Got a grilling today at my writing group (York Novelists Society) over my first six chapters of Mindform Ascension (wt). Not bad, just...detailed. It lasted over an hour and I felt like I'd been through another thesis defense!
Still, it's all good. That's how you know you have a good group. They're not afraid to ask the hard questions and you're not afraid of them asking the hard questions because we're all there to make our novels the best they can be.
Now to finish-up revisions on chapters 7-12.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
It's been a while...
...but now I'm back from the temporary oblivion of distraction, revision, and fixing up the house.
Summer is always...well...summer, full of its own set of distractions. Still, YNS (the York Novelists Society) marched on and, with their helpful comments, I've completed the revision of chapters 1-6 in Mindform Ascension and I've recently begun chapters 7-12. I'm revising in blocks because that seems to be the way the story works, with each 6 chapters (was 4--consequences of revision) being a unofficial segment of the story.
I've thought about sending a package out now to agents, but I see enough significant changes in the story coming that I want to finish the complete revision before passing it around to the big boys (and girls). Really want to get this done, though (hopefully by year's end) because I'm itching to start up again on something new--either the Gateway series or Poisonous Garden.
As for what else is happening--I'm planning to start an Open University course on web design shortly, and I'm going to try and get involved in the Creative Networks West Yorkshire group that meets monthly in Leeds--I hope to find someone to work on a fantasy graphic novel project featuring the unlikely hero Strepcard Zork (I'll post more teasers if/when it takes off).
And still debating whether to go to Novacon in Nottingham or SFContario in Toronto this November. Toronto wins, hands down, on location and I'm curious to hear toastmaster Robert J. Sawyer, but I find I'm getting more into the UK SF writing scene and Novacon is going to have a s**t-load of authors attending. Oh well, more when I decide.
Summer is always...well...summer, full of its own set of distractions. Still, YNS (the York Novelists Society) marched on and, with their helpful comments, I've completed the revision of chapters 1-6 in Mindform Ascension and I've recently begun chapters 7-12. I'm revising in blocks because that seems to be the way the story works, with each 6 chapters (was 4--consequences of revision) being a unofficial segment of the story.
I've thought about sending a package out now to agents, but I see enough significant changes in the story coming that I want to finish the complete revision before passing it around to the big boys (and girls). Really want to get this done, though (hopefully by year's end) because I'm itching to start up again on something new--either the Gateway series or Poisonous Garden.
As for what else is happening--I'm planning to start an Open University course on web design shortly, and I'm going to try and get involved in the Creative Networks West Yorkshire group that meets monthly in Leeds--I hope to find someone to work on a fantasy graphic novel project featuring the unlikely hero Strepcard Zork (I'll post more teasers if/when it takes off).
And still debating whether to go to Novacon in Nottingham or SFContario in Toronto this November. Toronto wins, hands down, on location and I'm curious to hear toastmaster Robert J. Sawyer, but I find I'm getting more into the UK SF writing scene and Novacon is going to have a s**t-load of authors attending. Oh well, more when I decide.
Monday, April 12, 2010
My York Writers' Festival Experience
I was at the York Writers' Festival on Saturday. It's a three day event by I was only interested in the seminars on Saturday (and couldn't afford the entire event anyway).
Saturday was organized as 3 talks and 3 workshops (alternating) and I had my 2 one-on-one agent sessions amidst those.
The opening address by Katie Fford (distant relation of Jasper Fforde) was entertaining and added more data to my theory that 8-10 years seems to be about the modal time span for a hard-working, talented writer to get their first novel published (it took her 8 years). She also presented her ten tips to follow that would guarantee publication--summarized here as: write, write what you love, write in a fashion that works for you and don't get discouraged by any one opinion.
I was fortunate to hear a 'state of the sf/f/h market' presentation by well-repsected UK SF/F/H agent John Jarrold. It's his opinion that the sci-fi market is recovering fastest in the UK, with the US still lagging a bit under the 'only fantasy sells' mentality. Australia is somewhere between the two. And I managed a brief introduction, card grab after the session.
The other workshops I attended were on 'what writers should know about rights' and a kind of day-in-the-life-of-an-editor type talk with Oliver Munson from Blake Friedmann, and Zoe King from Darley Anderson. Both were interesting, but not a lot of new information. However, I did manage to catch Zoe King after her presentation and gave a crude pitch for a science anthology that she was tentatively interested in. I got the go-ahead to send her more details.
My two one-on-one sessions went as well as could be expected. Signing up late meant that anyone with any interest in sci-fi was already booked, but John Elek and Jo Unwin were both friendly and helpful none-the-less. As a great help, Jo gave me the author of a well respected book on editing/revision of novels, something I've been looking for for a while. For anyone interested, check Amazon under Sol Stein (apparently the book titles differ on either side of the ocean).
I also met Isabella White, an independent agent (again, non-sci-fi). Interestingly, both her and John Elek, the first two agents I met, are Canadian (from Toronto). It seemed a little strange going through the last ten years of world travels to come full circle and meet two Canadians at this event.
Anyway, overall I felt the event was worthwhile for me. It almost feels like the official marking of the next phase of my writing career--namely, properly finishing the work and getting it out there. And it taught me that agents are not ogres, most of them are quite friendly and helpful.
Saturday was organized as 3 talks and 3 workshops (alternating) and I had my 2 one-on-one agent sessions amidst those.
The opening address by Katie Fford (distant relation of Jasper Fforde) was entertaining and added more data to my theory that 8-10 years seems to be about the modal time span for a hard-working, talented writer to get their first novel published (it took her 8 years). She also presented her ten tips to follow that would guarantee publication--summarized here as: write, write what you love, write in a fashion that works for you and don't get discouraged by any one opinion.
I was fortunate to hear a 'state of the sf/f/h market' presentation by well-repsected UK SF/F/H agent John Jarrold. It's his opinion that the sci-fi market is recovering fastest in the UK, with the US still lagging a bit under the 'only fantasy sells' mentality. Australia is somewhere between the two. And I managed a brief introduction, card grab after the session.
The other workshops I attended were on 'what writers should know about rights' and a kind of day-in-the-life-of-an-editor type talk with Oliver Munson from Blake Friedmann, and Zoe King from Darley Anderson. Both were interesting, but not a lot of new information. However, I did manage to catch Zoe King after her presentation and gave a crude pitch for a science anthology that she was tentatively interested in. I got the go-ahead to send her more details.
My two one-on-one sessions went as well as could be expected. Signing up late meant that anyone with any interest in sci-fi was already booked, but John Elek and Jo Unwin were both friendly and helpful none-the-less. As a great help, Jo gave me the author of a well respected book on editing/revision of novels, something I've been looking for for a while. For anyone interested, check Amazon under Sol Stein (apparently the book titles differ on either side of the ocean).
I also met Isabella White, an independent agent (again, non-sci-fi). Interestingly, both her and John Elek, the first two agents I met, are Canadian (from Toronto). It seemed a little strange going through the last ten years of world travels to come full circle and meet two Canadians at this event.
Anyway, overall I felt the event was worthwhile for me. It almost feels like the official marking of the next phase of my writing career--namely, properly finishing the work and getting it out there. And it taught me that agents are not ogres, most of them are quite friendly and helpful.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Selected Hugo 2010 Nominees
Hot off the press: the Hugo nominees were just announced here at Odyssey 2010. The winners will be voted on by Ausiecon 4 members until July 31 and will be announced during Aussiecon 4 (Sept 2-6).
The full data can be found on the Aussiecon 4 site, but I'll present a nominees from a few catagories here.
First, a few interesting/useful bits of info.
1) the twitter hashtag is #hugos
2) Americans gave most of the voting ballets, with just over half. Next most numerous were from Canada, then Australia-New Zealand, followed by UK, Europe, and the rest of the world.
John W Campbell, Best New SF Writer
- Saladin Ahmed
- Gail Carriger
- Felix Gilman
- Seanan McGuire
- Lezli Robyn
And now, some selected Hugo nominees:
Best Fanzine
- Argenta
- Banana Wings
- Challenger
- Drink Tank
- File 770
- Starship Sofa
Best Semiprozine
- Ansible
- Clarkesworld
- Interzone
- Locus
- Weird Tales
Best Dramatic Presentation - Short Form
- Doctor Who "The Next Doctor"
- Doctor Who "Planet of the Dead"
- Doctor Who "Waters of Mars"
- Dollhouse "Epitaph 1"
- FlashForward "No more good days"
Best Dramatic Presentation - Long Form
- Avatar
- District 9
- Moon
- Star Trek
- Up
Best Graphic Story
- Batman: Whatever happened to the caped crusader
- Captain Britain and MI13: Vol3 Vampire State
- Fables Vol 12: Dark Ages
- Girl Genius Vol 9: Agatha Heterodyne and the heirs of the storm
- Schlock Mercenary: The Longshoreman of the Apocalypse
Best Novel
- Boneshaker, Cherei Priest
- The City & The City, China Mieville
- Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd Century America, Robert Charles Wilson
- Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente
- Wake, Robert J. Sawyer
- The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi
Interesting. Whereas, last year it seemed most of the Novel nominees were British, or at least living in the UK, this year belongs to the Americans with 4 authors from the US, 1 Canadian and 1 Brit.
That's all from me. There are a number of other catagories, but these are the ones I was most interested in. Anyway, now I'd better get down to some serious reading. After some sleep.
The full data can be found on the Aussiecon 4 site, but I'll present a nominees from a few catagories here.
First, a few interesting/useful bits of info.
1) the twitter hashtag is #hugos
2) Americans gave most of the voting ballets, with just over half. Next most numerous were from Canada, then Australia-New Zealand, followed by UK, Europe, and the rest of the world.
John W Campbell, Best New SF Writer
- Saladin Ahmed
- Gail Carriger
- Felix Gilman
- Seanan McGuire
- Lezli Robyn
And now, some selected Hugo nominees:
Best Fanzine
- Argenta
- Banana Wings
- Challenger
- Drink Tank
- File 770
- Starship Sofa
Best Semiprozine
- Ansible
- Clarkesworld
- Interzone
- Locus
- Weird Tales
Best Dramatic Presentation - Short Form
- Doctor Who "The Next Doctor"
- Doctor Who "Planet of the Dead"
- Doctor Who "Waters of Mars"
- Dollhouse "Epitaph 1"
- FlashForward "No more good days"
Best Dramatic Presentation - Long Form
- Avatar
- District 9
- Moon
- Star Trek
- Up
Best Graphic Story
- Batman: Whatever happened to the caped crusader
- Captain Britain and MI13: Vol3 Vampire State
- Fables Vol 12: Dark Ages
- Girl Genius Vol 9: Agatha Heterodyne and the heirs of the storm
- Schlock Mercenary: The Longshoreman of the Apocalypse
Best Novel
- Boneshaker, Cherei Priest
- The City & The City, China Mieville
- Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd Century America, Robert Charles Wilson
- Palimpsest, Catherynne M. Valente
- Wake, Robert J. Sawyer
- The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi
Interesting. Whereas, last year it seemed most of the Novel nominees were British, or at least living in the UK, this year belongs to the Americans with 4 authors from the US, 1 Canadian and 1 Brit.
That's all from me. There are a number of other catagories, but these are the ones I was most interested in. Anyway, now I'd better get down to some serious reading. After some sleep.
Anthologies - The Art of Compilation
I was delighted to see that the program for this year's Eastercon included a panel discussion on creating anthologies. The Panel featured Ian Whates: author, anthologist and founder of New Con Press; Ellen Datlow: American professional anthologist; Colin Harvey and Gary Couzens: writers and occassional anthologists.
There were a lot of discussions about submissions, pros and cons of open vs. invited vs. reprint (open is the most work, reprint is really fun and invited is often frustrating). It was interesting to hear that, even for anthologies, the big six publishers have a heirarchy of authors such that for every 'A' list author, you might need 2-3 B-list authors. The publishers also require 1/3 more invites than desired for publication due to the estimated number who won't end up producing a story.
It was also interesting to learn that anthologies are much more common and accepted in the US than they are in the UK. Apparently, it's very rare in the UK for a big publisher to accept a pitch for an anthology regardless of the idea. They just don't want to produce them and most British anthologies are done by small presses. This suggests to me that I should target the US market much more for selling.
Most positive for me, in this discussion, was when it came around to the layout. The two most experienced anthologists confirmed my own thoughts on layout, and the way I approached the layout for Assassins' Canon. i.e. generally the first and last are the strongest, with the longer, more challenging reads in the middle. With the added idea that the first story having the added ideas that it should set the expectations for the anthology, without being too heavy.
For Assassins' Canon, there were a number of stories I could have started with, but in the end I chose Ken Goldman's 'Fat Larry's Night with the Alligators' because it emboidied all the ideas above and, I felt, led nicely into the many directions and types of stories the anthology included. Likewise, Jason Frank's 'XDA Zai: The Wild Hunt' was a strong story that wrapped up the anthology in the same way--a nice mix of real and surreal. That said, there's not a single story I'm unhappy about including and I remain thrilled at the finished product. I can only hope future anthologies from Utililty Fog Press will be as good.
There were a lot of discussions about submissions, pros and cons of open vs. invited vs. reprint (open is the most work, reprint is really fun and invited is often frustrating). It was interesting to hear that, even for anthologies, the big six publishers have a heirarchy of authors such that for every 'A' list author, you might need 2-3 B-list authors. The publishers also require 1/3 more invites than desired for publication due to the estimated number who won't end up producing a story.
It was also interesting to learn that anthologies are much more common and accepted in the US than they are in the UK. Apparently, it's very rare in the UK for a big publisher to accept a pitch for an anthology regardless of the idea. They just don't want to produce them and most British anthologies are done by small presses. This suggests to me that I should target the US market much more for selling.
Most positive for me, in this discussion, was when it came around to the layout. The two most experienced anthologists confirmed my own thoughts on layout, and the way I approached the layout for Assassins' Canon. i.e. generally the first and last are the strongest, with the longer, more challenging reads in the middle. With the added idea that the first story having the added ideas that it should set the expectations for the anthology, without being too heavy.
For Assassins' Canon, there were a number of stories I could have started with, but in the end I chose Ken Goldman's 'Fat Larry's Night with the Alligators' because it emboidied all the ideas above and, I felt, led nicely into the many directions and types of stories the anthology included. Likewise, Jason Frank's 'XDA Zai: The Wild Hunt' was a strong story that wrapped up the anthology in the same way--a nice mix of real and surreal. That said, there's not a single story I'm unhappy about including and I remain thrilled at the finished product. I can only hope future anthologies from Utililty Fog Press will be as good.
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