Category Archives: book stuff

The State of the Things

Hello, friends, it’s been a while.

This update is a bit overdue, because my brain (and my schedule) has been pretty full the last couple of months. So let’s dive on in!

If you’re not following me over on ye olde twitters, I left my day job in early September so I can write full-time, and hopefully next fall, go back to school to pursue that degree in astrophysics I didn’t go for the first time around. (No, I am not kidding.)

It was an incredibly hard decision to make. I loved my job – I got to talk about books all day. My colleagues are fantastic people. I adore my booksellers. And yeah, even though they’re no longer my accounts, they’ll be my booksellers forever, damn it. I’m still saying things like, “Oh, we have a book about that on the list,” or “We published <insert Orbit author here>. I loved that book.” But as my job responsibilities increased, the time and attention span I had for writing had steadily declined. I’ve been doing a shit-ton of writing for RPGs this year, but that meant there wasn’t a whole lot left for my own stuff.

I have, in fact, just tallied up all the words I’ve written for various games this year and uh. It’s currently at a hundred and thirteen thousand words. 113,400 at the moment, to be exact.*

That’s a sobering moment for me, because haha I’d been a bit down on myself for not writing enough, when the truth of the matter is, I did a hefty portion of that while I held down a full-time job that required a lot of travel. That’s more words than Night Owls, which clocked in somewhere in the 90K range.

So. Yeah. I’ve been writing! And I’ll update the My Works page so it’s all there.
/adds to to-do list.

I didn’t settle right down into writing, as there was travellin’ to do. I literally quit my job and went to Disney World. The trip was planned well before I gave my notice! But it was an amusing thing to say when people asked what I was going to do next. Came home and wrotewrotewrote for a couple more games, then was off again to be staff at Viable Paradise. While I was there, the fabulous Pippin Madconald and Erin Black unlocked a part of a story I’ve been struggling with for five years, since was a VP student. That’s a thing that’s getting written sooooon. Home again, more RPG writing, and off once more to Metatopia. (I will write about Metatopia at some point soon, I hope, because hooooly shit it was wonderful, and on several different axes.)

So, now I’m home, and caught up on deadlines, and I suspect it’s starting to finally, nearly three months later, sink in. I’ve been having end-of-work dreams all week long. Dreams where I’m in the office even though I’m no longer an employee, or I’m cleaning out my cubicle and finding things I’d forgotten about. (One involved me finding a tote bag, because of course it did. See: white lady in publishing.) I think — now that I have time to think — it’s maybe me letting go of the things I didn’t get done.

Okay, then, brain. You do you.

Learning that I don’t have to be at my desk 9-5 is strange. I’m still trying to get my head around it as I figure out how this all changes my writing process. I learned during a couple of deadline sprints that I can get deeply into the writing groove at three or four in the morning, but I’d really prefer to be sleeping then. I am pretty sure that groove hit because I’m on the East Coast, and at that weird liminal hour most of my social media feeds are quiet. When the Northeast got hit by that big windstorm the last week of October, we lost power for one day and internet for two. I got scads written during that time. I recognize that this is very much a me-vs-the-shiny thing, so I’m navigating the best ways to minimize distractions. (That’s not a call for advice, just acknowledging that it’s part of this adjustment period.) Minimizing my browser helps, so I don’t see the little dot letting me know there are new tweets to look at. I close Slack and sort of forget it’s there for a while. I learned that if you click toward the top of your screen and give your mouse a wiggle, everything else you have open in the background gets minimized.  Sometimes I afk altogether and write longhand. Letting this all be a work in progress, rather than perfect at the start, has been a challenge. But I’m getting there.

What’s next, then?

I’m working on a YA Arthurian fantasy with Hillary Monahan. I’ve put in some nice words in a zero draft of a new solo thing about an aging rockstar and her deal with the devil. I’ve got that SF short story that wants writing. I’ll be around here a bit more, and am pondering things I might stick in a biweekly-ish newsletter. I’ve got a date with Netflix, one of my favorite shows, and and a notepad for a blog series I’d like to do about the storytelling therein. I want to read all the things, and tell you about what I’m digging.

I’m eyeballing a Patreon as well, because I like having things like electricity and heat. (I am extremely privileged that my husband can support us both while I write. I know that I can sell stuff. But freelancing means the money comes in sporadically, so!) The rewards for that would most likely be flash pieces, snippets of works in progress, and maybe some tales from the Night Owls ‘verse. If there’s anything else you’d like to see, drop your ideas in the comments.

So that’s the state of the me. More soon, but right now, I’ve got a conversation between Billie and the devil to finish, so she can start getting the band back together.

<3

*frustratingly, if I didn’t already have a SFWA membership from my book sales, all those words would not qualify me for one. But that’s another post.

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Looking Back, Looking Ahead

I’m not a New Year’s Resolution person, as you might gather by this post happening on January 3rd, not the 1st. I used to be! But it turns out that Here is a thing I would like to do quickly becomes Here is a thing I failed to do and oh god I’m a terrible person awfully quick. In recent years, I’ve figured it’s better to treat those things as a sort of rolling works in progress list, revisited every now and then.

Clearly, since it’s been, uh, a couple of months since I blogged, dusting this place off is one of them.

So! quick 2015 recap:

 

Writerly Things

Fiction:
Grave Matters, February (Indiebound | Barnes & Noble | Amazon)
The Fire Children, June (Indiebound | Barnes & Noble | Amazon) 
“The Eleventh Hour” in Fireside Magazine, July

This is where I point out that, if you’re eyeballing your nominations lists and think any of those are worthy of appearing on your ballot, have at it! I’m also in my second (and therefore final) year of Campbell eligibility.

Freelancing:
The alternate ending I wrote for Eternal Lies is out in the world!
Our hard copy of Vampire: Dark Ages 20th Anniversary Edition arrived and it is beautiful. I might be a bit biased, what with having contributed to it.

I wrote for several other RPG projects last year. More info and links when I get the go-aheads.

Travel

I thought I’d traveled a lot in 2014. Oh, past me, you sweet summer child. My job changed a bit last year, which means I now get to go out in the field and visit my bookstores. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since I was a wee bookseller, and it’s been wonderful getting out on the road and meeting my new buyers and their teams of eager, enthusiastic booksellers.

The year was also con-tastic: Arisia and Boskone – the latter during one of our many snowmageddon scenarios – followed by C2E2, GenCon, and WorldCon.

I attended our annual nerd family reunion out in Seattle in July, was on staff at Viable Paradise XIX, and trekked down into the mountains of Tennessee with Hill for a Murder Yeti retreat. As you can tell since I’m writing this, we were not eaten by bears. Or murder yetis.

Other Things

In any given year, I read a whole ton o’books. Part of that is the dayjob, part is my commute, part is just, y’know, liking to read. I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet of them all, and the grand total is… 43! Slightly shy of a book a week, but considering the travel and deadlines I’ve been under most of the year, and that whole writing thing, I’m pretty happy with it. This count is only for prose fiction, by the by. If you added in trades of the comics I read (woohoo Ms. Marvel, Saga, and Captain Marvel!), I’d probably hit a book a week easy. I do intend to do a best-of post. Theoretically while people are still mulling their ballots!

That post will also include thoughts on movies and TV shows I watched, because there were a lot of those as well. I make grabby hands when it comes to a good story, regardless of medium. It was a pretty good year for story (Mad Max: Fury Road! Haven! The Expanse! Star Wars: The Force Awakens!) so I’ll have some things to say in that regard as well.

Onward to 2016!

Let me get the hard announcement out of the way: I’m sad to say that Ace declined to buy more titles in the Night Owls series. That doesn’t mean I’m 100% done with my crew of smartass bookselling monster hunters, but it’s going to be a bit before their adventures continue. I am mulling some options, including potentially dipping my toes into self-publishing for Dead Letters. (The mulling includes taking a look at the contract for the first two books and chatting with my agent about what I’m allowed to do in that vein.) I may also post some short stories featuring the cast up here. First things first, though, I need to finish writing it, and paying projects are going to take precedence.

I will be attending Arisia, Boskone, and WorldCon for sure. Am mulling GenCon, Readercon, and 4th Street Fantasy as well. Without a book coming this year, my attendance at some cons is going to be based on what I can afford.

One of the realities of having a day job and a writing career is, even though it’s nice that the day job means I can use vacation time to attend cons, not all of the con-attending is, y’know, vacation. Cons are also work. Here, take a peek at what my month-by-month looked like last year:

On the road again. And again. And oh, look, again.

On the road again. And again. And oh, look, again.

With the exception of May, every month had some kind of travel or social aspect to it. (I didn’t travel for the holidays. I spent them with family and friends, and while they’re all people who I love dearly and am comfortable and happy being around, that doesn’t mean the holidays aren’t frickin’ exhausting.) I realized around September that I was feeling super-tired, even though I’d used up a whole bunch of vacation days. But when you take a closer look, there were several times throughout the year that I’d work a full week, go to a con, come home and go right back to work. No time to decompress.

Also figure that for several of those months, I was either under deadline for RPG writing, promoting Grave Matters and The Fire Children, and trying to do that thing where I write another book.

Two things toward the end of the year put all of that into a bit more perspective. At the writers’ retreat, I spent two solid, eight-hour days doing nothing but writing. Since we were in the mountains, internet was going to be spotty to start. The house did have wifi! HOWEVER. when you have 40 writers connected to it – whether we were “researching” or vacuuming cats on Twitter – the signal bogged way the hell down and was basically useless. Which meant no distractions, woohoo! I cranked out something like 10,000 words over two days. Then, at the end of the year, I had the week off between Christmas and New Year’s (she says, in her last hours of said time off…) It took me a couple of days to get the slacking out of my system, plus there were holiday things afoot, but by… Tuesday? My brain was bombarding me with story things. I haven’t been as productive as I was at the retreat, but it’s been nice to feel the words flow.

Which means, as I was filling out my 2016 planner, I realized I needed to do myself a bit of a kindness. Somewhere in there, this summer, I’m taking a week off just for me. Giving myself permission to spend the days as I like: cleaning my house, catching up on reading, going the hell outside. And, yes, writing. It seems like a pretty low-bar type goal, but it’s one I’d like to hit.

Note that I’m not complaining about the travel or the writing, by the by. This is a job, one that I love. But it’s also okay to have some downtime, which is a thing I struggle with.

Speaking of writing projects, here’s what’s on the docket:

  • Adrift – yes, still. Swashbuckling fantasy. Elves and an undead assassin aboard a pirate ship.
  • Cantankerous – YA SF. Think, uh, Firefly for teens.
  • “Blood in the Thread” – Still in the planning stages. This is my crane wife/seven swan brothers story.
  • “Spun” (or maybe it’s Spun) – My short stories have a bad habit of turning themselves into novels. This is one of those that’s threatening to do so.
  • Dead Letters and other stories from the Night Owls ‘verse – these are at the bottom of the priority list at the moment, but I never did tell you all what happened with that wraith in Val’s trunk. Or how Cavale met Sunny and Lia.

I’ve also started up a project that I’ve declared a trunk novel for the time being. Kind of a writing-without-pressure deal, and a bit of an experiment. I’m a fairly linear writer, and in this case I’m letting myself bounce around if I want to. And be inconsistent with details. And maybe tenses! It’s funny, for a panstser I sure feel the need to go back and fix shit when I figure out a new aspect of the story. I’m trying that thing where you leave yourself a note for future revisions and move on. We’ll see how it goes.

What are you looking forward to in 2016? What did you dig in 2015 that I should go in search of?

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Places I Have Been

Another round of, well, me, on the internet this week!

Kristin at My Bookish Ways hosted an interview with yours truly. I got to recommend other books to read and keep on your radar, too!

A Book Obsession gives Grave Matters three butterflies! /adds to pile of neat ratings icons

Gikany and Una at That’s What I’m Talking About gives it an A: “One of the things we love about this series is that it is strongly character driven.  Ms. Roy’s down-to-earth characters ground the novel, giving it a firm foundation.  We found ourselves completely engrossed in the novel as we watched Elly and Cavale struggle not only to figure out who is controlling the dead but also to better understand themselves.”

Chuck Wendig is an awesome signal-booster for writers, and let me yatter on about Five Things I Learned Writing Grave Matters.

Can I tell you how keen it is when someone admits to laughing at a joke you stuck in the book? How neat it is to get feedback on that line you were afraid was maybe only funny to you? Steph at Bea’s Book Nook mentions a scene that made me giggle as I wrote it, so I’m fist-pumping a bit over here.

The periscope goes back down for a bit. I have some faerie pirates and a dead woman to attend to.

 

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This Week Has Not Sucked

At one point yesterday, I looked out my window at work and saw that not only was it snowing – again – it was snowing up. Not that the flakes were magically leaving the ground and being transported to the heavens in a kind of weird frozen water Rapture, unfortunately. The way the buildings in Boston muck about with wind direction makes it happen. My feeling on the matter was much like that of Agrajag from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the GalaxyOh no, not again. We didn’t get much, just a dusting really, but dear god spring can get here any time now, kthx.

However! Good things happened this week, too!

This is where I throw confetti with abandon. Grave Matters released on Tuesday, continuing the adventures of my crew of supernatural (and one perfectly mundane) smartasses. We’re mid blog tour, so here’s a collection of links upon which to feast your eyes. Also, a year later, it still makes me giggle that “blog tour” rhymes with “Trogdor.”

Also oh hey, free books!

Some of the blogs hosting reviews are also participating in a giveaway for copies of Grave Matters. Good luck to anyone who enters!

I Smell Sheep – They gave me 4 sheep! “Holey Moley Fangman!”
Candace’s Book Blog – Review (4 hot air balloons \o/) and giveaway – “Fun and entertaining. It has dark bits but the humor thrown in lightens it up and keeps it moving as a good clip. Definitely recommend!”
On Starships and Dragonwings – Giveaway – I loved this observation about the cover: “Also can we just take a moment to really appreciate these covers that are gorgeous and portray the heroines non-sexually and ready to kick some butt??? *slow claps*” Don Sipley does the covers for the Night Owls books, cats ‘n’ kittens. He’s done an absolutely amazing job. (Fair warning if you peek through his gallery – some of the images might be NSFW.)
Manga Maniac Cafe – Review and giveaway – “If you’re looking for a new urban fantasy series to take for a spin, the Night Owls books are great.  They have great characters, fun plot twists, and lots of tense moments.”

But wait, there’s more!

At the Barnes & Noble New Book Roundup this week, Joel Cunningham writes, “This fast, fun urban fantasy continues the Night Owls series, about a very particular bookstore that helps to keep evil creatures at bay (sounds like my kind of store).”

Trinitytwo at The Qwillery dug it! “Grave Matters is at its best for me when our heroes are kicking supernatural ass and taking names, but I’m also happy with the way they support one another in the face of the unspeakable and always have each other’s backs.” (I remembered how much she’d liked Night Owls, so when she tweeted a picture of the Grave Matters ARC, I started biting my nails. So much relief!)

Fangs For the Fantasy gives it 3 1/2 Fangs! “This multiple protagonist element works because they all have compelling storylines and characterisations – and actual character growth” (I’ve spent the last few minutes trying to pick a favorite quote from the review – seriously, go read the whole thing.)

Badass Book Reviews gives Grave Matters 3 1/2 Skulls – “Grave Matters touched on fear from seeing an unexpected spirit, despair at the loss of a loved one, and even hope of somehow getting to talk to them one last time.”

Also, in case you missed my squeeing on the twitters, during Boskone’s Saturday night “Silly Pose Contest,” Bruce Coville helped re-enact the cover of Night Owls. He makes a kick-ass Elly. Career achievement UNLOCKED:
Cover Poses

(Image credit: Brenda Noiseux, via the Boskone blog. Also, if anyone recognizes the person posing as Val, please let me know!)

AND

In more book news, check out this gorgeous ARC mailing of The Fire Children that went out!

IMAG0481

There’s a map and an intro letter, and OMG IT’S A COLLECTOR’S ITEM NOW:

IMAG0482

I don’t think I’ve ever owned a #1 of a limited run of anything before. I might have a low-ish number on one of my Sandman statues. I’m geeking out.

I don’t know who all of the other 29 people are (so far I’ve heard from three other recipients!), but eeeek it’s a real thing in the world and people are reading it. There will be another run of ARCs later on, I believe, so if you’re looking to give it a read, keep your peepers peeled!

More to come…

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