Tag Archives: YA fiction

Timformation

Tim Byrd

Tim Byrd

There are several ways to get all the Timformation you need. This site, www.tim-byrd.com, home of my blog Under An Outlaw Moon, is of course one of them.

Here are some others, and more will likely follow:

Tim on Facebook

Tim on MySpace

Tim on Twitter

Tim on Goodreads

Tim on Amazon

Feel free to contact me through any of these sites, or through a comment on the blog. I’m friendly and rarely bite, though I am very busy being a dad and a writer and may not always be as prompt in replying as I’d like.

Also, no, I won’t read your story, novel, idea, diary, outline, fortune, pie chart, autobiography, recipe, or the bumps on your head. I’m bogged down in research, way behind on personal reading, generally even more behind in my daily life, and have been strongly advised not to look at other’s unpublished work for several solid legal reasons.

I am going to try to share any and all wisdom I may gain as a professional writer through this site, though that wisdom is rather slim so far. The main advice I can give is this:

“Write it. Then send it out till someone buys it. Till they do, write something else and send it out. Repeat.”

It’s as easy as that. And as difficult.

[NOTE: This info is replicated for permament reference on its own page, accessible through the menu bar down the right side of this page.]

Gaiman Wins The Newbery

A hearty congratulations to Neil Gaiman who just won the Newbery Award for The Graveyard Book, the book I blogged about so lovingly not long ago.

Neil Gaiman: What I Look Like The Day After I Win The Newbery

And yeah, I’m up at 4:14 am, what about it? I been up for hours, beeyotch.

I need sleep. Anybody have any?

It Takes a Graveyard to Raise a Child

There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.

graveyard

So begins The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman’s latest dark wonder, in which he kind of retells Kipling’s Jungle Book, but has the orphaned boy raised not in a jungle by wild things, but in a cemetery by things that go bump in the night.

It works. Gaiman is a master, and this book is pure Gaiman, spooky and clever and wry, written with a simple grace that belies its artful complexity. It’s one of those books that’s like drinking eggnog; it’s so good, you gulp it down, finishing it fast then immediately wishing you had more. (Plus, Gaiman’s book has no calories, so it won’t add to your gut).

The Graveyard Book is a fine book, and a great read for anyone over ten.

Interested readers should also check out Gaiman’s blog at http://journal.neilgaiman.com.

Buffy Vs. Twilight

Alan Gratz (a really good writer, whose books you should read) has a blog post envisioning what a crossover betwixt Twilight and Buffy the Vampire Slayer might be like:

Following up on the tip from Oz’s werewolf contacts, Buffy climbs in the window of recent Sunnydale High transfer student BELLA SWAN to discover EDWARD CULLEN, a vampire, watching the girl as she sleeps. Edward, apparent-age 17, is impossibly beautiful, with angular features and marble-like skin that sparkles.

BUFFY: Whoa. Turn it down there, Tinkerbell.

EDWARD: Shhh! You’ll wake my darling Isabella!

BUFFY: Right. Sorry. It’s just you really ought to take the batteries out. Somebody might mistake you for a Christmas tree.

EDWARD: I’m sorry. It’s my vampire skin. It sparkles in the sun or the bright light of the moon.

BUFFY: Uh-huh.

It’s great fun, and can be read at http://gratzindustries.blogspot.com/2008/12/edward-vs-buffy.html

Read About The “Dead Folks”

deadfolks

This story was my first professional sale, and it has a weird history.

It was accepted twice, but never published until now. First Ed Hall, then the editor of a visionary magazine-on-tape called Verb, wanted it to be in Verb’s first issue. We even did some studio time, recording me reading the story, which was thirsty work.

Then I got word that my favorite magazine, Pulphouse, wanted the story. To put things in context, Pulphouse was very well known in genre circles, and very respected. It’s the only magazine I’ve ever read that I liked nearly every story they published. Not only that, but they wanted to put my story in a special Harlan Ellison issue, and the idea of sharing pages with Harlan was intoxicating.

So, with Ed’s cheerful understanding, I pulled the story from Verb. They went on to have Ha Jin, Robert Olen Butler, and James Dickey in their first issue. They got coverage on All Things Considered on NPR.

Meanwhile, Pulphouse folded just before the issue that was supposed to feature my story.

The most public exposure the story ever got was thanks to children’s author and master storyteller Carmen Deedy, who loved it enough to read it out loud at a gathering or two. Oh, and Anne Rivers Siddons read and adored it, and gave me lots of encouragement.

I always planned to look for a new home for the tale, but never got around to it. Now, for the recession-appropriate price of 99¢, you can download it to your magical computing box and read it to your heart’s content.

I’ve polished it very slightly,  mainly updating some cultural references, but it remains very much a product of the early eighties and a much younger writer. There’s some stuff in it about racists that seems kind of cartoonish these days (and I address that a bit in a new author’s note before the story). But mainly, it’s an odd bit of Southern magic realism owing more than a bit to Mark Twain and Stephen King.

Come on in, sit a while, and visit with the dead folks.

[UPDATE: As of March 30, 2011, “Dead Folks” is available at Amazon in Kindle format for 99¢ , and will soon be available at Barnes & Noble and other online vendors in other ebook formats.]

A Few Great Books

In my previous post, “Brains on Fire: On Kids and Reading,” I recommended an article by James Patterson on that very topic. At the end of that article, Patterson included a list of his favorite books for kids, and it inspired me to make my own list of recommendations. Continue reading →

Brains On Fire: On Kids and Reading

Back in December 2007, the novelist James Patterson became a hero of mine.

Patterson wrote an open letter to his son in Parade magazine that resonated strongly with me, and said some things I wanted to say to my own son, Nathaniel: Continue reading →

Know Her Before She’s Famous

kimberly
Meet Kimberly Derting, of the Great Northwest.

I’ve privately congratulated Kim, and figured I’d also do so publicly, because she recently got some really awesome news: HarperCollins gave her a buttload of currency to let them publish her first two books (in a deal made by agent supreme Laura Rennert, who also sold my book, Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom).

The first book, The Body Finder, is due next year, with the as-yet-untitled second book to follow in 2010. The Body Finder tells the tale of a young girl with an intriguing psychic ability who tries to use it to track a serial killer. Make a note of that title, and Kim’s name, and make sure to grab the book when it comes out so you’ll be the proud owner of a Kimberly Derting first edition, which I’m thinking will escalate quite a bit in value.

For more info, visit http://kimberlyderting.com, Kim’s incredible website that makes me cry because it’s so much nicer than mine.

Doc Wilde On The Interminable Ramble

I could have sworn I posted this news a while back, but apparently I only posted it to Facebook. So here it is, belated but still cool.

Writer Chris Roberson (who, among other achievements, has been a World Fantasy Award finalist four times) got wind of my book, and was kind enough to mention it on his blog:

Click to go to “You can file this under Things That Make Me Burn With Envy.”

Buy Doc Wilde Now!

Buy Doc Wilde Now!

A Smorgasbord of Adventure

For the first time in a long while, it’s easy to build a nice collection of classic pulp adventure fiction, and I’ve been doing just that. I started with the Doc Savage reprints put out monthly by Anthony Tollin, magazine-size volumes using gorgeously restored original art, each book collecting two of the long out-of-print novels, like:

“Resurrection Day” and “Repel”
“The Polar Treasure” and “Pirate of the Pacific”
“The Man of Bronze” and “The Land of Terror”

For the uninitiated, Doc Savage was second only to The Shadow in popularity during the pulp era, and served as a key inspiration to the creators of later characters ranging from Superman and Batman to James Bond and Buckaroo Banzai. He’s also the primary ancestor of my own hero, Doc Wilde. The Savage books were reprinted earlier by Bantam, starting in 1964, and I grew up reading them and wanted to give my son something to read that offered the same sort of adventure.

Tollin offers The Shadow in the same format, also monthly. Till this year, I’d read some Shadow comics and two novels, heard a radio play or two, and seen the film with Alec Baldwin (which is unfortunately campy, but possesses some genuine wit, some gorgeous visuals, and a perfectly cast hero). I was going to just get a Shadow volume here and there, being a lot less of a fan than I was of Doc Savage, but after reading a couple I subscribed to that whole series as well. The Shadow is a magnificent character, and the stories are intricate and action-packed. Here are some great examples:

“The Red Blot” and “The Voodoo Master”
“The Plot Master” and “Death Jewels”
“The Blue Sphinx” and “Jibaro Death”

I subscribed to one more series, The Spider. These reprints also come two to a volume, in nice magazine-sized editions using the original art, but are published quarterly instead of monthly, and by Girasol Collectables.  The Spider started as a Shadow rip-off, but evolved swiftly into something much more demented. The Spider tales are more violent, more epic in scale, and far weirder than usual, even for pulp. At the same time, The Spider is a more human and realistic hero than either of his more famous brethren, showing genuine emotion and even involved in a fully committed, intense, passionately romantic relationship.

Baen Books offers a great place to start with The Spider,  a couple of volumes of classic tales with beautiful artwork by Jim Steranko:

The Spider: Robot Titans of Gotham
The Spider: City of Doom

Pulp adventure tales like this are great for us grown-ups who love Indiana Jones, The Rocketeer, or James Bond, but they’re also great for young readers, especially boys. And if you start building your own shelf of pulp, don’t forget to put Doc Wilde into the mix. ;)

Anyone know more great pulp stuff that’s available?

Good Memories of 2008

Some things I enjoyed last year, in no particular order…

The Dark Knight. I could say, with great conviction, that this was the best movie of 2008, but I actually didn’t see anywhere close to all the movies released, so that’d be pretty presumptuous of me. It was definitely the best new film I saw, and the Batman movie I’ve wanted to see since my age was in single digits. Batman Begins was damn near perfect (Katie Holmes notwithstanding), and The Dark Knight took everything that worked in Begins and improved upon it. It’s not just a great superhero movie, it’s a damn good film, a high caliber crime thriller, beautifully made, masterfully written, full of great performances, politically topical, just amazing. And the Joker’s bit with a pencil is the best bit of sleight of hand I’ve seen in years.

For the record, I also loved Iron Man and Hellboy 2, and Bolt was wonderful.

Barack Obama. Morning in America, Superman leading the Justice League to victory against the Injustice League, a black man taking the highest office in the land, an antidote to the small-minded, soulless corruption of the past decade in American life. Here’s hoping he lives up to his promise.

Mad Men. TV by and for smart people. This show is ridiculously entertaining, and operates on so many levels that it actually triggers synaptic action in the brain, a rarity on television.

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Joss Whedon adds another classic to his resume, and becomes an internet pioneer at the same time. Songs good enough I get them stuck in my head for days and don’t mind. Hilarious wit laced with deep darkness and pathos. The lovely Felicia Day. And Bad Horse, of course, of course.

Doc Wilde. I received the galleys (advance reading copies) of my book, Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, and after years of dragging my ass on my dream, it felt great to be able to hold a novel I wrote in my hands, flip through its pages seeing all these paragraphs I crafted, and stare at the cover and see the faces of my characters as they will meet their audience in bookstores. Not to mention reading over and over the great blurbs from Daniel Pinkwater and Quentin Dodd. They like me! They really like me!

Um…excuse my Sally Field moment there.

3o Rock. And Tina Fey in general. I’d never watched this show, though I was interested, because I try to keep my TV viewing down, and often avoid shows I suspect I’ll love. I finally broke down and watched the pilot episode, which resulted in days of binge-watching my way through seasons one and two and three. I’m caught up, and eagerly awaiting the show’s return. This show’s funny as hell, Tina Fey’s a marvel, Alec Baldwin gets to showcase his incredible comic skills, and Tracy Morgan’s a delirious delight.

Facebook. I wasn’t interested in Facebook. I was very cynical about it, saw no use for it. But wiser folks encouraged me to use it at the very least as a tool to make myself available to people interested in my writing, so I signed on. That wasn’t that long ago, but I’m already in steady contact with people I lost over the years, people in the writing and publishing community to learn from, new friends, old enemies (amazing how time and a viable net interface can make old grudges seem beneath notice), and people with similar interests with whom to share ideas and discoveries…

Pulp fiction. I’ve been reading a lot of classic pulp, and thoroughly enjoying it. I have enough to say about this that I’ll be tackling it in another post.

Joss Whedon. In retrospect, I should have just put Dr Horrible here. Leave it to Joss to earn a category all his own on my list of joy. In addition to the musical magic of the Sing-Along Blog, Joss gave the world season 8 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in comic book form, continuing Buffy’s adventures with panache and wit and emotional depth (the issues are collected in paperback, starting with The Long Way Home).

Also in comics, Joss wrote 25 issues of Astonishing X-Men, with amazing art by John Cassaday, which have also been collected. I got the second hardback collection recently and literally had tears in my eyes when I finished.

And, of course, Joss’s earlier work continues to provide enjoyment. I got to watch both Buffy and Angel from start to finish with my son this year, which I’d looked forward to doing for years, and it was awesome. Which brings me to:

My son. Nathaniel has adapted to the sundering of his family and the resulting radical changes in his life with great cheer and flexibility, and I admire and respect him for that. He remains, as always, the brightest star in my firmament, the only unceasing source of joy and meaning in my life.

Doc Wilde Appears On “Adventures in Writing”

Far-more-prolific-than-me author Mel Odom has mentioned Doc Wilde on his blog, “Adventures In Writing:”

http://melodom.blogspot.com/2008/12/blog-post.html

I look forward to hearing Mel’s thoughts once he’s read the book.

Order Doc Wilde Now!

One of various “Big Days” in the life of a first time author has arrived. Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom can now be pre-ordered at Amazon.

If you plan to order, and have yet to do so, please order through this link:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0399247831?ie=UTF8&tag=docwilonl-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0399247831

This is the same link that I now have on the http://www.DocWilde.com site (which the link in the right column goes to), so you can always get to it there if need be.

The reason for this is that I am now what you call an “Amazon Associate,” which means I get a bit of extra cash off any sales I refer their way through that link. Extra cash means more possibility of food and caffeine, which means a higher probability of future Doc Wilde books you can enjoy. ;)

NaNoWriMo Day 1: Doc Wilde Returns

As of today, Doctor Spartacus Wilde and his swashbuckling and brilliant offspring, Brian and Wren, returned to action, after resting a bit following their epic defeat of the Frogs of Doom. (Read about that adventure in the first book, coming out in May 2009!)

NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, has commenced. My son and I, both participating, tossed our computers in packs, shouldered the packs, and hiked out on a journey of literaturing. We camped in a nice cafe’ with wifi and wrote the afternoon away.

His goal, decided upon based on other factors like school, martial arts classes, drum lessons, afternoon science club, and such, is 100 words a day, to result in a 3,000 word story at month’s end.

My goal, as an adult participant (not to mention full-time writer), is 1,500 words a day, toward an ultimate goal of 50,000 words.

I usually write 1,000 words a day, but today’s 1,500 came easily, and I’m very happy with the book’s beginning. I did decide that this project would be the next Doc Wilde adventure, Doc Wilde and The Daughter of Darkness.

I have some friends who are allegedly participating in the month’s writing, and we’ll see if they are. They, or anyone else who’s playing, can sign up to be my writing buddy over at NaNoWriMo.org, and we can watch our progress bars grow and stuff. My user name is outlawmoon.

As a special treat, here’s Chapter 1 of my new book, in its rough, first draft, fresh-from-the-oven form: Continue reading →

Another Advance Doc Wilde Rave!

The second official endorsement of my novel, Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom, just arrived.

It’s from Quentin Dodd, author of The Princess of Neptune and Beatnik Rutabagas from Beyond the Stars:

Thank you for letting me read DOC WILDE AND THE FROGS OF DOOM. I should have had this done a week ago, but once I got about halfway through I started slowing down because I didn’t want it to end.

I really enjoyed this book. It was sharply-written, smart, and didn’t waste a word or a minute in getting to the action. Like its spiritual predecessors, the two-fisted adventure novels for boys and grown-up boys, this is a book to be read under the covers, with a flashlight, way past bedtime. It is old-school entertainment and proud of it.

By the time I got to page nine and [edited for slight spoilage], I knew I was onto something good. I think readers who have already discovered the man from Providence [that would be H.P. Lovecraft] and the Man of Bronze are in for an extra treat as well.

I certainly hope there are going to be sequels, and I can’t remember the last time I said that. Thanks again for giving me the chance to read it. I hope it does well.

Best,

Quentin

P.S. I have to admit, reading something like this brings out mixed emotions. On one hand, I was excited and inspired to read something so good. On the other, I was annoyed that I hadn’t written it myself.

I Been Blurbed

Just got news from my editor  that Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom officially has its first blurb:

“Doc Wilde and the Frogs of Doom is an adventure yarn in the old tradition.  It gets that reading is an intellectual activity, and that an adventure, to be really good, has to engage the reader’s brain.  I love a smart book!” —Daniel Pinkwater

If you don’t know Daniel Pinkwater, you should. He’s a marvelous, witty, and prolific writer, and a frequent commentator on NPR. I’m thrilled that he’s blurbing the Wildes.