Showing posts with label writer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writer. Show all posts
Monday, March 30, 2009
Great Editing
Stacy Whitman, an editor late of Wizards of the Coast and Mirrorstone, will do critiques of the first 30 pages of your novel and your query letter. In my opinion, her work is detailed and insightful. She also teaches writing and it shows in her level of interest in plot and character mechanics. She specializes in fantasy and science fiction. Read all about her and her editing service at http://slwhitman.livejournal.com/108754.html. I think you will agree with me that we are lucky to have an editor with this much talent available to us writers.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Going historical, thats historical, not hysterical...yet
So, I've been blabbing, as usual, and getting allot of feedback. Based on this unscientifically selected sample of friends, family, acquaintances and service professionals who cannot politely escape my queries, my next project will be .... a historical romance.
But here is the thing. I love history. Every two years or so I zoom in on one historical period and read everything I can about it. So now I have way, way too many options.
I know, Tudor England has been hot for awhile, but it is so done. Henry and all his wives, Liz and all her lovers, if she really had any at all. It is a really good time to write about: all those plots and factions fighting over money, sex, power and religion. Sweet. But again, so done.
What time period do you think will be the next hottie? Crusades? the repentant Hospitalier, The Children's Crusade... tragic slave girl, too dark, maybe... The Rump... now there is a name with possibilities, throw in a Roundhead decapitation or two, a highwayman... defaming the defamed King John, or King Richard III, or King Stephen... oi, how is a girl to decide?
But here is the thing. I love history. Every two years or so I zoom in on one historical period and read everything I can about it. So now I have way, way too many options.
I know, Tudor England has been hot for awhile, but it is so done. Henry and all his wives, Liz and all her lovers, if she really had any at all. It is a really good time to write about: all those plots and factions fighting over money, sex, power and religion. Sweet. But again, so done.
What time period do you think will be the next hottie? Crusades? the repentant Hospitalier, The Children's Crusade... tragic slave girl, too dark, maybe... The Rump... now there is a name with possibilities, throw in a Roundhead decapitation or two, a highwayman... defaming the defamed King John, or King Richard III, or King Stephen... oi, how is a girl to decide?
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Agent Write
I’m sure I’m not the first to come up with the term “Agent Write” for THE PERFECT AGENT, but I like it. It beats TPA, anyway, and it has the right mysterious overtones, like Agent 007, or even the deadly connotations of Agent Orange. I have been hunting for Agent Write for a while now. And just recently, I found out how terrified I am of her.
I’ve been told that you shouldn’t get in to a business relationship with anyone you would not marry. I take this to mean if you don’t trust the person enough to give them the keys to your house and let them change the baby’s diapers: don’t sign the papers.
I have personal experience to back this claim. In the ‘90s when I ran a computer programming business, I ended up with more work than I could handle alone. I was also pregnant, and more than a little worried about handling work and a new baby without a backup. I went into a partnership with someone I would never have married. It was convenient; it was expedient; it was as wrong as a one night stand in Pittsburg.
So here I am, years later, manuscript burning a hole in my laptop, casting a jaundiced eye over the directories, working the blogs, surfing the net, and then it happened: I found my Agent Write.
She is a working woman and mother, like me, with the same kind of screwy career and superfluous degrees necessitated by meeting family commitments. I’ve read half of the books on her list of published titles and the other half could have just fallen off my dresser. We could be sisters, but the best is yet to come, she says she actually prefers to represent YA fantasy!
I nearly sprain an index finger in my rush to open a fresh email window. Finally the damn thing opens. I paste in her email address in the “to:” field and the cursor blinks at me expectantly in the top left-hand corner. My fingers rest, properly curled, wrists suspended ergonomically, and… nothing happens. This is like that nightmare I get where I try to deliver a speech and no sound comes out comes out of my mouth. A half hour of staring at the screen and my fingers twitch. The keys cling to my fingers, sweat making them tacky. A quote prints itself as if it’s expecting me to say something pithy, winning and utterly irresistible.
It’s too much. With shaking fingers, I close the email window. Microsoft Exchange prompts me to save my single quote email as a draft. I agree thankfully, and worship Bill Gates for a fleeting moment for an otherwise useless feature I have never dreamed of needing before.
I’ve been told that you shouldn’t get in to a business relationship with anyone you would not marry. I take this to mean if you don’t trust the person enough to give them the keys to your house and let them change the baby’s diapers: don’t sign the papers.
I have personal experience to back this claim. In the ‘90s when I ran a computer programming business, I ended up with more work than I could handle alone. I was also pregnant, and more than a little worried about handling work and a new baby without a backup. I went into a partnership with someone I would never have married. It was convenient; it was expedient; it was as wrong as a one night stand in Pittsburg.
So here I am, years later, manuscript burning a hole in my laptop, casting a jaundiced eye over the directories, working the blogs, surfing the net, and then it happened: I found my Agent Write.
She is a working woman and mother, like me, with the same kind of screwy career and superfluous degrees necessitated by meeting family commitments. I’ve read half of the books on her list of published titles and the other half could have just fallen off my dresser. We could be sisters, but the best is yet to come, she says she actually prefers to represent YA fantasy!
I nearly sprain an index finger in my rush to open a fresh email window. Finally the damn thing opens. I paste in her email address in the “to:” field and the cursor blinks at me expectantly in the top left-hand corner. My fingers rest, properly curled, wrists suspended ergonomically, and… nothing happens. This is like that nightmare I get where I try to deliver a speech and no sound comes out comes out of my mouth. A half hour of staring at the screen and my fingers twitch. The keys cling to my fingers, sweat making them tacky. A quote prints itself as if it’s expecting me to say something pithy, winning and utterly irresistible.
It’s too much. With shaking fingers, I close the email window. Microsoft Exchange prompts me to save my single quote email as a draft. I agree thankfully, and worship Bill Gates for a fleeting moment for an otherwise useless feature I have never dreamed of needing before.
Friday, August 29, 2008
article done, back to the grind
Finished the article on Food Allergies in good time, and the publisher is happy. Now its back to slogging through this rewrite. Okay, its really just another edit, but now I've graduated from the course I was taking to help me complete it, and I'm ON MY OWN. How scary is that.
I got to thinking that even though my novel reads okay, it would be a lot clearer narratively if I changed the order of the chapters. Normally, what happens next is dictated pretty strictly, by well, time. Can't escape that. But, in this case, where so much is happening simultaneously, I have a conundrum. Originally, I went with the hero's chapters trumping and villain's chapters playing second, however,... now I'm thinking that the villain, who knows more at that point than the hero, ought to have his chapter come first, then, as the novel progresses, the hero's chapters could take the lead, subtly, symbolically taking control from his Nemesis until he finally triumphs at the end. Not exactly original, but oh, so satisfying. Is a YA fantasy, remember, so I'm not straining to be literary here.
What cha think?
I got to thinking that even though my novel reads okay, it would be a lot clearer narratively if I changed the order of the chapters. Normally, what happens next is dictated pretty strictly, by well, time. Can't escape that. But, in this case, where so much is happening simultaneously, I have a conundrum. Originally, I went with the hero's chapters trumping and villain's chapters playing second, however,... now I'm thinking that the villain, who knows more at that point than the hero, ought to have his chapter come first, then, as the novel progresses, the hero's chapters could take the lead, subtly, symbolically taking control from his Nemesis until he finally triumphs at the end. Not exactly original, but oh, so satisfying. Is a YA fantasy, remember, so I'm not straining to be literary here.
What cha think?
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