Feminist Futures Storybundle!

/ Nancy Palmer / Leave a comment

Cat Rambo has been busy. Writing, teaching, and most relevant here: curating the 2019 Feminist Futures Storybundle. Oh yeah! You can check out Cat’s collection by clicking this link.

Since Albatross is part of this bundle, I got a sneak peek at the contents. And I’ve been READING! Storybundles are a great way to sample some writers you may not already know, or revisit some of your favs to see some of their other work. (How excited was I to see an N.K. Jemisin story in Sunspot Jungle? Very Excited, dear Reader. Very Excited!! Excited enough to hurl around misplaced capital letters and multiple exclamation points. Yes! That Excited!)

If you’re new to the Storybundle concept, it’s basically the chance to get your hands on several books/story collections/poetry assemblages, what have you, for a price that you choose. There’s also an opportunity to designate a portion of your price to go to charity. So you can support writers, get a bundle of new reading material, and do some good at the same time. Word of warning: refill your tea or other favorite beverage before you start reading. Because you may not want to put the story down… and there’s a lot of book in this bundle.

The Telling Detail

/ Nancy Palmer / Leave a comment
Image (13)
We have new family members.

Some of my new works contain mice. Mice are Essential. I don’t have much real-world experience with mice, and it seemed wrong to draw them and write about them (or their analogs) without knowing them. So I adopted a pair of sisters who are, at this moment, sleeping in a nest they built themselves. Did you know that a Playstation 4 comes with cardboard in the packaging that converts to fabulous mouse housing? You do now.

See? Research rocks! Just this second-hand exposure to mice has taught you something, too. While I won’t advocate immersion learning for everything you may write about, there’s something to be said for deep and immediate understanding. But it comes with a cost. I’ve cared for many other small animals in my time so I had some idea of what I’m in for. I did my mouse-specific research, and was prepared to make up to a three year commitment before I adopted these mice. I’m buying their food, bedding, and (because I want them to live their best lives) three cages of increasingly large size. Right now, they’re in a 40 gallon long glass breeder aquarium with a screened top. And I decided beforehand how much *smell* I could deal with, and figured out how to keep them safe from my cat. But you don’t have to go this far in your research.

Second-hand info can be fantastic! People are generally thrilled to be talking about what they love, so don’t be afraid to ask politely. Your genuine interest will show. And if you ask deep questions, they may share the telling detail: something that conveys a depth of understanding or immediate experience. Then you can convert their knowledge into your character’s knowledge, using that detail to create a believable reality for your reader.

Back to mice: such joyful little creatures. They love to explore, and are curious about any new thing in their habitat. Bonus: I’ve learned that a mouse’s tiny forepaws feel like eyelashes flickering across your hand. Such a lovely thing.

Want a writing exercise?
Susan has moved to a new city. She enjoys gaming. She is lonely, so she adopts some mice. Use the info I’ve given you about mice and create a quick scene of Susan unpacking and giving the mice the carton inserts. Note for new writers: you don’t have to say she enjoys gaming. Just show her unpacking the PS4 and some games. Feel free to post in the comments if you feel like sharing. Posts in which Susan also has a pet snake, featuring an unfortunate outcome for the mice, will be deleted. 😉

The Pros Know

/ Nancy Palmer / 2 Comments

I just listened to the audiobook Million Dollar Professionalism for the Writer Million-Dollar-Pro500
by Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta. Again. And I’m feeling an urge to reach out to all the new, new-ish, and aspiring writers I know. I want to tell them to pick this book up, and read or listen. And then do it again.

The first time through, I was occupied with things such as driving, not burning dinner, you know the drill. The second time I listened? I took notes.

Moesta (author, editor, and publisher) and Anderson (author of over 50 bestsellers) give straight talk about the real world of writing professionally. The book is liberally sprinkled with anecdotes, generally personal stories from the authors, often painfully at their own expense. They demonstrate how things can go terribly wrong in writing, in publishing, in personal interactions with others in your profession. And they advise how to avoid these hazards yourself. Topics range from personal presentation to making connections in the publishing world, how to handle professional and fan interactions, talent versus persistence, and other potential assets or pitfalls to the newcomer.

While Anderson and Moesta state that this information is largely the material assembled for a course they’ve taught repeatedly, it doesn’t come across as a classroom presentation. In fact, it reminds me of nothing so much as an involved conversation with respected industry pros: colleagues sharing stories over dinner, lingering over desert, swapping tales and giving advice to the newcomers.

Narrator Charles Kahlenberg’s avuncular reading furthers this feeling, making the book easy to listen to and absorb. Disclaimer: I received a review copy of this audiobook. But nobody made me stop halfway through the first listen and send Wordfire Press and Kevin J. Anderson a congratulatory note on their choice of narrators. Kahlenberg’s reading is expressive, conversational even. Yet it doesn’t detract from the important material the book is sharing.

I was impressed by the subtle positive messages of encouragement the authors included. There’s a danger when seasoned pros give “advice.” I know, I’ve fallen prey in the past to glib warnings, pronouncements of criteria for success. Pronouncements that made possibilities seem so unattainable that they were discouraging, rather than helpful. But Anderson and Moesta don’t do that. Instead, there is an assumption that OF COURSE you’re a writer. Of course you belong at the table with them, listening to the stories. Here’s what you do when the opportunities become available, when the anthology calls, when the publisher says yes. When you’re a guest at the convention. And at the award ceremony.

This implied success is contagious! And it’s attributed where it belongs: to the writer being professional, to getting the work done, to loving their job but respecting it too.

Million Dollar Professionalism for the Writer: highly recommended for the new, new-ish, or aspiring writer, or other creative professional who might be looking to jumpstart their career. To read now, and revisit.

 

 

A World in Itself

/ Nancy Palmer / 2 Comments

I wrote this as a comment in a metafilter thread. If you don’t know metafilter, you should. The topic was trees and plants we love.

 

I love the song we are singing today, the long slow tale of trees.

My first and best friend was an oak, and I grieve her still today. As a child, my fingers fit into the grooves of her bark. I spent hours discovering the lives hidden, making their home in her. Ants on their invisible highways. Caterpillars wondrous in their strangeness, moths well camouflaged discovered as hidden treasure, and once the glorious green of a luna stunning my eyes, a gift of beauty not meant for me but that I shared in nonetheless.

But that tree’s hours were long ago, in the way we humans measure time.

So today I celebrate the bloodberry, native here in this hot wet place. It flowers and fruits long, often at the same time. It grows fast, wild, abundant. Small leaves, small flowers, small fruit. Bees of many kinds crowd its blossoms. The tiny glowing red berries are just the size to feed baby birds, so many species will attend at once. The hawks are not much of a bother here, because the thin branches will not hold their weight, and the small leaves obscure birds who might otherwise be prey. After watching the wild mockingbirds harvest and feed their young, I gathered those same berries for orphans in my care, that they could know their native foods and have a better chance of surviving. I have seen ducks standing beneath it, gobbling every berry that can reach, and I have fallen into quiet laughter watching these ducks hop – hop! – to reach the brilliant sunstruck globes above them, and sometimes succeed.

It is not a tree. It is itself, a wiry and wild shrub, but I always feel there is a knowing in it. And when its children have escaped the flying ones and sprung up around their parent’s feet, I  have lovingly rehomed them, to spread this wonder. I have moved to a new home myself, and the scion of the bloodberry grows here alongside me. And I think we will be good friends.

STORYBUNDLE LIVE!

/ Nancy Palmer / 3 Comments

9561D84E-7F09-4667-A95C-8760A7B5FBC3Got a text from my friend Kirsten: “Picked up your Storybundle. This is a great deal!”

Kirsten’s a reader after my own heart. Voluminous, wide-ranging. It can be hard to keep up with our hunger for new worlds, new ideas. New adventures!

Kevin J. Anderson has helped fuel our bookish dreams with a new Storybundle of a dozen adventure SF books. Heads up: this bundle only runs for three weeks from August 29 through September 19. 

The bundle includes Anderson’s newly released collection, Selected Stories: Science Fiction Volume 1, (including his first piece of published science fiction, from back when Kevin was only 12!). You also get the Fiction River anthology Superpowers edited by Rebecca Moesta, and the new anthology Bridge Across the Stars, edited by Rhett Bruno.

The nine novels in this bundle range from wild adventure SF (Nobless Oblige by Uri Kurlianchik, Shadow of Ruin by Quincy J. Allen featuring Colt the Outlander from Heavy Metal magazine, created by the Aradio Brothers, and Steampunk Banditos, the new Felix Gomez novel by Mario Acevedo), to edgy thought-provoking science fiction (Albatross by R.A. MacAvoy and Yours Truly, and Crecheling by D.J. Butler), disaster black-hole thriller Singularity by Bill deSmedt, and solid, compelling science fiction The Soul Eater by Mike Resnick, The Application of Hope by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Dry Creek Crossing by Dean Wesley Smith. Books enough to keep even Kirsten reading for a while.

With Storybundle, you name your own price, minimum of $5 for the base level of five titles, or $15 minimum for the full dozen.  And, what makes me most particularly happy: a portion goes to support Challenger Center for Space Science Education!

I am proud to support Challenger Center in making great science education materials available to teachers and students. And you can support space education, too, while joining Kirsten, me, and likeminded readers in ending summer with big adventures!

Follow this link for more info, or to get this Storybundle now! 

Happy as a Cat in a Box

/ Nancy Palmer / Leave a comment

IMG_7010Here’s Kyle on my desk, joining me in listening to the final chapters of the Albatross audiobook. Kyle APPEARS drowsy, but he is in fact purring busily.

As am I. Breaking open a bottle of elderflower and rose lemonade to celebrate! I’m so pleased with the way this project turned out. I hope to announce its availability for you soon.

Meanwhile, Kyle and I already have the first chapters of SHIMMER waiting for us to hear. Time to break out the catnip!

I’ve been sick recently, and minus the use of my right hand and arm. And we all know what pain and meds can do to you. However, I HAVE managed to do some reading of classics (Prisoner of Zenda…thank you, Project Gutenberg!) and some more contemporary books and stories. Watch for reviews coming soon.

And also maybe some photos of my new glove collection. Or maybe photos of Kyle with my glove collection. (Yes, he found that box too. But one cat photo per post, yes?)