Author's Note

It’s the new year and I’ve already broken my resolution, sort of.  Let me start by saying that I have a love/hate relationship with the whole resolution thing.  On the one hand I love the idea of having goals to move forward toward self improvement.  I’m a big fan of always striving to be a better writer, wife, citizen, friend, or just a plain better person.  On the other hand…  I have a real difficult time with hard, inflexible goals.  There seems to be no room for mistakes, or for those surprise moments that pop up in life and pull you into a tangent.  But then again, without hard goals how are you going to hold yourself to standards?  How are you going to have milestones to celebrate?  How are you going to keep out of the airy fairy realm of “someday I’d like to…” and keep it grounded in the real world of “I’m going to…”?  What about accountability and getting things done?  There’s a real satisfaction in sticking to a plan and being able to check accomplishments off a list.  See what I mean about a love/hate relationship?

For years now, I’ve been putting “complete a novel” at the top of my new year’s to do list.  It hasn’t happened yet.  I have completed other goals – number of short stories produced, number of short stories sold and published, putting together my own short story collection and getting it out to the world, working toward building a fan base using social media, attending conventions and getting my name out there, etc.  It’s not like I’ve been lazy, I just haven’t accomplished that particular goal.

Completing a novel is at the top of my to do list again this year, and this year I’m determined that it won’t slip to the bottom and remain undone yet again.  I have a lot of reasons to make sure it happens.  I have a major publisher interested in the idea I’m working on.  I’m really excited about the idea and I think it could very commercially successful.  I’ve done a lot of research I don’t want to go to waste.  I also have a good support system in place for the attempt.  My dear husband of almost two years really believes in me and my talent, and in this project in particular.  And I have other friends and family members on the sidelines cheering me on.  This will be the year.

So, I’ve set daily word count goals designed to ensure I have a good first draft finished by the end of February.  And then I’ll ask trusted beta readers to look it over, then spend a month or so incorporating their comments and improving the book overall.  There’s a little slush room in there for an additional look by the beta readers and/or any of the aforementioned surprise life moments.  By this plan I should have a finished draft I’m proud of ready to send to the interested publisher by the first of June.  And I’ve missed the word count goals for more days than I’ve made it so far.  As of yesterday, I was a little over 5,000 words behind.

I’m not happy with myself, but I’m also feeling philosophical about it.  I’ve made progress more days than not, even if the word counts weren’t quite as high as I’d wanted them.  This is a good thing.  I will see this through, even if it takes longer than the almighty plan says it should.  And who knows?  I just might catch up.  I’m certainly going to try.

You can pre-order my book here, with an expected shipping date of late January/early February 2012. If you order before January 15, 2012 you’ll get a discounted price and a free e-book copy to keep or share as it pleases you.

That’s right folks, that ever fabulous convention, Balticon, is happening this weekend in beautiful Hunt Valley, Maryland.  I’ve always had a soft spot for this convention, since it’s the first one I ever attended mumblemumble years ago. 

This year is very special to me.  This year will be the first year that I’ll be officially on the schedule (if you’ll recall last year, a couple of generous writer friends shared reading time with me and helped me get my foot in the door).  And after some technical glitches, we finally have an official schedule for this weekend!  Please come see me.  Here’s where I’ll be:

Saturday (5/28):

4:00 p.m. in Salon B
Panel: Hollywood Pirates vs. Historical Pirates
Ooooooo….  This is gonna be fun!

Sunday (5/29):

10:00 a.m. in the Maryland Foyer
Autograph Session (with Nancy Brauer and Patrick Thomas)
Bring a book, bring a magazine, heck, bring one of my freebie short stories printed out from the Web (get them here)!  I’ll sign almost anything!  Please don’t leave me sitting at the table all by myself…

3:00 p.m. in Belmont
Panel: Mind the Plot Holes, Dear
We’ll be discussing and categorizing plot holes, and how to save your story from them.

5:00 p.m. in Salon C
Panel: As you know, Bob: The positives and negatives of Infodumps in Writing
This is for all you writers out there – You know you need exposition, but how can you make it go down smooth?  The panel will discuss expository theory and practice, and answer the eternal question: “What does Bob really know?”

10:00 p.m. in Chase
Panel: Loveable Rogues in Media Fiction
Who’s your favorite?  And why do we like them so much?

 Monday (5/30):

2:00 p.m. in Chase
Reading!
I’ll read something fabulous, I’ll bribe you with candy to come, and maybe even have some special guests.  And as a special prize for everyone who reads my blog, come to the reading and be the first person to tell me you read about it on my blog, and you will get a special sooper sekrit prize!

See you at Balticon!

I can still remember when I got the letter.  I was living in a one bedroom apartment in not the best, and not the worst, part of town with my two cats following the dissolution of my first marriage.  Trying to keep my mind off the other turmoil in my life, I had really dived into my creative writing and was pushing hard to create new stories and keep those stories circulating with the hope of publication.  I ripped open the envelope expecting another rejection letter, because rejections inevitably outweigh acceptances, and I’d been advised by one writing teacher during my undergrad years that a writer has to accumulate 100 rejections before the first acceptance, and I was far from 100. 

But when I pulled out the sheet of paper, it was something new – my very first acceptance letter.  It was for my short story “Odin’s Gift,” which I had written in a white heat in a single Saturday writing spree in response to a random writing prompt I’d found on the web.  I hooted and hollered and danced around that apartment, and I believe I thoroughly scared the cats.  Then I proceeded to call friends and family because I was so excited about my first sale.  I will always be grateful to Tales of the Talisman magazine for being the first ones to take a chance on me.  That publication will always hold a special place in my heart. 

It’s five years later (or is it six?), my how time flies when you’re having fun.  I’ve moved twice, changed jobs, fallen in love and gotten remarried, lost a cat to diabetes and added two more to the household – and I’ve published more stories in more venues and even one more for Tales of the Talisman; but I’m still awfully proud of that little fantasy story that could.  And now I want to offer it to you for free.  You can download it from my Freebies page here.  If you like what you see, please consider cruising over to Tales of the Talisman and purchasing a magazine or three.  I know I’m not the only awesome author they’ve published.

Or at least one of them is – And the news is good!

I am proud to announce that my short story, “Bad for Business,” coming out shortly in the Malicious Deviance anthology from The Library of the Living Dead, was reviewed at Hellnotes.com and they liked me, they really liked me!  My story was tapped as best in the anthology and called “delightfully morbid.”  I’d say that’s a nice little recommendation for my most recent horror effort. 

Go.  Look.  Let me know what YOU think.  The review is here.

Once before we said our good-byes to a great magazine, and then against all odds those good-byes turned out to be un-needed.  Then, only an all too brief time later, we found ourselves saying good-bye again, and this time it seemed to be for good.  But once again, those good-byes have turned out to be un-needed – Realms of Fantasy magazine has been saved yet again, this time by Damnation Books LLC.  It rises again like a phoenix, or should we say a zombie?  After all, it is being published now by Damnation, so zombies would be appropriate.  As one other editor noted, RoF is gaining the reputation of the magazine that will not die. 

I, for one, am thrilled.  RoF is a fine magazine that I’ve enjoyed for years as a subscriber.  It’s also been one of my personal goals to sell a story to RoF.  It would be one of those signs that I’ve “made it” in the genre that I love so much.  Long live Realms of Fantasy….

Read the announcement of the sale here.

If you haven’t heard, November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short.  There are thousands of writers out there right this very minute pounding away on keyboards or scribbling away in notebooks trying to reach the goal of 50,000 words in 30 days.  It’s a little bit of collective insanity, and while most people take it as good, clean fun, others are taking it a bit more seriously, and some of those serious folks are against it, Laura Miller of Salon in particular.  (Read her opinion here)  Then there is the rebuttal from L.A. Times blogger Carolyn Kellog.   (Read her opinion here)

When I started to read Ms. Miller’s article, I could see where she was coming from with some of her points.  Writing crap is not the most productive activity, but I do feel like she was focusing too much on NaNoWriMo’s exhortation to kick the inner editor to the curb.  Every writer I know that has “won” NaNoWriMo was using it as a kick in the seat of the pants to just get going already on that novel.  After the end of November, and consequently NaNoWriMo, they continued to write (because 50K is pretty short for a novel), and then dove down into serious edit mode to get the story into some sort of shape they’d be proud to trot out in public.  But as much as I could see her point about the crap, the rest of the article went downhill from there…

I have to take issue with Ms. Miller’s assumption that writers are not readers.  Every good writer I know is a serious book-a-holic and reads voraciously at every opportunity.  Ms. Miller does cite two examples of self-proclaimed writers who flaunt that they don’t read, but I would contend that they are in the vast minority.  Or at least part of what I refer to as the wannabe contingent.  There are some people who wannabe writers because they want fame and fortune.  I’ll let you take a minute to get your belly laughs out.  Done?  Great. 

Anyone who is the least bit familiar with the publishing industry is also familiar with the fact that writing is one of the dumbest ways to seek fame and fortune.  Very few writers ever reach the rarified echelons that make the fat advances and experience recognition as a household name.  And compared to the number of writers actually trying to muscle their way into the publishing business?  It’s downright depressing.  Therefore, most people who keep banging away on the keyboard and soldiering through rejection after rejection are doing it for the love.  They love words.  They love stories.  And since they love words and stories, they pretty much by definition fall into the rabid reader camp. 

And for Ms. Miller to say that we don’t need any more novels?  It was like she kicked me in the gut.  I haven’t even made my run at New York yet!  Laura, darling, just give me a chance!  Or at least refrain from calling my life’s work, my vocation, my reason for being an exercise in futility.  That’s just cruel.

I’m always excited when I have a new story come out in print, or electrons if it’s an internet market.  But latest story seems a bit more exciting than most – because not only did an astute editor believe my writing was good enough for print, he thought it was good enough to be the featured story.  That’s right folks, my latest, “The Washer at the Laundromat,” is not only in the November 2010 Cover of Darkness, it’s also the featured story for this issue.  Your humble author is quite busy doing a dorky happy dance right now.  Enjoy!

Oh dear.  It’s happened again.  Another speculative fiction magazine is biting the dust.  Realms of Fantasy will soon be no more.  Back in 2009, Warren Lapine and Tir Na Nog press saved it from the brink of extinction and purchased the magazine from Sovreign Media.  Warren and his talented staff did thier best, and turned out some fine issues, but alas, it was not enough.  The economy got worse and the subscriber list shrank past the level needed to keep things viable. 

I always wanted to publish a story with RoF; it was one of my personal goals as a writer.  They have always been one of my favorite magazines as a reader.  Over the years I’ve sent them manuscripts and gotten pleasant rejection letters, occasionally with handwritten encouragement.  Now that they will be shuttering the magazine, it seems that small part of my writing dreams will never be realized.  I will miss this magazine. 

You can read publisher Warren Lapine’s goodbye here.

I have a confession to make.  Sometimes I write horror.  There, I said it. 

It’s taken me a long time to get to the place where I can admit that I write horror fiction.  For a long time I’ve had this mental block against all things horror because of the focus of mainstream horror – which is blood and guts and cheap shock value.  And that’s just gross, and even worse than that, it’s not terribly creative. 

I’ve never been the type of writer who wrote happy, sunshine-filled kind of stuff.  I just find the darker side of things more interesting.  And sometimes that darker side does include things like blood and guts and zombies.  I won’t shy away from the story that needs to be told, but I’m also not putting that sort of thing in the story just because it might make the story sell better in the horror market. 

So far, things seem to be working out well.  The Library of the Living Dead is publishing my short story, “Bad for Business,” in their Malicious Deviance anthology, and the fine folks over at Sam’s Dot Publications took my short story, “Haceldama,” for their Potter’s Field 4 anthology.  Both are pretty straight horror, complete with vicious fairies and zombie witches. 

I won’t do splatter gore.  I won’t do blood porn.  But my name is Michelle D. Sonnier, and I write horror (sometimes).