Category: publishing

Portraying people of color in children’s/YA fantasy–are we anywhere near “there” yet?

- Stacy 7 Comments

3/21/2012, ETA: Because this post has been linked a lot over the course of the last several months, I just wanted to point out that this was posted when I was in the process of starting the small press that became Tu Books, an imprint of Lee & Low Books, where we publish middle grade and young adult science fiction, fantasy, and mystery starring main characters of color. We’ve published five books so far, and I think you’ll love them. If you believe, as I do, that more stories like these are important—awesome fantastic adventures in which people of color are the stars—please check them out and share them with your friends.

***

When I was in the fourth grade, I always wondered why I wasn’t born Japanese. You see, back then (mid-80s), the news was always saying that the Japanese had the best education system in the world, and that Americans were falling behind. Given that my life goal at the time was to be the smartest kid in the world, I really, really wished that I had been born Japanese.

Nothing I could do about that, but I could do my geography project on Japan. (I was in the accelerated group, and we did countries of the world instead of state history in the fourth grade. I also did Australia and India.) But the only resources I could find in our relatively small school library were a decade-old encyclopedia and several books from the 50s. I ended up making a small English-Japanese dictionary with about five words (which I still have around here somewhere) for my project to go along with the report.

I can’t recall having read one single book from the time I was able to read until the time I graduated high school about any character who was from an Asian country or about an American whose family background was Asian, however. There just wasn’t anything like that available to me in small-town farm country in Illinois. I’m sure this is as much to do with librarian/teacher selection as it had to do with publishing availability, but that’s just the way things were.

Looking at the CCBC’s report from last year of books published in 2008, however, I’m not sure we’ve come very far from that. We’ve come a long way, yet how far is there to go?

Ever since Race Fail 09 (which I didn’t follow much of, but even reading a part of which was very thought-provoking), I’ve become even more aware of this issue as it relates to fantasy than I have before (even though before that, as an editor, I always tried to acquire books that were as diverse as possible, whether that meant magic-wielding kender or girls from all over the world battling vampiric fairies). I’ve pondered on it for several months, and it’s been great to see so many authors pondering on it in their blogs, too. Just in the last few days, I’ve found a couple great posts on it by authors R.J. Anderson and Mitali Perkins (Mitali has a lot of great insights into this, as you can see from her blog).

The biggest thing I’ve been pondering is that it seems to me that in children’s and YA fantasy, we’re probably at a smaller percentage of multicultural themes and characters than realistic books (note that I’m conflating race and culture here on purpose—I’m using race and culture in an and/or way). Note how in the CCBC report, they say that “A significant number—well over half—of the books about each broad racial/ethnic grouping are formulaic books offering profiles of various countries around the world.” Of the rest—and I’m just mostly guessing, because they didn’t break it down into realism and fantasy in the multicultural books—but of the rest, I would assume that a large portion of the multicultural books were either nonfiction or realistic fiction, rather than fantasy. I’m not even sure how they broke down “fantasy” and “multicultural”—fantasy with multicultural characters may or may not have been included in the “multicultural” count, for all I know.

My point is that in genre fiction, even more than in realistic fiction, I find (anecdotally—I haven’t actually counted) a significant lack of multicultural characters compared to the portion of the population that is actually multicultural. Given that such a large percentage of authors are white, are we perpetuating a culture of predominantly white fantasy readers because so many books are written from that point of view? Consider Mitali Perkins’ quote from Ursula Le Guin:

“Even when [my characters] aren’t white in the text, they are white on the cover. I know, you don’t have to tell me about sales! I have fought many cover departments on this issue, and mostly lost. But please consider that ‘what sells’ or ‘doesn’t sell’ can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If black kids, Hispanics, Indians both Eastern and Western, don’t buy fantasy—which they mostly don’t—could it be because they never see themselves on the cover?” [my emphasis]

As Ursula Le Guin pointed out many years ago and reinforced when Earthsea was submarined by SciFi, in fantasy worlds not based in our world, our characters can be any shade we like them to be–and the default doesn’t have to be white. (This is not for lack of trying on some authors’ parts—anecdotally, some authors have told me they’ve been asked to change the race of their characters because a white author writing from a black character’s point of view, for example, might be seen as offensive. So there is some ground to cover there.)

So where do we go? How do we become more inclusive in genre fiction for children and young adults? One answer, of course, is to champion the great genre books that are coming out right now with multicultural themes and/or characters—to all readers who might have an interest in them, not just in readers we assume might want to read them because they might have a cultural affinity with them (also something Mitali has covered more in depth; seriously, go read her blog). But it’s much more nuanced than that. What about those white writers who want to include interesting characters from interesting cultures not their own? There’s some great discussion of that in an old thread over at The Enchanted Inkpot that I’d recommend browsing (they’ve also discussed variations of that question since then, and some really interesting things completely unrelated to that, so check it out). Mitali also has a handy checklist of things to consider when writing race.

I think that the more we become aware of this issue as gatekeepers (publishing people, writers, librarians, teachers, parents—in general, the adults in a child’s life that recommend/create books), the more we’ll be in a position to remedy the problem. I’m pretty sure that there isn’t an intrinsic lack of interest in fantasy on the whole, among young people of color (obviously, individual tastes vary!)—but we might be able to interest and engage those readers more fully if fantasy grew to encompass the many and varied cultures and backgrounds this world has to offer. I’d love to see a revival of fairy tale retellings, for example, from Gullah or Creole cultures, or the incorporation of those tales into a modern urban fantasy. I’m excited to read Cindy Pon‘s Silver Phoenix and to see how she incorporates ancient Chinese culture. I just had a great time editing a book for an author of a fantasy based in ancient Korean roots. Shannon Hale’s Book of a Thousand Days, a retelling of a Grimm tale but set in a fantasy country inspired by Mongolia, is my favorite of her books (with Goose Girl running a close second). And where is the Latino fantasy? South America had a great magical realism movement, but what about fantasy that connects with a modern young Latino audience and others who are interested in reading about that culture? (Here is where I falter—I can’t think of a single example from that culture. Someone please point me in the right direction.)

ETA: Oo! Oo! I thought of one in a Latino tradition (but well-adapted to a completely original fantasy world): Flora Segunda! Which is one of my favorites of the last few years!

There’s so many rich cultural traditions to draw from, not just the medieval Western European trope we see so often, and I’m excited to see how many authors are engaging in that challenge, no matter their own culture.

As an editor, it’s made me even more aware of this issue in the stories I’m reading for both acquiring and editing purposes. As a writer (which I do occasionally, though often when I have enough work as an editor I find I go months between writing spurts) it’s made me look at my work in progress and find solutions for something that’s been nagging at me for a while: my protagonist has a friend who she wants to be more than just a friend. He’s kind of been this nebulous guy for whom I didn’t have a mental picture, but over the course of the last few months, I’ve really felt more and more that this guy needs to be Asian-American. Well, at least, the people in town think he’s Asian-American (heh, we come to find out he’s actually not even from this world, but you didn’t hear that from me; if I ever actually finish this book, erase that from your mind). Even before I read Mitali’s SLJ article, I wondered the same thing as she did: “When was the last time, on an American TV show or movie, you saw an Asian-American man as the object of attraction?” I hope that I can make this character live as the attractive, hot, intelligent, awesome good friend and love interest that he is in the life of my main character.

I’ve rambled on long enough—I just wanted to get my thoughts on this subject down somewhere and organize them. Well, at least get them down somewhere, I suppose—I’m not so sure on the organization part. But feel free to share your thoughts on this subject in the comments.

Now available on the Kindle

- Stacy

Amazon has recently opened up blog access on the Kindle to any blog, not just the top ones that Amazon picks. That means that you, or I, or anyone can put their blog up on Amazon for people to subscribe to. It also means that anyone can put your blog up on Amazon for people to subscribe to. I’m not sure if they’ve fixed this loophole, but I figured that I’d go ahead and claim my own blog first, in case any of you are Kindle-lovers that would love to give me $1.99 a month for the joy of reading my occasional ramblings about publishing and my cats. (Speaking of my cats, I haven’t posted about them in a while, but that’s probably mostly because my camera was broken. Fear not! I have overcome this obstacle! As of last week, my camera LIVES! Body, lens, and all, have now been restored (read: replaced) to their former glory, and then some–instead of a Nikon D80, I now sport a D300 which I’m still getting the hang of, and in addition to the great lens I had before, I was also able to grab that fisheye lens I’ve had my eye on for about a year now.)

I haven’t gotten a Kindle myself yet. The idea of buying a $350 electronic device for which all of my books could suddenly go away one day if Amazon decided to delete my account (thanks for the link to Justine) kinda scares me. I’m leaning toward the Sony Reader, myself, but I’ve been investing in too many toys lately (see above) to be able to justify one in my budget. It would be really, really nice not to wear out my eyes reading on screen, though–especially for submissions. A lot of editors I know swear by their Sony Readers. EDIT: Justine says that Apple has one in the works, and I love my Ipod, so perhaps I’ll be waiting on that reader with her.

So, take it for what it’s worth. I’m not endorsing or NOT not-endorsing the Kindle–just saying that if the Kindle is your kind of thing, you can now read my blog there. Have fun.

My Conduit schedule, and other interesting goings-on that weekend

- Stacy

Note that Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary is the Guest of Honor at this year’s Conduit. Along with that, the Taylers are hosting a book launch party at the show for the latest Schlock book. Head on over to Howard’s site for all the details.

For you YA-type and writer-type people, here are some interesting panels that I won’t be on (the schedule isn’t final yet, from what I can tell, but here’s the latest info–go to Conduit’s site to be sure of the very latest news). (Also note that there will be a lot of geeky fun for all sorts of fannish things, which I won’t list here. Go look at the Conduit site for more info.)

Friday, May 22

  • Noon: Grammar, schmammar: When to follow the rules. And when to break them. (Michael R. Collings, Dave Wolverton, Kathleen Dalton Woodbury, Lee Allred, Anne Wingate, Berin Stephens)
  • 2:00 PM: How do you write a great “evil overlord”? (Clint Johnson, Ann Sharp, Roger White, Dave Wolverton, Howard Tayler)
  • 3:00 PM: Culture-Building in F&SF: How Do You Create a Viable and Consistent Culture? (John Brown, Lee Modesitt, Roger White, Dave Wolverton, Elisabeth Waters, Brandon Sanderson)
  • 5:00 PM: Howard Tayler Main Address: Practice Makes Perfect (I find it odd they have so many other things going on during the main address, but I’m new to this con, so… what do I know?)
  • 6:00 PM: Howard and Sandra Tayler Part 1: Structuring Creativity to Get Stuff Done Howard and Sandra will discuss how they structure their lives to fit all the business tasks, creative tasks, and family tasks into each day and into one house. They will also discuss how things worked differently in the earlier stages of their creative life and how they expect things to change in the years to come.

Saturday, May 23

  • 11 AM The Stenchless Chamberpot – how real should historical fiction or fantasy be?
  • (Ann Chamberlin, Jessica Day George, Clint Johnson, Robert J Defend, Dave Wolverton, Karen Webb)
  • Noon Howard and Sandra Tayler Part 2: The Nuts and Bolts of Running a Creative Business. Howard and Sandra will discuss the inner workings of their business and all the tasks necessary to keep it going. Accounting, Marketing, Networking, Shipping, Printing, and Comic Creation will all be discussed.
  • 3 PM The Twilight Books Phenomenon. Why are so many girls (and women) reading Stephenie Meyer?
  • (James Dashner, Nathan Shumate, Kathleen Dalton Woodbury, Suzy Gehring) I love that they have two guys on this panel about why girls and women are reading Stephenie Meyer!
  • 4-7 PM Howard Tayler Book Launch Party and Signing (Con Suite)
  • 4 PM The science of evil: why are villains the way they are (John Brown, Ann Sharp, Nathan Shumate, Eric Swedin, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Dan Wells)
  • 5 PM Main address–Dave Wolverton

Sunday, May 24

  • 10 AM Writing Red Herrings. Red herrings are standard in mysteries, but how can you be sure yours works? (Ann Chamberlin, Ann Sharp, Anne Wingate, Elisabeth Waters,Lee Modesitt, Paul Genesse)
  • 2 PM My Favorite Books. What books are writers reading? (Jessica Day George, Howard Tayler, Paul Genesse, Brandon Sanderson, Lee Allred)

And here’s my schedule. Note that one of the panels will be on worldbuilding for children and YA, so you’ll have a chance to get a taste of my opinions for the class I’m planning for June.

Friday, May 22

  • 3:00 PM What is a YA/MG editor/publisher looking for? (James Dashner, Mette Ivie Harrison, Julie Wright, Stacy Whitman, Dan Willis)
  • 4:00 PM It’s not your parents’ fiction. Writing for the YA/Children’s Market (James Dashner, Mette Ivie Harrison, Julie Wright, Stacy Whitman, Brandon Sanderson, Heather Horrock)

Saturday, May 23

  • Noon What can writers learn from Harry Potter? (Suzy Gehring, Stacy Whitman, Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury, Eric James Stone, Jason Anderson, Brandon Sanderson)
  • 2 PM How to publish and market your YA/MG book (James Dashner, Mette Ivie Harrison, Rebecca Shelley, Julie Wright, Dan Willis, Stacy Whitman, Sandra Tayler) (I don’t know about the other panelists, but I’m coming to this one to talk about marketing, because there are several other panels already about the publishing side of things.)
  • 4 PM “The next . . .” Publishers are looking for the next Harry Potter or Twilight. How can you get your book sold in spite of overblown expectations? (Mette Ivie Harrison, Julie Wright, Aprilynne Pike, Stacy Whitman, Robert J Defendi, Lee Modesitt)
  • 6 PM Worldbuilding for YA/MG writers (Stacy Whitman, Mette Ivie Harrison, Jessica Day George, Dan Willis, Aleta Clegg)

I think that’s all of mine. If all else fails, look at the schedule to be sure.

LDS Storymakers wrap-up

- Stacy 9 Comments

I also didn’t get a chance earlier this week to post about my experience at the LDS Storymakers conference, which I attended as a guest editor last Friday and Saturday. I spent much of my days in one-on-ones with authors, and the rest of the time I was out chatting with the conference participants and just talking to everyone in general.

I’d heard of this conference before, but hadn’t really paid attention to it. After all–or so I thought–it was only for authors working in the LDS market, a niche here in Utah. (It’s a worldwide niche through catalog and online sales and independent LDS bookstores that often operate in cities near LDS temples, but the bulk of the market is in the Intermountain West, through the LDS chain bookstores Deseret Book and Seagull Book and Tape.)

What I didn’t know was that in the last few years, the Storymakers have been expanding to include LDS writers in all markets, whether the LDS market or a more national market. Writers like Shannon Hale, Stephenie Meyer, Brandon Sanderson, Dave Wolverton, James Dashner, Jessica Day George, and many others have been honored by the Storymakers with their Whitney Awards recently (as nominees and winners), and the conference itself focuses more on craft than marketing, so the lessons about, well, storymaking, can be applied to whatever niche an author writes for.

While the conference does seem mostly geared for beginning to intermediate writers, I noticed that there’s a lot of networking opportunity for more experienced writers as well–it was great to see the number of published writers who were there giving back by volunteering for the committee, teaching a class, or helping out with the running of the bookstore. There were multiple book signings every day, and the bookstore was packed full of books by LDS authors in a number of markets.

I must say, it was one of the most well-organized, well-staffed conferences that I’ve ever participated in. It ranks right up there with BYU Writing for Young Readers (though Storymakers is for every genre–adult, children’s, LDS, secular, fantasy, realism, nonfiction, and so forth). And they’ve been growing–apparently they had something like 100 more people registered this year than they did last).

And of course, while BYU Writing for Young Readers is for a more general audience of writers, note that Storymakers is very definitely a venue for authors who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’m sure they wouldn’t kick you out if you weren’t LDS! By any means! But it’s very much a cultural affair, an event that embraces Mormon culture, prays at sit-down meals, and welcomes references to church, being LDS, and all of the attendant topics that go with that. And I believe the Whitneys are only open to Mormon writers. It’s a safe place for LDS writers to come together with their fellows and discuss that intersection between the arts and religion that can sometimes get misunderstood on both secular and religious sides (just one example pulled from recent headlines would be Deseret Book’s pulling of the Twilight series from their bookstore shelves recently because of “mixed reviews”).

It was great to see how they do a first chapter contest every year too, honoring those who have been working hard at their writing. I’d like to see a “later-chapter” or something like that contest, too, though–sometimes a first chapter, no matter how good, is all that has been written in that book! I’d like to see something to encourage people to not only write the first chapter, but to keep going to the second, third, and so on. (One might argue that the encouragement is all the recognition of people at the conference who have just gotten book deals, and the awards given out by one writers’ group honoring the person with the most rejections from that year, though! The thinking goes that if you’re getting rejected a lot, it’s because you’re getting your work out there. One also hopes that those rejections are coming not because the rejectee just blasted everyone with their work, whether it was a good fit or not, but that comes from the cynical side of this editor who saw way too many picture books even when the submission guidelines said NO PICTURE BOOKS.)

The part that had me choked up the most: the Whitney awards. I never knew that they were named for LDS church apostle Orson F. Whitney, who championed “Mormon” literature and gave one of the best talks I’ve seen on the subject (note to my non-Mormon readers: it’s a talk very much aimed at early Mormons, kind of sexist in its speech compared to modern-day conventions; just remember that it was given in 1888). He said:

Our literature must live and breathe for itself. Our mission is diverse from all others; our literature must also be. . . . We will yet have Miltons and Shakespeares of our own.

I really appreciated how the Whitneys are set up to honor those “Miltons and Shakespeares of our own.” It was great to see good friends and some authors I’d just met over the course of the conference be honored for the quality of their writing. Congrats to James Dashner, Brandon Sanderson, Heather Moore [edited to fix the right last name–sorry, Heather!], and several others who won Whitney awards in their categories. It’s a little corner of the world, but it’s nice to see how it’s been growing.

Anyway, if you’re LDS and a writer, it’s a great conference. Check it out come next year.

Playing catch-up

- Stacy

The site (at least, I believe) has been back up and running most of the week, but I’ve been swamped and haven’t had a chance to update on anything. Between allergies and some mysterious blah-ness, my health has really been on the outs with me this week, so it has slowed down all of my work. (In fact, I basically just took Tuesday as a sick day and slept all day. I haven’t done that in months. Then on Wednesday I kept thinking it was Tuesday, and I completely lost a day when I realized Wed. night that it was actually Wed. I haven’t really recovered the rest of this week, but I’m pushing through it because I have so much work to do.

So to those of you who are waiting on me to get back to you on a critique: thank you for your patience. I’m slowly catching up. I have two more manuscript critiques to get out the door this week (which, since I lost a day, might push over into Monday), a couple of small critiques to get back to people in the next week, one big edit to finish up next week, and a new project to start when the author gets me the manuscript.

Among all of that–note that these are the projects that are paying the bills right now–I need to get caught up on my Tor submissions as well, for which I’ve had a huge backlog for a few months now. If you gave me something to consider for Tor and haven’t heard from me, it’s because I’m afraid it’s very hard to pay the bills as a freelancer and while those submissions are very, very important to me, it will take some time because I’m juggling essentials like paying the rent and having enough food to eat. Combine that with a few weeks of allergies and suddenly I get even more behind!

But there’s good news! I have finally gotten new insurance, which will allow me to refill my asthma and allergy prescriptions–I have a feeling when I come back from the doctor’s office this afternoon, I will feel like a new woman, with all that breathing and everything. Part of the problem of the last few weeks is that it’s been the worst part of the allergy season (blooming trees) and I had none of my prescription-strength medicines to help me out. As you can imagine, when you’re as allergic to everything as I am, not having the right medicine can leave you in a puddle of wheezy, eye-itching, worn-out, possible-sinus-infection muck. I’ve actually been amazed that I’ve lasted as long as I have.

Here’s to getting caught up!

When do you need a freelance editor in the submission process? Or do you?

- Stacy 4 Comments

I recently updated my Critiques page. The more general question of when or if a writer needs a freelance editor feels like the overarching reasons for the changes that I made, so I thought I’d address them in a post. Bear in mind that this mostly addresses the editing of full manuscripts; submission packet critiques obviously are a different situation entirely, but the the principles of utilizing all the resources out there before submitting remains the same.

Sometimes I feel like writers are approaching me too early in the process. While I absolutely love to help new authors to succeed, I’m not sure if my paid services are the best way for me to help someone who can still benefit from the large number of free resources out there for writers. That’s why I keep this blog, after all–to help demystify publishing and to give advice where necessary (in addition to connecting with the children’s lit blogosphere and other personal reasons). Writing groups (consisting of trusted professionals, readers and writers whose feedback will fit the story you want to tell and the market you want to reach) can be a huge resource, as are blogs and Twitter streams of all the editors, agents, and authors out there (and there are a great number of them). The SCBWI is a huge resource both online (email listservs, the SCBWI website, and online writing groups–especially for people who aren’t physically near a good writing group locally) and in person (conferences, local chapter meetings, and writing groups).  Local colleges might have a class or two in children’s literature that you can take to improve your knowledge of the genre and to improve writing habits, editing skills, and butt-in-chair practice.

Once those resources have been exhausted, and you’ve done all you can do with your manuscript–you’ve revised it yourself, you’ve workshopped it with your writing group, you’ve had trusted alpha and beta readers (not your mom, spouse, or child unless you know they’ll give you solid feedback when something isn’t working) read it all at once rather than a chapter at a time like with a writing group, and between each stage, you’ve let it sit for a while, so that you can come back to it with fresh eyes yourself–that’s when a freelance editor comes in.

I freely admit my services aren’t always necessary, or even most of the time. The way that the market is currently contracting right now, I can be of most help to writers who have been submitting, but have been getting feedback from editors or agents saying that the book was good, but not great, or that they felt it needed more work that you feel would benefit from a professional editor’s opinion, after exhausting all those free or inexpensive options out there.

There have also been times when I’ve worked with writers who already have agents, whose agents are excited about the book but don’t feel it’s up to publishers’ demanding needs in this competitive acquisition market and want to be sure that the book is fully ready before sending it back to editors who expressed interest.

But the main thing I want to stress is that there are a lot of really great free resources out there to help you before you consider hiring an editor. Sure, it might seem like I’m probably shooting myself in the foot on getting paid work, but I think we’d both be able to benefit more from the experience if you felt like you were truly getting your money’s worth–and for that to happen, hopefully the tips here and on the critique page will help with that.

Once again, I’ll also emphasize that often I can tell in the first three chapters whether a book will garner my attention further and a number of major overall issues. Obviously, I can’t give you full feedback on plot development and characterization, etc., from three chapters, but I usually have  a good idea of whether a story is being set up in a way that will make me want to continue reading. My submission packet critique service, many authors have told me, have made a big difference in how they view the rest of their manuscript. So if you’re low on funds and want a professional’s opinion, that is a great way to get a feel for whether my services are right for you. (Note also that if after a three-chapter critique you decide you want me to work on the whole manuscript, that $50 fee from the first critique applies as a discount to the full manuscript.)

In a full manuscript, I get more into the nitty gritty of plot development–whether an ending is earned, whether more foreshadowing is needed, if certain scenes are necessary (and suggestions on possibilities for changes)–pacing, characterization, characters themselves (number of characters, whether certain characters are memorable enough or necessary, etc.), worldbuilding (in the case of genre fiction, this is essential), setting, and all those other things that come together to make a good book. So a freelance editor is definitely useful if you feel like your book just needs that extra something that only an informed, experienced professional opinion can give you.

But consider all your resources when considering a freelancer, so that you truly can know that it’s the right time in the life of your manuscript to get that extra help.

A reminder, and random tidbits

- Stacy

One last thing [that I just edited to be the first thing, because it’s more important than my ramblings]: If you’re local to Utah and are a writer of the LDS faith and/or writing in the LDS market, remember that LDStorymakers happens next weekend. I believe the deadline is fast approaching (in fact, I just checked, and it’s today!) and there are no walk-in registrations due to the conference’s agreement with the hotel. So if you want to go, register now.

Now, the meandering:

Though little seems to be happening on the blog front, that’s because much is happening behind the scenes. I’m currently working under deadline on several projects, including XDM by Tracy Hickman, Curtis Hickman, and Howard Tayler, and several novels by individual authors (who I never mention by name on here because they’re not “my” projects to mention, and the work I do with authors pre-publication-process is very much behind-the-scenes work). I’m still looking for submissions for Tor, as well, though this week that’s not as high priority as the deadline work. So if you’ve been wondering where I went, well, there you have it.

In other news, though winter was officially banished a month ago, the heavens still seem to be singing Christmas carols. It snowed all morning, but when I ventured out at five to meet a friend, it had stopped and I thought that was the end of it. But noooo. My drive home tonight from a friend’s reminded me greatly of a time in high school, driving to a basketball game in my friend Tim’s ancient green Impala (he was driving—I was a freshman), when he hit the brakes and we just kept sliiiiiiding on past the high school driveway. There had to have been six to nine inches of snow on the road tonight at midnight. I did a few donuts reminiscent of that old Impala, as well, which reminds me that I have needed new tires since, oh, about October. I thought I’d gotten through the winter well enough by avoiding driving in bad weather as often as possible, but it had to snow just one more time, didn’t it?

Sigh.

But no collisions. At least, my car didn’t collide with anyone else’s (though there were a few close calls). I saw one accident, though, and no wonder, with the roads in that condition. I’m sure the snowplows have been put up for the season, given that it’s April.

Extending my personal economic stimulus plan

- Stacy

Looking at the subject, that could be interpreted a couple different ways. 😀 But what I mean today is that I’ve decided that with the way the economy is currently headed, it might be best for me to continue to offer individual authors a discount on my hourly rate for full-manuscript developmental edits. I think it helps out all of you who I’m working with to be able to afford an editor’s help if you feel you need it, and it helps out me as I’m working on the next stage of this transition in my career. If you’re interested in getting a critique, check out the details on my website. The $50 fee for a 3-chapter/cover letter critique will remain the same, however, because I already usually end up spending more than one hour on each of those.

Speaking of that, time management is one of my biggest challenges as a freelancer. I love giving detailed feedback to everyone that I work with, and try to do the best job possible for each and every project. So sometimes I end up spending entirely too much time on a project. If you’re curious how I manage that, one incentive that I give myself is capping the amount I’ll charge on a full manuscript at a certain number of hours. I give each author an estimate based on the word count of the novel and a sample (either one that I’ve already seen via the submission packet critique, or one that the author sends for me to glance over as I decide whether to take on a project). I will give a range of hours (for example, something like 20-25 hours) and then give a dollar estimate based on my hourly rate. While I may (miraculously) come under the estimate, and charge less accordingly, my policy is to cap the total at whatever the high end of my quote was.

So, if that helps reassure anyone worried that perhaps an edit of your book might take more time than originally estimated, and that you may be required to pay more than you’ve budgeted, believe me, I know how you feel. This is my way of making sure that your costs and my time are kept in check.

Seminar report

- Stacy

I had a really great time meeting somewhere in the neighborhood of 23 local writers on Saturday at the Provo Library. We talked about writing science fiction and fantasy for children and young adults, and in that context we talked about hooking agents and editors and young readers themselves with killer first chapters and beyond. I think my favorite part of the afternoon was getting volunteers to read their first hook and then the collegial atmosphere when we applied what we’d been talking about as we discussed how to improve those samples.

Thanks to everyone who came! I think a writing group grew from it, as well. Good luck with your writing.

I think I’ll try to do a seminar like this every quarter or so, and perhaps a few other classes, perhaps getting more in-depth on other aspects of writing science fiction and fantasy for young readers. Suggestions for class topics welcome, and if anyone from the class has further questions I’m happy to answer them.