Indiana is currently polling close enough that it could, in fact, flip blue this year — helped along by the fact that McCain apparently is not operating any campaign offices there. So if you’re accustomed to thinking you live in a red state and your Democratic vote would make no difference, think again. Register, vote, get other people to do the same.
Putting both of these behind a cut, because of MNC spoilers. (Though I guess I left the post about the doppelganger books out in the open.)
***
Question the fourth: What’s your daily/weekly routine like now out in the Land of Sunshine and Magic?
Answer the fourth: I don’t really have one yet. I despise living among boxes, so the last four weeks have been spent alternating between a madness of unpacking and a madness of novel-finishing, with no particular structure. (Interspersed with the occasional bit of flopping on the couch to watch Supernatural with kurayami_hime and kniedzw.)
I do, however, intend to get into more of a regular routine, and in fact I have a series of posts planned on that exact topic. So stay tuned for adventures in the life of I’m A Full-Time Writer Now.
***
Question the fifth: What are you doing to keep your idea inputs levels where you want them?
Answer the fifth: I assume this means, how do I keep feeding my mind so it will come up with ideas? At the moment, I lack sufficient brain to process much in the way of non-fiction, so I’ve just been catching up on a variety of novels and TV shows — feeding the mind with fiction. But that’s because I’ve been way overworked for a few months now; once I’ve regenerated a few grey cells, I’m planning on resuming a practice I had a few years ago, wherein I tried to read some of the nonfiction accumulated on my shelves. I may, for example, go on a kick of reading about ancient China, because there’s a series of short stories I’d like to write that requires research in that direction. Or, y’know, that book over there about the Mongols, just because I don’t know much about them. Or whatever.
But yes — if I want to get much out of my brain, I am going to have to be careful to keep feeding it. Grad school used to take care of that for me, but I haven’t been in classes for two years now; it’ll be up to me to keep the food supply going.
***
Question the sixth: Will you be writing any more books in the world of Warrior and Witch?
Answer the sixth: You know, one of these days I’ll do the smart thing and post the answer to this question on my website. I’m kind of afraid to know how many times I’ve answered it in e-mail.
So here it is in a blog post: I’m not currently planning to, no. Yes, there’s the question of the younger generation, and the Cousins, and Mirei and Eclipse (though I rather feel like where that one’s going is obvious), but none of that is a conflict. It’s just consequences to the work the characters have already completed, and that does not an exciting book make. If I come up with a conflict that excites me? Sure. My publisher would have been happy for me to do a third book two years ago, and I don’t imagine it would be terribly difficult to convince them to take one later on — not so long as the first two keep selling. But I finished the story I was telling; I’d have to come up with a new one before I’d sign on for another installment.
The closest thing I have to an idea is much smaller and more personal, and it keeps stubbornly resisting my attempts to make it grow enough plot to be a worthwhile book. But if such a book ever happens, the likeliest scenario is that it will take place about ten years later, and it will be about Indera. I think she’s up in Kalistyi somewhere, under another name, doing something else entirely with her life — not sure what — and I know she would run into whatever Amas/Hoseki is calling herself by then. Because if there’s one question I want answered, as the author, it’s what would happen when Indera comes face-to-face with her. (And, I suppose, how Indera has come to terms with herself. Or failed to do so. Whichever.)
Or maybe I could make it be a short story, though it’s hard to imagine writing it in a fashion that doesn’t require the reader to be familiar with the novels. Anyway. The idea sits in the back of my head, and if one day it jumps up and starts waving its arms, it’ll get written. But poking it with a stick isn’t getting it anywhere, so I leave it alone.
***
Go here to ask me more!
I figure I’ll answer questions in batches of three or so, to keep the posts from being stupidly long.
***
Question the first: How easy/difficult was it to score arrange “special” tours when you were on your research trip in England? Did you have to get a letter from your publisher, or was, “I’m writing a novel!” sufficient?
Answer the first: Pretty easy. I think I got a slightly sniffy reaction from one woman I e-mailed — in the vein of “we’re really quite busy, you know” — but that was just the go-between; the woman who ended up giving me that tour was fantastic. Mostly people are very glad to help. After all, you’re expressing an interest in a topic they’ve decided to devote either their careers or their volunteer time to; they like geeking out about it with somebody.
I’ve only once been asked to bring proof of writerliness, and that was for the library and archives at the Globe Theatre. They set up the appointment no problem, but I had to bring a letter from my publisher to show at the security desk.
***
Question the second: What is your absolute favorite thing about being a writer, and what is your absolute least favorite thing about it?
Answer the second: Favorite is probably how I’m always doing something new. I was talking with my brother about this last month; my whole life, I’ve never found myself doing the same thing for more than about three or four months at a stretch. I’ve been in school, with new classes every semester, or I’ve worked at summer jobs, which by their nature are limited, or I’ve been writing novels, which generally take me about the same length of time. (Sure, I’m still sitting at the computer typing words, but it’s different characters and settings and plots; there’s substantial variety.) I have to go back to high school to find the last time I did the same tasks on the same topics for even so long as nine months consecutively.
Least favorite is probably the solitude. This is fundamentally about me spending long hours with my keyboard and monitor, which sucks in certain ways. I think that’s why a part of me thinks it would be fun to work in TV or movies; I’d still write, but it would be social. Downside: I’d have to deal with other people. The truth is that I’m often a solitary person; it’s just that this job can feed that tendency too strongly, and I have to guard against that. (In fact, if I can kick this bug out of my system, the plan is to use this weekend to launch Project Get A Social Life.)
***
Question the third: If you could redo one thing about your career, what would it be?
Answer the third: . . . nothing?
Seriously, the answers that leap to mind are not in my control. It would be cheating to say “be a NYT-bestselling debut novelist!” Because even if I had a redo, I couldn’t be assured of making that happen. In fact, my sales might well be worse; Doppelganger earned out its advance handily, and has done well enough that my publisher reissued it, which is not the general fate of first novels. I’ll keep that result, thanks.
So I have to look for mistakes I know hurt me, and there just aren’t any bad enough to merit erasure. I’m glad the first novel I submitted wasn’t the first one I sold, because it wasn’t nearly as strong as it could be, but the act of submitting it wasn’t a bad idea; it got my feet in the water and earned me some personalized rejections. Etc. There’s only one thing I’ve done so far that I seriously regretted, but it’s worked out okay in the end, so even that I wouldn’t change. (Sorry, not sharing what it was, for personal and professional reasons. I know, that’s kind of cheating on this whole “answer a question” thing.)
I don’t think I’ve had a perfect run so far, but it’s good enough that I don’t feel an overwhelming desire to redo any of it.
***
If you’d like to ask a question, head on over here.
I sent off a draft of In Ashes Lie to my editor yesterday, and within a few hours had succumbed to the bug I think I’ve been fighting off for a few days. I strongly suspect a connection.
So today is a day of being the laziest lump I can manage to be. (Which is harder than you might think, unless you have my sense of guilt masquerading as a work ethic.) Ergo, I will recruit help from you, the internets, and hop on a meme while I’m at it:
Ask me a question!
Writing-related or not, though I won’t, of course, give spoilers for unpublished work. Comments are screened; I’ll answer the questions in later posts. Ask away, and we’ll see if I can marshal enough brain cells to give coherent replies.
In the meantime, I’m going to go contemplate eating a waffle, and find a book to collapse with.
I don’t suppose any of you out there happen to know the kinds of phrases used in the seventeenth century when one was about to chug an alcoholic beverage? “Bottoms up,” which is the phrase I wanted to use, is very twentieth-century, and “cheers” is also way more recent.
Crossover fic waiting to happen:
Crowley/Bentley + Dean/Impala.
I know it’s bad form to get too enamored of one’s own characters, but I think the great tragedy of this novel is that Jack isn’t in more of it.
I should let myself write smart-asses more often.
ETA: Also, more novels that merit revision notes like “don’t forget the severed heads.”
It’s the sixteenth; that means I be blogging. Head on over to SF Novelists for my post “Apprentice, Journeyman, Master,” wherein I talk about watershed moments in one’s progress as an artist. (Or really anything else that involves a lifetime acquisition of skill.)
I won’t disable comments here, but if you’ve got anything to say, I encourage you to head over and say it there. (If you’re new to commenting on SF Novelists, it will take a little while for it to appear, while we fish it out of the moderation queue.)
We’ll call that done.
Ladies and gentlemen, a minor announcement bundled into a major one: In Ashes Lie (note the slight change) is complete, at approximately one hundred and thirty thousand words.
***
This is my longest novel yet, by about four thousand words. I am very glad I asked my editor for permission to run over my target wordcount; it needed that extra 20K. I strongly suspect it is also my most ambitious book to date, though from here in the trenches it’s hard to tell. It doesn’t give me the feeling of accomplishment that Midnight Never Come did, because this one isn’t a watershed: last year, I reached the summit of the peak I had been climbing for some years, while this year, I started up a new one. The latter is better for me than the former, but it doesn’t give quite the same warm glow of satisfaction.
I think it will be a good book, though. Ambitious. And full of stuff blowing up. And who doesn’t like that?
***
No rest for the wicked. Tomorrow I tackle the remaining revisions, so I can get this thing to my editor. Much of the novel has already been beaten into shape, each Part before each day of the Fire, but work remains to be done. (Like fixing the prologue. Which currently blows. Not blows up; just blows.) But I’ll try to find time in there for some celebration. After a hundred and thirty thousand words, I think I deserve some kind of party.
On the bright side, I almost have a complete novel.
6647 words tonight. I’m too sick of sitting at the computer to look up whether that beats the giant marathon I did at the end of MNC. I’m closer to the end than I was then, though; all I still have to write is the epilogue.
And a half-finished scene I glossed over because I’m still not sure what bit of folklore to stick in there. I think we may cut that out for now, and put it back in if I find something appropriate. (Because I have a long-standing habit of insisting that I cannot declare a novel done until it has no holes in it. And I want to write the epilogue last.)
Anyway. Bedtime came and went hours ago. Time for me to do the same.
Yesterday, heading up to SF for dinner with jaylake, zellandyne, and a variety of other people whose LJ usernames I did not catch because they were all new acquaintances, I had an odd bit of cognitive dissonance.
Drive to Millbrae, park, wait around on the platform. Get on Caltrain. Sit down, pop in headphones, stare out the window —
And I’m in England.
Because, according to my subconscious, England is the only place in the world with trains. Or at least the only place I ever ride them. Ergo, if I am on a train, I must be in England.
My subconscious thought this was perfectly acceptable logic.
I don’t want to think about the past today — not because it isn’t worth remembering, but because I want to keep my eye on the future.
In a little less than two months, the adult citizens of the United States have a choice to make.
One side tells you America is great. We are the best nation on earth, and the other guy envies and hates us because of it. They tell you our economy is strong, and the people who think otherwise are whiners. They tell you our health care is fine, because anybody without insurance can just go to an emergency room, where they cannot be refused care. They tell you our environment (and everybody else’s) is not changing, and nothing happening with it is our doing. They tell you we can answer all our energy needs by drilling more.
The other side tells you America can be greater. We are a wonderful nation, but that does not mean we should not make ourselves better still. They tell you our economy is faltering, but we can change it so that the guys at the bottom have a chance to lift themselves higher. They tell you our health care is inadequate, but we can change it so parents don’t have to choose between going to work and staying home with a sick child. They tell you our environment is in flux, but we can change the habits that are sending it awry. They tell you we can answer our energy needs, not just for now but for the future, by looking to answers other than oil.
One says we don’t need to change. The other says we must, and we can.
The first side tells you their attitude is patriotic. I call it arrogant. Patriotism is not resting on your laurels, assuming your forefathers and foremothers did all the work for you. It’s rolling up your sleeves and acting to make things better, because you want to see your nation become more than it already is. It’s looking to the future, and asking how you can improve it for the generations to come.
Patriotism is hard work.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity . . . .
Good words. As far as I’m concerned, they don’t stop with the Constitution. Justice, domestic tranquility, and all the rest — perfection included — are something we need to keep fighting for.
I don’t know if this is a California thing or what, but I’ve come across some appallingly ill-organized stores since moving out here. The Blockbuster within walking distance is so bad I’ve pretty much vowed never to set foot in it again: not only are 3/4 of the DVDs stacked in haphazard piles rather than laid face-out for ease of browsing, but there are L’s in with the A’s and C’s among the S’s, to the point where I had to search the entire section to be sure that if the movie I wanted was anywhere in the store, it was too thoroughly lost to be worth my while.
And the grocery store! I thought for a while they didn’t carry Near East couscous, because it’s shelved two or three aisles over from the rest of the couscous. (Which is in the aisle labeled “natural foods,” including such natural foods as Powerade.) Hunting for taco seasoning, did I find it among the Hispanic foods? Among the spices? No, it’s in with the stuffing and gravy packets. Or at least some of it is; either Safeway doesn’t stock the most stereotypical brands of such things, or they’ve hidden the Old El Paso god knows where. In with the pet food, maybe. The cheese, sour cream, and yogurt aren’t in with the milk, eggs, and butter — no dairy section for you! — they’re clear across the store, along with the lunch meats, which are likewise nowhere near the rest of the meat.
Srsly. Is the state of California too busy being hippies in the sunshine to think about how they set up their stores?
Maybe I should hire myself out as a consultant.
Dammit. I think the line which was a seventeenth-century translation of “blowing up a busload of orphans” has to be cut from the novel. The conversation it was in has been changed by the decision not to kill a particular character, and there just isn’t anywhere else it belongs.
Sadness.
ETA: actually, maybe not. Certain aspects of the conversation have to happen, I think. Let’s see what we can manage.
Three parts revised. Three days’ worth of London burned down. One hundred twenty thousand, three hundred and thirty-six words.
I’m nearly done.
Observations: I have lots of great epic battle music. “Holocaust” not only was a word back then, but originally meant a sacrificial offering that has been completely burnt, which is a fabulous thumbs-up to me using it here. I am spoiled by the internets, getting mad at them for not giving me a high-enough-resolution image of Hollar’s 1658 plan of St. Paul’s Cathedral for me to clearly read where Sir Christopher Hatton’s grave monument was. (What do you mean, I have to actually go to the library? And that I can’t do so at one a.m.?) I am, however, pleased all over again by history’s obliging tendency to drop perfect bits of story in my lap. St. Faith’s was right where narrative logic says it ought to be, and I didn’t have to go at all out of my way to smash Sir Francis Walsingham’s grave.
Destroying things is fun.
(Even if I’m running out of ways to describe stuff burning without just repeating myself over and over and over again.)
I need recommendations for a movie with a really epic fight scene in it. But the fight has to be of a specific variety: something in the “two-handed broadsword” or “double-headed axe” family. Y’know, the sort of fight where a guy plants his feet and starts whaling away at something at least twice his size with a weapon that’s at least half his size. As much as I loves me some rapier duels, or dexterous hand-to-hand throwdowns, I’m not after that kind of thing right now (and I’ve got plenty of it on my shelves anyway). We’re looking for mighty-thewed, stamina-of-an-aurochs kind of combat here, or at least as close as I can get to it.
Suggestions?
(N.B. — I would like suggestions of such scenes done well. Bonus points if the movie containing said fight doesn’t suck. I’d rather not watch crap, thanks.)
Some short story sales make you happier than others.
Back in (I think) 2006 — maybe 2005 — a friend of mine named Crystal Black presented a paper at ICFA on the visual representation of Peter Pan, specifically with regards to his apparent age. She made some comment during the course of her talk that had nothing to do with that topic, but got my brain spinning on the ending of the story, where Peter comes back and takes Wendy’s daughter Jane to the Neverland, and then after Jane gets too old he takes Margaret.
The hindbrain, source of all truly good ideas, coughed out the phrase “The Last Wendy,” and left me to play.
I got maybe a thousand words in and stalled. Normally I start at the beginning, go on until I reach the end, and then stop, making it all up as I go. In this case, I knew where I was trying to go, but I just couldn’t see how to get there. One late-night Christmas conversation with kurayami_hime prodded at the unmoving mass of stuff in my head, and a couple of weeks later I called her up to say, “hey, I think I’m trying to make this be the wrong story. What if it was this instead?”
Her response, as I recall, was something along the lines of “That’s horrible. You have to do it.”
The result is one of my favorite stories . . . which came equipped with a little problem. See, the U.S. copyright status of Peter Pan and all his related materials is a tangled, bleeding mess. I’m pretty positive my story is in the clear, but not all magazine editors see it the same way. The solution? I mailed it to Canada. On Spec, the lovely magazine that published “Nine Sketches, in Charcoal and Blood” (one of my other favorite stories), has just agreed to buy it. You won’t get to see the story in print terribly soon, due to constraints on the number of U.S. authors they can publish, but it’ll be there eventually, and I don’t mind waiting. I think that’s a great home for it, and Peter Pan is firmly out of copyright in that country, so everybody wins.
But copyright or no copyright, I’d like to state publicly that I intend to donate my check from this sale to the Great Ormond Street Hospital, which controls the weird quasi-perpetual-but-not-really rights to J.M. Barrie’s works. They do good work, and I didn’t write this story for the money. I wrote it because my hindbrain latched onto some problematic points in the original and would not rest until it thrashed through them in narrative form. Secondary to that was the hope that the result could find an audience. Now that I have that, I’m happy.
(Actually, now I need to figure out some way to make my even-more-problematic Narnia story happen. I wonder if that’s out of copyright in Canada?)
(Quick question: I’ve told Livejournal that I’m in the Pacific time zone, via my profile, but it keeps time-stamping my posts for Eastern. Where do I fix that?)
A variety of amusements from my morning webcrawl . . . .
First, behind the cut: one of the more original book-promotional videos I’ve seen. Successful? Who knows. But the Little League team and the retirement home folks are brilliant. (Via Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.)
Over 4K words today (all of the London Go Boom variety), and over 8K of revision. We’re nearing the home stretch.
This book feels more raw to me than Midnight Never Come, in a way I find hard to describe. It’s not simply that I think I’m being meaner to my characters — though that’s part of it. (I think Irrith is the only viewpoint character I haven’t done anything horrible to. I wonder if I can fix that before the end?) Partly it’s that I think the politics are less polished; whether it’s a genuine difference of time period or a result of the rough edges being worn off the Elizabethan era, the seventeenth century just feels messier, with more sharp corners sticking out. And I’m really going all-out on the explosions, which no doubt contributes in its own way.
Raw. That’s the only word I can find for it.
112K of book at present, with two days of Fire yet to be added.
