According To Hoyt

I’m one of those writers everyone used to say were rare: I started writing long form. My very first attempt at writing something came out at forty thousand words and only because I hadn’t figured out yet that novels set in alien worlds need description even more than other novels do. The rewrite took it to 120 thousand words. The next book was two hundred thousand words. And I have written a six hundred thousand word opus – aka the doorstop – which has been fermenting in my subconscious since it was written and which can, probably, at this point be written as three novels. I think. I’ll do it as soon as I get a break in the schedule. Or at least I’ll do the outline.

Anyway, I wrote eight novels before I even thought of writing short stories. And then I wrenched myself away from novels (just when I started getting personal rejections, of course. And no, I hadn’t sent them out that many times – mostly because we were young and broke and postage was expensive) because I’d been reading advice books and all of a sudden I “knew” how one was “supposed” to get published.

I still think I’m excused on this one. Even if I wanted to go to workshops and cons and meet editors to break through the slush barrier, which at that time was the actual process to break in, I couldn’t have done it. My local cons didn’t get real editors/agents, and we simply couldn’t afford to travel. How poor were we? Well… let’s just say that sometimes the novel being sent out waited for three months before I could get the $8 to mail it in. We had to schedule buying saline solution for my husband’s contact lenses in as a recurring expense.

(In fact, about a year after I forced myself to learn to write short stories, one of the editors I submitted to, who was at the time teaching Clarion, told me to apply and – bless him – offered to pay half my fee. I have no idea why he did that. He never did buy me, even after I started selling everywhere else. Possibly because I turned his offer down – editors are human too – but I had no other choice. Even half the fee was so ridiculously beyond our budget as buying a beach house would be right now. No, possibly more. Though we have no intention of buying a beach house while strapped for cash, we probably could come up with a plan if absolutely vital. Back then we couldn’t. You see, we ARE a dying breed in that we paid for our own college, we got married, we didn’t go back to live with mom and dad, we got no contacts, no money for training, we just did it, step by step, hand over hand. And if we haven’t got particularly far, well… At least as far as we got it’s ours.) One of the things that has disturbed me for some time is that I wonder whether publishers are even aware that the “new new method” of becoming a pro weeds out not just those who don’t present well or are nuts, but also those who don’t have someone supporting them – their parents, or spouse – and don’t have anyone to support. (Later on I took the Oregon Coast Professional Writers’ Workshop in preference to Clarion because I couldn’t afford the time for Clarion. By then I had a five year old and a two year old, and my husband had to take time off work so I could attend. He only had two weeks vacation. Clarion was never a consideration.) The reason this worries me is not “justice” which would be nice but never happens in the real world. It worries me because it narrows the perspective of the “voices” getting in to people who are relatively well off, relatively young and/or living like they are. Since that’s not how most people live, this reduces the “connecting to audience” ability as well.

Anyway, after that lengthy digression – ahem – I was very naive and the book I bought told me the way to get in was to start at pays in copies and claw your way up step by step. For that, you needed to write short stories. So I learned to.

In retrospect, this was a four year digression that earned me nothing. It made perfect sense in the thirties or forties because short story publications also built your audience. They had such a widespread audience – more so than novels – that by the time someone published in novels it helped to be well known in short stories.

I never really managed to sell to pays in copies, either. My lowest sale was $15 for a story I wrote while I was tipsy (those who were at Denvention heard me read it under “juvenalia”). I tried, but pays in copies rejected me, over and over again. After that, my lowest sale was $50 for Thirst to Dreams of Decadence. And after that I started getting pro rates.

And now you’ll be going “But that’s how you got in.” Not really. I got in by attending the workshop with Kris Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith and meeting the editor who published my Shakespeare books. That was pretty much it. Could I have got in if I hadn’t done that? I’d like to think so, but I probably would NOT have got in in with short stories.

About five years ago, at World Fantasy, myself and a bunch of other writers my “class” (i.e. came in the same year) – I’m thinking Ken Wheaton (?) and Leah Cutter, but I’m at a loss for who the others were just now) did a back of the envelope calculation based on how many stories vs. novels were being published then and how many submissions they got from their published accounts and we came to the conclusion a newby had three times better chances of selling a novel over a short story.

Now, of all the stupid things I thought, I regret this one the least. Why? Because learning to write short stories was useful.

It helped me sharpen my skills and my ability to grab a reader fast. It also helped me figure out what appeals to others and what doesn’t, without writing MASSIVE works to do it.

Short stories were also – until recently – the way to get money fast if you were in a hole (And might be again, if the subscription thing works.) I.e. you could write seven or ten, send them out, and get a couple thousand dollars for the mortgage within the month.

More important short stories were – and again, might be – a great loss leader. You would sell to an anthology that reached seven thousand people, and if even a tenth of those checked out your name and your latest novel, it helped you increase your readers, little by little.

So, it was a stupid thing, and I regret the time lost. On the other hand, I acquired a skill that has proven useful. No regrets.

Of course, it immediately occurred to me last night, after I went to bed, that I shouldn’t have said anything yesterday. This comes from three sources: the first is that I hate admitting being in a tough spot. I know that, you guys probably know that if you’ve been reading my blog. I drag on to the last possible point before going to the doctor, when I’m sick, for instance. It’s all part of the same thing.

That one is easy to dismiss. Jerry Pournelle would tell me that pride is a sin, and Jerry is right. That particular failing has got me into more trouble than all my other personality defects combined. So I can tell pride to shut up and take a hike.

But there is a more material problem with what I said yesterday. Half of you will be going “ooh. Publishers are late. They’re dishonest.” Or something like that. Well, no. Actually at the moment, other than short stories, only one publisher could vaguely be considered late, and it would be a stretch. (Short stories have been getting later and later when it comes to payment. Yes, that is a problem, because short stories are how I make up short falls. Which I explain below.) It’s more that publishers don’t pay instantaneously. Few ever did, other than magazines and anthologies. And those, yeah, have got markedly slower. Publishers are at the mercy of chains paying and distributors paying. And if you’re going “Chains! Wasn’t there a chain in the process of implosion?” Yeah, there is. Plus none of that supply-system is particularly solid.

So, there was always a delay built into publishing payments, and now it is (from a payment that arrived eight months late, and not from where you’d expect it) worse.

What this means is that though I have three books due for delivery, writing them quickly and sending them out asap will help, but it won’t make up a cash flow issue. And unlike in years past I can’t make it up in short stories (in 2003 when otherwise unemployed, I made up over 3k from short stories) because there are fewer markets, and the ones still alive pay slower.

As to why there’s a cash flow issue – this is the part I think people might find interesting (maybe) because it’s one of the things so few people not in the field know.

You might – or might not – know this, but writers don’t get paid in one big chunk. When you hear that someone signed a million dollar contract, you shouldn’t imagine them getting a check for that much. From what I understand, (never having had such good fortune) a seven figure payment (or anything six figures, really) gets broken up into ten payments – so you might be getting a hundred thousand for ten years. Yes, we should all be so lucky, but it’s not a million in hand.

It used to be that under five figures you got your payment broken into two chunks. Nowadays, it’s three. And five figures is three as well.

Now, unless you’re fortunes fair child – and a few people are – and got a big advance for your first book, or unless you’re doing this as a dilettante, or are living in mommy’s and daddy’s basement or have a rich husband (I keep telling him to win the lottery. So far nothing) or wife, these days you’re going to need more than one book a year to stay alive.

If you were born under the sign of Dagon, the fish god, and your fortunes have always shown a marked tendency to dive, and therefore you were so fortunate as to have your first book come out a month after nine eleven and not even get unpacked in most chain stores, leaving you with computer numbers it took you a decade to bring to “beginner” levels, you write more than two books a year, even if your contribution to the household is minor compared to the husband who won’t buy the lottery. (No such thing as luck? Ah! Yeah, Heinlein was right, to an extent. I mean, I AM still employed, and given the numbers on my first books – trust me – most people wouldn’t be. I just worked harder and I think better, until the barrier broke. Though Baen picking me up at that point has to be counted as luck, even then. But, look, the first story I sold was sold FOUR times before I got a contributor copy – on the fifth. The others either the magazine or the publisher died. And I have other stories. Sign of Dagon, I tell you. Deep dive.)

The problem is that after five years of writing four to six books a year, last year I couldn’t force myself to. I tried. But my subconscious can be remarkably stubborn. Honestly, I’d have done better to take a scheduled vacation. Instead, I wrote one book. That book – given the present shambles in the industry and possibly other factors – sold for less than I expected. I’m not complaining, I’m glad it sold at all and the publisher’s contract is wonderful compared to others I’ve signed. BUT it sold for less than I expected. Mind you, even if it had sold for what my other books have sold, it would cause a break in the cash flow. Worse, the year before that, I’d done no proposals and no books on spec. I just did the books that were due (3, I think) and delivered them. And last year, though I did proposals, I did only three, and they only sold in the middle of the year.

It’s like this. On any given year, I’m receiving the second and third payment of the books delivered/books published. Because these are usually smaller amounts than what I get for a first payment, at the same time, to maintain my level of income, I need to sell about 20k of books in the first quarter of the year. Not only didn’t this happen this year – it didn’t happen last year.

What this means is that I took a break on the treadmill and all the counts flat lined, and so it needs to ramp up again – which I’m doing, or trying to – and until it gets up to speed, income will be subpar.

You’ll note I didn’t count royalties. There is a good reason for that. Except for two books, my royalties have been negligible. I understand it is so for most other authors at least outside Baen. And those royalties are even more erratically paid than advances, so you simply can’t count on them.

As far as I know – as far as I can tell, from the distribution end of the thing – Darkship Thieves and the Daring Finds Mysteries did/are doing really well. I just gave in the third Daring Finds, and I’m finishing the sequel to Darkship Thieves. Those might eventually pay me royalties, and if they continue doing well, the series might – eventually – be all I need. And I have great hopes for the vampire musketeer thing. (Poke around my blog. I posted about it … either last Saturday or Saturday before last.) If that one does well in ebooks, I will be quite well.

But meanwhile, while I’m ramping up to my former income, I’m making a lot less than I used to. Now, I know I said I’m not the primary money-earner in this family. Ah! I’m nowhere near primary. And, curiously, we not only qualified on this house without my income, but we bought less house – way less house – than they’d qualify us for. And, yes, we have a fixed rate.

The problem is that these days – I don’t care what the inflation index says. The inflation index can suck my toes – everything is costing a lot more. At least for us, it is. From food to energy to appliances. And we were hit with a series of emergencies that meant one major expense after another, for three months in a row (four, if you count vet emergencies.) And the month before that we had to take a costly trip for family reasons.

That has brought the shortfall to critical levels. And that’s why, even though my career seems to be on the way up, the finances are in a serious dive.

I’ve decided to go with the subscription. The storyteller’s bowl is a more … short term measure, and I can always try it in a month, if the subscription system is picking up too slowly to cover the short fall.

Yes, it is pride again. The short story subscription (I need to come up with a catchy name) is something where I feel you’ll get a really good value and, if it works out, might become something I do permanently and all parts benefit. I.e. say I get 2k subscribers – it should be possible, if I can reach them, because my lowest-selling book (small press, under a closed pen name) sold that and I know I have at least double that number and a bit more of “steady” readers. If I get that, I could afford to run slower on the treadmill and since I use short stories to build background and future history, would enjoy it more.

Also, if I can get anything like 2k or more subscribers (yes, I realize it will be a slow ramp up and I’ll have to advertise) I can end up paying friends for one or two stories a year and introducing them to the fans.

Writing two short stories a month shouldn’t be a problem. I was trained to do shorts and novels at the same time, and to do a short story a week. I think the reason I let it lapse is the lack of markets, which made me neglect the short stories. This was probably bad, as short stories are a great exercise to keep the skill limber.

Of course, if we get hit with one more emergency, or if anything else goes seriously wrong, I reserve the right to do storyteller’s bowl. And that is the non-prideful reason to hold it off. Because I might need it, if my back is against the wall. As a short-term cash bringer, it’s what writers do when they’re desperate. I’m worried and anxious, but not desperate yet. I think the “subscribe to Sarah” – someone for the love of heaven come up with a catchy name! – program might do what I need for now.

So, I’ll give it a whirl starting in… April. This weekend I’m going to Anomaly Con in Denver, so I can’t set it up, but we’ll set it up in the beginning of April. I’ll let you know.

*Crossposted at Classical Values.*

I hate it when it’s time to get resourceful. For all my innovation in writing, my interest in the new and the different, I crave security at a very deep level. Frankly, it’s a joke that someone with my need for security should be in a profession where the money comes slow and irregularly when it comes at all.

Lately a series of very bad expenses – all new appliances except for the stove which is limping (and I do mean limping, unfortunately) along and might hold another year if we’re lucky, a series of car repairs, tuition for both kids an idiot cat who swallowed a bunch of thread and other sundry emergencies – have driven a knife deep into my bank account. This combines with the fact that payments that used to be almost instant in publishing are often now eight months late to bring us to a no good, very bad, rotten type of financial situation.

Of course the problem with this is that anxiety brings my writing to a grinding halt, and that in turn grinds the payments to an even slower schedule because I deliver late.

To put things bluntly, we need to make up the about 12k in unexpected expenses (yeah, the tuition was expected, but the rest wasn’t) that have buffeted us since around December or things are going to go south very fast and get extremely unpleasant to the point that writing time will become iffy (as in, if we need to move).

In this type of situation, normally, I get a day job. Except… I haven’t needed to do that in more than ten years, so my marketable skills are limited. Also I’m signed for six books due this year. This combination means in this market getting a job at all will be… uh… interesting and that if I get a job I won’t be able to write.

This leaves me two options, which – while both cut into my writing by making more writing – are actually doable and in several ways preferable.

One is a storyteller’s bowl. I set up a site and start putting up a novel, then set a value per chapter – since my chapters are short, probably a relatively low value – and once that value is reached in donations, I put up the next chapter. The only problem with this is finishing the novel before I put it up. I don’t think that would happen, which means people would essentially be donating for an e-arc – an unedited/unpolished novel. I was thinking – for those of you in the diner – of putting up my regency Witchfinder novel with the Scarlet Pimpernel character. It is outlined, and I know I can finish it, and well… I will write for money. (I could also do a science fiction, mind you…)

The other is a subscription. For – say – $10 a year, I commit to two short stories a month, 60% of those to be set in either the world (and probably past history) of DST and shifters. (Probably more than 60%, but I can promise 60%. ) There would be the occasional three short story month/novellete/story by a “guest author” as a bonus.

I am tempted to try both of them. They would take less time away from contracts than an honest job and if they bring in what I need, it would reduce anxiety enough to allow me to work.

What do you guys think the chances of either/both/neither of these succeeding are? I confess that they’re all too “risky” to my mind and that I hate having to get creative in this way. However, it seems that I DO have to try. Ideas? Suggestions? Rotten tomatoes?

(crossposted at Mad Genius Club and Classical Values.)

I think we might as well give up on the idea there will be regular posts this week.  It’s not so much having the kids home for spring break — they’re being good — but the fact that everyone else is home for spring break, and the fact I — myself — am longing for some R &R even if only in the shape of long walks and bubble-gum books (you know, the ones you read and forget.)

This morning had long talk with friend on phone.  Okay, yes, mostly I talked.  I talk too much.  Will now sit down to write.  Athena Hera Sinistra — tri-plated b… bunny that she is, is very loud in my head.

Sorry to be so late with this.  With Spring Break upon us, we’re taking the opportunity to do things like drag the boys shopping for stuff early in the morning.  (Yeah, they DO love us for it — I feel like the old lady in Pratchett’s Truth who wanted young people to be whipped twice a day because that teaches them to go around being young.)  So, we did that, and are just now back home.

I decided to grace you with Stupid Things I Believed when I began writing — the third installment.  I believed that in a novel EVERY event, scene and word had to advance the plot.

This is largely true for a short story.  Whether what you’re trying for is a mood or a rational idea, you have a very limited amount of words to use, and you must get it as strong as possible by making it as sparse as possible.

This might also be true for “high literature” stuff.  I don’t know.  Don’t write it.  Gave it up for lent thirty eight years ago, and it’s been a really long lent.

For genre novels, though, a lot of the charm rests on getting to know the characters as real, live human beings and to get a sense of a much larger world than you have the time/space to show.  This implies — in the end — having bits and pieces that don’t advance plot — only feeling or sense or character development — here and there.  This is fine, so long as they don’t overwhelm the book.

This fact was brought home to me about nine years ago, at a con while watching fans react to a colleague’s reading of “the sausage scene” — let’s just say there was no possible way that “bit with the dog” (to allude to Shakespeare) could have been relevant to ANY plot.  But the fans loved it.

I used to cut ALL that stuff out of my books, but in Draw One In The Dark, I decided to leave in the scene with the three guys in the car, after escaping from the warehouse.  It doesn’t advance the plot, but I’ve come to believe it is essential to show the characters bonding and without it the book would suffer.  At least one fan has greed about this.

And I think Daring Finds Mysteries are composed MOSTLY of such moments — fans seem to love them anyway, and to be honest, I love writing them, even if I drive myself insane by feeling “too indulgent.”

At this point it’s become second nature to include at least a few of those moments in each book, sometimes just to lighten the mood.

Why is it that getting up after eight feels like the height of luxurious laziness. I come from a culture where most things aren’t scheduled before 9 am. For years, my time of getting up was seven thirty, and that was because I MUST catch a train to the city before starting school at nine.

And when we were young and childless, we were both prone to going to bed well after midnight. We didn’t know what the sky looked like before nine am. Dan worked late, but he also started work late. Heck, before Robert went to school, it wasn’t unusual for the whole house to be up and functioning in the wee hours of the morning. Dinner was rarely before eight. One of the reasons I loved diners so much is that when we woke on weekends and vacation and we wanted breakfast out, diners were the only places still serving it.

But then life changed. Robert entered kindergarten, then Marshall did, and often the only way I could write at all day was to get up an hour earlier. Even if I weren’t writing, during the noisiest years of childhood, particularly when Marsh was in pre-school and only had one or two hours of “school” a day, I had to get up an hour earlier to have my caffeine in peace and “center” myself for the day.

I confess for the last seven or eight years, I’ve got up at around six thirty, not before the kids, but when they start moving around the house. This way I can have some time with both of them before they go to school and be caffeinated and ready to work by the time they leave.

But then some weekends – not all – I wake up at around eight fifteen and I swear I feel like the day is half gone and I was indecently lazy.

Go figure. The rhythms of life do change. I guess someday my kids will be gone from the house and perhaps our timing will shift to the wee hours of the morning, like our empty nester neighbors who do construction projects and gardening at three am. Or perhaps the habit of years will prevail and I’ll be getting up early and having enough tea to get in gear, then writing at around eight thirty.

All I can say is if you’d told me fifteen years ago that I’d one day think getting up after eight was “late” and “luxurious” I’d have thought you were insane….

Before I got published, I believed that things had to be in a certain format to get published.  No, I’m not talking about not written with crayon on butcher paper.  I’m not talking paragraphed.  I thought my name had to be on the left corner of the front page, my word count on the right corner front page.  I believed my header had to say “hoyt/name of story/page.”  Mind you, I still do it that way for short stories, it’s habit.  BUT I thought if it wasn’t like that it would be rejected.

I also believed, after reading an out of date book on non-fiction writing, that stories had to end with “30” instead of the end, and this would mark me out as a true professional.

Now I wonder what editors thought if (in those days possibly rare) they read all the way to the end and came across that lovely 30.  “Thirty what?  did she miscount the pages?  Uh?”

There’s miles and miles of twerpitude you have to go through, not just to become a grown up but to learn ANY profession.

                                                     30

Ah, the glamourous life of a writer — the joy, the glory, the adoring fans…

Yes, okay. Some other writer. Not this writer per se.

This writer spent yesterday attempting to write while being nibbled to death by ducks. The ducks ranged from schedule conflicts with younger kid and husband to a cat with a… digestive issue. Oh, yeah, and someone tipping our trashcan over, so I had to pick trash from the middle of the street. Such fun.

Nothing bad — thank heavens — just endless small frustrations. As a result I made very little headway. I hope today goes better.

Meanwhile, here is the opening of Darkship Renegades, to keep you happy. (I have posted the first and second chapters in both the private FB group “diner” and in the Baen Bar Diner because membership hath its previledges.)

Out Of The Frying Pan

   
               

    I was a princess from Earth and he was a
rogue spaceman from a mythical world.  He saved my life three
times.  I rescued him from a fate worse than death.

    We married and lived happily ever after.

    Ever after comes with an expiration date
these days.  We’d been married less than year when Kit got
shot in the head.

    I knew we were in trouble as soon as I
got my answer from Eden.  It’s entirely possible that Kit knew
it before.  Eden is his native world.  He knows its
quirks, its traditions and its habits in a way I couldn’t after living
there close to a year.  In a way I probably wouldn’t if I
lived there fifty years.

    We’d called out as soon as we came
within link distance.  It had to be done.  Eden is a
hollowed out asteroid.  Humans live on the inside. 
More, it is an asteroid colonized by a persecuted people who wanted to
make their existence this close to Earth as inconspicuous as possible.

      Kit has said you could land
on the surface of the asteroid that contained Eden and not know that
there was a thriving civilization inside.  I don’t know if
it’s true.  Never tried it and I learned long ago not to take
anyone’s word for anything.  Even a trustworthy person can be
mistaken.  But I was fairly sure that unless the people inside
extended a landing tube to us, we would never be able to get
in.  Whatever sealed the entrances to the landing areas didn’t
even show to visual or radar scanning, so I doubted we could hop around
in our space suits and pry the tunnels open.

    Which was good.  It made Eden
very safe.  And bad.  Because in the circumstances we
found ourselves in, it meant we had to convince Eden to let us in, or
we’d be left on the outside with only the resources of the Cathouse to
survive on.  And though the Cathouse was a great ship, or at
least a great ship for its age and mechanical condition, we didn’t have
enough food to see us back to Earth or to the water-mining colonies of
Proxima and Ultima Thule.  We certainly didn’t have enough to
live on indefinitely.  So, no matter how much trouble we were
in, and even though Eden might shoot us out of the sky, we had to tell
them we were here.  And we had to ask permission to land.

    My heart was beating somewhere between
my esophagus and my mouth as we did the final approach to
Eden.  And don’t tell me that’s a physiological
impossibility.  I know what I felt.  Given just a
little more nervousness, my heart would jump out of my mouth and flop
around the instrument panel like a fish.

    But I looked composed and calm because
there was no point disquieting Kit, whose fingers danced on the
keyboard with the practice of the many years he’d been trained to and
flown in and out of Eden.

    I took a deep breath and told myself
that these were not the last moments of my life, and Kit reached for my
hand and squeezed it, hard, while his other hand pressed the com link
start.  “Cat Christopher Bartolomeu Sinistra and Nav Athena
Hera Sinistra, piloting the Cathouse on behalf of the energy
board.  I request permission to land.”

    There was a silence from the other side,
long enough for my heart to almost stop.  Eden didn’t have to
let us in.  As a world Eden was so paranoid that if it had
been a single person it would have been living in a compound with
secure entrances, keeping multiple weapons trained on each entrance,
and have an option all arranged so that if all else failed and his
enemies got in, he could blow himself and them to kingdom
come.  Only, Eden was not pathological.  Paranoia is
a perfectly well adapted reaction to everyone being out to get you.

    I swallowed hard and told myself that if
Eden didn’t want us, we’d find our way elsewhere.  Even then I
knew I was bluffing.  And all that kept me from shaking was
the impression of Kit’s mind, warm and amused.

    Not words.  We could mind-talk,
an ability bio engineered into pilot and navigator couples in his world
and engineered into me for a completely different purpose. 
But when there were no words, there was occasionally a feeling, and
sometimes a feeling was all you needed.  Whether the feeling
was real or projected, I didn’t know.

    I managed a half smile in his general
direction, as the voice of Eden’s Dock Control crackled over the link:
“The Cathouse is more than six weeks late.  It has been
entered in the roll of losses.  Cat Christopher Sinistra and
Nav Athena Sinistra are dead.”

    “Not really,” I told him, while my heart
hammered wildly and I felt almost boneless with relief.  I
hate bureaucracy as much as anyone else, but not nearly as much as I
hate exploding.  That they were talking instead of bombing us
was a very good sign.  “Only late.”

    “You cannot be late.  You only
had fuel for a four month trip.  Three weeks later you’d be
out of reserves and dead.  You–”

    “We were down on Earth,” I said and
grinned, a grin he couldn’t see but might just sense from the tone of
my voice.  The grin was half to reassure myself.

    For three centuries, before my arrival
here, Eden had managed to hide its existence from Earth so well that,
despite a few hundred trips each month to steal powerpods from the
biological solar energy collectors orbiting the Earth, they had become
mythical down there: the Darkship Thieves, like fairies and elves and
gnomes were talked about but never glimpsed.  For all those
centuries, the instructions had been for any ship captured by Earth to
destroy itself.  We’d not only not destroyed ourselves but Kit
had surrendered to Earth in order to save my life.  I
understood, since I’d been in his mind at the time, that it was the
only thing he could do.  I also understood how Eden would view
it.

    “What?” the Controller asked.

    Kit cleared his throat.  I
could see him reflected in the almost completely dark screens in front
of him: his eyes bioengineered for piloting in total darkness looked
like cat eyes, glimmering green and very wide open, in worry. 
His callico-colored hair, a mutation caused by the same virus that had
given him the eyes, super-human coordination and speed of movement,
contrasted with his normally pale skin, which had gone yet
paler.  Without his modifications Kit would have been a
redhead, so his skin was normally that shade of pale that can turn
unealthy-looking at the slightest disturbance.  Now he looked
white and grey, like spoiled milk.  It was the only sign of
fear, or even worry, he gave.  His voice sounded firm and
clear, “Nav Sinistra had radiation poisoning and we stopped on Earth
for regen treatment.”

    “You stopped on Earth for treatment?”

    I swallowed hard, to prevent having to
grope from my heart somewhere on the control
board.    “Well, it wasn’t that simple, but
yes,” Kit said.  “I’ll be glad to tell you the whole story
after we land.”

    “You’d better, Cat.”  He
pronounced Kit’s rank as an insult.  The term “pilot” had long
since become “cat” in Eden, due to the modifications of pilots of
darkships making them look feline.  “ And you’d better make it
convincing. This is most irregular.”

    “Controller,” I said.  “We must
land.  Kit’s family is expecting us.”  Kit’s birth
family, the DeNovos were socially influential and powerful in the very
limited community of Eden.  And his sister Kath would probably
have been a force to be reckoned with in any size society.  It
was a good thing she’d been born in Eden, because if it had been on
Earth, she’d probably now be sole supreme ruler of the whole
world.  This was slightly more difficult to achieve on Eden
which had no rulers of any sort, much less supreme ones.

    Another silence and the Dock
Controller’s voice sounded dour as it came back,  “Navigator
Sinistra, if you delayed your collection run for personal reasons, you
have to know that the Energy board will fine you for the delay in
supply, and all the boards will want to interview you for potential
breaches of security.  Also–”

    “I know, Controller.  Now,
could you give us a dock number, please?  Before I go crazy
and just give my Cat instructions to dash at Eden in the area of the
landing control station.  We earthworms tend to be so
temperamental”

    Kit chuckled aloud, then stopped with an
intake of breath.  The impression from him was amused, but
also scared, the amused trying to cover and hide the scared and not
quite managing it.

    “Dock fifty five, but I want you to know
that I shall have armed hushers ready and that you will be examined for
any evidence of undue influence and that–”

    I flicked the comlink off.  A
sleeve-like structure extruded from Eden and Kit piloted us into it,
then leaned back as dock controls took over the navigation. 
His foot skimmed along the floor next to him, flicking up the lever
that turned off our artificial gravity now that we were covered by
Eden’s.  Not that keeping it on would give us double the gs,
but I understood one could interfere with the other and cause some
really interesting effects.

    It wasn’t until our ship was settling
into one of the landing bays, that he released the seatbelt that
crisscrossed his chest, and, without letting go of my hand, got up and
said, “You know, you really shouldn’t have taunted the controller.”

Yesterday was not a good day for writing. No, the novel is not gone. It’s still there, it’s still “pushing” but I couldn’t seem to settle. Hormonal I suppose. I used the excess energy to do about ten loads of laundry, meaning I’m all of five loads from doing the week’s laundry, which had accumulated.

So, today I started the day with a long walk – lovely weather. I like walking early morning and late in the evening this time of year. Now I’ll sit down and go over notes and work properly. Am contemplating going to the coffee shop to work, but not sure if it’s worth it. Last time I went someone as loudly arguing bus schedules next to me, and I couldn’t get anything done.

And that’s about it. More coherent blogging tomorrow

Happy St. Patrick’s day, everyone. I’ll be getting myself corned beef and cabbage later, and maybe a six pack of micro brew…

I’ve been meaning to announce, only life keeps interfering, that I sold Sword and Blood, under the pen name Sarah Marques to Prime Books.

Why a pen name is tied up with “what is sword and blood.”

I suppose only a few of you know my very first sale was Thirst, a vampire short story, back in ninety four. If you look in the year’s best fantasy and horror for that year, it is under “honorable mentions.”

The truth is more complicated than that – truth always is – I actually sold it sometime in 93 of course, that part is normal. But I never got paid and didn’t even know it had been published until years later, while doing a routine search for my name on Amazon. Back then, it only showed three or four items, and that was one of them. You see, I sold it to an Australian magazine, the entire print run of which got seized and destroyed for violating indecency laws. I guess they’d got a magazine out to Year’s Best before that happened, but I never saw it.

Then I sold that short story again. Four times. It killed two more magazines and an editor. Finally, I sold another story (I was starting to think that would never happen) a science fiction one called Plaudit Cives to Absolute Magnitude. And I thought Dreams of Decadence was run by the same people and what the heck. So I sent Thirst to them, with its sorry history attached and ended the cover letter with “Do you feel lucky?”

Apparently they did, since they bought it and it was published… in 06? 07? Somewhere around that.

Since then I’ve done vampires intermittently always as short stories. On the one hand there is a lot to explore in the vampire mythos: the trade of death for life; the power that comes with virtually endless life; the nature of evil; the link of sex and blood which seems to be somewhere at the very back of my head. Vampires fulfill Terry Pratchett’s dictum that in the end all the important stories are about the death and the blood. (This is part of the reason I get so exasperated at what seems to me the defanging of vampires in Romance, because what’s the point of it if you don’t have the blood and the death. But then again, I never understood the appeal of the Disney versions of fairytales.) There was The Blood Like Wine and For Whose Dear Sake, and I get the persistent feeling I’m forgetting another.

Then three/four years ago, I was slammed under six books and home schooling a teenage genius. Something had to give and something did. Sleeping and vacations were no longer working as relaxation, so I took up art class because while working in pastel or pencil, my mind became empty of words.

Then one day I came out of class, and had parked far from the school (the school is across from a sports complex, and people parking for the game had taken everything up for half a mile.) By the time I got in the car and got my key in the ignition, I had three books in my mind in their entirety.
My first thought was “Oh, heck no. I can’t write that.” You see, they were the three musketeers set in a crepuscular world in which vampires rule most of the world and there’s a fight over France. Oh, yeah, and Athos has just been turned.

I came home and did what I do when I want to get rid of a novel that won’t shut up. I outlined it and wrote the first three pages. But it wouldn’t shut up. The series stayed at the back of my mind, nagging me, until I finished the first book, almost a year ago.

It has now been bought (and the still unwritten sequels, Royal Blood and Rising Blood) by Prime Books (not to be confused with Prime Crime.) It is not… exactly what my friend Kate calls undead porn, but it has sex. Oh, and death. And blood. Because of that, and fearing giving those of you who are fans of the other musketeer series or my space operas whiplash, I am bringing it out under Sarah Marques, which shall henceforth be my name for historical fantasy.

I’ve put up three chapters of Sword And Blood, the first book, in a temporary page. It’s not proofed and don’t sweat the look, this is just temporary. Before you head over, beware it contains references to sex. Discretion advised.

Hope you enjoy it, in many ways it’s the most intense thing I’ve ever written, though that might change when Darkship Renegades is done.

Do you mind horribly that I’m doing vampires? (I promise they don’t glow!)