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An Englishman in New Jersey - The Fine Art of Self-Promotion: Part Four – If blogs were people…

He's been running a series about Self-Promotion. I would love for you to check it out. I am also interested in what you think my journal says about me.

Hey all!

Now, as the regular readers know, I try not to venture into purely personal territory too often--unless the personal has comedy factor. (See the making of the cake pictured below for example: http://staceyjayya.blogspot.com/2009/10/and-then-i-made-freaking-cake.html )

But this is a VERY special week. First up, today my last baby is turning one (sniff!). Then my marriage turns 3 tomorrow. (Yes, I was in the hospital for my anniversary last year. With a spinal headache, no less. Not fun. At all.)

So please pardon the personal posting. (Hey, at least I didn't post the baby montage I made in Imovie! Though I've heard it is precious enough to make grown men weep, it also has a very graphic shot of Baby Lo being untimely ripped from his mother's womb. Though many of you are zombie enthusiasts and have a love for guts and gore, I didn't think you'd really want to see my guts. Ya know?.)

And so, without further ado:

BOY MEETS CAKE:

Hmm...cake....



Cake?



Cake!



Must find more cake! Cake in overalls!



Cake on plate! Nom cake!



Nom plate?



Yes! Nom plate, nom cake. Nom nom nom!!



Cake!! Argh! Blergh! Nom! Cake!!!



Happy Birthday BLo. You are my precious, sweet, wild, crazy boy and I love you so much. Next year, however, try not to grow up so fast.

See everyone soon!

Stacey Jay

Norilana Books presents THE CAPTAIN’S WITCH, a stunning, erotic, dark epic fantasy by the acclaimed historical novelist Rosemary Hawley Jarman, newly revised and expanded, and detailing the complex story of true love and impossible evil.

“One of the greatest dark fantasies ever written — in any genre.”
– Tanith Lee

THE CAPTAIN’S WITCH by Rosemary Hawley Jarman

Front Cover:
http://www.norilana.com/TheCaptainsWitch-TPB-Front.jpg

Full Cover Flat:
http://www.norilana.com/TheCaptainsWitch-TPB.jpg

ROSEMARY HAWLEY JARMAN was born in Worcester, England and came to fame in 1971 with her novel We Speak No Treason. Reprinted many times, the book’s hero is the much maligned King Richard III. It sold 30,000 copies in its first week of publication, and gained her the prestigious Author’s Club Silver Quill for best first novel, while in the U.S.A. she was nominated as a Daughter of Mark Twain. Further equally successful novels followed, also an illustrated account of the Battle of Agincourt. She lives in an antique stone cottage between sea and mountain in West Wales. The Captain’s Witch is her first fantasy novel, and she is now working on a sequel.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mirrored from SFWA | Comment at SFWA

Among the many ways that the Internet and e-books are changing writing, one of the most fascinating to me is the realization that... because of the new accessibility of niches, you don't have to be a trained writer anymore.

We all have topics we like... themes and types of stories that engage us. If we're lucky (supremely so), our tastes mesh with enough people's that it becomes profitable for businesses to package and sell content to us. Or, if we're adaptable, we get used to what's available and comb through it for the little gems that satisfy.

But we don't have to do that anymore.

Somewhere on the Internet, if you look hard enough, you will find someone who likes what you like, no matter how bizarre or specific. Probably not just one person... several, or even enough to make a website devoted entirely to the things you like best. And there will be someone writing on the themes and subjects you want. Probably a lot of them. You don't have to settle for what's marketable to the majority... you can get exactly what you want. You just have to be willing to look for it.

And here's what I've observed: a lot of people, given the choice between a stunningly crafted story which they're only peripherally interested in and a patchwork, sometimes even awful story about what they're interested in, will choose the latter. If your niche subject has some excellent storytellers in it, they will attract and hold a lot of the audience. But a small enough niche has room for even untrained writers, because there's simply not enough material available for readers to care to be choosy.

I find I can express no value judgement of this phenomenon: there's so much good in it and so much bad that it all cancels itself out. I find myself mostly wanting to watch how it plays out. But what I do see, very obviously, is that you no longer have to write to please a majority, or to pass any particular gatekeeper. If your work only appeals to a small segment of the population, you can still reach an audience. And you can still make money. In fact, you can make good money.

And that's huge.


Stardancer Home.

I know it's usually Thursdays that get the "thankful" posts, but what the hey, I'm jumping ahead ;-). First, thanks to everyone who responded to my call out for music recommendations. I'm punching in the songs/bands on iTunes and coming up with a playlist for Cat and Bones, book five. I don't listen to the radio, which means I miss out on a lot of new bands/songs, plus I'm terrible at keeping up with knowing when bands I do like have new albums coming out. So, your recs are much appreciated!

Getting everything off in the mail from the contests I ran for Halloween. Yes, I'm a little slow, so please forgive me. The total prizes ended up being 45 books and 10 cover flats given away. Thanks so much to everyone who participated! I feel sad when I get emails that say, "I never win in any of your contests!" but there are far more entrants than prizes available, so all I can do is continue to run contests and hope people's luck changes. Speaking of that, I'll have another contest in December for ARC's of FIRST DROP OF CRIMSON, which is Night Huntress World book one. Hey, maybe some of you have been saving up your luck for this one ;-).

And speaking of thankful, I received an email from my editor that really made my day. She wrote to give me an update on reprints for my series. As it stands, HALFWAY TO THE GRAVE is in its 10th printing, ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE is in its 8th printing, AT GRAVE'S END is in its 6th printing, and DESTINED FOR AN EARLY GRAVE is in its 4th printing (considering DESTINED has only been out for four months, I'm kinda speechless by that). Initial print runs reflect what a publisher expects to sell combined with what book stores preorder, but to me, reprints are all about reader word-of-mouth, which makes them extra awesome. So thank you SO MUCH, readers! Without you spreading the word about my series, none of these reprints would have happened. Please consider yourselves smooched! :D

1. While celebrating our 20th Wedding Anniversary the other day, we decided to go through our wedding album. My wife looked gorgeous, of course. Me... well, I think I looked pretty dapper in my tux. What do you think?

 The Groom 20 years ago!

2. Lately I've been picky about what I read... and if I'm not hooked by 50 pages or so... I'm not ashamed to put the book down and move onto the next one.

I've finished a few books. And I REALLY REALLY enjoyed these books.

 Jumping Off Swings by Jo Knowles.

This book is definitely not what I normally read... but I enjoy Jo's Live Journal and she seems pretty nice, so I thought I'd give it a try. And WOW! Written from 4 POVs... this book is wonderful. I was touched by it. It will be required summer reading for my oldest daughters.

 The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennen

I'd heard so much about this book before it came out. I actually sat next to Sarah during an afterparty at the Radisson at Conestoga last year. (My brush with fame.) And she's so nice... and that accent. After all of this... I almost didn't want to like her book...

But I did. A LOT! Very, very unique story with a twist. And it gives me hope that there is plenty of room on the YA shelves for paranormal stories with a lead MALE character.

3. Today is an EXCITING day for me and my family. UNDER THE DOME comes out and I will be holding that baby in my chapped and callused hands in a few hours. And Pixar's UP comes out on DVD... my whole family totally adored this movie. It'll be something we can all watch together without an argument.

4. Seasame Street turns 40 (today, I think). And I can honestly remember, kneeling on a chair at my kitchen table when I was four years old, and looking at the pictures in the newspaper of this brand new show about to air on the TV. 40 years ago. Wow! Now... if we can just forget those Elmo years... everything will be fine.

5. I heard Christmas music on the radio last night. Um... why?

6. Did anyone go see Jim Carey's 'A Christmas Carol'. Is it worth going to see?

7. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO pumped for Jim Cameron's AVATAR. I know some people think the trailer looks hokey... but once that movie is on the Big Screen... look out. My wife, my middle daughter and I have a date on December 18th to go see it.

8. I'm a writing fool still. Put down 5 pages yesterday and I plan on writing.... 10 pages today. Everything is falling into place. Hope to get it to some beta readers before Christmas so I can query after the New Year.

9. If my mother-in-law cuts the 'Box Tops' off of my cereal boxes BEFORE I even open the bag on more time... I'm going to SCREAM. She's the GREATEST mother-in-law... but this is driving me NUTS!!!

10. I think that's enough for today.

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As Tarri reminded me last night, this is actually something I’ve been comfortable with for a long time. We started dating back in 1997, and it was shortly after that, in one of those “what do you want to be when you grow up” college conversations that I laid that one on her. I mean, I’ve known since I was a kid that I didn’t want a suit-and-tie 9-to-5 for a career. Back when I was a kid, in my imagination that amounted to being a scientist or a park ranger or something. By the time I finished high school, I figured that meant writing.

That’s where the stay-at-home dad thing came in. In my innocence, I figured if I eschewed the questionable pleasures of soap operas and bon-bons, I could manage to squeeze in enough writing a day to make it an ideal situation. And I was very rah-rah for a stay-at-home parent. I had one, Tarri had one, and we turned out okay, yeah? I may even have gotten into an argument or two or twelve proposing it as some sort of social ideal.

That was until I had to take my kids out of daycare. Not because it’s tough taking care of them at home–that IS more challenging than I figured on when I was 20, but I looked after young Marines 24 hours a day at one point, how much harder can this be? The biggest difference may just be wiping butts. But no, what was hard, what was heart-breaking was taking them away from the friends they had made.

I think there are maybe one or two other stay-at-home parents on our street, but I don’t know them that well, and with the weather getting colder the opportunities for toddler meet-cute are rather small. Otherwise, other than the kids at daycare, they don’t have a lot of friends or chances for other-kidlet interaction. Now, next year Tony will be in kindergarten and I might be able to get Hannah into a local public preschool (though she’ll still only be 2 on Labor Day… but probably potty-trained), but in the meantime we’ve got a whole lot of not much.

So I find myself in the interesting position of hoping I can find a nice 9-to-5 so the kids can go back to daycare and hang out with their friends all day.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.

Michael Hemphill: "I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, but didn't know much about the Civil War until my wife and I moved to Virginia in 1997.

"Here in Virginia, I worked as a newspaper reporter (where I met Sam) until 2000 when the first of our three daughters was born. Since, I've been a stay-at-home dad, directed a nonprofit, worked in public relations at a local university, co-owned a Civil War battlefield tour company, and now have written--er, co-written--my first children's book."

Sam Riddleburger: "I've been a weed boy, a scientist's assistant, a librarian, a prep cook, a lawnmower parts factory worker, a semi-pro juggler and a reporter. Now, I'm a newspaper columnist, a restaurant critic and a kids' book writer.

"My first book is called The Qwikpick Adventure Society (Dial, 2007). No time travel, just three friends having the smelliest and best day of their lives." Visit Sam, and read Sam's blog.

What led you to write for young readers?

MH: I've always loved YA books--starting of course with The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (Harper, 1950-1956) and Tolkein but also the Walter Farley Black Stallion series (1941), Madeleine L'Engle, etc.

For some reason, my writing projects have tended to be more Serious (capital S) and Adult (capital A). They were also quite Unsuccessful and, quite frankly, Unenjoyable.

But then Sam and I got to talking, Stonewall came into being, and I loved every minute of the writing.

SR: When I was in the fifth and sixth grade I was a reading maniac. The stuff inside the books by people like John Christopher, Daniel Pinkwater and Helen Cresswell was just blowing my mind. That's who I want to write for--kids like me.

Could you tell us about your path to publication, any sprints or stumbles along the way?

SR: Stumbles? More like plunges and freefalls. It was hard. Incredibly hard. I was going crazy and would have given up if Michael hadn’t gotten us an agent. A great agent.

MH: The sprint was writing the first draft. We spent the first year trying to sell Stonewall directly to publishers, got some strong nibbles, but it never sold.

So we spent some weeks revising and then began sending it to agents. Thankfully, one of those agents was Caryn Wiseman with Andrea Brown Literary Agency. She gave us hope in Stonewall again, and here we are.

Looking back on your apprenticeship, what was most helpful to you in developing your craft?

SR: Before writing my first book, I wrote hundreds and hundreds of news stories. You learn a lot about setting up a story, pacing, transitions and that sort of thing. And you get used to being edited.

MH: Like Sam (whose daily antics I had to endure working on the other side of the cubicle wall in the newsroom), I learned a lot from writing news stories...particularly the importance of a strong lead and tight sentences and graphs.

While at the newspaper I also took a screenwriting course at nearby Hollins University and came to appreciate the art of snappy dialogue and shifting perspectives in moving a story along.

Congratulations on the release of Stonewall Hinkleman and the Battle of Bull Run (Dial, 2009)! In your own words, what is the book about?

MH: Stonewall Hinkleman is your typical 12-year-old kid who gets dragged along to all of his parents' Civil War reenactments. He hates reenactments, he hates the Civil War, and he's not too fond of his parents either. He's got a bad attitude and isn't afraid to show it...until at the reenactment of the Battle of Bull Run (Manassas), he's magically transported back in time to the real battle.

Suffice it to say, he gets an attitude adjustment and comes to a better appreciation of the war. Oh yeah, and he meets a girl along the way...and his great-great-great-great uncle, who turns out not to be the coward of family lore...and an evil Confederate reenactor who has also gone back in time to help the South win.

SR: Civil War Time Travel Extravaganza!

What was your initial inspiration for writing this book?

SR: When I started, Michael already had the idea of writing about reenactors. The name popped into my head. The name brought forth the character almost instantly.

What would a kid with a name like "Stonewall Hinkleman" be like?

Sick to the gills of the Civil War, for starters.

What was the timeline between spark and publication, and what were the major events along the way?

MH: Five years from writing chapter one to the release of the book.

SR: Spark. Email x 500. Book done. Everybody happy. Book rejected. Book rejected. Book rejected. Book revised for agent. Book sold to editor. Book revised for editor. Editor quits. New editor. Book revised for new editor.

We’re talking about major revisions, too. And the book got better and better thanks to those people pushing us to make it better.

What were the challenges (literary, research, psychological, and logistical) in bringing the story to life?

MH: Having to convince Sam on a daily basis that I was right.

SR: Excuse me?

I loved the book's sense of fun, but also its sophistication. At the risk of stating the obvious, we don't see a lot of humorous boy-friendly adventure fantasies that also take the topics of real-life war and racism. What were the toughest decisions you had to make in framing the historical context?

SR: Here in Virginia, you grow up thinking that Stonewall Jackson and Turner Ashby were heroes. Grant and Sherman? Bad guys. You learn about the battles, and there's a feeling that the South should have won.

And somehow when you grow up you have to reconcile all that with the simple fact that the South was wrong as wrong can be.

We stuck Stonewall Hinkleman--and ourselves--right in the middle of all that. Anything less would have been dodging the question. But I don't feel like we answered it, either.

MH: The discussion of the Civil War in today's school goes something like this: "North good. South bad. North hated slavery. South loved slavery. North won. Hurray!"

But the story is obviously so much more complicated and rich and compelling when you explore all the "grays" instead of looking at it in black-and-white terms. Sending Stonewall back in time to the Confederate army allows for this exploration.

Giving kids a more nuanced racial and historical understanding of our past can only help them grasp the complexities of the America of today.

Could you describe your collaborative process?

SR: Ever see that "Wild Kingdom" episode where Marlin Perkins’s assistant waded into a river and wrestled a tapir?

MH: All joking aside, Stonewall would not have come to life without the equal contribution of each of us. I must credit Sam, though, for setting the tone of the book and giving Stonewall his voice.

SR: And I must credit Michael with actually knowing something about the Civil War.

What advice do you have for writers of historical fantasy?

MH: It's tough to strike the right balance between remaining historically accurate to an event while at the same time feeling free to shape the event to your own plot designs. You don't want to get bogged down with all the historical details, but I know I wanted our readers to know which moment--or which character--was indeed historically authentic.

What special considerations must be taken into account with a time-travel story?

MH: What we did not want was the novel to be a "Back to the Future" meets the Civil War.

SR: Yes, we fought hard to get away from "Back to the Future," which is a masterpiece, after all.

The tough thing about time travel is that if a character could really travel through time at will, they could solve all their problems too easily. So you have to make rules to keep them from doing that.

The problem is you, the author, are stuck following those rules, too. Which can be very hard at revision time. There were times when I started to think things were hopeless.

What do you hope young readers will take away from the story?

MH: That the Civil War remains the most important event in American history and still informs the events of today--all the way to the White House.

SR: There are all sorts of morals you can draw from the book -- most notably that war affects real people, real individuals--but honestly, I just hope kids find it to be a wild ride of a story. We sure worked hard to make it one.

Other than your own, what's your favorite children's/tween novel of 2009 and why?

SR: Right now I'm in the middle of Pinkwater's The Yggyssey: How Iggy Wondered What Happened to All the Ghosts, Found Out Where They Went, and Went There (Houghton Mifflin, 2009), his sequel to The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization (Houghton Mifflin, 2009).


What do you do when you're not reading or writing?

MH: Nonprofit work in my community. Raising kids.

SR: Lately I’ve been trying to build robots again.

What can your fans look forward to next?

MH: Hopefully the next installment of Stonewall Hinkleman. The Battle Bull Run/Manassas occurred on July 21, 1861. The war ended in April 1865. There's a lot more to cover.

SR: The Strange Case of Origami Yoda (Amulet, 2010).

Is there anything you'd like to add?

SR: I'd like to point out that having a co-author is an amazing experience. Things happen in the book that neither of you ever would have come up with on your own. I recommend it!

Okay, Nancy, I hope you’re happy. You wanted people to sit up and take notice of the title of our week in the Tollbooth: Get the Indians Out of the Cupboard. You even hoped this might offend some people and spark an important conversation. I’m going to rise to the bait.

To start with, I’m offended. <smiles sheepishly>

This is my knee jerk reaction because there’s a strong, insistent voice inside of me—maybe it’s one of my characters or maybe it’s my alter ego—and this voice says: “I come from a strong people. I come from a people whose oral history documents the survival of seven ice ages, a people who have flourished where others could not. I can find my way out of the cupboard without anyone else’s help, thank you very much.”

(Cupboard! What a quaint word. It makes me think of covered wagons, which makes me think of tepees, which makes me think of igloos. And STEREOTYPES . . .



. . . but wait, I digress. I haven’t even introduced myself, yet.)

Hello everyone, I’m Debby Dahl Edwardson. I was born and raised in Minnesota and am of Norwegian ancestry—I even speak the language. But I’ve lived in Alaska, in the northernmost community on the North American continent, for over thirty years—the majority of my life, in other words. My husband is Inupiaq. We have seven children and I enter this conversation as both a mother of Native American children, and as a writer of books for these children and, I hope, for other children, as well.

Here’s how I think a lot of Native American children get themselves out of the stereotypical Native American cupboard that exists in many of the children’s books written about their people. It’s really simple. They just don’t read these books. Sometimes--a lot of times--they don't read books at all. You can see it in the reading test scores of their schools. And it’s a logical response. If you don’t see yourself in books, or if the image you see is so distorted that it bears little or no resemblance to  life as you know it, then maybe books don’t have a place in your life.

Nancy showed the cover of the Disney Peter Pan book. Do you remember the movie, the one we grew up on? Did you forget about its portrayal of Indians? Click here and refresh your memory.  Then let’s move away from stereotypes. We are writers and stereotypes are poisonous to us. Stereotypes are the dark side of cliché and, as Robert McKee says in Story (which is actually a book about screenwriting) “. . . the source of all clichés can be traced to one thing and one thing alone: the writer does not know the world of his story.”

Enough said.

When my kids were little we had a Cat in the Hat video that featured the Cat, translating the phrase “Cat-in-the-Hat” into four languages. Three of the languages—French, Spanish and Russian—were accurate. The fourth, “Eskimo,” was jibberish, not to put too fine a point on it. Someone in a Wikepedia article described it as pseudo-Eskimo. That's an interesting concept, don't you think?

I imagine the producer saying, “what’s the odds of an Eskimo kid watching this?” Or, maybe, “there aren’t any real Eskimos left, you know.” Or, “Eskimos are a figment of your imagination, Ted.”

Did Theodore Giesel, the man who wrote stories of social commentary like The Sneeches and The Butter Battle really approve of a video rendition of his work that served to pseudo-ize a people and their language?

Native Americans and Alaskan Natives in the Past Tense. This is the assumption: there are no real Indians or Eskimos left. If they don’t shoot arrows and live in tipees, wigwams or igloos, they aren’t the authentic item and they don't count. Actually, the Eskimos I know do live in iglus (that’s how it’s spelled, by the way, but the plural is actually iglut.) Ours is a two story iglu, wired for internet. Iglu in the dialect of my region is the generic word for house. The snow house you are thinking of is called an apuyyaq.

But I digress again.

About the past tense issue....I don’t write retellings of old legends because I don’t think of Native people as past tense. I know they are alive and well and it is my position that they hold cultural copyright over their own "legends." These are their stories, in other words. They own them. And I have a problem, anyhow, with people who attempt to retell the stories of cultures they have no direct experience with. Why? Because a legend or myth or religious text comes from a specific cultural perspective. It’s part of a whole and as such is reflective of a complex worldview which you need to understand if you are going to write of it. If handled incorrectly these “retellings” can become twisted beyond recognition. And when you take a people’s mythology or sacred stories and twist them beyond recognition, the people in question tend to get a bit testy about it.

If you want to barrow somebody’s story and twist it beyond recognition, go for it—after all, it’s what we do, isn’t it? Well okay, twist is a bit strong. All I’m saying is that if you are going to do a riff off of a traditional story from a culture you have no experience with, it would be best to take their name off of it. Don’t call it “a traditional Inuit tale." This is my advice. I've written one of these. I call it an old old story, no culture attached. I may even publish it someday. No, probably not.

On a very personal level, I am most concerned about the effect of all this has on young Native American readers—and on all young readers, for that matter.

Canadian writer Zetta Elliot, in a discussion on Child_lit recently, said, “For many people of color, not SEEING oneself in a book, over and over again, leads to a lasting colonization of the imagination.” This is a powerful statement, don’t you think?

Uma Krishnaswami assures us that the colonization is not irreversible, but stil.

Heath tip number 1: It is not healthy for the human spirit to be either the colonized or the colonizer.

Okay Nancy, your turn. See you Thursday.

Let’s talk more about that all important question of who can write these stories and how to evaluate them. And if we have time, let’s talk about some craft issues like language and the conventions of storytelling within a cultural perspective. Sound good?

Today is the release date of my new book, Blessing’s Bead, by the way. Join me in person or in spirit at my book launch at Title Wave Books in Anchorage, Alaska from 6-8 pm Alaska tme!

And check out Carol Brendler and Julie Larios’ blogspot Jacket Knack where this week I am talking about the cover of Blessing’s Bead before it becomes a hot issue. Or not.

<winks or says, “I jokes,” which is the Inupiaq equivalent of winking.>

In GOOD news, I finished my grad school applications!

In BAD news, I'm afraid to go to the NaNoWriMo site.

I was doing so well! And then I needed to do some edits. No, not my OFFICIAL edits, but edits nonetheless. And I looked away for what I swear was only a few minutes, and suddenly a few DAYS have passed :\ So, a little suckage on that front.

I just really want to get ATB all squared away before OFFICIAL edits, also known as NW Round Two (Ding Ding), arrive.

So, in BAD news, I have to stop Book of Sparkly Stuff for a short time. Just until I get a few things in order, some feedback, etc.

In GOOD news, I have another project I can work on, one I'm very excited about. I don't want to say much about it yet, since it might still fall apart, but I can't wait to get to work. This project has been bouncing around in my head awhile, and I have some groundwork, so that will help.

In GOOD news, I have a small teaser!

It’s just a rock. A sliver of the cliffs half a mile north from here, where the cold tide forces itself up against the walls of Maine. A piece of cliff, broken off and fastened on a leather string. But when it twirls, back and forth in a white-flecked haze, there is something utterly enchanting about it, lulling, just like his voice.

In my dream he’s made of the sea. All water and waves and far off sounds. I’m running to him but when I throw my arms around his shoulders he splashes and falls apart at my feet. The tide sweeps in, then, so vile and quick, and takes him away with a rush and hiss, and I am left with the sand and the place where he had been, the memory already fading like footprints on the beach. I wake up and forget that he is gone.

It would seem I share a birthday with Neil Gaiman and Sesame Street. (and Martin Luther, incidentally).

One step closer to fame and fortune

Cross-posted from Aliette de Bodard

Leave a comment at original post, or comment here.

I’m so pleased to announce that SHADOWED SUMMER is included in The Bulletin for the Center for Children’s Books GUIDE BOOK TO GIFT BOOKS 2009.

IT’S HARD TO IMAGINE FINER GIFTS THAN BOOKS—they offer enjoyment, knowledge, and artistic stimulation. They’re also gifts that go on giving without requiring any upkeep or cleanup, they’re a cinch to wrap, and they’re easily sent through the mail! All of these titles have been reviewed in the Bulletin, so they’ve been recommended by professionals.

You’ll find SHADOWED SUMMER in Books for Middle Readers (Gr. 4-6, 9-11 yrs)!

Originally published at MSUFaL. You can comment here or there.

I slipped a bit yesterday. About 500 words and because I expected to make my count later, I didn't enter it on the site. It was a day for clearing my head and then family obligations ate up my time. Shopped at Target and the get-up-and-out was actually just what I needed. Now, back to my fairy tale and if it stays stuck, I shall move on to a different story. Though, really, I want to put this one to bed. I started it almost 4 years ago. The ideas and plot kept waffling on me. The ending came to me this time and now I just need to write to that direction instead of wandering about in the wilderness.

I was IM'ing with an old friend in the evening and The Dude wanted me to cut and paste the conversation into my current rough draft for word count. He said it counted as dialog. Right. Nothing at all to do with suns, moons, or Rubys. I did not do that. Those 500 words were legit draft verbiage.

Frog Out

http://www.darcypattison.com/revision/the-best-way-to-tell-a-story/

http://www.darcypattison.com/?p=2309

Finding the Best Way to Tell a Story

First drafts are for finding out what story you are telling. Second and subsequent drafts are for finding the best way to tell that story.

I finished a second draft yesterday and someone asked what I concentrated on in that draft. Basically, refining the story and exploring options for telling it.

Specificially, I worked on these things:

Facts: I had several experts in child behavior read the mss and saw that there were several checks on the reality of my situations. I’m dealing with kids in foster care, so I had to look up state laws, read manuals for foster parents, etc. Then, replot with that in mind.

Plot: There were major plot holes that needed to be addressed. The climax of a major subplot had to be totally overhauled because of the factual corrections. Smaller plot holes had to be filled.

Transitions: Often there were abrupt changes from scene to scene, without enough details for the reader to follow when/where/what.

Character: Motivations were unclear. I added more internal thoughts, backstory, and discussion of events. It’s a delicate balance to keep the story moving, yet make it clear. This draft, I concentrated on making it clear. If my readers want me to be more delicate on the next draft, I can do that.

Villain: The villain was too cut and dried and needed some softening.

Voice: OK, I’m doing that hard thing of alternating voices. So, I had to make each voice distinctive and stay consistent within each voice. I’m sure there’s more to do here with consistency, but this is a good start.

Setting: There’s still some work to do on portraying this specific school and community, but it’s pretty good now.

Clarity: Above all, I tried to get the story out of my head and onto paper with more exactness and completeness.

So, the first draft blocked in the major elements, this draft refined them. I’ll need at least one more draft to refine and to add highlights.

Plan for Third Draft

Specifically, I want to work on consistent voice, refining the language, clearing up any remaining plot problems, keeping a balance of action and internal motivations, making sure Darcy-the-author stays out of the story and the kids are really kids, cutting about 10,000 words (It’s about 60,000 right now and I think 50,000 would be better), and keeping the pace taut.

I already want to start on the consistency of the voice, but I think I’ll try to wait a couple days, so I have fresher eyes. But I won’t let a lot of time pass, or I’ll lose momentum, especially with the holidays.

Related posts:

1. 4 Ways Weather Affects Your Story
2. Voice Trumps Everything
3. Outline scenes

Tonight is my night off! Unfortunately no work-out, since I pulled my shoulder, neck, upper back and the intercostals on the right side. I'm functional today but I can feel it just waiting to collapse again.

Word of the Day
vatic, adj. : prophetic or oracular

Baby at 26 Months
In the kitchen, one morning... I was pushing eggs around the pan when the oven mitt next to me slowly slid off the counter. I glanced at it long enough to see a little hand and think, "Okay, she's not into something that could hurt her," and went back to cooking.

A few moments later, I heard: "Rar. Rar. Raaaar." Very quiet, not meant to get attention, but... come on, who could resist? I looked over and saw that she had the mitt on her hand and was looking at it... then she would grab the side of her head with it like a puppet monster and go, "rar!" at herself.

The funny thing? When I bought that oven mitt, I put it on my hand, make it flap like a mouth and thought to myself, "It looks like an animal. Rar!" Obviously, rar is genetic.

Current Plans
Spots later tonight, probably from the bookstore cafe again (I'm enjoying the irony). Otherwise, working with dracosphynx on the website. If you had problems logging in, they should have cleared up by now.

Elsewhere (LJ Edition)
• The Right to Be Wrong. Beautiful post by morenasangre on deep friendships that survive ideological differences, and their rarity these days.
• Take Us to Your Leader. Great post by Michael Flynn about types of aliens.

Quote of the Week
True humor is fun—it does not put down, kid or mock. It makes people feel wonderful, not separate, different and cut off. True humor has beneath it the understanding that we are all in this together. — Hugh Prather


Stardancer Home.

http://editorialanonymous.blogspot.com/2009/11/definitions-for-perplexed-assistant.html

Could you explain exactly what an Editorial Director does? Where does she fit in with the general hierarchy of a publishing company? (I assume she is more senior than a Senior Editor, but is there anyone more senior than her?) Does an Editorial Director have to go through a committee to acquire, just like everyone else, or is she more autonomous?

Ha-ha! I will never tell. The industry is conspiring against you to make this information inaccessible!

Ok, I don't mean that. But I can't tell you the answer, because what an editorial director does, how she fits in the hierarchy of the company, and how she acquires will vary unpredictably from one house to another.

So if I told you what "editorial director" means at my house, my colleagues might be able to figure out which house I work for. Every company uses titles to suit their specific needs and interprets titles according to bureaucratic whim. There's no communal chart for what a particular title means in publishing.

Perhaps some of my publishing readers could give anonymous examples in the comments of what "editorial director" means at their houses.

Yesterday I listed some rules for writing short flashbacks. Today I'm going to tackle an even trickier beast: the long flashback. When done well, longer flashbacks (ones that take up much of a scene or even an entire chapter) can be extremely effective in showing us the past instead of telling us about it. However, if done incorrectly, longer flashbacks can rip us right out of the story or make us lose track of when/where we are. That's why it's important to get them "just right."

Many of Peter Selgin's rules for flashbacks still apply here, but there are also a few other guidelines to consider.

1. Make your audience yearn for the flashback. If you give your readers all the information right away, they'll be aware that they're getting an "info dump." If you allude to an event that happened in the past but delay showing that event until later on in the book, your readers will be excited to finally hear the full story. For example, if a character casually mentions that he always has a particular silver pen in his pocket, we'll be interested to know more about it. If he later reveals that the pen is the only thing he has to remember his father by, we'll wonder about their relationship. If he finally tells us that he actually stole the pen from his father, a man he never knew, we'll be dying to actually see the scene!

A word of warning: It's important not to delay the flashback for too long; otherwise, the final reveal is likely to be a letdown.

2. Put the flashback in the appropriate place. You don't want your extended flashback breaking up the flow of your story. If you put one into a chapter where the tension is high, for example, your readers will be impatient to get back to the real story. One trick is to put in the flashback when the main character is doing a mundane or repetitive action. Holes by Louis Sachar does this well; often when Stanley is busy digging holes the narrative brings us into a scene that occurred in the past. After the scene is over, we come back to Stanley, who's still digging. If your flashback is an entire chapter, you want to make sure that the previous chapter ends in a place where it can rest for a moment without us getting impatient to know more. In both cases, you want us to feel like we haven't missed anything in the main story, but that we've also just learned another piece of the overall puzzle.

3. Keep the flashback short. Even in a longer flashback, you want your readers to remember that this is all part of the main story. If your flashback needs to be so long that it begins to overshadow the main story, then you might want to rethink the structure of your book. Perhaps it's a story that actually needs to be told in two different times in chapters that alternate between the past and the present. In that case, you want to make sure that it's easy to figure out when and where we are. Often simply putting the date at the beginning of each chapter will suffice. Also, some books, like A Northern Light, use alternating past and present tense to help differentiate between the two stories.

4. Make sure the flashback is absolutely necessary. This is probably the most important thing to keep in mind. Using an extended flashback in a story can be a gamble because it's bound to slow down the narrative tension. You want to make sure that your story absolutely needs the flashback, that the information you think you have to show hasn't already been revealed elsewhere. Also, consider if some of what you want to reveal in flashback could actually be put into a scene in the main part of your story; I've had to do this after realizing that it wasn't worth breaking up my story in order to give information that could easily be worked into dialogue.

That just about sums up the main things I've learned about writing flashbacks, though I'm sure there are others that could be added to this list. If you have any useful flashback tips, I'd love to hear them!

Originally published at www.annastan.com.

Publisher: Berkley, 2009
Genre: Romance
Sub-genre: Paranormal
Rating: 4 pints of blood



"Stare at my pecs!" says headless dude on the cover, and I obey because I can't help it. He has no face, and his chest stands out so very much agasint the dark woodsy background. There's really nothing subtle about this kind of cover: it says "HERE THERE BE SEXY TIMES."

For those who are unaware, Ava Gray is the superpowered alter ego of mild-mannered author Ann Aguirre (ok, I might have made some of that up; both her identities are equally superpowered). If you prefer sci-fi and fantasy to romance and have been a bit wary of trying Skin Game because it qualifies as paranormal romance, I'm here to assure you it still reads like an Ann Aguirre novel. Which is to say the world is gritty and full of action, and the characters are complex and flawed creatures. This ain't a book full of pacifistic pirates, folks.

( This book is too smart for the cheese of pacifistic pirates. )

Despite my best efforts and a solemn vow to let it lie for a little while, I cannot avoid the siren's call of Winter's Discord. I really wanted to shelf it for a while and work on Sisters of Khoda, but I can't find my footing on Khoda and find my mind wandering to Winter. Could be the weather (even though much of the story takes place in a warm climate)...maybe it's the idea that the marking period is over and multiple vacations loom, so I might have some writing time....maybe I keep feeling like I'm close on the story....I don't know. But she's calling for me, begging me to work on her again. I'll have it worked out in another day or so what my next course of action is. First I HAVE to get caught up on grading for the MP, then I'll make my decision.

A slight conundrum has presented itself. The story takes place on a southern continent....and they celebrate Yule at the start of Winter...that doesn't work. My only thought is a simple explanation that it's just reverse of our world. Plausible? It's such a weird thing to get hung up on!