Come FlyCon with Me

This weekend, I'm attending Flycon 2009, which is an international, round-the-clock sf/f convention, complete with panels, a dealers' room, and all that good stuff that happens at cons.

Friday at noon, which is Eastern time, I will serve on the panel, "When is Young Adult not really for Young Adults? Panel: sex and violence are standards now, what makes a young adult novel for kids? And what makes one really for adults?" with Jana Oliver, Tessa Gratton, and Jeri Smith-Reidy.

Tomorrow, you can drop in on our panel discussion by visiting Flycon's LiveJournal.  They will have links to our panel, as well as links to all of the other festivities. For a complete Flycon schedule, go here.

Wiki While You Work

Once upon a time, and for a very long time, I kept note cards around. When I got those sudden bolts of inspiration we all get, I would grab a note card and hastily jot down the new idea for a story, a character, a line of dialogue, etc. Then, being perpetually and grotesquely unorganized, I would promptly lose the card. Poof! Inspiration was gone into the ether.

My latest work in progress requires world-building, both metaphorical and physical. The story, even though it is set in the future, has an alternative history, which requires me to invent variant cultures, languages, religions, economies, and technologies. Whew. That's a ton of details to keep track of. Soul Enchilada was similar. I had to keep track of various myths, languages, cultures, and bureaucratic rules that governed The Abyss. Imagine how many note cards I lost with that one book. There had to be a better way for me.

You've heard of Wikipedia. You may have visited a time or two, and although it's not a good source for research because anyone can edit it, it excels at giving readers a platform for summarizing novels and describing the worlds built for the novels, such as the page for Speaker for the Dead,  which hyperlinks to all sorts of details large and small about the world the author created for the novel.

Screech!

Back it up a minute.

Wikipedia. Hmm. Easy to edit. Easy to access. Is there a way to create a private page on Wikipedia, safe from inquisitive eyes by still easy to edit. Yes, there is. Could an author use the wiki to create pages for world building to keep track of all those note cards? Yes, he or she can.

So I did. Or I am. As I work through the first draft of this novel, I've found that creating a wiki had been invaluable at keeping track of world building, but it has also allowed me to see my story unfold from a macro view, making it easier to spot structural problems and develop character arcs.

Interested in doing this yourself? Go to Wikipedia and create a user account. Your private space will be created for you. If you have your own server, you can install MediaWiki, the wiki software that drives Wikipedia, for free. Or you can use any other wiki program. If all goes well, who knows, maybe one day you can release the world you've created into this one.

Wonder Twins Micro Tour for Soul Enchilada

April 20-22, I will visit Holland, Michigan for a whirlwind tour cock full of talks, walks, and something else that rhymes with 'alk' but I can't think of at the moment. Caulk? Chalk? Anyway, if you're in the area, come on by. A detailed list of events will be posted closer to the date.

 

 

The First Star of Tejas

Kirkus has given Soul Enchilada a starred review (woot!):

"Broke-down pizza-delivery heroine Eunice “Bug” Smoot’s snake of a granddad sold his soul to the devil for a 1958 Cadillac Biarritz. When he flies the coop, Satan—aka Scratch—and his crony Beals (short for Beelzebub) chase Bug down for her soul faster than she can say “repo.” Before she knows it, Bug is trapped in a satanic smackdown to save herself, her friends and her Cadillac. Convoluted? Completely. Bizarre? Absolutely. Hilarious and accessible? Totally! Gill scores big in this action-packed, power-punch of a debut. His dialogue slam-dunks with sass and clever wit that eases the reader into the strange, interlocking chain of events that befall Bug in the first few chapters. His characters are fully realized, intelligent, believable and lovable. The odd, Paradise Lost–like plot probably carries the least appeal of all the elements, but the dialogue and characterizations gently push—or shove, actually—the reader’s suspension of disbelief over the edge. Seances! Hairspray! Basketball! Satan! All readers can do is buckle their seatbelts, close their eyes and take the plunge. (Fantasy. YA)"

Lake Effect Envy

Laurie Halse Anderson has been blogging about the lake effect snow falling on her home town in western New York. She's posted a photo of her doing her Lucy sampling the snowflakes imitation, which is an annual occurrence. 

Meanwhile, I sit here in relatively balmy coastal North Carolina where today's high was 64, according to the thermometer on my dash. It's been a decade since I've seen snow and eleven years since I lived through an Ohio winter that had so much white stuff, I got cabin fever. Every day, I pray that the weather stays warm so that the furnace won't run. We have a propane unit, and gas is running of $3.50 a gallon here. Cold weather equals burning money.

And yet, I envy Laurie and her snow (also an annual occurrence). The notion of hibernating in warm house, shut away from the world (except for internet service, of course) has so much appeal for me. It's the idyllic setting that draws me, the wish for a simpler life without career, errands, bills, obligations, paperwork, meetings, meetings, meetings. I don't like frigid temperatures, and I live near the beach, which is place that many others think fondly of this time of year as they trudge to their cars every morning to chip away ice and snow, start the engine to warm it up, and drive with mittens to keep from freezing their hands.

It's natural to wish for that which you don't have, but right now, if offered a snow for beach trade, I would take it. Wouldn't you?

Grinding Time Away. Plus Author Photo

Every unpublished novelist knows how slowly the wheels of publishing turn when you're waiting to hear about a submission. I surely was in that boat for years as I sent out submissions, and they boomeranged back after a few months. Now, as I wait for the wheels of the publishing machine to turn for my own book, I realize that waiting is part and parcel of this side of the industry, as well. Sigh. Patience is not one of my virtues.

One bit of good news: Harper has asked for an author photo for their catalog, which I'm guessing means that they really are going to publish SOUL ENCHILADA. We took the photo with the middle one's new camera, and I worked some PhotoShop magic to make myself look better--it wasn't easy, I tell you what. We'll see the results when the Winter '09 catalog comes out.

Chicken or Egg: The Answer

Teen #1: "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"
Mom: "The egg. Eggs were around a long time before the chicken."