Rejection. *sigh* I really wonder if I'm going to actually sell this bloody story. But what's 10 rejections among friends?
Well... it's not getting sold to a SFWA-eligible market, that's what. Not that this is my main goal, mind you, but I do have my sights set on getting paid for this one.
Ah... 10% of my rejection-total has been lavished on this story, which I blindly still believe is one of my better efforts.
And with this rejection, I bring you the stunning (and unrelated) reminder to vote in the Strange Horizons Readers' Choice Poll. If you can't think of any other reason to do so, you should know that you'll be entered in a drawing for Amazon gift certificates. Reason enough to vote! I bet people would actually vote in the presidential elections if there was a chance, say, that you wouldn't have to pay taxes for one whole year!
Also, I'm eligible for the Campbell Award this year, though voting for that requires you to be a member of a WorldCon one year ahead or one behind, and there's no drawing for it either. Not that my vote-begging matters: there's absolutely no chance that I've had even 1% of the exposure I'd need to even make the shortlist. But there is always next year... Now, how to create a media blitz off of one pro short story sale?
*crickets chirp*
Riiiiight.
I have worked with copyright from a number of (mostly fair use-related) standpoints for over ten years now. I spent years interpreting copyright compliance policies for
All this means is that I just about have no patience whenever I see people (writers) (in flybys on blogs and mailing lists) flip out because they don't understand when their copyright goes into effect.
Like it matters.
Like they'll be alive when their copyrights expire.
Granted, people are usually worried about whether the work is copyrighted before it gets that little © (a meaningless symbol, really; a work is copyrighted with or without it; the word "copyright" is just as important as ©; and frankly, anything "fixed in a tangible medium of expression" is copyrighted nowadays), plus the date of publication. For all intents and purposes, if your book says © 2004, that date is when the copyright took effect, but we all know you didn't (probably) write the novel in 2004. You probably fixed it in a tangible medium of expression a long time before 2004. This is where the system works for you (the author), and gives you even more time on what is turning out to be a hellishly long span of copyright, anyway.
In fact, there's pretty much no point where the system works against you (the author) anymore, unless you want to write and publish a derivative work, at which point, you're teh hosed. More or less.
So, anyway. I'm not sure why I get so riled by people asking (and they aren't even asking me!) whether or not to put a copyright notice on a manuscript they're sending to editors or agents, or when I see someone has copyrighted their LiveJournal... I guess to me, it bespeaks
No, I do know why I get riled. Because this is about the only question in copyright issues that's easy.
Is my work copyrighted?
Well, you wrote it down? Then yes, it's copyrighted.
That's all. End rant.
Excuses, excuses, everywhere there are excuses... my excuse is, that my goals for last week rather didn't take into account that a weekend with a full house is inevitably less productive than a weekend spent mainly alone.
I took only one evening off during the week: one evening where writing totaled less than 45 minutes. (The rest of said evening was spent catching up on Desperate Housewives and Project Runway. Probably the two of the worst reasons on my TiVo for not writing, but the truth is, I was tapped out and need a break, and pacing myself is going to be a real lesson somewhere along the way here.)
Of course, I didn't really write anything today (and I'm just getting started about an hour before bedtime), and I didn't write much yesterday (perhaps a half hour of concerted effort and a lot of time diddling around--prewriting, as I call it--though I spent most of the day in my head thinking through some plot points). Brain-time, they say, is very important, too, but even my brain-time is getting derailed by Seriously Stupid Shit, none of it related to writing.
On with goals analysis. My goals for the week of February 19th were (accomplished goals struck through):
* attempt final rewrite of problematic scene and resubmit to editor
* attempt ending for "Wedding Dress Tea Parties of 2443"
* read 30 synopses on Miss Snark
* synopsis for Bitter Road
* notecard Bound by Spells (partially done)
* rewrite two chapters of Bitter Road (rewrote half of one)
* Zelazny entry for Sekrit Project (nope)
* take notes on Breakout Novel and return to library (mostly done)
* take notes from last Baux book and return to library (nope)
* notecard, chart or SOMETHING "Alloy" and "Gesundheit" (sort of)
I did the vital things. Some of the things I didn't do failed because I ended up taking the thing in a different direction. I did several things not on the list at all, like outlining a new novel that invaded my psyche midweek, writing about 1500 words of scenelets from Heroes of the Cold Island while the mood was on me... and I read a hell of a lot more synopses than just 30. I don't think that was a mistake.
Not my best performance on paper--if I'd buckled down yesterday, I'd have a few more strikes, but on the other hand, I'm pleased with the progress of the week.
The future-noodling is cut.
Goals for week of Feb 26:
* re-attempt ending for "Wedding Dress Tea Parties of 2443"
* notecard Bound by Spells (partially done)
* rewrite two chapters of Bitter Road
* Zelazny entry for Sekrit Project
* take notes on Breakout Novel and return to library
* take notes from last Baux book and return to library
* work on query letter for Bitter Road
Preliminary Goals for week of March 5th:
* rewrite two chapters of Bitter Road
* work on agent list for Bitter Road
* Bujold entry for Sekrit Project
* pitch letter for Sekrit Project
* work on agent list for Sekrit Project
* check in with Julie on Sekrit Project
Preliminary Goals for week of March 12th:
* rewrite final chapters of Bitter Road
* copyedit heck out of Bitter Road
* get gamma reader opinions on Bitter Road
* check in with Julie on Sekrit Project
Preliminary Goals for week of March 19th:
* submit queries on Bitter Road
* check in with Julie on Sekrit Project
Preliminary Goals for week of March 26th:
* submit queries on Sekrit Project
Preliminary Goals for April:
* official novel break: short stories only this month
Preliminary Goals for rest of year:
* rewrite Regency
* finish Bound by Spells
* finish six short stories
Pale Kings and Princes by Robert Parker (12) [er... mystery?]
Given that I've agreed to name my firstborn Spenser in honor of my husband's obsession with Parker's character, I decided it was time to see what that's all about. (The fact that we also had a cat named Spenser will never be brought up in this blog again. Probably.)
I started with this one because I'd seen the TV movie of it with Dann a few weeks ago. Dann was horrified I didn't begin at the beginning, but I find that with some series, and especially long-running ones, the beginning is rarely a good place to start. (Exceptions exist.) I think it was a good choice. I probably won't mind starting at the beginning now, even if the first book is a real pooper (which I hope it isn't), because I'll know that good stuff is coming.
Yes, I like Spenser just fine. So far, the things that turn me off in mystery series don't seem much in evidence, so I'm good. Would I read the series diligently if I didn't have Dann to talk to about it? Perhaps not, but watching him grin at me when I quote him a bit of Hawk or Spenser that amuses me easily puts the series close to the top of my reading list. I can probably handle several of these a year. It helps that they read superfast, as well.
No, our secondborn would not be named Hawk. But I do like the name Avery, now that I think about it.
Based on her website, I think I'd like Suzanne Enoch as much as I like her books.
Startling moment while reading Jo Beverley's FAQ: she writes Science Fiction, too.
Advice from alg: Don't be an idiot (to editors).
Notion I'm not sure I believe (voiced in the previously linked entry of alg's): It's easier to get published than it is to find an agent. I'm thinking, if that's true, then it's a difference so minute when you have neither that I won't even think about it any further. This is about as useful a statistic as "It's easier to (professionally) publish a novel than it is to (professionally) publish a short story." Well, okay, even if that's true, the economies of scale are beyond significant. You can write a good deal more good short stories in a year than you can write good novels, sheerly from a time standpoint... That alone renders statements like that frickin' meaningless to those of us slaving in the NeoPro Salt Mines (and the Pre-Pro Salt Mines, for that matter). Doesn't it? Am I just talking out my ass here?
C. George Boeree's Dialects of English. Oh, yes... very yes.
Ian Creasey's report of Milford 2005. If you click through to pictures, you can see why I will never be able to live in Wales. Between the varying degrees of rain and the required hard hats, it gives me terrible hair.
Early this week I made the decision to start carrying notecards in my purse (in a nifty purple notecard holder), so that notes could be filed upon returning home, instead of languishing, unloved and separate from the rest of the notes pertaining to their project in a notebook. So far, I've had tremendous joy, and not a little success. Filing (into a rational file system, organized by my own self) is relaxing in a way that it... really shouldn't be.
I am completely not sold on this pitch generator, but it's an interesting concept. Of course, if you can't play Madlibs without a computer program...
I'm going to make stiffado this weekend.
I am more in the mood to read than I have been in the last four years. Unfortunately, it is still outweighed by my mood to write, so even though I could make some serious headway into all the books lying half-read on my nightstand, I probably won't. I'd really like to grant myself a reading amnesty week, and say: Nope, no internet, no TV, no writing, just reading, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. In other words, maybe that will be my reward when I finish The Bitter Road.
Blog entries do take time. I can read my blog list on breaks at work--a half an hour (two 15-minute breaks) works just fine for must-read blogs, and actually, usually gets me through the whole of it unless people are being unexpectedly loquacious... but between time issues and privacy issues, I don't blog during my dayjob--unless I can slip in a three-minute entry during one of the aforementioned breaks.
And a good blog entry takes time--about 30 minutes. Even a less-good blog entry takes the time to think up a handful of links or a pithy short topic.
So blogging--one more thing for which I have to get focused, to form a plan of action.
We bought a house with four bedrooms just so my husband and I could each have an office until we have a new wee one to contend with. Turns out, we like having separate offices so much, that should there be a wee one, one of us gets to take over the music room/living room for an office. (We weren't using that piano anyway.)
Which just means that there are two bedrooms in this house that are horribly abused, because my husband and I are only aspirational cleaners. Meaning--we only clean if we know someone else is looking--we aspire to be clean. In the meantime, his floor is piled high with bank statements and comic books, and I am drowning in book-making materials, reference books and dirty glasses. I also get the detritus of Christmas and birthdays in the form of wrapping paper and Amazon boxes, and lots of sewing implements no one uses. Both offices are shameful, shameful messes.
Occasionally, I go on a tear and clean up my office, often because I've told myself that I'll write better when the office is clean. This is Basic Catwaxing right there, however, because the office has been a dire mess since Christmas and I've been highly productive. The mess just reached catastrophic proportions in the last week, and I've been a productivity ninja in response.
More frequently than the catwaxing ritual, however, the arrival of a guest precipitates a cleaning frenzy, since my office doubles as a guestroom. (A one-person guest room--there's a twin bed in the corner. I have a working theory that when the bed stops doubling as a filing cabinet annex, I'll actually curl up there with my laptop someday and achieve my favorite thing--writing in bed--combined with my husband's favorite thing--me writing in my office, not our bed.)
I think my One True Life Goal is organization. I've never really cared if things were messy or clean, as long as everything is organized. Getting a file cabinet was the culmination of a life-long dream. As a teenager, I kept all my papers stacked up in piles along one wall in my bedroom, in a very specific order; each pile (in my head) represented the drawer of an imaginary file cabinet. My mom thought it was a catastrophe that I had paper piled against one wall of my room, but I thought it was a good compromise.
I think I'm just one more file cabinet away from true organization.
I can feel it.
My pledge to you: I will never write a book or a short story about a novelist or a short story writer.
Note that journalists, bloggers and poets aren't out of the question. Editors, dictionary-makers and science writers may yet make it. Newsletter writers, typographers and publishers--all welcome. But no novelists. I hate everything I've read with novelist characters. I can't imagine that anything would be any better with short story writers. Mostly, I hate these characters because they're such obvious stand-ins for the author. So, I could conceivably break my promise to you if I wrote a novelist who wasn't a stand-in for me. Maybe.
Admittedly, I've never read Misery or seen the movie. I'll concede that one might be ok. Crazed fans breaking limbs to force the writer to produce sequels? That's kinda fun.
But otherwise? I will almost assuredly not break my promise. Not easily, anyway. Yep.
It was actually helpful to me when I set down my writing goals for the upcoming week and evaluated how I did on the past week's goals. It also made for some boring blogging, which is why I stopped. But... what's one day a week? I guess, if you find it as boring as I think you do, consider this your warning not to stop by on Sundays.
I'll at least bless you all with a cut-tag.
Goals for the week of February 19th:
* attempt final rewrite of problematic scene and resubmit to editor (I apologize for my coyness on this one, but it's an ongoing negotiation, so coy I shall be)
* attempt ending for "Wedding Dress Tea Parties of 2443"
* read 30 synopses on Miss Snark
* synopsis for Bitter Road (jumped the gun on that one, done by midnight last night)
* notecard Bound by Spells
* rewrite two chapters of Bitter Road
* Zelazny entry for Sekrit Project
* take notes on Breakout Novel and return to library
* take notes from last Baux book and return to library
* notecard, chart or SOMETHING "Alloy" and "Gesundheit"
Preliminary Goals for week of Feb 26:
* Bujold entry for Sekrit Project
* rewrite two chapters of Bitter Road
* work on query letter for Bitter Road
Preliminary Goals for week of March 5th:
* rewrite two chapters of Bitter Road
* work on agent list for Bitter Road
* pitch letter for Sekrit Project
* work on agent list for Sekrit Project
* check in with Julie on Sekrit Project
Preliminary Goals for week of March 12th:
* rewrite final chapters of Bitter Road
* copyedit heck out of Bitter Road
* get gamma reader opinions on Bitter Road
* check in with Julie on Sekrit Project
Preliminary Goals for week of March 19th:
* submit queries on Bitter Road
* check in with Julie on Sekrit Project
Preliminary Goals for week of March 26th:
* submit queries on Sekrit Project
Preliminary Goals for April:
* official novel break: short stories only this month
Preliminary Goals for rest of year:
* rewrite Regency
* finish Bound by Spells
* finish six short stories
Winter Fire by Jo Beverley (11) [romance]
In spite of my early complaints about how the hero seemed to be treating the heroine as an aristocrat treats a dairy maid he intends to swive... well, actually, this attitude was somewhat played out in the plot. Not quite enough to satisfy me on all levels, but it did put the book back on the right track for me, and I ended up rather enjoying myself on this trip back to Malloren territory.
What a fine line romance writers walk... it is so terribly easy to slip into a very bad place in terms of character, conflict and motivations. I respect Beverley more with each book I read, not only because there is no evidence of slipping, but also because every time she manages to subvert the genre conventions just enough to keep things fresh without stepping over the line into something so off-the-wall that it fails to satisfy.
Everyone seems to have heard of Miss Snark, except me right up until yesterday. Miss Snark, if you must know, is an anonymously blogging literary agent, who blogs with elan (no, I don't know where the accent on that goes*) and with, er, snark.
Miss Snark has loads of Really Good Advice, including Miss Snark's Ironclad Rule about persistence: You may give up querying agents on a manuscript after 100 rejections. But, well. Most days, I wouldn't really care to read another agent blog, no matter how snarky, and that's due to the information governor on my brain: There's only so much I can absorb about this business at one time. When I feel I need to absorb something, I go looking for it, because the best advice in the world is completely unprocessable for me until I'm ready for it. And I suspect you already know I didn't need a Miss Snark to tell me to be persistent on rejection.
But this is actually one of those lovely moments of serendipity: I bopped over to Miss Snark, read her FAQ and found out about the crapometer, the latest incarnation of which appears to be (cue dramatic music) synopses. Basically, Miss Snark had about a hundred synopses sent to her and she analyzed each one on her blog.
The wonder of this is really not so much the analysis (though that's a dandy thing, too) but the fact that there are a hundred examples out there on the web, just... waiting. Sitting there, prepped to lead by example (good example or bad). The second wonder is... she's already done this with queries and first pages.
I'm actually have written onto my writing to-do list: sit down with Crapometer Number 1 and go from there.
Unfortunately, the Blogger search function isn't the greatest, so I think the easiest way to go through all the synopses is to take the base Crapometer URL: http://misssnark.blogspot.com/2005/12/crapometer-1.html, and replace the number with the next one in sequence.
Anyway. Here's to a weekend full of crap.
* I think it's the a, but I don't know how to html an accent grave, and I'm tiiiiired.
My story, One Million Years B.F.E.: Diary of an Anthropologist in Exile is up Escape Pod. Read by Deborah Green, with sound effects. Shiny!
In other news, I have decided that my non-writing hobby will be making books. You know. From basic materials. I am planning to mostly do blank journals for friends and family; I would like to do a few, uhm, what's the word... adapted books? Where you cut the thing up and make art out of it? Yes, those. Mostly on out-of-date guidebooks to places I've already been. I think that's the only use of out-of-date guidebooks, frankly. And I would like to attempt to make a Snow White book, the text of which would be "Huntswoman," and a fable book, the text of which would be "The Mother of Forests" (not published), as gifts for my mother, and potentially anyone else who would be interested.
Other writers have talked about how they find they need creative, non-writing interests to sustain them in between writing projects, and I've been thinking about that. I can't seem to take up any of the yarn arts, while cross-stitch, which I rather enjoy, is actually too engrossing. I need this to be brain time. Painting is another option; I have inherited a painting kit and caboodle that belonged to my aunt, but any facility for it that I displayed as a child has gotten severely lost along the way. I need classes. And guidance. Drawing... I think drawing would be one step away from madness. I can't not take drawing seriously, and I could very easily step away from writing towards drawing and fall down a rabbit hole. Quilting? I don't have the dexterity. No, seriously, I took a quilting class, and I sucked. Plus, I'd have to buy a new sewing machine, since my current one sucks as much as I suck at quilting. Sewing? See quilting.
I basically don't want to do anything that will siphon away brain power. I'm planning to do this (book-making) because the results are functional as well as beautiful, and I think it keeps my mind in the right sphere while I work with my hands. Too many other hobbies can be done in front of a TV. This, I plan to do in front of my computer.
I will doubtless post pictures.
The Strange Horizons Reader's Choice Poll is up. Vote for me... or don't... or vote for Peg (or Peg and me), or Leah (or Leah and me), or Ms. Williams (or Liz and me), or Ms. Burgis (or Stephanie and me) or Ms. Burgis' husband (hi, Patrick) (or Patrick and me)... or whomever (and me). There. Was that subliminal enough? (There was a lot of great stuff (and me) in Strange Horizons last year, and I really have barely touched the surface of it. And did I mention I had a story there, too? It was Huntswoman, just in case you forgot.)
Since I'm not competing in, oh, most of the categories on said reader's poll, I don't mind pointing out a few of my favorite links in said non-competing categories. I loved Marie Brennan's "Bull-Leaping in Bronze Age Crete"; Yoon Ha Lee's "The Dangerous Duckling: Images of Beauty and Illusion in The Perilous Gard"; and David M. Higgins's "The Western Genre Fled Across the Desert, and Stephen King Followed", among others.
And there was a lot of good poetry this year. I feel a bit guilty naming favorites here, but I do have to give the shout-out to Peg Duthie, in part because the poem in question is awesome, and in part 'cause she's Peg.
Alright, it's too hard to choose anything else to highlight. I'm going to stop there.
----
Other links of note:
Ian Creasey updated the Milford website. I realized I really should write up something about my adventures at a British workshop or something.
A coworker pointed out archive.org to me--very cool.
Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels has a LOT to say about bad romance covers. (link courtesy my dear Julie Winningham)
Julie also pointed out to me what she termed A Librarian Smackdown....
AND Julie pointed out to me a review of one of my favorite books. Cofax's Review of Beacon at Alexandria. My one and only point of contention with the review is where it points out that the love story seems inadequate to the rest of the book (my paraphrase); I agree in part, because writing satisfying love stories does seem to be Bradshaw's weakness. (I've read everything she's published. I state this with a reader's authority.) However, I love Beacon so much (and it's also the best of her romantic relationships, IMnotsohumbleO) that I do have to defend it (lightly) by saying that since sex/marriage is the central trauma that spurs Charis/Chariton to leave home (she basically refuses to marry Festinus because of his cruelty, and part of his cruelty inlcudes a rather abusive getting-to-second-base with her, beyond what he does to her father's slaves), I totally buy it that Charis will romantically idealize Alaric--a man who at first seems cruel but later proves kind, a man who rescues her, a man who respects her, a man who seems completely non-threatening to Charis (one can almost see Sebastianus being up for having Chariton in bed; Alaric, on the other hand, possesses an unswerving heterosexuality).
Oh, it all works in my head. I swear.
And finally... I heart my president. No, not that president. The one who defends the future of books, not the one who wants to know which books you're reading.
And finally, from my aunt, the Age Guage, which is interesting because I honestly couldn't remember how old I was when some of those things happened.
----
Late-breaking news: just queried to find that I'd gotten a rejection on "Subletter of my Subletter." I'm tentatively retiring that story due to the fact that it keeps getting rejected with the same message about the speculative element, over and over. I think it could be a good/saleable story with a solid rewrite (including an A plot), but I'm not entirely sure it's worth it, regardless. There are bigger and better fish to fry. It might be a nice scene in a really weird novel someday.
I have certainly read (or imagined I've read) a comparison of the writing trade to a more traditional sales setting (think vacuum cleaners or magazine subscriptions). There's lots of jibberjabber about cold calls and percentages... and writing on spec is basically making a cold call, though if you do your market research, you find your audience more easily, and blah, blah, blah. I'll assume this is known. I'll assume that if it's not known, the conclusions are easily drawn. I'll also assume if it's really not known, I may some day write a tidy little essay about it, even though I've never actually been a cold-calling saleswoman--except when it comes to hawking my stories.
I say all of this to set the scene for the next part. Call that last paragraph "bad exposition." On to the next paragraph.
Today at work, I was opening the mail and happened across a cluster of ALA forms that all said "Sorry, non-circulating item." In other words, I opened a big pile of rejection letters. And I did feel a very minor rush of disappointment, even though I wasn't the person who even sent the requests to this distant library, for no other reason than... it was a rejection. And because I knew how much work had gone into figuring out this particular library owns the item in question, and because I also know how unlikely it is that another library will own it. An ALA form is a paper form, which means it's often a request of last resort in this electrodigital age.
Beyond recognizing that rejection feels like rejection feels like rejection (especially if you have become attuned to it by attempting to become a professional writer), I realized part of the reason we don't freak out over rejected ALA forms in my library is because no, we don't have much personal attachment to the request. For one thing, we're not trying to sell, we're trying to obtain; for another, we're doing it as a job, not as an artistic endeavor. But the other reason is volume. We do thousands of requests a year--tens of thousands, and requests are filled and requests are unfilled and requests are lost. Individual patrons get very wrapped up in their one or two book orders, but the power patrons who order dozens, if not hundreds of items a year... don't.
There's no question that rejection gets easier the more you have of it. It is not something that gets easier with time, unless you fill the time with the getting of rejections. There is, in fact, a volume discount on pain, and I think the writers who have said that they never ever once even thought about taking rejection personally either have gotten their volume discount a different way (telemarketing? lots of bad dates in college?) or are very, very good at separating the process of marketing/publishing from the process of creation.
Anyway, as I was scribbling a note to the person who had to take care of the ALA rejection, I had this not-so-brilliant flash of inspiration of creating a writing cooperative for people who are having a hard time with rejection. Basically, you turn over your finished short stories to the cooperative, and then the next person in the cooperateive queue would read a story, pick the next five markets for it, and send out copies of your story to each market in turn (and never once tell you about any of the rejections). Repeat with the next person in the queue until there is a sale or a year has passed. If a year has passed, the author gets an opportunity to rewrite (or not) and resubmit to the system. The key is, no one gets to remove a story from the system for more than two weeks every year (the optional rewrite period), and no submission stays out of circulation for even a day, until five years or a sale.
Now, there's a lot NOT to love about this system (lots of rules would be required, and no good way to enforce them), and I don't actually have any interest in forming such a cooperative. (Especially once I remembered there's another word for someone who sends out stories on your behalf: agent. It's just, agents don't usually do short stories, unless you're like, Stephen King, and maybe not even then.)
But... beyond that, I think if you made such a resolution for yourself--that you would go to a happy place once you saw a rejection letter and then just drop into automaton overdrive until the story was back out the door--and then allowed yourself to grieve, I bet you would a) find less interest in grieving and b) you'd accomplish all the same goals without relying on someone else.
I don't feel quite the need to do such a thing, since I don't think I've grieved over a rejection in, oh, 25 rejections or so (75ish was truly a magic number. That was when I stopped filing my rejections by story, and instead just clump them all in one mass rejection folder. Maybe it was before that. I guess the magic number is when you forget to count, unless you have a running tally somewhere). I occasionally get a little peevish when I think an editor has totally missed the point of the story and rejects it for being the exact opposite of what I believe the story wanted to be... but peevish is a far cry from depressed. And peevish usually affects my work in a good way ("I'll show them!").
So, basically, I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said before. Good job, me.
Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder (9) [fantasy]
This is one of those occasions where the cover sold the book. I couldn't stop staring at it in the dealer's room of ConFusion. Then, of course, I couldn't afford to buy it, so I requested it on interlibrary loan--but awesomely, my library has a program where certain books are bought outright instead of borrowed, and that's what happened here. So, other people in my library will get to read it, and when I get around to buying a copy, Ms. Snyder gets a double-shot of income from just me.
Of course, the blurb also intrigued... Enough so that I didn't forget about the brilliant cover. (Interestingly, the cover is so good, that I was shocked when I realized it was a Luna book. It's not that Luna's don't have good covers, I just don't think I've seen one that good yet from them.) And when I got the book, I read it over the course of just a couple of days, instead of the usual weeks-long slog that reading a novel seems to have turned into around here.
Now... this is definitely a case of what the author does right that makes you ignore anything they've done wrong. There were certainly moments where I wondered exactly what the setting was supposed to be... all the details point to your usual faux medieval setting, right up until people refer to briefcases and refer to each other snarkily as "Mr. Assassin." But I was willing to write that off as "unexplored world-building bit" in order to keep reading, because the yarn was ripping and I didn't want to stop and wrangle with myself about it.
The author does some interesting things in this book... she's made a bloodthirsty assassin who certainly dwells in a darker place, and unapologetically so. Sure, there are a few redeeming qualities about the gent, but they aren't fully redeeming by any stretch. The narrator (and heroine) at one point says something to the effect that dealing with said assassin made her see the world through a veil of blood. I rather liked that. It spoke volumes. It's also important that she grows accustomed to the veil of blood, and uses it; it keeps her alive.
A compelling premise, coupled with compelling characterization and compelling plot. It's not a richly detailed and convoluted court intrigue per George R.R. Martin or even Jacqueline Carey, but it has elements of that. The details of the poisons were intriguing... I could have gone for even more of them... but I liked the ones I got. And it looks like there's a sequel coming on.
Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass (10) [non-fiction]
I really swore there'd be no more writing books for a while--not once I finished King's On Writing and the copy of Techniques of the Selling Writer I bought last year--but someone recommended this book and I went for it (again on interlibrary loan). I'm glad I did, and yeah, I'll probably buy a copy at some point in the future.
I can't see following the advice in this book to the letter, but I also can't see reading the advice in this book and not applying large chunks. There's a clarity to Maass's vision, especially the parts on raising stakes and making characters and conflict. It's not a book about high craft, but it does assume you want to get to a solid, workmanlike level on all craft points, while truly excelling at a few. I think that's a fairly rational viewpoint, and one I can get behind.
I will definitely be putting this book in my novel-writing arsenal, if for nothing else than clarifying certain points for myself while in the muck of writing.
Sold: reprint rights to "Huntswoman" to Aoife's Kiss for March 2007.
Advanced planning at it's finest. There is a deep satisfaction in adding a 2007 section to your bibliography when it's still early in 2006.
It's time to play the "lines from your works-in-progress" meme. Why? Because I need to make this evening's blog performance segue neatly into actual writing.
~
first lines from "Entangled Alice"
"Spell cough, Alice," the governess said.
"C-O-F-F," Alice said with great bad temper.
~
first lines from "Alloy of Optimism"
"There is nothing like a family gathering on a festive occasion to showcase the eccentricities of the filial bonds therein," Beatrice Fabacher wrote in her journal. "To think otherwise is to invite ridicule by wiser and more pessimistic minds."
~
first lines from "Gesundheit, Nantucket"
My first summer vacationing alone, I wanted to work the Bicentennial, in some small Midwestern town practically on the edge of nowhere. "Oh, the American Bicentennial," my mother said, waving her handkerchief languidly against the early summer heat. The cicadas had begun their songs, and we were poolside. "Why would you want to go then? There was an energy crisis, and weren't those people in some sort of war?"
~
early lines from "Getting Pregnant with Strangers"
When we stopped for fuel, I noticed that moon was trapped in a triangle made out of phone lines. I stepped left, but it was still there; there's not much chance to change perspective when you're pumping gas, and anyway I'd already seen it. A moon bound by three lines is an omen--and not a good one.
~
early lines from Untitled Anglo-Saxon Poem Story
When I returned to the island in due course, an adolescent with ideas more romantic than are commonly held by seals, I found myself crying fat tears of pity when I heard his songs again.
On my commute, I'm listening to the audio recording of Jo Beverley's Winter Fire, which is a tangential Malloren book. I'm somewhat disturbed by this book for several reasons, including the unpindownable origins of the reader's accent. I made myself get over it by making up a story that Jenny Sterlin is an Australian who summered in Nova Scotia, and went to college in Middlesex. That's the only way I can make sense of the accent.
Beyond that madness, however, I've realized that listening to a romance is a very different affair than reading one. My eyes apparently tend to skip over the bits that otherwise might offend me, or perhaps I read them differently than the audible book reader does. I don't know. But I realized while listening to the first big make-out session in this book that the hero treats the heroine rather lower than her rank. In fact, it was altogether like the aristocrat coming on to the pretty scullery maid. Her sexual surrender is implicit, in the hero's mind. Which rather violates sheen of status and propriety--ie, respect--that is supposed to be accorded to the heroine in this particular historical romance.
Not only doesn't this feel right for this book, but upon reflection, it feels quite wrong in many historical romances. I realize that ever since Georgette Heyer, we have really been reading about women of our own time dressed in Empire waists or panniers or wimples, depending on the setting... Sherwood Smith addresses this nicely here... which is perhaps why I looked past it for so long.
Romances, especially historical ones, are fantasies in which every character is deeply focused on the various aspects of the mating ritual. Given. Somehow, the context allows all sorts of bad behavior in the male characters, behavior which is looked upon fondly as romantic. (I once read a checklist of behaviors to watch out for in men who are obsessive/abusive and thinking it fit the heroes of half the romances I'd read... though today, that's not really what I'm talking about.)
So, I was listening to this love scene today--a love scene by an author I've long since decided I really like and trust--and it just hit me, right smack between the eyes, that if any man tried to seduce me as the hero was seducing the heroine, I'd probably drive off, stop taking his calls, and block him on instant messenger.
But it's not as if the romance author has done anything joltingly atypical in this book; no, not at all. It's not as if I haven't read dozens of scenes similar to this and gone along with it just fine, rationalizing it as a different time or chemistry or "it ain't bad reading..." or maybe just not rationalizing it at all. It is all just part of the romance paradigm: the main characters are sexually attracted to each other. Often, the female is reluctant on the surface, yearning beneath; the male senses this and draws the yearning part out. Sometimes he's a bit domineering about it, but it's not usually as bad as that lame sort of "kissing her against her will" thing that happens in bad movies--where she's kissed until she's both subdued and seduced. It doesn't usually jar or grate--not if you're the kind of person who picks up romance novels on a regular basis, anyway.
For whatever reason, I just didn't go to that spot today. All I could see (in headache-inducing double vision) that the hero was not properly courting a respectable woman of 1763, and he wasn't properly courting a woman of 2006, either.
I feel as though I'm articulating this poorly, or perhaps not at all, which usually means I'm lacking the vocabulary. I read about a quarter of a book on reading romances a few years ago (before I had to put the book on reserve), and I think it's time to find that book again. If I can just remember what book it is... All I can guess is that it's one of these... I think it's one of the Ramsdell titles. Or else it's it's on this list, and it's by Radway. All I can remember is that the author began with an R and there was romance in the title. Yes, that's a damn fine memory I possess.
I had a giant revelation today while walking from the photocopier to the bathroom at work today--one of those giant revelations where you say, "Self, that is the perfect thing to put in the writing blog tonight." And then, once you've flushed the toilet, you realize you've also flushed away the brilliant thought that was going to rocket you into the next level of the blogosphere.
So instead, I'm just going to throw a handful of links at you, tell you that I may have sold another story (pending some critical rewrites), and promise not to tell you about the dream I had last night where I was an inflatable nanny who floated near the ceiling around the house and shared with children and adults alike the true meaning of... something. I don't know, my alarm went off before I figured out what that something was, but I did have vivid flashbacks to the floating and my superfly navy blue pantsuit a lot during the day.
Oh, yes, the links:
Women in Antiquity: New Assessments edited by Richard Hawley and Barbara Levick (6) [non-fiction]
A series of papers from a conference on Women in the Ancient World. Some papers were more deeply relevant to the story-research for which I nabbed this book, of course: in particular Lucia Nixon's "The cults of Demeter and Kore" and Helen King's "Self-help, self-knowledge: in search of the patient in Hippocratic gynaecology." Some were more interesting to the neglected scholarly side of my brain, like Ken Dowden's "Approaching women through myth: vital tool or self-delusion?" All in all, a good read, if a bit dense at times.
The Baux of Provence by Lucien Bély (translated by Paul Williams) (7) [non-fiction]
Material on the Baux of Provence--both the family and the castle--is hard to come by. This book appears to be a guide book (I got it on interlibrary loan), but much attention is paid to the layout (vital) and there are a few family details, too. I'm quite desperate for information; I have one book left to read on the Baux (which I am using as a setting piece and inspiriation in a book I will be writing next year or so, assuming that I'm still writing on spec for another year or two), but it's in French. My French is doable, but I figured I'd get the English sources out of the way first. Anyway. Not a bad book, but slight.
Historical Guide to Les Baux en Provence by Vernon Blake (8) [non-fiction]
This book is seriously old school. The prose is excruciatingly ornate and convoluted, and makes the information seem somewhat... dubious. However, the book does appear to have been first published in 1900 (I'm not completely sure), and I took probably an inch of notecards' worth of information from this volume, so, worth the read for that.
I'm still sick, and I am plum tuckered out from it. On the plus side, I am completely caught up on Arrested Development; Dann and I powered through half of season 2 and all that's been aired of season 3 this week, thanks to a nice combo of DVDs from Netflix and the TiVo. AND we heard about how awesome the show was via word-of-mouth from Dann's brother, so take that, doubting doubters.
Arrested Development is in general a self-referential show... and in particular, too. The last episode aired is called "S.O.B. (Save Our Bluths)," and has so many gags about saving the show from its imminent cancellation that I'm pretty sure I didn't catch even half of them.
Now, one of the things that the self-referential humor made me think about was the complaint that none of the characters are sympathetic or relatable... which is largely true. The show is a dark comedy (more than 70% dark cacao, which is not to everyone's taste), and while there is at least one sympathetic character (I'm thinking George Michael), he probably doesn't read as very relatable, since he's the standard geek/good kid half the time, and the other half the time... he's in love with his cousin. (Oh, is that not relatable?) I love George Michael. I love all the characters, and I do find them sympathetic at points; their dysfunctions and self-absorptions read like the shadow side of every sitcom character we've been told we love via the Nielsen ratings, and their brief human moments seem more real for it. As for relatable... dude, I don't watch TV to see my problems rehashed. This is why I generally prefer costume dramas and science fiction, yannow?
In the midst of this, I was thinking of how much I do appreciate self-referential humor. (And referential humor, too... I'm now thinking of AD's Tony Wonder's "Use Your Allusion" magic DVD) I'm not really sure why self-referential humor works for me, though I did wake up with the best of all self-referential songs in my head this morning: Tenacious D's "Tribute."
Some day, when I'm feeling more the thing, I'll explore this further. At a guess, I'd say I like self-referential humor because it feels like the author, or maybe the narrator (depending on what medium we're talking about--but author fills in for "writers" for me) knows that we are all experiencing a fiction together. It acknowledges that, and yet, does it without breaking state--ie, without ruining my suspension of disbelief. But that's just a guess. And I'm not even sure about the suspension of disbelief thing.
Yep. I'm sick. I've discovered a brand new item on the market to distract me from being sick--these foaming disks that you put in the floor of your shower that release camphor, menthol and eucalyptus vapors when water hits them. You stand there and breathe, perhaps for the first time in days.
Genius.
Of course, they do have a captive audience. I've seen nothing but bed or couch for a while now. I'm not really sure how many days. It seems like many. It's probably only one. Maybe two.
But still.
Genius.