I'm Thankful, dear readers...
Thursday, November 25, 2004

Really, I am. I'm thankful that things are stable, right now no one is too sick, that the three whole members of my family are together and well. I'm grateful that my friends, for the most part, seem happy. I am grateful that I have things to keep my mind occupied. I'm grateful that the book is almost first draft done, which means it's half written, but at least there's a point. I'm grateful that I have more books than I can possibly read though I intend to give it a good shot.

And, last but not least, I'm grateful to have you reading this.

Yes, I get very sentimental this time of year. But it's not false, so that's OK.

Permalink Cindy scribed this at 11:02 AM 0 comments

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  Just in case you wondered...
Monday, November 22, 2004

I sent Blue Moon to Baen books August 31, 2002. Saturday I finally received my email rejection letter. So, I would think that sending your book to Baen via the email form on the webpage, no matter how tempting, is probably not the way to go.

Glad I didn't wait. :-) Rejections, by the way, are much sweeter when they come on books you've sold somewhere else. I didn't bother telling them (You should, by the way, tell a publisher if they're holding one of your books if you've sold it...it's only polite.) because I tried contacting them at the year and 6 months and the two year point. I received no response (they have to be flooded, I actually feel kind of bad for them) and figured that, well, they didn't even have the book anymore.

So my advice would be to query Baen.

Luna never did return Balancing Act. They also never wrote me when I told them that it'd been sold. I wonder why? Sometimes, with these things, you wonder if you've somehow peeved someone off but then you figure that there are just so many people out there trying to get published that you kind of get lost in the flood.

I received a copy of The Book of Ballads in the mail today, a compilation of the comic drawn by Charles Vess and written by many different authors, including Neil Gaiman. It's absolutely lovely...I'm one of those weirdoes who love the New Book Smell, and this one smells so good...the art is gorgeous black and white pen and ink, and the stories, all traditional old time ballads translated by different writers into comic book form, are fabulous. I am a very happy reviewer person.

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  A Necklace of Rubies
Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Do you guys remember the short story I blogged last February, called "In the Chamber"? Awhile back I edited it on paper, and today, instead of doing my book, I started the heavy second draft on much of it. I've added one scene, expanded greatly on a couple, and tightned things in other places. It's not really a bad story. I'm hoping to submit it to a place that takes longer short stories and publishes them as ebooks. I've renamed it "A Necklace of Rubies", and if you remember much of the story, I hope you'll find the signifigance of the title nifty.

I've been wanting to use that title for ages. yay! Now I have. Didn't like The Chamber (which I'd shortened it to) much because there's a popular book by that name.

A second thing i'd like to mention is Helping through books and Music (http://helpfightaids.com/) a non profit orgazination that raises money to fight aids through selling books and music at Half.com. I've ordered a book from them, and I'll let you know how that turns out...the prices are reasonable ($3.50 for the new Jeffrey Deaver in New condition.) and if you happen to be Holiday shopping on Half, you might want to check it out.

Though I truly wish you could search the sellers themselves for books. Don't you hate trying to search through all the sellers to match people up so you can combine shipping?


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  What have you been up to?
Saturday, November 13, 2004

Gah. This journal has gotten all boring. All work, work and no play. No wonder people hardly commnet any more. Ok, so the fact I had nice people commenting and I lost them because I stopped posting, that has nothing what so ever to do with it, right?

Anyway, i stopped posting because a) was busy, b) nothing interesting was happeneing, and c) I got funny. I started receiving email comments that basically said, that maybe I was being too goofy or something, not professional enough. So let's see if we can walk the line, eh?

Professional:

Wrote 6,251 words yesterday. I was very happy...I wrote 8 - 9 thousand(ish) words this week. Not bad, not fabulous, either.

Personal:

Master and Commander re-awoke my love for 1800's/Age of Sail. I've been enjoying Regency House Party, but let me tell you, I would so have jumped into this era with all four feet. The women aren't having nearly as much fun as I would have...I would never have complained. Not Once. Well, maybe would have icked out on using someone else's bathwater, but I would have kept it to meself. I would have read quite a bit. And made sure to sit somewhere that would put me to the best...advantage.

I'm checking to see if I told you this...doesn't look like it...but when I was looking up Master and Commander stuff (this was a couple months ago) I found a James D'Arcy site. I also found the man who I'd love to have play Alex. On CSI I thought I saw someone who'd do, but when I saw James, I saw Alex as he was in my head. Exactly. I even found a picture of him wearing silver framed eye glasses. One of the weird things about Alex is, in my head, he often is wearing silver framed glasses. I don't know why...he doesn't need him (can't, for spoiler-filled reasons) and Alex isn't a man for wearing things for the heck of it. He even has the same smile, same height, same hair, equally slender, all that. It was...neat. And kind of weird. I'd never sen James D'Arcy until Master and Commander (he doesn't look much like Alex at all in M&C, oddly enough.) but I suppose I must have? ::shrug:: Have no idea.

Let me find a picture, so you know what I saw...if you get curious and see him somewhere else, it might not be the same thing.



Stole this from Yahoo. And James is the guy standing up. :-)

Now I must write two book reviews. And get offline, because I'm expecting a phone call.

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  Come on girl, you cn do it...
Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Feagh. I'm so lazy.

Yesterday was laundry, so I did a couple reviews and decided to skip writing. And now my mind reminds me of this big metal wheel...in fact, it looks exactly like a farm rake wheel, chest high, narrow, yellow pain chipping off the spkes, revealing rust beneath...and this metal wheen is buried up to the spokes in years worht of dirt and leaves and mud that just sort of collect on things left outside over time, and it doesn't want to turn. I keep bumping it with my hip, going along to the over side and pulling on it, but it's very reluctant.

But we'll see. I'm working on it.

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  Chat tips
Saturday, November 06, 2004

Yesterday I got home late(ish) and was too tired to write. Today I just posted more reviews that I want to admit having held on to (second drafts from about the past two weeks). So I think I won't be writing until Monday. But I'm now closing in on a comfortable place in my book reviewing, finally, after several months.

So today I'm finally going to write a post I've had in mind. I've hosted author chats for about one and a half years now, once a week, (maybe even two years, if we count me helping out at Gotta Write...) and I've garnered some tips to help you -- as the guest -- have a much more likely to be successful one.

Try to get a date close to the coming out of your book. Before is OK. After's better. It doesn't really matter, if you can't, the chat will still be a useful promotion tool, it just helps.

Try to get a date a month in advance, so that you have time to promote it. Don't depend on the hosts to promote it...they will, as they can, I post chat dates to the main AOL board, send out reminders, maintain a homepage. There are many free places online that will circulate press releases. Also, when you find out the date, it's the time to put the "Oh, cool! I'll be a guest at a chat next November 23rd!" message to the places where your friends hang out. Keep it off hand...no one likes being pressured.

Post the date and a link on your homepage. If it's a weird, specialized link, feel free to ask the host for a link to copy. (AOL links to rooms took me time to get used to.) If you're going to give away a free book, mention it on the page, and in your press releases.

Two weeks before the chat, send a bio and whatever other information you think they'll need to the host. Send it *in* the email, not as an attachment. People rarely send me bios, leaving me to cut and paste from their homepage when I do my advertising, which I don't actually mind. If they don't have a homepage, and they don't send me any information, they're stuck with a very bland, simple chat reminder.

Make up a new name for yourself. If you have a screen name on AOL, and you're a guest, you ought to make a screen name with your author name. Otherwise, you look just like one of the visitors. For instance, if I go to a chat as Ninave, and I'm the guest, and they're expecting Cindy Lynn Speer, they might not know it's me right away. Sometimes *I'll* go into a chat I'm hosting and not know that my guest is there, because his or her name is a departure from the one I was expecting. And, truthfully, the name I want them to walk away from the chat with is mine, not my screen name. I don't publish under Ninave.

Are you a slow typist? You might want to prepare some cheat sheet answers. People will almost always ask:

1. What is your book about?
2. Do you have an agent?
3. How did you get published?
4. Why did you decide to become a writer?
5. Information on the current and next project.

The day of the chat, it wouldn't hurt to place a second reminder to your friends that the chat is on, when, and were. Let them know that you'd really appreciate their support if they could come...after all, few things ick worse than being stuck alone with your hosts in a chat room. More than two reminders is too much...one of the things that *does* ick worse than being alone in a chat room is abusing your friends. :-)

Permalink Cindy scribed this at 2:52 PM 0 comments

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  Lovely rainy day!
Thursday, November 04, 2004

Today I continued the last scene. I realized that my main male protagonist was at the faire and needed a reason to be there, and so I switched to his perspective for a while. Had a lot of fun being Renaissance Faire bawdy, and wrote 3,368 words and two more book reviews. I'm reading To Light a Candle, the new Mercedes Lackey/James Mallory book, still, so I'm all "caught" up with my read books. I'll ruin it though by reading all the comics I've got at once though this week end.

Anyway, with the scene I created, I now have scenes that need to be written before that, to support the scene. So if I get stuck, I'll go back and write those...otherwise, they'll wait for the second draft, since I know the structure, but not what actually happens.

Today was exquisitely rainy...still is. There's nothing like writing to the sound of rain.

Watched Regency House Party, as I mentioned earlier. I rather thought it would be an hour or so show with a group of people reenacting a Regency era party, discussing the whys and wherefore. It is...but it isn't. It's sort of like that, crossed with Big Brother and the Dating Game...five single men and women have been chosen from the normal world, the women all given chaperones, and send to this lovely house for nine weeks. There they live the Regency life, which, for women, was blasted boring. At feast the way they do it. I liked some of the things they did...they keep it real, they don't allow people to slip out of character or even cut people much slack. They all bathe in the same water according to rank, for example...the lowest ranking young woman bathed in water four other women had bathed in.

Really cool things: I didn't know that the very rich people who had these huge estates actually hired people to live as hermits on their land! How cool!

Seeing details like clothes and food.

Could live without: The complaining.

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  Writing shall now commence...
Wednesday, November 03, 2004

Woo-hoo! 3,020 words, *and* 800 words worth of book review. (Two br's, finished one, did a second.)

Sorry...I'm distracted by Lost. Then I'm watching "Regency House Party" on PBS.

So anyway, a few days ago we cut my mother's wedding ring off, because after 40 some years, arthritis and just hands growing has made it really tight. It's always been tight it's been years since she could remove it, and there's a thick callus at the base of her finger, in the meat right under it, but it recently really began to bother her. Today while my parents were looking for a replacement, I thought over the story, and I thought, where is the wall that I hit?

OK. When I did this, this and...

So, why don't I just pretend I didn't write them? I didn't move them or mark them separate, I just ignored them. And all of a sudden, the door in my head opened. It changed everything...I now have scenes I need to write earlier, and I got to bring in Minerva's job.

Good mood! Who needs drugs when you can write and have fun doing it?

Permalink Cindy scribed this at 8:06 PM 0 comments

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  Day Two, muahaha...
Tuesday, November 02, 2004

Snort. Title sounds like I actually *did* something. I didn't, really. I spellchecked my story. I read it over a bit...and I think, maybe, I've got me those middle of the book blues. Where you get half way and you need to print it out, read it over, make some marks on the paper. See visually where you're going...what you've done, what you need. There's a piece of the puzzle missing, and once I have it in my hot little paws, I'll be back to writing, I'll see scenes. Right now, I see bits and peices, and it feels forced when I write it, like I don't understand everything that's going on. They both have things they want to say, so I think the block will be temporary. I added a word here and there as I spellchecked, but I didn't do a tally.

I voted, as I promised in an earlier journal entry, and I colored my hair red. Well, the box said Praline, a very, very brown red, but I've got a very very red brown. Like it. Time goes so fast it'll be faded and the gray back before I have time to get sick of it, anyway. While I was coloring I read some manga I'm reviewing for the SFSite...I'd love to be able to draw like the ladies of Clamp do.

Permalink Cindy scribed this at 7:42 PM 0 comments

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Monday, November 01, 2004

36,687...ok, I've got 2,185 words. And I wrote a review for Brust's Agyar...does that count?


I was also very distracted. Everything that could go wrong did...ran out of paper while printing out a short story to send, ran out of ink, couldn't find my stamps. Argh.

Also, it was hunt and peck for a while. I made a mistake in the text...did one event way too soon and then, in an attempt to fix that, did another too soon. So I put in a bunch of stars, and thought made some notes then started at another point. I'll need to fix it in the second draft, definitely, but at least I got started, wrote some things that will go from interesting to good once I get them in their proper place.

How did you do?

Now I have to go make the chat reminders for tomorow's AOL only chat. Since it's election day here in the States, we're not having a guest. Instead it's a post halloween mask, with people coming as their characters. Hopefully will be fun...those chats have done well in the past.

Permalink Cindy scribed this at 8:39 PM 0 comments

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I love posts with built in subject lines, even if they have no panache.

First day of NaNoWriMo. Noon. And I shall start out the day...

Checking my email. Then checking my forums. While I blog. :-)

I have...well, a few words less than I thought: 34,502

I want to write: 50,000 more.

If I want to skip Saturdays and Sundays, divide 50,000 by 22 and you get.... a lot of twos and sevens. 2,272.72 Looks like a lottery number, dunnit?

Then I need to write cover letters and send out two resumes.

Then I'll start. Finally. Sometime this afternoon. Unless I decide to write a couple of book reviews, because I finished two books this weekend....

I'll report how far I got tonight.

Permalink Cindy scribed this at 1:05 PM 0 comments

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