Deborah J. Ross

The Feathered Edge: A Woman Warrior and The Horned King

2012-02-27T10:38:00.001-08:00

"The Woman Who Fell In Love With The Horned King" is the second story with a woman warrior-as-champion/paladin. One of the most interesting things about putting together these anthologies of romantic, swashbuckling fantasy (2 volumes of Lace and Blade, and now The Feathered Edge: Tales of Magic, Love, and Daring) is the synchronicity -- or parallelism -- or "great minds work alike" thematic resonances. The first had 2 stories about Spanish highwaymen, the second 2 stories with Chinese generals. I'm not in the least surprised, but I am delighted and a bit awestruck by the way life works. The cover for The Feathered Edge could illustrate either this story or Sean McMullen's "Culverelle." You get to pick.

Now to the story. No, wait, background! I've loved Judith Tarr's work since I picked up A Wind In Cairo when it first came out. The horse got me into the book, as I'm a sucker for well-written horse characters, but the sheer mastery of storycraft, the depth and nuance, the use of language, all kept me wanting more. None of this should come as a surprise. Judy knows more about horses than any ten fantasy writers put together, and what she doesn't know, one or another of her nine amazing Lipizzan horses will enlighten us about. She's written the best guide to horses in writing I've ever seen, Writing Horses; The Fine Art of Getting It Right, and if you are a writer and need a horse in your story, it's a must-read.

Capria and Khepera

The other thing about Judy's work is that her careful attention to detail -- the kind of detail not for detail's-sake but that evokes a vivid world beyond the page -- carries over to historical background, culture, world-building, and character. You can read a sampling of her short work free on Book View Cafe here.I've never read anything of hers that's remotely generic, even when it falls solidly within a genre. Her "Alamut" books were among the first to portray Muslim cultures in a positive, yet humanly complex way.

One of the self-indulgent luxuries of editing is being able to contact the writers-of-my-dreams and say, "Hey, want to come play?" It takes a certain amount of chutzpah, it does. So I asked. Judy said yes, and sent me this wonderful, sweeping, heroic tale that reminds me of the best of the women-martial-arts stories from Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword & Sorceress series. Judy's heroine is no bronze-bikini-clad superwoman, but a character set firmly within her world, with hopes and disappointments and family obligations, cognizant of both her strengths and her limitations. And The Horned King, oh my! You'll just have to read to the story...

If "The Woman Who Fell In Love With The Horned King" leaves you, like me, wanting more, rejoice! It's set in the world of The Serpent And The Rose, under the pseudonym of Kathleen Bryan.

The beautiful photo of Capria and Khepera is by Lynne Glazer, used with permission. See more of her work here:

Now in print...

2012-02-22T18:00:00.000-08:00

The Feathered Edge: Tales of Magic, Love, and Daring is now available as a trade paperback. It's up on Amazon - don't see it elsewhere yet. Should make it to bookstores in a week or two.

If you enjoy it, please post a brief review!

Winter reading - some very cool books

2012-02-21T09:56:00.000-08:00

I’m an unabashed fan of Katharine Kerr’s “Nola O’Grady” series. The third, Apocalypse To Go, lives up to its predecessors in inventiveness, drama, romance, and whimsy. In this urban fantasy, the heroine works for a supernatural Agency “so secret, the CIA doesn’t know it exists”. This takes place in an alternate San Francisco, one in which magic and the clandestine agencies necessary to regulate it are real. This world is not the only one; there are alternate, weirdly dystopic worlds (and a gateway in the attic of Nola’s aunt’s house). Not only do the Agency and its people hide in plain sight, Nola’s family, Irish illegal immigrants with past ties to the IRA, live with secrets, low on the radar. In this newest novel, we not only explore the radioactive San Francisco from previous episodes, but we encounter yet another world, one in which the dominant intelligent race is feline in origin, leopard to be precise. Apocalypse To Go definitely builds on the previous two books, but Kerr offers enough toe-holds so that it can serve as an entry point. Readers should be warned, however, that the series is addictive.

Winter brings storms, and storms mean power outages. Here in the mountains, these often go on for days. Most years, our generator kicks in and we continue on as before. This year, however, through a series of mechanical failures, we suffered through a period without electricity. Fortunately, there are many wonderful things to do that do not require it. Walking the dog, playing the piano, snuggling by candle light. Reading…as long as it’s daytime. All of which is a roundabout way of saying how glad I was that I’d loaded Pati Nagle’s Immortal on my (fully-charged) netbook computer. As the forest darkened, I pretended I was on vacation and curled up in my favorite chair.

On the surface, Immortal resembles other teen romances — girl meets unbelievably handsome and mysterious boy; throbbing hearts ensue. But Nagle’s heroine is no hapless Bella, she’s a college student with a job, a car, and a mind of her own. Nor is the gorgeous guy an angsty vampire, although he definitely is not one of your usual folk. The plot moves briskly from encounter to threat to road trip to battle, a fine way to spend a couple of winter nights. In the end, the story is as much about how relationships help us to determine the direction of our own lives as it is about hormones. That’s what sets this YA novel apart.

If you’re nauseated by sparkly, angst-ridden teenage vampires, and you like your dark suspense with wit and political savvy, check out Blood Maidens, the third in Barbara Hambly’s turn-of-the-century vampire novels. It’s as much mystery as it is adventure or spy novel or horror, both fast-paced and literate. It stands well on its own, although the previous two are highly recommended.

Hambly’s vampires are neither sparkly nor nice. They’re dark and dangerous, and on the eve of World War I, the Kaiser would very much like to enlist them as his agents. Not that this is any concern of the vampires themselves, existing as they do in their own separate, hidden world, one in which even the pleasures of the mind eventually wear away into apathy. (One of the most poignant images in the novel is a once-beloved harp, so long disused that its stings have turned to rust.) Enter James Asher, ex-British spy and former uneasy and unwilling ally of the Renaissance vampire, Don Simon Ysidro. Asher’s search for Ysidro’s missing friend takes him to St. Petersburg, from its daylight fads for the supernatural and spiritualism, fueled by Rasputin’s utterances, to its nightly contest between two claimants to the mastery of the vampire population, to a mysterious woman who by all reason must be a vampire…except she appears in public in daylight. Hambly neatly connects the belief in spontaneous human combustion to the fate of vampires exposed to sunlight. One set of questions gives rise to the next, with the threat of a German-vampire alliance overshadowing the landscape of Europe, all tempered by Hambly’s deft and humane touch.

I’ve been a fan of Louise Marley’s work for years now. By a wonderful coincidence, I had just begun learning the Brahms piano piece, Waltz in A Flat, when I read The Brahms Deception. For an adult beginner with small hands, playing Brahms amounts to an exercise that rivals the most complex yoga postures. The man apparently had immense hands and wrote music that he could play, refusing to compromise with anyone else’s limitations. Except, apparently, those of the brilliant concert pianist Clara Schumann. Brahms was hopelessly in love with Schumann, but biographers do not agree on whether the relationship ever went beyond the platonic. Here Marley’s imagination finds fertile ground as scholars use time travel for their researches, and an unstable, emotionally needy music historian enters into the world of Brahms and Schumann…at the country house where they have a secret tryst. When the historian does not return as scheduled, a second is sent in search of her. Marley combines drama, mystery, the perils of time travel and changing history, and delicious appreciation for the music, artistry and passion of two immensely gifted musicians. If you don’t read science fiction, read this anyway. If you do read science fiction but don’t know anything about classical music, read it anyway, too.

I would never have discovered Triptych, by J.M. Frey, had I not first met the editor, Gabrielle Harbowy. We were talking about stories that challenge conventional notions not only of sexuality but of family, and she mentioned this debut novel by Canadian J.M. Frey. The cover reveals nothing of the story within — part queer love story, part alien first encounter story, part time travel adventure, part mystery, part exploration of polyamory, all laced with skillfully woven dramatic tension and a sure understanding of the needs of the human heart.

When aliens come to Earth, they come not as ambassadors or conquerors but as refugees. They have lost their families and culture as well as their world. Their species evolved around families of threes — one to bear children, one to work, one to nurture and protect the others. When a pair of Earth scientists, also a romantic couple, begin working with one of the aliens, their own relationship changes. But Earth, for all its claims of tolerance, is not ready for a marriage that consists of a man, a woman, and an alien. Not by a long shot.

The Feathered Edge: Raven Girl and Sir Francis Drake

2012-02-19T01:00:00.000-08:00

Sheila Finch's "Fortune's Stepchild" is linked to other stories backwards-fashion. For so many of us, a tale or legend or bit of history so captured our childhood imaginations that forever after, it is a touchstone for "something wonderful and magic." Kari Sperring, for example, grew up dreaming of joining the musketeers and saving France. (Aside: I wonder if there's something about being British -- Sheila's an ex-pat Brit -- that lends itself to such inspiration; we on the other side of the Atlantic can read about Arthur and company, but he's not our Arthur.) At any rate, Sheila admits to a special fondness for tales about Sir Francis Drake (who was an amazingly colorful fellow, even if only a tenth of the stories told about him are true.)

Sheila's best known for her science fiction, including a series of stories about the Guild of Xenolinguists (one of which won the Nebula Award), but she's a writer of many and varied interests. I met her a gazillion years ago, if memory serves me right at the same convention at which I met Sherwood, and thus began a long running conversation. After I fled from Los Angeles to the redwoods of the Central Coast, we'd get together every so often at one convention or another, grab a few friends, and head offsite for the best fish restaurant we could find. And have meaty, thoughtful discussions on everything under the sun.

So when I was considering the balance of new-to-me writers and new-to-my-anthologies writers, I thought, I bet Sheila would come up with something fascinating. With her unerring sense of serendipitous timing, she presented me with a period piece with romance, magic, and intelligence. The first time I read "Fortune's Stepchild," my husband and I had not long finished watching every film adaptation of the life of Elizabeth I we could get our hands on, and my head was filled with the Spanish Armada, Shakespeare, religious wars, courtly politics, schemes and beheadings, pirates and privateers, not to mention seekers of fortune of all varieties.

We tend to think of the early history of the Americas as one tragedy after another, at least for the native peoples. What Sheila has given us is a tiny moment of magic in a land of unusual opportunity. Perhaps this really happened. Perhaps it happened in a different world, a different America.

Perhaps it's one of those stories that should have happened, and some day, in a galaxy far, far away, will...

The Feathered Edge: Feathers and Masks

2012-02-15T01:00:00.000-08:00

One of the inevitable results of novel writing is that in order to keep the focus on this story (and not the two dozen others that spring up along the way), we have to rein in that natural desire. Myself, I must sometimes bribe secondary characters into staying secondary, by promising them stories of their own, or endowing their appearances with nifty, memorable details. Or virtual chocolate. Then we end up with outtakes, related stories, branching series, and the like. Sometimes, the worlds and casts-of-characters are so vivid and rich, and speak to us so deeply, that we return to them again and again. They provide the setting, background, culture, history for short stories that are complete in themselves, little jewels set in the larger imaginative tapestry.

"The Art of Masks," by Sherwood Smith, is one such story. You don't need to have read her Inda series or her many other works set in the world of Sartorias-deles in order to enjoy it. It's simply a slice of a larger world, complex and varied. But if you have, you'll see all the shimmering threads that lead off in the distance. At the first reference to the ballad of Jeje the Pirate Queen, I wanted to stand up and cheer -- it was like glimpsing an old, dear friend, just a flash and then back to the present moment. And yet, the story works just as well if you've never heard of Jeje before. Although you should. You really should.

In much the same way, this anthology has links to other works, other stories, and the larger world of fantasy. Sean McMullen's story, "Culverelle," is part of a larger tale, with the same characters. "The Woman Who Loved The Horned King," by Judith Tarr, takes place in a world in which she's already set a trilogy. And "Blue Velvet" is part of Diana E. Paxson's series about the intrepid young Baron Claude DeLorme.

Fantasy literature, like other types, takes on the aspect of a conversation, one I'm especially happy to have with Sherwood. She writes deeply and knowledgeably about a variety of historical and literary topics, and has a gift for encouraging newer writers and generating thoughtful discussions on history, manners, story-telling, and a host of related topics. Even when I feel inundated by things to read -- online and in print -- I find her work rewards a second reading, and "The Art of Masks" is no exception. Every story element is precisely balanced, with an interplay of nuance and detail that enhances the sense of the greater world beyond. The good news is that if you, like me, have fallen in love with that world, there is much much more to discover.

And really, what more can one say about a woman who participates in the SFWA Musketeers, enjoys watching The Three Stooges, and reads the letters of Jane Austen?

Murder, the Death Penalty, and Cancer, a personal perspective

2012-02-07T01:00:00.000-08:00

Twenty-five years ago, my mother was raped and beaten to death by a teenaged neighbor on drugs. My mother was 70 years old and had been his friend since the time he was a small child. For a long time, I didn't talk much about it except in private situations. This was not to keep it a secret, but to compartmentalize my life so I could function. At first, it was too difficult and then, as the years passed, I refused to let this single incident be the defining experience of my life. Recently, however, I have felt inspired to use my own experience of survival and healing to speak out against the death penalty. I don't write this to convince you one way or another on that particular issue, but to try to illuminate how the two issues are related for me.

My mother's murder was a spectacularly brutal, headline-banner crime, but it was only part of a larger tragedy, for the perpetrator's family had suffered the murder of his older brother some years before. I knew this, but for a long time it didn't matter. My own pain and rage took center stage. But with time and much hard work in recovery, I came to the place of being able to listen to the stories of other people.

We all lose people we love. Tolstoy wrote that happy families are all alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. I would interpret that to mean that each loss, each set of relationships and circumstances is unique, but there are things we share.

What might it be like if one family member were murdered -- and another family member had killed someone? What does it feel like to watch the weeks and days pass while the execution of someone you dearly love draws ever nearer? How can we wrap our minds around loving someone and accepting that they have caused such anguish to another family? I've had a chance to talk with people in all these circumstances. It's been a humbling experience.

One thing I have learned over the years is that grief isn't fungible; you can't compare or exchange one person's experience with another's or say, This one's pain is two-thirds the value of that one's. Grief is grief; loss is loss. We cannot truly understand what another's loss is like, especially when it is as devastating and life-altering as the violent death of someone we love. But we can say, "Even though I don't know what you're going through, my heart goes out to you." Whatever our personal story, we can be allies, for surely there is enough compassion, enough tears, enough rage and enough mending of hearts to go around.

I've been on both sides. I believe we have something deep and essential in common -- our broken hearts. Our mending hearts. Our resilient spirits. Our capacity for healing. Our journey through the darkness. I know that I would never, ever want to be part of inflicting what I have endured on another family. I know that life is filled with awful things, and I have faith that kindness lightens grief. I believe all these things are true whether we are the survivors of a murder, victims ourselves, loved ones of perpetrators, or the families of the executed.

What this has to do with cancer is that right now, by the inexplicable way life unfolds, a number of friends -- some of them very close to me -- have been battling various forms of cancer. Here there is no human malice or sudden tragedy, one moment you're fully alive and the next, everything is over. The breakdown of order and health is internal and continues over time. Even in cases where the end comes soon after the diagnosis, it is not instantaneous. You have time, if even a small stretch, to consider your own mortality. And so do those who care for you.

I find I am as angry about the possibility of my friends dying from cancer as I am about losing a loved one to violence. I want to rage at the universe at the unfairness and unfeelingness of it all. I wish there were an old man with a long white beard up in the sky so I could grab him by that beard and let him have a piece of my mind.

I look for someone or something to blame.

In the case of a murder conviction, there is someone to blame. The jury said so or the person admitted it in pleading guilty. In the case of cancer, I don't believe in blaming the victim -- he smoked, she didn't exercise, he ate too many charbroiled steaks and not enough broccoli, she lived near a cellphone tower. Justice demands that we hold those who commit crimes accountable. What do we do with the craving for revenge in our hearts? Or, in the case of cancer, the need to point a finger of blame -- at the patient, at the doctors, at the pharmaceutical companies, at the health insurance carriers.

In neither case will my retaliation bring a loved one back to life or affect the course of a friend's disease. In both cases, I myself become a victim. The impulse to lash out at the responsible person or institution is universal and human. Adrenaline helps us through the early stages of shock and helpless immobility. When it goes on too long, however, it consumes us from within and prevents us from being present in the moment.

I could spend 25 years dedicating my life to ending that of the man who killed my mother. Or I could spend 25 years healing, connecting to life, making the world a better place, writing wonderful stories...being the person she would have wanted me to be.

I could spend the months and years of my friend's cancer in expectant grief and one crusade after another against anything and anyone who isn't finding a cure fast enough. Or I could be present with her, each of us alive at this moment.

The Feathered Edge: The Australian Connection

2012-02-04T11:48:00.000-08:00

Another of the writers whose work I got to know through the SFWA Circulating Book Plan was Australian Sean McMullen. I think the book was Glass Dragons, the second of his Moonworlds series. It's often challenging to begin a series in the middle, but this one posed no problem. Dragons and vampires and "War of the Worlds" and angsty heroes and radical organizers-of-the-people's-revolution, oh my! Well, not all in that first book, but it was enough to get me hooked.

So a little while later, I wandered into the Tor party at a WorldCon and there was Sean McMullen. I think the introduction caught me by surprise because the first words out of my mouth (after "Hello, I'm Deborah") were, "I love your work!" And received a glorious smile in reply, as if I'd just handed him a precious gift. And yes, it was. We create in such solitude, and reviews are such treacherous things when it comes to "did people like my book? did they understand it?" Then to come all the way to a different continent, to be surrounded by people you've heard of and maybe corresponded with but never met in person, and to have a fellow writer recognize your name and have read -- and remembered -- your work. What a joy!

That conversation was necessarily brief. If you've attended a publisher's party -- or any part -- at a WorldCon, you will understand why. Most communications at large conventions are sound bytes anyway, but when you add a crushing crowd, noise, and alcohol, it's many times so. But Sean and his work kept crossing my path -- we both love cats, we're both martial artists (or I used to be -- 30 years of tai chi and kung fu). By the strange synchronicity of publishing, when I returned to the pages of F & SF with my own work ("The Price of Silence," April/May. 2009), it was to an issue that had a story of Sean's as well.

I can take a hint. When I was scheming The Feathered Edge, I wrote to him. We worked together on one story idea, and eventually he sent me "Culverelle." Curiously enough, is set in the same world, with the same overall characters and tale, as "The Spiral Briar" from F & SF. They are not the same stories in that they have different emotional and moral centers, but if you fell in love with Eleanor (as I did), and you savor the wonderful blend of engineering, chivalry, and Faerie, I encourage you to run out and find the other story -- and make a note to look for the novel The Iron Warlock when it's released.

"Culverelle" in some ways belongs to the small but excellent group of stories about women learning to be warriors -- by training. By practicing, by learning what their strengths and weaknesses are and by using those strengths in an intelligent way. (Another example is Barbara Hambly's novel, The Ladies of Mandrigyn.) I love that Sean doesn't simply wave his authorial hands and turn a determined but unfit woman into a super-paladin in a few paragraphs. When we take on such a training, we must be prepared for it to change us in more than physical ways.

Later in the anthology, you'll meet another woman warrior, from Judith Tarr's "The Woman Who Fell In Love With The Horned King." See what you think about what they have in common, and how their experiences are different. As a fascinating side note, the swordswoman on the cover could be either!

The Feathered Edge: About the Feathers...

2012-02-01T15:56:00.000-08:00

This is the first in a series of blog posts about the stories in my new anthology, The Feathered Edge.

I love how communities are built and how people are linked. So, in the wonderfully organic network of writers who meet one another across vast distances, I can't talk about "Featherweight" and Kari Sperring without telling the tale of SFWA and its Circulating Book Plan.

The idea is that publishers send review copies to garner Nebula nominations, and boxes of books make their way to participating SFWA members according to an arcane circulating route. Some years ago, this migratory library included a book called Bridge of Dreams by some fellow I'd never heard of, Chaz Brenchley. I try every book that isn't obviously war porn for a few pages, so I opened it...and was lost at the first sentence. It grabbed me, poetry neurons and curiosity and romanticism all in one fell swoop, and didn't let go for 400 pages or however long it was.

Shortly thereafter, I found myself with the delightful prospect of editing my first anthology, Lace and Blade. Because the publisher wanted a Valentine's Day release, she agreed to let me do it by invitation. So I sent Chaz an email. The rest, as they say, was history. I not only received a wonderful story ("In The Night Street Baths," reprinted in Wilde Stories 2009), but made a valued friend.

Through Chaz, I made the online acquaintance of Kari Sperring, a charming and articulate British writer whose first novel, Living With Ghosts, would soon be released (and from my own publisher, making her a fellow DAWthor). Kari's a trained historian and knows about things like ancient Welsh (which I believe she speaks) and Viking history. She's also a fellow cat lover and the owner of an amazing collection of elegant skirts. When I learned that her childhood ambition had been to join the Musketeers, I knew we were kindred spirits. However, friendship is one thing and editorial selection is another.

Living With Ghosts won the British Fantasy Award. Her first novel. It's luscious and edgy and romantic and sad. Oh my, can this woman write! So she went on my short list for the next anthology, which by this time would be #3. I had no idea if she wrote short fiction, but I asked her anyway. She sent me "Featherweight." I read,

After the alchemical queen died, she turned into feathers. In life, she had been whipcord and lemons, yet in death she came apart in peace. Her peace--her pieces--floated out into the city she had guarded so long...

One of the deepest pleasures of editing is getting to indulge my own taste, to carefully attend to what strikes such inner chords as to fill me with music. Delightful as it was to read Living With Ghosts, I made my way through "Featherweight" thinking, I asked for this story. She wrote it on my invitation. The feeling is akin to discovering you have acted as midwife to something glorious.

The anthology needed a title and a focus. I thought about romantic, swashbuckling fantasy, and about poetry and heroic quests and the beauty of language, how stories take us beyond ourselves on journeys...where? I kept coming back to this one as a touchstone, the image of feathers drifting through a city and transforming lives. Feathers...dreams...tall tales and myths and bardic chants and sonnets...together they create a very special place in the imagination, neither reality nor dream, but filled with the language of the heart.

The Feathered Edge.

The Feathered Edge is out!

2012-01-31T12:40:00.000-08:00

Some years ago, I began editing anthologies, "sitting on the other side" of the editorial desk, as it were. I had a wonderful time, made a ton of mistakes, did a lot of things right, made some splendid friends, and had even more fun inviting writers I'd long admired. But the publishing world is bumpy and unpredictable, and I found myself with a completed anthology and no publisher -- and a climate in which I got told over and over, "no one is buying anthologies."

But I did not give up. For one thing, this one was so splendid, so delicious -- funny, heart-breaking, romantic, derring-do-ish, action-packed stories from amazing writers -- that I could not simply walk away from it. Judith Tarr, one of the contributors, called it, "lovely lush fantasy." So I got stubborn. And kept trying. And...

Voila!

Brand new from Sky Warrior Books!

Here's the Table of Contents:

FEATHERWEIGHT by Kari Searing
THE ART OF MASKS by Sherwood Smith
CULVERELLE by Sean McMullen
FORTUNE'S STEPCHILD by Sheila Finch
THE WOMAN WHO FELL IN LOVE WITH THE HORNED KING by Judith Tarr
A WREATH OF LUCK by Madeleine E. Robins
EMBERS by Shannon Page & Jay Lake
QUESTION A STONE by Tanith Lee
A SWAIN OF KNEADED MOONLIGHT by Dave Smeds
FIRE AND FROST AND BURNING ROSE by Rosemary Hawley Jarman
THE GARDEN OF SWORDS by K. D. Wentworth
BLUE VELVET by Diana E. Paxson
OUTLANDER by Samantha Henderson

You can buy it from Barnes & Noble or amazon.com (although for some algorithmic reason, amazon picked the name of one of the contributors as the author).

Just for you lovely people, I'll be doing a blog series, talking about each story, with tidbits here and there about how I came to work with that author. Stay tuned!

Sharpening Critical Skills, A Few Thoughts Thereon

2012-01-30T01:00:00.000-08:00

As I was learning to write at a professional level, I participated in a long-running writer's group, along with people who'd attended the Clarion workshop and Advanced Writing courses at UCLA. Thus, as I struggled with my own writing craft, I also learning to read carefully and give written critiques. This involved a number of skills, including identifying problems with the story -- whether they were at the level of prose/diction/grammar, plotting or characterization, atmosphere and authorial voice, or theme and dramatic shape. As I got better, I learned also how to read between and beneath the lines, and especially to pay attention to what the writer was trying to do, not how I would prefer to re-write the story.

As in other groups, we gave the author written critiques after reading them aloud. This had benefits for the author, who did not have to take notes and remember everything, but could just listen and take in as much as humanly reasonable under the circumstances, as well as for the group, so we could all hear each other's reactions. But it also forced me to write down what I saw, where the writer lost my confidence, what struck me as infelicitous or out of tune or just plain lacking in credibility.

Coming March 2012!

In recent years, I have had the joy of editing several anthologies: 2 volumes of Lace and Blade for Norilana Books, and 2 forthcoming stand-alone anthologies, Beyond Grimm, Tales Newly Twisted for Book View Cafe, and The Feathered Edge: Tales of Magic, Love, and Daring for Sky Warrior Books. So I've spent a fair amount of time reading stories and thinking about how and why they work/don't work.

It's an amazing pleasure to work with professional authors. Sure, some of us can be egotistical tyrants, but by and large, most of us -- author and editor -- want the same thing, for the story embody the best of the author's imagination. A "fresh pair" of knowledgeable eyes is invaluable. I love, too, that I don't have to explain the principles of writing (Show Don't Tell, Use Scenes, Don't Bash The Reader, etc.), I can just point out where I felt confused or misled, and the author gets it and then fixes it in his or her own way.

Then...I turn back to my own work. OMG, as my computer-fluent kids say. How could I possibly have generated such...well, to say it's drek is an insult to drek. Did I in a million years think that constitutes a proper sentence? Or that any reader with two neurons to rub together would believe this other thing? I exaggerate, of course. Even my rough drafts have improved considerably over the years. What I'm getting at is that changing of gears from being on the outside, thinking editorially about someone else's work, to applying that same turbo-charged critical eye to my own, can be excruciating. I go from confidence to despair within a few paragraphs.

And well I should, because I've been sharpening those critical skills, the ones I deliberately set aside when I'm creating. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to get my editor offline when I'm drafting -- lock her in the attic, send her on an all-expenses-paid vacation to Iceland! It's deadly to my imagination to have her looking over my shoulder, telling me how wrong, wrong, wrong everything I write is. Yet there comes a time when I welcome her back with open arms, give her carte blanche and a cup of hot chocolate, and bid her do her worst. Then I don't want her flabby and weak, which is why it's important to have some aspect of my writing life in which she gets to flex those muscles. For that, she needs to be in fighting trim, and that means regular exercise.

Copyediting -- Boot Camp For the Internal Editor!

GUEST BLOG: Patricia Burroughs On Paul And Me

2012-01-24T11:02:00.000-08:00

Book View Cafe welcomes Patricia Burroughs! Here's a delightful tale of her first novel, now available for your delectation as an ebook.

This is about the first novel I had published, La Desperada. It’s about the script adaptation I wrote that was based on that novel. It’s about Paul Newman. It’s about a lot of things.

But mainly, it’s about how (if I want to do the Hollywood stretch) I almost wrote a script for Paul.
Or if you want to do the reality check, it’s about how I maybe almost talked to him on the phone.

Mainly, it’s about my writing, my western, my attempts to get it made as a movie, and my new efforts to bring out the ebook.

And it’s about a book by Gwendon Swarthout called The Homesman.

Some years ago one of the producers on the film UNFORGIVEN read my western script, liked it a lot, and said to me, “You know, as I was reading this, I thought, this is the writer who needs to adapt THE HOMESMAN for Paul Newman.”

That is a moment. A Moment. Somebody actually tied me as a screenwriter to a project for Paul Newman. Not that he was in position to do anything about it, mind you. But still. It put an idea in my head. (Dangerous place for ideas, my head.)

I read THE HOMESMAN and loved a lot of it–except for (no spoiler here, I’m restraining myself) how the female protagonist dealt with her loss near the end. And I knew, yes, I could write the hell out of this script, but not if Paul (he was Paul in my mind by this point) wanted THAT to happen!

Brace yourself.

I wrote Mr Newman (well, it was official correspondence so it didn’t seem right to call him Paul) and told him what I’d been told, and that I’d love to offer myself up for the task of adapting The Homesman for him.

Yes.

I really did that.

And–it gets worse.

I did that knowing–KNOWING–that the script he’d been shopping around trying to get made was supposedly causing all sorts of problems because everybody “knew” that despite whatever name was on the script, Paul had written it himself. And nobody wanted to say, “Paul, this script is bad.”

So it didn’t get made, it kept getting passed around, and…

I wrote and offered my services as a screenwriter.

*takes a bow*

Yes, that is chutzpah.

Of course nothing came of it.

Until many months later, I came home from somewhere to find a message on my answering machine. A voice said, “Call for Patricia from Mr Newman.” And when I didn’t answer, there were murmurs and then a voice continued, “Mr Newman wanted to thank you for your interest in The Homesman, but he isn’t looking for a writer at this time. If his plans change, he will let you know.”

I almost fell flat on the floor. ON the FLOOR, people.

First of all, it sounded distinctly as if–had I been home–I might have actually spoken to MR NEWMAN my own sassy self! (That murmuring in the background? I am sure it was Paul-murmurs. Seriously. I could tell.) (Okay, maybe in retrospect I decided I could tell.) (Okay, I have no idea, but it had to be, didn’t it? Oh hush.)

At any event, his asst had called to pass verbally, and so nicely and–

Well, I eventually started breathing again.

And that was the end of it.

My brush with almost maybe writing a script for Paul Newman, okay, maybe almost talking to him on the phone.

Moving forward… I’d had a few people tell me that my book reminded them of Unforgiven in several ways (though my book was published first), and then this mention of my potential skill with the material in the The Homesman, and then…

One day I was looking for book comparisons for my new ebook, La Desperada, so I could say, if you like THIS you might like mine, it has been compared to Unforgiven* only with a love story and sex,” and somebody said, “This might be helpful. Unforgiven was written by a guy who was influenced by a novelist, did you know that? He was influenced by Gwendon Swarthout, who wrote The Shootist and The Homesman.”

As comparisons go, it probably doesn’t help me a lot, as these are books which I suggest very few of my target audience will have ever read.

And yet it felt very odd, like a voice from the distant past bring back a producer from Unforgiven and a near-brush with Paul Newman and The Homesman and…

I like to think that if Gwendon Swarthout had ever written a western with love and sex, somebody just might have said to him, “You know what, this reminds me a lot of that book by Patricia Burroughs….”

* I could tell you about the time my script got couriered to Carmel because Clint wanted to read it, but that would just be name-dropping.

The novel La Desperada and the Nicholl Award-winning script Redemption are now available in the same download on Book View Cafe.

Writing Science Fiction and Reading Canine Body Language

2012-01-22T01:00:00.000-08:00

Our German Shepherd Dog, Oka, developed fear-aggression after being attacked by other dogs. I watched him go from "Another dog! Hooray -- great fun, great smells!" to "Another dog -- oh no, OH NO -- he's after me -- ohhelpwhatdoIdo -- Pre-emptive Strike!"

After wrestling with 90 pounds of fit, not to mention intense, dog in self-defense mode, we enrolled in a "difficult dog class." This was my first experience of a dog class, let alone one based on positive training techniques. Several things quickly became clear to me.

One, our dog really wants to please us but much of the time, he hasn't the foggiest notion what we want. What he notices is not necessarily what we think is the major point of the communication. So it's up to us to give him cues and feedback that make sense in dog-experience.

Two, dogs learn from consequences and the shorter the time between action and consequence, the better. There are all kinds of other things happening at any moment in time, things the dog may associate with the behavior in question but of which we are unaware. We need to learn a new way of paying attention, but it never hurts to be in control of a consequence that has a high value for the dog. In Oka's case, that's bits of freeze-dried salmon. This is not "bribery." It's using a powerful reinforcer to let the dog know the behavior is desirable. Salmon equals good. Loose-lease walking past another dog equals salmon equals good.

Three, and most importantly, Oka is very clear in communicating what's going on with him. A huge chunk of the fear-aggression problem was my not understanding when he tells me he's anxious or fearful. I had to learn, for instance, that an off-leash dog bounding "playfully" on a direct path toward him (non-threatening dogs approach a strange dog calmly and on a curved path) is certain to elicit signs of anxiety -- ears pinned forward, body tense, gaze fixed -- even before the fur rises in his ruff.

After immersing myself in books on canine body language, I began seeing mistakes in my own inter-species communication. It's natural for us as primates to use primate-friendly language when greeting a dog. We make eye contact, we bend over. (We also make ridiculous chirping noises.) Direct eye contact is a signal of aggression in dogs (polite dogs soften their gaze and look away to indicate their non-threatening intentions). Bending over a dog is dominance behavior, which makes many dogs uncomfortable or fearful. I've had occasion to practice polite dog language in greeting: look away, soft eyes, don't bend over the dog but beside it, approach slowly, maintain distance if the dog exhibits symptoms of distress. I'm amazed at the clearness of their response, often an immediate relaxation of their anxious body-language.

The situation got even more interesting when we introduced two young cats to the household. One had learned that dogs were Dangerous Cat-Eating Monsters; the other hadn't figured them out yet and decided Oka was a sort of overgrown, illiterate big brother. Watching these two, each trying to communicate in his own body language, each puzzled by the other's response, has been fascinating.

As a primate, I know I'm seeing only a fraction of the interaction. I notice the commonality of "predator stare" and "look away." "I just don't get what that ear position means" (cat) is matched by "I'm signaling submissive 'puppy-ears' but he isn't getting it" (dog). This reminds me of conversations I used to have with a co-worker, he in Spanish and me in French.

Eventually Oka decided that "freeze" was a safe response and Shakir took his immobility as an invitation to come rub against him. Once the dog had discovered a successful approach to non-provoking behavior, he decided to try it out on the other cat. She was not impressed at first, but as she relaxed, her curiosity came forth. She was clearly interested in his smell, now that he would stand still long enough for her to feel safe.

As a writer of science fiction and fantasy, I create alien races and strange, divergent human cultures. I don't want my aliens to be actors with bumpy foreheads. That's sloppy writing. Neither do I want to see my animals as people with fur. That's even sloppier thinking. The lure of projecting human reactions and emotions not only leads to misunderstandings, usually at the pet's expense, but deprives us of the opportunity to get outside our own primate limitations and see the world in a new way.

GUEST BLOG: Joshua Palmatier On Creating A Fantasy World

2012-01-20T01:00:00.000-08:00

First of all, thanks to Deborah for inviting me to guest blog here today. I appreciate the offer!

Once upon a time I started a novel. I was in high school, I’d just decided that I wanted to be a writer, and so I tackled a novel (after a few half-hearted attempts at short stories). I had an idea after all, and I had a map I’d drawn in U.S. Government class, and I could see the world in my head. So off I went.

Ten years and five drafts later, I had a book. During those five drafts, the world and the map and the magic fleshed itself out, not to mention I managed to teach myself how to write. I sent it out and got rejection after rejection after rejection. Most of those were actually good rejections, saying the writing was good, but the idea behind the novel just wasn’t quite there, not for a debut novel anyway. It was disappointing . . . no, that’s a lie . . . it was heart-rending, but I sucked it up and started work on other books, other novels, other ideas.

And now, five published novels later, I’m looking back at that initial book. Why? Because the current series—in fact, all of the books I’ve written—have been set in that same world. My first trilogy, the “Throne of Amenkor,” was set at about the same time as that first book, but on a separate continent. The current series—including Well of Sorrows and the just released Leaves of Flame—is set on the same continent but at a much earlier time period than that first novel. However, both series are connected to that first book in significant ways.

That’s one of the most important things I’ve learned about writing over the course of the years: that everything you write, everything that you do, is useful in some way. Nothing is ever wasted. That first book, even though it didn’t find an agent or an editor or publisher to call home, is still to this day being used in various ways. I didn’t realize exactly how important a part it would play in the novels that I’m writing today.

My current series is inextricably tied to that first novel, since it’s in essence the “history” of the characters I created there. I now view that first book as “research” for the current book. In that book, the characters were dealing with the actions of their ancestors, people who had resorted—in a last desperate act—to a magic that they did not fully understand called the White Fire. It was a wall of white fire that spread out across the world, touching everyone, changing them. While the Fire solved the ancestors’ basic problem, it of course had unforeseen consequences, ones that their successors had to deal with. In the course of writing that first book, I had to flesh out what drove those people to resort to this Fire. At the time, I thought I was simply creating a believable back story to the novel, since every novel must feel like it’s part of a much larger whole, a much larger world. At no point in that creation did I think I’d be actively writing that back story as a series in and of itself. Even after it was rejected, I thought that story idea (and its back story) was dead in the water. I turned my attention to a different story, a different set of characters, and set that story aside. Thankfully, I didn’t trash everything I’d written, or the notes I’d taken about those people and that back story.

Because here I am, returning to that setting and those people with Well of Sorrows and now Leaves of Flame. Everything that, at one point, I thought was worthless because it didn’t sell, is now coming back into play. This is an example on a large scale—an old novel returning to play an integral role in a new novel—but I’ve discovered that everything I’ve ever created is important to keep, even if it goes nowhere at the time. Not just on the large scale, but the small as well. In one project, I started the novel and wrote five chapters, but it just wasn’t working. Okay, that’s generous—it sucked. *grin* So I decided to trash that and start over again, with different characters at a different point in time. I thought those first five chapters would never see the light of day again. But then, about halfway through the new version of the novel, they returned. I ended up integrating large portions of those chapters into the book. They simply didn’t work as a good starting point for the novel, that’s all.

So you see, EVERYTHING you do—draw, write, jot down—is important and should be kept. That map I scrawled in utter boredom in my government class in high school is now full color, with annotations, places, names, cultures, and is the basis for all of my novels (and most of my short stories as well). That first novel, now trunked, became research material for my current series . . . and might eventually be taken out of that trunk in the future as well (reworked of course); it’s not dead, just set aside. Even scenes that I write and discard, or delete during a revision—all of that is kept in a file (called my “cut file”) and stored away for potential use in the future. It might be returned to the manuscript during a future revision, as happened a few days ago when I returned a scene I cut before my editor saw it because she felt something was missing in that section—the scene I’d cut, of course. It might become the genesis for a short story, or even a novel in and of itself. A throwaway scene in that first book about a warped throne that, when approached, caused the characters to hear multitudes of strange voices all speaking at once, became the central part of my first published series, the “Throne of Amenkor.”

As I write this new series, I keep looking back at who I was in high school, that excited teenager who couldn’t keep from dreaming of what this world he’d just created in government class might contain. I still feel like that excited teenager, especially when I reach the end of a particularly good scene or the end of a short story or novel. That world—so empty and yet so full of promise back then—has now been fleshed out and filled in . . . at least, some significant parts of it have been. There’s still entire continents left to explore there, entire cultures that haven’t been experienced yet . . . by you, the reader, or myself. I can see them. They’ve been hinted at in some of my novels.

And I can’t wait to find out exactly what their stories are.

o0o0o0o0o0o

Joshua Palmatier (aka Benjamin Tate) is a fantasy writer with DAW Books, with two series on the shelf, a few short stories, and is co-editor with Patricia Bray of two anthologies. Check out the “Throne of Amenkor” trilogy—The Skewed Throne, The Cracked Throne, and The Vacant Throne—under the Joshua Palmatier name. And look for the “Well” series—Well of Sorrows and the just released Leaves of Flame—by Benjamin Tate. Short stories are included in the anthologies Close Encounters of the Urban Kind (edited by Jennifer Brozek), Beauty Has Her Way (Jennifer Brozek), and River (Alma Alexander). And the two anthologies he’s co-edited are After Hours: Tales from the Ur-bar and the upcoming The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity (March 2012). Find out more about both names at www.joshuapalmatier.com and www.benjamintate.com, as well as on Facebook, LiveJournal (jpsorrow), and Twitter (bentateauthor).

What's New At Book View Cafe

2012-01-17T11:11:00.000-08:00

One of the things I most appreciate about electronic publishing is the renewed availability of the backlist (not to mention a Renaissance of midlist). It always struck me as sad that books authors worked so hard on, and that readers loved, become difficult if not impossible to find. The internet has made it easier to search for used copies, which is good. But as more readers used electronic devices, it's wonderful to find this repertoire available in this form, too.

For me as an author, it has been a special delight to hear from readers who have just discovered my novels Jaydium and Northlight through ebook editions. Later this spring, I'll be bringing out the first for a whole bunch of stand-alone short stories, perfect for when you have only a limited amount of time and want a complete story.

Some years ago, Irene Radford wrote a wonderful series of fantasy novels about the descendents of Merlin, with each generation of magical guardians in a different historical period. They've been out of print for some time, and now Irene's bringing them out as ebooks from Book View Cafe. The first one, Guardian of the Balance, is out now at a special price. (Click also for a link to a sample chapter, maps, and more!)

Caught between her beloved father, the Merlin of Britain, and Arthur Pendragon, the old ways and the new, Wren must find a way to balance the forces of Chaos with peace. She nurtures the land and the people, creating a haven for anyone displaced by the turbulence. And for the safety of all she must guard her heart against the deep love she shares with Arthur, a married king who holds the future of all the Britains in his hands and his sword.

I'm on SF Signal!

2012-01-12T10:49:00.000-08:00

Today (January 12), I have a Guest Blog on SF Signal about my literary apprenticeship with Marion. I hope you enjoy it.

On Reviewing Books: A Gift For Your Favorite Author

2012-01-10T09:53:00.000-08:00

From today's Book View Cafe blog:

Michael K. Rose blogged here on 5 Ways to Help Authors Without Spending a Dime. He suggests using Tags and other tools on Amazon.com, as well as Facebook shares and Twitter ReTweets to “boost the signal” for your favorite author’s books. I think this is all very well, using the system of referral algorithms (“Readers who liked this book, also liked that other book”) to direct potential buyers.

Catherine Mintz pointed out that a thoughtful review is even more effective. Depending on where the review gets posted, that can be the equivalent of “word of mouth,” which is a good thing. But it leads — for me, anyway, and I suspect for far too many other readers — to daunting prospect of actually writing such a review.

Between them, high school book review assignments and professional reviewers had done a disservice to the greater mass of readers (my husband subscribes to the New York Times Review of Books, which always comes to my mind as an example of reviews that look to be as demanding to write as the books themselves!) Although I may appreciate the exercise in comparative literature, historical perspective, and contemporary social values — these are not the reviews I want to write, or can write with any degree of facility.

For a long time, I felt guilty because I couldn’t bring myself to write such detailed and well-researched analyses. That guilt turned into a major obstacle to my writing any reviews at all. With time and professional confidence, I reached the point of being able to chuck the old expectations. It’s not that I lack opinions on what I read, but rather that for the most part, I read subjectively and for my own pleasure. Therefore, my experience of a book is highly colored by the specific environment — inner and outer — in which I read it. Here’s my second revelation: Personal, subjective reviews are as interesting and valuable as scholarly dissertations.

I think it’s valid to talk about books that rescued us from despair, entertained us during illness, comforted us like companions, or transformed our worlds. I love hearing those stories from others. So why shouldn’t I tell my own versions — as reviews? Maybe review is a poor vessel to hold both such idiosyncratic, emotional responses but it’s what we’ve got.

I’m trying to make a habit of writing a few lines about every book I finish (or fail to finish, and why). Sometimes I put them up on various review sites, including online bookstores, LibraryThing and Goodreads; other times, they end up in a blog or LiveJournal post. I encourage you to do the same, even if it’s just a few lines. You don’t have to repeat the plot (that’s one part I always hated, although — paradoxically and capriciously — I sometimes like that in a review if I want to know more about the book). How did the book strike you? Would you have enjoyed it more at a different time of your life? Did it remind you of other times, other places? How does it stand up to the book before that? Would you read this author’s next work? Would you recommend it to a friend and if so, which friend?
And also… would you like to see my own reviews here?

The painting is Young Man Reading by Matthias Stom (1600-1649). When I look at it, I wonder who he is, what he’s reading, and how it is changing his life. He looks a little sad, so I wonder if it’s poetry. Probably not The Lives of the Saints. What do you think?

Shouldn't You Be Writing?

2012-01-09T10:25:00.000-08:00

... not that I want you go go away and not read my blog. But I don't know any writer (who is online, that is) for whom the internet is not a time sink. The black hole that eats up hours -- days -- of writing. Not to mention leaving us frazzled and dry-eyed. This latter bit is true: when you're staring at a computer screen, you blink less frequently than when you're not, so your eyes get drier. As you age, this effect becomes even more pronounced. So, apart from eye strain (again, more of a problem for older folks), there's that scratchy-eyed feeling as if it's 2 am. This is apart from neck and shoulder strain -- well, you know the ergonomic lament of anyone who sits at a desk all day.

Juliette Wade's blog today is on "the internet as a trap" -- some thoughts on the psychology of how we get locked into online stuff, including what we get out of it -- or think we get out of it -- and some strategies for disconnecting. No, not unplugging. Email, blog sites (like this one!), news sites, social media, are all valuable in their place. So how do we, with our primate brains and addictive natures, manage to keep it all under control?

We can try time management techniques, of course. Check email or compose blog posts only at certain times. Set a timer. (Actually, this is a good idea to remind ourselves to get up and stretch at regular intervals.) Juliette comes up with some strategies I hadn't thought of before, like turning off the sound and expanding the window of our word processors to fill the entire screen so we aren't distracted by "you've got mail" alerts.

Most valuable to me is her insight that "you get out of the internet what you put into it." A version of "quality, not quantity." The shift from passive following of "news" (anything that changes from day to day or minute to minute) to the active creation of content (whether it is a blog post or a comment) can be seen as a writing exercise. If we can stay focused, these things can function as a "warm-up" for our writing day. We can develop internet "places" where we chew over problems, get support for overcoming inertia, trouble-shoot, brainstorm, etc. The trick is to not let these activities expand to fill all available space. A warm-up (or a break) is just that -- and I notice that the scales and exercises I play before my piano practice don't take more than 5 or 10 minutes.

"Becoming ready" to work is an interesting process, different for each of us, I suspect, and changeable over time. For me, the jury is still out as to whether I can use the internet effectively to do this. I'm hoping I can, 'cause I do love hanging out with you guys.

What works for you?

Check out the rest of Juliette's article and her suggestions here

The illo is by Whoee Freek and is in the public domain.

Sleepy Mind, Great Ideas... Maybe

2012-01-06T11:34:00.000-08:00

Why is it that juicy story ideas, as well as brilliant solutions to plot problems, pop into my mind when I'm dozing off? All right, that's a rhetorical question. We all know that as we drift into sleep, our brain activity changes. Logic and other constraints on creativity shut down and we make unusual and often wonderful connections between otherwise disparate bits of memory, thoughts, etc. The point of my question is not why this happens, but what to do about the inevitable waking up and being unable to remember.

Catherine Mintz playfully suggests that "it is a law of writing that wonderful things appear as soon as you are too tired to make notes."

Keeping a pen and paper at bedside is a logical remedy. I've done this for a dream journal, which has a slightly different objective, and I've done it for writing ideas at various times over the years. I don't any more, and here's why.

When I read over my notes in the cold, harsh light of day (not to mention an awake brain, with critical faculties online), those "brilliant" ideas fail the brilliancy test. It could be that they are indeed brilliant, but I'm not awake enough to write them down properly. It could also be that the very act of writing them down requires me to shift mental functioning (i.e., to wake up) enough to "lose" the creative connections. It could also be that they are indeed not all that brilliant, they only seem so at the time because I'm too sleepy to have any objective judgment.

I don't think any of these explanations is helpful. Moreover, it's entirely possible that the very act of writing down those sleeptime ideas and then struggling to put them into usable form is counterproductive. Consider daydreams. I believe they are most enjoyable when they have no other purpose than to let our imaginations wander as they will, indulging in whatever interests or pleases us at the moment. I also believe that this is a valuable part of the creative process, at least for writing. Don't know about sculpture or music.

Sleepytime inspirations are much the same -- illogical, bizarre, evanescent, apart from rational critical analysis. This does not mean they are without value. It's important to give our minds (and our creative muses) time to play. Play means we don't expect a utilitarian result. Play is for its own sake. But...

The very process of play, the freedom to do so, feeds into the "simmering soup pot" of ideas, images, connections, from which we draw our stories. Play enriches our inner landscapes, populating them with characters and events that connect with us. So what if we can't remember the next morning? Somewhere, something of value remains, waiting to emerge, perhaps in a totally different form.

I try not to fret about losing that one-and-only perfect solution. I remind myself that nothing creative is ever wasted... or lost. Instead of trying to hold on to a night's musings (muse-ings), I can gently direct my thoughts to a particular story or character or situation, night after night, trusting that if whatever arises in response is good and true, it will come back stronger every time. That makes it more likely to poke its head up when I am awake and focused -- oh yes, I remember you. Then I will have something to work with, using both my sleepytime mind and my rational alert mind in cooperative mode, neither trying to coerce or manage the other.

Sweet dreams!

The image is by French painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898)

Editors Are Your Friends

2012-01-02T11:50:00.000-08:00

There's a tendency among newer writers (and -- let's face it -- all of us, at one time or another) to regard editors as adversaries. First of all, acquiring editors are gate-keepers. They're the ones with the power to say No, the ones we have to get past in order to get our books accepted and paid for. They're the ones we think of bribing with chocolate, or placating and cajoling and offering the sekrit handshake to.

Then, once we've cleared that hurdle, we have to face editorial revisions. It isn't enough that we've toiled and toiled and turned ourselves into knots getting a book accepted -- now they want to us to change stuff! To alter our peerless prose! What if they want us to do something that's wrong, wrong, wrong for the book? Where do they get off telling us what to do, anyway?

Madeleine E. Robins made a wonderful comment on this:

My constant refrain, when I'm talking to would-be, wanna-be, and future writers, is: "editors are your friend. They keep you from going out in public with your slip showing and pieces of spinach caught in your teeth. Yes, there are some editors who are, um, overzealous. But most of them have the best interest of your work at heart, and I doubt there exists an editor anywhere who gets up in the morning saying "How shall I screw up great works of prose today?"

What is sad is that twice I have been informed by someone in the crowd that editors were just wanna-be writers who were taking out their disappointment on the text before them.

While many editors are also writers, many are not and never want to be. They love editing, they love "midwifing" wonderful books -- they want to fall in love with yours and make it the best it can be. It is such a joy to work with an insightful, skilled author. Truly, such a professional is an author's best friend.

Living Now With Cancer

2011-12-30T17:50:00.000-08:00

From my dear friend, Bonnie Stockman, as she faces her third recurrence of ovarian cancer, posted with her permission:

I'm going into my third lap. One is such, ah, a virgin the first time. So hopeful and optimistic for a cure even with less than charming odds. The second time is a denouement of sorts, but a thin thread of hope hangs in there - I've talked to a couple of people that had a recurrence many years ago and are here to tell about it. The third time... haven't run into anyone that's a long term survivor after the third time. The stats for treatment effectiveness are similarly less than cheerful. At this point, one term I saw used was "salvage chemo". Buys one time - and hopefully salvages some decent quality of life.

I will miss hearing what happens in all the stories, but I am reminded that the stories are endless and the beginnings before my time. I wonder about both ends of them, but all I have is my part right here in the middle of beginning and ending. It was for others to know the beginnings and it is for others to know the endings, if indeed there ever are any endings. Like the saying on the hippie school bus: "Now is all we have".

Indeed, we have now. And if we have been generous with our hearts, we have each other. Sometimes, we have each other even if we haven't, because life itself is full of gifts. Every day.

Open your eyes. Tell someone you love them. Listen when they love you back.

Exordium: From Star Wars to Epublishing

2011-12-28T09:02:00.000-08:00

From Sherwood Smith on the Book View Cafe blog:

It’s the summer of 1977.

The buzz along our apartment building in Hollywood is that Star Wars is better than it sounds. I’m thinking, gheck. Except for the Salkind Three Musketeers movie, I loathed seventies films, especially the sf ones: either they were fight-the-monster movies, or else long, boring screeds in which the furniture was plastic, and everyone wore these jump suits that looked like they’d take an hour to get out of if you wanted to pee.

This one (Star WARS? Oh please) sounded like car-crash derby only with space ships.

...

We get out at two a.m. (we’d miraculously gotten into the midnight showing), passed the enormous line waiting for the next showing, and Dave grins at me and says “Well?”

“I’m going back.”

And we did. We did for about six weeks, every weekend, and then we said, “We can do that.” So we got together one evening (I still have the notes) and wrote down all the elements that we loved in fiction that had been missing from movies for years, that Star Wars was tapping into, and we wrote down every extravagant swashbuckling trope we adored and wanted in a story, came up with Exordium, our space opera extravaganza.

I grin every time I hear this story. Dave is my husband, Dave Trowbridge, and today is his debut as a member of Book View Cafe (and the second Exordium book, Ruler of Naught, is now available!)

From Sherwood and Dave on John Scalzi's The Big Idea:

Ruler of Naught is Book Two of our space opera Exordium, which began life as a mini-series screenplay over twenty years ago, morphed into a mass-market paperback, and is returning again as an e-book series.

E-books are not only giving new writers an alternative to traditional book publishing, but letting oldsters like us resurrect yellowing paperbacks from used-book crypts. That’s a fun process (mostly), but from Exordium’s beginning we’ve struggled with the skiamorphs (shadow shapes—like wood grain on plastic) that are left not only when you move between media, but when your twenty-year-old vision of a technology’s cultural impact collides with present-day reality.

The Lesbian Chocolate Sex Scene, or Life With Exordium

2011-12-27T10:15:00.000-08:00

This appeared today on the Book View Cafe blog.

Among the joys of living with a fellow writer (in this case, my husband, Dave Trowbridge) are the unexpected things that come up during dinner conversation

“How was your day, dear?”

“Splendid! The lesbian chocolate sex scene works better than ever.”

It always was a terrific scene. Even in the original print version of Exordium 2: Ruler of Naught. I wondered what he and Sherwood (Smith, his co-author and co-conspirator) have done to make it better. Ruler of Naught, like the first Exordium volume, The Phoenix in Flight, have been extensively revised for their Book View Café ebook editions.

He goes on, “They’ve covered themselves in chocolate and are licking it off one another, and this of course distracts the enemy general enough to change the course of the entire space battle.”

We experience stories in different ways. Some are meant to be told aloud and fall rather flat when transposed into a fixed medium. The reverse is true as well, for not all writing reads aloud well, or transcribes into another medium like film well, which is why the movie version of a novel is different.

What has any of this to do with lesbians and chocolate (not to mention alien chastity devices for men and supraluminal battles in space)? Be patient, my friends.

Some writers like to talk about their works in progress, or brainstorm ideas and plot snippets. I used to live with an engineer, and when I’d get stuck on skiffy stuff, we’d go for a long walk and I’d pick her brains, which mean explaining what I needed the technogeekery for. This doesn’t work for everyone. For some writers, talking about a work-in-formation or a work-in-progress dissipates the creative passion, so there’s none left for the actual writing.

At last comes the moment when the story is finished, either in draft-ready-for-critiquing or final published form. Assuming your friend/spouse/partner actually wants to you to read it, that’s a very different proposition from listening to the fluid amalgam of ideas.

This woman is infuriating, you are muttering. When is she going to get to the part with the chocolate? And the sex? Hold on…

A special delight awaits those of us who get a peek at the process of revising a finished work. Nothing is truly finished, we know that. At some point, we just have to turn it in and move on, or the nits and bits will eat our lives. There are always editorial compromises, and “this is the best we can do right now”s. We learn by doing, we improve our writing by practicing it in a thoughtful manner, and our ideas change and mature as we go, as well. When you put those together with advances in technology and science, not to mention the growth of the writers, a work of the length and scope of Exordium practically begs to be revisited.

Okay. The scene. But wait! In order to truly understand it, you have to know about the furniture that’s been ejected into space. Oh, and that the man looking on (one-eyed, of course) has an… um, “Emasculator” attached to the… um, masculine part of his anatomy. Not, I point out, voluntarily.

I read the original print version when Dave and I were courting and honestly, if I hadn’t had such a personal motive, I might not have made it through the first 150 pages. It’s not that I dislike space opera; on the contrary, I find it great fun, especially when done with wit and intelligence and bravado, all of which Exordium has in generous quantities. The opening seemed to be one sequence after another in which I got introduced to a character, began to care about him or her, and then the character would get killed. Once I got passed that, I was hooked both by the sweep and forward movement, the vastness of the story, but by all the unexpected elements that come out of nowhere and fit perfectly anyway.

So I was delighted to hear that when Dave and Sherwood decided to offer the Exordium series as ebooks through Book View Café, they rewrote that beginning.

Ah, yes. The chocolate scene. It occurs twice, actually, as if once were utterly insufficient for chocolate. Once is when it’s actually happening, in part as revenge against the one-eyed man, and once when the recording is re-played. Did I mention the furniture? That’s an important motivation.

If you, like me, appreciate the role of chocolate as an instrument of military strategy, an alien race that reveres The Three Stooges, space battles in which the speed of light plays a crucial role, exiled princes and galaxy-spanning empires, plots and action, romance and betrayal, and elegant manners and fart jokes, you’ll find much to delight you in this series.

Oh, the scene? Here’s a tidbit, from the middle of the battle:

The main tactical screen jerked and froze. Multiple screens smeared into unintelligibility. The hyperwave discriminators had finally overloaded.

“Communications!” Juvaszt shouted even as Terresk-jhi stabbed frantically at her console, and sat back as an image appeared on the main screen.

Juvaszt’s jaw dropped. The entire bridge crew stared.

Anaris blinked, but the image on the main viewscreen was still there. Incredibly still there: two naked women, one small and spare, one tall and spectacular, writhed on the deck of a ship in a tangle of limbs, their tongues following streaks of some viscous dark liquid across each other’s body…

In writing, as well as lovemaking and warfare, timing and placement are everything.

There’s more — of course there’s more — but you’ll have to read the whole book (which you can download here. Which means you really should start with The Phoenix In Flight. Which is on sale, to help you get started. Enjoy!

Goals, Wishes, Intentions

2011-12-26T10:45:00.000-08:00

I'm not big on resolutions, New Year's or otherwise. More often than not, all they do is set me up to fail, or put me in competition with others, and who needs that? However, I do see a great deal of value in taking some time to clarify where I'm going in my life, if it's where I want to be going, and what I'd like to see different.

Years (as in, decades) ago, a friend suggested making a list of goals instead of resolutions, and to break them down into 1-year, 5-year, 10-year, and lifetime goals. I did that for quite a while, and I still have the notebook I kept them in. It's fascinating to look back at what I thought I wanted, 30 years ago -- what I have achieved, what I no longer want, and what is no longer possible.

Along the way, I realized that some of these things were within my power to achieve, but others were not. I might long for them, but I could not bring them about, or not entirely by my own efforts. For instance, finishing a novel or studying Hebrew are things I can choose to do, but my children being happy, however much I might want to see that come about, is not something I myself can create. These things are wishes, not goals. Of course, many things are both. On my list is to write a work of enduring value -- I can write the best stories that are in me, but how they are received and how they endure the test of time is another matter entirely. I have no say over that.

For 2007, the year I turned 60:
1 year:
Finish (a specific book I was working on)
Transfer family videos to DVD
Celebrate becoming a crone
5 years:
Keep writing good stuff
10 years/lifetime:

Be active and happy
Do something activist and outrageous

As I wrote down goals and wishes, year after year, I found that they changed in other ways. The specifics tended to be resolved or discarded, but things emerged that were more general and had more to do with quality and spirit than measurable achievements. The example I just gave -- writing something that would speak to people long after I'm gone as opposed to selling a novel or selling a particular novel -- shows this change. The farther out in time the goals/wishes, the less they resembled "resolutions." I've started to think of them as intentions instead.

Yet, the universe does not cooperate with our best intentions. I can wish for and intend to have a year that is one way but get presented with situations and challenges I had no way of anticipating and end up with something quite different, marvelous or heart-breaking. Part of the shift from resolutions to intentions is the introduction of flexibility, of a suppleness of response to whatever life brings. Life is not limited by my imagination (or my fears). It is an adventure, not a fixed syllabus.

Photo by Cleo Sanda

And Now A Word From Our E-Publisher...

2011-12-22T16:28:00.000-08:00

Both my out of print novels -- Jaydium and Northlight -- are available in electronic form. They're fun reads, if I do say so myself, with adventure and romance and cool nifty stuff. So if you haven't read them, you should hie yourself hence to the appropriate site and indulge yourself.

You could zip over to amazon.com...but I'd like to convince you not to. Instead, buy from Book View Cafe. There's no need to give your business to the 800-lb gorilla that seems bent on putting everyone else -- including our favorite indie brick and board bookstores -- out of business. You can download any of BVC's publications to your Kindle (or Nook) (instructions here).

First of all, it's better for the authors. We get a far greater percentage of each sale -- and the cost to you is the same. We decide on how much goes to BVC and none of that end up in the pockets of fatcat investors -- it goes right back into the site so we can pay our tech person decently and other things we decide collectively.

Second, it's much better for you. You purchase a subscription that allows you to download in as many different formats as you like. Once downloaded, the files remain on your devices -- BVC can't "pull the plug," the way they did with Orwell's 1984. If you chuck your Kindle and go for a Nook, you don't have to pay for another download.

Third, you'll find original as well as reprint books by seasoned pro authors, all professionally edited and beautifully formatted (unlike a lot of the ebooks out there!) Some of these are not available anywhere else.

Not sure? You can read sample chapters of all of them to give you a taste.

(After you've downloaded and enjoyed your copies, you could sneak over to amazon.com and leave a short review, of course.)

Here are links to Jaydium, Northlight, Other Doorways - the omnibus that includes both, and the short story, The Casket of Brass. More shorts coming in Spring 2012!

A Gift For Your Favorite Author

2011-12-18T15:40:00.000-08:00

Michael K. Rose blogged here on 5 Ways to Help Authors Without Spending a Dime. He suggests using Tags and other tools on Amazon.com, as well as Facebook shares and Twitter ReTweets to "boost the signal" for your favorite author's books. I think this is all very well, using the system of referral algorithms ("Readers who liked this book, also liked that other book") to direct potential buyers.

Catherine Mintz, over on Twitter, pointed out that a thoughtful review is even more effective. Depending on where the review gets posted, that can be the equivalent of "word of mouth," which is a good thing. But it leads -- for me, anyway, and I suspect for far too many other readers -- to daunting prospect of actually writing such a review.

Between them, high school book review assignments and professional reviewers had done a disservice to the greater mass of readers (my husband subscribes to the New York Times Review of Books, which always comes to my mind as an example of reviews that look to be as demanding to write as the books themselves!) Although I may appreciate the exercise in comparative literature, historical perspective, and contemporary social values -- these are not the reviews I want to write, or can write with any degree of facility.

For a long time, I felt guilty because I couldn't bring myself to write such detailed and well-researched analyses. That guilt turned into a major obstacle to my writing any review at all. With time and professional confidence, I reached the point of being able to chuck the old expectations. It's not that I lack opinions on what I read, but rather that for the most part, I read subjectively and for my own pleasure. Therefore, my experience of a book is highly colored by the specific environment -- inner and outer -- in which I read it. Here's my second revelation: Personal, subjective reviews are as interesting and valuable as scholarly dissertations.

I think it's valid to talk about books that rescued us from despair, entertained us during illness, comforted us like companions, or transformed our worlds. I love hearing those stories from others. So why shouldn't I tell my own versions -- as reviews? Maybe review is a poor vessel to hold both such idiosyncratic, emotional responses, but it's what we've got.

I'm trying to make a habit of writing a few lines about every book I finish (or fail to finish, and why). Sometimes, I put them up on various review sites, including online bookstores, LibraryThing and Goodreads; other times, they end up in a blog or LiveJournal post. I encourage you to do the same, even if it's just a few lines. You don't have to repeat the plot (that's one part I always hated, although -- paradoxically and capriciously -- I sometimes like that in a review if I want to know more about the book). How did the book strike you? Would you have enjoyed it more at a different time of your life? Did it remind you of other times, other places? How does it stand up to the book before that? Would you read this author's next work? Would you recommend it to a friend and if so, which friend?

And also... would you like to see my own reviews here?

The painting is Young Man Reading by Matthias Stom, 1600-1649. When I look at it, I wonder who he is, what he's reading, and how it is changing his life. He looks a little sad, so I wonder if it's poetry. Probably not The Lives of the Saints. What do you think?