New Year Day 5: Update

Mostly an update today. I’ve been working on getting ready for school, and found out yesterday that a textbook I was going to use for a class has had its publication date pushed back from November 2007 until March 2008. That will leave me scrambling for a book since classes start in about a week. The University bookstore is supposed to let me know about this kind of thing, but alas. I should have had enough sense to check earlier.

Other than that, I did get an acceptance on a story from Flashing Swords. The tale is called “Worms in the Earth,” and is one of the few humorous stories I’ve attempted over the years. Humor is popular with editors, though. This is actually a reprint sale. The story sold first time out and was published, then I resold it a couple of years later to an anthology that ended up never seeing print, then resold it again this week. It’s actually been submitted four times and sold three of the four. The other submission was for a “best of” anthology so it had pretty stiff competition there. Below is a brief excerpt from the piece, but I’ll be sure and let everyone know when the piece is published.

Deep into his palace Farthane stalked, making his way to what he called his "black" room (though a visiting imp had once been heard to remark, "why doesn't he call it his 'blacker' room since his whole castle is most wholesomely black?"). Drawing from his fastidiously immaculate shelves his most ancient and potent grimoire--the Necronudicon (older than the Necronomicon and with better pictures besides)--he turned the laminated bat-wing pages until he found the one spell he sought, the one cantrip that he had never used in his rather short long life.

I hope to have a post on writing humor in the next few days. I generally find it difficult to do, but when it works I really enjoy it. How about you? Any humor writers in the audience? Do you find it easier or harder to write humor? Do you enjoy reading humorous works?

Finally, I know most of you are not in this area, but if you are or know anyone who is, I’m going to give a talk on writing and publishing, and hopefully sign a few books, on January 14, at 6:30, at the library in Slidell, Louisiana. That’s a Monday night. Would love to see anyone there who could make it. But I can’t pay for your plane tickets if you live in, say, New Zealand or Canada or England or Detroit or Chicago, or some wild and wooly place like that.

After Signing

Well, I was really happy with the signing tonight. I’m still excited. I didn’t have a lot of people, but they were all enthusiastic and friendly and I sold quite a few books. I think the talk went over pretty well and I had a lot of folks come up after to chat. I didn’t have to sign until my hand cramped but I think I felt a twinge in my thumb once. (LOL) Apparently the library folks liked my presentation because they started talking to me about coming back once the third Taleran book is published. That would be very nice.

Among the folks who came were O’Neil and Debb De Noux, both writers and both good friends. I hadn’t seen either of them in probably over a year so that was nice. Elora Fink, from my Wordsmith’s writing group, drove all the way over the 24 mile bridge through rain and rush hour traffic to get there. Elora is always so supportive of her friends, writing or otherwise. I think she’s been to all of my signings and talks and I always appreciate seeing her. I think, btw, that Elora has some passing connection with the blogger known as Sphinx Ink. Brenda Howard came with Elora and bought a copy of all the books. I’ve met Brenda a couple of times before but hadn’t seen her in quite a long time either. Melissa Bryant was the lady from the Covington library who arranged all the details and made sure the room was set up. Much thanks to her. Her husband, Stephen, also attended, and it turns out Stephen and Melissa are from Arkansas. In fact, Stephen even attended Arkansas Tech where I went to undergraduate school, although we weren’t there at the same time. Some other folks who made the drive were Sarah and her husband Daniel. Sarah works with Lana at the Abita Springs library, and I’d spoken with her before. This was my first time meeting Daniel, and we talked quite a bit about psychology, a subject I occasionally dabble in.

And, of course, Lana was there, being her usual supportive self. I had to laugh earlier in the day, though, because I think she was more nervous than I was. All in all, I hope a good time was had by everyone. I know I had a good time. Sometimes it’s good for a writer to get out in public and meet real people.

As Signing Grows Nigh

My first signing for the Taleran Books is coming up this next Tuesday, July 31, at 6:30 PM in the Covington Branch Library. I know that most of you reading this aren't close enough to come, although I'd love to see anyone who can, but in case anyone is considering it the address is 310 W. 21st Ave, Covington, LA. The phone there is (985) 893-6280.

I will be giving a talk on writing before the signing, which will probably last about half an hour. My topic will be on writing, primarily on dreams as story prompts and on developing suspense. After that there will be time for questions before I do any signing. I'll have copies of "Swords" and "Wings," and also of my first book, Cold in the Light, and will be able to offer a slight discount on the Amazon cost to those who attend.

Please let everyone else know who might be interested and able to attend. I'm looking forward to a fun evening.

The Pleasure of Holding a Book

As soon as I knew that Swords of Talera was on Amazon, Lana and I ordered a copy to see how the process would work. We got it late Wednesday evening, which seemed very fast to me, especially since other folks have told me that theirs is not going to be delivered until after mid-month. I imagine, though, that they had some printed and the first orders went out from those.

I was as excited as a kid to actually hold the book in my hand, and it looks very nice up close. The cover is great and the print and typesetting is dark and readable. The book is well put together and I’m very happy for that. Right now I have one signing set in Covington for July 31st, but I’ll be posting more on this as it gets closer. This was set up for me by the incomparable Lana Jackman, who is much better than the incomparable Dejah Thoris that John Carter fell in love with on Barsoom. I’ll probably have another signing in Arkansas when I go home to visit my family this summer.

Here’s a little bit of information from David Morrell’s writing book that I thought was interesting. He points out that Hemingway used more adjectives and adverbs than people often think but that he used them differently. Here’s the first sentence of A Farewell to Arms.

“In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels.”

We’ve got five adjectives and an adverb here, but the adjectives seem almost more like nouns because they stand alone, “dry and white in the sun” rather than directly modifying the nouns they are directed at, “pebbles and boulders.” If we rewrote it in a more standard fashion we’d have something like:

In the river bed there were dry, white pebbles and boulders, and the clear, blue water moved swiftly in the channel.

I thought this was an interesting observation, and one that had not really occurred to me. Worth considering.