Impudent Hatchlings

YOU'RE SO VAIN, YOU PROBABLY THINK THIS ALBINO BEAVER JOKE IS ABOUT YOU

2012-02-14T04:00:00.001-09:00

The most difficult part of starting a new story, for me, is finding the voice. This is different from style. Author style and story voice [which is heavily influenced by or even dependent on the nuances and perspective of the main character(s)] should be complimentary if noticeable at all, but they aren't the same thing.

Voice isn't dependent on plot, though plot can influence the tone, which in turn can help shape the voice.

I'm writing in third person, which I haven't done in awhile, and with alternating point-of-views, which I rarely use. So, I have to find both the characters' unique voices, and then bring them together under the tonal umbrella. Not to be confused with the intentionally-stuttered Umbrella:

This story is supposed to be a romance. Romance has, at its essence, a few traditional components. The couple (or more, if you're going for slightly less-traditional). The meeting. The falling. The HEA (happily ever after).

What does this story have so far?

A small airplane that might be in crashing
A rant about indifferent architecture
A beaver - nay, an albino beaver - joke
A sea cucumber reference (possibly involving snot)
A single member of the couple

Why have I not yet had these two halves of a single heart waltz into a room and swoon in the other's direction? Because I haven't found the voice yet. I'll continue to write in circles and tangents until the discordant strings come together to play a single note.

There shall be quirkiness, judging from the things my single so-far character thinks about. There shall also be a great sense of adventure. Because, hell, isn't that what falling in love is all about? Taking the running leap and hoping the other party comes with?

Do you ever get hung up like this when you start a new work? Or do you have the characters and the voice, but not know what to do with them?

In separate news, if my cat says I beat her, please ignore her. I just refilled her water bowl and, when I went to set it on the floor, she darted beneath it and got hit on the head. Also, doused. Then, after running out of the room while I was looking for paper towels, she ran back into the room and slid through the spilled water, going ass over teakettle into the kid's old toddler potty. She then gave me a look that said she knew I'd pushed her into it. I hadn't, but I did laugh. Loudly. At her.

THE POWER OF THE STORY

2012-01-31T19:08:00.000-09:00

I don't understand the debates over the merits of books. Not any of them. I don't understand literary vs. commercial fiction, realism vs. speculative, in original language vs. translation, paper vs. digital. All I understand is the power of the story.

The political thriller you found on a bench that got you through the six-hour bus ride in the middle of the night so you could visit your brother after his accident.

The romance paperback that you read over and over after a breakup until you could breathe again.

The children's tale of dogs and death that silenced the house raging around you.

The book that taught you about international finance and the importance of the gold standard while you recovered from a broken leg (that was a romance, btw).

Some books contain language so sweet you have to whisper aloud while reading. Some books launch a thousand copycats, and others disappear, leaving behind only a few hundred copies. And some stories will transport you out of the worst days of your lives.

What's worth more, classic you never read or the ratty little book that changed your life?

WHERE WE'RE AT

2012-01-22T19:53:00.000-09:00

It has come to my attention, while comparing the calendar to my day job leave bank, that I will never be the kind of person who leaves vacation days on the table. We're, what, twenty-one days into twenty-twelve? I've already got 2/3s of my vacation days allocated. And that's only planning through July. That's going to make for a boring fall and winter. Bah!

I finished my first novel of twenty-twelve. I started it on November 8th and finished the first draft on December 12th. It rolled out, seeming to build momentum as it went. That's rare, but really, really nice.

And, speaking of things writing, my dear friend Tiffany Allee released her debut, a paranormal romance novella called Banshee Charmer today. Congratulations to her!

Where are you at as we approach the end of Month I, Twenty-Twelve?

EXTREMES

2012-01-17T19:55:00.000-09:00

Just a quick post to announce that I am back! I won't be blogging regularly here for a bit, mostly because I'm doing a number of guest posts and interviews for other authors and book bloggers as part of my novella release. (list of appearances here - please check back for updates)

I will say that I was a bit shocked when I returned to Alaska. I wasn't gone long, fewer than ten days. But I went from this:

to...I can't even show you pictures. It's so miserable. Lovely, yes. Crisp and bright but also cold as [insert obscenities here].

In those pics above, it's between 75 and 85 degrees. Ideal. Here? It's been between -5 and -15. NOT IDEAL. I guess, when we're away, the frost giants will play.

The good news is that it's now there's a ribbon of light on the horizon when I leave work. Two weeks ago, it was full dark. That, my dears, is an improvement.

TIME OFF FOR GOOD BEHAVIOR

2012-01-06T21:51:00.000-09:00

I'll be off the blog for, ohhhh, maybe ten days. For good behavior. Or...behavior, at any rate.

THINGS

2012-01-04T19:44:00.001-09:00

*looks around. smiles*

I see we all survived 2011. Nice. Very nice. Please give yourselves a round of applause. It was a wild one.

2012, for me, starts with:

a tbr pile as tall as my house
two scheduled trips, courtesy of a lot of ambition on cybermonday
a planned trip to the RWA National meeting in Anaheim (give me a shout if you think you'll be there)
a novella release on the 16th (!)
a happy, healthy, frighteningly intelligent toddler
and a car that needs an oil change (it's not all good)

What have you got going for you this week, month, year?

SO WAT'CHA, WAT'CHA, WAT'CHA WANT?

2011-12-28T22:22:00.001-09:00

Twenty-twelve is right around the corner and, as ever when we reach the cusp of a new year, that means it's time to talk about successes and failures, resolutions and goals. I say we don't dwell so much on the failures, or the resolutions - what are those, after all, but snippets of dreams committed to paper?

My five goals, in no particular order, for twenty-twelve:*

Master the art of eating hot foods without losing control of my mucous membranes
Finally watch all of Jacob's Ladder without covering my eyes during the seizure-gimp scenes
Write that 120,000-word buddy comedy novel mash-up of Twilight and Throw Momma from the Train

Grow another inch
Finish two novels

What are your goals, dear readers? What one or three or five things do you hope to accomplish in twenty-twelve? (Yes, I do like seeing it written out, why do you ask?)

*Subject to change without notice, available only in states and territories where permitted, in Spanish where available, may cause narcolepsy, robotism or bleeding of the eyes.

GIVEAWAY WINNER, TOFFEE AND CHRISTMAS EVE EVE

2011-12-23T20:27:00.001-09:00

First things first. The winner of my part of the Mistletoe Madness giveaway is Meghan. Congrats, Meghan Page. Please email me to let me know if you'd prefer you advance copy of Don't Bite the Messenger in PDF or e-Pub form. And thanks to all who participated. This was fun for me, both hearing people's winter memories and getting to discover so many new-to-me authors.

Second, I am on my third attempt to make a batch of toffee I've made annually for four years. The variable this year? A new cooking range that apparently freaking hates toffee. There has been much swearing in Casa Jacques tonight.

And, third, 'tis the Eve of Christmas Eve. We've got family in town from the right coast, closets and drawers and trunks full of presents, and enough wine to best a chronically-inebriate olyphant.

Uhhhh...I meant elephant.

It's going to be glorious.

So, happy holidays to all, and to all a good night!

MISTLETOE MADNESS BLOG HOP

2011-12-17T00:18:00.004-09:00

**the giveaway is now closed**

In keeping with the holiday spirit, I'm running around like a six-legged thoroughbred with a bur under her saddle and something to prove. I'm not actually sure which holiday that image relates to, but it seems appropriate this year.

What I wouldn't give for an hour to kick back and lose myself in a good book. Alas... Since I'm too busy, I'm giving you the opportunity to win such a reprieve. The book, that is. I haven't yet mastered the ability to bestow time on others. Welcome, dear readers, to the Mistletoe Madness Blog Hop!

I'm giving away an early digital copy of my novella, Don't Bite the Messenger, coming to the rest of the world 1.16.12.

Cover Art: © 2012 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited.

Don't Bite the Messenger

Anchorage, Alaska

The vampire population may have created an economic boom in Alaska, but their altered energy field fries most technology. They rely on hard-living—and short-lived—couriers to get business done…couriers like Sydney Kildare.

Sydney has survived to the ripe old age of twenty-six by being careful. She’s careful when navigating her tempestuous clients, outrunning hijackers and avoiding anyone who might distract her from her plan of retiring young to a tropical, vampire-free island.

Her attitude—and immunity to vampires’ allure—have made her the target of a faction of vampires trying to reclaim their territory. Her only ally is Malcolm Kelly, a secretive charmer with the uncanny habit of showing up whenever she’s in trouble. Caught in the middle of a vampire turf war, Sydney has to count on Malcolm to help her survive, or the only place she’ll retire is her grave…

32,000 words

In order to enter, simply leave a comment on this post with your favorite winter memory between December 16th and December 23rd. The winner will be drawn by random.org on or around the 23rd.

The other participants of the blog hop, listed below, have other fantastic prizes, and the grand prize (LINK TO ENTER HERE) is a brand new Nook pre-loaded with books from sponsoring authors!

Happy Holidays!

3 THINGS MAKE A POST

2011-12-14T23:00:00.001-09:00

One

I don't have any photos of the hot wax and wire sculpture of the rib cage that I made in high school. It was awesome, one of those things where you finish, stand back and say, "I cannot freaking believe I made that. Also, why don't I have any fingerprints left". I don't even have the sculpture, since my dad found it in the garage and was like, "wax ribcage; useless" and tossed it. So, thank you for the inquiries, but I just can't share it with you.

Two

As you may have noticed, since I've been babbling about it constantly, I have a book coming out. A novella under a pen name (please see Books page for details). I'm going to be busy with that, and trying to whip the sequel into shape, for the next couple months. My posts here will be fewer, but I will be back. If you want to track me in the meantime, please follow the blog o me pen name for the interim. "She" would be happy to have you.

Three

Joss Whedon, what have you done? Is The Cabin in the Woods a slasher film with a complicated sci fi twist? Why yes, I believe it is.

WINTER THROWS DOWN THE GAUNTLET

2011-12-12T20:16:00.000-09:00

We lost Internet connectivity at our house this weekend, for about 18 hours, and it was terrible! We didn't lose power, which a lot of people did. Nor did we get stranded miles from home in blizzard conditions, which was solely a matter of luck since we collectively drove several hundred miles over the weekend.

Now we've got eight inches of heavy, wet snow on top of a melted and refrozen road system that resembles a particularly sadistic washboard. Very hard to drive on, let me tell you, though I confess the challenge was fun. Although, I couldn't figure out why nobody was using their turn indicators until three coworkers separately told me they were too scared to take their hands off the steering wheel.

So much for the cold, dry winter we'd been told to expect.

SPREADSHEETS!

2011-12-04T12:50:00.000-09:00

Spent the morning cleaning and trying to figure out what to do with several large items which all need to be in the same place, including one treadmill and one Christmas tree. Have given up for the moment and retreated with tea to my underground lair*.

I'm graphing this afternoon, building a spreadsheet to break down my chapter lengths, plot escalation and character involvement in the story. I know I have a deficiency, but I want to see exactly how big it is. And, while I write with an eye toward balancing active scenes (whether they are fights/chases, a lot of movement, or intimate) with periods of reflection and/or exposition, some scenes come out scrawny and others bloated. Lines and dots and numbers help me to analyze what I can't see when I'm in the middle of all the words.

If anyone's interested, I'll try to figure out how to import graphs to show you how my WIP - currently titled Messenger II - looks.

*Also known as the first-floor spare bedroom I have claimed in the name of Spain**.

**And, by "Spain", I mean for my writing office.

COVER ART. COOKING BLOG. ANIMAL POO?

2011-11-30T21:34:00.001-09:00

After much breathless anticipation, I received the cover for Don't Bite the Messenger from Carina Press (via CrocoDesigns).

And, with that stunning image, wheels are suddenly in motion. The book is available for pre-order at Amazon and B&N. My website is under quick development, and I'm learning and setting up social media as quick as I can.

Facebook

Twitter

Carina Press will feature Don't Bite the Messenger on Net Galley starting, I believe, in the middle of December. If you'd like a copy to review, please keep it in mind or let me know and I'll see if I can get it to you earlier.

I'll be setting up interviews and a trans-galactic blog tour shortly, so if you'd be interesting in hosting little old me, please email me: writerjakes at gmail dot com. I can talk about the story, the Alaskan setting, getting an agent, the road to publication, or how every time I go to a beautiful slash regal historical site in France, something poops on me. You alone know which of these your audience will like best.

Also, separately, I became a contributor at the awesome Pots n Pens blog, along with some other fantastic writers. Cooking, reading and writing: what's not to like? My first post there will go live on December 5th, I believe, so please pop on by and say hi.

That's it for now. Is a lot, yes?

Cover Art: Copyright © 2012 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited

CARROT OR STICK?

2011-11-27T16:48:00.000-09:00

There are so many high profile debates waging right now in the world of writers. Panster or plotter? Harry or Bella or Katniss? Self-pub or traditional? Amazon as evil or Amazon as savior?

But lately I've noticed another trend, mostly on twitter. Maybe it's due to the number of people actively writing during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), or maybe it's because in the dark and cold days of winter we're all looking for that a little help with our motivation. I'm talking about the Carrot or Stick debate.

Can you be encouraged by the promise of a reward, or do you have to be threatened with punishment in order to act? For example:

Carrots - Rewards

A cookie for a hundred words
Fifteen minutes on twitter for a thousand
A look at Allison Pang's Midnight Man Candy for a chapter.

And no, that's not why all my chapters are now forty-two words long. Sheesh, what do you take me for?

Sticks - Punishments

No lunch until you finish the chapter
No tumblr until you revise ten pages
No showering until you finish this draft (this is really punishment for the people around you, so I suggest you avoid it unless you 1. hate the people around you or 2. need to convince them unequivocally to stop distracting you)

I tend toward a hybrid system like I do with my plotting (I'm a culottser - it's like pants but smaller), mostly because I have impulse control issues. I'll decide on my reward (say, a cookie), then sit and stare at the screen, maybe run a spell check and spin in my chair. I'll eat the cookie. Then I'll have guilt, and complete whatever task I had originally set for myself, except the reward is already long gone. It's like crossing a finish line to find the crowd's packed up and gone home.

My punishment system doesn't work very well either. I'll tell myself that, if I don't finish a specific scene, I'll have to get on the treadmill. Please understand, I hate to exercise. But, I won't finish the scene. So I'll drag myself to the treadmill, intending to work through the scene in my head so that I'll be able to fly directly from the torture device to the computer and rattle it off.

Of course, in order to stay on the treadmill, I have to lose myself in daydreams so elaborate that I forget what I'm doing. Mostly they consist of the same material as my dreams: corporate espionage, cracking animal fighting rings in the mid-west, being really good at karaoke, being a nanny for Jackie Chan's kids in a world where every day is like a Jackie Chain movie (lot of axe gangs in my dreamworld).

And then, when I finish, I'll be no closer to the solution for me scene.

What works for you? How do you motivate yourself? What's the biggest carrot you've ever promised yourself?

BACK IN BLACK

2011-11-21T20:36:00.004-09:00

I'm not shopping on Black Friday. It's not because it will likely be below zero when the crowds start lining up outside for the best deals. It's not because I don't want to pay less for decent electronics and better jewelry. It's not because I'm anti-commerce or don't have the cash this year or am occupying anything.

It's because I've worked in retail.

Sales start earlier and last longer now than when I last sold shoes and shotguns to suburbanites. I hated working those days, people tearing through racks, leaving trails of carnage in their wake. People scooping from the shelves everything they could hold even though they didn't need it. Fun fact about that kind of shopping? About half the stuff gets returned over the course of the next few weeks, and is restocked and then resold at non-sale prices. I hated it, and I would never do that to anyone.

On a positive note, I don't feel like I'm missing out. I'm not into disposable electronics or giving people presents that were half off but that they don't really like. And I don't have to.

I'll be shopping locally, at places like AK Starfish Co. and 2 Friends gallery.

I'll be shopping online ~~at some of the most addictive sites ever to grace the face of the earth~~ at sites like Cemetery Cat Designs (love Psynde's Raven necklace - Poe goes with everything) and Strangeling.

For everybody that I can't take care of at places like that, it'll be books and cupcake-of-the-month clubs.

This Friday I hope to wake late, drink coffee and eat leftover Raspberry Trifle (recipe compliments of the wonderful @caitpeterson), read, play with my son, eat, and probably nap.

What are your favorite places to shop where you don't actually have to worry about being trampled?

THE QUICK DESCENT OF A SEASON

2011-11-15T22:44:00.000-09:00

A month ago, the weather was unseasonably warm - 40s Fahrenheit - and we still had green grass. We wondered if we would have snow on the ground for Halloween, as we usually do. It didn't look likely.

Tonight I went out to watch the phenomenally multi-talented Andrew Bird (the recordings do not do him or his abilities justice - I suggest you seek him out live). It was zero degrees, but the wind chill dragged the "feel" of the air down to -22. An angry -22 at that, with claws and teeth and possibly rabies. The roads are paved in ice and the snow is several feet deep along the roads and over the lawn. The grass may still be green underneath, stunned but not yet killed by the quick descent of winter.

We had snow on Halloween, by the way.

The sun rises just after nine, but doesn't break clear of the mountains until about nine-thirty. It sets before four-thirty in the afternoon. When the clouds allow it at all. I go to work in the dark. I come home in the dark.

These conditions are perfect for mental hibernation.

Instead I find myself strangely energetic. I laid down ten thousand words on a new story last week, and am on pace for roughly the same this week. It will be slightly slower going as I have to wreck a car today or tomorrow, and I tend to write high-velocity scenes quite slowly. I think what I'm experiencing is an absolute need to protect myself from these harsh conditions by escaping somewhere warmer, brighter, faster and more explosive. I used to achieve this by reading, curling up for hours or days with book after book. Now, while my to-be-read pile slash list is large and attractive, I can find the same refuge in my own work. And I have the added advantage of getting to exercise my brain.

This is not to say that I'm not dreaming of beaches and staring longingly at the grayscape world, pining for spring.

What is your winter like? Is it a season or a feeling? How do you escape?

THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT

2011-11-08T19:02:00.000-09:00

Hello. My name is Hillary, and I'm a social media addict.

*crowd murmurs without looking up from iPhones*

This blog, my twitter accounts (yes, two of them), my facebook (dusty, neglected thing that it is), my lists, forum memberships, subscriptions and emails...all of these were supposed to help me become a smarter and better writer.

Instead, like brightly-lit vampires, they have sucked my time away. As well as disrupting my-SQUIRREL!

Where was I? As well as reducing my attention span.

I'm working on a sequel to Don't Bite the Messenger (coming 1.16.12 - yay), and have four outlines that I'm actively fleshing out - may the best one win. And I found that I couldn't write for more than five lines or minutes at a time without needing to check on this thread or jump into that conversation. And when I say "need", I'm talking about a very serious, nearly physical craving. There are just so many interesting people, so much news, and so many good stories out there.

Too much, it turns out. I'm not doing NaNoWriMo because I don't have time. At least, that's the excuse I made. However, I don't have time because I'm unfocused and unproductive. So when the NaNoWriMo words counts started popping up, and I realized that people were writing in a day what I was struggling to produce in a week, I stepped back. I examined my situation, the habits I'd formed, the excuses I was making. I looked at what I was able to write daily a year ago, two years ago. Granted, I write better when I write more slowly, but that wasn't my problem.

I was wasting time.

Luckily, there's an app for that. I downloaded a free trial of Freedom and took it for a test drive. And my word count climbed. And my draft was cleaner than the one before. And I can concentrate for longer periods of time.

So. I hope to see you all out there, though slightly less. And I'll actually probably be blogging more as I swing back toward productivity. So feel free to drop by. When I haven't isolated myself in a dark room with no access to them thar interwebs, I'll be happy to see you.

THIS IS HALLOWEEN

2011-10-31T20:13:00.003-08:00

My son (three) advised that, for Halloween, he wanted to be the Dread Pirate Roberts, from The Princess Bride. Actually, what he said was that he wanted to be "the hero" from "The Bride Princess". He said I should be a pirate too, to which I replied, "as you wish".

And then I discovered that there are no pirate costumes available in the greater Anchorage area for undersized three year-olds, and no pirate costumes at all for adult women that aren't implicitly slutty. Still we made do.

Behold, the (tiny) Dread Pirate Roberts and his loyal ally, Inigo Montoya:

First we re-enact Inigo and Westley's first meeting and acrobatic fight.

Then we become friends.

Then we pose like pirate homeys.

The End

THE STATUS, IT IS QUO

2011-10-29T10:43:00.000-08:00

And, in case you cared, I'm at about 65,000 on my Cyberpunk WIP. The story is misbehaving. The male MC wants it to be a romance, a male side character wants it to be a romance, and the female MC is unconvinced. It's like a love triangle with one side facing away and shouting "la la la, can't hear you motherfuckers". No idea how it's going to end.

THE GRASS IS ALWAYS WHITER

2011-10-29T10:18:00.001-08:00

My twitter feed is full of grumbling over the cold temperatures and snow. How dare it freeze and fall, twitter laments, in October!? October is apparently still summer for some people.

I'm feeling a little left out up here. I don't remember the last time we didn't have snow before Halloween, but it remains camped up on the mountains, growing thicker and developing an attitude of permanence while we crunch across our frosted, withering lawns beneath naked tree boughs. What I'd give for a blanket of white to soften the land and reflect the streetlights, making our nights as bright as our days.

Please do not remind me I said that come, say, February.

EDIT: We now have snow. *looks smug, then sad, then flops onto the ground*

NO GO ON NaNo

2011-10-23T10:26:00.002-08:00

I'm not going to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. My active and backlogged projects just aren't going to line up with the Nano timeline. And who do I have to thank for that? Why, NaNo, of course.

I completed my first novel thanks to NaNo several years ago. I was astounded, both that I could actually write an entire novel and that I wanted to do it again. And again. And again. NaNo opened the door to a supportive writing community but it also opened up something inside of me, an amalgamation of confidence and ambition, delight and resolve.

Since I first participated in NaNo, I've:

Finished and edited two novels, and I'm about to finish Draft One of another
Started and temporarily shelved one novel
Finished and sold one novella
Finished five short stories, one of which has sold, two of which are currently making submission rounds
Finished one flash fiction piece, which is making submission rounds
Engaged with five excellent beta readers
Partnered with a literary agent

None of this would have been possible without that first NaNo. So, no, I'm not participating in this particular campaign. But I am, year-round, using the energy and drive I learned during that first manic month. And I'll be rooting for all this year's participants. Good luck. Have fun. And don't forget to shower and stand up and move every once in awhile.

TRICK OR TREAT (RECESSION-STYLE)

2011-10-17T20:03:00.000-08:00

We usually have snow on Halloween. Except when it's too cold, but usually there's at least a crusty dusting on the ground when the kids march stubbornly up the drive, trying to show off as much of their costumes as they can around the puffy coats and boots. The older kids - some of them with five o'clock shadow - try to tough it out. Maybe a long-sleeved shirt under their costume, sometimes bare arms against the twenty-five degree wind. They'll burn through more calories than the collected candy contains if they're out long enough. Mother Nature's holding back this year, saving it for when she really needs it.

We seem to have a mustache shortage up here this year, as well. Not the real ones. We have plenty, too many maybe, of the real ones. But my friendly local costume shop, which supplies me year-round with fine faux mustaches, is nearly out. Just a few joke-sized black handlebars and some raggedy old muttonchops hang now on the pegs.

Not my style.

I guess it's cutbacks, the pretend facial hair industry scaling back on low-selling items like everybody else. Some day, sitting around the campfire, we'll sing songs about the days of yore, when we had snow on Halloween, and mustaches were sold on every corner.

CUPCAKE QUEST 2011 - I

2011-10-09T19:22:00.000-08:00

I recently had the distinct pleasure of eating a pumpkin citrus cupcake. I didn't get the recipe from the bakery, mostly because I was focused on that bakery box like Frodo on his ring toward the end of book three. The cupcake was delicious. Light but well-flavored. Satisfying without being too heavy.

I'm trying to replicate the recipe. Tonight I baked iteration #1. It wasn't close, but it was good in a different way. Closer to a pumpkin citrus muffin than a cupcake, partially because the recipe I tore apart and stuffed with pumpkin required more moisture (I've attempted to correct that in the following recipe). This version is denser, less sweet, and high in fiber and vitamin A! The toddler loved it, and it was pretty easy. Recipe to follow.

Lemon Pumpkin Muffins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Drop baking cups into cupcake sheet. Makes about two dozen.

1 1/2 C sifted all-purpose flour
1 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 1/4 t cinnamon
1/2 t ground cloves
1/2 t allspice
2 eggs
1 C granulated sugar
1 C pumpkin puree
1 t vanilla
1 T lemon juice
1 t lemon zest
1/4 C vegetable oil

Sift all the dry ingredients except sugar together. Set aside.
Stir the pumpkin, vanilla, lemon juice, lemon zest and vegetable oil together until just mixed. Set aside.
In a large bowl, beat the eggs on medium until well-mixed. Beat in the sugar until creamy.
Mix in the dry and wet ingredients alternately until incorporated, scraping sides when necessary.
Spoon into paper cups, filling just over half full.
Bake. They're done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Enjoy!

And, as a bonus to LOTR lovers, below is what I believe to be the root system of a resting Ent. See how it's not really attached to the earth?

WALKING ON BROKEN DREAMS

2011-10-04T05:48:00.000-08:00

I spent a couple of hours yesterday standing still in dirty, dirty alleys while local denizens strolled and bicycled past. And by that I mean they stood and stared from uncomfortably close distances, saying nothing as they smoked or drank from their paper bag-wrapped bottles.

Why, you ask? Was I on some sort of pigeon flu and hepatitis investigative mission? No, or, only incidentally.

That's just what a photo session looks like when you tell the photographer you write urban fantasy and that urban fantasy tends to happen in urban environments and he decides that nothing says "urban" like busted drug vials stuck to the soles of your flip-flops.

It's all very glamorous.

So, we've got dozens of photos to sort through. The general theme is that I tend to look either suspicious or angry most of the time, which of course is just what people want to see staring back at them from the back of a book they've just finished.

We'll see if we can't sort something out, maybe photoshop me a smile or something. And then it will be time to build a website on which to paste said altered photo. So much to do, so many things I'd rather be doing.

SATURDAY

2011-10-02T08:16:00.000-08:00

Saturday wasn't as Caturday as I would have liked.

Caught a flight at 12: 20 a.m.. Landed in Minneapolis, MN at 12:20 p.m. Proceeded to drive north, hunting coffee and foliage. Barely found either, but did have a lovely time at Gooseberry Falls.

Lower Falls - the only area not overrun with peoples.

Pond below the falls. The leaves are a little behind in changing this year, but they're going to be spectacular when they go.

If I lived in Minnesota, I'd hang out here with my kids for days. Lovely spot.

BUT WHY?

2011-09-29T19:27:00.001-08:00

Following is my three year-old son's story of his life:

First I was a baby in momma's tummy.

Then I was a little boy.

Now I am a big boy.

Then I'll be a grown up...

...and then I'll be a duck!

I don't think that way. Most people, even the most creative people I know, don't think that way. We have certain constants, such as: human children don't grow up to be ducks.

But what if they did?

I will admit to coming to him when I've written myself into a corner, explaining the story so far - with no simplification - and then asking his opinion on where it should go. Sometimes he just asks questions about a few things that stuck in his mind. Other times he'll continue telling the story, usually with an expanded cast, and swords. And ducks. Sometimes he'll do that thing that all parents know and dread.

Tabitha rode her motorcycle to the end of the road, looking for Hester. She wasn't there so Tabitha burned the shack to the ground.

Why?

Because she was so angry at her sister, and her sister loved that house and had put years into rebuilding and filling it with things she loved.

Why?

Because when they were growing up, they were moved from one distant relative's house to another, living jointly out of a suitcase full of clothes they were quickly outgrowing. So she wanted to have a place full of her things, and walls that were always the same.

Why?

Well, their mother passed away when they were born and their father was sent off-planet, after which the force fields locked so that spacecraft couldn't come back.

Why?

Well, it was actually a conspiracy. A heroic general and the most powerful politicians in a party went off-planet to great fanfare to christen a new colony. They were supposed to be gone a month. But while they were gone, two ambitious businessmen and a young chemist who desperately wanted to prove himself, arranged for a coup following the release of a chemical that would obscure the sky.

Why?

You see where this can go? How broad or how deep you'll be forced to drill down if you just keep asking why? How you will start thinking about aspects of your characters or plot that you never would have explored on your own? I just hope I remember these lessons when I achieve duckhood.

THE LIBRARY IN HEAVEN

2011-09-21T23:13:00.000-08:00

It must be massive, Heaven's library. I thought at first that maybe everybody got their own, full of the crispest, most beautiful editions of all their favorite books. But now I think it must just be the one library, so that the denizens can roam the endless rows during their endless stay, tracing their greaseless fingertips (even if they just ate chocolate and barbeque, because there must always be chocolate and barbeque in Heaven, but nobody will ever be smudged).

They can discover any book or all the books or just peruse.

Imagine days spent stringing together first lines together into a story unto itself.

Weeks learning about the river deltas of the world below.

And of course, all books would be instantly translated and understandable, 'cause Heaven's a little bit Star Trek, too.

THE FUTURE, IT KILLS ME

2011-09-19T23:20:00.001-08:00

So I clicked on the NPR link to hear about a robot talking to a robot, and then my head exploded.

I hope your experience is similarly delightful.

NOSE TO THE FRELLING GRINDSTONE

2011-09-19T06:00:00.000-08:00

I'm throwing myself a little party. This is what happens when 1) I have no other topic to blog about, and 2) I've cracked 40,000 words on a manuscript that I have abandoned three times because it was Too. Flipping. Hard.

This is the opposite of a pity party. It's a "Oh Holy Carp, I Didn't Know You Had It In Ya, Kid" party (I play both the person saying that and the "kid"). So, bring your folding chair and dancing shoes, your drink of choice and snack of first resort. Shall we listen to some records, maybe smoke some of the funny stuff (I am, of course, referring to candy cigarettes or those old school clown cigarettes that actually spray water - funny, right?), or streak through the virtual streets? I'm up for it!

I'm not done, of course. Nowhere near it in fact. I'm thinking this draft will wind up somewhere around 75,000 and will require extensive editing as well as some after-the-fact research to clear up some details I've only glossed over (but highlighted to attract future attention).

But I've overcome my fear of something new (sci fi) and broken a few of my own rules (outline, write first and edit later) and the words are still flowing. The characters are denser and crawling deeper into the rabbit hole.

So, to all of you grinding through this chapter, that scene or them thar plot point, please know that you're en route to smoother waters. Just keep working.

Also, as a PSA, don't google images for "party time". It's...disturbing.

THE LAST BOOK

2011-09-15T21:14:00.000-08:00

Death row inmates get a last meal.

I'd be more interested in my last read.

If you never got to read another book again, what's the last one you would choose?

A worn favorite to lose yourself in one last time?

The longest book you could find, to draw things out?

Would you risk something new and untried?

5 STEPS TO SURVIVING THE SOGGY CENTER OF YOUR BOOK

2011-09-12T06:00:00.008-08:00

There are hundreds of instructional books for writing stories and novels. Many of them are even good. And yet, writers continue to moan about falling into the purgatory that is the center of their book. Plots that start off with a bang and end with a boom ramble and stagnate through the middle.

Faced with this very issue the other night, I climbed onto the treadmill. If I wasn’t able to conquer the shapeless middle of my book, I might as well work on my own.

Five minutes in I was fine. Feeling good about choosing to exercise instead of cruise the Internet or eat the rest of a pan of brownies (there weren't that many left). Hopeful that I’d soon be in good enough shape to go on a decent run with my son in the jogger without inspiring good Samaritans to call emergency services.

Ten minutes in I was sweating and my muscles were straining. It was hard. It was repetitive. I wanted off. I could count at least eighteen things I’d rather be doing.

And that’s when it hit me. That is what a reader feels like when the book sags. When the writer decides that now is the time to reveal the entirety of the characters’ massive and surprising (!) backstories. When the writer dispassionately plods down a contrived path toward red herrings in an effort to complicate the story. When the writer loses her or his way and wanders aimlessly through clever dialogue and sudden-onset “tension” between characters with Nothing Else Happening.

So, to toss out a metaphor, while writing a novel might be a marathon, writing the middle of that novel is a single workout that you don’t want to complete.

Here are my five steps (order up to personal preference):

Change up your playlist. Parallel: Change the location to a place your characters don't know. Where they will be uncomfortable or surprised. Add or remove a character. Has the all-knowing crutch stopped answering his phone, leaving your peeps to fend for themselves. Has the supportive, fatherly supervisor been replaced by a hard-ass more interested in properly completed paperwork than results? If your character doesn't know what's coming up next, neither will the reader. This is what makes readers turn the page.
Think of the end goal. That hike you want to be able to complete without passing out. The pants you bought two years ago that still have the tags on them. Those target numbers your doctor sternly lectured you about. Parallel: When you started the book, was your goal to type out a certain number of words, or to finish a story that would entertain and satisfy the reader, even if you plan to be the only reader? Aren't you eager to type "the end" on a book that horrifies or delights or makes your first grade teacher tear up (in a good way - don't write books for revenge on primary school teachers. That's just petty)
Monitor your progress in two-minute increments rather than staring down the next thirty. Parallel: Work scene by scene. Don't worry about hitting three thousand words a day, or completing a chapter. Worry about ramping up this scene, having your characters emerge further down the plot path than when they entered it.
Look at the runners around you. Parallel: Think back to similar books and see what the authors did to keep you reading to the magnificent end. I'm not advising copying other books. That would lead to a very sad state in literature. I'm saying look at the devices, where and how tension was turned up, and see if there are opportunities for derailments and re-railments (let's play "is it a word!") in your story.
Tough it out. Just keep going. One foot in front of the other. Parallel: One word after the other. Sometimes no trick in the known universe will help. Sometimes it's just a matter of grinding through the process until it gets easier. Eventually you will hit a smoother patch, you will finish and, even if you don't love the story, you've completed it. That's a phenomenal accomplishment. And the rest? The tightening up, the transitions, the de-triting of the dialogue? That's what revisions are for.

THE MORE YOU KNOW

2011-09-06T22:23:00.001-08:00

I asked my husband to put together some quirky things about me that I might be able to use for a humorous FAQs post. He must have misread the question because he sent me back a random list of physical abnormalities and symptoms of severe mental illness.

I can't believe we've been married all these years, and I only just found out he has trouble reading.

HAPPINESS IS HARD WORK

2011-09-02T23:23:00.000-08:00

I started to read an article the other day* about slightly depressed people seeing the world more accurately than non-depressed people (and also severely depressed people). Something about the lack of "positive illusion", from self-image to understanding of conditions in the world. I was interrupted and didn't finish the article.

But it got me thinking.

I mentioned it to a coworker. Rather than asking more about the theory or expressing an opinion regarding its truthfulness, she shook her head and raised a hand. One of those do-not-pass,-do-not collect-$200 moves.

"I don't think about things like that." She launched a smile. "I just accept the world as it is. That makes life so much easier."

I looked at our charcoal and taupe office, the mundane tasks we repeat hundreds of times a week. I understood the glazing over, driving past and tuning out of the truths of the world or our own situation (which likely little resembles the dreams and aspirations we had in our early years, our formative years, our experimental years). I understood, but the statement also blew my fucking mind.

I consider looking at something, whether an object a person or an idea, and asking what else it could be to be the highest form of hope. And I think that accepting the world as it is is tantamount to saying you've run out of hope. That you've given up. This is one of my biggest fears, along with having my appendix burst and kill me, or having my hamstring sliced by so shadow-dwelling foe.

Of course, by accepting the world as it is - free of menacing appendices and knife-wielding fiends laying in wait - my coworker is probably more content than I. I like to think that, by recognizing flawed and incomplete things and working to improve them, I can occasionally elevate myself from content to truly happy. Even if it's only for a moment.

* Please note that my definition of "the other day" spans from three days ago to thirteen years ago, give or take about a month.

BACK TO SCHOOL! (I WISH I WAS GOING)

2011-08-22T12:34:00.001-08:00

From my cubicle, I dream of:

That was seriously my favorite lunch box of all time. Had the big, lumpy plastic Thermos in it. Perfection.

I've been out of school for...let's just call it a long time. And I miss it, every year.

CLOSING IN THE WALLS ARE

2011-08-19T22:39:00.000-08:00

I'm falling out of love with my writing space.

I'm grateful that I have writing space at all, but it's feeling cramped and dirty and disorganized. I could be noticing this because winter is on its way (it's Alaska-September might toss a couple of nice days our way, but I've already resigned to the inevitable) and I'm mentally rebelling against months of choking seasonal claustrophobia. Or possibly because I'm having some trouble transitioning from one project to another so I'm looking for things to distract me.

Like:

Maybe it's time to paint

Or perhaps install some shelves

Or go shopping for new drapes

Or download that new Uzbekistani noir songs for writers album

Or learn a foreign language so that I can describe my discontent in Yezidi

Okay, so I'm totally looking for a distraction. This means that I must eliminate them, and fast, so I can get to the next level. That's right, I do live my life like a video game!*

So tomorrow I'll spend a couple of hours cleaning, which will mostly involve selecting cleaning music**, dusting and trying to keep the cats from eating lemon-scented Pledge***

And then everything shall be wonderful and the words will flow like wine. Or, if they don't, the wine will flow like wine.

Do you have a designated writing space? In your home or out? Anything you want to change about it?

* A boring-ass video game.

** This is actually the same music I always listen to.

*** I don't know what mineral deficiency causes them to lick up cleaning products. I just...I do my best to keep them out of them, okay?

AUGUST 2011 AW BLOG CHAIN

2011-08-10T22:19:00.005-08:00

We are Stars - The Pierces

The branches, bowed by heavy leaves, parted, revealing a sloping band of white sand. Chris paused, his eyes adjusting to the diminishing light. The sun exhaled a final pastel sigh and disappeared. Before it went, he saw her, motionless at the water’s edge. Sand ground through his sandals as he walked to her.

He stopped an arm’s length away, admiring the way the thin sheath she wore draped the curves of her body. She turned, and sweat bloomed cold across his back.

“I saw you,” she said, casually, like they were in the middle of a conversation. Like she was alive.

“A-Allison?”

“You aren’t like those people. You want more. Like me. This is the place where you can find what you’re looking for.” Her hair drifted around her head, though there was no breeze. She raised a pale hand, and her smile reached her milky blue eyes. “Let me show you.”

He recoiled from her, slogging backwards through the cloying sand. She tilted her head to the side. The smile fled her face.

“Chris?”

“This isn’t…this isn’t happening.”

“Please don’t be like this.” She followed him, her movements eerily stilted. “We know what you want, what you came here for. We can give it to you. Just let us in.”

Christ, he’d had too much to drink, or too much sun. That was it. “High UV index,” he stammered, turning when his heel landed on hard ground. Leaves slapped against his face. He ran.

The lights of the resort bobbed in the distance. He’d go back, ask for the doctor. They had a doctor; he’d seen her tending to a man who’d sliced his finger on coral while snorkeling. Chris looked over his shoulder; darkness stared back. He slowed, pressed the back of his hand against his forehead. He was burning up.

He’d take a cold bath, sleep with the AC on. Tomorrow he’d stay in the shade beside the pool. Talk to the people there, maybe find someone to have dinner with. A breath fluttered across his left ear. He spun, hands raised, but saw nothing. He ran again, barely able to make out the path, his feet sliding in his sandals.

The lights got closer. He heard laughter. He wouldn’t leave again. He’d stay there, stay amongst the living. He laughed, a high-pitched cackle. God, he was delirious. He burst onto the manicured lawn, slowed to a hasty walk as a foursome in the hot tub fell silent, watching him. He pulled open the first door he found.

Music assailed him, and his shoulders dropped in relief. A woman slid out of the crowd, arms flailing, and collided with him. He grabbed her to steady her, to steady himself. She was warm, smelling of floral perfume and perspiration. She was alive, and he never wanted to let her go.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

BORN OF WINTER: Roots of a Character

2011-08-04T21:32:00.002-08:00

At just past midnight on August 1st, summer quietly packed its bags and fled the state. We had a nice summer, especially compared to last year (record-setting rainy spell, not-FTW), but now it is done. Over. Finito.

It's been raining and windy, with warnings of gusts up to 80 mph. As I write this I'm watching our mature may trees being tossed by the wind, and hearing them scraping against the second story deck. Inside, the ficus looks peeved.

The rumors about Alaskans hibernating aren't untrue. It's time to retreat. To books, both reading and writing. To art, little crafts and attempts at projects far beyond my talent and expertise. I will clean obsessively. (When trapped in a small space, it's best if you maximize that space by storing every mobile item and removing every room-taking-up mote of dust.)

I will spend hours at the computer, engineering elaborate vacations (to destinations exotic, warm or both) that I will never take. That's actually how my novella releasing in January from Carina Press came about. I'd written a few scenes for my own amusement, then closed the file. Winter arrived on cold, hard feet, and I wanted to go to Hawaii. I wanted sweet, humid air and warm, lapping waves. My main character decided that sounded pretty damn good. Only, where all I had to do was buy a plane ticket, she had to escape bombs, fangs, and a brewing street war.

She might not be able to make the perfect escape, but she'll take you for a hell of a ride.

Don't Bite the Messenger - Carina Press - 1.16.12

5 MODERN WRITER COMPLIMENTS

2011-07-31T17:04:00.001-08:00

It used to be, the greatest compliment you could pay a writer was that they kept you up reading all night. I remember pretending to fall asleep until my parents went to bed, then switching the bedside lamp on to surreptitiously read. I'd close the book on the last page, and look up to find the clock displaying 3:00 a.m., or daylight glowing on the other side of the curtains.

Things are different now. Following are five modern compliments for compelling writers:

I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. to download your new book on release day.
I signed up for a Pilates bootcamp because the studio provided day care during classes. I didn't do the Pilates. I just dropped the toddler off for an hour and read your book in the locker room.
I paid airline wireless fees because I couldn't wait another two hours to read your next book.
I didn't check twitter/facebook/blog stats once while reading your book.
I made a taxi pull over before crossing into Canada so I could download your newest title onto my Kindle.

I have happily done at least three, and possibly four of these things.

IN THE PIT OF DESPAIR cough I MEAN - IN THE REVISION CAVE

2011-07-27T09:00:00.002-08:00

Because I'm working on another round of edits for my Urban Fantasy novella Don't Bite the Messenger *cough* 1/16/12 *cough*, I likely won't be posting much this week - unless I'm desperate to procrastinate. There is a 50/50 chance of me hitting that stage.

In the meantime, I offer for your listening pleasure (or not) music featuring prepositional phrases (and, in one case, profanity):

Linkin Park - In the End

I'm on A Boat - misc. SNL

Somewhere Over the Rainbow - Iz

AND JUST LIKE THAT, IT'S GONE

2011-07-25T13:00:00.001-08:00

I keep losing the book I'm reading. It's a collection of Raymond Chandler stories, not very long, and I've been reading it for nearly five months. I'll read a few pages, set it down, and when I look back down it will be gone. Vanished. Not even a puff of smoke or an oversized shoe print to mark its passing.

It always turns back up, the same page marked, nary a new scuff on its thick paper cover.

It's a collection of mysteries, but it's not one of those books that opens its mouth and inhales you, so that you're watching dark shadows expecting its characters to come creeping out. I don't stand outside my house, hand on the doorknob, resigned to the likelihood that inside will be a strange man (or a not so strange man) with a gun, calmly smoking a cigarette.

Anyway, I going to try to finish it this weekend. Because it's good, but also because I'm tired of this game. If this is the paperback's answer to enhanced e-books, I think someone is barking up the wrong entertainment tree.

EPIPHANY

2011-07-20T07:00:00.001-08:00

I recently discovered an author who makes me laugh to the point of tears no matter what mood I was in when I opened her books. This is a rare and beautiful thing. And, better yet, she has released lots of books. Under two names, no less!

I hoped to find her on twitter, thinking her feed would at least occasionally make me spew my beverage of choice on surfaces of convenience. I couldn't find her by a simple name search, so I went to her website, where I discovered that she did not tweet. I was astounded! How could this prolific author not be on twitter?

Lightbulb.

Actually, the revelation wasn't mine. I believe she explained that she's not on twitter or other social media because she's busy, you know, producing the books that threaten to make me pee myself - in a good way. Or, in the good way, because hilarity is the only good cause I can think of for spontaneous incontinence.

But I digress. I love twitter. I love it the way other people love bacon-wrapped scallops or Glee or facebook.

I reduce my usage when I'm writing toward a deadline, whether for a submission or when responding to edits from my agent or editor. But I've gotten to the point where I don't think I can let it go. I don't want to, for one thing. I've cultivated a wonderful list to follow. I learn a ton from it. I get news before it breaks through the regular media. I am inspired and touched by these tiny little feeds throughout the day.

But it does take time away from my writing, as does cruising forums, blogging and following blogs, checking stats and sales, and researching both subjects and craft.

What about you guys? What's your online kryptonite?

WHAT'S THAT, YOU SAY?

2011-07-18T06:00:00.001-08:00

I'm not one of those people who can write well while listening to music. Oh, I've written to music, but the amount of time it took me to decipher and edit those bits was nearly as long as it took me to write them. When reading through a first draft, I can tell within a few words when I've reached a part that I wrote with my headphones on. They look something like this:

He put her arm on her shoulder and booked glory dining table.

"This isn't the fist time," she said. Pungent. "Also I need to bick up my cleaning."

"The pigs," he said, shaking his head and running her hand through his hair. "Every time. Fuck."

She kissed him and meant it.

Touching stuff.

So, how about you? Can you write through distractions? Do you have to have the television on as a backdrop to your scene? Do you have a set playlist to attract the muse? Do the pigs really, every time?

LISTENING TO: Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before - The Smiths

FISH ON

2011-07-11T23:04:00.000-08:00

Every once in awhile I leave work -- squinting like a mole -- and venture into the great outdoors.

I'm in Alaska, after all. The last frontier. The land of the midnight sun. Where the men are men, and the fish are yummy. This is a quick look at Resurrection Bay and the bounty it holds.

IT'S NOT A TUMOR

2011-07-11T21:23:00.000-08:00

So, the good news is that I don't have a tumor.

Wait, let me back up.

About ten days ago I started having some weird symptoms...so weird I couldn't even explain them until my doctor started asking me questions and prompting me with words that sounded vaguely related to (or at least rhymed with) the issues I was having.

I got sent for x-rays and EKGs and PIBBs (of the "Mr" variety) and all other kinds of stuff. I got lost in not one, but two hospitals. I did learn that doctors will walk right past a plainclothes person in a restricted area, but a nurse who spots you from fifty yards away will stop in her tracks and sprint down the hall to corral you. Just in case you were wondering.

Anyway, following my first x-ray my doctor called to say that I needed to go back to the hospital for another one, because the radiologist had Found Something. I was already all stressed out, and she described this Something in foggy terms and, by the end of the conversation I believed that one of my ribs was growing a smaller, sharper second rib that was arcing downward and which could, at any moment, pierce my lung. Of course, she said nothing of the sort, but panic and a strong imagination are not the best cocktail.

I went back for the second x-ray (got lost again) and, hours later, received an urgent and apologetic phone call from the hospital saying they'd taken the wrong x-ray due to some paperwork issues, and that I needed to come back again. That was a Friday. I was going out of town for the weekend, and told the very nice woman that I'd be in on Monday. She didn't like this idea, but since no amount of bending caused me even the slightest amount of lung deflation, I figured a few days wouldn't hurt. How fast can a bone grown a second, selficidal second bone?

So I went back today (and did not get lost-huzzah!) and received my third and fourth x-rays, after which I got caught in the middle of a rather awkward position (they left me in an oval-shaped room which seemed like the perfect opportunity to practice my short-track speed skating form. p.s. you can't hear the techs until they've opened the door and p.p.s. never attempt any sort of athletics while wearing a hospital gown). So then the head doctor person who'd discovered the Something came in and assured me that it wasn't cancer and that I should be fine. And, inside my head, I heard the zipping sound of a record needle scratching off the record.

It is a strange thing to discover that you're not very, very sick when you never knew that someone-a trained professional, even-thought you were very, very sick. I'm not sure if my doctor told me that, and my brain, after taking a look at the mess I already was, decided that I didn't need to hear it, or if she had her own ideas and opted not to add to the tension I was already carrying.

I left the hospital without the relief I should have had, but since I'd entered it without the fear and doubt I could have been carrying, I guess I'll call it a good trade. And now, of course, this scene is playing over and over inside my head:

THE POWER OF PUNCTUATION

2011-07-07T19:21:00.001-08:00

To whoever googled "super impudent sex" and ended up on my blog, I'm sorry to have disappointed you. I just haven't had time to get that post together.

Also, is it supposed to be "super-impudent sex" or "super, impudent sex"?

Oh, the power of punctuation

TRIFECTA OF DOOM

2011-07-03T14:42:00.001-08:00

Alright, folks. I'm up to my knees in Personal Crises, and up to my neck in Revisions. Also, I believe I just cracked a filling, rounding out the trifecta of doom. So, give me just a couple of weeks to get things sorted out, and I'll be back. Same Bat posts, same Bat blog.

And, if you find this post depressing, the antidote is here:

DO KINDLES DREAM OF PRINTING PRESSES?

2011-06-26T20:43:00.003-08:00

My kindle has a kind of decorative screensaver, where the faux ink pulls together and forms itself a soft picture, usually of an author. (This isn't specific to mine, I'm sure.) Sometimes the pictures are of other things. Like the typeset of a printing press. At least, that's what I think it was, and that's what I told my three year old son it was when he asked.

I said: the person puts the letters and numbers in this box, and then the person puts ink on it, and then the person presses it against a piece of paper. And then the person repeats that, until we have a book.

And that's when my son fell in love with the printing press. Kids these days, what with their whiz-bang gadgets and their whippersnappin' Playtendos (shout out to Cobra!).

Today he asked me to show him more pictures. I googled printing press and showed him a couple dozen machines, modern and antique, automated and painstakingly manual. He asked how they worked, and I pointed out the things that I recognized. Paper reels. Gears. Levers. I don't actually know how any iteration of the press works, so I made the process up. It might have involved steam power, hobs and alien technology, which may have made it slightly more exciting than the real thing. I'm not sure.

Earlier tonight, my son mimicked setting type and printing a book, which he then presented to us, carefully pointing out and describing the pictures and telling a wonderful story of a small hob who works on a printing press. I think it was magic realism, where the object of the story is telling you the story of the story. Or something.

And I wonder, how many printing presses will be around when my three year old is my age? How strange is it that he learned about the printing press by seeing an image on a electronic reader? How disappointed is my son going to be in his mother when the zombie apocalypse comes along and, as one of earth's last survivors, he decides to start printing books to tell their story, and finds out I made the whole process up?

These are the things that keep me up at night.

SOME WEEKENDS ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS

2011-06-25T20:47:00.001-08:00

On Friday night, we found the skull of a baby griffin...

On Saturday night, we sailed a fleet of red velvet pirate cupcakes...

Can't wait to see what Sunday brings.

DON'T DROP THE LIVER!

2011-06-21T21:30:00.002-08:00

I'm revising. Well, I'm about to be revising. Right now I'm performing triage on the edit letter. Later, I'll lather my arms up to the elbows in toner powder, don a mask, and perform surgery. It won't be major. Setting a bone here. Extracting a tooth there. Tying some ligaments in knots so my patient will fall when he tries to walk. Just kidding. That would be a hypocritical disavowal of the Hippocratic Oath - not that I've taken it. I'm not a doctor. I just nod when cab drivers ask me if I am, so that I can hear all about their gross medical conditions.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. Revisions. My last revision was MAJOR. We're talking Worf's spine replacement in Star Trek TNG. Serious stuff.

This will be more like the game Operation. Some anxiety and mild jolting but nothing, you know, deadly.

I hope. These could be not-so-famous last words.

What makes you twitch when you're revising?

I HAS LEFT THE BUILDING

2011-06-18T08:21:00.002-08:00

I'm on a mini-vacation. Just a few days out of town, living out of a single, rolling suitcase in a single, hopefully not-rolling room. (We had a nice little 5.2 earthquake on Thursday, so I'm a little leery of, well, the planet right now.)

I have a row of miniature products all lined up in the bathroom which, because they are just smaller versions of my regular products, make me feel as though I've contracted adult-onset giantism, but without the changes in proportions.

We're in Seattle, and I actually brought my camera this time, which I've mostly forgotten on every vacation for the last ten years. So, if I run into anything cool, I will be sure to share. (There are rumors of naked bicyclists. That, if I am forced to witness it, will not be shared. I just...those parts should not be exposed to those seats.)

What's your favorite destination for a quick retreat? The Sahara? The cabin by the bug-infested lake? Home alone?

JUST ANOTHER DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

2011-06-12T16:56:00.001-08:00

Our neighborhood is fairly mundane. Small, single-family homes with small, single-family yards. However, the houses on average probably hold five kids. We have one. More than a few have none. The others are making up for it. When the school bus stops here in the morning, the spawn of this neighborhood (a single street, and not terribly long) take up about 2/3s of that bus.

Into this copious abundance of children are drawn a particular creature: the mobile ice cream truck. I used to think that ice cream trucks were nice, probably because they weren't around where I grew up. What's not to like about someone driving at pedestrian speed past your house, delivering creamy, iced treats without a mercenary markup? I'll tell you what: these dudes are vicious. Territorial as lions and vicious as sharks.

The first truck I noticed was blue, and playing an instrumental version of Under the Sea (from Disney's The Little Mermaid) in eardrum-splitting range. He had sole reign of the neighborhood our first year in the house. The next year, two more trucks showed up - a white one and a red one - speeding into the neighborhood to avoid detection, then slowing and blaring their own music. One was a festive rendition of a Mexican folk song, the other a kind of jazzed-up march. I rather liked the second. They'd creep about, until the blue truck arrived, and which point they would speed away.

The incursions went on for the better part of the summer, after which there was a lull. No ice cream trucks, no music heralding their arrival. After about a week, the blue and the red ones returned. It's been two years, and they still patrol the streets daily, though never at the same time.

Based on the rudimentary evidence at hand, and a certain street smarts I've cultivated over the years, I believe that the blue truck called a meeting under the guise of developing a schedule within which all parties would be allocated territories and time slots. And then he attacked. White truck obviously didn't make it, but red and blue struck a deal. If red would help hide the body, blue would allow it some market share. I never saw anything in the paper to support this, but it's clear something happened.

I wonder sometimes if white truck left someone behind, a widow with a lantern burning in her window, waiting for her brave but ultimately very gullible spouse to return.

BOTTOMS UP

2011-06-09T22:34:00.000-08:00

The weekend is nearly here, my dears. Pat yourself on the back if you made it through intact. If not, gather your dropped pieces in a bag, throw them on ice, and pray you run into a doctor sometime soon. *Imagines streets filled with people wandering aimlessly, pushing wheelbarrows or pulling red, aluminum wagons, small human flotsam and jetsam wriggling in ziplocks*

Anyway, in celebration of the weekend (and with a hat tip to the mighty Margo Lerwill) I offer you a few timely drink recipes. Bottoms up.

Cross Party Vote
1 part bourbon
1 part Coke Zero
sour mix

Summer in the City
2 parts red Gatorade
1 part vodka
ice
garnish with strip of discarded newspaper

The Kindle
1 part vodka
2 parts 7-Up
ice
(layer grenadine and midori in a shotglass next to The Kindle, but do not add to allow Kindle drinker to drink)

The Long Goodnight
2 parts gin
1 part muddled mango
lime juice

Midnight Sun
an 24-pack of canned beer
a pickup truck
a river
friends

Have a great weekend, everybody!

RITUAL AND ROUTINE

2011-06-07T21:16:00.000-08:00

How do you start your writing day? Do you sneak in an hour and a half before your world wakes up? Grab ten minutes here and there throughout the work day (also known as ninja-writing hi-ya!)? Do you only write on weekends, or practice the ancient art of BIC (butt-in-chair) every day, come hell, high water or reruns of Firefly?

I write at night, after the day job, after the kid has been fed, watered and put to bed. After the flowers have been addressed and the cats have been attended to. I might do nothing but trim and polish. I might waffle over a couple of hundred words. Last night I laid down 1,700 words. That's a very good writing day for me.

How do I prep my writerly brain? I wake the laptop, grab sustenance (usually popcorn and water - it's not as dire as it sounds. that's what I choose), let Pandora do its thing and play a game of electronic mah jong solitaire. This allows me to shake off the crap the day has dropped on me, and helps me to focus. If I can't focus after that, then I'll email someone, clean something or - if I'm in a particularly bad way - work out. Then, repeat the earlier steps. If I still can't focus, it's because Something Bad is nagging me, or because I'm too tired to actually fire up the brain. On those nights, such rare nights, I'll drag a book to bed and let it sing me to sleep.

How do you do it, folks? How do you write

BEDTIME READING

2011-06-02T20:31:00.000-08:00

Kid got a little out of control tonight. There was an interrogation, then a mention of zombies. I tried to calm him down with a little light reading. He wasn't having Dr. Suess.

Count Zero, by William Gibson

Bloodshot, by Cherie Priest

And yes, those are Thomas the Tank Engine PJs.

YOU CAN CALL ME FLOWER IF YOU WANT TO

2011-05-31T20:16:00.000-08:00

I've never been a big blogger. My posts tend to be short, and inconsistent. I'll follow blogs, ravenously gobbling up posts the second I see them hit, for a month or so, only to drift away...and then back a few months later. Sometimes I'll surf the links of my visitors, acquainting myself with colorful and diverse lives, catching pieces of heartbreak or success.

I grew up in a small town, before the Internet became a staple. I'm not used to being connected to people across town, let alone around the world. I find that I quite like it.

Blog stats tell strange stories.

For the past two weeks, I have been googled by Canadians more than U.S.-ians.

My lovely Lithuanian followers - fourteen a week, every week for nearly a year - have gone away. Migrated, perhaps. Maybe they're just on summer break. It could be that I offended them. What did I say, Lithuanians, that you have forsaken me? *weeps*

My blog continues to be listed on some Indonesian website that appears to be related to finding jobs throughout Southeast Asia. Visitors come to peer at my posts. I feel like I should post interview tips of something to reward them for their perseverance.

Australia continues to follow strong, week after week. Rock on, my dears.

Blog responses also tell tales of my visitors. Many of you are querying and either scared stiff about the process or stubbornly trudging on. A number of you are parents, raising mad little children in mad little homes. You want to be musicians, singers, visual artists and writers. You want to get more sleep and more exercise - in that order - eat good food and watch more movies. You want to read more and write better. Good for you all.

I feel like I should do something for you all. Would you like some kind of matchmaking to introduce you to one another? A recipe swap (my best friend says this suggestion makes me old...and lame)? Maybe a contest: coffee, book and a cookie?

EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

2011-05-30T12:38:00.001-08:00

Despite the long weekend, I'm still so busy that there's no time for love, Dr. Jones. Once I have some time to think and then process said thoughts into words, I promise I will. In the meantime, I'll leave you with some art, compliments of my son. I believe it's from the British High Creeptastic period.

Cloud O'erhead, We Walk Nonetheless On Our Improbably Tiny Legs

IN WHICH I SAY "NAY"

2011-05-27T22:29:00.000-08:00

Every now and again I am hit with, nay, I am well-nigh overcome with the burning desire to play a bass guitar really freaking well. And I can't do it. I don't know the first thing. My fingers, they are not nimble. I'm tone-deaf. I can read sheet music as well as I can program DOS basic (really slowly, with much teeth-grinding and a very rudimentary product).

But I want to. Oh, how I want to.

You got any overwhelming and completely unexplored desires, kids?

P.S. This post was brought to you by a crippling, sudden-onset desire to play bass.

AN ODE - TO BETA READERS

2011-05-22T21:47:00.000-08:00

The funny thing about beta readers, those brave folks who volunteer (or, let's face it, often are drafted) into reading early versions of your stories, is that they always find things in there that you didn't intend.

A couple of offhand comments become themes. Serious scenes become funny. That flash of brilliance that you clutched to your bosom and beamed over is now "confusing, vague, are you high? why do you keep dropping shite like this right in the middle of otherwise decent stuff?".

I have a few writing tics that are PRONOUNCED in early drafts.

Longgggggggggggg sentences
Word repetition of words while writing words
Pronoun disagreements. "He reached out with her arm" :facepalm:
And I have become the easiest target a couple of homophones could ever hope to find. You know, if they were sentient and cared about making people use them.

So buckets of thanks to my betas, for looking past my unintentional tense shifts, fragmented sentences, tangents and tragic authorial breakdowns, to find the story. And, kisses and virtual chocolate for telling me what the story I wrote sounds like outside of my head.

Betas, I adore you.

SHORT TERM

2011-05-18T19:09:00.001-08:00

I walk into the house. It smells terrible.

Me: I shall light this pine-scented candle that found its way to our home around Christmastime. That will be most lovely, despite the way that it quickly becomes overwhelming.

two seconds pass

Me: What the hell smells so piney? Are trees growing through the foundation of my very home, bringing with them a scent reminiscent of Christmastime?

:facepalm:

This is what happens to a writer's brain just before, in the middle of, or after a project. It is a sad reality.

HOW ARE THOSE CRUTCHES WORKING OUT FOR YOU?

2011-05-17T22:26:00.000-08:00

I'm not talking about walking supports. I mean words. Specifically those go-to words each author has, which we pull out of pockets or felt Crown Royal bags and toss into manuscripts like we're hoping they'll grow into something fruitful. Or that we think will disguise the text around them, some sort of linguistic camouflage.

These words are either familiar to the point of invisibility or exotic favorites that we latched on to at some point and feel compelled to write down at rates vastly exceeding common usage. Sometimes they slip past without drawing notice, other times they're like broccoli bits in otherwise flawless smiles. One of my favorite authors for a time had an inexplicable fondness for "soupcon". For the record, I really like saying "inexplicable".

My crutches are pretty simple. They're subconscious fillers, that slight roll backwards before I stomp down on the accelerator. For instance, if I were to run a "find" through the first draft of any of my stories, approximately 15% of the words will be either "well" or "fuck". A shocking 85% of lines of dialogue will start with "well". "Fuck" will be used as a verb no more than once.

(Those figures are made up, but I know I use those words more than I should.)

I noticed "a bit" and "rather" in two recently-published novels by two different authors. I'm assuming they are crutches specific to those writers. So what are yours, my dears? What words creep in or crop up while you're writing? Which do you double-dingo dare yourself to use?

THE EFFING END

2011-05-15T20:22:00.000-08:00

Sorry I've been scarce. There was some overtime for the Dayy Jobb. We've had nice weather. And I'm working on a story that, every time I raise my head, pelts me with sharp stones and balls of slush. I'm about to tear out a Mad Libs sheet, complete it, add some fantastical crap and a brutal death, staple it to the end of the story and call it The Effing End.

As soon as I get my head above water, I'll be back. With freaking bells on.

Hope you're all having a great summer. :D

HERE'S THE THING

2011-05-11T23:27:00.000-08:00

So here's the thing. Being a writer is a job, and it's a job that requires both time spent writing and time spent thinking about how to write. And sometimes, when plots aren't quite working or characters don't really click, we like to talk about how to write them so that they do work and click. And shake their little booties on the runway. Or not.

To the idle observer, a writer is someone who stares into space a lot, trails off in the middle of sentences, interrupts your description of a funny situation at work with a series of seemingly unrelated questions, and who sits at the computer for hours. Doesn't look that hard, does it?

But here's what writing feels like when it's not going well (warning: gory and disturbing imagery):

Maybe slightly less horrific. But only slightly.

THESE ARE MY WORDS

2011-05-08T21:07:00.005-08:00

I'm considering starting a spoken word show, using only the search phrases that lead to my blog.

All the demon hatchlings
with their judo hobos, as sick as dogs
The dogs of war, what
If only I had the summary for sucker punch, the movie

*bows*

Also, that totally reminds me of the scene from Grosse Pointe Blank where the guy who bullied Martin in high school confronts him...with poetry. I can't find a clip of it, but IMDB.com has it going a little something like this:

Bob: These are my words.
Martin Q. Blank: It's a poem? See, that's the problem... express yourself, Bob! Go for it.
Bob: "When I feel... quiet... when... I feel... blue..."
Martin Q. Blank: You know, I think that is *terrific*, what you have right there. Really, I liked it, a lot. I wouldn't sell the dealership or anything but, I'm tellin' ya... it's intense!
Bob: There's... more.
Martin Q. Blank: Okay, would ya mind, just skip to the end.
Bob: To... the very end? "For a while."
Martin Q. Blank: Whew. That's good man.
Bob: "For a while."
Martin Q. Blank: That's excellent!
Bob: You wanna do some blow?
Martin Q. Blank: No I don't.
Bob: [Hugs Martin]

HEAVEN HELP BAY CITY - INTERVIEW WITH KAT AND MOUSE AUTHOR ABNER SENIRES

2011-05-03T23:42:00.001-08:00

We have with us today Abner Senires, author of the cyberpunk futurenoir series KAT AND MOUSE – Guns for Hire. K&M is a fast-paced, spare, sometimes violent and often hilarious series of tales. It was written as a weekly serial and is now available in paperback and e-book format.

2042. Bay City, California Free State. Kat and Mouse are ronin--street mercenaries--who like cake runs. Simple jobs with quick and large payouts. That's what these were supposed to be. Cake runs. But when the Duo sign on, they suddenly find themselves targeted by a biker gang, a team of corporate commandos, a cybernetically-enhanced special ops agent, a stalker, a band of kidnappers, and a Japanese crime syndicate. And they all want the Duo out of the way. Permanently. Now these sassy sisters-in-arms must survive the onslaught and still get the jobs done. Because in the Biz, it's get paid or get dead. As usual, Kat and Mouse are going to do things their way. Heaven help Bay City...

Following is an interview with Mr. Senires. My questions are in bold to make up for the fact that, in real life, I sound like an eight year old girl.

Let’s start with the most pressing question, Abner: why do you hate pants so very much?

I don't technically hate pants. In fact, some of my best friends are pants. But sometimes, I'm much more comfortable in shorts. I attribute it to my island-based ethnicity.

Now you're probably wondering what pantlessness has to do with writing. Well, it all goes back to an article I read on freelancing several years ago. The author equated freelance writing with the phrase "no pants 'til noon." Or something along those lines. So now, when I think about writing full time, I think about no pants.

Note to self. Stop wearing pants until noon. (My day job coworkers are going to love me.) How did you get started writing? Were you bitten by an inky-o-active spider?

I was not bitten by an inky-o-active spider, no. I was struck by lightning.

No, really.

I was three or four at the time, living in the Philippines with my grandparents. One day, during a big storm, I was hanging halfway out the ground floor window, playing with a length of rebar, jabbing it into this little pool of water outside the window. All of a sudden, there was a bright flash of light at the end of the rebar closest to the pool of water followed by this rumble of thunder. Next thing I know, I'm sitting about four feet back from the window inside the house, on my butt on the floor, and my grandfather is standing over me saying "You shouldn't be afraid of a little thunder."

I'm thinking that rattled something upstairs. *points to head* Made me susceptible to the writing bug. Also made me a bit off, puns and showtunes and all that.

Probably led to the whole pantslessness thing, too.

Later, when I was living here in the U.S. with my parents, I ran across a copy of Fredric Brown's short story "Arena" in an issue of Reader's Digest (I didn't realize who wrote the story or what the title was at the time, though. All I know was it had a guy fighting this alien creature inside this force-fielded area on some distant planet. I learned who and what later.)

After I read that story, I had a revelation. I wanted to tell those kinds of stories, too.

Who are your favorite writers, and how have they influenced KAT AND MOUSE?

My favorite writers are Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, David Eddings, Robert B. Parker, and Joss Whedon.

Asimov doesn't really influence KAT AND MOUSE, but he was my first formal introduction to SF so this is a shout-out to the Good Doctor. Heinlein's strong female characters certainly provided the template for the Duo.

From Eddings and Whedon I learned how to write effective ensemble pieces and scenes. The interplay between the characters in the Belgariad and in shows like Buffy and Firefly are excellent examples. They move story and character but at the same time provide some humor and lively banter.

I think Robert Parker has the biggest influence on KAT AND MOUSE particularly in terms of the style. The terse prose, the minimalism, is something I try to use in the stories. There's a kind of power to the prose when you go minimal, I think.

Also in the voice of the story. I borrowed that from Parker and also from William Gibson. I saw it in Gibson's "Johnny Mnemonic" and I see it in Parker's Spenser novels. What I call the "hard-boiled" style, which goes back to Chandler and some of the pulp writers of the 30s and 40s and onward.

If I could live inside of Raymond Chandler’s prose, I’d be a happy woman. What are the challenges to writing a serial?

Pace is the biggest challenge.

Not so much pace of the story as pace of the actual writing. See, each episode is roughly 6,000 words, sometimes longer. That translates to something like six or seven installments per episode. At one installment per week, one episode will typically run about six or seven weeks.

That means I have at least six weeks to write, edit, revise, and polish a complete 6,000-word story. And that's with day job, life, and other commitments.

Now, I do try to keep at least an episode ahead, but sometimes, things don't work out that way.

I'm actually having heart palpitations thinking of the relentless deadlines. *fetches self smelling salts* Much better. We’re putting out a casting call. Who would you love to see in the main roles?

Interesting you mention KAT AND MOUSE as live action. The episode "Easy Money" began life as a screenplay. I wrote it with Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez in mind. This was after the first Resident Evil.

After that, I kinda started to see certain people in the roles and tend to have that person or personality in mind as I write the episodes. I even put together a little visual reference chart for myself that I refer to as I write scenes.

So here goes, my cast list for Kat and Mouse. The main characters, at least.

KAT: Milla Jovovich as Alice in Resident Evil

MOUSE: Michelle Rodriguez as Rain in Resident Evil

REVELL: Sean Connery as Ramius in Hunt for Red October

SPECS: Joe Pantoliano as Cosmo from The Fugitive/U.S. Marshals

FAST EDDIE: Dominic Monaghan as Charlie from Lost

JAKE STEELE: Nathan Fillion as Mal Reynolds from Firefly/Serenity

MURPHY: Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones and Han Solo

JADE: Ali Larter in Heroes

*jolts self out of daydream* I heartily approve of this casting. You chose to self-publish KAT AND MOUSE. Self-publishing seems to be on everyone’s minds right now. I’ve seen a gamut of opinions on it, but very little about the how-to. What did it take to get this published?

This might be a long answer so I'll try and keep it to a manageable length.

For the print edition, I went with CreateSpace. After reading through various other POD places, I decided CreateSpace was going to work best for me. Plus, I liked the Amazon connection.

Next, I had to take the text of all 10 episodes and do some copyedits. Now, there was already a round of copyedits done when the episodes first went up. Anything missed back then was now caught and corrected at this point. There were some bits that got cleaned up. A line here, a line there. A bit of clarification here.

Then I had to format the text and the pages at the correct trim size and with the correct interior bits. Headers. Pagination. Front matter. Margins. Spacing. Typeface. Gave myself a crash course in book design. Just enough so that I could at least "look the part."

Then another round of copyedits, making sure the text actually looked like it came out of a legacy published book. And then exporting that final product as a PDF file for upload to CreateSpace.

After that came cover design. I originally did one that looked good at the time but when the proof copy came, I decided it needed more "pop." More "oomph." So I re-designed the cover. Spent a week giving myself a crash course in photo manipulation using PaintShop Pro. Then dove it with the design.

Back to the proof. When that came in, my wife went through the book for a round of copyedits. A fellow writer also chimed in with edits, for which I was grateful. Then I went through for yet another pass.

After all that was done, the final files were uploaded to CreateSpace. They make sure the files are properly formatted and voila! We have print edition.

Next came formatting for ebook. Mainly ePub and Kindle.

For ePub, I went with Smashwords and used their style guide to format the text. It was more or less a matter of taking the original file that went to CreateSpace, knocking out all the pagination and headers and page formatting and going to a bare-bones text with minimal formatting. Once that was done, off it went to Smashwords for finalization.

Kindle was a bit different. I had to hunt down some guides for that. Kindle formatting turned out to be basically stripped-down HTML with some CSS. I'd hand coded web pages before using HTML so I wasn't completely in the dark with the process. It was pretty easy in that respect but it does take time. Global search and replace came in really really handy for a lot of that work. When that was done, I used Mobipocket Creator (an ebook management program that does a great job at Kindle format conversion) to create a finished file that I then uploaded to the Kindle site for finalization.

And that's what I did on my summer vacation--I mean, how I self-published KAT AND MOUSE.

Whew!

Question Time! A bullet train leaves Cleveland at 8 AM, traveling west at 168 mph. It’s got a leaky nuclear reactor. Kat and Mouse leave Bay City at 9:15 AM, heading east with a contract to recover a men’s European carryall from the shady conductor. When and where do they meet, and what happens next?

Ha! Trick questions. Most of Cleveland was destroyed by two 10 kiloton suitcase nukes in 2027.

Well played, Mr. Senires. What’s in store for the ladies now?

I won’t get into too many details but I will say there’s more to come about Jake and Kat, more about the human traffickers, more about Malachi and Jeffries, and more about Sakura. We’ll also visit again with Valkyrie, Absinthe, Fast Eddie, and Jade. And there’s some upcoming fun things involving certain Alliance folks doing bad things and a character currently in the wings who’s got a bone to pick with the Duo.

And there we have it! You can follow Abner, and Kat and Mouse themselves, at the following links Though do be careful. Every now and again Kat shoots first and asks questions later.

Website: www.abnersenires.com Blog: acetachyon.blogspot.com

Twitter: twitter.com/acetachyon Book link: www.abnersenires.com/katandmouse

TWO FOR TUESDAY

2011-05-03T09:32:00.000-08:00

This isn't link soup so much as a link appetizer, but there are two things I'd like the world to know about today. So, without further ado:

From Galleycat: How to Share Books with Troops Overseas
I can't think of anybody who might need a few hours of escape more than active-duty soldiers.

-and-

Please join me in celebrating the release of writer-buddy Kevin Hearne's debut Urban Fantasy HOUNDED. It's not just good. This is the start of an excellent new series, and it's available for purchase and download today. Doesn't that make you a lucky reader!

TIME OUT FOR DOMESTIC MANIFESTOES

2011-05-01T21:53:00.002-08:00

Tweeeeeet <--that's the sound of a whistle being blown.

Why, you ask? Because we're taking a time out to talk parenting. Specifically, potty-training, that surreal period of time in which one or more humans employ every trick in their arsenal, as well as stooping to things like bribery and begging, to convince another human (or possibly an alien-monkey hybrid) not to poo in his own pants.

Granted, it's a new human (hopefully), but it's still another person refusing to not poo in his own pants. And it's awful. Just soul-searingly awful.

We've reached the point where our new human recognizes the need to poo (hereinafter referred to as the Poo Instinct), considers pulling down his scientifically-engineered pull-downable pants and utilizing the device specifically purchased for him to poo in, then says nahhhhh, not gonna do it.

I'm not sure what to do. When a person decides not to do something related to the Poo Instinct, there isn't much an outsider can do to force the correct reaction to the Poo Instinct. So, I've decided to put my college degree to work. It's English, for the record. I'm going to use all my skills of composition, borrowing of other's fine works, and rhetoric to attempt -once and for all- to get my son to use the potty. If you would like to try this at home, then feel free to borrow the following. I give you:

The Poo Manifesto

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one (tiny) person to poo, and to assume among the powers of nature a separate and equal location for his used sustenance, a decent respect to the olfactory sensibilities of mankind requires that this (tiny) person should remove himself and make use of the throne-shaped potty so highly recommended by Consumer Reports.*

Now we are engaged in a great and unbelievably frustrating time, testing whether this household, or any household, so conceived and so dedicated to the principal of not pooing in one's own pants (possibly while standing in the kitchen playing with an exceedingly irritating parrot toy from a McDonald's Happy Meal) can long endure.**

To thine own Poo (Instinct) be true; and it must follow, as the day the night, though canst not then reduce thine mother to tears and unproductive gagging.***

*Declaration of Independence
**Gettysburg Address
***Hamlet

CRACK THAT WIP

2011-04-30T15:19:00.001-08:00

The soundtrack for the short story I'm writing just kicked my door down and flooded in, uninvited and percussion-heavy. Also, just a leeeetle beeet '80s.

Pictures of You - The Cure
White Wedding - Billy Idol

What's on your playlist, my fine feathered friends?

PSSSSST...ACT

2011-04-26T21:19:00.000-08:00

When I was in college, I took some theater classes. Some acting, mostly playwriting. I was cast as a Texan mother of a recalcitrant Texan teenager in a short play at some point, and in one scene I had to get increasingly worked up while said daughter refused to come out of her room to meet an important suitor. I memorized my lines, and had to wear a wig. (My hair was growing back after being shaved off, and the play was set in the '50s. A Texas woman could not, apparently, sport a mauve Tank Girl hair cut in the '50s.) We rehearsed.

The director told me to put more energy into the scene.

I did.

The director told me to put more energy in the scene.

I thought I did.

The director took the "door" (We were working on a spartan set where there was furniture, but no walls, so the door was literally just a door in a frame with some kind of chinzy plywood flying buttresses) and tweaked it so that it jammed. *

The next day, at rehearsal, when I went to open the door and let in the suitor, the entire door came with the knob. At me. It wasn't heavy, and he and I managed to catch it before I pulled a Buster Keaton, without the opening in the house. And goddamn, did I have energy during that scene. Actual adrenaline coursing through my veins, the same as a '50s mother might have had while trying to convince her daughter not to actively spurn and embarrass a suitor who was the son of an influential family.

Before that, you see, I was pretending to act. I was so caught up in "doing acting" for lack of a better term, that I wasn't actually acting like this woman. Also, may accent was atrocious.

The same thing happens in writing. We get so busy showing what's going on with our characters, zooming in on those meaningful looks, fist-clenching and lip-nibbling that all the energy is taken out of the characters and, because of that, out of the scene. We're so focused on showing reactions and programming emotional tension that we lose the actual emotion.

In any of my first drafts, I'll have at least a paragraph a chapter that consists of time stopping so that I can show reactions instead of just letting my characters move through their embarrassment or pain or joy. I haven't yet come up with the authorial equivalent of dropping a door on them, but I'm working on it.

And now, because I love it, some info-dumping from STRANGE BREW:

* I don't actually know that she did this. In fact, I'm inclined to believe that she did not. Still, it worked wonders.

NERDSCAPE: Terminator 2 on MST3K

2011-04-23T18:52:00.001-08:00

Author Kevin Hearne is doing a giveaway of his debut urban fantasy novel HOUNDED on his blog. The book looks great, and the entry requirements (submit either a Nerdscape or a Beerscape-see blog for rules) are hilarious.

The other entrants have created some amazing Nerd- and/or Beerscapes, and I couldn't resist adding my own. I give you: Terminator 2 on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (alternate cast), with Neil Gaiman's NEVERWHERE (see caption to understand how this ties in), and seasonally-appropriate miniature Cadbury Cream Eggs.

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BOY?

MUSE OF DEVASTATION

2011-04-19T18:39:00.001-08:00

Cyberdyne Systems was responsible for a lot of heinous things, including a self-aware computer with an urge to eradicate the human race. You may have heard of its most devious agents, the Terminators. I bring this up because, according to Terminator lore, at 8:11 PM TODAY, Skynet will begin its attack against humanity.

Sadly, this is almost all Cyberdyne will be remembered for. And, while it is not as momentous a thing, Cyberdyne Systems is also responsible for me being a writer (this could also, I suppose, be considered an attempt to eradicate the human race... not that that's my goal, I swear!).

When I saw The Terminator in 1984, two things happened immediately. First, I fell hopelessly in love with Kyle Reese. Upon recovery, some months later, I began to write my first novel. It would now probably be considered fan fiction. I was so utterly enthralled with the post-apocalyptic world hinted at in that movie that I had to see more of it. Since James Cameron and Orion Pictures did not seem to share my all-encompassing and IMMEDIATE passion for all things Future, I decided to write it myself.

I remember the novel including a lot of dangerous patrols and German Shepherds. There were also a lot of amputated limbs replaced with prosthetics that all the refugees were slightly suspicious of. If I still had a floppy disk drive, and inserted the THREE disks I filled with my Terminator stories, the amputations would probably number in the hundreds. Why, I don't know. It was a theme of some sort.

Was this appropriate fiction for a seven year old girl to be writing?

YES. It was exactly what I needed to write. I could smell the burning metal, feel the adrenaline-soaked fear of my foot soldiers, and hear the sound of high-pitched barking echoing off the endless hallways where my civilization clung to life. With every Terminator we destroyed, my imagination grew. With every conflict between soldiers (there seemed to be a lot of animosity over who got the "good" MREs), I learned a little something about creating complex characters.

I lived in that world for months, so thoroughly woven into it that, when we had five minutes of free time at the end of class, I would lose myself in writing it. My teacher would have to come over and shake my shoulder, ten minutes after the bell rang and everyone else had slammed their desks closed and filtered out of class, to send me home. Good thing I walked.

A year later, I discovered Ann McCaffrey, and my metal drones were replaced with dragons and dragonriders. I poured my expanded world onto SIX floppies on that obsession.

Now, I create my own worlds. Yes, they have facets of the scenes and characters I have seen along the way. They also, now that I'm not seven, include chunks of my own successes, humiliations and heartbreaks.

So raise a glass, dear readers, and join me in toasting Cyberdyne Systems. And tell me, what dragged you into writing? Something as sinister, or something sweeter?

TULIP FEST 2011

2011-04-17T21:01:00.000-08:00

I did not, as it turns out, have a vampire weekend. In fact, it may have been the opposite. Behold the FLOWER POWER!

A lovely aberration.

Muddy, pretty things.

I do so love primary colors. Fields and fields of primary colors.

Cheeky. Effing. Daffodil.

STAY TUNED

2011-04-14T19:45:00.002-08:00

Good news coming soon. Follow my productive alter ego Regan Summers on twitter for updates.

In the meantime, if you've had the kind of week I've had (people emerging from winter and going fuckmuppet crazy all over your personal space), I say you've earned yourself a Vampire Weekend:

WHY DO WE DO IT?

2011-04-12T18:44:00.000-08:00

Why do we blog?

To educate? Yes, I would like to know how to field dress wounds, tell when mixed field greens are ready for picking, and learn how to field a ball hit off the Green Monster like this guy.

To amuse? (Personally, I don't even try anymore, since HYPERBOLE AND A HALF has that covered)

To announce? COMING SOON

To CORRECT?

To share our interests, passions, and hobbies?

To build communities, followings, or fellowships?

To tell the world about the ups and downs of your open marriage? (Stumbled upon that due to a misspelling while googling, I swear)

So that we have a place where we can commit serious interior decorating faux pas daily without dropping a dime or getting divorced? (I still miss my Eye of Sauron background)

Why do you blog?

APOCALYPSE NOW?

2011-04-10T10:20:00.000-08:00

I'm a big fan of the post-apocalyptic future genre. I like rough, gritty characters, and stories characterized by chronic shortages of essentials and the perseverance of morality in the midst of crumbling civilization.

I also enjoy the dystopian futures where either the government has restructured the world to contribute to its nefarious goals, or mankind is hiding and fighting against some big nasty: annihilating aliens; computers burdened with blissfully single-minded superiority complexes; zombies; and vampires?

Post-apocalyptic and dystopian books and movies are high stakes affairs. Every decision or refusal to make a decision has life or death consequences. There are sterling moments of humor, iron-strong ties between characters, and really bad Bad Guys. Self-sacrifice is a repeating theme and, honestly, that never gets less compelling. The settings are amazing, emotionally evocative by themselves. Burnt-out landmarks, charred children's toys, rusting razor wire. (Fire and oxidation apparently run rampant in these futures.)

Probably the only reason I can read or watch such stories without running, screaming, from my seat is because I know them to be works of fiction. But every once in awhile, I come across a true story that makes me wonder if we're closer to these fictional situations than we know.

This one caught my attention today. It's not a situation of urgent peril like the ongoing nuclear disasters in Japan. In fact it seems static, almost benign, in comparison. But it's also borderline terrifying. Farm families are being displaced. Farmland is being destroyed. Natural resources are gobbled up and twisted into place, only to be let immediately to decline.

I know I could probably find examples of such programs being perpetrated in my own country, but the sheer scale of this operation is what I find most astounding. It's the impudent hatchling that ate an entire country. It reminds me, frankly, of Science Fiction stories where some mega-corp builds up this or that planet or orbital and then abandons it.

So what, dear readers, will happen next? I've got two dollars on idyllic young families being moved it at no cost, followed by a zombie spider outbreak.

AND OTHER THINGS I DON'T HAVE IN COMMON WITH BRUCE AND DEMI'S KIDS

2011-04-07T21:59:00.000-08:00

I came up with the perfect topic for a blog post today. Scout's Honor, I did. (For just a moment, I thought that two of three of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore's children were named Scout and Honor, and I thought a-ha! you clever bastards...but it's Scout and Rumor, and Scout's Rumor is...well, I don't know what it is, but it sounds vaguely scandalous, or like the sort of book that might find itself banned in Kansas).

Anyway, I wrote the opening of the post in tiny letters on a large sticky note, which is how I keep track of most important things. And then I stuck it in my bag and brought it home, unveiling it - viola! - mere moments ago. And what to my wondrous eyes did appear? Why, a grocery shopping list. I seem to have snatched the wrong sticky. Story. Of. My. Life.

So, in lieu of sweet inspiration, I give you:

kalamata olive bread
red bean paste
beets (small)
Mini Eggs (before they're all gone oh dear God move like you got a purpose!)

Yes, I do editorialize my shopping list. And yes, I will look for that Sticky Note of Great Ideas and try to get that up over the weekend. In the meantime, please do try to make something delicious with these ingredients.

Best,
H

iConundrum

2011-04-03T10:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I bought a MacBook. I needed a new laptop, have for some time. The laptop I have been using is a hand-me-down, generous on the part of the giver, but that hasn't made me and the machine BFFs. It likes to listen to honkytonk and randomly refuse to allow me access to my files. It is a morning person and has a bowl haircut. We have politely shared space and several hundred thousand words over the last year or so, but it was clearly time to part ways.

Except, I have no idea what to do with the MacBook. Some history: in grade school, when computers were just worming their way into the general public, I worked on an Apple Macintosh.

We did not use it for schoolwork, or to skim wikipedia in the name of "research". No, they taught us Basic programming. We programmed elementary games, and something related to creating graphs. That was the last time I worked on a Mac, back when it was still using its full name. And now I have this sleek, colorful, beauty that literally sings when I turn it on:

So tell me, MacMinds, what are your favorite parts of the MacBook, the things it does so well that PCs can't even hope to match? And don't tell me about the no viruses or out-of-the-box badda-bing capabilities. I already bought the thing. No need to sell me twice. :)

Tell me about the programs, the computing equivalent of the dive bar with the killer steak burritos and $2 cocktails made with top shelf booze. Help me to fall in love with this aluminum-encased feat of engineering.

CUISINE AT THE END OF THE WORLD

2011-03-31T18:51:00.001-08:00

When I was growing up, in a small town in Alaska during the early 1980's, my parents didn't buy milk in a carton. Nor did they grow milk plants and harvest/drain the pods (ten points to whoever names the origin on that reference - I'm certain I can't remember). They bought powder, added it to water, and mixed it...often with poor results. Want to know what a dry lump of partially-reconstituted milk feels like in your mouth? Like a spore of Hell has landed on your tongue, that's what.

Why would parents subject their children to such a thing? Because it was less expensive than liquid milk, and had a long shelf-life. Those were the sorts of things we had to pay attention to in a place where almost all food stuffs were imported, and the import schedule was erratic. At the time, I thought the manufacturers of the stuff (Nestle, I think) were sadists. Now, in light of the (probably) impending zombie apocalypse, I think they might be geniuses.

For all the changes in the world and Alaska during my lifetime, we still can't grow much food here. Sure, there are animals and delicious fish, but the growing season is short and cool. We can grow 100 pound cabbages, but grains are tricky, and don't get me started on fruit. Also, some of those animals kill people on occasion.

So, in the event of the end of the world, what would we have? I'm presuming here that the final curtain call will be preceded by a period of energy scarcity on such a scale that manufacturing ceases, etc. etc. We'd have massive Brassicacaeae, moose steaks (here's a how-to if you want to make your own), salmon, and tart berries. I sense scurvy in my future, unless a couple of Jamba Juices survive and start delivering. Which would be awesome btw, a perky little badass Jamba juicer hellbent on delivery in a Mad Max world. Quick - somebody go write that.

So, for all you authors of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic prose, where's the food coming from? Are all your characters hoarding Twinkies and raiding the 7-11 at the end of the world, or are they growing and harvesting? And what are you planning to live on, should the end times come a-callin'?

COMPOSITE FROM THE CLOSET

2011-03-29T21:35:00.002-08:00

If you need to blame someone or -thing for the cheeseball internal rhyme in the title, then you can blame my WIP. It's busy glutting itself on alliteration and internal rhyme, the muddled slob.

But, as I was saying, one of the best ways to add complexity to your works is to draw from multiple sources. Have a strong main character (MC) but translucent (and not on purpose) supporting characters, or the opposite problem? Have dialogue in which every line gets a tag because everyone sounds the same and you can only tell them apart through a complex system of color-coding? Have conflict that dwindles at 1/8th the length you were aiming for? Sounds like you need some depth.

You know that 12-foot brass urn of Shiny New Ideas rocking in the corner? Reach in and pull out a handful of scenes and bits of internal monologue and that terrible villain who haunts your dreams. Fuzzy up the sides a bit and slip them into your WIP. Do they fit? If not, why not? What about your world makes them impossible?

Of, if they fit, where did they come from? What do they want that's so far outside your other characters' hopes and dreams? Where do they intersect, and what happens when they do? Your characters all want to find out what happened to MC's father. That terrible villain with one white eye just wants someone to own up to putting a dent in his Veyron.

And voilà, conflict is born and depth begins.

A REVIEW! - SUCKER PUNCH the movie

2011-03-26T11:53:00.006-08:00

I've been looking forward to Zack Snyder's movie Sucker Punch since, oh, I first heard mention of it following Comic-Con. The preview indicated it would be fast-paced, stylish, fantastical in a comic-book kind of way, and there would be atmospheric music. Oh yes, there was music (our theater thought the movie would better be enjoyed if the volume was turned up to 11 - my ears are still ringing).

**WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD**

I'm neither in the habit nor the business of doing movie reviews. But I really looked forward to this one, and while it exceeded my expectations in some ways, I was perplexed by other deficiencies. This is just my first-take opinion.

The premise: Girl loses her family, nasty step-father stuffs her into mental institution where she is scheduled for a lobotomy five days hence. She retreats into a fantasy world where she and four of her fellow inmates fight for survival while, in the real world, she works to escape the institution. I expected Sucker Punch to be sense candy. Brilliant visuals. Pulse-pounding music. Escapism. There would probably be a happy ending.

And then, a couple weeks back, the Sucker Punch crew began unveiling animated shorts set in the various fantasy scenarios the characters visit. They are grim, dangerous places, and I began to wonder just how dark this film was going to be.

The main character, Babydoll, (Emily Browning) is basically sold by her stepfather to Blue, a corrupt orderly (Oscar Isaac) who also plays the role of pimp and puppeteer in the fantasy sequences. Blue promises to get her lobotomized so that the stepfather will inherit his deceased wife's estate (it was left to her daughters-other daughter doesn't make it out of the opening sequence) for a chunk of cash. Meanwhile, in the background, the institution's therapist, a tense Carla Gugino, is conducting the unique therapeutic technique of playing music and having her patients act through the prior traumatic events that landed them in the institution.

The fact that the patient Sweet Pea (Abby Cornish) is sitting on a bed in a child's bedroom to act through her trauma was indication enough that the real world component of the movie would be grim. All the inmates are girls, and all are victims. If they weren't victims in their prior lives, they become so in the institution.

And so when we transition into the first fantasy scene and find that, there, the girls dance provocatively on stage and then service men in back rooms, it shouldn't have been a surprise. Even in their fantasies, the girls are commodities, under the control of and shaped by the depraved desires of their male captors. The therapist, ostensibly in charge of the institution, is nothing more than an aging whore in the girls' eyes. If anyone ever needed escape, ever needed to step into another world where they could assert control and have the strength to stand up to the threats around them, it's these characters.

I still wonder how dark this story could have been. It glosses over the worst of reality, blurring the real world with the burlesque stage setting of the fantasy world, from which the girls springboard into the larger fantasy realms. The movie entertains, but misses steps along the way. Or ignores them.

Sucker Punch has the feel of a second draft rushed into production when it should have gone another couple rounds. The action sequences are phenomenal, especially the fight in the German trenches. The worlds of the fantasy sequences are deep and complex. Looking for a scene to inspire your epic fantasy, sci fi, or steampunk adventures? Look no further. Even though we only see the small spaces the characters walk through, the glimpses of the active, 360 degree backgrounds, are amazing. You must see this on the big screen if you can. There were places where my hand twitched because I wanted to rewind a particular sequence and watch it again. And again. And, for good measure, once more.

But there are fundamental issues. Remember the old lesson of show versus tell? In the burlesque fantasy world, Babydoll's dancing is hypnotic, riveting all eyes on her. But it's never shown. Watches characters talk about something phenomenal that we could just as easily have seen is distracting. The real world and that first step into the fantasy world are blurred early and often, which makes it easy to forget as we're caught up in battles between automatic weapons and dragons, that there are real stakes in play. This, I think, is a big deficiency. The girls may be denying the desperation of Babydoll's situation, but it makes it more difficult for the audience to develop an emotional connection with the characters.

Sucker Punch isn't all flash-bang with no heart. It's just sort of a BYOheart situation. It hints at a bolder story, even whispers commentary on societal failures, but it also purposefully redirects the audience's gaze away from those things. That doesn't mean you can't explore them on your own.

If you don't want to think deep thoughts, then go enjoy a kick-ass movie. If you were hoping for a thought-provoking story, be prepared to do your thinking after the movie is over.

CATAWAMPTIOUSLY CHAWED UP

2011-03-22T22:37:00.000-08:00

It's been more than a week since I first encountered it, and I'm still stuck on this phrase. It's rare that I'm surprised by a word or phrase. Sure, I encounter words I've never heard or seen in print, a smattering of letters I'm required to look up. Some of them I remember. Some drift away, the meaning returning to whatever place it inhabited before I glimpsed it.

Catawampous has always surprised me, but catawamptiously chawed up is a real treat. You can practically taste, all but feel the meaning as you say it.

Meaning: utterly defeated, badly beaten. Catawamptiously chawed up. Brilliant.

What are your favorites?

THE WORD IS THE THING

2011-03-18T22:34:00.003-08:00

"Watchu goin do wit em?" Garv asked.

Tal rubbed at the scab on his chin, poked at the squirmy pile on the ground with a short stick.

"Dunno."

"Maybe they'll burn."

Tal dragged one of the little objects away from the others. The men stared at it, its serpentine shape at once familiar and unknown. Unknowable, perhaps.

"Don't look like it'd give up much heat," Tal said. He dragged another one, more angular that the first, out of the pile. He flicked a third, which fetched up against the others. And then the three little forms shook like wet dogs and settled down beside one another. Expectant.

"Eat," Garv said. Then he looked away, pink blooming on his pockmarked cheeks. "I seen them afor. They says 'eat'."

"What is they?"

"Letars. When theys together, then theys a ward."

Tal looked down. e. A. T. He picked the letars up, rubbing the thin, slightly greasy forms between his forefinger and thumb. He lifted his chin and dropped them into his mouth. They crunched between his teeth, burst on his tongue. But there was nothing to swallow.

"What they tastin of?" Garv asked, his nose scrunched up in distaste.

"Pleasant. At first, they were sweet and sour, like a recalcitrant berry plucked from Mrs. Rangarajan's thorny plants. Then they changed, became viscous and savory as they climbed my teeth. And then..." He shrugged. "They seemed to disappear."

"Huh." Garv scratched at a sore on the side of his neck.

"You really should try one," Tal said, plucking three more letters and lining them up. Garv squinted at them.

"Maybes later," Garv said. "Lessus go down at the pond."

TRANSITIONS, OR: WHAT GETS LEFT ON THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR

2011-03-16T22:56:00.000-08:00

I dabbled in drama in college, and had a number of friends who were serious about careers in acting and directing. Many of them had come from Los Angeles, some from families in the movies business, and so maybe it didn't seem like such an impossible dream for them.

One acquaintance landed the starring role in a WB sitcom shortly after graduation. It lasted two seasons. Others have had plum roles in small movies, or small roles in big movies. A lot of their work has ended up on the cutting room floor.

I think of them every time I cut grandiose description, screaming neon "hints", and pages of characters looking meaningfully at each other. These are the hardworking scenes that I needed to move between major plot points or change location. They are transitions, impudent hatchlings which regularly outgrow a story's needs.

Got a bloated manuscript? Trust your readers to take steps with minimal guidance. Trust them to figure out the larger conspiracy even though your character can't yet see it all. I know my little transitions are dreaming of that one chance to shine, but sorry my sons and daughters, we're going to have to let you go.

STATUS QUO

2011-03-13T15:22:00.001-08:00

It's brilliantly sunny and appallingly cold here today (yes, this is one of those times when adverbs are acceptable). I'm overcaffeinated, reading Shakespeare and a cowboy slang dictionary, and fairly certain something amazing is about to erupt in my WIP.

How's your weekend going?

SMALL VICTORIES-WRITERS CAN'T LIVE ON CHEESE SANDWICHES ALONE

2011-03-08T21:51:00.001-09:00

Lately I've been discussing, with writer friends in various stages of the game, the importance of small victories. It's completing the 20,000th word, when before you've only ever written 8,000 before you abandoned yet another Great American Novel. It's having a short story accepted by a literary journal that's turned you down like doing so was its sole purpose (Clearly the journal was invented and funded by some long-forgotten nemesis, or perhaps an alien species studying humans and their reactions to rejection. The bastards). It's being told your piece, your CreationBabyJoyandHeartbreakAllRolledIntoOne made it through the first reader round to the second, which is only one level from the editor, who has only to type "yes, please" and you're in.

Small victories keep writers alive. I know, I know. Margaret Atwood said it's cheese sandwiches. Those help. But, before a writer gets hungry for a cheese sandwich, she has to want to keep living. And it's a series of fortuitous boosts that make a writer want to keep living (As a writer, that is. Most people want to live for other, more substantial reasons, like 5-bedroom houses with pools, or a designer handbag in every color, or to see their kids grow up, etc.).

If things aren't going well, if all you're seeing is a smattering of rejections (when you get responses at all) it's okay to siphon from the wins of others. Or, hell, dream big. Take heart from a friend reeling in an agent, or a stranger inking a SuperMegaOhMyGodFinnishFilmRights(!) Deal.

Writing is personal, and lonely, and sometimes heartbreaking. Savor each win, whether it's yours alone or a smeared-mascara in public kinda thing. If you don't believe that writers live on small victories alone, check out Chuck Wendig laying down the hard science* over at his obscenely brilliant blog Terrible Minds.

*The science may be slightly pendulous, but that doesn't mean it's not good.

URBAN FANTASY WISH LIST - MARCH 2011

2011-03-06T07:54:00.002-09:00

I'm seeing all sorts of lists of clichés and tropes that readers say they are tired of seeing in Urban Fantasy (though sales seem to indicate that readers are, in fact, not entirely tired of these genre staples). What I'm not seeing are wish lists.

I'm a big fan of the wish list. Mostly I park unachievable (the $75,000 a month rental house in Napa) or ridiculous (uranium) items on them and occasionally review them to make myself laugh. But, in addition, I also use them for their intended purpose: to declare my wantiest wants for all the world to see.

I give you:

My Urban Fantasy Wish List

(Effective March 2011, subject to change at will or whim. Wish List not valid outside of United States, its territories or possessions. Void where prohibited.)

Male Leads
Main Characters whose days jobs are not investigative in nature
Animals that neither talk nor transform into 1) people 2) demons or 3) whatever the MC needs at that very moment to escape that very peril
Less Sex Addiction - Seriously, this is the only plausible explanation for characters to throw down and make the beast with two backs while beaten up and in an urgently dangerous situation
Pirates (The High Seas kind, not the Somali kind. Okay, maybe the Somali kind)
People falling through false doors into elaborate cave systems and having to find their ways out, possibly encountering Chester Copperpot as they do so (No, I have not watched The Goonies recently, why do you ask?)
EDIT: Adding automats, because they are teh awesome!
Nature vs. Man - Specifically the natural world revolting against human-cultivated magic or technology
Main Characters who do not compulsively bully their friends or treat their significant others with disdain
Ancient scourges so scourgerific that I'm compelled to keep all the lights on at night
Fallen Angels/Mythic Creatures whose primary purpose is not to get in the MC's leather pants

I think that's it for now. What's on your wish list?

THE STATUS, IT IS NO LONGER QUO

2011-03-02T22:28:00.000-09:00

Hello, dear people. Did you miss me? Uhm, or even notice I was gone? Or, well, is this thing on? Other than celebrating my new cowboy hat (which my son immediately absconded with upon my triumphant return from trapping and taming it), I've been:

Traveling (Arizona this time)
Meeting fellow writers *waves to Kevin and Tiffany*
Having an airline randomly cancel my pre-paid ticket and then try to stuff me into a dreaded middle seat on an oversold airplane *eyetwitch*

But I'm back in Alaska, and my schedule should be regulating soon, which means? *da-da-da-duhm* More blogging! Hurrah! Stay tuned. Excitement is afoot!

STRANGE THINGS DONE

2011-02-27T10:02:00.001-09:00

There are strange things done 'neath the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold.
The arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold.

This quote is the opening of one of my favorite poems growing up: "The Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert Service. It was about my home state of Alaska, contained eerie imagery, and, because it told an engaging story, was easy for me to memorize. I didn't, as a child, know that four hours of twilight did not constitute a day. I understood nothing about circadian rhythms or seasonal affective disorder. I didn't know that long Alaskan winters can drive a person mad.

I believe, now, that they can. I even have documentation. This, dear friends, is
what happens when you give an Alaskan a short reprieve in a temperate locale
in the middle of winter:

She buys a cowboy hat (which makes her deliriously happy). *

And she runs all over town posing for country music album covers.

*Giant, metal horse optional

THIS WORD YOU KEEP USING

2011-02-23T21:31:00.002-09:00

Ring, ring, ring.

Customer Service: Thank you for calling blahblah. How can I help you?

Me: I was wondering what your hours are.

Customer Service: Monday through Friday, 8 to 4, specific time.

Me: 8 to 4. That is specific. Good to know. Thanks.

Customer Service: No. Specific time.

Me: Why are you so emphatic about this?

Customer Service: Because you are calling from out of state. I'm supposed to tell everyone from out of state that we're in specific time.

Me: (puzzles) Wait, do you mean Pacific Time? As in, your company is headquartered on the West Coast, in the Pacific Time Zone?

Customer Service: (pause) Yes.

Click.

THE "IT" FACTOR - YOU GOT IT, BABY

2011-02-20T22:19:00.001-09:00

I can't stop watching this, mostly because I'm not sure if this is a baby in a room full of puppets, or everybody I've ever gone drinking with. Also, the soundtrack is made of win. Enjoy:

Oh, there's a fanny pack. That rules out my friends.

(Please note this is a trailer for the movie "Las Palmas" by Johannes Nyholm. If you like it, find him and show him some love.)

SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE

2011-02-18T22:22:00.000-09:00

Vas ist das? Ah, it appears that I have been given a blog award. In fact, it is the sweetest blog award ever. Want proof? Nomnoms below:

Here's how the award works:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you this award. (Thanks, Samantha!)
2. Share four guilty pleasures that you have.
3. Pass the award on to six other blogs.

Guilty Pleasures

Heh. I actually had to look this up to figure out what to share. Composite definition: A guilty pleasure is something one enjoys despite feeling guilt or shame for enjoying it (or despite the fact that the thing being enjoyed has no redeeming values). Alrighty then. Here goes:

1. Eighties pop bands...even after they roll into the nineties and beyond. In particular, Depeche Mode.
2. Bad fantasy or sci fi movies featuring kick-ass ladies. Think everything Milla Jovovich has made (except Kuffs)
3. Trashy periodicals. I blame the lack of t.v. and weekly People magazine deliveries when I was growing up. Please note that I do not subscribe, and rarely buy. But if there is one in the room, I pounce, devour and move on to the next.
4. Swedish Fish. FTW. I don't feel guilty for eating Swedish Fish. I feel guilty for practically putting them on the endangered (candy) species list.

Sweet Morsels

Please check out these lovely, amusing and - yes - sometimes sweet blogs:

You're Write, Except When You're Rong - Elena Solodow
Tell Great Stories - Sommer Leigh
Urban Psychopomp - Margo Lerwill
Forever Endeavor - Tracy
Far Seeing Fairy Tales - the incomparable Bettielee
Reading, Writing and Ribaldry - Girl Friday

HOW TO SAVE YOUR LOCAL (BIG) BOOKSTORE

2011-02-16T20:44:00.001-09:00

A few ideas for Borders' restructuring:

1. Rename certain locations "Boarders" and open a boutique hotel in the corner, between the stationary and the stuffed animal factory.

2. Just keep adding more and more diverse niche areas, until each store turns into an enclosed bazaar that happens to sell books. And deep-fried meat on sticks. And, just maybe, human organs. (This is bankruptcy, right? You gotta pull out all the stops.)

3. Get ahold of one of them new-fangled Com-POo-Tors. That'll bring the kids in.

4. Franchise the local stores and sell them back to community owners. Huh. Kind of like the local independents that were run out by the superstores back in the day.

In all seriousness (in some seriousness), Borders kind of missed the boat on that whole e-book trend. Which isn't surprising since bookselling was the first industry to suffer an e-surgency. Oh, except for music, which, long ago in a galaxy far away, sustained a small, hardly memorable (Napster and Metallica anyone?) shift toward the digital.

From a cursory review of the list of 200 stores slated for closure (that's 6,000 jobs, according to Reuters, which makes the big corporate problem a local, personal challenge), it appears that my local Borders escaped this cut. I'm glad to hear it. This Borders has a kick-ass Sci Fi/Fantasy section and regularly has local authors in for signings. Also, the cashiers are super nice. And they are always stocked up on Swedish Fish.

EDIT: I missed the listing of the Anchorage store when reading the fuzzy 4-pt font .pdf file. It is scheduled for closure.

But I wonder how the restructuring will affect this store. Will the better employees leave, looking for employment security? Will the publishers sell the store fewer copies of books, or none at all? Will the espresso machine break down every time I want a latte? Will buyers eventually forget the Borders patriotism they felt today, and stop going?

What did you think when you heard the news today?

EVEN LITTLE THINGS CAN BE BROKEN

2011-02-12T17:07:00.002-09:00

I always wished I could be a visual artist. I have tried, sometimes devoting up to several months to master a medium. I can't draw, or paint. My best sculptures were fundamentally rubbish (literally, in one case) that I manipulated into interesting rubbish. Like the wire spine and ribcage encased in melted and then solidified Paraffin wax. Or the multi-level river delta on rusty metal. That was actually quite lovely, though slightly tetanus-inducing. (Please note links are to other websites. That's not my work.)

What my efforts and consistent failures in the realm of visual arts has taught me is a massive appreciation of people who do it well and/or differently. So, because I cannot share any of my own with with you, I present to you artist Lori Nix. I discovered her tiny, meticulous created photographs via a link on twitter, and find them delightful. And a little sad. But mostly delightful.

FRIDAY PLAYLIST

2011-02-10T22:51:00.001-09:00

I'm falling backwards into a strange, new project. This is what it sounds like:

Cold War Kids - Saint John

A Fine Frenzy - Ashes and Wine

Sleigh Bells - Infinity Guitars (thank you Regan!)

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Mercy Seat

Taken by Trees - Sweet Child O Mine (look away, GNR fans)

Johnny Cash - Walk the Line

Christina Perri - Jar of Hearts

No, I'm not quite sure what to make of it either.

And what, my dears, are you listening to?

Battle of the (Non) Network (Non) Stars

2011-02-08T21:06:00.002-09:00

I'm crawling toward the finish line of Dayy Jobb-mandated after hours work. The finish line doesn't mean I get a break, mind you. It just means that one objective has been UNLOCKED! *cue falling coins* Now I dust off, rehydrate, and eat that red mushroom I've been saving to kick-start my next life. (I miss you, Mario. Text me!)

On the other side of the finish line are two Shiny New Ideas which have been duking it out for a week as I plod closer and closer. Through the debris they've left in their frenzied wake, I see charcoal dust, spent shell casings, a fire in a brownstone, a Shaker rocking chair abandoned but still rocking gently on a country porch at night, and a '60s muscle car. May the best idea win!

What images are dripping from your shiny new ideas?

TAX TIME

2011-02-06T14:00:00.001-09:00

Makes me a sad little puppy.

Photo via Google Images

WHAT DO YOU HEAR?

2011-02-03T21:44:00.000-09:00

Tonight, my son asked me what sound memory makes. We were driving home after a day of work, for me, and day care, for him. I think I understand the origins of the question. He's learning his letters and their associated sounds, and we were recently talking about the game "Memory", wherein you try to recall what's on the face of upside-down cards in order to match them. Last night, he asked why the game was called "Memory" and I tried to explain what it is to remember. I didn't attempt to explain the shades and ghosts of sensations that comprise memories. Knowing how he came to the question didn't make it any less profound for me.

So I'll pass it on to you:

What sound does memory make?

LIKE A WHISPER I'M IMAGINING

2011-01-29T23:24:00.004-09:00

THIS POST CONTAINS PROFANITY, AND DESCRIPTIONS OF VIOLENCE TO PUPPETS. You've been warned.

I recently ran across a couple of things that sucked me straight back in time. One was a list of tapes (as in cassette tapes - here's a link in case you've never seen such a thing) I wanted to buy. I tracked down the songs and discovered that my tastes used to be eclectic and raw and mindblowingly good. Now I mostly listen to whatever's on the radio. Also mindblowing, but for different reasons.

The other item was a few minutes of video that a friend and I produced our freshman year in high school. It was for someone's Russian or English or AP Puppetry class. It was balls-to-the-wall creative, and I have no idea how we put something so intricate and hilarious together in a single afternoon with no discernible skill, a crappy script 2-page script and a 20-pound VHS camera.

I watched it, and I thought: I wouldn't be able to do that today.

Not for lack of time or resources. God knows I had plenty of the first but none of the second in those days. But back then I was all opinions and no obligations. I was a pint-size dumbass fish in a small pond who thought the world would give her whatever she wanted. So I put together a list. (That's the kind of thing I do these days. Spreadsheets detailing the decay of my once-soaring imagination.)

I wouldn't be able to do that today because:

I know how it feels to expend every ounce of energy I possess and still crash and burn
I know how it feels to wear embarrassment/shame/despair for a week straight
I've learned to learn from the follies of others
I've found my place in the world
Now, I must maintain a nice family
Now, I need to make others happy
Now, I need to make a good impression in the community
Now, I don't want to put effort into anything that doesn't yield tangible rewards

I'm not such a good storyteller that I believe my own lies. So *ahem* fuck that list.

I would totally make that video again. Except this time it would be digital, and we'd probably set something on fire. I've got the same dreams and the same set of (figurative) balls I had as a kid. They might even be bigger now. Also, I might be slightly less of a dumbass fish now.

I also know what it feels like to expend a massive effort and be successful. I have experienced joy so intense it warms by bones. I also know that I deserve to be happy.

Watching life close up on the people around me like the rings on a tree, stiffening and freezing them in place where they will eventually die, doesn't make me want to be like them. Now, please excuse me. I have to go relearn the lyrics to songs by PJ Harvey, Morphine and Tilt. And you - don't you have something awesome you'd rather be doing? :)

WHY GENRE-WRITING IS LIKE A LITTER BOX...

2011-01-26T20:42:00.001-09:00

...AND OTHER HORRIBLE ANALOGIES

I thought my kid had a pretty good grasp of the concept of the litter box. No, not because I make him use one. Don't be disgusting. Because he's seen me clean it about twenty times, and each time I have explained in great detail the purpose of said box.

So tonight, I hear him screaming at the cat, absolutely livid. I sprint from my office and down the hall (This is about three feet. It's a small house.), and find him pointing at the poor cat as she goes about her business in the box.

"Sweet child o mine," I say. "What's the ruckus?"

"Yonder cat, she is pooping in ye olde litter box," he bemoans.

"But, dearheart, that's the point of a litter box, as I have previously explained and you have previously attested to comprehending." I hold up a signed, dated and notarized affidavit.

"But, mom...she's pooping in the litter box."

I just stare at him, and experience the same feeling I sometimes have when I talk to civilians about my writing.

"What do you write?" they ask, all pale and googly-eyed. (No, I'm not sure why they get physically altered in this segment.)

"Urban fantasy," says I.

"Ah." A beat. "What's that?"

I explain. They nod, ask a few nebulous questions (usually involving what I've published and how much *cough* money *cough* I've made), mention how if they had time they'd write a book, and then wander off.

And, at some point in the future, they stumble upon my writing. It's usually a mild snippet or flash piece on my blog or a notebook left open in my car or home. And they stare at me and say "But, mom...she's pooping in the litter box." Or something like that.

I don't know where the prejudice against Fantasy and Sci Fi (and Horror and Romance for that matter) comes from. I've had my heart broken, been scared to palpitations of the aforementioned heart, and fallen deep inside hundreds of other worlds in these genres.

I've got characters in my head who won't come out until my brain ceases to function, clever/humorous/sexy/scary phrases that make me smile in deep sleep, and such strong cravings for certain authors that I stay up until midnight on their release days to download their newest book onto my e-reader. And sometimes the vendors don't make it available until two a.m. and I have to wait. And I do!

My kid is two and a half, so he's kind of got an excuse for not understanding simple things. Lit fic snobs are generally a good bit older. So I encourage them, in the spirit of peeps everywhere coming together, to give the genres a try. Scrape around in them. You just might find that you like them.

LET'S TALK ABOUT OUR FEELINGS, M'KAY?

2011-01-23T23:21:00.002-09:00

When my eight year old godson* broke his arm, his mother told him he would have to go to physical therapy. He was aghast. "Therapy?" he yelled. "I don't want to go to therapy. I don't want to talk about my feelings!"

Writing for publication is an amazing process, one which comes filled to overflowing with new sensations. The psychedelic blur of those days when you sit down to write and a whole new world pours out of you. The scratching against the inside of the skull sensation of a new concept or twist. The face-numbing elation of the first glowing critique or request for a full.

And then come the bad feelings. The way your chest clenches with that first rejection. And the second. And the third. The sinking heat of a condescending critique, in person. The curdling of your dreams when a book filled with adverbs, prologues**, wilted clichés and an ending that can be seen from a continent away hits the bestseller lists. And silence, the dreaded silence from formerly-enthusiastic beta readers, or agents, or editors.

When these things happen, you have many options. Some of them will feel like your right, or even your privilege. I have no doubt you've earned the right to complain. Others have already spoken eloquently about why this is not a good idea, why you can end up hurting yourself when you're already down.***

I say: commiserate to your heart's content with your fellow malcontents. :) I've done it myself a time or two. But do it in the curtained booth in the back of the Internet, somewhere prying eyes can't quite glimpse you. And, after that, fall back and regroup. Remember why you began this journey. Because you once loved writing. Because you once wrote to entertain yourself. Because you once read a book or watched a movie that didn't have a sequel but should have, so you wrote one yourself. Because you once startled yourself with a beautiful sentence. Because you once created a character that someone could fall in love with.

Good luck, and good writing to you.

*He's not really my godson, and I'm not sure what age he was, or whether it was his arm he broke, but those were his very words.

**No, I don't know why there would be more than one either. It's madness, I tell you, madness!

***Damien Walters Grintalis recently blogged about it here.

5 Tips to Avoid Writing Clichés

2011-01-20T10:26:00.002-09:00

How often have you heard the following expressions?

As strong as an ox
Stood out like a sore thumb
Back against the wall
Avoid it like the plague
As cold as ice
Flat as a pancake

Probably too many times to even bother trying to count. Why am I listing commonly-heard phrases? Because they are also commonly-read phrases.

How can you avoid bogging down your stories with worn and battered clichés?

1. Recognize them. Sometimes they make sense, especially if you have an old-fashioned character and the sayings are included in her dialogue. But often they are unnecessary, a kind of mental crutch for the author who wants to add a bit of imagery or convey something complicated with a few, familiar words.

2. Devise original similes and metaphors. Instead of making your character "stand out like a sore thumb" at the heavy metals convention when she dressed for heavy metal, have her stand out "like a boiled onion in a bowl of strawberries".

3. Invent idioms and slang specific to your world as part of your worldbuilding. Is your money called "money", or is it flash, blink, creds, paper or jingle? If you're writing sci fi, fantasy or alternate history, what's your world's equivalent of "kicking the bucket"? Readers can pick up a surprising number of new expressions when they're used in context.

4. Twist the clichés. Instead of "sick as a dog", is your character as sick as a dog that swallowed a beached whale? As sick as a donkey that ate a cyanide carrot?

5. Use language with which you are comfortable. Don't snap a synapse trying to come up with original phrasing, or become so wrapped up in the language that you lose the flow and purpose of the story. The story and the characters is the meal. Linguistic flare is plating, garnish and accompanying beverage. It's delightful, but you probably couldn't live on it.

Impudent Hatchlings

YOU'RE SO VAIN, YOU PROBABLY THINK THIS ALBINO BEAVER JOKE IS ABOUT YOU

THE POWER OF THE STORY

WHERE WE'RE AT

EXTREMES

TIME OFF FOR GOOD BEHAVIOR

THINGS

SO WAT'CHA, WAT'CHA, WAT'CHA WANT?

GIVEAWAY WINNER, TOFFEE AND CHRISTMAS EVE EVE

MISTLETOE MADNESS BLOG HOP

Cover Art: © 2012 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited.

3 THINGS MAKE A POST

WINTER THROWS DOWN THE GAUNTLET

SPREADSHEETS!

COVER ART. COOKING BLOG. ANIMAL POO?

CARROT OR STICK?

BACK IN BLACK

THE QUICK DESCENT OF A SEASON

THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT

THIS IS HALLOWEEN

THE STATUS, IT IS QUO

THE GRASS IS ALWAYS WHITER

NO GO ON NaNo

TRICK OR TREAT (RECESSION-STYLE)

CUPCAKE QUEST 2011 - I

WALKING ON BROKEN DREAMS

SATURDAY

BUT WHY?

THE LIBRARY IN HEAVEN

THE FUTURE, IT KILLS ME

NOSE TO THE FRELLING GRINDSTONE

THE LAST BOOK

5 STEPS TO SURVIVING THE SOGGY CENTER OF YOUR BOOK

THE MORE YOU KNOW

HAPPINESS IS HARD WORK

BACK TO SCHOOL! (I WISH I WAS GOING)

CLOSING IN THE WALLS ARE

AUGUST 2011 AW BLOG CHAIN

BORN OF WINTER: Roots of a Character

5 MODERN WRITER COMPLIMENTS

IN THE PIT OF DESPAIR *cough* I MEAN - IN THE REVISION CAVE

AND JUST LIKE THAT, IT'S GONE

EPIPHANY

WHAT'S THAT, YOU SAY?

FISH ON

IT'S NOT A TUMOR

THE POWER OF PUNCTUATION

TRIFECTA OF DOOM

DO KINDLES DREAM OF PRINTING PRESSES?

SOME WEEKENDS ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS

DON'T DROP THE LIVER!

I HAS LEFT THE BUILDING

JUST ANOTHER DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

BOTTOMS UP

RITUAL AND ROUTINE

BEDTIME READING

YOU CAN CALL ME FLOWER IF YOU WANT TO

EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

IN WHICH I SAY "NAY"

AN ODE - TO BETA READERS

SHORT TERM

HOW ARE THOSE CRUTCHES WORKING OUT FOR YOU?

THE EFFING END

HERE'S THE THING

THESE ARE MY WORDS

HEAVEN HELP BAY CITY - INTERVIEW WITH KAT AND MOUSE AUTHOR ABNER SENIRES

TWO FOR TUESDAY

TIME OUT FOR DOMESTIC MANIFESTOES

CRACK THAT WIP

PSSSSST...ACT

NERDSCAPE: Terminator 2 on MST3K

MUSE OF DEVASTATION

TULIP FEST 2011

STAY TUNED

WHY DO WE DO IT?

APOCALYPSE NOW?

AND OTHER THINGS I DON'T HAVE IN COMMON WITH BRUCE AND DEMI'S KIDS

iConundrum

CUISINE AT THE END OF THE WORLD

COMPOSITE FROM THE CLOSET

IN THE PIT OF DESPAIR cough I MEAN - IN THE REVISION CAVE