Wednesday, 22 August 2012
Tuesday, 21 August 2012
Monday, 20 August 2012
To part-time or not to part-time
I've always been an author who's been glad to have a day job - it does keep me sane and connected and from turning into a self-absorbed hermit. I also like to be able to afford to buy things I want (mostly books, but a lot of them and quite a few expensive ones). I like being able to pay my mortgage. I don't want to freak out over an unexpected bill.
On the other hand, my day job is draining, often boring, and extremely repetitive. It often feels like I'm editing the same document twenty times. Every single day, five days a week, four weeks a month, twelve month a year, for the rest of my working life (=30 years). There are days when I get home and all creativity and joy has been scourged out of my soul. I'm not pulling the "speshul snowflake" card, but being a writer, running a publisher and working full time is a wear and tear that I'm starting to feel. So I've been doing numbers. I don't think I'll ever quit my day job (for pension and mental health reasons), but I'm starting to think I might be able to wrestle at least my Fridays from the corporate clutch. The end goal would be to go part-time on a 2.5-day basis, which should neatly cut my week into three roughly equal chunks of Day Job, Writing, Riptide, which I think would be ideal (and mean I won't collapse in my mid-fifties of stress and burnout). The alternative would be to find a better working environment in a different company that pays more; however, I'm not sure banks will ever re-hire in my field. Or at least not in the foreseeable future (ie, less than 3 years).
The problem I'm foreseeing is that, while my income from writing is growing, it's patchy. Yesterday's big seller might not sell anything next month. I don't write many contemporaries. I don't write the stuff that sells very much (which I'm acknowledging without envy or resentment - after all, I could probably learn how to do that if I *really* wanted to and were desperate for the cash). It would also mean I'd have to be more productive. I couldn't afford not to publish for 3-4 months. I'd have to have something new out every two months. Basically, writing would become work. I might even have to kill or postpone books that won't sell very much (=everything but contemporaries). I couldn't, in good conscience, write a novel that won't sell. My worst fear is that I'll be losing my freedom to write whatever strikes my fancy on that day, that I don't have enough readers to support that decision in good conscience.
I could possibly talk to HR about how easy/difficult it would be to go back onto 5 days if it all fails. Personally, I think I'd be saner and happier on a four-day week, and productive enough to make the financial sacrifice worth it. Although it's still 20% of my "real" income, and calculating those numbers makes me slightly ill, London not being a cheap place to be. And then I tell myself I can keep this pace going for another 2-5 years and then go part-time. It's a goal. At least it's always good to have a goal, regardless of how far away that looks at the moment.
On the other hand, my day job is draining, often boring, and extremely repetitive. It often feels like I'm editing the same document twenty times. Every single day, five days a week, four weeks a month, twelve month a year, for the rest of my working life (=30 years). There are days when I get home and all creativity and joy has been scourged out of my soul. I'm not pulling the "speshul snowflake" card, but being a writer, running a publisher and working full time is a wear and tear that I'm starting to feel. So I've been doing numbers. I don't think I'll ever quit my day job (for pension and mental health reasons), but I'm starting to think I might be able to wrestle at least my Fridays from the corporate clutch. The end goal would be to go part-time on a 2.5-day basis, which should neatly cut my week into three roughly equal chunks of Day Job, Writing, Riptide, which I think would be ideal (and mean I won't collapse in my mid-fifties of stress and burnout). The alternative would be to find a better working environment in a different company that pays more; however, I'm not sure banks will ever re-hire in my field. Or at least not in the foreseeable future (ie, less than 3 years).
The problem I'm foreseeing is that, while my income from writing is growing, it's patchy. Yesterday's big seller might not sell anything next month. I don't write many contemporaries. I don't write the stuff that sells very much (which I'm acknowledging without envy or resentment - after all, I could probably learn how to do that if I *really* wanted to and were desperate for the cash). It would also mean I'd have to be more productive. I couldn't afford not to publish for 3-4 months. I'd have to have something new out every two months. Basically, writing would become work. I might even have to kill or postpone books that won't sell very much (=everything but contemporaries). I couldn't, in good conscience, write a novel that won't sell. My worst fear is that I'll be losing my freedom to write whatever strikes my fancy on that day, that I don't have enough readers to support that decision in good conscience.
I could possibly talk to HR about how easy/difficult it would be to go back onto 5 days if it all fails. Personally, I think I'd be saner and happier on a four-day week, and productive enough to make the financial sacrifice worth it. Although it's still 20% of my "real" income, and calculating those numbers makes me slightly ill, London not being a cheap place to be. And then I tell myself I can keep this pace going for another 2-5 years and then go part-time. It's a goal. At least it's always good to have a goal, regardless of how far away that looks at the moment.
Sunday, 19 August 2012
Skybound Tour stop #1 - Comment & Win
Okay, I'm back from Cambridge. Travelling during the hottest two days of the year is no fun. Also, I'm all weddinged out.
BUT! I've returned just in time to kick off the promo tour for Skybound. Today, I'm talking about some of the background of this story at Brief Encounters. Comment, win an AMZ gift certificate, hang out with me. :)
BUT! I've returned just in time to kick off the promo tour for Skybound. Today, I'm talking about some of the background of this story at Brief Encounters. Comment, win an AMZ gift certificate, hang out with me. :)
Saturday, 18 August 2012
Skybound: Happy release day to me
Last night, Skybound was release. Well pre-released, really, so it'll show up on Amazon, but right now it can be bought at Riptide.
Whew, what a little book. Stylistically, it's different. There are so many ways this is different. It's first person. It's present tense. It's very short (though not as short as Burn or Deliverance). It's a pure-play historical, it has barely any sex. It's the first time I'm touching Nazi Germany as a setting. For every page of the final story, I must have put in at least one hour of research.
Anyway, it's out now, and I'm off to Cambridge to attend a wedding reception, and back on Sunday, when my blog tour starts. I hope you'll enjoy the story, and stay tuned for more news, soon. :)
Whew, what a little book. Stylistically, it's different. There are so many ways this is different. It's first person. It's present tense. It's very short (though not as short as Burn or Deliverance). It's a pure-play historical, it has barely any sex. It's the first time I'm touching Nazi Germany as a setting. For every page of the final story, I must have put in at least one hour of research.
Anyway, it's out now, and I'm off to Cambridge to attend a wedding reception, and back on Sunday, when my blog tour starts. I hope you'll enjoy the story, and stay tuned for more news, soon. :)
Thursday, 16 August 2012
Mastering Rage, part #56856423
One of the things that people tend to notice about me (if they know me for more than a few hours), is that I have "anger issues". Not anger issues like one of my best friends back in Germany, who, in fourth grade or so, upon being teased, put another kid in hospital (and he went to therapy for it). Still, he had a flaring temper, and whenever he'd encounter frustration or even evil, it visibly boiled under the surface. He was a guy you'd want on your side in a battle in any case. Maybe that was why we got along so well.
I'm now 37 years old, and I'm calling my anger the "crusader moment/response", when I'm so deeply affronted by something that my response--after a shock moment, is rage. There are two kinds of people, I've heard a fighting teacher say, when they get hit, one freezes, the other freaks out and goes medieval.
I'm the medieval type. For much of my childhood and teenage years, I was the bullied outsider. I was the gentle giant who would, after enough drops of anger had accumulated, spill it all in one glorious berserk rage, sometimes resulting in (mental or physical or both) damage to people and property. When I'm in real danger, I go cold. When I encounter violence, I stand and fight. It's even worse when my friends are threatened.
I've done some looking into this anger thing, reading some books and listening to people and attempting to come to terms. I like my rage. It's hyper-real, chest-pounding, high-energy. I get really snappy and sometimes even funny when I'm angry. It's good to never really feel physically threatened, because if something or somebody attacks me, I know that I have fight in me. It's the whole "I might go down, but I'm taking you with me" approach to conflict. Losses, pain, blood--don't matter. My mind is on destruction then. And it's fun, which is the worst part.
I believe the formative causes of my rage are two-fold. I was bullied. That gives you a lot of rage you can draw on. I also learned that, first hand, being the "gentle giant" doesn't work. I'm pretty sure that if I had fought back against the bullies (yes, actually punching them in the face), my school years would have been less traumatic, and I'd spent less time thinking about killing myself.
Another factor is genetic. My biological father had rage issues. He was also a drunk, a mean alcoholic, a wife-beater and a marital rapist. Part might be me, absorbing his rage as a toddler, part might be his genetic input. I often say that I have inherited that rage from my father along with the blue eyes and the shape of my nose. I mean, we're talking about a guy who threatened a cancer patient with a rifle.
Reading about anger and emotions, I encountered the concept that anger happens when our values are threatened.I'm finding that concept actually really quite useful; it explains why I can go berserk for a friend who's threatened or has been harmed, and why I still want to punch some bigots and transphobes in the face. It's not my anger, it's my sense of loyalty, friendship and equality--just fighting back. Anger, then, is less of a dark, destructive force that provides a hit like cocaine, it's my value system's self-defense. An immune system reaction to somebody stepping on my innermost beliefs. It explains why I struggle forgiving former friends who wronged me--friendship is one of my absolute core values, along with loyalty. But it's also internal--anger is my response, and I can choose it.
As an example. You guys might know that I've recently attempted to get some garden/landscaper people in to sort out my garden. After discarding a pretty dodgy first provider, the second looked all right, so we started talking about doing fencing work and laying a patio. Then, however, those people say they need to cut the overgrowth before they even start laying the patio. The "overgrowth" in question was 2-3 months' worth of brambles, ivy and bushes. To do the job, those people attempted to charge nearly three thousand dollars (which includes tax). At which point I took a pair of clippers, gloves, and did it myself in a lazy afternoon.
The thing was, that $3k quote really burned me. It came up suddenly, without warning, and put the whole garden revamp into a price category where it might be financially more reasonable to make a down payment for a rental property. The quote was getting that expensive. There were so many reasons why this made me angry, but I think it really affronted several of my values: how I believe a business should be run (fairly), how I believe customers should be treated (with transparency), what I think a provider/customer relationship should be like (you do a good job at a fair price, and you're getting my repeat business and I'll recommend you).
My Inner Bull raged, I was so angry. Did the guy think I was made of money? How can two untrained gardeners, even if they have to work for two days cutting back some brambles and three bushes, ask for more money than I'm taking home in pay in a month, after having graduated and having accumulated nearly a decade of experience? Did this guy think I'm dumb? Did he actually believe I'll hand over a wad of cash for three hours' work? Why would he jeopardize the much larger, much more expensive job over cutting back three bushes?
The anger was building up. I had some choice words for him. It got to the point where I wouldn't have hired them to do anything, even if they had been the owners of the only pair of secateurs left on the planet.
But then I thought about it, analysed it. Dissected my anger and my responses. (I know, this shit is really obvious to better-adjusted people who learnt sooner to understand and harness their anger; hey, I'm a late bloomer.) He called again and lowered the quote by 50%, then told me he'd match any quote I got from a competitor. Too little, too late, but I still didn't shout at him, merely listened to that proposal. I may have sardonically smirked to myself.
Same day, I got a different landscping firm in, they promised me a quote by Friday.
Next day, I called the first guy and told him the deal was off. By then, I'd realised that, while I could make him miserable and angry if I let loose at him, there was really no point. Losing several thousand pounds in profits will do that job quite nicely. So I thanked him for his time, cancelled the whole deal, apologized profusely for the cancellation (I did tell him that I'm not questioning his prices--they were merely "out of budget" for us at that stage), and let him move on with life.
Knowing which of my values were hit, much like musical bones, I'm also aware that I can't change the way he does business. If his values are elastic enough to rip people off, and if he finds fools willing to pay ten times what a job is worth, then more power to him. My choice is to find somebody whose values are closer aligned to my own. There's no need for rage. I'll keep in in the box, along with other survival mechanisms, for far more dire events than a dishonest landscaper.
I can't guarantee he won't make it into a story, though.
I'm now 37 years old, and I'm calling my anger the "crusader moment/response", when I'm so deeply affronted by something that my response--after a shock moment, is rage. There are two kinds of people, I've heard a fighting teacher say, when they get hit, one freezes, the other freaks out and goes medieval.
I'm the medieval type. For much of my childhood and teenage years, I was the bullied outsider. I was the gentle giant who would, after enough drops of anger had accumulated, spill it all in one glorious berserk rage, sometimes resulting in (mental or physical or both) damage to people and property. When I'm in real danger, I go cold. When I encounter violence, I stand and fight. It's even worse when my friends are threatened.
I've done some looking into this anger thing, reading some books and listening to people and attempting to come to terms. I like my rage. It's hyper-real, chest-pounding, high-energy. I get really snappy and sometimes even funny when I'm angry. It's good to never really feel physically threatened, because if something or somebody attacks me, I know that I have fight in me. It's the whole "I might go down, but I'm taking you with me" approach to conflict. Losses, pain, blood--don't matter. My mind is on destruction then. And it's fun, which is the worst part.
I believe the formative causes of my rage are two-fold. I was bullied. That gives you a lot of rage you can draw on. I also learned that, first hand, being the "gentle giant" doesn't work. I'm pretty sure that if I had fought back against the bullies (yes, actually punching them in the face), my school years would have been less traumatic, and I'd spent less time thinking about killing myself.
Another factor is genetic. My biological father had rage issues. He was also a drunk, a mean alcoholic, a wife-beater and a marital rapist. Part might be me, absorbing his rage as a toddler, part might be his genetic input. I often say that I have inherited that rage from my father along with the blue eyes and the shape of my nose. I mean, we're talking about a guy who threatened a cancer patient with a rifle.
Reading about anger and emotions, I encountered the concept that anger happens when our values are threatened.I'm finding that concept actually really quite useful; it explains why I can go berserk for a friend who's threatened or has been harmed, and why I still want to punch some bigots and transphobes in the face. It's not my anger, it's my sense of loyalty, friendship and equality--just fighting back. Anger, then, is less of a dark, destructive force that provides a hit like cocaine, it's my value system's self-defense. An immune system reaction to somebody stepping on my innermost beliefs. It explains why I struggle forgiving former friends who wronged me--friendship is one of my absolute core values, along with loyalty. But it's also internal--anger is my response, and I can choose it.
As an example. You guys might know that I've recently attempted to get some garden/landscaper people in to sort out my garden. After discarding a pretty dodgy first provider, the second looked all right, so we started talking about doing fencing work and laying a patio. Then, however, those people say they need to cut the overgrowth before they even start laying the patio. The "overgrowth" in question was 2-3 months' worth of brambles, ivy and bushes. To do the job, those people attempted to charge nearly three thousand dollars (which includes tax). At which point I took a pair of clippers, gloves, and did it myself in a lazy afternoon.
The thing was, that $3k quote really burned me. It came up suddenly, without warning, and put the whole garden revamp into a price category where it might be financially more reasonable to make a down payment for a rental property. The quote was getting that expensive. There were so many reasons why this made me angry, but I think it really affronted several of my values: how I believe a business should be run (fairly), how I believe customers should be treated (with transparency), what I think a provider/customer relationship should be like (you do a good job at a fair price, and you're getting my repeat business and I'll recommend you).
My Inner Bull raged, I was so angry. Did the guy think I was made of money? How can two untrained gardeners, even if they have to work for two days cutting back some brambles and three bushes, ask for more money than I'm taking home in pay in a month, after having graduated and having accumulated nearly a decade of experience? Did this guy think I'm dumb? Did he actually believe I'll hand over a wad of cash for three hours' work? Why would he jeopardize the much larger, much more expensive job over cutting back three bushes?
The anger was building up. I had some choice words for him. It got to the point where I wouldn't have hired them to do anything, even if they had been the owners of the only pair of secateurs left on the planet.
But then I thought about it, analysed it. Dissected my anger and my responses. (I know, this shit is really obvious to better-adjusted people who learnt sooner to understand and harness their anger; hey, I'm a late bloomer.) He called again and lowered the quote by 50%, then told me he'd match any quote I got from a competitor. Too little, too late, but I still didn't shout at him, merely listened to that proposal. I may have sardonically smirked to myself.
Same day, I got a different landscping firm in, they promised me a quote by Friday.
Next day, I called the first guy and told him the deal was off. By then, I'd realised that, while I could make him miserable and angry if I let loose at him, there was really no point. Losing several thousand pounds in profits will do that job quite nicely. So I thanked him for his time, cancelled the whole deal, apologized profusely for the cancellation (I did tell him that I'm not questioning his prices--they were merely "out of budget" for us at that stage), and let him move on with life.
Knowing which of my values were hit, much like musical bones, I'm also aware that I can't change the way he does business. If his values are elastic enough to rip people off, and if he finds fools willing to pay ten times what a job is worth, then more power to him. My choice is to find somebody whose values are closer aligned to my own. There's no need for rage. I'll keep in in the box, along with other survival mechanisms, for far more dire events than a dishonest landscaper.
I can't guarantee he won't make it into a story, though.
Wednesday, 15 August 2012
Skybound Tour Dates
I now have my official Skybound tour dates: 19-24 August, finishing up with a last stop on my own blog (that's here). Compared to Incursion, it's going to be a little shorter, mostly because it's a short story and there's really only so much I can talk about with 13k. Doing ten stops on three blog posts isn't really feasible.
(That, BTW, is another great reason to write novels - much, MUCH more to talk about.)
(That, BTW, is another great reason to write novels - much, MUCH more to talk about.)
Tuesday, 14 August 2012
Donations for trans* charity wanted
Today's a plug for a friend and a cause that's really close to my heart. Indie author Brenda Cothern is asking for donations for a fundraiser benefiting a charity looking after trans*/gender-variant people.
Here's her message:
Here's her message:
Hello everyone,I am a volunteer with the Tampa Bay House of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Order, they are an international non-profit organization who does outreach (provides condoms, lube, dental damns,), educates the community, and raises funds for other non-profits to support the gay community.As a Novice Sister, I will be hosting a fundraiser to become a Fully Professed Member of the Order and have picked Trans*Action Florida to be my beneficiary. Trans*Action is a non-profit group who strives "To create positive change in how transgender and gender variant persons are treated." Their purpose is "to advocate for social change, to educate and create awareness, [and] to provide referrals to community resources." They are also a 501c3 non-profit organization.I am currently seeking donations to give as gift prizes for several raffles that will happen during my fundraiser. Aleks has already generously sent me a paperback signed copy of Dark Soul (Thank You!!) and I was wondering if anyone else would like to help out this great cause. Paper Books, e-Books, T-Shirts, gift certificates or anything else you think would make a great prize and would be willing to donate would be much appreciated.Thank you for taking the time to read this email. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me directly at bcothernbooks@gmail.com.
Monday, 13 August 2012
Incursion's technology: It's real
I like to take credit when I deserve it, but I diod not make up some of the technology in Incursion. Kyle's prosthetics, "cheap" in his world and time (and pretty low tech by his standards) already exist, though they are buy no means cheap or common or even something for the mass market. also, obviously, his are slightly more advanced, as they don't need crutches.
So, have a read of this Guardian article and click the links. It's interesting stuff.
So, have a read of this Guardian article and click the links. It's interesting stuff.
Friday, 10 August 2012
Tuesday, 7 August 2012
The unexpected novella
I've recently had the urge to write about Nikolai Krasnorada, Vadim's son. If you don't know who I'm talking about, you're not a Special Forces reader, but I hope the story will make sense to you anyway.
For those who do know what I'm talking about, rejoice, there's more Vadim coming your way. Despite the Noble Romance drama (no word yet from the new CEO of the company), I've been patiently tapping away, adding more words to words, and generally been chiselling away (though productivity was low and some weeks, absolutely nothing happened). I sometimes feel like a penguin who scoures the icy wasteland for stones to build a nest.
Well, this one's nearly done. The working title is kind of silly, but I'm calling the story Gold Digger (which is really a joke wrapped in a pun that may not work for anybody but me). Nikolai's probably the sanest of the Krasnoradas, and he gets to hang out with his father, sort out his family/father/commitment issues, and I'm hoping to leave him with a solid, hopeful Happy For Now/Happily Ever After ending. It's a gentle contemporary romance around the theme of family (and how our blood relations mess us up and how they can heal us), and some is unabashed fan service.
I was expecting this to hit around 15-20k when I started it, but obviously I was wrong again. It won't be a novel, but a chunky novella, and if Riptide is interested in it, they can have it. The big challenge is to get it into a shape where even non-SF readers understand the characters. And, obviously, please my hyper-critical editor/s.
I'm also working on the Country Mouse sequel with Amy, which might be done by end of the month, and after that, I'm digging right back into WWII. I have two really good novels set in the period and I can't wait to get backwards in history after doing two contemporaries. I expect to spend the autumn/winter doing those two and a historical urban fantasy book I'm wrestling with (doing some outlining and brainstorming there).
For those who do know what I'm talking about, rejoice, there's more Vadim coming your way. Despite the Noble Romance drama (no word yet from the new CEO of the company), I've been patiently tapping away, adding more words to words, and generally been chiselling away (though productivity was low and some weeks, absolutely nothing happened). I sometimes feel like a penguin who scoures the icy wasteland for stones to build a nest.
Well, this one's nearly done. The working title is kind of silly, but I'm calling the story Gold Digger (which is really a joke wrapped in a pun that may not work for anybody but me). Nikolai's probably the sanest of the Krasnoradas, and he gets to hang out with his father, sort out his family/father/commitment issues, and I'm hoping to leave him with a solid, hopeful Happy For Now/Happily Ever After ending. It's a gentle contemporary romance around the theme of family (and how our blood relations mess us up and how they can heal us), and some is unabashed fan service.
I was expecting this to hit around 15-20k when I started it, but obviously I was wrong again. It won't be a novel, but a chunky novella, and if Riptide is interested in it, they can have it. The big challenge is to get it into a shape where even non-SF readers understand the characters. And, obviously, please my hyper-critical editor/s.
I'm also working on the Country Mouse sequel with Amy, which might be done by end of the month, and after that, I'm digging right back into WWII. I have two really good novels set in the period and I can't wait to get backwards in history after doing two contemporaries. I expect to spend the autumn/winter doing those two and a historical urban fantasy book I'm wrestling with (doing some outlining and brainstorming there).
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