Ever Wonder What We're Really Thinking About During Critique?

You're patiently explaining to me how to improve my writing, and I look like I'm taking copious notes, but really, I'm thinking: "Dinosaur with feathers EAT you!!!!"

This is actually a sketch I did last night at Wyrdsmiths on the back of Eleanor Arnason's amazing story "Big Red Mama in Time and Morris, Minnesota." This is Albert, the dwarf, arctic allosaurus who is featured prominently in the story. It also represents the entirity of my critique. I loved the story, and, you know, every once and a while you come across something during critique where all you can do is say, "It's done. Send it out!"

Dead Sexy Review

Google Alerts pointed me to a new review of an old book. Janicu's Book Blog had THIS to say about it.

Never Yell "Free Books" at a Conference of Librarians

Because when you do, you sign a box of books in about fifteen minutes.

Today was the second day of the Public Library Association's Trade Show and Conference at the Minneapolis Convention Center. It was... ginormous. The Romance Writers of America sponsored a booth there with FREE BOOKS for conference participants, and I just had one of those rare moments in an author's life -- there was a queue around the corner for a copy of my book.

I noticed that the only authors doing give-aways at RWA's booth were local people, and I don't get that. I was ready to fly when I first saw the conference booth mentioned in the RWA Report. A chance to put my book in front of librarians! Heck yeah!

I don't know why any author would object to library sales. Sure, your books get into the hands of readers for free which ostensibly doesn't net you any royalities (although the library does purchase at least one copy of your book). However, my experience as a reader is that "free books" usually translate into eventual sales. I've purchased books from authors that I first discovered on the shelves of the library. It seems to me that given how quickly books disappear from the shelves at the bookstore (you really only have about two weeks before the books get stripped and returned to the publisher), that libraries do authors a great service by providing a place for their books to be "discovered" months and even YEARS after their inital shelf date.

Viva La Library!

Gygax Memorial: Twenty-Sided Die

I got this great article from io99.com... Apparently those wacky, innovative students at MIT made a twenty-sided die as a memorial for D&D creator Gary Gygax: 20-Sided Die Memorial for Gygax. This is a whole lot of awesome. Some day, I hope to be remembered so well.

Random Reader Questions (From FF&F)

As you may know, I am an occasional guest blogger over at Fangs, Fur & Fey, a LiveJournal community that focuses on urban fantasy/paranormal romances. They have a nice deal where once a week the various authors answer reader's writing related questions. I thought I'd post my answers here as well.

How long does it take you to write a novel on average?

About a year, but, admittedly, I'm lazy. I tend to take exactly as long as the publisher gives me. When I only had six months to write Tall, Dark & Dead, it took me six months. When I had no deadline at all, it took me about four years.

Do you have another job?

I do. I'm a stay-at-home mom. Until really recently that was a full-time job. Now, my son is at pre-Kindergarten for a few hours in the morning (not quite half day, but close.) Next year, I'll be a full-time writer.

However, when I first started writing professionally -- that is, during and after I sold my first novel, Archangel Protocol, I had a full-time day job at the Minnesota Historical Society. It was only after budget cuts came along that my family and I decided to risk trying to keep me at home. Until this year, I've never made anything approaching a "real" salary from my writing, even when you include a regular teaching gig at the Loft.

How long did it take you to find representation? How many rejections?

A ton. I didn't keep track of how many query letters I sent to agents, but I'm sure it was over fifty. I got nibbles from two, neither of which went for it. My story is weird, however, in that I originally approached the man who became my agent as an editor (which he also was at the time for Tor.)

A friend of a friend of a friend knew this guy Jim Frenkle who was a consulting editor at Tor. With a sort of old-fashioned "letter of introduction" from this friend of a friend, I sent my first novel Sidhe Promised (which has never sold) to Jim. Jim ignored it for years. Luckily, someone (I think it was Lois McMaster Bujold in an interview I did with her for Science Fiction Chronicle) suggested that the best thing an author can do when a novel is being shopped around is start the next one. So I did. That next one was Archangel Protocol, and after writing about fifty pages of it, the friend of a friend taught I should sent the partial down to Jim. I did, and he wanted to represent it (not buy it for Tor). So I actually got my agent before I finished writing my first novel, which I think is probably quite unusual.

How do you deal with irritations or constant interruptions when you're trying to work?

Mostly, I write after my son is asleep, and I've gotten to the point where I can actually sit with my partner as she's watching TV and write my novel. I would never have thought I could do that, as I usually require a lot of quiet to compose my thoughts.

For those of you, especially debut authors, who sold series where the first book was complete but future books were not: How much freedom did you have with the writing of the second book? Did you just write Book 2 and send it off to your editor? Or did you have to write a Book 2 proposal/synopsis and have it approved before you began writing? Or did you have to write multiple different synopses for Book 2 and let the publisher choose which one you would write? (I've heard of the latter happening, and am wondering how common it is.)

My editor bought my first novel and "an unnamed second book." I wrote her a very informal set of pitches for the ideas I had for a next book. They were a paragraph or so long, but at least one of them represented a novel I had about eighty pages already written. At the end of this rather long email, I wrote, "Or I could write a sequel, I suppose." The answer I got back was, "Yeah, do a sequel."

Which I just wrote without any kind of formal proposal, which was an enormous amount of freedom, and something I've never experienced since. All of my paranormal books as Tate, I've had to submit a proposal - usually about a twelve page, detailed synopsis outlining my beginning, middle and end.

Ugh....

I just saw this on io99.com: Indiana Jones to Disappoint, Star Wars to Live Forever.

Sigh.

Philip K. Dick Winners

This from the Philip K. Dick press release.... And the winners are:

NOVA SWING by M. John Harison (Bantam Spectra)

Special citation was given to:

FROM THE NOTEBOOKS OF DR. BRAIN by Minister Faust (Del Rey)

Both winners received a cash prize. The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the award ceremony is sponsored by the NorthWest Science Fiction Society. The 2006 award was given to SPIN CONTROL by Chris Moriarty (published by Bantam Spectra) and a special citation was awarded to CARNIVAL by Elizabeth Bear (published by Bantam Spectra). This year's judges were Steve Miller, Chris Moriarty (chair), Steven Piziks, Randy Schroeder, and Ann Tonsor Zeddies.

The judges for next year's award are Tobias Buckell, M. M. Buckner, Walter Hunt, Rosemary Kirstein, and William Senior.

Congratuations to my friend Minister Faust!

Ostara Eggs

Here is a picture of one of the Ostara Eggs that Mason and I made today. Happy Spring Equinox!

Photo and an Interview

In case you're wondering what my alter-ego looks like, here's a lovely photo of her and fellow fantasy writer Leah Cutter taken by Ishmael Williams at WisCON 2007.

My alter-ego would also like to direct your attention to an interview she conducted with Jo Walton over at the Internet Review of Science Fiction called: Subversive Pixel-Stained Technopeasant: An Interview with Jo Walton.

Sorry for the Absense

I'm back after a very sudden cold literally knocked me flat for a day. It was intense. I slept almost the entire day Sunday and part of Monday. Unfortunately, I had weird feverish dreams in which I was playing Bejeweled over and over....

Upcoming Reading (Alter Ego)

Other me has asked me to let any readers of my blog know that she will be here next Wednesday:

Wednesday, March 26, 2008 starting at 7:00 pm at Intermedia Arts, I'll be taking part in the Carol Connelly GLBT reading series with Elizabeth DiGrazia, hosted by Andrea Jenkins and John Medeiros. Intermedia Arts is located at 2822 Lyndale Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55408. For more information call: (612) 871-4444. The event is free and open to the public, although a $5.00 donation is recommended.

British Cover - Romancing the Dead

The Predator IS Back!!

On Sunday, my partner Shawn noticed some activity over by our compost pile. A hawk had caught something and was proceeding to devour it, like something our of WALKING WITH DINOSAURS (my son Mason's current DVD obsession.) I quick grabbed the digital camera and tried to take a decent picture of it. As you can see, I mostly failed in that regard, but I blame the awkward position I was in - standing in the bathroom sink. Still. A pretty awesome bird, eh? Or as Mason would say, "A mighty hunter!"

Pitch Class On-Line

***********PERMISSION TO FORWARD*************

Join Wine Country Romance Writers, RWA, as we GEAR UP TO PITCH AT NATIONALS.

Pitch Perfect: Getting to the Heart of your Romance Novel with Janet Wellington.
4 weeks ** 4/7 - 5/2 **
$20/$25
Register by mail or online -info at: http://winecountryromancewriters.com/workshops.htm

You might be the most talented writer on the planet, but if you can't describe your story in an exciting but succinct way, you're in trouble. Everyone needs to learn how to pitch -- to be able to present story ideas within query letters, synopses, and during frightening agent and editor appointments at writing conferences!

Can you capture the essence of your tale in 25 words or less? When your listener wants to know more about your story, do you know what to say and, more importantly, what not to say? Do you know the biggest benefit of having an agent or editor appointment at a national or regional writing conference?

This workshop is designed to help you learn, step-by-step, how to whittle down a story summary (for your romance or women's fiction novel) that will be perfect for a query letter and/or a pitch to an> agent or editor. If you read all the lectures, do all the homework (instructor provides feedback), you just might end up with a perfect pitch!

Janet Wellington is an award-winning author, writing teacher, line-editor, and writing coach. Janet started learning the art of pitching stories in 1995 when she attended her first Romance Writers of America national conference, and hasn't stopped since! She has presented workshops on the art of pitching both regionally and nationally, and teaches privately as well as through the online school: Long Story Short School of Writing. In addition to her own writing, Janet also enjoys assisting other writers in critiquing and line-editing their unpublished manuscripts, and she also does some one-on-one coaching of other writers through her business "Wellington Word."

F,F&F Post

I also posted over at Fangs, Fur & Fey today. The reader question of the week is: how do you pick the supernatural creature you chose to write about? Check it out there, or read it here:

How do you choose the creatures that you use?

I'll be honest. There are a lot of creatures that show up in urban fantasy that I have a hard time stretching my own personal "suspenders of disbelief" for... and a lot of those creatures are extremely popular with readers and writers. Take werewolves, for instance. I think shape-shifting is cool, but I've already had my main vampire scoff at the idea that they exist in Garnet's universe and mutter something under his breath about the law of "conservation of mass."

Of course, with a snotty attitude like that, I had to prove him wrong, didn't I?

In my May release Romancing the Dead, Garnet comes face-to-snout with someone named Micah Cloud who just *might* be a werewolf. I don't want to give away too many spoilers for the book, but nothing about Micah is what it seems. But I will say I chose to bring Micah into the story precisely to get a chance, as a writer, to play with the reader's assumptions about werewolves and what they do. I even have Garnet ask Micah about that old bug-a-boo the law of conservation of mass, to which he laughs and says, "Yeah, that'd be a problem, if it wasn't MAGIC."

So the short answer is that sometimes I pick the creatures that show up in my urban fantasy in order to comment on what other writers have already written about the subject. I picked werewolves this time, because I'd never written about them and had something about them that I thought I could add to the public dialogue, as it were.

Um, plus, they're fun, and Micah is way hot.

My Alter Ego Blah, Blah Bloggin'

I've written here about the strange dreams I've had in the past, but today at SF Novelists my alter ego decided to write about some reoccurring dreams that seem to be "writing-related."

On-line Class: How to Try a Murder

*********************PERMISSION TO FORWARD*********************

Join Wine Country Romance Writers, RWA, as we learn HOW TO TRY A MURDER.

Instructor: Lucinda Schroeder
Date: April: 4/7 - 5/2 ** 4 weeks ** $20/$25
Register by mail or online -- info at: http://winecountryromancewriters.com/workshops.htm

The cops know they have the right villain and justice will be served. But, not so fast! The American judicial system is full of more holes than cheesecloth, making it quite possible for the villain to go free. Learn about the caveats of arrests, search warrant affidavits, indictments, grand jury proceedings, evidence, trial preparation, jury selection and strategies used by both the defense and prosecution. Don't be guilty of missing this fact-packed class!

Lucinda Delaney Schroeder has a BA in Criminology and is a retired federal agent who during her thirty-year career conducted numerous undercover investigations and was the only female member a specialized undercover unit. She has taught undercover techniques to other agents at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, GA and continues to train law enforcement officers through her private business "Bulletproof Covert Identities." She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Lucinda is the author of "A Hunt for Justice," (Lyons Press) a true story of one her undercover cases in Alaska, in which clever deception was her only protection.

Interview with Jim C. Hines

Publisher's Weekly says: Hines sidesteps the main question facing elvers—WWTD, or What would Tolkien do?—with a wink and his usual snort. His goofy elves, orcs, trolls, dwarves, humans and even an evil tree conjure laughter, not screams. Jig Dragonslayer might have a dash of hobbit in him as he reluctantly dashes into his latest adventure (after Goblin Hero): he would much rather stay home in a comfy cave, hanging out with Smudge, his fire-spider, or Relka, a most excellent cook. But alas, they're all pressed into a human/elf war against Billa the Bloody, a monstrous orc who'll do anything to win, even if it means killing her army and human Princess Genevieve's troops fighting for Wendel, king of Adenkar. Luckily, Jig has a secret weapon thanks to Tymalous Shadowstar, a Forgotten God who communicates with him telepathically. Shadowstar would sacrifice himself for his little goblin priest, but Jig's amazing courage may not make that necessary. Readers will need familiarity with earlier books in the series, but Hines's funny bone is sharp and YA-friendly. (Mar.)

Readers have dubbed Jim C. Hines the Goblin King. His third novel Goblin War has just been released in the U.S. His goblins are also showing up in France, Germany, Russia, and several other nations. The books have earned praise from the likes of Julie Czerneda, Ed Greenwood, and even Wil Wheaton, who called Goblin Quest "too f***ing cool for words!"

But here's what he has to say for himself:

What was your inspiration for writing Goblin War?

It's the unwritten law of fantasy. I had written two goblin books, but as a fantasy author, I had no choice. I Must Write Trilogies.

There were things I wanted to accomplish with the third book, of course. In the first two books, Jig is constantly struggling to protect himself from adventurers and heroes, not to mention his fellow goblins. This time, I wanted to bring that struggled to some sort of resolution. This is an all-or-nothing adventure. If Jig succeeds, he'll be able to keep himself and his fellow goblins safe for years. But if he fails, he's going to fail big.

There were other factors as well. Jig' and Smudge are a lot of fun to write about ... my readers enjoy him and wanted more ... perhaps most importantly, DAW was willing to pay me for a third book!

Why did you decide to make Jig a goblin?

I wanted to take on the fantasy genre from the monsters' point of view. I've seen it done a few times before, Shrek being one of the more famous examples, but I never felt like they got it right. Shrek is really just a big, gross, socially awkward human. We never see anything about his family, his culture, or his background, and his motivations are completely human.

I also thought the tougher monsters had it too easy. Sure, anyone can survive an adventure when you're big enough to recycle armored knights and punch dragons in the face. So I decided to go with the underdogs, and you don't get much lower than goblins.

What sort of research did you do to write this book?/What kind of preparation do you do when you are writing?

You wouldn't think a humorous fantasy would require much research. At least, I wouldn't have until I got started. But from day one, I was e-mailing a geologist for information on cave formations, looking up cooking sites to come up with good goblin recipes, double-checking armor and weaponry ... for Goblin War, I spent a fair amount of time trying to make sure my armies were using sensible formations and tactics.

Goblin War also required me to go back and re-read The Giving Tree. And no, I'm not going to explain that one.

Are there any interesting scenes or ideas that didn't make it into the final book?

The biggest thing was a romance between Jig and one of his fellow goblins. I tried ... I really tried to make it work. I think I'm a pretty good writer, but I just couldn't pull it off. Maybe it's self-preservation, but my brain refused to go there. Much to the disappointment of my agent, who was hoping for a fourth book called "Jig gets Jiggy."

The first draft also gave Jig a magical elf cloak, a la Lord of the Rings, but I kept giving myself flashbacks to Harry Potter's invisibility cloak. Besides, invisibility would have made Jig's life far too easy.

Oh, and the scene where we learn that Smudge the fire-spider is gay didn't fly. I guess my publisher doesn't think the world was ready for homosexual spiders.

What are you writing now?

DAW recently bought three more books from me in a new series. The first book is called The Stepsister Scheme, and should show up in January of 2009. I just finished revising that book, and have started on the rewrite of The Mermaid's Madness. The books are basically my response to the overcommercializiation of the fairy tale princess. My princesses come from the older fairy tales, which means these are some very conflicted characters with pretty dark backstories. I basically did a mash-up of those old fairy tales and Charlie's Angels.

Let's just say my version of Sleeping Beauty can kill you with a spoon.

This isn't your first book; tell us a little bit about what else is out there?

There are the first two goblin books, Goblin Quest and Goblin Hero. All three are a lot of fun, particularly if you're a fantasy fan, because you'll catch a lot more of the jokes. I've also written close to 40 short stories. (Well, I've written a lot more than that, but I've sold close to 40. Big difference.) A fair amount of the short fiction is humorous sword and sorcery, but there's some serious stuff as well. I was quite happy to make the preliminary Nebula ballot this year for one of the serious stories, even though I got knocked out of the running for the finals.

Thanks for stopping by, Jim! Your books sound hillarious. I'm truly disappointed the world isn't ready for a gay spider.... I hope the readers of my blog will take this opportunity to check out you and your novels. Good luck!

Interview with Mike Brotherton

The human colony on the planet Argo has long explored and exploited the technology left behind by an extinct alien race. But then an archaeology team accidentally activates a terrible weapon: a weapon that will destroy the entire colony, and its star, if they cannot deactivate it. Evidence at the site suggests that the weapon was created for the ancient Argonauts by another race, a race of traders. The archaeologists discover a map of their interstellar trading empire, and the coordinates of their main trading station. Although the information is over a million years out of date, the only hope for Argo is to send a ship and crew into the unknown, to find the traders—or anyone who can help them find a way to shut down the weapon.

Mike Brotherton is a hard science fiction writer publishing novels with Tor. His latest, Spider Star, is being released on March 4, 2008. In addition to being a writer, he's a professor of astronomy at the University of Wyoming, an observer who studies quasars with the Hubble Space Telescope and other facilities on and above the Earth. His webpage is http://www.mikebrotherton.com.

What is the premise of the new novel?

It's a story about an interstellar colony on the planet Argo orbiting Pollux, and what happens when the people there accidentally set off a doomsday weapon left behind by the original inhabitants of their system. The original technology behind the weapon came from an even more advanced alien species living in something referred to as the "Spider Star." There are two main protagonists. The first is an older man, Frank Klingston, with a family who is drafted into the mission given his previous experience as the only human to ever encounter living intelligent aliens. The other is a young hotshot, Manuel Rusk, who was supposed to head off the next interstellar exploration mission and is partially responsible for setting off the weapon.

What was your inspiration for writing Spider Star?

I was finishing up my first novel, Star Dragon, and was chatting with a friend at a review panel for the National Science Foundation. He told me about some papers by David Eichler, a theoretical astrophysicist, hypothesizing the concept of planets made of dark matter that might be found around neutron stars. Well, that was a pretty cool idea and originally I was just going to write a short story of some kind but never got around to it. By the time I was ready to write about this idea, it had grown to novel size and had accumulated a lot of associations. I'm always looking to do something exotic, leaning on my professional expertise for unique situations or environments, that haven't been done a million times already. The setting of Spider Star is unique, I believe, but a setting no matter how great doesn't make a story on its own. Story ideas kind of grow piecemeal for me, where one good idea isn't enough but when it hooks up with two or three other ideas suddenly a story crystallizes. It's like the ideas are amino acids floating around and my mind is the enzyme that assembles them when it finds the right combination.

What kind of research did you do for this book?

While I don't think so-called "hard" science fiction should be hard to read, it can be hard to write. My current operational definition is fiction that requires a calculator. I had to do a bunch of ugly calculations and estimates to world build, and then find engineering/plot solutions when the physics didn't quite work out the way I wanted for the world building. Some of the things were rather complicated and I lucked out that I found a couple of papers doing most of them for me, as I would have resorted to writing computer code to be sure what I was envisioning was plausible. I'm talking around this because I don't want to spoil too much.

I also leaned on the stories of Jason and the Argonauts and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness for some layers of mythology that seemed to resonate with the plot and themes of the book. Happy accidents do occur when symbolism and motifs crop up on their own, but I usually try to put some in intentionally to reinforce points I'm trying to make and the mood I'm trying to establish.

What are you trying to do with your science fiction? Does it have a purpose beyond telling an entertaining story?

Yes, ideally. I think science fiction at it's best is great literature. It shows a side of humanity in the face of new ideas or new circumstances that cannot be done with mainstream work. What does it mean to evolve past our current state? What does it mean to us to confront non-human intelligence? Are we great, as complex and intelligent life, in the face of a largely lifeless universe, or insignificant before the near infinity of space and time?

I also try to get as much of my science right as possible, although I do push the limits and sometimes just avoid the impossible while embracing the unlikely (if it's interesting enough). I like to think I'm educating people a little about astronomy and physics and perhaps inspiring people to study science, the way I was inspired by Star Trek and other science fiction I encountered growing up.

Who are your favorite authors and books now and when you were growing up?

That's a difficult question because I have so many! My favorites growing up and then through college were Philip Jose Farmer, Joe Haldeman, Robert Heinlein, Fred Pohl, Arthur C. Clarke, Harlan Ellison, David Brin, Larry Niven, Gregory Benford, and Roger Zelazny. More recently I've been a big fan of Dan Simmons, Nancy Kress, Michael Swanwick, Jack McDevitt, Eric Nylund, Robert Charles Wilson, Vernor Vinge, and Kurt Vonnegut (better late than never). I think there's a lot of great books being written and I'm happy to be able to contribute mine.

Thanks to Mike Brotherton for dropping by to answer a few questions and promote his newest book which is available TODAY (March 4). If your curiosity was piqued by what you read here, please go out and find yourself a copy of SPIDER STAR!

Astro Alert: Mars in Cancer

Exciting new planetary happenings brought to you by astrology.com:

On September 8, 2007, the warrior planet Mars entered Cancer, the sign of home and family. It's been a wild ride! The heat of this flame touched on matters concerning family as well as decisions affecting property and mortgages, loans and debts. Then, Mars turned retrograde on November 15, and it was time to review -- and perhaps revise -- plans set in motion. By January 30, Mars turned direct in chatty Gemini, and you finally you had the opportunity to get traction on various projects and initiatives.

Now, as Mars head back into homebody Cancer on March 4, you should have a good handle on how you want to approach the various issues that have competed for your attention over the past few months.