L.R. Lam's Blog, page 7

Writing Update: January & February

This is about a month late, yay moving! I’ve have had a weird start to the year writing-wise, but here’s the roundup of the first two months:

January: 19,731 words of prose, mainly finishing Seven Devils edits and writing the synopsis to the sequel before it went on sub! Then I worked a bit on a thriller, editing about 22,000 words. Nonfiction was 5,844 words, mostly blogging and some Napier work.

Total: 25,575 words

February: Freaked out about being on sub. Did a tiny bit more editing of the thriller, then took a break. Started planning a new book. Wrote some romance. Wrote 19,920 words or so in total. Nonfiction was 4,811 words of blogging, Napier, and PgCert work.

Total: 24,731 words

Year to date: 50,306 words

So far, so steady, but more scattered in approach than I’d like. I’m having trouble committing to a project at the moment. March so far is a write-off for the most part, but hoping to find more focus after I finish moving (so close!).

If you’re a writer, how’s this year treating you so far?

Books Read in February

1. The Ruin of a Rake – Cat Sebastian

Rogue. Libertine. Rake. Lord Courtenay has been called many things and has never much cared. But after the publication of a salacious novel supposedly based on his exploits, he finds himself shunned from society. Unable to see his nephew, he is willing to do anything to improve his reputation, even if that means spending time with the most proper man in London.

Julian Medlock has spent years becoming the epitome of correct behavior. As far as he cares, if Courtenay finds himself in hot water, it’s his own fault for behaving so badly—and being so blasted irresistible. But when Julian’s sister asks him to rehabilitate Courtenay’s image, Julian is forced to spend time with the man he loathes—and lusts after—most.

As Courtenay begins to yearn for a love he fears he doesn’t deserve, Julian starts to understand how desire can drive a man to abandon all sense of propriety. But he has secrets he’s determined to keep, because if the truth came out, it would ruin everyone he loves. Together, they must decide what they’re willing to risk for love.

2. Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st Century Writer – Jeff Vandermeer

The world has changed, and with it the craft of writing. In addition to the difficulties of putting pen to paper, authors must now contend with a slew of new media. This has forever altered the relationship between writers and their readers, their publishers, and their work. In an era when authors are expected to do more and more to promote their own work, Booklife steers readers through the bewildering options:

-What should authors avoid doing on the Internet?

-How does the new paradigm affect authors, readers, and the fundamentals of book publication?

-What’s the difference between letting Internet tools use you and having a strategic plan?

-How do authors protect their creativity while still advancing their careers?

-How do you filter out white noise and find the peace of mind to do good work?

3. The Loneliest Girl in the Universe – Lauren James

Can you fall in love with someone you’ve never met, never even spoken to – someone who is light years away?

Romy Silvers is the only surviving crew-member of a spaceship travelling to a new planet, on a mission to establish a second home for humanity amongst the stars. Alone in space, she is the loneliest girl in the universe until she hears about a new ship which has launched from Earth – with a single passenger on board. A boy called J.

Their only communication with each other is via email – and due to the distance between them, their messages take months to transmit across space. And yet Romy finds herself falling in love.

But what does Romy really know about J? And what do the mysterious messages which have started arriving from Earth really mean?

Sometimes, there’s something worse than being alone . .  .

4. The Hours – Michael Cunningham

Passionate, profound, and deeply moving, “The Hours” is the story of three women: Clarissa Vaughan, who one New York morning goes about planning a party in honor of a beloved friend; Laura Brown, who in a 1950s Los Angeles suburb slowly begins to feel the constraints of a perfect family and home; and Virginia Woolf, recuperating with her husband in a London suburb, and beginning to write “Mrs. Dalloway.” By the end of the novel, the stories have intertwined, and finally come together in an act of subtle and haunting grace, demonstrating Michael Cunnningham’s deep empathy for his characters as well as the extraordinary resonance of his prose.

5. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy – John le Carre

A modern classic in which John le Carré expertly creates a total vision of a secret world, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy begins George Smiley’s chess match of wills and wits with Karla, his Soviet counterpart.

It is now beyond a doubt that a mole, implanted decades ago by Moscow Centre, has burrowed his way into the highest echelons of British Intelligence. His treachery has already blown some of its most vital operations and its best networks. It is clear that the double agent is one of its own kind. But which one? George Smiley is assigned to identify him. And once identified, the traitor must be destroyed.

6. Sealskin – Su Bristow (I don’t often write reviews, but this book was written focalised to a rapist and the selkie never spoke a word the whole book, which I had a lot of trouble with)

Donald is a young fisherman, eking out a lonely living on the west coast of Scotland. One night he witnesses something miraculous, and makes a terrible mistake. His action changes lives—not only his own, but those of his family and the entire tightly knit community in which they live. Can he ever atone for the wrong he has done, and can love grow when its foundation is violence? Based on the legend of the selkies—seals who can transform into people—evokes the harsh beauty of the landscape, the resilience of its people, both human and animal, and the triumph of hope over fear and prejudice. With exquisite grace, Su Bristow transports us to a different world, subtly and beautifully exploring what it means to be an outsider, and our innate capacity for forgiveness and acceptance. Rich with myth and magic, Sealskin is, nonetheless, a very human story, as relevant to our world as to the timeless place in which it is set.

Total this year: 13 Books

Loose reading goals:

Read more romance: The Ruin of a Rake, aspects of The Loneliest Girl in the Universe
Re-read some old favourites: None
Read more classics: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Hours
Continue to read diverse books/books by marginalised authors: The Loneliest Girl in the Universe, The Ruin of a Rake
Read nonfiction: Booklife
Read women: The Ruin of a Rake, The Loneliest Girl in the Universe, Sealskin

My goal this year is 75 books.

New Book Deal: SEVEN DEVILS – Feminist AF Space Opera out in 2019!

Let me tell you a story about me and Elizabeth.

I’ve known Elizabeth May online since 2012 and in person since 2013. I first heard about Elizabeth when her deal for the Falconer was announced in 2011, and was slightly weirded out by our similarities—we are both Californians in Scotland writing YA fantasy. I was also super jealous of her deal, since I didn’t have one yet—but that came later!

I met Elizabeth after I came to visit Napier University as a guest speaker just after my first book, Pantomime, came out (little did I know that a few years later, I’d be lecturing on the course!). I was a bit nervous meeting her in person, since you never know if you’ll get on with people in person versus online. We chatted nonstop for hours and couldn’t shut up. Into the ‘friend bag’ she went (to steal a phrase from Kim Curran).

Elizabeth was in Edinburgh and I was in Aberdeen. We started meeting each other once a month, her either coming up to meet me or me going down to meet her. I finished the first draft of False Hearts at her place in late 2013. We celebrated with a First World Problems beer. I went to her wedding, where we took this beautiful photo. I often joke that Elizabeth is my mini me. We’re both from California and moved to Scotland the same week, despite not knowing each other. We both met our significant others online when we were 16. And so on.

In 2015, Elizabeth sent me an all caps DM saying she had a dream that we wrote Mad Max: Fury Road in space together. I replied: let’s do it. So we did.

We started in October 2015. We had the initial exciting burst of enthusiasm, but between our solo project deadlines, me moving cities, and other challenges, we worked on it off and on. We finished the first draft in February 2017, then took a break and edited it between June and November. We sent it to our agents and after Juliet gave us some editorial suggestions, we went on sub in January.

We can now share that we’ve sold it! We were very relieved that it sold in both the UK and US.

This book is something we only could have co-written. It’s very big stakes and epic in a way that I’m not sure either of us would have tried on our own. We learned about writing in general and we co-write together (some bumps along the road, but we always pushed forward—books are built one page at a time). We are fiercely proud of these group of women (and a couple of men) we’ve come up with. The book ended up being more and more timely as we wrote–there’s #thisgirlcan and #metoo in here. These are a group of devils daring to resist against a truly evil Empire.

Closer to publication, we’ll unveil more about these characters. We love them, and we hope you’ll love them too. I look forward to continuing their story with Elizabeth for the sequel!

Here’s the press release with more about the book:

Gollancz and DAW acquires space opera Seven Devils by Elizabeth May and Laura Lam.

Rachel Winterbottom, Commissioning Editor at Gollancz, bought UK and Commonwealth (ex. Canada) rights for Seven Devils, plus one sequel, by Elizabeth May and Laura Lam from Juliet Mushens at Caskie Mushens in association with Russell Galen at SGG. Book one of the duology, Seven Devils, will be published in summer 2019. North American rights were sold to Betsy Wollheim at DAW Books. Seven Devils is a fast-paced space opera set in a universe where every person is born with loyalty to the Empire coded into their DNA – so it takes a special kind of individual to break their programming . . .

Rachel Winterbottom said: ‘I had been longing for a richly diverse sci-fi that features a kick-ass group of unlikely heroes worthy of Rogue One. This couldn’t be more like what I had in mind. Laura and Elizabeth’s duology is brilliantly epic and so completely what sci-fi readers are ready for.’

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Elizabeth May

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Laura Lam

(Credit: Elizabeth May)

Laura Lam and Elizabeth May said: ‘We are both so excited to be working with Gollancz on Seven Devils. Elizabeth is ecstatic to stay part of the Gollancz community after her Falconer trilogy, and Laura has long admired many authors on their list. This is the perfect home for these characters and we can’t wait for readers to meet these swearing, space Nazi-punching devils.’

Juliet Mushens said: ‘Seven Devils is a brilliantly gripping space opera – rebels, an evil empire, and more snappy dialogue than Firefly, what more could you want?’

 

Eris and Clo are two resistance fighters for a rebel group, caught up in a battle to put a stop to the pitiless Tholosian Empire conquering planet after planet, ruling people via a mind-control programme called the Oracle. The rebels don’t have the same resources as the Empire, but what they do have is Eris – or, Princess Discordia as she was once known, heir to the Empire, until she faked her own death and decided to dedicate her life to destroying her family. Clo despises Eris for who she was, but they are forced to team up when they find a ship containing three women – each of whom claims to have escaped from the Empire, with secret knowledge of how to bring it down. But can they trust them? 

Seven Devils will appeal to those who love Rogue One, Ann Leckie, and Becky Chambers. It’s fast-paced and furious, with a strong cast of women, and a gripping world.

Elizabeth May is the author of the YA fantasy trilogy The Falconer (The Falconer, The Vanishing Throne, The Fallen Kingdom), and short fiction published in the anthology Toil & Trouble. She was born and raised in California before moving to Scotland, where she earned her PhD at the University of St Andrews. She currently resides in Edinburgh, Scotland, with her husband and two cats.

Originally from sunny California, Laura Lam now lives in cloudy Scotland. Laura’s previous books include the BBC Radio 2 Book Club section False Hearts, the companion novel Shattered Minds, as well as the award-winning Micah Grey series: Pantomime, Shadowplay and Masquerade. Her short fiction and essays have also appeared in anthologies such as Nasty Women, Solaris Rising 3, Cranky Ladies of History, and more. She lectures part-time at Napier University in Edinburgh on the Creative Writing MA and at times misses the sunshine.

SEVEN DEVILS | ELIZABETH MAY & LAURA LAM | Summer 2019

trade paperback £14.99 | ebook £14.99 | audio £19.99

The Hanging Gardens Stories for The Belles

These were finished earlier this month, but I kept forgetting to link them here.

Here is a list of the short stories written by various YA authors to help support and publicist The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton (which hit the NYT List! Go read it!). I’m still working my way through all the stories below. I wrote a f/f fantasy fairy tale. Take a look and read some stories.

UNFAIR & LOVELY by Preeti Chhibber
DEVOUR by Laura Sebastian
REGIMEN by Tara Hudson
YOU’D BETTER RECOGNIZE by Liara Tamani
TWO SISTERS by Kristina Pérez
DREAD QUARTER by Justina Ireland
THE HERBALIST by Julia Ember
SHE WILL NOT BE DIMINISHED by Kaitlyn Sage Patterson
CELLO GIRL by Karen Strong
B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L. by Tomi Adeyemi
ROSE BLOOM, ROSE BUD, ROSE BLOOD by Laura Lam
SEASON OF COLOR by Tara Sim
IT DOESN’T WORK ON HUMAN GIRLS by Tessa Gratton
THE MUSIC BOX by L.L. McKinney
BEAUTIFUL FACES by Nova Ren Suma
THE CURSE OF LOVE by Ashley Woodfolk
NO BEAUTY, NO BEAST by Natalie C. Parker

Shattered Minds is out in UK Paperback!

Shattered Minds is out in paperback in the UK today. Cover and cover copy for that and False Hearts, the previous standalone in the same world, is below. This book was an Amazon SF Book Pick of the Month and made it to Locus Magazine’s Recommended Reading List. False Hearts was a BBC Radio 2 Book Club Selection, was profiled on Boing Boing, also made the Locus Recommended Read List, had a starred Booklist review, and was a Romantic Times Top Pick.

So, both books have had good reviews, but it’s still so very hard to get a book to have visibility and gain traction. Now that Shattered Minds is in a lower price point format, I’d really appreciate some help in spreading the word. If you’re interested in feminist cyberpunk or enjoy the show Orphan Black or Dexter, this might be up your alley! If you have read the books, pretty, pretty please consider leaving a short review on Amazon or other venues and recommend it to others you think might like it. Readers have so much power to make books have a longer life, and could even help there be other books set in the same world.

Thanks so much

She can uncover the truth, if she defeats her demons

Ex-neuroscientist Carina struggles with a drug problem, her conscience, and urges to kill. She satisfies her cravings in dreams, fuelled by the addictive drug ‘Zeal’. Now she’s heading for self-destruction – until she has a vision of a dead girl.

Sudice Inc. damaged Carina when she worked on their sinister brain-mapping project, causing her compulsions. And this girl was a similar experiment. When Carina realizes the vision was planted by her old colleague Mark, trying to expose the company, she knows he’s probably dead. If she can’t unmask her nemesis, she’ll be next.

To unlock the secrets Mark hid in her mind, she’ll need specialist hackers. Dax, a doctor who helps with her addictions, is part of their group and they grow close. But first she must destroy her adversary – before it changes us and our society, forever.

Purchase links:

Goldsboro (signed first edition) / Forbidden Planet / Indiebound / Book Depository/ Amazon US / Amazon UK / Barnes & Noble / Powells / Booksamillion / Blackwell’s / Waterstones / Fishpond / Kobo / iBooks / Hive / Indigo / WH Smith / Wordery 

 One night Tila stumbles home, terrified and covered in blood.

She’s arrested for murder, the first by a civilian in decades. The San Francisco police suspect involvement with Verve, a powerful drug, and offer her twin sister Taema a chilling deal. Taema must assume Tila’s identity and gather information – then if she brings down the drug syndicate, the police may let her sister live. But Taema’s investigation raises ghosts from the twins’ past.

The sisters were raised by a cult, which banned modern medicine. But as conjoined t

wins, they needed surgery to divide their shared heart – and escaped. Taema now finds Tila discovered links between the cult and the city’s underground. Once unable to keep secrets, the sisters will discover the true cost of lies.

Purchase links:

Forbidden Planet / Indiebound / Book Depository / Amazon US / Amazon UK / Audible / Barnes & Noble / Powells / Booksamillion / Waterstones / Fishpond / Kobo / iBooks / Hive / Indigo

Audiobook is available on Audible and iTunes.

Books Read in January

It’s that time again.

1. I Am Not a Serial Killer (John Cleaver #1) – Dan Wells (re-read)

John Wayne Cleaver is dangerous, and he knows it.

He’s spent his life doing his best not to live up to his potential.

He’s obsessed with serial killers, but really doesn’t want to become one. So for his own sake, and the safety of those around him, he lives by rigid rules he’s written for himself, practicing normal life as if it were a private religion that could save him from damnation.

Dead bodies are normal to John. He likes them, actually. They don’t demand or expect the empathy he’s unable to offer. Perhaps that’s what gives him the objectivity to recognize that there’s something different about the body the police have just found behind the Wash-n-Dry Laundromat—and to appreciate what that difference means.

Now, for the first time, John has to confront a danger outside himself, a threat he can’t control, a menace to everything and everyone he would love, if only he could.

Dan Wells’ debut novel is the first volume of a trilogy that will keep you awake and then haunt your dreams.

2. The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking #1) – Patrick Ness (re-read)

Prentisstown isn’t like other towns. Everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts in an overwhelming, never-ending stream of Noise. Just a month away from the birthday that will make him a man, Todd and his dog, Manchee — whose thoughts Todd can hear too, whether he wants to or not — stumble upon an area of complete silence. They find that in a town where privacy is impossible, something terrible has been hidden — a secret so awful that Todd and Manchee must run for their lives.

But how do you escape when your pursuers can hear your every thought?

3. Spies Beneath Berlin – David Stafford

Interest in the CIA and world intelligence operations is higher than it has been in years. In Spies Beneath Berlin, David Stafford-whom the New York Times Book Review calls “a superb researcher who has a feel for when ‘secret’ meant ‘significant’ and when it did not,”-tells the fascinating, in-depth account of one of the most audacious and intriguing covert operations of the Cold War: Operation Stopwatch/Gold.

Called by CIA chief Allen Dulles, “one of the most valuable and daring projects ever undertaken,” Operation Stopwatch/Gold was carried out from a secret tunnel half a mile long under the Russian sector of Cold War Berlin as, for more than a year, the CIA tuned into German Red Army intelligence. This was an almost impossible trick: apart from the technical wizardry needed, any noise or vibration could have given the game away. When snow fell, panic measures were taken to prevent it thawing in a tell-tale line leading to the target building. Added complexity comes from the fact that Stopwatch/Gold was a joint CIA/MI6 project, and after Burgess and Maclean it was clear that truth, even between allies, was dangerous. And indeed, there was a mole in the British secret services, thus the KGB knew about the tunnel even before it was built-yet the Germans couldn’t let on that they knew about the tunnel, which would have jeopardized the position of their prized mole.

Whether or not Operation Stopwatch/Gold was a success has been a point of contention over the years, as new information about KGB mole George Blake and the Cold War has been uncovered. Now, for the first time, using eyewitness interviews and the full range of source material-from KGB files to CIA documents-Stafford reveals the thrillingly complex story of this operation.

4. Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow – Yuval Noah Harari

Yuval Noah Harari, author of the critically-acclaimed New York Times bestseller and international phenomenon Sapiens, returns with an equally original, compelling, and provocative book, turning his focus toward humanity’s future, and our quest to upgrade humans into gods.

Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. This may seem hard to accept, but, as Harari explains in his trademark style—thorough, yet riveting—famine, plague and war have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges. For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals put together. The average American is a thousand times more likely to die from binging at McDonalds than from being blown up by Al Qaeda.

What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda? As the self-made gods of planet earth, what destinies will we set ourselves, and which quests will we undertake? Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century—from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers? This is the next stage of evolution. This is Homo Deus.

With the same insight and clarity that made Sapiens an international hit and a New York Times bestseller, Harari maps out our future.

5. Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things No One Told You About Being Creative – Austin Kleon

You don’t need to be a genius, you just need to be yourself. That’s the message from Austin Kleon, a young writer and artist who knows that creativity is everywhere, creativity is for everyone. A manifesto for the digital age, Steal Like an Artist is a guide whose positive message, graphic look and illustrations, exercises, and examples will put readers directly in touch with their artistic side.

6. Practical Magic – Alice Hoffman

The Owens sisters confront the challenges of life and love in this bewitching novel from New York Times bestselling author Alice Hoffman.

For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally have endured that fate as well: as children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, with their musty house and their exotic concoctions and their crowd of black cats. But all Gillian and Sally wanted was to escape.

One will do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they share will bring them back—almost as if by magic…

7. A Tyranny of Petticoats – edited by Jessica Spotswood

Total: 7 Books

Loose reading goals:

Read more romance: Aspects of Practical Magic, some stories in A Tyranny of Petticoats, but otherwise not really
Re-read some old favourites: I Am Not a Serial Killer, The Knife of Never Letting Go
Read more classics: Practical Magic
Continue to read diverse books/books by marginalised authors: Homo Deus, some authors in A Tyranny of Petticoats
Read nonfiction: Spies Beneath Berlin, Homo Deus, Steal Like an Artist
Read women: Practical Magic, A Tyranny of Petticoats

My goal this year is 75 books.

March Events: Aye Write & Sci Fi Weekender

How is it already almost the end of January?

In March, I have some upcoming events.

Aye Write – Glasgow, Scotland – 17th March

I have two events!

Chris Brookmyre & Laura Lam, It’s Crime Jim, But Not As We Know It

17th Mar 2018 • 4:45PM – 5:45PM • Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Join these two crime writers who are expanding the boundaries of the genre… Places in the Darkness is set on a space station where hundreds of scientists and engi-neers work building a colony ship that will one day take humanity to the stars. When a mutilated body is found, investigator, Alice Blake, is sent from Earth and discovers a conspiracy that threatens not only her life, but the future of humanity itself. Shattered Minds features an ex-neuroscientist Carina, who has been damaged by working on a sinister brain-mapping project. She must kick her addictions, fight her demons and destroy her adversary – before it changes her and our society, forever.

Book now.

Nasty Women: Laura Lam, Mel Reeve and Sim Bajwa, chaired by: Chitra Ramaswamy 

17th Mar 2018  •  8:15PM – 9:15PM  •  Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

It’s been a year since 404 Ink’s debut book Nasty Women was published following a hugely successful crowdfunding campaign and support from Margaret Atwood. A number of the contributors to the collection of essays on what it is to be a woman in the 21st century, including Laura Lam and Mel Reeve, reveal in this panel how it has been to be a ‘Nasty Woman’ in this whirl wind project that was the bestselling book at Edinburgh International Book Festival 2017 and what it truly means to be ‘nasty’.


Sci Fi Weekender – Camp SFW, North Wales – 22nd to 25th March

I’m a guest at the Sci Fi Weekender in Wales! The schedule of panels etc haven’t been announced yet, but here’s the website to learn more. I’ll put up my schedule on the blog once I know it!

Hope everyone’s having a lovely Sunday,

L x

@Ver_acity: Behind the Scenes

I’ve decided to start writing a craft blog each month. First up: interactive fiction via Twitter.

Starting October 1 and ending November 1, Emily Still and I wrote an interactive Halloween story on Twitter. We came up with the idea near the end of September while in the pub (where many great ideas start). It was a fun experiment with a form neither of us had written creative in, and we are proud of the story that came out of it. This is a look behind the scenes.

Emily showed me the Dear David threads on Twitter. Basically, a guy may or may not have a haunted apartment, and he’s documenting his findings on Twitter. It’d gone viral. I’m too much of a cynic to think he’s actually being haunted, but the threads were really interesting and engaging. We wanted to do something similar.

Spoilers for the story below, of course.

We did have a Storify of the whole story, but then of course, Storify shut down, which is a shame. It can still all be read via Twitter, though not chronologically.

Ver_acity is the story of a young girl, who calls herself Ver online. I couldn’t remember if we’d come up with her real name, but Emily says we did: Verity. She has just moved to Edinburgh to an old family home. Her mother has died and her father is acting strangely. She’s moody, angry, and probably depressed, though she doesn’t air that on Twitter. She started the account when she blanked for the first time—shifting from our Edinburgh to strange and empty grey copy of it. She wanted to document what’s happening, and she also hoped someone out there would believe her.

First: we did some initial pre-planning. We wanted to focus on witches, and set it in Edinburgh. Emily’s been volunteering for a creative writing group in the Grassmarket, and since the street still has a stone where hangings were held, it was a creepy area to focus on. We started researching witches in Edinburgh, though we wanted the witch subplot to be after the witch trials in the late 1500s. Since we knew the story would be best with some multi-media elements: pictures, videos, outside links, etc.

E says: The Napier course which Laura teaches and I just finished heavily influenced this idea as we talk a lot about using technology to tell stories but also how technology changes our fiction. The story had to fit the medium and that was tricky to plan for.

We decided to do a late-night psychogeography experiment. If you haven’t heard of psychogeography, it’s basically exploring urban environments in a way that jolts you into a new awareness—seeing things as if for the first time, noticing any patterns that emerge, etc. We used to have our students at Napier do them (like Emily, who was my student last year), but due to potential accessibility issues, this year we had students go to a museum to be inspired by an artefact instead.

So, at night, Emily and I met at the hanging stone in Grassmarket and wandered around Edinburgh at night, taking pictures. We went up to Greyfriars and took loads of night-time photos in the cemetery, dodging many, many ghost tours. 

E says: The key things we noticed on our psychogeography were the the colour green. It was really all over Edinburgh, graffiti, doorways, bars (like the steel kind but also the pub kind), and doorways. Of course, these do not directly make a story. Instead they weaved in to create our concept and explore our themes.

Of course, after the psychogeography, we went to a pub in the Grassmarket (pubs are a recurring theme…), and we plotted out the story. It was still in its early stages, but we didn’t want to nail down the story completely before starting. We wanted to keep it open enough that if Twitter users responded, we could take it in interesting directions. We had an idea of the main plot and subplots:

Ver seeing strange things in Edinburgh, slipping into an alternate dimension. Her grandmother, a witch, left her a notebook to help her prepare.
We knew who the antagonist and more or less what he’d done.
We’d have her mother being dead and her father acting strangely (to set him up as a red herring)
Ver would have a romance with a girl in school, who ends up being a key player in the plot.
Ver would have a hard time at school, feeling like an outsider.

We set up the Twitter and called for followers on October 1st. We ended up with 135 or so in the end, but we got to 100 within the first week. We didn’t do any other advertising aside from boosting on our own social media. We started drafting and we were off.

Early on, we have Ver find a notebook in her house among her mother’s things. We wrote a message and considered what code to have it in. We wanted it to be something readers could decipher. We considered constrained language, like missing out certain letters of the alphabet (in retrospect, we could have tried that and removed E for Edward, but we didn’t know his name at that point…!). We played around with alphabet cyphers. In the end, we chose to just translate English into runes. The grandmother, who wrote the notebook, did it so casual eyes couldn’t read what she’d written, but it also meant she was accused of writing a spellbook (which turned out to be true). I stained the page with a teabag to make it look more distressed.

One of the interesting examples of interaction was that Snow, a reader from New Zealand, translated it but had a line in it that said “I’m Enid.” We hadn’t drafted that, but we ran with it and decided to make Enid the grandmother’s name.

One of the other bigger multimedia elements was the Ouija board. It gave Ver and Hel an excuse to meet outside of school and grow closer, and Ouija is a staple of creepy stories. Emily came over and we recorded the videos with the written questions visible. The videos are all silent because we were laughing the whole time. “No, N is down there!” etc. It took many takes, but it was fun. Emily then added a couple of little flourishes, like some static and blanks.

My cats are also in about half of the videos, causing general trouble. 

Emily and I drafted together, but posted more or less on separate days, usually some time between 6-8 pm GMT. If I had a few busy evenings, she’d take over, and vice versa. It worked well. We tried to always stay a couple days ahead of drafting, and to keep fleshing out the parts of the story that still needed development.

E says: In terms of story structure knowing we were going from the 1st of October to the 1st of November gave us a clear (more or less) three-acts. We had a turning point or cliffhanger at the end of every week. On Sundays Emily collated a storify so people could catch up with the week all at once if they weren’t able to follow on in real time.

We had a few readers who interacted a lot, and a few that mainly lurked and favourited. We had such a sense of accomplishment on November 1st. I’d never tried writing via Twitter, and it turned out quite creepy in parts despite the word constraint.

E says: It was a really exciting way to put all my new learning into something ‘on the fly’. Working collaboratively with Laura was a privilege – when you are just starting out it’s great to see a pro at work and push yourself to get up to their level. The collaborative process was not just with Laura though, we worked with our readers – sometimes with just seconds to think of a reply in Ver’s register (what gifs would she use?). It certainly raised the bar on my craft.

We put up a kofi here as an optional tip jar. We’d love a few dollars if you enjoyed the story or this behind the scenes look into how we created it. We tend to write in a café/pub that’s easy for us to both get to since we live on opposite sides of town, so help funding the coffee and beer is always appreciated! Thanks for following along, and who knows…maybe Ver will return one day!

November and December Writing, a Yearly Review, and Looking Forward to 2018

Firstly, I’ve uploaded a blank version of the Excel spreadsheet I use to track my writing progress. You’re welcome to download and use it if you find that helpful! It’s pretty straightforward and no-nonsense, but it does the trick. I kept track some of 2015 before I fell off the wagon, but I’ve consistently tracked throughout 2016 and 2017.

Writing Spreadsheet Blank

November & December

The last two months of 2017 were decently productive. As it felt like I did the whole year, a lot of it was editing. In the early part of November, I did a re-read of the co-written book, and then me and Elizabeth May sent it off to our agents. In between, I did a small on spec proposal for a video game company. I didn’t get the gig, sadly, but they did pay me for trying out, which was nice, and I had fun with the pitch anyway. After that, I had notes back from my agent on another book, a near-future thriller. It needed a decent amount of work, which I’d suspected. But I must admit, the thought of re-writing this book for the third time did make me groan!

I worked through the existing outline by going through John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story, step by step, to stress test what I had so far. Though sometimes prescriptive advice can be irritating, in this case, because I already had a draft, it was really useful to see what was working and what needed to change, especially in conjunction with Juliet’s notes. By the end of the month, I had a plan I was happy with.

Fiction: 13,963 words (this includes planning notes, as that’s just as useful as prose)

Non-fiction: 8,200 words (blogging, Napier work)

Total: 21,090 words

December meant I had to actually start editing the thriller. That was what I worked on for most of the month, along with a short story that will be going live soonish. On Christmas Eve (!), I got notes on the co-written book from Juliet, but thankfully they weren’t as intense as the thriller notes. It was mostly a nip and a tuck, and I also could split them with my co-writer. So the tail end of the month was starting on those and putting the thriller on hold for a little bit. It’s very hard to edit two books concurrently, even if they’re as different as these books are.  I can work on projects concurrently if I’m at different stages in the process, but otherwise it’s challenging.

I also went on a weekend writing retreat with Elizabeth and Hannah Kaner, over in Penrith, so that was a nice chance to get in some words and also explore a different part of the country.

Fiction: 23,250 words

Non-fiction: 8,537 words (blogging, prepping for school visits, Napier work, an application for a residency)

Total: 30,187 words

 

A Look Over the Year

So, in total in 2017:

Fiction: 214,592 words (591 words per day)

Nonfiction: 74,340 (203 words per day)

Total: 288,932 (791 words per day)

I’m pretty happy with that. I’m not someone who writes masses in a day. I am slow and steady, but as ever, this shows that it adds up. This is a little more than I wrote in 2016 (261,589), and probably about as much as I’ll write in 2018. I’d like to get up to 300,000 because that’s a nice round number, but I’m not that bothered. I know that this is a pace that’s comfortable for me.

Project-wise, this year, I:

Finished the first draft of the thriller. Re-planned and edited that once. Re-planned it again and started editing/re-writing it a third time. This is currently my shortest book: third draft is projected to be around 70,000 words.

Finished the first draft of the co-written book. Re-planned and edited that once. Started re-editing it again. This is my longest book (though I only wrote about half of it!). Third draft is projected to be around 130,000 words.

I wrote most of a short story (7k), a novella (20k, though I need to expand it on a re-draft), and half of another novella (12k so far). They are fun, contemporary, slightly geeky romances that I wrote mostly to give myself a break from the death and super high stakes in the above. I’m considering self-publishing these under a pseudonym this year once I have more of a backlist. I worked on that mostly in the first half of the year and then fell off it in the second half.

In self-publishing, I also formatted and released “The Mechanical Minotaur,” “Through the Eyes of a Bluebird,” and “Creatures of Celebrity,” which are tie-in stories for Masquerade, False Hearts, and Shattered Minds, respectively.

I also did the @Ver_acity Twitter story with Emily Still and wrote a first draft of a short story for another thing.

The nonfiction was a lot of promo for both Masquerade and Shattered Minds, which came out this year. I also did a fair number of events this year and kept teaching part-time.

Lastly, I came up with a few more ideas for books to go into the queue, and thought about the ones that are coming up soon.

Plenty enough for one year, I’d say!

 

Looking Forward: 2018

As I mentioned in my resolutions post last week, a lot of what I’ll work on this year creatively is currently up in the air. If I sell these projects I’m almost finished editing (man, I hope they sell), they both have follow ups, so that will keep me busy. I have two other books at the forefront of the queue I’d at least like to plot, and I’m going to keep playing around with the romances. I find them fun and they stretch my writing ability in a different way. I also like the idea of learning more about self-publishing. I learned some from short-stories, but the market for standalone shorts is very small, and none of those releases have earned that much of a profit.

But no matter what, I’ll just keep chipping away at projects and keeping track and probably put up bi-monthly updates.

What are your writing goals this year, and how do you track them?

Books Read in December & Yearly Roundup

1. The Anatomy of Story – John Truby (I used this to assess my existing plot and stress-test for a better draft after getting notes from my agent. Not everything was helpful for me, but overall I definitely recommend it, especially for the stuff on character)

John Truby is one of the most respected and sought-after story consultants in the film industry, and his students have gone on to pen some of Hollywood’s most successful films, including Sleepless in Seattle, Scream, and Shrek. The Anatomy of Story is his long-awaited first book, and it shares all of his secrets for writing a compelling script. Based on the lessons in his award-winning class, Great Screenwriting, The Anatomy of Story draws on a broad range of philosophy and mythology, offering fresh techniques and insightful anecdotes alongside Truby’s own unique approach for how to build an effective, multifaceted narrative. Truby’s method for constructing a story is at once insightful and practical, focusing on the hero’s moral and emotional growth. As a result, writers will dig deep within and explore their own values and worldviews in order to create an effective story. Writers will come away with an extremely precise set of tools to work with–specific, useful techniques to make the audience care about their characters, and that make their characters grow in meaningful ways. They will construct a surprising plot that is unique to their particular concept, and they will learn how to express a moral vision that can genuinely move an audience.

2. Contact – Carl Sagan

For centuries humanity has dreamed of life and intelligence beyond the Earth; for decades scientists have searched for it in every corner of the sky; for years Project Argus, a vast, sophisticated complex of radio telescopes, has listened for a signal indicating the existence, somewhere in the universe, of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Then, one afternoon, the course of human history is changed, abruptly and forever. The Message, awaited for so long, it’s very possibility doubted by so many, arrives.

Contact has been made. Life, intelligence, someone, somethingbeyond Earth, 26 light-years away, in the vicinity of the star Vega, is calling, beaming across space a wholly unexpected message to say that we are not – have never been – alone.

3. The Girl with the Red Balloon – Katherine Locke

When sixteen-year-old Ellie Baum accidentally time-travels via red balloon to 1988 East Berlin, she’s caught up in a conspiracy of history and magic. She meets members of an underground guild in East Berlin who use balloons and magic to help people escape over the Wall—but even to the balloon makers, Ellie’s time travel is a mystery. When it becomes clear that someone is using dark magic to change history, Ellie must risk everything—including her only way home—to stop the process.

4. The Reindeer People – Megan Lindholm

The Reindeer People is the first in a series of reissues of Megan Lindholm’s (Robin Hobb) classic backlist titles. It is set in the harsh wilderness of a prehistoric North America, and tells the story of a tribe of nomads and hunters as they try to survive, battling against enemy tribes, marauding packs of wolves and the very land itself. Living on the outskirts of the tribe Tillu was happy spending her time tending her strange, slow dreamy child Kerlew and comunning with the spirits to heal the sick and bring blessing on new births. However Carp, the Shaman, an ugly wizened old man whose magic smelled foul to Tillu desired both mother and child. Tillu knew Carp’s magic would steal her son and her soul. Death waited in the snows of the Tundra, but Tillu knew which she would prefer Gritty and realistic, it’s reminiscent of Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear but written in the compelling style of the author who produced the bestselling Assassin’s Apprentice.

5. Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson

Cryptonomicon zooms all over the world, careening conspiratorially back and forth between two time periods–World War II and the present. Our 1940s heroes are the brilliant mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, crypt analyst extraordinaire, and gung-ho, morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe. They’re part of Detachment 2702, an Allied group trying to break Axis communication codes while simultaneously preventing the enemy from figuring out that their codes have been broken. Their job boils down to layer upon layer of deception. Dr. Alan Turing is also a member of 2702, and he explains the unit’s strange workings to Waterhouse. “When we want to sink a convoy, we send out an observation plane first… Of course, to observe is not its real duty–we already know exactly where the convoy is. Its real duty is to be observed… Then, when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not find it suspicious.”

All of this secrecy resonates in the present-day story line, in which the grandchildren of the WWII heroes–inimitable programming geek Randy Waterhouse and the lovely and powerful Amy Shaftoe–team up to help create an offshore data haven in Southeast Asia and maybe uncover some gold once destined for Nazi coffers. To top off the paranoiac tone of the book, the mysterious Enoch Root, key member of Detachment 2702 and the Societas Eruditorum, pops up with an unbreakable encryption scheme left over from WWII to befuddle the 1990s protagonists with conspiratorial ties.

6. Getting Started in Young Adult Fiction – Juliet Mushens (re-read for course I’m teaching on YA fiction next trimester)

Practical guidance, advice and tips to make your Young Adult Fiction writing stand out and get noticed.

This is an authoritative and engaging introduction to writing young adult fiction for the complete beginner. It will help you understand how the genre works, the big do’s and don’t’s – as well as giving you the inspiration and motivation you actually need to write. Written by a leading literary agent who knows what it takes to make it in this market, this book will give you the advice and tips you need to stand out. An essential book for anyone hoping to emulate the success and addictive qualities that characterize books like The Hunger Games, Twilight, Divergent and The Fault in Our Stars.

Total this year: 91 books

Loose reading goals for this month:

Read more romance: The Girl with the Red Balloon, partly 
Re-read some old favourites: Getting Started in YA Fiction 
Read more classics: Contact, Cryptonomicon
Continue to read diverse books/books by marginalised authors: The Girl with the Red Balloon
Read nonfiction: Getting Started in YA Fiction
Read women: The Girl with the Red Balloon, the Reindeer People, Getting Started in YA Fiction

This year:

Romance: 13 or so
Re-reads: 8
Classics (which I basically just define as very well-known older books): 11 
Continue to read diverse books/books by marginalised authors: Hard to know for certain, but around 26?
Nonfiction: 16
Read women: 61