• I sold a story to Scrybe Press!
• Trying to get the novel edited by July 1… ergh…
• Conventions: Do: be nice, understand their schedule. Don’t: Ask for them to read your stuff, ask to be introduced to their agent.
• Alex Wilson gives us the Clarion Podcast, and he supplies our closing music, Untitle Pretention… available through Creative Commons.

Write, already!

 

 ISBW #42 - Conventions [24:01m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (471)

Excellent info from Tobias Buckell on a range of advances he got from a survey. (Of course I forgot who sent this to me… sorry…)

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And somewhat related, here’s the Locus Sales Sheet, listing author, book, agent, and pub. house.

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I have an author who has agreed to send me his/her advance numbers (on anonymity, of course). I’ll update when I know more.

I know I save swearing for my other podcast, but sheesh, this is a pretty f’d up view of “perfect.”

“In a perfect world we would have read some part of the books before rejecting them.”

Dude, in a perfect world you accept everyone’s books and we all become bestsellers, there’s no poverty, and everyone gets a pony. There are no rejections in a perfect world.

Feeb.

(Of course, if we were all bestsellers, then who would we be besting? The mind boggles.)

The world of publishing is still safe for us plain types. The Eva Longoria book deal was a lie.

Whew.

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Please use Ebay for good, and not for evil. Or stupidity, as the Writer Beware blog illustrates.

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The gang at Fast Forward TV do fantastic SF literary interviews - I know cause I saw them at work at Balticon and was interviewed by them. You can subscribe to the audio feed by podcast (Although I should have sat them down and explained ID3 tags to them) or watch their latest interview, with The Last Unicorn’s Peter S. Beagle.

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Oh, and I sold my story “Moat” to Scrybe Press this week!

• Heaven seems to be turning into a novel.
• I don’t have very many short stories.
• Submission bomb controversy started at Charles Coleman Finlay’s blog.
• Shyness sucks. Here’s how to deal.
• The info I could find on first novels is at Justine Larbalestier’s site.
• Jay Penney’s blog, covering his usage of Holly Lisle’s One Pass Rewrite.

Write, already!

 

 ISBW #41 - Shyness [24:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (59)

Please understand when you read this that I am not saying I want to break up with you. I’m not even saying we need some time apart from each other. But I do think we need to slow down.

Ever since you were completed you’ve been talking about polishing up an outline and sending out to agents and publishers. I don’t think we’re ready for that. We’re moving too fast. I want to get to know you better, spend some more time with you, get to a final draft we’re both happy with. Then we can work on the outline and the packages for agents. But I don’t want to make that commitment until we’re both ready. And I’m not ready.

So let’s step back. Put the agent book back on the shelf. Print out a fresh copy of the second draft and focus on that. Please. I think if we do this, our relationship will be much stronger by the time we start thinking about the future.

All my love,

Mur

A diligent spammer is bugging me, so for now comments are moderated. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Jim Baen of Baen books is currently in the ICU after suffering a stroke. There’s not a lot of info right now, but send good thoughts his way (specifically they asked for no cards or flowers).

There is no further news as of right now.

From Making Light.

Heaven nears the 20K word mark. New episode this weekend.

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Wanna publish a book? Don’t work hard, refine the craft, and impress readers with your dazzling turn of tale. Just be hot and have a TV show. Now, I love Desperate Housewives, but come on. In high school we drew the line. They could be hot and get all the attention, we could be brainy and impress people that way.* Does this mean I should start putting pictures of myself with my cover letters?

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I’ve talked about the importance of query letters and cover letters before, but Agent Kristin says it best: Honest, My Novel is Fantastic but I Can’t Write A Query Letter.

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More secrets from the inside: Confessions of a Cranky Lit-Mag Editor. The importance of first sentences and of editing.

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The excellent site Writer Beware has started linking to services writers might be interested in, from manuscript preparation to publicists.

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10 Grammar Mistakes that Make You Look Stupid

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Lastly, there’s a debate now on whether Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine is ignoring women’s stories. There’s a movement started to get 100 women to submit to F&SF on August 18. Who’s with me? (It’s somewhat of a controversy, I’ll talk about it more on the podcast this weekend.)

* I’m kidding. Mostly.

My novel has gone through two rewrites. I am starting to get comments back from readers. I look at rewriting it again and simply balk. I don’t want to go through 400 pages of edits again.

I don’t want to.

Why, yes, I did spend all day with a three-year-old, why do you ask?

*grump*