Kate Elliott's Blog, page 44

Happy New Year

We here in the Uttermost West have a few hours to go until the divide, but my very best wishes to all of you as one year ends and the next begins (according to this calendar, at least).

I had a very intense and in some ways quite stressful year. But I did finish the things I needed to finish, notably a finished draft of Cold Fire (Spiritwalker #2), an unbelievably fabulous trip to Mali (which I did not write about but may in 2011), and also the world championship of long distance outrigger canoe racing (women's division), the 2010 Na Wahine O Ke Kai, which I wrote about here.

There were personal family things as well which I'm not likely to discuss, some of which are ongoing. However, on a related front, I decided on and have implemented a calendar/to do list system, mostly to do with a large flat desk calendar and post it notes. I call it an analog system.

I note with some interest that the one thing I did not have time for in 2010 was sickness.

I have been nursing a stubborn chronic and often quite painful injury all year, but that is part of the price you pay at my age for engaging in the level of physical activity I want to pursue at the moment, and I certainly hope I will be able to continue to push myself because I am not done with my paddling goals yet, not by a long shot.

But I did not get sick. Not until today. I have developed a garden variety cold, nothing major, but enough to simply leave me too exhausted to do much more than a few things around the house the Spouse and I have been working on. In a way, it feels fitting, as in: Okay, tired now. Time to take a brief break, and then get moving on next year.

May the new year bring you what you need.

A tall order, I know, but what the heck.

2010: Ten Memorable Lines from Reviews of Cold Magic

At year's end, many readers and reviewers list their Ten Best of the Year, or of the Category.

I don't keep good enough track of my reading to write such a list, and furthermore I would be unlikely to do so because while I enjoy reading lists of what stuck with other readers over their year of reading, I would myself have a difficult time breaking things down that way. For one thing, I wouldn't be able to bear the thought of the books that got left out.

However, this year I decided to do a list of Ten Memorable Lines from Reviews of Cold Magic.

I do read pretty much all my reviews (or at least, all those I can find). I may skip reading a review if it is clear to me that the reader/reviewer really is out to make a hash of one of my books in a way that will merely irk me: For someone with my personality, this usually means they have dropped in point-scoring sarcasm or any form of condescension or needs-a-bat cluelessness, and I have to admit if I am being perfectly honest that I have a long and tireless memory if I feel I have been egregiously insulted, especially by someone who clearly doesn't know as much as s/he thinks s/he does and or is completely unable to separate his/her taste and views from "everyone ought to see things just exactly as I do." However, I hasten to add that such comments are few and far between.

And quite different in nature from a straight "I didn't like this and here's why" review which might depress me for as long as it takes me to gather my wounded pride up off the floor and get back to work (how long that takes depends on my overall mood and stress level at the time of reading), but which may reflect differences in taste or simply that the book didn't work for that reader in ways that are completely legitimate for their reading of it.

That's how it goes when you hand your precious book over to the world. Not everyone is going to like the book. Not everyone is required to. Also, sometimes those negative comments have truth to them. Live and learn, that's what I say.

But I personally do need to know people are reading. Also, I get a sense of what is coming across in the narrative both by recurring complaints (yes, people, I know there is too much world-building and detail in all my books: but you should see the earlier drafts and then you would marvel at how much I cut!) and by aspects that are highlighted as the best part of any given story.

I feel it is useful to know what works as well as what doesn't work, even if reading reviews also scares me: If someone loved one book, will they hate the next? But this is also the story of a writer's life: You simply have to keep writing regardless of the internal fears and doubts.

There were many reviews of Cold Magic, some wonderfully squee-ful, some extremely positive, some interestingly mixed, and a couple in which the reviewer just did not like the book. With perhaps a couple of exceptions all the reviews were thoughtful, and many were downright insightful. I have not linked to them all even over the last five months, and I can't imagine why you would want to read through a bunch of links anyway (although I may in 2011 attempt to make one huge link-tastic page on www.kateelliott.com) but there were many fabulous reviews not excerpted below that I truly appreciated and which warmed my stolid little heart.


However, here are Ten Memorable Lines from 2010 Reviews of Cold Magic:


1. Most succinctly negative:

Ugh, what a painful book!



2. Best use of caps:

Page 200: OMGTHATDIDNOTJUSTHAPPENITHINKILOVEYOUKATEELLIOTT.



3. Cleverest use of reference back to book in rating schema:

Rating: 5 saber-tooth tiger half-siblings that you never knew you had



4. Made me really laugh (and I mean that in a good way):

Halfway through and I am waiting for the kitchen sink to show up. (from goodreads)



5. Totally nails the academic angle:

Along with the personal journey of our heroine, the reader is basically immersed in a very fluidly changing culture that includes ideas about socio-economic divides, power and how it should be wielded, democratic representation, revolution, and the role of science and technology in a changing society.



6. Oh, dear.

It's hard to maintain interest in a character that evokes little feeling, either positive or negative, and her insipid nature leaves the story feeling bland and uninspiring.



7a. And yet . . .

It was really the characters that made me wish the book would never end and for days after I finished Cold Magic I would eagerly reach for the book only to remember, with regret, that I had already finished it.


7b. Not to mention . . .

The banter will make you laugh out loud, even if you're reading in public (which is the true test of these things). The characters will follow your around for days after you've finished the book, making you smile at the things you remember them saying and the things they might say if faced with your daily tribulations, they're that three-dimensional. And clever. Did I mention that they'll make you laugh?



8. For reading out of comfort zone:

I thought perhaps a 28 year old male just isn't meant to connect with a young, female voice. This issue was exacerbated by the first person narrative. A reader must invest in the narrator. I just didn't see myself doing so with Catherine Hassi Barahal. Fortunately I was wrong. Elliott's delightful tale breached my cynicism and effortlessly won me over.



9. Fourth reading? This dude rocks!

I also found some paragraphs of the novel so powerful and emotional that even on their fourth recent reading, they still moved me a lot . . .




10. Okay, this may seem unfair because this reviewer listed Cold Magic as her favorite book of the year, but this comment so entirely and utterly encapsulates the effect I most want to achieve in a reader's experience, that I have to list it as the most memorable line from any of the reviews I've received this year:

This is it! This is why we read! To get the sensations and feelings this book is making me feel!



I cannot begin to tell you how happy that line makes me. But -- OMG! -- what if she doesn't like the next one? See, of the making of books and reviews there is no end.

another stroll along the writing process

As part of my year end effort to organize myself for the big push next year, which will involve revising one very long novel and writing two others (if I can manage it, which I kind of doubt, but hope springs eternal), I am re-organizing files and folders within my Work folder.

I found this partial of a (as yet unposted) post, which I quote here in full:


another stroll along the writing process

I have two minor characters, let's call them A & B, one of whom is going to have to die. I'm having a spot of trouble choosing which one.

I have had an extended minor plot line in mind for A, which will be cut short, to say the least, if he gets offed now. However, if I kill B, who at this point is a fairly minor spear-carrier character, then a somewhat more important minor character, C, will be truly grieving, and I don't want to deal with that character's grief at the moment as I have too many other fish to fry.

Therefore, and because his death actually fits the inevitability of the situation better, I fear that A is about to cross the divide. Which is too bad, because he was going to be so useful in the other minor plot I had in mind, which cannot function in the way I had planned, without him.

So it goes, another day in the writer's life.


Back again in Dec 2010, I note that this was last saved in January 07. I have NO IDEA which two characters I am talking about, but I think I must have been writing Shadow Gate at the time. There are two obvious people it could have been, but at this remove I am not sure it entirely fits them because for the life of me I can't recall what the "extended minor plot line" was, to which I refer.

I can keep a lot of information in my head about my books, but I do find that once I have completed revisions and sent the book off into the cold cruel world, I tend to forget a lot of the twists and turns that went into creating it.

It's amusing, though, to read this entirely out of context, and to wonder what else I had intended to write on this venerable theme.

Home, End of the Year, and Lists

Returning home after 20 days away awakens in one a kind of desperation. I must not only unpack and go through the mail (mail piles up if I am not here to see to it, even if other persons are residing in the house), catch up with email, and sort out the forthcoming schedule, but with a new year about to turn over, and a book just turned in (although still needing revision) with two more books needing writing (Cold Steel and Crossroads 4) and besides that everything else I ought or would like to do, I am feeling the end of the year list desperation oozing upon me.

The single resolution I make, and fail, every year is to keep a book log of some sort. So let's just let that idea sail away into the dim realm of never. I will almost certainly never do a public book log of short responses and reviews, so it is time to give that whole thing up.

But there's the thing about lists.

I still prefer the basic pen and paper list, or even the Dedicated Small Bound Notebook List.

I have yet to find a really good computerized or cloud list program, app, or service that works for me.

What do you use for your list making? (if you make lists? If you don't make lists, then you may not find this thread of interest)

End of the Year

I am not sure what I have to offer in terms of a review of the year. I did not read as much as I often do because it seems I was writing so much. I did not watch as much as I might otherwise have, although I am not sure why.

Meanwhile, I am still away from home, visiting, but start the homeward process tomorrow. One of my sons is stuck in the Atlanta airport, poor kid, but then again, he is like so many others, I should imagine.

I plan to have a New Year's Contest, with a couple of giveaways.

I hope to have a dedicated blog up (that will mirror on lj) sometimes in the not too far future (although I cannot be quite sure when that will happen).

And I have some posts planned.

I have to revise COLD FIRE, and write COLD STEEL, in 2011, and I would surely like to make significant progress on Crossroads 4 (no working title as of yet), but mostly what I know from life is that I am better off not making any predictions.

If you have a question you would like me to answer, ask it here, and I will try to answer all such questions over the next month (except those that I can answer in a paragraph or less, which I'll answer in comments).

Happy New Year!

An Invitation to Preview Linda Nagata's THE WILD

Linda Nagata is an award winning sff writer living the fine state of Hawaii, as do I, although on a different island.

Here's a chance to preview her forthcoming fantasy novel THE WILD.

I have read a version of this novel.

First of all, I'm already a fan of Linda's writing, having read a number of her sf novels before I ever met her due to our being lonely sff writers in the uttermost West (Hawaii being near the international date line past which it is the next day).

But nevertheless, THE WILD is a beautifully written fantasy novel of a type I can't really describe because it is utterly her own. It is, perhaps, elegaic; it is about a fallen world, in a way; in an odd way without being at all alike it reminds me of Cherryh's Morgaine books although I emphasize the stories have nothing in common -- but there is something of the end and beginning of times, that atmosphere and the deep emotional throb in the heart in which hopelessness and hope war and yet what always survives is honor and determination. The world and the culture informs every decision the characters make, and yet the world building is done with the lightest of hands while the human dilemmas are real and poignant. It's just lovely.

Tell me about your upcoming or just published book

I'm trying to make sure I'm up to date in so far as that is possible or approaching possible or at least approaching "more now than I was then."

So, if you are a writer, tell me what you had published in 2010 and/or what is forthcoming in 2011 (and the publisher).

It can be either shorts or novels, but I have to say honestly that I rarely read short fiction. Otoh, these days I just am having little luck reading novels as I have been so busy working.

So: let me know, people.
(ETA: and if you're on lj under a handle, list your publication name as well, please! so I can find your book/story more easily)

I want to know what you all are doing.

Advice for Teen Writers: "I really have no idea about how to keep going."

I love teen writers.

Why? because I was one.

There's nothing like writing during adolescence. The intensity, focus, and emotional strength that such a writer brings to her/his work is, like a map frozen in time, sharply delineated and can't be captured except as a memory of once walking in those lands.

In some ways (although not in others) I'm always trying to recapture the feeling I had then, the excitement, sense of exploration and possibility, the freshness and just how new and exciting and empowering it is to write.

A lot of things can get between me and that sheer flying feeling these days, but I love those moments where I'm writing in the impulse, skating on the now.

So here's the deal: Work written by teens is invaluable to their development as writers.

By that I don't mean people who didn't start writing as teens aren't going to be good writers; quite the contrary; I'm just speaking to a situation in which a lot, even most, of what is written by teen writers is not necessarily going to be ready for publication. In fact I would hesitate to suggest to any teen that they write "for publication" rather than "for yourself" . In fact, I'd never suggest to any beginning or inexperienced writer that their main focus be on publishing rather than the experience of writing, finishing, and revising.

But I digress.

Every once in a while I receive email with a question about writing from a teen writer.

In one such email, the young writer wrote a bit about her enthusiasm for writing and the current project she had been working on. But she had reached an impasse. Her excitement had outraced her experience. She wrote:

I really have no idea about how to keep going.

Here's my answer:

You have great background material and overall plot idea, and a big idea that has a lot of possibilities. I suspect that what you're facing, in terms of writer's block, is mostly an issue of age.

Your age.

The truth is, you're still young. That's a great thing, but it also means you're dealing with a relative lack of experience in the world.

So just keep doing what you are doing. Keep your eyes and ears open to what is going on around you. Read widely. Observe and think and research. Get new experiences. Think. Travel, if you can (or go to places you haven't been before however close they may be to where you live). Talk to people of all ages and backgrounds, and most importantly, listen to what they have to say.

And keep writing. As you keep writing, you'll continue to get better.

Meanwhile, with the story itself, you have a number of options.

If you know where you want the story to end, you can work backward from the ending to figure out what series of events would best lead you to the goal you have in mind. If you don't have a particular ending in mind, then you can choose whatever event follows on from the scene you just wrote; or you can just go with what seems most exciting to you.

In fact, what you're going through is a common and normal part of the process of learning to write. As you gain more writing experience, you'll begin to see patterns and understand better how narrative drives the story forward. The more you read engaging books, the more you can go back and re-read to try to puzzle out what the writer was doing with the plot and why it worked (or didn't work).

And in fact, experienced writers also hit this roadblock. They've just learned more coping mechanisms to get through it.

So my answer to the question implied in the statement "I really have no idea how to keep going" is to suggest that you add on complications, setbacks, obstacles, funny bits, not funny bits, encounters, action, and so on that seem to you to fit what you want the book to be.

Not all of them will work. Many won't, and you'll either cut them and replace them with something else or revise them until they do work. And it's okay that things don't work. That's part of the process.

This story may be successful in terms of becoming a complete story, or it may not. But in the end, all the writing you do on it and on every other story you write is a success in the sense that everything you write helps you learn to become a better writer.

The Light of Science in the so-called Dark Ages

My friend science writer Nancy Marie Brown is at it again. Two years ago I mentioned here her non fiction book Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman.

Last week marked the publication of her new non-fiction book The ABACUS AND THE CROSS: The Story of the Pope Who Brought the Light of Science to the Dark Ages.

I haven't read this yet, but Nancy is not just a fine writer but also a fine researcher and synthesizer of material, so much so that I am willing to recommend this sight unseen (as of yet--I'll be purchasing this).

The publisher's description:

The medieval Catholic Church, widely considered a source of intolerance and inquisitorial fervor, was not anti-science during the Dark Ages—in fact, the pope in the year 1000 was the leading mathematician and astronomer of his day. Called "The Scientist Pope," Gerbert of Aurillac rose from peasant beginnings to lead the church. By turns a teacher, traitor, kingmaker, and visionary, Gerbert is the first Christian known to teach math using the nine Arabic numerals and zero.

In The Abacus and the Cross, Nancy Marie Brown skillfully explores the new learning Gerbert brought to Europe. A fascinating narrative of one remarkable math teacher, The Abacus and the Cross will captivate readers of history, science, and religion alike.

On the amazon page can also be found the many glowing reviews for the book.

Gerbert (later Pope Sylvester II) is also the main character in Judith Tarr's excellent novel Ars Magica. You can read the first chapter and buy the e-book at Book View Cafe.

Cold Fire & the drafting process (a question)

Thanks to all for the congrats in the previous post announcing that Cold Fire (Draft Two) has gone to the editors, from whence it will emerge with editorial revision requests.

twinsuns asks: I'm curious about how much normally changes after the editors look at a draft. I guess it depends on each individual story and whether it's the first of a series, or a sequel? For example, do you think a debut novelist would need to implement many more changes to satisfy the editors? Or if the author is able to really justify why they've written something a certain way, it doesn't matter?



Cold Magic was my 19th novel (I think). I was working with an editor who was new to me, as it were, and she asked for a lot of changes, clarifications, cuts, etc. I think her initial editorial letter was, like, 6 pages single spaced. This was followed up by a 2.5 page single spaced letter that started with the comment on the lines of "all those changes you made were great and the book is fabulous. Now here is some other stuff . . ."

So while there are experienced writers who can turn in publishing ready drafts, I'm not one of them and I never have been. I need a lot of drafts, I need breaks (however brief) between drafts, and I prefer a fair amount of feedback. That's just my way. I guess one might say I need distance (of whatever kind) and re-visioning (ability to look at it from another angle or with "other" eyes).

With Cold Fire I am not sure what to expect.

One reason I love turning in a Draft Whatever to the editor is that for a few days/weeks/whatever I can clear my brain of the idea that I'm working on book that has to be turned in to an editor. I don't know why this matters, but somehow it does.

My goal for a draft that goes to an editor is that I turn in a solid, strong draft that has a few things I'm still mulling over to deal with. Sometimes I'm just not ready to deal with those things. I might need to do a little more research or I just want a few days off to rest.

Or I might need a week or two weeks' distance so I can do another cycle of trimming and cutting, or so I can go through chapter 25 ONE MORE TIME to sharpen the three major conversations into the proper layers to drive forward into the second half of the book. As a for instance, chapter 25 is what I call a "turnover" chapter -- not as in something to eat, although now that I think about it, food is involved in this scene in an important way -- but because the book is moving with a certain kind of focus and direction and then something is introduced that is going to shake down all the way to the roots of the plot at this point. In other books, I sometimes have a reversal or twist as a turnover chapter -- in Cold Magic, the turnover happens right around page 200; in the Sword of Heaven duology there is a midpoint emotional crisis that is the turnover (and which also involves sex! what could be better!)

The draft of Cold Fire I have just turned in to my editor I'm calling Draft Two, but in fact some parts of the book have been rewritten many more times than that, while the final chapter is raw first draft (and my raw first draft is not pretty, let me assure you).

I have a couple of things I already know I will be working on for what I'm calling Draft Three. There's a creole that I have to entirely rewrite (the version I'm using now is a "placeholder") and I need to cut more, as always, and there is some detail work I need to get more precise on. Also, as I just said, the last chapter is more like the Cliff Notes version; plus the second to last chapter, the climax, needs another draft, but I wanted to get it in to the editor at this point.

Now is my time to need my distance and my break, even though I have a hard copy of the current draft sitting next to me and I STROKE IT SOMETIMES just for the pleasure of doing so.

So, peoples, make my day: what is your revision process?

(if you have questions, ask them; I'm in an unusual situation now where I have some time to answer questions if there are any, and I'm thinking of trying to get through some backlog of questions/postings over the next week or two)