The Writer’s Voice entry #185 – SUBHUMAN, Adrien-Luc Sanders

(Hey guys, I’m participating in The Writer’s Voice blogfest, and one of the requirements is that I post my query/plot summary and first 250 words here. So wish me luck!)

Plot Summary: SUBHUMAN (YA, SF, post-apocalyptic)
17-year-old Kensington Randall has always felt invisible – until she becomes a moving target, and the prize in a devastating global war between mankind and their alien progenitors. When arctic drilling unearths an alien ship, the discovery sets off a chain of events that leaves the Earth scorched and twisted, and steals six years of Ken’s life in an instant. Six years in which her family, her friends, and her world move on without her.

As the military hunts her, her family rejects her, and her friends betray her, Ken has nowhere left to go save into the arms of Roman McKinley, another altered human and a confusing enigma who may damage Ken more than the aliens ever could. Together they discover the darker purpose behind their transformation – a purpose that makes them enemies to their own species, and living weapons who will, one way or another, bring the war to a shattering end.

First 250 words:
Kensington Randall would always remember the first time she saw Earth from space—and the last time she saw Brian smile.

He leaned against the railing on the outer observation deck of Hancomb International Lunar Station, smiling that strange, inward-turning smile that always made him seem so far away. Far from the world around them. Far from her. Unreachable, even when he stood so close their hands touched.

Below, the Earth was a disk of color and shadow rising past the ashen gray horizon of lunar craters. Darkness cupped the outer curve of the planet. Sunlight gilt the illuminated edge, until she could have plucked the red-gold ring from space and slid it onto her finger. A dense storm system unfurled its arms to grip the northern hemisphere, and she caught her breath as lightness filled her.

Brian took her hand, and his fingers curled cool and pale against her dusky skin. He’d held her hand so many times, over the years. Years of petty worries and family fights and high school squabbling. Years that would never look the same. Not now. Not ever.

When she looked back on that moment—a memory forever colored by the chill taste of recycled air, and the haunting blue of artificial light—she would always wonder if she could have changed things. If she’d left with Brian, or convinced him to stay. If she’d reached him sooner. If she’d died. If so many other things had been different.

Always if.

Hello, world! I’m going to eat your face, world!

I just wanted to get rid of that “Hello, world!” post that comes with a new WordPress install. I’m in the process of finishing the last touches on migrating this blog to a new web host. My old web host pulled some ugly moves with my data, so I wasn’t able to pull all of my info over; just some of it. I’m going to be pretty ticked if they refuse to let me snag the XML file for a friend’s WordPress blog that I’ve been hosting, too. They’re basically holding the data hostage and being jerks about it. This is why I keep regular backup files of my data, but I’m worried the friend didn’t export regular XML files of her posts. If she loses all of that, I’m going to feel like a pretty crappy human being, as it’s my web host that screwed her over.

I’m having to manually recreate a lot of sidebar widgets from locally stored files, and I have to manually re-enter all of my links from my blogroll and my writers’ resources list. If we’d exchanged blog links before, I’ll get your link back up shortly. Reciprocation, fair play, all that.

Unsurprisingly, this process is making me a wee bit cranky.

But at least it got me to finally update my blog?

I should come up with something more worthwhile to say.

Um…hi?

Okay, okay, a little publishing/writing/etc. related news: I did cover art for an MLR Press book, Z. Allora’s The Dark Angels: With Wings. It’s the first time I’ve had someone request a manga-style illustration for a book cover, but it was a lot of fun to work on and experiment with as far as art styles, especially since I’m used to shading dark-skinned people. Experimenting with various layered painting techniques to create Caucasian skin that didn’t look sickly or sunburned was a learning experience, I’ll say that. I’m currently working on roughs for the sequel.

Yep, that’s about all I’ve got.

I guess I’ve been absent for a while, but…well, life decided to eat my face, between some work-related and life-related stress combined with taking my grandmother’s death a lot harder than I realized. I had some things to deal with, and they were best dealt with out of the public eye. Long story short, life bit me and kept biting until I got tired of it and bit back.

So, like I said…hi.

10 (11) Ways To Tell Your Editor Hates You

Everyone knows editors are the natural born enemies of writers. We’re…uh. They’re mean, narrow-minded, ruthless people without an ounce of human compassion in their black, shriveled, gin-scented hearts. Bitter and entirely destroyed by the rigors of life, they hate everyone – but especially hate writers. And books. With a passion. And it’s likely that your editor hates you. In fact, it’s pretty obvious. Not sure if your editor hates you or not? Look for these 10 11 signs:

1. He points out your errors. It’s impossible to be perfect with some asshole constantly griping at you about comma abuse, homonym misuse, and proper apostrophe placement. You never do anything wrong. The dude needs to just back off.

2. He explains things to you about grammar, proper usage, plotting, characterization, etc. What does he think you are, five? Of course you know these things. You know everything. He just doesn’t get that you’re exercising your stylistic freedoms. And why is he giving you lessons in history, physics, Cantonese slang, Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, and the limits to which the human body can strain in that particular position of the Kama Sutra? You’re creative. You don’t have to be factually accurate.

3. He suggests improvements to your story and style. If you’d wanted to write it the way he suggested, you’d have done it that way in the first place. Even if you’d never thought of it before. Jesus. What an ass. He’s probably a failed writer with nothing better to do than try to undermine your talent. If he’s so smart, he can go write a book. You don’t need to improve anything. Ever.

4. He makes you do all the work of implementing his recommended changes. Cripes. You wrote the book once already. Why should you have to retain ownership of your characters and storyline to write it again? All that BS he spouts about trusting you and your talent, and about not taking over your story…pfft. He’s just blowing smoke up your ass because he’s too lazy to do it himself. He should just whip everything together and take care of it; it’s not your problem anymore. Editors are really just glorified proofreaders anyway. Everyone knows that.

5. He actually thinks your writing should mature with each iteration of edits and each new story. Why should you have to change what’s already perfect? So what if you just had to rewrite ten pages of action because he decided the existing scene created a plot hole the size of a mutant manatee? You’ll just dash it off and send it in as-is, flaws intact. Nevermind the fact that he’s spent the entire manuscript griping like your mother-in-law about semicolons can’t be used that way or make sure the modifying clauses agree with the main subject, verb, and object. Whine, whine, whine. If your writing style changed from edit to edit and book to book, he wouldn’t have anything to do. You’re just being considerate and keeping him from getting bored. After all, he wouldn’t have a job without you.

6. He’d rather go without sleep than miss another chance to go through your manuscript. I mean, obviously he’s just trying to create problems and he’s got a grudge against you. Does it really matter if every instance of the word Green in the Manuscript is CapitaLiZed? Get a life, man. Maybe if he slept more than three hours a day he wouldn’t be so nitpicky.

7. When you halfass your edits, he makes you do them again. Clearly he doesn’t understand that you skipped 75% of his editorial commentary because it was all asinine and destructive, demonstrating that he doesn’t get what you’re doing. Also, see previous comment re: getting a life. Doesn’t he think you have anything better to do?

8. He makes you kill your darlings. You spent months crafting that perfectly placed piece of purple prose, with its precisely poetic palliteration. You love that particular figure of speech and damn it, even if it’s not appropriate, you’ll make it appropriate. Your favorite 20-page scene detailing the movie the lovers watched in chapter 40 just touches your heart and reminds you of when you first watched it at a slumber party 72 years ago. You adore the way you always write “ocular orb-thinguses” instead of “eyes;” it’s your signature. You love your art. You are your art. And he’s trying to destroy you by making you cut out the things you love most. Nevermind that the narrative makes more sense without them. He’s ruining the beauty of the thing.

9. He challenges you. He pushes you beyond your comfort zones and asks you to write things you’ve never written before, try things you’ve never thought of, learn new ways to do an old art. What is he trying to do, give you nightmares? New experiences are traumatizing. If you take risks, you might fail. Wait. That’s it, isn’t it? He wants you to fail.

10. He gives you deadlines. You have other priorities. Your hair appointment is this afternoon, your dog needs a mani-pedi, you’re working on a brilliant new story that will blow the NYT list out of the water. Look, those deadlines can wait. It’s not that hard to put a book together. You can just turn it in the day before the release date and it’ll be fine. It’s not like there are any other books in the pipeline, anyway. Yours is the only one that matters. If your editor really cared, he’d prioritize you above everyone else.

11. He makes you self-promote. And he’s out there promoting you, too. I mean, really. There are marketing and PR people for that. You shouldn’t have to self-promote; you are the author, the diva, the prima donna who watches from an ivory tower as the fans come flocking. You shouldn’t have to do anything to draw them. And heaven forbid anyone expect you to speak with them or engage them in any way. They aren’t authors like you.

If your editor meets even half these criteria, it’s obvious that he or she hates you and wants your book to fail. Or at the very least, they’re trying to make you as insane as they are. You should take up drinking. Make sure you drink while you write and while you edit; it’s a bonding experience, and you’ll be keeping your editor company. It won’t affect the quality of your work at all.

Besides, even if it does, your editor will fix it. That’s what he’s there for, after all.

I just know someone out there will take this seriously. And then I’m going to cry. You wouldn’t want to make a poor, defenseless, exhausted editor cry, would you?

Hi there.

Psst. Hey, you. Yes, you. I’m talking to you. The aspiring author sitting there struggling over your query letter. The guy or gal wondering just how to approach an editor, an agent, whomever. The one trying to decide on business formality or sass, beautiful prose or wit, eye-catching originality or appreciable directness. The writer trying to figure out just the right way to walk up to this person who could hold the key to your career as a published author and say “hi.”

Well, hi.

No, seriously. It’s as simple as that. Just say hi.

Yes, you’ll need to tell me about your book. A little about yourself, too, though don’t overwhelm me. But really, just to start off with, say hi. Smile. Be polite, be friendly, and give me your message. It’s just like making friends.

And just like making friends, it requires a little tact.

Tact means not complaining about how you don’t like the submission format. Tact means not trash-talking other writers. Tact means not whining about how stupid you think the publisher or agent’s requirements are. Tact means not deriding the other agents and editors who rejected you. Tact means not proclaiming yourself the One True Savior who understands the truth of the publishing industry and will show us all the light of your genius.

Tact also means keeping your crazy quite firmly under your belt where I can’t see it.

You wouldn’t let it all hang out like that when making a new friend. Don’t let it hang out with me. There’s time enough to show me how quirky-awesome you are, when I know you well enough to appreciate it. On that first meeting, what I need to know is that you’re sane, you write well, your story engages me, and you’re capable of understanding the business aspect of this entire crazy machine.

So just say hi, and hope we hit it off well enough for your book and my editing schedule to be friends.

We won’t be friends. We can’t be. I can’t be your friend and do my job. I can’t worry about hurting your feelings when I’m chopping apart incorrect modifiers or urging you to drop the passive voice and use more active verbs. I can’t be your friend when trying to train you out of your little bad writing habits, even if I’m doing it in your best interests so your talent can shine through and showcase the good writing habits that made me love your story in the first place. I won’t be your friend, because friends can’t be honest with friends about their writing.

But we’ll be friendly. We’ll learn to love each other and hate each other–but more than that, we’ll learn to depend on each other through revisions and deadlines, galleys and proofs, cover art quibbles and panicked last-minute changes. We’ll learn each others’ senses of humor and share inside jokes swapped via tweets and MS Word comment boxes. We’ll tease each other about quirks, find out strange little things about each other, and know each other in ways that often, friends don’t. Writing reveals a lot about a person. So does editing. So do those moments at three o’clock in the morning, when we’re both ready to tear our hair out trying to fix that one last sentence before the book’s due in to production the next day.

And when your book releases I’ll share a drink with you in celebration, although I’ll never come to your kids’ birthday parties or help you shop for Christmas. I don’t care about photos of your dog in sunglasses or slideshows of your vacation to Redondo Beach, and please don’t tell me about your hot date last night or the guy you found your wife in bed with. I don’t want to know. I’d rather not picture you that way, and it’s really not my business.

So no, we won’t be friends. But we will be establishing a unique relationship that, if all goes well, could last for many years and through many books. You wouldn’t start a friendship by approaching a stranger and criticizing their choice of those shoes with those slacks. You wouldn’t walk up to someone in a bar and, without even saying hello, begin a spiel of negativity about every person who ever hurt you in the past.

So why would you start a relationship with an editor or agent by antagonizing them?

Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!

I’m not dead! …I think I see a little light past this pile of manuscripts and resumes…

Anyway – I may be quiet here, but I’ve been quite noisy elsewhere. Namely over at Fresh Voices Friday, where Sue London interviews me as an unpublished writer / aspiring author (what? I still write in between editing? Gasp!):

http://cmdrsue.blogspot.com/2010/05/fresh-voices-interview-with-adrien-luc.html

Drop by, say hi, and be nice.

Also, if you’ve got cash to spare, there’s an auction going on over at http://dothewritethingfornashville.blogspot.com/ – run by several authors and agents, trying to raise money to help flood victims in Nashville. You can bid on everything from signed books to ARCs to swag to agent chats, with all proceeds going to charity.