Eight years ago when I first started Venus In Transit I was completely new to my Dos Lunas County mythos, creating it in exuberant bursts of energy. The novel died a-bornin' (or, less dramatically, went into "stasis") and in the meantime I've written tons of material about Dos Lunas. I've got a whole myth cycle going with characters that never even appeared in this novel.

Now that I've returned to Venus I have to find some way of accommodating all those folks and happenstances. The forepart of my brain still doesn't know how I'm going to work out some of it, but I proceed on the sure and certain hope that something will resurrect itself from the hindpart of my brain. My subconscious will come up with something. I've been traveling this path long enough to know that once I set my intention on a novel, once it starts working through the deep parts of me like this one is now, the Subconscious will provide.

This isn't being cocky, really. This is just process. This is faith. My psyche feels alive again, things are working at deep levels when they've been stalled and stagnant for months. The well was not dry as I feared, it just needed refilling. Maybe I won't quit writing after all.

And just this week a shiny new idea came to me, complete with a world I've never inhabited before. I'm letting it have its way this weekend before getting back to work on Venus tomorrow.

When the well goes dry, sometimes all you can do is walk away and hope it refills. And when it does, it fills with the sweetest water.

http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=774

Athena’s playing softball again this year; here she is up at bat and letting this particular ball get past her. In previous years, the coaches pitched to the girls; this year the girls pitch, which means lots and lots and lots and lots of walks. Well, I suppose they do have to learn. And it’s early in the season yet. Hopefully by the end they’ll get the hang of the pitching (and the catching. And the throwing. And the hitting — although some of them do just fine in that department). You may also notice Krissy in this picture, watching her little girl swing.

The Elder Son has now graduated from Carnegie-Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center with a master's degree in entertainment technology. When last heard from, he was planning to phone one of his old Boy Scout running buddies in order to address him as "young padawan."

ninjahijinx offered free icons for anyone coming by, as a way of generating interest in their art and comics website here. I asked for a middle aged lady with some swashbuckling style, figuring, hey, even if it's only within the bone casing of our skulls (or mine, anyway) old bats can bucket too, eh?

So I got this engaging icon, true to promise, meanwhile I'd gone exploring the site. Here's what amazed me--they've got a site for teaching art students world building as well as comics design. World building. Wow. Storytelling has been taking on so many different shapes with the interconnectedness of the web, I am still marveling. (And planning to splash around in the waters of podcasting, soon as I get a quiet morning! What else has been all that drama training for>)

Post beetling up the organic farm shop for local and organic produce, local cheese and local softgrain flour for the bread-machine, I pointed our Swedish car in the direction of Lidl, because now it's been in the Guardian it's ok to shop there.

Lidl raspberries are better than Tesco, but not as good as PYO (Look, just weigh me on the way in and then again on the way out. I'll pay the difference and promise not to crap in the corner of your field).

I'm saving the Lidl Value Champagne for next weekend, just in case it sends me on a paint-stripper fuelled rampage.


I really must write down my coping strategies for having no short-term memory, but I keep forgetting.

http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=773

No idea where Zeus is. Probably off leaping on something.

You know, I don't think I've ever had as low an opinion of (an admittedly fictional) someone as I have for Bella Swan. At first I just thought she was silly. Now I think she's stupid.

I'm not even a hundred pages in yet.

Good times.

My most recent SFF Novelists post: Why Are Books So Long?, although I don't actually answer that question. Go read to see what question I do answer.

Onward to Life in Hawaii:

I meant to link to this article about Frank Tanabe.

Mr. Tanabe was one of 452 Japanese Americans whose U(university of) W(ashington) college careers were interrupted when they were forced into World War II internment camps. Now, UW is conferring honorary degrees on those still alive. Including Mr. Tanabe, who spent time in two different internment camps before--you knew this was coming--joining the Army and serving in military intelligence. What he did after the war I don't know, but his son is interviewed, and one can't help but notice that the son's name is Ike.

How does Mr. Tanabe feel about the honor?

In true local style, he is a little embarrassed, but he goes on to reflect on what it would have meant to his parents: "The diploma does contain the sweat and all the hard work and sacrifice of my parents, who wanted their firstborn son to leave their home with a college degree. If they were alive, they would be overjoyed and very grateful to all those who made their dream come true."

In today's paper, Mr. Tanabe's grandson reflects on what the degree means to him and his generation: I am proud of the nisei — my grandfather's generation — who responded to the prejudice of internment with actions of strength and honor.

The original Advertiser article includes a link to a UW article and database about the students forced out and what happened to them.

The ceremony is actually happening right now, as I post this.

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/05/literally-last-minute-doodle-reminder.html

Just a reminder.... the National Doodle Day auction has an hour to go. Quick! Bid for a good cause!

(Last year, Barack Obama's doodle went for $2075... I hope we can get some of the high scoring doodles up to those kind of figures. Please don't make me run for president. Of anything.)

The National Doodle Day auction has begun. Proceeds will benefit Neurofibromatosis, Inc. (nfinc.org).

To immediately access the eBay auction --
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZnfinccharity

Direct Links to Neil Gaiman's doodles plus his fave doodles on the auction block:

Ebay link to doodle #1

Ebay link to number 2

Kendra Stout: Ebay link here

Cat Mihos: Ebay link here

Fred Hembeck: Ebay link here

Sergio Aragones: Ebay link here

Gahan Wilson: ebay link here

Breakfast at the breakfast joint across the street, then writing at the coffee joint in Hillcrest. Still refining the book proposal. I thought I would hate writing book proposals -- mine consists of a pitch paragraph, a synopsis for each of the two books, and four sample chapters from the first book -- but it's actually been really fun to work on. I'm shocked. Shocked that I'm having fun.

So, basically, everything is more writing and more snacks. Not very interesting to blog about, but I'm having fun, and I hope you are too.

http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=771

I’ve been led to understand that Bebo is one of the more popular social networking sites over there on your fair continent, and several folks there have asked me to put up a Bebo profile, because the inability to friend me on their social network of choice is causing them unspeakable amounts of angst and pain. Well, fine: Here you go. Hope your angst gets better. Tums help.

Now THIS is something that depresses me--not the saving of course, but the poor horses that have NOT been saved:
Saving Horses, One Thoroughbred at a Time

Thanks to Suricattus

"One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done." -- scientist Marie Curie

Post your word count for Sunday, May 18.

--xxx--

It's time for the Moment of Truth, your chance to compare your weekly progress with your weekly goals. If you started on January 1 and wrote 500 words a day, you would have written 69,500 words by the end of the day.

Whatever your goals are, tell us how you did.

--xxx--

What are we going to do after the nominal end of this round of Thing? (Because I know the answer isn't "stop writing/revising/submitting/querying.") If there's a next round, should it start immediately after the end of this round, or June 1, or some time after that?

phyales and the_chavi have both asked about the publishing process. Since it's something plenty of people want to know about, I thought I'd start a separate post for the question. Here's what phyales asked (I'm switching the order of the questions):

What was your first step?
How long did it take?

My first step was to finish a book I thought was publishable, which meant writing and rewriting the manuscript. Then, using THE WRITERS MARKET 1978 for fiction markets (yes, it was that long ago), I looked up the names and addresses of publishers who were looking for fantasy novels. I sent the manuscript to four, all of which turned me down. I don't even remember two: Avon Publishers and Del Rey Books are the two I remember. While I waited to hear from publishers I worked at my jobs (tax clerk for a while, then housemother in a group home, where I told the story to my girls), wrote and submitted short stories (no sales), and tried to get another book going. I moved from Kingston, NY, to Buhl, ID, then to New York City. I got work as a temp secretary in publishing, to see what it was like, then a job as an office assistant at a literary agency. During all that, each time the book returned to me, I gave myself a week to be depressed, and then I sent it out again. (Short stories and articles got a day.) When my friend Craig, who trained me at the literary agency, found out I was sending a novel around, he told one of the women in accounting about it, and she told me to show it to one of the agents. That agent read half of the manuscript, and told me to rewrite it as four books for teenagers. Once I realized she was serious, I did the first book. She sent it to three publishers, the third of which took it after yet another rewrite. So it took from November, 1976, when I began the book I called THE SONG OF THE LIONESS, until March, 1982, I think it was, for me to sell my first novel, the one that would become ALANNA: THE FIRST ADVENTURE, published in September, 1983.

what was the process of first getting published like?

( more information behind the cut! )
Any advice for someone trying to do the same?

Here's where my hands are getting kinda tired, because I've been trying to catch up a lot on LJ today, so I'm going to point you to my webpage. I put everything I know about this in my FAQ on getting published. It's got the information for adult publishing, so just scroll past the stuff for younger writers. And what I have there is good. People do get published using THE WRITERS MARKET, just as I did. They also get agents and sell poetry, because I have friends who did.

Good luck to all of you writers. Remember, the key to all of this is sheer persistence. Look to the title of this LJ! There were plenty of people who were all too happy to tell me I didn't stand a chance of getting published (and the first person to say it was my mother). You don't know if you don't try--and try--and try--and try--oh, yeah. And keep writing while you try!

A friend tipped me off that some crazed Baba-lover (ID'd only as Pippa17) edited the entry on my home town of Ahmednagar, where I had a brief mention as a notable person from there, to read as follows:

Rachel Manija Brown has written a book All the Fishes Come Home to Roost in which she recounts her harrowing experiences (as a child between the ages of 7 and 12) in Ahmednagar in which she was tortured by the cruel Hindu children and chased by chickens. Miraculously she survived and made a vanity website.

Mostly this is mildly amusing malice, but I was not happy with the implication that my book was a slam on Hindus. The majority of the mean kids probably were Hindus, but that was due to the demographics of the town as a whole. I was also harassed by Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, and Baba-lovers, no doubt in proportions relative to their own percentage of the population.

Also, I note for the record that there is nothing in my book about being chased by chickens. Pippa17 is either misremembering my account of being chased by humans, monkeys, and a swarm of bees, or else is mixing me up with Terry Goodkind's Kahlan, who is indeed menaced by an evil chicken.

The friend who noticed this and re-edited the page to make my mention a bit more neutral also added a sentence on my book to the highly worshipful Wikipedia page on Meher Baba, in the section that cites books and other media that mention him. But it was removed within seconds! Perhaps the evil chicken did it.

http://patrickshawnbagley.blogspot.com/2008/05/meme-break.html

Sandra Ruttan tagged me for this “Meme about Various Things,” and I’m taking a few minutes to do it because she’s good people.

Here’s how it works:
1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read the player’s blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

What were you doing ten years ago?
I worked in a bookstore, pretended to be a poet and spent a lot of time showing off and/or bragging about my four month-old daughter.

What are five things on your to-do list for today (not in any particular order)?
I only have time for one thing today: finish the long-dragged-out revision of Bitter Water Blues so that it can be e-mailed to a certain eagerly waiting agent by Tuesday afternoon. Everything else has to wait. It’s tough because there is much work to do around here, and the day is perfect. The apple trees have blossomed, I’ve got a big ol’ jug of sun tea brewing on the porch, the wild strawberries are nearly ready and the lilacs will be in full bloom in just a couple more days.

What are some snacks you enjoy?
I like: popcorn; beef jerky; almost any fresh fruit; those bagels with onion, sesame seeds, the works; and carrot sticks (no, really).

What would you do if you were a billionaire?
That’s a whole lot of zeroes. It’s hard to wrap my head around the idea of any individual needing that much money, let alone possessing it. Then again, it might be nice not living paycheck-to-paycheck for once.

I would pay off the mortgage and my student loans, buy about twenty more acres, plant a big orchard, super-size the vegetable garden, buy more animals and put away enough money for us to live comfortably and to ensure that my girls could go to the best colleges. Oh, and I’d buy myself a new desk and a more comfortable chair.

Then I would create a park in town, set up a trust fund for our public library and donate the rest to conservation, humanitarian and social justice charities.

What are five places where you have lived?
Utica, New York
Herkimer, New York
Friendship, Maine
Hollywood, California
Madison, Maine

What are five jobs you have had?
Factory laborer, bookstore manager, freelance reporter, editorial assistant, shoe salesman.

What were the last five books you read?
Acacia by David Anthony Durham (currently reading)
A Hell of a Woman edited by Megan Abbott
Dark Passage by David Goodis
The Discoverers by Daniel J. Boorstin
The River Congo by Peter Forbath

What are five web sites you visit daily (in no particular order)?
Crimespot (and from there to several crime-writerly blogs)
The Howling Curmudgeons
Obama for America
John Scalzi’s blog
Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association

Tag 5 People
This is the hard part. I don’t know many people well enough to feel comfortable tagging them, and I hate to keep tagging the same ones over and over. So I’m going to break the rules and not tag anyone this time. If you read this meme and feel like doing it yourself, cool. If not, that’s cool too. Just let me know if you post one.

Back to work.

So I mentioned a few posts back that there were some characters I'd love to meet. So who are your favorite and or least favorite characters? Anyone you just love to hate? Anyone who tempts you to change your legal name to theirs?

And of course, any questions you want to ask?

But you can't give me the credit for this splendid, organized creation, because I'm the person who gives you all the screwed-up numbers. (At least now I know why.

The credit goes to the fair wondersome q_sama, all sing her name!

q_sama, forgive me for taking so long to post this. My life happens to me when I'm not looking, and stuff piles up. Thank you so very much for permission to do this! Arigato goziemashita!