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The State of Things: Bull Spec Magazine
Today I had the pleasure of being on The State of Things, a show hosted by Frank Stasio on WUNC, along with Samuel Montgomery-Blinn (the editor of Bull Spec), John Kessel, Richard Dansky, and Paul Celmer. We talked a great deal about speculative fiction (with leanings toward science-fiction) and touched on steampunk, technology, the line between reality and fiction, women writing in the genre, and how the genre is changing. You can even hear a version of my short flash piece, “Sand” that was put together especially for the episode. You can find the whole transcript here! Ah, the magic of the internet. It was quite the experience–even though I’ve…
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Beach. Book. Bed.
Just returned today from nearly a week on the North Carolina coast. There was not much writing time to be had, but plenty of time to think of writing. I think I’ve worked out the last three or four chapters sufficiently. It’s a melancholy end for a melancholy book, though there’s more humor in it than anything I’ve written to date (which is terribly important given the subject matter, I say). Being at the beach was perfect for the plotting, what with the sea air and the sunsets and all. Last night I stood on the porch and watched a huge thunderstorm over the Atlantic ocean–the largest lightning bolts I’ve…
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Just some metrics and a whole lotta words.
So apparently I wrote about 8K today. For some reason I’m almost embarrassed to admit that. I really have done little else but write today! Ass in chair, indeed. Um. Yeah. I call this “end of novel fever” and occasionally it strikes. I’m just glad my fingers are holding up… but not for long. It’s bedtime for me, and man… yeah. I said something a few posts about being surprised if I hit 90K. Well, um. I’m surprised. But it is coming to a close. Sort of. Sometimes characters have little side quests they have to finish, and no matter how much you try to talk them out of it…
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Aqueduct Press Highlight – 50-6-1, via Jeff VanderMeer
Jeff VanderMeer says: I don’t know if readers realize this, but Aqueduct has reached the 50-book mark in just their sixth year. That’s a significant achievement for any press–both the longevity and the quantity, not to mention the quality and the focus. Not to mention that Duchamp is a class act as a publisher dealing with writers. Jeff also conducted a full interview with founder L. Timmel Duchamp, who has many great things to say about her inspiration behind the press. I particularly like this bit: When I started Aqueduct, two thoughts dominated my thinking: first, that mainstream publishers were for complicated reasons passing up excellent books that needed to…
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Enter title here…
I’ve been going back and forth with the title thing on this book for the last week, really and truly frustrated that I couldn’t get something that felt right. So today during dinner (no, we were not eating calamari – it was gazpacho and sausages!) the name struck. Indigo and Ink. Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. Finally something that speaks to two of the main themes of the book and, in my mind, has a rather neat ring to it. And, at least with a cursory search on Google, no other books of the same name. Dark and squiddy. I like it that way. I feel better now.
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Titles, Tentacles, and Trust
Explosition: in a narrative, the presence of excessive exposition. i.e. expository barf Well, 80K has been surpassed. This is good. This is very good. And as I plunge into the last few chapters, I’m realizing I do have more to say in this space. So I’m thinking the draft will be around 95K now… give or take. I have a tentative new title: Mother’s Ink. Or Inkwell. It’s become the center of the story, really (ink that is), and has even lent itself to my own version of the undead. (This is momentous! I’ve never had the undead in a novel before. I feel like I might have leveled as…
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Squid Pro Quo – 70K and the State of Things
Chapter: Found Two Things I Loved: It’s an Ash chapter, so that’s always a blast. He’s the easiest of the POV’s for me to get into (no idea why, it’s not like we’re anything alike) and there’s always that unexpected element with him. Two best points of the chapter are probably his command over the crazy situation (as someone has come into their midst with a squidling implant) and then his horror at the extraction process. I like the contrast, makes the character so much more three-dimensional. Hell, Ash is probably multi-dimensional. Two Things I Loathed: I’m pretty happy with where this chapter is going, but I have A Big…
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On pursuing passion.
I started writing novels at a very young age, finding a remarkable amount of solace in the power of creation. That’s not to say that the writing was good, or even passable, but it was practice. And in those early years passion was the sole driving force behind my imagination. It was far before I ever had an understanding of literary markets, agents, publication. I spent hours, days, bent over the keyboard, creating. There was never a doubt in my mind; I knew I was doing the right thing, the only thing that I was meant to do. When I was young, I had every confidence in the world. Passion…
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It’s not fun until someone loses an eye.
I grossed myself out today during writing. I don’t know if it’s because the AC is broken and it’s 90 degrees up here and the humidity is through the roof, but I apparently needed to outdo myself in fiction. It was one of those weird moments where I’d planned for the scene to go one way and it took a sharp, brutal detour in a direction I hadn’t anticipated. Like the title says, someone literally loses an eye in the process. Of his own volition. I can get away with a bit that I normally couldn’t in Dev’s narrative, because he’s on this Dante-esque journey. I’ve got to hit some…
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This is the last time.
Writing has been slow since my birthday when, as a promise to myself, I scaled that 60K mark. Huzzah! But yeah, that was on the 14th of June, and here we are more than a week later and just cresting 62K. I have excuses, but really I don’t. It should be more. Anyway, I did add that other POV in, and I’m enjoying her presence immensely. It’s helping to tie some of the plot loose ends a little more tightly together and giving a bit of needed comic relief. She’s a clever one, that Dinah Montpre, but she’s also selfish and self-centered. It’s quite the combination. She also has virtually…
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Confessions of a vampire virgin.
Okay, so I’ll get this right out in the open: I don’t do vampires. I’ve never read much about them, I’ve never been glamored by their mythologies, and I’ve never had a desire to write about them. It’s not personal, really. I mean–well, it’s personal to me, but this goes back before any of the whole vampire mania hit the literary community and culture at large. I do remember seeing Interview With a Vampire at some point, but I was so besotted with hobbits and Tolkien at the time that it really had no impact on me. And I have to admit, while I’m a general fan of Joss Whedon,…
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I would be a liar if I told you that rejection doesn’t matter, that every time a short story market or an agent lets me know my work isn’t for them, I don’t sulk a little. This last year rejection has set the tone for just about everything in my writing world. While I’ve had some agents express interest in future work of mine, I haven’t found a fit with The Aldersgate nor have I heard back from the editor who’s had it for almost a year. I haven’t talked about either of these things on my blog, really at all, though I’ve hinted at it. Searching for agents is…
