Elaine Corvidae

12:41 pm: Just Plain Bad
So I've sent in my edits for my short story to appear in Bad-Ass Faeries II: Just Plain Bad. They were only about an hour's worth of work, but I spent far more time than that trying to come up with a new title (something more "Holmesian" to fit the story better) until giving up and begging Danielle for help. So now the story is called "A Clear-Cut Case," which fits the black humor of the tale.

I'd really like to write more about the two characters in it, Sorcha--an unseelie faeling--and Beth, her seelie companion. They were fun to write, and I think Sorcha has a lot more to say. But I'm holding off and seeing what reaction there is to them first. So after the book comes out, if anyone does like them--or want the very memory of their existence scrubbed from the earth--let me know.

The book is launching at Balticon, which is Memorial Day Weekend. I utterly adore Balticon. The people are great, the hotel and staff are wonderful (they act like they actually want our business, unlike other con hotels I've been to), the panels are fun, and you just can't beat the Short Film Festival. There's also a masquerade, but I've yet to make it due to scheduling conflicts. Perhaps this year!

Tags: bad-ass faeries, shadow fae, writing

10:54 am: The Importance of Being a Villain
The Importance of Being a Villain

I had a startling revelation in the shower the other morning (this is normal for me—the shower is where I do my best thinking at times). As some of you may know, I’m working on another Shadow Fae book, whether some weird follow-up (4th book in the trilogy!) or the start of a second series I haven’t yet decided. It had been given me some trouble, but I recently had a breakthrough, went back, erased a couple thousand words, and forged off in a new direction.

The revelation was that it had been giving me trouble because I didn’t have a good handle on the villain. Actually, I didn’t really even know villain’s identity, outside of some very vague ideas that turned out to be totally wrong. Then I realized that every time I’ve had trouble with a book—major trouble, not just stuck on a passage—it’s been because I didn’t understand the villain well enough.

I rewrote about 2/3rds of Winter’s Orphans after completing the first draft because I’d mistaken the villain for someone else. The Crow Queen gave me fits, until I realized that the other lords weren’t just minor antagonists, but the main villains who needed to get off their butts and start being evil for the story to progress. Sorceress Star stalled again and again, not because I didn’t know Melilandra was the main villain, but because I didn’t understand her well enough. Once I went back and wrote her story in flashback, everything became clear and the story breezed along.

Conversely, Tyrant Moon was a dream to write, because I understood both main villains, Balthazar and Blood on the Wind, extremely well before I ever started on the first chapter. Likewise with Dragon’s Son; by that time, Jahcgroth and Fellrant were both known quantities, so even though they don’t appear much in the actual book, their off-screen actions are critical.

Maybe it’s because I already know my protagonists well enough before I even sit down to write that they don’t give me that sort of trouble. But I suspect it’s because the villains often drive the action—they cause the problems that the heroes have to sort out. Either way, next time I sit down to write, I’ll know not to type out “chapter one” until I have just as good a handle on the villains as the heroes.

Tags: writing

05:29 pm: Solstice Swag
We exchanged solstice presents yesterday. I got Angel season 5 DVDs, Pirates of the Caribbean 3 DVD, and an air pistol. Oh, and some chocolate. Yay!

09:13 pm: My Laser Kitty
As some of you might know, our cat Fermi has been having medical issues. To make a long story short, he has a weird ulcerated area on the hard palate that has resisted both diagnosis and treatment until recently. After being referred to a specialist, we've been referred to another specialist. Yesterday, they removed the inflammed tissue with an laser. Once that heals, they'll try to figure out if it's an allergy, since it isn't cancer, a bacterial infection, or a fungal infection. For right now, we're having to give his fluids and syringe-feed him twice a day. :(

06:00 pm: Finally!
I finally got off my butt and redid my website. I've had all the pieces in place for months now, but lacked the time to do it.

Our truck, which I "immortalized" in my story "Rain on the Mountain" is once again refusing to run. It briefly caught on fire yesterday, but fortunately only one wire burned, and we were able to replace that. We also replaced the battery. Both these at least result in attempts to crank now, but there's no spark at the spark plugs.

In other news, it's our 8th wedding anniversary today. We've been together 17 years as of last November. That's almost half my life! Believe me, as weird as this may seem to others, it seems even more so to me. In a good way. :-)

12:04 pm: Nothing But Red
I've finished the first draft of my submission for Nothing But Red. I'm shaking from reaction, and I feel like I might throw up, but it's done. I don't know if it's any good, but it's done.

Tags: charity, equality, writing

07:23 am: Faerie Con
Well, here I am in the hotel room before my first day at FaerieCon! The con started yesterday, but unfortunately we got stuck in traffic on I-76 and didn't make it until after the floor closed. On the other hand, we saw a bunch of people in costume checking into the hotel, so I suspect that we aren't the only ones. I've already seen some gorgeous masks and other costumes--I'll drag my camera with me this morning and take lots of pics to share with everyone!

Also, after checking in, we were waiting on an elevator with three other people, and I recognized one of them as none other than Brian Froud! I honestly expected him to be surrounded by dozens of people, and so at first was wondering if I was wrong. However, I managed to stammer out a few words, and shook his hand before the elevator had to arrive on our floor. I'm sure he thought I was a complete idiot. ;-)

Tags: cons

10:50 pm: I Love TextEdit
So I spent most of the day beating my head against the wall, trying to make the html version of the Exile's Burn ebook. I want to offer it at least in PDF and html, and I'm going to try to convert to Plucker, PalmDoc, iSilo, and anything I can either figure out or have someone else do for me. Anyway, you'd think html would be simple, except for trying to convert out of Word, which loads down html with all sorts of unnecessary crapola. Dreamweaver has a function to strip some of the junk out, but unfortunately it wants to bomb when it comes to large files. To make a long story short, I spent several hours yesterday and today trying to make the file a reasonable size, with only necessary coding. My progress was incremental, until it occurred to me to open the file in TextEdit and save it from there...and voila!!!

In other news, I submitted my BAFII story, tentatively titled "Desperate Feast."

Tags: bad-ass faeries, exile's burn, writing

01:25 pm: BAF II
Whoo! I just finished the first draft of my submission for Bad-Ass Faeries II. The story takes place in the world of Shadow Fae--in Pook's hometown of Gloachamuir, actually--but introduces two completely new characters. I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.

Tags: shadow fae, writing

12:49 pm: Exile's Burn Print
I uploaded the files to Lulu this afternoon, so in a couple of weeks I should have the proofs for the Exile's Burn print versions. Hopefully everything will look good, and I won't have to scramble to fix anything in time to have the books available in December (for those who want a print version, that is--the ebook will always be free).

Tags: exile's burn, writing

01:01 pm: Siren Songs Submission
I finally sent in my submission for Siren Songs, called "A Fool for Love" (yes, I suck at titles!). It came in at 2,462 words, probably the shortest thing I've ever written, lol.

09:53 am: Unreliable Narrator Story
I'm polishing up a story to submit to the Siren Songs anthology. This will be the first story I've written with an "unreliable narrator," which surprises me a bit when I think about it. After all, I grew up reading Poe and Lovecraft, so it would seem natural that I would have at least one story where the narrator is totally off his nut. (Not that a lot of my characters aren't off their nuts, just not in the "unreliable narrator" fashion.) I haven't written a lot of first person, though, which might explain it.

Anyway, it was fun to write. :-) Now if only I could figure out a title for the accursed thing.

Next I have to decide what to write for Bad Ass Faeries 2 and Nothing But Red.

11:20 am: Prince of Ash
I found out this weekend that Prince of Ash won the 2006 Dream Realm Award for Fantasy. Whee! Here's my pretty new icon:

08:53 pm: Yay me!
After a kind of lousy day (see previous post) I am jazzed to find out that I won an ARC of Jeri Smith-Ready's Voice of Crow. If you haven't read her Eyes of Crow, you absolutely should. Okay, so there was a reason to get out of bed this morning! ;-)

12:05 pm: No Water
I've spent the last few days doing a final pass-through of Exile's Burn before I send it to my editor. Things are going a bit slowly, and the fact that the well pump seems to have died isn't helping. I hopped in the shower this morning, and noticed that the water pressure was getting lower...and lower...and lower...until it was almost gone. Of course, at this point I was completely lathered up.

I looked around for any leaks, but since I haven't found any, I'm guessing that the pump has died yet again. I believe we're on our third now. It will probably be Sunday before we can work on replacing it (in theory I could call a plumber, but I'm too cheap if it's something we can fix ourselves), so I ran out to the store and bought some water for drinking and sponge-bathing. I think the hardest thing will be washing my hair. I guess I should be grateful that it's so thin that there isn't too much of it. ;-)

Fortunately, we live on several wooded acres, and I enjoy camping, so digging a small latrine isn't an issue. Of course, this did bring to light how horribly dry it is here; the soil is bone-dry no matter how far down you dig. With temperatures topping 100 degrees F(about 38 C), the plant life is seriously starting to wilt.

09:07 pm: Harry Potter - NO SPOILERS
I finished HP 7 today, and I just wanted to share my general reactions. The book was nothing like I expected it to be, and yet it was better than I ever hoped. There were things I guessed and was right about, and things I never saw coming, but which felt almost inevitable when they did, because I could look back and suddenly see that the story has been leading up to them all along.

I think it's safe to say that Rowling told the story her way. Ever since book 4, I've felt that she would do whatever the story required, and she did. She never pulls her punches; the story goes into some dark and gritty places, and she follows without blinking.

Now I just have to restrain myself from rereading it immediately, so that my husband can read it. :-)

11:31 am: What's Going on with Elaine?
I know I've been MIA for some time now. A lot of crappy stuff happened to me in March, and I sort of fell off the face of the earth for a while. But now I'm back!

Since my last post, both The Sundered Stone and Bad-Ass Faeries have been released. I'm also now involved in an upcoming anthology, Nothing But Red, and I've been invited to participate in two other anthologies as well.

My biggest news, at least to me, is that I'm reaching the end of Exile's Burn. As of this writing, I'm going back through the book on the computer and fixing/self-editing. I need to do some major rewrites of Chapter 45, and I still need to write the epilogue as well. Once that's done, I'll go through the book yet again, on paper this time. I'll also start looking for an editor to hire. After the book is edited, it will remain online as a free ebook, but a print version (and possibly a deluxe ebook version) will be made available through Lulu.

Um, and that's about it. The exciting life of an author!

02:48 pm: Bad-Ass Faeries
I just got word that an anthology I'm involved in, Bad-Ass Faeries, is officially a go and is headed for print. My contribution is a little story called "Hollow Dreams," featuring none other than Pook from the Shadow Fae series.

More information as it becomes available, but for now, check out the gorgeous cover by Amy Brown.

09:57 pm: 10 Weird Things About Me
Dionne Galace tagged me to do this...

1. If one of my coworkers says "Ewww, gross!", I'm guaranteed to run over and look at whatever is so disgusting.
2. I have almost never owned more than three pairs of shoes at a time.
3. I take characters who would almost certainly be secondary characters if someone else was writing the book, and make them the hero/heroine.
4. I have multiple piercings in places that aren't my ears (hey, some people do think that's weird).
5. I love goth bois in skirts.
6. I collect boxes, but I don't actually put anything in them.
7. I don't watch television except for Discovery Channel, TLC, History Channel, and PBS.
8. I still read Disney's Uncle Scrooge comics.
9. I have played songs by The Cure when decorating the Christmas Tree, and still think it's appropriate Christmas music.
10. I sometimes dance with my cats.

10:21 am: Author Spotlight and a New Review
I'm in the spotlight at Nights and Weekends Ezine this month. There's an interview where I ramble a lot, plus a new review of The Ghost Eater.

Tags: writing