5 things make a post

1. Turns out if you take a month off lifting weights but continue to do things like shovel snow, you don’t lose your muscle strength.

2. I have decided to start doubling up when I make dinners and freeze the extra meal. This way I can build up a “don’t feel like cooking” buffer that also keeps me from ordering a pizza.

3. Despite the two feet of snow in my yard, I really think it’s almost spring. I predict we’ve had our last winter storm.

4. You never know what you’ll see when your desk faces a window. Yesterday I saw a neighbor’s dog get loose and start running around the newly-shoveled driveway with the spirit of an aviator who just found a clear airstrip. Another dog was led astray by this example, and the two of them raced down the drive, then the shoveled path to the deck, up the stairs, across the deck…smack into the giant snow bank at the bottom. The fact that they didn’t see that coming didn’t keep them down. Dogs are full of joy in the moment.

5. Shoveling snow is good for thinking and plotting time. I haz plots to hatch and books to finish.

Snowpocalypse 2.0

Saturday night I checked the weather expecting to see the happy spring-like trend of days in the 40s continue. And instead I got the storm watch notice, warning us of impending snowpocalypse and school closures. Off we went Sunday morning to make sure we weren’t going to run out of anything essential. The sun continued to shine. Kids continued to ride bikes up and down the driveway. But by early afternoon the sky darkened and kids came indoors. Temperatures dropped. A few hours later, snow was falling.

It’s still coming down, at as much as an inch per hour at times.

I managed to shove a door open and got the shovel to clear away the worst of it. The husband manned the snowblower and between us we cleared doorways, steps, a path to the garage, and the driveway. But with about a foot of new snow and no plow yet, we’re not going anywhere. Which is fine, we were ready for this.

Currently there’s a pot of soup simmering on the burner and whole wheat bread in the bread machine. I love soup and fresh bread on winter days. I make soup based on whatever’s handy and whatever seasonings will complement it. Today’s soup:

1 ziplock sandwich baggie’s worth of frozen turkey from the holidays
Around 1/2 cup of frozen cranberries, also left over and not enough to do anything else with
3 chopped celery stalks
a chopped carrot
About a cup of frozen green beans
3 bouillon cubes
around 1/2 cup of long grain rice
water to cover
Organic curry seasoning and a few dashes of nutmeg

I don’t measure so this isn’t very exact. I throw things in until they look and smell right. That’s kind of the magic of soup, it’s always different because what you have on hand varies.

Books and soup have a lot in common. They take simmering time. You keep adding ingredients, a dash of this, a handful of that. They get better as they cook. They take patience. Sure, you can open a can, dump the contents into a bowl and microwave it, but real soup comes from raw ingredients that you patiently work with over a low heat for as long as it takes. Sometimes the end result needs fixing. Sometimes it wildly surpasses expectations. But there’s a lot to be said for just enjoying the process.

Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em

You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em
Know when to fold ‘em
Know when to walk away
Know when to run

Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler

Let me just get this announcement out of the way: the terms I was offered by Carina Press were not acceptable to me, and we were not able to come to agreement. I apologize for disappointing readers who were looking forward to the consecutive June, July and August release dates that were planned, but I think it’s fair to say that the initial deal announcement and release scheduling were done in good faith on both sides. At the time of the offer, Carina’s contract wasn’t final. So it wasn’t possible to hash out the details until it was. I’m disappointed, but I hope that my Wishmasters trilogy will find a home elsewhere.

In the meantime, to turn lemons into lemonade, let’s talk about when to walk. It’s very easy for an author to succumb to desperation, especially in today’s economic climate. Publishing is going through changes, the competition is fierce. It’s very easy to feel like any deal is better than no deal. But a bad deal has far-reaching consequences. It can lead to lasting resentment, years of regret, and it can poison working relationships. A contract can be signed in a moment, but the terms of it may be binding for as long as the lifetime of copyright. That’s a long time to regret a bad decision.

The first thing to understand is that a bad deal is subjective. One writer’s hill to die for is another’s so what. What constitutes a good or bad deal for you comes down to your values, what you want to get out of the deal, what you’re willing to give. If the contract requires more than you feel it’s worth it to give, it’s time to negotiate. Ask for what you want. You might get it, or at least enough of what you want to make the deal worthwhile.

Before you can determine what constitutes a good or bad deal for you, you need to know what basic contract clauses mean. The internet is a fabulous teaching tool, writer’s organizations and workshops are a font of knowledge, and there’s an excellent book called How to Be Your Own Literary Agent by Richard Curtis* that explains the basics. Don’t be ignorant about contract terms, and don’t sign anything you don’t understand. If you have to, hire a literary attorney to go through the contract with you to make sure you understand what you’re getting into. You should educate yourself on what is considered fair compensation. Then decide what terms you can give on and which terms will constitute a deal-breaker for you. That way you’ll have some standards for decision making in place before the emotional reaction of the offer hits.

Next, clauses should be considered in the context of the contract as a whole. Basket accounting is a walk-away clause for many authors. But if the wording of your contract binds you to multiple option books, preventing you from selling elsewhere until after the last book under contract releases, it can cost you far more than the royalties you might have been receiving from the first book. Many books just break even. Many fail to earn out even after a couple of years. Very few become such enormous blockbusters that having the earnings from that first book tied up until after the last book earns out is a significant loss. So while it’s true that basket accounting is an unfavorable clause, in some cases it’s not cause to walk.

As Kristine Kathryn Rusch points out in her terrific Freelancer’s Survival Guide, posted on her blog chapter by chapter on the donation model, sometimes a clause in a contract will be mitigated by other clauses that lessen or even negate it outright.

A good example of this is the lifetime of copyright contract clause. It’s bad, because resale of rights is an important means of earning income for authors. But lifetime of copyright may be offset by a reversion of rights clause that allows for an author to regain the rights to the work when sales fall below a certain point. That number of copies per year which must be sold to constitute “in print” before rights revert will be the truly important negotiating point.

Authors who aren’t willing to walk on any point, ever, are in a terrible negotiating position. It’s often said in this business the only power authors have is the power to say no. You should have some standard for what is a good deal for you, and what is not, and be willing to wait for good terms instead of taking anything you’re offered just to have a deal. It’s hard to say no, but it’s much harder to live with the consequences of saying yes when it goes against your values.

*You may have an agent, but you still shouldn’t leave it up to them to decide what constitutes a deal-breaker or to educate you about what contract terms mean. It’s your career, and your values guide it. You are the one signing the contract, you’re the one who will have to fulfill it, and you’re the one who will have to live with the terms you agree to.

Mental health day

I declared today a mental health day. I needed one for two reasons; first, according to my peak flow meter, I wasn’t all the way well this past week. And second, I’ve been dealing with business stuff behind the scenes, which is never the fun part of this job.

First on my to do list was a trip to buy some boots. I like boots because you can just slip them on and off, no fuss. And because they stand up to things like tromping through woods and gardens. Boots take a lot of trying on for fit, comfort, arch support. I fell in love with this pair, Pro-Baby Ariats.

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Next, a trip to the bookstore. I bought everything they had by Carrie Vaughn. Kitty Norville is good for my mental health.

A walk around the neighborhood is next on my list. I’ll take the camera along; it’s a gorgeous sunny day and the snow is melting. There are tons of projects waiting to be done around the house, but a hint of spring in February is not to be missed. Sunshine and fresh air are excellent for mental health.

I’m pretty sure donuts are good for my mental health, too. Have you taken a mental health day lately? What’d you do?

Ideas, like gardens, are always waiting to bloom

waiting for spring 001

We’re having a thaw, and it’s producing gigantic icicles all around the house. The world is full of snow, but underneath you can see spring just waiting to sprout up again.

Ideas are like that. They incubate underground, and then one day they shoot up and become a short story, a novella, a novellette, a novel. Or maybe a song, a painting, a photograph, a sculpture. Sometimes it seems like creative winter has you in its grip, but new things are waiting to spring to life just beneath the surface.

I have lots of new ideas starting to send up little shoots here and there. I really can’t wait for spring.