Leveling Up - Whether We Want To or Not

This week at the SFF Seven we're asking each other: do you look for new skills to try each year? Or with each book?

My first reaction is that this isn't an annual process for me, but an ongoing one. Because it's absolutely something that happens with every book. And not because I plan it that way! Quite the reverse. With 65 published titles, I often go into new books thinking something along the lines of "This one will be a fast and easy write because x, y, z."

I am, inevitably, always always wrong.

That's not to say that some books don't write easier than others, but they all pose unique problems. It seems to be the nature of the beast, that the creative process goes to a new and more challenging place every time. 

I have two caveats to this:

1. I do kind of look at this on a yearly basis because of my agent, Sarah Younger at Nancy Yost Literary Agency, who sets up annual chats with all of her clients at the beginning of each year. (She jokes that she has to dig some clients out of their caves once a year for this. You know who you are.) I really love this about Sarah because it's part of what she brings to the table: long-term career strategy. She says she keeps a goal book for each of her clients and we revisit those goals and set new ones each year. For me, a big part of this conversation is always how can I grow and expand? What do I need to do to level up?
2. The second caveat is that I save some ideas for when I have the chops to execute them. Writers often talk about (and are asked) where they get their ideas and how we choose what to write next. (See above for that.) For many of us, ideas arrive all the time, but that doesn't mean we're ready to write them. The second novel I ever wrote was like that - only I didn't know that I didn't have the chops to execute the concept. So, over the years, I've gradually been adding skills as the stories demand them. In Shadow Wizard, book one of the Renegades of Magic trilogy, I added extra points-of-view (POVs). That was the first time I wrote in more than two POVs. In book three of that trilogy, Twisted Magic, I had five POVs. Who knows where it will end??

Except that someday (maybe?), I'd like to go back and rewrite that second novel. I bet I could pull it off this time.

 

Best Laid Plans and Magical News!

I had Plans for today's blog post here at the SFF Seven. But we know what the poet said about best-laid plans...

Yes, my day has gang agley. 

All in a good way, though. I got a lot done. Important stuff, just not quite the several steps required to post what I hoped to post today. So the short and dirty update is:

• TWISTED MAGIC will have a release date and preorder link soon!! (Though you can already preorder it on my website.)
• Of my new book that I've been writing, the one I wasn't supposed to be writing, but that insisted on being written, which I've been calling ONEIRA, Agent Sarah said: "You’ve crafted your very own fairytale, Jeffe and it’s magic."
• We strategized today, so look for more news on ONEIRA soon! And on TWISTED MAGIC!

Resisting the New Shiny: How to Decide What to Write Next

 I've just returned from Nebula Conference and this moment was a highlight: the photograph of SFWA past-presidents in attendance. From left is Gay Haldeman, SFWA Ombudsman; Joe Haldeman, SFWA Grandmaster and past-president; Michael Capobianco, past-president; Karen Silverberg, novelist; Robert Silverberg, SFWA Grandmaster and past-president; and lil' ol' me. Quite a heady experience!

This week at the SFF Seven, we're talking about the Picking and Choosing—how do you decide which idea to write?

This is the eternal question, with many factors affecting the answer.

Some factors are practical, especially if you make your living as a writer, as I do. To keep that income flowing, I have to think about the next book in the series - both for the sales and to keep my readers happy - and I have to look at what's selling best for me. Likewise, in working with my agent - the fabulous Sarah Younger at Nancy Yost Literary Agency - I coordinate with her on what she thinks she can sell for me, along with her schedule, balancing me with her other clients on reading, editing, etc.

Then there's the creative side...

As we develop as writers, one of the primary skills and disciplines we must learn is how to *finish* a work. There are a lot of would-be authors out there with a few to dozens of unfinished manuscripts. It's a thing and you HAVE to learn to overcome it. A big piece of learning to finish a work is setting aside the New Shinies - the ideas that turn up, alluring as fae lights in the darkness, luring the unwary writer into a merry chase that leads nowhere. By the time the writer returns from the wild pursuit of flickering delight, their work in progress has aged and they have nothing to show for their efforts.

Then again...

Sometimes an idea descends and demands to be written. It's only happened to me a few times, but it's happened recently and - though I have lot practice, skill, and discipline at resisting the siren song of the New Shiny - I finally capitulated to writing it. We'll see what happens.

When to Ditch Showing and Just Tell

Coming Soon! THE LONG NIGHT OF THE RADIANT STAR. 

This is a novella in the Heirs of Magic series and occurs after THE STORM PRINCESS AND THE RAVEN KING. It's Jak and Stella's wedding on the longest night, the Feast of Moranu. I think I'll release it on Monday, November 21, 2022. No preorder this time. I'll post when it goes live!!

***

 At long last, Jakral Konyngrr—lowly sailor, gambler, and sometime rogue—has won the heart and hand of Princess Stella of Avonlidgh. Never mind that Stella’s mother is determined to make their wedding the event of the century, he’s happy to endure any trial to marry the love of his life and his guiding star. Very soon they can sail away together into the rest of their lives. Unfortunately the wedding becomes delayed for several months, until midwinter.

Stella—sorceress, empath, and bearer of the mark of the Tala—has been through great trials. But nothing has tested her as sorely as her passionate and flamboyant mother planning their wedding. Even Jak’s steady love and companionship isn’t enough as Stella finds herself crumbling under the pressure of being snowbound in a castle with the press of so many minds and emotions. When she lashes out, she hits the worst possible target, jeopardizing her chances for happiness.

With several kingdoms and a former enemy empire bearing down on them, Jak and Stella’s wedding on the longest night of year might not happen at all… Unless they can create their own happy ever after. 

***

This week at the SFF Seven, we're talking about Telling vs. Showing, particularly we're examining when some narrative exposition is needed.

It's an interesting question, and one very much focused on genre fiction. Many of you know I began my writing career in creative nonfiction. For many years I wrote and sold essays. My first book was an essay collection. At no point in that time - in classes, in critique groups, in discussions with editors - did anyone bring up Telling vs. Showing. It was only after I began writing fantasy romance (etc.) that the concept was introduced to me. I had to learn not to use the narrative exposition that had worked so well for my creative nonfiction voice, but to "show" instead.

Why is this a thing?

The oft-cited example is attributed to Anton Chekhov: "Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." It turns out this exact quote is probably apocryphal. A passage from the article I linked to says:

In May, 1886, Chekhov wrote to his brother Alexander, who had literary ambitions: “In descriptions of Nature one must seize on small details, grouping them so that when the reader closes his eyes he gets a picture. For instance, you’ll have a moonlit night if you write that on the mill dam a piece of glass from a broken bottle glittered like a bright little star, and that the black shadow of a dog or a wolf rolled past like a ball.”

It's salient to note that he's talking about description here. When my genre-fiction editors and critique partners introduced the concept to me, they framed it as a way to deepen the point of view (POV). In genre fiction, in particular, readers love to be immersed in the characters and world, thus the incentive to deepen POV.

I worked diligently to learn to show, not tell.

Fast-forward to my current agent, the insightful and incisive Sarah Younger at Nancy Yost Literary Agency. One day, after reading one of my manuscripts we planned to take on submission to traditional publishing, she said, "Jeffe, I know you work really hard to show, not tell, but sometimes we just need a line or two telling us what the heck is going on."

And she was right. I was so busy describing the glint of light on broken glass that I was failing to explain that this world had three moons.

In the end, as with all things, it comes down to balance. We need both in order to tell effective stories: immersive description and deep POV, along with some clear narrative exposition to ground the reader in the world. 

I'm getting better at it!

LONEN'S WAR Now in Audio!

     

Read Excerpt

 On my mind this week is the audiobook release of LONEN'S WAR! 

A little while back, I sold the audio rights for this self-published series, Sorcerous Moons, to Scribd. Megan Frampton is my editor there and she's been great to work with. Many thanks to Agent Sarah Younger of Nancy Yost Literary Agency for negotiating the deal. I feel like I should give Sarah a special shout-out because it's really great to have an agent who supports the indie side of my career, too. She invested a lot of time and energy into getting me the best possible contract with Scribd. Another plus: Scribd gave me a free subscription for a year! This is pretty amazing since other audiobook publishers of my books have refused to provide me with copies of my audiobooks. If I want to listen to my own freaking book on audio, I have to buy it. 

Grr.

Not so with Scribd! I've been super pleased with the process of working with them. There was a SNAFU in the original recording and they fixed it by re-recording the first three books. It set the production schedule back but they did it without complaint and I was impressed by their professionalism. 

The ensuing five books will be out on the following (tentative) schedule:

#2 ORIA'S GAMBIT August 16

#3 THE TIDES OF BARA September 13

#4 THE FORESTS OF DRU September 27

#5 ORIA'S ENCHANTMENT October 11

#6 LONEN'S REIGN October 25

Also, LONEN'S WAR is now wide and should be available on all retailer platforms. Print is coming any day now and just wait to see how super cool the set is together with the new covers! 

Very exciting to see this rejuvenation of my first entirely self-pubbed series. 

In other news...

Look for the cover reveal and preorder link for SHADOW WIZARD, Book #1 in Renegades of Magic, the trilogy that picks up after  Bonds of Magic! Look for SHADOW WIZARD coming September 29, 20222! Here's a sneak peek of the cover:

Should You Sign With an Agent?

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week concerns the benefits of working with an agent - or, for those of us without agents - times we've wondered if an agent would be helpful or why we choose not to have one. 

I do have an agent, Sarah Younger of Nancy Yost Literary Agency. She's the third agent who's represented me - and I can personally vouch that having a bad agent really is worse than having none at all. But, I do believe having a good agent can be hugely beneficial - depending on what kind of writing career you want to have. 

What are the benefits of working with an agent? Here are three - along with their associated caveats.

Selling to big traditional publishing houses. 

By this, I mean the bigger houses that don't take unsolicited submissions. A good agent has connections - positive relationships - with editors who depend on agents to bring them books that fit what they love and can buy. This means that agents who send submissions to tons of editors in the hopes of something sticking to the wall, are not good agents. Agents who only manage to sell to houses that take unsolicited submissions aren't bringing much to the table either. This also means that if you are happy sticking to self-publishing, you don't need an agent.

Contract negotiation

See above. If you're selling to traditional publishing, an agent can be critical in negotiating the best deal and securing your rights. They're savvy to the grabs publishers can try to sneak past unwary authors. An agent who doesn't argue with contract language may not be doing their job. Also, a good agent will be solidly on the author's team, fighting for the author. Be wary of agents who prioritize preserving their relationship with the editor over championing the author. Unless the author is behaving badly, the agent should always put them first.

Career planning

A good agent can help strategize which projects a writer should choose to work on next. Again, they're going to come at this from the angle of selling to traditional publishing. Now, if you're the sort of writer who wants to work on exactly what you want to work on, with no input and without consideration for the current market - which some people are and that's a legitimate choice - then you won't want this from an agent. An agent can still sell your work in this scenario, but they'll be the sort who say "give me the next thing you write and we'll see." Both of these models work, but knowing which will work for you is key.

Having an agent can be beneficial to an author, but it's not a career-maker or breaker. Knowing what you want from an agent - or IF you want an agent - is most important. 

When To Take the Market into Consideration

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is our most frequent story starter -- idea, milieu, character, theme, what-if, trope, editor request, etc.

It's an interesting question because when people ask me in interviews where I start with a story, I always say a particular character or sometimes a specific image. But in reading this week's suggestion, I realized that I've changed on this somewhat. It's not that the ideas themselves don't start for me with characters in a particular situation or image - that's absolutely true - but I also have a LOT of ideas, all dutifully listed in my notes. So, as far as a story starter is concerned, I've realized that it is largely affected by the "editor request" category.

By that I mean, what editors are looking for, what my agent thinks she can sell, what my non-compete agreements allow, or - for self-publishing - what I think readers are most likely to pay me for!

In short, what "prompts" me to start a story these days is a business decision. For traditional publishing, my agent (Sarah Younger at Nancy Yost Literary Agency) and I discuss what steps might best advance my career. We talk about goals, publishing houses, possible advance money. We also have to navigate agreements with my current publishers not to compete with the books I'm doing with them. I really love that she brings this business perspective to the table, because I am trying to making a living with my art.

This is something I discuss with authors when I'm advising them on making decisions about an agent. (I seem to be doing a lot that lately.) One key criterion in choosing an agent is do you want someone who will advise you on your next project this way, taking market considerations into account, or would you rather write your next story without input and give it to them when it's ready?

Both methods are valid, and different artistic temperaments work better with each, or somewhere in between. And agents fall out on the same spectrum.

Also, with my self-publishing career, I could make a choice based on my heart - what story do I really want to get out there? - and I've done that. But when I have an eye on paying the mortgage for the next year, I have to be practical and think about what I can write that I'll love, but that my readers will love, too.

A very long time ago, when I was an aspiring writer with a few publications but not much more, a pro writer friend advised me to enjoy that time. He said being able to write whatever I wanted without practical considerations was a freedom I wouldn't have once I became established.

It was good advice, because that's largely true. As a newbie author when you're still casting about for your voice and what story will work, there IS a tremendous freedom in that, a kind that's worth savoring.

At this point, however, I find that applying practical considerations isn't at all stifling, the way he implied. Instead it helps me filter out all the many wonderful ideas. AND it helps pay the bills.

Win, all around.

****
Speaking of win!

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is our most frequent story starter -- idea, milieu, character, theme, what-if, trope, editor request, etc.

It's an interesting question because when people ask me in interviews where I start with a story, I always say a particular character or sometimes a specific image. But in reading this week's suggestion, I realized that I've changed on this somewhat. It's not that the ideas themselves don't start for me with characters in a particular situation or image - that's absolutely true - but I also have a LOT of ideas, all dutifully listed in my notes. So, as far as a story starter is concerned, I've realized that it is largely affected by the "editor request" category.

By that I mean, what editors are looking for, what my agent thinks she can sell, what my non-compete agreements allow, or - for self-publishing - what I think readers are most likely to pay me for!

In short, what "prompts" me to start a story these days is a business decision. For traditional publishing, my agent (Sarah Younger at Nancy Yost Literary Agency) and I discuss what steps might best advance my career. We talk about goals, publishing houses, possible advance money. We also have to navigate agreements with my current publishers not to compete with the books I'm doing with them. I really love that she brings this business perspective to the table, because I am trying to making a living with my art.

This is something I discuss with authors when I'm advising them on making decisions about an agent. (I seem to be doing a lot that lately.) One key criterion in choosing an agent is do you want someone who will advise you on your next project this way, taking market considerations into account, or would you rather write your next story without input and give it to them when it's ready?

Both methods are valid, and different artistic temperaments work better with each, or somewhere in between. And agents fall out on the same spectrum.

Also, with my self-publishing career, I could make a choice based on my heart - what story do I really want to get out there? - and I've done that. But when I have an eye on paying the mortgage for the next year, I have to be practical and think about what I can write that I'll love, but that my readers will love, too.

A very long time ago, when I was an aspiring writer with a few publications but not much more, a pro writer friend advised me to enjoy that time. He said being able to write whatever I wanted without practical considerations was a freedom I wouldn't have once I became established.

It was good advice, because that's largely true. As a newbie author when you're still casting about for your voice and what story will work, there IS a tremendous freedom in that, a kind that's worth savoring.

At this point, however, I find that applying practical considerations isn't at all stifling, the way he implied. Instead it helps me filter out all the many wonderful ideas. AND it helps pay the bills.

Win, all around.

* * *

Speaking of win!

I'm participating in the Romance for RAICES fundraiser! You can win a critique from me and genre analysis - which means I'll help you figure out the right agent for you, if that's what you're looking for. Such a great cause!

 

Still Bleeding - the Worst Rejection Ever

Why what do I spy with my little eye?!? @jeffekennedy Cover Flats WITH FOIL. 😍 #TheOrchidThrone @SMPRomance @jcon713 pic.twitter.com/XNrKSCjCvy

— Sarah E. Younger (@seyitsme) April 12, 2019

I had to share this tweet from Agent Sarah. We got the cover flats for THE ORCHID THRONE (out in September 2019, but review copies are going out now - eep!) and they have foil! That's the shiny stuff on the cover. It shows best in the video from her tweet, but here's a still pic, in case the video doesn't play. Super cool, huh? It's my first cover with foil, and it's SO PRETTY!

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is Knife in the Heart: The Harshest, Meanest Rejections from a Publisher/Editor/Agent. I think this is a great topic because it's always good to hear that *every* author receives rejections. While 99% of them are usually vaguely kind, there's always some who have to be vicious about it.

This was on my mind the other day because there's one rejection I received about 25 years ago, when I was a super newbie author - and it was so mean I STILL THINK ABOUT IT TO THIS DAY.

I know, I know - I should really let it go. For the most part, I really have. I don't feel bad about it, but I do remember the words from this editor and they float back into my head from time to time.

So, I'd made this Huge Life Change™ and gone from a PhD program in Neuroscience to working as an editor/writer for a petroleum research group. The job had flexible hours, paid well, and let me develop my chops as a writer. I'd decided I didn't want to be a research scientist and wanted to be a writer instead. As part of this effort, I took courses from visiting writers at the university. One of the first was the class Essays on Self and Place. Thus, my early writing efforts were personal essays, also known as Creative Nonfiction.

(In fact, my first book was an essay collection: WYOMING TRUCKS, TRUE LOVE AND THE WEATHER CHANNEL.)

But before that happened, I was doing the magazine circuit. I'd send out work to places that published essays, from literary journals to commercial magazines. And I sold essays to that broad gamut, with my biggest score an essay I sold to Redbook for $1/word. I built this career largely through writing a lot and sheer tenacity. Which, come to think of it, is what I still do.

I'd read a piece of advice from some author I can't recall now to treat submitting like a game of ping pong. You submitted work, and as soon as it got rejected, you batted it right back out to another venue. I even called my folder of essays I was actively submitting "Ping Pong." I had a rule that I had to have every finished piece on active submission at three places at one time. As soon as a rejection arrived in the mail - and these were the days of paper printouts sent in the mail with a self-addressed, stamped envelope (the infamous SASE) - I had to whack that essay back out right away. I kept a list of publication venues (in a spreadsheet, OF COURSE), in order of preference, and I'd just go to the next on the list.

All in all, this approach worked very well for me. Treating the submission/rejection process like a game helped to take the sting out of rejections. It also meant I got a LOT of rejections. Every time that envelope showed up in my mailbox, addressed in my own hand, I'd feel the pain. They almost never *accepted* via the SASE. An acceptance came via phone call, maybe email (depending on the year), or as a thick envelope with their own postage containing a contract. Maybe even a check! I always wondered what they did with my SASEs in those cases, but it seemed cheap to ask for them back, even though I could have reused them.

So, yes, I received many, many rejections of various flavors, but I also published work at a steady rate in a variety of venues. I kept up a high velocity in my personal game of ping pong. It worked well.

This one magazine though...

It was called something like Women's World Weekly. I could be conflating several publications. But I do recall I discovered it in the Women's Bathroom at the petroleum research institute I worked in. Someone left copies in there every week. It was low-quality paper, with lots of ads for things women supposedly liked, and then those kind of heart-wrenching "real life" stories of love and loss.

So I sent them one of my essays on love and loss. And I got a rejection back pretty fast - hand-written, saying that it wasn't exactly the kind of thing for them - too long, or whatever. This was early on and I didn't always pay attention to the content of the rejections. Often they didn't say all that much that was useful. Also, I came from a scientific background and the non-scientific nature of their criteria often stymied me. Finally, I was busy - and the game of ping pong meant I had to get stuff back out there rapidly.

I sent them another essay on love and loss. I got another rejection saying no, it wouldn't work for them.

I sent a third essay. (Maybe I only sent two, but it might have been the third submission.) And I got this hand-written, black-ink, furious scrawl that said:

YOU JUST DON'T GET IT, JEFFE!

And I don't remember the rest. It was some sort of excoriation on how my work would never, ever, in a million years, be right for them.

Thing is - they were probably right. And it was true, that I didn't "get it." I was very new at that point, and green. I didn't yet understand how to discern what a particular publication or editor preferred. I viewed it all as a vast crapshoot - or a game of ping pong - and figured the right thing at the right time was what got accepted.

Which is actually very true.

But there was something in the sheer venom of that rejection that has always stuck with me. And sometimes I hear that guy's voice - the editor was male, which is interesting in retrospect - shouting at me in that scribbled note, telling me that my work was a waste of his time.

Of course, I took that publication off my spreadsheet and never submitted there again, which likely came as a relief to them. I sold those essays elsewhere, and I've gone on to build a career.

Still, every time someone implies that I "just don't get it," I feel the twinge of that knife to the heart. Funny, what gets to us, huh?

Coming Up with Titles: the Pain and Glory

Spring has sprung here fully into summer and the flowers are so lovely! This is my pink anemone clematis that I'm training to climb up the grape vine in the arbor. Love how it's coming along!

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven is "How do you come up with your titles?"

I might have as many answers to this question as I have published (and unpublished, for that matter) works. And a single work can have multiple titles by the time the final one goes on the cover. So much so that I can have mass confusion looking through my various files and documents for versions of stories. I'm pretty organized, but that can get crazymaking, especially keeping things consistent between email folders and those in Dropbox.

So, the short answer is I often choose titles initially on instinct. Some of them come to me before I start writing. Like "Wyoming Trucks, True Love, and the Weather Channel" was a title I thought of first, then wrote the essay, and then we ended up calling the entire essay collection that. Sometimes I write on a book for a long time before I figure out the title. Some are called "Story" for a significant amount of time.

One cool trick I learned is to pull the title from a line or phrase in the story. Grace Draven likes to draw from poetry, which is how we came up with "Amid the Winter Snow."

When you work with a traditional publisher, they very often want to change the title. So, here's a story about the title of the first book in the new trilogy I'll be doing with St. Martin's Press, out August 2019.

I called this book "New Story" for about a week while I worked my way into it. Once I had a handle on it more, I started calling it "The Slave King." That lasted about a month until I apparently decided my heroine needed to share top billing. Then it became "The Slave King and the Flower Queen." I had those images for the hero and heroine, which resonated with the core idea I worked from. When I sent my agent, Sarah Younger, the first rough fifty pages, that's what I called it. We have a number of back-and-forth emails with the subject line "TSK/TFQ." Which should've been a hint right there that it was a cumbersome title.

By the time we went out on submission, Sarah suggested taking "The Slave King" out of the title. I get that descriptor for him in the story, but she was concerned that it would be possibly offensive as an email subject line out of context. She proposed

Throne of Flowers, Throne of Flesh
Throne of Flowers, Throne of Fire
 Throne of Thorns, Throne of Fire
 Crown of Thorns, Crown of Ore

I came back with (inspired by her) "Throne of Flowers, Throne of Ash." She polled everyone in her agency and they voted for that.

And sold it to St. Martins! (along with two sequels to be named - literally, as we still haven't titled those...)

Once we signed the contracts and started digging into what my editor, Jennie Conway, envisioned for the series, she relayed that the SMP marketing thought that my title would get lost in SEO. (That's Search Engine Optimization for the lay people - and means that they worried my "thrones" would get lost with all the other "thrones" terms people might type into Google.)

She suggested:

Book 1: A Throne Veiled by Orchids
Book 2: A Throne Bound in Shadow
Book 3: A Throne Carved from Embers

Sarah riffed on that, coming up with:

Book 1: A Throne Masked by Orchids
Book 1: A Throne Hidden in Orchids
Book 1: A Throne Built by Orchids
Book 1: A Throne Shadowed by Orchids
Book 1: A Throne Covered with Orchids
Book 1: A Throne Disguised by Orchids

Book 2: A Throne Bound in Shadow

Book 3: A Throne Carved from Embers

Marketing came back with a No on anything starting with "Throne," because of how SEO works, and also avoiding the words "ice," "fire," and "ash," as they're overused with "throne."

After a lot more brainstorming, we all finally settled on THE ORCHID THRONE as the title for Book 1. You can no doubt see the evolution of that. As for Books 2 and 3, we decided to wait until I wrote more of Book 1 and saw how the story was developing.

So there you have it! My answer in this case to "How do you come up with your titles?" is "over months of effort and with a bunch of really smart people weighing in."

The Artful Juggle: Planning Future Books While Keeping up with Current Deadlines

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven - the challenge of maintaining a writing schedule and trying to prepare for future business - is an apropos one for me right now.

Because, boy howdy, have I been wrestling this particular challenge lately.

I'm what we're calling a "hybrid" author these days, which means I publish both traditionally - with a publishing house - and I self-publish. I make my living this way and my income is roughly split between the two. In 2016 my income was 62% from self-publishing and 38% from traditional publishers. In 2017 it was 43%/57%. Pretty even at this point.

Obviously it's important to me to balance both sides of my writing career.

On the traditional side, that means meeting my deadlines. And not just the ones for drafting, though those are the big ones. Those are also the ones I know about from the time I see the contract. There are other deadlines - sometimes quite abrupt - for completing content revisions, line edits, copy edits and proofing. Sometimes those come in with a "We need it by the end of next week." That kind of thing can really impact the rest of my schedule, so I try to pad a bit, to allow for those things.

The traditional side also impacts my self-publishing schedule because many traditional contracts now include exclusionary clauses where I can't publish a novel in the same genre within a certain window on either side of a traditional book release.

On the self-publishing side, I have reader expectations to take into account. Because I don't have a legal contract with my readers - although I do take the author/reader contract very seriously - the self-publishing schedule tends to give way to the traditional schedule. Also, because I can't control the traditional publishing release schedule, I have to fit books in the same world into that timeline.

For example, people keep asking me if/when I'm going to finish the Sorcerous Moons series. That one has gotten seriously derailed. The main reason it has is because something had to give and that series isn't connected to anything else. But I WILL finish it! I'm planning to have books 5 and 6 out this fall, in quick succession. I had to keep up with the books in The Uncharted Realms series, to sync with the upcoming Chronicles of Dasnaria books.

(That's part of why I included the newly revealed cover of THE ARROWS OF THE HEART here. The cover is all ready, but the book is not. I ended up having to push it back some, to meet a traditional publishing deadline, alas. That's another part of the juggling act, getting all the pieces to come together at the same time, more or less.)

BUT, the trickiest part of this whole juggling act is the precise point of this week's topic: preparing for future business.

Because traditional publishing has such long lead times, I have to plan now for books that will come out two to three years from now. Another example: I began writing THE ORCHID THRONE last March. (March 15, 2017, to be exact.) By June 15, I'd written and polished just over a hundred pages of the book, plus proposal, working with Agent Sarah all that time to position the book in the market. By July we'd sold the book to St. Martins Press.

All that time, I was also writing on other projects. There's a lot of stopping and starting while working up a new series, waiting while Sarah read it, fitting it in around other deadlines, etc. Once we sold it, I could set it aside, because the completed book isn't due until July 15, 2018. A WHOLE YEAR after we sold it. And it won't come out until August of 2019, with Books 2 and 3 in 2020 and 2021.

All of this means that, to maintain the traditional publishing side of my career, I have to start thinking NOW about books and series I can sell that will start coming out in 2020 or so.

Talk about planning!

So, that's been my other thing - I've been working on a very exciting collaboration. A new series - new genre, even - and we're close to going on submission with it. It's a slower process, working with someone else, learning to write as part of a team, and also stretching me in good ways. That means, too, that it's taken creative energy away from my other writing projects, so that's part of the challenge.

And all good, too. Challenges make us grow, yes?

What Blender Setting Do You Go For?

We've been on a long road trip this last week, seeing all kinds of family. And leaving the cats behind, like the monsters we are. Here is Jackson showing off his best Pitiful Abandoned Kitty face.

Thus, I'm late posting today. But so it goes!

I've shared this news elsewhere, but I'm happy to share again here! Many of you have asked what I'm up to with various writing projects, including a few delayed ones. (Yes, the next Sorcerous Moons books are coming - I promise!) Basically what happened is that I changed agents back in February/March. And then I worked up something entirely fresh for New Agent Sarah Younger. Basically I gave her a list of ideas, we debated them, and I wrote 100 pages of one of her top three choices - the one I loved best. We went back and forth on it with several revisions. That's a great benefit of working with an agent as sharp as Sarah. She gave me great feedback on the book, tightening it up and making it the best it could be. Basically we spent three months working on this.

Which meant I kept setting aside other writing projects to work on the next round of THRONE OF FLOWERS, THRONE OF ASH. Thus my entire schedule getting delayed and shuffled. The beautiful part is, when Sarah took this out on submission, we had tons of interest, multiple offers, and a sale two weeks later. And here it is!!

These books won't start coming out until 2019, so now I can go back to a regular schedule. Which absolutely means finishing both the Sorcerous Moons and Missed Connections series. The other thing that happened is that Kensington, who published my Twelve Kingdoms and Uncharted Realms books, started up a new SFF (Science Fiction and Fantasy) imprint called Rebel Base Books. They wanted to publish THE SHIFT OF THE TIDE, but that would have delayed its release until March of 2018 and I knew you all would have fits. (See? I do love you and want you to be happy. I really do!)

So, we said no on that, but they really wanted me to be part of this new imprint, so we settled on me writing a trilogy for them set in the Twelve Kingdoms world. It will be high fantasy, which means less of a romance arc. BUT, I'm pretty sure it will be Jenna's story. For those of you who know what that means! We finished talking about that right before the other submission, so that got announced at the same time.








All that taken care of, our topic this week is Scrapbooking—taking stories from real life as the springboard for your stories and subplots. I'm going to keep this short, mostly to kick off the topic. I love Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman's thoughts on "blender settings." Basically they say that all creative types take our real life experiences and metaphorically put them in a blender which produces the smoothie of our art. The big difference is what "setting" we put the blender on.

They've had to figure this out in their marriage, because they have such different blender settings. Amanda, a singer/songwriter and performance artist, has a very low blender setting. What she experiences, she turns around and shares in big chunks that are recognizably her art. Neil, as a writer of fantasy, has a very high setting - you almost can't recognize his real life in the final stories.

Neither is right or wrong - both of them are accomplished artists - but it took some doing for them to come to terms with how they each processed experiences. Especially for him with her putting so much of her - now their - personal life out there as part of her art.

What's most important is to find what works for you. My standard advice: discover your process and own it!

Early Stages - Who Should Help You Plot?

In keeping with our story-writing theme - last week we talked about how much space to give to the denouement - our topic at the SFF Seven this week focuses on the Early Stages of Plot Development. Do we work alone, with critique partner, developmental editor, or in a round-table group.

My answer is that this has changed dramatically for me over the course of my writing career - and it can vary by book. Plus, just recently I've done something Totally New, which isn't even on that list.

First off, for anyone who *doesn't* know this about me - though I'm not sure how that's possible since I feel like it's a big neon sign over my author-hatted head - I don't pre-plot. I'm going to make that distinction, pre-plotting vs. plotting. In some genre communities, people are given to calling writers either plotters or pantsers. A "pantser" is someone who is perceived as writing "by the seat of their pants," a description that simply oozes with pre-plotter panic to my mind. The way I write feels nothing like what it seems many imply with it - that there's somehow no plan at all.

Interestingly, there are myriad definitions for that phrase. It turns out that it's early aviation parlance. Aircraft initially had few navigation aids and flying was accomplished by means of the pilot's judgment. It meant "going aloft without instruments, radio or other such luxuries." In our analogy, I suppose the instruments, etc., would be an outline of the story. As far as the idiom is concerned, I found this definition very interesting: "To use one's judgment, initiative, and perceptions as events unfold in order to improvise a course of action without a predetermined plan."

Now, that last *does* feel like how I write. I don't feel like I can plot a book before I write it because I don't know how events will unfold. And I do trust in my writer's instincts and the skills I've honed over time to make those judgments as the story goes. Several of the definitions used the word "intuition," which I think is spot on.

I don't really think my stories through, I intuit them.

I have a critique partner (and good friend) that I talk through stories with a great deal. She's very much a thinker. She plots out the stories ahead of time and is always asking me questions like what is my heroine's goal or her internal wound. I inevitably get irritated by these questions - not that I don't know the answers, but that I can't articulate them. They are feelings to me, not easily definable in a few words. That said, this friend is great at helping me figure out my stories. I can tell her "Oh, my heroine is like this, and her mother is this way, but the hero is this other thing to her - so what would happen if...?" And she has great answers. I don't always use her ideas, but they do help to guide me.

I seem to work best that way, brainstorming what my characters might do, talking it through with one or two other people. I love to do it with other people's stories, too.

Just recently, however, I got to do something new and very fun. Last week I announced that I have signed with a new agency, Nancy Yost Literary Agency, and that I'll be working with Sarah Younger there. I couldn't announce this change immediately, as the contract with my former agency asked for 30-days notice. But, until Sarah could officially act as my agent, we discussed several projects I had in mind as possibles. She picked one as her favorite - and as the most marketable at the moment - and gave me some ideas to think about. What she gave me helped crystallize the project and injected it with life. Which is so much what I was hoping working with her would be like!

This is an aspect of working with an agent that I think some writers, especially those exclusively in self-publishing, perceive as being "told what to write." It doesn't feel like that at all. Instead it's a "wouldn't it be cool IF" scenario. Agents are passionate about books, by definition, and widely read. The right agent can bring fantastic perspective to a proposed project.

But, and this is key, whoever a writer talks to in the early stages of a story has the power to profoundly affect the direction of it. Or even to kill it with careless criticism. Choose those people with utmost care, for a new story is precious and fragile. Don't hand that baby to just anyone.