Well, not lazy personally, but lazy about updating.

Balticon was fun. Not as busy as I've been some shows, but busy enough. Caught up with friends and made a few new ones. Need to get some paperwork done that I promised a few people at the show and hopefully that will be happening in the next few days. Really had fun doing the Edgar Allen Poe panel on his detective stories.

Fun thing happened at my reading. Had a couple of people stop by. Told them I was going to be reading the first couple of chapters from my new Stargate Novel. One got on the phone and called a friend announcing a Stargate reading and *boom*, I had more people at that reading then I've had at any other reading I've ever done. The good thing about it was they laughed when they were supposed to, groaned at the "bad" jokes and most said they'd definitely pick up the book when it came out. *Score!*

The reason I'm a little behind on my Balticon projects is while I was there, Writer Beware was officially offered part of the Mystery Writers of America's booth at Book Expo America. Which, of course, was the next weekend. So, between Monday and Thursday, I had to coordinate for a table display, create business cards, make lots of phone calls, coordinate with a good friend for crash space (hotels were all gone by then) and make train reservations.

Why the train? Because on Tuesday (after Balticon), I was going to drop off my new car at Mazda for it's 7500 tune-up and oil change. When I reached the end of the street, I was horrified to see approximately four inches of water roll out from beneath my passenger's seat and puddle on the floorboards. We'd had a huge thunderstorm on Monday and apparently the drains were clogged in my car, forcing the water into the passenger compartment. Oh, joy. So, Mazda fixed that (under warranty, thank goodness), but I didn't get my car back until after BEA was over.

Still, BEA was a blast. Writer Beware had a great experience and again a major tip of the hat to the MWA for hosting us! Victoria Strauss has already posted some of our experiences from there on the Writer Beware Blog and Ann and I are working on entries to go up there too. Also, it was good to see Steve Roman again. It'd been a few years since we'd actually visited (San Diego ComicCon 2005 to be exact), and we made up some lost time visiting as well as him playing tour guide for the big Midwestern kid. Can't believe I walked past the Empire State Building four times before I realized what I was seeing. *sigh*

I'm back on Childhood's Tears again. Finishing up the edits to Chapter Four. I've spent the past few nights rereading my Lovecraft and I think I've finally got the other plot I'd been needing for this book to start adding in. I'm hoping this will make the story a tad more creepy. I don't want to take away from the Action/Adventure parts, but a certain horror overtone would really set this book off. *keeping fingers crossed*

Also, I'm meeting with an actual web designer this weekend to get nightwolfgraphics.com/richardcwhite.com up and operational again. We're probably moving web hosts and definitely bringing the web site into the 21st century. When he started spouting .jsp vs .php and all the other acronyms that go with modern design, I just nodded and decided I'll let him worry about how it works. *grin*

Oh, work? Yeah, I'm playing one-armed paper-hanger right now there. Should be a very entertaining month.

So, given all this, I probably should go to bed.

Snurched from the SFWA feed

CHESTERTOWN, Md. -- A Massachusetts Superior Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit against Ann Crispin and Victoria Strauss, the principal operators of the Writer Beware website, filed by a purported literary agent.

Writer Beware is a publishing industry watchdog group sponsored by Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America which “shines a light into the dark corners of the shadow-world of literary scams, schemes and pitfalls.”

The suit, initiated by Robert Fletcher and his company, the Literary Agency Group, alleged defamation, loss of business and emotional distress while making claims Fletcher had lost $25,000 per month due to warnings about his business practices posted by Crispin and Strauss.

The suit was dismissed with prejudice March 18 by the Massachusetts Superior Court due to Fletcher’s failure to respond to discovery or otherwise prosecute the lawsuit. Crispin and Strauss, through counsel, intend to file a motion against Fletcher and the Literary Agency Group, Inc., seeking recovery of their legal fees incurred in defending what they believe to be a frivolous lawsuit.

The case dates to Feb. 2008, when Fletcher and his company filed for a temporary restraining order pending a preliminary injunction against Crispin and Strauss in Suffolk County Superior Court in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. During a subsequent hearing Feb. 19, the temporary restraining order was dismissed for improper service (Strauss wasn't served until 42 minutes after the time of the hearing, and Crispin was not served at all), but the supporting complaint was allowed to proceed.

Currently, Fletcher and his companies remain the subjects of an active investigation by the Florida Attorney General's Office.

“I’m very pleased that the case was dismissed. Knowing how hard those involved with Writer Beware work – and how important the work they do is to writers, both within SFWA and outside of it – it’s very good news, indeed,” said SFWA President Russell Davis. “Writer Beware is one of the most important and valuable services SFWA provides, and knowing that this frivolous case was dismissed, and that Mr. Fletcher is now the subject of an investigation in Florida only validates the work done by Ann Crispin and Victoria Strauss.”

Crispin and Strauss have volunteered countless hours of their time to advising, educating and warning aspiring and established authors about dubious, questionable and outright criminal business practices on the fringes of the publishing industry. They maintain the Writer Beware website (www.writerbeware.com) and are major contributors to Writer Beware Blogs! (http://accrispin.blogspot.com/).

About SFWA

Founded in 1965 by the late Damon Knight, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America brings together the most successful and daring writers of speculative fiction throughout the world.

Since its inception, SFWA® has grown in numbers and influence until it is now widely recognized as one of the most effective non-profit writers' organizations in existence, boasting a membership of approximately 1,500 science fiction and fantasy writers as well as artists, editors and allied professionals. Each year the organization presents the prestigious Nebula Awards® for the year’s best literary and dramatic works of speculative fiction.

Took some time today to review what I had written on the formerly sekrit project *grin* and decided the first two chapters held up pretty well, but the third one stank. So, I completely re-wrote it . . .

Well, part of it anyway. My first day back writing took me a bit longer than I thought it would, but like anything else, you have to build up your mental as well as physical stamina. Still, I added 1,396 words today which is 1,396 more than I wrote the past few months, except for a short story I wrote but never edited to my satisfaction over the summer.

Working on some Writer Beware projects, so that took some of my time this evening also. I enjoy doing Writer Beware stuff because I think it's my way of paying it forward, but it can be so depressing dissecting web pages of scammy publishers, well-meaning but clueless agents, poetry contests, etc. The worst thing is, every time there's a success, another six or seven seem to appear out of the shadows, trying to separate inexperienced (and sometimes experienced) writers from their hard-earned cash.

There's been an interesting thread at Absolute Write with a publisher that does subsidy publishing (charging $4000 to print books), but they also offer to print some people's books for free (if they buy enough of their first one, apparently) so they can trumpet how they're a "traditional publisher".

That, of course, ignores the fact that Publish America coined "traditional publisher" to separate itself from the other vanity publishers out there.

To top things off, the aforementioned publisher is posting a blog (heavily moderated) where he says "all authors pay to get published". There are discussions about how authors have to pay back advances if they don't sell enough (?) and if you get too big an advance, it takes longer before you see any royalties, so really, you're letting the publisher keep your royalties, which means you're paying to be published (????) and other bits of misinformation like that.

And, as usual, he's threatening to sue anyone and everyone who points out his company is a vanity operation.

Sometimes, I wonder how Ann and Vic have been doing this for so long. Sometimes it feels so disheartening.

Then, you read where someone actually googled their potential publisher and read about them on Writer Beware or Preditors and Editors or the Absolute Write forums and decided to hold out until a publisher paid them rather than the other way around.

And when you read that, you gird up your loins one more time and look for more smooth stones for your slingshot.

Round 2? *grin*

________________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

1396 / 1000 words. 140% done!

Progress on Stargate SG-1: Shadows of the Heart

5119 / 100000 words. 5% done!

Words for 2008

161904 / 366000 words. 44% done!

Just got home from helping Ann Crispin and Victoria Strauss do the "How to Find a REAL Agent" panel at Capclave and decided it was time for me to get off the sidelines and back into this stuff. Been battling a mild case of writer block (aka too damn lazy to write) and a bit of depression/"my writing sucks, why am I doing this?" Not looking for sympathy because I'm not being sympathetic to myself. It's my lost time and it's damn time I got back to doing something productive.

Not going to go into great details about the last four and a half months, so I'll pass on the highlights in semi-chronological order:

1) Started playing Guild Wars as a way to recharge the old batteries (Old D&D geeks need to get their fixes somehow *grin*)
2) My truck started to die, so I am now the proud owner of a 2008 Mazda MX-5 (Miata). Pictures to follow.
3) The Daughter-Unit had to go to summer school, so I had to take off an hour a day during the summer to pick her up and get her home
4) Had a good time at Shore Leave (personally, not so much professionally)
4a) Getting the feeling my days of writing Star Trek are pretty much over barring something I don't expect
5) Looks like I'll be moving to a new contract at work . . . current assignment coming to an end right after Thanksgiving
6) Wrote to an editor regarding doing a Guild Wars novel . . . no response yea or nay yet.
7) Heard back from the secret project which isn't a secret any more. Unless something weird happens, I should be getting a contract from Fandemonium in the next week or so for a Stargate SG-1 novel. First draft due March 9.
8) Finishing my application paperwork for the MFA program at the University of Baltimore. If I'm accepted, I start Fall 2009

I think that summarizes what's been going on so far.

For those of you who've stuck with me (out of friendship or inertia) I thank you. I'll try not to take such an extended vacation again.

Now . . . go do something productive.

Amazon Flexes UK Muscle.

Lots of talk about Amazon vs the small press here in the U.S. Seems they've been taking on some of the bigger presses in the UK, but not much happening in the blogosphere about it. Victoria has an interesting read at the Writer Beware Blog. Go check it out.

Wow, to those of you who stuck with this blog in my absence, thank you.

Like the song says, "Life is what happens to you when you're busy making plans."

When last we saw our intrepid writer, I was preparing for the Maryland Writer's Association's Annual Conference on 3 May. It was my first time representing Writer Beware at a con and I think everything went well, even in spite of the audio-visual glitches. One of the people who attended my talk said if he got nothing else out of the conference, my talk was worth the price of admission (and folks, this wasn't a cheap conference *grin*). Needless to say, that made the day for me right there.

I left the conference all fired up myself and ready to get right back to work.

Unfortunately, I hadn't counted on my real work getting in the way. I had two major deadlines last week and I was putting in some hours. Basically, I was coming home, eating dinner, reading my blog and then passing out. There was no staying up until midnight working on stories. I was so burnt out from writing all day that the last thing I wanted to do was write at home. So I read my wife's For Better or For Worse collections, a few web comics and otherwise accomplished nothing last week.

Oh, and enjoyed going out to see Iron Man (4+/5 stars) and Speed Racer (2.5/5 stars). Iron Man was an outstanding time and I look forward to adding that one to my DVD collection when it becomes available. I was impressed by how true they were to the origins of Iron Man and still managed to move it forward into time. Although to tell you the truth, I thought the two robots assisting Tony Stark stole the show, and wishweaver wants his holographic interface with Jarvis. Hell, I think she'd take Jarvis also. Plus the easter egg at the end made sitting through the credits worth the wait. *grin*

Speed was an enjoyable romp and I thought once we got past Speed's childhood, the movie really got back into the stuff that made watching Speed the cartoon fun (family and the cars). Plus, you had the GRX, the Monster Car, the Inspector, the Acrobatic Racing Team (in a cameo unfortunately), over the top villains, Segways, ninjas, and all the other strangeness that made the Speed Racer cartoon fun.

On Saturday, I did finally get motivated and hit one of the local coffee shops. I added 4029 words to Steel on Target, nearly finishing the next chapter. I followed that up with tonight's return to Childhood's Tears adding 1138 words. Hopefully, with things settling down at work for a bit, I expect to get back on track here soon. I may have a few lapses (especially with the new Garrett, P.I. book from Glen Cook (Cruel Zinc Melodies) sitting here waiting for me to read it.), but I'm feeling better, the clients like the end results of the last week's projects and the world has continued to spin.

Now, if the squirrels would stop lining up by twos, practicing getting onto a boat.

____________________________________________________________

Words for Today

1138 / 1000 words. 114%

Progress on Steel on Target

48288 / 95000 words. 51%

Progress on Childhood's Tears

38216 / 90000 words. 42%

Words for 2008

136671 / 366000 words. 37%

Long day today.

Spent today either finishing up the web site at work, going to meetings or working on a user's manual for the other project I support. Of course, my meeting was at noon and I can't even complain because I'm the one who scheduled it. (Only time the conference room with the projector was available.) I was pretty brain-dead when I got home, but there was no rest for the weary . . .

I needed to finish up my slides for my presentation to the Maryland Writer's Association Annual Conference this upcoming Saturday. As usual, I've probably gone overboard (I'm sitting on 19 slides, although several of them have only two bullets on them), so I'll be spending some time tomorrow evening winnowing through everything, photocopying some handouts and finishing all my notes to myself. I think it'll be a lot of fun.

And, against my better judgment (and the bed whispering sweet nothings to me), I still managed to get some writing in. I added 1027 words to Steel on Target, getting May off to a good start. I'll post my April totals tomorrow, but I think they'll look a lot better than March's did.

And with that . . . it's off to bed.
________________________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

1027 / 1000 words. 103%

Progress on Steel on Target

44259 / 90000 words. 49%

Words for 2008

131504 / 366000 words. 36%

Actually, considering how many days in March I missed, I'm not as disappointed as I thought I would be.

Still, I'm resolving to be a little more faithful to my writing than I was last month. (So says the man who's already missed three days in April. Hey, I was sick! Excuses, excuses.)

*grrr*

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Progress on Childhood's Tears

7201 / 8000 words. 90%

Progress on Steel on Target

8746 / 8000 words. 109%

Progress on CSD: Dragon Couchant

10815 / 10000 words. 108%

Words written on Shattered Mirror

1116 / 1000 words. 112%

Words written on Writer Beware projects

3023 / 1000 words. 302%

Words for March

30901 / 31000 words. 100%

Total words to date

94455 / 91000 words. 104%

The title pretty much describes my day at work.

I finished off the last two little assignments I had as well as making up the weekly status reports that didn't get turned in on Friday because I was here babysitting the appraiser. Poured myself a second cup of coffee and prepared to hit one of the big assignments I have staring at me.

And that's when my friend, Mr. Microsoft Word, began acting up on me again.

First off, the headings styles were acting up. I went into the style formatting, set up the numbering system exactly the way I wanted it and what happened? Word numbered my headings the way IT wanted them to look. It didn't matter if I set the numbers, if I went in and told it to restart the numbering, if I went in and manually set the numbers . . . Microsoft Word blithely ignored me and did whatever the hell it wanted.

But, that was only the beginning of its tricks.

After I finally got the headings almost exactly where I wanted them . . . I got the infamous, "Microsoft Word has encountered an unexpected error and will be shutting down" box.

Not once.

Not twice.

Six times . . .

. . . in a row.

I finally had to shut down my machine and restart it, hoping it would clear whatever was making the persnickety Word program so upset. At least when it came back up, I got a little smarter. I grabbed the document that I did have set up the way I wanted and carefully cut and pasted the words from the body of the offending document into the clean version and then just re-wrote the heading titles by hand rather than importing any bad formatting into the good document.

So far, so good.

But by then, I had squandered a lot of the afternoon and damn near all my desire to work on this particular document any more today. I have a meeting with the team leader about this tomorrow and hopefully when I return to my desk, armed with clearer guidance (I hope), I'll give it another try. However, if it keeps screwing up, I'll probably have to call our IT guys and see if they have any suggestions besides mine, which would be to wipe Word off my machine and give me a fresh reload. (I have to use Word, it's on the baseline and the government is unlikely to spring for a Word Perfect X3 license to make a lowly contractor happy.)

Still, even with the frustrations at work today, I still was in a better mood tonight than I have been in a while. Spent some good time with my family and then wandered upstairs to write. I may have piddled around on some blogs and web sites longer than I needed to, but I still added 1027 words to Childhood's Tears tonight. I'm happy with what I wrote and I hope to add quite a bit more tomorrow night.

And not a crash in sight. Thank you, WP X3. *grin*

Oh, and I also worked on a pitch for a possible ghostwriting project. I'm not adding the words tonight since they're still in pencil and not on the computer, but hopefully I'll be typing them up tomorrow night before my regular writing session. And I do need to start to work on my slides for the Writer Beware presentation I'm giving to the Maryland Writer's Association in May.

*wibble*
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

1027 / 1000 words. 103%

Progress on Childhood's Tears

25826 / 90000 words. 29%

Words for 2008

81991 / 366000 words. 22%

Well, I've been typing for about three hours now, but I haven't made a dent in any of my current WIPs. Instead, I had to finish up a report for Writer Beware that was due tomorrow. I wanted to get it done tonight, so if there are any changes/corrections/suggestions for it, I will have the weekend (hopefully) to get it done.

So, yes, there were words, but they were all non-fiction.

Hopefully, very soon, I'll be able to talk more about this particular project, but as I'm finding out in my role as Writer Beware Apprentice, there's as much "behind the scenes" stuff as there is doing the blog, attending conventions and conferences and corresponding directly with writers who have questions about X agency or Y publishing company.

Then again, ask Dorothy Deering or Martha Ivery if Writer Beware is effective. *evil grin*

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

3023 / 1000 words. 302%

Words for 2008

76096 / 366000 words. 21%

Normally, a wandering thread is associated with a bulletin board, but in this case, it's probably the best way to describe what's going on with my latest work on the Chronicles of the Sea Dragon. I still know where I want this story to end, especially since it's designed to be the opening book of a trilogy. However, the twist I mentioned last evening has opened up a whole new can of worms that I need to deal with.

Yeah, I foresee this book is going to go way over the 100K that I anticipated it would be. Now, I figure I'll be back close to the 100K when I get done with the edits and rewrites, but it's going to take a little while to incorporate this new path the story's wandering down.

I don't think it's a rabbit trail. I define those as scenes that are "fun to write" but they don't really push the plot forward. Occasionally, they're not a bad thing since they give me a chance to do some character development, but they can be sacrificed if I feel it's dragging down the flow of the story. This is different. I've actually introduced something into the story that is going to change the dynamic of how the main characters deal with the antagonists as well as how they interact with each other from now on.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I really know the characters backward and forward, but I hadn't fleshed out the villains of this piece. OK, let me take that back. I've fleshed out the MAIN villain characters and know why they're doing what they're doing. However, there's also a religious war going on in the world of the Chronicles that is important also and I hadn't developed the second religion as much as I should have.

Still, I have to admit, this round of discovery has been interesting. Is it possible to humanize the antagonists too much?

My blog entry, "Buddy, do I have a deal for you", was also posted on the Writer Beware. Hope you enjoy it.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

1186 / 1000 words. 119%

Progress on CSD: Dragon Couchant

72433 / 100000 words. 72%

Words for 2008

59225 / 366000 words. 16%

Well, it was a slow day around Casa Blanca today. wishweaver is bit under the weather, which is never any fun, and she really needs to get started on some of her labs for class. So, I'll be living downstairs tomorrow doing the laundry. Hopefully, I'll be able to get a pretty good rhythm going between laundry and writing. I still have a 4000+ word cushion on my 1000 words a day for 2008 going, but I'd like to keep building up that cushion against being sick or visiting friends.

I have been trying to work on a blog entry for Writer Beware on what media tie-in writing is like and discussing work for hire. One thing I'm trying to do is contact some of the people I know who do tie-in writing to get some anecdotes (both good and bad), and this is taking a bit longer than I expected. I think it's a good subject for Writer Beware to discuss, but it's apparently going to be down the line.

However, I ran into something late last night that I think will make a very interesting entry. I worked on it today and then fired it off to Victoria to review. Hopefully, I'll hear from her tomorrow and then get it posted.

That's the way it works sometimes. Just like in journalism, sometimes you have to burn shoe leather to get a story and sometimes they just drop into your lap.

I still had time to get some personal writing done today also. I added another 1155 words to Chronicles of the Sea Dragon although the story did just take a certain twist that I hadn't seen coming. It'll be interesting to see what this does with the story. I guess I'll just run with it and work it out on the rewrite.

Ah, the wild life of a writer . . . *grin*
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

1823 / 1000 words. 182%

Progress on CSD: Dragon Couchant

71427 / 100000 words. 71%

Progress on Writer Beware blog

668 / 668 words. 100%

Words for 2008

58043 / 366000 words. 16%

Let's just say I didn't exactly get the writing done today that I had intended.

Still, it was a fun day. Spent some time with the family doing errands, did some work on a Writer Beware assignment (actually, put in about five pages of writing there, but I didn't count that in tonight's word count), and then got Xenosaga out and played for quite a while today. I finally figured out how to get past one of the parts that had stumped me and got off the doomed ship and onto another one.

One thing I've noticed about Xenosaga is the number of long cut scenes. It's almost been 1/2 movie, 1/2 game so far. I'm hoping the gaming will be a little more prominent now that we're finally going and the enemy has shown its face. I have Xenosaga II, but haven't picked up XSIII yet. I'm hoping the game will continue picking up speed from this point on.

I did get out Childhood's Tears tonight and I've hit 651 words tonight. However, I'm fading fast, so rather than staying up even later, I'm going to try and get some sleep before work tomorrow.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

651 / 1000 words. 65%

Progress on Childhood's Tears

19040 / 90000 words. 21%

Words for 2008

53928 / 366000 words. 15%

I'm not quite sure what's going on with me these days. Maybe I'm over-extending myself during the weekdays, but I really crashed this weekend.

Now, Friday night, I intentionally did not write. I took off from work early to enjoy the beautiful day, got wishweaver and went and did "stuff". Just "stuff", got the oil changed in my old truck, visited the bank, hit the local Costco and picked up some really good Teriyaki Chicken Fillets that we had for dinner and then threw on a new (to me) video game (Xenogenesis 1). Yes, I can tell it's a little older and the voices don't match up with the mouth movements very well, (sorta gave me an old Hong Kong movie vibe), but the story looks interesting and if I can get past this current section, I think the game may be pretty fun. (lots of back story and set-up to get through at first.)

Saturday was another thing all together. It was a day of nothing quite going right and for some reason, I was tired and cranky. We did stuff though. Went to the local mall so the daughter-unit could get some new clothes, looked at a few things for wishweaver and took in the local video store so I could get some ideas what I wanted to pick up with the next paycheck. However, while I was waiting for them on a bench, I started falling asleep. I hadn't been up that late Friday evening, so I couldn't explain it. But, by the time we got home, I was really tired. I walked in, sat down on the couch and fell asleep at 3:45. I didn't wake up until 11:45 and then went back to sleep at 1:30 and slept in until 10 this morning.

I don't know if I had a bug or what, but I certainly felt better this morning than I had all day Saturday. Sigh. So, today was spent folding laundry, watching Emergency with Wish or working on Chronicles of the Sea Dragon. It was a relaxing day but still pretty productive. I typed 3098 words today to make up for the lack of production on Friday and Saturday.

I need to finish working on my next blog entry for Writer Beware's blog. I'm working on doing something on tie-in writng/work for hire and discussing the pros and cons of this particular writing model. I'm going to try and bounce a few ideas off of some of my other tie-in writers to get their takes on the article before I post it.

Speaking of tie-in writing, I think I have a pretty good grasp on what I want to write now. It's just a matter of finishing up my research and trying to tie everything up into a neat little one-page proposal. Which of course, is my bane, being naturally long-winded. *grin*

But, I need to get a load out of the dryer and get it upstairs before I go to bed. Night, LJ.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

3098 / 1000 words. 310%

Progress on CSD: Dragon Couchant

69592 / 100000 words. 70%

Words for 2008

48439 / 366000 words. 13%

It's been a good day. Sat down at work and roughed out a quick sketch of a new version of the web site I'm going to be running at work and everyone who looked at it seems to think it's going to work. Now, we haven't done all the CSS sheets (which I have never done before, so this will be a learning experience, believe me) and I've never used Dreamweaver before (I'm an "open notepad, type HTML" kind of webber, but they like the WYSIWYG stuff *sigh*), but nothing is impossible to learn.

Then tonight, I was busy doing some networking as well as Writer Beware stuff and realized I was coming up on 2300 hours and I hadn't written anything today. Well, that wasn't going to do. Fired up Word Perfect, opened up Childhood's Tears and 43 minutes later decided to wrap up with 1026 words, which is darn fast typing for me. Luckily, the two protagonists in this book, (hard to call a tomb robber and an assassin the heroes of the piece), play off each other well and their conversations just seem to flow naturally out of my head and onto the page. Sometimes I have to remember to stop and add in some descriptions because they banter back and forth well. Don't know how much will survive edits, but it's sure fun to write now.

Tomorrow is likely to be a hell-day at work though, *grrr*, so I better get some rest.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

1026 / 1000 words. 103%

Progress on Childhood's Tears

15072 / 90000 words. 17%

Words for 2008

34725 / 366000 words. 9%

Got the Writer Beware blog post up, did family stuff most of the afternoon and evening and then settled in to do some writing. Started Chapter Fifteen for the Chronicles of the Sea Dragon tonight, slapped on Jethro Tull's Songs from the Wood, which is strangely appropriate for this story and got to work.

2116 words later, I think it's time to go to bed. With a little bit of luck tomorrow, I should be able to get this chapter finished as well as taking care of some housekeeping I need to do for Writer Beware. Heck, I might even treat myself to a little time on the ol' Playstation if I keep this up.

Oh, and on a personal note, I've officially exceeded January's projected words for the month and we've still got five days to go. Go me!
______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

2116 / 1000 words. 212%

Progress on Dragon Couchant

61804 / 100000 words. 62%

Words for 2008

32560 / 366000 words. 9%

As I may have mentioned, I am the newest member of the Writer Beware team. I've been providing assistance to Victoria Strauss and Ann Crispin on the team for almost a year now. However, tonight was a little different.

Tonight I wrote my first post for the Writer Beware blog.

No, it's not posted yet. wishweaver needs to give it another going-over before I post to the web site, but it should be going up early tomorrow morning.

Yes, I'm nervous. Sure, I post here all the time, but this is my "first public appearance" so to speak as a Writer Beware member. No, presenting the annual report to SFWA at NASFIC isn't really a public appearance, in my opinion.

I'm hoping wishweaver cuts it down a bit. I'm thinking 738 words is probably a bit long for a blog entry, but there were some very good examples I wanted to use to make my points and I wasn't quite sure how much detail was too much. Luckily, Wish is a good editor and I'm going to trim it myself in the morning also.

So, no writing on any novels, but definitely writing about writing tonight. Just means I get to spend some extra time tomorrow noveling.

Oh, and if you're wondering what the avatar is, she's the Koi Wonder, of course, piscine super heroine and fraud-hunter extraordinaire (thanks, Brenda). We'd tell you more, but we're afraid it's classified. *grin*

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Tonight

738 / 1000 words. 74%

Words for 2008

30447 / 366000 words. 8%

Man, I don't know what happened Thursday, but I was down this weekend. No writing on Friday or Saturday. It was mainly just hanging around the house and relaxing.

The good part about being around the house, I was here when they delivered some of the stuff we bought for the remodeling. J.C. Penney's delivered the sectional, my recliner and the straight-back chair we'd purchased for the library. I've dealt with several delivery crews both before this remodeling and during, but these guys were good. In and out, everything neatly stacked where it needed to be. They were probably here less than twenty minutes.

The other delivery was even more fun. I am now the proud owner of a new Plasma HD TV and home theater. The only drawback is, it's going to have to live under plastic until they finish painting and building in the new family room. *sigh* Still, we had to fire it up while the installation guys were here and let's just say, the First Challenge in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire never looked better. (Well, at least not on a TV in Casa Blanca, that is.)

Didn't accomplish a whole lot earlier today. First day I really felt good, so I wanted to spend time with the family before trying to make up the lost days worth of writing. Unfortunately, I didn't know we were going to have company here after dinner. Wound up watching the Green Bay/NY Giants game. So, I didn't get started working on Shattered Mirror's rewrites until almost 11pm. I wound up finishing about 1am, but I did get 1924 words of the rewrite done and I should get it finished tomorrow morning before I have to leave to meet April to go over the chapter.

Also talked to Ann Crispin today. Looks like I'm going to be doing the next couple of entries on the Writer Beware blog, so I'll be going over a few of the incidents I've observed over at Absolute Write and other writer's bulletin boards and see what I can put together. Keep your fingers crossed there.

But, I better get to bed if I'm going to write in the morning.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

1924 / 1000 words. 192%

Words for 2008

22586 / 366000 words. 6% done!

Been a while, eh, LJ?

Well, I have some news finally.

Last night I wrote on Shattered Mirror and am 1,620 words into Chapter 6c. (I say 6c because April and I have been rearranging some of the earlier chapters, so until I work my magic and organize everything, the chapter numbers are in a bit of a flux. So, not being quite sure if this was Chapter 6 or Chapter 7, I'm calling it 6c for now to identify it's variable situation. Oh God, I'm reduced to Algebra I jokes.) Still the writing is going well. It's the first time I've written this particular character's POV and I'm finding she and I have a very similar warped sense of humor. Hopefully, I'll have this chapter finished up soon.

Why you ask? Well that brings me to my second bit of news. I heard from the UK publisher today. I've been asked to provide a chapter breakdown and the first chapter of Childhood's Tears.

Whoo hooo!

That means I made the first cut on this novel. If they like the pacing of the chapters and the writing sample, I may be getting a novel with them. I'm not holding my breath, but I've made it past the moat. Now it's time to scale those walls.

Also, today, Ann Crispin called me and asked if I could come to Capclave and assist her with her "How to Get a Real Agent" workshop. What? I'm going to tell my boss at Writer Beware no? Especially since I live about 18 miles from this convention? So, I'm only going to be there for Saturday, (or part of Saturday . . . a lot depends on the daughter-unit's ability to get projects done on time), but it'll be fun visiting with Ann and her husband Michael Capobianco (the current SFWA president).

So, where do books fit into all of this? Well, there was a big box waiting for me at home tonight. My author copies of The Sky's the Limit arrived! Huzzah! Let me tell you, after working for a different publisher, the people at Pocket Books, esp. Marco Palmieri and kradical, have been like night and day as far as taking care of their authors. Although, Steve Roman at iBooks took good care of me too, but his boss was "unique". Yeah, that's the ticket.

So, all in all, a VERY exciting day to be an author. Almost makes the other crap seem worth it. *grin*

Chronicle Books responds to the Writer Beware blog entry

I note Chronicle Books is claiming they were misquoted in the Newsweek article. Granted, that's possible. It's also just as possible that the firestorm caught them off-guard and there's some serious backpedaling going on here.

Either way, it is good news, but as one of my former commanders-in-chief said, "Trust, but verify". Perhaps another unattributed military intelligence motto would be more appropriate, "In God We Trust. Everyone else we monitor." *grin*

This situation definitely bears more monitoring.

However, the following quote from the Chronicle representative, Joseph Ternes still gives me pause. "Just as from time to time our editors refer authors or artists to other trade houses, Blurb.com presents another option if they consider it an appropriate choice. "

So, they still think it's appropriate to forward books to a vanity press? Especially a vanity press that's as expensive as Blurb is, when there are many more presses out there that will print you book (not publish it) for a lot less money.

And I'm still against pushing people toward self-publishing or vanity publishing anything if they're still actively seeking a commerical publisher. As James MacDonald has pointed out several times over the years, a book that's publishable by one is publishable by many. So, if Chronicle doesn't want to publish your book, why give up after one rejection? And why is Chronicle so interested in where the book goes if they're not going to publish it?

I still believe my questions from the other day are appropriate, (minus the kickback ones).

As a fairly new member of Writer Beware, I'm still getting up to speed on all the publishing/agenting scams. Like many of you, I'm familiar with the Writers Literary Agency & Marketing Company/The Literary Agency Group (run by Robert Fletcher and tons of sockpuppets) and Publish America (run by Larry, Wilhelm and Miranda). I'm also familiar with some of the smaller questionable operations like Tate Publishing or the Robins Agency.

I read a lot about people who start publishing companies or literary agencies who really do mean well, but they're just in over their heads from word one.

(Waves to the self-googlers who'll run across this blog)

But, this one, I was caught off-guard about until I read it on Absolute Write and then read Victoria's commentary on the Writer Beware blog.

There's something insidious about a commercial publisher working out a kickback scheme with a self-publisher to send them their rejected authors. "Sorry, you're not quite good enough for us, but you're probably good enough for this publisher." That's bad enough, but then for Chronicle Books to get a percentage of every sale these authors make from the POD publisher Blurb?

Can you say, conflict of interest? Sure, I knew you could.

I have already read some comments where people say that since this is out in the open, it's really different from the Edit Ink scam or because Chronicle Books is a legitimate commercial publisher, they'll hold themselves to a higher standard and only recommend books that should be published to Blurb.

Think about it.

If the books were good enough to be published, shouldn't Chronicle Books want to publish them?
If the books were good enough, but not in a genre Chronicle Books prints, shouldn't they be recommended to another commercial publisher rather than a vanity press?
If the books aren't good enough for Chronicle to publish them, why should the author spend money printing something that, in all probability, sell less than 1000 copies? (The average vanity press POD book sells in the low three figures.)
If the books aren't good enough for Chronicle to publish, why are they getting a kickback from a vanity press?
If the books are almost good enough to publish, will they send the authors to Blurb (to get the kickback) rather than giving them honest feedback (the path of least resistance)?

If a program brings up all these questions, and more I'm certain, it's probably not a good idea.