Archive for Personal

Personal

Prep the adrenaline cannon… FIRE

Edits, man. I have friends who cheerfully say, “rewriting is writing!” and love the edit process. I think these people are also the kind who enjoy putting laundry away. My approach to edits is different, and something I constantly struggle with. Picture a conversation, if you will.

Conscious mind: Your work needs other eyes. Your work has always, always benefitted by an editor’s hand. Most of the time the requested edits are pointing out unconscious repetitions in your work, or unintended cliches, or just misuse of a word. In short, editing is good. Editing makes the story better. You should feel grateful an editor has taken the time to suggest improvements to your work.

Subconscious mind: OH SHIT AN EMAIL HAS ARRIVED WITH “EDITS” IN THE SUBJECT LINE, FIRE THE ADRENALINE CANNONS, PREPARE THE SORRY-FOR-MYSELF HUGGY BEARS, AND MAKE SURE THE WEEPING CLOSET HAS FRESH TISSUES.

Conscious mind: Um, Drama Mama? Can you hold it down and stop flooding me with the desire to run away screaming that no one likes my writing? I have work to do here. And edits have never been bad, or personal. It’s about the work. So let’s edit the work.

Subconscious mind: WRONG WRONG WRONG THERE WAS THE TIME. THE CHOAD* TIME. YOU KNOW IT. RPG EDITOR SEND REDLINES BACK WITH THE WORD “CHOAD” WRITTEN AMONG THE EDITS THREE TIMES. ONCE AS A VERB. OR MAYBE AN ADJECTIVE. “CHOADING.” WE DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS.

Conscious mind: That was over 10 years ago! You were a baby writer! And besides, he was still commenting on the work, not you. Your writing was choady. You were fine.

Subconscious mind: You’re serious? Is this a joke? Choady writing is just fine as long as we don’t have Choady Mur?

Conscious mind: You haven’t been treated like that since! Get over it! Every time since then the edits come in, and you freak the fuck out, and then I have to spend days making you get up the courage to look at the edits, and how often are they more than an hour’s work?

Subconscious mind: Only on novel-length work.

Conscious mind: What’s that?

Subconscious mind: Only on novel-length work. But STILL. SCARY THEY DON’T LIKE US OR OUR WORK FEELS.

Conscious mind: Do you remember how good you feel when it’s done? Do you remember how we always say, “Why did we dread that so much?”

Subconscious mind: Fires the adrenaline cannon at Conscious mind, runs off to the weeping closet.

Conscious mind: Well. That was fun. Now I’ve got adrenaline all over me. Anyone got a towel? Maybe I’ll edit this afternoon…



Meet my subconscious. She’s kind of an asshole.

* Most people I’ve told this story to don’t know what choad means. It’s slang for penis. For more information, that link right there is text and descriptive, and safe for work unless people looking over your shoulder also like to read over your shoulder. And then they’ll only be reading about penis. Fun fact, according to the link above, choad was The Mavens’ Word of the Day, 2000 May 31, Random House.

Personal

Ghost Train to New Orleans nominated for the Manly Wade Wellman Award!

In today’s OMG Gazette, I’ve been nominated for the Manly Wade Wellman Award for Ghost Train to New Orleans! It was a huge thrill to win last year for The Shambling Guide to New York City, and I was super-surprised to get another nomination this year! The other nominees are:

  • Ghost Train to New Orleans by Mur Lafferty
  • Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by A.J. Hartley and David Hewson
  • The Sea Without a Shore by David Drake
  • Reign of Ash by Gail Z. Martin
  • Bad Wizard by James Maxey

This award was created to recognize outstanding achievement in science fiction and fantasy novels written by North Carolina authors. It’s voted on by the combined membership of North Carolina science fiction and fantasy conventions (illogiCon, ConCarolinas, ConTemporal, and ConGregate). It will be given out in July.

Thanks to everyone who nominated me!

Books, Personal, Projects, Travel

Phoenix Comicon, status of me and podcastland

I’m heading to Phoenix Comicon tomorrow (would be there today but I have a family obligation here at home) and will be on panels tomorrow and Saturday. Here’s my schedule!

I’ve been depressed lately, and it’s been the evil stealth depression that I couldn’t see until I started to come out with it. Needless to say, my creative output, both writing and podcasting, has been low. I’ve hit my Bookburners deadlines but not much else. I’m doing much better and will be recording a lot today.

There will be things to announce in the coming days. Watch this space.

Personal

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Southeast Reading Series – TONIGHT

Date: Friday, April 24, 2015
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Edge Workshop Room, Bostock Library

Tonight I’ll be appearing at Duke University with several other area SFF writers for the Southeast reading series. Should be fun! It’s free, so drop by if you like.

The SFWA Southeast Reading Series will present a panel on science fiction and technology with authors Mark Van Name, Mur Lafferty, Richard Dansky, Jay Posey, Justin Achilli, and (via Skype) Tiffany Trent. The panel will be moderated by Hillsborough author and editor M. David Blake.

The panel will be followed by a question and answer session, and a chance to mingle with the authors.

Personal, Projects

Stretch Goals!

I think I will put on my tombstone: Mur Lafferty: STRETCH GOAL. I love helping out friends on Kickstarter projects, and currently I’m a stretch goal on two!

One is the JR Blackwell photography project, In Their Own Worlds. I’ve mentioned this one before, but I want to mention again cause dammit, I’m a high stretch goal and I really want to do this project! I love JR and her work! It’s funded, but not to the Shambling Guide level yet! [NOTE- As of April 26, halfway there!]

[NOTE- Stretch Goal Made!] The second is from my good friend Dave Thompson, former co-editor of Podcastle, who is putting together a short story collection called And Welcome Back, Stories. It’s close, but not quite close enough to the $2000 stretch goal of the guest author chapbook (including Matt Fn Wallace and Ann Fn Leckie, winner of ALL the 2014 awards.)

Personal

In Their Own Worlds Photography Project

I’ve worked with J.R. Blackwell for years, I’ve hired her for covers, I’ve modeled for her, I’ve purchased her photographs, and have always, always been impressed with the way she sees the world. When she came to me a few months ago with this idea, throwing authors into their own worlds for a photography project, I was 100% on board.

JR Blackwell took this one!
JR Blackwell took this one!

Putting me in Central Park with a whole bunch of monsters is a stretch goal here, and a high one, but there are some other amazing authors in the project, and I’m hoping we can work to unlock some more photo shoots for JR to do. She’s amazingly talented and I am really hoping for this to fund. So check it out!

Personal, Travel

Podcast Hall of Fame! w00t!

I’ve been sick for a few days with a cold and major migraines, so pardon my delay in, well, everything. I have stuff recorded, and it should go up shortly.

So, news! This July, I’ll be inducted into Podcast Academy’s Hall of Fame! I’ll be going to Fort Worth, TX, for the ceremony, and I’ll be there with my friend Scott Sigler. I can’t wait, it’s a real honor, and I’m excited to see Scott. I’m still a bit stunned.

—

Interviews: I gave a video interview to Buzzy Mag last November, and that was recently posted.

Family, Personal, Projects

Game of Thrones night at the Durham Bulls! #sansaball

Wherein I started a bizarre fanfic two years ago that suddenly got attention:

Two baseball seasons ago, I had a silly thought: What would happen if I live-tweeted a Durham Bulls game as if I were the young, innocent Sansa Stark (A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones) attending a tournament? So I went on about my hair and the Hound and Joffrey and lemon funnel cakes and calling all of the players “ser” and “the Bulls of House Durham.” My daughter became Arya*. I tagged it #sansaball and ended up enjoying the game a great deal.


After a few games, I made some ground rules for myself. In the books and TV series, Sansa’s story (well, everyone’s story) goes a bit (a lot) dark, and #sansaball would only be fun if I presented as the Sansa who was innocent and had a perfect view of noble knights and perfect royalty. The Sansa who was forced to watch [REDACTED] and then marry [REDACTED], etc, was not someone who would delight in a home run. Speaking of REDACTED, I didn’t want to spoil anyone on the later books, either. (Although I admit it would be fun to try to tweet as Sansa’s evolved character by the end of book five. Her tone would be a bit different. OK, I just spoiled that she’s alive through five books. I FEEL TERRIBLE.)

It turns out that the guy who runs the Twitter account for the Bulls is a Game of Thrones fan and he jumped into #sansaball, talking about how the Greyjoys sponsoring the Norfolk Tides. We decided their mascot was the drowned god, by the way. People who didn’t even like baseball were following the tweets, and I was invited to DetCon in Detroit so I could attend a Detroit Tigers game and tweet as #sansaball (I really wanted to, but schedule didn’t work out.)

The marketing branch of the Durham Bulls are big time geeks, apparently, and last year they had a Star Wars day complete with themed jerseys (auctioned for charity), light sabers for the kids, and Darth Vader doing a force choke on the Bulls’ mascot.

Now we’re at 2015 and opening day is 22 days away. The Bulls recently announced another geek themed day, a Game of Thrones theme, with special jerseys again and more fantasy fun. I’m excited to be mentioned as a part of it, as they pointed out #sansaball in their announcement. But today, Entertainment Weekly did a small piece on it, and covered #sansaball extensively. I’m a bit stunned.

But BASEBALL IS COMING. We have our tickets for Game of Thrones night at the Bulls, complete with #sansaball. So follow on Twitter if you like, it’s a lot of fun!

got-baseball-jersey* Wasn’t sure how to refer to Jim. He’s pretty much better than all the men in ASOIAF – perhaps he’s like Ned Stark but he’s not terminally stupid. And Ned is Sansa’s father, anyway. Ew. Otherwise, Sansa doesn’t have good taste/luck with men. I couldn’t call him the name of the sadistic prince or the whoring, drunkard dwarf** or the burned murderer or the master of lies or the totally gorgeous-but-gay knight or the creepy-ass kid who wants to be an Oedipal complex when he grows up…
** I know Tyrion is a fan favorite. I like him too. But still, some of his most notable qualities that are fun to read about are not something you look for in a spouse.

 

Privacy Policy - Terms and Conditions