Tag Archives: marshmallows

writing

Write more

When it comes to writing novels only one thing is easier—knowing I’ll finish. I have a confidence there where there used to be gnawing uncertainty that I might be wasting my time. Now I know that I can probably crank out two a year if I have an outline for them. That’s vastly comforting. But there are other parts to the writing process that will never get easier. 

1. Revising. There aren’t any shortcuts. I revise quite a bit before my agent and editors take a peek, and then revise more after they give me their comments. I don’t think anyone writes the Golden Draft…maybe I’ll produce a copper or bronze one someday. :)
2. Waiting. Once I send work to my agent, he sends it out on submission…and I wait. Sometimes the wait isn’t all that long, but sometimes it’s months. I try to deal with it by writing more. And if there’s a deal, then there’s another wait on the contract (which is where your agent truly earns his money and is worth every penny of his commission). Sometimes that wait is only a month or so, but I’ve also had to wait close to a year because of problems with boilerplate contracts, and my agent had to take on Viking Death Ships full of lawyers. (Luckily, he ate his spinach.) And after the contract is finished and you sign it, there’s another wait for the money to arrive—anywhere from a couple of weeks to three months, depending on where it’s coming from. If there isn’t a deal, well then…
3. Rejection. It still happens. Getting published once isn’t a golden ticket to getting published again, and getting published in the U.S. doesn’t mean other countries are going to hand over bags of money for translation rights. One market will look at my series and say “Gimme!” and another will look at it and say “Meh.” The answer to rejection, like waiting, is to write more, because otherwise I might chew glass. 
4. Fear of #3. Even though I now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m capable of writing publishable books, I still look at my writing at times and conclude that it isn’t good enough. “Whine,” I say to my wife, “whine whine this sucks whine whine.” She tells me to shut up, I do, and write more. It’s the only thing that can possibly make the sucking stop, after all.
Right now I’m enjoying coffee with this seasonal creamer in it—it’s called marshmallow mocha. Mmm. Hope you’re taking advantage of the season’s opportunities for warm, comfy drinks. And writing more.
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It’s piñata time

I’ve always enjoyed my family tradition for Thanksgiving, but didn’t realize it was out of the mainstream at first. I thought with a certain naïveté that since everyone got the day off and everyone was talking turkey, everyone must celebrate it the same way too. Eventually, after seeing several movies of people indoors and not beating the shit out of a piñata, I hypothesized that maybe my family did things a bit differently. To test it, I asked a school friend after Thanksgiving, “So what did you get out of your piñata?” and received a look of complete bewilderment in return. That clinched it. My family was the strange one. But also very cool.

We go out to the desert and have Thanksgiving dinner outdoors. We can do that because it’s Arizona, and nine years out of ten the weather is just fine on the fourth Thursday of November. Refusing to succumb to food comas, we then climb a hill with a beautiful view of Rio Verde and some almond orchards, snap a few pictures, then climb back down and ritualistically, mercilessly, joyfully thrash an innocent piñata to death. Don’t judge; it’s great fun and we bond over the shared violence, and besides, that papier mâché had it coming.

There is much to give thanks for this year. Hope you have many blessings to count and you enjoy lots of warm fuzzies, and maybe hot chocolate with marshmallows.

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Happy Tidings

1. By this time tomorrow I will be caught up on my grading—only happens eight times a year! But I’m not quite caught up yet, so this will have to be quick.

2. Gaius Baltar is dead. He died in the Suvudu Cage Match at the hands of mouse-clicking George R.R. Martin fans, despite the fact that he had a gun and his opponent had a sword. The happy bit about this is that I had a wonderful time writing up those little scenarios.
3. The Iron Druid Chronicles will be translated into Thai and Russian! Very grateful to Tathata publishers in Thailand and Olma Press in Russia, and extremely excited to see the covers! 
4. It’s just about marshmallow season. 
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My first blurb!

Color me excited! (I think that’s alzarin crimson with a touch of cadmium yellow.) I’ve just received my first blurb for Hounded from fantasy author Ari Marmell:

“Offering a page-turning and often laugh-out-loud funny caper through a mix of the modern and the mythic, Hounded is perhaps one of the most fun debuts I’ve read in a good long while. I don’t know what Hearne has planned for the future, but I’ll be watching for more.”


Woohoo! Happy dance bereft of grace! Cute puppies! Hot chocolate with marshmallows! Thanks, Ari!

I don’t actually know Ari. Somebody at Del Rey who knows somebody knows Ari, and they asked him if he’d be willing to read Hounded and maybe write a little something if he thought it was nifty. He said yes because it’s always good to rack up Karma Points. He got absolutely nothing out of doing this besides Karma Points—not even something cheap and nasty, like a convenience store hot dog. Authors do this sort of thing because they hope that someday, somebody else will read their book and say nice things about it too. If they don’t like a book, they don’t lie and say they did—what would be the point? There’s no upside to recommending a snorefest to people; it damages your credibility. That’s why I’m so grateful for this blurb; he didn’t have to say any of that, but he did.

Several other people are taking a look at the book and may offer blurbs down the road. If/when they come in, I’ll be sure to share. ;-)

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Copy Editing Day

Today I am supposed to receive the copy-edited manuscript for my second book, Hexed. I’m incredibly excited about this—so much so that I might indulge in excessive superfluous exclamation points!!!!!!

You might wonder why.

Why would any sane person want to see their written work all marked up by a stranger 3,000 miles away?

Because there will be a title page with my name on it that the publisher made up all special just for me. There will also be an ISBN number assigned specifically to my book. It’s all proof that my dream of getting published will be real someday…in just a wee bit over a year from now. *tiny groan*

April 26, 2011…*another tiny groan.* It’s a long time to wait. Nineteen months and one day after the deal was struck, Hounded will finally hit the shelves. That is a bit longer than most deals, but since it’s going to be followed in quick succession by Hexed in May and Hammered in June, the extra time is built in there for me to actually write two books.

It will be bearable, of course, because the day will eventually come. I get to wake up every day and know I’m twenty-four hours closer to my goal. Eventually I’ll get to see my covers and do a little dance. I’ll get to hear the reader of the audio version attempt to do all the accents in the books (Irish, Polish, Tamil, Russian, Finnish, Mandarin, Icelandic, and German) and grin until my face hurts. And maybe, in the interim, I’ll get some good news from overseas, or some news about dramatic rights. It could happen anytime, and that makes waiting more fun.

As far as progress goes, I’ve taken a step backward, but I think it’s more of a course correction. I’ve been writing about these vampires recently and not digging it at all. I wrote about four thousand words, had this huge imbroglio set at University of Phoenix Stadium, and it didn’t feel right. So I highlighted the lot of it and pressed Delete. It wasn’t really a subplot; it was more of a derailment, a complete tangent, and it’s better that I wait on the vampires until I can develop them properly in their own story. Hammered isn’t about vampires. It’s about Ratatosk and Yggdrasil, Thor and Odin, and How to Tempt a Frost Giant.

O frabjous day! There shall be many words to cuddle, plus hot chocolate with marshmallows! I raise my mug to you, and hope you have some lovely words to cuddle up with too.

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Marshmallows

I once convinced one of my students that marshmallows grow on bushes like cotton, and that I used to spend my summers harvesting them in Louisiana.

Marshmallows are fun like that: they have the potential to make you smile. Dump a few in your hot cocoa and it’s instantly happier. Roast a giant one over a fire, slap it on top of a slab o’ chocolate and grab some graham crackers, and you’re so close to bliss that you can rub Buddha’s belly.

I recently sent a package to New York with a gift inside, and instead of using packing peanuts I used marshmallows. They’ll probably be rock hard by the time they get to New York, but I found it highly amusing in any case.

Progress report: 3200 words on HAMMERED. I have chapter 1 finished, a wee bit of chapter 2 down and a really good start on chapter 3. Working on fleshing out chapter 2 now.

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Editing is pretty darn fun

Today I finished my first round of edits on HOUNDED. I have no idea how many more rounds I have to go, but the first round was so much fun that I’m not concerned about it continuing for a while.

I also finished a pronunciation guide for the Irish names and words in the book, and in the opening explanatory paragraph I decided to substitute the cliche “rain on your parade” with “steal your marshmallows.”

I think having your marshmallows stolen would be infinitely worse than having your parade graced with a little precipitation. If you can’t watch the parade—or march in it, for that matter—then there are infinitely more entertaining things to do, because parades aren’t all that swell, to be honest, and dang if Arizona can’t use the rain. But if someone steals your marshmallows, then your day is ruined, period.

So say we all.