Newsletter Coming Friday

I'm writing this post...

to give you the news...

that I'm starting a letter...

to bring you more news!

Yes, it all sounds a bit redundant, I know, but I'm spreading the word as far as I can. My newsletter is launching on Friday!!! And to celebrate I'm giving away a copy of Under a Painted Sky to one random newsletter subscriber.

Under a Painted Sky came out last week, and it's already a really huge deal. I'm so excited about it because a friend of mine (and a simply lovely person) is the author, so I'm really glad to be sharing a copy with one of you.

If you would like to sign up for the newsletter and have a chance of winning the book, simply go here and fill out the necessary information. I will email the winner and send them the book in the format of their choice.

Happy reading!

Confessions of a Collector

So here I am, sitting at my keyboard, having a debate with myself. It goes a little like this:

Me; Do I really want to tell people that I, um... do that thing?

Myself: Sounds like time for a true confession.

Me: Now that's just silly. All sorts of people do it! That's like "confessing" to having a piece of chocolate after dinner.

The thing in question is World of Warcraft. Yes, I play. And yes, it is a tad embarrassing if only because it's the big behemoth of MMOs. While I loudly proclaim my love of gaming, I tend to keep a lid on my enthusiasm for WoW. It's not like one of those Korean games that you play "for the artwork" or whatever. It's a guilty pleasure--the sort people can get addicted to. As a friend of mine put it: "it's that awful ex you keep going back to."

Nevertheless, I play, and I have to admit I kind of love it, particularly right now. The latest expansion came out last week, and it's the most fun I've had playing the game since I started years ago. (With several long breaks between then and now (she hastily added).) What makes it so good?

Well, a lot of things, but in particular, for me, it's the collection aspect. World of Warcraft capitalizes on the human instinct to collect, in the past through pets, gear and achievements, and now through a new feature that allows the collection of "followers"--non-player characters who assist your character.

Though I wouldn't say I'm a hoarder, I do like to collect things, and sometimes those things are a bit strange. Books, ink stamps, key chains, crocheting yarn--those are all pretty normal. Toothbrushes, not so much. (Ostensibly they are for cleaning, but I'm not exactly the most meticulous of housekeepers, so really, there isn't much point to them.)

Anyway, in musing on these things, I got to thinking: can I tap into that instinct to collect in my writing?

Books delve into so many other human desires. We love to fall in love, thus Romance. We love self-description, thus the appeal of the Hogwarts Houses in Harry Potter or the magical Ajahs in Wheel of Time.

Surely there are books that resonate with our passion for collecting. Isn't that a staple of fantasy, to go on a journey searching for various items to complete a quest? The signs in The Dark is Rising come to mind.

And yet, I can't think of any books that give me the satisfaction of collecting vicariously through the characters. I'm wondering why that is. Have I not been reading the right books? Or is that feeling just too difficult to get across on the page?

What do you think?

Three ways a first novel is like a first baby

If there's anyone out there who still doesn't know, I had a baby a couple months ago. So far he's pretty all-consuming, and since I like to keep family life private I haven't had much to blog about. But I thought maybe it was time to venture back into the blog, so here's a baby/writing compromise...

Three ways a first novel is like a first baby:

1. You can't sleep.

This is probably about the biggest cliché is the world: newborn = no sleep. But it's so true. I heard a statistic the other day that in the first year after having a baby, the average woman loses 41 days of sleep. I can believe it.

Writing a first book isn't nearly comparable, but there is still some sleep loss. Whether from lying awake because you're too excited about the plot twist that just jumped into your head, or from telling yourself "just one more scene" late into the night, sleeplessness happens.

2. You have no idea what you're doing.

People say all the time that "babies don't come with an instruction manual." Well actually, I have several sitting on a shelf, all by different well-meaning authors. But they all say completely different things. I guess each parent has to muddle through somehow.

Writing fiction is much the same. Advice doesn't grow on trees, but it does grow at an astounding rate online. And again, the advice is often conflicting. Fortunately, with a little experience and a lot of help from critique partners, your writing can improve. Maybe not in time for the first book, but you can always write more.

3. Everything is a mess.

To preserve my dignity I won't tell any specific stories, but I'm sure your imaginations (or your own experiences) will supply the relevant details. With a newborn, nothing stays clean for longer than two seconds.

A first novel is bound to be the same. Either the pacing is off, or you use too many adjectives (or not enough description), or your dialog sounds forced. The whole thing is a big, beautiful mess. But you're having too much fun to care.

And I guess babies are like that too. They may be messy. They might be awake when all you want to do is sleep. And you probably have no clue what you're doing. But that baby is yours and you love him no matter what.

One way books and babies are very different? You can go back and edit the novel. With parenting you only get one draft.

New Meme

Well, from all appearances it looks like these days all the blogging I'm doing is in response to memes I've been tagged in. Sorry about that! I have several book recommendations I'd like to write up, hopefully soon. In the meantime, here's the meme, thanks to Paul Shortt.

This particular meme is the Liebster Award, and it has its various rules and questions and... well, I'm not much good at following rules when it comes to memes, so I'll just make up my own.

The first rule was to share 11 facts about me. I think I'm just going to stick to one. I find that more interesting. And this is my one fact:

The thing that has surprised me most about writing is how much I enjoy doing the research. I never liked writing papers in school, and the research for them always annoyed me. I could see the point of doing it, but I could never apply the research to anything long term. When it comes to books, though, the research suddenly becomes fascinating. One of my most recent research subjects was British currency from the 1840s. I looked up what different coins were in circulation at that time (some of it was really quite confounding), and how much a typical family in London might spend on various necessities. I loved learning all the information. It truly fascinated me in ways that it never would have if I'd been doing the research for a term paper.

The next rule was to answer 11 questions from Paul. This I'm happy to do. My modification: I'd love to see Paul's answers to all of these.

1. What movie do you secretly love? Oh dear, confession time, hm? There are a lot of movies I love, and few of them are secret. I'm a big action movie fan. But in general I don't like rewatching movies very much. There are very few I enjoy more than two or three times. But one of them—my shameful secret I suppose—is the movie Accepted. I really have no idea why, but it always amuses me.
2. If you could travel to any place in the world, where would it be? You know how people say that if you throw a coin into Trevi Fountain in Rome you are destined to return there some day? Well I've been to Trevi Fountain, and while I loved it I don't feel a need to return. But there's another place that is my equivalent of Trevi. It's the beach of Rhyl in the north of Wales. I was there about 8 or 9 years ago, and I've always felt like I needed to go back. That and I want to continue on from there to Conwy Castle once again.
3. When you were a child, what was your dream job? Astronomer. But then one day a real astronomer told me that in his career he didn't actually get to sit outside looking at the stars all night, and the dream pretty much died right there.
4. What was your favourite childhood toy? I had lots of favorites over the years, but the one that comes to mind right now is this pair of tiny dolls. They had hard plastic heads and squishy bean bag bodies, and I liked to squeeze the bodies between my thumb and forefinger and make their heads nod back and forth.
5. Do you have any hobbies that don't involve reading, writing, or that don't involve the internet? I crochet. My grandmother taught me how, but she's left-handed and I'm right-handed, so I'm half certain I'm doing most of the stitches a little incorrectly. I can never seem to follow a pattern printed on paper, though I can usually figure out how to make something if I see an example of it, and I love making up my own patterns.
6. Do you have a lifelong dream? Time for another confession I suppose. I always wanted to have an idea that nobody ever had before. It's a very egotistical dream. But it's probably why I ended up writing.
7. When did you come to realise it? Wow, really looking for all my embarrassing secrets, aren't you? I was in middle school, and I thought that I had come up with some brilliant new way of understanding dimensions past the 4^th. I was lying on my bed imagining that I was on some talk show where they kept telling me how brilliant I was for coming up with this while only in middle school.
8. What tv show could you watch over and over? As in rewatch or just keep watching if the series continued to air forever? Honestly I'm not sure I have an answer to either. As a kid I watched Lois and Clark and loved it so much. I watched the whole series again recently and still really enjoyed it, but I don't think I could just keep rewatching it. White Collar is one of my favorites now, but I don't know that it will always be. I'm getting more and more into Dr. Who, so maybe that. Hard to say though.
9. What one part of modern living could you not live without? Plumbing and sanitation. I'm a germaphobe.
10. What one part of modern living would you love to live without? Unhealthy food additives. There's so much in our food that we aren't even aware of. And I realize that going back to "pure" food would change our entire way of life, but if there was some way to have both...
11. What book or movie are you most looking forward to in 2013? The books I was looking forward to are all out already! Days of Blood and Starlight, The Archived and Scarlet are all recent releases that I really looked forward to and thoroughly enjoyed. (I'm in the middle of Scarlet right now as it just came out yesterday.)
    As for movies, I'm very excited about the new Star Trek. Really really looking forward to that.

And that's it! I don't think I'll tag anyone, but if you'd like to do the meme, please go ahead! Paul had some really great questions, so go ahead and use those.

All the best to you all.