Guest Post!

I was lucky enough to win a guest post at Cupid's Literary Connection, and Cupid not only posted it, but very nicely raved about it (thanks, Cupid!).

You can find the post here.

And Suddenly - October

Yikes! When did October happen? It's school holidays here in Western Australia, so I've been plugging away at my new book, NaNo-style. I'm writing 6,000 words a day in the hopes I'll finish it before I have to go back to work and spend weekdays with little munchkins.

My latest project isn't my best work in terms of "homg this is literary genius let's put it in a museum and study it in English classrooms for all time." More, it's my best work in terms of "homg this book is so much fun I can tell the author loved writing every word and I can't stop laughing because these characters are AWESOME."

I was aiming for the first version with all my other manuscripts. Tell you a secret: I prefer the second way. Maybe it'll flop, and no agent will touch it lest they catch my crazy. Or, hey, maybe people will think my crazy is Pure. Genuis. (Shut up, I can dream.) Regardless, I'm still having more fun writing than I have in a very long time.

Pitch Friday!

Got a finished (unpublished) manuscript?

Well, this is for you! Australian publisher Twelfth Planet Press is having a Pitch Anything Friday for TODAY ONLY. It's open internationally - all you have to do is tweet your pitch and use the hashtag #12thPlanetPressPitch. It can be for any genre, any style. Fiction, nonfiction, art, craft, promotion, anything!

If you missed the window but still want to find out how to submit to Twelfth Planet Press, check the website.

And if you need help pitching using less than 140 characters, I did a post on how to do that here.

Good luck!

(Yet Another) Change to the Process

A few posts back I raved about how well plotting worked for me. I got the story written quickly, it was an adequate length, and there were few revisions needed. With such a successful experience, I figured plotting would be my best bet for my newest story. So last week I sat down and started brainstorming. I wrote copious notes for about five pages.

I didn't write anything else for six days. Not a word.

Yesterday, I'd had enough. I didn't know the minor details about my world yet. I didn't know much about the plot. I didn't have essays on my main characters (although I know a fair bit about where my minor characters come from). Despite all this, I opened up a Word document (I know, not even Scrivener!), and started writing.

I wrote a chapter. Four(ish) pages. Maybe not a huge amount, but it was a start, and it was darn better than how I was doing before.

So why didn't plotting work for me this time?

I thought about it, and the best answer I can give is this: Last WiP, it wasn't really a first draft. It was a rewrite. I wanted to take out the magical elements (which were essential to the plot in the original), and emphasise what had been the secondary plot.

And that made all the difference. Because I had a basic plot already written out. I had the setting, and the characters. Technically, that original story WAS my plotting.

I don't know much about this new story. At ALL. But maybe if I think of my first draft as my plotting, work out world-building and character development as I go, and write it relatively quickly, I can do up a proper plotting sheet and then open up Scrivener to do it properly.

I can't believe it's taken me so long to figure out that this is my process.

How about you? Have you worked out a process, or does it change for each book? Do you have another way of besides just "plotting" or "pantsing"?

Nightfall

This is another post for my book reviews for writers. I break down the main plot and character components of a novel and discuss what writers can take away from it.

There are a few minor spoilers in this post. Read at your own risk!

PREMISE

Someone suggested I pick this book up because it was vaguely similar to my own manuscript, and I'm so glad I did! I hadn't read Asimov before - in fact, I haven't read much science fiction at all - so I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

Here's the basic premise, for those of you who have been living in the dark (haha) like me: In a world where there are six suns and constant daylight, an approaching Darkness threatens to send the entire population into madness.

Nice, huh? And the first half was brilliant. The entire lead-up to the Darkness was mesmerising. The astrophysics and mathematics behind it was awe-inspiring (for a layman like me, anyway). There were multiple points of view, and all characters ended up being linked by midpoint.

Lesson: A good, different, interesting premise will have people picking up a book in a genre they normally wouldn't read.

Drastically-Altered Midpoint

Erm. This is where the book sort of... fell into a heap. Please remember this is only my opinion, and if anyone who's read it would like to dispute my thoughts in the comments, by all means do so! I'd love to hear a convincing argument for the second half of the book.

Because the second half is where this story (in my opinion) flops. The lead-up was magnificent. Then from the midpoint it seemed to go downhill, and not in a good, thrilling, hang-onto-your-seat-so-you-don't-fall-out-the-side sort of way. The Darkness happens. People go mad. Anarchy. Chaos. Bedlam.

...

Boredom?

The characters just seemed to wander around and not do much. They had a vague goal, and that was it. I think it's fair to say the main goal was "to survive", and if you've ever had to write a character's motivation before, that's not something you want to say. This wasn't the tense, pillow-grip-worthy HUNGER GAMES survive either, this was just wander-in-the-forest-and-don't-get-murdered-by-crazies survive. I actually started skimming. And then just when it started getting interesting again, the book stopped. Finished. The end. Whaaa?

Lesson: If you're going to have a major change in the middle of your book (which isn't bad - I've done it in one of my WiPs), be careful to give your characters goals and motivations. They'll probably be different to the goals and motivations from the first half of your book, but they still need to be there. Just because there's madness and chaos doesn't mean you don't need to stick to those writing rules that will keep your reader interested.

WriteOnCon!

That's right, the biggest, best FREE writer's conference is on again! And the Ninja Agents start making their appearances THIS MONDAY.

*squishy-hugs conference*

Last year I tried my luck with PRINCE OF CITY NIGHTS and won a few pitch contests but it didn't eventuate into anything. This year I'm going in with my freshly-polished sci fi TWELVE MINUTES OF MIDNIGHT.

If you wanna see what I've been working on (and help stop my query getting lost in the forums while the agents are snooping), please check it out and post a comment/suggestion/crit on my page. It'd be much appreciated! (You have to sign up to see the forums, but it doesn't cost anything. Plus, you can see all the awesome crits on my work already! :D)

Here's my QUERY.

Here's my FIRST 250 WORDS.

Here's my FIRST FIVE PAGES.

I'm not going to get any sleep for the next few days zzzzzzz

PS If you're looking for an agent and haven't signed up for WriteOnCon... WHY? GO DO IT NOW!

How to Answer That Dreaded Question

Look, I'm a writer. Writing is ingrained into my soul. I'm not happy if I'm not writing. I always have one foot in reality and the other in my imaginary world. I'm sure most of you feel the same.

So naturally when I meet someone at a party or social gathering, who I am comes up in conversation. "Oh, I'm a writer," I'll say.

And then it happens. Every. Single. Time. That dreaded question. "Have you had anything published?"

Being a writer isn't about being published. I'm not claiming to be a "published author." But those non-writer types (more fondly referred to as muggles) don't understand that. If you don't have a book on the store shelves, you're not a legit writer.

After having had to answer this question more times than I can count, I've come up with a way to keep myself amused until I can finally answer, "Yes. Go buy it." Here are some answers to use and enjoy:

1. No. Drink?

2. Yes. I'm the ghost writer for J.K. Rowling.

3. Sure. Why not?

4. Yup, it's coming out in four years. The title's subject to change. So is my pen name. Keep an eye out for it!

5. Oh look over there, a pigeon! *runs away*

6. Yeah, but it's stuff you wouldn't read. Trust me. *shifty eyes*

7. These tapas are amazing.

8. No. You?

9. Give me your money and I'll send a copy to you. Honest. (Bonus points if you can get them to "buy" one for their friends.)

10. *set self on fire à la Hyperbole and a Half*

Any more suggestions?

Superhuman? I think so.

Ahaha, are you ready for this?

School holidays have just finished.

Two weeks.

80 thousand words.

My latest WiP is DONE.

I can't even begin to describe how good it feels. 80k. Eighty. Thousand. Words. I've never written a finished manuscript this long, let alone a first draft. (The last first draft I wrote was 36k. Seriously.) While I don't know if I can technically call this a first draft, it was written from scratch, with only the setting and maybe three characters the same. The plot had changed from fighting a Beast to... nothing even remotely related. In fact, the fantasy elements were taken out altogether.

But how did I go from writing teeny tiny first drafts to this mammoth of a manuscript?

Plotting.

It's possible that those who know me have just fainted on the spot. I know, right? Me? Plot? NEVER!

That's what I used to think, and I'm not sure how well I'll do if I tried it again, but goodness, it worked this time, guys. I was lucky enough to have recently attended an advanced writing class hosted by Juliet Marillier, and she mentioned her plotting methods and how she didn't understand the whole "pantser" thing because she couldn't imagine doing a million drafts. And I thought, wait, you don't have to do a million drafts? So I had a go at plotting, writing the whole story out scene by scene then adding scenes when necessary, and viola! I now have a real, much-more-advanced-than-usual first draft that has a decent word count.

I'm so excited. I'm off to do my victory dance. How's everyone else's writing going?

The Lucky Seven Meme

Morgan Hyde tagged me in the Lucky Meme (you know the one), and I haven't done a post in a while, so I figured I'd go ahead with it.

Here are the rules in case you've been living in a coffin:

1. Go to the 7th or 77th page of your current WIP

2. Go down to the 7th line

3. Copy the next 7 sentences or paragraphs and post them AS IS (no secret editing - the guilt monkeys will know).

This one's from the seventh page of my current WiP:

How? How could wax be this stubborn? Did it take after the personality of its owner or something?

She ducked down and checked the cupboard under the sink. It was cluttered with Bluet's many products and...

Dissolving fluid.

If it wasn't mildly acidic she would have kissed the bottle. Every privy needed dissolving fluid, and chances were it wouldn't damage the leather.

She used toilet tissue to dab a bit onto the boot and held her breath. The wax sizzled away. The leather remained unharmed. Thank the King.

"Miss Stella, what exactly are you doing in there with my boot?"

Stella almost dropped the bottle and the boot. Merse opened the door and stared at her. "Are you quite finished?"

If you want to be tagged, consider yourself tagged! And link me in the comments so I can read it :)

Interview with Tansy Rayner Roberts

I'm lucky enough to have on the blog today the magnificent Tansy Rayner Roberts, author of the Creature Court trilogy.

For those of you who haven't yet had the pleasure of reading these stories, you're missing out on the most epic world building and character development I've ever read.

With setting, I'm talking about a magical version of Rome, viewed through a Gothic Victorian lens. (Her words, seriously). Seriously.

Seriously.

How much do you want to read these books???

I've tried not to include any spoilery information in the interview questions, so you can read how she does it without ruining anything. You should know I'd rate the series R for sex, language, and gore. If that hasn't scared you off, the first in the series is POWER AND MAJESTY.

Hi Tansy! Thanks so much for doing this interview. I just finished THE SHATTERED CITY this morning, and OMG I can't wait to jump into book three! (Although I'm going to cry if my favourite characters die, ug.)

The main reason I wanted to do this interview with you is because the world building in the Creature Court series is incredible. I have so much to ask you about your planning and plot development, and I thought I'd share the answers with everyone rather than hog all your insights to myself.

First, obvious question: Is there a story behind where you came up with the idea for the Creature Court series? Did it happen instantaneously, like a burst of inspiration, or did it come to you slowly? How long did the series take you to write?

The first spark of it was when a little brown mouse invaded my writing room, back at the last house we lived in. I walked in and saw it halfway up the leg of the computer chair, and it suddenly froze as if maybe I wouldn't notice it, if it wasn't moving. So there was that...

Then I started to get the idea of this dressmaker character, and she wouldn't settle in my head until I found her name, which took AGES (I knew it started with V).

There were a few other scenes here and there which came together as the story started to build in my head, probably a good year or more before I started writing it down. I was working on other things, but this one kept invading. The first scene I wrote was an introduction to Ashiol which never made it into the book, where he's running through a city being destroyed by unseen forces, and then slowly the city begins to fix itself before his eyes, and his scars literally wriggle off his body. Elements of that found their way into the final story - and there is the key scene in the first book where we (and Velody) see his scars disappear, but pretty much everything else changed over the years & drafts.

The first book took the longest time to write, but that was more through interruption and circumstance than the story itself being difficult - The year I started writing it down was also the year I was trying to finish my PhD, and the year I became pregnant with my first daughter, so, TIMING. I had to set this book down when it was only 2/3 drafted, in order to finish my thesis before I had my baby which, haha, of course didn't quite work out in the right order. Plus my supervisor retired at the end of the same year, a month before Raeli was born. It would have been so perfect if I'd finished my thesis that year... but I didn't. So Creature Court languished for long periods while I sorted everything else out. The benefit was that I got to workshop that first book a couple of times, at varying stages of completion, with my writing group, ROR. They were the ones that pointed out I had started it in the wrong place (that scene with Velody and Ash in the marketplace, and him getting his powers back) and I had to go back and fill in how they got there.

Working backwards, the first novel was published in mid 2010 but sold I think in late 2008. The book was finished a year before that, in late 2007 which was when it first started to be noticed by potential publishers and agents thanks to the first chapter being published on my friend Marianne De Pierres' website. But I started writing it in early 2004, and planning it at least a year before that.

Phew.

2. I have to ask about the city of Aufluer. It's absolutely gorgeous - possibly my favourite setting of all time. How would you describe it to someone who's never read the series?

Thank you so much, that's lovely to hear!

Aufleur is a skewed, magical version of Rome, viewed through a Gothic Victorian lens. Of course it's not really Rome at all, though I did build it on my head based on one lovely month of living in Rome and travelling everywhere on foot. I wanted it to be a tall, dark and handsome city that seduces readers with its cathedrals, storefronts and sinister secrets.

3. I find the reality of Aufluer is in the painstakingly crafted detail you've added to the series. How did you go about coming up with this world? Even in LOVE AND ROMANPUNK, which is a collection of short stories, you have so much history and reality drenched in your writing. Did you sit down and plot every festival/ritual/accompanying food and drink/building etc, or did you let it come to you as you wrote?

Mostly I worldbuild one detail at a time, as the story itself is unfolding. The festivals system of Aufleur required quite a bit of work, though, if only to keep track of things as I made them up, so as not to contradict myself later! I started with the Ancient Roman Fasti (calendar of festivals) as my starting point, as I was unduly influenced by Ovid's poem in honour of the many, many ancient festivals observed and/or ignored by the people of Augustan Rome. But I added a whole bunch more for emphasis, because I wanted the festivals of Aufleur to be even more outrageous and elaborate than the Roman system - I wanted an economy that revolved around the various observances, and I knew that would be relevant to my protagonist Velody and her friends, because their business revolved around the making of gowns, garlands etc. for the festivals.

Partly this was to create a sense of conspicuous consumption in the daylight folk but I also wanted to look at the kind of daily work that goes on in a city, and to show that Velody's priorities were already pretty fixed once the magical world intruded on her life. Imagine if Buffy the Vampire Slayer hadn't come into her powers until she was in her late 20's and had a job and a mortgage to juggle? I don't think she would have managed to slay nearly as many monsters...

But yes, there was a spreadsheet involved. And reference books.

4. Not only is there history in your setting, but each of your characters - especially in the Creature Court - have such a rich background. How did you go about creating these characters? Did you write a background story for each of them before you started the series?

I thought I was being terribly clever, telling an epic fantasy story from the point of view of slightly damaged adults as opposed to using a teenage farmboy as my starting point, but soon ran into trouble because of course they all had elaborate backstories and baggage to deal with! I worked this out mostly as I went but soon discovered that there wasn't a spreadsheet in the world big enough to factor in all the complexities of the Creature Court characters - most of their current relationships were deeply affected by the hierarchy of their world, where youngsters start off serving Lords as Courtesi, then become Lords themselves, and sometimes reach the level of King. So it completely made my head explode, figuring out all the details of who had served who, and when they had been promoted to Lord, and whom had served them, and in some cases many of them served more than one Lord. Their backstories changed as I needed them to, and a few of them - Livilla and Poet in particular - shifted allegiances as my chronology tangled itself up in knots.

Seriously. Even spreadsheets can't fix everything. I had a few fixed points such as certain ages of characters when particular events happened, and everything else orbited wildly around it. Sometimes I felt like I was juggling hamsters! Strange, sex-obsessed hamsters who liked to set fire to things.

5. Were you worried the reader wouldn't be able to keep track of such a broad cast list? (The only ones I'm having trouble with are the courtesi, but after the new character introduced at the end of the book two, I'm thinking we'll learn more about them in book three.) How do YOU keep track of the comings and goings of the heirarchy?

I worried a little bit, but mostly for myself. I think it helps that the story is told through several points of view, and so you get to see most characters from several different sides. Hmm. Maybe that doesn't TECHNICALLY simplify things. But because of the complexities I didn't have any qualms about just setting down details as they became relevant, through the observances of the characters. Ashiol, for instance, knows all the details of Livilla and Mars and well, everyone's sex life, and will happily supply any plot relevant details, either through dialogue or his brain. But he had been away for five years so even he needed things explained to him. Velody doesn't know who any of these people are, and what their connections are, but she's trying to work it out fast, and the readers get to go on that journey with them.

I realised quite late in the day that I didn't have a point of view character who was a courteso - all the other roles are covered, but that one wasn't. That was why Topaz joined the story in Book 2, another newcomer. And Book 3 has an ongoing flashback storyline from the point of view of one of our adult characters, giving new perspectives not only on what it's like for the youngsters when they first join the Creature Court, but also some insights into the emotional baggage and relationships of some of our favourites. I like to think all the bases are covered!

On the whole, though, there are a bunch of characters we really don't need to know about for the sake of the story, and there are some I've deliberately left blank because if I tried to go into detail about every single character, the reader would be lost, and I'd probably have thrown myself out of a window.

6. Any tips for writers who want to go into the type of depth with both setting and character background you have with the Creature Court series?

Spreadsheets are wonderful things! History will provide you with stranger and more wondrous facts than you can possibly ever invent. And it really does help to know everyone your protagonist has slept with, even if you never need to mention this in the narrative itself.

7. Finally, anything you want to plug while you're here? (Ahem, Galactic Suburbia, ahem ahem.)

Well I do have a rather lovely podcast you might be interested in! Galactic Suburbia was recently nominated for a Hugo, and it's basically me and my friends Alisa (indie publisher Twelfth Planet Press) and Alex (Atheling-winning reviewer) talking about speculative fiction, books, publishing news and chat. We're very proud of it.

You can also find my short story collection, Love and Romanpunk, over at Twelfth Planet Press in print or e-book (though we are nearly out of print of the print version I hear! Down to the last box). I recently had stories appear in the anthologies Beyond Binary (Lethe Press) and Epilogue (Fablecroft). I also have an essay in the upcoming book Chicks Unravel Time (Mad Norwegian Press), in which every season of Doctor Who is analysed by a different female writer, fan or critic. I'm writing about The Trial of a Time Lord and the problematic death/undeath of Peri Brown.

Most of my snark and book-related thoughts can be found on Twitter (@tansyrr) and my blog (http://tansyrr.com/).

Thank you so much for answering my questions! I'm off to read the last book, and cling to the hope that this is going to end well...

Are you convinced yet? Haha, thought so. RUSH AND BUY THIS SERIES NOW!