2015: Looking Back, Looking Forward, Ever Grateful

Perpetual Calendar, photo by Plenty.R, used under CC license

I have done these year end posts going back to 2007 ( 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014) and as ever, the consistent theme is change. From last year's post, my main goal was:

  

 ". . . to stay open to new possibilities and new opportunities as they arise."

Well, I'm pretty sure I've managed to meet that goal. And along the way, I've done a ton of work writing, publishing, and networking, despite a year that was also full of personal struggles and loss. But that is what makes up a life. And despite grief, setbacks, and disappointments, I know that I am extremely fortunate.

I both love and am loved. I have the support from family, friends, and readers to continue to do this writing thing that challenges and fulfills me. Stories and characters continue to surprise and delight me. 

It's easy to lose perspective in the day to day slog of survival, which is one of the reasons I do these round up posts. 

So here's what I accomplished in 2015:

• In January of 2015, I published TIME AND TITHE, the sequel to 2012’s Fae Fantasy, The Between.
• Between Fall of 2014 and early Winter 2015, I drafted and revised ITHAKA RISING, book 2 in my Halcyone Space SF series.
• ITHAKA RISING was published in July of 2015.
• Bill Burrows recorded and co-produced audiobooks for both DERELICT and ITHAKA RISING.
• I wrote (and completed) the first draft of DREADNOUGHT AND SHUTTLE, book 3 of Halcyone Space.
• Between this blog and others, produced close to 100 original posts, wrote dozens of poems, and a few short stories.

While the release of ITHAKA RISING didn't match up to the amazing and surprising success of DERELICT, I'm confident in my process. And I'm confident in the quality of the book. It will find its audience. I will continue the series through at least another book or three. It seems like the further in to the universe I get, the bigger it becomes and the more story I uncover.

What's on tap for me in 2016?

• DREADNOUGHT AND SHUTTLE will be published Summer of 2016 (Here's a peek at the blurb!)

• After Ro Maldonado, a reckless young computer programmer, resurrects the damaged AI on a long dormant freighter, she and the accidental crew of Halcyone grapple with explosive secrets they exposed from a war that officially ended decades ago.
  
  Now, charged with protecting the location of Ithaka, the heart of the resistance, Ro and her friends must learn to lead double lives within the Commonwealth. But their plans to hide in plain sight disintegrate when an old enemy returns and threatens revenge. As they track him down, each course they plot endangers the life of his hostage and threatens to reveal Ithaka, brand them traitors, and reignite a war that could destroy them all.

•  I'm also working on a short story that takes place during the war 40 years before the events in the Halcyone Space books. It will be in STARBOUND, an upcoming anthology. 

• Draft book 4 in the Halcyone Space series
• And finally, for something completely different. . . I'll be working on a new kind of story in a new kind of way. Author (and friend) Rick Wayne and I will be collaborating on a SF/thriller: Vito Nonce - A man who cannot be remembered is sent to kill the woman who cannot forget. I am ridiculously excited about this project. Getting to work with Rick is an amazing opportunity. I love his writing and can't wait to get going!

To you, who have taken this journey with me, I offer my thanks and my gratitude. Writing stories for readers to enjoy is an enormous privilege. Beyond the sales numbers and the Amazon rankings, and the frustrations of signal boosting and struggle to reach an audience, is the sheer joy of seeing a reader engage with and be moved by something I've created.

That moment of connection is magic. It's what drives me to keep going during the solitary times where I'm staring at a blinking cursor, not knowing how to find the next words.

Thank you. If you have read a book of mine and enjoyed it, if you have reviewed it, or recommended it to a friend, or sent me an email, or signed up for my newsletter, or added a word of quiet encouragement, I am grateful.

My promise to you is this:  I will keep writing and keep creating worlds for you to lose yourself in. Or maybe to find yourself. If I can do that, I will be content.

Wishing you all the best for 2016.

#SFWApro

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The game of publishing: or why all writers are driven off the deep end

"crickets"
(Original photo by Barry Skeates, used under a creative commons licence; CC BY 2.0)

Pardon the pun.

I released my fourth novel into the world one week ago to very little fanfare. [crickets]*

*via urban dictionary: "To have a joke or comment followed by a silence substantial enough to make the chirping of crickets audible."

And the rules of cricket are well neigh incomprehensible to anyone outside the cricket world. This is also the case with publishing. Except even the players don't really know the rules.

This is part of what drives the anxiety of writers - all the parts of the writing and publishing process we have control of are complete by the time publication day arrives. All the rest of it - how and if the book gets into the hands of readers - is, for the most part, not up to us.

I've had releases that sink quietly into the void.

I've had releases that steadily rise like a big, red, helium balloon.

The funny thing is (in the odd-funny rather than the humorous-funny), I don't believe I've done anything radically different for the former versus the latter.

It's similar to my memories of my early motherhood days. I had two sons, born almost 3 years apart. Spawn #1 slept through the night at three months old. I must have been the perfect mother. Did everything right. Got rewarded. Then I had spawn #2. Parented him in the same way. He didn't sleep through the night until he was well over two years old.

What allows one child to be an effortless sleeper and one to struggle is the stuff of thousands of parenting books.

What allows one book to rocket up the charts and another to be passed over is the stuff of thousands of publishing books.

So much of the business of publishing is random and capricious. DERELICT did great, right out of the gate. Within 5 days of its publication, it was selling in the upper hundreds of copies a day. TIME AND TITHE? Baby steps. Selling a handful of copies.

But here's the thing: I think it's written at least as well as its more successful sibling. I could probably list a host of reasons why this launch was not as promising, and some of them might even be accurate. With as many variables as there are in this business, I may never really know.

I come to writing after a long career as a physical therapist, where there was a large emphasis of science, outcomes, and data. Much (though certainly not all) of what we could offer for treatment had, at least, some objective support in the literature and we could expect to reach (often, not universally) predictable outcomes.

It's not like that in publishing. There are too many variables. Too few data points. While there are experts who will try to tell you otherwise (and sell you their services), no one has the answer.

What I am able to control, I control to the best of my ability. That includes writing the best manuscript I know how, then working as hard as I can to make it better. That includes beta readers and revisions. That includes hiring professional editors, professional artists, formatting and typesetting, and blogging and networking.

At the end of this process, I know TIME AND TITHE is a solid book. But that may not be enough. Some books never find their readership. Some books do. It has little to do with objective metrics. After all, who is qualified to be tastemaker for all readers? It is my hope that this newest of my novels will find its way into the hands of readers.

Only time will tell.

And while I'm waiting, I can be found at my desk working on the next story.

---

TIME AND TITHE is the sequel to THE BETWEEN, but can be read independently. You can find links to all purchase venues here.

Lydia's victory over the Fae came with a bitter price - her baby sister, Taylor, grew up without her, aging more than a decade in the mere weeks that have passed in Faerie. When Aeon's madness threatens both realms, the sisters, now nearly strangers to one another, are forced to fight the powerful Fae who was once friend to each of them.

When everything happens at once

There is a feast or famine aspect of life as a writer. In drafting a new novel, an important part of the process is letting the story 'marinate' in the subconscious. To the non-writer, this can look a lot like daydreaming or being lazy. I can assure you, when a writer is in her native habitat, looking to all outside appearances as if she is not writing, there is story happening.

Tigger and Dustin only look like they're completely at rest.
If I said the word 'w.a.l.k.' or picked up a tennis ball, they'd
be up in a flash.

And when you are a writer/artist/musician/etc, it feels as if your life consists of long stretches of nothing happening, punctuated by intense times where everything seems to crash down on you at the same time.

This is where I am now.

I am not complaining; this is the life I chose after my very predictable career as a physical therapist. I love what I do and feel inordinately grateful that I have the ability to pursue a creative life.

This past weekend, I was immersed in geek/fan/writing culture at Arisia. I have been to other SF&F cons before, but this was my first Arisia. It was a riot of color and sound, of incredible cosplay, and wonderful conversations and connections with both creators and fans.  

It was incredible to spend time with my fellow members of Broad Universe, an organization dedicated to promoting women writing in speculative fiction. And I participated in the art show, displaying my ceramics for the first time.

One of the struggles of so many creative folk - myself included - is that we can tend to be introverts. I am what I call a 'social introvert', in that I am very outgoing and not at all shy. However, I need my quiet/alone time to recharge, especially after the immersion of interactions that is a con.

If I had my 'druthers, I'd spend the next week in deep silence. Unfortunately, I am running up against some hard deadlines, that are adding to my overall stress level. Again, they are for really great and exciting things; they are just happening all at once.

TIME AND TITHE, the sequel to THE BETWEEN, will be released the second Monday in February. And between now and then, there are an overwhelming number of details to be managed. Publishing one novel is work enough; I am rebranding THE BETWEEN with a new cover to match the art for TIME AND TITHE, so some of the work has doubled.

Jules Valera's new cover art for THE BETWEEN

And the cover for TIME AND TITHE is not quite done yet. I know it will be soon, and it will be fabulous when it's finished. I'm just feeling the crunch of time.

Because all of this work has to be completed by January 31st. When I travel to Iceland.

Again - not complaining! This is a trip that was an unexpected and unplanned adventure, and one that I am extremely excited about.

And when I return from the trip, the book releases and Boskone begins 5 days later.

:takes big, deep breath:

I can do this.

I know I can.

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.

Promises Kept: Time and Tithe is finished

Working out the 'end game' (don't worry, it makes sense to me)

When I started writing THE BETWEEN in October of 2008, I had no idea it would become a novel, much less have a sequel. The story emerged from a prompt in a writer's group meeting at my local library. One of the other writers gave us the sentence: The sky went dark. We then had 20 minutes to write.

That was the beginning of Lydia's tale.

While THE BETWEEN was my first publication, it represented my fifth completed manuscript, and it took me 8 months to write its first draft. From that point in the summer of 2009 to its publication date in January of 2012, the story was revised four times before I believed it was ready for prime time.

It was only after the story was finished that I understood it was not complete. Or rather, while Lydia's original story has a complete ending, the conclusion of the novel raised a lot of new questions to be answered. I made a promise to myself that I would write an answer to those questions and tackle the monster that is a sequel.

But first I had other novels to write. Between 2009 and 2010, I wrote FUTURE TENSE. Between 2010 and 2011, an as yet unnamed and yet to be revised ghost story. Then in a furious burst of writing, DERELICT in 2012. I wasn't able to return to the sequel from hell until October of 2013, exactly five years after starting THE BETWEEN.

TIME AND TITHE took 9 months to draft. That's nearly twice the amount of time as it took me to draft DERELICT. I struggled with returning to the voice of the characters I had created so long ago, and since I had not initially planned to write a second novel in that universe, I had never created a reference bible for it. Now I had to find a way to inhabit the self I was when I wrote Lydia's story, and find a way to continue it, deepen it, yet remain true to the original. 

I think I have done that with TIME AND TITHE. What excited me about the story was the chance to explore relationships and how time changes them. In THE BETWEEN, Lydia is 18, her sister, Taylor is about 6. But time moves differently between Faerie and the mortal world, and when TIME AND TITHE begins, it's only been months for Lydia, but years for Taylor.

The sisters are now the same age.

And Faerie wants both of them.

I've been sharing snippets and short scenes on Google Plus, during #SaturdayScenes. You can read them by searching for #ljsatscenes (https://plus.google.com/u/0/explore/ljsatscenes) Scroll down to the bottom, as they are presented in reverse chronological order like in a blog.

While I'm hammering away at the revision, I've sent notes to the cover artist and am awaiting a concept sketch. If the stars align, TIME AND TITHE will be ready for release in January of 2014.

What's New in Your Corner of the World?

original cover art copyright Veris Maya

original cover art copyright Chris Howard

This Spring, I have two new projects in the production pipeline. A collection of short stories, "Stranger Worlds Than These," and an SF novel, DERELICT.

I'm very excited about them both, and I'm especially pleased to be moving forward on new things after what felt like a very long and difficult Winter.

The story collection (look for it end of April or early May) includes the SF story I contributed to our charity anthology, PEN-ULTIMATE, along with 6 others that have not been published elsewhere. Some have been included in my occasional newsletter, others are brand new. I used to think I didn't like short stories - not reading them and not writing them, but I realized that this wasn't true. My frustration with short stories is that they are hard. In some ways, they are far harder to write than novels, where the author has all kinds of wiggle room to explore and define character, setting, and conflict. With short stories, you have to punch it and hit your mark right away. There is no meandering around. Every word must count.

Short stories are much closer to poetry than they are to novels. But poetry is something I'm at home writing and once I realized this kinship, it became much easier to work with small narratives.

Another lovely thing about short stories is I can reward myself with one every night before I go to bed, with less of a risk of staying up way past my bedtime because I can't put the book down. :) I'm working my way through the Tor 5 years of story anthology this way and discovering several authors whose work is now on my TBR list.

I can't wait until I can release DERELICT (late spring or early summer, 2014) into the world! It's a story I love, with complex and diverse characters, an insane AI controlling a broken ship, and a chase through space. What's not to love? I have plans for multiple novels in this universe, so if you like space opera, stay tuned.

I'll be announcing the release dates on my newsletter, so please subscribe for the latest news and a sneak peek at one of the stories in the collection.

And I'm still working on TIME AND TITHE, the sequel to THE BETWEEN. My target date for publication is late Fall 2014.

Lots happening here at "Chez LJ". What's going on in your part of the universe?

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!

Sequel Blues

Timeline for THE BETWEEN's sequel

I'm working through the final 25% of the novel and struggling. This is the place where all the various plot threads need to weave together into a coherent and satisfying conclusion With a story that has four point of view characters and multiple sub-plots running through it, this isn't a simple matter. I finally resorted to technology to help me and created a running timeline with characters on the y-axis and chapters on the x-axis. Each little box represents a scene and has the barest of bare bones outlines of that particular scene. That way I can look at the entire story, or any individual timeline.

I'll get there. The multiple characters isn't even the most difficult part. That would be making sure I stay internally consistent with the first book while I write the sequel.

But even a difficult writing day is a joy. Here's a snippet from the latest scene. 

Aeon paced the dais Lydia had created around the peach tree at the center of his garden. Why had she chosen to seat her power here? Why not the grove of the Unbound, in the shadow of the conquered monarchs? That would have sent an unmistakable message to the Fae. Or she could have at least taken over the former holdings of Bright. It was Oberon who tore her roots from her old life, after all. He stopped and trailed his finger along the arm of the wicker throne. Tiny wild roses bloomed at his touch, their buds turning to him and opening as if he were their personal sun. All around him, the trees hung heavily with perfectly ripe fruit. The mingled scents of peach and apple flavored the air.

This used to be a place of peace and refuge. Even when he had been a prisoner of the maze, this haven had soothed him. But Lydia had sunk her name deep into the soil beside his and now the living place quietly rebuked him. Even banished, she still had power here. Anger rose in him like sap in a tree. The roses withered, the red draining from their petals, before dropping to the ground. He gripped the top of the throne until the twigs ground into powder in his hand.

"I am ruler here!"

"Is there any who would gainsay you, Lord?"

Aeon spun around to face the Seneschal. The man took a jerky step back, his body expressing the fear his features hid all too well. Gripping his sigil, Aeon sent his will and his fury through it. The gilded peach pit burned in his palm. "Fair warning, in return for your long years of service. From no on, my garden will be closed to you, Seneschal, unless I bid you here."

He bowed his head a fraction. "Yes, Lord."

The light breeze that had set the leaves whispering died, leaving the two of them in strained silence. Aeon glared at the blurred space where the Seneschal's eyes should have been. "If you have something to say, tell me and leave." Turning his back on the man, Aeon rewove the top of the throne, working green vines in with the wicker. He smoothed his tunic and sat, draping his legs over one of the chair's arms. The other throne's emptiness mocked him. If he chose, he could bring Taylor here to join him. She was but a step away from him, no matter where in Fairie she chose, but he hesitated. He had misjudged Lydia. He couldn't risk doing the same with the sister. Not now, when her power was slowly binding her to Faerie, and to him.

"Your news, Seneschal," he said, lacing his words with the power of command.

The inscrutible Fae stiffened, a puppet answering to his master's strings. Aeon didn't bother to hide his satisfied smirk. The Seneschal had mocked him for too many years not to know there would be a price to be paid for his insolence.

"Lydia has returned. The darklings hold her powerless."

His fingers ceased drumming on the throne's arm, but otherwise, Aeon showed no sign of his surprise. She shouldn't have had the strength to breach the walls between worlds. Unless she had help. He narrowed his eyes, trying and failing to pull the Seneschal's features into focus. Would he risk robbing Deirdre of her death price and earning her enmity to bring Lydia back to challenge him? It made little sense. The Seneschal had too much to lose and too little to gain in placing Lydia back on the gameboard. Besides, she was no longer powerful enough to matter. Especially now that the darklings had stripped her of whatever glamour she had been able to glean in the short time of her banishment.

"What of the sister?" Aeon ached to reach out to her, to find comfort in her childhood memories, when he had been the friend she had craved and created. The uncertainty that made him use the Seneschal as his proxy was a splinter working its way deeper and deeper inside him.

"Taylor is struggling against Nightshade's counsel. She wishes to rescue Lydia. Milord, together, the sisters are a threat. You must act."

Aeon catapulted from the throne to stand over the Seneschal, his hands balled into tight fists. "What will you advise your liege?"

The Seneschal started, but stood his ground. "Use the darklings as you created them. Take any glamour not be offered in tithe and bind the land to its true ruler."

A shiver moved through the garden as clouds thickened overhead to blot out the sun.

"And what of the Hawthornes. Shall I destroy the very trees I had a hand in planting?"

The ground trembled at his feet.

"Strip both sisters of their memories and return them to the Mortal world. It would be a mercy."

"To whom?" Aeon felt a rumble of thunder deep inside his chest. Darkness continued to gather in the heart of the maze.

"Faerie cannot survive like this." The Senescal cast furtive glances to the sky. "Be the King you once were and finish the war Oberon and Titania began and lost."

Aeon stood in silence for a long minute staring at the nameless, faceless Fae whose life reached back nearly as far to the roots of Faerie as his did. Then he opened his mouth and laughed. The sound rolled over the thunder and blasted the clouds from the sky. All around them, apples, pears, peaches, and plums cascaded from trees to thud on the ground, only to vanish as they rolled onto the grass. New buds swelled on bare branches and flowered as Aeon's laugh echoed through the maze. "Oh, you have offered me fine counsel, my old friend." He wiped his tearing eyes and shook his head as the Seneschal stood, his body rigid. "And the King I had been might have thanked you for it."

"Milord?"

"Yes, yes, use your silvered tongue to beg my forgiveness." Aeon smiled, enjoying the Seneschal's discomfort before turning his back on the manipulative Fae. "I may not understand your game yet, old friend, but I do know that anytime your desires run with mine, I had best take care."

The last time the Seneschal tempted him to action, he found himself prisoner of this place, the very vines and thorns that did his bidding now, tools of his jailors.

"I am only what you have created, Milord. And you created me to serve Faerie."

He couldn't remember what impulse led him to craft the glamour that had give the Seneschal such power. Perhaps he had grown complacent in his long rule. "Have you forgotten what your actions have forged?" Aeon whirled to face him again, this time as the twisted, tortured gardener. The pain of assuming that hated shape goaded him. "Did you think all was forgiven?" 

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!

Sometimes goals are really just guidelines and sometimes that's okay

So I had wanted to be finished with the first draft of the sequel to THE BETWEEN by yesterday. From the end of the summer, my intention was to complete it by the end of 2013.

Well, guess what? I blew it. As of yesterday, the manuscript hit 44,000 words, which by my calculations, is somewhere comfortably past the halfway mark. And that's okay. Because the slow-down in the writing was a message for my subconscious that something wasn't quite right in the story.

This week's writing uncovered a secondary character's real purpose and in exploring it, increased the stakes for one of the primary characters in a way I couldn't have anticipated when I was loosely plotting the story out several months ago.

Sometimes you need a little time for a story to find itself, no matter how much you pre-plan. At least that's the way it is in my writing. While I do pre-plan and do loose outlining for every story I write, I've also never written a novel that didn't change considerably between thought and execution.

So here is a part of the scene that emerged from my writing this week.

She sat on the edge of the porch, curled her arms around her legs, and rested her cheek on her knees. Now what? Everyone was waiting for her to come up with some magical solution. Yeah right. Magical. She was supposed to have all this magic and all this power, but all she felt was the weight of their expectations. Even Elspeth, as abrasive and mistrusting as she seemed, couldn't hide her desperate hope. The tithe linked them all in a sticky spider web of obligation. Whether Taylor wanted it or not. 

 

Was this how Lydia felt? It was like having her nephew tugging at her shirt, wanting something he couldn't name, multiplied hundreds of times. "I'm sorry. I don't know how to do this," Taylor whispered. 

 

"Will you accept my counsel, now, Lady Hawthorne?"

She jerked her head up at the sound of a familiar voice, silky smooth like melted dark chocolate. "Seneschal. It was you in the woods watching me."

He bowed, the gold threads in his cloak catching and reflecting even the dim light filtered through the pines. His clothes were in sharp focus, a stark contrast to the strange blurring of his features.

What would it be like to live forever without a face or a name? She shook off this unwanted sympathy and stood to face him, glad for the invisible presence of her Fae companions in the house behind her.

"They won't hear you, Milady."

Taylor stepped back, until she felt the solid wood of the door against her spine. "Are you threatening me?" Her pulse quickened. Heat spread outward from her chest and through her limbs until her hands and feet tingled. She faced him, her hands on her hips, her legs solidly beneath her.

The Seneschal stood his ground, but his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He spread out his hands. "I only hoped to have a quiet word with you. Then, if you wish, I will depart."

"I'm all ears," Taylor said, folding her arms across her chest.

"Will you walk with me?"

"No." Her companions might not be able to help her, but her connection to them buzzed like a live wire. She wasn't going to risk losing her only advantage here. "I can hear you perfectly well from here."

He nodded. "Fair enough. I have given you little cause to trust me."

Taylor snorted. "The last time I saw you, you were trying to hurt my friends."

"A regrettable error."

"Is that an apology?"

His quiet laughter had an edge to it that made her shudder. "Milady, I have underestimated you and I am here to make amends."

"So tell me what you want and leave."

"You misunderstand."

A breeze freshened, ruffling the dark hair that hung loose around his oval face. Her eyes skipped over the blurred space it framed. No matter how hard she stared, she couldn't penetrate the glamour that obscured him. The more she tried, the more her unease grew. Instead, she traced the gold and green threads of his cloak down to where its hem brushed the polished tips of black boots.

"I am here to offer you advice and counsel."

It was easier to listen to the tone and cadence of his voice when she wasn't trying to pull his features into focus. "Sure you are," she said.

"You have grown in power, since our last meeting, Milady, and yet, you have not learned what that means."

There was no use denying it. And he had to know something about Fae magic; he was dripping in the stuff. She toned down her sarcasm. But she was going to have to be careful. What did Aileen call him? Silver tongue. "What do you want from me?"

"I have forgotten how refreshing it was to treat with ephemerals. You are all so direct." The Seneschal clasped his hands behind his cloak and bowed his head. "Then I will be as direct, in return. Aeon's madness will doom us all. For good or for ill, I am bound to serve Faerie's ruler. You seem to have some influence over him. Our survival depends upon you."

"Oh." Taylor tried to take a step back, forgetting she was already against the door.

"I can show you the hidden ways to your own power."

A buzzing rose in her mind, drowning out the sound of her heartbeat. She swallowed hard. "And what will I owe you in return, Seneschal?"

"Can you afford the price of your ignorance?" he asked, his voice an urgent whisper in her ear.

 

She looked up. He was standing in front of her. Her heart pounded, her muscles trembled with the need to run.

"I think you understand me, now, Milady. Let there be no pretense between us." He reached up to stroke her cheek. His hand burned a path across her skin. "With my magic joined to yours, he will no longer be a threat." The veil across his eyes thinned. They were green with a ring of orange fire around the pupils and they blazed with raw need.

She shook her head, struggling to breathe. The heat of his body siphoned hers away and Taylor shrank away from him until the unyielding surface of the closed door pressed into her spine.

"You would rule Faerie. And I—" He leaned forward and brushed his lips across her ear. "I would serve you."

She couldn't look away from the intensity of his gaze.

"You will make such a Queen as Faerie has never known." The Seneschal traced her lips with his thumb.

 

She groped for the door handle. It wouldn't budge.

"What say you, Milady?"

His voice was the flat of a knife sliding across her skin, waiting only for the slightest turn of his wrist to cut. Icy cold shocked through her. Currents of power swirled in her gut, transforming fear into fury. 

"Don't touch me."

It emerged in a hoarse whisper and he laughed, cupping her cheek with his palm. "You have no strength without me."

She shook her head free of his touch, trying to clear her mind, too. Aileen and Isidore were inches away, just on the other side of the door, but they could be on the surface of the moon for as much as they could help her.

Isidore's words rose in her memory: "Even Aileen, as clear-seeing as she is, does not have my long experience in the way you twist truth to suit your ends." Even powerless against him, he stood up to the Seneschal. She stared at his blurred face, her eyes narrowed. The Seneschal's words were a spell, a lie to trap her and keep her helpless.

A low growl vibrated through her chest. She repeated herself slowly, filling the words with the power of her stubbornness lashed to the magic roiling inside her. "Don't. Touch. Me." Surprise filled his eyes, erasing the hunger there.

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.

Community Ties

This morning, I completed a whole novel critique for one of the members of a small writing/support group I belong to on Facebook (shoutout to the lovely ladies of the #SFWG!) and it occurred to me what a wonderful opportunity the internet has given me.

I'm currently part of several writing communities, some virtual, some physical, and all important to my development as a writer.

For many, many years, I was an active moderator at Wild Poetry Forum. I found WPF when I was the young mother of 2, working full time, and trying to write something--anything--in the margins of my life. I had no flexibility to look for a local writing group and having access to a community of poets from across the globe and a place to post work for review meant I could participate in the time I could carve from my crazy life.

When I started to work on novel-length fiction, I stumbled into Forward Motion for Writers and quickly found a critique group there. It lasted for several years and I am still in contact with many of the members of the group. In fact, the artist (Jade Zivanovic) who designed and created the cover for THE BETWEEN was originally a member of that writing group. She is from Australia. I live in the US. Without FMWriters, I would never have had the great good fortune to work with her.

Another one of my communities emerged from a local workshop I took about 6 years ago. The Ultimate Science Fiction Writing Workshop introduced me to a group of local writers and after the formal workshop was over, we've stayed in touch using a combination of real-life meetups and an internet message board. In fact, it is from that group that the PEN-ULTIMATE anthology emerged from.

The #SFWG is a small community of writers--most of whom write historical fiction, though they let me play in their sandbox. :) #SFWG (and what it stands for is a secret!) is as much a private space to gripe, a place to share sorrows and triumphs, as it is a critique group. The wonderful ladies who make up this group know how much I appreciate their support this past year.

Another kind of community is what I call my 'water cooler': Google Plus. Over the past 2 years, I have grown to really appreciate the ability to hang out and talk 'shop' with a community of writers and artists there. When you work from home, alone, but for the company of two shelter dogs, it becomes crucial to have other folks to talk to.

I feel extremely fortunate to very literally have the world at my fingertips. Writing can be a very lonely endeavor. My myriad communities make my life so much more vibrant.

Today's blogpost is part of FMWriter's Merry-Go-Round Blog tour. To see what dozens of other writers from one of my communities have to say about their communities, this month's topic, check out the blog tour hub. 

Happy Blog Birthday to Me!

ETA: Tammy Jones, your comment was the lucky winner according to my random number generator!! Thank you to all of you who stopped by to wish my blog a happy 8th birthday! Having such lovely readers makes the work of keeping this blog a joy. 

8th birthday cake, photo by Brooke Williams, used under a cc license with attribution

I'd have embedded a video of someone singing happy birthday but until the fallout from the recent kerfuffle about who owns the song settles out, I'll just post a picture of a cake and rely on all of you singing in your heads. :)

So 8 years ago today, I started this blog. My first, rather uninspired post is here. I had no idea at the outset, that I'd still be blogging 8 years later to the tune of nearly 1000 blogposts.

8 years ago, my kids were 9 and 11. I had a solo physical therapy practice, where I saw patients about 20 hours a week. I had started drafting my first novel about 8 months earlier on a dare from my husband and was coming into the home stretch for its conclusion. I wrote 'in the margins' of my life, in 20+ minute increments whenever I could squeeze them in between work and family responsibilities.

That was how I learned not to be at all precious about my writing routine. Whether it was quiet or noisy, alone or with others around, music or no music, at home or in a coffee shop, with a computer or a paper notebook, I could write.

In fact, I drafted much of that first novel both on paper and using my handspring visor and a fold-able keyboard. It was a workhorse of a device and served me well for many years. I still miss it. It didn't have internet capabilities, so no distractions, and the word processor program on it allowed for simple synchronization with Word.

8 years ago, in the throes of that first novel, I had only a naive understanding of publishing and thought for sure, that the Wings of Winter would garner me an agent and sell to a publisher. :head desk:

Yes. My first novel, written on a whim from an idea I had been carrying around in my head since I was 16. I knew next to nothing about writing novels. But I figured it couldn't be *that* hard. After all, I had been writing poetry and small stories since childhood and I had done plenty of high-powered technical writing in my profession, including papers and text book chapters.

It's probably a good thing I didn't know how difficult novel writing would be, else I never would have sat down to draft "Wings". Someday, I will return to that manuscript and write it the way it deserves to be written, harnessing the skills I've learned in 8 years and 8 novels.

It's fitting that this week, my 8th novel, DERELICT, will be going out on submission to publishers. It feels like a good omen and good timing.

So happy blog birthday to me.  And since birthdays ought to come with presents, I'd be happy to offer a trade paperback copy of my debut YA Fantasy title, THE BETWEEN to a random commenter.

Taking a cue from my blog-buddy Lynn Viehl, this is open to everyone on the planet (sorry, until we have mail delivery in space, I'll have to count that out!).  Leave a comment between now and Sunday, June 23rd, 11:59 pm, eastern time for your chance to win a copy of THE BETWEEN and a bonus prize of a hand made piece of ceramics, from yours truly, a amateur potter.

Writing Update

It's been a while since I've done a writing round-up post, so here is what I'm up to:

1--I'm in the frenzied ending phase of co-editing a short story anthology. The idea emerged from a dinner I attended last year at Readercon with a bunch of the 'graduates' of a local SF&F writers workshop called The Ultimate Science Fiction Workshop, run by Jeff Carver and Craig Shaw Gardner. When I looked around the table at all of the marvelously talented writers sitting there, I decided we needed to showcase our work. So I said something and no one told me it was a dumb idea. :) (This is how I end up involved in projects--no one around me talks me out of them!)

PEN-ULTIMATE: A SPECULATIVE FICTION ANTHOLOGY will be out in paperback and eBook mid July. And all the proceeds are being donated to the SFWA emergency medical fund.

2--I'm currently serializing an alternate-world fantasy novel called OATHBREAKER'S PRICE. It represents a deep "renovation" of a trunk novel I wrote several years ago. I've been working with developmental editor par excellence, Rebecca (RJ) Blain 

What is posted represents a pen-ultimate revision before the final edits that will be incorporated into a final draft for publication. (Any errors that remain will be due to my stubbornness, not any fault of Rebecca's) You can follow the serial--new chapters posted every Monday and Friday--in two places:

Blogger (easy to subscribe via RSS or email, send to kindle button on each chapter, TOC right sidebar)
Wattpad  (easy to follow, read on multiple devices)

3--DERELICT, The SF novel I serialized earlier in the year, has been revised and is with my agent in preparation for submission. You can read the draft version on Blogger or Wattpad. There are other stories waiting to be told in Ro Maldonado's universe and I can't wait to get to them!

4--I'm in the planning stages (at long last!) for the sequel to THE BETWEEN, my YA Fantasy debut title. I might even be persuaded to serialize it, as I'm writing it. :) Though that does feel a little like high wire walking without a net.

So, what are you working on in your corner of the universe?

A Lid for Every Pot

Photo by bookminder, used with permission, cc license.

"There's a lid for every pot" was an expression my grandmother used to use. She used it in relation to finding a spouse, but I think it has a much broader context. The reality is that not everything is to everyone's taste and that certainly applies to choice of partners, but it also applies to all preferences, large or small. Including books.

This is why negative reviews (unless they constitute a personal attack on the author) don't really bother me. How can a matter of someone else's taste be an affront to me?

While the holy grail of every writer is to craft a book that will appeal to every reader, the truth of the matter is that's utterly impossible. Look at the amazon page for your most beloved book. There will be one and two star reviews of the novel you could not put down or stop talking about. If you read those reviews, you might even wonder if the reviewer read the same book as you did.

A clear case of the lid not fitting the pot.

A case in point: The book "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" won the Hugo Award, was listed as Time Magazine's book of the year, received honors topped by honors. I *hated* this book. Couldn't finish it. I barely got through the first few chapters before deciding I had better things to do than spend hours and hours reading a book I didn't enjoy. My more stubborn spouse slogged through the entire thick tome before he would admit he also hated the book.

How could we both hate a book that was lauded as the top pick of 2004 by reviewers and publications all over the world? Wrong lid to the pot. A matter of taste.

Jonathan Strange has 944 reviews on its Amazon page. A full 25% of them are two and one star reviews.

From one of the five star reviews:

"It is often beautifully written. it's one of those books where you'll pause over a line to reread it or let its effect linger a little while, whether due to the simple beauty of description, the efficiency of its brevity, or its dry wit. It is a true pleasure to read. Not to find out what happened. Simply to read."

From one of the one star reviews:

"I guess some people really like this sort of thing. Hundreds of pages prose with characters speculating about what they are going to do, then doing things that don't seem to have a whole lot of connection to their speculation or to the fantasy-reality world that the reader is supposed to imagine."

Just because I agree with the one star review and not the five star, does that mean the book is bad? No, of course not. I didn't like it. Clearly, it wasn't written for me.

Today, I saw a review of THE BETWEEN, my debut YA fantasy that was fairly critical.
 

"I am hav­ing  a hard time writ­ing this review. While I enjoyed the book and could eas­ily give it 3–4 stars, I truly dis­liked the main char­ac­ter and the pat end­ing. The writ­ing is flow­ing and descrip­tive mak­ing for a quick and enjoy­able read.

While the main char­ac­ter might find its tar­get audi­ence of teenagers a match, I truly found her to be annoy­ing. In only one scene does she even seem to have a spine. She lets those she sees as more pow­er­ful then her lead her around. She runs and hides at every con­fronta­tion until there is no where left for her to run. She lashes out at those threat­en­ing her only when backed into a corner."

This, in contrast to a different review, describing the same character:

"Lydia is a complex, strongly-drawn character. Her reaction to the situation she finds herself in is not only completely understandable, but also utterly relatable. She is angry, frustrated, sad, confused-and also incredibly powerful, which makes for a fantastic fictional combination. I love reading strong female leads, and Lydia did not disappoint. Her strength in the face of intimidating situations was bracing, yet also delightfully juxtaposed to her despondency and desperation at being torn from her adopted human family."

A matter of taste, of lids and pots and fit. Both reactions and opinions are valid. I appreciate the time each reader took to put thoughts to paper about my story.