Saturday, October 31, 2009

Happy Halloween!

It seems only fitting...




And what will YOU be this year?

And more importantly, what CANDY will you pick out of the bucket and stash for yourself, or steal from innocent children, or be tricksy for? (I always steal the snickers and the reeses cups)

Wishing you all a very Happy Halloween! (Posted Originally at http://veschwab.livejournal.com)


Friday, October 30, 2009

I Should Call This Post NaNoWriMo, or...

In Which Victoria Goes From Admitting She Needs a Break to Over-committing in the Course of a Day.

Alright, so here's the deal. I'm going to TRY to do NaNoWriMo. That means, I am going to have fun and do my best. That also means that if I don't finish, I am NOT going to feel bad. I don't expect to finish, what with edits and apps and life. But I'm willing to give it a go.

Because I DO have a new book to work on, and I might as well try to keep my fingers busy. It's either write, or compulsively click REFRESH on my email. So let's go for the more productive of the two.

I'm there as veschwab, in case you're there and want to be buddies.

I know I will probably regret this. But I DID take a day off writing. Yesterday.

~V

PS. It would appear I have a fairly abusive relationship with my writing. But drained as I am, I just don't feel *right* when I'm not doing it. So it's worth a TRY.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Editing is like...

Editing is like...

...A longtime relationship, right after the proposal, when the bride gets cold feet, or the groom has a swell of doubt, and they fight, but the bride knows she loves the groom/book desperately and want to make it work, so they go to couples counseling, and at last they reconcile, and hopefully they have a healthier, more stable relationship.

...Those CSI/murder investigation shows where the cop spends the entire episode trying to work through false leads, has a nervous break where they think the case will NEVER be solved, but in their gut they know they can't give up because it's their job and the answer is there, somewhere, so they keep going and then a lead comes out of nowhere and the pieces begin to click and click and click and then case is solved and the whole office drinks coffee and toasts to the cop's skills.

...Baking a cake (you knew I'd go here). Except you have no idea if the ingredients you're using are the right ones or how it will taste, so you sniff it and taste it and break a ton of eggs and spill flour on yourself and maybe have to start over because the oven was too hot and you burned the edges or the middle fell down, but you can be damn sure that by the time anyone has to see or eat the cake, they'll never know what a beast it was to make.

...Surviving the fire swamp (you knew I'd go here, too). Because Wesley and Buttercup know that it's going to be almost impossible ("We'll never survive." "Nonsense. You only say that because no one ever has.") but they do it anyway because they are being chased and don't have a choice, and they learn the pitfalls and how to avoid them, and after getting singed, and nearly drowning, and attacked by ROUSs, they finally get to the end. And it doesn't matter that Wesley is capture, because they survived the swamp and they'll survive all those other things by the end of the story.

So, yeah. Editing is like a lot of things. It's NOT easy. But it's also NOT impossible, and the end product, whether it's a loving marriage, or a case solved, or a yummy cake, or surviving the fire swamp with only a few burns and bites, is worth it.

Saturday, October 3, 2009

My Precioussss...

So, I've been cleaning and organizing my bedroom and office, since both have fallen into a state of utter shame and disrepair during these last couple weeks. At one point, I went through my books (I've said on numerous occasions that I have a pitifully small supply, compared to most writers, somewhere in the 100-200). But as I was going through them, I came upon something very special.



Yes, almost everyone I know owns at least one of the HP books...



But this one's signed.

I don't have anything from my grandparents. Nothing treasured and passed down. But I do have this. My mother was in a bookstore one day, a little over a decade ago, and called me to say a woman was signing books there. I hadn't heard of J.K. Rowling, or of Harry Potter yet, but my mom decided to go ahead and get me a copy. There was hardly a line. And that's one of the reasons it's so precious. It was just a matter of luck and timing, at a time when Rowling was just another up and coming author.

So, what's your most precious book?

Thursday, October 1, 2009

The Witching Year!

Midnight might be the Witching Hour, and fall might be the Witching Season, but there's no doubt 2011 will be the Witching Year!

In case you haven't heard, there are THREE YA books (so far) (two from FLux, one from Disney*Hyperion) slated for 2011 with "Witch" in the title.

Scott Tracy's WITCH EYES

Karen Mahoney's THE IRON WITCH

and my own THE NEAR WITCH!

Now, what makes this Witching Year so awesome is that all three books are SO different. We've got gay witches in a romeo and Juliet scenario, a teen girl labeled a witch because of the markings on her, and a village where witches are those who can control the natural world.

2011 is going to be magical :)