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The Middle Eight Manifesto or; Behold! The Secret to Writing!
Well, I’ve reached the middle eight. Almost. At least, I’m cruising just about to the 30K mark, a little more than a third of the way through Rock Revival. Musically speaking that might be where I put a bridge. Or a pre-chorus. Or something interesting. Certainly we’ve established the verse and chorus, and now we’re shaking things up. And hoo-boy are we. It’s been so long since I’ve been this deep in a novel (I did the math; it’s been over two years, between day jobbery, health issues, and pregnancy…) that I’ve absolutely forgotten how characters can throw you for a loop. I had this planned, damnit. WTF?! Maybe part of…
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ConTemporal Bound!
So, ConTemporal starts tomorrow! Before you go thinking how crazy-pants I am to go to a convention after having a baby so recently, keep in mind that I can actually walk to this one. No joke. It’s less than a mile from my house! ConTemporal is a celebration of steampunk and other speculative fun times, and I’m really excited to be a panelist. More than anything, though, I’m looking forward to acting like a writer again for a while (at least the kind who isn’t practically attached to her little newborn). Not to mention, quite a few friends are going to be there, both from near and far. The delightful…
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More Pilgrim of the Sky Reviews!
I’ve been very behind in providing reviews for Pilgrim of the Sky — mostly due to being insanely busy and preparing to bring the new little creature into the world (9 weeks to go, for those who are counting). However, I am grateful and thrilled that so many people have connected with the book, and offer here a few choice bits for you to read: From Chuck Lawton at GeekDad (whose band The Vitrolum Republic you should check out, not to mention the project of his wife, Sue, The Circus and the Cyclone): The novel is grand in scope, rich in description and full of wonderful discovery. It will take you from…
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Where I’m Going, Where I’ve Been
Source: s3.amazonaws.com via Natania on Pinterest Well, that’s a little misleading. I’m not really going very far, in terms of miles. But I do have a series of podcast interviews and a live event coming up in the next few weeks. 2/7 — SF Diner — I’ll be a guest at the SciFi Diner podcast on Tuesday, talking about geeky things and my book. I’ll share the link when it’s ready! 2/8 — 6pm — I’ll be part of a local authors panel entitled “Where Do You Get Your Ideas” at the Orange County Library in Hillsborough. 2/14 — I’ll be on Functional Nerds! 2/22 — I’ll be on Geek Radio…
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Reading the tea leaves for 2012
Well, hello there, readers. It’s been a while! Rather than sit here and give excuses, I’ll just apologize briefly for being not the best blogger lately. It happens. I’ve been blogging for a long time, when you look at the big picture, and well, sometimes there just isn’t a whole lot of time for sitting down and pondering the writing craft these days between family and the full time job and other things. But it’s not like nothing is happening. So here’s a bit of what’s been happening about these parts. First and foremost, I’m currently heading into week 25 of my second pregnancy. And I’ll tell you: being pregnant does…
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Where to buy Pilgrim of the Sky!
I mentioned this over at the Pilgrim site, but forgot to do so here. I blame illness. And pregnancy! Anyway… You can purchase the novel at the Candlemark & Gleam Website, at Amazon, and at Barnes & Noble. And some reviews: From Library Journal: Maddie Angler’s lover, the brilliant and eccentric graduate student Alvin Roth, has disappeared and is presumed dead. Instead of moving on with her life, Maddie travels to Boston with Alvin’s socially challenged younger brother, Randy, to deliver a box of research papers to Alvin’s adviser, Dr. Keats. This simple action propels her into a parallel universe where she discovers through encounters with a more gregarious Randy that…
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Five Ways Social Media Can Destroy Your Writing (and, Potentially, Your Career)
Ah, social media. You can’t cross the street any more without having it cross your consciousness (I wonder if there’s a check-in here!). And as useful as social media can be for us writerly types, I guarantee you for every pro there is a serious and potentially hazardous con. Having written before on some of the reasons I love Twitter for writing, I thought I’d share five ways that social media can, you know, go all Cthulhu on your writing rather than foster it. 1) You drive yourself to distraction. This is perhaps the most obvious pitfall of social media. It’s damn distracting. There’s plenty of time to talk about…
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Maelstrom! Mayhem! (Okay, not really. But it is a good title.)
I love the word maelstrom. I also love the word mayhem. They are related and have a certain alliterative delight, don’t they? Sure, this is just an update post and nowhere near as exciting as the last post. But yay! Updates. At any rate. I am currently in the middle of a few fun things. I may have mentioned this on Twitter, or other places, but I’m now a fiction editor over at Bull Spec, the publication which in many ways is responsible for a great deal of the success I’ve seen in the last few years. I truly don’t know what folks do without robust writing communities like we…
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The Perils of Early Success: Or, Writing With the Pointy End
So I started blogging “as a real writer” at the very beginning of 2008 in order to share a draft of my novel, The Aldersgate, with the world at large. I had already written two drafts, and then decided to start again and record the new chapters and launch them out into the world for feedback. It’s a steampunk western sort of fantasy story, with low magic and high politics and many point of views. You know; as you will. While I commenced blogging in that first year or so, I had pretty immediate success with my short story writing and network building, and I felt like I was on…
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July July July
Life has been spinning by at a trajectory altogether too fast for me these days, but that’s what happens when you smoosh an actual career in between being an author, a blogger, a mom, a sister, a wife, and an editor. It’s really unfair of me to complain, since it’s the bed I’ve made, but thankfully our summer beach vacation is looming just around the corner and I am looking forward to a week with as little technology as possible, and basking in the sun reading books and maybe (just maybe) doing some writing. Which is not to say I haven’t been writing, only that the writing is slow. Instead…
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Thoughts on 30: Goals for writing, goals for life
I honestly can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to tell stories. But I can tell you when I started taking telling stories seriously (well, not entirely seriously… thankfully). I was 25, had just had a baby, and went through the ringer with postpartum depression. On the other side of that, a truth glimmered. I don’t mean to be hokey or corny, but in the space of a few weeks it became abundantly clear that writing, being a writer, required my attention. It was one of those things that made me, and something I’d been ignoring a long time in favor of more acceptable aspirations. I’ve talked about this…
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April… May… June?
Yes, officially I suck as a blogger. But hey: I’ve been at this a while. Sometimes a gal needs a break. I’ve been away long enough that WordPress now has a totally different dashboard, it’s almost June, and I’ve been to San Francisco and back. There are some big, awesome things going on. So I thought I’d let you know about them instead of, you know, just keeping them to myself. (Bad author. Bad!) ConCarolinas – I am a guest! I am speaking on four panels: Changing History at 11:00 am on Saturday at University Ballroom A, Political Intrigue at 1pm in the same room on Saturday, Panel of Ice…
