I’ve got you covered.

Fierce babies are fierce:

Turkey vultures only. No duckz allowed:

Shift change:

Heard a rumor of this thing called the world:

Much more over at The Backdoor Artist.

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

If you’re working on a short story, and you find yourself wondering how you’re going to get all the backstory in–if you find yourself thinking about how interesting the backstory is to you, and wishing there was space for more of it.

And if at the same time, you can’t get yourself to move forward much at all on the frontstory, the “real” story, even though you have some prose bits that you like pretty well and all.

Then it’s just maybe possible that the backstory is the story, and you should just ditch the frontstory and tell it.

Especially if when you try this, your writing pace speeds up dramatically, and you’re no longer just staring at the screen.

Just maybe.

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

So, over at the livejournal mirror of my reflections on the writing for the long haul series, I found myself commenting:

I sort of wish there was some way to tell each new writer, “You’re going to have setbacks, and you’re going to be okay. This isn’t your one big chance. It’s the start of a long and winding (and heartbreaking and glorious) journey.”

And then I realized the way (or a start, anyway) was to turn make that into a post of its own. So I am.

So. If you’re just starting out? It’s not going to be perfect, and there are probably going to be setbacks. But those setbacks aren’t going to be the end of the world, even if it feels like that, especially if it feels like that because this is your first book and everything seems to ride on it.

It doesn’t. There is no one big chance. There are second and third and seventeenth chances, and winding through them all, there’s the crazy and individual and challenging and fabulous road that is your writing and your life.

And it’s going to be okay. Maybe you already know that, or maybe it’ll take a decade or two to learn it, or maybe like most of us you’ll keep learning and forgetting and learning again. But sometimes hearing it again can help, too.

It’s all okay. Your career is not this one moment. It’s a journey and a lifetime.

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

When I started the Writing for the Long Haul series, I wanted to explore what long-term writing careers look like, and to start a discussion of how and why writers keep going after the first few years.

I’ve been delighted to see writers at all stages of their careers enjoying these posts on a not-often-discussed part of the writing journey. I’ve been enjoying them too, and three months in, it seemed a good time to step back and reflect on what I’ve been thinking about and observing as I read.

You, of course, may have been observing and reflecting on entirely different things–so feel free to jump in and comment with your thoughts on long-haul writing journeys.

- Long-haul writing careers have ups and downs: Many writers have discussed, in various ways, the uneven terrain of their long-haul careers, and many readers have found this the most useful part of the series. Writers don’t talk about setbacks much in public, so I’m not sure many new writers especially understand that setbacks are normal. A bad year (or five, or ten) is not failure. It’s just a bad year or five or ten. It’s easy for a career to look like it’s on a straightforward upward success trajectory over the short haul. Over the long haul, with occasional exceptions, things get more complicated.

- Sales figures are not a long-haul writer’s primary inspiration: Every journey shared here has been different, but no one has said they woke up every morning inspired to write by their sales figures. Poor sales may or may not stop a writer, depending, but either way good sales aren’t enough to keep going. The motivation and even the ability to keep writing are far more complicated than that, and continuing to write isn’t about reaching some magic sales threshold that inspires us or gives us permission to do so. Motivation comes from somewhere deeper, even if where exactly varies from writer to writer.

- Long-haul writers are flexible: Often the first book a long-haul writer published was in a very different genre than their most recent book. Some writers work in multiple genres at the same time. Long-haul writers may not be writing to market (like so much else, that depends on the writer), but they are able to shift their focus and the sorts of projects they’re working on over time.

- Long-haul careers are highly individual: For anything I’ve said above, you can probably find a series contributor who’s an exception, because no two writing journeys are quite alike. It’s writers more experienced than me who encouraged me, in the early years of my career, to honor my own process. Reading these posts, I think that’s because our processes become more and more individual as time goes on. The comparison game is always dangerous, but it’s also less meaningful the more time that passes. There may be specific roadmaps and techniques (though even those vary) for how to break in as a writer, but sooner or later the templates get left behind, and your career is your career, and not anyone else’s.

The writing for the long haul series is going to take a hiatus until fall, while I meet some of my own short-term writing commitments (translation: I need to hunker down and finish my book), but I do want to continue the conversation, so please share your own thoughts in comments.

Many thanks again to all the Writing for the Long Haul series contributors to date for sharing your thoughts, your processes, and your insights!

- Sharon Shinn on managing time
- Marge Pellegrino on feeding the restless yearning to write
- Sarah Zettel on embracing ignorance and writing your passions
- Uma Krishnaswami on honoring unreasonable exuberance
- Jennifer J. Stewart on finding community and support
- Sherwood Smith on keeping inspiration alive
- Mette Ivie Harrison on defining success
- Jeffrey J. Mariotte on why we write
- Judith Tarr on reinventing ourselves
- Kathi Appelt on the power of story
- Cynthia Leitich Smith on balancing business and creativity

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

Dear Ever-Evolving Secondary Character,

You cry. A lot.

Yes, I know that if I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t stop at crying, but would be a quivering mass of uselessness.

I don’t see what that has to do with anything.

Me

Dear Moon,

You cannot shine after you’ve set. I’m sure we’ve discussed this before.

Me

Dear Owls Both Shapeshifting and Otherwise,

I’ve given you three chances now to be in this story. Twice I’ve had to cut you out again, and the third time–well.

I don’t think this is working out.

It’s not you, it’s me. I’m pretty sure.

Me

Header lyrics from Mary Chapin Carpenter’s “Iceland.”

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

“Turkey vultures have a lot of really cool natural behaviors and adaptations or … disgusting habits … depending on how you look at it”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRhzMrW0wmM

Socially awkward adaptations or not, naming your turkey vulture Barf does seem just a little unfair, though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxp3K1IXCEg

Carcass, phone book, it’s sort of the same:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNWmItiXnto

But like most birds, to really appreciate these guys you need to see them in the air–which we’re lucky enough to do in Southern Arizona on a regular basis:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzmWgibZL_Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gnDLzcmf2M

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

Faerie After (aka, the final book of the Bones of Faerie trilogy) has been out for a couple months now. As for the entire series, I’ve been careful to avoid spoilers when talking about the books.

Except here.

This is a place for spoilery discussion of all three books: questions, thoughts, things you just want to chat about. I might share a few thoughts of my own about the writing process for the final book that I haven’t been able to talk about other places because of spoilers, too.

I’ll check in regularly, so do jump in, now or later!

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

Today we fed our visiting tarantula her second cricket of the summer.

Unlike the last time we did this, the pet store actually did charge me for buying a single (large) cricket. But hey, with my PetCo card, the 17 cent cricket was discounted to a mere 15 cents. Which is clearly the sort of thing I got the card for, right?

Anyway, this cricket was considerably livelier than the last. After entertaining brief thoughts of buying it its own cage in which to live out its cricket life, I put it into the tarantula enclosure.

At which point it crawled directly under the tarantula, showing that livelier crickets are not always smarter crickets. Said tarantula, who was about as interested in this cricket as in the last one when it first appeared, let it crawl on to a hiding space under her bit of bark.

15 minutes later the cricket was still there. An hour later I can’t find it, but with all he twiggy bits in the cage, I don’t want to draw conclusions too soon.

But it is the rainy season now, and the tarantula does seem more active, as her fellow tarantulas in the wild also are around now. (Active = we actually see them.) So there’s that.

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

Science fiction and fantasy author Sharon Shinn started writing poetry when she was eight, began writing novels in her twenties, and sold her first book, The Shape-Changer’s Wife, in her thirties. In the nearly two decades since then, she’s published more than two dozen books while holding down a full-time journalism career. Today she joins the long haul series to talk about how she manages her writing time in the midst of that busy schedule.

Story Time

I wrote my first (awful) book when I was 20 and published my first (entirely different) book when I was 38. When I turn 57 next year, I will have spent a third of my life learning to be a person, a third of my life learning the craft of writing, and a third of my life as a published writer.

While being a published writer remains the COOLEST THING EVER, it hasn’t exactly been the most stress-free segment of my life. Because I continue to hold down a full-time job, being a published writer means that I have become absolutely and relentlessly focused on time. There is never enough of it for me to accomplish all the things I have to do.

Even before I sold my first book, I was pretty obsessive about writing. Once I started a book—really started it, committed to it in my heart, wasn’t just jotting down a few unconnected scenes or some great lines of dialogue—I finished it, even though I didn’t have a high expectation of selling it. I wasn’t on my current pace of at least a book a year, though, so I could be kind of mellow about how much progress I made on a daily basis. If I came home from work and felt lazy, I could hang out with friends or watch TV and not feel too guilty about not producing any pages for the evening. Or the weekend. I remember one particularly busy spring when I had so much going on that I went an entire month without writing a word on my current novel, leaving my two protagonists facing death at the hands of the ruthless villain.

But now I have contracts. I have deadlines. And my books are longer. I know that I need to produce between twenty-five and thirty pages a week if I’m going to have time to write, rewrite, receive critiques, and polish a book before sending it off to my editor by the promised date. That means I have to write five pages a day at least five days a week—or six pages each on four days—or—well, you get the picture. I have to write a lot. Even when I’m tired. Even when I’m uninspired. Even when I really don’t feel like it. Writing has become a job, and I can’t choose to skip going into work for the day just because I’m feeling dull.

Even so, there are days that simply offer no time for sitting down at the keyboard and churning out pages. I might be going to dinner with friends. Or entertaining company from out of town. Or traveling to a wedding. I’m not writing on those days, which means I have to make up the pages on some other day.

Which means I always, always, always am aware of time. I try to consolidate time-eating errands: On the evenings I’m going to lose an hour by going to the hair salon, I do my grocery shopping too so I can keep another day free for writing. I DVR every single television program I watch so I can fast-forward through commercials and save myself fifteen minutes per hour. I get twitchy when too many events pile up in a month; sometimes I turn down invitations because I can’t bear to be away from the story for too many days in a row.

But it’s not just the writing itself that takes time, which I discovered after I sold my first book. Sometimes my editor wants rewrites. Copyedited manuscripts always land on my desk at the least convenient times possible, but I know it’s essential to read through them closely—not only to accept or reject the copyeditor’s suggestions, but to take this last chance to catch any errors or awkward bits that have escaped my notice up till now. And then I have to read whole thing again when the page proofs arrive a few weeks later—also, at least in my experience, at some spectacularly inconvenient moment. I’ve brought copyedits and page proofs with me on work trips, on vacations, on visits to hospital rooms. Because I can read on a plane, in a hotel room, or while a sick relative is sleeping.

Here’s something else that started taking up time once I became a published writer: reading books by friends. I’m in a (fabulous) writer’s group and we all critique each other’s manuscripts. I’m grateful for every hour my co-writers have invested in my books, and I gladly return the favor—but I read slowly and thoroughly, so I probably average thirty pages an hour. I’ve also been honored to have authors and publishers approach me, asking for blurbs for their books; I’ve found some of my favorite new writers this way, but, again, the reading process wasn’t a quick one. And since I’ve developed a whole new circle of friends—other published writers—I want to read all their books when they hit the shelves. It’s no surprise that I’m pretty far behind on that goal.

I don’t know how other writers manage to fit all their daily demands into their writing schedules. I tend to think of each day as a great wheel of cheese, and I’m constantly estimating how big a wedge will be required for every task on my list. So on a typical Saturday I might plan three hours to clean the house, another hour to pay bills and balance the checkbook, another hour to catch up on emails. If I start at 9 a.m. and expect to leave for the evening by 6 p.m.—and if I don’t take too long over eating lunch and dressing for dinner—I should have three solid hours in the afternoon. Hey, that’s good for ten pages, right?

It’s kind of a pressured way to live. But to be a published author? Worth all the calculating, the bargaining for another hour. The life might be demanding, but the thrill never gets old.

Sharon Shinn’s first novel, The Shape-Changer’s Wife, won the Crawford Award for best first fantasy novel when it came out in 1995. Her second novel, Archangel, came out soon after and was one of the reasons she was nominated for the William Campbell Award for best new writer two years in a row. Since then she’s published more than two dozen science fiction and fantasy novels, including the rest of the Samaria series, the Twelve Houses series, the Elemental Blessings series, the Safe-Keeper series and, most recently, the Shifting Circle series.

Her journalism career has focused on working for trade association magazines such as The Professional Photographer, DECOR and, currently, BizEd, for which she writes about management education and interviews business experts from around the world.

Author photo credit: Raquita Henderson

Previous Writing for the Long Haul Posts:

- Marge Pellegrino on feeding the restless yearning to write
- Sarah Zettel on embracing ignorance and writing your passions
- Uma Krishnaswami on honoring unreasonable exuberance
- Jennifer J. Stewart on finding community and support
- Sherwood Smith on keeping inspiration alive
- Mette Ivie Harrison on defining success
- Jeffrey J. Mariotte on why we write
- Judith Tarr on reinventing ourselves
- Kathi Appelt on the power of story
- Cynthia Leitich Smith on balancing business and creativity

About the Writing for the Long Haul series

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

I’ll be signing in your city tomorrow! (Saturday.)

When: Saturday, July 27, 1-3 p.m.
Who: Sara Wilson Etienne and Janni Lee Simner
Where: Hastings at 840A Juan Tabo NE in Albuquerque, NM

Stop by and say hi!

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

Not sure this is actually the cutest kitty ever, but it’s surely a contender for the top ten:

ETA: Of course, what I was looking for was something closer to this. Looking at kittens = serious research!

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

… and I’m guest blogging my magical apocalypse survival kit.

Specifically, guest blogging over at I Smell Sheep (entertaining ewe one monster at a time). How could you not want to click through and visit with a name like that?

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

Marge Pellegrino combines her inward writing journey with a strong outward commitment to community service. Her most recent novel, Journey of Dreams, is the story of how a family survives the Guatemalan army’s ‘scorched earth’ campaign and was inspired by her work as director of the Hopi Foundation’s Owl and Panther project, an expressive arts program for Tucson refugee families. Today Marge joins the long haul series to talk about how she feeds her restless yearning to reach out and put ideas onto the page.

In “La Maravilla,” Alfredo Véa writes about a man with a sickness no curandera can cure. The only thing that quiets his dis-ease is the sway of a bus under his feet, movement that mimics a ship, answering the yearning of his seafaring blood.

My own yearning isn’t for the sea, but for ideas to commit to the page. If you’re a writer, you and I understand the kind of longing he represents and the need to do something about it. To soothe our unrest, we need to write.

This is how I feed my yearning:

Writing enhances my life, and my life enhances my writing. Through writing I solve problems, reframe what’s happened to me, or lash down in my journal what’s likely to fly by too fast. Whether I’m working on a book review or piece of fiction for publication, I always make sure that I’ll be addressing topics that support my truths, or ideas that I want to better understand. Community and personal resilience are recurring themes, but I’m open to following different threads.

Writing doesn’t usually pay the bills, but some of my writing-related work does. Even with these bread-and-butter jobs, I only choose work that supports things that matter. Workshops in schools, libraries and for The Hopi Foundation’s Owl & Panther Project are projects that build community, foster communication and promote literacy. They encourage creative expression, and engage people in activities that help empower and heal them. Each job offers different challenges and informs my writing.

I continue to push my craft by critiquing and attending workshops and conferences when I’m able. That foundational work fulfills best when I use what I learn. The best way to hang on to new approaches is to integrate it into my writing.

I write best as a hermit.  I need uninterrupted time and quiet in order to go down into the basement of my subconscious where shelves are packed with bins brimming with memories. Or outside where ideas float by or roost in a tangle of branches overhead. I need time to be present with the work to move it forward. Being Too Nice poses the biggest time threat, as I’m often tempted to help someone else with their work rather than spending time on mine. I’ve learned it helps to schedule blocks of writing time.

Everything listed above is doable when I’m healthy. When I’m lacking energy, everything gets harder. Paying attention to well-being is more important now than it was when I was thirty-five.

When the time-vise tightens, journaling helps. It may seem counterintuitive to add yet another activity, but journaling gives me energy and clarity for community work. The community work then sustains my writing, and writing once again, strengthens the work—a positive cycle

I also build stamina by staying curious. I take time to wonder, to nourish myself with reading, travel and artist dates, where I enjoy others’ passions. I play with diverse creative adventures like zentangles and collage, which I see as sisters to essays and short stories. Making altered books or marbleizing tea-bag paper feeds me so I can feed my characters. These experiences inspire different strategies to hone my craft from concept to public, from the slash-and-burn of a horrible first draft to the small delicate moves of the last proof. Art helps me to be open and brave on the page and to challenge myself.

Through work and writing, I have opportunities to spend time with incredible people—educators, mental health professionals, volunteers and activists—who add to the web of community they’ve helped construct and nurture. I get to talk with artists, craftspeople, dancers, actors and writers who open windows and doors and offer fresh perspective. I grow from interactions with all those who ask us to think and live more intentionally.

I always celebrate when work offers crazy synchronicity, like when I found myself editing a book about managing depression just when I hit a rough spot in my own life, or the parenting column I was writing that allowed me to research whatever was happening in my young son’s life. I feel grateful when someone offers to pay me to find out what I need to know anyway.

Demands shift and overlap; sometimes there’s so much, I feel I’m dogpaddling in an ocean unprotected. The what-I-don’t-knows and what-I-need-to-get-done swim around me like sharks. It’s the deadlines that rescue me from the deep and push me through the dense water of procrastination.

And if worry whispers wrong direction, I spend time reassessing. It’s amazing how rest, stepping away, or pivoting to another project for a while refreshes me.

Even when the writing is going well, I need other writers. Someone to ask if that metaphor is too cliché. Someone honest who helps me decide whether the reader will be glad to have spent time with me. Colleagues who invite me to share their success, to stand with them when their own work falters, and tap into the synergy that results from the meeting of our minds and spirits.

I’ve heard people say there are no short cuts, but I believe you can navigate easier passage. Over the last few decades, other writers have shared their writing truths and tools with me. I’ve learned more about structure, syntax, dialog, and re-visioning from others than I would ever have learned in isolation. And lately, it’s been crazy how good it feels to know others also suffer from “imposteritis”—the fear that someone is going to find out I’m not a real writer.

This past year, I’ve been working in collaboration with two other writers on two different nonfiction book projects. I’ve promised myself these small excursions to meet them each week, so even when I can’t carve out the bigger chunks of time for my own writing, I’m still a writer.

Weekly dates with my creative partners and monthly meetings with my Sin Nombres writers’ group, provide time for critiquing and talking craft and process. I’ve found these sessions help me slip more smoothly into my longer solo work.

And then there are moments when I wonder if I’ll ever write anything as brilliant as my favorite writers, the ones I read, read, and sometimes re-read. Maybe I won’t, but maybe I will. Either way, I’m still embracing that innate yearning.

Marge Pellegrino jumped out of the business world and into freelance writing in 1984. Her books include I Don’t Have An Uncle Phil Anymore, My Grandma’s the Mayor, Too Nice, and the Judy Goddard Award-winning Journey of Dreams.

Passionate about sharing the power she’s found in words, she leads writers of all ages to think in new ways and discover their own voices through community workshops and other programs such as the Hopi Foundation’s Owl and Panther Project. Her Word Journeys program at the Pima County Public Library received the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities’ Coming Up Taller Award for excellence in after-school programming in 2008. Marge was named a Local Hero by the Tucson Weekly in 2006.

Previous Writing for the Long Haul Posts:

- Sarah Zettel on embracing ignorance and writing your passions
- Uma Krishnaswami on honoring unreasonable exuberance
- Jennifer J. Stewart on finding community and support
- Sherwood Smith on keeping inspiration alive
- Mette Ivie Harrison on defining success
- Jeffrey J. Mariotte on why we write
- Judith Tarr on reinventing ourselves
- Kathi Appelt on the power of story
- Cynthia Leitich Smith on balancing business and creativity

About the Writing for the Long Haul series

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

Dear Book,

Awww, you’re being awesome today. Can you be like this always?

Me

Dear Book,

By always, I actually meant longer than the next 15 minutes. Sorry about the confusion.

Me

Dear Chapter 19,

It’s all your fault. All the other chapters are so well behaved.

Just remember, the outtakes file is in the same directory you are.

Me

Header lyrics from Jen Hajj’s “Raven.”

Mirrored from Janni Lee Simner / Desert Dispatches.

Finally finished the first Prydain book (Book of Three) today. There are some books that you don’t get around to reading long past when everyone else does, and you don’t really know why.

I was in just the right mood for this sort of immersive otherworld adventure, and I enjoyed it lots and lots, in spite of a few reservations: that Taran is a bit of a twit (but he’s supposed to be), that several characters are built largely around a single conversational tic or two (“munchings and crunchings” are fine and even lovely, “a Fflam always” was beginning to push it), and most of all the fear that as likable a female character as Eilonwy is likely to get tamed in later books rather than being allowed the spirited adventure-seeking life she deserved (Gwydion went down many notches in my regard when he began simultaneously flirting with and dismissing her).

But that’s not the real reason for this post. The real reason is a conversation lnhammer, who’d been rightfully telling me I needed to read these books for years.

Me: “I already knew Taran was an assistant pig-keeper. But I didn’t know the pig was important.”
lnhammer (looking up): “Some pig.”

Fanficcers, your mission is clear.

Mirrored from Desert Dispatches: Wordpress Edition.

It’s been a busy several weeks … busy several months, really … in ways that have little to do with writing. Except, of course, that everything has to do with writing, and everything affects it.

I’m not always graceful about admitting when it’s time to refill the writing well. The times when I’m most busy and stressed are the times when I feel like I should be getting more efficient, making sure I fill every moment with productive writing work. Except, of course, when the writing well–that space inside me where stories come from, whatever metaphor we use for it–is running dry, my time actually becomes less productive, not more.

But finally I’ve begun forcing myself to focus on what I know to be my well-filling things. Walking and running and swimming. A few yoga classes where I really force myself to focus on myself and my practice and where I am, and not just on the poses.

This weekend, an impromptu overnight camping trip, up on Mount Lemmon. Getting out of the city is one of my big well-filling things. Somehow, in worn jeans and an old T-shirt, surrounded by wilderness (even near-city wilderness that can be reached in less than an hour), with nothing to do but be, I remember who I am, in a deep way that’s hard to explain, and settle more comfortably back into my own skin.

And reading. Lots of reading. Whenever I’m feeling off, if I look at my reading journal, I’ll find I’m not reading enough. I brought a pile of books with me on our camping trip, and I spent much of the weekend inhaling story.

Did I have time for any of these things, right now? Not really. But last night, a stray opening sentence bubbled up, and I grabbed a piece of paper to write it down. This morning, a stray story idea. I did the same.

It’s not as if I have a shortage of story ideas or evocative sentences. But this random bubbling of ideas–of story finding me, rather than me pushing through the brambles and failing to find story–is the first sign that the well is starting to fill, that there’s something inside me again to put onto the page without fighting every step of the way. If it takes time to get to and hang onto that, well, it also seems to be something I can’t write without, not for long.

Mirrored from Desert Dispatches: Wordpress Edition.

Been mostly offline for various life reasons the past few weeks, while early spring transitioned to late spring here in the desert. You can tell it’s late spring because these are cactus flowers, not ground-scattered wildflowers. Specifically, cholla flowers. (Warning. Chollas will jump you if you get too close. But we love them anyway.)

Anyway, suddenly it’s May, and that means Faerie After is due out at the end of this month!

And I’ll be places, celebrating and signing the final book of the Bones of Faerie trilogy. Specifically:

Friday, May 24 – Sunday May 26
Phoenix Comicon
Phoenix Convention Center

Saturday, 6-8 p.m., Faerie After party!
Renaissance Salon, Renaissance Hotel

See the rest of my Phoenix Comicon panels here, or catch me at my table in the exhibit hall, too. Early copies of Faerie After will be available at con only.

Tuesday, May 28, 6 p.m.
Official Faerie After release day!
Signing at Changing Hands Bookstore
6428 S McClintock Drive
Tempe, Arizona

Saturday, June 1, 2 p.m.
Faerie After signing at Barnes and Noble Eastside
5130 E. Broadway Blvd
Tucson, Arizona

Friday, June 21, 7 p.m.
Alamosa Books Solstice Party
(Solstice party starts 5:30 p.m.; Faerie After reading and signing at 7 p.m.)
8810 Holly Ave. NE, Ste. D
Albuquerque, New Mexico

You can also always find copies of my books at Antigone Books, where you can tell them you’d like Faerie After personalized, and they’ll ship a copy to you wherever you are.

Mirrored from Desert Dispatches: Wordpress Edition.

Not been online much. Busy with life stuff, book stuff, other stuff, so …

… here. Have some music. :-)

(This one is on the raven book’s playlist. While Duvekot’s “Phoenix” belongs on a Bones of Faerie playlist.)

Mirrored from Desert Dispatches: Wordpress Edition.

Hey, it’s less than two months until Faerie After‘s release! Here’s what Kirkus says about it:

“With the faerie and mortal lands crumbling away, a teenage girl must work with both worlds if anyone is to survive. The Bones of Faerie series concludes with this high-stakes adventure … In a satisfying trilogy conclusion, Liza confronts the conflicts between saving the world and saving her friends in an environment where nobody is willing to let go of the last generation’s hatreds.”

Faerie After releases into the wild May 28–spread the word!

And if you have any friends who’ve maybe read Bones of Faerie but didn’t realize there were sequel, I’m running a giveaway for Faerie Winter on Goodreads this month.

Mirrored from Desert Dispatches: Wordpress Edition.

A good equinox to you all. It’s feeling like an equinox-y sort of season around here, with poppies and penstemon blooming, with the feeling that everything’s all balanced and poised for change, the citrus blossom-scented air filled with opportunities and challenges.

Or maybe that second is always true, and season change encourages us to step back and take notice.

I was asked about the source of the lyrics for this post (and to source my lyrics in general–I’ll try!) It’s from another Antje Duvekot song, Juliet.

I just might be obsessing over her music a little right now, having only recently discovered it. It’s music that takes to obsessing over well.

Mirrored from Desert Dispatches: Wordpress Edition.

Thanks to everyone who entered to win Absent and Plague in the Mirror. The winners of my ARCs, chosen with great care by random.org, are …

(drumroll as I pull up the website and draw virtual names)

Absent: J.R. Goldberg!

Plague in the Mirror: John Higginbotham!

Email me your addresses at janni(at)simner(dot)com and I’ll get your ARCs in the mail!

And hopefully the rest of you will seek out these terrific books once they’re out, too. :-) You can find out more about both Plague in the Mirror and Absent at my original post, here.

Mirrored from Desert Dispatches: Wordpress Edition.

I forget who pointed me towards this New York Times article on how different students handle the pressure of competition differently, on the different ways we all handle stress in general, and on how stress can both benefit and hinder us, but it has implications for those of us building creative careers:

Studies that compare professionals with amateur competitors — whether concert pianists, male rugby or female volleyball players — show that professionals feel just as much anxiety as amateurs. The difference is in how they interpret their anxiety. The amateurs view it as detrimental, while the professionals tend to view stress as energizing. It gets them to focus.

I remember that one of the single things that helped put me most at ease about public speaking was learning when listening to a con panel of professional singers that people who perform don’t have some magical gift for not worrying … they just accept the worry as something that will always be there, and somehow flow with it.

It may be that many people who do things–any sort of things–don’t have a gift for confidence so much as practice-earned experience pushing through their lack of confidence. A useful thing to be reminded of.

Also–no surprise–standardized tests really aren’t a good measure of how we handle stress and competition, among other things because they lack the benefits of many other forms of competition:

Taking a standardized test is a competition in which the only thing anyone cares about is the final score. No one says, “I didn’t do that well, but it was still worth doing, because I learned so much math from all the months of studying.” Nobody has ever come out of an SAT test saying, “Well, I won’t get into the college I wanted, but that’s O.K. because I made a lot of new friends at the Kaplan center.” Standardized tests lack the side benefits of competing that normally buffer children’s anxiety. When you sign your child up for the swim team, he may really want to finish first, but there are many other reasons to be in the pool, even if he finishes last.

Mirrored from Desert Dispatches: Wordpress Edition.

You’re welcome.

(For the full BBC Natural World Jaguars Born Free documentary this comes from, you can go here.)

Mirrored from Desert Dispatches: Wordpress Edition.

So today I was trying to find out how commonly birds (and ravens specifically) eat spiders.

Instead I discovered a spider that eats birds.

Well, okay, one bird. A hummingbird, specifically. As reported by Victorian explorers, who are not exactly known for reliability themselves. But still.

Theraphosa blondi remains known as Goliath Birdeater because of that hummingbird. Never let it be said there isn’t sensationalism in the wildlife biology world, or that one crazy bird-eating moment can’t get a rep that follows you and all your many arachnid descendants forever.

Theraphosa blondi is known to more often eat rodents, frogs, and snakes in the wild. That’s still pretty spider-kickass in my book.

Pet owners are advised to stick to insects such as crickets and locusts, though. (The sites pointing out that making pets of these guys isn’t exactly advised seem to be outnumbered by sites on how to take care of your Goliath bird-eating tarantula. Make of this what you will.)

Mirrored from Desert Dispatches: Wordpress Edition.

Had a great weekend at the Tucson Festival of Books this weekend. Sometimes (especially when, say, one is just off a two-week cold during which she’s spent way too much time at home trying to write but maybe not being very productive), it’s really good to just get out and talk books and writing with friends old and new–to get outside my own head and into the world with all of you. Many thanks, to all of you who came.

And hey, the TusCon folks posted a couple of clips from our Bordertown panel Saturday morning. I haven’t been able to embed them outside of facebook, but I don’t think you need to be logged in there to listen to Charles de Lint here and me here.

Mirrored from Desert Dispatches: Wordpress Edition.