- July 30th, 2008 at
5:12 pm by --KALEB NATION-- -
Quick update! I have a talk scheduled with two other bloggers on the Washington Post website, on August 1 at 1:00 PM, US Eastern Time. I will be doing it live and also answering questions that are submitted early. The focus of the interview will be Twilight, the upcoming Twilight film, and my other blog, TwilightGuy.com.
You can find more info about it here or submit questions to me early at this link.
On other news, I will have my Famous Author Interview up here soon, possibly Friday (if I remember ).
Comments are disabled on this post: send questions on the Washington Post site. Hope to see you there!
- July 28th, 2008 at
12:05 am by --KALEB NATION-- -
I know that most of you have not read The Farfield Curse in its entirety yet (as it’s not out until 2009), and even those who have read parts probably do not know well enough about the characters to actually care who Emry Hambric is. I won’t attempt to explain it because I’d really have to write the whole book out for it to be understood, but hopefully my new song will help you imagine the feeling at the end of the first book:
The ending is a mixture of hope and a little sadness, a happy ending but tinged a little, and in a way I feel this song echoes how the first book concludes.
If you like my music or my other songs, I have two that you can download for free on a hidden page at BranHambric.com. I’ll have more news on the book soundtrack closer to the release in late 2009.
There is some about Emry in the prologue of the book (and a song for the Prologue as well, on the Music page) so I can also email preview chapters of The Farfield Curse if you want to get a better feel of who she is. Email me and I’ll try to get previews out as quick as I can.
This song is a first draft so opinions are welcome!
[note: email subscribers must visit the site to hear audio]
- July 25th, 2008 at
12:05 am by --KALEB NATION-- -
For those of you who haven’t already seen it on TwilightGuy.com, I was recently interviewed for a small Feedback section in this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly. My interview is regarding Twilight for the most part, and my thoughts on the upcoming movie, other fan sites and Stephenie Meyer.
The issue comes out at the same time my 940,000-th hit bounces onto TwilightGuy.com, since I started it in mid-April. I, of course, am extremely thrilled over this as it’s my first major national interview, and even though it’s not exactly about MY book yet, it’s still a wonderful way to start off
Also, whilst taking a drastically-needed break from my book revisions on Wednesday, I happened to go back to my instruments in an effort to distract my aching brain, and before I knew it I had composed an entirely new song. I’ll have it up here as soon as I have some of the mastering done.
NOTE: Remember: the interview should be in the magazine that is released TODAY, NOT the issue DATED JULY 25 (it will be in the issue with the Dark Knight cover, dated August 1). So check the magazine first! The issue might not be available immediately in all areas. — Kaleb
- July 21st, 2008 at
11:59 am by --KALEB NATION-- -
Alas, I think I have fallen prey to the dreaded condition of Editingosis. In the Guide to Authorly Conditions, Editingosis is defined as
[...] temporary affliction which plagues writers, usually in the second half of the year, in which the afflicted suffers from bouts of forgetfulness, untidiness, unkempt appearance and frequent whining [...] This is caused by editing taking so much brain power, there is simply not enough left for trivial matters such as Housework, Entertainment, Sunlight or Getting Out Of The Apartment.
It isn’t only me who’s out and about doing edits: loads of otherwriters are celebrating Revisions Season with me. I woke up this morning, after a wonderful didn’t-end-until-2-AM-but-I-got-2500-bloody-words-cut day of editing yesterday, only to find that many of my usual duties have gone undone.
To my utter shock and surprise, not only were my dishes crying out for my attention, but some absent-minded person had left more mess all over the bed.
The problem with Editingosis is that things really aren’t as bad as the condition makes you believe, and I quite possibly could get outside, see that glowing golden ball of gas, and dart back inside, and still make my deadline. I think by spending so much time revising, I’m violating my own editor’s commands:
Me: Yes, yes! Summertime! I’ll edit all day, every day!
Editor: Good. But make sure you get outside and have some fun this summer too.
Me (singing): All day, every day! All day, every day!
Editor: Great. One of THOSE authors…
All things are going very well. Just yesterday, in fact, I managed to cut about 2,500 words of plot meandering in one sitting. That is a lot of meandering, and has no place in a finished novel, so I’m actually very happy these word cuts are forcing me to be creative with the limbs of this book I chop off, armed only with a pen and two keyboards (yes, I have two keyboards).
My family was particularly disgusted after my previous post, in which I said a certain loverly (and wickedly unpleasant) character was taken out. You have to remember that they have seen this book in every stage, from the first draft when I was 14 all the way to now. They pretty much know all the characters who were in and are now out, and all the histories and backstories from each draft. So, to oblige them, I have decided to at least make a mention of the character I killed, just to keep her out of the Prison of Removed Characters until the next book. And after the book is out, I’ll take one of my commenter’s suggestion and post the deleted scene on here.
Somebody emailed and asked if I could show my writing notebook. I actually have a bunch of different writing notebooks and printouts and notes, and at the moment a few of them are sitting in a General State of Disorder on my side desk:
You can’t really read much of it but that’s they way it’s sitting on my desk right now. The big notebook to the right is an enormous, 11×14 inch drawing pad I use for plotting scenes out and working out notes (on that page in particular, I’m working out some gnome business). Then, on the left, I have two smaller notebooks. The corner of the printout is (by pure coincidence) partially covering an important piece of information (he he).
I have this melody playing in my head right now that I will probably be recording very soon into a new song. When I say that, it could be weeks before it is finished, but that melody is the beginning. Also, I have two very important interviews coming up: one with me, and one with someone else.
- July 13th, 2008 at
1:21 am by --KALEB NATION-- -
Yoiks, it’s been over a week since I have posted an update, and loads of stuff has been happening. To start off, I just landed an interview with a very famous author, who happens to own the number 1 spot on the New York Times, and has owned it for nearly a year. I asked half of my questions about the books and the other half about tips for writers. So, look forward to some really cool answers given by my mysterious interview shortly.
In other news, many of you probably know me by now as The TwilightGuy, thanks to Stephenie Meyer and her glorious millions of fans and readers (I think my Official Fan ID Number is #4,546,768– I got in on it late). Well, after three months of painstakingly slow reading, with my TwilightGuy.com commentary on each chapter, I’ve finished the first book in the series, and I’m now moving on to the sequel, New Moon, as evidenced in the following photos:
My professional portrait photographer, who only appears to be a broken lamp-pole converted into a tripod and a self-timing camera, posed a nearby gnome with my newly-purchased book:
The TwilightGuy website has been an enormous success so far, thanks to all the loyal readers and everyone who gave me a chance when I was just starting out. It’s passed 750,000 hits in just 3 short months, with emails in the hundreds and comments in the thousands. And to think the day I bought the site, I thought I was wasting my time.
As for me, I have a new alibi for becoming an increasingly-invisible blogger over here. My new excuse is that I have a deadline for my revisions that is impending. If you don’t know what impending means, think of a steam train rapidly approaching around the bend, while your car is stuck between the crossing guards (people who have read my book snicker here).
In the above example, the train is impending. My deadline is approaching in a similar fashion, except instead of being brought with steam and locomotion, my deadline is surrounded by the awful, wretched, pounding, abysmal, never-ending beat of the music from the apartment nearby (see, Trolls). Word from someone else on campus is that our resident trolls converted a car stereo into a home sound system. My poor head. Their poor eardrums.
Between beats of their bass box, I have managed to get a lot of revisions done either here or at the cafe. And it is in that I have a confession to make. I, unfortunately, was forced to axe a character.
Oh the woe: this character who was formerly in a scene and now is not. What makes it worse, though, is that I chopped her entire scene clean out. So not only is the character gone, but her car as well- and her sister garbed in purple furs, her sister’s car, and Sewey’s sandwich, and Ben’s sandwich, and Trolan’s sandwich, and the dust bunny Sewey found under the chair and threw at Trolan. All of it is gone, like a bunch of ghosts who will now wander somewhere in the space-time continuum, that were there one second and now suddenly are not. None of you have any clue at all who she is, or rather who she was: but from now until eternity I will be haunted by her ghost when I read the place where she formerly was: Fool! You dare to remove me from the story? Have you no mercy? Feel my wrath!
Luckily, she was an unpleasant character. And, my consolation is that she actually does appear in the second book (if I don’t axe her from that as well), which makes it not like turning her into a ghost, but more like tossing her into jail for a short amount of time: right next to the dozens of other characters I’ve edited from the story over the years. Sometimes, everyone simply does not fit. Chop chop! No character is safe when my editing axe is sharp.
You should be hearing from me again soon, when I get that interview finished. I’m really excited about it.
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