I started a new job this week.  It’s outstanding. Other than that, the company gave me a new phone.  Not some shitty hand-me-down: a top spec Nokia 930. It’s wizard. I dunno.  I’ve been using iPhones for so long, and pretty happy with them — right up to when I got this thing.  The 930 is a work of art, it’s fast, the apps are brilliant, the keyboard is superb, the camera is like technology only aliens from outer space should possess.  And now when I go back to trying to use my “old” 5S, it feels … faded. Yeah.  I might be a convert.

A friend just flicked me through the CityLIFE Architectural Challenge winners. It’s a bit Upgrade-ish, you know?  The first one especially.  Please click to enjoy.  

If you’ve read my work, you know I dig strong female characters. I don’t even know why I have to put “strong” in there.  It’s like it’s a special class of alien life form that people are unfamiliar with.  Possibly this is because we’re always assaulted by the wrong side of stereotypes.  And there’s no bigger stereotype than the large-breasted, bikini-wearing Diana Price (Wonder Woman).  There’s no way that DC would let me at their property, but let’s pretend they wanted me to re-imagine their iconic demigod. Head off and do an Internet search on Wonder Woman.  Just for fun, do an image search.  Try and find me a decent picture of her wearing something practical.  It’s pretty tricky. If I took over writing Wonder Woman, let’s say someone at DC does some acid and signs me on, I’d make her the Read More …

Once again, dawn comes to an awards ceremony. The Sir Julius Vogel awards are a live-fire exercise.  You can nominate as many humans as you’d like, but as with last year, I’m really interested in you nominating me.  I got shortlisted last year, which was superb!  I didn’t win, which was made slightly less sucky by the excellent Freya Robertson picking up the prize instead. If you want to nominate Upgrade, and I’m hoping you do, click this handy link: [RIGHTEOUS NOMINATION] Very important: make sure you correctly update your contact details towards the end of the email.  Otherwise, we’ll all look like dicks.

It’s done. Upgrade is now available for digital preorder.  You can whisk yourself off to grab a copy right now. The machine is still churning on physical copies, but they will arrive there on a schedule determined by the fates and the gods.  It’s roughly that scientific.  If you’re hanging out for a physical copy, Upgrade has been enrolled as a zero-cost Kindle Matchbook — so if you buy the physical, you’ll get the digital for no extra dollars.  You’ll just need to … be patient. You can expect the usual boutique hardcover edition, as well as the usual paperback style too. Here are some store links: [US] [UK] [AU] [CA].  And, possibly, some less relevant ones: [DE] [FR] [ES] [IT] [JP] [BR] [MX]

I’ve finished removing a significant volume of fuckage from Upgrade. At this stage, I’d say maybe only one in every three or four uses of the word “fuck” has made it into the next draft.  Don’t worry, there’s still plenty in there to go around. This weekend was interesting in terms of feedback (my beta buddies have started to stream in the next round, which is good). One wee mote of self-doubt has crept in following some of the feedback, where the beta reader basically said the thing sucked.  I mean, that’s a valid world view, but it got me thinking as to whether the people who’d read Night’s Favour would like Upgrade, and vice versa.  I think there are people who will like both, but now I’ve got nagging doubts that people will expect my second work to be like the Read More …

The beast has landed. Wednesday saw me knock off the second round of editing on Upgrade.  It’s now in the capable hands of the next fleet of beta readers.  This is a few days ahead of (my) schedule, and makes me a happy camper. The review process has been fun and hard in equal measure, and now I’m going to give my brain a rest by working on cover art this month.  I’ve made some minor, some major changes to almost every chapter, and added in a new chapter or two.  Overall length is still about the same (~160,000 words) due to some cutting with knives. Still no MacBook – the dead one is proper dead, and the quote to fix is roughly equivalent to a top-spec Air, so I’m trying to work out what I should do there.  I’d like Read More …

Imagine you’re on a deadline.  Imagine it’s all going well — to the wire, but well.  Then, imagine you turn on your laptop and see this: Upgrade might be delayed slightly — I need to get the ol’ workhorse repaired to actually be able to complete my edits.  I’ve got a loaner laptop at the moment, but there will still be … issues. Naturally, all data is backed up and the manuscript appears to be totally intact, so life isn’t over — life has just hit a wee snag. One of the curious things about this has been the repair process.  I dropped the machine off at our local repair agents for Apple hardware (they are the dudes — there are no other dudes), who said, “Oh, yeah.  Right.  Sure.  Looks fucked, bro.  Oh, and our tech’s away now.  Can Read More …

It’s starting to come in for the first draft of Upgrade. By and large, it’s all very positive — not that people think it’s flawless by any means, but because the feedback is stuff I can work with.  I know what it means, and have an idea of how I can use it to improve the story. I thought I’d share one of those pieces with you today.  Some of the characters in the story come from another planet — no huge spoiler there.  The trick here is that doing world building for two planets, not just one, can be a bit hard on your reader — yet my beta humans are interested in more of the motivations behind some of the characters from that other world, and want to hear more about the other world.  Thus: an idea I’m playing Read More …