sales ~ma for Sox.

Wonderful news about the website and the book, Gar! And thank you!

Well, I'm on a drive to be ready to submit my novel (sure wish I'd get something back on the short stories, I feel like I've launched them into black hole. OTOH, it is the holidays). My query in progress is looking like this:

Thirteen year old Cog has no intention of marrying a count, no matter what her long-absent mother wants. She figures countesses don’t get their hands greasy fixing steam wagons, and that simply won’t do. Instead, she stows away on an airship destined for the crown city and forges a name onto a list of the queen’s new apprentices—a boy’s name. If pretending to be male wasn’t enough to worry about, she overhears a plot to assassinate the queen and throw the kingdom into war.

While fixing everything from vitality concentration meters to checkers-playing automata, Cog tries to unravel the conspiracy. But between a kleptomaniac gremlin who knows her secrets and a best friend with a crush on her alter ego, her false identity is breaking down faster than an ungreased computation engine. Worst of all, as the time until the assassination clicks away, she learns one of her friends is slated for an unwilling and fatal role. Whether it's sabotaging a royal airship or marching alone into a cursed forest, Cog will do whatever it takes to save the day.

Stopping a war and saving her friends isn’t the same as fixing an auto-mechanical potion mixer, but she has a set of precision screwdrivers and isn’t afraid to use them.

COG is a YA steampunk fantasy novel complete at 85,000 words.

I like the line "as the time until the assassination clicks away", very clockworky and mechanical.

It certainly sounds like something I'd like to read.

I am, however, unable to stop noodling with other people's prose:

Thirteen-year-old Cog has no intention of marrying a count, no matter what her long-absent mother wants. What Cog wants is to keep her hands on the workings of steam wagons. She stows away on an airship destined for the crown city and forges a new identity as a queen’s apprentice. Pretending to be a boy is challenging enough, but then she overhears a plot to assassinate the queen and throw the kingdom into war.

While fixing everything from vitality concentration meters to checkers-playing automata, Cog tries to unravel the conspiracy. But between a kleptomaniac gremlin who knows her secrets and a best friend with a crush on her alter ego, her false identity is breaking down faster than an ungreased computation engine. Worst of all, as the time until the assassination clicks away, she learns one of her friends will forced into a fatal role in the plot. Whether it's sabotaging a royal airship or facing a cursed forest, Cog will do whatever it takes to save the day.

Good luck with submitting, Gud!

Anyone here do morning pages, a la Julia Cameron and The Artist's Way? If you do, what do you think of the process?

I've used it in the past, to good effect. I combined it with my no-communicating with the humans period first thing in the mornings, though. Coffee, computer or notebook, and free-writing immediately on getting up and before I was vocal. It utilized what I called "dream energy". Most dreams occur just before waking, and if I could prolong that state, I got more free-wheeling writing done.

If I had to talk to the kids or deal with a PTA thing or get my own ass in the car and to work, it wasn't the same. When my day started too early to set the clock an extra hour early to get up and write, I'd take a nap, get up from that and write. It worked, but not quite as well as early morning.

Morning pages are good in that they get your mind freewheeling with the words and ideas, get you past your self-editor because you're not keeping the first three pages. They build a bit of momentum, and if you can sustain it, even for a little while, you can put it to use for actual writing.

DH is working from home today and I'm in that part of editing this thing where I read aloud. I need to read 15k words aloud today. OMG did I ever have the worst territorial reaction. NO you can't work in the bedroom because I might go there. NO don't work there either. GET OUT. You shouldn't be here.

Yeah. I'm a great wife and mother.

ETA: which is why I'm all fiddly on the interwebs instead of working. GAH.

Hey, I have a (really good) story by Dana in my inbox from Daily Science Fiction! So I guess it should be up on their website soon for people who don't subscribe.

I know! It's exciting and the feedback on the FB page is interesting and useful.