Post Comic Con Post 2013

This might be a part one if I can get more pictures to post.  Comic Con was crazy this year!  In addition to my usual floor presence as part of the Tired Girl Collective, I was honored to be a part of TWO panels!

The first was Friday night with my fearless former editor Tim Travaglini and the charming Andy Briggs (The New Adventures of Tarzan).  Andy's work with Tarzan has taken him to Cameroon where he is working with Ape Action Africa to help save our fellow primates! 

I moderated the second panel, a jam-packed stage full of awesome writers-- Veronica Wolff (The Keep), Holly Black (The Coldest Girl in Coldtown), Veronica Roth (Divergent), Marissa Meyer (Cinder), Lissa Price (Starters) and Ally Condie (Matched).  We had a great time talking about romance and the kick-ass heroine.

The view from the podium-- a packed house!

Afterwards, we held a book signing with a line so long, the fire marshal shut us down!  I sat between Lissa and Holly at the signing.  Lissa was giving out advanced copies of the sequel to STARTERS, ENDERS.  In order to win, a reader had to pick a number out of an envelope, flip to that page in their copy of the book, and see if the last letter in the last word on the page ended in a vowel.  If it did, Lissa would shout "We have a winner!" and throw her arms in the air.  It was silly and exciting and a lot of fun.  By the end I was shouting "Ding! Ding! Ding!" like a Vegas slot machine.

Also?  I got to meet Jim Butcher.  Which. Was. Awesome.  Because I heart me some Dresden Files.  I never thought I'd geek out over someone at Comic Con, and I've seen or talked to a ton of "names" at conventions-- Christian Bale, Jason Statham, Stan Lee, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Gene Simmons, etc.  But who does it for me?  Writers.  Novelists.  Jim Butcher!  Squee!

All in all, it was an awesome, exhausting, wonderful time.  If you were there, thanks for coming!  If you missed it, maybe next time?  It's worth the trip.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled deadline...

Comic Con 2013!

It's that time of the year again!  I'm off to Comic Con and I've got an exciting line up this year.  Thanks to ORLEANS finally being a considered genre enough for Con, I'll be doing a couple of panels and signings, in addition to my usual crafty presence in Small Press with Tired Girl Collective.

The Schedule:

·         Wednesday, 7/17 – Sunday, 7/21/13 – TIRED GIRL COLLECTIVE, Small Press Table O-12

 

Visit Sherri and her pals at their arts, crafts and jewelry table known as the “pinkest booth at Con!”  You can see a preview of some of this year's wares below.

      · Thursday, 7/18/13 – AUTHOR SIGNING,2pm to 3pm, Penguin Booth 1028/1030

· Friday, 7/19/13 –PANEL: PUBLISHING SF/F IN THE DIGITAL AGE, 7pm to 8pm, Room 25ABC

Moderated by Timothy Travaglini (Open Road Integrated Media); authors Kevin J. Anderson(Dune) and Rebecca Moesta (WordFire Press), Cory Doctorow (Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Little Brother, Boing Boing), Andy Briggs (Hero.com, Villain.net, Tarzan: The Greystoke Legacy), Sherri L. Smith (Orleans, Flygirl), and Nick Cole (The Old Man and the Wasteland, The Savage Boy), and bookseller Maggie Tokuda-Hall (Books, Inc) discuss impact of the digital age on writing, publishing, reading, bookselling, and the traditional book as we know it.

· Saturday, 7/20/13 – PANEL: WHEN GRRLS FALL IN LOVE, 11am to 12pm, Room 23ABC

From The Hunger Games' Katniss to Divergent's Tris, no one knows how to give a solid ass-kicking like a YA novel heroine. But when these young ladies aren't saving the world, overthrowing powerful regimes, or slaying everything from zombies to dragons, they still find time for romance. Ally Condie(Matched), Veronica Roth (Divergent), Holly Black (The Coldest Girl in Coldtown),Marissa Meyer(Scarlet), Lissa Price (Starters), and Veronica Wolff (The Watchers) discuss the delicate balance between killing and kissing, and what it takes to properly woo a YA heroine. Moderated by Sherri Smith (Orleans).

· Saturday July 20, 2013 – AUTHOR SIGNING, 1:30pm to 2:30pm, Sails Pavillion – Autographs

With When Grrls Fall in Love Panelists Ally Condie (Matched),Veronica Roth (Divergent), Holly Black (The Coldest Girl in Coldtown), Marissa Meyer (Scarlet), Lissa Price (Starters), Veronica Wolff (The Watchers), Sherri Smith (Orleans).

 

Now, if you're wondering what Tired Girl Collective is, it's a crafting co-op I started with a couple of friends back in the dark ages of 2006.  Comprised of my odd random crafts and jewelry (as Miss Smith's Miscellany and Bookish Press),

 

What I get up to when I'm not writing...



... or working....

...or sleeping.  This is a hairclip!

my partner-in-crime Ren of Karen Lucrece's beautiful art (she designed the look of my webpage!),

 

and a rotating cast of other exhausted women who stay up late making strange things because we think they are funny or cute. This year we have Melanie of Belle Pottery with us. she's got AWESOME jewelry this year.  You must come see it if you can! 

 

Okay, that's enough self-promotion for one day.  I hope to see you in San Diego.  If not, I'm sure I'll come back with some good stories.  See you next week!

 

 

 

 

 

An interesting afternoon

Pin up by my talented friend Ren from Tired Girl Collective-- check us out at SDCC!

Yesterday I did my first podcast with Black Girl Nerds.  My favorite part?  Hearing the host say "Caller, you're on the air, what's your question?"  It brought me back to all those episodes of "WKRP in Cincinnati" my parents used to watch-- surprisingly exciting!  A big thanks to Jaime and Cynthia for making me feel so welcome. 

You can catch the podcast right here, but I encourage you to visit the BGN blog.  (While you're at it, join their book club.  WILDSEED by Octavia S. Butler is next up!)  In this day and age when so many people are openly living the lives they choose, it's astonishing to me that some folks are still shy about owning their nerdiness.  The founder of BGN, Jamie, started her blog as a safe place for women of color, and all people to embrace their inner geek.  I, for one, am down with that message.  Live long and prosper, y'all!

For a real blast, take a look at the talk on their twitter page.  Some great dream casting suggestions (complete with pictures!) for ORLEANS!

Listen to internet radio with Black Girl Nerds on BlogTalkRadio

Podcast - Black Girl Nerds Book Club 7/7/13

Join me this Sunday, 7/7/13 at 7pm EST (4pm PST) for the Black Girl Nerds Book Club podcast!  ORLEANS is the book of the month, and we will be discussing all things ORLEANS and nerdy.  I can't wait!

Countdown to Comic Con 2013 - The Reading List

Happy July, everyone!  San Diego Comic Con is right around the corner and I am rushing to meet it.  In addition to that rewrite I keep promising you I am working on (I still am, I promise!), I've got a stack of reading to do for the panel I'm moderating.

I mentioned that, right?  I'll be moderating a panel at Con!  The official description is:

When Grrls Fall in Love, Saturday, 7/20/13, 11:00a.m. - 12:00p.m., Room: 23ABC
From The Hunger Games’ Katniss to Divergent’s Tris, no one knows how to give a solid ass-kicking like a young adult novel heroine. But when these young ladies aren’t saving the world, overthrowing powerful regimes, or slaying everything from zombies to dragons, they still find time for romance. Cassandra Clare (The Mortal Instruments), Ally Condie (Matched), Veronica Roth (Divergent), Holly Black (The Coldest Girl in Coldtown), Marissa Meyer (Scarlet), Lissa Price (Starters), and Veronica Wolff (The Watchers) discuss the delicate balance between killing and kissing, and what it takes to properly woo a YA heroine.

I just finished the creepy, compelling ageism thriller Starters and I'm knee-deep in Tris right now.  (When faced with a knife and a block of cheese, I think I would cube the cheese.  Is there a tribe for that?)  So far, so fun.  There's quite a stack to go, but I'm looking forward to it all.

So, tell me, fans of the above, what questions would you ask if you were lucky enough to be sitting in Room 23ABC on Saturday the 20th?  If you actually will be there, let me know.  I'd love to say hi.

Aside from the panel fun, I'll be camped out in my usual spot in Small Press with Tired Girl Collective.  We'll be the very pink table O-12.



This year, I'm bringing hand-stamped notebooks (if they look okay), some Avenger-themed rice bags (you know, with lavender, for boo boos and aches), lots of sound fx jewelry, and other fun things. 
Our little website is woefully out of date, but the link above will show you some of what we've done in the past.  We've got a new Tired Girl with us this year, so swing by if you're at the show and check out all the pretty nerd things!

Lastly, I'll be doing signings at the Penguin booth on Thursday, July 18th at 2:00pm and in Autograph Alley on Saturday after the panel.

I'm so freakin' excited!  And there's so much work to do! 

Enjoy your Independence Day Weekend, everyone.  I know what I'll be doing!

A word about letters

Occasionally, I am lucky enough to get mail from my readers.  Sometimes it's email, sometimes it's good old-fashioned snail mail.  I know it takes a special effort to pick up a pen (or open a word file) to write to an author, and these letters mean a lot.

However, if you've ever written me via snail mail you probably did not get a response.  I do apologize for this.  Snail mail goes through my publishers' mailrooms, cavernous places that I assume look like this:


Suffice it to say, I don't always get the mail, and rarely in a timely manner.  In 2011, an entire eighth grade class wrote to me as part of a class assignment.  They will be graduating high school soon.  I just got their letters. 

That said, please don't be discouraged!  If you want to write to me please contact me through my website email address.  I will do my best to respond.  I might not always succeed, but I do try.  Hearing directly from my readers is one of the most amazing things about being a writer. 

So, to all you letter writers, thank you for your patience and understanding.  And congratulations, class of 2014!

Writing Craft: Finding Your Way aka Novel Death Match!

If you've ever taken a writing class with me, you know that I am an outline writer.  When I come up with a story idea, the first thing I do is write an outline.  I like to think of it as a road map to get me from "once upon a time" to "happily ever after" with a minimum of confusion.

But, oy, is there confusion.  Have you ever been on a road trip or headed to a new place and gotten turned around?  I remember driving through the wilds of Central Florida with a map that had only northeast streets when we wanted southwest.  And the time my husband and I stood in front of the same address number on streets with the same name shouting in to our cellphones and crane our necks looking for each other.  Turns out, he was in the wrong town!  A mile away there was some sort of mirror universe he'd gotten sucked into.  It took a lot of asking strangers what was going on to figure that one out.

Writing can be a lot like that.  After all, before its been written, a book is nothing but possibilities.  Sometimes you are headed down the road, following your map and it's looking pretty good.  Until the trees look funny or there's a gas station where there shouldn't be and you realize there's this other place that looks just as good as the road you were on,.  And maybe it has better shops or an awesome view that you just couldn't see from your originally plotted course.

To switch metaphors, when I was a kid, I took my Lewis Carroll seriously and believed there was a different world in the mirror.  I would crane my neck and try to peer around corners to see if my mirror double also had a pink bathroom with a poodle on the pink toilet seat (yes, some insight into my life as a child of the 70s).  Science fiction writers and horror movies have had a field day with "the things inside the mirror!"  As it turns out, every writer sticks their head through the silvered glass and wonders, "should I be on this side, or that one?"

Now, I should give you sage advice on what to do when confronted with a mirror image of your story that is so much better dressed and clever than the one you started working on.  But I don't have any sage advice for such a Sophie's Choice.  What I do have is "put them on a small planet and have them fight to the death" advice.  Read both versions.  Let them duke it out for supremacy.  Which one excited you the most?  Which has the fewest problems (or at least the most fixable ones)?  Which version will get you to your deadline on time (not an artistic choice, but a realistic one-- you will still work your fingers off to make it the best version of that version as possible before turning it in)?

And so, today I am having a Novel Death Match.  I will read two versions of the first act of my current work-in-progress and see where the chips fall.  The best, if somewhat ghoulish, part about a novel death match is I can go Frankenstein on the remains.  If Version A wins with it's basilisk glare and dragon fire (ie. pacing and emotional throughline), except it could use the massive wingspan and talons of Version B (ie. scope and action), I can sew them together seamlessly and make Version C-- the mega novel!  A towering behemoth of rich literary awesomeness that staggers the mind.

Or, at least, that's the goal. 

So, um...what's your Tuesday look like?