Off the grid

February 17, 201416 Comments

My computer died last week. It’s my own fault; I left it out where Thumper could reach it and he finally succumbed to temptation and decided that Mommy’s computer needed playing with. When Daddy busted him, he dropped it and broke the charger cord. But since my husband is the handy sort, he patched it up with some electrical tape and it was good as new.

For a while.

Last week, my computer decided it no longer wanted to recognize my adapter and instructed me to use the correct adapter for my computer because, until I did as it suggested, my computer was no longer going to charge. I scrambled to get some things printed for our taxes and get my photos backed up to my external hard drive, but my last-second backup failed as my computer finally lost power. *sigh*

So now I’m in the market for either a new power cord or a new computer. The new cord is clearly the cheaper of the two options, but my computer really needs replacing. It’s five years old and showing its age, but I’m not holding my breath on getting a new one any time in the near future. At any rate, my posts may be a bit sporadic until I get one or the other (new cord or new computer). While WordPress has some fantastic mobile apps, I much prefer an actual computer to mobile posting. It’s just easier, at least at the moment. Maybe one day I’ll be so used to mobile computing that it won’t be an issue, but for the time being, I’ll stick to mobile posting as a last resort.

And who knows? Maybe I’ll actually get some writing done! 😀

How do you handle techno-glitches?

An interview for the ages

February 10, 2014October 12, 20219 Comments

Today I’m excited to be interviewing Irene Soldatos, author of the wonderful book, Bad Bishop. It really is a fabulous read, and I jumped at the chance to learn more about it. Share my curiosity? Then pull up a chair, relax, and get ready for a little fun with history!

KK: What inspired you to write this story?

IS: That’s a difficult question. There was no one moment of inspiration, rather an idea that slowly developed. I read a lot of history. And there are three historians in my family, so I’ve grown up steeped in it, and I suppose I am more conscious than most of the enormous differences, cultural, social, ideological, technological between the people of one historical period and those of another, but also the very many similarities. I found myself often wondering what someone who was born and grew up in classical antiquity would make of the middle ages, for example, if he or she could somehow see it. I suppose this book is a thought experiment on that concept. I wanted to bring together and juxtapose people from various different time periods, in one story. One way to do that would be time travel. But I didn’t like that idea, because it would mean they would have missed the process of history. And the process is even more important than the time period they would arrive at, i.e. the one I set the story in.

KK: The amount of research needed for this book must have been incredible. What did that process involve?

It’s crazy, man

February 5, 2014February 5, 2014Leave a comment

I’m here to tell you that it’s okay to fall. It’s human to fall. And it’s okay to forsake a thing for a while — perhaps for even five years, as I did with The 33. But don’t you dare walk away from it, not for good. Don’t turn your back on the shaggy thing, and that soggy first-draft copy. Don’t you dare ignore what you were born to do: to herd words.

Stay in the crazy-making business. It’s the best job I know.

–J.C. Hutchins, “This Crazy-Making Business Called ‘Writing'”

Cop out

January 13, 2014March 3, 201617 Comments

Mosaic image of Mars as seen by Viking 1, 22 February 1980 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There’s a game going around Facebook today, wherein someone tags you to share a passage from page 7 of your current work in progress. I was tagged, but I had a little trouble deciding what to post – I’m working on three things at the moment (well, sort of). I’m still working on that short sci-fi piece that I started back in May, in addition to mulling over revision possibilities for The Lokana Chronicles, and since my short been getting a lot of my time lately, I finally decided to go with that.

And now, because I’m too tired to come up with something better, I’m going to post it here. (It was a long weekend; I’m still in recovery.) From my story, The Colony, I give you a conversation between Lynn Treadwell, the protagonist, and Mr. Edward Barrington III, an executive with the Company, who’ve sent Lynn’s husband to Mars as part of a colony expedition:

Thirteen things

December 31, 2013January 1, 201416 Comments

IMG_20131229_185204 I got the idea for this post from my friend Sammy, and the idea is to list thirteen positive things and connected to me (at least, that’s what I gathered from her brief intro). This list is in no particular order, except for the order in which they occurred to me. So, without further ado, here are thirteen positive things from 2013:

Review time!

December 23, 2013June 4, 20143 Comments

Well, I’ve finished reading another book, and this one was really good. Kindar’s Cure by Michelle Hauck takes place in the kingdom of Anost, and follows Kindar, second daughter of Empress Eugenie Stefanous, as she seeks out a cure for the disease that is slowly robbing her of life:

Princess Kindar of Anost dreams of playing the hero and succeeding to her mother’s throne. But dreams are for fools. Reality involves two healthy sisters and a wasting disease of suffocating cough that’s killing her by inches. When her elder sister is murdered, the blame falls on Kindar, putting her head on the chopping block.

A novice wizard, Maladonis Bin, approaches with a vision—a cure in a barren land of volcanic fumes. As choices go, a charming bootlicker that trips over his own feet isn’t the best option, but beggars can’t be choosers. As Mal urges her toward a cure that will prove his visions, suddenly, an ally turns traitor, delivering Kindar to a rebel army, who have their own plans for a sickly princess.

With the killer poised to strike again, the rebels bearing down, and the country falling apart, she must weigh her personal hunt for a cure against saving her people.

Spoiler alert! This was a fantastic story.

On querying

December 19, 2013December 19, 201313 Comments

As I caught up on my blog reading this morning after taking yesterday off to try and finish Kindar’s Cure (I failed, but I hope to have it done before tomorrow’s over), I ran across these two gems from Janet Reid. I love reading her blog (and QueryShark); I’ve learned a lot since I started.

Anyway, these two tidbits made me laugh, the first because it’s totally true and the second because, well, I’d like to see that happen (the drinking editors under the table part, followed by that letter). So, please to enjoy:

There is no right way to do this. There’s the way you do it (which you’ll kick yourself for doing) and the way that Other Writer did it (which will make you think Oh, I wish I’d done that instead!) The reason is that the grass is always greener in the other WorryWart’s pasture.

Here’s where I’m very much NOT the dream agent for very good writers. I’ve read a couple darn good novels this year that I had no idea what to do with. I passed with great sorrow BUT the author deserves an agent who knows what the next step is, and I didn’t. I mean short of sending it out to every editor I’ve drunk under the table with a cover letter that says “this is good, buy this” (Ok, I’ve done that but it’s not really a strategy you want to encourage.)

To read the whole post, click here. As always, it’s chock full of wisdom.

A Publishing Choice: Guest Post By Michelle Hauck (chasingthecrazies.wordpress.com)
Querying Overview: What a Query Letter is (and isn’t) (michaeljmcdonagh.wordpress.com)
5 Best Blogs on How to Write a Query Letter (progresspublishing.wordpress.com)
What #Queryfail Taught Me About Agents and Writers (michaeljmcdonagh.wordpress.com)

What a weekend!

November 25, 201317 Comments

How was everyone’s weekend? I spent mine mostly offline, fighting a migraine and watching TV. Lots and lots of TV. But it was good, because some of it qualified as research for The Lokana Chronicles. After last week’s writing class and my two-day Reign marathon and a bunch of Wikipedia-browsing, I’ve got a bunch of ideas for revisions (which I’d just resumed and will now have to go back over, but at least it’s only a chapter or two). I decided the book needs to be split in half, so I’ve got a lot of work to do because, once I’m done revising, I’m going to have to figure out how to wrap up the first half so that it feels like a complete book and then do the same for the second half.

Oy. Vey.

icy We had some snow over the weekend that made for lovely inspiration, but I felt too miserable most of the weekend to do much about it. I finally got a chance to sit down this noon and work on a new short story, but then the phone rang, and there went half my lunch hour. Hopefully I can get some more writing done tonight – that would be awesome! I’m still feeling a bit blah, though, so I guess we’ll see what happens.

In other news…

Still hungover

November 19, 201312 Comments

So I haven’t posted in a few days. Kind of unusual. Okay, wow, so it’s been more than a few days – it’s been a week. I’ve been doing a lot of writing, though, and a crap ton of rewriting, and I think it’s going well. But I’m still dealing with that book hangover. I just can’t get those books out of my head.

I’ve spent far too much time the last couple days on Tumblr and ogling all the pretty pictures and listening to pi while thinking about The Hunger Games and America and analyzing the series and thinking about how I can’t remember being stuck on a book like this ever and I finally decided something: