Gwenda Bond

Wednesday Hangovers: Or, All The Open Links In My Tabs

I think it's time for some links! so it's not all mememe around here. But...

A couple of little housekeeping items first. I FINALLY mapped my domain; your old links will work, but so will http://www.gwendabond.com. (When I say I mapped it, I mean the Web Bunny (aka Richard) and Christopher managed to fix the process I had begun in my typical flailing manner with all things technical.) Also, you may notice the book recommendations sidebar isn't on this page--but it is not gone. I gave it and the blogroll I'm in the process of recreating a page of their very own instead, which is also linked in the nav bar.

And last, I awoke to a tweet this morning from the lovely Strange Chemistry twitter account that you can add Blackwood (and Shift and Poltergeeks) to your to-read list on goodreads. So, if you're on goodreads and you'd like to, it would make me do a little chair dance. Am doing a lot of that of late. And now on to OTHER things.

• There's a brand new shiny online literary magazine devoted to YA short fiction called Sucker. Their first issue has just been posted, and the delightful Mima Tipper (who has a story in the issue) has interviewed the editor, Hannah Goodman, at Hen & Ink. 
• Jenny Davidson asks Colleen Mondor about The Map of My Dead Pilots: two of my favorite people talking about fascinating things. What could be better?
• Sara Zarr posted a link to a serial movie that you will want to watch if you like dancing and happy things, Girl Walk//All Day. And it solves the mystery of the riveting dancing tutor from this season of The Good Wife, who is Anne Marsen, the star. HAPPINESS.
• Elaine Showalter in the Guardian on some of the best literary novelists working today: women all. A snippet: "But the main reason why women do not figure in American literary history is because they haven't written it. Women writers need to be seen in larger contexts than their most recent novel, placed in relation to their contemporaries and their precursors, understood in terms of the themes and issues of their generations. Only then can we rewrite American literary history overall to reflect its full evolution and significance."
• A letter from a freed slave to his former master, upon being requested to come back to work. Via everybody.
• A great post from Diana Renn about challenges young sleuths face in mysteries at Sleuths, Spies, and Alibis.
• Victoria Schwab with an honest and wonderful post about her move to New York. I bet she gets an A in everything she samples from that course catalogue.
• Lindsay Goldwert at the NY Daily News on Sassy's impact as a recommender of literary wonderfulness (they were also indispensable in forming my tastes in music and movies), especially Weetzie Bat. I very much discovered those books because of Sassy, and our wonderful h.s. librarian ordered them, and they stayed checked out constantly. Anyway, must get the Weetzie prequel.
• Genevieve on Dermot Mulroney being an idiot about the fact he's gotten to act opposite so many fantastic ladies.
• Kristin Bell's sloth love. It is a beautiful and hilarious thing.

Of Goodwill

So, you are all kind of amazing. All your congratulations and good wishes and interest in the book--here, on twitter, on facebook, etc.--have been so, so appreciated. I couldn't manage to respond to everyone individually, but please know how much it means. As most of you know, I've been working toward this first novel sale for years (which is not at all unusual--interviewing writers for PW is always a great reminder that we only ever see the tippy tops of people's careers and the iceberg of all the work and setbacks and the rest of it is beneath the water, concealed from everyone but those people in our daily lives). And I always have a tendency to expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised if things don't go down in a flaming ball of fiery doom.

All this positivity is disconcerting. I'm not used to it.

Anyway, io9 did that great piece (how much do I love those guys? they are so great for SFF and YA and the world in general, so pinch moment number two--pinch moment number one was when the initital announcement from SC hit). And today the deal made it into Publishers Marketplace--and was mentioned in the daily Publishers Lunch newsletter, surreal pinch moment number three. I have read that newsletter every day FOR AGES and to see my book mentioned...my little #nerdromancethriller-that-could. Here's the text of the PM listing:

Gwenda Bond's BLACKWOOD, a young adult novel about a modern-day Lost Colony; when 114 people disappear from Roanoke Island, an unlikely pair of 17-year-olds may be the only hope of bringing them back, to Amanda Rutter at Angry Robot, in a two-book deal, for publication in Fall 2012, by Jennifer Laughran at Andrea Brown Literary Agency (World English).
Translation: Taryn Fagerness Agency

It's listed as an international deal because Angry Robot is based in the UK, but for those who've asked, like Angry Robot, Strange Chemistry will be a global imprint, and the book will be available in the US, the UK and I believe Australia as both a physical object and as an e-book (and Angry Robot also sells DRM-free e-books at their web store). And for booksellers (I LOVE YOU), Strange Chemistry/Angry Robot's US distribution is through Random House.

I really can't wait for you guys to get to read this book. Which I started, oh, back in 2005, I believe. I had the initial idea then, started it as a screenplay, realized I really should be writing YA and so re-started it as a novel...and set it aside for a lot of years because I didn't know the solution to the mystery. And I felt like if I was going to write a fantasy about Roanoke Island and the Lost Colony, I had to solve it, one way or another. Cut to last semester of grad school, a desperate need for a workshop piece, and I pulled out the opening I had. The group (led by the divine Cynthia Leitich Smith) were very, very helpful, but still, even though I knew the overall shape of the story, I didn't know what was causing the disappearances, so I shelved it again... And then, finally, the third time I started to work on it was the charm. Lightning, research, reading: Alchemy. Though, of course, I'm not going to reveal exactly *how* alchemy figures in.

The title Blackwood is actually from the masterminds of Angry Robot, by the way. My original title was too similar to the imprint name. And I like this so much better. It fits the story in every way and...

I really, really can't wait for you guys to get to read this book. So soon! In September. And I can't wait to get my edit letter from the fabulous Amanda and get to work on it again. And then on book two (which will be unrelated to this one; Blackwood is a standalone).

Also, just an aside: Jennifer Laughran is a goddess among agents. There are agents who wouldn't have hung in there with me, lo, these several years, and continued to be wonderful and excited about my work. Jenn did. So...

PINCH ME. But, don't worry, my head won't stay in the clouds, not when I have this: 

Pirate Hemingway Don't Care About Books

(Note: No actual eye-patches were used in this photo. Am playing w/ Typepad's new photo editor Aviary.)

 

 

And now back to work. More soon.

Book Deal News (!!!)

 And now it can be told:

Strange Chemistry are thrilled to announce a two book deal with Gwenda Bond, concluded between Amanda Rutter and Jennifer Laughran, of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, Inc. The first book, Blackwood, will be one of the imprint’s September 2012 launch titles, with the second following in 2013.

 

More info at the Strange Chemistry website. You could say I'm over the moon.

ETA: YOU GUYS, I am overwhelmed by all the congratulatory notes. Each and every one makes me tear up. You are all the best.

See also: io9's great round-up of the first THREE announced Strange Chemistry books; so excited to be in such good company. SQUEE.

Trapping The Wild Time Monster

A couple of posts I really liked lately that might not immediately seem related:

• Nora Jemisin on the price of time (and how sometimes spending money to get yourself time is a wise calculation): "So I’ve had to reassess my life as a writer, and decide whether some things that I’d previously dismissed as too expensive on a financial basis were, in fact, costing me far more in the long run due to lost time."
• Miriam Forster on "emotional flu" and taking downtime when you need it, like after finishing a giant project: "When you're physically sick, you need rest. Same goes for the emotional flu. So this week I'm going easy on myself.  No writing, no being productive at home unless I feel like it or it's urgent, like my husband running out of socks. No yelling at myself.  I'm going to go to work and spend time with my husband and pet the cat."

I recommend reading both in full. *waits*

Both of these really resonated with me, because of course we all have our own battles with time. And I get asked a lot how I manage to juggle all the things I regularly juggle (true answer: sometimes with little effort, sometimes with lots, most of the time somewhere in the middle). I definitely use both the techniques above.

I'm not particularly wise on the money front, but I agree that there are some things that it just pays to, well, pay for. For instance, if I have completely wrecked my neck hunching over papers or the laptop on a deadline or it's likely I will, I book a massage because I know I'll need it. (Yes, I realize this makes me sound like a brat, but I have learned from experience that it will often save emergency appointments and days of pain. Worth it.) The DVR, as Nora mentions too, is something I would sob and be very unhappy without...because:

One thing I do is try to give myself nights off. This isn't always possible. But we don't have kids, so more often than not it is. (Seriously, I'm in awe of anyone who manages to write and keep a household with children going, and I know there's often a day job in the mix too. *bows*) So, generally speaking, unless I'm on a major deadline, after 6 or 7 is play time. Brain dead time. Reading time. Going out to dinner time. Having a glass of wine and watching TV time. Twitter, blog reading or writing, etc. Guilt-free, all of it. This isn't exactly what Miriam is talking about, because that's something different--when you need a big chunk of relax, no-obligations-on-self, no-self-recrimination time to recharge. I'm not always so smart about taking that. But I do try to take some time every day that's "off." Otherwise, I go a little crazy.

I get up early just about every day and try to clock an hour minimum and two hours maximum of writing time before work. I also work during lunch. So that's three hours or so a day on the wip on a good day, at least an hour and a half on the bad days. Sometimes other things have to get subbed in here, but if I'm really in the middle of a book, I try to make sure I get the morning writing time in at a minimum.* During my writing time I don't mess around, and I don't have access to the web. That time is for writing only. Generally, that's about all the good time I have in me per day during a first draft anyway, so it's enough. Much more, and I'm burned out the next day. Revision takes bigger time chunks, so that's a little different, but.

Big freelance projects--proofing, PW pieces--mostly get done on the weekends, though they can slip into writing time on days I make word count and have time left over. For me, it's all about prioritizing. It's all about what's most pressing and how can I give it as much undivided time as possible until it's done? Because I find that multi-tasking is largely a fiction. It's a last resort. When I'm multi-tasking, the car is in the ditch, I am in the weeds. (I admire greatly those who can do it.)

And now...I have to go write an article. I'm definitely curious though, if anyone wants to talk about how they manage their days and writing time, feel free to in le comments.

*This is not to act like there aren't times when this gets disrupted because I really need the sleep instead or hit one of those natural pauses where there are a few days off, because there most definitely are.

MIA

I know! I know! But not for long. Promise. More posts coming sooooon. Seriously.

Empaneled

Charles Tan, aka the hardest working man in science fiction, recently hosted an email roundtable on YA speculative fiction with Malinda Lo, Tehani Wessely, Cheryl Morgan, Tarie Sabido, and yours truly. It was great fun to do, although apparently I was trying to see how many times I could use the word conversation. (Answer: LOTS.) I blame holiday madness.

The resulting conversationpanel is now live at SF Signal. Check it out if you're so inclined.