I didn’t get much done over the long weekend (Thanksgiving in the US). Did the traditional chili-dogs breakfast (long story, remind me to tell y’all sometime, preferably over mead), then invited some friends over and had what we call an Art Colony. Lunch at 2. Sit around and talk until 4. Then everyone gets serious about committing art for two hours and not talking.
It was unfortunate that one of my friends wasn’t able to come because her dad had come into town at the last minute and announced that he refused to sit quietly at something like this, because he liked to talk. (Hopefully, she didn’t axe murder him over the break.)
Got a lot writing done. So did Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm). Alex did portraits and colored them. There was music. It was generally kinda awesome. Seattle folks without extended families who like the thought of no politics and no football, let me know and we’ll get you hooked up next year.
🙂
You have a few hours left to get in on the last Goodreads Giveaway before they’re all done.
Just realized last night that I’m about to start Act III of the new novel this morning. KInda awesome, all told. Won’t know until my several first readers get back to me, so I can’t tell you when it might be published. They may say go, they may say to hold it until I have the trilogy done and drop them back to back.
It’s not traditional SF. Many of you might not like it. It starts slow and literary. There’s only one Point of View character (Immortals had eleven for comparison, I think, rough counting on my fingers just now: Jessica, Nils, Tadej, Denis, Tomas, Robbie, Jouster, Moirrey, Suvi, Emmerich, and Sykes.) It is somewhere in the category of New Adult (older than YA, because the main character is 21 instead of 16), but very much a coming of age. She has decided that the best way to get revenge on the man who killed her best friend is to become a super-villain and hunt him (a costumed hero) down.
We’ll file it under SF/spandex, for now. That’s where you would find it in the book store. I would love for it to sell like Jessica or Javier. I suspect it will be more like Rick. I’m okay with that.
Was talking to Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm) last night while I was experimenting with a new biscuit recipe (or rather, modifying someone’s to be entirely grain-free).
One of the neat things about the modern publishing era is that I don’t have a publisher telling me what I can and can’t write. Kristine Katheryn Rusch had a lovely blog post last week about writing to market, which is where an author sits down and looks at what they think is selling and puts out a story in that genre. And why it rarely works.
It struck me an useful, because as an Indie, I write what I want. Because I have a day job paying the bills, I can write the story I want, the way I want, with the ending and rating I want. The jobs of my first readers and copy editors is to tell me where I leave out words, where I’m confusing, where I misspell my own name, etc. But not to tell me that I have to throw something in the trunk because nobody will buy it.
(I have, now, officially, sold at least one of every thing I have ever put up for sale on one of the big ebook sites.)
That means that someone will buy it. Will I make back the money equivalent of the time I spent writing it? Who know? And you know what? I don’t care, either. I’m not doing this to become rich and famous. (Comfortable would be nice. Anonymous at the same time would be awesome.) I’m doing this because it is a compulsion on my part.
I have been a story-teller as I long as I have had words. It brings me joy.
And the other thing that brings me joy is when I hear from a reader/fan how much they appreciated it.
Got an email from a man last week who just wanted to say thanks. Didn’t get a chance to reply until Sunday when we came into town and got connected to the interwebs (doing that from the farm is a hit and miss proposition.) We were there for about an hour while she did publishing stuff, so I managed to get three rounds of email back and forth with him, answering questions and talking about the future and Suvi.
Made my day.
Did the October financials last night, too. It’s always funny. “I sold a what, where?” Seriously. Someone in Japan bought The Blacksmith’s Song a few months ago. Hope they enjoy it and come back for more. Or send me a note asking for more. I have six volumes of poetry on a hard drive somewhere. Y’all have seen about half of one, and that’s mostly The Forestal, spanning II and III.
Someone bought The Horse Thief the other day. That was the last thing I had marked as a lifetime zero for sales.
I did a book signing in Powell’s in Beaverton, OR last week. He had bought copies of Auberon and Queen through what they call “Extended Distribution” meaning I’m in the Ingram’s Catalog and anyone can order my books at any bookstore.
Hopefully, that means I’m doing something right. Will I please all readers? No. Enough? I hope so. You? Please let me know. The opposite of love is not hatred. It is apathy. If a story riled you up, tell me. (I would prefer only good reviews on Amazon and other places, but I understand. Sometimes the story is just not right. Sometimes the reader didn’t get what they thought they would. That might be my fault. It might just be luck of the draw.)
One last thought. Well, maybe more than one. Holidays mean weird schedule, so I might not be as constant as I could be. Travel coming up to visit her family back east.
And the third Javier books, The Gilded Cage, is coming out in a few weeks. The Science Officer currently has 47 reviews on Amazon. I have been told that 50 is a magic number in their machines. If three of you could write me reviews in the next few weeks or get friends hooked on the books so they do, that would blast it out to a much wider audience. More sales equals less day-job equals more writing time from me equals more books for you to read.
So, really, I’m just looking out for you. Right?
Heh.
shade and sweet water,
bd
West Of The Mountains, WA