Thanks to my webmaster duties for Lea Schizas and her publishing venture MuseItUp Publishing, I have the privilege of listening in on the conversations among editors and artists for the press. They’re an interesting group, and a lot of fun, but this time one of them, Karen McGrath, offered something so profound that I asked for permission to share it with the rest of you.

Whether your days of being edited professionally are still ahead of you, or you’re in the thick of it right now, I think all of us can benefit from considering the following stages a writer goes through:
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What I Am Reading

I finished Infamous by Suzanne Brockmann. She manages to bring everything together in the thriller plot, paranormal plot, and romance plot for a satisfying and fun read.

I’m reading On the Edge by Ilona Andrews, another wonderful urban fantasy offering from this writing husband and wife team. This one focuses a little more on the romantic aspects than the early ones in the Magic series, but at the same time, it’s not the sum total of the book. There are many levels to the story, all of which I’m enjoying.

Grammar

A good list of many (but not all) the times it is appropriate to use commas, with a focus on the problem of comma overuse:
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/commas.htm
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This week vanished too quickly, and I’ve had little time for research or reading on line. What this means is that the links are incredibly spare, but that also gives you the opportunity to read all of them rather than having to choose based on your own limited time .

What I Am Reading

I have finished Elizabeth Bear’s All the Windwracked Stars, and not surprisingly, I’m happy to discover there’s more in the series. That’s not to say she didn’t manage to pull this one off, because she absolutely did, but there’s more to be told in this world, and this place and time. I find it amazing to end the book with the feeling of more to come when it starts at the end of the world. Her talents as a storyteller continue to delight me.
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Welcome to Friday the 13th. Hope you’re all having a magical, rather than mundane, day.

What I Am Reading

Nearing the end of Elizabeth Bear’s All the Windwracked Stars, and so far it’s holding up well. I’m interested in seeing how she’s going to pull this all together in the end.

Just finished Public Affair, Secretly Expecting by Heidi Rice (part of a Harlequin reader reaction program I’m in). This one is from one of their “hotter” lines, which clearly plays a big part in the story, but at the same time, there’s a surprising complexity in the history of both main characters, affecting how Juno and Mac interact, and driving their interpretation of circumstances. I enjoyed this story a lot.

Life

Not sure where to place this one, but I wanted to share. It has suggestions for writing, for project management, and for a focus on success. Well worth the time to read this analysis of Pixar’s process:
http://www.copyblogger.com/pixar/
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The spell check really is your friend. No, your word processor doesn’t know how to spell everything, and it may suggest some bizarre alternatives, but again, it’s pointing out possible problems. Now here’s the trick. When you’re writing an otherworld piece, a fantasy, science fiction, or other variation, you can run into a lot of words that are not in the default business dictionary. However, all is not lost. Word (and most word processors) offers the option of custom dictionaries, text files that contain words you choose to put in there. This serves two purposes: you only have to verify the spelling once by adding it to the dictionary instead of using ignore. Second, when you’re done with your spell check, you can open the text file and compare the entries to make sure the main character isn’t Kitath in most instances but Kiteth whenever followed by an “‘s” for example. In my most recent copyedit, a minor character’s name changed spelling (an “i” to a “y”) in the last thirty pages. Without the custom dictionary, I might have missed the change since that character had been off-screen for some time before those thirty pages. It also provides a simple way of collecting the “unique” words if you choose to have a glossary for your work. All you need then is to define the terms.

To create a custom dictionary in Word 2003 (works with modifications for later versions of Word, and concepts should be similar for other word processors).
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What I Am Reading

Elizabeth Bear’s All the Windwracked Stars is proving to be a complex and rather fascinating read.

A Stroke of Dumb Luck By Shiloh Walker, on Tor.com, is a fun urban fantasy story that does an excellent job of establishing the world all the while maintaining tension:
http://www.tor.com/stories/2010/07/a-stroke-of-dumb-luck.
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What I Am Reading

I finished Demon Hunts by C.E. Murphy this week. It was everything I’ve come to expect of her writing and more. I’ll try to get my comments up next week.

I also finished the Irlen book. A lot to think about, but nothing that changed my mind about going forward with the lenses. If just having my monitor tinged green has helped my focus and online reading, how much more will having that ability all the time?

This has not been a heavy reading period for me because I’m writing a complex computer program that tends to grab what concentration I have, but I don’t last long without reading something .

Publishing

Tips on how to study the market for a manuscript:
http://chipmacgregor.typepad.com/main/2010/07/how-to-study-the-market.html
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If you haven’t read my summaries of the Muse Online Writers Conference, click the “Home” button at the top of this page and go look under appearances. It’s a wonderful conference that is now in its sixth(?) year where you have the opportunity to meet editors, authors, and publishers all online and all for free. Starting last year, the mastermined behind it all, Lea Schizas, also worked with various agencies and publishers to offer pitch sessions in chat, and therefore a written medium many authors find more relaxing…I know I did.
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Not as many links as I’d hoped to offer, but once again, I’m on the road (and this time not fast enough to post ahead of time. Still, there should be something of interest for pretty much everyone in the mix I’ve included. Enjoy.

What I Am Reading

While I’m still reading the Irlen book, I’ve also started Demon Hunts by C.E. Murphy. Not surprisingly, I’m enjoying this continuation of the Walker Papers, but what she’s done with this one is fascinating, because it offers old readers something new while grounding new readers in the world.

I also just finished listening to Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan, which I started listening to in Audio Book for all the way back in December of 2009. I don’t have much opportunity to listen to longer works because when I’m on a long drive, it is generally with someone else in the car who wouldn’t appreciate coming in on the middle of the book. On the other hand, it says a lot about the book that I was able to pick up right where I’d stopped with no loss of place or story.
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What I’m Reading

I am still reading a non-fiction book called Reading by the Colors by Helen Irlen (ISBN: 0-399-53156-4), but I haven’t had much reading time, in part because of the focus I’ve achieved with my first steps in Irlen Syndrome correction. I’ll soon be jumping back on the reading bandwagon.

And I forgot to mention I read Winters Passage by Julie Kagawa as well, a novella set in between two of her YA books I haven’t read. It was interesting the hints at the greater picture and what has happened along with the troubles still to come. I’m not planning to pick up her full-length books at this point because I’m not really the target audience, but if these characters continue to linger in my back brain, I may change that plan.

Publishing

A look at the various avenues open to selling short fiction:
http://kristadball.com/blog/?p=125
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