The RSS button is working now, so if you’re using Google Reader (or some other RSS feed), you should bee able to subscribe to it. The link is at the very bottom of the page. Check it out and let me know if it works! I certainly spent enough time wading through code trying to figure out what I had done to screw it up. (I put on Google Ads, it turns out, which slowed down WordPress anyway, so I took them out entirely.)
-Sara King
Well, I’m out at Lake Creek, nothing to distract me from writing except for fishing, gardening, dogs, spruce hens, bears, canoing, hiking, fishing, the Midnight Sun, clean air, beautiful scenery, pristine lakes, fishing, woodcarving, my 5-year-old cousin, nesting swallows, cabbage seedlings, moose, reclining sofas with convenient blankets, fishing, dirt, greenhouse tomatoes, spruce burls, Willy, heavy machinery, Hooligan, sunshine, books, and fishing.
Here’s a recent photo of Bill and Grandpa early one morning while testing out the modifications they made to Bill’s barge:
So yeah, it’s gorgeous outside, the birds are singing, I’ve got world-class Pike and King Salmon fishing only a short walk away, and I’m finding it hard to work up the willpower to buckle down and get busy on my next project. (Which basically means locking myself in a cold, dark basement to the accompaniment of 8 Enya songs played over and over again while the breathtaking Alaskan summer dwindles away without me.)
But I will. The story Chancey and I came up with is gonna rock. It’s a conglomerate formed of several different novel ideas mashed into one. It felt a little awkward to start, but I think the problem was the two insanely awesome protagonists did not have an insanely awesome antagonist to knock em around and balance them out. That will be fixed. Heck, thinking about it right now has got my blood pumping. I’ll probably brainstorm him tonight, then start on his (or her!!) POV in the wee hours of the morning.
Aside from that, I recently received an email from BBT Magazine saying they wanted to publish Fairy. Hehehe. I’m tickled. The money isn’t hot, but this was one of those instances where I sent in my work because I like the magazine, not because I wanted the cash. Anyone who hasn’t subscribed to Blood, Blade, and Thruster should check it out. Further, I’ve been delighted with the latest issues of Apex Digest, so I’m bragging about them to everyone I know. (It helps they’ll be publishing Moldy Dead here soon, but they’re still a great magazine and a great bunch of people :)
My work with Aberrant Dreams is going well, too. Lots of great stories to read, so many it’s almost overwhelming. Joe insists it’ll get easier to get through the slush pile, but rejecting is so HARD because I’ve been on the receiving end so many times before. Ah, well. It’s gotta be done. Until people start reading more short-story publications–heck, until they start reading in general–life’s gonna be difficult for authors trying to make a living at storytelling. So if you’re reading this, get the word out. The more of your friends who subscribe to fiction magazines and buy books off the shelves, the more great storytellers will be able to emerge with writing as their main source of income. It’s all about numbers, people.
And still no word from Don. He sent me an email May 8th saying this:
“Killing Zero is on submission with editor Devi Pillai at the Orbit imprint at what used to be called Warner Books (recently renamed Grand Central Publishing). Keep your fingers crossed.”
Heck yes, they’re crossed. They’ve all been crossed so long I’m beginning to wonder if I should be eating with my feet, since my hands aren’t doing the trick. And if you’re going to be a smartass and ask me how I’m typing this blog while my crossed fingers have brought me to the point of emaciation, go chew on a log. I lie for a living.
-Sara King
Wow. It took me 24 years to figure out that a story is just as much about the antagonist as it is about the protagonist. As I look back on the stories I’ve written in the past, I’ve never really had a good solid antagonist…until now. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Ehem. Forgotten is going to rock. And then, when he’s thoroughly the best character I’ve ever written, I’m going to make Joe better than him. Hehe. This is going to be so much FUN. I wish somebody had hit me over the head earlier and told me I was doing it wrong. None of the books I’ve ever written have had an antagonist to really fear. It’s always been a succession of small-fry to bog the protag down and veer him/her away from his/her goals.
My previous stories would have been SO much better with good antagonists…and yet, I think this was one of those things I had to figure out for myself. I think someone could have told me straight to my face a dozen times and I wouldn’t have GOT it–I would have just written in more small antags because I translated it to mean there weren’t enough obstacles for the protag to overcome. Now I’m beginning to realize that the reader secretly wants to root for the antag just as much as they want to root for the protag. (Think Hannibal Lecter).
Now that Joe and Forgotten have opposite goals, it’s going to be the best book I’ve written so far. Better than After Earth, I think. (There’s another doozy. There’s no real antag in After Earth, unless you consider the witless, brainless People as antagonists. I mean, Slade switches sides halfway through and the Dhasha don’t arrive until the end. And yet, so far it’s my readers’ favorite book. Just think how good it would be with a real antagonist.)
-Sara King
Time is flying by and still no word from Don. Come November 27th, it will have been four months since I sent out Congie. Steven is advising me NOT to email the agency to find out how things are going, but the temptation is almost too much to resist. I think I’ll hold off for now, but maybe soon…
In other news, Steven won the vegan bet. Damn him. He lost a total of 12 pounds, which is great. The vegan diet really put our eating habits into perspective. We’re going to eat meat again, but we’re probably gonna switch to Veggie Lite. Red meat once a week, plus chicken and fish. I think we’re gonna continue to stay away from eggs, milk, and cheese, as these were a huge source of our dietary fat.
The writing block is still solidly in place. Writing anything sci-fi is excruciating. I really need to figure out what is going on…
-Sara King