Carrie Lofty has written a very interesting article in the Romance Writers Report about writing Unusual Historicals, and getting them past publishers who might prefer to stick to the tried and true. Also she’s quoted me! *Fangirl glee.*
Walking the Tightrope: The Craft of Unusual Historicals
Change a single letter and we could be talking about crime and punishment in the 18th Century! But in fact I’ve been thinking a lot about how best to use the numerous blogs to which I’m committed, and how – or whether – it would be a good idea to decide what my ‘author brand’ is.
The Shrinking Violets have been running an Online Persona Workshop which I’ve been following with interest for the past five weeks. If I’m understanding correctly, their advice so far is “know what you do best as an author, know what you’re genuinely interested in, and talk about that.”
Possibly coincidentally, or possibly just because every man and his dog is talking about branding at the moment, I also found myself going through the Author Branding Bootcamp at Creativity Loft, while scarcely a moment later I also got this message from 1st Turning Point in my inbox.
The 1st Turning Point article makes a lot of sense to me. I’m sure it’s true that the only people likely to be interested in hearing writers talk about the mechanics of writing are writers themselves. This is inconvenient, because writing is one of the things I understand, as an author, am interested in and can talk about. On the other hand I’m usually too busy writing to want to talk about it as well!
I haven’t quite reached a conclusion on the subject of blogging. It might be a good idea to post sometimes about the cool things I find out while I’m researching. It might be interesting to be daring and talk about my religion, despite the “never mention religion or politics” rule of polite conversation. Do I have anything to say on those subjects, I wonder, or would I do best to stick to sewing and my adventures with learning the penny-whistle? (Seriously, how many different finger positions does C really need?)
With branding, I’ve done a little better. I looked at what I’ve written so far, and what I want to write in future. Except for Shining in the Sun, which I always knew was an adventure into a genre I wouldn’t normally write, the pattern was surprisingly clear. Everything has historical elements, whether it’s pure historical, historical fantasy or historical mystery. Even Under the Hill, which began as a contemporary paranormal, developed a strong historical element the moment I let it have its head. I still can’t turn that into a sentence such as “I am an author of plot-driven paranormal suspense” (to use the example from the worksheet.) The closest I can get is “I write full-bodied vintage fiction with a slice of lime.” Which at least means something to me, even if it conveys very little to anyone else. That’s still progress!
Nanowrimo continues to provide good things even to those people, like me, who utterly failed at the whole “write a whole new book in November” thing. (To be fair to me, my goal was only “finish a novel in November” and I’ve succeeded in that one.)
However you slice it, though, I’m glad I did it this year if only because I got to read Lemony Snicket’s pep talk. Out of all the pep talks from all the famous writers that I’ve read, this is the only one that not only made me laugh, convinced me that maybe there is some point to my carrying on writing, but also made me wonder how does he know about the things in the cupboards?
The next time you find yourself in a group of people, stop and think to yourself, probably no one here is writing a novel. This is why everyone is so content, here at this bus stop or in line at the supermarket or standing around this baggage carousel or sitting around in this doctor’s waiting room or in seventh grade or in Johannesburg. Give up your novel, and join the crowd. Think of all the things you could do with your time instead of participating in a noble and storied art form. There are things in your cupboards that likely need to be moved around.
I can’t find a link for this on the NaNo boards, but I did find a repost of the whole thing here
If you’re a writer at all, whether or not you do NaNo, this is probably worth printing out and framing.
Lemony Snicket is the author of A Series of Unfortunate Events. He has a deeply unpleasant website here. On no account go to visit it, if you value your sanity or shelf space.
I went to see this at the weekend, and blogged about my reactions over at the Different Star blog. It’s probably not the most coherent of movie reviews, but it turned out to be a film of two halves anyway. And that was only the first half of the book!
The United Nations General Assembly has voted to remove sexual orientation from a key resolution that calls on member countries to investigate extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions that are motivated by prejudice.
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) and ARC International have condemned the General Assembly’s decision in the strongest terms. Money quote:
“This decision in the General Assembly flies in the face of the overwhelming evidence that people are routinely killed around the world because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation, and renders these killings invisible or unimportant. The Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions has highlighted documented cases of extrajudicial killings on the grounds of sexual orientation including individuals facing the death penalty for consensual same-sex conduct; individuals tortured to death by State actors because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation; paramilitary groups killing individuals because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation as part of “social cleansing” campaigns; individuals murdered by police officers with impunity because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation; and States failing to investigate hate crimes and killings of persons because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation.”
Other human rights campaigners say the General Assembly’s decision is “shameful” and may encourage murders of LGBT people.
I don’t know of much better than coming home in a warm car on a cold, foggy day, when everything’s opaque, the air and sky are as white as the inside of an egg* and the smoke from the farmhouse chimneys is a horizontal line just a little greyer than the mist. My life is full of such small pleasures and I’ve been noticing recently that I haven’t taken the time to appreciate them. I’m going to try and do so more often.
And, on the subject of pleasure, as if my mind has been let off a leash I’ve been plagued with plot bunnies all day long. I love that feeling – when it’s all potential, and the ideas are teasing you seductively, going “look at me, I’d be so awesome! I’d be so glamourous and exciting! You’d love to write me. We could have such fun!” and it hasn’t yet turned into a grinding, push the rock up the hill, epic year long commitment. I now have a boy with a pearl earring who wants me to write about him, though I have no real idea what kind of a story he would suit.
He’ll have to wait in line, though, because I spent this afternoon working on the plot plan for Whirlwind Boys. Scrivener made this much more fun than the way I usually do it. I like having virtual scene cards that I can arrange on a virtual cork board. I rather like the fact that I can put down whatever scene comes into my head and arrange them in an order that makes sense later, rather than having to do the order and the incidents simultaneously. It makes the process more spontaneous. More joyful and less anxious. And I’m all for more joy in the process 🙂
*That’s a hard boiled egg, obviously**
**This clarification brought to you by the Department of Plain Speaking, an independent quango regulated by the Campaign for Clear Comparison.
The first draft of Under the Hill is officially finished, coming in at 138,712 words long. Normally things grow when I edit, so I still see it ending up around 150K when it’s finally polished and done. There was some brief elation, but already I’m starting to worry about the editing. I think, however, that the thing to do is to switch to writing Steadfast for the rest of the month, in the hopes that I can get that finished before Christmas too. Then when Steadfast is finished I’ll have enough distance from UtH to start on the edits.
Editing wise, I was thinking of learning to use my free beta version of Scrivener for Windows (available here). There are several scenes in UtH which could go in in two different places, and Scrivener would make sorting that out easier.
I’ve celebrated by making a new header for my LJ account, and I may give myself tomorrow off to make my caraco jacket and petticoat. (And to catch up with answering all the emails I’ve been neglecting.)
I like NaNo! Although I never manage to ‘win’ it, it gives me an annual chance to say “this month I’m going to concentrate on writing and not feel guilty about the state of the house or the lack of promotion or sociability.” I can do twice as much writing if I don’t have to do all the other things.
Well, my NaNoWriMo attempt has once more gone right out of the window after last week. Nevertheless, I’ve still been doing over 2000 words a day this week, and I only have two scenes left to write on Under the Hill. Barring accidents or acts of God, I really should have it finished by the end of the week. So I’ve decided to stop a bit early today – at the end of the penultimate chapter – and allow my subconscious some time to work on the fine details of the final chapter before I attempt writing it tomorrow. Currently I don’t know which PoV to do it in, so I don’t want to start it now in a rush, only to find it needs rewriting from someone else’s viewpoint.
Other progress: Andrew has decided to make his own frock coat, so that project is off my hands. I’ve made my nun’s scapular and overdress, though the overdress needs to be hemmed. I’ve cut out the underdress, which I should be able to sew up today. I must find a hood-wimple so that I can copy it in white linen for the nun’s kit and make a cap, and then that will be done. Ailith’s trousers are done apart from hemming. And I’ve half cut out the pattern for my 18th Century jacket and bought navy blue and white linen to make it from – so it will be in naval colours 🙂
Still not finding time to do more than write, sew and cook, with a bit of exercise thrown in. I do apologize if I’ve ignored your email for unfeasibly long lengths of time. I don’t think that this rate of writing is going to continue past November, if only because I have to ignore so many other things to manage it. But if it lets me get UtH finished before December, then oh, it will be worth it!
It went well, surprisingly enough. I’d forgotten how very tiny 5 year olds are, and I don’t know how much they got out of it, but they were all very good. Although slightly wriggly, they were impeccably silent and attentive. I did pretty much the talk that I outlined earlier, though with a bit more added about how a story goes from an idea to a manuscript and then has to go to a publisher for them to make the story into a book.
Some of the 11 year olds made shocked grimacy faces when I mentioned that I wrote gay heroes and why, so clearly they were actually listening and had already heard enough elsewhere to feel that I was saying something surprising. This confirmed my opinion that it really wasn’t too early to start laying it on the line to them that, you know, there’s not actually anything shocking about gay people. So I went on with my “God made us all the way we are, and everyone needs heroes like them” thing. And, at the end, one of the teachers paused in leading her class out to say “I really liked your message,” and the Head Teacher said that they ought to have me back more often.
So, I was very pleased. Several of the children even put their hands up with questions, though there wasn’t time for more than two answers.
Then my nerves were utterly shot for the rest of the day, so I did no writing. Instead I went into Ely to get a coffee at the coffee shop I usually go to, but they were closed due to a burst water main. So I came home, baked a cake and ate it. (It was a weetabix, bran and carrot cake, so I don’t think anyone else in the family would have touched it even if I had saved some for them.)
On the subject of “The Sisyphean Task of Novel Writing” I suspect it would have been better as a flow chart, but that was beyond my technical capabilities 🙂
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