Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing

After a week in Perth and a very delayed flight I am home brimming with ideas. However, I have a few things backed up. I had to review my contract for Novus Creatura and the proof of my story Liquid Night. I found one small typo and seeing it all laid out was very exciting. Many thanks to Michael Pennington from Aurore Wolf for bringing all together and being so generous and open about the process for contracts and contributor copies. Feels kind of zany working with someone who lives in Alaska. What a wonderful place the Internet is.

I have a few stories on the go that I need to attack but they may have to wait to later in the week. Very mentally tired at the moment from work. On the last day of interviewing people I couldn’t keep going, couldn’t think. Lucky it was the last interview. So I think I should rest before the trip to Melbourne.

Also I have to crit a story and then start beta reading a novel. I am looking forward to doing it because if I can’t write at least I can read. I also hope to finish the most amazing book Power and Majesty by Tansy Rayner Roberts. The world building and the setting is just so good and out there. As a seasoned fantasy reader am always looking for things that a new and interesting.

Better go. Duty calls.

My story Warning Buoy had a rocky start to publication. Lame Goat Press went into hiatus and Static Movement, which is owned by the  guest editor, Chris Batholemew, took over the publication. The anthology has been renamed ‘Deep Space Terror’ and is available from Amazon. I ordered my copies the other day.

http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Space-Terror-Chris-Bartholomew/dp/1617060267/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279435092&sr=8-1

Darn I noticed that they have discounted it since I bought my copies.

My story the Clean Streets of Oberest was renamed Liquid Night. It is still coming out but this time with Aurora Wolf in the Novus Creatura. When Lame Goat stopped responding the wonderful editors tried to keep true to their writers. JAM John Arthur Miller went to Aurora Wolf to publish Novus Creatura, which I think is really cool. The new publishers appear to be taking a lot of care in the shape of the MS and in its contracts with authors.

Strange thing. The other day I had an email from Lame Goat saying they were up and running again and please send more stories. I’m afraid that after the previous experience I would have to think twice before doing so.  The editor in chief did not let me know there were problems and I wasn’t the only one. Lack of communication equals lack of respect. And the offer only ever was publication, no contributor copy and no payment. I think I’ll be looking to other markets in future.

I had a submission with Weird Tales and when I queried found out that they did not receive it. That was a wasted 4 months of my life. And they are closed to new submissions until January 2011. I was very grateful the editor got back to me and let me know in any case.

I have been travelling extensively for work and am heading for Perth in an hour or so. So writing wise I have been a bit dead. I wrote a short story idea down last week. Thought of one while driving to Redcliffe in Queensland last week and then forgot it. The only thing I have been doing before passing out every night is reading.

I finished a beta read and now am starting a new one.

My first sale to Lame Goat Press was my story ‘The Warning Buoy’.

While I was looking for cover art I thought I’d put this one up too.

I am waiting, waiting for this one to come out. It will be available from Amazon.

I was querying earlier about edits, as I have signed the contracts. I thought at least they’d want to alter my Australian spelling. However I saw a note from the editor to say that they will not alter spelling unless it affects understanding. I think that is kind of cool.

Another one of my story sales is to Lame Goat Press.

I just found the cover image which I thought I’d put up here.

http://lamegoatpress.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=ncreatura&action=display&thread=229&page=3

My story was originally titled ‘Clean Streets of Oberest’ but is now going to be called ‘Liquid Night’. It was great working with JAM on the edits.

Again this is not a review, because I am in this,  but a few words about this paranormal romance anthology. Put it down to over excitement.

There are some standout stories in this collection. Stories that would stand in any spec fic anthology, not just a paranormal romance. All reading is subjective, I guess but’ Bread and Circuses’ by Felicity Dowker blew me away. How could she combine, love, zombies, human nature at its meanest and make such a rocking story?  I wonder if she’ll let me sample her brains so I can find out. (I want your brains!)

Kyla Ward’s ‘Cursebreaker: the Welsh Widow and the Wondering Wooer’ is another awesome story with intricate plotting and an exciting premise. It is amazing to me how she crammed so much story in.

‘The February Dragon’ by Angela Slatter and L.L. Hannett was another meaty piece of writing, combining dragons and humans and creating a riveting story.

I also enjoyed ‘Date with a Vampire’ by Annette Backshall and ‘The Anstruther Woman’ by Nicole R Murphy.’A Darker Shade of Pale’ by David Bofinger was a  slick and interesting vampire tale with a twist or tweak or two.  ‘Phaedra’ by Bruce Golden gave me a chuckle. Imagine a man in love with a cartoon character? Impossible right?

The other tales within  you will have to explore yourself.

As I finished the collection I had the sobering realisation that I had written the naughtiest piece in there. Simon Petrie called it vampire porn- Me?  Heat is a vampire slut story. Not much more to say. Simon’s review is here

http://www.indiebooksonline.com/catalog/

This isn’t a review. I can’t do that as I’m in this anthology. However, I wanted to say a few things about some of the great stories in this book and how fantastic it feels to be in such company.

The theme Belong-How far would you go to belong? Is a deep thinking theme and contributing a story to it marks a transition for me as a writer. I see it more and more each day and reading Belong brought it home to me. I’m not saying I wasn’t a deep thinker. I am but I have changed and my writing has changed. I am writing more for the way a story is told rather than telling a story. I suppose it was inevitable after nearly 10 years of trying.

Now flicking through a group of the stories

First up is Penelope Love’s ‘Border Crossing’. This is an awesome zombie story, complete with deep and meaningful commentary. I will look upon zombies differently in future. ‘Mrs Estahazi’  by Barbara Robson is a great story about how we (community) accept and don’t accept others. Very well depicted suburbia. ‘Norumbega’ by Linda L Donahue. I confess this story grabbed me and didn’t let me go. Loved the American Indian-Abernaki legend.  ‘Ice’ by Zdravka Evtimova had interesting and strange ice. ‘United’ by Jennifer Moore a sad little story that depicts reality too well. ‘The Gift’ by Barry Rosenberg was a very moving story of dislocation and assimilation by default. ‘All Tales Must End’ by Michelle Muenzler also captured my imagination. Cities on the move and the nature of the mob. ‘The Song of the Blackbird’ by Sarah Totton. This story stayed with me for a while and I wanted it to go on. I found it a mixture of grit and legend. ‘Iniation’ by Sonia Helbig marked a strong closing quarter of the anthology. A very interesting take on capitalism and socialism in a very colourful Australis. ‘Slow Cookin’ by Angela Rega- a great irreverent take on Sicilian ancestry and culture. I loved Nonna Elba. ‘The Hollow Ones’ by Kylie Seluka provides a change of pace to the pacific islands and the mysteries of the Earth. A richly told fantasy. ‘Deeper Than Flesh and Closer’ by Carole Ryles- you know a story is superbly written when 11,000 words sail by and you want more and more. Loved it. ‘Trassi Udang’ by Patty Jensen is a meaty, well-drawn space opera tale with Indonesian flavours which made me hunger for gado gado.

All the stories were a great read.It is hard to comment on them without giving things away. As a reader I feel the  collection does its work, it explores and measures what it is to belong. As a writer it inspires me to write more and to count myself proud to be among this great group of writers and their stories.

You can purchase you copy of Belong from

http://www.indiebooksonline.com/catalog/

I am currently attempting a paranormal romance/urban fantasy novel. I have a great idea. The story starts hot and smart and strange. Yet as I get into the novel I find that things aren’t as easy as I thought.

It’s not that I haven’t read this genre. I have and I enjoy it. However, it is darn hard. Why?

I’ve been struggling through why this is so. What makes it harder than say  straight fantasy or SF? I think it is balance, believability and character. The two main characters, in this case, the man and the woman, have to appear real or three-dimensional. Now with paranormal/urban fantasy your everyday character can be exposed to something out of the ordinary. This is the case with my heroine. She is thrust into something quite disturbing and fantastic. How do I make her reactions realistic?

When I look over what I have done I see that I am going to quickly. She comes to terms with things too easily. The male character is used to the fantastic so that’s not an issue, but the story does place him in a difficult position. Is he taking it too easy? Do I address the ramifications for him? I look over what I’ve done and see that I need to do more along these lines.

The sex. Now I think I write a darn good and hot sex scene. However, I can’t just have a series of sex scenes now can I? There must be variety, suspense, teasing, tension and a reasonable amount of plot to hang these scenes off, at the same time developing the relationship between the characters, either love or hate. So there’s another complexity.

Plot-now this has to be able to stand. What this type of story is to my mind is a whole story with realistic love encounters woven through it. So I can’t get away with flinging a few bits of plot here and there. Now I need to have twists and turns, impediments for the character in solving the plot issue, and a realisation (as well as the love issue, which can be quite separate from the main plot driver).

Keri Arthur for example has a mystery/thriller plot line along with her character’s sexual encounters. They interweave quite well. Nor is she formulatic. I read a number of her books, then came across one where the character didn’t have sex for quite a few chapters, which was for her unusual.

Related to plot is the world building. You can’t be shy about establishing the rules of the world, often the contemporary world with an underbelly of magic, vampires, elves, whatever. So for this you need to apply the same vigour as you would to your fantasy world building, but make it sit well within your chosen contemporary city etc.

This all adds up to a pretty tough ask. So instead of steaming ahead as I usually do, I am taking time to think, to slow down the rapid assault of my plot, I am taking the time for the characters to show how they feel, explore their reactions. I may need to cut this later, but I think for now this is what I need to do.

I also need to sit down and do a bit more work on the world, the magic, the hierarchy of the magicians, and the technical aspects of the machinations that are to ensnare my characters. Then my next step is to revisit the beginning and slow down, but still keep it pacey. Rats. That’s hard too. Then I need to make sure there is more tension, more near misses with the sex scenes…gee another hard task.

Actually what it boils down to is thinking and hard work. Oh well no one ever said this writing gig is easy.

Today I received in the post, two lots of books. Four of each to be exact. One was Scary Kisses edited by Liz Grzyb and the other Belong edited by Russell B Farr (Ticonderoga Publications). I have a story in both. They are well presented and I can’t wait to dip my nose into them and read the stories. Scary Kisses is paranormal romance and my story ‘Heat’ is a vampire slut story.

A couple of years ago, Nicole Murphy and I decided to do an anthology of speculative romance stories, called Kiss of the Lily. We didn’t get enough stories to fill it and it had to be canned. We also had a lot of really bad stories  submitted such as stories that weren’t speculative or romance and stories that were neither. So when we saw Scary Kisses submission call, we had to submit. I mean we had so many ideas while thinking up Kiss of the Lily,  it was time to put them to the test. Both Nicole and I had stories accepted for Scary Kisses. Vindication!

Belong is looking like an exeptional anthology based on the migration-belong theme. ‘Green, green grass of  Homeworld’ is a science fiction story of nearly 10,000 words. It took me 5 years of thinking and procrastinating to write it and when it came,  it came out smoothly. I can’t wait to read the rest of the stories.

Currently I am working on another SF story based on refugees, migration and exploitation. So far the draft is 7000 words but I think it might either turn into a novella or become a novel. I guess I’ll have to keep working on it.

I have been working on this particular MS for 9 years. Oh lord was it that long ago? It is not my first novel attempt. Technically it was my second. It was my first attempt at fantasy and I found it hard. Now this ms has been through many iterations and reinventions. The first attempt was a bit YA in feel and tone. Not well crafted or written either for that matter. I was starting out. I remember the earlier drafts had about six chapters before the action happened. I had the two characters starting out in Canberra, their trip to Scotland, activities in Scotland etc. Lord what a waste of time.

I was learning my craft. Those chapters came out. As the years went by, and I revisted the story, I added things, I changed things and I refined things. I had the first few chapters assessed and got a bone crushing critique. Later, when I thought I should bin it, I sent it for an MS assessment and workshop (Envision). There I learned to do a few things to enhance it, but the greatest lesson was not to throw it away. It had potential.

I did more work on it. I gave to people to read and got feedback. Then one day last year I sent it to an editor, who has read other MSs of mine but hadn’t seen this one. Well of course it was rejected, but I got something very important and quite rare in my opinion. I got feedback, exciting feedback and compliments. This really inspired me to revist the MS again.

So this year, incorporating feedback and discussions with the editor, I revised the ms. There were some really funny things in there, things and habits and quirks that have been with me for 9 years and that I hadn’t recognised even though I had been revisiting every couple of years of so.

For instance, over use of exclamation marks!!! How I hate them so why were they there?
The use of colourful speech attribution instead of ‘said.’ At times I even had, ‘she exclaimed’ as well as using the exclamation mark. I used many attributions that are quite acceptable in a category romance but not I guess in other fiction. They look quite funny, eg ‘ She enthused.’

The overuse of adverbs. I had a terrible lot of them.
Saying things twice in different ways. Sort of like. She walked into the room, threw the book down and slammed herself into a chair. She was angry.

Like no kidding she was angry. I had shown it quite well in aciton but had to add in case you didn’t get it that she was angry. So there was a bit of that through out the story.

I gently peeled 10-15,000 words from the MS. I was worried. Had I lost something of my character, taking away her little mishaps?  The character, particularly in the early part of the book , was coming across too YA. I needed to mature her. I did this a bit in the tone of her thoughts and dialogue and I got rid of some actions, which I deemed were childish, or made her appear immature. In the end, I didn’t really alter her character but it did mature her I think.

Then I reread the whole thing and sent it to beta readers. Ones who hadn’t read it before. That was very useful.  It is difficult to view your own work with objectivity, though I am learning. Reading is subjective. So two people can have similar or dissimilar reactions. Both lots of feedback were useful because it allowed me to target areas where I hadn’t quite addressed the issue or I had created new issues. As I write this I realise I left the burger and fries and the pizza references out. Darn.

Revising the MS after the feedback was difficult. I intended to use the five days I had off over Easter but got sick. The enthusiasm died a bit. Also some negative feedback plagued me. When push came to shove, I had a crisis of faith in myself. I had to push through it.  I think in the end I made the MS better. I’ll find out eventually because I sent it off. It may not find a home there but I think it is a better peice of work and it will find a home eventually.

The answer is writing. I have been doing a ton of stuff. Short stories, some new, some old and revising a manuscript. What I have found interesting and funny in doing that is some of the things one writes when one is new to writing or is not really aware when drafting. I had revised this particular MS quite a few times, but the telling thing is that I first drafted it in 2001, when I was such a newbie. So on this particular revision I found some interesting and funny things.

Saying it too many times in different ways. For example, his face was familiar. I know this guy.

Using too many descriptors when attributing dialogue. Now you can get away with this when writing category romance but mostly it is frowned on as bad writing. He enthused. He demanded etc.

Exclamation marks. Oh god! I had so many! It was so annoying! Actually two run throughs of the MS and there were still a couple there. I edited a novel once and I had to go on an exclamation mark hunt. You know I even had he exclaimed! Lol.

I found these errors amusing but I was embarrassed too. An editor had read this and I hadn’t even noticed these mistakes, some had been there since 2001. Problem is that I like this story and then I get absorbed and not very objective. However that lapse does not help make my manuscript professional looking.

It is now with some beta readers for comment. I am bracing myself for feedback.