Hello~

I’m currently attending Miscon and it’s slightly overcase, a bit sprinkly, and tons of fun.

It’s also very crowded. This is what happens when GRRM attends a con. The unhappy news is that Patty and Mike Briggs both came down with a nasty bug and aren’t able to attend. So I’m missing seeing them. However there are a ton of other old and new friends that I’m getting to see and that’s hugely enjoyable.

I got here yesterday with the kids and set about getting ensconced in the hotel and getting registered. Then I went to the writers workshop meet and greet, followed by a panel on Mystery crossing over into Genre. On that panel was Maggie Bonham, Steve Fahnestalk, JA Pitts, and me. It was a good panel, though it felt a bit meandery. Then we went to dinner with a bunch of friends at the Irish place a couple of parkinglots away. It was excellent food and conversation and I got to see S.A. Bolich and Andrea and Jeff How, all of which I haven’t seen in at least a year, and Brenda Carre, who I haven’t seen since . . . well, it’s been a few years. I tried to absorbe some house selling vibes from her, since she just sold hers.

Then it was back to the hotel room where the kids, the man, the dogs and I goofed off and eventually slept. Both dogs and the girlie ended up in bed with me. How does that happen? So I’m dragging.

Then up early for breakfast and for the writers workshop. It was a really good group. And then I snuck out for a bite and came back and did a panel on writing realistic languages in fantasy and sf with George RR Martin, and Jim Glass. That was fun. George is very funny. Next up is a panel on Urban Fantasy Noir, and then the next is on Monsters, both of which will be very very cool. I’m doing my level best to stay out of the dealer’s room, but I hear things calling my name. I’m so trying not to answer.

Hope you’re having a great weekend!

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

I finished doing all the critiques for the Writers Workshop at Miscon. The workshop is free for writers and most of the attending pros do critiques. So if you went to Miscon, you could get critiqued by me, or Patty Briggs, among many others, or I think this year GRRM will be participating. Not sure though. Anyhow, I like to be detailed, so I spend a fair bit of time on each. I type out my comments and they usually are 3-4 single space pages long. It’s all content oriented–I’m not interested in talking grammar at this point, unless is seriously egregious (I didn’t get any stuff like that). I don’t think writers want to hear about grammar either.

I also made my head purple. Very purple. More purple than I planned for. Now I have to pack me, the kids, the dogs, and get on the road in the morning. In the meantime, I’m revising.

What are your plans for the weekend?

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

“Just because you’re winning don’t mean you’re the lucky one.” Guns N Roses

Now the snippet:

“Let’s get these bodies in the ground. Simon, go bring back the backhoe.”

As the others obeyed, she and Alexander wandered around, accompanied by Beyul and Spike. They came to the spot where the red-haired preacher had suddenly appeared. Max stared at the broad circle of red dust on the dirt road, then squatted and touched it, rubbing it between her fingers. Where it touched, it didn’t come off.

Beyul sniffed it and padded through it. None of it clung to him. Spike sneezed and edged carefully around the circle.
Slowly Max stood and looked up at Alexander. Her expression was troubled. “This stuff is all over Horngate. It’s all over us. Somehow he got inside the mountain. Before the wards broke. He got in without tripping any alarms.”

“How is that possible?” Alexander asked, unease prickling along his neck.

Max shook her head. “That’s just it, Slick. It isn’t.” She looked back down at her fingers. “What the fuck are we dealing with?”

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

after seeing the quiz on otterdance's blog, I had to do it. I think it's fairly on target. Don't you?

Today I got a call from a friend who’d been attacked by a wooden chicken while cleaning and ended up with two broken bones, a chipped bone, and some ligament issues in one of her hands. This same friend is going to have significant surgery on Thursday. She tells me that it’s my fault. That my clod genes are catching, sort of like the flu. I’d like to tell her she’s totally wrong. Sadly, she might be right. Did I pass my clod cooties to her? Or was it a sign from above (it fell from above)? Or, did she make the singular and unholy mistake of cleaning? Was that the issue? I think maybe so. Anyhow, went to see her after the hospital visit, I gave her a bag of ice, wished her happy birthday, and laughed uproariously at her. I’m that way.

In the meantime, I’ve been revising. This is what it’s like. I am doing things to the front of the book, which, like cracks in a windshield, spread out through the book. Then I make more corrections, attempt to fix more cracks, and more cracks happen, digging further into the book. Rinse and repeat. (Am I madly mixing the metaphors or what?)

Anyhow, the process is a bit terrifying, since I’m not entirely certain that I’ll catch all the inconsistencies and cracks, or that the fixes I’m making are causing irreparable faults later in the manuscript. So what now crops up is a clash between getting the revisions done and terror of doing them wrong. I’m trying not to freeze solid.

In the meantime, hopefully I won’t be attacked by any wooden chickens.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

I’m linking this to Neil Gaiman’s commencement speech at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. It’s brilliant. It’s inspiring. And as I’m working on this revision, it reminds me what the writing is and should be about. Today, I needed this.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

It looks like there’s a publisher who may be interested in the Crosspointe books. If so, we’re looking at seeing an end to the series! Wahoo!

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

This is an infographic on how a book is born. Beverage warning.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

Guster, the rescue corgi, has now gone on to his home with my parents. He will hopefully be very happy. He’s a loving dog, but really scared after all the clear abuse he must have had from his former people. I’d really like to kick them around a little. But anyhow. Back to the subject.

Gus is a really athletic corgi and he was willing to jump on any furniture at any time. And now . . . Voodoo is doing the same. He no longer cares if he asked. He just bounces up and then rolls around on the couch with evident delight. Or jumps up and walks across my laptop keyboard and lays down, covering one or all of the following: one arm, both arms, half the keyboard, all the keyboard, the touchpad, and the screen.

Is it bad manners if he’s so cute that you can’t stop him?

Now that’s bad enough, but Viggo has begun shoving the kids off my lap if he wants to lay there. He jumps up and lumps on top of them and licks until they have to retreat.

I believe both dogs have begun calling my laptop: The Interloper. Or possibly: The Invader. Both seem to hurry to get to my lap before it can get there.

In other news, I could probably make a dozen pillows from the hair they are losing. These are small dogs. Where the heck is it all coming from?

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

Kate Elliot posted an essay today called Decolonizing as an SF Writer by Rochita Loenen-Luiz. The subject is one that’s interesting to me because a lot of my dissertation and research has dealt with colonization/postcolonization/neocolonization. I think colonization is the most shaping force on all societies in the world.

But what it made me think about today was black people. You might ask why. The subject came up with my children. They were talking about the civil war, and then my son says, “I call black people African-Americans.” I said, that makes sense, but you realize that not all black people are African-American, nor do they wish to be called such. Then my daughter pipes up with “Anthony is black.” I said no, he’s Chinese. He’s racially different from white and black. Then my son pipes up with another kid who is black, and I explained no, he’s Mexican.

Now the thing is that this little town I live in is mostly white. Very white. There are a few black kids and Hawai’ian kids at the college, and then a Mexican migrant population and a fair number of Native Americans. But frankly, the day to day experience with people tends to be blindingly white. That skews the perception that all the world looks like this.

Which makes it difficult to start explaining to children about people of color and their cultural histories and the way that white people are implicated in a lot of terrible things in history. The fact is, it’s a complicated subject and I can’t do it all in a day or even a year. But it is something that I have to talk with them about now and throughout their lives. I don’t think that this history is taught in school, but it’s tremendously important. On the other hand, my kids learn a lot about the real Native American history here. The Big Hole Battlefield is not far, and neither is the Little Big Horn. I’ve been to The Big Hole Battlefield and you can feel the spirits still there. It’s an eerie, beautiful place.

You should read Loenen-Luiz’ essay. It’s well worth reading and it digs into the complexity in a very short space. What I really find important is the way she talks about the friendship/betrayal/colonizer element. That there is a real difficulty in negotiating the tangle of emotions involved in being friends with the people who are oppressing you.

When I finish my Crosspointe books, this is part of what I mean to explore, and what I’ve been setting up all along with the Jutras. I have the Crosspointe people seeing them as invaders and a sort of monolithic evil in the first book, and then slowly they learn that the Jutras are human and eventually they begin to learn that the Jutras have good reason for invading. That good and bad is not as simple as it looks.

And yes, I intend to finish them. While Roc has decided not to publish the last books, I’m looking for a publisher who will, and if not, I will do it myself. I love these books and I want to get them done.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

The house is clean. Well, you know, as it gets. It’s pretty sparkly to be honest and I even got some flowers planted. We might get a freeze tonight, so hope they survive. We have two appointments scheduled for tomorrow. I’m really hoping they go well and we get a good offer. Hear that universe? Please?

I’m thinking that I would never want to work on a crab boat (comment brought to you courtesy of The Deadliest Catch). I’m too much a wimp. Plus I’m betting I’d be barfing much of the time. You know, when I wasn’t being washed overboard.

I have some lovely flowers from my children for Mother’s Day. My kids are so freaking sweet.

We’re getting closer to The Demon Lovers: Succubi release. This is the Facebook URL. Go ahead and friend it for updates and special offers and so forth. I really like my story in this one and I’m hoping you will too. I’m told it will release June 1, so not far now.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

There is a hawk cam at the University of Wisconsin Madison. You can see the mother (at least I’m supposing it’s the mother) and three babies (are they called eyases?). It is so very cool. Go look.

Two different lookers are coming to check out our house this weekend. Send buy vibes, would you?

The curtains did not fall down last night. I consider this a good thing.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

Today I used power tools. Yeah, I know, big deal. But usually when we do things to the house, the man is here to do most of the power tool stuff, but also to confidently make holes in walls and so on. But today it was all me and my mom. It was taking down old curtains and rods and hanging new ones. Yeah, not that tough, but I had to drill holes and put up the brackets and hang everything. And I did it right. It looks nice and I’m happy. Accomplished. I also did a bunch of other housework. The darned maid never wants to work. She just wants to sit on the couch and be lazy and write stuff on her computer. Bad maid.

I also took the doggies walking. They made friends with another dog and ran and ran and ran and generally had fun.

Tomorrow I’m planning on planting things. Curb appeal, doncha know.

Terribly interesting post, isn’t it? You know what’s truly awful? I can go out my back door, take twenty steps up the alley, and be at Dairy Queen.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

What I learned today at Costco: if there’s a little star/asterisk thing in the right upper corner of a price sign, it means that that product is almost out of stock and they won’t be getting it in again real soon. Who knew?

Also, tomorrow I will be installing new curtains/rods and such, with the help of my mom. This may be entertaining. Most entertaining will be my dad’s “help,” which will come in the guise of telling us exactly what to do, because he can’t get on the ladder to do it himself, though I wouldn’t put it past him to try. This will be fun. I perhaps should start drinking right now. Maybe I will learn patience. Is that possible? I’ve not hung curtains before without the man, so I will undoubtedly be learning new skills. This is a good thing.

I have a deep love of all things weird and parasitical (as long as they aren’t coming after me.) This is a zombie ant. How awesomely cool is that? I learned about zombie ants today.

How deadly is smallpox? I’m just curious. Anybody know? I mean, I know for the Lakota Sioux is was terrible given their lack of resistance of any kind, but in general, is it deadly a la anthrax? Or is it more like the old and young are likely to die, and others recover? I’m trying to learn about smallpox. Help a girl out!

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

I’m working on the new first chapter for Blood Winter. One of the issues is how fast to get into the action. It used to be that you could get into action after a few pages or even a chapter. With urban fantasy, things sped up and it started to be something you wanted to see on the first page. Now I’ve begun to seriously think about where the action should begin. It has to mix in with a number of things: establishing characters, setting, situation, action . . . Plus getting the reader’s attention/sympathy/interest. That’s a lot to get done on the first page.

I’m starting at a different point in the revisions of Blood Winter in order to develop some more of the story and to add a few action scenes to set up character. The thing is, the action stuff might not happen on the very first page. It might take me more than that to get things going. The question is this: is the stuff I think is important enough to delay the action really as important as all that? I might end up having to cut it out. At this point, I’m back to the drafting element of things where it’s more important to get the words down than to edit. I’ll see what it looks like when I get it done.

But what do you think? How patient are you in getting to the action? What books are your favorite for starting well?

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

So a lot of stuff is going on in my life, including a nasty head cold. But today perspective arrived. I’ve a friend who is several years younger than me. She’s had a significant bout with breast cancer and it metastisized to her liver. She had half removed last fall and now the tumors have returned–in her words, too many to count on her liver. She’s at the point where she’s buying time. Chances of remission are slim. She has a daughter who is in first grade.

I feel really helpless and really sad. She’s an amazing woman with so much fire and strength. She’s not giving up, by any means, but things are what they are, barring a miracle. Learning that really makes me take a step back and think about what’s important, what I want my life to be. I can’t help thinking about what I would want to do if I thought I might not make it to my next birthday. It’s a hard think.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

Tomorrow is the end of the semester. Well, except for Saturday’s graduation and the two theses I have to read and hand back to students for revision. They are a bit (a lot) last minute, so I’ll be spending some time with them over the next few days.

I also am working on revisions for Blood Winter. Got my editorial letter and what my editor says gels with what my agent said and what my gut had been telling me. I’m planning a talk with my editor this week to hash out some stuff, but then I’ll be hopefully rolling. Course I have a ton of kid stuff going on and some family coming to visit–which will be very very nice. They are coming to get rescue dog. And Miscon is coming at the end of the month is coming in quick. Can’t wait for that. Somehow in there I have to work in some significant rewriting.

I just saw that someone found my site looking for free Crimson Wind. I hate book pirates. Writing is real work and time consuming. To have books stolen just makes me mad. And very sad. I want to do this full time, but theft makes that tough.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

We’re under a winter storm watch. Again. I don’t think we’ll actually get snow, but it had to come the night before the girlie’s birthday party. To which people have still not RSVPed, so I don’t even know if anyone is coming. I desperately hope so, and not just because of the mass of cake that I’ll be forced to eat if not. I do have some games to play, so that will be excellent. I also have a fire going in the woodstove and am hoping that frost doesn’t kill all the leaving out plants. Poor things. A few days ago it was almost 80 degrees.

IN the meantime, I got notes from my editor on Blood Winter today. I have to read and absorb them. He’s a new editor to me and he pointed out some issues that I had figured out and offered some intriguing suggestions. So I have to put all that together with some ideas I had for restructuring/revising, and polish the coal off my diamond. I’m excited about it, but with that everpresent fear that I won’t be able to pull it off. But I will! I’m determined.

In the meantime, the block ends in a few days, as does the semester. Hard to believe. But Twisted Ink, our webzine, is coming together nicely. They are doing a good job, as crazy as it’s making them.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

I spent some of yesterday and today researching mythical birds. I have this scene in mind where they do an Alfred Hitchcockian sort of attack on *name redacted*. I have this picture in one book of the perfect birds. But even though it’s in a book of magical critters and such, there’s no actual reference to them. Yes, I can make something up, but I like going with real creatures (well, you know, real fake creatures). Plus these are so perfect!!! Anyhow, I did run across some very cool possibilities. One is bird hieroglyphs that come to life and chomp the heck out of people. I like that one.

I couldn’t access the Aberdeen Bestiary for whatever reason. It is a very cool bestiary with lovely illuminated images and so I’m going to try again later tonight or tomorrow. Doing this research is totally fun. This is a case where serendipity is my friend. I page through the books or dig through bestiaries and so on, and I encounter all sorts of rich tales. They spark ideas and one thing leads to another . . .

I did up my department’s website. I have to use a program called Genesis, which is like a hacked down version of a decade’s old Front Page. It was weird after using more modern methods. And wow, it added tons of extra weird code stuff. Luckily I could play with the code and get rid of a lot of it. I was going to do a lot more updating, but there’s a chance of switching over to another system that’s more flexible (not sure what it is, but it might be WordPress) and so I’m waiting. No point in doing it twice. I’m the only one in our department who likes to mess with website stuff.

Oh, and speaking of which, do you know how outdated this Genesis program is? I can only use it on a PC with Explorer. No Firefox, no Chrome, no Mac at all. It simply won’t let me log in. How funny is that?

The girl’s birthday is tomorrow. Her party is on Saturday. I’m not entirely prepared. She also got her new glasses today, which are not pink believe it or not, and she can actually see again. She’s very excited. I just hope kids come. I haven’t had RSVPs yet. I’m a little worried.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

Today I’ve been trying to think up magical problems. Specifically, really big magical problems. And I’d be more specific, but that would mean spoilers. The problem is thinking up the right magical problem for the characters and situation and that leads to a specific outcome. The only trouble is that I’m not coming up with any serious contenders. Well, actually, a couple of possibilities, but not how I might make them work. I need to stretch my magical thinking.

In the meantime, I’ve got a post on attacking revisions/novels on Magical Words today. It’s about eating the cheese.

In the meantime, we’ve had bizarrely warm weather and some thunder showers. That’s pretty cool. I like thunderstorms, especially if they don’t come with round winds. Round winds I hate with a passion.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

The skin on my fingers is peeling. Just peeling. I feel like a molting snake and I really really don't like it. Not sure what's going on here. So far it's mostly on my right hand, but I can see where it will probably start happening on my left. I. Don't. Like. It. Did I mention that? I mean, seriously? Does anybody else have this happen to them?

In other news, it's going to be in the seventies today and I'm in shorts. This is very very very rare for Montana Aprils. And things are turning green and leafing out already. It's almost like spring. Now if winter doesn't come back to ruin it all . . .

I want to plant things. I did plant peas, but I want to really dig in and plant. Sadly, there's a better than good chance of a hard frost or freeze if I do it now.

As I mentioned previously, I’m working on doing some replotting Blood Winter. Well, not all of it needs to be replotted, though the back half is going to change according to how the front half changes. Yeah, I like to state the obvious. I’m in a mood. It’s one of those listen to a lot of loud music, swear like a trucker and swing swords sorts of days. Dogs are eyeing me with trepidation and wondering when I’ll stop long enough to become their bed.

Anyhow, so the murder board. My white board is metal so I can use magnets on it. I’m taking note cards and writing down plot notes and questions and other notes and I’m going to arrange them in plot order. Some of this is really thin, as in, something attacks here. Or these disappear here–why? and so on. But I’m trying to lay out the basics, even with what I don’t know. I actually know a lot. I’ve also brainstormed stuff that likely won’t show up. I’m putting it all up and playing the mess with puzzle pieces game and working through it in my head at the same time.

The idea is to play with what I have and put in the skeletal elements of the other and come up with ideas of how it will all fit together, and then be able to jump in and just do it. I’ve not worked it out this way before, but I have to say I’m having a hell of a lot of fun. I think part of it is that I stand up to do a lot of it and physical movement is helping. Who knew?

So this is how the board looked a little while ago. There’s much more on it now and more to come. I hope to have it mostly sorted out with details tomorrow.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

Some of you will remember that I have a big whiteboard that I use for keeping track of characters, making notes, plotting, and whatever I happen to need in terms of writing. It’s freestanding and I can flip it over and use both sides. I’m about to put it to use to replot the beginning of Blood Winter. Toward that end, today I shopped for some office supplies. I bought a bunch of magnets shaped a bit like pushpins, and I bought some index cards because I was out, and a bunch of colored sharpies. Why? Well, I’ll tell you.

I’m going to write down different plot possibilities for different characters in different colors and play the puzzle game where I align them in order until I have a satisfactory replotting of the story. The thing about this book was that I mostly pantsed it. It refused to follow the plot ideas I had and it refused to give up what it intended to do until I wrote it. So I wrote it to find out what had actually happened. Now that I know and have some time to think about things, and now that I have feedback from my agent, I can see some places where I need to replot.

I plan to do this this weekend. I’ve not done this particular method before (hence me needing to go supply shopping), but I’m looking forward to the process. I’m going to start by brainstorming all the possibilities for the various characters and the events, and then start moving things around, taking into account what I want to keep and how I want to shift things up. I have a feeling I’ll be tossing cards on the floor as I get rid of ideas. The cutting room floor, as it were.

I’m hoping it works. In the meantime, I’ve finished the maps on the other project I’m working on and finished one character interview and am now working on another and also noodling around with some more plot stuff. I’ve been figuring out a lot of world details in the process. I’m excited about that. I’d try out the plot card puzzle idea on that one, but I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of the main plot. I just need to get down the details, but that happens in the writing.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

I don’t have a lot of time to read anymore, and worse, the time I have I sometimes (frequently) squander. A few months ago I got an ARC of a book by an online friend of mine. I was buried in day jobbery and my own writing, life and a few other things, so I didn’t get to it. I wanted to because it has an amazing cover, but I didn’t. I started reading it this week finally, after carrying it around with me for sometime. It’s probably got more than 3000 travel miles on it by now. Anyhow, I read it and I have this to say: Wow. Wow wow wow.

Let me tell you about it. First, the cover, because I think it really is one that grabs the eye:

This book is urban fantasy. It involves the faerie, angels, demons, and others. The plot revolves around a woman, Marley, who gets panic attacks and tends to run from life, and has a hard time keeping a regular job. She’s got a couple of really great friends, Branwyn and Penny, and she’s started hanging out a bunch with Zachariah and his two orphaned nieces, who are four year old twins. When Zachariah disappears, the girls call Marley for help and that sets off the plot.

There’s a lot going on here and you really have to pay attention, because things happen fast and there’s a lot of worldbuilding going on. The reader has to put a lot of the puzzle pieces together on the fly, because nothing is super obvious. I like this. I have to admit that for me, this was a page turner. I kept having to shoo people away while I was reading because they annoyingly kept interrupting.

I like the characters quite a bit, though I have to admit Tarn and Branwyn were my favorites. But I think what kept me going most was just wanting to find out what was going on and why. The mystery was really well built and the descriptions were compelling and vibrant. I also liked the way she portrayed the kids. They seemed real to me and not just incidental. They were important. I also liked the way that the magic was portrayed in this book. I really enjoyed it.

I do admit that I still have questions. I’m hoping they get explained in the future. Plus I want more of these characters and more of this story. More! Is it bad that I want to bug her for an early copy of the next one? I really hope there’s a second one coming. A lot.

Anyhow, this is a really good book and I recommend giving it a read.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

When I was in highschool, I was a good student. I skated, really. I did very little homework at home. I did most of it at school in the class before it was due. Yeah, there were some tougher classes where I couldn’t get away with that and I had to actually study, but the point is that when I graduated from high school, I had a crappy work ethic and not a clue about homework. Don’t get me wrong, if I had to get it done, I did. I held jobs and I belonged to clubs. I just did the minimum and no more.

In College, I ended up in engineering Calculus. When too many people passed the first test (I got a B+), the professor announced he needed to fail 1/2 the class as this was a weed out course and things would be toughening up. I tried. I had tutors, I did reams of extra homework. But I couldn’t pass. I didn’t have the ability to make intuitive jumps that he was asking for. In other words, he didn’t test on the work we had practiced and learned, he tested on what we might infer from that–the next step as it were. So I failed.

The rest of my time in college was much like high school. I did what I needed to, sometimes more, but I never felt like I really worked hard. I didn’t work weekends either if I could help it. I thought weekends were sacred time off.

Then I went to graduate school. In my Masters, I was able to maintain the sacred weekend part, mostly, but I did learn that I had to do homework and research and really work. But it was nothing compared to my Ph.D. program. In that one I really got put through the wringer. It was one of the best times of my life. I stretched and reached for ideas and words and concepts and I did well. I was proud of myself. I still didn’t really work on weekends. I passed my comprehensive exams and then I started work on my dissertation.

And this is where I learned the real truth about discipline and about the weekends. First of all, no one was setting demanding deadlines. That was all on me, as was meeting them. My thesis director and committee were very demanding in terms of revisions and what they expected, but it was up to me to do the work. And I couldn’t get it done M-F. I had to use weekends. And nights. More than that, I had to go into my office, put my ass in the chair, and do it. Who knew?

I think this is when I really figured out what adulthood was about. It wasn’t just taking responsibility for yourself and your bills, it was that I had to hold myself accountable. Nobody else was going to and if I wanted to achieve things, I was going to have to ask myself to do it and then I was going to have to see it through. Whether it’s writing, or yard work, or dishes, or exercise, or climbing a mountain, no one is going to be behind me with a cattle prod making me do it.

It’s funny. One of the things adulthood lets you do is eat cake for dinner and sleep late on your days off. There are perks. But there’s also that endless self-responsibility. I can’t believe it took me so long to learn it. Of all the things I learned in grad school, that was probably the most important.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

Tonight at dinner we had a discussion of segregation, since that’s what my son is studying at school. It was a good discussion and we talked about hating on the basis of race, gender, appearance, religion and so on. The kids seem utterly confused that people would hate other people for any better reason than some people are mean (ie nasty bullies and even then, they are still people and can change).

Things here are turning green. Lots of leaves and even a crocus has bloomed!!! It’s almost like spring. I’ve planted peas. I am hoping they’ll come up soon.

My students are developing at literary webzine. There’s not a lot to it yet, but it’s at wwww.twistedink.net if you’d like to go have a look. It’s taking submissions of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, and art. Pass the word if you know of anyone who’d be interested in submitting.

Today we went to the soccer field with the kids to kick the ball around and walk the dogs. Was fun. I like soccer.

I’m in a funk. Emotional funk. Not sure why. I don’t know if it’s the fact that the man is laid off and the whole nonmovement on the house sale or something else.

I’m also working on some other things that I can’t talk about. I am hopeful that they will pan out however. How’s that for cryptic?

I also discovered this website today, which is really cool: Issuu. It’s got some really cool stuff on it and also could have some possibilities for doing some stuff. I’m just not sure what yet. I also learned some stuff on InDesign. I’ve been trying to learn some stuff about that, Photoshop and Adobe Illustrated. I know just about nothing on any of them.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

First, the curiosity. From my site stats, i can tell that a fair number of people have downloaded my dissertation. I’d love to hear from some of them and find out what you’re using it for, or what brought you to it. In fact, someone actually searched the exact title of it and came to my website today. Very cool.

As for the writing stuff, I’m working on a new project of the traditional fantasy variety, but dark and edgy. I’m coming at it from several directions and today I manage to hammer out a fragment of map. The world building is so key at this point and I have a lot already figured out. But the map is pretty crucial and I have only seen bits of it in my mind’s eye. But even so, I haven’t been able to draw it out. Today I got a good start. Like I said, it’s just a fragment, but it’s a crucial piece. Hopefully more comes tomorrow.

I’m interviewing the main character. Here’s a little bit of the description after my narrator interviewer asks where she lives:

She moves her eyes before she turns her head. She eyes me, calculating. Not really fearful. Cautious and with more than a hint of anger. Her eyes are black and unreadable, but they feel dangerous, like she’s quietly considering how to eviscerate me without making too much of a mess.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

George R. R. Martin is the Guest of Honor at our little Montana con this year. It’s during Memorial Day Weekend. It’s called Miscon and it’s a gem. It’s got a lot of great people, it’s small, it’s got community and family and creativity and generally a place everyone should get to come to. But what I just found out is that the Throne from Game of Thrones is going to be there. I’m going to be able to get a picture!

Now, keep in mind that it was at Reno Worldcon and I was too oblivious to have my pic taken in it. Not this time. I will get it done!!

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

On Monday I start a new class teaching how to build a webzine. Because of issues on campus, I elected to buy a domain and have it hosted off campus. I did that. I am now waiting for that to come through, which could be a couple of days. But now I have some panic issues.

I’ve not played with my own website for some time. I had someone else build it and I can go in and modify, but I really don’t know about setting it up to work right from the get go. Like, say, installing wordpress on it. And then doing the rest of the work. I’ve got myself a WordPress for dummies book, but I could sure use more help. So here I am asking.

Does anyone out there have expertise you’re willing to share? I’m not looking for you to do it, just answer questions for me. I want to learn to do this again, which means actually doing it myself. Plus my students are going to have to do this and I want to help them. It’s going to be learn as you go as far as the tech side. mtlawson, I'm looking at you--is there up your alley?

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

All this is probably very meandery (which today is a word), but I’m sort of giving you the benefit of my experience, and I’m sort of wandering from topic to topic as they occur.

So let’s start today with the agency agreement. This one you have to be careful with. Many agencies require an agreement. Now if it’s any good, it will lay out the terms of how the agent earns money and what the percentages are, what your individual responsibilities are, and it will discuss how to end the relationship and what happens with your works when you leave the agency. This is pretty critical. Once an agent sells a book, she earns money from that sale so long as it continues to be published by the publisher. That means, the money will be sent to her and then on to you. Sometimes you can have that accounting separated out if your business breakup is no amicable and you’re not getting your money on a timely basis, but we’re presuming professional people and so we aren’t going to worry about that.

But the fact is, you want to know what happens when you leave an agency. You want to know how to do it and what they will continue to have control over. For instance, you would notify them in writing that you wanted to leave, but if you were in the middle of negotiating a contract, that agent would still earn money on that book (or books if it’s a multiple book contract). There are some sticky issues and you want to be sure you know what they are and how to deal with them professionally. But at the same time, some newer contracts I’ve heard about have inserted lines in the contract that say something about representing the books into perpetuity. This is not acceptable. Once a book is out of print with a publisher and your rights are reverted, then that sale is over and you should no longer be paying the agent for anything you do with those books, unless she sells them again. Does that make sense?

If you’ve moved on with another agent, you want to be able to let that agent earn money with those books, or you might want to self-publish, which is a new and enticing option in this new publishing world. This is why you can’t be giving away any rights to anything in perpetuity. There should always be a reversion clause.

Some agencies do have handshake agreements. Even so, you want to ask about the break up and the rights reversions and so on. Find out in advance and don’t be afraid to ask. No one wants to think about the end at the beginning, but you have to.

A random sort of addition: it used to be a good rule of thumb to only use agents who were in New York because so much business got done in New York and you wanted your agent to be a part of that. Well, with the net and modern life, that isn’t the case any more. My agent is in Florida. Her agency is in Georgia. They can be anywhere and still do the job.

ON a last note, think about your expectations for an agent. What you see on TV isn’t true. Agents don’t come to your house or call every day or anything like that. Sometimes I don’t talk to mine for months. I do more by email because she’s quick to respond–either by phone or email–and if she’s in the middle of something when I shoot her the email, then I don’t interrupt. If it’s really important, I pick up the phone and usually she’ll make time for me then or before the end of the day. She finds out answers, she handles issues with the publisher and editor so my relationship with my editor is smooth. She talks me off the ledge when I’m freaking out, which happens occasionally, and she stays on top of the business side of things so I can write.

Previous posts in this series:
How I got my agent
Questions to ask 1
Questions to ask 2

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

So last time I waxed on about finding an agent who’s a good fit. There are a lot of stories out there about agents who don’t fit well and how writers are afraid to “break-up” with them for fear of never having another agent or getting blackballed or something else along those lines. Some writers do not have agents and do quite well. Some writers have gone through several agents, usually because of that essential quality of a good fit. Most all writers I’ve ever talked to, however, say that a bad agent is worse than no agent. And a bad agent is not necessarily one who doesn’t do the job. It could be an agent that doesn’t work well with you or whom you don’t work well with. You might just have different approaches or different tastes or something else that you didn’t realize at first and it just isn’t a good fit. It happens. Don’t be afraid to say no to an offer of representation or to say goodbye to an agent who isn’t working out.

But back to the questions. There’s a lot of advice out there on kinds of questions to ask as far as the professional elements go, and here’s a couple of good lists:

Rachelle Gardner
Quill Driver Books

Once you figure out that personally you can work with an agent, then you want to look at the specifics. Rachelle Gardner’s list is a pretty good one. You want to know what the agent’s commission is–agents should not charge money up front. They get paid when you get paid. Typical commissions are %15 for domestic sales and %20 for foreign sales (on the latter, the agent splits the money with a foreign agent). You want to know how the agent handles foreign sales. The Knight Agency has a page on their website that explains about foreign rights sales and has a substantial list of who they work with. This is important. It shows they are networked and that they are working the foreign sales angles.It also lists their recent sales.

Let me digress a moment. The Knight Agency (which represents me), has a good website. They promote authors, they are very open with what they do, they are thorough, they have a newsletter, and they are obviously very professional. I think in this day and age, if an agency doesn’t have a good solid website, I’d have my doubts about them. Okay, digression over.

You want to talk to the agent about the submission process. How many will she make for a given project? When will she give up? You don’t really want one who gives up. Specifically, you have to realize that maybe a project won’t sell, but some projects can take years to sell. So if you believe in the project, and the agent believes in it, you want to know she’ll keep trying. Now in the meantime, you want to be working on something else for her to sell. Remember, she makes money only when you do, so you want to start making her and you some money.

I think now is a good time to mention career track. You and she should discuss her approach to a career. She’s got to be thinking of the long term, as you are. If you want to write in multiple genres: romance, fantasy, westerns, scifi, YA, whatever, you have to find out if she’ll support/encourage that. She’s going to want you to build a brand, and she’s right, so she will likely encourage you to focus at first, but she should be open to other things your passionate about. And she should know up front you want to be diverse since you want her to be able to get behind you in all your endeavors. Some writers have more than one agent to represent their various kinds of writing, so that’s a possibility if it suits you. You want to talk about how many books a year you think you can write or plan to write, if you plan to be full time or not, how quickly you write, and so on and so forth. Much of this may have come up in your process discussion, but if not, now it’s time.

You want to talk to the agent about how she approaches negotiating a contract. Often agencies will have boilerplate contracts with publishers that they’ve pre-negotiated. From that boiler-plate, they can then negotiate better for you. Now that depends on a lot of factors, but it means they aren’t starting at the drawing board. But you want to know how the process will work. Will she send you the initial contract? Will she negotiate it to the best of her ability and then send it to you for discussion? Will she keep you updated on the process? What sorts of updates would that entail? (BTW, it’s not a short process). Think about what is important to you in a contract and ask about how she might negotiate those things. What would she consider deal-breakers? What would make her walk away from a contract?

Caveat: these are things you only discuss if you and this agent are serious about working together. Otherwise there’s no point. But understanding how the process will work is important.

That’s enough for now. More next time.

How I got an agent
Questions to ask an agent part 1

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

So Amy in the previous post’s questions, asked what questions I asked my agent. That was more than ten years ago and while some of those would be the same, many would be different now because the publishing world has significantly changed. But let me give a shot at some of the questions I’d ask today.

First, I would make sure I knew everything possible about the agent in question. I’d already know who she represented, what books she’d sold in recent years (check trade magazines and websites), if she’s active in the industry (attending conferences, the London and Frankfurt Bookfairs, workshops, and so on), how many authors she’s carrying (is there going to be time for her to give you enough attention), how well she’d done with foreign rights, how she was dealing with the changes in publishing, particularly in electronic publishing. How long has she been an agent? If she’s new to the business, then what qualifies her to be an agent? Is she legitimate? I would read her blog, see if she’s on twitter or facebook and read everything I could about her professionally. I would see if her authors had anything to say about her and what.

After that, then I would feel somewhat prepared to ask questions. But remember that even as you ask questions, be sure to listen carefully to the answers and to jot down any questions that occur to you and follow up.

Now some people might dive into the business questions of cost of representation and so forth. Those are important, but my feeling is you won’t need those questions if you don’t match up. So I say start with the questions that will demonstrate if you fit together.

I would ask things about what about my work excites her? Where might she see it marketed (in terms of publishers)? I would ask her if she gives editorial feedback and if when she would decide it’s ready to send it out. The reason for this is some agents won’t send it out unless they like the work, when the author is ready. Now the author has to listen, but at some point, it is the author’s work and she has to say that this is her vision. What happens if the agent disagrees with that? You might not get a straight answer to this at this point. A good agent will be straight and tell you she will or will not send out your work if you want it. After all, she works for you. Potentially that is. This is pretty critical. If your visions don’t match and she won’t act on your behalf, then what’s the point?

The thing is, this is where fit is important. You have to rely on your agent’s expertise. That’s why it’s so important that she is excited about your work, and not only this particular piece, but your other ideas. If she can’t get excited about you, she be enthusiastic to editors. That’s why accepting the response that it didn’t work for her or it was good, but didn’t really excite her is an okay answer. You don’t want her if she doesn’t love your work. So make sure you talk in some detail about what you write and your process. Can you do proposals? Do you have to write the whole book before you sell? If you plot out a book, does it match up with the end product?

This is where you are thinking about the relationship you will have with your agent. Will you be able to be honest with her and will you be able to accept her honest opinions? Will you be able to hold true to your vision and yet be critical when armed with her feedback?

I can’t stress enough how important it is in this conversation to sort out how you would work together. That relationship is so key so you want to spend real time talking about how that would work. Ask about return times–how long she takes to respond to emails, can you reach her when you need her? How often do you plan to be in touch with her? How she deals with stupid questions and panic and etc. Think also of your expectations and articulate them to her.

I know I’m meandering here a little bit, but this is a complex relationship. You’ve got the business side and the creative side, and those two can clash and let’s face it, writers can be very neurotic. You really have to think about what you want and need from this relationship, not just from the business side, but for the creative side.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

Some people wonder how authors came by their agents and I thought I’d give my very short story here.

I had finished Path of Fate and developed my submission package. I started submitting out query letters to agents and publishers at the same time. That was in August. I actually got a rejection from my agent. She was one of the ones on the top of my list, though, and I wasn’t giving up easily. Then I had my manuscript accepted by Roc Books. But I knew enough to know that I didn’t want to negotiate a contract myself. At that point I had another agent who’d offered to represent me, but I still was hoping to get Lucienne. I had done a lot of research on her and I knew she was an excellent agent. She was absolutely my top choice.

I contacted her and let her know that I had an offer in hand. She said she’d look at my manuscript and get back to me quickly. Now this was important. I had an offer in hand, but that wasn’t going to make her take me on. She still had to really look at my work and see if she could get excited about my work. She’d rejected me before based on my letter, but I was hoping that actually reading my stuff would make a difference. It did. She offered me representation.

By that point, I’d made a list of questions and had interviewed the other agent (I let both know I was talking to someone else). I put the questions to Lucienne and I liked her answers. The thing is, an agent doesn’t just negotiate contracts or submit manuscripts for you–although both are incredibly key and you want to know that your agent knows what she doing on both fronts. But there’s a lot more to it.

I wanted someone who would give me editorial feedback as well–not all agents give it and not all authors want it. I wanted someone with ties and contacts to a lot of editors and who really knew the industry and kept up with the changes and developments. I wanted someone who was energetic and who really believed in my work. I wanted someone who could be genuinely enthusiastic about my writing and who would work to promote me. I also needed someone who could talk me off the ledge if things weren’t going well in the books. I needed someone who I could talk honestly to and who would respond honestly. This is an odd relationship, one that is both a business relationship and a friendship. But you can’t worry about hurt feelings when you’re talking business and you need to know your agent can separate the two. And you have to be able to do the same. You have to be able to ask tough questions, voice trepidations, and be very honest with your agent at all times. And she has to be able to do the same.

A writer’s career can be very much like a roller coaster with ups and downs and it’s easy as a writer to get panicked. Agents are in it with you and they tend to stay sane when you totally lose it. A good agent is worth her weight in gold.

After interviewing both agents, I knew more than ever that Lucienne was the one for me. The years have proven me right. If you want to know more about Lucienne, go to her website.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

I’m sick. Last night the man was puking and chills/shakes/sweats/aches. Now I’ve got them, except not puking. Yet. Bad aches though. Joints, head, and I slept about half the day away. Been reading some, but not much else. I’m not terribly functional. I do not want to feel this way.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

Today we have been prepping our front room for painting. We moved furniture and pictures, spackled, sanded, put down paint cloths, plastic and etc, and then primered. We also went and got paint. Tomorrow it’s full scale painting. You have to understand that our front room stretches across the full length of the front of our house.

So all that took some time. But. We also got to meet with Nicole and her husband Tim who wanted to meet for me to sign books and hang out for a bit. They were coming up on a Spring Break vacation. They are very cool people, and they are rock hounds, so I will be stalking to them to teach me about it.

We also went to the movies. I took my son to see The Hunger Games and the man took girlie to see The Lorax. Much enjoyment was had all around.

Tonight we are upstairs in our spare room. There is a dog between us, one downstairs, and one on the back of the couch behind my head. My husband has often accused one of the dogs of being a cat-dog. Which is to say, he has a lot of cat personality traits, like flomping across my hands when he doesn’t want me to type anymore, or stretching out on the arm of the couch and that sort of thing. But now the rescue corgi, Guster, stretched out on the back of the couch acting like my headrest. Total cat behavior.

I also have a post up on Magical Words today on writing a book.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

The update on Guster goes like this. It looks like he’s had a rib broken before. He shies significantly from fast movements and feet. I frequently pet my dogs with my feet. I tried to do that with him and he about broke himself trying to get away. I think it’s clear that he’s been grabbed by the scruff of the neck and yanked around a lot. Most definitely he’s been kicked. I would love to do some kicking of my own on the people who hurt him.

On the other hand, he’s all about love and climbing up on laps. We took him for a leash walk today. Oh dear. That didn’t go well. He was afraid of the leash. Afraid of the harness. He pulled a lot and tried to get far away from the end of the leash (I used a retractable one) and so I may need to switch to a regular one, except I think he’s more comfortable on a longer leash. But eventually he settled into the idea for the most part and started to relax. But I think tomorrow it will be a shorter walk just to keep him less nervous. You know, because that last phrase was all grammatically correct and made sense. Right?

The rest of the weekend involved having guests over, sending children over to other people’s houses and vice versa, and weird things getting into my eyes and hurting like hell. I got precious little writing done, but I was frequently mounded with children and dogs. I apparently am very comfortable to sleep on. Must be all that fat. Sigh.

I also made babyback ribs for dinner guests on Friday night. Okay, they were endpieces and odd bits. I cooked them in the crockpot in beer and hickory smoke flavoring. Then I pulled them out and put them in baking dishes with BBQ sauce and covered them with foil and put them in the oven on a low heat. After a couple hours I put on more sauce and they went another hour. They were fabulous. Tender and amazing. I served them with a cantelope and strawberry salad, corn, and fresh bread. It was really good. I was really glad about how the ribs turned out and I will definitely cook them that way again.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

First, the signing was fun. Not a lot of traffic, but then again, there was a lot of stuff going on in town last night and I knew there would be some limitations. But books were sold, fun was had, and I laughed quite a bit.

Then we got home and around 10 p.m., we got a rescue dog. His name is Guster, and he’s a littermate for our boys. Apparently the people who had him moved and couldn’t keep him, and took him back to the breeder. Her dogs were picking on him something fierce, so we took him in. He will be leaving in 6 weeks to go live with my parents who had one of their dogs die of age last year and they’ve been looking for another corgi. They wanted an adult and not a puppy. I think Guster will make them happy.

He showed up with a distinctive skunk smell. We washed him in hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and dish soap, but it didn’t work. I either got the mix wrong, or the baking soda was too old. So this a.m. we called the local groomer and she got him in at 8:30 this morning. He probably had never been brushed. She said he essentially had doggie dreadlocks. He also has a ton of little scabs all over him from being bitten and it looks like he’s got a little notch out of one ear from an attack or who knows what.

He’s very sweet and loving, but is scared of collars. It’s almost like they dragged him by the collar or that they grabbed his neck a lot. He wants to please and he does like the couch. My dogs were a bit suspicious of him, but they haven’t picked on him at all and in fact are trying to coax him into playing. Guster doesn’t know how to play. He also doesn’t know what the leash is for and is terrified of it. We got him a harness and we’re going to be working with him.

Here’s a picture, if I can get it uploaded.

And now for the request. If you happen to be shopping on Amazon, will you use one of my links to click through? The reason I ask is that I earn money back from that and I want to give away books and gift cards to you. I figure that if I can collect enough money, then I could do a giveaway once a month. With a gift card, the winner could get whatever they wanted. Anyhow, I would appreciate it if you thought of that if you happen to have something to buy on Amazon.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

It occurred to me, in a rather belated way, that I am supposed to read tonight. So I thought, I should pick something out. I suck at this. I never know what to read. I have opted to simply read from the beginning of Shadow City. But it made me think about what you like to hear when you go to a reading? Do you like a long passage? Several shorter ones? Do you like to hear what you’ve already read? or maybe a work in progress, even if it is rough? A short story?

For tonight, I’m not sure how many real fantasy fans will be there. It might be more like friends who are supporting me. And it may be dead, because this is a small town and there is a ton of stuff going on tonight. Bad scheduling all around.

I opted for the opening of Shadow City, since that’s the focus of the signing overall, and it’s got some action and some snark and hopefully people don’t need to know much about previous books to get into it.

So readers, what do you like to hear? Writers, what do you like to read? How do you choose?

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

Today we got a new washer. Our old one died and the repair costs were as much as a new one, so . . .

It required a 2 hour drive to Bozeman (and 2 back). Costco had none. They always have them. They did not. The Home Depot in Bozo doesn’t have a local warehouse, so we were out of luck there. So to Lowe’s. Got it, came home, installed it, tried it out. It works. Yay. I will not stink.

Tomorrow I’m doing a booksigning here in Dillon from 6-8, so any of you in the area, come on down to The Bookstore.

We took the dogs with us on this long drive. In the past three weeks we’ve taken them in the truck to a number o f places. They’ll be going to Bozo again next week for Voodoo’s 8 week post-surgery checkup. I think they are starting to like the concept of car rides, especially if the kids aren’t with us.

On the drive, I tried to work on a map for the country and world I’m creating. It didn’t go well. Here’s the thing. I’m working outward from the center, which is odd. I’ve got an idea of what the terrain is like, but how it fits together into a system of countries and the world is what I’m not sure about. Part of it is I know the politics of some of it and I have to make the terrain and the landscape coincide with the economics of the world and how it functions. Does that make sense? I need to make the landscape work with what I know has happened in the history of the place. Drawing it is giving me fits though. It’s going to take some time.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.

I started working on a novel idea a few months ago. I have the plot down. At least the basic plot. That came through to me really strongly when the idea snuck up on me. At the time, it felt like the world and characters were vivid and that I could start writing.

Well, guess what? I started writing. And you know what? I didn’t know anything. It was like looking at a picture of a city from far away and being able to pick out landmarks. Oh look, there’s the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, the Bay Bridge, or the Space Needle and Pike’s Market. And then assuming because you have a handful of landmarks identified, that you can navigate and live in the city and never get lost.

Um. No.

So I’ve been noodling. I started with the geography and thinking about exactly what the lacy of the land was like. And that meant looking at weather, food, commerce, economy, gods, religion, magic, and so on. Each thing leads to another and raises a ton of questions and answers only a few. But the world is starting to really feel vibrant real. There’s much more to noodle with of course, and I continue to do that. I’ll reach a critical mass soon where I’ll know the characters enough to actually start writing.

I also need a map. I need to get a visual of just what this place looks like. I also want to do an interview with some of the characters. I’ve done some collecting of images on Pinterest for it. So I’m hoping to get some chapters nailed down pretty quick as I explore. It’s a really dark fantasy and I like it. Not a darkness of slavery and cruelty, but of something else. It’s a difficult novel to work with because the concept is hard for me to pin down, even in my head. But I think it will be really cool.

Originally published at www.dianapfrancis.com. You can comment here or there.