So blogging that.
The Wife Unit: I lost track of time reading your book!
Hack Writer: He he he!
Wife Unit: And it has a lot of sex in it!
Hack Writer: He he he! I intentionally went out of the way to be provocative.
Wife Unit: And your main character is crazy!
Hack Writer: He he he!
Hack Writer: So blogging this.
Wife Unit: …
Hack Writer: He he he! It’s the little things that count.
The 69 Page Query Letter
Tomorrow I turn in a 69 page query letter.
Okay, it’s a Project Proposal, not a letter, but, at the core, it’s the same thing. It’s the document that starts off a chain of events involving lots of people and lots of money.
And I got paid to put it together. Good money, too. So there is that difference.
At the end of the day, however, the client can say, “this just isn’t right for us.”
Then we’re done. Fini. There is no other client for this proposal. Sure, I’ll do other work here, but not on this solution. Now the client likes me, and I am good, but there are things going on that I am not privy to that can impact their decisions. It’s a chaotic world out there.
So the next person who whines about a query letter…
I’m gonna smack you.
HARD.
Just like in the movies
The dreams in the movies are all wrong.
In them, you’re reaching out to her, and she is reaching out to you. The wind is blowing her dress this way and that, hair flowing around her face like mist. Just when the fingertips are about to touch, each zooms away, and one of you screams.
Real dreams aren’t like that.
In a real dream, you’re reaching out to her, and she is reaching out to you. The wind is blowing her dress this way and that, hair flowing around her face like mist. You grab her hand and you pull her close. She is next to you, pressed into you, a second skin of softness. You arms go around her waist and her arms reach around you to hold your shoulders.
She kisses you softly. And that is when you know the dream is a real dream, because she will never kiss you again. She is gone, and the loss once again is almost unbearable. You want to push the dream girl away, but you can’t. You even smell her, the scent of her, and that is even more terrible than the kiss.
At least the pain is real.
At least it is real.
It is real.
You awake, and it is real.
It was always real, you had just forgotten.
That’s a real dream. A kiss you so desperately wanted, and now is making you bleed. Each tear might as well be a pint of blood.
Each breath is a knife wound.
You close your eyes but the scent remains.
If only you could fly away before that dream kiss.
Just like in the movies.
Outstanding!
Went to Borders because I felt like I was the only person who did not own his own copy of The Hunger Games. While I was there I bought The Forest of Hands and Teeth (I read the first chapter online and was floored) and a few other books I have been meaning to add to my library.
I have been avoiding Borders. The Redmond Town Center store had crammed spaces, yet still hanging to the corporate, soulless look. It also had the feel of the doomed. Massive space was dedicated to video and other crap that I can get cheaper and better selection at other places. Indeed, I was counting down the sad, sad days until I read the store or corporation had gone TU. Borders going TU will be a herald of the Apocalypse. Mark my words.
If you’re going to cattle-chute me, give the damn store some character! Creaky hardwood floors. Pretty clerks with tattoos. Anything except the blood-drained look that sapped your buying will the moment you opened the door!
But since I was running errands in the area, I stopped by anyway.
Outstanding!
They have been remodeling. They still have the weird over-stocked DVD/music section, but it seemed smaller. And the store was much easier to navigate, I felt less claustrophobic. And the YA book section was expanded greatly—it looked like they were still remodeling to expand it further. Their YA section was ginormous. Literally, it was the largest YA book section I have ever been in, anywhere. Books and books and books, many of them new authors. Books other stores were hiding because of their proactive nature were proudly on display.
And the manga section. WOW. Just, WOW.
And the people! It’s a sunny day here in the Seattle area. But that did not stop the multitude of people from buying books. One woman towing two children was clutching five books as if they were a life raft.
A pretty girl was in the YA section agonizing which hardcover to get. She was only allowed one. Her mother said so. Several times, despite the pleading.
The tw
o teen boys, clearly athletes, looking for science-fiction. They were so intent on finding that novel.
The little boy and girl jumping up and down as Daddy led them to the children section.
This is life with books.
This is capitalism at it’s best.
I spent $30 more than I planned. It was as if I was helpless.
I love books.
I love people reading books.
What a lovely, lovely Saturday!
The Redmond Town Center Borders got a literary boob job.
Outstanding!
“I could stand to hear more.”
I’m back with my laptop now getting juice, oh yes I am!
Wash: “Yeah well, if she doesn’t give us some extra flow from the engine room to offset the burn through, this landing is gonna get pretty interesting.”
Mal: “Define interesting.”
Wash: “Oh god oh god we’re all gonna die?”
Mal: “This is the captain. We have a…little problem with our engine sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then…explode.”
Jayne: “We’re gonna explode? I don’t wanna explode.”
***
Mal: “Kaylee, this is a place of business. We can talk about Simon-”
Kaylee: “When he’s four worlds away? Or the Alliance gets ahold of him and River?”
Mal: “That ain’t my worry. I gotta finish this job, get us another one. Can’t do that carryin’ those two.”
Kaylee: “How can you be so cold?”
Zoe: “Cap’n didn’t make them fugitives.”
Kaylee: “But he coulda made ‘em family. ‘stead of keepin’ Simon from seein’ I was there. And I carried such a torch! And we coulda…goin’ on a year now and I ain’t had nothin’ twixt my nethers weren’t run on batteries!”
Mal: “Oh God! I can’t know that!”
Jayne: “I could stand to hear more.”
Technical Difficulties, Please Standby
My laptop power brick doesn’t work. Please standby while I get a new one.
In the meantime, I present you with an important lesson on morality.
I had a dream
I had a dream I was a cocktail waitress.
That’s right. A waitress.
Least you all think I was subconsciously trying to get in touch with my feminine side, here’s how the dream went:
Go to a table
Take drink orders
Enter drink orders in Squirrel
Go to bar
Pick up other drink orders
Deliver drinks to table
Repeat
This was the entire dream. Yeah, I flirted back if someone flirted with me. But it was a busy night, and my feet started to hurt. The only thing of note in this dream was getting annoyed with all the women ordering white zinfandel. White zinfandel? Really? Isn’t that so nineties?
Dreams are weird.
Sunday Reflections, 30
One day I was speeding along at the typewriter, and my daughter – who was a child at the time – asked me, “Daddy, why are you writing so fast?” And I replied, “Because I want to see how the story turns out!”
Best. Search. Hit. Ever.
I am sure I am a supreme disappointment to all the people who come to my blog searching for information on how to spank their little sister.
Really.
But this search term is so uber I feel vindicated. That blogging was so very very worth it. That my birth unto this world has fulfilled The Prophesy. Ladies and Gentelman, I bring you the search hit of search hits:
WOW! Somebody out there GETS IT. And she came to my blog to get it! Mine!
In ten years there will be a new ruler over Earth. And she will be The Empress.
The YA invasion – Babel Clash
This post by Brandon Sanderson is a good one, and is an interesting discussion point for anyone swimming with YA Speculative fiction. Check it out!
I am really digging Babel Clash, by the way. It’s fun.
New Post in Adventures in Writing
Every Wednesday you can find me over in Adventures in Writing. Today I write about an indispensable tool for the novelist.
Spring Blah Therapy
Many people get the blahs in the winter. My time comes around in the spring, though no fault of my own. Basically, I spend spring fighting the toxic crap being blown into my body, the evil and sinister spring pollen.
But I have a cure for this. What is the cure, you may ask?
- Boston Terrier by Oleg Volk
PUPPY CURE! Who’s the cute puppy!? Who is? Yes YOU. YOU ARE! You need to be picked up and SQUEEZED! I want to squeeze this puppy and kiss that cute puppy face. Who’s the good dog? Who’s the good dog? Yes you! I just want to pick this puppy up and EAT IT. NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM!
Morgan le Fay
Such a pretty little planet, thought the Gate Runner.
She floated above it, unseen, a spec against the unfathomable reaches of near-space. She had been drifting on an orbital insertion for, well, years actually. She had long ago turned her chronometer off; it ticked lazily to a ten days and turned over, a perpetual countdown chronicling the nothingness it took to move from the heliopause to an orbit. Once in the heliopause of an un-attuned gate, she had to use conventional travel to move about the system.
The Gate Runner was not awake for this travel, of course. Her orbital shroud was a clever bit of technology; it surrounded her in a stasis field. The biological portions of her stopped functioning, but the nanotech running around her head kept the basic programs going, letting her monitor the outside universe for problems. The Gate Runner considered it having your cake and eating it too.
No time like the present, she thought.
—Give me the poop, Frank.
—Oh, I am sorry, did you say something?
—Ha ha ha.
—I should run a diagnostic. There is a distinct buzzing in my pickup.
—Planet. Give it up.
—Can I talk you into passing this one by?
—No. Never.
—Very well. It is a human populated planet, strain 4. They are advanced gravitonic users. They are in balance.
—Gravitonics? Really? They blink, right?
The Gate Runner was surprised. Normally she did not encounter an anti-gravity based civilization. Why use anti-gravity when one could just blink? Sometimes, when it took an isolated society a long time to discover their gate, they advanced to gravitonic usage. She mentally shrugged. She should have expected it; they were at the end of a long path, after all. Beyond this system, as near as she could tell, was nothing.
—Of course. There is nothing special about the gate below. The only thing unusual is they are at the end of the path you are exploring. All 7 gates are mapped back.
—The 7 in use, you mean.
Frank made the quantum computer equivalent of a sigh.
—Yes yes, fine. One moment, you’re about to slip in orbit. Standby for telemetry.
As she slid into an orbital position, the planet started turning underneath her. Data filled various portions of her HUD. Heavy military. Concentrated populations in cities. Orbital fortifications, upper atmospheric mines, a gigantic data network composed mostly of fiber with a minimal amount of transmission leakage for wireless. They even had atmospheric interceptors, flying machines, which flitted around.
—Jesus, Frank, they are a paranoid bunch.
—Yes yes, one would think they were preparing for a Gate Runner eyeing their little planet now, would you not?
—Hmmmm. Does not make sense. They are at an end of a path that was mapped I do not know how long ago. And you have to go through twenty seven gates to reach a re-alignment. As far as I know, their primaries are stable, joyful galactic citizens.
—Did you pull this location of this gate out of your butt?
Frank sounded annoyed. Usually when he changed the subject, which was his passive-aggressive way of telling her to shut up.
—Maybe. Analysis, please.
—Hard to say. If I didn’t know any better, they know something that we don’t.
—Uh. That’s not good.
—Why not?
—That usually means I ask real nicely to use their gate, and they say “fuck you!” and try to kill me. You know how pissy I get when that happens.
—Well, it is their gate.
The Gate Runner frowned. It was not their gate. It was hers. All gates were hers, whether the inhabitants knew it or not. Always the same argument with Frank. He was annoying as he was tenacious, but at least he had morals and ethics.
Something she, as a Gate Runner, mostly lacked.
The Gate Runner noted she had made a full orbital pass. A descent path appeared in her HUD, shifting as the planet moved below her.
—Start the Gate Runner protocol, Frank, and give me a ping via one of their orbitals. I really hope they give it up. They may be paranoid, but it is a lovely little planet.
—Last chance, Morgan. Last chance to skitter away and leave them be.
—Sorry Frank, I appreciate you asking, really I do, but no. That’s my gate down there, and I am going to use it.
—So be it.
Frank’s booming “male” voice suddenly filled her ears.
“This is the Gate Runner. I must use the gate, but I come in peace. This is my second ask for a peaceful use, I will ask only one more time.”
Morgan held her breath. She was tired of Gate Running. She would much rather plant her feet and lounge on a beach for seven days. Sometimes it happened.
Sometimes it did not.
In reply, her shroud was painted by ladar. The satellite nearest their position re-tasked and promptly blew up, spewing forth a concentrated gamma burst in her direction.
Morgan sighed. Always with the gamma bursts. She was a creature of space; she was well shielded from such mundane weapons.
Kinetics, on the other hand…
—We’re being painted. It’s a gravitonic based detector. And here comes the missiles.
She smiled. Frank sounded annoyed, disappointed and excited all at the same time.
Her HUD started screaming bloody murder. The missiles were kinetic killers and they were…
—Gravtonic kinetics! Prepare for immediate descent!
That was bad. Their civilization had advanced to the point where they could stuff gravatonics in a missile package. That was near the capabilities of her shroud, actually.
Morgan frowned as wings shot out of her shroud; she plummeted to the planet below, her shielding glowing red with the friction.
She snarled. If they wanted to play rough, she would redefine what the word meant for them.
—Disengagement not possible! Engaging armor! Prepare for a drop!
Morgan’s world went gray as her crystalloid nanoscale armor activated. As she disengaged from her shroud, she fell straight down, invisible, a falling spec that would be hard even for a gravitonic detector to spot.
Of course, hard and non-detectable were two different things.
By the time they got another lock, it would be too late.
Such a pretty little planet, thought the Gate Runner.
And it’s mine.
Answers
Jennifer asks if I have read The Silver Medal Lover by Tanith Lee.
A: No. No I have not. And reading the Amazon Editorial Review, I will now. Thanks!
Your comment on Louis L’Amour brought back memories. I chewed through all of those books, several times. My favorites were the Sackett series. The one where a Sackett brothers’ wife was murdered just tore me up, I remember setting the book down several times and just going for a walk. And the last book, Lonely on the Mountain, in which the same character was such an interesting person, but you could tell, if you read the books previous, he was a deeply wounded man.
Or something like that. It has been over twenty years. I loved those little novels, and his sense of American justice and family sticks with me to this day.
Oh, then there is the book about the people who lived in the US before the Indians. Now that was a great book with a researched setting!
Cassie wants to know how long she has to wait for the next Lexus novel.
A: Depends. Four to six months. Summer is approaching and the kids are more active outside.
But I could see novel number two taking only four months to write.
I am convinced Armageddon’s Princess is more desirable to an agent than Bunny Trouble, my previous effort. Mainly because the pace is faster and its broader appeal as science fiction rather than near-future sci fi. Armageddon’s Princess also stands alone. Bunny Trouble, does not. There are two other books in the trilogy to complete the story.
I am on an accelerated path to finding an agent to Armageddon’s Princess. One minor burp is finding another beta reader or two who has not read Bunny Trouble. That is proving somewhat difficult. I may just abuse my prior readers and send it out.
Gary Corby stops by after a long writing spurt to say hello.
Hi Gary! Is your book out yet?!?!?
Ruzkin says slow down.
Can’t. The older I get, the more writing energy I have!
Still not too late for any questions. Tomorrow is Monday, however, and I have to dive back into work. Pay the bills and all of that.
Post 400. Get up and dance!
Considering my blog is almost, but not quite, a year old , it seems odd this is my 400th post. But here I am!
Soooooo… Anybody have any questions? Just comment and I will reply the next day. I do this every 200 posts, so if you miss the window, your burning need to know will have to wait!
And now, for dancing!
I love this song and video. I will give you three guesses why I love the video, and the first two don’t count.
More Confession
I love writing more than Kiersten loves chocolate and diet Dr. Pepper.
Confession
I like writing more than bacon.
Intimate Conversations
Marriage Talk:
“Do you have any deodorant that will not make me smell like a girl?”
“Uh, no. Because, um, I’m a girl.”
Fun Talk:
“Anybody else want to beta read Armageddon’s Princess?”
Blog Talk:
I’m approaching 400 posts! Every 200 posts I do a Q&A, so if there is anything you just have to know, save up those questions. This is post 398!
New Post in Adventures in Writing
Every Wednesday you can find me over in Adventures in Writing. Today I write about recommendations for books that I read that I would have never read without the recommendation in the first place.
Or something like that.
Seduced by books. It is my downfall. My weakness.
Bad Man
Sometimes an author can be judged by lengths he will go to torture his little darlings.
I am not going to write another Lexus novel so soon after the heels of this one. I still have my love of Bunny running through my veins, and I am only halfway done with the final edit of Bunny Trouble. I am going to query one of these books until my query fingers bleed. I already have a rejection for a short I wrote in January. It’s getting lonely.
But boy-howdy (boy-howdy being a technical term), did I come up with a plot for book two. See in book one, Lexus purges her inner demons (kind of) and starts over in life (kind of). She finally, after all these years, comes to terms with who she is. She is an extraordinary person, and at the end of the book she has actually given up quite a bit of responsibility, both professional and personal, to start life anew.
And that’s just too ripe for conflict. I’m sitting at home thinking of which four other plots would make sense as book two, and I came up with a new one. I’m going to do something so heinous to my literary darling that it borders on the evil.
I’m going to send Lexus back to school.
High school.
As a student.
Mohahahahahahaha!
KRAKA-TOOM!
(insert wolf howl as the storm clouds gather over the mountains)
Saucy Tart J.C. Succumbs to My Sith Lord Literary Machinations
I may be the Hack Writer.
But, if it is one thing, and I mean one thing I know how to do in the literary world, it’s how to be a teasing bastard.
Six Months, More or Less
I am either reflective or babbling in a stream of jumbled thoughts.
I did not intend to write Armageddon’s Princess (formally Your Little Sister).
There I was, off my high of editing the last half of Bunny Trouble (I edit going backwards). I was also engaged in writing my YA fantasy, The Baby Dancers.
One night at the end of December 2008, drinking wine in a quiet house while everyone was sleeping, I sat thinking about my first literary love of words, science fiction. And how I so very much loved Across Realtime by Vernor Vinge, specifically Marooned in Realtime, the last installment.
A murder mystery like no other, Marooned in Realtime is one of the best books I have ever read and is such a wonderful serving of science fiction; it almost hurts because your imagination sings so loudly when reading it.
Could I write a mystery, I wondered? Murder most foul, while done to death (ha ha!) is so appealing because of the inherent conflict in murder, the chase, the discovery.
I do not like many things about murder mysteries. The predictability, which I know is in demand for the genre, but is a turn off for me. How a gun appears in a novel and suddenly it is epic stupid and a thousand other clichés.
But my mind kept wandering back to Marooned in Realtime. I started to wonder: if I liked to read sci-fi murder mysteries, would I like to write them too?
So into my trusty word processor I went and WHAM! I wrote one of the best opening chapters I have ever written. It was unique. It had a strong voice and a strong main character. It oozed with conflict and raised more questions, for the reader, than it gave answers.
Right there I knew I had something, for I pulled that first chapter completely out of my butt. The main character was a little crazy because something bad happened to her in “the war”. But what? I had no idea. Just as suddenly, I was world-building at fast pace, and the world I created sang to me.
She was married. Four times. At once. The society she lived in was an echo from the times of war: indeed, the survivors defined themselves by the technology they choose not to use. She was simultaneously more than, and less than, human: a woman so wounded even her sex drive was artificial.
And the crime. It was brutal, terribly evil, a vile act that threatened to rip apart her sanity. Lexus was a woman and I instantly gave her a crime that was a very affront to everything that defines what it means to be a woman. Worse, she encountered it before, but the war intruded on her prior investigation. Now here it was again, when she wanted to forget all about the war, so long ago.
That crime gave the novel a distinctive voice. It was gritty, yes, but beyond the crime the novel was light hearted and fun. It was sexy and provocative because the main character was sexy and provocative. But the crime covered the main character like a perverted oil slick just underneath the surface in a pound of still water, and drove wedges in her carefully rebuilt sanity from the horrible, horrible war.
With a month off to contemplate why a particular chapter was giving me so much trouble, I finished Armageddon’s Princess in five months. And I am just not in love with the story, but I also am quite enamored with my writing.
That is arrogant, I know. But the writing is so electric! For some reason I wrote this in first person present tense. It was not a conscious choice, it just seemed like it fit with the stylistic choices I was making. And the result is a very tight 100,000 word novel with a relentless pace that sometimes left me breathless as a reader. The voicing is so unique that occasionally it seems like someone else wrote it, if that makes any sense.
So I love this book. I love it very much. I could write Lexus Toulouse science fiction murder mysteries until the day I die. My imagination overfills my cup of life, and I drink of it with both adore and greed for more.
