n Cool Things

I recently translated to English some of the weekly content I write for El Jueves magazine so you guys can see my more political, compromised side.

My Debut

I'm an admirer of Jorge Luis Borges, whose longest work is a little over 5,000 words. One lesson I learned from him is that a book idea does not always need an execution: it's more efficient to pretend the book has already been written, and provide a commentary on it. That is what he did in stories such as "An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain" (1941) or "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim" (1935).

Today is the twelfth anniversary of my debut novel, Dormir amb Winona Ryder. I have mixed feelings about the occasion: on one hand, I owe a lot to that book; on the other, it's trash. Definitely not worth reading. However, like Borges's unwritten novels, it might be worth a commentary. So, if only for my curious anglophone readers, allow me to tell you about my first book on the condition that you don't give it any more attention.

I started DaWR in February 2006. I was 24. I had been churning out short stories and sending them to contests for some years; August 2005 was the first time I won one for a piece I liked. At the start of '06 I had quit a job that made me miserable. The plan was to take a two-month break to write and draw before getting a new job. DaWR stretched that break into a whole year.

I wasn't only busy with the novel; I was also writing more stories to keep me afloat. Looking back, I'm astounded at how much material I produced that year. And it made me money too. Even paid for my first trip abroad, to NYC. I was on fire. In seven months I finished DaWR just in time for the deadline of the most important award in Catalonia, I sent it in, and sat back to wait for the check.

December 2006, I lost. March 2007 I was moving back with my parents.

•

I am not trying to write a cautionary tale here; I don't care if you make the same mistakes I did. I'm only trying to tell you good things I remember from that time: I was having fun, I had high morale, I was discovering what I wanted to do with my life. And yeah, I was stupid too, but let's not fool ourselves: I'm pretty stupid now.

I was focusing a lot on Winona Ryder too, and that felt good. A big part of why I don't wipe the book from my memory altogether is because, you know, it was terrible, and pretentious, and embarrassing, but it gave me an excuse to blabber about Winona Ryder, and that made me happy. It's not something to wave off, the chance to spend quality time obsessing with a celebrity crush. I will never dismiss the good effect she had on me, on my mental health; how much her movies comforted me on bad days. How much she's helped, from 6,000 km. away. At the time, I had strong feelings for a girl I was slowly falling apart with. Toward the end of our acquaintance, she read the manuscript, and said, "You show emotions for Winona that I didn't believe you capable of."

Barcelona's World Trade Center in 2005, where I often wrote.

Dormir amb Winona Ryder took its title from a blog I used to run, a dream journal. It also borrowed several oneiric sequences from the blog. Dreams are a resource I continue to use; I love beautiful randomness that masquerades as meaningful.

The novel was based on Borges's story "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim". If you've read it, what I did essentially was to write that fictional book, replacing Al-Mu'tasim with Winona Ryder. Borges gave a few guidelines that I adhered to: the novel needed to have 21 chapters, and it would end with the narrator arriving at Al-Mu'tasim's doorstep.

Several friends of mine appeared in it. Some told me they'd liked it a lot. I appreciate that.

•

In June 2007, DaWR won a contest (the third I sent it to) and was acquired by a major publisher. This and the short stories got me back on my feet. If 2006 was the year I worked most, 2007 was the year I reaped the profits. I also found a great job, which I still keep.

I was very unhappy with the edition when the book came out in November. There were so many blunders, so many stylistic choices that proofreaders had changed without my consent, I emailed the editor begging to reprint. He appeased me by saying it would all be fixed in the second edition. Obviously, there never was a second edition. The book was so wrong to my eyes, I avoided opening it. This experience hardwired into me the idea that publishers are people to be wary of, not to trust. It wasn't until I started working with Doubleday that I eased up on that notion.

Reviews were lukewarm. Critics tagged me as "a young promise", an epithet I came to hate (I had already written a book; I had not made any promises). Sales tanked. Then in February the book won a second, bigger award for best novel published in '07. Sales continued to tank, but I was invited to TV shows, big parties, highbrow literary venues where I stuck out like a sore toe...and I didn't even like the book I was promoting. All in all, I had a weird debut. Nothing went as I planned. I got cash, newsclips, concert tickets (I'm still very thankful for those), and the book didn't sell a thousand copies. 

Carrer Budapest, in Barcelona, 2007. My pic.

I had already shelved away DaWR long before the celebrations ended. I think I abandoned my last copy in a park in Guinardó (I liked the hills in Barcelona now, not the seaside). Sometimes I remember a passage and cringe. I always make sure to point out it's the book I'm over with, though—not the subject. And if nothing else, the ordeal fueled my second novel, of which I'm slightly less ashamed.

It's funny how, out of the two main themes in "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim", the one about books that are better reviewed than written has always stuck with me, whereas I keep losing sight of the other one, which was something in the lines of, "it's the journey, not the destination." It is implied in Borges's story that the man who is searching for Al-Mu'tasim becomes Al-Mu'tasim in the process. I did not become Winona Ryder (though I became "the Winona guy" in the Catalan scene; that epithet I like), but the process of writing DaWR, and publishing it, and hating it, did get me closer to my idols somehow: it demystified them for me; it helped me see that their art, even well-paid art, even multi-awarded art, may be botched in their eyes. And yes, I'm the kind of fanboy to listen to Sinéad O'Connor's first album or play Cuphead or watch Bo Burnham's What and scream, "How is this possible—this is a perfect work on the first try!" but I bet the artists behind those things see how short of perfection they fall all the time. Winona said decades ago (Life, Dec. 1994) that she hadn't been proud of her acting until her twelfth film. Matter of fact, another thing I learned from my debut is that interviews rarely convey what you meant to say, so I'll take that statement with a grain of salt, but what I mean is, I understand it. My first book was trash, but writing it put me in the position to write less trashy books now. And the books will never be perfect, I guess, but that's how it works: at some point, I have to stop trying to improve a manuscript, and hope it will improve me. So be it. God knows I could use the improvement.

Cooling down

>run statrprt.exe file:WIP.odt

MANUSCRIPT STATUS REPORT OT:2019/09/21 ψSC:UNKNOWN

word count: 169,493
page count: 656
# of chapters: 121
longest chapter length: 5,041 words
shortest chapter length: 221 words
opening paragraph length: 7 pages
# of footnotes: 15
# of pages in meter: 5
longest string without punctuation marks: 24 lines
# of named human characters: >200
# of chapters featuring most featured character: <20
status: cooling down
title: HEAVEN PARK

よくやった！

 heaven_park_snaps

Proof that sometimes I plan ahead

There are literally eight major character deaths plotted here.

Fade In

Guess what we're writing these days.

Quicksand & Apricots

I was due to write a post but I couldn't think of a subject, so I asked for help, and this is what we got.

So about A.Z., what's it like for Adrian when Zooey's knocked out, and vice versa? Static? Cognitive impairment? Does he gain full control over her hemisphere, and why doesn't his personality change? Researching for, you know, reasons.

It is said somewhere that both Adrian and Zooey have control of the whole brain the whole time: their only problem is agreeing on what to do. Two pilots, one plane. You can see Adrian without Zooey in chapter 7 and Zooey without Adrian in chapter 10: they're just less frustrated when the other's sleeping. However, both personalities alone are too radical for their own good, so it's best to compromise and help each other. Adrian needs Zooey to show empathy and not to antagonize everyone. Zooey needs Adrian to grab the steering wheel while she plays air drums.

Do you ever get bored of a story during the writing process? I can't tell if when it happens to me if it's because the story is boring, or because I've just been sitting on it for too long and it's just not fun to me anymore.

Bored as in, I'm not interested by this subject anymore, not that I can remember, no. Bored as in, I would rather be playing Terraria right now, yeah, quite often. Take breaks!

Oh, also, about how old is AZ?

I'm gonna say 31. It's how old I was when I met them.

How smoothly does the editing process usually go? Are you ever told to change things you don't want to change/write things you don't want to write?

From my experience, the editing process is sort of a negotiation. I doubt any editor expects an author to take 100% of their suggestions. On the other hand, taking 0% is arrogant and self-righteous. So sure, you can refuse some changes. But you also have to wonder whether you're doing it out of pride: if you and your editor truly see eye to eye, you must listen to their input. Since Meddling Kids, everything I've published has gone through the same editor at Doubleday, and he has improved all of it. We've argued, but I'm glad he stood up to me every time, cause he was right. Also, keep in mind that editorial suggestions seldom come in the form of, "This doesn't work--write this instead"; they're more often like, "this doesn't work--find an alternative," so there is ample room for solutions that please everyone.

The biggest and most specific change that was suggested to me was in The Supernatural Enhancements. I refused it, but I explained why and proposed a different solution, and the book turned better than the manuscript.

Hey Edgar, any advice to someone trying to break into the publishing industry?

I don't like giving writing advice because universally good tips are painfully obvious. Plus, my own beginnings were in Catalan, which is a completely different scene, so my experience doesn't help. Therefore, I only have the usual platitudes for you: write stuff, finish it, and then write more stuff. Don't skip steps 2 and 3.

Thanks all for your questions! Keep them coming!

Hollywood Hills...

...és Vallvidrera amb palmeres, si fa no fa.

Disaster In Progress

DIP is the endearing term I use to refer to my next novel. For years, the DIP was the last page in the file where I list all my project ideas—just one short paragraph with a pitch and a footnote saying I wasn't yet good enough to undertake it. I'm still not good enough, but I've been fiddling with it in my spare time for years now. It kept me pretty busy in New York: for some reason, writing about Catalonia in English and from 6,000 kilometers makes it more interesting. And it's going to be weird, and personal, and different from anything I've done before, and there are bits I'm really proud of so far but right now they're like fragments in a shipwreck. But my editor likes it, so it's going to be the next novel.

I often think that the research, the notes, maybe even the plotboards are a writer's excuse to delay the actual work of phrasing what's in your head. If I'm right, then this thing here is a big waste of time. But it's cute.

The white squares represent units I haven't written yet. The colored squares are units I've written—kind of. The struck-out squares are those that I'm happy with. When all the squares are filled and struck-out, the novel will be ready.

Good thing we're writing TV projects in the meantime.

I live in LA now

Yup. Good post.

Some thousands of words about covers

So I want to share something with you today, but first, some backstory.

Recently, during a panel at Denver Comic Con, some authors discussed whether book cover artists actually read the books they illustrate. My position was that mine did, at least since I publish in the US.

I know this isn't always the case. Never was, never will be. It's how the industry works. For my first novel, Dormir amb Winona Ryder, released by a big Catalan publisher, designers sent me five proposals that were, at best, illustrations based on two-word concepts jotted down by someone who had read it. Emphasis on "at best": one was just a flower pattern. We went with a sixth proposal, just as random.

For my next book, Vallvi, I insisted (tooth and claw) on drawing the cover myself. In the end, they accepted the illustration, but went with their own design. (Left is the actual book, right is my proposal.)

This said, I have good reasons to affirm that my cover artist at Doubleday, Michael J. Windsor, reads my books before doing his job. First, I've met him and he's told me so. Second, just check out the back of the jacket for This Body's Not Big Enough.

That little thing in front of the car is a roadrunner. The roadrunner is a very minor theme in the book. No way a synopsis, even a thorough synopsis, would mention it. This is the kind of thing that tells me whether the artist has read the book or not.

And now, here's what I wanted to share: this design for the Brazilian edition of Meddling Kids is clearly by someone who has *SO* read the book.

The illustration, I'm told, is by Jefferson Costa. And I think it's my favorite design for anything I've written, ever. It's not that the looks are perfectly dark and fun, it's not just Kerri's lavish red hair and the car that really looks like a Vega Kammback Wagon (and I even like the color). I mean... let's zoom into some details:

That little Kerri there seems to be reading something longer than a mysterious note to the BSDC. I'd say she's reading a love letter. (Also, check out the six-limbed wheezies!)

A figure lurking from the *round* attic window of Deboën Mansion. That's a very accurate rendition of my words.

And that's Pierce in Andy's hand. What can I say. Bravo, Brazil. Hope you enjoy the book as much as the artist seems to have.

Santa Must Die

It's been eleven years since I wrote this holiday-themed page for El Jueves. It was one of my first contributions to that magazine, and it's still one of my all-time favorites, so I just translated it to English. Art is by the beautiful Catalan cartoonist Gras.

2018 has been a(nother) terrible year nationally (goes for both my countries), but very good personally. Thank you to those of you who made it so. Happy holidays.

The Process

Often in panels and Q&A's comes up a question about the writing process, so it's reasonable to think this might interest somebody.

Rules I usually follow when I write

- I start writing long before I have a plan, the minute I come up with a first paragraph. I don't do lay-outs or synopsis. Usually all I have is a premise, and an idea for a climax; I'll come up with the middle as I go.

- I write in the order people will read it, never skip ahead. Not a chapter, not a graph. If I'm stuck thinking of a good joke, I'm stuck. I don't write a bad joke, I don't write "[insert joke]".

- I don't write drafts. The first version has to read like a finished work. It's not the finished work; I edit a lot; but it has to be a finished work.

- I don't bother to figure out things that won't be in the book. If I'm not talking about a character's background, they don't have one.

- I try to keep the number of characters at a minimum.

- I do little research. It's boring, and it tends to contradict or nuance the more interesting scenario that I had envisioned.

- Brevity is an underestimated quality.

Rules I'm following in my current work in progress

- None of the above.

The Meddler

So let's say you read Meddling Kids. Let's say you liked it.

Let's say you thought, "I wish there was a sequel."

"The Meddler." A quick short story set in the aftermath of Meddling Kids. Part of the Spooky Short Stories collection by Penguin Random House, now online. For free. Please enjoy.

WARNING: Huge spoilers for Meddling Kids ahead.

Event Alert: New York Comic Con!

My schedule for NYCC 2018. Check yours, see if we can meet.

SIGNING

- Sunday, October 7, 12-1 pm
- Knopf Doubleday Group Booth (2204-J)

PANEL: "Weirdness Accessible"

- 1:30 pm.
- Room 1A18

POST-PANEL SIGNING

- 2:45 pm.
- Hall 1A Author Autographing Area

All locations at Javits Center. 655 W 34th St, New York, NY

Dark Corners

 
I'm excited to have contributed a story—my first short story in English!—to Dark Corners, a new collection of horror fiction coming out on September 27, featuring all original works by big authors like  Lisa Unger, Joyce Carol Oates, Jennifer McMahon, Emily Raboteau, Adam Haslett, and Brandi Reeds.

My story is called There's a Giant Trapdoor Spider Under Your Bed.  It's about this big effing trapdoor spider under someone's bed, so don't you dare say I don't deliver.  And you can pre-order it now.

Event Alert: Bookmarks Festival!

I'll be attending Bookmarks' 14th Annual Festival of Books and Authors on September 8 in Winston-Salem, NC. There'll be panels and readings and signings and sumptuous author dinners and unspeakable late night requests to room service. Or so I heard. Anyway, you should totally catch me for some of the first three things. Most events on Saturday are free too, so swing by, and bring me something to draw on!

- Saturday, September 8th. Winston-Salem. North Carolina. More info here.

A Mid-Tour Message

Last Tuesday was A.Z. Kimrean's birthday. Their first novel release date, and their actual birthday too. I just decided that. It's canon now.

I was in Houston at the time. I'd had an event in Jersey City the previous day, I flew on to Dallas on the next. It's been a crazy week. It's being a crazy summer. But as Kimrean's spokesperson (yeah, like they need more voices) let me take this break to say, thank you. To the bookstores who are hosting the events and betting so much in this new book, often out of love for Meddling Kids. To the people who attend the events and stand in line for one on my famously time-consuming autographs. To fans who cosplay (yes, that happened). To narrator January LaVoy, actual provider of Kimreans' voice(s) in the audiobook, for star-guesting at the event in Brooklyn. To all those enthusiastic early reviewers, bookstagrammers, podcasts and critics. And to the people in Doubleday who show much faith in what I pitched as a small amuse-bouche between "big" books.

Monday, we're back on the road. And there are more events to come (I'm looking at you, NC). Stay tuned.

Event Alert: San Diego Comic Con!

Are you going? Because I'll be going. Will you be in cosplay? I won't. I'm supposed to be working.

SIGNING

- Thursday, July 19, 10:30 am
- KDPG booth (1515-I)

PANEL + SIGNING: "The Thrill of the Chase: Pursuing the Truth"

- Friday, July 20, 3 pm.
- Room 29AB
- Post-panel signing starting 4.30 pm at Autographing Area 9

ATTENTION: Copies of my new novel This Body's Not Big Enough for Both of Us will be sold at the KDPG booth. Not the ARC—the real hardcover book, ahead of its official release day! Be the first to get it!

Event Alert: #Problematic Tour!

The Kimreans hit the stores on July 31, and I'll be hitting the road with them! Come meet the twins, see me try to read as the stupid text keeps blasting through fourth walls like a wrecking ball and get your copy of This Body's Not Big Enough for Both of Us doodled, signed, and fresh from the press. See you!

July 30 - 7 pm @ WORD Jersey City (123 Newark Ave - Jersey City, NJ)

July 31 - 6:30 pm @ Murder by the Book (2342 Bissonnet Street - Houston, TX)

August 1 - 7 pm @ Interabang (10720 Preston Rd. Ste. 1009B - Dallas, TX)

August 2 - 6 pm @ Full Circle Books (50 Penn Place, 1900 NW Expressway - Oklahoma City, OK)

August 3 - 7:30 pm @ Books Are Magic (225 Smith St. - Brooklyn, NY)

August 6 - 7 pm @ Poisoned Pen (4014 N Goldwater Blvd - Scottsdale, AZ)

August 7 - 7 pm @ Bookshop West Portal (80 West Portal Avenue - San Francisco, CA)

August 8 - 7 pm @ Copperfield's - (140 Kentucky St. - Petaluma, CA)

August 9 - 7 pm @ Elliott Bay Books (1521 Tenth Avenue - Seattle, WA)

Nobody Does It Better Than Scooby

I wrote a little piece for CrimeReads about genre fiction and the high standards that children's entertainment sets for trope exploitation. You can guess my position by comparing Meddling Kids or even The Supernatural Enhancements with a certain Saturday morning cartoon. Or comparing my upcoming novel with this Spanish comic-book from 1989. Kids know where the good stuff is.

Hangover

Just a few words in the aftermath of the Meddling Tour: THANK YOU. To the stores, to my hosts, and to every fan who came by. It was amazing to meet you. I am oozing endorphines.

Photo by @masterbookmonster

To those who couldn't make it, there should be at least a few doodled paperbacks of Meddling Kids available in Subtext, Boswell and Bookpeople. To those in other cities: stay tuned.

My question is in six parts and actually an interview

While I'm packing for the big Meddling Tour starting tomorrow, make sure to check this preliminary interview with Matt Wild before I have a chat with him at the Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee on June 14. Did you know Nate almost never made it to the book? It's a fact now, cause I said it in an interview.

Catch me at Boswell or any of the other venues this week, and ask your own questions! I change my mind on a daily basis!

Photo by @gandalfandunicorns

My Denver Comic Con schedule

I'm going to be in Denver for three days, speaking in public, in my third language, and without a script about several subjects I have never thought about for too long. So if I were you, I wouldn't miss it.

Friday June 15, 2018

• 1:30 pm to 2:20 pm
  Scared Silly. Room 402/403 - Authors
• 2:30 pm to 3:20 pm
  Our Secret Monstrous Obsession. Room 402/403 - Authors
• 4:00 pm to 4:50 pm
  Signing @ Author Signing Booth 2

Saturday June 16, 2018

• 12:00 pm to 12:50 pm
  Query Rescue: Fine Tuning Your First Author Impression. Coast City Room - Mile High Ballroom DCCP6
• 1:00 pm to 1:50 pm
  Veterans of the Writing Wars. Room 406/407 - Authors
• 2:00 pm to 2:55 pm
  Signing @ Author Signing Booth 2

Sunday June 17, 2018

• 11:00 am to 11:55 am
  Signing @ Author Signing Booth 2
• 12:30 pm to 1:20 pm
  Old plot, New Twist. Room 405 - Authors
• 2:00 pm to 2:50 pm
  The Devil is in the Details. Keystone City Room - Mile High Ballroom DCCP4
• 3:00 pm to 3:50 pm
  Writing Against Xenophobia: "Otherness" in Fiction. Room 406/407 - Authors
• 5:00 pm to 5:50 pm
  Tackling Novel Writing Demons. Room 406/407 - Authors

Event Alert: Meddling Tour!

The paperback edition of Meddling Kids is officially out! Perfect excuse to tick off a few states in my bucket list! I will read, I will sign, I will struggle not to mix three different accents in the same sentence—and fail spectacularly! Get your gang together, jump into your sleuthmobile and join me!

June 13 @ Subtext Books (6 West 5th Street, St. Paul, MN)

June 14 @ Boswell Books (2559 N. Downer Ave., Milwaukee, WI)

June 15-17 @ Denver Comic Con with Tattered Cover (Colorado Convention Center, Denver, CO)

June 18 @ Book People (603 N. Lamar Blvd., Austin, TX)

And now for some extras

I just received my copies of the Meddling Kids paperback, published by Anchor Books. They're smol. They're shiny.

And they're two pages longer.

On sale May 29. :)

This post will be mostly images

The UK edition of Meddling Kids, published by Titan Books, on sale April 3. 

The US paperback edition of Meddling Kids by Anchor Books, coming May 29. It's the same, only smaller! (DISCLAIMER: NO, IT ISN'T. It's actually a few pages fatter because of all the extra content.)

And last but not least...

This Body's Not Big Enough for Both of Us. The new novel, courtesy of Doubleday, to land on July 31 (not Fall anymore, children!)

That's it for now. Next post will be mostly text, because I have to tell you about my tour.  :D

& Blanc

So, as I was telling you the other day, by early 2013 I had finished a manuscript in Spanish, with Noir as the setting and, in my opinion, an interesting enough private eye. Eyes. It's complicated.

While I was writing it though, my English debut The Supernatural Enhancements was sold to Doubleday. The size of that deal, added to the fact that I was being thoroughly ignored by publishers in Barcelona, forced me to focus on my work in English. However, I didn't give up on the other languages. This picture, taken in March 2014, shows the galley edition of TSE between two finished manuscripts: Catalan on the left, Spanish on the right. The Spanish one is the Noir novel.  

Because my Catalan- and Spanish-speaking characters longed for the spotlight, they poked their way into the English books. The leads in the manuscript on the left are glimpsed by the Eye in The Supernatural Enhancements. And the P.I. from the Noir novel sneaked into one chapter of Meddling Kids.

Despite my editor's suspicions, this doesn't mean I'm building a sort of "Canteroverse". That would require an architect's mind, and I'm a 36-year-old man who can't use a day planner. If anything, these crossovers mean that I can't focus in a single work. But they also mean that my new novel stars at least one (1) background character from Meddling Kids. And I've been dropping clues.

Oh, and Doubleday just showed the title on Tumblr yesterday, so enough with the hush-hush.

Source: tumblr/doubledaybooks

This Body's Not Big Enough For Both Of Us: my new novel, coming Fall 2018. *Blows party horn.*

Noir

For years now I've been a regular contributor to Spanish satirical magazine El Jueves. In late 2010 I began publishing a series of super short stories under the title Noir. They built upon detective fiction clichés (the dramatic sunlight through closed blinders, the laid-back private eye narrating in the first person) allowing me to skip through the descriptions and jump into the jokes. I guess I'd been reading Raymond Chandler at the time and wanted to try it. They looked like this.

I don't feel like translating it.
Take it from me: it's hilarious.

Noir ran for twenty weeks, whereupon I switched to the horror genre with a new series, Gotik, but I was always proud of some of the material and wanted to expand it into something longer, provided I found some genre-breaking element to throw in. Hopefully that would be an original detective, because my first-person narrators have this annoying tendency to resemble me.

When I came up with the detective, I wrote  a novel. This was late 2012; I had just finished The Supernatural Enhancements in English, but nobody had yet confirmed it was intelligible, so I exerted caution and went with Spanish for this one. I showed it to several publishers in the following years; they all passed. In late 2016 I translated it to English and showed it to my agent and my editor at Doubleday. Both said, "It's the best thing you've ever written." And it's my upcoming book. :)

Meddling Freebies #3: Teen Sleuth Rules

An idea for a series of badges: the rules of teen detective fiction (mild spoilers: all of them are struck out in Meddling Kids). These never went past the Photoshop stage.

By the way, if you don't own your MK copy yet, or want to own an extraordinarily dirty one, Doubleday is throwing a holiday giveaway of signed books! Signed, doodled and pencil-colored by an author with very little real work to do. Follow @doubledaybooks on Instagram for a chance to win now! The girls will be given away today, and the boys are on their way!