Trailer trash woes

I spent several hours last night trying to make a book trailer for Jack of All Trades. I got it done, but I'm not happy with it. Finally I realized it wasn't me (at least, probably), but rather the limitations of ultra-crappy Microsoft Movie Maker. Tonight--or tomorrow night, more likely, since I work late tonight--I'll dig around and find a good open-source program to use instead. Any suggestions?

Even with MMM, though, I can tell this trailer-making is an addictive activity. I don't want to release the JOAT trailer until the book's available (because, you know, I expect there'll be so much interest in my trailer), so I'll do another one for a short story to show off in the meantime. I just wish I didn't have this stupid thing called work to get in the way of making trailers!

Why I should always listen to my online buddies

Remember a few weeks ago, when I grumped about my tweet story about Sleeping Beauty not being SF/F enough for Thaumatrope? And everyone said, "Oh, write a real story about it"? Well, I did, and Bards and Sages Quarterly just accepted it for their January 2010 issue!

It's called "Leafing Beauty." I am so freaking excited about this sale. Thanks, y'all!

Up to date

Yesterday I piled up all the notebooks I had sitting around, went through them, and made sure that everything I'd written in them was transcribed. Five notebooks had big chunks of writing that I'd never typed, for four different projects. I got it all typed even though it took hours, hours that I could have spent watching Hot Pursuit police chases on TV and eating ice cream. But I'm dedicated, so I typed instead.

So now White Rose, Little Sparrow, Stag in Ruin, and the new still-untitled project are all up to date. I really like Little Sparrow and I'd like to get back into it--but while I was typing up the last little bit I'd written, I could feel myself writing the plot into a corner. I definitely need to sit down and figure out exactly what I want to do with that one. I think it needs an outline. I've been working without outlines lately, but every project is different.

Holy crap! It's the internet!

I read about the Internet Mapping Project over at Boing Boing a few days ago, and of course I had to print a blank map. I spent several glorious hours yesterday drawing the Internet. I'll be sending the original to the Internet Mapping Project, but I wanted to save a copy for myself so I scanned it. Here it is:

I know, you can't really see it in that picture. So I put a giant version on my website at http://kcshaw.net/internetmap.html. I warn you, it's a humongous .gif. ETA: Hey, I just realized if you click the picture above, it embiggens! I've probably just used up all my blogspot picture space with that one.

Totally changing the subject now. I saw guy-who-looks-just-like-Alex at work today! I hadn't seen him for months and was starting to worry he'd dropped out, but no, he's still in school and doing well. I'm so glad!

I rewrote the query for The Weredeer this afternoon. I still want to tinker with it, but it's about ten billion times better than it was. Next step: fix the appallingly bad synopsis for The Weredeer.

Cover art for Jack of All Trades!

The cover for Jack of All Trades is finalized and I can show it to everyone! I've got it up on my website, but here's the front and back version. I absolutely love the artwork, which is by Richard Svensson. We're getting close to a release date!

I should get the printed proofs soon. This is fun!

It's also time to start thinking about promotion, so if anyone has any ideas, please pass them along. I'd especially love suggestions on good places to send a copy for review, since most of the books I buy are ones I've seen reviewed in various blogs. I've had especially good luck with reviews I've read at Fantasy Debut--I've discovered lots of great new authors there. Any other suggestions?

Too much work for lunch

I opened up my old Weredeer query over lunch (which I'm still at, natch) to see how much work it needed. Reading Carrie Harris, Query Ninja's query critiques has inspired me.

Alas, now that I know a little more about what makes a query good, I'm horrified to find that not only is my Weredeer query not good, it's possibly the worst query ever written that is not actually written by someone semi-literate. It's so bad it doesn't even make me want to read the book, and presumably I find weredeer intrinsically interesting.

But I can fix it! The query's a too-long explanation of what happens in the first part of the book, which has to go. Instead, I need to figure out the key hook and focus on that. Um.

What makes this book special? Hell if I know. Kristof can turn into a deer, yes, but that's not really, you know, enough to get most people to pick up a book. The core theme of the book, I think, is Kristof's friendship with Gabe, who has basically nothing in common with him--not species, not background, not sexual orientation, not nothin. And yet they forge a strong friendship that gets them both into huge amounts of trouble while they're trying to help each other out.

Does that sound like a hook? Can I actually say something like "The Weredeer explores the bonds of friendship between two men from different worlds" with a straight face? Hmm. I'll work on it.

(Also, someone just microwaved something that smells like poo with broccoli. It's in a little plastic tray, which means she probably spent three bucks on it at least. My ham sandwich and Sun Chips cost me almost nothing and they smell like food that hasn't yet been through a digestive tract.)

It's a great big world out there...

And I've hardly seen any of it.


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Feeling the itch to travel, probably because the main character in my new project just hit the road in fantasyland.