Spent last night at our friend’s place drinking cheap sake and eating Chinese take out food. Home today about as hydrated as a prune forgotten in the back of the pantry. Must. Have. Water. Fun night, though. We watched Coraline and a few Family Guy episodes and two out of four of us complained almost non stop about how stiff karate had made us. We’re practicing up for old age.

Stumbled home full and warm and very very tired while the wind bent frosty trees at dangerous angles and howled through the alley. Woke in the middle of the night because our greenhouse was trying to take flight. The wind is still contorting the leafless trees, and it’s supposed to keep up like this till tomorrow, so if any of you guys are on the coast, make safe your flyaway goods! Worse still, it’s 3 degrees here. Now, I know some of you (Ocelot) are going to be in fits of laughter when I whine about it being 3 degrees. I know. I know. Let me give you the Patented Coastal Response to your derision: “It’s a wet cold. Much colder-feeling than a dry cold.”

This is, in fact, partially true, but it doesn’t mean that we’re as cold in relative terms as Winnipeg right now. Or even in spring. Ah, Winnipeg.

You know, I might have been hard on that town when I posted here, but the fact is, I really like that place (ohmygodUkraniansausagehomnom). I had fun when I was there, caught up with a good friend and made some new ones and really enjoyed Keycon. But… well, looking at my finances, I’m sad to say I don’t think I’m likely to make it to Keycon this year. The cost of flying and then bunking in a hotel is, really, prohibitive.

I’m a bit bummed about this. I really loved Keycon. The organizers did a great job last year, the other guests were great fun, the attendees were the sort of people I wish I could have stuffed into my suitcase to bring back home. I’ll be sorry to miss it.

All that said, if I can get a cheap flight, I’ll go (assuming the organizers don’t say no, of course). So I’m on the hunt. If you guys see any seat sales, know of any wormholes, or have access to a postal van that’s headed east, let me know.

Oh god. I am so sore.

I’m sore because I had a great class last night. I did at least 30 breakfalls (and I would be unsurprised if the total was somewhat closer to 50). I know this is nothing to those aikidoka out there in the world, but for me? Damn big night. So that hurts a bit the next day, because you never land every fall exactly right (at least, I never do).

And we’re packing up everything we own and moving it fifty feet down the hall while our place gets new paint and new carpet. We’re moving without the fun and excitement of going to a new place. Yes, we did this to ourselves (I was the one who announced I was sick of the carpet and got the whole thing started) and yes, the outcome will be grand, but everything we own is mostly books. They weight a lot. I’m a little bit sore from all the packing and schlepping.

And I started working out again. This is because the jeans I bought in summer time fit rather less well than they did when I bought them. I’m just doing two little half hour workouts twice a week, one cardio and one strength. I’ve never done strength training before. I’m a bit sore from that.

All my brilliant plans are completely sensible. They’re all good for me. Yay, good karate class! Yay working out! Boo moving but it has to be done! But all at once? Not the most masterful execution.

Apropos of nothing…

I’m listening to the BBC, and the news programs today have been all about how the people who ran the banks into the ground are going to get enormous bonuses this year. The banks say they need to pay huge bonuses or they’ll lose the top brains and then who will run the ship?

Has no one given this any thought?

Do the people who work in banking in the UK have no sense of duty to their country? No sense of shame? If they’re the kind of people to make a grand hash of an entire nation’s economy and then just run off after a better paying gig, good God, why on earth would you want them?

A friend on Livejournal asked this question:

“did you ever have to write any query letters?”

Oh my yes. Yes I did. And do. Every damn time I want to sell something, a query goes out with the manuscript.

Queries are the letter you send to a publisher asking them to buy what you’re selling. They’re fraught. People spend huge amounts of time agonizing over them, but the fact is they’re just letters. They need to do a few things – convey information clearly, demonstrate the author of the letter can manage the language, and give the editor some idea of what to expect from the submission, but really, that’s it. Here’s how I do mine:

In the first paragraph, put the title of your submission, what it is (poem, short story, novel, watevs), its genre, word count and a teaser. Then, in the next paragraph, go on to tell the editor why they should be arsed to read your stuff. List your top writing achievements (awards, say, or other books you’ve done). If you’ve got no publishing credit, talk about what you do have – ie, if it’s a book about a cursed tomb and you’re an achaeologist, awesome. Last, tell the editor how they can get in touch with you. THIS IS IMPORTANT. And it’s astonishing how often people bail on this one.

Here’s the query letter I used for Stormy Bamboo:

Dear Drollerie Press*,

I write to ask you to consider publishing my 52,000 word fantasy novella “Stormy Bamboo”.

This is a novella that explores the idea of resurrection. It’s set in a mythical Asian world, where honor is as good as currency, and duty may come before morality. When Hikage, a retainer dishonored by the murder of a young girl, encounters Iyuko, a powerful woman who wants to fulfill her duty as a magician and resurrect her dead brother, he sees a chance to atone for his past. Together Hikage and Iyuko search for the secret of resurrection and in the end, must decide if duty and honor are compelling enough reasons to bring back the dead.

I’ve pasted the story below in two parts, the first three chapters in one section, the final chapter in the second. The format is odt, which I hope will be acceptable. Please let me know if I should send the files in another format.

A bit about me: I’m the Aurora Award nominated author of over a dozen short stories published in magazines like Neo Opsis, Bewildering Stories and Susurrus Madness. I like feedback (no, really, I do) so if you have any questions or advice, please feel free to contact me at [email, snail mail, phone number, etc].

Thanks for your time. I look forward to hearing from you!

Tamara Sheehan

My Top Tip for query writing is this: Do exactly as the editors say. They write submission guidelines for a reason. Use standard submission format for the manuscript. Forget about fancy fonts, pink paper, or stylistic ticks (that means use your shift key, spell check, punctuate, etc).

Remember: This part is business. By submitting you are asking them to part with serious money. Really. It can cost in the neighborhood of $40,000 to publish a book. Your query is a chance to show you get the business side of things.

Here’s my post on query letters.
And here’s my post on submission.

*This is bad form, but I couldn’t find the name of the editor anywhere. Names are always preferable.

*edit* Missing word added in. Thanks, Shawn!

Oh my god, it’s almost December. 0.o

So I got the final final final round of edits for Field Guide (I think. I hope.) and, really I have to give a shout out to Jay Lake, who once, long ago, in the far off mists of time, posted something on his blog about how the only person who has any responsibility for the text in the printed book is the author because when people read a book and find a mistake, they don’t think, gee, the editor/proofer should have caught that, they think, what a dumb author. And they’d be right. Who else should care about your book as much as you?

Anyway, this is a nugget of wisdom that I’ve taken to heart, and today, it may have saved me from having Field Guide come out with an appalling and unintentionally hilarious misprint. Autocorrect, a function that I suspect is the scourge of fantasy writers everywhere and not just the bane of my existence, autocorrected a character’s name from Hyan to Hyman. Erm. No. Not quite what I was going for.

Who knows when the mistake happened, but who cares? Thanks to Jay Lake’s words of wisdom, I did a read through before shipping the manuscript back to my long-suffering editor. God, could you imagine if I hadn’t? Hymen might sound like a decent name to the non-English speaking ear, but the people who are familiar with the language could be forgiven for peeing their pants a little if they read that. I mean, seriously. It’s like naming your female character Vagina. (Or your allegedly Asian character after a heater. Ahem.) Not the sort of thing one wants to do, and not the sort of thing readers are every going to let one get away with.

Of course, this also means the book is drawing up to the starting gate, and publication is nigh. This will be the fourth book this twelvemonth and I’m not lying when I say I now have no freaking idea what I’m going to do. Probably spend every moment I’m not writing feeling vaguely guilty about it. Almost certainly write some more fan fic. Probably offer sacrifices to whatever gods out there ignored me when I said I wanted a multi-book contract (Deadlines? Oh I can make them. I hate myself, my home life becomes fraught and everything is awful until the work is done, but I’ve never missed a deadline. In fact, I turn in my manuscripts as early as I can*. So nyaa. But do I want them? Um, no.) and really enjoy the holidays after the new carpet, lino and paint go in on the 10th**.

So in honor of the final final final draft, here’s my top three things about this pass with the lance:

1. Phrase I most wish I could have kept: “Masahiro’s kimono feels like it weighs a metric fucking ton…”

2. Best editing catch: The word hymen for the name Hyan.

3. Fanciest Footowork: Fixing the time. I originally planned for the book to span two days but it actually spans five.

Incidentally, I wish I’d done this with Bamboo, so here, for good measure, are my top three for Bamboo:

1. Phrase I most wish I could have kept: Not a phrase, really. This world has a complicated system of trade, involving opium resin, milled coin and full coins. There wasn’t really any place to explain it, so most of the mentions of it have been edited out.

2. Best editing catch: I write with a hideous mix of UK and American spelling and I think we caught every single UK style word. Phew.

3. Fanciest Footwork: The opening paragraphs were a (very) late addition that I’m really glad we did.

*Because I hate having them in my house, staring at me, calling softly, “You’re so lazy.” or “Why don’t you finish me? Don’t you want to be a writer?” It’s better if I put on the coffee for two or three days and get that sucker done.

**Yeah, we’re, um, moving, but only for twelve hours. And just till the sweaty, greasy and pee-smelling carpet that has been our constant companion since we moved in ten years ago is pulled up, the walls are repainted Landlord Cream and the cigarette-stained lino is replaced. Basically, we’re getting a new place. I wish I knew Tensor’s Floating Disc, for real. It would make everything so much easier.

Home late from work and not much to have for dinner, so cracked two cans of soup and whipped up some biscuit dough and threw the whole thing in the oven. Hopefully it’ll be edible.

Tonight, the husband and I are off to watch a friend go up for his blue belt. Tomorrow, Ninja Assassin. I have great hopes of it being just as awful as the name suggests. It’s rated R, for “strong bloody violence throughout, and language” which is just, you know…

I have this habit of sitting down and talking to myself and then not writing down what I’ve been talking about, which is a bit of a shame, because that’s how I talk myself through writing stuff, and who knows? Maybe that would be interesting to you guys. Anyway, here’s what I’ve been thinking about for the last few days.

I’m doing the final edits for Field Guide right now, and every time I do this sort of thing, I get disheartened. I see things I would pay to have the time to change, and I can see a tideline where the new writing encounters the old writing when a passage needs to be changed. The old writing (which makes up the majority of the book, of course) is always substantially worse than the new writing, (or, the new writing is substantially better than the old writing. Let’s be positive here). Regardless, it’s frustrating as hell.

I used to listen the Michael A Stackpole’s podcast “The Secrets” pretty regularly, and one of the pieces of advice he gives is to never stop working in the middle of a book and go back and edit because your writing improves so much as you work through the book. The man is absolutely right. I learn so much when I write a book that the writing at the beginning is totally different from the writing at the end. This means that when I go back and try to pick up a book I’ve been working on for a while, or when I have to do edits, I get this bizarre patchwork quilt effect in the writing, where I can date the section of text by the way its written (and sometimes even who I was reading).

Don’t get me wrong; it’s great to be able to go through a book and fix shit. Point of view violations, yes, get them out. Confusion of motion? Ghastly. Also, better when safely in the past and therefore funny. I like to have a second chance with a manuscript because, honestly, there have been times when I’ve looked at something I wrote and thought, “Wow, that’s an interesting thing to say, but I said it totally backwards.”

The point is that I learn an awful lot with every book. A lot a lot. And while, yes, I wish I was a creative genius and yes I would like to be a better spinner of yarns and maker of fables, I’m actually really happy with the progress I’m making. After all, I’m just guessing about what I’m doing here. I haven’t done an FMA or worked in publishing or anything. I like to read and I’m learning to write and so far, I think I’m doing some of this stuff right (hooray!). And now I want to do it better.

So, my plan for the next few years is to produce less but produce higher quality stuff. In fact, I’ve noticed my desire to have those one-week-writing benders has fallen off since I started having two days off regularly in which to just write. This is good. Great, even. I think now that I have a few books out, I’m less worried about getting as much as possible done, and more worried about making the jump from being a girl with a few books out to being more creative, more self-propelled, and more skilled with language. I don’t feel like my big hurdle is getting published any more – it’s still a hurdle, but it’s not so big and scary as it once was. Instead, I feel like my big hurdle is not sucking, not being more horribly derivative than I can bear, and not winding myself into a panic about my skills or, depending on how I feel and the way the wind is blowing, my lack thereof. This is scary. Like monster-in-the-closet scary.

So, yep, I’ve changed a lot in the last year. My writing has really improved and the nice thing about practicing is that it can only get better. I’m at the point with Field Guide (just like I was with Stormy Bamboo) where I feel really pigheaded and slightly angry and I’m thinking, damn it, this is going to be as good as I can make it, it’s not going to be as good as it could be next year, and I guess that’s fine.

This whole doubt-and-dislike-and-despair thing I’ve been going through (AKA the “Woe is me, why must I be so derivative?” moan, or what I like to think of as “publishing puberty”) is an important part of the process. I’m realizing that I have to write to the best of my ability when I’m working and then fucking forget it. I would love to be able to go into the future and bring back my future skills, but I’m pretty sure I have to earn them first.

A series of day job work place photos, for the bored and curious among you

Yup. That’s a heavy bag hanging in front of the roaster. (Urg. Sorry for the blurriness. Too much caffeine.)

Out with the old crop and in with the new.

Freezing green, for science.

Getting ready to cup.

Another round of edits has hit my desk just as I was indulging in feeling scared and insecure. Bah. At least it takes my mind off breaking my husband’s book shelf and ruining his pants on the day he had an early start at work, a dental appointment and night school. Poor guy.