Category Archives: Process

Muse and Writer Dialogues #11- Imping Perversely

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FADE IN: Writer’s home office. You know the drill. WRITER is at the desk.

MUSE enters from somewhere. Since she has no corporeal form, egress and exeunt are rather flexible concepts to her. She appears to be wearing a sari.

MUSE: How was the kirtan last night?

WRITER: Great. The first chant was to Sarasvati, the goddess of the arts and music, and I need all the help I can get in both areas. It gave me an excuse to sing in a group where no one could hear me. Plus the instrumentation was much better than the first one.

MUSE: You’re just saying that because guitars were involved.

WRITER: How did you–?

MUSE: Don’t finish that, unless you’re a bigger idiot than I think you are. You were there, so I was there. It’s not complicated.

WRITER: Okay, fine. That was a bonus. All three of the performers were good, and two were playing classical style. I don’t get to see that very often. Amazed that I could tell that one of the chants was just a G, Cadd9, and A. I could probably play that.

MUSE: Should I even point out that you’re neither Hindu nor Jain?

WRITER: True, but what has that got to do with anything?

MUSE: Absolutely nothing. Not unlike what you’re writing now. Because, like your current project, the kirtan had little to do with getting the next novel written.

WRITER: Very funny. I just finished a novel, remember? I’m taking a break from them for a little while.

MUSE: Bull. You’re working on short stories instead because you’re being perverse.

WRITER: ?!

MUSE: Perverse in its correct, original meaning. Remember Edgar Allan Poe’s “Imp of the Perverse”?

WRITER: Yes, it was an imaginary creature that kept him procrastinating on writing projects until it was too late. Unlike imaginary creatures who bug me about writing. Well, I’m writing. Doesn’t apply.

MUSE: Wrong, as usual. You know you should be doing one thing, so you insist on doing something else entirely. It’s exactly the same. That the thing you shouldn’t be doing is also writing doesn’t change that fact.

 WRITER: Neither the next novel nor the short story is under contract, so how do you figure I “should” be doing one of them as opposed to the other?

MUSE: You said you’d work on the novel next. You’re not. That’s perverse.

WRITER: Merely contrary. And I will get the novel done, but right now is not its turn.

MUSE: That’s not the point. You’re not doing what you’d said you’d do. You broke a promise. To yourself, if no one else.

WRITER: True, but only to avoid breaking a greater one. The first one.

MUSE: ?

WRITER: I promised myself that, since I was never going to make a living doing this, I was free to write exactly what I wanted to write, when I wanted to write it. If I do anything else, I break that promise, and that one I’m keeping.

MUSE: Oh. That one.

WRITER: The ur-promise. I keep that one, or there really is no point to all this. Or you, for that matter.

MUSE: Hmmm, good point. Okay, but there are people who want to read that novel, you know, and have told you so.

WRITER: There are people who want to read this short story. They just don’t know it yet.

MUSE (sighs): You really are perverse.

WRITER: And damn proud.

FADE OUT.

 

A Picture is Worth…

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Heavenly Fox - eBook1This weekend I received the preliminary sketch for the cover of To Break the Demon Gate. It promises to be pretty cool. I’d post it here, but first of all I don’t have the rights, and second, the artist would kill me, and rightly so. Like a rough draft, the job of a preliminary sketch is not to be good, but to be done, mainly to show the artist’s concept and whether those in a position to decide (mostly PS) think it’ll work. I do, and said so. If you’ve seen the cover art to The Heavenly Fox, you know the artist, Ben Baldwin. There will also be endpapers, because there will be a separate, signed edition. I wasn’t sure about that, but apparently it’s happening. For the endpapers he’s probably going to do one of my favorite scenes, Lady Snow dancing outside the Gion Shrine. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with.

Which brings me or leaves me at the subject of illustrations. I have to say that I have been very fortunate in my illustrators over the years. I mean, consider the list: Ben Baldwin, Jon Foster, John Berkey, Tiffany Prothero, Steve Fabian, Steven Gilberts, Ruth Sanderson. Heck, my first ever professional story was illustrated by Alicia Austin. And if you’re unfamiliar with any of these, a good Google search will quickly explain how chuffed I am about it all. Granted, the artist’s vision is never going to match your own, but that’s kind of the point. You get to see your work reimagined, and find out what it triggers in another creative perspective. Not everyone gets that chance.

Wait For It…

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SleepingBuddhaI love to wait…said no one, ever. And yet it is one of those times. PS Publishing has an artist lined up for the cover of To Break the Demon Gate, but even preliminary sketches take time and I won’t have any idea what the cover is going to look like until much later in the process. I’ve got contracts and royalty payments hanging fire, but again nothing is ready now and won’t be for weeks, likely. I’ll send out the manuscript for The War God’s Son probably later this month, and there’s another long wait in the making.

Everyone has to “wait for it” at one time or another, in cases where it can’t be avoided, like the DMV or the dentist’s office. Relatively brief times, but they seem longer because there’s nothing else to do but anticipate the joy to come. But for what I call the real waiting, on matters that may take weeks, or months, even years? I sometimes think writers do more than their share. We’re always waiting, if we allow it.

Whaddya mean, “if we allow it”? It isn’t up to us! Oh, but it is. The key to bearing up to all the waiting, of course, is that you’re not waiting. Or to be more accurate, you’re not just waiting. There are things to do, stories to write, books to read, guitars to play, tires to patch and gutters to muck out. You don’t keep yourself busy as a distraction, you keep yourself busy because you’re alive and you’ve got better things to do than wait. Then one day a check and/or contract arrives in the mail, an email arrives with a decision made for good or ill, or maybe a preliminary/final cover jpeg arrives, and you go “What? Already?”

Or you can simply “wait for it” and focus on what isn’t happening and stew away your stomach lining and your last good nerve all the while, and waste one hell of a lot of precious, non-retrievable time in the process. That’s always an option. Not a good idea, but an option.

No one likes to wait. The trick, if there is one, is to simply refuse to do it.

Tis the Season…Again

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Now that the contracts are signed I can go ahead and mention that Jonathan Strahan is picking up “Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls”  from the October 2013 BCS for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 8. This is the first time I’ve made it into one of Jonathan’s year’s bests, so I’m pretty chuffed. It almost makes up for the fact that we just had to spend three grand to repair and upgrade our hall bath. Nothing like a forced remodel at Christmas to put things in perspective.

Speaking of which, I’m still not done with my Christmas shopping, but that’s pretty typical. One present is definitely going to be late and another might be. I just don’t handle the holidays as well as I should and the stress doesn’t really end until after Easter. A character flaw in me, I know, but there it is.

The next step in the publication of To Break the Demon Gate is the final selection of the artist (which is the publisher’s remit) and reviewing the preliminary designs of the cover. I have to say that I like this part of the process, since other than rendering an opinion—something I usually have no problems with—I don’t have to actually do anything. It’s all on the artist and the publisher at that point. When the book is out, of course, that’s another story. And I like that part too.

Come January I have two novel manuscripts to send off to Prime Books. One’s publication is already settled (the reprint), the other’s isn’t. That’s stress, too. But it still doesn’t compare to the holidays. I hope ya’ll are handling it better than I am.

Odd Ends and One More Update

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Two For ChristmasThis morning I sent off the copyedited manuscript of To Break the Demon Gate, along with a list of preferred artists to do the cover, to the publisher. One advantage of working with a specialty publisher for things like limited editions is that you often have some input into matters like cover art, which is less likely to happen for the more traditional editions. It can and does happen, but not routinely. Regardless, there was one artist I’ve been a fan of since my early days, and he’s one that PS Publishing does work with, so it could happen. Right now the schedule is still looking good for a spring release, probably around March. I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

The copyeditor pronounced the manuscript “clean,” which is good, though in a couple of places he/she did get confused by word choices that aren’t as common in British usage, so I had to clear that up, but overall there wasn’t a lot to do. One thing I am going to need to do is convert the manuscript from British spelling and usage back to American spelling and usage for the trade reprint edition, still scheduled for next December. The limited edition will be the hardcover edition, so it just depends on your preference. And patience.

I want to keep up the weekly blog schedule during December, but there’s a chance that’s not going to happen. To be perfectly blunt, I’m not altogether sane this time of year… I mean less than usual. It’s a character flaw of mine that I find the holidays extremely stressful and crazy-making, and this year isn’t going to be any different, except for a possible ramp-up of intensity. Most of it is of my own making, but that doesn’t change the fact. If I can get through to January without major drama, I’ll score that a win. If you don’t hear from me before then, have a safe and happy rest of the month, and I’ll see you on the other side.