words

Randomness for 8/3

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1) Invisibility gets closer to reality.

2) The URL says it all: http://writershouses.com/

3) Thinking of becoming a literary agent?

4) Michelle Sagara on authors meeting readers who have not read the author’s work. I have never worked in a bookstore and have no idea how to rec books, but the rest matches my thoughts very closely.

5) Glory, Glory, Howl-le-lu-ya!. This is hilarious and weird. Do you love Jesus? Well that’s fine. Do you feel moved to do *this* and post it online? Dude. Seriously. via Robin Bailey

6) Don’t be that guy. For anyone who wonders why comics are so ridiculously sexist.

7) The Nietzsche Family Circus

Announcing a month of book giveaways! Day three!

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Game of Cages will be coming out on the last day of the month, so I’ve decided to hold a special month of book giveaways. Every day (unless I screw up, which I probably will) I’ll give away a book or themed set of books to someone who asks for it. To enter, you have to comment on this blog or on my LiveJournal–email, Facebook, and Twitter won’t count, and if more than one person speaks up, I’ll roll a die to determine the recipient. U.S. residents only, please.

You get a new book every day, and on the last day of the month I’ll give away my own.

Today’s books:

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No explanation necessary, yeah? Who wants them?

Update! These have been won.

Announcing a month of book giveaways! Day two!

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Game of Cages will be coming out on the last day of the month, so I’ve decided to hold a special month of book giveaways. Every day (unless I screw up, which I probably will) I’ll give away a book or themed set of books to someone who asks for it. To enter, you have to comment on this blog or on my LiveJournal–email, Facebook, and Twitter won’t count, and if more than one person speaks up, I’ll roll a die to determine the recipient.

You get a new book every day, and on the last day of the month I’ll give away my own.

Here’s today’s book:

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Writing a book set in the Regency period? Love reading those books? Here is a history of crime and the criminal underclass of that time, as well as a look at how a modern(ish) police force was built to combat it.

Is it comprehensive, accurate and interesting? I don’t know! I haven’t read it. It hurts to give this one away, actually, because it sounds so damn interesting. But it’s sat on my shelf for about 12 years w/out being cracked open, and it’s time to accept facts. Who wants it?

Update: This book has been claimed.

Announcing a month of book giveaways! Day one!

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Game of Cages will be coming out on the last day of the month, so I’ve decided to hold a special month of book giveaways. Every day (unless I screw up, which I probably will) I’ll give away a book or themed set of books to someone who asks for it. To enter, you have to comment on this blog or on my LiveJournal–email, Facebook, and Twitter won’t count, and if more than one person speaks up, I’ll roll a die to determine the recipient.

You get a new book every day, and on the last day of the month I’ll give away my own.

For day one, I’m offering this:

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No, it’s not a horror novel. It’s actually an examination of the concept of Satan in a historical and social context, especially with regard to creating a Christian identity by identifying and defining Christianity’s enemies. Interesting! But I’m not going to reread it, so why don’t you try it?

Update: This book has been won.

Head, meet wall

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I’m trying to get a package together for my agent (sample chapters and selling synopsis, basically) and sweet mole sauce, have I been struggling. The last couple of months have been stressful–I don’t need to review, do I? Good.–and my daily word counts have been small. Now that I’m in the revision phase, I’m finding all sorts of repetitive and contradictory stuff in there. Characters are introduced twice, the protagonist discusses a clue with a character then decides to hide the info from him 50 pages later, the protagonist is confused by changes to a building he said he’d never seen before.

It’s a damn dirty mess. I really need to work faster on these early drafts, if only to save myself time and effort during revisions.

Anyway, I picked up a bunch of weird books at a yard sale today, and I’ll be slipping out of the library as soon as I dig up a movie for the family to watch tonight. We have a big afternoon of de-cluttering planned, although it remains to be seen which family members will be willing to get rid of some of their belongings (me) and which will not (them). Wish me luck.

Randomness for 7/31

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1) First Pacey-Con squelched by private police force. SDCC just isn’t like it used to be, man.

2) Autoeroticism in America (in convenient graph form!)

3) Kermit Bale. Yes, poster, you do, in fact, have too much time on your hands.

4) What does Harvard have to teach YOU about vampires in film and literature? Take the online course and find out.

5) Captain Higgins, flatworm of power!

6) Photoshop Time portals. via Kurt Busiek

7) Job prospects for 2011 in the urban fantasy world. Pretty funny, and let’s just pretend she didn’t use the phrase “tramp stamp.”

Fan fiction (by me)

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Remember the Scalzi/Wheaton benefit anthology, with the fan fiction contest? You may have noticed that I posted my son’s (non)entry? Of course you do. Well, I thought I would post my losing entry.

No, the winning story hasn’t been chosen. I’m just assuming.

Anyway, I dropped my son off at the day camp and have a few extra hours to myself. Of course it’s gorgeous weather out there, but I’m going to spend it on The Buried King. I doubt I’ll have something ready to send to my agent by the end of the day, but I should be able to take a big bite out of it. Especially when I turn off my modem, as I’m about to do.

Then I get to vacuum.

Anyway, here’s the story (about 800-words worth), behind the cut. Continue reading

Mid-career writing advice

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One of the topics going around right now is advice for writers who are “mid-career.” Check out Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, Sherwood Smith, John Scalzi, and Jessica Reisman. And that’s just skimming the surface.

First let me state this: I don’t qualify as a “mid-career” writer. I haven’t been publishing long enough, only have one book out (soon to be remedied!) and need to fail or succeed more.

However! Looking over these posts, I can’t help but wonder why advice for a mid-career writer has to be so idiosyncratic, while advice for new/trying-to-break-in authors is so general.

Yeah, I know, there are some basic things to learn. Follow guidelines. Don’t be a crazy jerk. Write better.

Those are basics, and they shouldn’t really take up a few million words of blog postings and internet articles, but they do. When I was trying to break in (yesterday? last week? seems more recent than that) I read the same things over and over again. Sure, sometimes I’d find advice that flipped the on switch for the invisible light bulb over my head, but usually it was same same same same same same same.

I dunno. Maybe I’m an unusual case, because I spent a lot of time searching out craft advice and inside tips on publishing norms. A lot. It didn’t take long for every issue of Writers Digest to seem identical to the last. I’ve abandoned several message boards and blogs because people kept having the same damn conversations over and over. It was all general, basic stuff and I was hungry for something that addressed my own particular problems.

(Digression: One thing that struck me as nutso was the length of time some people needed to absorb those basics. Some people were so resistant to instruction that they had to be told over and over how things work, and often still refused to adapt their thinking.)

Eventually, after years of learning from others, I started looking for answers inside myself. That’s when I started to really do good work. I’d internalized the basics and I knew how to put them into action. It’s not enough, not really, to make my books as good as I want them to be, but I’m not looking to other people for answers anymore.

Anyway, to sum up: Yes, mid-career writers need individualized advice that won’t apply to everyone. But new writers and writers trying to break in professionally need the same thing, once they get past a few basics.

Randomness for 7/24

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1) Can you spot the endangered species in this photo?

2) Want your kid to do well in college? Take them out of school! via Jen Busiek.

3) A book marketing idea I’m going to steal. For Child of Fire, I’m thinking flame-proof kiddie pajamas. For Game of Cages, I’m not sure. Doggie sweaters?

4) Slate discovers BBB is worthless. The rest of America says “DUH!”

5) Last time I linked to a funny post by Josh Freidman. This time I’m linking to a post that is just as true and wrenched tears out of me. Incredibly powerful writing. Jesus.

6) And, to move from the sublime to the ridiculous: How to pay for a Death Star.

7) Science fiction writer profiled in NY Times. I hope it gets him new readers.

Randomness for 7/21

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1) The Creative Process, in graphic/maze form.

2) This is pretty exciting: BLU has a new stop motion video out!

3) I’m sure many of you know that there’s a new storyline in the Superman comics where he walks across America to reacquaint himself with regular people. Well, now The Mighty Thor is doing it too!

4) Baby eats his way out of a watermelon. This one isn’t very interesting, but it is awfully cute.

5) Parkour from 1930.

6) Serial book thief gets three and a half years.

7) When Josh Friedman posts to his blog, we read. It’s long, but it’s amazing. He combines development notes, TV trends, and true crime, coming out the other end with belly laughs.