This year, for the first time in my fairly long writing life, I agreed to perform volunteer work helping recruit authors for a longstanding, local annual book festival. Innocent-sounding, yes? It meant, on its surface, contacting writers, inviting them to discuss their work on Festival day.

It meant I'd give them directions and descriptions and schedules and parking information.   More grittily: it meant entering into a vast world of logistics. Who'd read where, when. Venues, times, arrangements, props, publicity. It meant meeting weekly to hammer out this stuff with other volunteers. It meant seeking accommodation by city government and local merchants. It meant working the event, making introductions, hosting, worrying about tablecloths and sound systems and that guy who arrives to repair tiles at the restaurant where the panel discussion is about to start; whether audiences can easily find the right venues for the authors; whether book sales tables are visible enough. more...

Recently I had the opportunity to watch the film Amadeus again and was struck by a scene in which the fictionalized character of Salieri, Amadeus’s greatest admirer and nemesis, is composing at the piano. He discovers a melody with which he is delighted, turns to the crucifix on the wall and thanks Jesus for the blessing he’s been given. 

In the next scene, however, Mozart plays the same piece (by ear, after only one hearing), embellishes it, and turns it into something grander and seemingly more impressive. Salieri stands by distressed. Later we see him in his room as he tears the crucifix from the wall and throws it on the fire. In his eyes, God has betrayed him; he wants to know why he’s been cheated out of this sort of phenomenal talent – the talent Mozart seems to posses but which he does not. 

But this question’s foundation does not actually rest on the “reality” of the uneven distribution of talent. For that is just a story we make up. We often grade our gifts, which is very different than receiving them fully.  more...

Territory reimagines 1880s Tombstone, Arizona—including the Earps, Doc Holliday, the McLaurys, the Clantons, and other historical figures—with an underpinning of dark magic. Jesse Fox arrives in the summer of 1881 as the events that lead to the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral are starting to simmer (the famous shootout does not happen in this first of a two-book series). Fox has magic, but remains skeptical even as his friend Chow Lung tells him of the black magic already at play in Tombstone. Fox meets aspiring writer Mildred Benjamin, a widow who works as a typesetter at the Nugget newspaper. Fox, Chow, and Benjamin are soon caught up in the brewing storm between rustlers and the town’s lawmen, and both Fox and Benjamin are forced to admit the supernatural powers at work around them.  What makes Territory so engaging is the subtlety of the fantasy elements. Bull steeps the story in the gritty reality of the West, in dusty streets and wide-open country, the stark separation between male and female society, and the threat of frontier justice about to burst like a storm cloud. It’s a slow burn story, and there’s more gunplay than spells, which makes the scenes of magic that much more dramatic.  more...

It’s easy for writers who are seeking publication to get into a rut. Hell, it’s easy for anyone to get into a rut. So for 2012, why not make a resolution to do some truly new things this New Year and see if some incredible changes come your way? Now I’m not talking about the boring, been-there-done-that stuff that everyone promises: go on a diet, exercise more, save money, stop stalking Ryan Gosling, learn how to boil water—you know, the basics. Of course, I can’t identify each of your issues (and if you want to email them to me, feel free—I’ve been known to offer fantastic advice on everything from matters of the heart to matters of the kidneys), so I can’t comment on exactly what you should aim for that will improve your lifestyle, health, etc. But I can give some suggestions in terms of writing and seeking publication. A few things that you’ve maybe thought about doing but have put off because you think a) there’s not enough time, b) why bother? c) that’s outside of my comfort zone, d) I can’t do that! and e) are you crazy? I’ve got too much writing to do!  more...