Oct
14

Earning Your Unicorn

Posted in Mary-Sue, unicorn, writing | 3 Comments
Not much of a blog post today – got caught up staying home with a sick little girl (and trying to work from home as well, including after hour server migration stuff). Not very conducive to writing or blogging. Or anything else, really – unless you count hopping around on your hands and knees pretending to be Bolt while your daughter is either: 1) Penny 2) Dr. Calico 3) The Last Unicorn. (yeah, I didn’t get it either – but it makes her happy, so whatever) Anyway, I was thinking at some point today about Mary Sues. (or Gary Stu, whichever you prefer).  I seem to remember writing some awful piece of tripe when I was in about 6th grade. I was unicorn crazy then (and gee, I’m beginning to see a bit of a pattern with ms Lucy, go figure), and I wanted to write a story about one.… Read more
Oct
13

Playing Literary Games…

Posted in writing | 4 Comments
I’ve heard the moniker that being a literary writer is nothing like being a commercial writer. I can pretty much buy that. Back in college I took a bunch of writing classes while I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. One class short of a minor, no less, but never did quite get there. I’m actually rather grateful for this – because I’m pretty sure I would never be cut out to be the literary type. Liz tells me I’ve got mad skillz in word smithery – maybe it’s true, but that’s not the same thing at all. I suspect I have a tendency to go a bit purple more than anything else. Even so, I noticed a rather distinct difference between myself and the rest of my fellow classmates in those classes. I cut my teeth on fantasy books growing up. Hell, I was reading… Read more
Oct
9

Watch Me Plot…

Posted in craft, writing | Leave a comment
Sort of. When I first started writing SotI, I knew how it would end. Didn’t matter to me how I got there, as long as I did. And while I envisioned that there would me more stories to follow, I didn’t pay much attention to the details. And yes, there are plenty of things that don’t get completely wrapped up in Book 1, just for that reason. And then when I pitched to Heather Osborn, she asked that when I sent the full I would also need a few paragraphs on the next two books. And I had to pause and think about that, because now I’m not just plotting out a single book, but an entire arc. And my original idea had been to have 7 books, since that’s how long Abby’s Contract is for, but I understand that an editor might not want to take that sort of… Read more
Oct
7

Useful Tools

Posted in craft, writing | 3 Comments
Just a short post for the moment, but wanted to share a few of the things I’ve found that have definitely made my writing life easier: 1) Get Drop Box – (and yeah, if you click on the link it’s a referral to me, but that’s ok, right?  You’ll *also* get an extra 250 megs of space, so everyone wins).  Drop Box is this nifty little program that you can install on as many computers as you like (and there are hacks for thumbs drives as well). You sign up for an account – 2 gigs of space for free and install the software, which makes a little folder on your desktop. You can put anything you want in there – docs, pics, whatever. When you edit and save, those same files are instantly updated on the website as well as any computer that has drop box running.  For me, it’s… Read more
Oct
6

Sent

Posted in craft, writing | 2 Comments
Sent in my manuscript to the editor last night. I debated heavily on it, because as I noted before, I tend to get into this cycle of editing and changing. And I have to be careful of that. I mean, sure, there’s always things to fix, always a sentence or two that might be written better. The problem is that if I edit *too* much, then I run the risk of losing the original flavor of the scene. (And I’ve done that more than once).  Or I focus on a few lines here or there without paying attention to the surrounding paragraphs and then go back and realize I’ve started using the same words just a little too close together. *shrugs* So, I bit the bullet and sent it in – after only fixing up the most obvious. Based on the comments I received, she really liked the first couple… Read more