The Desk

We recently had some windows replaced in our house and we needed to move stuff out of the way so the workers could actually get to the windows. I also realized that there would be dust involved, so I wanted to cover what I could. In the end, I decided to remove everything from my desk.

Wow.

It's amazing what kind of stuff accumulates on a desk (or any surface where you might set things you intend to put away later). It was almost like an archaeological dig! I found a list of possible titles for the series of my novels ("Penumbra" was second on the list). I found random notes of plot ideas or character studies. I found sketches for the videos. I found a list of possible ship names. I found a list of Amazon rankings for Outsider (the highest is 241,491 and the lowest is over 2 million).

Not all of it was book-related. I found a great photo of my co-workers (taken two years ago), some Dilbert cartoons, a scribbled note about an elliptical machine I was considering two or three years ago, a Kansas bird list and a nice postcard of the Colorado Rockies.

It was pretty easy to shove all of it in drawers or a bag before the window guys arrived. It wasn't so easy to take it all out and decide what to do with it after they left. In fact, the bag sat in the living room for a week before I worked up the courage to open it.

I recycled a lot of it. I filed some of it. And I started a new stack of "I don't know what else to do with this" items on the corner of the desk.

There's a lot less clutter than there was before. Let's see how long that can last.
In the meantime, if I need a new ship name, I know where to look!

Closet Spaceship Part 13

[NOTE: This installment contains a spoiler. If you haven’t read Another Shot yet, I suggest you read it before this blog.]

I’m sure Captain Lamont knew when I was aboard, and he didn’t go out of his way to avoid me, but he didn’t exactly seek me out either … until one day he did.

I was leaning toward a porthole in the dock area, trying to cup my hands tightly around my face so I could see the stars outside instead of reflections from the dock lights.

“You could turn off the lights,” said a voice behind me.

I have to admit that I jumped. I hadn’t heard anyone in the corridor.

“I’m supposed to be an observer,” I said, although I’d just proved how unobservant I can be.

“Is that all?” he asked.

“A recorder,” I said. “And a listener, I guess.”

I could tell he had something on his mind, but I didn’t want to scare him off so I pretended not to notice.

Lamont approached me. “Listening can be useful.”

“So can talking,” I said.

“Sometimes that’s true,” the captain said. “I want to thank you for not letting your visits become too disruptive. I think if you can keep that up, the crew might be a little less skittish.”

“I hope so.” I decided not to tell him about Sean. No need to advertise my spectacular failure there.

Lamont smiled. “Someday you might tell me how you won Nick over.”

“I don’t know that I really—wait a minute,” I said. I didn’t remember seeing the captain anywhere when I talked to Nick.

“I tend to pay attention when there’s shouting in the corridor,” Lamont said.

“Oh,” I said. So much for not being disruptive. “Sorry.”

The captain took a few steps and turned off the lights. “Have a look.”

I turned to stare at the porthole and I think I just sighed. No matter how many times I see it, that view will never get old. I wish I could describe how many stars there were or how beautiful it was with all of the glittering dots of colored light against a black that wanted to swallow them but couldn’t.

“Some people never look at that,” Lamont said. “I try to do it at least once a day.”

I nodded, although he probably couldn’t see me.

“May I ask you something?” he said in a quiet voice.

“Of course,” I said, mostly because it’s what he would have said, but also because I sensed that this was important.

“Some of the crew members have asked me,” he said. “They want to know if you can do anything … I mean, change anything that’s happened.”

Now I could understand why Lamont turned off the lights: I couldn’t see his face. Reggie would want to make Sean part of the crew, Mark would want me to give him more confidence, Nick would like me to fill up his bank account … but they weren’t the ones who were really asking.

“Oh,” I said. It was a tough question. I mean, I could change what I’ve written, but it wouldn’t be true to my characters or the story. So, in a way, I really couldn’t change it.

But how do you explain that? Especially when the captain is asking you to bring his close friend back to life, no matter how indirectly he’s asking. How do you tell him you won’t do it?

I lied: “No, I’m sorry. I can’t change what’s already happened. I only observe.”

After a moment, he said, “I’ll pass that along.”

I heard his footsteps walking toward the corridor and I didn’t have the heart to say any more. I turned to look at the view again, thinking that somehow I didn’t deserve it.

But then I thought about it some more. We’ve all known writers who’ve brought seemingly-dead characters back to life, whether it was for a book, a TV show or a movie, with varied success. Sometimes it seems forced, the writer bowing to the wishes of the readers/viewers.

Now I wonder how many writers have bowed to the wishes of another character.

The footsteps stopped.

“I’m sorry,” the captain said. “I shouldn’t have asked you that.”

“I understand why you did,” I said, “but please don’t do it again.”

He turned on the lights so I could see his face. “I promise.”

Then he was gone.

New Horizons

This is the week that New Horizons will fly by Pluto and we'll have the first close look at it in history. I think that's pretty exciting!

There have been images released already, but this week's images should be better and give scientists much more information about the dwarf planet. Who knows what they will learn?

Here's a site by the Planetary Society that gives more information about what will be happening this week, as well as links to other sites that will have news about the flyby: New Horizons Info

So what will it mean to us? For me, it's the equivalent of when you're taking a hike in the mountains and you see that the trail curves ahead of you. You might have been hiking for a while, you might have a vague idea of what's around that curve ... but you can't know for sure. How many of you would turn back with a shrug and say, "Oh, it can't be anything that new or exciting"? And how many of you would realize you can't lose: no matter what you see, even if it's not new, it should be worth a look?

I'm definitely in the latter camp. Maybe Pluto is a chunk of rock. Maybe there won't be any amazing features (like the so-called "face" on Mars). But it's still something we've never seen before! It's like when you visit an art gallery for the first time: some art you'll like, some you won't, but you'll enjoy exploring it because it's new. Maybe Pluto isn't a work of art, but I'm willing to take a look.

Speaking of new, I've added a new page to my blog. I am certainly not an authority on writing or publishing, but I've learned a few things along the way. Every once in a while, I try to share what I've learned, because other writers have done the same and helped me. So if you look to the right under Pages, you'll see the new one: Advice for Writers. If it helps only one writer, I'll be happy with that.

Thanks again for reading.

Independence Day Update

Happy Independence Day!

I have a few updates. First of all, on Monday I got the official Certificate of Registration for In the Shadows from the U.S. Copyright Office. That's always cause for celebration! It's a lot of fun to pull the paper out of the envelope and unfold it to see my name and the novel's title there on the official certificate. I have three of them now, and I'd like to collect more in the future.

To that end, I'm working on the fourth novel, The Other Side, this weekend. Chapter 15 is causing me no end of trouble because it's one of those chapters that's particularly difficult to write. It's more introspective than action-packed, which I sometimes struggle to get right. I'm going to keep working on it, though.

I've also been working on some other things. I added a sample of Outsider to the iAuthor site (you can see it here: Outsider on iAuthor). I also signed up for Ask the Author on goodreads.com, so people can ask me questions about my novels and writing (you can see my profile and my first answer here: Diane on Goodreads). I've been trying to post interesting things on Facebook and I got a good response to my post there about the copyright registration (here's my page: Diane's FB Page).

I'm also writing a piece of fiction for this blog (Closet Spaceship) and I've opened a file for a possible sixth novel in the series. (Don't get too excited about that last one because I don't know if it will go anywhere, but at least it's a start, right?)

So that's what I've been up to this weekend! Three-day weekends are the best.

Happy summer!

Browsing for Books

Today I had a fun experience that I hadn't enjoyed for a while: I went into a bookstore and browsed.

I've always loved to read, but I'm afraid I haven't done as much of it as I should have for the past several years, mostly because I've been spending a lot of time writing, editing and trying to get noticed. I still enjoy scanning a shelf, though, letting my eyes guide me to something interesting, so it was nice to have the opportunity again, thanks to my local bookstore, Spellbound. (And yes, I walked out of there with three books.)

Some people don't have a local bookstore, sadly, and this is becoming more common. So what should you do if this is the case? You can try a site like amazon.com, but you kind of have to know what you want there. Most of the time, book shopping isn't a matter of knowing what you want in advance.

Thanks to Facebook, I have found a website that can help. If you like to browse through books without exactly knowing what you want, this is the place: iAuthor
(It's based in the U.K. but has authors from the U.S. as well.)

The fun thing about this site is that you can search for books by either genre or theme. There is an amazing variety of themes, too: Fiction written in the first person singular, Books with a fiendishly clever twist, Female Protagonist, Funny Mysteries & Crime Fiction, etc. When you select a theme, you will see a whole page of book covers (and you can click on 'More" at the bottom). When you hover over a cover (wow, look at that fun phrase!), you can see a blurb on most of them. If you click on the cover, you can see all sorts of information about the book, the author, how to buy it, how many people liked the cover or the blurb, and how many people have recommended it. You can also learn more about the author.

I'm afraid I could get lost in there, but that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Give it a try sometime.

In case you're interested, you can find my novels in the themes Character-Driven Sci-Fi, Science Fiction and Space. I'll probably add them to more themes when I can. It's another way I hope to get my novels discovered.

I hope you'll take a look. Who knows? You might find your next favorite book!

Remember Your Readers

I was browsing on Facebook today when I ran across a site that had posted a list of 10 rules for writers. It mentioned reading, outlining and not waiting for inspiration, among other things. As you can imagine, it inspired a lot of comments from writers who agreed or disagreed with one or more of the rules. Most of the comments were very thought-provoking and insightful.

One of them, however, made me roll my eyes and shake my head. The person stated that creativity is more important than grammar or spelling. As if to prove the point, the person used "your" instead of "you're" and randomly inserted commas in inappropriate places in the sentences.

Sigh.

I'll be the first to admit that I throw words at paper without worrying whether they're what I want, spelled correctly or even coherent, but that's why it's called a rough draft. After that, it's my job to make sense out of it ... so my readers can make sense of it.

I'm a writer because I love to write, but I never forget that I intend for someone else to read what I write, so I need to keep that person in mind as I polish the rough draft. I can't expect someone to read gibberish.

All writers should remember this:
If you don't care about your readers, they'll know it.
If you don't care about your readers, why should they care about you or your writing?

Write for yourself, but edit for your readers.

On My Own ... For Now

I came home from work this past week to find a message on my answering machine. Before we get to the message: yes, I have an answering machine! No, I don't have a smartphone yet. (Insert amazed gasp from the audience here.)

I guess it's ironic that I write science fiction, which involves changes in technology that I haven't always embraced myself. My characters fly in a spaceship and I'm still using an answering machine. I never said I always make sense!

Anyway, the message was rather hard to understand but it appeared to be a publishing company. This gave me an instant rush of excitement: this was my big break! Next stop, New York Times Bestseller List! Fortunately, I do have some common sense, so I looked up the company online. I then realized it was not a publishing company, but a publishing service. They want me to pay them to format, design and market my book. (I'm not going to name the company since I decided not to go with them.) Thanks, but no thanks.

It made me think, though. If an actual publishing company called, would I go with them? At first, I thought, "Heck, yes!" But then I thought more about it. It's true that my marketing attempts are feeble and would be wildly improved by a national publisher, but that's one of the few benefits they could offer. Right now, I control my future and my novels. No one else has told me how to format the next novel or when to release it. No one else has told me what to blog about or what I need to put on my Facebook page. No one else has told me what my next story should involve. Those are the advantages of self-publishing.

I'm definitely not saying I wouldn't change my mind. If anyone at Tor is reading this, for example, I'd love to hear from you! But you'd better have a very good offer. The one thing a big publisher could do for me is this: they could spread the word and interest a whole new group of readers. I'd like that.

For now, I'm on my own. And that's okay.

For those of you who have been asking, I'm hoping to release the next novel in January. Thanks for your continued patience!

P.S. Happy Flag Day!