Babes in Spyland

Since I'm at Dean and Kris' anthology workshop this week my friend, Jo Ann Schneider, has graciously agreed to make Ninja Keyboard part of her blog tour. Every blog on the tour has a different character bio and snippet from her novel, Babes in Spyland. There's a link to her blog at the bottom of this post if you want to read the other bios, as well as the Amazon link so you can buy a copy of this fun book.

Agent Amphibian Queen:

Height: 5’-9”

Years with The Super Secret Agency: 2

Preferred Gun: Kahr P9

Strength: Stealthy, subtle and artistic. Blends in.

Weakness: Tiny things. She thinks they’re adorable.

Name origin: Something involving a frog. She doesn’t talk about it.

The aromatic garland of white orchids, yellow lilies, and baby blue morning glory hung over the metal detector like drapes, failing to hide the dirty, off-white housing underneath. Even after calling in a third florist and an extra bundle of greenery, Super Secret Agent Amphibian Queen couldn’t figure out how to disguise the machine.

“Maybe a few more on this side,” she said, squinting her eyes in an attempt to picture the results of her suggestion. The sun beat down on them like a hammer, and she really wanted a cool, refreshing Hilly Dew.

“It’s a metal detector,” Agent Bunnynose said, crossing her arms over her stomach and glaring. Sweat plastered the stray tendrils of hair to the back of her neck. “It’s not supposed to be pretty.”

Amphibian Queen ignored her partner. Agent Bunnynose had been rampaging since they’d touched down in LA the day before. She must be at a delicate time of the month, Amphibian Queen decided. She would need to send someone for snacks. Agent Bunnynose was prone to random acts of violence if not kept sufficiently fed.

Babes in Spyland on Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Babes-Spyland-Jo-Ann-Schneider/dp/0615951511/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392438175&sr=8-1&keywords=babes+in+spyland

Jo Ann Schneider Blog

http://joannschneider.blogspot.com/

Jo Ann Schneider on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/JoannSchneiderAuthor?ref=hl

Jo on Twitter

https://twitter.com/JoSchneider_1

Chibi marathon

If there's a writers equivalent of a marathon than doing the prep work for Dean and Kris' workshop might be a good candidate. I'm used to diddling around with a short story for a two or three weeks before I polish it and send it out. It sounds lazy but it's not. Since short stories aren't worth outlining I tend to approach them like a jigsaw puzzle. I know the overall picture and I spend a couple hours at a time staring at the pieces until I figure out where one goes. Then I'll go work on something else for a while until I feel like staring at the pieces again. However this time around I don't have the luxury.

It's frustrating and stressful as hell but at the same time it's good to be pushed like this. Spending that much time on a short is kind of ridiculous and being able to finish the puzzle faster will be a good skill to have. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to placing those pieces. I've done enough "impossible" tasks this year that I don't doubt that I can do it. I just need to sit down, focus, and prove myself right.

Hiding the corpses

Saturday morning I finished editing the cyberfunk. It took me a week longer than I'd planned but November was also far busier than I'd anticipated. Those of you who have been following me for a while are probably thinking "you say that every year." Well yes, I do but this year was particularly harrowing. I had two days off all month. That's it. Two. I wasn't twiddling my thumbs at the day job either. I was working two or more jobs per day and then editing a few pages before I passed out from exhaustion. So to do all that and edit 50K to boot, that's a freaking win. There are no more excuses. I've murdered them all and buried the bodies in someone else's basement. (I can't bury them in my basement because I haven't got one. Besides hiding the evidence where I live would be really dumb.)

Normally I'd start a new book now but sadly that's not the case this time. I can't even go back to working on F&F yet. Why? I have to write six short stories by the end of February in preparation for Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch's anthology workshop. I was able to secure a coveted spot so now that the great edit of 2013 is complete I can put everything else on hold so I can focus on putting my best work on the page for them. I will finish F&F. I swear I will. But this workshop is a fantastic opportunity and I'd be an idiot not to give it my all.

To the stars and back

Last week I promised you I would talk about the Superstars Writing Seminar and since I'm a woman of my word, I'm doing just that.

Ahem......

The seminar was freaking awesome!!!






What's that? You want details? I'm sorry, I can't do that. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.  :)


Oh, alright. I'll give you more, but only because I'm a softie (and because it was freaking awesome).

If you're not already aware of what the seminar is, it's a nuts and bolts discussion of publishing presented by Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, Eric Flint, Dave Farland/Wolverton, Brandon Sanderson, and a few guest speakers. This year the guest speakers were James A. Owen (the A stands for awesome), Dean Wesley Smith, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch (who unfortunately had to cancel at the last minute).

I want to make sure that you noticed that this seminar is chiefly about publishing and not writing. We did briefly touch on the subject of writing but the primary focus of this seminar is publishing, which is why this seminar is so essential. The industry is changing so fast and if you don't know how to navigate the changing labyrinth, you're going to become someone's lunch.

Don't become someone's lunch.

If you're writing for your own enjoyment, then this seminar isn't for you. But if you're like me and want to make money doing what you love, then you need to pay attention to what these seasoned professionals have to say -- and believe me, they have a lot to say. I have 18 pages of notes.

If you're allergic to people and learning about publishing is more than enough awesome for you, then follow the link (http://superstarswritingseminars.com/index.php/dvds-a-mp3s) and buy the discs. If you want the full freaking awesome experience then you need to pull out the credit card and attend in person because the best parts of the seminar happen between the lectures. That's when you network.

This is one of the best and easiest places to network. There's a private Facebook group so we could get acquainted before we arrived (and stay in contact after we left) so many of us didn't need to break the ice. As for the attendees we didn't know, we learned really fast that asking "what do you write?" was the perfect ice breaker. During the seminar there were many short breaks, in addition to meal times and BarCon which gave us ample opportunity to break said ice and converse.

I don't want you to think that it was just the attendees getting geeky together. The pros were there too.  And honestly, if you go and don't ask at least one of the speakers to join you for a meal, you're missing out. Some of the best discussions with the pros happened after hours.

If you've been debating about going to a seminar, I highly recommend this one. Yes, it's expensive, but it's tax deductible and worth every penny. The friends, contacts, and opportunities I gained from this experience made it more than worth the expense.