Got the good word from Nancy Fulda that you can find "Huntswoman" on Anthology Builder henceforth.
If you haven't heard about Anthology Builder, it's the new custom anthology option that takes advantage of print-on-demand technology, but with a capable editor screening the incoming stories (which tend to be reprints from reputable magazines, anyway, so they're doubly screened). You pick stories, you pick the order of the stories, you choose cover art (from some really AWESOME cover art choices, including stuff from the legendary Frank Wu), you name it, you pay a minimal fee (the cost of a trade paperback or so)... and then it gets printed and shipped to you.
VERY fancy.
As both a writer and a burgeoning librarian, I totally love the concept. (The only thing I can think of adding to the process--and this would be purely to match my own tastes for organization of information--is to include tagging for the stories.)
So, anyway.
Buy. And buy often. And did you know you can totally get my story and put it right next to Dave Klecha's story? Yep. So you can pretend, I dunno, that you're sitting at the bar at Confusion with us. Yeah. That's the ticket.
Duotrope is reporting Farthing as a dead market!
Has anyone heard anything about this?
I decided that in lieu of content, I will tell you that I wrote 343 words in 43 minutes, and I sweated for every one of them.
I find, writing my memoirs is a pleasant alternative to needlework, and no one bothers me with questions about silk embroideries if I scratch diligently at my vellums.
I have the voice. I have the character. FINALLY.
*pause*
449 words in 51 minutes! I may yet hit 500 tonight!
That was loads less sweat, those last 106 words.
Houston, we have Beginning!
Did you know...
No, I just bet you didn't.
I wish this lack of activity on the short story front meant something more positive on the novel front.
Steve Buccheit wrote today: "I over-describe because I'm afraid my readers won't know just what the heck is going on."
Hey! I've done that. (I've also overdone it in the opposite direction, but this entry is not about that.)
A couple years ago, in this very journal, I quoted Keith H. Basso's Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache.
The Apache apparently know more about trusting the reader than any writer I've ever met. Witness:"Western Apaches regard spoken conversation as a form of 'voluntary cooperation'... in which all participants are entitled to displays of 'respect'... Such considerations may influence Apache speech in a multitude of ways, but none is more basic than the courtesy speakers display by refraining from 'speaking too much'... Although the effects of this injunction are most clearly evident in the spare verbal style employed by Apache storytellers, people from Cibecue insist that all forms of narration benefit from its application. And the reasons, they explain, are simple enough.
"A person who speaks too much--someone who describes too busily, who supplies too many details, who repeats and qualifies too many times--presumes without warrant on the right of hearers to build freely and creatively on the speaker's own depictions. With too many words, such a speaker acts to 'smother'... his or her audience by seemingly to say, arrogantly and coercively, 'I demand that you see everything that happened, how it happened, and why it happened, exactly as I do.' In other words, persons who speak too much insult the imaginative capabilities of other people."
The explanation goes on a bit more, and wraps with: "An effective narrator takes steps to 'open up thinking,' thereby encouraging his or her listeners to 'travel in their minds'" (Basso 85).
(The ellipses largely occurred where I chose not to render for the Web the Apache words that appeared in the text.)
Trusting the reader is always good advice. But it is, indeed, a delicate art.
Today I thought some thoughts. They were totally the best thoughts ever!
I also wrote some words. They were the best words ever!
Finally, I wrote some blog. It was the best blog ever!*
*None of this is true.
This is Day Two of Sick, so let's discuss what I've read since the beginning of 2008.
Lessee:
1) Booty: Girl Pirates on the High Seas by Sara Lorimer (er.... folklore?)
2) Tempted by Megan Hart (romance)
3) Queen of Babble by Meg Cabot (chick lit)
4) How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time by Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer (non-fiction)
And I read bits of:
Seafaring women : adventures of pirate queens, female stowaways, and sailors' wives by David Cordingly, Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700-1920 by Margaret S. Creighton and Lisa Norling, Bold in Her Breeches: Women Pirates Across the Ages by Jo Stanley, and Women Pirates: And the Politics of the Jolly Roger by Ulrike Klausmann, Marion Meinzerin, Gabriel Kuhn, and Tyler Austin. Of these, I highly recommend Bold in her Breeches and Seafaring Women, and bid you all to avoid Women Pirates.
I also read the Sharon Shinn stories out of two anthologies, The Queen in Winter being one of them... The other must be a Firebirds anthology, which I'm still working my way through.
Now, the silly thing is, I know I read at least one other book. But I can't think of what it is, for the life of me.
Detailed discussion after the cut.
Booty: Girl Pirates on the High Seas by Sara Lorimer
A very slight volume, but functioned as a starting point for my women pirate research. Almost identical, it seemed, to Women of the Sea: Ten Pirate Stories by Myra Weatherly, except in the ordering of the pirates presented. Fun, but not filling.
Tempted by Megan Hart
As twistily emotional as Broken or Dirty, I felt that the situation (potential polyamory) was problematized but never delved into. I wasn't satisfied by the ending the way I was with the previous two Hart books. The happiest ending was deemed impossible. Hm. Not that I don't think it was extremely well written, and I will definitely be eager to read Hart's next effort.
Queen of Babble by Meg Cabot
Intensely frustrating at times. Lizzie, the main character was almost unbelievably unaware at times, while at others, hyper-aware. I don't know. Also, Lizzie as University of Michigan alumna and native of Ann Arbor didn't ring true, in very minute details like how Lizzie wouldn't have had free tuition to UM and there is no such place as McCracken Hall... If you had to fake a dorm at UM, why wouldn't you come up with something plausible, like "Ford Hall" or "North Quad?" (Further, at UM, we never call anything "halls." The dorms just get called by their name, and that's it: Stockwell, MoJo (Mosher-Jordan), Bursley, etc.) But it came out alright, and I understand there are two sequels.
How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time by Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer
Man, this really was an eye opener. I think that all my hoopy frood Third Wave feminist ideals totally came through exposure to this magazine. I know that I had a sort of awakening around late junior high, but I always assumed that it was, you know... growing up, but I wonder now exactly how much of it just came about through Sassy (which I read religiously for three years). Some of the articles quoted in the book I remember reading, clear as day. I must have read each issue two, three times. This book is a fantastic overview of what was going on behind the scenes, sure, but the exploration of the culture vis-a-vis young women... oh, yeah. Suddenly, it all makes a lot more sense.
To quote kythiaranos: "I cannot life. I has the ill."
I've been trying to clean off my desk for to receive a new monitor from Dann for the last two hours, but somehow, it just ends up with me wandering back to bed or looking at bits of paper or on the internet.
I should know better than to try to do things when I'm sick, but there's just only so long I can stay in bed.
I'm at that point where my head goes "whoosh" whenever it moves. It's like being drunk. But not as much fun.
And my husband made dinner tonight (fauxtatoes and venison) (fauxtatoes being cauliflower mashed up like potatoes, OBVI), but the servings were very (rationally) small, and even with a bowl of grapes after, I'm still a little peckish--just the right amount for a normal weekday night at 9PM, really, but when I'm sick, my body puts out a call for calories and gets really distressed when I ignore it. So, I think it will shortly be cheese and crackers on the couch time.
All of which is far more information than anyone on this journal wanted to know about my illness, but I did mention that illusion of being drunk thing...
My panel attendance was light for a convention with so much good programming, but heavy compared to other Confusions.
The first panel where I took notes was "The Golden Age of YA Literature" with Justine Larbalestier, Scott Westerfeld, Steve Climer, Suzanne Church, Peter Halasz (who I had spilled coffee on in the green room earlier that day, much to my chagrin), and Catherine Shaffer. There was a very brief discussion of "does everyone know what YA is?" (in which most people in the room nodded, and then later, a wan library school student poked up a hand and wondered *how* everyone could know what it was when her class on YA literature had discussed what it was for a whole semester, and mostly, I think that's just way overthinking it. It's just like any other publishing category--there are blurry lines--but you can mostly tell what's YA and what's not just by looking at it. Or having a four-month discussion. But hey, I understand library school, and I understand that someone out there wanted to overthink it so they could have a whole course devoted to reading it.)
I'll leave aside the inconclusive hashing out of whether or not we have Rowling to thank for starting the YA golden age or just for invigorating it. Lots. And I'll get right to the point of recording everyone's recommendations.
SW: has written adult books! Risen Empire being one.
He recs: Sweetblood by Peter Hautman, about a diabetic who thinks she might be a vampire?, and Skin Hunger by Kathleen Duey, which I had just ordered on the Thursday before the con, as the anti-Harry Potter (evil wizard school).
SC: rec'd Bucking the Sarge by Christopher Paul Curtis, which I believe was pimped on Unshelved not too long ago. He also mentioned the classics The Giver by Lois Lowry, which I've got but still haven't read, and Bud not Buddy, also by Christopher Paul Curtiss.
PH: rec'd the "bats and airships series" by Ken Oppel, which SC confirmed.
JL: rec'd Sonya Hartnett
SC: Dragonkeeper by Wilkinson & sequel. And "the kids love the Pendragon books... no one knows why..."
CS: coming soon, The Liberan? by Anne Harris.
JL: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
SW: Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog by Ysabeau S. Wilce &
Emma Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree by Lauren Tarshis.
JL: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation and Feed by M.T. Anderson.
There were a few other names thrown about, but I can't find them on Amazon, so that's it!
The next panel that was worthy of note-taking was "SOAP!" Actually, it may have had another name... but it was about soap. Half history lesson, half chemistry lesson, led by Kevin M. Dunn (the science GoH and author of Caveman Chemistry, we learned how people got stuff clean before soap, and that, indeed, the whole "ashes and fat wash into a stream and thereby soap was first made" myth is, indeed, a myth... I think you can get most of the lecture out of Caveman Chemistry... and you should.
The next panel where I whipped out the notebook was "Evolving as a Writer" or somesuch, which was with Jim C. Hines, Sarah Zettel, Paul Melko and John Scalzi.
It wasn't so much a panel where I recorded everything the panelists said, but took notes on what I was thinking, including:
"thinking in sentences versus thinking in paragraphs--no, I really don't get the difference there" (this engendered a conversation betwixt the writers at lunch, and at least Mary Lou and I agreed that we just don't THINK like that about or while writing. We just... flow. But it seemed to make sense to Dave and one of the Julies).
Quote: "the self-loathing of a writer is always a pathetic thing to see." (No memory for who said it, though.
"Do you choose to discard the romanticism of being a writer?"
(Answer: It all depends on which parts you romanticized, doesn't it? Personally, sitting for a four hour stretch at my computer (was a typewriter) and being there, in your own world, in the moment, for all four hours, is the kind of romanticism I had about it as a child, and honestly, that's still my ideal. On a regular day, I don't get four hour stretches. But I get them often enough, that I'm not all disillusioned. I wrote every day as a kid, and I don't think I had any illusions about the process of writing, and as for the process of publishing, I only had a blank fog in my mind.)
And the usual advice--one way to get to be a good writer, you have to edit for a while...
So, those were the panels... And thus endeth my con report, section 2.
The only thing I will say is that I wrote this at some point around age fourteen.
Every horrible misspelling or grammar catastrophe in this should be regarded as (sic). I've even included the crossings-out as they seem entertaining or relevant.
In Chapter One, "The Light One," Tara has been kicked to the curb for shirking her duties as a spinner at the villa. (What villa? I don't know.)
The night was chill, not at all like the warm spring day that had preceded it. Tara sat on a fallen log in the woods and put on every piece of clothing she had, trying not to shiver. Her aunt's house lay not for from here, only through the wood and across a few fields, but Tara dare not make the trek at night, for fear she should lose herself permanently among the trees. She made a snug little nest with pine needles and leaves, burrowing in deep as Elspata, the Little Moon rose in the east,lasluminescently blue. As it was nowhere near the time of conjunction, Kira, the Big Moon, would not cast his red light on the world until Elspata set. The legend said Elspata lived a lifetime, every thirty-three days, rising as a brand new sliver in the sky, alone for many days as she grew to the fat fullness of maidenhood. Then Kira would begin to rise and chase Elspata across the heavens each night, not catching Elspata until the Little Moon had waned into a cackling old hag. Then Kira would disappear to mourn the loss of his lady-love, and Elspata would die, only to be born again, and to grow alone into maiden hood.Tara fell asleep as the fat, merry maiden made her slow way to the other horizon.
(Cripes. That first bit really is just one long paragraph!) (Er, this here is a section break.)
Tara woke suddenly. It was still night. Kira shone balefully down from the zenith of the sky. A light had awakened her - but not the light of the lonely moon.A tall, slender youth stared down at her, a lantern in his hand. His hair was as white as a
fluffmaiden's dress; his eyes glowedpalebright gold, as the sun on a summer's day. Tara knew that this was an arcane, mystical Light One. She also knew that because she had never been with a man, this Light One would deign to consider lying with an ordinary human."Keeper of
EarthGaia," the Light One said arrogantly, "I honor you with my manhood."
.
..
...
So. What more do you really need to know about the Juvenilia panel at Confusion this year?
Confusion is my hometown convention, and according to my con notebook, 2005 was only my first one, though it feels like I've been going forever. Strangers' faces look ever more familiar, and every year there are more friends and acquaintances in the halls and at the bar...
Confusion was first introduced to us (and by us, I mean me and my psychic brain-twin, Splash, or Julie) by our other psychic brain-twins, Julie (a completely different Julie) and Mary Lou. Mary Lou happens to be sister to the famous Dave Klecha, and in turn, Dave is married to Tarri. Dave, Tarri, Mary Lou and the Completely Different Julie (in short, the core of what Scalzi has named "The Klecha Clutch") have been going to Confusion since the late 90s or thereabouts. So, we have had native guides for this experience since the beginning.
This was a particularly awesome iteration of the convention. It's always a pleasant and relaxing time--there are always the usual con things, like a well-stocked con suite and a masquerade to distract us--but this year, the panels were extra-special great, and the various GoHs were so superfantastic bubbly that I almost don't have words.
My best experiences (outside of having a seriously fun time sitting in the bar with the Clutch and Steve Buchheit) centered around the panels I was on.
My first panel was "Women Pirates" with Anne Harris, Catherynne M. Valente, Lisa Leutheuser and Erica Schippers, and it went relatively well. I had felt under-researched on this subject, but was able to contribute some relevant (or at least interesting) comments here and there. (I hear that somewhere across the hotel, Dave's "Fantastic Sports" panel with GoHs Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld was much fun as well.) I think Anne was saying she'd post her list of pirate-women research... Hey look! Anne already has her convention report up. (Also, she talks about the slash panel ("Rum, Sodomy and the Slash") in her report, which I hear was great.)
My second panel, "Piracy of Fiction on the Internet," was well-moderated by one John Scalzi, though between himself and Patrick Nielsen Hayden, the rest of us were just a teeny bit redundant. (Paul Melko and I were definitely on the side of PNH and the Scalvi, and we all agreed, basically, that fiction book piracy is not a true crisis with far-reaching financial consequences so much as a bit of a moral panic. Not to put words in anyone's mouths, but I think that's the gist of it.) Patrick Rothfuss didn't officially take that stance, though I think when he came into the panel, he was planning to, and switched horses midstream to play Devil's Advocate. In any case, we had some good discussion about many aspects of this, including a nod to, say, the Constitution's provision for copyright:
"The Congress shall have power... to promote the progress of science and the arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive rights to their respective writings and discovers."
Limited times. Finite. Yah.
Okay, so that was a panel pretty much in accord. Even the audience couldn't muster up much resistance to our obvious righteousness. Or maybe they were just afraid to argue with Patrick Nielsen Hayden. I could feel the intellect radiating from him all the way through Scalzi.
And THEN came "Juvenilia." With me, Scott Westerfeld, and Justine Larbalestier, moderated by Mr. Scalzi.
We had a rather small audience of... perhaps ten?... people, but it was so much fun. Everyone's brains melted and leaked out of their tear ducts. I saw it happen. Justine even asked for a Kleenex, that's how bad her brain was liquefacting. I may have failed in not bringing my pretentious teenage writings to the panel, but I feel that my choice succeeded in other ways. (I'll post excerpts in another entry, so you can lose your brains through your tear ducts, too.)
Anyway, that was it for my panels... I'll report on the panels I attended in Report II. And the least said about the bar, the better?
The Juvenilia Panel
Saturday, 1PM in Salon G
Writers dust off the storage trunks, turn off the shame meter, and read from their 5th- through 12th-grade works of unalloyed proto-genius... Justine Larbalestier (M), Scott Westerfeld, Merrie Haskell, K. Tempest Bradford and Marcy Italiano
I poked through my juvenilia folder last night, because I have one... and there's plenty of stuff in there, but I don't know if any of it's reading-worthy. It's not so much laughably bad as just stultifyingly, badslushly boring. I do have one point where I talk about "nameless emotions" and then proceed to name them, so that might work, but it's just two paragraphs. I wish I had a complete story to present that would also entertain, but I can't quite locate the short story I wrote in fifth grade... I don't know if it would be suitable, either.... because, otherwise, I didn't really write short stories. Or, if I wrote them, I didn't keep them. (I have a quaint thing called "The Library Murders" that was my very first submission, ever, but again, not laughably bad, just boring. Maybe. I may be too kind to myself on that one.) Most everything I have from this era is novels, or world-building for novels. Oooh, I could bring the pages and pages and pages of notes I have for my Anne McCaffrey knock-off. Just to show. "This is what I thought you had to do before you could write a novel...."
So, I have some thinking to do there... maybe I'll consult my critique group during the kibbutzing time. Maybe I'll bring the whole folder and let my Confusion roomies help me decide.
(Also, looks like I'll be going on panels straight from 11am to 2pm. I shall have to eat a hearty breakfast.)
I found this in my private journal, dated Jan. 12th, 2005:
A brief aside about writing goals: I plan to put on my writing goals worksheet "Floss teeth." Because I know I can accomplish that. When I'm 80, will I be happier having written 80 more words a day, or happier having all my teeth? Right now, I'm banking on teeth. If, in fact, those 80 words a day are what keep me from obtaining fame, fortune or critical acclaim? Well, fuck. Won't I feel stupid having all my teeth?
First, the science in science fiction... from a long time ago:
("What it will be like living in the futuristic world of 1999.")
Found at Library Revolution
Second:
David Moles discusses Duchamp on Delany on ambition in writing (enough prepositions for you?). And then discusses it some more. And some more, this time with gender.
I am... bemused? Yes, I am bemused by "what happens when you set your sights on writing just well enough to get published." Bemused (maybe even bewildered) by the thought that there might be some people out there pulling their punches? I mean. Writing just well enough to get published. Considering that I've been trying to write well enough to get published all this time, I can't quite imagine what it's like to be able to exceed that and then choose not to.
Also? Writing well is in the eye of the beholder. I'd rather have a good story, capably written than a bad story well-written. But maybe writing here also means story-telling. But it's the story-telling that's important to me as a reader. The rest is gilding the lily. And I have to say, as a writer, I tend to remember how I react to things as a reader.
Third:
Toby points out an article by JJA, "Speculative Fiction: the Next Generation". Which is a good article. But honestly, it was the quote from Toby that kicked me in the pants. Toby may very well be the King of Focus. I think I'm going to have to comb through his archives and re-look at the stuff he's talked about for staying on task and on track. Because he has talked about it, quite a bit.
So, it looks like the program is up for Confusion. It's very snazzy, both in terms of site design and the variety of programs.
Plus, I'm on it! Or, my alter ego Merry Haskell is. But she's just as swell as me. I swear.
Women Pirates
Sat Jan 19 11:00 – Sat Jan 19 12:00
Salon H
Buckler and bra - how does that work? How did it? A look at the feminine side of pirate history. From Anne Bonnie to Ching Shih female buccaneers are clouded in legend even more than their male counterparts, or perhaps so. However, in spite of all the swashbuckling myths and silliness, they were real criminals, who committed perhaps the most daring theft of all seizing a violent, active life from the grip of their oppressors.
(Anne Harris (M), Lisa Leutheuser, Erica Schippers, Merry Merrie Haskell, Catherynne Valente)
Piracy of Fiction on the Internet
Sat Jan 19 12:00 – Sat Jan 19 13:00
Salon H
What is fair use versus exploitation without compensation?
(Patrick Nielsen Hayden, John Scalzi (M), Jim Hines, Merry Merrie Haskell and Paul Mel[k]o)
While I can talk with a reasonable amount of knowledge about copyright law, I realized in a semi-panic today that it's largely related to, you know, academic library use. So, I'll be putting my ninja librarian skills to the test to become better informed. Because no one, absolutely no one, will care what I know about coursepacks, electronic reserves, classroom use, document delivery best practices, electronic journals, and the Berne Convention Implementation Act. Almost certainly.
Plus, you know. Look at my fellow panelists. *panics s'more*
As for women pirates, I know some, but... I need to know a lot more to be able to expound intelligently on this subject. But the good news is, I have a fantastic research library at my fingertips, so. Not so worried. Yet.
I hope to see lots and lots of folks at the convention! It's totally my hometown con, and it finally feels like my hometown con, after what, four? Five? years, so that's cool. (And, as always, I'll be hanging out with various and sundry members of the the Klecha Clutch.)
I am trying to make a very reasonable list of things to do this week.
I'm stuck between having only one thing on the list and having two-hundred and fifty.
I think this may be part of my problem.
I have a theory, that if I make a list with one thing on it, and then when it is done, make a list with another thing on it, I may accomplish something. But that seems rather silly. Because why would you need a list with only one thing on it? And "you" here means "me" and "silly" here means a word that hasn't been invented yet for "ridiculous beyond human comprehension."
Okay, so. The list:
I'll let you know how it goes...
So, I brushed aside the six books on Anglo-Saxon cluttering my desk (and wondered why I think I need six, but I got them all at different stages of my life, and frankly, I *do* need them all, should I ever attempt to translate "Baby Got Back" into Old English, which frankly is my life's silliest and lowest ambition, but is on the ambition list nonetheless).
And I found beneath a book on organizing one's office--overdue, too, so I need to finish it this weekend.
Anyway, it's not that my office is disorganized, it's that there's too much stuff in one little room, and I don't think there's any hope for it. I've filled the empty corner behind my desk with stuff I don't need to see more than once a year. I've hung all the pictures and strings of paper stars and electrified dragonflies that were taking up surface space, and I think the office is cosier and cooler for it. I've organized and labeled my drawers. I have tidy stacks, and everything is more or less filed. Books overflow the bookshelves, but they are ON the bookshelves. All accoutrements of my hobbies are squared away, hidden in places where I will never find them again. I groomed my too-read magazine pile to something manageable at some point in the past...
All in all, it may in fact be too organized, because on top of all of this, I still don't have a clue what I'm doing in here.
So, back to that organization book.
The first thing the book wants me to do is to come up with an organizational vision. Maybe that's what I'm missing.
Question 1: What are the three most important purposes of my work?
Uhm, okay.
1. Provide myself a creative outlet.
2. To write for publication.
3. To sell what I write.
Is that what they mean? Because. That's not really what the three most important purposes really are. It's more like:
1. Save my sanity.
2. Save my soul.
3. Share the love.
But I don't see how you get an organizational vision out of that.
Hm. Onward.
Okay, I went through the rest of the questions, and haven't had much better luck there. Let's look at the to-do list.
Assess the types and amounts of information that come into and go out of your office.
Information flow. NOW you're talking my language.
Well, almost *all* of the vital information flow (market info, submissions, critiques) is through the computer. Like, all but a very few old school places that only take paper subs and mail paper contracts. So it seems like organization of my office means less than the organization of my paper, in those terms.
There are a few kinds of information that come in the old fashioned way. Books from the library. Reference books. Uhm. Things I put on notecards.
Okay. I can't tell you if that's enough assessment or not.
Sort the information and documents you currently have into categories for reference and action.
*stares blankly around*
Bollocks to that. I have two piles left. Just two. And they're the two I can't sort anywhere.
Draft a system for prioritizing tasks and managing workflow.
Well, I *have* that system already. It's the sticking to it I have a hard time with.
Okay, I'm skipping to the chapter on procrastination. But later. After my shower. I mean, I've put *that* off as long as possible. It's four in the afternoon!