I have a lot to share with you today. So much, in fact, it feels like I’ve neglected to say much for too long – but that’s not true because I did do my musings last week.
A lot has happened in a week, I guess.
The Canary Review
A while back I sent a revised version of the pitch I’d made here earlier to get some feedback from the canaries over at The Canary Review.
They handle pitches with a different sort of eye and I wanted to offer my own up as example and suggest that you might be interested in getting more in-depth crit from them one day:
What we get on my blog is reader perception. What they give is editorial perception. They’ll be talking more about what agents and editors look for in pitches (I believe) this week on Friday.
If you follow me on FB or Twitter, I’ll post the link whenever I see the post or you can keep checking their blog too so you don’t miss it.
Tuesday Spotlight
This week Mitch Haynes will be in the spotlight to talk about a writer’s conference taking place in Denton, TX next month.
The LEXICON WRITERS CONFERENCEwill be held on July 21 – 22, 2012 in Denton, Texas but we have special events set up for the 19th and 20th as well.
Publicity
I know it’s just a little paper.li deal, but still. Publicity is publicity, ha. My awesome spot on the Science Fiction Daily: http://paper.li/AmyJoywriter/1333728136 (well darn. I’ll leave the link up in case you want to look at the paper, but content is different daily and I was only there on Sunday.)
Frontier Tales Anthology
Last evening I attended the standing-room-only release party for Duke Pennell’s Frontier Tales Anthology. Several of my local writerly friends were there to give readings or insight on the stories behind their stories. My role there also sort of morphed into being the ‘event photographer’ which I rather enjoyed.
The lovely Kim Pennell
Future topics
I want to start sharing some of the background to Symbiosis. Not sure yet which day of the week I’ll use to do this, but probably Tuesdays when I have no guest lined up.
When anyone writes a novel they’re drawing on things that they find interesting, topics that for whatever reason they enjoy. Mine run the gamut from philosophy, Jungian psychology, ancient history, ancient to modern religion, origin of myth, sociology (especially patriarchy vs matriarchy – is it indicative of anything that the word ‘matriarchy’ isn’t even in WP’s spell-check database, but ‘patriarchy’ is? – and pecking orders), balance of nature, herbalism (which bleeds into religion and fear of witchcraft), how fears drive societies (which bleeds into or really underlies many of the topics that interest me) and kundalini, karma, sexuality. Oh. I forgot to add that I love twisting the concept of thermodynamic’s first law…the one about conservation of energy. Some physicists might be appalled at the liberties I’ve taken with that one in Symbiosis.
Even fiction writers need a platform, things to talk about if invited to be a speaker or to present. Since all these things underly my passion for writing, any one of them could potentially become topics that segue with talking about my books. And not just Symbiosis, because my interest in these things influence everything I write in some way.
Me in cowgirl getup for the Frontier Tales release party.
Madison, I want to thank you so much for the link to Canary Review, it was just what the doctor ordered for my pitch! Enormously helpful. Thank you again!
You’re welcome. They are tremendously helpful birds… a little brutal at times, hahahaha, but well-worth the bruises!
Funny how some words don’t appear on the spellcheck’s radar, heh. Firefox, at least, recognizes matriarchy.
Now that is interesting–from your brief overview of the topics, it sounds like you might well be venturing into the literary fiction end of the fantasy genre (are you a fan of Margaret Atwood, btw? If you haven’t read anything of hers, you might enjoy the Handmaid’s Tale.)
Thank you for the shout-out!
You know, others have mentioned her as an author I should read. I haven’t yet, but I think it’s time to add her to my list. I’ve heard of Handmaid’s Tale and it does sound like one I’d like.
Thanks, Madison. I really enjoyed the Canary pecking. I’ll send some stuff for a good pecking myself. Hope you have a great week.
Just read the blurb and ordered it from Amazon for my Kindle. It does sound like something right up my alley.
It looks like fun.
Hi Madison: Your full-length “cowgirl” photo is lovely. Love the long braid. I “saved” it.
You’re sweet, Lora. My hair is getting pretty long but Rob wants to see it before I get it cut so I’ll keep it until August when he comes home for his break. After that I’ll be in for a trim!
Loved the Canary review. Thanks for sharing it. Going to have to check out more of their peckings.
Really annoyed I missed the Frontier Tales shindig. I put it on my calendar and proceeded to get my dates confused. Thought it was this weekend.
I’ve finished reading The Handmaid’s Tale. Wow. THAT is what I mean by a story that’s more than the plot summary. There is so much more going on in there besides the words on the page. And that’s what I’m trying to do here, although I can’t imagine being so good at it as she is. However, thanks for the tip in her direction. I need to read more of her work.
BTW, her genre in that book seems pretty hard to classify. It doesn’t strike me as scifi. It is dystopian, but what category does that fall into? Wiki has it categorized as scifi/spec fic. I really like the spec fic category and was very glad to hear that at least one editor (Lou Anders with Pyr) considers it a legitmate genre to use when querying.
Atwood really is great. Since you enjoyed her writing, I’d also recommend the following two books by two other authors: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver and The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. From your reaction, it also sounds like you’ll be a better fit in Lit fic than genre fiction. In a sense, genre fiction is entertainment that sometimes has a message. Literary fiction has theme and message. In fact, if you find that your fantasy story leans a lot more heavily on internal character transformation, relationships, and is, in general, realistic and human in its approach, then you might just be looking at the Fiction category when characterizing your novel. (Think Barnes and Noble bookshelves. Where would your book fit in in terms of its overall feel. Is it a fantasy book with some depth, or is it a story about a woman with a few fantasy elements?)
Usually, dystopian goes with Sci-fi, but spec fiction can apply too. If you enjoyed the dystopian element in Handmaid’s Tale, give 1984 a try. Different approach, but also a good read.
I’ve read 1984 and definitely enjoyed that. Mine is too heavily fantasy to not go on a fantasy shelf, though, no matter how deep the issues being explored. Where does Chronicles of Narnia fit? There’s a lot of depth in that, but it appears fantasy on the surface. That’s how mine will categorize, even though there is also some twisted science at the base of it.
I meant to take exception to one point – science fiction can be very theme deep. Mostly mine comments on humanity’s fear of sexuality and death and God, and does it in a mix of fantasy and scifi setting. In fact, when I heard the review of Prometheus, the movie, the other day I heard a LOT of similarities in our stories’ background story insomuch as the origin of God and humanity part of it. But I haven’t seen the movie or read anything about it, and the end results are I’m sure vastly different. But it sounds like the author started speculating ‘What If’ on the same point where my story originated. The slice of time and the angle I’ve captured in mine is different.
Oh, science fiction–absolutely. Much of science fiction is social commentary. However, when it comes to Fantasy, that’s not so much the case. Yes, fantasy is just as able to capture and present messages as Science Fiction, but it tends to have a strong skew towards adventure. Whether this is because we haven’t had a major breakthrough novel yet or because escapists gravitate towards the genre, I don’t know. But while I can give you an endless list of literary sci-fi, I’d be very hard pressed to name more than a couple traditional fantasy novels that comment substantially on social issues.