Lilith Saintcrow's Blog, page 212
March 16, 2010
Tuesday's Child Gets Distracted
Some linkspam this Tuesday, since I've spent the day running all sorts of errands. I did break for a lovely lunch, and came home to find a picture had arrived. So all in all, a good day. But still, I'm itching and aching to get back to the story, and resenting the interruption of Life Stuff That Must Be Done.
Onward!
* Realthog on Swiftprobers. When Thog (otherwise known as John Grant/Paul Barnett) gets out his katana to face down some idiocy, it's always a good time.
March 15, 2010
A Love Letter To The Current Book
Oh, you book, you. You feisty little book. This is twice you've juked me out, three times if you count that outline I bowed to pressure and did. The one you've made me alter and throw out TWICE now.
Oh you little rascal. You just do not know who you are f!cking with.
I'm getting ready for the last big tango of this part of our relationship. It'll be a great dance full of gunfire and merriment. I'll get the characters through the crisis while you yawn and grin at me. I can feel the last big...
March 12, 2010
I Never Know
Crossposted to the Deadline Dames.
Reader Melissa P. asked earlier this week:
So MY question is, how do you know it's good enough? Especially if you've never been published?
How do you know if your writing is Good Enough? How do you know if you have any chance at all?
The short answer is also the most brutal:
You don't.
The longer answer…well. I get hate mail calling me the worst writer in the world, even though I'm making a living at it. "Good enough" is highly subjective. Plus, there's the Inner...
March 9, 2010
50K! Hooray!
Yes, I've broken 50K on the latest Dru novel. I am still terrified, I still think it's awful, I am still tearing my hair out and screaming "everyone is going to hate it AND HATE ME! I'LL NEVER GET FINISHED WAAAH!" But that's so much a part and parcel of the doldrums of a novel's creation that I'm actually riding the feelings with a modicum of calm. Yeah, it might suck, but at least it won't be a pile of unfinished suckage. The rest is for an editor to help me with.
You'd think that after how m...
March 8, 2010
Audiobook Wow
My God, you guys. I just listened to the boathouse scene in Betrayals on audiobook. (Strange Angels is here.) A copy of it was just delivered today, and OH MY GOD, you GUYS, the woman reading it is spectacular. She just nails Christophe. It's amazing. I finished listening to the scene and had cold chills.
It's an exotic experience to hear words that you agonized over read professionally. I just about came out of my skin, I was jumping up and down and squealing so hard. This is the first time I...
March 5, 2010
Why I Do This
Crossposted to the Deadline Dames!
This Friday's writing post is a bit late because, well, life happens. As it is, I was taking a cake to a sixth-grade classroom this morning (long story, don't ask) and I ended up giving an impromptu Q&A about the life of a working writer for about an hour and a half.
Oh, my God, you guys. Sixth-graders are brutal. I think the second question was, "What do you make a year?" The kid asking it was genuinely curious. The teacher looked horrified, someone else...
March 4, 2010
If I Could Do That, I Can Do This
Yesterday I did my very first three-mile run. I'm informed that three miles is the breakover point–once you reach three miles, you can pretty much train for any distance effectively, or something like that. Everyone was cheering me on–funny, running is so solitary, and yet my Twitter and Facebook blew up with "Go Lili!" "You can do it!" "Those miles don't stand a chance!"
I was so grateful for the cheering, you guys. It was like I had a whole crowd urging me for the finish line.
I did finish...
March 2, 2010
Hand On Sword, Eye On Prize
When you get up at 6AM with a whole week's worth of to-do collapsed into a single day…everything turns into a blur. Especially when you've been awake half the night stressed out about All The Things You've Decided To Do Today. I was up pretty early this morning, and I got everything accomplished. My list, which looked like a mad scientist's scratchpad, has EVERYTHING crossed off. If I wasn't so damn tired I'd go get myself a glass of wine to celebrate. Unfortunately the wine would put me...
March 1, 2010
Linkspam! (And Drop-Dead!)
Links this morning!
* Ever wonder how the Deadline Dames came to be? Wonder no more. Here's the real story. (Devon Monk is a GENIUS.) Before you ask, yes, I am considering a Tiger Lili short story.
* Motoko Rich on the math of of publishing meeting the ebook. (h/t to Colleen Lindsay and Victoria Strauss.)
* It's amazing what gets left out of a Will Rogers quote. (h/t to Mary Robinette Kowal.)
It's ironic that not so long ago I couldn't run a mile without wanting to throw up and die, not...
February 26, 2010
The Plot-Pant Continuum
Crossposted to Deadline Dames.
Someone once said, "You don't know how to write novels. You only know how to write the novel you're writing NOW."
Wise words.
Writers fall on a continuum. You have your pantsers, who tend to store things in their head and blithely run through a novel; then you have your plotters, who have a variety of strategies for deciding on what happens in a novel before they write it. (Strategies like outlining, 3X5 cards, mapping a novel on butcher or kraft paper, Post-Its...
