A Few Links of Interest

We’ve got some crappy weather going on this week here in DC. Yuck. And I’m working like hell on my newest secret project, which might, in fact, be the most exciting secret project I’ve ever had. Whee.

(I know, I’m a terrible tease.)

But there’s some cool stuff out there to read. Stuff like Vonna Harper’s awesome essay on the NINC blog about the pitfalls of vanity publishing. Perhaps you are one of those wondering why almost every profesional writer’s organization in the country is coming out against vanity publishing. It’s because why there is a place in this world for self-publishing, that place is, 999 times out of 1000, not the realm of commercial fiction. This essay shows why.

Pam Barchorz, author of CANDOR, explains why, even when the going gets tough, she doesn’t quit writing.

Justine Musk, who writes urban fantasy for YAs and adults, explores the topic of genre vs. literary and whether or not the internet age makes it more likely that readers will follow authors across genres. “I’m reminded of a fan of Poppy Z Brite’s who said, when she found out that Brite had a blog, “now I can have Poppy every day!” She didn’t care that Brite’s blog doesn’t chronicle vampires (from her early work) or chefs running a New Orleans restaurant (her later work). She craves Poppy’s voice, that mash-up of style and thought and personality that defines Poppy’s work and marks it apart from everybody else’s.”

I find this very intriguing. I know some of the readers of this blog found me through my fiction, some readers of this blog don’t read my fiction at all, some read Rampant but not SSG, SSG but not Rampant, or every single thing I put down on paper, including my essays for BenBella and Pocket and my food reviews for my old newspaper back in Florida (Hi, Dad!) One of the things I’m most curious about is how many of my chick lit readers gave my fantasy a try, and how many of my new fantasy readers are going out to find SSG. Though they are very different books, they are still mine. Naturally, I love them both, but I wonder if there are many other people who do, too.

The fabulous CakeWrecks takes a stab at bad Thanksgiving cakes. This is my favorite (please note: do not drink tea, as I was, while reading the caption):

Quoth CakeWrecks: “[Wreck a turkey cake] by putting an Indian headdress on Cthulhu.”

Ahahahahahhahhahahhahahhahahahahha! That chick cracks me up.

And finally, Jeff Carlson discusses the Big Idea behind his latest Plague Year book on John Scalzi’s blog. The part I found interesting was this:

“As a writer, you face two big challenges with a series. First, each book needs to work as a stand-alone for anyone who’s new to your work. At the same time, it’s important to jump ahead with each installment, always racheting up the stakes.”

Hmmm. I don’t think the books in my series are actually stand-alones. You could pick up Rites of Spring (Break) and I explain enough in the text that you’d knowwhy the characters hate Kurt Gehry or what the history is between Amy and Poe, but you don’t get the same deep sense as if you’d read the two books before it. The same goes for Rampant and its sequel. Yes, you can read them by themselves, but you get so much more out of them when you read them in order. I don’t see the point in a series if the characters don’t change, if they aren’t different people from book to book.

Which is why I definitely agree with the second part of Carlson’s statement, about ratcheting up the stakes. Rampant is the story about a girl who learns to use her superpowers. The sequel is about how superpowers don’t necessarily save the day. All those questions about what happens after the end of Rampant are kind of the point. If they weren’t there, there wouldn’t be a reason to write a sequel.

Speaking of writing… I’m off to do some.

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