I didn’t write a ton in 2017, mostly because I was busy revising a project, revising it again, and then creating auxiliary resources (like a series synopsis) for submission. Once that all got handed over, my job as a writer became: WAITING. For the first time in two years I was without a project to hold my attention, and it was a feeling that was both liberating and stupefying. What was I going to work on next? I’ve avoided asking myself this for ages, for two reasons.
fantasy
Plotting new things in 2017
For a while I avoided considering writing another book because it seemed like an act of defeat. It felt this way because my first book was this big, messy thing that lived in pieces upon my desktop, and I hadn’t really sent it around to agents, and it wasn’t published. For that reason alone, the idea of starting a new book felt like giving up on the old one.
April is LGBT Month! #LGBTApril
Laura (of Laura Plus Books) and Cayce (of Fighting Dreamer) are doing this great thing called LGBT Month this April (#LGBTApril), and I’m participating!
I mean, I guess I’m always participating, because every month is LGBT Month for me, but it’s more fun to do these sort of things when people are making cute banners for you, and when you’ve got a tribe bristling with restless inspiration and do-good vibes.
The Importance of Gay Heroes That Don’t Die
There are many tropes. Busty, blonde damsels. Brittle, brunette mistresses. Feisty, red-headed warriors. Alternatively: White-Male-Hero-With-Somnolent-Eyes-Yet-Aerodynamic-Cheek-Bones vs. Anything. Or the ever-plotless vengeance against a villain with no real motivation for villainy save an inscrutable need to inconvenience Our Hero. We know these tropes well. They’re practically family. If one came to your door and asked to come in, you might check for a judicious nod from your mother, but you’d open that door.
Useless Magic
So a while ago I was brainstorming useless magic powers with a friend (this has since turned into a discussion topic between multiple friends of mine, a trend of which is as simultaneously enchanting as it is distressing). I thought I’d make a list of my favorites here, you know, because I’m compulsive and delusional and think this will add value to the internet. Feel free to leave a suggestion or six!
Book Review: Proxy by Alex London
Alex London’s Proxy is probably one of the coolest concepts I’ve encountered in a while. I feel like most dystopian societies resemble one another in their foundation of a oppressive system, but rarely am I as captivated by a dystopia as I was with Proxy. Reading this book was an act of investigation, not only because I wanted to find out what happened next but because the world of Proxy is created with such vivid detail, and with such sound world-building, that it feels nearly tactile. There are some coercive plot devices that make the book feel a tad unstable, and sure, I wasn’t really swayed by either the romance or the twists, but these are easy to overlook when the rest of Proxy was so good.
Beta Reading 2
Two updates!
Beta Reading
Sometime last month I sent a preliminary draft of KMDC to a writer friend who has literally witnessed this project from the very beginning. And about a week ago I sent off the beta draft of KMDC to a few trusted ladies up in Boston. My parents currently have copies loaded on their kindles, and, to complete my Arsenal of Critique, I’ve enlisted another novelist in a trade of manuscripts. (the lovely J.M. Johnson, who you should follow on Twitter. Also, check our her blog).
Here at the Bottom
When I write, I generally keep a scene outline at the bottom of my document. As I figure things out and make edits, this outline tends to accumulate into a chapter outline, then a section outline, then eventually a book outline. It looms beneath my cursor like some sort of stupid, static dirigible, feeding me hints as I encroach on its content, and bumping itself down obediently as I progress.
Chocolate Therapy
So a few nights ago I was working at the ice cream shop. A grandmother brought in her two little girls, and the older one ordered the flavor called Chocolate Therapy. Seeing this, the younger one also ordered Chocolate Therapy, to which the grandmother (who had the best, bright red blow-out since David Bowie), gasped and said, “Why, I didn’t know you were a chocolate therapy girl!” The little sister seemed to read a pejorative meaning into the exclamation (shame on you grandma!) and so, thinking I’d be helping, I whispered huskily over the counter, “I, too, am a chocolate therapy girl.”