TRAVERSING Z

Marigolds

happy book day: long hidden

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So the big news is that Long Hidden is out now, like today! And you can buy it, and if you’re at Wiscon in two weeks’ time you can hear some of us read from our stories. There is a release party tomorrow in Brooklyn I believe, and there will be stuff at Readercon as well. I am still so very thrilled to be part of this project, and I am still (still!) awestruck at the rest of the TOC for this book.

This was me earlier this week:

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The sprawl being Los Angeles, the purpose being the day job, and that should give you some idea of how much writing I’ve been getting done lately. Of course, in the thick of all this, I had an idea for a novel—that is, I was tidying up my hard drive and found pieces of a book from about eight years ago that I had completely forgotten about, and at once I could see a way to finish it  . . . which, not incidentally, would entail rewriting the entire 100k thing from scratch. Trying now to write out a detailed outline while the solution is fresh in my head without actually working on the book, because I know this, I know all about this, it’s the worst of my bad writer habits and even now it’s whispering in my ear: why work on that difficult bit of Talassio when you can start this whole other shiny unsullied book? 

And then six months will go by and I’ll have two mostly-done but not actually finished novels, and I’ll have lost all the threads of Talassio in the process.

(This habit, incidentally, is how I have twenty-odd separate word docs all containing tiny pieces of that eight-year-old novel, and dead-end scenes of the trilogy dumped in various “novel bits” folders, and who knows how many other drafts of things that are about two–five pages long and never actually go anywhere . . .)

 

february

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Before this rewrite, the first part of Talassio was about 33k.  I had thought perhaps to try and trim it; instead I upped the stakes (at least, I’m hoping I’ve upped the stakes).  There is a lot that needs to be communicated, unfortunately: there are two main plot threads kicking off, and more than one character whose motivations need to be delineated.  Add in just enough worldbuilding for the reader to understand the framework, plus my own love of pretty wordcraft, and, well, you’ve got a lot of material to get through.

All that being said, I am now around the 25k mark? in terms of reshaped scenes, and by my reckoning I have about three more to go before we can, once again, transition to Venice.  So it’ll probably be right back around 33k, only with more fisticuffs and running across rooftops.

And while I am working on fiddling all the bits in Parts 2 & 3 that might be affected by the rewrite, I will send Part 1 out for a spin ’round the beta readers . . . and, sadly, try to do some focused research to backfill in a few London details . . . and when all that fixing and cleanup is done, we might be back in the neighborhood of submissions again.

Which is to say, I really don’t know how folks can pound out edited, polished, pub-ready 100k novels in a year.  At this point I’ll be happy if I get the damn thing done before retirement.

IN OTHER NEWS, both Goodreads and LibraryThing are giving away ARCs of Long Hidden.  You can enter the draws here:

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/80039-long-hidden-speculative-fiction-from-the-margins-of-history

http://www.librarything.com/er/list#14673007

AND, I’m starting to hear whispers about an upcoming Fae announcement.  It’s shaping up to be an exciting spring!

and then it came.

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my story, “marigolds,” has been accepted to crossed genres’ long hidden anthology.

i am over the moon.

this one means a lot to me; it has, in some form or another, ruled much of this year, short fiction-wise.

i first saw the call for submissions way, way back in march.  and i was instantly, completely inspired, and i wrote a story called “julie,” totally pouring my heart into it.  i workshopped it and revised it and revised it again, i polished it until it shone . . .

and it was too long.

by about fourteen hundred words.

i tried everything i could.  back on this blog there is talk of a julie 1.2, a 2nd version; it still didn’t hit the word count, and it was a sad, hollow version of its former glory.  as much as i tried to like it, to push forward with it, i knew in my heart that the Story was julie 1, and that was that, and there was nothing more to say.

so i let this submission call go.

the deadline was july 31st.  and wouldn’t you know it, right at the end of july i had another idea.  but it was literally days before the deadline, i know how long it takes me to write anything; a long story, with bibliography? not possible for me, i wasn’t about to make myself crazy.

and, hand on heart, just at that moment i got a notice that the deadline had been extended a month.

it was a Sign.

i outlined “marigolds”, i wrote it, i revised it and polished it.  there was no time to workshop.  so this is a few milestones, all in one: a (long) short story in less than 6 weeks; a short story that i edited myself, no outside input (and lol we’ll see what revisions i get, i am game and ready and Yes Please); and my very first pro-rate sale.

i danced when i got the email, but it was a bit of a wild dance, a bit crazed.  i might have shed a few tears.  all these years at it, off and on, wading through doubt and fear and time and a thousand million reasons to NOT.

and then i wrote blathery slobbery tweets and emails full of AHHH teary thanks and professions of humility, because fuck me, to be in this anthology? it is an honor and a privilege that i do not want to ever, ever take for granted.

you can read about the anthology here.  i’ve seen a few people here and there say they’ve been accepted and the way the TOC is shaping up? oh my goodness humbling is the word of the evening.

and oh, i suspect some of this crazed rambling will make me blush tomorrow, but i will not delete a word.  claire and isabella deserve no less.