"A Hunter of the Celadon Plains" to Sword & Sorceress 27, ed. Elisabeth Waters.

Happy Author Dance! And it's spring! What more can I ask for?

Eclipse Tailgate Party, Mineral Vista Point, CA

I've posted an "Eclipse Diary" in chunks on my blog (first part already up, the next three will come at daily intervals) and in an abbreviated but self-contained essay on Book View Cafe blog.


My attempt to photograph the "crescent sun" through a welding visor and solar shades... you can see it just at the far right of the image. I am sooo not a photographer.

It does not surprise me that the single biggest regret of those who are dying is, "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me."

Top five regrets of the dying | Life and style | guardian.co.uk

As part of the series, Science Fiction Writers Chat, Bryan Thomas Schmidt talks with Robin Wayne Bailey about writing, life, "paying it forward," community. I've known Robin since our stories appeared together in the very first Sword & Sorceress and I'm struck by how similar our processes are -- although no one stole a 50 page manuscript from me in junior high school, I cannot fly an airplane, and I am not married to a geologist. The interview is varied and delightful and occasionally, deeply moving. Here's a sample:

SFFWRTCHT: You also have Shadowdance, a personal favorite, which is dark fantasy. Tell us a bit about that story and how it came about?

RWB: That book came from a very dark place at a particularly dark time in my life.  I was struggling with a wide range of life issues: child abuse, molestation, depression and sexual identity, career insecurities, and what I then perceived as an abyss of deep personal failures.  I felt smothered in secrets, not just my own, but secrets that other people had put upon me.  It all bubbled up into the writing of that book.  I’ll never forget my agent calling me up literally in the middle of the night.  “This is the book you were born to write,” he said.  I don’t know if that was true, but it was certainly the book I had to write at that time, and finishing it felt like an exorcism.  It taught me the importance of writing honestly and writing with purpose.

SFFWRTCHT: Around the same period, you did Swords Against The Shadowland, a sequel to Leiber’s Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series? How does one go about taking on such challenge?

SWB: Carefully and with humility.  I had met Leiber a handful of times, and he was a sort of God of Fantasy to me.  He was tall and gaunt and had such an aura of mystery about him, a kind of charisma, and yet he was approachable and fun.  When I decided that I was going to write fantasy, he was one of the writers I studied, and I mean “studied” with all the skills I’d used in graduate school with any other major writer.  Leiber and I shared the same agent, and when I was invited to take up the mantel of Lankhmar under Leiber’s guidance, I was stunned.  Daunted is perhaps a better word.  Unfortunately, Fritz Leiber died before the ink was dry on our contract, so the collaborative experience I’d hoped for wasn’t possible.  I didn’t have ego enough to imagine I could tell any story just the way Leiber would tell it, so I taped a note to my brain: honor — don’t imitate.  While working in his world with his characters, I still had to bring my own concerns and themes, my own voice, to the work.  A lot of people liked the result; some didn’t.  That’s life.  I’m forever grateful that Leiber trusted me.

This is very much how I feel about continuing the "Darkover" series.

Are the reader reviews on Amazon.com better or worse than those penned by professional (and often academic and "litrary") reviewers? Or are they a completely different ball of wax?

In an article, "Amazon Killed The Book Reviewer Star," Gregory Ferenstein writes:

“The democratization of reviewing is synonymous with the decay of reviewing,” lamented Professor of English Morris Dickstein, “The professional reviewer, who has a literary identity, who had to meet some editor’s exacting standard, has effectively been replaced by the Amazon reviewer, the paying customer, at times ingenious, assiduous, and highly motivated, more often banal, obtuse, and blankly opinionated.”

Others have implied that Amazon contains far worse than uncritical literary buffoons; Cornell professor Trevor Pinch, discovered systemic corruption within the ranks of top 1,000 Amazon reviewers, many of whom are given perks for good reviews or abstaining from bad ones.

But, if Amazon really is a literary cesspool, why did Dobrescu and his colleagues find that consumer reviews were nearly identical, on average, to professional critics, (under conditions when professionals would not be biased)? The likely explanation is what social scientists call the “wisdom of crowds.” A randomly selected consumer reviewer is no match for a professional reviewer, but the average opinion of all laymen is less biased than an expert.

This fact was famously discovered by Sir Francis Galton, who found that crowds of people were astonishingly good at guessing the weight of a cow, despite individual guesses being all over the map. Stupid answers are tossed around the actual right answer in equal proportion, marking the truth like treasure on a map surrounded by circular dots.

Regardless of the quality or positivity/negativity of Amazon reader reviews, conventional wisdom is that they affect sales because once a book has received a certain number, it gets into Amazon's suggestion algorithms ("Readers who liked this book, liked that other book...")

So if you haven't posted a review of your favorite author's book (how about mine - Jaydium and Northlight?) this is a great time to do so!

Author Julianne Lee offers some thoughts on why she loves to read -- and write -- time travel stories.
I adore time travel stories. As far back as H.G. Wells and Mark Twain, the concept of time travel has given us the opportunity to examine how things change and how they stay the same. It is the ultimate fish-out-of-water scenario, and it’s one of my favorite to write because the possibilities are limitless.
Nearly any type of story can involve time travel. Take, for instance, “The Time Traveler’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger, which is one of the most romantic stories I’ve ever read. Henry DeTamble, somewhat like Kurt Vonnegut’s Billy Pilgrim in “Slaughterhouse Five,” becomes unstuck in time and spends his life shifting back and forth between present, past and future. Sometimes knowing what will happen, and yet never knowing when, Henry examines his life from a rare perspective. But “The Time Traveler’s Wife” is not categorized as science fiction, or even fantasy. Nor even romance. And that, to me, is a good thing. All fiction should be fluid of genre.

In writing stories of time travel, the field of genre can be quite open, but I believe there are certain rules that must be followed, for the same reasons we adhere to spelling and grammar conventions. It aids communication. Not so much to be rigid about tropes, but for the story to make logical sense. As in any world building, regardless of genre, consistency is key.

Read the rest of her essay here: Deborah J. Ross: GUEST POST: Julianne Lee on Time Travel

Just out in ebook format from our own ramblin_phyl:

Guardian of the Freedom (Merlin's Descendents #5)


1763: all of Europe is at war with each other and the Turks are storming toward Vienna. The magical protection of Britain requires that Georgina Kirkwood, a potential Merlin, leave the secret Pendragon Society and disguise herself as man to fight for England.

Wounded and no longer able to carry a sword, Georgina is recruited by the King as a spy in the American Colonies. Transplanted to a land and people vibrant with life and ideas, she begins to question her loyalties. Only her love for Major Roderick Wythe gives her the grounding and stability to work with Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams and many other notable leaders to discover what being the Merlin truly means and to determine who she is protecting from whom.

Irene Radford has been writing stories ever since she figured out what a pencil was for. A member of an endangered species, a native Oregonian who lives in Oregon, she and her husband make their home in Welches, Oregon where deer, bears, coyotes, hawks, owls, and woodpeckers feed regularly on their back deck.

A museum trained historian, Irene has spent many hours prowling pioneer cemeteries deepening her connections to the past. Raised in a military family she grew up all over the US and learned early on that books are friends that don't get left behind with a move. Her interests and reading range from ancient history, to spiritual meditations, to space stations, and a whole lot in between.

Italy has some of the most romantic and mysterious cities in the world, and I was delighted when Jay Lake and Shannon Page sent me a story set in the Renaissance Florence. 

 

Florence, by Thermos

Venice, by Paolo da Reggio

My own adventure began in 1991, when I was living in France. We used our children’s spring break to visit Italy, and that meant Florence and Venice. These places overwhelmed me with a sense of being not quite in the same reality as other places I’d been. I was accustomed to living near water (having come from Venice, California -- all right, just across the street from the Venice city line), but not the pervasive sense of dark, fluid depths underlying every building and every walkway, nor the atmosphere of age and history, or the constant reminders of private lives – of secrets – behind those shuttered windows and doors. Whether strolling through the piazzas or over one of the many bridges, or riding in a gondola, or sitting in a café, I felt myself surrounded by stories. I remember the moment of awe when I stepped out into the plaza of the ghetto (the original ghetto, after which all others are named). There isn’t much to see, just a well-swept space surrounded by tourist shops; it’s not what I saw but what I felt, century upon century of hope and despair, of huddled safety and wellsprings of determination.

A tourist brochure, perhaps from the city of Venice itself, I can’t remember now, featured images from carnevale. One of these was the famous character, Bauta. This costume consists of a unadorned white mask, flared at the bottom where the mouth should be, a black tricorned hat, and a black cloak. It is impossible to tell if the person wearing it is old or young, man or woman, rich or poor – a true disguise for that brief time of merry-making when such distinctions no longer hold sway. In the publicity image, indirect, diffuse lighting cast the figure in mysterious shadows. You can see something of what it looked like here.

Or here.

Oh my, I thought. Story material.

---

When I returned to the US, I pinned the picture on my bulletin board beside my computer. Although I worked on other projects, my eyes kept drifting back to this enigmatic, slightly menacing figure. I had a chance to take some of those shivers and weave them into a story when I was invited to submit to an anthology of historical fantasy, Ancient Enchantresses, edited by Kathleen M. Massie-Ferch. I based my story, "Unmasking the Ancient Light," on the life of Dona Gracia Nasi, one of the most extraordinary Jewish women of the Renaissance. My friend Bauta did not put in an appearance in my story, but furnished a wealth inspiration for an ancient, brooding menace.

Then, as I was reading stories for The Feathered Edge: Tales of Magic, Love, and Daring, I opened the one Jay and Shannon had sent me and read:

Firenze, 1498

I peered around the rough-edged corner of the Palazzo Martelli, searching down the long, night-shadowed lane but seeing nothing save the muddy path to the river Arno below. The Ponte Vecchio glimmered in the distance, lit by a single torch at the near end.
 

Palazzo Martelli, by sailko

Oh my. Italy, again!

And what a marvelous time this is! Florence is ancient and brooding, but infused with the vigor of magic, of a living, working city, not a vacation destination. This is not the Florence of picture postcards and tourist brochures. Dangerous things lurk in waters, and watch you from the rooftops…and behind the gaity and mercantile riches, a battle is being waged, one whose stakes are hearts as well as souls. Jay and Shannon weave the vivid details into an erotic tale of desire, sorcery, and power.

Jennifer Laughran, an agent at Andrea Brown Literary Agency, offers some thoughts on new writers and series:

Lots of unpublished writers query and say something like: "This is the first book in a series. Books 2 and 3 are complete, I am working on book 4 now!"

This makes me sigh. I read that and see a person who is stuck completely on one story, who is not ready to be flexible and diversify, learn and grow. Not to rain on your parade, but... what if Book 1 is actually fundamentally flawed and you are building a house of sequels on a shoddy foundation? What if it never finds a home? Then all the energy that you spent on sequels is wasted, when you could have been off finding more stories and inventing even more awesome worlds.

The other day a very nice Twitterer inquired during #AskAgent something like (paraphrasing): "I've had book one out on submission for some time... when should I start querying agents on book 2?"

Not to be mean, really, but what's the point? Nobody can take on and sell JUST book 2 if it has to be a series. And nobody has picked up book 1. Sooo....

"Well, I'll just self-publish then!"



Jennifer Represents...: How NOT to write a series, OR, Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

Here's what I'll be up to...plus hanging around, chatting... Please do say hello to me or come to one of my panels. (I'm on one with my husband, davetrow, always an adventure in hilarity, not to mention a whole bunch of other amazing and cool peeps.)

Growing Artistically Through Crisis on Friday from 2:30 PM to 4:00 PM in
Lafayette (with Angelena Kyzar). For any artist, a discussion of the process of expressing our life crises and traumas into the media we create.

Ghostwriting -- Literally! What's it Like to Pick Up a Deceased Writer's Pen? on Friday from 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM in Ballroom D (with Kevin Andrew Murphy, Brandon Sanderson, Diana L. Paxson). Many of our favorite authors were in the middle of writing something when they passed away. What's it like to pick up a deceased author's pen? Is it more important to create the author's intent, or is it ok to add your own style when you're now the one doing the work.

Young Adult Fiction: More that Blanking-out the Sex on Friday from 5:30 PM to 7:00 PM in Camino Real (with Clare Bell, Ann Finnin, Diana L. Paxson). Young Adult Fiction is a rapidly growing sub-genre. What does it take to write YA, and how is it different from either children's or adult fiction?

Location, Location, Location -- Setting your Story in a Science Fiction World on Saturday from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM in Lafayette (with Chaz Brenchley, Clare Bell, T.S. Luikart, Allison Lonsdale). Your character has to live somewhere, and that somewhere needs to support the story. It's embarrassing to have a great scene all written involving bikini- or Speedo-dressed people, when they all live in the first permanent settlement on the Moon, and only landed yesterday....

Book View Cafe and ePublishing on Saturday from 2:30 PM to 4:00 PM in
Ballroom D (with Irene Radford, Chaz Brenchley, Dave Trowbridge, Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff). Book View Cafe members discuss their experiences with this authors' co-op and ePublishing.

Once Upon a Time, Brothers Grimm, Fables, and Other Looks at the Modern
Fairy Tale on Saturday from 5:30 PM to 7:00 PM in Bayshore (with Kevin Andrew Murphy, Sandra Saidak, Kay Pannell, Lon Sarver, D.M. Atkins, Elwin Cotman, Eytan Kollin, Diana L. Paxson) These are not your grandmother's fairy tales or even your mother's. They show the story behind the story and more. Explore the new look at Fairy Tales in the Modern Age.

The Evolution of Female Characters in SF and Fantasy on Sunday from 1:00 PM
to 2:30 PM in Ballroom D (with Juliette Wade, Veronica Belmont, Daryl G. Frazetti, Brandon Sanderson, Diana L. Paxson). From damsels in distress to sword-wielding, gun-toting, and military masterminds, have women found their place, or are they 'feminized' men? Do the women truly reflect the changing attitudes of the roles of women?

Authors: Stop Blocking Your Own Potential! on Monday from 11:30 AM to 1:00
PM in Winchester (with Tony N. Todaro, Leslie Simon, Brandon Sanderson). For years the publishing industry has pushed and pulled authors into marketable categories that they can quantify, but today's readers are looking for something different. As long as you believe in your work and the enjoyment that it brings to you and those like you, give it to the masses. Figure out who you are, what you want the world to see, and commit to it! Then figure out how to reach people like you and go out and sell books!