fiction tomorrow, and a smidgen of yammer

Only wrote three pages (approx. 750 words) of The Secret Academy today, which would be a most honorable number of pages to have written if I hadn’t planned to do about half of the novel after lunch. For those of you patiently waiting for the next installment, I’ll write another page tomorrow morning and post [...]

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work update

short story: Emailed to the editor last night. The ending was agony. For many stories, there’s nothing wrong with the Hollywood standbys: a kiss, a ride into the sunset, the public thanks of a grateful community– I think the only Hollywood standard that’s always a mistake is the 1970s TV cliche of one character making [...]

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O vain author!

One of the stock bits of writing advice is “Kill your darlings.” It means you must be ready to cut anything that doesn’t serve the work. I finished an essay today and cut the opening paragraph. It’s a darling, though, so I’m putting it here:
I learned about the world outside my home by reading and [...]

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My agent doesn’t like my book proposal.

I learned this two nights ago. I’ve written two long posts for the blog with that title, then discarded each for being excessively rambling.
The quick take is that the proposal was for something I’m not known for, a historical YA with no fantastical elements. Publishers are likely to be leary, and offers, if they come, [...]

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money and the working writer

Royalty checks arrived. We can pay off this month’s rent (the only outstanding bill) and slide through the next month fine, which means that right now, we are typical citizens of the USA. Assuming good results from the short stories, essay, and book proposals that are at various stages, we’ll be in decent financial shape [...]

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thisnthat

Charles Vess’s Book of Ballads is now out from Tor. It includes the story he and Emma did for Firebirds. It’s even prettier in the bigger size.
Apologies for falling behind on the novel. I’m doing some organizing, because I’ve got two deadlines coming up in December, one for a short story and one for an [...]

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We have a winner!

The lovely and talented Ms. Bull reached into a Trader Joe’s paper bag and drew the name of the next character to appear in The Secret Academy. It’s not one of the folks on the train in the current installment. The winner will be named in the text in the next installment that I post, [...]

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W. ate my homework! And postcards.

There won’t be a new installment of the novel by noon. There might not be one today. I let myself fall into Procrastination By Internet, and I’ve got to see if the Democrats need me in a couple of hours, and even if they don’t, there’s a Day of the Dead event at the Mining [...]

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a good, busy day

Sorry about putting the latest installment of the novel up late. If it’s any consolation, it’s a bigger chunk than usual, and it finishes off both Chapter 8 and Book One. The “book within a book” that I’ve been talking about doesn’t start next. What you’ll prob’ly see at this point in the published version [...]

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Another chapter, and the writer’s terror

Okay, terror is overstatement. But I have serious doubts about today’s chapter. If someone gave it to me to critique, I would probably suggest a few tweaks, then say to press on. It can always be shortened, expanded, or cut later.
So that’s my plan. Tomorrow, you’ll either see brand new text, or you’ll see something [...]

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