Archive for the ‘writing’ Tag
Copy Edits
I’m in the midst of copy edits for The Valmont Contingency. It’s amazing; they take away my semicolons and then go after me for comma splices. Snort.
Hopefully I’ll have time to put together a real post this week.
I have a publication date
October 1, 2012. Eep! I have so much to do before then.
Second round of developmental edits have been turned in, and the title is still The Valmont Contingency; mentioning The Nobinata Gambit and The Ocasek Opportunity must have given it some context. We’ll see, I guess.
For now, back to work on the new stuff.
Recent Submission Calls
Avon Impulse just sent out a call for novella submissions: Write For Avon Impulse.
Entangled Publishing editor @KL_Grady tweeted yesterday, “You know what I’m dying for right now? Novellas (10k-40k) that are NOT contemp. Paranormal, sci fi, historical, etc. BRING IT!”
Silver Publishing is a relatively new digital-first company (they started at the end of 2009 as a service provider for self-publishers, then reorganized to become a publisher six months later) which has just announced a handful of submission calls: Silver Publishing Special Submissions.
I know I’ve seen some more floating around recently, too. There must be something in the air now that the U.S. weather’s warmed up (well, everywhere but New England). Perhaps pollen causes special submission calls….
In other news, Ubuntu released a new version and Firefox forced me to upgrade to rev 12.0 this week. I’ve written my first user manual for a tablet-browser user interface. Spring is definitely in the air.
The day job might have gotten me some help
Keep your fingers crossed, because I might have found a new technical writer for the California office of my day job. If so, it means traveling to train him, but it also means I’m not trying to keep up with two offices’ worth of projects.
While doing developmental edits for a new editor I’ve never worked with before. And plotting/starting the second book in the Galactic Republic/Stern Reich/ Nippon Empire universe.
No wonder I freaked out about the zombie battle. I was out of coping beans. Ha!
Onward, to The Nobinata Gambit (or whatever title it turns into). No more zombies, but there is a Samurai/Ninja duel during an Imperial Tea ceremony. Really, how could I not?
The Problem with Zombies
You can’t have a big space battle with zombies. They just don’t have the reaction times.
In the last four days, I’ve tried to write this four times. And it was dreck every time, because the good guys looked at each other and said, “Well, I guess we should shoot them now.” Because my zombies are people dying of a mysterious neurological disorder, shooting them only saves them the agony of dying from their zombie-ism.
So then they shoot them.
And the zombie space ships blow up, because zombies have really slow reaction times.
End of battle. Sigh.
Breaking Valradio silence for a moment
Carina Press wants to publish “The Valmont Contingency” (formerly known as “The Valois Contngency” if you want to read an excerpt of the first draft). The one day in the last year I forgot to take my cell phone with me to work and I missed The Call. I had to settle for The Voicemail and The Follow-Up E-Mail.
It’s an aggressive production schedule, too; they want an October 2012 go-live date. Good thing I’ve started the opening scene of the sequel, workingly titled “The Nobinata Gambit.” Grin.
In other news, I came down with a cold the day after I got back from the business trip. Drove home from work, dropped into a coma for a couple of hours, and woke up with stuffy nose and scratchy throat. Joy.
Missed my local romance writers’ meeting in the spirit of “let’s not infect everyone.” Some things are better when they’re not shared.
Thank you, exotic California rhinovirus (or else I caught it before I went there; in that case, sorry about the exotic Idaho rhinovirus, California).
However, now I can personally vouch for the effectiveness of zinc gluconate lozenges. I used them as often as I was allowed, and every time I finished one, I felt as if the symptoms had been knocked back several steps.
I’m almost over it after five days — and I’m normally a 10-day cold person with a fight to keep it from turning into bronchitis, the legacy of walking pneumonia in high school.
Maybe I should buy stock in Cold-Eeze or Zicam.
‘Twas a week before the feast of St. Valentine
Love is in the stores, but things are low-key at my house. Finally.
Spooky man has successfully had a birthday, his nose’s inner workings are healing nicely, the Year of the Dragon has begun, chocolate-covered macadamia nuts have been ordered. This is how we’re celebrating Valentine’s Day 2012–good coffee, dark chocolate, and maybe some flowers because they’re pretty. Ahhhh.
One nice thing about loving the same person for 20 years is that you don’t have to make a big deal out of Valentine’s Day.
Spooky Man knows I love him because I made sure he had a new leather recliner, a full refrigerator and fresh books before his nose was remodeled. I know he loves me because he spent his VA-disability backpay on home improvements to keep us and the furbabies safe and dry. It’s all good.
Now that Things Have Settled Down, maybe I can get back to some serious word count on my works in progress.
Five Things that Make Me Smile
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Random Things, real life, writing
Leave a comment 1. I went to shiny-new-author Amanda Bonilla’s first book signing on Friday the 13th of January. We’re members of the same RWA chapter, but it was the first time we’d met (she lives in the McCall area, which is more than an hour away by car). Looking forward to reading her debut novel, SHAEDES OF GRAY.
2. Stuart Does. Not. Like. snow, particularly snow that comes up to his chin or higher. He’s a relatively tall cat, so that’s fairly deep for snow in this area. He doesn’t mind being carried over the snow, however, and he rather likes being rewarded with kitty treats for bravery in the face of frozen water.
3. I am approximately halfway through my heavy edit/rewrite of “Open Mike at Club Bebop,” the novella rejected so helpfully by Carina Press. Target date for finishing it is end of January, when I’ll send it off to a couple of other publishers.
4. Spooky Man is having his deviated septum fixed January 27 (next Friday); after recovery, he’ll be able to breathe out of both sides of his nose for the first time since we met, more than 20 years ago. Looking forward to pampering him a little as he recovers. Well, and taking blackmail photos of his black eyes and bandaging.
5. I saw more urban wildlife recently; raccoons crossing the street again, but this time at 16th and Main St (near the Cabana Motel, which I understand has changed hands and no longer rents rooms by the hour). The little bandits weren’t using the crosswalk this time, though.
6. Bonus Round: Technology has been giving me all kinds of grief for the past two or three weeks; in the last three days I have resolved all the issues, from the source control server connection that would only connect intermittently (service pack 1 is evil, apparently) to the 30-day trial software that didn’t want to install correctly (finally got it running and the document I was supposed to edit was in German), to the font that wouldn’t install from a network drive (copied it to a local drive and it popped right into place).
Did I mention…?
There’s a lovely agent on twitter, Sara Megibow with the Nelson Literary Agency in Denver (follow her as @saramegibow), who periodically does a feed she calls #10Queriesin10Tweets.
She goes through the next 10 submissions in her Inbox and tweets her response and why.
You’d be shocked how many of them are rejections for genres and literary forms the agency doesn’t represent or rejections for multiple grammar and spelling mistakes in the query letter. I know I was astounded the first time through.
It’s fascinating stuff, and valuable information as to what an agent (this agent, at least) looks for in a query letter.
A Real “As You Know, Bob…” Conversation
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: As You Know Bob, real life, writing
Comments (1) I was flipping through channels last night about 5 p.m.-ish and came across a PBS gardening program where two hosts were telling each other stuff they already knew about planting. The few seconds I saw were about paying attention to sun requirements, or what can happen when a sun-loving plant is stuck in full shade.
I thought, “Hey, they’re As-You-Know-Bob-ing” and flipped on, settling on HGTV with my microwaved entree (Spooky Man was napping and I hate cooking for one).
I’d never seen anyone actually do it with real people before. It made them both look completely stupid and a little bit psychotic, as if their two personal realities didn’t quite match…. And that’s why we don’t do that in our books, fellow writers.
