All posts by Alethea

Cannot Write Without: Monica Valentinelli

Cannot Write Without, ,

The question in the lagoon this month: What’s the one thing you cannot write without?

Today’s Fabulous Friday the 13th answer comes from one of Alethea’s favorite authors and gamer grrls: Monica Valentinelli.

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The one thing I feel I can’t write without is my noise-cancelling headphones.

When I wear them, my world suddenly shrinks and I feel more focused on what is in front of me. It doesn’t matter if I’m furiously typing on a keyboard or scribbling in a notebook, either. Being able to control peripheral noise has been one of the best things that ever happened to me.

It rocks!

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Monica Valentinelli is a writer, editor, and game developer who lurks in the dark. She writes both original and media tie-in fiction and works on games and comics, too. To date, she has over six dozen creative credits with more on the way. She is known for her work as the lead writer and developer for the award-winning line of Firefly RPG releases based on the TV show by Joss Whedon. Recently, she announced The Gorramn Shiniest Language Guide and Dictionary in the ‘Verse will be available in Spring 2016 from Titan Publishing.

To find out more about Monica, visit her website at: www.mlvwrites.com

Cannot Write Without: John Scalzi

Cannot Write Without, ,

The question in the lagoon this month: What’s the one thing you cannot write without?

Today’s answer comes from SF celebrity author and karaoke rock god: John Scalzi.

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I can’t write without a computer.

I started writing stories the same year the first Mac came out and so literally I’ve never not written on anything other than a computer.I think about trying to write on a typewriter and it makes me want to run screaming into the night.

So, yes. A computer, please.

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John Scalzi is the most excellent author of Redshirts and Old Man’s War and a ton of other really great SF books. He’s the proprietor of the Whatever website, and as much fun to hang out with at conventions as he is online. He lives in Ohio with his supergoddess wife Krissy,  ultrafabulous daughter Athena, one dog, one cat, and two brand new kittens (be sure to follow him online to see all the fabulous photos).

And Alethea Mermaid misses him very much!

Your argument is invalid.

Cannot Write Without: Haralambi Markov

Cannot Write Without, ,

The question in the lagoon this month: What’s the one thing you cannot write without?

Today’s answer comes from SF short fiction author extraordinaire: Haralambi Markov.

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Whenever you hear professional writers – I’m talking about those writers who are revising a novel under deadline and outlining a new one while simultaneously doing a press tour for a book due to be released any second – speak about writing, you hear one advice come up very often: “Abandon all rituals. Forget about the special pens, notebooks and time of day. Write – it doesn’t matter when, where or how.” It’s damn good advice; gets things done.

I didn’t take it to heart when I first started, of course, because writing is an act of inspiration, OK? You’re an artist – the recipient of a rare gift. You can’t just sit down and write. No, you have to gather all the ingredients, wait for the right hour and use the right instruments to reach the ether and channel inspiration. What this method taught me is that you can’t do much work waiting for circumstances to align. You’re not a witch waiting centuries for planets to align in just the right way for a short window of time. Writing is not that kind of spellwork.

One by one, I had to strip out the rituals and prerequisites to get any writing done. Don’t get me wrong – it’s fine to have a favourite notebook with the best layout, a favourite pen with a great grip and an hour you know your mind is clearest, but I learned to not require them.

Right now, the one thing I cannot sacrifice is solitude. I can’t write knowing there is another person in the same room as me. My desire to chat and goof around trumps my desire to write and even the potential of a conversation breeds tension and dissolve any creative focus. I’m working on overcoming this, too, but so far – I think I hit a hard limit there.

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Haralambi Markov is a writer, an editor, a freelancer, a reviewer, a geek, a book hoarder, a list maker, an art fanatic, a TV junkie, a pop culture aficionado…and lives “with the weird” in the coastal city of Varna, Bulgaria. Find out more about Harry at: http://haralambimarkov.com/blog/ (The Alternative Typewriter)

Cannot Write Without: Steven Silver

Cannot Write Without, ,

The question in the lagoon this month: What’s the one thing you cannot write without?

Today’s answer comes from multiple Hugo Award nominated author and editor: Steven Silver.

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Several years ago, I was in a writing group for a short period of time.  Each time we got together, I would circulate my works in progress to the other members and usually two or three of them would circulate their works.

Invariably, several people would circulate excuses.  “I didn’t have the time.” or “My computer was down.”  I kept thinking “You had a deadline.  You find the time.  You make the time.” or “You didn’t have a pencil?  A pen?  Paper?  A receipt?”

I’ve written things on my phone if that was the only way to get the words down and I’ve remembered things I’ve wanted to write by repetitive memory so that they would stick with me until I got to a computer or paper.  So there are very few specific physical things I need to write.

I need a method of getting the words down so they’ll be there when I need them.  I don’t need a special keyboard or a magic pencil or a cup of tea (although the last is nice to have). So, what is the one thing I can’t write without…my imagination.

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Steven is a fabulous man who admits that his own website is a little behind the times. So instead, for more information I will direct you all to the website he maintains:  www.sfsite.com/news

Cannot Write Without: Nikki Woolfolk

Cannot Write Without, ,

The question in the lagoon this month: What’s the one thing you cannot write without?

Today’s answer comes from author and chocolatier extraordinaire: Nikki Woolfolk.

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The Edible Plot

Food is a character. Food is an adventure. Food is a plot point.

In early 2011, my decade long writer’s block broke open and I dreamed of a Steampunk universe that did not exist within the genre itself.

Nowadays I confidently write Steampunk adventures and culinary cozy mysteries, but I didn’t know that’s where I was going when I participated in my first NaNoWriMo in 2011. My anxiety about writing was so bad the only way to combat it was to write by hand so I did. I have several notebooks filled from that month to prove it.

In that Steampunk Universe Bible I created my main character had a sister that was just the cook, Alex LeBeau, while the group traveled, but LeBeau became something more and it was through the food she created. I used recipes to convey the undercurrent of the story mood or sometimes to give myself an inside joke to tickle me whenever I found the scene getting way too heavy.

For LeBeau the culinary school she teaches in, when not amateur sleuthing, is a place where she can create and work at solving a clue. It’s tactile. It’s facing a problem without much effort and that’s how many of us solve a problem, we do something not related to the issue.

This is the same way I plot, but I didn’t realize this four years ago. By utilizing my food history and food science education I have been able to create edible plots.

What’s that mean?

Please feel free to buy these for me for Christmas. Love, Alethea.

Please feel free to buy these for me for Christmas. Love, Alethea.

The food that makes it into my stories is a result of my plotting. Sometimes a story comes out from a ‘what if?’ scenario and other times it comes from discovering one item of food that is either unique or has a history behind it. Gunpowder tea has made its way into a metaphor, a plot point and a batch of cookies in my current WIP (another Steampunk Culinary Mystery).

Before I became confident in cooking, my stories were flat, but when I begin adding my researched food history into the story I found my voice. It not only added to a scene but made my Steampunk Chocolatier Alex LeBeau multi-dimensional. Food was another character for the ensemble cast to work alongside.

Soon after I submitted sample pages of this story to a critique group and had one beta reader tell me to remove the reference of food in my culinary mystery. Not tone it down, but omit it all together. Yes, let that sink in for a moment.

So while I took the advice on how to tighten my writing to heart I left behind the suggestion to remove my food porn because I know who my audience is and it’s not for readers that do not like reading about food and that’s alright.

After all these years I admit that  it’s tough to know how to balance a character (food) you adore that is forever changing, but I’m learning and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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Nikki Woolfolk is the author of multiple Steampunk (Sweet & Steamy series), Cozy Food Mystery stories and a Professional Chocolatier. Nikki enjoys taking her readers on culinary adventures in a spectacular cogged and geared world with the perfect recipe of fun and adventure with a dash of wit! You can find her at:  www.NikkiWoolfolk.com and her chocolates at: www.LeBeauChocolates.com

Cannot Write Without: Alethea Kontis

Alethea Kontis, Cannot Write Without, ,

The question in the lagoon this month: What’s the one thing you cannot write without?

Today’s answer comes from Waterworld Mermaids’ very own Alethea Kontis.

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Princess AletheaThis is one of those months where I’m always thrilled that my name starts with A…because it means I GET TO BLOG FIRST. (April, not so much.)

I’m excited because it’s November…which means MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF WRITING AND WORD WARS.

My first foray into National Novel Writing Month was 2004 — I finished the first draft of a novel. Unfortunately, it clocked in at a measly 36,000 words. That’s right, to date, I have never successfully “won” NaNoWriMo. I’m hoping this year, that will all change.

I often get asked about my writing schedule, or what my writing area looks like. My answer is always: HA! I have yet to establish the Perfect Workplace, or the Perfect Daily Schedule.

However, it did get me thinking: What do I need in order to write? What’s the one thing I literally cannot write without? And, for that matter, how would all my writing friends answer this same question?

Thus I bring you this month’s Theme Question — be sure to check back in every day (or Like us on Facebook) to enjoy a plethora of incredibly inspired answers from writers all over the globe.

But first, here’s my answer. Are you ready?

Hey Alethea, what’s the one thing you cannot write without?

My answer: LOVE.

You know the old cliche about tormented artists and how they find all their inspiration from the horrible events that happen in their lives? Well…not so this optimist. I know this because it was pointed out to me by someone in my inner circle…one of my very first beta readers, copyeditors, and harshest critics: My Mother.

I don’t remember which story — it was either “Blood & Water” or “Sunday” (I think it was the former). But after Mom read it, the first thing she said to me was, “You should always write when you’re in love.”

It’s true…I had a crazy-huge crush on a boy at the time. (Who ended up being a horrible specimen of a person…but I digress.) Being in love made me all lofty and poetic. The words flowed. I wanted to write (instead of just making up stories in my head and calling my friends to tell them about it).

When I am sad, I do not write. It is a horrible thing. The stories end up all trapped in my head, banging at the walls to come out. It creates this incredible powder keg of anxiety that at one point even forced me to seek medical attention (not even kidding). The misery compounds in one horrid downward spiral.

Last year, I broke up with a guy and moved to Florida. I wrote in strange fits and spurts, but it was incredibly difficult. It was less about finding my Muse and more about finding MYSELF.

When I did, I remembered what my mother had said.

I had a nervous breakdown at the age of 23. From that point on, I began surrounding myself with things that made me smile. Rainbows. Fairies. Stickers on my window. Quotes on my wall. Things that I loved.

It’s been kind of wonderful, moving into this house and starting that collection all over again. I have a prism in my kitchen window that scatters rainbows all over the house all winter. What walls aren’t lined with bookshelves are covered in artwork by artists who inspire me. And I have my friends — the Mermaids, my Brute Squad, my peeps on social media — whom I need to remember most, because these are the people I write for.

Princess AletheaThese are the people I love.

So…thanks, you guys. xox

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Alethea’s Profile on NaNoWriMo

 

Let The Write One In

Alethea Kontis, mermaids

WELCOME TO NANOWRIMO, EVERYONE!

It is time for some Word Wars.

ARE YOU READY?!?

This year for NaNoWriMo it’s THE BATTLE OF THE BLOGS!

The Waterworld Mermaids are battling Romance on the Rocks — it’s all about who will write the most words as a team. The winner will receive a pretty badge to post on their website…but mostly, we want bragging rights!

Also this month, the Waterworld Mermaids will be hosting authors from all over the world — they’ll be stopping by the lagoon to tell you all about one thing they cannot write without.

Drop in and see which author has the most in common with you!

So, who out there is doing NaNo this year?

Let’s buddy up and do this thing.   Now GET BACK TO WRITING!

 

Waterworld MermaidsMermaid Profiles on the NaNoWriMo Website:

Denny S. Bryce (Denny S. Bryce)

Princess Alethea (Alethea Kontis)

Question Lady (Kerri Carpenter)

kmaccarron (Kimberly MacCarron)

Carlene Love Flores (Carlene Love Flores)

P.H. Dunn (Pintip Dunn)

 

 

 

Alethea’s Convention Survival Guide

Alethea Kontis

NEW_LOGO_DCAt the beginning of every month, I put a blog post on my site directing folks over here. Well, this month I’m going backwards BECAUSE I CAN.

As I continue getting ready for DragonCon, my biggest convention of the year, I remind myself of all the survival tips I’ve come to adopt over the years.

CLICK HERE TO READ MY TOP SEVEN CONVENTION SURVIVAL TIPS.

They started out as particular to FragonCon, but they have served me well at other conventions and conferences over the year.

What are YOUR biggest conventions?

How do YOU survive?

xox

Mermaids & Friends: David B. Coe/DB Jackson

Alethea Kontis, Mermaids & Friends

Alethea MermaidDavid B. Coe (a.k.a. D.B. Jackson) has been my dear friend for over a decade (David contributed a guest post on my blog recently in which he discussed the circumstances of our meeting in 2002, and our friendship since then).

David is not only an exceptionally talented writer (his Thieftaker books are my favorite) but he’s also exceptionally prolific. I’m not kidding–the guy has TEN books out this summer.

Okay…so maybe I’m exaggerating. But not by much. Check out: Water Witch, Dead Man’s Reach,  His Father’s Eyes…and I’m sure I’m missing something. On top of the hundreds of guest posts he wrote for this month’s blog tour to celebrate all these releases. LIKE THIS ONE! Which I demanded. Because what else are friends for? <grin>

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His first name ain't baby. It's David... Mr. Jackson if you're nasty.Birds, Teen Angst, and High Fantasy:
Three Books That Changed My Life
by David B. Coe/D.B. Jackson

Choosing three books that changed my life, even if it’s just for the purposes of a blog tour, is a little like choosing “Three Meals That Helped me Grow Big and Strong.” Sort of. Actually, no one would ever accuse of me of being either big or strong. But you get the idea. The first thought that pops to mind is “Only three?” And the second is, “Okay, how many people am I going to tick off by leaving their books off the list?”

A lot of fantasy/SF writers would choose the classics, and I suppose I could make a case for putting Lord of the Rings, or other landmark works in the field on my list. The truth is, though, my journey into a writing career began long before I discovered speculative fiction.

The first book that changed my life might also have been the first “serious” book I read without any help at all from my parents. Back when I was a little kid, and dinosaurs roamed the earth, Grosset and Dunlap published a series of nature books for children. Mammals Do the Strangest Things, Fish Do the Strangest Things, and the one that caught my fancy, Birds Do the Strangest Things. I loved all the …Do the Strangest Things books, but at the time, I was discovering what would become a lifelong passion for birds and birdwatching, and I found this book utterly fascinating. It described, among other things, the elaborate bachelor pads constructed by bowerbirds, that creepy 360-degree-turn-thing owls do with their heads, and the fact that some shrikes impale their prey on thorns and barbed wire to store for future meals, like little birdy survivalists.

Joking aside, Birds Do the Strangest Things confirmed for me that my love of birds wasn’t weird, or a valid justification for teasing from my contemporaries. Birds, the book assured me, were just as amazing as I believed. More, so were books themselves. This one fed my passion; it captivated and inspired me. Most important, it befriended me. I returned to it again and again, and each time it welcomed me, admitting me to a world that didn’t judge or ridicule. My lifelong love affair with the written word began with this book.

Our literary needs change as we get older, and I went through some fairly typical reading phases over the next ten to fifteen years: Hardy Boys mysteries and books about baseball, more sophisticated nature books and a host of novels, among them The Hobbit. When I was sixteen, having read Catcher in the Rye, John Knowles’ A Separate Peace, and a couple of other “coming of age” novels, as YA was known back then, I stumbled across Good Times, Bad Times, by James Kirkwood. (Kirkwood also wrote the script for A Chorus Line, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.) Good Times, Bad Times, appeared a decade after A Separate Peace, and in some ways the books were similar. Kirkwood’s novel told the story of Peter Kilburn, a typical alienated teen who goes off to prep school. There he’s befriended by Jordan Legier, a brilliant, charismatic kid with health problems. Their friendship deepens, but, predictably, is cut short by tragedy.

I’m the youngest by far of four children, and though Salinger and Knowles spoke to my siblings, I was a different kid, living in a different time. Kirkwood’s book touched my emotions in ways the older titles couldn’t and no other book had. It dealt with all the things I was thinking about at the time: friendship, sex, death, the struggle to fit in and still maintain some semblance of individuality. I understood its characters, and I imagined that if they were real, they would have understood me. Upon finishing it, I immediately started over from the beginning. I did that four times, and even after that binge returned repeatedly to certain passages. Good Times, Bad Times got me through my sophomore and junior years in high school.

Which brings us to number three. Given that I’m a fantasy author, I suppose it’s not surprising that one of my choices is in the genre. I’m cheating in a way, because my third life-changing book is actually a trilogy: Stephen R. Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (Lord Foul’s Bane, The Illearth War, and The Power That Preserves). By the time I read the series, I had already fallen in love with fantasy. I knew that I wanted to read as much of it as I could.

Donaldson made me want to write.

Reading those books came as a revelation. His world was fascinating and strange; his “hero” was dark, at times evil, always difficult to like. I never wanted to create a protagonist like Covenant; I found him too distasteful. But having read fantasies that all struck me as somewhat similar, I felt as though Donaldson had drawn back a curtain, revealing a thousand new possibilities. If he could turn Covenant, this leprous misanthrope, into a hero, and create a world that embodied health and healing, a fantasy writer could do anything.

From the moment I finished reading the first Covenant trilogy, I knew I would be a fantasy author. I intended to explore every nook and cranny of my imagination, and though I still have a long way to go before I satisfy that ambition, I’ve at least made a dent in it. This summer I have two new novels out. The first, Dead Man’s Reach, the fourth volume of the Thieftaker Chronicles, which I write for Tor Books under the name D.B. Jackson, came out on July 21. The second, His Father’s Eyes, the second installment in the Case Files of Justis Fearsson, which write as David B. Coe, comes out from Baen Books on August 4. These will be my seventeenth and eighteenth published novels.

Dead Man's ReachAt first glance, my newest books may seem to have little in common with Birds Do the Strangest Things and Good Times, Bad Times. But the passion for reading sparked by the first title, and nourished by my teenage obsession with the second, made possible the spark of inspiration the came with the third. Taken together, they put me on the path to where I am now, and I couldn’t be more grateful.

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David B. Coe/D.B. Jackson is the award-winning author of eighteen fantasy novels. Under the name D.B. Jackson, he writes the Thieftaker Chronicles, a historical urban fantasy from Tor Books that includes Thieftaker, Thieves’ Quarry, A Plunder of Souls, and, the newest volume, Dead Man’s Reach, was released on July 21. Under his own name, he writes The Case Files of Justis Fearsson, a contemporary urban fantasy from Baen Books. The first volume, Spell Blind, debuted in January 2015. The newest book in the series, His Father’s Eyes, comes out on August 4. He lives on the Cumberland Plateau with his wife and two daughters. They’re all smarter and prettier than he is, but they keep him around because he makes a His Father's Eyesmean vegetarian fajita. When he’s not writing he likes to hike, play guitar, and stalk the perfect image with his camera.

http://www.DavidBCoe.com
http://www.davidbcoe.com/blog/
http://www.dbjackson-author.com
http://www.facebook.com/david.b.coe
http://twitter.com/DavidBCoe
https://www.amazon.com/author/davidbcoe

Amazon, Friends, and Family

Alethea Kontis, mermaids

There’s been a bit of hullabaloo lately in the writing community and–SURPRISE–it’s all about our favorite website, Amazon.

Click here to read a nice, concise summary of the new policy.

Firstly, Amazon decided to ONCE AGAIN change the way books are reviewed. Remember the “Like” buttons? And then the “Author Likes” and then the “Author Page Follows”? Well, now reviews are being weighted based on “helpfulness” (that box you get to check under each review) and “verified purchases” (if you actually bought the book through Amazon, as opposed to another reputable dealer).

I didn’t bat much of an eyelash at this one, since Amazon seems to change this aspect of Likes and Reviews and Follows about once every six months. I don’t even bother asking my fans to “support me” every time this happens, forcing them to ask “How high?” just because Amazon has once again yelled “Jump!”

I’ve learned not to get too attached.

TRIXTER by Alethea KontisThe aspect of the change that has everyone across the Interverse screaming “Big Brother” is Amazon’s new refusal to allow friends and family to review books.

I experienced this myself when my mother posted a thoughtful and supportive review of my latest novella TRIXTER. Like anyone else who posts a review on Amazon, she read the book and gave her honest opinion. And then Amazon promptly deleted the review with no warning.

The day before Mother’s Day.

I happened to be at a conference that weekend, but I sprang into action as soon as I realized what had occurred. Since I had uploaded Trixter myself (thank goodness), I had the power to go behind the scenes and change the product description. So I did. (Click the link to see what Mom said.)

A bunch of you are playing Devil’s Advocate right now and saying to yourself, “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t trust any mother who reviewed their kid’s book.” But think about it…would you really? Or would you perhaps enjoy the honest-to-goodness review a parent posted that they KNEW their child could not change? Think about my very colorful family for a minute. Wouldn’t you sort of love to read all of their incredibly honest reviews of my work?

This occurred to me, so I instantly ran over to the Amazon page for AlphaOops: The Day Z Went First. You see…one of the first reviews for that book was from my grandmother.

My grandmother is celebrating a birthday this month (Happy birthday, Nana!). I can’t tell you how incredibly proud and honored I was when she took the time out of her busy schedule to write a review of my book. I was tickled.

But right then, as I realized what had happened to my mother’s review, I was scared. I did not want this beautiful memory erased by the Amazon machine. Happily, the review was still there in all its glory, caps lock, misspellings, and all. I made a screen shot. Which I am posting here, in the event that it eventually DOES vanish from the Amazon page.

Nana's Review of AlphaOops

Now, I’m not going to ask who among you would not find this review helpful, because I really don’t want to know. This review is precious TO ME, and worth more than any other review posted by anyone else.

Nana’s last name is Kontis. I’m almost sure this review will be deleted in time. But beyond this, Amazon is using a proprietary algorithm (which means they don’t have to tell you how they do it) that decides whether or not the author is reviewing is a friend. (Click here to read how one book blogger confronted Amazon after being accused of being an author’s friend, and Amazon’s incredibly crap response.) Of course, the person is not notified of this until AFTER he or she has typed up their very thoughtful review…that is now lost forever.

In my life, I have made many, many friends. I’ve even lost a few of them. Some are very close. Some are mere acquaintances. It never occurred to me that I should apply an algorithm to my life. BECAUSE THAT IS SILLY.

I’m neither for or against anyone in this essay, I’m just making sure you know just how far Crazy Uncle Amazon has gone around the bend this time.

And to suggest this: If you take the time to type up an Amazon review for a book, you may want to save it to a Word Document or something, just in case you get hit by the Friend Algorithm Stick.