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Marching on…
Oh, look, I’m starting this post with a pun about the month of March. But yeah. Looks like I went the entire month of February without posting a single darned thing to my blog. Apologies. Sort of. We’ve moved, I’ve been working full-time, and life in general has been speeding by so fast I’m having a hard time keeping track of time, let alone posts. I’m not really apologizing, because it’s not like I’ve neglected on purpose. Anyone who’s sent me email in the last month will probably attest to the fact that response times aren’t really my strength at the moment! But I’m getting there. Anyway, in writing news: …
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Adventures in Editing
Last night I turned in my book to my editor, Kate, over at Candlemark & Gleam. This is a first for me. You know, editing a novel that will actually get into the hands of readers. I’ve spent lots of time editing my own books, and I generally enjoy the process quite a lot. I know many writers find it tedious and awful. And it can be, absolutely. But I have a good feeling about this draft; the second I sent it off to Kate, I missed it. As I saved the file, I thought of the last two years. In late 2008, I completed the first draft of Pilgrim…
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A Whole Lot of Publication Goin’ On
Well. I have lots of things to share. Enough things to share to warrant a list. Yes, a list. With numbering and everything fancy. So: behold! 1.) Currently you can find me in the premiere issue of Fantastique Unfettered. My story is called “Without a Light”. It’s a story about deadly desire, set in early 90s New England backdrop where, well, weird stuff happens. Like that Stephen King guy, I grew up in the frozen wilderness of New England, Massachusetts to be specific, and it’s the first story I ever set there. I think it definitely owes a lot of its tone to King’s short stories, which I devoured as…
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2010: A Year in Review
In many ways, 2010 can be described in terms of loss. We started off by (accidentally…) losing our home. Then I lost the ability to write for a while, and spent the first eight months trying to figure out what the hell to do with myself. Along the way I lost 40 pounds (10 or so of which were surgically removed). Michael lost his job. Things felt pretty bleak there for a while, you might say. But then, in spite of that, the year can be measured in terms of gain. I gained a new novel, Indigo & Ink, which I wrote during the pain period and, in my mind…
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Updates in Nutshell. Or a Clam Shell.
I’ve been inexcusably quiet here the last few weeks, and no, it’s not because of NaNoWriMo. Again, real life and things got in the way of that. Let me tell you, there’s nothing I would have rather done than write a novel from scratch, revel in the joy of creation, and bask in the awesome of writing for the month of November. But life has a way of being a stinkypants sometimes, and that’s totally what happened. I won’t get into the details of the personal life stuff, but it comes down to the fact that I’ve been job hunting, working on GeekMom, doing the holiday thing, working on Crossed…
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Lev Grossman on T.H. White and The Once and Future King
One of the subjects I will go on at length most often is, most assuredly, Arthuriana. My abiding love for that genre started with a gorgeous illustrated volume (an abbreviated Morte D’Arthur) given to me by my great-aunt, but really came to fruition during my Freshman year of college when I was assigned both The Once and Future King and The Mists of Avalon. Previous to this, the only fantasy I’d really read was Tolkien, L’Engle, Alexander, and some Terry Goodkind. And while Mists was very empowering, especially as feminist fantasy, T.H. White’s The Once and Future King changed the entire landscape of how I viewed fantasy storytelling. If I…
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NaNoWriMo: Thoughts on What it Means
I’ve read my share of NaNoWriMo arguments, dissenters espousing the uselessness of the event — always very happy to point out that 50K does not a novel make, that the end product is not a true novel (let alone in good enough condition to share with the world at large) and, of course, if you really want to be a writer you don’t need an event to get you to do it. To some extent, I agree with them. I think, in some cases, writers use NaNoWriMo as the be-all end-all, approaching it with the mentality that, if they “win” they would then be A True Writer with a True…
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editing, fantasy, nanowrimo, pilgrim of the sky, publication, the gnome and the necromancer, WIP, writing
The Gnome and the Necromancer
With the month of November looming, it’s time to consider NaNoWriMo. Last year it was NaNoEdMo for me, as I was busy doing edits on Queen of None. But this year, I haven’t been writing much at all since I finished Indigo & Ink, and figured I could use November to focus. Edits on Pilgrim of the Sky aren’t due until early 2011, after all. Things have been… well, meh in a lot of ways, and I’m seriously in need of some writing therapy. Not to mention, it’s really fun being involved in something creative with a group of awesome friends. So: enter The Gnome and the Necromancer. This is…
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My October Projects*
Novel editing has taken a pause in order to attend to two anthology submissions I want to finish. The good news: finished one last night, edited it tonight, will submit in just a bit. It takes place in the world of The Aldersgate, featuring three familiar faces to those who follow such things: Sir Gawen, Sir Renmen, and Sir Din. It takes place ten years before the events in the book, and tells the story of how Sir Gawen–once known around the Continent for his prowess and crazy mad skull-crushing skills–gave up his cushy captainship and joined the Order of the Asp. The second story is posing more of a…
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A moment of blatant self-promotion
The Mammoth Book of Steampunk is looking for reprint recommendations. And whaddya know, but I’ve got a bunch of stories that would qualify for just that. They’re seeking suggestions over here. So if you’ve read something of mine that you like, please feel free to let them know! (I added some notes to help you remember each story.) “The Brass Pedestal” – Steampunk Tales #4, Short Story category, November 2009 (Sophronia seeks revenge on her philandering, relationship-destroying brother by getting a bug implant and a metal corset) “Dead’s End to Middleton” – Crossed Genres #16, Short Story Category, February 2010 (seven gun-toting, alien-killing sisters in the American West, and the…
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The Pits of Research
I did it. I fell into the Pits of Research. Don’t get me wrong. I love research. At a point in my life I wanted to be a professional researcher, i.e. a professor, so the hankering to discover new information is definitely strong with me. However. There are good and bad ways to go about these things. I’ve been adding to and editing Pilgrim of the Sky, which, as I mentioned, has a lot to do with religion. Sort of. In the book, the premise revolves (haha, revolves…) around eight worlds. These worlds are all connected, are part of infinite worlds, yet still have similarities between them. The main character’s…
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Official Pilgrim of the Sky Announcement from Candlemark & Gleam
I’m not terribly good at describing Pilgrim of the Sky. But thankfully, my publisher is! To get a better idea of what the book might be about, and what I’m currently immersed in edits with at the moment, consider the following from their announcement post: How to describe this novel? Hm. That may be a tough one. It’s sort of…a world-hopping, reality-bending, art-historical, socio-religious steampunk odyssey. And that’s just for starters. It takes place both in our world – in a corner of the world that I’m particularly familiar with and fond of, Western Massachussets – and in a number of other worlds, each of which has its own character…
