what i hate about you

Kidding. It's what I hate about books. Because I know you're dying to know . Hopefully I don't piss anyone off.

• Snarky, Clever, or Stating-the-Obvious internal narrative, especially when it's done for the sake of establishing voice.
• Internal narrative that repeats information rather than adds new information.
• Crappy-written action and dialogue that relies on internal narrative for support.
  
• Lengthy setting descriptions.
• First person with a ton of internal narrative. (I often avoid FP POV)
• Tough chicks with something to prove.
• Every chapter ending on a life-threatening hook.
• When authors try too hard to "say something."
• In general, romance as a main plot-line. (that one really is just me)

Sensing a theme there with the internal narrative? Not a big fan of a ton of internal narrative. Much of it is quite useless in books, even published books. I DO NOT mind narrative that tells, though. Sometimes that's the most efficient way to get info across and get us back to the story.

What do you hate?

status quo

I heard a report on NPR this morning about the National Book Awards (banquet was last night, I believe) and dug around a bit to confirm it was all boys. Worst thing, I ASSUMED it was all boys anyway.

One clip from the banquet muchly annoyed me, too. Not only did it refer to Publishing as a sinking ship, practically in the same journalistic breath it claimed that "real books" will always be around and this E-publishing thing is just some fly-by-night medicine show.

No one seems to get, or be willing to say out loud, that it's not in Traditional Publishing's best interest to encourage Epublishing.

Uh huh. That's what the music industry thought, too. Go ahead, Traditional Publishing. Dig in your heels. It's your funeral.

I even recently heard an agent, someone I generally respect, claim that publishing ebooks is as expensive as publishing traditional books. Um. In what universe? Sure as hell not mine. I can self-publish to Kindle, nook, etc, as I've discussed recently, and I'm seriously thinking of doing it because I'd like a practice run at publicity and I have a fantasy novel, well-received by agents but no takers, which I think is pretty well suited to e-pub. Also, I'd like the damn thing to be read and I've had some folks tell me they'd love to read more of my stuff. Like, actual fans and people who READ. (Feel free to chime in here and tell me you'd buy my book and at what price point, knowing full well that I would probably offer it for free here on the site, or a new-and-improved site.)

I appreciate ALL forms of publishing and books. I like seeing my stuff in print on my shelf. But I also LOVE sending someone a link to my story. So easy and I think, honestly, I garner more reads that way.

I think ebooks are very appropriate for books like QUENCHER and the rest of our series, because honestly, how many times are you going to read an erotic romance, except for certain bits, over and over and over...gahhh. Romance novels account for the most books bought, and recycled/thrown away. So I like reading sexy and/or short fiction online. But when I lay on my back in bed, I prefer to sink my teeth into a novel. My favorite format? The paperback. It's easy to hold, which is important for someone with little hands and carpel tunnel symptoms. A light little Kindle might be the ticket for me. But for my shelves I prefer hardbacks.

One of my partners at Electric Spec brought up an intriguing point the other day. Humankind has advanced admirably with the help of fossil fuels. Will the loss of fossil fuels stop us in our tracks?

Huh. I guess if everyone has the same attitude that Traditonal Publishing has, re: status quo, it very well might.

flux

I have several projects on the table right now, SCAR, launching the promotions for QUENCHER (coming out February 2010), promoting Electric Spec, short story ideas, agent submissions (that bit I've been putting off), contemplating releasing HINTERLAND electronically (free here and for sale on Kindle, nook, etc), planning out a new website (really want to get on that), and pursuing a teaching opportunity.

It's November. I had 5 sales for 2009. I wanted 8 for this year. Damn. Failure.

I had lots of interest in SENTINEL, but so far no bites. My own fault, but it's languishing on the hard drive at the moment.

SCAR feels alternately like it's about to kick my ass and, well, is kicking my ass. I sometimes regret talking about it so much because I hope I haven't built it up into something it's not - yanno, like a really good book that might someday sell. Writing on spec sucks. Let's all say it together now. Writing on spec sucks.

I realize now the year is weighing on me, figuratively and literally. I have actual pounds I can't seem to lose, despite concerted effort, and I feel like my age is creeping upon me like some slow-moving pervasive fog. My family is in a time of flux, too, with family, school, and work all.

And now the holidays. Sigh.

I wish I could be looking forward to them more.

hippy hoppy happy birthday

Dear Birthday Husband,

You're old.

Love,
Sex

liking

I'm doing an exercise. Cringe. Hate them. But this one is pretty good, I think. And easy. You write what you like about books you read in one column. You write what you don't like in another. Then, when you write a story, you do what you like and ignore what you don't. It's a way to achieve your own style and voice. And, it's taken me FAR TOO LONG to come to this realization.

So in the LIKE:

• Straightforward language in narrative.
• Snapshot descriptions.
• Dialogue with conflict and tension, very unbalanced, lots of questions, cutting off, redirection.
• Concise internal narrative that contradicts action or adds to character.
• Powerful, simple premise.
• Some premises just for fun.
• Detailed worlds shown mostly through character.
• Complicated plots via conflicting goals.
• When the premise and plot tell the story.
• Plenty of room for reader interpretation.
• Combining ordinary elements in extraordinary ways.
• Violence, hatred, dedication, revenge - emotions and actions that take me outside my comfort zone
• Exploration of evil
  

I have some stuff in the don't like column of course, but I thought I'd just stay positive for today. Like in critique, we learn a lot from what we like and what we do well.

What do you like?

two things

Crazy busy day (sick dog, coughing kid, out of town guest, and a concert, of course), so I'll leave you with two things:

The opening to my new short story, entitled "Flush."

"Why am I here?" I ask, carefully avoiding the gazes of the two trolls manhandling my wings. You meet their eyes, they take it like a challenge, and it'll take me months to grow the feathers back.

Mister Magic sits his fat ass down on the chair opposite me, lays a hand on each squat thigh, and clucks. Not a human cluck, but a chicken cluck. It's some sort of command to the trolls and it makes my blood run white. Even though I don't speak Trollish, I've had enough unfortunate experience with goons to know when things aren't going well. Never mind that I owe Mister Magic several thousand pounds in gold and my pockets are empty. They know. They checked.

"Cory, Cory, Cory, Cory, Cory," Mister Magic sighs around my name, painting it with colors I don't like. "Cooorrryyyy."

Seriously, I think, only a runt human would call himself Mister Magic. I can feel a feather start to give in my right wing. The faeree goon Pricillian flitters around my face. I want to give it a swat that'll send it into next week. Faerees hate time travel. Get to the fuckin point, I think.

But I don’t say it. I don't do anything. I just sit and sweat.

***


My friend Carol Berg (author of TRANSFORMATION and ten other books, Mythopoeic Winner, and all around Super Sweet Lady) has some good hints on writing synopses.

Read. Learn. Synopsize.

collision

I've had quite the collision of ideas lately, crazy stuff from all directions, all related to SCAR. I think it's my mindset (I know it is) that's picking out these details and linking them back.

I think I mentioned I'm adding in other POVs at the moment. I think I would write a MPOV book this way again, start with the main protag and write his story, and then go back and fill in the blanks with the others. Yes, it changes plot and character reactions. But it enabled me toreally get to know Trinidad.

Like a lot of my characters, Trin withholds a lot. He's reserved, but not a thinker. He functions from his gut. Usually he's already made up his mind on what to do and is waiting for me and the other characters to catch up. I'm cool with his reticence, but sometimes I try to push him in places he doesn't want to go and then he wakes me up at some ungodly hour and tells me I'm wrong. Like yesterday morning he told me that he would cave into his bishop's orders and turn Castile over to the city marshals, even though it meant torture for Castile, even though he disagrees with the bishop on politics and principle. Right now, at this stage in the story, his gut is the Church. That overrides all else. As it should; he's vowed his life to its protection and well-being. After all, and he still harbors dreams of martyrdom. When he meets Castile, he realizes that here is his ideal: someone who would sacrifice everything for what he believes. Unfortunately, for Trinidad, everything he believes in is starting to crumble.

I learned a lot about our discussion the other day, and the discussion on FB. You can't know how much I appreciate each and every one of you who chimed in. It taught me a great deal, especially that I should forge ahead with this book in letting it be all things to all people. (In particular, I learned how to treat my atheist character. He is a very good, honorable man, btw, though it's buried pretty deep.) My greatest desire is that SCAR causes controversy among its readership, because within that lies discussion and understanding. (I also think Conversation is the new genre, as I outlined in my article for Electric Spec.)

I plan to foster controversy through a lack of commitment on my part. My characters all think differently from each other and are very committed to their ideals. Most of them think much differently than I, even Trinidad. (I'm probably most like Castile, actually, in beliefs if not personality.) As a group, my characters are teaching me a lot, too, most of all a deep appreciation for Mystery.

What have you learned from your characters lately?

to cop-out on a story

A few years back I wrote a gritty futuristic called "To Stop A War." If the link's still up at Baens, it's probably over there on the sidebar - or a rough version of it, at least. It's about a fifteen-year-old soldier in an American civil war between thinly veiled Liberals and the Religious Right. This ignorant kid, who learned how to shoot at Boy Scout Camp and lost his family to early attacks in the war, is picked up as a sniper for a front line battalion. They're fighting near Wichita, smack dab in the middle of the continental US. Things heat up and something in him snaps. He decides to kill the other side's general to stop the war.

For an unpublished story, I sure have gotten a lot of mail about it over the years, even just from folks reading it off the sidebar. They like the story. That's a good thing, makes me happy. I like the story, consider it among my best work.

It got picked up at Baens, made it all the way to Eric, who abruptly wrote me a nice note saying that in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, he didn't feel he could publish it. Commence disappointment.

It's since been to fifteen or twenty other paying markets, been short-listed a couple of times, but no takers. It's sitting now at Big Pulp. It's kind of against my religion to submit to a magazine that's bought prior stuff of mine. Doesn't look great on the resume. But I thought it might be a fit. I quite like the folks over there (big shout out to them - they publish my kind of fiction).

Now some fucker shot a bunch of soldiers at Fort Hood.

I'm waiting for my rejection letter to arrive any day.

I'm trying to be responsible, think ahead, try to fake you out with a grown-up move. But I'm a bit at a loss as to what to do with this story. Shall I post it here, where it shall fade quickly into obscurity? Shall I try to sell it for 99C on Kindle? (I'd need to find cover art, I s'pose.) I could put it in my own magazine. There's a spot for that kind of thing. I think we feature some cool-ass fiction in our Editors Corner slot, personally. (And I've had some welcome compliments on this issue's article, which makes me happy.) But self-publishing seems... cop-out- ish, somehow. I could put it up here as a link with a donation/tip button. Or do I just keep surfing for more markets?

Advice for me on this one?

addendum: I don't want anyone to think I'm belittling what happened at Ft Hood. this problem is minuscule in comparison. There's a memorial today. Please spare a thought or prayer for our lost soldiers.