Archive for May, 2010

Micellany

28
May
2010

Yes, that is a typo, but it looked so cute I had to leave it. I suppose that means I should include a cute mouse story, no? We did find a mouse (our first in three years, thankfully) in our old creaky house a week or so ago. It terrified our dog Charlie so much (I think it was the way it stood absolutely still despite the fact that it was a fraction of his size) that he hid upstairs for the rest of the night, even after Bob relocated the mouse to the back of our yard. Charlie is still somewhat suspicious of the corner where he discovered the tiny monster though.

And now here are a number of random, un-mice-related but cool-to-me links to share:

  • Looking for YA/MG Science Fiction? Ms. Yingling Reads has a great big list here, including a whole bunch I had never heard of!
  • Via Charlotte’s Library, here’s a thought-provoking article by author Katherine Langrish on Fairytale Heroines, and why they may not be the spineless wimps some of us think they are, if we go back to the original source material rather than considering only the damsel-in-distress/princess archetype.
  • Speaking of damsels, I love that there is a costume maker out there who markets under the name Damsel in this Dress. I am especially fond of the Pirate Coat.
  • Physicists have achieved quantum teleportation over a distance of 10 miles. Neat! I also learned that “spukhafte Fernwirkung” means “spooky action at a distance” (what Einstein called the quantum entanglement that makes the teleportation possible. Although apparently he didn’t support the idea).

On a more writerly note, I’m taking a break from my WIP this weekend. I feel as if I’ve lost my perspective a bit, and need to step away. Or possibly I am lazy. But I will go with Meaningful Writing Perspective for now. I’m hoping to spend the long weekend (Monday is Memorial day in the US) doing a bunch of reading, since I’ve just gotten a stack of ILL books from the library (and I still have three shelves of to-read books at home!).

Happy Birthday Prunella Bogthistle!

25
May
2010

Today my second novel, THE MAGICAL MISADVENTURES OF PRUNELLA BOGTHISTLE, went out into the world. Yay!

It’s been a challenging journey — this book gave me a lot of ups and downs. Like Prunella herself, it was prickly and hard to get to know at first. I actually wrote an entire draft from the point of view of the secondary character, Barnaby, with an entirely different plot, only to toss it and start over. But (also like Prunella) it was also an incredibly fun book to write, once I got to know it better and understood its true heart. Plus, it gave me an excuse to write about all sorts of neat things: giant alligators, mist-veiled bogs, brightly-painted steamboats, ancient curses, lost grimoires, spectral stallions, lonely ghosts, blind artists, loyal bloodhounds, pumpkin-headed jacks, magical masks, and monocle-wearing villains.

I’m so glad I had the opportunity to write this book, and I hope you all will enjoy it!

As usual, I encourage you to buy books from your local independent bookseller, if you are fortunate enough to have a good one nearby. If you want to order online, I recommend Powells!

I also highly encourage readers to check out their local library! You can request that your local branch order a copy if they don’t have it, or you may be able to get a copy via interlibrary loan.

And if you do read it and enjoy it, I’d be tremendously grateful if you posted a review on Amazon, B&N, Borders, Goodreads, etc. Word of mouth is what keeps books alive!

To celebrate release day, I’m wearing my Wicked the Musical T-shirt, since Elphaba is another fantastic prickly-but-good witch (Prunella would doubtless admire her greatly, especially her intelligence and her lovely green skin). I also made pistachio cupcakes (aka purple-spotted toadstools).

Bogcakes

My webguru Lauren has given my website a sparkly new makeover in honor of the occasion. I love the new starry nebula header! There may be a few bugs lurking so if you happen to find any broken links, I’d be grateful to know about them.

I’ve added an excerpts of PRUNELLA and a sneak peek at my forthcoming 2011 scifi adventure CIRCUS GALACTICUS. Hope you enjoy them!

There are a whole lot of other great books coming out into the world right now. Here’s a bit about three of them I recommend!

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Fear

21
May
2010

Here’s the thing. I’m always afraid that I’m getting it wrong. That there are things I am just not capable of. Even when I’m feeling good about my current project, there’s a voice in my head telling me maybe I’m just deluding myself. How can I trust my happy feelings?

A lot of my writing life is about killing those fears.

I just cut about 15K from a 40K WIP, because after 2 weeks of waffling around trying not to admit it, I realized there were a few things that had gone off-track. Ignoring my fear just prolonged the problem. And it was such a relief to cut those chapters! It was scary, but it opened up new possibilities. I found the story again, and now it’s zooming along and I feel much, much better.

Yesterday I asked a question on Verla Kay’s Message Board for Children’s Writers and Illustrators aka the Blueboards (which is a fantastic resource if you are interested in writing/illustrating for kids/tweens/teens) about how other people feel they grow as writers.

There were a bunch of good answers, but one that rang very true to me was “push yourself to write outside your comfort zone”. In other words: don’t let your fears hold you back from trying something new.

I can see this in my own writing. I had always been leery of first-person before I started FORTUNE’S FOLLY, but it was experimenting with first person that really (I think) broke me out of a rut I had been in. THE MAGICAL MISADVENTURES OF PRUNELLA BOGTHISTLE taught me that sometimes you need to be unafraid to throw out huge amounts of work (in this case, an entire draft) to find the real story. CIRCUS GALACTICUS is probably the most outside my comfort zone I’ve gone, with a scifi setting and a character whose voice is significantly different than my own, and a broader cast of characters to juggle. And not only was it the most fun to write, but I honestly think it’s the best thing I’ve written so far. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have flaws, but I am so glad that I didn’t let fear win, that I took the plunge and wrote it.

So now I’m thinking of the other things that scare me. The new projects that I think maybe I’m not good enough for, that I might fail at. It’ll be a while yet before I’m ready to start something new, but when I do, I hope it’s something scary.

What about you all? How do you push yourselves outside your comfort zone, in writing, or in life?

On a related note, I found a lot of inspiration recently in this post by author Sara Zarr. My favorite paragraph:

Let’s face it—fear is easier than courage. Fear offers no resistance. It’s a black hole, a bottomless well, it’s always right there and handily accessible in never-ending supplies. You don’t even have to look for it—it throws itself at you, a needy, uninvited interloper. It’s loud and rude, while courage sits quietly and politely, waiting for you to call it forth. I’ve noticed this seems to be the case with all positive character traits; they’re quiet, they whisper, they wait. The negative ones are ready to party 24/7. I don’t know why this is but it is. For me, the only way to hear the good things is intentionally turn the lesser things down or off, and that takes some discipline. Asking myself: “Is this a thing I can change, or not change?” is a helpful place to start. If it’s the latter, I try to let it go. Sometimes I think the whole work of living is figuring out the difference between those things, and then acting accordingly.

And then there are things that just completely blow my mind and make me forget about fear, and remind me that the universe is awesome and amazing. Like this picture from the Astronomy Picture of the Day feed (credit to Bret Webster):

Milky Way over Ancient Ghost Panel

That’s an 8000 year old painting in a cave in Utah, under the Milky Way. Happy Friday!