Archive for the ‘writing’ Tag
Received a Rejection, But…
“Open Mike at Cafe Bebop” is not right for Carina Press. 🙂
However, the rejection contained a note from the evaluating editor that told me exactly what needs to be changed/fixed to sell it to someone else. They gave me this for free when, really, the information is priceless.
I feel like I should send someone a thank-you gift, but I have no name and no address. Thank you, Ms./Mr. Editor. You are worth your weight in gold *and* printer ink (one of the most expensive liquids on the planet).
It’s Done! It’s Done!
I finished the rewrite with two days to spare. The Valmont Contingency still needs its second half polished to a diamond finish, but the core of it is done and — wait for it — makes sense. Writer-Me is ready for the Emerald City Writers Conference this weekend.
So all I have to do now is print out my conference handouts, print out the back-up presentation/handouts in case they need a last-minute craft workshop, pack, (note to self: get travel-size toiletries for TSA’s peace of mind), stock the refrigerator and pet food cupboards, get cash….
Ah, so this is why I don’t travel very much. It’s a royal pain. But this conference is worth it; I’ve always had a good time and I’ve made some friends there.
The Job Title Post
It was almost a month ago when I threatened to post the correct way of introducing a person with a job title. The stupid silly grammatical mistakes were driving me to an eyelid twitch that day.
I don’t understand why so many educated Americans have so very much difficulty speaking the language properly. Or even typing it properly, since spoken language is, by definition, less formal than written language.
But enough of that. I must cure the world of half-baked parenthetical phrases!
A parenthetical phrase is an aside, a brief thought tangentially related to the main sentence after which the speaker/writer returns to the main thought. It is something that you could set off with parentheses (hence the name), or with commas if it’s not quite as much of an aside.
For example, when referring to Paris, you need to make sure people know which one you’re talking about. You could do it like this: “In Paris (the one in Texas, not the one in France), rodeo is considered an art form as well as a sport.” Or you could do it like this: “Residents of Paris, Texas, consider rodeo an art form as well as a sport.”
Under absolutely no circumstances is this correct: “Residents of Paris, Texas consider rodeo an art form and a sport.” Why? Well, why does your web page throw up if you leave off a closing tag? You’re leaving code swinging in the breeze. There’s a reason C# and HTML are called languages, Dude. And it works exactly the same way in the English language.
Now on to the really hard part. Job titles, when placed before a person’s name, are not necessarily parenthetical phrases. Job titles, when placed after a person’s name, are always, ALWAYS (in case you didn’t hear me the first time) parenthetical phrases.
Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs died last week. (Not a parenthetical phrase).
Steve Jobs, Apple CEO until August 2011, died last week. (Always a parenthetical phrase, even more so with the other information in it.)
Then you have the less-clear-cut cases. Talking about your sister, if you have more than one, might give the following:
My sister Marcia said hi. (“sister” is a sort of job title)
My sister, Marcia, said hi. (“Marcia” as a clarifier)
My sister (Marcia, the perfect one, not Cindy, the cute one) said to tell you hi. (Parenthetical phrases within a parenthetical phrase! Bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah. Wait. Did I type that out loud?)
Mastery of the parenthetical phrase will also provide a considerable amount of comma mastery, because parenthetical phrases provide nearly half of incorrect comma usage in my daily bad grammar experience.
Here’s an example of stacked parenthetical phrases, correctly punctuated:
Visionary Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who resigned in August due to failing health, succumbed to a neuroendocrine tumor, a rare form of pancreatic cancer, October 5, 2011.
Every single one of those commas is grammatically necessary. And if the sentence didn’t end at “2011,” there would need to be another comma after it, because the year is a parenthetical phrase in a date, as in “October 5 (of this year)” — exactly the same way that the state or country is a parenthetical phrase in a location.
See, wasn’t that easy?
How To Know You’re Doing It Right
The first time I held a job with the word “Editor” in the title was ninth grade–I was chosen as editor of my junior high school newspaper. Primarily it meant I typeset the columns, by hand, on an IBM Selectric.
I also held various editor jobs on my college newspaper over the course of five or six years. (I was on the 9-year plan for a bachelor degree, because I had trouble choosing which one I wanted; that’s how I ended up with enough credits for a doctorate, and minors in math, physics, English, history and music.)
When I decided to learn how to write novels, I studied characterization, point of view, plot structure, and all that other good stuff, but I always figured I sort of knew how to edit. I had all that experience with “editor” in the job titles, but then, writing fiction makes you neurotic. I don’t know why. It just does.
I signed up for an online class about self-editing last month, with lessons based on the James Scott Bell Writers Digest book, Revision and Self-Editing.
The very first exercise we had to do was to read the work in progress from beginning to end like a reader; we weren’t allowed to edit or rewrite anything during the read, just make a note of it.
My notes basically said I needed to rewrite the second half of the book (on page 137 I wrote, “this is where it falls apart, rewrite from this scene”), because I realized about about the mid-point that it had the wrong protagonist; it was really her story, not his.
But other than that, I can heave a sigh of relief, because I found out I’ve been doing it right, going for tightness and coherence of story over interesting side trips into backstory or fabulous conversations that don’t quite move the plot forward.
I can describe the hero’s and heroine’s character arcs in one sentence, name the main turning points of the story, and even describe how the last scene mirrors the first scene of the book. Writing the synopsis took about fifteen minutes.
It’s a good feeling, to have someone else verify you’re going it right.
Blade’s Edge is two years old today!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: life, milestones, writing
Leave a comment My first book hit the shelves two years ago today. Happy Birthday, Blade’s Edge!
In other news, Monday is my wedding anniversary (19 years and I haven’t killed him yet, but then he hasn’t killed me yet, either; it’s all good). Yes, the stupid terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center the day before my wedding anniversary. Hey, they bombed the London Tube on my birthday — it’s apparently all about me.
I’m an Early Bird Bonus Pitch winner for the Emerald City Writers Conference, which means I get to meet the fabulous Angela James (editor of Blade’s Edge, by the way) for the first time. And she wants to talk about “The Valmont Contingency,” also known as “The Reluctant Socialite, The Privateering Engineer and Zombies In Spaaacccceee.” What? It’s catchy, it’s accurate, and it’s going to be changed anyway…and I stink at titles.
Sometimes, a girl has to accept her limitations. String theory, yes, no problem. Juggling two jobs while writing novels and running a household, no problem. Repairing the car, fine as long as I can get it onto a rack. Complex space-opera plots — really, is there any other kind? Good book titles…. Um. Not so much.
And I’m in the middle of reading through the manuscript for “The Valmont Contingency” for Savvy Authors’ Editpalooza class. I have to have my notes posted by Sunday.
Maybe by this time next year, my first book will have a sibling. 🙂
Open Mike at Club Bebop, distillation phase
I have finished the edit-and-polish on Bebop (insert wild cheering here). The final word count came to 31, 600, which puts it at the longer end of the novella range.
Now I’m working on the synopsis, which shouldn’t be more than two pages long (the entire manuscript is only 103 pages in 12-pt Times New Roman). I have a feeling it’s going to start at four pages and get edited back, based on what I’ve written so far. Sometimes that’s how it works.
The next piece is to distill the two-page synopsis into two paragraphs, for the query letter blurb. Whole lotta distilling goin’ on, almost enough for moonshine.
On an almost completely unrelated note, one of my most popular posts is about the Heineken commercial; it’s still getting more hits than just about any other post. I shall have to story-analyze another commercial soon.
Open Mike at Club Bebop
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Finishing, first draft, writing
Leave a comment The first draft of Open Mike at Club Bebop is typed and off to the critique group, all 29,500 words of it. Whew!
Now on to the next linked novella, Getting Lucky. This is also a Cinderella sort of story, but it actually has a wicked stepmother and a Society Darling now reduced to cleaning for a living. And yes, her nickname is Lucky. Mwah-hah-hah-hah-haaah.
I’m planning a total of three linked novellas that can be sold separately or bundled together as a novel in three parts. The third one I’m calling Kindness of Strangers as a working title. If you can buy a cryostasis chamber in an asteroid belt habitat as a glass coffin, think Snow White for a plot.
I’ve had a wonderful day today, and my first week as a regular full-time employee is going very well. To quote someone (Cat Stevens? Jennifer Crusie?), Nothing but good times ahead.
And it’s only Wednesday, so I’ve got that going for me, too. Yes, I know I’m a little over-bubbly right now; one might even say giddy and not be far off the mark. I promise I’ll get back to deep thoughts soon, but not today. Today I finished a first draft.
Finishing a Draft
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Finishing, real life, writing
Leave a comment Please pardon the blog silence. I’m one or two scenes away from finishing a first draft and it’s taking all of my attention.
Oh, and I converted to full-time regular at my new day job, so I’ve been filling out benefit forms and trying to figure out my magic retirement “number” for the 401K. Personally, I like #1 — on the New York Times Bestseller list.
See you when I surface in a few days, my friends.
Online Class Titles
I’m coming up with some very interesting titles for individual lessons.
For example, “The Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything is 496, Not 42” is about the five different and competing versions of string theory that had developed by the 1980s. A group of physicists got together and solved for the gauge group size, coming up with 496 in more than one of the different theories and laying the groundwork for the idea that they’re all different views of the same thing.
“Turn that Dimension Dial Up to 11” is about how including an 11th dimension in the equations brought together all the flavors of string theory, as well as supergravity, general relativity and quantum mechanics.
I’m not sure what to call the overall course, however. “The Dream that Stuff is Made Of” was my favorite for quite a while.
But now I’m thinking about “The Science of Magic” because there are a lot of things that actually make sense at the scale of theoretical physics (where atoms are huge and galaxies are fairly small) when they just don’t make sense at a human scale.
Which of the titles do you like the best? Or do you have any other suggestions?
Netiquette…because the alternative was a grammar rant
I’m a member of the Romance Writers of America (RWA), and several local chapters of RWA, as well as other local and regional writing support groups. I’m a member of a lot of Yahoo! groups, and I get most of my messages in digest form.
And you wouldn’t believe how clueless, self-absorbed, and rude people can be in e-mail. Well, you might believe it, but there are days where it still astonishes me.
I know these are lovely, wonderful people. They’re thin and attractive, good conversationalists and better dressers. Of course they are — they’re writers. And these breaches of good taste are aberrations from their normal behavior.
But just in case, here is a gut-check list of things to think about before you hit send on that next post.
1. Am I begging for something?
I received a digest (group of 25 messages in one e-mail) yesterday from an RWA special interest chapter–targeted toward writers in a specific romance subgenre–that had 12 message begging for something. Votes in a contest, blog traffic, website feedback, book purchases–whatever.
Nine message were congratulatory, one was the announcement being congratulated, and three were a discussion of a writing topic. By my count, that’s four messages of useful content out of a total of 25, less than 20%.
2. Am I complaining about something to the wrong people?
People seem very fond of directing complaints to the general population of a group, when the complaint really needs to be sent to the board if it’s going to change.
This is particularly useless on RWA groups, where it’s explicitly against the rules to forward something off the list without the sender’s permission (and the complainers never seem to give permission to forward). Standing on a soapbox and yelling merely annoys passersby.
3. Am I asking a question I could have answered myself with Google and two keywords?
If it takes you longer to type the question in e-mail form than it would to do your own search, you’re probably wasting your own time along with everyone else’s. Try the search first. No, really, you’re allowed.
And just for the record (because formatting comes up at least once a month on one or more groups), use 12-point Times New Roman, set your margins to 1″ all around, use a single space between sentences and set your MS Word line spacing to Exactly and 25 pts (not, as I’ve so often read, Exactly and 25 lines per page–it comes out to 25 lines per page, but by coincidence).
For italics you can use italics, and start a new chapter 1/3 to 1/2 way down the page. Please don’t bring it up again this month.
4. Is everyone in the group (one of mine has 800 members) going to care that I said “Congrats!” regarding someone’s good news?
Honestly, send it directly to the person who deserves the accolade for his or her accomplishment. Or condolences, if the original post was bad news. Some people have said they like seeing this stuff. Really?
I like the original announcements (of good news, I hate to see bad news), but all the replies? Not so much, unless they’re doing something more than congratulating: “You sold your first book? How wonderful! Tell us about the phone call/e-mail. Is it coming out in time for Christmas next year?”
5. Have I trimmed off the irrelevant previous e-mails and changed the subject line to what we’re currently talking about?
Remember the part about digests? Have you ever seen one that contains other digests (yes, multiple) inside it? Two words: Not. Pretty. Occasionally forgetting to trim is forgivable — I know I’ve done it before. But never trimming, well…it’s simply not done by the best people.
6. Do I really need a signature line longer than the rest of my e-mail?
Most e-mail programs allow the user to set an automatic signature line. I’ve seen whole excerpted scenes in signature lines, decade-long lists of contest finals/wins, entire backlists, and a few legal disclaimers of ridiculous length (probably because the posters were at day jobs and required to send them).
All I want is a discreet link to your website/blog, so I know where to go look if I think you’re interesting, based on the content of your e-mail. Put all of that other stuff on the other side of that link and you’re golden — tasteful, polite, and classy.
Well, except the ridiculous legal disclaimer, but that wouldn’t be your fault anyway.
7. Is this e-mail going to make me look/sound like a [bleep!]ing [bleep!]head?
E-mail doesn’t have a tone of voice, posture or facial expression, so I have no clue if someone is writing in a tone of dry sarcasm, breathless excitement, or complete rage — unless the poster says so.
Emoticons are also helpful in determining all the non-verbal parts of communication. A simple smiley face can mean the difference between a chuckle and a flame war. Or at least hurt feelings.
And there you have it, Val’s seven simple gut checks before you hit send.
By the way, permission to forwarded is granted. Just in case. 🙂
