Dec
22

All I Needed to Know About Writing, I Learned From Max & Ruby.

Posted in writing | 1 Comment
Honestly? I hate this show. It’s creepy. Ruby is a anal-retentive little bunny with OCD. Max has a weird rubber elephant and a wind-up mechanical lobster. And flipping chicks. Why doesn’t Max talk? WTF are their parents? Questions like this don’t keep me awake at night, but I do wonder about it when I’m stuck watching it with Lucy. However, putting aside the weird factor, I caught the episode “Ruby Writes a Story” last night. I was hoping to embed part of it here, but I couldn’t find it online, so suffice it to say, Ruby wanted to write a story and I was a little struck by all the little mechanisms of procrastination that she goes through – getting the paper lined up, just so. Getting her nice new eraser lined up next to a stack of sharpened pencils. Deciding that writing is thirsty work after getting a single line… Read more
Dec
18

Rejecting the Rejections

Posted in craft, rejection, writing | 7 Comments
This week was a rather interesting one on the twittersphere. A certain author, who shall remain nameless, apparently got it into her head to lash out at  someone who left her book a bad review. The backlash spawned over 18 pages of comments on Amazon, as well as massive commentary on blogs such as LKH Lashouts and Dear Author. Even Neil Gaiman mentioned it, so it’s clear the ripple effect was in full force. I followed it briefly, and stopped when the author made mention of getting the FBI involved for threats. Not because I cared about that, but just because it was starting to get silly – like watching a train wreck, I guess. On one hand, I feel pretty bad for her. No one likes having their work rejected, and Amazon is a pretty public place. On the other hand – as writers, that’s kind of the deal,… Read more
Dec
15

Back to the Grind.

Posted in shadow weaver, writing | 1 Comment
So after taking a few weeks off from the writing, I finally decided to immerse myself back into the story-telling world. And I sat down last night and looked over the first 100 pages of ShadowWeaver…and was rather pleasantly surprised. Sure, there are some definite rough spots (where I went and added some notes), but I have to admit it’s way better than I thought it would be. Admittedly, a lot of that was via NaNo, but there was quite a bit I didn’t actually *remember* writing, and strangely enough, the logic works.  I had been worried that some of  the snark factor from the first book wasn’t quite there this time around (which isn’t that big a deal as I can easily go back and add some in), but clearly that isn’t going to be an issue: OOO Poke. Something sharp prodded my back.  Bleary, I shifted away from it. Poke.… Read more
Dec
7

Breaking Rules

Posted in workshops, writing | 5 Comments
So I got an email for another workshop the other day. Which is fine. I used to take a lot of workshops, and sometimes I still do, though I tend to lurk in some more than others. Just depends on the timing and the subject matter. Overall, I do tend to prefer workshops that have at least *some* element of hands on, but sometimes it’s not always possible due to the content or just the sheer number of people taking the course. Anyway, so this one came into my inbox and it just rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t remember all the specific details, but it had something to do with keeping “writing sense” or some such. Essentially we were going to be taught why it wasn’t okay to have main characters who didn’t fit certain tropes – i.e. a elderly type woman couldn’t suddenly become a Goth or… Read more
Dec
3

Back to Earth…

Posted in agents, craft, writing | 10 Comments
So yesterday was a bit crazy.When Colleen announced her representation of me on Twitter, my blog/twitter hits exploded for the next few hours. (And I got to see it all unfold live via my Woopra application – tons of little pings from all over the country – what people were reading on the blog, where they came from, how long they hung out – all in real-time.) Lots of emails. Lots of DMs. Lots of well-wishes and congratulations and questions on how I managed it.  (And isn’t that the trick question?? Although I did find it amusing that I had quite a few hits on my query and query letter tags. There’s no big secret here, folks. I wrote a book, I wrote a query, I followed submission guidelines, I got rejected, I sent it out again, etc. Rinse and repeat.) Today, we’re back down to normal levels as far… Read more