Story Intro: “Faces of Gemini”

When I sat down to write this post, it occurred to me that I’d written Faces of Gemini after I started blogging, so I went digging in my old Livejournal entries and found this:

Sept 16, 2003 … the current story, provisionally entitled “Shards.” It’s completed–the first draft was 3,400 words and now after a couple revisions it’s up to 51K. By the time I’ve fleshed out the setting and converted some of the dialogue to narrative (it’s a bit too talky) it’ll probably hit 6K.

Do I care how long it ends up being? No, not really. But I’m interested in the way that my last two drafts have been extremely spare, with much adding in subsequent drafts. It’s a technique I want to play with. Where’s the line between spare draft and ornate outline? Can I find it? Do I want to?

And then on September 29th – I got a story off to market today. It’s called “Faces of Gemini,” it’s 7K words long, and it was originally drafted only two and a half weeks ago.

What I remember about this story is that it was one of two that came up suddenly, under almost exactly the same circumstances. Emily Pohl-Weary was working on the book that became Girls Who Bite Back: Witches, Mutants, Slayers and Freaks, and she had heard that I was a feminist comics nerd (though she put it more tactfully than that) and asked if I wanted in.

I love writing for theme anthologies. For me, a bit of a restriction on what I can write poses a fundamentally sexy challenge. I start with ‘what would fit here?’ and usually slide pretty quickly into ‘what can I get away with?”*

The idea I came up with in this case was very much a prose version of a four-color hero team comic, your X-Men, Justice League of America type of book, one whose founders were falling apart. I remember outlining it in detail, really planning every little shift and revelation. Time was short, and I didn’t want to find myself wandering down any interesting ten thousand word side streets. The outline developed from a group of sticky notes on a wall into a series of twenty sentences, each of which laid out what I wanted to achieve. I then fleshed them out, in record time.

I did almost exactly the same thing with Origin of Species, but I haven’t pulled it off in quite the same way since, despite some attempts. The particular mixture: short deadline, limited space, specific antho requirements, had some kind of alchemical effect that hasn’t come together again. The crucible may have been stress: I wrote both stories at an emotionally challenging point in the life of me.

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*Walter Jon Williams, I’ve heard, works from the proposition: What will everyone else do, and how can I go 180 degrees in the other direction?

Orycon ahoy!

This weekend I will be at Orycon 32, meeting up with many wonderful people, reading, speaking, and generally saying hello to anyone who’s greetable. My finalized schedule is here:

Saturday, November 13
11:00 am Reading – 30 minutes of Blue Magic
12:00 pm The unique challenges of urban fantasy
3:00 pm Later Afternoon Autograph Session
5:00 pm To Outline or Not to Outline, that is the question
8:00 p.m. Broad Universe Rapidfire Reading, with M.K. Hobson, Jessica Reisman, Camille Alexa, Cat Rambo, and other wonderful Broads! (I’m thinking I’ll read the opening of “The Cage.”)

Sunday November 14
2:00:pm Does writing speed matter?
5:00 pm Sci Fi AuthorFest IV at the Beaverton Powell’s

If you cannot be there and want to hang out with me in a more virtual fashion, my Quantum Leap rewatch of M.I.A. is now live at Tor.com.

Being clubbed

My very first story sale was to an Alberta literary magazine in 1989. I have no idea if anyone read that story, which was called “Quiet Father” and which earned me ten bucks, and I probably never will.

By 1995, when I went to Clarion West, I’d sold some SF and mystery stories, and once in awhile I met up with people, usually other writers, who’d tell me they’d seen my stories, usually the ones I’d had printed in Crank! This was almost always an entry point into a conversation about their notorious “Kill YOur TV” rejection slip. It was still a face-to-face or print on paper world, is my point–you had to be fairly conspicuous as an author to hear much from your readers. They either had to write to you the old way or make their way to a convention.

So I don’t know what the era of fan contact by snail mail was like. I do know that now it’s incredibly easy, as a reader, to be able to drop someone a line saying how much I like their work. I do this from time to time, usually when I’m very very enthused and excited, and could you please write another one now? Anyway, it is very nice to get feedback on one’s own stories and books.

You also find out about things like this: a couple of book clubs that have been looking at me lately: Torque Control’s Short Story Club read “The Cage,” a few weeks ago, and now editor Cleilie Rich has let me know I am to be Ms. August in the 2011 Women In Fantasy Book Club line-up. Indigo Springs will be in the company of Prospero Lost, by L. Jagi Lamplighter, War for the Oaks by Emma Bull, Elizabeth Bear‘s All the Windwracked Stars and seven other selections (number twelve is reader’s choice, and thus TBA.)

(If fantasy isn’t so much your thing, I should mention that there is also a Women in SF club, with an amazing reading list and Tiptree mid-month bonus stories, and the sign-up for that one is here.)

You can’t help but feel gratified and appreciative of attention like this, especially when you find yourself in such good literary company. Really, if you’re me, you want to rush over, saying “Hey! Can I do anything? Bake cookies, answer questions, change your oil?”

And that’s where the double-edged sword of “It’s so easy to just drop someone a line” comes in. Because I can’t help thinking it might be a little weird if we authors descended on the club like a bunch of bright eyed and eager birds, waiting to gulp up their every thought on our respective masterpieces.
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And also, possibly, because I don’t know how to change someone’s oil.

Is there etiquette for something like that? Anyone know?

Dipping a toe into e-books

kelly-yoyoKelly bought herself a Kindle not long ago, and one of the first things I learned as a result is that a Kindle account comes with the assumption that you may have more than one e-reader in the house. If one or two of those happen to be, say, an iTouch, there are unexpected benefits. For example, once I’d downloaded the Kindle ap, either of us could buy a book and then we could both read it at the same time.

I’d have thought reading on the iTouch screen wouldn’t be all that appealing, but I gave it a try, and absolutely ripped through the latest Connie Willis book. Was it the novelty, or do I really like reading this way? I’ve bought a history book, Bloody Crimes, to put it to the test. So far, I’m halfway through.

It is also nifty knowing that, what with the Kindle version of Indigo Springs being out, I can essentially carry a copy of my book with me everywhere I go.

On a completely different and more toobalicious note, my Quantum Leap rewatch of “Catch a Falling Star” went up on Tor.com last week.