Just got my copy of Kaleidotrope with my VP story "Please share my umbrella" in it!

I love public libraries. My life has been colored by girl crushes on various librarians. I've also been terrified of various librarians. About half the books I read are from the library. A good chunk of the other half are books the library makes me buy by introducing me to new authors or getting me hooked on a series then not having all the books in it.

Here's Deborah Schneider, RWA librarian of 2009, on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, interviewed on promoting authors. "The “Reading” is probably the most boring thing an author can offer me," she says. So true! The Signing, too, I think. They work only with well-known authors, or maybe authors who have a lot of friends living near the bookstore. Janet Evanovich mentioned at RWA how pitiful it is to see a lonely author waiting for people to come up to their table. (An author recently made the best of it by interviewing the two people who showed up at his reading, but I can't remember who and can't find the link.)

I did an author event at a few bookstores when my book Cosmic Tarot came out. I signed but the main thing was I did tarot readings (which I rarely ever did for other people and now do only for myself). The line was almost out the door, even though I didn't know anyone there. Okay, the poor bookstore only sold two or three books out of the big stack they had there. However, I think if the book had been about a more popular deck or better if it had been an interesting looking novel the store would have done well by them.

I hope some day I'll have another chance to put into practice this lesson on how to promote books, and to use Deborah Schneider's and SB Sarah's great creative ideas. 

It's one of those days when I cringe at my writing. This might be a good thing, since I'm in revisions. No sentimental attachment. Chop, slice, dice. House-wise, this is the kind of mood you want to be in when you clean a closet or an attic. I just hope I don't go crazy and mutilate it. Then again, I can always go back and pick up pieces from an older version. Though I doubt I would. I never do.

Dorchester Publishing guidelines say that Dorchester wants... "FANTASY ROMANCE - Dragons, elves, and any kind of fantastical creature you can dream up are all welcome in this fast-growing offshoot of paranormal."

Offshoot of paranormal, huh? Not to kvetch, though. Especially since this confirms my impression at RWA that fantasy might be getting stoked for a big comeback, at least in the romance genre. Yay!

James Gurney's blog Gurney Journey is about visual illustration, but this quote also captures what a written scene needs to have:

"Whether you choose to paint a scene with stillness or action, try to give your image the greatest emotional resonance and narrative reach."

(Cartier-Bresson photo)

I don't have the chops for this, but maybe you do.

"Bookslut needs to restock some columnists: if you're interested in covering cookbooks, poetry, science fiction, or comic books (or have another idea you're interested in) please e-mail Caroline with a letter of interest and writing samples."

link to Bookslut entry (look for it at the very top of your screen)

I've been reading up on screenwriting lately. Screenwriting advice often resonates with me more than fiction writing advice.

Like this on John August's website


(BTW, David Guterson's East of the Mountains, for me, did the amazing feat of being extremely internal, yet with external life-death conflict.)

Sure, not everything in August's entry is to agree with. For one, I can't get with the assumption that books don't need external conflicts. Still, the gist of it is true. Besides writing the script, we fiction writers have to operate the camera (and design the set, costumes, etc.). So we need to give ourselves something to point the camera at.

Lots of other juicy stuff on August's website. Another entry I liked was How to introduce a character.

Woohoo! My article on tarot is up at Fantasy! A quattrocento crossroads

My least favorite thing in writing fiction is neatening up the plot, tucking in the details that would otherwise damage the story's credibility. It's usually not too hard to think of a way to do it, it's just tedious actually going back through and getting it done. I let these unwieldy plot points slide on the first and even second drafts. Work on them takes place in a penultimate polishing pass, and by that time all the fun stuff like character, story, world-building are done. (The ultimate pass is tweaking the wording; that's fun.)

BTW, I should be working that penultimate draft right now instead of journaling...

What is your least favorite part of writing?

kateelliott did a wonderful post Writing Process: Writing with a Craft Goal in Mind . Not only the method but some of her goals are worth emulating. They are tailored to her writing, but a few particularly resonated with me:

That one hits home because one thing that bogs me down is damn tangents. The quick and easy (well, not really easy) solution is to lop them off. KE's goal is a much more subtle way to capture complexity while avoiding the belated realization that you've written a bunch of stuff that needs its own book but you don't really want to write that book.

I love description, and while I'm aware that the story can't come to a stop for a loving description--it happens. The reverse mistake is to have a scene that's all dialogue, as if the characters are on the phone. This goal focuses on using description skillfully, rather than following the "one size fits all" advice of deleting it, shortening it, etc.

I don't know yet how this will end up applied to my writing. For example, I could replace "character actions and movements" with descriptions of places and objects. More likely I'll end up in a different place all together. What really inspired me about KE's goals, though, is that they are so well-crafted in themselves and honest and personal, rather than just knockoffs of workshop / book advice.