The Book of my Enemy

I find the post linked here interesting and funny but also horribly wrong on a number of levels "The Book of my Enemy Has Been Remaindered." I came to it via a comment from Pat Wrede elsewhere. I love the execution and the bitter truth that this represents, while at the same time deploring that truth. I don't like the idea of rejoicing in another's woes, and I know that it diminishes me when I do it but...damn it feels really good once in a while. :-/

Ufda

This "humorous"* publishing glossary has been making the rounds and I thought I'd park it here so I can find it again.

*For values of humor=painfully close to the truth.

Words...Maybe I Do Care

Okay so a while back I talked about not getting hung up on the words. Today I got a writing question that made me think about how I use words and at what I do care about specifics. The question from a fan who is also a writer went roughly like this: You always seem to have the right word, adverb, adjective, to capture the scene. Is that natural? How did you develop it?

Now, I don't know that I would agree that I always have the right word, and I'm sure the Wyrdsmiths could point to any number of times where I absolutely don't have it in the drafts that they see. And that's in part because I really try not to get hung up on things at the sentence level when I'm going through a first draft. If it's taking much longer than a few seconds to find the perfect word, I'll just toss an approximation in there knowing that I'll get closer to what I want on the next pass. That said, I do strive to make my prose smooth, sharp, and appropriate. Here's my response to the question of how I worked to get my sentence level construction to the place it's at currently:

It's actually something that I worked hard to develop. My natural style is both more verbose and more academic. There were four conscious components involved.

The first was writing a bunch of short stories and having them critiqued by a friend who writes really bare bones prose. He made me much more aware of my multi-clausal and 25 cents word tendencies which got me to thinking about my prose on a more spare structural level.

Then I got in the habit of going back through stories after a year or more of ignoring them while I sent them out. By not even glancing at a story I was able to arrive at a place where I was no longer invested in it at the sentence by sentence level. At that point I would set a fairly arbitrary goal of cutting out ten percent of each story and trying do it entirely by editing out redundancies and excess words at the sentence level rather than wholesale scene cuts. Another friend calls the work at this level sentence origami because you're taking sentences apart and refolding them to say the same thing with fewer words.

The third was a years long process of integrating those practices into my first draft process. The four things I really focused on there were teaching myself never to use a 25 cent word where a nickel word would work (less than ten characters wherever possible), trying never to let a sentence go over three manuscript lines (keeping it to two or less if I could), keeping paragraphs to a quarter page or less where possible and trying never to let them go over a third of a page, and eliminating passive voice constructions wherever possible. That last is probably the hardest for me and the one that I most often have to fix in successive drafts. It's also the one that most forces me to find the right short word to express something.

The fourth is a practice of trying to find subject-appropriate metaphors, similes, and analogies. So, if I'm writing about Greek gods and computers I try to draw my comparatives from the classical myth structures and programming or electronics, whereas if I'm writing a theater book I strive to use theater language, or numismatics language for a coin-magic book. Something might be as black as the waters of the Styx in a WebMage book, or the velvet black of the front curtain in Winter of Discontent (my as yet unpublished Shakespearian magic book) book, or the tarnished black of a long buried silver penny in Numismancer (also unpublished).

Friday Cat Blogging (Belated Edition)

Friday Cat Nap Event, First Heat



Friday Cat Nap Event, Second Heat



Sunbeam and nip-pad, a powerful combination

Beta

The SpellCrash Beta is finished and off to those of my readers who take electronic copy. Next I need to print some copies up and drop them in the mail or hand deliver them as appropriate. Then I can be done with this book for a month or so. Tonight, I see a show. Tomorrow, I do nothing at all.

Local Writing Related Events

Twin Cities National Writers Union

Wed. April 22
Book Marketing De-Mystified: Three authors share marketing tips

On Wednesday, April 22 at 1 PM, the Twin Cities chapters of the National Writers Union will hold a free workshop with advice from three writers about book marketing. Lori L. Lake, Michael Allan Mallory and Marilyn Victor will share their ideas for getting readers to buy books.

Location: Washburn Library, 5244 Lyndale Avenue South, Minneapolis.

Lori L. Lake’s books, including the popular “Gun” police trilogy and the WWII novel Snow Moon Rising have won numerous awards. Lake also teaches fiction writing at The Loft Literary Center and is a founding mother of The Golden Crown Literary Society.

Marily n Victor and Michael Allan Mallory co-wrote Death Roll, their 2007 debut book that’s the first mystery featuring a zookeeper sleuth. Both writers are avid animal lovers and members of the Twin Cities Sisters in Crime. Marilyn Victor is chapter president of Sisters in Crime.


All are welcome to attend this FREE event. For more details about the Twin Cities National Writers Union, visit www.nwu-tc.org For details about the speakers, check out www.LoriLLake.com or www.snakejones.com



Wed. May 20, 2009
Lessons Learned While Making a Living as a Writer

On Wednesday, May 20 at 1 PM, the Twin Cities chapter of the National Writers Union will hold a free workshop with advice from John Toren, a Minneapolis author, editor, designer and Zine publisher.

Location: East Lake Library, 2727 East Lake St., Minneapolis, MN 55406.


Through a long career in the book industry, jack-of-all-trades John Toren has written two books, edited more than twenty (including three Minnesota Book Award finalists), designed and produced more than fifty…and schlepped millions. The Zine (e magazine) he’s written and published for more than twenty years recently won an Utne Independent Press Award for General Excellence. Toren also maintains a blog and a personal website, and contributes regularly to regional and national publications. He’ll share insights about the publishing world, the virtues and pitfalls of self-publishing, and the value of professional organizations such as the NWU.


All are welcome to attend this FREE event. For more details about the Twin Cities National Writers Union, visit www.nwu-tc.org For details about the speaker, check out www.nodinpress.com/macaroni

Pat Wrede's Got A Website

The wonderful Patricia Wrede's got a shiny new website. If you've never read her work, you're really missing out. She's written some wonderful novels and "Utensile Strength," also known as the frying pan story, is one of the funniest short stories in the whole genre. Not to mention, she's an all around spiffy person.

Monday WIP open thread & belated cat blogging

Morning all,

I'm just back from a week in Arizona visiting various relatives and looking forward to editing out the beta draft of SpellCrash. Hopefully I'll have that done by Wednesday and can get it out to my first readers (memo to me: check in with the usual suspects). If that works out, I'll probably call Thursday a delivery day, and take a long weekend before looking into what to do next. Maybe the final draft of Horus, maybe reread Swine Prince and redraft the first three chapters so I can get that off to my agent. Then...who knows?

I've got to look at the Halifax book again soonish since the proposal for that goes off to Ace shortly after SpellCrash, but that's not a right now kind of question. Website update and additions is probably high on the list sine I need to post about six short stories and first chapters for WebMage, Cybermancy, and Codespell as well as a bunch of other minor tweaks. There's spring house stuff to be done as well and the 2009 travel schedule to sort out.

What about y'all? Anything exciting planned for the week?

Finally, here are a couple of pix from the trip. My dad's cat and Jupe the wondermutt, complete with pink plastic conehead:

Cross me at your peril, human.



Layer cake napping.

Too Nice...

...Went outside.

Which is a rather obscure reference to a great Minnesota Historical Society coffee table book called, "Too Hot, Went to Lake" (which is a photograph of a half-finished paint job of a barn with those words on it.)

Given that the majority of the Wyrdsmiths live in Minnesota, and the weather here has FINALLY turned pleasant, I suspect that's why you're not seeing a lot of blog activity from any of us. For myself, I spent the day on the couch in a patch of sun transcribing a bunch of old Resurrection Code material into the new document. My cats napped on the porch. Birds twittered excitedly just beyond the windows about the coming of Spring Equinox. I feel rather seized by spring, ala Mole in WIND IN THE WILLOWS.

Writing and the Recession

Perhaps you've heard? The economy sucks right now.

Apparently, it's even become fashionable to be frugal. I just read about the term "recessionista," which is defined as someone who is ostentatiously penny pinching because it's what all the cool kids are doing.

The good news is that library usage is up. I read the precise statistics somewhere, but I can only confirm it anecdotally. Thanks to warmish weather here in Minnesota (40 - 60F,) my son has rediscovered the joys of bicycle riding. We've been going around the block a lot, but last night he wanted a real destination. So we went to the library. Our branch library is only a half-mile or less up the road, and it is open late on Tuesdays and Thursdays. After a dinner of cabbage and corned beef (of course, it was Saint Patrick's day, after all,) we headed off to the library.

It was crowded.

It was awesome.

All I can hope is that perhaps all this will also translate into a continued desire for the escapism of books, and lots of library sales for us all.

Guest Blog: The Kindle 2: More Than a Geek’s Dream?

Okay, I'll admit it. I like my books. I like the way they feel. I like the way they smell. I like all the shelf space they consume in my room. Peruse my shelves and you will see rows of paperbacks with near-perfect bindings and others that have been read so many times that even an anal freak like myself can't keep them from showing wear.

So why on Earth would I ever consider -- gasp! -- an e-book?

Well, I haven't. Not yet at any rate. But I gotta admit, the Kindle 2 is piquing my interest.

Now, most of you don't know me, but I'm a tech geek. So, in the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I'm a bit biased when it comes to new technology. But still, that new Kindle, she looks smoooooth. She's got free wireless. I can sit in my comfy chair, shop for a new book, and then read it without ever having to get up. (Is that a good thing? That's probably a different blog post…) She can run for two weeks on a single charge, and she can hold 1500 books.

That's geektastic, folks.

But do I actually want one?

To be honest, I don't really know. I think it might be one of those things that you really have to try out before you decide if you like it. Even so, I experienced the same existential conflict with my music. I adore my music collection just about as much as I do my book collection. But now, two iPods later and with slew of DRM free music at my fingertips, I buy more music in electronic format than I do on CD.

My suspicion is that there are still a few hurdles to overcome before e-books go mainstream. First is the right reading device. The Kindle 2 may be the bees knees but $359? Ouch! Availability and variety of books is another thing. Sure, I can buy a book from my comfy chair, but according to the advertisements there are only 240,000 books available for it. Yeah, I could never read all those, but do I actually want to read any of those? (Let’s see… sci-fi/fantasy section… Dune? Read it. Neverwhere? Read it. Kurt Vonnegut? Not my thing. Halo? Huh?)

Now, here's where things get interesting. Technology is just beginning to break in to the publishing industry and you can already see signs of the major publishers acting the same way their movie and music brethren did. The Writers of Guild America has already come out strongly against the Kindle’s text to speech feature (that is a different blog post). And publishers? Offering up 240,000 books isn't exactly a firm embrace.

So what do you think? Readers, have you sworn on your copy of Ender’s Game that you'll never buy an e-book? Writers, do you have / want to have books published in e-book format?

Geeks like me want to know!

PS. Hi! Thank you to Lyda and to the Wyrdsmiths for letting me squat on your blog! (That's an odd image.) Assuming I don't get too many flames, I hope to bring more geektastic commentary in the not-too-distant future. Until then, cya!

PPS. Lyda requested a bio, so here it is. Hey all, I’m Shawn Enderlin. I’ve been writing off and on for almost ever but in the last few years it has turned into an obsession that is beginning to interfere with my day job (IT). I have taken classes at the Loft Literary Center with both Lyda and Kelly and am a member of the [UNTITLED] writing group along with four other fantastic up-and-coming authors. I am currently finishing up my first novel, To Kill the Goddess. You can find me on the web at http://twitter.com/seamusspeaks and at http://embracethedoppelganger.blogspot.com/.

Brainspace Now Available for Things Other Than Book

Hey folks. Now that I'm done with the alpha draft of SpellCrash I should have a lot more available brainspace to deal with questions about writing and talking about writing in general. I know I've missed a couple of questions that have gone by on various threads--Shawn's question about posting fiction online for example (will get to that soon, btw).

If you posted a question and it got missed, please feel free to post again in this thread. I will probably really start in on this stuff not next week, but the week after as I'm likely to be off-net next week, but I'd love to start the ball rolling now.

Also, I think Wyrdsmiths is going to collectively talk about the functioning of various sorts of workshops over the next month or so--at least that's something we discussed at last night's meeting. By workshops I mean both the ad-hock stand-alone kind like Clarion, or Viable Paradise, or Writers of the Future, and the long running writers group variety like Wyrdsmiths.

Friday Cat Blogging

Make sure you get my good side.



I resent being your photo-object, you know that right?



Skinny cat tries to camoflage herself by aligning with the floorboards.



Don't you wish you were as pretty as me?



More pictures. Rapture. How will I survive the excitement.

And then there were 14

I just got to write "THE END" on my 14th completed novel. SpellCrash is done, and with it the WebMage series. I feel simultaneously 1000 pounds lighter and yet somehow bereft. It's going to be a very strange couple of days, methinks.

On-Line Murder Trial Class

Technically, I got this from a romance list, but I thought that there might be some of you cross-genre writing folks:

***PERMISSION TO FORWARD GRANTED AND ENCOURAGED!!**
Announcing the Heart of Carolina Romance Writer's April Online Workshop:
April 2009 Workshop
How to Try a Murder
Instructor: Lucinda D. Schroeder
When: April 1-30, 2009
Cost: $20 for HCRW and CRW Members, $25 for All Others

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION
Before your protagonist can break the rules, she has to know them! Learn the facts about legal procedures and how they can go awry. To thicken the drama in your story, stir in entrapment, illegal searches, tainted evidence, tampered juries, and badgered witnesses. Lucinda Schroeder, a career federal agent and author, will give you countless ideas on how to cause trouble before, during and after a murder trial. Don’t be guilty of missing this class!

SPEAKER BIO
Lucinda D. Schroeder has a BA degree in Criminology and is a retired federal agent who worked in the field for 30 years. She is also the author of "A Hunt for Justice," a creative non-fiction based on one her cases. Lucinda uses her writer’s perspective to focus on legal and administrative procedures that writers can best exploit for plot twisters and added tension. She also has a multitude of true stories that are sure to stir your muse.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

REGISTRATION INFORMATION
Cost for the workshop is $20 for HCRW and Carolina Romance Writers members, $25 for all others. All fees payable in US dollars only. The workshop will run from April 1-30. Registration deadline is March 25th 2009. Once registered, you will be subscribed to the workshop loop prior to and for the duration of the class. To register, please visit the HCRW website at: www.heartofcarolina.org and click on the Online Workshops page.You may pay by check made out to HCRW or by credit card (via Paypal on the site).

PLEASE NOTE: You do not need a PayPal account to use PayPal and you may pay by credit card through PayPal. However, if you want to join this class, but prefer to pay by check or money order, please print the registration form and send your check or money order made to payable to HCRW in US funds. The mailing address is: HCRW Online, PO Box 811, Louisburg, NC 27549. You may contact the coordinator at : HCRWonline@heartofcarolina.org with questions. If you pay for a workshop and do not receive an invitation to join the workshop loop by the first of the month, please contact Elizabeth at HCRWonline@heartofcarolina.org.

Cancellation and refund policy: No registration fees will be refunded. All payments for a workshop must be received by the registration cut off date. Late payments can be applied to a future workshop of the applicant's choosing. If a workshop does not have 10 students enrolled by the first of the month, the workshop will be canceled and registration fees will be applied to a future workshop of the applicant's choosing. Hope to see you in class!

Heart of Carolina Romance Writers ~ RWA Chapter 114
Jodie Pearson
www.heartofcarolina.org
President, Heart of Carolina Romance Writers
RWA® Chapter 114
Raleigh, North Carolina

Writing

I bought a Herman Miller scooter, which is a small computer table, and set it up in the living room next to Patrick's Adirondack chair. I've always kind of wondered why we had an Adirondack chair in the living room. Turns out it's very comfortable, if you are having back trouble. I spent most of February with pneumonia and a nasty backache, and I sat in the chair a lot. While I was sick, I played computer solitaire. I wasn't up to anything else.

Tonight, I have been sitting in the chair and working on my Brer Rabbit story. I would like it to be done in time for the Wyrdsmiths meeting this Thursday. I don't think I'm going to make it, though I'm close to the end.

Anyway, a nice way to spend the evening.

Realms of Fantasy, Un-R.I.P.ed

Hooray! Warren Lapine has purchased Realms of Fantasy and will be keeping it going.

Post-MarsCON Rant

I had one of those panels at MarsCON where, afterwards, I found myself still arguing. Strangely it was the most "fannish" of my panels, being about "The Day Star Wars Died for Me," but I ended up with probably the most literary thoughts left stuck in my head as any of the more writerly panels. What happened, in a nutshell, was this. There was a guy who was playing devil's advocate and acting as a George Lucas apologist, and he trotted out one of those tired old arguments I absolutely hate, ie, "Shut up about it, it's just fiction" (and therefore not worth all this effort, emotion, etc.)

I hate that.

Not only is fiction my livelihood, but, frak me, why else do I go to science fiction conventions?

I have many more eloquent thoughts in response at my livejournal, but main one being that I believe that all public art (including not only movies, books, etc., but also paintings, sculptures, whatnot) is an INTENTIONAL dialogue between artist and viewer. The dialogue might be: "here it is!" (from the artist); "that was fun!" (from the consumer), but there's always an intended interplay between the two.

As I say at the end of my LJ, it's one of the most frustrating and scary parts of being a professional writer. But also the best.

Monday Morning WIP Open Thread

Hey folks, what's up? I've got 10k words that need spinning this week to finish out the WebMage cycle: denouement-denouement-denouement! Once it's done and in beta I'm going to take a week or two and do nothing but watch movies and play video games. Then website update. After that I need to dig out the proposal for the next series and fine tune it before it goes to Ace, move Eye of Horus from beta to final, and maybe rewrite the first 3 chapters of Swine Prince so that it can stop moldering in my basement and go looking for a home, which would bring me up to seven series out under submission. After that, who knows? I'm sure there's house stuff that needs doing and I really ought to do something about organizing the paperwork and getting more of my stuff off to Lynne and the archives. How about y'all? What are you working on, or dreaming about working on?

Friday Cat Blogging

I like dis game!



Butt, I will kill you if it's the last thing I do!



Mine, mine, mine! Or: The writer at work.



Static cling cat is not amused.

Free Fiction, Mine

Hey folks. I've got the first chapter of MythOS up as a sample on my website for anyone who might be inclined to take a look.

Writing in a Vacuum? Ha!

I've heard lots of people say that writing is a solitary act. To them, I say, "Hogwash!"

I just had an absolutely BRILLIANT writing day thanks to interactions I had with two people. First, by chance a fan Friended me on "Facebook.;" Turns out he lives in Cairo, Egypt, a place I've been struggling to describe in RESURRECTION CODE. So, he and I have been corresponding about the sights and sounds and smells of Cairo. It has totally inspired me.

Also, just by chance, I mentioned on livejournal that I had an epiphany about the structure of the book. I finally realized what I want to do is write a faux memoir written by the main character, Mouse. One of my friends from Oregon, Frank, commented jokingly, "Does this mean Page can make commentary throughout?" In the words of Christopher Robin: "! !! !!! !!!!"

What a brilliant idea! I just had an absolute blast writing snarky footnotes by Page in which he comments on all sorts of lies and misinformation his father presents... even dissing Mouse's use of the English language. I haven't had this much fun writing (particularly this book) since I don't even know when.

Thank you, my friends. Without you, my writing would be so, so much worse!!

Free Fiction

SFNovelist's Mike Brotherton is releasing a free online anthology of astronomy-rich SF, Diamonds in the Sky, funded by the National Science Foundation.

Contents:

In the Autumn of Empire (Jerry Oltion)
A cautionary tale about why scientific misconceptions can be important. This story will also be appearing in Analog soon. Keywords: The seasons. Misconceptions.

End of the World (Alma Alexander)
Nothing is forever, not even the earth and sky. Keywords: Evolution of the sun.

The Freshmen Hookup (Wil McCarthy)
An exploration of how the elements are built in stars using the antics of college freshmen as a metaphor. Keywords: Stellar nucleosynthesis.

Galactic Stress (David Levine)
You think your life is stressful? How about having to deal with the entire universe? Keywords: Scales of the Universe.

The Moon is a Harsh Pig (Jerry Weinberg)
Robert Heinlein’s novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress about a revolt on the Moon was a landmark novel of the 1960s. Jerry’s story is also educational. Keywords: Phases of the Moon, Misconceptions.

The Point (Mike Brotherton)
What is the meaning of life in an expanding universe? This story previously appeared at www.mikebrotherton.com. Keywords: Cosmology

Squish (Dan Hoyt)
How would you like a whirlwind tour of the planets? Keywords: The Solar System.

Jaiden’s Weaver (Mary Robinette Kowal)
So many things about life on Earth depend on the cycles of the sky, from the moon and tides to seasons and more. Well, what if the sky were different? How would humans adapt to life on a world with rings? Keywords: Planetary rings

How I Saved the World (Valentin Ivanov)
The movies Armageddon and Deep Impact featured nuclear bombs to divert asteroids headed for Earth, but this is really not the best way to deal with this threat. This story was originally published in Bulgaria, in the annual almanac “Fantastika”, the 2007 issue. Publisher: “Human Library Foundation”, Sofia. ISSN 1313-3632. Editors: Atanas P. Slavov and Kalin Nenov. Keywords: Killer asteroids

Dog Star (Jeffrey A. Carver)
It permeates space and has a subtle but important effect on our existence. What if the effect were not so subtle? Keywords: Dark Energy

The Touch (G. David Nordley)
Life in the Milky Way can be harsh depending the neighborhood you live in. You should hope you have helpful neighbors when the times are harsh. This story originally appeared in The Age of Reason, edited by Kurt Roth, at SFF.net in 1999. Keywords: Supernova (type 1a)

Planet Killer (Kevin Grazier and Ges Seger)
And sometimes the times are harsh but you have to depend on yourselves. It helps if you have a little unlikely but useful faster-than-light starships as in Star Trek. Keywords: That would be telling!

The Listening-Glass (Alexis Glynn Latner)
What’s the future hold for astronomy and astronomers? What would it be like to work on the moon? An earlier version of the story was first published in the February, 1991 issue of Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact. Keywords: Radio astronomy, the Moon

Approaching Perimelasma (Geoffrey A. Landis)
A sophisticated tale about the ultimate journey. Previously published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Jan. 1998. Keywords: Black
holes

Mike Brotherton is the Author of STAR DRAGON, and SPIDER STAR (Tor)
Astronomy: physics.uwyo.edu/~mbrother
Astronomy Workshop for Writers: www.launchpadworkshop.org
Science Fiction/Blog: www.mikebrotherton.com