On Friday there’s going to be master classes and roundtables. There are going to be SEVEN hourly panels with three authors each on Saturday, as well as booksignings, micro-fiction contests, live music, and lots of food, prizes, and other delights.
It’s all happening November 11 and 12, 2011 — so mark your calendars and get yourself down to South Carolina!
There you are! Eight whole glorious days (except for this weekend, and next Tuesday, when I have Q-duty) in which to:
clean out my bedroom
write a short story
clean out my office
proof SS #1: F
write approximately 35,000 words for the conclusion of Camp NaNoWriMo
Just kidding about that last one. If I do finish everything else, I will go back to my NaNo draft, but I bear no illusions that I’ll finish it, or even get 50k on it.
Still, I feel like I’ve really gotten into the swing of work this month. I feel like Q is finally on a regular schedule, and I’ve been productive and proud of my writing.For the last little-over-a-week, I’ve been doing the copyedits for For Darkness Shows the Stars, and reading it over again and making all those little this-is-the-last-time-I-swear adjustments just have me giddy all over again. I love this book so much. It makes me thrill, it makes me cry*, it makes me be totally unbearable with teasing you poor people since it won’t come out for another nine-plus months.
Nine. Months. Kill me now, y’all.
And the news does not get better from here, sadly. The anthology** I thought was coming out this summer, and then this winter? I just got a release date of March 2012 for the U.S. MARCH.
And I thought the Zombies vs. Unicorns paperback would be out soon, but Amazon is telling me April. And then I learned that the Ascendant paperback won’t be out until then either. And so I have absolutely nothing on the docket for 2011 (except for the “Best of” reprint) at all. Which makes me feel very sad, and dull, and thumb-twiddly. I know I shouldn’t be, since I do have a new novel and like five other things coming out in 2012, and I know this is my “just had a baby, things are still a bit topsy turvy” building year, but this is the first time in five years that I haven’t celebrated the summer with a new book release, so what I know and what I feel are not occupying the same space in my head right now.
The best method I’ve found to combat that, btw, is to work harder. So hopefully I can look back in December and go, “Yeah, I didn’t have a book out. But look, I wrote like three of them!”
Need to get on that.***
I leave you with this painting, shamelessly stolen from Lauren Dane’s tumblr, even though I’m almost positive this “Persuasion” has nothing to do with my Jane’s Persuasion:
Weirdly hot, right?
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* I hope it makes you cry, too, but I have a sneaking suspicion I’m an easy mark in this case because frickin’ Persuasion makes me cry every single time I read it. So there are already all these strong Pavlovian Persuasion-crying associations in my brain.
** On the upside, I also just found out that William Sleator is going to be in it. WIlliam Sleator (rest in peace). Wiliam. Sleator! You guys. You guys. My mom recognized that name. Sailor Boy went, “You’re in an antho with William Sleator? He’s what got me into reading SF.” Which means William Sleator is responsible for me and Sailor Boy getting together, because when we met in college, it was bonding over SF. Which means WIlliam Sleator is also responsible for Queenie. And now I’m in an anthology with him, even though I will sadly never be able to meet him in person.
*** I have, however, written over 80,000 words this year on various works of fiction. I know. I didn’t believe it either until I looked at my word count meters. That’s like a whole book (But in my case, it’s half a book, then part of another book, then four short stories.)
Perhaps you have heard about the current internet hub-bub surrounding the Monstromology series by Rick Yancey. If not, go here for an interview with him to see what the current state of the series (and the drama) is.
In short: Rick thought he was writing more books in the series, his publisher said no, he mentioned it online, and there was a huge write-in campaign (like they do for TV shows) and now there is some chatter about the publisher being upset. (which is probably just chatter, Rick. Keep up the good writing.)
I have gotten in several conversations recently with writers who are in Rick’s boat — their series have been canceled, or are in a state of limbo, or whatever. People often want to cast the publishers as the bad guy. People have written me to ask why I’m “protecting” Harper in the matter of killer unicorns… I think it’s easy to see from Rick’s example how quickly half-understood bits of information can go haywire and get people all riled up.
I can’t speak for Rick or the Monstrumologist series. I hope that he does find a new publisher and a way to conclude the books, because he clearly feels there is more to that story in that form. In my case, I don’t feel “cut off at the knees” in the same manner. I have never been told by my publisher that I can’t do what I want to do with the series. The truth is, we don’t know the answer to this yet. There are various options being floated and considered, but I’m not going to talk about them on my blog yet. (Last week, my editor and I discussed one possibility that has me totally giddy with excitement.) In the meantime, killer unicorns are very much alive. In fact, I’m writing a short story about them right now. The paperback of ZvU comes out next month. The paperback of Ascendant is out next spring. There’s a new unicorn short story coming out in an anthology this winter. It’s wall to wall killer unicorns around here.
And what makes that hilarious to me is that despite all that, my own personal focus as a writer is on another world completely, an austere future world where a young girl tries desperately to eke a living out of an unforgiving earth while the boy she loves has his eyes set upon the stars…
Since posting the summary of my upcoming book, FOR DARKNESS SHOWS THE STARS, last week, my inbox has been filling with questions from readers. I really appreciate your enthusiasm, guys! I can’t wait for next summer. But for now, a little Q&A will have to do:
When can we see a cover?
I ask that same question all the time. I’ve seen a comp and it’s purty. When I have a final cover, believe me, I’ll be posting it all over (and talking about the crazy crazy story behind it.)
Is this a series?
No, it’s a standalone. I know, bucking the trend. But I’ve published two series so far (in fact, in my writing career, the ONLY original novels I’ve published have been series) so I needed a break.
Persuasion is one of Jane Austen’s most mature works. How did you write it as a YA?
There are a lot of questions that are variations on the theme of “how did you handle XYZ aspect of Persuasion“? The sort answer to all of them is: read the book to find out. To answer this one, specifically: the main character in For Darkness Shows the Stars is eighteen years old, which is on the “upper” end of the teenage years. As noted in the summary, she’s been separated from her sweetheart for four years. As to how everything else works out — sorry, you’ll have to read the book.
The summary says “inspired by Jane Austen” but you say it’s a retelling. Which is it?
Potato-potahto. I’m not exactly sure what the legal line is between “inspired by” and “retelling” when it comes to fiction. Maybe the nice people at Balzer & Bray, who wrote that part, do. “Inspired” has a nice ring to it. If I was going to compare it to something, I’d compare it to West Side Story or Clueless. These stories have the same basic plot and most of the characters map to characters in the original work, but there are a few adjustments (sexy Anita who is the girlfriend of Maria’s brother, instead of the old staid nurse from Romeo and Juliet; or the fact that Josh is Cher’s former stepbrother instead of her brother-in-law, as Knightley is in Emma). For instance, you can tell in the summary that the Captain is not a military man, but an explorer. There’s a change right there.
If that kind of thing annoys the purists, then they will, alas, be annoyed by my book. But honestly, if everything was exactly the same, just in post-apocalyptic costumes, then what’s the point? I can totally see doing that in a stage production, but not a novel.
Can you just tell me if you left my favorite part in?
No. Please believe that as in love with the source material as I am, I tried to remain as faithful to it as humanly possible. And in places that I did deviate, I hope I remained true to the spirit of Jane Austen.
I heard a rumor that this is an epistolary novel. Is that true?
Kind of. There are letters. But it’s not all in letters. Partially epistolary is fair.
One of my favorite episodes of The West Wing is a Thanksgiving episode called “Shibboleth” in which speechwriter Sam (Rob Lowe), bored with writing a Thanksgiving Day proclamation, decides the whole pilgrim thing would be better off as a new action-adventure TV series.
Sam: Over three and a half centuries ago, linked by faith and bound by a common desire for liberty, a small band of pilgrims sought out a place in the New World where they could worship according to their own beliefs… and solve crimes.
Toby: Sam…
Sam: It’d be good. By day, they churn butter and worship according to their own beliefs, and by night they solve crimes.
This has become somewhat of a meme in my house, to Sailor Boy’s eternal consternation. I have a habit, when falling in love with a character, to attempt to recast the entire show/film/what-have-you into a show starring whatever (usually secondary) character I’ve fallen in love with as a plucky detective sort.
Perhaps it’s my longstanding obsession with Veronica Mars.*
So when I went with my friend to see New Moon, this was the conversation we had:
Me: I like that Jessica person.
Her: Yes, she was very funny.
Me: I think I would have liked it so much better if the movie was about her. Ooh, her and the Dakota Fanning Vampire. Solving crimes.**
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And, last month as Sailor Boy and I glommed two seasons of Modern Family:
Me: My favorite family in this is Jay and Gloria and Manny.
Him: Yes, they’re definitely the most compelling.***
Me: I want more Gloria. I want a whole show about Gloria. Solving crimes.
And then, even more recently, while watching the first season of Treme:
Me: I love LaDonna.
Him: You certainly have a type, don’t you?
Me: I want a show with LaDonna and Gloria from Modern Family. Solving Crimes.
And then, last night, as we were re-watching the first season of Sons of Anarchy in anticipation of the third season’s imminent DVD release:
Me: Man I forgot how much I loved Gemma. She’s such a bad-ass.
Him: Oh, here it comes.
Me: I want a show where Gemma –
Him: and LaDonna and Gloria get together
Me: Yes! And solve crimes!
Him: (turns up the volume)
Poor Sailor Boy. No wonder on one of our recent evening walks with Rio and Q, which I often use to whine about my writing brainstorm, he asked me why I never write one of these unadulteratedly badass characters I’m always talking about.
A few days later, I got the idea for my newest WIP. On August 1st, I started it.
It’s about a confident, witty, powerful, decisive, bad-ass…
…solving crimes.
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* Though it should be noted, I don’t generally watch the shows where they solve crimes. NCIS, L&O, Bones, Monk, Closer, Psych, etc. etc. Nope. I don’t watch any procedurals, even the medical ones like House. And I don’t read mysteries. I never read Nancy Drew, even. But I loved Veronica Mars. (And the X-Files, though I guess the whole point of that show was that they never really solved the crimes.)
** Actually, I recently read a book like that. And it was AWESOME. And its sale should be announced any old day now.
***It should also be noted that we love all the families on Modern Family. We feel especially bonded with Mitch and Cam, since Q is just about Lily’s age, and how well do we remember everything they’re going through. Also, though I’m not proud to say this, I act a lot like Claire. I’m neurotic and obsessed with Halloween. Well, the Hallowween part I’m very proud of.
Because Lenore is totally persuasive, she got me to release the flap copy for my 2012 release, FOR DARKNESS SHOWS THE STARS, as the launch of her Dystopian August series. In the interview, I talk more about FOR DARKNESS than I ever have before.
Read the whole interview there, and the flap copy below.
Can. Not. Wait. For 2012.
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Generations ago, a genetic experiment gone wrong—the Reduction—decimated humanity, giving rise to a Luddite nobility who outlawed most technology.
Eighteen-year-old Luddite Elliot North has always known her place in this caste system. Four years ago Elliot refused to run away with her childhood sweetheart, the servant Kai, choosing duty to her family’s estate over love. But now the world has changed: a new class of Post-Reductionists is jumpstarting the wheel of progress and threatening Luddite control; Elliot’s estate is floundering; and she’s forced to rent land to the mysterious Cloud Fleet, a group of shipbuilders that includes renowned explorer Captain Malakai Wentforth—an almost unrecognizable Kai. And while Elliott wonders if this could be their second chance, Kai seems determined to show Elliot exactly what she gave up when she abandoned him.
But Elliot soon discovers her childhood friend carries a secret—one that could change the society in which they live…or bring it to its knees. And again, she’s faced with a choice: cling to what she’s been raised to believe, or cast her lot with the only boy she’s ever loved, even if she has lost him forever.
Inspired by Jane Austen’s PERSUASION, FOR DARKNESS SHOWS THE STARS is a breathtaking romance about opening your mind to the future and your heart to the one person you know can break it.
Recently, I finished the final round of edits on For Darkness Shows the Stars, which took significantly longer to write than every other book I’ve ever written, with the exception of Unpublished Manuscript #4 (otherwise known as The Book I Wrote on a Broken-Screened Alphasmart While Living in a Tent in Oceana). I began FDSTS in January of 2010, which is also the month I found out I was pregnant.
Number one thing I’ve learned: If I ever get pregnant again, schedule a big vacation time into my writing schedule.
I finished a first draft in June of that year. It was… not good. There were growing pains, both on my abdomen and in my attempts to adapt a mature Jane Austen novel to a post-apocalyptic society populated by teenagers. The Austen version relies heavily on romantic conflict derived from not one, but two (perceived) romantic triangles. I didn’t want to write about romantic triangles. I particularly did not want to write about romantic triangles in the way that so widely populates the YA paranormal genre these days, even though that would have been the easy way out. The characters I’d created had bigger problems than romantic rivals. Yes, they were there, but even removed, the conflicts existed. The rivals were symbols of the vast gulf which separated my leads.
Commence draft two, in which I threw out pretty much everything except for the first 50 pages of the book. This should also be called draft 2a-2e, because I kept trying things until I reached a solution I was happy with. I felt like I was on the right path, but I had too much on my plate. There was no way I’d be able to do justice to the story in my head while pregnant, sleepless, and preparing for Q’s arrival. My editor wisely suggested delaying the book. I tearfully agreed.
After Q, after maternity leave, and after I got my writing legs back underneath me, I wrote draft three. It was better. I was even surprised how much stuff I had been able to incorporate from draft one. I sent it to my editor.
She sent back a seven page revision letter.
This time, I threw out about 30 of those first 50 pages. Turns out writing two halves of a book a year apart does not make for the most cohesive whole. For draft four I rejiggered most of the plot, clarified and simplified the worldbuilding, streamlined some structural issues, and completely rewrote the ending. The new draft was 10,000 words longer. Sent it in again.
One page revision letter, plus in-manuscript notes.
Draft five needed a whole new ending. But to get to that ending, I had to do a bunch of rewrites in other parts of the book. Another 5,000 words were added, but it was more like 15,000, since I cut out the broken ending.
And now, here we are. The book is done (save copyedits and proofreading). I’ve even (squeeeeeee) seen a cover comp.
It’s become fashionable in places for writers to boast about how little work they did on a book. “I got the idea for this while I was making dinner and I finished it by bedtime.” Don’t get me wrong, it’s wonderful when you have a “gift” story like that. I’ve written a story I love in two days. But sometimes stories take longer to get right.
And getting it right is the point.
So, if you’re a writer and you have been laboring over your draft and feeling frustrated, and wondering if it’s all worth it when there are others you see who toss off a book every week… it’s worth it. Your book is not their book. Its needs are not the needs of their book. Get your book right.
There were many challenges that went into the writing of this book. It was an adaptation and I felt a strong responsibility to Jane and all of her readers to do it justice. I was working in a new world, in a new voice, and with a complicated, non-linear and multi-faceted structure. And then of course, there was the intervention and stresses of “real life.”
And it was worth it. Because I’m so proud of the result.
Number of plotlines rejected during this process: 5-8 (depending on your metric of measurement)
Length: ~85,000 words
Difference in length between first and final draft: +18,000 words
Parts: 3 (one more than Jane’s)
Chapters: 41
Un-chapters: 20
Pages in manuscript version of draft (Note: will be different than typeset book!): 316
Body count: (guys, this is a Jane Austen retelling) 0
Unicorns: (Jane. Austen.) 0
Zombies: (Jane… oh, wait.) Still 0
Number of main characters invented whole cloth with no correlation to Persuasion: 1
Maximum number of Persuasion characters coalesced into any one FDSTS character: 2
Number of Persuasion characters cut completely because I found their plot lines to be entirely too creepy in the adapted version: 1
Number of all-nighters I pulled while working on this book: 6
Number of human beings I gestated while working on this book: 1
Number of times I accidentally referred to said human being by main character’s name during the revision process of this book: >12
Amount of money I should probably keep in reserve to pay for said human being’s therapy bills once she realizes I call her by the names of the imaginary people in my head: >1 million dollars
There are some authors who believe writing is revising. I am not one of those, but I think that the longer I am in this business, the more I get there.*
This is my job, for the foreseeable future (i.e., the next few weeks):
While writing it, I joked to Sailor Boy that I often felt as if I was writing with a little Jane Austen at my shoulder. Well, now that I have the revisions, it’s more like this:**
Naturally, this is not “angel on one shoulder, devil on the other” — as my editor and Miss Austen are not in disagreement, and neither is attempting to steer me wrong.
And, if I’m honest, the actual situation is probably more like this:
As Stephen King says, you write with the door closed, and edit with it open. Since word of my book got out (and got added to Goodreads!) long before there was anything close to a real manuscript, and since, once word of the book got out, it became fodder for conversation on the internet and in and the forums of Janeites, that was a little harder to accomplish than usual.
But that’s a topic for another time. Right now, the topic is revisions.***
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* Conversely, there seem to be a faction of writers who believe that being a pro means NOT revising. I wonder if they would think I’m getting less professional as I go along?
** Yes, that *is* a drawing of Buffalo the Unicorn Slayer, made my the fabulously talented Daniel Jennewein. Why do you ask?
I ran across a review of Rampant that pointed me in the direction of this (apparently quite popular) discussion of the cover. Seems some dude named Joel (Who, in his profile pics, looks to be a hipster about my age) has placed Rampant on his “books to never read ever” list on Goodreads. In his “review,” he takes umbrage at the fact that the cover of the book has a picture of a teen girl on it, instead of a giant killer unicorn.
Interesting point, some dude named Joel.
In fact, at one point in the long long LONG ensuing discussion, he says:
“then the cover should be a generic teen girl holding aloft the severed head of a giant killer unicorn. some of the blood should be dripping onto her, but she doesn’t care, because she is a warrior triumphant.”
And one of his buddies, Flannery, obliges him with some alternate cover art:
(I would like to make it known that this is a much better drawing than I could ever hope to do of a similar scene, in MS Paint or otherwise.)
Aside from the hair color, this is a pretty good illustration of the actual following scene in Rampant (Page 141, hardcover edition):
[Valerija] jumped back. “They said come here!” She reached into her duffel. “They see what I did to this.”
She held it aloft by its horn and we all gasped. The midnight dark skin, the brindled coat, the gaping maw, and most of all, the blood that oozed freely from the jagged edge where head had once met neck. A kirin’s head.
Valerija Raz lifted her chin. “They said here is where I belong.”
In fact, a few seconds earlier of that scene is actually illustrated here, by Emilia Argon:
This is Val arriving at the Cloisters, in full on goth gear with the unicorn head in the duffel bag at her feet.
Emilia actually pointed me in the direction on an entire cache of Rampant fanart on Deviantart.com. They are so awesome. Here’s her portrait of all the girls in the Cloisters (including Wen and Flayer!):
Seriously, how awesome is that? I love love love love love it. (I’m not sure why Ilesha is holding Flayer rather than Wen but Flayer is minding a lot less than I thought he might.) What I really love about it is how perfectly she captured the girls’ personalities. Look at val’s hair! Look at Rosamund’s cross. Look at how you can really see how much younger Ursula and Ilesha are than the other girls, and that Melissende (top left) and Ursula (bottom right) are sisters. Check out the expression on Phil’s face, the weariness on Astrid’s (nice call, btw, dressing her in those drab colors). These are not “generic teen girls.” (Sorry, Joel.)
Here’s another one of Astrid looking bored, by an artist named ShadowKissedAngel (a fan of Richelle Mead’s, I presume):
Love it. Love the braid! (This is the way Astrid most often wears her hair.)
I love the covers of my books. I think they are really beautiful. I adore the details of the sword on the cover of Rampant, and the reflection of the charging unicorn in the expression of determination on Astrid’s face. I love her sadness on the cover of Ascendant, and I covet her pretty, pretty hair. I don’t love the fact that there’s no unicorn on the cover, but there’s nothing I can do about that. Like I said, my stick figures aren’t even as good as Flannery’s. There are probably people out there, like Joel, who (though he admits himself that as a thirty-something dude, he’s hardly the target audience) aren’t picking the book up because it doesn’t have a killer unicorn on the cover, but there are probably a lot more people who picked it up because the covers — killer unicornified or not — are really pretty.
And whatever their initial motivation, the part that’s important to me is that they liked the text. They liked it enough to create their own art, like Emilia Argon and ShadowKisedAngel and the other folks on the DeviantArt Killer Unicorns Club Gallery. Art that shows the unicorns in all their killery glory:
Check out those gored sheep. So. Much. Love.
As a storyteller, I think that’s the best gift in the world.
