djonn | Entries tagged with writing

Opened up a long-trunked short story file yesterday and did a quick read-through and polish -- you don't want to know how many semicolons there were in the pre-tinkered iteration -- after running across a market notice for which said story might conceivably be a fit. Of course it's a short-window deadline, and of course older me now sees an issue that probably needs more time to fix than the window will allow, but still. Actual writing is actual writing.

In other news, the final death of Yahoo Groups a couple of weeks ago took with it a small writers' mailing list whose ownership I inherited a long while back by being one of the few people involved with sufficient Yahoo neep-skills to actually get into the list management tools. Before the lights went out, one trail of breadcrumbs was laid over to groups.io ... and I laid another by setting up

storytellers_research here on Dreamwidth. The community - like the prior list - is designed to help writers by sharing general expertise as needed for particular projects (i.e. what kind of a sword wound do I need to sideline my protagonist without killing her, what sort of dresses did they wear in 14th-century Grand Fenwick, how can I get someone out of a locked sarcophagus before they run out of air...). Membership is temporarily moderated (to discourage spammers during the setup phase), and very much not limited to the prior Yahoo folk, so anyone interested is encouraged to head over and come aboard.

Current Location: one of Pooh's thoughtful places
Current Music: "Pinky and the Brain" theme

[blowing dust off furniture]

Yeesh, you would think whoever was living here would dust more often....

I really, really need to start posting more than once every year and a half. Let's call that a New Year's resolution and see where it gets me.

////

So, the Very Very Short Status Report for anyone still hovering in the gallery:

I remain comfortably ensconced in the southwestern quadrant of Darkest Suburbia™, amid entirely too much clutter and too many unsorted boxes (but am verrry slowwwwly working through both these). I still have a day job in grocery retail, which is highly useful where things like regular income and decent health coverage are concerned. At present the paid writing career is almost entirely dormant, although I am doing a fair amount of purely-for-fun writing under another hat, and I keep meaning to regenerate the more profitable side of things.

On the family front: the Kid Brother and family are busily enduring the current dystopia in Southern California (both he and my sister-in-law teach in the LAUSD system). My niece and nephew are occupied in various parts of the (virtual) collegiate universe, while Mother is in memory care - but otherwise mostly excellent health for almost-90 - just down the street and around the corner from here as I type. I am two weeks or so past a Milestone Birthday, and have been playing "Just No Time At All" from Pippin on my various music-generating devices in nominal protest. ["I believe if I refuse to grow old, I can stay young till I die!"]

One part of the enormous supply of unsorted boxes consists of manuscripts comprising a great variety of short memoirs my father wrote over a period of years; there's a lot of good stuff in there, and another of my long-term projects will involve consolidating and editing that material. Much of it will likely remain within the family, but there's also some potentially publishable work in there. There are also additional manuscripts from *his* father (who published a book of native Northwest legends 90-odd years ago), and there may be hidden gems there to evaluate.

And that's the general state of the universe in this corner of Darkest Suburbia just now.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: next to a bowl of pineapple
Current Music: random Christmas carols

He lives! (This is what happens when one has two DW identities; one gets out of the habit of switching, so that most of the -- still minimal -- updating happens under the ID where one is logged in. I will try to be better about this going forward; OTOH, do see also the dedicated Webspace over at lonepenman.net.) At any rate:

It's time to venture once again from Darkest Suburbia to the spectacle that is OryCon. This year's schedule has a unique wrinkle: I've been tagged as the moderator for all five of the panels I've been assigned. I hasten to note that this is not a complaint; in all cases, I checked the "willing to moderate" box on the survey of my own volition, and I'm pleased with the range of subjects I've drawn in the scheduling lottery. Here's where you'll find me at the front of the room:

Friday • 2:00 pm (Overton) • How to Design the Perfect Politician
John C. Bunnell | Bob Brown, Mike Shepherd Moscoe

How do you design and implement a career-development program to produce elected officials and high-level administrators who can break free of the broken adversarial paradigm and actually work together with one another to solve society's problems?

Saturday • 10:00 am (Pettygrove) • The Right Writing Advice
John C. Bunnell | Elizabeth Guizzetti, John Hedtke, Esther Jones, Kat/K.R. Richardson

Panelists discuss how to handle feedback from beta readers, writing groups, friends and strangers-- including how to know whose advice to take, and how to accept criticism gracefully!

Saturday • 11:00 am (166B) • Care & Feeding of a Successful Book Group
John C. Bunnell | Gibbitt Rhys-Jones, Theodore J. Williams

I want to talk about books year-round, not just at con. Where to look for like-minded souls, how to go about setting things up, and how to keep people interested once you've lured them in.

Saturday • 7:00 pm (166B) • Paths into Fanfiction: Challenges & Exchanges
John C. Bunnell | Elinor Gray, Kara Helgren

Whether you're a writer looking for a fresh challenge or a reader hunting for a particular kind of story, there's probably a curated fanfic exchange on the Net that can supply just what you're looking for. From Yuletide to Holmestice, from Kink Bingo to the Ficathon that Goes Into a Bar, we'll talk about how challenges and exchanges work, where to find them, and catalogue some of the more memorable works they've produced.

Sunday • 10:00 am (166B) • Holmesian Apocrypha: Women of Baker Street
John C. Bunnell | Karen L. Black, Elinor Gray, Shawna Reppert

This isn't a panel about Sherlock and his adventures – it's one about the rapidly growing number of tales featuring his sisters (Enola), multi-great granddaughters (Charlotte), rivals (Irene Adler), and other notable women in his orbit (Mary Morstan, Mrs. Hudson, Mary Russell). And then there are the universes in which the original Holmes was a woman all along.

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: home and away (well, not both at once)
Current Music: "Smugglers' Song" (Longcor & Kipling)
Crossposts: https://djonn.livejournal.com/46434.html

Wednesday night, I went to an Oscar prediction "party" sponsored by Portland's major daily newspaper. It was enjoyable and informative, but I put the word "party" in quotation marks because the event consisted almost entirely of an hour's presentation by the paper's movie critic, held in a small space that was sort of a cross between a collegiate lecture room (rows of theater-style seats on two levels, some tables in the back) and a theater lobby.

As I say, I enjoyed the event well enough. However, I got home Thursday evening to find an emailed note asking me to fill out a feedback survey on the event. And the survey included the following question:

5. How unique was the event?

<input ... >Extremely unique

<input ... >Very unique

<input ... >Fairly unique

<input ... >Slightly unique

<input ... >Not at all unique

Now remember, this was an event sponsored by a newspaper, with the survey link having been mailed by someone with "name-of-newspaper-dot-com" in their e-address. It may be optimistic of me in the present day and age, but I retain the fond delusion that employees of newspapers ought to use words properly.

This, therefore, is part of the response I included in the survey question where one is asked "is there anything else you'd like to share?"

Also, a note regarding one of the survey questions above: the question misuses the word "unique". THERE ARE NO DEGREES OF UNIQUENESS. Either something is unique or it is not. The question therefore makes no sense, and the individual who drafted it should be required to carry a hardcover copy of The Chicago Manual of Style wherever he or she goes for at least the next two weeks, with Post-Its inserted to mark the relevant pages (170 and 231 in the 15th edition).

I don't anticipate receiving a personal response to this, but perhaps they'll surprise me....

Current Mood: cranky
Current Location: home again, home again
Current Music: "If I Could Talk to the Animals" (Dr. Dolittle)
Crossposts: http://djonn.livejournal.com/39751.html

And there was much rejoicing....

The news for the week is that I'm bylined in Publishers' Weekly with a short profile of Lucius Shepard. You should be able (at least this week) to see "Travels With Lucius" by following the link. I consider this very cool indeed; it was an enjoyable, intriguing interview, and the project as a whole turned around very promptly indeed, with entirely cogent and professional editorial input.

Better still, I was able to insert a reference to the second Juliet McKenna ebook, Phantom of the Operetta, into the PW bio squib!

Current Mood: pleased
Current Location: back from the BBQ place
Current Music: Seanan McGuire, "Dorothy"

Current Mood: pleased
Current Location: back from the BBQ place
Current Music: Seanan McGuire, "Dorothy"

Got home from OryCon Saturday night to find email from my editor:

Charmed, I'm Sure is now available for download from Uncial Press! This is somewhat earlier than I'd anticipated, but I am emphatically not complaining (heh!).

( Here's the cover: )

(OryCon tomorrow should be even more fun now....)

Current Mood: ecstatic
Current Location: Cloud Nine
Current Music: Echo's Children, "No Quarter!"

(OryCon tomorrow should be even more fun now....)

Current Mood: ecstatic
Current Location: Cloud Nine
Current Music: Echo's Children, "No Quarter!"

Good news on the writing front:

Uncial Press has accepted "Charmed, I'm Sure" -- a contemporary fantasy novelette -- for ebook publication (I'd say that I have contracts in hand, but in fact they're en route back to Publisher HQ as I type this). Tentatively, the story should be out in spring 2008; I will definitely be providing more specific details as they become available.

I'm very much looking forward to this. Uncial is a relatively new e-publisher, but I think they have solid market and business sense (and, obviously, good editorial taste).

Meanwhile, I'm now contractually obligated to bring my incredibly dusty Web site up to date....

Current Mood: excited
Current Location: Muppet News Central
Current Music: the Muppet Show theme

Current Mood: excited
Current Location: Muppet News Central
Current Music: the Muppet Show theme

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djonn

The Lone Penman

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Faint stirring of the writerly muse
It's aliiiiiive!!! (For relative values thereof....)
Live @ OryCon, 2018 Edition
In Which I Get to Snark About Grammar
Travels With Lucius!
Travels With Lucius!
The eBook Has Landed!!!!!
The eBook Has Landed!!!!!
[pending] Kaa-ching!!!!
[pending] Kaa-ching!!!!

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Darkest Suburbia...and Beyond!

a life about writing and writing about life

Entries tagged with writing

Faint stirring of the writerly muse

It's aliiiiiive!!! (For relative values thereof....)

Live @ OryCon, 2018 Edition

In Which I Get to Snark About Grammar

Travels With Lucius!