Category: Guestpost (page 2 of 4)

I don’t know Simon Logan very well, honestly — but I know I like what I see. You know he’s the real deal. Anybody repped by Allan Guthrie is the real deal. Anybody who writes an opening sentence like, “So she walks in, trying to look cool, trying to look like nothing has happened, like nothing has gone wrong, but it’s difficult because she still feels the ghost of the revolver’s handle pressed against her palm and the scent of gunpowder in her nostrils” is the real deal. I think Simon and I come from different angles regarding the process and nature of writing and storytelling, but that’s a feature, not a bug, and further proof that nobody does This Thing We Do precisely the same way. You can find Simon’s blog here, and you can also follow him on Twitter: @simonlogan.

This is a blog about writing and storytelling so before we do anything else, I’d like you to tell me – and, of course, the fine miscreants and deviants that read this site – a story. As short or long as you care to make it, as true or false as you see it.

So when the Punk Overlord takes power he orders the beheading of all of those who had opposed his ascendance in order to ensure peace.  When others protest against this mass-slaughter he has them beheaded too.  Their families try to stop the killing and so they are killed – again to ensure peace.  When the executions are all over with it’s just the Punk Overlord and the Executioner who are left.  The Punk Overlord looks out over the empty kingdom of corpses which he has been left with and blames the Executioner, then demands that the Executioner himself climb into the guillotine.  The Punk Overlord beheads the Executioner then sits alone – finally his kingdom is at peace.

How would you describe your writing or storytelling style?

It varies slightly depending on what I am writing but I tend to prefer a mash-up between stripped-down and lyrical.  Katja From The Punk Band would be the equivalent of The Ramones (fast, minimalistic and straight to point) whereas lovejunky is more along the lines of Deftones (moody, slightly druggy and with bursts of violence and energy).

I’m fairly loose with sentence structure and tend to rely mostly on what sounds good to me and what flows well rather than what follows any rules or conventions (though I don’t read my work aloud).  As for storytelling I love intermingling story threads and having them trip over one another and I love leaving gaps which are only filled in further along the lines. I also only put in as much backstory for any character as I need to, I don’t come up with a full life history for any of them otherwise I may feel obliged to squeeze it in unnecessarily.  Write only what needs to be written but write it with style.

Your work and writing philosophies seem to embody a punk aesthetic. How can writers embrace that, and why should they? (Or, perhaps, why shouldn’t they?)

For me the attraction of the punk aesthetic is to properly reflect yourself and your energies and interests in your work.  Be inspired by what other people are creating but focus on creating that inspiration within yourself rather than just replicating what others have done.  Most of the best punk bands were better musicians than people give them credit for – people assumed that because they didn’t play complex, multi-layered pieces that they couldn’t but I think it was more about the fact that they chose not to do that than anything else.  I think important not to break the rules just for the sake of it but at any time I think we should feel able and free to do so if it benefits what you are trying to create.  With all that said,  if I’m going to be true to the punk ethic then nobody should listen to what I’m saying and just go do their own thing.

Music obviously plays a huge role in your work — not only do you compare your work to music but on your website you have playlists for the work. Do you listen to music as you write? Do you begin a project with musical inspiration already in mind or does the musical connection come after?

I never listen to music whilst I write, no.  I’ve got the attention span of a three year old at the best of times so that would be too distracting for me, especially considering that at the moment my playlists are full of Bring Me The Horizon, Parkway Drive and The Acacia Strain.  I do, however, allow myself to be inspired by the music I listen to, whether it’s the lyrics or just the feel of them. And I never look for inspiration from music directly, it’s more of a background thing.  That’s true of all my inspiration, really, I don’t’ research as such, I just consume information on a daily basis and occasionally it leaks back out again.  I read and listen to that which interests me and stories just come out of that – rather than me listening to or reading something and trying to create something out of it.  Plus the music which inspires me changes as my tastes change.  Whilst I started out using industrial music as inspiration that kind of morphed into punk and then some electronic stuff then hardcore and then it all just kind of merges after that.  Which is sort of the effect I’m going for in my fiction, actually.

What’s awesome about being a writer or storyteller?

Creating something – that’s what’s awesome about any form of art.  To have added something to the universe that wasn’t there before.  To read or see something else that is so utterly shit that it infuriates you and being able to respond to that anger, to use it, by creating something in direct opposition to it.

Conversely, what sucks about it?

Not a lot, to be honest.  It used to bother me working in a vacuum where you would toil away for months on end then produce something and have no idea if anyone else knew if you or it existed but that doesn’t bother me anymore.  Since I’m comfortable writing for myself it’s nice to get feedback from people who have read and enjoyed my work but it makes no difference to what I create or whether I create it.  Considering that I’m sitting at a computer in a warm room making shit up, it would be pretty crass of me to complain about it sucking …

Deliver unto us a single-serving dollop of writing or storytelling advice that you yourself follow as a critical tip without which you might starve and die atop a glacier somewhere:

Listen to what others have to say then feel absolutely free to ignore it.  I have no problem with writing rules and conventions and they are certainly handy to know but at any point if I feel a story would benefit from pushing them all to one side then I’ll do it.  Along similar lines I’d also say look at what others are doing and then do something different.

Do you then believe that writing is more a work of art than a work of craft?

I think it’s a nice split between the two.  The craft side of things is good to learn and to know but I would only ever view it as a guideline rather than a rule.  If it feels right to start a sentence with “and” or to break other grammatical rules then I’ll do it – so I guess in the end the art overrides the craft but both are important.  I’ve read a number of books in which the craft is spot on but there’s just no art to it and they always leave me feeling a little hollow.  I don’t want people to read my stuff and feel the same.

If feedback doesn’t play a role in your writing, if you’re comfortable writing for yourself, where does interaction with the marketplace come in? Is commerce the enemy of good writing?

Not necessarily but there is that risk because commerce tends to follow whatever is popular, the path of least resistance, and so if everyone goes that route then it all comes out the same.  You see that when something becomes popular, such as the Twilight books, then everyone jumps on the bandwagon – but all they’re reacting to is the end result, not the things which inspired it in the first place.  They’re replicating the form, not the spirit.  I do think it is vital for any writer who is wanting to work commercially is at least aware of market forces and what can sell but I would never write something purely to that end.  I don’t mind shaping, however.  I do listen to what people have to say and since I recently got an agent I’ve now got to take that all a little more seriously, however in the end it’s my decision on what to do and how to do it because it’s my name on the book cover.

What are your thoughts on self-publishing?

In and of itself self-publishing is neutral – it’s what is done with it that matters.  Personally I think that it’s great to have that option there because a lot of writers would never have been published not because they weren’t any good but for marketing reasons.  I once had a rejection for my first novel, Pretty Little Things To Fill Up The Void, from an editor who said she loved the book and would loved to have taken it but that she just didn’t see how it would be marketed.  That’s fair enough because they are there to sell lots of books but the fact that we now have the option for people to get their books out there for less financial risk is positive. I’ve seen people argue that the loss of traditional publishers and editors might open the floodgates to lots of crappy fiction because those “gateways” are gone and others argue that the reading public at large will just step in to take their places – I’m undecided on the issue.  Personally I would always prefer to be published by someone else just to re-assure myself than I’m not deluded and the only one who thinks what I’m doing is any good (which is always a possibility).

Favorite word? And then, the follow up: Favorite curse word?

Onamatopeia, for sure.  And there’s nothing better than good old-fashioned “fuck” though as a Scot I’m partial to the occasional “bas’tart”.

Favorite alcoholic beverage? (If cocktail: provide recipe. If you don’t drink alcohol, fine, fine, a non-alcoholic beverage will do.)

I’m with the Dude Lebowski – White Russian.

Recommend a book, comic book, film, game: something with great story. Go!

I always like to point people towards a little-known Spanish film, Fausto 5.0.  I saw it without any idea of what it was and was just blown away by it – it’s a retelling of Faust but set in a slightly off-kilter modern day Spain.  Throughout the film there is this background about a virus and people dying or going missing but it’s never really explained and I love when a film does that.  There’s a great scene where the protagonist goes to a convention hall and the entire front of this massive building is covered in plastic sheets and in the background crews of guys in biohazard gear are spraying blood away – again, no explanation is given.  And in a weird coincidence my friend, the ultra-talented Dan Schaffer, did the UK DVD cover for it.

Where are my pants?

Pants? You Americans, honestly …

Got anything to pimp? Now’s the time!

Katja From the Punk Band is my latest, an industrial crime thriller which has been described as Jackie Brown meets the Sex Pistols.  Very stripped-down but with multiple plotlines interweaving and stuffed full of punks, chemicals, video games and  body modification.  It’s done pretty well for me (it got me an agent for starters, my fellow Scot Allan Guthrie) and people seem to be digging it.  It’s available in paperback and e-editions and you can find out more about it, plus the other stuff I’m working on, at www.coldandalone.com – including the latest on lovejunky which is part dystopic crime thriller, part brooding noir romance, and Guerra, an industrial thriller about guerrilla media wars.

It’s time again to give the mic to another wonderful writer — this time, Anne Lyle, writer of historical fantasy and Angry Robot author — and submit her brain for processing at the Terribleminds Institute For Penmonkey Dissection. You’re going to want to keep a keen eye on Anne, and you can do so at Twitter (@AnneLyle) or her website: AnneLyle-dot-com. (Er, by the way, that image is not Anne Lyle. That’s Mal Catlyn, the star of Anne’s upcoming fantasy series.)

This is a blog about writing and storytelling, so before we do anything else, I’d like you to tell me – and, of course, the fine miscreants and deviants that read this site – a story. As short or long as you care to make it, as true or false as you see it.

I can’t write fiction on the spur of the moment – I hate writers’ workshops for that reason. I would flunk Clarion, or have a nervous breakdown. You want a story, go to my website. There’s a free short story there (only one thousand words), previously published in an anthology to celebrate Darwin’s bicentennial. Me, I have a novel to write…

BZZT. Wrong answer! You’re not getting out of telling us a story. We’ll totally check out that story at your site (because it’s worth checking out), but I ask again: tell us a story. Doesn’t have to be fiction. Doesn’t have to be long.

OK, non-fiction I can manage.

When I was 19, my boyfriend and I went on holiday to Greece, as many students do. We camped on a beach on one of the Cyclades (I think it was Mylopotas, on Ios), and one morning we were shaking out our sleeping bags when I rubbed my eye and my contact lens fell out. Disaster! I’m very short-sighted, and I didn’t have any glasses with me, so I was faced with the prospect of squinting my way around the rest of the islands.

As we knelt sifting desperately through the sand, I heard a jingling sound. I looked up, and my heart sank. Coming towards us along the beach was a herd of goats, followed by the goatherd. All we could do was stand there whilst two or three dozen goats trotted across the area we’d been searching. Understandably we gave up at that point.

My boyfriend suggested we go for a walk along the coast, and we did so. We even took our camping stove and stopped for a cup of instant coffee. Eventually we returned to our camping spot. Still annoyed at this serious inconvenience to my enjoyment of the trip, I lay on my side and sifted idly through the sand – with no success, of course.

A few minutes later, my boyfriend tapped me on the shoulder. “Look what I’ve found!” he said. Yep, it was my lost contact lens, only slightly the worse for its adventure.

Hand on heart, that’s God’s honest truth. Since I’m an atheist, maybe that doesn’t mean much. Still true, though.

How would you describe your writing or storytelling style?

I’d describe my novels as fantasy noir meets fantasy-of-manners: down-to-earth and gritty (but never gruesome), laced with dry wit and a dash of romance, in the broadest sense of the word. I make no pretentions to literary greatness (though I love playing with the English language); mostly I want my readers to be so enthralled they can’t put the book down!

What’s awesome about being a writer/storyteller? And: what sucks about it?

What’s awesome is hearing that someone you’ve never met stayed up all night reading your book. What sucks is waiting for a yes/no from agents, editors, etc. It’s up there with being chained to a mountainside having your liver pecked out by vultures every day. Seriously.

Care to describe your path to publication? Everybody’s got their own way through that tangled jungle, and wondering if you have any unique insight to share.

Like most writers, I’ve been messing around with stories as long as I can remember, but you know how it is: career and/or family happen along, and you tell yourself there’s plenty of time…then suddenly you look back and realise you’re no closer to realising your dream than you were a decade ago. That happened to me about nine years ago. Hadn’t finished a single novel; had written and submitted maybe one short story (not my thing, as I said above). That was when I vowed I would not be in the same position in another ten years’ time. I was going to finish at least one novel, send it out and, gods willing, get it published.

Of course RL never lets up, so it was 2006 before I made any real headway. I did NaNoWriMo for the first time, and it was just what I needed to give me a kick up the backside. I’d been a pantser until then, but NaNoWriMo forced me to, if not outline, at least to brainstorm lots of scene ideas that formed something resembling a plot, because I was terrified to the soles of my writerly boots of running out of ideas, running out of steam, facing the Big F. FAILURE.

I made my 50k, and in the New Year I started revising. And continued revising. And did NaNoWriMo again. And carried on revising that first novel. In 2008 I did a workshop at the Winchester Writers’ Conference with Juliet E McKenna, and after critiquing a chapter of my work she recommended I start attending conventions in order to network. I’d never thought of going to a science fiction convention, to be honest – I thought they were full of guys dressed as Klingons talking about their computers, and frankly I get enough geekdom in my day-job! However I took her advice and started with NewCon 4, a small convention in nearby Northampton. I had a great time, and not a single cosplayer in sight! (No offence to cosplayers – I’m a former tabletop/live action RPGer myself.)

The following year I went to FantasyCon for the first time, and also signed up for Holly Lisle’s online course “How To Revise Your Novel” – because my 2006 manuscript had been part-revised so many times it looked like an Igor from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. Time was running out on my original goal, so I set myself a hard deadline: that I would have my novel finished, polished and on submission by mid-September, in time for FantasyCon 2010, so that I could enjoy the convention guilt-free. I made it, sending out my first queries to agents the week before the con.

On the very first evening, I strolled into the bar and stopped to talk to fellow Cambridge-based writer Ian Whates, and he introduced me to Marc Gascoigne of Angry Robot Books, saying they were looking for new writers. At that point, I was of course aware of Angry Robot, but since I was focusing on agents initially, I hadn’t researched them in detail. I chatted to Marc over a drink (a stiff whisky for Dutch courage, as I recall), pitched my book, and he asked for chapters. After the convention I poked around on the internet and was really excited by what I found. I was aware that publishing was going through massive changes, but these guys really seemed to be taking it in their stride. They were, and still are, innovative and passionate about genre fiction, and to say I was keen to work with them would be the understatement of the decade.

About a month later I got an email from Marc to say that he and Lee really liked my work but thought the book needed more magic. To be honest I had expected as much: I’m not terribly interested in writing wizards-with-fireballs fantasy, so I deliberately dialled it back to see how little I could get away with. Not that little, apparently! Anyway, we bounced some ideas back and forth – Marc is a great sounding-board – and eventually came up with something we both felt excited about. In January this year I sent them the full manuscript plus two synopses, and within three weeks I had an offer on the table.

I had also continued querying in the meantime and, long story short, ended up going to John Berlyne at Zeno to ask if he’d like to negotiate the contract. John already represented a couple of other Angry Robot authors, and he also seemed to really “get” my work, so I felt he was the ideal person for the job.

In some respects I’ve been extraordinary lucky: selling a first novel within six months of submission, to a great publisher via my choice of agent, is a long way from the norm. The moral of the tale, though, is that you make your own luck. If I hadn’t set myself that deadline and been ready to pitch to Angry Robot at a moment’s notice, I wouldn’t have been able to take that opportunity and run with it. And of course you still need a damned good book!

Deliver unto us a single-serving dollop of writing o advice that you yourself follow as a critical tip without which you might starve and die atop a glacier:

“To make a silk purse, first you need a sow’s ear*.” In other words, get on and write that first horrible, crappy draft — because how else can you edit it into something fit for publication?

(* David Michael Kaplan, in “Rewriting: A Creative Approach to Writing Fiction”)

Should authors feel constrained by genre or should it be freeing? Explain. And show your work. And juggle these chainsaws. Okay, not so much with the chainsaws.

“Genre” has two different meanings (IMHO). Firstly, there’s the one I think you mean in your question: the content of the story. Does it have SF elements? Fantasy? Mystery? Historical? Or is it some kind of crazy mashup – WTF, as Angry Robot like to call it.

Secondly there’s the marketing category, which boils down to “what the reader is looking for”. A romance reader is looking for a very different reading experience to a fan of epic fantasy – one wants to vicariously enjoy the sensation of falling in love, the other wants to escape into an imaginary world – so a book that includes both romance and fantasy gets shelved depending upon which elements dominate and therefore which readers’ tastes it will appeal to the most. If the main plot is a romance and it just happens to be set in a fantasy world, then it’s probably going to be classified as a romance. If two of the main characters in a heroic quest fall in love as a subplot, it’ll be shelved with the fantasy books.

Fiction has always mixed things up a bit – romance, for instance, gets everywhere! – but it’s becoming increasingly common as readers get  bored with the formulae that ruled mid-20th century publishing. They want life in all its messy glorious diversity, and writers can take advantage of that to breathe new life into old clichés. Hence the proliferation of new sub-genres: paranormal romance, steampunk, fantasy noir. It’s also far easier in ebook stores to place books in multiple genres if there really is crossover potential.

I think, though, that it’s the agent’s and editor’s job to define the second type of genre – who are they going to sell this book to? Of course the writer must be aware of the market too, but first and foremost you have to write what you love and throw in all the things that move you – and only then worry about marketing categories. Besides, what’s hot now may be old news by the time you’ve written a novel good enough to interest an agent, so aiming at the current market is rarely a good strategy for unpublished writers. It’s different, of course, for established pros, who have all the contacts in place and may be able to knock out a book in a year or less.

As for my own work… The fantasy novels I grew up on were mainly the traditional quest variety, but I also enjoy SF, historical crime, classics (Jane Austen and earlier), and in TV and films, swashbucklers, 1930s noir, romantic comedies…and all of those influences make their way into my writing. Hence I sometimes describe the Night’s Masque books as “alternate history fantasy rom-com spy thrillers” 🙂

Favorite word?

Yes. (As in, from an agent or editor!)

And then, the follow up: Favorite curse word?

Hmm, difficult. We Brits tend to swear a lot, so it’s hard to pick a favourite. I think maybe “bollocks”. It’s forceful, but mild enough to use in any but the most polite of company. Plus my husband’s favourite curse when he’s really pissed off is “bollocking bollocky bollocks”, which always cracks me up!

Explain: “Bollocks” is bad, but “Dog’s Bollocks” is good? Do I have that right? Why are dog bollocks — which I believe are a canine’s testicles? — a good thing?

That’s correct. Dogs’ bollocks must be good – otherwise why would they constantly be sniffing each others’ and licking their own? [cdw: best explanation ever.]

Favorite alcoholic beverage? (If cocktail: provide recipe. If you don’t drink alcohol, fine, fine, a non-alcoholic beverage will do.)

I think you know this one already! G&T, made with Bombay Sapphire gin and Fevertree tonic. Wedge of lime optional.

Recommend a book, comic book, film, game: something with great story. Go!

The film “District 9.” I love the fact that it’s both an edge-of-your-seat actionfest and a moving character story that has a lot to say about people. That’s something I aspire to in my own work.

Where are my pants?

Underneath your trousers, I hope!

Got anything to pimp? Now’s the time!

My fantasy novel “The Alchemist of Souls”, comes out from Angry Robot Books early next year. The setting is an alternate history 16th century  – when Europeans went to the New World, they found non-humans (dubbed “skraylings” by their earliest discoverers, the Vikings) living along the eastern coast of North America in peaceful alliance with the native humans. The skraylings have both magic and a natural resistance to many human diseases, which has made conquest rather less easy than in our world.

The story takes place in London in the summer of 1593. Swordsman Mal Catlyn is plucked almost literally from the gutter to act as bodyguard to a skrayling ambassador to England, but protecting this foreign dignitary from assassins turns out to be the least of his problems. Betrayed by his friends and befriended by those he once considered enemies, Mal finds himself caught in the middle of a conflict between humans and skraylings that could cost him and his twin brother their lives–and maybe their souls.

It’s not all gritty and doom-laden, however! Much of the book is set in the seedy underworld of the Elizabethan theatre, and I’ve had a lot of fun with that, and particularly with taking the Shakespearean clichés – identical twins, girls disguised as boys, mistaken identity – and putting my own spin on them. Issues of gender and identity fascinate me, and the Elizabethan era is a great setting in which to explore that.

“The Alchemist of Souls” is due out March 27, 2012 in the US, and a few days later in the UK, and is now available to pre-order from all good bookstores. Of course there will be ebooks versions as well as the paperback, and probably an audiobook eventually. Visit www.nightsmasque.com for more information!

What’s next after “The Alchemist Of Souls?”

I’m contracted to Angry Robot to write three novels in the Night’s Masque series – yep, the dreaded fantasy trilogy. Way back in 2006 I planned this first book as a standalone, but during revisions the characters blossomed and there was no way I could cover their stories in a single volume.

So, I’m currently writing the sequel, “The Merchant of Dreams”, which will be out in winter 2012/3, with the third (as yet untitled) instalment about eight or nine months after that. Although each book stands alone in terms of the challenges the heroes face and overcome, the three books do form an arc, so whilst I’m writing one book I’m planning the next – it makes it easier to foreshadow things (oops, giving away trade secrets there!).

After that, I don’t know. I have another fantasy project on the backburner, but there’s also the possibility of more stories set in the Night’s Masque world, maybe in the Americas or in Europe in a later era. So many ideas, so little time…

Adam Christopher is a guy I can’t help but like. He’s a great writer, a good friend, and a guy who doesn’t quit when it comes to writing. He’s a machine, which is apropos then that he’s got a couple of books coming out with Angry Robot Books (those fine cybernetic madmen who will also be publishing my first two original novels) next year. And we also share uber-agent Stacia Decker. Anyway — the fact I was able to get him to stop writing for ten minutes so I could strap him to a table and fire Query Particles into his brain is something of a small miracle. Check out his website here, and follow him on Twitter. Oh! And this is a HUGE-ASS MOFO of an interview. This is the second part of that interview.

You’re a bit unique in that you were discovered — “discovered?” — as a writer on Twitter. Can you talk a little about being the first writer discovered on Twitter? How’d it happen?

Well, that’s true, I was “discovered” on Twitter, but not because I was deliberately using Twitter to find a publisher or to market a manuscript, and I certainly wasn’t tweeting Empire State line-by-line (although there are plenty of Twitter novel projects which do just that).

I joined Twitter in early 2009 because it seemed like a neat way to meet people with similar interests. I enjoy reading and writing and books, and I enjoy talking about those subjects with other readers, writers and fans. Twitter is great when you have a distinct interest like that, because there are very strong communities that grow up around them.

So when Angry Robot was launched, they started with a very strong online presence and I started following what they were doing pretty closely. Lee Harris, their editor, and I sort of bumped into each other on Twitter not just because of Angry Robot, but because we share similar interests in books, film, TV, and comics. Having got to know him online, we then met in person at a couple of events and got on well. Meanwhile, almost incidentally, Angry Robot became one of my favourite publishers because they produced some really good books – it became clear to me pretty early on that they were a very rare example of a publisher from which you could just buy anything on spec, regardless, because you could trust their judgment. I’m pleased to see they’ve now introduced the ebook subscription model, which does just that.

Anyway, all the while I was writing first Seven Wonders (my second full-length novel), and then Empire State, and was blogging my progress, as well as writing a few short stories here and there which got into places like Hub. Of course I tweeted about things like that, so everyone – Angry Robot included – knew what I was doing.

Then in mid-2010 I was going to be in Nottingham, where Angry Robot are based, and I dropped Lee and Marc a line to see if they wanted to grab lunch. We went to a pub, and over a drink and a bite to eat Lee mentioned that I had a short story in Hub that week (Lee is the publisher of Hub, although Hub is completely independent of Angry Robot). That got us talking about writing, and then Marc asked a very important question: Have you written anything longer?

I actually hadn’t gone to Nottingham with the intention of pitching Empire State, but the opportunity arose and I went for it. After confusing them for an hour, Marc said it sounded really interesting and he invited me to send the manuscript in when it was ready. I was just finishing off the final edit at that point, so it wasn’t until a couple of months later that I actually sent it in.

That meeting was really the key to it all, because Angry Robot don’t accept unagented submissions, unless they know who you are and invite it in. After sending in a synopsis, character sheet, the first five chapters and a brief document about my inspirations and intentions, it was another month or so before they said they liked what they’d seen, and would I please send in the whole manuscript.

Then time passed and Christmas came and everything sort of ground to a halt, as it does at that time of year! I had a couple of positive emails in the New Year saying they were still reading Empire State and still enjoying it, but the wait for a yes or no was pretty hard so, as any writer should, I just kept on trucking with other projects.

Finally I got word in February 2011 – on my birthday, no less, which happens to be Groundhog Day. I’m a fan of weird customs (and the Bill Murray film) so that day I was on a deadline for the day gig while keeping one eye on a live stream of Groundhog Day from Punxsutawney… while a plumber and gas engineer practically demolished the kitchen downstairs to install a new boiler. In the middle of all this, I got THE phone call from Lee.

So that was quite a birthday to remember!

To be honest, I never really thought of myself as being “discovered” on Twitter, because that implies I was doing something on Twitter like posting novel excerpts or somehow using it primarily to get Empire State sold. But really Twitter was just a place where I met the right people – Lee and Marc primarily, but also a multitude of writers and editors and publishers and agents and readers, all of whom are passionate about books and writing and who form the most amazing online community. A day or so after my Angry Robot deal was announced, Lee wrote a piece for The Bookseller’s Futurebook blog about how I had got the deal, revealing that he’d been surprised I have never pitched anything to Angry Robot for nearly two years until that lunchtime in Nottingham. I think that was interesting and important – I’d been watching them, they’d been watching me, and it was only when the time was right that it all came together.

Seems playing it cool paid off. Also, I think my whole experience does demonstrate some interesting facets of how publishing works. Publishing is partly who you know – which is why things like Twitter but also going to conventions and events are important, because you need to get out there and meet the people who might, one day, make it all happen for you. But this all has to be backed up with something – none of this would have been worth a dime if I hadn’t had a kick-ass manuscript to show and hadn’t been continuing to work on my craft.

How can authors use social media to improve their careers?

That’s the $64,000 question, isn’t it? Social media (Twitter and Facebook predominantly) is a great innovation and obviously I think it’s tremendously important since it has pretty much launched my career! I met my publisher on Twitter and I met other writers, one of whom *cough* then introduced me to their agent, who in turn became my agent. And the rest, as they say, is history.

But I think it’s important to do a few things well rather than try and spread yourself around too thinly. My main focus is on Twitter and my website. I find Facebook too static, not to mention a great aggregator of spam, although it’s easy to keep it linked to Twitter and my blog and keep it up to date. Whatever you might think of one particular site or service, there will be people who absolutely love it and will use nothing else – for, this is Facebook, so it’s part of my job to use as best I can.

I use social media because I like talking to people and being part of the conversation. If you use social media because you want to and you enjoy it, not because you’re trying to sell a book or a story, then I think it’ll work well for you. Be yourself, but be professional (this is going to be the public face of your career, after all), and play it cool. As I said above, if you do have that killer manuscript or great idea and are working hard on it, then everything else will flow. Social media will provide you with the contacts and networks that might make it easier, when the time is right.

A better, and weirder question — how can authors use social media to improve their *stories?*

There’s actually an obvious answer to that – in fact, two answers.

Firstly, by meeting readers, writers, editors, artists, agents, creators, etc, you’ll expose yourself to a wealth of advice and opinion and material, everything from people discussing the writing process itself to great fiction (free online fiction, book recommendations, reviews, etc) and ideas. I think I’ve bought more books and have learnt more about writing in the three years on Twitter than at any time in the past!

Secondly, social media is a source of inspiration. You’ll meet people who are in the same position as you and people who have taken those next few steps that you hope to follow. The success of others should always be an inspiration and, in part, a motivator – everybody who gets a deal or creates something awesome is helping everybody else, and that’s always worth celebrating.

Social media is a terrific gathering point for weird and wonderful links and news. One of the primary functions of social media is the sharing of information. From information comes ideas, and ideas are the foundation of creative writing.

Deliver unto us a single-serving dollop of writing or storytelling advice that you yourself follow as a critical tip without which you might starve and die atop a glacier somewhere:

Finish what you start. That’s the key – in fact, that pretty much sums up novel writing (my particular chosen field) rather well. If you write a novel and you finish and it’s great, then you’ll have had an adventure and learnt a lot. If you write a novel and it’s horrible, then you’ll have had an adventure and learnt a lot. The dreams of millions of would-be novelists come to nothing simply because they give up. You have to keep going when times are good. You have to get going when times are bad. And over the course of a novel, there will be plenty of both. You can’t wait for your muse to appear and you can’t wait for inspiration to strike. You have to sit down and type the words and write the book. And when it sucks and it all goes wrong – and it will, believe me – you have to keep going. There’s no such thing as writer’s block and there’s no such thing as a dead end.

Sounds simple. I suspect a lot of people don’t get it though. And actually from this comes a piece of secondary advice – don’t edit as you go, finish the book first. Because what’s the point of spending three months polishing chapters 1-15 until they shine like mithril when (as mentioned above) your heroine goes and changes everything in chapter 16 in ways which were totally unforeseen and which (and here’s the kicker) require you to go back and adjust things in those first fifteen chapters. Which you’ve just wasted your time editing. You can’t see the whole thing – including what needs to be fixed and edited and changed – until you’ve reached the end.

Favorite word? And then, the follow up: Favorite curse word?

Cavalcade. It’s a word that you really can’t use ever, because when the hell is there an opportunity? And if you ever did use it, people would start backing away slowly. Cavalcade? Cavalcade.

My favourite curse word is comparative mild: sonovabitch. It’s important that you string it all together. It’s great because it can be serious and it can be funny. I’m not such a fan of dropping anything much stronger than that in a story – but then again, if my characters swear, they swear. Ain’t nothing to do with me!

Favorite alcoholic beverage? (If cocktail: provide recipe. If you don’t drink alcohol, fine, fine, a non-alcoholic beverage will do.)

I have to go with non-alcoholic and say: tea. But I mean real, English tea. Not green tea, or Chinese tea, or herbal tea, or any variation. Tea tea. Cold milk. I’m going to be a heathen and say teabag tea is preferable to leaf tea as it produces a cleaner brew.

Recommend a book, comic book, film, game: something with great story. Go!

Ed Brubaker’s run on Catwoman from DC Comics. From 2001 to 2005 he wrote 37 out of 82 issues of this volume, and it’s basically the best damn comic book ever written, ever. I’d even go so far as to say issue 17 is the best single comic book issue I’ve ever read.

And I like me my comics.

Ed is one of those writers where you if you see his name on anything – comic or not – just buy it and read it. Satisfaction guaranteed.

That volume of Catwoman as a whole – all 82 issues of it – still stands as the best series DC ever ran. It was cancelled due to lack of sales… which is usually a good sign that there is something special going on. People often don’t get ‘special’.

Grab the trades or grab them digitally off Comixology (they look hot on an iPad – way better than on paper, dare I say). Start with issue 1. Keep reading. You’ll thank me.

Where are my pants?

Dude, we’ve been through this already. I didn’t know she had a thing for beards and how was I supposed to know it was against the law in Pennsylvania? Hell, I haven’t even BEEN to Fiji!

Got anything to pimp? Now’s the time!

My first novel is coming out from Angry Robot at the end of this year! It’s called Empire State, and it’s a science fiction noir, with detectives and trench coats and fedoras and gas masks and a dude in a white hood and rocket-powered superheroes. There’s robots, airships, speakeasies, mysterious butlers, dead bodies, and action.

It’s also one of those books that is hard to describe without giving it all away. But, essentially, it’s the story of Rad Bradley, a shabby private detective in the foggy, rainy city called the Empire State. He gets followed by a couple of strange, masked agents, and then rescued by a deceased superhero. To top it off, he’s then hired to find a missing person and quickly finds the body instead, which draws him into a conspiracy which crosses dimensions… because there’s another place, another city which bears a strange resemblance to the Empire State called New York, and Rad uncovers a threat to the existence of both.

Empire State is out in the US on December 27^th, and in the UK on January 5^th, and will also be available on the Kindle and from Angry Robot’s own ebook store as a DRM-free, region-free epub file. At the moment you can pre-order the US edition at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com – or just take a look at your favourite retailer. The UK and Kindle pre-orders will go online shortly.

Later in 2012 I’ve got another book coming from Angry Robot, Seven Wonders, which is out-and-out superheroes – it’s all spandex and primary colours and people shooting laser beams out of their eyes. I love comics, but more specifically I love superhero comics. Although I’ve tried and read an awful lot of comics and graphic novels across a whole range of genres, superheroes and crime are the only categories that have ever really worked for me in comics. There’s something primal about superheroes that strikes a chord within me – superheroes are, broadly speaking, about boundless optimism and limitless potential. So I wrote Seven Wonders as a big honking superhero adventure which tries to explore those themes. I’m still editing the manuscript, but it’s actually turned into the longest book I’ve written yet. It should be a lot of fun once I hammer it into shape!

What’s next after Seven Wonders? What are you working on now?

I’m lucky in a way in that when I got the deal with Angry Robot – and indeed when I found my agent – I already had a miniature back catalogue of completed novels. Angry Robot have an option on a third book, and my agent is working through another completed manuscript (science fiction) and a proposal (post-apocalyptic horror). But right now, after I’m done with the Seven Wonders edit, I’m starting a new novel called Night Pictures, which is about a woman coming back to her home town after the death of her mother and the disappearance of her sister. The town is a nice place in the country but there are some mighty odd things going on, including spooky sightings at a nearby ghost town and a mysterious pirate television station that comes and goes. Night Pictures is about nostalgia and memory and street light interference phenomena and parallel universes at the bottom of swimming pools. And people wearing Max Headroom masks.

I’m also one of those writers who has like a zillion ideas for stuff – I have a corkboard on my office wall with little index cards pinned to it, each one representing a future novel. There’s enough on the board for the next five years’ of writing! Plus, being on display like that means I see the board constantly, and am always reminded of titles, ideas, characters, etc. I think that’s a pretty good way to do it rather than just making a list which can be very easily forgotten about.

Twitter is serendipitous to me, because without it, I’d not have met or communicated with, well, pretty much anybody. I’d be alone in a clawfoot bathtub with a cat. And I don’t own a cat. Point being, without Twitter I’d not have come into range of Laura Anne Gilman, once an editor, now a “write the hell out of some books” novelist. Writers, you best go ahead and read what she has to say. Let the interview commence. (Oh, and if you wanna follow her on the Twitters, you’ll find her @LAGILMAN.)

This is a blog about writing and storytelling, so before we do anything else, I’d like you to tell me – and, of course, the fine miscreants and deviants that read this site – a story. As short or long as you care to make it, as true or false as you see it.

Three days ago the second squirrel arrived. We’d been lured into passivity by the first one, I suppose: it had seemed friendly enough, willing to stay on its side of the screen, not tormenting the cats more than normal. The tree-rats in our neighborhood are bright eyed and thick-coated, finding enough food to eat, supplemented by the little old ladies’ bread crumbs and an occasional abandoned sandwich. You don’t think of them as a threat.

That was before the second squirrel. Before we found the window screen cut away, and the peanut butter jar missing. As well as the smaller of the cats.

[some of this story is true. some of it is not. yet.]

How would you describe your writing or storytelling style?

…. um….. the bastard child of a haiku sensibility and a genre-rific childhood, as raised by literary-minded housecats? Beyond that, I leave it to future scholars to argue about it.

In truth, I’ve had so many influences growing up, it’s hard for me to point to any two and say “there, that’s it.” Hemingway and Roger Zelazny, Dorothy Sayers and Robin McKinley, Robert Frost, Dashiell Hammett, Madeleine L’Engle and Raymond Carver were all on my shelves as a teenager. That was also when I started getting interested in haiku, in the idea of conveying something complex in a deceptively simple visual image or turn. So.. terse but lyrical is my goal, I suppose. Although that conflicts mightily with my love of the semi-colon….

What’s awesome about being a writer or storyteller?

Writing. Head down, full-on, discovery-of-story. The kind of writing that makes you do a chair dance every so often, just because you’re having so much fun.

Conversely, what sucks about it?

Everything else? No, really, the only thing that sucks about being a writer is the fact that so many people seem to think “anyone” can do it, that all it takes is an idea and some time. I’m not sure there’s any other profession that gets that kind of dismissal. Maybe teaching. Which is a sad commentary on how literacy is treated, I guess…

Deliver unto us a single-serving dollop of writing or storytelling advice that you yourself follow as a critical tip without which you might starve and die atop a glacier somewhere:

I have this in the sidebar of my Livejournal, because it’s so damn true:

“You sit down. You tell a story. You do it any damn way it comes out that works consistently for you. You hope people like it. You hope people pay you for it. You do it again. And again. That’s all I got. Zen and the Art of Writer Maintenance. You can cheer me on and I can cheer you on, but in the end? In the end it’s down to how you get your getting done, done. So get it done.”

I say that everybody has their own story of “breaking in” and getting published — it’s like we all dig our own tunnels and detonate them behind us. Any interesting tales from your rise to ascendancy as a creative penmonkey?

I find that a lot of people think that, because I was an editor, my route to publication was easy/simple/fast. Not so much. I sold my first short story to the first market I sent it to – Amazing Stories, back in the 1990’s – but that was it for over a year. And my first original novel, STAYING DEAD, went to all the major genre publishers at the time – seven, I think – and got some nice responses, but nobody was putting money on the table. One publisher asked me to rewrite chapters to see if it would work as a YA, but that didn’t go anywhere. Then I was having lunch with an editor at a brand-new imprint, who had put out a call for historical fantasy – and I had submitted another project there – and I mentioned this book to her. “Send it,” she said. A total flyer, and she had to do some fast talking, I suspect, to get it approved. That was *counts* ten books ago, and we have another two under contract, all in the same universe. Right place, right time, right project. And the right editor. That’s pretty much been the story of my career so far.

You’ve got experience as an editor — so, what’s one mistake you see too many writers making in their manuscripts?

Oh, we’re creative, we make all SORTS of mistakes….. Not trusting ourselves and not pushing hard enough, that’s a big’un. No matter what you’re writing, second-guessing the market and trying to keep it ‘familiar’ is always going to hurt you far more than being “too original” or “too …” anything, really. We’re goddamned WRITERS, we CREATE. Even if you’re writing to formula, twist it! Give the story something new, something specifically yours. Or why bother doing it at all?

Whoops. Starting waving my hands a bit there. Never a good sign. Did I knock over your glass?

Favorite word? And then, the follow up: Favorite curse word?

Just one? Without any context? Aww… Verklempt. Mainly because it’s fun to say, and so evocative. Favorite curse word is motherfucker. It’s rounded, with real weight, and conveys so many different meanings depending on the tone of voice used. really, a multipurpose tool.

Favorite alcoholic beverage? (If cocktail: provide recipe. If you don’t drink alcohol, fine, fine, a non-alcoholic beverage will do.)

Wine. A crisp, flinty white, or a red with a lot of complexity and depth… I like my wines to acknowledge their tannins, invite them in and make them feel welcome. I can talk endlessly about wine, so this is your warning to shut me up now or that’s all we’re going to talk about for the rest of the interview…

Yeah, I’m known for drinking Scotch* whisky, too, but that’s my ‘working’ drink, when I want to keep focused. Wine is social, expansive.

*and Irish whiskey and American bourbon and…

Fuck it, let’s talk about wine. Recommend me a nice red, but a red that goes well with summer.

For warm weather reds, I like Zinfandel for picnics – it’s a warm, fruit-forward taste that goes well with bbq (I’m talking real Zin here, not that pink stuff they sell.) But that’s a bolder taste, and most folk prefer the lighter reds, that take well to being served lightly chilled (yes, you can chill some red wines). You want something young, with a lowerish alcohol rating (under 12%), ideally aged in steel, not wood. Rioja (Spain), and Beaujolais (France) are the first I’d think of, and then Pinot Noir (France/NZ/US). You could also try a Pinotage (SA).

Recommend a book, comic book, film, game: something with great story. Go!

Leverage (the tv show). Great stories, told not only with words but visuals – the body languages of the actors, the camera shots chosen by the directors, even the choice of stories, and the white spaces in-between, where what they DIDN’T do is strongly implied… it all creates this amazing package that kept me – who usually has a very short attention span when it come to tv – fascinated. And there’s an evolving arc – not in terms of “this is the story,” but “these are the people in the story.”

Where are my pants?

That’s between you and your dog. er, god.

Got anything to pimp? Now’s the time!

Two things. okay, four things, but only two am I really going to be pimptastic about.

The first is DRAGON VIRUS. I’m still not sure if it’s a collection of short stories connected by a narrative thread, or a very odd novella spanning 100+ years. It’s SFnal horror with a literary edge, and one of those projects that are only possible because of small presses (in this instance, Fairwood Press). Not for everyone (if you’re looking for puppies and kittens and rainbows it ain’t here), but the people who have liked it have really really liked it.

The second is Practical Meerkat. This is a weekly column I’m doing for Book View Cafe, the full title being “Practical Meerkat’s 52 Bits of Useful Info for Young (and Old) Writers.” Each week, for a year, I approach a different aspect of writing – both craft and business-side, gleaned form my experience as an editor (15 years) and a writer (going on 17 years now, published). At the end of the year all the essays will be collected & polished into an e-book, so you don’t have to worry about keeping up if life (and writing) gets busy.

The other two things, of course, are The Vineart War, my Nebula-nominated epic fantasy trilogy (the third and final book, THE SHATTERED VINE, will be out in October 2011), and the Cosa Nostradamus urban fantasy series (most recently PACK OF LIES), which combines caper novels and police procedurals with modern magic in New York City. Guaranteed vampire-free UF! You can find samples to read on my website and via my publishers (Harlequin and S&S.) (Also, here’s an Amazon link to all her work — cdw.)

DRAGON VIRUS lives on at a small press. (I’m a fan of small presses — I think they can move and turn fast in response to industry shifts.) Publishing right now is in a crazy place. Care to predict where books and authors and publishing will be in five, ten years? In case you choose not to answer that, I’ll remind you that I’ve strapped a bomb to the underside of your chair.

I’ve been saying for several years now (usually into the ears of people saying la la la can’t hear you) that small press, big press, and digital are going to become equal partners, much the same way that hardcover and mass market did, decades ago (Most people in publishing today have always worked with mass market, but I’ve heard stories about how the hardcover folk panicked at this upstart…much the same way trad publishers reacted at first to digital). One format isn’t going to ‘wipe out’ the other, not the way some partisans are predicting. The companies that survive are either going to pick one and specialize, or learn to spread their costs over both print and digital.

Self-publishing is popular right now, and both the process and the market are chaotic as hell, but in about 3-5 years it’s going to shake out and take its place within the overall publishing structure described above, rather than dismantling it.

The one thing I believe will continue is the role of the editor. Self-publishing is the buzzword now, but the larger that pool grows, the more there will be a need for a story to stand out to succeed. You have to be offer something more than average, more than merely “good,” when there’s competition. The much-maligned gatekeepers were one way that happened – now I could easily see the editor coming back into use as that gatekeeper, rather than a publisher’s brand.

I certainly think that would be a good thing, for both writers and readers.

What’s wrong with fantasy and/or urban fantasy today? Anything you’d like to cast a wary gaze at? If a new writer is looking to work in those genres, where could they go wrong?

Too many people coming in, thinking that UF is A, and only A. The wonderful thing about contemporary fantasy is that it’s incredibly inclusive – you can range from the unromantic tough-edged adventures all the way to the overtly romantic, from dark to light, male and female main characters, big cities or small towns, etc. But too often people identify “urban fantasy” as kickass babe in leather, with vampire/were companion,” and that’s only one slice out of the pie. Mind you, that’s the slice that seems to get all the press… but there’s room for so much more, and if we narrow in, we risk becoming a parody of everything that was originally good and fresh and interesting.

Fantasy has an incredible opportunity to be whatever it wants. You’re not stuck to a specific type of story, or a frame of reference. The fantastical elements should be restricted only by the plausibility of your worldbuilding.