difrancis

Hello~

I’m currently attending Miscon and it’s slightly overcase, a bit sprinkly, and tons of fun.

It’s also very crowded. This is what happens when GRRM attends a con. The unhappy news is that Patty and Mike Briggs both came down with a nasty bug and aren’t able to attend. So I’m missing seeing them. However there are a ton of other old and new friends that I’m getting to see and that’s hugely enjoyable.

I got here yesterday with the kids and set about getting ensconced in the hotel and getting registered. Then I went to the writers workshop meet and greet, followed by a panel on Mystery crossing over into Genre. On that panel was Maggie Bonham, Steve Fahnestalk, JA Pitts, and me. It was a good panel, though it felt a bit meandery. Then we went to dinner with a bunch of friends at the Irish place a couple of parkinglots away. It was excellent food and conversation and I got to see S.A. Bolich and Andrea and Jeff How, all of which I haven’t seen in at least a year, and Brenda Carre, who I haven’t seen since . . . well, it’s been a few years. I tried to absorbe some house selling vibes from her, since she just sold hers.

Then it was back to the hotel room where the kids, the man, the dogs and I goofed off and eventually slept. Both dogs and the girlie ended up in bed with me. How does that happen? So I’m dragging.

Then up early for breakfast and for the writers workshop. It was a really good group. And then I snuck out for a bite and came back and did a panel on writing realistic languages in fantasy and sf with George RR Martin, and Jim Glass. That was fun. George is very funny. Next up is a panel on Urban Fantasy Noir, and then the next is on Monsters, both of which will be very very cool. I’m doing my level best to stay out of the dealer’s room, but I hear things calling my name. I’m so trying not to answer.

Hope you’re having a great weekend!

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

neo_prodigy

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

dina_james

Originally published at Dina's Lair of Doom. Please leave any comments there.

Hey all!

Quick post to bring your attention to a friend in need. Kym is an awesome crocheter (among other things) and could use a little help breathing this summer. If you have some spare pennies and could toss them at the jar, she’d be really grateful. There’s stuff in it for you if you’re nice enough – check out the auctions/things offered for your kind donation.

I know it’s the end of the month and our wallets are all a little light until payday, but even $5 would help. Dig in those couch cushions. Take the penny jar to the bank.

Because, you know…breathing is nice. Most of us take it for granted, but for some people it gets a little difficult at times.

Here’s the donation information. There’s more info here from Kym herself. You can use Paypal as well as the funding site they’re using. So go clicky the linky and help if you’re able. Maybe you’ll get something nice out of the deal! (Even if it’s just good karma.)

I’m out for the day. There’s eviltry to get to. I’m hoping there will be pics and a blog post tomorrow. We’ll see what happens.

burger_eater

A Blessing of Monsters has been retitled. Big surprise, right? There’s no way I’d be able to keep that title. Anyway, the new title is: Epic Fantasy With No Dull Parts.

That’s unlikely to be the final title, either, I know. Titles are hard.

Mirrored from Twenty Palaces. You can comment here or there.

burger_eater

Let me drop this quick quote on you from a Writer Beware post:

The most financially successful self-publishers write more than their peers, and spend less time marketing. In fact, those self-publishers who marketed the most earned the least.

Authors’ online activity: Mostly good for having fun and maybe letting people know when something new comes out once in a while.

Mirrored from Twenty Palaces. You can comment here or there.

inverarity
fantasywithbite

Seven Stories Press, 2005, 317 pages

Shori is a mystery. Found alone in the woods, she appears to be a little black girl with traumatic amnesia and near-fatal wounds. But Shori is a fifty-three-year-old vampire with a ravenous hunger for blood, the lost child of an ancient species of near-immortals who live in dark symbiosis with humanity. Genetically modified to be able to walk in daylight, Shori now becomes the target of a vast plot to destroy her and her kind. And in the final apocalyptic battle, her survival will depend on whether all humans are bigots-or all bigots are human.

deadlinedames

http://www.deadlinedames.com/the-quirk-that-wont-die/

http://www.deadlinedames.com/?p=9988

I think it may be a sign of the Apocalypse, but (assuming I successfully complete this post), I will have written two blog posts this week. Sometimes I swear it’s easier for me to write a novel than a blog post, so I plan on rewarding my accomplishment with some chocolate. (Followed by a work-out, but I’ll try to forget about that part until I can’t avoid it anymore.) My first blog post was for Pocket After Dark, and it was about writing dark heroes. (For fans of my Nikki Glass series: I talk a lot about Jamaal, so if he’s your favorite character, you should check it out. You have to join the community to read the blog, but it’s free. And you can get free books, including, for a limited time, a free e-copy of DARK DESCENDANT.)

The hardest part for me about doing two blog posts in one week is coming up with two things to blog about. Ask me to come up with a novel idea, and I can do so with relative ease. Blog ideas . . . not so much. But then I thought about a peculiar quirk of mine that started long before I became a published author and has continued through fourteen commercially published books and a lot more finished manuscripts: I always think my manuscript is going to be too short.

I’m thinking of this now, because last Friday I finished my first draft of ROGUE DESCENDANT, and I spent the last 100 pages or so of the manuscript convinced it was going to be too short and that I was going to have to go back on my second draft and rip it apart so I could add another subplot to beef it up. And yes, I’d felt that way about all 14 of my commercially published books, and the vast majority of my unpublished, small-press, e-published, or completed-but-not-yet-published books. (In fact, the only exception I can think of was my last finished manuscript, which was for my dystopian YA, REPLICA. I knew from about halfway through that it was going to go long, and I was actually right.)

The thing is, as many times as I’ve sent myself into paroxysms of angst over my too-short novels, not once has the draft actually turned out too short. My drafts usually get longer on my subsequent passes, and even longer than that when my editors have looked at them, but still, the first drafts have always come in at appropriate novel length. But even so, when I start writing the big climactic sequence of events at the end of the book, I’m always convinced that this time, it really will be too short. No amount of reminding myself of the other 30 or so times I’ve thought that about a book and been wrong can convince me, and I have many an exasperated mental conversation with myself, all to no avail.

In this particular case, I’d set my total word count target at 85,000 words, which is a pretty standard first-draft length for me. I had the whole book plotted out in advance (at least the large brush-strokes of it), and I knew by looking over the series of events I had planned that it “felt” like it would be enough for a full-length novel. The one thing all my experience has given me is an ability to guess how long a book is going to be based on the major plot points I have in mind. (That was how I knew REPLICA was going to go long–it just felt long in my head, and it did from relatively early on.)

I wrote the first half of the draft feeling confident that I had enough material for a full book, and was happily writing away until I got to about 50,000 words or so. That’s when I first the first little hints of panic started to set in. I was closing in on what I like to call the “sprint to the finish,” the point in the book where the final climactic sequence of events has begun. I guess because I think of it as a sprint to the finish, there’s somewhere in my mind that is convinced it’s actually close to the finish. I looked at my 50K word count and thought, “I’m almost done, and I’m 35K words short of my goal. There’s no way I have 35K worth of plot left!  The sky is falling! AAAAHHHH!”

I really should know better by now. (And there’s a part of me that does, that starts rolling its eyes and trying to remind me of all the other times I’ve felt that way.) But no. I panic. Every. Freaking. Time.

The truth is that when I reach that “sprint to the finish,” I’m not really very close to being finished. I have reached the point where I no longer have to scratch my head wondering what happens next–I’ve already figured that all out. And I know the sequence of events is the beginning of the snowball rolling down the hill toward the big climax. But somehow, every time, I underestimate how many words it’s going to take me to play out that sequence of events. And never mind the settling down that has to occur after the big climax. (I try really hard not to rush that part anymore, although I always do on the first draft, and my various editors usually tell me I have done so on the draft I turn in as well. That’s one reason my drafts tend to get longer.)

Even in the midst of my panic, I know I’m most likely panicking over nothing. After all, I’ve been through this before many times. But you know, that doesn’t make the panicky sensation any more fun. I wish I could stop myself from feeling that way, but I’m learning to accept that it is just part of my process.

When I finally finished that first draft of ROGUE DESCENDANT–you know, the draft I was sure was going to fall well short of my 85K-word goal and that was going to need a major overhaul to be adequate novel length–was 89K words. *sigh* Maybe next time I’ll have learned my lesson and stop panicking. But I’m not going to hold my breath . . .