Quick Re-Direct: SF Novelist

My alter-ego wrote a blog over at SF Novelist about her (and, secretly, my) titling process. It's called Something Clever or What I Usually Call My Novel. As you can probably guess from the title of this post our process is, as we say in the MidWest, "interesting."

Miss Snark's Greatest Hits (vol 41)

Make sure you understand any contract you sign. Also, be prepared to walk away from a deal if the contract is bad enough and you can't get it changed.

Why you shouldn't vent about rejections online. It's a bad-bad-bad idea since agents and editors are also online.

More agency statistics, clients signed vs, queries, fulls, and partials. Plus some notes on same and why agents keep on digging through the slush.

Reputable agencies who charge copying fees and the like also have expense caps. If you run into an agent who doesn't cap them, or tries to collect them pre-sales, run for the hills. Nota bene, my agent does not charge anything but his 15%.

If you believe you know more about how your books should be pitched than your agent does, you probably shouldn't have an agent. You are also probably wrong.

What to do about embarrassing earlier publications when you're looking for an agent or publisher.

If you want to look for a new agent, you have to fire you old agent first

What happens to manuscripts out with editors when you fire your agent mid-submission?

Hail and Farewell

Wyrdsmiths regretfully says good-bye to one of its long-time members, Rosalind Nelson. Rosalind is leaving us to continue her creative ventures elsewhere. We wish her the best of luck with her writing and all other endeavors.

Hail and farewell, Rosalind!

Story in October 2007 issue of Realms of Fantasy

One of my short stories, "Honest Man," is in the current issue of Realms of Fantasy. (Which is the October issue. Even though it came out earlier in August.) I wrote this story in honor of my grandmother's 80th birthday; while the events of the story are fictional, the main character is explicitly based on my grandmother, Iris, and various members of her family (including my grandfather, my mother, and my great-aunt) are mentioned or have brief appearances.

Writing that story was really fun -- I actually lost track of time while I was writing it because I was enjoying myself so much, and realized suddenly that I was going to be late picking up my kid at preschool.

Miss Snark's Greatest Hits (vol 40)

A note on the agency slush pile–not only does it get read, most clients come out of it. Really. Truly. She kids you not.

Agents make mistakes with submissions. It happens all the time. That doesn't mean the agent's incompetent, just human. More on that, now with statistics!

Never cold call an agent or an editor. It's a really bad idea.

What does an agent owe a writer who submits to them? A decision. That's all. No explanations, no second chances, just a yes or no. This is harsh, but I agree with it.

Nobody steals novel plots. Really, they don't. There's no money in it.

How should you put your website info in your query? A simple technical question with a simple answer.

Why you should write the best query you possibly can? Hint it's a tough old business and the query is the first piece of your writing the agent sees.

Questions you should ask before you submit to a publisher, particularly a small specialty press.

A bit more on the Halifax book

I've known ever since I wandered around the Citadel that I was going to write something set in Halifax with the old fortress as a major component. What I hadn't planned was doing anything about for the next two years or so. Books take time, and I'm currently all booked up. Also, I find that I need to let ideas marinate in the back of my head for a while before I get something really useful. This has taken as long as ten years and rarely takes less than one. So, not only was I not planning on working or even thinking about this, I honestly didn't think my back brain would spit anything out at least until next summer. I was wrong. I even know why I was wrong. Two reasons:

First, The Halifax environment was so rich that in its marination phase bits of it dribbled down onto other brain structures that had already been bubbling away for years.

Second, I just finished Zelazney's A Night in the Lonesome October. This is one of those books that I've had kicking around the house on and off for more than a decade. I've even gotten rid of it on at least two occasions, but it keeps coming back–I think I've been given three copies over the years and bought two. I've picked it up, read four pages, and put it down quite a number of times. Three nights ago it had come out on top of the bookdrift on my bedside table once again, and I decided to try it one last time before getting rid of yet another copy. This time it was fabulous, fast, fun, dark, and most importantly, educational. I learned something new from this read something about both plot and character. Really, about a specific kind of plot and a specific type of character: The Big Magical Event, and the World Weary Cynic. They're F&SF staples and I've used variations of them over the years, but I suddenly had new insights into how they work at a deep structural level.

Cool! Something that I would find a use for in years to come–after it had marinated a bit. Except, my subconscious took the shiny new toy and dropped it into the same bucket where the Halifax stuff was soaking and there was something of catalyst reaction that reached through all the other layers Halifax had already touched on and then somehow cross-connected itself with some things I'd been thinking about the WebMage series and what to do after book five (assuming that ACE is interested in five) that would extend the brand I've been developing with them while still giving me something new and exciting. Et voila, the Halifax book leaped from my forehead nearly fully formed.

I don't know if all of that makes any sense to anyone else, but that's what happened. I was mugged by a book that hasn't even been written yet.

Why Books Fail (A Mini-Rant)

I just found out that a friend of mine got dropped by her publisher. She was in the middle of a series and, “due to lackluster sales” they pulled the plug on her W.I.P.

I’ve been there. It hurts. The worst part of it is that, in the current publishing climate, this sort of thing happens more often than we’d like to think about. As I said in my post over at SF Novelists about pseudonyms, while many authors are ready to point out bestsellers that don’t “deserve” their success (just think back to the flack around Bridges of Madison County,) even though they should know better, they’re often more than willing to believe that books die due to quality alone. The unspoken implication is that if you’d written a better book, it’d still be in print.

This is a lie. It’s also a very hurtful one, because the nature of writing (and its life of rejections) is already full of self-doubt. It’s often easy for a writer to believe they sucked themselves out of a book contract. And stop writing.

Maybe you think I’m crying sour grapes. After all, my books tanked. When my second book was remaindered I was looking for other professional writers to talk to about it – commiserate, talk shop. I cast around and someone who’d been through this sort of thing was recommended to me. I sent her an email. This writer, who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty, later told me she’d read my book, “just to make sure” before talking to me. Make sure, she didn’t have to say, that I didn’t actually deserve my fate… and that the books were actually “good.” After determining that, she felt free to give me career advice.

It was hard to listen to any advice this author dispensed because I knew (even though it had happened to her!) that part of her bought into the publishers’ big lie: that good books do well and bad books die.

As much as we like to gripe about how the other guy is merely a hack, truly bad books don’t make it over the transom. An entire team of people, including the bean counters, approve a book before an editor makes an offer to a writer (or, rather a writer’s agent, who also had faith in the book enough to try to sell it). Also keep in mind that “lackluster sales” for a mass-market book often count in the tens of thousands. Books that are critical successes – not only loved by reviewers, but also by award committees – still tank. (Think about Megan Lindholm).

Also, there are a lot of factors that completely fall outside of anyone’s control (even the publishers’), like readers’ trends. It’s absolutely true that a cover sells a book, but it’s still a big question as to what it *is* about a cover that gets readers to pick it up. There are lots of theories: one of the reasons you often see people’s faces on the cover of books is that it’s generally believed that readers’ respond positively to an image of a person on the book. Apparently, they like it even better when that person is looking directly at them. Of course, books aren’t normally shelved with their covers’ facing outward, so the book has to do even more than catch your eye to people to pick it up. What that is is anyone’s guess – publishers have admitted that a lot of this stuff is completely baffling to them as well (see NY Times article).

Books fail. It’s just the hard cold truth of today’s publishing industry. It’s nobody’s fault. The only thing a writer can do is keep writing.

Woke up with a bit of book lodged in my head

Storms last night, big ones. They set off the sirens and sent Laura and I to the basement at 4:00 a.m., always a pleasure, especially since it means herding cats. I was just starting to nod off after getting back to bed when I realized I had a chunk of book lodged in my brain.

Since I can't leave story alone, I started nibbling around the edges of this one and pretty soon realized it was both quite large and, technically, on my schedule. It's the beginning of the Halifax book that I've mentioned once or twice before, which isn't supposed to show up for at least a year– possibly more since I've got 3 books firmly scheduled in front of it and, depending on the vagueries of contracts and such, as many 7.

Silly book, I don't have the time to write you right now. Unfortunately, it's not listening and I quite like what I've got so far – 1-2k words and big bit of plot, character, and setting. Maybe I can cheat and carve out a bit of extra writing time in the mornings before I'm really awake. I'd have to see if I could hold two novels in my head while writing them in parallel for a bit, but that might make a fun challenge.

Oh, and for those of you who've been paying attention to my process, this one's a real oddity. I don't have strong ideas about the contours of the world at the moment. I'm not even sure about the edges of the magic system beyond the way they affect the protagonist personal situation. I'll have to see how that goes. Since I've caught this one forming, I'll try to add bits of the how of it as I go.

Anybody else got a bit of the wrong story lodged in an uncomfortable place this morning?

Miss Snark's Greatest Hits (vol 39)

More notes from the snarkives:

I've linked to this when it came out the first time and it's still fabulous advice for the question of "when to give up." Never!

Something I firmly agree with: Even character-driven novels need a plot.

No, you don't need a perfect first line but it sure doesn't hurt. This one is worth the read for the context of this quote: "We set things down when they're bad, not when they're not good enough."

If given a choice is it better to send paper copy or electronic. Electronic. I firmly agree.

How to write a hook an excellent primer.

Rights reversion clauses, a quick explanation.

Selling on proposal. It happens of course, but only if you've got a proven track record in the book biz.

And a few don'ts:

Never two-time an agent who's working with you. This is a great way to end up with no agent and a bad rep.

Bad advice from the pros. Contract lawyers are much more expensive than agents.

Don't think of your agent as your bff. Even if you and your agent are genuinely friends, it's very specialized kind of friendship, one that doesn't involve wedding invites, the exchange of gifts, or daily phone calls.

A Writing Meme

So, I was thinking about a series of questions about writing and thought I'd pose them here.

What do you find _______ about writing?

Hardest? For me, it's character.

Easiest? World building.

Most fun? Making stuff up--the actual sitting down and writing time. I love the work.

Most Tedious? The business side. Submission and rejections, accounting, market tracking, promotion, etc. This may be the best thing about having an agent, I've got someone who does a good bit of that stuff (at least for novels).

Coolest? Getting to make stuff up for a living, though fan mail is pretty damn cool too.

Least cool? Not getting paid for stories that were bought and published. Right at the moment I have three short stories I haven't been paid for, two more than three years published. The third is, I think, just a misunderstanding soon to be fixed. But having to dun my publishers sucks.

Best? Knowing that I'm doing exactly what I want and love.

Worst? Knowing that so many other people, many of them every bit as good or better at this than I am, aren't following the dream.

Anyone else want to play? I'll happily throw in and answer more questions too.

Psuedonym Shame

Sorry to re-direct your attention again, but I (or rather Tate) posted over at SF Novelists': Nom[s] de Shame.

Here's the teaser:

"Before I started writing paranormal romance, I used to pooh-pooh pseudonyms. When writing students would ask me if there was any reason they should consider writing under an assumed name, I would laughingly say, "Aren't you proud of your writing?"

That was before my publisher told me my dwindling sales figures necessitated a change in persona."

Miss Snark's Greatest Hits (vol 38)

Editorial and agency assisstants have an enormous amount of control over your fate. Being nice to them isn't just polite, it's also business smart.

Don't say nasty thing about your publisher in public. It's a dumb idea and this post gives a good rundown of why. Follow up on dissing your publisher.

Don't shoot yourself in the the foot by responding to rejections in an impolite way. Don't do this. Ever.

Miss Snark takes up Neal Gaiman's call for literary wills. Do you know what would happen to your writing if you died suddenly? Do you care? You should.

In the category of things to tell your agent, surgery around the time of a book release ranks right up there. So do things like going out of the country for several months at such a time.

Yes, you do have to have a website if you're publishing.

Miss Snark's Greatest Hits (vol 37)

I'm getting close to the end of the process with these, maybe a week or two left.

A fascinating post on reading royalty statements, and services that can help authors with making sense of them. And, more on royalties , like what to do when they go missing.

What to do when you go to the bookstore and discover that someone's already written your book. Hint, the answer isn't throw it away and start over.

Great stuff on how much plot to include in a query and how that differs from what you include in a synopsis.

Personalizing a query letter. Do you really need to do more than make sure it's got the right name and address and the like? Mostly no.

Three chapters really means three chapters, apparently regardless of length. No sure how I feel about this one-the 77 pages referenced is that far from the 50 that I often hear as 3 chapters standard. I do wonder if the answer would have been different if three chapters meant 15 pages or 150.

Another listing of stupid query mistakes. I find these fascinating, in part because I can't imagine who someone thought that most of them were a good idea.

Saturday Morning Funnies (Volume 6)

On my list of things to do today is clean the basement. While I'm down there, I plan to keep my eye out for more of my really bad high school writing. Alas, all I have to torture you with today is post-college drivel. Luckily, even though it's older stuff, its plenty mockworthy.

Please enjoy "Snare" (Warning: LONG)

When my vision cleared, the first thing I realized was that I was nude. At first it didn't concern me that I was lying alone, naked, and spread-eagle on my back in the middle of a mossy glen. In fact, it was rather peaceful in an odd way. My head felt fuzzy, but as I took in my surrounding I began to feel clearer. Somewhere in the distance, I heard the sound of a swiftly flowing brook. A cool summer's breeze blew up the length of my body, bringing with it the heavy smell of the forest. O ut of mortal habit, I took a deep breath. It was a beautiful night, albeit it a little chilly. Staring up through a circle of oak trees I could see a full moon. I attempted to move my arms to cross them in front of my chest for warmth, but suddenly realized I couldn't. Some invisible force held me pinioned to the ground. Cranning my neck around, I strained to see what held me in place. There was nothing visable.

Dazed, I shook my head to clear it. My head felt thick, like I was looking at everything through a fog. Something was wrong and finally a dull sense of panic rumbled at the edges of my conciousness. Groaning, I tested my bonds again, but with no avail.

I had to try to piece togehter what had happened. The last thing I remembered was settling in for the night in my study a heavy tome on alchemy freshly purchased from the used bookstore in my lap. I'd just gotten past the author's notes, when.... when what? When everything went blank? What a Hollywood cliche, I chided myself, but that was the best way to describe it. Suddenly, I was here and without my clothes.

From the edge of the ring of trees, I heard a frightened whisper. "Jesus Christ, Mirim, you caught one."

"Don't invoke His name here, Liam. This is Bridgit's circle."

"I didn't think you could do it." He continued incrediously, as if she hadn't spoken. "It's the devil's own magic."

"Not the devil's, Liam, the Goddess's."

I could hear a soft slap, followed by Liam's, "Ow!" Then a quieter, "Lay off me, would you?"

I lifted my head to peer towards the voices of my captors. I could see them near the edge of the tree line. The boy, Liam presumably, was crouched behind the massive trunk of a tree. He was peering at me with a horrified expression on his freckled face. A mop of red curls fell over one eye. The rest of him was hidden in the mottled shadows of the forest.

The woman, on the other hand, was in plain view. She sat comfortably with her back against a large oak. Long hair hung in auburn ringlets around her face. She wore a peasant shirt embroidered around the edges with some Eastern European design. And, I noticed with surprise, blue jeans. After a second appraisal, I realized she was hardly more than a child, though even from here I could smell tang of the menstrual blood that flowed between her thighs. She was twirling a crystal that hung about her neck. The white light that emanated from the crystal nearly blinded me.

I lay my head back, trying to assess the situation. She was a witch, that much was obvious, but what she thought she'd caught was another question.

"Mirim," I called out for her, "Mirim, I'm waiting."

"The devil knows your name," Liam told her in hushed tones. "Don't go near him, girl. He'll surely kill you."

"I'll do as I please," she retorted. I could hear rustling; she was moving forward. "Now remember what I told you about the circle, Liam. Don't you dare cross over the line, or I'll kill you. I mean it."

"Don't go near him," Liam begged, "please. You've won the bet already, Mir. I'll give it to you, already, okay? Just send him away and we can go home."

"No," she countered, "we caught him. We could use him. Think of the things he could do for us."

"Ma's going to be worrying after us." His tone was desperate, "She and da'll be home from the pub by now. She's bound to be missing her pendant. Come on, Miriam. Leave it be, let's go home."

"You're a weak-hearted fool, Liam MacLennan." She laughed cruelly. "You'll never make a warlock."

"I'd rather be a living fool than a dead warlock," I heard him mutter under his breath. I wondered what she would say to that, but I heard no reply.

Suddenly, she stood above me her fists upon narrow hips. Her eyes looked up and down my naked form. Her eyes lingered at a certain spot, and she blushed slightly.

I laughed. She'd tried to look so fierce, but she was still a young woman. "You were expecting something different?" I teased.

Her blush deepened, but she answered me quite seriously, "I don't know what I was expecting. You look so..." she bit her upper lip, looking for the right word, "human. You haven't a tail or cloven hooves."

"Demons take all shapes," I replied evenly, though a part of me balked at the idea that a trap meant for a devil had caught me. I'd never been much of a religious man in my life, and so had never considered that my soul might be damned, or that by being turned a vampire I'd be in liege with Satan. It seemed ludicrous. But, as proof to the contrary, here I was.

"Handsome shapes, as well, it seems." She smiled slightly, reddened again, and then looked towards where Liam waited.

"Do you plan to ravish me then, Mirim?" I asked, amused. I hoped to tempt her closer. I might be pinned like a butterfly under glass, but I was not nearly as helpless. "Or will you just tease me and leave me wanting you?"

"I see you ARE a silver-tongued devil, though." She smiled, her large dark eyes crinkling in amusement. "I want you to do something for me, demon."

"Your wish is my command," I replied. "But, you'll have to free me, there's little I can do for you like this."

"Ah, but there is," she said. "And, don't be thinking you can fool me into freeing you. I know better than that." She wagged a finger at me, in warning. I scowled back. I didn't relish the idea of lying here forever. "What I want from you are some answers," she continued. "There are secrets I want revealed." She sat down cross-legged on the grass.

Her nearness brought the smell of menstral blood to the air, and I found myself salivating. Licking my lips, I let out my breath in an approximation of a heavy sigh. I didn't have any answers. And, frankly, I was fast running out of ideas.

"What do you want to know?" I asked.

"Where you come from, what is it like?" She asked in a hushed tone, her eyes wide.

"New York?" I asked, though I knew it wasn't what she meant. "Not everyone likes it, but I live comfortably enough. There are lots of people there, things to do, places to go."

Her eyebrows drewn together in a frown, "Stop fooling around. It's hell I'm wanting to know about, and you know it."

"Hell?" I rolled my eyes, "I don't know anything about hell. I never plan on ever going there myself, if there even is such a place."

She looked disappointed.

Miss Snark's Greatest Hits (vol 36)

More smart things I found in the snarkives:

Contracts:

Do not sign anything you don't understand. No, really don't do this. This is always good advice. If you want to make a career in writing, learn about the business. Learn about copyright. Understand what you're selling, because it's not the story, it's the rights.

Misc: Ideas aren't copyrightable or, you're all right if the words are different, even if the story is similar. Mind you, if the story is too similar, there's a good chance no one will buy it because it's been done before and quite possibly better.

Agency submission stuff:

Things agents like to hear in a query letter, that suggest the writer has learned some things about the agent in a good way.

Thing to send with your requested partial.

A good list of what is and is not important in a query letter

New Writer Cycle-Strange Monkey

Drat, Lyda beat me to the post button so I had to wait a bit. Here's something related to what she said below.

So this is going to be another post in which I talk about not being like all the other monkeys, which is more a reflection on my own personal oddities than on anyone else's experience

It all started because Jay Lake was talking about being a newbie in the F&SF writing world in response to Paul Jessup's post on the same phenomena. I find my experiences to have been quite different really from the start–not better, just different–and I'm not sure why that is, but I'm guessing it has to do with two things, coming out of theater and the way I've always set up my personal goals.

Goals first: Mine has never been to be the best thing ever or to win the respect and adulation of the writing world (mind you I'd consider achieving either of those things as a hell of a perk). Nor have I ever set cracking this or that market as anything but an interim goal. No, what I've wanted to do from day one is tell stories and make a career of telling stories. Note that I won't be able to tell if I've truly achieved that goal until I'm quite old and looking back, and that any individual sale or award or whatever will only count as at best a signpost. And in response to Lyda's benchmarks note below, I've always counted my benchmarks by stories produced and sold, with the markets that take them being almost irrelevant as long as they meet professional criteria.

Background: Because I grew up in theater I learned in my bones that nothing would come easy, I would always have to work in a continuous and ongoing way to improve my craft, and that it would be a lifetime endeavor. I also learned in my bones that other people would be able to see things in my work that I couldn't–both positive and negative and that if I could learn to something that one of them pointed out I would get better.

That meant that I never had that I'm the best thing since sliced bread, why don't they see my genius thing going on, or at least only for spans of a few minutes at a time. An early confirmation of this is when my wife was reading my first novel and would point out an awkward sentence and I could see that she was right, but couldn't then see how to fix it. That was occasionally frustrating, but since I'd already experienced similar things in theater I knew it was a stage, and that the way to get past it was to improve my craft.

I do admit to the occasional brief bout of look at what all the cool kids are doing and if only I hung out with them I'd have an easier time but that was balanced early by the enormous satisfaction of getting acceptances and encouragement from editors who didn't have any reason to say nice things to me but the quality of my stories.

I guess that's all a long winded way of saying: Focus on writing the stories and getting better. Everything else is smoke and mirrors. There is no secret password, or magic clubhouse, and wasting energy on looking for them will only take away from the important stuff. Also, there are 1,001 and one ways to write and every one them correct.

What about you, dear reader? Does your cycle follow Jay's model? Or Paul's? Or mine? Or something completely different?

P.S. Jay's exactly right to talk about prodom in terms of large high school, in part because it's about the right size and ape hierarchies are pretty consistent in how they self-organize. At the same time, I went to an open school, and was simultaneously, a gamer, a theater geek, a student government nerd, and one of the popular kids, so I firmly believe that breaking the mold is possible.

Career Benchmarks

Here's an interesting list on Daily or Not of career benchmarks for mass-market romance writers. I haven't hit very many of these, but the list totally fascinates me.

I wonder how different this list would be if composed by SF/F authors? Certainly one of the benchmarks would be "invited to be a guest of honor at a local convention" and then also, "invited to be a guest of honor at an 'away' con (all expenses paid)". Probably also we'd have to include qualifying for SFWA membership (and having your first verbal brawl on the pages of the SFWA Forum???).

For me, one of my big career markers included, "announcement of novel sale in Locus," "getting your picture in Locus," and (one I have yet to achieve) "being the featured interviewee in Locus," which is akin, IMHO, of "getting your picture on the cover of the The Rolling Stone."

What would some others be?

Addition: Here's Jay Lake's ruminations on the early career writer cycle which seemed approps And here's a direct link to the blog he was riffing on: Paul Jessup's The Newbie Writer Cycle.

Miss Snark's Greatest Hits (vol 35)

Some more good advice from my dive through the snarkives:

Novel queries really don't need biographical information. Or, you don't have to be a lawyer to write about them. In fact it might be better if you weren't.

From an agent's point of view, the value of a magazine sale isn't in the size of the check, or even in getting a check. It's in the credential that says a reputable editor thinks your stuff is worth printing-emphasis on reputable. The magazine has to have a seriously respected name if it doesn't pay pro rates.

There are a very small number of reasons that are acceptable for bothering an agent who is looking over your work.

Pre-blurbing. A bad idea that should be stepped on vigorously.

Another entertaining round of follow the directions when subbing to an agent, along with some suggestions for what not to put in a query.

A Wyrdsmiths Bibliography

Because I wanted to have it all in one place, and because I thought our readers might be interested, here's a partial bibliography for the Wyrdsmiths–it lacks poems and non-fiction, and I know I've missed some stories by Eleanor and possibly some of our other members.

Wyrdsmiths Bibliography:

Eleanor Arnason

Novels:

The Sword Smith. NY: Condor Press, 1978
To The Resurrection Station. NY:Avon, 1986
Daughter Of The Bear King. NY: Avon, 1987
A Woman Of The Iron People. NY: Morrow, 1991
Ring Of Swords. NY: Tor, 1993

Short Fiction:

"A Clear Day in the Motor City." NEW WORLDS 6
"The Warlord of Saturn's Moons." NEW WORLDS 7
"Ace 167." ORBIT 15, ed. Damon Knight; NY: Harper & Row, 1974
"The House by the Sea." ORBIT 16, ed. Damon Knight. NY: Harper & Row, 1975
"The Face on the Barroom Floor" (with Ruth Berman). STAR TREK: THE NEW VOYAGES #1
"Going Down." ORBIT 19, ed. Damon Knight, Harper & Row 1977
"A Ceremony of Discontent," (ss) A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN, v6 #1&2, 1981
"The Ivory Comb." AMAZONS II, ed. Jessica Amanda Salmonson, NY: DAW, 1982
"Glam's Story." TALES OF THE UNANTICIPATED. #2, 1987
"Among the Featherless Bipeds." TALES OF THE UNANTICIPATED #3 , 1988
"A Brief History of the Order of St. Cyprian the Athlete." TALES OF THE UNANTICIPATED #10, 1992
"The Hound of Merin." XANADU
"The Lovers." ASIMOV'S, July 1994
"The Semen Thief." AMAZING, Winter 1994
"The Dog's Story." ASIMOV'S, May 1996
"The Small Black Box of Morality." TALES OF THE UNANTICIPATED #16. 1996
"The Venetian Method." TALES OF THE UNANTICIPATED #19, 1998.
reprint: BEST OF THE REST #2, ed. Brian Youmans. Boston: Suddenly Press,1999
"The Gauze Banner." MORE AMAZING STORIES, ed. Kim Mohan. NY: Tor, 1998
"Stellar Harvest." ASIMOV'S, April 1999.
"The Grammarian's Five Daughters." REALMS OF FANTASY, June 1999
"Dapple: A Hwarhath Historical Romance." ASIMOV'S, September 1999.
"The Actors." MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, December 1999
"Origin Story." TALES OF THE UNANTICIPATED #21, 2000
"The Cloud Man." ASIMOV'S, October/November 2000
"Lifeline." ASIMOV'S, February 2001
"Moby Quilt." ASIMOV'S, May 2001
"The Glutton: A Goshat Accounting Chant." TALES OF THE UNATICIPATED #22, 2001
"Knapsack Poems." ASIMOV'S, May 2002
"The Lost Mother: A Tale Told by the Divers." TALES OF THE UNANTICIPATED #23, 2002
"The Potter of Bones." ASIMOV'S, September 2002
"Big Ugly Mama and the ZK." ASIMOV'S, September 2003
"Big Black Mama and Tentacle Man," Tales of the Unanticipated #24 2003

Tate Hallaway

Novels:

Garnet Lacey Series:
"Drop Dead Gorgeous" BERKLEY TRADE (Penguin) May 2006
"Dead Sexy" BERKLEY TRADE (Penguin) May 2007
"Romancing the Dead" BERKLEY TRADE (Penguin) Forthcoming 2008

Short Fiction:

"Fire and Ice and Linguini for Two," MANY BLOODY RETURNS (anthology), edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner, ACE (Penguin) September 2007

William Henry

"Laila Ahara," (Excerpt from "The Commission"–unpublished) Tales from the Black Dog: A Wyrdsmiths Chapbook 2005
"A Bird Of Fire," (Excerpt from "The Commission"–unpublished) New Wyrd: A Wyrdsmiths Anthology 2006

Douglas Hulick

Novels:

A Tale of the Kin series:
"Among Thieves", ROC (Penguin), April 2011

Short Fiction:
"Moonlighting," Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine #9, Summer, 1990
"All That Cuts", Shadis Magazine, Issue #24, February, 1996
"Key of Green", Shadis Magazine, Issue #25, March, 1996
"An Inconvenient Corpse," (Excerpt from "Dust and Steel"–unpublished) New Wyrd: A Wyrdsmiths Anthology 2006

Naomi Kritzer

Novels:

Eliana's Song:
"Fires of the Faithful," Bantam Spectra October 2002
"Turning the Storm," Bantam Spectra January 2003
The Dead Rivers Trilogy
"Freedom's Gate," Bantam Spectra July 2004
"Freedom's Apprentice," Bantam Spectra May 2005
"Freedom's Sisters," Bantam Sprectra July 2006

Short Fiction:

"Faust's SASE," Scavenger's Newsletter, September 1999
"Brother Mac, You Are Healed!," Planet Relish, December 1999
"Gift of the Winter King," Realms of Fantasy, April 2000
"The Price," Tales of the Unanticipated #21, April 2000
"Spirit Stone," Realms of Fantasy, October 2000
The Golem," Realms of Fantasy, December 2000
"Comrade Grandmother," Strange Horizons, September 2002
"In the Witch's Garden," Realms of Fantasy, October 2002
"St. Ailbe's Hall," Strange Horizons, January 2004
The Long Walk," (With Lyda Morhouse) Tales of the Unanticipated #26, October 2005
"Masks," New Wyrd: A Wyrdsmiths Anthology 2006
"Honest Man," Realms of Fantasy, October 2007

H. Courreges LeBlanc

Short Fiction:

"The Ecstasy Array," Tales of the Unanticipated #17 1997
"Euphonasia," Tales of the Unanticipated #20, 1999
"The Square Hills," Terra Incognita Sum 2000
"Thicker Than Water," Darkling Plain Sum 2000
"Life Without Parole," Tales of the Unanticipated #22 2001
"Fiddler," Strange Horizons, 2001
"Quink," Strange Horizons, 2002
"Amends," Imaginings, ed. Keith R. A. DeCandido, Pocket 2003
"The Ballad of the Pterodactyl Rose," Tales from the Black Dog: A Wyrdsmiths Chapbook 2005
"How Many Horses?," New Wyrd: A Wyrdsmiths Anthology 2006

Kelly McCullough

Novels and Books:

WebMage Series:
1. "WebMage," ACE (Penguin) 2006
2. "Cybermancy," ACE (Penguin) - Forthcoming September 25th 2007
3. "CodeSpell," ACE (Penguin) - Forthcoming June 2008
4. "MythOS," ACE (Penguin) - Forthcoming Summer 2009
"Chronicles of the Wandering Star," It's About Time, 2006 (An illustrated collection as part of the InterActions in Physical Science curriculum)

Short Fiction:

"WebMage" Weird Tales, #317, 1999
"The Wyrm OreBoreUS" Tales of the Unanticipated #21, 2000
"The Sharp End" L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Vol. XVII, 2001
"When Jabberwocks Attack" Tales of the Unanticipated #22, 2002
"Shatter" Weird Tales, #332, 2003
"FimbulDinner" Weird Tales, #339, 2006
"The Uncola" Cosmic SF #4, 2005
"Dying Season" Weird Tales #342, 2006
"The Basilisk Hunter" New Wyrd: A Wyrdsmiths Anthology, 2006
"A Cat Named Dilemma" Home At Last (publication forthcoming)
"Interface Pattern" Absolute Magnitude (publication forthcoming)


Lyda Morehouse

Novels:

AngeLINK series
"Archangel Protocol," ROC (Penguin) May 2001
"Fallen Host," ROC (Penguin) May 2002
"Messiah Node," ROC (Penguin) May 2003
"Apocalypse Array," ROC (Penguin) May 2004

Short Fiction:

"Everything in Its Place," Tales of the Unanticipated 19 August 1998-July 1998
"Twelve Traditions," Science Fiction Age 7:4 May 1999
"Maternal Leave," Horizons: Science Fiction 20:2 Autumn/Winter 1999
"Irish Blood," in Angela Kessler (editor), The Best of Dreams of Decadence: Vampire Stories to Keep Up Till Dawn New York: Roc, 2003
"The Case of the Missing Devil Child," Simulcrum: The Magazine of Speculative Transformation 1 November 2003
"Tutivillus," Tales from the Black Dog: A Wyrdsmiths Chapbook 2005
“Jawbone of An Ass," New Wyrd: A Wyrdsmiths Anthology 2006
"The Long Walk," (with Naomi Kritzer) Tales of the Unanticipated 26 October 2005-July 2006
"Indigo Bunting," Blythe House Quarterly 2007
"The Van Buylen Effect," Tales of the Unanticipated forthcoming 2007
"Bright, Bright City Lights," Dark Wisdom forthcoming 2007
"Ishtartu," Periphery-Erotic Lesbian Futures, forthcoming 2007

Sean M. Murphy

Short Fiction:

"Gaydar," Superqueeroes. (Forthcoming)
"Maelstrom," Tales from the Black Dog: A Wyrdsmiths Chapbook 2005
"Cloverleaf One," New Wyrd: A Wyrdsmiths Anthology 2006

Awards News Clearinghouse

A friend of mine, the talented and wonderful Cheryl Morgan, passed this url on to me. If you're at all interested in how SF/F awards work (and what you can do to help your favorite authors win them) Science Fiction Awards Watch is for you.

Miss Snark's Greatest Hits (vol 34)

Anyone writing genre fiction has gotten some variation of "when are you going to write a real book?" Here are some lovely answers to that question.

Anyone who writes has also run into the cousin/uncle/friend-of-a-friend who wants to get you to do some editing for them. Here's one way to say no.

When not to whine about your reviews–anytime they get your name and the name of the book right. Everything else is gravy. So, don't be a nitwit.

Good advice on how to say thank you to an agent who turned you down this time, but did it in a way that makes you happy or want to try them again.

Getting a U.S. based agent when you live beyond the borders is hard, which frankly, sucks. Here's Miss Snark on why she's reluctant to deal with writers who live beyond the edges of the USA.

Infernal Internal Editors

I just posted a rambling, long-winded blog about my love/hate relationship with my internal editor/critic at SF Novelists, and I was thinking that I’d continue the conversation with myself over here. (This sentence reminds me of one of my current favorite lines by Spider-Man in Bendis’ New Avengers “Breakout” in which he says, “Man, my Spidey Sense is tingling so much I can hardly hear myself talk to myself.”)

I should be starting Tate’s newest Garnet Lacey novel, but I haven’t.

Normally, I allow myself a little bit of a hiatus between books to recharge. I do a little reading, TV and movie watching, and generally stare mindlessly at the passing clouds Calvin and Hobbes style. But, the deal has always been that once there’s a new contract, I get started.

This has often been a great delaying tactic since sometimes it takes a long time for this stuff to get hammered out. Oh, I’ll say, I can’t -- must wait, superstitions, you know. I’m not foolish enough to actually need to see the contract in hand (because THAT takes months), but to my mind there has to be a formal agreement between my editor and my agent before I’ll type word one.

Thing is, the deal’s already been struck. More than that, we negotiated a tighter deadline in exchange for a sweeter deal, so I know I need to get going on this one pronto.

So why haven’t I started? Every once and a while my internal editor gets switched up to high gear. I don’t know what triggers it. Sometimes it’s reading a really good book by another author. It can even be the opposite – reading something I consider sub-par by someone I think ought to know better. Sometimes it’s reading one too many reader’s comments on Amazon.com, or having a critical review sing my praises (or damn my faults).

Whatever causes it, what happens is that I find myself having trouble starting because I want every word to be professional from the get-go. I get seized by a preemptive stupidity strike – that is, I declare every idea I have to be dorky before I even think them.

Usually, I wait it out. I take a break from writing until my internal editor deflates back to its more reasonable size. I’ve never actually come up with a successful way to combat my internal editor/critic, other than ignoring the deadlined project for a week or so and writing something silly and fun. (Although lately, I’ve even been stymied in attempts to write complete fluff -- which may be, in fact, the root of my particular problem right now.) But, rather than delve deeper into my own psychosis, I’m curious. Does this ever happen to you and what do you do about it?

Miss Snark's Greatest Hits (vol 33)

A mishmash from miss snark.

On e-queries, do make sure that you check them with a couple of email services for formatting problems.

The values of perseverance are hard to overstate-a very snarky reply to a bit of nitwit.

The differences between homage, tribute, and plaigerism. It's really not that hard.

What to say in your query if you want to come across as doing your research but not as a stalker.

More on what the registration of copyright actually does for you: statutory damages. You still don't need to register your copyright before sending a manuscript out. This is just by way of clarification of how the system works.

How many manuscripts can you have out to agents at a given time? All of them.

The Pace of Publishing

How long does it take? This seemed a worthwhile topic. A lot of mystery surrounds the process for those who haven't been involved in the business side of thing for ages. The answer, as with everything in publishing, it varies. That said, here are some benchmarks.

Short story publication: From sending the story off to the market that eventually buys it to seeing it in print is likely to take a bit over a year on the short end, and as much as three years on the long end. I'd call 18 months pretty typical. When I add in time from the completion of the story I find that it generally takes 3-5 years from written to published. Getting paid can take even longer.

Novel publication with a big New York house: From sending the novel in for consideration to publication again runs between a bit over a year and 3 years. So far, my fastest time on a completed novel is 18 months from submission to publication. My most recent pre-contracted novel is taking 16 months from purchase to publication (including writing it), and 10 months from turning it in to publication.

Those numbers are only for stuff that sold. I've also had a multi-book deal fall apart that took just under 3 years from first book submission to final rejection for it and the 2 I sent in while I was waiting to hear on the first. I've had short stories that were waiting for a response for up to a year before I pulled them from a given market. I've also had several short stories that sold and were paid for that are now back in my submission files because the markets folded in the year or more between acceptance and would-have-been publication.

Anyone else have any data points they want to add?

Milestones and Playing for an Audience*

I bumped into myself the other day–the child me that is.

On Tuesday I went to a concert in the park with my wife and her parents. It was a typical small town affair held at our bandshell with a bunch of enthusiastic amateur musicians sharing their joy and talents. The audience paid intermittent attention to the music while they ate pie and ice cream sold by one of the local community groups. The reason I mention it here is the little girl.

A tiny blonde, maybe 5 years old, she was standing on the grass between audience and band and very obviously pretending that the former were there to watch her and the latter to provide her with background music while she performed a silent play. At the end of the first number when the audience clapped she made a big show of bowing to everyone there. I remember being that little girl–okay, so I was a boy, but the intent was the same.

Some time when I was very young, call it 5, I started telling stories to anyone who would listen, mostly myself in those days. I don’t remember a time where I didn’t love the stories or having an audience. Somewhere along the line I learned that there were people who got to do it for a career and I never looked back. That led me into theater at the ripe old age of 11 where I stayed until I got my first computer and wrote a novel at 22 right after finishing a BA in theater.

I’ll be turning 40 on Sunday and yet in so many ways I’m still that kid playing make believe at the concert. The business side of the business can be a royal pain, but the storytelling and playing for an audience are still a blast 35 years on. So, to that little girl–go for it, kid! You never know where it might lead. Someday someone might even pay you to entertain yourself, oh and the audience too.

What about you, gentle reader? What did you want to be when you grew up? Are you doing something that the five year old you would approve of? If not is that a good thing or a bad one?
-----------------
*originally posted at sfnovelists.com

More than a Feeling

Tate recently brought over a comment from Fangs, Fur & Fey about emotional involvement with your characters, and more specifically, how you know when you are on if you don't "feel" what the characters are feeling (okay, this is an over-simplistic summary, but you can always scroll down for the gory details :).

I tend to be pretty analytical when I am writing, even with the tense and/or emotional scenes. That's not to say things don't flow, but I've never been invested in them to the point of tears or sweat or pounding pulse (yet). Then again, I don't tend to write emotionally gut-wrenching kind of scenes, at least not the kind than drag at your heart. The closest I have come is a rush when I feel I've written an exceptional scene or exchange - when I can sit back and go, "Damn, that's good." It is more the craft than the characters that really move me in those instances, but part of that comes from knowing I have hit the character dead-on.

Speaking to the specific point, there is no one way I "know" the characters are coming alive. It is a mixture of feeling it as I write, hearing them in my ear and seeing them in my head. If they are there, moving and acting and being in my mind and transitioning well on the page, then I know I am in the right place, and that the story is moving along with them. When I can know what is going on in the character's head & heart without having to put it on the page, I know I have the connection I need. But that connection is still at least at hand's, if not arm's, length.

Tate also brought up writing "when you feel like it." I used to write this way a lot. Sometimes, I still do, but I try not to let it be a shut down for me like it used to. I've found that when I am not in the mood to write, it usually means I am actually not in the mood to work. But as with may other things, if I force myself to sit down and actually get started, I usually fall into a rhythm.

Mind you, that rhythm can take the form of false starts, constant re-tinkering a paragraph, and the like (which, I suppose, means it isn't a rhythm after all - oh well). Sometimes, it ends in getting nowhere. Even in those cases, though, I walk away feeling better and, more importantly, with my head back in the story. And when I manage that, I find that the next time I sit down, I have better chance of being in the "the mood" again.

That, for me, is a large part being a Writer (notice the big capital "W" :) - you approach it as a job and a craft, not solely as an art. You get yourself to sit down and hammer at the keys (or scratch with the pen, or whatever) even if it's about the last thing you want to do. You may not manage this every day (Lord knows I still stumble plenty in my resolve), but you push forward more than you give in. It's that batting average, IMO, that is more important that word count or page count per day, at least over the long term.

Saturday Morning Funnies (Volume 5)

This story is slightly less vintage than the other episodes. From my college days comes this lovely gem:

It was, of course, a dark and stormy night. Daniel Logeais hunched deeper into his leather raincoat, turning up the collars in a vain attempt to keep from getting wetter. Not that it was doing him any good. He had been out in the rain for hours before he had found the coat, or rather, the dead man whose coat this had been.

A shiver ran down Daniel’s spine at the memory of finding the cold, wet corpse in the garbage bin he favored for diving. It wasn’t the first time he had ever found a body during his many excursions into other peoples’ leftovers, but they had all be nameless strangers. This man Daniel had seen before.

Daniel snuffled in the cold rain and put his back more firmly against the bricks of the abandoned storefront he was using for temporary cover. Pulling the coat closer to himself, he remembered that, in fact, it was yesterday that he had seen corpse alive.

He had found himself uptown, picking the pockets of people leaving automated tellers. It was strictly small change work, but it was easy. He had bough himself a coffee au lait -- the kind in the big cup, just for the sheer extravagance -- when he noticed the coat.

Even uptown, long coats were the cutting edge of fashion, especially ones of real leather. That an animal had actually died to make a coat meant that somewhere there had been an animal still in captivity. Or wilder yet, some fool had traveled past the zone to bad some bull just to tan its hide. Either way, it made a powerful fashion statement and Daniel was suitably impressed as it glided past him. His gaze followed it until it settled itself with a group of men nearest the street. He would have continued to stare at it but the men it had stationed itself among were ricelords and was never good business to store at the ricelords for very long.

[Curious, eh? Seems kind of cyberpunky. I wonder where this one was going.]

Feeling It

R. J. Anderson has really interesting post over at Fangs, Fur & Fey today. S/he talks about how she used to write sceens that would make her cry or be otherwise emotionally entangled with her characters, but now she doesn't. She worries that this lack of empathy will affect her writing. She ends the essay with this:

And yet I know I'm not alone in this, and I feel sure that powerful, emotionally resonant stories have been written by authors in much the same situation -- people who for one reason or another just couldn't do the Method Acting thing. Maybe because, like me, they have young children or other needy family members to look after; or maybe because their brains just aren't wired that way, and they find it more natural to cook up a story intellectually than live it vicariously.

I would like to hear from those authors. How do you make your stories and characters come alive -- and what gives you confidence that they are working -- when you aren't "feeling it" yourself?

Or, if you believe that identifying closely with your story is essential to good writing, what techniques or tricks do you use to submerge yourself in the narrative atmosphere when your environment is full of distractions?

If I think about this question seriously, I am forced to admit that I, too, have written both ways. I've had stories that grab me by the throat and force their way out, and stories that I've been able to tell with an intellectual distance with an eye more on craft. It's hard to say if the ones I wrote full of passion and verve are more "alive" than the others. I am, however, reminded of the interview my alternate personality did with Neil Gaiman for Science Fiction Chronicle where he talked about how some days he felt like the Muse moved through him and some days it was like squeezing blood from a turnip (obviously I'm paraphrasing, even on the fly, Gaiman has much better metaphors than I.) His point, however, was that when he went back and read the whole manuscript, he couldn't tell the difference between the days that hurt to write and the days that it was a joy. It all read the same and with the same "magic" or passion, if you will.

I think a lot of people miss opportunities to write because they feel like they have to be in the mood to write, or that this kind of empathy that Anderson worries about has to be present in order to craft "the good stuff." I'm with Gaiman on this one: write when you can, even when writing is hard. It's the only way to get stuff done. In the end, you won't know the difference and neither will the reader.

I do think, however, the writer has to be passionate about the story s/he is crafting. The stories that I can't finish are often ones that I, as an author, have stopped caring about. This is different than the question of empathy, though, I think. I can care about a story that I just don't want to write TODAY. And usually, if I push through today, I get get back in the swing of things TOMORROW. Sometimes, too, I find that if continue writing even when I *think* I don't care about the storyline, my mind will invent something about one of the characters or the situation that I can get fired up about again and the story is saved.

Miss Snark's Greatest Hits (vol 32)

Howdy all,

I'll post something a bit more substantive once I'm fully awake in an hour or two, but in the meantime here's another episode of Miss Snark's smart things about writing.

Interesting post on the use of brand names in fiction. I would add a note that if you do use brand names in a non-complimentary way, you'd better have a darned good reason if you don't want them to be edited out of your book.

Don't register your copyright before you send your MS out to agents and editors. And if you do, don't tell them about it. Of course, this is for books. Screenplays and anything Hollywood is a very different animal.

A nice precis on some of the differences in rights sales for short stories and novels. Or: First rights are for short stories.

Synopsis minutia and line spacing.

When you can write requested material on a manuscript. Hint, only if the person requesting it tells you to.

Naming Strategies

It's too bad that Harry LeBlanc doesn't post much to this blog, because in his unpublished novel Tainted Cotillion, every character's name is significant in some way, from the protagonist (Toussaint, named for the leader of the Haitian revolution) to the chief villain (Camille, named for the hurricane -- the book is set in New Orleans). None of my names are that significant, but I do tend to think pretty carefully about naming.

First, I want the names to be ethnically consistent and historically plausible. My first novel was set in an alternate Italy, so all the names had to at least sound Italian. During one of my revision passes, a beta reader pointed out to me that many of these characters were named after Christian saints in a world where Christianity had followed a very different course. He suggested The Lives of the Later Caesers as a source for late Roman names. Conveniently, I actually had that on the shelf. (My husband was a History major.) I made a list, and then went through and vetted every name. One I specifically remember changing was Francesca, who became Flavia. The name Francesca is based on Francesco, and became popular because of St. Francis of Assisi. It actually means "French." It's not entirely implausible as an Italian name absent St. Francis, but I wasn't tremendously attached to the name, so I changed it to a solidly late-Roman one. One I kept anyway was Giovanni -- Giovanni is the Italian form of John. I had reached the point where I couldn't conceive of that character by any other name -- he HAD to be Giovanni.

Second, I want the names to be distinct and easy to tell apart. One of my rules of thumb is that no secondary characters can have names that could be easily confused with a primary character. So, Eliana is the only character with an E name in my first two novels (unless I missed one). Lauria is the only one with an L name. In real life, it's pretty common for people to run into people with the same name, but in my books, it never happens because it's confusing to the reader.

Third, I want the names (at least of protagonists and other major characters) to have a sound I like. I really like the names Eliana and Mira. I really like the names Lauria and Tamar.

Fourth, if the name tells you a little something about the character, that's a bonus. In my newest novel, I have a character named Heike, which is a pet form of a female form of the German form of the name Henry. Which means "home power," and is significant in the book. (OK, so that's not going to tell very many people anything about the character unless they look the name up in a name dictionary, but oh well.)

For my current project (a children's SF novel) I gave the two girls in the story my daughters' middle names, Jean and Margaret. The boy in the story was named after Robby Smart, the most annoying boy in the fourth grade. (Robby grew up to become a sculptor and I would expect is much improved. But he was pretty awful when he was nine.) Eleanor complained about the whiteness of the names. I haven't changed them, but I've been mulling over whether I will do so later and if so, what I'm going to change them to.

On the Naming of Characters

Lyda mentioned this earlier and I thought I'd put in a different perspective because it's not actually something I spend much time on. I mostly have a really detailed initial outline in which phase I grab an appropriate ethnic names source and pick something that sounds good at the time. I also feel free to change names at any time before or after the project goes through my writers group or groups–no changes in the middle or you will make your fellow writers very cranky.

I do find that certain sorts of names tend to attract my attention. They are generally slightly unusual and two syllables.

One funny side note. After writing 8 novels, heaps of short stories and 40-50 novel outlines it occurred to me that my main female characters almost all have two syllable names ending in A. Funnier still, after noticing it, the very next female lead I wrote was a Fiona, which fact it took me some time to notice. I attribute this to being madly in love with a woman named Laura for going on 18 years now.

Do any of you have naming quirks in addition to naming methods. Things that echo through your work for example?

Questions of Process

Every once and a while a reader will e-mail me a question about my process. I thought I'd answer a few of them here.

So when do your do most of your writing? Do you follow a strict schedule, or do you work in spurts?

Whenever HE sleeps

He, of course, is my son Mason. I write after he goes to sleep at night, which is any time after 7:30 p.m.

I'm such a morning person that switching to evening writing has been a battle, honestly. My brain really wants to shut off when his does, because, like him, I'm up at 5:30 a.m. That's a long day. But, I'm finally getting used to it. Mostly.

Though there's still too much consumption of caffeine involved. I tend to wake up much harder than I used to, thanks to the necessity of forcing my body to accept a later bedtime.

Are the stories any easier to get down on paper as you write and publish more, or is it just a matter of your productivity level each day?

I wish I could I could say that writing gets easier the more you write, but that's simply not true. Maybe if I were already a master, but, despite several books under my belt, I'm still learning. I think writing is a lot like carpentry. I've just gotten to the point where I can make a really great bookcase and sell it to someone, but I'm not quite up to say, carving a piano, you know? There's still A LOT for me to learn. I think, actually, that's one of the things I like about writing: that there will always be room for improvement, things to learn how to better express. I can't see myself getting bored by this profession, honestly.

Lots of rewriting? I never could stand rewrites in school. I guess that's why I'm a reader, not a writer.

LOTS of rewrites, yes. I rewrite constantly as I write.

I talk about it as "one step forward, two steps back." I always reread what I wrote the night before, and then plunge into the new stuff. PLUS, I have this bizarre habit of getting 2/3rds into a novel and figuring out what the book is "about." Then I end up going back to the beginning and re-writing the whole damn thing from the start.

Oh, and then there's the rewrites that I do for my editor. She typically sends me an "editor's letter" (it's actually an email that's anywhere from 3 to 12 pages, single-spaced printed out) outlining line by line where she wants more (or less) information, character development, etc. Then I get to do more rewriting when I get the copy-editor's notes. By the time the book is at the printer... it's been gone over several times.

And STILL there are typos. Pisses me off. :-)

So... what's your process like?

Writing Stoppers

I continue to troll Fangs, Fur & Fey for good ideas for subjects to blog about. This question came from Anton Strout:

What are your greatest barriers to getting writing done? I know that a lot of us are used to working to deadlines and such. Some treat it as a job and power past a lot of problems, but I'm curious to know where you find yourself stymied at times?

What keeps you from writing?

An answer that probably borders on “too much sharing” for me would be low self-esteem. The times that I have the most trouble writing are the times when my career takes a nose dive (or I imagine it has… or might. That last one can keep me up at night. All my IMAGINED failures are always much worse than reality.)

Also -- and perhaps this is counter intuitive – but, similarly when my career is going really well, I’ll sometimes get stymied by a fear that I can’t live up to people’s expectations of me. If someone heaps on a whole lot of praise (especially, but not limited to, critical praise – like winning and award or getting a great review in a powerful trade magazine), I can find myself paralyzed by success. You’d think that would be when it would be easiest to write, but I think one of the reasons second books under contract are often the most difficult book for a writer to write is because suddenly he or she is dealing with the fact that they sold stuff that they just made up in their heads… never expecting Aunt Mary in Poughkeepsie will now weigh in on the hotness of the sex scenes on Amazon.com. That kind of stuff can be unsettling to the point of making it hard to write.

At least for me.

When I find myself getting riled up by success or failure (imagined or real), my best solution is to write something else. Even if the deadline is looming for a book under contract, I find that taking a break to write something silly can be really helpful. What tends to happen to me when I get myself in a tizzy about my career is that my internal editor goes into hyper-drive. She criticizes every sentence. She thinks every plot twist is obvious and stupid. She thinks I suck on general principles.

To combat this oppressive attitude my internal editor cultivates, I’ll open up a new document and write something intentionally stupid or fluffy (like, say, anything involving characters named Fleet Dreamweaver or even slash in my own universe.) If I do that, I find I can turn off the internal editor to the point where I can function again.

Although my internal editor is pretty sharp, and I often have to do some pretty intense mental calisthenics to fool her. Still, to this day, I can’t write forward in my official document, which is written in Courier 12pt and double-spaced from the beginning. I always have to have a secondary document open where I write single-spaced and in some fancy font that’s easy on my eye, like Georgia (one of my personal favorites.) I tell myself what I’m writing there doesn’t count. It’s just practice. If I don’t like it, I can dump it. This usually fools my internal editor completely, and she still hasn’t picked up on the fact that I’ll often end up just cutting and pasting the whole new document into the old.

So, what about you? What stops you from writing and do you have any solutions?

Quickie: Re-Direct

A number of Wyrdsmiths are also members of SF Novelist and that group as revamped it's website/blog. Check out: http://www.sfnovelists.com/!

Inspiration Strikes

I love those folks over at Fangs, Fur& Fey because they keep posting really interesting writing-related questions. This time the question comes from Patrice Michelle and it is:

What is the most unusual thing/person/situation that has inspired your story/stories? and When you're looking for inspiration, what do you do to stir your imagination?

I'm going to answer the last question first because it's probably the easiest. When I'm looking for inspiration I read.

I used to worry that I'd accidentally steal some other author's ideas, but I've come to realize that there really isn't anything new under the sun and the more I read in science fiction/fantasy, the better I write it. Also, and this is probably a terrible answer for someone who teaches SF/F, but I also watch TV for inspiration. If the show is good and the characters are compelling, shows like Battlestar Galatica or, in its day, X-Files can be pretty damn inspiring. In fact, I can trace the seed of the idea that became Archangel Protocol from a specific episode of X-Files.

When I'm stuck in the middle of a scene or a moment, I'll either sleep on it (these days I'm always writing when the rest of the household is asleep), take a bath to ruminate on the problem, or, if it's possible, go for a walk. When I walk out a problem I usually talk to myself out loud, which can be kind of adventageous in my neighborhood because it means no one bothers me.

So, now the first question last. What's the most unusual thing that's inspired me? Probably technical articles about products I've never used. When I was writing the AngeLINK universe I was an XML coding drone, and, as a result, I had access to all sorts of weird tech articles in magazines that my boss subscribed to. I was really never technologically savvy enough to do anything really inventive or such with my feeble XML skillz, but I'd let my imagination go places I couldn't. I specifically remember an article about a security program that's acronym was, and I kid you not, S.A.T.A.N. When I read that I had to work it into one of my stories.

How about you?

Saturday Morning Funnies (Volume 4)

Be sure to have something to drink in your hands when you read this because you’ll really, really want to shoot it out your nose when you get to the hero’s name. That’s right. Dude’s name is Fleet Dreamfinder. Tell me that isn’t a whole lot of awesome!? Don’t deny it; you’re right now wishing you’d thought of it first.

On to the adventures of Fleet Dreamfinder copyright (yeah, 'cuz you'd want to steal this if ya could, I just KNOW it) Lyda Morehouse, 1978:

A new sun was rising in the east, but fleetingly he wondered if it would bring calm or turmoil to the day it hailed. The times were changing and Fleet Dreamfinder knew it. How many months would it be until the king turned on his clan? A new mood had come cover the king, once trusted by all. It had happened all too suddenly. King Edward seemed to have changed overnight.

Fleet sighed and turned away from the sunrise. Perhaps it was too much to hope that he [the king?] could change his mind again. He scanned the camp with his deep black eyes. There were only seven of his people left after the great coup. They were a dying race. At one time they had not a simple camp, but a palace of gold. Because of the humans' nearsightedness it was in ruins now, and they were forced to be a nomadic tribe, following the sunset in search of food. The coup had happen thousands of years ago, yet bitterness remained. Not on the part of the humans, no, their shallow minds could not remember the early days. Once again Dreamfinder sighed, turning back to the dawning sun. Perhaps a long memory was not as beneficial as once thought by his comrades. Perhaps, this was, indeed, a time for change.

A bell interrupted his line of thought. The chimes resounded throughout the valley. A counsel was meeting. Fleet hurried to join them, for this would be an important meeting.

He entered the leather bound tent where the meetings were held. Dreamfinder was the last to arrive. The seven sat encircling a glowing fire. The tent was dark, though early morning rays peeked through the tent flap.

"We must choose a path to follow," said Riverfollower, the leader of the clan in her commanding tone. "To turn north, to the forests or to follow the southern swamps."

[This continues for several pages, but the conversation about which way to go is pretty dull. Though I note with some interest that I named the clan's healer "Drought." An attempt at irony? Or was I trying to be "wise" about the nature of some destructive forces of nature? Also, pretty cool that the leader was a woman, especially given tat I wrote this in the late seventies.]

Math is Hard, Barbie. Get Over It

In one of the many groups I'm on someone forwarded this article from the New Republic about the difficulty of selling science fiction to the mundanes.

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w070806&s=espenson080706

One of the author's friends had this complaint about science fiction[paraphrasing], "Science fiction is too hard. I can't remember all the silly acronyms or the difference between androids and robots."

I hear this a lot.

My response? Try reading something written THIS decade. It's been a long, long, long, LONG time, folks, since the days that science fiction was ONLY about the rivets, bolts, and the big idea. I'd say, in fact, that 95% of everything written since 1983 has been, ultimately, about people. The New Republic author seems to imply that she thinks that J.K. Rowling invented the idea of the hero's journey and the story that centers around the struggles of "realistic" people confronting fantastical problems.

WhatEVER.

I find this misunderstanding about science fiction so confusing and infuriating. Why must I deal with a perception of science fiction that was forged before my birth in the 1940s and 50s? There are people I've met who, when they find out I write SF, ask, "You mean all those ray guns and space aliens?"

"No, I say, all those Left Hand of Darkness and Parable of Sowers and other books I thought changed the landscape of science fiction and fantasy two decades ago!"

Word!

Miss Snark's Greatest Hits (vol 31)

Okay, I've got a internet workaround going now. It's slow and irritating, but I seem to be able to consistently hook up. I still need to get my laptop fixed, but it's not a nightmare anymore. (Drat*)

On to more pics from my digging around through the Snarky goodness.

First, if you haven't received a response to your query in two months chances are it's lost. So, go ahead and send it again.

Also on the query front. Most of them aren't so hot. That doesn't mean the agent won't read your stuff.

Don't be difficult to work with. Really. It's not a good idea because it often means people will stop working with you.

So you made a mistake and got taken in by a scam publisher. It happens and it won't ruin your chances later. In fact you don't even need to mention it to most people under most circumstances.

Here, because it's one of my pet peeves is Miss Snark saying that the old sawwrite what you know is crap. Ya-huh. Right there with her.

Finally, following one of her links, is the Turkey City lexicon–a list of bad ideas and tropes in F&SF stored on the SFWA servers.

-------------------
*I'm now without a computer, at least for a week–so I'm back to signing off for a bit. TTFN.

National Night... Books?

Cross-posted from my LJ

A couple of nights ago was National Night Out where neighbors get together and share pickle rolls, stale crackers and such. My family and I strolled over a few block with our M&M cookies to share, and we got to talking to some people. One of our neighbors fondly recalled the time I handed her copies of my books that I'd had stashed in my car (I do that a lot.) We joked that I should bring over a few novels and leave them as freebies next to the deserts.

Next thing you know, I'd gone home for a half dozen copies of Tate's Tall, Dark & Dead and my Archangel Protocol. Shawn, my partner, put up a note that said, "Free! Local author. Please take!"

The reaction was, as we say here in Minnesota, interesting.

By in large, people couldn't quite grok the fact that their neighbor -- a dumpy, stay-at-home lesbian mom -- was in fact a New York published author. They weren't unkind in any way, just baffled. There was a lot of the typical, "You wrote this? All of it?" And, "You got published... oh! Berkley!?" (Because they were expecting a vanity press). And, "Do you do this for a living???"

Shawn and I remarked on the fact that, before I started getting serious about writing, I'd never met an real, LIVE authors before either. I knew books were written by people, but I just never conceived that those people could be sitting next to me on the bus or standing in front of me in the grocery store.

I think, in fact, meeting a real author for the first time broke that (what is it called?) 5th wall for me. Once I met and talked to someone who'd done what I was trying to do, what I was trying to do no longer felt unattainable. If so-and-so had done it (and they were a real, normal person), then it followed that I could too.

Even so, occasionally Shawn will still have a moment like our neighbors had. The first time I went to a RWA meeting and I mentioned it was at the house of Connie Brockway, Shawn just about fell over. "Connie Brockway!" She said, "She's, like, a real author."

As opposed, you know, to the fake one she's got at home. :-)

Miss Snark's Greatest Hits (vol 30)

More from my ongoing perusal of the snarkives.

Audit clauses, the whys and wherefores.

Don't simultaneously query multiple agents at the same agency.

What do to do about that boilerplate contract grab for film rights.

Writing nonfiction and how it's sold–the non-fiction proposal.

Yes, you do have to write a proposal for your non-fiction book even if it's finished. That's just how it is in the world of non-fiction.

My First Break

I've got a borrowed internet connection and a few minutes and I thought this was an interesting topic when Lyda did it, so here goes.

I'm proof that you don't need connections or anything but a good story, at least at the short stories level. I made my 1st sale by sending out short stories to markets that looked good in the market reports and collecting heaps of rejection letters. I didn't know anybody at the short markets and I didn't have any special ins. I collected about 90 rejection letters before I had my 1st sale—WebMage to Weird Tales. It came within a few months of my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th sales. Respectively, The Wyrm OreBoreUS to TOTU, Soul of the Samurai to a magazine that paid me promptly and went under before they published the story, and The Sharp End to the Writers of the Future contest.

On the novels front, my path was a bit stranger. I'd had something like 20 short story sales when I joined the Wyrdsmiths and had recently shifted back to writing novels–my first love. Not long after that I was at MiniCon when I met Jim Frenkel—then Lyda, Naomi, and Harry's agent. He said, "You're a Wyrdsmith? Hi, I'm your agent, what have you got for me to look at?"

A few weeks later I sent him WebMage. He liked it and I signed up with his agency. He sent the book to one editor before he quit the agenting business. At that point he asked Jack Byrne of Sternig-Byrne to take on a few of his clients. I was one of those. I liked Jack's style and he loved my work and I've been with him ever since.

It did take three more years, in which time I wrote three more novels before WebMage sold to Ace, but that was mostly because three of those books were tied up for a good bit of time in an ultimately unsuccessful multi-book hard/soft deal with a publisher who will remain nameless.

Revisions Away!

Yesterday, I sent off the ginormous package of two paper copies of the revised manuscript for Tate's Romancing the Dead. First of all, I'm happy to report that after much wrestling, I actually feel like this is the novel I wanted it to be. Secondly, despite expecting to feel a great wash of relief and freedom, instead I feel sort of at loose ends... almost depressed.

I have book post-partum depression, I think.

I posted about this feeling on my livejournal and was surprised at the number of other authors who reported a similar feeling at the end of any big writing project. Some suggested that, for them, it was a sense of loss at having to leave characters they "lived" with so long behind. I don't think that's exactly my problem, especially since thanks to my intrepid agent, I know that I'll get more chances to write about Garnet and company again (small whoot!). But, there is a weird kind of aimlessness I'm feeling -- EVEN THOUGH I have several projects I could be working on.

How about you? Do you get low after finishing a big (or even small) writing project? Do you have any advice for getting over it?

I'm thinking that what I need to do is some "fun" writing and then start tackling the next big thing.

Out of contact

Hey all,

It'll probably be a week or two before I get a chance to post again. I'm having technology issues with my wi-fi that cause major crashes if I try to hook up to the internet.

Bleah.

Naming Names

Another good question from the folks at Fangs, Fur & Fey:

I'm really interested in how the rest of you name your characters. Do you labor over the character's personality and go from there? Or does a name spring to mind and then you build the character around it?

I do it both ways, actually. I've had characters come to me with names already attached to them. But more often than not, I have a character who is nebulously forming in my head UNTIL I find the perfect name -- at which point they then snap into focus.

I have used all sorts of methods to find names for my characters, too. I have several baby name books that I've collected, my favorites (and the most useful) being the ones that divide by country/ethnic group. I've also used the St. Paul/Minnepolis phone book for surnames -- though I do have one book that lists British surnames.

Names are VERY important to me. Until a character has the right name, I'm not satified with them. I have been known to change a character's name several times until I get it right. Although I rarely change the main/p.o.v. character's name once I've settled on it. Side characters might go through constant change, however.

I sometimes name characters in light of what their name actually means, but I tend to be much more intutitive than that. If it feels right, sounds right, then it fits.

How about you?

Quick Toot of My Own Horn: Locus List

My agent just informed me that Dead Sexy is the Locus List #4 bestseller in the trade paperback catagory. Whoot!

Belated Saturday Funnies (Volume 3)

Sorry, folks. I was at Diversicon/Consume on Saturday and didn't get a chance to post what I know you've all been waiting for.... Yes, because with your morning dark roast cup of coffee/tea/beverage of choice, you need some dialogue that will make you snort it out your nose.

Once again from the dark, dusty archives of vintage Lyda Morehouse, circa 1978:

My heart was pounding like the midnight rain that washed our faces. My only thought was on our escape; we had to get away, far away. I could hear them, they were close behind. I longed to jump to the safety of the trees, but I couldn’t leave the group, for they would surely fall behind. We ran on.

“To safety!” I called. “Look! Some shelter!” They couldn’t see as well I [could] in the dark, so I guided them to the hut I’d seen. We rushed inside.

“Terry, I don’t know how ya did it, but ya saved again!” Thomas said. I didn’t like that name, but he said it sounded more human than Terance. I wasn’t human.

They were here; I could sense them. I shot out into the cold night.

“What are you doing, they’ll see us,” Marion cried, her face was even paler in the silvery moon light.

“They are here,” I growled.

“I don’t see anyone,” Thomas said with authority. He thought himself leader after Marcus’ death.

“They are here,” I continued firing.

“I’m with Terry. You know he sees better in the dark than any of us.” Bran, too, began shooting randomly. Bran was the youngest, but in many ways older than all of us. Bran never called me inhuman, I think because he disliked off-worlders.

“What the hell,” and with that Thomas began shooting too.

Marion soon joined us. She was our prize marksman. Whatever she shot fell. I never saw her miss anything. We fought on, but I knew it was useless. We were surrounded.

Fighting controllers is different. One need not aim. Controllers form a sort of battle line, one behind the other. After you spot one, you know others are in the direct rear. The first impression is of shooting targets.

“Don’t they ever stop coming?” Bran questioned no one in particular.

The controllers are in a sense controlled -- mind and soul -- by an implant all receive as a child. We four never got one. We four are hunted.

“Behind us!” I screamed. Too late! The doors came crashing in. Surrounded by controllers. Blank men in gray and black – I had never seen one so close[ly].

Marion screamed, but it was muffled. We were taken out.

[This is where it ends. Did they die? What’s the deal? Our heroes didn’t get the implant? Does that mean they’re from this place? If that’s true, why is our p.o.v. character considered an alien? And what gender is it? What was I thinking? Could I have used more exclamation points, she questioned no one in particular?!]

Writers Groups

Another good question from the folks over at fangs, fur & fey:

"How did you (meaning authors on the list) find a writing/critique group? People you could brainstorm with, maybe send sample chapters to and who'd tell you it's drivel and you should be doing this, etc. Was it luck that you hooked up or did you find them at various functions, cons, etc?"

Through a class at the Loft.

But since I already explained this in the last post, I thought I would take a moment to explain how Wyrdsmith's functions (from my perspective). Others are more than welcome to chime in and correct me.

First of all, I wrote a rather exhaustive article about my experiences with various kinds of writers' critique groups for the BroadUniverse BroadSheet, which you can read at The Writerly Art of Critiquing On Masse: A Guide to Finding, Running, and Surviving Writers' Groups.

Wyrdsmiths is a closed group. That means that we're currently not open to new members, though we do occasionally hold auditions when the number of active members drops or we find ourselves craving new blood. There's a couple of good reasons for this. One is that I believe there is an ideal number of members, which is right around what we have: 7-9. That may sound like a lot of people, but, really, when you meet approximately every two weeks, there are a lot of schedule conflicts and the core group stay steadily around 4-6. Too few and you end up canceling often. Too many and the amount of "homework," in terms of manuscripts to read, gets overwhelming.

We also got snotty about the auditioning process when the majority of us became "filthy pros." We wanted to keep a standard of writing ability. We all learn from each other, but that's actually a lot easier to do if the majority are writing at or above a certain level. When you're trying to learn how to do complicated subplots without loosing the audience's interest, it's frustrating when half the meeting is spent teaching someone basic grammar. (Yes, feel free to pick on mine.)

However, that's not to say we've been adverse to taking on members who aren't published. But, after a fairly ugly fight in our formative years, we discovered that it's really important for all the members to share a certain "seriousness of vision." In other words, everyone in the group needed to be actively seeking publication. There's nothing wrong with writing for pleasure or as a hobby, but, as we tend to spend a lot of our meetings swapping business gossip, those folks just weren't a good fit. Plus, we do a lot of group promotion and it's a lot easier to be motivated to join in on that if it helps sell your work (or future work).

Critique is structured like this: those that want to be reviewed the following meeting hand-out. We take the manuscripts (in manuscript format, or some facsimile therein) home and write our comments directly on the paper. Some of us type up responses; though most of us scribble on the back and in the margins. We used to follow the format established in the Loft class of "first impression, strengths, weaknesses, and final impression," but others like to take writing categories like "plot, setting, character, pacing" and say something about each. Since we've been established for so long, it's no longer really necessary to enforce the idea that people need to say something nice. We do it as a matter of course.

The author is silent during the critique, and we go around in some direction (again, this is rather random, and at Wyrdsmiths will change from critique to critique) and everyone reads their comments or ad libs based on what they've written. Again, because we've been together so long, we aren't harsh about the gag rule, but it can be helpful when you're first starting. We also tend to encourage cross-talk, rather than discourage it, and, unlike some critique groups, we also feel free to brainstorm (even if the author hasn't specifically requested it.) Again, this has a lot to do with our personal dynamic. I tend to learn the most when other people tackle my plot with their ideas, and some of my best plot twists/character moments have come directly from ideas generated by fellow Wyrdsmiths. (Thanks to Eleanor for pointing out that flying cars are an overused SF cliche!)

We no longer set a page minimum, though we feel free to harass members who haven't turned in in a long time. We also don't set a page maximum, nor do we assign authors weeks to turn in. Given the number of authors with deadlines, this can sometimes mean that there's a lot to read, but we tend to make on-the-fly judgement calls if there seems to be more than the usual amount of manuscripts stacked in the middle of the table.

However, again, when first starting I think it's appropriate to set schedules, maximums and minimums. We're just sloppy because we've been at it for so long.

We also have always met in a public place, like a coffee shop. Currently, we meet at the Black Dog in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota. I've been in groups that circulate through members' houses. While that has the advantage of no closing time, it also can put pressure on the host/ess to provide food and drink. The nice thing about meeting at a public place is that you can always buy what you need. So far, the Black Dog hasn't been a problem in terms of parking and only a couple of times have we had to relocated because of loud music or events.

That's a lot of it. Any questions?

Minneapolis Disaster Check-In

If you've seen the news about the Minneapolis bridge collapse and are worried about any of your SF/F friends, there's a check in started here:

http://community.livejournal.com/mnstf/94019.html

I noticed entries from Kelly McCullough, Naomi Kritzer, and myself (Lyda Morehouse/Tate Hallaway). I just checked Eleanor's blog, and it seems she and Patrick are okay as well. Looks like I can now add Doug Hulick to the safe list.

If the remaining Wyrdsmiths would please post a note at the Mnstf site to let us all know you're okay, it would be much appreciated. (Oh, and if you don't have an LJ account the person managing the site has kindly offered her email address laurel@tvpicks.net for check-ins.)

Update (8/2/07): It seems we've heard from the rest of the wyrdsmits: Bill Henry, Sean M. Murphy, and Rosalind Nelson via e-mail. I got a call this morning from Harry LeBlanc in California and he sends his love and well wishes to all.