Boil It Down To The Page

It’s a projected eighty-degree day out there, so I closed up the house early and got out before noon to run errands. The UnSullen dragged the portable air conditioner out of the freshly-cleaned garage, and I just munched two sea-salt caramels that Someone Wonderful (the same wonderful someone who got me a copy of Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice For All Creation) left at the bookstore for my birthday.

Life is good.

I also got something wonderful in the mail recently–a copy of PN Elrod’s newest, The Devil You Know. IS THIS NOT AWESOME? I can’t wait to read it, since I’m a big Jack Fleming fan–Jack Becker in A Standup Dame is an indirect tribute to Fleming and Elrod, as well as Hammett and Chandler. Plus, Pat Elrod is one of the nicest people I know in publishing. Go take a peek, and if you haven’t already been introduced to Mr. Fleming and his nightclub, good Lord are you in for a treat!

I’m also reading a review manuscript of Kelly Gay’s upcoming The Better Half Of Darkness, which is starting off a little slow but otherwise enjoyable and well-crafted.

The second Strange Angels book, Betrayals, is showing up on BN.com and Amazon. (It is not out until November 2009.) I was mildly surprised to see it classified at the latter under “Books > Teens > Social Issues > Pregnancy > Fiction,” since there is no pregnancy in the book. I mean, there’s two first kisses, but no sex and definitely no spawning. But then, we all know how Amazon likes to classify and declassify stuff according to their world-domination plans at the moment. So I am merely amused at the whole thing.

I’m at a weird stage with the short story for the Girl’s Guide To Guns & Monsters anthology. Every short, for me, has a point where I’ve finished the setup and have to get the crisis clear in my head before I can go any further. Shorts take so, so much more planning for me. The planning looks a lot like I’m just sitting and staring into space, but trust me–there’s wheels turning and smoke roiling inside the old noggin. I’m also looking at working in something I’ve been thinking about for a while. You know how on a hot day, there’s a certain type of smell from older concrete and a certain type of low juniper bush? An acidic, old-man-urine type of smell. I’m trying to get that into the story, because it sets the scene so beautifully. This is the hat-trick of writing, to reduce a sensory experience to black and white marks on a page.

Boil it down, distill it, breathe in the steam. Uncork the bottle, let the genie out.

So now it’s back to staring off into the distance and jelling it inside my head on a sleepy summer afternoon.

There are worse things.

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Author Video!

So, you remember a while back I was moaning and obsessing over being on camera? Well…that was because Penguin hired a videographer (the inimitable Dicky Dahl, who was very nice) and induced me to talk about Strange Angels.

I’m not so keen on being on-camera, mostly because I am a huge nervous butterball. Still, it’s fascinating to watch how all the footage we shot got condensed and–what’s that you say? Shut up and link to it, Lili?

Your wish is my command. If the embedded player doesn’t work, click here. Enjoy! (The bookstore is Cover to Cover Books in Vancouver, WA, and the vulture’s name is Clara.)

And Lord, if this video isn’t a further motivation for me to keep working out, nothing is…

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