IWSG: Publishing!

Sorry to post so late today! I feel like I kind of already posted for ISWG on Monday, talking about my trepidation over my offered book contract. A couple of days later, I'm happen to report that the deal is ironed out. It's just the paper signing left to do. I'm going to have a published novel this spring!

As I told the woman I'm working with at the publisher, it's like getting married to someone you just met. Scary and exciting, all at the same time. I'm absolutely insecure, hoping and praying that I'm making the best decision for my book and myself.

I'd love to hear from others who have been down this path. How do you keep your expectations and hopes under control and stay open to the possibilities? How do you find the balance between paranoia and reasonable self-protection when making a book deal?

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This posting is part of the Insecure Writers Support Group blog hop. To check out other posts by writers in a variety of places in their careers, check out the participant list.

Contractions Caused by Contracts

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/contract?s=t&path=/

I've been offered a contract: a publishing contract for one of my novels. It's exciting and terrifying.

So, that's all I've been doing: reading it, thinking about it, researching, seeking advice. It's my first one, or at least my first one for a book of my own.

I know for a lot of people the idea of negotiating a contract is business as usual, but it's totally new for me. As a schoolteacher, I get a contract, but there's nothing negotiable in it, not even in states with teacher unions. There is the contract. You accept it, or you refuse it. You don't negotiate it. It is what it is.

So, this is scary stuff. I read each line trying to figure out if I am being paranoid to imagine how that language could be used to make my life miserable. I worry that if I push back too hard, the offer will be withdrawn. I worry that if I accept it without pushing back, I'll be stepped on like a doormat or cheat myself out of reasonable compensation for my work.

My heart feels large in my chest with joy, and tight with trepidation. Who knew that getting what you've been hoping for was so stressful!

I have no reason to think that this publisher wants to run roughshod over me. If I did, we wouldn't be working together. But, that doesn't mean that bad things can't happen.

So (deep breath) (deep breath) (one more deep breath), I'm going deep-language diving. Wish me luck when I come back up for air!

#SaturdayScenes: No. 14

For #SaturdayScenes this week, I bring you a piece of flash fiction I wrote a few weeks ago for an informal contest over on the the Writer's Discussion Group community on G+. +Amy Knepper posts these challenges and I always enjoy them. Hope you enjoy mine!

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Em Wakes Up

It was a miracle. As Michael watched, the flatline monitor began to blip. Once. Had he imagined it? No! There it was again. A blip, and another. He ran to the hospital door, his face still wet with tears. “Nurse!”

No one came. He ran back into the room and punched the call button about fifteen times. An annoyed woman’s voice came on. “Yes?”

“She’s alive!”

“What?”

“Her machine. It’s blipping. She’s alive!” He dropped the device on the bed, and grabbed Emily’s hand. It was cold and unmoving, as was her face. But the monitor continued to beep steadily, picking up speed bit by bit.

“Em? Can you hear me? Em?”

The hand in his twitched, then gripped his fingers. Michael gasped. He wasn’t imagining this. She was definitely beginning to move. Em’s grip tightened and tightened again. It was incredibly strong. Painful. Michael tried to pull his fingers away and found that he couldn’t.

“Em? Em, honey? That hurts. Em? Can you hear me?”

Emily didn’t open her eyes, but Michael could see the quick movements beneath suggesting that she was conscious or dreaming intensely. He suppressed a yelp of pain as she continued to squeeze his hand. “Help!” He yelled toward the hallway. Fumbling for the remote he pressed the call button again, but no one answered this time. He yelled into it anyway. “Somebody help! She’s breaking my fingers!”

Em let go of his hand. Michael jumped back from the bed, pulling his injured fingers against his chest, afraid to move them and find out the full extent of the damage. In one fluid movement, Emily sat straight up in the bed. She turned her head towards Michael. The movement was impossibly fast, not at all like someone who had just been unconscious and presumed dead. She moved like some kind of tiger.

The stare she turned on Michael froze something deep within him. The eyes were cold and seemed to look through him rather than at him. There was no recognition in them. Michael looked behind him quickly, praying someone had come. Someone who could help. Instead, he saw only the closed hospital door. He was sure he’d left it open.

He turned back and Em was standing right in front of him, near enough to kiss him, if she chose. He hadn’t hear her leave the bed or cross the floor. “Em?” he said one last time, his voice soft and pleading.

The woman in front of him cocked her head to one side, then smiled, revealing a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. Michael didn’t even have time to run before she was upon him. 

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If you would like to check out more scenes by some really great writers, you should search under the hashtag #Saturdayscenes. The movement is the brainchild of +John Ward , who suggested that writers should share their work each Saturday.

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My other #SaturdayScenes contributions:

Week One: Elopement Day from WIP, Cold Spring

Week Two: Linda Makes a First Impression from WIP, Her Father's Daughter, sequel to Going Through the Change

Week Three: Claiming Alex, from unpublished novel His Other Mother

Week Four: Things Get Hairy for Linda, from unpublished novel Going Through the Change

Week Five: a poem: A Clear Day in Kodiak, Alaska

Week Six: a snippet from an idea barely begun, Lacrosse Zombies

Week Seven: Mathilde's Visit, from WIP, Cold Spring
Week Eight: Sherry bakes, from His Other Mother
Week Nine: I Said So, Didn't I? (a scene in dialogue)
Week Ten: Losing Faith (a poem)
Week Eleven: Shop Girl, from WIP, Cold Spring
Week Twelve: Mary Braeburn, from WIP, Her Father's Daughter
Week Thirteen: Patricia is Kidnapped, from WIP, Her Father's Daughter

High Hopes

I've got my hopes up again.

You know the drill.

Some cool possibility (job, trip, love, child, publication . . .) is dangled out there, but it's not a sure thing. Someone has to decide. You try to be optimistic without setting yourself up for disappointment. For a while, you succeed. Just being nominated is an honor, right? You can float for a few days on just knowing you've gotten this far.

http://wallpoper.com/images/00/44/60/90/waiting-cat_00446090.jpg

But then, there's the waiting. While you're waiting, it's hard to keep yourself reined in. The longer the wait, the worse that gets.

Part of you has not only counted the chickens that the hen hasn't yet laid, but has eaten the omelets from the eggs of their progeny. Part of you jumped out of the cart and is running out there ahead of the horse waving the black and white checkered flag and yelling about freedom and glory and making people wonder why your face is painted blue. This is the part of me that's always spending lottery money, when I haven't even bought a ticket.

Some other parts of you are the doomsayers. You've been hurt before, they remind you. Someone else rejected this once already. You're setting yourself up for a fall. Those of the parts of yourself you had to silence before you could take the initial risk that got you here. Those parts would give up the whole thing as hopeless, thinking it's better to never try than to fail.

Neither of those are right, of course. No matter how beautiful a fantasy I construct in my cloud castle, I won't be nudging Neil Gaiman down the bestseller list below me this year. But, I might, just might, see my book in print, and that might lead to other things.

And, if these guys don't take it, I'll keep going. I'm in this for the long haul. I can afford to try again. I'm just hoping, that maybe this time, I won't have to.

http://i.behappy.me/180164/preview.png

Summer Reading: Week Eight

Summer is winding down fast. I have to work again, starting next week. (Sigh). And I didn't read nearly everything I wanted to. Of course, doing that would probably have meant that I stopped doing anything besides reading. So, no child care, eating or preparing food, taking care of the dog or house, and definitely no writing. And I like all those things, too. Still it makes me sad to think that I won't get to all those new books I just got from storybundle . . . at least not before school starts again.

This week I finished reading Greatshadow by James Maxey. It had a very satisfying ending that left good promise for future books. I know he's written and released said books, but I've got other things in the queue ahead of those right now, so they won't be my immediate next needs. Still, I give James props because even though I'm not a big dragon-fantasy fan, Infidel, the main character, was awesome enough to pull me along well.

I've continued to read and enjoy Don Quixote de la Mancha. The translation I'm reading maintains the old fashioned feel without making me feel lost. I had the thought that DQ is a cautionary tale for gamers: a book fan gets into cosplay, then becomes a LARPer, then loses complete touch with reality! Yikes! The book club discusses it next week. I'm interested to see what everyone says.

I've also begun reading a collection of short stories by a writing friend. Borrowed Time by Chad C. Clark. I've only finished one of the stories so far, but it was a winner. In the tradition of Ray Bradbury and Rod Serling, there's more to what's going on than you think and the ending changes the whole story. On the basis of the first story, I'm expecting to really enjoy this collection!

I made some progress on my research reading for the second in my series of historical novels. I've been reading Women and the American Experience: A Concise History by Nancy Woloch for a while now, a chapter or two at a time. I'm reading about the progressive era and the concept of the New Woman right now, in preparation for writing the next phase of Freda's life: on her own in Indianapolis. There's so much I don't know about this time period in American history and Woloch's book gives me a lot of food for thought. I'm finding I really enjoy reading about history fact and then using what I know to write fiction. Putting myself in the shoes of women characters in an era so different from my own lets me explore a lot of my feelings about what it means and has meant to be a woman in this country, and the variety of challenges we face and have faced as attitudes have shifted and our options have reshaped around us.

My other reading was unpublished works again: short stories and novel excerpts for writing friends and online communities. I read so much good stuff this way, and learn a lot about what makes writing powerful in trying to articulate helpful feedback.

After devouring all of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, repeatedly, NJ picked up a new graphic

novel series this week: Fangbone: Third Grade Barbarian by Michael Rex.  It's very charming and less gross than the Diaper Baby stuff that had her attention a few weeks ago. She read #1 and #2, and has already put in her request for #3. (She was thrilled to learn that I can request books and the library will just email us when they are ready--she loves being a 21st century girl). I'm hoping that library will have it for us tomorrow, so we can pick it up on our way back from blueberry picking.

In audiobooks, we finished all the Ghosthunters books (Cornelia Funke) our library had available and also listened to one of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books (Roderick Rules). That worked way better as an audiobook than I expected, given the visual nature of the books.

The big girl is not reading so much. Her attention is focused on visual art, and her boyfriend. You'd think she was a teenager or something. Jeez. I do need to get her started on her reading assignment for high school though. She's only got three weeks left to do it!

#SaturdayScenes No. 13

For #SaturdayScenes this week, I bring you Patricia O'Neill, from my WIP: Her Father's Daughter. Patricia was kidnapped in one of the first chapters of the book. Let's see where she was taken:

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Patricia awoke some hours later, strapped to a hospital gurney. A bright light burned above her. There was a whooshing sound behind her and off to the right. She arched her back a little trying to see behind her, but couldn’t make out anything other than more bright lights. The room smelled sweet and Patricia remembered the pink powder. That bitch! To think she’d been feeling all sentimental, worrying about what had ever happened to her good friend, worrying that she was lost to the system or dead somewhere.

She was going to wish she was dead when Patricia was done with her. Apparently the Cindy she knew was gone, if she had ever existed. She was taking all her plays straight from the crazy handbook. And she was crazy if she thought bright lights and gurney straps were going to keep Patricia O’Neill in a place she didn’t want to be in.

Patricia closed her eyes to channel her anger and upset and trigger her transformation into what she’d come to think of as the Dragon Lady. It wasn’t like she had to dig for it. This was fresh hurt, new betrayal. It was right there, barely beneath the surface. It was only a matter of seconds before she felt the gurney beginning to collapse beneath the weight of her fully armored self. The Hyde to her Jekyll. The metal supports squealed as they bent and Patricia stood, shaking off the remnants of the restraint straps like ribbons.

http://www.stuartwilde.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/images-13.jpg

She took a strong stance, arms at the ready and weight balanced on her toes to facilitate quick movement and waited for the attack. But none was forthcoming. The bright lights were painful. Patricia shielded her eyes with one taloned hand, but couldn’t make out any details of the room. She stalked to the nearest light and pushed it over, knocking it into the neighboring light. That one hit its neighbor in turn and before long Patricia was standing in a pile of broken glass and steaming light poles, grinning.

The lights extinguished, Patricia began to be able to make out the details of the room. She seemed to be in a medical observation room. Above the operating floor she could see a glassed-in observation area. The whooshing sound she had heard when she first regained consciousness was coming from a machine against the far wall. It was glowing a pale yellow color. Patricia walked towards it, still fuming and looking for more things to smash.

The machine had a glass top. Something about it seemed a little familiar. In spite of herself, she felt curious. There was something to be said for looking for answers before smashing the place up, after all. She’d need to know where she was and if Cindy had anyone else helping her. As she moved nearer the machine, she began to hear another sound intermixed with the whooshing, a metallic tapping. It seemed to follow a pattern, but she couldn’t parse it. She stood still, listening. Was it Morse code? Who the hell would be trying to communicate with her in Morse code? She only barely knew what Morse code was, and certainly couldn’t translate it into words.

Patricia stopped and examined the machine from where she stood in the middle of the room. It was a long rectangular box, maybe four or four and a half feet long. It appeared to be silver, though it was hard to tell in the diffuse light. The only illumination came from the observation area above her now that Patricia had broken all the other lights. There were industrial handles on the top of the case that somehow reminded Patricia of outer space. Or maybe it was just the other-worldly yellow light that emitted from the glassed in portion of the top. Whatever the device was, the tapping was definitely coming from within.

Patricia looked around again. She felt apprehensive, though she couldn’t have said why. Nothing about the sounds or the lights had changed. She saw and heard no one. Other than the tapping, and the whooshing noise the functioning of the machine seemed to make, it was deadly quiet.

Shaking off her foreboding, Patricia moved towards the machine. The spikes growing from her upper back and arms seemed to grow longer. She was aware of them in a way that she usually wasn’t. But she made no effort to calm herself and pull them in. She still felt that some kind of attack was imminent and she wanted to be ready for it when it came.

Alongside the machine, she wiped a layer of moisture from the glass and peered through it. Inside was an Asian girl, approximately age eleven, her face tense with concentration. She was tapping against the metal tubing that ran over her head. Her movements corresponded with the sounds Patricia was hearing. Patricia felt her heart begin to race. The girl turned and met Patricia’s gaze through the glass. She stopped tapping and spread her palm against the glass, tears filling her eyes. It was Cindy Liu.

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If you would like to check out more scenes by some really great writers, you should search under the hashtag #Saturdayscenes. The movement is the brainchild of +John Ward , who suggested that writers should share their work each Saturday.

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My other #SaturdayScenes contributions:

Week One: Elopement Day from WIP, Cold Spring

Week Two: Linda Makes a First Impression from WIP, Her Father's Daughter, sequel to Going Through the Change

Week Three: Claiming Alex, from unpublished novel His Other Mother

Week Four: Things Get Hairy for Linda, from unpublished novel Going Through the Change

Week Five: a poem: A Clear Day in Kodiak, Alaska

Week Six: a snippet from an idea barely begun, Lacrosse Zombies

Week Seven: Mathilde's Visit, from WIP, Cold Spring
Week Eight: Sherry bakes, from His Other Mother
Week Nine: I Said So, Didn't I? (a scene in dialogue)
Week Ten: Losing Faith (a poem)
Week Eleven: Shop Girl, from WIP, Cold Spring
Week Twelve: Mary Braeburn, from WIP, Her Father's Daughter

In the Writing Bubble

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/images/cemathieson/2012/07/11/dickensdream.jpg?maxWidth=1024&maxHeight=768

After a good writing session, I surface with a gulp of air as if I've been deep sea diving for the past few hours. I'm so immersed in my imagined world that the real world doesn't quite make sense to me. I can't figure out why my dog doesn't look the one my main character owns or why the children in my house are the wrong ages and genders.

On a really good day, I stay in my story all day. While I'm walking the dog, I'm plotting the next big thing, or figuring out how to complicate the lives of my characters in the most interesting ways. It's like living in two worlds at once, where I move this one doing the right things, but my mind is still in the bubble.

So forgive me if I don't seem quite "there" when you talk to me. I'm probably still somewhere else.