Almost Bookcation

Once upon a time, my wife and I would go on yearly bookcations. We’d leave the kids with someone random (usually someone we trusted and not truly someone random). We’d book a B&B for a couple nights. We’d pillage used book stores. We’d return home with a box of books which would take us the year to get through.

Oh, the delights of those days! We discovered so many wonderful worlds! We uncovered countless delights! It was a lot of fun. We’d purposely go all day not looking at what each other selected. In the evening after supper, we’d slowly go through our purchases, exclaim about how these all looked really great, and savor each other’s company. We had favorite bookstores near the B&B, eating establishments with a lot of memories, and we even knew the innkeepers of that B&B.

And then we moved. Continue reading “Almost Bookcation”

Who needs sanity?

Last week I wrote about how writing is the beginning of the work. This week I lived it out.

I got back a novel I’d written from an editor. The novel isn’t short; the thing was about 600 pages long. The editor left on average three notes a page. Some of the notes regarded typos. Some asked deeper questions that required more thought. Some rewrote entire sections for clarity or punchiness.

As you might guess, that’s a lot of notes to look through.

This last week, my family went to go visit grandma, leaving me behind. I had almost an entire week where I didn’t have the kids distracting me. I still had work to complete every day for my day job, but it meant my evenings were free.

My wife takes the kids away a couple times a year to visit her mom, usually leaving me behind to tackle one or another project. Usually it’s straight-out writing; it’s the creation of the story. This time around, though, I aimed to go through the entire novel I’d just gotten back. All 600 pages. Every note.

And yes, it was work. Continue reading “Who needs sanity?”

The Work that Comes After the Writing

Writing is work.

I wish it was only fun. There is real joy in creating stories, crafting mythologies, sculpting characters, and weaving storylines. There’s something magical in discovering surprises you laid for yourself. I actually do enjoy revising stories and shining them up.

But if you intend to be successful as an author, it also takes a lot of work.

Today I’ve edited 100 pages of a novel. That took literal hours, butt in chair, hands on keyboard, looking at every single line of those 100 pages. Should this phrase be capitalized? How about that verb tense? Oh, that sentence needs strengthening.

My brain is now a gelatinous cube with less intelligence. Continue reading “The Work that Comes After the Writing”

Does race have anything to do with genre writing?

Yes.

Ok, now that I’ve said that… I’m not sure where to go next.

I’ve been watching what’s going on in our nation, and I felt typing up a normal blog entry would be kinda pointless right now. There’s big things going on. Important things. And while I’m still writing and submitting my fiction, the blog here is usually about fiction or writing life.

I’m a white guy. I’m really white. I live in the suburbs. My neighborhood and city are predominantly white.

The last church I served as a pastor was in a much more multi-ethnic neighborhood. We had black kids and Hispanic kids coming to our teen center all the time. I got to serve a mixed culture. So I’m not coming into this totally blind. I think I ticked off some friends when the rioting started when I said, “I get it.” I don’t get it as someone who’s suffered from systemic bias, but I have seen friends suffer from it.

Which means, it’s not my place to really answer the question as to how the issue of race fits in with genre fiction writing, other than that it does.

But perhaps I can start? Continue reading “Does race have anything to do with genre writing?”

Festival of Stories

Stories are coming. Festivals of stories.

My wife has this thing. She’ll look at any given story I write, and sometimes she’ll say, “That’s a you story.” And it usually has to do with… well, stories.

See, I like writing stories about stories. You can probably blame Neil Gaiman and Sandman for that, really. Or maybe Ray Bradbury and Fahrenheit 451. I dunno where I got it, but I did, and now I love writing about stories.

So when Tell-Tall Press invited me to take part in Nabu Carnevale, anthologies about festivals, I was interested… but I was far, far more interested once I saw that the entire idea came from an ancient festival of stories.

Oh. I am all over that. Continue reading “Festival of Stories”