Got the word from Brutarian today. Gene Stewart really liked the story, but it didn't fit the magazine. Fair. I had done some research, but not enough--not the final buying-a-copy research--largely because they don't sell it at Borders. A mistake I won't make twice, I'll grant you.
So, I spent an hour after work polishing the thing. Ironed out a few kinks. Grew to love it less, as is wont to happen on the twentieth viewing. Packaged it up and am ready to send it on.
I find it worrisome, how much there is to polish after just a few months. It certainly explains how I come to despair of older works. It's just so easy to move beyond yourself... Can I really be learning that much each month?
(mutters)
Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold (32)
I do like this book, immensely, and look forward to reading it again. But somehow, it didn't hit me right between the eyes, the way I was expecting it to. I don't know if I was reading too fast or with half a brain (I do suspect the latter). I found myself reading without absorption for 2-3 pages at a time, and having to go back and pick up where I'd left off paying attention.
Half a brain? Or just that the writing wasn't direct, one-two-punch writing on the sentence level? Sometimes, I had to wade into paragraphs knee-deep before I could figure out what the subject of the paragraph (or even the first sentence) was. If it wasn't half a brain (which I still strongly suspect), I would start worrying that Bujold has reached the point where she's too well-loved as a writer by the people editing her stuff that they aren't being stringent about clarity.
That said, her style is still utterly engaging. Ista is a great character, Cordelia-esque in the extreme, and only the second female POV character I've experienced from Bujold. The secondary characters (Foix, dy Cabon, Liss) were supremely engaging, though I could wish for a little more angst over the romance angle. Arhys really drew my eye for so long, and Ista's too, and Illvin never seems really worried about it. I can imagine that Illvin loved his brother too much to become jealous, or any number of other likely scenarios--I can imagine that Ista was too world-weary and practical to get fussed about Arhys--but I didn't want to imagine it. I wanted some analysis. A nice discussion with a secondary character, perhaps.
The dealings with the gods, though--I found them finely drawn, almost poignant. Ista's regrets and her feelings of being trapped are almost palpable. I would love to see more books from her POV, though it seems quite unlikely, given how we lost Cazaril after The Curse of Chalion. I'm curious which secondary character will win the spotlight in the next book.
Aaaaand, I wrote half of a story that I'd been looking at out of the corner of my eyes for a few months, after "Sticks and Stones" last night. Only half, though. I daren't say anything more, lest I jinx it. I'd like to finish it tomorrow. Two stories in three days would be insane. And yet, if I do it, I know I'm going to go for three.
The novel? (downcast eyes of guilt) I'm soooo tired of the novel. I don't believe in the novel today, nor any of the last seven days. And like with Santa Clause, novels only visit little girls who believe.
Currently, Paladin of Souls has me in a tight grasp. I can't quite squirm free to write anything else tonight...
It had been a while since I finished a short story that I felt could go out to market. I mean, it's not ready for it yet, but the last couple of shorts I did are just not anything I could sell.
I'm experimenting in writing more linear stories. With clear problems and clear resolutions, and maybe only one thing really happening. You know, like short stories should be.
We'll see how that goes. I'm not sure I've accomplished it, yet. "Sticks and Stones," the thing I finished tonight, feels a bit wifty, to use a Mom-ism, and I don't know, maybe there's no plot, because the conflict isn't clearly defined. (Girl has hard task to accomplish. Girl's only real opposition is herself. Girl eventually gets out of her own way. Is that actually conflict?)
I have 13 of 14 stories back out in circulation, and I'm rewriting number 14 (or about to, and that story is "June Mothers Stay Late").
I'm well on my way to finishing "Sticks and Stones," though I've lost sight of what the moral truth of that story is... or, maybe not the moral truth, but perhaps the central metaphor? I don't know. There's something to the story I can't fit in, just yet, but there's room to grow it; I'm not even at the 2,000 word mark yet, and just the right number of things have happened in it, so far.
I need to rewrite "The Paradise Covenant" and submit it to the Minions and see if it's a bearable story for anyone to actually read. (It's in the second person. I have personal bias against the second person, and automatically nudge such things down a whole letter grade. And yet. I wrote one. Because I'm a hypocrite, I guess.)
I'm still waiting for my rejection from Brutarian. Yep. Waiting. Waaaiiit-ing. Other rejections, too: there are two February-sent stories out, and I will, of course, double check the posted turn-around times and the Black Hole, but, it's probably time to query. Not that I'm in any rush; neither of the two stories at those markets have a lot of other opportunities waiting for them. And they're both stories written in the last millennium. Coincidence? I think, perhaps not. It may really be time to trunk the old stuff.
Thing I have not done: rewrite Chapter 8. It's a stumbling block. Every piece of information in Chapter 8 needs to be redistributed. And I have to think of where, consciously, and with intention. The first draft is the unintentional phase, where the subconscious is allowed free reign. Not so much anymore, you know?
Bah.
But, better to be working on something than nothing. I'll get this novel-rewriting mojo working, any day now.
Sent another new shiny-new story out.
Realized that I'm exactly 2 months from having sub'd "Sun's East" to Brutarian, which is their stated turn-around goal. They average out to 37 days on the Black Hole, and the most recent reporting was a 5/10 sub that came back on 7/8. So... 5/17 to 7/17, right?
It's funny, I rarely worry about stories while they're out, and I never really think to check up on them early. And yet, a subconscious twinge always prods me, and I go get hovery about two or three days before I consciously realize that the stated turn-around has arrived. Go my subconscious. Or something.
The Reptile Room by Lemony Snickett (31)
Read with Kayla.
As usual, I love the snideness. It got a little thick in the last four pages of the book, which went on and on in a faux-elegiac mode.
My only objection to this series is that it's a bit shallow, on the whole. Humor doesn't have to be shallow, nor does peril have to be silly. Granted, this is only book 2, but if Mr. Poe doesn't grow as a character and wise up soon, I'm going to be disappointed.
I have a challenge on with Kayla that she can read the next 2 books before school starts (then we will go out for ice-cream to discuss the books, and a celebratory round of putt-putt afterwards). It all means I have to read the next 2 books before school starts, as well, so I can discuss them intelligently with her.
The challenge is mostly to get her reading. I know she likes this series; she just doesn't ever really think to sit down and read, though, and I want to give her at least a few months where she's motivated to do that. Then, we'll see if it takes. I don't actually remember how it went with my grandparents, but I know we read all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books in one summer, and that was enough to hook me as a reader. I can imagine my grandmother saying, "Oh, I bet you won't finish them by the end of summer." I tried to do the same here, but more positively.
Work, work, work:
-chapters revised: 4
-short stories sent out: 4
-queries sent: 1
-queries answered: 1
-stories I'll send out tonight as soon as I think of a good romance novelist-type pen-name: 1
I've submitted items 38 times this year, and have 6 acceptances to show so far (which is, essentially, 1 each month, not that that's how it worked; and too bad, because my mind has little people in it shouting "We want a pitcher, not a belly-itcher!" and demanding that July, as the 7th month, bring the 7th acceptance. Your fictitous mouths to the editors' ears, little people!).
Writing Fiction: If This is the Best...
I can't say that I'm one of those people who thinks that things were better in the past. If things (songs, stories, poems, books) of the past are better, it's only because we don't have to slog through acres of bad stuff anymore to find the good stuff; the bad stuff fell away like so much dross. And, even if we lived through it, it still fell away like dross from our memories: I remember the books I read that I loved, I remember a few of the truly dreadful ones, but the hundreds and hundreds of not-so-good to mediocre books I read as a kid, I barely recall at all. I know that I read them, because I remember reading, I remember staring at stacks of books on my desk... but I don't remember them.
All too often, really good short work is a rarity.
Nevertheless, I'm glad someone said it. That so many things now, even the "best" things, kind of... suck. I consider it a triumph of mere circumstance if I pick up a magazine and find just one wholly compelling story therein.
I don't think I'm venerable enough, and certainly not knowledgable enough, to go into a long tirade, so I'll just re-read this on occasion and feel grim satisfaction that it's been noted.
Finished rewriting: "Huntswoman." Turnips away! Lobbed to Strange Horizons. I figure it's still not quite right, but SH usually gives me a good hint as to why they aren't buying.
Tomorrow: rewrite and send "Star & Galaxy." The edits on that are short, because the story is short. And that will be a full one quarter of Operation Circulate Stories enacted.
Wednesday, I plan to merely send out, without rewrites, "Mother of Forests." Or maybe sooner than Wednesday. Thursday, I plan to send out "Souls on a String" with minimal futzing. Friday, out comes 2k words, and off to Arabella for "The Regency and the Roman." Saturday, devoted to "One Million Years", and Sunday to "June Mothers." On Monday, if I haven't killed anyone, I will dig into "By Right of Conquest." Tuesday next, I will submit "Paradise Covenant" to the Minions, and on Wednesday, I'll work on a new story.
Thus, in a week and a half, I'll be both insane and caught up.
Oh, and a chapter a day, right?
(crickets)
Sherwood Smith has been talking about Narrator versus Lecturer (not a division she necessarily buys, by the way). And I don't have a thing to say about the Lecturer, because I don't buy it, either.
But I am having a Narrator problem, and the funny thing is, it's in no less than three separate stories. But I'll focus on how it's happening in The Bitter Road, 'cause that's the most obvious thing.
We all know (or most of us do) about the issue of the Reliable Narrator. Not all narrators know the truth; not all narrators tell the truth, and all for a variety of reasons.
But how does Narrator play into when you start doing complicated things? Things the POV character doesn't understand he's doing? Doesn't tight 3rd-person POV make the character the Narrator?
To the specific point: my young character thinks he's too serious for dramatics, and scorns excess display of, well, anything. And yet, he's not above dramatics. He's peevish at one point, and turns in a way that swirls his cloak, mostly to say "I'm cooler than you, and you have to listen to me." But he doesn't believe that's why he's doing it; if you asked him, he would insist that swirling cloaks just happen.
How on earth do you communicate that from his POV, without resorting to obviousness, or pointing it out specifically in dialogue?
My answer for right now is, you don't. It can't be done. You have the character swirl the cloak, and you never bring it up again. It's a moment that seems out of character, and that's the only hint I can bring forth that the narrator is unreliable.
Please do speak up if you know a way around it.
I managed to edit about half of "Huntswoman," which I hope to finish editing tonight. Then, it's off to Strange Horizons, who sent me a kind rejection on "Souls on a String." I will, perhaps, pat out a few lumps on "Souls," but then it's off to somewhere else.
It's a start, getting all the short stories back on track. About half of them are back in the stable at the moment, and I find that an unacceptable fraction.
The Hidden Land by Pamela Dean (30)
Wow. Just... wow. I know why, logistically, this is the middle book in a trilogy and not the end of the first book in a duet, but it should be the latter, not the former.
It started fast and didn't let go. It ended beautifully. Tearfully, too. I loved Laura before, but I love Ted now, too. Such great characters. Such great moments. Patrick snarking about how this is what happens when you read Shakespeare at a young age. Ted struggling to be all manful and figure out what's going on.
I adore this book. This is just the type of story I love: it starts and it's confusing but intriguing and it slowly draws you in, until it absolutely lays you out near the end with a total roundhouse punch. Shades of the Dalemark Quartet in that regard.
The other worthwhile thing I drew from it was the fantastic trope for writing. It's like a novelist's nightmare--no nothing so blatant as "being trapped inside your own creation"--but the whole novelist (especially a spec-fic novelist) doing the world-building thing and then finding that the whole thing falls apart half-way through the process. Been there, done that...
Fray by Joss Whedon, et al. (28)
Not quite a book. Not a graphic novel, either, by the definitions my husband gave me. Nonetheless, really, really good. So good I forgot to be incapable of reading comics. No, really! Maybe because there wasn't a *lot* of text, and it gave me a chance to read the pictures? I don't know.
It was really lovely, and dammit, why isn't this a TV show?
I want Mel's hair.
Seduced by Moonlight by Laurell K. Hamilton (29)
Book 3 in the Merry Gentry/faerie series. I don't know. I think I heard complaints that this one was all sex, but frankly, I thought it was all politics (whcih just happened to be predicated on sex). I thought that the new power developments were interesting, and that while Merry's getting a little too all-powerful, it hasn't gotten boring yet.
This series hasn't yet become such a tangled mess that I can't enjoy it (looks nervously at the last two Anita Blake books she can't bring herself to finish). While I think Anita's story is aided by getting back to the gritty business of her actual business , I think that Merry's business is the courts, and the story works better set there. I think there's hope for that for the next couple of books, considering that this book covers just one day, and they're due at the Seelie Court in two days.
Uh-huh.
The Secret Country by Pamela Dean (27)
I might have totally loved this book when I was younger. I liked it a lot this time, though I did have some trouble sinking into some of the concepts, and an even harder time understanding some of the conclusions the kids jumped to in their many, many detailed and rapid-fire conversations about what was going on. I'm not sure if it was me being slow or if the transitions were awkward, or...
Things I really appreciated: Laura as a POV character; the whole bit with the unicorns; the way the book dodged a number of common tropes in this kind of story; the way the kids are both kids and competent, without sacrificing either kiddishness or competence.
I'm glad I brought book 2 on this trip. I didn't expect this one to end as it did.
I learned that I don't keep enough of my files on my jumpdrive.
Really, that's not a great lesson, but it's what I've got for today.
It came about when I was far from home with my jumpdrive in hand, ready to submit a story on-line, and found that I don't keep old, semi-trunked stories on the jumpdrive.
Beyond that, my weekend starts right now. I'm so looking forward to the reading. I may not even write at all. And yet, I might! Ah... the deliciousness of choice.
I'm going to finish The Secret Country, and make serious headway into Ash. I intend to read also Seduced by Moonlight, and who knows where it will go from there!
Mwaha!