Martha Wells's Blog, page 206

Thanks to everybody who commented on my last post. You g...

Thanks to everybody who commented on my last post. You guys are awesome. :)

I'll post more details about when the books will be released as soon as I get them. The Cloud Roads will be out in 2011 (the date originally mentioned was May, but I don't know how final that is) and The Serpent Sea will be out in 2012.


I got a bunch of new friended people yesterday (Hi!) and for them, my web site is here and the links to excerpts from my older novels, free short stories, and the complete text of my f...

Good Publishing News

Good publishing news, at least for me.

If you've been following this LJ for a few years, you may remember that back in March, 2008, I finished a new fantasy novel called The Cloud Roads, and around October, 2009, I finished a sequel to it, called The Serpent Sea. My wonderful agent, Jennifer Jackson ( arcaedia ) of the Donald Maass Agency, has been trying to sell The Cloud Roads since summer 2008, and it's made the rounds of several publishers.

And then on June 25, she did it, we got an offer, a...

Victoria Strauss: The Myth of the Evil Editor Recently, i...

Victoria Strauss: The Myth of the Evil Editor Recently, in an online conversation touching on self-publishing, a self-published writer commented on how happy she is that her books are truly her own--published exactly as she intended them, not mutilated or adulterated by some big publishing house editor whose main goal is to turn out cookie-cutter authors. When I replied that I've worked with three editors at five large publishers over the course of seven novels, and have never had my work...

I added a couple more links to the Links for Beginning Wr...

I added a couple more links to the Links for Beginning Writers page on my web site.

Some more links: About Writing, an article on basic mistakes in stories by Nalo Hopkinson.

the Turkey City Lexicon


Books:

I got to read an arc of A Spider on the Stairs by Cassandra Chan ( book_wench ) and really enjoyed it. This is part of a mystery series, set in modern-day Britain, but with a very Dorothy Sayers feel to it. The main characters are Philip Bethancourt, the wealthy amateur detective, and Jack Gi...

Re the The Door into Fire rec yesterday: estara posted a...

Re the The Door into Fire rec yesterday: estara posted a link to Smashwords where The Door into Fire and The Door into Shadow are available as ebooks.



Pub Rants: Bookscan is great -- except when it's not For some genres, it can be off by 50 or 60%. That's a lot. ...
Why is this important? Well, if you are a midlist author looking to move houses, well, guess what numbers the editors are looking at in order to base a decision of whether they want to offer for you or not? You guessed it...

Last night I made braised short ribs, bought from Wild Ty...

Last night I made braised short ribs, bought from Wild Type ranch at the Farmers' Market, for the first time. They turned out pretty well, very tender, though now I know that the next time I do it I need to a) use a bigger pan, and b) wait till it's winter when it won't be so freaking hot in the kitchen.


Stroppy Author: the World's Changed, Move On


One of my favorite series: Black Gate: a review of The Door into Fire by Diane Duane The Door Into Fire is about magic power, overcoming old...

Below are some more photos from my Galveston trip. I'm r...

Below are some more photos from my Galveston trip. I'm really glad we went. Last year we spent all year waiting to take a hypothetical vacation which we never ended up taking because when we found out Troyce was going to be laid off, we couldn't afford it. This year we decided to take a short cheap vacation now, while we could.

Post-Ike, more of the stores and restaurants are back. Some of the chain outfits didn't return, but one of the store owners told us she thinks this is actually helpi...

We went down to Galveston for a few days last week, and h...

We went down to Galveston for a few days last week, and had a great time. (If you missed it, my post yesterday was about going to see Money, Marbles, and Chalk at the opera house.) We usually like to go swimming, but didn't this time because the water was still too cold, and the sea was very rough. (Right now the coastline is fine, but if Bastard Petroleum doesn't fix their fucking leak before too long, I don't know what will happen. I hope the Texas coast doesn't end up a dead wasteland l...

Money, Marbles, and Chalk by Holland Taylor

We went down to Galveston over the past couple of days, and had a great time.

One thing we did was see the premiere of Holland Taylor's one woman play "Money, Marbles, and Chalk," about the life of Anne Richards. It was excellent, and as an Anne Richards fan, it was fabulous. The title is an old blues expression, meaning "I'm all in, everything I've got."

The play talks about Richards' childhood, her parents, and the governorship. The best scenes were set in Richards' office, with the voic...

I guess everybody heard about Lena Horne passing away. A...

I guess everybody heard about Lena Horne passing away. A friend posted an interesting thing I hadn't heard before: she was friends with Rex Stout, and their daughters were roommates at school. I noticed she did the introduction to the new edition of Champagne For One.

Frank Frazetta also passed away.

Yesterday was kind of a sucky day, wasn't it?


In more cheery news, I'm reading Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon, and really enjoying it. It's set in the Caucasus, around 950 AD, about two...