May 2013
17 posts
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“It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down...”
– Stephen King
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Motivation - Imgur →
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This short story and I need to come to an agreement about what happens next.
Also why is my narrator so….wry?
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A blog has officially agreed to review Child of Brii. More information to follow when things start happening!
I really want blueberry bushes and to figure out how to stop these ants from eating my strawberries.
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“That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald (via girlwithoutwings)
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Talking with Rod and life decisions
So I met with local up-and-coming author R.S. Belcher this week, who wrote The Six-Gun Tarot. (If you haven’t read it I suggest you do. Especially if you like graphic wierdness and the wild west.) Anyways, we talked a lot about his writing career and what he had done to get where he is, and he gave me some advice. Chiefly: go to conventions. Which you should all know by now.
In addition, we...
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10-10-12 fragment
In which I rip off T.S. Eliot because why not?
waterofthevalley:
April is the cruelest month
but November! November!
the stripes of dead trees laid bare
against the aching back of the sky
November is feet on cold stone
speckled with snow
and frosted glass, curtains closed, shuttered
no light
one’s payments counted out with cold hands
trembling fingers, this I have lost, and this…
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Updates again
I wrote half a short story yesterday and am planning to finish it today. I’ve also started working on a new novel project, though it’s been pretty slow. Queries for the Zombie Book have tapered off, but my goal is to get back to them sometime this week.
Generally I have not been doing a lot, but hopefully that will change soon. It’s been super frustrating to be spread so thin,...
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The Unwritten Wrongs: Self-Publishing: Let's... →
theunwrittenwrongs:
I’m seeing a lot of people get wide-eyed and dumbstruck every time they find a self-publishing service that isn’t Amazon or Smashwords.
Here’s the truth: Amazon and Smashwords are currently the top two self-publishing services for eBooks. The majority of other services you see online are…
Going to look into this.
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The Beauty of Bradbury →
Upon hearing of the passing of science-fiction/fantasy writer extraordinaire, Ray Bradbury, I thought back to when I first moved to Los Angeles in the late 90’s and heard the legend was doing a loc…
Why was Ray Bradbury such a beautiful human? So sad I only get to meet him through his work.
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I like to write
Really, I do. I get these ideas and my brain itches until I can spit them out. But lately, I seem to be writing less and less. This is most likely because I am working more and more.
Going in thirty minutes later so that my bosses don’t have to pay me overtime is not going to change my level of exhaustion. Nice try, though.
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: HOW AGENTS ARE ADJUSTING TO THE NEW WORLD →
inkwellmanagement:
We spent the morning with the Mystery Writers of America at their annual symposium. The fantastic agents panel was monitored by Daniel J. Hale MWA Executive Vice President and consisted of, Dan Conaway, Writers House, Barbara Poelle, Irene Goodman Literary Agency, Victoria Skurnick, Levine…
April 2013
16 posts
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My So-Called 'Post-Feminist' Life in Arts and... →
Slut-shaming, name-calling and no respect: welcome to life in literary America for a 21st century female author.
Apparently we’re on a gender theme in the blogoverse this week.
Why Arent There More Woman Sci-Fi Writers? →
It
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Thoughts on the interior
Writing both begets and requires a rich inner life. Thus, when our exterior lives get too busy - say your sister is getting married, for example, or you have a new job that takes up all of your time, or you’re just going through any sort of schedule transition - it can be very difficult to enter the headspace required to continue writing regularly. Of course, without having that daily...
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“Ask not what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive… then go do it....”
– Howard Thurman (via thelittlephilosopher)
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Why we should use the Oxford Comma
bowtiesinthedungeon:
A direct quote from The Times newspaper, talking about a Peter Ustinov documentary and saying that:
“highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector”.
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Insta-rejection
When they get it and reject it in the same day. And use a form letter because they don’t have time to respond to your email individually (even though they can apparently turn around said email in one day).
Le sigh.
Sent out five queries the first day, one of which was the insta-rejected. Three queries this last time, since they all required ten pages or less of samples. It took me most of...
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Querying: A process
So I made my agent list in January and I’ve put off querying forever, until I finally just got annoyed with myself this week and started submitting. It sometimes really is just about taking the leap. This book makes me feel naked and generally strange, but I think it has real potential in the right hands and I want to see it reach those hands.
To clarify, I am querying The Zombie Book. The...
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A play of Princess Mononoke? →
Yes, it’s real. These pictures look super interesting, too.
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Life and stuff
Right so, as I have been gone for about a month really I kind of feel like I owe you all an explanation for that. (And possibly myself an explanation?)
Anyways, here is how it went.
This one time, I decided to volunteer for a local organization that is small but wonderful. And there I had many awesome experiences to do mostly with planning awesome garden projects, which is the other thing I like...
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“I always assume everything that I read is fiction, even if it’s in the...”
– Claire Cameron, “Is There a Truth and Does It Matter? An Interview with Tanis Rideout.” (via millionsmillions)
Holy crap I wrote some yesterday. Should have less things on my plate fairly soon and that can become more common.
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This decision is still not made. I may be a little bit with this, guys.
March 2013
23 posts
“You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money’s in...”
– Larry Niven
After short short week, I think this is great advice! (via yeahwriters)
I’ve got a short story bootcamp lined up for myself when I get out of this life fog. If I haven’t lost my paper of ideas I do, anyways….
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I’ll be taking a semi-temporary hiatus for the remainder of the month of March as I figure out my life. I may still post occasionally, but generally just expect to see me in April.
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“You want tangible, social benefits to writing fiction? There are people walking...”
– Warren Ellis (via jennirl)
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Book Review: The Siren Depths
So this week I finished The Siren Depths by Martha Wells. Let me just preface that Martha Wells is on my list of favorite authors for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is her intense imagination and her courage in supporting that imagination. I have read all of her books but one, and they will all be present in my dream library someday.
That being said, I almost never bother to post about...
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1houreveryday: Would you read this book? →
1houreveryday:
Wrote out my first query draft today. Tell me what you think!
A vampire and a butler are looking for a pizza parlor. No, this is a not a joke.
Evelyn is a harmless IT worker with a loving boyfriend and a relatively normal life, if you don’t count her history of car theft and comfort with…
If the answer is no that’s also okay, tumblrites. Back to the drawing...
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The OddFiles: Publishing: it’s just... →
oddrocket:
Much has been written in the last few days on the dust-up between SFWA/Scalzi and Random House over its new no-advance-paying imprint Hydra. But I’d like to speak more broadly in this post, about the advance system and what role it might play in the future of publishing.
Scalzi makes…
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Would you read this book?
Wrote out my first query draft today. Tell me what you think!
A vampire and a butler are looking for a pizza parlor. No, this is a not a joke.
Evelyn is a harmless IT worker with a loving boyfriend and a relatively normal life, if you don’t count her history of car theft and comfort with firearms. But all of that changes when the zombie apocalypse forces her up into the mountains, there to...
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When I'm almost done with a first draft and I...
title2come:
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Note to SF/F Writers: Random House’s Hydra Imprint... →
Musicians out there reading this may be smiling ruefully at this point, because they will recognize this sort of accounting; it’s how the music labels worked their accounting for years, carefully calibrating their fees and costs to make sure their musicians made as close to zero as possible while the labels kept all the money. But at least the musical labels paid their musicians an advance;...
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My Letter from UVA
Dear Amanda:
I am very pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into the Master of Urban and Environmental Planning degree program in the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia. The Graduate Admissions Committee found your qualifications to be extremely impressive, and we look forward to having you join our school.
That letter I mentioned? Yeah, this is it. And I am...
I got a very important letter today.
Edits 1 = Done
waterofthevalley:
The first round of edits in the Zombie Book is officially finito! Which is cool. Now I just have to go through and summarize chapters to come up with the best possible chapter titles, format the manuscript, write a synopsis and a basic query. Very exciting.
Put this on the wrong blog again. :/
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