For Part III of my novel, all I have to do is describe the movie from the point of view of Debra sitting in the audience. I don't have to write the screenplay or direct the movie, just describe seeing it.

Of course, the movie doesn't exist, but why should that be a problem? I've described planets and life forms that don't exist. If i can imagine them, I can write about them. How is this different?

One of the many words the most brilliant Torah scholar I know personally uses to describe the Torah is "cinematic." Since I heard that, I haven't seen the Torah the same way. There's gotta be at least 23 screenplays in there. Why have so few of them been written?

So this is just one. And, as I said, I am not writing the screenplay. I am just pretending Debra's friend Segullah did, and Debra is watching it. The other significance of the movie is that seeing it is a turning point in Debra and Sal's relationship. They don't call it a date, at least Debra doesn't, and Sal's too smart to draw attention to it, but it is their first date.

Writing. It's what I do when I can't stand the thought of another day.

Not now, though. This afternoon I thought of some ideas to flesh out the turning point in Debra's life when she decides to change her major from studio art to art history. Decides to become a professor, in short. But it's been a long and exhausting day, and I think it will have to wait for another one.

So now I've written a novel. Or at least, I believe by the time I finish revising it will be a novel.

I see how getting people to critique a novel is a problem. Critters seems to have solved this problem. You have 2 choices: either send your novel through the queue in pieces or ask for dedicated readers, who will read your novel exclusively.

Trouble is, my novel is not one of the genres Critters deals with (sci-fi, fantasy, and horror.)

Back in the day I joined the International Women's Writing Guild and a "kitchen table/meetup" writing group. That's how I met Sapphire. Now I don't think running around town going to meetings is the way to go. I'd rather do it online, just like critters.

On the other hand, IWWG has something called "clusters"and zip code parties. The members of the writers group i was in were from all over the city. Maybe there's something there for me.

In any case, getting feedback about anything you're writing is essential. Thanks to all who have volunteered to read THAT AND A TOKEN. A leaner "part I only" document is now available. Let me know if you would like one.

I wonder how it's possible to hold onto the freedom from overthinking that comes with nanowrimo. There comes a time when it's appropriate to agonize over every line your character says, but I don't think I'm there yet. It's just that when I hear characters talking to each other I have to think "Wait, he wouldn't say that. I would say that, maybe Debra would say that but Sal wouldn't."

November is over. The rush to as many words as possible is over. I'm revising the plot, rearranging the scenes. I called for readers as I wanted to get input before revisions get frozen into place. Having done that, having sent out 3 manuscripts, gave me the freedom to step back & rest a bit. Thanks for that. I began to think how to revise.

But it's still wide open!

I read through it myself. There's some redundancy, & I can think of some edits, but I feel like I'd like to take a rest & let someone else read it before I proceed. Who would like a copy?

I revised & printed. I'm the first reader. After that I'm looking for some more readers. Any volunteers?

So November is over. The next thing i need to do is get a ream of paper (which I've needed forever) to print the thing and read it.

So all i have left to do is describe a conversation about planning a wedding between somebody who has been married before and is familiar with the ways of the US on planet Earth and somebody unfamiliar with said ways. Plus inviting the guests, getting the license, and the ceremony at City Hall with more than the required number of witnesses. Plus a celebratory meal afterwards. Can I do it using at least 4751 words?

I wrote about shopping for Oscar night, what Segullah and Debra are wearing, both gowns and jewelry, Segullah's date Moshe, natural hairstyles for Segullah and Moshe, the big night itself, Debra's sudden decision to accept Sal's proposal, and her late night telling her roommate about it. Now they just have to iron out the details. My word count right now is 15,249. That includes a glossary. I think I'll include recipes too, for the dishes Segullah serves for her Shabbat dinner with Debra and breakfast the next morning.

The conflict over the marriage proposal and the tension between Debra and Sal will be forgotten when the news comes out that Segullah has been nominated for an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. She invites Debra & Sal to attend the Oscars, & offers to buy them gown, tux, jewelry. Segullah & Debra will go shopping, leading me into places my writing doesn't go very often. What female charaters look like and what they wear, & shopping for it. Debra's lifelong conviction that you can't make a living as an artist or writer takes a hit because Segullah's novel made money and now she made money from the movie.

The spirit of nanowrimo says i shouldn't go nuts finding out whether this is possible, how many guests are nominees allowed to have at the Oscars, i should just write it.

The time frame for my story has undergone some transformation as I've written it. When planning it i got away from my own life & decided Debra is younger than me, and should have her young adult experiences in the 90's instead of the 80's like I did. However as i write it this doesn't seem to be happening. Debra's job at the sculpture store is based on a job I had in the 80's, and there are no computers in the story. So far there are no real references to mark it in time. I'm finding it sort of refreshing to write about a time when shipping orders to customers meant writing them up in a 5x7 UPS book with carbons. My husband prepares UPS shipments every day and he says UPS doesn't even give you that book anymore, everything is done on the computer.

Still to come: I want to capture in this story the excitement of 2 big nominations in real life. The first was for an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. I was once in a writer's group with the author of the novel the screenplay had been adapted from. The experience of watching that screenplay win the award on TV and seeing the author (who I haven't seen since the writer's group) in her seat at the awards show and cheering for the movie, although I was really cheering for the author, yelling my head off in my in-laws living room.

Seems like a few months later Eugie's novelette was nominated for a Nebula. This was a story I had actually read, and an author I was actively in touch with, and a genre I'm deeply involved with. This time the awards show wasn't on TV, I had to figure out how to watch it on the Internet, and watch what seemed like hours of a door with waiters going through it serving the dinner. This time I was yelling in my own living room, my husband & daughter watching me glued to the unreliable webcast. As a reward for this enthusiasm I got to see a shuttle launch because Eugie recorded it on her Droid and posted it on Facebook. When Sheila Williams wrote about Nebula weekend in her column in Asimov's I got to relive all this again.

I feel like we're all on the same team, and we share our victories.

i guess i know how the story is going to go from here on in. Sort of. Don't know when i'm going to have time to write it. Friday I'm supposed to work at home. The office is sort of a disaster, as everything has been dismantled for painting/carpeting. I'm sure I have plenty of time to get at least the outline of the story written this weekend. Maybe i'll get to 20,000 words.

The weird thing is the number of holy books I've had on my desk while writing it. First, the book of Judges, because the story within the story is Deborah, written by Debra's high school friend Segullah. I'm imagining a feature length musical epic based on about a page in Judges. I couldn't write it, but my fictional character Segullah could. Does. Did. She wrote the screenplay and the book of the musical based on her novel of the same name.

Then, while writing the scene where Debra goes with Segullah to a Friday Shabbat service some Hebrew words and a tune that has always haunted me, I don't know where I know it from, started running through my head, and I typed the words into Google and discovered it was the 133rd Psalm. So then I had the book of Psalms on my desk. (I'm getting away from my usual Ashkenazic/Yiddish spellings because Abayudaya Jews of Uganda say Shabbat and synagogue, not Shabbos and shul. I want to try harder to find out if there's a word for synagogue in their local language of Lugandan. But I think they want to use the words that other Jews use.)

So I think I'll be able to wrap the story up by the deadline of Nov. 30, if not the word count.

In this story, a marriage proposal is a source if great conflict.

So skipped everything else and wrote the marriage proposal scene.

I think I'm stuck in "i don't want to write THAT!" land. Feeling discouraged. Maybe I should proceed to the idea I got when reading "A Pep Talk from Chris":

Chris Baty says

incite change. If your story is losing momentum, juice it up by
inflicting some major changes on your characters. Crash the spaceship. End
the marriage. Buy the monkey. Change is scary because we have to figure out
what comes next. But feeling afraid is ten times better than feeling bored,
and your book will benefit from your risk-taking. Go big this week! You
won't regret it.

Chronologically it comes later, but i can always fill it in.

I'm not sure it's going to end up being a novel, but I'm having fun writing it. I never really aspired to the 50,000 words because my energy level is not always so great these days. My goal is more modest, more like 20,000 words. I never know how long anything is going to be until I've finished what Eugie calls the 0 draft. I get an idea and I write until it's complete, not thinking "it's a novel" or "it's a novella" or "it's a short story." I figure I'll know after it takes shape. They usually end up being 3-5000 words. Then I edit it to make it better, which usually means shorter. Then when I get to the marketing stage I think about the requirements of different publications. I have never marketed a novel.

I think The Object of My Affection by Stephen McCauley is something of a perfect novel. It takes exactly a year, and it ends the way it starts, with a trip to Coney Island. Maybe a year is the minimum time frame for a novel. I guess there's no real maximum time frame. Anywhere But Here by Mona Simpson is a big novel, encompassing 6 years in the protagonist's life, but is told from several characters points of view, and goes back into the grandmother's childhood. So it incorporates three generations.

I think my time frame is about five years.

Day 3 of NANOWRIMO. I'm on Day 8 of my outline, but I've only written 2,628 words. Only 47,372 to go. In 27 days.

I've written the entire "past" background to my story, and have now arrived at the present. 3 of my supporting characters are very likeable. Now that my protagonist has been kicked out of school, I don't think these characters should disappear. I can't seem to bring myself to write about the roommate at all.

The Daily Grind was rejected by THE NEW YORKER. I have to decide where to submit it next.

ASIMOV'S seems like an obvious choice, but after it took them 104 days to reject "Being" with a pefunctory form letter, I decided never to submit to them again as an unpublished author. I really got my hopes up. Here I thought they were seriously considering it, while in reality it probably fell under the desk. But that's not really a reason.

How about STRANGE HORIZONS?

I still have not sent A SINGULAR BEING to THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION.

So who's doing NanoWriMo this year? Wanna be my writing buddy?

I joined nanowrimo!

I think i'll be able to achieve close enough. Close enough to 50K words, close enough to the 2 hours a night i was originally imagining.

Well, now it's 24 hours later, and I'm again (still?) tired. Also, I still haven't sent "A Singular Being" to S&SF.

I'm wondering if my plan of doing nanowrimo this year is at all realistic. I had pretty much figured I'd be unlikely to make the 50k words, but I don't think that's the most important thing. But now I'm wondering if I'll have the energy to write every night.

Maybe I'm just saying this because i'm tired tonight.

I'm thinking about going inactive on Critters again. I've fallen behind in my critiques. Of the stories I had imagined submitting I did "The Enemy", the mold one. That leaves "A Night Out", the dust one, "Always Birds", the one about the cold. "The Daily Grind", the job one has been Crittered, revised, and submitted to the NEW YORKER. But now I'm focused on THAT AND A TOKEN, which as whatever that genre is called that is not SF, Fantasy, or Horror is not critterable. For feedback, after I ask the members of Writer's Playground, I plan to see what I can arrange through the International Women's Writing Guild, the source of the f-2-f group where I met Sapphire.

Today I finished naming all my characters who still needed names. My protagonist has a surname.

Realizing a lot of my real life experiences in the 80's would not work in the 90's. In real life in 1986 I worked at Pearl Paint & lived in my rent stabilized apt. w/o a roommate. Couldn't happen in the 90's. In real life I changed jobs a lot. I found them through the Village Voice. I had my character finding a certain job in 1999, but I couldn't imagine how. I couldn't find a job in 1999, and neither could anyone else I knew. Realized she has to have a roommate, and she has to keep the job she gets after getting kicked out of grad school.

Real life is so complicated. The trick is to streamline it to make a good story, but still keep it real, keep it believable. Of course, there's no reason why the complications of being me have to be in it. It's not me. It's Debra.

i'm getting excited about the characters and settings in THAT AND A TOKEN. I'm having the character born in 1970 instead of 1961. From time to time I realize, hey, it's fiction, I can make it up however I want. And I don't even have to create a planet or invent a society! Setting fiction in the reality we all think we live in. What a concept!

I just outlined my new novel. It's "regular" fiction. I've been thinking about it a long time, am happy with the outline.

I think "Being" is ready for submission. This will be my first snail mail submission in a long time, it seems daunting. Having to produce a manuscript as a physical object, and send it using envelopes and stamps. Oh no!

I'm very happy with how the revision is going. I think it's almost ready.

As it is the story is divided by headings with Roman numerals I-XII. At least one Critter thought this was uneccessary for a story this length. I think the divisions are necessary, but they could be just blank lines, asterisks, or any other style of division. I'd like some feedback on this.

On 2nd thought I don't think an omniscient narrator is necessary. I just got rid of the words readers didn't get.

About the title. What I meant by it was that humans are singular beings, having only one self, and also that Newmia is a singular being since the Imray, at least the ones she knows about, place a high value on conformity, and she is different.

So why was I thinking of changing it?

Octopus pictures

Paul pix & video

They keyword is UNDERWATER INVERTEBRATE. Has no bones, doesn't hold its shape.

Next up: "A Singular Being" to the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, though I'm still considering changing the title.

2 things are helping me think about this story:

1. I'm reading Unbelievable by Stacy Horn, which is about the parapsychology lab at Duke University, and the attempt to scientifically prove or disprove the existence of ESP. My sci-fi story is about alien beings among whom 2 abilities considered "paranormal" here on Earth are universal: ESP & the ability to appear without one's body, both during life and after death.

2. Paul the psychic octopus. Not because of his ability to pick World Cup soccer winners, but because he is an octopus. My aliens are sentient octopuses. The ubiquitous pictures and videos of Paul over the last few days have given me an image of what they actually look like & how they move that all my research never did. I can't remember why I chose octopuses, but my research into the life, death, & habits of octopuses has driven the plot in some odd directions. I wanted to tell a story in which a young alien from a species that doesn't know the sort of permanent loss humans experience at every turn observes a bereaved human & is upset by the sadness.

What's funny is that to tell a story about beings who don't know loss I chose a creature that doesn't live very long. But that's kind of the point, they experience death a lot but not permanent loss because on their world the dead & the living have no trouble communicating. That brings me right back to #1, because what the Duke scientists were really trying to prove or disprove was that something of us survives death.

3. My experience with Critters Writers Workshop, both from the "reviewer" and the "reviewee" side has taught me that the reader's ability to read your mind depends solely on your ability to put it into words. Should I explicity say they're octopuses? Should I introduce an omniscient narrator?

After submitting "The Daily Grind" to THE NEW YORKER, I also submitted 3 poems to MOONDANCE: CELEBRATING CREATIVE WOMEN. I really only wanted to submit the one about Nina, now titled "What Is It About Nina?" but they want 3-5. I picked the 2 in my poetry folder I thought were the best, titled "The Pre-Med" (which I wrote while at Pomona College) and one I just retitled "At the Library" because I know I initially wrote it at the library at UCSB, and I think that title will add to the reader's appreciation of the poem. I don't really understand the poetry market, don't read it, only write it once in awhile. When I was very young, high school and college, it's mostly what I wrote, and if I'd pursued that path my whole life might have been different.

I don't think MOONDANCE is very organized about submissions, or rejections, anyway. I had one acceptance from them, and no reply ever to my next submission.

My submission might stand a better chance if I had submitted 3 poems about special women in my life instead of 1 about a special woman, 1 about some guy, and one about some weird moment freshman year. But the poem about my cousin Hillary that I wrote for her 50th birthday struck me as incomplete, and the one about a woman that was special to me in my teens made me cringe. So i picked the 2 that i thought were best.

There's also a poem I wrote about my husband years ago that I couldn't find to evaluate whether I thought it was any good or not. That drives me crazy. I suppose it will turn up. It's not on the computer.

I did it! I submitted "The Daily Grind" to THE NEW YORKER!

Not being in the mood to write, or crit, I turned to the easiest choice: reading. I just read the most wonderful short story. "Dance of the Kawkaroons" by Mercurio D. Rivera in INTERZONE #227 March-April.

I don't feel in the mood to write a critique. I think my inner critic is out of control. I don't want to turn it loose on someone else's work, or my own.

Realized I miss this blog. "Writer's Playground" isn't complete without it.

Here's my list of projects:

1. "The Daily Grind" was rejected by APEX MAGAZINE. I am planning next to submit it to THE NEW YORKER.

2. I think I really overreacted when after "A Singular Being" was rejected by CLARKESWORLD MAGAZINE, I reread their guidelines & saw "alien observes humans" on their list of "stories we don't want to see." Of course, "visitor to alien world is told rules & ignores them and is punished" is on that list too, & that describes "Babysitting" by Christine Murphy to a tee, & that is one of my favorite stories ever. Anyway, I went nuts & did radical surgery on the ms, called the results "version 5b" & submitted it to Critters under the title "Was A Singular Being, Probably needs New Title" as Fantasy instead of SF. I realized reading the resulting critiques that my butchery didn't make much sense. I am now going back to version 4e & going from there, destination THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION.

3. The memoir was rejected by agent Betsy Lerner & I didn't feel like that book length project was still on the agenda.

4. I submitted "Return to Darkness: My Sojourn in the Realm of the Cavedwellers" to MEMOIR (AND)

5. The novel i started in my 20's is now officially shelved.

6. I've been considering 2 ideas for NANOWRIMO, one sci-fi, one that other thing.

7. I also have another idea for a novel, not too developed yet.

If I post on my blog, will this fact show up on facebook?

The memoir is finally finished and is now over 22,000 words, so it's BOOK LENGTH! Yay! I can't believe I almost gave up because of the misery that is ANGELA'S ASHES. Thank you Ellen for talking me into participating in the workshop.

In August we adopted 2 new cats, Sam, stripy and gray, with spots on his belly, who Social Tees said was about a year old, and Ginger, a calico kitten about 4 months old in August. They're great, but I still miss Cookie.

Make that ALMOST a year!

It's been over a year. "Being" was rejected by Analog again. It took them longer this time, and they enclosed a copy of the writers guidelines in the SASE, which I don't think they did before, so I feel encouraged. I had meant to submit it to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, since I don't think my collection will be complete until I have a rejection from them - unless! My printer, which is really old, isn't printing clean copy, so print submissions are going to be a problem.

The memoir workshop is in its 3rd iteration, and I am working on a memoir project that looks to be about 10,000 words when completed. I'm having one of those moments when I'm sick of the project I'm working on and being way too critical of all of my writing. Maybe I need to take a break and read something.

I finally finished the mystery novel I started writing for the National Novel Writing Month contest! Yay!

I am now in a class called "Write Your Life Story" taught by Ellen Neuborne so I have overcome the aversion to memoir developed while reading Angela's Ashes enough to write some.

I didn't get "Being" out to Analog before the class started, but I will. I have also been looking at/thinking about my novel & will work on it eventually. It used to be called Child of the Pretenders for a reason that I don't remember but which had something to do with the Jackson Browne song. I don't see any reason to call it that now, so until further notice it's called Cadillac Time.

I hope everyone is well!

I'm 10,000 words into my National Novel Writing Month work. It's a sequel to last year's American Goth.

Hi! So nice to return after all this time & find some posts!

Cyn, I will have to email you from home. Have been thinking of you, but have not gotten around to doing that. We must catch up!

I read the last Harry Potter book awhile ago.  I thought it was the best-written one.  Very exciting & moving, & addressed my "I am in love with Allan Rickman & am therefor a Severus Snape fan" thing I had going. I wasn't crazy about the epilogue.

I am almost done with revision of "A Singular Being" & plan to submit it to ANALOG again soon.  

After that I hope to revise "The Daily Grind" for a more mainstream/literary, rather than sci-fi/horror, market, which will involve researching that market.

After that I'll think about the novel.

Still sad about Cookie, still don't have another cat.

Love,
Linda

National Novel Writing Month is fast approaching again. Anybody game for this year?

Has anyone else read the last Harry Potter book yet? I finished it Saturday after a marathon read. I have great sympathy for J.K. Rowling and the challenge of writing 7 books where you know a secret about a character than nobody else knows.

I had a dream... An actual dream that I think will make a really good fantasy type story. I dreamt what appears to be a pretty good episode of a television series about a guy who has visions, only they're in writing that he sees on walls or on people or on the ground. It appears in type styles and colors to match the person he's getting his vibe about and sometimes it can be very cryptic. At least that's how it seemed in my dream. My Harry Potter is arriving on Saturday! I better get this down before I get distracted. BTW, I got a company award for a weather promo I wrote, produced and edited. It's posted on my my space page if you are my space inclined people.

I've recently come up with a pretty good narrative for a full blown fantasy novel via a strange and mystical route. I'm working a bit on a mystery set in 1930s Hollywood with a director as a main character. The movie he is working on is a version of Beauty & The Beast (I needed something that never existed, but could have existed to be the movie) So I've actually ended up putting together a Beauty and the Beast story from the Beast's point of view based on the movie that never existed (been done before I know, but mine is different from the ones I've read) But I think I might want to save fleshing it out for National Novel Writing Month, as it is short and I wanted to do a fantasy this time.

Today it's been a whole month since we lost Cookie.

Yesterday, I found the diskette with most of the 2nd draft of the novel I was writing back in the 80's. When I got my first computer, the 25 MHz 386, I mostly wanted to put the novel on it. I'm not sure what happened, why I stopped. It may have been the obsession I developed with starting a career in the computer field. I remembered that 2nd draft as being incomplete, but yesterday I discovered it does have a conclusion, on typescript. So, all I have to do is finish typing it up on the computer, and I'll have a real live novel ms. The part that's already on disk is 42,000 words.

And I like it.

It's full of details I wouild never be able to remember if I tried to write it now. I had forgotten about that cord you used to pull to tell the bus driver to stop, and I didn't remember that LA RTD bus windows had a greenish tint. It's probably a general rule that you shouldn't wait to write about your experiences, that you should hone your perceptions and your ability to describe them by writing about your experience all the time.

I used to do that. When did I stop, and why?

I'm pleased with that 2nd draft. By tinkering with autobiographical material I succeeded in creating characters I like, and experiences a lot more interesting than what really happened.

Hi all. March was a long month. My cat, Cookie, passed away on Monday March 19, and I miss her so much, all the time.

I'm planning a bunch of submissions to the Writer's Digest competition, including one in the memoir/essay category I hope to write about Cookie. Writing about it helps.

I hope you all are well.

Linda

I switched to the new blogger. I've been meaning to do it for ages, but I never felt like I had the time (!) to even think about something requiring a new google account... (I hope you guys don't get mad because you need to get google accounts too!)

The 2007 Nebula awards are being held in New York City! I have no idea yet if that means I'll be able to go to any of it, because it sounds like it has to be a package deal. But imagine! (Usually nothing is held in NYC because it's too expensive. Not sci-fi or horror conventions, anyway.)

Today I started the March Asimov's that came weeks ago, but was waiting because I took a break from April Analog to read Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler. (More about that some other time...) After I finished it I missed it, and felt like reading another novel... I felt like reading "All the Birds of Hell" by Tanith Lee, only longer, like novel-length. So then I looked up novels by Tanith Lee, found she's written a great many, resolved to go to B&N ASAP, finished reading "Things That Aren't" in April Analog, & went to bed. That was last weekend.

With Analog & Asimov's I usually read the editorial first, then turn to the "Short Stories" section of the table of contents. The last name on the list was one I knew: Deborah Coates. I didn't remember what, exactly, but I knew she'd written something I loved. So I read that story, "Chainsaw On Hand", first. About halfway through I knew which story I was remembering. It's a story I've been thinking about a lot lately. I've been meaning to look up which issue it was in so I could re-read it. It was "46 Directions, None of them North" in last year's March Asimov's. I've even been trying to remember just how many directions it was! The reason I've been thinking about it is I think it captures perfectly (& banishes brilliantly) a kind of bitterness and regret I'm afraid I've been falling into, a woman I'm afraid I might turn into, or would, if I didn't have some big changes planned.

"Chainsaw" turned out to be an example of one of my favorite subgenres: Tales of I Can't Believe It Will Ever Be Warm Again. "All The Birds of Hell" is probably my favorite in this category. (I've written one, called "Always Birds", but I think it needs a lot of work.) This afternoon I sat down with the cat next to the heater and read "Chainsaw" & "Directions" in turn, in between tending to Giga Pets. (Not to mention a real pet and my daugher.) It made me think about "The Daily Grind." I think maybe there's really 2 stories bundled in there, or some themes that belong to a separate story.

There's the story that's about a future in which workers NYC needs can't afford to live anywhere near it. But there's also a story about someone who feels powerless in a work situation, which is where the title comes from. And maybe that's a separate story. Both "Chainsaw" and "Directions" are about women who feel powerless because of choices they made years ago, who don't understand how their lives "turned out" the way they did. This feeling of powerlessness is what a number of "Critters" who critiqued "Grind" reacted against, because the powerlessness remains when the story ends.

The truth is, if you are still alive, your life hasn't "turned out" any particular way and you can still make choices. DC's characters learn this, in each case through someone they love who has seized on something that seems completely insane. I want to contemplate these 2 stories in the context of revising "The Daily Grind."

Cyn, check out the link (on the left, under Authors' Pages) to Deborah Coates' blog. I think the 2 of you might get along...

New in comics...
This week are Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" and an adaptation of Laurell K. Hamilton's "Anita Blake Vampire Hunter" books. The guys at the comic store say the graphic novels are drawing in scads of "civilians" to try out the books.

As I've said before, I'm terrible at writing fantasy. (Well, everything I write is technically my fantasy, but it doesn't fall into the genre of fantasy) But I had a dream last night that I almost think I could make something out of. It was about a young man, whose parents were famous garden designers/architects who is somewhat ignored by them and very into botany, gardening and nature who discovers that his long-time female friend is actually a garden fairy. I think it may be the result of reading the Dresden Files books and receiving my Martha Stewart Gardening Special Issue. Or maybe from discussing Laurell K. Hamilton and her pornographic fairy books with the guy at the Comic store.

I've been pondering the subject of translating books into good television series. I recently watched "The Dresden Files" on Sci-Fi and decided to give the books a try. Often the translation process ends up with some pretty bad TV. I like "Bones", though it really has nothing to do with Kathy Reich's novels except the main character sharing a name. Which I think is fine, since what works great in a novel does not often translate to TV. I thought the Showtime program "Dexter" was a spot-on rendering of the book, even if they did have to soften it ever-so-slightly just so they don't run out of supporting characters. I've always thought Laurell K. Hamilton's books read like a good cheapie syndicated series along the lines of Highlander. (at least until she took that unfortunate turn into what I consider to be poorly written porn) I've heard many people say that HBO's The Wire is more like a novel than a TV series. I'm not sure what my point is, as I've said. There was pondering.

Also, I got an idea for a novel, not scifi or horror but historical romance. I've written an outline. Don't know how committed i am to actually writing it.

Plus I just joined a Gigapet message board.

Right after I posted about my new insight on story, Ela Thier sent out a new article about something very similar, about knowing the difference between the story itself (in her metaphor, the fossil, or in one that also works well, a sculpure) and the dust & debris from excavating/carving it. The article is on her Story Writing page. The title is Story Structure, Dinosaurs, and Stephen King.

I had another insight about the difference between story and setting. A lot of my scifi ideas are essentially settings. The story is what happens in that setting. While reading a story called "Brain Raid" in the current F&SF, I thought it's really about a young man and his career angst in a troubled industry, which could occur in many settings. This one happened to be in a setting involving rogue AI's (artificial intelligence) and specialists who hunt them down. The scifi is in the setting more than the story. Analog's guidelines say something about how if you take the science out of the story there's no story as a guide to what they're looking for, but I think many successful scifi stories could be told in a different setting that is not scifi.

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!