Archive for November, 2006
Wow. He’s famous now.
Thursday Revue
It’s that time of the week again, Readers.
The time for you to calculate pi by throwing hot dogs?
No, sillies. Time for the Thursday Revue! I’ve been finishing about a book a day, and you’re going to suffer enjoy it right along with me.
No Straight Lines
I’m not going to make it in NaNoWriMo. I can tell. Not because I’m not writing–the Valentine book has taken off and I’m noodling with other stuff. I do turn out a few thousand words a day, between six and eight if all is going well, two or three if it’s a busy day and I’m not constantly at the keyboard. But that’s neither here nor there.
I’m not going to make it in NaNo because the creative act, for me, rarely goes in a straight line. It dips, swerves, goes in spirals, comes back, wanders away to check out what the cows are doing, and comes home swinging its milk bucket with a dreamy look on its face.
Creativity has never been a straight line for me. Way leads on to way, and even when I plot (I did do a bit of outlining on Devil in Love while stuck) the story takes off in another direction (like how it’s not two demons fighting, now it’s Danny and another demon, and the Knife that cuts demonflesh between them…) and surprises me. Hence my nervousness sometimes. Writing is often like be-bopping along a forest path and having a story whirlwind out of the forest like the Tasmanian Devil.
Urbbblgggrrrrrtttt! Vorpel blade goes snicker-snack, and if you’re not dead you have a story to tell.
The Selkie pointed out to me the other day that I know I can produce that kind of word count. The trouble is, my Muse wants to work on two or three things at a time. She’s not satisfied with settling into the traces and finishing one story, oh no. The wench has ADD. And if a story’s not moving, she’s not budging until she has the next few bits of it mapped out.
This is why “filling the well” is so bloody important. The higher the water in the well is (i.e., the more bits and pieces of pretty shiny stuff) the better the Muse can digest for a snackie to fuel the next twist in the road. I told someone the other day that writing is a numbers game in more ways than one. You don’t just use the numbers theory* in submitting. You use it in creation too. I don’t “finish” more things than other writers. I just work in volume.
Speaking of filling the well, I’ve been reading like crazy, finishing about a book a day. Some of these I’ve been working on for a while, but others I just pick up and gulp down. if this keeps up my TBR pile may look less like Everest and more like a ravaged village after the Goths.
One can always hope, can’t one? In any case, I suspect tomorrow will be review day. Huzzah.
Stay warm, Readers. There is a thin scrim of snow out here, but it’s not even enough to cover the grass. Still, it’s cold. My toesies are chilled. Perhaps I should consider socks or other warm footwear, but I hate wearing stuff on my feet in the house. If I can’t be barefoot here, where CAN I be barefoot?
* The numbers theory of submissions is this: keep submitting different things and sooner or later, someone will want to buy something. The more work you have out, the more odds are on your side. This presupposes, of course, that you keep writing and (the big thing) improving your craft, not just flogging one dead horse you wrote back in high school.
Who Needs Sleep?
You know you have wonderful geek friends when one sends you an email that starts “I’M IN UR SIETCH, BEIN UR KWISATZ HADERACH.” You further know you are a geek when you look at it and think, off the top of your head, “Huh. Spelled it right, too.”
I love my friends.
In other news, I am currently wondering if insomnia is a writer’s disease or just my particular curse. It was five o’clock this morning before I could sleep. Of course, the Market Spice Tea I took down at nine PM might have had something to do with it. I don’t have caffeine after about two PM because I do have such trouble sleeping. I thought black tea with wonderful spicy herbs might be fine. Maybe it wasn’t.
On to other news–contest news, as a matter of fact!
Congratulations to Kimberley Stouffer, who won the First Come First Served contest for a free signed copy of Dead Man Rising. Also congrats to Bridget, who was the first winner of the Valentine Trivia Contest. (For those of you who participated, no, Sargon Corvin isn’t Jace’s foster father. It was Santino’s Mob name.)
Those contests were sadly only for subscribers to The Dark Side, my newsletter. However, there are other contests going on that I can invite the world into now that the Dark Siders have heard about them first.
* The Japhrimel Slogan Contest This contest is all about Japhrimel. Send a witty slogan suitable for coffee mugs and bumper stickers here. (Be sure to put “Japhrimel Slogan Contest” in the subject line!) The five best ones will be voted on by the fantastic Dark Siders. The first-place winner will get a free coffee mug or bumper sticker with their slogan as well as have the resulting item in my CafePress shop named after them.
* The Valentine Art Contest Artists, this one’s for you! Send me a JPG of original artwork inspired by the Valentine series. Most entries will go in a Fan Art Gallery I’m about to stick onto my website. The winner of this contest will get a signed copy of Dead Man Rising and may even get a signed-by-me print of their submission, probably through CafePress as well. Send your art as an attachment here. Be sure to put “Valentine Art Contest” in the subject line or your entry will go into the rubbish bin. (Hint: There’s an upcoming Japhrimel-only art contest after the first of the year, artists!)
* The Watcher Short Fiction Contest The response to the Dead Man Rising Fiction Contest was so tremendous I’ve decided to do the same with the Watcher series. Send me a short piece of original fiction (12-14K words max) set in the Watcher’s world. The pieces will be judged by me and possibly my beta readers, depending on volume. The winner will receive signed copies of Fire Watcher and Cloud Watcher, and the three runners-up will be put in a PDF along with the winner and made available through my website. The entries must be sent here, with “Watcher Fiction Contest” in the subject line. Submissions must be double-spaced, with page numbers, with at least 12pt Courier or Times New Roman type. Submissions that don’t meet this criteria won’t be looked at. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE pay attention to the subject line on your submission for all three contests! I am asking for these to keep my email inbox organized; submissions who don’t meet the subject line criteria will be trashed without being opened. I’m sorry, but due to the response volume, that’s the way it is.
These three contests will close January 31, 2007, so you have plenty of time during and after this crazy holiday season. I will announce winners February 15, 2007. Good luck!
We’re expecting snow today, which will be nice for the Little Prince and Princess. The DHM just called to tell me it’s snowing up north where he is. I of course cautioned him to leave early enough to get home safe. People around here go crazy when it snows. Not like Wyoming, where they just shrug and get out the shovels and chains. It happens so infrequently in this corner of the world that everyone gets a bit overexcited.
Stay warm today, everyone.
A Quick Note About Cloud Watcher
Dear Readers,
If you ordered the Cloud Watcher ebook from Fictionwise, be ready for a little surprise at the end. That ebook is missing four or five chapters at the end. It is NOT a “To Be Continued.” (I wouldn’t do that without warning you. Really.) The proper file has been uploaded (the publisher contacted me yesterday about it) and Fictionwise should be sending out replacements very soon.
The publisher expressed her regrets and is working to fix the situation. If you don’t get your replacement, be sure to email your ebook vendor and point this out! Alas, such things happen sometimes. I hope it doesn’t impair your enjoyment of Jack and Anya’s story too much. I should note that the paper version of the book does NOT share this flaw, it is fully complete.
I had a lovely quiet Turkey Day, mostly spent in silence with a few books. The Sullen Teenager played WoW for hours, and I actually got some housework done as well as watching Battleship Potemkin. The DHM, Little Prince, and Princess were in Olympia eating and laughing, and came home very tired and very happy.
I hope your Thanksgiving was as nice and restful as mine. 
