Category Archives: publishing

The Year in Books: 2019

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Welcome to the Twenties! How weird does that sound? I had an extra busy final week of the year so my yearly wrap up post is just a touch late.

2019 saw me primarily occupied with getting up to speed in my new job. But I also wrote more this year than I have in a very long time. I sold two stories and saw one of them published in 2019. If you haven’t already you can listen to my take on Beauty and the Beast, the Rose Sisterhood, on Cast of Wonders. Leigh Wallace’s narration is excellent.

Most of my writing-related activities in 2019 centered on my monthly meetings with my awesome critique partners. In addition I attended Fourth Street Fantasy again and have every attention to go again in 2020. I also hosted another 2-Page Workshop for MinnSpec.

Okay Enough about me, time to gush about my friends. Two of my Viable Paradise 20 classmates published novels this year. I got to read the opening chapters of Valerie Valdes’s Chilling Effect at VP and fell in love with it. I was thrilled when the rest of the book was as funny and irreverent and heartfelt as those first chapters. I highly recommend it! I also read the first chapter of AJ Hackwith’s Library of the Unwritten. And while I have not yet read the full novel (though I will be soon) I have no doubt it will be as good as the amazing sample I read on the Island.

Several other of my VP classmates had good years, publishing stories and poems and putting out Hugo nominated podcasts. So if you are looking for even more reading material check out Wren Wallis, Karen Osborne, Jo Miles, and Jennifer Mace.

On to the book talk!

My favorite reads were, in no particular order:

Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente

Wayward Sons by Rainbow Rowell

Pumpkinheads also by Rainbow Rowell.

The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas

Puddin‘ by Julie Murphy

Wintersmith, I Shall Wear Midnight, and The Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett

The Calculating Stars and The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal

What can I say? I read a lot of good stuff in 2019.

By the Numbers

76 books read in total

Formats:
43 print books. 33 audiobooks. 4 ebooks. 32 comics/graphic novels.

16 library books. 6 borrowed.

31 YA. 7 MG.

Favorite Authors:
3 Rainbow Rowell. 2 Seanan Maguire. 2 Catherynne M Valente. 3 Terry Pratchett. 1 Julie Murphy. 3 Holly Black. 1 Maggie Stiefvater

2019 also saw adaptations of two of my favorite albeit very different books. BBC and Amazon’s Good Omens miniseries was a highlight of the year.

https://youtu.be/hUJoR4vlIIs

And Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Little Women was a surprisingly fresh take on a 150-year-old classic.

And though it wasn’t based on a book Rian Johnson’s murder mystery, Knives Out, was a treat for this book lover and made me covet the house it was set in.

Another highlight was Moving Theater Company’s Cabal a play/escape room event. IT was immersive and inventive. https://www.walkingshadow.org/cabal

So that was the year in Books. Let’s see what 2020 will bring.

Publication Day: Deadbeat

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Happy New Year! I’ve got another story out as of today. Deadbeat, a story about superheroes and grief and mishandled legacies. It’s available to purchase below.

https://www.cossmass.com/buy/

night scenery of a man rowing a boat among many glowing moons floating on the sea, digital art style, illustration painting

The Year in Books : 2018

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I’m not going to lie, 2018 felt endless. But it’s finally over and that means it’s time to do my yearly wrap up. By mostly talking about books!

Last year I read 95 books in total. Not quite as many as I have in past years but I ended up with almost twice the amount of contenders for my favorites list.

By category:

34 audiobooks

45 graphic novels

6 ebooks

11 borrowed

29 library books

28 young adult

10 short story collections

Favorite Reads

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan

I have not read anything by this author but I ‘m going to start now because I just loved this book. It was so unexpected and fun. On its surface, it’s a run of the mill YA fantasy. A young man from the “real world” is recruited by a magic school in a fantasy world. But it has a lot to say about training teenagers to be soldiers and diplomacy over violence. However what really drew me in was its characters. I got so invested. The main character Eliott is so marvelously flawed. He is a bit awful but in a very relatable and entertaining way and his two best friends, Luke Sunborn and Serene Heart in the Chaos of Battle are fully realized and also have their own distinct and satisfying story arcs. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Plus there’s mermaids and unicorns and elves and so much LGBTQ awesomeness. Also, it’s just plain hilarious.

The Murderbot Diaries Vol. 1 through 4 by Martha Wells.

Another author I was not familiar with until this year. This series of novellas is narrated by an AI created to be a hirable security unit with no free will. But the AI has hacked their own programming and can make decisions for themselves. They dub themself Murderbot for several reasons, not the least being because self-aware robots are almost always portrayed as killing machines. I absolutely adore Murderbot. They are not very trusting of humanity and mostly want to be left alone to watch TV. As an introvert with anxiety, I can relate. The novellas follow Murderbot as they investigate an incident in their past from just before they became self-aware. They run afoul of an evil corporation and often find themself feeling responsible for the safety of different groups of humans despite not really wanting to be. All four books are great but the second is my favorite.

Honorable Mentions

The Wayfarers Series by Becky Chambers

We Are Never Meeting In Real Life by Samatha Irby

Cat Pictures Please and Other Stories by Naomi Kritzer

Opal: A Raven Cycle Story by Maggie Stiefvater

Favorite Authors by the numbers:

Neil Gamin – 5

Martha Wells – 4

Bryan K. Vaughan – 3

Becky Chambers – 3

Seanan Maguire – 2

Maggie Stiefvater – 1

Naomi Kritzer – 1

Samantha Irby – 1

Marissa Meyer – 1

George R.R. Martin – 1

Connie Willis – 1

Holly Black -1

John Scalzi – 1

David Sedaris – 1

Nnedi Okorafor – 1

Other Highlights

Three of my stories were published this year, including my first professional sale. Read them here: Seeded, Amenities, Cat Lady.

Fourth Street Fantasy Convention was another big highlight this year. I got to meet up with several Viable Paradise friends and made several new ones. I’m looking forward to attending again next June.

I completed my revision on my superhero novella and have begun submitting it to publishers.

I’m working on a long-form WIP that I’m not sure what I’ll be doing with once it’s done and a few more ideas percolating.

And here is the current state of my to read shelves.

It’s still completely out of control. Maybe by next year, I will have conquered the piles on the floor. Hahahahahahahahahahahahsob.

Cat Lady (is a story that I wrote)

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And it was published in the November issue of Galaxy’s Edge Magazine. You can read it by clicking on the link below and then clicking on the title in the table of contents.

http://www.galaxysedge.com/#editorWord

I might be teensy bit excited!

And it made me realize that I never posted here when another of my stories was published this Summer in Stupefying Stories.

http://stupefyingstories.blogspot.com/2018/09/showcase-amenities-by-susan-taitel.html

Wandering Eye on the Lorelei Signal

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You can now read my story Wandering Eye on the Lorelei Signal.

“The Lorelei Signal is a web-based magazine dedicated to featuring
3 dimensional/complex female characters in Fantasy stories.”

I am very proud to have one of my stories published there. There is also a lovely piece of original artwork to go with it. That is a first for me.

http://www.loreleisignal.com/WanderingEye.html

Also if you are so inclined there is a donation button at the bottom of the page. Any donations go to cover the operating cost of the magazine, and any money raised beyond that cost is paid out to the authors and artists.

Progress Report

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Once again it’s been a while between updates. Lots of things have happened since then. Most exciting for me was that my short story, Wandering Eye, won the Geek Partnership Society’s Scot Imes Award for short fiction. The official announcement hasn’t been posted yet but when it is, the story will be available to read on their website and I will link to it.
The award has given me a little confidence boost and has motivated me to start submitting more of my short stories for publication. I also attended a lecture hosted by the Minnesota Speculative Writers Group on the subject of selling stories. I learned a lot, but what struck me the most was the point that writing stories is great, but they can’t and won’t do anything for you if you don’t try to sell them. It’s better to let them sit on an editor’s hard-drive than sitting dormant on mine. So I’ve been polishing up my small backlog of stories and begun sending them out.
I got to read the story out loud at the award ceremony. It was my first public reading (for a very small audience) it went pretty well, though I was cursing myself for including so many multisyllabic words to trip over. The ceremony was held at CONvergence, Minnesota’s annual genre convention. I’ve gone for the last three years. It’s a big melting pot of geek culture and always a lot of fun.
I had a photo op with the Tardis.
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That is my Little Doctor shirt I’m wearing, available for sale here.
As usual I attended several book themed panels and left with tons of titles added to my To Read list. Including some from special guest authors Paul Cornell, Emma Newman, and Adam Stemple. I can’t wait to get reading.
Speaking of reading, I recently read Jo Walton’s Among Others. It had been recommended and lent to me by my sister and her husband. They told me I had to bump it to the top of my pile. I’m so glad I listened!
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It’s a beautiful, original, quiet, treasure of a book. The main character spends the majority of her time reading books herself. There’s magic and fairies and terrible danger but they’re not presented like any magic or fairies or terrible danger I’ve ever read before. And I’ve read lots of stories involving magic, fairies, and terrible danger. I’ve even written a couple.
One of the most compelling aspects of the book for me was how immersed in books the main character is. The books she reads are all classic scifi novels. Nearly all the books she mentions were on my family’s collective shelves as I grew up. Even though the book is set in an English boarding school in the seventies and I grew up on the North side of Chicago in the eighties, the authors referenced Poul Anderson, Roger Zelazny, and Ursula K. Le Guin, to name a few, gave me the same sensation as if it were set in my old neighborhood. I knew that world like the back of my hand.
So I’m urging anyone to whom that sounds remotely interesting to bump it to the top of your pile.
In other news, I finished the first draft of my middle grade fantasy. And yes it involves fairies and magic. It is my sixth completed manuscript which is a nice milestone. I’m tentatively calling it Tooth or Consequence, it’s 40,000 words long for the time being. I’m currently editing it to get it into the hands of my beta readers.
Speaking of whom, two of my critique partners also had great news. One got picked up by an agent and another got a book deal. I’ve read their books and they couldn’t deserve it more, they are both so talented. I can’t wait to encourage everyone I know to buy their books, they are terrific.
And I participated in Write On Con, an online writers’ conference. There were many informative articles and forum events about the publishing world covering just about every angle. All of the conference content can be found here.

 

Pitchapalooza

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I was lucky enough to be selected for The Book Doctors’ Pitchapalooza event.

They’ve posted my pitch for Random Acts of Nudity here.

Susan Taitel

There are two prizes, one to be chosen by the judges is an introduction to an agent. The other prize is voted on by readers for the fan favorite, to receive a consultation with the Book Doctors.

Voting is done here.

2013 NaNoWriMo Pitchapalooza

If you’d like to cast your vote for me, that would be awesome. Or one of the other pitches, many of which are pretty darn good.

Progress Report: Good News/Bad News.

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Good news: I’m a prophet. I said in my last post I might not make it through the pitch round of ABNA this year and I didn’t. I know the future! The disappointing future!
Bad news: see above re: ABNA. I’m not gutted. As I said in my previous post, the contest is unpredictable, particularly in the first round where everything hinges on 300 words or less. I’m happy with the pitch I wrote. It’s not much altered from the one I wrote last year which resulted in the same book reaching the semifinals. It didn’t help my odds that this year there was only 400 available slots in YA as opposed to the 1000 of last year. I think I likely got a perfectly decent score on my pitch, but it wasn’t enough to squeeze into the top 400. I’m okay with that. And echoing again my last post, there is much to be gained from ABNA that doesn’t include winning or advancing in the contest. This year I got another awesome critique partner (outside of my regular critique group), who already has a great YA book out. I’m looking forward to reading and possibly helping with the sequel, as well as getting her take on Random Acts.
Good News: several of my friends from the board and members of my critique group did make it past round one. I plan on cheering them along to the final round.
Bad news: I heard back from the three agents who had requested the full manuscript of Random Acts. They all passed. Two said they were open to reading it again should I revise and would look at my future projects. One of those two rejections made me cry. Not because it was mean, it was anything but. The agent said they loved the manuscript and thought long and hard about offering to represent. But they didn’t think it was ready.
I wept bitter tears. I wasn’t expecting to take it so hard, I’m usually pretty good at brushing off disappointment and soldiering on.
Sometimes it is hard to see past the “no” and absorb the helpful and positive things the agent/editor/ critic said along with the rejection. All I could see when I read the letter was that I’d come very close to succeeding but it WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH.
After indulging in a tiny pity party, I could then take in that this agent had said they loved my work. That they wanted to see more of it. And had given me good advice on how to improve it. Yes, they’d said it wasn’t good enough, I just hadn’t been able to see the “yet”.
Good news: an editor from a small press saw a twitter pitch* for Random Acts and asked to see the first few pages. Not long after sending the requested pages the editor responded and asked for the entire manuscript. I don’t know if anything will come of it, but just having it looked at by a publisher is a big accomplishment.
Good news: I finished my fifth manuscript, The Living UnDead. It is the final book in a trilogy. And the farewell to characters I created in my very first novel. It’s also my longest book, coming in at 126,000 words (in the first draft. The count is bound to change once I start editing.)
I started it in the summer of 2010, making it the book it took me the longest to complete. I also started and finished both Outlook Grimm and Random Acts of Nudity between starting and finishing this one.
Bad news: I’m not writing. For the first time in two and a half years, I don’t have a work in progress. I know what my next project will be, but since my critique group is planning on doing our own not-National Novel Writing Month in April, I’m waiting until April 1st to start drafting. I plan on using the time until then editing Living Undead to send to my beta readers and on planning the new book.
Good news: I made a chocolate mousse cake!
I got the recipe from the One Pot Chef YouTube channel. It’s probably the got best ease of prep to decadence ratio of anything I’ve ever made.
Bad news: My elliptical broke about a month and a half ago and I haven’t been doing my daily hour of exercise as a result. I was already gaining back some of the pre daily exercise weight, because of all the baked goods before it broke. So I’ve ordered a new elliptical and am trying to cut back on the treats. We’ll see if that helps.
*AS a part of a Twitter pitch event. Authors were invited to pitch their book in a tweet and agents and editors could view them and request. It is never a good idea to randomly pitch to an agent on Twitter or facebook, or any other social media platform, unless they say they re open to that.