Posts Tagged: Writing

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Guest Post | ‘Book Signings: How Not to Garner Local Support’ by T.C. McCarthy

By T.C. McCarthy September 28th, 2011

Exogene by TC McCarthySome people treat genre fiction as if it’s a dirty diaper – to be held at arms length and stuffed in a pail as soon as possible. At least that’s the impression I got on Friday, September 23rd. It all started when I went downtown to hand out fliers for my upcoming book signing and to let local representatives have free copies of my debut novel, Germline, because it seemed to me like civic organizations might want to help a local author. My expectations were a little unrealistic (see the moral of the story at the bottom)…

First stop: the Visitor’s Center, which my tax dollars support, and which I reasoned “would surely want to help a local author, especially considering not many local authors have had a shot at this kind of gig.” Not exactly. The lady behind the counter glared at me when I interrupted her knitting, and even my explanation that she could have a free copy of Germline if I could leave a few fliers for my book-signing did nothing to change her mood. She sighed and handed the book back. “Leave the flier with me,” she said, “I have no place to put them but maybe there’s room on the table outside.” OK, I thought, fine; so I tried to hand her a stack of fliers but she shook her head and went back to knitting; “I’ll only need one of those.”
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Guest Post | ‘The Grinders’ by Adam Callaway

By Adam Callaway July 26th, 2011

'The Grinders' by Adam CallawayI submitted my first story ever to a contest called Inkspotter on July 2nd, 2008. Two months later, I submitted my second story to Apex Magazine. A day after that, I received my first rejection letter, from Apex Magazine.

In the three years since those first stories, I have collected 192 rejection letters, a handful of fanzine sales, one pro level sale, and one, SFWA-qualifying pro sale. I heard an anecdote that Ray Bradbury had 800 rejections before his first sale, so, by that metric, I’m not doing too bad.

I’m convinced that there are only two things required to become a published author. One is the dedication to write. The other is the ability to take a rejection. If you possess those two qualities, you will be published someday.
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Guest Post | ‘The Advantage of Other Brains’ by Lauren Beukes

By Lauren Beukes July 21st, 2011

Zoo City by Lauren BeukesI’ve often joked about how much I need clones. But alas, like time machines and teleportation devices, photocopy-style human cloning just isn’t there yet (unless you believe the dubious claims of the Raelian cult). Luckily I’ve got something even better than an army of Laurenz: a collection of brilliant brains.

It would be neat if they were brains in jars, directly hooked up to word processors to churn out pages while I sleep, but I suspect that probably takes a lot of electricity and probably a mad scientist to maintain them – and mad scientists and their inevitable slobbering loathsome assistants cost a lot to feed.

So, nope. I’m talking the kind of brains that walk around in people casings – the kind that feed themselves because they have jobs and credit cards. And when it came to writing some of the additional materials for Zoo City, I was very happy to be able to raid those brains for their genius.
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Guest Post | ‘On Writing the Second Novel’ by Bradley P. Beaulieu

By Bradley P. Beaulieu July 6th, 2011

The Winds of Khalakovo by Bradley P. BeaulieuI recently published my debut novel, The Winds of Khalakovo. I also recently finished the first draft of the second novel in The Lays of Anuskaya trilogy, so when Aidan brought up the possibility of a guest post, one of the things I immediately thought of was talking a bit about the differences in writing Book 2 vs. Book 1.

I had been wary of writing the second novel in a series for quite some time. That sounds strange, even to my ear, but it’s true. I didn’t used to think this way. When I first starting writing seriously, ten years ago or so, I thought a sequel would be a natural extension of the first book, and in many ways that’s true, but as I grew in my craft and began to go to conventions and get advice about writing a sequel, I grew … not worried, but certainly concerned.

Why? Well, there are a few things going on here.

First of all, you don’t want to be complacent. The Winds of Khalakovo was my first published book. Not my first book, mind you (I have a trunk filled with three others), but the first one I’d published. By the time Night Shade Books accepted Winds for publication, it had been workshopped and critiqued a number of times. It was tight, but it had taken a lot of energy from a lot of people (not just me).
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Guest Post | ‘Loving the Alien (and the Alien is You)’ by Fábio Fernandes

By Fábio Fernandes June 14th, 2011

Fabio FernandesWhen you write a story, what is the first thing that comes to your mind as an all-powerful, God-like creator? The world on which the action will take place or the characters?

Worldbuilding is both about the macro and the micro, you know – you must pay as much attention to one single person in your story as you would of the city you are creating or borrowing details from.

As I recently wrote for the Culture Share column in Juliette Wade’s blog, I have this recent story (still unpublished) called ‘The Remaker’. It’s based on a short story by Jorge Luis Borges, Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote. My novelette basically tells the story of a researcher who discovers a future writer who revels in rewriting works by famous authors of the past, and how this can be done (and why someone even would do this) in the mid-21st Century.

One of the biggest challenges I faced in this story wasn’t creating the protagonist (a 60-year old scholar who still loves paper books in an all-digital era), not even his sort-of nemesis/antagonist (the Remaker of the title), but his girlfriend, who doesn’t appear in more than half a dozen pages, if that much.

Let me tell you what little the reader knows about her right in the beginning of the story: her name is Midori, she is a scholar on Gender Studies (a PhD), she met our protagonist in a conference in Canada, and they have a steady relationship, each one living in their own apartment in São Paulo.

She is also a transsexual.
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