One of the questions that I hear fairly often these days is “Which of your books should I start with?” I now have an entire page on this website to help with your questions about reading order.
The short answer is: “Start anywhere you like with any book set before 1935.” (Though there are a couple where you might have more fun in a specific order.) Read on for a few more thoughts about that.
I’ve had a couple of questions recently about how I feel about fanfic – so time for a post where I can lay it all out.
Short version: I love and approve of fanfic, but please don’t send me any fanfic (or related text, like ideas you’ve had for it) or otherwise directly wave it in front of my eyes. Sharing fan art, craft projects, and other forms of fannish goodness are all wonderful.
Read on for more of an explanation (and why I’m putting it this way.)
If you’ve been anywhere on the Internet recently, you’ve probably seen a lot of comments about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning when it comes to creative applications like art and writing. (Among other reasons, it’s a big part of the current Writer’s Guild of America strike.) It’s about time for a post from me about what that means for my writing, and then some general thoughts about the larger implications of these new and ever-improving technologies.
One thing that’s making some of these conversations complicated is that people are using the terms “artificial intelligence” and “machine learning” in a variety of ways. Here we’re mostly talking about situations where computers use information they’ve been trained on to give output (basically, making predictions of what makes sense based on what they’ve already seen.)
Reviews are a fantastic way for readers to help out authors they want to support. But a lot of readers are nervous about what to write, where to share them, and what they ought to know about the process.
Here’s a little demystification to help. I’m focusing here obviously on books, but the same basic process can help with music, podcasts, and all sorts of other content out there.
The short version: Leaving a brief (2-3 sentence) review of books you love wherever you get or talk about your books is a fabulous way to both help other readers and the author. They don’t need to be long or complicated to help.
When authors talk about reviews helping, what we mean is usually something simple.
We’re talking about a review of one to four sentences from a real human who read the book and wanted to share a couple of thoughts. You don’t need to be elaborate and you don’t need to include tons of details. Reviews like this help provide what gets called “social proof”, that real humans read the book and had a range of feelings about it.
Detailed reviews and literary criticism are fantastic too – but they’re a completely different thing. Many people aren’t up for writing that (and certainly not about all the books or music or whatever else it was they enjoy).
(more…)I’m excited to announce that Kobo Plus has just expanded to the United States and the United Kingdom (meaning it now covers all five English language Kobo territories). All my books are available through this service, but read on for more details.
Now that I’ve talked about what I got up to in 2022, it’s time to look forward into 2023. I’m incredibly excited about my plans for 2023. There’s quite a lot to come! Publication dates may shift a little, but I expect them to be fairly close to the following.
This year, I’m alternating between a series of 1920s books (Mysterious Arts) and books dealing with the Second World War (the Land Mysteries series).
(more…)(Look, I couldn’t resist the T.S. Eliot reference, I’m only human.)
To be more serious, the names of characters are something I spend a lot of time thinking about. I got a great reader question about it this week, and that makes it a wonderful time to share some of how I do this.
To be honest, there’s a lot of staring at my list of names and sighing a lot. But I also have established patterns that help me sort out what I’m doing with the names.
(As a note, links to character names in this post will go to their WorldAnvil pages so you can see where they appear most easily.)
Hello! Given the world (and especially the Internet at the moment), it seems a good time for me to look at where I’m spending my time online in the authorial sense.
I’ve put together a survey form to ask some questions about what spaces you’d be interested in, so I can think about some options. I expect to get whatever new options I add set up by the end of December 2022 at the latest. (ETA, December 20th: Survey form now closed. Watch this blog space for an update on what we’re going to be trying!)
It’s completely anonymous unless you give me your email address at the very end. You can also use the contact form or email me at celia@celialake.com if you’d rather do that.
I send out a newsletter on most Fridays. It has my latest news, a highlight of a book that’s been out for a bit, links to any blog posts I’ve made, and notes about the week’s writing. It also usually includes a couple of links I discovered while researching that week.
Twitter is the place where I’ve shared more flippant commentary on the writing process, often with some back and forth with Kiya, my friend and editor (and other half of my brain who makes my books so much better.) If you haven’t been following this bit of the news, I’m not sure how much longer that’s going to be viable. I’ve also shared links to new books there or other news.
I’ve really enjoyed some of the conversation with readers there, and seeing what they say, too, when they tag me in to the conversation.
Facebook is the place where I spend the least time, but it also gets announcements of new books and other related material.
(more…)In a recent newsletter, I mentioned that working on Old As The Hills had let me test a research note model for more research-demanding fiction that’s working pretty well. (This is also in service to my contemplating a 1480s series set around the time of the Pact sometime down the road. I have a ton of background reading to do before I can even think about it, so no time soon.)
As I suspected, more than one reader was interested in how I set that up, so here’s a glimpse into my research notes. (Click through on the screenshots to see a full size version, but I’ve also described the contents in the text.)
I’m currently in the editing process for Best Foot Forward, and thought you might find a glimpse into the process interesting.
I do most of my writing on the desktop that lives in my bedroom. However, I do most of my editing on the laptop that lives in the living room, which has fewer distractions.
Here’s a shot of what that looks like. Read on for a description of both the image and the process.
