Recently in a writer's life Category

I was supposed to spend the week at my brother's, but both he and I have come down sick and I think I will be curled up in bed with an audio book instead of driving over (which would have also occurred with the company of an audio book, heh).

On the other hand, the Midnight Moon Café is graciously spotlighting Demon's Fall.

Also, All Romance eBooks has released the anthologies containing the Just One Bite contest finalists. My story, "Lilith," is in Just One Bite, Volume Two. You do have to register in order to "buy" it, but it's absolutely free.

Happy Thanksgiving to the Americans out there!

Yes, they're Harlequin employees, but they work there because they love books, and you can hear it in every word of a new monthly podcast, Book Chat. I was, of course, especially thrilled to learn that they talked about Demon's Fall, but I actually enjoyed hearing about the other books as well. It's a great format — I loved getting perspectives from several people who were all so enthusiastic and thoughtful about the stories they get to work with in their day jobs.

To keep this blog from descending into echoes of other people's mentions of my book, I would also like to add that I finally got my Tom Gauld print, Characters for an Epic Tale, properly framed and hung above my computer desk. It's the perfect inspiration (creativity begets creativity, methinks) that also makes me smile whenever I restlessly glance away from the monitor.

Fingerless gloves. (I live in California. I know this is pathetic.)

Hot chocolate to warm my poor uncovered fingers, possibly with a shot of peppermint schnapps depending upon how stressful the day job is these days.

A lockbox for my Internet router so I don't chance across humorous posts on the web in the midst of sipping.

A pristine new keyboard, unspluttered upon. Cocoa is bad for circuitry, apparently.

Standard issue literary motivation.

No NaNoWriMo for me this year, not when I'm regularly submitting code at four in the morning for work these days, then showing up in the office at eight a.m. the same day. I am determined to finish the sf romance that keeps taunting me by making me think it needs only a thousand more words...okay, another thousand...what's a grand more?...and so on. So perhaps that'll be my goal instead.

I'm vaguely pleased by this trend toward slightly longer novellas. Someday I'll creep into novel territory without even realizing it! I still feel as though novelettes are "home"; those are the pieces that feel the most graceful to me, without strange protrusions or concavities. I've written exactly one novel, and to this day I have no idea how it happened, except the remarkable persistence of a very bad plot.

Since some early ones have come in for Demon's Fall, here are some scattered notes from the author's point of view on reviews:

I do read them. I have a thick skin and a short memory. I think because my older brother is also a writer (and he's not the type to just gush over everything), I grew up dealing with a sharp eye on my writing. (My mother is also the type of person who will take the time to gently explain how to improve children's artwork directly to the child. This is not cruel; it's born of a genuine desire to help the next effort be better. I prefer this kind of forthrightness to polite flattery.) My books are not my children, and I know some people won't like them. Won't stop me from writing 'em.

My policy is not to comment on reviews; I'd like to say thank you, but I'd rather the reviewer not feel hounded by the sense that the author is watching him or her. The exception will be if I requested the review.

Requesting reviews is mildly nerve-wracking. It's like the submission query all over again, except that editors are probably going to start reading your story to give you a chance. Reviewers get to be pickier about what they'll actually open.

I would like to gather up reviews as research data for any potential readers. So some point soon I'll add auxiliary pages for my books to link to reviews — negative ones too, as long as they're well-written. If someone is unlikely to enjoy reading one of my works, I'd rather he or she discover that before buying it.

I do learn from reviews! Criticism, when it's well-explained and not based on a personal bias (and that's what makes a reviewer more than just a reader with an opinion, right? —that self-awareness and articulated reasoning), is constructive.

Grades/stars/a number of random symbols don't mean near as much to me as the qualitative review.

I do have favorite reviewers, based more on their writing style than their taste. Okay, and the cleanliness of their sites.

Google Alerts are a time-saver. And learn the advanced operators if you don't already know them.

It's particularly fun to learn which secondary characters caught people's interest, or if more stories in the same setting would be welcome. And it's amazing which other books and authors you'll get compared to.

When I got my netbook, I figured I'd just use it for writing, email, and browsing. This actually turned out to require quite a few installations. Here's a quick run-down of what software I end up using for the writing life:

Microsoft Word. I tried to use OpenOffice, but it couldn't handle my editor's comments. (I think all e-publishers use the Track Changes feature these days.)

SyncBackPro. Backs up all my story files on a regular schedule.

Google Docs. (Okay, not an installation, seeing as how it's a web app and all.) I use an online spreadsheet to track my word count progress on projects that seem to have real traction (or are facing a looming deadline). Complete with auto-color-coded backgrounds to indicate how dire or successful that day's production was.

Google Calendar. Tracks deadlines, submission dates (and also when it's appropriate to query), and when contracts expire. The Tasks feature is handy as well.

Textpad. Marvelous text editor. Occasionally, when I don't want to even think about formatting, I'll write in here. But mostly I use this to write the HTML for my site. And there's a bunch more site-related stuff:

Movable Type. Runs the blog.

FileZilla. Gets files to the website.

Putty. When I just want to make a quick change to a file on the server, I just ssh in and use vim instead of FTP.

Gimp. Image editing.

I'm ignoring things like iTunes (for playing the writing playlists) and the web browser of your choice (Opera, for me). But I wonder what other writers consider their essential software? For all I know there are folks still pecking away at typewriters and bribing friends to type up the pages into a proper computer...

A lesson in what not to do.

So I went and got professional photographs taken, not without a great deal of trepidation, because apparently being able to see an author's face makes her writing more approachable or appealing. I spied the photographer's bookshelf while I was at her home studio, and noticed some fantasy books. "You read fantasy?" I asked, and when she admitted that she did, told her that so did I. We got into a nice chat about our favorite authors, and then she pulled out a paranormal romance. Why, I read those too! General readerly happiness ensued.

A little later, she asked if I wouldn't mind giving specifics about what I intended to use the photos for, so that she could aim to get the right kind of look for me. This was my cue! I could have triumphantly said, "Why, I write romantic fantasy, which you happen to read! One of your photos shall reside upon my site; I'll send you the URL, and you can browse among the free stories I have posted there! Or you could even <cough> follow the links to buy my book!"

Instead I muttered something about wanting to add a human face to a business. I beat myself up in the car after the shoot.

Apparently I'm so deeply in the habit of hiding that I write romance that I don't even bring it up in situations where it's already been sanctioned. I need to do something about this reflex...

Alas, I'm not referring to the electricity that tingles through you when you've grabbed onto the tail of an awesome story and it's dragging you through the wilderness at top speed. All I'm going to say is that if you're traveling and plan to write on your laptop, and your laptop's power adapter has a grounded plug (three prongs) and the country you're going to uses a different voltage and you do have a voltage transformer but said transformer only proffers ungrounded outlets...local hardware stores probably won't be able to help you. That's all.

However, I did find out that I'm able to write a nibble of a story with characters in a previously written story (a discovery made just days before deadline, of course). I thought it fitting to offer an autumn-themed story that was tied in to Summer-set, and so you'll be able to find "Fall, Falling, Fallen" at samhellion.com later this month. Here's the start of it:

On the day the prince was to arrive, all the women were aflutter because it was said he sought a bride. Melea was too busy to care — she was looking for a dog that had strayed. "Misbegotten cur," she sighed as she made her way through the browning grasses outside the city, although of course it wasn't. Shiri, the missing dog, was of faultless pedigree — Melea had chosen the parents herself, and Shiri's bloodline was nearly as noble as her own.

I'm running around like a decapitated chicken, trying to get things organized for my vacation, especially since work's breathing down my neck with two deadlines. I also have this ridiculous preference for returning to a home that's spotless, which has led to my scrubbing the toilet at 2 in the morning on past vacation departure dates. I'm hoping to avoid that this time around. But anyway, there's been a lot of literary planning going on as well:

I've given myself writing homework over the next week: polish "Gutter-wing" and finish an autumn-themed short story. Extra credit: play with ideas for a longer piece to work on during NaNoWriMo. I'm still not sure I'll be participating, but having a novel idea all prepped can't be a bad thing.

My destination is also the home of my favorite stationery store. I am picky about my longhand implements; the notebooks and pens I've found in the US just don't cut it. So I'll be stocking up on those.

I also have a nice mix of sf and romance paperbacks to read in the airport. It was a little odd, limiting my reading in the last couple of weeks to hardcovers only (since those are heavier and take up more luggage space), but whatever a girl's gotta do, yeah?

Note how I've gotten all of the above settled, but the toilet still needs cleaning...

So I'm headed for a lovely weekend in wine country. I agreed to go without much thought — I mean, it's a expenses-paid trip with alcohol involved — but as departure time got closer, I started worrying. Should I take my laptop, so that I could write? I would be leaving straight from work, so maybe I could just take my work laptop? But it seemed wrong to use it for non-work purposes. Notebook and pen, then, but would my companions give me time to write? What if they asked what I was writing and I was in the middle of a steamy sex scene?

I also chatted with someone else who had run a half-marathon, and we began contemplating a full marathon together. I had no social life while training for 13.1 miles, so imagine what it's going to be like when working up to 26.2. It's going to be negative free time.

But I imagine saying, "I can't, I have to write," and I just cringe. Writing is something I should be able to fit in no matter what else I'm doing. And denying myself fun would be a great way to start resenting writing.

So I'm off to enjoy myself. And if I'm lying by the pool, seeming to sunbathe, I'll actually be brainstorming for the story, I promise.