- Alyssa McKendry — she blogs! she writes! she’s 13!
- Jazon Dion Fletcher — author of Skull Flowers, which sounds whimsically interesting…
- L. G. Keltner — “aspiring writer and mother.” (Does that mean she aspires to be a mother as well as a writer? Hm. Both of them involve creative endeavor, and the results of both are often referred to as “my baby.”)
Badges are on the desk. Someone forgot to recharge the Tasers, so don’t get too close to the inmates!
I know, White Pickups hasn’t left the garage… yet. The editor got tied up with other stuff about a third of the way through, but most of her comments were recurring things. I went through the rest of the book, tidying up based on what she’d been saying, and I finished that over the weekend. At this point, I really feel like the book is ready to go. I’m going to have her give it one quick pass though, to (ahem) pick up anything I missed. Then I load the Launch Cannon and open the Crown Royal! It’s not definite for July 28, but it’ll be pretty darn close.
I’ve not been idle while waiting for the edits. I finished Accidental Sorcerers a while back, and it’s a 30,000 word novella. I have a beta reader lined up, and she’s about Mik and Sura’s age—so it’ll be good to see what misconceptions about YA I have.
Speaking of YA, I followed a link to a Guardian (UK) article interviewing an author about Why teens in books can’t swear. This led to a brief but fun discussion with G.P. Ching and Sonia G. Medeiros. Age ratings might be a coming thing, to help parents find appropriate reads for their kids. Of course, they had both read Stephen King as teens (I was in college when I first read The Dead Zone). I’m keenly interested in find out what kind of audience White Pickups is going to have1. The language and sex definitely push it into the “17+” camp—but since it revolves around high-schoolers, I expect there will be younger people reading it as well. Cody is a moody teen, who uses strong language. He’s also sleeping with Sondra, and they are both quite happy with that arrangement. I’ve said all along that this could have been YA, if I’d figured out how to clip out the strong language and sex scenes without diluting the story.
Anyway, once I fire the Launch Cannon, there isn’t much call for a break. I still have to finish Pickups and Pestilence, and start Wings: Unfurled (which won’t have a problem being YA). A sequel to Accidental Sorcerers wants to get onto the waiting-to-write-this list, but it hasn’t really told me enough about itself to qualify just yet. I’ve been working on my Termag wiki, and I might make it publicly accessible so I can work on it from not-home. Plugins for the wiki software would let me deploy a Termag-specific blog, and let readers comment on pages even if I have editing locked down. One thing at a time, though…
1Yes, I’m being optimistic and assuming there will be a general audience for my book.