2014: Looking back, looking ahead

Switchbacks; photo by Don Graham, CC BY-SA 2.0

It's funny. Every year ( 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013)  I do one of these round-up posts, and every year it amuses me how my plans tend to take a sideways turn. I suspect this is inevitable, as life continually throws curve-balls. And being flexible to what comes is a strength.

When I was looking forward toward 2014, I was optimistic that DERELICT would sell and be published by one of the 'big guys'. I had planned to publish FUTURE TENSE under my own imprint, and focus on completing TIME AND TITHE, the sequel to THE BETWEEN, also planned for my imprint, figuring that any path to traditional publication would take a year or more. (One of my mottoes is always keep moving, or as Dory says in Finding Nemo "Keep swimming! Just keep swimming!")


However, When 2014 actually showed up, it had a very different shape to it.

I did end up publishing FUTURE TENSE in February of 2014, and that was just the start of what would prove to be a chaotic and exciting time for me.

 My agent and I parted ways in late spring after it became clear to both of us that we were not a good match for one another. That left me feeling someone at loose ends and more than a little nervous. But it also left me free to publish DERELICT under Interrobang Books, the imprint I founded in 2012.

 I had no expectations on June 1 when I hit the publish buttons on all the retail platforms. I knew I had written a solid book, but that didn't guarantee anything. My experience in publishing my first 2 novels was that I could sell a few hundred copies, reach some enthusiastic readers, and get some honest and thoughtful reviews. I believed that having more work for sale would improve my chances of discoverability, and I made sure the release would be in time with Readercon (where I was on the program) and joined Broad Universe (an organization of women writing in SF&F) so I could have copies of my books for sale in the dealer's room. Beyond that? I reached out to my newsletter subscribers the week the book came out and kept my fingers crossed.

After several days of modest and steady sales, something happened. Something magical and wonderful. DERELICT started selling. And selling. And selling. In the past 6 months, I have seen nearly 8,500 copies of my books sell. That is a significant number for an indie author. My earnings from DERELICT alone are higher than I would likely have made had my former agent sold the novel. (A good ballpark figure for the advance on a debut SF novel in today's market is $7,500. Most published books never earn more than their advances.)

And so, my writing life took a series of hairpin turns and now I'm traveling in a direction I had never anticipated.

I will continue to publish my novels under Interrobang Books. TIME AND TITHE is slated for a mid-January 2015 release, two years from the publication of THE BETWEEN. I am thrilled that I was able to return to the world of the Fae and continue Lydia's story.

DERELICT will become book 1 of a new series. Book 2 is well into its draft phase. My plan is to have it ready for release in June of 2015, and then a new book in the series yearly.

I will continue to blog here and pen the occasional short story.  (Which you will have early access to if you subscribe to my very occasional newsletter.) Which reminds me of another of 2014's accomplishments: I put together a collection of my short fiction, STRANGER WORLDS THAN THESE. It's for sale as an eBook for .99, but subscribers receive it free.

 In January, I will be at Arisia, reading with Broad Universe and I'll be exhibiting my pottery at the art show! (This is a new venture for me in 2015. While I have been doing ceramics for quite some time, I'm now confident enough to show my work.) In February, I'll be on program at Boskone, as well as in the art show. If you're at either con, please find me! There will be paperback copies of each of my books for sale. 

'it's full of stars'

 My goal for 2015 is also to stay open to new possibilities and new opportunities as they arise. I have joined The Scriptors, an indie author collective, and am talking with another author friend about a project he has in the works.

The world of publishing changes in an eye-blink. Indie publishing has changed significantly in just the 2 years since I published my debut title. I have no doubt that it will continue to evolve and shift. What doesn't change is my commitment to write books that delight and surprise readers. I have always believed that creation is a journey and a partnership between the creator and the audience.

I hope you will continue to travel this road with me. 

My books' bad reviews

"Sour face" photo by Sam DeLong,  used with attribution, CC BY-SA 2.0

 

Not everyone will love what you create.

Some people love spicy food; others hate it. Still others won't go out of their way to eat something hot, but won't mind it if they get served something with a little bite to it.

Our tastes are highly subjective. Just because someone doesn't enjoy something, doesn't mean it's bad. 

For example, I'm not a huge fan of country music. I won't go out of my way to find a country station, but I won't turn off the radio if they play something by Reba McEntire. However, I probably would never buy a country music album, nor review one if it came my way.  

Subjectivity rules in the land of our enjoyment, which is why I am always puzzled when creative folks go off the deep end when they get reviews they don't agree with.

I thought I'd share with you snippets of some of my negative reviews. Why? Because they are a matter of public record, since they have been posted on Amazon and the like. And also because I think it's important to cultivate a personal distance from critical commentary, but not to pretend it doesn't exist. I don't write for everyone on the planet; I write for the readers who are moved by my work. Not everyone will be. That's okay.

Disappointed in a tale about a spoiled teen. (DERELICT, 1 star review)

not well developed, poor plot line, simplistic.  (DERELICT, 2 star review)

After slugging [sic] thru about 120 pages, I found no action, Just young adults (described as geniuses) doing stupid things trying to enstrange [sic] themselves from their parents. (DERELICT, 1 star review)

Rambling convoluted story line of Ro, the main character. Too boring and kept loosing interest. Didn't finish the book. (DERELICT, 2 star review)

Teens are already involved in way too much sexual immorality; they for sure don't need to be enticed and encourage to pursue perverted sexual immorality.* (DERELICT, 2 star review)

This book is about a group of young adults who behave like children, have an experience set commensurate with their being children, and in general are presented as if they were children. That’s really all you need to know about the book. And about the author, now that I say it. (FUTURE TENSE, 2 star review)

And it was an okay story. To be honest, I almost put it down part way through chapter 1. Everything felt too familiar. The character in the story made several references to The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, aiding in the overly familiar themes. (THE BETWEEN, 3 star review)

What you must remember when you are putting your work out into the world and into the hands of a paying audience is that it no longer fully belongs to you. And that your audience has the right to not enjoy it. 

Look at your most favorite story/album/movie's Amazon page. There will be one and two star reviews that basically wonder what drugs the creator was on, or how anyone with two brain cells to rub together could like it. :shrug: Subjectivity at play.

My favorite book from childhood (and beyond) is A WRINKLE IN TIME. This is from a 1 star review of it:

I am having a hard time understanding how this book was even considered for a Newbery. the best words I can come up with to describe this pile are: Awful, boring, tedious, ridiculous, predictable. I couldn't read more than 2 pages without falling asleep. I hated the characters and actually wished for them to die.

Clearly this reviewer and I read different books. Or we exist in different, parallel realities. They loathed what is a beloved part of my life and a book I have re-read as an adult many, many times. This review doesn't negate my love of this book.

I'm going to say that again because I think it's important: This review doesn't negate my love of this book.

Nor will I get anywhere engaging in a fruitless argument to convince them of how wonderful I believe "WRINKLE" to be. 

Remember: Subjectivity. Spicy food? Love it. White chocolate? One of the most vile substances on the planet.

 
 * Author's note:  Some readers will make comments that make no sense to you, or seem to be utterly unrelated to the story. Again, subjectivity. In DERELICT, there is the start of a relationship between two female characters, that is essentially an emotional one. I think the characters hug at one point in the story. To me, this reviewer's intense objections shows how much one's experience of a story depends on what one brings to it.

The roller coaster ride of being a writer

Roller Coaster at Sixflags New England. Crappy camera phone photo. Awesome coaster :)

If you've been playing along at home, you know that when I started this blog in 2005, I'd already been working on my first novel and getting ready to learn everything I could about the business of publishing in order to get signed by an agent and get my book(s) into the world.

Well, things didn't work out the way I had planned:

• In 2009 I was able to sign with an agent, but not for that first book. Not for the second, either. The third novel was the charm for that particular hurdle.

• After nearly a year of further revisions and polishing, (while writing novel number 4) that novel (The House of Many Doors) went out on submission, garnered praise, but no sales.

• I moved on to novel number 5, since novel number 4 was not a YA book and my agent was looking to brand me as a YA writer.
  
• In late 2010, novel number 5 (The Between) went on submission. By 2011, it was clear that book was also dead in the water. Same song as before - praise, polite rejections.
  
• In the meanwhile, I had written novel number 6 (Future Tense). My agent didn't feel it was right for the market and wanted me to change it radically, even for it to have a chance. I didn't agree with her vision for the book and moved on to novels number 7 and 8.
  
• Novel number 7 was written during the year of our displacement from our house fire in 2011. It was somewhat grim and I never went back to it after its first draft.
  
• Sometime in late 2011, I decided that I could travel a hybrid path and started planning to independently publish The Between.  I published it in January of 2012, to lovely reviews, and minimal sales.
  
• Novel number 8 (Derelict) was a fun distraction I started in the summer of 2012. The agent agreed that the story sounded fun, but felt there was no market for YA SF and urged me to write something else. I was casting about for another story, but wanted to finish this one first.
  
• Then I was at Boskone 2013, chatting with a friend of a friend about the story. He turned out to be an editor at TOR and wanted to see the manuscript. When I approached my agent, she was more interested in the story and did a round of submissions to 4 or 5 editors between the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014. The SF editors felt it was too coming of age. The YA SF editors wanted something that didn't happen in outer space.
  

  First digression.  :head desk:  Do they even know Science Fiction??

• In order to keep moving forward (keep swimming!) I had decided to independently publish Future Tense, as the agent declined to represent it. It entered the world February of 2014 and like The Between, garnered lovely reviews, but meager sales.
  
• At this point, 5 years into our agenting relationship, we parted ways. It was clear to me that she couldn't sell the book I was writing, and I couldn't write the kind of books she could sell. 
   
• While licking my wounds, I worked on publishing Derelict.  And then something amazing happened. It started selling. And it kept selling. More than 3 months later, it is still selling and I have earned more from publishing this book independently that I likely would have as a debut SF writer at any of the traditional publishing houses. (Median advances for SF novels are under $10,000, and most books published never earn out their advances, so that's all the income most writers can expect from their work.)

And now we're at the part of the story where I had dreamed/hoped to be and am not sure how to take it all in. I'm terrified that this is a one off and I won't be able to replicate Derelict's success. I'm afraid by the time I get the next book in its universe written, no one will want to read it. That it will suck. That all my writing sucks and this is a never-to-be repeated fluke.

So, in other words, normal writer insecurity.

While I was wallowing in all of the fear and loathing, I did manage to finish novel number 9, Time and Tithe, the sequel to The Between.  So I'm not letting the crazy roller coaster of emotions fully control me. But it is true that the self-doubt never goes away.


So if you have any magic recipe to banish it, please let me know. Or if you're riding your own roller coaster, my sympathies.

Working with an artist on creating a book cover

Original art by Chris Howard

Today I'm guest blogging on Lisa DiDio's website, with post written jointly with Chris Howard on collaborating on creating cover art.

Please stop over and read the entire post, but here's a teaser. . .

How does a complete non-artist figure out what she wants in a book cover? Or How a Control Freak Learned to Make Peace With Other People's Talent.

It is no surprise to anyone who knows me that I have (to put it kindly) limited artistic talent. I remember the day I lost any love for visual art as a child. It was the fourth grade and our elementary school art teacher had no patience for the kids who couldn't create what she saw as a faithful representation of an object.   Read more here.

Blog Tour Monday

Is it still Monday?

:checks clock and calendar:

Yup, still Monday. Phew! I didn't blow my deadline.

The lovely and insanely hard-working writer and editor, RJ Blain tagged me in the Blog Tour Monday meme last week, so I'm here to fulfill my part of the bargain.

Many, many authors are participating in the relay blog hop, one writer passing the baton to another all across the internet. It's been an interesting opportunity to read about so many different writing processes and there are as many different ones as there are writers.

What am I working on?

Now is a busy time for me. I just published my second YA novel, FUTURE TENSE, and I've been networking with book bloggers, reviewers, libraries, and high schools to get the word out.

I'm also working on completing the sequel to my first YA novel, THE BETWEEN, working title TIME AND TITHE. Let me tell you, writing sequels is *hard*. When you start from scratch, you don't have to worry about continuity, style-matching, or loose plot threads from a book you'd written more than 4 years ago.  I'm at the point in the narrative - at about the 3/4 mark - where all the storylines from all the points of view need to pull together into a cohesive and satisfying whole. I'll get there, but the writing is a lot slower than my typical workflow.

How does my work differ from others in its genre?

So many of the YA books on the shelves, regardless of the genre, center around a primary love triangle, where an impossibly beautiful girl must chose between two impossible sexy suitors. I don't know about your High School experience, but nothing like that happened to me or any of my friends. Typically, if we had someone we had fallen for, that someone didn't know we were alive and was madly in love with someone else. No triangles; if anything, a meandering line.

What I don't see in genre YA books (I read and write mostly fantasy and SF) is the power of friendship and of family, and the pull between them. The stories I write are stories of characters who need to learn to make difficult decisions and trust in their own strength in a world that is not quite our own.

Why do I write what I do?

What can I say? I read, and 'imprinted' on Madeline L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time" at a young and impressionable age.

How does my writing process work?

My ideas start with a single image. Usually of a character, in a situation , with a problem. This is what I think of as the writer's version of the game 'clue.' (Remember Colonial Mustard in the library with a candlestick?)

Once I have the core of the idea, I brainstorm, setting the idea in a larger context, a larger world, and with a larger cast of characters. I usually have the broad strokes of a plot before I start, including the basic ending, but I don't do a formal or detailed outline before I start writing.  I almost always outline when I'm midway through the story as a way of mapping out where I've been and where I'm going.

I am a tortoise, rather than a hare writer. That is, I work at a slow and steady pace when I'm drafting a novel. 1,000 words a day/5,000 words a week is my goal.

I don't need any special set of circumstances to write. Sometimes I use music - movie and videogame soundtracks are a favorite of mine, sometimes silence. I write in a simple word processor, but have also used a wiki for research information, and a more structured program called yWriter to split the story into scenes/chapters. Sometimes I go old school with cheap staples brand single subject spiral notebooks.

While I can edit one project while writing another, I find it difficult to draft more than one story at a time.

Nominations for the next Blog Tour Monday

Next Monday, please enjoy my friend, and fellow writer, Julianne Douglas's blogpost as she talks about her work and her writing process. Julianne is a member of my writing support and critique group and she writes historical fiction, set in sixteenth century France!

Because Libraries

This rusting beauty is very much like the bookmobile I remember.
Photo by Sam Beebe, used with attribution.

I have a great love of libraries. When I was a kid, our public library even had a bookmobile during the summer and every week, I would be waiting at the corner up the street for the converted RV to show up. I was always first in line. The bookmobile was run by a husband and wife. She was the librarian, he the driver and every week during the summer, she would have a stack of books she pulled out especially for me.

I spent much of my childhood inside the welcoming and magical space of libraries; the public library of our town, and the libraries of my elementary, junior, and senior high schools.

My father, not a formally educated man, taught me from an early age that the only things you needed to succeed was the ability to read and a library card.

I still strongly believe this. Libraries can help level the playing field for kids and adults, no matter where they live.

For the month of March, I'm promoting library love:

If you purchase a print copy of either of my novels or the SF&F short story anthology I co-edited for a school or public library, I will pay the shipping (if you get it directly from me rather than amazon) and either way, gift you with an eBook copy.

THE BETWEEN is suitable for a middle school and up readership, FUTURE TENSE for high school and up. Though I've had younger readers read and enjoy both stories. (And adults, too. No need to be shy about enjoying YA books.)

The PENULTIMATE ANTHOLOGY is suitable for all ages.

You can see the covers, read the blurbs, and see the links to purchasing venues here: If you do buy from Amazon or CreateSpace, send me an email with a copy of your receipt and the name of the library of your choice. If you buy directly from me, send me the address of the library and I'll ship it for you. Either way, I'll send a note to the library acknowledging your donation and I'll send you the eBook copy in your choice of formats.

Good for libraries, good for you!

Clarity

Sometimes life gives you a lesson about priorities and when it happens, you (or me, in this case), get a crash course in clarity.

I've been helping take care of these two sweeties. Fraternal twins, they are the 2 1/2 week old sons of dear friends, who have become adopted family in our lives. I am getting an early preview of life as a grandparent.

I thought I was prepared. After all, I had raised two boys and survived to tell the tale.

But evolution, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or your deity of choice has a little trick to play on memory. Not only do we not really remember labor and delivery, we also blur the insanity of the first few weeks of parenthood. And that's not even counting on twins.

So the past nearly 2 weeks have passed in a frenzy of diaper changes, baby holding and comforting, laundry, and preparing meals for the twins' mom and dad. Sleep has been at a premium for all of us, and while I've been here in San Francisco, I've stayed on Boston time, going to sleep by 9 and getting up at 2:30 am local time, so I can give the dad a rest and help mom with the babies for the middle of the night nursings.

This is one of the longest stretches of time I've gone without writing in quite a long time. Barring a blog post or two, and the small bits of time I've had on FB or G+, I really have stayed focused and in the moment with these babies.

My own "book baby', FUTURE TENSE, was released just before I came out here to the west coast and it's mostly had to find its own way into the world. And that's okay. These two little guys are more important. The book will wait. My writing will wait. In a scant few days, I'll be home again and back to my typical routine. Part of me is eager for my own home, my own bed, my own schedule.

But part of me is already missing these little beings who have come into our lives. I am so blessed to be here during this special time and I am looking forward to watching them grow up.

Writing outside my comfort zone: diversity edition

Chris Howard's artist rendering of Amara Maria Guzman, from FUTURE TENSE

FUTURE TENSE is written from the first person point of view of a seventeen year old boy. While I am a fifty year old woman, this wasn’t as much of a stretch as it might have been: I am the mother of two boys, one of whom is seventeen, the other twenty. I have spent half a lifetime immersed in the culture of boys and young men, listening to how they speak, how they dress, how they move and interact with their peers. The more difficult part of writing this novel was that it takes place in an inner city setting with a highly diverse cast of characters, including African American foster parents and a Latina love interest.

My upbringing is primarily white and middle class. What made me think I could write a story so removed from my own personal experience? Would I be able to bring authenticity to the narrative? Would my depiction of this novel’s milieu capture the lived experiences of its characters without coming across as ‘message fiction’, relying on cliche, or including unconscious value judgements?

These are some of the questions that open my guest post for fellow author and critique buddy,  Heather Webb's blog: Between the Sheets. Please join me over there and add to the discussion for a chance to win a copy of FUTURE TENSE. 

The Evolution of a Story and a Cover

Original art, copyright Chris Howard, 2014

This is the cover for my upcoming YA release, FUTURE TENSE.When I started writing this story in 2009, it began with a single phrase that bounced around my brain before I fell asleep one evening: run away.

From that one thought, a story took shape.

Who was running?
A young teen in foster care.

Why was he running? What was he running from?
Some guilt from his past. Something connected to his being in foster care in the first place.

Why was he in foster care?
His parents died in a fire when he was 6.

How is that related to his current circumstances?
He foresaw the fire that killed his parents, but didn't understand at the time. His precog abilities have dogged him throughout his life, bringing glimpses of dangerous futures for the people around him that he has always been powerless to prevent. The story starts when he begins to see visions of a girl from his school that show him responsible for harming her.

Once I had that - the character's history and present conflict - it was time to build the world of Matt Garrison, including the people and places that surrounded him.

Fast forward a little over 4 years, past more than a half-dozen revisions and multiple rounds of edits, and I was ready to send this book out into the world.

It needed a cover.

I am not an artist.

But I know one in real life. :)

His name is Chris Howard, and I am fortunate to have met him years ago in a Boston area writing workshop, where in addition to discovering his incredible writing style, I also found out what a creative and skilled artist he is. I asked him if he would take on a cover commission for FUTURE TENSE and he agreed.

Because I had absolutely NO IDEA what I wanted for the cover, I sent him my 'cover blurb' along with physical descriptions of the major characters, as well as some of the specific tarot cards that were crucial to the story.

In the ten years since his parents died in a fire he predicted but couldn't prevent, seventeen year old Matt Garrison is trying to stay out of trouble, biding his time until he ages out of foster care. All he wants is for the world to leave him alone so he won't be tortured by seeing someone's future he's powerless to change anyway. But his plans for keeping himself aloof fail when he interrupts a vicious attack on Amara Guzman, a girl he recognizes from his school. Despite his best attempts to push her away, he can't ignore the connection they've formed. That's when glimpses of her dangerous future start to invade the present — a future he fears he is responsible for. Now Matt has something to lose again . . . and something to fight for.

Main characters:

Matt Garrison

6'2", well built, (advanced brown belt in karate)

Caucasian, short dark hair, blue eyes

Amara Guzman

5'3", slender

Hispanic, medium length dark hair in ringlets, brown eyes

Foster family:

The Powells are an older, middle aged African-American couple, both greying. Mr. P was in the army and has the grizzled look of former vets. Mrs. P has a neat afro.

Trina is their granddaughter, 9 years old, but petite for her age. Traumatized as a young child, and possibly on the autism spectrum, she communicates through her drawings.

Lola is a mixed-race foster kid, also 9

Jack is a 6 y.o. African-American foster child with closely shaved hair.

Antagonists:

Bruno Jones

6'4" football player build, African-American teen

Chico Alvarez

Slender, 5'10", Hispanic teen

The final important character is Amara's grandmother, Abuela Rosa, an elderly, mostly blind and tiny Hispanic woman who lives in a nursing home and teaches Matt to read the tarot as a way to harness his pre-cog abilities.

Setting: post-industrial inner city. Think Detroit, or some of the old MA industrial towns on the decline. The tarot features heavily in the plot, with several cards recurring thematically:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tower_%28Tarot_card%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_of_Swords

The major theme of the story is about learning to trust and that trust is worth the risk.

I assured him I didn't expect him to paint a huge cast of characters on the cover, but wanted to give him a flavor of the story and its environment.

The cover took a few iterations, with my suggestions amounting to minor tweaks. (The first version didn't have Matt wearing a hoodie, and that's actually a thematic element throughout the story. I asked Chris to include the Tower card prominently.) It was astonishing to me that even the first version he sent me captured the emotion of the story so perfectly. There is no scene that looks like this in the book, but rather, each of the elements of the cover echoes the themes that recur.

I loved watching this take shape and life and marvel at the skills of a visual artist. I tell stories with words. I can't draw or paint. Not only am I a terrible photographer, but I don't tend to notice visual details in my environment. (I get lost a lot. Thank goodness for my GPS.) So I am grateful to know someone like Chris, who not only has the artistic skills I lack, but comes to his art with a firm grasp on storytelling and so can use his art to enhance the meaning of a story.

FUTURE TENSE is in its final stages of its publication process. Stay tuned for its release date in early February. It will be available as a trade paperback as well as in all eBook formats.

If you are a book blogger/reviewer, and would like a complementary advanced copy, please contact me, either through the blog or via email: lisa@ljcohen.net

2013 - The Year that Was

So it's that time, again. Time to take stock of what I accomplished in the past twelve months in relation to what I had hoped to accomplish. Time to look ahead to the New Year and anticipate what it will bring.

I have made these year end round-up posts every year since 2007. ( 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012. God-willing and the river don't rise, I will continue to make them, moving forward into the future.

When I look back at my yearly reviews, I am humbled by my ambitions. I very rarely accomplish everything I set out to do, but I don't consider that a failure. Instead, I also look at what I have accomplished and find cause for celebration.

These were my plans for 2013:

• Revise/edit the ghost story (which really, really needs a title) and DERELICT
• Brainstorm with Nephele regarding what to write next/continue to align goals with the aim of publication
• Complete and publish the Ultimate SF&F Workshop Anthology
• Write 4-6 new short stories

 So, dear readers, how did I do?

1. Revised and edited DERELICT, and it is currently now on submission through Nephele Tempest, my agent.
   
2. Along with my co-editor, Talib Hussain, I released PEN-ULTIMATE: A SPECULATIVE FICTION ANTHOLOGY at Readercon 2013. As this was conceived as a charity project, we are thrilled to have already made our first donation to the SFWA emergency medical fund.
   
3. One of my short stories was included in the THEME-THOLOGY: INVASION anthology.
   
4. Wrote 1 new short story and revised three others. (Short stories are hard!)
   
5. Working with a developmental editor, finished a complete 'renovation' of a trunked novel, now named OATHBREAKER'S PRICE, an alternate-world fantasy. It is now being read by an acquiring editor of a small press.
   
6. First draft: I am approximately 2/3 to 3/4 through the first draft of the as-yet unnamed sequel to THE BETWEEN.
   
7. Close to 80  blog posts between Once in a Blue Muse Blog and guest posts for other writing sites.
   
8. Poetry: a dozen or so poems
   
9. Enjoyed being part of the programs for both Boskone and Readercon in 2013 and am looking forward to my participation in 2014.

So, all in all, this was a very productive year. I have a lot planned for 2014 and it has the possibility of being a very exciting year!

• Forging ahead in a hybrid path to publication, while my agent is actively submitting DERELICT, I will be independently publishing several novels, including a YA fantasy, FUTURE TENSE in early 2014 and readying THE BETWEEN's sequel by the end of 2014.
  
• I look forward to the chance to experience working with a small press on OATHBREAKER'S PRICE. If the manuscript is not picked up by the press, I will publish it under Interrobang Books sometime mid-year.
  
• I will be joining a group writing blog with several amazing and talented ladies, but I can't tell you about it yet. :) But don't worry, Once in a Blue Muse Blog will still be my main blogging home.
  
•  I am dipping my toes into a collaborative middle grade project with a writer I've worked with from Google+. Again, I can't divulge the details yet, but I'm excited about working on something so different from my usual writing fare.
  
• With the skills I have developed in full-contact revision, I will be assessing one of my early high fantasy novels for its resurrection potential while the next novel finds me.

Have a great 2014, one and all.

A Year in the Life

2012: A Review

I find it extremely useful to look back at the year that has just passed as a way to move forward in setting goals for the upcoming year.

I've written these year-in-review posts for as long as I've been blogging and I find a curious thing: while I almost never actually meet my yearly goals, I accomplish an enormous number of things. They're just not necessarily the items I had anticipated.

Perhaps this is not quite the problem or failure it might seem to be. Life throws curve balls. If there's one thing I have learned in the past several years, it's to be flexible in the face of the unexpected. (Now, stop laughing, I didn't say I enjoyed it, or even did it gracefully. . . )

So in that spirit, I offer this restatement of the goals I set this year for 2012:

In 2012, I intended to:  

1. Shepherd THE BETWEEN to its ideal readers

My first major goal for 2012 was to get THE BETWEEN in the hands of its readers. I spent a lot of time in the beginning months of 2012 working on obtaining reviews, doing guest blog posts and giveaways, and crafting a marketing plan that felt authentic and not sleazy. I think I accomplished that and made authentic connections with readers and potential readers.

2. Generate enough support and interest to write and release its sequel.

In terms of working on the sequel, I have a bare bones structure for when I return to that world. But I realized that raising awareness for one novel while trying to kickstart another was a way to burn out.

3. Finish the first draft of the "YAGSIP"

Goal number 3? I was all over that. I *owned* that goal. It was an excellent writing year, actually. Now if only I could find a name for the %$#!! novel.

4. Return to my poetry roots

Poetry. I filled several small notebooks with lines, stanzas, and drafts of poems. I also participated in the annual August Poetry Postcard fest, where I wrote 31 original postcard poems and sent them all over the world to 31 different poets.I also got to attend the 2012 Dodge Poetry Festival, which always fires up my soul with the sheer beauty of language.

5. Focus on my physical wellness

Well being? Well, that was a major fail. I know this has been on my list of goals for several years now and I need to do something about it. I'm healthy, but in poor physical shape. I could berate myself for laziness, but it's also that I've had to cope with some significant personal and family stressors in the past year, including the death of my mother and my father's multiple hospitalizations. 

So, what DID I accomplish in 2012?

• In addition to completing the first draft of the Ghost Story, I also started and am set to finish a Science Fiction novel (DERELICT) that I project to come in at 100,000 words. (As of last night, it's at 92K) That represents 1 1/2 novels written in 2012. 
• I revised FUTURE TENSE with feedback from both my agent and some wonderful beta readers (shout out to the lovely gals of the #SWFG and Rebecca Blain from G+)
• Approximately 100 new blogposts, the majority of them here at the Once in a Blue Muse Blog, but also as part of several blog tours, including the Merry-Go-Round Blog tour and the Black Ink White Paper group blog.
• Speaking of DERELICT, I decided to do something different with my work and serialize it as a novel in progress. I've been slowly garnering a wonderful community of interested readers and have really enjoyed the process of being accountable to them during the process.
• At Readercon last July, I had dinner with my fellow graduates of Jeffrey A. Carver's and Craig Shaw Gardner's Ultimate SF&F Workshop. Sitting around the table, it struck me that I was in company with an enormously talented pool of writers and suggested we put together an anthology. I'm thrilled to say that this project is moving forward and my co-editor and I will be meeting to review our submissions over the next few weeks with a plan to have the anthology ready in time for 2013 Readercon.
• I released a slew of new short stories to subscribers of BlueMusings, my newsletter.
• I got to meet my agent, the lovely Nephele Tempest of The Knight Agency, for the first time during a recent trip to L.A. We are working towards the same goals and in the same direction, weathering the vagaries of the publishing industry.
• I applied for, and was invited to run a panel with the estimable Tamora Pierce at 2012 ConBust, a small SF&F con run at Smith College in Northampton, MA. It was a wonderful experience, one I will treasure (especially since I got to meet and stay with the utterly wonderful Jane Yolen!!)

In 2013, I Intend to Accomplish:

• Revise/edit the ghost story (which really, really needs a title) and DERELICT
• Brainstorm with Nephele regarding what to write next/continue to align goals with the aim of publication
• Complete and publish the Ultimate SF&F Workshop Anthology
• Write 4-6 new short stories

To my reader and writer friends: May the New Year bring you joy and peace.

Musician, Reader, Critic, Teenager

On the way home from my younger son's clarinet lesson, I had an interesting conversation with him about several of my novels.  He was re-reading "House of Many Doors" (I had converted to an epub so he could have it on his ipod touch) and reminding me how much he loved this story.

In some ways, it's the story he's grown up with.  I started writing it when he was in middle school and he (and his older brother) both helped me brainstorm the story in addition to being its first readers.  In "On Writing," Stephen King talks about writing for your ideal reader.  When it comes to my YA titles, my two teens are it.  As much as I write for myself and to be honest to the story, I also write for them. 

So in the car, he told me he really liked the fact that having a haunted house be one of the characters felt completely natural.  That there was never a time in the story where he questioned why the house is what it is or does what it does.

He also said, in comparing "House" with "Future Tense," that "House" was much more of a psychological story, where "Future Tense" is an action story.  In addition, he thought that Parker (from "House") had more of a support network from the very start than Matt did ("Future Tense") and that while Parker only has to fight the haunted house, Matt has to deal with his whole world coming down on him. 

It gave me an 'aha' moment.

Parker needs to be more imperiled in "House." More has to be difficult for him.  He has to doubt himself more and struggle more.  Matt has that in spades, right from the start and it gives the story more stakes. (A word my son also used in talking about this.)

My kiddo may only be 14, but he is a thoughtful and careful reader as well as quite the critic.

How cool is that?!

November Writing Madness

If you're a writer, you probably know that November is NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. The 30 days of insanity where writers of all ages, some for the first time, others multi-published authors, type their fingers to the bone to get 50,000 words on the page in one insane month.

I don't do NaNo.  Not for any reason other than it's not my process, and to twist myself in knots to write at that pace would defeat the entire spirit of NaNo which is to circumvent your internal editor and get to that 'crappy first draft', while having a bit of fun. 

I know myself well enough to know that NaNo would increase my anxiety to a point where I would feel like a failure.  Even if I did manage to write 50K in 30 days, I don't think I could make order out of that chaos.  My brain just doesn't do that.  (My most productive first draft was about 65K in 12 weeks, and although the result was a solid draft of "Future Tense," that pace was brutal on my body and resulted in some serious neck and arm problems that took another 6 months to resolve.)

However, I am no NaNo naysayer.  (Hey--look at that alliteration!) Many of my writing peeps do NaNo and I cheer them on from the sidelines.  I think it's super that they even have teens doing NaNo.  I love, love, love to see kids get passionate about writing.

If you want to see a lovely rebuttal to some of the snobbery around NaNo (and, boy, is there a lot of it), Dave Fenton (whose twitter feed is quite remarkable) links to this from the LA Times. 

So, even though I don't participate in NaNo, I do like challenges, so I'm playing with a different kind of writing madness in November.  Robert Lee Brewers November Poem a Day chapbook challenge.

It's been interesting in that I'm not writing any complete poems.  Rather in the spirit of NaNo, I'm letting my morning pages lead to 'crappy first drafts' of poems.  I've committed to just getting the words down and waiting until December to attempt to forge them into fully realized poems. 

There is something quite freeing in not worrying about craft at this stage.  Some interesting images and motifs are showing up, even without my intent.  So tricky, our subconscious minds.

I'll share some of the process of morning pages to first draft through revisions on the blog next month.

For now, happy writing, all.

Satisfaction in the Doing

For the past week or so, I've been immersed in the world of a novel I wrote exactly a year ago, called "Future Tense".  This morning, I finished hand writing my edits on a hard copy of the manuscript, integrating the comments and critiques from three critique partners.

If it sounds like a daunting process, that's because it is.  Editing is another of those balancing acts.  But this time, the balance is between the writer's creative voice and the internal editor.  Between creation and destruction.

Well, not destruction, exactly, but it can feel like that at times in the process.  The creative mind is like a magpie.  Everything it sees is 'ohh, shiny'. And it's important to reach for those shiny things, using as many of them to build something both messy and bright.

Messy, because creativity is not an orderly, neat process. One of the main lessons I've learned about my own process this past year is that in my writing and in my life, I have a fear of letting go.  It makes me one of the most un-spontaneous people I know.  It will not surprise anyone who knows me to know I love lists and live and die by my planning calendar. 

I've brought that same kind of planning to my writing.  On the plus side, it does give me the necessary discipline to finish what I start, even (especially?) when the writing isn't going the way I want it to go.

However (and this is big), it also limits the creativity and the spontaneity of my stories.  Which leads me to yet another balance:  between predictability and randomness.

Especially in the creative process, I need to allow my unconscious mind to wander more.  To follow that shiny idea without worrying about what it is.  If I'm never surprised by the story, how can my reader be? 

So here is when I circle back to the title and opening of this blog post.  Satisfaction in the Doing.  In looking through three sets of critique comments, it was gratifying to see where I had let the story breathe ("Wow--didn't see that one coming, but it makes perfect sense.") and where I needed to give the story it's freedom even more ("You already told us this, repetitive.  Trust the reader.")

I struck out predictable lines with some sort of manic glee and added other segments to deepen the emotional resonance and add a slower unfolding of some events. 

And it was fun.

Whatever happens to this, or any other of my manuscripts, I need to remember how much I love this process of sculpting a story and seeing it take its form, both in ways planned and unplanned.

The Small and Unexpected Joys

Last year, one of my writer friends graciously volunteered to be the first reader for the first draft of "Future Tense."  Her critique was unbelievably helpful in the first pass revision.

This year, I subjected the revised manuscript to the folks in my local crit group, and their remarks were much fewer, and much more focused on just a few key areas.  I think this would never have happened if it wasn't for my first (brave!) reader.  (Thank you, Wen!)

Well, I was chatting with her, just a few minutes ago, and she told me that she still thinks about a particular scene in "Future Tense" that struck her, even in first draft, a year ago.

Isn't that what we writers want?  Crave?  Write for in the first place?

To know that I've connected with a single reader, who remembers and thinks about something I've created a year on.  Well, that's the most amazing gift I can ever receive.

I will return to the 2nd pass revision of this manuscript with a renewed eagerness.   A renewed commitment to get it right.  An added joyfulness.

A rambling post about editing, rejection, and the red fox on my lawn this morning

I wish I had had the presence of mind to grab a camera. But, alas, it was before my first cup of coffee and I was mainly annoyed at how loud my dog was barking. (Before said cup of coffee. . . )

My youngest son called me to the front door and there was a beautiful red fox on our front lawn staring at my crazed, barking dog. (Tigger looks pretty calm here, doesn't she?  That's because there's no fox, rabbit, or squirrel taunting her.)

Anyway, I got to the door in time to see this sleek, bushy tailed fox pick its way carefully across our lawn and into our neighbor's yard, without a care in the world, completely ignoring the yelps and yowls from Tigger, trapped on the wrong side of the door.

It made me realize that while we may think we live in settled, tamed suburbia, there is a remarkable world living beside us that we rarely notice.

---

So. Rejection. Anyone who has put him or herself 'out there' knows it all too well. Over the past 6 months, my 11th grade son has taken several leaps of faith and tried out/applied/submitted himself in a bunch of different areas. And last week, he experienced the pain of having responses come in for all of them. And every last answer was 'no.'

It could have been soul crushing. It could have led to fury and despair. I know my own soul ached for him. And yet, he moved through it all with a grace and a humor that I envy. Certainly, I did not have that ability when I was his age. Hell, I'm not sure I have it now.

One of the things I told him was that one's true character is defined not by our successes, but by how we handle our disappointments. By my accounting, my son is an extraordinary young man.

---

Editing.

I wrote the first draft for "Future Tense" in a furious bout of creativity and typing over 12 weeks this fall. All while my house was falling down around my ears, and family stressors pulled me in six different directions at once. A dear writing friend (waves to Wen!) agreed to read/crit that first draft and she did an incredible job, giving me 7 pages of notes.

At the time, I wasn't ready to really study them, so I put them and the draft aside to work on some other things. Fast forward a few months later, and I was ready to take on the revision.

The process I've taken for this story is different than for the 5 novels that preceded it. For one thing, I've never written a draft so quickly before. For another, I'd not written a book with such little advance planning either.

What I discovered, and Wen's crits confirmed, was that this story had really good bones. Characters that weren't "TSTL" (the link focuses on romance novels, but you'll get the idea), a plot that mostly hung together, and a solid hook and premise.

What the story needed was a bare-knuckled no-hold-barred edit where every scene is scrutinized for clarity, purpose, tension, and flow.

Sounds a lot simpler than it is. :)

But, I'm actually loving this process. I'm about halfway through and have added close to 6,000 words to the story. (I write lean in my first drafts. Others write extra and need to pare, still others a mix of the two.) I'll keep you posted.

Writing out of my comfort zone

One of the things I promised to myself when I began to consider myself a writer was that I would challenge myself to grow and change with every project.

A poet friend once told me that if I wasn't just a little bit uncomfortable with what I was writing, then I wasn't working hard enough. I can honestly say that some of my best work has been created on that bleeding edge.

With each of my 6 completed novels, I have tried to push my comfort zone a little bit further. To stretch myself as a writer. I don't want to be writing the same story in the same way over and over again. It would be boring for me as a writer. I can only imagine it would be boring for a reader.

My last project (Future Tense) was a first person POV story from a male, inner city teen, who has been in foster care since age 6, and who is in a community with people of color. Pretty far removed from my own story and upbringing, as a white, middle class girl, raised in suburbia in a 2 parent household. That members of a crit group who read the opening 3 chapters were convinced that I had a personal connection to my MC's life is strong testimony to the power of research, imagination, and empathy.

(An aside, but the writing advice "write what you know" doesn't mean that you have to write your own life in fictionalized terms. It does mean that you have to know your characters and their lives.)

So what do I do as an encore?

For the past several months, I really had no idea. Granted, I've been more than a bit distracted by real life events and crises, but a few days ago, I started to write again.

And this one is so far out of my comfort zone, I'm not sure how I got here.

The current story pushes entirely out of the YA realm and into erotic/paranormal fantasy. If it is marketable, I will have to sell it under a pen name, particularly since I want to write for the YA market. That last thing I want is to confuse potential readers, especially since the emotional/appropriateness gulf between what I consider my YA titles and the new story is huge.

And yet, the characters call to me in that familiar way that tells me this one is a keeper.

Despite my own discomfort, not with writing explicit scenes, but at the thought of anyone reading them (!), I will write this story. Another of the promises I made to myself was to finish what I started.

We're at >4,000 words of story, another 2K of background and outline. So far, so good.

An honest critique; a gift beyond price

I don't typically subject my readers/crit partners to first drafts, but a writer friend had the time to offer crit on the first draft of "Future Tense."  While it is a pretty 'clean' draft in terms of the basics (grammar, basic plot, characters) it is still a first draft and as such, needs work. 

I tend to write 'lean.'  Setting and character motivation are there, but in skeletal form.  In some ways, a first draft is essentially a proof of concept. Does the whole hang together in a cohesive way?  Or to put it more bluntly, the question I ask my readers is this:  Are there any "WTF" moments that make you want to hurl the book across the room?

What I want from a first draft is a main character the reader can attach to, a story with a beginning, middle, and end, and without "WTF" moments.  If I create that, I have the structure for a solid story.

My writer friend was extraordinarily generous with her time and provided me with 5 pages of notes.  But before she sent me the file, she asked me how thick my skin was.

While my emotional self was huddled in the corner with its thumb in its mouth, my writer self was turning handsprings. 

This is why:  a solid critique is a gift beyond price. 

Do I have this fantasy that I'll write a first draft that will be flawless, that will have all the Hollywood directors lining up for the movie rights, that will win all sorts of prizes and garner a 6 figure advance?  Sure.  But magical thinking doesn't get a book written.

And if you want to play with the big boys, you have to be willing to do the hard work of tearing your manuscript apart and putting it back together again.

That's where good crit comes in. 

I believe it is nearly impossible for the writer to gain enough distance from the work to be objective enough.  Part of the process of writing is to hopelessly and utterly fall in love with the work.  Otherwise, it becomes a masochistic process to chain yourself to the word processor for something you can't stand.  And if the writer doesn't love it first, how can the reader?

So it takes an outside eye to point out the flaws and the seams.  If you find such a reader, he or she is someone to treasure. I have been fortunate enough to have several such readers in my life.  One is not a writer, but a voracious reader with keen instincts and insights into what makes a story satisfying.

This is the first critique I have received from my writer friend.  When she asked me how thick my skin was, I had a 'uh oh' moment.  But I charged ahead, letting her know I could take it and her critique was thorough, honest, and thoughtful.

It will help immensely when I tackle the revision/editing process for "Future Tense."

I am extremely grateful and hope I can return the favor.

2009--A Writer's Year in Review

I've taken the opportunity to look back at the year in writing each December.  Previous posts are here:  2008, 2007, 2006

When I look back several years to when my writing journey began, I see several themes emerge.  Writing takes hard work, persistence, and a hopeful attitude.  

Even from my very first draft of my very first novel, I was willing to put in the time to make it the best I could.  And I had a strong belief that I could succeed.  Back then, success meant finishing a novel.  Once that happened, then success meant writing another novel.  Then learning the realities of publishing and finding an agent.

At each stage, I was able to realize 'success', and raise the bar to the next level, all the while, being just naive and just hopeful enough to believe I could reach the goal.

And I have.

2009 was the year that I believed I could be a professional writer.  It was the year of the agent.  (Waves to Nephele!)  It was the year of the submission process (and the year of learning patience).  It was the year of setting and meeting writing challenges and deadlines.

Writing accomplishments for 2009:

Novels:
Completed "The Between"
Began and Completed "Future Tense"
Edited "The House of Many Doors"
Edited "MindBlind"
Edited "Heal Thyself"


Poetry:
Poems written and/or substantially revised: 12


Short Stories
Written and/or substantially revised:  7

My goals for 2009 were:
1. to return to my 1,000 words/day or 5,000 words/week pace  I think I accomplished this with a vengeance, completing a first draft of "Future Tense" in 10 weeks.

2. to allow myself the freedom to work on a crappy first draft  Again, accomplished, though I understand my process well enough to know I will never work at a 'nano' pace and that my first draft process does include back reading and editing.

3. to find a 'just right' in person writing group  I have found a once per month writing group that emerged from a workshop I took last year.  While it is mostly short story writers, it is a good group of folks and I get a lot out of it.


My goals for 2010:
  1.  Be ready with a marketing plan for when my first novel sells.  (While I would love to set publication of my first novel as a goal, I also understand that it is not under my control, so instead, I will set the part I can accomplish.)

  2. Appropriately use social networking tools to build connections with writers and readers, while not getting sucked into a black hole of time wasting on the net.  I already have a website.  I've been consistently  blogging for several years.  This year I added FB and twitter to the list, but can fritter away too many hours. Must be aware of this in 2010.

  3. Return to my 'roots' of writing poetry.  This is something I neglected in '09.  I also would like to teach poetry more workshops in the schools this year.  And I am so looking forward to Dodge '10!

Hard work.
Persistence.
Hopeful attitude.

These are the attributes I continue to take with me on my writing journey.


All the best in '10 to all my writer friends.

"Future Tense" : First Draft Done!

It took me a full year to write my first novel.  But then, I was also learning how to actually write a novel.  I still remember when I first heard the term POV Violation.  I had committed the crime, but had to look up what it actually meant.

There was so much I didn't know when I started to write that book.  Perhaps if I had known how daunting a task it is to write a full novel, I would never have had the audacity to write one.

But I learned.  And kept learning.  And kept writing.

Over the past 5 years, in addition to that first attempt--a high fantasy,  I have also written a near-future medical thriller, a fantasy-romance, and 3 YA urban fantasy (?) books. 

I've learned something from each story I've tackled, played with multiple and single points of view, third person and first person, even wrote from the POV of a teenage boy. 

This latest story, "Future Tense" emerged from the image of a run-away boy to a full blown 60K story in less than 10 weeks.  While not quite "NaNo" pace, it does represent a huge shift in my writing process.  While we are still waiting for word on my first potential sale, in many ways this story marks my transition from hobby writer to professional writer.

I know I can approach the writing as my work and write in a disciplined way while not losing the essential joy that writing has brought me from day one.  I know I can meet deadlines, even the personal ones that I only set for myself.  I know I'm willing and eager to do the work of editing and taking feedback to make the writing and the story stronger.

And most of all, I'm eager to share the stories with readers, making a connection through the printed page between author and audience.

It will happen. And I can't wait.