urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangelJill MylesA little anxiety about writing. A lot of yammering.Jill Myles2009-07-05T22:37:51Zurn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:506277Also2009-07-05T22:37:51Z2009-07-05T22:37:51Z<p>It occurs to me that I have this argument with myself every few months.</p>
<p>Carry on, carry on. <img src="http://jillmyles.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" class="wp-smiley" /> </p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:505938Hello, my name is Jill Myles…2009-07-05T22:30:21Z2009-07-05T22:32:05Z<p>And I’m an idea chaser.</p>
<p>It’s shameful to admit, I know, but it’s true. I want to write an epic fantasy. I also want to write a YA horror novel. And a romance. And an urban fantasy. And a fairy tale novel. And a historical romance. And…I think you see my problem.</p>
<p>It’s not the bad TV shows or movies that are the insidious ones. It’s the ones that do something GOOD, but they do not do it GREAT. Or they take the story in a direction I don’t want to see. I don’t care about an airship full of pirates! Take me back to the part where the hero and heroine were going to kiss again! Damn!</p>
<p>The writer-brain is ever at work. It seems a movie and thinks of ways to make it better. It reads something it likes, and begins to add to the story. What if the writer took it this way? Or this way?</p>
<p>Suddenly, new ideas are assaulting my brain. This, my friends, is both blessing and curse.</p>
<p>Let’s say you write a few novels…we’ll say ‘twelve’. The first one is one of those kitchen sink books that no one can classify. It has time travel, monsters, historical tidbits, coming of age, evil puritans, and a hot Ojibwe dude who thinks the heroine is ugly but loves her anyway. This book is basically garbage. Sorry. The next book? Epic fantasy. Book one of a bajillion. Except you’re still learning how to write, so none of the story pieces sort of go together, and it’s kind of weird all around. The next book is a little better – it’s more or less a young adult novel featuring a heroine and dragons. Which is fine except that the heroine is a little overly sexualized/traumatized and the rest of it kind of screams to have the serial numbers filed off of it, or Anne McCaffrey might sue. So yeah. That one’s in the trunk too. The next one is Your Preshus. The one where things start to click, but the writing ain’t there yet. It’s an urban fantasy with a light, goofy tone, a heroine that is more shrill than funny, and a wisecracking horse. You still freaking love the horse. It’s not romantic, it’s not dark, and basically, it’s all wrong for the market.</p>
<p>Anyhow, that book is close but no cigar. Lots of bites, but no one reads the full manuscript. So you abandon #4 and you write something new, because at that point, you don’t know what’s wrong with that novel. And the next one…the next one gets you an agent. But let’s say you’re left rudderless and with still plenty of spare time while that one sells, right? So you write a few more things as your agent sells your book. Namely:</p>
<p>1) An urban fantasy about superheroes. It’s kind of light and fluffy.</p>
<p>2) A time travel romance</p>
<p>3) A romance that’s paranormal (kind of) and in the wrong voice (doh). Everyone pretty much tells you this idea is too weird.</p>
<p>4) That second book you’re contracted for. Yay you! You stuck with a genre!</p>
<p>5) A fantasy romance.</p>
<p>6) An urban fantasy. But this one is dark and srs bzns and woe. (You also kind of hate this one)</p>
<p>7) A light paranormal romance. Yay! There’s that genre again!</p>
<p>So let’s recap. You’ve sold a book! Hurray you! And your publisher says “We love this! What else have you got?”</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>And you look back at your list, and really, the only thing you’ve got is <em>the most recent book you wrote.</em> Sure, I can lob the time travel romance at my publisher. But time travel doesn’t sell, and why am I writing something else when my paranormal voice is so good, right? What about the fantasy romance? Bzzt, sorry. Different audience. Urban fantasy? Maybe. Which one? Light or dark? Because you can’t do both – people will expect a certain tone from your books. And heck, you might have to take a pen name and start building an audience all over again anyhow. And do you really want to do that?</p>
<p>A game plan is so, sosososo crucial. You have no idea. Think about what you enjoy writing. If you enjoy writing a bunch of stuff (like, say, me), focus in on one thing. Focus in on what people really seem to enjoy in your writing. Maybe your crit partners aren’t super crazy about the flying nuns in your latest book, but they sure do like the way you pulled the mystery together. Focus on that. Write more mystery. Build your brand.</p>
<p>Because, really. Think of an author you loved and followed for years…and then that author switched genres. WHY GOD WHY? Don’t you feel betrayed? I sure do! I still haven’t quite gotten over my favorite author’s switch to romantic suspense (a genre I normally don’t read). What if George R. R. Martin decided to write detective stories instead of fantasy? Wouldn’t all those Westeros cosplay fans feel disappointed and left out?</p>
<p>(Now, GRRM can do whatever the hell he wants, I think, because the audience would follow him. But little ol’ me? Not so lucky.)</p>
<p>So anyhow. I tell myself this because I am talking myself down from several ideas. Instead, I am working on a light, sexy paranormal novella. I’m sticking with my genre, because once you get the contract, you can’t write just for yourself anymore. You’re writing for your business as well as potential fans. And you don’t want to confuse them by writing an urban fantasy one day, and a cozy knitting mystery the next. Just sayin’.</p>
<p>(And if you have suggestions on what I’m supposed to do with a romance that involves the Bermuda Triangle, conquistadors, and dinosaurs, I’m all ears.)</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:505632Getting ready for RWA National2009-07-05T15:34:02Z2009-07-05T15:34:22Z<p>Hair? Cut.</p>
<p>Dresses? Bought.</p>
<p>Dress shoes? Check.</p>
<p>Sweaters/tops? Ditto.</p>
<p>Luggage? Yup.</p>
<p>Tan? Never.</p>
<p>I did waffle about a pair of tights, but ended up going with them. We’ll see how that turns out. I’m going to spend the next week in a frantic state trying to finish two weeks’ worth of work in 1 week, slowly, sloooowly packing stuff so I don’t have to wash it again before wearing it, and generally remembering to bring everything. I hope.</p>
<p>My schedule is made, room plans are done, tickets are bought, and I don’t think I’m leaving anything to the last minute except maybe travel toothpaste. I wasn’t sure what to expect last year but this year I have a general idea.</p>
<p>(now if my promo materials could just get here so i can squee over them)</p>
<p>If we were supposed to meet up for breakfast/lunch/whatever and we have not talked, EMAIL me because I am booked, yo.</p>
<p>Anyone else got last minute prep for Nationals?</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:505597This book comes out tomorrow2009-06-29T20:58:42Z2009-06-29T20:58:42Z<p><img alt="" src="http://meredithduran.com/images/picture_1.jpg" class="alignleft" width="124" height="200" /> It’s been a while since I’ve raved about a book, but I truly, truly loved this one. I went into it with no expectations – I’ve been on a definite historical romance slump, and especially slumping in the areas of regency or Victorian (this is a Victorian). But I met Meredith at RWA last year and she was such a fun, sparkling personality that I wanted to read it, regardless of genre ennui.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bound-Your-Touch-Meredith-Duran/dp/1416592636/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229634151&sr=8-1">I. Loved. This. Book. </a> Words cannot describe how much I freaking loved this book. I started to read it and couldn’t put it down. After I finished it, everything else made me fussy because it was Not This Book. She ruined me for a good two weeks on other reads.</p>
<p>The hero and heroine were perfect. Perfect. If you liked Loretta Chase’s MR. IMPOSSIBLE, you simply must read this book. <a href="http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/06/22/review-bound-by-your-touch-by-meredith-duran/">Jane at Dear Author gave it an A</a>. <a href="http://thebooksmugglers.com/2009/06/book-review-bound-by-your-touch-by-meredith-duran.html">The Book Smugglers gave it an 8 out of 10</a>. It’s brilliant and clever and tender and I think Duran is going to be the next Loretta Chase.</p>
<p>You seriously want to read this book, guys.</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:505150Copyedits have landed2009-06-26T16:35:15Z2009-06-26T16:35:15Z<p>If I’m quiet lately, it’s because I’m busy. I started a side project just for fun, and sure enough, as soon as I launch into that particular project…copyedits arrive!</p>
<p>That’s all right, though, because I’m quite happy to get my copyedits out of the way.</p>
<p>It’s funny, because when copyedits were originally mentioned to me, I had the notion that someone would send me a big long print-out of changes to make to the manuscript. Then, I’d have to take each page and make the changes on my document. After all the endless changes were done, I’d print out a fresh one and send it back to my publisher.</p>
<p>Apparently, I was not the only one with this misconception. The letter on top of my manuscript says, quite clearly (and possibly in bold AND capslock) – make the changes on this document. Do not print a fresh document. We need this document back. Lose it and die.</p>
<p>(Okay, so maybe the last part is not on there)</p>
<p>I was also provided (very thoughtfully!) with a green pencil. At first, this amused me. They’re sending my copyedits…AND a green pencil? Some sort of weird two-fer deal? But the green pencil is very important. My copyedits are marked up with red, grey, and blue already. I have to use a different color so my changes stand out.</p>
<p>Armed with my green pencil, I dive in to see what a copyedit is all about. Turns out…it’s about reading other people’s marks to my manuscript to see if they make sense. Some of them are punctuation related. Once upon a time (and even today) I loved me some extra commas or em-dashes. My copyeditor does not like them so much, so there’s a lot of them marked out. Other punctuation changes. Deleting unnecessary words and sentence tags (there’s an embarrassing wealth of this).</p>
<p>I also have in the margins several notes about things to clarify. “On page 12, you said it was a diner. On this page you say it’s a café. Which is it?” So I correct the item and write ‘fixed’ over the note. The bigger changes, I’m making a note to go back and fix at the end. For now, I’m still re-reading.</p>
<p>Did I mention this is a long, time consuming process? The first few days, I had no clue what I was doing and didn’t know what half the marks meant. Took me 2 days to get through 25 pages. (Did I mention I have to have this turned in ASAP?) Luckily, I’m getting more confident with the changes as I go, and was able to make a big leap in progress yesterday. I should have no problems finishing on time, which is nice.</p>
<p>After all this is turned in, about a month later, I get galleys! I have to admit, I’m really excited about seeing galleys. That’s when all the fonts and styles are set, and the book starts to look like a real book instead of just my old manuscript.</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:504835Social Fail2009-06-20T18:56:50Z2009-06-20T18:56:50Z<p>I meant to go to the local RWA meeting this morning. It would have been an awesome one – the speaker was talking about marketing and publicity.</p>
<p>But someone (and we won’t mention any names here) slept until 1pm. Way, way past meeting time. Sigh.</p>
<p>So I have the rest of the day to sit in my pajamas, with dirty hair. I think I’m going to surf the internet, twitter a bit, and write. I wrote 2 pages in a fun side project – I’m going to see if I can write a novella based on a concept I had rolling through my mind (and one that Jane encouraged).</p>
<p>Wish me luck!</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:504698More stuff I can’t show you.2009-06-18T02:30:02Z2009-06-18T02:39:03Z<p>I got cover art for my second book last night! It made me squee in all the right places. Love my publisher - Pocket does really amazing romance covers, and it makes me sosososo happy to see mine.</p>
<p>But I can’t show you. At least, not until I get approval. BUT! I can show you a little something that is going on the cover…</p>
<p><strong><br />
“Laugh-out-loud scenes, scorching eroticism, and pulse-pounding adventure.” — Kresley Cole, <em>New York Times</em> bestselling author of <em>Kiss of a Demon King</em></strong></p>
<p>Perhaps you did not read that closely enough. I’ll wait here while you read it again.</p>
<p>KRESLEY FREAKING COLE BLURBED MY BOOK YOU GUYS.</p>
<p>(Perhaps you recall last RWA, when I mentioned I might meet Kresley? And I was excited? And posted this picture?)</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y257/irysangel/kresleycopy.jpg" title="omg" class="aligncenter" width="300" height="243" /></p>
(That's not Kresley. That's me getting excited at the prospect of meeting Kresley.)
<p>That’s right. She was nice enough to make my <s>day</s> <s>year</s> decade and blurb my book.</p>
<p>You <em>so</em> want to read it now, don’t you? Yeah. Me too.</p>
<p>(But I get to! Because I am getting copyedits this week! And I’ll get to read — and edit — the whole thing AGAIN. Oh writer’s life, you are a glamorous one.)</p>
<p>Anyhow, there was some great link salad going on around and about the interwebs, most of it related to writing. Here ya go:</p>
<p><a href="http://m-stiefvater.livejournal.com/111221.html">http://m-stiefvater.livejournal.com/111221.html</a> <-- On writers and self confidence, and how being confident in your work does not equal ego. At least, not always. (Maggie has an awesome journal, guys. You should be reading it.)</p>
<p><a href="http://beth-bernobich.livejournal.com/282487.html"><br />
http://beth-bernobich.livejournal.com/282487.html</a> <-- Beth Bernobich talks about poisonous writers on the web. Can I get an amen?</p>
<p><a href="http://jimhines.livejournal.com/450145.html">http://jimhines.livejournal.com/450145.html</a> < -- Jim Hines talks about writers with 'real' jobs vs writers without real jobs. Excellent post. Jim's posts on the business side of writing are an absolute must.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JK7IKSfyLE">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JK7IKSfyLE</a> < -- Earworm of the day (not the real video, just the song)</p>
<p><a href="http://mymilktoof.blogspot.com/">http://mymilktoof.blogspot.com/</a> < — Cutest blog ever. EVER.</p>
<p>And that’s all I got for now. <img src="http://jillmyles.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" class="wp-smiley" /> </p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:504352I came, I saw, I may have possibly rewritten it a billion times…2009-06-15T15:02:15Z2009-06-15T15:02:15Z<p>Oh editing. I love you and I hate you. It feels like I’ve been doing nothing but editing since April (ETA – that’s pretty much the truth, actually). I had a few lingering scenes that were breaking my head on VANISHING ACT, so I logged off the internet and went and worked in the other room. No distractions, just me and my characters as I tried to force them to do things that did not feel natural (since I’d already written the climax of the story once, rewriting it in a different direction – no matter how good the direction is – still feels unnatural).</p>
<p>But I wrote a huge chunk and I’m happy to say that I’m done, more or less, with the edits. Except I’ve got to go back through and re-read one more time to make sure there’s no bizarre jumps in logic. At one point I ripped out almost 40k from this book and rewrote back in about 25k (some of it coming from very early drafts). </p>
<p>For those of you that are word count junkies like myself? Starting tally of this book – 92k.</p>
<p>Tally after completing the last draft? 74.5k – my goal. I’m really happy with that number. The 92k felt bloated, but I wasn’t sure where to cut. The 75k feels much more streamlined for a YA.</p>
<p>I expect the wordcount to bounce up a little as I go through a paper copy of the novel and re-read one last time. There’s always tweaks here and there. But I can’t imagine it getting much higher than the 75k it stands at now.</p>
<p>And maybe now I will go back to my crackhead project. Or work on some short stories. Have not decided, but the world is my oyster. For a few weeks, anyhow.</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:504080A rant on word count2009-06-09T19:23:25Z2009-06-09T19:26:34Z<p>So. Wordcount. (Yes, I’m struggling for things to blog about, and Moonrat just posted something awesome on her blog and it reminded me that I wanted to talk about this.)</p><p>Here’s a great post from an editor:</p><p><a href="http://romanticreads.net/2009/03/12/the-economics-of-word-count-requirements/">http://romanticreads.net/2009/03/12/the-economics-of-word-count-requirements/</a></p><p>Here’s another great post from Moonrat (who is also an editor):</p><p><a href="http://editorialass.blogspot.com/2009/06/is-there-word-count-cap-for-debut-novel.html">http://editorialass.blogspot.com/2009/06/is-there-word-count-cap-for-debut-novel.html</a></p><p>Here’s another great post from an agent:</p><p><a href="http://theswivet.blogspot.com/2008/03/on-word-counts-and-novel-length.html">http://theswivet.blogspot.com/2008/03/on-word-counts-and-novel-length.html</a></p><p>Okay. Did you read those three? All three of them mention word count. Did you also notice how small the word counts are? 80k. 85k. 90k max.</p><p>There seems to be this mythical unicorn of a concept that longer books still sell so word count doesn't matter! Stephenie Meyer’s TWILIGHT was 700 pages long! JK Rowling’s books were enormous! Diana Gabaldon’s OUTLANDER is a brick of a book! </p><a name="cutid1"></a><p>All right then. Let’s recap:</p><p>1) Did you make 50 million dollars last year like Meyer?<br />2) Are you JK Rowling?<br />3) Did you write OUTLANDER?</p><p>If you answered “Yes” to any of those questions, then please do ignore word count (and me!).</p><p>If you answered “No” like most everyone else, it’s something to pay attention to.</p><p>Bloated word count costs your publisher money. I’m sorry, but there it is. You can fit three fat books on a shelf where six slimmer ones might fit. You get paid the same for both. Would you rather sell three or six? Would you rather B&N or Borders order 3 copies of your book or six? What about Wal-Mart?</p><p>I buy a lot of books at the grocery store. My favorite one has the mini-racks – little black wire brackets that are made to cup the paperbacks. They can squeeze usually about five or so books in there. Last fall they reprinted GONE WITH THE WIND, gave it a snazzy new cover, and put it on the racks. Guess how many copies of GWTW could fit in each slot? One.</p><p>When I turned in GENTLEMEN PREFER SUCCUBI, I seem to recall the word count being around 95k or so. According to Amazon, my book is 384 pages long, and I still have no acknowledgements/author notes and I haven’t gone through copyedits. It could potentially keep growing:</p><p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Gentlemen-Prefer-Succubi-Jill-Myles/dp/1416572821%3FSubscriptionId%3D1QZMGW0RRJC2PX87HDR2%26tag%3Dsalranexp-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D1416572821">Word count for my book!</a></p><p>I had no idea my book was so freaking long, you guys! But there it is. And maybe if my book would have been 70 pages shorter or something, B&N might buy 6 instead of 5 to put on the shelf. But it is what it is. And my book might cost my publisher just a little bit more than the last guy’s because my page count might be longer than Book X. Or my print run will be smaller. You can be darn sure that your print run is going to be smaller if your book is 500 pages long. Why? Because you’re going to require a lot more space on the shelf. And unless your first three initials are G. R. R. (and add an M), space is at a premium.</p><p>You want those pretty co-op slots at the front of Barnes & Noble. You want as many of your books squeezed into those slots. If your doorstopper makes it to co-op and you only have two on the shelf, and both sell, do you think they’re going to re-stock your book right away, or do you think an employee is going to wander past and just fill the blank slots with whatever is closest?</p><p>I visit a lot of writing boards. And word count ALWAYS ALWAYS comes up. And there seems to be this common misconception that “It’s okay for a fantasy novel to run longer!” or “Romance novels that are 500 pages still sell!” Usually these misconceptions come from one of three things:</p><p>1) Writing guides or writing books that are 20 years out of date, when the cost of paper wasn’t an issue, and when bookstores weren’t optimizing space like they are today.<br />2) The books that are 500 pages long were actually from authors that continue to have a backlist in print because they’ve sold so well for a dozen years (see OUTLANDER or GWTW).<br />3) That book is just that damn good.</p><p>And hey, maybe you’ve got #3. I’ve got confidence in my writing, but I know if I went back to my editor and said “Book 2 is going to be about 200k, is that all right?” she would probably need a drink. Or three. And then start writing me a tough letter about how I needed to chop my word count. Because she can’t go to marketing and say “About that book 2? Yeah. It’s going to be 700 pages long.” Marketing won’t like that. Publishing is all about the numbers, and you just threw off your profit margin by a landslide.</p><p>There was a great post from Anna Genoese a few years back about how every book considered for acquisition is immediately entered into a P&L spreadsheet to see how much money the company can make. I don’t have the link anymore (unfortunately) but it’s a real eye opener. You’re not writing a work of art for the publisher - you’re pitching a product to them. It’s all about the bottom dollar, baby.</p><p>Don’t get me wrong. Longer books still sell. Someone’s always going to pop on the message board and say “I sold my 170k book for a six figure advance!”</p><p>Wow, that’s awesome! Lucky you! You just hit the equivalent of the publishing lottery!</p><p>Some people also get 7 figure deals right out of the gate! Or tons of promo and publicity! And a 20 city book tour and a blurb by Stephen King!</p><p>And then there’s the rest of us. <img class="wp-smiley" alt=":)" src="http://jillmyles.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif" /></p><p>What I’m trying to say here…if you’d rather have the odds in your favor, take a long, hard look at your word count and see if you can’t shrink it a little.</p><p>When I queried my first book, the word count was 110k. I got nowhere, so I revised and dropped it to 100k. Got some interest. I *really* got interest when I mentioned that my book was in the lower 90s. Agents want something they can sell, and I imagine something that’s an easy sale makes it that much easier to get an agent. A long word count is automatically going to put you in the ‘long shot’ territory.</p><p>(And wow, this got totally Ranty McRanterson, didn’t it? My apologies!)</p><p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a title="Read Original Post" href="http://www.jillmyles.com">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:503936What I saw on my way in to work today…2009-06-08T18:08:50Z2009-06-08T18:08:50Z<p>A boy (man?) in a black shirt with a skinny red tie, skinny jeans, and a black polka dotted fedora hat.</p>
<p>A girl in skinny purple jeans, a black concert t-shirt, and her hair was long in the back, and shorter layered, textured waves in the front. I swear it looked like a mullet.</p>
<p>In the car behind me, I could see the boy in the rearview mirror. He had Adam Lambert-ish hair, except it was glued/styled down so far over his face that it covered one eye, and spiky in the back.</p>
<p>Dude. When did I wake up back in the 1980s? Should I break out my gold lame MC Hammer pants?</p>
<p>(Just kidding about the Hammer pants…OR AM I?)</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:503555Oh, the joy of release day.2009-06-02T19:30:57Z2009-06-02T19:30:57Z<p>Not my release day! Someone else’s. It’s that day you’ve been waiting for, the day that is led up to by scouring the local grocery stores in the hopes that a hapless Andersons (or whoever is the distributor now) employee put out the books early. And when that fails, it’s taking my lunch hour to make the trek - in the rain - to Barnes & Noble for that most prized of possessions.</p>
<p>THE NEW CATHERINE ANDERSON BOOK. BOOYAH.</p>
<p>I will be useless tonight in a reading marathon. Two words for you. Gun and slinger, baby. Gun and slinger.</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:503419Also2009-05-31T04:27:25Z2009-05-31T04:27:25Z<p>I have discovered Goodreads and spent half the evening tagging some of my favorite reads. I’m Jill Myles on there as well, if you’re on Goodreads too!</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:503166Second editing pass - done!2009-05-31T04:23:17Z2009-05-31T04:23:55Z<p>WHEW.</p>
<p>I’m still working on VANISHING ACT (which was once called UNNATURAL). Started with a draft of 89k. The file I’m now staring at is 66,866 words. Sure, I may have had to sacrifice most of the last 5 chapters (sob) and there’s one I yanked out entirely because I’m going to have to rework it from scratch, but this editing pass is done. This draft was by far the worst one.</p>
<p>For those playing along at home, this is draft #eleventybillion and one. Kidding. I honestly don’t know how many drafts this is. I think I edited this book 6 or 7 times before I said to my agent “Hey, can I make it a YA?” She said yes, so I edited it again, and sent it back.</p>
<p>This round was to fix the (tons) of suggestions she had, to shorten the draft, and to type in the mark-up changes I’d written out on paper.</p>
<p>I have a list of notes for stuff to fix in successive drafts (like we talked about in the prior post) and the list is here:</p>
<p>1) Make R a conspiracy theorist - check his dialogue and actions<br />
2) D threatens L via J - make sure to add this in and to correct their interactions — this changes J’s motivation<br />
3) L’s personality = too old. Fix!<br />
4) Connect gym scene (okay, so I have no idea what I meant when I wrote that one down, but I’m sure I’ll understand what the hell I’m talking about when I actually get to the gym scene again)<br />
5) J should be able to hear W’s thoughts starting at page 206. Note to self–Either this scene needs to change or I need a workaround.<br />
6) School lunch room (correct prior scenes showing private kitchen)<br />
7) p213 - helmet?<br />
8) Add in chapter of doom.</p>
<p>Some of these are a snap to fix. Like, say, #3. I just basically do a word-search for his name, tweak his dialogue and body language so he actually sounds his age. Some of it (I’m looking at you, #8) is going to break my brain.</p>
<p>But whew. Feeling a major sense of relief here as I move forward! The hardest stuff is done.</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:503021Plotting - You either take it in the front, or in the rear.2009-05-28T17:27:20Z2009-05-28T17:27:20ZSo, plotting. Some people ‘pants’ their way through a novel, without an outline except what’s running through their heads. Some people religiously outline before starting a book. There’s really no wrong way to write a novel, but I know that a lot of people will tell you that if you are a pantser, you’d better learn how to plot once you get contracted! Or else! And I think I’ve even said that before myself. <br /><br />But here’s the thing. It’s not like if you’re a pantser, you turn in this random mess of garbage to your editor. You don’t claim that 25 independent chapters are a book, and weird shit happens on page 3 and then we switch narrators on page 300. Or maybe we do. Anyhow. I’m a pantser. I shamelessly admit this. I don’t like to know where a novel is going until we’ve shaken hands and possibly gone out on a first date. This is about page 50 or so. <br /><br />This post gets really, really long right about here (fair warning). <br /><br /><br /><a name="cutid1"></a>I digress – I did want to share plotting out book 2 for my succubus series. When we had editor interest, my agent said “Can you come up with a concept for book 2?” So I sent her back a paragraph blurb about what I thought book 2 would be about. My agent wanted more info, so I actually came up with an extended ‘back blurb’ pitch. I phrased it like the back of a book, got into a little more detail about who would be doing what, and included some plot points that were key and a few funny scenes I was interested in writing. The whole thing was about a page. Not an outline by any stretch of the imagination. <br /><br />Still, it was all I had when we sold the two book deal and got the go ahead to write it. I wrote the entire novel in about a month and a half, did an edit pass, and returned it to my editor. Because my book got rescheduled, it took a while for me to get edits because I got bumped. <br /><br />But! The day of glorious edits came, and my editor had only small tweaks. Things like, “You’re not showing us why this character is likeable” or “I like this plot! Can we see more of it?” and just general clean-up. So I read through the book again (and it had been a while since I’d even thought about this book) to see what I thought of it as a reader. <br /><br />And wow. What a surprise. I’d dropped entire story threads and characters back and forth in the book, and so when they popped up again on the back end, *I* was surprised. I’m the author! <br /><br />This is not good. <br /><br />About this time, Caitlin Kittredge posted her <a href="http://blackaire.livejournal.com/257740.html">plot board for The Witch’s Alphabet </a>. This looked inspiring to me, and organized! So I created one of my own, which you can see here. <br /><br /><img class="size-medium wp-image-271" title="notecards-001" height="300" alt="Wall of Notes - Before" width="225" src="http://jillmyles.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/notecards-001-225x300.jpg" /> <br /><br />Let me explain what you’re looking at. I broke the book up into chapters. For each chapter, there’s a white notecard and my main character’s interal conflict and external conflict. Mind you, since I’m a pantser, I had no idea what these conflicts were until I finished the book. So they needed tweaking as well. <br /><br />At any rate, the white notecards are for the main character (Jackie). Since it’s 1st person POV, every chapter is in her POV so I don’t have to worry about her not being in the chapter. Each other color post-it is for someone else that interacts with her in the storyline, and each has their own motivation and subplot. One color post-it is actually for Jackie’s ‘growth’ arc. I wanted to make sure I built that across the story as well. This may look like a bunch of garbage, but if you pick apart the colors (like, say, pink), you’ll notice that there’s long spans of book where the character and their plotline doesn’t show up. <br /><br />To me, this is bad. That means this character/plot isn’t even on the radar. <br /><br />So I added notes to myself on how it should look when I’m done. I filled in notecards for the ‘missing’ plot holes and wrote such helpful things on the post-its like “ADD STUFF HERE STUPID”. Here’s the end board: <br /><br /><img class="size-medium wp-image-272" title="notecards-002" height="300" alt="Plot Board - After!" width="225" src="http://jillmyles.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/notecards-002-225x300.jpg" /> <br /><br />The colors are much more even, aren’t they? <br /><br />Too bad these boards didn’t help me. Well, not really. <br /><br />I mean, I tried really, really hard to be organized. I took my changes from this plot board and wrote them all out on an outline. For Chapter 3, I needed to add more X! Sprinkle in Y! Set up the plot for Z! And I was going to go chapter by chapter. First the page edits (which I always do, cleaning up phrasing and tweaking reactions). And then my editor’s edits! And then my notecards! And then I could finally move on to the next chapter! <br /><br />And this was freaking overwhelming, y’all, it really was. I was going back over the same chapter over and over and over again without looking at the entire story’s cohesiveness and it was driving me crazy. Took me a week to just do one chapter. Obviously this wasn’t working for me. <br /><br />So I went back to my old method. I made a list of things I wanted to fix. Things like this: <br /><br />1) Make X more sympathetic. <br />2) Give Y a subplot! What’s his/her motivation? <br />3) Foreshadow Z a lot more! <br /><br />And I treated each one as a separate draft. For the first draft, I’d work on nothing but #1 on the list, and making X more sympathetic. That was my entire goal. This might take 5 minutes, or it might take 4 days and re-tweaking every page. But that was my goal. Once that was done, I flipped back to the beginning of the manuscript, and started with #2. Rinse and repeat until I hit all bulletpoints. There were about 15 on my list, of various sizes. So this meant I re-read my manuscript over and over again, but it was far easier for me to tackle one aspect of revisions at a time than 20 all at once. <br /><br />And when that was done, I printed out the manuscript one more time and read to make sure that it flowed as seamlessly on paper as it did in my brain. <br /><br />And I liked it. I’m very happy with it, and I felt confident about turning it in. It might have taken me a dozen drafts and far more reads than I preferred, but that was my method, and it worked for me. Everyone’s methods are going to be different. The trick is finding what works for you. <br /><br />Here’s the thing. I could have saved myself a lot of time (a LOT) by outlining the book ahead of time. Right? It would help if I was organized and knew that by Chapter 4, L needed to show up and cause trouble. And to foreshadow something by Chapter 7. But I didn’t, because that’s not my method. <br /><br />I guess what I’m trying to say here is that being a pantser does not make you WRONG on how you write your book. It does not make your book less ‘well thought out’ than a plotter’s book. It does not make your work shoddy. It makes you have to do your editing and plotting on the back end of the book, rather than the front. I can edit and build plot and give the character a redeeming arc, but I have to have the groundwork laid first. <br /><br />Make sense?<br /><br />(And you may be that rare unicorn that can pants out a book with zero edits in the end, but I am not a unicorn. More of a donkey.) <br />urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:502455Holiday? What holiday?2009-05-26T01:26:16Z2009-05-26T01:27:35Z<p>So, last we heard from our intrepid heroine, she was working on two projects. One, she was hating (we’ll call those ‘the edits’) and one she was loving (we’ll call that one the ‘forbidden crackhead project’). Torn between the one she really wanted to work on (FCP) and the one her agent thinks she’s working on (edits), our heroine was naturally torn.</p> <p>(Boy, it’s really weird to talk about yourself in third person)</p> <p>Anyhow. For a while there, I was working on both books. And you know when you split your time equally between two projects? That’s right, both end up moving really, really slowly. And I mean REALLY slowly. So on Friday, I decided to work on the edits alone. If I got a large chunk of those, I’d switch to FCP. But instead, I started to get back into the story at the core of my manuscript, and spent all weekend working on the dreaded edits.</p> <p>For those of you playing along at home, this is a different book. A spec project that I’m working on. My agent read the polished novel that I turned in (and had been edited a bajillion times before) and said “Whoa there” and gave me a ton of good things to fix.</p> <p>I’m still fixing. I’m still fixing a lot, in fact. I got to the point where working off of page edits wasn’t doing it for me any longer, because I was making so many changes that the pages themselves were useless. So I’ve been going through the entire draft, word by word, changing characters’ descriptions, names, personalities, and giving others new roles.</p> <p>In case you’ve never done this before, it’s really, really slow.</p> <p>But! I can see the light at the end of the (very long) tunnel. I’m at page 204/249 and still working. I think when I started this weekend, I was on page 50 or so. After a month. That’s how slow. Still a ton of heavy lifting to do, but I’m really enjoying what I’m getting. I’m hoping to be done in another week or so (which might be wishful thinking).</p> <p>It’s been a while since I blogged - sorry! And I have a half-written post about editing-and-pantsers (since I am one), but I haven’t finished it yet. I will some time this week. And blog about my photography session, because it was a lot of fun. And um, some other stuff.</p> <p>And since I’m a slacker, here’s a snippet from the edits I’m working on. The book is now called VANISHING ACT (thanks, Karen Duvall!).</p> <p> </p> <a name="cutid1"></a><p>##</p> <p>I awoke to find another girl staring at me.</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">She was a cute, if you didn’t mind cute mixed with scary. Her face was round, her cheekbones arched and eyes tilted in the manner of someone with asian descent. But her hair was dyed a mix of punk pink and black streaks, and she had more hardware pierced to her face than I had on my entire body. She also wore a lot (a whole lot) of dark red lipstick, so much that her mouth seemed huge in her delicate face. She was dressed in a hooded black sweatshirt and a red plaid skirt, and gigantic buckled boots ran clear up to her knees.</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">She grinned at the sight of my straitjacket and leaned back in her chair across from me. “I take it you were a runner?”</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">I tried to sit up – near impossible with my legs bound together and my arms tied down. I ignored her question. “You’ve got to help me,” I said, lifting my arms in a lame gesture at my jacket. “I need to get away.”</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">“BZZZT. Wrong answer,” she said with a delighted grin, and parked one enormous boot on my leg. “This is your new home.”</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">I exhaled in frustration. “Whatever. Can you just help me get out of the damn jacket already? My arms are cramping up.”</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">Her head cocked to the side as she regarded me.</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">“What?” I frowned at her, shifting in the straight-jacket. “Do I have something on my nose?”</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">She smiled. “Just checking your aura to see if you were gonna run if I let you go.”</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">Great, she was crazy too. Just what I needed. I shifted in the jacket, trying to get comfortable. It was pinching the hell out of my side. “And am I?” I asked. “Going to run?”</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">The girl moved to my side and began undoing the laces of my jacket. “Yeah,” she said, that bright red mouth grinning. “But you won’t get far. And this thing looks dorky as shit.” Her fingers worked at the buckles, freeing me. “I’m Winter.”</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">I immediately darted for the door, shoving past her.</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">Only to stop once I opened the door, looking at the two heavily-muscled guards armed with guns just on the other side. Scratch that. I shut the door again and forced a smile to my lips, regarding Winter. “I’m Jolie.”</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">“I figured. Beauty queen, right?”</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">I stilled, uneasy. “How did you know about that?”</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">“I read the newspaper article.”</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">“Newspaper article?”</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">As if reading my mind, Winter moved to a nearby table, then handed me a newspaper. “Newspaper. It’s this cool thing where they print the news.” She leaned in and put her hand to her mouth like she was telling me a secret. “ON PAPER. Isn’t that wild?”</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">What. A. Jerk. I took the paper from her and shook it out, staring at the cover page.</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">PAGEANT HORROR, the headline proclaimed. SEVERAL INJURED, ONE DEAD. PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL’S SON INJURED. There was a gigantic picture of Lee with his clothes torn, his head bloody as he picked through the rubble of the stage. My pageant headshot was a tiny black and white photo in the corner, and it mentioned me as the victim.</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">I burst into tears. They’d proclaimed me dead.</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal"> </p><p style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;" class="MsoNormal">##</p> <p style="text-align: right;"> </p><p style="text-align: right;"><small>Mirrored from <a title="Read Original Post" href="http://www.jillmyles.com">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:502193Slackertown: Population 12009-05-19T16:41:38Z2009-05-19T16:41:38Z<p>So this weekend I was going to blog about plotting, and process. And my first visit to a real live photographer to get an author-photo done (I got tired of the big blank grey dude on the S&S website). But Saturday I wrote all day, and Sunday involved visiting, baby cuddling (not my baby! yikes), laundry, and the Survivor season finale. And writing. So. Yeah.</p>
<p>The posts will just have to wait for now. I’m still deep in editing a spec project for my agent, and I started a new one (I guess because I wasn’t crazy enough). An idea for the ‘dangerous book’ I promised myself that I’d write showed up, and I took the opportunity. It will either be glorious or a total disaster, but I’m almost 6k in and the plot is unfolding like a great unfolding thing.</p>
<p>We’ll see. <img src="http://jillmyles.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" class="wp-smiley" /> </p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:501992Random stuff2009-05-15T18:07:06Z2009-05-15T18:07:06Z<p>I am sad that a certain someone has been voted off of Survivor. I loathed him, but he was entertaining. Now he can no longer lead his team with his eyes! Oh noes! Farewell to the strongest, most true warrior!!</p>
<p>Let’s see. What else. Oh. Supernatural’s season finale was good. Can’t wait for more Castiel next season. <img src="http://jillmyles.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" class="wp-smiley" /> </p>
<p>Other than that, there’s been a little bit of writing, but it’s mostly idea scribbling. I have a really difficult time working on two projects at once, no matter what I do. So I told myself that I’d work on edits, and when I got enough to feel virtuous about spending my time, I’d switch to one of the projects burning at the back of my brain. Except…when I work on the edits, then I get caught up in the edits! And find it hard to switch. Just not much of a multi-tasker.</p>
<p>Oh, and there is a dead possum in my back yard. Apparently it’s been dead for quite some time (like, months). And apparently I need to go into the back yard more often, because we never knew it was there until the Orkin man pointed it out.</p>
<p>Yeaaaah.</p>
<p>Oh oh oh!! And <em>Succubi Like It Hot</em> (Succubus Diaries, book 2) is now available on Amazon! <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Succubi-Like-Hot-Jill-Myles/dp/141657283X/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242410754&sr=1-6">You know you want to pre-order it</a>. The book will be released on January 26th, 2010 — one month exactly after <em>Gentlemen Prefer Succubi</em> hits the shelves.</p>
<p>Yay!</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:501587Dropping off the face of the earth again2009-05-13T21:31:58Z2009-05-13T21:31:58Z<p>Just when I seem to have gotten a handle on my time again, it runs away from me once more. Sorry I haven’t posted! Now that I’ve turned in edits on Book 2, I’m…knee deep in edits for a project that my agent is helping me with. It never ends over here. But that’s a good thing, really, because I’m cranky and obnoxious when I’m not working on a project. Trust me. You do not want to be around me when I’m between books.</p>
<p>In other news, that crazy idea I told myself that I wouldn’t write keeps showing up, and it shows up better than ever every single time. Argh. Maybe I’ll write it. Just a little. Just to see how it goes.</p>
<p>(This is how they all start, isn’t it? Subversion.)</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:501320Close Talkers2009-05-07T21:22:07Z2009-05-07T21:26:01Z<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;"> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;">So I’m waiting in line at the cafeteria during my lunch hour (well, more like lunch-10-minutes). There are several ‘bars’ of food choices set up – I was virtuous and went for turkey and steamed broccoli. The line was empty except for the man in front of me, and he was what I refer to as a close talker.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;">You know the type. If they come up to you to speak, they’re within two feet of your face. They brush up against you when on the walking path (even though there’s plenty of room otherwise).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They lean in uncomfortably close, and they proceed to shout in your face. Or stare at your boobs (though guys might not have this problem). They’re in your face so much that you can feel their breath touching your face, or (in really bad situations), the spit from when they are talking.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;">I’ll be honest – close talkers baffle me. Perhaps because I am intensely conscious of other people’s space, or just intensely conscious of others, period. So I don’t understand the mentality. WHY would you invade someone’s space like that? I have to assume they don’t know better, because the thought of someone doing it on purpose is a little, well, creepy.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;">This particular guy was leaning over the buffet windows to talk to the employee there. “I want the turkey,” he told her, and leaned his arm OVER the buffet windows so he could point at it (because, you know, no one can point at something on the other side of glass. Sigh). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The woman takes a step back (and so do I) and he continues to wave his hand on the other side of the glass, pointing out his vegetables. “I really like carrots,” he tells her, and he’s so close to the glass that I can see his breath fogging on it. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;">(Dude, that’s when you know you’re too close. Really.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;">Anyway. He takes his lunch and disappears off into the cafeteria wilds, but I’m left wondering…how exactly does one become a close-talker? Is it in your genetics? Originally I thought he might be hard of hearing, but I’m half deaf (no lie) and while I talk loudly, I don’t close-talk. So that can’t be it every time. Are these people just born without a sense of space? Missing their conjoined twins? Or do they grow up in confined areas and thus don’t know how to use the full sidewalk? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;">(I momentarily have a vision of children being raised in rows of cages, much like puppy mills. Close-talker mills?)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;">At any rate, I just thought this was a bit of weirdness I could share. That, and I’m probably going to put a close-talker in my next book. Just because it’s uncomfortable for my heroine. <img src="http://jillmyles.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif" alt=";)" class="wp-smiley" /> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;">Anyone have any bizarre quirks they’ve added to a book after seeing someone exhibit it in person?</span></p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:501122Stuff.2009-05-05T01:24:41Z2009-05-05T01:25:27Z<p>My buddy Katiebabs is on vacation in the UK, and asked me to guest blog. I decided to embarrass myself and my good taste by admitting to all those shameful romances storylines that I’m not supposed to love…<a href="http://kbgbabbles.blogspot.com/2009/05/guilty-pleasures-by-jill-myles.html">but do anyway</a>.</p>
<p>Also! Cindy Pon (she of the terribly awesome) is running a contest to celebrate the release of her new book:</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter" src="http://cindypon.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/cover3-198x300.jpg" alt="" width="198" height="300" /></p>
<p>It’s YA fantasy in an Asian setting. How awesome is that? I can’t wait to read it. And she also happens to have just the most gorgeous book trailer ever:</p>
<p><lj-embed id="10" /></p>
<p>Seriously, isn’t it evocative and lovely?</p>
<p>Cindy is also holding a contest on her blog for original brush art (I *want*. Her bunnies look so cute). You should <a href="http://cindypon.com/2009/silver-phoenix-set-free/">check it out.</a></p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:500869Sticking with the tried and true.2009-05-02T18:38:34Z2009-05-02T18:38:34Z<p>I really, really want to write the story in my head.</p>
<p>It’s dark. Gritty. Urban. Unique. Possibly post-apocalyptic. With fantasy elements. It involves a harsh world for my heroine and a hero that is part savage beast and all alpha.</p>
<p>But I’m not going to write it. Some ideas are better in my mind than they are on paper, and the trick is figuring this out. You learn as you go along that just because the idea comes to you, it doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea for YOU to write. In the right hands? It would be awesome. In my hands? Perhaps not so much.</p>
<p>This isn’t to dog my own writing, of course. I have strengths - light, witty banter. Conversations. Sexiness. Twisting small storylines into something fun. First person.</p>
<p>But I also recognize my weaknesses: in-depth, massively detailed worldbuilding. Dark, gothic storytelling. Emotional angst out the wazoo. In other words, I can’t write like Meljean Brook. <img src="http://jillmyles.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif" alt=";)" class="wp-smiley" /> I wish to god that I could, but I can’t.</p>
<p>It doesn’t make me a bad writer. It just means that I recognize (finally) what I’m good at and will try to stick to that.</p>
<p>And I think that’s an important realization that all writers come to, at one point or another. Think of it as dressing for your body type. Just because that gorgeous sweater comes in your favorite color and happens to be in your size DOES NOT MEAN YOU SHOULD WEAR IT.</p>
<p>It might look awesome on the person next to you, but it can make you look like Humpty Dumpty. Is this the story’s fault? Nope. The trick is finding what is good for who you are, and wearing that one. In the right outfit, you can look awesome no matter your body type. In the wrong one? Everyone suffers. <img src="http://jillmyles.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif" alt=";)" class="wp-smiley" /> </p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:500595Coworkers2009-04-29T18:38:40Z2009-04-29T18:39:03Z<p><strong>On their youth:</strong></p>
<p>Girl 1: Here’s a picture of my husband.<br />
Girl 2: Oh he’s so cute and blonde! You know who he looks like? Those twins with the blonde hair…<br />
Me: Nelson?<br />
Girl 1: Who??? (Girl 1 is 20)<br />
Girl 2: I meant Zack and Cody. Aren’t Nelson….OLD?<br />
Me:… I’m going to go sit over here now.</p>
<p><strong>On Weirdness:</strong></p>
<p>Okay. So I work in a very large building with a cafeteria. The cafeteria has a large glass case with soda bottles in it. I go to get a soda, but someone is standing there in front of the Cokes, so I wait patiently for my turn.</p>
<p>As I wait, I notice that he’s doing something…weird. He takes a soda out, presses it to his cheek, then frowns and puts it back into the case. Then he grabs the next soda, presses it to his cheek…and returns it back to the counter.</p>
<p>After this happens five or six more times (no kidding), he finally selects one and goes on his way. I am left staring at the cabinet, wondering how many bottles have been pressed to his face.</p>
<p>And I’m also wondering why he can’t tell if they’re cold with his, you know, HAND.</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:500253Advice I Won’t Take2009-04-29T16:58:40Z2009-04-29T16:59:55Z<p>I have about a half hour commute from work, even though I work less than 10 miles from my house. Love the city, really. Usually I pass this time sitting in silence and mentally working on the next story, but I’m between books at the moment and taking a mental break.</p>
<p>So I turn on the radio. A new song by Nickelback is playing (easily distinguished by Chad Kroeger’s emo-riffic, growly voice). It starts with a phrase like ‘Each day is a blessing, not a right’. Wow. That’s a really nice way to look at things. I begin to think that Nickelback has gotten a little zen on me, and listen closer.</p>
<p>The main hook of the song? Live each day as your last. </p>
<p>And I’m afraid this is where Nickelback and I are going to have to agree to disagree.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/1e/Iftodaywasyourlastdaysingle.jpg/200px-Iftodaywasyourlastdaysingle.jpg" title="If Today Was Your Last Day" class="alignright" width="200" height="200" />You see, this started me thinking. What would I *do* if I only had one day left on earth? Nothing good for me, my friends, nothing good. I suppose I could be all introspective and spend it at the beach and walking up and down on the sand as the waves wash over my ankles, pondering life.</p>
<p>But the beach is 6 hours away from here, yo, and I’ve only got 24 to live. So that’s right out.</p>
<p>To be honest, I’d probably do all the things I’m not supposed to. I’d eat like a madwoman, and all the stuff I’m not supposed to. Fried twinkies? Fried Oreos? Fried anything? Ranch sauce on my pizza? Bring it on, b&tches! Someone’s only got 24 hours to live! Anything goes!</p>
<p>And then, I think I’d go gambling. Bet it all on black and see how far that takes me. Oh, oh, and I think I’d like to graffiti a wall. Or three. Because if I’m dead the next day? You are so getting some crudely painted words on the side of your house/car/office. I imagine I would be pretty terrible at graffiti too (I have a really bad artistic eye) but I think it would be fun.</p>
<p>What else? Oh, okay. If it was my last day on earth, I sure wouldn’t spend it at work. I’d probably tell them that I was never coming in again, and go out in a blaze of glory, throwing paper everywhere and knocking over fax machines in a rampage. That sounds nice.</p>
<p>But where does this get you, Nickelback? Because if that’s my last day on earth, it’s an orgy of hedonistic fun and burning bridges. But since it WON’T be my last day on earth, that would be bad. And the next day, I’d have all the ramifications. Except I’d be too busy living that day like it was my last as well.</p>
<p>I mean, if this cycle of destructive living continued, I’d end up weighing 500 pounds, broke, unemployed, and a criminal.</p>
<p>Sorry, Nickelback. I think I’m going to stick with my nice, conservative, occasionally-thinking-ahead lifestyle, as tempting as you make it sound.</p>
<p>(Speaking of thinking ahead, I’m probably going to update my website this weekend. Exciting, right? I know. It’s a wild, free-wheeling life I lead.)</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:500114Coming Up For Air…2009-04-28T20:57:01Z2009-04-28T20:57:01Z<p>Hey everyone!</p>
<p>After a month (well, almost) of slogging, I’m done with my edits. Hooray! I wasn’t sure how I’d handle my first ‘real’ big change letter, but it was a learning experience and a fun process, and I’m 110% happier with my book now than I was when I started. So yay for that! I’ve got a few last minute tweaks to make and it’ll be winging back to my editor. And that means a mini vacation for yours truly.</p>
<p>But I should be back to blogging again, which is nice. Things are moving along in the book publishing world — I should be receiving finalized back cover copy soon (which I will share) and a few more blurbs (which I will also share). </p>
<p>In the meantime, I am thrilled to be done. It’s a great feeling of accomplishment. <img src="http://jillmyles.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" class="wp-smiley" /> </p>
<p style="text-align: right"><small>Mirrored from <a href="http://www.jillmyles.com" title="Read Original Post">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:irysangel:499822Haven't posted in a bit, sorry.2009-04-12T16:59:42Z2009-04-12T18:19:18Z<p>I’m currently in the middle of edits of book 2, SUCCUBI LIKE IT HOT. Edits are currently eating my brain to the point that I’m not really functioning like a normal person. I just stare at my computer and reword the same sentence over and over again.</p> <p>I’ll be back in a few weeks when edits are turned in. In the meantime, I offer a (very small) snippet from book 1, GENTLEMEN PREFER SUCCUBI:</p> <p><em><br /><br />(Jackie and Zane are in the New City Museum of Art, looking for clues)</em></p> <p><em>“Are you going to be in there long?” From outside of the claustrophobic storage closet, Zane’s voice echoed in the quiet hall. “Or shall I wander off?”</em></p><p><em>Oh hell no. I didn’t want him wandering off at all. I had to think fast. “Wait,” I called out, cracking the door and sticking my head out to look at him. “Do you know what Nitocris’s cartouche looks like?”</em></p><p><em>The vampire gave me a blank look. “I beg your pardon?”</em></p><p><em>“The cartouche?”</em></p><p><em>An offended look crossed his face. “How dare you ask me about such a thing? She is my queen, not some common slut-”</em></p><p><em>I blinked hard, and resisted the urge to giggle at the piss and vinegar look on his normally blasé face. “Whoa there, stud. I meant her name. Spelled out in Egyptian hieroglyphs.”</em></p><p><em>He flicked his cigarette butt on the floor, no doubt to tick me off. “No, I wouldn’t know.”</em></p> <p>#</p> <p>See you on the other side of edits!</p> <p style="text-align: right;"><small>Mirrored from <a title="Read Original Post" href="http://www.jillmyles.com">Jill Myles Dot Com</a>.</small></p>