Yes, I’m copy-editing on Christmas Eve. (Don’t have much choice.) But at least I’m getting some entertainment out of it: discovering, for example, that I described someone’s manner as “both sheepless and helpless.”
Sheepish. Not sheepless. Though it’s true he has no sheep, it’s not really relevant to this scene.
I’m still pondering the icon issue, so feel free to go on adding suggestions to that post. (The problem is not with the pictures I’ve been given already, but rather with my subconscious, which just doesn’t want to play ball. I don’t know what it’s looking for — that it hasn’t been given already — or whether it’s just being cranky. Quite possibly the latter.)
Copy-edits for A Star Shall Fall arrived today. They’re due back shortly after New Year’s.
I got yer Glamorous Life of the Writer right here. >_<
arielstarshadow (edit: got it wrong the first time; so sorry!) asked in comments to this post how I go about making playlists and soundtracks for writing. At this point I’ve become a bit more systematic about it, so here, in case it’s useful to anyone else, is my system.
1) I mentioned Patrick Rothfuss’ “Worldbuilders” charity event for Heifer International before; my own donations went up today, along with a lot of books from some awesome people. For every $10 you donate to the charity, Pat will match $5 and put your name into the drawing at the end. Donate $50, get your name in five times, plus $25 of a matching donation. See other posts on his blog for other great prizes.
2) “The Twa Corbies” is live on Podcastle. I quite enjoyed this reading; Elie Hirschman, who did the voicework for it, is a lot better at the ravens than I am. 🙂
3) SF Novelists day again; this time, continuing my discussion of ways authors do female characters wrong, we talk about virgins and whores. Comments for this should be left on the SF Novelists blog; no registration required.
Want to know how the Victorian book is going to end?
Here you go:
So there’s a funny story behind this. We’re in India, going from (I think) Mysore to Bangalore, and I’m staring out the window listening to music. My iPod’s on shuffle, and this song comes up. And the following mental conversation ensues.
SUBCONSCIOUS: We’re totally putting this on the soundtrack for the Victorian book.
ME: What?
SUBCONSCIOUS: For the end. Or rather, the Climactic Moment.
ME: Self, we don’t know what the Climactic Moment is going to be. Because we don’t know how the book is going to end.
SUBCONSCIOUS: It’s going to end like this, of course!
ME: It doesn’t work that way. We fit the music to the book, not the book to the music.
SUBCONSCIOUS: Uh-huh. That’s why the second half of Doppelganger maps perfectly to “Amazonia.”
ME: That’s different.
SUBCONSCIOUS: How?
ME: Listening to the song gave me plot ideas. You’re saying I have to generate plot ideas to fit the song.
SUBCONSCIOUS: Exactly. Now get to work.
The subconscious always wins these fights. I gave it some thought, and realized that of the two-three very vague ways I had thought of ending the book, one of them fit much better with the mood of the piece than the others did — specifically the last minute. (It’s instrumental, if you haven’t listened to it yet; hence not really a spoiler.) Odds are rather good that we’ll be going down that path.
Now I just have to figure out why the book will end that way . . . .
I mentioned before that Mike Allen bought “The Gospel of Nachash;” well, now you can see the rest of the table of contents.
And that is, in fact, the TOC — that’s the order the stories will be in. Yeah, I’m at the front. No, I don’t know what Mike has been smoking. One member of my crit group could barely get through the story because of the KJV style; I’m already anticipating that at least one review will hate it on the same grounds. And yet Mike wants to start off with me. I guess he’s done well with this editing thing so far, so I’ll trust him, but yeesh . . . talk about pressure!
Also at that link, you’ll find him talking about Norilana Books, the publishers of the Clockwork Phoenix anthologies. He says some important things about them, better than I can, but for my part I’ll just encourage you all to go look through their inventory and see if there’s anything up your alley. If not one of the CP volumes, how about another anthology? They’ve revived the Sword and Sorceress series, and started one called Lace and Blade that’s full of romantic highwayman-style goodness. Or there are novels, both originals and reprints of classics. They’ve got quite a list, so check them out, and maybe pick up a book or two.
No progress on “And Blow Them at the Moon,” but I’ve finished off “Comparison of Efficacy Rates for Seven Antipathetics as Employed Against Lycanthropes,” which is competing with “Letter Found in a Chest Belonging to the Marquis de Montseraille Following the Death of That Worthy Individual” for the achievement of being my most ridiculous title yet.
Yeah, I just wrote a fake academic paper. As a short story.
I blame Patricia Briggs’ husband.
Back when I decided to spend 2008 writing In Ashes Lie rather than the Victorian Onyx Court book, the rightness of that decision was encapsulated by two things: I had both a title and an LJ icon for Ashes, and I had neither for the Victorian book.
Now it’s almost 2010, and I realio trulio am writing the Victorian book, and I still need those two things. I’m working on the title issue at the moment; I have possibilities, though all of the ones assembled so far have flaws.
But I don’t have an icon. And the problem there is, I’m not sure what I want for an icon. Midnight had Elizabeth, Ashes had the Fire, Star had the comet, but I don’t quite feel like there’s the same kind of central object in this book — except London itself, really, and it’s hard to pack the “monster city” with all its smog and townhouses and gentlemen and beggars into 100×100 pixels. The best I can think of is some pic of a Victorian-era train, especially an Underground train, but my attempts to find such on the Internet have not turned up anything that leaps out at me. This is the closest I’ve come, but it doesn’t crop to icon size very well.
So here’s the favor I’m asking. Make me some icons — no text needed, just an image that evokes gritty nineteenth-century industrial London. If I use your icon, you’ll get a prize. Most likely prospect for said prize, if you’re willing to wait, is an advance copy of A Star Shall Fall; if you’re more impatient, I’ll come up with something else. A magazine with a story of mine in, maybe. But some kind of prize for saving me from having no icon with which to post about this book.
It’s hard to ask for something like that when I’m not even sure what I want. But I figured I’d toss the net out there, and see what it pulls in.
I came down with a cold right after Thanksgiving that seems to have segued with hardly a pause into a second cold, which means I’ve been sick for all of December so far. Bear with me as I try to get some actual business done here.
First of all, and I should have posted this sooner: Epic fantasy author Patrick Rothfuss is putting his fame to good use by raising money for Heifer International. More details at that link, and all of the related posts can be found under this tag, but the short form is that he’s selling off lottery tickets for a giant mountain of prizes, including signed books from many fabulous authors (and also me). Go forth and win swag in the name of a good cause.
Second: this seems an ideal time to remind people of the existence of Anthology Builder, a service that lets you buy short stories and have them bound into a print-on-demand anthology of your own design. My own stories are here, and there’s enough of them now to make a decent-sized antho (especially since you can print Deeds of Men); or you can mix and match with other authors. AB has built up quite a nice selection now, and this is a great way to try out the short fiction of various writers you’ve heard good things about.
Third: I am 599 words into “And Blow Them at the Moon,” aka the Onyx Court Gunpowder Plot story. I’m still not sure how exactly this thing is going to end, but it’s begun with Cornwall’s two most incompetent knockers trying to dig a hole for their own faerie palace in Westminster, which is amusing me. And being amused seems like a good way to start.
The goal is to finish that story and another one that needs a proper title before the end of the month. Whether or not I will manage both depends in large part on whether I can manage to find my way out of these stupid colds.
. . . that Mike Allen has picked up “The Gospel of Nachash” for Clockwork Phoenix 3.
In the beginning God made the world, and on the sixth day he made creatures in his image. Male and female he created them, and they were the bekhorim, to whom God gave dominion over every herb bearing seed, and every tree bearing fruit, to be in their care. Mankind he formed from dust, but the bekhorim were made from air, and their spirits were more subtle than that of man.
Old Testament + New Testament + Jewish midrashim + Secret Ingredient = this story. All done in the style of the King James Bible, no less. I don’t know if it’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever done, but it’s up there, and I’m very glad Mike bought it; the minute I finished the draft, the Clockwork Phoenix series was the home I envisioned for it.
By the way, all the CP2 stories are available now in the SFWA forum; if you’re a member, you can read them there for Nebula consideration.
I have a preliminary sketch for the cover of A Star Shall Fall and you don’t.
Hah!
Nice bit of news yesterday: Luebbe, the German publisher of my doppelganger books, has licensed Weltbild to put out an omnibus edition, both books in one.
I wrote 5,661 words today on the Silly Project.
If I kept that up for the rest of the month, I could finish NaNoWriMo in a third the time.
(This is not going to happen.)
On the one hand, this is so not remotely any of the projects I intended to be working on right now.
On the other hand, it’s 3,854 words so far today, and I’m having fun; which is worth something all on its own.
Let’s take a quick moment to review the basic differences between trade publishing, self-publishing, and vanity publishing.
In trade publishing (which is what the majority of the books on your shelves probably went through), you write a book, and the publisher pays you money for it. You retain copyright, and license some number of sub-rights to the publisher. They then pay other people for printing, cover art, copy-editing, etc, and when it’s done they recoup those costs (hopefully) by selling the result to bookstores, who sell them to readers. You may be asked to contribute to marketing, or choose to do it on your own. The overall financial risk is shouldered by the publishing company, and they split the profits with you, the writer.
In self-publishing, you act as your own publisher. You contract with people for the above-mentioned services. You retain copyright and (aside from whatever is necessary to get the books printed) retain sub-rights. Once you have books, you a) give them to family and friends (if this was done as a purely personal venture — like, say, a genealogy) or b) start working your tail off to market the books to a larger readership. Bookstores will probably not buy them from you unless it’s local history or some other niche market they have a strong reason to believe will pick your work up, but if you’re really good at marketing you may still move enough copies to recoup your costs. The financial risk is shouldered by you, and you keep your profits.
In vanity publishing, you pay a company to act as your publisher. They provide variable services, depending on what you’ve paid for, usually at low quality and a fairly high markup (since they are now acting as a middle-man between you and the cover artist, etc). You have less control over the result than in self-publishing, and depending on the contract may have signed over a portion of your rights to the company. They may also require you, in that contract, to buy a certain minimum number of your own books. Bookstores will again probably not buy them from you. The company may sell you marketing assistance (again at a markup), or you can take on this burden yourself again. The financial risk is shouldered by you, and the company keeps some percentage of your profits. A vanity press makes its money off writers, not readers.
Harlequin Horizons is a vanity press, not a self-publishing company. It is the monetization of Harlequin’s slush pile. Removing the name “Harlequin” from the company is insufficient; they need to stop advertising their vanity press in rejection letters, and implying that paying them to publish your book may result in you being later picked up by a proper Harlequin editor. They are trying to take advantage of aspiring authors, and their spokespeople have consistently and disturbingly worked to blur the clear facts of this case with half-truths and statements that are either outright lies, or demonstrations of resounding ignorance as to how the industry works. RWA has rightly condemned this, and MWA and SFWA have their back. Trust the professional writers’ organizations on this. Harlequin has not launched some brave new venture in twenty-first century publishing; they have launched a scam, and it should be condemned as such.
If you want to see the story you wrote printed up as a book, and aren’t looking to make a career out of this, go to Lulu. They’re honest. Harlequin isn’t.
I didn’t realize the transition to the new Nebula rules means stuff published after July 1st of last year is still eligible, so my list also includes “Kingspeaker” and “A Heretic by Degrees.” (Possibly also “A Mask of Flesh,” but it’s right on the borderline, so I’m thinking no.) You can read or hear the first, and hear the second, in their entirety; details at those links.
If you’re eligible to nominate for the Nebulas, you might be interested in an offer from Mike Allen, editor of Clockwork Phoenix 2: he’ll provide a PDF review copy to any SFWA member who wants to give the anthology a look. (Details about halfway through that entry.)
That antho, of course, has my story “Once a Goddess,” which has been getting some very pleasing attention in reviews. Other stories of mine out this year are:
Those first two and “Waking” are free to read in their entirety online; click through to find the links on their respective pages. Also, of course, I had a novel on the shelves this year.
Here endeth the obligatory Nebula-eligibility post.
Okay, so, researching the Victorian book. I’ve decided my first priority is to come up with something to call it other than “the Victorian book.”
The simultaneous convenience and inconvenience of the Onyx Court books is that I know where to go looking for a title (period literature), but I have to go look. I can’t just make one up. We therefore come to the first Request for Help of this round: what mid-Victorian literature should I read in search of a title?
My preference is for poetry over prose, because it’s more likely to have a short, evocative phrase that I can spin out; fiction (especially in the Victorian era) is rather too fond of going on at length. The book will probably start circa 1870, so I’d like material no later than that. No specific limit on how early it could be, but I’m trying to avoid going as early as the Romantics. So who was writing good (and preferably non-pastoral) poetry around 1840-1870?
“A woman’s place is not in the refrigerator.”
Comment over there.
