Filling the Well

I’m entering a month of being intensely busy, so if posting becomes spotty, that’s why.

First up, this weekend I’ll be at OSFest in Omaha, Nebraska. I’ve got a reading and a panel on Saturday. If you’re in the area, consider dropping by!

I have a day at home before heading to Albuquerque to hang with some writer friends and plot the takeover of the universe. Or somebody’s universe, at least.

The weekend after that, more camping. The weekend after that, Las Vegas (purely for fun — woot!). The weekend after that is Worldcon. Poor Lily is not going to like all this disruption to her routine.

And I’m trying to finish a novel in the middle of all this. Yikes!

I’m so excited — I’m almost done with the first draft of Kitty #7. I’m closing in. I can see the end. Yaaaaaay! And I gotta tell you, this may be one of the scariest, creepiest things I’ve ever written. I don’t know how people are going to react to it.

I’m at the stage where the pieces are all coming together. A month ago, I wasn’t sure they would. The metaphor for novel-writing I’ve come up with this time is like putting together a giant puzzle. It starts out pretty easy and straightforward: I’ve got the picture of what it’s supposed to look like, I can put together the framework — all those edge pieces — without too much trouble. But then there’s that murky middle bit. I’ve got lots of pieces, and I need to figure out where they go, how they fit with each other. Sometimes a piece looks like it fits but it doesn’t quite. But then I get to that stage where I only have a few pieces left, and I know exactly where they go, and I work faster and faster because I can see the end. My daily word count has doubled over the last week or so.

I love this part.

A couple of rather long posts on the business side of writing that it wouldn’t have occurred to me to write, so I share them with you.

Jeaniene Frost on how much money writers make.

Justine Musk on hustling for the next check. Well, that’s not quite how she puts it. Her post is about writing a series, writing mass markets where you really only get one chance to make a splash, the nuts and bolts of the business where you’re only as good as your last set of numbers.

These experiences line up with mine pretty well. I’ve been writing full time for just over a year, since my third book came out and the first two started earning royalties.

Today is the official release date for this:

Anthology called Hotter Than Hell, edited by Kim Harrison. My story is called “Life is the Teacher.” I hope you’ll think of giving it a try.

Quick announcement: I was scheduled for a reading at West Side Books this Saturday. That has been postponed until September.

I’ve done enough books now that I’ve discerned a pattern. Each book goes through four basic steps on the way to publication: first draft, editor’s revision notes, copyediting, and galley proofs. My feelings about the book follow the same pattern pretty much every single time:

• First draft: I love it
• Editor’s revision notes: I hate it, it’s terrible, I’ll never fix all the problems
• Copyediting: Hey, this isn’t so bad after all, I think I like it
• Galley proofs: God, what was I thinking! This is terrible, and now I can’t fix anything!

So I’ve been working my editor’s revision notes on Kitty 5, and I told a friend, “It’s terrible, I hate it, it’s never going to come together.” He said, “You know you say this every single time.” And I said, “I know, but this time I really mean it.” And he said, “You know you say that every single time, too.” And I said, “But this time it’s totally true, seriously!” And he said, “Can we talk about something else now?”

“There is no charge for awesomeness. Or for attractiveness.”

I’m going to be quoting that for no reason for a long time, I think. So yes, I liked the movie. I laughed in all the right places. It had a lot of heart.

In other news, life gets back to normal today, I hope. I’ve been out of my house for over a week, and it’s so nice to be home. It’s been a busy month. July will be busy, too. But June should be pretty mellow. Fingers crossed.

Now, off to do all that work that’s piled up.

Via writer Jim Van Pelt’s site, I discover The Fix has reviewed my short story in the current issue of Realms of Fantasy. The reviewer really liked it, which has given me warm fuzzies.

This is also a very good example about how what a writer puts into a story, and what a reader gets out of it, aren’t necessarily the same thing. In fact, I’m often surprised by the depth and nuance that people find in my stories — because most of the time I don’t feel half that clever.

This story started with a photograph from World War I of a Salvation Army worker at the side of a grim soldier, very young. Half his head is bandaged, and she is writing a letter for him. The image bowled me over. The despair, hope, perseverance, tragedy came through. I wrote the story from that. Here’s the picture.

The reviewer, Scott Sandridge, read the story with a whole other level of meaning: taking my identity as a military brat, along with current events, the story becomes a political statement. And you know what? I hadn’t thought of that. I was pretty much entirely wrapped up in the emotion of the thing.

That isn’t to say the political meaning isn’t there. On the contrary, I mention the military brat thing in my author notes because it explains so much about my background and outlook. I can’t write about the military without bringing that knowledge into it. Without trying to humanize the people inside the uniforms (because every one of them could be my dad.) So even when it’s not up front in a story like this, it’s there. I just wasn’t thinking of it.  But would I have been so affected by the photo if I wasn’t a military brat?

I think it’s incredibly cool that people see things in my stories that lets me look at them in new ways.

An enjoyable Memorial Day to all.

I saw “Prince Caspian” and loved it. It reminded me that part of why I write is because I can’t live in Narnia or Middle Earth, and sometimes I desperately want to. It’s so cool — so many movies have come out recently and I’ve loved most of them.

Saturday’s mail brought me the August 2008 issue of Realms of Fantasy, which includes my story “A Letter to Nancy,” a wartime story about love and hope. It should hit stores soon.

Now, I really should find something fun to do today…

Rio Hondo is a river that flows from the mountains above Taos to the Rio Grande (I think). It’s also the name of a writers workshop hosted by Walter Jon Williams and Maureen McHugh. Walter’s blog gives an overview of last week better than I could. We spent the morning critiquing stories, the afternoon reading, talking, hiking, talking, soaking in the hot tub, cooking, talking, eating, and drinking.

I get a lot out of a workshop like this. I try to write really ambitious stories, then I have really smart people tell me why it doesn’t work and how to fix it. This is awesome. I also get to read stories by these same really smart people. Doing it all in a simultaneously intense and relaxing environment is just that much cooler.

Other highlights: two days of snow (I didn’t bring enough warm clothes), hiking to the snow line, wandering around Taos Saturday afternoon, and meeting Melinda Snodgrass’s horse (before the workshop started, but still. Way cool.).

One of these days I’m going to talk about critiquing and why it’s so important (for me, at least) and how to get the most out of it. But I’m still recovering, and I have other things to talk about. Like Speed Racer. Onward…

No hiking today, I think. Here’s the view outside my window this morning:

Not quite what I expected. Weather report for tomorrow says mostly sunny, in which case this will all look beautiful. The other possibility is this keeps up for two days and I get snowed in.

So why am I here? I’m at the Rio Hondo writers workshop, which I like to think of as summer camp for grown up writer types. There are ten of us here, critiquing stories and eating yummy food because we have some very talented cooks serving up really splendid meals. I’m not a talented cook, but I’m a pretty good dish washer. We all have our contributions.

I was hoping to go hiking again today. But it might be a day for playing snow monkey in the hot tub…