Recent Entries

Shout out to Bear

From the store, a quick note for

matociquala and anyone who else might be interested: We have bright, shiny new copies of HAMMERED in freezing cold boxes. Well, okay, and also on the shelf <g>.

Two business of writing related things (yes, I suck at titles, why do you ask?)

Writing related article by the fabulous, funny John Scalzi, called -- very inappropriately, imho -- Utterly Useless Writing Advice. Go forth and read, if you aren't a Whatever regular.

One thing about the fabric of discussion on the internet: It takes you to all kinds of places you might not have visited before. One thread on Making Light led me to a discussion about Vanity Presses (which I tend to read almost compulsively when the mood strikes, when the more sensible among you are reading fanfic), and an offshoot of that discussion -- somehow -- was a new "Ask the Agent" topic. Which I also checked out. It can be found here.

Andy Zack is a reputable NY agent. I want to say this up front, because he's said a bunch of things on the Absolute Writer Water Cooler board that I'm not certain I agree with. There are two; the first is:
( Two things I'm not certain about )

Online friends 2

I want to thank everyone for answering the last question; I started to post replies, and as usual, ran out of space, so I'm spilling things over into a second post.
( More musing about online friendships here )

Online friends

A question that came out of a discussion about on-line friends.

How many of your best friends are online only?

( My own take on this )

BookScan and POS information

mmarques asked: Hi. This question isn't related to this journal entry, but I was interested in your thoughts, considering your other entries.

I've been reading lately about a new Canadian drive for aggregated book sales information, including from independent bookstores. (One article can be found at:
http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?theaction=61&sid=57531&adBanner=eBusiness )

What do you think about this? Do you think it will help Canadian authors with Canadian sales? Will it make a difference.

For which I thank her, because I've been thinking of saying a little bit about a similar ongoing system down in the US -- BookScan.

( Sales information via POS terminals )

Questions and Answers part 2

I had a lovely weekend in Montreal, and got to visit with

papersky and

zorinth again, this time with family in tow (mine, that is). It was warmer there than in Toronto (which is unusual), and there was snow here when we arrived. In our shoes. More later.

Cassandra Chan asked, downthread, a question which I'm posting the answer to here because I don't want it to get lost. At least, I'm assuming it's Cassandra Chan. She's a mystery writer, whose first book will be out in 2005, and I'm really looking forward to it -- although I'm not sure under what name, or even title <wry g>. It's with St. Martin's, though.
( Question & answer about writing process, Broken Crown spoilers, sort of )

Memeage

Because I know, in general, that people often find memes to be repetitive or not entirely interesting, it's all behind the cut.

( Ask me questions about my writing meme )

ETA: Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who celebrated it late this year (ours being in the less chilly month of October <g>).

Nokia smartphone neep

I have found the new technical gadget that has my name on it.
( Nokia 7710 and me drooling too much )

Splitting novels

dark_geisha has a thread here, and in an attempt to answer a comment, I ended up breaking the 4300 character limit. Which will of course surprise no one. So I'm answering it here.
( Read more... )

ETA: I'm a total idiot. I dropped two and a half paragraphs because I forgot an html cut-tag, and only noticed it now because someone asked if I could maybe turn this into an article :/.

FilkOntario news and other musings

I have news. I am the Special Author Guest at FilkOntario this coming April (the 1-3, and the first person to make April Fools jokes gets it between the eyes. I'm just saying.) I've never been to a filk convention; I've spent many hours listening to filkers at various broad-base conventions.

andpuff was their first author guest, and she loved it enough that she went out and started taking singing lessons and guitar lessons. And she plays and sings. In public. I'm probably not that brave. But I'm really looking forward to it, and I'm trying to figure out what, absent performing, I have to offer the convention.

The Filkontario website is http://www.filkontario.ca, and it has more information.

( Now, on to musing about rejection and critiques )

Montreal trip

At WFC, I was asked whether or not I'd be attending ConCept, and

papersky said I was welcome to stay with her.
( Montreal trip report )

Another question

Thanks everyone who answered the question about works-in-progress and the various definitions of what WIP means. After reading all the responses, one in particular seemed to finally allow me to figure out what it was I think these things might have in common.
( Variation on the previous question, based on answers )
Montreal, next post.

I find myself going to Montreal...

On fairly short notice, for the weekend. For ConCept, which is the 13-14th of November.
( and a question )

Where category lines are shelved

yhlee writes:

I have an unrelated question based on this comment of dark_geisha's on Harlequin. She said: 'With regards to the Bombshell line, the editor started a thread about marketing it. I'd brought up the point that if they want to attract a more mainstream audience, they needed to pull the books out of the category romance aisle in the bookstore …' and I asked, 'I'm under the impression that they could do several titles if not more a month -- couldn't they pull out one or two a month for a year or something and see what happens? Or does it not work like this?
( Speculations about romance category novels, etc. )

Just a quick note

For those of you in need of a chuckle, and aren't already reading the sporadic LJ posts of

pnh, take a quick look at this one: http://www.livejournal.com/users/pnh/5026.html. Big snerk at the comment about being hated, which, in GEnie terminology was an unfortunate snarf on my part, as I was drinking water at the time.

yhlee, I haven't forgotten the question you asked about category romance and the attempt to market certain lines towards a more mainstream audience -- I'll get right on that tomorrow. I'd answer off the top of my head, but my head is flat about now, and while I've been doing some research into the whole history of romance as a genre, I really don't know enough about it to answer any question authoritatively; I can give my take, but it's not on as firm a ground as the usual SF/F takes would be.
( brief ruminations on my reactions to recent political events )
I have been line-editing, and realizing that, in fact, contemporary and anecdotal though my voice for this book is, it still requires one to read all of the words.

Really cranky this morning

Really really cranky. I live in Canada. It's not my election, and it's not my country, but media-wise, you wouldn't know it at the moment.

Anyway: Because I'm cranky, I'm once again advocating the fact that lj-cuts are your friend. Or they're my friend. Honestly, I wouldn't have flisted people if I weren't interested in at least half of what they have to say -- but I'm trimming people who insist I see 100% of what they have to say 100% of the time, because. Well. Look at the subject.

World Fantasy, Part 3

Saturday October 30th

Yes, more WFC rambling.
( Saturday, with rant and music )

World Fantasy, Part 2

Friday 29th October

Actually, this is probably inaccurate, in that I may very well conflate Friday and Saturday.
( Friday ramblings, some of it even coherent )

World Fantasy, Part I

Thursday 28th October

Warning: Really, really disconnected from my version of reality today, and my mind is wandering. This means my writing is less coherent than usual. Yes, I'm aware that It's not generally a model of coherency to begin with <g>.

( WFC Thursday )

Home

I had a wonderful time in Tempe for the WFC. I'm utterly exhausted, and trying not to eat Halloween candy, so I'll post a trip report tomorrow.