rebooting

I’m finally getting around to the post I was going to make on Friday, except that I decided it would be better not to bump the signature contest down peoples’ flists.

So, that YA I’m working on. I wrote steadily through January, and even managed to keep it up while at VeriCon, which is little short of a miracle; it required me to be up and working at 3:30 in the morning when I had a panel in seven hours, but hey. I got the words down.

But I came back from the con and that Monday got handed a stack of student stories to grade, which came as something of a rude awakening; I’d seriously underestimated the time each one would demand from me. That might have been fine, except that the sudden increase in workload happened to coincide with a realization about the story: that I was about to step into the endgame, and I was very much not ready. I could have kept plunging ahead, but after eight books I’m developing a sense of when delay is the better part of valor; I needed to step back and get my ducks in a row, or whatever I wrote was just going to be useless crap anyway.

That turned, unfortunately, into a week and a half long hiatus. Which tends to be a bad thing, right before the end of a book. I ultimately had to go back and re-read everything I had so far, but at least it had the salutary effect of convincing me the entire thing doesn’t suck; certainly it has its weak points, but the middle is decently solid. Then I embarked on an incredibly tedious task, namely, plotting the book out scene by scene, one per index card — from multiple points of view. Val’s the only narrator the book has, but it’s long occurred to me that I could probably make my plots more well-knitted if I took the time to think through the story as it’s seen by different characters. What do they think is going on in particular scenes? What are they doing when they’re off-stage? I ended up cheesing out and only noting four other characters on the cards (it should have been six), but that was enough. The last one gave me the reason I needed for why the next thing was going to happen, and that was what had been stalling me.

I’ve gotten nearly six thousand words in the last three days, and at this point, quotas are going out the window. It’s a dead push; I’ll be writing everything I know every day that I can, because I think I can only figure out the next bits by putting down the ones I have. I’m near the end, certainly — 53K on the ms so far, and I’m aiming for something just over the 60K line. I just need to figure out what kind of confrontation we’re going to end with, then work back from there to get the next few paragraphs after where I stopped last night. If I can get that some time today, I should be clear to the end.

It’s tough going. Maybe I shouldn’t novel at this time of year. But having gotten myself into it, the only way out is through.

oh. em. gee., part two

And then the editor suggests one last line to go after the one you thought was the last line, and you say “yes, that’s it exactly,” and after the most ridiculously niggly revision process I’ve ever been through — a revision process possibly more niggly than all my other story revisions put together — I’ve sold “A Mask of Flesh” to Clockwork Phoenix.

Let it be known to all the world that Mike Allen is a saint among editors, for putting up with me. He made the ending of the story much better, however much I occasionally wanted to light the last page on fire.

Anyway, those of you from the Changeling game may be interested to know that this is the use to which I put all that research I did into Central American folklore, back in the day. My odd little quest to publish some Mayan/Aztec fantasy has begun.

oh. em. gee.

There is nothing more irritating to me, in the writing life, than beating my head against the final line of a story over and over again, arranging and rearranging the most insignificant details in an attempt to get it in tune. “A” or “the”? “Ghosted” or “ghosting”? Comma or no comma?

At least I figured out fairly quickly that the reason I didn’t like any of my ending lines was because I’d passed the right one already. Now I just need to get it to sing.

signature contest report

If you were one of the entrants to the signature contest, please check your e-mail. We have a winner, but I’m waiting to hear back from everyone before I announce it here.

mini-contest! also emergency!

Now I need someone with calligraphy skills.

The challenge is this: e-mail me an image of Invidiana’s signature. Think sixteenth-century handwriting (see icon) as done by a cold, heartless, Machiavellian faerie queen.

I’ll pick my favorite and send it to my publicist. In return, you’ll receive a copy of Midnight Never Come, plus (if I can wangle it out of him) a contract written in period language, on parchment paper, sealed in wax, possibly with a raven feather, with that signature and Elizabeth’s written at the bottom. (It’s a promotional doohickey they’re putting together for the book, and if it turns out the way we’ve been describing it to each other, it’s going to look awesome.)

Deadline is 10 p.m EST tomorrow (Saturday). Sorry for the short notice, but this whole thing is happening very abruptly; they need to print these things on Sunday. You can send me a scan or a digital photo (if it’s steady and clear enough), or create it directly in a graphics program; whatever works for you. Address for submissions is marie dot brennan at gmail dot com.

I don’t know if there are enough calligraphy/good handwriting types here to make this work — turned out I know too few artists for the “Baby Got Back” contest to happen — but I’m hoping so.

draft.

My brain has melted into goo, my spellinges maye neuer recouer, and I’ll be speaking in run-on sentences for the next seventeen years, by which time I may hope by the grace of God to have finished one . . . but I have a draft.

And if I never have to see the phrase “the said X” EVER AGAIN, it’ll be too soon.

I just wish I could see my publicist’s face when he tries to read this thing. He told me to get as Elizabethan as I could; I don’t know if he realized that meant using twenty-seven words where five would do, all of them spelled with extraneous e’s and y’s and a total disregard for the distinction between u and v.

There may need to be a revision of this tomorrow.

But that can wait for tomorrow.

the passion of the hunt

Two libraries, one incredibly helpful law reference librarian, and the Letters and papers, foreign and domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII later, I have the text of two mid-century secret treaties, and also a collection of Elizabeth’s writings.

Which is not to say people shouldn’t keep making suggestions in the comments to the previous post. More help is always good.

I know this will only confirm my geekery, but — there’s something deeply satisfying about the intensive research slog that suddenly produces the perfect resource or bit of information. It isn’t just the payoff; it’s the effort that goes into it. Of course, you can’t tell from inside the slog whether there are any gems waiting at the end, so you just keep trudging through the mire of English property law, wanting to hit Bracton over the head with his own writings and hoping you’ll get a payoff eventually. When you don’t, it sucks. But when you do . . . .

That’s fun.

emergency research!

Can anybody provide me with or point me toward sources for Elizabethan-era legal contracts or treaties? I need to see the style in which they were written.

And then try to mimic it.

By close of play tomorrow, if I can manage it.

the recommendations aren’t dead!

Every so often (very often, at this time of year), my brain says “down with productivity!”

In this instance, that means you get book recommendations.

I’m trying to convince myself I don’t have to keep to a monthly schedule, so please disregard the suspicious appearance that I’ve posted (late) January and February books. In no particular order, and on no particular timetable, feel free to check out Jim Hines’ Goblin Quest (likely to appeal to “Order of the Stick” fans), and Ekaterina Sedia’s The Secret History of Moscow (likely to appeal to fans of Gaiman’s Neverwhere).

new faces for old books

I got cover flats for the re-issues of Doppelganger and Warrior and Witch yesterday, and in looking today, I see that Amazon has them listed. So if you’ve been curious about them, they’ve been recast as Warrior and Witch — not the most original retitling ever, but man, I tried and failed to come up with anything better. At least this way it’s easy to tell the books go together, both in terms of titling and covers. (And no, they didn’t just flip the picture over for the new cover, though obviously it is meant to be extremely simliar. It is a new picture.)

So yeah. August street date for those, both at the same time, so anybody who finds me via Midnight Never Come will easily be able to lay their hands on other stuff I’ve written. I have no idea if the old versions will get pulled when that happens, of if they’ll coexist for a little while on the shelves. At least they’ve printed on the backs of both that they’re reissues of old titles, so people won’t feel like we’re trying to pull a fast one on them; also, they’ve made the sequel’s cover copy a little bit less spoilericious. Not completely so, but I’m not sure it’s possible to write useful cover copy for it that won’t have any spoilers.

It’ll be neat to see myself suddenly jump up to a more substantial shelf presence, with three books out there at once. I don’t know what quantities they’ll be shipping of any of them, but it should be pretty good.

thing-a-day

I’ve talked to a couple of people about Thing-a-Day, which is sort of a NaNoWriMo-esque quasi-movement thingy — by which I mean it’s a web-organized thing you decide to participate in for a set period of time, collectively with other people. Er, that isn’t very clear, is it? The website explains it better. Anyway, the point is to do something creative every day in February, for about 20-60 minutes. It can be the same creative something every day, or different things; it can be your usual creativity, or something you’ve never done before.

Me? I’m drawing.

I’ve said for a long time that I’d like to be better at it (my current level being “not very good at all”). I would especially like to be able to draw people realistically, since I think that might help me a lot with visualizing my characters. So I’m going to be drawing twenty-eight faces at a minimum, one per day. (Today I went on for a while longer, drawing three still lifes of decreasing crappiness, but I expect I won’t have the time and inclination for that every day.) I’ve arranged for weekly tip sessions with the inestimable tooth_and_claw, so hopefully I’ll see improvement along the way.

If any of them turn out decently, I might post them. But ain’t nobody except T&C, and maybe not even her, seeing what I did today.