Lookie what mroctober gave me! Muse food from Lethe Press! Aren’t they beautiful?
From left to right:
The Story of Oriental Philosophy by L. Adams Beck,
Legends of the City of Mexico by Thomas A. Janvier,
Shallow Empire, poetry by Sou MacMillan,
Stranger Than Fiction: Welsh Ghosts and Folklore by Mary L. Lewes, and
Irish Witchcraft & Demonology by St. John D. Seymour.
I’m already nose deep into The Story of Oriental Philosophy and making periodic forays into the Sou MacMillan poetry. Squee! Thank you, Steve!!
But now I really need to grow another head so I can devote one to reading full time.
Writing Stuff
Got an email from a fellow writer in Budapest whom I didn’t know was Hungarian. She saw that a Hungarian translation of “All in My Mind” was forthcoming in
Galaktika in April and sent me snaps. I asked her if she’d be willing, if I sent her the English version, to give me a summary of how good the translation was. I’m always a bit anxious to know how my foreign language translations turn out. One of my writers group peeps is Greek, so I’ve got a thumbs up from him on the Greek translations, and I can more or less stumble through the French on my own. But for the Polish and now Hungarian translations I’ve just been crossing my fingers.
Anyone out there read Polish?
This meme has been floating around my flist, and since my muse decided to play hide-n-seek yesterday (mostly hide), here’re my 10 things:
Ten Things I Learned from Writing Fiction
1. Write. Write more. Keep writing. Then write something else. Don’t stop writing.
2. There are stories out there begging to be written. Once you start looking for them, you’ll find them everywhere. Just remember not to get so wrapped up finding the stories that you forget to write them.
3. There are no rules to writing, just guidelines. Use what works for you and don’t angst about going against the common wisdom.
4. Get other people to read and critique your work. They’ll catch things you miss, and you
will miss things, no matter how vigilant you are.
5. If you want to be published, you must have a thick skin. Rejection is a part of the biz, as is criticism–and sometimes most crushing of all, indifference. Don’t snark at folks who reject your stuff; take it in stride and either learn from it or let it roll off (or both). After all, they’re not rejecting
you, just that particular configuration of words you put together.
6. Trust your instincts, but be open to suggestions. No matter how good you are (or think you are), you can always be better . . . or wrong.
7. If you thought being a writer meant you’d never have to talk in public again, you were mistaken. (*sigh*)
8. Write for you. Write what you love. Write what you want to read. Be passionate about your story, your words, and your characters. Cherish what you write with a burning, fiery, obsessive madness. It’s the best (and oftentimes only) reward for writing. Anything less and you might as well be a cubicle monkey; cubicle monkeys earn a helluva lot more for their souls.
9. Writers are insane, especially if they do it full time (see #8). If you hang out with writers, expect some dementia to pop up.
10. Writing is staggeringly hard (see #9).
Received:
– Payment from Oceans of the Mind for “The Few, the Proud, the Leech Corps.” Yay!
Editing/No new words:
My muse was not kind. I did one editing pass on the second section of The Novel, tentatively titled The Goddess of Beauty and War, and then *poof* no words. Snartleblast. Since I got so many folks clamoring for that Egyptian folktale, aiming my muse that-away instead.
Also did do a couple editing passes on “A Thread of Silk” and did indeed decide to stick on an prologue.
Club 100 For Writers
13
you know I love you, Swamp Queen).
There’s no such thing as writer’s block. *twitch* There’snosuchthingaswriter’sblock! *pant pant pant* 
