This post is not about me–not about just me, anyway–but about any and all writers whose work you enjoy. Readers are awesome. I still find it pleasantly mind boggling when I get email from readers who have really enjoyed my work, and I’m thankful for that, and thankful that you’ve read my work. Who would we be without you?

But you know it’s a tough world out there. It’s hard to get noticed. And most of us writers need all the help we can get, so that’s what this post is about–or what it was going to be about. I’ve been planning on writing this for the last week or too, but then Keith Brooke over at Infinity Plus beat me to it with a much more coherent post than I could ever pull off. So check it out–please!

The basic idea Keith describes is that if you want to help out an author, do the little things. Post a review on Amazon (or Barnes & Noble). A star rating and a “I really enjoyed this book” is fine. You don’t have to use your real name.

On the same Amazon page, click the facebook “Like” button, and add some new tags to the book or affirm existing ones.

If you blog or twitter or do facebook, suggest the book to your social circle. Mention it to your friends in real life.

This all probably sounds like tiny stuff, but tiny stuff can get bigger stuff rolling. I love being an “indie” writer, but thus far the “Do what you love” philosophy is not putting much food on the table. If you like what I’m doing, if you like what I’ve done, if you like other writers and want to give them a hand, word-of-mouth is a simple and wonderful way to do it.

Thanks for listening!

Several years ago, in the spring, a clan of honeybees moved into a never-used bird house that I’d hung up long ago in a koa tree. Honeybees can make a good living in my garden, so the colony grows a lot over the next few months.

Eventually, whether because they’ve outgrown the box or for some other reason, they take off, leaving only a tiny population behind, which dwindles to nothing over the winter.

And then in the spring they come back! Today was the day of the return. I heard the buzz of their swarm from where I was sitting, working on my latest novel, and went out to take a few pictures.

The honeycombs on the outside of the “bee house” were built in the first year of habitation. They tend to fill up with bees as the season advances, presumably because there are too many bees to live inside.

How the swarm remembers the location of this bee house is a mystery to me. If you know, please tell me!

UPDATED July 14, 2013: I haven’t done a “Sample Sunday” for a while, so I thought I’d bring this back up to the front for a day.

MEMORY is “science fiction that feels like fantasy.” Click here to read a very flattering recent review by science fiction author and blogger Tobias Buckell. Click here for places to buy MEMORY.

CHAPTER 1

When I was ten I had a blanket that was smooth and dark, with no light of its own until I moved and then its folds would glitter with thousands of tiny stars in all the colors of the stars in the night sky. But the pale arch that appears at the zenith on clear nights and that we call the Bow of Heaven never would appear on my blanket–and for that I was glad. For if there was no Heaven, I reasoned, then the dead would always be reborn in this world and not the next, no matter how wise they became in life.

This was always a great concern for me, for my mother was the wisest person I knew and I feared for her. More than once I schemed to make her look foolish, just to be sure she would not get into Heaven when her time came. When my antics grew too much she would turn to my father. With a dark frown and her strong arms crossed over her chest she would say, “We have been so very fortunate to have such a wild and reckless daughter as Jubilee. Obviously, she was sent to teach us wisdom.” My father would laugh, but I would pout, knowing I had lost another round, and that I must try harder next time.

I seldom suffered a guilty conscience. I knew it was my role to be wild–even my mother agreed to that–but on the night my story begins I was troubled by the thought that perhaps this time I had gone too far. (more…)

The husband wanted to go see a movie; he suggested this one. We watched the trailer. “That’s completely ridiculous,” I said. We went anyway, and am I glad we did. This was an enthralling, very well done movie. So well done that I didn’t spend a moment worrying that the “science” didn’t exactly add up.

If you want to know about the plot, go watch the trailer! 😉 All I’m going to say is that I thought the last couple minutes of the movie weren’t entirely necessary, but then again, they didn’t hurt. Other than that, no complaints.

I just wish there were more movies (and books) on this level.

In my Interwebs reading this morning I somehow wound up here at Mulholland Books reading a post on book titles in the crime and suspense genre–which is just a little odd since I pretty much never read in this genre.

It’s a good post though, with a good point. Titles matter! A lot. Book covers and book titles are two hugely challenging aspects of successful fiction that I figure I’ll always be struggling to get right.

One of the greatest titles in the science fiction genre has to be Neuromancer. When I’m trying to title a book, I’ll usually go through a phase of “What can I do that’s sort of awesome like Neuromancer…?” Then I’ll give it up and move on to something inferior.

Dune is also a great one-word title of course, and I’ll confess a soft spot for my own Vast.

I’ve also got a soft spot for long, poetic titles. One of my favorites is Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil–and I’ve never even read the book! Gregory Benford’s Galactic Center books are another great example, with In the Ocean of Night, Across the Sea of Suns, and one of my favorite sf books of all time, Great Sky River. Because of Greg I usually go through a phase in the titling process where I’ll comb through quotes from classical plays and poetry, before giving up and moving on to something inferior.

My own titles I see as generally serviceable, except for The Bohr Maker, which I think is terrible. (The original publisher came up with this. It wasn’t me! Although my working title was worse.)

If I remember correctly, Deception Well, Skye Object 3270a, Limit of Vision (of course), The Wild, and possibly Memory were named early in the writing process.

Everything else came late and some, like Vast, involved lots of debate.

What are some of your favorite titles–in any genre?