A Writer's Paradise

Getting the Hang of It

Not sure I've got the hang of this up at 6, bed at 10:30 thing yet. My initial thoughts on my schedule were that once my stepdaughter was on the bus, I'd shower right away and set to work writing; walk for a bit and then go on in to the library to make my payday.

So far, I've not managed that. Today when K. got on the bus, my first thought was "I don't wanna shower yet!" and I crawled in here to check email. It's 7:30... I basically just wasted half an hour. But I'm not getting time to do my usual surfing at work, so something's gotta give... right?

(mutters) Tea. Tea would probably solve the awakeness problem.

Book: The Bronte Myth

The Brontë Myth by Lucasta Miller (40) [bio-literary criticism]

Good stuff, Maynard. I totally dig this kind of book, and there was much to dig, except for the vast overlooking of Anne once more. There are, perhaps, two paragraphs devoted to how Anne became the Nothingness of the Brontë myth. I don't think that's a failing on Miller's part; after all, how long can you discuss a Nothingness in just a few chapters (absence is a big thing to archaeologists, and they will speculate endlessly on it; so a Nothingness would need to be covered in, oh, three volumes, at the least, if you were to ask me)? Anyway, Charlotte and Emily's ascension to places of literary sainthood were thoroughly explored, however, and this book is an extraordinarily valuable resource for those trying to get beyond the basics of being a Brontë fan but not quite ready to start setting up home shrines.

Clearly, Anne still needs me to save her. Which is good for me. V. good.

Distance, Objectivity and Not Caring

I've moaned, not infrequently, about how hard it is to be objective about my work; I've even theorized that what I really need is an Objectivizer. Some would say that time is the answer to that, but I have lately learned, time is NOT the answer for me.

Cases in point: "The Library Seed" and "Bound by Spells." I had allowed enough time to come between me and the initial impulse on "The Library Seed"--enough time and enough hearing it critiqued on the Online Writing Workshop, which is also a good Objectivizer--that I really had no particular feeling towards it when I took it to Milford. I had gotten to the point where I was pretty sure it sucked, in fact; the enthusiasm for it at Milford was an eye-opener. I had honestly thought the story was simply not up to professional standard, and never would be. I've since become (re)enlightened to the fact that there are many great stories in the world that garner many great rejections--which was a good lesson to (re)learn. Just because the market doesn't love it doesn't mean it's not a lovable story. It's hard to reconcile that in the mind when you're facing a stack of rejection letters, no matter how enthusiastic, and thus, numbness sets in. Granted, I only had one rejection on "The Library Seed," so the numbness wasn't story-specific, but eight months of no sales, broken by a tiny sale, and then followed by more months of nothing--those can really take the toll.

Somewhere this spring I gave up on "Bound by Spells" as well. Again, I am/was convinced it was not written to professional standard. And there are some deficits of structure (like, I'm not sure I actually managed to get the climax on-screen; I'm afraid it's buried in my speedy denouement, and I'm appalled by that)--that, however, MIGHT NOT be deficits of structure (you can take the on-screen climax for what it is, and not second-guess it, but only if the rest of the story charms you).

Anyway, there's also this big gap between "high-mediocre" and "good enough to sell" and feeling "high-mediocre" all the time is like a shot of novacaine to the inner Objectivizer. I really have no handle on what I'm writing. It took a room full of twelve strangers to tell me what I was writing. The quest for objectivity can come at too high a price--a story doesn't sell in two efforts, and you write it off. Objectivity's quest can lead to a dent in one's persistence.

I honestly did make an effort to not keep throwing ALL the spaghetti at the wall just to see what would stick, but now I'm no longer convinced that it's the right thing to do. I may very well need to go back to throwing spaghetti everywhere, closing my eyes tight, and praying.

Man, I wish there were an instruction manual. A real one. Something that said "Don't Panic" on the front, and who knows what-all.

Anyway, I sent "Bound by Spells" back out. Score one for spaghetti.

Book: Alanna: The First Adventure

Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce (39) (re-read) [YA fantasy]

I got this as an audiobook to share with my stepdaughter and ended up listening to most of it in Wales as before-sleep comfort-listening. It worked better read aloud than it does on the page in many ways, and as usual with listening instead of reading, you pick up on all sorts of things you didn't notice before. I still intend to have K. listen to this, but I'm glad I bought it for a whole host of other reasons.

Not much new ground to tread here... I still like this book least in the series, though I like it much better now. I did not like the reader's faux-Scottish and faux-English accents that some characters acquired, but I thought her Alanna voice was particularly good...

Book: Across the Nightingale Floor

Across the Nightingale Floor by Liam Hearn (38) [YA? fantasy?]

Beautiful and sad and more violent and sexual than I was expecting for a YA book. I suspect if I'd been able to read this at age 13, I would have thought nothing of it--after all, I was reading adult books far more violent and sexual already--but in this day and age of overprotective parenting, like I said, slightly surprised at the marketing schema. That said--it fit the setting, it fit the plot, and the book as a whole is very good, with just enough magic to keep it interesting. I love books about assassins. If anything, I would want more of the assassin stuff... but fortunately for me, there are two more books in the series, and I might just get my wish.

There were things about the love plot I could have done without--love at first sight, and Takeo's exceeding sensitivity to his love interest's "fragility" (the latter of which was at least subverted in the text by said love interest's ability to thwart rape by stabbing would-be rapists). There were other things that bothered me, too, and it's silly to protest, because they all fit the cultural puzzle--courtly love is courtly love, isn't it? Even in psuedo-Japan? But still. If you don't know how to frame it in the culture, it would not be good behavior to imitate, even in spirit. Ah, well...

New Frontiers in Rejection

There's one sort of rejection I've totally managed to remain ignorant of until recently: reprint rejections. I'm not even sure if I'm going about it the right way, schlepping manuscripts of "Huntswoman" and seeing if there are any takers for the second time around, but I suspect it's the right thing to do... Yet another aspect of the whole business that feels woefully underdocumented when you're first starting it.

Beyond that... you know what I'd like? I'd like some good news to impart here. That would really be nice. So, I guess I'll have to make my own. I've decided that this shall be the autumn of rewriting. Yep, I'm going to get back into the Brook book. I may have actually gotten to the point where I can really understand what my critiquers were saying about it, and to the point where I can really understand what's wrong and what might be right. (How to fix what's wrong and how not to ruin what might be right--well, those are other matters, and I won't claim competency there.)

I start a new job on Monday--not an incredibly new job, but the hours will be quite different, and I believe I have it worked out so that there's a strong hour and a half to two hours of writing time in the morning for me (plus time to walk every day). Exactly how I'm going to do it hasn't yet been decided--walk first, write later or vice versa?--but I'm eager to try writing before I am braindead from working all day, and I'm especially eager to try it after walking, which almost always seems to inspire me. (The only problem with walk-then-write is that I'll have to write in a coffee shop (expensive) or the library (am damned sick of libraries what with working in them all the time).) I'll let you know how it goes, without a doubt.

Diary Paper

You know the header on the main index page of this journal--the view of the dales plus a part of a graveyard? Yeah, I found that spot again on this trip, though it's changed a little bit. The field in direct view is more of a car park now, and there are some big stones next to the cemetary wall, which I perched on to write an Emily-esque diary paper of how I felt that particular day. (Yeah, I took my laptop on my tromp through the moors and the dales along the public footpaths. It seemed like a very good idea at the time, and I did use it. It was just... very heavy on the way back.)

In other news, I slushed twice this week, almost compulsively... managed to review one under-reviewed crit at the Online Writing Workshop, though I should do another. But not before I back up all the writing I did while I was in Britain.

I managed to write the middle part of "The Wedding Dress Tea Parties of 2443" while I was gone, as well as a bit here and there of other stories. I would like to finish "Tea Parties," I would. The problem is, I'm 9,600 words in, and I think the ending is still a couple thousand words away. That makes this my first novellette. I'm in no way pleased about that. Novellettes have limited markets, especially for neopros who are barely neo (such as myself). Even worse, this thing might not really be science fiction. I mean, it is--but I'm not sure that the story would fall apart and collapse without the SF element, if you get my point. It might really be space opera. Space opera comedy of manners, in fact. I foretell of another long string of rejections here...

Syndication

Administratively speaking, there is a LJ feed available for this blog. Seek ye out the syndicated merrie_haskell. This supersedes writers_paradis, which I did not set up--I don't know who did, and they'd abandoned it by the time I discovered it... In any case, I was never fond of the name, nosir.

I don't know how to make it pretty yet, but when I do, look out.

Successfully Rejected

I've been a-slushing tonight, using our extremely spiffy new submission system at Lenox. It's now got a nice web-based GUI, instead of relying on the vagaries of an email system.

There is a macabre sort of humor to seeing "Submission successfully rejected" pop up when you send a rejection. I make it a policy as an author never to reply to rejections, not even with a thank you; my feeling is, the dialogue is over once I receive the rejection. However, I may be horribly tempted from now on to write back: "submission successfully rejected" on occasion...

Wales

I have returned

Back from Wales. Back from England. Back from Scotland. Not as jetlagged as I was afraid I would be, and I think I'll make it past nine tonight. All the same, I am jetlagged, and I'm sure I won't make it past ten, no matter how much I want to get my pictures cropped, sorted and uploaded. (There are only 173. This is a record low for me, and frankly, there are only that many because I was doing digital and felt dupes were in order in some places. Also, I've not mastered the macro setting, so subtract one or two there as well.)

Milford was fantastic. I don't think I previously had a good sense of really where I was and where I was going before, and while that's not at all the main point of Milford, it was still quite helpful. I'll talk much more about the process and my time at WorldCon in the upcoming days (I mean, what else have I really to talk about, anyway? No rejections nor any acceptances awaited me here at home, btw...).

Er. I am the yawning. Will be back tomorrow.

Book: Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory McGuire (37) [historical/fairy tale retelling]

No magic, but a very interesting treatment of the Cinderella story. I read this and Ellen Klages's "Basement Magic" this week in prep for my stepmother panel.

It was a hard book in some ways, with hard moments, but I thought it extraordinary that a childhood trauma could be made to account for Cinderella's passivity--even though I tend to think of Cinderella as the least passive of the heroines who've been coopted into the Disney pantheon--she, after all, rebels and sneaks out of the house.

The Blogman Cometh

I'm sitting by a pillar on the party floor of the Hilton, pondering the true value of 10 pounds for 24 hours of unlimited internet access. (It beats 6 pounds for an hour, that's for sure.)

So far, I
a) have gotten lost three times
b) have not managed to connect with anyone (except the internet!), including my roommate, who probably thinks I'm dead
c) gotten a manicure
d) been either early or late for everything, but nothing on time, unless you add all the earlies and the lates
e) did not brush my hair for 24 hours, almost

Literary experiences thus far? None. Fandom experiences thus far? I'm the one who acts like she has Asperger's Syndrome today. I chalk it up to lack of sleep.

More anon.

I'm hungry...

WorldCon, Milford and Places in Between

I'm off to the UK, and the geekly pilgrimage that is WorldCon.

I will try to blog from there; rumors of wireless in the hotel abound. I suspect after that, however, it will be wireless in a whole 'nother way... the wilds of Yorkshire and Wales are a little sparser for internet access. I think.

Cheers!

"Star & Galaxy"

Looks like "Star & Galaxy" is up at Between Kisses.

Books: TN & Red as Blood

TN by MKL (36) [science fiction fantasy]

Work in progress.

Edited to add: It doesn't matter how many vacuum tubes you put into a fantasy--it still stays fantasy. Sorry, Mris!

Red as Blood by Tanith Lee (37) [fantasy]

I read this oh-so-many years ago, and I loved the last story and was sort of confused and weirded out by the others. And this time, I had nearly the same reactions--though this time I loved the Snow White retelling, and it's a positive stepmother, so hooray!--but when story after story had a Satanic bent, I started to get a little freaked out. I suppose they are meant to be read as horror stories on some level, in which case, they worked; but I'm not actually a horror fan, so, yech. (I like horror that isn't horrific to me. I can't remember ever actually being afraid of vampires, for example, so vampires are merely fantasy to me; but I spent a long childhood being a-skeered of the Divil.) Though--I suppose the right adjective is Gothic, that place between horror and fantasy, and it's good for me to read stuff that makes me uncomfortable once in a while.

Anyway, well worth the read, and well worth owning. I wish there were more. I'm a bit peeved that this book appears to be out of print. It's a fantastic collection, and deserves a wide readership--especially the "Beauty and the Beast" retelling at the end that so caught my attention fifteen years ago.

Book: Seduction and Betrayal

Seduction and Betrayal: Women and Literature by Elizabeth Hardwick (35) [non-fiction]

A book of essays about women and literature, only sometimes touching on seduction and betrayal. The Brontës are covered, and it was the essay on them that first attracted me to the book. Zelda Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf each have a chapter, as well as Dorothy Wordsworth and Jane Carlyle. The ultimate essay, "Seduction and Betrayal" focuses on three novel characters instead of real women and their relation to literature. I confess, I skipped the chapter on Ibsen's women, since I've never read any Ibsen. I know. I'm a heathen.

I didn't fall in love with these essays or their meanings; there were Things to Think About, but never moments of éclat when I finally understood something to a greater degree than I had before. The title is much sexier than the work. Perhaps if the essays had been made to work together, if there had been more flesh connecting them...