Category Archives: Writing

Bitter

MSN has a good article mourning the loss of Angel.

It’s easy to appreciate fans’ inability to let Joss Whedon’s Angel go quietly into rerun heaven. Some of the sting of last season’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer finale was lessened by knowing that the characters would continue to fight the good fight on Angel. But now that the Charmed-gets-renewed-and-Angel-doesn’t network went all Mister Pointy on the lovable vampire and his team, audiences are about to be completely Jossless for the first time in seven years.

Aye, there’s the rub, folks. We’re Jossless. Charmed gets renewed; Angel doesn’t. Perky girls with funky witchy powers in a soap opera versus a darker good-vs-evil-and-which-is-which-anyway show with better writing. Of course it got axed.

Don’t mind me. I’m just bitter. Bitter about Angel and this wretched manuscript.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe

You’ll never guess what I’m doing.

Yes, indeed. Editing the manuscript of that book which has landed in my inbox yet again. This time I’m answering the copy-editor’s final questions on the ultimate rewrite.

La la la, I can’t hear you — mainly because if I do I’ll say something very uncomplimentary that you likely don’t deserve, because I have about this much patience today. (Imagine me holding two fingers touching each other. Yes. Touching.)

I keep thinking a grim mantra which goes something like this: My book will be different… my book will be different… when I finally get around to working on it again, which was originally on today’s agenda… my book will be different….

Things I Didn’t Know I Knew

I chose today as the inaugural day to begin typing the spellcrafting book, it being International Creativity Day and all. I had a few point-form notes that I’d written down in a notebook on Monday, and as I typed them out I expanded upon them, just as I’d planned. And then, out of nowhere, I was writing pages about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and why so many spellbooks concentrate on basic needs like prosperity and love.

*blink* *blink*

No, I’m not sure where it came from either. It never occurred to me before, although it certainly makes a lot of sense.

Go Forth and Create

April 21 is International Creativity Day, which gives you complete and total license to doodle when you ought to be working. The creative collective I belong to (tentatively named the Penslingers, pending any veto) has planned an evening meeting at HRH’s studio to do art stuff, try out new techniques, and generally celebrate how creativity is cool.

I, of course, will be at orchestra, celebrating in a different way.

So enjoy a round of gardening, dancing across intersections, random poetry, web design, cooking, calligraphy on an address label, sewing, or rearranging your furniture. Everything is creative. Think outside the box, and congratulate yourself for doing it. The creative force fuels our lives, initiates evolution and progress, and besides, it’s fun.

Meandering

Every couple of weeks I try to do something to the Owldaughter website to keep it current. I’ve just finished posting a whack of spiritual stuff which you can check out if you’re interested, on the new Believe page, which also has links to the second page and the spiritual articles. I learned how to use anchor tags today. (Thanks again for my new HTML book, Ceri!)

I have the front and back windows wide open, letting the incredibly warm wind through to air out the house. All the cats are plastered against the screens, wildly sniffing the outdoor smells.

Now it’s lunchtime, and then I’ll sit down with my chapter-by-chapter outline of my book and expand everything in point form. Who knows what I’ll discover belongs in which chapter.

Spellcrafting for Life, by Me

To everyone who has asked, “Series editor? That’s great, but when are you publishing your own book?”, I say:

Spring 2005.

Yes. My book on spellcrafting in the For Life series will hit the shelves around this time next year. My contract arrives sometime this week.

Trish Telesco, the first choice for author, was unfortunately occupied (I love you, Trish, and not just because you were contracted elsewhere; after two strikes while trying to contract you, I promise we will work together during this series eventually!). My two in-house editor colleagues at the publisher looked at one another and said, “Why not Autumn? She knows her stuff, writes well, writes quickly, and it just makes sense to have the series editor put out one or two books in the series.” (As in, more than one? Sure!)

They called me last Thursday and asked if I’d be interested in drawing up a proposal for it. (Thank goodness Ceri was here to confirm it had actually happened.) After random dazed moments of “This isn’t real,” I mulled it over on my short Easter jaunt to my parents’ home, and wrote a dynamic proposal Monday morning. It went through a publishing board meeting today, and the whole pub team is terribly excited and wants me to do it, with no revision to the proposal whatsoever. I just got the call.

I knew I would publish work at some point in my life; I just always expected it to be fiction first. After all, that’s what I write more than anything else.

So, yeah. Me, a published author in twelve months, give or take a few days.

I know there’s a celebratory Vanilla Coke around here somewhere.