*taking a deep breath and diving into a potential shark tank*

[lagilman]

stealing from kradical:

Since we've gotten a few new people in recently, let's have a semi-directed Open Thread post. Ask a question of me. Any question you want. About writing, about editing, about football, co-ops, felines.... about anything you want.

I reserve the right to not answer a question because it's my LJ and I do have some tiny smidge of discretion, but then again, I'm also occasionally completely without filter.

So onward and on with it! Ask!

Comments

[julibeth.livejournal.com]

Tell us about your kitties. What are their personalities? Their names? what they look like?

[lagilman]

oh lord, you asked about the felines....

Pandora is the oldest (that's her in the icon). She's a pretty little mackerel tabby, very fine-boned. Her nickname is The Duchess, or Miss Piss, and she sees the world in two distinct categories: me, and them as belong to me, and the rest of the world, which can go hang.

With me, she's sweet, affectionate, and surprisingly cuddlesome. Not so much with the rest of the world. She's bitten two people whom she really didn't like, and hisses at a lot of other people, before stalking off to hide under the bed until they leave. Don't ever use baby-talk with her -- she's a grown-up, thank you very much, and will be spoken to as one.

I am totally pwned by her, and we all know it.

Boomer's full name is Boomerang, Fool of a Took, Cat of No Bain, Meatloaf-in-training. He answers to "BoomerYouIdiot." Full-on orange ring-tail, with a rather disturbing facial resemblance to David Caruso. Sixteen pounds of bone and muscle coated with another three-five pounds of padding, and a few more ounces of brains than most would credit -- imagine a house-sized orange puma just come into his adult growth. Fortunately, he's mellow and very affectionate, and more than a little shy, except when he suddenly decides he wants to be Alpha in the household and has to be smacked down for his impudence.

Aren't you sorry you asked, now? *grin*

[julibeth.livejournal.com]

HAHA, nope, not sorry at all.

I'm a total kitty momma as well, to my three babies.

Though, none of mine have as distinct personalities as yours...

[bevhale.livejournal.com]

My first cat was to have been named Shadow Dancer. After two days, she became Shadowdammit. We also referred to her as the hassock (22 lbs after she got fixed, no matter what I did), Peaches-Queen of the Universe and Silly Cat. She was a blue tabby with apricot/champagne and white. Had her for 19 years. She was not a good pet, but she was a very very good cat.

[lagilman]

She was not a good pet, but she was a very very good cat.

oh man yeah, I hear you on that.

The felines aren't so much pets as roommates who don't mind that I drop my coat on the armchair or leave a dish in the sink occasionally, so long as I make breakfast every morning.

[bevhale.livejournal.com]

And I still miss her. I may have to get another cat sooon. We were her people, and she loved us,

[bigferret.livejournal.com]

Have you always been a Giants fan?

[lagilman]

in the sense that I was born and grew up in New Jersey, within yelling distance of the Meadowlands, and would rather die than be a Jets fan...yes. My dad was more of a basketball fan, though (Celtics, specifically), and nobody else in my family cared much for sports, so I didn't really develop any fannish impulses.

My former husband lives and dies the Giants, though, so when we started dating I chose to watch rather than be a football widow. After twenty years, the appreciation of the game, and the team, continues. Once you go Blue, you stay Blue.

[bigferret.livejournal.com]

There are worse things to be. :-) You could be a Dallas Cowboys fan.

[nick-kaufmann.livejournal.com]

Are you coming to my birthday party?

[lagilman]

am I getting an invite?

[nick-kaufmann.livejournal.com]

I sent an evite last night to your sff.net addy.

[bevhale.livejournal.com]

Will you be at Denvention? Or any of the OK/TX cons this year? Hope to see you at one or the other.

[lagilman]

Desn't look so, this year. :-(

[bevhale.livejournal.com]

Darn. I will be down helping on the Nebula Banquet this year, so if you attend I'll see you next month.

[mt-yvr.livejournal.com]

I'm going to ask something that might be horribly stupid to bring up but I've always been curious. What was it like to be an editor in a large publishing house - as in what did you enjoy about it? (Not asking for gory 'oh this was horrible' things... just curious about the good times)

[lagilman]

Oh man. I used to love going to work. No sarcasm or irony, I really did. I even loved the annoying paperwork details, because it was all shiny. Books, man.

But what I really loved (beyond the obvious finding of new manuscripts/authors) was the production side. Concept meetings, working with the art and copy department to create a package, getting the author's feedback, the back-and-forth that leads to (hopefully) a package that hits the numbers. I really enjoyed that. Except the TI sheet. Nobody liked filling out the TI sheet.

[shui-long.livejournal.com]

Does your experience as an editor make it easier for you as an author in dealing with the publication process? Or do you get frustrated at having to let others handle that process for you?
And do you think it affects the way you write, or even what you write?

[lagilman]

Yes.

(but it also allows me to know how hard people behind the scenes are working, which is a useful career aid)

[fibro-witch.livejournal.com]

When your friend took a picture of the two of us on Saturday night at Arisia. I was in the sparkly mermaid dress. Did it come out alright?

[lagilman]

*checks photos, frowns*

If it was my camera, it didn't. If it was his... I don't know.

[vanderbruegghen.livejournal.com]

Who is your favorite chef? Or which chef inspires you most?

[lagilman]

ooo, good question.

*thinks*

Y'know, despite my Bourdain-love, I'm really not a celebrity chef-fan. Mostly, they amuse and entertain, but don't really inspire.

The chef who probably inspired me the most is someone I never met. Many years ago -- around 1988 or so - my dad decided to celebrate my mom's birthday of a significant year by taking us to a very nice French restaurant of note, out in NJ. It was a lovely place, white glove service, and my first exposure to upper-end French cooking. It was also the first time I ever had game. It was all fabulous, and I was hooked, both on well-prepared meals, and the importance of presentation and appreciation of good food.

I still remember the experience with not a little reverence.

[vcmw]

How did you end up editing so many cool ladies who wrote cyberpunkish stuff? I actually started tracking down your books when I realized that you had edited (if memory serves correctly) Wilhelmina Baird's stuff. (I am one of those strange people who ends up buying authors because I liked what they edited.)

[lagilman]

Yeah, I was the one who discovered Wilhelmina Baird, straight out of the slush pile*. Broke my heart, that she never became the success her talent deserved.

As to how I ended up editing so many cool writers... at the risk of sounding totally without modesty, I'm a pretty damn good editor, and have a good eye for writers with both sharp style and a story to tell, whatever the genre. And yeah, I did tend to work with a lot of female writers, although my list was usually even-gendered (and one of my great success stories was S.M. Stirling, who is such a boy *grin*).


*oh my god, did she do everything wrong. Single-spaced manuscript, wrong size paper, sent in a purple binder... I started reading because I was feeling kind, got about 20 pages in and walked into my then-boss's office and said "we have to buy this." She raised an eyebrow, took the first hundred pages, and came back to me the next day and told me to make an offer. That book was fuckin' brilliant.

[badgermirlacca.livejournal.com]

Broke my heart, that she never became the success her talent deserved.

When did she die?

[lagilman]

When did she die?

Don't know that she did (although she was not a young woman 15 years ago), but after her fourth book, which was like dragging splinters from a lion's paw, she basically said 'screw it' in disgust and disappeared. Haven't seen anything from her since then.

[badgermirlacca.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's very too bad. Although I understand her feelings.

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

Which of the books that you edited is you favorite?

Which of your books is your favorite?

[lagilman]

Oh boy. Favorite what?

There's one book that is near and dear to my heart because of what it took to get it published, and how well it's done since then -- Anne Bishop's DAUGHTER OF THE BLOOD. That was a major risk at the time, topic-wise, and I had to do some fancy dancing to get the sales force to sell it properly, the way it deserved. Then there's Dana Stabenow's A COLD DAY FOR MURDER, that won the Edgar for best paperback original, and got her started on a very profitable second career (after three SF novels got good reviews but meh sales). She was the first author I ever acquired, and so everything she does has a special place in my heart, even after I was her editor. And, oh, S.M. Stirling's ISLAND IN THE SEA OF TIME, which is a favorite because the first publishing house it was at said it would never work as-is, and I said it would, and it did. And then there's Harry Turtledove's RULED BRITANNIA, which I personally think is the best book he's ever written, and one I reread on a regular basis, and, and, and...

I worked on a lot of books in 15+ years. Well over a thousand just in my years at NAL, from SF to fantasy to mysteries to adult westerns (yes, really), to suspense, to non-fiction. And I was honestly fond of at least 90% of them. And that's without even considering the authors whom I adored, even if a particular book wasn't in the top ten (Chris Bunch. I loved Chris. Man, he drove me nuts...)

As to which of my books is my favorite? Easy. The one I haven't written yet. The one that is still perfect in conception, the one that has the potential to be everything I've got in my head perfectly translated to the page, and then back into the readers' heads. Once it becomes reality, I'm always going to see where I could have made it better, even though others may rave. Ask anyone in my writers' group...

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

I haven't read A Cold Day for Murder, but I have read (and loved) all of the other titles you mention. Thank you for working on them.

I think most authors feel that way about their own work.

[vincam.livejournal.com]

Better to dive into the shark tank than to jump it, I say.

[ilvack.livejournal.com]

Do you recommend writing workshops or specific college classes to help refine a writing style? Is it a good idea to have friends read your work? Are there web sites where you can post bits of your work and get honest suggestions without worrying about plagiarism? I know for that last bit it's kind of a crap shoot, but is there a place where I'd worry less?

Duck A is traveling in the opposite direction of Duck B. If Duck A travels 15 miles faster than Duck B, how quickly can Duck B be shot, cleaned, and turned into a lovely Duck Fricassee with White Beans?

[lagilman]

Do you recommend writing workshops or specific college classes to help refine a writing style? Is it a good idea to have friends read your work? Are there web sites where you can post bits of your work and get honest suggestions without worrying about plagiarism? I know for that last bit it's kind of a crap shoot, but is there a place where I'd worry less?

I am of very mixed feelings about writing classes and workshops. On the one hand, I learned a lot by taking college classes with professional working writers (as opposed to academics who wrote). However, the only way to really refine your style is to, well, write. Again and again, and see what works, what affects the readers, and what gets the point you were trying to make across. So if the class involves active writing exercises, great. Learning how to give and take honest critique is one of the most useful skills a writer can have.

A class that Imparts Wisdom....less useful, and often counterproductive. The one thing I find myself hammering into students is that, like religion, there is no One Path to Enlightenment.

That said, taking classes on literature rather than writing can be very useful, especially if you push out of your established reading comfort zone. Me, I think anyone who wants to be a writer should take as many courses on as many things as strike your fancy, in a wide range of topics. History's great, so's pol-sci. Hard science comes in handy at the oddest of times (sayeth the geology minor). You never know when a religion course will kick in and establish a secondary plotline to your story. Etc. And don't stop once you're out of college! "Write what you know" is an exhortation to know more.

Is it good to have friends read your work? If they are friends who can give useful and unbiased critique, absolutely. If they can't... well, you can take what you can get out of them, but "this is good I really liked it" or "this wasn't very interesting" without follow-through isn't going to do you much good on the revisions, and will stress the friendship on both sides.

On the on-line side, there are a number of on-line workshops that are quite good (most notably Critters), but I'd be wary of any without a decent pedigree, less for a concern about plagarism and more as a waste of your time and energy [see above re: feedback and usefulness thereof]

Duck A is traveling in the opposite direction of Duck B. If Duck A travels 15 miles faster than Duck B, how quickly can Duck B be shot, cleaned, and turned into a lovely Duck Fricassee with White Beans?

Do the beans have to soak overnight, or are they ready to cook?

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

What's your favorite meal to make for yourself when you're eating alone? If you can mention a breakfast meal, that'd be even better.

[lagilman]

For breakfast? Matzo brei.

Take a piece of matzo (or a handful of saltines) and run cold water over it quickly, then set it on a paper towel and squeeze out the excess water. Mix an egg (or two, in which case double the amount of matzo) with salt and pepper [and any other spices you like], and crumble the matzo into the mix. Cook the same way you would scrambled eggs, constantly scraping them off the edges of the frying pan and into the center until the preferred texture.

Some people serve this with a side of maple syrup or dosed with sweet cinnamon, but I prefer it savory.

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

Cool. I'll be trying this over the weekend.

[tak61.livejournal.com]

If you were to have a dinner made especially for you by a professional chef, what would you want on the menu?

[lagilman]

hrmmmm. Picking just one menu means discarding so many favorites, but one thing I've been craving lately is roasted piccioni (pigeon)...

[fakefrenchie.livejournal.com]

Isn't it called squab (or something like that) when you eat it?

[lagilman]

not in Italian!

[tak61.livejournal.com]

Alright, that's a start but not a complete menu. What would you want for the rest of the meal?

[lagilman]

ahh, a full menu? Hrmmm...


I'd open with sliced pears and figs with prosciutto wrapped around each, with a glass of prosecco. Starter would be wilted spinach with pan-seared foie gras* and a glass of an Alsatian white, followed by the aforementioned roasted pigeon with, hrm.... a haricot vert salad with pignoli and grana padano. I'd have to think about what wine would work best with that. A red, yes, but not too rich or full-bodied. A cheese plate of local offerings, and then a small chocolate dessert, just enough to go with a glass of vintage port.


Mmm. Yeah, I definitely have to start doing some real cooking again, soon.


*yes, I know. I feel guilt. I do. But I also loooooooove foie gras. It's a moral dilemma I haven't been able to reconcile yet.

[ilvack.livejournal.com]

I'm finding myself more and more in a munching mood when I write. Any simple snack suggestions that are quick to throw together and tasty to boot?

[lagilman]

Hrm. I tend not to eat while I'm writing, so I'm sort of at a loss....

I'm a big fan of air-popped savory popcorn when I'm editing, but if you use butter to adhere the spices it can get messy. Some other options might be gorp (nuts and chocolate chips, much-beloved of hikers), or carrot and celery matchsticks, or the highly unhealthy but very tasty fried mozz sticks...