The first tiny letter from me to you (from Gwenda Bond)
Apologies for sending the first of these on April Fool's day -- I hope it's been kind to you. But if some tricksy soul has plagued you successfully, then I encourage you not to feel dumb. Instead pat yourself on the back. Being credulous in this world is a mighty task.
If you're receiving this, it means you either a) signed up for my tiny letter or b) were one of my newsletter subscribers. This will replace that on a hopefully weekly basis, and it'll be less promotional and more enjoyable for all of us, I hope. Links to news will be confined to the end. The rest will be a gabby, well, tiny letter. I miss blogging, but I don't want to blog regularly. I want to send nice emails that are half-journal entry and maybe hear back sometimes.
I've been thinking this week about how starting a new novel and getting it underway is a lot like dancing with your own shadow. Do you move first or does it? You keep quick-stepping, but you can never quite catch up. Finally, hopefully, you settle your hands into each other's and start moving in--more or less--tandem. The problem, of course, is that this dancing takes time. It's all too easy to leave the floor and focus on easier tasks--or more pressing ones, especially if it's a novel without a deadline like this one currently is.
The problem is, like many writers I know, I get antsy when I'm not making headway on a novel project. Even if I'm making headway on a bunch of other fronts. And I have the impending tick-tick-tick of heading out for three weekends straight of travel to other parts of the country and the knowledge that an edit letter for our middle grade could land at any time and and and all the other things. (This week alone: the usual Monday morning SubPress meeting with Yanni and Bill via hangouts, turned in an outline for a fun guest story I'm doing for a thing, had a great full day of school visits at my hometown school, spent the next day catching up on SubPress stuff and answering long-overdue emails for upcoming events and working on the Girl Over Paris project (yay!), did an interview (which I originally thought was the day before and had a Morning, trying to get showered because I'd overslept and re-install Skype before discovering my mistake) about Lois Lane with Sci-Fi Bulletin and then interviewed Kwame Alexander for a piece for the LA Times later, and then this morning wrote said piece and turned it in, and have to go to a doctor's appointment this afternoon because the new insurance means we need new doctors and and and... Did I get any novel writing/dancing done this week? I did get a tiny bit done yesterday, but this weekend I'm enfolding that shadow in my embrace and writing as hard as I can before the travel starts.
Oh, but it was a fun week. No regrets, except the lack of word count. I also took my first static trapeze lesson (which I wish I could do all the time) last weekend. It was a welcome relief after the morning of grim taxes, and left me covered in bruises on the backs of my knees and at other random spots. I've learned that trying out a new silks pose or another apparatus like trapeze will always yield new bruises, until your body gets used to doing it. It's not so different than dancing with your shadow, or figure out your way into a new book. The trick is staying engaged until that lock-step happens and you start climbing and then you can see the whole thing from up high and it all gets doable. I'm mixing metaphors, but it's Friday.
So, next week I'd better be able to report back to you guys I made real progress on this new novel, which is a mystery and while it has weirdness might actually not have any fantastical elements at all (weird!). We'll see. It does have horses and weird internet wormholes and dead bodies.
Books read and enjoyed: I've tried Eloisa James several times, but never managed to click with her books until this new one, My American Duchess, which was delightful. I suspect now I'll go back and read all her others. I finally finished the book about Agatha Christie's poisons, which was delightful in a different way. And I'm still thinking about Megan Miranda's All the Missing Girls, a thriller/mystery told in reverse that is just brilliant--I read it weeks ago, and it's out in July, so I'll talk about it more closer to then. SO GOOD.
The week's news:
The Cirque American is coming to comics! I finally got to blab about this project, which I'm getting to work on with geniuses Kate Leth and Ming Doyle. Preorder!
The Fallout Reread continues to prepare us all for Double Down in May -- come join us!
The Woken Gods is now available again! On kindle for now. (My take on if Indiana Jones was a teen girl who had to go up against trickster gods. Also, Blackwood has disappeared again, because it found a new home but I'm not sure I'm allowed to say more yet so I won't.)
And that's it--come back next week. Same email account, same Shaken & Stirred channel.