All Entries in the "Personal" Category

My first anthology sale, and it’s still looking for submissions!

I just got the go-ahead to announce this, as Ann and Jeff VanderMeer are looking for “micro submissions” and have listed the existing writers.

I have a soft spot in my heart for Thackery T. Lambshead. When the first book, the Hugo and World Fantasy Award nominated The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases came out, Jim bought me the limited edition signed copy. It’s hard to get an anthology signed by all the contributors, and it took about a year after publication to arrive (he bought me another copy of the hardcover so I could at least read it while I waited for the collectible to show up. I loved the book — it was so delightfully strange! — so I was thrilled to write a short piece for the next book about Lambshead’s odd life.

From Jeff’s blog:

Contributors will include Mike Mignola, Greg Broadmore, China Mieville, Holly Black, Naomi Novik, Minister Faust, Alan Moore, Cherie Priest, Michael Moorcock, Tad Williams, Jake Von Slatt, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Jeffrey Ford, Gio Clairval, Garth Nix, Stepan Chapman, Michael Cisco, Will Hindmarch, Ekaterina Sedia, Reza Negarestani, Lev Grossman, Ted Chiang, Carrie Vaughn, Kelly Barnhill, Mur Lafferty [ed: squee], Helen Oyemi, and several more. John Coulthart will be doing a lot of art for, with additional work by Jake von Slatt, Eric Orchard, Yishan Lee, Eric Schaller, and others.

Unfortunately, the specific nature of the fiction being commissioned doesn’t allow us to have a standard open reading period.

HOWEVER, we are having an open reading period, starting today [ed: August 16 is the date of the blog post], for a micro-fiction section in the back of the anthology, which will consist of a list, with descriptions, of items from Dr. Lambshead cabinet that are not described in the stories.

For guidelines, check the blog post.

WorldCon Schedule

This Saturday we head to Australia for WorldCon (and a two week vacation, by the way)! The dog is taken care of, the housesitter is secured, and tickets are bought. It’s really happening. Eek.

If you’re going, here’s my schedule. Would love to see you!

• Fri 1300 Rm 211: Foundlings and orphans;
• Sat 1500 Rm 204: The writer and the audience: online interaction and public personae;
• Sun 1100 Rm 201: Kaffeeklatsche;
• Sun 1200 Rm 207: Reading;
• Sun 1400 Rm 201: Signing;
• Sun 1700 Rm 212: Joseph Campbell and the hero’s journey;

(x-posted to Murverse)

Books, and reading, and more books.

Confession time. In today’s Internet age, we (I) are easily distracted, entranced by shiny devices that play games and movies and music, and an IM is a tiny shot of dopamine that our brains crave much more than any stupid learning given by BOOKS.

That said, a writer needs to read. It’s not just a “what’s happening in my genre?” issue, but it’s a deeper, subconscious issue where your little brain learns vocabulary and turn of phrase and storytelling. If you don’t read, you can’t write. On a basic level, not reading labels you a massive hypocrite in that you expect others to pay money (and/or that much more valuable commodity, time) to read your books when you can’t be bothered to invest the same. We (I) also encourage our children to read, and bemoan the illiteracy of children (either literally or figuratively in their OMG LOL txt msgs), but are still easily distracted by the shiny ourselves.

I’ve got my Goodreads lists and my piles of shame, but something else has been happening lately. It’s an embarrassment of riches; publishers, authors, and publicists have been sending me books. So many books I’m drowning. And I still have my pile of shame. And I still go to the library. And yet, I don’t read very much…

So I’m working to change this, but I also want to blog about the books I receive. I may never get to reading/reviewing them, or may never get to interviewing the author, but I do want to blog about them. So I’ll be starting on that.

The tiny pile on the right is my latest taking from the library. The pile to the left of that is just a sampling of books I bought or asked for as a gift (this year). There are plenty more of those. The two other stacks are books that have come in. Do you see my angst?

So first I’ll blog about my library books. Sometimes I grab books at the library I haven’t purchased yet, or nonfic that looks interesting. I haven’t seen Scalzi’s The God Engines in stores, so I grabbed it when I saw it. And Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us had been reviewed on NPR recently and I was intrigued.

Captain Ean Tephe is a man of faith, whose allegiance to his lord and to his ship is uncontested. The Bishopry Militant knows this — and so, when it needs a ship and crew to undertake a secret, sacred mission to a hidden land, Tephe is the captain to whom the task is given.

Tephe knows from that the start that his mission will be a test of his skill as a leader of men and as a devout follower of his god. It’s what he doesn’t know that matters: to what ends his faith and his ship will ultimately be put — and that the tests he will face will come not only from his god and the Bishopry Militant, but from another, more malevolent source entirely…

Author John Scalzi has ascended to the top ranks of modern science fiction with the best-selling, Hugo-nominated novels Old Man’s War and Zoe’s Tale. Now he tries his hand at fantasy, with a dark and different novella that takes your expectations of what fantasy is and does, and sends them tumbling.

Say your prayers… and behold The God Engines.

First three chapters review: I’m hooked, loving the tension and evil fantasy elements taking place. Will keep reading.

---

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He demonstrates that while carrots and sticks worked successfully in the twentieth century, that’s precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today’s challenges. In Drive, he examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose—and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action. Along the way, he takes us to companies that are enlisting new approaches to motivation and introduces us to the scientists and entrepreneurs who are pointing a bold way forward.

Drive is bursting with big ideas—the rare book that will change how you think and transform how you live.

First chapter review: Intriguing. I’ll keep reading if only to figure out if he can tell me how to motivate the kiddo…

Treading water- just barely

I’m trying to get my novel edited. Besides the paying work deadlines, it is my only priority. Hence no blogging or podcasting.

I have gone through the horrible angst of, “this is nothing but derivative tripe,” and have reached the point in creation that Connie Willis refers to as “The f***ing book.” It is only my knowledge that this is normal that keeps me going.

I’m not on twitter much. I’m not on chat much. My priorities right now are a) family, b) paying work, c) novel. Usually in that order. Sometimes I eat.

I’m not dead. I’m not going away. But this edit is taking much longer than I thought it would, and it’s dragging me down, physically and mentally. I’ll be back soon. I’m sorry.

ISBW Metacast #1

Really? I’ve never done a Metacast before? In FIVE years? Maybe it was called a “special” cast. I dunno.

Regardless! I talk about what happened in May, what I’ve been up to, and assure you that the podcast is back and going nowhere anytime soon. We return to calm, clean, solo podcasting here.

Note- I did mention that the interview with Gail Carriger is “coming up” – I had planned on releasing the meta cast before ISBW #146, so that’s why I said that.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Balticon Schedule

I’ll be in Baltimore, MD tomorrow through Monday to attend one of my favorite cons: Balticon! If you’re there, please say hi, and be sure to attend ISBW LIVE where we’ll have Gail Carriger, John Anealio, and a live Good Cop Bad Cop segment with Matt Wallace!

My reading is at an inconvenient time (5pm Friday) but be there if you can. I’m reading something entirely new!

My Schedule:

FRIDAY

• 5pm Reading

SATURDAY:

• 3pm NaNoWriMo for Noobs
• 8pm Autograph Session

SUNDAY

• 4pm Girls’ Rule Live!
• 5pm Story Improv
• 8pm ISBW Live!

(X-posted to Murverse)

What do you want?

(Non-Babylon 5 geeks, just keep reading along, the picture is a geeky in-joke that has no relevance to this post beyond the fact that it amuses me.)

As I take this month off for a brief breather from podcasting (more of a break than I expected; I’ll talk about that in a moment) I am wondering about the direction of this site and podcast. The podcast is almost 5 years old, and a close friend asked me the other day, “What is left to cover?” Which got me to thinking…

• I can always do interviews with authors.
• As long as I’m still learning, I’ll still have things to talk about.
• New listeners come along all the time, so the basics still need to be covered.
• Then there’s current events and changes in publishing.

But honestly, this is a podcast with no one calling the shots but me, and I can modify the podcast as I like. And no, I’m not contemplating ending it. I promised I wouldn’t podfade. But I do recognize that it’s good to step back and re-evaluate from time to time.

So you, my dear listeners, what do you want? Longer shows? Shorter shows? More frequent shows? More current events? More blogging? Less blogging? I need your input here, and welcome all comments. Well. The constructive ones, anyway.

[About the podcasting, currently I'm doing ISBW, Escape Pod, and Princess Scientist's Book Club. The Tor.com podcast was frozen a couple of weeks ago, so I don't know when/if that will start up again.]

One of the hardest things about working from home – for me…

Is figuring out how to feel “accomplished.”

Today I got up early for a doc appt. On my way out of the doc’s (or maybe the way in; I have no idea), I dropped my credit card in the parking lot. A Good Samaritan found it, but I wasn’t called till I got home (25 min drive). Already pissed at spilling coffee on myself, I read some email to calm down, then did my drive back to Raleigh to retrieve it. I got home in a very foul mood, and did some more online admin stuff, ate lunch, and suddenly it was noon and I had nothing done. Then wrote 1061 words on a difficult scene in WAR, and I had a sliver of time for a nap before I had to get the kiddo to take her to Chapel Hill for eyeglasses adjustment. (Keeping track, locals? That’s two trips to Raleigh, one to the other side of Durham, then on to Chapel Hill. Tonight I have to go to art class, which is another trek to the other side of Durham.)

Now it’s 5pm and I’m looking at my day and wondering what happened. My two triumphs today: allowing Ms. Regina, a very nice lab tech, draw my blood, and writing 1000 words. Oh, and I changed my shirt from the coffee stained one.

I wrote. And I will go to art class tonight. Those are good things. And yet, I have so much else to do I feel like I’ve pretty much pissed away the day. But I know if I had done some of the other things on my list instead of writing, I would have felt bad for having not written. This makes me wonder if my brain is trying to sabotage me. Can I never be satisfied, can I never look at work done and go, “there, that was a good use of time!”? I have no idea.

Will try to record tonight. I have much to say – will also choose and announce my new assistant.

–

Hello to all new readers/listeners from the MakeUseOf.com site! ISBW was listed as one of “The 4 Great Lunchbreak Websites for Online Freelancers” – Thanks for the shoutout, MakeUseOf!

Media Report and Future Plans

We cut off cable a couple of weeks ago for reasons that included both money and the fact that we had a gazillion channels (that’s the Latin word for eighty-three) and watched maybe twelve shows regularly. And many of those were on network TV.

I thought I’d miss it. Wil Wheaton was on Leverage the DAY after we turned off cable, but I shrugged; I’ll catch it on DVD. People gush about the gleeful horridness that is the Saturday movie on SyFy, but I never watched it anyway (although I did rent Mansquito to see just how bad it was. And it was bad. Especially since the lead monster was female, and the guy who turned into a mosquito immediately took on the characteristics of a female. But I digress.)

I’m happy to say that I really haven’t missed it. I also am happy to say that I delivered my manuscript of Heaven into my agent on time. (before DragonCon) Not sure if it’s cause we canceled cable, but I’m sure it didn’t hurt.

Yesterday I fretted about prioritizing and schedules, and after doing that everything kinda fell into place, in my mind at least. I have my September, October, and November plans, tentatively. May take December to recover… I’ll blog  more about that later (and why October is dedicated to my husband, which is fitting as it’s our 11th anniversary next month). But things are beginning to solidify…

I think here is where I insert evil laughter. Evil… BAKER… laughter.

A really really weird cake

When I had the honor of interviewing Neil Gaiman at WorldCon, one thing he said struck me hard – it was when he was talking about how he doesn’t want to write the same thing every year: he wants to write different things and used the metaphor of food to explain. Instead of steak every year, one year he could write sushi, or a sandwich, “or a really really weird cake.”

I loved that. I wanted to write a really really weird cake.

I just got back from DragonCon, and I saw some old friends and made some new, and one question kept coming up. And it was surprising and gratifying and amazing. (Big f’n squee- even Phil Plait asked me this.)

When do we get Playing For Keeps 2?

It’s very difficult to describe this, and I am always so afraid that I’m going to offend someone. But here is how my fiction looks right now (publication offers change everything, and this is in no particular order):

• Heaven (novel): completed final draft. (w00t)
• Code Name Underground: Completed rough draft.
• Heaven Book 2 (novel) Working rough draft (existing novellas will need considerable work).
• Code Name Crumpet: concept phase.
• Code name Limerent: concept phase (based off existing short story).
• Audio Drama 1: concept phase (most of cast confirmed)
• Audio Drama 2: concept phase (half cast confirmed)
• Playing For Keeps 2: outline phase.

My mind is going ga-ga over the new projects. I think about them frequently. I think about Underground and the possibility for really fun outside-book content and podcast opportunities. I think about gritty Limerent and going darker and more SF than I usually do. Crumpet is a huge undertaking with conspiracies and secret organizations. And the audio dramas are just going to be twisted and fun.

I know where PFK2 is going. I have a clear vision. I just don’t know where it falls in priority/scheduling. But there’s also the question of: do I want to write another superhero steak, or do I want to bake a really really weird cake?

I kinda want that cake.

BUT- I started this post last night, and had a second thought this morning. NaNoWriMo is coming up soon. I’ve never successfully done it, as it always falls during a time I am in the middle of another big project. But it’s possible I could dedicate November to PFK2, hammer it out, finish it in Dec. and then be done with it. Giving myself a hard deadline might be the way to do it. And heck, I’ve always wanted to do NaNo.

This is NOT a declaration. I’m still pondering. But I do want to say it’s so gratifying that people want to see Book 2, I’m just very excited about new ideas I have. It’s becoming a question of time and priorities.

Many listeners ask me how to decide which project to work on first. Clearly, I have no idea…