RITA ® Award-Winning Author of Fantasy Romance
//April Fool’s Day and the cruelest prank I ever witnessed, my favorite reader compliment to get, and how author ROI varies depending on short or long term. Also, Clifton Strengths, Becca Syme, and what I’ve learned about Connectedness.
//Defining success, tips on how not to go crazy as a creator, why I think competition is bad for us, navigating toxic positivity, why being told “no,” AKA rejection, is so very good for us, and thinking about career paths long term.
//The kerfuffle in the writing world this week-where an author created sockpuppet accounts to downvote other books and upvote her own-why writers aren’t in competition and the key importance of friendship.
//Critique and other feedback! What makes crit useful and not, how to know what to take and what to discard (Spoiler: it doesn’t get easier), and what we can learn about giving useful critique.
//How my day went all to hell yesterday with several pieces of bad luck. More importantly, I’m talking about my bestie Grace Draven, some stuff she’s dealing with, and her upcoming Go Fund Me.
//Financial emergencies and other downsides of earning one’s living as a creative. How the demands of monetization affect creativity – and how being a fulltime writer isn’t the idyllic, dreamy, artsy life we envision.
//Celebrating the release today of WINGS UNFURLED by Rebecca Gomez Farrell and A HARD DAY FOR A HANGOVER by Miss Darynda Jones! Otherwise I’m talking about being gentle with ourselves and what that means.
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I’m just loving these autumn/Halloween collages of the Czech translation of the Chronicles of Dasnaria books!
This week at the SFF Seven, we’re discussing collaborations – if we’ve done them and what our dream collabs would be.
I’ve never (quite) collaborated with another writer on actually composing a story. I added in that “quite” because my friend, Jim Sorenson, and I did start writing a book together. However, even though we wrote several chapters, our mutual agent (Sarah Younger at Nancy Yost Literary Agency) didn’t ever love what we came up with. Getting our voices to gel together was a challenge. We’ve talked about going back to the project, which I’d love to do someday. It’s definitely a different way of working though!
The collaborations I do regularly are anthologies! My bestie Grace Draven and I love to put together anthologies, either of stories from just the two of us, or with more writers. Our next project is THE WATERS AND THE WILD, an anthology that will include fae novellas from Grace, Dana Marton, Maria Vale, and myself. It will be out in late April, with a special print edition available for Apollycon attendees, and then available in ebook and regular print form after that. I’m very much looking forward to what everyone comes up with!
If I could collaborate with any writer, living or dead, it would’ve been Anne McCaffrey. I was too late to meet her and too slow in coming to writing fantasy to be one of the several writers privileged to write in her worlds. I would’ve LOVED to do that and, in one of the sliding doors versions of my life, I believe it totally happened.
//One more pep talk on how it’s REALLY OKAY if you don’t like doing newsletters, examples of successful authors without them, and thoughts on reinvention, flexibility, and how this business is hard.
//I’m talking about debut author expectations, how to learn about the industry, and (hopefully) dispelling the myth that excellence = success = money. Also, exciting upcoming episode with Grace Draven!
