At WisCon, I ran into some r'glar folk in the elevator.
Matriarch of the R'glar Folk: (eyeing my con badge) So, what is this 'WisCon'?
Me: It's a feminist science fiction convention.
MotRF: I didn't even know there were female science fiction writers.
Me: (jaw dropping; doors of elevator open onto Elizabeth Bear; blurts) There's one right now.
MotRF: Hm. (walks away)
Elizabeth Bear: What was that all about?
Me: (sighs)
As Elizabeth Not-Bear pointed out later, the woman probably couldn't name any male science fiction authors, either. It didn't make me feel better, though!
I'm back, and I've managed to acquire a mean little head-cold style bug. My throat hurts. My head hurts. There is colored snot. The bad/good news is, I'm hungry... and my Tylenol for sore throats works well enough that I can swallow comfortably... but it also nauseates me. So, I'm intermittently questing for food and turning away from it.
Major Problems in American Women's History edited by Mary Beth Norton (23)
I read the equivalent of a couple of books for my feminism panel at WisCon, and this was the one of which I read the largest percentage (ie, most of the book). (I read about a third each of three other books as well, which I won't list as having read, but will eventually get around to mentioning here.)
This book is composed of primary source documents and essays discussing those documents--perfect for my purposes--it was like having a lot of research done for me. Happily, both sides of a point were often illustrated, and the essays were fairly balanced (and yet, pro-feminist) in the ways they addressed the issues at hand.
I learned more from this book than I'd ever want to distill into one of my half-assed website book reviews, but in brief, I'll mention that I was surprised to find out that Betty Friedan has ameliorated her position on the women's movement so much that she sounds like Phyllis Schlafly.
This book only covered through the 80s (being written in 1989), but I managed to scrounge up a book that focused on feminism from 1975-1995 to supplement it. Not surprisingly, there aren't a lot of books about the last 10 years. There almost never are, and you have to go to articles for that. This wasn't something I had the time (or, made the time, admittedly) to do.
Been running around like queen of the proverbial chickens, prepping for WisCon.
My schedule, as far as I know is:
Friday, 11:45-1AM Feminism so Far
Saturday, 8:30-9:45AM Problematizing Colonizing
Saturday, 4-5:15PM Zombies: Revolution or Just the End of the World?
Monday, 10-11:15AM Archetypes in Fantasy: The Evil Stepmother
I am, as expected, a smidge nervous, and wondering why I thought I wanted to be a panelist.
Yes. All of the above are true.
Here's what I think today.
There are stories that you read and know in the first paragraph that you can't even think of passing up to the managing editors. And you keep reading, either because you're a nice person or you feel like you have an obligation or you have a rule to read x percentage of the story... whatever. So far, I've never misjudged a story from the first paragraph. But, I haven't done all that much slushing in the grand scheme of things. Oh, no, indeed I haven't. I still wait to be surprised. That's probably the number one reason I keep reading.
There are stories that you read while practically groaning in frustration as the writer painstakingly climbs the mountain slope with competence but without brilliance. Those stories are harder to read than the first kind, and if you're a writer too, you find yourself wondering if this is what you do wrong when you get rejected... and you hope, hope, hope it's not.
There are stories that trudge up that slope with steady determination. An occasional flash of brilliance, perhaps four or five in the entire story, makes you wonder if you're not getting it. But if there is an it to get, it's too hard to find, so you fire up your rejectomator and pray that you don't depress this person too much. After all, theirs was the best story you read all week...
There are stories that make a game effort at the mountain, often with nimble craft-work and nothin' special in the brain-box, or--vice versa, a great concept with a suboptimal execution. Or the third thing in this category, which is when competent stories turn demonic, and what had been an enjoyable read just made you wish for a way to claw your eyeballs out but without permanently harming yourself.
And then there are authors who don't, apparently, understand guidelines, or attachments, and you can't even read their story today because you're just not downloading their mysterious file format and risking a virus, m'kay?
M'kay.
So far, I've not had a "my socks are off" moment from the slushpile. (Again, I haven't done all that much slush.) I have had several really fun moments with stories that charmed me, and it's funny how fondly I think of those moments of charm... I'm sitting here and smiling dorkily at some images that people I don't know have put into my head. I suppose that's the point of all of it, isn't it? I mean, that's the endgoal; to have someone think fondly of your story after it's gone from sight.
I wish there was some way to explain all this to people in rejection letters. But as far as I know, there's not. So, we struggle with a few sentences of explanation, and people on the other end take our letters and sit there and struggle to interpret them. Thus, rejectomancy is born. And since everyone practices a different kind, no one can ever really learn anything about rejectomancy by practicing it.
In other words, I too, have no clue what I'm hearing from a rejection, other than my story isn't going to be published in someone's magazine.
Ah, well.
About 500 words on "Three Peppercorns"--if that is indeed the name of this story, and of that, I am not at all certain. I basically got the tailor to the weaver's house. The sorcerer and the farmer are still stuck at the spice merchant's. And yes, it does amuse me to give out random bits of meaningless information.
*sighs and stares at the mailbox*
Yeah. No mail.
I'd say, "Let's talk statistics. Percentages, even." I even wrote most of a journal entry about statistics and percentages (even), but ran out of time and didn't post it. I've not had the desire to repost it (it lurks in my email, message 179 of 246, and holy crap, how did it get up to 246 again so soon?).
Here's my current guess about statistics and percentages: no writer is satisfied. If they were, they'd stop writing. And if they stopped writing, they would no longer be a writer. Thus, no writer is satisfied.
Actually, that's rather a lot more flip and less useful than I meant to be. So I think that I'll submit it as a hypothesis, and test it out for a few years. Is there such a thing as a writer--any artist--who is satisfied that his vision matches his output? That her sales ratio is exactly as she wished? That his quantitative output measures his ambition?
Of course, I could be misusing the word "satisfied" here.
Well, at some point in the last three days, I decided to go with the flow and see what true scattershotting will do for me.
Tonight, for example, I rewrote three paragraphs of "The Library Seed," three pages of "Sticks & Bones" and managed to come up with a new start to By Right of Conquest that I didn't hate as soon as I wrote it.
On the other hand, I finished nothing, and there is no finish of anything in sight because of anything I did tonight--or because of anything I've done in the past three days. Oy. I feel like I'm dabbing at seven different paintings in an hour, or something.
Ok, so I have nothing concrete to show. But I have been sort of wondering, for, oh, about 24 hours now, what my hurry is. I've definitely felt a sense of urgency towards my writing--something to do with all that time I feel like I wasted during my early and mid twenties. Objectively, I've been able to convince myself that I was practicing forms of writing via gaming--and I didn't stop writing altogether, I just mostly scribbled sketches and scenes in my courier notebook--and gaining, oh, life experience and what have you--during that "lost" time, but facts are facts, I wasn't trying in any valuable way. I wasn't living my dream, or even really working towards it.
And, now, I think being thirty has sunk in. And suddenly I'm wondering what my hurry is.
Yeah... well... what's my hurry? I tell myself I'd better "get somewhere" before I have children, so that when I have children I'll be somewhere. But I'm thinking that logic is a mite flawed, yaknow? So... rethinking. Reshuffling. If it means slowing down to produce quality work the first time and not being on the tenth rewrite of a story instead, I supposed it's all to the good. And even if slowing down doesn't guarantee higher quality, I suppose it might increase my joy in writing. Emphasis on might.
There's a fine line between taking your writing seriously and taking your writing career seriously. Sometimes I think my choices, the shinies that catch my eye, like Jay Lake's story-a-week rule, actually attract the career side more than the writing side, and this is why such things fail for me. Writing a story a week (assuming they were good stories) would be good for my career. Writing a story a week could never actually happen with the way of my process, so it would be bad for my writing.
So many lines, and all of them fine.
Damn.
Am beginning to wonder if I'm ever going to be the sort of person who can sit down and work a project straight through. My attention remains scattershot. Clearly, I am capable of finishing things--the shorter the better, though--but I'd much rather do one thing for a week, maybe two, and then switch to something else. I am capable of coming back to things, but completion is no guarantee.
I am literally in the middle of a dozen short stories, and well begun on four novels.
I am quite certain this isn't the best method for consistent, high productivity; it's rather at odds for how I'd like my professional career to shake out. Must figure out a way for this to work for me, not against me.
Suggestions welcome.
Managed a very few words at Write Club. Then, once I had a groove, the laptop battery died. It is officially aging, for, in the days of yore, the laptop battery used to last the whole of Write Club without blinking.
This isn't much of a report, I'm afraid. I did buy a guide to edible wild plants, and sampled it widely. Some of the things I knew from the endless nature walks I was dragged on as a child. I did not, however, know that the difference between wild carrot (aka Queen Anne's lace) and some hemlock variant is (drumroll) a hairy stem. Now I wonder if I've been weeding hemlock all these years, and not wild carrots.
The backyard can be a frightening place.
I don't think I've reported bounces on a regular basis in a while. There've not been any acceptances, either, so I'm not in the least remiss there. And, as it happens, my bounces are always reported on my stats page, so if you're that dang curious, you can go digging. If you're not, you won't miss not having them reported in excruciating detail. Right?
It wasn't that long ago that I hungered for writing stats, not unlike I hunger for the first asparagus of the year right now. I just wanted to know what to expect. All I had was anecdotal evidence, and almost all the anecdotal evidence seemed to come from people who subbed their first story to a pro market and got accepted on the spot. The lesson here is clear: those people are alien pods sent to destroy science fiction.
Ok, not really. Those people are lucky, though. They may also be talented and wise, but they are definitely lucky on top of it.
Anyway, I've never formulated a truly rational way of looking at the stats I've since hunted down; I use more of a "stand back and squint" method of scientific calculation.
But at least it's not anecdotal evidence.
I've read (in a number of places) that you should make a list of those things which present themselves as obstacles to making writing a regular habit--if you're having trouble making writing a regular habit, that is.
Well, I'm doing ok with the regular habit thing, but it just occurred to me how many damn things I have to jump over or crawl under or run around or blind with a well-thrown spear and name myself Nobody to get past. Mainly, I was looking at my Sims 2 expansion that I got for my birthday and still haven't installed, and it hit me that it would definitely be an obstacle if I started futzing with that right now.
Tonight is not typical--and yet it is. I forwent writing in order to do work for my actual employer, the one that gives me sick time and regular money, and not merely $235 a year (which is what my muse paid out last year).
(Also, something that irritates me is playing Scrabble with people who don't check the dictionary very often, to the point that they only own one crappy little pocket dictionary, and then expect that to be the standard for the game.
Here's why: I just looked up "forwent." Which the OED doesn't really show, btw, but it does pop up "forego" as an option when I typed in "forewent," so I think I'm on semi-shaky ground, but because I'm not playing Scrabble, we'll let it go. But anyway, I now know not to try to play "forwent" in Scrabble because of this excercise. Likewise, I learned most of the uses I put forgo to are obsolete or archaic, which just figures. And forego is the more common spelling, and seems to be more appropriate when basing conjugations off of it, such as "forewent." I guess.
In any case, the last three times I've played Scrabble, people have refused me words like "bluer" (as in, "the sky is bluer today without the ozone warning") and "et" (as in, "I et all the cheese") just because of non-comprehensive dictionaries. Likewise, I've been accused of making up "wadi" and "qat." And, in an astounding bout of the reverse problem, someone confronted me on "zoo" as an abbreviation for "zoological garden" with their unabridged dictionary that was 50 years old. In the past 50 years, zoo has become a word in its own right, even if it is considered colloquial by my precious OED. I really think Mattel should come out with some sort of guideline for this stuff, and maybe they have, but really it all just boils down to I'm right and everyone else is wrong, so what does it matter?)
Anyway, on a given night, my obstacles to writing (as opposed to my obstacles at winning Scrabble) are:
And that's on a low-stress day. But yes, all of these things, at one time or another, have kept me from making my appointed rounds. Some for months or years at a time.
I almost wonder if there isn't a more Zen way of looking at this than as at obstacles. Hrm. But--when I call these things obstacles, it's not to say that I don't make time for all these things at one point or another, but they do tend to crop up, almost like pits of pestilent animals in an Indiana Jones movie. The cats, in particular, seem to sense when I'm about to sit down to write, much as my mother did when I was a kid trying to scribble away in my bedroom.
Hm...
In the absence of life-content (I spent most of the day driving around looking for a nursery that didn't exist with my long-suffering stepdaughter in the backseat scrolling through my iPod and tormenting me with endless repetitions of "Hey Ya" played via my PodFreq) and writing-content (last night I outlined a story and tonight I'm work-working from home, updating webpages), I present selections from my bookmark file.
Figures of Time: I don't know why I thought I needed this for writing research, but it is fascinating reading.
3-D Starmaps: multiple uses for the science fiction writer in your life.
Nuclear War Survival Skills: Improvised Clothing and Protective Items: just the thing for post-apocalyptic fiction.
Greek and Latin Roots: I find this helpful in making up names for characters, when I don't go the direct route like using a baby name book.
The Meaning of Meow and Sounds of the World's Animals: Cats: I was writing a story about a cat on a space station (still am writing, technically), but this would work for most any cat story. If you were a cat story writer.
Nova's Time Travel Page: has links to Sagan's commentaries on time travel. W00t!
Next time it comes to this, I will expose you all to my octopus and squid research. Count on it!
I have definitely mentioned that I'm still in the process of cleaning and organizing my home office. (Though I probably just referred to it as "my office." Work office is "the library." I think. No promises.)
Well, what I haven't mentioned is that the work office, aka the library, is waving their magic wand and having our department switch with another (much smaller) library (a library so small that they are essentially housed within our library. Anyone who doesn't think libraries are magical has simply not been exposed to them.).
In any case, I had (several weeks ago) managed to reduce the pile of paper debris on my desk at work significantly. Mostly little notes: check this file for an interesting article on third generation Asian-Americans, check out this book on warrior women. Writer debris. I thought I'd managed to wrangle it all into three main email messages to myself, after which I recycled the papers.
Today, I cleaned out a little used desk drawer and found a huge stack of writer debris I had obviously shoved out of sight when my desk needed to be clean for some reason.
Huge.
Five times as big as the stack I dealt with the other day.
And at home, it's about twenty times worse than that.
Email is not proving equal to the task. I'm cluttering up my inbox. Plus, I like to keep important stuff in my work/alumnus account, not my gmail account, for no good reason, and I can't search my work/alumnus account, because I still used Pine. I'm old school in a bad way, I'm sure, but I can't give it up. Won't, in fact.
But then, I realized the web is an even greater archiver than anything ever invented yet. Things Don't Die on the web. Most of the time. Plus, I can search this site fairly easily. Plus, some of this information may be things you are interested in. So, I'm going to start inputting notes from time to time--items of more general interest (not, for instance, the reams of call numbers I have jotted down with no notation, nor links to university-only resources).
But this, for example: a pink post-it note, and what I think is a list of post-apocalyptic YA books. I'm only guessing, actually; I didn't title the list, but I did manage to locate one of the books the other day, and I think there are a few loose rocks in my head, banging around and making sparks of recognition.
In any case, that list:
The Disappearance by Wylie
Shade's Children by Nix (the one I bought on Weds.)
No Blade of Grass by John Christopher
Earth Abides by Stewart
In the same pile: a short story prioritizing list from at least a year ago--there are stories on it that never really got off the ground, like "Dogwood and Angel," and stories I don't even remember at all, like "Free Show Tonight." I figure I have more notes on both of those stories somewhere, so I'm scrapping this list. I'm also scrapping some notes on what I think may have been instructions on what to put in the sidebar of this journal. I'm not really happy with my sidebar, but this note is surely not the cure. Scrap!
A list of numbers programmed into the speed dial. No, that's not for the web...
Oh, a note to check out The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, plus the call number. I think that's worth entering into an email. I'm sure I ran across the book while doing some course reserves work with it, which meant I didn't get a chance to check it out--which is why there's a note--but I probably paged through it a few times and realized it had info I might find useful for my alternate America story.
Treasures indeed.
I've got 12 minutes until I go pick up our China Gate order on the way home from work (Szechuan Beef for me, General Tso's Chicken for Dann).
Last night I hammered out a new beginning for "The Lonesome Dark." Something evocative yet coherent. Man, that's a tall order. I had evocative before, and now I've got coherent, and I still need to find the middle ground. The good news is, the 200 words I have now work much better than the 200 words I had before--every word counts now. The images are sharper. But there's still a missing element, and I have to sniff around looking for that tonight.
I did have a wonderful image (thanks to the politically incorrect but frequently hysterically funny morning show Dann hooked me on eight years ago--eight years, no wonder I can't give it up... I don't think I have a single other habit that's lasted eight whole years--Drew & Mike) of a man in Jamaica giving ultralight airplane rides to tourists... There's a man in Jamaica that my main character knows through the Interface (the main piece of technology which is the SFnal heart of the story) who envies the opportunity the character has. This will generate more dialogue about the central theme of the story, and remind me of the contrasts between civilization and wildness, and that's good.
But I have to figure out how to fit that in, as well, and make it interesting enough for there to be a callback to him later. But he's important, this man; somehow, he's going to articulate my theme better than any other character, and I have to get him to help me.
I have a feeling this will pad the story by almost a thousand words. Something I'm not superhappy about, but Strange Horizons already rejected this one, and they're the ones who'd be less interested in an over-4,500-word story. So, actually, there's really no reason to be less pleased about an additional thousand words--so, never mind. But I think the story will be better. Help it stand out. It's rather too bad that I didn't figure this out earlier, before this story had been to half the major markets. But at least there's the other half, and the many excellent semi-pros as well.
Ok, that's twelve minutes.
Have I mentioned here yet (or lately) that I've been slushing for Lenox Avenue? Hm. If I haven't, that's my bad. And I'm too tired after three days of husband's birthday celebrating to really look through the files...
In any case, the latest issue is up... I think it's pretty good!
Song of Susannah by Stephen King (22) [fantasy]
The King pseudo-diary at the end was interesting, but I notice now that King knows the ending, he does that hyper-annoying omniscience thing with point of view where he says things on par with, "And lo, though the Character would do her best, she would be dead in three weeks anyway."
Stephen King--stop doing that. I've noticed you do it in darn near every damn book you write, and the cool thing about the Dark Tower series was that you hadn't been. Sure, sure, it's nice that you believe in inevitability and fate, and it's interesting that you look at your stories as bits of history, which you are telling us about after the fact, but my goodness does it just make me want to take a baseball bat to your narrator.