Over at SF Signal, I took part in a Mind Meld about Epic Geek Debates, which is a topic so perfect for me I had a lot of difficulty narrowing my experiences down to just one debate to talk about.
http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2014/03/mind-meld-epic-geek-debates-rants/
With shout-outs to my Skiffy & Fanty colleagues, and especially Kommandant Shaun Duke.
Dear all,
I’ve been doing site admin over the last few weeks to prepare for a busy year of releases and promotional activity.
To that end, I’ve created a distinct contact page, and I’ve created a mailing list.
The list will be low-volume, and will mostly include announcements re: new releases and public appearances. If you’re interested in the Ree Reyes series and/or my other upcoming works, please sign up and be guaranteed to catch any major news in all things Michael R. Underwood.
I’ve included the signup widget below:
I’m using MailChimp, which I assume means that you can expect to see this little friend delivering news to your email box. (No poo, though. I’m going to be very strict about that part).
A few cool things happened over this last week, so I’ve assembled them here for public consumption:
KristinD at Bitten By Books gave Attack the Geek 4/5 stars
Mick Happy Reviews gave Geekomancy 4/5 stars
The Shoot the WISB team (myself included) discussed the original 1954 Godzilla
Earlier today I linked to this essay about writing female characters:
And so I wanted to say just a bit more about it, especially idea #6 – swapping the gender to make a male character female without changing anything else about the role.
Just today, I turned in the submission draft of The Younger Gods, the first book in a new Urban Fantasy series with Pocket Books.
The book has a substantial cast, but my favorite character in the book might have to be Dorothea, one of The Broadway Knights (a secret society that protects the homeless of New York City from threats mundane and supernatural). And here’s why that’s relevant. When I first created Dorothea, her name was Graham, and she was male.
I wrote Graham for about 15-20K words of the book, then decided the character would be cooler, and the cast more balanced, if Graham were a woman. I wrote the rest of the novel with Dorothea in the role, and when it came time for revisions, I went back to change the pronouns and tweak the physical description of the character. And that was it.
When I re-cast Graham as Dorothea, the character felt more distinct, more compelling, just because I’d re-approached the role, challenged my assumptions, and taken the extra step. I hope readers will approve of the results. And when I write my next novel, I’ll be on the lookout for other characters that I could flip gender-wise or re-interpret as people of color to make sure I’m writing a more diverse, more representative cast.
Dear all,
The fine folks at Pocket Star have arranged a fantastic cover reveal event for Attack the Geek across a number of great blogs and sites. I’ve rounded up the links here so you can partake of the dicebag full of excitement!
Links a go-go:
Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing
And for archival purposes, now that you all have visited those lovely sites, here it is:
Dear all,
I’ll be attending FOGcon in the Bay Area of California this weekend (March 7-9th), along with other authors, fans, and members of the community. The Honored Guests are Seanan McGuire, Tim Powers, who are both powerhouse writers and pillars of the community. The Honored Ghost is James Tiptree, Jr. (aka Alice Sheldon), who was one of my favorite writers of feminist SF.
In addition to reuniting with my beloved college and post-college writing group, I’m going to be on paneling and hope to meet some readers and members of the local SF/F community.
Here’s my schedule:
| Networking 101 for Writers | participant | Sat, 9:00–10:15 am | Salon A/B | ||
| Secrets of the Writing World | participant | Sat, 1:30–2:45 pm | Sacramento | ||
| Reading: Brennan, Helms, Underwood | participant | Sat, 4:30–5:45 pm | Santa Rosa |
I’m particularly excited about the reading, as the three of us (Marie Brennan, Alyc Helms, and myself) are all member of the aforementioned writers’ group. These folks helped me get my start, and it’s great for us to all now be on programming together as colleagues.
If you see me at the con, please come up and say hello! Meeting new people is one of my favorite parts of conventions.
Engage Shameless Self-promo!
Calling all Geekomancers!
Attack the Geek: A Ree Reyes Side-Quest is now available for request on NetGalley – this is a novella in the Ree Reyes series (Geekomancy, Celebromancy), and is about 1/2 the size of a normal novel in the series. It has the same whacky energy and snappy comedy you’ve come to expect from the Ree Reyes series, with 100% more jokes about Jumanji and classic strategy games.
I hope you’ll check it out, or read when the novella releases on April 7th!
/Shameless Self-Promo
#SFWApro
I’m incredibly pleased to say that audio rights to Attack the Geek, the forthcoming Ree Reyes novella have sold to Audible!
From Publishers Marketplace:
Audio rights
Michael Underwood’s ATTACK THE GEEK, a side quest novella starring his bestselling heroine Ree Reyes, to Lee Jarit at Audible, in a nice deal, by Sara Megibow of Nelson Literary Agency.
This means we’ll get to continue the Ree Reyes series in audio format, which makes me tremendously happy. I hope we’ll have the audio version out close to the release of the ebook, but that remains to be seen. More about this audio edition when I have it!
I come from musical people. Not just Musical People (Broadway, etc.), but music people. My parents met doing musical theater, my little sister is likely to study Vocal Performance/Musical Theater at college, I’ve performed in musicals and spent more than ten year in various choirs.
Even though I’m five years out from my last music gig, music still has an incredible impact on me. Even being a writer, music is still the form most likely to get me from emotionally neutral to teary in 60 seconds flat.
I’ve talked before about the fact that I write to music. In fact, music is so integrated into my process that I seldom really feel like I have my head wrapped around a story concept until I’ve settled on at least a small handful of songs that take me to the right mental/emotional headspace.
Here’s some music that’s gotten me moving and kept me writing in the last few months:
Postmodern Jukebox “Die Young”
Daft Punk ft. Farrell Williams “Get Lucky”
Amy McNally Hazardous Fiddle
Grace Potter & The Nocturnals “Stars”
Two Steps From Hell Archangel