Juggling Multiple Projects - How to Decide What to Work on Next

Here's me on the Iron Throne (from Game of Thrones, if you're not in the know). I'm feeling like I look pretty natural there. The only thing missing is that I did not yet have my WWJJD? (What Would Jessica Jones Do?) ribbon.

Still pretty kickass, though.

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven (which totally sounds like a superhero group to me, to continue to riff on the theme), is "What next? How do you decide which projects when?"

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

What is this "decide"?

Seriously - once upon a time this used to be an issue for me. I remember once making a list of a dozen or so story ideas and using a random number generator to decide which to work on next. Long gone are those days! 

Some of this comes from working with traditional publishing contracts. We end up "deciding" to work on whatever thing has the closest deadline. Due next week? DECISION MADE.

But it's also a natural consequence of writing series. If you have one, two, three, more books out there, then readers are going to be messaging about when the next one is coming out. That's a big decider, too. 

Of course, even with supposedly finished series, I get those messages, so...)

All this said, you know me. I keep a spreadsheet. 

OF COURSE I DO.

This is what mine looks like right now. I cropped so as to make it easier to read. As you can see, the "In My Court" section is the most salient. Right now I have four projects all solidly with me and none in "Someone Else's Court." Which is too bad, really. You'll also note that I classify them as either "Up to Bat" or "On Deck." The irony of me using sports metaphors for these should be lost on no one. On the other hand, the fact that I've mixed tennis with baseball says it all.

Also noteworthy is that THE NOISE OF FUR, which has a later deadline than THE TIDES OF BÁRA and SENSATION, is at bat. It seems counter-intuitive, but this is where my deciding comes in. I *had* planned to do revisions on that story starting 9/12 (which you'd be able to see if you could scroll to the right), but two things happened. First, Grace Draven, who is heading up the anthology, TEETH, LONG AND SHARP, that THE NOISE OF FUR is for, asked me if I could send my story to Ilona Andrews, who's writing the introduction. I didn't want to send it in bad condition. But then, second, I received the content edits from my editor and she thinks the story is in great shape! (Such relief!) So, I knew could both polish this story quickly and give it to Grace for Ilona to read. Thus, I did make a decision within my framework to move that up to being at bat and I'll do that today.

Sharp eyes might note that SENSATION and THE TIDES OF BÁRA share a deadline. This is an artifact of me getting behind schedule, which means the deadlines slid and stacked up against each other. In my head I know that the SENSATION deadline is a somewhat artificial one, and that's the one that will slide if one of them has to.

And if they all slide then... WWJJD?

Flash Fiction Fun with the Classics

With apologies to every lover of The Classics:

The Brothers Karamazov set out on an Odyssey with Great Expectations of finding Anna Karenina, whose Pride and Prejudice had led her to refuse the offer from The Catcher In The Rye. After checking her options at The Foundation Trilogy she’d climbed the Dune and was Gone With The Wind.

Peter Rabbit decided to keep her company and they hitched a ride on Revolutionary Road with Ben-Hur. They were making Pilgrim’s Progress while eating The Grapes of Wrath and talking Of Mice and Men.

Little Dorrit saw them thunder past in the chariot and being a girl with Sense and Sensibility, she talked to the Little Women and Little Men about what to do next. Report Anna? Chase Anna? It seemed the Call of the Wild was upon their friend as she fled her past mistakes.

“I think she’s going to Wuthering Heights,” said The Great Gatsby. “We could send The Three Musketeers after her.”

“What started all this?” asked Jane Eyre. “I thought she was content at Northanger Abbey with A Room With A View of the Bleak House and the Mill on the Floss? She assured me she could enjoy A Hundred Years of Solitude there because it was Far From the Madding Crowd, so what changed? Is it The Time of the Plague or what?”

“Our Mutual Friend received The Scarlet Letter from Oliver Twist, telling her A Tale of Two Cities about The Count of Monte Cristo and Tess of the D’Ubervilles having an affair in Paris and London, under her nose.”  Dracula winked at Frankenstein and sipped his dark red wine. “Now she’s On the Road and going Around the World in Eighty Days apparently.”

“But her true love since 1984 has been Tom Jones,” said Dorrit. “Ever since he sang in those tight pants at the Animal Farm, remember? She was on a date with The Lord of the Flies but she only had eyes for Tom.”

“It’s a Catch-22 and everyone is Les Miserables all right.”  Don Quixote stopped jabbing at Charlotte’s Web. “She needs a Time Machine to return to 1984 and have a do over because The Metamorphosis started then.”

Heidi, The Prince and the Pauper rushed into the room, all three hand in hand. “We just read in today's edition of The Pickwick Papers that Anna booked A Passage to India with The Old Man and the Sea! Should we go Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and try to arrive before she does?”

“She’ll run into Moby Dick and end up with The Swiss Family Robinson, or perhaps even Robinson Crusoe,”  Candide exclaimed. “The Idiot, going North and South on The Good Earth, with no clear plan.”

“At least she wasn’t Kidnapped.” Don Q ate a crumpet. “This is A Moveable Feast you’ve prepared for us today, Dorrit; my compliments to the chef.”

Smiling, their hostess said, “Frederica took a turn in the kitchen today, right before she left to attend the Cotillion with the Devil’s Cub."

 “Everyone should relax and stop being A Confederacy of Dunces. I’ll call The Lord of the Rings and he’ll not only find Anna, he’ll bring her to Washington Square, where Doctor Zhivago can examine her. Then he can advise us in The Remains of the Day what we should do next.” Dracula reached for his cell phone.

Dorrit turned to the only person who had yet to weigh in on their friend Anna’s problems. “What do you think? Are they talking White Noise or are the vampire and Don Q making sense?”

Atlas Shrugged.

The Classic that Wasn't

Catcher in the Rye.

I read it. Even finished it. Not because I wanted to. Not because I liked anything I read. I finished that book solely because I had innocent, blind faith that it HAD to get better. Somewhere. Somehow.

It didn't. Ever. How the ever living hell do you write 300 plus pages of some dude whining? I swear to all the gods, Salinger was paid by the word for that piece of kindling. I was (and still am to this day) vastly disappointed that Holden Caufield never DIED in that book.

I get there are people who love this story and this character. Maybe teenage angst wasn't my thing even when I was a teenager.

The other one I loathed and still do is A Separate Peace by John Knowles. Again. Had to finish it. It was on the final. But ye gods and little fishes. Did you know that all of these so called 'classics' by angst-ridden (and now dead) white guys could have been hundreds of pages shorter with just a little Prozac?? Why are despicable characters without any kind of hope of redemption worth any amount of my life energy?

All I can say is these two books totally justified the speed reading course I'd taken in 8th grade. I could not quit those books fast enough and still comprehend enough to write the papers on them that were required. Bleh. Even after all this time, I want to go scrub my hands clean after recalling those stories.

I far and away preferred The Color Purple. And To Kill a Mockingbird. And The Plague. And Wuthering Heights - though how Heathcliff came to be a romantic icon is beyond me. Wrote him up as an illustration of the concept of evil in literature for my English AP exam. All while singing Kate Bush in my head. How did you cope with reading books you disliked for required courses? And do you still force yourself to finish books you don't like?

Ignored Classics

All right, back when I was collegiate, I lived in the Scholar's dorm-- aka everyone here is smart and well-read.  That led to a fair amount of academic posturing.  You had to be all, "Godel's Incompleteness Theorem?  Yeah, of course I know that theorem, who doesn't know it?  Impact of the Smoot-Hawley Tarriff act?  Please, I wrote a paper on that.  For extra credit.  Pride and Prejudice?  Yeah, I read that.  I read that in 7th grade."  

Friends, I did not read Pride and Prejudice.  Never have.  Was supposed to junior year of high school, but... yeah.  No.  Now that I'm not trying to prove anything (you try being a film student in a scholars dorm surrounded by STEM people), I feel no great need to fake it. 

But let's talk about some of the classics in the genre.  Because I'm unlikely to have my geek card revoked for not having read my Austen.  

In genre?  Let's see.  I've never read Lovecraft.  Never read Howard.  Never read Burroughs.  Never read Arthur C. Clarke.  Never read Leiber or Vance.  

But here's the thing: that's OK.  I've had a few moments at conventions, around other writers or fans, where I've felt that same thing creeping up my spine of, "Oh, you can't let them know you aren't an expert", but I've long since learned to beat that down with a stick.  There's plenty of the classics I haven't read.  Plenty of new stuff I haven't read yet, either.  And I'm all right with that.  

OFF TO DRAGON CON!

I'm off to Dragon Con (SQUEE!!!) this week so my post is short.

Classics I never read and why...

First, why....

TIME! THERE'S ONLY SO MUCH TIME....

Last, classics...

There is such a variety when considering 'classics.' I read what I read because I wanted to, it was recommended, or it simply interested me via the cover, the back copy, or the author's name. I was never compelled to read anything because of expectations of others. I read for pleasure, or for work.

Check in next week for my annual recap and "THE TOP TEN of  THINGS I OVERHEARD AT DRAGON CON" post.

The Classics: Fie on the Establishment!

Once The Establishment insisted I read a book where the dog dies, I seriously questioned anything they considered "a classic."  When they did it to me twice and followed up with a dead mouse chaser, I became that kid in school. The one who could talk "around" the book without having read the book. Yes, it was back in the pre-internet dark ages. Grapes of Wrath, Lord of the Flies, never read them. Beowulf didn't happen either. Don Quixote, Moby Dick, and Call of the Wild...I read the comic book versions. What? Classics Illustrated comics saved my sanity and gave me the time to read the books I actually wanted to read (Hello Victoria Holt, Agatha Christie, and Morgan Llywelyn).

Never fear, I atoned for my sins by getting a Bachelor's in English. Aka, The Sexton, Plath, and Woolf Will Haunt You Forever degree.

Which Classic Book Have You Not read And Why?

Only one?

BWAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAHAH!!!!

Oh, wait, you're serious?

A lot of them. I have not read THE GRAPES OF WRATH. I've read parts of it.

I have never so much as opened the spine on MOBY DICK, because I've heard from NUMEROUS sources that it's long-winded and boring as all hell.

CATCHER IN THE RYE? Nope. I might, some day, but there are all these other books I want to read more.

Here's the thing: Classics are classics. They are also open to interpretation. Some of them get a good rep and some do not. My God, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD is one of my all time favorite novels. It's brilliant. I've read volumes of Arthur C. Clarke, H.P. Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood, Anne McCaffery, Robert Heinlein, Fred Saberhagen, Jules Verne, Sheridan LeFanu,  H.G. Wells, Edgar Alan Poe, Mark Twain, Gene Wolf, Shirley Jackson, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Michael Moorcock, Marion Zimmer Bradley,  Lloyd Alexander, J.R.R. Tolkien, Larry Niven,  and that's the tiniest sampling. To me those are classics. They have a depth of work. They told stories that enthralled me and still do. I found their works compelling and delicious and eye-opening.

There are so very many I have not read enough of as yet, like Isaac Asimov (Some, not enough), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert E. Howard, Ursula K. LeGuin, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Stephen R. Donaldson, Lois McMaster Bujold, Cormac McCarthy, Terry Pratchett, Diana Gabaldon, Mary Stewart, Neal Stevenson, Stephen Erikson....a nearly endless list of modern masters.

So why would I then make myself read works that do not have any desire to read, merely because a handful of academics decided they are required reading? I am not in high school. I never attended college. I imagine there are a few books that I SHOULD read, but I'll get to them if I have the time.

On a completely unrelated note, there's THIS: 

A mosiac novel 

by Charlaine Harris 

Christopher Golden
Kelley Armstrong
Jonathan Maberry
Kat Richardson
Seanan McGuire
Tim Lebbon
Cherie Priest
James A. Moore
Mark Morris

Coming June of 2017. 

The Classic Not Taken

Which classic book have you never read and why?

I suspect the answer to "why" will be much the same for all of us. There will be THAT book that, for whatever reason, we felt we *should* read, made some kind of attempt at - maybe multiple ones - and finally gave up.

Mine is Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

People, I have tried to read this book SO MANY TIMES. One thing about writing these sorts of posts is that you'll inevitably get someone who loved loved loved the book and is desperate for you to give it ONE MORE TRY. "Just get past page X," they say. Or, "but the payoff when..." they offer hopefully.

I ain't gonna.

I finally got rid of my copy, in fact, so absolve myself of its haunting presence and the guilt that I failed to love it. And don't remind me that it's in the common domain now and I can get it for free.

I DON'T CARE.

You couldn't pay me to read this book.

(Okay, maybe enough money would make me slog through it. $200K comes to mind. Give me that and I'll read the damn thing.)

*Anyway*

I first picked up a copy of this book in my mid-twenties, full of chipper excitement, because Anne Rice had it be the hero's favorite book in The Witching Hour. She made a persuasive case for the impact this book had on him, and The Witching Hour had an *enormous* impact on me, so I was all ready to be equally in love.

No. So, not.

(I did this all the time in those days, chained from book to book, like going from flower to flower in a lush garden. I still do it, to some extent, though I feel like I have less reading time for it.)


But I persevered! I loved Anne Rice so much, I figured I MUST love a book she loved. There's a transitive property of book loving involved there. Only writing this post, years later, does it occur to me that maybe Anne *doesn't* love Great Expectations. Maybe she simply picked it as a good classic for the hero to love. Back then I didn't know authors did this. (They totally do.) I'm friendly with her son, Christopher Rice - now I'm tempted to ask him to find out the truth here.

HMMM.

Anyway - I kept the book and, every year or so, I'd pick it up and try again. Then put it down again in boredom and disgust. Over time, I developed an active hatred for the story. I even watched the movies - both the 1998 and the 2012 versions, thinking maybe those would light me up.

Nope nope nope.

It's just not meant to be. And, for the record, I don't really care for any of Dickens except A Christmas Carol, which I'm sure makes me the literary equivalent of the Catholic who goes to mass only at Easter and Christmas.

Since I'm a Catholic-by-family only and never go to mass, this doesn't bother me greatly.

So, I'm begging you - don't tell me what a great book this is. I'm sure it must be. I just ... can't. Instead, tell me which classic YOU couldn't read!