Updates

So, my fourth Aurora nomination–this one as editor. Strangers Among Us is up for Best Related Work. Some stiff competition. Four out of six short stories nominated are from Strangers. AND, Samantha Beiko is nominated for our cover art, which is awesome. But again, the field, in all categories is pretty intimidating. There is no guessing who will win in any of the categories.

The Nebulas Conference in Pittsburgh was, as always, fantastic. This conference takes the best of all the other conferences, and pares it away to the 200 people you most want to network with and learn from. Programming is for the professional. And, at the awards ceremony, good friends David Levine won the Norton for best YA novel, and William Ledbetter won for best novelette.

Today, I attended ARWA’s 30th anniversary and was a judge for their short story contest. As there weren’t enough entries to pick a top 3, I simply gave each of them a critique and did a public critique emphasizing the positives. They gave me lunch and an honorarium, AND a cheque to support the Robin Herrington Memorial Short Story Contest! In addition, there were belly dancers, and Mayor Nenshi spoke. A great meeting!

So the novel revision plan is done and I am checking out the scene-and-sequence chunks. I don’t have a word count (I plan to add about 4-5 more scenes, and cut some scenes) but I’m pretty sure I have to do some serious cutting–pretty much all of it in Act I. So my big focus is on…FOCUS! Am I being efficient in moving the story along without sacrificing the key details that keep the reader grounded in the world, especially in the opening when understanding characters, plot motivations and politics, and critical bits of the world (like the magic system, for instance), are critical. Yep, I’m finding repetition. There are places to cut.

So, I was reading Rise and Fall of the Third Reich for my upcoming historical fantasy novel set in World War II. Reading about the chaotic conditions in Germany in 1919 after the defeat of World War I, I had an insight into what the climate must be like in my OTHER historical fantasy novel, when the king uproots his subjects, rather like Henry VIII did by imposting Protestantism on a Catholic Britain. Clearly, there is not ONE rebel organization–at least not at first–there would be multiple groups rising in protest, unbeknownst to one another. They would have to organize themselves before they could become effective. Upon reflection it seems so obvious: why didn’t I realize it before? Duh!