A few years back, a guy did a kind of cool experiment where, in an attempt to judge books the same way editors did, he picked up several books at the bookstore and read the first page. As it happened, URBAN SHAMAN was one of the ones he picked up, and the only one that drew his attention enough to actually buy it. Since then he and I have chatted a bit, and now Ed is running a Kickstarter for his first novella. Check it out! Also, Tim Pratt is…
Author: mizkit
oh, that’s nice.
I don’t typically read reviews, but periodically my editors will send one directly to my mailbox and I read it out of a sense of obligation. Usually they’re nice, because generally my editors wouldn’t bother sending me bad ones. :) So a nice BABA YAGA’S DAUGHTER review from Publisher’s Weekly landed in my mailbox, courtesy of my SubPress editors, and it is thus: In this strong collection of 11* short stories, a mixture of reprints and originals, Murphy (Raven Calls) returns to the setting of her Negotiator trilogy. The spotlight…
further on rookie mistakes
In comments on that last post, someone said: “I would like to read what you think should be thrown away. I’m not sure I’d agree.” Here’s the thing: you’re right. You wouldn’t agree. But you would be wrong. I have written entire books without plots. I am a good enough writer that I can almost get away with that, and without an editor who wouldn’t let me, in one case, I would have. And that’s what’s wrong with what I’ve been working on: I had something that looked like a…
rookie mistake
For the past six weeks I’ve been working on starting a new book. Now, it often only *takes* me six weeks to write a book, and although there have been some distractions, taking six weeks to get started is really a bad sign. Usually when I don’t want to work on a new project, it means I’ve done something wrong. I *know* that, so I kept looking at it, trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. I reached 75 pages on the manuscript twice, and the first time, I…
a story
After the Readercon mess (short version: somebody sexually harassed a woman, she complained, trusting that Readercon’s zero-tolerance policy would be implemented and the guy would be banned for life, it wasn’t, people rightfully got furiously upset, went viral with it, Readercon recognized their mistake, banned the guy, and I believe the entire Readercon board has now resigned in apology), my friends lists have been filled with a lot of discussion about rape and harassment and the problems people deal with day in and day out. I’ve been lucky, and let…