My interview in Marie Claire was published today.
Read about my perspectives on asexuality in “The Opposite of Sex”:
Category Archives: News
Five-Year Anniversary: Negative One
So I seem to have made it to FIVE YEARS with my webcomic, Negative One. I updated every single Friday. Without ever being late or missing an issue. 261 issues. 16,186 panels.
So I’m feeling pretty awesome about it and elected to celebrate.
I made a cake, received some gifts from friends, and collected a bunch of fan art from readers. And I made a tribute video for baby Ivy. You can see it all on the Five-Year Celebration Page (offsite at my webcomic, though).
Interview: (A)sexual by Arts Engine
I’ve been picked to be one of the representative asexual folks discussing asexuality issues in the upcoming feature length indie documentary (A)sexual. Today was my interview.
The producer decided to include me because I suppose my videos on the ‘Net are important enough to the outreach for the movement. I’m happy they decided to do that, because I like having an opportunity to make my voice heard and contribute my unique strands here.
I had three production crew members in my apartment this afternoon: an interviewer, a photographer, and a cameraman. (Well, they all did more than that, but those seemed to be their main functions while they were with me.) And the first thing they did (after setting up HUGE LIGHTS and clipping one of those shmancy microphones on me) was videotape me videotaping myself.
Interview: The Daily Beast
My interview in The Daily Beast was published today.
Read about my asexuality perspectives in “No Sex? No Problem.”
I am pseudonymous as “Ivy” in the article, because most of my asexuality awareness stuff is done under my pseudonym.
New Novel: Bad Fairy Trilogy, Book 1
Bad Fairy is gonna get revamped as a trilogy now. It’s about time.
The original version, telling the full life story of Delia Morningstar (Sleeping Beauty’s “bad fairy”), was 255,000 words and nobody would want to take that on. But there were a lot of problems with the idea of revamping the book into three parts, and the most important problem is that there’s nowhere that it divided naturally. I’m actually going to have to rewrite it completely so each volume is a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end, and a conflict and resolution.
I already know the shape of the first book; it’d basically be the main character’s life up until she graduates from circle (which is the fairy version of school in my book, for those who haven’t read it). I plan to invent more conflict within the circle setting, more competition among the girls I guess, and of course my little Delia will really enjoy that. (I can’t say the same for her circlemates. Haha.) If I can invent enough of a conflict and resolution in the first book—ending with my main character having come out on top only to have it mean nothing in the scheme of things—I think it could be a satisfying book one of a trilogy.
Results of Querying: Finding Mulligan 2008
No good news for Finding Mulligan queries in 2008.
Agents queried: 10.
- Non-responses: 3
- Form rejections: 7
Can’t tell if my query letter was terrible or if this was just a bad year to be looking for representation due to all the bullcrap that’s happened.
Completed New Short Story: “Stupid Questions”
Finished a new short story called “Stupid Questions.” It’s actually not very short (surprise!)—more of a novella, I guess. It weighed in at about 35,000 words. Adult science fiction/romance. Way too long to place anywhere, but too short to be a novel.
It’s about Nick, a cameraman and romantic at heart who gets a crush on an enigmatic girl named Summer who has superpowers.
The characters suffer from lack of well-roundedness, so maybe if I make it a novel instead it’ll be better.
I’ll do that one day.
Ready to Query: Finding Mulligan
Okay, enough editing. Thank you to the following people who helped me in the test audience:
These people read the whole thing and gave comments: Mommy, Fred, Ronni, Mike Lee, Reeny, Jessie, Laura, Victor, Cara, Meggie, Alicorn, Amanda, Rob, Patricia, Jeaux, Daddy, Stacy, Kim, Jeremy, Kalinda, Corinne, and Jay. These people read part of it and gave comments: Jack, Deborah, Mikey, and Jessika.
My basic query letter (with personalized agent stuff at the beginning, and modified if needed):
Nobody understands the meaning of “a double life” better than Cassandra Howard. A smart, sarcastic student by day, she becomes a different person at night; Dia, her charismatic second self, is the darling of a fantastical dreamland where she can do anything. And while Cassie and Dia share their memories, they prefer to keep their lives separate. That changes when they fall in love.
Mulligan, dreamland’s delicious drummer boy, sets his eyes on Dia. But Cassie is pretty sick of her other self getting everything good about their life, and she talks Dia into helping her find the waking-world version of her boyfriend. A mysterious portrait of Mulligan leads Cassie to two candidates: is it Terrell, the model who posed for the painting? Or is it Jamie, the artist who painted it? Maddening maybes play tug-of-war in her mind until she finds herself attracted to both guys, and she fears betraying her dream love if she picks the wrong one.
To test her contenders, Cassie begins to impersonate Dia in the waking world, but gets the shock of her life when her counterpart’s magical charisma and talent actually work in her favor. When lines of identity start blurring beyond their comfort, they’ll have to uncover the nature of dreamland and deal with the repercussions of this love triangle. (Or . . . love pentagon. Whatever.) And one thing’s for sure: dreams of happily ever after do sometimes turn out to be nightmares.
Completed New Novel: Finding Mulligan
Finished writing Finding Mulligan!
Genre: Young Adult (Crossover?)/Modern Fantasy/Romance/???
Length: 26 Chapters/420 pages/~120,000 words.
Tag line: “What if you fell in love with someone who might not exist?”
Keywords: YA: Fantastical, young adult, romance, dreams, psychological, alternate-world, college, interracial romance, magical realism, young-adult crossover, chronic illness (in a family member).
Protagonist: Cassandra Howard.
POV: First person, past tense.
About:
Cassandra Howard lives a double life—literally. She spends her days worrying about school, hanging out with her best friend, and sulking in the shadow of her chronically ill (and pampered) younger sister. But at night, she’s busy with her charmed life in an alternate universe. In dreamland, Cassie becomes a charismatic, carefree girl named Dia, and she prefers to keep her two lives separate. That changes when she falls in love.
Dia kicks off a fairy-tale romance with Mulligan, dreamland’s delicious drummer boy. But Cassie is pretty sick of her other self getting everything good about their shared life, and she talks Dia into helping her find the waking-world version of her boyfriend. All the clues point to Mulligan existing in both worlds, just like Cassie does.
A mysterious portrait of Mulligan leads Cassie to two candidates: is it Terrell, the model who posed for the painting? Or is it Jamie, the artist who painted it? Maddening maybes play tug-of-war in her mind until she finds herself attracted to both guys, and she fears betraying her dream love if she picks the wrong one.
To test her contenders, Cassie dresses up like Dia and tries to act like her, but gets the shock of her life when some of Dia’s practically magical charisma and talent transfers to her. When lines of identity start blurring beyond their comfort, they’ll have to uncover the nature of dreamland and deal with the repercussions of this love triangle. (Or . . . love pentagon. Whatever.) And one thing’s for sure: dreams of “happily ever after” do sometimes turn out to be nightmares.
Next up: Lots of editing!
Gather Contest: Bad Fairy
I entered a contest at Gather.com back on February 13. It was called “First Chapters” and novelists with a completed manuscript were allowed to enter and possibly win a publishing contract. I figured I had nothing to lose, but the experience was pretty terrible. Because whoever came up with the rules for the contest must have been smoking something toxic.
Contestants were allowed to vote on each other’s entries.
The “points” everyone was getting were visible to everyone, with the site adjusting the top entries to always be at the beginning. (This was not only unfair, but it encouraged people to vote down whoever was in the lead.)
The reviews were visible for every entry. This was especially bad because Gather was bribing people to offer reviews by saying star reviewers would be chosen to receive $500 in store credit to Borders, and you were supposed to be able to win by being “insightful,” so having the previous reviews visible to readers obviously influences the opinion AND gives reviewers tips on what to say for their own review.
Can I just say again that contestants were allowed to vote on each other’s entries? And that the rules specifically said they were allowed to do so as long as they did it “in the spirit of the competition”?
A vote-decided competition absolutely cannot have its participants voting on each other. I was appalled. Especially since every single entry in the contest had a 3 or 4 out of 10 by the time the voting closed because of all the really determined serial downvoters.
And yet, without addressing these issues whatsoever, Gather announced their 20 winners—one of whom was a guy whose profile page said he was a paid contributor for Gather—and opened the next round with all the same rules. (I wasn’t picked, but that doesn’t surprise me. My entry was regularly on the front page of highest-rated entries, and then it would get attacked with downvotes and disappear, and then it would appear again every time I got a good review.)
Anyway, I also got some grumpy guy telling me I was obviously ripping off Wicked—yeah, man, that’s likely, since I wrote the story before I’d heard of it, and after all Gregory Maguire invented the concept of a retelling, right? And then some other snotty reviewer tried to tear me a new one claiming I’d contradicted myself because I suggested it’s possible to be original while still telling a technically derivative story (like a fairy tale retelling). “Well if it’s derived from another story then it can’t really be original then CAN IT??” Uh, I sure hope there’s a degree program in Missing the Point, because that guy’s got a Bachelor’s. I’m pretty certain nobody who reads Bad Fairy is going to come out of it thinking what a copycat piece of crap it is.
So . . . yeah, good riddance to THAT contest.