Magical Words

The best book I’ve ever written hasn’t been published yet.  It hasn’t even been contracted.

This isn’t some lame attempt at metaphysics or inspirational tripe.  I mean this literally.  The book is written, and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.  But I can’t sell it, and it’s driving me nuts.  Let me back up briefly to correct something in that first line.  The book has been contracted once, but the publisher went under before the book saw light of day.  It was a small press, sort of.  Certainly it was far smaller than Tor, which has published the rest of my novels.  And we did manage to get the book rights back before the publisher folded.  But reselling the book has been difficult to say the least.

I’m writing about this not because the particulars of the business side of this saga are terribly interesting; really, they’re not.  Rather, I’m writing this post because there’s an emotional dimension to this issue with which I’ve been grappling.

I love this book.  I mean I really love it.  I believe it truly is the best book I’ve ever written.  The narrative just flies, the characters are dearer to me than any I’ve created for other books, the magic system is tremendous fun.  Most of all, I love it because it’s so different from my epic fantasy.  (It’s contemporary fantasy, with a mystery twist and a dark theme.   That’s really all I care to say about it right now.)

The thing is, that difference, which is so central to my feelings about this novel and the volumes I hope will follow, is also the source of my deepest fears about the book.  You have to understand, since my agent and I started trying to resell the thing it’s been rejected many times.  While I love the book, something seems to be giving editors pause.  And I’m starting to wonder about my own perceptions of the novel.  After ten books and several short stories, I’ve become pretty adept at evaluating my own work.  At least I have in traditional fantasy.  But this is . . . different.  What if I can’t judge this work properly because I don’t know the subgenre well enough?

I’ve edited and polished the thing until it shines (though I’ve taken care not to overwork it).  I’ve done one extensive rewrite that improved it quite a bit.  I’ve put it away for months at a time and then gone back to read it thinking that maybe when looking at it fresh I’d see its flaws.  I’ve done this twice, actually.  Upon rereading it both times I was struck again by just how much I love the book.  My agent has always liked the book, but has never loved it as much as I do.  She liked it a good deal more after the rewrite.  My wife, who never liked the concept of the book in the abstract loved it when she read it and agreed it was my best work.  And she’s usually a tough critic.

We’ve all heard the stories of authors whose work was rejected again and again and again until finally it found a home and then went on to be a huge success.  I want to be the guy in that story.  But when do the rejections outweigh my belief in this book?  When do I accept that even though I love it and remain certain that it’s my best work ever, no one else sees it the same way?  I’m not ready to give up on this novel yet.  I still believe it will sell, and I also believe that when it finally hits the shelves it will do well.  But my faith, in this book in particular and in my self-judgment in general, has been shaken by the experience.  And I fear that sometime soon, I’m going to have to let go of this dream.  

So, I guess I’m asking:  When does that time come?  When do I give up and accept that those editors who have rejected it know better than I what’s good and what’s not?  Have any of you faced similar issues in your own work?  Is it possible to love a book too much?  Could it be that in  making the book so special to me, I’ve made it less attractive to others?  I’d be grateful for feedback.

Tags: David B. Coe // 20 Comments »

David here.  And let me start by saying that the title for today’s post came from our guest blogger, Edmund Schubert.  Ed is perfectly capable of introducing himself (as you’ll soon see) and so I won’t waste your time or mine by listing his credits here.  Suffice it to say that he is one of my very favorite people in this crazy business.  He’s smart as hell, funny as he is smart, and one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet (although I suspect he wishes I’d kept that last one to myself).  He is also a terrific editor; I know this because I’ve worked with him recently on a story of mine that he’ll be publishing in the next issue of Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show.  His post today is, I hope, the first of many he’ll be offering us from time to time.  So without further ado, ladies and entlemen, Billy Shears!  (Okay, that was for all the Beatles fans.)  Here’s Ed:

Hail and greetings and salutations and all those fancy words that mean hello. My name is Edmund Schubert, and despite the fact that I have now personally met David, Faith, Misty and Catie, they have invited me to come play in their sandbox anyway.

 I met Catie Murphy first, at World Fantasy in Austin, TX (Nov. 2006). If you ask her about that particular WFC, she’ll inevitably tell you about someone who threw himself through a hedge to get at her. That was me. I’d be embarrassed about it except there’s also a story going around about someone who grabbed Gordon Van Gelder in the men’s room at that same World Fantasy–and that was me, too. So really the whole hedge thing is hardly worth mentioning. (I’d tell you more but I’d probably be in violation of the restraining order Gordon took out. Buy me a couple of beers at a con (no, one beer is not enough) and I’m sure I can be convinced to tell the tale.)

 A few months later I met David at ChattaCon in Chattanooga, TN (Jan. 2007). I mainly went to ChattaCon that year because a good friend told me it was a con that was heavy on gaming, but for some reason they had dual writer guests of honor that year and the two GOHs were Kevin J. Anderson and Robert J. Sawyer. The first night at ChattaCon I ended up in a train car that had been converted into a diner, eating pizza with Kevin, Rob, their spouses, the aforementioned good friend, Alethea Kontis (Ingram book buyer who recently guest-blogged here), and some guy named David Coe. Mostly we just ate and listened to Rob and Kevin tell stories, but I knew right away that David was someone I wanted to get to know better—though I wasn’t sure why.

 I found out why a few months later at RavenCon in Richmond, VA (April 2007) when David and I met again. After proving to the con organizers what a really bad idea it was to put that much top-shelf booze in a room with the two of us and no chaperone, we quickly came to realize why we were drawn to each other: we were living uncannily mirror-imaged lives. We both had wives who were (or had been) scientists and who had real jobs so we could be ‘creative’; had two daughters of nearly identical ages and interests and birthdays and even names; were former New Yorkers who had escaped the Big Apple and now lived in the South; and were fervent Mets fans (which was much easier to say with a straight face before their horrid collapse at the end of last season). The list goes on and on, but I can see you’re getting bored, so I’ll leave it at that (for now). (Yes, I know, I have a penchant for parenthetical asides. But the more you point it out, the worse it gets, so pretend not to notice and maybe I’ll stop (or at least ease up (not likely, but worth trying)).

 Anyway…

 I just met Faith Hunter and Misty Massie at ConCarolinas this year (Charlotte, NC, May 30 – June 1, 2008). I didn’t bother with niceties with either of them, I just let loose and acted like myself. Usually that’s a recipe for disaster, yet they kept coming back for more. I think this either says a lot about their character as fine, patient, tolerant human beings, or it calls into serious question their ability to judge a man’s basic nature. Personally, I’m hoping for the latter. It’s my only chance.

 So that’s how I know these good folks. As for me, I am a character actor (emphasis on the word ‘character’ (in case you hadn’t noticed by now) and I play a lot of roles. They are all roles I enjoy, and there are probably more of them than any sane man would undertake. I am (in no particular order):

 A) managing editor of a new women’s business magazine called Diversity Woman. Not terribly glamorous, but it pays the best of all of my various gigs and I enjoy the behind-the-scenes work of putting a magazine together. Also, being the father of two daughters, I have developed an interest in women’s issues that is not likely to go away any time soon.

B) fiction editor of Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show (and by default co-editor of the anthology by the same name due out this August from Tor). Science fiction and fantasy short stories are a lot more glamorous than managing Diversity Woman (I think so anyway; my parents seem a bit more impressed with the business magazine); plus, as an added benefit, it’s how I met Catie, David, Faith, and Misty (hmmm, maybe my parents were right after all…).

 C) a writer of things speculative and mysterious. I started out writing a novel, quickly realized I had no idea what I was doing (not that I’m saying that’s changed much) and began writing short stories as a way to learn the craft. Along the way I published half a dozen mystery shorts in minor magazines such as Futures Mystery Anthology and Hardboiled Mystery Magazine (one of which resulted in a preliminary nomination for an Edgar Award for Best Short Story in 2006), as well as approximately two dozen speculative short stories (mainly of the variety of what they are now calling ‘interstitial’ (though I personally hate the term), along with a bit of straight science fiction), also published in minor magazines and anthologies you’ve never heard of and winning a few minor awards you’ve also never heard of (I’m nothing if not self-effacing). Somewhere in there I managed to write a novel called Dreaming Creek that’s kind of like the TV show “Cold Case” with a Twilight-Zone twist.

 D) a dad, who sets aside roles A), B), and C) at three o’clock in the afternoon when the school bus pulls up to the curb. Then it’s several hours of snacks and homework and laundry and cooking dinner until the previously-mentioned supportive wife comes home. Then, depending on how much work is left, I might or might not go back to my office in the evening and attend to whatever part of A, B, or C most needs my attention.

 This month, however, it happens not to be A), B), OR C); it’s A), B), AND C). With a whopping dose of D) thrown in for good measure. You see, the next issue of Diversity Woman has to be to the printers by June 17^th, the next issue of IGMS is scheduled for release on (or about) June 27^th, and my publisher (a small press in Pennsylvania called LBF Books) is expecting final edits on my novel by June 30^th. And did I mention the girls are out of school on June 11^th?

 I know they say that busy people get things done, but come on…

 But here’s the thing that makes me chuckle. When David emailed me and invited me to write a guest piece for this blog, I instantly knew that of all the roles I play, ‘writer’ is the one closest to my heart. How did I know this? How, you ask? (don’t ask, don’t ask… too late, I told you not to make eye contact). How? Because of all of the things I could have and should have been doing, when this opportunity presented itself, it was all my mind would focus on, all my fingers would consider doing. Here was an opportunity to tell a story – my story – silly though it (and I) may be, and my fingers heard the siren-song of the keyboard. There was no turning back. I just like stories.

Time to go pound out some parenthesis, boys.

Tags: Special Guest Stars // 11 Comments »

Yesterday Faith talked about how to approach an agent … and how not to. The same advice goes for approaching a published writer for help. Ever since “Mad Kestrel” hit the shelves, I’ve been receiving emails from nice people very politely asking me to help them. People I do not know.

Before I was published, I was lucky to have the guidance of a published author, Faith Hunter. We met when I joined the writing group she also belonged to. She encouraged me to try writing a novel when all I’d done up to that point was short fiction. She was constructively brutal when I needed it, supportive and kind when I was suffering. She took me under her wing because she believed in me. And she believed in me because she’d had time to get to know me and my writing.

I’ve had complete strangers offer to send me their novels. (If y’all could only see the stack of published books I haven’t read yet!) I’ve had people attach their novels to the email requesting I read them. (One lady, when I told her there were liabilities to me doing that, promised very sincerely that she’d never tell. Uh huh.) I’ve had people offer me ideas if I do the writing. (If only they knew how long it takes me to write the ideas I have now!) I remember how hard it was to write a whole novel the first time. The anguish of rejections, the stress of not knowing what comes next, the worry over whether I’d ever get an agent to represent me - those are all still very fresh in my mind. And who knows, one of those nice people might be the next J K Rowling, and I could discover her! I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t enticing.

But here’s the thing…I’m a writer first. I’m not the one who’ll spend her time showing editors your work, nor can I buy your novel from you. All I could do is look at it and tell you what works and what doesn’t. While I’m doing that for you, I’m not writing MY book. If it comes to my book or yours competing for my attention, mine is going to win. Especially if I’ve never even met you before. Yes, a published author helped me. I let her get to know me first, get to know that I meant what I said, that I could do the work myself and that I was willing to tough it out. In J K Holmes’ interview last Friday, she mentioned that she’d had the assistance of writer Carolyn Haines, but once again, that help came because they had a personal relationship, and Carolyn recognized J K was ready to put her money where her mouth was.

I don’t mean to sound like a downer - we do want to help. That’s why the four of us are here - this blog is a way for all of us to pay it forward. We welcome writers’ questions here. If you run into one or more of us at a con or writing conference, we’re happy to give advice and suggestions. Write, rewrite, make your book as good as it can possibly be. Take advantage of opportunities like writing critique groups or online support forums, and if you luck onto a personal relationship with someone in the business, treat it gently.

But you’re going to have to learn the craft for yourself, the hard way. The same way we all did. That’s the big secret to getting published.

Don’t forget to stop by tomorrow for a special guest appearance from Edmund Schubert, writer, managing editor of Diversity Woman and fiction editor of Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, an online sf/fantasy ‘zine.

Tags: Misty Massey // 3 Comments »

The Importance of an Agent, and the Agency’s Mailing Address

The importance of having an agent in this day and age can’t be emphasized enough. There are so many small presses with totally inclusive clauses in book contracts, so many scams, so many changes in the marketplace, so many vanity presses masquerading as legitimate royalty-paying presses, and so many new and binding clauses even in traditional press contracts that need to be negotiated out and removed prior to signing, that an agent is absolutely imperative. Especially for the writer just starting out, but even for the midlist writer trying to navigate the predator-infested waters of the publishing industry. Personally I think any writer at any level of success should have an agent, but I have to admit that I know a few writers who have been in the business long enough with careers that are thriving well enough to handle their own contracts.

However, this group blog won’t interest such a high-level writer, so I’ll just limit my comments to the rest of us. Get an agent. Get a good agent. How? It can be done any number of different ways. Once you have a finished, rewritten, re-rewritten, and totally polished manuscript, there are any numbers of ways to meet an agent. The most commonly successful way is for a writer to attend a writing conference, meet, greet, blurb, wine, run errands for if you can find a way to be helpful, and follow through with, an agent. The second most common way to get eh attention of an agent is to send out a hundred or so queries (or what feels like a hundred), and hope for several to ask for partials or whole manuscripts. But let’s just say that you have an agent interested in representing your manuscript. How do you decide whether to sign with him?

I have several suggestions, in no particular order:

1. Agent must not ask for any money at all.  The only time I have ever paid an agent is after a sale, and then only copying, messenger fees, and mailing costs.

2. A New York address, while once of primary importance, has changed in recent years. Once upon a time an agent had to wine and dine publishers and editors as a part of getting them to look at manuscripts. Now – not so much. If your agent travels to New York several times a year and attends most major conferences, that is good enough. Why? The demographics of New York publishing have changed. Once it was composed of hard-drinking, white males, age 40 to 70, who lived in the city and made it a point to stop at one of several popular bars for an after-work drink. Or six. Six drinks or six bars. Take your pick. Meeting and buying them drinks was imperative. The big-wigs in the biz then went home and slept it off, while hard-working underlings (read: poor, overworked and underpaid females) toted multiple manuscripts home and did the bulk of the actual work. Sad but true. Now the business is run by underpaid but immensely powerful females. They go home after work most nights and do their own reading, buying, and editing. They don’t socialize as much, and usually only at conferences. So the NYC address is less important.

3. Agent needs to have foreign agent affiliations and west coast contacts. This should be a part of their website info.

4. Frankly, young, hip agents are doing very well right now, while the old-school agencies are hiring new, young, hip agents to do the actual work in the offices.

5. Agency needs to represent the kind of work you write and should have a section on their website that lists recent sales.

6. Contract with agency should be fair and allow reasonable ways for writer to get out of representation. Note – just because you get out of representation, if they sold anything you wrote, they often have permanent rights to sell and represent that work, in perpetuity. I personally don’t like an “in perpetuity clause,” but it is becoming common in the business.

7. At the time of this writing, I have two agents, one who represents my thriller/mystery works written under the pen name, Gwen Hunter, and one for my fantasy works. This arrangement is unusual for the business, but I came to it honestly and innocently. Really! For me, this multiple relationship, this professional ménage-à-trois is working. So far. How long will it work to divide myself between two agencies? I don’t know. I’ll cross that bridge if I ever come to it.

There are dozens of other things to say about agents, but this will get your feet off the ground. Anyone have questions?
Faith

Tags: Faith Hunter // 12 Comments »

I’m actually writing bits of notes through the week for this blog, so these really *are* letters from the battlefield, rather than a Tuesday-morning summary.

words written this week: 21,472
pages written this week: 85

28,271 / 110,000 (25.7%)

Next week is going to be slower. I’m going to Cork for the weekend (to see Eric Clapton perform!), and the house-movers will theoretically be delivering out stuff on Monday, so I’m figuring if I get 2K done a day Friday-Monday I’ll be doing very well indeed. Fingers crossed, and meantime, here’s the week’s Letter:

[Read more →]

Tags: C E Murphy // 3 Comments »

On Friday of this week we’ll be having another guest blogger.  Our friend Edmund Schubert who is not only a writer of both short stories and novels, but is also managing editor at a magazine called Diversity Woman and the fiction editor at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, an online sf/fantasy ‘zine.  Ed is one of my favorite people and I’m sure you’ll enjoy his post, so be sure to check it out.

Ed was at ConCarolinas a couple of weeks ago with Misty, Faith, and me, and during one of our many panels he asked a question about “voice”, a difficult concept for beginning writers, and one I’d like to write about a bit today.

When we talk about voice, we are referring to the way a book or story reads.  It’s a rather amorphous concept that takes into account tone, style, character, and a host of other elements of writing.  If you look up the word “voice” in the dictionary, you won’t find any reference to this among its several definitions.  It’s one of the those terms that is used by those of us in the field, sometimes in different ways by different people.  That’s one of the reasons it’s such a difficult concept for beginning writers to grasp; many of us who aren’t beginners are still trying to grasp it ourselves.

For my part, I like to think about voice at a number of levels.  There’s a basic level that I refer to as stylistic voice.  When we read high fantasy we generally expect it to sound a certain way.  We expect the descriptions to be somewhat rich, the language to be less colloquial, more formal.  On the other hand, if we read contemporary urban fantasy, we expect the opposite.  The style will usually be more clipped, succinct; there might be less emphasis on description and more on action.  Military SF might be different from both of these.  Whatever.  Point is, this is what I mean by stylistic voice. 

Obviously, these are not hard and fast rules.  One can write highly descriptive urban fantasy or high fantasy in a clipped style.  The point is, this is a conscious decision that we make as writers; a stylistic decision.  And in making that decision, we are starting to establish the voice of our work.

For me, the second level of voice is established by my worldbuilding.  And this I call ambient voice. When I begin my worldbuilding, I don’t just come up with maps and place names, histories and religions, I also come up with a tone for the world I’m creating.  In my LonTobyn books, Tobyn-Ser had a very pastoral feel — again, lots of description, and a feel almost like that of the Shire (at least that’s what I was striving for).  Lon-Ser, on the other hand, was modern, technologically advanced, and violent.  The way I wrote in that world reflected those qualities.  The Forelands weren’t modern, but there was a darkness to them, a forbidding, uncompromising quality.  With all of these places, I tried to match my use of metaphor and simile to the quality of the place.  In other words, I tried to establish a voice that would reflect those elements of the worldbuilding in the way my characters saw their worlds, felt about other people, and expressed their emotions.   The darkness of the Forelands would have seemed out of place in Tobyn-Ser.  The modern interactions of Lon-Ser would have been totally anachronistic in the Forelands.  I believe that worldbuilding has to be reinforced in my prose, in my imagery.  That is ambient voice.

And finally, there is character voice, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.  I want all of my characters to sound unique.  When I begin writing a chapter or section from a different character’s point of view, I want my readers to sense that they are inside the mind of someone recognizably different from the last character whose mind they were in, and also from the next.  Ideally, I’d like my readers to know whose mind they’re in before I tell them.  That may be asking a lot, of them and of myself, but at least I want there to be variety in the tone of my different point of view characters.  That helps to make each character come to life for the reader.  If they all sound the same and look at the world the same way, I’ve failed to make them individuals.

Stylistic voice, ambient voice, character voice.  As with so many things (see my post from last Monday) this is my own way of thinking about voice.  It might not work for you.  And that’s fine.  But you should at least be thinking about the issues that I’ve raised here.  The way you write about your world should set a mood for your book.  Your characters should see the world and experience the events you describe in your narrative in ways that match their personalities and motivations.  That’s voice, and whether you like my categories or not, it is something you should consider as you write your story or book.

Tags: David B. Coe // 6 Comments »

First, I’d like to thank all the wonderful Magical Words authors for inviting me into their house for my first ever guest blogging appearance. I’m honored to be in such good company.

Now, as to the madness that has consumed my life…

The journey to see CRIMSON SWAN published has been interesting and unusually short in terms of the publishing industry. I began writing the book as an undergraduate student at the University of South Alabama in the spring of 2006. Until that point, I’d written a few short stories but I knew my heart
lay in novels.

The concept behind CRIMSON SWAN had been bouncing around in my head for about a year before I actually began writing it but I was apprehensive about submitting it to my classmates for critique. I was writing about vampires, law enforcement, and forensic science. In comparison to the literary works most often associated with university creative writing programs, my writing is very different. I write genre fiction with lots of action and complex plots. For example, CRIMSON SWAN is a dark urban fantasy set in the small
fictitious southwestern Mississippi town of Jefferson. Alexandra Sabian, a vampire and Enforcer with the Federal Bureau of Preternatural Investigation, moves to Jefferson from Louisville, Kentucky to escape the ghosts of her father’s murder and to put a violent past behind her.

The story begins with the discovery of the third dead vampire in two weeks. Alex, as the only FBPI Enforcer assigned to southwest Mississippi, is investigating the slayings but runs into opposition from the local human-run sheriff’s department and an anti-vampire group, the Human Separatist Movement. Further complicating matters are the omnipresent media and the arrival of a new Enforcer, Varik Baudelaire, who is also Alex’s former fiancé.

Tensions between Jefferson’s human and vampire populations mount, as the tensions between Alex and Varik also escalate. The stress of the investigation takes a toll on Alex and a latent psychic talent begins to
reassert itself. When the tensions in the town finally erupt into violence, Alex find herself at the center of a maelstrom that threatens to strip away everything she holds dear, including the one person she thought was safe from her past’s influence — her brother.

As you can see, CRIMSON SWAN isn’t the typical academic fare. However, the fiction workshop classes had (and still have) an outstanding and open-minded instructor: Carolyn Haines (author of the Sarah Boothe Delaney mystery series, REVENANT, MANY BLOODY RETURNS, FEVER MOON, and many more). Carolyn was (and continues to be) very supportive of my work, as were the other students. With their encouragement and Carolyn’s guidance, by the time I finished my undergraduate degree in fall 2006, I’d nearly completed the entire book. Even though I now had a degree, I wanted to learn more, to explore the voice I felt I was just beginning to find, and I’ll admit that the idea of having to find a “real job” and repay my student loans was something I loathed. So, I started graduate school, again at USA, in spring 2007 and continued studying with Carolyn.
In May 2007 when CRIMSON SWAN was down to its final chapters, Carolyn negotiated with her agent, Marian Young, to read a portion of my work. I’d attended a few conferences and had pitched CRIMSON SWAN to a couple of agents with no success. While there were no guarantees that Marian would offer to represent me, it was an opportunity that was too good to pass up. I sent her manuscript and she guided me through a couple of editing rounds. Our personalities meshed well and after I made the final cuts, Marian loved the changes and took me on as a client. Needless to say, I was thrilled!
Marian started sending CRIMSON SWAN out to editors in June 2007 and continued to do so for months. Whenever she received a rejection, and there were many, she would forward them to me along with her words of encouragement. The rejections were all the same: “We agree Ms. Holmes has talent, but…” or “I really liked this book, but…” It’s very easy to become discouraged when faced with rejection after rejection, but Marian and Carolyn were both confident the book would sell, which gave me confidence if not patience. (More on this later.)
Finally, in late November 2007, Danielle Perez, a senior editor with Bantam Dell (Random House), gave us a rejection but, with some coaxing from Marian, also provided feedback on CRIMSON SWAN, laying out the areas she felt were in need of improvement and agreed to a second reading of the manuscript. For the next four months, I tore CRIMSON SWAN apart, restructured, re-plotted, re-wrote, and added nearly one hundred pages to its length. I stressed over it. I cursed over it. I forced myself to work through the writers’ block
that threatened to derail me and my academic studies. (Yes, I was still attending grad school full-time during all of this.) I sent it back to Marian in March and she forwarded it to Danielle.
Then, we waited. And waited. And waited some more. On May 27, 2008, Marian called with the news we’d been hoping to hear for nearly a year. We had an offer! Danielle wanted to buy CRIMSON SWAN as well
as a second book. Both would be released as mass market paperback originals, with CRIMSON SWAN being released in September 2009. We accepted the offer, and my life has exploded outward in so many directions and so quickly that it’s a little overwhelming at times. But, looking back on the past two years and the experiences I’ve had and the friendships I’ve created along the way, I know I have the support of some very talented people, and that support will make all the difference in the coming months as CRIMSON SWAN continues its journey to publication.
My experiences thus far have been charmed, but I’d like to pass along a few words of advice to other writers who are still waiting for the phone call that changes our lives. My advice is to be patient but persistent. I know my journey was shorter than some, it wasn’t without its challenges and frustrations, and, in all honesty, I’m one of the last people who should speak of patience. However, this experience has taught me that the publishing industry moves at its own pace and that pace is very often slower than we, as writers, would like for it to be. 

While you’re waiting for that life-altering phone call, and in addition to writing every day, network with other writers, whether in person at conferences or online in chat rooms, e-mail lists, or blogs. A strong
support system comprised of others who understand how you’re feeling makes the time between sending your manuscript off to an agent or editor and receiving that phone call pass quickly. Also, when  networking, ask questions. Learn from others who have traveled this road. I’m sure you’ll find that many are only too happy to share their stories.
I know I have been, and I wish the best of luck to published and unpublished writers alike. May your hard drives always have space, your ink cartridges always be full, your paper supply endless, and your phone call forthcoming. 

Thanks, again, to Faith, David, C. E., and Misty for inviting me to share my
story. It’s been a blast!

Tags: Special Guest Stars // 14 Comments »

Sometimes you hear writers speak of their writing area as a sacred space, the place where all the cares of the day vanish and they are able to produce valuable, readable, entertaining and satisfying work. Most of the time, they’re talking about a corner of their bedroom or an office, the spot in their house that’s been designated for creative activity.

For me, it’s the beach. We come here once a year with my family for a week of rest and disconnection, and yet I find my mind whirling and creating with every minute I’m awake (and some while I’m sleeping - you should have SEEN the zombie dream I had last night! *shudder*) I have to carry a notebook out to the beach every day, because ideas flow like wine when I’m under the sun and listening to the surf. Not just piratey ideas, but all kinds. It’s as if an extra, unused portion of my brain has been switched on, and there’s just not enough time to write it all down. I managed two pages on Monday, nine on Tuesday, and three yesterday. That’s more than I even shoot for in a whole week during the school year!

This is my sacred space. And I really am not sure I want to come home. If I move to the beach, will y’all come visit me?

PS Don’t forget…we have a special guest here on Magical Words tomorrow - J K Holmes! And when you finish reading her fabulous interview, drop over to madkestrel.livejournal.com to see what’s going on with the zombie uprising!

Tags: Misty Massey // 5 Comments »

I’m starting a new book soon – soon being a time-issue that is relevant to a rewrite (Gwen’s Rapid Descent) that will take a month, the rewrite of my (Faith’s) Skinwalker, that will take a few weeks, and a short story rewrite that will take a day or so. But I am looking forward to starting a new book, with all its possibilities and potential, about a character that I am just starting to know. A character for whom research is taking me in new and exciting places.

What kind of new and exciting places, you may ask. Ahhh. I am taking cooking classes, dance classes, and learning a few other things…  Not because the character cooks—yet.  But because she will take some cooking classes with a witch-friend. And dancing? The character … um … let me put it this way.  Jane Yellowrock *smokes* on the dance floor.

Jane Yellowrock is a skinwalker. She would just as soon eat her dinner fresh, warm, raw and … well, still twitching. When in beast form, that is. In human form, in book two, she will get bored with her usual diet and take a class. Sushi – to satisfy her beastly and human selves. And maybe a ballroom dance class. Why the dance class? Because in book one, Skinwalker, she dances with a … well, you’ll just have to wait and see.

The point to all this? Two.  First –

It relates to believability, to the suspension of disbelief of the reader, and to the assurance of the writer. I am asking a reader to believe that skinwalkers exist. That vampires exist. That witches (a species biologically unique from humans) exist. If also ask them to believe that I know how to Rumba when I don’t, it may bring them totally out of the story. Besides. The lessons are tax deductible. So is the sushi. I like sushi. So does my character.

Which brings us to my second point – taxes.

A writer has to use all sorts of knowledge to bring the reader into her story, to make him believe it is all possible. In the US, anything that goes into a book, that is required to write the book, becomes tax deductible. And with taxes as they stand today, I need deductibility. So I take lessons. And deduct them.

A detailed and complete calendar, and receipt keeping, are part of a writer’s life. The IRS couldn’t care less that I needed a class. Unless I can prove that I needed it for a book. A book that was published. Writers have to be our own businessmen, even if we hire (which I do) a certified CPA at tax time. How is that different for a non-published writer? Every state is different. Check with a tax pro. With two. Because not all tax pros know about writing and how best to save us money.

Like writing, cooking, dancing, and stalking rogue vampires, taxes are an art form.

Enjoy!

Oh. Wait… There’s more!

On June, Friday 13^th, JK Holmes will share with us how she got published. Here’s her bio and blurb.

Bio:
Jeannie Holmes is a native of southwest Mississippi. Before receiving her
Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of South Alabama, she
worked in a variety of interesting jobs, including emergency rooms,
independent auction houses, and even a brief stint in a funeral home. Her
debut novel, CRIMSON SWAN, a dark urban fantasy set in a small Mississippi
town, is due for release in September 2009. In addition to working on the
sequel, she is finishing her Master of Arts degree in English at the
University of South Alabama. She lives in Mobile, AL with her husband and
four neurotic cats.

Blurb for CRIMSON SWAN:
Alexandra Sabian, a vampire and Enforcer with the Federal Bureau of
Preternatural Investigation, moved to Jefferson, Mississippi six years ago
to escape the ghosts of her father’s murder and a past filled with violence.
Now a killer stalks the vampires living in the small town and the deaths are
resurrecting the past she thought she left behind. Alex must fight bigotry,
the media, and herself, in order to stop the killings before her brother
becomes the next victim.

 Jeannie
J. K. Holmes
www.jkholmes.com

Faith

Tags: Faith Hunter // 2 Comments »

I’d meant to really get started on my current book a week ago Monday, but with one thing and another it’s really only getting underway today. All I’ve managed in the last week is revising the 2.5 chapters I’d written as a proposal for this book.

Now, this is the fourth book in the Walker Papers series, and I wrote the proposal for it just a smidge under two years ago. Since then, I’ve written *well* over half a million words in five books and two major revisions. Going back is…somewhat painful. Not going back to Joanne, whose style of speech is easy to write, but going back to a proposal that I was (more than) a little brain-dead when I wrote in the first place, and which involves a character who’s grown up a lot more in the last two years since I’ve written her than she had in the couple weeks (at most) between finishing COYOTE DREAMS and writing this proposal.

I’d figured the break after COYOTE was as good a time as any to stop writing Jo for a while, ’cause there’s a certain amount of resolution to the end of book 3, and it would give me time to do something else and stretch my wings a bit, but I had *no idea* how good it would be for the character to give her some time to mature.

The problem with this, of course, is it means totally rewriting most of these first three chapters. I’ve gone over the first chapter more times than I can count now, tightening, editing, polishing–cat-waxing, perhaps, but on the other hand, it’s been *so long* since I’ve written her that I feel that doing this is good for me–and the second chapter did…all the wrong things, really. It always did (which is why it’s a 2.5 chapter proposal instead of a proper 3 chapter proposal), or at least mostly: the first scene in it is good, and the last sentence is good. The rest of it had to go, and the last sentence became a mid-chapter scene break or punctuation point instead of the end of the chapter. And the third chapter, well, pfft. All wrong. Out the window. Except the scene that’s good, of course, which ended up finishing the second chapter and leaving me with somewhere, I hope, to start with chapter three.

With this stuff resolved I’m hoping for a couple weeks of incredibly high wordcount; this is a 110K book due in mid-July, and I’m going to be busting my brain to get it done. Probably the next six weeks of blogging here for me will be more letters from the battlefield, just me and the headspace I’m in right at that moment while writing a book. I hope somebody’ll get something out of it.

Tags: C E Murphy // 6 Comments »