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first lines
Jan. 28th, 2011 01:06 amTime for the first line meme! Because I need to organize my head.
( click through if you like )
Coming up with ideas? So not my problem.
( click through if you like )
Coming up with ideas? So not my problem.
project list/first-line meme
May. 23rd, 2010 02:31 pmBear did the first-line thing, and I've been meaning to do it for a while, so here you go.
( cut because embarrassingly long )
Seriously. Ideas are not the hard part of writing.
( cut because embarrassingly long )
Seriously. Ideas are not the hard part of writing.
State of the Mole
Feb. 3rd, 2010 02:08 pmSo.
The Goblin Emperor is safely Someone Else's Problem for a while, and I have no idea of what novel I'm going to write next (except, of course, for A Reckoning of Men with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala, but we're not doing that until she's cleared at least some of the carnage off her decks*). Partly this is because The Goblin Emperor is a standalone. Partly this is because Cormorant Child, the novel which would be next up if writing was a purely rational, efficiency-oriented profession, has a lot of the same thematic issues and concerns as The Goblin Emperor, and I want a break from the problem of kingship. (Honestly, who do I think I am? W. Shakespeare?) Also, Cormorant Child still won't tell me what its shiny sfnal set-piece in Chapter Two is, and I think that means that there's something back there that isn't quite done yet. Collaboration between two authors is much easier than collaboration between an author's conscious and subconscious. Unlike my subconscious, Bear uses her words.)
I'm okay with everything on the novel board being TBA. Because it means I've got something for which I have been yearning for at least a year and a half: time to write short stories.
I wrote three and a half short stories last year (using the term "year" pretty loosely, as I can't actually recall whether Bear and I wrote "Mongoose in 2009 or technically 2008). "White Charles," "After the Dragon," "On Faith" (Shadow Unit 3.00), and "Mongoose." Now, my finished-to-published ratio there is looking pretty awesome, but, however gratifying to my ego, that's not actually my point. My point is that I wrote three and a half short stories last year, and that's a woefully sparse output.
I have two finished short stories which won't sell, "Coyote Gets His Own Back" (my beloved zombie coyote story) and "Imposters" (a Ghoul Hunters story), and two which sold in 2006 (to two different markets) and have yet to see the light of day. But essentially, along with having barely any new output in the past couple years, I have no backlog, either. In one sense, this is good, as it means all those stories from the (halcyon) days (of yore) when I had fifteen circulating at once have either sold or been trunked, but it makes me feel like I'm not doing my job right.
ERGO, my goal for this next chunk of 2010 is to write some damn short stories. And to aid me in this endeavor, well, I think we need a list:
( behind the cut, first lines and commentaries )
And now, having laid this all out, I'm off to take the Elder Saucepan to the ophthalmologist. Perhaps all the driving (45 minutes each way) will help this roiled muddle clarify.
Hey. A girl can hope.
---
*A writing career is like a pirate ship. Discuss.
The Goblin Emperor is safely Someone Else's Problem for a while, and I have no idea of what novel I'm going to write next (except, of course, for A Reckoning of Men with
matociquala, but we're not doing that until she's cleared at least some of the carnage off her decks*). Partly this is because The Goblin Emperor is a standalone. Partly this is because Cormorant Child, the novel which would be next up if writing was a purely rational, efficiency-oriented profession, has a lot of the same thematic issues and concerns as The Goblin Emperor, and I want a break from the problem of kingship. (Honestly, who do I think I am? W. Shakespeare?) Also, Cormorant Child still won't tell me what its shiny sfnal set-piece in Chapter Two is, and I think that means that there's something back there that isn't quite done yet. Collaboration between two authors is much easier than collaboration between an author's conscious and subconscious. Unlike my subconscious, Bear uses her words.)I'm okay with everything on the novel board being TBA. Because it means I've got something for which I have been yearning for at least a year and a half: time to write short stories.
I wrote three and a half short stories last year (using the term "year" pretty loosely, as I can't actually recall whether Bear and I wrote "Mongoose in 2009 or technically 2008). "White Charles," "After the Dragon," "On Faith" (Shadow Unit 3.00), and "Mongoose." Now, my finished-to-published ratio there is looking pretty awesome, but, however gratifying to my ego, that's not actually my point. My point is that I wrote three and a half short stories last year, and that's a woefully sparse output.
I have two finished short stories which won't sell, "Coyote Gets His Own Back" (my beloved zombie coyote story) and "Imposters" (a Ghoul Hunters story), and two which sold in 2006 (to two different markets) and have yet to see the light of day. But essentially, along with having barely any new output in the past couple years, I have no backlog, either. In one sense, this is good, as it means all those stories from the (halcyon) days (of yore) when I had fifteen circulating at once have either sold or been trunked, but it makes me feel like I'm not doing my job right.
ERGO, my goal for this next chunk of 2010 is to write some damn short stories. And to aid me in this endeavor, well, I think we need a list:
( behind the cut, first lines and commentaries )
And now, having laid this all out, I'm off to take the Elder Saucepan to the ophthalmologist. Perhaps all the driving (45 minutes each way) will help this roiled muddle clarify.
Hey. A girl can hope.
---
*A writing career is like a pirate ship. Discuss.
First lines of things I should be writing.
Jul. 1st, 2009 09:03 pmAs cristalia points out, today is the first day of the second half of 2009. I'll take my arbitrary, manufactured symbolism where I can find it, so here's that first-line meme, this time in order of urgency:
( What are CALL ME ISHMAEL and THE PRIMROSES WERE OVER? )
If you are now thinking as how Mole desperately needs to finish something, you, sir or madam, are not wrong.
cristalia points out, today is the first day of the second half of 2009. I'll take my arbitrary, manufactured symbolism where I can find it, so here's that first-line meme, this time in order of urgency:( What are CALL ME ISHMAEL and THE PRIMROSES WERE OVER? )
If you are now thinking as how Mole desperately needs to finish something, you, sir or madam, are not wrong.
Completed story (w00t!)
Jan. 1st, 2009 02:58 pm"After the Dragon"
first draft, 2600 words
After the dragon, she lay in the white on white hospital room and wanted to die.
Actual finished story--and with an actual story in it! Even if the story is not very good, this is a great improvement over the floundering and flailing and failing to finish things of the past year and change.
And I think I've figured out at least part of where I went off the rails. It's John Gardner's thing which I cannot remember well enough to quote about a short story needing a single action. What I think my stories need is a central action, an act or a choice or a conversation that is what the story is about. The short stories I'm stuck on right now, and there's quite an array of them, all lack that central action, that axis to spin around. And I think that where everything started going wrong was when I started trying to replace a central ACTION with a central THEME. For me, that does not work so well because I am no good at translating theme into action or character or any of the other things a story needs. But if I have a central action, my odds improve dramatically that the rest of the story will come trailing along behind.
So, to celebrate, here's the first line meme:
( for the kitties! )
first draft, 2600 words
After the dragon, she lay in the white on white hospital room and wanted to die.
Actual finished story--and with an actual story in it! Even if the story is not very good, this is a great improvement over the floundering and flailing and failing to finish things of the past year and change.
And I think I've figured out at least part of where I went off the rails. It's John Gardner's thing which I cannot remember well enough to quote about a short story needing a single action. What I think my stories need is a central action, an act or a choice or a conversation that is what the story is about. The short stories I'm stuck on right now, and there's quite an array of them, all lack that central action, that axis to spin around. And I think that where everything started going wrong was when I started trying to replace a central ACTION with a central THEME. For me, that does not work so well because I am no good at translating theme into action or character or any of the other things a story needs. But if I have a central action, my odds improve dramatically that the rest of the story will come trailing along behind.
So, to celebrate, here's the first line meme:
( for the kitties! )
My career, Harper's Index style
Dec. 4th, 2008 01:59 pmMeme from matociquala.
Current Status as of this morning:
Cormorant Child: stuck for lack of a sfnal macguffin to discover in Chapter 2
Dark Sister: ideas breeding like bunnies, but no effing PLOT
The Emperor of the Elflands: waiting to hear whether my editor is interested
The Marriage of True Minds: stuck
The Second Son: stuck in the Slough of Despond
"After the Dragon": stuck
"Blue Lace Agate": in chrysalis, metamorphosing (I hope) from short story to novel(la)
"Brides of Nyarlathotep": stuck
"Hollywood After Dark: A Still Life With Wolves": stuck stuck stuck
"The Queen in Winter": stuck
"The Queen of Liverpool": broken
"Thirdhop Scarp": can't decide which story it wants to be
"Under Babylon": stuck
"White Charles": avoiding
untitled electric chair story: composting
Age when I decided I wanted to be a writer: 11
Age when I wrote my first story: 11
Age when I first submitted a short story to a magazine: 15
Age when I sold my first short story: 27
Number of years in-between in which I made no submissions: 9
Thickness of file of rejection slips prior to first story sale: 50, maybe?
Approximate number of short stories/novelettes/novellas sold for cash money: 31
Age when I first sold a poem: 30
Poems sold: 1
Age when I wrote my first novel, counting by what I, at the time, defined as a "novel": 12
Age when I sold a first novel: 28
Novels written between age 12 and age 28: 7
Age when I wrote the first novel I sold: 27 (but I started it when I was 19)
Age when that novel was published: 30
Total number of novels written (discounting juvenilia, counting collaborations): 5
Books sold: 6 (5 novels, 1 collection)
Books published or delivered and in the pipeline: 6
Number of titles in print: 5
Number of titles fallen out of print: 0
Age when first nominated for an award: 28
Age when first won an award: 28
Nominations: 5
Awards won: 1
Age when I became a full-time novelist: 29
Age when I returned to the day-job because of economic implosion: n/a, although I have taught two semesters of college literature between then and now
Age now: 34
matociquala.Current Status as of this morning:
Cormorant Child: stuck for lack of a sfnal macguffin to discover in Chapter 2
Dark Sister: ideas breeding like bunnies, but no effing PLOT
The Emperor of the Elflands: waiting to hear whether my editor is interested
The Marriage of True Minds: stuck
The Second Son: stuck in the Slough of Despond
"After the Dragon": stuck
"Blue Lace Agate": in chrysalis, metamorphosing (I hope) from short story to novel(la)
"Brides of Nyarlathotep": stuck
"Hollywood After Dark: A Still Life With Wolves": stuck stuck stuck
"The Queen in Winter": stuck
"The Queen of Liverpool": broken
"Thirdhop Scarp": can't decide which story it wants to be
"Under Babylon": stuck
"White Charles": avoiding
untitled electric chair story: composting
Age when I decided I wanted to be a writer: 11
Age when I wrote my first story: 11
Age when I first submitted a short story to a magazine: 15
Age when I sold my first short story: 27
Number of years in-between in which I made no submissions: 9
Thickness of file of rejection slips prior to first story sale: 50, maybe?
Approximate number of short stories/novelettes/novellas sold for cash money: 31
Age when I first sold a poem: 30
Poems sold: 1
Age when I wrote my first novel, counting by what I, at the time, defined as a "novel": 12
Age when I sold a first novel: 28
Novels written between age 12 and age 28: 7
Age when I wrote the first novel I sold: 27 (but I started it when I was 19)
Age when that novel was published: 30
Total number of novels written (discounting juvenilia, counting collaborations): 5
Books sold: 6 (5 novels, 1 collection)
Books published or delivered and in the pipeline: 6
Number of titles in print: 5
Number of titles fallen out of print: 0
Age when first nominated for an award: 28
Age when first won an award: 28
Nominations: 5
Awards won: 1
Age when I became a full-time novelist: 29
Age when I returned to the day-job because of economic implosion: n/a, although I have taught two semesters of college literature between then and now
Age now: 34
All you need is love.
Oct. 30th, 2008 01:46 pmFrom coffeeem:
Copy this sentence into your livejournal if you're in a heterosexual marriage/relationship (or if you think you might be someday), and you don't want it "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow.
Because, yeah. People who love each other being able to get married? This is not a threat. This is NEVER a threat. And it makes me stark barking INSANE with fury that the hatemongers in America can persuade so many people that it is. If you want a threat, people, that's it right there.
Hate is a threat. Not love.
coffeeem:Copy this sentence into your livejournal if you're in a heterosexual marriage/relationship (or if you think you might be someday), and you don't want it "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow.
Because, yeah. People who love each other being able to get married? This is not a threat. This is NEVER a threat. And it makes me stark barking INSANE with fury that the hatemongers in America can persuade so many people that it is. If you want a threat, people, that's it right there.
Hate is a threat. Not love.
Pursuant to previous post
Oct. 28th, 2008 06:23 pmjeffsoesbe suggested a poll about which short story I should finish first. On the understanding that this commits me to absolutely nothing whatsoever, I provide one.[Poll #1286972]
[ETA: WHOA! This'll make a lot more sense now that I've fixed the mark-up. Sorry about that.]
Another question asked more than once: What are you going to do next?
( first line meme, this time for novels only, but with annotations )
My first priority really, once my brain has grown back some, is to write some short fiction, but there are so many stories I want to write/finish, I don't even know where to begin.
[To ask your question, go here.]
Another question asked more than once: What are you going to do next?
( first line meme, this time for novels only, but with annotations )
My first priority really, once my brain has grown back some, is to write some short fiction, but there are so many stories I want to write/finish, I don't even know where to begin.
[To ask your question, go here.]
Saturday, and I'm garrulous.
Apr. 12th, 2008 11:54 amToday, I am full of virtupitude. It is not yet noon, and I have already gone to the bank, the post office, the FedEx outpost, and the pet supply store, PLUS caught Quicken up to date and stared with opprobrium at the mmpb page proofs of The Mirador which the FedEx ninjas brought me.
If anybody's noticed a typo, please leave a comment.
Yesterday, the Post Office ninjas brought me a CueCat from LibraryThing. And I neutered it myself. Despite this amateur hardware hacking, it works like a dream. Expect my LibraryThing catalogue to expand by leaps and bounds.
(N.b., since I feel like I should say it somewhere: I don't use any of LibraryThing's more social functions. Just the books, ma'am.)
Books read recently:
The Order of the Death's Head
The Architect of Genocide
Flora Segunda
Disapproving Rabbits
Now We Are Sick
The Wee Free Men
Currently reading:
The Demon and the City
Talking to the Dead
The I Ching
So any number of people are talking about first novels (and Jay has a poll!), and I figure I can play along with that game.
Novel -3 (as in, I thought of it as a novel at the time, although it was probably something like 8,000 words max): The Pendant Quest. This is the one I wrote when I was twelve. It's the Belgariad with the serial numbers insufficiently filed off crossed with, um, A Little Princess. Which tells you exactly what I was reading when I was twelve. I finished it, submitted it to a local children's writing contest, and took second place.
Novel -2: High Priestess of the Timeless Gods (N.b., my complete suckitude at titles started young.) Same as -3 except substitute The Tombs of Atuan for the Belgariad and Dragonsong for A Little Princess. And I was fourteen.
Novel -1: Demon's Rat. This one is almost a real novel, about 40k. The adventures of a gigantic rat constructed by a trapped demon. There's also elves and minotaurs and Hell's voicemail system. It's completely cracktastic, but I feel relatively confident in saying that it's all mine.
Novel 0: The Fourth King. Urban fantasy. I wrote this novel my senior year of high school as, basically, an independent study. 97k. Here's where the unlikeable borderline sociopathic protagonist first shows up. Also the trauma and the angst. Also some rather unpleasant misogyny issues (two female characters, one of whom is the villain and the other of whom is a gold-plated bitch). I submitted this one to Tor and got a very nice rejection letter. Subsequently, I have discovered that not only do I hate all of the secondary characters, but also that the book does not work. It has bad parareality problems. "Write what you know" is problematic advice at best, but this one falls into the "don't write what you don't know" category. I didn't know the first thing about what I was writing about, and it shows. Excruciatingly. There are bits and pieces of it that actually seem to belong in a different book, and that book may get written someday. We'll see.
Novel 1: [Mélusine & The Virtu]. I've told this story before; my first two books started off as one book. That's the book that got me representation.
Novel 2: The Mirador. I wrote it while waiting for my eventual agent (who is not my current agent for reasons which, as Fraser says, do not need exploring at this juncture, because they're both complicated and actually not interesting--no drama here) to respond.
Novel 3: Mélusine. A year later, having gotten some nice rejections on Novel 1, my then-agent suggested I might want to take a look at it and see if there was anything I wanted to change. I started a white-page rewrite. Mélusine is longer than the original novel and has about half the material. This is the first novel I sold.
Novel 4: The Virtu. Ditto. I got the contract for the first two Doctrine of Labyrinths books while working on this one.
Novel 2 revisited: The Mirador got extensively revised after it sold, including an entire new subplot.
Novel 5: Corambis. First novel I wrote, ground up, after selling it. Which has been a learning experience and then some.
The foregoing is only talking about novels that actually got finished. There are several failed novels between -1 and 0, and at least one between 0 and 1. There are currently two half-finished novels, Cormorant Child and The Emperor of the Elflands, one of which is, so help me blue fuzzy thing, going to be Novel 6.
Also conspicuously absent from this discussion are my short stories, but I didn't start writing those successfully until after I'd finished Novel 1 anyway. I wanted to be a novelist from the get-go.
If anybody's noticed a typo, please leave a comment.
Yesterday, the Post Office ninjas brought me a CueCat from LibraryThing. And I neutered it myself. Despite this amateur hardware hacking, it works like a dream. Expect my LibraryThing catalogue to expand by leaps and bounds.
(N.b., since I feel like I should say it somewhere: I don't use any of LibraryThing's more social functions. Just the books, ma'am.)
Books read recently:
The Order of the Death's Head
The Architect of Genocide
Flora Segunda
Disapproving Rabbits
Now We Are Sick
The Wee Free Men
Currently reading:
The Demon and the City
Talking to the Dead
The I Ching
So any number of people are talking about first novels (and Jay has a poll!), and I figure I can play along with that game.
Novel -3 (as in, I thought of it as a novel at the time, although it was probably something like 8,000 words max): The Pendant Quest. This is the one I wrote when I was twelve. It's the Belgariad with the serial numbers insufficiently filed off crossed with, um, A Little Princess. Which tells you exactly what I was reading when I was twelve. I finished it, submitted it to a local children's writing contest, and took second place.
Novel -2: High Priestess of the Timeless Gods (N.b., my complete suckitude at titles started young.) Same as -3 except substitute The Tombs of Atuan for the Belgariad and Dragonsong for A Little Princess. And I was fourteen.
Novel -1: Demon's Rat. This one is almost a real novel, about 40k. The adventures of a gigantic rat constructed by a trapped demon. There's also elves and minotaurs and Hell's voicemail system. It's completely cracktastic, but I feel relatively confident in saying that it's all mine.
Novel 0: The Fourth King. Urban fantasy. I wrote this novel my senior year of high school as, basically, an independent study. 97k. Here's where the unlikeable borderline sociopathic protagonist first shows up. Also the trauma and the angst. Also some rather unpleasant misogyny issues (two female characters, one of whom is the villain and the other of whom is a gold-plated bitch). I submitted this one to Tor and got a very nice rejection letter. Subsequently, I have discovered that not only do I hate all of the secondary characters, but also that the book does not work. It has bad parareality problems. "Write what you know" is problematic advice at best, but this one falls into the "don't write what you don't know" category. I didn't know the first thing about what I was writing about, and it shows. Excruciatingly. There are bits and pieces of it that actually seem to belong in a different book, and that book may get written someday. We'll see.
Novel 1: [Mélusine & The Virtu]. I've told this story before; my first two books started off as one book. That's the book that got me representation.
Novel 2: The Mirador. I wrote it while waiting for my eventual agent (who is not my current agent for reasons which, as Fraser says, do not need exploring at this juncture, because they're both complicated and actually not interesting--no drama here) to respond.
Novel 3: Mélusine. A year later, having gotten some nice rejections on Novel 1, my then-agent suggested I might want to take a look at it and see if there was anything I wanted to change. I started a white-page rewrite. Mélusine is longer than the original novel and has about half the material. This is the first novel I sold.
Novel 4: The Virtu. Ditto. I got the contract for the first two Doctrine of Labyrinths books while working on this one.
Novel 2 revisited: The Mirador got extensively revised after it sold, including an entire new subplot.
Novel 5: Corambis. First novel I wrote, ground up, after selling it. Which has been a learning experience and then some.
The foregoing is only talking about novels that actually got finished. There are several failed novels between -1 and 0, and at least one between 0 and 1. There are currently two half-finished novels, Cormorant Child and The Emperor of the Elflands, one of which is, so help me blue fuzzy thing, going to be Novel 6.
Also conspicuously absent from this discussion are my short stories, but I didn't start writing those successfully until after I'd finished Novel 1 anyway. I wanted to be a novelist from the get-go.
tra la la lally
Dec. 13th, 2007 12:30 pmIn the interests of pretending that I may, at some point in the future, ever do a lick of work again (and because stillsostrange and cristalia are my bellwethers), here's that first-line meme.
( Get comfy. This could take a while. )
stillsostrange and cristalia are my bellwethers), here's that first-line meme.( Get comfy. This could take a while. )
another one of those lists of books
Sep. 30th, 2007 10:04 amCaught from peake.
These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of today). As usual, bold what you have read, italicise what you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. The numbers after each one are the number of LT users who used the tag of that book.
( For the kitties! )
peake.These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of today). As usual, bold what you have read, italicise what you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. The numbers after each one are the number of LT users who used the tag of that book.
( For the kitties! )
via matociquala. I rather like this meme, and want to see what happens.
IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...
ETA: I highly recommendcristalia's take, too
( tra la )
matociquala. I rather like this meme, and want to see what happens.IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...
ETA: I highly recommend
cristalia's take, too( tra la )
seven quirks
Jan. 7th, 2006 12:18 pmTagged by matociquala.
( only seven? )
I can't think of seven people to tag (for lo, I am lame). If you're reading this and you want to do this meme, consider yourself tagged by me, okay?
matociquala.( only seven? )
I can't think of seven people to tag (for lo, I am lame). If you're reading this and you want to do this meme, consider yourself tagged by me, okay?
thanks, brisingamen
Jan. 4th, 2006 08:34 amI find this inordinately pleasing.
Perhaps it's just that I'm up early (for me) and therefore easily amused.
( I, too, am love. )
Perhaps it's just that I'm up early (for me) and therefore easily amused.
( I, too, am love. )
