Prose is a writer and writing teacher, and she starts the book with the big question: Can writing be taught? Well, no: “A workshop can be useful.  A good teacher can show you how to edit your work. The right class can form the basis of a community that will help and sustain you.”

That sounds about right. More than 22 years ago I went to Clarion, a long-running SF and fantasy workshop, where I learned how severely Samuel R Delaney and Kate Wilhelm  could edit, made good friends, and walked away with one lifetime critique partner who recently gave me, well, critical feedback on the book I’m finishing up now. But if anyone came to Clarion not knowing how to write, or where they were going to get their ideas, they weren’t going to learn it there.

Prose goes on to say that she learned to write the way all of us did: by reading. Her first chapter is called “Close Reading” where she talks about reading great work, but reading it slowly and carefully. The next three chapters are on words, sentences, and paragraphs, where she pulls selections from Alice Munro, Philip Roth, Virginia Woolf, and Raymond Chandler, plus a long excerpt from Rex Stout, where the great detective Nero Wolfe solves a mystery by explaining paragraphing.

This is not a review of Prose’s book — I’m not even finished with it yet. But the book is energizing me, and I need that right now. I’m at kind of tipping point: the current novel is in rewrites, the comic book is humming along, and I’m daydreaming about the next novel, the next short story, and the next comic book. In short, I need inspiration, I need ideas, and I need to become a better writer.

I’m at a tipping point in another way. For several years I had a part-time day job, writing computer code in the morning and fiction in the afternoons. It was great. The day job meant we were covering the mortgage, but I was finally putting in enough hours into fiction that I was finishing stories and novels. Life was in balance. But for the past 18 months I’ve been working full time at the day job, and trying to get the same amount of writing done by disappearing from home on nights and weekends. It’s been a stressful time, and not just for me — this schedule took a toll on the whole family.

This is not news to anyone in this business. 90% of writers — probably more — have a day job. I’m sorry about  whining. But that’s what blogs are for, yes?

Well, this week I went back to working half time at the day job. I feel like I’ve been given a surprise parole, a last-minute reprieve from the governor, a replacement liver from an accident-prone decathalete. Suddenly I’ve got a new lease on life, with very generous terms. And I don’t want to waste it. It’s time to get to work.

And part of that work is reading. That includes fiction that inspires me to do better, and non-fiction that gives me ideas for my own work. During those 18 months, I hardly got any reading done. There just wasn’t time with that novel deadline looming. And consequently, I’m ready to start new projects, but the well feels dry.So, I have time at night to read again, and I’m using Francine Prose to point the way to great writers I haven’t read yet, and to think harder about my own sentences.

And hey, I may even have time to update this blog more often. Look for that review of Reading Like a Writer when I finish it.

Update: Second review (also very nice — a 7.9 out 8.0) from the Multiversity Comics site.

Oh, and I recently did a couple interviews. In the Talking Comics with Tim column on the Robot 6 blog, Tim and I… talk. About comics. And things like how Kurt Busiek and I split the writing work, the difference between writing novels and writing comics, and my life as a corporate drone.

And over on Joseph Mallozzi’s blog (Joe is a producer and writer on the Stargate TV franchise, and his first short story is in the Masked superhero anthology), I answer questions from readers. Joe picked The Devil’s Alphabet as his book of the month, then generously opened his blog for discussion. As Joe called the post:

Author Daryl Gregory makes a return visit to discuss the Kirby-Lee gene, the mystifying popularity of the Kardashians, and, oh yeah, his novel The Devil’s Alphabet!

Some Dracula stuff is in there as well.

And did I mention that Dracula #1 comes out today? No? Well it does. And if you’re in State College Saturday, stop by the Comic Swap from 1:00-2:00 pm and I’ll sign your copy. And any blank checks you have.

It’s on Saturday, August 28, from 1 to 2 PM. The Comic Swap is 110 South Fraser Street  in downtown State College, tucked neatly near the Dunkin Donuts.

If you’ve got a comic fan in your family — or if you want to dip your toes into the graphical awesomeness that is modern comics (and not just the one I’m working on) — come on by. I’ll sign comics, and anything else you want me to — I’m that accommodating.

The release date is now set at August 25. The guys at The Comic Swap in downtown State College have been nice enough to host a signing, and I’ll have an exact date on that soon. (Though lay money on August 28.)

For a comment on the news, here’s a message from  Daryl Gregory, 9 years old, calling from 1974:

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA  HOOOOOOOOOOOO!

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But YESTERDAY I popped in on Joe Mallozzi’s blog to talk about my story in MASKED (that superhero anthology I keep mentioning) — and to kinda sorta refute charges of metafictionalism and deconstruction.

So please, stop reading. I’m not here.

This Saturday, August 7, at 4pm, I’ll be signing and answering questions at the Borders store in Camp Hill, PA, just outside Harrisburg. If you know anyone in the area, tell them to stop on down. Don’t make me beg.

Oh, and August means that The Devil’s Alphabet is officially the book of the month at Joe Mallozzi’s blog. Joe’s a fellow contributor to Masked, the superhero anthology, and also a producer of Stargate Universe. I’ll be answering questions on Joe’s blog starting next week. And in September, the BotM will be Masked, and to ramp up, the contributing writers are talking about their stories, why they wrote them, and how they came to be involved in the anthology.  Paul Cornell’s entry up there now.

The official Masked Ad. Accept no substitutes.

Masked is racking up positive reviews all over the place, like here, here, and here. And here. And this io9 review kicked off a buying spree at Amazon.

Plus, Locus and BookList ran print reviews. It’s so nice to see the prose superhero getting some love.

Oh, and it looks like the first issue of Dracula: Company of Monsters is on track for an end-of-August publish date. The issue just went to the printers, and at the end of the month I’ll be doing a signing at The Comic Swap, my local (and wonderful) comic book shop. I’ll have an exact date for you later.

I can tell you that the art for issue 1 kicks ass. Thanks, Scott Godlewski! We showed off the first six pages to a room of fans at Comic-Con a couples weeks ago. And last night I finished the first draft of the script for Issue 3, where I got to introduce the vampire hunters. I’m having having more fun than should be allowed.

Speaking of more fun, August is the last month of full-time employment. Starting September 1 I get to go back to half time, which means I can get a lot more writing done. Or if not more, then the same amount without driving me or my family insane.  Yes, it feels weird to be cutting back on a day job when some friends and relatives can’t find any work. Mostly I feel very, very lucky.

So, August. You’re looking pretty good to me right now. Don’t turn on me, okay?

Speaking of youth and energy… there’s this girl I know — Kieryn Nicolas? She’s 15 years old, and she just had her first novel published by Echelon Press. Also, the book’s pretty damn good. It’s called Rain, and it’s about a girl who goes to a school for super-spies. It’s like Mission: Impossible meets Harry Potter, and it’s a blast.

Now, this is great news for anyone worried about the next generation. But it does make one member of this generation wonder about how soon he’ll be replaced. It took me until I was over 40 to get my first book out, and now here’s this kid with a 25-year head start on me. She’s already working on her next novel. By the time she’s my age she’ll have more pages out than James Patterson.

Well, so be it. I surrender to the future. If the next generation’s as bright and talented as Kieryn, we’re in good hands. Check out her website and her blog, and read the first chapter of Rain.

Or, meet her right now. I invited Kieryn on to do a guest blog post, and here she is talking about my favorite flavor o’ fiction:

The What-If Genre

I am currently in the process of cleaning my room. And trust me, when I say “process,” I mean it’s a process. I’ve only gotten through my desk and under my dish chair so far…and when I say “gotten through,” I mean most of the items that were in/under said furniture are now spread across my floor waiting to be sorted or placed.

The good thing about this process is that, since I am painstakingly taking the time to actually sort through everything, I find things from years-gone-by. Mostly what I find is writing related, because I almost never toss anything writing related. Words are awesome! Treat them as such, like me, by deciding not to throw them away and stuffing them back in the pile you found them to sit for another X years.

Anyway.

Yesterday, as I was actively organizing, I came across the folder from last summer’s Penn State Young Writer’s Workshop (where I officially met Daryl, incidentally). In that folder was a packet of science fiction excerpts and short stories that we’d been given for our sci-fi elective. Of course, since I was busy cleaning my room, I immediately settled down to read it.

Forty-three minutes later I had been sufficiently reminded why I like sci-fi so much. I spend half my time thinking “what if?” and science fiction is THE what-if genre. My favorite subset is dystopian, when a flaw in society is grossly magnified and you’re left thinking, wow…that could happen. And if the story is really great, then you’re also left with more chills racing up your spine than someone who’s just watched Hitchcock’s The Birds. (Trust me.)  During the sci-fi class we were instructed to write the start of a novel that was a social commentary about a flaw we see with society. It was hard to choose just one, but I think I went with over-development.

That class and that idea of a dystopian society stuck with me. It’s one of my favorite genres to read, and now write. I was constantly reminded of sci-fi class at the Writer’s Workshop when I was writing my most recent story, a dystopia, which is kind of like Stepford Wives meets Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies. I definitely see myself exploring more sci-fi in the future.

–Kieryn

And next week I’m going for my first time — sink or swim, baby! I’ll be on a couple panels, one about the prose part of my life, and one about the new comic book I’ve been working on (due out in August).

First up, Thursday afternoon I’m doing a panel with a lot of great writers about “Twisting Genres.” Afterward, there will be a signing, where I will sit next to the heavy hitters and watch people line up for them. I’ve become very good at these kinds of things at holding coats, providing extra pens, running and getting gin… you know, just helping out.

On Friday, I’m going to a panel I’m not actually on, but Bill Willingham and I have decided to sit in the audience and interrupt. It’s on creating superhero fiction, and they’ll be talking about Masked, the superhero anthology that’s out now. Anthology editor Lou Anders and my pals Chris Roberson and Matt Sturges will be on it.

Then on Saturday, I’ll be on a panel with Kurt Busiek and BOOM! Studios’ head guy Mark Waid to talk about the Dracula: Company of Monsters comic. Woo hoo!

Here’s the schedule copy-and-paste:

Thursday, 4:00-5:00 Twisting Genres— Fantastic fiction authors talk about pushing the envelope on genre, not confining it to one definition. Participants include China Miéville (Kraken), Justin Cronin (The Passage), Naomi Novik (Tongues of Serpents), Daryl Gregory (The Devil’s Alphabet), Jeffrey J. Mariotte (Cold Black Hearts), Robert Masello (Blood And Ice), Keith Thompson (The Leviathan trilogy), and Scott Westerfeld (The Leviathan trilogy). Moderated by Maryelizabeth Hart of Mysterious Galaxy. Room 25ABC

Friday, 10:00-11:00 With Great Power Come Great Stories— Authors discuss creating superhero superfiction, including novels and stories in anthologies like Masked and Wild Cards. Authors include Lou Anders (Masked), Jackie Kessler (the Icarus Project novels), Caitlin Kittredge (the Icarus Project novels), Gini Koch (Touched by an Alien, the Katherine “Kitty” Katt series), Kevin Andrew Murphy (the Wild Cards series), Chris Roberson (Book of Secrets), Caroline Spector (Wild Cards contributor), and Matt Sturges (Justice Society of America). Moderated by Maryelizabeth Hart of Mysterious Galaxy. Room 32AB

Saturday, 3:30-4:30 Editing Comics the BOOM! Studios Way— BOOM! Studios Editor-in-Chief Mark Waid and BOOM! Managing Editor Matt Gagnon talk with Kurt Busiek and Daryl Gregory about putting together their upcoming BOOM! series Dracula: The Company Of Monsters. Don’t miss this in-depth look into the editing secrets of one of the comic book industry’s leading independent publishers. Join moderator Mark Waid (author of the Eisner Award-nominated Irredeemable, BOOM! Editor-in-Chief) and panelists Kurt Busiek (author of the Eisner Award-winner Astro City), Daryl Gregory (acclaimed sci-fi writer, author of The Devil’s Alphabet), and Matt Gagnon (BOOM! Managing Editor) as they discuss editing do’s and don’ts of today’s comic book industry. Room 24ABC

Joseph’s gotten a wide range of writers to do BotM — including Michael Moorcock, Jeffrey Ford, and Jasper Fforde. Ellen Kushner is finishing up June, and Alastair Reynolds will be doing July. The blog also covers an entertaining mix of TV, SF, and general weirdness.

Anyway, I’ll be answering questions over there starting in August, so drop on by.

Oh, and on the Dracula front, Kurt Busiek and I opine about impalements and the new comic on Newsarama.

And in the past couple of days I’ve been doing PR for the book, mostly doing email interviews with the comics press. Kurt Busiek is doing all the heavy work on the interviews — the book was his idea, after all, and he’s the architect of this narrative edifice — so while he offers cogent explanations of the story and its genesis, I interrupt with wise-assery. It’s a job I like.

But the other day I had to fly solo. I had a great conversation with Sean and Jim of the comics podcast Raging Bullets. Oh wait, let’s get the logo:

See how it says “fan podcast”? These guys really are fans, and they talk about books they love — and it’s clear they’re having more fun than anyone else. They’re lifelong friends, and they’ve been doing this podcast for years.

They mostly concentrate on DC books, but lately they’ve been branching out, and they took time to have me on to talk about Dracula, the difference between working in prose and comics, and yes, impalements. I had a blast. You can listen to me at the 88 minute mark on Episode 212, if you’re into that kind of thing. (Thanks, Mom.) But  why not just subscribe to the podcast? You’ll have fun. Sean and Jim are the Click and Clack of Comics.