Author: Jonathon

I had a writer with his first novel finished and publishers actually interested, good for him, ask me about recommending a publisher that would treat a new writer well. That they asked the question showed just how new a writer they were, because there are only two types of professional writers: those who have had a hard time at the beginning of their careers and those that will have a hard time later on. Maybe there are writers out there that were chosen with their very first novel to be the star of their publishing line. I meet them sometimes. They are bright, cheerful people who think that everyone is treated well before they’ve ever sold a book. If all their books do well, or at least, get rave reviews, because there are different kinds of success in publishing these writers will always feel well treated, but if their books ever cease to do well, then they will discover what the rest of us learned early that publishing is a business.

Publishers make money from publishing the books of writers so you’d think that would mean they value writers, and they do, but not in the way most beginners think they value us. No matter how nice an editor is to you during the honeymoon period, when they want your book and all that young, eager talent, the honeymoon phase does not last. Like any relationship it evolves. Oh, and when I say young I’m not talking age, I’m talking experience in the business. Trust me the wrong types of experience in publishing will age you even if twenty-five is still a distant dream. And that is actually young for most writers to break into the business, most are at least late twenties to fifties before they sell. Thirty something is about average for a first book. But however old you are its a really hard concept to realize that your literary baby is both a creative fragile creature and a commodity no different from a car or a television set, or a well crafted hand-made chair. The closest is the chair because the craftsman puts loving attention into it and makes it one at a time from scratch letting the wood talk to them and tell them the shape it most wants in much the way that a book idea, or character, comes to a writer and tells them what their story is, and like the craftsman who wants to have his chair sat in by someone who can appreciate both its beauty and its utility, so a writer wants readers that see the beauty of her story and enjoy it for what its meant to be a peek inside the imagination of another human being and maybe you’ll learn something.

A chair, you say, you’re comparing my literary masterpiece to a chair? Yep. A hand-made, well-loved, carved, caressed, sanded, dream of a chair, but yes, because when all is said and done the chair is for sitting on and a book is for reading. Your goal is that you will make a chair so comfortable, so beautiful that it will become a lot of people’s very favorite chair and they will buy lot’s and lot’s of your books. That’s the goal.

It helps to think of your book as a well-crafted useful item when you go through your first editing process. Your editor will make or break your experience with your publisher. They are usually the ones who read you first, they are your advocate to the publisher and all the other higher ups. Your editor is your defender in the publishing house as your agent is your defender during negotiations with the editor and the publishing house. Editors can be friendly with you, and you can even feel friendly towards them because usually their goal is to get the best book out of you on time so their publishing house can sell lot’s of the books and everyone makes money. A shared goal makes everyone happy, but during negotiations an editor cannot be your friend. No matter how many lunches, or dinners, or gifts are exchanged. Why can’t they be your friend?

An editor’s job during negotiations is to get the best possible book for the least amount of money. Your goal during the same negotiations is to get the most amount of money possible for the same book. You and she are diametrically opposed. Once negotiations are over, and your agent should handle that because the contracts are a minefield, then the editor and you go back to being on the same team. Until the next negotiations. Never loose sight of that. It’s important.

Sometimes your editor genuinely likes you and you like her, but if she gives you too much money and the book doesn’t sale she could lose her job. If you don’t get enough money for the same book but it does sell, you could still go broke waiting for that first royalty check. Do not quite your day job. The average advance for a first novel is around $4,000 and that hasn’t changed in years. Forget the people who get six figures for the first novel, that is a fluke, I’m telling you the truth, and you cannot live on the reality of a beginning writer’s advances. If you get that six figure advance more power to you, but the odds are not in your favor. It’s nothing personal, they don’t want to pay you money until you prove that you can deliver sales and make money for their publishing house.

If an editor picks a new writer and they begin to do well it helps both the editor and the writer in their career, and the opposite is also very true. Especially right now in publishing it’s bleak out there. It’s probably the hardest market for a beginning writer in decades. It’s also one of the most unforgiving markets in years for mid-list writers, those writers that sale okay, but have never broken out and found their audience. That, by the way, is where most writers spend their careers. The average shelf life for a new novel is six weeks, or less, before they are taken off the shelves, have their cover stripped and sent back to the publisher to prove how many books they didn’t sell.

I’ll give you a moment to recover from that last bit. I know it shocked me as a new writer. I had another writer tell me when my very first novel, NIGHTSEER, came out, "Get a box of your books from the publisher and put it in your closet, because in a month it will be gone forever." It was good advice. Harsh, but good. It’s the reality for most first novels. It’s a reality for most novels right now. If it does not sale most stores cannot afford to keep it on the shelves. Thousands of novels every year, some quite good, never stay around long enough for us to discover them. Think of it like those movies that come and go so fast you never get a chance to see them, but with books there are no DVD’s coming down the pike. It’s simply gone. I know the internet has changed that somewhat, but most publishers where you have a chance of making a living from working with them routinely take electronic rights in the first contract. You can fight it, but it can be a deal breaker.

Now NIGHTSEER actually never went out of print. It sold better than most first novels, but not good enough. The second book in the series, there was supposed to be four of them, was rejected by my editor. He said it lacked a certain je nes se qua, which is French for nothing, or something indefinable. But in the end he told me that the sales just didn’t warrant it. So, my first series died right there. That is one reason I appreciate the success of my two best selling series, the fact that Anita Blake has now hit double digits, and that the Meredith Gentry is coming out with #8 in December is amazing and wonderful to me, but both series are making my publisher money, and me money, true, but if I wasn’t putting money in my publisher’s pockets they wouldn’t be wanting more books.

Remember that chair, well I’ve found that thinking of myself as a craftsman makes it easier to be edited, to negotiate, and to appreciate my triumphs. Ironically the publishing house that rejected my second novel was purchased by the publishing house that bought the Anita books, and they reissued NIGHTSEER which has never gone out of print. I have now made more in royalties, by far than I did on the advance for that book.

Apparently, I’ve learned how to craft a very comfortable-cozy-curl-up-and-listen-for-that-strange-noise-behind-me chair.

I have found myself taking the mornings, or most of the day, off this weekend and only going to work after noon, or for tonight after dark. I usually do work first and then play if there’s time, but my muse has stopped trusting me to give us play time, so she’s wanting her play time up front. I guess I can’t blame her. I’ve been promising us some time off for so long that I’m beginning to sound like a liar.

I’ve promised my Muse and myself some time off when the editing on the Merry Gentry book, DIVINE MISDEMEANORS, and the Anita Blake book, FLIRT, is done. It used to bother me a lot when books crossed. Years ago I worked on one book until it was entirely done, and only then did I move onto the next. I don’t think I’ve done that in years though, and I was very impatient with not being able to write in my old linear fashion. I kept waiting for my schedule to get back to the way it was when I first started writing books. Recently I realized that was like longing for the old days when my life, my career, were entirely different than they are now.

I love that I have two best selling series. I love Anita and all the gang, and I love Merry and her crew. I love that my books are so popular that I have a chance of following both of my characters for as long as I want to play with them, and you guys keep wanting to read them. That is a wonderful thing. I love the fact that I have so many ideas that I can’t keep up with them by just writing one book a year. I love the fact that every book gives me more ideas for each series. I love the fact that I have ideas that are not Anita, or Merry, and I’m letting myself take that idea off the sticky note wall and write it, which is how you are getting a brand new novella from me in the collection, NEVER AFTER, which goes on sale like October 26th. I love that I’ve stopped putting off things, because I’ve got too much on my plate. Since I made the decision to stop putting things on hold I’ve kicked into overdrive on my page production and my ideas. It’s like everything has clicked into high gear, and though, a little tired, I’m having a hell of a good time.

In the end isn’t that what I’m supposed to be doing?

Oops. Ok, lets try that again:

Flirt, the surprise Anita Blake novel, is coming March 2010 not 2011.

The Yet to be Titled Anita Blake novel is coming June 2010 not 2011.

I knew I was tired so I had Jon read the blog over before I posted it, but we both missed the year being wrong. Wow. Jon did stay up with me while I did the final push on Divine Misdemeanors. So we haven’t had a lot of sleep in the last few days, and on that note we’re going to bed.

Divine Misdemeanors, the next Merry Gentry book, is still safely in New York, but Flirt was languishing needing some rewrites and editing. I told them they had to wait until Divine Misdemeanors was off, and guess what, its off, so . . . I talked to my editor and my agent today and edited Flirt in the afternoon. Flirt is an Anita novel, but it’s like a surprise bonus novel for next year. The idea came to me and turned into a book in less than a month which has only happened once before. Most Anita books take years to go from seed idea to complete novel, but not this one. Micah was another like that where the idea came and it wouldn’t leave me alone. I actually took a day off from writing I believe, Danse Macabre. I thought a day of writing the idea down and I’d get it out of my system like clearing a log jam so the logs will flow again, but by end of that day I had fifty pages done and the book that would be Micah had no intention of leaving me alone until it was written. Flirt was another book like that and I knew that fighting it actually takes more time so I just put my head down and wrote Flirt and cleared the way to really concentrate on the book I was actually supposed to be working on at the time. 

Probably about the time I get Flirt edited Divine Misdemeanors will be back from New York. So Flirt will go off to New York and I’ll be back working on Merry. With me this busy you guys are getting a lot of stuff, so here’s the breakdown.

For all of you guys complaining you want something new right now, well is October 26th soon enough for you? NEVER AFTER is a collection of novella/novelettes from me, Sharon Shinn,Yasmine Galenorn, and Marjorie M. Liu. They’re stories about fairy tale romances that don’t go according to plan. If you want a main character that just stands around and waits for Prince Charming to sweep them off their feet than this is not the book for you. If you want to read about some very different women that take charge of their lives, kick some butt, or at least don’t let anyone kick their’s then you’ll love this collectiong. My novelette, "Can He Bake a Cherry Pie", had been on a sticky note on my wall of ideas for about ten years. Yep ten years of it setting there waiting to be written. Late summer, or early fall of last year, I took time between books to finally write it because it was finally time, or I was tired of waiting for the time to be right. Either way, if you guys enjoying reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it then it’s a good time for everyone.

NEVER AFTER comes out October 26th. A brand new novelette from me set in a brand new fantasy world. Three new novelettes from three other great writers.

DIVINE MISDEMEANORS the next Merry Gentry novel hits the shelves December 8th.

FLIRT, the surprise Anita Blake novel, is coming your way in March 2011.

The next Anita Blake novel, the official and expected one, is due on shelves June 2011.

One of the things we discussed with New York and brain stormed with Jon and Carri here was the title for that last in the list of the Anita Blake books. (Notice its last on the list, not the last book, please do not, DO NOT, take from anything said here that any of this is the last Anita Blake novel, or the last Merry Gentry book. The rumor that every book is the last book is one I just can’t seem to squash. ) We all came to a consensus on a title but I need to double check with my editor that its absolutely, positively the title we’re all happy with before I announce it.

That’s not counting the comic books. I’ll talk to Jon tomorrow and have him help me do a blog about the comics and when they’re hitting the shelves. So many good things happening. I’ll try to make a master list and dates this week or next. Probably next week. This week seems a little full.

Divine Misdemeanors is off to New York. It went out last night via e-mail. Once you actually had to Fed-Ex the manuscript to the publisher, but now everyone seems to prefer an electronic copy. It does save trees. A lot of you have asked am I excited, yes, and no. I’m thrilled to be done but mostly when I finish a book that has really kicked my ass as Divine Misdemeanors has done I’m simply grateful. Grateful that I’m done. Grateful that I made my deadline Grateful that I can actually see my daughter in a more than hi and bye kind of way. Yes, I took time out during the crunch for Jon, my hubby, and I to take her birthday shopping for Grandma also known as Jon’s mom, but the book ate the world as the books are wont to do.

I did something I’d never done before with this book I was on Twitter and I tweeted about my process, my life during the writing. One of the interesting things about that was the near instant feedback I could have and questions asked during the writing of the book. Questions from fans and other twitters that I wouldn’t have thought of on my own. Sometimes because I’ve been writing professionally for over a decade so I don’t think of the new questions anymore, and sometimes because its never occurred to me to think about it quite that way.

One such question came in last night. I was asked about how much I’d cut from the book, or if this was first draft and I’d be cutting later. When I was a new writer and didn’t have the confidence of 28 books finished and under my belt, first draft was full of things that would not survive later. I wrote the first draft without editing as I went and then the second draft was filling in holes. Holes are when I’m writing along and I have to have my characters eat something, but I don’t know what. I’ll leave it empty if its not important what they eat, just that they need to eat. What is my character wearing, if its not important they just need to not be naked I will skip clothing description, now if it’s a seduction scene then the clothing does matter, or can, so can’t skip. I would also, and still do, leave spaces for research later. Example: What is that street that goes from X to Y? What color is are the eyes of that character that we haven’t seen in two books? What does fourteenth centaury underwear look like, or is there any? I know not to break for this kind of research because I’m like most writers I’ll get distracted. Libraries, the internet, it’s all too tempting unless your will is absolute steel I’ve learned to only research small things that make a difference to the scene so I can keep making pages. I used to fill in the blanks in the second draft and then finally start editing the writing in the third draft. I think my first book had seven drafts. Because I had the 70/30 rule. Seventy percent of any first draft is crap, but thirty percent is gold, the trouble is you must write the entire one hundred percent in order to get that thirty and then throw out the seventy, but its all mixed up together.

Major research should be done before you sit down to write, usually.  That’s a different blog all together. Just wanted to add that so that you didn’t get the idea that I don’t do major research for my books. I do a lot of research. Now back to our regularly scheduled blog.

The above was how I wrote the first five books I ever wrote. I’ve had several other writers that have used this advice to finish and even publish so it works. Having said that, I’ve gotten better at my job, practice, practice, practice. Some first drafts are now 70 percent gold and only 30 percent crap, which makes rewriting easier. I’ve had few books that are 90 percent gold and only 10 percent crap, but that’s rare. You can’t know which way its going to go until you finish the book. Having said that, I realized that I have changed how I write over the years in one major way.

I edit first draft now. Its made me a slower first draft writer, but a much faster writer from first conception to finished book. I don’t rush headlong into a book as I did when I was starting out, I pick my way through ideas and scenes. I usually have a mystery as the spine or bones of a book so I know that part but how I get all the way to the end that can lead me down some blind alleys. But it can also lead me to some surprising moments that are just magic, when the characters come to life enough to argue with me, to make their own choices, that is magic to me. I am more likely to begin a book and just write and see where it goes, but as I get further in I make more and more choices farther and farther out from the moment of decision. That was not the case when I began as a writer, but then maybe that wasn’t the case when I was younger. Maybe maturity, decision making, knowing what you want out of life isn’t just for my real life, maybe it also works for my fictional half. Hmm, interesting thought.

All the above thought because someone asked on Twitter if the book I’d just finished was finished or if I still had to trim and cut? I looked at the file and the things I’d cut away and saved, because I seldom erase anything no matter how bad until the book is finished because I’m always convinced that I might need it later, or that my head had gone ugly and it doesn’t suck, but if I delete its gone, so I keep all of it and only delete it when the book is completely utterly done. Which means I know exactly how much fat I trimmed. Over two hundred pages that will never see print. It just didn’t work. This was a hard book for a lot of reasons, but when I realize that I’ve got a manuscript that its about 550 and I’ve cut over 200 pages I realized that was a high percentage of cut to keep. I will keep track of the ratio of keep to cut from now on and I will be curious if the books that kick my ass the most are ones where I come closest to cutting the most pages. Or maybe I always do this, but I’ve just never kept track. Once the book is done the trash gets thrown out except for scenes that were fun and worked, but just not for this book. One of the delights of writing an on-going series is that scenes can be used somewhere else so they aren’t lost completely. Yes, out takes just like for DVD’s except my out takes may get recycled, or even find a home almost verbatium. Sometimes one book will talk so loud in my head that I write bits of it in another book and have to surgically remove and save for later. The Harlequin was a book where some Edward scenes were actually written for an earlier book and were used almost unchanged for Harlequin. That book talked to me for a long time before it was time to actually write it.

I’ll be seeing edits of Divine Misdemeanors very soon, and copy edits, and page proofs. The deadline is pretty serious so the book will be winging it’s way back to me sooner than I would like, but not today. Today its in New York in my editor’s and agent’s hands and I don’t have to worry about it today, so I won’t. What will I do today? I have no idea, but that’s okay, too.

 

My muse and I had an agreement last night. I would stay up and type until she got to a point in the book that she wasn’t sure about. What I didn’t understand when I made that agreement with her was that she pretty much knew the entire end of the book. She still does, but about 5 AM this morning the physical half of this pair, me, had to throw a flag on the play. Flag on the play for exhausting the writer in a happy can-I-keep-typing-fast-enough-for-my-Muse-way.

Yes, I needed to finish the book because the deadline is upon us, but just because you need to hit your deadline doesn’t mean your muse and you, the writer, will become one and do some impossible inspired rush and make the date. But we did, she and I. I love my muse and most of the time she loves me back. We still see the writing as play sometimes I lose sight of that with all the demands on my time. I remind myself it means I’m successful and doing well and it does, but sometimes I forget and treat what I do as just a job, but last night sort of brought home that its more than that, that’s always been more than that for me. I love what I do. I love Merry and her world and the fact that with this new book I’m getting to play with characters I haven’t seen since book one, A KISS OF SHADOWS. I love that the demi-fey are more on stage because those were the first fairies that interested me as a child. I had elaborate imaginary stories in my head starting in fifth grade about this family of demi-fey that lived in an Oak tree outside the math class window, or maybe it was just math class where I did most of my daydreaming.

You would think that an all-nighter like last night would have made me wake up disgruntled and bitter, but no it helped put things in perspective for me. It helped remind me that even on nights when on any other job I’ve ever had, or class I’ve ever studied, an all-nighter was just about endurance and felt like punishment but not last night, not when I’m writing my book as fast as I can while the Muse tries to keep my tired brain functioning while she and I have our zen moment and pour out a shit load of pages.

Then just as I was finishing up this morning at 5 AM and we were all trying to get to bed before dawn found us still up, an owl hooted outside the office. A Great Horned Owl sounded its typical hoot that only it makes but everyone thinks most owls sound like, that deep rich, "Whooo-hoo. Whooo-hoo." But the call came from the side of my office with no trees near it. There was only the water garden and no perching spots, and then I realized it was on the roof of my office. So at 5 A-freaking-M in the morning a Great Horned Owl was perching on my office and calling into the thick, wrapping darkness. It was the perfect end to the writing session. A blessing and a reward because if we hadn’t been up working we so would not have heard the owl call last night. Though I, and Carri, had been seeing something about the size of a red-tail hawk gliding from tree to tree in the yard for last two days. I kept seeing this dark shape just out of the corner of my eye as I worked a my desk, was beginning to think I was hallucinating it, but last night we figured out who our mystery guest was. I don’t know if the owl is still hanging about but if he is I wish him well and reverently hope I am asleep long before he calls in the dark velvet heart of the night.

The climatic end scene is left to finish. I could only outline it in detail last night because I was too tired to think more upon it and besides we’d finally gotten past the point where my muse was certain of her way. Sometimes I leave bread crumbs for her in the forest and she follows me, but more often I’m the one following her inspiring trail of cake crumbs through the forest where the shadows lie deep and thick under the trees no matter the hour of the day. Last night I followed those crumbs until they vanished and left me standing in the thick gloom of the forest’s heart without a trail sign to follow, so I pitched my tent for the night and waited for morning and hoped there would be more crumbs to follow. And this morning when I woke there were. They trail off into the shadows of the thick, high fir trees, chocolate crumbs today because the muse knows I’m tired. She knows, always what will tempt me to go just that little bit further into the shadows, or when to push me out into some sunny clearing to be dazzled by the unexpected light.

I woke at 3 AM this morning. One moment I was asleep and the next wide awake. I stared up into the dark listening to Jonathon’s deep breathing beside me and thought damn it, why am I awake? Then my muse and my brain started talking to each other and I realized it was because my muse had an idea. The first idea was about my talk on Saturday at the St. Louis Science Center for SciFest. I’m talking about some of the research I’ve done for my books, and how the new technology had changed both the coroner’s office and SWAT, and how research sparks and changes ideas, but this morning my muse came up with that extra little piece to add and bring it all together. I was grateful and I scrambled for my writer’s notebook that is always beside the bed. (I used to have glow in the dark pens but they all died and I can’t find refills.) Writing in the dark is something I’m used to, but my handwriting always sucks in the dark. But I got the idea down and I laid back down certain that now that I’d written the idea I’d be able to go back to sleep.

I worked until 12:30 AM so I’d only had 2 and a half hours sleep so I was convinced that I would go back to slumberland. Nope. I laid there and stared into the dark and tried not to move around so I wouldn’t wake Jonathon. I snuggled in closer to the warmth and pulse of him, and waited for sleep to return. Then my muse got louder in my head and I suddenly knew something I hadn’t known 2 and a half hours earlier. I knew the end of DIVINE MISDEMEANORS the current Meredith Gentry book that I’m working on. Now I’d known who done it from the beginning and why and how, but I wasn’t sure the order of the last clues or even completely how my first person narrator was going to find out everything we needed to know to solve the mystery. I love first person narration, but it does have limits when it comes to needing your protagonist places and meeting all the people she needs to meet. How to do it in a realistic manner?

If any of you reading this thought, "Realistic, why does a paranormal thriller have to be realistic?" shame on you. My rule is the more fantastic group of fictional facts you’re asking a reader to believe the more realistic the rest of the book must be. Merry Gentry is a fairie princess and a private detective and if I want my readers to believe that both of those facts can be true I need to make sure my real life facts are as real as possible. The more fantastic your fiction the more realistic your facts need to be so your reader will suspend disbelief and believe in your world.

By 4 AM I was in the bathroom that adjoins our bedroom. The door was quietly closed, the light on, and I was scribbling furiously in my notebook. Which is why its beside the bed. I’ve made the mistake before of waking up at 3, or 4 AM with a brilliant idea and think wow, "That’s a great idea." Its so brilliant that I’ll remember it in the morning. No, I won’t. Especially if I fall back to sleep the idea will not usually survive a few more hours of rest. I’ll wake up next morning with this vague feeling that it was a great idea, but I no longer have the faintest idea what it was, and the more I can’t remember the more I am convinced that it was THE idea. The idea that would have been an amazing story, or the start of a novel, or the solution for that plot problem I’d been wrestling with, but now its gone. It’s gone and I’ll never get an idea that good again. That is the feeling, and I never want to have it again, so I sleep with my writer’s notebook by the bed. There’s also a pen with the notebook tucked into the spiral top so that I have both paper and a writing implement. And yes, I have had that moment where I can find the notebook, but no pen. I need both so I try to make sure I have both. Part is for my sanity and my muse’s use, but part is so I don’t go riffling through the bedroom in search of a pen and wake my long-suffering husband from a night’s sleep.

For a truly geek moment I was moving around the darkened bedroom getting dressed by the light of a Harry Potter light up wand. I got it for Winter Solstice last year from Carri and Pili, and put it on my present list just for this use. It’s enough light to get dressed by, but its dim enough so it doesn’t bother Jonathon. Now I’m dressed and back at the desk, but I don’t feel tired. I feel energized. It’s like that when the muse is at a white, hot heat which is where she was this morning starting at 3 AM. There will come a point today where I crash from too little sleep, too much typing, and just the writer’s high fading, but until that happens I will write, and I will chase after my muse. No chase isn’t the right verb, or image. That’s not how it feels.

It feels as if my Muse woke me up, grabbed me by the hand, pulled me out of bed and started running, pulling me along, urging, faster, keep up with me. I stumbled at first, but now I’ve caught my stride and I’m running beside her, her hand still in mine, her words in my ear like some friend that is always getting me out of bed to do something crazy that my parent would never approved of, but I don’t care because every time she drags me out of bed its an adventure. A wonderful, glorious, arm-chair dangerous, adventure.

Another day of fighting with some monster muscle tightness. The human body is just not made to sit at a computer this long without reprecussions. I’ve had massage, thanks to Carri for having the hand strength, but even she had to give up after awhile. I think at this point I’d need a power lifter or something of the like to get the knots out, if I could take the pain.

I am allowing myself real coke and small pieces of good chocolate to try and open up all those tight bits of myself. Tylenol is my friend. I can’t have most pain relievers due to other issues. I went out to the Hallmark card store for an hour and bought silly cards, pretty cards, and candles. I love cards. I love getting them and giving them. I love finding the perfect card for an occasion or a friend, and if its perfect for both, bonus points. I also found an album called, "The Best of Funk". I’ve got it on now.

I just can’t listen to "Brick House" by the Commodores and not smile. It will always be Miss Piggy’s song to me. "Play that Funky Music" by Wild Cherry is another smile. "Pick up the Pieces" by the Average White Band is a laugh because of the movie Under Cover Brother, which is so wrong its just right. I’m thinking I could use a good laugh and may try and find time to watch it tonight. More songs on the album, "Give up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker) by Parliament , "Super Freak" by Rick James, "You Dropped a Bomb on Me" by The Gap Band. That’s just a few of the songs. They’ve all got a beat, and they all make me start dancing in my chair, or even having to get up and dance around the office. That’s about the mood I need for today, something fun that you can dance to.

 

Archon 33 is past. One of the weird things about it was that it was number thirty-three. The first Archon I went to I’d sold one short story. Now I have twenty-seven novels published and one short story collection, STRANGE CANDY. I’m still a little surprised that I had enough short stories to make a whole book of just my stuff.  DIVINE MISDEMEANORS, the eighth book in the Meredith Gentry series, will bring novels up to twenty-eight. Which means that FLIRT will be number twenty-nine. That makes the next big Anita book number thirty.

We missed the chance to celebrate ten years of the Anita series in 2003, but now we have the chance to celebrate me publishing my thirtieth novel. What should we do to commemorate it?

I will see some of you later today at Archon. It was one of the first cons I ever went to as a very new writer. In fact I didn’t know science fiction conventions existed to my early twenties. I went to the very first NameThatCon and attended a writer’s workshop taught by Emma Bull, Will Shetterly, and Stephen Gould. It was the most useful class or program on writing that I ever attended. Did it make me a better writer? No. But it did make me a better editor of my own work, and that is a very valuable skill for a writer. It also introduced me to the beginnings of my writing group, The Alternate Historians. The only originally members left are Deborah Millitello and me. All the rest have gone onto other things, or just simply didn’t stay the course. Janni Simner left us to move out of state and has many books out there. We forgave her for moving away, and she kept up with her writing and has flourished. So it all worked out.

That convention was in the spring, by that early summer because that was when Archon used to be held I had sold my first short story. It would be the story I edited just after the workshop, like I said it didn’t make me a better writer, but it taught me how to judge my work in a clear headed manner. Which is absolutely necessary to a selling writer. And no, I can’t explain how to do this to you for your own writing. It’s not that I won’t, but can’t. It was an a-ha moment for me. A moment when the stars aligned and I could simply see the writing. It fell apart before my eyes and I understood how to construct sentences and words to make things come alive on paper. I’ve had this experience in only three other areas. When I was playing chess I could sometimes have the board fall away and I could simply "see" the game, the moves, and how to get there. When I was doing Judo, there would be that moment on the matt when I could "see" how to throw my opponent. I just knew where my body needed to be and did it. I am now having movies and television shows fall away and show their bones to me so I can see how that camera angle, that gesture, that bit of blocking, or dialogue made that scene work. That’s the newest skill, and it will be interesting to see if it grows like the ability to "see" writing on the page.

I can’t tell you how to "see" like that in anything. It happens, not to everybody, not always, but in those moments its like the world slows, then stops, and I can almost see the chess board divide into squares as if they’ve gained a new dimension or two, and the moment in a fight when your mind fast forwards the fight so you know how to win, you see it in your mind before your body acts,  you seem to have extra time to react and you use it. Words almost slither down the page, falling in black marks over white, and I can "see" how the other writer has constructed that bit I like, and it teaches me how to construct my own version of it. It’s a way of learning the tools of your trade, whatever that trade may be. Some people have engines fall apart and reconstruct for them. Others its math, or music, or acting, but not the rest of a scene. 

I hope for all of you reading this that if you need your a-ha moment that it comes to you. You need so many things to be a good writer. You need inspiration, a muse, persistence, a dogged-determination, your own special voice, joy in words, a love of reading, and to be really good you need that last extra insight. You need to be able to "see" other people’s writing and figure out how they do the trick. How did they make you cry here? How did that image burn itself into your brain. Pick it apart, find out how it works, dismantle the clock of their industry and make the tools you learn from others your own so you can construct your own beautiful mechanism. Because our art is made up of inspiration, perspiration, but one last thing, the tools of our trade.

A writer’s tools are not pens and paper, or computers, or whatever new thing they come up with for us to write. A writer’s true and only tool are words. Everything else is just how we put the words on paper, but in the end its just the words. My words, your words out there on paper, trying to convey an entire world with nothing but little black marks on paper, or screen.  Our words out there on their own, because you can’t sit on the reader or editor’s shoulder and explain yourself. You won’t be there to say, "Well that’s not exactly what I meant?" Or, "I really meant to say this, and you’ve totally missed my point." If they’ve totally missed your point then your words have failed, because in the end words are like children you raise them the best you can and then you send them out into the world to explain themselves. Writing well means your words can take the reader across the street without you being there to hold their hands. Now I’m going back to work to make more words that will take more people across a particularly busy intersection of plot, but I have hope that the words will be there and the reader will know just when to cross against the light.