March 31, 2015
Interview @ the F&SF Blog!
The F&SF blog has posted an interview with me about my piece “La Heron”. This one was really fun to answer and gave me a chance to rant a little about women in martial cultures, high vs low literature, the total plausibility of brawling nuns, and so on. Anything pique your interest? Comment here or there! I like discussions.
March 19, 2015
Ad Astra 2015!
I will be at Ad Astra Toronto next month – April 10th-12th 2015 – participating as much as I could possibly manage to participate, so as to maximize the fun I will get out of this, the rare convention I am actually able to attend.
My panel and reading schedule is as follows:
Deconstruction: What Happens When You Take Tropes Apart
Friday, April 10th, 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Panellists: Gail Z. Martin, KW Ramsey, Leah Bobet, Me
Genre fiction thrives on tropes, from the stalwart hero, the damsel into distress, and all the way to the nefarious villain, but what happens when a show takes those tropes and turns them on their head. Join us as we discuss how and why to do this and examine when it’s done right and when it’s done wrong.
Giving It Away For Free: But You’ll Get Great Exposure!
Saturday, April 11th, 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Panellists: Chantal Parent, Chris Warrilow, Erik Mohr, Me
“I’ve got a cousin who could do that for peanuts, why should I pay you so much?” Sound Familiar? Advice and anecdotes from professionals who have been treated unprofessionally.
Genre Crossing: Please Watch for Slow Moving Pathetic Fallacies
Saturday, April 11th, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Panellists: Ada Hoffmann, Karina Sumner-Smith, Nancy Kilpatrick, Me
Sometimes you just want to read, write or direct a paranormal romance during the robot uprising on the medieval planet of urban fariy hipsters.
New Toronto/Ontario Writers Reading
Saturday, April 11th, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Panellists: Elaine Chen, Malon Edwards, Tonya Liburd, Me
Four up-and-coming Toronto writers will be reading from their newly-published work.
How to Sell SF to General Readers as Literature
Saturday, April 11th, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Panellists: Derek Kunsken, Erik Mohr, Leah Bobet, Me
It is nearly impossible to get a non-genre reader to even look at a book – much less read it – unless HBO has kidnapped it for a mini-series. So how do you prove that SF/F is more than pulpy star-ships and elves with perfect hair?
Interactive Fiction: No Coding required!
Sunday, April 12th, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Panellists: Alice Black, Leah Bobet, Matthew Johnson, Me
Thanks to tools like Storium and Twine, the ability to make interactive stories is now available to everyone. Find out how to get started without having to write a single line of code.
Intersection Between SF and Contemporary Issues
Sunday, April 12th, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Panellists: Adam Shaftoe, Cathy Hird, Derek Newman Stilles, Me
Panelists discuss SF stories that take on problems of the present, and old SF that has incidentally come back around to address what ails society today.
And just a reminder that I am that rare thing – an extroverted writer – so don’t be shy about coming to talk to me at the Con! As you can see, I like conversation.
February 25, 2015
La Héron Free on Amazon!
Today’s best news ever? My swashbuckling historical fantasy, “La Héron”, just went up on Amazon! So while I encourage you strongly to subscribe to F&SF in print (because it is awesome,) or seek out the issue in your local book or magazine store (then take a picture and send it to me!) – you can also download it as a Kindle Digest edition for free from Amazon right here.
The come back here and let me know what you thought, yes? 😉
December 23, 2014
2014 by the Numbers (or: The Airing of Grievances)
Morley and Boots had a good year!
I love to hear about publishing progress. To be honest, it makes me feel 300% better about every bloody nose and concussion I get knocking my head against publishing’s thick stone walls. Nobody writes perfect, publishable material every single time – so we’re told. It helps me to see in concrete terms how often a respected author is rejected, how often they have to revise, and how often they have to put a piece into a runed iron box, bury it, salt the land, and move away. It helps to know you can face a lot of failure and still see respectable success afterwards.
I am only in my second year of submitting stories, but I want to share my numbers anyway. Compare and feel stronger, my lovelies. It takes a lot of swings – and a lot of misses – to finally hit.
In 2014 I submitted a dozen or so short stories 76 times to magazines, websites, or anthologies. 45 of them were form-rejected, but another 26 merited very nice, encouraging rejections.
Two of my favourite pieces are now on their 14th and 16th submissions. They’ve changed a lot from the first, but I still love them even if nobody else does – yet.
My newest piece is only on its 3rd submission. The piece before that – ‘La Héron’ – was sold on its 6th try to a venue who had rejected it two months earlier. I like to think this shows improvement in my writing.
I sold 4 stories in 2014. 1 of these was sold at pro (according to the SFWA) rates. Another was for semi-pro. Both were ten-fold or more improvements on my previous best sale.
In 2014, I had 3 stories published. My daughter told her friends at school I was a “famous author” and took one of my anthologies for show & share to prove it. My first true fan! I participated in my first panel at the Toronto Public Library and gave my first interview where I only lied a couple of times.
My reviews not only appeared in Apex Magazine on a bi-weekly basis, but in Canada’s biggest national literary review, the Quill & Quire. I participated in some literary list-making over at the 49th Shelf and a round-table on Con-going at SFSignal.
As if that wasn’t enough, I also edited novels, novellas, and short stories, a cookbook and a boardgame manual for a dozen clients. I threw myself into a very intensive short story workshop with Mary Robinette Kowal. I participated in a 6-week “Artsy Games Incubator” for writers with the Hand Eye Society and published my first piece of interactive fiction, Utopia. I took over as Contest Administrator for the Friends of the Merril Short Story Contest. I even edited a volume of short stories for charity, Chamber of Music.
2014 has been an incredible year of firsts for me. 2015 will, hopefully, be the year I solidify my ground. Where does this path go? I have no idea! But I’m on it, so I’ll find out and let you know when I do.
Oh, and one last thing: I finally set up a Page on Facebook for my writerly doings. Drop in and throw me a like! There’s no communication like two-way communication!
Onwards to 2015!
December 15, 2014
Me! It’s Me!
The fantastic and talented Andrew Leon Hudson (whose new weird Western, End Trails, will be available soon – excerpt here) has interviewed me at his blog, The Cartesian Theatre. I think interviews like this are hilarious, so I had a bit of fun with it. Hope you do too!
October 6, 2014
A Real Writer
The key to being a Real Writer is to bull right through stuff like this.
Two years ago, I decided I was going to be a real writer.
This was the third or fourth time I had made the same decision. When I was 8, I wrote my first “book”, a complete retelling of the Princess Bride, starring me as the Man in Black, minus any princesses. In high school, I decided I was serious enough to fill a proper portfolio, attending several “Young Author’s Workshops” whose mandate and sponsorship still remains a bit vague to me – though I did meet Michael Ondaatje. After running away from home, I came back to graduate high school and wrote on a slip of paper that I intended to “write the Great Canadian Novel” after graduation. They didn’t read that part out.
I did NaNoWriMo a few times between 2004 and 2007. I entered the Three Day Novel Writing Contest. I started writing mildly-successful erotica. I never finished anything. I was flailing, dabbling. I picked up and dropped writing projects at the same speed that I cycled through jobs, boyfriends, apartment. I was not a real writer – I was a dilettante.
When I got pregnant in 2007, I decided it was time to get serious. There was every chance I wasn’t going to be able to go back to work when my maternity leave was up and I needed something to fall back on. I pulled up my NaNoWriMo novel from 2004 and vowed to finish it. It was boring, but I had to do it to prove that I could. It sucked, but I did it. I finished the novel and put it straight into a trunk. I didn’t write another thing for five years.
Two years ago, something changed. I was 32, had two kids, a steady partner and job. I was “happy”, if bored. All of the flashes of glory and glamour I had enjoyed over the past 15 years had amounted to nothing. I had always been able to shine at whatever I did, but had never had the gumption to stick with anything. It was easy to be good enough at something to get your foot in the door, but getting great at something was harder to figure out. I was too flighty, too anxious, too easily distracted, and too easily bored. Of course I could write. I was even good at it. But being a real writer was something else entirely.
Two years ago I decided I would stick with it. No matter how bad I thought I was. No matter how many rejections I got. No matter how often my beta readers told me they “didn’t get it”. No matter how many long, dead hours I spent on words that would never see the light of day, that had none of the instant gratification I was used to. No matter how many other opportunities came my way which seemed shiny and new and exciting. I was going to learn focus and tenacity.
I had always thought of “hard work” as “work on the difficult setting,” which I could conveniently circumvent by being talented enough that it wasn’t very hard at all. But it isn’t. “Hard work” is doing something you don’t want to do. It means forcing yourself through whatever makes you sweat. For me, that was staying put. It was getting up again and again and doing the same thing I had done the day before, without succumbing to the need for change, the thrill of novelty. It meant trying again and again. Writing more and more. Every day. Forever, if that’s how long it took.
It took two years. I am pleased to be able to say that my short story, “La Héron”, has been accepted for publication by C.C. Finlay for his guest-edited issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction. My first sale at pro rates, and the first goal post I had set for myself.
Now it’s head back down to the grind. It took me a stubborn 34 years, but I think I’ve learned my first lesson. The only real trick is to keep at it. One day after another, one word after another.
I’m a real writer now.
August 21, 2014
The Adventures of Morley & Boots!
One of my favourite short stories is now live at The After Action Report! Like space westerns? Quantum poaching? Space whales? Have I got the story for you! Check out ‘The Adventures of Morley and Boots”.
June 13, 2014
“Fold” Free Online!
My story “Fold” from Lucky or Unlucky? 13 Stories of Fate has been made available for free online at SFFWorld as of this morning! If you’ve always wondered what kind of fiction I write but didn’t want to spend $0.99 to find out, here’s your chance!
Or you could buy the whole anthology, with proceeds going to the UK Children’s Hospice…
