Audiobooks

I signed up for Audible recently. I was motivated to try it because they had the first three chapters of Josh Kaufman’s The First Twenty Hours up for free, but then I realized it melds nicely with this year’s goal or reading books rather than blogs. I hadnt thought about the audio version–audiobooks not podcasts–but it seems like it’s an even better idea there.

In the case of books-not-blogs, my main reasoning was content: blogs are (usually) pretty disorganized and superficial. Podcasts actually seem a little more content-heavy, at least the ones I follow, but the overhead of making sure to update them, sync my phone, delete the old ones, find the one I want to listen to…it’s even more of a pain than with blogs.

Audiobooks solve both problems: way less overhead since they’re 10-20 times as long, in-depth well-organized content, and as a bonus maybe I can attack my reading list a bit. Also, easier to wrangle in the car.

I’m still undecided on whether I’ll keep it after the first couple months, though. My recall is a lot worse for audio than for something I’m reading, and it’s almost impossible to take notes (especially since I’ve been listening while doing other things, like driving or gardening). So we’ll see.

Any recommendations for great nonfiction audiobooks?

Origins 2013–it’s here!

How did it get to be mid-June already? That’s not a rhetorical question. I really want to know.

Anyhoo, since it’s mid-June, that means I’m at Origins Game Fair in Columbus. It’s my first time as a writing-program event planner, and while I’m a bit nervous, so far it’s going well. If you’re in the environs of the Convention Center and want to stalk me at some writing panels, here’s my schedule:

Thursday 10 a.m., room 223: Hey! I’ve got a day job!

Friday, 11 a.m., room 223: Women Writing Horror

Friday, noon, room 222: Sexism, How much is too much?

Saturday, 11 a.m., room 223: A writing group is not just a group of writers

Sunday, 11 a.m., room 222: Writing Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction

I’ll be in the Library area of the dealer hall most other times. When I’m not eating or playing games, that is. Origins is a gaming convention, so I expect I’ll be sleep-deprived and over-caffeinated by Sunday afternoon.

 

 

 

My current favorite to-do application

I’m not sure if I’ve talked about this on here, but I love playing with productivity apps. I’m always searching for the perfect solution–something that’s fast, flexible, and that can keep track of everything. It’s a huge time waster.

More than a year ago, I started using separate programs for writing stuff and non-writing stuff (Firetask and Things, respectively). This works well, except for one thing: the problem with putting *everything* into these apps is that…. *everything* is in these apps. It’s overwhelming. Even with filtering by category or due date or a “today” list, it’s a constant reminder of how much I have to do, and a constant distraction.

I also like the visual representation that a calendar gives me. This is one reason I’ve tried so many to do list apps–they’re all lists. Yes, I understand and agree with the whole philosophy about not putting tasks on your hard landscape, but putting tasks on my calendar helps remind me that tasks actually take up time and I cannot do infinite numbers of them every day.

So I gave up on finding the perfect app. Instead….

My weekly planner is clearly hand-drawn (at least I used a ruler). This is because I gave up trying to find one that is in the right format, with blocks for weekdays that are too small to cram too many things into, and bigger blocks for weekends (most weekly planners make the weekdays big and weekends small, like they’re all made for people to use at work or something), and space to write whatever deadlines and goals and notes I have.

The nice thing about drawing the planner every week (it takes a whole minute or so) is that I can change it. I’m actually going to make the weekdays even smaller (really, I can only do one thing a night other than writing, and having too much space there tempts me to try to add things) and get rid of the list of things to read (because I put that elsewhere). I’ll probably sub in a free-form notes section and subdivide the weekends into morning/afternoon/evening.

So each week I go through my to do list apps and my calendar and spend 15 minutes or so figuring out what I’m going to do when. Basically, having to copy things into the planner ensures that I do a weekly review.

Best of all, I can put everything into an app and keep it organized and scheduled, but not get overwhelmed with everything I want to get done. That’s definitely worth 15 minutes a week.

Mind-blowing book of the week

I’m thinking of making this a thing.  Every now and then, I’ll spotlight a book I’m reading that I think has some kind of mind-blowing quality about it.  To be clear, though, this would not be a traditional review.  I won’t be discussing the strengths and weaknesses of a book or giving a comprehensive analysis of the plot and characters.  What I will do is highlight a particular scene, character, plot point, world building element, etc. that I think works exceptionally well, and say why.  Since this is also from a writer’s perspective, it will focus on what I can learn from these elements in my own work.  I’ll try to include a variety of books: science fiction and fantasy, of course, but also romance, mystery, classic and contemporary works.

The book I’m reading this week is John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America.  It’s the story of Steinbeck’s road trip across the interstates and back roads of America and his attempt to get re-acquainted with the country and its people.  Steinbeck makes this journey in his converted truck/camper–nicknamed Rocinante–with his poodle Charley along for company.

There’s a particular scene about halfway through the book where Steinbeck stops in Chicago to meet up with his wife, who is flying in to visit him after he’s been on the road for a few months.  He arrives at an upscale hotel at around 3:00 in the morning, and since his room isn’t ready, Steinbeck, exhausted, unshaven, and desperately craving a shower and a bed, makes an arrangement with the staff to temporarily occupy the room of a man who had to check out early.  Housekeeping hasn’t cleaned the room yet, but Steinbeck doesn’t mind.  All he wants is that hot shower and a few hours’ sleep.

He goes to the room, sits down, takes off one shoe…and suddenly, despite his exhaustion, his writer brain takes off and he’s captivated by the room and the man who occupied it before him.  Steinbeck nicknames the man Lonesome Harry, and as he walks through the hotel room, he constructs a portrait in his mind of who the man might be, who the woman is that joined him in his room and left lipstick on the glasses and the cigarette butts in the ashtray, and whether they were happy together or lonely.  In the wrong hands, this scene might read as creepy and voyeuristic at worst, or at best like a snippet from an episode of CSI.  But Steinbeck, in just a page of description, establishes a melancholy connection to this man he will never meet, yet who becomes a part of Steinbeck’s journey as vividly as if the two had chatted over coffee at a roadside diner.

What do I take from this?  The rooms we occupy in our lives–even the temporary ones–say a lot about us, even if we don’t realize it.  The traces we leave behind, Steinbeck says, are like ghosts, echoes that can be perceived by people who know how to look for them.  With the right description of a space, I can say so much about a character, even before he or she appears on the page.

Bouncy House

I’m putting this post up late tonight, because it’s summer and I’m involved in so many different things right now. Like cleaning and defrosting the fridge.

EXCITEMENT.

In addition to getting caught up on various household chores that I’ve been putting off for months (years), I’ve also been torturing my children. No, I haven’t waterboarded them for leaving the Ipad in the middle of the floor where someone can come this close to stepping on it before they notice and lunge to the side to avoid it, moving with the sure grace of a heron stomping on a power line. Though the idea occurred. No, this torture is much more mundane and omnipresent. I’m torturing them by not doing what they want me to do right now.

School is out. The kids are around all the time, and they want all sorts of things. Books read. Shows started. Food. The park. The pool. Food, again. They want, so they ask. Over and over, until Dad goes all owly-bear.

Thing is, I get it. They want–whatever–really bad, and most of the time they can only get it through me or their mother. They can’t make pizza, they can’t download anything from Itunes without our stamp of approval, and we’ve really cracked down on letting the five year old drive to the pool. They have to rely on us, and we’re pretty crappy on the follow through. We keep having other things to do (see refrigerator, scary), other things to spend our money on, we’re always doing boring things with other people, and for some reason we’re awful cranky when asked for breakfast early in the morning.

It’s all out of their hands, and it’s torture for them. We have access to all these amazing things–TV, candy, bouncy houses–and when they ask about them our answer is usually no. Or maybe, followed by a long wait, and then no. And do our explanations make sense. No. Laws? Safety? Money? These things are just our way of keeping them down.

Now, can you guess how I’m going to connect this to writing?

What if I told you I had twelve things out right now? What if I said that over half of them have been in their respective slush piles for way longer than is average (at least according to my tracking sites)?

Editors have lives (right Kelly?). Jobs, families, hobbies. Parties to go to, cats to photograph, refrigerators to defrost. Their slush piles are just another job to do. They’ll get to it.

Meanwhile, I wait, and worry, and wonder. This time, this market, this story. Will it work? Will they love it? Will they? Will they?

Will there be a bouncy house?

(Spoiler alert- No, usually not. And are my kids, for some reason, are seldom sympathetic.)

 

Heroes!

So I’m able to share the cover and TOC from my very first anthology as an editor. Being an editor was not one of my original writing goals, but when opportunity knocks, as they say, open the door. I really liked the experience and would absolutely do it again in the future, given the opportunity.

I’m so excited for this to get into the hands of readers. It’s available at Origins Game Fair and has a limited print run of 400 copies.

Heroes!

Green Room-Aaron Allston
Hero’s Final Walk-Timothy Zahn
The Raven-Maxwell Alexander Drake
He Was A Marvelous Man-Janine K. Spendlove
A Blank Canvas-Patrick S. Thomlinson
Waking Up-Dylan Birtolo
Fellow Traveler-Donald J. Bingle
By the Seat of Your Pants-Sheryl Nantus
Invincible-Sarah Hans
Blue Boy-Daniel Myers
Bloom-Bradley P. Beaulieu
Memories Like Crystal Shards-Jennifer Brozek
The Caretaker of Mire-Gregory A. Wilson
The Commodore-Bryan Young
Sunny Acres Home of the Specialized Care of the Elderly-Addie J. King
A Fixed State-Aaron Rosenberg
Interview-R. T. Kaelin
By Blood and Fang and Song, We Call You-Jaym Gates
Bindings-Steven Saus
Cheshire Moon-Tracy Chowdhury
The One Where the Dad Dies-Kelly Swails
Field Trip-Michael A. Stackpole

Podcasts for Writers

Last week, Steve Buchheit linked to a list of 10 great podcasts for writers.

That list has Writing Excuses on it, which used to be my favorite. I find myself finding it less relevant recently, or at least more hit and miss. I love the length–short is good. I recently trimmed down my podcast subscriptions, since I don’t have much time to listen to them (the downside to a short commute), and the ones I got rid of were all podcasts that generally do hour-long episodes. Most of my podcast listening happens while I clean the house or deal with laundry, and guess how often I want to clean for a whole hour.

Lately I’ve been listening to old episodes of Jordan Castillo Price’s Packing Heat (billed as erotica tips, but mostly general fiction advice). It ended years ago but I still enjoy her practical attitude. I’ve also started listening to the Storywonk Sessions podcast, where they analyze a movie in detail. They’re starting with all the Pixar movies, and I haven’t even seen all of those. So far I’ve only listened to the one on Toy Story, but with help from the library’s DVD section I’ll catch up on some of the others soon.

One of my favorite podcasts isn’t about writing–Stuff You Missed in History. Great fodder for story ideas. Seriously, I have a whole novel that popped into my head from two episodes I heard back-to-back on a long drive last year.