July 10, 2016
Sky Cyberdungeons
Second pilot finished this year. Good Edgar. A little too compulsive and overkeen to impress his muses, but good Edgar nonetheless.
June 16, 2016
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.
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.
This is the plot board. Not very enlightening, but it looked cool on the wall.
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. :)
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. :)
May 21, 2016
March 22, 2016
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.
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.
February 18, 2016
The FOSS
So. February. Fertilizer is happening, cogs are moving. Announcements will soon be made. But that's not postworthy news. This is a writer's blog and the important update is, I'm writing.
I don't stress myself with daily goals or weekly quotas, but I do obsess about producing at least one big thing every year. "Big" is a flexible adjective for size, but it should be something that stands by its own in a library. "Producing" means writing a finished, non-apologizing manuscript ‒ not selling or publishing it. And "thing" implies it doesn't even need a purpose. It may be my next book, or just an idea that took up too much room in my head so I just put it on paper in any random form. This one in the picture belongs to the latter kind. It's called The FOSS. And apparently it's a TV script.
"But do you work in TV or have any contacts in that world?" No.
"Do you have any experience as a screenwriter in English?" No.
"Do you even know what to do with this?" No.
But it's 60 minutes and it counts as biggish and it's written. And it's only February. :)
I don't stress myself with daily goals or weekly quotas, but I do obsess about producing at least one big thing every year. "Big" is a flexible adjective for size, but it should be something that stands by its own in a library. "Producing" means writing a finished, non-apologizing manuscript ‒ not selling or publishing it. And "thing" implies it doesn't even need a purpose. It may be my next book, or just an idea that took up too much room in my head so I just put it on paper in any random form. This one in the picture belongs to the latter kind. It's called The FOSS. And apparently it's a TV script.
"But do you work in TV or have any contacts in that world?" No.
"Do you have any experience as a screenwriter in English?" No.
"Do you even know what to do with this?" No.
But it's 60 minutes and it counts as biggish and it's written. And it's only February. :)
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