ArmadilloCon Plug

Six years ago I stumbled upon a mention of a fantasy/sci fi conference on the website of one of my favorite authors. Curiosity piqued, I checked out the con and discovered one of the best surprises of my writing career thus far: the ArmadilloCon Writers' Workshop. That summer (and the two following) I attended, and the three days I have spent workshopping with that con have taught me more about writing than any other three days of my life.

Six years ago I was six years less skilled at writing and had a much larger ego, the combination of which (as you might guess) is an ego deflation waiting to happen. I expected to go into that con with the first chapter of my beautiful book and be fawned over by fellow attendees and professional mentors alike. I was wrong. Instead I came away a bit more humbled than I hoped. But I also came away with a new critique partner, a lot more knowledge, and several connections to authors I still keep in touch with today.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to return the past three years (though I've had good reasons... such as giving birth!), and sadly I won't be able to go again this year. But ArmadilloCon will always have a very special place in my heart, and I will be back, if it takes me another three years to make that happen!

But if I can't go, I hope maybe one of you can. The workshop is one of the best values you'll find. And it's a quality experience! In the past authors like Scott Lynch, Paolo Bacigalupi and Martha Wells have been among the workshop mentors. I'm telling you, if you're an unagented writer hoping to publish one day, this experience is not one to miss!

So head over to the website and sign up now. The deadline for manuscript submissions is June 15th. And if you do go, tell me all about it when you get back!

Elements!

Back in 8th grade science class I did a report on Mercury, aka Quicksilver, aka the coolest element on the Periodic Table (!!!). At least that was my opinion at the time. I remember almost nothing now about what I learned then, except for the part about Mercury being toxic. But I do remember being a little in awe of the element. And I remember that I thought it was pretty amazing how all these little "building blocks of matter" could be so different and combine to make even more things that were even more different.

I don't know if they still use these things in high schools now, but back then we had one of those roll down posters over the blackboard with the Periodic Table on it. (Or maybe I'm getting it confused with the maps in History class. The ones where the teacher would try to roll down the one of the US but always get the world map instead and have to fiddle with it for a few minutes.) The Periodic Table we were using was probably not new, and this was already about twenty years ago. If I remember correctly it only went up to element 109.

Last week I saw this article. We've just confirmed element 117. I don't know about you, but I find it pretty mind-boggling that we can actually create new elements. As if nature weren't amazing enough already, we're making extra-natural things. Like we're saying, "Hey, everything in known existence, you're great and all, but we'll do you one better."

So I have this shelf of books by my desk with all of my writing books and research books and "this sounds interesting, maybe I'll find an excuse to use it in a book" books. One of those is The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean, which I happen to be reading right now. It's about the story behind the periodic table--where elements came from and how we discovered them and the insane and dangerous and all-too-human things we do with them.

It's one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read. I love it. It's making me fall in love with chemistry and the universe and science! all over again. In other words... Attention! Book recommendation! Read it!

I don't have a favorite element any more. (Except maybe Tungsten, because there's something about that name, and the fact that its symbol is a W, for Wolfram, which sounds cool too... I dunno, I just like it.) But I still love learning all these things. Makes me feel part of the amazing discoveries that we as humans are making all the time. Go team human.

How about you? Did you ever have a favorite element?

This post got a little bit derailed.

Today has been a good day, guys. I'm getting into a rhythm with the WIP (work in progress) and remembering how much fun it is to write a first draft. Anything goes! Want to add a dragon to spice things up a bit? Insert that dragon! Want to experiment with dramatic irony?...

[And seriously it is so easy in a dual POV. Get character A needing one thing, and character B thinking character A needs the opposite, and BOOM! tension. Everybody wins. Except the characters. They really don't win.]

... Sprinkle liberal amounts of dramatic irony. LIBERAL AMOUNTS! And oh, you know what you haven't seen in a book in a while? A Shakespearean sonnet. Go ahead and add one of those too. That should do it.

It's great, because anything can be cut out later if it doesn't work. (Except the dragon. The world needs more dragons. Because then my son's first word could be dragon instead of cat, which it's looking like it might be.) Maybe that crazy idea will be absolutely ridiculous in retrospect. And guess what! Nobody has to know--that's what revision is for. But maybe it'll be totally brilliant instead.

Anyway...

You know, this post was actually supposed to be about something else entirely, but then it got to be all about first drafts. And dragons.

So hey, bonus! I get to save that other post for next week.

Dragon.

Life Post (or: Babies are hard work, yo)

I have nothing to tell you this week. Nada. Zilch.

Okay, so I actually do have some ideas for blog posts, but one of them I promised not to post yet (long story, not really, but it's boring) and the other is just a vague idea until probably next week. Hopefully next week.

Which leaves me with nothing, which isn't all that horrible because I have everyday life to talk about, and this week I've been salivating for opportunities to talk about it, if only because misery (that's me) has a voracious appetite for company.

And all because I had a little cold.

No really, I had a 48-hour bug, and for, like, the first 24 of those hours I thought I was going to die. There I would be, curled up in a little ball, unmedicated (except for Tylenol--because baby--which wasn't really helping) and exhausted (because baby) and with a monster headache (oooh, can you guess why? oh that's right, because baby). Kind of like a little bug that curls in on itself as it's dying and dries out with its body in what appears to be a convulsion of pain. That's what I was feeling like.

Yes, I am a big baby.

In my defense, past history has convinced me that when I get sick I succumb to a week-long nightmare of fevers and gloom, which maybe means I only used to get sick if I got the flu, I don't know. Turns out I am capable of getting the only-2-day kind of sick as well. Whether that's because I'm more susceptible now that I am not sleeping any more or because somehow my immune system is better at eradicating colds once they show up now, who can say. I'm just happy that it didn't last long.

But I didn't know this on Monday in the middle of feeling like the whole world was swimming glassily in front of my eyes. Maybe I just get colds worse than other people do, or maybe I'm really that much of a wuss about illness. (Though to balance out, I'm a beast when it comes to pain.)

Anyway, here was where I faced what is probably a defining moment for all mothers. And this isn't the first time I've faced this sort of moment, but it was the most extreme. It was that moment when every single cell in my body wanted only one thing--to be completely and exclusively selfish. And instead I got up, picked up my son, and took care of him.

And I didn't even ask for a superhero cape.

Seriously though, rock on, moms. All babies have highs and lows. Some are harder than others, but I'm going to make a guess that at some point or another every baby is needy at the worst possible moment. And even though it's the last thing you want to do, you get up and do what's necessary.

And hey, on the flip side, sometimes the babies turn the cute factor up way high, and then it all kind of balances. Like just now. Just now my baby started singing and dancing to the beat of me shaking his rattle, and it was about the most adorable thing ever (until next week when he will do something even cuter and shatter all previous cuteness records).

So yeah, next time I'm sick and miserable, remind me that there is cuteness on its way.

Only don't do that, because I really am a big baby when it comes to being sick and I will probably just want to punch your face.

Cheers!

Voice and Tone

I'm working on a new project right now (unrelated to The Never Silent) and seeing how I feel about it. Unlike my most recent novels, it's got a dual POV. This isn't the first time I've written two main characters, but it's been long enough that I'm more aware of the individual voices.

Voice. Such a nebulous thing, but so important. A lot of people say they read for the voice. Or, in some cases, not read. An annoying voice can really get under the skin.

Voice is supposed to be unique to a character. It encompasses so much about that person--how they think, how they speak, how they look at the world.

And yet I keep noticing in some of the books I've read a lack of distinction between the individual voices. Surely the characters aren't identical in thought, speech and perspective. But they sound the same.

As I'm discovering, though, it's really hard not to make them sound the same.

For me voice is really easy to change from book to book. In The Never Silent, my main character Henry is a boy from the 1840s. He absolutely does not sound like a boy from today would sound. In my previous novel, the character was a girl from a post-apocalyptic future. Very different.

But I've realized that the voices I write depend not only on setting, but also very much on tone. Is the tone serious? Playful? Wry? Spooky? I don't know about other writers, but I'm finding that I have a specific default voice for each of those tones.

Well, that's great, right? Different tones means different voices.

Only in most cases the tone of a book should remain the same even when the voices change. And here's where I'm running into trouble. The tone of the new project is fun and lighthearted (which, by the way, is a huge departure from most of my other writing). I'm so very tempted to put both voices into my default for that tone.

But that's lazy. I have to concentrate on separating the two.

Will it work? We'll see. Personally I can tell the difference between them, but whether anyone else can remains to be seen.

How do you feel about voice and tone? Do they come naturally, or do you have to work on them?