C. Gockel's Blog, page 124

slipperycunningsalmon:Tough CrowdTo appease a vengeful,...

slipperycunningsalmon:

Tough Crowd
To appease a vengeful, humorless goddess, Asgard presents the funniest guy they know.

"It’s not getting it perfect. This is taking an infinite project and turning it into a finite..."

“It’s not getting it perfect. This is taking an infinite project and turning it into a finite project. It’s about realizing it isn’t your absolute best work – because then you’d never let go of it – but it’s something you’d be very proud of.”

- Dave Cullen (via writingquotes)

slipperycunningsalmon:Thor’s WeddingWhen Mjolnir is held...

slipperycunningsalmon:

Thor’s Wedding
When Mjolnir is held ransom by a frost giant for Freya’s hand in marriage, Thor and Loki devise a scheme to get it back. (From the Thrymskvitha)

This is actually mythologically accurate.

maggie-stiefvater:Well, it is 7:27 a.m. and I’m drinking cocoa...

maggie-stiefvater:

Well, it is 7:27 a.m. and I’m drinking cocoa and emailing myself and doing other writerly things before caffeine, so I’m not sure how wise this will be, but here goes.

I’m not self-published. Self-publishing is a complicated and shifting and very-not-homogenous model, but generally speaking, if you can find someone’s books in Barnes & Noble or WalMart, they’re published by one of the major New York publishers (at this point).

I’m published by Scholastic, whom I love. It took me quite awhile to catch their eye, but I am fine with that. Publishing is a hard business, but it does not want to eat your heart.

People ask me if I “agree” with self-publishing, which I think is a weird noun-verb pairing. Self-publishing is not a question. I cannot tell you yes or no. Nor is it something obvious and straightforward like chugging a whole bottle of maple syrup. I would tell you in a heartbeat that the latter would be ill-advised because I’ve never seen anyone that it worked out well for.

Before I was an author, I was an artist. I spent the first part of my art career promoting myself — doing all the advertising, marketing, and art-making myself. I enjoyed it and it gave me total control, but it meant I worked 60 hour weeks and spent 10% of my time making art and the rest marketing it. The second part of my career, I applied to a good gallery and got accepted. They handled the marketing and advertising and … it was glorious. I got to shift to 40 hour work weeks and spending 75% of my work time actually making art.

This is why, for now, traditional publishing is for me. I would rather spend my time writing than marketing. Yes, I must work as part of a team, and I must give up my 100% control of the way my books are put out there, but for the most part, Scholastic really gets me. It doesn’t feel like a compromise. It feels like that gallery: glorious. There is something marvelous about that very first moment that I share a manuscript with Scholastic, and I hear what the marketing and publicity team thinks of it.

Also, I really want to be in every bookstore everywhere. And right now, traditional publishing is the only way to make that happen.

Did that answer the question? Oh! Getting started. I would start by researching agents, personally. Also, I have bunches of writing business and technique posts on the blog, all tagged “how I write.”

Hm. My cocoa is all gone. Also, this girl “Maggie Stiefvater” seems to have emailed me a line to my next novel. Weird.

/rebloggable by request

I self-published without even considering a traditional publisher… Somehow, a traditional publisher that would accept a book about Loki featuring velociraptors seemed a little too hard to believe (harder than fascist elves or six armed spider women). And hey, if I’m writing about Loki, one of the biggest disruptors in any mythological pantheon, self-publishing just seems to “fit”.

I don’t think self-publishing is for everyone. I have a lot of experience in graphic design (despite the horribleness of my first cover), and I also have experience with internet marketing, so I can sniff out scams more easily than some (and there are lots of sharks in these waters).

I don’t spend all my time self-promoting—but then, I’m not a best-seller either (but I’m not doing too badly!) I’m having fun, meeting great people, and writing what I want to write. That’s worth a lot.

I am doing better than some of my contacts who went small press. I’d be very careful with that.

THANK YOU! I BRING THE FIRE JUST HIT 213 REVIEWS

Thank you Samantha Chapman, Dixon Hollis, C. Storch “donotdelay”, C. Toste “Beucher wurm”, Dona Rushford, May, Cynthia Linn Mercer, ginger lawrence, Wayne Baker, Debra E. Paton, mf,  R. Rerloff, Joan Atwood, P. Sundby, DJ, SublimeElflet, and Gloria Jones—your reviews help readers risk their time on I Bring the Fire  (it may be free, but time is valuable too!) 

Thanks also to J. Scheppler “Vampire Fanatic”, Bonnie M. Russell, maria ward law (x2), Amazon Customer in Stafford VA (x2),  Heather, and Amazon Customer completely anonymous, Creative Woodworking, Avid Reader, and Fred Furr for reviewing Monsters, Chaos, and Fates. Your reviews help people decide the story is worth continuing.

And non-US readers Debra Ann Rempel, Dearbhla (your review made me laugh), Zowie Stratford, SublimeElflet, Gloria Jones, Sarah, Jennie F, Melanie Göpfert, Birgit Wecer, and M… Thank you too!

Oh, jeez—one more review just slipped through the door. Thank dzreads…that brings I Bring the Fire up to 120 5-star reviews. Wow. Just wow. I’m so lucky. I may have to go hide under my desk now… my usual instinct when I’m feeling overwhelmed.

Sometimes I write scenes I know I’m going to have to scrap later. But writing them imperfectly...

Sometimes I write scenes I know I’m going to have to scrap later. But writing them imperfectly seems to be the only way I can get to the right scene, and the only way I know to smash through the walls of “writer’s block”. Each tap of my keys and I’m tearing down another brick.

Sometimes I find these moments exciting. I wonder, when I ever get to the point where I just write a novel straight through, if it won’t be fun anymore?

"You can have your book or you can have your excuses. You can’t have both."

“You can have your book or you can have your excuses. You can’t have both.”

-

Amanda Patterson (via writingquotes)

Just write!

WARRIORS TINY EXCERPT

“As an admittedly minor member of the Norse Pantheon,” Nari says, eyes going from Bohdi, to Steve, “You can take my word, when I say, velociraptors aren’t part of the myths.”

Flicking his lighter, Bohdi grumbles. “Would be way more fun if they were.”

….

To be continued in the 5th installment of I Bring the Fire.

Realization.

sunnabear:

I just realised that with Fenrisúlfur (the mythical beast from Norse mythology, one of Loki’s kids), if you translate the name it’s pretty much just Wolfwolf….because fenrir is the old word for a wolf x)

So he’s pretty much the ultimate Moon Moon

Actually, I’ve read it means “fen-dweller”? I wondered if it had something to do with his relegation to an island? 

cgockel:In honor of Shakesbear’s birthday.Oh, wait… it’s...

cgockel:

In honor of Shakesbear’s birthday.

Oh, wait… it’s someone else’s birthday? Why yes, it’s mine too! :-)

eisencorgi:

lord-kitschener:

farewelldecency:

cheesiestart:

fullmetalbrony:

farewelldecency:

To forage or not to forage, that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to hunger
for the nuts and berries of outrageous fortune
Or to hibernate in before the coming chills of winter,
And by opposing to sleep at all. To eat- to sleep-
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The hunger, and the thousand natural shocks
That the stomach is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To hunger- to sleep.

SHAKESBEAR

I am a bear. Hath not a bear eyes?

Hath not a bear paws, muzzle, dimensions, senses, affections, passions,

Fed with the same honey, hurt by the same bees

subject to the same hunters, maul by the same claws?

Warm’d and cool’d by the same winter and summer, as a moose is?

If you prick us, do we not roar?

If you tickle us, do we not bear hug?

If you poison us, do we not get tummy aches?

And if you wrong us, do we not revenge?

If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.

But, soft! what light through yonder tree bows breaks?
It is the east, and Honey is the sun.
Fall down, fair honey, and kill my paining hunger,
Who is already rumbly and grumbly from this morning’s breakfast, 
That mine lunch art far more fair than breakfast:
Be not that meal, since it is envious;
Those berries were but sick and green
And none but cubs would eat them; cast them off.
It is my lunch, O, it is my love! 
O, that sweetness knew it were!
It drips yet it still stays above my head: what of that?
Her hive discourses; I will answer it.
I am too bold, ‘tis not to me it drips:
The sweetest liquid gold in all the lands, 
Having some business, do entreat that hive
To twinkle against the comb till they return.
What if the liquid were there, they in those combs?
The brightness of that hive would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a cave; her gold in those walls.
Would through the dark region stream so bright
That bats would sleep and think it were not night.
See, how it continues to flow above my head!
O, that I were a bee upon that gold,
That I might touch that gold!

Shakesbear wanted to break out of his typecast role in Twelfth Night.

SHAKESPEARE IN THE PARK