Relationships…the day after tomorrow

A new Editpalooza has been scheduled to start January 2, 2012 (I just saw the notification). Details here: EditPalooza starts Jan 2.

I recommend this class as well as Angela James’ Before You Hit Send, which next starts January 18, 2012.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled day….

Disclaimer — this post is pretty much only for novel writers.

Carina Press Executive Editor Angela James does a monthly Twitter hashtag of snippets from the reports she gets back from her freelance editors, mostly reasons they recommend rejections. It’s fascinating reading, if only to see the basic mistakes in manuscripts that writers thought were good enough to submit. She did one today, and she posts them afterward at storify.com: http://storify.com/angelajames. Oh, and just to prove there’s hope, she always ends with tidbits from those manuscripts recommended for acquisition.

You can search for the hashtag #EditReport to see what they tell her — be aware that the wording is much more blunt than you might see in a critique; these aren’t meant for the tender eyes of apprentice novelists (I’m one of those fragile-ego’d writers, but I also have rhino-hide from years of being on the other side of the desk in journalism where no prisoners are taken, and in technical writing where engineers PREFER passive voice and cannot be strangled for it).

However, when sanitized for the protection of, well, everyone, they make a remarkably good checklist of things to look at before you send your brain child into the harsh world of other peoples’ eyes and opinions.

For example, does your heroine admire herself in the mirror at the end of chapter 1? Really, is there a woman alive who can look in a mirror and not notice all the bad parts first? Maybe that’s not the best way to get her appearance across to your readers.

Do your characters have conversations where they tell each other things they already know so you can communicate it to the reader? (Note that science fiction writers are particularly prone to this. I’m just sayin’….) This is known as the “As you know, Bob” conversation. Yes, it’s a technical term.

Consider how often you tell your friends and family things they already know, so they can tell you things you already know. Yes, I know one or two people who do like to lecture others about known topics, but I avoid them as much as humanly possible.

If you’re a writer and you just broke into a cold sweat, I recommend taking a class on self-editing. I took two in the last year, because I thought to myself, “What if you’re wrong, and all that editing you did for the college paper back when and for various and sundry technical writing clients in the (mumble) years since doesn’t apply, and your fiction structure sucks?” Luckily, I seem to have been doing it properly, so any and all suckage is mine alone, not because of a deficit in my editing skills.

One of them was the Editpalooza class through Savvy Authors featuring instruction from developmental editors at Entangled Publishing; this might never happen again, as organizer/lead teacher Liz Pelletier has far too many hats on her head between her publishing company and her website/writer community/writing school.

The other class was “Before You Hit Send”, which is going to be taught again in January by Carina Press Executive Editor Angela James (of the #EditReport). It’s a tiny bit spendy ($49 for four weeks, I believe), but it covers all those basic writing issues that get in the way of your story-telling talent. How much is it worth not to recognize something you did in one of those #EditReports? For me, it’s priceless; your mileage may vary. Grin.

Talyn Penthes is an evil twin, or she was in Blade’s Edge. However, having all her worst fears come true has started a process that will end when she restructures the clone hegemony of the Garnford system and within the Hauptmann multicorp cartel.

Who knew an evil twin was exactly what they needed to pull their heads out and stop treating the non-clones (they call them Uniques) like second-hand citizens? It helps that she has a background in leadership, negotiating from a weak position and that she’s both a Unique and a clone — identical twins, after all, are the original clones.

There’s a lot going on in this story: politics of sex and power; genetics and epigenetics, or why a clone isn’t necessarily identical; innovation vs. repeatability — something about disruptive technology here; when does something cease to be art and become a commodity…okay, my plot is a big, fat mess right now. Surprise! Why don’t you look surprised?

My plan was to have the first draft half written this month, but I currently have…wait for it…5,000 words written, spaced all over the plot. Sigh.

I’m going to have to write this in threads, the way I wrote Blade’s Edge: the romance part, the intrigue/thriller part, the science fiction part. And then I’ll have to weave them together, which is actually easier than it sounds (or at least it was the last time I did it).

It just illustrates how different every book is. The Valmont Contingency (its first working title was the Valois Contingency, but I couldn’t decide how to pronounce “Valois,” which made it a rotten name to foist upon readers) plot threads came together with relative ease. It had other problems — I flopped the protagonist and antagonist roles, which required a rewrite of the second half when I realized the heroine had the most changing to do. Insert big forehead slap here.

In this one, I know the heroine is the protagonist (earning redemption is a biiig arc), but I’m getting lost in the minutiae of fraying telomeres and stem cell body modification, DNA-based glass ceilings, DNA-based predestination, first-runner-up clone nihilism, and — and — and…you get the idea. Time to focus.

Talyn is one bad girl who’s gonna have to save the world to earn her happy ending. Well, technically there are two planets, so she’s going to save both worlds of the Garnford system. Not bad for a big-fat-loser evil twin, huh?

Dear Creative People Who Must Make Up Names of Chemicals, please stop doing it wrong.

There are naming conventions to these sorts of things, and IUPAC, the International Union of Physical and Applied Chemists, won’t let you name an element Chemical X. Element names end in -ium, so you’d better try, say, Elementium first. Not familiar with the element Chemical X? There’s an entire Periodic Table of Imaginary Elements.

And don’t start with the “But gold, silver and mercury…” because those aren’t their real names. Remember, most of the elements were originally found by alchemists, who spoke and worked in Latin. Gold, silver and mercury’s real names, Aurum, argentium, and hydragyrum (ever wonder why their symbols are Au, Ag and Hg?) conform to the convention.

Lead (Pb) is plumbium. Carbon (C) is carboneum. Hydrogen, mother of all elements, is hydrogenium in Latin. Got it? See, I knew you simply needed to know the rule. You’re very bright people.

From the venerable kryptonite (which is named like and appears as a mineral but is always referred to as an element), to the simply ridiculous “unobtainium” (another name that would cause IUPAC to collectively sneer), to Clive Cussler’s strangely self-contradictory “anasazium” (it’s an element! it’s a compound! it’s a catalyst! it’s inert! it’s explosive! — wait, what?), made-up chemicals apparently don’t need to follow the physical laws or naming conventions of this universe.

This is why supposedly respectable journalists can get away with referring to working aerospace scientists and engineers as “eggheads” on network television, which a reporter for CBS did a couple of days ago when referring to the asteroid that passed between Earth and Luna.

Those would be the same “eggheads” you would be begging to save you if the asteroid were a couple of hundred thousand miles closer to the planet, wouldn’t they, Mr. reporter? Perhaps a bit of courtesy and respect for someone else’s profession might be in order.

Scientific names aren’t trademark-able marketing tools, like the drug names on TV commercials. They mean something. And when you make up crap names, you insult the people who have to deal with the fallout of sealing Han Solo in the “element” carbonite (another mineral name — why can’t they call it a mineral? it’s the same number of syllables).

You know those long ingredient names on the back of shampoo bottles? If you understand the rules, you can draw the molecule from the name, although you might have difficulty reading it aloud. But you’re not supposed to read it aloud, you’re supposed to be able to visualize the molecule and what it does. That’s the point of a descriptive name.

For example, Claritin ™, generically known as Loratidine(tm), is really ethyl 4-(8-chloro-5,6-dihydro-11H-benzo[5,6]cyclohepta[1,2-b]pyridin-11-ylidene)-1-piperidinecarboxylate. Who knew it had that many rings in it? Well, anyone who passed the first semester of organic chemistry, but they were all studying to be doctors and scientists — you know, eggheads — except for that one, very odd, art major…but I digress.

One more thing…don’t invent an element when you really need a molecule. How often do you see an element all by itself without a lot of man-made intervention? Here’s a hint: not often, and they tend to be considered quite valuable. So when you’re thinking about making up an element and ending it with “-ite” or “-ex” or “-ia” — just call it a mineral. Or a compound. Or even a molecule; I’d be okay with molecule if I squinted and gritted my teeth.

I highly recommend the Emerald City Writers Conference. The Greater Seattle RWA chapter has always put on a good conference, but I hadn’t been able to get to one in five years due to Real Life. What a difference a few years makes! This conference was outstanding on a number of levels.

The location had changed; the 2011 ECWC was at a different (and much larger) hotel, the Bellevue Westin; there were six (!) simultaneous tracks of workshops; and the lineup of industry professionals and workshop presenters was impressive, to say the least. What hadn’t changed was the welcoming and friendly nature of the organizers and fellow participants, the quality of the workshops, and Seattle’s fall climate. Ahem, some of us near-desert dwellers like rain.

What gets truly impressive is to know that at least two members of the organizing committee were replacements due to serious health issues (may the afflicted persons recover soon and completely), and the replacements were already running the 300+ member writers’ organization. In short, the women who put on this conference are rock stars. That’s not really related to anything else in this post, but it needs to be said. Rock. Stars.

I can’t tell you how good the workshops were, because I think I made it to three or four; Angela James on digital publishing Friday afternoon/evening, the workshop I gave on Saturday and one shortly after it, the chat with Sara Wendell on Sunday (I moderated; she’s fabulous and can use the term “crapmonkeys” in regular conversation)…and that’s about it. Why, you ask? Well, I pitched books to three people Saturday morning. Then my workshop was right after lunch, and then I needed to sit in a corner and twitch for a while because public speaking does that to me.

Then there was the exhaustion factor after the pitching and the speaking and the twitching and the being a social creature–I’m quite capable of being social, but it sucks energy right out of me (I believe that’s the Briggs-Meyers/Meyers-Briggs definition of an introvert). I slept through a workshop session I had wanted to attend on Sunday morning, and, in fact, I could use a nap right now.

The conference organizers even managed to record most of the workshops. The CDs are available for ordering here, but only through November 10. The total cost is $20 for two or three CDs worth of information. If you have the chance to go to this conference over Halloween weekend 2012, go. It is so totally worth it.

The highlight of my weekend was meeting Angela James in person. I can report she’s just as nice in real life as she is online. She even chastised me for not having published anything else since Blade’s Edge and told me I need to focus on which series of books I want to use to build readership, since I’ve chosen a difficult subgenre. “Chosen” was her term. I’ve tried to write other stuff, but it always turns into space opera, or at least futuristic romance; I’m cursed.

Since I have two other stories in the universe where Blade’s Edge takes place, she said that if she contracted The Valmont Contingency (the story I pitched) she’d have to wait two years for the next book. And that’s too long to build readership. How cool is that? An editor I highly respect yelled at me (nicely, of course) to write faster. Yes, ma’am.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her I have at least two other “worlds” on the back burner, waiting for me to finish the Dozen Worlds and Republic Space initial trilogies. Tomorrow I start on the story of Talyn’s redemption as she reluctantly leads the Hauptmann Cartel out of their societal dead-end. Obviously, I need to complete four or five books in the next 14 months (God willing and the crick don’t rise, as grandma used to say) to get caught up, LOL.

Looks like I’m writing a novel during National Novel Writing Month this year. But first, I’m going to take that nap.

Syrina died in her sleep Friday night/Saturday morning; she was 20 years and seven weeks old. “Died” is, oddly, a difficult word to say and to type when referring to someone you knew personally, even if that person weighs about three pounds (she was very skinny at the end) and is covered in fur.

Her last week was difficult, filled with seizures, blindness, incontinence, and coma. It was hard for me to watch, and it’s still difficult to think about without tearing up. This is going to be at least a three-tissue post.

My husband is an incredibly fine hospice nurse — it’s not his vocation, but it is one of his mutant talents.

He untangled her when her blinded wandering took her into the computer wiring. He offered her tempting tidbits of food, kept water nearby and dried her paws when she accidentally stepped in it. He made sure she always knew he where he was, and he comforted her when she came out of each seizure.

While I quietly freaked out from across the room, or (better yet) from another room. I don’t have that kind of strength; my strength is organizing and planning. I called the vet and arranged to have her cremated and the ashes returned to us. I know exactly where we’re going to keep them, too; on a shelf right next to Spooky Man’s office chair, along with his mineral specimens. She’s also one of his precious things.

Go chase butterflies over the rainbow bridge, Syrina/Sirena/Serena/Sarina. You deserve it. (Her name, at various times over the years, has been spelled all of those different ways; another of Spooky Man mutant talents.)