Kim Neville

On outlining, that is. It’s been two months since I finished my last story. Since then I’ve been doing a lot of revisions and coming up with a lot of ideas but I haven’t started writing anything new. It’s making me grumpy. Not having a story to write gives me the same off-kilter feeling as not having a good book to read. It’s like there’s a hole in my spirit. You know the hole, right? Like there’s something missing from your life? Some people fill it with religion. I find a book in my hand and a story in my head does the trick.

I write organically, discovering the story and its characters as I go. It’s not an efficient way to work. I usually end up doing five or six drafts before I’m reasonably satisfied. It’s messy and slow. I thought if I started outlining my stories, I’d be a better writer. Or at least a faster writer.

This is what happens. I get excited about an idea. I outline. As soon as I know where the story is going, I lose interest in writing it. Why bother? I know what’s going to happen. It feels stale before I’ve written a word. I move on to another idea. Repeat.

The more times I go through this process, the grumpier I get. If outlining means I don’t write anything at all, I guess it’s not going to make me a better writer. So this morning I sat down and wrote these lines:

The sign that announced “Welcome to Fairyland” was set back from the road and half-obscured in the brush, its green paint faded and flaking. If Dad hadn’t known where he was going, we would’ve driven right past the entrance. But he didn’t need to look for signs. He was going home.

They’re not the best first lines ever but they’re the start of something. More importantly, I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I wrote two more pages and felt my balance coming back. Now I feel I’m embarking on a grand adventure and not like I’m trying to complete some unpleasant chore. The world feels right again.

Kim Writing life

August isn’t over yet and I’m already mourning the end of summer. I no longer wake to the sunrise; it’s still dark when I sit down at my desk in the morning. My evening walks are getting shorter every day and soon if I want to visit the beach I’ll have to bring a flashlight along so I can find my way back up the path.

I usually come alive in the fall. It’s my favorite season. But now that I’m on the East Coast, the coming of fall just reminds me we’re that much closer to a long, long winter.

Kim Uncategorized

Today is a statutory holiday on PEI. After this morning’s writing session, I’m packing the cooler with macaroni salad and peanut butter squares and heading up to my husband’s office. They’ve got a rooftop patio that’ll provide a perfect view of the Gold Cup Parade.

Most of the provinces have a holiday in August. British Columbia has BC Day. In Alberta it’s Heritage Day. Here on the Island, it’s Gold Cup and Saucer Day. It’s not about commemorating the birth of the province or celebrating its history. It’s all about a horse race.

Kim PEI goodness

We’re having a heat wave on the Island. When I was up at 2:30 last night to settle my hot, cranky daughter back in her bed, I saw the temperature had only dropped to 24 degrees. Not enough to cool off our house. It was still uncomfortably warm this morning, and now, at mid-afternoon, it’s close to sweltering.

I’m sitting in my office pretending to work but not accomplishing anything. It’s too hot to sit upright. It’s too hot to make my fingers type. Mostly I’m thinking about ice cream, and wondering when Cass will wake from her nap so we can go get some. Until she does, I think I will lie on the bed and watch the ceiling fan go ’round.

Kim Uncategorized

I have to confess that until WorldCon, I’d never heard of Catherynne M. Valente. I should have. She’s incredibly prolific and insanely talented. Her work has been nominated for several awards and has won both the James Tiptree Jr. Award and the Mythopoeic Award. Most importantly, she writes the kind of stories I love best, playing with myth and folklore to create original fairy tales and gorgeous urban fantasies. I’ve ordered both of The Orphan’s Tales books and Palimpsest and I can’t wait to read them. If you’re curious, Valente’s got an excellent website with a ton of content, including a free online serial novel entitled The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making.

Valente was on a panel called “Writing for a Living”, a subject, as I mentioned in my last post, I’m very interested in. Although the discussion was lively I didn’t learn much that was new to me. The sole exception is an intriguing project that Valente has launched, an experiment in what she calls “cyberfunded art”.

Valente has been a full time writer since 2006 but until recently she had the additional financial support of her programmer partner. Last December he was laid off and Valente became the sole income earner in her household. She had to choose between taking a low-income job (with a degree in Classics, she told the audience she was qualified to work at Starbucks and not much more) and exploring new ways to generate income through writing. Thus was The Omikuji Project born.

Every month Valente writes a new and original short story of not less than 2,000 words. She sends the story to subscribers of the Omikuji Project, either by email in PDF format, or by mail. The mailed stories are printed on archival paper, signed by the author and sealed with a wax stamp. The stories will not appear anywhere else. The only way to read them is to become a subscriber.

It’s not cheap: $5/month for the PDF and $10/month for the mailing, or $50 & $100 for a year. But she’s not aiming for hundreds of subscribers. She estimates 30 to keep the project going. Do the math – it’s a decent income supplement. It’s certainly more money than most writers can expect to earn from a single short story.

Looking at the reviews of Valente’s work and the awards that she’s been nominated for, I think it’s probably good value. During the panel Valente mentioned she’s got five novels coming out in the next two years. Her career is just beginning and I suspect it will be a long and illustrious one. Imagine owning one of only 30 copies of a signed short story by Neil Gaiman? Or <insert favorite author here>?

I think this is a fascinating idea and I wonder if anyone knows of other writers engaging in similar ventures? I would love to hear about it.

Kim Publishing

While at WorldCon last week I attended an unusual reading by Neil Gaiman. He wasn’t reading his own work but a short story by Cory Doctorow. I went because I’m a fan of both writers and I thought it would be fun. I didn’t expect it to be the most fascinating event of the weekend.

Before the reading began, Doctorow outlined his plans for With a Little Help, a book of short stories he’s self-publishing under the Creative Commons license using the Nine Inch Nails price point model.

What this means, essentially, is the book will be available in several formats at various prices. There’s a video presentation on Doctorow’s blog if you want more detail, although be warned the audio’s a bit rough. I had trouble catching some of it, but between my notes at the reading and the video, here are the various offerings as I understand them:

A free online version, donations welcome;

Print-On-Demand editions with your choice of five different covers designed by various artists, printed through Lulu.com;

A free audio version, stories recorded by voice actors and writer friends (the Neil Gaiman reading was recorded for this);

An audio CD;

A premium edition limited to 250 copies (leather-bound, hand-sewn, with end papers made from the original papers of other SF writers – Doctorow mentioned William Gibson); and

A hyper-premium $10,000 edition. I’m unsure on the details, but I gather that the person who bought this edition got to commission the only original story in the collection (the rest are reprints).

Why am I excited about this experiment?

One thing I learned at WorldCon is how hard it is to make a living as an SF/Fantasy writer. I’m not naive. I never thought it was easy. But I was surprised at how many good writers – writers with several published novels, writers whose names I recognized – still have day jobs.

It’s my dream to write fiction for a living. Given the current structure of the traditional publishing industry, my dream will be extremely difficult to achieve. So, I am very interested in seeing new publishing trends emerge. Obviously self-publishing isn’t new but few writers, especially fiction writers, have had real success going the self-publishing route. The success stories that are out there all seem to end with the author’s book being picked up by a major publishing house. I’m interested to see how well self-publishing works for an established writer like Doctorow.

Shane and I talked at length about the Nine Inch Nails price point model and how it could be applied to book publishing back when Ghosts I-IV was released. Shane’s developed some interesting ideas around this. If he gets around to blogging about them, I will post a link. It’s very cool to see some of his ideas coming to life in this publishing venture.

In the POD version of the book, Doctorow will be adding a monthly appendix with all the financials, including an analysis of what’s working and what’s not, what he thinks will work only for him (as an established writer with a solid fan base) and what he thinks can work for everyone.

As far as I’m concerned, that information alone is worth the purchase price.

Kim Publishing

It’s our last day in Montreal. WorldCon is done. It’s storming outside and I’m in our hotel room trying to digest all the information I’ve received over the last five days, besides the location of every structure in the city that spews water.

Cassandra particularly liked this one, which was handy since it was right outside the Palais de Congres, where the convention took place. She and Shane spent a lot of time here while I was in panels.

Fountains aside, there are lots of things I want to blog about, including Cory Doctorow’s new publishing experiment, some interesting things writers are doing to grow their fan bases and try to earn a decent living, and some cool authors I can’t believe I haven’t read yet.

I will be posting my thoughts over the next few days, once I’m back on the Island and no longer distracted by the lures of the city (ie old friends and good food).

Kim Family life, Writing life

This is my third trip to Montreal. It’s been a much different experience than my other two visits, both of which occurred when I was much younger and involved a lot of cheap beer and spaghetti.

Traveling with a small child forces you to slow down and see a place from a different perspective. Two year-olds don’t care about art galleries and shopping. They are more interested in the pigeons outside of the Basilique Notre-Dame than the building itself.

This trip has been about chasing squirrels on the campus of McGill University, picking crabapples at the Vieux-Port and riding the carousel at the mall. And fountains. Especially fountains.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to see Montreal through my daughter’s eyes.

Kim Family life

I received my two best ever rejections this week.

Baen’s Universe passed on One Shoe Highway. They liked it – just not quite enough. Eric Flint had this to say:

One Shoe Highway made it all the way to the end before getting rejected.  That puts it easily in the top one percentile, as far as the magazine’s assessment of it is concerned.  It is quite possible that a different editor would have made a different decision.  Once you get to this level of quality when it comes to stories, the subjective factors start weighing very heavily.

The Abduction was rejected by Ty Drago at Allegory. Again, it wasn’t due to the story’s quality but a matter of editorial considerations:

The final decision is made by comparing the stories, more with an eye toward issue balance than the merits of one piece over another.  Yours is a GREAT piece, and I’m very very sorry that we can’t use it.

I’m very happy. Yeah, I’m still unpublished, but I’m closer than ever. It’s hard to feel bad about being in the top one percentile.

Kim News, The rejection files

We are off to Montreal for the next ten days, where I will be attending my first WorldCon.

I’m panicking a little this morning. We spent our weekend here:

And here:

We did not spend any time thinking about our upcoming trip. Now we have just a few hours to pack, deliver our kitty to his temporary home and prepare for the open house our realtor is holding in our absence. Everything in the house seems to be covered in a thin layer of sand. We have much cleaning to do.

Kim News, PEI goodness