(Taps microphone)
Hullooooo! Anybody out there?
According to the mappy thing down at the bottom of the page we have something like 50-80 regular readers here. I can identify thirty or so who've checked in at one time or another, but that still leaves quite a few question marks in terms of readership. I thought I'd put this up and ask folks to say hi and maybe introduce themselves. Heck, you could even use the opportunity to ask some sort of writing question that we could blather on about–either general or specific to something one of us has written. Or not, as the spirit takes you.
This is a voluntary exercise, of course.
So, anybody want to take the plunge?
Is that crickets I hear? Oh, come on, pretty please?
First time's free. Your mother won't find out...Okay, maybe she will, but only if she hangs out here as well and then she'd have to admit to it.
...?
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29 comments:
Okay, I'll help out. :) My name's Tim Susman, and I've written a bunch of stories and a novel, which you can see over at the Sofawolf Press website. I also do some editing for Sofawolf and, full disclosure, co-founded it many years ago to publish the kind of fiction I liked to read and was trying to get better at writing. But I don't run it; my novel had to go through the same process all our other fiction did.
I write mainly SF/fantasy dealing with social issues, so my stories are more about examining characters within fantastical settings than about the technology or the world itself. That said, I love to do world-building; I just love characters more.
My current writing question, which I posted about over on my own blog (if Kelly will permit me a small plug--for the month of November I've committed to one post a day, so there's plenty to read :), concerns writing stories that are broken into segments, such as the archetypal fantasy trilogy. How do you keep the themes and plot consistent and engaging through several books, while still wrapping up the minor plot arcs sufficiently for the books to stand alone? More importantly, do you find it difficult to create sub-arcs for the main character such that they undergo some change in each of the parts that contributes to the whole?
Interested to hear your thoughts on the subject...
My name is Shar. I don't have a working Google account as the two I have I keep having problems signing in as so I have to go with the anonymous to sign/comment with.
So other than being computer incompatible at the moment, what else would you like to know? I am a major "bookaholic" and spend most of my money on books. I also do this with my husband's money too. Nice, eh? I got my husband back into reading instead of just watching TV and computers which I am very proud of.
I am a big fan of fantasy, science-fiction, urban fantasy, paranormal, romance suspense, thrillers, westerns, futuristics and cyberpunk and lots of non-fiction.
As for a question for you, is the Webmage series a trilogy or an open ended series? Do you have plans for more books outside of the series?
I apologize for asking if you have answered this elsewhere, but I didn't see anything on your official site about it so I thought I would ask here. Thank you in advance.
Shar
shartyrant on livejournal
Hi! My name is Michael Damian Thomas. Here are seven things about me:
1- I am the stay-at-home father to an amazing five-year-old girl, Caitlin. Caitlin has a rare congenital disorder called Aicardi syndrome giving her many severe disabilities and medical problems. Along with taking care of her, I coordinate all of her schooling, therapy, insurance, and doctors.
2- My amazing wife, Lynne, is the Head of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University. Along with their teaching collection, they have large collections of Dime Novels, LGBT materials, Horatio Alger, and SF. The SF collection includes the archives of Jack McDevitt, E.E. Knight, and Sarah Monette. Lynne is working on securing the papers of many other talented, famous SF authors in the hopes of making NIU a center for SF study.
3- I am involved in many local and national organizations for children with disabilities.
4- I am a crazy-big Doctor Who fan.
5- I am currently part of a writing team working on a giant guidebook for Mad Norwegian Press. An official announcement for the project will be made next weekend at the Chicago TARDIS Doctor Who convention.
6- After years of stopping and starting, I am an aspiring writer of SF. I am currently working on my first novel. I've written about 49,000 words as of this morning.
7- I’m from Chicago, but I’ve moved around quite a bit. I currently live amongst the cornfields of DeKalb, Illinois.
*waves*
Hi! I'm Lynne Thomas, that archivist/librarian chick that Michael just mentioned.
I'm trying to put together an SF research archive, so I'm seen at a lot of midwestern SF cons approaching authors and handing out cards.
I'm a Doctor Who fan, and a Xena fan, among many other things. I read both romance and SF, so, I'm really pleased at this whole paranormal romance/urban fantasy thing that's exploded recently.
One day, I might write a romance novel myself, but not until after I have tenure. Until then, it's research papers about cross-dressing women in 19th century dime novels. Whee!
Cool! Thanks for checking in everybody.
Lurkers, there's still plenty of space to say hi.
Tim, that's a complex one, I like it, but it'll take me a couple of days thinking time to formulate a useful answer. In the meantime maybe one of the other Wyrdsmiths will take a swing at it.
Shartyrant, after Codespell will be MythOS-That's about half done at this point and should be out sometime in '09. And, if my editor is interested, there will be at least one more WebMage beyond that, possibly several. There are also about a half dozen books in various other series out looking for publishers right now, but no one has picked any of them up yet, so when and if they might come out is an open question. If you're really interested I blogged a bit about that here.
Michael, I'm glad to know about more about the person behind the name I see here. Good luck with finishing the first book. It's a toss up whether that or the second is tougher. But the third is much easier.
Hi Lynne, (waves back) looking forward to getting a chance to chat with you and Michael both at Fantasy Matters this weekend. Good luck with the tenure track--my wife just got hers last year and it was an enormous relief. Of course, it also put her in the running for department chair, a job she starts in January, but hey that's academia.
Oh, and I have to admit that I've become a Dr. Who junkie myself with the new series.
Hi Wyrdsmiths,
Muneraven (Karen) here.
I still read this blog and some of the related, individual blogs regularly. I just seem to be mostly in lurk mode, of late.
Sorry I will be missing those of you who are doing the conference at the U of M this weekend. Is it appropriate to tell a writer to "break a leg" as a way of wishing him/her good luck, like one does an actor going on stage? Maybe we should have our own way of wishing luck to authors who are going to speak to a group. "Get carpal tunnel" might work. LOL. Anyway, good luck to all involved and have a fun conference.
Hey Muneraven, good to know you're still around. I understand the desire to drop into lurk mode. This has been just a crazy fall for me, and more than once I've though about how nice it would be to just curl up in a corner and doing nothing but read for a month.
I'm Deborah Koren and I read this blog regularly -- it's one of my favorite writer spots to visit -- and I should probably comment and ask more questions. I really enjoy the topics discussed here.
I read and write SF/fantasy, only have shorts published to date. Working on novel edits to start getting those out the door to see if they take wing.
Hi Deborah,
Glad you enjoy the blog and I hope you throw some questions in the mix. We're mostly pretty good at blathering on indefinitely without too much prodding, but I know that I have a lot of fun with questions, and I always learn things. Good luck with the novel, and congrats on the shorts--that's a huge step.
You've seen me around. 8)
I'm currently in the middle of the second-to-final semester of college, if everything works right. Because of the busybusy homework, it's easier to just read than reply. :D
I actually originally came here because of WebMage - I'm in the southwest of Minnesota, realised you were in the Cities, and, holy bog, there's a writing group up there!
Beyond that, I've found FangsFurFey, Making Light, just how many interesting writery people there /are/ on the Internet...
And, well, I'm unpublished, finished a third book, brewing more, and planning to get to the Cities. :)
(The journal I created to reply here has a link to my LJ. Generally, I'm just a paranoid Forteana nut. When I figure out how to do the Wordpress-esque things, I'll probably post on them both.)
Hi there. I'm Jen, aka Etoiline online. I'm currently in the midst of NaNoWriMo, writing fantasy for the 4th year in a row. One of these days I'd like to go back and make all the random revisions to the stories I've got so far. One day I'll have a real live book.
I'm always reading something. It's pretty average for me to read ten books a month.
My shameless plug for the day is that I'm part of a writer's group that put together an anthology of short stories based on St. Louis landmarks. We're about ready to start distributing! Anyone for a preorder? haha.
I love reading this blog. It's always insightful and helpful for aspiring writers. Thanks!
Hey, it's a survey! I come here. It reminds me of taking a really good class at the loft.
Hi.
My name is Paul, and after being born and raised in NYC, now live in a northern suburb of the Twin Cities. (Circle Pines, if it matters).
Out of the authors and the novels represented here, I've only read Tate Halloway's (writing as Lyda Morehouse)'s Archangel Protocol, which I liked.
I have a bad habit of reading laterally, and starting more series than finishing series. So I haven't read the sequels yet.
Hi, I'm Nina. I live in Baltimore and work for the gummint.
I found this site on a Journey of A Thousand Clicks, and read eight months worth of posts in one big gulp, while waiting for a process to compile. I love reading about the process of writing, though I've finally admitted to myself that I'm too flighty to actually do the work of becoming a writer and finishing a novel.
Hey, Paul. Thanks for checking in -- and noting that you've read my work (as Lyda)!
And hello to everyone else whose checked in too!
Hello. I'm Carissa and I too am an aspiring writer. No, that's not quite right. I'm a writer aspiring to be published. There, that's closer to the actual truth.
I'm part of an awesome critique group and it was through one of the members I found this blog. She recommended it as a link on our group blog site. I've been reading it since linking it.
I write fantasy, paranormal, and historical mysteries. I, too, am currently participating in NaNoWriMo, writing a historic paranormal. I'm also participating in Orycon, the SF/F convention that takes over a weekend in November in Portland, OR. I submitted an excerpt from one of my former (and heavily edited) NaNo novels to be critiqued in the writers workshop.
For that submission, I was required to write a synopsis, something I have little practice with, and let me tell you how much that showed. I spent weeks on those 500 words, giving it to anyone who would read it for suggestions. So I have a question about synopsis writing: how do you personally approach it, how difficult do you find it, and does the style/length of the synposis vary depending on who it is going to?
Oh, also love the new Dr. Who, big Xena fan (still miss that show) and let me through Buffy the Vampire Slayer into the mix (the season 8 comic book series rocks--yes, I read comics as well as everything else I can lay hands on).
Hi to the next wave. I'll say helllo in a bit more detail later--I'm working on the current book at the moment and taking a two minute break. Just wanted to throw in a quick response to Carissa since I just finished teaching a course built around the synopsis. I've got a series of posts on the topic:
Kelly on Pitching and Synopses parts 1, 2, and 3.
Kelly on what a synopsis should do.
Just wanted to take a quick break to say howdy to all the new faces! Welcome to the party!
And come on up to the mic, folks--there are still more of you out there that haven't introduced yourselves, and I promise we don't bite. Too hard. Well, stay away from Tate--fangs, you know--but the rest of us are perfectly harmless.
Heh, heh.
Ryan, hi always good to see you. (waves)
CalenhÃril, Carissa, good luck with NaNoWriMo, any event that gets so many writers writing is doing good work.
Sarah, (waves again), I wonder why it might remind you of a loft class ;->
Hello, Paul, when you get the chance you should read the rest of Lyda's series. They're fun books.
Hey, Nina, that's cool. Did you discover anything unusual by taking it all in such a huge gulp? I'd be fascinated to know if we've got weird patterns going or anything like that.
Carissa, I'm glad you've got yourself a good writers group. I can't begin to tell you how valuable the Wyrdsmiths have been for me. On the synopses question, if you haven't looked in the Miss Snark stuff on them--it's linked in the appropriate index (top right corner on the front page)--I'd highly recommend it.
Thank you, Kelly, for the links! The one on pitching is apt, as I'm going to be practicing my one liner and my thirty second pitch for the con. If I don't practice, I'll turn into the Thing That Would Not Shut Up.
Thanks again!
Carissa
Hi all. I'm C.S. Cole, a fiction writer of both short story and novels. I'm part of the critique group that Ris (see above) is also a part of and have been reading (and lurking) here for the better part of a year.
My stories tend to lean more toward the dark side and are cast in modern urban settings with characters I hope feel every bit as real as the obnoxious family who lives next door.
I openly claim to not like Science Fiction or Fantasy writing yet there I am, at least once a month, standing in line at my local independent book store buying all the SF/F anthologies I can get my hands on; especially true this year when my personal goal was to learn the art of crafting short stories. My current goal is to become published in one of those anthologies and I'm happy to say I have four shorts out looking for potential homes.
I also attend OryCon, the Portland, Oregon SciFi convention coming up this very weekend. I'm the one dressed like a writer. It's got great writer's programming and in lieu of attending one of the wild parties being held nightly on the 3rd floor of the waterfront hotel, I plan on reading a portion of my work at one of the late night open read sessions instead. Scary perhaps, but I think I'll have more fun with that.
Hi Carole,
Thanks for delurking for a moment to introduce yourself. I hope you and Carissa both have a great time at Orycon. It's one I've been meaning to get to forever since it's my friend Eric Witchey's home con. Good luck with those subs. Are they all out to anthos? Or are you hitting the magazines as well?
When I started reading Wyrdsmiths, I didn't realize it was a group blog until I reached the first Eleanor post. For some reason her writing voice is quite distinctive from the rest of the gang.
Nina, cool. Thanks. I can imagine the gear-shift there. Eleanor is pretty much unlike any other writer I can think of, and she pulls off things in her stories that are simply mind-boggling.
Hi Kelly,
Yes I'm a regular reader of this site and I write some sci fi and fantasy/horror. I'm getting there.
If you're curious about me or Liverpool in the 1960's, my blog is
http://baffledspirit.blogspot.com/
Hey Mike,
Nice to see you here. I'll probably pop over to your site when I get back to my regular schedule after the conference I'm at this weekend.
Hi Wyrdsmiths,
I'm Jonna, an avid reader of the Webmage series and other Wyrdsmith work. I read this blog all the time and have a link to it on my own blogroll. But I guess I must have strong lurking tendencies, since I don't write comments very often...
Hello Wyrdsmiths and fellow readers!
Kelly's invitation prompted me to pop up and say Hi. I don't have a question at this time, but would like to say to Lyda, Kelly and Naomi that I thoroughly enjoy your work and recommend you to others; to the other Smiths, I wish y'all posted more; and to the other commentators on this forum, thank you for stepping out of lurkdom. Now I have several more blogs to check out!
My own blog is in a state of de-construction--I'm about to move from Blogger (Shar, I feel your pain with the sign-in thing!), but I brought my intro to the top of the page if anyone's curious.
You have built a very friendly and welcoming community here, keep up the good work, and may words flow freely for all here!
Jonna, Gretchen,
Thanks for chiming in. Glad you're both here. Jonna, thanks for the link, and for various other props and recommends. Gretchen, glad you find us a welcoming community.
Everybody, thanks for reading and delurkibg! I've been falling behind on my posting the last couple weeks as I dig out from an insane October, but I'm hoping to get back on top of things soon.
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