This journal is
Here you'll find the rantings of a blogging fool and sometimes writer. Please see my user profile for my other LJs and my friending policy, and browse through the sidebar for nifty goodies and useful info. Also, please take a moment to sign my guestbook. The link is in the top navbar. Thanks.

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Writing only leads to more writing. (Colette)

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Visitors from 1/30/05:

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jersey_lion  did this, and the results were accurate, so I figured I'd give it a try. My results are less accurate, but close, but so many of the questions I could have answered either way, so this was tough.

Your result for Which Chess Piece are You Test?...

The King

Congrats! Only 3-5% of the population score as this!

Take Which Chess Piece are You Test? at HelloQuizzy

It occurred to me that I haven't posted for a while. The reason is because I haven't had anything writerly to say and still don't. But here's a recent pic to brighten your week.

This should give you an idea how I've been spending my time. I also got my teeth cleaned this morning, then came home and cleaned the apartment a bit. And took fun photos of stormtroopers.

I just deleted icons. It was more painful than killing my darlings in revision. I now have 133 of 140. Room for 7 news ones. Plus, I refreshed "Chocoliciousness" and perked up a couple of others, then added "Patricia the Wise" to my userpics. Which means I have room for the 3 I want to still do and still have room for more. Icons: They're addictive!

And sometimes, I just get sick of looking at the same thing, in this case, the layout. So I changed it. To one that's ready made. No tweaking on this one. If I have the time, I'll fiddle with some CSS to up the font size and darken the colors in the sidebar, but the truth is, I'm far more comfortable playing around in Blogger's templates than I ever got with LJ's customizations pages.

I moved the counter to the Sticky Post, since there aren't extra sidebar boxes in this layout. I also moved a few things to my Profile page aka User Info, or About Me, since they vanished from the sidebar, too, and I wanted to keep them somewhere. I don't much care about the rest right now, because the way LJ works, we rarely visit each other's journals. We read our friends page, which is our own layout, and click through to follow an LJ cut or to leave a comment. What I have in my sidebar, especially now that most of my entries are flocked and I doubt many folks not on my FL are visiting, is probably not getting seen by more than a couple of people, and therefore, aren't likely to be missed.

I have saved the sidebar items, tho, in case I switch to a layout that will allow me to add them back in.

I'm weeding my zines collection again. This week, up on eBay, is the Rat Patrol zine Just Deserts One from 1985. In case anyone's interested. Upcoming will be another war show zine and a couple of Tales of the Gold Monkey zines. I'm doing one auction a week or so to keep down the stress level.

After I shut down the computer last night, I pulled out the hardcopy of the WIR and all the notes (the printouts of the beta readers' comments and my scribbled notes on a half dozen scraps of paper) and wrote out on one sheet the main points/questions I need to address. It's neat and organized and I feel more in control. I think I'll work beginning to end again. That's mostly how my brain works. But at least now I feel like I've done something, reviserly.

Sometimes, I crack myself up. The clothes are from a Bratz doll. They might have big heads, but their itty bodies are small enough for much of their clothes to fit 6-7 inch action figures. Sure surprised me.

Got back this afternoon from visiting jersey_lion. We had fun, going to Philadelphia Miniaturia, though there wasn't as much that I wanted as usual. We also had dinner with another friend and got our latest spy *book* printed. As soon as I catch up with stuff, I'll get back to the WIR. But this week, hubby is also off work, so we are actually going to do some fun stuff together.

Thought I'd make a new icon, so I'm showing it off herre.

This discussion over at queenoftheskies  had me fuming. And I left comments. But I wanted to see what Nathan Bransford really had to say. And I found a number of posts on the topic of series vs standalones.

He has some good advice re: submitting the first book in a series:

Which seems reasonable. Then he ruins it with this:

"But I haven't actually blogged about whether an unpublished author should set out to write a series in the first place. My opinion? You shouldn't."

And while it's just one agent's advice and a young agent at that, it still has that dreaded "should" word, in this case "shouldn't." And then he says this:

"But here's the thing: getting a first novel published is really, really difficult. And getting a second novel published can be even more difficult. You shouldn't be saving your best ideas for the third, fifth, or seventh book in an unpublished series: when you're starting out you should go for broke with that one novel, throwing in everything including the kitchen sink, and making that one novel as stellar as possible. Sure, leave a few threads dangling if you want, leave open the possibility of revisiting the characters and the world, but the novel should be completely self-contained and satisfying on its own. "

And this is where I think he really shows a carelessness in his own writing. He's assuming the later books will be more creative than the first. He's assuming that the first novel can't stand on its own. He's assuming a lot of things he doesn't explain upfront and therefore, he muddies his thesis. Because later in the post, he says:

"Now, I do want to make a distinction here between series with a serial plot where one book depends upon the other and series that are set in the same world with the same characters but feature a stand-alone plot."

Uh, shouldn't that distinction have been made upfront, so people would know what you were talking about, before they got all worked up or confused? And yet, I still don't know what the heck he's referring to. Because my WIR can stand on its own. The sequel however, picks up 5 years later and is dependent on the events of the first book. I think I can write it so it would stand on its own and if it got published and not the first, I could use the first for a lot of backstory. But book 2's plot is inspired by book 1. It grows out of it. Book 1 ends with a certain state of the universe. Book 2 disrupts that now status quo violently in the first paragraph. So, not really a serial plot, but definitely a direct sequel. And I'd bet we could come up with many other permutations of this. But to start off talking about series when you mean a specific kind of series is misleading, IMO. And there's a big difference in discussing one story broken up into a trilogy and a series of stories that are either standalones set in the same universe (with or not with the same characters) and a series of connected stories or sequels.

Before he explains, though, he says:

"But if you go for broke and can't find a taker for that first novel: Start a new one. Do not write a sequel. Unless it's just for fun. Agents are not going to spring for the sequel to an unpublished novel."

While I can see this being good advice, I bristle at the "for fun" comment and that's what got many of us annoyed. Because if you have nothing else to write that gets your juices flowing, write the f'in sequel if that's in your heart. If it, too, can stand on its own while still being connected to the first, what is the problem? If it sells, maybe they'll be interested in the prequel. If nothing else, you'll be working on your writing skills. You might find you can work in enough of the first book into the second and make it one outstanding book. While being flexible and not wed to your words is usually a sound MO, it's not the only one worth pursuing.

When he extolls the virtues of starting fresh with: "Who says you can't create another world that's better than the first?" he has no idea it took me 2 years to rework a universe that it took my former collaborator and I 6 years before that to create and populate. And I had to create new characters for the WIR, which I did over the next 2 years I put into the writing and first full revision. I've already put somewhere around a decade into this project and I don't want to take even half that time on a new one. I have an aborted effort (another 2 years, though concurrent with the WIR) of trying to create something fresh, already. I want to get on with writing something new and that's the sequel.

Am I hurting my odds? Maybe. But I'd hurt my odds more with poor plotting and writing.

And yet, I would have left this alone, if not for this section:

"Professional writers are RUTHLESS with their own worlds and work. They will walk away from something or delete 150 pages faster than you can say Justin Bobby, and half the time they won't even really sweat it (the other half of the time they'll start the drinking and wonder why in the world anyone thinks writing is fun). Professional writers press the delete button because know they can do better. For-fun writers linger and linger in the same world or with the same characters and can't bear to start a new world or delete anything. And unless you press that delete button or start fresh or create a new world it's impossible to get better. "

*sigh*

Professional writers as with pro anybodies, get paid and make a living from their writing, or whatever other thing they do (photography, art, music, writing software, designing websites, agenting). However they achieve that success likely varies from person to person. I may never be a pro writer, but I've already deleted 80 single spaced 10pt prose twice before finishing the first draft of the WIR. That doesn't make me a pro. Was I ruthless? No. I was frustrated. Those pages weren't working. I couldn't finish unless I tossed them. I call it sanity maintenance. It was frighteningly easy to toss drek. And y'know, it was fun, because it meant I was trying to solve a puzzle and that's the fun part of this for me: figuring out the story by writing it.

I don't like the implication that you can't get better if you don't create a new world. As with any skill, if you keep working at it, especially if you can develop a critical eye and learn from what doesn't work, you are very likely to improve. And he was missing a comma or two in that quoted section.

When he talks about his version of "for fun" writers, he insults would-be pros and fun writers (I think of them as hobbyists) alike. People who write for fun often write fanfic. They'll write to share stories or stick 'em in a drawer. They'll write in one universe or many. Fanfic writers do both all the time. I know. I used to be one.

One of my fanfic friends is a terrific writer. She often writes novella length fan stories, so I once asked her why she never attempted an original novel. She told me she didn't want to be a pro writer. She just wrote for the fun of it. And she's written in a dozen fandoms, and has never created a universe from scratch.

"So if you don't sell a novel? Move on. Write something new and something better."

And how much time, do you suppose, he thinks should be devoted to this? A year? Ten? Something in between? Better would be to start something new, anything (sequel or completely different), as soon as the first is sent on its way to the first agent and/or editor on your list. And given how many people seem to break in with books that are followed by sequels or other books in that universe (mystery, fantasy, and SF are big genres for this), I have to wonder if they tried something different after book 1, or waited til they had a few under their belt, like, y'know, Dennis Lehane, who didn't have a standalone, Mystic River, til he had a few books in his Patrick and Angie series in print. I don't know what books he wrote first or in what order, but I believe he didn't write Mystic River until he had some of the others done. I doubt he could have written the superior Mystic River without having written some of his series first.

Finally, we get the caveat that should have come upfront, albeit in a shortened form:

"But whenever I'm offering general advice, it's all about odds -- your best odds are with a self-contained first novel, and when you're facing long odds to begin with, I think it's smart to avoid anything that makes you even more of an underdog."

Yes, it's about the odds. Of getting published. None of this advice has much to do with writing the best book(s) you can. I think you improve your odds of doing that by writing in a universe you believe in, with characters you can be excited about. I think you improve your odds by writing better than everyone else in the slush pile with you. I think you improve your odds if you can come up with something new or something with a new spin on an old idea. And by writing a publishable book, you improve your odds of getting published.

Same as it makes little sense to write according to trends (which don't tell you what's in the works, only what was bought by editors a year or two earlier), unless you want to write those kinds of books, ie write vampire stories because you like them, not just because they're hot right now.

Because he's a literary agent, his advice will be taken more seriously than uh, mine, because I'm just a former fanfic writer who hasn't even submitted her novel anywhere yet. But that doesn't mean his advice is gospel. As with any writing advice, take what you can use and leave the rest. And I think his advice would have been easier to swallow if he hadn't been so careless with his wording and so cavalier about "fun" writers, which is his term, not mine, and not a usage I've ever seen before. He would've been better to simply discuss the things that might impede the chance of getting your first novel published than to make it an issue re: what you should write. If that's not what he said or meant, it sure is how it seemed to me.

I would've posted this on my Blogger writing blog, but I think I've pretty much given up on that. So, I'm keeping it public here.

I pruned my friends list a bit. Most of the ljs I dropped were ones that I was following but not folks who were following me so they probably won't even notice. And I dropped them because they no longer interest me. I also dropped a couple of communities. Just in case anyone noticed and cares.

Less than an hour and I can go home. Busy day here at work, complete with a brown mouse running around, including a brief foray into the public area where he was noticed by a few patrons before he scooted under a door into an office suite. Yes, it's been one of those days.

Took a while, but I got some spammer names to share. Some seem familiar, so I might've posted them before.  But I wanted to clear them out. I dunno if I'll bother posting these anymore. They aren't as much fun as they used to be. I wish the spammers would get more creative.

• Choreographer J. Entombed
• Pillorying O. Permuted
• Territory H. Economist
• Euffi Lemmon
• Depravities P.Remission
• Peivin Highfill
• Preston R. Powers
• Glenda U. Numbers

I've been neglecting my poor LJ. Sorry. I've been busy, spending time on my other blogs, reading other people's blogs and LJs, proofreading the next self-published spy series I write with jersey_lion and another friend, and rereading all the books in that series, because after a while, I forget the details of what we've written and need to refresh my memory to help with future stories. And I fall in love again with, well, our writing, but mainly with those characters who, after all these years (a dozen and counting for some of them), are so very real to me. I guess it's a good thing that I haven't gotten bored with them yet. The book will be printed when I visit jersey_lion the first weekend in November, and after that, I'll get back to the WIR and the sequel. I do have to wait for the beta readers to report back, so I'll just fiddle with the science stuff til then.

Meanwhile, the Yankees were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs (insert big smiley grin here) and the Islanders beat the Rangers to start the hockey season 3 and 1, so all is good til pitchers and catchers report in February and once again, I'll have my Mets to follow. And it sure would be nice if the Isles can keep up the winning ways. It's about time they won their 5th Stanley Cup.

My cable network router is dead dead dead. I'm using the emergency backup internet connection: AOL with dial-up. Yeah, I know. But I'm glad we kept it because I wouldn't be typing this now. Of course, it's taken a full minute for this page to completely load. Ack. This is suckage at its suckiest.

A beta reader is hooked on Blood Plain after reading 6 pages. I wish he'd said he was hooked after the first page, or even the first paragraph, but I'll take it. Happily.

I'm actually looking forward to work tomorrow, and the T1 line and a real browser.

Made some icons because I've mostly felt like crap so far this weekend. Sore throat for first time in years. feh.

Here's a sampling. No need to credit me this time, but let me know if you take any. The full post is here.

1. 2.   10.

I got sick of the color scheme around here. Finally. So I made a new header and used colors from it in the overall design. I mostly like the look. I don't feel like changing the layout right now and this layout allows html boxes in the sidebar which is cool. I'm not sure how long til I get sick of these colors, but this will do for a few months, I think. And I made a new icon, too, as you can see here.

Sit these binders full of fun background notes for my writing projects, and some other stuff. They're semi-color-coded.

and

These are two very tiny toy railroad figures, HO scale, as icons for the taking. Just credit </a></b></a>nycshelly cuz I used my photos and laptop and figures. And give me an ego boost and let me know if you take any. And if I could figure out which one I prefer, I'd use one, too. I am so bad at making decisions sometimes.

Jack Bauer, that is. I wanted to blog directly from flickr to themalcontents, but it works only with my main journal and I don't want to create another LJ account and move The Malcontents there. Posting in LJ is a pain when the photos are in flickr. This would be so much easier. And given I'm not sure how many people are actually looking at The Malcontents, maybe I'll go back to posting occasional action figure pics here.

Let's all give a rousing welcome to the newest addition to the sidebar here: a graphic Library Thing widget. The regular Library Thing widget uses script not allowed on LJ, but LT has a way to work around that. You just need to add parameters to the base code, but they explain it all for you and it's super easy. So, if you're on LT and wanted to put a widget on your LJ, now you can do it.

I've been meaning to do this days ago when I first read about it on their blog. Nothing like a quiet Friday night/early Saturday morning to fiddle with code. ;)

Tomorrow, the plan is to get back to revising Blood Plain. Here's hoping I manage to stick with the plan.

So I could have something to post.

Latest Spammer Names:

• Denver McNeill
• Dewey Painter
• Booker Kline
• Hilario Levine
• Tamera Vann
• Florian Puruka
• Flossie Purvis

Haven't gotten back to the book yet. Been too busy. Got a bit obsessed with the work blog and spent most nights last week working on the template. And then there were all the photos to upload to flickr from a photoshoot with 2 flickr contacts.

I've been forced to skim my fl rather than read carefully, not because I fear spoilers for HP, but because I'm really not interested and 2 of every 3 entries on my Friends page the last few days have been about THE book. I might read them someday, or I might not. But I haven't been reading them and don't plan to anytime soon. I'm a slow reader and way behind on my reading as it is. HP was simply a bigger commitment than I felt ready to make and that's still true.

I just looked at my fl and holy moley. If you've friended any of my other blogs' feeds, I apologize for the rash of old posts showing up. I've been inundated with them cuz I have them friended, so you must be, too. I made a feed adjustment in Blogger for Feedburner and it looks like all hell broke loose. So, I'm sorry. Very, very sorry.

Please don't hit me.