I completed all the chapters in my latest novel, EMPIRE ASCENDANT, last night. It’s the fourteenth book I’ve written, but just the fifth that will be published. There’s a reason I had to write so many trunked novels that will never see the light of day before I wrote ones that did: I don’t have […]
So You Think You Finished a Novel… Read More »
I’ve been blessed with some pretty great bosses in my time, folks who recognized that having somebody smart on the team who got things done made them look good, and meant they did less work because, you know, I was doing it. But, being a woman in the workplace, it was inevitable that some boss,
On Being Too Smart and Assertive in the Workplace Read More »
In the film Gattaca, a young man born with what its dystopian society considered “undesirable” genetic disadvantages manages to fleece the system and rise up through the ranks of its elite astronaut corps. When confronted by his brother about how he’d done it, the young man likens it to the swimming races they had as
I Never Saved Anything for the Swim Back Read More »
It seems it’s that time of year again, when we remind folks what exactly we wrote last year, what we thought rocked from other people last year, and what’s eligible for what-what, etc. And before I get pummeled with tomatoes for saying, “Hey, here’s some stuff I enjoyed this year!” I’ll note the suggestions below are
Award Season Boogie: What’s Up for 2014 Noms Read More »
About this time last year, GOD’S WAR, which had been out in the UK for a solid seven months, had sold just 300 copies there, and every single major publishing house had passed on THE MIRROR EMPIRE, the epic fantasy novel I thought was the most marketable thing I’d ever written. I was, to be blunt,
2014: Some (Honest) Publishing Numbers, and (Almost) Throwing in the Towel Read More »
You know when you’re sitting there listening to a song, and it hits the rock-out chorus part, and suddenly you feel alive, you feel invincible, like anything is possible? That’s what reading a great essay should be like. A story that moves you to action. And that’s all blog posts are, really, the good ones: essays that
Blog Stats: What Being Newly-Kinda-SF-Internet-Only-Famous Looks Like Read More »
Three weeks ago, our ten year old Great Pyrenees, Nana, fell down the stairs. She had been slowing down of late, but I figured that was expected, as ten years is the lower end of the life expectancy range for these big dogs. But when we heard a scrabbling on the stairs, a thump, and
I’ll be at CONFusion next month (eeeee) from January 16th-19th. That’s… in 2015! 10 days before my book will be due! OH LORDY. I plan to be at the bar that Thursday night, so I do hope to see the early birds there as well to kick off the drinking right, as you can see
ConFusion 2015: Panel Schedule Read More »
So, now that the last announcement of the year is out, I’m off to go finish this fucking book that’s due in SIX WEEKS EEEEEEEEEE so you can read EMPIRE ASCENDANT on time in October of 2015, so I can get started on THE STARS ARE LEGION which is DUE in October 2015 (yes, do the
Newsflash: All Quiet Until 2015 Read More »
I was cleaning out some old files and papers this weekend, packing things up to get archived over at Northern Illinois University, and as one does when one goes through old photos and letters and emails, I reminisced about times past, about what could have been, about other lives led. I have been working with
Writing, Stress, and the Tunnel Vision of Middle Age Read More »