So, I don’t think I ever mentioned why I chose to self-publish Harper Madigan: Junior High Private Eye.  For those of you who don’t know, it’s a noir detective story.  It’s also MG, so self-publishing it isn’t the most obvious path to get it into the hands of readers.  A lot of people have misconceptions about self-publishing, or at least that’s what I’ve been noticing lately.  (I did not notice much last year.  Last year was a dead sort of year, what with my doctor mistakenly putting me on way too low of thyroid meds and turning me into a zombie, which made for very little writing and even less of everything else.  But I got a new doctor and better meds and a better dosage.  There’s more to the story, but that’s another post for another time.)

Anyway, the hard truth of publishing is that good books do not always get published.  The Rise of Renegade X came this close to not finding any love at all and fading into obscurity on my hard drive.  In fact, Harper Madigan got more editor love than Renegade X, with three separate editors falling in love with it and wanting to buy.  But editors alone don’t decide what gets bought, no matter how much they love it, and their houses said no, they couldn’t sell it.  So here’s me with this awesome book that I still want people to get to read, but no publisher.

So what’s a girl to do?  Put on her DIY hat and PUBLISH IT HERSELF, that’s what.  And you know what?  Putting it all together myself was a lot of fun and I was able to do it quickly and easily and pretty much stress-free.  It was also a great way to get started in the world of self-publishing before putting out The Trials of Renegade X.  I am very pro hybrid-career at this point, and while I hope to continue to find traditional publishers for some books, it’s not something I can control.  I can, however, control how many books I self-publish.

And speaking of Harper Madigan, I have some good news to share about it!  But not yet.  Soon, precioussss.  Soon.  And I have good news to share about Renegade X, but if I wait a little while, it may turn into really freaking awesome news, so, again, we must all wait.

Another highlight from the trip was seeing Mr. Pointy and Nighthawk, two of the stakes used on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  (I mean, you remember Mr. Pointy, don’t you?)  I stared at these things for way too long!  There was supposed to be a spellbook from Buffy on display, too, but it had been put away “for conservation.”

There were lots of other cool things, too, like Superman’s costume from Superman IV, Shaun of the Dead’s shirt, and this creepy Pon Farr perfume I saw in the gift shop:

You can see more pics over on my Pinterest board.

This weekend was also ALA Midwinter here in Seattle.  Got to hang out with lots of people and scored a bunch of ARCs.  Didn’t get any writing done (sad), but feel refreshed and excited about books in general.

Mark your calendars for September, 2013!  That’s right, The Trials of Renegade X will be released next September!  This might seem like a long way off, especially when you guys have been so patient–a lot of you have been waiting for this since 2010.  But September is when everything can be done by–both on my end and for others involved in getting the project out the door–and it’s going to be amazing.

If you haven’t already, you can mark the sequel as “to read” on Goodreads or join the Facebook group to help spread the word!

And I have another book coming out next spring that hopefully I will be able to announce soon.  It’s not Renegade X related, but if you like the voice in Renegade X, you’re going to love this one, too.

In other news, The Rise of Renegade X came out in Russian!  I found out from a Russian fan messaging me on Facebook–one thing you learn very quickly in this business is that nobody tells authors anything.  I knew we’d sold Russian rights, but I had no idea when it was coming out.  Damien’s name in the translated version is “Damien Loki,” which seems appropriate. ;)  Oh, and according to Google Translate, the Russian title is “The Desperate and Undefeated Renegade X.”

Frankly, I think writing fiction is the most important, most noblest career anyone can aspire to.  That may just be my years of wanting it so badly brainwashing me into thinking that, but stories are important.  They change lives, they comfort us when we’re sad (no one understands you like your favorite book, you know?), they let us glom up all the experiences of another person, both the fictional experiences of the characters and the real thoughts and emotions and tidbits of reality put in by the author.  Stories are transformative and allow us to experience change in a safe setting.

And writing is hard.  You could take a writing class, turn in all your assignments, and get an A but still be a crappy writer.  It’s learnable, obviously, but it takes a lot of time and effort.  People often say it’s a ten year apprenticeship, which it definitely was for me, though I guess it depends on how quickly you get in your million words/10,000 outlier hours.  But that’s a lot, and that’s just to be publishable, just to start a writing career.  And most people don’t have the discipline to put in the crazy time and effort it takes to become a pro writer.  Everyone who’s read your books has a little piece of you in their minds now.  That’s pretty amazing.  More amazing, I think, than going to grad school or earning lots of money.

This week in my Meaningful Gamification class, we’re studying behaviorism and how rewards are used to affect behavior.  So basically people have studied how doling out rewards/in what ways they’re doled out affects learning.  So if you have someone push a button to get a reward, but they only get a reward at one minute intervals, then they learn not to bother pushing the button until that one minute mark.  But if you make the rewards come at random times, so that the person never knows when pushing the button will get them something, then they learn that behavior really well and it becomes an addictive “checking” habit.

When I was listening to that part of the lecture, my first thought was, “Wow, that sounds annoying.  What a stupid thing to get hooked on.”  And then of course I realized that it sounds EXACTLY like me checking my email.  I think most of us can relate.  And if you’ve ever gotten a really good email–whatever that might be to you–that gives you a really good spike in happy chemicals, then it becomes even harder to quit.  Mostly, though, it doesn’t matter if I ever get the reward of an email or not–checking for it has become an addiction and just the hope of having a message keeps me going.  If I leave for a few days and don’t check my email, then I break that habit a little and I don’t feel the need to check once I get home.  I always feel at that point like I could just walk away from it.  But then I get curious and want to check, just once, just to see… and it’s a slippery slope from there.  (I read once in an entrepreneurial magazine that it’s recommended you check your email no more than four times a day, so it doesn’t become stressful.  I think I’ll start by cutting back to four times an hour.)

And it’s not just me and the other email/Facebook/Twitter addicts out there, by my cat, too.  One of my cats, Kitten, saw a particularly
interesting skittery bug in the corner of the bathroom once, maybe twice, and now he’s hooked.  No matter how many times he doesn’t see a bug in the corner, he can’t stop checking for it.  And every time he checks, even if he comes up empty, it seems to reinforce the behavior, making him just want to do it more.  Every time he follows me into the bathroom (he’s also obsessed with following me around everywhere, so maybe he’s prone to addictive behavior–I don’t know), he goes right to that corner and checks it out.  Sometimes he’s in there just staring into the corner, hoping and waiting.  And I often think, “Wow, that is sad!”  And then I wonder if it’s really any sadder than checking the internets over and over.  I mean, I’m pretty sure all my precious emails are a little more important than the possibility of there being a bug in the corner.  But as much as I don’t care about chasing bugs, I’m sure Kitten is equally unimpressed by chasing emails.  If getting to see a bug gives him the same spike of happiness, then is it really any different?

As most of you probably know (I think), I do a lot of knitting and crocheting.  Last year I made my first venture into crochet design with the ponies, and this summer I made my first knit design.  In all my years of knitting and crocheting, I honestly thought I would never get into design work, but I really love it.  It’s kind of like with writing where I read tons as a kid and so of course I wanted to make my own stories.  And now I knit and crochet tons of stuff, too, and eventually there’s that drive to create something.

I was inspired to make this when I saw a hat with the NYC skyline on it.  It’s supposed to be one of the most recognizable skylines in the world, and I thought, “Maybe, but the Seattle skyline is MORE recognizable.”  (Though I admit I may be a bit biased…)  So I sat down with a piece of graph paper and a Google image search on the Seattle skyline and got to work.

Rainy Day Seattle Hat:

Reminiscent of a cool, rainy morning in the Northwest, this beanie-style hat has everything you need to show off your love for the Emerald City. The hazelnut and cream ribbing represents warming up with a hot mocha on a cold day, while the Seattle skyline rises against a typical drizzly gray backdrop. (The dark green yarn carried in the back shows through the gray a little, creating the perfect rainy look.) Washington apples form a ring above the city, alternating between solid green and heart-shaped outlines, and snow-covered evergreens top off the ensemble.

You can see more pics (or buy the pattern) on Ravelry.  Also, if you have a Ravelry account, feel free to friend me!

As of now I just finished my last final for summer semester!  Now I have two weeks off before it all starts up again…

Book wise, I have not forgotten about you all who are diligently waiting for The Trials of Renegade X.  I’ve had to put it on hold for a bit while I work on finishing up my dark YA fantasy, Fire and Chasm, which needs to go back out on sub.  And I’ve been working with the amazing Karen Kincy (author of Other, Bloodborn, and the upcoming Foxfire) on the Steampunk Book of Awesome.  Two books at once is about all I can handle, but as soon as I finish up Fire and Chasm, I’ll be back to working on the Renegade X sequel.

Knitting wise, I am working on my first original pattern (I’ve only made crochet patterns), and am also dying to make this Louhi coat.  It’s the long gray one that looks really archaic and cool.  I’m finishing up a cape right now and this hoodie (as soon as I actually buy the rest of the yarn I need), but man do I want to cast on and start that Louhi coat!  It turns out I like making capes and coats and cloaks and things.  And hoods.  I can’t own enough coats and it turns out I can’t make enough of them either.

Once upon a time, in 2004, in a faraway land called Bellingham, WA, where the sky, the earth, and the sea are all the same shade of gray, I got it into my head that I wanted a portable writing device.  I had a desktop at the time and I wanted to be able to write anywhere, whether that meant when I was out of the apartment or just when I was sitting on the couch.  I did a lot of research and discovered the NEC Mobile Pro.  (Which, as you can see if you follow the link, is also gray.)  It was super portable, had an actual keyboard (not full size, but it worked), and it turned on and off instantly, which meant no waiting for my computer to boot up in order to write down any brilliant plot ideas I had at one in the morning.

I got a refurbished one off of eBay.  It had a spot where you could plug in your dial up internet (LOL), and the one I got came with a WiFi card so you could connect to the network, even if it was kind of slow.  But I never ended up using the internet on it.  It was a little tiny box with Pocket Word and a word count meter and almost nothing else.  There were no distractions, and it changed my life.

Or at least my writing life, which was pretty much the same thing.  Not only was it light and portable and I could sit wherever I wanted with it or write in the quiet room at the university library, but I became way more productive.  And it’s not that I’d never experienced periods of high productivity with my writing, even with the internet, but it was so much easier to get into that mode without having the option of turning to distractions every time I got stuck.

In the summer of 2007, the same summer I finally graduated college and the same summer that the last Harry Potter book came out, I wrote The Rise of Renegade X, all on that little computer.  Then, two years later after I’d sold the book and gotten paid for it, I bought a shiny new laptop.  I love my shiny not-so-new-anymore laptop that literally sparkles in the sunlight (there are blue sparkles on the lid, but they only show up in direct sunlight), and at the time I’d badly needed a computer that actually functioned, since my desktop was, on its good days, barely still functioning.

So I got the laptop, and it did all the computery things I wanted it to do, like play games and play videos (with sound! and without blue screening at random times!) and check my email 1,000 times a day.  And gradually I stopped using my MobilePro.  My laptop didn’t have a spot for the sync cable, my MobilePro had no USB ports, and my laptop couldn’t read the card that the MobilePro could actually save to, at least not without hooking up a separate card reader, and the card itself was unreliable and would frequently forget everything that I’d saved on it.

Anyway, since then I’ve been writing exclusively on my laptop, which has about a million distractions on it, including the internet, which I can’t stay away from.  And if it’s not the internet, then it’s Spider Solitaire.  And lately I’ve been especially prone to these distractions and I have a lot of writing projects I’m not making enough progress on, if any.  So I decided it was time to go back to an internet-less computer.

I did tons of research and got this slightly used HP Mini for a great deal on eBay:

This netbook ended up being the perfect combo of everything I wanted.  USB ports, card reader, runs actual Windows (instead of CE) so it can handle Open Office and doesn’t screw up formatting when I’m passing files between computers.  It’s lightweight and gets almost 10 hours off one battery charge and it comes out of hibernating instantly, and the boot up time when I turn it on is super fast, too.  And the keyboard, which you can see in this next picture, is just how I wanted it.  Chicklet style with a hard base.

(As you can see in this pic, I am clearly working hard on The Trials of Renegade X.)

I uninstalled any unnecessary programs, deleted all the games, and left the whole thing not connected to the network.  It has my writing programs and that’s pretty much it.  It’s amazing how big a difference not having those distractions makes!  Instead of being unfocused and looking for ways to procrastinate, I’m actually, you know, working.

Sometimes it pays to know what works best for you.  If the internet is there, I will poke at it.  I won’t be able to leave it alone, and I know this about myself.  And it can make working on my laptop a source of stress.  In contrast, the netbook feels like a quiet, stress-free workspace that is just me and my books and the tools to make them better.

So you know that Garbage song, I’m Only Happy When It Rains?  Yeah, well, it took me forever to realize that song was about being emo.  Not like I’m actually only happy when it rains, but when you grow up in the NW, especially in some sort of black hole rain shadow, a rainy day is so comforting.  I got on this subject because yesterday it rained, and it was cold and chilly and wet and we had the windows open so all of that could blow in.  A good rainy day, where you can hear the rain outside and smell it in the air, always makes me feel safe and like everything is right with the world.  It’s the kind of thing that makes you say, in all seriousness, “Wow, it’s a beautiful day today,” when you get up in the morning and everything is wet and cold and nostalgic.

And it’s not like I like being wet and cold or anything.  It’s funny how this kind of weather reminds me of walking to school back in junior high, and while I don’t remember particularly enjoying that part of my day–especially if it involved cold drops of water pouring over me–but the same weather now can make me think of those times and only pull out the good stuff, like the way the rain makes me feel so alive.

I have a vitamin D deficiency, and some days, despite taking supplements, I sit here longing for the sun like nobody’s business.  I feel like some withering old plant dying in the corner.  And sometimes I think maybe one of these days I’m going to have to relocate to a place with actual sunlight.  And then a rainy day comes along and I’m pretty sure I couldn’t ever leave here.

So, I can admit that the beginning of the year was a lot busier than I expected (A LOT busier).  I pubbed my middle grade noir mystery, Harper Madigan: Junior High Private Eye.  I expanded from doing commissions on DeviantArt to an actual Etsy business.  I was taking grad school classes.  I spent my spring break working a (stressful) temp job.  And I finished up another temp job earlier this month.

If I never work another 9-5 job, I will not be shedding any tears.  I am seriously not cut out for it.  Probably most of us aren’t.  I keep reading about how more and more of us are turning to freelance work, so I know it’s not just me.

But anyway!  Some of you have been asking about The Trials of Renegade X and how it’s coming along.  And now that my workload has mellowed out and the nervous breakdown meter is no longer on orange alert, I’ve finally been able to sit down with this book again and make some progress.  (For those of you not reading this directly from my site, the word count bar is up to 5,700, about 8% of the expected total.)

And this isn’t really a surprise, but I LOVE this story.  Even though I’ve had it planned out for months, it’s hard to get back into writing when I haven’t done it in a while, and especially when I haven’t been writing regularly.  But the more time I spend working on this, the more I love it and the more into it I am.  I’ve crossed the threshold of “Juggling all this stuff is hard! *WHINE*” to “OMG, I can’t wait to put in this and this and this, and THIS cool thing goes here, and wait, there was a better way to phrase that sentence I wrote five pages ago…”  It’s like the difference between pushing a piano upstairs and sliding down the banister.  (Not that I can slide down banisters.  But, you know, if I *could,* then I’m sure that’s what it would be like.  For the record, I’m pretty sure I can’t push a piano upstairs either.  In fact, I’m more likely to pull off a really awesome banister slide than I am to move a piano at all.)

And The Trials of Renegade X now has a Facebook page.  It’s where I’m posting my daily word count.  Go there, press like, and you can watch the book grow (and shrink and then grow again, as books are wont to do…) and show your support and tell your friends and all that.  I mean, you do have friends, don’t you?  And you wouldn’t want to be accused of depriving them of something awesome, right?  RIGHT? *makes squinty accusing eyes*

Ahem.

Anyway, you might be wondering when this book will be done, and, more importantly, when can you have it???  Well, according to my estimations–*types random numbers in giant calculator with one of those paper rolls coming out the back*–I should be done with the first draft in 2 – 3 months.  But you never know when I might get crazy obsessed and not be able to stop myself from doing anything besides writing.  But you also never know when life will get completely overwhelming and get in the way.  So, yeah, 2 – 3 months.  Then there’s editing and revising to do.  And then–THEN–you can have it.  And by my calculations, that means it will be out some time this fall, late November at the latest.  Which means it’ll be out in time for the holidays and you can surprise all your friends you “forgot” to link to the FB page with copies and you will be crowned the best gift giver ever.  (Or at least until next year.)

So that’s the scoop on the sequel.  I’ll know more about the release date as I get closer to finishing the book.  In the mean time, go read Harper Madigan.  It’s awesome and it made this Top Ten Underappreciated Books List.