For the past three days, I've been stuck in a hotel in Jersey City, sitting at the "information" desk for my company as I directed people to meeting rooms. Mostly I stared at the walls.

I also spent some time working out a new synopsis for the first story I wrote at Clarion - the flash short "Blackberry Sweet". Working off the critique that Michael Swanwick gave me, I've managed to plot out something considerably better, but as usual, something considerably longer. It'll end up being a novelette or novella. However, now that my routine is more or less back to normal, I'm going to set it aside and start work on the Tacoma Steampunk novella again. "Blackberry Sweet" can wait until sometime in mid-07 for a rewrite.

Now I must find coffee, and clothes. In exactly that order. :)

Labels: work

For those of you who have Livejournal accounts, I set up a syndicated feed that you can view on lj. One word of caution - if you add it, the first thing it'll do is put a whole bunch of posts into your friends view. So you might want to add it last thing at night, rather than early in the morning. That way you won't spend your day staring at fifteen old blogger posts by yours truly. Even I wouldn't want that.

liviallewellyn feed

I have about 500 words on the novella, but they're "fluid" words - that is to say, I keep adding and subtracting, moving sentences around. The Princess Irulan was right: a beginning is indeed the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct. I may end up skipping to scene two, and hope that at some point the right beginning will reveal itself to me. It's not often that I get the first sentence when I'm actually writing the first sentence. The only time that happened was when I wrote "The Four Hundred Thousand".

Speaking of stories - I now have all of three submissions out. Gah. Well, again, not bad for a non-story writer, and for someone who's had almost everything she's written accepted at some point or another. However, the submissions all very iffy: I don't think TFHT is going to make the cut at the magazine it's at (it's sf, but reads so much like dark fantasy/horror, that I think it might have been the wrong one of the "Big Three" to send it to); the cowboy story I can pretty much write off as too long and not cowboyish enough; and the third is a mildly erotic retelling of a myth (the horned god Cernnunos, but set in a suburban mall) that's been sitting at an anthology for about a year, with no expectation of an answer beyond "sometime in 2007" - that could be another 12 months, then. I also did a bit of research, and found that the editor in question has been planning this antho in some form or another since 2003. They're reputable, but there's only so much "it's a slow industry" I can take. I work in the industry, and I know just how fast it can be, when it wants. If I had any balls, I'd pull it and send it to Shimmer or Cabinet de Fees - both far better markets for the story, I've come to realize. I may just do that in January, when I get those New Year's balls grown in. :)

Labels: short story submissions

For the past week, I've been working on some character background for the protagonist of my novel. The more I wrote, the more I realized that what I was creating wasn't just a list of details, but an actual story. Last night I took what I had, dumped it into a single word document, then wrote out a one-paragraph outline of what I thought her backstory should be, based on what I had. Well, the one paragraph is also the synopsis for what will be my first Tacoma Steampunk novella. I hadn't planned on this, but there it is.

So, I'm setting aside the novel for the time being, and beginning the novella. Since there's already some interest in it (only interest, though, with no promise of anything beyond "I'll read it"), it makes sense to finish it first. I figure I can manage about 500-1000 words every evening, and have it completed before Christmas. I want to limit it to no more than 20k words, since a bit of research has made it obvious that shorter novellas have more markets available to them for submission than longer (i.e. in the 30-40k range). However, because the protagonist is now a 15-year-old female, that once again knocks out a number of the markets, including the one place I would have loved to have sent this to. Oh well....

I may post snippets of the work here, since I have all of two dedicated readers here, and am pretty sure I won't get any "OMG U suck/stole my ideaz" backtalk. lol. I'll post word counts, but I'm not going to be slavish about doing it every day. I don't know if I should post the synopsis - to be honest, when people usually start describing their work in elaborate detail online (especially on Livejournal), I tend to zone out. It's like reading other people's dreams - none of it makes sense to me, and it's all rather boring (although I think it's a good clue and harsh truth that if readers zone out, your synopsis/outline isn't working, and neither is your story). I think all you need to know for know is that it takes place in an alternate steampunk Tacoma - one in which the Chinese weren't successfully driven out in 1885 (this actually happened in "real" Tacoma).

Now I must take my turkey-laden belly to the gym. Because I am not about to to become the female Marlon Brando of writers. Heh.

Labels: tacoma steampunk

So, early this morning I finally sent off "The Unattainable". As usual, I had a last minute surge of panic: did I attach the story, or attach a grocery list? is my cover letter too groveling and pathetic, or just pathetic enough? how many typos did I miss? what if my story sucks? OMG MY STORY SUXXX!!! And then I hit "send". It's all over now. Too late to bring it back. I guess my biggest hope at this point is that the editors like the story. Anything beyond that is just a pipe dream.

Last night I started playing around with a new story, and about 300 words in I realized it might be the start of my first Tacoma Steampunk novella. I don't know - I'll have to keep writing and see where it goes. I started it only as an experiment in writing from a male POV - a first for me - because I was so nervous about not getting it right. So far there aren't any problems, although I'm definitely going to run the finished project, whatever it turns out to be, past a few male beta readers. The protagonist's voice needs to be authentic, not a "Gary Stu" version of what would typically be a female character. Most writers wouldn't even worry about such a thing, but it's important for me, and not just for the protagonist's sake. If I can learn to write a really kick-ass story from a male POV, the number of markets available to my writing will significantly increase. If that sounds disgustingly mercenary, so be it. I have no problems being skilled in both writing and business. You can't do the one without the other - I found that out when I was an actor.

I'm also debating whether or not to make a detailed outline for the novel I want to write. Normally I'd plot out every single chapter, but for some odd reason I feel very compelled to not outline it, to just start writing and trust that I know the story. I do know the story, I have a 1-1/2 page synopsis that lets me know exactly where the plot has to begin and end. My intuition tells me that, this time around, it's enough. I think I'm going to go with intuition, and trust that the characters' emotional journeys will take the story where it needs to go, rather than plotting it to death. That may have been the problem with my last attempts at novel-writing. We'll see.

I cut two thousand words out of the story last night. It didn't hurt as much as I thought. It didn't hurt at all, actually - it was quite liberating. Now, finally, it's the story I wanted it to be.

I've come to realize that you can't truly call yourself a writer if you write. You can only call yourself a writer when you EDIT - and I mean really rip the holy living shit out of your work, not just add and subtract a few words. Writing isn't a skill as much as a reflex, IMO. The skill comes into play when you go back and objectively look at what you've written, and then shape it into the thing it's supposed to be. I supposed a good analogy would be comparing someone who digs up a stone and someone who cuts and polishes it. Both people have specific and necessary skills, but only one of those people can rightfully say they're making a diamond.

Mind you, I'm not creating diamonds here. That won't happen for a long while. But whittling this story down and down and down has caused some kind of shift in how I view writing in general, and how I view my writing, and my skills. I can't quite articulate all of it yet. It's just a feeling, though, that something significant is happening.

Then again, it could just be the last traces of NyQuil talking. :)

Labels: revising

I sent out "The Unattainable" to two beta readers, and received great feedback from one already. Although I'm still cringing over all the spelling/grammatical mistakes and clunky word and sentence choices (because there's always more than I think there'll be), there was confirmation that such things as "plot" and "character" are working (although there are improvements to be made, naturally). I feel much better about the story now. I'm still not happy with the length, but it is what it is. I'm just not an under-4k story writer.

Once I sent it out next Monday, I'm going to clean up and get the edited, final version of "At the Edge of Ellensburg" ready to send off to a "best of" erotica anthology. Then I'm starting in on my outlines for both the Tacoma Steampunk novellas and the novel The Cemetery Queen. Those two projects will take up the first half of 2007, so I need the outlines finished by the end of December.

I know, I know. This is all so very boring. Sorry about that.

Labels: revising

The story is now 8800 words - I swear, I'll spend the next seven days agonizing over what words to cut. It's not about "killing my darlings". With me, it's about repetition. I tend to say something, then repeat it in a smarty-pants "poetic" image. It's quite annoying, to say the least. However, my erotica tends to be more lush in general than my regular genre fiction, so I usually go for the poetry, even if it's a bit over-the-top. Erotica is the one genre where I feel justified in indulging my love of purple prose. I do try to keep it at a minimum, but I can't help myself. When you're writing about sex and all its attendant emotions, sometimes a little excess is the way to go.

Below is a small snippet from "The Unattainable" - this is a paragraph that I think I'll end up cutting. I'm on the fence. At any rate, it's completely work-safe. I'm posting here, because this has become, once again, The Blog That Nobody Reads (my popularity lasted only a day, lol). If I post it on Livejournal, I'll get tons of critiques and quibbling about how crappy it is. Really, I don't need or want that. Ok, yes, it's overblown and poetic. It's the end of a sex scene in an erotic story. Just enjoy the language for what it is, and nevermind that it's not Hemmingway. ;D

***
He wraps himself around me, sinks into me again, and I'm the one who drowns. Liquid-limbed, I sink into delicious half-sleep, floating through half-formed dreams. The land lies all around me, with me, and I am the Cascades, ice-capped peaks covered by his star-shot skies. And somewhere in between, three words thread their way through the night, a radio whisper of the heart drifting from one slumbering body to the other. Let me submit. I reach the black lands of sleep, a frisson of fear pushing its way in with me, as I realize I don't know where the words came from--from me or him, from the mountains or the sky.

Labels: erotica, revising

For the first time since I started this blog (which I call The Blog That Nobody Reads), I'm getting - readers. Well, at least I'm getting people passing by. And I have a feeling they want to know about my writing that's set in Tacoma. Well, I have a list of upcoming projects, and I talk briefly in one post about my Tacoma steampunk novellas, but I might as well put the whole list right here:

- Rendered Briefly Dark: a YA horror novel about a young girl who thinks she can give herself magic powers by doing weird medical experiments on herself - it's set in Tacoma in the mid 1970's, in University Place

- Summer of Love: an adult horror novel about a middle-aged housewife who finds herself first joining, then fighting, a coven of witches in her Tacoma suburb - this also takes place in the 1970's, and I intend to throw every hideously cliched moment of that decade into this novel. Yay for key parties, macrame owl hangings, and polyester double-knit dresses!

- Lord of the Hunt: a dark fantasy (may or may not be YA) about a demon-killing hermaphrodite who falls in love with one of his/her targets - this will take place in the early 90's in Tacoma.

- "Tacoma Steampunk Trilogy" (series title to be changed): a trio of short novellas about Tacoma in the late 19th century, as seen through the eyes of a ne'er-do-well young man named Gavin and a very strange family on the run from a powerful East Coast university.

- I also have about ten short dark fantasy/horror stories in various stages of completion that are set in Tacoma; and I've got a short outline for a series of YA dark fantasy novels set at Curtis High School - because I'm still bitter about missing out on prom, bitches.

None of those projects listed above are published (although there's been some interest in the novellas, which I can't talk about right now). However, the first short story I published ("Brimstone Orange") was set in University Place, and I have an entry in A Field Guide to Surreal Botany that describes a particularly deadly plant species of the Pacific Northwest. My erotic novella "At the Edge of Ellensburg" in the anthology Short and Sweet is, well, set in Ellensburg - as all my erotic fiction seems to be. I went to college there, so you figure it out. :)

I'm going to say right now, for the record: everything I write about Tacoma and the PNW will be historically inaccurate (wildly so at times), and no doubt everyone living in Tacoma and the PNW will hate me for it, and I'll get tons of mail telling me what a traitorous shit I am for not getting X, Y, and Z right. However, everything I write is essentially dark fantasy, and therefore the Tacoma of my novels is allowed to be an alternate one. Although, as far as I'm concerned, it's not a far stretch from Galloping Gertie to giant mechanical steam-driven cephalopod tears down bridge. Whatever.

However, I'm dead-on about Ellensburg. Hey, it's a college town in the middle of nowhere populated by horny students and cowboys. You figure it out....

Labels: tacoma

I finished the new version of my "brokeback erotica" story. It clocks in at a little over 10,000 words. Whoops. I can whittle it down to the 8,000 word limit, but I'm pretty certain that the length has done me in. There's less than two weeks before the deadline, which means that most of the space in the anthology has probably already been filled. Even if there's 10,000 words left to be filled, it's more likely that the editor's looking for two or three normal-length stories to fill that space, not one big-ass novelette.

So.... What to do with it? Well, I'll polish it up and send it out anyway. At this point, I consider it an "introduction" (which I always sort of did to begin with) - a way of letting the editor know that I'm appreciative of her inviting me, that I can write well (it is well-written, if nothing else), that I don't crap out on deadlines, and that I'd like to be considered for invites on future anthologies.

And then, after it's sent back to me, I'll send it out to a few other markets. If no one bites, I'll expand it to novella length (as a companion piece for "At the Edge of Ellensburg") and put it away as inventory. Maybe someday I'll have enough cowboy/Ellensburg erotic novellas written that I can slap together some kind of collection. I know, I know: no one gives a shit about collections written by authors that no one's heard of. Then again, maybe it'll become a must-have book for the good student body of Central Washington University, and I'll gain a notoriety of sorts - as the Cormac McCarthy of erotica. lol. You never know.

EDIT: I've retitled the story. It's now called: "The Unattainable"

Labels: erotica

Because Bitter is Better!









Ok, it's not. Shut up, already!

...I'm about 6000 new words into version 2.0 of the "brokeback erotica" story. And now I take a break to say this:

::raises hand::

I, Livia Llewellyn, do solomnly swear never again to tell an editor I'll be delighted to submit a story to their anthology unless the anthology is specifically about any of the following subjects:
* dead girls
* suburbia
* shoggoths
* something that lives in the attic and boy oh boy is it comin' to get you
* sprawling living cities that want to consume you alive (sort of like NYC)
* forbidden demon/human love affairs
* evil trees
* Tesla coils, or anything "Teslan" in general
* dragon fucking
And if I ever deviate from this list of subject, may Satan rise from the depths of Hell and poke my eyes out with cocktail swizzle sticks, then hide the alcohol just out of reach. The End.

Please note that COWBOYS is not in that list of subjects.

On the other hand, I did decide to buy, via eBay, a copy of the September 1978 Esquire Magazine that published the Aaron Latham article "The Ballad of the Urban Cowboy" - I don't remember a damn thing about the movie (except for that spectacular "I'm about to upstage this entire movie, bitches" scene with the tequila and the worm - you know which one I'm talking about!), but I've always been fascinated by the real story that inspired the movie. But I'll wait until my story is in the mail before I read the magazine. I'm running out of time - and I need to spend every second of the next two weeks trying to find all the different sexy ways you can describe a woman's hoo-hah.

Yep, writing is glamorous.