I hope everyone had a good September! My husband and I were able to take a week-long vacation in Boston. We enjoyed the perfect weather and saw a lot of interesting places and things. It's hard to believe how quickly a month seems to pass when you're busy.
Anyway, it's time for another Insecure Writer's Support Group post. Learn more about the IWSG on their website and Facebook.
Our question this month is a difficult one: What is the most favorite thing you have written, published or not? Why?
It's very difficult to pick a favorite story. I was very pleased with how I developed themes and symbols in Lyon's Legacy and Twinned Universes. I'm very fond of my four Season Avatars, but how could I choose a single book from my five-book series? So I'm going to choose something completely different, a story called The War of the Hs, which I've published on Archive of Their Own. This is a Good Omens fanfic I wrote about a quest Crowley (demon) and Aziraphale (angel) must complete to free Crowley from Hell. I particularly like some of the original characters I created for this story, plus this is one of those stories where I just had fun with it and threw in all sorts of crazy but fun bits. For example, here's a bit about angels trying to figure out silly string:
A nearby angel who’s been studying his can removes the green
cap and presses something on the top. With a hiss of air, something snakelike
shoots out. All the other angels scream and dodge. A couple of them bump into
Michael and send them into the path of the material. Green matter clumps onto
their chest and arms. Some of it even gets into their hair. Michael tries to
miracle it out, but nothing happens. The material is so soft it spreads as
Michael tries to brush it away.
What's your favorite story? Feel free to tell me about it in the contents.
Where did the first half of 2025 go? Time just seems to pass faster and faster as I get older, especially since I have so many projects to juggle. I'm pleased to report that I'm over halfway to my Goodreads reading goal for this year (100 books, which may sound like a lot, but I've read 200 in previous years). I may wait until December to discuss what I've read, though.
Anyway, this post is for the Insecure Writer's Support Group, where we support other writers. Learn more about the IWSG on their website and Facebook page.
Here's our question for July: Is there a genre you haven't tried writing in yet that you really want to try? If so, do you plan on trying it?
I've switched genres quite a bit for a writer: my work includes fantasy, science fiction, solarpunk (which should probably be considered a subgenre of science fiction), and paranormal cozy mystery. All of these genres have a speculative element, which is what most strongly appeals to me. However, the top genre for readers is romance. This genre doesn't resonate with me so much because I'm demisexual. (I don't experience primary sexual attraction; I like to think of it as falling in love with someone from the inside out. For me, many romances focus mostly on the hero's physical qualities but don't give him the intelligence and humor that personally appeal to me.) Of course I have characters who fall in love with each other, and their relationships are often part of a secondary plot. But I've never tried to write a pure romance story before....
Until this year.
One of my projects is a Good Omens alternate universe fanfic which imagines the characters as middle-aged women. One's a harper, the other's a singer, and they meet when they're asked to accompany each other at a wedding. It's coming along slowly because I'm switching among multiple projects, not all of which are writing. I have a book about how to write romance that outlines the story beats readers expect so I can figure out plot points. This story is only a few thousands words along so far, so I'm still getting to know the characters and figuring out what happens to them after the wedding. There's still a lot I have to consider for this story, and I may have someone else beta read it when I finally finish the draft. Please wish me luck, because I'm sure I'll need it!
Have you experimented with new genres before? If so, please feel free to share how it went in the comments.
(This post was supposed to go live at the end of January, but I saved it as a draft instead of publishing it. Apologies for the inconvenience. I did manage to finish the story I mention below.)
It occurred to me recently that this year marks the 30th anniversary of my first attempt to write a novel (at least, I'm pretty sure it was in 1994 during an internship.) I actually still have a paper copy of that draft, though it's destined for the shredder. While my writing career is nowhere near what I thought it would like at this point in my life, at least I'm still writing. I think the advent of indie publishing has a great deal to do with that. It's encouraging to know I can always make my work available to readers. I also have the freedom to experiment. Right now, I'm finishing up a Good Omens fan fiction story that's told in present tense, which is something I don't normally use in my other stories. It's an alternative universe story, which means that I've changed a major premise while still writing with the same characters. This allows me to take the characters in vastly different directions and do crazy things with them. It's fun to write, and I'm getting comments that readers enjoy it. Hopefully at some point, I'll return to my Season Avatars, solarpunk, and cozy mystery stories as well. That's why I always wanted to be a full-time writer: so I can work on all the projects I want to write!
Have you gone through periods where you didn't want to write? What keeps writing fun for you? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
Only three more months left of 2023. I still have so many projects I want to work on but so little time. Hopefully now that the annual recertification audit for work is over, I'll be able to use some more vacation time. I'll need it to clear some of these projects listed below:
Short Stories: I have one short story currently on the market, and I just finished reviewing my short story author proof for the forthcoming Solarpunk Creatures anthology.
Restaurants and Revenge: I just got the cover for Restaurants and Revenge! Expect to see the ebook coming soon to the major distributors!
I'm about halfway through the next book in the series (Bubble Tea and a Body), but it's currently on the backburner.
Season Avatars/World Avatars: Once I finish up Restaurants and Revenge, I can focus on The Season Between, a collection of short stories that will bridge the gap between the Season Avatars and the sequel World Avatars series. I'm currently drafting the first book of the World Series, Avatars Abroad, which will feature mostly new characters. I'm also trying to plot the overall arc of the series. I know how I want it to end, but getting there is always the challenge.
Good Omens: Confession time--the main characters of this show have taken over my brain (in case that wasn't obvious from some of my previous posts). Yes, I'm writing fanfic about this series as a way of coping with the Season Two finale. Hopefully Season Three won't take another four years to air!
What projects are you working on? Feel free to share in the comments.
As a Beatles fan, I always enjoy finding new books about them. And if these books are written or edited by my friends, I have to help them get by, right?
Randee Dawn, a writer friend from Broad Universe, is co-editing an anthology of alternate Beatles stories. It's called Across the Universe: Tales of Alternative Beatles. They're currently running a Kickstarter campaign to fund it (see the link). The project is about two-thirds funded, with about two weeks left. Authors currently signed on to the anthology include Spider Robinson, David Gerrold, Cat Rambo, Gail Z. Martin, Jody Lynn Nye, and many more. If the project meets certain stretch goals, the editors will open up a few slots for submissions. I used to write Beatles fanfic, so it would be nice to get back to where I once belonged....
Actually, my Beatles fanfiction used to be on the e-zine Rooftop Sessions, which was run by my Beatles friend Susan Ryan. Unfortunately, I don't think the site is live any more, though you can learn more about it here and even access back issues. (You might even find very early versions of Lyon's Legacy and Twinned Universes, along with other stories of mine, through the Wayback Machine.) Susan's husband, Jim Ryan, was another contributor, and he recently collected some of his alternate Beatles stories in Alt Together Now: The Rooftop Sessions Fiction of James Ryan. It's been a long times since I've read them, but they include references to Live Aid, The Twilight Zone, Lord of the Rings, and Doctor Who. Sounds like a splendid time is guaranteed for all.
Please support both books if you can. In the meantime, I need to see if I can find my old fanfics. It would be interesting to see if they're worth republishing. Hello Goodbye for now...
First of all, I'd like to wish my husband, Eugene, a very happy birthday today! You'll always be my knight in shining armor.
If you loved all the Obama-Biden memes (particularly the ones after the 2016 election such as this one), then you might like Hope Never Dies: An Obama-Biden Mystery, by Andrew Shaffer. I read about this book a few weeks ago and immediately put it on hold at my library. I finally had a chance to read it last week. Basically, after an Amtrak conductor dies in what everyone else assumes to be a suicide or accident, Obama and Biden team up to discover the truth. Biden is the first-person narrator. I've never gotten closer to either man than through the voting machines, so I don't know how accurately they're portrayed. Certainly some of their escapades seem a bit unreal, and other reviews I've read say Obama comes across as more remote than he actually is. Still, the pair do make a fun Holmes-Watson couple.
Since I used to write Beatles fan fiction, I was interested in the real-person fan fiction aspect of this book. In the New York Times article I read about Hope Never Dies, the author relates how he met Biden but didn't tell him about this project. The standard disclaimer at the beginning of the book says that "All characters--including those based on real people, living or dead...are used fictitiously." Celebrities do give up some of their rights to privacy, and we live in an age where YouTube can make someone a celebrity (notorious or not) overnight. I still don't think I'd be too comfortable using a living person as a character. Even if I was inspired by a certain aspect of their personality, I'd rather remix with other traits and disguise them. While I may have been able to get away with using John Lennon as a character in Lyon's Legacy and Twinned Universes, he might have drawn attention from the main characters. If I ever get past the block I have with the next installments of the Catalyst Chronicles, then the story will go in a different direction anyway.
How do you feel about using real people in fiction? Does it matter if they're contemporary or historical? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
I have so many prescheduled blogging topics--BRoP Mondays, science links
Fridays, and Blog Chain alternate Tuesdays--that some weeks I don't
even come up with my own idea for a post. This is why I tend to avoid
participating in blogging memes. However, I've been approached three
times now for this meme by Dean Rich, Sandy Appleyard, and Heidi Garrett. Since three is a magic number, I figure I should go ahead and do it, even if that means adding an extra post to my schedule. (No one minds that, right? Um, don't answer if you disagree.)
What is the [working] title of your next book? Twinned Universes (Catalyst Chronicles, Book Two)
Where did the idea come from for the book? Twinned Universes is a sequel to Lyon's Legacy, which is about a scientist forced on a mission to clone her hated rock star ancestor. The clone himself takes center stage here; he insisted on meeting the man he was cloned from. ;)
What genre does your book fall under?
Science fiction involving time travel and alternate universes.
What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
I have no time to watch TV or movies (other than what my son watches over and over and over), so I'm unable to answer this question. However, I have a Pinterest board with images of how I picture some of the characters, so please check that out.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
To solve one murder and stop another, the clone of a TwenCen (20th century) rock star must use a talent he never knew he had.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I plan to self-publish it as a paperback and e-book in 2013. I'm not sure of exactly when it will be published, as I'm still working with the cover artist and editor.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
I wrote it well over a decade ago; the original draft was published on a friend's website as To Thine Own Self Be True. I don't remember how long the first draft took, but it was probably less than a year. I've come back to it between other projects.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Tough question. I would say Glimpses and Summer of Love for the time travel and music connection.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
The Beatles, particularly John Lennon. I also owe thanks to Aviva Rothschild and Susan Ryan for introducing me to Beatles fan fiction. In fact, a scene from one of Susan's stories inspired Lyon's Legacy, which in turn demanded the sequel.
What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?
The rock star ancestor, Sean Lyon, is similar to John Lennon in some respects. There are several parallels to Hamlet. Most of the story is told from the POV of Paul Harrison, Sean's clone, and his friends, all of whom have grown up on board a spaceship and have limited experience with Earth, let alone the TwenCen. They may not always get along, but they care deeply for each other.
As a rebel, I'm not tagging anyone; I know many bloggers have already participated in this meme anyway. But if you haven't and want to, feel free to consider yourself tagged.
Aviva Rothschild is the author of With Strings Attached, one of the oldest known Beatles fanfics to appear on the Internet. Almost unique in the small universe of Beatlefic, Strings is an epic fantasy. It's spring 1980, and the four ex-Beatles awaken on another planet, terrified out of their minds, sixteen years younger, and utterly clueless as to why they're there. As they struggle to make sense of their predicament, they must contend with two very different (but equally unpleasant) cultures: Ketafa, a quasi-Victorian theocracy based on a fake religion, and Baravada, a dying magical anarchy whose inhabitants' fondest wish is to find monsters to kill. Overseeing all this are some rather fannish aliens, whose dialogue punctuates and clarifies much of what's going on, and who have their own little dramas. Ultimately, the four are spectacularly equipped to embark upon a quest that, if successful, will remove a curse that prevents the real gods from seeing Ketafa. Of course, complications ensue....
I first contacted Aviva after reading part of Strings online several years ago. As I've mentioned before, this was my first exposure to Beatles fanfiction, and it ultimately led me to write the award-winning novella "Move Over Ms. L." and its sequel, which became the first draft of Across Two Universes. When Aviva published Strings earlier this year, I thought it would be interesting to share her story with my readers, as her writing path has been a long and winding one indeed.
Q: Please tell us about yourself.
A: Well, I'm a very unemployed 45-year-old woman who has, in her spotty career, been a book editor and indexer, a copyeditor, a regular writer, a writer of computer manuals, a book reviewer, a (very feeble) website designer, an eBay seller, and a soapmaker. I have three master's degrees: creative/professional writing, technical communication, and, most recently, library and information science. In 1995 I wrote the first formal bibliography of graphic novels, and I still get itty bitty royalty checks for it every year. These days I volunteer for the National Theatre Conservatory library in Denver. Oh, I'm also a hardcore musical theatre fan, with well over 1,100 musicals on CD, LP, and other media. And I have one of the larger private collections of graphic novels in the country.
Q: How did you come up with the idea for With Strings Attached?
A: The basic idea was a merger between sudden, deep love for the Beatles; a fascination with the then-new role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons; and rather befuddled observations that celebrities seemed to attract a lot of attention whether they deserved it or not. (The object of my scorn back then was Liz Taylor, who was a permanent fixture in the tabloids.) I wanted good celebrities (i.e., my favorites) to attract more attention than these other yutzes.
When I was creating some new characters for D&D, I thought I should make characters based on the Beatles. From there it was a small step to “I'll use the actual Beatles as my characters!” (Hey, I was 15 at the time [1980] and recovering from pneumonia/bronchitis to boot; it made sense back then.) The rationale was that alien fans decided to put them on another planet to see what would happen. I started telling myself stories about what they were doing, and I quickly decided to write a book.
Things changed drastically over the years, but the basic underlying premise remained pretty much the same.
Q: I know this novel took you twenty-nine years to finish and that there were long stretches of time when you didn’t work on it at all. What made you take a break from WSA, and what made you return to it?
A: Well, I was never a prolific writer; I enjoyed thinking about the story but not writing about it. So even when Strings was the main focus of my life, I didn't commit much of it to paper. I had to have a finished version in 1989, when I used it as my first master's thesis, so a chunk of it got done between 1986 and 1988, under pressure. I hated that version, though, and resolved to redo it after I graduated.
Well, my writing speed didn't increase, so I hadn't gotten terribly far with the new version by 1993, when I took my first long hiatus from it. I can't really remember why, except that probably I was burned out on it. I didn't touch it again until 1997, when I started posting it online to see if anyone thought it was interesting. The response was good enough (I met Sandra that way!) that I began to work on it again, slowly rewriting the early chapters yet again. By 2000 I had my own website and domain name (www.rationalmagic.com) and was posting chapters there, as well as a lot of other stuff.
In 2002, however, my personal life imploded. I was laid off from the best job I'd ever had; my mother was sinking into Alzheimer's; and I was badly, badly depressed. I simply stopped writing at that point. In fact, I stopped viewing myself as a writer any longer. Almost the only writing I did between roughly July 2002 and December 2008 was descriptions for my eBay items and scripting for the Rocky Mountain PBS Auction. The very little bit of fiction I produced came painfully and infrequently; I sent out a total of one story for possible publication (it was rejected). As for Strings, well, I expected that I would never go back to it. I had lost interest in it and the Beatles.
So why did I go back to it? I still don't know. Maybe it was listening to the Beatles Love Cirque du Soleil soundtrack a lot. Maybe it was my friends at the theatre pestering me to write. Maybe I had reached a point in my life where I had literally nothing else to do. I just know that one day I wanted to work on it again.
In early January 2009, I started to reread it. It was pretty good. I started to edit the early chapters—and suddenly I was hooked. I went crazy then. Years' worth of material came pouring out. I wrote 300 pages in 3 weeks. I spent almost the entire month of January holed up in my house. I skipped theatre, dinners, everything. My emotions went completely wonky (my poor father had to put up with me crying almost every night). It was simultaneously wonderful and horrible.
I'm still writing now, working on the sequel. However, this writing fever doesn't extend to any of my other projects. I wish it would. But I guess I should be glad it came back at all. Even with the mood swings. (At least they don't come as often!)
Come back on Thursday, July 23, to read Part Two of this interview and see the cover of Strings!
I mentioned Rooftop Sessions in my last post. This website for Beatles fan fiction, edited by my friend Susan Ryan, has been on hiatus for the last couple of years. Susan would like to resume publication, but she needs new stories and authors. (I personally am tapped out at the moment.) If you're interested in writing Beatles fan fiction, please check out the FAQ and Submission Guidelines first. Thanks!
What if you woke up and found yourself on a strange new planet... sixteen years younger... accompanied by people you have issues with... possessing nothing but the clothes on your back and a musical instrument... and totally clueless as to why you're there?
That's the premise of Aviva Rothshild's Beatles novel, With Strings Attached. She first started it in 1980; twenty-nine years later (including a seven-year hiatus), she finally finished it. She plans to self-publish it soon, but for now, she's posted a few sample chapters on her website, Rational Magic. She's also working on a sequel (and I hope it doesn't take her as long to finish it!).
I read an earlier version of Strings (or part of it) back in 1996 or 1997; I can't remember exactly. After glomming onto what was available online, I contacted the author and befriended her. This led to Aviva introducing me to Susan Ryan, editor of the Beatles fanfiction site Rooftop Sessions. I wrote a few stories for the site, including the two that became the basis for Across Two Universes. So in a way, my novel wouldn't be here without Aviva's.
Even if you're not a big Beatles fan, I recommend checking out Strings. It's a unique twist on the "Earth people being transported to another world" genre. Tell Aviva I sent you!
