As many of you know(or used to before the Publishing for Kossacks series went on hiatus), I'm a writer and editor, but I'm also a regular program participant and sometime organizer at Lunacon, the New York regional science fiction convention, run by a nonprofit group called the Lunarians. The convention features about 600 hours of literary, media, science, art, gaming, music, and other programming over this coming weekend (March 14-16). It also has a world class art show, 24-hour gaming and anime rooms, and a hopping bar where you can meet about 200 writers, artists, and editors who you didn't catch up with during the day.

And because there's so much overlap between genre fans, genre professionals, and Kossacks, for the second straight year there will be a DKos meet and greet on the actual program schedule.

I'm a member of a Democratic Town Committee in rural northeast Connecticut. (Yes, I know that sounds like the opening to a Penthouse Letter, but please bear with me.) By last month, we finally hit a point where even the most conservative Liebercrats among our members agreed to support a call to end the war. I was asked to present language that could be voted on, and wanted to get some input here.

I posted another version of this a few weeks ago, but since the convention is coming up in just a couple of weeks I wanted to remind people. Hopefully I'll see lots of you there at the meet & greet.

As many of you know, I'm a writer and editor, but for the last five years I've also volunteered to run the program at Lunacon, the New York regional science fiction convention, run by a nonprofit group called the Lunarians. The convention features about 400 hours of literary, media, science, art, gaming, music, and other programming over the weekend of March 16-18. It also has a world class art show, 24-hour gaming and anime rooms, and a hopping bar where you can meet about 200 writers, artists, and editors who you didn't catch up with during the day.

And because there's so much overlap between genre fans, genre professionals, and Kossacks, this year there is a DKos meet and greet on the actual program schedule.

As many of you know, I'm a writer and editor, but for the last five years I've also volunteered to run the program at Lunacon, the New York regional science fiction convention, run by a nonprofit group called the Lunarians. The convention features about 400 hours of literary, media, science, art, gaming, music, and other programming over the weekend of March 16-18. It also has a world class art show, 24-hour gaming and anime rooms, and a hopping bar where you can meet about 200 writers, artists, and editors who you didn't catch up with during the day.

And because there's so much overlap between genre fans, genre professionals, and Kossacks, this year there is a DKos meet and greet on the actual program schedule.

Dialogue
We’re all talkers, right? Most of us are, anyway. We know what a conversation should sound like, even if there’s no sound involved. (As the Gallaudet students recently proved, no actual speech is required to detect insincere conversation.) So why isn’t dialogue easy? Why do so many conversations lose their vitality when put down on paper, or get pulled out of context faster than a John Kerry song at the James Dobson Karaoke Festival? (I realize there isn’t such a thing... but there should be.) So, by reader request, some long-delayed suggestions on making dialogue work. (Yeah, I know it’s been a frighteningly long time since the last entry in this series... but I tried to make up for it a little with some bonus Leaving Laura excerpts.)

"Nobody's that evil!" you've found yourself saying more than once in the last six years. "The real world is all about shades of gray, but these guys are less nuanced than the villains in a Jean-Claude van Damme movie. The only place that people behave this monstrously and get away with it is in really bad fantasy novels and really good roleplaying games."

Here's your chance to find out. What follows is the beginning of a roleplaying campaign setting using Washington D.C. as a gaming environment. Whether you want to vanquish the menace of the Dread Wizard Rove, or play the role of one of his minions attempting to thwart the ambitions of those meddlesome bloggers (and their pesky dog), you'll find something for you here. Feel free to write up your own ideas for places and people to be added to the system (Matt Drudge? The Page Dorm? The Libertarian Menace?)

Worldbuilding
I've been teaching a bunch of big, sprawling setting-heavy books in my fantasy class recently (Lord of the Rings, The Mists of Avalon, A Wizard of Earthsea, with Watership Down and The Iron Dragon's Daughter coming up shortly) so I guess I have worldbuilding on the brain, but here's the thing: As a writer you still have to sell me on a believable world regardless of whether you're writing high fantasy or nonfiction. If I don't believe in the world where your book takes place - whether it's your vision of Middle Earth or your vision of the White House - I'm not going to believe in any of the points you're trying to make in your narrative.

Being a northeast Connecticut DTC member means you get to talk to a lot of interesting people this time of year, and tonight that meant regretfully skipping Kossack Sherri Vogt's event in favor of the Killingly DTC's "meet the candidates" night. (Yes, there were two competing Democratic spaghetti dinner fundraisers in the same town on the same night, due to an unfortunate last-minute schedule change.) Probably the highlight of the night - which was energizing on many levels - was the best, most unified effort I've seen yet to bring the Lamont message home to town committee members who are still Lieberman supporters, or on the fence. The night also featured rousing speeches from Joe Courtney, Tom Swan (Lamont's campaign manager), State Senate President Pro Tempore Don Williams, and other folks all along the Democratic list. The message from everyone: Be energized and get out the vote!

How Publishers Pay You
Last week we touched on the "ask what you can do for your publisher" part of the equation, but tonight is time to "ask not what your publisher can do for you." Publishers would prefer you not ask that, of course, and may react with Hastertlike expressions of shock and incredulity that you wouldn't trust your publisher to look out for your best interests, and want to sully your artistic purity by actually asking to be... you know... paid for it. But before I can quote specific payment clauses (like last week's contract language) I need to talk a bit about how it is that publishers pay authors.

I almost didn't write this diary tonight. The events of the last couple of days have been so dispiriting, that I thought about taking a break, and just focusing on writing the books I have under contract, and the Connecticut election activities I'm involved with through the DTC I'm a member of. (Yeah, my name was on the round-up-and-torture list long before the Leaving Laura follies.) But then I thought about it a little more. The whole point of this series is to help progressive writers to finish books, sell them, and get them published. And I'll be damned if I'm going to stop pushing for that, just because our current government is treating the Constitution and Common Law the way previous generations of fascists treated partisans. ("For every incumbent you defeat, we'll execute ten more Constitutional rights.") So if you're new to the series, start reading here. But new or old, please write, and keep writing - fiction, nonfiction, whatever it is that touches your soul. While we still have a national conscience to be saved.

"I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions." - Lillian Hellman

Ideas
If you're a writer, people approach you reasonably often with variations on the following proposition: "I have a great idea for a book. How about I give you the idea, you write the book, and we'll split the profits." They seem to think that the key to a great book is a great idea, and that the specialness of the idea is what gives the book it's value. I hate to disillusion them, especially since most of them don't believe me, but here's a cold truth about writing: Ideas are the easy part.

I started teaching my fall courses a few weeks ago, and while I'm pretty happy with this semester's students overall, way too many of them seem to have missed that class freshman year in how to get professors to say yes to your requests, not call on you when you're unprepared, and give you the benefit of the doubt on grades. (Well, it should be a required class for first-year students.)

Editing
I've had a bunch of requests to talk about editing in its several aspects: not just "what will an editor do to my book once it's bought?" but also "how do I edit other people's work?" and just as importantly, "how do I sort out useful criticism from people who just don't understand what I'm trying to say?" All of these things are interrelated, and thinking about what editors look for is also a way of thinking about how to strengthen your writing on many levels. Ideally, the editor's job isn't to change your writing but to focus on your vision and hone it to its sharpest and eliminate any imperfections holding your writing back. Of course, it doesn't always work that way....

Outlining
Possibly the hardest thing for first-time writers is actually finishing a book. Lots of people can start a great book, but a lot of those starts peter out into nothing, or get written into un-endable corners. In the interests of seeing the finished products of a lot of folks hereabouts writing on bookshelves, I'm going to spend some time in this series on helping people to avoid getting stuck, and to get unstuck when the inevitable happens.

Marketing and Publicity
After many requests, I thought I'd skip ahead a bit and talk about what happens when your book actually appears - what the publisher is likely to do to help sell it (not much if you're a new writer) and what you can do about it (quite a bit). Most authors don't have the time, doggedness, or sheer personal charm to pull off what John Grisham did with his book: he bought 1,000 copies from his publisher and sold them to... well, everyone, really. There are publicity strategies for varying levels of time, affability, and money that you're willing to invest.

Copyediting
Yes, after a week in the mountains, and another week spent finishing up the new novel and sending it off to my agent and my beta readers, it's finally time for another episode in the series, this time focusing on a subject most authors love to hate.

I just got back from the Pomfret, Connecticut vote count. I'm a DTC member in this small town in the northeast corner of the state, traditionally heavily Republican. In last year's town elections, the Democrats swept to power. We've been heavily in support of Lamont (the committee vote was about 27-3) and de Stefano, and our DTC was phone banking for both candidates.

Literary Agents
As promised, the long-awaited episode on literary agents: what they do (and don't do), why you need one, and what makes an agent a good fit for you (besides the obvious, "because she sells your books). As a bonus, a couple of literary agents that I know will be dropping by and responding to comments (though one of them won't be by until after 8:00, so keep checking back). And while one of yesterday's "best quotes of the day" made it clear why we'd like some republicans to have agents, this is the Kossack's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Literary Agents.