Martha Wells's Blog, page 195
January 4, 2011
Not much to report today. I finally got through the rewr...
Not much to report today. I finally got through the rewriting five chapters part and am actually working on new scenes, so that's nice.
Links:
Please check out The House of Discarded Dreams by Ekaterina Sedia Link to this post, or point it out to people who might enjoy a book with horseshoe crab biology and based on immigrant experience, a book with a non-white protagonist and drawing from a culture rarely seen in fantasy.
Laurie Halse Anderson at The Debutante Ball: Triaging Rejection Pain After years of work, you submit the manuscript. Maybe you say prayers, or light candles, or visit shrines like Mark Twain's house and leave small offerings of cigars and pots of ink. And then you wait. For days. Weeks. Months. Sometimes years, all the while explaining to your skeptical family and friends that really, this is the way the publication process works, and you expect to be hearing from the editor any day now.
New fantasy story by J. Kathleen Cheney: Of Ambergris, Blood, and Brandy The skin of the submersible groaned, an eerie sound to hear while trapped inside its metal body. Oriana pressed closer to the viewing window. She would rather be out there, in the water.
Set every few feet along the walls of the submersible's viewing room, the white-painted casings of small round windows dripped water onto the fine teak decking, whether from leakage or condensation Oriana didn't know. Even so, almost two dozen finely-dressed citizens of the Golden City pressed against those windows, straining to catch a glimpse of that great work of art, The City Under the Sea.
Links:
Please check out The House of Discarded Dreams by Ekaterina Sedia Link to this post, or point it out to people who might enjoy a book with horseshoe crab biology and based on immigrant experience, a book with a non-white protagonist and drawing from a culture rarely seen in fantasy.
Laurie Halse Anderson at The Debutante Ball: Triaging Rejection Pain After years of work, you submit the manuscript. Maybe you say prayers, or light candles, or visit shrines like Mark Twain's house and leave small offerings of cigars and pots of ink. And then you wait. For days. Weeks. Months. Sometimes years, all the while explaining to your skeptical family and friends that really, this is the way the publication process works, and you expect to be hearing from the editor any day now.
New fantasy story by J. Kathleen Cheney: Of Ambergris, Blood, and Brandy The skin of the submersible groaned, an eerie sound to hear while trapped inside its metal body. Oriana pressed closer to the viewing window. She would rather be out there, in the water.
Set every few feet along the walls of the submersible's viewing room, the white-painted casings of small round windows dripped water onto the fine teak decking, whether from leakage or condensation Oriana didn't know. Even so, almost two dozen finely-dressed citizens of the Golden City pressed against those windows, straining to catch a glimpse of that great work of art, The City Under the Sea.
January 3, 2011
The Night Bazaar
I'm going to be blogging at another site for a few days this month. It's The Night Bazaar, which is a brand new blog for authors who have debut novels with Night Shade Books. Most of the bloggers are first time novelists, so they're going to focus a bit on the process of writing their book, finding an agent, and similar topics. I'll be doing at least two or three Sunday guest posts, and Carol Berg will also be doing a Sunday guest post. I'll post links here on the days I blog over there.
I spent most of yesterday clearing out clothes closets and amassing a large collection of sacks for Good Will. It always feels so good to get stuff I don't need/want anymore out of the house. I also made a butternut squash and carrot pie with onion, bacon, and garlic for dinner, and it turned out really well. Someone on Facebook asked for the recipe, and it is: "I peeled and baked the butternut squash first, for about 25 minutes at 375, so it could be cut up into little pieces easily. Then I cut the bacon up into small pieces and started it cooking with a little olive oil, added chopped onions and... chopped garlic. When the onions were cooked, I added a bunch of butter and the squash pieces, and let it cook about five minutes. I just pared the carrots and lined the bottom of the pie crust with them, then put the squash onion etc mixture in on top. Then I baked it about 35 minutes at 375."
Links:
Publishers Weekly: Borders Suspends Payments to Some Publishers This is really not good. There are authors that Barnes and Noble does not carry in their brick and mortar stores, even though they sell them online, that Borders does carry, and vice verse. If either chain goes out of business, it's going to be a disaster for a large number of authors.
Agent Joshua Bilmes has an article here on what's happening with Borders and why.
WebUrbanist: Don Kenn - Sticking it to the art world. The weirdly cute monster art of Don Kenn.
The 2011 Hugo Awards are having an open nomination period.
Plus, there's a new Night Shade Books Newsletter
I spent most of yesterday clearing out clothes closets and amassing a large collection of sacks for Good Will. It always feels so good to get stuff I don't need/want anymore out of the house. I also made a butternut squash and carrot pie with onion, bacon, and garlic for dinner, and it turned out really well. Someone on Facebook asked for the recipe, and it is: "I peeled and baked the butternut squash first, for about 25 minutes at 375, so it could be cut up into little pieces easily. Then I cut the bacon up into small pieces and started it cooking with a little olive oil, added chopped onions and... chopped garlic. When the onions were cooked, I added a bunch of butter and the squash pieces, and let it cook about five minutes. I just pared the carrots and lined the bottom of the pie crust with them, then put the squash onion etc mixture in on top. Then I baked it about 35 minutes at 375."
Links:
Publishers Weekly: Borders Suspends Payments to Some Publishers This is really not good. There are authors that Barnes and Noble does not carry in their brick and mortar stores, even though they sell them online, that Borders does carry, and vice verse. If either chain goes out of business, it's going to be a disaster for a large number of authors.
Agent Joshua Bilmes has an article here on what's happening with Borders and why.
WebUrbanist: Don Kenn - Sticking it to the art world. The weirdly cute monster art of Don Kenn.
The 2011 Hugo Awards are having an open nomination period.
Plus, there's a new Night Shade Books Newsletter
January 1, 2011
Just checked the teefury shirt of the day: It's a Tardis...
Just checked the teefury shirt of the day: It's a Tardis inside a Stargate. Of course I bought it.
First Post of the New Year
I had a really good New Year's Eve. I went to see friends in the big city, and we went shopping and ate a very good dinner (at a department store restaurant -- I hadn't seen one of those since I was a kid) and got home with only minor traffic weirdness. Then we watched movies until midnight, heard some fireworks, and that was about it. Of course, I woke up at 7:30 in the morning because I always wake up at 7:30 in the morning.
Last year was a really interesting year. It started out very slowly, as the third official year of my career crash (though the crash actually started in 2005-2006 or thereabouts, and took until 2008 to really be apparent). I had finished two books in 2009, The Serpent Sea (the sequel to the then unsold The Cloud Roads) and a fantasy YA that's still making the rounds of publishers now. In 2010, even knowing that the only solution to a career crash is to keep writing, I was very depressed and having trouble doing that. (I have depression so I'm nearly always depressed to some degree, but I can usually keep it in check. But in the past three years it hasn't been easy.) I started three books, one of which I'm co-writing with a friend, and started a bunch of short stories that all died on the vine, but didn't finish anything. And with great reluctance and a lot of despair I set a date to pack it in and find another job, if something didn't sell. (I looked seriously at the personal trainer classes my gym teaches periodically. It was something I liked to do and I didn't think I'd suck at it.)
Then in the summer wonderful agent![[info]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380442897i/1319734.gif)
arcaedia
who never gave up sold The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea. Now I'm happy and still in shock and consumed with anxiety, and trying to remember what all you do when your book comes out. (Really, it's been so long since I've had to think about this it's like exploring a foreign country. Someone posted about getting the Publishers Weekly review for her debut novel and it dawned on me that my book was going to be reviewed too (hopefully) and I should keep an eye out for that.)
I still haven't finished anything, between revision and copyedits for The Cloud Roads and being consumed with anxiety, but the third Cloud Roads book is close to halfway finished, the co-written YA is probably about halfway finished, and the new fantasy is languishing in chapter two but I like where it's going.
So that's the state of me. I still have a lot of anxiety about this coming year, if the book will do well enough, if no disasters occur before or during its release, if, if, if. But I feel like I'm in a much better place. :knock on wood:
I hope all of you guys have a better year, too!
Last year was a really interesting year. It started out very slowly, as the third official year of my career crash (though the crash actually started in 2005-2006 or thereabouts, and took until 2008 to really be apparent). I had finished two books in 2009, The Serpent Sea (the sequel to the then unsold The Cloud Roads) and a fantasy YA that's still making the rounds of publishers now. In 2010, even knowing that the only solution to a career crash is to keep writing, I was very depressed and having trouble doing that. (I have depression so I'm nearly always depressed to some degree, but I can usually keep it in check. But in the past three years it hasn't been easy.) I started three books, one of which I'm co-writing with a friend, and started a bunch of short stories that all died on the vine, but didn't finish anything. And with great reluctance and a lot of despair I set a date to pack it in and find another job, if something didn't sell. (I looked seriously at the personal trainer classes my gym teaches periodically. It was something I liked to do and I didn't think I'd suck at it.)
Then in the summer wonderful agent
arcaedia
who never gave up sold The Cloud Roads and The Serpent Sea. Now I'm happy and still in shock and consumed with anxiety, and trying to remember what all you do when your book comes out. (Really, it's been so long since I've had to think about this it's like exploring a foreign country. Someone posted about getting the Publishers Weekly review for her debut novel and it dawned on me that my book was going to be reviewed too (hopefully) and I should keep an eye out for that.)I still haven't finished anything, between revision and copyedits for The Cloud Roads and being consumed with anxiety, but the third Cloud Roads book is close to halfway finished, the co-written YA is probably about halfway finished, and the new fantasy is languishing in chapter two but I like where it's going.
So that's the state of me. I still have a lot of anxiety about this coming year, if the book will do well enough, if no disasters occur before or during its release, if, if, if. But I feel like I'm in a much better place. :knock on wood:
I hope all of you guys have a better year, too!
December 30, 2010
Right now I'm wrestling with rewriting five chapters of t...
Right now I'm wrestling with rewriting five chapters of the third Cloud Roads book. It's going okay and I'm mostly happy with it, but I have one scene that needs to be inserted that is resisting the whole writing process. When I'm just thinking about it and its place in the story, it makes perfect sense. When I go to write it, I'm stuck like crazy. I think it's one of those scenes where I need to know something I don't know yet to make it work. I think today I'll let it sit and move on to new material, and see if that helps.
Right now I'm reading The Devil You Say by Elisa DeCarlo, which came out in 1993. I think it was a bit before its time (not unlike all my books). It's basically Wooster and Jeeves, if Wooster could do magic and investigated magical problems for people, and Jeeves was a psychic.
Cat Rambo: Five Fantasy Books You've Never Heard of
Link from Facebook: A Tale of Girl Genuis
In the 1920s, Barbara Follett was a child celebrity, a prodigy who'd written a bestseller by 12. So what happened to her? She disappeared, and no one noticed for more than twelve years. That's very depressing.
ETA: Victoria Strauss posted this on Twitter: Real World Writing Camp Discourages Aspiring Writers It's funny because it's all horribly true.
Right now I'm reading The Devil You Say by Elisa DeCarlo, which came out in 1993. I think it was a bit before its time (not unlike all my books). It's basically Wooster and Jeeves, if Wooster could do magic and investigated magical problems for people, and Jeeves was a psychic.
Cat Rambo: Five Fantasy Books You've Never Heard of
Link from Facebook: A Tale of Girl Genuis
In the 1920s, Barbara Follett was a child celebrity, a prodigy who'd written a bestseller by 12. So what happened to her? She disappeared, and no one noticed for more than twelve years. That's very depressing.
ETA: Victoria Strauss posted this on Twitter: Real World Writing Camp Discourages Aspiring Writers It's funny because it's all horribly true.
December 28, 2010
I'm getting some work done, but today I'm kind of tired, ...
I'm getting some work done, but today I'm kind of tired, kind of down. Must look at pictures of Joe Flanigan to cheer up.
links:
IO9 reviews Breaking Waves, the Gulf Coast charity anthology
After the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April, YA fantasy author Tiffany Trent asked writers to contribute short stories, poems, and essays for a benefit collection to raise money for cleanup of the disaster. The result was Breaking Waves: An Anthology for Gulf Coast Relief, distributed as an ebook (in a variety of non-DRMed formats) through Book View Cafe. All proceeds from sales of the $4.99 book go to the Gulf Coast Oil Spill Fund — and yes, even months later, the effects of the spill are still being felt, even if it has largely faded from public consciousness.
Linked from darkroastedblend: Editors' Picks: Digital Art Photography Some gorgeous photo art here.
Quotes from one of my favorite movies Pirate Radio.
links:
IO9 reviews Breaking Waves, the Gulf Coast charity anthology
After the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April, YA fantasy author Tiffany Trent asked writers to contribute short stories, poems, and essays for a benefit collection to raise money for cleanup of the disaster. The result was Breaking Waves: An Anthology for Gulf Coast Relief, distributed as an ebook (in a variety of non-DRMed formats) through Book View Cafe. All proceeds from sales of the $4.99 book go to the Gulf Coast Oil Spill Fund — and yes, even months later, the effects of the spill are still being felt, even if it has largely faded from public consciousness.
Linked from darkroastedblend: Editors' Picks: Digital Art Photography Some gorgeous photo art here.
Quotes from one of my favorite movies Pirate Radio.
December 26, 2010
Hope everybody who was celebrating or at least not workin...
Hope everybody who was celebrating or at least not working had a great holiday! Our entire house smells like turkey grease, but it was worth it.
Friday our friend who is spending the weekend with us arrived and we met up with another friend and went out to drive around looking for a place to eat dinner. The first two places who specifically said they would be open weren't open, so we ended up at the traditional Christmas Japanese restaurant. We got there early enough to get a Hibachi table, before everybody else in town arrived. One of our friends had never done the Hibachi thing before, so that was fun. Our guy couldn't get the onion volcano to work but the food was excellent. Fried rice made fresh right there in front of you is a whole different world from buffets. I had some cold sake but managed not to get hopelessly drunk.
We went home and watched A Midwinter's Tale, which is a Kenneth Branagh movie about a group of actors putting on Hamlet as a benefit performance to save a church no one particularly wants to save. It's very funny, and has a lot to say for anybody who takes on and stays with an artistic career despite adversity.
Christmas morning we opened presents, and then I cooked (only one roaster burn on my arm, yay!) and then ate, and ate some more, then we sat around in the living room in front of the fireplace and watched Cadfael DVDs. (It did rain Friday, and then got really cold with a ferocious wind, so it was a good day for it.) Then we watched the Doctor Who holiday special (which was fabulous) and then the Graham Norton show. And that was our day.
Today we wanted to go see the new Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush movie, The King's Speech, but it's not showing here yet, so I'm not sure what we're going to do.
Friday our friend who is spending the weekend with us arrived and we met up with another friend and went out to drive around looking for a place to eat dinner. The first two places who specifically said they would be open weren't open, so we ended up at the traditional Christmas Japanese restaurant. We got there early enough to get a Hibachi table, before everybody else in town arrived. One of our friends had never done the Hibachi thing before, so that was fun. Our guy couldn't get the onion volcano to work but the food was excellent. Fried rice made fresh right there in front of you is a whole different world from buffets. I had some cold sake but managed not to get hopelessly drunk.
We went home and watched A Midwinter's Tale, which is a Kenneth Branagh movie about a group of actors putting on Hamlet as a benefit performance to save a church no one particularly wants to save. It's very funny, and has a lot to say for anybody who takes on and stays with an artistic career despite adversity.
Christmas morning we opened presents, and then I cooked (only one roaster burn on my arm, yay!) and then ate, and ate some more, then we sat around in the living room in front of the fireplace and watched Cadfael DVDs. (It did rain Friday, and then got really cold with a ferocious wind, so it was a good day for it.) Then we watched the Doctor Who holiday special (which was fabulous) and then the Graham Norton show. And that was our day.
Today we wanted to go see the new Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush movie, The King's Speech, but it's not showing here yet, so I'm not sure what we're going to do.
December 24, 2010
The turkey is defrosting and will be ready to go in the o...
The turkey is defrosting and will be ready to go in the oven tomorrow morning. (FYI, here's the Food Network's Top Ten Turkey Tips. I don't agree with only letting it rest 15 minutes before carving, though. From what I've heard, the longer it rests the better, with 30 minutes being the minimum, and some sources recommending that it rest for as long as it was cooked. I don't think I can wait that long because I'll be pretty hungry by then, but I am going to let it sit for at least an hour while we do the side dishes.) Tomorrow we're probably going to just cook, eat, and watch movies. Movie candidates: Love Actually, A Midwinter's Tale, Muppet Christmas Carol, The Lord of the Rings (my favorite Christmas movies), and others.
Tonight we're going out to eat with friends and watching a DVD, and I'm really hoping it rains. We've been in a serious drought this Fall, at a time of year when we normally get quite a bit of rain, and it's getting to the point that the oaks are going to start cannibalizing the other trees.
I hope everybody has a great holiday, whether you celebrate it or not!
Tonight we're going out to eat with friends and watching a DVD, and I'm really hoping it rains. We've been in a serious drought this Fall, at a time of year when we normally get quite a bit of rain, and it's getting to the point that the oaks are going to start cannibalizing the other trees.
I hope everybody has a great holiday, whether you celebrate it or not!
December 22, 2010
One thing about this town, with finals and graduation ove...
One thing about this town, with finals and graduation over, it's become very quiet. Hardly anybody was in the grocery store when I went yesterday morning. The weird thing was that this actually caused more navigational hazards, as people were a lot more likely to leave their cart in the middle of the aisle while they wandered off to look for something. This was very annoying, and more annoying when I realized I was doing it too! I had become one of them!
I watched The Polar Express last night, having never seen it before. Yes, the animation is kind of weird and didn't really work for me. I think it was easier to ignore on a small TV screen I can't see that well because I need new glasses (lousy insurance means I can't get any for another year). There were parts of it I liked, particularly the relationship between the kids and the little girl being the leader, and also the creepy dude/angel living on top of the train. I think I would have liked it a lot better had it been a live action movie.
But the bit where the kids are lost in Santa's deserted polar city, and hearing the recordings of carols in the distance? That was way too much like BioShock for comfort. It really felt like it was about to turn into a horror movie.
It's cooler today (80s yesterday) but we have fog forecast for tomorrow. Hopefully not evil monster fog.
Links from FacePlace:
Hyperbole and a Half: The Year Kenny Loggins Ruined Christmas
Cracked.com: 5 Ridiculous Things You Probably Believe About Islam
Mental Floss: Try, Try Again: Rejection Letters Received by Bestselling Authors
I watched The Polar Express last night, having never seen it before. Yes, the animation is kind of weird and didn't really work for me. I think it was easier to ignore on a small TV screen I can't see that well because I need new glasses (lousy insurance means I can't get any for another year). There were parts of it I liked, particularly the relationship between the kids and the little girl being the leader, and also the creepy dude/angel living on top of the train. I think I would have liked it a lot better had it been a live action movie.
But the bit where the kids are lost in Santa's deserted polar city, and hearing the recordings of carols in the distance? That was way too much like BioShock for comfort. It really felt like it was about to turn into a horror movie.
It's cooler today (80s yesterday) but we have fog forecast for tomorrow. Hopefully not evil monster fog.
Links from FacePlace:
Hyperbole and a Half: The Year Kenny Loggins Ruined Christmas
Cracked.com: 5 Ridiculous Things You Probably Believe About Islam
Mental Floss: Try, Try Again: Rejection Letters Received by Bestselling Authors
December 21, 2010
Most of the presents are wrapped. All the things not yet...
Most of the presents are wrapped. All the things not yet clean. I need to go to the store and get a bunch of food.
Still clunking along on the rewrite of the five chapters I had to dump. I think I figured out another section of plot. One reason I don't outline if I can avoid it is that I can figure out plot, but I can't tell if it's going to work or not until I actually start writing it. In the two books I had to outline in advance (the SGA novels) I came up with detailed action scenes that worked in theory but not in execution, basically. With the fantasy novels, even plotting just a few chapters ahead, I can't always tell if it's going to work until I get there.
Some links:
MySanAntonio.com: Holland Taylor's play on Ann Richards has hoot and heart I saw this play on the first night in Galveston, and can't recommend it highly enough.
From
maryrobinette
: A Muppet Outtake Real This was hilarious! And oh, Jim Henson, I still miss him.
Like this one from CoolVibe: Port Sunset
Still clunking along on the rewrite of the five chapters I had to dump. I think I figured out another section of plot. One reason I don't outline if I can avoid it is that I can figure out plot, but I can't tell if it's going to work or not until I actually start writing it. In the two books I had to outline in advance (the SGA novels) I came up with detailed action scenes that worked in theory but not in execution, basically. With the fantasy novels, even plotting just a few chapters ahead, I can't always tell if it's going to work until I get there.
Some links:
MySanAntonio.com: Holland Taylor's play on Ann Richards has hoot and heart I saw this play on the first night in Galveston, and can't recommend it highly enough.
From
maryrobinette
: A Muppet Outtake Real This was hilarious! And oh, Jim Henson, I still miss him.Like this one from CoolVibe: Port Sunset
