Bradley P. Beaulieu

My Clarion classmate, Stephen Gaskell, has a touching new story up at Clarkesworld. It’s a near-future, hard science fiction story about a man dealing with the ghosts of his father and mother as he struggles to find a balance to the violence that seems always to pervade mankind.

It’s a great story. Give it a read. You’ll be glad you did.

Via Pat Rothfuss’s blog… This was too good not to pass along.

My suggestion to you? Watch it without the sound the first time through. My sound happened to be muted on my laptop when I watched it first. Not realizing this, I thought it was like a silent film. It works incredibly well this way. When you’ve run through it once like that, then turn the sound up and you’ll find that it’s still brilliant.

While I was emailing a few people that have ties to the Writers of the Future writing workshop, I realized that it starts today. What a great time that I had when I was there. I can't believe it's been six years already–it's been over seven since I found out I'd placed in Quarter 1 of the 2003 contest year (the anthology came out in August of the next year). It was a week filled with great instruction, wonderful company, a lot of charged, optimistic conversation, and an unforgettable ceremony at the end of the week. Those kids have no idea what's lying in store for them.

Good luck to them all…

Roughly 3,000 words the last two days on The Straits of Galahesh. That's caught me up for missing last Friday. That's pretty good for me. Steady Eddie. Straight's the ship that stays the course.

You know what would be really cool, though? If someone told me they'd written like 4,000 words today. Ever read Cherie Priest's blog? She writes like 18,000 words per freaking day. What's up with that? Does she have a pod of imps chained to a bunch of old Mac laptops in her basement? It wouldn't be so bad if she wrote crappy books. But she doesn't. She writes cool books. Really cool books.

Sigh.

So, yeah, someone please tell me they wrote like three times as much as I did in the past few days. That would be wonderful.

I've come to a decision on the title for Book 2. It will be called The Straits of Galahesh, though I reserve the right to change it at any time. It's important for me to have titles, though. For whatever reason, they help me shape the book. With The Winds of Khalakovo, it captured both the Russian feel I was shooting for and a bit of the of sense I was trying to give the reader: that something was amiss. Change was on the wind. And I used that to good effect throughout the writing of the book.

With Straits, I'm shooting for more of a flavor of the Empire that stands to the west of the Grand Duchy. They're loosely based on the Ottoman Empire, and they're a major player in this book, so I wanted to get them in to the title right away. On the island of Galahesh are, well, straits. They come into play quite a bit in the story, but I also wanted to again, make it a harbinger of the danger that lies ahead, which helps me to shape the story.

I'm about 48k into the book so far. I'm shooting for 20k per month so that I can finish around the February timeframe and then begin immediately edits for my May due date next year. It's a little aggressive because of the size of the books I'm writing (roughly 180k or so each), but it's doable. I usually get in about 1k per writing session, and I write most nights, so I think I'll be able to do 20k a month without much trouble.

My daughter, nearly three years old in this picture.

The Winds of Khalakovo is now listed on Night Shade's site. I'm now an official member of the posse! Comment excitant!

Coming April 2011 

Among inhospitable and unforgiving seas stands Khalakovo, a mountainous archipelago of seven islands, its prominent eyrie stretching a thousand feet into the sky. Serviced by windships bearing goods and dignitaries, Khalakovo's eyrie stands at the crossroads of world trade. But all is not well in Khalakovo. Conflict has erupted between the ruling Landed, the indigenous Aramahn, and the fanatical Maharrhat, and a wasting disease has grown rampant over the past decade. Now, Khalakovo is to play host to the Nine Dukes, a meeting which will weigh heavily upon Khalakovo's future. 

When an elemental spirit attacks an incoming windship, murdering the Grand Duke and his retinue, Prince Nikandr, heir to the scepter of Khalakovo, is tasked with finding the child prodigy believed to be behind the summoning. However, Nikandr discovers that the boy is an autistic savant who may hold the key to lifting the blight that has been sweeping the islands. Can the Dukes, thirsty for revenge, be held at bay? Can Khalakovo be saved? The elusive answer drifts upon the Winds of Khalakovo… 

Trade Paperback – 978-1-59780-218-5 
500 Pages – $14.99 

I just got word from my editor, Ross Lockhart over at Night Shade, that the artist that's been assigned to work on the cover for Winds is Thomas Scholes. Not knowing terribly much about Mr. Scholes, I quickly googled him and came across his blog (love the name: Crayon Box of Doom) and his corner over at CGHub. He apparently likes doing environments and landscapes and such. And I can see why. He really excels at it. I love the orange and ochre landscape below with the clouds above it. He also uses light and darkness very well. Many of his pieces have this dark and serious tone that perfectly matches Winds. He does these livestreams of his artwork where you can watch him work on some of his artwork. I think he believes in the chaos theory of artwork, trying a million things on for size and seeing what works. It's very interesting to watch.

I have no idea if I'll be involved in any of the decision making. I'm perfectly fine if I'm not. Night Shade and Mr. Scholes certainly know what they're doing. But I'd also be perfectly happy to help if I can. If there are character's in the finished piece (which is not a given), I have a lot of pictures I've dug up while researching the costumes, etc. If it's purely a landscape shot, there are several places in the world that would match up well with Tom's strengths. The eyrie is one such. It's a massive cliff face where there are dozens of stone perches on which the windships of the Grand Duchy can berth.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Well, all in all I would have to say I liked it and would generally recommend it to people. But was I crazy about it? No. I'd have to put it squarely in the B- category.

::spoiler alert::

::spoiler alert::

The good?

The special effects of course. Even though they were pretty spectacular, I often couldn't tell reality from effect. The exception, looking back, was the floaty scenes in the hotel. Cool thought, and they did a good job for something that's very difficult to pull off in a believable way, but it still felt setty and wirey to me. Very non-null grav. But I loved the landscape scenes, especially bending Paris in half and the coastal destruction.

The only standout in the acting category was Marion Cotillard. She didn't have a ton of screen time, but when she was on the screen, she shined. She really played the part of the lovelorn wife very well. Just the right mix of anguish and desire and batshit crazy. Ellen Page did a nice job as well, though I think she was handcuffed by the script.

The core idea itself was well thought out and well executed for the most part. It kept me thinking and even though there were a lot of parallels with The Matrix, I often caught myself thinking beyond the movie into "what ifs". What would *I* do in that situation? What would *I* build?

The culmination of the movie, with all four levels headed toward one final conclusion was handled about as well as it could be handled. It got long at the end. I think Nolan overplayed his hand a bit, but it handled nicely, with all four levels adding tension to the story.

The action was quite good. I thought they mixed the slo-mo with normal-time sequences to good effect. And it was pretty complex action, especially when it came to the 3- and 4-level immersions at the end. This is clearly Nolan's strong suit: mixing complicated action in a tense but palatable way for the viewer.

I'm not really sure where to put this. I'm sort of half and half about the very ending, where we're supposed to wonder whether or not the world Leonardo made it to was real or not. I fully admit that Nolan had to do it. They had talked too much about the creeping doubt Leonardo and his wife experienced not to do it. But still, I felt the manipulation, and that I didn't quite like.

The not so good?

The initial frame scene was handled in a pretty ham-fisted way. I would actually have preferred it if he were finishing up a completely different, unrelated job, and then Watanabe approaches him afterward. Telegraphing the fact that Watanabe was going to be in limbo for fifty years really sapped the tension and the emotion for me at the end. Had we simply thought that they were gone, not knowing if they would ever return, and then Leonardo finds and saves him at the end, I would have been much more on the edge of my seat with respect to how the movie would end.

The exposition. I really, really didn't like the way the elements of inception were discussed. It could have been much more organic, much more natural than the way it was presented to the viewer. The "limbo" and "kick" scenes stick out, but there were a lot of things just like them where they put the movie on hold for a minute or so while they told you about an element of the story.

The acting. I've come to like Leonardo a lot, and really many of actors in the movie, but the script did not allow them much freedom, and Nolan has to shoulder some of the blame here. They all felt wooden at certain points, especially (and sadly) Ken Watanabe and Leonardo and Ellen Page. The worst of the bunch was Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I know he's been a stage actor for a while after his stint on Third Rock from the Sun, and it showed. He was either overacting or emotionless. Surely this second option was at Nolan's direction, and probably necessary given the other option was too much expression, something that's necessary on a Broadway stage. Tom Beringer also gets a big thumbs-down.

A special rasberry has to go out to makeup. Ken Watanabe looked horrible as an old man. They couldn't have borrowed the technology from Benjamin Button?

I'll be sitting on a number of panels, giving a reading, and signing books while at GenCon this weekend!

Here's the lowdown:

• Thurs 9am – Plotting in Reverse - Craft the end at the beginning! Work your story backward! Simply decide how you want your tale to conclude, and we’ll help you figure out how to get there from page one.
• Thurs 10am – Plotstorming from Character - In some cases the plot of a book drives the characters. However, characters that instead drive the plot can make for a more compelling story. In this hour, we focus on how to grow your plot from your main characters.
• Thurs 1pm – Creating Conflict - Make war, not peace! Ruffle the feathers of your characters. Stir the pot of emotions. Add a fistfight or two. Craft a clever and entertaining argument among your heroes. Not all conflict has to be bloody or increase the body count, but it does have to keep the reader turning the pages. Our panelists discuss the art of adding a dash of conflict to your pages.
• Thurs 3pm – Pick My Brain (no zombies, please)
• Thurs 9pm – International Get Your Editor Drunk Night (don't ask)
• Fri 9am – The Protagonist - We’ll teach you how to turn an ordinary hero into an extraordinary one. Spend an hour focusing solely on your main character, a good guy who doesn’t necessarily have to wear a white hat. We’ll tackle the villain in a later panel.
• Fri 10am – The Antagonist - Mold a truly remarkable villain, a character memorable to your readers, devoid of clichés, and one who can go toe-to-toe with your protagonist. For one hour, no heroes are allowed.
• Fri Noon – Reading with Tim Waggoner, with special guests Paul Genesse and Kelly Swails, who will be assisting in my reading of The Winds of Khalakovo
• Fri 1pm – Signing at Author's Alley

Out of necessity, I've been sitting on this news for a while, but now I can finally let the cat out of the bag.

I've sold a book! Check that. I've sold three books. A trilogy, even… The Winds of Khalakovo, The Straits of Galahesh, and a third book yet to be titled (and written, for that matter). I'm proud and excited to be with Night Shade Books, who are well known for publishing high quality fiction in a number of speculative fiction genres. Night Shade are a passionate group, and they have a beautiful sense of style when it comes to the artwork and layout for their books, which, as strange as it sounds, is a major key to attracting an audience, especially for a budding writer.

The first book is set to come out spring or summer of next year. Fast, I know! We've only just signed the contracts, so I know there's a roller coaster ride ahead of me. Right now I'm going through that early, chug-chug stage as the car heads for that first big drop…

I'll be posting more about the whole process and my thoughts on it, but for now, I'll close with this one simple thought: I've sold a book! Check that. Since it's a trilogy, I'll close with three thoughts: I've sold a book! I've sold a book! I've sold a book!

My friend, Mary Robinette Kowal, has a book, Shades of Milk and Honey, that released today.

Mary is a wonderful writer, and I'm excited for this milestone in her growing and no-longer-so-budding writing career. We went to Orson Scott Card's Literary Bootcamp in 2005. She's come a long way since then, and it's been gratifying to see her star rise, in the same way that the indy band you love makes good. I was lucky enough to read some early chapters of Shades, and I'm very much looking forward to reading it in its entirety. Here is but one of the many glowing reviews for Mary's debut novel:

 

If Jane Austen had written a fantasy novel, Shades of Milk and Honey would have been the result. Written with painstaking attention to detail, Kowal’s prose is serenely evocative of the time period, and the fantastic elements are a seamless fit. The characterization is extremely well done and Jane is a sympathetic, strong and intelligent heroine whose devotion to her family trumps nearly every other concern. Give this one a try!

In an alternate Regency England where magic exists, young women practice manipulating glamour in their quests to land eligible bachelors. Both Jane and her sister Melody are well-practiced in this womanly art, and Jane’s ability in particular is remarkable. However, it is Melody who is fair of face and who gets most of the masculine attention while Jane, at the age of 28, is on the shelf. When Jane realizes that one of Melody’s suitors is up to no good and is getting into position to take advantage of her, she pushes her skills to their very limits and, quite accidentally, finds her very own happy ever after.

– Romantic Times, 4-1/2 Star Top Pick

Have you seen this yet? I write like… It's a new website that's "taking the internet by storm." Normally I wouldn't bother, but hey, it's writing, and I was sort of curious. So I opens up the web page, and it has a very straightforward interface. You just plops your writing into a text field and you clicks the button. I was all ready to have it blurt out something like: You write like Nora Roberts or Allen Ginsberg. Fine people, I'm sure, but I don't write like them, and I didn't want some silly internet gizmo telling me otherwise.

So imagine my surprise when it came up with the following:

I write like
J. R. R. Tolkien

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

This is me smiling…

For some reason, even though I would have written this off without another thought had it been some obscure author, I'm immensely satisfied with this verdict. Tolkien's influence on not just my writing, but the very decision to become a writer, vastly overshadows all others.

I had an interview earlier tonight with the kind people over at Writers of the Future. Well, with their production company, anyway. It was for a video they're compiling to celebrated the 25th anniversary of the contest. I suppose if I managed to say anything witty or interesting they'll put me into the final product. I'm not sure when it'll come out (I got a few conflicting messages at the interview itself) but my best guess is in August.

I didn't think I would get nervous, but then I did. Not sure why. I guess being put in front of a camera has the knack for doing that to people. When I got there, things were running late because the production crew were late getting into Milwaukee. They were heading in from North Carolina and staying for a few days in Chicago/Milwaukee before heading out for Cleveland and then back home to LA. They hit some delays in O'Hare, apparently, and then some traffic. Oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, this just made me more nervous. I was all ready to sort of sit down and, well, "get it over with" is not the right sentiment, but I did want to have it done so I could relax. Joanne had already dropped me off at the hotel, so I called her up and had her come back, and then we went to The Hollander, which serves some good food and some better beer. Yes, I had a beer. A Hoegaarden if you must know. A big one. Figured it would calm me down a bit. And that it did for the most part.

Very oddly, I saw Lynne Marie and Michael Damian Thomas while I was there. It was very surreal. I saw Michael, and we both stared at one another. You know, the look you give people where you think you recognize them, but then you go, nah, can't be, so you both look away. Then you both look back again. So while Michael and I were doing this little dance, Lynne goes, Brad! And then I'm like: OMG, WTF, it's you guys! I'd just seen them at WisCon in Madison the weekend before, so it was, well, just weird to see them in a place I never expected them. But it was very nice, too. I didn't get a chance to talk to either of them much at WisCon, so hopefully I can catch up with them a bit more at World Fantasy.

So, anyway, back to WotF. I head back after dinner, and I get up to the room that they've got for the taping. I fill out a bit of paperwork, and I'm chatting with the perfectly lovely Haley (the preproduction gal), and I realize that the other interviewee is being interviewed as I sit there in the other room. Hold that thought.

I continue shooting the breeze with Haley, and it occurs to me that the other interview is going on for some time. Eventually the other interviewee finishes up after, oh, I don't know, 20 minutes? And she was there being interviewed before I arrived. Then she comes in to say goodbye to Haley, and she's very personable, outgoing, easy to talk to. And then it's my turn at bat. The nerves aren't terribly bad, but they're getting there now. I go into the interview room and sit down. Surrounding this little chair are these big Chinese lantern lights. It feels like I'm about to be given the third degree. Drew starts asking me a few questions (to warm me up, I suppose), I get a bit more makeup, and then it's on. Drew starts asking me the real questions, and I start answering them as well as I can, but going through my head is the thought that the other gal, the one before me, the horribly personable one, she was in this room for a long time. She was probably saying all sorts of witty things that I'm not. She probably went on and on for minutes on each question, telling these cool little anecdotes. And as I'm thinking this, a nervous reaction I get from time to time crops up. My throat starts closing up. I thought this was a myth, but four or five years ago, the exact time that I started reading either for Joanne or in public, it started happening to me. And it started happening again. Years back, I would have to swallow like a bajillion times to keep speaking. I'd have to clear my throat. I sounded like a buffoon, which of course only made things worse. Luckily, I've learned tricks over time. The instinct is to speed up your cadence, but in that direction lies ruin. Instead, I slow down. I take pauses instead of swallowing. And in time–if I can just allow myself to live in what I'm saying instead of thinking about my fracking throat–things eventually loosen up, and I can talk like a normal human being again.

Luckily this worked. I only lost a few questions to this malady, and I even managed to tell some, if not witty, at least heartfelt tidbits of when I first learned that I'd won the contest, when I'd gone for the WotF workshop and the amazing awards ceremony, and the things I've built upon since attending the workshop. Hopefully it didn't turn out too bad. I think it didn't. Then again, what do I know? Maybe I'll end up on the cutting room floor.

Could be worse, though. There's plenty more-famous people than me who ended up on the cutting room floor. I'll consider myself in good company…

The Winds of Khalakovo, book two, has begun in earnest. I'm still playing with the title, but for now I'm going with The Straits of Baiyaal.

I'm buzzing with excitement to get moving on this book. Things always move slowly for me in the beginning of new projects, though. I suppose this is par for the course for writers tackling new projects, but I get pretty hung up on things like names. I can't write a character until I know their name. Same with places. I have to get that down before I can move on. It sort of defines the character or the place for me. Cements it. There are several new characters coming into play in this book from the neighboring Empire of Yrstanla, which I'm loosely modeling after the Ottoman Empire circa 1600. One of the main characters will be the Emperor. After steeping myself in the names of people and places during that time, I think I've finally found something I can work with. His name is Hakan ül Ayese, Kamarisi of Yrstanla. It was common to tack on tons of honorifics, to sort of aggrandize their status, but in this case, at least for now, I think I'll largely forgo those things.

Onward and upward!

I got back from WisCon yesterday afternoon. It was a fun con, as usual, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. I didn't mind the heat at all. Things have been cold in WI all spring, so it was nice to have a small heat wave. At least it wasn't raining.

The con seemed sparse this year. Someone thought that it was down 100 or so people from its cap of around 1,000, but if I were a betting man I'd say it was a bit more. And in terms of industry presence it seemed like low attendance. Publishers are continually looking for places to cut, and it seems like the travel budget is one of the latest casualties these last few years.

I hung out with a number of my Starry Heaven and Clarion classmates. Shveta Thakrar and Chris Cevasco from Clarion. Jenn Reese, Sandra McDonald (see, I got it right, Sandra!), Jon Hansen, Bill Shunn, and Greg van Eekhout from Starry Heaven. Plus tons of others.

I went to a total of zero panels this year. Not because I didn't want to. It was just that other things came up. Starry Heaven is right around the corner, and I've been working hard to get my ms done so I can start reading the SH mss heavily. So my mornings were taken up with that–getting writing out of the way. And then there were people reading that I wanted to see. Shveta Thakrar and Amal El-Mohtar teamed up for a split-tongues reading, a reading from authors that have multilingual and multicultural upbringings. Shveta's story about her nani was great. And I adored Amal's reading of her Rhysling award-winning poem, A Song for an Ancient City. Amal read it in both English and Arabic, and I loved both. I've never really just sat an listened to Arabic, and I have to say it was beautiful to hear.

Bill Shunn gave a reading from his latest novel. That was cool to hear, since I'd read the same opening at Starry Heaven last year. And then on Sunday, just before I left, I went to a reading with five YA authors: Rae Carson read from her soon-to-be-released THE PRINCESS AND THE GODSTONE, Karen Healey read from GUARDIAN OF THE DEAD, Jenn Reese read ABOVE WORLD, Sarah Prineas read from THE MAGIC THIEF: FOUND, and Greg van Eekhout read KID VS. SQUID.

Among all the other hats he wears, John Joseph Adams has just started editing a brand new magazine called Lightspeed. Its first issue is due any day now, and four of the authors read stories from the first issue: Vylar Kaftan, Alice Sola Kim, Cat T. Rambo, and Genevieve Valentine. The stories and the readings were great, though Alice's attempt at sipping bourbon after every scene break was the most amusing thing in the session. Thankfully she abandoned the tactic after a shot or so.

I caught up with Mary Robinette Kowal on Saturday, which was really nice. We talked about her next project after her Shades of Milk and Honey, and it sounds fascinating. Terribly challenging, and most likely difficult to write, but fascinating. We went out to dinner with Chris Cevasco and Liza Trombi, the editor of Locus (I felt like such an insider).

There were the usual parties at night, though like I said, they were subdued this year, and they cleared out early. That was ok, though. I had to get to sleep so I could get up and write some more. I was sad on Sunday when I had to leave. It's always so much fun speaking with people in the same boat that you are, trying to navigate the same waters. But luckily Starry Heaven is right around the corner. Can't wait for Flagstaff!

My story, "In the Eyes of the Empress's Cat," will be printed, along with many of my fellow GenCon Writers Symposium members, in the Stalking the Wild Hare anthology, which will be released just in time for GenCon this year. More info, like a solid publication date, will be available soon.

Man, am I behind the times…

I consider myself still relatively new to parenting. My daughter, Relaneve, is four years old. My son, Rhys, is four months. I have learned a few things, though. I'm not a complete neophyte. For example, I used to think that as your children grew, that you would teach them. Train them, so to speak. I mean, when they're really young, you're not so much communicating with them as you are making examples for them, right?

Wrong.

If I've learned anything about parenting, it's that the children train you, not the other way around. Case in point. I went to the Betty Brin Children's Museum last weekend with my wife and two kids. Relaneve was having a grand time playing on this massive slide/jungle gym/fort thingy. she'd run up to the top, slide down in the innards of this contraption such that we couldn't see her, and then exit from the bottom chute, exaltant. Then she'd go after it again, determined to beat the slide one more time.

Meanwhile, Joanne and I were sitting, keeping Rhys occupied. And to do so I was wagging my wedding ring by a ribbon to make something shiny and fun to look at. And then I thought: hey, I have this fancy Blackberry. Why don't I take a video as long as I'm here. So, I did, and then I started babbling to him, much as I do at home, to get him to make some fun sounds. Training him, right? But then it occurred to me that I'd had the relationship wrong the whole time.

Case in point. The video evidence. Yes, that's me babbling away like an utter fool completely oblivious to whoever might be watching. Sometimes I tell myself that I'm just being a good parent, ignoring the noise and focusing on my child and his needs. But in the back of my head, I know the truth…

My friend and Clarion classmate, Vincent Jorgensen, has a new website called the Bay Area Minimalist, where he focuses on living large without spending a lot. It's worth checking out.

http://bayareaminimalist.blogspot.com/