Author Archives: Jeannie Lin

What have I been doing?

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brenda_novak_basketWhat has Jeannie been up to?

I’ve experienced a sudden productivity spike, which I attribute to a couple of things. First of all, the day job is picking up. This means I can’t lollygag all day. So with less time to write, I write more.

Second, I’m still riding the adrenaline high from the new contract for two novels and two shorts. See how smoothly I worked that in?

1) I hit “The End” on a 10K-ish short for Undone just this Saturday. I’m really happy how it turned out. And I wrote a whole story and not a single swordfight. šŸ™‚

2) I started author amendments on Butterfly Swords and I’ve decided that my fight scenes rock. There. I said it.

3) My friend Bria Quinlan introduced me to Tweetdeck and now I’m starting to see Twitter in a whole new light. I also glance up every time that little cricket noise indiciates someone, somewhere has said something.

4) I’m completely addicted to placing bids on the Brenda Novak Online auction for diabetes. The Ruby-Slippered Sisterhood basket is still available, by the way. Hidden among the goodies is a 3 chapter critique from myself, Cynthia Justlin, and Amanda Brice — the Power of Three. We all critiqued for each other prior to entering the Golden Heart in ’09 and we all finaled. I myself have won a critique from Pulitzer Prize nominee, Harvey Stanbrough. I’m really, really nervous at the thought of sending him 15 pages. What to send? Hopping zombie paranormal? Tang Dynasty romance? Or the woman’s fiction I’m urging my Little Sis to co-write with me?

5) Oh — about the previous item. I’m exploiting Little Sis’ pregnancy hormones to get her to start the women’s fiction historical we’ve always been talking about for years. Mwahahahaha!

6) Promotion — I got my first newsletter out to the 14 people on my list. Hello happy 14! I really hope a couple more people will join. Do it now and you can receive the coolest souvenir charm ever. See Special Promotion

7) More promotional items — I came up with another idea for a giveaway. Official Tang Dyansty of Jeannie Lin maps! I always dreamed of having a book with a fantasy map at the front….but since there isn’t one, I thought it might be fun to make a nice one on parchment paper for giveaways and such. Here’s what I have so far on the draft. What do you think?

By the way, the icons on the map — I’m very proud of the technique I’ve devised to create those. I still have to hand write in the major sites from the stories — Changan, Luoyang, Longyou, Yumen Guan, the Bamboo Sea, and Qinghai.

tangmap_firstdraft

A “deep” thought for Friday morning

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First off, I want to confess that I’m breaking the fourth wall here. Angie Fox gave me wonderful advice about how she doesn’t want her readers to even realize the grunt work that goes into writing. She doesn’t talk about how hard it is on her blog or her facebook.

“That’s brilliant!” I exclaimed. “Never let them see you sweat.”

Guess I’m breaking that rule with this post. šŸ˜‰ I’m working on this short story/novella and thinking of how every new story feels like I’m learning everything all over again. Will this ever get easier? Will characters and conflict and just the very execution of these scenes ever come naturally?

I thought back to teaching. I’m probably feeling nostalgic because I just sent out scholarships and I’m going back to California in a month to attend the graduation ceremony for the last freshman class I taught.

When I was a newbie, veteran teachers would tell me that after a couple years, teaching would get easier. But IĀ  was working my butt off every year and feeling I would never reach that imaginary plateau. At one point I finally realized, it was easier. I just didn’t realize it.

My first year teaching, I spent a lot of energy spinning my wheels trying to figure things out and wasting time on things that didn’t turn out to be important. By my second year, the fundamentals got easier and I just moved on to fret about other things. I knew how to organize my class, lesson plan, get through administrative tasks like grading and taking attendance that used to be a huge deal. I knew what activities would give a bigger bang for the buck in terms of student involvement and learning. But then I wanted to raise the bar, teach more than I had before, push the students further from the first day to summer break.

So that’s where I am now. Everything still feels like it takes so much effort, but maybe it’s just because I’m planning harder lessons. That’s my encouraging thought for the day — It never gets easier, but it does.

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For some reason, the topic of this post made me think of “Deep Thoughts” by Jack Handey. Remember? That old Saturday Night Live skit where the music would get all sentimental and serious and Jack would spout random thoughts in that were hilariously nonsensical?