Thursday, by Plan A, I fly out of Austin to Atlanta for DragonCon. (Plan B through D takes me another way, in case Harvey the Destroyer, arcs back around and comes at us again, canceling flights from Austin. This is a very determined storm.) So ordinarily, I’d have already done all the pre-trip shopping, and Read More…
Harvey: Not an Invisible Rabbit or My Childhood Friend
Hurricane Harvey’s outside edge reached us about an hour and a half ago: rain and a slowly but steadily increasing wind (not overly strong–about 15 mph, says the weather, with gusts to 23.) We are in a good place for having a hurricane coming over us, and much luckier than those closer to the coast Read More…
Inside the Writer’s Mind
How, some of you may wonder (I hope you wonder) do writers keep their various story-verses separate while writing, and especially while switching from one to another? Are we all incredibly organized, with minds like a giant university library’s special collections, each in a climate-sealed room with those movable shelves you can “walk” by turning Read More…
Experience Is The Best…Experience?
Or, “Anything that happens to, or near, a writer becomes part of the soup from which stories are dipped.” In the category of “You’re never too old to get hurt in a new way,” I now have an injury I haven’t had before, and would retroactively inflict on a character if I could, just to Read More…
Is It Done Done, or Half-Done?
Only the Editor knows for sure. But I hope it’s done done and gone, because after a time a book being worked on has definitely lost its savor for the writer. Sent it off yesterday. There wasn’t dancing in the street, because I was stiff from sitting at the computer for hours a day and Read More…
Back to the Drawing Board
Editor has requested some more changes. Work is in progress. I am still in confused mode, since my brain had moved on to “project manager for renovations in the house we bought to provide rental property for our son when we croak.” That house–which we have owned for just a hair over a month–now has Read More…
What Do You Do When the Writing’s Done?
The previous post was a wee tad premature, since I found a Problem (having two files with very similar names. Opening said files (but only one at a time) while extremely tired and migrainous. No guesses who made some changes in one, and some in the other.) So two more days were spent calmly (!) Read More…
At Last…
Last night I finished the editorial rewrite for INTO THE FIRE (I know, you’re saying FINALLY! in the same tone I did) and as always the book is better after a reworking. It’s a little shorter, it’s got more stuff IN it, and my brain is certifiably toasted to a crisp, very brown around the Read More…
Crawling Toward Better…
Yes, the revisions Editor requested are coming along. No, they’re not coming along as fast as I wanted them to, and the multiple layers of difficulties that have slowed them are not all my fault. Some are, if you consider accidentally misjudging the amount of heat and exercise the old body could handle my fault. Read More…
We have Cover: Into the Fire
I can’t lead with the picture in this blog (for reasons of this theme, not any other restriction…if I put the picture first, there’s a big blank. So…I will tell you a little bit about it before you see it. It’s not a scene from the book, exactly–they wanted it to be more SFnal and Read More…