My First Zoom Class

This last Thursday, I did my first Zoom meeting, speaking to a class full of college students who'd read my story "Staying Afloat." I was nervous, but excited, and felt kind of boingy about it. :) I didn't get much sleep the night before, with my mind racing with thoughts about what I was going to talk about, how I was going to explain things and in what order, how I'd answer questions, and how I'd explain the assignment I planned to give the students at the end.

I had no idea how this was going to work, on a practical level, which was where some of the stress was coming from. On the whole I felt positive about it, but any kind of stress, positive or negative, can mess with your sleep, so when I dragged my butt out of bed after like two or three hours' worth max, I made myself a mug of high-octane tea and went for it.

There was a last minute glitch that was kind of funny. I had the link to click on to get into the class "meeting," and planned to log in about ten minutes early. Good thing, because when I clicked on the link, it asked me for an access code. Umm, what?

Quick e-mail to the professors, and one of them got back to me in a minute or two saying to hang on, that he'd find it. Couple minutes later, I had the access code, yay! Apparently one of the students, who'd also logged in early, had found it. Dr. Matt said he'd get a million extra credit points, LOL! I'm assuming that if you have a regular meeting like a class, you put your code in once and then your computer or the Zoom system or whatever remembers it for you, so Dr. Matt didn't remember the code from back whenever the semester started. Day saved by a tech-savvy student. :)

 The presentation went great. Looking back, my brain is trying to convince me I spent at least half the time babbling incoherently, but going by the responses from both the students and the professors at the end, that part was apparently all in my head. I introduced myself very briefly, then talked about how I came to write "Staying Afloat."

Dr. Tamara had asked me to talk some about research, so I explained about the Anthology Workshop, what the guidelines were, and how I approached coming up with a story idea that fit the guidelines. A lot of the info I used in the story came out of my head, from a unit we did in sixth grade on the pre-Columbian Latin American civilizations, from my high school freshman science class, and from a college geology class. I explained what I Googled and what I was looking for, and how I used the info I found.

I talked about the writing itself, as well. Apparently a lot of the students are interested in fiction writing, and pretty much all the student questions, which were pretty much the second half of the two-hour class, were about different aspects of writing. So I talked about creative brain versus critical brain, and about how writing six stories teaches you a lot more than writing one story and rewriting it five times. And how "polishing" your story with a copy of S&W or CMS in one hand is a horribly bad idea for fiction writing.

Plus a bunch of other stuff. Nowhere near as much as I'd have liked to mention, but I tried to get in as much as I could in the time allowed, considering there were other things we had to do and only two hours to do it.

I talked about some business stuff too, although not too much, because we just didn't have time.

I got the obligatory question about writer's block, and I answered that as best as I could, explaining about writing block versus project block, and some methods I use to keep writing even if I'm blocked on a project, and a (very labor intensive) method I've used to unblock a project, although it's kind of a pain and I haven't done it often.

In all seriousness, I'd like to just be able to teach a class on this. Not that I'm the most successful or experienced writer in the world, and I'm still learning and always will be, but there's so incredibly much info I wish I had when I was twenty, and I'd love to be able to pass it on, you know?

Oh, and I was incredibly glad I'd grabbed my water bottle before sitting down. I'm not used to talking this much, and my mouth was drying out after like ten or fifteen minutes. We took a short break after an hour, and I refilled my bottle. Definitely got my hydration in that day.

I could only see a few photos of other meeting participants in the window, although there were supposed to be about eighteen of us there. I didn't want to mess with controls in the middle of class for fear of messing something up, so I never did see most of the students, but I did see some folks laughing at times when I'd hoped they would, and I saw people taking notes, occasionally lots of notes, so that felt good.

I'd made up a cheat sheet of things I wanted to talk about, so I could keep kind of on track and hit things in some kind of logical order, but I found that looking over at the cheat sheet -- even after having printed it out in 14 pt. type, for extra visibility -- was more disruptive than useful. I'll probably do it again next time, but now at least I know now to depend on it. Yay for lots of random experimentation and rehearsals -- aside from disrupting my sleep, I spent a lot of time subvocalizing explainations and such while walking back and forth, getting my steps. That meant I'd worked out how to explain a lot of things, with relevant examples and comparisons, in the week or more before the session, and even if I wasn't looking down at my cheat sheet very often, I found the info I wanted was usually in my head, so that worked out.

The assignment I gave them toward the end of class was to download a (fake) anthology guideline, and come up with an idea for a story they'd write to submit to that book. I asked for 300-500 words, just the basics -- who the character was, what they wanted, why they couldn't have it, and what they were going to do to try to get it anyway. Since the class is about climate change in media and literature, I made the anthology about a post-global-warming world, so I said I wanted to know how far in the future their story was set, and what the new normal looked like. I didn't necessarily want the protag to be trying to solve the climate change problem, but I wanted the changed climate to have a significant impact on the plot. I also pointed out that the first thing the protag tries to solve their big problem doesn't necessarily have to be the one that works, and probably shouldn't be the one that works, explaining try-fail cycles and how the improve a story.

One student had his assignment in the next day, Friday, with a very nice note thanking me for talking to the class and saying how much it meant to him. That was pretty awesome, and made me feel good. :) I gave them a deadline of Monday at noon, and I'll start reading and writing up comments then.

Oh, and I said I'd read and comment on up to two story ideas per student, although they were only required to do one. I remember when I was a new writer, one of the huge problems seemed to be coming up with story ideas. Newbie writers seem to think that the one good story idea they have right now is the only one they'll ever have, and that causes a host of other problems, so the point of the assignment was to give them practice coming up with story ideas. I also mentioned the Ursula LeGuin thing about how, when you're writing to a theme, every other writer will also think of your first idea, half the writers will think of your second idea, a few other writers will think of your third idea, and finally with maybe the fourth and probably the fifth, you'll think of some things the editor won't see from a bunch of other people. I've gotten two assignments so far, and they've each had only one story idea. I'm hoping at least a few students take advantage of the opportunity to get comments on more than one. [crossed fingers] 

The plan is to read and comment on each story idea individually, then write some comments that'll go to everyone on the whole mass. I'm expecting there to be some overlap. I told them that if I got the same idea from ten different people, I'd definitely let them all know. :) But the plan is to talk about how editors choose stories for a theme anthology, how subthemes can emerge as you choose which stories you want to publish, how everything has to fit together and how you can end up rejecting some great stories you really love because they don't fit with the other stories you're putting into the book. I've never edited an anthology myself, mind you, but I've watched editors do it in front of my many, many times, so I can at least pass on what I've learned. It's certainly helped me understand the inner workings of anthology submission and response. And now, when an anthology editor tells me, "I had enough good stories for four books, but I can only publish one, and I'm really sorry to reject this," I actually believe them. I'll admit I didn't before; I thought they were just being nice. [wry smile]

Anyway, this whole experience was pretty darned cool, and I have another gig for the fall, when Dr. Tamara and Dr. Matt are teaching this class again. Definitely looking forward to it. :D

Angie

PS: I'm filling this under "appearance," among other things, even though I never left home. Because plague times. Close enough. :)

New Release -- The Executive Lounge

My romance persona, Angela Benedetti, just released a new book called The Executive Lounge.

This is a novel, a contemporary romance about 60K words long, set in Silicon Valley.

* * *
Rob Arvazian just graduated with an engineering Bachelor's and an MBA, and landed a dream job as the personal assistant to a hot Silicon Valley CEO. Emphasis on hot -- personally, as well as in the business world. The tiny financial aid clerk in Rob's brain is telling him to just do his job and start paying down his loans, but other parts of his body are wishing the gaze Nick Castle turned on him was more dominant and less businesslike.

Getting involved with your boss is stupid, Rob knows that. But he's only had casual play partners before -- never someone who was his. And it feels like Nick could fit perfectly into that part of Rob's life.

Is it worth taking a chance and hanging his whole life on one strong, sexy man?

This is a heavily plotty BDSM romance, about 60,000 words long.

E-book on Amazon
E-book on Kobo
E-book on iTunes
E-book on Barnes & Noble

UPDATE: The book is live on B&N, yay! It still doesn't have a summary blurb [sigh] but it's there, and if you're here, you can read the summary blurb above. :)

I'm on a Children's Fiction Rec List

Read Me A Story, Ink has included my story "Dragon's Hoard" as a five-star read on its list of stories to read aloud to kids, in the grade 5-8 category. Thanks to Dave Henderson, whose story "Dragon Jet Propulsion" is also on the list, for posting about it on Facebook so I could find out about it.

Our stories were originally published in Wings of Change, edited by Lyn Worthen. "Green Camouflage" by Jamie Aldis, "The Soul By Which We Measure Ours" by C.H. Hung, "Of Dragons and Centaurs" by Deb Logan, and "Old Enough to Volunteer" by Laura Ware were also in Wings of Change, and included on the recommendation list. Lyn obviously put together an awesome anthology. :D

Pre-Order -- The Executive Lounge

My romance persona, Angela Benedetti, has a new book coming out in just over a week called The Executive Lounge.

This is a novel, a contemporary romance about 60K words long, set in Silicon Valley.

The Executive Lounge was originally written in 2013 for a special event the M/M Romance group on Goodreads did every summer. It was posted to their message boards, and then collected with two other longer works in an anthology that was available for free on ARe. ARe shut down several years ago, so I'm publishing it officially, with a few edits. (If you have the original free anthology, there are no substantial story changes; it's all sandpaper.)

It's set up on Amazon as a pre-order, and will release on the 15th, at which point I'll put it up on Kobo, B&N and Apple.

* * *
Rob Arvazian just graduated with an engineering Bachelor's and an MBA, and landed a dream job as the personal assistant to a hot Silicon Valley CEO. Emphasis on hot -- personally, as well as in the business world. The tiny financial aid clerk in Rob's brain is telling him to just do his job and start paying down his loans, but other parts of his body are wishing the gaze Nick Castle turned on him was more dominant and less businesslike.

Getting involved with your boss is stupid, Rob knows that. But he's only had casual play partners before -- never someone who was his. And it feels like Nick could fit perfectly into that part of Rob's life.

Is it worth taking a chance and hanging his whole life on one strong, sexy man?

This is a heavily plotty BDSM romance, about 60,000 words long.

E-book pre-order on Amazon

Washington Storming the Airports, Take 2

Reposting, since the first one had a broken link. :P

******
From Josh Palmatier at Zombies Need Brains press:

==========

In a fit of insanity, Zombies Need Brains has launched a spur-of-the-moment Kickstarter for an "absurd, surrealistic" alternate history anthology called RAMMING THE RAMPARTS, inspired by the President's July 4th speech which included the Army "taking over the airports" during the Revolution. What if there had been airports during that war? Absurd! George Washington was not a fighter pilot! There was no "Battle at LaGuardia Baggage Claim"! And yet...

This anthology asks authors to explore these and other absurd, surrealistic alternate histories. These DO NOT need to be based off of our current President's comments, either on July 4th or at any other time. However, I'd like to see at least a few stories based off of airports during the Revolution. I'd like to keep the stories set around that era, actually, so the 18th Century or so, although this is not a hard and fast rule.

Backers of this project will essentially be generating the base funds needed to produce an ebook of the anthology—including payment for the contributing authors, payment for the cover artist, production costs for producing the anthology, etc. Confirmed anchor authors include:



== Gerald Brandt


== David B. Coe


== Esther Friesner


== Elektra Hammond


== Nancy Holzner


== Rhondi Salsitz


== Steven H Silver


== Alan Smale


== Harry Turtledove

This is a "quick and dirty" Kickstarter from Zombies Need Brains, so at the moment there is no cover art. Stretch goals will include expansion of the anthology beyond the initial 9 authors to include stories from an open call and possibly a paperback version of the book. We offer professional pay rates. As we did in our previous anthologies, we plan to include the very best stories we can find, including an open submission window if the Kickstarter is successful and reaches certain stretch goals, where anyone can submit their stories featuring the current theme for a chance to be part of the anthology.

So, if you'd like to see an alternate history anthology with a mash-up of absurd historical facts, swing on by the Kickstarter and become a backer! This is only running for 7 days and the only way I can foresee this working out is if it somehow ends up going viral, so share it with your friends!

==========

I was a history major at uni, and I really want to write for this. :D The Kickstarter is only going for a week, so please share this and/or support the campaign! This is going to be awesome, folks!

Angie

Anthology! Washington Storming the Airports!

From Josh Palmatier at Zombies Need Brains press:

==========

In a fit of insanity, Zombies Need Brains has launched a spur-of-the-moment Kickstarter for an "absurd, surrealistic" alternate history anthology called RAMMING THE RAMPARTS, inspired by the President's July 4th speech which included the Army "taking over the airports" during the Revolution. What if there had been airports during that war? Absurd! George Washington was not a fighter pilot! There was no "Battle at LaGuardia Baggage Claim"! And yet...

This anthology asks authors to explore these and other absurd, surrealistic alternate histories. These DO NOT need to be based off of our current President's comments, either on July 4th or at any other time. However, I'd like to see at least a few stories based off of airports during the Revolution. I'd like to keep the stories set around that era, actually, so the 18th Century or so, although this is not a hard and fast rule.

Backers of this project will essentially be generating the base funds needed to produce an ebook of the anthology—including payment for the contributing authors, payment for the cover artist, production costs for producing the anthology, etc. Confirmed anchor authors include:



== Gerald Brandt


== David B. Coe


== Esther Friesner


== Elektra Hammond


== Nancy Holzner


== Rhondi Salsitz


== Steven H Silver


== Alan Smale


== Harry Turtledove

This is a "quick and dirty" Kickstarter from Zombies Need Brains, so at the moment there is no cover art. Stretch goals will include expansion of the anthology beyond the initial 9 authors to include stories from an open call and possibly a paperback version of the book. We offer professional pay rates. As we did in our previous anthologies, we plan to include the very best stories we can find, including an open submission window if the Kickstarter is successful and reaches certain stretch goals, where anyone can submit their stories featuring the current theme for a chance to be part of the anthology.

So, if you'd like to see an alternate history anthology with a mash-up of absurd historical facts, swing on by the Kickstarter and become a backer! This is only running for 7 days and the only way I can foresee this working out is if it somehow ends up going viral, so share it with your friends!

==========

I was a history major at uni, and I really want to write for this. :D The Kickstarter is only going for a week, so please share this and/or support the campaign! This is going to be awesome, folks!

Angie

New Release -- The Uncanny Valley

A new book -- my first to be indie published, yay! -- called The Uncanny Valley is finally available!

This is a novelette, a contemporary fantasy about 10K words long, set in Silicon Valley.

"Uncanny Valley" is part of a group project called The Uncollected Anthology. It started in 2015, with a group of writers who loved urban and contemporary fantasy and wanted to write for more theme anthologies in those areas. But putting an anthology together is a lot of work, and that work doesn't stop when the book comes out. Someone would have to play accountant, to collect sales data from the vendors, work out what everyone was owed, and make sure they all got paid regularly. Nobody wanted to do that.

Then Dayle Dermatis got the idea of doing an uncollected anthology, where they'd write to a theme, but each writer would publish their own story as a separate e-book. They could coordinate release dates, use a cover template so the stories all looked like they went together, and have everyone chip in on promoting the project.

Later on, when bundling became viable as a do-it-yourself process (mainly through BundleRabbit, which is a great service), they started collecting the Uncollected Anthology, so now if you want all the stories, you can buy an actual anthology of each of the thrice-yearly issues. Or you can buy one or more of the individual stories, whichever you prefer.


Individual story: "The Uncanny Valley:"

Darcy James, a Detective Sergeant with the recently-formed Uncanny Crime Division, always has more on her plate than there are hours in the day. Hysterical civilians are screaming "Magic!" every time they catch a cold or get a flat tire. Overdosing on a new uncanny drug called Turbo results in gruesome death. And what's up with the dogs commuting into downtown every day on the train?

Somehow Darcy has to figure out what's real and what's not in a world turned inside-out, hopefully before anyone else dies.

E-book on Amazon
E-book on Kobo
E-book on iTunes
E-book on Barnes & Noble

The whole anthology:

All sorts of things make their way into a city.

They come, they breed, they adapt. One day, you’re looking at a raccoon breaking into a garbage can.

The next day, you’re not sure what you’re looking at, but it has intelligent eyes, lizard scales, and tentacles.

Should you get rid of it, or try to tame it? Spray some repellant, set out cheese for a midnight snack, or set the whole city on fire?

Can you make friends? And if you can, will it be more trouble than it’s worth?

Or will it lead to something glorious?

E-book on Amazon
E-book on Kobo
E-book on iTunes
E-book on Barnes & Noble

New Release -- Wings of Change

A new anthology called Wings of Change released today!

Tales of wise, ancient dragons dispensing wisdom, hoarding treasure, terrorizing villages, and doing battle with noble heroes have long fascinated us. But dragons were not born old and wise, nor were heroes born brave and noble.

Wings of Change gathers tales of young dragons growing into their scales, and human youths making choices that shape their destinies -- destinies that will be forever changed by their interaction with the dragons.

My story in this book, "A Dragon's Hoard," is about a young dragon engaging on a rite of adulthood -- searching beyond the lands she knows for the first item that will form the basis of her adult hoard. Then things get weird....

This anthology contains:

"Scales of Lapis and Jasper" by Anj Dockrey
"The Greatest in Iceland" by Grayson Towler
"Trial by Fire" by Erin Fitzgerald
"Two Against the Skitters" by Jana S. Brown
"The Prize" by Melissa McShane
"The Shadow Dragon" by L.D.B. Taylor
"Care and Feeding" by Edward Ahern
"Old Enough to Volunteer" by Laura Ware
"Touch of the Silver Dragon" by Claire Davon
"Blossoms in the Desert" by Joni B. Haws
"Dragon's Hoard" by Angela Penrose
"A Most Unserious Dragon" by Annie Reed
"Dragon Jet Propulsion" by David H. Hendrickson
"Imuji" by Liz Pierce
"Green Camouflage" by Jamie Aldis
"Invincible" by Stephanie Barr
"Star Dragon" by C.M. Brennan
"The Soul By Which We Measure Ours" by C.H. Hung
"Of Dragons and Centaurs" by Deb Logan
"Claws of Change" by Deanna Baran
"The Last of a Thing" by Douglas Smith
"Saffron Dragon" by Jodi L. Milner
"A Dragon Bigger Than My Stories" by Jonathon Mast

E-book on Amazon
Paperback on Amazon
E-book on Kobo
E-book on iTunes
E-book on Barnes & Noble

Upcoming Release -- Cover!

I have a story in an up-coming anthology called Wings of Change. It's all about dragons, and it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun!

Currently scheduled to release on 28 February, here's the cover:

SF Workshop

I spent last week at a science fiction workshop taught by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. It was freaking awesome, and if she offers it again (probably not for a couple of years) I strongly urge any writer who's into SF to dive in.

We started on 1 January, which is when Kris sent us a reading list:

Asimov's SF Magazine, the Jan/Feb and Mar/Apr issues
Women of Futures Past Anthology
The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Novellas 2016
The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 1
Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation
Best American Science and Nature Writing 2016

There were some people in the class (out of fourteen students) who were writers but weren't familiar with SF, so one of the reasons for doing the reading was to get everyone on the same page about what SF is. A lot of people who try to use SF in their writing (like pretty much every single romance writer whose "futuristic romance" I've ever tried [sigh]) seem to think that if you watch Star Wars and Star Trek, there you go, you know all about SF and are ready to write it. Not so much. So reading all the anthologies and a couple issues of Asimov's gave us all some common ground. We took some time at each evening session to talk about one of the books/magazines, what we liked or didn't like, what surprised us. That also let us see how people's tastes differ.

A couple of weeks before the workshop, we got a story assignment. One of Kris's pet peeves with SF is aliens who are just humans with weird foreheads. (Glancing back at folks who think Star Trek will teach you everything you need to know about SF.) So she linked us to the Oregon Coast Aquarium's web site and asked us to write an SF story with a really alien alien, inspired by something on the Aquarium's site. I wanted to go way alien :) so I paid particular attention to the invertebrates. I read the description for the giant rock scallop, and noted how the baby scallops are free swimming, and move by clapping their shells together and spraying jets of water. Then when they grow up, they cement themselves to a rock and live there for the rest of their lives. Add in the moon snail, another mollusc, which has a tongue that can drill through shells and rocks. I got an image of a hollowed-out asteroid covered in scallops, and baby scallops flapping and jetting away into space. Everything else followed from there, and I ended up with a fun story that got great comments from Kris. It's currently out with a magazine editor. [crossed fingers]

We wrote three more stories while at the workshop -- we had one due every other day, starting when we turned in the Aquarium-alien story on Saturday -- plus we read everyone else's stories, plus we had other, smaller assignments. Plus if we messed up on the smaller assignments [ducks, raises hand] they came back covered in red comments, with "Redo" at the top. I ended up redoing three or four assignments.

It turns out I kind of suck at putting really concrete details in my work. This is important with most fiction, but particularly with SF, because the reader can't take anything for granted. If you're writing something contemporary, you might have your character enter a barn. Okay, we all know what a barn looks like. But do we really? There's the classic red barn, but some are white, some are brown, some are corrugated steel. Some are multi-story, with a hay loft like the classic barn in kids' books, but some are lower. Some are long and wide, some are compact. So if you just have your character walk into "a barn" with no details, the reader will visualize a barn, filling in those details for you. Maybe they'll match the details in your head, but probably not. So if you imagine a barn with a basement or other sub level, and mention it twelve pages later, the readers who didn't imagine a barn with a basement will be all, "Wait, what?!" Or if your barn has a main floor and some side areas, plus an equipment room, and a room with tools where stuff is repaired, but your reader was imagining just one big room, then again, they'll have a huge disconnect that'll throw them out of the story if your character starts going from room to room later on.

So if you just say "a barn" in your story, that's a fake detail.

And that's with a barn. Everyone knows what a barn is, even if the details can differ. What if your character boards a starship? Or a space station? Or is walking around on an alien planet? What does that look like? You have to be even more thorough about describing everything, using concrete sensory details, because the reader can't fill in details for you.

So for our first technique assignment, we had to describe an alien space station. We were to write five paragraphs, each one using details coming from only one sense. Here's what I wrote for the first two senses:

=====

Sight -- Alicia's first impression of the Nonapus station was that it was dark. Well, of course; sight was a minor sense for them. Nonapus stations weren't bright for the same reason Human stations ween't tasty. The water that filled the corridors and chambers was just slightly chilly, and full of tiny particulates that made it impossible to see, even with a light, much beyond the length of her arm.

Touch -- Most of the station walls were smooth. There were no floors or ceilings as such; the Nonapus have been starfaring for millenia, and the main difference between a wall and a floor or ceiling was gravity. The Nonapus expected everyone to hang on to or push off from whatever's handy, and avoid dangerous or delicate equipment as a matter of course. All controls required a firm push or pull or twist; brushing up against something was done casually while moving around, and was supposed to be perfectly safe.

=====

Not bad, huh? I was pretty pleased with them when I wrote them (in a frantic hurry, but anyway). Actually, they suck. :P This was my first non-story assignment, and it came back covered with big red "Fake!" notes all over it, and a red "Redo" at the top. A few days later, I redid it:

=====

Sight -- The only light inside the Nonapus station came from tiny, glowing white jellyfish that swam through the water, expanding and contracting in a rhythm that made it look like they were dancing, their legs rippling in time like ribbons in wind. The passageways were tubular, too narrow for a human to stand up in; it made Alicia feel cramped, and a little claustrophobic. Everything was shades of grey; there was no color anywhere, not even on her fellow refugees. They'd all been given clothes that could stand up to weeks in the water. The plain, stretchy coveralls were comfortable enough, but their uniform grey made them blend in with the walls, and the rest of the humans, as though they were all ghosts haunting the place.

Touch -- The walls were mostly smooth, some sort of soft plastic, with patches and strips of texture on them. used the way humans would use signs. Rough and smooth and sharp, with and against the grain of the ridges -- all the different textures meant something, and Alicia knew she'd have to learn them. Swimming through the ship, she brushed against the jellyfish, couldn't help it, because they streamed and clustered everywhere. These didn't sting, like the ones on the beach at home, so she could touch them if she wanted. Their little round bodies were slick, like they were coated in gel. Their legs -- or were they arms? -- slid through her fingers like limp, flat pasta, light and smooth and rippling.

=====

Much better. I got a lot more "Good" notes on that one. See how things are much more concrete, more grounded on sensory details?

I need to learn to do this in my stories. Right now, it's hard. It's not something I do automatically yet. When I'm writing, in creative mode, when story's just flowing, it doesn't automatically flow with concrete sensory details. If I think about it, and consciously put those details in as I write, I slip into critical mode, which makes the writing kind of suck. (It has great sensory details, though. :P )

"Creative Mode" and "Critical Mode" are concepts Kris and Dean use in all their writing workshops. I think I've talked about them before, but just for drill, writing in creative mode (or in creative voice, or with your creative brain) is writing the way your brain produces story. The focus is on the story, not the craftsmanship. Your creative brain (your storytelling brain) has been absorbing story since you were pre-verbal, when your parents told you stories, sang you songs with stories, let you watch TV and movies with stories. If you're forty, you've been absorbing story for about 39.8 years of that. :)

Critical mode is when your focus is on the mechanics. If you're thinking about spelling and grammar and punctuation, and about how the plot's going to go and whether your characterization is right and how to format your dialogue and whether your transitions work, you're in critical mode. This is your inner English teacher speaking. Your inner English teacher kind of sucks at storytelling; they're focused on all the fiddly details, and they tend to lose track of the story itself, which is what readers read for. Your critical brain has only been learning to write since you started to learn reading and writing skills, which for most of us was first grade. So your critical brain is about six years behind your creative brain when it comes to learning how to write.

Your creative voice is always a better storyteller than your critical voice.

I know we all worry about how our stories look at the line level, but seriously, if you're going to publish something, whether you go tradpub or indie, cleaning up all the little crap is what an editor is for. If your story is great, a copyeditor can clean up your spelling and grammar and fix your comma glitches. There you go -- clean story. If your story sucks, then even if your mechanics are absolutely a hundred percent perfect, the story is still going to suck. A fiction writer's focus should be on storytelling, in creative mode.

Of course, we want to absorb all the mechanics skills too. And we do. It takes a while, but if we work on it, eventually we'll load a new skill into the back of our brain. This is where the stuff that's become automatic goes. For example, you probably don't have to think about putting a period at the end of a declarative sentence, or getting your subjects and verbs to agree. Those are things you had to learn at some point, but then you got to know them well enough that they became automatic, and you don't have to think about them anymore. All your mechanics skills can be loaded into that same part of your brain, where they become automatic, as you work on them.

So I need to work on using concrete sensory details when I write. I'll probably do more exercises like the ones Kris gave us, and work on that until it's easy and automatic. It'll eventually show up in my creative-mode writing, without my having to stop and think about every damn word. :/ For right now, it's annoying, but I'll get it soon enough.

A lot of us in the class were having trouble with concrete details, so most of our small assignments through the week were focused on that skill. I got a lot better at it just in that week, and so did the others.

One of the things I learned last week was that I can write a truly amazing amount of fiction in one week. I was actually pouring it on from Friday through Friday, so eight days, but in that eight days I wrote 38,790 words of fiction -- four stories, two of them over 9K words, plus a bunch of bits and pieces of fiction in the smaller assignments. Just the stories totaled 30,893 words.

I've never done that before. I've written just over 20K words in a week, three times, since I've started keeping track. I've never come anywhere near 30K in a week before. O_O It's intensely frustrating. I've known for a while that I'm intensely deadline driven, and that it has to be a deadline set by someone else, with real-world consequences. Knowing that if I flake out on a story, I'll be walking into a room full of people I know, with no story to turn in? That provides an amazing amount of motivation to write like crazy, and finish a story. I can't do that for myself. I can't even do it for, say, an anthology I'd like to submit for. If I've promised a story to an editor, then that works -- having an editor get annoyed with me and have to scramble to find another writer to write something to fill the spot in the book I was supposed to fill is enough of a real-world consequence to get my writing in gear. But just, "Hey, that's a cool anthology, it closes next Friday, I'd like to write a story for it," isn't enough. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. :/ Very annoying. It's purely a mental block, but knowing that doesn't help.

It was bad enough before, knowing I can write 20K words in a week if I want to. Now I know I can write almost twice that if I'm properly motivated, which makes it that much more frustrating. Heck, I'd love to do 10K words a week. That's half a million words a year, even taking two weeks for vacation. :P

Coming up toward the end of last week, I planned to see if I could keep the momentum going. But around the middle of the workshop, Thursday or so, I started getting a bit of a tickle in my throat. Luckily it stayed at that very low level through the workshop, but as soon as I got home, I fell into bed, and when I woke up I had a raging cough, sore throat, and stuffed up nose. :( It's tough to think about writing, or much of anything else, when it's hard to breathe. I'm starting to feel more human, so we'll see how the writing goes next week.

If nothing else, I had an awesome April. :)

And seriously, Kris does a couple of genre workshops per year. If I had the money, I'd sign up for everything that's currently scheduled. (No, I don't get any kick-backs or discounts for reccing the workshops; I just think they rock.) She's teaching a Mystery workshop in September, and a Fantasy workshop next April. She's done Romance and Alternate History before. I think she did Thrillers once? I'd love to take all of them. Kris is a slave driver, but damn, it works!

Awesome workshop. Highly recommended.

Angie

Fiction River and Pulphouse

I got home from the annual Anthology Workshop on the Oregon Coast yesterday, zombied around a bit and then fell into bed. Adrenaline builds up while I'm away from home at a special event, seeing old friends, meeting new people, learning things, finding out about cool new opportunities or services, and just generally having a great time. It happens at conventions, and it happens at workshops. The adrenaline shot is temporary, though, and when I get home I have to pay for it.

The workshop was great fun. We had three new editors this year -- WMG publisher Allyson Longueira, writer/publisher Leah Cutter, and writer/editor Dayle A. Dermatis. Having them up at the front of the room along with regulars Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Mark the Kobo Guy (Mark Leslie Lefebvre) was great fun, and added to the anticipation of each day. (And, I'll admit, to some of the nail biting.)

As usual, attendees were given guidelines to six different themed anthologies, one per week for six weeks. We wrote like crazy, submitting stories as we went, sometimes only a couple of hours before getting the next set of guidelines. Then once we were all done writing, we uploaded our stories to the workshop site, downloaded everyone else's stories, and started just as frantically reading. We had a little over 1.1 million words to read and about twenty-four days to read them in. Which is actually about the same as last year.

Each of the middle six days of the workshop, we went through the stories for one of the books. One story at a time, each editor at the front of the room commented on it, said whether they'd buy it or not if they'd been editing that book, why or why not, or of they'd have asked for some changes. The last person to comment was the editor actually buying for the book; if they said "I'm buying it," they meant it.

At the end of the day, some time during the third, evening session, the actual editor was left with two lists -- one of stories they were definitely buying, and another of stories they wanted to buy but might or might not. They went over the "Maybe" stories one at a time, and either finally bought or finally rejected each one, explaining why in each case, building their final table of contents in front of the class.

I sold stories to three of the anthologies, which is pretty awesome. I'll have stories in Feel the Love, which is about all different kinds of love, not just romance, Unlikely Heroines, and Spies.

There were a couple of other projects going on at the same time. As we've done for the last few years, we had a "stealth" anthology going on -- editors who really liked stories that were written for someone else, and which didn't get bought, had a chance to "save" a few stories each, to be published in an Editors Saves volume. We did that during the last session, on Sunday morning.

During one of the evening chats, I was talking to some other writers and for some reason brought up the dogs in Moscow who commute on the subway trains. It seemed like it'd make a great anthology theme -- not necessarily a whole book of stories about commuting dogs (although... [ponder]) but stories about animals making unexpected use of things or services created for humans. It so happens there's a group of writers who come to this workshop every year who do their own anthology projects regularly, so I found Dayle, who herds that particular group of cats, and suggested the commuting dogs as a theme-seed for the Uncollected Anthology. She thought it was interesting, and wrote it down. Then, on Saturday night, while we all hung out and decompressed, she came to tell me that the group had agreed to do an Animal themed volume, and wanted to invite me to be the guest author for it. Awesome! They already have a pretty long list of up-coming themes, so my story won't appear until 2018 at the earliest and probably 2019, but I'm looking forward to it.

But there's one other cool project in the works. Dean and Kris announced that they're bringing back Pulphouse Magazine. A lot of old-timers who were into SFF back in the day will recognize the name. For anyone who doesn't, Pulphouse was a weird, out-of-the-box magazine, mostly SFF but not always. It was strange and quirky. It started out as a hardcover magazine, then shifted over to the more usual paperback. Dean and Kris won a World Fantasy Award in 1989 for Pulphouse Magazine, and they got three Hugo nominations for it.

Pulphouse shut down about twenty years ago, but it's coming back in 2018. They're going to be reprinting some old stories from the original run of Pulphouse, to publish along with new stories. Dean bought one of mine for the magazine, and is considering another one.

If you had an on-going subscription to Pulphouse back at the time it shut down then contact Dean and let him know. They'll be honoring old subscriptions with subs to the electronic edition of the new magazine. I've never known a magazine to do this before; I think it shows an incredible amount of class.

Angie

One Year Later

On 1 January 2016 -- 1 January being National Start A New Diet and Exercise Program Day here in the US -- I started a new diet and exercise program.

A few months earlier, my arthritis got a lot worse. For years I've had problems with my knees, especially on the right side, but by October of 2015, it had spread to my hands -- again, especially the right, the one I use most. That's scary. It's bad enough to have a hard time walking (I'd been using a cane for almost ten years) but if it got to the point where I couldn't use my hands anymore, I'd probably start thinking about stepping out in front of a bus or something. And I'm not sure I'm kidding. :/

I went to my doctor, and rather than up my pain meds, she suggested I try an anti-inflammatory diet by a woman named Kathy Abascal; it'd been getting some good results among her colleagues. It's not a gimmicky, Hollywood-Champagne-and-Kumquat type diet, recommended by your brother's wife's hairdresser. This is a ridiculously healthy diet, endorsed by the Chief of Medicine at our local hospital, that my doctor urged me to try. As she said during that visit, after describing how it worked, "This is really how we should all be eating," -- so I decided to do it.

If you've ever hung out with anyone in the fitness or lifting community, you might've heard the term "eating clean." This diet is pretty much the ultimate in eating clean. It eliminates all processed foods, all additives, all added sweetners (among other things) and has you eating mostly fruits and veggies, with just a little meat/grain/beans/etc. I'll describe it more fully below, for anyone interested.

So I got Ms. Abascal's book, read it, went "Holy crap, this is restrictive!!" and faced the coming New Year. I honestly didn't think I'd be able to stick with the diet for very long, but my stiff and aching hands urged me to give it a really good shot.

At the same time, Jim and I got each other fitness bands for Christmas. We both could use some more exercise, although I was pretty sure I was doing a decent amount of walking. Not 10K steps a day, but I figured I was probably doing about half that. I used a pedometer for a while, but my last one had broken a few years earlier. I'd heard good things about fitness bands (I have a Garmin Vivofit) so we went that direction.

On 1 January of last year, I ignored the fitness band and just did my usual amount of walking. Umm, wow. I was just a bit over 1000 steps by the end of the day. O_O Yeah, definitely could use some work there. I started getting up to walk during the day, just back and forth at home, rather than going out. I can't walk very far at any one time because of my joint problems, and sometimes something will go "Sproing!" and I'll have a sudden need to sit down, right now. So walking at home felt like my best option. And it actually works very well. If you think, "Hey, 10K steps is like five miles! I can't walk that far!" then walking in shorter chunks is a great way of building up steps. Even miles. Getting up every hour or so and doing even just a few hundred steps adds up by the end of the day. I still can't walk five miles all at once, but after a year of working on it, getting my 10K steps in on any given day -- assuming my knees or feet aren't griping that day -- is now more a matter of time management than physical ability or disability.

Through January, though, I was still working on hitting 3-4K steps per day, and feeling like that was a pretty good triumph when I managed it.

Back to the diet. Since I started this diet hoping it'd help tone down my aching joints, rather than for weight loss, I didn't actually weigh myself on 1 January 2016. Ms. Abascal's book makes it clear that this isn't primarily a weight loss diet. She says that if you need to lose weight, you probably will, and if you need to gain weight, you probably will. That's not the main goal, though. So when I started this, I figured I might lose some weight, but if I did I'd consider it a great bonus; I didn't count on or plan for it, not wanting to be disappointed. I was mainly focused on my joints.

When I saw my doctor in mid-October of '15, my weight was 323. Knowing that I had a ridiculously restrictive diet coming up, I completely pigged out over the holidays. We spent a week at my mom's house around Christmas, and I seriously ate a plate of Christmas cookies for breakfast every day. [hides under keyboard] I felt like a bear getting ready for a long, lean winter. I kept going right up through New Year's Eve, then locked myself into Food Prison on the first.

By mid-January, I thought, Hey, maybe I've lost some weight. So I hopped on the scale and... 316.

Holy crap, 316! That's seven pounds less than I weighed before going crazy over the holidays!

Suddenly I wished I'd gotten on that scale on the first. I'd kill to know exactly how much I weighed then, because in just those two weeks I'd obviously dropped an insane amount of weight. I decided to pick something conservative and measure from there, just to have a number to look at, so I added ten pounds to my October weight, and assumed I weighed 333 at the beginning of the year. I've gained ten pounds before in a week of pigging out, much less six weeks -- I was probably at least 350 -- but I didn't want to overshoot and claim more of a loss than I actually had, so 333 is my official starting weight.

By the end of January I'd lost 32 pounds.

I started keeping much closer track after mid-month, and for the last week or so I was "only" losing about half a pound a day. Which means for that first week or so, I must've been losing more like two pounds per day. (And it was probably even more than that, but again, I'm assuming a start of 333.)

I checked with my doctor and she assured me that a huge weight loss is normal when you make a major change, especially with diet and exercise both. There was nothing to worry about unless it continued that fast. I was thinking I'd be okay with it continuing that fast for a while -- if I could get down to my goal, which is 180 (I'm 5'11" and naturally muscular), then we could fix whatever other problems rapid weight loss might've caused. [wry smile] But I did keep slowing down, drat. :)

By mid-February, I was down about 40 pounds, and looking at going to the Anthology Workshop in Oregon. Since I'd be eating three meals a day at restaurants, which aren't friendly to this diet -- even vegetarian meals tend to have way too much pasta/rice/beans bulking them out -- I figured I'd just bag the diet for the ten days or so I'd be gone, knowing that I'd regain some weight, but that I'd go back to dieting and losing when I got home. Ms. Abascal says that once you're firmly into the diet, you can have one or two cheat days a month, where you eat whatever you want, to satisfy cravings and such; I'd just have one big long cheat week-and-a-bit. But my stomach is kind of touchy (I have gastroparesis, which means my stomach doesn't empty as fast as yours, and sometimes it decides to run backwards for a while) so I figured I should find out how my stomach would react to going back to a normal processed/chemical-laden/protein-high diet while I was still in Seattle, 20 minutes from my local hospital and its long chart on me and my needs, rather than out on the Oregon coast, in a hotel that's not staffed after like seven or eight in the evening, in a town with only one taxi and a local ER I've never been to. So I picked a weekend and went back to eating normally, just to see what'd happen.

I'll admit I'd been dying for bread. I thought I'd miss sweets first, but actually, I don't eat many sweets on an everyday (i.e., non-Christmas [cough]) basis. And on this diet I eat a LOT of fruit. Once you've stopped eating foods with added sweeteners, it's like leaving a loud rock concert and slowly recovering your hearing -- after a little while without added sugar, your tastebuds sort of come out of hiding, and fruit tastes really sweet. What I miss most is breadish things -- sandwiches, bagels, big hunks of bread. I miss pasta too, although chewy bread is really my main craving here. Also cheese. And bacon. Mmm, bacon. But mostly bread. So I dove into bagel sandwiches, and mac-n-cheese, and we had pizza that night. My stomach was okay with it, yay.

The next morning, I woke up feeling like someone had dropped a piano on my head.

It's funny, before this test, I hadn't thought the diet was doing much for my arthritis. Which was the whole point of trying it. By mid-February, the weight loss was enough of a reason to keep going, but I was sort of disappointed that my hands still got stiff a lot. But after just one day of eating normal again, I was reminded of what stiff-and-aching really felt like. Oh, yeah, it could be a lot worse. I was also tired, even after a full night's sleep, and dragged around all day with no energy. These are all symptoms of inflammation.

I kept eating normal for that second day, and had actually planned to go for three or four days to see what would happen, but by the end of the second day I gave up. I felt so horrible, I had to go back on the diet.

It's funny, all that stuff we think is just age -- getting tired easily, lack of energy, minor aches and pains? Funny how much of that is inflammation caused by diet. I'd forgotten what it was like to actually have some energy. I thought it was just because I was fat and middle-aged. And I'm sure those were/are major contributors. But there's the food component too, and that's controllable.

I went to my workshop, and did my best to stay on the diet. I stocked up at the grocery store and had like 20 pounds of fruit in my room. I ate fruit for breakfast, plus a scrambled egg the hotel kitchen made for me every day, for protein. Then for lunch and dinner I went to restaurants but tried my best to stick to my diet. It didn't actually work very well; as I said above, even vegetarian entrees aren't really designed for this fruit/veggie heavy diet. I ate a lot of stripped down chicken caesars -- a chicken caesar salad with no bacon, no cheese, no dressing, no croutons. It's basically a pile of Romaine lettuce with a few strips of chicken. Technically within the bounds of my diet, but not at all within the spirit. The point is to be eating a wide variety of fruits and veggies, for the fiber and micronutrients. A big pile of lettuce doesn't really fill that bill. :/ I did my best, but ended up eating some white rice, and noodles, and whatever, here and there.

After the last day of the workshop, we all went out to dinner at a nice restaurant. I figured, "Screw this," and decided to eat whatever I wanted. The next day would just be the writers' lunch, then the drive back to Portland; if I was achey and had no energy, I could nap in the car, no big deal. And it turns out I felt fine the next day. So apparently I could have a cheat meal, but not a whole cheat day. Okay, I made note of that and kept going.

Home, and back to the diet. I actually plateaued for a while at -40 pounds, doing the gain-a-bit-lose-a-bit thing for weeks. I tried upping my walking to 10K steps a day (I'd been around 6-7K at that point) and it worked for a while, but after about a week of that, my knees and feet started griping at me, hard. Okay, can't do that yet. I backed down to 6-7K steps per day, but added intensity with 5lb hand weights. I can't walk with the weights for very long, but one or two short walking sessions per day with the weights adds enough intensity that I eventually started losing again. A few months later, I plateaued again at -70. More walking, more weights, I kept hovering around -70. I just stuck it out, and eventually I started losing again, slowly. But by then I was facing the holidays again.

What to do this time? I'd delayed starting my diet because I knew doing a new diet over the holidays would be kind of stupid, and a set-up for failure. What to do this time?

It was mid-October and I was down to -80, about 253lbs. I felt a lot better -- going up and down the stairs at home wasn't the huge, daunting chore it'd been before, and I can walk a lot farther all at once, and faster, than before. I was feeling great and looking forward to continuing my progress. But still, the holidays. Halloween candy, Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas... pretty much all of December. Could I stick to it?

I decided that, again, trying to stick to the diet through the holidays would just set myself up for failure. At this point, the diet felt normal, as did the walking. It wasn't a "special" diet anymore, it was just the way I normally ate. I was confident that I could let myself eat holiday good stuff here and there, and still get completely back to my diet afterward with no problems. I didn't spend 2.5 solid months pigging out :) but I let myself eat good stuff when it was around, when I felt like it. I ate some Halloween candy, then back on the diet till Thanksgiving. I had bread and stuffing and gravy with Thanksgiving dinner, then after for as long as the leftovers lasted, then went back on the diet. December I pretty much let myself eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. And yeah, I ate cookies for breakfast at Mom's again. But I also ate lots of fruit and veggies, and kept doing a lot of walking.

When I decided to ease up for the holidays, back in mid-October, I was down about 80 pounds from my official start weight. I figured if I regained 10-15lbs by 1 January, that'd be cool. Even 20lbs would be... not completely sucky. I knew whatever I gained, I could lose again, and then keep progressing in the new year.

So I've been "stocking up" again, watching 1 January approach. Jim and I got pizza the evening of the 30th, figuring it'd last me a couple of days. And I drank a few mugs of hot chocolate. And I ate a lot of fruit, and walked a lot. This morning I got on the scale.

I'd gained about 11 pounds. Woot!

So I'm back on my diet, and I'll get back down to -80 soon, and keep going. I'm hoping to hit -100 by the time we go to BayCon in May -- we skipped it last year because I got sick, so there are friends there who won't have seen me in two years. That should be fun. :) But even being eleven pounds up, I feel so much better than I did this time last year, I can't even describe it. When I'm on the diet, I have energy. I can move. I can walk for more than a few minutes at a time, and I haven't used my cane since April. With the arthritis, standing in one place is actually harder than walking; I couldn't stand for more than about five minutes before my joints started to ache. Hanging out with friends at conventions and workshops, which often means standing around talking, was really hard; I usually had to go find a seat somewhere while everyone else was still chatting. Which sucked. I was at a workshop in October and actually stood for over an hour one evening. I hurt, but just being physically able to stand for that length of time, even if it hurts, is pretty amazing.

And since you don't have to count anything on this diet -- no counting calories, cups, grams, nothing -- it's easy to follow. No math to do, nothing to add or track. And so long as you eat proportionally, and avoid the things you're just not supposed to have, you can eat as much as you want. I'm never hungry, and that's a huge part of why this works for me. The occasional cheat meal -- once or twice a month, during most of the year -- gives me something to look forward to, and makes it easier to do without things like bread and cheese and bacon. My favorite cheat meal, when Jim and I go out, is a bacon-cheeseburger; except for an occasional lettuce leaf, there is literally nothing in that sandwich that I'm usually allowed to have, so it's a great cheat. :D

I haven't blogged about this before because 1) I wasn't sure what the results would be when I first started, and 2) most people don't want to hear about other people's diets. :) But I've had some pretty awesome results, and figured posting once after a year wasn't too bad. Maybe I'll post again a year from now and do an update.

I hope everyone else is having a great New Year. :D

========================

Kathy Abascal's book -- The Abascal Way To Quiet Inflammation is available on Amazon. To summarize:

No chemical additives of any kind.
No processed foods of any kind.
No added sweeteners of any kind -- sugar, honey, molasses, Sweet-n-Low, Splenda, Truvia, nothing whether real or plastic.
No dairy of any kind.
No wheat or any derivatives -- also no oats or barley because they're related to wheat.
No dried corn or any derivatives, including corn oil.
No beef.
No pork.
No farmed fish -- only wild-caught, with a couple of exceptions for things like mussels, which are farmed in a way that results in their having their full nutritional value.
No peanuts, peanut oil, etc.
No canola oil.
No white rice, although brown and wild rice are fine. (White rice is processed.)
No dried fruit -- concentrated calories.
No fruit juice -- concentrated calories.

That leaves:

Eat Proportionally: (I'll explain what that means down below.)

Chicken and eggs -- preferred organic free-range, but if you can only afford regular then fine.
Turkey -- again, organic free-range preferred.
Fish and shellfish -- preferred wild-caught.
Lamb -- grass-fed.

It really does make a difference in the meat (or eggs) what an animal eats, BTW. With salmon, for example, wild-caught salmon has much darker orange flesh than farmed salmon. And eggs from true free-range (pastured) chickens have much darker orange yolks than eggs from factory-farmed chickens. The nutritional stats are very different between the two kinds of animal products.

Nuts and Seeds -- pretty much anything but peanuts.
Legumes -- beans that aren't green beans (eaten in the pod), plus lentils, whole quinoa, and soy products.
Whole Grains -- brown, black, red and wild rice, millet, amaranth, and white potatoes count as a grain.
Oils -- pretty much any plant-based oil that isn't peanut or canola oil.

Eat Freely:

Lots of fruits and veggies:

More veggie-ish veggies you can eat as much as you want -- spinach and lettuce and other leafy stuff, radishes, squash, cucumbers, celery, mushrooms, sprouts, broccoli, green beans, chili peppers, onions, tomatoes, garlic, etc.

High-glycemic veggies: carrots, yams, sweet potatoes, turnips, peas, pumpkins, beets -- you can have as much of these as you want, but always eat them with some "regular" veggies and/or fruits.

Fruit -- whatever you want.

Chicken broth -- remember, no chemical additives, and no added sweeteners. Most chicken broth from the grocery store has sugar in it :P so I just make my own.
Pomegranate molasses
Coffee
Chocolate, cocoa powder, cocoa nibs -- unsweetened
Chutney -- unsweetened
Salsa
Soy Sauce -- wheat-free
Salt and Pepper and other herbs and seasonings


Now, putting it all together:

Whenever you eat something, a meal or a snack or whatever, you want at least 2/3 of what you eat (by volume, just eyeball it) to be from the "Eat Freely" list, mostly fruits/veggies. The other 1/3 can be whatever you want from the "Eat Proportionally" list. So for breakfast pretty much every morning, I have a hard boiled egg (for protein) and a huge plate of fruit. The egg is a lot less than 1/3 of what I'm eating -- the 1/3 is a maximum. I eat a lot of chicken, so I might have a bowl of veggies with some chicken for dinner, or a bowl of root veggie mash (sweet potatoes, carrots, sometimes turnips or parsnips), with added chopped spinach, plus chicken or cooked pinto beans or brown rice or lentils. If I'm still hungry after dinner, or just want a snack, I'll usually grab some fruit. I eat LOTS of fruit.

If you get a chocolate craving, a couple of bananas mashed up with a heaping tablespoon or two of unsweetened baking cocoa turns into a sort of chocolate banana pudding. It looks a bit iffy -- you could probably smooth it out in a blender or something if you wanted to go to the trouble -- but it's very yummy, and calorie-wise it's just like eating the two bananas.


That's basically it. The book has complete lists of stuff you can have, stuff you can have with other stuff, and stuff you can't have, but if you want a cut down version, I'll bet just following the proportional eating -- at least 2/3 of fruits veggies to balance out other stuff whenever you eat anything -- will take your weight down, if you don't care about the inflammatory stuff. Although it's amazing how much better I feel -- fewer aches, not as much stiffness, more energy. Sometimes when I have a cheat meal, I'll feel awful the next day, all achey and tired. Obviously something's knocking me on my ass, in the foods I don't usually eat.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. :)

Angie

New Release -- Haunted

I have a story called "The Ghost of Station Four" in the new Haunted anthology, edited by Kerrie Hughes. Haunted is part of the Fiction River anthology series by WMG Publishing.

Nothing compares to a good ghost story. And in Haunted, some of the best short fiction writers in the business explore the many different ways to haunt someone: literally, figuratively, happily, angrily… From a man haunted by his wife’s favorite appliance to a possessed building protective of its new family to a chilling twist on the modern practice of ghosting, the thirteen authors of Fiction River’s latest volume provide unforgettable stories that will haunt the reader for years to come.

This volume contains….

“She’s No Shimmer” by David H. Hendrickson
“Land of the Living” by Dayle A. Dermatis
“Clean” by Michael Kowal
“The Ghost of Station Four” by Angela Penrose
“The Clockwork Harp” by Anthea Sharp
“Christmas Ghosts in Silver Chains” by Dave Raines
“Hoarding” by Thea Hutcheson
“Machowski’s Watch” by Eric Kent Edstrom
“The Crow War of Willows Beach” by Brenda Carre
“Mother Daughter” by Brigid Collins
“The Ribbon Tree” by Leah Cutter
“Holly Hock” by Kerrie L. Hughes
“Ghosting” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Paperback on Amazon
E-book on Amazon
Paperback on B&N
E-book on B&N
E-book on Kobo

New Release -- Alien Artifacts

I have an SF story called "Me and Alice" in the new Alien Artifacts anthology, edited by Josh Palmatier and Patricia Bray. "Me and Alice" is about a young boy who's worried about his pet toad. Alice is very elderly (for a toad) and hasn't been feeling too well, but old age isn't something you can fix with care or medicine. An archaeological dig on his family's land provides a distraction, and a puzzle.

This anthology, and its sister book, Were, were funded through a successful Kickstarter campaign, and backers got mass market paperback copies. My trib copies were also MMPs, which is pretty cool; I've never had anything come out in that format before. Paper copies for sale now are trade size.

Paperback on Amazon
E-book on Amazon
Paperback on B&N
E-book on B&N
E-book on Kobo
E-book on iTunes



Josh and Patricia are also doing a Kickstarter campaign for their next batch of anthologies. This year they're doing three -- All Hail Our Robot Conquerors, Submerged, and The Death of All Things. They sound like fun; I'm especially looking forward to writing for Robot Conquerors, and maybe Submerged. And maybe Death of All Things too, but who knows? :) They've already made their goal, and have just a few days left, so you can pledge knowing that you'll definitely get whatever goodies you sign up for.

A New Reprint

My story "The Rites of Zosimos," originally published in Alchemy and Steam, has been reprinted in The Year's Best Crime and Mystery Stories 2016. "Rites" is a murder mystery set at a 19th century alchemical university. It's one of my own favorite stories, and it's awesome that the editors thought it was one of the best mysteries of last year, along with stories by Joyce Carol Oates, Mary Higgins Clark, Tananarive Due, Carrie Vaughn, Annie Reed, and a bunch of other great writers. I've never been in a "Best Of" anthology before, so this is doubly cool. Check it out!

Available:

as an Amazon e-book
as a Kobo e-book
as a Nook e-book
as an iTunes e-book

The paperback edition will be out soon, if you prefer paper.

Anthology: Hidden in Crime

Hidden in Crime, with my story "O Best Beloved," was just released, yay! Editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch put together a great collection of stories about crimes that aren't crimes anymore, weird things that were illegal in the past but aren't now. There's a lot of really good reading in here; I learned a few things, too.

I've been reading crime stories since someone gave me a couple of Nancy Drew mysteries when I was a little girl. I'd never tried to write one before Fiction River came along, though. I was a history major at uni, and this story, with its medieval French setting, was a lot of fun to write. I hope you enjoy reading it.

Marceau the Potter sinned for many years before God chose to reveal him. His wife is upstairs in the middle of a long and hard labor, and when the babe is born, Marceau's secret will be revealed to everyone. Kris says about it:

"O Best Beloved" marks her first appearance in a crime anthology, but the story’s time period makes the piece feel like science fiction. The world Angie describes is completely alien to a modern reader, yet in a few short sentences, she makes this world—and its inhabitants—live.

Paperback on Amazon
E-book on Amazon
E-book on B&N
E-book on Kobo

Anthology -- Recycled Pulp

Recycled Pulp is out, with one of my stories, plus a lot of other great reads. This is another one of the books from the Anthology Workshop I talk about every year -- this particular one was filled in March of '14. Yes, it took a while to get to the point of release; it depends how the publisher decides to schedule the books. I imagine she looks at genres and audiences and spaces things out sort of evenly. I dunno, I'm just a writer. :)

This book was fun to write for. John came up with a list of 250 ultra-pulpy titles. Everyone who wanted to submit sent in three numbers at random between 1 and 250, and got three of the titles. We chose one to write about, but we had to write a modern, non-pulpy story that still fit the title. My story is called "Crypt of the Metal Ghouls." :D

There was no other subject restriction on the story except that it had to fit the title chosen, so the book has a wide variety of genres and subgenres; this is a great book for someone who loves short fiction in general.

In his intro to my story, John said,

This next story was one I was hoping to get. I already knew that with the random titles I was throwing at the submitting authors, I'd be getting an even bigger grab bag of stories and genres that would somehow have to be woven together into a cohesive anthology. But even so, the reader in me was hoping that some authors could take the title they’d chosen and turn it into something that would both reinvent it and hit my story buttons. Angela Penrose did both, spectacularly. This is the second story of hers that I've purchased (her first, as well as her first pro sale, was "Staying Afloat" published in Fiction River: How to Save the World), and I hope to be buying many more in the future—especially if she keeps giving me great post-apocalyptic action stories like this one.

I've read all the stories in this book, and there's a lot of excellent reading here.

Available:

in paperback on Amazon
in e-book on Amazon
in e-book on B&N
in e-book on Kobo
in e-book on Smashwords

Loosed Upon the World Is Out

Loosed Upon the World, the cli-fi (climate fiction) SF anthology edited by John Joseph Adams, released today. I have a story in it, along with a bunch of other great writers.

The table of contents has a lot of great names in it, including Paolo Bacigalupi, Robert Silverberg, Tobias Buckell, Margaret Atwood, Nancy Kress, and more. This is a beefy collection of stories, and everyone should find a lot of good stuff in it.

Available to Order:

in hardcover from Amazon
in paperback from Amazon
in e-book from Amazon
in hardcover from B&N
in paperback from B&N
in e-book from B&N
in e-book from Kobo
in e-book from OmniLit

So far as I can tell, it's not up in the Apple store yet.

This is my first reprint. Getting a letter from the editor asking if he could have my story for an up-coming anthology was just as exciting as my first story acceptance almost ten years ago. Having a well-known editor come to me for a story, rather than me having to beg and plead submit something? That's completely awesome. :)

Angie

Anthology Sale

I just sent back a contract for a short story called "Ghosts of the Past," which will be published in the ninth Valdemar anthology, a collection of stories set in Mercedes Lackey's Kingdom of Valdemar. This is the first time I've been invited to submit to a closed anthology, and it was a different experience. I'll admit I was nervous at a few points. :)

John Helfers, an editor I've worked with on a couple of Fiction River volumes, knew I was a fan of Misty Lackey's work and invited me to submit a proposal for a story. I've never worked that way before -- usually I read the guidelines for a book, then write a story and sub it, and I'm frankly not very good at judging ahead of time how long a story's going to be. There are writers who can aim for a 5K short or a 15K novelette or an 80K word novel, and hit right on, within a couple hundred words for the shorter lengths and within about a thousand for the novel, but I'm not one of them. I guess that's one of the skills you develop with a lot more practice and experience than I have. But I needed to sub a story synopsis and commit to bringing it in under the limit. So rather than just writing down my idea, I started writing the story. Good thing I did, because I got a few thousand words into that first idea and realized I had at least a novella on my hands.

Okay, scratch that and start over. I came up with another idea, pulled up a fresh story file and started writing again. After about 3K words I got a sense of where the story was going and how long it'd take to get there. I was sure I could bring it in under the wordcount limit, so I wrote up a synopsis and sent it in. John and Misty both liked it, and I got a go-ahead to write.

The writing was fun, and this is one of the areas on the commercial side of writing where having fanfic experience can be a help. All the characters on the page were my own inventions, but I wanted to do justice to Misty's world, and to the tone -- in computer OS terms, the "look and feel" of it -- so that the story sounded like a Valdemar story, and felt like something Misty could've written. I sent it in, got some edits from John, and we eventually got it hammered out such that we're both happy with it. Misty liked it too, so I got a contract.

[I've had questions about this before, so just in case anyone's wondering, my experience has been that contracts are issued after edits. That way, you get paid for the actual number of words that are going to appear in print. And I've never gotten the feeling that an editor was trying to shave things down to save a few bucks. In fact, most of my edits have resulted in the story being a bit longer.]

I found I was a little more nervous about this one than I've been about other anthology submissions. I think it's because I was playing in someone else's sandbox, borrowing their toys (even if I brought some of my own) and I didn't want the sandbox's owner to think I was doing it wrong, or being disrespectful. It's like going over to someone's house for the first time and wanting to make a good impression. :) Getting the final okay on my story, from John and Misty both, was a great relief.

The book will be out in December, from DAW. I'll post a cover when I have one.

Angie

Marriage Equality, Finally

The Supreme Court finally grants marriage equality.

Try as they might, people opposed to marriage equality haven't been able to come up with any rational reasons for their stand. "Because our god disapproves," is not a rational reason in a nation with separation of church and state. "Because the children," is not supported by any legitimate research. (In fact, I can't give a link because I didn't save it at the time, but I remember reading an article a few years ago discussing research that showed the best outcome for children, looking at emotional adjustment, behavior, and performance in school, came from having two lesbian parents.) "Because pedophiles," is a null argument because adults having sex with minors (ignoring the complications of what that means and where the lines are drawn) is still illegal. And that idiot in California who tried to get a proposition on the ballot requiring that anyone who commits "sodomy" be executed by whatever member of the general public got to them first (no, seriously) just makes the anti-GLBT side look even more whacked than it actually is.

I'm sure there are plenty of people moaning and gnashing their teeth today. But look, the sky isn't falling. If you think gay sex is icky, then good news: you're not required to have gay sex. Your kids are no more likely to be gay now than they were last week. And if your kid does come out to you, you're still free to disown him or her, and the people around you who disapprove would probably have disapproved last week, while people who would've agreed you did the right thing last week will probably still think that now. And if your church doesn't recognize gay marriage, your church still isn't required to marry gay couples. Nothing has changed for straight people.

Which is the whole point. Nothing has changed for straight people. We can go about our lives as we always have, because the world still treats us the way it always did.

And in fact, only thirteen states still banned marriage between same-sex couples yesterday. We were already mostly there; the Supremes just acknowledged the way society was moving.

Note, though, that this decision doesn't mean homophobia is dead in the US, any more than the election of President Obama meant racism is dead. There are still plenty of people who see straight as "normal" and gay as "deviant," and who want the laws of the land to reflect their views, some of whom are active on the political stage.

Ted Cruz and Scott Walker are two Republican presidential hopefuls who support a Constitutional amendment allowing states to ban same-sex marriage. Considering that the majority of states allowed it yesterday, and polls show a majority of Americans are in favor of it, I have no idea where these guys thought that amendment would come from. There's no way they'd ever get the two-thirds ratification required to pass it, so...? Marriage equality doesn't affect them, so it looks like either their own fears and squicks on display, or (more likely IMO) it's a flag-waving act, aimed at the very small but very loud radical-right voting pool. "Hey, look how conservative I am! Vote for me!" Of course, that tactic hasn't worked in the last couple of presidential elections, but if these guys want to give it another whirl, bully for them.

And others have already discussed Clarence Thomas's dissenting opinion against marriage equality. From Thomas's opinion:

The corollary of that principle is that human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away.

Seriously? Because being a slave, confined and beaten and raped, isn't at all undignified. Because being dragged away from your property (often losing it permanently) and locked up in an internment camp, declared a danger to the country of which you're a citizen, hated and reviled by your fellow citizens, isn't at all undignified. And having people sneer and snark at your marriage, telling you it's just pretend, and having your children harassed and mocked because their parents aren't really married and they don't really have a normal family, that's not at all undignified.

The fact that Justice Thomas, who's married to a white woman, clearly benefits from the results of Loving v. the State of Virginia, and yet declares that Obergefell v. Hodges -- which grants the exact same kind of marriage rights (and dignity) to a group of people who were discriminated against exactly the way interracial couples were discriminated against before Loving -- is wrong and pointless, is bogglingly irrational. It reflects a lack of compassion, and an "I've got mine so you all can go suck it" attitude.

There are plenty of people, though, even in conservative states, who are ready to jump right into getting gay and lesbian couples married, because "conservative" is not the same as "asshole."

Gerard Rickhoff, who oversees marriage licenses in Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, has removed the words "male" and "female" from the licenses. He's prepared extra work stations and is ready to keep the office open late. He's planning to have security on site to deal with protesters, "so there's no possibility of discomfort or hate speech." And if same-sex couples are turned away by clerks in other counties, he has a message for them: "Just get in your car and come on down the highway. You'll be embraced here."

Props to Mr. Rickhoff, and others like him in Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas and Michigan, mentioned in the above HuffPo article, and to people in all states, of all political orientations around the country whose action and support, however loud or quiet, let this happen.

I'll wrap with a quote from President Obama: "Today we can say in no uncertain terms that we've made our union a little more perfect ... America should be very proud."