Posts made in July, 2012

• And They Say You Can’t Come Home Again

  Introductions

  Hi, everyone! I’m Courtney Schafer, author of adventure fantasy novels The Whitefire Crossing (Aug 2011) and forthcoming sequel The Tainted City (Oct 2, 2012). I was the original organizer and admin for the Night Bazaar in 2011, and wow…it’s both weird and wonderful to be back.

  Weird, because as I sit typing this on a Sunday evening with my favorite gothic/industrial Pandora station serenading me as I write – just as I did every Sunday night in 2011! – I keep flashing back to that rollercoaster of a year.  In which I veered between giddy delight at seeing my debut novel hit the shelves, and stark terror that I’d never be able to finish my second novel in time for my deadline – or that if I did, nobody would like it but me.  Jury’s still out on that second fear, but thank God, I no longer have to worry about my deadline.  As of this past week, The Tainted City is heading to press, on schedule for its Oct 2 release. (Cue more giddy delight!  I’m so excited about this book, you guys.)

  And it’s wonderful to be back in the Bazaar, because I’m so thrilled the blog’s still here and going strong (thanks to Night Shade and the inestimable Liz Upson).  I’ve loved getting to read a whole new chorus of voices over the past months, and I’m honored to be back to add mine in for a second round.

  So, who am I? (more…)

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• Requiescat In Pace

  Balance

  John D. MacDonald’s protagonist, Travis McGee, was a private eye of the 60′s and 70′s (and even into the 80′s, a little) who lived on a houseboat in Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  The titles all had colors in them, like:

  

  McGee was unique in a lot of ways, but one of my favorites was his perspective on his lifestyle.  He would describe it something like this: “I’m taking my retirement in chunks instead of at the end of my career.”

  Of course, when your life consists (as McGee’s does, when not working) of cruising around on a houseboat with bikini’d ladies, drinking Plymouth gin and having fascinating conversation about any number of topics, I suspect most people would rather do that throughout their lives than wait until the end.  That’s my perspective on taking time off from writing: chunks are better than whole days. (more…)

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• To Sin or Not To Sin, That Is the Eternal Question

  Balance
  

  G.J. Koch

  I’m a full time author, meaning I’m a full time believer in doing something in my career every day, which includes writing every day.

  But some days…I don’t.

  Most of those days involve being at conferences, dealing with the business side of the writing business, interacting with fans, promotion, and so on. Those aren’t “off” days. Those are days when the hours are filled with work that ensures the writing career continues, because, yes, if you don’t do the business side, it’s hard to keep getting your books onto the shelves and into the hands of readers.

  However, I still try to get writing in, as much as possible, every day, even if it’s only 100 words (I’m a proud member of Club 100 for which I give a great deal of credit for my becoming focused enough to now have to do all the business side of the writing business).

  Recently, though, I’ve heard a voice in my head. Oh, don’t get me wrong — I hear voices in my head all the time. I mean, I’m an author. Of course I hear voices, and lots of them. Constant, whining voices, demanding that their stories be told, and first, and hurry it up, will you?
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• “Why Ask? So That You Ask Yourself”

  Balance
  

  Carol Wolf and Tay, having finished digging the pond, will now build a garden.

  I’d like to thank Night Shade and the Night Bazaar for the opportunity to think about some ideas I wouldn’t otherwise have tackled. It’s always interesting to go down a new road. You never know where you might find yourself.

  Writing a story, for me, is like walking a trackless wasteland, barren from horizon to horizon, and finding a bump in the sand. Hm. You uncover the sand and find a perfectly round cement stone. Hm. You dig down a bit, and find it’s attached to a filament. You get your shovel and get to work and reveal a whole little circular building, with filigreed windows, with the ball on top as a decoration. You dig down with a will and reveal that you are standing at the top of a tower buried by the sand. You uncover the steps, which leads to a road, which is lined by buildings. Each construction is beautifully designed, its purpose obvious from its architecture; the palace, the bath house, the gardens, the mansions, the shops, the public square, the temple, the smaller temple across the street with the mosaic of desperate petitioners . . .

  All of this is implicit, from the first discovery of the stone in the sand. That is the initial idea. If you pick it up and walk off with it, you never find the city hidden below, with all its infinite possibilities.

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• Stay away from the shiny things

  Balance

  Along the tortuous path of writing a novel, there will be many, many things to tempt you away. Some of them will be shiny (the sun! The cinema! The pictures of cats on the Internet!) and some of them will be less shiny (staring out of the window. Writing grocery lists. Pairing up socks. Things that are utterly unappealing until you’ve got 100,000 words to produce and a blank screen, when suddenly, illogically, any viable distraction is screaming “Pick me! Pick me!”). Giving your mind a break is important – and I definitely believe that finding a bit of time where you don’t think at all can do you the world of good – but it’s also important to distinguish between resting and procrastination.

  Because there will be days when you’re bored. There will be days when you hate your characters – who made them up, anyway? Why do they have to be so bloody difficult? And why are you stuck with this impossible story, why can’t you go off and write that space opera or, you know, something fun like Panda Face: The Harrowing? These are the days when a trip to Tesco sounds like a holiday destination.

  But if you’re going to hit that word count, and if it’s going to be something you’re happy with, you have to write as much as you can fit in, wherever you can fit it in around work, loved ones, and the things you do to keep you sane. (more…)

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• Sleeping on the job IS my job

  Balance
  

  Paul Tobin

  This week’s topic is about taking a day of rest from writing, and whether it’s a necessary part of writing or a horrible and wretched sin.

  Right up front, let me say that there is only one absolute sin when it comes to writing a novel. Not getting it done. That’s it. Beyond anything else, you must finish the first draft, and the first revision, and all subsequent revisions. However you go about it is up to you, but you must have that moment when you look at the file on the computer, or you look at the stack of papers, and you say, “Done.” There is no sin beyond not working for and having that moment. Anything else is just how you play the game.

  One of the questions that I get asked a lot is, “How do you do it?” It’s a fair question, and some people are actually asking exactly what it sounds like, but a far larger amount of people are actually trying to ask, “How can I do it?” And that’s an entirely different question. It’s also one I can’t possibly answer. Every person is unique, and every writer is even MORE unique, and a system of writing that works wonderfully for one person might actually kill another writer’s career, or even passion to write.

  So, when talking about taking a day of rest, I can only answer what works for me, and that is that I simply don’t do it. I write every day I exist. I can’t help it. I don’t want to help it. I’ve applied to no support groups. What does work for me is an occasional nap during the work day… a time where I sprawl out and read and then nod off for a half hour or so. Some authors would be horrified at the thought of losing an hour or two in the middle of the day, but for me it extends the day and refreshes my mind. Those horrified writers can toddle off with their own writing methodologies, and for those who do like to take naps in the middle of the day, I can only say that my bed is reserved between 4:00 and 5:30, so unless you’re very pretty and either have a permission slip from my wife or a reasonably decent forgery, you’ll have to go elsewhere.

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• “Buy Me A Drink, Sailor?”–The Cover Come-On

  Cover Art

  The Mystery Writers of America (a fine organization) occasionally holds panel discussions for its members on a variety of topics involving writing and publishing.  One of these discussions a few years back described the production of a book; the creation and marketing of the physical object.  On the panel were people from different publishing houses, each from a department that addressed some aspect of the process.  When they got to the people who did covers, there was much talk about how a cover is designed.  We in the audience heard from marketing, who talked about the need for bright colors and sexy images (“Hey, sailor, buy me a drink?”), and editorial, who spoke about the need to propose an idea that would grab people’s attention.  Someone mentioned the necessity of a good title.  Everyone on the panel had some input on the topic,and they all seemed to agree about the needs a cover should address.

  What they didn’t do was address the author’s perspective. 

  So I raised my hand. (more…)

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• Dazzling and Provocative: Pick Up This Book!

  Cover Art
  

  Carol Wolf and Tay, whose IMdB credits include Best Boy (Valley of Fear), Actor (Far From the Sea), and drummer in a punk band.

  I suppose the way things are going, in years to come when you pick up a book in a bookstore, a holographic menu will appear, offering you illustrations, or even illustrative animations, best-bits excerpts read aloud only to you, reviews, interviews with the author, maybe even interviews with the characters, “So, how do you like being in this story?” “Well, I think I’d like it much better if I wasn’t killed in Chapter One.” “What? You’re not the hero? I thought I was interviewing the hero!” “Of course I’m the hero! It’s not my fault if the author wrote the wrong book!”

  This would sound more fantastical if most of it wasn’t already happening, when you shop for books on line. Synopses, reviews, plugs, interviews, discussions and previews can all be seen linked to the book. (Shameless plug: For anyone who missed it, check out the preview for my novel, Summoning!) Meanwhile, in the bookstore, like a fisherman trailing a single line, just the cover art alone must serve to hook the fish.

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• Not just a pretty cover

  Cover Art

  Books are visceral things. If you’re browsing in a store, or online for that matter, the first thing that catches your attention is going to be the cover. As a writer, this is your book’s chance to make an impression, and you want it to be the right one. The question is: what is the right impression? Your vision of the book is by no means going to be the way everyone else sees it, or indeed how the publisher chooses to market it. Readers will have strong ideas about the way a character or place looks, regardless of how detailed the writer’s description; think of the upset generated by the casting of film adaptations. Personally, I don’t like the reissues of books with a cover image from the film adaptation, and always choose to buy a neutral edition instead. But I don’t mind drawings or illustrations of characters in the same way – perhaps because an illustration seems less concrete, and more of an interpretation, than a photographical portrait.

  

  Cover for OSIRIS - I was dead chuffed with this.

  When I first told people that OSIRIS was going to be published, one of the most common responses was: I wonder what the cover’s going to be. Speculation was particularly avid amongst the House of Swift, where we have long discussed the potential covers of my potential books (my dad having worked in animation and graphic design, we’re an opinionated bunch about such matters). The other question I got a lot was: Will you get to choose the cover? Doubtless for highly successful authors, there must be an element of control, but as a debut novelist, you can only hope it comes close to what you imagine. And actually I feel really lucky with the cover of OSIRIS. When I was sent the artwork my first thought was, wow, someone has come up with that vision from something I wrote… it was a very exciting moment. I thought that the artwork captured both the scale of the city and its claustrophobic atmosphere. But my mum, for example, was convinced it was going to be a blue-toned design, and seemed more surprised by the choice of yellow than anything else. (more…)

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• I Got It Covered

  Cover Art
  

  (not) Paul Tobin

  One of the things that constantly amazes me about the book publishing world is how little control over the cover that most authors have. As a naive youth, I pictured authors strolling into art studios, looking over cover designs with a critical eye, cuffing artists on the back of the head in justified displeasure, then sketching out a few quick designs which the artists would fawn over, gathering around like koi when crumbs are spilled into a stream, and then running off to their drawing boards to do as they were told.

  Oh no. Not at all.

  In reality, it’s more along the lines of a marketer telling an artist what to do, and then the artist doing up the art, and then a designer honing it according to several unassailable principles, and then getting the publisher to okay it. There! Done! Around about this point, there’s generally a moment when a marketing intern, new to her craft, asks, “What did the writer think of it?” At that moment the marketer says, “Oh, yeah… I suppose we could email him a jpeg to let him know how it’s going to look.” They do so, and then everyone returns to their cocktails. Most writers aren’t very much a part of the process at all.

  This, of course, makes it very difficult to judge a book by its cover. Horribly horribly hard.

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