Elaine Cunningham

The week ahead

2008-06-30T14:03:44Z

After spending a week cleaning out my mother's house in Florida, I just want to a) sleep, b) take handfuls of Motrin every four-to-six hours for the back pain, and c) throw out everything in my own house that can be remotedly considered clutter. Holy crap, is my mother a pack rat! And my father wasn't much better. Come to think of it, the apple didn't fall far from the tree where my older sister is concerned. Judie was my partner in this endeavor, and she simply HAD to claim a number of items Mom didn't want and cart them up to Massachusetts. A fairly huge wall mirror. Two small tables.  A box of assorted tools. A lamp. A plate specially designed to hold deviled eggs. A quiche dish. Various other kitchen stuff. A reciprocating saw. A dual-action bush-wacker, for chrissakes. And there was no possible way she could resist a ceramic navtivity set--one of several Mom painted over the years, and the biggest of the lot. The thing is frickin' huge--the kneeling camel is probably a foot tall--and it pretty much filled a very large plastic storage box. And we're talking about a woman who already has so much Christmas stuff that she has to take off a week to schlep it down from the attic and set it all up. Oy. When it comes time for HER kids to clean out her house, they'd be wise to douse it with gasoline and burn it down for the insurance money.

Pack rat qualities aside, Judie is very good company--funny, easygoing, sociable--and we worked together extremely well.  By the end of the week, something that needed doing was done.

Moving on.

I have three project deadlines this week:  The story proposals for the Pathfinder Journal fiction for Paizo Press, a revised outline for a novel that's still under strict NDA, and finalizing Lilith Unbound, which requires compiling the authors' comments on the galley pages, adding my own corrections, and turning those in to the publisher.   Busy week ahead.

Origin awards

2008-06-30T11:02:39Z

The con took place this weekend, and the award results are up at Flames Rising (and elsewhere.) I was pleased and unsurprised to note that Jim Lowder edited BOTH of the books that won this year. Hobby Games: 100 Best, an anthology of essays, took the nonfiction catagory, and Astounding Hero Tales, an anthology of pulp fiction (featuring a previously unpublished short story by Lester Dent), was the fiction winner.

Mozel tov, Jim!

WORLDS OF THEIR OWN: James Lowder interview on Flames Rising

2008-06-29T15:00:11Z

There's a very nice interview of editor Jim Lowder up at Flames Rising, a site that reviews horror and dark fantasy fiction and games. There are several dark tales in this book, so apparently it qualifies. :)

Here's the link.

The book is on track for a GenCon release.

BTW (also FWIW), I will not be at this year's GenCon, but I will probably be attending in 2009.

Memories and passages

2008-06-19T13:12:04Z

I will be out of town and mostly offline for the next week or so. My older sister and I will be flying down to Florida to clean and pack up my mother's house in preparation for putting it on the market, then driving north with the stuff she wants to keep.

The prospect is not a happy one. I am not looking forward to discarding possessions aquired over a 79-year lifetime. Many of the things have little value to anyone but Mom, but they were a part of her life. They are her memories. With Alzheimers slowly stealing away the memories stored in her synapses, discarding physical reminders becomes all the more difficult. I have laid claim to her 36 photo albums, which I will scan and burn to CDs. The goal is to have copies by Christmas 2008 to give to family members, but I think I will step up the process and get the disks to Mom this summer, loaded onto a digital photo frame so that she can play a slideshow of her memories whenever she likes. There's a balance there that feels important to me.

Some of life's passages are happy ones: going away to college, getting your first home, becoming parents. Reaching the point in life where you need to start taking over and caring for your parents is, I'm finding, another passage. A quiet but profound paradigm shift occurs, one that I'm not yet able to fit within the shape of any words I can gather together.

Lilith Unbound, Table of Contents

2008-06-18T14:06:48Z

I've learned quite a bit during the process of editing this anthology, and Monday afternoon I learned something important: You can't break a PDF copy of a manuscript up into separate chapters. An emergency SOS email to Jim Lowder yielded a solution: Adobe Acrobat. (I only had Adobe Reader, which, as its name suggests, allows you to READ. That's it.) I learned, to my tight-tisted glee, that my husband had an old version of Acrobat among his 27 bazillion software disks, a program that had never been used. It works beautifully. I was able to extract pages for individual chapters and email them to their creators. Life is good.

I am really pleased with how this anthology came together. There are some terrific tales here, told in a wide range of styles and moods.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
1181 Lilith, Marsheila Rockwell
Trophy Wife, Elaine Cunningham
A Lovers’Quarrel, Jonathan Moeller
The Shiksa, Mike Resnick and Lawrence Schimel
Looking for Lilith, Nisi Shawl
Alone, J. Robert King
The L.I.L.I.T.H. System, Lara Gose
The Cashier’s Tale, Robin Bridges
Delta: A Story in Verse, Lily Hoang
Death of the Madonna, Christina McCoy
Screech Owl Serenade, Lorne Dixon
What Dreams May Go, Ed Greenwood
What I Did This Summer, Marcus Ewert
So Weeps the Thunderbird, T. L. Morganfield
Exiles, Nancy Schmidt
The Girl in the Mirror, Stephen D. Sullivan
When Hell Comes Calling, Jackie Kessler
When the Wind Blows, Eirene Donahue
Mother of Vampires, Jennifer Greylyn
The Right Thing, Hannah Goodman
Confirmation, Tracy Woelfel
A Day at the Fair, Clint Collins
Man-Underground, Kate Riedel
Reconciliation, Lynn Hawker
Nocturne, Lester Smith

Long, long day. Gonna get longer.

2008-06-17T01:44:07Z

Okay, I just finished the first draft of a chapter for Wallum Lake. I started it around 7:00 this morning, and apart from cooking lunch for the guys, checking email, and posting a couple of blogs comments, I've been at it pretty steady. Fifteen pages, a little over 4000 words. Not all of it was written today--I started with about eight pages of rough draft, most of which Susan, my co-writer, had written--but it was still a lot of work. Here's hoping the next chapter goes a little faster.

The thing is, now I'm way off my self-imposed writing schedule for the week. I'd intended to read the typeset ms for Lilith Unbound today and send the pertinent galley pages to all the authors by Tuesday morning.

Ah, well. For such times was coffee invented. And there's a lovely thunderstorm crashing and growling and grumbling around the house--the perfect atmospheric (heh) touch for editing an anthology about a storm demon.

So, life is good.

What music do you listen to while writing?

2008-06-15T21:53:06Z

I get asked this from time to time, and my answer has invariably been, "None. I can no more listen to music while writing than I can simultaneously talk to one person and listen to another." True story. Can't do it.

A reason for this was suggested by the profession of an intro to linguistics course I took some years back. There seem to be locations in the brain that correspond to various functions, but these are not static; in many cases, these neural paths can reroute. The classic example is the stroke victim who regains the ability to speak. The teacher mentioned that musicians often have difficulty reading and listening to music at the same time, because the "active listening" skills learned through years of study and practice are so closely akin to conversation that music get routed through similar neural paths. I don't know whether this fits the most recent theories of how the brain works--and frankly, there was ample evidence to suggest that the teacher was full of shinola--but at the time this certainly seemed to explain how I experienced the combination of music and writing.

But. It has been over twenty years since I've been intensely involved in music. On the theory that this has freed up some gray-matter real estate, I'm giving this music-and-writing thing a serious try. Today I've started with something that's pretty innocuous: a CD of folk harp music written with harp therapy in mind. For those not familiar with the concept, harp therapy is a type of non-traditional pain management used in some hospices, hospitals, and nursing homes. For people who wish to become harp therapists, there are books and CDs of simple music designed to be soothing on a deep level, a considerable amount of theory about what works and why, and even a few certification programs. This is something I've looked into myself as a future volunteer activity. It's a long-term goal that requires developing skills, building a suitable repertoire and--and this is why the plan has been so firmly on the back burner--purchasing a second folk harp, one that isn't too big to schlep around. But I digress.

So far, the experiment seems to be working. I'm finding myself able to split my thoughts sufficiently between the music and the writing.

This is the newest campaign in my ongoing efforts to improve concentration, focus, and productivity. It's also a response to the increasing (and also seasonal) noise in my neighborhood--incessantly yapping small dogs, small children who haven't been taught that shrill, frequent, and prolonged full-throated screaming and shrieking is neither a necessary nor a socially acceptable form of play. So I invested in a good pair of noise-reduction earphones. With music or nature sounds playing, there are no sudden, fingernails-on-the-blackboard noises jolting me out of the story. Big improvement. Also, my office is on the main floor of the house. I do not have a door. I'm hoping a cocoon of sound will help create an illusion of privacy and separation. And then there's the whole ADHD thing. In theory, if I can syphon off some brain activity to half-listen to music, I should be able to focus better and write longer.

It's worth a shot, certainly.

If anyone has had similar experiences and would like to offer suggestions, including music that helps foster a beta wave state, I'd love to hear about it.

Worlds of Their Own

2008-06-14T13:02:05Z

Paizo Publishing has posted the final-version cover and the Table of Contents:

Introduction: "The Last Word Matters" by James Lowder
"Mather’s Blood" by R.A. Salvatore
"Keeping Score" by Michael A. Stackpole
"The Oaths of Gods" by Nancy Virginia Varian
"The Doom of Swords" by Greg Stolze
"Catch of the Day" by Jeff Grubb
"Ghosts of Love" by Steven Savile
"The Wisdom of Nightingales" by Richard E. Dansky
"The Guardian of the Dawn" by William King
"How Fear Came to Ornath" by Ed Greenwood
"The Admiral’s Reckoning" by J. Robert King
"Memories and Ghosts" by Monte Cook
"Three Impossible Things" by Lisa Smedman
"Near the End of the World" by Greg Stafford
"Confession" by Paul S. Kemp
"Lorelei" by Elaine Cunningham
"The Unquiet Dreams of Cingris the Stout" by James Lowder
"On the Off-Ramp of the Intergalactic Superhighway" by Will McDermott
"Twistbuck’s Game" by Gary Gygax

Editor: James Lowder

Here's a link for more info:

http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizo/products/v5748btpy80ht

This anthology is scheduled for an August release. In fact, editor Jim Lowder is putting together a signing with some of the authors for GenCon Indy, so if you plan to attend please consider adding that event to your convention schedule.

Creepy kitteh kitsch

2008-06-13T20:19:04Z

I'm normally a sucker for any depiction of a Siamese, but for some reason I find this mug profoundly disturbing. There is no way I could work with this thing sitting on the desk. In the back of my mind, I'd be wondering when the rest of the cat would peel free of the mug and become three dimensional. What it might do next, I don't care to contemplate.

Or how about these earrings? Are they jewelry, or are they some sort of bizarre trophy? C'mon, a disembodied cat's head? You might as well mount these on the traditional wooden, shield-shaped plaques that line the walls of hunting lodges. The only explanation for these earrrings that makes any sense to me whatsoever is that someone was obliged to hunt down the ceramic cats that escaped from all those mugs.

And returning to mugs, here's Evil Siamese Graffiti Mug.

And here's Creep Kitty Lamp. Seriously, imagine coming into a dark room and seeing THIS on a shelf, glowing with weird, eldritch light....

T

Then there's the kitty-in-heat figurine, about which the less said, the better.

Yep, I definitely should have taken a break before now. Odd things are starting to amuse me. Never a good sign.

LILITH UNBOUND update: galley pages coming soon!

2008-06-13T12:20:46Z

Late last night I received an email from Popcorn Press editor Lester Smith with the PDF of the typeset, proofed manuscript attached. It's printing out now. I'm sending a general info email to all contributors later today, and over the weekend I'll be reading the ms and sending individual emails to each author with the pertinent pages attached for final review.

If you are a reviewer and would like to receive a copy, either in hard copy or as an ebook, drop me an email. Please include the name of the publication or website (along with URL) for which you write.

A welcome respite from Dark-n-Gritty

2008-06-12T13:59:45Z

As a child, I read a lot of classic adventure fiction: Alexander Dumas, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson.  One of my favorites was The Scarlet Pimpernel,  in which a English nobleman, despised for (and disguised by) his foppish persona smuggled members of the doomed French nobility to safety during the French revolution. This book, along with the plays of Oscar Wilde, was the inspiration for one of my first and favorite Forgotton Realms characters:  Danilo Thann.   So I was very interested to hear of an anthology entitled Lace and Blades 2 (thanks for the heads-up, Marcy!) looking for fantasy tales incorporating historical settings, a bit of romance, and an emphasis on lyrical writing and witty dialog. I ordered the first Lace and Blades from Amazon.com. It arrived yesterday, and I was up late into the night reading it.  As editor Vera Nazarian observed, "so many of us have a hunger for beauty, elegance, and classic style." So very true. I guess I didn't realize how badly I needed something of this nature. It has been a long time since a book touched the part of my brain that stores those childhood memories of wonder and discovery.

Don't get me wrong: I am not against dark-n-gritty, per se.   I just don't see it as a worthy end in and of itself.  I read (and occasionally write) dark fantasy, but last night, I realized how refreshing and restoring it can be to read fantasy that ventures out of the grim, blood-soaked, vomit-scented world of dark-n-gritty.

For those who might be interested in doing likewise, here are a few recommendations:

Stardust by Neil Gaiman (I have yet to read the book, but the movie was delightful)

The Princess Bride by William Goldman (the movie is wonderful, the book even better)

Sunshine by Robin McKinley.  This novel has vampires in it, but is not at all what comes to mind when you think of a "vampire novel." Great characterizations, interesting world, lovely writing.

Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton. This is an unusual novel--a family drama in a pseudo-Victorian setting in which all the characters are dragons.

The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon. This book took the 2007 Nebula for best fantasy novel. It's fantasy in the sense of being alternate history--no magic, time-travel, or psychic stuff. Chabon writes beautiful prose. I liked the story, but I read this book mostly for the pure joy of language and image.

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. Usually I avoid time travel stories, but this one is a delight. It's a multi-layered story that is, among other things, a clever fugal treatment of a book by Victorian humorist Jerome K. Jerome.

One of the things I like about the fantasy genre is the incredible variety.  Whatever type you prefer to read (and write), I think venturing into other grounds can renew your appreciation for the entire genre.

Smart Bitches retitle urban fantasy novels

2008-06-10T18:04:12Z

For sheer entertainment value, Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books is probably my favorite review site. A recent post entitled "Confused Bitch in the Evening Light" bemoaned the generic nature of Kresley Cole's book titles, which have so little to so with the stories that it's difficult to remember what title goes with which story. To correct this problem, the Bitches suggested such titles as Vampire With Blond Chick and Plether Girl With Red Background. But this one was my favorite:

Snape Gazes at Redhead's Jugular

Excellent.

PS: Yikes! It would appear that I posted this with the wrong URL! My apologies to folks who clicked through to a naughty website. The URL is fixed now, I promise!

A few thoughts about small press.

2008-06-10T13:36:57Z

As those who've been reading my blogs for any length of time know, I'm a big fan of small press.

Sure, working with small press companies holds more risk than writing for a big New York house.  The rate of failure for ANY start-up business is fairly high. There's less margin for error and less of a cushion to protect the company from the unexpected snafu, publishing or life-related.   I've written stories for magazines that folded, webzines that disappeared, and print anthologies that were canceled. I wrote book three in a new shared-world line (a very nifty world developed by Thieves' World creator Lynne Abbey and Forgotten Realms creator Ed Greenwood) that died after book one was published. I've had one or two stories published for which I've never been paid, and a small-press book for which I will probably never receive foreign royalties owned .

But let me hasten to point out that ALL publishing is fraught with risk.  There are many reasons to write small press projects. Aspiring writers can break into print, writers who are just starting out can build publication credits, established writers can take risks and try new things. Writers of just about any stripe may welcome opportunities to write stories for themed anthologies if the theme happens to capture their interest.  Sometimes writers want to be part of an anthology for personal reasons; for example, if you grew up reading Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress anthologies, you might be tempted to submit a story when the open call for #25 rolls around.  And as J.A. Konrath, mystery author and self-promotion advocate, often points out, the best advertisement for your writing is . . . your writing. For midlist authors working to build an audience, writing short stories is a good part of the overall strategy. Speaking as a reader, I have several authors whose work I follow (and whose books I purchase, some of them in hardcover on the day of release) whom I first encountered through a short story they published in an anthology. Consider it from this angle: a short story is a free seven-page ad that you're paid to write. Not a bad deal, when you consider that a sidebar ad on the Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books blog runs about $225. A small ad. We're talking 200x300 freaking pixels.*   And trust me, you don't want to know what most print ads cost.

In addition to all the business and promotional reasons, small press projects are worth doing because small press publishers are often lots of fun with work with. They tend to be passionate fans of the type of fiction they publish. They are enthusiastic, energetic, full of new ideas, and willing to take risks. Many are seasoned industry pros doing really, really good work; for example, Jim Lowder's first zombie anthology for Eden Press, All Flesh Must Be Eaten, received eleven honorable mentions in Ellen Datlow's annual YEAR'S BEST FANTASY AND HORROR.

IMO, writers have good reason to consider doing small press projects. and readers should add the occasional small press anthology or novel to their pile of Books to Read.

If you've got a favorite small press book and/or small press publisher, I'd love to hear about them.   Include links, if you would, so like-minded folk can easily pop over and check them out.

*For the record, I am NOT implying that an ad on Smart Bitches is not worth the cost. That site gets a lot of traffic. If I were writing romance novels, I'd not only advertise there, I'd pay the cost out of my own pocket and consider it a good deal. Plus, those are some seriously funny bitches, which is reason enough to support their site.

Sometimes, you just HAVE to admire the enemy....

2008-06-09T14:02:19Z

Lilith Update

2008-06-09T13:46:14Z

The editor at Popcorn Press is nearly finished with the typesetting and proofreading. If all goes well, I should have a PDF copy of the manuscript by this weekend. The minute I receive the ms, I'll send off an (already written) email to all contributors, and over the weekend I'll read the ms and send individual emails to each author with his or her pages attached. Whoo hoo! The end is finally in sight.

Would I do this again? Absolutely. I would do a lot of things differently--this has definitely been a learning process--but I would love to tackle another anthology. Also, over the past few years I've been increasingly drawn to small-press projects--the quirky themes, the willingness to take risks or simply to focus on a particular niche. Small press projects are a great way for aspiring writers to break in, for established writers to try something new. The results can be surprising. It's my opinion that Eirene Donahue's story--her first published work--could stand quite comfortably beside any story in nearly any fantasy anthology.

Once again, thanks to all the contributors for your terrific stories and your patience with the micro-press process. I think you'll be pleased by the result.

A history of D&D

2008-06-06T14:27:09Z

A great post by Jeff Grubb, in which this veteran gaming pro discusses the precursors and many editions of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. Highly recommended.

Dreamscapes

2008-06-06T02:24:01Z

I like Stephanie Pui-Mun Law's work very much, so I was pleased to find this instructional book. She works mostly in watercolors, and if this medium interests you I highly recommend the book. The finished art is lovely, but what really sold me were the step-by-step pictures and the nitty-gritty instruction. How to draw fairy hands. Wings and wing placement. I would have bought the book just for page 94, which gives great advice on how to paint scales.

This book will keep me happily busy for quite some time. I intend to copy several of the paintings, following each step she outlines. This process is very familar to me; when I was working toward a music degree, we learned compostion by analysing and imitating the work of great composers. Eventually you develop enough understanding of the craft to develop your own style. Theoretically.

I also picked up The Art of Drawing People, by Walter Foster, and Drawing & Painting Fantasy Figures (From the Imagination to the Page) by Finlay Cowan. Both are excellent books--the techniques are clearly described, the processes broken down into clear, reproducable steps. And that's important, especially for someone embarking on a self-taught path.

In case you were wondering . . .

2008-06-03T18:34:55Z

I don't have a dog, but I can understand why people might want to. They are friendly and fuzzy and devoted, and they are always so very HAPPY!!! to see you when you come home. If you live in a small town with a nice little fenced back yard, some shade, and maybe a doghouse, you probably go off to work every day feeling pretty damn good about Fido back in the neighborhood, enjoying the good life. But perhaps some of you, every now and then, might wonder what your dogs do all day, and since I work in the neighborhood, I'd be happy to tell you:

They bark.

They bark at the mail carrier, the UPS guy, the FedEX gal. They bark at the people who come around to deliver milk or repair appliances or dump chemicals on lawns or pick up the recycling. They bark at kids walking to the bus stop and the kids who walk or ride bikes to school, and they bark again when those kids come home. They bark when anyone walks past their yards. They bark at passing cars. They bark at the kids who play in their own yards. They bark when neighbors go out into their yards for any reason whatsoever. They bark at parents wheeling baby carriages through the neighborhood, and cyclists on their way to the bike path. They bark every time someone walks or skates or bikes past on the bike path. They bark whenever some other dog barks. They bark when they're hungry, or thirsty, or territorial, or frightened, or lonely, or bored. When you go out in the evening, they bark pretty much incessantly until you come home. One lovely spring evening, your poodle and your big black dog of indeterminate breed barked without pause from eleven o'clock until half past midnight.

Recently it seems that dog owners are taking over the neighborhood. The result is a cacophonous chorus of canine kvetching. Or words to that effect. It was mildly annoying when all the dogs were still inside, but now that the weather is warm, they seem to be outside most of the time.

I'm not complaining, mind you. Pet owners would consider that to be un-neighborly and possibly un-american. Let's just say that if I were presented with the opportunity to gather up all these unattended, untrained, and largely neglected creatures and pen them up outside YOUR office window, I probably wouldn't be woman enough to resist the temptation.

Book Cellar

2008-06-02T17:44:25Z

I've been running behind on Book Cellar requests, but plan to catch up in the next couple of days. If you've requested books and have not heard from me by week's end, drop me an email.

It never gets old

2008-05-27T17:19:21Z

Signing a new book contract, that is. I just received a package containing this contract, in quadruplicate, and I'm as happy as a quahog.* I can't discuss this project just yet, but I will post details when I can. Here's the kicker, though: the deadline for the outline is May 30. Permit me to point out that today is May 27.

So. Looks like my next post to LJ will be dated June something.

*The Rhode Island word for clam. (Also the name of the fictitious Rhode Island town in which "The Family Guy" lives.) Substituting "quahog" for "clam" is not a cutesy attempt to side-step a cliche, oh no; quahogs are simply happier than most mollusks. Trust me on this.

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull

2008-05-23T13:32:25Z

We went to a midnight showing of this last night. This is something of a family tradition: when the kids were younger, we took them (and frequently some of their friends, as well) to the first showing (which was usually at five past midnight) of big releases: the Star Wars movies, the Lord of the Rings, and so on. Granted, the midnight showing of the Indianna Jones was not its first, and the theatre was nearly empty, so the gesture ended up being a pale echo of earlier experiences. This proved to be a metaphor for the movie itself.

That said, I liked several things about the movie. Some of the action sequences were fun, and Cate Blanchard was terrific as as the cold-as-ice Soviet pulp villain. She disappeared into the role, as she is wont to do, with such abandon that at times I quietly marveled, "This was Galadriel, this was Elizabeth. This was Katherine Hepburn. Amazing." Harrison Ford reprised the role with a little less smirk and swagger than usual, which worked for me.  I liked some of the history the character was given--war hero, officer, spy. And while I wasn't crazy about the whole aliens and spacecraft thing, it fit the general pulp feel and the timeframe.

In general, however, I didn't particularly care for the depiction of this era. Granted, subtlety isn't a goal of a a good pulp flick, but did they HAVE to dredge up every 50s cliche? The iconic music, reference to the youth car cult, Howdy Doody playing on the TV for the fake Father-Knows-Best family--and what was up with THAT, anyway?--the greaser with the leather jacket and motorcycle, endlessly tending his pompadore hairstyle. References to the Red Scare preoccupation, on the other hand, fit both the time and the story.

My main two problems with the movie were plot and characterization, which, admittedly, are two fairly significant problems. The plot felt quilted together, and the relationships were unconvincing. The sidekick was just plain annoying, the greaser kid fell flat, and Indy's reunion with Marian felt . . . prefunctory. I don't expect a nuanced exploration of relationship amid all the nonstop action, but I wasn't feeling the chemistry.

I've read critiques stating that this movie, like the Temple of Doom, suffered because it strayed from the theme of religious icons of great power, which, they claim, gave cultural resonance to the first and third movies. I liked the in-movie attempt to preempt that criticism. When the kid, looking at pictographs showing veneration of a long-skulled being, commented, "God doesn't look like that," Indy responded, "It depends who your god is."   I find it interesting that the Ark of the Covenant is deemed to deal with REAL religion because it's drawn from Judeo-Christian myth, but the notion of crystal skulls of great power, which come from the Mayan mythos, are dismissed as "not following the theme."   I'm not commenting on the relative merits of these two religions, mind you, just making an observation about ethnocentricity.

Bottom line: a little disappointing, but it offered enough fun and nostalgia to justify the loss of sleep.

Dragon doodle

2008-05-21T12:39:57Z

Recently I've been very tempted to return to a favorite pasttime of childhood and youth: doodling. I can't call it art, because that would be a big fat lie, and keep in mind that this is coming from someone who tells lies for a living.

So I bought a pad of drawing paper at the local Staples and ordered some artist-quality colored pencils online. Colored pencils, because if you cohabitate with cats, any type of artwork that requires time to dry will be construed as an invitation to Feline Fingerpainting. (Okay, maybe not so much fingers. Pawprint Painting, then.) My pencils haven't yet arrived, but last night I wiped out early and decided to doodle with whatever odds and ends of Crayola pencils I could find in the drawer of Miscellaneous Writing Implements. The result is exceedingly lame, yet the process was satisfying.

Book club bliss

2008-05-20T22:34:54Z

I haven't been to the last couple of meetings of my book club, but I went last night despite not having read the book. (But I brought chardonnay and a bunch of lilacs for the hostess and some apricot walnut tarts with a rugala cookie crust, so I wasn't a complete deadbeat....) One of the gals lent the book to me, and I read it this morning before starting work. (I've been waking up earlier and earlier. Five o'clock is about the norm these days.) Suite Francaise, by Irene Nemirovsky. Remarkable book, all the more so because it was published from a first draft, which was written in tiny, cramped handwriting to conserve paper. The author, a Russian-born Jew raised in France, was in hiding in the French countryside when she wrote this. Really good book, and not as bleak as one might expect. The characters are vivid, their plight universally human yet told with a distinctly French viewpoint and sensibility. Lovely book, highly recommended.

I'm really excited about our next selection: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon, which, believe it or not, I have not yet read. I am looking forward to the book and the discussion.

LILITH UNBOUND, still tied up

2008-05-19T21:27:34Z

Quite a few people have been emailing me about the status of the anthology Lilith Unbound.  Here's the current situation.

Popcorn Press is a teeny little publishing company. It is run by industry pros who know their stuff, but these industry pros have days jobs, families, and writing projects of their own. For one reason or another, this anthology has been pushed back or set aside several times, most recently for a poetry collection they wanted to bring out in time for a convention. This collection has now been published, so apparently Lilith is up next. Here's an excerpt from an email received May 1 from Lester Smith, the editor who is doing the proof reading and typesetting:   "...the Lilith book is back on the front burner, and I'm anxious to get it published. (Including on Amazon through CreatSpace.)"

Granted, that's not much information.  It's great to hear that Popcorn Press plans to make the anthology available through Amazon.com, but I wish I had more concrete information to pass along.  Some of you might have noticed that it's listed as a June publication on the Events page of my website.   At this time, it looks as if that date is unduly optimistic.

If you're one of the contributors, please accept my heartfelt apologies for the long delay. As soon as I have more info, I will send an email to all contributors and will post updates here and on the News section of my website.

The week ahead

2008-05-19T11:54:36Z

So. Now that I've jumpstarted my brain function with cheap coffee and my sense of humor with a replay of the Austrian Rugby Team, I'm ready to tackle the week ahead. My personal To-Do list for the week is ridiculous--many necessary tasks of a family and household nature, lots of gardening chores, and some medical stuff--so I'll stick with the writing goals.

Wallum Lake: Today and tomorrow I need to revamp the protagonist's story arc, rewrite the intro, and write the first draft of two scenes. There's a co-writer meeting on Wednesday, at which time we'll set new interum goals.
The prelude and first chapter of the novel I can't yet talk about.
Read the Pathfinder material, sent two or three story ideas to the editor.
Once a story idea is chosen, write and submit an outline.
Write the first draft of two pieces of flash fiction.
Catch up on orders from the Book Cellar. Update that page on my website.

Which raises a question: How many stories-in-progress can someone successfully juggle at any given time?

This is a prime example of YMMV, but here's what I'm finding:  I can handle three or four, as long as I have clearly defined times for working on them; i.e., Wallum Lake in the morning, one of my solo projects in the afternoon--but only one per afternoon. In the evening I can read, brainstorm, do website chores, and sometimes work on short fiction and articles. As long as I have a structure and a schedule, I'm okay, but without it, the stories all start running around in my head at once, like a cageful of panicked squirrels.

I also find that after completing one story, I need some time to clear it out of my head before upgrading a new story to in-progress status. This is something I need to work on, because I'm just now getting to the place where Reclamation and the third Changeling book are not rattling aimlessly around in there. So another, less easily defined task for the week is working on my ability to segment, catagorize, and focus on the task at hand. This is a process, but I can define small steps toward improvement. This week, I'm going to resist rereading and revising a short story I completed last week. That might not sound like much, but I tinker. A lot. Also, I am going to check my email only at the beginning and end of each project-specific work session.  After the morning internet routine, I'm off the web for the day unless I need to use the online thesaurus or some such.

If you'd care to share your weekly writing goals and the methods you use to reach them, I'd love to hear about them. Sometimes it helps to encourage and challenge each other.