Kate Elliott's Blog, page 40

More book tournament & I ask you all a question

The BSC Book Tournament continues. Cold Magic is up against Daniel Fox's excellent Jade Man's Skin in Round 3.
By the way, I really will start posting again soon.

I'm still working (slowly) on the Rory short. I've begin a sort of stream of consciousness outline for Cold Steel, which will be completely useless except insofar as it allows me to consider all the consequences and ramifications of book two as I sort out how to plunge into book three.

Let me ask a question of you all:

If you had read two volumes of a trilogy written in first person, by the same character, how startling would it be for you, as a reader, to pick up book three to find the first chapter (ETA: not the entire book) written in third person from the point of view of a different character (one you already know, I hasten to add)? Would it put you off? Intrigue you? Confuse you? Excite you?

This is not a leading question. I'm curious.

RT Booklovers Convention & Contest

I've chosen the winners for the COLD MAGIC Giveaway, although two have yet to respond to my emails to them. So. Well. We'll see.

Judith B of Colorado has a copy winging its way to her as I type.

MEANWHILE, I do have a series of writing posts coming on Revising and on Openings, but not until April 10.

Next week I will be in LA attending the RT Booklovers Convention.

For those of you who are attending, do please introduce yourselves. I'm there to meet people.

I am on two panels, Wednesday's How to Write and Sell Romantic Fantasy, and Friday's Creating Out of This World SF.

However, for those of you not attending the convention or unable to afford it, I wanted to mention Saturday (April 9) Book Fair.

This runs from 11 am to 2 pm on Saturday, and YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A MEMBER OR ATTENDEE OF THE CONVENTION to go to the Book Fair. Over 300 authors will be signing at the book fair.

Here's the information on Saturday's Book Fair.

Mentoring & Editing Services

Writer Judith Tarr is offering, among other things, Mentoring and Editing Services, and a special sale on her excellent Horse Camp for Writers.

She knows her stuff. She's really good. Years ago, she gave me an excellent critique on a partial of an unpublished novel, before I was published, that was a crucial step in my transition to becoming published. It was brutal, but spot on.

You can find the information here.

Diana Wynne Jones

I really have little to say about the passing of a writer I considered to be one of the treasures not just of the sff field but of literature. I did not know Diana Wynne Jones and I knew almost nothing about her, but I read her novels because they gave me so much reading pleasure. She had the rare ability to combine quite serious and even grim subjects with a means of delight that was her gift of humor and her clarity of sight. It was a unique combination and one I found deeply humane as well.

I am so very glad she wrote. I am so very sorry she is gone.

Your Rory excerpt of the day (Cold Magic short)

In Round 3 I promised to write a short story featuring Rory (a character from COLD MAGIC) if I won.

I'm working on it, but I can't be sure how long it will take me to write.

Just to pay up a little bit (as Round 4 winds down), I post the first page here.

Warning: I suppose this could be construed as mildly spoilery if you haven't read COLD MAGIC, but not particularly. I admit I am writing it with a bit of an assumption that you know something about Rory going in.

Second warning: well, um, if you are disturbed by the death of small, irritating lap dogs, then this will not be for you. Standard disclaimer: I love dogs. I own a dog.




It might have been the dog, or it might have been the woman. He wasn't sure.
When he had prowled into the garden from the enclosed parkland beyond, the little pug dog had been yapping in a skull-rattling fashion. His first instinct was to shut it up. He'd also wanted to cleanse his palate of those tickling feathers and crunchy bones from the peahens he'd had so much fun chasing down in the parkland, so he'd bounded after it, snapped it up, and shaken it. The dog was small and fatty and sour-smelling, but at least it didn't have feathers.
Then a woman's voice tensely said, "Blessed Venus, step back out of sight, Felicia. A slow step. Don't startle it. Just back away and it will eat that hells-cursed pug and not you."
"But do you see what it is, Ami?"
"Yes, I see what it is. It is a very large and very hungry saber-toothed cat."
He raised his head just as the dog weakly wriggled, its blood dribbling down his dagger-like incisors.
"It's so beautiful."
A woman stared at him from marble steps lined by troughs of prickly winter shrubs dusted by snow. She was anything but prickly. She was delectably plump. She was wearing indoor clothes with a bodice laced tightly over a full bosom and white petticoats pulled up to keep their hems out of the snow. Her ankles were so shapely he wasn't sure whether he wanted to gnaw on them or lick them.
The pug gave a last little farting gasp.
Her ankles, or the pungent scent. Hard to say which triggered the sudden flowing river of change that cut through his lean, muscled cat's body like the tide of a dream changing him from one creature into another. He shivered out of the skin of the cat in which he'd been born and lived in his natural home in the spirit world, and slipped into the skin of the man's body he wore here in the Deathlands.
Which meant he found himself sitting on his bare ass in cold, slimy snow. He spat out a foul-tasting hairy mouthful of bloody skin. The pug plopped limply across his lap like an incongruous set of lumpy drawers. Scraps of the clothing he had been wearing when he'd changed from man into cat shed onto the ground around him with a smattering of pats and thuds. A torn hank of boot leather was caught between toes. His long black hair, and the dead dog, were his only covering.

DABWAHA Round 4: The End Approaches

Some of you are, I hope, enjoying this March Madness book tournament sponsored by book review/discussion blogs Dear Author and Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. I like the trash talking and bribery, myself, which you can get the most taste of on Twitter at #dabwaha.

For those who wish I would go back to posting about, you know, Things, I will be doing that soon. In fact, next week I hope to finally post a multi-part series on The Revision Process (at the long ago request of joncwriter ).


BUT. BACK TO DABWAHA.


COLD MAGIC is in one of the two opening matches of the Elite Eight (whoo-hoo!).

These particular matches begin (PAY ATTENTION!) at 10 am CST March 26 (Saturday) and extend until 10 pm March 26 CST (12 hours total)(that's Central Standard Time, USA).

I will of course be asleep when the match opens. I'm also up against another very tough opponent this round, Courtney Milan's historical romance TRIAL BY DESIRE (a book I enjoyed muchly when I read it some months ago, not dreaming at that time I would months later be facing down the novel in a brutal cage match).

My earlier rounds were against books in what was termed the Crossover Division, that is, books not specifically marketed in the Romance Genre. (You'll recall these fine novels, which I recommend all: Susanna Kearsley's contemporary w/ an historical spin THE WINTER SEA, Sara Creasy's sf biopunk SONG OF SCARABAEUS, and Deanne Raybourn's romantic mystery DARK ROAD TO DARJEELING. I mention them here because the stated purpose of the tournament is to bring books to the notice of readers, and it certainly worked in my case as I've now read and loved the first two and will be reading the last soon.)

In any case, having won the Crossover Division, I've now moved into the Regional Final against the winner of the Historical Romance Division.


So, once again, starting Saturday 26 March at 10 am CST you can vote for COLD MAGIC (or TRIAL BY DESIRE) as well as vote in another match between Karina Bliss and Jaci Burton:
ALL RIGHT HERE


ALSO, and most importantly, in Round 3 I said if I won (Round 3) I would write a short story featuring the character Rory from COLD MAGIC.

I won, so I'm writing it.

I have about 1250 words so far of a projected, um, 4-5000. It will be, as I said on Twitter/Facebook, a story with no redeeming social value whatsoever.

Tomorrow (Saturday) I will post the first page in a separate post.


By the way, Courtney Milan offered her own Round 3 bribe--that she would post the early drafts of her various attempts to write the opening chapter of TRIAL BY DESIRE--which she has paid off handsomely in this post which is of great interest both for writers and readers.

Cold Magic Giveaway

I'm giving away three copies of COLD MAGIC as a THANKS to everyone for getting me through the Sweet Sixteen and into the Elite Eight of DABWAHA March Madness book tournament. In the Elite Eight (Round 4) I will face down Courtney Milan's hot historical romance TRIAL BY DESIRE. (Yes, I've read it: it's hot).

Here's how it works.

1. Anyone can enter (USA and international). Better yet, you don't have to have voted for COLD MAGIC to enter. For that matter, you don't even have to know what DABWAHA is (although I admit I'm also hoping to get the book in the hands of a couple of DABWAHA voters who haven't heard of or read me before).

2. Send an email to Kate.Elliott@(no-spam)sff.net with the header DABWAHA or COLD MAGIC GIVEAWAY. Remember to remove the (no-spam) part.

3. In the body, your email needs your full mailing address (snail mail). Without that, I can't enter you.

3a. If you want (I'm curious) let me know if you saw the link info at Twitter, Facebook, on my web site, or on my live journal blog.

4. One entry per person, please.


DATES: March 24 (today) to midnight (HT=Hawaii Time) March 26.


I'll draw winners randomly.


Also, and I'll repeat this later, I'll be at the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention in Los Angeles April 5 - 9, so any of you who are there please introduce yourselves. I'm there to meet readers and writers, so it ought to be a great time.

Sweet Sixteen DABWAHA (Round 3)

The next round of DABWAHA's March Madness book tournament has begun.

This round runs from midnight March 24 (now) until noon March 24 (12 hours from now!)

You can vote here.

COLD MAGIC is up against Deanna Raybourn's DARK ROAD TO DARJEELING. Raybourn is the wonderful (and RITA-award winning) author of a series of historical mysteries with a romantic element.

Help me out, peeps! (but only if you so wish)

I will add that this time slot is a difficult one as I am going to sleep through 2/3rds of it and therefore cannot campaign or talk trash on Twitter at #dabwaha.

Your uplifting video of the day

This is the kind of thing that totally makes me cry, but in a really good way.

"She just makes everyone better"

For the first time in history, a Division 1 NCAA basketball player has made 2000 points AND 1000 assists in the course of their college career. I didn't find this on the front page of my sports section (unlike that Fredette fellow from BYU) because this notable athlete, Courtney Vandersloot of Gonzaga U, is--well--female.

I did a little online searching and found this article, from which a quote by the coach of an opposing team leaped out:

"She just makes everyone better."

I love competence, in whatever endeavor. Competence that becomes excellence is quite fabulous.

But think about what it means to "make everyone better."

Now, obviously, making everyone better allows her, as point guard, to be better and to play better and to rack up more points and assists. It's a self fulfilling loop.

But what a great self fulfilling loop it is, far more effective, in the long run, than tearing down, backstabbing, zero-sum, winner-take-all, I win-you lose, your-success-diminishes-me, and so on.

I think that "making everyone better" can be looked in two ways from this perspective.

One way you make everyone better is by pushing people to their best level either by example or by direct interaction. In writing/publishing terms, a good editor, for instance, will manage this (even if, for instance, I did have to do ONE MORE final revisions pass). Good beta readers, likewise. Or even just supportive associates who cheer you on and make you feel the final stretch is worth it.

The other, related way is by having relationships built on mutual respect and support.

I would go so far as to say that having relationships built on mutual respect and support is often how we push ourselves and others to our best level. I say that despite knowing that a large part of who I am is my own internalized, private, personal drive; no one and nothing can duplicate that for me; I can't be gifted "drive" by an outside agency.

But then, these days and increasingly, I'm apt to say that what's crucial are the relationships you build and I suppose I mean that in the very largest sense.

You know, I've been publishing for 22 years now. That number quite astounds me. In one part of my head, I'm still 27, a struggling aspiring and not-yet-childed writer. In another, I'm still 32 watching my first trilogy sell poorly and being dumped by my then publisher; in that part of my mind, it's all frangible and temporary (kind of like life, I suppose). Oddly, I have almost no perspective of myself as someone who has been around a while and has experience and, presumably, some measure of success or gravitas. In my head, I'm still always struggling to get where I'm going. I'm still on the knife-edge of failure. I'm an unknown. I have to keep working hard to get anywhere. I also strive to be a realist in terms of how publishing works. Nothing is guaranteed, even if some things are more likely than others.

Ultimately, every book I write is mine. The initial spark is mine, the final choices are mine, the responsibility is mine that it is what it is. But in many ways and not in just the obvious infrastructure ones, the book isn't possible without the relationships I have. Readers have their own relationships with books. Support systems build our ability to endure beyond whatever strengths and weaknesses we bring to the table on a personal level

I am the writer I am because of when I came into the field and what my background was/is; my relationship with writing, culture, and our particular genre is built on my relationship with what came before and what came along with me, and it is also based on what is coming along now and what will come after me. Not that I'm done yet, mind you

But speaking in a longitudinal sense, it's the ongoing process and the constant element of change that marks living.

Art remains alive because it's not static.

I believe it also remains alive because people--we--remain involved in it, and involved with each other, and with past present and future as a dynamic state.

I have no idea where I'm going with this. Or how Courtney Vandersloot got me here.