stars
Eternal Light
Red Dust
Pasquale's Angel
Fairyland
Confluence
Cowboy Angels
The Quiet War
Gardens of the Sun
In the Mouth of the Whale
Evening's Empires

There are also several story collections and individual stories that I've published through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.  They're available from Amazon UK, Amazon US, and other countries covered by KDP:

Stories:
City of the Dead
Dr Pretorius and the Lost Temple
Prisoners of the Action

Collections:
Little Machines
Stories of the Quiet War
Life After Wartime

 In the US

 The only titles still in print in deadwood format are Cowboy Angels, The Quiet War, and Gardens of the Sun; again, they're probably only available via online or specialist bookshops. But you can order other titles via the Book Depository, which offers free worldwide postage.

As for ebooks, the following titles are available in Nook, Kindle and iTune formats:
Four Hundred Billion Stars
Eternal Light
Red Dust
Pasquale's Angel
Fairyland
The Secret of Life
Whole Wide World
White Devils
Confluence
Cowboy Angels
The Quiet War
Gardens of the Sun
In the Mouth of the Whale
Evening's Empires

I'll do my best to keep this updated. All additional information gratefully received.

UPDATE#1 Michael Rossow and Brian both have kindly pointed out that The Secret of Life, Whole Wide World and White Devils are available on Kindle in the US, but In The Mouth of the Whale and Evening's Empires aren't.  The first three are invisible from the UK but the last two are visible with $ prices because Amazon's site has geolocation that imposes local publishing rights.  I spoofed it with Hola to get the correct US customer view.

UPDATE#2 (9 July 2014) In The Mouth of the Whale is now available in Nook format in the US. Hopefully it will soon be available in Kindle format too, as will Evening's Empires.

UPDATE#3 (19 July 2014) In the Mouth of the Whale is now available on Kindle in the US, and in the US iTunes store.

UODATE#4 (21 July 2014) Evening's Empires now available on Kindle in the US.
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