Congratulations on all NaNoWriMo achievements!

I suddenly had a revision breakthrough this week while reading "Outgoing" by Alex Wilson in February Asimov's. An incredible story, I see award nominations in its future. The blurb says it's his first professional fiction sale.

I realized that the way the story unfolds as you're composing it may not be the same as how you want it to unfold for the reader. When I was writing "A Singular Being" a lot of free association went on as the story emerged. I see now that not every step along the way needs to be included in the final story. Putting this insight together with the many excellent critiques I received from Critters, I began revising. It's a start. I now have a manuscript I can take to lunch with me at the deli with the wonderful library tables. I've missed doing that since "The Daily Grind" bogged down.

I guess my insight is about process vs. product. I hope I can apply it to "Grind". I got an image of being violently flung around by big machines and having no control, & started writing. For some reason the descriptions were sounds rather than sights. The story as it stands emerged from there. So far I've been trying to rethink the machines & kitchen equipment so I can describe them more visually & I'm not sure how well it's going.

Do you have any thoughts on process vs. product? How does your process of creating a story work?

Jingle, jingle to all!

HAVE A MERRY ONE!

Just offering a little news on what's going on with me, writing-wise (although I posted in Cyn's entry about where my book is at the moment): The first issue of GUD Magazine is out, with my story "One in Ten Thousand". It's available in PDF as well. The editors nicely nominated it for a Pushcart Prize, so that was a nice surprise (I think I found out on vacation)!

I'm going to be in an e-collection with Jason Sizemore (editor of Apex Digest) and Bryn Sparks entitled, "The Horror of it All". All our stories are reprints, with my offering numbering five. It'll be coming out on Fictionwise, and I'll post the link when it's up. I'm not sure if you can purchase individual stories or you have to get the whole book.

Lastly, I sold my story "Atomic Runner" to a new zine, Fusion Fragment. Here's a little backstory on that: I sold this story months ago to another online zine. But the edits made to the story completely changed one of the messages I was trying to convey (yes, I try to slip in a little social consciousness from time to time ;)), so I felt no other choice but to withdraw it. Nice that it's found a new home.

That was definitely a weird experience-- I've never had to deal with that kind of editing before, but in the end, I never felt bad about it, or felt regret, so in the end it's all worked out fine.

Any of you ladies ever dealt with something like that?

Other than all that, I've got about a handful of stories out that I hope will find homes and readers. Merry Christmas!

My book cover:

What's everybody up to? I'm trying to put the finishing touches on my Nanowrimo book "American Goth." so I can give it as a Christmas gift to some friends. My co-worker is even making a book cover for me. I will post when I get the art.

"A Singular Being" is up in the Critters queue this week! (That went fast!)

I went to check what's up because I was looking for something to read/crit, & what's up was me! No crits yet, though. I might not get as many as for "Grind" because it's longer, which discourages some critters. (5000 words as opposed to 3000.)

Me & Eugie Foster in the same week!

Linda, how goes the revising? I shudder at the thought :)

I did it, too!!!!

Bye, ladies! I'm off on vacation with my husband until next Saturday night, but I hope ya'll had a great Turkey Day; and to also wish Cyn good luck with the rest of November and NaNoWriMo. :)

Hi all! Sorry I've been scarce. Congrats on all nanowrimo work!

The revision of "The Daily Grind" is difficult. I've just submitted "A Singular Being" to Critters with the hope of sending it back to ANALOG eventually.

That's the news, good night and have a pleasant tomorrow.

I finished.

Well, not the entire novel, but as of this morning and after twenty-five days of work, I have 51,648 words under my belt. I wrote damn near 4,000 words this morning.

It's an understatement to say that I'm pleased, really pleased. Everything's falling into place in the book, too-- I have the denouement all planned out (that was a nice epiphany in the car!), and everything else that I've wanted to write will be coming out in the next few weeks (months?).

I'm looking forward to relaxing about this, too. Hell, I might even give myself Sundays off! ;) NOT looking forward to all the editing I have to do, though.

Now it's time to pump up Cyn. Go, Cyn, GO! :D

I just saw a preview of "Stranger than Fiction." It is so good! A must-see for writers. I really related to it. If you get a chance please go see it. I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks of it.

I worked all last week for my husband so he could catch up on all his backwork (he has his own business that he runs from home), so I didn't get a chance to get over to NaNoWriMo until this morning. I love the layout and the way your excerpt is presented in bookform! So, even though I'm not getting the little banner or anything when I'm done (and hey, I started early, too), I went ahead and uploaded an excerpt, and also put down my stats for six days' work (I keep a running daily record at my personal blog). Anyone interested can go read it (it's under Athena_Workman).

Parentheses much in that last paragraph? ;)

Cyn, I read a lot of your excerpt, too. Sounds like a good one! How is your writing going?

The past few days for me have been pretty good, but as I approached the 30,000-word mark, it was really like pulling teeth, going from establishing the story to the need to really get things moving; at the same while not wanting to give too much away too early. And I'm not used to writing this way-- not doing much editing, not going back and cutting huge chunks that don't work just so I can keep up my total, etc. There are already several things that need major changes (specifically, I'm going to change one character's overall demeanor), and I suppose when I'm done with the first draft I'll go back and make those changes.

But all in all, damn, it's good to get back to writing just straight-ahead horror. Also, it's nice to have that feeling back: the one where you're in the grips of a story, and you walk around a lot thinking about it, planning it. Makes me feel like I'm my old self again. :D

Is anyone doing NaNoWriMo this year? I've never done it before, but after giving it some thought, and giving in to that writing itch I've been feeling over the past couple of months, I decided to go ahead and register. But while I was registering, I remembered that my husband and I are going out of town from November 25-December 2 for our fifteenth anniversary trip. Counting Thanksgiving, when I have to cook all day, and a day of packing and giving instructions to my mother-in-law (who's totally terrific for flying in to take care of the kids), that would mean I'd only have about twenty-three days to write 50,000 words.

Um, no. While my average is higher than the 1,666 words you'd have to write a day to get done in a month, I wasn't comfortable with that limit. So, I started NaNoWriMo early. It won't count, but I'm treating it as if it will.

I started on Tuesday, October 17, and my last day will be November 16. On day four, I have 8,294 words, so my average is almost 2,100 words a day. If I keep this up, I'll be able to make it, although I'm sure the novel will be longer than 50,000.

I just can't concentrate on short stories anymore. I've got enough good credits for my bio, and it's time to write a novel again (I actually have one in the can, but it's WAY too long to be sellable as a first novel from an unknown). Although I'm very happy with my renewed art career, I've once again got the writing itch, so I suppose I'll never rest easy until I get a book published. It's okay. ;)

Lastly, the writing itself is going... well. I hesitate to say "Great!" because I'm a bit superstitious. But I'm happy, and though the going's tough, it's also very satisfying. And it's a horror/suspense novel, which I never thought I'd be able to write-- my other attempts sucked. But I'm pretty sure I can manage this one.

Any new writing news from you ladies? :)

Sorry I've been out to lunch for awhile. My end of summer blues somehow ran into High Holiday Fever which led directly to the baseball postseason and Miranda's 9th birthday.

My November Analog was in 2 pieces weeks ago. It split right in the middle of "Man, Descendant" by Carl Frederick, the spine no doubt weakened when I turned back one too many times to ascertain exactly where that first escape pod was headed. Then my subscription kicked in and I got the December issues of Analog and Asimov's by mail.

It bugs me how flimsy these magazines are. The stories are well worth the time I spend on them. Why can't the magazine stay in one piece until I'm finished reading it?

Athena, your news is really exciting! Way to go!

Linda

I'm reading this book. It suggests that you come up with thirty titles before settling on one. I might try it this weekend. We're going to flea market and that would give me all day to sit in a corner with the computer and brainstorm. I haven't been saying much around here lately as my creativity is being taxed by having to come up with some good ideas for work and playing with my pretend blog which is taking mroe brain power than I thought it would. Also NEW TV SHOWS!!!

I found out that I got two Honorable Mentions in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (19th annual collection). "La Noche de Duelo" was a poem that was published in the last issue of Neverary, and my novella "Winter's Dark Memory" appeared in the antho Darkness Rising 2005. Whoo!

All I found out at first was that I had two mentions, and I had to go clear across town to get the book (at the first bookstore, their one and only copy had apparently been stolen). I was very surprised by the poem's mention, since I'm hardly known for poetry and rarely-- I mean RARELY-- write it.

The second piece of good news is that my story "One in Ten Thousand" was accepted for GUD Magazine's Issue 0. It's a sad little sci-fi tale. So, it's been a nice couple of weeks. :)

Has this boosted my writing? Um...

I submitted a story to Firefox News's

It's the End of the World As We Know It

issue after all!

I went back to a story I started last winter when I was really cold, and added a version of the idea I'd been playing with for this submission, plus took it a little farther.

It's funny how when I say definitively that I'm not going to do something, sometimes that's just when I go ahead and do it.

The issue of Shimmer I ordered arrived today. It looks beautiful: high quality paper, great illustrations It even comes with a promotional bookmark! I'll start reading it tomorrow. I'd really enjoy submitting an ms to them. If it seems an appropriate venue for "Being" I'll submit that (since both they and Oceans accept simultaneous subs) and if not, I'll look forward to sending them something else!

This blog has been very boring lately, what with my phone being dead, and all. (i.e. no dialup=no internet)

I finished War of the Worlds, and I agree with Cyn that it would make a great movie just as it's written. I have now gone back to The Log from the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts, Jr. If that book did not have a cult following in the 60's, it should have.

"The Daily Grind" will be distrubuted with next week's batch of Critters manuscripts. I hope that will inspire me to revise it. Plus, I hope Log from the Sea will inspire me to get back to "Best Laid Plans."

Meanwhile, I've decided to stop waiting for a last minute blast of inspiration before the Sept. 1 deadline for Firefox News's "It's the End of the World As We Know It" issue. If "A Singular Being" does not get published before then, I will submit it for the "Aliens" issue, deadline March 1st.

I submitted "A Singular Being" to Oceans of the Mind.

One method I've devised for researching markets is to look up an author I like who's been published in a something I like to read, and see where else she or he has been published. Today I picked Ian Creasey, who wrote "Silence in Florence," which appeared in September Asimov's. The story's protagonist is a chambermaid in 17th Century Florence, and chamberpots play an important role in the narrative. In the blurb preceding the story, he's quoted as saying "...how often fiction concentrates on so-called important people...while relegating servants to mere background props. I wrote this story to redress the balance..."

Well, I just love that. Right now I'm reading War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells, and as always with anything 19th century, the characters can count on their meals being prepared and cleared up after with no effort of their own, at least until the heat rays start flying. (Even Wells, whose social conscience I adore. It was the socio-economic reality of the time. Back then if you didn't have a servant, you probably were one, and in any case literally had no time.)

Creasey also wrote "The Hastillan Weed," which appeared in February 2006 Asimov's, and which I liked a lot. He's had many publications, and his news listing alone yielded many possibilities. I think I've settled on 2, both of which accept simultaneous subs, for "A Singular Being"'s next destination: Oceans of the Mind, and Shimmer.

So I'm thinking that I need to start looking for an agent again. Problem is, I'm not sure I'm happy with the title(s) I came up with for the guy I submitted to before. He said that titles were about 60% of what agents look for. Just because that's what grabs the reader. So as long and hard as I worked coming up with titles for my work, I wonder if I don't need some better ones.
This particular series consists of light-hearted mysteries (I wouldn't say cozy, but they aren't exactly hard crime) My main character is Thomas Nakamatsu, a college professor and how-to book author living in a small town in Northwest Ohio. He's a southern boy from Tennessee of Japanese descent who gets pretty annoyed when people laugh at his accent. In the first book he meets the woman who will eventually become his wife a few books down the road, investigates embezzlement at the university and solves the murder of a good friend. The title I suffered to come up with was "Confesisons of a Redneck Samauri." thinking that would be the theme for the other titles and I came up with a few, "Memories of a Titanium Magnolia", "Adventures of a Virgin Vigilante." But I don't know. I wish I could feel that these were the titles I wanted, but I don't have that feeling.

104 days.

That's how long it took Asimov's to reject my ms.

I really hate their form letter. It's rude and insulting. Analog's is a million times better.

Having the occasion to look at Analog's form letter again (when comparing it with Asimov's) I noticed that one of the themes they say has been done so often it's impossible to get a fresh story out of it is when the alien world turns out to be Earth. I suppose "Being" can be seen that way. Alien scientist observing Earth. Is that corny? Maybe I should run it by the Critters...

I'm hooked on my faux blog. I'm having a hard time working on anything else. I need to make myself focus on some other stuff...

I think I'll start this off by posting something writerly: two of the very few stories I have in circulation are short-listed at magazines. So, crossing my fingers there...

Since I haven't been writing much, much of my attention is turned back toward my artwork (and studying for my travel agent's certificate- whew!). I have a shop over at Zazzle, but I wanted a nice art site that would showcase not only what I've made into products, but much of the rest of my art as well. So, I made one, heh, and today is launch day. I hope ya'll will check it out and, of course, enjoy.

Miss Millificent's World

I've created a new blog to chronicle my adventures with plants. Check it out. It's called Some Time (For Plants.)

I have finally done what I've threatened to do for awhile. I have created my mystery in blog form. Check it out here: http://simonwolfesden.blogspot.com/

Sorry I've been absent lately. I'm still in a bit of a ping-pong state of mind, even though I think I've settled on what to write. And I had to think all last week at work and that takes a lot out of a person. And unfortunately for my writing, there's a lot of stuff I want to watch on television. My obession with "So You Think You Can Dance" is a bit embarrassing.

Well, it's official, I'm a Critter!

Greetings fellow bloggers! You might have noticed I made some changes to the "Links" area (to your left.)

If anyone would like to add something in any category, or suggest a new category, please let me know. I don't want to be the only one who can pick links!

Everything in the "Resources" area (so far) is part of the Critters Workshop site. Their Submitting to the Black Hole page and the article "Query Etiquette -- or How Long is Too Long?" are helping to maintain my sanity regarding my Asimov's submission. Tomorrow it will have been 3 months . That's when, according to their guidelines, if you haven't heard you should consider it lost and resubmit. The maximum response time "Black Hole" lists for Asimov's is 174 days, which is almost 6 months (for a rejection.) That's a welcome grain of salt.

As for the next story, "The Daily Grind," I'm planning on joining Critters & submitting it for critique, which means also getting stories to critique by e-mail. They* say writing critiques is as valuable as getting critiqued. Athena's critique was very helpful, but I think I want a lot of opinions on this one! It's been through some revision since Athena, Cyn, Mom, and Michael-in-LA read it, and I'm not done yet. The trouble is preparing a submission to Critters is about as much work as a submission for publication. They* say it's worth it. After that comes "Best Laid Plans," which I think has Stanley Schmidt's name all over it, but it's still fairly early in its first draft.

* Who are they? Why, the Critters, of course!

Hooray! Cyn is back!

I love the idea of you writing from your real inner hillbilly voice! Go for it!

I think, I think I just might know what I'm going to work on next. I think I shall give all this historical stuff a break and just get back in the groove with my tried and true characters, I think there's a story I very much want to tell about them. Again, I think. I've probably written exactly one sentence since I had that nasty stomach flu (outside of work, of course. Just who's coaching your kids? Could an eco-friendly house help save the earth and save you money? Where can you get your news and weather anytime you want?)

I took a short visit home to deliver a present to my aunt (five hours down, three hours for dinner and five hours back) and got back in touch with my inner-hillbilly and I feel the need to speak in my real voice (even if it is someone else's)

I started researching tide pools after I decided my story "Best Laid Plans" might take place in one. The very first google hit on "tide pools" included this quote:

"It is advisable to look from the tide pool to the stars and then back to the tide pool again."
John Steinbeck, from The Log from the Sea of Cortez.

So my research on "Best Laid Plans" led me directly to the author of Of Mice and Men.

Turns out he wrote about tide pools in Cannery Row too.

I finished Cannery Row yesterday. Loved it. This morning I woke up and looked at Yahoo headlines on my way to the weather report, and found a story about how John Steinbeck's son Thomas is working on his first novel at 61, after publishing a book of short stories at 57, his first book.

I'm having, like, this Steinbeck synchronicity thing.

A great big welcome to new contributor redbisons! She appears briefly in "Career." A virtual bouquet to the first to identify her appearance!

For a reality check, went back to the Asimov's listing on the Submitting to the Black Hole page on Critters.org. Average response time is 63 days, with plenty of rejections well over 76 days. So I can put the possibility that my manuscript got lost in the mail or fell behind the desk out of my mind, along with this submission in general. I'm already working on 2 other sci-fi stories, with another one warming up in the bull pen. Plus the re-collection project.

For perspective on "women's sci-fi" I should probably get hold of A Woman's Liberation: A Choice of Futures by and About Women, an anthology of short fiction edited by Connie Willis and Sheila Williams. I've already read at least one of the stories in it, but I'm sure the editors have written a preface or introducion that sums up the subgenre as they see it.

I don't pretend to be at all literate in the world of "feminist sci-fi." My image of it is A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. I know Sue (Lange) has been called "the new Johanna Russ" and that J.R. is considered to be feminist sci-fi, but I haven't read anything by her. Feminist Science Fiction, Fantasy and Utopia seems a somewhat ponderous site, but I'm sure it's very instructive on the subject.

I read some user reviews of A Woman's Liberation on Amazon.com expressing disappointment, because the title was misleading. The title story is by Connie Willis, and apparently didn't live up to some people's expectations.

Anyway, when I talk about "women's sci-fi" I don't mean feminist sci-fi, exactly. I mean "by and about women" as in the subtitle of the anthology, but I think I mean a little bit more than that. I mean sci-fi presented through the medium of women's experience, however each individual author defines that. By the way, I don't want to exclude men, necessarily. When Stephen King writes about characters like Dolores Claiborne and Liz Garfield in "Low Men in Yellow Coats" in Hearts in Atlantis, both of whom are, I believe, based on his mother, Ruth Pillsbury King, he's doing it, in my opinion. (Except Dolores Claiborne isn't science fiction, though I'd say "Low Men" is.)

I recently read the article "Toward a Working Definition of Steampunk" in the current issue of Apex Digest, and that made me think there should be a cool name for the subgenre I'm talking about.

I thought of another author to include in my ill-defined category of needs-a-better-name "women's sci-fi": Deborah Coates, author of "46 Directions, None of Them North" in Asimov's Science Fiction March 2006.

So what's the opposite of writer's block? 'cause I think that's what I got. I can't decide which of my ideas to start and I'm going a little goofy ping-ponging back and forth between them. I've started a paragraph each of four different things and I'm really struggling on where to go. All my characters are shouting so loud I can't concentrate on just a few.

The reason I mentioned "The Meateaters" by Sue Lange and "Babysitting" by Christine W. Murphy as influences/inspiration is to me those stories are a kind of women's sci-fi, though maybe not by the usual definition. In "Meateaters" all the characters are women who work in a meat processing plant, in a world where men seem peripheral. Why they're peripheral was one of the many questions the story left me pondering, though not really the most interesting one. "Babysitting" is IMHO about a deliciously brutal feminist justice. I'll add to those "Nano Comes to Clifford Falls" by Nebula and Hugo award-winning Nancy Kress, in July Asimov's. It's the strong working class woman's voice of the narrator that makes me include this story in my women's sci-fi category.

In my stories "The Daily Grind" (in progress) and "The Enemy" I'm going after something I believe these 3 authors achieve. I've been envisioning for quite awhile a collection of short sci-fi and/or horror stories, each with a different aspect of women's experiences, mostly to do with work, as a theme.

Hmm, is this a subgenre? What can we call it?

(I said some of this in a comment on the post about writers who influienced us.)

After I read "Anatomy of an Underwear Drawer" by Susan Weiner (I think this may be her blogspot page) on the Inspirations page of Moondance, I understood better how my piece fits with the BITCH theme. It's about coming to a sense of resolution about something that's been a problem for many years, finally getting a handle on something that always seemed out of control before.

Whether you came to a resolution in reality, or just in your essay is another question.

Congratulations to Athena for "An Odd Day in I-Forgot" being included in Best of Apex 2005 Volume II.

I mention this now because only today did I reach page 99 of the current Apex where the "Best ofs" are plugged.

Here's what blows me away. The theme for this issue of Moondance is BITCH, which stands for Being In Total Control, Honey.

I sit down to write the absolute literal truth about the most intractable aspect of this mess that is my life, and they publish it in the Being In Total Control Honey issue.

There's a lesson for me here, an important one. I must study it.

Maybe it's because I didn't say anything about our current finances.

I checked Moondance, and it's up! They've published my essay "Career" in the Summer Issue as promised. Hurray!

To what degree do we decide what's in our stories, and to what degree does it come unbidden?

I think there's a scale. Cyn, I know what side of the scale you fall on.

For me, it seems to go like this. An idea, or the gist of it, appears from somewhere. I play with it for awhile, thinking, making notes. I can choose what I'm going to do with it. At some point it gels, takes on a life of its own, and my choices are circumscribed.

Is it really as formulaic as all that? Do readers really want ALL Vampire books to be so predictable? Or is that just what the marketing people say?

And what kind of 2 timing romantic hero loves both a vampire and a werewolf? Oh well, dramatic conflict.

Horror goes mainstream... At least that's what the USA Today said: http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2006-06-28-vampire-romance_x.htm
There's also a profile of writer Laurell K. Hamilton:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2006-06-28-chat-hamilton_x.htm

Vampire/romance/detective books are big now. I was an early fan of Laurell Hamilton, but somewhere along the way she lost me. I think she took a turn into poorly written porn. I was into Kim Harrison's books of a vampire ridden Cincinnati, but I fear they are heading into the same cliched waters that Laurell Hamilton headed to. Apparently all Vampire books must involve a Vampire slayer who loves both a vampire and some type of werewolf. I wish I could write Vampire fiction as easily as I do my mystery stuff.

Tonight was the "launch event" for Lily Brett's novel You Gotta Have Balls at the McNally Robinson bookstore in SoHo. Lily came to the law office where I work for a consultation, and put my employer, Martin Price, on the list for this event. I seem to be the literary arm of the Law Office of Martin L. Price, so I went.

When I went to the Frank McCourt event I knocked myself out reading Angela's Ashes and Teacher Man beforehand. Since YGHB only went on sale in this country the day before yesterday, and would be on sale at the event, I didn't feel compelled to read it in advance, but she has also written a collection of personal essays called In Full View. I wish I'd read that before today, but it's not easy to find. I may have to get it from the library.

I had meant to e-mail her before today, introduce myself and ask her to visit the blog. I suppose I still can. It seems hard to orchestrate the timing of everything.

Is there a genre you enjoy reading, but can't seem to write? I have that problem with sci-fi. I enjoy reading and watching it, but I can't seem to write good sci-fi or fantasy for the life of me. It always comes out artificial or ridiculously derivitive. I think I could probably write a good Star Trek script or anything that the concept was already in place for, but I can't seem to come up with good concepts for Science Fiction.

Athena, I must ask. How long did you live in Huntington? Long enough to remember Mr. Cartoon? I grew up nearby in Portsmouth, Ohio and Huntington was the BIG CITY where all the television stations were.

And since I've discussed reader, now on to writers. Are there any writers you consider to be your inspirtation or that you aspire to be like in some way? How did they inspire you?

I've been thinking about what Linda posted about your "ideal reader." Do you have an ideal reader in your head? What else would they like to read if they enjoyed your work?

60* and counting!


*days since I submitted "A Singular Being" to Asimov's Science Fiction

I should've known: nothing like a deadline to get my butt in gear. ChiZine has its annual short story contest every summer, and its deadline is June 30th. Yesterday and today, I wrote and finished the story I'd been "planning" for about six months and only had a few notes jotted down for. I'm happy with it- I think I achieved the eerie tone I was going for, although of course, it still has to go through the final wringer- er, draft.

So, yay to me for finally finishing a story. :)

(By the way, this is my third year entering. The first year, I placed in the top fifteen; last year, I didn't get that lucky, although the story went on to sell to Surreal. I'm hoping for better news this year, although I'm normally a pessimist and won't count on much. :))

Wednesday marks the anniversary of the day I found On Writing by Stephen King at the Tompkins Square branch of the NYPL, and my life hasn't been the same since. It will also be the last day of school, just like that day, though last year it was on a Tuesday.

In On Writing, SK speaks of an "ideal reader," the first person you think of while you're writing, the first person to read your manuscripts. Often the writer's spouse or significant other.

Unfortunately, my spouse is not into reading. Even when he does read my manuscripts, he isn't the one to give me the kind of feedback I want. My daughter will probably be great but she's too young. So the job of being my ideal reader is sort of an open, rotating one.

Would anyone like to be the first to read the first draft of "The Daily Grind"?

Happy Summer Solstice!

Today will be the 56th day my dear manuscript "A Singular Being," my beloved cephalopod Pneumia will have spent at Asimov's Science Fiction without my receiving a rejection slip. That's if I don't receive one in today's mail!

56 and counting.

Titles are my nemesis, how about you? I talked to an agent who told me that titles are fifty percent of what draws him to a book. I hate titling my own work! Which since I'm a marketing professional and have no trouble naming contests or news franchises or coming up with catchy phrases to brand blocks of programming, you'd think I could do. I think I've come up with probably 2 good titles in my life.

I started Kindred by Octavia E. Butler today. It's wonderful! A woman suddenly finds herself mysterously transported in space and, she learns, time. A 20th century black woman who finds herself in rural Maryland in 1815, yet. (Not a fun trip.) Can't wait to continue!

I love it when authors do that - keep writing about the same "universe," in science fiction terms. When I realized Stephen King characters interacted with each other from novel to novel, I was delighted. It felt like a guilty pleasure, like he was breaking some rule. I guess because I've heard it said that "readers just want you to keep writing the same book over and over" and I got the impression authors were supposed to want to start from scratch each time. (Though usually certain characters reappear, even if they're not "supposed" to be the same person.) I love the idea of books about the relatives of characters from a book I've already read.

Me, I knew as I was writing "A Singular Being" that I'd like to write about that universe again, though I was thinking of the species/planet, not necessarily the same character. But now I'm thinking about a novel that will be in part a romance between Pneumia, the young scientist protagionist of "Being" and the guy who delivers the fresh have-to-think-of-alien-sounding-name-for-clams-mussels-oysters-shrimp that my intelligent and pychic sea creatures eat.

Do you start fresh with new characters for each story/novel or do you have continuing characters? Myself, once I flesh somebody out, I can't stop writing about them. That's why I have all these spin-offs. From my first completed book, I've spun off stories for the main character's parents (both in the present and in the past as younger people) his cousin (and an entire town full of fully realized characters where he lives), each of his three younger sisters, the family of one of his sisters' boyfriends, another set of cousins. Plus my 1920s novel features the great aunt of someone my first main characters knows and I also have a couple of books set in 1880s California that are actually about relatives of my character.

I just finished another mystery novel. This one is set in 1920s Toledo and focuses on the adventures of a female newspaper reporter with ganster friends. I'm not totally satisfied with the ending. I think I might have rushed it a bit. But I'll go back and tweak it later. I just wanted to get it down. The characters are where I want them, I just need to flesh out the scenery and do some more research. Now which story do I start next? I've got about eight of them butting around in my head competing for attention. PICK ME! PICK ME!

What's your process? Longhand or keyboard? Fast or slow? What's it like when you're starting a new project? Do you think of the characters first, the story, the setting, or does it all come at once?

I feel weird that my first post is self-congratulatory and promoting, but here it goes. I found out Friday that my short story, "Calamari and the Smell of Wet Sweat", sold to Wicked Karnival. Nice sale; I'd been waiting about three months to find out if I'd made the final cut. Wasn't very confident about it, as it's a strange little thing written in present tense-- something I never do.

This was the last story I finished, and that was back in January. I've started other stories (and a book), but they've all fizzled out, either from lack of desire or lack of direction. After this long a drought, I desperately need a kick in the pants.

I want to get the book Writing Down to the Bone by Natalie Goldberg. I learned of it from the same friend who gave me my first journal for my 14th birthday. That's the first I heard of the "free writing" technique, though I'm not sure Goldberg used that term.

The inner critic certainly has an important role to play in the writing process. It's called "revision." Maybe Ms. or Mr. Inner Critic has no business hanging around while we're trying to write a first draft. When starting a new story/novel/script/whatever maybe we need to stop thinking so much and JUST WRITE!

I've done a lot of that this weekend. The first draft of "The Daily Grind" is almost finished. I also wrote about 900 words on how my father was a waiter with a master's degree in library science how maybe the Talismans have some trouble breaking the class barrier once we leave school, and about 800 words on losing children's clothing in the laundromat or on the bus. I think I've figured out how to plug in the memoir. Write a little autobiographical piece whenever I feel like it, and add it to the main document. When it gets to be about 40,000 words, I'll start shaping, see what sort of book it might turn out to be.

Was reading some agents' profiles on Writer's Market today, saw that some of them like to meet authors at conventions. Asimov's always lists upcoming sci-fi conventions, & they must come to New York sometime (everything does.) Do other genres have conventions?

I'm not anywhere near ready to look for an agent yet, just thinking ahead. Also wondering if there are mystery conventions.

FREE WRITING EXERCISE #1
ELA THIER'S FREE SAMPLE SCREENWRITING WORKSHOP
May 30 2006

INSTRUCTIONS: Keep writing and don't stop for 10 minutes

Scenario: x and y are stuck in elevator with bomb in it
x = main character, y = me
(main character = Miryam Montoya
story-in-progress, "The Daily Grind")

Miryam: Oh, great. They kept saying this might happen.

Me: What?

Miryam: All that crap about terrorism. These elevators. We're sitting ducks.

Me: [sweating] What do we do?

Miryam: Hell if I know.

Me: What kind of attitude is that? Can't we defuse it or something?

Miryam: How should I know? I'm just a food processor. You're the one with the master's degree.

Me: OK. I used to be a techie. I've seen a lot of movies.

Bomb: tick, tick, tick

Me: Shut up!

Miryam: DO SOMETHING!

Me: OK. This has to be like a computer of some kind. I'm good with computers. [looking at bomb] OK... wires... they always talk about wires... Ya know, Miryam?

Miryam: What?

Me: I wish I'd picked the other scenario.

Miryam: Scenario? What the hell are you talking about?

Me: You're a fictional character.

Miryam: Will you stay focused? We're about to be blown off the face of the earth. And you don't know this place. It's a death trap. The safety inspectors are all on the take. The consortium doesn't care if we live or die.

Me: Well, they care if we show up for work, that's why they built this place.

Miryam: Show up for work? You don't work there. You ain't no consortium employee.

Me: No, I'm the author.

Miryam: The what?

Me: Oh never mind. Look, I've done this before. I used to build a lot of radio shack electronics kits when I was in my 30's.

Miryam: Your what?

Me: I mean, when I was a kid. I just have to cut this wire.

Miryam: With what?

Me: You carry any tools? No, of course you don't. You get hooked into that equipment and you just have to try not to get beheaded while it does its thing.

Miryam: You don't know what happened to my friend yesterday, it was awful.

Me: Well, I sort of know. I haven't written that scene yet.

Miryam: What?

Me: Never mind. Something to cut wire with... all I have in my backpack is a notebook, 4 barely-started unfinished manuscripts, and half a dozen pens. Oh, and July Analog. What would K'choi Gwu ka do?

Miryam: Who?

Me: OK. This isn't a starship. Focus, Linda. This is an elevator of the Consortium's Lower East Side Consolidation XXV underground housing project, 25 stories under the desert of ... I haven't decided yet.

Tonight I'm attending Ela Thier's monthly free sample screenwriting workshop. Topic: STORY STRUCTURE AND CREATIVE EXPLORATIONS. I'll let you know how it goes. (I found out about this from the NYU alumni mailing list.)

Do you ever find yourself unintentionally copying the style or lifting phrases from authors whose work you admire? I have been reading a series of books by Laurie R. King about the adventures of a sixtyish Sherlock Holmes and his fifteen year old female apprentice. Oddly, I don't think these books are derivative of Conan-Doyle, but I almost feel as if the relationship, the moral and ethical issues they confront and habit they have of quoting from literature is lifted from whole cloth out of Dorthy L. Sayers Lord Peter Wimsey books. She uses some of the same quotes and phrases from the Wimsey books. The heroine is a scholar at Oxford like Harriet Vane. She has a character named Peter who has to be Lord Peter Wimsey even make a cameo in one of the books. I like these books very much. They are my favorite thing I've picked up to read in ages. Recent efforts by some of my favorite authors have been disappointing, so I was happy to find her work. But I'm still a bit bothered. I am a big fan of the Wimsey/Vane books and probably have them close to memorized. The estate allowed Jill Paton Walsh to flesh out and complete some of her unfinished work on Wimsey, and I had the books so well memorized that I kept finding mistakes in her works. But that being the case, I think I can be quite a derivative writer myself, so I struggle not to do that.

Congratulations to us all! This blog is now big enough not to fit on a single page! We have achieved archives!

Today marks the 1 month anniversary since I sent "A Singular Being" to Asimov's. 30 days without a rejection letter! Waytago Pneumia! (That's my protagonist's name.)

The link I just added (to your left, under "Links") for Edward M. Lerner is his fictionwise.com ebook page. His page at SFWA (Science Fiction Writers of America) gives a better overview of his work, but I loved the bio on the ebook page. Aside from what an obviously cool person he is (which also shows up in ANOOT) it reminds me how much I love science & techie stuff, which probably has something to do with why I love science fiction, and I think I should read a lot more "science fact" as us Analog fans like to call it. I first heard the phrase "science fact," and of the existence of Analog and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction when I fell in love for the first time when I was 14 years old.

I think I'm having an endorphin rush.

I am deep into third installment of A New Order of Things in July/August Analog. It's great! The only trouble is reading it on the playground, the unicorn on the cover attracts 5 year-old girls. Why is there a unicorn on the cover of Analog? I'll let you know when I get to that story... (It better be from a planet of intelligent spacefaring unicorns, and an expert in 7-dimensional particle physics...)

I've spent more time on the sequence of events (is that called plotting?) for my new story than on any other. It's a pretty tight sequence. It's fun to work on.

On the other hand, I was so exhausted today I'm amazed I'm still awake at 10 o'clock.

Oh, and I finished Angela's Ashes today. Couple more sobfests and some grins, and at least he got laid at the end.

I'd like to know the cry-to-laugh ratio different people have experienced reading this book. For me, Teacher Man was a lot funnier, but it made me cry too.

I started the new story today, in my notebook at the laundromat, where else? (The other most likely location: a bench in the Avenue A playground in Tompkins Square Park. Or at a table at the deli where I have lunch near work.)

I just completed a "rough draft" of my new story. The rough draft is a technique I learned from Writer's Journal Magazine, Vol 26 Number 5 Sep/Oct 2005, "The Art of the Rough Draft: Learn to Tell, and Then Show" by Sidney C. Blaylock, Jr. (In other words, how to tell yourself what's going to happen so you can then show the reader.) For me this doesn't usually come first - I usually start writing, then when I get stuck because I don't know what happens next I write the rough draft. But it can also be useful during that cold feet period that seems to precede beginning a new project.

I got a groovy new pink cell phone for my birthday. Slim with a big screen, it accesses the Internet, checks my e-mail, lets me talk and text and use a day planner. It comes with a matching wireless pink earpiece that lets me use voice commands to call people. So I started thinking about how current technology has surpassed the technology we saw in science fiction. My earpice works a lot like a Star Trek communicator pin from Next Generation. Only, I think it does more. I was talking to a friend about how I thought the Hitchhikers's Guide to the Galaxy movie came out much too late since now you really can access nearly all the information in the known universe on palm-sized computers that you carry with you.

Speaking of memoir, I forgot to mention that I wrote a 3,000 word essay that's the story of my life with the job/career puzzle, and submitted it in February to a webzine called Moondance. They e-mailed me a couple of weeks ago and said they wanted to publish it in the next issue! I replied saying "Awesome! Here's my updated bio with url, and when's the next issue?" So far, they have not replied to that e-mail. That's why I haven't posted about it or made an announcement. I'm mentioning it now because it means I have written autobiographical material without it being a wretched experience, and it's pretty light-hearted and probably a fun read.

How do find what voice to write in? It's not like I ever actually decide to go first-person, it just happens. I worked for quite a long time trying to get started on writing the series of mysteries that I'm working on now, but it just never started until I sat down one day and it came out in first person. That was strange for me since my main character was a Japanese-American College professor and a guy. I wasn't sure if I could find a male voice, but the guys who read it say it is. We have a big in common, my character and I. We're both hillbillies, we don't like undercooked meat, we like cats and both watch Magnum P.I. But I'm not sure why I hear his voice and not others. I've spun off other characters in this little Cyndaverse of mine to their own stories, but I don't write them in first person. They just don't talk to me that way. And on that subject, do other people have control over their characters? Can you make them do and say anything you want or do you just write what they say. I mean, I could write something down on paper they don't want to say, but it would never sound right and never fit in. I really feel like I do have a muse. Perhaps if I wasn't creative I'd be in a cell talking about the voices. But I often feel I have no real control over the plot. It does what it does and I've been surprised to go back and read my own stuff and see that I've foreshadowed things that would happen three or four books laters without consciensely meaning to do it.

No Time circa 1917... I picked up a compliation of newspaper columns by Laura Ingalls Wilder (famous for her Little House books) One jumped right out at me. It was about how, even though they had all sorts of modern conveniences like the telephone and the motorcar that nobody seemed to have much time for anything anymore. Nobody had time to visit or write letters or do any of the things they used to do so easily. She wondered where all the time saved by the time-saving devices went and how come people never visited for whole afternoons anymore. Just where did all that time go, when obviously the days and nights were as long as they ever were. There were some other interesting topics in there as well; such as the concern over a growing teen suicide rate and the failure of schools to adequately teach children. Hmmm... could it be that there is nothing new under the sun. Anyway, the book is rather inappropriately titled Little House in the Ozarks, but it as interesting look at her career. She tells many of the stories that later ended up in the books and it's interesting to see what someone was really thinking at that time about issues such as women voting, the War and the Avian Influenza epidemic. (Any of these topics seem familiar?)

I can't picture writing straight fiction, set in what our senses insist is the ordinary reality we all live in. If I'm telling a story, it seems to be either fiction set in some speculative reality, or an account of what actually happened.

I've been toying with the idea of writing a memoir. That's why I was interested in attending "A Conversation with Frank McCourt" as part of NYU's alumni weekend last week, since he's someone who's famous for writing a memoir, rather than someone who "wrote" a memoir because he was famous.

Then I tried to read his memoir, Angela's Ashes. It was tbe most depressing thing I"ve ever read in my life. It had me weeping on subway platforms. I still haven't finished it, though I'm close. I had to stop reading it to read Teacher Man, the book the "Conversation" was supposed to be about. I saw a connection between the 2 books, between his inauspicious beginnings in AA (crushing poverty, year after year) and the way, for decades of his life, he seemed to be trying to be anything but what and who he was. I could totally relate to that.

For a week I've written bits of my memoir, turning it over in my mind and writing journal, the way I do with any current project. A miserable week. And picked up where I left off with A New Order of Things by Edward M. Lerner, installment 2 of 4, serialized in June Analog.

Walking home with my daughter in a drizzle this evening, I decided not to focus on the memoir. Maybe a chapter here and there when I'm in a certain mood. I felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest.

Instead, I think I'll work on one or more of the many sci-fi ideas I've had this past year, or maybe a new one.

"K'Choi Gwu ka was old and tired and insane, and she knew it."
A New Order of Things by Edward M. Lerner in June Analog, p. 100

And I can totally relate to that too!

No time, no time, no time, but I'm thrilled to see Athena's name under contributors. Welcome Athena!

It's 11:00pm, and I hate to admit this outside of a horror story, but my daughter is FINALLY in bed. I am absolutely determined to watch the video I rented last weekend, or at least start it (The Others.) So I don't have time to investigate much further, but I found this:
Forum for Free
FREE HOSTED FORUMS

I will check it out.

Athena, if you do stop by I would love your comments on Blogger vs. Livejournal. Cyn, do you have an opinion on this crucial issue?

Wouldn't it be hilarious if Blogger went around deleting positive references to Livejournal?

Hurray! Sue Lange has visted No Time! I appreciate Sue's comments on blogging vs. forum discussion.

You know what I hate about blogs? (Aside from being stuck in a unidirectional linear chronological rut.) I wish people who visit could do more than just comment, or that comments could be displayed more prominently. (I just turned off the "show comments in pop-up window" feature because it was annoying and made the print too small.) I wish visitors could request to join, or anyone could post. There must be other options that I don't know about. Maybe LiveJournal is better than Blogger...?

You look at anyone's blog, and it's just them them them. I'm so glad you're here, Cyn! But so far the 4 other people I've invited have not accepted the invitation. Christine W. Murphy commented and Sue Lange said she would check it out, but that was in response to the e-mails I sent them, before I discovered the "invite new member" feature. I've been wanting to invite Athena Workman, and I finally found an e-mail address for her! I finally managed to scratch beneath the surface of Apex's blog.

OK, so all my author picks have appeared in Apex Digest.

Athena Workman is on LiveJournal and I think that's what powers Apex's blog too.

Maybe we should move.

I don't know if I'm out of the woods yet.

On April 26 I sent my story "A Singular Being" to Asimov's Science Fiction, after extensive, exhaustive editing. After completing the fourth draft I realized I'd never actually read my copy of The Elements of Style by Strunk & White, so I did, then proceeded to "Strunk-&-Whiteify" my story before sending it out. How both Strunk and White would hate the way I've made their names into a verb!

Strunk-&-Whiteify, verb
To edit a piece of writing for fluency, to simplify, to OMIT UNNECESSARY WORDS, OMIT UNNECESSARY WORDS,OMIT UNNECESSARY WORDS!

"Being" lost about 100 words in the process. No, this wasn't my first submission , but I wanted to make this one count. I love "Being" passionately, and I love Sheila Williams and her benign reign over Asimov's almost as much.

So by the time I was done I had been working exclusively on that one project for 2 or 3 weeks. Once the ms. was on its way, I felt a little lost.

I think I'm over it now. I'm returning to a process that feels better to me, taking turns between a number of projects. I have 7 to choose from.

I've been thinking a lot about what defines a genre. Where is the line between Sci-Fi, Horror and Fantasy. Or even Mystery, Romance and Fantasy. I've noticed a lot of melding of genres. I read a lot of mysteries and more and more they are incorporating elements of fantasy to include Vampire Detectives, Psychic Detectives, Ghost Detectives. I've read mysteries set in the future. I've seen these same books with strong doses of romance elements. So what is what? I've found I've had trouble describing my mystery works because they have some elements of a "cozy" mystery but there are harder edges here and there along with some language and a little sex. And I guess maybe even a little hint of the supernatural since I've got a couple of characters with an odd little sixth sense. I think of fabulous books like "Tea With The Black Dragon" and "Bellwether" which are classified as fantasies, though truly nothing particularly supernatural happens. And with the explosion of Vampire/Romance/Mystery type books, just where do you put those books at in the store. Do you spread them around the sections? I had the opportunity to speak with an agent on the phone and when he asked me what my particular genre of mystery was I didn't really know what to say.

The installer program for the forum is working! Maybe I can get that puppy running!

Tax/Record keeping question:
Is a Schedule C the way to report earnings from writing?

I'm also wondering about Paypal. If you get paid via Paypal, or pay for subscriptions with it, do you have an acceptable record for tax purposes? Is it worth insisting on getting paid by or paying by check?

Hurray! Cyn has joined! Welcome Cyn!

I've invited 2 favorite authors, and have been attempting to locate the e-mail address of a third. I hope they join too!

So I uploaded the forum software, and am at the point where the installer script gets a cgi error, and once upon a time I would have kept at it with the help of panix's cgi troubleshooting page until it worked. Those were the days, all right. I used to have a whole forum just for talking about dolls. I didn't have a job then.

Actually, I did once have a job writing and debugging cgi scripts for a "new media startup." I had a Unix workstation on my desk and everything. But that's a story for another day.

I'll get the forum going eventually. I hope.

At least I picked a template for this blog with print big enough so I don't go blind, and added links to my favorite magazines. Now to invite some guests!

You guessed it. I don't have time for this. I have to get my daughter ready for school, and go to work. And my cat likes to bite my hands while they're wiggling on the keyboard, so I had to take her off my lap.

Welcome to the No Time blog.