My First Day as a Writer

I think this whole writing thing is going to work out for me. I got up and got my family off without too many hitches, and then I hauled my a$$ to the gym and worked out. I cleaned the house a bit (I mopped the kitchen!) and did the usual maintenance things like sweeping and dishes, and then...

I wrote.

I didn't get a huge word count in yesterday, but it was well over a thousand words and, more impressive to me, I managed to work on two DIFFERENT projects. And most importantly to readers of this blog (if there are any) I started BETTER WED THAN DEAD/HONEYMOON OF THE DEAD, the fifth Garnet Lacey book. I'm really pleased how quickly I picked up Garnet's voice after having spent most of the day's writing energy working on my science ficiton novel.

Garnet is so fun.

Whoot!

So in about three minutes, I'm going to take Mason off to all-day kindergarten. Then I will be a full time writer. I'm sure I'm going to squander some of my time, plus there are things I need to get done, like grocery shopping and housecleaning... but even so, I suspect I'm finally going to have a whole lot of time to just WRITE. I'm so excited I could barf. I've go so many projects that have been waiting for today. I'll probably run around trying to do everything at once, but it's going to be great to finally have the time.

New Review: Writers Are Reads. com

If you want to know what I've been reading lately check out my review of Tobias S. Buckell's SLY MONGOOSE on WritersareReaders.com.

So... what are YOU reading these days?

It's Monday...

...so I'm blogging over at Something Wicked about how I did absolutely nothing of value this weekend (except read.)

Cover Copy for DEAD IF I DO

I got the back cover copy from my editor, and while, in my previous life in science fiction, I've been known to roll my eyes at some of the copy I've been given, I have to say this not only accurately describes the book, but it's cute and funny too!

I’ve finally found Mr. Right. Sure, he might not have a pulse, but coming from a girl who’s sharing a body with a short tempered goddess, I’m not one to judge. Sebastian is the vampire of my dreams and I’m dying to walk down the aisle. Everything couldn’t be more perfect.

Well, except for the fact that the awesome band I hired for the reception has been replaced by some guy with an accordion and lederhosen. And the bridesmaids’ dresses somehow got switched to salmon pink taffeta with butt-bows. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that Sebastian’s ex-lover, the zombie-slash-vampire-slash-witch who just happens to be the mother of his undead son, wants the both of us six feet under. Now I know why some girls turn into Bridezilla…

Plus, I absolutely LOVE the little tag line they gave me: "Something borrowed, something blue; something dead, and witchy too!"

What do all y'all think?

It's Monday...

...so I'm over at Something Wicked blogging about Swear Words and Writing.

Come On Over...

My pal Rick, aka "the Ninja Writer," is featuring my short story "Irish Blood" as part of his short story club. It's short! It's free! It's on-line! Come join the discussion on his blog: http://www.cvrick.com/

Sex Scene Class On-Line

***OKAY TO FORWARD***

September 2-29, 2008
"Sex Between The Pages: Understanding & Writing Sexual Tension"
by Mary Buckham
Registration $30 at www.WriterUniv.com/

How do you write great sexual tension? That’s the question Mary Buckham posed to Linda Howard, Stella Cameron, Susan Andersen, Nancy Warren and more romance writers who write great sexual tension from sweet to spicy hot. In her workshop, Mary combines these lessons from real-writers with practical understanding of the 12 Stages of Intimacy (based on Desmond Morris' works) and more recent findings by scientists on the amazing role biology plays in mate attraction and selection -- findings that can be directly incorporated in our creation of powerful sexual tension.

So if you want to learn how to increase the sexual tension in your work, don’t miss this opportunity. Topics include:

* Sex versus Intimacy
* Using conflict to increase sexual tension
* The importance of details
* How to portray body language
* Maximizing biological differences between the sexes
* Analyzing those who write sexual tension well
* Exercises for your work in progress

Mary Buckham’s debut Romantic Suspense novel, THE MAKEOVER MISSION, was a Silhouette Intimate Moments release. Her second novel, INVISIBLE RECRUIT, was a May 2006 Silhouette Bombshell. A former magazine editor, she has written hundreds of free-lance articles and a non-fiction book. Currently she is a national writing workshop presenter, both online and at conferences. Visit www.MaryBuckham.com or www.BreakIntoFiction.com for more information about the release of her Break Into Fiction™ book coming June 2009.

One Life Goal Down...*

I finally wrote the perfect book.

Okay, that's perhaps a SMALL exaggeration, so let me explain. Despite the changes in the publishing industry, I've always been edited. Normally, a couple of months after I turn in a book, I get an editorial letter of some sort requesting revisions. These letters are e-mails, actually, and can be anywhere from twelve to three pages (single spaced). I get two months to revise the book and then it goes to the copy-editing stage, etc., etc., until finally the book hits the shelves.

For every book I've ever written, I've always gotten a revision letter. Even though sometimes the changes are "small," they usually involve changing plot or character or other rather substantive things.

I got an email from my editor yesterday, and I thought, "Okay, here we go. Let's see what needs doing this time." Turns out nothing! Well, okay, I actually forgot to fill in a couple of "fill in later" spots, but we decided we could do that during the copy-editing stage.

Whoot!

I can't really explain why this makes me feel so elated. I mean, it's not really like I've written a *perfect* book. But, I really loved writing DEAD IF I DO and I'm really proud that my "first" pass (really, of course, the result of several drafts) was accepted.

Maybe I'm just excited to get to skip one of the usual steps, because it means less work for this self-indulgent, lazy writer.

Whee! Video games here I come.

-------------------------------------- *Cross-posted from Wyrdsmiths.

SF Market for Women

A market from BroadUniverse:

http://www.expandedhorizons.net/submission.html

Hello, everyone. My name is Dash and I'm the creator and editor of the new speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror, etc.) webzine Expanded Horizons. Our mission is to create a venue for diverse voices in speculative fiction, and to publish stories which challenge stereotypes of all sorts. We seek to challenge SF as a white male genre, and transform it into something broader, something that reflects the actual diversity here on Planet Earth. I try to read each submission both for the quality of the writing and for how well it fits the mission of our magazine - I think about whether the story engages in cultural appropriation, how my own biases are affecting my selection of stories, etc. I know that because I am one person (who has benefited from both earned and unearned privileges), and because I am not, and cannot, be deeply familiar with all cultures and subcultures, there will be points and nuances I will miss. I know that this process of self-reflection is constant and ever-changing. I want to create a vessel for the creative energies of others, but because I am human and my contributors are human also, missteps will be made. I also know that by creating a venue for the authentic expression of views which challenge deeply held, "established" social truths, there will be controversy. But there is real, tangible racism and sexism in the SF community- and many of us know something needs to be done.

**Please note** Editor is trying very hard to have a reasonable gender balance for authors, but to date has received far more submissions from men than from women.

Note from Tate: I checked the website and they do pay, though not much. ($30 per story regardless of length.)

Backyard Bummin'

This summer has been damn near perfect, weather-wise. It's been a bit dry, but the temperatures have been ideal for someone like me who doesn't really like that whole sweaty humidity thing that's been Minnesota summers of late. We've been spending a lot of time in our own backyard and bumming around to our friends' backyards. This is a picture of Mason (and Tika, dog,) in the backyard of our friends Steve, Shari, Berren, and brand new girl addition (whose name I don't know how to spell.)

We spent much of yesterday either splashing around at our friends' house or just laying under a tree watching clouds roll by. It was a very Calvin & Hobbes kind of day where we spent a lot of quality time doing absolutely nothing.

An Open Letter to Barack Obama

Dear Mr. Obama,

I am writing to you on behalf of my five year old son, Mason. Yesterday, at the dinner table I read him the article about how you've decided lift bans on off-shore drilling. He started to cry. My son loves the ocean so much. It's his favorite thing. We watch the BBC Blue Planet series: Ocean World, Frozen Seas, Open Ocean, The Deep, Tidal Seas, Coasts and the rest over and over and over again. Mason has said that he wants to be a marine biologist since he could talk.

Many months ago, during the nomination process, when we started hearing your name on the radio, Mason asked me why we vote Democratic and why we wanted you for president. I told him you were from Hawaii (one of his favorite states), and I told him that Democrats are more likily to support the environment rather than big business interests. He liked that. After that he started repeating that he wanted Barack Obama to be our next president. Not now. He would really like you to change your position "by next Saturday" please.

Thank you very much.

Yours truly,

Mason Rounds and Mason's parents

It's Monday...

...so I'm over at Something Wicked, talking about how I stopped worrying and learned to love the... outline.

Paranoia and Writers

I'm not usually a paranoid person, but I am when it comes to my writing career.

Last night, while sitting in the bathroom, I started reading an article in the recent Romance Report (the official magazine of RWA) called, "When Bad Things Happen to Good Writers." It's all about the rather inevitable decline in one's career, when your sales numbers drop, the editor stops returning your calls, and you suddenly find yourself without a renewed contract.

It's the sort of thing that professional writers don't like to think about. After all, we've all worked hard to get where we are (were?!) And, more than that, the mystical "call" came -- the one from our agents where, suddenly, we became published novelists. All our worries should be over. We've "made it." But... as the article warns, these things happen. It's the nature of the business.

And I should know. It's already happened to me. I used to write as my alternate personality; now I write as me because of this little thing called "the law of diminishing returns."

I only read about two paragraphs of the article and I can already feel the storm clouds gathering. (Yes, I KNOW I'm being paranoid. But have you ever heard the phrase, "Once bitten, twice shy"? That's me all over.) Now, I've been staring at my email inbox, and started muttering, "She hasn't sent the revision letter yet," (speaking of my editor). "She hates me. It's all over. I'll never work in this town again."

I told my partner about my ominous feelings last night, and she did what any sane person would do: she laughed. "Of course your editor hasn't written yet. It's only been two months. That's well within her usual return time on these things. Be patient."

Patient? I'm sure she said, "Paranoid".....

It's Monday...

...So I'm over at Something Wicked reminding myself to "Write! It's Good for You!"

Tortoise vs. Cat

Check out the Boing-Boing video of a cranky-yet-determined tortoise that chases cats out of its territory. Amusing.

Periphery Review

My alter ego would like to direct your attention to a review of her short story (as well as all the others) in Periphery, here: http://www.ourchart.com/

It's Tuesday...

... so I'm over at SF Novelists complaining about writing the dreaded synopsis.

It's Monday, so...

...I'm over at the Something Wicked blog trying not to complain about my current embarrassment of riches.

Interview: David Louis Edelman

David Louis Edelman's debut novel Infoquake was released by Pyr in 2006. Barnes & Noble Explorations called the story of cut-throat software entrepreneurs in the far future "the love child of Donald Trump and Vernor Vinge" and later named it their SF Book of the Year. The book was also nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best Novel, and Edelman was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer on the strength of that novel. Infoquake has just been re-released in mass market paperback by Solaris Books with a fancy new cover by Stephan Martiniere.

This week, Pyr is releasing book 2 of David's Jump 225 trilogy, MultiReal. The book continues where Infoquake left off, and has already been called "a thoroughly-successful hybrid of Neuromancer and Wall Street" by Hugo nominee Peter Watts.

In addition to writing novels, Dave has also programmed websites for the U.S. Army, the FBI, ExxonMobil, and Rolls-Royce; taught software to the U.S. Congress and the World Bank; written articles for the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun; and directed the marketing departments of biometric and e-commerce companies. Dave is well-versed in PHP, Ruby on Rails, WordPress, ColdFusion, HTML, Javascript, XML, and CSS, and is an expert in web usability, web design, search engine optimization, and writing for the web.

What was your inspiration for writing Infoquake and MultiReal?

Infoquake and MultiReal are two parts of a story I started writing in late 2000 about my dot-com experiences in the '90s. I'm a marketing guy and web programmer by trade, and I saw a number of crazy things during the dot-com bubble. Mostly I was interested in the personal dynamics -- how charismatic schemers like my protagonist Natch convinced so many people to invest in so many worthless companies.

So in 2000 and 2001, I wrote a novel titled Jump 225.7, which you might call a far-future satire of the dot-com era. I literally finished the first draft of it on September 10, 2001. Then suddenly the next day, satire seemed the wrong way to approach the story I was trying to tell. So when I started rewriting it, the story became much darker and more serious in tone. I tried to ask all the big questions about capitalism, about Western society, about human nature and greed and what the long-term prospects of the species were. The end result was the Jump 225 trilogy, starting with Infoquake and continuing with MultiReal.

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

Growing up, my favorite author had to be J.R.R. Tolkien (unless Stan Lee counts).

Interjection: Of course Stan Lee counts!!!

I'm sure I read the whole Lord of the Rings saga (including The Hobbit and The Silmarillion) half a dozen times. Then in adolescence I fell in love with Kurt Vonnegut, with a special reverence for Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five. College brought John Barth to my attention, and I've been running the biggest fan website for his books since about 1996 or so. If I had to name my favorite author since college, I'd have to pick either William Gibson or Thomas Pynchon.

What is it about fantasy/science fiction that attracts you?

I think for me it's the ability to rethink absolutely everything about the world, down to the smallest nanoparticle. I'm a worldbuilding addict, so I like being able to examine and reconfigure the politics, the history, and the sociology of my world to suit the story I'm trying to tell. For the Jump 225 trilogy, I considered all of those things and more -- I even got down to the level of thinking up new building materials and trying to invent ways that people would move goods from place to place in the absence of trucks and an interstate system. I can't really think of any other genre you can do that in.

Why did you decide to make Natch a software entrepreneur?

When I started writing the Jump 225 trilogy, I followed the axiom of writing what you know. I'd worked for several high-tech start-ups run by young, charismatic, slightly unhinged software entrepreneurs. And so that's who I started with.

The supporting characters are also based on character types I'd met in dot-coms. Horvil is the heavy-set, brilliant engineering guy who prefers to run things behind the scenes and leave the politics to the boss. And Jara is the serious, no-nonsense marketing woman who has something of a love/hate relationship with the company.

What (besides writing) do you do for fun?

I'm incredibly boring. I read. I putter around on the computer and tinker with my websites. I watch a lot of movies, and I keep up with the news. I'm looking forward to having children so I can have the excuse that I'm "spending quality time with my family."

What sort of research did you do to write these books?

Infoquake is heavily concerned with biologic software (or "wetware," as it's sometimes called). I know something about software, but I know very little about biology or physiology. So I certainly had to do some basic research into how the human body works. The main technology behind MultiReal also involves quantum physics, so I had to beef up on that a bit too. I admit that I don't tend to delve very deeply into the subjects that I research; mostly it's just your basic Wikipedia and Google searches, combined with long involved discussions with subject matter experts I know.

Natch is a compulsive workaholic. Are you that way too?

Absolutely not. I'm actually not very much at all like Natch or Jara, the two main protagonists of the novels. Although I suppose I do share certain characteristics with them. If I had to name a character who was closest to me in temperament, I'd have to say Horvil, the fat cheerful engineer who's always putting up with Natch's crap.

The political factions in the Jump 225 trilogy are divided between governmentalists and libertarians. If you were a character in the books, which would you be?

A lot of people who've read Infoquake assumed that my sympathies lie with the libertarians, because that's where Natch's sympathy lies. But I'm definitely more conflicted in my politics. I like to pick and choose among the different parties and philosophies. I have some definite liberal tendencies but a number of conservative ones as well.

You'll discover in MultiReal that the political situation is much more nuanced than Natch makes it out to be in Infoquake. The central government, which really seems like the epitome of evil in Infoquake, is a conflicted organization itself with some do-gooders working in the fringes. And the libertarians are full of self-interested schemers who'll stab you in the back.

What are you writing now?

I'm currently about 80,000 words into Geosynchron, the third and final book of the Jump 225 trilogy. I'm a very slow writer and I write a million drafts, but I'm hoping to finish the whole thing by the end of the year.

Did you always want to write? Or did you stumble into it? How did you get where you are now?

Yes, I always wanted to write, ever since I was a little kid. I wrote my first "novel" when I was about 6 years old, and I spent much of my childhood building up a pantheon of superheroes with my brother. I studied creative writing in college at Johns Hopkins, and tried to write a novel in my early 20s. It wasn't until I had given up on the writing and spent half a dozen years in the trenches of high tech that I came up with an idea that I could follow through on. And that was the Jump 225 trilogy.

What does a typical writing day look like for you? How long do you write, that sort of thing?

I've never been very good about setting a concrete writing schedule. Maybe that's why it takes me so long to finish anything. I typically work about three days a week at my part-time web programming job, and then write whenever I have the free time and the inclination.

Where do you write?

I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I'm one of the guys you see sitting there at Starbuck's with his laptop for hours on end. For some reason, I find it easy to write with background chatter. But when I'm not writing there, I'm sitting on my couch at home with one dog on the back of the couch behind my head and one dog nestled between me and the armrest.

What is easiest/hardest for you as a writer?

The hardest thing for me as a writer is discipline. I have an easy time coming up with great ideas, and I find it very easy to sit down and start pecking on those first few paragraphs. But then I quickly burn out. If you're ever going to finish anything, you need to be able to batter your way through those burnout times, and I have a difficult time with that. And then I'm so rarely satisfied with what I write, it always takes me to forever to finish.

Thanks for the interview, David. If you want to know more about David Louis Edelman, check out his website at: http://www.davidlouisedelman.com/