Leah R. Cutter's Blog, page 38

Pleased with the progress you make

My writing goal this week was 10,000 words. I was a little shy of 6,000. I’m actually really okay with that.

I realized that, before, the goal of 10,000 words meant 2 chapters, each about 5,000 words long. For this novel, the chapters are about 3,000 words long. So my goal shifted, to 9,000 words, and as I only finished two chapters, that means about 6,000 words.

I’m very pleased with my progress, as I was in SF for the day job for most of last week, and sick with a migraine on Friday, and dealing with personal stuff on Saturday.

19683 / 60000

This week, the goal is only 6,000 words, or two chapters. I will be pleased with a single chapter, however. Why? Because my first reader got back to me on Zydeco Queen. I have this week to go through the book before I turn it over to my editor. So one or two chapters is fine, as there’s a whole fricking book that I’m also going through one last time.

Then I should only have the one novel, and be full steam ahead on it, until June sometime, when I’ll have to put it down again for the short story class. If it really is about 70,000 words long, then I’m about 1/3 finished with it. That feels about right. Lots of stuff has piled up. Now it’s time to answer some of the questions.

Spent the day outside in my backyard. I wrote, made new chair seats, grilled up veggies and hamburger patties, then wrote more. (I’m actually writing this from outside.) I planted an herb garden this weekend, while last weekend I bought half a whisky barrel and planted a tomato plant, a strawberry plant, and a bunch of lettuce in it. I also planted kale. We’ll see what, if anything, comes up.

I hope ya’ll have had a wonderful weekend as well.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Kris Rusch: Update on royalty statements

Kris Rusch writes a weekly column, The Business Rusch, that if you want to be a professional writer, you should be reading every week. This week, Kris’ web site was hacked after she posted her column. A second site where she posted the column was then hacked. I have removed all the original links from the post, because I don’t want to inadvertently send someone to a compromised site. But I think this column is important enough for people to read and understand what’s going on in the business. And yes, read your contracts. Carefully.

Here is the article by Kris, reposted with permission (she asked that people post to get the word out.)

Over a year ago, I wrote a blog post about the fact that my e-book royalties from a couple of my traditional publishers looked wrong. Significantly wrong. After I posted that blog, dozens of writers contacted me with similar information. More disturbingly, some of these writers had evidence that their paper book royalties were also significantly wrong.

Writers contacted their writers’ organizations. Agents got the news. Everyone in the industry, it seemed, read those blogs, and many of the writers/agents/organizations vowed to do something. And some of them did.

I hoped to do an update within a few weeks after the initial post. I thought my update would come no later than summer of 2011.

I had no idea the update would take a year, and what I can tell you is—

Bupkis. Nada. Nothing. Zip. Zilch.

That doesn’t mean that nothing happened. I personally spoke to the heads of two different writers’ organizations who promised to look into this. I spoke to half a dozen attorneys active in the publishing field who were, as I mentioned in those posts, unsurprised. I spoke to a lot of agents, via e-mail and in person, and I spoke to even more writers.

The writers have kept me informed. It seems, from the information I’m still getting, that nothing has changed. The publishers that last year used a formula to calculate e-book royalties (rather than report actual sales) still use the formula to calculate e-book royalties this year.

I just got one such royalty statement in April from one of those companies and my e-book sales from them for six months were a laughable ten per novel. My worst selling e-books, with awful covers, have sold more than that. Significantly more.

To this day, writers continue to notify their writers’ organizations, and if those organizations are doing anything, no one has bothered to tell me. Not that they have to. I’m only a member of one writers’ organizations, and I know for fact that one is doing nothing.

But the heads of the organizations I spoke to haven’t kept me apprised. I see nothing in the industry news about writers’ organizations approaching/auditing/dealing with the problems with royalty statements. Sometimes these things take place behind the scenes, and I understand that. So, if your organization is taking action, please do let me know so that I can update the folks here.

The attorneys I spoke to are handling cases, but most of those cases are individual cases. An attorney represents a single writer with a complaint about royalties. Several of those cases got settled out of court. Others are still pending or are “in review.” I keep hearing noises about class actions, but so far, I haven’t seen any of them, nor has anyone notified me.

The agents disappointed me the most. Dean personally called an agent friend of ours whose agency handles two of the biggest stars in the writing firmament. That agent (having previously read my blog) promised the agency was aware of the problem and was “handling it.”

Two weeks later, I got an e-mail from a writer with that agency asking me if I knew about the new e-book addendum to all of her contracts that the agency had sent out. The agency had sent the addendum with a “sign immediately” letter. I hadn’t heard any of this. I asked to see the letter and the addendum.

This writer was disturbed that the addendum was generic. It had arrived on her desk—get this—without her name or the name of the book typed in. She was supposed to fill out the contract number, the book’s title, her name, and all that pertinent information.

I had her send me her original contracts, which she did. The addendum destroyed her excellent e-book rights in that contract, substituting better terms for the publisher. Said publisher handled both of that agency’s bright writing stars.

So I contacted other friends with that agency. They had all received the addendum. Most had just signed the addendum without comparing it to the original contract, trusting their agent who was (after all) supposed to protect them.

Wrong-o. The agency, it turned out, had made a deal with the publisher. The publisher would correct the royalties for the big names if agency sent out the addendum to every contract it had negotiated with that contract. The publisher and the agency both knew that not all writers would sign the addendum, but the publisher (and probably the agency) also knew that a good percentage of the writers would sign without reading it.

In other words, the publisher took the money it was originally paying to small fish and paid it to the big fish—with the small fish’s permission.

Yes, I’m furious about this, but not at the publisher. I’m mad at the authors who signed, but mostly, I’m mad at the agency that made this deal. This agency had a chance to make a good decision for all of its clients. Instead, it opted to make a good deal for only its big names.

Do I know for a fact that this is what happened? Yeah, I do. Can I prove it? No. Which is why I won’t tell you the name of the agency, nor the name of the bestsellers involved. (Who, I’m sure, have no idea what was done in their names.)

On a business level what the agency did makes sense. The agency pocketed millions in future commissions without costing itself a dime on the other side, since most of the writers who signed the addendum probably hadn’t earned out their advances, and probably never would.

On an ethical level it pisses me off. You’ll note that my language about agents has gotten harsher over the past year, and this single incident had something to do with it. Other incidents later added fuel to the fire, but they’re not relevant here. I’ll deal with them in a future post.

Yes, there are good agents in the world. Some work for unethical agencies. Some work for themselves. I still work with an agent who is also a lawyer, and is probably more ethical than I am.

But there are yahoos in the agenting business who make the slimy used car salesmen from 1970s films look like action heroes. But, as I said, that’s a future post.

I have a lot of information from writers, most of which is in private correspondence, none of which I can share, that leads me to believe that this particular agency isn’t the only one that used my blog on royalty statements to benefit their bestsellers and hurt their midlist writers. But again, I can’t prove it.

So I’m sad to report that nothing has changed from last year on the royalty statement front.

Except…

The reason I was so excited about the Department of Justice lawsuit against the five publishers wasn’t because of the anti-trust issues (which do exist on a variety of levels in publishing, in my opinion), but because the DOJ accountants will dig, and dig, and dig into the records of these traditional publishers, particularly one company named in the suit that’s got truly egregious business practices.

Those practices will change, if only because the DOJ’s forensic accountants will request information that the current accounting systems in most publishing houses do not track. The accounting system in all five of these houses will get overhauled, and brought into the 21st century, and that will benefit writers. It will be an accidental benefit, but it will occur.

The audits alone will unearth a lot of problems. I know that some writers were skeptical that the auditors would look for problems in the royalty statements, but all that shows is a lack of understanding of how forensic accounting works. In the weeks since the DOJ suit, I’ve contacted several accountants, including two forensic accountants, and they all agree that every pebble, every grain of sand, will be inspected because the best way to hide funds in an accounting audit is to move them to a part of the accounting system not being audited.

So when an organization like the DOJ audits, they get a blanket warrant to look at all of the accounting, not just the files in question. Yes, that’s a massive task. Yes, it will take years. But the change is gonna come.

From the outside.

Those of you in Europe might be seeing some of that change as well, since similar lawsuits are going on in Europe.

I do know that several writers from European countries, New Zealand, and Australia have written to me about similar problems in their royalty statements. The unifying factor in those statements is the companies involved. Again, you’d recognize the names because they’ve been in the news lately…dealing with lawsuits.

Ironically for me, those two blog posts benefitted me greatly. I had been struggling to get my rights back from one publisher (who is the biggest problem publisher), and the week I posted the blog, I got contacted by my former editor there, who told me that my rights would come back to me ASAP. Because, the former editor told me (as a friend), things had changed since Thursday (the day I post my blog), and I would get everything I needed.

In other words, let’s get the troublemaker out of the house now. Fine with me.

Later, I discovered some problems with a former agency. I pointed out the problems in a letter, and those problems got solved immediately. I have several friends who’ve been dealing with similar things from that agency, and they can’t even get a return e-mail. I know that the quick response I got is because of this blog.

I also know that many writers used the blog posts from last year to negotiate more accountability from their publishers for future royalties. That’s a real plus. Whether or not it happens is another matter because I noted something else in this round of royalty statements.

Actually, that’s not fair. My agent caught it first. I need to give credit where credit is due, and since so many folks believe I bash agents, let me say again that my current agent is quite good, quite sharp, and quite ethical.

My agent noticed that the royalty statements from one of my publishers were basket accounted on the statement itself. Which is odd, considering there is no clause in any of the contracts I have with that company that allows for basket accounting.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with basket accounting, this is what it means:

A writer signs a contract with Publisher A for three books. The contract is a three-book contract. One contract, three books. Got that?

Okay, a contract with a basket-accounting clause allows the publisher to put all three books in the same accounting “basket” as if the books are one entity. So let’s say that book one does poorly, book two does better, and book three blows out of the water.

If book three earns royalties, those royalties go toward paying off the advances on books one and two.

Like this:

Advance for book one: $10,000

Advance for book two: $10,000

Advance for book three: $10,000

Book one only earned back $5,000 toward its advance. Book two only earned $6,000 toward its advance.

Book three earned $12,000—paying off its advance, with a $2,000 profit.

In a standard contract without basket accounting, the writer would have received the $2,000 as a royalty payment.

But with basket accounting, the writer receives nothing. That accounting looks like this:

Advance on contract 1: $30,000

Earnings on contract 1: $23,000

Amount still owed before the advance earns out: $7,000

Instead of getting $2,000, the writer looks at the contract and realizes she still has $7,000 before earning out.

Without basket accounting, she would have to earn $5,000 to earn out Book 1, and $4,000 to earn out Book 2, but Book 3 would be paying her cold hard cash.

Got the difference?

Now, let’s go back to my royalty statement. It covered three books. All three books had three different one-book contracts, signed years apart. You can’t have basket accounting without a basket (or more than one book), but I checked to see if sneaky lawyers had inserted a clause that I missed which allowed the publisher to basket account any books with that publisher that the publisher chose.

Nope.

I got a royalty statement with all of my advances basket accounted because…well, because. The royalty statement doesn’t follow the contract(s) at all.

Accounting error? No. These books had be added separately. Accounting program error (meaning once my name was added, did the program automatically basket account)? Maybe.

But I’ve suspected for nearly three years now that this company (not one of the big traditional publishers, but a smaller [still large] company) has been having serious financial problems. The company has played all kinds of games with my checks, with payments, with fulfilling promises that cost money.

This is just another one of those problems.

My agent caught it because he reads royalty statements. He mentioned it when he forwarded the statements. I would have caught it as well because I read royalty statements. Every single one. And I compare them to the previous statement. And often, I compare them to the contract.

Is this “error” a function of the modern publishing environment? No, not like e-book royalties, which we’ll get back to in a moment. I’m sure publishers have played this kind of trick since time immemorial. Royalty statements are fascinating for what they don’t say rather than for what they say.

For example, on this particular (messed up) royalty statement, e-books are listed as one item, without any identification. The e-books should be listed separately (according to ISBN) because Amazon has its own edition, as does Apple, as does B&N. Just like publishers must track the hardcover, trade paper, and mass market editions under different ISBNs, they should track e-books the same way.

The publisher that made the “error” with my books had no identifying number, and only one line for e-books. Does that mean that this figure included all e-books, from the Amazon edition to the B&N edition to the Apple edition? Or is this publisher, which has trouble getting its books on various sites (go figure), is only tracking Amazon? From the numbers, it would seem so. Because the numbers are somewhat lower than books in the same series that I have on Amazon, but nowhere near the numbers of the books in the same series if you add in Apple and B&N.

I can’t track this because the royalty statement has given me no way to track it. I would have to run an audit on the company. I’m not sure I want to do that because it would take my time, and I’m moving forward.

That’s the dilemma for writers. Do we take on our publishers individually? Because—for the most part—our agents aren’t doing it. The big agencies, the ones who actually have the clout and the numbers to defend their clients, are doing what they can for their big clients and leaving the rest in the dust.

Writers’ organizations seem to be silent on this. And honestly, it’s tough for an organization to take on a massive audit. It’s tough financially and it’s tough politically. I know one writer who headed a writer’s organization a few decades ago. She spearheaded an audit of major publishers, and it cost her her writing career. Not many heads of organizations have the stomach for that.

As for intellectual property attorneys (or any attorney for that matter), very few handle class actions. Most handle cases individually for individual clients. I know of several writers who’ve gone to attorneys and have gotten settlements from publishers. The problem here is that these settlements only benefit one writer, who often must sign a confidentiality agreement so he can’t even talk about what benefit he got from that agreement.

One company that I know of has revamped its royalty statements. They appear to be clearer. The original novel that I have with that company isn’t selling real well as an e-book, and that makes complete sense since the e-book costs damn near $20. (Ridiculous.) The other books that I have with that company, collaborations and tie-ins, seem to be accurately reported, although I have no way to know. I do appreciate that this company has now separated out every single e-book venue into its own category (B&N, Amazon, Apple) via ISBN, and I can actually see the sales breakdown.

So that’s a positive (I think). Some of the smaller companies have accurate statements as well—or at least, statements that match or improve upon the sales figures I’m seeing on indie projects.

This is all a long answer to a very simple question: What’s happened on the royalty statement front in the past year?

A lot less than I had hoped.

So here’s what you traditionally published writers can do. Track your royalty statements. Compare them to your contracts. Make sure the companies are reporting what they should be reporting.

If you’re combining indie and traditional, like I am, make sure the numbers are in the same ballpark. Make sure your traditional Amazon numbers are around the same numbers you get for your indie titles. If they aren’t, look at one thing first: Price. I expect sales to be much lower on that ridiculous $20 e-book. If your e-books through your traditional publisher are $15 or more, then sales will be down. If the e-books from your traditional publisher are priced around $10 or less, then they should be somewhat close in sales to your indie titles. (Or, if traditional publishers are doing the promotion they claim to do, the sales should be better.)

What to do if they’re not close at all? I have no idea. I still think there’s a benefit to contacting your writers’ organizations. Maybe if the organization keeps getting reports of badly done royalty statements, someone will take action.

If you want to hire an attorney or an auditor, remember doing that will cost both time and money. If you’re a bestseller, you might want to consider it. If you’re a midlist writer, it’s probably not worth the time and effort you’ll put in.

But do yourself a favor. Read those royalty statements. If you think they’re bad, then don’t sign a new contract with that publisher. Go somewhere else with your next book.

I wish I could give you better advice. I wish the big agencies actually tried to use their clout for good instead of their own personal profits. I wish the writers’ organizations had done something.

As usual, it’s up to individual writers.

Don’t let anyone screw you. You might not be able to fight the bad accounting on past books, but make sure you don’t allow it to happen on future books.

That means that you negotiate good contracts, you make sure your royalty statements match those contracts, and you don’t sign with a company that puts out royalty statements that don’t reflect your book deal.

I’m quite happy that I walked away from the publisher I mentioned above years ago. I did so because I didn’t like the treatment I got from the financial and production side. The editor was—as editors often are—great. Everything else at the company sucked.

The royalty statement was just confirmation of a good decision for me.

I hope you make good decisions going forward.

Remember: read your royalty statements.

Good luck.

I need to thank everyone who commented, e-mailed, donated, and called because of last week’s post. When I wrote it, all I meant to do was discuss how we all go through tough times and how we, as writers, need to recognize when we’ve hit a wall. It seems I hit a nerve. I forget sometimes that most writers work in a complete vacuum, with no writer friends, no one except family, who much as they care, don’t always understand.

So if you haven’t read last week’s post, take a peek. More importantly, look at the comments for great advice and some wonderful sharing. I appreciate them—and how much they expanded, added, and improved what I had to say. Thanks for that, everyone.

The donate button is below. As always, if you’ve received anything of value from this post or previous posts, please leave a tip on the way out.

Thanks!

Click Here to Go To PayPal.

“The Business Rusch: “Royalty Statement Update 2012,” copyright © 2012 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Free Fiction Monday!

Seven Year Itch

What happens when you only turn into a monster once every seven years? How do you still gain control?

This story was originally printed in the anthology, “Bewere the Night.”

 

You can read it here for free for the next week.

It’s also available in all the usual outlets. Because it’s such a short story (only 2000 words!) I did it as an “Ace Double” — the story is marketed under Seven Year Itch, with a “Bonus Story” of Magpie. Then I did the same with Magpie – reissued it as a double.

I’ve been doing a bunch of the doubles for the short fiction. It’s all an experiment, as far as I’m concerned.

Tonight, more writing!

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Pixie!

I only did about 7000 words for the week. I’m actually okay with that. 10,000 was a stretch goal, given how busy last week was. This next week, 10,000 is still a stretch goal, as I’m traveling for the day job.

15376 / 70000

Today, Pixie showed up. Pixie was the name of my mom’s dog, a little black Scottish Terrier. I always wanted to use him in a story, and today, the appropriate place came up.

I loved the stories my mom told of Pixie. My dad said they happened as well.

According to my mom, Pixie was originally named something unimaginative, like Blackie or something. However, they had to rename him.

Pixie would hear someone at the front door, and would sit there, waiting to greet them. He’d then dance around their feet, making little ruffing noises, not quite a bark, as they walked into the house, generally from the living room to the kitchen. My mom said it was kind of like he was telling them about his day, asking about theirs, etc.

The thing was–Pixie would also do this when no one was there.

He’d go sit by the door, as if he’d heard someone outside. Then he’d do his little circling dance through the house, as if following someone who no one else could see.

There are other Pixie stories, but I think that’ll do for now. Yes, I’m a tease. I’m a professional story teller.

And onto the next letter:

Dear secondary character:

You think Pixie is cute.

You have no idea what it means when that strong a guardian shows up.

And you’re going to need his protection, because yes, what’s coming after you really is that bad.

I won’t bother telling you to run. You’ve already made your choice.

Me

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Choices

People, generally other writers, ask me if I’m an outliner or a pantser, that is, do I outline a novel before I start writing it, or do I write into the story, by the seat of my pants?

Short answer: Depends on the novel. Some I do vague outlines on, some I do a hybrid of the two, and others I mostly pants, with some idea of where the next scene or chapter is going, but I don’t know the ending.

When I started, I was an outliner, for the first three books. I was also writing historical fantasy, and the outline was iterative, with the research. I’d outline, reach a point where I needed to do research, go do research, get additional ideas and fill in the outline more, etc. Back and forth.

The next three books, the Six Kingdoms trilogy, I didn’t outline, though I should have outlined the second novel. It’s so broken and not cohesive. This is why this trilogy will probably never see the light of day–while I could pub the first novel, it’s obviously the start of a trilogy, and I’ll probably never redraft the second novel. I respect my readers too much to publish something that I don’t intend to finish.

The third novel in the trilogy was where I started doing the hybrid thing, though I knew where the ending was, even before I wrote the second novel, I believe.

Clockwork Kingdom, I just started. Then after a bit, I started writing down what needed to go on in future chapters, so I always had an idea of my immediate future. I don’t believe I discovered the end of that book until I was closer to it. So while it’s kind of a hybrid, it’s mostly a pantser novel.

Zydeco Queen, I did a marketing workshop, and this was one of the novel ideas that just came out. So I had the synopsis before I wrote the book. Does the book faithfully follow this synopsis? Hell no. But you would recognize the book I wrote based on the synopsis. This book was somewhat outlined.

Siren’s Call is different. I’ve always known where that book is going, the final scene. I wrote up a synopsis for it as well at that marketing workshop. And someday I’ll write that novel. But I would call it vaguely outlined.

The Raven and the Dancing Tiger? It’s a pantser novel. I’ll probably end up doing the hybrid thing once I get further into it. But I’m not ready to get there yet.

I wrote down a list of things that need to happen in future chapters. That’s it — just a list. Last night when I finished writing I wasn’t sure what the next scene was. Wasn’t sure this morning either. The list is just information, and it’s critical brain. Asking myself what is the next appropriate piece of information that the reader needs completely kills my will to write, my voice, etc.

So I asked myself what part of the story do I want to tell next? A vivid scene came to my mind and I knew exactly what I wanted to write about and while it’s a good thing for the character in the long term it’s going to *screw him over* in the short term and as we all know, I’m all about torturing my characters.

I won’t write that scene until later tonight, but I’m really looking forward to it.

Stats!

11029 / 70000

In an ideal world, I’ll be at 18,000 by the end of the weekend. We’ll see.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Storyland

It’s amazing to me, now that I’ve admitted I’m committing novel, how far I’ve fallen into storyland. I went to yoga this morning and when my thoughts drifted away from being in the here and now of practice, I dove right back into the novel. The first stretching exercise the teacher talked about curving our back down and wrapping a cape around us — all I could think about were wings, folding in and folding out.

Last night I was having difficulty landing the ending of the scene I was writing. I realized this morning that I’d pulled back. Yes, it’s another complication for the main character. But it also makes his life more difficult, and that’s always good. I have to stay fearless while I’m writing him, trust that he’ll get out of it. Not a clue how yet, but he will.

I have always loved janni's letters to her characters. Here’s mine:

Dear secondary character who just showed up out of the blue:

Yes, you’re cute. And smart.

You also realize you’re about to step into a world of hurt, right?

Run now.

Me

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

The unexpected novel

When I started writing “The Raven and the Dancing Tiger” I thought it was a short story, that I would be able to finish for the short story assignment for the workshop I was taking. I tacked on an ending, knowing it wasn’t really the end. People told me it was a novel. I knew that while I could write a novel set in this world, but that this story wasn’t necessarily that long.

So I started thinking about the story, plotting it out. I was able to plot out what felt like about 20,000 words, and I figured that would be a good length, doable and fun.

Then I started writing.

My very wise friend Melissa and I were once talking about making the Hell-verse short stories into a novel. And I didn’t see how to do it. One of the things she mentioned was that I’d have to break it apart in order to make it longer.

I didn’t get what she meant at all. I couldn’t see how to do that in the Hell-verse. I still can’t.

Then I reached, for want of a better term, a break-out point while writing this story. It was like a tiny crevice in the world, and once I reached that, it cracked open and all these other things came spilling out.

At that point, I figured I was working on a 40,000 word story. Okay, a bit longer than I wanted, but the story will be the length the story will be.

Friday, I hit another one of those break-out points. Today, I figured out exactly what it meant.

One of the things I kept saying, why this couldn’t be a novel, was because there were no subplots.

Friday’s break-out point is really the subplot.

You should have heard the amount of swearing I did when that light dawned.

Now, the story feels about 70,000 words. Particularly if I delve into this sub-thingy and the ramifications of it. Because, yeah, it could be big. And not just this novel, others as well. (I am not going to do a series of novels all set in this world. I am not. La-la-la-la-la I can’t hear you, muse.)

Why am I bitching about this? I am going to take a short story workshop in June. I have ~7000 words finished on this piece. I do not have time to finish a 70,000 word novel between now and the time I go to the workshop, not and fix whatever is broken with Zydeco Queen and turn that around and get it to my editor on time, as well as taking time to read all the short stories we’ve been assigned for the class.

So basically, it’s 70,000 words in 4 weeks. If I was under contract, could I do it? Yes. I’d have to call into the day job sick for some of that time to manage it. But I could do it.

However, just because I can do it, doesn’t mean I want to, or that I should. If the story takes me by the throat and says, write me I will, which will mean more words per week. Right now I’m still feeling my way through it. If I get a clearer view, I can go faster.

Which also means accepting that it’s a novel, and doing the plotting I need to do for that.

So yeah, this is the unexpected novel. I had two completely different novels that I’d planned on writing this year. Guess I’m writing this one first.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Paper book versions of Paper Mage, Clockwork Kingdom, available!

There are so many things I’d like to post about, but I’m writing and working and busy so I will just say this:

Paper Mage is available as a trade paperback book!

 

 

 

Clockwork Kingdom is available as a paperback book!

 

 

 

Yes, the cost is higher than a mass market. However, I’ve tried to give good value by paying a lot of attention to the layout, making the books as pretty as I could.

Now — go read! Or go write!

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

Keep on writing

Yesterday I finished Zydeco Queen and sent it to my first reader. After she goes through and tells me what’s broken, I will fix it and send it to my editor. So I’m still on schedule for indie pubbing that novel come June-ish.

I wrote the next 1000 words on a different story tonight — The Raven and the Dancing Tiger. I’d tried to write that story as a short story during my writing workshop, trying to hack it off at 3000 words. Not so much. Normally I have a very good idea where a story is going, where it’s going to end. I have no freaking clue about this one.

However, as I just wrote 1000 words and haven’t even gotten into the meat of Part II, let’s just say I’m doubting it’s merely 9000 words. I keep getting this feeling that it’s actually about 40-50K.

We’ll see.

There’s other stuff happening that I’ll talk about later. And I do have some announcements that I really should make.

In the meanwhile, though the DoJ and other law suits are trying to keep things interesting, I have to remember the basics, namely, that I can’t control all of that stuff out there. I can stay informed, try to make the best decisions for my business based on what I know (not rumor or speculation), but really, the only thing I can control is my output.

So keep writing.

Here’s a much funnier post on basically what I just said.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.

A Sword’s Poem

I know I have other things to chat about. But this is on my mind.

A Sword’s Poem was the historic fantasy I’d planned on writing after I’d finished The Jaguar and the Wolf. I’ve actually written the first 19K words.

The main character loses her mate in the first chapter, then is in denial about her mourning process through much of the rest of the novel.

Then I lost my mother.

It was impossible for me to write a character who was going through such a different mourning process. I had to put it away.

The novel is set in the early Heian period of Japan, around 680 AD, just as things were starting to change.

The hook?

Hikaru is a fox fairy. Her mate is killed, his soul, stolen, then reforged into a sword. Hikaru must find the sword and break the curse–but it’s never as easy as that.

I’d originally envisioned the novel with six, first person point of views. That’s really not doing me any favors. I know why I did it–all the journals from the time are written in first person. And there are 10 novels/journals from this time period.

I think the main character’s story should still be in first person — she’s in so much pain and grief, the reader needs distance from that. I think the scenes from the POV of the sword won’t work unless they’re first person. But the others should all be redrafted into third person.

Could I go back and write this novel now? I think so. I took extensive notes while I did 12+ months of research for it.

Plus, enough time has passed. The other problem with this novel was that I plotted out too much of it. There wasn’t enough left for me to discover, to make it interesting to write. I can ignore all of what I had planned now.

I’m not convinced that I’ll go back to write this novel. I kind of want to, though. Some of it’s so pretty. I was steeped in Japanese poetry when I started: it shows in the language. I like the characters, and I still can see some of the scenes further on in the novel. It’s just — time, as much as anything else.

The good news is that I read through the first chapter of Siren’s Call, the novel I’m supposed to write next. It’s in pretty good shape — MUCH better shape than Zydeco Queen. It needs some updating, but I think I can go through with that novel as well. And it won’t take me too long to finish.

So we’ll see what the next novel, after Siren’s Call, turns out to be — if it’s a brand new novel, Popcorn Thief or the historic fantasy.

Crossposted from my website. If you'd like to comment, you can do so here or there.