Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 162
February 9, 2015
Not Getting Stuff Done
That whole Weekend of Getting Stuff Done plan didn't end up happening. There was a ballet production I decided I wanted to see, and tickets were plentiful, so I drove to Fort Worth to see The Merry Widow, a ballet based on the operetta. The dancing was wonderful and the costumes were utterly gorgeous, more evening attire than traditional ballet costumes. I figure it counts as research since I'm writing about a dancer, but I also found it interesting watching the non-verbal communication. Unlike a lot of ballets, this was very plot-intensive. I'm not sure I could have followed it entirely without the summary in the program (and a lot of the people around me were confused even with the summary), but it was still interesting seeing just how much could be conveyed about emotions and relationships just from body language. I caught myself mentally supplying narration from the various characters' point of view, just to see how I'd write it based on what I was seeing.
The plot was about a wealthy widow who was much in demand. If she married a foreigner and moved out of her small (fictional) European country with all her money, it might bankrupt her country, so her country's delegation in Paris was trying to make sure she married one of them. The suitor they picked to go after her turned out to actually have been a former lover of hers from when she was a young peasant girl. He rejected her on the urgings of his family because of her class (I guess she later married a really wealthy man who didn't care about her origins). When they're reunited, all the old feelings return, but can she be sure he really loves her and doesn't just want her for her money? I thought it was interesting how the dancers conveyed that sense of affection combined with distance. There was clearly a strong attraction but also a strong sense of pain and pride on her part -- she wasn't going to let him hurt her again. Anyway, I think it was time well-spent.
I didn't get much done on Sunday, either, since I had to do preschool Sunday school and direct the preschool/kindergarten choir to sing in church. Then there was a reception after church and grocery shopping, and lunch and reading the newspaper, and next thing I knew, it was time to cook dinner. So that means the Getting Stuff Done has been moved to today. I need to get paint and some supplies and start some of the prep work -- a few drywall patches, doing some texture on the walls that previously held wallpaper. I think I need to make a detailed list of all the work that needs to be done so I can tick off the boxes. The big things for me, other than general decluttering and cleaning, are the sheetrock repair and painting and doing something about the kitchen floor. Otherwise, I need to get a plumber in for a bunch of little things, replace a window and then decide if two of the ceiling fans need to be replaced or if I can get by (they work but are noisy).
In the meantime, there's writing work to be done. Today I need to finish the cover copy for book 2 and outline and write preliminary cover copy for book 3 (just to get my head straight).
It's going to be a busy month.
The plot was about a wealthy widow who was much in demand. If she married a foreigner and moved out of her small (fictional) European country with all her money, it might bankrupt her country, so her country's delegation in Paris was trying to make sure she married one of them. The suitor they picked to go after her turned out to actually have been a former lover of hers from when she was a young peasant girl. He rejected her on the urgings of his family because of her class (I guess she later married a really wealthy man who didn't care about her origins). When they're reunited, all the old feelings return, but can she be sure he really loves her and doesn't just want her for her money? I thought it was interesting how the dancers conveyed that sense of affection combined with distance. There was clearly a strong attraction but also a strong sense of pain and pride on her part -- she wasn't going to let him hurt her again. Anyway, I think it was time well-spent.
I didn't get much done on Sunday, either, since I had to do preschool Sunday school and direct the preschool/kindergarten choir to sing in church. Then there was a reception after church and grocery shopping, and lunch and reading the newspaper, and next thing I knew, it was time to cook dinner. So that means the Getting Stuff Done has been moved to today. I need to get paint and some supplies and start some of the prep work -- a few drywall patches, doing some texture on the walls that previously held wallpaper. I think I need to make a detailed list of all the work that needs to be done so I can tick off the boxes. The big things for me, other than general decluttering and cleaning, are the sheetrock repair and painting and doing something about the kitchen floor. Otherwise, I need to get a plumber in for a bunch of little things, replace a window and then decide if two of the ceiling fans need to be replaced or if I can get by (they work but are noisy).
In the meantime, there's writing work to be done. Today I need to finish the cover copy for book 2 and outline and write preliminary cover copy for book 3 (just to get my head straight).
It's going to be a busy month.
February 6, 2015
Age and Time
The plan for today/the weekend is Get Stuff Done. There will be an epic Home Depot trip this afternoon to prepare for a lot of little repair projects and get some painting supplies. Since I'm going to be at a convention this weekend, I figure Friday morning will be a good time to paint the bathroom since I won't have to sleep in the room next to it for a couple of nights. That means finding the right paint color. I've spent years with paint color cards stuck on the wall, trying to decide on the right shade of blue, but since I'm planning to sell soon, I now need to try to match the same white used in the rest of the house. And then I need to do a lot of cleaning/organizing. I've been invited to a party/house concert Saturday night and am still on the fence about going. On the one hand, it's something I'm interested in and might even be good for me professionally because the attendees are well within the target market for my writing. On the other hand, it's a bit out of my comfort zone (performing may be required), I'll only know a few of the people there, and getting home could be interesting, as the freeway between there and here will be shut down that night (I know the back roads, though). We'll see what condition I'm in after a day of Getting Stuff Done. I'll either be energized or collapse on the sofa.
Meanwhile, I've noticed a trend in my entertainment interests lately, and when I notice a trend I have to analyze it to figure out what it is I like about it. Then I have to see how I can use this in my work.
So lately I've found myself really interested in stories about people who are much older than they appear -- not like me still being asked for ID when I buy wine at the grocery store, but people who are centuries old but who look 30-something. And not vampires. Mostly, humans who've had their aging arrested somehow or who have been made immortal, but who don't have any other superpowers.
I think it started with Doctor Who and Matt Smith's version of the Doctor (though he doesn't really count as an ordinary human made immortal), where he looked very young but played the role like he was an old man. It really kicked into gear, though, when Rory spent 2,000 years as a kind of robot, then the universe was rebooted so he was never killed in the first place, but somehow he still had the 2,000 years of memories. They didn't come near making use of the potential of that, but there were moments when you got the weight of those 2,000 years in this young man.
There was the short-lived series New Amsterdam, with the immortal cop -- a Dutch soldier from the early days of settlement on Manhattan cursed with immortality. Now there's Forever, with the doctor made immortal a couple of centuries ago and now working as a medical examiner. Both of these series include one of the elements that I think fascinates me about this trope -- the role-reversed parent/child relationship. In New Amsterdam, there was the elderly man who was friends with the hero and who turned out to be his son. In Forever, the hero's close friend and father figure is actually his adopted son, a baby he rescued from a concentration camp at the end of WWII. This relationship is at the core of Forever, with the son sometimes looking after the "young" father as though he's a son (and that's the way the world sees them), but then when they're alone, they sometimes have those parent/child squabbles, with the seemingly younger man griping about the older son's fondness for that modern jazz music and the seemingly older man whining "Daaaaaad" when his father warns him not to do something. Doctor Who had a similar age-reversed family situation, with Rory and Amy's daughter being a couple of decades older than they were (due to time travel, though, not weird aging).
Then there have been a couple of versions of the Captain Hook story that have played with this, to varying degrees. It was most effective in the novel Alias Hook, in which Hook was immortal in Neverland, and over the centuries he did eventually grow up after watching generations of Lost Boys come and go. They sort of touch on this (but not as effectively as they should) in the version on TV's Once Upon a Time, where Hook spent a couple of centuries in Neverland not aging, so he's one of the oldest characters on the series, but played by one of the younger cast members. This mostly comes down to a few age jokes, as they barely remember that he's in a strange world, let alone a man out of time, so it's frustrating to me as a writer. They completely wasted the potential in another age-reversed relationship, where one of the Lost Boys he looked after and connected to ended up outside a curse that froze time for 28 years, so when they were reunited, the boy he knew was older than he was. Sometimes I really want to stage an armed takeover of the writers room for that show. The characters should sue them for malpractice.
So, why do I find this fascinating? I think as I get older, I find myself thinking of age and what it really means. I don't feel any different mentally or emotionally than I did as a teenager, even as I see gray hair. I took one of those "what's your real age?" online quizzes about your interests, and it gave me an age ten years older than I am. And yet I still get asked for ID to buy wine. Making a character's age extremely out of whack with his/her appearance is a way of exploring the concept of what age really means, if it means anything. I'm not sure why I'm fascinated with the out-of-order family relationships -- maybe a metaphor for aging parents? -- but I think it's mostly that it requires some creativity in writing. It takes characters out of neat little boxes and forces them to adjust.
I'm not sure how I can use this in a story, since it's probably less effective in print than it is on the screen. You see characters from the inside in a book, and no matter how many times you say that someone looks 30, if they act 100, that's what readers may see. I do have one idea in mind that involves someone being frozen in time for a long time -- a kind of Groundhog Day existence -- but I'm not sure how that will manifest. I think it'll mostly be more like time travel, suddenly being dumped into a strange environment, though she'll have made a lot of use of all that time to have a decent array of skill sets.
But that's a backburner story until I finish a few other things.
Meanwhile, I've noticed a trend in my entertainment interests lately, and when I notice a trend I have to analyze it to figure out what it is I like about it. Then I have to see how I can use this in my work.
So lately I've found myself really interested in stories about people who are much older than they appear -- not like me still being asked for ID when I buy wine at the grocery store, but people who are centuries old but who look 30-something. And not vampires. Mostly, humans who've had their aging arrested somehow or who have been made immortal, but who don't have any other superpowers.
I think it started with Doctor Who and Matt Smith's version of the Doctor (though he doesn't really count as an ordinary human made immortal), where he looked very young but played the role like he was an old man. It really kicked into gear, though, when Rory spent 2,000 years as a kind of robot, then the universe was rebooted so he was never killed in the first place, but somehow he still had the 2,000 years of memories. They didn't come near making use of the potential of that, but there were moments when you got the weight of those 2,000 years in this young man.
There was the short-lived series New Amsterdam, with the immortal cop -- a Dutch soldier from the early days of settlement on Manhattan cursed with immortality. Now there's Forever, with the doctor made immortal a couple of centuries ago and now working as a medical examiner. Both of these series include one of the elements that I think fascinates me about this trope -- the role-reversed parent/child relationship. In New Amsterdam, there was the elderly man who was friends with the hero and who turned out to be his son. In Forever, the hero's close friend and father figure is actually his adopted son, a baby he rescued from a concentration camp at the end of WWII. This relationship is at the core of Forever, with the son sometimes looking after the "young" father as though he's a son (and that's the way the world sees them), but then when they're alone, they sometimes have those parent/child squabbles, with the seemingly younger man griping about the older son's fondness for that modern jazz music and the seemingly older man whining "Daaaaaad" when his father warns him not to do something. Doctor Who had a similar age-reversed family situation, with Rory and Amy's daughter being a couple of decades older than they were (due to time travel, though, not weird aging).
Then there have been a couple of versions of the Captain Hook story that have played with this, to varying degrees. It was most effective in the novel Alias Hook, in which Hook was immortal in Neverland, and over the centuries he did eventually grow up after watching generations of Lost Boys come and go. They sort of touch on this (but not as effectively as they should) in the version on TV's Once Upon a Time, where Hook spent a couple of centuries in Neverland not aging, so he's one of the oldest characters on the series, but played by one of the younger cast members. This mostly comes down to a few age jokes, as they barely remember that he's in a strange world, let alone a man out of time, so it's frustrating to me as a writer. They completely wasted the potential in another age-reversed relationship, where one of the Lost Boys he looked after and connected to ended up outside a curse that froze time for 28 years, so when they were reunited, the boy he knew was older than he was. Sometimes I really want to stage an armed takeover of the writers room for that show. The characters should sue them for malpractice.
So, why do I find this fascinating? I think as I get older, I find myself thinking of age and what it really means. I don't feel any different mentally or emotionally than I did as a teenager, even as I see gray hair. I took one of those "what's your real age?" online quizzes about your interests, and it gave me an age ten years older than I am. And yet I still get asked for ID to buy wine. Making a character's age extremely out of whack with his/her appearance is a way of exploring the concept of what age really means, if it means anything. I'm not sure why I'm fascinated with the out-of-order family relationships -- maybe a metaphor for aging parents? -- but I think it's mostly that it requires some creativity in writing. It takes characters out of neat little boxes and forces them to adjust.
I'm not sure how I can use this in a story, since it's probably less effective in print than it is on the screen. You see characters from the inside in a book, and no matter how many times you say that someone looks 30, if they act 100, that's what readers may see. I do have one idea in mind that involves someone being frozen in time for a long time -- a kind of Groundhog Day existence -- but I'm not sure how that will manifest. I think it'll mostly be more like time travel, suddenly being dumped into a strange environment, though she'll have made a lot of use of all that time to have a decent array of skill sets.
But that's a backburner story until I finish a few other things.
February 5, 2015
Reading Reviews
The publicist at my publisher isn't too worried about Harper Lee hijacking my release date. There's not a huge crossover audience. I suspect that the teen readers are still in the "ew, a sequel to a book I was forced to read" category, and it'll be literary people who are most excited. I did love To Kill a Mockingbird when I read it, but I've never had any desire to re-read it, and I'm not sure about reading the follow-up book. Sometimes, a book stands alone as a perfect entity, and I would rather leave it that way than follow up on it. There have been other books I've loved where I've avoided sequels. If there's enough material there to get a story out of it (and it isn't a genre situation where villains can arise), then it generally means things are disrupting these people's lives. I'd rather imagine what happens next than actually see it play out. But I'm weird that way. I haven't read the new Bridget Jones book that takes place more than a decade after Bridget and Mark Darcy got together.
For now, I need to worry about my own books. I've been going back and forth with my agent on cover copy for the next Fairy Tale book. She doesn't think my take is quite right, then I agree with her but think her take on it is all wrong, so I rewrite, and she's not sure about that. Eventually we'll agree on something that accurately describes the book. Meanwhile, they're getting info together to send to subrights agents, and I haven't been collecting or even reading reviews, so I don't have review quotes. Strangely, I find myself really sensitive about this series. I can't even bear to read positive reviews of it. The longer I'm in this business, the less I can deal with reviews, in general. When I started out with the Enchanted, Inc. series, I had Google alerts set up. By the seventh book, I didn't want to know. And it's not like I get a lot of bad reviews, so I'm not sure where this came from. I think I mostly don't want to be influenced by outside voices, good or bad. I've seen how dangerous that can be in other people's work. You'll never make everyone happy, so there's no point in catering to the fanbase. You just need to write your own stories.
Anyway, this will tie in to my next step in the book I'm working on because I need to come up with a paragraph to describe it, and if I can't describe it in a paragraph, I need to work more on the plot.
All this on a day when I really just want to crawl back in bed. I had a weird nightmare last night in which I was in grad school (I've seldom considered grad school because it's not that applicable to my life, but being in grad school has become a recurring nightmare) and taking a writing seminar that somehow involved both pointe shoes and cake decorating. And we weren't allowed to eat the cake. I'm not sure what this had to do with writing. At any rate, it didn't make for restful sleep, and then I woke up at 5 a.m. with a bad foot cramp. I managed to ease the worst of it, but it's still twinging. Maybe that's where the stuff about pointe shoes came from.
For now, I need to worry about my own books. I've been going back and forth with my agent on cover copy for the next Fairy Tale book. She doesn't think my take is quite right, then I agree with her but think her take on it is all wrong, so I rewrite, and she's not sure about that. Eventually we'll agree on something that accurately describes the book. Meanwhile, they're getting info together to send to subrights agents, and I haven't been collecting or even reading reviews, so I don't have review quotes. Strangely, I find myself really sensitive about this series. I can't even bear to read positive reviews of it. The longer I'm in this business, the less I can deal with reviews, in general. When I started out with the Enchanted, Inc. series, I had Google alerts set up. By the seventh book, I didn't want to know. And it's not like I get a lot of bad reviews, so I'm not sure where this came from. I think I mostly don't want to be influenced by outside voices, good or bad. I've seen how dangerous that can be in other people's work. You'll never make everyone happy, so there's no point in catering to the fanbase. You just need to write your own stories.
Anyway, this will tie in to my next step in the book I'm working on because I need to come up with a paragraph to describe it, and if I can't describe it in a paragraph, I need to work more on the plot.
All this on a day when I really just want to crawl back in bed. I had a weird nightmare last night in which I was in grad school (I've seldom considered grad school because it's not that applicable to my life, but being in grad school has become a recurring nightmare) and taking a writing seminar that somehow involved both pointe shoes and cake decorating. And we weren't allowed to eat the cake. I'm not sure what this had to do with writing. At any rate, it didn't make for restful sleep, and then I woke up at 5 a.m. with a bad foot cramp. I managed to ease the worst of it, but it's still twinging. Maybe that's where the stuff about pointe shoes came from.
February 4, 2015
My Highjacked Release Date
The big news in the publishing world yesterday was that Harper Lee is finally releasing a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird. It's actually a book written before the one that was published and takes place 20 years later. Apparently, an editor who saw this book told Harper Lee she was more interested in the events the main character remembered from her childhood and wanted to see that story, so she went back and wrote the book about the childhood events, then never published the original book. There's a bit of controversy about whether she wanted this book published. She'd said she didn't, but there's a new attorney in charge of her estate after the death of her sister, who previously controlled it. I've seen a remark by someone familiar with the situation that this book might have been a fallback in case the income was necessary to pay for Harper Lee's care in a nursing home (my current retirement plan is to stockpile books that can continue to be released in my "retirement," so that makes sense).
And guess who shares a publication date with this highly anticipated book? Yep, me. Both the sequel and my Rebel Mechanics will be released on July 14 (unless my publisher blinks and switches it).
I suppose there is both good and bad potential here. On the bad side, this means that there is absolutely no chance I could have a #1 bestseller that week. Not that I was in much danger of that. I don't have a "lead" title, so it wouldn't get the kind of promotion and bookstore placement necessary to have a bestseller. It's also likely that I won't get much publicity, since all book news that week will be on the highly anticipated book. Not that I expected a lot of mainstream publicity.
On the good side, this means that a lot of people will probably be going into bookstores that week, which increases the chances they'll be exposed to my book. That is, if the stores don't devote all display space to the other new book that week and don't bother to shelve anything else. I don't think there's that big a crossover audience, actually. As beloved as To Kill a Mockingbird is, I suspect that the majority of its sales come because it's required reading in so many schools. I know book people are drooling in anticipation, but there are a lot of people who may not be that excited about the sequel to a book they were forced to read in junior high. It will be interesting to see what happens with this release. I'm sure a lot of people will buy it because of the hype, and people who write about books are excited, but how does this really trickle down to the general book-buying public?
Now I can see myself visiting bookstores during release week and saying, "Hi, I'm not Harper Lee. I'm the slightly less reclusive Shanna Swendson, and I also have a book out."
I'm sure I can have fun with spinning this into some publicity advantage.
And guess who shares a publication date with this highly anticipated book? Yep, me. Both the sequel and my Rebel Mechanics will be released on July 14 (unless my publisher blinks and switches it).
I suppose there is both good and bad potential here. On the bad side, this means that there is absolutely no chance I could have a #1 bestseller that week. Not that I was in much danger of that. I don't have a "lead" title, so it wouldn't get the kind of promotion and bookstore placement necessary to have a bestseller. It's also likely that I won't get much publicity, since all book news that week will be on the highly anticipated book. Not that I expected a lot of mainstream publicity.
On the good side, this means that a lot of people will probably be going into bookstores that week, which increases the chances they'll be exposed to my book. That is, if the stores don't devote all display space to the other new book that week and don't bother to shelve anything else. I don't think there's that big a crossover audience, actually. As beloved as To Kill a Mockingbird is, I suspect that the majority of its sales come because it's required reading in so many schools. I know book people are drooling in anticipation, but there are a lot of people who may not be that excited about the sequel to a book they were forced to read in junior high. It will be interesting to see what happens with this release. I'm sure a lot of people will buy it because of the hype, and people who write about books are excited, but how does this really trickle down to the general book-buying public?
Now I can see myself visiting bookstores during release week and saying, "Hi, I'm not Harper Lee. I'm the slightly less reclusive Shanna Swendson, and I also have a book out."
I'm sure I can have fun with spinning this into some publicity advantage.
February 3, 2015
Girls in Towers
Yesterday was pretty productive. I got a fair amount of research reading done, and I had a few plot idea breakthroughs. I'm starting to see bits of mental movie for this book again. I've also done some PR thinking and planning. I may be about to make the scary leap into Twitter. I have a few more ideas I need to implement, so stay tuned for news.
In the meantime, I have a book to discuss! As you may have noticed, I have a thing for fairy tales. I also love history. And magic. I found a book that combines all of them, Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth. It's a Rapunzel story that's also about the writing of the Rapunzel story. The story of the maiden in a tower may possibly have been a folk tale, but there were two very early published versions, so it might also have been what's often called a "literary fairy tale" that was written by a particular author, like Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, or Peter Pan. The earliest version was Italian, and then there was a later French version, but apparently it would have been unlikely for the French author to have seen, heard of, or read the Italian version. This novel attempts to explain this. I suppose in a way that this book could be considered historical magical realism because the fantasy element is that the folk magic that was actually practiced -- love charms, curses, and the like -- really is magic and really works. But the book is based somewhat on real people and real events.
The author of the French version of the Rapunzel story was a scandalous noblewoman and novelist. She was banished to a convent by Louis XIV after one scandal too many. That much is true. In this novel, while she's in the convent, the elderly nun who tends the garden befriends her, and while they work in the garden together, the older nun tells her the story of a young girl who's taken away from her parents by a witch and locked in a tower.
The narrative involves stories within the story. There's the framing story of the woman being sent to the convent and trying to adapt to the abrupt change in lifestyle. There's the story the older nun tells about the girl in the tower. There are flashbacks to the main character's life, from childhood on up, explaining what led to her being sent to the convent. And then we also get the story of the witch's life and why she locked the girl in the tower.
If you're into history, there's a fun look at life in the court of Louis XIV and at life in Renaissance Venice. I found myself digging up Baroque music and wanting to read more about both time periods. The Rapunzel part of the story is one of the more interesting fairy tale fleshing-outs I've read. It makes the story make so much more sense by getting into the motives of everyone involved (and even explains the salad craving and why the witch is so uptight about her garden being invaded). I admit that the book was a bit slow-going at first, but it picked up once I got into it.
Now I think I need to re-watch Tangled.
In the meantime, I have a book to discuss! As you may have noticed, I have a thing for fairy tales. I also love history. And magic. I found a book that combines all of them, Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth. It's a Rapunzel story that's also about the writing of the Rapunzel story. The story of the maiden in a tower may possibly have been a folk tale, but there were two very early published versions, so it might also have been what's often called a "literary fairy tale" that was written by a particular author, like Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, or Peter Pan. The earliest version was Italian, and then there was a later French version, but apparently it would have been unlikely for the French author to have seen, heard of, or read the Italian version. This novel attempts to explain this. I suppose in a way that this book could be considered historical magical realism because the fantasy element is that the folk magic that was actually practiced -- love charms, curses, and the like -- really is magic and really works. But the book is based somewhat on real people and real events.
The author of the French version of the Rapunzel story was a scandalous noblewoman and novelist. She was banished to a convent by Louis XIV after one scandal too many. That much is true. In this novel, while she's in the convent, the elderly nun who tends the garden befriends her, and while they work in the garden together, the older nun tells her the story of a young girl who's taken away from her parents by a witch and locked in a tower.
The narrative involves stories within the story. There's the framing story of the woman being sent to the convent and trying to adapt to the abrupt change in lifestyle. There's the story the older nun tells about the girl in the tower. There are flashbacks to the main character's life, from childhood on up, explaining what led to her being sent to the convent. And then we also get the story of the witch's life and why she locked the girl in the tower.
If you're into history, there's a fun look at life in the court of Louis XIV and at life in Renaissance Venice. I found myself digging up Baroque music and wanting to read more about both time periods. The Rapunzel part of the story is one of the more interesting fairy tale fleshing-outs I've read. It makes the story make so much more sense by getting into the motives of everyone involved (and even explains the salad craving and why the witch is so uptight about her garden being invaded). I admit that the book was a bit slow-going at first, but it picked up once I got into it.
Now I think I need to re-watch Tangled.
February 2, 2015
Memory Lane
I had a yoga class this morning, so I'm feeling all stretchy and relaxed, and since it's a cold day, the temptation is to snuggle under a blanket and just read.
Fortunately, that's exactly what today's work requires! I have a few e-mails to send or respond to, and then I have some reference books to go through because I have an idea about the book I'm working on that needs some development, and I stopped by the library on the way home from yoga to pick up the books I need. I've got a theme in the works and I can feel the story coming together. This will be the perfect day to burrow under a blanket with a book and a notebook and do some planning and plotting.
Meanwhile, I got the office closets mostly cleared out over the weekend and have started putting other stuff in them. I'm discovering floor space. Soon I may achieve enough floor space for a plumber to easily access the upstairs bathroom.
The boxes I was sorting through were keepsake boxes from high school, college and my first job. There was a lot of stuff from the first job that I was able to trash, though I did keep all the work samples. I seriously doubt that work I did more than twenty years ago would be considered relevant for any job hunting I did now, in case the writing thing doesn't work out, but I like the idea of having them, just in case. I can always use this kind of stuff for career day-type talks. The high school memento box is pretty small, so I may make decisions on that later. I don't have kids to show these to, but again, since I'm now writing some YA I may be able to use that to show kids what I was doing at their age.
I did have one fun discovery in the first job box. I had the materials from a conference I went to in 1993 on my first trip to Washington, D.C. It was a conference for university PR and communications professionals, and I'm pretty sure I was the youngest person there. During the opening session, I looked around the room at the other attendees and noticed that there was one youngish guy who was kind of cute. I found myself daydreaming about how cool it would be if I could talk to him. And then during the first coffee break between sessions, I was totally surprised when he came up to me to talk. We ended up hanging around together for most of the rest of the conference, went to lunch on our own together that day and to dinner with a group that night. We made enough of a connection that we might have stayed in touch if e-mail had been more of a thing (I didn't get e-mail at work until the following year), but not enough of a connection to bother with long-distance phone calls or snail mail. I'd thought about him off and on over the years, mostly because that was one of the few instances where reality actually lived up to fantasy and came close to the novel that was playing out in my head, but he had a tricky last name, so all I remembered about him was his first name and where he worked. So when I found that conference folder, it turned out to have a roster of conference attendees, so I saw his last name. On a whim, I Googled him, and it turns out that he's become rather well-known. He contributes to a major newspaper and has written a couple of non-fiction books. I'd actually heard of him, but hadn't made the connection with the guy from the conference, probably because what I'd read didn't include photos and the subject he ended up specializing in wasn't something that came up in conversation. With the photos, I'm sure it's the same guy. It was kind of nice getting that trip back down memory lane to a really good time and to find out that he's done so well (and is still cute, but married now). I guess neither of us stayed in university PR. Some of my friends have been saying I should contact him, but I suspect that conference was far more meaningful to me than it was to him and I don't expect him to remember it at all, and I don't want to come across as a creepy stalker.
Now off to crawl under a blanket with my reference books.
Fortunately, that's exactly what today's work requires! I have a few e-mails to send or respond to, and then I have some reference books to go through because I have an idea about the book I'm working on that needs some development, and I stopped by the library on the way home from yoga to pick up the books I need. I've got a theme in the works and I can feel the story coming together. This will be the perfect day to burrow under a blanket with a book and a notebook and do some planning and plotting.
Meanwhile, I got the office closets mostly cleared out over the weekend and have started putting other stuff in them. I'm discovering floor space. Soon I may achieve enough floor space for a plumber to easily access the upstairs bathroom.
The boxes I was sorting through were keepsake boxes from high school, college and my first job. There was a lot of stuff from the first job that I was able to trash, though I did keep all the work samples. I seriously doubt that work I did more than twenty years ago would be considered relevant for any job hunting I did now, in case the writing thing doesn't work out, but I like the idea of having them, just in case. I can always use this kind of stuff for career day-type talks. The high school memento box is pretty small, so I may make decisions on that later. I don't have kids to show these to, but again, since I'm now writing some YA I may be able to use that to show kids what I was doing at their age.
I did have one fun discovery in the first job box. I had the materials from a conference I went to in 1993 on my first trip to Washington, D.C. It was a conference for university PR and communications professionals, and I'm pretty sure I was the youngest person there. During the opening session, I looked around the room at the other attendees and noticed that there was one youngish guy who was kind of cute. I found myself daydreaming about how cool it would be if I could talk to him. And then during the first coffee break between sessions, I was totally surprised when he came up to me to talk. We ended up hanging around together for most of the rest of the conference, went to lunch on our own together that day and to dinner with a group that night. We made enough of a connection that we might have stayed in touch if e-mail had been more of a thing (I didn't get e-mail at work until the following year), but not enough of a connection to bother with long-distance phone calls or snail mail. I'd thought about him off and on over the years, mostly because that was one of the few instances where reality actually lived up to fantasy and came close to the novel that was playing out in my head, but he had a tricky last name, so all I remembered about him was his first name and where he worked. So when I found that conference folder, it turned out to have a roster of conference attendees, so I saw his last name. On a whim, I Googled him, and it turns out that he's become rather well-known. He contributes to a major newspaper and has written a couple of non-fiction books. I'd actually heard of him, but hadn't made the connection with the guy from the conference, probably because what I'd read didn't include photos and the subject he ended up specializing in wasn't something that came up in conversation. With the photos, I'm sure it's the same guy. It was kind of nice getting that trip back down memory lane to a really good time and to find out that he's done so well (and is still cute, but married now). I guess neither of us stayed in university PR. Some of my friends have been saying I should contact him, but I suspect that conference was far more meaningful to me than it was to him and I don't expect him to remember it at all, and I don't want to come across as a creepy stalker.
Now off to crawl under a blanket with my reference books.
January 30, 2015
Swirling Ideas
I managed to figure out the plot of the book I'm working on yesterday. Now I have to figure out how this affects the opening scenes I've already written. It's going to require moving some things around and adding some new things, but I'm not entirely sure if some of the scenes will be able to stay at all. It's going to be "drill into details" day. I need to start seeing the movie of this book in my head.
One problem is that another story has decided to pop up and do a little development right now. My head is generally a swirling mass of story ideas, story fragments, characters, and other things that could be stories. When one has built up enough to be written, it comes to the surface. Or sometimes I can focus on one enough to make it come to the surface so I can work on it. But every so often, one of the bits and pieces swirling around in there will randomly pop up and let me know some new detail about it.
In this case, it's one that's been backburnered for a few years. It's what I'm planning to write to follow up on my YA steampunk planned trilogy. I have two more books in that series to write before I can get to this one. I have one main character really well developed in my head. The other has been a cipher, but he suddenly came to life for me, and he's not at all what I expected him to be. It'll be a whole new character type for me to write. And then I realized that this book might actually involve a caper story -- one of those "assemble a team of experts to carry out a seemingly impossible job" things. That made the whole plot fall into place. It will require a lot of research to build the world I want for this book, so it still has to be backburnered. Unfortunately, until I can force that story back into the idea soup, it's currently a little more vivid and exciting than what I need to be working on.
I suppose this means I need to write faster so I can get to everything I want to write. I need to finish the third book in the Fairy Tale series. I suspect there will be more, but there will be a brief break while I work on the second steampunk book. Then there's an entirely different adult series I want to start that bridges the steampunk and contemporary fantasy, but that one will require lots of research and some travel, so it probably won't happen until next year. I guess I'll see how things go with the steampunk launch before I'll know how quickly I need to write the third book -- will the publisher want more books or will I independently publish the last two books?
And in the meantime, I need to get this house ready to sell, sell it, find a new house, and move. This is going to be a fun year.
One problem is that another story has decided to pop up and do a little development right now. My head is generally a swirling mass of story ideas, story fragments, characters, and other things that could be stories. When one has built up enough to be written, it comes to the surface. Or sometimes I can focus on one enough to make it come to the surface so I can work on it. But every so often, one of the bits and pieces swirling around in there will randomly pop up and let me know some new detail about it.
In this case, it's one that's been backburnered for a few years. It's what I'm planning to write to follow up on my YA steampunk planned trilogy. I have two more books in that series to write before I can get to this one. I have one main character really well developed in my head. The other has been a cipher, but he suddenly came to life for me, and he's not at all what I expected him to be. It'll be a whole new character type for me to write. And then I realized that this book might actually involve a caper story -- one of those "assemble a team of experts to carry out a seemingly impossible job" things. That made the whole plot fall into place. It will require a lot of research to build the world I want for this book, so it still has to be backburnered. Unfortunately, until I can force that story back into the idea soup, it's currently a little more vivid and exciting than what I need to be working on.
I suppose this means I need to write faster so I can get to everything I want to write. I need to finish the third book in the Fairy Tale series. I suspect there will be more, but there will be a brief break while I work on the second steampunk book. Then there's an entirely different adult series I want to start that bridges the steampunk and contemporary fantasy, but that one will require lots of research and some travel, so it probably won't happen until next year. I guess I'll see how things go with the steampunk launch before I'll know how quickly I need to write the third book -- will the publisher want more books or will I independently publish the last two books?
And in the meantime, I need to get this house ready to sell, sell it, find a new house, and move. This is going to be a fun year.
January 29, 2015
Neighborhood Excitement
I got a cold call from a Realtor this morning asking if I'm thinking of selling my house because she has clients looking for this kind of thing all the time, so that means I need to get my act together. I have cleaning, decluttering and organizing to do, then I need to pretty much put a plumber on retainer for a day to fix a bunch of little things (ah, the joy of really hard water that corrodes everything). I have a few little carpentry repairs to do, and I need to repaint the downstairs bathroom and do some touchups elsewhere. I probably also need to get the garage door inspected and the opener possibly replaced, as I think the current code requires a sensor. So, yeah, I need to get busy.
We had a little excitement around here on Tuesday that helped reinforce my decision to move away from the townhouse and into a standalone house. I was on the conference call with Apple when I started hearing sirens. That's not odd, as my office overlooks a major road leading to the highway, so any wreck anywhere near means the fire trucks will be screaming past my office window. Then there were more sirens. And then something that sounded like someone shouting through a bullhorn. Then something that sounded like a helicopter circling. Something had to be up. So I checked the breaking news pages of the various local TV stations, in case it was a news helicopter. And it was. And the image on the breaking news page was of my complex. Two-alarm fire. Later, I went out to take out the trash and found the entire fire department lined up down the driveway. The fire trucks were a little farther along and it was the battalion commander trucks in front of my house. It turns out that the fire was in a building just around the corner and across the driveway. The only damage visible from outside is busted skylights -- possibly what the firefighters did to access the interior -- and the fire/water restoration service trucks were there about an hour later, with pumps running all night, and they were loading things into a Ryder truck, so it doesn't look like it was a total loss, and the structure seems to be fine. But still, when you share walls with other people, you can be affected by things they do. And it's a little weird to learn about something happening across the street by looking on the Internet.
In other news, I have a release date for the second book in the Fairy Tale series, To Catch a Queen -- March 3. That will be e-book, print and audio. I'll have a cover and a sneak peek soonish.
I don't have any obligations for the rest of the day and have already taken care of my morning errands, so I'm hoping that I can get some serious work done on redeveloping this book (and maybe a little housework). That is, if we don't have more neighborhood excitement.
We had a little excitement around here on Tuesday that helped reinforce my decision to move away from the townhouse and into a standalone house. I was on the conference call with Apple when I started hearing sirens. That's not odd, as my office overlooks a major road leading to the highway, so any wreck anywhere near means the fire trucks will be screaming past my office window. Then there were more sirens. And then something that sounded like someone shouting through a bullhorn. Then something that sounded like a helicopter circling. Something had to be up. So I checked the breaking news pages of the various local TV stations, in case it was a news helicopter. And it was. And the image on the breaking news page was of my complex. Two-alarm fire. Later, I went out to take out the trash and found the entire fire department lined up down the driveway. The fire trucks were a little farther along and it was the battalion commander trucks in front of my house. It turns out that the fire was in a building just around the corner and across the driveway. The only damage visible from outside is busted skylights -- possibly what the firefighters did to access the interior -- and the fire/water restoration service trucks were there about an hour later, with pumps running all night, and they were loading things into a Ryder truck, so it doesn't look like it was a total loss, and the structure seems to be fine. But still, when you share walls with other people, you can be affected by things they do. And it's a little weird to learn about something happening across the street by looking on the Internet.
In other news, I have a release date for the second book in the Fairy Tale series, To Catch a Queen -- March 3. That will be e-book, print and audio. I'll have a cover and a sneak peek soonish.
I don't have any obligations for the rest of the day and have already taken care of my morning errands, so I'm hoping that I can get some serious work done on redeveloping this book (and maybe a little housework). That is, if we don't have more neighborhood excitement.
January 28, 2015
Professional Jealousy
I finally have a new dishwasher! And to celebrate, how about a writing post? For those who are new here, I generally do a post about some aspect of writing -- the craft, the mechanics, the business, marketing, the writing life, etc. -- every other Wednesday. If you want to get these by e-mail, you can subscribe at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/writewithshanna/. I don't send anything else via that list, so you won't get spammed by book promo, or anything like that. Feel free to share with other writers, but just let people know who it came from.
Today's topic falls into the writing life category: professional jealousy. In a business this public, it's nearly impossible not to compare yourself to others. You generally hear when someone sells a book because that gets announced. You know when someone finals in or wins a contest. You definitely know when a book gets published. You know whether a book makes a bestseller list. You can see if the publisher is doing a lot of promotional activity. You can check out reviews and Amazon rankings. You know who's being invited as guest of honor to conventions. That all makes it easy to tell how other people are doing in comparison to you and your own goals.
How this affects you can be either positive or negative, depending on how you deal with it. You can let jealousy consume you in a negative way so that it becomes a distraction. You can derail your own career by chasing after the career someone else has if that leads you to write something that isn't really what you need to be writing or miss opportunities that lead in a different direction. You can poison professional relationships if you let your jealousy make you resent other authors or if you start demanding things of your agent or editor based on what you think someone else is getting. If you go public with your jealousy or let your jealousy affect the way you behave in public, it can affect your image or the way fans see you (passive-aggressive digs at another author on convention or conference panels, for instance, may turn people off of trying your work).
The truth is, although there's a lot of stuff that's public about a writing career, the public elements don't tell the whole story, and they only tell a snapshot at a moment in time. A book that never makes a bestseller list can actually end up selling more copies over time than a "bestseller." You may not have made a list, but you might be making more money than the bestseller. Some careers move in fits and starts instead of a steady upward trajectory, and some burst out of the gate in a big way. The person who is successful now may have had a few false starts along the way. Someone who got a huge start may crash and burn. When I sold the first book in my series with only one publisher making an offer and a modest advance, I was jealous of someone I knew whose book sold in a big auction not long afterward. It turned out that she was terrified of what she had to live up to because her publisher had huge expectations for that book, something I didn't have to worry about. There are authors who have the things I think I want in a career -- a dedicated and vocal fan base, guest of honor invitations to conventions, name recognition -- who mention on Facebook that they're worried about being able to pay bills or the mortgage, a problem I haven't faced in spite of my relative obscurity. So the things you're comparing yourself to may not be what you think they are.
How can you keep professional jealousy from becoming toxic? First, remind yourself that it may not be what it looks like. Second, take stock of what you want for your career -- what you really want and what would make you happy, not what someone else has. Then figure out what it will take for you to get what you want out of your career and focus on that. Use any jealousy as a motivation for going after what you want. Emulate what the people who have what you want are doing rather than envying them. What are they doing to achieve their success? While there are cases where lightning strikes and there's no rational explanation for why one book explodes, usually there's something behind that success -- most often, a lot of hard work.
If you find yourself really being sidetracked by comparing yourself to others, cut yourself off from getting your fix. Resist the temptation to look at bestseller lists, read your rivals' reviews or compare Amazon rankings. Focus on what you need to do. Most of this career is entirely out of your control. The only thing you control entirely is how much you write, the kinds of stories you write, and how well you write them.
I think I need to embroider that on a throw pillow.
Today's topic falls into the writing life category: professional jealousy. In a business this public, it's nearly impossible not to compare yourself to others. You generally hear when someone sells a book because that gets announced. You know when someone finals in or wins a contest. You definitely know when a book gets published. You know whether a book makes a bestseller list. You can see if the publisher is doing a lot of promotional activity. You can check out reviews and Amazon rankings. You know who's being invited as guest of honor to conventions. That all makes it easy to tell how other people are doing in comparison to you and your own goals.
How this affects you can be either positive or negative, depending on how you deal with it. You can let jealousy consume you in a negative way so that it becomes a distraction. You can derail your own career by chasing after the career someone else has if that leads you to write something that isn't really what you need to be writing or miss opportunities that lead in a different direction. You can poison professional relationships if you let your jealousy make you resent other authors or if you start demanding things of your agent or editor based on what you think someone else is getting. If you go public with your jealousy or let your jealousy affect the way you behave in public, it can affect your image or the way fans see you (passive-aggressive digs at another author on convention or conference panels, for instance, may turn people off of trying your work).
The truth is, although there's a lot of stuff that's public about a writing career, the public elements don't tell the whole story, and they only tell a snapshot at a moment in time. A book that never makes a bestseller list can actually end up selling more copies over time than a "bestseller." You may not have made a list, but you might be making more money than the bestseller. Some careers move in fits and starts instead of a steady upward trajectory, and some burst out of the gate in a big way. The person who is successful now may have had a few false starts along the way. Someone who got a huge start may crash and burn. When I sold the first book in my series with only one publisher making an offer and a modest advance, I was jealous of someone I knew whose book sold in a big auction not long afterward. It turned out that she was terrified of what she had to live up to because her publisher had huge expectations for that book, something I didn't have to worry about. There are authors who have the things I think I want in a career -- a dedicated and vocal fan base, guest of honor invitations to conventions, name recognition -- who mention on Facebook that they're worried about being able to pay bills or the mortgage, a problem I haven't faced in spite of my relative obscurity. So the things you're comparing yourself to may not be what you think they are.
How can you keep professional jealousy from becoming toxic? First, remind yourself that it may not be what it looks like. Second, take stock of what you want for your career -- what you really want and what would make you happy, not what someone else has. Then figure out what it will take for you to get what you want out of your career and focus on that. Use any jealousy as a motivation for going after what you want. Emulate what the people who have what you want are doing rather than envying them. What are they doing to achieve their success? While there are cases where lightning strikes and there's no rational explanation for why one book explodes, usually there's something behind that success -- most often, a lot of hard work.
If you find yourself really being sidetracked by comparing yourself to others, cut yourself off from getting your fix. Resist the temptation to look at bestseller lists, read your rivals' reviews or compare Amazon rankings. Focus on what you need to do. Most of this career is entirely out of your control. The only thing you control entirely is how much you write, the kinds of stories you write, and how well you write them.
I think I need to embroider that on a throw pillow.
January 27, 2015
A New Appreciation for Mornings
Either all this fresh air, sunshine and exercise is nudging me into earlier mornings, the days are getting longer, or I've reset my body clock after a lot of events lately that required early rising because I've been getting up on my own earlier than I normally do at this time of year. Morning people would point and laugh at me and people with regular 8-5 jobs would pat me on the head and call me adorable, but it's still early for me. I'm going to have to reset the "wake" time on my thermostat so I don't have to get up to a cold house. And it's amazing how much more I get done in the day with that half-hour (or more) head start. I've already done a groceries and gas run today and may have time for a little housework before lunch.
I had a big breakthrough on figuring out this book yesterday by going back and figuring out what the heroine wants and what might stop her from getting it. That suddenly gave me a structure to hang everything else on. I've realized that I tend to handle the plot in my books like a mystery novel, where finding the identity of the villain and figuring out the villain's scheme is a big part of the story, so the only direct confrontation with anyone other than henchmen comes in the climax of the book. I'm going to force myself to break that pattern and introduce the villain up front, so that the identity of the villain isn't a mystery, nor is what the villain wants to do, and there's a lot of direct conflict through the whole story. I suppose I've had more direct conflict in this series than in the Enchanted, Inc. series, and in the first book we knew who the villain was all along, if not what her plan was. But I figure that with a steel magnolia southern belle kind of heroine, I need to do at least one book where she's up against the villain from the start and has to at least pretend to play nice because it's not a situation that allows for open opposition until later in the story. I'm already cackling with glee at the thought of getting to write that much thinly veiled "bless your heart" passive aggression.
Now I just have to figure out how what I've written already fits into this concept. I'm not really changing the actual plot that drastically, just the way I'm telling the story.
However, this afternoon's primary event will be a conference call with Apple about how to sell more books through the iBookstore. I'm totally in favor of that.
Meanwhile, there was a runthrough of the first act of Mary Poppins last night. The kids had more or less learned the songs but were still using scripts for the dialogue (except for a few high achievers) and they hadn't done all the blocking and choreography. I sat and watched and knitted until they reached a song where the chorus sings. It was all very cute because these are mostly junior high kids. Mary is being played by a recent college graduate who teaches one of the choirs at the high school (it's a tough enough role to require a ringer), and the other main roles other than Jane and Michael are high school kids, and then they're filling in the chorus and smaller roles with the younger kids (which is why the adult choir is helping out with the chorus parts). Jane and Michael are actual children (and Jane was one of the ones who was already off-book). At this point, there's a lot more enthusiasm than polish, but they have nearly two more months to work on this. A lot of the cast were part of the bunch when I chaperoned the choir tour a few years ago. I figure that hanging out with teens counts as work, since I have a YA novel coming out.
And tomorrow we'll see if I finally get that dishwasher or if they find something else to screw up.
I had a big breakthrough on figuring out this book yesterday by going back and figuring out what the heroine wants and what might stop her from getting it. That suddenly gave me a structure to hang everything else on. I've realized that I tend to handle the plot in my books like a mystery novel, where finding the identity of the villain and figuring out the villain's scheme is a big part of the story, so the only direct confrontation with anyone other than henchmen comes in the climax of the book. I'm going to force myself to break that pattern and introduce the villain up front, so that the identity of the villain isn't a mystery, nor is what the villain wants to do, and there's a lot of direct conflict through the whole story. I suppose I've had more direct conflict in this series than in the Enchanted, Inc. series, and in the first book we knew who the villain was all along, if not what her plan was. But I figure that with a steel magnolia southern belle kind of heroine, I need to do at least one book where she's up against the villain from the start and has to at least pretend to play nice because it's not a situation that allows for open opposition until later in the story. I'm already cackling with glee at the thought of getting to write that much thinly veiled "bless your heart" passive aggression.
Now I just have to figure out how what I've written already fits into this concept. I'm not really changing the actual plot that drastically, just the way I'm telling the story.
However, this afternoon's primary event will be a conference call with Apple about how to sell more books through the iBookstore. I'm totally in favor of that.
Meanwhile, there was a runthrough of the first act of Mary Poppins last night. The kids had more or less learned the songs but were still using scripts for the dialogue (except for a few high achievers) and they hadn't done all the blocking and choreography. I sat and watched and knitted until they reached a song where the chorus sings. It was all very cute because these are mostly junior high kids. Mary is being played by a recent college graduate who teaches one of the choirs at the high school (it's a tough enough role to require a ringer), and the other main roles other than Jane and Michael are high school kids, and then they're filling in the chorus and smaller roles with the younger kids (which is why the adult choir is helping out with the chorus parts). Jane and Michael are actual children (and Jane was one of the ones who was already off-book). At this point, there's a lot more enthusiasm than polish, but they have nearly two more months to work on this. A lot of the cast were part of the bunch when I chaperoned the choir tour a few years ago. I figure that hanging out with teens counts as work, since I have a YA novel coming out.
And tomorrow we'll see if I finally get that dishwasher or if they find something else to screw up.
