Tales from the Raven

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Chrysalis vs. Cocoon

Published by Suanne June 27th, 2008 in Writing and Home in the Rookery. 0 Comments

I was reading my daughter a slightly insipid but still enjoyable bedtime story–and, no, that’s not how I described it to her–when she interrupted.

‘Wait–that caterpillar said it’s going to make a cocoon, but that would mean it had to become a moth. So why does it say it will be a butterfly?’

I had to laugh, but what’s worse is her comment seemed to kick me over into edit mode and I noticed several typos after that. Still, for a book with a cover price of two dollars back when I bought it, I suppose I shouldn’t complain.

But I did check to see if the six-year old was right, and it looks like she was. Maybe I should hire her out as a copy editor? Or better yet, train her as mine.

Infinity Version Three

Published by Suanne June 25th, 2008 in Writing and Rumblings. 0 Comments

I’m cutting, expanding, editing and re-working three stories right now. All are being prepped for specific markets and have already been through a thousand and one edits, or so it feels.

And let me just say, keeping track of the versions can be a royal pain.

It should be simple. Version 1, 2, 3, etc. ad inifinity.

But it’s not. First off, when I send a story to a new place, I generally save it with that pubs name in the title, such as:

The Greatest Story.Pro Magazine.rtf

Or some such. This helps me keep track of what formating I’ve used, since many magazines have different specs, and avoids my accidentally sending the story off with the wrong title or cover letter. However, when it comes to re-writing, that can make it a pain because I may have cut one version of the story down, not because I thought it was better that way, but just because it needed to hit a lower word count. Incidentally, I probably tweaked here and there and might have made other improvements to the story while I had it open.

Of course, that means that when it comes time to send it to market C, I have to try and mesh the different versions that were sent to A and B, without losing any of my precious edits. Add in the critiques of friends, both online and scribbled on hard copy, the use of online submission forms, or, worse, different versions being saved on different computers based on whether that computer has Wordperfect or Microsoft Word, and the whole thing can wind up a real mess.

>Rolls Eyes<

And I’m generally a very organized person, and keep careful track of all the specs on my stories. I pity the poor writer who gets half way through the process before realizing they should have been using an organizational system from the start.

Linked Up

Published by Suanne June 24th, 2008 in Writing and Speculative Science. 0 Comments

See if you can find the common thread:

More of the big guys still undiscovered in the ocean, but little chance of the Loch Ness turning up, or so they say.

A report on ten new species, though a little long on propaganda and a little short on information about the individual species. Eight and four are my favorites.

And this one on Scottish folklore.

So what’s the connection? If you followed the links you might be noticing that there’s something of an A=B, B=C, so A=C thing going on with the link being newly discovered species and the Loch Ness monster.

Well, nice try.

The connection is world building, of course! Specifically, a world were the inhabitants of the ocean have just as much ecological, sociological and cultural significance as those found on land. The world will probably also incorporate my Mer, Meru peoples, of which Keela’s story is a part. ‘Twil be fun.

Protesting the Grade

Published by Suanne June 21st, 2008 in Home in the Rookery. 0 Comments

Have you ever wondered if your prof has been sitting around dusty tomes in moldy rooms for one year too many? I had an incident like that this week.

I won’t go into particulars, but as a part of the senior project I recently turned in I was supposed to write a paper on the process of researching a historic topic. Okay, a little odd, but nothing I couldn’t whip up. Just to be on the safe side I made sure I’d correctly interpreted the guideline/instructions by running what I planned past my prof. As usual, I made sure the copy was clean and I’d checked off each criteria, then sent it in.

Imagine my surprise, then, when the prof writes back to say that he was disappointed in my work, felt I’d blown off the guidelines, and that he was generous in giving me a C grade.

What?!

I wrote him a chilly reply in which I quoted the emphasis requirements, and also cut and paste his own email into mine. I pointed out that if I had misread the instructions, then there was a serious confusion in their writing, and he and the school should get that cleared up.

Then I took a deep breath, or maybe two, rewrote the tone of the email so it was polite, and sent it.

Yesterday I got his reply. He apologized, and admitted that he took home my assignment with a bundle of others. They were also senior projects, but of a different major so they had different requirements, but he graded mine along with theirs by their criteria. He apologized again and promised to change the grade.

I just checked, and he’s done that. I now have a 100% on that portion of the assignment, and a high A overall. The question is, did he over-grade me when he changed it, and over compensate for his mistake? While I know I didn’t turn in a C paper, I doubt it was flawless, either.

Perhaps I should send him an email and protest.

WorldCon and Submissions

Published by Suanne June 18th, 2008 in Writing and Newsy Bits About Writing and Writers. 0 Comments

I have my WorldCon schedule–and let me just say, it is sooo awesome to have a WorldCon schedule!

I’m on a panel Saturday at 2:30 (or 14:30) with the working title of ‘Getting to the top: Mountains in Fact and Fiction’. Should be fun.

I’ll also be hanging out at the Hadley Rille Books Ruins signing, assuming such a thing occurs. I’m looking forward to meeting the other contributers, and of course, the signing itself will be cool.

That’s it–the rest the time I’ll be wishing I had an alternate self so I could better see friends and still attend every panel or event sheduled!

My thanks to the con staff and web guru who’ve already helped us reserve our suite and generally straighten out any tangles. They’ve got a monstrously complicated challenge in putting on a con like this, and they’re coming through swimmingly.

In other news, I recently cleaned up and sent back out a bunch of stories that have been lying around feeling neglected. I spent the most time on Embers of Honor, once known as Shards of Honor, then posted it to Baen’s Universe Slush. Of course I’d be delighted to get an introducing spot, but either way the comments and critiques will be helpful.

Finished! Rifinito! Fertig! Geëindigd!

Published by Suanne June 14th, 2008 in Home in the Rookery. 5 Comments

I am done with my degree.

Done.

All done.

A few facts about the monster I’ve just slain:

I’ve sought five or six majors over the years, and ended up with the one I ranked most boring when I started. As you can imagine, this means I’m weighing in a little heavy on the credits count–in these last two semesters alone I finished 37 credits, all with strong grades.

After sixteen years of classes and attendance at three colleges or universities, (one of them twice) the numbers indicate I should have recieved aproximately–

One Bachelors Degree

One Masters Degree

Two Doctorate degrees

But hey, who’s counting? I like to keep things spruce and efficient. When I walk in August I’ll have one tidy BGS to my name, without even a minor.

I have learned a few things, though. Discovering the math conspiracy ranks high on the list, but how to write for six hours straight–long hand–would be up there, too. Discovering I can do quantificational logical proofs was pretty cool. Learning to juggle my flash cards while dicing veggies, soothing my daughter at the dentist, or driving myself to my exams is at least a $5.00 trick. I’ve found a love of history that not even professors can kill, and I got to take a really cool class devoted to the study of The Lord of the Rings.

But after all that schooling, I still can’t spell. Didn’t you see my multiple attempts to get finniiished! right?

TGIF the 13th

Published by Suanne June 13th, 2008 in Home in the Rookery. 0 Comments

Otherwise I might think I was jinxed or something. The exam I took today should have been relatively easy, as I’ve been prepping for over a week, and I should have had it wrapped up in less than one and a half hours. Instead, it was a bruiser, definately in the top two hardest tests I’ve ever taken, and I spent three and a half hours on it.

Happy Friday the 13th. Hope you’re wearing your lucky socks and have your lucky penny in your pocket.

Random Reading Notes

Published by Suanne June 11th, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

I’ve been doing a bit of reading lately while attempting to ignore my last looming final. Given that the final is in quantificational logic and involves proofs so long they really shouldn’t be allowed out without a license, I think my occasional dodge into a closet is understandable…but I digress.

I’m not going to review the books individually. Firstly, because that would keep me from logic even longer (and therein risk breaking my heart), but also because I’m more interested in general notes, rather than specifics for each book.

General notes such as:

***Warning! This is going to be really boring!***

If you’re going to tell a story inside a story, don’t touch on something unpleasant or distasteful to the reader (like a child being sexually molested, or a woman being tortured) just before you also switch from one story to the other. The double distancing of unpleasant reading coupled with story disconnect could mean the reader walks away and never comes back.

If you’re going to write a sequel, or ’story after’, outline it in such a way that the story can get rolling without the reader constantly hearing people fill in backstory. A sequel needs to be a story in its own right, with a compelling read keeping the reader hooked from the beginning.

Unless you plan a dystopian novel of doom and gloom (and maybe even if you do), don’t cut you character out of all hope. If you’ve set the story up so that nothing good can possibly happen to this character or in this story without the story feeling false, it’s difficult to see why the reader should care enough to keep reading. You, the author, may know that a clever contortion will soon set things to rights, but if the reader can’t see even a glimmer through the tornado clouds you’ve got looming, and worse, if you’ve developed the kind of character that would spit in the face of any sunshine that comes his way, it’s hard for the reader to see how the ending can be anything but bitter.

Vary the pitch and fervor of your story. Even a mad raving massacrer has to catch his breath sometimes. I love action packed stories as much as the next guy, but give the reader a sense of progress and a chance to wind back up for the next big punch by varying the tempo a bit.

Start strong, with a grabber begining, but make sure the ending is a knock out too. I know this is commonly said, but one or two of the novels I’ve read recently (esp. those which had a sequel coming) seemed to fizzle at the end instead of go out with a bang. I’m sure it’s difficult to wrap up a to-be-continued story, but if you want the reader to pick up the second book, give them something for their trouble before closing out the first.

Okay, that’s it. Think of them as my working notes, or my lecture to myself. Then again, maybe the whole thing was just an excuse for a post.

Rejection Flowers

Published by Suanne June 5th, 2008 in Writing and Home in the Rookery. 2 Comments

When a significant rejection letter comes in, people sometimes give themselves a consolation prize. A chocolate treat, maybe a book. I have a friend who buys shoes.

When your house isn’t selling, you buy flowers.

In fact, I’m beginning to see a direct corrolation between the seller’s level of concern, ranging from mild to manic, and how many new plantings they’ve got outside their house.

I’m not sure where we fall on the scale. The house has garnered a comfortable amount of interest from buyers, and we have no pressing reasons it’s gotta go right now…on the other hand, if I drop in too many more flowers out front, I’ll have to start rearanging what’s already out there.

Perhaps I’d best leave well enough alone and get back to my rejection letters.

Chocolate, anyone?

Summing It All Up

Published by Suanne May 27th, 2008 in Uncategorized. 6 Comments

What would you title your memoirs? Assuming, of course, you had the audacity to write them, and the ego to think they’d be read. I’ve been tagged by Greg, over on Hasty Ruminations. The game is that you come up with a six word title to your could-be memoir, and then tag someone else, preferably five someone elses.

My title? ‘When One Name Is Not Enough’. And yes, I’m keeping my tongue firmly in my cheek.

And I tag…

Aliette de Bodard

Pat Esden

Jim Hines

All individuals whom I don’t think will be annoyed that I’ve tagged them, and I’m curious as to how they’d present their published face in a memoir.

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