I recently guest blogged at GayYA.org and wanted to share. In the post, “Are They LGBTQIA? Let Your Characters Tell You,” I talk about how I discovered the sexual orientation of characters in my Tankborn Trilogy as I wrote the books and got to know the characters better.
You can check out the Tankborn Trilogy at Lee and Low’s website. You can also find TANKBORN, AWAKENING, and REBELLION on Amazon.
This was my first trip to the American Library Association’s annual conference and it was a whirlwind tour for me. I arrived in Las Vegas around lunchtime on Friday, then headed back to the airport around dinnertime on Saturday.
In between I packed an inhumanly large number of activities. After communing with a couple slot machines, I scoped out the convention floor, then had dinner with my editor, Stacy Whitman (@stacylwhitman), publisher of Lee and Low’s Tu Books. Librarian Nina Lindsay and fellow author Valynne Maetani (@valynnemaetani) joined us.
On the way to the restaurant, I noticed an odd thing about Las Vegas (okay, there are a lot of odd things about Las Vegas)–all the faux architecture around town. Like the imitation Arc de Triomphe outside the Paris hotel and the fake Eiffel Tower. It’s like Disneyland for adults. A never-ending costume party as well with some very interesting apparel choices.
Saturday morning, I met with representatives from two of ALA’s ethnic caucuses–Heather Devine from AILA and Eugenia Beh (@ebeh) from APALA. We discussed ways they could get involved in the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign, and how WNDB can utilize the ALA caucuses as a resource. Sadly, we didn’t think to take a selfie of the three of us. 🙁
After a cruise of the convention floor, I returned to the Lee and Low booth to meet fellow Lee and Low author and new WNDB team member, Don Tate (@Devas_T), who was signing at the Lee and Low booth. Seems I can’t quite keep my eyes open when I get my picture taken. I got a copy of Don’s book IT JES’ HAPPENED which will probably end up with my older granddaughter once I’ve read it a few times and had a chance to enjoy its beautiful illustrations.
After visiting with Don, I stopped at Meg Medina’s signing (@Meg_Medina) to buy her book YAQUI DELGADO WANTS TO KICK YOUR ASS. I later crashed Matt de la Pena’s signing, stopping to introduce myself. He was very nice about my interruption. Also, Stacy introduced me to Jacqueline Woodson and between her and Matt, I was pretty starstruck.
I timed my return from lunch perfectly. Not just because I had a 2pm signing of the Tankborn Trilogy at the Lee and Low booth, but because Eriq La Salle (@EriqLaSalle23), the actor who played the prickly surgeon, Peter Benton, in ER, was just starting his signing. He’s writing a thriller series, self-publishing through Ingrams program. I managed to get a quick shot of him in passing.
My own signing was great, giving me a chance to meet fans and talk to librarians about the Tankborn Trilogy. After my autographing session, I headed over to the Special Events section where the Oakland Library (@oaklibrary) was participating in a poster session. They’d put together a bunch of the beautiful #WeNeedDiverseBooks photos that they’d taken during the campaign.
As inspiring as it was seeing those photos come through tweet by tweet, it was amazing seeing them all together in one display. I also got a chance to meet the librarians responsible, Sharon McKellar (@sharon), Nina Lindsay, and Helen Bloch. They had sheets handy with “We Need Diverse Books” across the top for people to write their own response. Sharon took their pictures and insta-tweeted them on the spot.
I headed back to the airport shortly after the poster session. Great conference. I’m looking forward to ALA 2015 in San Francisco. 🙂
Sometimes the passage of time between when a book is contracted and when it’s finally launched into the brave new world seems like forever. But finally it’s the official release day for Tu Books’ spring 2013 releases. The first one is mine, the second by fellow Tu Books author Shana Mlawski.
Awakening by Karen Sandler, Book 2 of the Tankborn trilogy
Once a Chadi sector GEN girl terrified of her first Assignment, Kayla is now a member of the Kinship, a secret organization of GENs, lowborns, and trueborns. Kayla travels on Kinship business, collecting information to further the cause of GEN freedom.
Despite Kayla’s relative freedom, she is still a slave to the trueborn ruling class. She rarely sees trueborn Devak, and any relationship between them is still strictly forbidden.
Kayla longs to be truly free, but other priorities have gotten in the way. A paradoxically deadly new virus has swept through GEN sectors—a disease only GENs catch. And GEN warrens and warehouses are being bombed, with only a scrawled clue: F.H.E. Freedom, Humanity, Equality.
With the virus and the bombings decimating the GEN community, freedom and love are put on the back burner as Kayla and her friends find a way to stop the killing . . . before it’s too late.
Hammer of Witches by Shana Mlawski
Baltasar Infante, a bookmaker’s apprentice living in 1492 Spain, can weasel out of any problem with a good story. But when he awakes one night to find a monster straight out of the stories peering at him through his window, he’s in trouble that even he can’t talk his way out of.
Soon Baltasar is captured by a mysterious arm of the Spanish Inquisition, the Malleus Maleficarum, that demands he reveal the whereabouts of Amir al-Katib, a legendary Moorish sorcerer who can bring myths and the creatures within them to life. Baltasar doesn’t know where the man is—or that he himself has the power to summon genies and golems.
Baltasar must escape, find al-Katib, and defeat a dreadful power that may destroy the world. As Baltasar’s journey takes him into uncharted lands on Columbus’s voyage westward, he learns that stories are more powerful than he once believed them to be—and much more dangerous.
I hope you’ll check them both out!
This week, YA Highway’s Road Trip Wednesday asks, where are you on your reading and writing goals? I have blogged before about how I don’t like setting goals and making resolutions. They kind of stress me out and bring up all kinds of fears that I won’t be able to achieve them so why should I set them in the first place? (Imagine me saying that last part really fast and in a high voice).
Yeah, pretty negative. And what’s kind of silly about this is that I actually do make goals all the time (I never would have finished writing a single book if I hadn’t). I just don’t tend to write my goals down on a piece of paper or keep track of them in a file. I probably should. I bet I’d be far more organized and it would be clearer when I’ve met a goal.
So, let me look back and come up with my first quarter goals in a retroactive way. First, I wanted to complete the edits on my first mystery novel, Clean Burn, which is coming out in September 2013 from Exhibit A. I had to wait for my editor’s notes, but he’d assured me they would be fairly simple. After I got his notes, I was able to incorporate those changes over the course of two weekends, so I’ve kicked that imaginary soccer ball into the net and the fans are screaming, Gol!
Second, I wanted to complete by a certain date a rough draft of my current WIP, Revolution, the third and last book of the Tankborn trilogy from Tu Books. I’m being cagey about the specific date, because I like to keep that sort of thing to myself. I’m on target with that. Assuming I meet that goal as I expect to, I’ll have a few days to set the book aside, have some fun without having to think about the story, then get back to Revolution so I can get the rewrite done by the deadline. Haven’t quite reached the goal of finishing the rough draft since the date hasn’t arrived yet, but it’s within reach.
Third, I wanted to get going on my marketing and discoverability for my indie published romance novels. I’m meeting that goal with my new author “support group.” After a writer’s conference last October, a team of us had agreed in principle that we would work together to learn more about social networking. Our ultimate goal is to improve reader awareness of our books and therefore improve our sales. We had a fantabulous get-together last weekend (which I blogged about here). We’re still working out the details, of course, but there will be some exciting ventures coming out of our collaboration (new goals!).
I’ve also wanted to get my website updated, which my hubby has helped me with (okay, he does all the work, but he does ask the occasional question that I have to answer). It’s still got some work to be done (I have to set up sites devoted to my romance and mystery sides), but you can check it out here.
So I’m doing pretty well on the goal front. I have completed or am close to completing most of what I set out to do this quarter. I’ve got a bunch of new things on my list, but that means I’m moving forward and challenging myself. Isn’t that great?
So how about you? Are you meeting your goals? Are you happy with how things are turning out?
Back in my romance writing days, I didn’t write trilogies. The love stories I wrote were one-offs. Although half of my Harlequin books (Counting on a Cowboy, A Father’s Sacrifice, His Baby to Love, The Three-Way Miracle, and Her Baby’s Hero) were all set in the same small town of Hart Valley and had some overlapping characters, there weren’t any connections between the stories. There were two books I did for Harlequin (Their Second-Chance Child and The Family He Wanted) that were part of the Fostering Family mini-series, where the second book picked up where the first left off. Characters from the first book were mentioned in the second, but the main story revolved around a new hero and heroine.
Then along came Tankborn. When I first wrote Tankborn, I had a hazy idea of possibly writing a trilogy. Then when I signed with my agents and we were getting the manuscript ready for submission, they suggested I write up short blurbs for a second and third book. When we sold to Lee and Low/Tu Books, the original contract was only for the one book, but we later sold them two other books to complete the trilogy.
So my foray into writing my first real trilogy actually commenced with the second Tankborn book. With book one, I was blissfully ignorant of how anything I wrote might have a ripple effect into books two and three. Although I’d still had that hazy idea of writing two more books, I completed Tankborn and saw it into print before I ever wrote word one of the second book, Awakening.
And that was when the hand-shackles went on. From the moment I started Awakening, I had to constantly keep in mind the Tankborn universe. The book was already printed, many, many people had already read it, and while most readers probably wouldn’t notice if some little detail wasn’t consistent, someone somewhere would.
So I certainly couldn’t change the planet my characters were on from Loka to somewhere else. I could not make the sky blue instead of green. There had to be two suns in the sky, not one. And seycats and droms had to have six legs, not four or eight. In other words, I couldn’t fudge or goof. The first book was already in print, there for anyone to refer to and point out my mistakes.
Still, as I wrote Awakening, I thought it was pretty cool having the Tankborn universe already defined. I didn’t have to re-invent the wheel. If I couldn’t remember whether seycats had stripes or spots, or just how tall a genetically engineered drom was, I had the best reference in the world–the first book.
So I finished Awakening feeling pretty good about things. My editor and I had a great round of developmental edits that strengthened all my characters and added some complexity to the plot. Then it was time for the copy editor.
That’s when the oopsies started. For instance, Risa, a very minor character in Tankborn, is a prominent secondary character throughout Awakening. As I fleshed out her character in the second book, I gave her red hair mixed with gray. I didn’t bother to check in Tankborn to see if I’d mentioned what color hair Risa had. But the copy editor did check. And pointed out that in Tankborn, Risa is described as having dark hair. For continuity’s sake, Risa’s hair couldn’t be red.
This may seem very minor (and it was for the most part). But I was a little sad at the necessity because Risa has a pet seycat (a wild feline indigenous to the planet Loka) and seycat coats are red (with black/grayish markings). I’d really liked the idea that Risa’s hair matched the seycat’s. That had to go away with the change of hair color, which required a bit more tweaking than a simple change from red to dark.
The second blooper was an incorrect character name. There’s an important character who plays a very minor role in Tankborn, a slightly more important role in Awakening, and will play a major role in the third book of the trilogy, Revolution. I used the wrong name for her throughout Awakening. I hadn’t remembered that one of the last changes we made in Tankborn before it went to print was to change that character’s name. Again, it was a good catch on the part of the copy editor that saved us from using the wrong name and really confusing readers.
Alas, there is an error/inconsistency that was my fault that sneaked its way into Tankborn. I only noticed it as I was working on Revolution. There’s a shrub on the planet Loka called a sticker bush. At least that’s what I was calling it all through Awakening, what I thought I’d called it in Tankborn. But it turns out that at some point, I decided to call the sticker bush a prickle bush instead. And I wasn’t even consistent at that, because while I call it a prickle bush twice in Tankborn, I call it a sticker bush once.
So what to do? Prickle or sticker? I realized I liked sticker bush better and made an executive decision to call it that, inconsistency be damned.
Live and learn. Continuity in trilogies has proved to be a tricky business. I’ll have another chance to play around with this in my upcoming mystery series from Angry Robot/Exhibit A, which begins with Clean Burn. Since it’s not science fiction, it should be a piece of cake, right?
Right.