Tina's Writing
For some more day-to-day information on this stuff, feel free to check out my writing LJ.
non-fiction
I've done a few book reviews, most notably for newWitch magazine, although I should soon have some appearing over at about.com's horror pages (links forthcoming). I've tried a few times to write other non-fiction but aside from an intermittent webzine don't seem to have gotten very far with it. I would like to keep trying with it, though, and one of my fond dreams is to someday have a column in a newspaper, though I suspect that's more likely than not to stay a dream.
poetry
I am a structured poetry 'ho. I will do free verse periodically but mostly I don't enjoy it very much unless it's very solidly written. I've written some tutorials on how to write specific formalist styles for writing groups I've been involved with, and tried to get more people interested in poetry even though I believe much of what's published these days is really inferior, because I truly dislike prose poetry ("Just write prose!" I will say) and completely formless forms and that's most of what seems to be popular. I may make these tutorials public at some point, though right now they're not as the poetry in them is amongst that which I want to shop around, and I don't want to publically 'publish' it.
I have yet to have any poetry published (and it's not my main focus anyhow) but I do keep trying from time to time.
fiction
This is my big love. I am more inclined towards novels than I am short stories but I do write both. Right now I've got about half a dozen shorts plus a couple flash pieces that have been through the submission/rejection cycle, some of which are still out there, and I'm concentrating on those. I also have written three books, two of which are in the same series, and none of which have been sent out yet although I'm almost to the point of finishing up one for submission.
novels
Sheridan City (Sarah)
The series mentioned above is set in the fictional town of Sheridan City, IL, and could best be described as either occult mystery or dark urban fantasy, or possibly light horror, depending on how you look at it. They feature a character named Sarah Hoffman (and a secondary point-of-view character named Gary Doran).
Book 1, working title Sunday, is undergoing final edits before being sent to the wacky world of the slushpile. It's more or less about how people handle their powers, from the villain's casual disregard of the people he uses in expressing his own powers to Sarah's inability to accept her own to Gary's almost-too-casual use of his abilities.
Book 2, working title Monday, is being edited for the first time before being sent out to my beta readers. The book is mainly about how people cope with loss and pain, and is actually in some ways more about Gary than about Sarah, although as usual she does have a starring role. It's also about accepting what life throws you, and while Sarah doesn't quite get to the point that she's comfortable with her abilities and how to integrate them into her life, she makes some progress towards it.
Book 3, working title Tuesday, is only in the outline state at the moment, but you've presumably seen the trend by now: there will be 7 of these books. I had full names for them but I'm currently rethinking them as they're sort of long in some cases. Anyhow, this one is set in New Orleans, where Sarah goes for a badly-needed vacation. Naturally, life doesn't want her to have one, or maybe she's just too nosy for her own good... If there's some sort of overarching theme in this one, it hasn't announced itself to me yet, although I suppose it's more or less a variant on what people will do for power, a concept I'm fascinated with.
Book 4 will be in part about shapeshifters and intolerance. Book 5 is one of those where I have a big gap because I ended up rewriting Monday with some substantial changes that affect the series as a whole and the original plot no longer makes sense in context. I'll figure it out. Book 6 will be set mainly in Chicago and will be about magically-enhanced (and -cursed) drugs. Book 7 is still way up in the air as I'm trying to decide just how I want to end the series—and end it is what I want to do, as I've seen what happens when one makes open-ended series.
sheridan city (janine)
Janine is a character mentioned in the Sarah novels who was once engaged to Gary, before her death. Naturally, she demanded a series of her own. It's probably going to be 3-4 books, will involve Gary again as well as some other characters seen in the early Sarah books, but will end several years before Gary meets Sarah, probably with Janine's death, though I've been thinking of writing that as a stand-alone short instead. Otherwise, basically more of the same.
octavia
The other series I have a book done in, though only in first draft. Octavia is my trad-fantasy world, and the original trilogy is more or less a political fantasy from three different character viewpoints. I also intend on at least one other novel in the same time period from yet another point of view, a precursor novel or duology about a similar event which is only referenced in the original trilogy, and an origin story for the world.
The world is more or less a typical fantasy world: not terribly high-tech although the study of magic in lieu of straight science has allowed perhaps more tech than some fantasy novels allow; lots of magic; arcane races and beasties (though not too many, as it's principally a human—or, well, Octavian— story); your usual run of interfering deities. What I like to think I'm bringing to the genre that's a little different is the way I'm telling the story. But we'll see how it works out. Right now these books are on hold because I'm concentrating on the Sheridan City novels when I'm doing novel work at all.
other
Other plans include a Steampunk book or books (probably a duology, given the length of story I want to tell) and quite possibly another set of books in the same universe as Sheridan City, though set in another city.
short stories
The ones currently sitting around my hard drive that are complete include: a magic-using detective investigating a mystery, an angel tells a story about atonement, a woman goes slowly mad, a detective talks about his bewilderment about why a man killed his family, a young girl finds that her dreams may be more real than she thinks, a possessed building influences a woman's actions, and a very surreal story about being dead. The first three are currently in my 'to be rewritten' pile after garnering several rejections each; the other four are out.
I'm also working on a story about surviving in a post-apocalyptic world, the true secret of those frequent fliers' clubs (which I'm seriously stuck on), why they take so much blood at the hospital, and what happens when a secret society decides to try to breed something with unimaginable power. Of those, I suspect the first and the third are most likely to see the light of day anytime soon.
Of the rejections I've gotten, some of them have been quite encouraging; I'm slowly building a pile of "we liked it, but not for us; send more" type rejections alongside the form ones. I think one of the stories I have finished may actually see publication this year.
This is version 1.0 of this page. Improvements will come when I start getting published, and will probably include sub-pages for specific novel projects as well as a publication list (please G-d).