Faerie Blues, a short story I wrote a few months back, is now live on AntipodeanSF!
Please check it out: Faerie Blues short story on AntipodeanSF
Podcast: Faerie Blues audio version (2.1 MB)
If you liked Faerie Blues, you might also like Saving the Unicorn.
GenreCon Australia was one of the most enjoyable conventions I’ve ever attended. It was quite small as far as conventions go – and yet that was one of its strengths: it was a convention for writers, not fans. I’m also sure it will grow exponentially.
Upon arrival on the Friday afternoon I was greeted by Queensland Writers’ Centre CEO Meg Vann, who couldn’t have been more helpful or friendlier, and she even offered to introduce me about (as I was clearly there on my own). How great is that?
The cocktail party that night was one of those affairs that could have been awkward (being alone), so I sucked it up and said G’day a couple of blokes having a chat over a beer – and we got talking.
Turns out that one of the guys I was chatting with was Joe Abercrombie. You know, bestselling fantasy author? Thank God I didn’t have a clue at the time – I’d never of had the guts to go up to him otherwise. Really. I tried to speak to Literary Agent Ginger Clark all weekend just to break the ice for my later pitch, and the closest I got was pointing her out to other people.
I have to say, Joe is bloody fantastic bloke. Casual, unassuming, all-round nice guy. He didn’t like XXXX beer though. Fair call – who wants to drink beer brewed by people who can’t even spell?
The next couple of days passed in a bit of a blur – workshops and panels on writing, mixed in with too much food and too little sleep.
The panels were pretty good. Ditto with the workshops, with Karen Miller’s a bit of a stand-out for me (she’s a very down-to-earth woman who knows her stuff). Karen had a couple of tips I’m sure to take advantage of.
The social highlight was the Pistols and Parisols banquet (though I’m still reeling that Joe Abercrombie actually came up to me on the Sunday and asked how my pitching session went).
Fantastic costumes at the banquet, and I met some more great people. I just wish I’d had the foresight to grab the camera or at least pull out my phone. I left fairly early – around 11pm or so – as I didn’t want to blow my pitching session with Ginger Clark the following day due to tiredness or a hangover.
Pfft! No chance of a hangover, but sleep eluded me for the second night running.
A fistful of coffees the next day got me going, and I was ready for my pitch late that afternoon.
Yeah, about that. I thought I was ready. Prepared, certainly. Ready? No.
All the preparation in the world can’t help you put on a good show when you get the sweats the instant you shake hands.
Yes – if I’d been a woman I’d have been ‘glowing’. Instead, it was more like that scene from Flying High… Epic fail.
After sitting down I managed to say I was pitching an epic fantasy, and that’s as far as I got in the ‘doing well’ stakes. Despite practicing my one-liner a thousand times, I couldn’t remember it.
Fortunately, I had it written down. Yay me!
So I tried to read it out. Tried really hard, too.
All I can say is that I don’t normally stammer. After a massive six words, Ginger interrupted me (for which I’m eternally grateful), and asked me: ‘Why isn’t this a YA instead of an epic fantasy?’ (My protagonist is a 16-year-old, which was about all I’d been able to stammer out.)
And this is where it pays to know your stuff. To be honest I hadn’t actually considered it, but I did know something about YA books.
My answer? ‘Because she’s 26 by then end of the second novel.”
She gave me a ‘fair enough’ look, and I moved on to stammering out the rest of the pitch.
Unble to read a single sentence without restarting it three times, I was pretty sure I’d blown it even after answering a couple of curly ones.
Yet, despite my dismal performance, she asked me to send the first fifty pages.
The moral of the story (as far as I can tell) is:
And that was GenreCon 2012 for me. Very seriously looking forward to GenreCon 2013.
If you’ve got a sci-fi or fantasy novel ready to go, then you might be in luck. The Ethan Ellengerg Literary Agency has put out a notice requesting novels in those genres.
While I don’t personally know anything about them beyond what’s on their website, I did check them out on Editors and Predators, and they came up as ‘recommended’.
It’s pretty rare to see a literary agent calling for submissions. They might be worth a shot.
The full details are on their website.
Good luck.
Well, I can’t say I’ve got a lot of plans for writing this month, though I do have a lot of editing to do.
Last month I managed to edit about 30,000 words, which leaves me with another 80,000 this month. Unfortunately, the second half of the novel needs more work than the first. Much more.
I’ll also have a novel to critique, which will cut into my editing time.
So that’s my plan for this month. Editing and critiquing. Bit of a boring update, but there you go.
Only managed about 400 new words this week, but I did do quite a bit of editing – 11,500 words worth, or about six chapters.
I’m aiming to improve on that this week. Got the Angry Robot submission coming up soon. It’d be great to have the whole thing ready on the first day of subs, rather than just the first 10-15,000 words in the hope of getting the rest of it up to scratch in the following weeks (just in case they ask for it).
If they want it, I don’t know how much time they’ll give me to get it to them. Better to be safe, and even if they don’t want to see the rest, it won’t exactly be a wasted effort.
Only thing I’m currently struggling with is how much to send in – where to cut it off. There’s a perfect spot just after the 15,000 word cut off, but if you ignore guidelines they’ll just reject you out of hand.
Bit of a tough call.
Well, it was another rather lame week where I failed to hit most of my goals. I wrote practically nothing new, and didn’t do half the editing I should have.
Still, I did do some editing, so it wasn’t a total loss, and I wrote quite a bit for the blog. Writing what I shouldn’t be writing is better than no writing at all – lame justification. A better excuse is that I was busy with organising and running a book stall at the local fete, but even so, I should have hit a few more marks than what I actually did.
Hopefully I’ll make up for the last couple of weeks over the course of this week.
How cool is this video!
I barely managed a few hundred words and a spellcheck for a novel last week.
About half of it was due to camping (and getting organised for it), but I should have done much more than I did.
Hopefully it’ll come together this week – I aim to write 1500 words and spellcheck a different novel, as well as continue to edit it.
I’ve only got about a month left to get it into top shape so I can submit it to Angry Robot.
So far I’m on track.
Last week I made a bunch of edits to the novel I’m going to submit to Angry Robot next month.
I added 1400 words to the novel I started at the beginning of last year. I also restructured it to add in three new sequences and a new major plot, while relegating the former main plot to a secondary plot.
Finally, I did some planning for the next novel I’m going to write – worked out the two main characters’ wants and needs and wrote a brief overview of each section (beg, mid, end).
Find out more about writing.
I heard yesterday that I missed out on the Varuna HarperCollins Manuscript Development Program. Bit of a shame as it would have been a fantastic opportunity, but there’s always another opportunity. Just got to get myself ready for the next one.
A big cheer for both Varuna and HarperCollins for putting it on in the first place. To have made the top twenty is a pretty good achievement in itself and I’m pretty thrilled about that. It means I’m getting closer.
The winners were:
Congrats to all the winners!
Varuna are offering me a discounted consultation for making the top twenty, and I’m seriously considering taking them up on it. Feedback’s always a good thing.
Making the shortlist was good feedback – tells me the beginning’s very strong (which is what I had to submit initially).
Missing the top five also told me a few things – the ending’s not compelling enough for them to want to take it further (had to supply the entire novel so I’m guessing something in the ‘rest’ didn’t quite work for whoever read it). I’m sure the experts at Varuna could expand on that.
My suspicions lay in the ending. I basically cut the original novel in half and rewrote the ending. Don’t think I did a good enough job re-working it.
Regardless, the next opportunity for me is the Angry Robot Open Submission 2012. They’re looking for High Fantasy, which is exactly what I’ve got. Not sure if it will fit neatly into their lineup as it’s fairly commercially-orientated, but I’ll never know if I don’t try.
I’ll rework the ending again on the assumption that’s what’s letting me down, and see where it takes me.
After that I’ll be trying the Terry Pratchett first novel contest – a new book this time. Urban fantasy. It’s written, though still mostly in its first draft stage. Will have to polish it up, but I should have the time.
Hopefully by this time next year I’ll have a third book doing the rounds as well. Got one half-written. Just got to finish it. The more I’ve got out there, the better my chances.
Last Monday I was waiting for Varuna to post the winners for the Manuscript Development Program on their website before I went camping for the week. I was going to be completely out of range so I couldn’t even use the phone to dig up the details – I had to know!!!
After a very tense morning, they finally announced the results would be delayed a month until the end of February. They didn’t give a reason why, but I expect that with the holidays HarperCollins were probably short staffed and having trouble either getting through the manuscripts, or nailing down the Powers That Be for a decision.
At least it means I’m still in the running. Fingers crossed for the end of February.
A mere four days to go before the winners of the HarperCollins Varuna Manuscript Development Program are announced.
Do you think I’m nervous?
Well, not really, but maybe a little tense. I mean, it would be really great, but if I miss out, I’ve only got myself to blame. So…
What does that mean?
It means I’m close, regardless of winning or not, and if I’m close, it’s only a matter of time before I get there.
The next novel is written and I’ve started editing it. The one after that is ready to be written. If I miss out this time, I’ll just try again. And again. And again. Etc.
Only thirteen days to go until I find out if I’ve topped the shortlist for the HarperCollins Varuna Awards for Manuscript Development.
They’re only taking five out of the twenty-one shortlisted applications, so that leaves me with about a one-in-four chance.
They’re pretty good odds, really. Much better than a random query letter.
It’s the second shortlisting for that particular novel too, so it suggests I’m doing something right.
Hopefully this time it’s right ‘enough’ and I’m able to get a foot in the door with a major publisher.