Thursday, February 14, 2008

It Should Not Suprise Me....

... that what I'm sitting here doing on Valentine's Day is revising my book writing schedule for 2008-2009.

Also, still recovering from all those lunges we did yesterday.

My poor, sorry ass.

Seriously, it's tough to get in and out of my chair.

And I have bowling Saturday.

Oh, my ass.

Math

I'm rolling over my big CC balance to a 0% interest card (finally found a card with a limit high enough that I can do this).

The smaller card will be paid off this year without a hitch, but this bigger one will take the two years, even knowing some things about how the financial year may turn in my favor here in a bit.

This was another thing the Old Man had on my list of things to do in order to get my finances in order. Even at 9.7% interest, carrying a $13,500 balance on a card means blowing through over a thousand a year in interest payments. Or, I could pay $420 right now and have 0% interest on the whole thing until I pay it off.

In the case of my smaller card, this wouldn't make sense because it will get paid off here in a few months, but this big one, even with a nice work raise and possible freelancing money, is going to take at least a year and a half. At least.

I did actually sit down and do the math, figuring I'm paying $550 month, plus about 10% interest, from now until December. That's still $1125 in interest alone from now until December.

So.

Yeah, transferred that balance today.

I'm getting my financial shit together, people. It's just a pain in the ass.

God's War Back Cover Blurb

If you're working on writing up queries or synposes, I've found it sorta fun and helpful to write up one of those "back cover" blurbs that you see on the back of books as practice. Writers tend to be huge readers, which means we've all read about a million of these.

Not only is it fun to imagine that your books will actually have one of these written about it sometime, it's also a really helpful warmup for writing synopses (which I hate).

Here's one I wrote up for fun for God's War a while back:
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Nyx had already been to Hell. One prayer more or less wouldn’t make any difference...

In the bloody wastes of Nasheen, a centuries-old holy war rages.

Fueled by Tirhani arms dealers, organic technicians, brawling mullahs, and swarms of magician-trained locusts, the origins of the war are shady and complex. It’s taken a bloody mix of mercenaries, bounty hunters, rogues, pirates and bel dames to enforce it.

Today, a godless woman may end it.

Bounty hunter Nyxnissa so Dasheen left God and her dead brothers at the front. Now she works the border cities cutting heads off terrorists for cash.

But when a dubious deal between her government and an alien gene pirate goes bad, Nyx’s crooked reputation makes her the preferred tool for the rogue’s recovery. The stuff inside this bounty’s head could end the war… but at what price?

Nyx is about to find out.

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Man, I'm a fan girl.

Got Agent?

Speaking of agentry, my buddy Colleen Lindsay is now a new agent for Fine Print Literary Management.

Got novel?

She's looking for brand spanking new clients in fantasy, science fiction, pop culture, graphic novels, and maybe more. Check out her submission guidelines for details.

Colleen is bloody awesome, and she's the one who initially recommended I send God's War to Del Rey and got the whole thing started. She's been in the biz for ages, and specializes in publicity, so know that you'll have a great book lover and rampant publicist on your side.

If I hadn't already signed with Jackson last year, I would have signed on and taken a chance with Colleen without a blink this year. She knows her shit, and she's got a lit agency behind her to help her learn the nitty-gritty of agentry.

So, checkout the guidelines and send her a query if it looks like your stuff's a good fit!