And I'm Off Again

Back to San Francisco, this time for publishing work instead of mini writer retreat. If enough of my posts were like this I'd sound quite jet-set. I'm doing well with the sequel to The Suspicious Room, trying for about a blog's worth a day and also playing with something fantastical with the working title In the Milky Way. More on the milk reference to come.

While I'm gone, write a little every day, or every other day, or every weekend, or whatever your schedule is. Hey, you could have a draft of a chapter or a short story by the time I come back!

From Kate Long: Enjoy It!

Author Kate Long (The Bad Mother's Handbook, which has hit the UK like gangbusters and is due here in the United States soon) was kind enough to email after I mentioned her long road to success (see the March and April archives). From Kate:

You're spot on in your observation; it certainly wasn't overnight success, but on the other hand, I write every day that I can because I enjoy it. It hardly seems like work, even when I'm revising.

And

I never set out to write a best-seller. I just wrote the novel I wanted to read.

You ever notice that when you grimly set out to write something, it's not as good as the stuff you wrote for fun? See, that's the thing - writing is supposed to be fun! Or else why are we doing it? We could just become stock brokers. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

So, every day, a bit of writing fun. That's the spirit!

Onward!

Sequel to The Suspicious Room, an Aublog Reading

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And I'm Off

Back to the Bay Area again for the rest of the week, going on a mini-writer retreat with a friend (we'll be at Espresso Roma pretty much all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday). Also seeing friends for a belated 40th birthday bash. (I still don't know how the forty thing happened. I'm sure I was eighteen just yesterday.) Will try to audblog - maybe an installment of the sequel to The Suspicious Room, which I'm working on, having finished the first one.

Write on!

New Flash Fiction: Palaces

Okay, I promised.

Palaces

When Amelia was eight, she lay awake in bed every night thinking about being a princess. In her thoughts she was rich and had a horse and servants and a name for her country and a castle. In the castle was a swimming pool and an entire video arcade and a playroom full of toys. But of course as she got older she grew out of that.

When she was twelve going on thirteen, her parents moved from the city to the suburbs so that she could go to a better junior high. They bought a townhouse in the only condo complex in town. It was red brick and had a dishwasher and a garbage disposal, which they had never had in their apartment in the city, two blocks from the park where Amelia learned to ride her bike.

She didn’t realize until she got to school the first day that her bike was different than everyone else's. Theirs had more gears than hers. On the second day she rode with her jacket over the handlebars so no one could tell.

On Halloween that year Amelia headed off to her new friend Debbie's Halloween party. She hadn't been over to anyone's house yet, so this was the first time. She was dressed as Princess Leia, with bagels on the side of her head. She thought it was pretty funny, and so did her parents. Outside, the jack-o-lanterns that the other people who lived in the townhouses had put out flickered in the darkening twilight against the trees and the grass and all the other landscaping around the complex. It was beautiful, and there was a dishwasher in the townhouse so they didn’t have to wash dishes, and Amelia felt like a princess.

Debbie had a pool. Amelia knew that ahead of time, but she didn't know about the playroom upstairs. Or the rec room by the pool where the party was. "Mom, the gardeners are still there, aren't they finished yet?" yelled Debbie soon after Amelia and a lot of other people got there, because it was unseasonably warm and they were going to have a barbecue. The maid had set up a table of popcorn and miniature Hershey bars. And there, against one wall, was a video arcade. Just like Amelia used to dream about.

She swallowed and turned away.

Amelia left early, riding her bike furiously. She wanted to cry but she didn't. She sat at her front door and put her face in her hands and saw the townhouses for what they were, the places where everybody's maid and all the newly divorced dads lived.

She pulled herself together and went inside. And her face was, and remained forever, just a little more ambitious, and a little less pleasant.

Two Excellent Sites

I've been meaning to link to these for a while, and no time like the present. I really love these sites and want them to succeed, and there's nothing like word of mouth for that.

First, Magnatune: try before you buy MP3 music.. As they say, they are a record label, but they are not evil! Read the founder's story, Why I created Magnatune Records. That will also link you to the infamous Courtney Love article in Salon which explains that record labels' alleged concerns about artists getting ripped off through file swapping are bogus, because the record labels themselves do such a good job of that that there's nothing left for the artists to lose when it comes to college kids sharing music. Magnatune's way is completely legal, you have a choice of how much to pay for an album, with options about types of files (more than one type is fine). And the artists actually get some real money.

And besides that, they have really excellent music, a lot more cutting edge and interesting than a lot of the other services.

And second - imagine that Amazon is a really, really good used bookstore, like Moe's in Berkeley. You're probably a bit bookish, or you wouldn't be reading my blog, so you will love this one. Head over to Alibris - Used, New and Out-Of-Print Books, Music and Movies. All the convenience of Amazon, all of the serendipity of used book store. They also link to rare book auctions, an interest of mine, but then, I'm a hopeless nerd who thinks an evening settling down with a thirty-year-old edited collection of critical essays on the Medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a good time.

I'll put these over on my links section at the right, too. And it's been a while since I posted some flash fiction - will put some up tomorrow, cross my heart.

When in Espresso Roma

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Live from the I-5

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More Persistence and Hard Work Encouragement

See this San Francisco Chronicle piece on the author of the book Ella Enchanted, They told her she had no talent. Here's another real grown-up who worked for ten years for her success, with nary a publication. May it counteract the last story you heard about someone half your age who got a gigantic advance for their first effort. (And remember, even those stories are often hyped beyond any relation to the real story.)

Whoa, I haven't blogged for a week! Bad of me. Will do better. Have been finishing up usable draft of The Suspicious Room - which as you may remember premiered as a couple of audblogs here. Yup, there's about 78,000 words to it now. How does one do that? One starts typing. The secret to writing is butt in chair.

Here's an idea: start a blog. Type in a new page from your novel or project every weekday. End of year you've got a rough draft.

Blog on.

Ah, Book Signings

Spent the weekend having a birthday and recuperating from a Friday night book signing. Signing was fun, an event in honor of the Renaissance Faire which is opening in Southern California (hence my Her Infinite Variety: Stories of Shakespeare and the Women He Loved was quite apropos). There were Shakespearean Sonnet contests (entrants being local high school kids, really great), Shakespearean look-alike contests, Faire people wandering about dressed like wenches and pirates and Scotsmen. My fellow author Judith Merkle Riley put me to shame - she was dressed in an elaborate green velvet period piece that made her look like Catherine Parr. Me, I had my nice blue slacks. Maybe next year.

I'm very, very grateful to have a book signing to go to, but as many of you will learn if you keep writing, they can be draining. For me, it's something about the timing of them. Readings and signings are always scheduled for the exact hour when you want to put your feet up for a little while and veg out to a That Seventies Show rerun. (Umm, not that I ever do that, right? Oh, no, I'm productive every single minute of the day. Ahem.)

Anyway, write a bit today. Write a bit tomorrow. And the next day. And you will soon find out for yourself!

Live from Starbuck's on April Fool's Day

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