First questions answered

[mrissa]

You can still put questions in the previous entry's question box, if you like. I've already answered a few of them on e-mail that seemed more e-mailicious, but here are the first few:

Where are you in that icon?

Oh, I can see how you would have to ask, since mostly people differentiate me from others by thinking of me as the pale one. But I'm the one on the left.

(Seriously, Rosicrucian Park, San Jose. Other pictures here and here.)

We want....information. And by "we" it's me and some friendly stuffed animals of m...hey, out of sp

You and your stuffed animals will just have to resort to e-mail if you want to know where the secret documents are in any kind of specifics. Also you will have to avoid the oil slicks and the rockets from my car, which is a nearly-nine-year-old Saturn with automatic transmission, because my spy skills are just that sneaky.

How many novels have you written?

Err. Eleven, by the most generous count, which markgritter insists that I use. (If the question was "how many books?", he insists that the answer is 14, since the three books I wrote as contract-work and do not own the rights to are, in fact, books I wrote. I guess.) Two before college, which were destroyed a year after writing each of them. Of the remaining nine, two are not yet revised enough to show people (but I'm working on it), one is essentially trunked, and six are either hoping to gather editorial interest in various locations or waiting for the editorial interest to make up its mind or have the time to deal with them or do those other fine things editorial interest does. The other methods of breakdown of the nine that count to me (sorry, dear) are five YA and four adult, or else two SF and seven fantasy, or else six stand-alone and three sequels.

The idea here seems to be that I will write the best books I can and revise them as best I can and send them out -- and then keep writing while I wait. Since none of the expressions of editorial interest have come with less than a two-year wait so far, I have attempted to file that stuff into the category "stuff I can't directly control," look for an agent, and keep going. Persistence R Us.

Comments

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

I so admire your dogged persistence in pursuing publication. Write those books.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have to say that were it not for short story sales and at least some editorial interest in the books I've already written, persistence would be a lot harder.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Persistence is much more . . . positive . . . than stubbornness.

Me, I was stubborn.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, but if you declare yourself stubborn on my lj, my mom will not call you up and gently chide you.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

You had mentioned that in a previous post.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

#3 is very, very, very, very familiar to me. Except that I stuck with adult fantasy, 'cause it was the only thing I knew how to do. (Still mostly is.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You're figuring it out. I have confidence in you.

[atdt1991.livejournal.com]

I used to have a '96 Saturn SL1. It started out as an automatic, but I used to call it my "semi-automatic Saturn" in the year before it died.

At that point, there was some pesky minor problems involving a leaking gasket, a bad piston, and my coolant consisting entirely of... er, oil.

That said, I found that when I pulled to a stop, I'd have to kick it into neutral and keep the RPMs over 1000, or the poor thing would shake itself to pieces.

Oddly, none of that (directly) did it in. Something temperature-related died, and I could only drive it about eight miles before the car would think it was overheating. (It was not.)

I often wondered if I was creating super-spy oil slicks, since it seemed I was hemorrhaging oil, but I do believe my car was just tucking that oil away in the coolant container.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

In case it needed it later!

[atdt1991.livejournal.com]

Speaking of such things, I hear the latest Knight Rider premiered this weekend, and it descended to new levels of horrible.

They didn't even Turbo Boost once.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Shhhh, don't tell ksumnersmith.

[atdt1991.livejournal.com]

I will take that secret to my grave.

Though I hear The Hoff kinda made the show, for the bit he was on.

[ex-kaz-maho.livejournal.com]

Persistence R Us.

Indeed! Wow, you've written so much... (Thanks for answering the question, btw.)

So are the five YA books all fantasy?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

No, one of them is SF.