Urban Fantasy: Well, Sort Of

Collaborations can be a lot of fun. My first collaboration came about when Jeff VanderMeer asked if I’d be interested in working together on one and tossed me a 1500 word lump that would end up becoming “The Surgeon’s Tale.” That story remains among one of my favorite pieces of writing, in part because reading back through it evokes the pleasure of batting it back and forth, adding thousand or so word chunks each time, until it ended up in the land of the novelette. I think we managed to make the final result pretty seamless – I have trouble remembering who wrote some bits, although others stand out clearly in my head as Jeff’s or mine, because I remember first reading them or spinning them out.

I haven’t done that many. “Logic and Magic in the Time of the Boat Lift” with Ben Burgis resulted from Ben describing what he wanted to write a story about — Miami and were gators and coke dealers — at more than one Wiscon. I wrote the beginning and sent it his way, and the back and forth began. Now we’ve got a similar lump in process.

Gio Clairval and I just finished up a flash piece recently. One of the things I’ve done to encourage collaborations is stick a bunch of word lumps up in a Google doc and just shared the doc so people could take a look and see if anything sparked. She liked a piece I’d done based on an image of a female acrobat.

Right now Bud Sparhawk and I just finished the novella “Haunted,” which started as a short story and kept growing and growing and growing. Bud plots things out a bit more thoroughly than I do, and it’s been interesting so far. Here we worked in Scrivener and laid out a story arc in cards before really setting to writing. I enjoyed it, because I think we’ve got a killer idea, and some clever twists, and some things that will hit nostalgic sweetspots.

So here’s my advice on collaboration based on my experience, which is somewhere past utterly new at it and yet not in the range of people like Mercedes Lackey, Andre Norton, Mike Resnick, and countless more.

• Pick a collaborator whose speed (roughly) matches yours. Bud was writing faster on ours, and I know there were several times where I was the holdup. Too much of that can get frustrating, as I’m sure he can attest.
• Pick a collaborator who doesn’t take things too seriously (and don’t do that yourself). If someone has got something (real or imagined) at stake, the pressure may be uncomfortable.
• Pick a collaborator who is flexible, and similarly be prepared yourself to sacrifice cherished ides, because you can always use them elsewhere.

Collaborative benefits include (for me, at least) new energy, someone to discuss a story with as it’s written, new insights into process, fresh ideas, and a kick in the butt to be productive.

Enjoy this writing advice and want more content like it? Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

Prefer to opt for weekly interaction, advice, opportunities to ask questions, and access to the Chez Rambo Discord community and critique group? Check out Cat’s Patreon. Or sample her writing here.

It’s March, and you can now get IF THIS GOES ON, the anthology of near future political science fiction that I edited. There are some amazing stories in it, and I’m so proud of how the book turned out. Please check it out, and if you enjoy it, spread the word with a review or mention!

The project was initially the idea of publisher Colin Coyle; it was a pleasure working with him along with an awesome team of slush readers. The book was a mix of solicited stories along with ones that came in through the slush pile, so there’s a nice mix of more established and newer voices.

Some of the authors are friends as well, including E. Lily Yu, who I first met working with Fantasy Magazine and whose lovely “Green Glass: A Love Story” leads off the collection in a way that is beautiful and disturbing. The stories are sad and funny, often biting. Sometimes the worlds they project are just a heartbeat away; other times they are surreal glimmers that show us the distortions in our own existence and interactions with the world.

All of them are political — some more subtle than others, certainly — but this project declares itself from page one to be about politics in this country and the world at large.

In related news, I’ve also curated another Storybundle for Women’s History month, the second Feminist Futures one. You can find it here: I’m very happy with this, which ended up being nicely diverse, plus let me put forth K.C. Ball’s collection, SNAPSHOTS FROM A BLACK HOLE AND OTHER STORIES. K.C. was a friend and I edited the collection. She also edited the flash magazine TEN FLASH, which published my flash piece, “Lost in Drowsy Dreams.”

Grab the bundle now – it’s only good for a few weeks, and it has some really terrific reads in it!

Several new classes have been added to the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers schedule, including this weekend’s live online class Mapping the Labyrinth: Plotting Your Novel So Things Happen. I’ve co-taught with Kay several times, and she is a savvy and elegant woman. I’m anticipating learning things from the class myself.

Other upcoming classes being taught for the first time are The Fashion of Worldbuilding: Clothes, Technology, and Taboos with Mary Robinette Kowal and Catherine Lundoff’s In Flagrante Delicto: Writing Effective Sex Scenes and So You Want to Put Together An Anthology?. You can find the full list of live online writing classes here; look for several more getting added this month.

In 2020, Meerkat Press launches Meerkat Shorts, a novelette and novella line, and my “Carpe Glitter” will be part of the initial line-up, along with “Into Bones Like Oil” by Kaaron Warren and “Wild Horse” by Kyle Richardson. “Carpe Glitter” is the story of a woman sorting through the masses of stuff accumulated by her grandmother, a retired stage magician, who runs across something very strange indeed.

Chez Rambo has moved! And one feature of the new place is a much quieter space for podcasting, where there’s not a fire engine whirling by or a recycling truck picking up an apartment building’s worth of trash or similar Very Noisy Events happening every half hour. Here’s two recent additions to the Youtube channel: How to Send Out Stories and How to Evaluate Markets. Got something you want explored in a future video? Drop me a line in the comments here.

I’ve confirmed I’ll be at the Bard’s Tower at Emerald City Comic Con this month. I’ll post a schedule of when I’ll be at the booth, but my plan is to spend most of my time there, since it’s so much fun hanging out with those awesome folks. If you’re going to be there, please stop by and say hi!

On March 14, I’m part of the People Eat and Give fundraising event for the excellent nonprofit the Bureau of Fearless Ideas, a nonprofit writing and communications program that provides after school tutoring, workshops, and other efforts to “prepare young people, ages 6 to 18, for a successful future by developing strong writing skills, championing diverse communication styles, and motivating young people to share their stories.” I’m part of the skit the kids have written and are putting on; we’ve got our first rehearsal this weekend!

There’s an event for Unfettered III: Tales by Masters of Fantasy, which has my story, “Merchants Have Maxims,” in it on Tuesday, March 19, at 7 PM. I’ll be there signing along with several of the other authors as well as its editor Shawn Speakman.