K.C. Shaw's Blog, page 31

Week of the Mighty Novella

Finally! My novella The Dragon Whisperer--last year's NaNo book, the one I wrote at breakneck speed so I could get back to rewriting Bell-Men--will be published as an ebook by Double Dragon Press! DDP published my novel Weaver's Shroud this spring and I'm very happy with them, so I'm glad they liked The Dragon Whisperer too.

Also in novella news this week, Cate Gardner has just announced that her novella Theatre of Curious Acts will be published by Hadley Rille Books! Congratulations to her...

Ooh, colors!

I don't know why I'm posting so many pictures lately. I still don't have a camera, I just bug my mom to take photos for me.

Mom was a party to my latest insanity, though. I saw a picture somewhere online that showed a set of bookshelves where each shelf held books of a different color. I went from "how cool" to "I could do that" in about fourteen nanoseconds, and the next thing I knew, Mom and I were surrounded by books piled everywhere. And here is the result--not as spectacular as the origin...

The fruits of my labors

It's not the first of the month, but have a picture of my peppers! These are a few varieties that have started producing. From left to right, top to bottom: the very long ones are immature cowhorns (they get really big if you let them grow), then a pair of mammoth Jalapenos, then two smallish cayennes, middle row a banana pepper, my first sort-of-ripe Habanero, two puriras, and bottom row is a Tabasco and two NuMex variety peppers--Sunrise, I think, but possibly Twilight. I planted both and f...

Look what I made!

I finally decided I had to do something about all the books on the floor of my bedroom. My to-be-read pile is out of control and taking over. Accordingly, I moved the loveseat out of my room to Mom's--I never sat on it anyway, as it was piled with books--and put together these ubercheap brick-and-board shelves in the awkward spot under the linen closet. All the books on the new shelves, with the exception of Prowlpuss that I like to display because I love the cover, are my to-be-read books.

I ...

Hike like you mean it

I read The Magicians by Lev Grossman a few days ago (and reviewed it over at Skunk Cat), and I keep thinking about it. I recommend the book even though it's kind of depressing. One of the things the book does is look at fantasy worlds--in this case, both the hidden-magical-world a la Harry Potter, and the portal-world Fillory, a la Narnia--and how real people would behave if suddenly given access to them. In Grossman's book, people continue to act as they did before, only with new things to a...

Other people manage to get endings right

I can't think of a thing to write about, except that I cleaned out my closets today (even the linen closet!), and no one wants to hear about that. I dusted off a couple of old stories this afternoon and sent them off. I thought up a short story idea that might actually work, if I can figure out how it should end.

That's always my problem. I never know how a short story should end. Endings are my nemesis. Nemeses. Whatever.

The reason I cleaned out my closets, and cleaned my room, is because I j...

Editing doesn't count

Over the long weekend I opened up Bell-Men and hacked and slashed my way through it line by line. I managed to cut 6,000 words--my goal--without taking out more than a few dozen from any one passage. All the words I cut were completely unnecessary. Now the book is much trimmer at a bit under 118,000 words by MS Word's count (OpenOffice always gives me a higher count; it thinks the book is 120,000 words). I've given up on agents for this one and have sent queries out to three publishers. Onwar...

Bad Publisher! No Cookie!

A few weeks ago I read (and reviewed) the awesomely-titled and fun book The Mall of Cthulhu by Seamus Cooper (pen name of Brendan Halpin). Turns out he's having trouble with his publisher, Night Shade Books, which is screwing him over regarding ebook rights and his royalty statements. There's a good overview of the situation over at The Speculative Scotsman, or you can go to Halpin's own blog for a bit more information. Apparently author Liz Williams (author of Snake Agent, which is sitting c...

The garden in July

It's July 1, and that means a picture of my garden! Whee!

Actually, the garden's not doing as well as I'd like. Many of the peppers seem to have contracted some kind of fungus or something that has killed some of them and has slowed pepper production to almost nothing in others. Some of the plants seem either resistant or just lucky: the NuMex Twilight and Purira peppers are producing like crazy, many of the Fish peppers are getting big and looking handsome and healthy, and at least one Habane...

Halfway through 2010

Here we are halfway through the year, and I have made exactly zero sales in 2010. I was kind of hoping I'd get one of those miraculous last-second saves before midnight, but it's after ten and all I've gotten today is one rejection. Still, that's better than nothing, especially since half my Duotrope listings are red.

I have to work tomorrow even though it's Thursday. Usually I have Thursdays off, but this week has been really weird schedule-wise. I get Friday off, though, and Monday. Unfortun...