There’s one swear word in the interview with the fabulous Mary Robinette Kowal.

We are proud to have GoTo Meeting as a sponsor! Get a Free 45-Day Trial!

Detailed show notes coming.

We are proud to have GoTo Meeting as a sponsor! Get a Free 45-Day Trial!

• 00:00:06 ISBW #152
• 00:01:07 State of the Mur: tired! Writing, cleaning, recent attendance at NASFiC. Upcoming: WorldCon and the next book.
• 00:04:08 GoTo Meeting Message
• 00:05:05 Emotional approaches to writing: being a grownup, learning. Recommended reading: Storyteller by Kate Wilhelm.
• 00:16:24 Promo: FlagShip by Flying Island Press
• 00:17:35 Interview: David J. Williams
  • Autumn Rain Trilogy, and the end of a series
  • Future plans
  • Writing habits
  • Clarion workshop experiences
  • Handling differing advice
  • Advice for new writers
• 00:37:03 Promo: Dragon’s Bard Eventide

Still somewhat shaky on the “two a week” thing. Working on it. Promise.

We are proud to have GoTo Meeting as a sponsor! Get a Free 45-Day Trial!

• 00:00:06 ISBW #151
• 00:00:40 Quick State of the Mur Update: recent attendance at the North American SciFi Con (NASFiC). Also, Mur will be at WorldCon in Australia this year, come say hi if you’re in the area/hemisphere!
• 00:02:15 GoTo Meeting Message
• 00:03:14 FEEDBACK: do you need an agent to publish your book? (“No, but.” Please also check out previous episode on what agents do); pros & cons of using a pseudonym on the internet (the writing persona vs. the day-job professional persona); risks of identifying oneself as Twitter-friend of an agent in a query given that this will also identify the author as a teenager (CKHB adds: NONE! Really. Agents do not care how old you are, they only care if the book’s good. And you don’t want to miss out on reaping the benefits of using your Twitter-friendship as a kind of “networking.” I got a second shot at an agent who rejected me first round because we later made friends on Twitter. Just sayin’.); a listener scored a book deal! ANDREW just sold his first novel to Pyr only nine months after finishing it! Rock on, Andrew; discussion of the “pebble effect” of editing as “Bill & Ted-ing”; suggested products EverNote and Fujitsu ScanSnap for scanning and using handwritten notes; listener WALTER has finished his first novel! Go, Walter!; considering different beta readers for different sections of a novel; book trailers (fun viewing: trailer for Mary Robinette Kowal’s Shades of Milk and Honey); on “making progress” for writers just starting out – contests, mentorship programs through Podiobooks.com or online writers workshops; showing and/or telling in flashbacks; Anthologize.org for formatting blogs into ebooks; voice recording as a writing tool, and enjoying editing as “leveling up”.
• 00:24:03 GOOD COP/BAD COP: bad cop as good practice for creative types to experience rejection; getting over the trauma of having a novel bring bad luck to beta readers (CKHB adds: you should absolutely write the story of the burned bad-luck book, it’s like The Ring in novel form or something…); am I an “annoying writer friend”? (Leech Fight Song!); criticism of Con attendees’ appearance, John Anealio’s awesome hair, and general abuse.
• Apology from the Good Cop.

We are proud to have GoTo Meeting as a sponsor! Get a Free 30-Day Trial!

• 00:00:07 ISBW #150
• 00:01:31 State of the Mur: 12,000 words written in one day to meet deadline, upcoming changes in the podcast format
• 00:05:38 GoTo Meeting Message
• 00:06:26 Balancing the hard work with the fun in writing. See also: C.C. Chapman’s Managing the Gray podcast, agent Rachelle Gardener’s Good to Great blog post (re: sacrifice and training).
• 00:14:41 Promo: Adventures in SciFi Publishing
• 00:15:55 Interview: Tracy Hickman
  • New project with his wife, Laura Hickman: Dragon’s Bard Eventide: subscribe to story chapters online, get signed, numbered, limited edition hardcover at the end
  • Book as souvenir of reading experience
  • “Writing like the Dickens” (literally)
  • Publishers as arbiters of quality, not printers of books
  • Don’t undervalue yourself
  • The 8 archetypal characters from Dramaticapedia, and gender roles
• 00:47:43 Promo: Did This Happen? (a family friendly, bite-sized look at history)
• 00:48:42 Interview: Scott Sigler
  • Experiences with self-publishing The Rookie and The Starter
  • Building his own imprint
  • Experiences with traditional publishing
  • Writing/marketing schedule
  • The “free model” of writing
  • Future plans
  • Ancestor trailer

If you’re going to attend the con, here’s my schedule. Would love to see you!

• Fri 1300 Rm 211: Foundlings and orphans;
• Sat 1500 Rm 204: The writer and the audience: online interaction and public personae;
• Sun 1100 Rm 201: Kaffeeklatsche;
• Sun 1200 Rm 207: Reading;
• Sun 1400 Rm 201: Signing;
• Sun 1700 Rm 212: Joseph Campbell and the hero’s journey;

(x-posted to ISBW)

Friday:

• 11am: MIS003b Kaffee Klatch (holy crap this is my first kaffee klatch and therefore I am sure that no one will attend…)
• 2pm: MIS007b Autographs
• 3pm: MIS006 Revive Fandom’s Relevance to the 21st Century
• 7pm: LIT003 Celebrating North Carolina in Science Fiction

Saturday:

• 10:30am MIS017 What Podcasts Can Do for You
• 7pm LIT025 Internet Publishing

The schedule says I have an autograph session on Sunday but come on, I’m pretty sure I don’t need two. If you miss the Friday signing, feel free to corner me anytime this weekend. Hope to see you!

Yesterday I turned 37, which, according to Monty Python, is still Not Old.

What a relief.

I don’t feel old. I do feel a bit down and melancholy in a sort of, “another year has passed, what have I accomplished?” kind of way, though. I mean, I know what I’ve done, but I’m not happy about the things I’ve tried to do and failed at (or things that are in limbo.)

No one told me that I wouldn’t magically have all the answers by this age. There have been times when I’m adrift, waiting for Dad to call and tell me what to do, when I complain to Jim or my friends about things and they don’t actually tell me what to do. They listen. They advise. But they (rightly) don’t tell me. (And of course I’d resent it if they did, because I AM an adult and I do know I have to make these decisions myself.) These moments (sometimes days) of being adrift do pass usually with me demanding I woman up and deal with the shit. Making a decision is better than stagnating.

Yeah, I’m talking about this in vague terms; I’m not comfortable talking about the specifics right now. But what I can talk about is what’s coming up for me.

• I have a super seekrit project I will unveil when the editor gives the word. That’s my current wip, and it’s a lot of fun.
• My novella Marco and the Red Granny sold audio rights to Hub Magazine, so it will be podcasted this late summer/fall. I will be releasing it online as well, and making it available via ebook. Worked on the site today, it was awesome.
• I will be at NASFiC this year, which is in my backyard in Raleigh, NC.
• I will be at WorldCon this year, which is in Melbourne (incidentally, not my backyard.)

So, hullo 37 (and one day.)

Hullo Mur. You’re looking tired.

Yeah, well. I am pretty sure I don’t know what I’m doing. It stresses me out.

Chill. Make some tea. No one knows what they’re doing. They are just better at hiding it.

Oh. Really? I can’t tell if that’s comforting or not.

It is.

You won’t let me down, 37, will you?

We’ll make a deal. You show up to work. You pump out the content. I’ll take care of the rest. You hold up your end, I’ll hold up mine.

Oh. That sounds reasonable. I can write words and record stuff. Sure.

Cool.

Cool.

The Alchemist and The Executioness

Editing and a dual interview!

We are proud to have GoTo Meeting as a sponsor! Get a Free 30-Day Trial!

• 00:00:07 ISBW #149
• 00:01:18 State of the Mur: new theme song from John Anealio, new podcast at Angry Robot, magazine article & work-for-hire fiction, future plans to work on new book, listening to The Alchemist & The Executioness (an Audible.com exclusive) which was co-authored by this episode’s interviewees!
• 00:04:41 GoTo Meeting Message
• 00:05:15 Editing: using outline method (one outline of how the book is, one of how you want the book to be), the “ripple effect”, being dispassionate
• 00:13:21 Promo: Did This Happen? (a family friendly, bite-sized look at history)
• 00:14:37 Interview: Paolo Bacigalupi
  • Path to publication (novels vs. short stories)
  • Collaboration with Tobias
• 00:14:37 Interview: Tobias Buckell
  • Collaboration, inspiration, division of labor
  • Benefits of video chat
• 00:48:57 Promo: Adventures in SciFi Publishing
• 00:50:10 Feedback: some negative comments for the Bad Cop; risks of breaking a trilogy into 3 time periods & genres; copyright issues for fiction based on the iPhone; Breanne Boland asks about problems with getting known for writing about writing instead of the fiction itself; Smashwords; defeating the lure of new ideas when the old idea haven’t been written yet & “mind mapping” with Xmind; upcoming blog posts about ARCs (advance reader copies) received by ISBW; the joys of listening to ISBW while on a long trip; agent representation (breadth vs. specialization); daring to that the first steps in learning the craft of writing; balancing story planning & learning with a word count goal.

You like Restless Brain? Let me know!

Restless Brain image provided by a Lisa Snellings sculpture, used with permission.

We are proud to have GoTo Meeting as a sponsor! Get a Free 30-Day Trial!

• 00:00:06 ISBW #148
• 00:01:14 State of the Mur: recent technical difficulties, editing the novel.
• A thought: it does not matter how many times your story or topic has been done, it only matter who your characters are and how you execute the story.
• CKHB agrees: go check out my “That was my idea!” blog post, with video.
• Recommended reading: 45 Master Characters by Victoria Schmidt
• 00:09:10 GoTo Meeting Message
• 00:09:46 FEEDBACK: getting/picking a mentor; listener TIM completed his novel (yay, Tim!); donating to ISBW; writing longhand vs. typing; scenes from the POV of the villain; narrating audiobooks; basing characters on oneself; Realms of Fantasy needs subscribers; age of protagonists in YA vs. adult lit; Writers’ Confessions on Bravo Canada; a listener blogged 100 Hacks to Help You Become A Better Writer; turning off the technology; Anomaly Podcast designed a “level up” badge for ISBW; fictional vs. real cities as setting; using placeholder to return to unfinished scenes; publicly posting about rejection and the Don’t Be An Ass rule; too old to publish?; giving away nonfiction work.
• 00:38:25 Promo: Can’t Stop the Serenity
• 00:39:25 GOOD COP/BAD COP: author Peter V. Brett asks what he should do with all his early “crappy” novels; losing energy because books similar to the one I want to write have already been published; how to handle a wanna-be writer leech; choosing between publishers.

A much more … sane ISBW returns to talk writing tools and to play the fantastic interview conducted by Chris Lester of the Hugo-nominated Tor editor, Liz Gorinsky!

• 00:00:06: ISBW #147
• 00:00:43: State of the Mur: working on the administrative side of writing lately — selling novella (Marco and the Red Granny: 27K words) to Hub, getting agent comments on novel-in-progress (Codename: Project Underground), attending Create South in Myrtle Beach, trying to balance flow of ideas with ability to write them…
• 00:04:23: GoTo Meeting Message
• 00:04:57: Writing Tools: the lament of the office-supply junkie, and the basics you really should have.
• 00:19:51: Promo: The Leviathan Chronicles
• 00:22:07: Interview: Liz Gorinsky, Hugo-nominated Tor editor (conducted by Chris Lester):
  • What an associate editor does
  • Steampunk
  • Trends
• 00:59:20: Loose ends (feedback in the next episode) & contact info

Here’s where you can learn more about Metamor City, Chris’s award winning project.

Grant has family-friendly humor down to a science, and his writing, voice acting, and audio production is top-notch. If you have kids, or are a fan of history, I highly recommend this show. I’d say the only downside is I’d like it to be longer, but Grant does know how to leave an audience wanting more. It debuts today, and below is one of the promos.Check it out!

After she did my makeup, the first thing she wanted to do was play with the room’s light. She turned off all the lights and tool some silhouette shots of me by the window.

(This one's my favorite)

After the room, we headed outside, with a brief stop in the stairwell.

Then we headed outside where she had me copy the pose of another podcaster during his photoshoot, JC Hutchins.

We did a lot of photos of me at the top of the stairs, and some at the bottom. She made me take my hair down, and it was still wet, and I love the way it looks here.

Then we did some ultra close-ups.

That final picture… I hate it. I look at it and I see all my imperfections, skin issues, the shape of my eyes, and it’s startling proof that I am, indeed, getting older.

And yet it’s my favorite of the entire set, because it’s 100% honest. This is me. Without the glasses and added lipstick, yeah, but that is all me. I am that woman with the imperfections, who’s nearly 37 and still likes hats as much as she did when she was 12, who’s still afraid but hoping that all of the things she’s frightened of haven’t killed her yet, so maybe they’re not so scary after all.

I love JR Blackwell.

Mur Lafferty’s narrative leads the reader through a story of violence, love and self discovery as J.R. Blackwell’s photography illuminates the unspoken elements of the story. Together, they combine two different storytelling methods to tell one story. This is not a comforting story.

Released June 23, 2010:

Her Side… in print.

Purchase in print or PDF from Lulu

So at lunch today, Jason and I were talking about True Blood (purely G discussion) and she heard us mention vampires. She looked at me and said, “Vampire goth whore!”

I was stunned. “What?”

“Vampire goth whore.”

“Now where did you hear that?”

“I read it in a book somewhere.” Shit, has she picked up anything I’ve been reading? I asked her. She made a face and said no.

She wanted to know if goth was bad, cause they said that on the Danny Phantom cartoon. I said no. Then she said it again, and I realized she was saying, “Vampire goth horror.”

I collapsed into relieved laughter, and Jason (who had been silent this whole time, bless him) said, “Whew. Enunciation is a very important thing.”

“Mom. Your face is turning red.”

I was laughing too hard to answer her.

Also in the Daughter Learns Colorful Idioms Series: Baby’s First F-Bomb

I got a pair of the Sprints, and wear them only when running, which is, at best, for 30 minutes three times a week. I love running in them.

But this week, a friend asked me to go for a walk with her, and I slipped on the lovely, comfy sandals my mother in law gave me for my birthday two years ago. After a 1.4 mile (I know, I’ve driven it) walk, I was in agony. Both feet had changed enough during the winter that the edge of my foot was rubbing against the sandal, and I came home with two large blisters. I became quite angry.

I’d been putting off buying a more “around the house” Vibram shoe. They’re comfy, but expensive, and I felt a bit decadent buying another pair. But after the blister incident, I decided I wanted to try a non-surgical attempt to fix my damn feet. I ran out yesterday to the fantastic Greater Outdoor Provision Company in Chapel Hill – they have, to my knowledge, every kind of Vibram fivefingers. (The local REI has only two kinds.) I drooled over the new Bikila, which is their delightfully gaudy new and improved running shoe, but frankly couldn’t get my foot into it. I tried on the ones I was really shopping for, which were the Performa. They were as glorious and soft as I’d hoped, and I bought them immediately.

(The girl in me is slightly annoyed that the only color available was black, but most people don’t bitch about the color of their house slippers. And black isn’t bad, just not purple or magenta.)

Now I’m trying to wear them all the time in house. They’re soft and comfy and separating the first and second toes is supposedly good for bunion sufferers. My only complaint is they don’t fit my pinky toe as well as the Sprint shoes do, and the pinkies are kind of pinched. In doing research on Vibram, I am hoping that they will stretch to accommodate my foot. I’d hate to have to admit that I wasted the money for these shoes. But either I”m getting used to it, or my toes are losing feeling, because today isn’t as bad as yesterday. (which wasn’t bad, per se, just slightly uncomfy.) Regardless, I’m willing to go through some pain in the pinky to relieve the slow invading march my big toe is making toward my second toe’s borders.

I don’t have a mental issue with growing older. My 30′s have been the best years of my life. I’m having a great time. But I am noticing the body is changing, the phrase “not as young as I used to be” is less a cliche and more of a reality, and I really hate having stuff slowly break down, like the shape of my feet. I feel like I was cheated, like a non-smoker who has lung cancer, because I’ve never been someone who wears uncomfortable shoes on a regular basis. Shit like this is supposed to happen to people who wear high heels all the time, right?

New Vibram Fivefingers

I worked on my novel, code named Underground, for over two years. It’s now at a point where I can get agent comments on it. We’ve agreed on a title, so when she emailed me her comments, she put the new title of the book in the subject line. The email landed, and I sat back and went, “Holy shit, this is real. I wrote a book that’s not in the Playing For Keeps or Heaven universes.” (Understand, those two settings have been my world for eight years.)

Nothing had changed, really. I knew I’d spent two years on this book (writing off and on – I had the Heaven series to complete, after all.) I knew that the title we’d agreed on was close enough to my first choice that it wasn’t anything new. And I haven’t sold the book yet. Nothing external had changed; it’s still a book that is complete but needs a rewrite.

But the fact that my agent sent me an email with the title in the subject line, that made all the difference in the world. “Well. It’s a book now. I’d better get to work editing it!”

Illusion. All of it.

This morning I read an author’s blog. Who it was and what they said was not important; I just realized that this person keeps a very honest blog, not just about professional stuff, and politics, but also life and family. And I remembered when I was a Livejournal user, I had a much more personal blog. But when I transferred the blog over to my home page here at the Murverse, my intent hadn’t changed on how I would blog. But for some reason the illusion of being housed on a more professional site, and not being on LJ anymore (and perhaps the fact that I’d lost the ability to write posts that I could lock for only friends to read, even though I rarely did that), has made my brain balk against writing more personal things. Do I have more fans than said author? Of course not. Not even close. So why would I have a greater need for privacy?

That need is an illusion. Nothing changed except my platform. Some people, like Roger Ebert, find changing a platform liberating. Having lost the ability to speak, he now writes more than he ever has in his life, and is a frequent user of Twitter. His platform changed, he created more. My platform changed (in a much less dramatic way) and I create less. I wonder why that is.

Or the real question is, how do we fight these internal illusions when the external has barely changed?

Her Side,

So we went the Lulu route. JR contacted a designer she knew, Daniel Solis, and he did our fantastic cover and interior design. The cover gives me chills, and if I were gothier, I’d get a tattoo of the razor blade.

His design was amazing, and the finished product is gorgeous. We got writer and editor Alasdair Stuart to write the introduction, and YA novelist Courtney Summers was kind enough to blurb the back. We did a little special launch at Balticon, making the books available, and we were quite pleased with the response.

So now we bring Her Side to you. Launching June 23, you’ll be able to buy Her Side from Lulu.com. Tell your friends.

You like Restless Brain? Let me know!

Restless Brain image provided by a Lisa Snellings sculpture, used with permission.

Regardless! I talk about what happened in May, what I’ve been up to, and assure you that the podcast is back and going nowhere anytime soon. We return to calm, clean, solo podcasting here.

Note- I did mention that the interview with Gail Carriger is “coming up” – I had planned on releasing the meta cast before ISBW #146, so that’s why I said that.

This is live from Balticon with return guest Gail Carriger (@gailcarriger), songwriter John Anealio (@johnanealio), and Bad Cop Matt F. Wallace (@mattfnwallace). This is not safe for work or kids. We are explicit here. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Tidbits before the detailed show notes come: John’s awesome songs are “I Should Be Writing” and “George R. R. Martin Is Not Your B****.” NYT BESTSELLING author Carriger just scored two more books, making her Alexia Tarraboti series 5 books total *so far*. I still highly recommend them. And Matt Wallace is now a screenwriter and thinks he’s better than all of us.

(NOTE- at the beginning when I flub the show number, I whine that I haven’t even been drinking, but because my audience was laughing at me, all you hear is “been drinking.” I promise I was sober for this one.)

(Note, ISBW still does not advocate the harming of anyone. That’s all Matt.)

• With Dad: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.
• With Mom: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan.

Remember you can email us at princess DOT scientist AT gmail.com!

Except people who actually DRIVE it, say, from NC to CA, will be called “hogs” and ruin it for the rest of them. This is according to the NYTimes, which implies that the people who bought the iPhone and iPad to do with it WHAT APPLE AND AT&T SAID THEY COULD DO WITH IT are “data hogs.”

I’m an iPod Touch user, meaning all I deal with is WiFi. I don’t want an iPhone, and I don’t want an iPad. For a variety of reasons (AT&T being scum is one of them). But the fact that these companies can offer a device that does X, Y, and Z, and then they are shocked, SHOCKED, when people actually use the devices as advertised, and then the NYT makes the users out to be the bad guys instead of pointing out an underhanded bait and switch on the company’s side, it enrages me.

You’re calling your users “data hogs” when you’re the dude who woke up at dawn, put on the overalls, got your slop pails and called “SOOOEEEEEEE! PIG PIG PIG PIG PIG. COME’N GETTIT.”

Look people. Open your eyes and look at your market. If you whine that people are using your service like you said they could, and you’re surprised and unhappy about that, clearly you don’t know your market and clearly you should get the fuck out of business in that market. If you didn’t know that Apple fanboys would jump at the chance to stream video and download music and games on the iDevices, you’re fools and should let me run your company, because I COULD HAVE TOLD YOU THAT.

*pants* *composes self*

Oh, and NYT? Way to suck the dick of the corporations. Quality journalism there.

* I know this is not a perfect metaphor. If it were a perfect metaphor, iPhone is to car what phone calls are to driving. But still. I stand by my point.

My reading is at an inconvenient time (5pm Friday) but be there if you can. I’m reading something entirely new!

My Schedule:

FRIDAY

• 5pm Reading

SATURDAY:

• 3pm NaNoWriMo for Noobs
• 8pm Autograph Session

SUNDAY

• 4pm Girls’ Rule Live!
• 5pm Story Improv
• 8pm ISBW Live!

(X-posted to ISBW)

I asked him about Thing a Week, when he was making a song every week for a year, and how it affected him. I was going to blog about it, but then I thought, why not just drop that snippet of the interview into the feed? (the interview was not for ISBW) So here it is. Nothing shiny, not an official show, just four minutes of me, JoCo, and the forced march.

(We were backstage during the Paul and Storm opening act, hence the music in the background.)

This did influence my views about my WIP, and I’ve been writing more this week. Thanks, JoCo. I don’t want to think about writing every day. I want to think of it as a forced march. Forward, always forward.

25^th May 2010 ~ For Immediate Release

Mur Lafferty to host the all-new Angry Robot podcast

Beginning in July 2010, Angry Robot will be broadcasting a new podcast series. Broadcast monthly, the 30-minute podcast will take the form of a joint interview with two Angry Robot authors or staff, along with genre and publishing news and a monthly competition to win Angry Robot titles.

The host and interviewer is Mur Lafferty. Mur is one of the world’s best-known and best-loved podcasters, and the co-author of the book Tricks of the Podcasting Masters. As well as hosting her own immensely popular podcast for wannabe writers I Should Be Writing, she was also recently announced as the new editor of Escape Pod – the world’s most popular short fiction podcast.

Mur commented: “One of the things I love most about podcasting is the chance to talk to so many talented authors. I’m thrilled to get the chance to chat with Angry Robot authors; it’s an honor to be producing a show for one of the newest and most exciting SF publishers around.”

The podcasts will be broadcast from the Angry Robot website, and will be downloadable as a subscription through iTunes. The first podcast interview will feature Angry Robot Publishing Director Marc Gascoigne and Editor Lee Harris, talking about the history of the imprint, the move to new partners Osprey, and the future. August’s guests are Angry Robot authors Lauren Beukes and Kaaron Warren – and you can believe that’s going to be an interview worth tuning in for!

:::

More information on Angry Robot can be found at angryrobotbooks.com.

Angry Robot is a new independent genre publisher, bringing you the best in new SF,F and WTF?! Our first titles hit the stores in the UK and Australia on 1st July 2009. We debut in the US and Canada in September 2010.

For more information, review copies, interview and feature requests contact Lee Harris

(lee.harris@angryrobotbooks.com +44 (0) 7922 635 493).

I’ve been involved with Escape Artists in one way or another several times in the past five years. Steve has published several of my short stories, and asked me and Ben Phillips to helm Pseudopod when it launched. I had to step down in 2007 because i had a day job and simply had to let some outside things go.

I’ve been working behind the scenes on the EP thing for a couple of weeks now, sifting through slush with some truly dedicated volunteers. We re-launch after our hiatus next week on Escape Pod’s fifth anniversary with Steve’s last podcast. Then I will take over hosting for three weeks, then we will run our traditional Hugo short story offering. July is when I’ll settle into the job fully with hosting and editing. We’ve got some new things coming up for the podcast this summer.

But never fear! The podcast is awesome because of Steve’s vision: fun SF, and I’ll never turn away from that.

I’ve got a great team helping me, and I’m very excited to see where we can steer this ship. Thanks for all the congrats that came through Twitter and email so far, it really means a lot to me that people have confidence in my ability to take this amazing podcast and keep it strong.

Meet Major Anne Lafferty. She has some… issues. She merely has hobbies that are different from most people’s and tries to excel in her military career and make her father proud. When she can, she combines her hobbies with her career. If she doesn’t get caught.

Co-authored by Mur Lafferty and Scott Sigler. Narrated by Scott Sigler. Not for kids. Seriously. At all. Ever.

More Crypt here.

• If you are a fan of Playing for Keeps, you may have also heard of Matthew Wayne Selznick’s book, Brave Men Run. Many people in podcasting (including me) wrote stories for the launch of Brave Men Run, and now Matt’s putting out a book of those short stories. The Sovereign Era: Year One is now available. You’ll get stories by me, JC Hutchins, Jared Axelrod, JR Blackwell, Matt Wallace, PG Holyfield, and Nathan Lowell.
• I contributed to this ebook, along with more distinguished authors, giving writing advice. You can download it at Smashwords, or buy it for your Kindle (proceeds go to Literacy Inc, a non-profit founded by Deborah Leblanc to encourage teen readers).

Survival tips for 21st century writers, from best-selling authors Kevin J. Anderson, M.J. Rose, Heather Graham, J.A. Konrath, Gayle Lynds, Alexandra Sokoloff, Jonathan Maberry, and more. How to develop your craft, improve your writing, get an agent, promote your work, embrace the digital age, and prepare yourself for the coming changes in the publishing industry. Edited by Scott Nicholson.

I’ve ranted about free ice cream, about people getting bitchy about the content you give away for free. And as a content creator who makes very little money on what I create, I stand by my position that if it’s free ice cream, don’t bitch about it.

But then my friend CC Chapman got locked out of his Google accounts. No mail. No reader. No docs. Yikes.

Understand, I fully sympathize with CC. I use Google just as much, for emails, reader, feedburner, documents, etc. I love many of their services. The great thing is they’re all free. But … they’re all free. We don’t pay for these services. Therefore, the question arises, does Google owe us anything? Do they owe us uptime or access or any of that? Or is the free ice cream there for them to give or take away?

Google, unlike me, makes money. A lot of money. They have advertisers, and we see those advertisements, so we give them our attention, if not our money. So it’s not quite the same thing. But as I see CC struggle with trying to get someone to talk to in support, and failing miserably, I’m wondering if Google is taking the free ice cream stance. We don’t pay for these services. What do they owe us? Why should they care?

I’m not taking Google’s side here. I’m just looking at it logically. And it’s scaring the bejesus out of me. I may be looking to stop using my Google accounts and change my email address soon, to something that is connected to a customer support line, to something that I give money to (like, oh, my ISP?) that I can have rights as a customer. Cause email and these other services that I can count on are ice cream I might be willing to pay for.

Good luck, CC.

Don’t get me wrong. Lots of people like it. It works for them. Many love it.

But not me. I find that it rubs me the wrong way, has a little too much emphasis on homey blessings and faith, and the email is overwhelming. “Don’t let the email overwhelm you,” they say. I hear, “When I punch you in the mouth, don’t let it hurt.” After I calmly decided all the email was simply depressing me, I unsubscribed. That’s when they solidified that I would never come back: the final email essentially said the problem lay with me, not their program. They were sorry I couldn’t handle it. (I wish I’d kept the email, it was pricless. Still homey and nice and a smiling backhanded slap that would have made a Southern woman proud. Didn’t slide past me, though. I’m Southern; I can spot a “Bless Your Heart” attack a mile away.)

Apparently it’s helped a lot of people, and good for them. It was not the site for me. I don’t do {{hugs}} or refer to Jim as DH enough to stomach it.

This past weekend, I was a keynote speaker at CREATEsouth where I heard about Home-Ec 101, the site for people who became adults and went, “uh oh” because they didn’t take that home economics class, or maybe their school had phased it out, and they really didn’t know how to clean a hardwood floor. The site is retro, friendly, doesn’t require a membership beyond optional subscribing through Feedburner, and appeals to my domestic bushido mindset.

I’m currently working on their weekly plan and seeing how I fare with that. I’ll report back in when I have more than half a day of the program under my belt.

Now to get back to laundry. It quakes when I come near.

The few surviving samurai surveyed the battlefield
Count the arms, the legs, and heads, and then divide by five.
Drenched in blood, they move across the screen
Do I need to point, or do you see the one I mean?
The one in back
the way he acts
is he reminding you of anyone we know?
Isn’t he so
like certain people I could name?

“Certain People I Could Name” ~They Might Be Giants

If you hadn’t heard, this year I’m skipping Dragon*Con (first year I’ve missed since getting pregnant with the Pink Tornado) because I am attending Worldcon in Melbourne. I’m bummed to miss the fifth annual Awards Ceremony, but if I’m nominated I’ll definitely have a proxy in Atlanta.

The eligible works I’m involved with this year include (see eligibility notes here):

• Heaven: Season Five: WAR (5 hours, 11 min) – Best Speculative Fiction Story (Novella Form)
• I Should Be Writing – Best Podcast about Speculative Fiction Content Creation
• “Solitary as an Oyster” (Escape Pod #231) – Best Speculative Fiction Story (Short Form)
• Tor.com Story Podcast – Best Speculative Fiction Magazine or Anthology Podcast
• Princess Scientist of Princess Scientist’s Book Club – Best New Speculative Fiction Podcaster/Team*

*(not sure how they’d view a new podcaster teamed with veteran, but worth a try.)

I think that’s everything. That’s the problem with too many damn projects…. But I’ll be doing a post in the future listing my favorite podcasts and giving endorsements.

• 00:00:06 ISBW #145
• 00:00:43 State of the Mur: driving to RavenCon! Travel, getting hacked (again), fresh reinstall and re-uploading of podcasts – please go to The Murverse for all your ISBW podcast archive needs – working on novella, trying to get schedule back under control.
• 00:05:28 GoTo Meeting Message
• 00:06:07 Back to Basics: people deserve to get paid for their work.  Agents: do your homework. Resources: Writer’s Digest, Media Bistro, Agent Query
• 00:13:48 Promo: Merciless Storytellers: Performance Without Pity (podcasting competition)
• 00:19:00 Interview: Blake Charlton, med student and author of Spellwright
• 00:36:24 Promo: Scott Sigler’s The Starter. (Get a discount with the promo code “MUR”)
• 00:37:22 Feedback: Media Bistro’s AvantGuild as a recommended resource for nonfiction freelancers; the Zoom H2 and other voice recorder options, Holly Lisle as a recommended resource for revising one’s manuscript (http://howtoreviseyournovel.com/); do people change when they start to write?; comparing gaining experience in writing to gaining experience in The Sims; Discount! Use promo code MUR to save on Scott Sigler’s The Starter.
• 00:41:41 Good Cop/Bad Cop with Matt Wallace*: how to avoid the paralysis of fearing you’re going to “waste” a great idea when you’re not yet a good enough author to write it; setting boundaries with clingy writers
  * He said he didn’t want you to be able to contact him directly, but I say PHOOEY! You like the bad cop? Click away.  Hunt him down on his own turf. Thus sayeth the show notes writer. –Carrie.

(Note, ISBW does  not advocate the harming of anyone. That’s all Matt.)

• With Dad: Piper Reed, Navy Brat by Kimberly Willis Holt.
• With Mom: The Pool of Fire by John Christopher.

What this means: Until I get this worked out, you can’t get I Should Be Writing. I’m sorry. But the links on this site correspond with the podpress-created links from ISBW, not a direct link to the file on the server, so until that’s up and running again, there’s no way to get to the ISBW files unless I hand code the changes here. And I won’t be doing that as I’ll be spending all my free time trying to get that site back up and running.

Much apologies for inconvenience.

Not familiar with The Rookie? It’s been called NYT Bestselling novelist Scott Sigler’s best book, a YA tale mixing Star Wars, Any Given Sunday, and The Godfather. It’s suitable for the action-loving twelve-and-up crowd, fans of Battlestar Galactica, sports fans, and it might just get sports fans into reading. This is book 1 in the Galactic Football League series, so there’s plenty more to come after this. And the code mur is good for a discount off The Rookie too!

Scott Sigler is the author of Earthcore, Infected, NYT Bestseller Contagious, and the upcoming Ancestor. Get these books now. He knows intense science fiction and horror action, and he’s an athlete, so he can tell football stories from first person experience.

If you’re not familiar with Sigler, you can check his books out for free – including the first episode of The Starter (so far) – on his podcast. You can also get The Rookie via podcast for free!

So no more waiting. Go get THE ROOKIE and THE STARTER and save money on BOTH when you use the code mur



• 00:00:07 ISBW #144
• 00:00:53 State of the Mur: working on novella, other short fiction, pondering some self-publishing production expenses.
• 00:02:42 GoTo Meeting Message
• 00:03:18 Level Up! A geeky role-playing-games perspective on learning from your mistakes: failure gets you experience points. Anyone else want real badges for life experiences, like in the Boy/Girl Scouts?  There are nerd merit badges, and NaNoWriMo badges, and the You Can Do It: The Merit Badge Handbook for Grown-Up Girls (show-notes writer Carrie owns this one: scroll down to see sample badges)… can we design and produce some Author Badges?  (The Duotrope shop also has t-shirts that say things like “author” and “published.”)
• 00:13:48 Promo: The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd
• 00:15:00 Interview: Ellen Datlow, Editor (find her on LiveJournal.) New anthology, Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror.
• 00:36:59 Promo: Can’t Stop the Serenity: Worldwide Charity Screenings for Equality Now
• 00:37:59 Feedback part 1: Ask a Lawyer! with attorney Steve Tupper (aka Stephen Force, host of Airspeed, an aviation & aerospace podcast): Legal implications of hotlinking/resizing & hosting artwork to accompany fiction excerpts? Discussion of exclusive rights in copyrighted works in the U.S. and fair use (see also 1841 decision Fulsom v. March, explaining piracy). The fact that you’re not making money off the use of a work does not mean it’s “fair use”. Brief discussion of licenses. Brief discussion of internet links. Obligatory disclaimer.
• 00:54:56 Feedback part 2: chapter length and pacing (recommended listening: Writing Excuses episode on Pacing with interviewee James Dashner); fan fiction addiction; definition of “dark fantasy.”
• 00:58:50 Mur gets advice from “Bad Cop” Matt Wallace>: overcoming fear of success.

What we’re reading now:

• With Dad: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by Ian Fleming.
• With Mom: The Pool of Fire by John Christopher.

Shop Indie Bookstores

Shop Indie Bookstores

Shop Indie Bookstores

Shop Indie Bookstores

Hell, Mur, I can get all that for free by subscribing to your RSS feed!

Almost.

If you purchase the Murverse Companion App you will get access to stuff no one else does. Exclusive fiction. Exclusive video. Sneak peeks at new audio content. And probably stuff I haven’t even thought of yet. You will get weekly content in some fashion or another, delivered directly via the App, that no one else has.

Check it out.

Ouch.

Both my parents worked. In the 80′s it was unheard of to plan to be a housewife. In the 90′s we made fun of the wealthy sorority girls who were in school just to get their “MRS” degree. I’ve always wanted to have a career, to do something more than cook and clean and raise children. The thought of being stuck at home being domestic horrified me.

But then it happened. Layoffs facilitated it, to begin with. Being still laid off when the PT came along made it convenient. After the 2007 Lulu.tv layoff, I decided I wanted to focus on my freelance and not stress about getting another job I would then get laid off from. I said I’d take over the domestic duties again, along with working on the freelance career. The freelance career is going pretty well. The domestic part?

Well. You heard her. “My house is very messy.”

Part of it is my usual problem of focus, time management, and priorities. I do the laundry because otherwise we don’t have clothes, and I do cooking so we can eat, and Jim and I do dishes so the kitchen doesn’t become a frightening place that has a life of its own, but the other stuff, clutter, mopping, dusting, cleaning… yeah. Not so much.

I finally decided what was going to change it. First, the wake up call from the innocently honest child helped, but also, I’d been trying to change the way I could look at it. I think we look down on the domestic issues because they’re equated with being under-educated, being in a subservient role, which makes them less palatable, if you can say that scrubbing floors is palatable on any level. So it isn’t just “scrubbing the floor” it’s “look what I’ve been reduced to, scrubbing the floors.”

But it’s all in the way you look at it. In stories, glory is won by questing, by taking up arms and fighting. You strive to be a level 20 paladin, not a level 20 janitor. So let’s switch it around. I have weapons. I have a broom, a mop, and various disinfecting chemicals. And monsters? Good lord, man, my kitchen floor is a hydra – I cut off a head (mop) and it grows two more (spilled orange juice and doggy footprints.) You tell me that’s not a battle?

So it is my desire to develop Domestic Bushido. There are disciplines to maintain, monsters to slay. It’s not enough that you kill the momma dishes beast, you have to kill her babies, the dirty counters and floor, or else you’ll have a worse problem tomorrow.

The scariest thing is that in real war, the war ends and the veterans eventually come home. But the Domestic Bushido’s war is never won. Every day the monsters return. And it is only the strong who are willing to battle them. And as a friend said to me this weekend: in a war that never ends, there are no veterans, just survivors.

I am a warrior.

[edited for clarity 1:06 pm]

• 0:00:06 ISBW #143
• 00:00:40 State of the Mur: working on various freelance projects, a novella currently titled “Marco and the Red Granny”, blogging/pocasting for Tor, ISBW and The Artist’s Way.
• 00:02:00 FEAR OF SUCCESS (topic inspired by Beth Revis’ blog post on Fear
• 00:05:35 GoTo Meeting Message
• 00:06:23 CYNICISM
• 00:13:05 Promo: Heldenleben (German-language fiction)
• 00:14:30 Interview: Don Vaughan, Founder & President of Triangle Area Freelancers, which is devoted to non-fiction freelance writing. Suggested resources: Writer’s Market, conferences (such as the TAF 2010 Conference on March 27, 2010).
• 00:34:16 Promo: Trickster Moon Productions
• 00:37:00 More things you should know about: New feature on ISBW: Good Cop/Bad Cop with Mur and Matt Wallace; Ohio University, Lancaster survey for podcast listeners, Interview with Scott Sigler on Ginger Campbell’s podcast Books and Ideas

Upcoming interviews- Ellen Datlow, Blake Charlton, and, thanks to Chris Lester, Liz Giorinsky, Phil and Kaja Foglio, and more!

Episode 13-2 from YouTube:

Grumpy by eggs on stilts - BY-NC-SA

I’m not really sure what stick you have up your butt, March, but we’re gonna have some words. I feel like you’ve thrown a blanket over me and hidden me from the world, while making me unaware of the passage of time. I’ve not podcasted. I’ve barely blogged. I’m behind on writing. I haven’t been to kung fu or been running (in my defense, an old knee injury flared up and working out was ill-advised.) And we’re over halfway through with the month.

I don’t feel depressed per se, but I feel like all month I’ve been eating a big bowl of meh. WITH NO AWESOME SAUCE. I’m in a funk. And I blame you, March. You with your wind and your teasing of spring and your ways.

I mean, it’s not like nothing’s happened. My sites got hacked. I got some bad professional news. Jim went away for 5 days so I was single-parenting it.

But I will let no mere month defeat me. It’s March 17, and I’m posting a new podcast today, going to be blogging some, going for a run after I post this, and will stride forward with confidence. Cause you know months: you let them have their way once and they get uppity.

Fuck you, March. You’re not the boss of me.

Hugs ‘n Kisses,

Mur

Episode 13-1 from YouTube:

It’s another feedback week!

Shownotes after the cut.

• 00:06: ISBW is brought to you by GoTo Meeting
• 00:18: ISBW #142
• 00:49: State of the Mur: busy. Artist’s Way, Artist’s Way Video Podcasts, Artist’s Way on Facebook, ISBW, short stories & a novella, waiting for feedback on novel, and, you know, life.
• 02:16: GoTo Meeting Promo
• 03:04 Promo: N.K. Jemisin’s novel The Ten Thousand Kingdoms published by Orbit Books.
• 04:05 Feedback: legality of fan fiction (it is a copyright violation, but authors may not care unless you try to get paid for it); listener Ross made a New Year’s Resolution to get in front of his computer & write every day and it seems to be working (yay Ross!); ISBW’s show notes writer CKHB on agents misplacing manuscripts (yes, it happens! keep track of your submissions!); looking for advice on finding the right balance when writing short stories (suggested reading: Beginnings, Middles & Ends by Nancy Kress); where to start an epic fantasy (consider starting at the moment the protagonist’s life changes); thoughts on not taking rejection too seriously; advice for people whose style is easily affected by what they read (it’s a new-writer thing); how many main characters is too many; keeping parents away from one’s writing or warning them about content; how to find literary magazines that like myth-based poetry (CKHB suggests trying the Duotrope’s Digest search engine); using Wordle as a method for creating titles; ISBW now on streaming Stitcher Radio for smart phones; standard manuscript format — Times New Roman or Courier New? 250 words/page or precise word count? (CKHB’s research agrees with Mur’s: no agent or editor has ever rejected something just for being in TNR or Courier, and manuscript formatting expert Anne Mini at Author! Author!  says that you estimate word count as 250 words/page for TNR, 200 words/page for Courier); iPad and software development concerns; the writing activities that count towards one’s 10,000 hours of practice to become a “master” of the craft; listener Lincoln wrote 5 novels since he started listening to ISBW (yay Lincoln!); Mur will be speaking about podcasting at Write Now! 2010, the Triangle Area Freelancers’ Annual Non-Fiction Conference on March 27th (and TAF President Don Vaughan will be interviewed on an upcoming episode of ISBW); a poet transitioning to fiction asks about beginnings & characterization (suggested writing books: the Nancy Kress book, Orson Scott Card’s Characters & Viewpoint and other books from the Writer’s Market collection), and Ursula K. Le Guin’s essay books); where to find Beta readers.

Some people have asked if they are behind in the Artist’s Way now. No no no no! Go ahead and get your book and get started. We are not going at any fast clipped pace here, mainly cause I can’t get a video up weekly, it seems.

Shop Indie Bookstores

From YouTube:

Princess Scientist returns with her dad to finish up their talk on A Wrinkle in Time, and she talks about her love of Diary of a Wimpy Kid. We also are starting to get some emails, so be sure to send us your feedback! princess.scientist AT gmail.com

What we’re reading now:

• With Dad: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang by Ian Fleming.
• With Mom: The City of Gold and Lead by John Christopher.

I can hear the dinosaurs grumbling now. Or they will when they hear about this in their paper fanzines in about a month.

Oooooo- was I mean there? Maybe. Maybe just honest. I met some wonderfully charming (not sarcastic, they really were) older fans at Worldcon last year, but one of whom talked about the Internet as if it were the great Beast, coming to get us all. Or perhaps the little Beast, not even worth a bother. He had a paper fanzine and proudly showed it to me. He had to SHOW ME HOW TO READ IT, which either was a gross insult to my intelligence, or a gross insult to his fanzine that should have been easy enough to read without instructions.

I know these people built fandom and SF cons, and I’m very grateful. They should be respected and their contributions remembered. But the fact that these are science fiction fans and writers fearing new technology just kills me – and they don’t just fear it, they insult it and those of us who are trying to create new ways of storytelling with it. They pride themselves on using typewriters to write about the future, eschewing computers altogether, creating a cloud of irony that hangs over Des Moines and pollutes the city daily. (And someone is going to bitch at me that some people prefer typewriters, and that’s not a bad thing, blah blah. I KNOW this. What I am against is holding tight to your buggy whip and going LA LA LA LA LA when someone drives by in a 2010 Mini Cooper.)

People say short fiction is dying. Tell that to Escape Pod, Pseudopod, PodCastle, DrabbleCast, Variant Frequencies, Tor.com*, and Starship Sofa. Discussion of SF thrives in Adventures in SciFi Publishing, The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Dragon Page, Writing Excuses, and many more. A story is a story, whether it’s delivered in a podcast or on paper or written on the side of a mountain. So hell yes, a podcast should be eligible for a major SF award. Over 24,000 fans listen to Escape Pod every week, I’d say that makes it a force in SF short fiction publishing, wouldn’t you?

So yes, go listen to Starship Sofa, and if you think it’s utterly awesome, give it a nod for Best Fanzine. While you’re at it, think about Escape Pod or Variant Frequencies or any of the other fine fiction podcasts for fanzine or semi-pro zine. Writing Excuses, AiSFP, or even my own I Should Be Writing** could be eligible for Best Related Work. And of course don’t forget the stories they put out: some of the paying zines could be producing Hugo-worthy short fiction.

James Patrick Kelly’s podcast Burn won the Nebula – time for the Hugos to catch up. (And yes, it was specified the podcast was the winning medium, not the print book.)

Think about the future. That’s what we do in this business, right?

*- Yeah, I’m self-serving, dammit. But it’s an excellent fiction podcast. I can say that without ego as I don’t choose the stories.
**- Totally self-serving.

So, a year and a half late, but still with good intentions, I want to give props to my brilliant cover designer for the Swarm Press version of Playing for Keeps, Christian Dovel! You can check out his work here, and see the fantastic PFK cover below! Thanks Christian!

Authors, remember that someone is actually BEHIND the hard work done to create your cover, and give props.

Playing For Keeps cover by Christian Dovel

(Haven’t gotten the book yet? Find it at Amazon, B&N, and (preferably) your local indie bookstore!)