Now that all the other work is off my desk, I am gearing up for an all-unicorn, all-the-time extravaganza here at my desk. Around the same time, Jaye Wells had a little chat about all of my unicorn paraphernalia. You see, ever since I sold the unicorn book (indeed, even before that, when my friends knew I was writing it), they would send me unicorn stuff. I have quite the collection by now.
Maybe nothing quite so cool as this, however, which I’m pretty sure comes from darkest Peru*:
But I will be showing you my unicorn collection in the coming days, since my heart and mind shall be full of the little buggers from now ’til whenever they put How I Met Your Mother back on the air.**
__________ * Yeah, I did. ** March 17th, according to Have-You-Met-Ted.
It’s very very sunny, and very very cold right right now. I feel this is unfair. For me, sunshine signifies warmth, and when I wake up in the morning and see blue, sunny skies, I believe in my heart that it’s because spring is finally here and that Florida girls like me can stop hiding hibernating in my apartment. But it’s not true. It’s still 22 degrees.
Curses.
In other news, I’ve given it a lot of thought, and decided that until such time that a title for my latest book is chosen, I shall be calling it Knights in Black Polyester. Since that’s way more interesting than “SSG4,” no?
Funny story: yesterday, I got an email from the president of a British Backgammon society. The wonders of Google!
And finally, I think it’s time to share with you all my favorite obsession:
Her name is Ree. She’s married to a cowboy. She cooks ridiculous dishes made with more Butter than I’ve ever seen in one place in my life, loves Lawry’s seasoned salt, and makes apple dumplings using Mountain Dew. The pictures are gorgeous, though, and the few recipes I’ve tried have turned out great. I’m in thrall to her wit, her photos, and her butter.
Here’s her pot roast:
And here’s my version:On the new plates from my wedding no less. (I made rosemary potatoes instead of mashed. )
I love that yesterday’s comment thread turned into a discussion of the use of backgammon in literature. Who knew we had so many aficionados amongst blog readers?
(Confession: I’ve never actually played backgammon myself. I have, however, had a head wound.)
The other thing I did yesterday was turn in preview material for the title-less SSG4. There are currently 64 wannabe titles in the running. I think that’s the longest list we’ve ever made. I’m confident that we’ll know “the one” when we see it, though. There are a lot of “close” titles right now, but none where I’m going “this is it!” But title or no, what SSG4 does have is an excerpt in the back of ROS(B), so that’s exciting.
The other thing that’s exciting is that SSG4 starts precisely where ROS(B) leaves off. I’ve never done that in a book before. There’s always been a little break in the story between books, where I don’t really cover what’s going on in Amy’s life (for instance, the summer she spent in D.C. between book one and two). So this is a change, but I think it’s necessary for the story, both from a schedule perspective (graduation’s coming up soon!) and because a lot of the plot points arise directly from things that happen in book 3.
Wow, vague enough, Di? This is always the point in a book production’s “life cycle” that feels oddest to me. I’m working on the next book, and the previous one hasn’t even hit the shelves yet. Do any other writers of series have that feeling?
1. 1pp for ROSB 2. Outline for SSG4 (title TK) (TODAY) 3. Finish unicorn book 4. Finish judging RITAs 5. Finish judging Golden Heart entries 6. Read and return CP’s work (simply devouring it!)
Still super busy!
Elsewhere:
Justine and Scalzi make the point I’ve argued often: blogging for the purpose of marketing is a zero sum game. Of course, the folks at Harper Children’s and Simon & Schuster disagree, according to this Publisher’s Weekly article. I don’t know what Melissa Marr’s online history is, though, but Cassandra Clare had an enormous online fan base before her books came out, so I would guess she falls into the Scalzi camp.
I blogged for two years before my books came out, but no one (no one) read my blog before I sold my first book, a year after I started blogging. Since then, it has mostly been writers, and when I bother to check my stats and see how people come to my blog it’s almost always from one of the following searches (in order of popularity): 1) my name (spelled right or wrong), 2) “kill your darlings” 3) “four act structure” 4) people writing book reports on Scott Westerfeld books who want to know something about plot, character, character archetypes, and the name of a Scott Westerfeld book, 5) the name of my books, and 6) The Ivy Gate Blog post about my books. So, one can presume that a large number of those people are writers who may or may not be reading my books (I read many a blog by writers whose books I do not read), and the rest are high school students who like Scott (or don’t like Scott, which is why they are googling instead of reading the books themselves). The Ivy Gate thing apparently has legs, though. Hi, Ivy Gate readers!
But the real point to make is: Dude, don’t blog if you aren’t having fun. If you’re blogging for hits, or comments, or little bumps to your Amazon rankings, you’re going to get stressed out. It’s like the people who join social networking groups then spam everyone they know in order to get more “friends.” Obviously, this is different if blogging is your job. But it’s not my job. It’s something I do for fun. the original name of this blog was “Diana’s Diversions” — which meant stuff I did for fun. Sometimes I find it fun to talk about writing, sometimes I find it fun to talk about my books, sometimes I find it fun to post pictures of the party I went to on New Year’s Eve. There’s no theme.
Now, speaking of fun, I just found out that Vicki Lane is doing a giveaway on HER blog of my newest book, Rites of Spring (Break). The book isn’t out until June, and I don’t even have the ARCs yet, so as far as I know, this is the first giveaway of my book known to man. But I’m sure you don’t want to wait until June for her prize (though I’ve been making her wait for like a month for the prize she won off my blog of those Scythian CDs, and there’s a very good reason for that: I went to Europe and when I came home I forgot where I put them. But I shall find them this week, as soon as I’m done with the synopsis). Anyway, what was I saying? Right, Vicki. I’m sure the winner of her contest does not want to wait until June, so I’m going to give Vicki a copy of the ARC when it comes and she can make that the prize instead. (And, Vicki, maybe I’ll send it to you with that CD I’ve been promising, huh?)
So head on over to Vicki’s and enter. The best part of this giveaway is that y’all have no idea what the book is about yet (other than the Spring Break bit). Still can’t post the cover copy (bummer) but I can tell you this:
1. There’s adventure. 2. And romance. 3. And head wounds. 4. And a game of backgammon.
My pal Colleen Gleason is canvassing for titles for the fifth Gardella Vampire Chronicles book (And if you haven’t been reading these, why the hell not? Go forth now and devour!
These books have always had the most amazing titles. Check it out:
So far, my favorite of the suggestions has been The Ardent Dawn, though that may be because it reminds me of the “Argent Dawn” which is a Crusade against the Undead in World of Warcraft, and thus very funny in context. I also like “Where Light in Darkness Lies” because it reminds me of the poem that inspired the first title.
Actually, the suggestions have been pretty good all around. The first (and last) time I ever canvassed for suggestions in a public forum about a title, I got stuff like Destiny Intertwined, which, um, no. It turned me off the practice.
I am, however, currently casting about for a title for my fourth secret society girl book. I’ve got a running list, but so far, everything I’ve come up with sounds more like chapter titles than a title for the whole book. Which is problematic. Titles are tough. And very subjective. People get very angry about them, too. I know I’ve seen people rave about titles I thought were awful, and I’ve come up with titles that were roundly rejected by anyone that heard them as well. (I remember telling a friend about the unicorn book, and then telling him the (old) title, and he said, “Yeah, I wouldn’t read a book called that.” We came up with a new title before shopping it and I love that one.)
I also love my newest title, Rites of Spring (Break), for which the credit goes to Bantam Dell senior editor Tracy Devine. It sets the bar very high for book four, however. I’m looking for something that adequately conveys the storyline of the book (not a spoiler to say it’s all about the tapping of the new class and graduation) as well as hints at the overarching theme of the story, as the previous ones did, and conveys the right tone. I know the perfect title is out there. It may just take another few brainstorming sessions.
In the meantime, it remains SSG4. I take comfort in the fact that Pride & Prejudice was once “First Impressions” and War & Peace was once “All’s Well that Ends Well.” Perhaps I should also go with an ampersand title. Ampersands have done me well for four books of Rose & Grave now.
11. Tell you that normally, upfront fees are a warning sign of a questionable agent, but your agent is the exception. Sorry. We understand how much you want to believe it, especially if the fee is already on your credit card–but we can’t lie to you. Go ahead–shoot the messenger. We can take it.
10. Admit that whatever writers’ mythology you’re clinging to is absolutely true, and we were wrong to contradict you. I’ve had extended email exchanges with writers who vigorously and sometimes angrily attempted to convince me I was in error when I told them that new writers can get good agents without having to be published first, or that commercial publishers do market all their books, not just the bestsellers, or that it’s not an author’s job to get his or her book onto bookstore shelves, or that writers don’t have to give back their advances if they don’t earn out. These pernicious myths are astonishingly deeply rooted–especially when they’re shoring up a bad decision.
When you see the comment threads on agent blogs or go to Absolute Write, you see how common things like that really are. If I read too much of it, I start to get all distracted and Sailor Boy makes loud, throat-clearing noises about how maybe I need to not spend so very much time online and oh, how’s that book coming along? Working hard? Huh? Huh?
When I was in high school, this famous Dickens scholar came to speak to our school and he said that Dickens had three rules for writing that he had learned from his childhood nanny and her penchant for telling him horror stories. Now, for the life of me I can’t remember the other two, but I do remember his obsession with character names. Now, sometimes Dickens gets a tad outlandish with his names, but he can get an awful lot of play out of names with the right sound and cadence, if not out and out meaning. There’s a reason that “Scrooge” has passed into the lexicon.
I love character names. I spend a lot of time thinking about them. Every time I’ve worked in an industry where I come across names on a regular basis (say, a mail room, a publisher, an insurance company), I take note of names I think are interesting and different for use in later situations and stories.
Despite this, both of the main characters in my published/contracted books have names that came to me fully formed. Amy Haskel was Amy Haskel from the get-go. And I knew Astrid’s name was Astrid before I knew anything else about her (other than the fact that she was a unicorn hunter). The fact that both of these characters have names that start with A is a coincidence, though. I have no special interest in A names.
I have other strange stories about naming characters, though:
*I once wrote a character whose name changed in the middle of a page. I didn’t notice, and kept typing along, using the new name. When I finally realized what I’d done, I succumbed to the universe and went with the new name. His character was much better for it. When his name was Victor, he was a different person than when his name was Vincent. Still not sure why, since I don’t think the names Victor and Vincent necessarily have the connotations his character ended up having when I gave them to him. It may be like certain colors against different skin tones — they do totally different things to the base.
*That character had a sister, and though her name didn’t change, the spelling did. When I wrote the synopsis, I spelled her name one way. During the writing of the story, I became friends with someone who had the same name, spelled differently. When the character made her first appearance, she spelled her name like my friend. After finishing the story, it occurred to me that this character, who was not American, would actually pronounce her name quite differently. I still have a problem thinking of her in that way.
*I’ve since removed her from that story and put her in a different book, and as a nod to her prior incarnation, I’ve given her a name that’s a play on her old one.
*Poe didn’t have a real name for most of Secret Society Girl. True story. I never even use his name until Under the Rose.
*I once changed a character’s name three times while writing him (and after selling the story he was in — boy was I nervous to tell the editor I’d changed his name!) This one was on purpose. None of the other names stuck. The third one was the charm.
* Malcolm Cabot’s original last name wasn’t Cabot. The name I gave him belonged to a real politician (unbeknownst to me) and it was decided that we’d best change it, for legal purposes.
This is all very much on my mind, as I am grappling with the naming of a new character. I’m not quite sure what to call her. I’ve considered a bunch of different names, but none of them fit right yet. I’ve even given her a placeholder name for plotting purposes, but I still don’t like it. Every time I type it, it grates, like a sharp stone inside my boot.
For the readers amongst you: what do you think of character names? Do you like unusual names? “Normal” ones? Does it bother you when too many names in a story are too similar (same starting letters, same sounds or endings)?
For the writers, how do you choose character names?
We think his name shall be Harry. He’s got the sweetest disposition. Not excitable at all. He just kind of chills out, even though int eh two days since leaving his mommy, he’s been in three new places visiting all these new people, none of which has been home. I’m thinking when he finally DOES get home, he won’t believe they are staying there at first.
Here’s the challenge: take one paragraph of a book that you feel can be improved by zombies . . . and PUT THAT ZOMBIE IN THERE. (Need an example? See the previous entry!)
Roolz:
Keep it to one paragraph. (250 words or less. Less is better.)
Make sure to give the title and author, so we can know whose work is being zombified. If these are not given, the zombified work will not be considered!
E-mail the much-improved work to me at maureen@maureenjohnsonbooks.com. Please use the subject line: ZOMBIE INSIDE! You may enter as many times as you like. (So, if you want to zombify 30 stories, you can! But they must be different ones each time.) The deadline is February 14th. You can go right up to midnight (US, east coast time).
All of these wonderful entries will be read by me and some of my zombie expert friends.* Five finalists will be chosen. On February 15th, these five entries will be posted. And then, the madness begins. Because . . .
You know who picks the winner? YOU DO! It’s like ZOMBIE IDOL!
Here’s Maureen’s own, from Pride and Prejudice:
What think you of books?” said he, smiling.
“Books? Oh! No, I am sure we never read the same, or not with the same feelings.”
“I am sorry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at least be no want of subject. We may compare our different opinions.”
“No. I cannot talk of books in a ballroom; my head is always full of something else.”
Hearing this, a nearby zombie turned, lured by the prospect of whatever was contained within Elizabeth’s head. He was within striking distance of her when the other dancers caught him up and swept him away by accident.
Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so convenient
I also read another great one, but the entrant doesn’t have a blog to post it on. Sad face.
Since I’m now done with my gruesome, zombie-apocalypse-like deadline, I was able to play too:
One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams of braindead hordes, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a flesh-eating zombie. He lay on his moldering back and saw, as he lifted his head up a little, his gray, putrified abdomen beginning to harden in the first stages of rigor mortis. From this position he caught a whiff of the blanket, which was just ripe enough to draw flies. His legs, pitifully stringy in comparison to what he could now see of his other innards, began to rot before his eyes.
“What’s happened to me,” he thought. It was no dream. His room, a proper room for a live human being, only somewhat too small, lay quietly between the four well-known walls. Above the table hung a picture of a woman with a fur hat, a fur boa, and delicious-looking plump cheeks. She sat erect there, lifting up in the direction of the viewer a solid fur muff into which her entire succulent forearm had disappeared.
Gregor’s glance then turned to the window. The dreary weather—the rain drops were falling audibly down on the metal window ledge—made him quite melancholy, and the moaning shadows beyond the pane drew him only slightly to their call. “Why don’t I keep sleeping for a little while longer and forget all this foolishness,” he thought. But this was entirely impractical, for he what need had he in his present state for sleep? No matter how hard he tried to relax, even going so far as to cross his arms over his chest like a proper corpse, this urge to stand and shuffle overcame him.
I believe the contest lives on on Maureen’s blog. Go forth and devour!
All of this, of course, reminds me of my favorite zombie joke:
Zombie Protest Organizer: What do we want? Zombie Horde: Braaaaaaaiiiiiiins! Zombie Protest Organizer: When do we want it? Zombie Horde: BRAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIINS!
