It Has Begun

Okay, by my watch it's October, which means writing madness month is in effect. I've got a novel to finish and roughly seventy zillion comic books to write between now and the end of the month.

So let's get started. Again it's not a competition (it is totally a competition) but here are the rules anyway:

1. At the end of the day, you post a brief note about what you were working on (unless it's a secret).
2. In that post you include your word count. (1 comic book page = 500 words)
3. Optionally, post a snippet of what you wrote that day.

If it were a competition (which it absolutely is), then the person with the highest raw word count gets his dinner and drinks bought for him for one night at World Fantasy Con -- by the losers.

Okay, I'm onboard

I barely managed the act as a pace car the last time we did this, and probably won't do much better this time around, but what the heck?

I write a couple of novels a year, on average, but never seem to be in the middle of a longer project when we do one of these writing challenges. In the month of October I'm slated to do one comic script and one or two short stories, and even if I manage to get all of that done I doubt it would add up to as many words as Matt will likely do. But it's all about quality, folks! These will be some good darned words.

Octoberama!

I'm gearing up for the adventure that will be the writing challenge of October. See, I've got a lot to do between now and the end of the month, when I (along with a strong contingent of the CWSB gang) will be heading off to the World Fantasy Convention in San Jose. It would be very good (required, in fact) if I were to have the new novel The Office of Shadow completed before I leave, in addition to getting in all of my existing comic book work. The best way to do that is to do a writing challenge. This isn't a competition, but the "winner" will probably get dinner bought for him at World Fantasy. Not that it's a competition.

But it is.

Final Cover for The Office of Shadow

Here's the cover for my next novel, The Office of Shadow, the sequel to Midwinter. It continues the story of the struggle between the Seelie Kingdom of Queen Titania and the Empire of Mab. It's a story of high adventure and espionage in Faerie; if Midwinter was "The Dirty Dozen with elves," then this is "The Sandbaggers with Elves." That fellow on the cover is Silverdun, Mauritane's stalwart companion from Midwinter, and the young lady with him is Sela, a new character with an extremely weird and troubled past.

The beautiful cover artwork is by Chris McGrath, and the cover design is by Grace M. Conti-Zilsberger. (Click the image to embiggen.)

In other news, I've sold the German rights for both Midwinter and Office of Shadow to Verlagsgruppe Lübbe. Will I become the David Hasselhoff of fantasy literature? Only time will tell.

A MOVIE a day keeps the work away...

I've recently completed all of my real paying work except for a few rewrites on a big secret thing coming from IDW, so I'm going to look through the old projects to have something to work on in October. There are a couple of novels in mid-completion floating around on the laptop that I'll probably tackle. Its stuff I worked on during the February contest.

And because I live to taunt and I have a load of un-watched movies, I'll try to watch a movie a day and leave a few notes. I got a head start last night when I saw THE HURT LOCKER which was excellent.

.

My three days of hell (well... heck at least)

Like Matt though, I have some tough days of writing ahead of me -- three of them. In order to get on the plane to Israel on Wednesday morning with a minimum of guilt, I have to complete the following:

Today, Sunday the 27th of September, I have to finish the script for the first issue of Backroads. As of this moment I have written 12 pages of it today. 10 pages to go. I also have to finish the script to Fables # 90. Yes, I am that far behind on Fables. I should be up to Fables # 93 or 94 by now. About 8 pages of the script are done (and already being drawn), with 14 more to go.

Also today I have written the foreword to the first collection of the marvelous The Unwritten comic book series, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross. Why aren't you reading it yet? Don't let The Unwritten go unread a moment longer.

Tomorrow I have to write the complete script to Jack of Fables # 40, with help from Matt of course. And half the script to Angel # 3. It's actually not issue # 3, it's whatever the real issue number is, but I can't recall that just now, and it's my third issue of the run, so there.

And then, Tuesday I have to write the rest of Angel # 3, and the complete script to JSA # 36. Plus I also have to find time in the day to pack and pick up my dry cleaning, and generally get ready to leave far too early the next day.

So there you go, Matt. I have no compassion for you. This is the life we've chosen.

Put that wooden stake down. We're not (un)dead!

Okay, we've let this place lie fallow long enough. I've been traveling, and got the flu, so got behind on deadlines, and every other sort of blah, blah, blah. But we started this silly blog to talk about writing in general, and our writing in particular, and to keep the communication going between the widely dispersed Clockwork Storybook group.

So let's kick this thing back to life, starting now.

Matt Sturges has a novel due in just about a month, and he has to complete it without letting all of his comic book work go undone, so he's decided to start another one of those "How much work can I get done in one month?" marathons, just like our Great February Writing Duel last year. This time Matt is starting October 1st and running through the month. I can't participate this go round, since I'll be in Israel for most of that time, but I will snipe and comment, when I can, from the sidelines.

At this point I have no idea if the other Clockwork boys will be joining Matt, but since Matt has to do it, even if he does it all alone, and since posting his daily progress here publicly will help keep him on track, away we go. Well, away he goes anyway. So visit and comment when you can, and help keep Matt's feet to the fire.

Hello there, interweb readers and clockwork fans. There is a new competition up at ZUDA and I have a strip running. Its called The Urban Adventures of Melvin Blank and it is a collaboration between myself and Thom Zahler. I do the SIDECHICKS webcomic among other things and Thom does the LOVE and CAPES comics.

Getting the whole strip down the road and on the ZUDA page had been pretty fun. I wrote it as a complete 4 page story and Thom did everything else. The inspiration was a little bit of HERBIE and a little bit of LENNY from OF MICE AND MEN. Here is the long version of the pitch--

"Melvin Blank has the mind of a child and the strength of a brute. After the passing of his parents, he lives in his Mother's house in the heart of a big decaying city. He works as a dishwasher at a nearby greasy spoon and he has his urban adventures as he travels to and from work. Melvin thinks its hilarious that the mass transit system he rides, the City Area Rapid Transit System, is called "the CART", but he doesn't understand why a nearby diner is called "Joe Mama's". In a world of grays, Melvin sees things in black and white. Good and bad. Day and night. Cereal and pizza.

Melvin is pretty sure that the house down the street is haunted, but don't worry, he plans to do something about it. He is in love with a beautiful co-worker who has an abusive boyfriend, for now. He is selling items from his parent's estate to pay for an elaborate headstone for the pair. At home, he has an angry cat named SOCKS and he never, ever misses SPACE PATROL RANGER. Melvin is absolutely sure that he is living the American Dream and he wants to share it with the rest of the people in his neighborhood whether they like it or not.

The first story is a complete eight screen story. It has a beginning, middle, and an end. Melvin is like that, he likes things simple.

Melvin Blank features a script by Bill Williams (SideChicks) and art & colors by Thom Zahler (Love & Capes)."

I would appreciate it if you would go to the ZUDA page and view and vote. Call us your favorite! Cut/ Paste/ VOTE Melvin!

SIDECHICKS- http://www.graphicsmash.com/comics/sidechicks.php

Info on LnC- http://www.loveandcapes.com/

Here's MELVIN. Go VOTE!-- http://www.zudacomics.com/node/1220

Bill Williams

.

...Aaaaaand, now we're all back home again.

Oh, boy, did you miss out on so much good stuff! The over-arching intent for this year's retreat was a definite recharging of the old creative batteries. There were way more activities planned than usual, and lots more cross-pollinating discussions about genre, tropes, plots, and the other mechanics of writing.

A couple of activities were pure writerly research: the trip to the gun club, for example, to test out the idea of "twin .45s dispensing their grim justice," was particularly illuminating. Between shooting for crap with your off hand, and being acutely aware of how much .45s ride up on you, I'm officially declaring gun-fu a super power, with all of the rights and priviledges implied therein. I'm taking it off the table for the range of what 'normal' people can do. For the record, bracing our shooting hand and taking aim yielded far more accurate results. Go figure.

Also on the menu was some time spent behind the stick of a WWII warbird combat flight simulator. This was a hoot and a thrill, from start to finish. I'm a big fan of that stuff, and so it was a relief to find that I could outfly Willingham and Williams when I needed to. I'll let the other guys chime in with their thoughts, but the incessant round of conversation was invaluable to me (and, I think, to everyone else, too) as we re-affirmed what we liked, what we wanted to write, and the idea that we could, in fact, write it.

And, if that's not enough, I made a friend. This is Oney, the dog of the folks I stayed with for part of the retreat. We got along famously. I petted him. He let me. Sometimes the simplest relationships are the best ones. Thanks, Mike and Stacy, for letting me borrow your dog. He's a keeper.

Okay, that's enough of that. As per usual, I've come back from the retreat with a stack of notes, things to work on in the next three months, and some pitches to polish. Thanks for the tough love, fellows. I appreciate the support, more than you can know.

The Gang's All Here

It's the first Official Day of Work (as opposed to the Day of Travel and the Day of Prep) here at t he CWSB Retreat. So far, the air has fairly bristled with rapier wit, sharp observations, and the oh-so-useful recalibration of our critical yardsticks. This was mostly done over food and drink.

The Fire Pit was christened in a suitably glorious fashion. We've already had some amazing food. I'm taking pictures, of course.

More on this as it develops.

The Annual CWSB Workshop Week is Nigh

Bill Willingham is desperately trying to get his library set up before we all descend on his new digs. I'm deep in revision mode, and Chris, Williams, and Matt are all making more pitches than Nolan Ryan right now.

Despite all of that, I get these weird bits of prose that come to me in the middle of the day:


"We got chicken!" Boles yelled over the roar of the Humvee's engine. "Half-click out, south by south east!"

Gabe whooped and popped up into the turret. Hays checked the horizon where Boles had indicated. He could see a small cloud of dust and a mass of undulating humps.

"It's honkers," he said, banging on the roof of the Hummer to get Gabe's attention. "Come on down. Nothing to shoot, here."

Gabe remained in his harness. "Come on, L.T. I'm going batshit here. Let's just cruise over and scatter 'em."

Boles had his binocs out and was checking the herd of parasolophuses out. "Where there's honkers, there's usually rippers."

Hays shook his head. "Nope. See out there? Flat and dry. Only thing out there is gonna be a Rex, and we'd know if he was within a mile of them things. They'd be running for their lives." He banged on the roof again. "We're not shooting, Gabe."

"Man," Gabe said, backing out of the turret and flopping heavily into the back seat, "I'm never gonna shoot a dinosaur."

research question

Guys,

For a brand new project, I need to find some reference on Austin from 1975. What is the best place to go for archive/ newsy stuff from then?

The Austin American Statesman has a very long list of obits from the time. I'm more interested in the behavior of the living.

Thanks,

Bill

.