Michael Moorcock’s Genius & NaNoWriMo

Michael Moorcock is a genius, and several years ago I came across an amazing article in which he outlined how to complete a novel in three days.

I shit you not.

Since this is NaNoWriMo (for the non-author folks, National Novel Writers Month) I am sharing, as I do occasionally, a link to a condensed version of the article.

Moorcock is not just prolific—his books are actually really wonderful. If you have not delved into the Elric of Melniboné books, what is wrong with you?

In any event… go read the article. It’s not JUST for those who want to blow through a book. The tips and formula are very pluginable for all genres and deadlines.

One day I really AM going to do a retreat weekend using this as a guide.

Here:  http://www.ghostwoods.com/2010/05/how-to-write-a-book-in-three-days-1210/

Happy Places – Writing the Funny is FUN

Tonight I pulled in the driveway and sat outside with the interior light on jotting things into my notebook. I taught my Writing the Funny workshop tonight, and the second week proved even better than the first. So many ideas come roaring to life during classes and after-class discussions, I can’t get home fast enough (and it’s just a 5 minute drive) to get them down on paper. My group is just fantastic, and I’m having a blast.

Lou, the fearless leader of our program, came down the hall to my classroom at the end of the night to announce we’d been wonderfully disruptive. Everyone in the building could hear the shouts, laughter, and even spontaneous applause. He grinned at me and said “you must be doing something right.” To be honest, I know I can make people laugh, but a lot of the credit goes to my group. (I hesitate to call them students—they’re fellow warriors in the quest for the gut-buster.) Being around great people is such a gift, I almost feel guilty taking money for this job… almost. I will hate to end this session, and it will end far too soon.

Revision Hell, Delays, and Final Successes

For over a year I have been announcing, postponing, and struggling with the release of the first novel written under my own name. If readers have been frustrated, I apologize from the bottom of my heart. You have no idea how frustrating it has been for ME. But I’m really happy to FINALLY announce that it will be available in both print and ebook in time for Christmas.

The book was written over a year and a half ago, and nearly went live a year ago. The first delay was due to a serious illness striking the wonderful woman I had hired to do my editing and formatting. The second was due to my own health concerns, and then it all went to hell in a handbasket. CRY UNCLE is book 1 in a series that has a minimum of 3, but will most likely keep going as long as I’m still breathing to write it.  My protagonist, Maggie Gallagher, is a special agent for the FBI who returns home to solve a murder mystery she’s been obsessed with since childhood. It’s a very dark story with very light—or, at least, heavily humorous—elements. Unfortunately the first book sets up those to follow,  and changes in the Catholic church in my area—where the book is set—made a very careful re-write absolutely vital to avoid problems in future books. Maggie has a brother who is a priest, and the third book involves a mystery with Father Jordan, so my church facts had to line up.

The changes made in the past few years by the Boston Archdiocese actually gave me BETTER plot movement. The re-writes actually helped me, having been away from the manuscript for a long time, notice other issues that I wanted to tweak. CRY UNCLE (and the books to come) has a strong first person perspective that breaks the fourth wall, and I think this requires a delicate hand. Done well, it builds intimacy between narrator and reader. Done poorly, it strips away the willing suspension of disbelief, becomes campy, and leaves the book in rubble.

So, with apologies to those of you who have been SO KIND to email me, show support and interest, and give me your patience, we’re getting our baby! A much better book is coming your way, just in time for the holidays.

Thank you so much for bearing with me.

Pull the Plug… Seriously

A while back I left an online community abruptly because it had gone bat-shit cray-cray. It seems like a million years ago, but I guess it was just a year and a half. So strange. Time flies.

Today I had an email from a member who is still active there. She set up a sock-puppet account with yahoo and, apparently, thinks everyone in the world is as dumb as she is and can’t do a quick reverse trace to the IP and stringer to find out who she is. It took me 3 minutes, I think. BTW, nice fake reviews on your own books.

Curious that, after such a long period of time with only occasional outbursts of batshitery, she woke up yesterday and typed out a letter from “a reader” telling me I was going to burn in hell. A few turns of phrase sounded familiar. Huh. What is that I do for a living when not writing and letting Ahmed pay for my indulgences?

OH YEAH!

Sure enough, the precise grammatical curiosity she used in a very negative review of one of my shorts led me to a brief track and squirrel that led me to a connection: my hate-reviewer (who very likely did not read the short in question judging by her content), was not only the same person—she sock-puppeted her own review as well as re-posting it all over the net. I have been aware of it through google alerts, but didn’t know who she was. I read reviews, and even take notes on negative ones in case there’s useful information there. We can all learn and grow. Some of us even do so.

Not Princess Sock Puppet, though. Why anyone would get pissed enough at me because I walked away from an argument rather than waste time on it to CREATE THREE IDENTITIES ONLINE TO POST NEGATIVE REVIEWS, SUPPORT THE REVIEWS, AND SPAM THE WEB WITH THEM, THEN SEND ME HATE MAIL AFTER OVER A YEAR AND A HALF— erm… well, just why?

Negative reviews have been rare for me, and as I’ve said, sometimes helpful. For the most part readers have been really good to me in that department, and I am willing to listen to criticism. I like to learn and grow.

But stalking me with intent to harm feels really sad and—I’m not being sarcastic here—concerning. Something’s wrong with you, sugar. Honestly. I recall often disagreeing with you, but also recall POINTEDLY making an effort to agree to disagree so that you could step back from your own reactions. My genuine memory of our relationship was that I thought you were bi-polar, and it showed in your writing. As such, I felt as much pity as annoyance. But I also remember noting that you spent several months going out of your way to pick fights with specific individuals, myself among them. What has become clear is that my decision to say “screw this, it’s too hostile to waste time on” robbed you of a target for your outrage. That was, for the record, my intent. You appeared, to me, to have serious mental issues and waaaayyyy too many people enabling them.

So now, what with me forgetting you exist for a year and a half, I am a tad stunned to find the evidence of your melt down in my inbox. Straight up—I swear I was meandering through life assuming that you stewed for a few months, then simmered, then moved on. I’ll admit—this one flew under my radar. The very notion that somebody would be SO FREAKED OUT by my quiet exit from a romance writers’ forum she would create multiple personas to post fake negative reviews, respond to them supportively, and eventually have a random melt-down resulting in hate mail? Yeah, I can’t even be angry. I’m just SAD.

Please look at your words:

I know you are on [AUTHOR’S NAME’S] blog all the time. I know that was you on AW [Absolute Write]. You are f***ing evil. You’re going to go to hell for turning all those people against her. Nobody will say this to your face but you are fat, gross, and disgusting. Supposedly people cared when you had cancer. I wish you’d died because you are evil. You can’t write shit. You’re a joke.

I included just this paragraph because I think it really illustrates the extremity of the mental meltdown. The “she” is, absolutely without question, the author of the email. We traced it. She is writing as a supporter of herself, but it’s her account. She used it as an actual alternate email for herself publicly, in fact. The email was long… and some of it didn’t make that much sense. It’s also… interesting, I’ll say… this writer has not done much professionally of late other than sit on the Absolute Write Water Cooler (my account there was never de-activated, I left because of this kind of thing and never went back), at Romance Divas (I requested that the account there be de-activated, and left), and on her own blog. She often attaches herself to current topics as if she is involved in them as a “presence of significance” and has a few sycophants who do not know better in her stable. What I noticed in tracing her, since I had pretty much forgotten she existed, is that more recently few people are listening. If my guess is right (it is), her bi-polar issues are being seriously exacerbated by her world becoming smaller.

So my reaction will be this: I wish everyone who considered me a friend at Romance Divas all the best. I think Absolute Write is a bad influence on writers who rely on others without understanding their level of credibility or lack of it, and didn’t have friends there to begin with. I don’t wish any of them ill, either, the bad influences seem to do enough damage to themselves without any help. Since leaving RD—which actually DID pinch a bit, but was good for me—I have wandered onto 2 forums and found that my initial theory of “online communities are not good for me” was correct, I have abandoned all forums. I mention this because there seems to be a corresponding theory that I am “out there” using another name. I’m not. I belong to an email loop for writers that is private, and belong to a nerd-club/think-tank that predates all my other online groups. It is also private; I post to the loop, chat, and otherwise interact with very old friends there.

If you don’t see it on MY facebook account or twitter feed, it’s not me. I do have an author fan page on FB, and NOTHING but my OWN books/writings are discussed there. Ever.

I’m not worried about hell, cancer, dying (we are all going some time), bad reviews, or what anyone who likes to pick fights thinks. I would simply say if you have an inkling of who this author is—I refuse to out her—and can make a difference, maybe being aware of her illness can help her. She isn’t well. She can’t hurt me with her rant, but my GAWD, she has damaged herself. That kind of stuff inside any living thing is poison, and it’s making her sick. If you are in a position to help her (I’m beginning to think she’s past that point), please do. She needs to pull the plug and get some help.

Peace.

Where My Plots Thicken

The first time I came across the term “plot book,” I was reading the afterward, or “author’s note” at the end of a romance. I want to say it was by Jude Devereaux, but I could just be cramming her name into the memory because she was my first “favorite romance author.” My memory does ascribe this to her.

What I know, for a fact, is that I had a literal AHA moment, shouting out with glee to discover another human being was scribbling ideas for stories, novels, poems, or anything else down on the pages of a journal for future use. I’d been convinced something was terribly wrong with me. I’d been keeping journals that didn’t count as “diaries” for years—since grade school, in fact—but never wasted these precious pages on my day to day experiences. Why bother? I’d already had them. No, I would purchase empty journals in bulk at discount stores, keep them handy, and jot down phrases that might be song lyrics, ideas for stories, even character sketches.  I have stacks of them. I never throw them away. Somewhere in England, unless it became kindling, is a leather-bound collection of notes on castles, with diagrams and frantic margin-notes outlining the use and name for different sections: inner and outer bailey, donjon, barbican, and battlements. I left it behind out of dire necessity and still wonder about it like a long lost kitten.

Oh, like you’re not weird. Shut up.

In recent years I have been delighted to find a lot of writers keep plot books and similar. My writing group even has “plot swaps,” where we throw our unused plots into a pot and bargain for them.  If you’ve never done it, you really must.

What’s interesting, at least to me, is that the projects I have been finishing and publishing are out of old plot books.  Whether my current, active journals will yield as much in future years, I can’t say. What I know for a fact? I will never be without one. If nothing else, they provide a place to empty the chatter and fizz in my over-active imagination.

Oooh—that gives me an idea…

I May Have Found Writer Netbook Nerdvana

I’m a computer nerd, but the focus of my nerdhood has been netbooks since the first tiny EEE pc came out. I owned it, in white, at the 7 inch intro size. I wore it out and later gave it away.  After that came the Lenovo S10 at 10 inches and several others—the Acer Apsire One, which would have been close to perfect if not for a buggy system restore and nearly impossible to replace (and unreliable) plug that liked to short.

I’ve been a Fujitsu gal since forever, and all my full sized notebooks are Fujitsu now. Ahmed and I both love their Lifebook tablet series. My last purchase was a gorgeous little mini tablet from them, and I did love it.  Still do, but Max tripped me in the kitchen and sent it sailing through the air. Even with the case cracked, it still zooms along happily with duct tape on the frame. But I decided, what with me living on netbooks, to replace it anyway.  I bought a Haanspree Haansbook that turned out to have been used in some… err… interesting and not cool ways. Returned that sucker tut suite.

Enter my latest obsession. Where has this been all my life?

The HP Mini 300-11037NR
3GB 160 ghz Nvidia Ion
Windows 7 Premium and a Dual Boot Windows 8

For the absolute first time in my nerdy obsession with netbooks, I have something that actually exceeds every spec.  The battery life was repped at 6.25 hours, but I’ve gotten 7 twice without draining it. (In fact, the last check showed it had 25% remaining when I plugged it back into AC power.)  If you are a Verizon person you may recognize this as their broadband netbook.  Mine is not a Verizon purchase, but has identical specs with the exception of the upgrade to 3GB.  *Note: I was not gaming or watching a lot of video during the battery usage. Mostly online surfing, but with several tabs open while also running virus software and Open Office.

It’s 12” with an 11 inch screen that is ultrabrite and absolutely gorgeous.  But that’s not the best part.
Are you a writer?  If you are a writer, go find one. Buy via a direct warehouse if you must (I did). Because the keyboard is a thing of wonder and miracles. Slightly concave horizontally, it’s full-sized and a joy.  The ‘1’ key is JUST slightly smaller, but this is barely noticeable and I have not had reach issues.  Slightly springy, but with amazing reaction, the slight scooping of the keys keeps fingers resting and somehow discourages slippage without being particularly obvious. 

I type very fast. VERY fast. This is the most comfortable keyboard I’ve ever used.  The F keys across the top are small, but that actually works for me, since it allows the rest of the keys space vertically and I use them only occasionally, and not with my fingers on the “home keys.”  My fingernails tend to get absolutely ridiculous in length, and the curl is keeping them from sliding underneath adjacent keys, too.  Not a bonus for guys, probably, but you have no idea how much damage strong nails can do—I was purchasing keys in bulk on one of my larger, 17” laptops. 

So far having Windows 7 Premium (which would overload a netbook with a smaller capacity) is more of a joy than I expected, as well.  And man, this thing is FAST. Even with that relatively weenie 160 ghz, it uses marginally less grunt power, so it zooms along.  The screen being full-size, and the ability to change resolution (disabled in Basic and Starter) is a giant bonus.

Negatives? Like most slick netbooks (the surface is super-shiny) the trackpad is pretty sensitive.  I got used to it quickly, and don’t actually use mouse commands as often as most… I prefer keystroke shortcuts.  Like most Nvidia and truebrite screens, the color leans toward blue… but in Premium 7 adjusting and tweaking is easy.  I am also dual-booting with Windows 8.  I don’t care for it, which is a bummer, since early reports looked good.  Unfortunately, FWIW, Windows 8 is shaping up to be another Vista.  Some of the experimental (new, but let’s be real) options are cool, but the interface sucks BIG-TIME, the Desktop configuration looks childish, and a lot of “improvements” feel like massive steps backward.  I’ll be removing it and sticking with 7.

Otherwise? The perfect writer’s computer.  About as close as it gets.

Support Should Be Supportive

It’s been a while since I got a weepy or shrill email or private message from a person complaining about former stomping grounds. But I did wake up to one this morning. The blissful silence I’d come to enjoy on this front was disrupted, and I have to say, it made me grateful, once again, to be well out of the minefield of “support” groups.

TIP:  support groups should be supportive.

Believe me when I say that I am a survivor. I even still belong to groups, though they have dwindled to a very small few with specific focus.  Two social groups, four or five charities, one writing support group that has very little online presence and absolutely no online participation outside of an email loop that is strictly dedicated to WRITING. Chit chat is welcome at the bi-monthly meetings during the nibbles and potable hour.

If you belong to a group that is supposed to support you, find that attending meetings or visiting the web forum, or reading the emails is leaving you sad, miserable, doubting your talent, angry—pick one—you need to get out.

NOW.

Support groups may make you feel concerned for your project. They may make you re-think your behavior. They may challenge and even upset you, but these feelings should be occasional rather than constant. You should have a residual sense of a slight pain that is healing, not of a deep wound that won’t. And if you are feeling either marginalized or depressed often, you are not getting support. Support can sting now and then, but not all the time.  Support lifts you up, even the tough kind.

This doesn’t mean your group is populated with demons and evil doers. It doesn’t mean your mom was right and everyone is jealous of you. It means you’ve either outgrown this collection of individuals and their methods, or were never a good fit to start with.

Wish everyone well, keep in touch with those who were helpful, and GET THE HELL OUT. Anything that is taking time away from your efforts, does not promote or encourage them, and weighs them down in negatives without any positive solutions, is poison.

YOU Are No George Martin… Neither Am I

His novels are plagued with rambling, endless, page-upon-page exposition. He tells. He rarely shows. He uses imagery so heavily it weighs on the brain like iron. He has characters with identical or incredibly similar names, often within the same family. He jumps from character to character between chapters, and often fails to link the transitions.  He beats foreshadowing themes to death with an anvil-weighted fist.

Every once in a blue moon we get a George: a brilliant, unique, and enthralling writer who has the chops to take a big ole dump on the rules and wipe his backside with pages torn out of Shrunk and White.

He’s a freaking genius.

You aren’t him. Neither am I. But I’m finding a lot of fledgling fantasy authors, and even some NY pimped know-better-level authors, emulating his style to their—and the genre’s—great detriment. Every once in a blue moon we get a George: a brilliant, unique, and enthralling writer who has the chops to take a big ole dump on the rules and wipe his backside with pages torn out of Shrunk and White. These are rare exceptions, and almost always result in very poor imitations.

Nora head-hops. Nora is Nora… LA Nora, by gawd. You aren’t Nora. I’m not Nora. I’m not George. I’m not Jo Rowling, either.

I suppose those who ape their betters make room in the sales rankings for those too smart to fall into the trap, but it does break my heart to pick up title after title, read two or three pages, and quit.  Ah. Yes. Somebody trying to be the next…

Just be the current you.  If you’re a genius you won’t be breaking the same rules, anyway. The mad genius is too caught up in his or her own fever to wonder if they sound like someone else.

/rant

It Must Be Nice (for writers everywhere)

It Must Be Nice
Though not precisely fraught with strife,
there are plenty of barbs in a writer's life.
Late night edits, rewrites, too—
rejection letters (just a few).
Friends who try, but never quite get
the reason we are so beset
with doubt, angst, frustration, fear,
and on occasion, angry tears.
"It must be nice to work from home;
and just relax, no need to roam.
It must be nice to sit and type.
I have a REAL job— not to snipe."
It must be—in that fantasy
you've dreamed up as your view of me.
Please, call or drop by— just feel free
to interrupt what you can't see.
Those pages? Those are sheets of pain
torn from my tired, laboring brain.
And if I run, and if I hide
in some cafe for peace to write?
"It must be nice to have the time
to sit and sip and and blow a dime."

But it IS nice. Sometimes that's true.
Sometimes there's joy in what I do.
I labor, weep, self-flagellate
despise the work, languish in hate
for every word that isn't right,
for every miserable sleepless night.
Then something clicks. The words, the pace,
the tumblers grumble into place.
Then SHE said this; then HE said that;
then their eyes met, and... and... then... DRAT!
No! Wait! I've got it! Then, she fell
and THIS— YES! There! That works quite well!
That stupid grin you spy me flash
as you drive by my cafe-crash
and spot me sporting in my seat?
It's not a facebook fun-time treat.
That joy, that rise, that breaking through
is what the suffering we do
is all about— this sweet, wild drug
of inspiration's endless tug,
becoming THIS NEW THING WE MADE—
becoming something we won't trade
for better hours, and understanding,
and tolerance, and hopes of landing
that next account, or that next raise,
and being given endless praise.

Am I rich now? You ask and smirk,
it's not as if I really WORK.
Don't writers make a million? More?
Can I have a copy? Three or four?
Signed? I'll share with all my friends
this labor of your endless ends.
You must be so proud of what you did—
hey, since you're home, my dog, my kid,
my ass-or-elbow for the night—
could you be so good, while you write?
Oh, I don't read much. Not my thing.
But since you're the new Steven King
and won't be busy, just with writing,
(and all the movie offers biting),
I'll drop off junior, you don't mind,
With all that writey-time you find.
Eight dollars? Wow, that seems a lot
for just one BOOK, I hope you got
a big advance like JK Rowling.
Oh, we just can not stop extolling
how clever you are! How worth that price!
The writer's life... it must be nice.
                          ©Chrissy Olinger

Waffling

Lately I have been waffling a lot. Like… if they had an Olympic Wafflers Team I’d captain that sucker. But it isn’t so much my own indecision as a fear of jumping guns, missing opportunities, or misreading a market that is changing so fast you’ll be left in the dust if you take a single day off. Seriously, skip one day of Publisher’s Weekly updates on twitter and you’re an antiquated, clueless boob.

Not long ago local book stores may have invited me to do signings or readings. As of this month, Books A Million and Barnes and Noble want nothing to do with me and my dirty Create Space cooties. Smaller indie stores are spinning in chaos, trying to make their way to the eye of the hurricane to survive at all. Many reviewers have become blatantly hostile toward independently published works. With My Boyfriend’s Back and the titles I have out under my sooper-seekrit pen name, I have dodged a lot of bombs. My Amazon reviews are consistently 4 or higher, averaging 4.3 for MBF and 4.5 or there-abouts for my other titles. All of those reviews were unsolicited. I did well elsewhere too-- some with bloggers, others on goodreads or similar sites. I made a conscious decision not to submit or query, but I may change that with Cry Uncle.

I’ve even re-delayed release while I figure it out. And do I go SELECT, or not? Do I thumb my nose at BN? I’ve never been able to figure out sales or actual rankings on their site. Amazon seems to be my ground zero, but there are readers who won’t download a Kindle app, and the soft cover won’t be cheap to produce. Do I price it fairly, or underprice it to drive traffic to an ebook that gets me more money per download? If so, can I afford to ignore Smashwords and BN? And if I go THAT way, how do I…

*sigh*

I don’t know. It seems like publishing is in a free fall. I’m loving how fast it’s changing as much as I’m wigging out with dizzy disorientation. It’s a wild ride, and I LIKE that it’s wild. I’ve always been a roller-coaster gal. I’ve never been one to spin sedately on a merry-go-round. But at some point we have to hit bottom, and the details do matter. Parachute or big, fluffy pillow? Bungee bounce or big, wet splash? The rules keep changing, and it’s not wise to be in mid-air while they sort themselves, no matter how exhilarating the fall may be.

Can I at least get some whipped cream on my waffles?

Anti-Social Media

A recent discussion on a forum I frequent resulted in a friendly debate about social media. The original poster cited an article claiming it was useless.  Others chimed in to question the source, the methods, and the proof in proverbial puddings.

Me? I’m with Eric Clapton.  It’s in the way that you use it.

Nearly all of my readers who didn’t simply find me on amazon itself have come to me via the web. Some were twitter encounters; some facebook; a few goodreads; many via blogs that list free/cheap reads and other blog reviewers.  Some of those tweets/postings were my own, many (probably most) were from others.

Yet a lot of writers claim to get no benefit. Why?

Not to be mean, but it’s not us, it’s you.

In most cases, if a person tweets nothing but pimpage, I unfollow/defriend and  never look back.  In a few cases, the person in question was someone I LIKED, so I didn’t want to be rude or insulting. I kept him or her in my twitter follows or facebook friends.  I see these authors post the EXACT SAME PIMP once or twice per day.  They don’t interact.  They don’t converse.  They are, to put it bluntly, ANTI-SOCIAL.  The “social” in social media is the difference.

I follow some writers I admire, but do not know personally.  They post links to their work, articles about themselves and their friends, photos of covers, and more.  I’ll click that link EVERY SINGLE TIME.  But I also laugh at their jokes, become interested in their charities, and think about the things they say. There is a reason I read Joe Konrath’s blog, but have only read a few of his books.  There is a reason I read Patrick Rothfuss with cultish-fangirl fervor, and will also await his somewhat rare blog posts with relish. There is also a reason I could give a shit less what my actual friend, Suzy Author is posting on twitter. She posted it yesterday. She’ll post it tomorrow.  It looks EXACTLY like this:

It will look EXACTLY like that every time Suzy shares… and it’s the only thing Suzy EVER shares. Twice a day, clockwork, Facebook and Twitter.  Suzy is not a real person, and that tweet was created in Paintshop… but I know a dozen Suzys and Sams, and only my personal affection for them keeps them in my feed at all.

Not only will nobody ever click the link… they are very likely to become utterly turned off.   The flip side of that practice—one of anti-social rudeness, if we want to put a fine point on it—is an engaging, pleasant relationship between author or publisher and reader.  I’ve purchased books in a single, casual CLICK simply because the person recommending it was somebody I respected. But I’ve picked up a title or two because everyone HATED the book and I was curious… or because there was a kerfuffle over the subject and I wanted in.  But the common denominator isn’t that I LIKE the people involved… it was that I found them INTERESTING.

Social. For those who are vague about the meaning:

so·cial adj \ˈsō-shəl\

: involving allies or confederates <the Social War between the Athenians and their allies>

2 a : marked by or passed in pleasant companionship with friends or associates <an active social life> b : sociablec : of, relating to, or designed for sociability <a social club>

3 : of or relating to human society, the interaction of the individual and the group, or the welfare of human beings as members of society <social institutions>

4 a : tending to form cooperative and interdependent relationships with others b : living and breeding in more or less organized communities<social insects>c of a plant : tending to grow in groups or masses so as to form a pure stand

5 a : of, relating to, or based on rank or status in a particular society <a member of our social set> b : of, relating to, or characteristic of the upper classesc : formal

6 : being such in social situations <a social drinker>

Source: Merriam-Webster Online

Publish or Perish in 2012

As I entered 2011 I made a promise to myself to stop messing around.  2011 was my most productive year as both a writer and a language forensics specialist, though it may not be immediately obvious.  2012 is, to put it bluntly, going to be my bitch.

At the Christmas get together for my much beloved writing group, the unanimous decision was to push EVERY member of the group to publish in 2012.  And the thing is… there’s no longer an excuse.  With the explosion of direct publishing, no writer can languish in the endless circular battle of submission and rejection.  While indie is not the way for all of us to go, and while it may not be the final word for each writer, it completely destroys the wall between writer and reader.  So even those of us still targeting New York (I’d hazard to guess this is still the majority) have made a pact to put SOMETHING out.  Short stories, novellas, collections, poetry… pick one.  If you are a member of SSMAWriters, you’ve got a book coming out this year.  The vote was unanimous.

I’m SO behind the idea that I’m challenging my non-SSMAW friends to join us.  Crawl under your bed, dig out that manuscript nobody wanted, workshop the SHIT out of it, and publish the damned thing.  Publish your angsty poetry.  Publish your senior thesis on Dickens and Anti-Semitism.  Publish the quirky collection of essays you still have from your stint as a college newspaper columnist.  PUBLISH SOMETHING.  If you are a writer, you have bins overflowing.  If it wasn’t good enough make it good enough.

Keep submitting.  Target your dream deal.  But publish.

The gauntlet is at your feet.

An End to the Truant Pen in 2012

I was away for a few weeks, and I’m only sorta-back. Know what I discovered? Writers have gone nasty.

My return was marked by endless snark, shots fired across many a bow, and more amazon-is-evil, indies-have-no-talent-or-clue, NY-is-the-devil, and cetera.

Is this the best we can do? Jesus Christ on a Cracker, I hope not.

In general I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. In the past I have, trying to be funny, submitted a yearly list of demands. (I know… I’m adorable.) This year I am going to get resolute for a change. And I’m challenging all my friends who are writers to join me:

SHUT UP AND WRITE IN 2012

Waddaya say, friends? 2011 saw the rise of the direct publishing movement; it saw the death of Borders; it saw Nook-Kindle wars; and it saw the end of some friendships for me. Why? Because it became a daily rant from one writer or another about why publishing free books was either incredibly smart or incredibly stupid, but nobody was supposed to say so. We got passive-aggressive “here is why the opposing opinion is utter crap, but please understand, I don’t mean to say it’s crap.” We got “indies have no right to use the term indie, no offense, but they aren’t real indies, WE are the real indies, and everyone else is an asshole, but we’re going to use the term ‘misguided’ to avoid saying anything we actually think.” We got “I am an editor at X house and therefore know more than you, so here is why NY is not afraid of you at all, little direct publishing sillies, which is why we harp on how unimportant you are every fucking day, hahahaha, why would you think I’m nervous, you insignificant creature?” We got “NY publishing will be gone by 2012 and here are fourteen reasons; I should know, I sold a bajillion copies of the following book you’ve never heard of on Smashwords.”

We got full of ourselves, wrapped up in bullshit, and really off the goddamned track, katz n kittenz.

So my plan for 2012, once I heal from the latest surgery and get my galleys back from the formatter I (reluctantly) hired… is to SHUT THE HELL UP AND WRITE. Take it away, Sir Phillip.

But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay;
Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows;
And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite—
“Fool!” said my Muse to me “look in thy heart, and write!” --Sir Philip Sidney

Prayers for Pterry

My all time favorite author is Terry Pratchett, creator of the Discworld series, Tiffany Aching books, and Johnny and the Bomb series. Pratchett is a genius. If you have not yet discovered him, please do yourself a favor and start at the beginning of Discworld, hibernate, and don't stop reading til you come out the other end. You will have a glorious winter.

Pratchett, who has a mind like a diamond-honed prism, recently announced he was diagnosed with a rare form of early onset Alzheimer's disease. He is planning, for now, to continue with his writing schedule.

Send him your prayers.