My poor neglected blog

I'm killing time before my dentist appointment this morning, and I can't eat, and I can't get too involved with anything because then I'll have to leave, and I can't do yardwork because I'd be all sweaty and gross at the dentist, and anyway I have to head to work afterwards. I thought, "Oh, I need to update my blog."

My goodness, do I! Poor blog hasn't been updated since June. I'm mostly on twitter these days, plus I have another blog that I started this spring to post pictures of my garage makeover project. Somehow that blog turned into the one that I post all the pictures of all my projects to. Like the current project, which is a steampunk owl catcher costume I plan to wear to DragonCon. Which, incidentally, is just barely over a week away and I am not done with the costume.

I thought learning how to sew better, and setting myself a goal of "outfit by DragonCon" would give me a fun summer project. Instead, it has consumed all my free time. When I'm not working on the costume, I'm out hiking. I've destroyed one pair of brand-new hiking boots already this year from hiking so much.

So I haven't written much lately. After DragonCon I can swing into high gear and get some writing projects finished--my steampunk YA (working title The Steam-Powered Raven), a steampunk novella, and a few steampunk short stories.

There is a theme in my life right now. Can you spot it?

Fox Pockets Piracy anthology available!

I should have posted this last week but it slipped my mind. The first Fox Pockets anthology from Fox Spirit Press is available, Piracy, and it contains my story "Skyway." It also contains a lot of other awesome stories. It's a modestly priced, pocket-sized anthology, and while it's only available in print right now, next month it will also be released as an ebook.

The next Fox Pockets anthology, Shapeshifters, comes out this summer and also contains one of my stories, "A Cloud Like a Bunny." So hurray!

Getting in Shape

Late last year several of my writer friends had debut books releasing soon and were getting ready to promote the books and themselves. I wondered what I'd do in their place, wondered how I'd promote myself and how I'd react to needing to do so. I'm shy and unsure of myself, after all.

But, I realized, if I really want to be a professional writer, I have to do certain things despite being shy. And one of those things is to gain more self-confidence. The easiest way for me to feel more confident is to know I look good.

So in December I started walking almost every single night, two miles at minimum. I started to feel the health benefits almost immediately, which made it easy to keep up. At some point I bought a pair of five-pound hand weights and started doing arm exercises too. And I added sit-ups to the mix--not every night, but I try. I started with five sit-ups, increased to ten sit-ups after a week or two, increased to fifteen, and so on. I'm up to fifty sit-ups now. Yeah, me, the girl who this time last year was worried about my health because I was in such bad shape.

I haven't lost all that much weight by the scale, but I can tell a huge difference in my body. I've gone down two pants sizes. I feel better. I hike a lot and every night when I walk, I try to run at least short distances. And yeah, I've got a lot more confidence.

Has it helped my writing? Not directly (although it's nice to know I probably won't keel over at the computer). But when it's time, when I have to get out there and get loud about myself, I'll be ready. And I will have some damn cute clothes, too.

One of those days

The first thing I did when my alarm woke me this morning was drop my phone when I grabbed it to turn off the alarm. It fell under the bed, where its alarm continued to go off while I crawled underneath and groped around for it among old Kleenexes and cat hairs and dust.

I was only supposed to work two hours today, but we had a meeting and it ran over and then we had a training session on some new tech, and by the time I could get away it was 11:30 and I was frantic to leave and get started running errands. I had just pulled onto the highway when I realized I'd left my phone in the office.

When I did finally get home, I promptly dropped a lightbulb, which shattered all over the dining room floor. I needed the lightbulb for a lamp in the garage, and after I'd cleaned up the broken glass and went out to the garage, when I opened the door a snake fell onto my head.

A snake. Fell onto my head.

It was just a garter snake--they're harmless and I like snakes anyway. But still. On my head.

At this point I suspect the best thing for me to do is just go back to bed. But the ceiling will probably cave in on me.

The Next Big Thing

Fellow Inkbot and excellent writer Emma Maree Urquhart tagged me on the Next Big Thing. I've actually done it before, or a version of it, but it's been a long time and I'm now working on a new project (as usual).

In fact, I'm working on two. I started some serious research for a YA steampunk story at the beginning of the year, and I've started writing it. But that's not the project I'm about to discuss.

What is the working title of your book?

The Adventures of Lizzy and Jo, Air Pirates

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I never write short stories. I just don't. But another Inkbot, Rob Haines, gave our group a heads-up on a new anthology series from UK publisher Fox Spirit, and I got interested in writing a steampunk story for the pirate-themed anthology. I already had the world built for my YA WIP. Suddenly I not only had an idea, I had two main characters, a setting, backstory for both, and a burning need to write about them. Oh, and here's the table of contents for the Pirates "Fox Pockets" anthology. My story's called "Skyway."

What genre does your book fall under?

Steampunk fantasy, short story collection

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I don't know anything about actors. I know exactly what my two main characters look like, though. Let me do a search.

Okay, here's Pia Glenn, who is so elegant-looking that I know she'd make a good Jo.

And Lizzy, hell. She just looks like Joan Jett.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Former highwayman Lizzy and runaway bride Jo take to the skies in a stolen airship in search of adventure, loot, and new lives.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Since this will be a short story collection, most of the stories will be published in various anthologies and magazines over the next few years.


How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I've written three stories in about six weeks and don't want to stop.

What other books would you compare this story to in your genre?

I'm still reading my way (increasingly obsessively) through the steampunk genre, and so far I've been discouraged by the lack of fun I've found. Steampunk is fun; it's inventive; it's enthusiastic about the cool stuff from the past while jettisoning the bad stuff or dealing with it in a more modern way. So why are so many steampunk books gritty grimdark terrible things are happening and we have no sense of humor? I'm sure there are books out there like the one I'm writing. I can't wait to find them.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

When you immerse yourself in a genre that's also a growing cultural movement (and yeah, I do think it is), you get sucked in. I always thought steampunk was cool. Now...well, I don't own a pair of goggles yet, but it's becoming more and more likely.

Tag Time!

I'll take a cue from Emma Maree and just tag all the Inkbots. Because I'm lazy that way.

Not how giveaways work

Every so often I list a giveaway on Goodreads for one of my books. I figure it's worth it even if it only bumps my sales by single digits (which seems to be the case). I usually get between 1,000 and 1,400 entries to each giveaway, with around 1/3 of people entering also listing the book as "to read." After each giveaway is completed, Goodreads sends me the winner's name and address and I inscribe the book, tuck a bookmark in the front, wrap it up, and mail it. Over the next few weeks a percentage of the people who listed the book as "to read" will delete it, which doesn't bother me. Sometimes the winner of the book will review it, usually they don't. That doesn't bother me either.

Here are some things that bother me.

Person A enters the giveaway, lists my book as "to read," and gives it a five-star rating. Now don't get me wrong, I love it when someone gives one of my books five stars. But I get uncomfortable when I'm 99% sure that the rater hasn't read the book. I suspect the five-star raters think that I'm the one who picks the giveaway winners and they're trying to influence me to pick them. Goodreads picks the winners and it's done by computer.

Person B enters the giveaway but doesn't win. They then give my book a one-star rating.

Sometimes Person A and Person B are the same person.

Person C enters the giveaway, doesn't win, and sends me a message asking for a copy of the book. Sometimes they friend me first, which makes this extra awkward.

Here's the thing, Person C. Writing a book takes a long time, and revising and editing it take even longer. I know I'm not a big-name writer. My publishers are small, my books are not on the shelves of brick-and-mortar stores, and even avid readers of fantasy most likely won't have heard of me. But that doesn't mean I don't work very hard at my craft. It doesn't mean my publishers and editors and cover artists etc. don't work very hard at what they do too. When one of my books is released, we all have bright hopes that people will find it, buy it, read it, like it, and give it five star ratings and reviews all over the place.

So why do you think I should just give you a free copy?

Sometimes Person C is a book blogger who wants a free copy (or two, or three, or seven--I'm not making this up). Those folks I refer to the book's publisher, who can evaluate the request and decide whether to send a review copy.

More often Person C just really wants the book and figures I gave one copy away, I probably have stacks of them lying around and it won't hurt me to give them one. After all, they're going to review it! And tell all their friends about it!

But I don't have stacks of my books lying around. My books are mostly published in ebook editions, with print-on-demand copies available. Sometimes I'm sent hardcopies by the publisher, sometimes I'm not. If I'm not, I buy a copy or two myself for giveaways (Goodreads giveaways are only for print copies of books). It's not cheap, nor is the packaging and postage cheap.I don't make a lot of money from my writing. I can't afford to give a copy away to anyone who asks.

Do you really, really, really want to read my books? Please do me and my publishers a favor. Buy a copy. They're not expensive. When you buy one of my books you keep my publishers in business and give me a little bit of money to repay me for all the work I put into creating the book for you to read.

Have a cupcake

I made cupcakes this weekend for Valentine's Day. Of course, they all got stale before I could eat them so I had to throw most of them out. But they were pretty while they lasted, sort of like flowers, but unlike flowers they also tasted good.

I've started my new book. It's a YA steampunk fantasy and it's complicated. I need to write the outline, but I know roughly how the plots will run. There are...several plots. And they all tie in together at the end. Because I am awesome.

The worldbuilding has been a lot of fun for this one, although it's also ongoing. I find that some of the best worldbuilding details slot themselves into place as I'm actually writing, without me being even slightly aware ahead of time that they exist--but once they're on the page, I can't imagine the world without them.

Because this book has so many plotlines and so many characters (I'm writing it in omniscient, a point of view I very rarely tackle, but which is the only one possible for this particular narrative), I've installed Scrivener in hopes of keeping things straight. So far I like it all right, although it's very different from working directly in a single Word document with another document open to keep worldbuilding notes, plot notes, outline, a list of characters and placenames, cut scenes, and so forth. Scrivener can hold everything at once, and when the rough draft is done it's supposed to be easy to export the files I want into a single Word document. We'll see how that goes.