Event Alert: 9/5 Astoria Bookshop

My first public event in the US!  I'll be reading, signing, and doodling over books in the Astoria Bookshop in Queens, NY. You should come over! I need to look at my own hands to draw hands! I can't pronounce the words I write! Hilarity is guaranteed!

- Tuesday, September 5th, 7pm.
- The Astoria Bookshop:31-29 31st Street, Queens, NY (N and W trains). 
- See you there!

In the last two weeks...

...Things have happened. Here is a brief recap of the events.

Photo: @bnschaumburg

• Meddling Kids was released on July 11. And judging by my editor's overuse of allcaps and exclamation points in his emails, I'd say there are reasons for satisfaction. It is now in its second reprint and it got among the top 25 sellers on Amazon in the first weekend.
• Early reviewers, bookstagrammers, booksellers' recommendations, and media mentions have played a great part in this. Especially influential was a review on npr that has set a new standard for positive criticism. To all, thank you.
• I was happy to be ordered two posts for Unbound Worlds and Read It Forward on the process of writing MK. I also had a conversation with Nick Spacek for Cinepunx, and there are more interviews to come soon.
• EDITED: As of today, MK is also a New York Times Bestseller. Jinkies and jeepers and zoinks and, well, holy f*ck.
  
• And I live in New York now. :)

I really should stop posting about Meddling Kids now

But it's really one of those days where I could just sit F5-ing my socials and I'd be really happy. On behalf of the Blyton Summer F*cking Detective Club, thanks for the welcome!

Meddling Kids: On sale today!

Meddling Mythbusting

I wrote an article on Unbound Worlds about my meticulous writing process. It's really edifying, in a "How not to write horror books" kind of way:

The very first scene of Meddling Kids recounts a nightmare just like the one I had the morning after the book was greenlit. The dreamer, Kerri, wakes up in a dismal apartment that was inspired by my hotel room in Manhattan from three nights before. And Kerri’s dog is a Weimaraner because, while in New York, I couldn’t stop thinking of a woman back in Barcelona who owns a Weimaraner. [Continue reading.]

You can read the full article here. Meanwhile, I'll be signing copies of MK for other dogs I love. Many projects on the way, big changes, much excitement.

Meddling Unboxing

ME, an author with a vast lexicon and excelling ability to express my emotions:  Ah!  Ah!  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

So, yup.  Here they are.  Care for a sample?  Why not from the just-finished audio-book version narrated by the enchanting Kyla Garcia?  Well stop daydreaming about it, listen to her NOW!




Meddling Kids. Coming July 10th. Or was it 11th? Definitely not the 12th. Pre-order.

Meddling Tunes: Sing It Like Self-Promoting Authors Before Us Sang

The setting is one early readers of Meddling Kids will recognize: the boys' ward in the loony bin in Arkham (but the scene doesn't necessarily fit in the novel's timeline). The lead singer is Old Acker and backing vocals are provided by the other patients (Ethan, Craig, Adam, Kimrean). The tune is It's Easy M'Kay, from South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.


And these are the lyrics:


Well, I used to be like you guys,
Raving about conspiracies and whatnot,
But why settle with that earthly yak,
When you can just gaze up
And see the abyss stare back?

Think about it, check out all the space out there.
What are the real odds we're alone or we ever were?
We're a nubile blue world caught between cosmic gangs
Coveted by tentacled colossi with fangs,
Sing it like twisted ancient cultists before us sang,
Cthulhu fhtagn!

First off, just relinquish your god--
You're a random flitting lifeform on a flimsy space pod.
Now ask, as you look into the past,
Were we humans the first rulers, and why should we be the last?
Step three, see the evidence and weep,
All the manuscripts talking of lost cities in the deep!
Go on, read the Necronomicon,
and find about the names that over ancient Earth rang
and sing along, Cthulhu Fhtagn!

Think about it, check out all the space out there.
What are the real odds we're alone or we ever were?
We are flowers in the battlefield of yin and the yang,
Innocent birdies caught in their sturm und drang,
Sing it like crazy liberal artists before us sang,
Cthulhu fhtagn!

First off, just relinquish your god--
You're a random flitting lifeform on a flimsy space pod.
Now ask, as you look into the past,
Were we humans the first rulers, and why should we be the last?
Step three, see the evidence and weep
All the manuscripts talking of lost cities in the deep!
Go on, read the Necronomicon,
Cause ph'nglui mglw'nafh R'lyeh fhtagn!
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh R'lyeh fhtagn!
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh,
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh,
Yeah!

We are hit-or-miss byproducts of the mighty big bang,
'bout to be devoured by the monsters that sprang,
Sing it like virgin horror writers before us sang,
Cthulhu Fhtagn!
Cthulhu Fhtagn!
Cthulhu Fhtaaaaa--
--aaaaa--
--aaAAH--
--aaagn!


Meddling Kids. Coming July 10th. Pre-order.

Meddling Peeks

"I mean, there happened to be a guy in a mask there, and we captured him. But there was something else going on in that house."

This beautiful piece of art is the work of artist Jordi March, a fellow contributor to El Jueves magazine. Those are the meddling kids, the Blyton Summer Detective Club, in 1977.

What happened next will shock you.

Meddling Kids. Coming July 10th. Pre-order.

Punch

Source: refinery29

This makes me ridiculously happy.

America is divided. But it's funny how from where I'm watching, far away, everybody and everything that ever caught my attention and admiration stands on the same side: the good one.

Incoming kids

Meddling Kids has an official release date: July 11. I read that on the Internet, so it must be true.

And there's more: you can already pre-order it.

Better yet: you can pre-order the AUDIOBOOK. Can you believe that? Somebody (not Siri—actually somebody) is gonna read my sh*t aloud. And record it.

I am misplacing my manure, I tell you.

Teasing you softly

Stunt in progress

Art from some promotional material for Meddling Kids. I hadn't drawn a full page comic in a year. It showed.

Logo sketching

Cover art for Meddling Kids is in the making. Does this say 'hilarious violence' loud enough?

Bizarrer events have happened

Here’s a little story I think it’s okay to share now: three years ago today, I met in Barcelona with an LA producer to discuss a film based on The Supernatural Enhancements. It’s the closest to happen it ever got.

We never talked again after that meeting, but I cherish that occasion as a milestone in my career, and I remember it fondly every summer. Especially this year. Because the one actor the producer suggested to play “A.” sadly passed away this 2016. Whereas on the other hand, while neither of us named an actress to play Niamh, my top choice also appeared out of nowhere.

So I shall keep dreaming.

Sky Cyberdungeons

Second pilot finished this year. Good Edgar. A little too compulsive and overkeen to impress his muses, but good Edgar nonetheless.

My second book

As we continue to work on the upcoming Meddling Kids (or, as I descibe it to friends, the one with Michelle Rodriguez, Weimaraners, and amphibian monsters), I realize that for many of my readers this will be my second book. Only it won't.

The Supernatural Enhancements was only my English debut. Before that, I had authored two novels in Catalan. In fact, my second book came out five years ago this week. Whereas my first, Dormir amb Winona Ryder ("Sleeping with Winona Ryder", 2007) received awards and considerable academic attention, you're unlikely to ever read about my second⁠—not to mention read it, pending your learning a language with scant job prospects. So today I'd like to show you my second book.

This was the cover. Actually this was my proposal for it; the real thing kept the art, but toned down the comic-book style. But the art was mine, and you wouldn't believe how many weeks it took me. Here's the first sketch:

Vallvi was set in an alternate-history Vallvidrera. Vallvidrera is an actual suburb of Barcelona, and most of the geography in the book was real. I drew this Tolkien-inspired map to help foreigners keep up.

But I wasn't the only artist involved. One element in the plot was an underground comic-book that related some Vallvidreran backstory. One of my beta-readers and frequent collaborator Jordi March suggested that the comic be featured inside the novel. So I wrote it, he drew it, and this was the result.

There were eight pages of this!

I'm not going to tell you much of the plot, but let's just say there was a lot going on. And I had much fun writing it. Really; it's not my memory idealizing the past: much of the process was actually recorded on my Fotolog (yes, it was 2010 and I was still using Fotolog, oh em gee, el oh el), and I look happy there.

From my Fotolog archives: The fuel of champions.

This is the plot board. Not very enlightening, but it looked cool on the wall.

(Warning: spoilers for Catalan readers!)

And these are some photos I took during my frequent hikes to Vallvidrera, on the mountains north of Barcelona. Many spots were incorporated into the book, but where the real Vallvi is like a peaceful little village, mine had become a lawless punk dystopia taken over by eurotrash, gangsters, and violent junkies.

I had to write at home, but I used to take notes on the field. I'm very proud of this crucial passage, which made it to the book verbatim.

The main character was this young hipster author Edgar Cantero with a promising career in the highbrow Barcelona scene—until he visits Vallvidrera and his literary leitmotifs are ruined by drugs, car chases and punk superheroes. Those things are hard to write in Catalan, which is a language more suitable for 19th century rural dramas than psychedelic trips and action sequences. To try and overcome this difficulty I made up a Vallvi slang, borrowing words from English and French. A five-page appendix provided some assistance, and I later designed these "Learn Vallvi" cards with some definitions.

And to top it all, since I'd ended up with a bunch of sexy colorful badass characters, I came up with some stickers! Looking back, I made for Vallvi the most sophisticated art in my life.

What did all this effort result in? Well, Vallvi came out in June 2011. It sold no more than 500 copies.  [Edited 2019: 8 years later, it's safe to say the publisher destroyed the surplus.] It got little media attention and very few reviews. The one I liked most, after attempting to summarize the overpopulated plot, ended with, "You will likely think it's all excessive, crazy, and overwhelming. It is, and that's why it's funny."

I never got published in my country again. If you asked the people who in the wake of Dormir amb Winona Ryder called me a "promising" author, the few who remember my name would tell you I never delivered.

Second books come with their own set of concerns and anxieties: living up to expectations and all that stuff. I despise that cliché, but damn, it was so real for me! Vallvi was so greatly shaped up by that "second book syndrome" that I turned it into a "fuck-the-second-book-syndrome-book." In it I tried to say that calling someone "promising" is not flattery; at best, it's condescension. All it does is undervalue the work that person has already done. Vallvi said, almost in as many words, "fuck literature, I won't mature. I will live here in the mountains, get drunk, and keep dreaming of Winona Ryders—the one in America, and the two new ones I fell in love with while writing this—and all my effort will be aimed toward impressing them, not you; all my skill to try to pour into words the beauty they inspire me."

It's a guideline I still abide by, as you'll see in Meddling Kids. Which will be awesome. :)

El señor proyectitos

Look at me, I'm Mister Projects.

It's at a very exciting stage

Yeah, well, uh, answering the question of what I'm doing right now—I am editing something. Yes. You all know what editing looks like.

Yes, it's very much like that gif. The main difference is we use computers instead of typewriters and red pens because we are 6,000 km. apart, but the rest is an accurate portrayal. Including the author working on the roof, or naked. Both have happened. I can't speak for my editor on that bit, but who am I to judge him.

But wait, I didn't tell you what it is we're editing, did I? Okay, remember this new work I posted about last year?

Well, it's happening. Meddling Kids will be my next book in English, to be published by Blumhouse Books in summer/fall 2017. Will keep you updated; thanks for reading.