You Might Be a Writer...

I posted this question on Facebook and got some terrific responses.

You might be a writer if...

Ink stains are a common laundry problem.

San Fransisco is not the first thing you think of when you hear the initials SF.

You have discussions with people no one else can see.

If, right in the middle of a conversation, you interrupt to say, "Oooh, that would make a good plot!"

You wonder if your latest project is a YA Paranormal Romance or an NA Dark Urban Fantasy. Or is it an Alternate History/Time Travel Steampunk novel?

People come up to you with this wary look (like you might be crazed) and ask, "Sooo, are you still writing?"

You can predict the next line or conflict in just about every TV show/movie you watch.

You don’t meet new friends, you meet potential characters. 

You stay in bed 15 minutes longer so you can come up with the details of your dream and arrange them into a novel synopsis.

People ask you how many books you've sold.

You'd rather stay at home and play with your imaginary friends than go to a party with real people.

You don't understand it when people tell you they would love to write a book but don't have time.

You see words as toys and the blank page as a playground.

You're surprised to find out that your best friends are imaginary.

You've ever said, "The main character in my book was just saying the same thing..."

You look at the 2 am note you scribbled after dreaming a perfect idea for a new book and you can't read your writing.

You take forever to compose and edit your emails and Facebook posts.

You stop to massage your hands and realize it's time to prepare dinner--and you're still in your pajamas. (BTW, this only got two revisions.)

If you don't like the ending of a movie or book and rewrite the ending in your head to please yourself.

You love to finish sentences with a fill in the blank at the end.

You overhear every conversation around you, and take notes.

You wake up at night to write down inspirations

If your characters send you birthday cards.

Or you make birthday cards for your characters.

Feel free to add your own in the comments!

One word Interview with Diann Thornley Read

Today, I'm starting something new which I hope to make a regular feature on the blog.

One word interviews! In which I give an author a series of questions they must answer in one word (or so). Sounds fun, huh?

My first victim, er, guest is sci-fi author Diann Thornley Read! I read Diann's military science fiction novels, The Sergey Chronichles, many years ago when I first started writing, and I loved them. Now Diann is re-releasing those novels with beautiful new covers. So to celebrate I'm doing my first ever one word interview. Here goes!

Stranded on a tropical island! What's your one must-have item?
My laptop.

Good choice! (An internet connection might be nice too.)

You are having your favorite author over for dinner. What are you serving?
Maple-Glazed baby back ribs

Oh, that sounds so yummy! 

You've just been plunked down in the middle of your current WIP. Weapon of choice?
Rohrspachen-55 Javelin fighter

Oh, yeah. A fighter jet. Give me one of those too! 

If you could have lunch with any one historical figure, who would it be?
Captain Moroni

Sweet! I'll bet that would be an interesting lunch.  You could talk military tactics all afternoon!

Oh, no! The house is on fire! First thing you grab?
The cats!

Lucky kitties! Thanks so much for being my first one word interview victim, Diann. Now here is more about Diann and her books.

Originally from northern Utah, Diann Thornley wrote her first story at the age of five and never stopped writing. She taught herself to type—with two fingers—on her father’s ancient manual typewriter at the age of six because it was faster than pushing a pencil. After winning a statewide writing contest, junior high division, at the age of fourteen, she began her first novel, which was based on the Arthurian legends. This endeavor filled most of her high school years and freshman year of college, until a handful of friends introduced her to science fiction by “kidnapping” her to go see an obscure little movie called Star Wars. The rest, as they say, is history.

Ganwold’s Child, first book of the The Sergey Chronicles, took seven years to complete, due to completing college and entering the U.S. Air Force. Following a year-long tour of duty in the Republic of Korea, Diann finished Ganwold’s Child while stationed at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. Echoes of Issel and Dominion’s Reach, the second and third books in the Sergey trilogy, were also written in Ohio.

Diann transitioned into the Air Force Reserves following Desert Storm, but her military career spanned 23 years and included deployments to Bosnia and Iraq. In December 2000 she married Jon Read, NASA rocket scientist and martial artist, and moved to Texas. Diann retired from the Air Force in June 2009 to return to her writing career and spend more time with Jon.

Check out Diann’s website, find her on Facebook follow her blog, “Hero Journeys,” and on Twitter, and find her books on Amazon. Diann is also on Goodreads.

The Sergey Chronicles

When Tor Books originally published this trilogy in the late 1990s it was called The Saga of the Unified Worlds. It would have been more accurate to call it The Sergey Chronicles because it is, more than anything else, the story of one warrior family—Admiral Lujan Ansellic Sergey, his combat surgeon wife Captain Darcie Dartmuth, and their teenage son, Tristan Sergey—who become caught at the fulcrum of interstellar politics and the demands of their military duty. Wrenched apart and scattered across the galaxy by the brutalities of war, they face captivity, torture, coercion, and epic space battles to be reunited. Only then do their most devastating challenges begin. Having been separated by decades of time as well as lightyears of distance, each of them must confront his or her internal demons to make their family truly whole again, and to defeat a new and more insidious threat to their civilization. Between deadly special operations missions and scenes of deep-cover political intrigue runs a thread that proves how much one family can accomplish with patience, forgiveness, trust, dedication, and unity of purpose. The Sergey Chronicles are all available on Kindle and will be available on Nook in early March.

“In the past, when I considered important women writers of military science fiction, three names have stood out most prominently: C.J. Cherryh, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Elizabeth Moon. Now I will add Diann Thornley [Read] to my list. With each novel, it becomes more and more evident just how important she has become to this field.” (Dave Wolverton, NYT best-selling author of The Courtship of Princess Leia and, as David Farland, The Runelords series.)

 

The Seventh Shaman

Only Akuleh can see ghosts of the past that warn of the future. But he must want to see.

Akuleh’s mother died giving birth to him.

His Chanter father died when Akuleh was twelve, struck by lightning as he performed the Storm Stilling Chant.

Only three months ago, Akuleh watched in horror, too far away to prevent it, as a younger brother died in an accident.

Now his abusive stepmother is calling him Death Bringer.  Machitew.  The Evil-Hearted One. “Is that the prophecy in my Birth Chant?” Akuleh wonders. If it is, he can’t stay. He must leave before anyone else he cares about is killed.

In Running from the Gods: Wanderer, 16-year-old Akuleh (aka Ku) leaves his desert home and shamanic way of life on the violent planet Tempest to defy the meanest Instructor Pilot in the known universe, challenge older rivals who have no qualms about killing to earn the Distinguished Graduate medal, and win the heart of the green-eyed beauty Derry MaCalder, from the distant world Ardonar. But can he outrun his people’s gods, the Ancients, and escape the prophecy in his Birth Chant?

In Running from the Gods: Warrior, Ku advances from pilot training to a fighter squadron and is shoved into the harsh realities of war. The shadow of Machitew, the Death Bringer, looms over him as combat losses mount around him. Then Ku is shot down over occupied territory and wounded. Between evading cannibalistic enemy troops and assisting a pair of refugees, Ku receives a vision that reveals the meaning of the prophecy in his Birth Chant and changes everything, not only for himself but for Derry, too.

Running from the Gods is currently in the revision process, with an anticipated release in early 2014. The first draft of the third book in the series, Shaman Rising, is also well under way. 

The Hard Way

I wanted to write a novel in a hundred days.

I started in December, oh about sixty days ago.

So, I am 60% through the novel?

Um, no.

I'm not even a quarter of the way through the novel yet.

But I have learned something.

I can't change my whole writing technique overnight. I really thought with a good helping of determination, and cheering on from my friends, I could just sit down and write 1000 words a day. No problem. Guess what? I can't. At least not consistently.

It's tempting to beat myself up about this. Tell myself how lazy and horrible I must be. But that's not helpful. Besides, it has nothing to do with laziness. It has to do with changing ingrained habits and learning to turn off (or at least turn down) the inner editor. It's not as easy as I thought.

Instead I have adjusted my goals to allow time for change. For now, I just want to write a little more each week than I did the week before. For January, this worked pretty well. I went from 7.5 pages the first week to 10.5 pages, to 13 pages, to 19 pages. Not bad.

Last week totally kicked me in the teeth with a rotten illness, but I still managed 11 pages. Considering how bad I felt, I counted it as a victory.

This week? Well, I'm ready to take it on!

And you know something? I'm still going to have this novel finished way faster than I've ever finished before, even if it's not as fast as I'd hoped.