This week’s Monday Mixtape comes from Jeff of One Week One Mix! I had so much fun writing and curating a playlist for his wonderful blog last week and was happy to receive this in return to share with you guys! Thanks Jeff! -mj

Greetings! My name is Jeff and I recently set-up a blog called One Week \ One Mix. Each week, a different writer creates a mix using Spotify, posting t a few songs per day, writing about their song choices and how it fits into a pre-selected theme. Last week, I was lucky enough to have none other than Blue Sky + Hard Rock’s Meagan make a mix for us, so I thought I’d return the favor and make a little something for Blue Sky’s Monday Mixtape. 

I love sharing music and I’ve always made mixes for friends and family members, ever since I was in middle school. I was inspired to create the blog after following the excellent Tumblr One Week // One Band. I enjoyed their format of having a different writer each week write about a specific band and I figured it would be easy enough to adopt that style, but make it about a mix rather than a band, which would allow the writer to explain the choices they make when creating a mix, revealing something about themselves at the same time. 

The mix I made for you today is made-up of mostly new songs, with a few reliable older ones mixed in too. I tried to go with songs I’m actively listening to this summer, either because they’re new, because I’m seeing the band live soon, or have seen them recently, or because I just discovered a song for the first time and can’t stop listening to it. I hope you enjoy, and if you’re interested in checking out One Week \ One Mix, click here to see it for yourself. And if you’re interested in making a mix for us, e-mail me here [on Tumblr], I’d love to hear from you.

-Jeff

+Links You May Like+

• You may get two “Monday Mixes” today
• Theme: Summer Timing Playlist of Summer’s Must See (and hear)…
• Premiere: Spirit Animal Mixtape – “Thanks, Druncle”

Thanks so much for having me today, Pearl! This is an exciting week for me because my latest Jess Michaels erotic historical romance AN INTRODUCTION TO PLEASURE (Mistress Matchmaker 1) came out on Tuesday, June 19. This is my last Jess Michaels book from a publisher since early 2010, though last year I did put out two contemporary erotic romances as well as 7 romances as Jenna Petersen via self-publishing.

This is the strangest time in publishing. Where not so long ago, there were really very few choices for authors, now there are so many that it’s a bit head-spinning. The traditional publishers are still getting books into bookstores and even trying all kinds of new things when it comes to finally moving into the eBook universe.
Then there are smaller publishers, outside of the New York mainstream, who have been working eBooks from the beginning and are seeing a lot of inroads into the new movement toward the eBook surge.

And now Amazon and Barnes and Noble have made self-publishing easier than ever with their programs for their eBook readers. Seriously, publishing books there is so easy I’m not sure it should be legal.

I’ve been to all these stops on the road. I have published with HarperCollins and Orbit (a division of Hachette), two of the biggest publishers out there, I’m currently publishing with Samhain and have been with Red Sage Publishing in the past and of course, I’ve had a lot of experience lately with self-publishing. Every one of them has benefits and disadvantages.

With a big publisher, there is distribution. My books were in stores everywhere, which was very cool. But the process can be quite slow (readers were always asking me why the books weren’t coming out faster, but that was never a decision I had any part in) and as a writer, it’s so easy to get lost in the shuffle of all the other books out in the world.

At a smaller publisher, the turnaround is a lot faster (I finished the final editing process on AN INTRODUCTION TO PLEASURE in April and it was out in June). When it comes to promoting eBooks, they’ve been doing it a looong time and they really know where to put their efforts. In fact, when it comes to a place like Samhain, because they’re known for their erotic romance titles, an author can make sales based entirely on the strength of the brand, which is something that has faded considerably in the mainstream market.

With self-publishing, the timeline is entirely up to the author (I published 9 books in 8 months last year under three names) and the percentage of money from sales is much higher, but while all the positives are in the control of the author, so is everything else. Every bit of promotion has to be driven by the author or else there will be no sales (and for an author without an established audience, it’s very difficult to gain a foothold).

In the end, though, what matters most to me is getting good stories out to readers. Wherever and however I can do that I’ll do it. And I hope you’ll buy it, too!

An innocent lady’s education could be a gentleman’s wicked seduction.

Mistress Matchmaker, Book 1

Lysandra Keates is running out of options. Her father is dead, her mother is ill, and her efforts to find respectable employment have ended in failure. With her small savings bleeding away, she swallows her pride—and her terror—and turns to Vivien Manning, an infamous courtesan, to match her with a wealthy protector.

For years, Viscount Andrew Callis has lived a monastic existence at his country estate, hardening his body against the snobbish, lazy young man he once was, hardening his heart against grief over the deaths of his wife and infant son. When Vivien asks him to spend one month training a young woman in the ways of a mistress, his mind resists…but his body responds with an ache he thought long dead.

As Andrew begins his gentle tutelage, he finds himself falling under the spell of Lysandra’s innocent charms. And as they give in to the powerful hunger, the last thing Andrew ever expected, or wanted, forms between them. An emotional connection that could carry them well past the training period—if only Andrew can open his heart to the possibility of love.

Product Warnings:
Includes training in all kinds of sexual positions and delights, as well as an emotional romance. May produce swooning.

Links:

Jess’s website | Buy AN INTRODUCTION TO PLEASURE at Samhain

As always, would love to have more guest posters. I just have to have time to actually keep up with it.

See you on the flip side!

Written by my lovely Mariposa, it’s a guestpost for my blog. (:
I will be posting one to her blog too, feel free to check it, but it’s german.

Love,
Kim

The third of Sam’s soup recipes and this time it’s a soup that is literally ready in moments.  Seriously it would take longer to open a can and heat it and it would not be half as nice

Prawn, lemongrass and Coconut Soup

• 1 stalk lemongrass
• 2 tsp vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp red curry paste
• 1.2 litres Fish or Chicken stock
• 400ml coconut milk
• 4 large slices ginger
• 16 large raw prawns, shelled, cleaned, tails intact
• 2 tsp sugar
• 2 tbsp lime juice
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 2 tbsp coriander leaves

Serves 4

Cut slits in the lemongrass down to the root, keeping the stalk intact. Place the oil and curry paste in a large saucepan over medium-high heat and cook stirring, for 1 minute. Add the lemongrass, stock, coconut milk and ginger and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 4 minutes.

Add the prawns and cook for 2 minutes. Stir in the sugar, lime juice and fish sauce.

Ladle the soup into bowls, discarding the lemongrass stalk and ginger. Top with the coriander leaves and serve

To make this more diet friendly you can substitute low fat coconut milk and count the syns or use Soy Milk as an HE and add a few drops of coconut essence (here) so that the only Syns are in the oil at the curry paste (calculate 1 Syn per 20 calories)

As someone choosing the self-publishing route, Ethan gets his hands dirty with every part of the publishing process. Here, he talks about how to pick a cover artist.

So, you need to commission novel cover art for the first time? Don’t panic. There is a great wealth of artists at your fingertips right now. Before you get on Google, let me suggest something: don’t go with a hugely famous artist.

You want a professional and you can have one. What I recommend is not taking the first five search results as your ideal candidates. If you frequent art sites like DeviantART or Elfwood, for example, you already have favourite artists. You like them because their art speaks to you. While an artist of greater renown may have a huge, impressive profile, how do you know they will give your work the “face” that fits your vision? You’re about to shell out some serious cash here. $500 to $2000, paying half up front, is pretty standard. Think about it.

Artists have egos, some easier to deal with than others. With all the prospective publishers, agents, and editors you have to flatter, you don’t need one more person to coddle. Lesser-known artists are more likely to be approachable, affordable, available, and flexible. The quality of their art is often the same or better than the big players.

I’m negotiating with some artists I’ve admired for years. Let me tell you, it’s an incredible feeling of excitement. Enjoy that! Also, take pride in giving money to an artist who really needs it. You may have noticed that it’s tough making a living on art. You can make your favourite artist’s life easier by giving them your business.

Got some artists in mind? See if they take commissions and what their policies, availability, and pricing are like. Send inquiries to at least three artists. If they’re available for commission, send a brief idea of what you will need on the cover. The artist will probably give you a price estimate at this point, based on the difficulty of the work.

They might offer to do a rough sketch of their idea, especially if their portfolio is smaller than some of the big-name artists. They might do this for free, or not. Remember, you’re paying for their time. If you ask for a sketch, be prepared to pay for it. They will usually have prices posted on their webpage for sketches. Budget for it. They might not want to do a sketch for you before you pay half of the commission fee. Sadly, this is because sometimes an artist will get cheated by a client taking their sketch and getting someone else to realize the art for cheaper. Be sensitive to the artist’s needs.

That said, if the artist is impatient with you, doesn’t take the time to answer your questions, frequently misunderstands what you say even though you’ve been pretty articulate, or you just have a feeling that they’re not very good at working with newbie authors, don’t make a contract with them. Whether it’s a simple communication problem or a prima donna attitude, you do not need the extra stress. An artist that will work with you to realize your dream is worth far more than a famous name.

I am girlfriend. wallflower is lying next to me and we are watching ‘maid in Manhattan’ before it is time for her to go to sleep. she has the early shift this week which means less time for us together. she asked me if I could write a post about today so here it is.

today went very well. I woke up earlier today, not as early as wallflower, but still it is earlier than when I have to go to work. Today was a schoolday for me. We did the preps for our end presentation which will be Tuesday next week at 9:00 am. I had hoped that it would take the whole, at least ’till 3pm so I could go home afterwards but no… at 11.40am I walked to the car. My boss had asked me if I could work after school if I was done early. I agreed to that but now I felt bad about it. I looked forward to spending some more time with Wallflower today. But not today…. Well… actually that isn’t completely true. I agreed with my boss that I could leave around 4pm because I had to do a lot for school (which wasn’t a lie).

I had a feeling Wallflower wasn’t feeling very well today. She whatsapped me a few times that time went very slowely. She also told me that on one side she felt relieved that her colleague was there today, on the other side she did not like it. I think that, besides it was hard for her to do all the work on her own, she liked it. Maybe she wasn’t that sure about herself but she managed, she got through the day. I think she can be very proud of herself by doing all those things on her own.

Wallflower was happy that I left work at 4pm. It gave us a little more time (and some hard work tonight for me because I have to do the schoolstuff before going to bed tonight). But it is worth it. Tomorrow I won’t see her (maybe) because I have to go to school again after work. So with some bad luck she will be sleeping when I get home.

Well folks, I am going to do some schoolwork and then it’s time for some sleep. Wallflower is sleeping already so I am sititng downstairs with the laptop (instead of the tab I started with).

Sleep well Wallflower, my love. I wish for some time for us together tomorrow.

Have a good night/day everybody. Thanks for reading.

Love,

GF

Anyway, I now contribute to the PROMS blog twice-weekly, and for my non-PROMS readers I thought it would be nice to sum up the posts I wrote. First, because I hate repeating myself, second, I also hate the fact when I’m following two blogs; the second blogs copies the first one’s blogpost and re-posts it. And, last but with no means least, I think it would be easier for new readers if I categorize everything neatly so that certain information (parabens, silicones) can be found more easier.

Anyway, this months posts include:
- My introduction post – April 8th
- O.C.C. Liptar ingredients – April 10th
- Silicones – April 13th (I survived friday the 13th, by the way.)
- Embryolisse Cream Concentre & Lait Fluide – April 17th
- Parabens – April 20th
- Yaby Pearl Paints – April 24th
- Anti-oxidants – April 28th

For all the dutchies, happy queen’s day! I’ll be volunteering first aid today but I hope that I wont be that busy.

All you have to do is drop me a line in a comment, and I’ll send you the details.

Everyone should go check out my guest post NAO! I am wearing Nerd Lacquer Masonic in it, and talk about…well, you probably already know. ;D

This is the first guest post ever that I’ve written! I hope you all enjoy it!

Right now I’m heading to Game 1 of…omg…Round 2!! I can’t wait!

LET’S GO COYOTES!!

Draw up your routine into a plan, an easy step by step guide of what is going to happen at what time each day, then attach your plan to your fridge so it is in clear view of all the family.

Sit your child down and talk them through it, explaining that the plan shows what is going to happen each day, if they are old enough they can follow the plan too, if they are too young then you will need to constantly give warning to what is coming next and refer back to the routine plan.

“Look the plan says we eat lunch at 1pm, we have 15 minutes until then, can you play nicely while mummy goes to make you lunch?”

You can use an alarm clock to time those 15 minutes, when the alarm rings – its time for lunch. You have prepared your child for what is going to happen next.

A routine will only work if you stick to it, be consistent and don’t start changing things, or you will leave your child confused. You may start resembling a parrot as you will need to keep repeating yourself over and over.

“It will be time for bed in 15 minutes”, set the alarm for 10 minutes time.

“It will be time for bed in 5 minutes, when the alarm rings next time we say goodnight” – you are preparing your child for bed, they know when the next alarm rings it is time for bed.

The alarm works a treat in my house, I am not just making them tidy their toys away and scooping them up and saying bedtime, I am allowing them to learn to accept that they have a certain amount of time left, before they are going to bed. They know when the next alarm rings its time to say goodnight, they are prepared for what is coming next and accept it much better.

Talk your child through the day with an excited tone, let’s make every task we do fun, even if it is boring, your child doesn’t think it is.

“If you put your shoes on we can go to the park” – Here you are giving your child the choice, it is not a choice, you are going to the park.

“Can you put your shoes on, so we can go to the park” – Here you are asking them can they do it? You know they can do it, but they may just want to be awkward today and decide not too.

Instead you say “ In 5 minutes time we are going to the park, let’s get your shoes”.

Don’t give a toddler too many choices as you are putting them in charge, don’t you know if it’s a snow boot or sandal day?

Stop bribing your child, if you do this we can go there. You are telling your child where you are going and that’s it, there is no reasoning, it’s on the routine plan, so you follow it.

Organising your day into a routine is a great way to relieve some of the daily stress and you will find your child reacts quicker and easier to tasks. Children know when mum is stressed and they play up even more, when mum is relaxed, calm and in control, the child responds and behaves much better.

Tres chic, non?!

As of today I am off gallivanting around mainland Europe with an interrail card and a bindle full of euros, which means I’m leaving the blog in the very capable hands of a selection of interviewees and guest posters until the end of May.  First up, professional writer and researcher Lucy Redland explains the case for getting yourself a Literary Agent.

If you’re an aspiring author working on your magnum opus or have a mountain of unpublished works behind you, waiting to be published, chances are you’ve been told just how much you need a literary agent. If you have already reached the stage where you think you are ready to have your work marketed and are not sure how to do it, there are merits to finding an agent.

What about self publishing?

Self publishing is an extremely popular method of publishing these days and of course, it does have its merits, especially if you’re a genre author as many have had success publishing their genre novels in this manner. However, if you’re determined to have your work sold through the traditional method, the Writer’s Workshop amongst other sources would say a literary agent is practically a necessity.

The Role of your Literary Agent

When deciding whether you want to engage the services of a literary agent it makes sense to have a full understanding of what their role entails and how they can help you.

Firstly, a literary agent understands what sells. Their talents include being able to sort the literary wheat from the chaff and with the statistics suggesting that far less than 1% of all submitted manuscripts are marketable, they will work with you, if your work shows promise, to ensure it meets all editorial standards to sell.

Secondly, the right agent will make sure your manuscript only lands on the desks of the publishing houses it really has a chance of catching the eye of. Aside from anything else, they will have an up to date and extremely high calibre set of contacts, giving you the best possible chance of reaching the publishing houses which would be most likely to consider your work.

Thirdly, once the ball is rolling, a literary agent is the perfect person to have on your side to ensure the contract negotiations go smoothly. Well versed in the process, an experienced literary agent will understand the ins, outs and technicalities of publishing contracts ensuring no tricky clauses get missed. You don’t want your work to be an instant hit and find yourself with a less than profitable percentage share of the sales for example.

Finally, literary agents are experienced in the game. If it’s your first shot at trying to get published, chances are even your best efforts will fall on deaf ears and you’ll grow more and more despondent by the day. In the long term, a decent agent will use all their expertise to ensure your career keeps moving in the right direction and you’re not one of those dreaded one hit wonders left slouched on your leather sectional wondering where it all went wrong. They have usually seen it all before and so they will know how to help you avoid the pitfalls that many writers tend to fall into.

What’s next?

If you’ve decided a literary agent is definitely the right option for you then these basic tips will help you along the way to accessing the huge range of agents out there and of course, who you can afford. If your budget it tight, there’s no point looking at the big boys and you can find an independent or freelancer who has the skills to help you out instead.  Similarly, if you know your work still needs lots of editing and redrafting, you need to dedicate your time to that first. No agent worth their salt is going to deal with a text that doesn’t feel like the final draft and even then they’ll do a lot more editing once it does reach them. Literary agents are in part, professional readers and so they need something that’ll totally grip their sense and that they can sell.

Once you have everything ready you need to access one of the listings directories relevant for your country. For the UK that would always be the Writers & Artists Yearbook and in the US you’d need to get hold of the Writer’s Market. These directories list the name of everybody and anybody you could need to speak to and your perfect literary agent will be in there somewhere. Be prepared to spend a good few hours poring over the pages of your directory and rather than speculatively sending out a mass of obviously template emails, try and select a few you’d genuinely like to work with and approach their company’s individually.

With the growth of self publishing, some think the literary agent is becoming redundant but this is far from true and for every ten so-so books pumped out by individuals, a literary agent can ensure the publication of your one masterpiece.

Narration in Games
What is game narration?

Most people associate “narration” with books or movies, but most games today rely on storytelling as well, just not in the conventional way of the traditional mediums. The key difference being audience interaction. A game involves the player actively in the story, whereas the audience of a movie or the readers of a book merely observe it.

However different, writing a game narrative has some similarities to that of a novel or screenplay. The degree of difference often depends on what sort of game the studio is developing. For example, a story in an first person shooter (FPS) will most likely be told in a very different way than the story of a single-player role-playing game (RPG). In this blog post I will focus on massively multiplayer online games (MMO’s), and the challenges of making good game narration for these types of games.

In a novel, the writer takes the reader down a strict and narrow path, much like a screenwriter does with the audience of a movie. From beginning to end, the reader is presented with plot, characters, and inciting incidents in the order the writer intended. The audience knows and accepts these rules, because breaking them (by fast forwarding or skipping a chapter) would ruin the experience of the medium.

In a game we don’t have the luxury of guiding the player down that same path, because if we do, we take away the freedom of choice which is a key part to why we have an audience in the first place. That presents us with the following challenges: How do we go about telling the story? How do we make the narrative work if the player has complete freedom of what he wants to do when, or even skips entire areas of the game? And on top of that: With games being so much more than narration, how do we make the players invested in the story?

The last question isn’t a big mystery: Players get invested in game narration for the same reasons they get invested in a good book. Plot, setting, characters, and drama – but unlike books, the game medium presents another important element: the possibility for the player to choose the outcome of the story, that the choices they make in its course has consequences and can change the world they interact with. However not impossible, these are difficult elements to incorporate in an MMO, because the game world must be constant to all players. If you rescue the farmer’s daughter, another player can do the same five minutes later. Even though you’ve made an impact on the world, the farmer’s daughter will still be captured for all those who didn’t rescue her yet. For some players this can take away from the story immersion, but as with skipping a chapter in a book, most players accept this rule of perpetuity in an MMO, and sees the story as something being told to them personally, rather than to everyone at once. Clever design can also help with this. As long as the captive farmer’s daughter is kept away from your future adventures, it becomes easier to accept that your action had an impact.

Making narration work in a game which offers freedom of choice in what to do when and where, is not an easy task. Having the player do quests is one solution. A quest is basically a small task, sending the player into an area with a specific purpose in mind. For example: rescuing the farmer’s daughter. If the main story of the play area is that brigands have taken control, you weave that information into the quest at hand, for example by placing the captive daughter in the brigand’s HQ. In this way, we can add a visual component to the narrative. Adding an HQ and placing out hostile brigands for the player to encounter on his way, is narration by gameplay, and an important way of telling the story. When the player returns to the farmer (with the freed daughter) he will know that the brigands are antagonists, whether he read the written narrative or not.

Quests are an important element of game narration. The way they are structured is very important, and the narration can easily falter if the story designer doesn’t know his job. How the quests are arranged, in which order they appear and where, and what bits of information the they give the player at which time, needs to be carefully planned to tell a story successfully. Sometimes quests are tied together, thus making sure the player is told the story in the order the designers want; sometimes quests stand alone, just supporting the main story by introducing characters or locations that are important to the narrative. The key to success is to find the right balance. As with a novelist, a game narrator doesn’t want to confuse his audience with too much information at once, give away the plot too quickly, or bore them with tedious details. He simply want the audience to enjoy themselves.

Game narration is a huge canvas to paint, but since I have greatly exhausted my suggested word count of 300, I believe I should end on this note. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments.

With a humble bow to all you dreamers out there,
Karl Andre Bertheussen,
Narrative Designer, Age of Conan (Funcom)

Truer words and all that. I won’t spoil anything else. Just trust me when I say: you have to read this.

Break the Rules

I am a journalist in the specialized press, which means I cover a clearly defined field, for professionals and people with a special interest. I write about international economy, aid, and development for a government-owned magazine. Like most other fields, development has its own tribal language. We use words like MDGs and LDCs and the Paris agenda and good governance, or the Norwegian equivalents thereof. Like most journalists in the specialized press, I find it hard to write in a language that is at once intelligible, engaging, and precise.

The world is a strange place. If you’re anything like me, you’ll find engaging with the world to be a constant challenge, particularly the spaced-out parallel dimension that is the media. You turn the page of your newspaper, shell-shocked. You struggle to keep your breathing calm, reading Facebook, watching the news playing out its grotesque theatre, maybe even watching TV or getting turned into a neurotic by your smartphone. Screaming headlines about a politician tweeting something tounge-in-cheekish, «cultural debate» (is this art? Vote here: yes/no), some model getting «boob shocked», how to get the perfect smile (complete with a price list), cupcake recipes or those darn pictures of cute animals that people keep sharing, and it’s in some weird, fucked-up way your job to read this, ’cause you gotta keep up with the news, and you have this sinister feeling that you’re part of this too. This is how you pay your bills.

No wonder you drink.

No wonder you take up smoking at the age of thirty-one.

Pour me another one.

I recently started writing songs for my band. Stumbling a little at first, but gradually getting better at it. Embarrassed about my own texts, but encouraged by my fellow band members (who are razor-sharp writers themselves). It is great fun, and goddamn hard. No more telegraph-style news, no distant analytical musings or hiding behind sterile professional terminology. Honest, personal, hard, raw. Writing leaves you exposed. Scary as hell.

Going back to the job again was hard. Bills gotta be paid. But the feeling of alienation was stronger than ever. Hard-wired into the journalist ethic is a strong commitment to reality. But is this real? How do you present reality in a formatted, click-winning way with an hour or two of research, without bending and distorting and fucking it over? Do anyone still believe they can read the papers and learn what the world is like?

As a survival technique, I started writing parody. Portraying the absurdity around me, but in a format that is less internalized than the language of «news». Still bending and distorting, but according to different criteria. I find it to be a more honest way of describing what I see. While working, I would jot down impish comments and sentences in my notebook that were never meant to find its way into my news articles. I kept the texts stashed away on my hard drive for my own amusement.
Then one day, one of my devilish little texts started melting together with the actual news article I was supposed to write. I was a little puzzled by that at first, then I thought oh, what the hell and hit the publish button, and there it was. «The naughtiest text written in a government publication in years», one of my superiors called it. My editor loved it, and I thought, maybe I have found a way of dealing with the job after all. We’ll see.

Is there a lesson here? I think there is. Write stuff, write different stuff than you normally do, break all the rules, and then bring something home.
Cheers.

Today, I can be found over on A Garden of Delights, blogging about writing in public.

Let me know what you think!

From her For This I Am Thankful (FTIAT) guest post series to her heartbreakingly personal posts, she always knows how to hook her reader and win their hearts. She certainly won mine.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go have coffee with my main character.

Taking time for coffee with character(s)
When I wrote my Glass Ball trilogy in 2004, time was in much, much more abundant supply than money.

Writing was my escape from being broke and without internet access in Japan. As long as I was writing, my world was the fictional town of Munsen, Montana. One of Munsen’s teens, Ginny, was a friend whose nearness helped me overlook the distance of my real-life friends.

I nurtured that nearness by writing virtually non-stop over the course of a month and a half. I’d wake up at 2 or 3 a.m., boot up my laptop and write until I had exactly twelve minutes left to get ready for work. I’d rush to get everything together and fly to work, arriving (barely) in the nick of time.

After work, I’d come home and crank out words until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. I’d then sleep for a few hours and repeat.

I did this daily for the month and a half it took me to write the trilogy.

Seven years later, I commute, work and take care of a dog and a toddler as well as caring for myself. I’ve edited only one of the books I wrote in Japan. I recently started editing the second, a task which seems so very much more daunting in light of my current circumstances than writing a book in six days or a trilogy in six weeks under my old ones.

When I’m away from the computer imagining what I’d like to do with my time, my answers include things like “watching Castle,” “reading,” “playing Bejeweled Blitz,” and “cleaning the toilets.” Just about anything quickly done seems better than working on a task that can’t be done except in microscopic bursts over a very long haul.

But when I do sit down at the computer, I remember how much Ginny meant to me when I really, really needed a friend nearby. As I breathe life into her story, I’m touched to remember how her strength in the face of her struggles helped me feel a little stronger in the face of my own.

I’m only able to give her 20 or 30 minutes of my time at a go these days, but when I do actually sit down to give her both my time and my attention, I discover I’m giving myself a gift, too. In those moments, I remember the old days with Ginny as if we’re sitting together and chatting over lattes. As she tells me about her troubles, I listen and give suggestions I hope she’ll heed.

Each moment I sit down to write, I invigorate a good old friend no less real for all she lacks a physical presence. She got me through loneliness more intense than any I’d endured before, or have endured since.

It may be a struggle to find the time for her, but she’s worth it. Only by giving her this time will I ever be able to learn her full, true story—not just the one she predicts is coming, but the one she’ll actually live.

I’m probably going to keep on wishing I’d decided to give her the time a few years ago, before I became a mom. But in the moments we share while the rest of my household sleeps, I’ll savor the time I do have to catch up with Ginny … and the joy of seeing, as we talk, her path become illuminated.

1. Research, research, research
The only way to really know a subject is to research it extensively. This is as true for world building as it is for academic papers.

I learned that lesson during the defense of my thesis, when my opponent brought out three relatively obscure sources using a different form of language research, but overlapping source material, and asked why I didn’t reference them in my reading list. How could I have missed those?

I imagine that feet melting feeling to be somewhat similar to one you’d get after reading a forum comment by a fan who didn’t buy your universe’s quantum mechanics because you didn’t adhere to some not-wikipediable theory. And sure, you can bluff your way out of it, like I did in the defense of the thesis (it went okay), but wouldn’t you rather be on top of your game?

2. Research, then move on
The flip side of the first lesson is knowing when you’ve studied enough. How to draw the line between extensive research, and procrastination. Sure, it’s important to know your field, but you have to make it narrow enough that you can know it well. And you have to move on once you have a good enough idea about what you’re studying that you can write the story.

I’m sure we’ve all gotten stuck in endless research mode once or twice, the key is knowing when to shake ourselves loose.

3. Write the introduction last
Okay, so I know this header is a bit misleading, because I always write my introduction first. That’s how I get into any article, story or novel. But the advice stands. The only way to write a good introduction (or a great first chapter) is if you know what’s happening at the end. You need to know what to allude to.

My method: write the introduction first, then never look at it until you’re done writing the whole thing (be it article, thesis or novel). Then write the intro again, fitting the shape the story took, not the shape you thought it would take in the first few weeks.

4. Make an outline
When I moved from academia to fiction, I threw out all my outlining lessons and let my imagination run free. After finishing the first draft of a novel, I understood that the outline was key after all, so I brought it back into my work. You see, outlines structure us in a good way. A good outline helps you shape your story, and gets you past those bumpy parts where you can’t remember what you originally thought you wanted to say and maybe you’re not sure you want to be a writer after all, maybe you were really meant to be a trucker, driving along the open road, or maybe a boss at a big company or a personal trainer, they have fun, right? I hate those parts, and my outline lets me skip past the panic by letting me save the hard parts for later, because I know where the scene leads, so I can start there, and go back later.

5. Screw the outline
As with academic papers, stories evolve while we write them. That’s why I use my outline as I use my initial introduction. I write it, then I ignore furiously. Outlining is a good exercise, but never let yourself be bound by it. The goal is knowing where you want to go on the map, but if you take a detour, the outline will change to match it, not the other way around.

How about you? Any other similarities between academic and fiction writing? What was your greatest success going from academia into fiction, or the other way around?