I just got a new telescope. It’s happily snoozing in the guest room at the moment, and doesn’t wish to be photographed, but here’s a picture of the moon I took with it last night. This was with my iPhone camera held up to the eyepiece, so you’d think it would suck. But my telescope makes even this silly procedure AWESOME.
Observe:
That’s a tiny bit of the moon, because from now on I am magnified. Must now learn the names of all the craters and snack bars on the moon.
Here are Four Other Things of possible interest:
Thing 1
The Uglies series is launching in Brazil this week, complete with a really cool website:
I love the look and feel of it, and hope it does well for my publisher there, Editora Record. If you speak any Portuguese, check it out here.
Thing 2
Just noticed that Behemoth has an Amazon page now, but no cover. (Amusing reviews for some other book are there at the moment.)
Thing 3
Justine are about to head back to NYC, where we have an event for Read This, a charity that collects books for people who need them, including schools, hospitals, homeless shelters, troops overseas, etc.
Justine Larbalestier, Bennett Madison,
Scott Westerfeld, & Cecily von Ziegesar
Reading and Q&A
12:30PM-1:15PM, Saturday, 10 April
Center for Fiction
17 E. 47th Street, Second floor
(between Madison & Fifth Ave.)
NY NY
The price of admission? Your donation of two or more new or gently used board books through grade 12. Cool idea, huh?
Thing 4
The next New York Review of Science Fiction Readings features three awesome YA authors!
Barry Lyga, Marie Rutkoski, & Robin Wasserman
curated by Carol Cooper
Tuesday, 6 April, Doors open 6:30 PM, event begins at 7:00 PM
SoHo Gallery for Digital Art
138 Sullivan Street (between Houston & Prince St.)
Admission is by a $5 donation. (If circumstances make this a hardship, let them know and they will accommodate you.)
All times USian. In Australia, we’re talking Thursday, noon Sydney, 9am Perth.
And don’t forget I’ll be hanging out at Readergirlz all month.
In other news, check out the cover of Uglies in its Brazilian Portuguese version.
Last week there was a short piece in MTV News’s Hollywood Crush last week about the Uglies movie. Let me quote it:
Industry sources have confirmed to MTV News exclusively that Screen Gems, in the wake of the success of its current release “Dear John,” is developing — and in fact, fast tracking (!) — a film version of “The Uglies” series.
While there haven’t been any decisions made regarding things like casting yet, we can tell you that our source said production of the movie is planned for later this year. That means we will all hopefully know soon enough who could be playing the beloved teen Tally Youngblood in the futuristic, meaningful tale about a dystopian society that places an incredible emphasis on looks.
Emphasis theirs. Here’s the rest.
In the words of my Hollywood agent, fast-tracking means, “it’s on the list of projects that they are hoping to make vs. the ones that will never see the light of day.” In other words, this is not a done deal. But it’s a lot better than being in that other, not-so-fast-tracked pile.
Now, some of you are no doubt asking about casting at this point. STOP! I’m the wrong person to ask. Trust me, if I hear anything I will tell you here on this blog, on FB, and on the Twitter machine. But in the meantime, I have nothing to do with casting movies.
If it were up to me, you would all get to play Tally for exactly three seconds of screen time. (And this would be why it’s not up to me.)
Plus, I doubt it’s as far along as this article makes it sound. Like, the casting isn’t going on right now. Probably.
Watch this space for more.
In other news!
If you live in Sydney, you can catch me at the launch for Foz Meadow’s debut novel, Solace and Grief.
It’s about a girl named Solace who has grown up in foster care her whole life, and who’s always realize that’s she’s kind of . . . different. She doesn’t like the sun, she’s wicked strong, and if she concentrates really hard, she can hear a conversation two blocks over. Then someone starts invading Solace’s dreams, and things get really complicated from there.
It looks like this:
Here’s the launch deets:
Sunday, March 7
12:30PM
Kinokuniya Bookstore
Level 2, Galeries Victoria
500 George Street
Sydney NSW 2000
I’ll be giving a wee speech about how cool this book is. Of course, I’ll be more than happy to see you guys there and say hi. But please remember that this is Foz’s party, not mine, so buy her book!
It comes out in Australia on March 1. When it finds a US publisher, I’ll let you know.
And finally!
Sorry that I missed the latest Forum Meet-Up. It was scheduled for early Sunday morning, Sydney time, and I woke up ill. Too ill to type!
But I hope you all had fun. I’ll try to check out the questions you left me, and answer some of them here on the blog.
My apologies again.
Hey, sorry for not blogging for a while there. There was travel, research, and lots of writing (on Behemoth) to do.
But now I am back in the blog-saddle, so it’s time for some fan art!
First, for you Midnighters fans, I present the Midnighters Fingerpuppet Five!
What’s cool is that you can tell who’s who. I could have totally used these while writing the book for, like, acting out scenes.
These were made by Chloe Wiccith, who also created this awesome mindcaster symbol pumpkin:
That’s some mighty fine carving.
And for you Uglies fans, check out this remix of Extras with a self portrait by Zheng Xiao, doing his best emo-manga-head impersonation.
Any more fan art out there that needs to see the light of day? Sent it over.
NaNoWriMo is over, so it’s time to get back to regular posting about regular stuff. Here we go.
Thing Number One:
You guys have been asking for a Forum for a while, and when I re-jiggered the site a few months ago, we planned to have one. It took a while, but it’s been active for the last few weeks.
We were working out some bugs, so I didn’t announce it here. But people randomly found it, and various interesting conversations have started. You should go check it out.
To get there, click on the Forum button on the top-right of this page (over the message lizard) or cheat and use this link.
Thing Number Two:
RH Mondadori, my publisher in Spain, had a very cool idea. After publishing Uglies and Pretties using the American covers, they decided to go in a new direction. They held a contest, the first prize of which was to be the cover model for Especiales.
The guy who won is a total fan, which is great, and he also has a definite Special look. The designer held off on the flash tattoos on the front cover, but he has one on his cheek on the back cover. (Which I don’t have a jpg of yet.)
Anyway, here he is:
I don’t actually know his name, only that he’s 22.
Thing Number Three:
Justine and I are about to head to Istanbul (aka Constantinople). If you’ve read Leviathan, you know why this is. If you haven’t, then just ignore this blog for a week or so. (Or get reading!)
Anyway, it’s going to be wicked cool. I’ll be posting photos and such here, assuming the internets are good at our hotel.
Thing Number Four:
And now it’s time for, Walker Wednesday!
Today’s walker comes from CrabFu SteamWorks, who specialize in making steam-powered robots and other toys.
Check this out:
Yes, that smoke is REAL steam that REALLY powering the walker. That’s why Keith’s Clanker walkers are always spitting out scads of smoke.
As you probably know, Justine and I are doing writing tips for every day of NaNoWriMo. She’s doing even-numbered days, and I’m doing odd. Her tip from yesterday about the glories of square brackets reminded me of something I’ve been meaning to talk about for a while. And I think it’s going to be a multi-day thing.
So here’s the first of several essays on the subject of meta-documents! (And don’t forget to check below for my NYC appearance this Tuesday.)
Sometimes in the headlong fury of trying to make our word count, we writers forget to keep track of our characters’ scars and bruises, of their eye and hair colors, or even what day of the week it is. We forget, in short, to make meta-documents.
So what does this fancy term mean? Well, the main document your working on for NaNoWriMo is, of course, the Novel itself. But in order to keep that novel coherent, you almost certainly need meta-documents. That is, documents about the main document.
Think about it: novels are at least 50,000 words, and can be three times that length or more. That’s a huge project, and you, dear novelist, are the Project Manager. You need a clipboard with you at all times, or you will start forgetting stuff.
Of course, the most famous type of meta-doc is the Outline, the chapter-by-chapter plan of how the Novel will unfold. Some of us writers love to outline, some find it a chore, and some find that outlining is a novel-killer, destroying any need to tell the story at all. Finding your own place on that continuum is the job of every writer.
But heed this well: Just because you’ve given up on outlining, don’t think that you can throw aside all other forms of meta-documentation. The outline is actually quite an odd meta-doc, in that you usually work on it before you start writing. But most meta-docs are things you maintain while you write. They are maps of where you’ve been, not of where you’re going. They are the keepers of consistency and realness.
Trust me, the sooner you start making meta-docs in the writing process, the less you will be pulling out your hair later on.
So for the next few odd-numbered days, I’ll be giving descriptions of some meta-documents that I use while writing. Today, I cover the mighty timeline . . .
Timelines
Timelines are possibly the most important meta-doc for me. Without them, I have no idea what day it is. And without that, all sort of details get shaky. Bruises heal instantly. People go to school six days in a row. The moon stays full for a week and a half. This makes for an unconvincing novel.
More importantly, emotional reality breaks if you don’t know how much time has past. A horrible fight with your best friend feels very different a week later than it does the day after it happened.
And take it from me: Timelines are extremely easy to create along the way, and a ROYAL PAIN to reconstruct later on. So do them while you write. Start one NOW.
Okay, but what should your timeline look like? In the timeline for the first book in the Uglies series, I started every line with a chapter of the book, and then give a calendar date. (I use a calendar even if the characters never mention dates themselves, just to keep myself on track.)
I also annotate jumps in time and other oddities, especially these three:
1) What off-screen characters (Shay, in the case below) are up to while the main action is taking place.
2) Any cues about time that appear in the text. “three days later” “It’s taking too long”
3) If characters are saying something untrue about time. (In Part II, Tally lies to hide her departure date.) It’s tricky to keep fact and fiction separate, for the reader as well as the writer.
Check it out:
Part I
Chapters 1-3 “New Pretty Town,” “Best Friends Forever,” “Shay”: late June 7
C. 4 “Wipe Out”: afternoon June 14
C. 5 “Facing the Future”: afternoon June 25
C. 6 “Pretty Boring”: afternoon June 28
C. 7-9 “Rapids,” “Rusty Ruins,” “Waiting for David”: late June 28
C. 10 ”Fight”: morning Aug 26
C. 11 “Last Trick”: late Sep 2
C. 12-14 “Operation,” Special Circumstances,” “Ugly for Life”: morning Sep 9
C. 15 “Peris”: a few days pass, Peris comes in dawn of 9/12
C. 16 “Infiltrator”: morning of 9/12
NOTE: Shay (off screen) leaves to go to the Smoke late 9/2, and gets there early 9/8, 5.5 days later. (Same as Tally, basically, with a slower hoverboard but with David’s guidance.)Part II
C. 17 “Leaving”: night 9/12
C. 18 “SpagBol”: night 9/12 through morning 9/13
C. 19 “The Worst Mistake”: starts sundown 9/13
then three days’ travel on bottom p.121
sundown 9/16 on p.122
C. 20 “The Side You Despise”: very late 9/16
9/17 dawns on p. 127
C. 21 “Firestorm”: late afternoon 9/17
C. 22 “Bug Eyes”: sunset 9/17 through wee hours 9/18
C. 23 “Lies”: morning 9/18
Tally arrives at Smoke
She claims she left late 9/8 (night before birthday) and took 9.5 days.
She actually took 5.5 days.
C. 24-27 “The Model,” “Work,” “David,” “Heartthrob”: all 9/18
C. 28 “Suspicion”: on p. 172 two weeks pass until 10/1 morning
C. 29-32 “Bravery,” “The Secret,” “Pretty Minds,” “Burning Bridges”: night of 10/1 except last paragraphs , which are dawn of 10/2Part III
C. 33-37 “Invasion,” “Rabbit Pen,” “In Case of Damage,” “Run.” “Amazing”: early morning and onward of 10/2
C. 38-39 “Ruin,” “Maddy and Az”: morning 10/3
C. 40 “The Oil Plague”: night of 10/3
p. 259 is daybreak of 10/4
C. 41 “Familiar Sights”:
reach edge of desert during night of 10/4 p. 263
reach sea “three days later” on 10/7
travel for “a few days”
hunker down for storm from 10/10 to 10-14 p. 264
p. 265 is morning of 10/14
reach Rusty Ruins night of 10/17
In this chapter, David predicts they will make it to the city in ten days, but it takes 14 due to the 4-day storm, which is why he says (during the storm on p. 264 ): “It’s taking too long.”
C. 42 “Accomplices”: night of 10/17
C. 43 “Over the Edge”: as darkness falls on 10/18
The book ends 21 days later, the night of 11/8.
See how that works?
One quick note: Tally’s culture doesn’t use days of the week, but normally I keep careful track of those as well, just so no one goes to school/work on Sunday for no reason.
Another great thing about timelines is that they show you how your novel is paced. You might have three chapters in a row all set on the same morning, and then a series of chapters where time flies faster. Maybe this little pattern keeps happening again and again. Now, maybe that’s okay, or maybe it’s getting monotonous. But without a timeline, you might not notice the pattern at all.
Uglies is paced in a very particular way. Each book has a few intense days in the beginning, but then time spreads out as the characters go on a journey, allowing them to absorb the lessons they’ve learned. The timeline helped me recognize that pattern, and use it to my advantage.
Two days from now, I’ll talk some other types of meta-documents.
Take it away, Justine!
Also, don’t forget that I’m appearing with Justine and many other fabulous writers in New York City tomorrow!
Tuesday, November 10 6:00PM
Books of Wonder
Libba Bray – Going Bovine
Kristin Cashore- Fire
Suzanne Collins – Catching Fire
Michael Grant – Hunger
Justine Larbalester – Liar
And me!
18 West 18th Street
New York, NY 10011
Click here for all tour details. And click here to buy Leviathan.
Four things:
One: As you may remember, Leviathan is coming out on Tuesday, a mere three days from now. (Update: After a quick recount, turns out it’s actually four days from now: Saturday, Sunday, Monday, TUESDAY!)
But there is another object going on sale that very same day, October 6. I call it “the brick,” because it looks like this:
The brick contains all four books in the Uglies series—Uglies, Pretties, Specials, and Extras! And they all live together in a lovely box that references all four covers. I love me a slipcase.
Two: Simon & Schuster Canada sent me this amusing steampunk video on how to install a “Leviathan Wobbler,” a bookworm dazzler of astonishing complexity.
I think you need to watch it.
Click here to visit Simon’s Urban Fantasy Blog, home of the Wobbler.
Three: I have moved my tour dates away from the blog post of a few days ago, and put them in a more sensible place: my Appearances page. From now on, all updates and changes will be made there.
To go to the Appearances page, click the “Appearances/News” button up in the menu at any time. Or just click here.
Four:
So. Close. Can. Smell. It.
Thanks to everyone who came to the NYPL reading last week. It was totally awesome and packed, which is how we authors like it. For those of you who weren’t there, I read a bit of Chapter 2 of Leviathan, the part that goes with the image I posted last week.
And now a message from our sponsor, Swarovski Crystal.
Tally took a steadying breath, the room spinning again, but in a good way. She gestured for the windows to transpare a little more, and in the sunlight she saw the new additions.
“Ooh, pretty-making.”
Bolder than all the other implanted glitter, twelve tiny rubies ringed each of Shay’s pupils, glowing softly red against emerald irises.
“Bubbly, huh?”
No, I didn’t photoshop that, and it’s not a prank. It’s the second-place winner of a competition co-organized by designboom and Swarovski Diamonds, by Anthony Mallier. It’s kind of amazing how close this design is to Shay’s eye surge.
Not that I’m complaining. I doubt I’m the first to come up with this idea, given how long people have been saying, “you’ve got a sparkle in your eye.” It’s only a matter of time before diamond-laced contacts are real, and not just a prototype. Read more here in Mami Magazine.
Of course, there’s no time-telling feature with these, so Shay still wins!
Thanks to Twitter-pal @13stars_above for spotting it.
In other news, the Leviathan trailer has almost 60,000 views on YouTube! Thanks to everyone who watched it, and told your friends about it. (Clearly, some of you did.)
Sorry I haven’t been posting much, but there is a book to write—Behemoth, sequel to Leviathan! That’s right, I have to finish Book 2 before I go on tour for Book 1 at the beginning of October. Speaking of which, I’ll be posting the tour info soon, once I get a few details sorted.
Watch this space for details!
Update:
Click here to read the Romantic Times’ blog entry about the reading last week. Complete with this picture of me, Lauren McLaughlin, E. Lockhart, and Bennet Madison.
With Leviathan on its way (60 days and counting!) my publisher and I thought we would give you guys a little present. So for the next month, Uglies will be available free in pdf form.
That’s right: Free book! Free Uglies! Free Tally!
Of course, this isn’t just free for you, my faithful blog readers. I mean, if you’re reading this, chances are you’ve got a copy of Uglies sitting around somewhere already. But if you have any friends, siblings, crushes, or enemies who you think might be interested in the series, why not send them over?
Cause, you know, people like free stuff.
Oh, and by the way, the first chapter of Leviathan is also included, along with an illustration you probably haven’t seen before. (That’s right, this is all a promotional scheme! Bwah-hah-hah!)
Click here to go to Simon & Schuster’s free download site.
Enjoy.
A quick technical note:
Obviously you can read a pdf on your computer, and both Sony e-Readers and Kindles take them too. If you have technical questions, feel free to ask them in this comments thread. I probably can’t help you, but hopefully somebody will.
Also: the download site asks for a US zip code, which is five numbers.
As I mentioned in my last post, I spent part of Friday afternoon on the phone with the Uglies movie production team. It was great to go into that conversation armed with all the suggestions you guys have been making, both here and on my Twitter feed.
So thanks for all your input. Now here’s what’s going on:
Uglies is currently optioned to be a movie, or possibly a series of movies if the first one does well. To “option” a book is Hollywood-speak for buying the exclusive right to make a movie based on it. But the buyers don’t have to make a movie. Most options never go anywhere, in fact. But it certainly means that these producers are interested.
(What happens if this group doesn’t make the film(s)? In a couple of years I have the right option the book to someone else. In other words, options have time limits.)
Where are we now? Well, there’s no script, director, or actors lined up yet. So be patient and stop asking me about casting! If there are open auditions, you’ll see it here first.
So this phone call was mostly us getting to know each other and talking about what makes Uglies special to us. Most of the conversation was me talking, which was interesting. Sometimes Hollywood folks seem compelled to tell me all about my books. But these folks listened. And when I told them about my previous post, they were dying to shoot over and read your comments. So keep them coming!
Here are some of the things I told them:
Most of you guys want unknown actors for Tally and Shay, but maybe someone famous for Dr. Cable. The producers get that, and they also understand how important casting is, given that you could break the whole theme of the film by putting the World’s Most Beautiful Actress in the starring role.
I also told them how important setting is to you guys. How the world-building, tech hoverboards, etc., have to be real. This movie should look good, and more importantly, it should look right. Excellently, it turns out that one of the producers has read Bogus to Bubbly. She also sends it along to the screenwriters they’ve been approaching. That is a Good Thing.
I told them you guys want a faithful adaptation, and they said definitely, because, as one of them put it, “The book is a movie already.” In other words, the story doesn’t have to get completely reshaped to fit the screen. (I doubt there will be any of this putting-all-three-books-into-one-movie crap.)
So what are the chances of the movie happening soon? Well, movies cost tens of millions of dollars, and nothing that requires that much money plus human creativity is ever easy to predict. But the producers did say that there’s lots of support for this project at their studio, where certain execs have been known to speak in bubble-talk. This seems like a very good sign to me.
Anyway, that’s everything I know. Watch this space for further developments. So you can stop asking me about casting calls. Seriously.
(Oh, and if you’re one of the producers reading this, don’t worry, I won’t blog every darn thing you say to me. It’s just that a lot of fans have been asking about this for a long time, and I figured it was time to give them a major update. Normally I am a master of discretion, and will only twitter what you say to me.)
As you can see, my website has had its first makeover in many years. This is to celebrate the fact that my first new series in years, Leviathan, comes out this autumn. (October 6, to be exact.)
Things may be wonky for a while as we play around under the hood. But I hope you enjoy the new look. Let me know what you think!
Click here to contact Scott Westerfeld.
Jill Grinberg
Jill Grinberg Literary Management
244 5th Avenue, 11th floor
New York, NY 10001
212-620-5883
info@grinbergliterary.com
