12.09.06
Posted in Belovedary, domesticity, geek, good things, shiny, writing at 8:35 am by Hanne Blank
By rights, this entry should probably begin “Captain’s Log, Stardate such-and-such.” Why? Well, fortunately for all of us including him, it isn’t because I am channeling William Shatner. Rather it has to do with how I am writing this entry.
With a pen. On a plastic tablet. Just like Yeoman Rand, but not with that hair. I can’t rock that complicated a wig at 8 am on a Saturday.
The tablet is something called a Wacom Graphire tablet, and the pen is an induction stylus that goes with it, and both were an early Chanukah gift from my Belovedary, who reasoned that perhaps my RSl issues might be helped by my having alternate input devices for my computer, enabling me to vary my arm and hand movements more. So far so good, although I must note in the interest of full disclosure that it is now possible, should a person get a little manic about keeping a deathgrip on one’s stylus, to get writers’ cramp from using the computer.
I rather like handwriting into my computer, though. There’s something about it that profoundly satisfies my innermost Luddite. It is much slower than typing, partly because it is, and partly because the character recognition takes time, and then going through what you’ve written to make sure the character recognition was correct (varies, depending on your handwriting and on the vocabulary you use; it tends not to recognize unfamiliar words as well as familiar ones, etc.) takes more time. But there are some nice things about having it be slower: one thinks more, or at least I find that I do, while writing. It’s one of the things I like about using manual typewriters, too. They just slow you down a little bit.
In other news-you-can’t-probably-use, the bathroom entropy situation is significantly improved although not yet completely rectified. We were able to shower yesterday, though not without the adjunct of some duct-taped plastic sheeting over critical bits that have yet to be retiled. I can’t tell you how jolly it was to be able to take a shower without worrying that I was secretly soaking the (ugly, but you know, we’re not yet in a position to replace it, so not ready to ruin it) kitchen’s drop-ceiling, or worse, shortcircuiting the kitchen ceiling lights.
Still, I am superstitious and paranoid about things for a while when my house has gone crumbly on me, even after I fix things (we replaced our roof two years ago, almost, and I still run up to check that things aren’t leaking when it rains heavily, because we spent three grand on a rubber roof with a 20 year materials warranty and I’m paranoid), so I took a short shower, did not shave my legs, and then ran downstairs to the kitchen as soon as I was dry so I could check and make sure that nothing was leaking. Because you never know, it could be leaking secretly. Just to vex me.
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11.13.06
Posted in Virgin book, making book, writing at 1:04 pm by Hanne Blank
I’ve started thinking and writing a bit about what I plan to be doing for my next Big Book.
Note that for me, there are various categories of books. There are Small Books, which are books that I can write with little or no research, usually in a relatively short period of time, where “relatively short” means measured in months rather than years. Some of them are Small Silly Books, which seem to usually be humorous and fictional. Some of them are Small Serious Books, which seem to be mostly essay-oriented, or “creative nonfiction” if you must call it that. (I mustn’t.) Editing an anthology qualifies as a Small Book, and so does putting together a collection of your own previously published work. (Where an anthology or collection falls on the Serious/Silly spectrum depends on its content and style, naturally.)
Then there are Big Books. These are the ones that take a serious investment in every way, but most particularly in terms of time and effort. If it is somewhat more complicated and demanding than your average doctoral dissertation, it is fairly sure to be a Big Book, and that holds true whether it is fiction or nonfiction, and indeed Silly or Serious. (I am sure that there could be a Big Silly Book, although right now I am hard put to think of one.)
I wrote two Small Silly Books during and just after my work on the last Big Serious Book. I am currently toying with several other Small Silly Books, although none of them have really clicked in the way that drives me to hunker down and focus hard and write the whole thing, although I imagine any one of them could, if I put my mind to it. (Which I have not done due to the need to recuperate from the last Big Serious Book, and also because none of the present crop of Small Silly Books in progress are under contract at the present time.)
Anyhow, the next Big Serious book has begun to percolate, and while I’m loath to really get rolling with it or even discuss it too much publicly at this point (a proposal is out to my editors, I expect they will buy it, but nothing is definite yet), it is encouraging to be thinking about another Big Serious book. It’s even motivating me to work up a proposal for one of the current Small Silly Books, the one I think is most likely saleable, so that I can get it to my agent later in the week.
Weird but true: the Small Silly Books tend to grow better when they’re rooted in the mulch of a Big Serious Book. Small Silly Books taken on their own just get leggy and kind of sad-looking. I think I have too much of a didactic, professorial streak in me to write Small Silly Books on their own. If I don’t have a Big Serious Book going on that bleeds off the tweedy thinky explainy voice, it seeps into the Small Silly Books, where it just sounds out of place and sometimes condescending, and that’s no fun.
Back to work on that Small Silly Book proposal, then.
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11.06.06
Posted in Virgin book, good things, making book, squeeeee!, writing at 7:20 pm by Hanne Blank
I’m so excited I can hardly stand it — I’ve just gotten the ARCs (Advance Reading Copies) of Virgin in the mail.
For those who don’t know what an ARC is, it’s the first time in the process of a book’s production that you get to see the book as a physical book, typeset, bound, and with the relevant cover art. All prior incarnations are just stacks of loose pages of one sort or another. The ARC exists so that reviewers and distributors and bookstore representatives and so on can have a convenient book-shaped version of the book, even though it is not quite the same as the final version that’ll end up on the shelves. It is, if you will, the pre-book book.
I keep having to pick it up and open it to make sure it’s really real. After having worked on this book for basically all of the last four years, between research and writing and revision and the production process, it’s almost hard to believe that it’s finally… a real live book.
(It’ll be on the shelves in March 2007. You’ll just have to wait. But trust me, it looks really good.)
Oh, and while I’ve got your attention: if you’re American, and you’re eligible, do please go and VOTE tomorrow, won’t you? Need information on national issues or on your local candidates and/or ballot initiatives? Try The League of Women Voters — you can look up your state/regional chapter, which will have information on your individual state ballots, candidates, issues, etc.
I don’t mean to be partisan, or at least not too partisan, but: let’s throw the bums out. Time to play Put The Reins on the Cowboy, boys and girls!
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11.01.06
Posted in art, publishing, short stories, writing at 11:47 am by Hanne Blank
My short story “Mrs. Charles’ Bookshop” has gone live over at Reflection’s Edge, if you’re in the mood for a light post-Hallowe’en treat.
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10.09.06
Posted in art nun, writing at 8:16 pm by Hanne Blank
One of the key lessons of the last 10 years of my life has been to learn this:
If you don’t — yet, or still, or ever — possess the skills to do an elegantly refined, utterly seamless, effortlessly virtuosic job of something or other, choose projects whose aesthetics will benefit from the enthusiastic, glad-hearted workmanlike clunkitude of which you are capable. You will be far happier and feel much more successful if you are not trying to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse, when in fact it may be a very serviceable and attractive sow’s ear.
Possibly you are devastated to discover that you are not a natural-born silk purser, but merely a sow’s earmeister. There is no use crying over it. If sow’s ears are what you’re good at, then do the best sow’s ears you possibly can. Perhaps you can learn silk pursery, perhaps not. There’s no reason you shouldn’t try. With talent and application maybe one day you will be able to do silk purses as beautifully and gracefully as you can do sow’s ears right now. But if you can do sow’s ears wonderfully right this very minute, then do them, by God, and if you can do them with a glad heart, so much the better for you and for them.
Furthermore, if you have done your sow’s ears — whatever they may be — to the absolute top of your bent, and done the very best you could do with what you had to work with at the time, the worst thing that anyone can tell you is that they didn’t like the way you did it. But that’s just an opinion, whereas what you have is a fait accompli. Having opinions about how the job could have been done differently is fine, but actually getting it done? That’s priceless.
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