I received an email this morning that said, very politely, that while the writer loved my books and had enjoyed them greatly, they were no longer a fan and would not be buying any of my work in the future. Okay, fair enough. Why?
Because Deadline doesn't have a proper ending, and they don't want to encourage this behavior from publishers.
Okay. Look: if your definition of "proper ending" is "the story is over, and I can walk away satisfied and never need to read another volume," then no, Deadline doesn't have a proper ending. I have often said that the only time it's appropriate to end on a cliffhanger is in the second book of a trilogy, and Deadline ends on a pretty major cliffhanger. I can't apologize for that. It's the nature of the trilogy structure that part two will often end on a cliffhanger, and is allowed to do so. I don't end series books on cliffhangers; the Toby books, and the InCryptid books, all have solid, closed endings. I try to make sure there's always more story, but you can still walk away if you need to. This book is not those books.
Let me be clear: Deadline has an ending. There is a point where it ceases to be Deadline, and becomes Blackout, and that point is where the book ends. The Newsflesh trilogy is three books long, and those books are intrinsically linked, but each of them begins, and ends, at a certain place. The thrust and mood and structure of each volume is different, and when you pick up Blackout, you'll be reading a very different book, even if Deadline ended with some pretty major questions unanswered. I didn't pick that end point arbitrarily. I picked it because that was where the story of Deadline ended, and the story of Blackout began.
I completely understand and appreciate frustration over unanswered questions, unfinished measures, and endings that don't appear to end. And I also understand why some people have chosen to buy Deadline and put it on the shelf to wait for Blackout. I wrote back to the person who emailed me and said that I was sorry, I hadn't done it to increase sales or because my publisher made me; I ended the story where I did because that was where the story ended. And I stand by that.
Deadline may not have a "proper" ending.
But it has the right one.
Because Deadline doesn't have a proper ending, and they don't want to encourage this behavior from publishers.
Okay. Look: if your definition of "proper ending" is "the story is over, and I can walk away satisfied and never need to read another volume," then no, Deadline doesn't have a proper ending. I have often said that the only time it's appropriate to end on a cliffhanger is in the second book of a trilogy, and Deadline ends on a pretty major cliffhanger. I can't apologize for that. It's the nature of the trilogy structure that part two will often end on a cliffhanger, and is allowed to do so. I don't end series books on cliffhangers; the Toby books, and the InCryptid books, all have solid, closed endings. I try to make sure there's always more story, but you can still walk away if you need to. This book is not those books.
Let me be clear: Deadline has an ending. There is a point where it ceases to be Deadline, and becomes Blackout, and that point is where the book ends. The Newsflesh trilogy is three books long, and those books are intrinsically linked, but each of them begins, and ends, at a certain place. The thrust and mood and structure of each volume is different, and when you pick up Blackout, you'll be reading a very different book, even if Deadline ended with some pretty major questions unanswered. I didn't pick that end point arbitrarily. I picked it because that was where the story of Deadline ended, and the story of Blackout began.
I completely understand and appreciate frustration over unanswered questions, unfinished measures, and endings that don't appear to end. And I also understand why some people have chosen to buy Deadline and put it on the shelf to wait for Blackout. I wrote back to the person who emailed me and said that I was sorry, I hadn't done it to increase sales or because my publisher made me; I ended the story where I did because that was where the story ended. And I stand by that.
Deadline may not have a "proper" ending.
But it has the right one.
- Current Mood:
thoughtful - Current Music:Ludo, "Too Tired to Wink."
Words: 4,226.
Total words: 146,291.
Estimated words remaining: 4,000.
Reason for stopping: I am sick even unto death.
Music: really, really LOUD rock and roll.
Cats: Alice, flat on the lower tier of the cat tree; Lilly, on the windowsill; Thomas, on the top level of the cat tree.
As expected, I did not finish the book today. Also as expected, the book is going to run a little over my first draft estimate, putting us, oh, probably closer to 155,000 than 150,000 words. That's fine. Soon, I will finish this draft, process my pending edits, and ship the whole messy thing off to the patient Machete Squad for hacking into bits.
I am truly and genuinely almost done with my first series as Mira Grant. I am getting ready to write "THE END" on this huge, sprawling, amazing story. I am delighted. I am terrified.
I am also sick even unto death, so I'm going to go sleep now.
Total words: 146,291.
Estimated words remaining: 4,000.
Reason for stopping: I am sick even unto death.
Music: really, really LOUD rock and roll.
Cats: Alice, flat on the lower tier of the cat tree; Lilly, on the windowsill; Thomas, on the top level of the cat tree.
As expected, I did not finish the book today. Also as expected, the book is going to run a little over my first draft estimate, putting us, oh, probably closer to 155,000 than 150,000 words. That's fine. Soon, I will finish this draft, process my pending edits, and ship the whole messy thing off to the patient Machete Squad for hacking into bits.
I am truly and genuinely almost done with my first series as Mira Grant. I am getting ready to write "THE END" on this huge, sprawling, amazing story. I am delighted. I am terrified.
I am also sick even unto death, so I'm going to go sleep now.
- Current Mood:
sick - Current Music:Katy Perry, "Mannequin."
Monday dawned bright and (very, very) early, since DongWon had asked that I be at Orbit at nine a.m. to do some recording. Now, Orbit is located near Grand Central Station, which is very much Properly In Manhattan. I was staying in Jersey City, which is very much not Properly In Manhattan. It is, in fact, in a different state. As a California girl, this causes me a certain amount of existential confusion every time I need to go from one to the other very quickly, since I know, deep down in my soul, that it takes at least eight hours to go from one state to another. Such is the eternal divide between the East and West Coasts.
Since I needed to get to Orbit by nine, I got up at seven. This means that, on some level, I got up at four. There is a reason I occasionally demand love and caffeine from my editors. I am comfortable enough with Manhattan at this point that I was able to get myself to the office with a minimum of trouble (barring a brief "walking the wrong way up 6th Avenue" incident, and really, that could have happened to anyone), which is good, since I was carrying my laptop. Yes, the big orange one. Yes, the one that weighs as much as one of the cats. Why?
Because I was having dinner with The Agent and a few more of her clients that evening, which meant there was no way I was getting back to Jersey City. And if I was going to be at Orbit all day, I was damn well going to get some serious work done.
I beat DongWon to the office by almost twenty minutes, and was detained by security until he arrived. I am never letting him forget this. Never ever ever never. But! He did eventually show up, and we were able to get into the office, finally, where there were greetings and huggings, and presentations of really fancy chocolate (from me to the office, not from the office to me). I had time to inhale one doughnut and drink a bottle of Diet Dr Pepper, and then it was off to the recording studio, where a very nice engineer explained how a recording booth worked. Thanks, nice engineer! Nobody had bothered to tell him that I have three studio albums out. Sorry, nice engineer.
My first task: recording the audio book edition of "Apocalypse Scenario." Super-fun! I managed not to get too into it, but wow was I glad to have done voice work before. It was nice and smooth and lovely. I followed it with two different podcast recordings, all done in the same wee room. Everything was professional and well-orchestrated, and before I knew it, it was all over, and I was being settled at the only open desk in the office.
Cue working. Type type type. Type type type. I was supposed to have lunch with some friends who were also in New York for BEA; when they didn't answer their phones, I had lunch with DongWon and Devi (another Orbit editor) instead. We went to a seafood restaurant, where I ate mussels and potatoes and hot fudge sundae, om nom. DongWon had to run before we finished eating, leaving Davi and I to talk about him behind his back. Ha ha, DongWon. Ha, ha.
Back to the office; more working; more whining at my computer. I actually had to borrow copies of Feed and Deadline to use as reference material, since otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to verify the continuity of what I was writing. This is why it's good to write at your publisher's. They'll always have copies of the books you need on hand.
Eventually, the day ended. Poof. And I, being the sensible girl that I am, loaded up my tote bag with my laptop and all the books I had managed to collect over the course of the day and went hieing off to downtown to meet up with The Agent for dinner. She had directed me to a library, in an alley, in an unfamiliar part of the city. I assume this is because she wants to see whether I will survive being eaten by a Grue. I found the library, and felt very smug about it, right until I went inside, went down to the floor where the YA author event I was meeting her at was being held, and discovered that I had, in fact, descended to a very unpleasant and specialized CIRCLE OF HELL.
Seriously. What seemed like several hundred people (and may have been just fifty, I don't know, it was a CIRCLE OF HELL) were crammed into an itty-bitty space, creating an immense amount of heat and noise. And somewhere in all that chaos was my agent. I sought. I strove. I gave up.
Spotting a woman with a Diet Dr Pepper, I begged to know where it had come from, and damn near wept when informed that she had brought it with her. Then I discovered, much to my surprise, that she was actually a book blogger I know through her reviews. And then she took me to the secret cluster of book bloggers hiding from the heat near the elevators. Yay! Much joy and chatter and hugging followed, lasting until The Agent appeared, her new client Claire in tow, to whisk me away to a less hellish locale.
Did I attack the first gas station we passed like it was the Promised Land, coming away with a sack of Diet Dr Pepper? Yes. Yes, I did.
We had dinner at a lovely place near Waverly Place (still no wizards), where we ate bread and cheese and I had fish and eventually went downstairs and was horribly sick due to a fish bone sticking in my throat. Since I had not retained dinner, The Agent bought me a cupcake. Happy times. Claire was awesome, but I was tired, and BEA was the next morning, so I returned to New Jersey and slept. FOREVER.
Next: BEA and DAW. It's acronym day!
Since I needed to get to Orbit by nine, I got up at seven. This means that, on some level, I got up at four. There is a reason I occasionally demand love and caffeine from my editors. I am comfortable enough with Manhattan at this point that I was able to get myself to the office with a minimum of trouble (barring a brief "walking the wrong way up 6th Avenue" incident, and really, that could have happened to anyone), which is good, since I was carrying my laptop. Yes, the big orange one. Yes, the one that weighs as much as one of the cats. Why?
Because I was having dinner with The Agent and a few more of her clients that evening, which meant there was no way I was getting back to Jersey City. And if I was going to be at Orbit all day, I was damn well going to get some serious work done.
I beat DongWon to the office by almost twenty minutes, and was detained by security until he arrived. I am never letting him forget this. Never ever ever never. But! He did eventually show up, and we were able to get into the office, finally, where there were greetings and huggings, and presentations of really fancy chocolate (from me to the office, not from the office to me). I had time to inhale one doughnut and drink a bottle of Diet Dr Pepper, and then it was off to the recording studio, where a very nice engineer explained how a recording booth worked. Thanks, nice engineer! Nobody had bothered to tell him that I have three studio albums out. Sorry, nice engineer.
My first task: recording the audio book edition of "Apocalypse Scenario." Super-fun! I managed not to get too into it, but wow was I glad to have done voice work before. It was nice and smooth and lovely. I followed it with two different podcast recordings, all done in the same wee room. Everything was professional and well-orchestrated, and before I knew it, it was all over, and I was being settled at the only open desk in the office.
Cue working. Type type type. Type type type. I was supposed to have lunch with some friends who were also in New York for BEA; when they didn't answer their phones, I had lunch with DongWon and Devi (another Orbit editor) instead. We went to a seafood restaurant, where I ate mussels and potatoes and hot fudge sundae, om nom. DongWon had to run before we finished eating, leaving Davi and I to talk about him behind his back. Ha ha, DongWon. Ha, ha.
Back to the office; more working; more whining at my computer. I actually had to borrow copies of Feed and Deadline to use as reference material, since otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to verify the continuity of what I was writing. This is why it's good to write at your publisher's. They'll always have copies of the books you need on hand.
Eventually, the day ended. Poof. And I, being the sensible girl that I am, loaded up my tote bag with my laptop and all the books I had managed to collect over the course of the day and went hieing off to downtown to meet up with The Agent for dinner. She had directed me to a library, in an alley, in an unfamiliar part of the city. I assume this is because she wants to see whether I will survive being eaten by a Grue. I found the library, and felt very smug about it, right until I went inside, went down to the floor where the YA author event I was meeting her at was being held, and discovered that I had, in fact, descended to a very unpleasant and specialized CIRCLE OF HELL.
Seriously. What seemed like several hundred people (and may have been just fifty, I don't know, it was a CIRCLE OF HELL) were crammed into an itty-bitty space, creating an immense amount of heat and noise. And somewhere in all that chaos was my agent. I sought. I strove. I gave up.
Spotting a woman with a Diet Dr Pepper, I begged to know where it had come from, and damn near wept when informed that she had brought it with her. Then I discovered, much to my surprise, that she was actually a book blogger I know through her reviews. And then she took me to the secret cluster of book bloggers hiding from the heat near the elevators. Yay! Much joy and chatter and hugging followed, lasting until The Agent appeared, her new client Claire in tow, to whisk me away to a less hellish locale.
Did I attack the first gas station we passed like it was the Promised Land, coming away with a sack of Diet Dr Pepper? Yes. Yes, I did.
We had dinner at a lovely place near Waverly Place (still no wizards), where we ate bread and cheese and I had fish and eventually went downstairs and was horribly sick due to a fish bone sticking in my throat. Since I had not retained dinner, The Agent bought me a cupcake. Happy times. Claire was awesome, but I was tired, and BEA was the next morning, so I returned to New Jersey and slept. FOREVER.
Next: BEA and DAW. It's acronym day!
- Current Mood:
awake - Current Music:Death Cab, "Codes and Keys.
1. It is now twenty-one days to Deadline. I am scrambling to catch up on "Countdown" (the series of little in-universe snapshots has a name!), and writing ahead so as not to get caught flat-footed by my next convention adventure. I'm not certain I'll have internet while at Wiscon, so the last few pieces may be posted a little late, but they will be posted.
2. The cats responded to my going to Leprecon by magically acquiring giant felted mats which should have taken them well over a week to create. Last night's brushing adventure was a lot of fun for everyone involved, let me tell you what. Also, ow. Also, I am so saying "screw this noise" when I get home from BEA/Wiscon, and just taking the pair of them straight to the professional groomer for trimming and mat removal. I am not going through that again if I don't have to.
3. My whole house is clean! Why is my whole house clean? Because my mother is awesome! Why is my mother awesome? Because she cleaned my house! The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.
4. I get a Cat this weekend! Cat Valente is using my house as her base of operations during the San Francisco Bay Area branch of her tour for The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. She'll be at our best-beloved Borderlands Books this Saturday; there will be cupcakes, and carousing, and all the usual wonderful things. You should totally come.
5. There will be another, probably photo-heavy post about this later, but...I got an Evangeline Ghastly doll! More precisely, I got two; the one I bought, and one that mysteriously appeared on my doorstep in a big-ass box from Wilde Imagination. My squealing, it was vast. Of course, now I have entered the dark realm of the ball-jointed doll, from which there is no returning. Which leads us to...
6. I am allowed to do one fiscally silly thing every time I do certain things, career-wise. As I have done a certain thing (more on this later), I get to be silly, and I've decided that this time, for silly, I want a resin Evangeline doll. They fit more of the clothes, and can wear all the shoes. Specifically, I want the Cemetery Wedding Evangeline, since she has the best face. If you know anyone who might be selling part of a doll collection, please let me know?
7. The new season of Doctor Who continues to delight me.
8. I have finished the Tybalt short! "Rat-Catcher" is 10,000 words long, and has been officially submitted to the market it was written for. If they buy it, I'll announce when and where it will be appearing. If they don't, I'll start looking for something else to do with a story full of Cait Sidhe. Whatever I do, it will probably need to involve gooshy food.
9. Zombies are love.
10. I am hammered enough right now that my response time is slow, and the amnesty on replying to comments on the "Countdown" posts endures. I'll still answer comments on all other posts; it may just take me a little while. Thank you for being understanding.
2. The cats responded to my going to Leprecon by magically acquiring giant felted mats which should have taken them well over a week to create. Last night's brushing adventure was a lot of fun for everyone involved, let me tell you what. Also, ow. Also, I am so saying "screw this noise" when I get home from BEA/Wiscon, and just taking the pair of them straight to the professional groomer for trimming and mat removal. I am not going through that again if I don't have to.
3. My whole house is clean! Why is my whole house clean? Because my mother is awesome! Why is my mother awesome? Because she cleaned my house! The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.
4. I get a Cat this weekend! Cat Valente is using my house as her base of operations during the San Francisco Bay Area branch of her tour for The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. She'll be at our best-beloved Borderlands Books this Saturday; there will be cupcakes, and carousing, and all the usual wonderful things. You should totally come.
5. There will be another, probably photo-heavy post about this later, but...I got an Evangeline Ghastly doll! More precisely, I got two; the one I bought, and one that mysteriously appeared on my doorstep in a big-ass box from Wilde Imagination. My squealing, it was vast. Of course, now I have entered the dark realm of the ball-jointed doll, from which there is no returning. Which leads us to...
6. I am allowed to do one fiscally silly thing every time I do certain things, career-wise. As I have done a certain thing (more on this later), I get to be silly, and I've decided that this time, for silly, I want a resin Evangeline doll. They fit more of the clothes, and can wear all the shoes. Specifically, I want the Cemetery Wedding Evangeline, since she has the best face. If you know anyone who might be selling part of a doll collection, please let me know?
7. The new season of Doctor Who continues to delight me.
8. I have finished the Tybalt short! "Rat-Catcher" is 10,000 words long, and has been officially submitted to the market it was written for. If they buy it, I'll announce when and where it will be appearing. If they don't, I'll start looking for something else to do with a story full of Cait Sidhe. Whatever I do, it will probably need to involve gooshy food.
9. Zombies are love.
10. I am hammered enough right now that my response time is slow, and the amnesty on replying to comments on the "Countdown" posts endures. I'll still answer comments on all other posts; it may just take me a little while. Thank you for being understanding.
- Current Mood:
tired - Current Music:Hairspray, "Good Morning Baltimore."
Hello, everybody, and welcome to my journal. I'm pretty sure you know who I am, my name being in the URL and all, but just in case, I'm Seanan McGuire (also known as Mira Grant), and you're probably not on Candid Camera. This post exists to answer a few of the questions I get asked on a semi-hemi-demi-regular basis. It may look familiar; that's because it gets updated and re-posted roughly every two months, to let folks who've just wandered in know how things work around here. Also, sometimes I change the questions. Because I can.
If you've read this before, feel free to skip, although there may be interesting new things to discover and know beyond the cut.
Anyway, here you go:
( This way lies a lot of information you may or may not need about the person whose LJ you may or may not be reading right at this moment. Also, I may or may not be the King of Rain, which may or may not explain why it's drizzling right now. Essentially, this is Schrodinger's cut-tag.Collapse )
If you've read this before, feel free to skip, although there may be interesting new things to discover and know beyond the cut.
Anyway, here you go:
( This way lies a lot of information you may or may not need about the person whose LJ you may or may not be reading right at this moment. Also, I may or may not be the King of Rain, which may or may not explain why it's drizzling right now. Essentially, this is Schrodinger's cut-tag.Collapse )
- Current Mood:
geeky - Current Music:SJ Tucker, "Cheshire Kitten."
So this has been a week. Yes. That is definitely what it's been. Rarely has a week been so very week-shaped, and so equipped with lots of little pointy days to stick things to. I have thoughts, honest I do, and many of them even make sense, but it's been such a week that I really am essentially reduced to sitting here going "well, yeah, that was a week." So here, have some bullet-points instead.
Writing.
I'm making awesome progress on Blackout, which is up to 115,000 words, which technically puts me a day ahead of target. If I can make my overly-ambitious goals for the weekend, I may be able to get far enough ahead of target that I can actually enjoy LepreCon next weekend without needing to get up in the morning and worry about word count. (I'll get up in the morning and worry about word count anyway. I just won't have to.)
"Rat-Catcher" is also coming along nicely, and I'm about halfway through the story. I'm shooting to finish the first draft by Monday or Tuesday of next week, and then hand it over to the Machete Squad for glorious abuse. It's being written for a specific anthology, but I can't say which one until the story is finished and the editor decides that it's worth printing. Assuming that happens, I'll make sure to share the ordering info, because who wouldn't want a story about Tybalt in London before he was King? Questions are asked, questions are answered, you get to meet the elusive September Torquill, and as a bonus, Tybalt's family is involved.
Watching.
So the season premiere of Doctor Who was amazing, and I can't wait for tomorrow night's episode. I love Matt Smith's Doctor so very much, and I really hope we get to keep him at least as long as we kept Tennant. (Young actor, more likely to want to avoid getting typecast. Young actor, more likely to go "This is AWESOME!" and keep doing the show just so he can play with more aliens. So it's a wash, and we'll need to wait and see.) I love Amy, I love Rory, I love that Rory's in the opening credits now, and yes, I even love River Song. Although there is now officially an embargo on characters named "River."
Two episodes remain in this season of Fringe, which is absolutely one of my favorite things on television, bar none. I'm even kind of jealous, since "alternate versions of the main character or characters" is one of my narrative kinks, and it's really, really hard to do when you're working purely in text. I've got some alternates coming up in the Vel stories, but that's about it. The storytelling on Fringe just keeps getting better, and I am so excited and terrified to see where this season ends.
Wandering.
May sort of kicks off my convention season in a big, big way, and next weekend is LepreCon, in scenic Tempe, Arizona. I'm their Music Guest of Honor! Which will be fun, since I'm working with an unfamiliar guitarist and we won't have much time to practice. That means our performance will be, if nothing else, sincere. I'm planning to have a great time, even if it kills me.
Later in the month, I'll have Cat Valente crashing at my place before her event at Borderlands to promote The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, which you should totally attend, and then heading to New York for Book Expo America, followed by Wiscon, with a stop in the middle at a high school in Wisconsin. And all of this should explain why I am quite so passionate about making my word counts every day, even if it kills me. There is no room left for slippage.
Wanting.
The new Monster High dolls have been announced, and to absolutely no one's surprise, I want them all. ALL OF THEM. I am going to need to get a new shelf. "All of them" includes the San Diego International Comic-Convention Exclusive Ghoulia Yelps cosplaying as her favorite superhero. Yes. A ZOMBIE SUPERHERO. I control all things.
What's up with you guys?
Writing.
I'm making awesome progress on Blackout, which is up to 115,000 words, which technically puts me a day ahead of target. If I can make my overly-ambitious goals for the weekend, I may be able to get far enough ahead of target that I can actually enjoy LepreCon next weekend without needing to get up in the morning and worry about word count. (I'll get up in the morning and worry about word count anyway. I just won't have to.)
"Rat-Catcher" is also coming along nicely, and I'm about halfway through the story. I'm shooting to finish the first draft by Monday or Tuesday of next week, and then hand it over to the Machete Squad for glorious abuse. It's being written for a specific anthology, but I can't say which one until the story is finished and the editor decides that it's worth printing. Assuming that happens, I'll make sure to share the ordering info, because who wouldn't want a story about Tybalt in London before he was King? Questions are asked, questions are answered, you get to meet the elusive September Torquill, and as a bonus, Tybalt's family is involved.
Watching.
So the season premiere of Doctor Who was amazing, and I can't wait for tomorrow night's episode. I love Matt Smith's Doctor so very much, and I really hope we get to keep him at least as long as we kept Tennant. (Young actor, more likely to want to avoid getting typecast. Young actor, more likely to go "This is AWESOME!" and keep doing the show just so he can play with more aliens. So it's a wash, and we'll need to wait and see.) I love Amy, I love Rory, I love that Rory's in the opening credits now, and yes, I even love River Song. Although there is now officially an embargo on characters named "River."
Two episodes remain in this season of Fringe, which is absolutely one of my favorite things on television, bar none. I'm even kind of jealous, since "alternate versions of the main character or characters" is one of my narrative kinks, and it's really, really hard to do when you're working purely in text. I've got some alternates coming up in the Vel stories, but that's about it. The storytelling on Fringe just keeps getting better, and I am so excited and terrified to see where this season ends.
Wandering.
May sort of kicks off my convention season in a big, big way, and next weekend is LepreCon, in scenic Tempe, Arizona. I'm their Music Guest of Honor! Which will be fun, since I'm working with an unfamiliar guitarist and we won't have much time to practice. That means our performance will be, if nothing else, sincere. I'm planning to have a great time, even if it kills me.
Later in the month, I'll have Cat Valente crashing at my place before her event at Borderlands to promote The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, which you should totally attend, and then heading to New York for Book Expo America, followed by Wiscon, with a stop in the middle at a high school in Wisconsin. And all of this should explain why I am quite so passionate about making my word counts every day, even if it kills me. There is no room left for slippage.
Wanting.
The new Monster High dolls have been announced, and to absolutely no one's surprise, I want them all. ALL OF THEM. I am going to need to get a new shelf. "All of them" includes the San Diego International Comic-Convention Exclusive Ghoulia Yelps cosplaying as her favorite superhero. Yes. A ZOMBIE SUPERHERO. I control all things.
What's up with you guys?
- Current Mood:
rushed - Current Music:Rockapella, "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?"
Dear Great Pumpkin;
It has been some time since I last wrote to you, but you have never been far from my thoughts. I just thought you might like me to do my own planting for a change. Since our last correspondence, I have not started any political movements or debunked any major scientific theories for my own amusement. I have loved my friends and looked upon my enemies with tolerant disdain, as opposed to reaching for the machete. I have shared my cookies. I have not brought about the end of all mankind, nor lured the unwary into the cornfield. I have continued to make all my deadlines, even the ones I most wanted to avoid. I have not talked about parasites at the dinner table. Much. So obviously, I have been quite well-behaved, especially considering my nature.
Today, Great Pumpkin, I am asking for the following gifts:
* A smooth and successful release for Deadline, with books shipping when they're meant to ship, stores putting them out when they're supposed to put them out, and reviews that are accurate, insightful, and capable of steering people who will enjoy my book to read it, while warning those who will not enjoy my book gently away. Please, Great Pumpkin, show mercy on your loving Pumpkin Princess of the West, and let it all be wonderful. I'm not asking you to make it easy, Great Pumpkin, but I'm asking you to make it good.
* Please let me finish the current draft of Blackout on time and without anything exploding when it's not supposed to, drawing this trilogy to a satisfying conclusion. I've never finished a series before, Great Pumpkin, and I admit, I'm nervous. I want to do this world, and these characters, justice; I want to make the people who've been with me since Feed was a crazy idea called Newsflesh proud. I know it can be done, and that I have the skills necessary for the task. All I ask is that you help me do it.
* And when that is done, o Prince of Patches, I ask that you help me to find my way back into the depths of Ashes of Honor without that changing-genres stumble; let Toby and her world open their arms and welcome me home, that I might transcribe the story that is already making my fingertips ache. There is so much that I want to do in this book, and only so many pages for me to do it in. Please help me find my way, and help me tell this story. It needs telling.
* I thank you once again for my cats, Great Pumpkin, who are everything I could ever ask for in feline companions. Alice is huge, puffy, and utterly without dignity. Lilly is sleek, smug, and satisfied with herself. Thomas is playful, expanding rapidly, and too smart for his own good. I have never been happier with the cats who share my life than I am with this trio, who delight me in all ways. Please, Great Pumpkin, keep them healthy, keep them happy, and keep them exactly as they are.
* I haven't said anything up to now about what I really want this year, Great Pumpkin, but...you know I've been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel. You know, because you know everything. You know that if I win, I'll be given a rocket ship in Reno, with my Amy and my Vixy in attendance. Neither of them could be there in Australia, and it would mean the world to all of us if they could be there to see this happen. Please shine your holy candle upon the Hugo, Great Pumpkin, and, if you see fit, I will thank you in any speeches I have to give (you know I'm good for it, I did it last time).
I remain your faithful Halloween girl,
Seanan.
PS: While you're at it, can you please turn your graces on Harvest? I sort of really want to tell this story. It centers on Halloween, you're going to love it.
It has been some time since I last wrote to you, but you have never been far from my thoughts. I just thought you might like me to do my own planting for a change. Since our last correspondence, I have not started any political movements or debunked any major scientific theories for my own amusement. I have loved my friends and looked upon my enemies with tolerant disdain, as opposed to reaching for the machete. I have shared my cookies. I have not brought about the end of all mankind, nor lured the unwary into the cornfield. I have continued to make all my deadlines, even the ones I most wanted to avoid. I have not talked about parasites at the dinner table. Much. So obviously, I have been quite well-behaved, especially considering my nature.
Today, Great Pumpkin, I am asking for the following gifts:
* A smooth and successful release for Deadline, with books shipping when they're meant to ship, stores putting them out when they're supposed to put them out, and reviews that are accurate, insightful, and capable of steering people who will enjoy my book to read it, while warning those who will not enjoy my book gently away. Please, Great Pumpkin, show mercy on your loving Pumpkin Princess of the West, and let it all be wonderful. I'm not asking you to make it easy, Great Pumpkin, but I'm asking you to make it good.
* Please let me finish the current draft of Blackout on time and without anything exploding when it's not supposed to, drawing this trilogy to a satisfying conclusion. I've never finished a series before, Great Pumpkin, and I admit, I'm nervous. I want to do this world, and these characters, justice; I want to make the people who've been with me since Feed was a crazy idea called Newsflesh proud. I know it can be done, and that I have the skills necessary for the task. All I ask is that you help me do it.
* And when that is done, o Prince of Patches, I ask that you help me to find my way back into the depths of Ashes of Honor without that changing-genres stumble; let Toby and her world open their arms and welcome me home, that I might transcribe the story that is already making my fingertips ache. There is so much that I want to do in this book, and only so many pages for me to do it in. Please help me find my way, and help me tell this story. It needs telling.
* I thank you once again for my cats, Great Pumpkin, who are everything I could ever ask for in feline companions. Alice is huge, puffy, and utterly without dignity. Lilly is sleek, smug, and satisfied with herself. Thomas is playful, expanding rapidly, and too smart for his own good. I have never been happier with the cats who share my life than I am with this trio, who delight me in all ways. Please, Great Pumpkin, keep them healthy, keep them happy, and keep them exactly as they are.
* I haven't said anything up to now about what I really want this year, Great Pumpkin, but...you know I've been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel. You know, because you know everything. You know that if I win, I'll be given a rocket ship in Reno, with my Amy and my Vixy in attendance. Neither of them could be there in Australia, and it would mean the world to all of us if they could be there to see this happen. Please shine your holy candle upon the Hugo, Great Pumpkin, and, if you see fit, I will thank you in any speeches I have to give (you know I'm good for it, I did it last time).
I remain your faithful Halloween girl,
Seanan.
PS: While you're at it, can you please turn your graces on Harvest? I sort of really want to tell this story. It centers on Halloween, you're going to love it.
- Current Mood:
hopeful - Current Music:Ludo, "Skeletons On Parade."
April is the cruelest month. It is also, apparently, the month where I spend half my time dealing with the pieces and paperwork that I spend the other half of my time ignoring. Yippee for me!
In a weird way, I really do mean that. I am a creature of essential chaos, bounded and defined by an equally essential degree of order. I can't have an artfully disorganized shelf of stuffed toys unless I know where they are to artfully disorganize them in the first place. I can't make room for more Monster High toys (and I am about to make room for a lot more Monster High toys*) unless I have the ones I already own put where I want them. My intellectual life is very similar. I can't tell the stories I want to tell unless the ones I've already told are where they're supposed to be.
So last night I processed edits and approved page proofs and made my word count (which I've been pushing hard lately, to try to buy myself a day off on Sunday for Jeanne's wedding), and then I set up the spreadsheet for the Wicked Girls shirts and started confirming people's requests. Remind me next time I say "I don't know if twelve people will want this..." that the answer is almost certainly "yes, they will" and "hire an assistant for the duration." I may have to cut orders off after two weeks, rather than waiting a whole month, just so I'm not still mailing them come time to head for San Diego. (Yes, I have lots of other trips between here and there. That's just sort of the big 'un for this summer.)
I also managed to place my order for convention ribbons for the next year (or two, or three). Wow, did I order a lot of ribbons. Like, even the person who handles the ribbon orders was all "that's a lot of ribbons." But it means I will have AWESOME RIBBONS, so that's okay, then. Not all of them will be handed out with joyous abandon, since some are specific to events or panels or states of mind, but there should be plenty to share with all. Yay, ribbons!
Today, I will go to the passport office and apply for my new passport, go by the DMV and get an actual state ID for the first time in ten years, and then go home, write 2,000 words, and update my T-shirt spreadsheet a whole bunch. This is going to be the way my week goes.
How about you?
(*See, this is how you know I don't have any advance copies of upcoming books. Because if I did, I would so be trying to BRIBE THE WORLD FOR TOYS. I'd be like, "Who wants to swap me a zombie novel for a zombie in her prom dress?", and I'd have the Dawn of the Dance Ghoulia Yelps to love and hug and shamble for me.)
In a weird way, I really do mean that. I am a creature of essential chaos, bounded and defined by an equally essential degree of order. I can't have an artfully disorganized shelf of stuffed toys unless I know where they are to artfully disorganize them in the first place. I can't make room for more Monster High toys (and I am about to make room for a lot more Monster High toys*) unless I have the ones I already own put where I want them. My intellectual life is very similar. I can't tell the stories I want to tell unless the ones I've already told are where they're supposed to be.
So last night I processed edits and approved page proofs and made my word count (which I've been pushing hard lately, to try to buy myself a day off on Sunday for Jeanne's wedding), and then I set up the spreadsheet for the Wicked Girls shirts and started confirming people's requests. Remind me next time I say "I don't know if twelve people will want this..." that the answer is almost certainly "yes, they will" and "hire an assistant for the duration." I may have to cut orders off after two weeks, rather than waiting a whole month, just so I'm not still mailing them come time to head for San Diego. (Yes, I have lots of other trips between here and there. That's just sort of the big 'un for this summer.)
I also managed to place my order for convention ribbons for the next year (or two, or three). Wow, did I order a lot of ribbons. Like, even the person who handles the ribbon orders was all "that's a lot of ribbons." But it means I will have AWESOME RIBBONS, so that's okay, then. Not all of them will be handed out with joyous abandon, since some are specific to events or panels or states of mind, but there should be plenty to share with all. Yay, ribbons!
Today, I will go to the passport office and apply for my new passport, go by the DMV and get an actual state ID for the first time in ten years, and then go home, write 2,000 words, and update my T-shirt spreadsheet a whole bunch. This is going to be the way my week goes.
How about you?
(*See, this is how you know I don't have any advance copies of upcoming books. Because if I did, I would so be trying to BRIBE THE WORLD FOR TOYS. I'd be like, "Who wants to swap me a zombie novel for a zombie in her prom dress?", and I'd have the Dawn of the Dance Ghoulia Yelps to love and hug and shamble for me.)
- Current Mood: rushed
- Current Music:Ludo, "Too Tired to Wink."
1. The Roseville event was awesome, and the store now has autographed copies of all five of my currently published books. A Local Habitation is naturally in the shortest supply, so if you'd been planning to swing by the store and pick up a set, you should probably do so soon, before everything goes away. Thanks to Alex, for having me, and to Sunil, for bringing me wonderful goodies from England and giving me hugs.
2. In case you missed the announcement, An Artificial Night is in the BSC Review Book Tournament Finals, and Toby could use your vote. Also, once she has conclusively CRUSHED HER OPPONENT, I can stop posting about this, thus freeing up your valuable display space for other topics, like the ever-popular "complaining about my cats."
3. I really enjoyed the newest Disney Channel Original Movie, Lemonade Mouth. I did not enjoy them presenting the first hour of the movie sans commercials without warning me first, as it meant I had not brought a soda, or a blanket, or the paperwork I needed to finish during the movie, before sitting down on the couch. I am told the book is better than the movie. I must now read the book.
4. Served at yesterday's brunch: potato cake. It's cake, made of potatoes, bacon fat, and bacon. HOW CAN THIS BE? The spirit of
sweetmusic_27 hovered over my shoulder and watched me eat it, and I now need the recipe, because I must cook it for her. It is a moral imperative.
5. I visited the Sacramento Shirt Shop, and plans for Wicked Girls shirts are now proceeding apace. I should be posting about it soon. Girl-cut shirts are available up to 2x, and we'll be able to do standard-cut shirts up to 5x, as needed, for no additional cost. Baby shirts are a different setup, and so would be a different order. Details will be forthcoming; I don't have them just yet.
6. I am solidly on target to hit 100,000 words on Blackout by Saturday. This is both incredibly exciting and incredibly stressful, since it means I'm coming closer and closer to the point where I have to stop setting things up in favor of knocking everything down. Considering what I have left to do in this volume, I'm starting to worry that the first draft may need more trimming than I thought. Since I am a perennial trimmer (better a late trim than a panicked plumping), this is okay, it's just surprising.
7. Zombies are love.
8. The Cartoon Network schedule for the rest of 2011 has been released, and Tower Prep is not represented. Here's hoping this is either a glitch, or they're about to announce moving Tower Prep to SyFy, where it could find an enormous audience and live forever.
9. I will probably celebrate hitting 100,000 words on Blackout by cleaning as much of my room as is physically possible and then writing the rest of "Rat-Catcher" in one feverish sprint. Don't judge me, this is how writers party hard.
10. Doctor Who comes back on Saturday. Saturday can't come fast enough.
2. In case you missed the announcement, An Artificial Night is in the BSC Review Book Tournament Finals, and Toby could use your vote. Also, once she has conclusively CRUSHED HER OPPONENT, I can stop posting about this, thus freeing up your valuable display space for other topics, like the ever-popular "complaining about my cats."
3. I really enjoyed the newest Disney Channel Original Movie, Lemonade Mouth. I did not enjoy them presenting the first hour of the movie sans commercials without warning me first, as it meant I had not brought a soda, or a blanket, or the paperwork I needed to finish during the movie, before sitting down on the couch. I am told the book is better than the movie. I must now read the book.
4. Served at yesterday's brunch: potato cake. It's cake, made of potatoes, bacon fat, and bacon. HOW CAN THIS BE? The spirit of
sweetmusic_27 hovered over my shoulder and watched me eat it, and I now need the recipe, because I must cook it for her. It is a moral imperative.5. I visited the Sacramento Shirt Shop, and plans for Wicked Girls shirts are now proceeding apace. I should be posting about it soon. Girl-cut shirts are available up to 2x, and we'll be able to do standard-cut shirts up to 5x, as needed, for no additional cost. Baby shirts are a different setup, and so would be a different order. Details will be forthcoming; I don't have them just yet.
6. I am solidly on target to hit 100,000 words on Blackout by Saturday. This is both incredibly exciting and incredibly stressful, since it means I'm coming closer and closer to the point where I have to stop setting things up in favor of knocking everything down. Considering what I have left to do in this volume, I'm starting to worry that the first draft may need more trimming than I thought. Since I am a perennial trimmer (better a late trim than a panicked plumping), this is okay, it's just surprising.
7. Zombies are love.
8. The Cartoon Network schedule for the rest of 2011 has been released, and Tower Prep is not represented. Here's hoping this is either a glitch, or they're about to announce moving Tower Prep to SyFy, where it could find an enormous audience and live forever.
9. I will probably celebrate hitting 100,000 words on Blackout by cleaning as much of my room as is physically possible and then writing the rest of "Rat-Catcher" in one feverish sprint. Don't judge me, this is how writers party hard.
10. Doctor Who comes back on Saturday. Saturday can't come fast enough.
- Current Mood:
happy - Current Music:Ludo, "All the Stars in Texas."
Pardon me for profanity, but how the fucking fuck are we already at the April list of current projects? This implies that we have somehow already consumed 1/3rd of 2011, and I, for one, am NOT OKAY with this idea. Seriously, I have Shit To Do in 2011, and not enough of it has been finished, which means that it can't be April yet. Okay? Okay. Come on, universe. Fix yourself.
...or not. Since I don't control time, welcome to the April 2011 list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Deadline and One Salt Sea). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
...or not. Since I don't control time, welcome to the April 2011 list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving. To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Deadline and One Salt Sea). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
- Current Mood:
busy - Current Music:Ludo, "Overdone."
1. I have been blazingly ill since Sunday afternoon, and spent most of yesterday and Monday in a cold medication haze. I am thus behind on LJ comments, email, snail mail, passenger pigeon mail, Facebook mail (well, I'm always behind on Facebook mail), sending out the mail, opening the mail, and anything else that required actual effort on my part. If you're waiting for a response from me, please, be patient. If your request is urgent, please, mail again. If I do not consider your request to be actually urgent, like you're asking for kitten pictures or something, I reserve the right to delete your email and scowl in your general direction.
2. Despite being blazingly ill, I managed to make my word counts on Blackout both days, and am on track to hit 100,000 words on April 23rd. This is good, since it means I may actually finish the book, you know, on time. I love finishing things on time. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and slightly less completely deranged.
3. Saturday night was GP's birthday party! I did not come home that night, as it was late and we were all exhausted and sort of drunk (and yes, this may have dealt my immune system the fatal blow). Thomas showed his disapproval by climbing onto my computer desk, gently nudging aside the dolls on the second shelf, pulling down the jar in which I store my earplugs, opening the jar, dumping out the earplugs, and eating half of them. I do not know why he is so obsessed with eating the damn things, but he's why I bought that jar in the first place. Now he shits little pink bullets, and looks smug.
4. My vet has confirmed that this won't hurt him, but is also sub-optimal. I have moved my earplugs.
5. The first draft of "Crystal Halloway, Girl Wonder, and the Terror of the Truth Fairy" is finished and being hacked at by the Machete Squad. This is seriously the most depressing, nihilistic story I think I've ever written. Which makes it appropriate that I wrote it while I was sick even unto death. This thing reads like the prologue to a Vertigo comic series.
6. I am not writing a Vertigo comic series. Unless, of course, DC asks me to.
7. I also got started on the first draft of "Rat-Catcher," a Tobyverse story set in London, in 1662 (yes, only a few years before the Great Fire, and the Great Plague). In it, a young Prince of Cats named Rand must stop playing theater cat at the Duke's Theater long enough to find a way to deal with his father, keep his sister from doing something monumentally stupid, and oh, right, maybe save the Cait Sidhe of London from a fate worse than death. Is this Tybalt's origin story? Why yes. Yes, it is.
8. Things already pulled from my research shelf in service of "Rat-Catcher": The Writer's Digest Guide to Character Naming (second edition), London: A Biography, Sex and Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, and The Wordsworth Dictionary of Shakespeare. Make of this what you will.
9. Being sick did allow me to catch up on some of my cache of SyFy Original Movies, including the second half of Meteor with Marla Sokoloff. This was a disturbingly good, surprisingly high-budget feature, especially for a SyFy Saturday. Also, not only were women competent and realistic characters, they didn't all die. Well done, SyFy. Keep up the good work.
10. Zombies are still love.
What's up with you?
2. Despite being blazingly ill, I managed to make my word counts on Blackout both days, and am on track to hit 100,000 words on April 23rd. This is good, since it means I may actually finish the book, you know, on time. I love finishing things on time. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and slightly less completely deranged.
3. Saturday night was GP's birthday party! I did not come home that night, as it was late and we were all exhausted and sort of drunk (and yes, this may have dealt my immune system the fatal blow). Thomas showed his disapproval by climbing onto my computer desk, gently nudging aside the dolls on the second shelf, pulling down the jar in which I store my earplugs, opening the jar, dumping out the earplugs, and eating half of them. I do not know why he is so obsessed with eating the damn things, but he's why I bought that jar in the first place. Now he shits little pink bullets, and looks smug.
4. My vet has confirmed that this won't hurt him, but is also sub-optimal. I have moved my earplugs.
5. The first draft of "Crystal Halloway, Girl Wonder, and the Terror of the Truth Fairy" is finished and being hacked at by the Machete Squad. This is seriously the most depressing, nihilistic story I think I've ever written. Which makes it appropriate that I wrote it while I was sick even unto death. This thing reads like the prologue to a Vertigo comic series.
6. I am not writing a Vertigo comic series. Unless, of course, DC asks me to.
7. I also got started on the first draft of "Rat-Catcher," a Tobyverse story set in London, in 1662 (yes, only a few years before the Great Fire, and the Great Plague). In it, a young Prince of Cats named Rand must stop playing theater cat at the Duke's Theater long enough to find a way to deal with his father, keep his sister from doing something monumentally stupid, and oh, right, maybe save the Cait Sidhe of London from a fate worse than death. Is this Tybalt's origin story? Why yes. Yes, it is.
8. Things already pulled from my research shelf in service of "Rat-Catcher": The Writer's Digest Guide to Character Naming (second edition), London: A Biography, Sex and Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, and The Wordsworth Dictionary of Shakespeare. Make of this what you will.
9. Being sick did allow me to catch up on some of my cache of SyFy Original Movies, including the second half of Meteor with Marla Sokoloff. This was a disturbingly good, surprisingly high-budget feature, especially for a SyFy Saturday. Also, not only were women competent and realistic characters, they didn't all die. Well done, SyFy. Keep up the good work.
10. Zombies are still love.
What's up with you?
- Current Mood:
exanimate - Current Music:Ludo, "The Broken Bride I."
LJ appears to be vaguely stable again, which is a nice change. I missed you, LJ! I know that blogging is dead, and it's the age of Farmville or the Tweet or whatever, and I'm on Facebook (technically) and Twitter (avidly), but my heart's true home is here, in Blogland, where I can write full sentences and punctuate them properly without worrying about the number of commas I use. I LOVE YOU, OXFORD COMMA.
Ahem. Anyway...
We're in a vague lull right now, which is nice, since it's letting me catch up on my word counts. I knocked out 2,000 words of Blackout last night, and then turned around and wrote almost as much on "Crystal Halloway, Girl Wonder, and the Truth Fairy's Curse," which sounds like a fluffy cross between Nancy Drew and every Harry Potter knock-off ever, but is, no shit, the most depressingly nihilistic thing I've written in years. Possibly ever. I made a giant spider cry. I have no regrets.
I do have a book event at the Borders in Roseville, California scheduled for next Saturday, and if you're local, it would be awesome if you could drop by. Borders events are much more low-key than the Traveling Circus, and sometimes it winds up just me, sitting at my little "in-store author" table, working on art cards and pretending that I'm not lonely. Help me not be lonely!
Speaking of being lonely, there's been, like, a hugenormous influx of people recently, and I honestly can't tell why. There was a little bump last week, when I posted about my decision to withdraw from Wicked Pretty Things, but since then, it's just been like, WHOA HOLY CRAP I DON'T HAVE THIS MANY PLATES. So if you're new here, hello! Welcome! Can you please tell me who you are and how you got here? I'm totally thrilled to have you, I just like to have some vague idea of what's going on. (Yeah, right. Like that's ever going to happen.)
In other news, water is wet, zombies are love, Jean Grey is still dead, and Thomas is rapidly approaching an improbable size.
What's new with you?
Ahem. Anyway...
We're in a vague lull right now, which is nice, since it's letting me catch up on my word counts. I knocked out 2,000 words of Blackout last night, and then turned around and wrote almost as much on "Crystal Halloway, Girl Wonder, and the Truth Fairy's Curse," which sounds like a fluffy cross between Nancy Drew and every Harry Potter knock-off ever, but is, no shit, the most depressingly nihilistic thing I've written in years. Possibly ever. I made a giant spider cry. I have no regrets.
I do have a book event at the Borders in Roseville, California scheduled for next Saturday, and if you're local, it would be awesome if you could drop by. Borders events are much more low-key than the Traveling Circus, and sometimes it winds up just me, sitting at my little "in-store author" table, working on art cards and pretending that I'm not lonely. Help me not be lonely!
Speaking of being lonely, there's been, like, a hugenormous influx of people recently, and I honestly can't tell why. There was a little bump last week, when I posted about my decision to withdraw from Wicked Pretty Things, but since then, it's just been like, WHOA HOLY CRAP I DON'T HAVE THIS MANY PLATES. So if you're new here, hello! Welcome! Can you please tell me who you are and how you got here? I'm totally thrilled to have you, I just like to have some vague idea of what's going on. (Yeah, right. Like that's ever going to happen.)
In other news, water is wet, zombies are love, Jean Grey is still dead, and Thomas is rapidly approaching an improbable size.
What's new with you?
- Current Mood: awake
- Current Music:Christian Kane, "Thinking of You."
Words: 10,842.
Total words: 61,647.
Reason for stopping: finished chapter thirteen. It's time for dinner.
Music: random shuffle, an enormous amount of Glee.
Cats: Alice, on the guest room bed; Lilly, loafed up on the cat tree; Thomas, parts unknown.
So no, I didn't manage to hit 70,000 words before the invasion descended. But I did manage to break 200 pages in the manuscript, a landmark which came solidly in the middle of a very grim, very tense scene that was both hell and extremely exciting to write. All my chickens are coming home to roost, which is exactly what needs to happen with a book of this sort, and yet is still very satisfying to see actually happen.
I've set up a little tracker in my .txt file, the one that I pass from machine to machine as I track all the junk and links and random things that build up in my life. This one compares my current word count to the "must be at least this tall to ride this ride" word count (IE, "how long the book has to be"). I'm aiming for between 140,000 and 150,000 words. Right now, I'm right on track. That is both amazing and terrifying.
I'm starting to feel like this book may actually put paid to everything. It's crazy, but it's true.
I think I can do this.
Total words: 61,647.
Reason for stopping: finished chapter thirteen. It's time for dinner.
Music: random shuffle, an enormous amount of Glee.
Cats: Alice, on the guest room bed; Lilly, loafed up on the cat tree; Thomas, parts unknown.
So no, I didn't manage to hit 70,000 words before the invasion descended. But I did manage to break 200 pages in the manuscript, a landmark which came solidly in the middle of a very grim, very tense scene that was both hell and extremely exciting to write. All my chickens are coming home to roost, which is exactly what needs to happen with a book of this sort, and yet is still very satisfying to see actually happen.
I've set up a little tracker in my .txt file, the one that I pass from machine to machine as I track all the junk and links and random things that build up in my life. This one compares my current word count to the "must be at least this tall to ride this ride" word count (IE, "how long the book has to be"). I'm aiming for between 140,000 and 150,000 words. Right now, I'm right on track. That is both amazing and terrifying.
I'm starting to feel like this book may actually put paid to everything. It's crazy, but it's true.
I think I can do this.
- Current Mood:
accomplished - Current Music:Scissor Sisters, "Music is the Victim."
And now, the moment we've all been waiting for: the one time in the year where I get to intone BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH and be topical, not, you know, weird. So! BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH, and beware also the March current projects post, wherein I will make it perfectly clear why I'm not coming to your birthday party. This is the March 2011 list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving. And yes, the date is there for a reason. Largely so you can find the right post, if you insanely want to reference them.
To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Deadline and One Salt Sea). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Deadline and One Salt Sea). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
- Current Mood: busy
- Current Music:Glee, "Kiss."
It is now Sunday; Late Eclipses [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] officially comes out in two days. This is terrifying and amazing. This is my fifth book. I mean, seriously, people, what the hell? Did I hit my head? Is this a really weird dream? How have I published five books?!
In honor of really weird dreams, I give you two stories I very much hope I get to tell.
1. I occasionally mention a book called Nativity of Chance. It's what I call my "Tim Powers book," because it's not the sort of book I usually write. It's about alchemy, and math, and language, and second chances, and siblings, and the families we find as opposed to the families we're given. It's about a girl named Dodger who loves numbers like she loves nothing else, and a boy named Roger who loves words like he loves nothing else, and the way they love each other. It's about Oz. It's about finding a place in a universe that loves you like a broken heart loves a last goodbye. I want to write it so bad, and I have to write at least five more books, first, because I'm just not good enough yet. But I can finally see good enough on a clear day, and that's very, very new.
2. The tenth InCryptid book is called Spelunking Through Hell: A Visitor's Guide to the Underworld. It's the story of Alice Price-Healy and Thomas Price and why true love is bad for you, and all the books before it are necessary, in part, to put the pieces in position for this last big story. I desperately want the series to do well enough to let me get this far, to let me show you what it looks like in the forests of my heart. I am good enough to tell this story. I just have to show my math if I want you to love it the way that I do.
In honor of really weird dreams, I give you two stories I very much hope I get to tell.
1. I occasionally mention a book called Nativity of Chance. It's what I call my "Tim Powers book," because it's not the sort of book I usually write. It's about alchemy, and math, and language, and second chances, and siblings, and the families we find as opposed to the families we're given. It's about a girl named Dodger who loves numbers like she loves nothing else, and a boy named Roger who loves words like he loves nothing else, and the way they love each other. It's about Oz. It's about finding a place in a universe that loves you like a broken heart loves a last goodbye. I want to write it so bad, and I have to write at least five more books, first, because I'm just not good enough yet. But I can finally see good enough on a clear day, and that's very, very new.
2. The tenth InCryptid book is called Spelunking Through Hell: A Visitor's Guide to the Underworld. It's the story of Alice Price-Healy and Thomas Price and why true love is bad for you, and all the books before it are necessary, in part, to put the pieces in position for this last big story. I desperately want the series to do well enough to let me get this far, to let me show you what it looks like in the forests of my heart. I am good enough to tell this story. I just have to show my math if I want you to love it the way that I do.
- Current Mood: thoughtful
- Current Music:Katy and Ju, "A Thousand Ships."
Current stats:
Words: 115,732
Pages: 427
Chapters: thirty-five of thirty-five
Started: February 15th, 2011
Finished: February 26th, 2011
So it turns out that when I'm really focused and not working too much on anything else (largely because I knew that failure to handle my revisions would make me useless as far as finishing anything else goes), I can get from one end of the longest Toby manuscript yet to the other end in eleven days. In case I ever need to go in for land-speed trials or anything crazy like that.
My timeline is fixed; my dialogue is tighter; my blocking is clarified; some questions have been answered; some new questions have been raised. I feel much more confident in Ashes of Honor now that I think I truly understand where the ground is at the end of One Salt Sea. It's a better book than it was eleven days ago. The Machete Squad has it now; I believe it will be a better book still when they're done with it. And then I can focus on the things yet to come, like Newsflesh three, and Toby six, and InCryptid two.
Sleep is for other people. Not me, and not Toby.
But it's a book, and I'm going to bed.
Words: 115,732
Pages: 427
Chapters: thirty-five of thirty-five
Started: February 15th, 2011
Finished: February 26th, 2011
So it turns out that when I'm really focused and not working too much on anything else (largely because I knew that failure to handle my revisions would make me useless as far as finishing anything else goes), I can get from one end of the longest Toby manuscript yet to the other end in eleven days. In case I ever need to go in for land-speed trials or anything crazy like that.
My timeline is fixed; my dialogue is tighter; my blocking is clarified; some questions have been answered; some new questions have been raised. I feel much more confident in Ashes of Honor now that I think I truly understand where the ground is at the end of One Salt Sea. It's a better book than it was eleven days ago. The Machete Squad has it now; I believe it will be a better book still when they're done with it. And then I can focus on the things yet to come, like Newsflesh three, and Toby six, and InCryptid two.
Sleep is for other people. Not me, and not Toby.
But it's a book, and I'm going to bed.
- Current Mood: tired
- Current Music:Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Strip My Mind."
We are now nine days from the release of Late Eclipses [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy]. I've been talking a lot about books and reading and stuff, but I haven't been talking all that much about what makes me write. Since inspiration and ideas are an integral part of the writing process, I figured that today would be a good day to post about nine things that inspire my writing.
9. Music. I have an entire YA series that was inspired, without irony, by listening to the Counting Crows song "Have You Seen Me Lately?" while half-asleep. I hit the line "I was out on the radio, starting to change/Somewhere out in America, it's starting to rain," and suddenly I had this whole complicated story in my head. It was pretty awesome.
8. Biology. I like to read books about parasites and diseases and the weird new discoveries we're making in the cloud forests of Borneo, and all these things lead to new concepts that will inevitably appear in my writing. Almost all the cryptid biology you're going to encounter in InCryptid comes from this particular exercise.
7. Travel. I love finding new places and new environments to set things in. It's a rare trip where I don't come away with at least one new concept gnawing on the back of my brain, going "oh, oh, no, really, come on, let's destroy Melbourne!" Or, you know. Something like that. Travel broadens your list of available things to smash.
6. Listening to my friends talk to each other. If I have a conversation with Kate, barring unexpected disconnects, I know roughly how we'll both react. If I listen while Kate has a conversation with Vixy, anything goes. I find that listening to conflicting viewpoints from people I know well can make me write a lot of interesting things.
5. Movies. No, I'm not saying "I go see a movie about robots and then I write a robot book." I'm saying "I go see a movie about robots, and there's this interesting moment in the middle where someone wants some pudding, and I start thinking about it, and then it's twenty minutes later and something's exploding and I have no idea what's going on."
4. Sociological constructs. I often think "wouldn't it be nice if society did..." for values of "did" that can involve damn near anything. And then I construct worlds to justify society doing whatever it is I've said "wouldn't it be nice" about. Sometimes this requires trilogies.
3. Dreams. Like almost every other author I've ever met, sometimes things come to me in dreams. I am not ashamed of this. My dreams kick ass.
2. Irritation. Haven't we all thought "sure, but I could do it better" about something? With me, the "something" is often a story or a concept or even a real-world event, and the result is often unnerving.
1. Paying attention. I walk a lot. I look around me a lot while I walk. The number of stories this has caused is legion.
9. Music. I have an entire YA series that was inspired, without irony, by listening to the Counting Crows song "Have You Seen Me Lately?" while half-asleep. I hit the line "I was out on the radio, starting to change/Somewhere out in America, it's starting to rain," and suddenly I had this whole complicated story in my head. It was pretty awesome.
8. Biology. I like to read books about parasites and diseases and the weird new discoveries we're making in the cloud forests of Borneo, and all these things lead to new concepts that will inevitably appear in my writing. Almost all the cryptid biology you're going to encounter in InCryptid comes from this particular exercise.
7. Travel. I love finding new places and new environments to set things in. It's a rare trip where I don't come away with at least one new concept gnawing on the back of my brain, going "oh, oh, no, really, come on, let's destroy Melbourne!" Or, you know. Something like that. Travel broadens your list of available things to smash.
6. Listening to my friends talk to each other. If I have a conversation with Kate, barring unexpected disconnects, I know roughly how we'll both react. If I listen while Kate has a conversation with Vixy, anything goes. I find that listening to conflicting viewpoints from people I know well can make me write a lot of interesting things.
5. Movies. No, I'm not saying "I go see a movie about robots and then I write a robot book." I'm saying "I go see a movie about robots, and there's this interesting moment in the middle where someone wants some pudding, and I start thinking about it, and then it's twenty minutes later and something's exploding and I have no idea what's going on."
4. Sociological constructs. I often think "wouldn't it be nice if society did..." for values of "did" that can involve damn near anything. And then I construct worlds to justify society doing whatever it is I've said "wouldn't it be nice" about. Sometimes this requires trilogies.
3. Dreams. Like almost every other author I've ever met, sometimes things come to me in dreams. I am not ashamed of this. My dreams kick ass.
2. Irritation. Haven't we all thought "sure, but I could do it better" about something? With me, the "something" is often a story or a concept or even a real-world event, and the result is often unnerving.
1. Paying attention. I walk a lot. I look around me a lot while I walk. The number of stories this has caused is legion.
- Current Mood: thoughtful
- Current Music:Counting Crows, "Rain King."
We are now twelve days from the release of Late Eclipses [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy]. I'm starting to freak out, and that means it's time to talk about things that make authors freak out. Here are twelve things about authors.
12. Asking an author who has just released a book (or is in pre-release for a book) "When's the next one?" is like asking a woman who's nine months pregnant "When's the next one?", only the author is probably not nine months pregnant, and is thus more likely to hit you. I am aware that this metaphor makes me out to be one of those faintly frightening women with twelve children, planning for twelve more. It's still true.
11. Most authors don't know where their ideas come from. Which doesn't mean you shouldn't ask; I seriously doubt I could be the one who killed that question in the hearts and minds of readers everywhere (although if I was, SFWA would probably saint me). It just means that when we answer you, we're probably lying.
10. No, that nice author you met on the bus once doesn't want to read your manuscript. I'm sorry. That nice dentist you met on the bus once doesn't want to clean your teeth for free, either.
9. An author on deadline is faintly neurotic, faintly obsessive, faintly hysterical, faintly depressed, and faintly insane. Sometimes just one of these; sometimes all five. Poke at your own risk.
8. Most authors are writing the genres they're writing because they love them. Telling a romance writer he or she should write a real book is a good way to find out how heavy that romance writer's satchel or purse really is.
7. I would do anything for love, but I won't do that. I would, however, do that for research, especially since research, unlike love, is tax-deductible.
6. Authors who say "I'm staying home to write on Friday night" aren't saying "I am lonely, please save me from myself." They're saying "I'm staying home to write on Friday night." This goes double for authors with day jobs.
5. I dare anyone who says writing isn't work to copy-edit and revise a three hundred page manuscript in under a month. Oh, and it has to be better when you finish than it was when you started. If you can do that, you can say anything you want.
4. Authors tend to be fiscally conservative, because there's rarely a guarantee of when the next check will come. This makes us dangerous in warehouse stores. We really do go "I could totally buy enough toilet paper wholesale to survive nuclear winter." Never look in an author's pantry.
3. Ways not to introduce yourself to a working author: "Nice to meet you. I read your last book, and it was shit." If you do that, please expect to get "Nice to meet you. I hope you have medical insurance," as a reply.
2. Everything eventually shows up in a book. Everything. Yes, even that. No, we're not trying to be mean. It's just how our brains work.
1. Authors write because we have to. It's how we're made. So please forgive us for those Friday nights, okay?
12. Asking an author who has just released a book (or is in pre-release for a book) "When's the next one?" is like asking a woman who's nine months pregnant "When's the next one?", only the author is probably not nine months pregnant, and is thus more likely to hit you. I am aware that this metaphor makes me out to be one of those faintly frightening women with twelve children, planning for twelve more. It's still true.
11. Most authors don't know where their ideas come from. Which doesn't mean you shouldn't ask; I seriously doubt I could be the one who killed that question in the hearts and minds of readers everywhere (although if I was, SFWA would probably saint me). It just means that when we answer you, we're probably lying.
10. No, that nice author you met on the bus once doesn't want to read your manuscript. I'm sorry. That nice dentist you met on the bus once doesn't want to clean your teeth for free, either.
9. An author on deadline is faintly neurotic, faintly obsessive, faintly hysterical, faintly depressed, and faintly insane. Sometimes just one of these; sometimes all five. Poke at your own risk.
8. Most authors are writing the genres they're writing because they love them. Telling a romance writer he or she should write a real book is a good way to find out how heavy that romance writer's satchel or purse really is.
7. I would do anything for love, but I won't do that. I would, however, do that for research, especially since research, unlike love, is tax-deductible.
6. Authors who say "I'm staying home to write on Friday night" aren't saying "I am lonely, please save me from myself." They're saying "I'm staying home to write on Friday night." This goes double for authors with day jobs.
5. I dare anyone who says writing isn't work to copy-edit and revise a three hundred page manuscript in under a month. Oh, and it has to be better when you finish than it was when you started. If you can do that, you can say anything you want.
4. Authors tend to be fiscally conservative, because there's rarely a guarantee of when the next check will come. This makes us dangerous in warehouse stores. We really do go "I could totally buy enough toilet paper wholesale to survive nuclear winter." Never look in an author's pantry.
3. Ways not to introduce yourself to a working author: "Nice to meet you. I read your last book, and it was shit." If you do that, please expect to get "Nice to meet you. I hope you have medical insurance," as a reply.
2. Everything eventually shows up in a book. Everything. Yes, even that. No, we're not trying to be mean. It's just how our brains work.
1. Authors write because we have to. It's how we're made. So please forgive us for those Friday nights, okay?
- Current Mood: thoughtful
- Current Music:Evil Dead, "Good Old Reliable Jed."
It's that time again! It's February 15th, and that means I need to write a big long post explaining what all I'm currently working on, just in case you'd started to think that I knew the meaning of the words "free time." This is the February 2011 list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving. And yes, the date is there for a reason. Largely so you can find the right post, if you insanely want to reference them.
To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Late Eclipses and Deadline). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Late Eclipses and Deadline). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
- Current Mood: busy
- Current Music:The Civil Wars, "Barton Hollow."
Some of my earliest memories of bookstores involve combing through the shelves while my grandmother looked tolerantly on, searching endlessly for more anthologies. Anthologies were the best thing ever, at least if you asked my reasonably limited book-buying power, because they gave you so many stories. If you guessed wrong on whether you'd like a book, you were stuck with a whole book you didn't like, but with an anthology, there would always, always be at least a few stories you'd enjoy.
A lot of those anthologies were published by a company called DAW, which must, I believed, have the smartest owners in the world. (At the time, I truly believed that anthologies made more money than any other kind of book, because they were so hard to find. I was a very innocent child.) And a lot of those anthologies were edited by a man named Martin Greenberg. Someday, I swore, I was going to be in one of those anthologies. When that happened, I would know, absolutely and for certain, that I was going to be a writer.
Yesterday, I went to the bookstore, and I bought the new Martin Greenberg anthology, co-edited with Stephen Antczak and James Bassett. It's called Zombiesque; it's all stories from the perspective of the zombie.
And I'm the sixth name on the table of contents.
There are viral zombies, pharmaceutical zombies, totally unexplained zombies, nanobot zombies, even black magic zombies. Zombie businessmen, fathers, policemen, doctors, authors, and cheerleaders. I'm reading the anthology cover-to-cover, that being what you do, and so far, the stories have been excellent. I'm the only one who's gone for black humor, really, but when you're writing a story about zombie cheerleaders (GO PUMPKINS!), a little black humor is sort of legally required.
I'm in a real DAW anthology, edited by Martin Greenberg, writing about zombie cheerleaders. Who belong to the Fighting Pumpkins cheerleading squad.
So you're aware, there's every chance that I currently control the universe.
A lot of those anthologies were published by a company called DAW, which must, I believed, have the smartest owners in the world. (At the time, I truly believed that anthologies made more money than any other kind of book, because they were so hard to find. I was a very innocent child.) And a lot of those anthologies were edited by a man named Martin Greenberg. Someday, I swore, I was going to be in one of those anthologies. When that happened, I would know, absolutely and for certain, that I was going to be a writer.
Yesterday, I went to the bookstore, and I bought the new Martin Greenberg anthology, co-edited with Stephen Antczak and James Bassett. It's called Zombiesque; it's all stories from the perspective of the zombie.
And I'm the sixth name on the table of contents.
There are viral zombies, pharmaceutical zombies, totally unexplained zombies, nanobot zombies, even black magic zombies. Zombie businessmen, fathers, policemen, doctors, authors, and cheerleaders. I'm reading the anthology cover-to-cover, that being what you do, and so far, the stories have been excellent. I'm the only one who's gone for black humor, really, but when you're writing a story about zombie cheerleaders (GO PUMPKINS!), a little black humor is sort of legally required.
I'm in a real DAW anthology, edited by Martin Greenberg, writing about zombie cheerleaders. Who belong to the Fighting Pumpkins cheerleading squad.
So you're aware, there's every chance that I currently control the universe.
- Current Mood:
ecstatic - Current Music:Bring It On, "I'm Perky, I'm Cute."
Let's get this out of the way right up front: This list is five whole days late. I was at Arisia on the 15th, when the current projects post usually goes up, and too distracted with the convention that ate Boston to realize that I needed to be taking care of business. You have my apologies, although I won't promise that it won't happen again, because I am a little bit smarter than that. This is the January 2011 list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving.
To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Late Eclipses and Deadline). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Late Eclipses and Deadline). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
- Current Mood: busy
- Current Music:EFO, "Three Fine Daughters of Farmer Brown."
At last we have reached the forty-fifth essay in my series of fifty essays on the artistic masochism that is the act of writing. Considering this whole thing was an accident, I think I'm going rather well. All fifty of these essays are based around my original fifty thoughts on writing, which means I am blessedly, mercifully, almost done. And there was much rejoicing.
Now, to the essay itself. Our thought for today:
Thoughts on Writing #45: You Brilliant Hack You.
Exposition is part of both these roles, so here's today's expanded thought:
You are brilliant and you are a hack. Sometimes you're going to be both in the same day. Embrace these two sides of your soul. Then bash their heads together until they start playing nice with each other, because nobody likes the golden goddess whose every word is a honeyed pearl, and nobody likes that other girl, either.
One truly of the fascinating things about the writing process is the self-contradictory nature of it all. You have to have enough faith in your skills and your ideas to sit down and put them on paper, where anyone can see them. And then, if you want to be a professional writer—if you want to actually do this for a living, rather than as a form of private catharsis—you have to find a way to let people see them. Critique groups. First readers. Eventually, if you're lucky and determined, an agent or an editor. All those people are going to poke holes in your work. And this is going to suck.
So how do you balance the ego needed to write with the humility needed to take critique? How do you walk the line between ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR and "screw it, rocks fall, everybody dies is a valid plot choice"? It's time to talk about the angel and the ape, and how we are supposed to balance ourselves between the two. Also, about why being a hack isn't always a bad thing.
Ready? Good. Let's begin.
( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on being a brilliant hack.Collapse )
Now, to the essay itself. Our thought for today:
Thoughts on Writing #45: You Brilliant Hack You.
Exposition is part of both these roles, so here's today's expanded thought:
You are brilliant and you are a hack. Sometimes you're going to be both in the same day. Embrace these two sides of your soul. Then bash their heads together until they start playing nice with each other, because nobody likes the golden goddess whose every word is a honeyed pearl, and nobody likes that other girl, either.
One truly of the fascinating things about the writing process is the self-contradictory nature of it all. You have to have enough faith in your skills and your ideas to sit down and put them on paper, where anyone can see them. And then, if you want to be a professional writer—if you want to actually do this for a living, rather than as a form of private catharsis—you have to find a way to let people see them. Critique groups. First readers. Eventually, if you're lucky and determined, an agent or an editor. All those people are going to poke holes in your work. And this is going to suck.
So how do you balance the ego needed to write with the humility needed to take critique? How do you walk the line between ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR and "screw it, rocks fall, everybody dies is a valid plot choice"? It's time to talk about the angel and the ape, and how we are supposed to balance ourselves between the two. Also, about why being a hack isn't always a bad thing.
Ready? Good. Let's begin.
( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on being a brilliant hack.Collapse )
- Current Mood: thoughtful
- Current Music:People heading out for the holidays. Bye!
I am utterly obsessed with a show called Doctor Who, and have been since I was somewhere in the neighborhood of three years old. (This is not an exaggeration. You can ask my mother.) I contributed an essay to Chicks Dig Time Lords [Amazon], a book of critical essays on being a fan of the show while also being a girl (not always easy).
So naturally, when Tor.com contacted me and asked if I wanted to be a contributor for their mad awesome "12 Doctors of Christmas" blog event, I said yes so fast it left a few heads spinning, including my own. Here, then, is the official announcement:
Tor.com's 12 Doctors of Christmas: A Holiday Extravaganza!
...okay, so many the extravaganza part was me, but seriously, how cool is this? They've got at least one person for each Doctor, and the lineup is gorgeous. To whit:
First Doctor (William Hartnell), George Mann. "Susan, history is a gift. Do not break it."
Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton), Nick Abadzis. "Be Scottish at it, Jamie. Perhaps it will go away."
Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee), Paul Cornell. "And don't wander off!"
Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker), Nicholas Whyte. "Care for a jelly baby?"
Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison), Pia Guerra. "Celery is good for you."
Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker), Josiah Rowe. "You wicked, wicked little thing."
Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy), Seanan McGuire. "Come on, Ace. We've got work to do."
Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann), Steve Mollmann. "I didn't mean to."
Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston), Graham Sleight. "Brilliant!"
Tenth Doctor (David Tennant), Nasty Canasta. "The last. The very last."
Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith), Lynne Thomas and Tara O’Shea/Mark Waid. "Who's the man?...right, never saying that again."
Twelfth Doctor(s), Jason Henninger. "RESULT!"
That's going to be twelve days of pure, unadulterated awesome. None of which will make any sense at all if you don't have at least a little familiarity with the show, for which I apologize. But not too much.
I love Doctor Who. Squee!
So naturally, when Tor.com contacted me and asked if I wanted to be a contributor for their mad awesome "12 Doctors of Christmas" blog event, I said yes so fast it left a few heads spinning, including my own. Here, then, is the official announcement:
Tor.com's 12 Doctors of Christmas: A Holiday Extravaganza!
...okay, so many the extravaganza part was me, but seriously, how cool is this? They've got at least one person for each Doctor, and the lineup is gorgeous. To whit:
First Doctor (William Hartnell), George Mann. "Susan, history is a gift. Do not break it."
Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton), Nick Abadzis. "Be Scottish at it, Jamie. Perhaps it will go away."
Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee), Paul Cornell. "And don't wander off!"
Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker), Nicholas Whyte. "Care for a jelly baby?"
Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison), Pia Guerra. "Celery is good for you."
Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker), Josiah Rowe. "You wicked, wicked little thing."
Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy), Seanan McGuire. "Come on, Ace. We've got work to do."
Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann), Steve Mollmann. "I didn't mean to."
Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston), Graham Sleight. "Brilliant!"
Tenth Doctor (David Tennant), Nasty Canasta. "The last. The very last."
Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith), Lynne Thomas and Tara O’Shea/Mark Waid. "Who's the man?...right, never saying that again."
Twelfth Doctor(s), Jason Henninger. "RESULT!"
That's going to be twelve days of pure, unadulterated awesome. None of which will make any sense at all if you don't have at least a little familiarity with the show, for which I apologize. But not too much.
I love Doctor Who. Squee!
- Current Mood: geeky
- Current Music:The theme from "Doctor Who."
Well, here we are: the final current projects post of 2010. There are things that have been on this list since January. There are things that have magically appeared, sometimes startling everyone involved (but rarely startling anyone more than me). The year is ending, and for better or for worse, this is what I still have to do before I get to take a nap. This is the December list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving.
To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Late Eclipses and Deadline). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer (although this month's list is shorter than last month's list). But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Late Eclipses and Deadline). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer (although this month's list is shorter than last month's list). But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
- Current Mood: busy
- Current Music:Rachael Sage, "93 Maidens."
Dear Great Pumpkin;
Another harvest season has come and gone, rich with tricks, treats, and unexplained disappearances in the haunted cornfield. I hope you have been well. Since my last letter to you, I have not wiped out mankind with a genetically engineered pandemic, or challenged any major religious figures to duels to the death in the public square. I have loved my friends and refrained from destroying my enemies. I have given out hugs, cupcakes, and cuddles with kittens freely and without hesitation. I have offered support when I could, and comfort when it was needed. I have not unleashed my scarecrow army to devastate North America. I have continued to make all my deadlines, even the ones I most wanted to avoid. I have not "accidentally" put tapeworm eggs in anyone's food. So as you can see, I've pretty much been a saint, by our somewhat lax local standards.
Today, Great Pumpkin, I am asking for the following gifts:
* A smooth and successful release for Late Eclipses, with books shipping when they're meant to ship, stores putting them out when they're supposed to put them out, and reviews that are accurate, insightful, and capable of steering people who will enjoy my book to read it. Please, Great Pumpkin, show mercy on your loving Pumpkin Princess of the West, and let it all be wonderful. I'm not asking you to make it easy, Great Pumpkin, but I'm asking you to make it good.
* Please let me make the revisions to One Salt Sea and Discount Armageddon smoothly, satisfyingly, and in a timely fashion, hopefully including a minimum of typographical and factual errors, plus a maximum level of awesome and win. If this request seems familiar, Great Pumpkin, it's because I make it just about every time I have a new book on the table, and this time is doubly important. One Salt Sea concludes a major arc in Toby's story, and Discount Armageddon kicks off a whole new series. I want them both to be amazing. Pretty please with candy corn on top?
* While I'm at it, please let the next books in their respective series be up to my admittedly nearly-impossible standards for myself. Let Ashes of Honor be exciting and worth the commitment, let Midnight Blue-Light Special be peppy and perfect in its insanity, and let Blackout seal the deal on the Newsflesh universe. It's wonderful to be working on three totally new books. It's also terrifying. There's a period at the start of a novel, where I'm trying to chip the shape of the story out of nothing, that's just scary as hell, and I'm there times three right now. Please show mercy, and let this work.
* I thank you for Alice's return to health, Great Pumpkin, and ask for your blessings as she continues her recovery. I thought I was going to lose her. I'm still shaky when I think about it. Please let her keep getting better, and please let her be exactly the same goofy, graceless cat that she's always been. While you're at it, please make sure Lilly and Thomas stay healthy, and that Thomas continues his incredible, faintly frightening growth. I think he doubles in size once a week. It's awesome. Look out for my cats, Great Pumpkin. They mean the world to me.
* As I approach the 2011 convention season, I ask for your blessings. Let things be smooth when they can, and let me take that which is not smooth with good humor, good grace, and a good sense of restraint. Let me be clever when I need to be, calm when I need to be, and a good guest for everyone who has been kind enough to invite me to their convention. Let me be the kind of guest that is remembered with joy, not the kind who is remembered with glum "and then there was the year of the great tragedy" stories.
* Thank you, thank you, thank you again for shining your holy candle upon the Campbell Award, Great Pumpkin. I hope only that I did you proud with my acceptance speech, and that you are pleased with my endeavors. It may be a little forward of me to point this out, but Feed is eligible for both the Nebula and Hugo Awards this year, and, well...any assistance you wanted to throw my way would be very much appreciated. I think my mother would catch fire if I came home with either award, and that would be fun to watch.
I remain your faithful Halloween girl,
Seanan.
PS: While you're at it, can you please make Oasis get back to me? I'd really like to be done with Wicked Girls before I'm done with 2010.
Another harvest season has come and gone, rich with tricks, treats, and unexplained disappearances in the haunted cornfield. I hope you have been well. Since my last letter to you, I have not wiped out mankind with a genetically engineered pandemic, or challenged any major religious figures to duels to the death in the public square. I have loved my friends and refrained from destroying my enemies. I have given out hugs, cupcakes, and cuddles with kittens freely and without hesitation. I have offered support when I could, and comfort when it was needed. I have not unleashed my scarecrow army to devastate North America. I have continued to make all my deadlines, even the ones I most wanted to avoid. I have not "accidentally" put tapeworm eggs in anyone's food. So as you can see, I've pretty much been a saint, by our somewhat lax local standards.
Today, Great Pumpkin, I am asking for the following gifts:
* A smooth and successful release for Late Eclipses, with books shipping when they're meant to ship, stores putting them out when they're supposed to put them out, and reviews that are accurate, insightful, and capable of steering people who will enjoy my book to read it. Please, Great Pumpkin, show mercy on your loving Pumpkin Princess of the West, and let it all be wonderful. I'm not asking you to make it easy, Great Pumpkin, but I'm asking you to make it good.
* Please let me make the revisions to One Salt Sea and Discount Armageddon smoothly, satisfyingly, and in a timely fashion, hopefully including a minimum of typographical and factual errors, plus a maximum level of awesome and win. If this request seems familiar, Great Pumpkin, it's because I make it just about every time I have a new book on the table, and this time is doubly important. One Salt Sea concludes a major arc in Toby's story, and Discount Armageddon kicks off a whole new series. I want them both to be amazing. Pretty please with candy corn on top?
* While I'm at it, please let the next books in their respective series be up to my admittedly nearly-impossible standards for myself. Let Ashes of Honor be exciting and worth the commitment, let Midnight Blue-Light Special be peppy and perfect in its insanity, and let Blackout seal the deal on the Newsflesh universe. It's wonderful to be working on three totally new books. It's also terrifying. There's a period at the start of a novel, where I'm trying to chip the shape of the story out of nothing, that's just scary as hell, and I'm there times three right now. Please show mercy, and let this work.
* I thank you for Alice's return to health, Great Pumpkin, and ask for your blessings as she continues her recovery. I thought I was going to lose her. I'm still shaky when I think about it. Please let her keep getting better, and please let her be exactly the same goofy, graceless cat that she's always been. While you're at it, please make sure Lilly and Thomas stay healthy, and that Thomas continues his incredible, faintly frightening growth. I think he doubles in size once a week. It's awesome. Look out for my cats, Great Pumpkin. They mean the world to me.
* As I approach the 2011 convention season, I ask for your blessings. Let things be smooth when they can, and let me take that which is not smooth with good humor, good grace, and a good sense of restraint. Let me be clever when I need to be, calm when I need to be, and a good guest for everyone who has been kind enough to invite me to their convention. Let me be the kind of guest that is remembered with joy, not the kind who is remembered with glum "and then there was the year of the great tragedy" stories.
* Thank you, thank you, thank you again for shining your holy candle upon the Campbell Award, Great Pumpkin. I hope only that I did you proud with my acceptance speech, and that you are pleased with my endeavors. It may be a little forward of me to point this out, but Feed is eligible for both the Nebula and Hugo Awards this year, and, well...any assistance you wanted to throw my way would be very much appreciated. I think my mother would catch fire if I came home with either award, and that would be fun to watch.
I remain your faithful Halloween girl,
Seanan.
PS: While you're at it, can you please make Oasis get back to me? I'd really like to be done with Wicked Girls before I'm done with 2010.
- Current Mood: hopeful
- Current Music:Glee, "Marry Me."
We're already somehow halfway through November, which is a bit of an "um, what?" for me, but that means it's time for the monthly current projects post. I actually look forward to this one, most of the time, since it means I can demonstrate that I occasionally Get Things Done. Of course, it also means another month has somehow slipped away, which is a trifle stressful, but hey, that's the way the cookie crumbles. This is the November list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving.
To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Late Eclipses and Deadline). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that all books currently in print are off the list, as are those that have been turned in but not yet printed (Late Eclipses and Deadline). The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
- Current Mood: busy
- Current Music:Nickel Creek, "Sabra Girl."
Hello, everybody, and welcome to my journal. I'm pretty sure you know who I am, my name being in the URL and all, but just in case, I'm Seanan McGuire (also known as Mira Grant), and you're probably not on Candid Camera. This post exists to answer a few of the questions I get asked on a semi-hemi-demi-regular basis. It may look familiar; that's because it gets updated and re-posted roughly every two months, to let folks who've just wandered in know how things work around here. Also, sometimes I change the questions. Because I can.
If you've read this before, feel free to skip, although there may be interesting new things to discover and know beyond the cut.
Anyway, here you go:
( This way lies a lot of information you may or may not need about the person whose LJ you may or may not be reading right at this moment. Also, I may or may not be the King of Rain, which may or may not explain why it's drizzling right now. Essentially, this is Schrodinger's cut-tag.Collapse )
If you've read this before, feel free to skip, although there may be interesting new things to discover and know beyond the cut.
Anyway, here you go:
( This way lies a lot of information you may or may not need about the person whose LJ you may or may not be reading right at this moment. Also, I may or may not be the King of Rain, which may or may not explain why it's drizzling right now. Essentially, this is Schrodinger's cut-tag.Collapse )
- Current Mood: happy
- Current Music:The theme from "The Munsters."
So there's been a spate recently of people going "What's the status on _________?" or "Where can I buy _________?" This is usually referring to either the InCryptid books or the Lycanthropy books, although I've also had a somewhat surprising number of inquiries about print editions of "Velveteen vs." and Sparrow Hill (hint: even if I'm able to arrange for a print edition of Sparrow Hill, it won't be until well after the virtual edition has finished, since TEoP gets first crack at the series). Here, then, is my across-the-board answer:
If I am able to give the status on a project (sold, in print, not yet shopping, not yet finished), I will. I am not in any way shy about going "OH MY GOD YOU GUYS GUESS WHAT?!" I will probably give you this status whether you want it or not, whether you care about it or not, and whether you ask me or not. And just to live up to this statement, my confirmed publications for 2011, so far, are...
"Gimme a 'Z'!," short story, in the collection Zombiesque, February.
Late Eclipses, novel, March. Toby Daye book four.
"Alchemy of Alcohol," short story, in the collection After Hours: Tales From the Ur-Bar, March.
"The Girls Next Door," essay, in the essay collection Whedonistas, March.
Deadline, novel (as Mira Grant), May. Newsflesh book two.
One Salt Sea, novel, September. Toby Daye book five.
The third Newsflesh book, Blackout, will be published in 2012.
I have a few other short stories slated for publication, but don't have release dates and/or permission to announce them yet. See, once something is sold, I am unable to tell people until I am given permission from the publisher—it's part of the standard contract. So if I'm not telling you where you can buy something, it's because there's a "can't" involved. Either you can't buy it, or I can't tell you. Either way, please, please believe me when I say that anything I am allowed to share, I share as quickly as I can, to keep my own head from exploding.
And stuff.
If I am able to give the status on a project (sold, in print, not yet shopping, not yet finished), I will. I am not in any way shy about going "OH MY GOD YOU GUYS GUESS WHAT?!" I will probably give you this status whether you want it or not, whether you care about it or not, and whether you ask me or not. And just to live up to this statement, my confirmed publications for 2011, so far, are...
"Gimme a 'Z'!," short story, in the collection Zombiesque, February.
Late Eclipses, novel, March. Toby Daye book four.
"Alchemy of Alcohol," short story, in the collection After Hours: Tales From the Ur-Bar, March.
"The Girls Next Door," essay, in the essay collection Whedonistas, March.
Deadline, novel (as Mira Grant), May. Newsflesh book two.
One Salt Sea, novel, September. Toby Daye book five.
The third Newsflesh book, Blackout, will be published in 2012.
I have a few other short stories slated for publication, but don't have release dates and/or permission to announce them yet. See, once something is sold, I am unable to tell people until I am given permission from the publisher—it's part of the standard contract. So if I'm not telling you where you can buy something, it's because there's a "can't" involved. Either you can't buy it, or I can't tell you. Either way, please, please believe me when I say that anything I am allowed to share, I share as quickly as I can, to keep my own head from exploding.
And stuff.
- Current Mood: busy
- Current Music:Glee, "Rehab."
Welcome to the forty-fourth essay in my fifty-essay series on the art, craft, and occasional mild psychosis that is writing. For a series that started entirely by accident, it sure has lasted a long way. All fifty of these essays are based around my original fifty thoughts on writing, which were written in no particular order.
This explains a lot. Thanks for sticking it out this far. Our thought for today:
Thoughts on Writing #44: I Don't Gotta Like You To Love You.
Context is also love. Bearing that in mind, here's today's expanded thought:
You don't have to like your characters. You just have to stay true to your characters. I may not appreciate the fact that Shaun insults Mahir's wife on a daily basis, but it's what the character would do, and I'm not going to change him just because I don't approve of his behavior. Some people will assume you approve of everything your characters do. Try to learn tolerance. Also, don't punch them.
In the course of writing a story or book, authors will very often need to write about people they don't particularly like. Sometimes those people will be the heroes, sometimes they'll be the villains, and sometimes they'll just be spear-carriers, but they're going to exist. So how do we handle it? More, how do we handle the real people who assume that, just because we wrote about something, we must believe it/agree with it/support it in real life? It's time to talk about the times we clash with the people in our heads, and how we deal with all the consequences that come after.
Ready? Good. Let's begin.
( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on fighting with your imaginary friends.Collapse )
This explains a lot. Thanks for sticking it out this far. Our thought for today:
Thoughts on Writing #44: I Don't Gotta Like You To Love You.
Context is also love. Bearing that in mind, here's today's expanded thought:
You don't have to like your characters. You just have to stay true to your characters. I may not appreciate the fact that Shaun insults Mahir's wife on a daily basis, but it's what the character would do, and I'm not going to change him just because I don't approve of his behavior. Some people will assume you approve of everything your characters do. Try to learn tolerance. Also, don't punch them.
In the course of writing a story or book, authors will very often need to write about people they don't particularly like. Sometimes those people will be the heroes, sometimes they'll be the villains, and sometimes they'll just be spear-carriers, but they're going to exist. So how do we handle it? More, how do we handle the real people who assume that, just because we wrote about something, we must believe it/agree with it/support it in real life? It's time to talk about the times we clash with the people in our heads, and how we deal with all the consequences that come after.
Ready? Good. Let's begin.
( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on fighting with your imaginary friends.Collapse )
- Current Mood: thoughtful
- Current Music:The Addams Family, "Pulled."
Today is the 15th of October, or, as the Disney Channel likes to call it, "the fifteenth day of Halloween." Since I have to put up with a full month of Christmas every year, I am okay with getting a month of Halloween to soothe my wounded, ghoulish soul. Anyway, welcome to my monthly current projects post, the regularly scheduled update which provides the only non-hysteria-inducing answer to the question "What are you working on?" It has the extra added bonus of proving that I am able to stop time, since otherwise, even I don't quite understand how the hell I'm getting everything finished in a timely manner. Seriously, I don't think I sleep. This is the October list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving.
To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that all books currently in print are off the list. Late Eclipses and Deadline are off the list because they have been turned in to their respective editors, and I am waiting for page proofs.
The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that all books currently in print are off the list. Late Eclipses and Deadline are off the list because they have been turned in to their respective editors, and I am waiting for page proofs.
The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
- Current Mood: busy
- Current Music:The Addams Family, "When You're An Addams."
First up, Edmund Schubert at Magical Words posted this lovely set of thoughts on the naming of stories, and why it matters. Go forth, read, consider, and take a look at your own works in progress. And now...
I have always had a very love/hate relationship with titles. A good title makes everything wonderful. A bad title does the exact opposite. Most of my songs have titles that are so generically descriptive as to be direct quotes, usually taken from the chorus, usually forgotten in favor of "let's do that one, you know, with the buffalo stuff in the chorus." (This does not apply to "Wicked Girls," which couldn't have had a different title if I'd wanted it to.) Titling songs is hard.
Titling books is a little easier, because most of my books come sort of "pre-bundled" with their titles. There are books in the InCryptid sequence that have titles and point-of-view characters, and not very much else. This can be disconcerting when a book gets re-titled on me, as happened with Feed—a decision I think was absolutely the right thing for the book, but after literally years of calling it Newsflesh, it took me a while to change gears. It was easier when book two became Deadline two-thirds of the way through the writing process, because it had already had one name change (from The Mourning Edition). I really don't know what I'll do if I'm ever told I have to change a title I'm really emotionally attached to, like Professional Goreography, or Sit, Stay, I Hate You.
My short story titles are the ones I'm really proud of. The long, Tiptree-style titles. "Dying With Her Cheer Pants On." "The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells." "Laughter at the Academy: A Field Study in the Genesis of Schizotypal Creative Genius Personality Disorder (SCGPD)." "A Citizen in Childhood's Country." The short, accurate but interesting titles. "Lost." "Indexing." "Knives." "Let's Pretend." Again, the titles usually accompany the stories they describe, and changing them is even harder than changing the names of books, but some of them make me really, really happy.
(And if I ever publish a collection of short stories, I am going to fight like a cat in a sack to title it Dying With Her Cheer Pants On. Because dude, would that not be an awesome book to read on the train? Knowing me, and knowing my overall body of work, it's more likely to be called The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells, but a girl can dream.)
I guess it's sort of like naming babies. All the care in the world to find something that fits, something that's right, and most of all, something that won't rhyme with any unfortunate swear words or insults (for those halcyon playground days). And half the time, we grow up and shorten or change the names our parents gave us—so Rosemary and Rue becomes Rosemary, Newsflesh becomes Feed, and Dying With Her Cheer Pants On becomes "no, really, it's about cheerleaders fighting an alien invasion."
Titles are evocative and magical and strange and enticing, and can make the difference between an impulse buy and a dismissal.
Food for thought.
I have always had a very love/hate relationship with titles. A good title makes everything wonderful. A bad title does the exact opposite. Most of my songs have titles that are so generically descriptive as to be direct quotes, usually taken from the chorus, usually forgotten in favor of "let's do that one, you know, with the buffalo stuff in the chorus." (This does not apply to "Wicked Girls," which couldn't have had a different title if I'd wanted it to.) Titling songs is hard.
Titling books is a little easier, because most of my books come sort of "pre-bundled" with their titles. There are books in the InCryptid sequence that have titles and point-of-view characters, and not very much else. This can be disconcerting when a book gets re-titled on me, as happened with Feed—a decision I think was absolutely the right thing for the book, but after literally years of calling it Newsflesh, it took me a while to change gears. It was easier when book two became Deadline two-thirds of the way through the writing process, because it had already had one name change (from The Mourning Edition). I really don't know what I'll do if I'm ever told I have to change a title I'm really emotionally attached to, like Professional Goreography, or Sit, Stay, I Hate You.
My short story titles are the ones I'm really proud of. The long, Tiptree-style titles. "Dying With Her Cheer Pants On." "The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells." "Laughter at the Academy: A Field Study in the Genesis of Schizotypal Creative Genius Personality Disorder (SCGPD)." "A Citizen in Childhood's Country." The short, accurate but interesting titles. "Lost." "Indexing." "Knives." "Let's Pretend." Again, the titles usually accompany the stories they describe, and changing them is even harder than changing the names of books, but some of them make me really, really happy.
(And if I ever publish a collection of short stories, I am going to fight like a cat in a sack to title it Dying With Her Cheer Pants On. Because dude, would that not be an awesome book to read on the train? Knowing me, and knowing my overall body of work, it's more likely to be called The Tolling of Pavlov's Bells, but a girl can dream.)
I guess it's sort of like naming babies. All the care in the world to find something that fits, something that's right, and most of all, something that won't rhyme with any unfortunate swear words or insults (for those halcyon playground days). And half the time, we grow up and shorten or change the names our parents gave us—so Rosemary and Rue becomes Rosemary, Newsflesh becomes Feed, and Dying With Her Cheer Pants On becomes "no, really, it's about cheerleaders fighting an alien invasion."
Titles are evocative and magical and strange and enticing, and can make the difference between an impulse buy and a dismissal.
Food for thought.
- Current Mood: thoughtful
- Current Music:Katy Perry, "California Gurls."
A year ago, I was in a state of low-grade panic because of the upcoming release of my first novel, Rosemary and Rue. Was it really going to happen? Would anybody buy my book? Was my book even worth reading? What if this was some sort of elaborate practical joke (admittedly, one pulled by someone who could afford wasting a book advance on fucking with my head)? What if DAW hated me? What if, what if, what if?
Six months ago, I was in a state of low-grade panic because of the upcoming release of my second novel, A Local Habitation. What if the first book was just a fluke? What if nobody liked Toby when she was less broken? What if everyone lost interest and went off to read something else, and my publisher dropped me, and my numbers were terrible, and my agent told me I should be a dishwasher or something? What if, dammit?!
Right now, I would be in a state of low-grade panic, but I'm honestly too tired to work up the flailing. An Artificial Night, the third Toby Daye book, is out now, and I would really appreciate it if you'd go out and buy a copy, assuming you haven't already. My reasons are legion: I really think it's the best book of the series so far, I really love it as a piece of work, and it's the last book on my original contract with DAW, so it would be nice if it went out with a bang. Like all authors, I worry vaguely about an unknown god known only as "the numbers," and I'm sure I want the numbers to look on me with grace. So that means book sales, and maybe, I don't know, sacrificing a pizza. I'll get on that.
I really love this book. I love the way it looks, I love the way it feels, I love the fact that it exists. It makes me feel like a real girl, because now I can look at my brag shelf and see three Toby books in finished form, all of them there, waiting to be opened. It's amazing. And still a little terrifying.
Release parties start next weekend. Fun for the whole family!
Six months ago, I was in a state of low-grade panic because of the upcoming release of my second novel, A Local Habitation. What if the first book was just a fluke? What if nobody liked Toby when she was less broken? What if everyone lost interest and went off to read something else, and my publisher dropped me, and my numbers were terrible, and my agent told me I should be a dishwasher or something? What if, dammit?!
Right now, I would be in a state of low-grade panic, but I'm honestly too tired to work up the flailing. An Artificial Night, the third Toby Daye book, is out now, and I would really appreciate it if you'd go out and buy a copy, assuming you haven't already. My reasons are legion: I really think it's the best book of the series so far, I really love it as a piece of work, and it's the last book on my original contract with DAW, so it would be nice if it went out with a bang. Like all authors, I worry vaguely about an unknown god known only as "the numbers," and I'm sure I want the numbers to look on me with grace. So that means book sales, and maybe, I don't know, sacrificing a pizza. I'll get on that.
I really love this book. I love the way it looks, I love the way it feels, I love the fact that it exists. It makes me feel like a real girl, because now I can look at my brag shelf and see three Toby books in finished form, all of them there, waiting to be opened. It's amazing. And still a little terrifying.
Release parties start next weekend. Fun for the whole family!
- Current Mood: tired
- Current Music:Counting Crows, "Four White Stallions."
You guys.
This is so hard to write. I've literally started this post eight times, and deleted it every time, and started over, trying to find the words I want. Words are usually something that I find pretty easy—sometimes too easy, as my tendency to never shut the hell up can testify. Not right now. Right now, the words are very hard. So very hard.
I spent most of this year's WorldCon in a cheerful fugue state, throwing myself into things as hard as I could in order to keep from thinking about the Hugo Awards. Jeanne, Cat, Rob, Liz, Paul, Mondy, Jay, Shannon, John, seriously, thank you so much, because if you hadn't been there, I would probably have spontaneously combusted. As it was, it was occasionally difficult not to ask how people could be so damn calm when the votes were in and there was nothing we could do and why couldn't we just know already?
Sunday, Jeanne, Gretchen, and I descended on Cat's hotel room to get ready for the Hugos. Cat met us at the door, and ordered me to close my eyes. I am a trusting blonde; I closed my eyes. She led me into the main room, and let me open my eyes, to find myself facing a bed covered in tiaras. Covered in tiaras. "Because," she said, "your friends wanted to be sure that no matter what, you went home with a tiara."
You guys.
I love you so much.
Susan came to do our hair. We put on dresses and makeup and nail polish and smiles, like nothing about the night mattered...and to a degree, right then, it didn't. We sang along to "Firebird's Child" and "Ship Full of Monsters," and the Night Kitchen in Seattle filled with people watching the live feed and sending all their love across the sea. We were together, and the world was full of magic, and we went to the reception and drank free champagne and had people tell us how amazing we looked, and it was amazing. (Cat and I managed, totally accidentally, to acquire dresses in basically the same colors. I felt like I should have brought her a corsage.)
Then we went to the actual award ceremony. Cat and I sat in the second row; Gretchen and Jeanne sat right behind us. The order of the evening was "opening speech, video presentation, First Fandom Award, Big Heart Award, Campbell Award." Jay Lake and John Scalzi presented the Campbell. They took the stage together, and explained the tiara, and read the nominees, and I clutched Cat's hand like the audience was an ocean and I was going to go under. Kathryn Daugherty came out, holding the award, name turned toward her so no one could see it. John opened the envelope.
"And the winner of this year's John W. Campbell Award for best new writer is..."
And they said my name.
And I sat there, because the room was spinning and I could taste sounds and they couldn't mean me. And Cat pushed me to my feet, and everyone was clapping, and I walked to the stage while the Buffy: the Vampire Slayer theme played and the room spun and tears made everything blurry, and I just said "Oh my God" over and over again, because there was nothing else in the whole world that I could say. And Kathryn gave me the plaque, and John and Jay gave me hugs, and they put the tiara on my head, and you guys...oh, you guys...
I am the Princess of the Kingdom of Poison and Flame. I am the 2010 Campbell Award winner. I am the first urban fantasist to win the Campbell Award. Because they said my name.
I will be more coherent soon. I will write about my acceptance speech soon. I will stop gasping a little every time I see the tiara soon. But oh, you guys.
I won.
This is so hard to write. I've literally started this post eight times, and deleted it every time, and started over, trying to find the words I want. Words are usually something that I find pretty easy—sometimes too easy, as my tendency to never shut the hell up can testify. Not right now. Right now, the words are very hard. So very hard.
I spent most of this year's WorldCon in a cheerful fugue state, throwing myself into things as hard as I could in order to keep from thinking about the Hugo Awards. Jeanne, Cat, Rob, Liz, Paul, Mondy, Jay, Shannon, John, seriously, thank you so much, because if you hadn't been there, I would probably have spontaneously combusted. As it was, it was occasionally difficult not to ask how people could be so damn calm when the votes were in and there was nothing we could do and why couldn't we just know already?
Sunday, Jeanne, Gretchen, and I descended on Cat's hotel room to get ready for the Hugos. Cat met us at the door, and ordered me to close my eyes. I am a trusting blonde; I closed my eyes. She led me into the main room, and let me open my eyes, to find myself facing a bed covered in tiaras. Covered in tiaras. "Because," she said, "your friends wanted to be sure that no matter what, you went home with a tiara."
You guys.
I love you so much.
Susan came to do our hair. We put on dresses and makeup and nail polish and smiles, like nothing about the night mattered...and to a degree, right then, it didn't. We sang along to "Firebird's Child" and "Ship Full of Monsters," and the Night Kitchen in Seattle filled with people watching the live feed and sending all their love across the sea. We were together, and the world was full of magic, and we went to the reception and drank free champagne and had people tell us how amazing we looked, and it was amazing. (Cat and I managed, totally accidentally, to acquire dresses in basically the same colors. I felt like I should have brought her a corsage.)
Then we went to the actual award ceremony. Cat and I sat in the second row; Gretchen and Jeanne sat right behind us. The order of the evening was "opening speech, video presentation, First Fandom Award, Big Heart Award, Campbell Award." Jay Lake and John Scalzi presented the Campbell. They took the stage together, and explained the tiara, and read the nominees, and I clutched Cat's hand like the audience was an ocean and I was going to go under. Kathryn Daugherty came out, holding the award, name turned toward her so no one could see it. John opened the envelope.
"And the winner of this year's John W. Campbell Award for best new writer is..."
And they said my name.
And I sat there, because the room was spinning and I could taste sounds and they couldn't mean me. And Cat pushed me to my feet, and everyone was clapping, and I walked to the stage while the Buffy: the Vampire Slayer theme played and the room spun and tears made everything blurry, and I just said "Oh my God" over and over again, because there was nothing else in the whole world that I could say. And Kathryn gave me the plaque, and John and Jay gave me hugs, and they put the tiara on my head, and you guys...oh, you guys...
I am the Princess of the Kingdom of Poison and Flame. I am the 2010 Campbell Award winner. I am the first urban fantasist to win the Campbell Award. Because they said my name.
I will be more coherent soon. I will write about my acceptance speech soon. I will stop gasping a little every time I see the tiara soon. But oh, you guys.
I won.
- Current Mood: ecstatic
- Current Music:Sara Bareilles, "Bluebird."
Well. There we go. As of roughly an hour ago, I'm done with my next-to-last pass through Deadline, incorporating commentary from The Editor, a vast file of notes from Vixy, and a lot of extremely useful technical detail from Alan, aka "my new things-that-kill-people expert." All hail those who actually know what the hell they're talking about!
I still have some work to do—the nature of my revision process means I'll be getting notes from my editorial pool for a week or so, and I want to go back and add a few things here and there throughout the text—but the heavy lifting is essentially done. The most thought-intensive part that remains is writing the acknowledgments page (which I hate doing, almost as much as I hate gargling with Spaghetti-Os). It's all commas and commentary from here to Australia...and it looks like I'll be making my "turn it in by" date, allowing me to spend the trip focusing on The Brightest Fell. Total win.
The nicest thing about final-pass editorial is that it generally happens after the book has been in someone else's hands for weeks, if not months, allowing the text to "age out" and turn alien to me. I remember writing scenes, but not sentences; I remember pages, not paragraphs. So I can rip things out with impunity, having lost all emotional attachment to the words in favor of being emotionally attached to the core point of the scene. This stage can also be dangerous, as the urge to rewrite entire chapters into something better is always there. It's the Mad Science Editorial phase.
(Appropriately enough, as I write this, my iTunes is producing a run of songs that can really only be referred to as "Seanan's greatest mad science hits." Seriously, it's played three versions of "Maybe It's Crazy" in the last half hour. Apple wants me to ignite the biosphere.)
I am done with book two of the Newsflesh trilogy. And because I've met me, I can say with certainty that while I'm busting ass on The Brightest Fell, I'll also be taking the first happy steps into the world of Blackout. It's...a little sad, actually. I only get to spend one more book with these weird, wonderful, fascinating, fucked-up people. I think I'm going to have separation anxiety when I get to the end of book three.
But I'm not there yet. Right now, I'm at the end of book two. And while the final stats are not yet ready, I believe I can say with assurance that I am now a magic murder pixie with a chainsaw.
DINO DANCE PARTY!
I still have some work to do—the nature of my revision process means I'll be getting notes from my editorial pool for a week or so, and I want to go back and add a few things here and there throughout the text—but the heavy lifting is essentially done. The most thought-intensive part that remains is writing the acknowledgments page (which I hate doing, almost as much as I hate gargling with Spaghetti-Os). It's all commas and commentary from here to Australia...and it looks like I'll be making my "turn it in by" date, allowing me to spend the trip focusing on The Brightest Fell. Total win.
The nicest thing about final-pass editorial is that it generally happens after the book has been in someone else's hands for weeks, if not months, allowing the text to "age out" and turn alien to me. I remember writing scenes, but not sentences; I remember pages, not paragraphs. So I can rip things out with impunity, having lost all emotional attachment to the words in favor of being emotionally attached to the core point of the scene. This stage can also be dangerous, as the urge to rewrite entire chapters into something better is always there. It's the Mad Science Editorial phase.
(Appropriately enough, as I write this, my iTunes is producing a run of songs that can really only be referred to as "Seanan's greatest mad science hits." Seriously, it's played three versions of "Maybe It's Crazy" in the last half hour. Apple wants me to ignite the biosphere.)
I am done with book two of the Newsflesh trilogy. And because I've met me, I can say with certainty that while I'm busting ass on The Brightest Fell, I'll also be taking the first happy steps into the world of Blackout. It's...a little sad, actually. I only get to spend one more book with these weird, wonderful, fascinating, fucked-up people. I think I'm going to have separation anxiety when I get to the end of book three.
But I'm not there yet. Right now, I'm at the end of book two. And while the final stats are not yet ready, I believe I can say with assurance that I am now a magic murder pixie with a chainsaw.
DINO DANCE PARTY!
- Current Mood: ecstatic
- Current Music:Emilie Autumn, "Dead is the New Alive."
This past weekend, with very little fuss or bother, we officially slipped past the one-month mark. In less than a month, An Artificial Night will be showing up on bookstore shelves, full of words and wonders for people to experience and enjoy. This is my third October Daye book, and my fourth book overall. Those numbers are very "wait, what?" to me. How did I go from no books to four? How do I make sure I get to keep doing it? How do I find time for a nap? How?
I like to think I'm more centered as an author than I was a year ago. I've had good reviews and I've had bad reviews; I've wanted to argue with some in both categories (although I didn't, because I'm not insane). I've had fan mail and I've had...not hate mail, exactly, but definitely the opposite of fan mail. I've attended conventions that were new to me, and attended familiar conventions in a new context. It's all very wonderful, and very strange, and I've learned some things from the whole experience, which is good, 'cause if I wasn't learning, my friends would probably beat me to death.
So here. Have some hard-won wisdom. Or something. I'm going to go sit under a desk and hyperventilate.
Ten Things Seanan Has Learned About Being A Published Author.
10. You know how your book is the center of your world, and it feels like you talk about it constantly, and everyone you know is sick of it? Well, you probably do talk about it constantly, and everyone you know probably is sick of it, but the rest of the world has no clue who you are, or that you just put out a book, and while they'll be very impressed, they don't necessarily care. Don't take it personally.
9. Other things not to take personally: when people answer "I wrote a book" with "Oh, really? Can you sell me a copy?" and then look surprised to hear that they can buy it from the bookstore, just chill. Yes, it's faintly upsetting, but again, they don't mean anything by it, and at least they're asking where they can get the book.
8. You are probably not going to see anyone reading your book on the train. I'm sorry.
7. Assuming you've written the sort of book that shows up in airport bookstores, the first time you see it there, you're going to cry. Just accept that and move on. Also, carry tissues when you're trying to surreptitiously check bookstore stock.
6. Somebody is going to get a copy a week early. And that somebody is going to email you three days before the actual release date, and go "When does the next one come out?" It is actually rude to fill somebody's bedroom with live fiddler crabs while they sleep, no matter how much that question makes you want to. Just learn to grin and bear it.
5. People are going to assume that you have an endless supply of free books to hand out, like candy. When you say you don't, they're going to sulk at you, and may even say you're being mean. Carry pictures of sad-looking cats or children, and inform these people that your babies need to eat. It works.
4. If you spend all your time reading reviews and answering email, you will go insane. Don't do that.
3. Assuming you're writing a series, or even if you're not, odds are good that by the time the first book comes out, you'll be neck-deep in the second, or even the third, and it's going to be really hard to switch back into thinking about the new book as "current." Just try to remember what happens when, so you don't accidentally spoiler an entire book release party.
2. It's going to be hard to find time to write, but you have to. That's what got you into the position of not being able to find time to write, remember?
1. All the reviews in the world can't change your book. Nothing can change your book. It's yours. You made it. Everything else is just opinion, and you can weather a little opinion. Promise.
I like to think I'm more centered as an author than I was a year ago. I've had good reviews and I've had bad reviews; I've wanted to argue with some in both categories (although I didn't, because I'm not insane). I've had fan mail and I've had...not hate mail, exactly, but definitely the opposite of fan mail. I've attended conventions that were new to me, and attended familiar conventions in a new context. It's all very wonderful, and very strange, and I've learned some things from the whole experience, which is good, 'cause if I wasn't learning, my friends would probably beat me to death.
So here. Have some hard-won wisdom. Or something. I'm going to go sit under a desk and hyperventilate.
Ten Things Seanan Has Learned About Being A Published Author.
10. You know how your book is the center of your world, and it feels like you talk about it constantly, and everyone you know is sick of it? Well, you probably do talk about it constantly, and everyone you know probably is sick of it, but the rest of the world has no clue who you are, or that you just put out a book, and while they'll be very impressed, they don't necessarily care. Don't take it personally.
9. Other things not to take personally: when people answer "I wrote a book" with "Oh, really? Can you sell me a copy?" and then look surprised to hear that they can buy it from the bookstore, just chill. Yes, it's faintly upsetting, but again, they don't mean anything by it, and at least they're asking where they can get the book.
8. You are probably not going to see anyone reading your book on the train. I'm sorry.
7. Assuming you've written the sort of book that shows up in airport bookstores, the first time you see it there, you're going to cry. Just accept that and move on. Also, carry tissues when you're trying to surreptitiously check bookstore stock.
6. Somebody is going to get a copy a week early. And that somebody is going to email you three days before the actual release date, and go "When does the next one come out?" It is actually rude to fill somebody's bedroom with live fiddler crabs while they sleep, no matter how much that question makes you want to. Just learn to grin and bear it.
5. People are going to assume that you have an endless supply of free books to hand out, like candy. When you say you don't, they're going to sulk at you, and may even say you're being mean. Carry pictures of sad-looking cats or children, and inform these people that your babies need to eat. It works.
4. If you spend all your time reading reviews and answering email, you will go insane. Don't do that.
3. Assuming you're writing a series, or even if you're not, odds are good that by the time the first book comes out, you'll be neck-deep in the second, or even the third, and it's going to be really hard to switch back into thinking about the new book as "current." Just try to remember what happens when, so you don't accidentally spoiler an entire book release party.
2. It's going to be hard to find time to write, but you have to. That's what got you into the position of not being able to find time to write, remember?
1. All the reviews in the world can't change your book. Nothing can change your book. It's yours. You made it. Everything else is just opinion, and you can weather a little opinion. Promise.
- Current Mood: thoughtful
- Current Music:Journey, "Faithfully."
So before we get too far from the convention, a few high (and low) points of San Diego 2010. Because otherwise, y'all will beat me with bricks in a dark alley somewhere, and I just don't have time for that.
This year, I was able to import Tara and Amy (webmistress and fiddler, respectively), and the three of us shared a room with Sunil (media madman) at the Gaslamp Marriott. Not only were we less than a five minute walk from the convention center, allowing us to easily drop things off in our room, but the hotel gave us free candy. Right there at the front desk, free candy. Amy and I decided that we were having the convention experience we would have designed for ourselves at age seven. Except for the drinking, this was probably true for the entire weekend.
Rebecca and Ryan were kind enough to pick me up from the airport; after they dropped me off, Amy and I went to get our badges while the car went back for Tara and Sunil (landing two hours later than I did). Hilarity and admission followed. Tara went off to hang with her friends, while Sunil, Amy, and I went to see an improv performance by Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em. They were decent, and the show was fun (especially since Amy got me a Long Island Iced Tea). The only real downside was Sunil accidentally ditching us while we were in the bathroom, but we went and met Rebecca and Ryan for Wendy's, so there was really no bad there.
Thursday was my first panel, The Power of Myth, which was a lot of fun, as was the signing which followed. I gave Amber Benson a copy of An Artificial Night, which she thanked me for, as now she would not be required to steal it. Tara, Amy, and I had lunch with Tanya Huff at the Cafe Diem, because the Cafe Diem is awesome. I also shopped. A lot. I enjoy shopping. I got a White Phoenix Jean Gray doll for my cover designer at Orbit, because I believe in bribery, yo. It was fun!
Thursday evening, Tanya, Tara, and I attended the Brilliance Audio author dinner, which I spent drinking Mai Tais, eating interesting things, and chatting with Phil and Kaja Foglio. My life, so hard.
Friday was my booth signing at Orbit, during which I signed a hundred copies of Feed. In the process, I drew ninety-nine tiny chainsaws, and one tiny Godzilla destroying a city. Again, my life, so hard. I had to miss the X-Men panel to do the signing (wah!), but I was able to attend the panel on James Gunn's Super (he needs to call me), which looks totally awesome. I had a second signing at the SFX booth later in the afternoon, and we gave away another fifty copies of Feed, one to the creator of Being Human. Totally awesome.
Friday evening, Tanya, Amy, and I attended the Penguin FangFest, which I spent drinking pineapple mojitos, eating cupcakes, and chatting with awesome authors. I finally met Charlaine Harris in the flesh, and it was hysterical. Exchange as follows:
Me: "Hi, it's great to finally meet you. I'm Seanan."
Charlaine: *politely blank look*
Me: *displays name tag*
Charlaine: "SHAWN-ANNE!"
*hugging*
I love having a weird name. After that, we went to the Boom! party, where I met Paul Cornell and his lovely wife, Caroline. Paul is one of my favorite humans, as he shares my love of the Black Death and giant flesh-eating lizards. I'm just saying.
Saturday was my second panel, The Rise of Zombie Fiction, which was a) mad fun, and b) reinforced my desire to write up a handbook for people doing panels at this sort of thing. Priscille from Books for Boobs came to the signing in a perfect Delirium costume, and I tried to eat her plush bear. Amy and I managed to catch the Warehouse 13 panel (Allison Scagliotti for Georgia Mason, anybody?), and then went off to dinner with John Grace at a very nice steak house. They served me port. MY LIFE, SO HARD.
Sunday, it was goodbyes and final shopping runs, and Tara and I had breakfast with Paul and Caroline before Amanda and Michael came to carry me away.
It was a good con. This writeup does not include hiding behind Anton, getting awesome swag and buttons from Rae, lots of hugging, accidental soda-based encounters, the dissolution of the Sacred Order of the Deli, ice cream, Gini Koch, late-night sammiches with Tanya, awesome dealer's room finds, free books, cheap books, expensive books, cookies, the art show, or repeat encounters with Felicia Day. But it does include a lot of awesome.
Also, if anyone came away from the con with a spare Sanctuary T-shirt, I am open to trades. Just saying.
This year, I was able to import Tara and Amy (webmistress and fiddler, respectively), and the three of us shared a room with Sunil (media madman) at the Gaslamp Marriott. Not only were we less than a five minute walk from the convention center, allowing us to easily drop things off in our room, but the hotel gave us free candy. Right there at the front desk, free candy. Amy and I decided that we were having the convention experience we would have designed for ourselves at age seven. Except for the drinking, this was probably true for the entire weekend.
Rebecca and Ryan were kind enough to pick me up from the airport; after they dropped me off, Amy and I went to get our badges while the car went back for Tara and Sunil (landing two hours later than I did). Hilarity and admission followed. Tara went off to hang with her friends, while Sunil, Amy, and I went to see an improv performance by Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em. They were decent, and the show was fun (especially since Amy got me a Long Island Iced Tea). The only real downside was Sunil accidentally ditching us while we were in the bathroom, but we went and met Rebecca and Ryan for Wendy's, so there was really no bad there.
Thursday was my first panel, The Power of Myth, which was a lot of fun, as was the signing which followed. I gave Amber Benson a copy of An Artificial Night, which she thanked me for, as now she would not be required to steal it. Tara, Amy, and I had lunch with Tanya Huff at the Cafe Diem, because the Cafe Diem is awesome. I also shopped. A lot. I enjoy shopping. I got a White Phoenix Jean Gray doll for my cover designer at Orbit, because I believe in bribery, yo. It was fun!
Thursday evening, Tanya, Tara, and I attended the Brilliance Audio author dinner, which I spent drinking Mai Tais, eating interesting things, and chatting with Phil and Kaja Foglio. My life, so hard.
Friday was my booth signing at Orbit, during which I signed a hundred copies of Feed. In the process, I drew ninety-nine tiny chainsaws, and one tiny Godzilla destroying a city. Again, my life, so hard. I had to miss the X-Men panel to do the signing (wah!), but I was able to attend the panel on James Gunn's Super (he needs to call me), which looks totally awesome. I had a second signing at the SFX booth later in the afternoon, and we gave away another fifty copies of Feed, one to the creator of Being Human. Totally awesome.
Friday evening, Tanya, Amy, and I attended the Penguin FangFest, which I spent drinking pineapple mojitos, eating cupcakes, and chatting with awesome authors. I finally met Charlaine Harris in the flesh, and it was hysterical. Exchange as follows:
Me: "Hi, it's great to finally meet you. I'm Seanan."
Charlaine: *politely blank look*
Me: *displays name tag*
Charlaine: "SHAWN-ANNE!"
*hugging*
I love having a weird name. After that, we went to the Boom! party, where I met Paul Cornell and his lovely wife, Caroline. Paul is one of my favorite humans, as he shares my love of the Black Death and giant flesh-eating lizards. I'm just saying.
Saturday was my second panel, The Rise of Zombie Fiction, which was a) mad fun, and b) reinforced my desire to write up a handbook for people doing panels at this sort of thing. Priscille from Books for Boobs came to the signing in a perfect Delirium costume, and I tried to eat her plush bear. Amy and I managed to catch the Warehouse 13 panel (Allison Scagliotti for Georgia Mason, anybody?), and then went off to dinner with John Grace at a very nice steak house. They served me port. MY LIFE, SO HARD.
Sunday, it was goodbyes and final shopping runs, and Tara and I had breakfast with Paul and Caroline before Amanda and Michael came to carry me away.
It was a good con. This writeup does not include hiding behind Anton, getting awesome swag and buttons from Rae, lots of hugging, accidental soda-based encounters, the dissolution of the Sacred Order of the Deli, ice cream, Gini Koch, late-night sammiches with Tanya, awesome dealer's room finds, free books, cheap books, expensive books, cookies, the art show, or repeat encounters with Felicia Day. But it does include a lot of awesome.
Also, if anyone came away from the con with a spare Sanctuary T-shirt, I am open to trades. Just saying.
- Current Mood:
content - Current Music:The Guild, "Date My Avatar."
I snagged this from the lovely la_marquise_de_, who is taking the much more sensible "one question a day" approach to things. Being as I am so rarely sensible, I'm just doing it all in one great whack. But I'm doing it behind a cut-tag, which helps at least a little.
( Click here for a lengthy meme about writing, because I can, and because it seemed like a good thing to do at the time. I may need more hobbies.Collapse )
la_marquise_de_, who is taking the much more sensible "one question a day" approach to things. Being as I am so rarely sensible, I'm just doing it all in one great whack. But I'm doing it behind a cut-tag, which helps at least a little.( Click here for a lengthy meme about writing, because I can, and because it seemed like a good thing to do at the time. I may need more hobbies.Collapse )
- Current Mood:
quixotic - Current Music:Random play on my iPod.
I am home from the San Diego International Comic Convention, where a fantastic, if exhausting, time was had by all. I'm still doing my post-con administrative cleanup (rendered more exciting by the fact that I have another convention this weekend, which makes the cycles for certain things much tighter than is the norm). This batch of cleanup is about awards and suchlike.
First up, as a quick reminder, voting for the Hugo and Campbell Awards closes at midnight, Pacific Time, on July 31st. So that means you have, effectively, until midnight on Saturday to vote. Details are here:
http://www.aussiecon4.org.au/index.p
This includes a full list of the nominees in their various categories. Remember that you must be either a supporting or attending member of AussieCon 4 to vote; supporting memberships are still available. Details on how to purchase a supporting membership are at the convention's website; they cost $50 a person.
It really is an honor to be nominated, and I'm still a little stunned over here. I also really want to receive a tiara in the Kingdom of Poison and Flame, for then I will truly be a Halloweentown Princess.
In a related, if not identical, vein, I will now quote NPR:
"Last month when we asked the NPR audience to submit nominations for a list of the 100 most pulse-quickening, suspenseful novels ever written, you came through with some 600 titles. It was a fascinating, if unwieldy, collection.
"Now, with your input, a panel of thriller writers and critics has whittled that list down to a manageable 182 novels. That roster, which we now offer for final voting, draws from every known thriller sub-genre—techno, espionage, crime, medical, psychological, horror, legal, supernatural and more."
Here is a link to the full story, including the list of 182 novels being considered for the top 100.
Winners will be announced August 2nd. Please spread the word? In conclusion, I leave you with this delightful message fromautographedcat...which, if I make the list, I will arrange to have recorded in MP3 form for your enjoyment:
"Hello, readers. Look at your book. Now back to me. Now back at your book. Now back to me. Sadly, you aren't me, but if you stopped reading trashy airport novels and switched to Feed by Mira Grant, you could be well-read like me.
"Look down, back up, where are you? You're on the beach with the person you could be as well read as. What's in your hand? Back to me. I have it; it's an epidemiology textbook with an explanation of the science behind the Kellis-Amberlee virus. Look again, the textbook is now a DVD of the future Rosemary and Rue movie. Anything is possible when you read Feed by Mira Grant.
"I'm on a velociraptor."
First up, as a quick reminder, voting for the Hugo and Campbell Awards closes at midnight, Pacific Time, on July 31st. So that means you have, effectively, until midnight on Saturday to vote. Details are here:
http://www.aussiecon4.org.au/index.p
This includes a full list of the nominees in their various categories. Remember that you must be either a supporting or attending member of AussieCon 4 to vote; supporting memberships are still available. Details on how to purchase a supporting membership are at the convention's website; they cost $50 a person.
It really is an honor to be nominated, and I'm still a little stunned over here. I also really want to receive a tiara in the Kingdom of Poison and Flame, for then I will truly be a Halloweentown Princess.
In a related, if not identical, vein, I will now quote NPR:
"Last month when we asked the NPR audience to submit nominations for a list of the 100 most pulse-quickening, suspenseful novels ever written, you came through with some 600 titles. It was a fascinating, if unwieldy, collection.
"Now, with your input, a panel of thriller writers and critics has whittled that list down to a manageable 182 novels. That roster, which we now offer for final voting, draws from every known thriller sub-genre—techno, espionage, crime, medical, psychological, horror, legal, supernatural and more."
Here is a link to the full story, including the list of 182 novels being considered for the top 100.
Winners will be announced August 2nd. Please spread the word? In conclusion, I leave you with this delightful message from
autographedcat...which, if I make the list, I will arrange to have recorded in MP3 form for your enjoyment:"Hello, readers. Look at your book. Now back to me. Now back at your book. Now back to me. Sadly, you aren't me, but if you stopped reading trashy airport novels and switched to Feed by Mira Grant, you could be well-read like me.
"Look down, back up, where are you? You're on the beach with the person you could be as well read as. What's in your hand? Back to me. I have it; it's an epidemiology textbook with an explanation of the science behind the Kellis-Amberlee virus. Look again, the textbook is now a DVD of the future Rosemary and Rue movie. Anything is possible when you read Feed by Mira Grant.
"I'm on a velociraptor."
- Current Mood: busy
- Current Music:The "Old Spice" theme.
And now it is July 15th—where the hell did the year go?!—and that means it's time for my monthly current projects post. This is the regularly scheduled update which provides the only non-hysteria-inducing answer to the question "What are you working on?" It has the extra added bonus of proving that I am able to stop time, since otherwise, even I don't quite understand how the hell I'm getting everything finished in a timely manner. Seriously, I don't think I sleep. This is the July list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving.
To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that all books currently in print are off the list. The second Newsflesh book (Deadline) is off the list until The Other Editor tells me otherwise. Discount Armageddon is off the list because it has been turned in to The Agent.
The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that all books currently in print are off the list. The second Newsflesh book (Deadline) is off the list until The Other Editor tells me otherwise. Discount Armageddon is off the list because it has been turned in to The Agent.
The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
- Current Mood: busy
- Current Music:Pippin, "Spread a Little Sunshine."
Dear Great Pumpkin;
It has been some time since I last wrote to you, but you have never been far from my thoughts. I just figured you could use a break. Since our last correspondence, I have refrained from starting any riots or overthrowing any governments. I have been kind to my friends, and relatively merciful to my enemies. I have offered friendship and support to those around me. I have given people cupcakes. I have not brought forth the end of days, nor capered gleefully by the bloody light of an apocalypse moon. I have continued to make all my deadlines, even the ones I most wanted to avoid. I have not talked about parasites at the dinner table. Much. So obviously, I have been quite well-behaved, especially considering my nature.
Today, Great Pumpkin, I am asking for the following gifts:
* A smooth and successful release for An Artificial Night, with books shipping when they're meant to ship, stores putting them out when they're supposed to put them out, and reviews that are accurate, insightful, and capable of steering people who will enjoy my book to read it. Please, Great Pumpkin, show mercy on your loving Pumpkin Princess of the West, and let it all be wonderful. I'm not asking you to make it easy, Great Pumpkin, but I'm asking you to make it good.
* Please help me finish the revisions to Late Eclipses in a smooth, satisfying, timely way, hopefully including a minimum number of typographical and factual errors, plus a maximum level of awesome and win. I'm about halfway through, which is wonderful—I'm almost done!—and terrifying—soon I won't be able to make changes anymore!—at the same time. I want to bring this book to a close, so I can get back to work on the fifth Toby book and the third Newsflesh book. What I have is good. Please let the rest be amazing.
* Since I'm being a Greedy Greta today, please let me swing back into The Brightest Fell with speed and elan, overcoming all challenges in my pursuit of the perfect ending. Thanks to changes in the book's overall plot, I no longer know for sure whether book six will be Ashes of Honor or One Salt Sea, and I'd really like to figure that one out. Please let the book be good, and please let the book be easy on my sanity. The more time I have to spend stressing out over this book, the less time I spend preaching your gospel to the unenlightened, or lurking in corn mazes scaring the living crap out of tourists. You like it when I scare the crap out of tourists, don't you, Great Pumpkin?
* I thank you once again for my cats, Great Pumpkin, who are wonderful and beautiful and a comfort beyond all measure. Alice is huge, puffy, and utterly without dignity. Lilly is sleek, smug, and satisfied with herself. Both are glorious representatives of their breed, and now, as I look to adding a third member to the family, I turn to you. Please make sure I find the right kitten, Great Pumpkin, the one which will enrich and benefit my feline family in ways that I haven't even thought of yet. Keep them healthy, keep them happy, and keep them exactly as they are.
* Please help me write a successful, smooth, and most of all, correct conclusion for the "Sparrow Hill Road" series of stories. It's been exciting and educational, and I've enjoyed the process of delving into Rose's world, but as I start moving toward the end of this particular journey, I start worrying about my ability to stick the landing. Please help me stick the landing, Great Pumpkin. Rose has waited a long time for her story to be told in a truthful, respectful manner, and she deserves a narrative that gets her all the way to the last exit on the ghostroads.
* I haven't said anything up to now about what I really want this year, Great Pumpkin, but...you know I've been nominated for the Campbell Award. You know that if I win, I'll be given a tiara, in Australia. You know that this is essentially what I've wanted my whole life. Some little girls want to be Prom Queen; I wanted to be Princess of the Kingdom of Poison and Flame. Please shine your holy candle upon the Campbell, Great Pumpkin, and, if you see fit, I will thank you in any speeches I have to give (which might be worth it right there).
I remain your faithful Halloween girl,
Seanan.
PS: While you're at it, can you please turn your graces on InCryptid? I really love these books. I want to be able to write more of them.
It has been some time since I last wrote to you, but you have never been far from my thoughts. I just figured you could use a break. Since our last correspondence, I have refrained from starting any riots or overthrowing any governments. I have been kind to my friends, and relatively merciful to my enemies. I have offered friendship and support to those around me. I have given people cupcakes. I have not brought forth the end of days, nor capered gleefully by the bloody light of an apocalypse moon. I have continued to make all my deadlines, even the ones I most wanted to avoid. I have not talked about parasites at the dinner table. Much. So obviously, I have been quite well-behaved, especially considering my nature.
Today, Great Pumpkin, I am asking for the following gifts:
* A smooth and successful release for An Artificial Night, with books shipping when they're meant to ship, stores putting them out when they're supposed to put them out, and reviews that are accurate, insightful, and capable of steering people who will enjoy my book to read it. Please, Great Pumpkin, show mercy on your loving Pumpkin Princess of the West, and let it all be wonderful. I'm not asking you to make it easy, Great Pumpkin, but I'm asking you to make it good.
* Please help me finish the revisions to Late Eclipses in a smooth, satisfying, timely way, hopefully including a minimum number of typographical and factual errors, plus a maximum level of awesome and win. I'm about halfway through, which is wonderful—I'm almost done!—and terrifying—soon I won't be able to make changes anymore!—at the same time. I want to bring this book to a close, so I can get back to work on the fifth Toby book and the third Newsflesh book. What I have is good. Please let the rest be amazing.
* Since I'm being a Greedy Greta today, please let me swing back into The Brightest Fell with speed and elan, overcoming all challenges in my pursuit of the perfect ending. Thanks to changes in the book's overall plot, I no longer know for sure whether book six will be Ashes of Honor or One Salt Sea, and I'd really like to figure that one out. Please let the book be good, and please let the book be easy on my sanity. The more time I have to spend stressing out over this book, the less time I spend preaching your gospel to the unenlightened, or lurking in corn mazes scaring the living crap out of tourists. You like it when I scare the crap out of tourists, don't you, Great Pumpkin?
* I thank you once again for my cats, Great Pumpkin, who are wonderful and beautiful and a comfort beyond all measure. Alice is huge, puffy, and utterly without dignity. Lilly is sleek, smug, and satisfied with herself. Both are glorious representatives of their breed, and now, as I look to adding a third member to the family, I turn to you. Please make sure I find the right kitten, Great Pumpkin, the one which will enrich and benefit my feline family in ways that I haven't even thought of yet. Keep them healthy, keep them happy, and keep them exactly as they are.
* Please help me write a successful, smooth, and most of all, correct conclusion for the "Sparrow Hill Road" series of stories. It's been exciting and educational, and I've enjoyed the process of delving into Rose's world, but as I start moving toward the end of this particular journey, I start worrying about my ability to stick the landing. Please help me stick the landing, Great Pumpkin. Rose has waited a long time for her story to be told in a truthful, respectful manner, and she deserves a narrative that gets her all the way to the last exit on the ghostroads.
* I haven't said anything up to now about what I really want this year, Great Pumpkin, but...you know I've been nominated for the Campbell Award. You know that if I win, I'll be given a tiara, in Australia. You know that this is essentially what I've wanted my whole life. Some little girls want to be Prom Queen; I wanted to be Princess of the Kingdom of Poison and Flame. Please shine your holy candle upon the Campbell, Great Pumpkin, and, if you see fit, I will thank you in any speeches I have to give (which might be worth it right there).
I remain your faithful Halloween girl,
Seanan.
PS: While you're at it, can you please turn your graces on InCryptid? I really love these books. I want to be able to write more of them.
- Current Mood: thoughtful
- Current Music:Nightmare Before Christmas, "This is Halloween."
Hello, and welcome to my journal! I'm pretty sure you know who I am, my name being in the URL and all, but just in case, I'm Seanan McGuire (also known as Mira Grant), and you're probably not on Candid Camera. This post exists to answer a few of the questions I get asked on a semi-hemi-demi-regular basis. It may look familiar; that's because it gets updated and re-posted roughly every two months, to let folks who've just wandered in know how things work around here. Also, sometimes I change the questions. Because I can.
If you've read this before, feel free to skip, although there may be interesting new things to discover and know beyond the cut.
Anyway, here you go:
( This way lies a lot of information you may or may not need about the person whose LJ you may or may not be reading right at this moment. Also, I may or may not be the King of Rain, which may or may not explain why it's drizzling right now. Essentially, this is Schrodinger's cut-tag.Collapse )
If you've read this before, feel free to skip, although there may be interesting new things to discover and know beyond the cut.
Anyway, here you go:
( This way lies a lot of information you may or may not need about the person whose LJ you may or may not be reading right at this moment. Also, I may or may not be the King of Rain, which may or may not explain why it's drizzling right now. Essentially, this is Schrodinger's cut-tag.Collapse )
- Current Mood: awake
- Current Music:Kim Richey, "Jack and Jill."
As I write this, it's a little after nine o'clock at night. For me, on a weeknight/work night, that's very late indeed. The cats are sitting next to the chair, watching me with annoyed expressions that rather clearly telegraph "C'mon, Mom, get in the bed already." They're going to have to wait a few minutes more, while the air conditioning gets things down to a tolerable temperature in here. I mean, really. If I tried to sleep right now, all I'd do is liquefy myself.
I'm starting to put together my set list for Gafilk in January. It's going to require my usual motley crew of awesome backing musicians to learn some new pieces, as well as requiring me to extensively bribe the less-usual motley crew, so I want to solidify my desires, sit down with Paul, do some chording, and present a unified concept to the team. I think it's going to be really amazing, when it's all done.
Speaking of really amazing things, I went to Kristoph's this afternoon, and did the very very last little bits of my vocal part for Wicked Girls. Specifically, I recorded a counting rhyme for "Mother of the Crows," recorded the end spoken bits for "Tanglewood Tree," and recorded some giggles for "Jack's Place." And then I re-recorded the intro to "Counting Crows," because we had some click track bleed-through, and really, who needs to put up with that shit? I was there, we were already working, we did it, and now we are done. There are some instrumental bits yet to go, and a few vocals from other people, but on the whole, it's finished. Pre-orders are literally only waiting on finished cover art, and we may go ahead and open them without it.
I've been working on the edits and revisions to the final version of Late Eclipses (Toby four). The book is literally improving by the page. It's still a long way from done, but I'm chugging through at a more than respectable rate—which is good, since while I'm working on it, I'm not working on The Brightest Fell or Blackout. Balancing things is hard. I'm pretty good at it, but still. It's hard.
I have had a lovely glass of port (I am out of port again), and done my word count for tonight. Now is the time when I go to bed, and think sweet thoughts of finishing Late Eclipses and my short fiction assignments, thus freeing that slot for working on Midnight Blue-Light Special. I miss you, Verity!
Goodnight, world.
I'm starting to put together my set list for Gafilk in January. It's going to require my usual motley crew of awesome backing musicians to learn some new pieces, as well as requiring me to extensively bribe the less-usual motley crew, so I want to solidify my desires, sit down with Paul, do some chording, and present a unified concept to the team. I think it's going to be really amazing, when it's all done.
Speaking of really amazing things, I went to Kristoph's this afternoon, and did the very very last little bits of my vocal part for Wicked Girls. Specifically, I recorded a counting rhyme for "Mother of the Crows," recorded the end spoken bits for "Tanglewood Tree," and recorded some giggles for "Jack's Place." And then I re-recorded the intro to "Counting Crows," because we had some click track bleed-through, and really, who needs to put up with that shit? I was there, we were already working, we did it, and now we are done. There are some instrumental bits yet to go, and a few vocals from other people, but on the whole, it's finished. Pre-orders are literally only waiting on finished cover art, and we may go ahead and open them without it.
I've been working on the edits and revisions to the final version of Late Eclipses (Toby four). The book is literally improving by the page. It's still a long way from done, but I'm chugging through at a more than respectable rate—which is good, since while I'm working on it, I'm not working on The Brightest Fell or Blackout. Balancing things is hard. I'm pretty good at it, but still. It's hard.
I have had a lovely glass of port (I am out of port again), and done my word count for tonight. Now is the time when I go to bed, and think sweet thoughts of finishing Late Eclipses and my short fiction assignments, thus freeing that slot for working on Midnight Blue-Light Special. I miss you, Verity!
Goodnight, world.
- Current Mood: tired
- Current Music:Anya Marina, "All the Same to Me."
1. Only four hours remain to enter my random drawing for an ARC of An Artificial Night! It's probably the simplest contest I'm going to have, so what have you got to lose, right? Besides, they're pretty. I like pretty things. I am a simple soul.
2. Speaking of pretty things, remember that the ALH pendant sale will be starting today at Chimera Fancies. I cannot possibly overstate how much I love Mia's pendants. If I were a wealthy woman, I'd just pay her to sit around and make them all day, and keep the bulk of her output for myself. Again, simple soul. Also, occasional magpie.
3. Leverage comes back this weekend! So You Think You Can Dance is back on the air! Cartoon Network has Unnatural History and Total Drama World Tour! Oh, I love you, summertime television. I love you so much, forever.
4. Tomorrow is my last pre-Westercon rehearsal with the fabulous Paul Kwinn, renowned in song and story, master of the meaningful look while wearing a gaudily-patterned shirt, husband of Beckett, whom I love beyond all reason. I'm very excited, despite the fact that I'm still occasionally coughing like I'm on the verge of actual death. It's gonna be awesome.
5. I have my editorial notes for Late Eclipses, and I'm busily incorporating them into the finished manuscript...while, possibly, fixing a few little language issues at the same time. It's been long enough since I touched this book that it appears to have been written by an alien, which is the best time for doing editorial. It's still my baby. It's just my weird alien baby, and that makes it more fun to autopsy.
6. Zombies are still love.
7. It's June already. That means we're getting closer and closer every day to my departure for Australia, LAND OF POISON AND FLAME, which I have only been dreaming about for most of my life. I'm so excited it's scary, and not just because I'm on the ballot for the Campbell (although that remains a constant GOTO loop at the back of my brain). I get to go to Australia! I get to breathe Australian air! My life is awesome sometimes.
8. We've entered the final stages of recording Wicked Girls, and it should, I hope, I pray, be able to make the October release date that I so optimistically set for myself. I'll be announcing the pre-orders soon, since that's how I finance mixing and mastering, and I'm really, really happy with this album, as a whole. It's just...it's what I wanted. And that's incredible.
9. I think the cats are stealing my will to leave the house. I just want to sleep.
10. I need more ARC contests! Suggest something. Be silly, be serious, request that I do your favorite all over again, whatever. I need ideas, and so I turn to you, the glorious Internet, to give them to me.
It's Friday!
2. Speaking of pretty things, remember that the ALH pendant sale will be starting today at Chimera Fancies. I cannot possibly overstate how much I love Mia's pendants. If I were a wealthy woman, I'd just pay her to sit around and make them all day, and keep the bulk of her output for myself. Again, simple soul. Also, occasional magpie.
3. Leverage comes back this weekend! So You Think You Can Dance is back on the air! Cartoon Network has Unnatural History and Total Drama World Tour! Oh, I love you, summertime television. I love you so much, forever.
4. Tomorrow is my last pre-Westercon rehearsal with the fabulous Paul Kwinn, renowned in song and story, master of the meaningful look while wearing a gaudily-patterned shirt, husband of Beckett, whom I love beyond all reason. I'm very excited, despite the fact that I'm still occasionally coughing like I'm on the verge of actual death. It's gonna be awesome.
5. I have my editorial notes for Late Eclipses, and I'm busily incorporating them into the finished manuscript...while, possibly, fixing a few little language issues at the same time. It's been long enough since I touched this book that it appears to have been written by an alien, which is the best time for doing editorial. It's still my baby. It's just my weird alien baby, and that makes it more fun to autopsy.
6. Zombies are still love.
7. It's June already. That means we're getting closer and closer every day to my departure for Australia, LAND OF POISON AND FLAME, which I have only been dreaming about for most of my life. I'm so excited it's scary, and not just because I'm on the ballot for the Campbell (although that remains a constant GOTO loop at the back of my brain). I get to go to Australia! I get to breathe Australian air! My life is awesome sometimes.
8. We've entered the final stages of recording Wicked Girls, and it should, I hope, I pray, be able to make the October release date that I so optimistically set for myself. I'll be announcing the pre-orders soon, since that's how I finance mixing and mastering, and I'm really, really happy with this album, as a whole. It's just...it's what I wanted. And that's incredible.
9. I think the cats are stealing my will to leave the house. I just want to sleep.
10. I need more ARC contests! Suggest something. Be silly, be serious, request that I do your favorite all over again, whatever. I need ideas, and so I turn to you, the glorious Internet, to give them to me.
It's Friday!
- Current Mood: awake
- Current Music:SJ Tucker, "Casimira."
And now it is June 15th, which is sort of upsetting me a little bit, and that means it's time for my monthly current projects post. This is the regularly scheduled update which provides the only non-hysteria-inducing answer to the question "What are you working on?" It has the extra added bonus of proving that I am able to stop time, since otherwise, even I don't quite understand how the hell I'm getting everything finished in a timely manner. Seriously, I don't think I sleep. This is the June list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving.
To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that the first three Toby books (Rosemary and Rue, A Local Habitation, An Artificial Night) and the first Newsflesh book (Feed) are off the list because they are now in print. The second Newsflesh book (Deadline) is off the list until The Other Editor tells me otherwise. Discount Armageddon is off the list because it has been turned in to The Agent.
The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that the first three Toby books (Rosemary and Rue, A Local Habitation, An Artificial Night) and the first Newsflesh book (Feed) are off the list because they are now in print. The second Newsflesh book (Deadline) is off the list until The Other Editor tells me otherwise. Discount Armageddon is off the list because it has been turned in to The Agent.
The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
- Current Mood: busy
- Current Music:Rhianna, "Good Girl Gone Bad."
We are now ninety days out from the release of An Artificial Night (October Daye, book three). It's up on Amazon.com, and people are pre-ordering. The ARCs should be arriving at my house any day now; they may even be waiting for me when I get home tonight. My page proofs have been reviewed, returned to DAW, and confirmed as received, which means this book is now officially outside my control: I can't change anything.
Ninety days.
An Artificial Night is the third and last book on my original contract was DAW. It's also the last book to be mostly complete at the time of sale. Barring editorial notes, small changes, and typo correction, all three have been done since before Rosemary and Rue was released. In many ways, this has been a great thing. On the one hand, it's meant that I couldn't change what I was doing based on outside criticism. On the other hand, it's meant that I couldn't change what I was doing based on outside criticism—I couldn't fix anything, but I also couldn't have a first-time novelist freak-out and wind up completely rewriting the rest of the series to meet an unreachable standard. I know this has been a luxury. It's one I'm very, very glad to have had.
This book is my favorite of the first three. I love the whole thing. I love the situation, I love the reality of it, and I love that Toby is finally past the events of the first book to such an extent that she can really stand up and do her job. I love that in just ninety days, you'll be able to hold it in your hands.
How many miles to Babylon?
Not that many.
Ninety days.
An Artificial Night is the third and last book on my original contract was DAW. It's also the last book to be mostly complete at the time of sale. Barring editorial notes, small changes, and typo correction, all three have been done since before Rosemary and Rue was released. In many ways, this has been a great thing. On the one hand, it's meant that I couldn't change what I was doing based on outside criticism. On the other hand, it's meant that I couldn't change what I was doing based on outside criticism—I couldn't fix anything, but I also couldn't have a first-time novelist freak-out and wind up completely rewriting the rest of the series to meet an unreachable standard. I know this has been a luxury. It's one I'm very, very glad to have had.
This book is my favorite of the first three. I love the whole thing. I love the situation, I love the reality of it, and I love that Toby is finally past the events of the first book to such an extent that she can really stand up and do her job. I love that in just ninety days, you'll be able to hold it in your hands.
How many miles to Babylon?
Not that many.
- Current Mood: ecstatic
- Current Music:Clandestine, "Babylon."
Words: 37,836.
Total words: 37,836.
Reason for stopping: There are not words for how very "bedtime" it is right now.
Music: Alice trying to get me to go to bed.
Lilly and Alice: On the bed, and trying to order me to bed, respectively.
So yeah. Welcome back to the word counter for The Brightest Fell, aka, "Toby Daye, book five," aka, "this is the song that never ends." I have officially been working on this book since the dawn of time, largely because it's always been book five, and hence, very far away on the horizon. There was always room for something else to be higher-priority, and knock it to the back of the queue. Guess what, queue? Not anymore!
Anyway, The Brightest Fell is finally moving forward in a smooth, comprehensible, and I strongly suspect sustainable manner, which is weird but sort of awesome. It has been very much informed by all the things I've learned about being a writer from the first four, and by all the things I've learned about Toby herself from the first four, the short stories, and the prequel that you won't be seeing for a while yet. It's making me really happy, and also weirding me out more than a little, because dude, it's becoming a book. A book that currently spends a lot of time flipping me off, but still, a book.
I make progress! I dance the dance of joy. And now I sleep.
Total words: 37,836.
Reason for stopping: There are not words for how very "bedtime" it is right now.
Music: Alice trying to get me to go to bed.
Lilly and Alice: On the bed, and trying to order me to bed, respectively.
So yeah. Welcome back to the word counter for The Brightest Fell, aka, "Toby Daye, book five," aka, "this is the song that never ends." I have officially been working on this book since the dawn of time, largely because it's always been book five, and hence, very far away on the horizon. There was always room for something else to be higher-priority, and knock it to the back of the queue. Guess what, queue? Not anymore!
Anyway, The Brightest Fell is finally moving forward in a smooth, comprehensible, and I strongly suspect sustainable manner, which is weird but sort of awesome. It has been very much informed by all the things I've learned about being a writer from the first four, and by all the things I've learned about Toby herself from the first four, the short stories, and the prequel that you won't be seeing for a while yet. It's making me really happy, and also weirding me out more than a little, because dude, it's becoming a book. A book that currently spends a lot of time flipping me off, but still, a book.
I make progress! I dance the dance of joy. And now I sleep.
- Current Mood:
exhausted - Current Music:Alice singing the "Bed now, Mommy, bed now" song.
I'm in the home stretch now, because this is the forty-third essay in my fifty-essay series on the business, craft, and never-ending cookie party that is the wonderful world of writing. If I seem to be getting a little bit punchy, it's because I've given up sleep until my deadlines are met. These essays are all based around my original fifty thoughts on writing, which were written in no particular order. This explains a lot. Thanks for sticking it out this far. Our thought for today:
Thoughts on Writing #43: Research Is Love.
Context is also love. Bearing that in mind, here's today's expanded thought:
Your ass is for sitting on, not for talking out of. If your characters are supposed to be gun experts, talk to some people who shoot guns. Read some books about guns. If the books don't make sense to you, hand your manuscript pages to someone who knows guns and say "please fix." My original draft of Feed literally included "INSERT VIROLOGY HERE," because when I wrote that chapter, I hadn't finished designing my virus. I finished my virus, double-checked my epidemiology, went back, and finished that scene. If you don't know what you're talking about, learn enough to fake it.
Authors very rarely write about characters that are exactly like them, down to the classes they took in college and the things they know how to cook for dinner. In almost all cases, even when writing "realistic fiction," we're going to be writing about characters who know things that we, as authors, don't necessarily know. Sure, we'll probably stick them in our areas of interest, because those areas interest us, but how do we deal with the fact that our characters actually know things we don't? How do we make it work?
It's time to talk about research, faking it, and when it's acceptable to bluff. Ready? Good. Let's begin.
( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on getting the facts right.Collapse )
Thoughts on Writing #43: Research Is Love.
Context is also love. Bearing that in mind, here's today's expanded thought:
Your ass is for sitting on, not for talking out of. If your characters are supposed to be gun experts, talk to some people who shoot guns. Read some books about guns. If the books don't make sense to you, hand your manuscript pages to someone who knows guns and say "please fix." My original draft of Feed literally included "INSERT VIROLOGY HERE," because when I wrote that chapter, I hadn't finished designing my virus. I finished my virus, double-checked my epidemiology, went back, and finished that scene. If you don't know what you're talking about, learn enough to fake it.
Authors very rarely write about characters that are exactly like them, down to the classes they took in college and the things they know how to cook for dinner. In almost all cases, even when writing "realistic fiction," we're going to be writing about characters who know things that we, as authors, don't necessarily know. Sure, we'll probably stick them in our areas of interest, because those areas interest us, but how do we deal with the fact that our characters actually know things we don't? How do we make it work?
It's time to talk about research, faking it, and when it's acceptable to bluff. Ready? Good. Let's begin.
( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on getting the facts right.Collapse )
- Current Mood: thoughtful
- Current Music:Buffy Summers, "Going Through the Motions."
Tuesday, I realized there was something wrong with The Brightest Fell (October Daye, book five).
Wednesday, I began reworking the book from the beginning, to see if I could figure out what the problem was. Twenty pages in, I figured out what the problem was. Twenty pages after that, I came up for air.
Thursday, a package containing the page proofs for An Artificial Night landed on my doorstep, roughly four hours after the official sign-and-return contracts for Late Eclipses and The Brightest Fell landed in my hands. And to this I say...
Here we go again.
Tonight, I'm going to go home, pick up the page proofs, and decamp to the Starbucks down the street, where the combination of caffeine, iPod, and no fixed bedtime will enable me to burn through a decent number of chapters before I collapse into a twitching heap. Tomorrow, I'll get out of bed, take my walk to the 7-11 (land of "it's exactly a mile and a half round-trip"), and get back to work on The Brightest Fell. By the end of the weekend, I expect to be at least eighty pages into both manuscripts.
Toby's world is one that's very familiar to me, and very welcoming, because I've spent so much time there. At the same time, The Brightest Fell has been a challenge—it's resolving a lot of things that should make people very happy—while An Artificial Night remains my favorite of the first three, and thus needs to be as bad-ass as possible. So, you know. No pressure or anything.
But gee, it's nice to be running away with the faeries again.
Wednesday, I began reworking the book from the beginning, to see if I could figure out what the problem was. Twenty pages in, I figured out what the problem was. Twenty pages after that, I came up for air.
Thursday, a package containing the page proofs for An Artificial Night landed on my doorstep, roughly four hours after the official sign-and-return contracts for Late Eclipses and The Brightest Fell landed in my hands. And to this I say...
Here we go again.
Tonight, I'm going to go home, pick up the page proofs, and decamp to the Starbucks down the street, where the combination of caffeine, iPod, and no fixed bedtime will enable me to burn through a decent number of chapters before I collapse into a twitching heap. Tomorrow, I'll get out of bed, take my walk to the 7-11 (land of "it's exactly a mile and a half round-trip"), and get back to work on The Brightest Fell. By the end of the weekend, I expect to be at least eighty pages into both manuscripts.
Toby's world is one that's very familiar to me, and very welcoming, because I've spent so much time there. At the same time, The Brightest Fell has been a challenge—it's resolving a lot of things that should make people very happy—while An Artificial Night remains my favorite of the first three, and thus needs to be as bad-ass as possible. So, you know. No pressure or anything.
But gee, it's nice to be running away with the faeries again.
- Current Mood:
excited - Current Music:OK-Go, "Here It Goes Again."
I am now somewhere in the region of 80% done with my insanely intensive and invasive dental work. Today's session was supposed to last about an hour and a half. It ran three hours solid, all of which was spent under nitrous oxide, listening to Adam sing version after version of "Rain King." (It turns out, by the way, that I can get through approximately twenty versions of "Rain King" in three hours, intermixed with a truly awesome number of alternate lyrics. In case you were wondering, this is all that keeps me sane when I have to face my ultimate phobia...the friendly, smiling Dr. Mason. The characters were named before I got this dentist, I swear.)
Three hours of nitrous leaves me woozy, unsteady, and barely able to stand up on my own. My mother, who is sometimes a cruel woman, finds this hysterical, and likes to point and laugh. Luckily, she also likes to take me to IHOP for the calories necessary to put my stomach back into its original position. I might otherwise be forced to kill her.
The cats also find this hysterical, as well as useful, since I mostly sit still with my laptop on my legs, petting the cats and watching DVDs of The West Wing. I really wasn't planning to spend my entire day in a drugged stupor, but there you go. Peh.
On the plus side, I finally finished Sparrow Hill Road #7, "Do You Want to Dance?" It's off with my first-pass proofers now, getting smashed to pieces with hammers. I like this stage. It's the stage that I have nothing whatsoever to do with. This leaves me with five stories to go before the big finish, and then...well, then, I suppose I'll be focusing back on Velveteen and her crew. I actually have an installment in process right now, "Velveteen vs. The Secret Identity," which will almost certainly prove to be messy for everyone involved. Fun!
Now I sit here in my leopard-print nightie, trying to figure out where I left my feet. I am really not recovering from today's procedure in anything resembling a swift or coherent manner.
Peh.
Three hours of nitrous leaves me woozy, unsteady, and barely able to stand up on my own. My mother, who is sometimes a cruel woman, finds this hysterical, and likes to point and laugh. Luckily, she also likes to take me to IHOP for the calories necessary to put my stomach back into its original position. I might otherwise be forced to kill her.
The cats also find this hysterical, as well as useful, since I mostly sit still with my laptop on my legs, petting the cats and watching DVDs of The West Wing. I really wasn't planning to spend my entire day in a drugged stupor, but there you go. Peh.
On the plus side, I finally finished Sparrow Hill Road #7, "Do You Want to Dance?" It's off with my first-pass proofers now, getting smashed to pieces with hammers. I like this stage. It's the stage that I have nothing whatsoever to do with. This leaves me with five stories to go before the big finish, and then...well, then, I suppose I'll be focusing back on Velveteen and her crew. I actually have an installment in process right now, "Velveteen vs. The Secret Identity," which will almost certainly prove to be messy for everyone involved. Fun!
Now I sit here in my leopard-print nightie, trying to figure out where I left my feet. I am really not recovering from today's procedure in anything resembling a swift or coherent manner.
Peh.
- Current Mood:
sore - Current Music:Lilly trying to get me to pet her more.
It's May 15th—where the hell did April go?—and that means it's time for my monthly current projects post. This is the regular update wherein I prove to the curious that I either don't sleep or have access to some mechanism for stopping time (don't I wish). There's a reason I start to giggle and twitch whenever someone asks me "What are you working on?", and this post provides a bit of explanation. It also serves as something I can point to when the question gets asked, which it does. This is the May list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving.
To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that the first two Toby books (Rosemary and Rue and A Local Habitation) and the first Newsflesh book (Feed) are off the list because they are now in print. The third and fourth Toby books (An Artificial Night and Late Eclipses) are off the list until The Editor tells me otherwise. Discount Armageddon and Deadline are off the list because they have been turned in to The Agent.
The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."
Please note that the first two Toby books (Rosemary and Rue and A Local Habitation) and the first Newsflesh book (Feed) are off the list because they are now in print. The third and fourth Toby books (An Artificial Night and Late Eclipses) are off the list until The Editor tells me otherwise. Discount Armageddon and Deadline are off the list because they have been turned in to The Agent.
The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.
( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out!Collapse )
- Current Mood: busy
- Current Music:Glee, "Jessie's Girl."
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