And this week’s totally warranted squeeeee …

… comes courtesy of the very talented L.L. Hannett.

This is  mock-up of the cover for my collection with the awesome Ticonderoga Publications, The Girl With No Hands & Other Tales.

Made of win. *Snoopy dance*

Read Full Post »

Worlds Next Door – Teaching Materials

FableCroft’s upcoming anthology, Worlds Next Door, comes with access to teaching materials – which makes sense seeing as it’s an anthology for school-age children. Details are here: http://worldsnextdoor.wordpress.com/

A brilliant new collection of speculative fiction stories for 9-13 year olds. Worlds Next Door has its own website containing lesson plans and ideas, free downloads of individual stories, podcasts and lots of other great material for use in the classroom.

There are worlds where ships take travellers through space like taxis. Worlds where your worst nightmare destroys your greatest dreams. Worlds where magic makes the rules.
What you have here is not a book, but a key to worlds that exist under your bed, in your cupboard, in the dark of night when you’re sure you’re being watched. what you have is a passport to the worlds next door.

Containing 25 bite-sized stories by Australian authors including Paul Collins, Michael Pryor, Pamela Freeman, Dirk Flinthart, Tansy Rayner Roberts and Jenny Blackford, Worlds Next Door is perfect for the budding reader. For more information, visit the Worlds Next Door.

Read Full Post »

A Writer’s Bio

I was interested to see this post over at Twelfth Planet Press http://twelfthplanet.livejournal.com/12338.html on author bios (via Bibliophile Stalker).

Last week I was teaching this in my class, trying to emphasise the importance of having a few standard bios handy – because, trust me, you will be asked for one. Newbie authors say “Oh, but I haven’t had anything published/accepted – what’s the point?” Well, the point is that you will be asked, then you will go “Gak! Argh! What the hell do I say?”

I have author bios up to my ears and I still say “Gak! Argh! What the hell do I say?”

I reckon all authors should have three basic ones upon which one can build – a 10 worder, a 25’er, and a decent 100 worder. Once you get the basic info down, you can add and subtract and update as and when required. Be prepared and that way you won’t find yourself maundering on about how many cats you have …

Not that there’s anything wrong with cats … but unless they do your writing for you, a reader doesn’t necessarily need to know … and if your cat is doing your writing, then you’ve got a whole other series of problems. I’m just saying.

Read Full Post »

Highly Useful Courses

The Queen herself, Kim Wilkins, is teaching for QWC again. All hail!

There’s the Express Year of the Novel, the Year of the Edit and the Year of the Novel Online (YONline 3). The first two are members only courses, but the third can be done by anyone, anywhere, with access to t’internet.

Go here for a look-see http://www.qwc.asn.au/Shop/List/1.aspx

Read Full Post »

Highly Useful Post on Time Management …

… by Maggie Stiefvater (via Tansy Rayner Roberts). I like this post because it’s sensible and it puts responsibility for the writing, or lack thereof, squarely where it belongs – with the writer. Even if you don’t have kids, you can still find ways to waste time and make excuses for not writing (“Mmmmm, what’s that? Oh, yes, I will get to that chapter in a mo, but the bathroom desperately needs to be decorated with a mosaic referencing those of the baths of Herculaneun. Oh, yes, it must be done.”)

So back when I asked people what they’d like to hear me post about, I got a ton of a requests for a post about time management. The thing is, I feel a little weird about posting about it, because I don’t feel like an expert. An expert is someone who knows how to do something well, who makes it look effortless, and me. . . well, I could’ve had this post finished twenty minutes ago, but I got distracted watching Sponge Bob Square Pants while drinking my breakfast tea.
The rest lives here http://m-stiefvater.livejournal.com/159357.html

So basically, this: I don’t feel qualified as an expert. Time management is still something that I constantly have to work at — it’s not like washing dishes, which I’m perfectly certain I can accomplish. It’s more like writing, where each day is a new project I’m not sure I can pull off.

I think I get a lot done. But I don’t think it’s easy for me. I think that’s the best way to put it. I can joke about it being about caffeine and cookie dough or an inability to sit still, but what it comes down to is: it’s hard. I have to work at it. Anyone who thinks otherwise will be let down.

With that said, here are my basic principles of time management.

Read Full Post »

A loud and completely warranted ‘squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’ …

I am so proud to be able to show this off – this will be the cover illustration for Sourdough & Other Stories. Rosalie and Ray from Tartarus Press approached Stephen Clark (http://www.thesinginggarden.co.uk/) about doing this and I’m pleased to say that I am both delighted and completely creeped out by the result:

Read Full Post »

Passed around at this morning’s staff meeting …

… or, as we call it, cupcake o’clock, was a Kobo …

And yes, it’s pretty. It’s cute. It’s slim and attractive. I might even be tempted to take it out for a drink if it could hold forth intelligently on matters of re-loading fairytales and shoe purchasing.

But, as I whispered to it just before I handed it back to its mother, “I’m sorry, but you don’t feel right. You don’t smell right either … no eau de paper or ink.”

Then again, I suppose the scribe who stylused Hammurabi’s Code would have looked at a paper-based manuscript from the Middle Ages, hugged his clay tablet to his chest and muttered “It’ll never take – paper? Honestly, it’s sooooo Egyptian. Why, papyrus has only one use that’s wiping one’s …”

Well, you get the picture.

*Luddite*

Read Full Post »

It’s just that sort of day …

… when only the LOLcats can express what’s really happening inside of me:

Read Full Post »

QWC – Hachette Manuscript Development Program

QWC and Hachette Australia are once again running the famed manuscript development program. It won’t get you a publishing contract with Hachette but it will get you a manuscript that’s been looked at and critiqued by professionals – one that can sent on to other publishers and agents in a better shape than it started out in. That being said, it’s been run since 2008 and 2 participants have received contracts with Hachette after resubmitting, and two others have scored contracts with other publishers, and several others are doing the rounds of agents and publishers. So, I’m going to say a unique and highly useful opportunity for emerging Australian writers.

And for the love of all that’s holy or otherwise, read the guidelines, terms and conditions, etc – and don’t argue about them.

If the links don’t work, then go to http://www.qwc.asn.au/ProgramsProjects/NationalProgram/HachetteManuscriptDevelopmentProgram.aspx

Blurbery:
The Queensland Writers Centre and Hachette Australia Manuscript Development Program has been created for emerging Australian authors of strong commercial fiction who are either unpublished or have no more than one significant work commercially published.

The successful applicants will work with publishers, literary agents and booksellers to develop high-quality fiction manuscripts.available here for your further information. An application form is available for you to download; your entry must include one.  FAQ sheet.

The program will run for five days at a location in south-east Queensland from 19-24 November 2010.

Guidelines are

Any further questions are answered on the

Queensland Writers Centre and Hachette Australia congratulate the successful applicants of 2009, as well as the long list, for their high-quality work.

We’d like to thank all applicants for their participation in and support of the QWC/ Hachette Manuscript Development Program for Fiction Writers. For those applicants who weren’t selected, we encourage you to apply for future programs, and to keep writing.

This program is an initiative of Queensland Writers Centre and Hachette Australia, and is funded through Arts Queensland as part of the Queensland Writer Development Strategy.

 

Read Full Post »

The Freelance Editor – Here’s One We Prepared Earlier

In the interests of providing information that is both useful as well as facetious, I sent delightful freelance editor, Abigail Nathan, a list of questions to answer. She didn’t wanna. So I sent a couple of enforcers around (two out-of-work actors dressed up as Star Wars Storm Troopers) … to save us all further embarrassment, Abigail agreed to answer the questions.

1.     So, Abigail Nathan, who are you?

Wow … that’s a bit of a deep way to start. I choose to interpret this as work-related and not some foray into the philosophical workings of the cosmos.

I am the managing director of Bothersome Words Editing & Writing Services, which is a fancy way of saying I am a freelance editor.

2.     What’s your background as far as education and editing experience are concerned?

I have an Arts degree and studied English Literature (of course) as well as Critical & Cultural Studies and Philosophy. After uni I worked at a book club as a copywriter and sub-editor. This was pretty much a dream job since I was writing about books for a living and learned about both book and magazine publishing in the process.

From there I moved on to a commercial property magazine as sub-editor, before it was closed down and I began contracting.

For a couple of years I did stints in-house at legal publishers where the editorial training was intense. We were also required to become proficient in coding and online editing which led me to become the volunteer website coordinator for the Society of Editors (NSW).

Eventually I developed Bothersome Words as a business so that I could freelance full-time. I have freelanced regularly in-house at various magazines and edit for various book publishers and private clients.

Freelancing requires me to keep up my own continuing education; I regularly attend editing and publishing workshops through the Society of Editors and I have also done private courses in Dreamweaver and InDesign.

3.     What got you interested in the profession of editing?

I have always been interested in books and words. Once I found out that a job existed for which you could, basically, read books for a living, I was set. One of my friends tells an absolutely mortifying story about being in primary school and all of us swapping stories in class and receiving hers back from me covered in corrections. So apparently it was always meant to be.

4.     You’re a freelancer – what does that mean exactly?

Essentially it means I am a contractor. The way I look at it is: I run my own business, an editing business. People hire me to write or edit for them. In the case of publishers, that might mean that they hire me to edit a book for them. Or a magazine could ring up and ask me to come in and work for 2 months to cover someone’s absence. As a freelancer I do not have an employer; I am my employer. I have clients who hire me.

 5.     How do you find business? Or does it find you?

A bit of both. I have a website and I am listed in the Society of Editors (NSW) directory; both of these are so that people can find me when they are looking for an editor. Occasionally I will send my CV out to specific companies/people for whom I would like to work, and there are various job boards and mailing lists that alert me to jobs for which I can apply.

 If I am lucky, I will get calls before I need to start hunting from contacts I already have, booking me in for jobs. If I don’t, another option is to contact these same people and check if they have anything coming up. No freelancer likes doing that and it’s the hardest part of the job. We call it The Fear – the fear of being out of work. And the fear of Murphy. It often results in the temptation to say “yes” to everything and to walk around clutching a piece of wood at all times.

6.     The question about filthy lucre: what’s your hourly rate? Is there a different rate for copy editing as opposed to structural editing?

I don’t have an hourly rate as such – I work on a project-by-project basis.

Yes, there is a different rate for copy editing, structural editing, proofreading, etc.

I would also note that there are differences depending on industry.

 7.     Do you also proofread as part of your professional endeavours?

Yes.

8.     What’s your favourite part of your job?

Oh… so many answers!

There are so many aspects to the job itself. As a freelancer you get so much more variety in terms of the material you work on as well as the people you get to work with. Although it is largely a solitary profession (which can be fantastic or difficult, depending on the day/week) I am also sometimes astounded by some of the incredible people I get to work with.

I love learning new things every day – there is always something I learn from every piece of writing; either a fact from the work itself or a new editing tip I pick up from the process. My mind is opened up in new ways all the time because, while I get to read my favourite genres a lot in the course of my work, I also get to work on things I wouldn’t normally pick up.

Having said all that, one of the most rewarding parts of the job is hearing back from authors after the editing process is done and having them say that the editing helped and even made a difference. You can’t put a price on that. Particularly as a freelancer, when contact with authors may be minimal to non-existent if you’re working with a publishing house. 

I can go for weeks on that sort of feedback because, well, the fact is that editors often get a bad rap. A lot of people think we’re power-mad, sitting here with our pens, crossing out commas and rewriting sentences. But the truth is I don’t know any editor who doesn’t agonise over every change and worry about how the author might feel about all that mark-up.

Although we don’t write the stories, I don’t think editors are so different to writers, in that we don’t go into this work for the money. We do it because we love stories and a lot of us do it because we love the craft of writing. We get very invested in every piece that we work on and although I don’t think many of us necessarily want public recognition, hearing that you have helped develop a piece of writing, even if that help was in an invisible or abstract way, means a lot.

9.     What can someone expect from Bothersome Words?

Professional and honest writing and editorial services and advice from someone who is passionate about what she does.

10.  Most importantly: donuts or danishes?

Doughnut or donut, there is no try danish.

 Thanks to Abigail – the Krispy Kremes are being delivered by the Storm Troopers are we speak.

 Oh, and Bothersome Words lives here http://www.bothersomewords.com/aboutus.html

Read Full Post »