Writing update

• NaNo 2007 story: nearly done with draft one. I'm nearly at the story's climax and should get this puppy done by the end of February.


• Oleanna novel: 50% done. On hold until I get some other things off the list.


• Humility story: working on revisions. Should be done by the end of the month and will look for markets for submission. This one's an odd one for me, as it's straight-ahead fiction without any speculative lit elements.


• Dream story: playing, the fun part :)


• Raven Girl story: done, submitted, awaiting response


• Dryad: submitted, doing requested rewrites


• Stone Windows: awaiting response from Podcastle


• The Pilgrim Glass: submitted to a publisher, awaiting response


• Valley of the Heart's Delight: prep for submission to Paradox (re-opens sometime this month)


• The Midnight Son: nothing at the moment

Wow. I'm busier than I thought I was! :)

Historical fiction covers

Interesting discussion over at Reading the Past on some recent historical fiction covers from the UK. Which one(s) do you prefer?

Blog rec

I know, I know, what am I doing posting in the middle of the day? Well, I had to rec this blog: Nathan Bransford. Nathan's an agent with the SF office of Curtis Brown, and entirely too young but I'll forgive him because he's fricking funny.

I know Kristin Nelson does some great posts about the intricacies of the publishing contract. But she never mentioned "hos" and "Pocahantas" alongside information about royalties and advances (which I now understand), so to me that gives Nathan a leg up.

Sadly, he rejected my query, but I'll forgive him if he keeps making me laugh.

Hurrah!

Now I've got two writer's conferences to go to this spring! First, the SF Writer's Conference in February, which has a ton of great workshops and a huge "speed dating with agents" room. Met some great folks there last year.

Last night I signed up for the Jack London Writer's Conference on the Peninsula. The workshops look good but not fantastico, but the "meet an agent" room is much less frenetic and much more civilized (and better organized, IMO, than the SFWC's agent room).

But, the best thing about Jack London this year? Christopher Moore is the lunchtime keynote. Score.

Publisher's Marketplace

One of the best resources I've found for writers who want to get published is Publisher's Marketplace and their daily Publisher's Lunch email. The email is great for getting the skinny on the publishing industry - profits statements, the monthly BookSense lists, personnel comings and goings at publishers and agencies. I believe you have to be registered on the site to get the email ($20 per month, I think), but the membership means you can also review the latest deals (great for uncovering agents you might not have known about or considered), and use the great search tool which shows who represents different authors. Neil Gaiman? Looks like Merrilee Heifetz at Writers House. Susanna Clark? Nick Marston at Curtis Brown UK.

There's plenty of industry folks going to that site, and I think it's worth having a membership so you can have your own profile page (which of course links to your website and your blog). I even took out a banner ad on the site a number of times, indicating I was seeking representation, which got me a full read on Jonas.

Regardless, if you're even considering getting your work published in the U.S., the site's a great educational tool.

And, now on to the less prosaic part of the show :D

Word-hoard
halomancy: fortune-telling with salt

Myths, symbols, and folklore
The Wild Hunt: "Legend complex (motif E501) concerning a ghostly hunter, often accompanied by dogs or spirits and often hunting a woman, who is frequently one of the supernatural beings. In many Scandinavian and German versions the hunter captures or kills the woman and carries her off like a game animal. The hunter may be unidentified, or he may be a historical figure…The woman being hunted is most often a local forest being; in some Scandinavian versions she is said to have huge breasts that she slings over her shoulder as she runs from her pursuer. The fullest versions of this form of the legend tell of someone who witnesses first the woman running by, then the hunter, and then finally the hunter with the captured or killed woman. In other forms of the legend more common in Germany, the hunter may be a lost soul, or he may lead lost souls on a wild ride through the sky, rather like the Norwegian oskorei, a band of spirits who rush about and often overrun farms…Sometimes a rushing noise high in the trees is called Odin's hunt…The identification of the hunter as Odin and the rushing of spirits around him has led scholars…to consider a connection with an ecstatic Odin cult…More-recent scholarship, however, would argue for a basis in an Indo-European warrior cult in which young warriors imbued with life force fight with the characteristics of animals…From the twelfth century forward the Wild Hunt appears as a major theme of legend in England and Wales."