Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 175

Home, Not so Sweet Home

I made it through the first pass of copyedits, just going through the manuscript to see what had been changed and dealing with the little things -- suggesting a different change, okaying changes with questions, rejecting changes that were incorrect. I don't have a lot of the latter. Usually, I can see what the problem is with the thing being changed, but I disagree with the way it's changed and suggest something else rather than saying to just not change it. I've flagged a few things I need to go back to and think about because they're more about actions and events or worldbuilding rather than actual edits. That will be today's task.

Otherwise, I'm in full trip-preparation mode, with some housework thrown in because tomorrow someone's coming to check the foundation. I don't have a problem, but my neighbor (I live in a four-plex) thinks she does, so they have to come measure the floors in the whole building, and that means the floors need to be cleared. It's not like I have to do a panic clean, but I do want to tidy up a bit more, and that's part of the trip preparation, since I hate coming home to a messy house after spending time in a hotel. My goal in getting ready for this convention trip is to not be running around like a madwoman on the last day before I leave. I want just about everything done, so that on Tuesday I can just put the things on the checklist in my bags, and then on Wednesday morning all I have to do is eat breakfast, wash the dishes, make the bed, get dressed and throw the makeup/toiletries I use that morning into my bag before I leave for the airport. To make that happen, I'm starting to work through the to-do list now.

Meanwhile, I've decided for sure that I'm going to start looking for a new house next spring. I've met one of my big financial goals for making that possible, and it looks like the others will also fall in line. The main thing holding me back is getting this house ready to sell, which will require a massive decluttering project and some repairs. There's also updating that needs to be done, but I'll probably want to talk to a Realtor before I do too much work because I'd rather cut the selling price and let the buyer do their own updating the way they want it than go through the expense, hassle and upheaval of remodeling, only to sell it. It just depends on how hard that will make it to sell, if people in the market for this kind of house just want a turnkey situation or if they'd be open to remodeling. In my wildest dreams, my neighbor who's a contractor and who gutted and remodeled his own house might be interested in buying mine to remodel and flip. It would be convenient for him to have a project to work on that's a few steps away. I just know that if I'm going to go to the expense and hassle of remodeling a house, I want it to be one that I'm going to be living in for a while, since there's a good chance that I'll want or need to do work on the new house to make it what I want.

I love this house, and it was exactly what I needed when I bought it, but it would require a lot of work to get it to the point where it will continue to be comfortable to live in, and it still wouldn't entirely meet my needs because there's nothing I can do to make it have more kitchen counter space, more kitchen storage space, room to have more than two friends over at a time (and nearby parking for guests), or a guest bedroom in addition to a home office. It would also be good for tax purposes to be able to have the home office be just an office and not also a storage space for everything that doesn't fit elsewhere in the house.

I saw a listing for a house in a part of the neighborhood I like, even closer to the library than I live now and closer to the riverside park, and it had a pass-through fireplace between the master bedroom and the master bathroom, so that the fireplace was over the jacuzzi tub in the bathroom. I was already picturing the reading nook I'd set up by the fireplace in the bedroom. And that house was even in my price range. Fortunately, the good thing about subdivisions is that there are probably at least a dozen identical floorplans in the neighborhood, so the odds are good that another one will be up for sale when I'm ready to buy.

But first I need to write a couple more books and get this house in some kind of order.

Girly Swashbuckling!

I took care of one time-consuming item on the pre-trip to-do list and got about four inches whacked off my hair, which was getting out of control. With my hair, no one else will notice, but it'll be easier for me to deal with. It's gone from just past my waist to halfway down my back, but the combination of the cut and the increased curl coming from less weight will make it look like it's just past shoulder-length. Now I have the whole afternoon for looking over copyedits and doing laundry.

One nice thing about taking a weekend mostly off is that I got to do some reading, and I have two very different books to talk about.

First, Coronets and Steel by Sherwood Smith. This is a contemporary fantasy, though the fantasy elements are pretty light and subtle in this book (it looks like they play more of a role in the sequels). It's about an American grad student who's taken the summer off to travel to Europe to try to track down her grandmother's mysterious heritage. She starts having strange encounters -- sometimes seeing what she thinks are historical re-enactors that no one else seems to see, sometimes having people approach her and act as though they know her and then get insulted or angry when she doesn't know them. Then she gets drugged and kidnapped and eventually ends up in an obscure Eastern European country that seems almost untouched by time. There's no cell coverage or Internet, there's barely any electrical or landline phone service. Modern guns don't work all that well. And even the seemingly sophisticated, educated people firmly believe that some pretty strange legends are absolutely true.

Basically, this is a Prisoner of Zenda-like story with a heroine who's a ballet dancer and fencer. So why didn't I know about this book before now? The Prisoner of Zenda is one of my favorite books (they still haven't made a film version I'm entirely happy with), and it's so much fun to have a very girly swashbuckler. Our heroine's fencing skills come in handy, and the physical conditioning from ballet also helps make the things she has to do to survive more credible. She's pretty smart most of the time, making only a couple of plot stupidity moves, and even there, you can kind of understand why those moves seemed like a good idea at the time, since she doesn't know she's the heroine of a novel. There are sequels, and I plan to read them soon after all the upcoming travel.

Then there was what I guess you'd call paranormal chick lit, Twisted Sisters by Jen Lancaster. Our heroine/narrator is a TV psychologist, kind of playing the Dr. Phil role on an Oprah-like show about doing life makeovers. In spite of her success, she still obsesses over the way she thinks one of her sisters is favored by everyone. Her sister is overweight, uneducated, only a hairstylist, and living in an apartment in their parents' basement. So why does everyone love her so much? Then the show gets bought by a network that wants instant results with minor celebrities. She can't cure someone of a phobia in one session. The show's New Age guru has a possible solution: astral projection, putting herself in the body of the subject so they can film the person overcoming the fear. Strangely, it works. And you can probably imagine exactly where this is going.

While this was a fun book, and I sometimes really enjoy the "bitch gets a comeuppance" kind of story, this one is oddly paced. It's halfway through the book before the astral projection thing kicks in, and the real main plot, the thing you spend the whole book waiting to see happen, doesn't happen until the last few chapters. I wanted a lot more of that part of the story. But it's still very funny and rather satisfying -- the kind of thing to read when you're in a really bitchy mood that you need to work through.

Now to go brave the red marks on my manuscript and do more laundry.

Now, That's a Holiday!

I had a remarkably productive holiday weekend. I got through a read-through of the book, with a little editing. I don't think it'll take any major rewriting (though I may find out otherwise when my agent notices something I didn't), though once I'm done with copyedits on another book, I'll take another look at the second half. I did find a fair number of typo type errors because I was apparently in the zone and just frantically writing. In fact, there were a few spots where I got caught up in the suspense when reading and didn't remember what happened next even though I wrote it and not that long ago.

Meanwhile, I cleared a lot of the clutter from the bar in the living room where mail goes to die. And I cleared off the Chair of Doom from my bedroom, where things that I wore once for about an hour to go to the grocery store sit to wait for another short outing rather than going back to the closet or into the laundry hamper. And then pile up over time until it's easy to lose track of the chair itself. I finally accepted that it's July and threw all the sweaters and sweatshirts from the Chair of Doom into the laundry basket so I can wash and then stash away in the Space Bags.

And yet, with all that work, I feel somewhat energized. I think I needed a good extended period of alone time and a weekend with nothing scheduled other than church. I'm trying to use having to get up for yesterday's early service as a jump-start to ease my body clock toward eastern time so dealing with a convention next week won't be such a shock to my system.

Today I will be moderately social as I'm having lunch with a former coworker who's going to work at a place where I used to work, so I will be sharing all the scoop. There might also be some shopping. And then I have copyedits to tackle, along with a lengthy to-do list.

Post-travel minimalism

After spending a few days at my parents' house and then turning around and spending a few days in a hotel, I seem to have entirely forgotten my housekeeping skills. For instance, last night I found myself surprised that I didn't have a bowl for salad. I guess I forgot that one has to wash dishes every so often. And then there's the problem with the bed not being mysteriously made while I'm out of the room. I was trying to make a grocery list, and I couldn't remember any dishes I know how to cook. Though much of that has to do with summer, as most of my cooking is of the cold-weather variety. In the summer, I seldom do a lot of cooking. I might cook some meat on the electric indoor grill, but otherwise I eat a lot of fresh fruits and salads. But I may also be either coming down with something or just mildly under the weather because the thought of food, in general, isn't very appealing at the moment.

I spent yesterday obtaining groceries, and today I don't have to do anything that requires leaving the house, so I'm going to really dig into reviewing the book I've been working on. I've re-read the first 100 pages, but this is the part that's already been heavily rewritten. Soon, I'll get to the new stuff. I'm a little surprised by how much I'm liking it so far, and not just the characters and the story, but the writing itself. I'd like to at least have a read-through done and some notes on what needs to be rewritten before I get copyedits on the other book, which likely will be early next week. So far, all my notes have been reminders of things I need to incorporate later in the book.

I'm already looking forward to having both these big projects off my plate for the time being because spending time in hotels gives me cleaning urges. I love the minimalism and simplicity of a hotel room. I'm such a terrible slob at home, but I'm a neat freak in a hotel. Everything has to be put away before I leave the room, and it's so restful to return to a clean room. I really wish I could get that feeling at home, but it's going to require getting rid of a lot of stuff. I may do a massive cleaning/organizing project as a way of clearing my head before I dive back into writing. At the end of the project, I'll allow myself a bit of a "staycation" to enjoy it.

Speaking of minimalism, last night I think I figured out that I can fit everything I need for DetCon into two tote bags. Yes, wheels are handy at times, but when you're competing for overhead bin space, it can be good to have bags that can be shoved into random spots or put under the seat. I managed four days in one of these tote bags when I was traveling by train, and that was in cooler weather that required bulkier clothing. This trip is four days of convention and two travel days. I shall have to test this before I plan further. I doubt I'll ever get to the point of being able to go around the world with just a backpack, but it would be nice to get close to that ideal.

The Life Cycle of a Book

Aspiring authors are often surprised to find that selling a book isn't the end of the process. It's only the beginning of the journey. What happens next? Here's a rundown of the life cycle of a book and what it takes -- and what you may have to do -- to get it ready for publication.

Editorial Edits
An editor buying a book doesn't mean the editor thinks it's perfect. It just means the editor can see commercial potential in it. The editor may expect you to revise it -- sometimes to the point you wonder what she saw in it to buy it because she clearly hates it and doesn't understand it at all. But just think about what she must have thought about all the books she didn't buy. I've gone through anywhere from no revisions at all to four rounds of revisions. At this point, the editor will ask you to clarify your worldbuilding, tighten up the plot, expand scenes that seem too cursory or that need "telling" turned into "showing," fix continuity issues, cut or combine scenes, or anything else that needs to be done to make the book better. There may also be line editing -- fixing the flow of words, cutting out "pet" words that get overused, and anything else that makes the words work. I generally suggest making a different file for each round because I've had editors change their minds and want to restore something I cut, or they start editing their edits, and it's good to be able to go back to a previous version and copy and paste.

Copyedits
After the editor is satisfied with the book, it gets turned over to a copyeditor, who is essentially a professional nitpicker. The copyeditor will check grammar, spelling and punctuation (anything the editor didn't find). The copyeditor also follows continuity -- making sure the characters' names are spelled the same throughout, making sure descriptions are consistent, making sure the timeline works. You may get questions like "She was wearing a hat at the beginning of this scene. Is she still wearing the hat, or did she remove it?" Or, if you have the copyeditor I work with most often, who has declared herself the Official Jewish Mother of my books, "How long has it been since they've eaten? I'm worried about them." One of the copyeditor's jobs is to conform the manuscript to house style. Often, there are multiple spellings, grammar usage or punctuation, but each publisher has its own version of what to use, so while you may be technically correct, the copyeditor will adjust it to the way that publisher does it. One of the big areas of house style is when to use two separate words, when to use a hyphen and when two words should be smooshed together. The copyeditor will also insert typesetting codes for things like italics or special characters at the beginning of a chapter. You get to go over these and quibble with any that you think change your story or are otherwise incorrect. This is also your last real chance to make any changes.

I haven't worked with electronic copy edits for a traditional publisher, where you would have the electronic file of the copyedited manuscript, but if you get paper copyedits, I would recommend inserting the edits into your file so you'll have a clean version of the final manuscript. That will come in handy when you need an excerpt for your web site, when you want to do a reading and need bigger type, when a foreign publisher wants an electronic file or when the rights revert to you and you want to self-publish it as an e-book. I would also recommend doing these changes in tracking mode or otherwise highlighting them in some way, and highlighting anything coded that doesn't need to be changed. That's for the next stage.

Page proofs or galleys
After the copyedits are incorporated into the manuscript, it goes into typesetting, and then you'll get a copy (either hard copy or PDF) of what the interior of the book will actually look like. You get to review this for one last check. You don't generally get to do any significant rewriting at this point -- I had one contract that stated authors would be charged for a certain number of changes that weren't the publisher's errors. Mostly, this is to make sure nothing got screwed up when the copyedit changes were made. That's why I recommend having a copy of the copyedited version with the changes highlighted. That way, it's easy to find the things you need to be looking for because that's where the errors tend to pop up. Even professionals have the occasional slip of a mouse finger and end up highlighting a whole paragraph to delete instead of just a line (I've had it happen). Make sure the right words are italicized and that the words on either side are intact.

But there may sometimes need to be other changes made at this point. I once had a book where they used a different spelling of a character's name on the cover, and they'd already printed the cover flats before I saw them. So I had to go through at the line edit stage and change every mention of the character's name to match the cover. I've also known of writers who had to make changes at this stage when world events significantly altered things and it was supposed to be a contemporary novel. If your setting suddenly no longer exists or if something has suddenly become a lot more sensitive, you may need to do a little last-chance rewriting.

Along the way, you may also be asked for input on the cover, approval or suggestions on the cover copy (but not always -- hence the name issue), and a bio or approval of a bio. Otherwise, you're done with the content of the book.

And, usually, all this stuff is happening while you're trying to write the next book.

Book Report: Steampunk and Lost Things

I'm back in the "office" after a weekend convention trip. There were panels, I read some stuff, I hung out with friends. It was good. Now I have about two weeks before I do it again on a bigger scale and farther away, and in those two weeks, I have a lot of stuff to get done. I have to go over some books we're preparing for release (the first four Enchanted, Inc. books in digital for outside North America -- now the Brits, Australians and other people who read English will be able to get legal digital versions). I've worked on cover suggestions for the steampunk book, and I'll have copyedits to review on that one, plus a marketing plan to look at and add ideas to. I have a book to revise. And then there's all the pre-travel stuff. So I guess I'll be busy, and I may disregard this weekend's holiday. There was also a minor panic attack when I looked at my calendar and realized that after this weekend, I don't have a "free" weekend until August. I may stock up on supplies tomorrow and then barricade myself in my house.

I have been doing some reading, so I have a couple of books to report on.

The Havoc Machine by Steven Harper may be one of the better steampunk books I've read. I was a little worried when I read the intro because it mentioned something zombie-like, and I am soooo tired of zombies in steampunk (also, vampires and demons), but it turned out that this was more part of the set-up. It's really not a zombie book. The idea is that there's a virus going around. Some people who are infected turn into zombies if they survive. Others who survive the virus end up being enhanced -- better strength, reflexes, thinking, etc. -- except they also start losing their humanity and become utterly focused on their inventing, research, etc. They can do great things, but because of the loss of their humanity, they can also do terrible things, and their inventions are where the steampunk part comes in. This book is actually a later one in a series, but it stands alone as it spins off what was apparently a secondary character into his own adventures. In this book, Our Hero is a member of a traveling circus who has a sideline in killing these "clockmakers," since one killed his son as a part of one of his bizarre experiments. He gets hired to steal a device from a clockmaker, with the chance to kill him a bonus, and gets way more than he bargained for. I'm kind of a sucker for stories set in old circuses, and this definitely has the rollicking adventure feel that I've always wanted (and seldom got) from steampunk, so I'm going to look for the rest of the books in this series.

The Lost by Sarah Beth Durst. Sarah has been writing middle-grade and YA fantasy (and winning or being nominated for tons of awards in the process), and this is her first adult novel. Our Heroine gets lost while driving in the desert and finds herself in a strange little town that she can't manage to leave. Lost is where lost things end up, and no one can leave until they find what they lost. With some unlikely allies, she has to struggle to survive, and then make some decisions about what to do if she ever does find herself. I just about read this in one sitting and am now anxiously awaiting the sequel. It's rather creepy and eerie, and I would suggest reading it with a glass of water nearby because the desert setting made me feel really dry. I'm impressed that she managed to put a spin on the urban fantasy "tattooed bad boy who's ridiculously attractive" type that actually made me like him.

And now back to the epic to-do list.

On the Road Again

I'm about to head out to ApolloCon in Houston, so if you're going to be there, I'll see you there. It looks like I'm doing a lot of programming about media trends and fairy tale elements. They seem to have given me an entire hour for a reading, so I may do either a big chunk from the beginning of the upcoming steampunk book or from the beginning of the upcoming new contemporary fantasy series, depending on who's there and what they want to hear. I'll have my laptop, so there will be lots of material to choose from.

I spent the last couple of days fixing the formatting and accepting the copy edits on Book 4 so we can do digital releases outside the US. Then those who read English in the rest of the world will be able to get legal e-books of the first four books in the series. I got all nostalgic while doing that because I did the location research for that book en route on my first trip to ApolloCon, and I was writing the early chapters while I was there. I'd forgotten how much fun I had writing Katie's family (and they are not based on any actual family members of mine).

But even rereading that book didn't spark any ideas for more books in that series. Strangely, I found myself suddenly getting ideas for entirely unrelated short stories while I was working. I'm afraid that particular door really may have closed, unless something pops up later down the line. I was reading that book as a "stranger," without the sense of having written it, aside from remembering my research and the act of writing it.

Now for the last-minute out-the-door travel stuff, like taking out the trash and unplugging electronics (there's a chance of thunderstorms while I'm gone).

Tackling the To-Do List

This feels like it's been a short week. I barely got home, and I'm having to get ready to leave again. I have a rather epic to-do list, but it's gradually shrinking. Most of the items are quick little things. One, I'll be able to strike off: watering the outside plants. It's been raining so much lately that I don't think that will be an issue. Of course, it'll stop raining entirely the moment I leave the house, so they'll still dry out while I'm gone.

I probably shouldn't have stayed up past one in the morning to finish reading a book. I didn't even like it all that much. It was pretty much the generic self-congratulatory, quasi-literary book club bait kind of thing that I checked out of the library because something about the cover and the description gave me the impression that it was going to turn out to be magical realism or "soft" fantasy. It wasn't. As the "literary" cliches kept piling up, I kept reading because I was sure there would be a twist that would upend the expectations, but it did exactly what I was afraid it would do. It was a book that seemed to have been planned on the basis of a "get critical acclaim/be selected for book clubs" checklist. In spite of being a big reader, I'm not a big fan of books that hit you over the head with the "I'm so superior because I read the right things" message.

It was a relief to dive into a real fantasy next. I have no problem with books in which the characters are better prepared for what happens to them because they read a lot of fantasy novels. Maybe I'm a hypocrite, but then I don't think I'd like a book with the "I'm superior because I read the right fantasy novels" message. Literary snobbery irks me.

And now I kind of want to write a fantasy novel involving a bookstore. Bookstores are figuratively portals to other worlds. What if it were more literal, and you could actually travel to other worlds based on which book you took off the shelf?

Now I need to print up some more bookmarks, do some laundry and bake some cookies. I already got supplies (ahead of the anticipated afternoon storms). And I probably need to think of some selections to read from to be prepared, depending on who's at the reading and what they want to hear.

Landing

I took a couple of days off to visit my parents, and now I'm back for a couple more days before I head off to ApolloCon in Houston. I have a truly frightening to-do list before I leave town, so I suspect half of it will remain undone as I give up entirely and end up curled up somewhere with books, DVDs or the Internet to block out the dread of all that I have to get done.

Actually, the kitchen is clean, so that's a start, and the laundry is done. I have a few business things to take care of, and other than that, everything else is non-essential.

The fruit fly infestation seems to be over. Nothing is flying around, annoying me, and nothing new is falling into my traps. I experimented with a lot of different things, with varying results. The fly strip I bought was very effective, but really unwieldy. In the bathroom, where a lot of the flies were congregating, a little sherry in a Dixie cup with cling wrap with holes in it over the top was really effective. When I did the same thing in the kitchen, only one fly went in. What worked in the kitchen was the cider vinegar with dish soap in an open cup, except it didn't start working until I added a splash of balsamic vinegar. Then they were lining up to dive in. Strangely, when I put actual fruit in one of the traps, they completely ignored it.

In other news, I saw How to Train Your Dragon 2 last weekend. I might have spent a lot of the movie muttering "You know nothing, Jon Snow." I also found myself disagreeing with that essay I posted a link to a week or so ago. I agree with the general premise about interesting female characters, but I don't think it applied to this film. In this case, it had nothing to do with gender and was really about what happens to mentors in stories. The point of a mentor is to prepare the hero and then step back and let the hero take the lead.

Now I'm going to attempt to walk to the library since I made it through all my books. The "attempt" part is related to last night's ballet class, in which the teacher expected me to leave the ground when jumping. I know, unreasonable, right? It did look prettier, and I felt like I was dancing, but then there was the landing part, which my legs weren't prepared for. I don't think the problem is really my knee joints but rather the overall strength in my legs. I really need to get in better shape. It may be time to dig out the old jogging trampoline and plop it in front of the TV, under the ceiling fan. I did that a few summers ago and it made a lot of difference. The trick is finding something I want to watch enough to distract me from the jogging but not something I care about so much that the jogging is a big distraction. The summer I kept up with it, I was catching up on the entire series of CSI on one of the cable channels. There's bound to be something moderately interesting that doesn't require a lot of attention either OnDemand or on at a good exercise time. I also need to do some overall conditioning and stretching.

This Means War

What did I do on my first "free" day after finishing a draft? I ran errands, got my car's oil changed, and waged war on fruit flies. The other day, I bought a fresh pineapple, and apparently it came with some little friends. It was still sitting in the grocery bag, and when I opened the bag, a swarm of flies came out. So I bought some flypaper strips, and battle commenced.

I'd thought flypaper was maybe something sticky on one side that you could lay down on a horizontal surface, but the only thing I found were these "ribbons" you have to hang up, and they're sticky on both sides. Very, very sticky. Like, those strips for waxing your legs. And they're rather long. That makes finding a place to put them a challenge. I ended up sticking one to the underside of the "bar" formed by the back of the kitchen counter, behind the sink, and I put the shopping bag with the pineapple on the floor next to it. Unfortunately, that's also near the laundry closet, and when I stepped back to open one of those doors to get something, well, I may have trapped myself. At least I got a bonus leg waxing out of it.

But so far I've counted more than 20 flies on the strip. I've also tried what a Facebook person suggested, leaving a tiny bit of wine out in a cup. Supposedly, in the morning I'd find a bunch drowned in the wine. But my fruit flies are either wine snobs or Baptists. I'm leaning toward Baptist, since I found them all perched on the edge of the cup, apparently inhaling the fumes without actually drinking. I switched to a little sherry in the cup, since the fumes can make me tipsy. I now seem to have a few very drunk fruit flies, but they still haven't fallen in.

See what happens when I'm not writing?

But now I'm going shopping because I have a convention next weekend, and I've realized that I hate most of my clothes, mostly because I've been wearing them for so long. I need to refresh my summer wardrobe.