I've got a lot of projects on various burners.
The first one is that I am trying to get into the Viable Paradise writers' workshop, which will be held this fall. The story which will serve as my application piece is the "Deal with the Devil" story that I've wanted to write since I saw Burgess Meredith in "Printer's Devil" on Twilight Zone (btw, for Zone fans, CBS has a site with complete episodes, unfortunately incomplete) when I was eight years old. Since the story was written as a present for someone, I am not going to reveal much about it until they get to see it on Sunday, but kitten says that it very well could be the best thing I've ever put on paper. We'll see if John Scalzi and Elizabeth Bear agree with me. After Sunday, I'll tell you the concept for the story.
In the endless search for cash flow, I've been investigating venue after venue, looking for anyone who pays. I've got The Closing-Time Girl in at The Writers of the Future Contest as well as Deer Hunting with the Prey in the slush pile at Collective Fallout. I should know about those sometime in the next couple of months. I did, however, find some folks who pay the outrageous sum of $400 for a 3000-word or less feature story.
Penthouse Variations (scroll down to the bottom of the page for guidelines)
No shit. A couple people that I respect that have written for Penthouse and when I read the sex scenes in my stories aloud at appearances, the young ladies wiggle on their seats, so I'm going to go for it. I've got one story currently sent to my line-editors for markup. A collaborator and I are going to begin working on a co-written one in the next week or so. I might object to being a whore, but I am less worried about being a high-priced call girl.
On the other end of the scale, my granddaughter Lily is starting the third week of a "being good" period at school. Each time that she does this, she gets another Violet story. This one is going to be called Violet and the Prince's Ball. No snide comments about cross-posting it to Penthouse with a few additional scenes, either, you bastards with the dirty minds.
After all of those, I've still got a flashback chapter from the novel involving Red Molly, Vincent, and Coyote to be written--that'll be coming up soon. Even though the novel as a whole is not moving at all (I need to figure out a way to make it interesting to people who haven't read any of my other Iona material. Aieeeee.) some of the parts of it are still firmly set in my mind.
Finally, I've got a Valentine's Day deadline for an Iona story for Marcey. I wanted to write a beautiful, but tragic Diamond story, but that is dead in the water. I had a thought this morning about garden gnomes, moles, and my grandmother. I wonder if this is a message from God?
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
What does the blog's title mean?
I was thinking the other day about what it feels like inside my head when a story is being developed. While there have been all kinds of metaphors used in the past by poets, I found mine in the realm of science--in particular, chemistry.
When you add something like sugar to water, it disappears, its crystal structure separated while its molecules disappear between those of the water. Even though you add more and more sugar to the solution, the water stays clear--even if you pour in more than is theoretically allowable to be dissolved. This is called supersaturating the solution.
If you seal the glass carefully with plastic wrap, the sugar water will stay like that forever--the sweetness locked out of our reach, its promise denied.
If you, however, take a single grain of sugar and drop it into the glass, something that seems magical happens. From that single grain, tendrils grow rapidly, site upon site serving as a place for creation, until, at last, the entire glass is full of one solid piece of rock candy.
That's what it's like inside my head when a story is coming to me. The ideas will swirl--"How about a Deal with the Devil story?" "Can I write something about the lengths a wife will go to protect her husband and family?" "Doesn't this summer thunderstorm remind me of a girl I loved and lost so long ago?"
The subject can lie buried for days, weeks, even months in some cases. Then, out of nowhere, someone will say or sing something that would mean nothing in another context. "That girl's ass is so small, I have no idea how anything could get into it." "Who could find a virtuous woman, for her price is greater than rubies?" "She was a black-haired beauty with big dark eyes and points of her own sitting way up firm and high."
And the crystal hits the solution...
When this happens, the results can blossom so fast that people around me become frightened at my agitation. I got the entire plot (and most of the good lines) of Lost Calico in less than ten minutes just before ordering at a Ruby Tuesday's restaurant. I spoke gibberish to my family for the rest of the meal and the ride home. My job, after the initial rush, is getting the scenes that precipitate out of my brain and onto a page, whether it is paper or virtual.
When I do a first draft and the magic is happening, I write between 1500 and 2000 words per hour. I can only keep this up for two hours maximum, usually, before my fingers ache and my eyes fuzz. (There have been exceptions--I had a seven hour marathon session when I did the first draft of Ed Morgan's Ride, but that was because I was in the throes of extreme passion.)
And, of course, once the first draft is done, the real work begins--the writing, rewriting, revising, marking up, editors, and trying to sell the goddamn thing. (I'll talk about all these things later on in future articles as well as telling you about what I'm doing at any given moment.)
In its ideal form, writing is an attempt at telepathy where I take a scene within my mind and attempt to, using electrons and ink, transfer it into yours. When it succeeds, it is a miracle beyond compare and, for just a moment, we're in sync and more than our two separate bits of humanity. The ability to write, for me, is one of the greatest gifts that I've ever received.
Thank you.
When you add something like sugar to water, it disappears, its crystal structure separated while its molecules disappear between those of the water. Even though you add more and more sugar to the solution, the water stays clear--even if you pour in more than is theoretically allowable to be dissolved. This is called supersaturating the solution.
If you seal the glass carefully with plastic wrap, the sugar water will stay like that forever--the sweetness locked out of our reach, its promise denied.
If you, however, take a single grain of sugar and drop it into the glass, something that seems magical happens. From that single grain, tendrils grow rapidly, site upon site serving as a place for creation, until, at last, the entire glass is full of one solid piece of rock candy.
That's what it's like inside my head when a story is coming to me. The ideas will swirl--"How about a Deal with the Devil story?" "Can I write something about the lengths a wife will go to protect her husband and family?" "Doesn't this summer thunderstorm remind me of a girl I loved and lost so long ago?"
The subject can lie buried for days, weeks, even months in some cases. Then, out of nowhere, someone will say or sing something that would mean nothing in another context. "That girl's ass is so small, I have no idea how anything could get into it." "Who could find a virtuous woman, for her price is greater than rubies?" "She was a black-haired beauty with big dark eyes and points of her own sitting way up firm and high."
And the crystal hits the solution...
When this happens, the results can blossom so fast that people around me become frightened at my agitation. I got the entire plot (and most of the good lines) of Lost Calico in less than ten minutes just before ordering at a Ruby Tuesday's restaurant. I spoke gibberish to my family for the rest of the meal and the ride home. My job, after the initial rush, is getting the scenes that precipitate out of my brain and onto a page, whether it is paper or virtual.
When I do a first draft and the magic is happening, I write between 1500 and 2000 words per hour. I can only keep this up for two hours maximum, usually, before my fingers ache and my eyes fuzz. (There have been exceptions--I had a seven hour marathon session when I did the first draft of Ed Morgan's Ride, but that was because I was in the throes of extreme passion.)
And, of course, once the first draft is done, the real work begins--the writing, rewriting, revising, marking up, editors, and trying to sell the goddamn thing. (I'll talk about all these things later on in future articles as well as telling you about what I'm doing at any given moment.)
In its ideal form, writing is an attempt at telepathy where I take a scene within my mind and attempt to, using electrons and ink, transfer it into yours. When it succeeds, it is a miracle beyond compare and, for just a moment, we're in sync and more than our two separate bits of humanity. The ability to write, for me, is one of the greatest gifts that I've ever received.
Thank you.
Monday, January 19, 2009
New Year's Message
Looking back, 2008 was a great year. Since my first book, Riding the Hell-Bound Train, premiered at Worldcon in Denver, I’ve been on a roller-coaster ride of appearances. It’s been great fun to travel, meet all of you, do readings and signings, and participate in lots of panels at SF Conventions.
The coming year looks even better. We have spent most of this week here at the Borgamy talking about new paradigms in publishing and presentation on the Internet and will be implementing some exciting projects and changes for the website starting in the next couple weeks.
First of all, we’re going to put up a story every month for you to read. Some will be ones that were already published in the book; others will be new, exclusive, and set in the Iona universe. I understand that the economy is troubled right now—everyone’s feeling the pinch, and lots of people in the fannish community are out of work. Therefore, we’re not going to charge you one cent to read these stories. Instead, we’re going to have a tip jar attached—after you finish the story, if you like it and want to keep us in business, send us what you can afford using PayPal. Over the next six months, you’ll get the background information for what we’re planning for late 2009:
An Iona Novel
So far, I’ve got three chapters done on a novel featuring Margee and Jerry, Molly, Doctor Mike Stevens, a host of fairies, and some great new characters. As the year progresses, we’ll be putting up short character biographies and Allie’s very excited about doing some sketches of the Dramatis Personae. I’m not sure how we’re going to market the novel—whether to try to sell it to a larger publisher or talk to John and go the small press route using Peregrination Press again. If, and this is a big if, the contributions on the short stories are large enough, we may just serialize it on the website for donations and then self-publish hardcopies using lulu.
Next item—we are revamping the entire website purchasing procedure for buying Hell-Bound Train in order to make it as simple and painless as possible. We’ve been told that it’s just too damn hard, so we’re going to fix that. In addition, henceforth, we will eat the sales tax for Illinois residents and pay the shipping charges for everyone, no matter where you live. Hell, I’ll even sign every copy we sell, personally—all for a total price of $24.50. If you still don’t want to buy a copy over the ‘Net, show up at one of my appearances this year—I guarantee you that I’ll have some with me and we can work out a deal.
Finally, and this is still in the very early planning stages, we intend to introduce greater interactivity to our website. Within the next few months, we’ll be putting up a forum and message boards where readers can ask questions, make suggestions, bitch, cheer, swoon, or just hang out. I plan to spend a lot of time on the boards—this promises to be great fun.
So, that’s the news. We’re excited about all the changes. Stay tuned, it’s going to be a great year.
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