Laura Anne Gilman's Blog, page 20
January 13, 2016
Not so much a rant as a through-gritted-teeth aside
Before you say “gee, your prices are kinda high” to a freelancer, consider that out of that money they have to:
a) pay living expenses (rent, food, utilities)
b) pay taxes
c) pay health insurance and all non-covered medical bills
d) put up with a client who doesn’t think they’re worth a living wage for a professional skillset the client has requested.
a) pay living expenses (rent, food, utilities)
b) pay taxes
c) pay health insurance and all non-covered medical bills
d) put up with a client who doesn’t think they’re worth a living wage for a professional skillset the client has requested.
January 12, 2016
Bragging on the twinling's new book....
Barbara Ferrer's new release, BETWEEN HERE AND GONE, is out today! If you enjoy women's fiction, modern period fiction, Cuba-US relations, or just damn fine writing, you need to check this out.
"Ferrer has created a story that’s breathtaking in its scope, and a heroine whose strength will leave readers in awe." -Publishers Weekly Starred Review
"Beautiful, precise language is plentiful throughout Ferrer's latest. Her brilliant storytelling, with its vibrant description and dialogue, will touch the hearts of readers." - RT Book Reviews, 4 Stars
Amazon / BN / Indiebound
Meanwhile, in honor of the day, I hereby preset in full, the Official Recitation (ok, read out loud at home) of
"Written on the Occasion Of a Book Birthday"
(with apologies and the offer of a drink to Master Shakespeare, who would have understood)
“To brace or not to brace; that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The inevitability of that Klausner review,
Or to take refuge against a poor store display,
And by ignoring deny them? To work: to weep;
No more; and by weeping to say we endure
The heart-ache and the thousand returned books
An author is prone to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To work, to weep;
To weep: perchance to go out of stock: aye, there’s the rub;
For in that work of bookstores what fears may come
When we have shuffled off this contractual coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of too little backlist;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of Locus,
The reviewers’s wrong, the disappointed reader’s spite,
The pangs of despised love, the payment’s delay,
The insolence of wannabes and the spurns
That patient merit of the unpublished takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a delete button? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of there being nothing after,
The remainder’d country from whose bourn
No author returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus publishing doth make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And manuscripts of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the pacing of action. – Soft you now!
The fair New York Times list! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my words remember’d.”
This work by Laura Anne Gilman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
"Ferrer has created a story that’s breathtaking in its scope, and a heroine whose strength will leave readers in awe." -Publishers Weekly Starred Review
"Beautiful, precise language is plentiful throughout Ferrer's latest. Her brilliant storytelling, with its vibrant description and dialogue, will touch the hearts of readers." - RT Book Reviews, 4 Stars
Amazon / BN / Indiebound
Meanwhile, in honor of the day, I hereby preset in full, the Official Recitation (ok, read out loud at home) of
"Written on the Occasion Of a Book Birthday"
(with apologies and the offer of a drink to Master Shakespeare, who would have understood)
“To brace or not to brace; that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The inevitability of that Klausner review,
Or to take refuge against a poor store display,
And by ignoring deny them? To work: to weep;
No more; and by weeping to say we endure
The heart-ache and the thousand returned books
An author is prone to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To work, to weep;
To weep: perchance to go out of stock: aye, there’s the rub;
For in that work of bookstores what fears may come
When we have shuffled off this contractual coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of too little backlist;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of Locus,
The reviewers’s wrong, the disappointed reader’s spite,
The pangs of despised love, the payment’s delay,
The insolence of wannabes and the spurns
That patient merit of the unpublished takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a delete button? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of there being nothing after,
The remainder’d country from whose bourn
No author returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus publishing doth make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And manuscripts of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the pacing of action. – Soft you now!
The fair New York Times list! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my words remember’d.”
This work by Laura Anne Gilman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
January 11, 2016
Oh, Monday...
Like most of the world, I'm having trouble accepting that David Bowie has died. So I'm not going to. So there.
Denial: if it's not negatively or dangerously impacting your life, it's a totally acceptable life choice.
Denial: if it's not negatively or dangerously impacting your life, it's a totally acceptable life choice.
January 8, 2016
Another book blogger heard from
The Qwillery lists SILVER ON THE ROAD in their Top Five of 2015!
(along with some guys named Wendig, Frohock, Newman, and Holm)
" The novel is at moments like the soft brush of gently swaying prairie grass and at times like the thunder of a herd of buffalo stampeding."
(along with some guys named Wendig, Frohock, Newman, and Holm)
" The novel is at moments like the soft brush of gently swaying prairie grass and at times like the thunder of a herd of buffalo stampeding."
In case anyone was wondering if the number of people liking SILVER ON THE ROAD has made it difficult to work on THE COLD EYE, for fear of letting y'all down?
That would be a yes.
This, as they say, is a most excellent problem to have. And now I go back to't....
January 6, 2016
I'm just gonna leave this here....
from the January 2016 issue of Locus Magazine.
January 3, 2016
Picking Up Where We Left Off
Make coffee. Feed and shoot cats. Drink coffee. Have breakfast. Return emails. Check social media. Return returned emails. Turn off social media. Go to work. Deadlines: distant but visible.
2016 is officially underway.
(there is no truth to the rumor that I threw a New Year's Day party simply so that I would have leftovers to eat during the first week of revisions. No truth at all. Just a happy coincidence.)
2016 is officially underway.
(there is no truth to the rumor that I threw a New Year's Day party simply so that I would have leftovers to eat during the first week of revisions. No truth at all. Just a happy coincidence.)
December 31, 2015
2015 rolling out and 2016 rolling in...
2015 has been both one of the most... amazingly satisfying years of my life, and also one of the roughest. I suspect the blend is impossible to avoid, especially when you're not treading the same, familiar ground. It was a year, and it will not come again. But a new one always does.
And so, on this last day leading into First Night, I leave you not with a roundup or resolutions (those are personal, and so private) but my yearly wish for us all, that the very best of this year past is the worst that we will face in 2016.
*raises glass* To our health and our well-being, physical, mental, emotional and financial, from this house to yours.
And so, on this last day leading into First Night, I leave you not with a roundup or resolutions (those are personal, and so private) but my yearly wish for us all, that the very best of this year past is the worst that we will face in 2016.
*raises glass* To our health and our well-being, physical, mental, emotional and financial, from this house to yours.
December 30, 2015
Yankee love keeps you warm in the winter...
Winding down the year, taking a few days off from work to bake and chill and read Other Peoples' Books, but I came across this today, and, well, maybe my birthplace library shows no love, but the place where my siblings spent their earliest years DOES...
The Peabody (MA) Institute Library says of SILVER ON THE ROAD, "Part western, part fantasy, part coming-of-age novel, Laura Anne Gilman’s newest release is a marvel of a book that draws you in, and keeps you on your toes....this book is like nothing I’ve read before, and I couldn’t be more excited about it."
Have I mentioned recently how much I adore librarians?
The Peabody (MA) Institute Library says of SILVER ON THE ROAD, "Part western, part fantasy, part coming-of-age novel, Laura Anne Gilman’s newest release is a marvel of a book that draws you in, and keeps you on your toes....this book is like nothing I’ve read before, and I couldn’t be more excited about it."
Have I mentioned recently how much I adore librarians?
December 28, 2015
an editorial advisory....
For those who were thinking about contacting me for an editing gig in the next 6 months....
Starting in 2016, my editing rates will be going up (slightly). But if you contact me before 2 January 2016, I'll lock you in at the 2015 rates.
Book early, pay less, later. :-)
Starting in 2016, my editing rates will be going up (slightly). But if you contact me before 2 January 2016, I'll lock you in at the 2015 rates.
Book early, pay less, later. :-)
December 26, 2015
Wasn't Expecting That....
From the twitter feed of someone whose main interests seem to be...hockey. And, it seems, SF/F.
They also liked Linda Nagata's THE RED trilogy, and a trio of books from some guy named VanderMeer...
They also liked Linda Nagata's THE RED trilogy, and a trio of books from some guy named VanderMeer...
