Tag: Obsidian

My Pretty Fantasy

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This is our rescue beaked yucca, pre-planting.

We ended up riffing on this concept on Twitter, some of my writing friends and I. They asked how one rescues a yucca. I explained how this one came from Big Bend, Texas and was salvaged from land-clearing. These slow-growing plants are often destroyed by various kinds of development.

They asked about rescue yucca ranches, whether they were kill or no-kill. I assured them that all rescue cacti live happily ever after and receive ice cream every day.

This prompted great relief, especially from Adri, who was envisioning abandoned cacti with big sad eyes.

This is how writers are. Take one little image and spin it into an involved – and sometimes silly – story.

I spun myself this little fantasy the other day in the shower. No, not the kind you’re thinking of. In this one, an editor from the house that has Obsidian called me enthusing about the book. I dreamed up the detailed conversation, which involved phrases like “three-book contract,” “centerpiece of this year’s offerings from us,” and “brilliant new writer.” It was a terrific fantasy.

Now, I know there’s some value to this. All the positive-thinking guri (plural for guru, I feel quite sure) say you have to be able to envision the success. And I know we all have Walter Mitty-ish alternate lives in our heads, no harm done.

My problem is, my imagination is so vivid I begin to believe the fantasy.

All day, I kept wanting to tell people my good news. Hey! This editor called and offered me a fabulous book deal! In my head! Where I hear voices from people who aren’t really calling me…

Oh yeah. There’s that whole reality thing I have to remember to hang on to.

At any rate, I was amused at myself.

(And I still feel kind of excited about my imaginary phone call.)

And here’s the rescue yucca, planted as a centerpiece in the garden facing the road. If all goes well, he’ll grow up big and tall in this spot, a happy and attractive beaked yucca.

If you look closely, you can see a bit of ice cream smudged on his mouth.

Taking the Leap

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Yesterday Isabel discovered the finch nest in the juniper out front. She managed to climb pretty high before I intervened.

For the finch’s sake, not hers.

It’s pretty cliché, the story about a cat being stuck up a tree. They can climb up, but they can’t come down again. The idea makes a good foil. The hero rescuing the cat, the fretting over the cat, the dubious moral about getting yourself into something you can’t get out of.

The truth is, usually the cat doesn’t come down because it doesn’t want to. When it’s ready, down they climb, just fine.

I’ve had enough of hanging out in my particular tree. I’ve taken what feels like a big step and I’m sending directly to a science fiction/fantasy house. One whose imprint I know like my own name, because it’s been on every book I’ve read for the last 4o years or so.

It feels good, too.

As I discovered a few months ago, printing the book out is satisfying in a way the electronic attachment can never be. Mindful of those lessons, I used my best paper. This house earned extra points from me because all they want is a cover letter and the full manuscript. No dinking around with synopses or partials. All or nothing baby.

I sent it all.

And it feels like taking action in a way that nothing else lately really has.

And I tweeted the fabulous Robin McKinley to tell her I was sending it, not that she’d care, and that my cover letter says I want to be her when I grown up, so I was tweeting her for luck. And she tweeted back a “Good Luck!” Which, okay, is probably silly to get all thrilled about, but I did. I am.

Now we wait and see. I bet the cat will come down on her own.

Straddling Fences

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This morning I moved the houseplants outside to start the hardening off process.

I noticed in my wisteria-love fest the other day that last year in Laramie I moved the plants out on May 28. (I explained hardening off there, too, if you’re wondering what it is.) So Santa Fe has only moved me up by 16 days. Of course, we’ve been gone and I didn’t want the house-sitter to have to nurse them. I might have done it sooner than this.

We’ll see what next year brings. By all accounts it’s been a cool Spring all up and down the Rocky Mountain states.

But it’s snowing in Denver and Laramie, so I have plenty of smug to fill my bowl of contentment.

I talked to Catherine Asaro yesterday on the phone, about Obsidian, which she graciously read for me. She’s really a wonderful gal and a terrific writer, so if you haven’t read her, you should seriously pick up a book or two of hers. And I’m not just saying that because she read my mss and said lovely things about it.

So, while it was great to hear her tell me what a wonderful writer I am and how good the book is, there’s no super-new news there. She thinks I’m not going to get an agent with it because it’s too outside the box. She says that’s what I get for forging a new path. Which sounds kind of cool and glamorous, except that it really means that it’s difficult to sell.

“It starts out as excellent, gritty urban fantasy,” she says, “then moves into also excellent fantasy. But from a feminine perspective, which is really different.”

One of the things I’ve learned? When all those publishing industry folks say they’re looking for something really fresh and original, they’re not, really. What they want is the same creature dressed up in a fresh, new outfit.

Not that I’m bitter.

Actually, I’m not feeling bitter at all. Catherine says pitch directly to editors because I’ll surely find one who wants this. So that’s what I’ll do. I’ll keep working on Sterling, too, which (as I think I’ve mentioned twenty times or so) should fit quite neatly into urban fantasy, with no genre-defying cross-overs.

That always seems to be my deal – I do stuff that nobody gets, then five years later it’s the thing. It would be nice to think I’m cutting-edge, but really that seems to be someone else most of the time. Suddenly my thing that no one got is all the rage or even old hat.

I could give you a bunch of examples, but they’re boring. I swear it’s true.

When Catherine said that forging a new path is difficult, I pictured myself in a blizzard, struggling through knee-deep snow. Too dramatic? That’s how it feels. Ice pellets of rejection stinging your face, energy seeping out of your muscles until you feel like you’re simply too tired to go on.

But what’s the alternative? The literary equivalent of lying down in the snow to die. It would feel nice, I hear, the cold changing to warmth as hypothermia sets in. Yielding to the overwhelming sleepiness as the falling snowflakes bury you. Erasing you.

Right.

Forging onward!

(Anyone got some Polar-tek?)

Spring Cleaning

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No, it’s sunny and warm today. This pic is from a few days ago.

Sometime soon, this weekend maybe, I’m going to cut off those seed pods. The gillia need tending also. And the whole secret garden needs clearing out. Time to clear the way for the new.

So, yesterday, I held to my ritual and I did not turn on my phone until after I finished my wordcount. Then I turned on the Blackberry and watched the email messages stack up. And then, wow! A voice mail!

I confess I felt a thrill, dialing in waiting for the voice of RWA to tell me that I’m a special unique snowflake.

But no.

Staples.

Yes, the office supply place that has never, ever called me before, calling to warn me that my order had been delayed until 3/25. For those keeping track at home, yesterday was 3/25.

Just a little cruel jab from the universe, mocking my little dreams.

And apparently the universe couldn’t get enough of the joke: I received two more calls yesterday morning, both from numbers I didn’t recognize, one being a wrong number and the other being Staples, AGAIN. This from a cell phone that doesn’t ring for days.

The great lottery goes on. Allison didn’t final either, with the manuscript that just snagged her an agent and a three-book deal, so that gives you an idea of how well a contest like this predicts publishability. Amusingly, blogger doesn’t believe that’s a word.

An agent who has my manuscript Tweeted from the Bologna Book Fair that what’s “in” are angels, zombies and dystopias. None of which are in Obsidian. I envision that all across Twitterville, writers were brainstorming post-Apocalyptic landscapes with zombie angels.

Nothing new under the sun. Chasing after the wind. Don’t call me angel of the morning.

Staples called me one more time in the late afternoon, asking if my order had arrived. I said, why no, but I was in no hurry. He asked me what time it was for me and I said 4:09. He told me the driver had until 5 to deliver the package. Okay, I said, though did I mention I don’t care. He tells me that by law he’s required to make sure it gets delivered by 5.

I’m wondering if this is part of the Health Care Reform.

After all this? No, my printer ink never arrived. Not that I care, since I’m all set right now and was planning ahead for when the ink in the printer runs out. I imagine that, when I turn on my phone, I’ll have a voice mail from them.

I’m thinking about submitting my manuscript to Staples. At least I can be sure they’ll call.

Another Day

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As I suspected it would, the sun rose again today.

When it set last night, I had a “no” from the agent. I knew it when I saw the email pop up. A lovely “no.” The very best kind of “no,” all of my writing buddies hasten to reassure me.

She says:

Thanks so much for sending the full manuscript of OBSIDIAN and for giving me time to read it!
I love the world you’ve created here and I definitely recognize your talent. Unfortunately, I am going to pass on the offer of representation. For me, I just didn’t fall in love with the characters enough, or their adventures in your wonderful world. I’m sorry – I wish I had better news for you. I know you have lots of excitement going on right now with your work and I know you’ll be in good hands!
Wishing you the very best in your publishing career!

So, here I am, once again with the walk of shame. I gave her everything I had and it wasn’t enough. I know no one knows what makes someone fall in love. And yet, we’ve all been in those relationships where the guy says “it’s not you, it’s me” — and you know, of course it’s you. There’s some reason they can’t see spending their life with you, popping out little baby novels.

But it means nothing in the end. It doesn’t really matter if it’s your annoying mother or the fact that you have a cowlick that can’t be controlled or a tendency to ramble on about how much it annoys you when people speed up when they see you trying to change lanes. They don’t want to buy the cow and that’s all you need to know. Tasty milk, but no thank you.

So, I got back on the horse. Nudged a couple of agents with fulls and partials. Got on Match.com (Publishers Marketplace) and picked out a couple of sexy-looking possibilities. Gave ’em a wink.

The birds and Isabel say it’s Springtime. Mysterious plants are coming up — mysterious because we only moved here in August and someone else planted these spring bulbs. I’m putting my bets on Daffodils and Hyacinths, by their nubby tops.

And meanwhile a project I’ve been seeding for a while at work may be coming to fruition at a time we really need it. My boss is happy and loves me forever.

Also, Allison, who has the lucrative multi-book contract I covet, just received a 26-page revision letter. Single-spaced. It’s like she’s got the wedding all set, and just found out she’s got to have radical cosmetic surgery first. She’s getting over it now, though we were both shocked to read the comments at first. In the end, she’ll have a much stronger book. But, oh, the pain and suffering.

I’m working on the next novel, which is winding into a dark forest of odd characters and a mixed-race little girl witch. Who knows how I’ll sell this one.

The lovely thing for me is, I don’t have to worry about that.

When I’m Down and Feeling Blue

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Sometimes I feel like I’m speaking to an empty room.

Maybe this is a writer thing. You write the words, they go out there and sometimes someone answers, but most of the time, not. Most of the time there’s this vast silence.

Or, maybe people who become writers are people who feel like they’re talking to an empty room already and writing the words down is a way to at least make them visible, if not heard.

It’s a funny thing, because the reader doesn’t experience this. The reader feels like they’ve participated in this whole conversation with the writer. You’ve whispered in their ear, they listened and thought about it, ordered their responses and perhaps revisited what you wrote in their minds over the course of the day. This is the part the writer never gets to hear.

And, of course, we all seem to be this chemically unstable combination of insecurity and raging egomania. Perhaps it’s one of those things like running for President of the US, where only egomaniacs stand a chance of surviving the process. But, for writers, our marching melody seems necessarily threaded through with this minor harmony of doubt. I don’t know — maybe the President feels that, too, but doesn’t dare show fear to the lurking wolves.

This morning, two nice things happened. A wonderful friend, who happens to be a Nebula Award-winning author and who offered to read my book to see if she could help expedite it past the slush piles, sent me a note on FaceBook, saying: “Wow! I was hooked on Obsidian by page one. You write really well.”

And an email came from one of my oldest friends, saying: “I managed to get caught up on all of your blog entries that I didn’t get to while I was convalescing. They were full of lovely writing, touching sentiments, and pretty images.”

Those two things? They’re enough to make that empty room suddenly full of people.

Muddying the Waters

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We’re in this precarious season of freeze and thaw.

It’s a lovely thing, because it feels like Spring already. If we were in Wyoming, with all the snow that’s fallen, we wouldn’t be looking for it to thaw for months. In Santa Fe, the days warm up with gentle kindness, the birds swoop about singing with excitement and the road gets muddy as hell.

I’m talking deep ruts. That freeze at night.

But, aside from a filthy mailbox, it isn’t really that bad. I’m curious to see if I’ll have to wash the mailbox or if the Spring rains will take care of that. I’ve never washed a mailbox in my life.

I printed out my novel, Obsidian, yesterday. I can’t believe I haven’t used “Obsidian” as a label before, since I’ve prattled about it ceaselessly on this blog. What does it mean? Maybe just that I know the title could change (even though I think it’s a really good one). Now that Allison is hashing out her book deal, they’re discussing how to change her title. She doesn’t seem to mind, since Laurell K. Hamilton already stole the title she really wanted.

At any rate, I printed the whole thing out to send to a sci fi/fantasy author friend who (with incredible generosity) offered to read it and help me bypass the slush piles of a few people she thinks might like it.

It’s a huge stack of paper. Heavy.

It surprised me that I hadn’t printed out the whole thing before. And it put me in mind of the days way back when I first set my writerly goals. I was working with the concepts of visualizing what I wanted, but wasn’t sure what I was going to write. I knew, too, that I needed to be specific. (Be careful what you wish for!) So I visualized a manuscript, a stack of paper full of good writing.

When I printed out the final full manuscript of Wyoming Trucks to send to my editor at UNM Press, I experienced a moment of deja vu to see it looked exactly as I’d envisioned.

But with Obisidian, though I’ve sent out the full manuscript, I’ve always sent it electronically. Where paper, the post office and the mailbox used to be such a major part of my writing life — and least the sending it out into the world part — now it’s really all via email. Which is great in many ways: cheaper, faster, more green, less resource-intensive.

It’s also less weighty.

I saw this article yesterday, via the New York Times Science tweet. There have been a number of similar studies lately verifying this phenomenon of our brains, that what we think does have a physical effect on the world. This one is particularly interesting because they found that subjects assigned greater importance to things that were heavier.

You scoff? Go read the article. I’ll wait.

Isn’t that interesting? And you’re thinking the same thing I am, right: ebooks.

After all of the bruhaha over the Amazon/MacMillan tussle over how much ebooks are worth, I wonder about how our animal brains value something that has no weight. That, in some ways, has no physical existence. The publishers insist that a book shouldn’t be worth less because it’s not printed on paper. But all of us know that creating a document electronically and sending it via the ether is cheaper. No matter how you spin it, all of us who no longer budget for paper, toner and postage can tell you that.

Certainly the publishers add value, through selection and refinement of the work. As do the agents who bring it to the publishers. And the booksellers who bring it to the readers. I noticed that, in all of the opinions flying around, most were from the publishers, agents and booksellers. A couple mentioned the readers. Almost no authors have spoken up. An oppressed people, we.

But, if we’re to look at the core value, what people pay for is the story. Which has always been intangible. Which might be why the author’s contribution to the equation tends to weigh less heavily.

I’m thinking, though, for important submissions I might invest in paper. Thick stuff with a formal feel.

I might have to wash the mailbox.