Thanks to my sleep disorder, today was a day that sort of wasn't. I'm headed back into a cycle of sleeping in a twilight for about 18 hours a day, not my favorite kind of phase, but oh well. I think the strangest thing about having this disorder is hearing other people's reactions. When I was telling someone about my days when I never really wake up, they said, "That'd be so great, to sleep for 18-20 hours."
Huh? Sorry to be judgmental, but that's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. I guess people have a hard time comprehending that with a disorder, you don't spend 18-20 hours resting and catching up on sleep. You just spend it in a suspended state, unable to function. Worse, if someone thinks they need 20 hours of catch up sleep, they've got life priority issues. Some of us would do anything for an hour of quality sleep. There's nothing more frustrating than watching people who have quality sleep every night mutter about how they can't take the time to experience it to the point where they build up a 20 hour deficit.
Since I'm not sure when I'll get to sleep, or whatever related state, tonight, I'll fiddle around with short story ideas. I'm waiting to hear back from Covenant on whether or not they'd be theoretically interested in the book proposal I sent them. I was told I'd hear last week or this, so I'm sincerely hoping to hear this week. Means there are no novels to write today!
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Mighty Mur
Well, the bad news first. I can't get a copy of Playing For Keeps
from Amazon!!!! It's sold out at the moment. This doesn't really matter, though, as it is being published by a POD press, so restocking will be fast.I guess I should point out that the good news is that my Viable Paradise classmate, Mur Lafferty, has been in the top 30 on Amazon for the past couple of days, even cracking the top twenty for a while there. This is always an impressive accomplishment, made even more so by the fact that this is a small press release and doesn't have the publicity of a big publishing house behind it.
Mur and I were in the same crit session at Viable Paradise when she workshopped the first part of this novel, and even then, a couple of years ago, it was very polished and well put together. I look forward to reading it once I can get my paws on a copy of the finished product.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Agent queries
Got rolling on these today and surprised myself by not getting frustrated to the point of wanting to quit the field altogether. A few things have changed since the last time I did this. One is that there are a lot more resources on the web for finding agents. Between Agent Query and Publisher's Marketplace, I've got a list of 39 agents who do YA SF after just 2 days of research. Last time around, I was struggling to find a dozen, and I got a million rejections from agents saying they only did one or the other and didn't want to see both in one book. Okay, obviously a dozen agents didn't produce a million rejections, but that is how it feels. Agent Query, especially, has better searching capabilities and nice entries by the agencies that let me know whether they're an agency with one SF agent and another doing YA, or one that is actually looking for YA SF.
I am also using these resources more than my own network, which is a little counter-intuitive. The last time I did queries I used everything I knew about my colleagues agents to start my research. However, none of my colleagues do hard SF for teens, so now I'm breaking out of that mold. Granted, I still do hear quite a bit through the grapevine and have found several agents that way.
It also helps to have more free time than I did before. Without the day job, I can sit and read agents' websites in detail and look up interviews they've done to get specifics on exactly what they want in a query letter. All the guides say to do this, but it's incredibly time consuming. Research on one agent can take well over an hour, and it's typical to start a round of submissions with ten agents. That's two hours every evening for a whole work-week, which is more than a lot of working folk can afford. Add on top of that the time it takes to prep the submissions, and it starts to add up to a part-time job.
I got 13 subs out today and that is all I'll do for a couple of weeks. It helps to send them out in bursts, because a landslide of rejections lets you know that you need to change your query letter. I also am grouping them up by what they require in a query package, and that's just so I can keep the format straight in my head and don't drive myself nuts with two different envelope sizes and a million documents open on my computer in one round. It also turns out that, working this way, I end up with several agents I really would love, several I think are great, and a few that I'm not real sure I've heard of in each batch. I don't want to burn through all my favorites at the beginning, only to learn my query is flawed. Nor do I want to leave them until the end.
This'll be the only entry I do about agent subs, unless I land an agent with this novel. I'll blog about that. I'm not going to post my rejections in the reject-o-meter, though. I expect there will be a lot, as this is always a long haul. Like I posted before, a good friend of mine took nine months and queried over forty agents before landing a top notch one who turned around and got her a very respectable deal at a major publishing house. This is an exercise in perseverence. Fortunately, I've got a book I'm willing to stand behind until I query out the entire field.
I am also using these resources more than my own network, which is a little counter-intuitive. The last time I did queries I used everything I knew about my colleagues agents to start my research. However, none of my colleagues do hard SF for teens, so now I'm breaking out of that mold. Granted, I still do hear quite a bit through the grapevine and have found several agents that way.
It also helps to have more free time than I did before. Without the day job, I can sit and read agents' websites in detail and look up interviews they've done to get specifics on exactly what they want in a query letter. All the guides say to do this, but it's incredibly time consuming. Research on one agent can take well over an hour, and it's typical to start a round of submissions with ten agents. That's two hours every evening for a whole work-week, which is more than a lot of working folk can afford. Add on top of that the time it takes to prep the submissions, and it starts to add up to a part-time job.
I got 13 subs out today and that is all I'll do for a couple of weeks. It helps to send them out in bursts, because a landslide of rejections lets you know that you need to change your query letter. I also am grouping them up by what they require in a query package, and that's just so I can keep the format straight in my head and don't drive myself nuts with two different envelope sizes and a million documents open on my computer in one round. It also turns out that, working this way, I end up with several agents I really would love, several I think are great, and a few that I'm not real sure I've heard of in each batch. I don't want to burn through all my favorites at the beginning, only to learn my query is flawed. Nor do I want to leave them until the end.
This'll be the only entry I do about agent subs, unless I land an agent with this novel. I'll blog about that. I'm not going to post my rejections in the reject-o-meter, though. I expect there will be a lot, as this is always a long haul. Like I posted before, a good friend of mine took nine months and queried over forty agents before landing a top notch one who turned around and got her a very respectable deal at a major publishing house. This is an exercise in perseverence. Fortunately, I've got a book I'm willing to stand behind until I query out the entire field.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Denvention
It's been a while since I've posted for two reasons. 1) I was out of town all weekend again, and 2) I've been working overtime to finish edits on this SF novel so I can get it out already.
Anyway, back two weekends ago I was at Denvention, the first WorldCon I've been to in years. I used to go every year, starting with PhilCon and ending with TorCon. Had I stayed single and a full time attorney, I probably would have kept on going, but I traded my spare time and extra spending money in for a good marriage, definitely worth it.
And sadly, WorldCon seems to be shrinking. This one in Denver was notably smaller than any other I've seen. Some think that WorldCon is slowly being cannibalized by ComiCon, and that's definitely a possibility. Perhaps the saddest thing was how few of the Hugo nominees and winners came. The ceremony was dominated by other people reading acceptance speeches of little slips of paper.
What saddens me about all this isn't so much that Denvention wasn't the nonstop party that WorldCon usually is, though that too was a bummer. It's hard to watch the community dissipating. One of the most interesting things about SF, that I learned coming out of Clarion West, was how interconnected everyone was. I.e. Connie Willis tells a story about turning down an offer to cowrite with David Brin, getting chocolates from him, losing said chocolates, and having Bruce Sterling help her find them again. Connie Willis, David Brin, and Bruce Sterling write in rather different styles, yet they all knew each other socially and artistically.
SF has traditionally had this amazing dialogue between its writers as they bounce ideas off each other, respond to each others works, critique each others books, and stay up far too late at cons sharing stories and quips. Nowadays, I think that's lessening, and part of the reason is that we won. SF and fantasy are so widespread that they've become mainstream. Many of the bestselling speculative fiction authors now didn't start out networking at conventions, instead they just read a lot of speculative fiction and decided to try to break into writing it through the usual channels of finding an agent and then selling a book. J.K. Rowling, Stephenie Meyer, and Stephen King probably haven't spent much time sitting on a bed in some random hotel suite together joking about whether John Scalzi can pass for Paolo Bacigalupi (one of the activities at Denvention). These three probably don't know each other at all, nor will a lot of their successors.
Fortunately I still have Critical Mass, a little microcosm of classic SF workshopping, and the New Mexico writers community is still going strong. And, times change, I guess. I hope the era of the tight knit SF community isn't truly ending.
Anyway, back two weekends ago I was at Denvention, the first WorldCon I've been to in years. I used to go every year, starting with PhilCon and ending with TorCon. Had I stayed single and a full time attorney, I probably would have kept on going, but I traded my spare time and extra spending money in for a good marriage, definitely worth it.
And sadly, WorldCon seems to be shrinking. This one in Denver was notably smaller than any other I've seen. Some think that WorldCon is slowly being cannibalized by ComiCon, and that's definitely a possibility. Perhaps the saddest thing was how few of the Hugo nominees and winners came. The ceremony was dominated by other people reading acceptance speeches of little slips of paper.
What saddens me about all this isn't so much that Denvention wasn't the nonstop party that WorldCon usually is, though that too was a bummer. It's hard to watch the community dissipating. One of the most interesting things about SF, that I learned coming out of Clarion West, was how interconnected everyone was. I.e. Connie Willis tells a story about turning down an offer to cowrite with David Brin, getting chocolates from him, losing said chocolates, and having Bruce Sterling help her find them again. Connie Willis, David Brin, and Bruce Sterling write in rather different styles, yet they all knew each other socially and artistically.
SF has traditionally had this amazing dialogue between its writers as they bounce ideas off each other, respond to each others works, critique each others books, and stay up far too late at cons sharing stories and quips. Nowadays, I think that's lessening, and part of the reason is that we won. SF and fantasy are so widespread that they've become mainstream. Many of the bestselling speculative fiction authors now didn't start out networking at conventions, instead they just read a lot of speculative fiction and decided to try to break into writing it through the usual channels of finding an agent and then selling a book. J.K. Rowling, Stephenie Meyer, and Stephen King probably haven't spent much time sitting on a bed in some random hotel suite together joking about whether John Scalzi can pass for Paolo Bacigalupi (one of the activities at Denvention). These three probably don't know each other at all, nor will a lot of their successors.
Fortunately I still have Critical Mass, a little microcosm of classic SF workshopping, and the New Mexico writers community is still going strong. And, times change, I guess. I hope the era of the tight knit SF community isn't truly ending.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
LDSBA Convention
Last Wednesday and Thursday I attended the LDS Booksellers Association Convention for the first time. Because I'm still relatively new to LDS publishing, I didn't even know such a thing existed a year ago. I also had no idea what to expect.
So on Wednesday morning I went over to the exhibit hall and got my bearings. I met the people at the Covenant booth, which took up a good piece of real estate in the back corner, and then looked around at the rest of the vendors. Convention is for buyers from independent LDS bookstores, meaning any bookstore that is not a Deseret Book or a Seagull Book. These two chains are almost exclusive to the mountain west, so nearly all LDS book distribution everywhere else in the United States and Canada is through independent bookstores.
After taking a good look at the Convention itself, I headed out to do a signing. There, I was in for a shock. I'd sort of kept an eye on how well my book was doing on Deseretbook.com, but hadn't paid attention to Seagullbook.com. Hence, I had no idea I was fourth on their bestseller list, or that my book would be prominently featured on displays at the front of the store. It was a nice surprise, but a surprise all the same. At all of the signings and bookstore drop ins I did last week, the book was easy to find. In fact, it was often hard to find all the copies of it because it was on the bestseller shelf, the front display, an endcap, and quite often there was a copy in the counter display. My mother, who accompanied me on the drive up from New Mexico, became quite adept at finding them all so that I could sign them.
Another surprise was that fans showed up. I knew there wouldn't be hordes, but I rather expected to just sit at the signing table and maybe sell a copy or two to passers by. To have people show up, looking for me specifically, was rather stunning. It would appear my fan base is women in their late teens and early to mid twenties, which is about what I expected. Still, it was very nice to see their enthusiastic responses.
I also got the chance to run into Traci Hunter Abramson and Jeri Gilchrist when we all dropped in on the same store. Traci was great to talk to, with her background in national security, and Jeri was wonderfully kind, going immediately to buy my book and have me sign it.
Some other surprises: Men bought the book from me. (The cover is so not geared towards men. I mean... it's pink.) All of the bookstore managers and most of the employees knew who I was at once. (Okay, not surprising if you know the book was on the bestseller list, but I hadn't known.) Covenant does royalties in August. (The check arrived while I was out of town and my husband read me the sales report. Suffice it to say I've met this year's goal of earning enough to buy an air conditioner, and this from two months of sales. They will drop off sharply from here on out, I think, but still!) My editor is really tall. (Well, taller than she looks on her Facebook profile, but I guess everyone there looks about two inches high. It was great meeting her face to face.) One of the other editors at Covenant is an SF fan. (He asked me how on Earth I got into my writer's group, as he knew of the other members. A fair question. :-)
All in all, a very nice introduction to the world of LDS publishing. I've still got a lot to absorb, but last week definitely steepened my learning curve.
So on Wednesday morning I went over to the exhibit hall and got my bearings. I met the people at the Covenant booth, which took up a good piece of real estate in the back corner, and then looked around at the rest of the vendors. Convention is for buyers from independent LDS bookstores, meaning any bookstore that is not a Deseret Book or a Seagull Book. These two chains are almost exclusive to the mountain west, so nearly all LDS book distribution everywhere else in the United States and Canada is through independent bookstores.
After taking a good look at the Convention itself, I headed out to do a signing. There, I was in for a shock. I'd sort of kept an eye on how well my book was doing on Deseretbook.com, but hadn't paid attention to Seagullbook.com. Hence, I had no idea I was fourth on their bestseller list, or that my book would be prominently featured on displays at the front of the store. It was a nice surprise, but a surprise all the same. At all of the signings and bookstore drop ins I did last week, the book was easy to find. In fact, it was often hard to find all the copies of it because it was on the bestseller shelf, the front display, an endcap, and quite often there was a copy in the counter display. My mother, who accompanied me on the drive up from New Mexico, became quite adept at finding them all so that I could sign them.
Another surprise was that fans showed up. I knew there wouldn't be hordes, but I rather expected to just sit at the signing table and maybe sell a copy or two to passers by. To have people show up, looking for me specifically, was rather stunning. It would appear my fan base is women in their late teens and early to mid twenties, which is about what I expected. Still, it was very nice to see their enthusiastic responses.
I also got the chance to run into Traci Hunter Abramson and Jeri Gilchrist when we all dropped in on the same store. Traci was great to talk to, with her background in national security, and Jeri was wonderfully kind, going immediately to buy my book and have me sign it.
Some other surprises: Men bought the book from me. (The cover is so not geared towards men. I mean... it's pink.) All of the bookstore managers and most of the employees knew who I was at once. (Okay, not surprising if you know the book was on the bestseller list, but I hadn't known.) Covenant does royalties in August. (The check arrived while I was out of town and my husband read me the sales report. Suffice it to say I've met this year's goal of earning enough to buy an air conditioner, and this from two months of sales. They will drop off sharply from here on out, I think, but still!) My editor is really tall. (Well, taller than she looks on her Facebook profile, but I guess everyone there looks about two inches high. It was great meeting her face to face.) One of the other editors at Covenant is an SF fan. (He asked me how on Earth I got into my writer's group, as he knew of the other members. A fair question. :-)
All in all, a very nice introduction to the world of LDS publishing. I've still got a lot to absorb, but last week definitely steepened my learning curve.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Pedicure
Last week, while I was in Utah with my mother, we decided to get pedicures (not something I do all that often). The pedicurist asked me if I wanted flowers on my toes, and I said no, but mentioned that I was on my way to a science fiction convention, so could I possibly get stars? Turns out they had rhinestone stars in stock and she obligingly glued some on to my big toenail for no extra charge (though I did of course tip her).I think the effect is rather funny. Sorry the picture's so blurry; I took it with my cell phone in the airport very late at night while we waited on our much-delayed flight.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
Off to conventions
I'll be off-blog for a week. Tomorrow, bright and early, my mother and I are headed up to Salt Lake City for the LDS Booksellers Association Convention. Then this weekend I'll be at Denvention (this year's WorldCon). Rather an interesting mix of cultures, but it's been so many years since I've been to WorldCon that I'm looking forward to it. It's always a chance to see old friends.
My only regret is that I didn't get my SF novel all the way edited before I left, but I'll have my laptop with me and have gotten all the roughest parts out of the way. The rest should be easy enough.
My only regret is that I didn't get my SF novel all the way edited before I left, but I'll have my laptop with me and have gotten all the roughest parts out of the way. The rest should be easy enough.
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