Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is “doing the research” – and what that means for building new fantasy or alien cultures.

I’m at a weekend conference sponsored by my local RWA chapter LERA. We brought in Michael Hauge to teach his Story Mastery. Great stuff. Yesterday was his general seminar, and today a dozen of us are doing an intensive advanced story mastery session where we workshop our concepts with him. I’m super excited because I’m working on SOMETHING TOTALLY NEW. Come on over to find out more. 

Fantasy Romance Recommended Reads

It’s Hot & Muggy Flash Fiction week at the SFF Seven. In beautiful Santa Fe, New Mexico, it’s never muggy and rarely all that hot. Perfect weather for drinks on the patio!

 

Instead I’m talking about what I *am* writing (hint: Ash & Ami) and I’m sharing a post I wrote on the SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) blog about compiling a list of Fantasy Romance Recommended Reads. SFWA asked me for a list of ten authors, so they could also be put on bookmarks. In culling all the terrific recommendations down to ten, I found myself having to take a hard look at how I define the subgenre of Fantasy Romance, so that’s part of this article, too. Come on over to weigh in with your opinion!

The Writer Unpublished Manuscript Contest

Do You Want to Be THE WRITER?

The Writer Unpublished Manuscript ContestThis is pretty exciting! My local chapter, the Land of Enchantment Romance Authors (LERA), is changing up our unpublished manuscript contest this year! Instead of having agents and editors as final judges, we’re switching things up to offer mentoring and promo support via judges who are established authors.  Writers of all stages may enter! Only the manuscript needs to be unpublished.

And I’m the judge and mentor for the Paranormal/Speculative Fiction/Urban Fantasy/Fantasy Romance category! Yes, it’s a broad category. What can I say? What this means is that the chapter will judge all entries and forward their top three to me. I’ll pick my favorite and mentor that writer and their manuscript. This means whatever that person needs – help with recs and prep for traditional publishing or help with self-publishing. Plus I’d help that person win overall against the wimpy writers chosen by the other judges. 😉 The overall winner gets to choose from the mentors and the whole chapter will support their efforts!

Other categories and judge mentors are:

Contemporary Romance – Long, Judge: Tamra Baumann
Contemporary Romance – Short, Judge: Katie Lane
Romantic Suspense, Judge: Robin Perini
Young Adult, Judge: Darynda Jones

Find out more information and enter here!

 

 

 

 

How Writing 1st Person POV Gave Me Boy Cooties

B7BLQj7CcAAaPBYYesterday, at #LERANM, my local RWA chapter, I gave a tutorial on using Twitter. We had a great time and the lovely and viviacious Katie Lane snapped this pic as I was talking. And gesticulating. LOL!

I’m over at Word Whores, talking about perspective – as in first, second or third person point of view (POV) – which works best for us and why.

Talking to a Bunch of Romance Writers

George RR Martin and Kim HarrisonA week ago I got to go to George RR Martin’s theater here in Santa Fe, the Jean Cocteau Cinema. He’s doing really interesting things with it, having bought the old theater near the rail yard, rehabbing it and now, along with art house movies and screenings of Game of Thrones episodes, bringing in authors for signings and discussions. This was my first time to go, when Kim Harrison visited and George did a Q&A session.

VERY fun.

And so interesting. I had the best time.

As you can see from the picture, the venue is an intimate one and listening to these two superstar writers discuss the business totally rocked my world. George is a terrific interviewer and I got insights into his career as well. All in all, a terrific evening and I greatly appreciate what he’s doing for both our community and for writers everywhere.

That said…

Yeah, you knew there was a “but” coming, right?

A funny thing happened that’s been bugging me ever since.

After about an hour of Q&A, Kim went out to the lobby to sign books. Because it’s a very small, cramped space (like most of the older parts of Santa Fe), George asked us all to stay seated so she could settle and then he excused us by rows to go out there gradually. My friend and I were a number of rows back, so we sat a fair amount longer and essentially chatted with George. Which was so fun. People asked him questions and he asked us who else we’d like to see visit. That was like getting to ask Santa Claus for a pony – and believing he’d deliver.

One gal mentioned Stephen R. Donaldson and asked if he’s still writing and living in Albuquerque. George frowned and said he had no idea. Now, if you follow me on Twitter and Facebook, you probably know I recently met Steve at Bubonicon and, in my capacity as VP of Programs, subsequently invited him to speak to my local RWA chapter, LERA. My friend, also a LERA member, elbowed me, so I spoke up and said yes! Steve is writing a new book in a new series, that he’d visited our chapter in Albuquerque and read to us from it and it’s wonderful. (It really is.) It was a great program and everyone really enjoyed hearing about his process and career. I probably forgot to say anything about it here.

George looked confused and asked where this was again? I said, you know, Romance Writers of America? Kim had referenced it earlier, though saying she was no longer a member as she doesn’t write romance. And he said, yes, he knew about RWA, that he was just having a hard time picturing Steve Donaldson talking to a bunch of romance writers.

Yeah.

I mean, here I’m having a conversation with one fantasy-writer legend about another, in front of an audience, so I was a little flustered. I explained that I met Steve at Bubonicon, which had also been referenced, and how I’m VP of Programs for LERA and how I write crossover between fantasy and romance and so do many of our members and blah blah blah. It was only later that it hit me what he’d really said. That it occurred to me to wonder exactly what he had been picturing. What does “a bunch of romance writers” look like? Somehow I get this image of a group of women dressed in chintz, sipping tea and giggling. With the, supremely frustrating leisure of hindsight, I wish I’d said something like “Why? We write books, too.”

Don’t we?

I know what we’re talking about here and I don’t really mean to slam George Martin for this, because I think he simply and genuinely revealed a very common misperception. We all know that Romance is the least respected genre out there. Written largely by women, for women, there’s an idea that romance writers are somehow…not really writers. After all, it’s just formula, right? We plug in different hair and eye colors, maybe a new setting and a different order of sexual positions and BOOM – on to the next book! We don’t actually delve into the craft or anything.

 So, over the last week, the more I thought about it (read: brooded a teensy bit), the more it annoyed me. Why on earth WOULDN’T we have a major league writer come talk to us, regardless of genre?? Writing is writing. A writer’s career follows the same general landscape regardless of the actual stories we write.

*deep cleansing breath*

Maybe that’s not what he meant. Maybe he wondered what on earth we’d get out of hearing Steve talk. The answer is that we got tons out of it. For days after, we traded notes on what we most got out of Steve’s talk. Steve himself emailed me after and said how much he enjoyed our group and how he’d love to come back anytime. In fairness, he may have been pleasantly surprised to find such a savvy, smart, creative and amazing bunch of writers who really appreciated what he had to say.

I think, in the end, this is just part of the ongoing effort to bring romance out from under the bed, hidden by lacy dust-ruffles and tucked in next to the sex toys. Maybe by having these conversations, by inviting writers from other genres to speak to us, we’re doing the work of demonstrating that we are writers, like any others. We’re invested in our craft and our careers. We work hard to learn, grow and improve.

Maybe I’ll invite George to come speak to us next.

Good Friends, Great Times and Arbitrary Endings.

1451397_10200918995124794_1800856214_nThis weekend, my local RWA chapter, LERA, had our biannual conference. Two of our guests were Jennifer Enderlin, editor for the fabulous Darynda Jones at St. Martins, and NYT Bestselling author Deanna Raybourn. On Friday, Darynda and our two conference organizers, Tammy Baumann and Kari Bovee, made the trip up to Santa Fe. We did lunch and shopping and I got to play tour guide. Such a fun day for me!

You can read more about it, and about what the most difficult part of the story is for me, over at Word Whores today.

Stiff Competition and Being Savvy About Choosing Genres

We haven’t had a sunrise pic in a while. Sign of the season, I suppose, when my regular wake-up time now precedes the sun’s. Alas for that.

I’ve been crazy busy lately wrapping up The Rebecca Contest. This is my local chapter LERA’s contest for unpublished manuscripts. (Our finalists are listed here.) For some reason, in an era of declining contest participation, our numbers went up this last year. This is the second year I volunteered as the Contest Coordinator, so it’s given me an interesting perspective on the industry.

I shouldn’t fling that “for some reason” out there, because I do have a pretty good idea what made this contest attractive to aspiring writers. One is that we made a serious effort to have final judges who are solid industry professionals who are both actively acquiring new authors and who are not easy to access for most writers. That’s what I wanted for my work when I was entering contests, and that’s what we try to get for our contestants.

Second is that it’s noteworthy that it’s a contest for unpublished manuscripts – not unpublished authors. This means that authors who’ve already published can participate as long as the manuscript in question is not under contract when they enter the contest.

This aspect brings up an important point about our industry that I think can get overlooked. It used to be that getting published was the sinecure, the lifetime career that ended with the literary equivalent of a gold watch and a generous pension. Now, just as those days of the lifetime career with one company have given way to an average of 5-6 careers in an American’s life, getting a contract for that first book, or even that 2- to 3-book series is no longer a guarantee of anything. The market is tough, the stakes high and publishers are frequently kicking authors to the curb whose books/series don’t perform to high expectations. And it’s a sad irony that the writer is now not that enticing creature, the “debut author,” who seems to be as avidly sought as the proverbial beautiful, young virgin.

How does an author circumvent the scarlet letter of less than bestselling numbers on a previous effort? The anonymity of a contest works pretty damn well.

Of course, this means that our contest had incredibly stiff competition. In two categories, in particular, the finalists were fractions of a point apart. This is the most interesting part to me. Can anyone guess which were the two most competitive categories? The five were:

Historical Romance
Category Romance
Paranormal Romance/Science Fiction Romance/Urban Fantasy
Young Adult Romance
Contemporary Romance

Did you all make your guesses?

YA and Paranormal. Both had the most entries (though Contemporary only had three fewer entries than YA) and both had the closest finalists scores. In Paranormal, the three finalists all had perfect average scores. (Each entry is judged by three people, at least one a published author, the lowest score of the three is dropped and the two highest scores averaged.)

I think this reflects the marketplace, too. YA and the speculative fiction takes on romance continue to sell well. The competition out there is fierce.

What lesson do we extract from this? I’m curious to know what you all think. Does the savvy writer focus on those less-competitive sub-genres, hoping to stand out as a shiny fish in a smaller pond? Or does she set her sights on upping her game and hope the high tide floating all those ships in the popular sub-genres will sweep her along, too?

Of course, that’s pre-supposing that any writer really chooses what they write…

Stupid Mistakes You Can Make in Your Writing Career

I’m over at Word Whores today, blathering about how Rogue’s Pawn releases tomorrow. Oh, and about the stupidest mistake I made on the path to publication.

And, because I’m promo girl, I’m also over at the LERA blog, talking about what I learned from Susan Elizabeth Phillips’ visit yesterday.

Washing the Pipes

This is the basket I put together for the LERA Enchanted Words conference last Saturday. Seemed like it was quite the hit.

Overall the conference was a great day. I loved hanging with my writing buddies and debating craft questions. Everyone went away excited and inspired, which was great to see.

Yeah, there’s a bit of a “but” in there.

I confess I have a bit of an issue with people who purport to teach how to write a bestseller. If a person is so certain of the “bestseller formula,” then I’d think they’d put their energy into writing that, instead of telling other people how to do it. There’s quite a few folk out there these days, saying they teach writers through workshops, master classes and retreats how to make the magic happen. They charge a fair amount of money for this, too.

Frankly? It feels predatory to me.

I mean, it’s great for writers to come away from a seminar like this feeling fired up, creative, inspired and ready to work. But, in the end, I truly believe that you can take all the classes you like and nothing replaces the act of writing. Writing a whole lot. Over and over until you find your own voice and rhythm.

Ann Patchett says (remember I said I’d have more quotes from her):

Art stands on the shoulders of craft, which means that to get to the art, you must master the craft. If you want to write, practice writing. Practice it for hours a day, not to come up with a story you can publish, but because you long to learn how to write well, because there is something that you alone can say. Write the story, earn from it, put it away, write another story. Think of a sink pipe filled with sticky sediment: The only way to get clean water is to force a small ocean through the tap. Most of us are full up with bad stories, boring stories, self-indulgent stories, searing works of unendurable melodrama. We must get all of them out of our system in order to find the good stories that may or may not exist in the fresh water underneath.

She continues with with pointed question:

Does this sound like a lot of work without any guarantee of success? Well, yes, but it also calls into question our definition of success. Playing the cello, we’re more likely to realize that the pleasure is the practice, the ability to create this beautiful sound – not to do it as well as Yo-Yo Ma, but still, to touch the hem of the gown that is art itself.

The people who want your money will chant NYT at you and tell you that’s success. Fair enough if you want that. Hell, I want that, too. But, despite what these teachers promise, there is no magic formula. If there was, they’d be using it themselves.

Back to washing out my pipes!

Tee-hee


The hot air balloon festival has been going on in Albuquerque. This photo was taken by one of my LERA (Land of Enchantment Romance Authors) chapter mates, author Sarah Storme.

I think it’s a fabulous picture.

Sarah is also a scientist, who has had a long time career with the Forest Service and is just now finding success as an author.

Success is a funny thing. First of all, it means different things to different people. A lot of us spend a fair amount of time defining personal success for ourselves. We have to break it out, too. There’s financial comfort, health, love, family, career and art. For some, career and art get to be the same thing. But it isn’t always, and doesn’t have to be.

For writers, it’s easy to focus on the big icons of success: the bestseller lists, the glossy bookstore displays, the admiring reviews. One big dividing line is whether or not one is doing well enough to be a full-time writer. Even this though, can be deceptive, because whether or not a high-earning spouse is involved can make a huge difference, or other, similar factors.

It is, of course, easy to succumb to that most unpleasant of disorders: jealousy.

There’s this young author I know glancingly. She’s on Twitter and is a friend of friends. By young, I mean mid-twenties. She’s enjoying the success of her first published novel, a young adult book that’s being received very well. I would be lying if I said I don’t envy her current literary fortune.

In fact, her name has made the rounds enough that a Big-Time Famous Author mentioned this gal on her blog. The Big-Time Famous Author linked to the young author’s blog, mentioned her book and how she planned to read it. I should add that this Big-Time Famous Author is also one of my all-time favorites, a personal hero and I might just have every book she’s ever written. I was thrilled for young author and mentioned it to her on Twitter. She hadn’t known and went to look. When she came back, she sent me the message “Tee-hee.”

Okay.

To cut her slack, maybe that’s her version of being modest. Maybe she didn’t know what to say. But I came away with the impression that this was just another mention, just another accolade, tra la, tra lay, tee-hee.

I also know she’s young and she doesn’t yet know that these really fabulous things don’t happen all that often. She’s tumbled into fame and adulation early; she maybe thinks things will always be this way. Who knows? Maybe for her they will.

But most likely not. Nobody seems to get the rose-petal path. The universe is forever giving us trials along with the blessings, just to keep it interesting.

It puts me in mind of Scarlett O’Hara’s character arc, and how she went from “fiddle-dee-dee” to “As God is my witness I’ll never go hungry again.”

It’s good to work hard for something, to struggle, to shed a few tears, to sacrifice some blood and flesh. The pain makes the reward all the sweeter. That’s where we grow and build character. It what makes us appreciate success all the more when we achieve it.

Tee-hee.