Author Archives: Autumn

Thoughts On Writing And Reading And Reviewing

Michelle Sagara talks about being a reader (as opposed wearing her writing hat) and not particularly caring about how long it took someone to write something, or if writing’s their career or something they do at night and on weekends:

But confusing my concerns as a writer with my concerns as a reader is something that I don’t do. There are books that feel interchangeable, and I read these for fun and light entertainment, although I admit I often confuse them in the muddle of my brain (and attribute the titles to the wrong authors because I am sometimes stupid like that); there are books that no one but the author could possibly write (anything by John Crowley comes to mind instantly). I am happy for both; I do not privilege one over the other because I don’t have to; as a reader, both are there, and I pick up the one that suits my mood and my needs at the time.

And Elizabeth Barrette talks about ways in which you can support your favourite authors beyond buying their books (because how you buy those books matters, and all the other stuff has an impact too):

Readers love books, and most readers have favorite authors. You wish they would write more. You may also wish for them to be happy and prosperous.

Well, authors have to put beans on the table. For some, that means writing whatever sells. For others, that means squeezing in time to write around a day job doing something else. Maybe they get paid a fair rate for their work, with a decent contract; maybe not. Often the end result is that they don’t put out as much writing as you or they would like.

Here’s the key: YOU can do something about this. You are the audience; you are the consumer. Your choices an individual, and the behavior of you-all collectively, can make a tremendous difference in the livelihood of your favorite authors. The more profitable something is, the more time they can afford to spend doing it. Do you value that reading material they create? Does it teach you things that will save you time and trouble, or things that are just fun to know? Does it give your mind a much-needed vacation to places you love, in the company of characters you enjoy? Does it lift your spirits, rouse your sense of wonder, or at least remind you that your life could suck a whole lot more than it does? If so, consider the following list of things you can do to support your favorite authors. […]

Finally, over at SFNovelists.com Mike Brotherton talks about the common sense steps involved in reviewing books, namely, match the reviewer to the book (although there’s more that follows from that first point):

Guideline 1: Reviewers should stick to reviewing the kinds of books they like.

Look, I think nearly every book published is a good book. Editors and publishers aren’t stupid. There are certainly a lot of books published I think are crap, but some of them have audiences. Large audiences. People LOVE some of the books I HATE. I shouldn’t review those. I’m not the target audience.

And that’s okay.

It’s infuriating as a writer to see someone leave a comment somewhere, or, worse, a complete review, about how much your book sucked when it is clear that they don’t like the kind of book you’re writing. I had this happen with Spider Star. Someone wrote how awful the sample chapters were on a forum, and, when pressed (guilty), admitted that [the books] read like Jack McDevitt and that they didn’t care for McDevitt. Personally, I do. So…

Guideline 2: Reviews should describe what the book is like, and not just represent a visceral reaction of the reviewer. […]

Check them out.

Hearthcraft Book Update

So… close…

There’s one ritual left to write in Chapter Six before I can cross it off my list. One. And my brain just gave up. It’s going to have to stay as [INSERT BRILLIANT RITUAL HERE] until tomorrow. Well, there’s an iffy half-page I may cut out, too. Jury’s still out.

*headdesk*

But I handled the whole jigsaw-puzzle/juggling act/non-sequential mess that was Chapter Six very well, and it all works, and I added just about as much as I took out (which was a lot).

Things currently stand thus:

Word count: 55,303
Total page count: 222
The file: I’m on page 133 (minus a one-page brilliant ritual on page 111), AKA the first page of Chapter Seven (which is page 148 of the hard copy)
The hard copy: I’m on page 152, in Chapter Seven

Yes, I’m over halfway through the existing book. I would be more jubilant if Chapter Ten existed, which it doesn’t yet. (It’s spells and such, though, and those are quick to write down which is why I’m leaving them till the end.) I am also rapidly running out of hard copy edits to transfer. I didn’t expect to get this much file work done today.

I may doodle that ritual tonight in my notebook while lying in bed with the MP3 player. Whether that happens or not there will be a hot bath, because I ache all over, damn it.

Lots of work done today. Lots.

Dee Dee Dee…

Best tyop so far today: you may wish to crate a separate shrine for this purpose. Can’t let those shrines run free, oh no. Keep ’em contained. No inter-shrine contact!

I have ZERO focus today. Work is getting done, though. If all goes well I may nail Chapter Five in the file today, and part of Chapter Six as well. I spent a large part of the morning wrestling with how to sequence Chapter Six. I keep rearranging the sections and so far no order makes more sense than any other. Argh.

I’m listening to a broadcast of Beethoven’s ninth symphony, and although I’ve played it I don’t have much memory of it other than visual and atmospheric impressions. Usually when I’ve played something I remember the musical line really well. This one, not. Odd.

I miss Vanilla Coke. Hmm. I do have a finger of vanilla schnaaps left and Coke in which to mix it…

ETA @ 3:40: Chapter Five is finished! The file stands at page 106 (AKA page 118 in the hard copy). Now for the puzzle that is Chapter Six…

Hearthcraft Book Update

I hate working after the boy has gone to bed. It pushes back my falling-asleep time by a few hours, since it takes me a while to wind down. I felt it necessary tonight, though. There’s a lot to do.

As a result the book file is now basically done up to Chapter Five, minus a sentence here and there that I’ve marked. There have been a total of ten pages deleted today, mostly through cutting out lines here and there (the six pages gone at one blow aside). It flows. It’s tighter. I’m being merciless about the bits needing too much work to be completed.

On the other hand, I discovered a new hearth goddess today, so hey.

There’s a chapter and a half of hard copy edits to transfer to the file, and then I run out of edited hard copy. Since I have zero attention span and focus working on the computer in the forenoon, tomorrow morning is reserved for hard copy editing; after lunch I’ll return to Chapter Five and start transferring.

The file currently stands at 55,167 words and 224 pages. I’ve paused at page 84 in the file, and at 120 in the hard copy. Lots of stuff goes out, other stuff goes in.

I should eat, but I’m really not hungry.

Lunch Break

I just cut an entire six pages because they didn’t fit. I’d feel better about it if I hadn’t spent hours writing them months ago in the first place, and a good forty minutes rewriting them in the cafe on Monday.

I didn’t go to work in the cafe after all this morning. Even the smallest movement is painful, and I’m in a no-people frame of mind. Dissolving into tears in the car after dropping the boy off was a marked sign that editing in a public place wasn’t going to work. So I came home, which was depressing in itself. I’m now halfway through the printout of the manuscript, and on page 40 of the file. The latter is a rather unreliable guide to progress, as it no longer matches the pagination of the printout (which makes for some puzzled flipping when my scribbles on page Z say to ‘move to page X’ and page X of the file is now Z+9).

It’s been a frustrating morning, on top of the already low mood.

Songs and Poems for Solo Cello

But this was in the parcel waiting for me at the post office, one of the two I missed on Monday when I was working in the cafe. And I’m kind of glad the upstairs neighbours aren’t home because I’m listening to it at a rather loud volume. It’s both beautiful and depressing. I can hear every shift Sutter makes and the movements of her bow arm (not because of poor recording or shoddy technique, but because of her phrasing and the stunning acoustics of the church in which it was recorded), and I wish I could play like that.

I’m going to go heat up a piece of last night’s lasagna and then come back and slog some more.

Hello World…

… I am not dead, just busy. (And in a curious amount of pain, for some reason. It’s fine as long as I don’t move.)

The concert was lovely. As I expected I enjoyed myself immensely for the first half and played very well, with the overture standing out as particularly good. As I’d feared, though, I began wilting in the symphony. I aced and loved the first movement but the second movement was faster than usual, which was fine up till the fugue-type bit started by the cellos. As we came up to it I realized that there was no way I could do it at that speed so I just hung on and did what I could. Which wasn’t much, really, and it depressed me despite knowing that it was the speed and not my ability. The mood clung to me and I just couldn’t enjoy the scherzo and trio much, but I was bound and determined to enjoy the fourth movement, and I did, but only because I insisted on it.

Thank you to HRH, Ceri, Scott, Marc M, Marc L, Mel, Amanda, and Val for sharing the evening with us. I think the audience was at about sixty percent capacity, although it really seemed like more when everyone congregated in the hall for cider and cookies at intermission. I can’t even estimate actual numbers.

Now we have two weeks off. This may not be a bad thing, as I suspect the pain at the base of my spine is from sitting in the new chairs three times in four days.

I took my manuscript printout with me when I dropped the boy off at the caregiver’s yesterday, and betook myself to the cafe in which I used to write before we moved. I got myself a decaf latte and a brownie, then sat and worked on editing the manuscript for two hours. It was good to be out, in a silver of sun that slowly moved from my papers to myself, away from the distractions of the internet, my bookshelves, and the chores in the kitchen. I slashed and rewrote Chapter Three and some of Four, then came home and began transferring last week’s edits to the file. Chapter One and Two are mostly done now, with just one or two places I’ve marked to polish or check a fact. I think I’ll be doing the cafe thing again on Wednesday, except I may try a different location because the music was loud and not very conducive to my mood. Trying to listen to my MP3 player above the cafe’s music was worse, though. When I used to go there the staff was friendlier, and they played jazz.

It was so beautiful yesterday that I had the back door open while I was making dinner. Sparky and I were watching blackbirds from the back deck when we had a visit from a rather large plump squirrel. It climbed up the stairs and inched its way on to the deck looking at us expectantly, and I had visions of the thing turning ugly when I informed it that we were not serving. I also hoped that none of the cats were sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, or they’d be outside like a shot. Sparky spent a lot of time between the car and the front door bending over to see the quarter-inch tall first signs of all the bulbs we planted last fall, poking at them and saying with great excitement that he could see the flowers growing. And we saw a robin, which was lovely too.

Spring is good. And it’s not going to take as long for all the snow to melt as we’d expected, because the temperature has radically readjusted and we’re looking at sun all week (Thirteen degrees today and Thursday! Sixteen degrees tomorrow!) with periodic clouds and scattered showers before light rain all weekend. The middle of the back yard is already mud and dead grass. The sun is doing wonders for my outlook.

Sparky and I are home together today and having a lovely time so far.

Concert!

I’m really looking forward to the concert tonight. Not because I think I will be brilliant — I will be passable, making lots of stupid mistakes and not-quite-getting the harder passages I’ve been working on for months — but because I’m looking forward to playing this music. I love the Delibes dance suite, and I’d never have heard the Gounod symphony if it hadn’t been put on this program; they’re both fun to play. And I will see friends tonight, which is always wonderful too, especially these days when we see so little of one another.

And I’m proud of how well I’ve been handling orchestra in the wake of the fibro diagnosis. I’ve been cutting myself a lot more slack about low energy, clumsy fingers and hand movements, and not being able to pull off what I want to be pulling off. I try, and I get some of it; if I don’t, well, I didn’t, and it isn’t the end of the world. It’s more than mildly ironic that in the past when I felt I wasn’t getting it I’d try harder, which would just make things worse. Now I understand why.

Dress rehearsal went well enough. The seating arrangement has been slightly altered in hopes of improving how easily the sections could hear one another. It worked for me; I don’t know about the other sections. Having the winds behind where the violas usually sit meant I could really hear their lines and cues. The celli and first violins have been pushed back and angled more, too. I can see the conductor a lot more clearly as a result. When we were wrapping up the conductor told us it sounds good, and sounds even better from further away. We were all a bit punchy by that point, and it was very amusing to imagine a sign posted to the effect of In order to obtain the most value for your money, please sit as far away from the orchestra as possible.

If you’re just tuning in, or need the reminder:

The Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra presents their Spring 2008 concert tonight, with the theme of French composers and dance music. The programme features:

Overture to The Caliph of Baghdad by Boieldieu
Pavane pour une infante défunte by Ravel
Chanson et aires de danse dans le style ancien from Le roi s’amuse by Delibes
Pavane, op. 50 by Fauré
Symphony no. 1 by Gounod

The concert takes place on Saturday April 5, 2008 at 19h30, and will be presented at Cedar Park United Church located at 204 Lakeview Ave, Pointe-Claire, QC (corner St. John’s Blvd). Admission is $10, children under 18 attend free of charge.

The church is easily reached via public transport by taking the 211 bus west from Lionel-Groulx metro, disembarking at St. John’s blvd, and walking south to Lakeview (the first street south of autoroute 20). By car, take St. John’s Blvd south from either autoroute 40 or 20 and turn right (west) on Lakeview. The church is about three houses along on the south side of the street. There’s a parking lot on the west side. Here’s a map to help you find your way.