The Lady of the Lake, in her own words. Yes, I have been slow to get to this story - but tell me this is not the best plot bunny ever - Nyneve becomes an actor in Paris ...
Aieeeee! Stephen G. Parks has a writer's worst nightmare. Sigh - but he probably did the right thing.
Ahh, the beautiful standards of art - where a woman's nudity is all but mandatory, but a man's is the time for censorship. Imagine actually thinking, "Okay, now I wish I'd seen naked Batman."
Showing posts with label publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label publishing. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
Collection
Dunking doughnuts outside the 54th floor, Louis and Mrs. Armstrong at the Sphinx, a woman neck-deep in grapes, Malyshka the Russian Space Dog of Sputnik II ... oh and so indescribably MUCH more. Photos from The Atlantic's amazing archive.
In fuzzy-history-we-think-we-know: did you realize that the Equal Rights Amendment passed forty-six years ago, almost to the month? But it has never been ratified. Yes, ladies - and women too - there is still a deficit of two states' ayes to enforce what even CONGRESS was able to say yes to, way on back in 1972. More than a quarter of states in the theoretically United States still don't care to accept the amendment, two generations on. I am not proud to note my home state remains a holdout.
Tom Williams has a good post, reviewing New Grub Street by George Gissing. As interesting as the work looks, one of Tom's points is meta - that the work contains the flaws it rails against. He also points out that the complaints of the fictional author in New Grub Street are still with us today. To take this one more layer of meta, this morning before I saw his post, I happened to get up and turn on The Loves of Edgar Allen Poe as my background to waking up and getting ready. I was fascinated by its repeated commentary on a writer's raw deal in publishing, out of the Poe character's mouth, and got curious about the world of publishing circa, say 1941 or 1942 (the movie came out in 1942). Little is to be found about Brian Foy, who wrote the screenplay, in a cursory search, but he seems to have started life as a child entertainer before becoming a writer - easy to imagine he was exploited in more than one way in his given professions. I leave the link to Tom's post with only the observation that there is either hope or despair in knowing that it's never been easy in publishing.
Tom has another post of interest - short, beautiful, and poignant - about the Palace of Peace, the elite, and rumors of war. Sigh.
In fuzzy-history-we-think-we-know: did you realize that the Equal Rights Amendment passed forty-six years ago, almost to the month? But it has never been ratified. Yes, ladies - and women too - there is still a deficit of two states' ayes to enforce what even CONGRESS was able to say yes to, way on back in 1972. More than a quarter of states in the theoretically United States still don't care to accept the amendment, two generations on. I am not proud to note my home state remains a holdout.
Tom Williams has a good post, reviewing New Grub Street by George Gissing. As interesting as the work looks, one of Tom's points is meta - that the work contains the flaws it rails against. He also points out that the complaints of the fictional author in New Grub Street are still with us today. To take this one more layer of meta, this morning before I saw his post, I happened to get up and turn on The Loves of Edgar Allen Poe as my background to waking up and getting ready. I was fascinated by its repeated commentary on a writer's raw deal in publishing, out of the Poe character's mouth, and got curious about the world of publishing circa, say 1941 or 1942 (the movie came out in 1942). Little is to be found about Brian Foy, who wrote the screenplay, in a cursory search, but he seems to have started life as a child entertainer before becoming a writer - easy to imagine he was exploited in more than one way in his given professions. I leave the link to Tom's post with only the observation that there is either hope or despair in knowing that it's never been easy in publishing.
Tom has another post of interest - short, beautiful, and poignant - about the Palace of Peace, the elite, and rumors of war. Sigh.
Sunday, May 14, 2017
Collection
Casey Karp's blog is a new favorite, not just for his talents in wordlery, but also because he brings the learn-y stuff. This week, take a look at some of Amazon's REALLY chilling new problems. One, the new world in gig-economy logistics, and two, the Authors Guild article he links from that post, about how a new algorithm may cost the publishing industry - and authors. The final sentence here is pretty frightening.
I enjoy Jeff Sypeck's unique outlook; here is an interesting area of cultural context leading up to the American Civil War. Excellent quote from Mark Twain on this. Looking at what we consume as relating to what we enact.
"Rubber ducky, I love you - and the writing you help me do!" Maggie Maxwell has a great strategy, apparently used by IT programmers. I've never heard of talking to the duck, but it does make a kind of sense. (Though, personally? I tend to use actual coworkers or other writers or readers, depending on my issues ... Writing buddies really DO make great ducks. Heh.)
I enjoy Jeff Sypeck's unique outlook; here is an interesting area of cultural context leading up to the American Civil War. Excellent quote from Mark Twain on this. Looking at what we consume as relating to what we enact.
"Rubber ducky, I love you - and the writing you help me do!" Maggie Maxwell has a great strategy, apparently used by IT programmers. I've never heard of talking to the duck, but it does make a kind of sense. (Though, personally? I tend to use actual coworkers or other writers or readers, depending on my issues ... Writing buddies really DO make great ducks. Heh.)
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
I Am Not Hilary Mantel
I have dreams of midlist glory!--Me, as recently as six or so years ago
People say all the time, "I'm no J. K. Rowling" - but the disclaimer has almost no meaning, really. Even in a climate where you *have* to sell, and sell well - in a climate where authors *probably* can't hope for second chances - where providing a moneymaking brand and the product to keep it going is the only hope for an author to gain "publishing success".
I'm not even Hilary Mantel.
Bestsellers, I rarely read. Some of the greatest authors I've ever found were ones who WOULD not emerge, or survive, today - at least in American publishing - at least not the way they did when they came up the Traditional path. Donald Harington. America's Chaucer, I've seen him called. Parke Godwin, who wrote perhaps the best work in my own genre, to whose standard I will always aspire - and who also was able to get away with comedic sci-fi/fantasy farce too. Not happening, that genre-jumping, not such a long jump.
There is no place anymore for the adequate author, for great writing but un-thrilling sales, for second novels from workhorse producers, for first novels from the rarefied genius.
... or is there ... ?
I don't know.
Among the great factors on my mind, as I have begun to contemplate becoming a self-pub/indie author has been the desolation of the middle class, in traditional publishing.The situation looks, on the one hand, very much like a symptom of an industry upper-class avariciously destroying a wide, bread-and-butter segment of its own livelihood. I don't pretend to know that's the case. Whether it's the corporate imperative of growth above all, infecting a business ... which never has been entirely comprised of uber-moral artistes in any case ... or the creaking imminence of the death of an outdated system: my education is not wide enough to judge.
Even if I knew enough to judge, probably best to make few pronouncements, in this life.
I tend to be skeptical of harbingers of death. In my less than half a century on this planet, so many concepts have died, I no longer take stock. Rock and roll has died - multiple times, I believe - yet seems curiously animate to those of us in ignorance. Disco has died too - or was murdered, indeed by friends of mine - but retains some vitality, no matter how often we tell it it's over. Civility is a perennial hospice patient; it's been dying for centuries now, off and on.
And so I wonder whether the extraordinary shrinkage of the middle-class in publishing ... and I watch the increasing cross-pollination of self-pub and trad-pub - authors increasingly working both ways, at multiple levels of success and experience - and I am forced to wonder:
Are the evil gatekeepers in the traditional infrastructure the virus - or another patient?
Or are they - is the industry - are we all - metamorphosing?
Transformation is painful, pretty much every time. We've watched for years as newspapers have died (another one for the list), going digital and either suffocating for life's breath without subscription money, or becoming less available ("you have read your limit of free articles this month PLEASE SUBSCRIBE" and you're splatted on a paywall), or even losing relevance just because the vastness of availability means ABC/NBC/CBS aren't the masters of the media universe.
Nobody cried for typewriters.
We kept them on at most companies, without pay, as long as carbon paper took to eke its way out of existence. Sometimes, we used them to cobble together documents already barfed out of a printer but in need of corrections or additions. We used pens, too.We began to think typewriters were cute.
We forgot they existed.
We began harvesting the truly quaint ones for keys to turn into DIY jewelry.
The typewriter lives on, but primarily in steampunk design now. Rarely used for writing anymore. Even spiral notebooks find more use there. Though those dwindle too, and we recycle more.
And so ...
I both reserve my weeds where death is heralded, and I believe in it at the same time.And I grew up in Beautiful Downtown White Flight.
I know, sometimes, things just: move.
And again my education is poor.
Did the middle class move to self-pub when it got squeezed out of the ever-decreasing real estate available for non-bestsellers in traditional? Or give up and just ... keep the day jobs, losing the dreams.The sheer volume of dreams clearly available seems in this world to me to discount the latter, to an appreciable degree.
Have dreams changed?
I wonder about that too. Because, before I ever even began my education as an *author* as opposed to a writer - my education, with the real and quantifiable goal of becoming published ...
I dreamed of not having to deal with those "gatekeepers."
And, no matter how many of you love Janet, and know you're going to do it, and *have* done it, don't you tell me for a second you never thought about that. "I'll just copy the thing and sell it myself." Even before the days when self-pub had gained the traction it has, the legitimacy it has. Even before people DID that, and it was a real Thing.
Before even I dreamed of midlist glory, before I ever encountered James River Writers, when I was a mere stripling of thirty, or in my twenties, or unable to concentrate but somehow aware I was a not-bad-stringer-of-word-thingies ... in fear and before the blank wall of "how the hell do people become authors anyway" and never knew I would, or could - I thought, "why not copy my writing and sell it myself?"
Easier than learning.
("Oh. Wait ...")
And, yeah. It turns out - something to learn, all itself.
I come from the generation that brought the 'zine to its apex. I come from a wordy dang family. I come from all the fear every Woodland Creature (reg US Pat Off, Janet Reid's Phrase and Wordventions Incorporated) ever experienced, not to say wallowed in. I come from curiosity and confidence and ...
Confluence.
I live, in myself, in that moment where the inchoate dreams of a non-author who was nonetheless still a writer has come face to face with the first dream I ever had, and found that a "real" author can do it too. It's not just the throwaway resort of a 'nartist.
It would be sad if it's the *only* way for a non-bestseller to be published, but ... again, I'm decreasingly of the opinion anymore that self-pub/trad-pub is an either/or proposition.
And I have a resolution in my mind, to always learn, to commit to the preservation of my wee and paltry brain by feeding it with knowledge, and challenges.
And ... self-pub was, in its way, the first dream I had, as a writer. Granted, out of fear. But the way I saw it was an instrument of control. The way I saw it was as an escape from rejection, yeah. The way I saw it came from a time before it ever really existed.
And now it does. Because my dream is widespread.
Programming note for those who've been kind enough to inquire after me lately - the illness I've had is called labyrinthitis, it's something I've dealt with periodically since I was twenty. It STINKS but is nothing dangerous, and I've been so grateful for everyone's well wishes. It's still not quite cleared off, but I am safe to drive and very happy back at the office, and Penny will be especially pleased when I'm sure enough on my feet for her to get her regular walkies once again. (She's a tugger; you have to be *really* sure on your feet to walk her!)
Friday, April 22, 2016
Beginnings ... (?)
It looks like my last post was the 2500th on this blog. Interesting; it was about neverending dying. It was unplanned.
Like so much of life. Unplanned.
One year ago, I allowed myself to contemplate putting The Ax and the Vase away. At the time, I could not face that as a death, but a persistent coma eventually becomes a death for those who are still in the waking life. It hasn't been long since I memorialized that death, not for the first time, but pretty much in that context. I even said, there is a freedom in letting go. I have been seeing the "release" aspect of death a great deal of late.
And so, it is hard. It is hard to contemplate hope instead.
Stripping off the preciousness and poetry: it's hard, and terrifying, to find myself considering self-publishing.
There is an aspect to the idea that feels like death, itself. The dream of traditional publishing, for me, has been a long one - as long as the writing of Ax itself was, and that was ten years or more. In the beginning, there was a powerful challenge and a business to learn, and that appealed to me. In the midst of that education, the idea of learning another way was overwhelming.
I've seen the commitment it takes to be an indie. I've long, too, seen the liberty inherent in being pre-published. For all these years, the technical side of the self-pub path has been aplenty to stymie me and allow me to maintain an almost studied ignorance, focusing on the traditional pub path.
Damn my brain. I find with age, it is more open, not less, to new ideas and new ways of doing things. I'm a Virginian! This is not natural.
But, even my wee and paltry brain is capable of perception. It has not escaped me that the infrastructure and the process of self-pub has been refined and cultivated over the same years indie's reputation has grown, along with its popularity. And my wee and paltry brain occasionally gets the idea it might just be big enough to learn something new.
And my heart and my talent and my uppity-osity kind of think Ax is a good novel. That it should not die.
I'm still very well aware of its disadvantages as a product. But vanity wonders ... could it work in a market unlike traditional publishing? In this, my wee and paltry brain may admittedly be prone to arrogance.
I am by no stretch committed. Too much to learn even to begin. And this time has been a hard time; it is possibly the worst time in the world to take on such an enterprise. But this is perhaps part of the reason I contemplate it.
As for the rest: I blame my wee and paltry brain. And reading. Reading. Reading. Reading. And a friend who is willing to give me the benefit of her experience and expertise, at least as a starting point. I am grateful for Leila Gaskin. As who wouldn't be?
Sigh.
The comments are open. I would love to see others' thoughts.
Like so much of life. Unplanned.
One year ago, I allowed myself to contemplate putting The Ax and the Vase away. At the time, I could not face that as a death, but a persistent coma eventually becomes a death for those who are still in the waking life. It hasn't been long since I memorialized that death, not for the first time, but pretty much in that context. I even said, there is a freedom in letting go. I have been seeing the "release" aspect of death a great deal of late.
And so, it is hard. It is hard to contemplate hope instead.
Stripping off the preciousness and poetry: it's hard, and terrifying, to find myself considering self-publishing.
There is an aspect to the idea that feels like death, itself. The dream of traditional publishing, for me, has been a long one - as long as the writing of Ax itself was, and that was ten years or more. In the beginning, there was a powerful challenge and a business to learn, and that appealed to me. In the midst of that education, the idea of learning another way was overwhelming.
I've seen the commitment it takes to be an indie. I've long, too, seen the liberty inherent in being pre-published. For all these years, the technical side of the self-pub path has been aplenty to stymie me and allow me to maintain an almost studied ignorance, focusing on the traditional pub path.
Damn my brain. I find with age, it is more open, not less, to new ideas and new ways of doing things. I'm a Virginian! This is not natural.
But, even my wee and paltry brain is capable of perception. It has not escaped me that the infrastructure and the process of self-pub has been refined and cultivated over the same years indie's reputation has grown, along with its popularity. And my wee and paltry brain occasionally gets the idea it might just be big enough to learn something new.
And my heart and my talent and my uppity-osity kind of think Ax is a good novel. That it should not die.
I'm still very well aware of its disadvantages as a product. But vanity wonders ... could it work in a market unlike traditional publishing? In this, my wee and paltry brain may admittedly be prone to arrogance.
I am by no stretch committed. Too much to learn even to begin. And this time has been a hard time; it is possibly the worst time in the world to take on such an enterprise. But this is perhaps part of the reason I contemplate it.
As for the rest: I blame my wee and paltry brain. And reading. Reading. Reading. Reading. And a friend who is willing to give me the benefit of her experience and expertise, at least as a starting point. I am grateful for Leila Gaskin. As who wouldn't be?
Sigh.
The comments are open. I would love to see others' thoughts.
Sunday, January 3, 2016
Collection
From The Atlantic, on the persistent trend in Hollywood to deny diversity in casting ... "(C)olorblind casting isn’t a form of acceptance or progress: It can just as easily be erasure wrapped up as benevolence."
A guy named Robert Wayne, scholars getting into fusses, “just another Preppy American”, dates of domestication, and the DNA of dogs. Giving dogfighting a new name – a great article nonetheless about a whole lot more than any particular study.
“I keep hoping these guys, who are supposedly Christian, would do the Christian thing and return these objects that they are holding illegally” ... at the intersection of finance, religion, and culture - or, why repatriation becomes complicated ...
From the Boston Globe, on the feminization of book cover design: "(H)ow does a publisher signal to a manly reader that a woman-authored book he has in his hands won’t offend him with talk of motherhood, makeup, and menstruation?"
The earliest prison memoir in the United States, from Austin Reed. Here is an excerpt from early in the book. Here is the History Blog's post on the publication.
A guy named Robert Wayne, scholars getting into fusses, “just another Preppy American”, dates of domestication, and the DNA of dogs. Giving dogfighting a new name – a great article nonetheless about a whole lot more than any particular study.
“I keep hoping these guys, who are supposedly Christian, would do the Christian thing and return these objects that they are holding illegally” ... at the intersection of finance, religion, and culture - or, why repatriation becomes complicated ...
From the Boston Globe, on the feminization of book cover design: "(H)ow does a publisher signal to a manly reader that a woman-authored book he has in his hands won’t offend him with talk of motherhood, makeup, and menstruation?"
The earliest prison memoir in the United States, from Austin Reed. Here is an excerpt from early in the book. Here is the History Blog's post on the publication.
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Collection
I'm torn between a "who needs garden *gnomes*" joke and a take on the "How does your garden grow? With cockle shells and silver bells, and MEDIEVAL BEASTIES! ROWRRR!!" here. Either way, Jeff Sypeck's garden may (astoundingly) have a cooler guardian than Mojourner Truth's.
But then, Mojourner's got directional hopping. And I've seen at least one living guardian doing a bit of a satan's caper around a fire in *his* garden, so that's pretty monstrous.
Elizabeth Chadwick hosts a guest post from Katrin Kania, on hip huggers, mass production, and medieval clothes making the man. When "one of a kind" was likelier than not! (I would pick only one thread here; historical and quasi-historical clothing is very MUCH mass-produced these days. It may not be accurate, but it's definitely a "thing". Otherwise, American Duchess's beautiful - and, to be sure, customizable - shoes would never sell.)
Carolynn with 2 Ns (one of those reef-ers or Reiders I go on about from time to time, though I've been horribly neglectful of the community and its blogs of late) has some thoughts on ages that are called "certain" (heh - love that phrase!), publishing's slow pace, and prioritization. Those of us beyond the prodigy years can wear ourselves ragged worrying about being too old ...
Finally, Jeff Sypeck again - on how very much more engaging it is to actually read and recite poetry, as opposed to analyzing it. I will refrain from ANY profundities about Michelle Pfeiffer and Black students.
But I have to admit, I never could resist Coolio (and MP'swould-be badassery pooch problem in this clip is as hilarious as ever).
But then, Mojourner's got directional hopping. And I've seen at least one living guardian doing a bit of a satan's caper around a fire in *his* garden, so that's pretty monstrous.
Elizabeth Chadwick hosts a guest post from Katrin Kania, on hip huggers, mass production, and medieval clothes making the man. When "one of a kind" was likelier than not! (I would pick only one thread here; historical and quasi-historical clothing is very MUCH mass-produced these days. It may not be accurate, but it's definitely a "thing". Otherwise, American Duchess's beautiful - and, to be sure, customizable - shoes would never sell.)
Carolynn with 2 Ns (one of those reef-ers or Reiders I go on about from time to time, though I've been horribly neglectful of the community and its blogs of late) has some thoughts on ages that are called "certain" (heh - love that phrase!), publishing's slow pace, and prioritization. Those of us beyond the prodigy years can wear ourselves ragged worrying about being too old ...
Finally, Jeff Sypeck again - on how very much more engaging it is to actually read and recite poetry, as opposed to analyzing it. I will refrain from ANY profundities about Michelle Pfeiffer and Black students.
But I have to admit, I never could resist Coolio (and MP's
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Collection
It is rare, if not unprecedented, for me to contemplate the phrase "everybody's talking about it!" without scoffing, pinching salt, or otherwise having no patience with the entire concept. But Harper Lee has brought us as close as I've ever seen, with the Go Set a Watchman epochal event publication. Mostly discussion seems to center on the disconcerting combination of darn-near-prurient curiosity about the manipulations involved in making public a draft work, and a general condemnation of the work as "should've been only a scholarly curiosity, really isn't a saleable novel, hey I'm only reporting the facts, and isn't it terrible they've done this (so I can buy in and then blog about it)?" There is a lot that's ghastly. So it was even more quease-inducing to read this. Apparently, Atticus - the great American symbol of moral rectitude and crusadership - turns out to be a big old bigot.
Sigh.
So let's look at racism in a different way. Nyki Blatchley provides a truly EXCELLENT post on the Aryan fallacy and all its little malformed fallacious babies. A linguistic/historical/cultural must-read, because it's incisive and important on multiple levels. It's good storytelling, it's good teaching, it touches on varied aspects of those ways we seem to love to come to wrong-thinking, and it's *sourced*, which is more than I ever do for y'all. So go. Now.
Sigh.
So let's look at racism in a different way. Nyki Blatchley provides a truly EXCELLENT post on the Aryan fallacy and all its little malformed fallacious babies. A linguistic/historical/cultural must-read, because it's incisive and important on multiple levels. It's good storytelling, it's good teaching, it touches on varied aspects of those ways we seem to love to come to wrong-thinking, and it's *sourced*, which is more than I ever do for y'all. So go. Now.
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Collection
A study in treatment - Archaeology News' take on the Viking Sword of Langeid ("Magic"!) and The History Blog's. Both are good articles, actually. Just interesting to note the popular-press somewhat pandering headline on AN's piece.
How owl vomit helps us study an ecosystem. Also from AN. "Studies such as these provide a window into natural baselines prior to the onset of human impacts in the last century. The effects of human land use on ecosystems can then be separated from the forces of climate change today." Fascinatingly, this study is apparently the first of its kind.
As an author who's joked for years that I only aspire to midlist glory (i.e., I don't want to be Rowling, nor even hope to be Mantel), Jessica's post at BookEnds on the subject is sobering.
Gotta love a good gruesome story (as if bone-inclusive owl barf wasn't gross enough ...), and the HB does come through. Nosferatu's H. W. Murnau's head has been stolen. And here I am, imagining the black market in horror director's heads ... Errrrm. and now I want to watch Nosferatu (but NOT Shadow of the Vampire - even Eddie Izzard's being in that does not create such a temptation).
Jessica Faust again at BE, on non-renewal of a contract, and opportunity. This should illustrate pretty clearly why I follow agent blogs for agents I'll never have. (For one, nothing's at stake. For two: LEARNINGNESS. It's good stuff.)
The insanely absorbing community, resource, and religious implications of ancient Celtic animal sacrifice - in which the animals were then rebuilt into cow-horses in unexpected hybrid corpses. Were the cobbling together the image of a god? Were these to be spiritual servants to the human remains also present in some cases (and also sacrificed - don't let anybody tell you the Celts' hands were clean of human sacrifice)? Were they avatars of living humans' experience in some way? Again via Archaeology News.
Textiles dating back two millennia are, predictably, pretty hard to come by. Textiles relating to the most famous Cleopatra's father, Ptolemy Auletes the Flute Player, are ... well, right here. Thanks again to the HB.
And, in closing: still more proof that The Stupid, Stupid Past - wasn't. The orthopedic screw dating back at least 3,000 years. Because, you know - antique medical practice wasn't all leeches and arcane religious ritual. BOO-yah, Whig history.
How owl vomit helps us study an ecosystem. Also from AN. "Studies such as these provide a window into natural baselines prior to the onset of human impacts in the last century. The effects of human land use on ecosystems can then be separated from the forces of climate change today." Fascinatingly, this study is apparently the first of its kind.
As an author who's joked for years that I only aspire to midlist glory (i.e., I don't want to be Rowling, nor even hope to be Mantel), Jessica's post at BookEnds on the subject is sobering.
Gotta love a good gruesome story (as if bone-inclusive owl barf wasn't gross enough ...), and the HB does come through. Nosferatu's H. W. Murnau's head has been stolen. And here I am, imagining the black market in horror director's heads ... Errrrm. and now I want to watch Nosferatu (but NOT Shadow of the Vampire - even Eddie Izzard's being in that does not create such a temptation).
Jessica Faust again at BE, on non-renewal of a contract, and opportunity. This should illustrate pretty clearly why I follow agent blogs for agents I'll never have. (For one, nothing's at stake. For two: LEARNINGNESS. It's good stuff.)
The insanely absorbing community, resource, and religious implications of ancient Celtic animal sacrifice - in which the animals were then rebuilt into cow-horses in unexpected hybrid corpses. Were the cobbling together the image of a god? Were these to be spiritual servants to the human remains also present in some cases (and also sacrificed - don't let anybody tell you the Celts' hands were clean of human sacrifice)? Were they avatars of living humans' experience in some way? Again via Archaeology News.
Textiles dating back two millennia are, predictably, pretty hard to come by. Textiles relating to the most famous Cleopatra's father, Ptolemy Auletes the Flute Player, are ... well, right here. Thanks again to the HB.
And, in closing: still more proof that The Stupid, Stupid Past - wasn't. The orthopedic screw dating back at least 3,000 years. Because, you know - antique medical practice wasn't all leeches and arcane religious ritual. BOO-yah, Whig history.
Friday, June 12, 2015
Dirty, Dirty Bidniss
I’ve been reading Janet Reid’s archives – less for education at this point than for sheer entertainment, to be honest. But this post got me thinking. (It is very short, and yes, you have to read it for the post you’re now looking at to make worthwhile sense.)
I’ve encountered agents and editors online and IRL who struck me as … let us say, not self aware. It is not the world’s deepest challenge to find publishing professionals saying things with all the facile and vacuous brightness (and, indeed, the very words) of a stock character in a Hollywood movie about Hollywood. Discussing art and creativity as business translates, and agents have become a trope, be they authors’ or actors’ pit-bull/chihuahua advocates.
More often than evil, the implications tend to go for comedy. Nakedly driven by business concerns, or sometimes almost (… almost …) adorably by dreams, real life Tweets and interviews and so on make clear the expectations and motivations behind “I’m looking for THE NEXT SUCH-AND-SUCH BESTSELLER” or (cringe) the old “this-meets-that” uber-shallow Hollywood pitchery. Expectations and motivations that other stock character, the long-suffering writer, endures to their emotional travail.
It is to sigh.
The point relating to Janet’s post is: I can comprehend the idea of someone who has long worked in publishing getting sneery about the industry and the people in it. Exposed, more than I ever have been, to these dynamics, sooner or later those enamored of their own integrity may feel themselves in need of feeling “better than that.”
Authors, by the way, do this too. Some of them out loud, or in print. Some of them do it in query letters; why else would so many agents have to explain on blogs and in interviews, “When you say ‘all the books being published now are trash’, THAT IS INSULTING” … ? We think my genre is better than your genre – or, more tellingly, my genre is more IMPORTANT than yours is – or reader categories – or other particular writers. And I don’t pretend I haven’t don this, though I have tried to be nonspecific when moaning about querying or reading or what have you.
But most of us learn to keep certain thoughts to ourselves, or at least not to name names – and we all move along.
Which is where Janet’s old post above comes in.
The thing about moving along is, in publishing and in life and in Hollywood and at any job in the world, what it usually means is, dealing with the people we find annoying or inferior, getting it over with, and then dealing with OTHER people.
Because: there are other people in publishing. There are always other people than the annoying ones. Always.
It is no more reasonable to consider “all agents” as possessing any one property than it is to paint every member of any particular gender, race, political party, or age group as a single, monolithic whole – homogeneous, and uniformly good or bad, or rich with nougaty goodness, or perhaps a little too salty with my high blood pressure, so I’d better hold off.
When I was actively querying (and I am still toying with research here and there, though nothing’s been sent of late), I queried GOOD agents. People for whom I have respect.
If I want to participate in this industry, I *need* to respect it.
The idea of considering it a dirty thing on the face of it, but “a necessary evil” is not merely bewildering to me, it’s confounding. To consider my work as product in no way demeans it, to me – if selling art was good enough for Michelangelo, it's good enough for me. As hellaciously painful as it’s been to watch my first borne (I’ll spell it that way rather than literally indicating labor and delivery in the biological sense) possibly fail, it doesn’t tell me I’ve written a bad novel nor that those who recognize they can’t sell it are the bottom-feeding minions of Be’elzebub. It tells me they’re being realistic about business.
It also tells me about the importance of how I populate my stories, and a whole raft of other privilege- and diversity-centric stuff I’ve blogged about already, but those are other posts.
Not one single agent in the world has done one thing to stand in my way. None could nor would stop me if I chose to get The Ax and the Vase out into the world; self-publishing is a perfectly cromulent piece of this business. I feel that *I* do not make a good prospective self-publisher, because the kind of sweat equity I long to invest in this work is different, and I frankly fear my competence to serve my novels without the partnership and network of traditional publishing.
But that doesn’t make traditional publishing my obstacle.
Only I can be that, for myself, and … I kind of prefer not to do that.
My faith in magic ain’t what it used to be (if it ever was), and my expectations have never been that Hilary Mantel oughtta WORRY when I hit the market. But nothing in the years I’ve been learning, and writing, and continually working on all the fronts necessary to my goals …
… nothing has ever persuaded me I don’t deserve this, nor that I won’t get it. It could have happened already, if my resources were greater than they are.
Just not if I had more Magical Literary Beans to get my creative beanstalk to the stratosphere.
Right now, I’m all I’ve got. I joke a lot about my wee and paltry little brain, but we all know I think plenty highly of myself.
I also know, perhaps the one magic I do have in my life, is the great good fortune to find people I respect and am grateful for to work with. Just yesterday, I was struck (hardly for the first time) by the realization that I have a job which is the envy of others doing similar work. Someone said to me, basically, I work with the best people because I am the best myself.
Not something I came by easily, nor early.
Even if I sign with someone unexpected, when it does come, or an agent I thought of as a long-shot/”eh, why not ping ‘em” prospect when I first researched them: when I do have one, my agent will be The Best.
Just as my Penelope is The Best Dog.
And just as there’s nothing OSUM-er than Gossamer.
If I have faith in myself, and in my work – how could I not have faith in the person who chooses (and whom I choose) to advocate it? The agent, the editor who snaps at it, and those who share acquisition decisions, and acquire it?
Yes, yes. It’s all business, and there is a part of the publishing business that concerns itself less with Literary Exquisiteness (or my personal, precious darlings) than with profit.
Hell, it ain’t insurance. And I worked in that industry for YEARS.
So tell me again how PUBLISHING is a bunch of awful little beasts … ?
I’ve encountered agents and editors online and IRL who struck me as … let us say, not self aware. It is not the world’s deepest challenge to find publishing professionals saying things with all the facile and vacuous brightness (and, indeed, the very words) of a stock character in a Hollywood movie about Hollywood. Discussing art and creativity as business translates, and agents have become a trope, be they authors’ or actors’ pit-bull/chihuahua advocates.
More often than evil, the implications tend to go for comedy. Nakedly driven by business concerns, or sometimes almost (… almost …) adorably by dreams, real life Tweets and interviews and so on make clear the expectations and motivations behind “I’m looking for THE NEXT SUCH-AND-SUCH BESTSELLER” or (cringe) the old “this-meets-that” uber-shallow Hollywood pitchery. Expectations and motivations that other stock character, the long-suffering writer, endures to their emotional travail.
It is to sigh.
The point relating to Janet’s post is: I can comprehend the idea of someone who has long worked in publishing getting sneery about the industry and the people in it. Exposed, more than I ever have been, to these dynamics, sooner or later those enamored of their own integrity may feel themselves in need of feeling “better than that.”
Authors, by the way, do this too. Some of them out loud, or in print. Some of them do it in query letters; why else would so many agents have to explain on blogs and in interviews, “When you say ‘all the books being published now are trash’, THAT IS INSULTING” … ? We think my genre is better than your genre – or, more tellingly, my genre is more IMPORTANT than yours is – or reader categories – or other particular writers. And I don’t pretend I haven’t don this, though I have tried to be nonspecific when moaning about querying or reading or what have you.
But most of us learn to keep certain thoughts to ourselves, or at least not to name names – and we all move along.
Which is where Janet’s old post above comes in.
The thing about moving along is, in publishing and in life and in Hollywood and at any job in the world, what it usually means is, dealing with the people we find annoying or inferior, getting it over with, and then dealing with OTHER people.
Because: there are other people in publishing. There are always other people than the annoying ones. Always.
It is no more reasonable to consider “all agents” as possessing any one property than it is to paint every member of any particular gender, race, political party, or age group as a single, monolithic whole – homogeneous, and uniformly good or bad, or rich with nougaty goodness, or perhaps a little too salty with my high blood pressure, so I’d better hold off.
When I was actively querying (and I am still toying with research here and there, though nothing’s been sent of late), I queried GOOD agents. People for whom I have respect.
If I want to participate in this industry, I *need* to respect it.
The idea of considering it a dirty thing on the face of it, but “a necessary evil” is not merely bewildering to me, it’s confounding. To consider my work as product in no way demeans it, to me – if selling art was good enough for Michelangelo, it's good enough for me. As hellaciously painful as it’s been to watch my first borne (I’ll spell it that way rather than literally indicating labor and delivery in the biological sense) possibly fail, it doesn’t tell me I’ve written a bad novel nor that those who recognize they can’t sell it are the bottom-feeding minions of Be’elzebub. It tells me they’re being realistic about business.
It also tells me about the importance of how I populate my stories, and a whole raft of other privilege- and diversity-centric stuff I’ve blogged about already, but those are other posts.
Not one single agent in the world has done one thing to stand in my way. None could nor would stop me if I chose to get The Ax and the Vase out into the world; self-publishing is a perfectly cromulent piece of this business. I feel that *I* do not make a good prospective self-publisher, because the kind of sweat equity I long to invest in this work is different, and I frankly fear my competence to serve my novels without the partnership and network of traditional publishing.
But that doesn’t make traditional publishing my obstacle.
Only I can be that, for myself, and … I kind of prefer not to do that.
My faith in magic ain’t what it used to be (if it ever was), and my expectations have never been that Hilary Mantel oughtta WORRY when I hit the market. But nothing in the years I’ve been learning, and writing, and continually working on all the fronts necessary to my goals …
… nothing has ever persuaded me I don’t deserve this, nor that I won’t get it. It could have happened already, if my resources were greater than they are.
Just not if I had more Magical Literary Beans to get my creative beanstalk to the stratosphere.
Right now, I’m all I’ve got. I joke a lot about my wee and paltry little brain, but we all know I think plenty highly of myself.
I also know, perhaps the one magic I do have in my life, is the great good fortune to find people I respect and am grateful for to work with. Just yesterday, I was struck (hardly for the first time) by the realization that I have a job which is the envy of others doing similar work. Someone said to me, basically, I work with the best people because I am the best myself.
Not something I came by easily, nor early.
Even if I sign with someone unexpected, when it does come, or an agent I thought of as a long-shot/”eh, why not ping ‘em” prospect when I first researched them: when I do have one, my agent will be The Best.
Just as my Penelope is The Best Dog.
And just as there’s nothing OSUM-er than Gossamer.
If I have faith in myself, and in my work – how could I not have faith in the person who chooses (and whom I choose) to advocate it? The agent, the editor who snaps at it, and those who share acquisition decisions, and acquire it?
Yes, yes. It’s all business, and there is a part of the publishing business that concerns itself less with Literary Exquisiteness (or my personal, precious darlings) than with profit.
Hell, it ain’t insurance. And I worked in that industry for YEARS.
So tell me again how PUBLISHING is a bunch of awful little beasts … ?
Saturday, March 21, 2015
DABDA
There may be five stages of grief - but many of us linger on one stage or another. Denial is popular, Anger is overwhelming, Bargaining is a cruel temptation ... Depression may be more powerful, even, than anger. Acceptance is the elusive one.
I'm considering it right now.
The Ax and the Vase is a great novel.
It's been my teacher and my child, something that ushered me into the world of an author, as opposed to a writer. I'm proud of it, and it's a hell of a read.
But. It doesn't seem to be a a viable product.
It's been a couple of months now since any agent even requested a read, and - good as it is - frankly, I just believe it's got an uphill battle in store in publishing, and ... if my plan is to be published, I have to provide the best possible material.
Ax is ITS best possible self, but it is not a market mover right now.
I haven't entirely decided to retire it; the fact that there are more agents to query is either a problem or a tempation.
But work on the WIP has become compelling, and though my faith in what Ax IS is unshakeable, if I'm not realistic about the industry, I'm not its best steward. And that's what I want to be. So I'm thinking it may be best to concentrate elsewhere. I'm opening myself to that possibility.
Anyone who's read me much knows I'm not very precious about my darling, special work, but they also know how much it means to me to have this consideration on my mind. My commitment to Ax is not minimal, nor is my confidence. But the odds are speaking to me, and I can't pretend not to hear. That would not serve Ax and would also hobble the WIP and the rest of my works.
This way of thinking has come on me a little suddenly - but, thank heavens, it's also coming at a time when my excitement about the WIP is building. I can't say there's no intentional connection there, either. If I have the WIP to sustain my hope, letting go of Ax would be ... not less difficult. But possible.
And so - I am considering possibilities. Feedback welcome, but most of my readers here at the blog have not been beta readers of the novel itself, so I understand if the comments stay quiet or theoretical. :)
Sigh.
I'm considering it right now.
The Ax and the Vase is a great novel.
It's been my teacher and my child, something that ushered me into the world of an author, as opposed to a writer. I'm proud of it, and it's a hell of a read.
But. It doesn't seem to be a a viable product.
It's been a couple of months now since any agent even requested a read, and - good as it is - frankly, I just believe it's got an uphill battle in store in publishing, and ... if my plan is to be published, I have to provide the best possible material.
Ax is ITS best possible self, but it is not a market mover right now.
I haven't entirely decided to retire it; the fact that there are more agents to query is either a problem or a tempation.
But work on the WIP has become compelling, and though my faith in what Ax IS is unshakeable, if I'm not realistic about the industry, I'm not its best steward. And that's what I want to be. So I'm thinking it may be best to concentrate elsewhere. I'm opening myself to that possibility.
Anyone who's read me much knows I'm not very precious about my darling, special work, but they also know how much it means to me to have this consideration on my mind. My commitment to Ax is not minimal, nor is my confidence. But the odds are speaking to me, and I can't pretend not to hear. That would not serve Ax and would also hobble the WIP and the rest of my works.
This way of thinking has come on me a little suddenly - but, thank heavens, it's also coming at a time when my excitement about the WIP is building. I can't say there's no intentional connection there, either. If I have the WIP to sustain my hope, letting go of Ax would be ... not less difficult. But possible.
And so - I am considering possibilities. Feedback welcome, but most of my readers here at the blog have not been beta readers of the novel itself, so I understand if the comments stay quiet or theoretical. :)
Sigh.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Collection
I wanted to start off with the clip above, because it's not just interesting, but if I could get my mom (and, perhaps, about 58% of the people I know) to watch this, it would make my writing life so much easier. But they're unlikely to savor eight and a half minutes of an agent being interviewed, explaining some of the most important information about publishing an author (most especially unpublished/first timers) can use. (Courtesy of the BookEnds blog. I'm terrified to hit her link to other interviews, and end up down a rabbit hole!)
Again coming from Jessica Faust (who else is inspired to sell their soul for an agent!?), the words I've wished I could shout loud enough to be heard - on agents who need to define their brand!
I asked Janet Reid a question, and here's what she said. Once again referring to Jessica Faust in a way, we consider agents' perspectives on querying during this festive season ... (No Gossamer included, but click through if you're into kittens winking AND sticking out and curling their tongues! Beyond cute, all the way to precious.)
Looking for a link unrelated to authors, agents and the quest for publication? The History Girls has a wonderfully detailed post about sainted dogs. Read about Guinefort, not quite canonized by the Church, but revered in any case for centuries. The post ends on a sad note, but it's most interesting.
Prefer your furbabies of the feline persuasion? The History Girls didn't forget you: on naming a cat. All my friends, Janet, and online pals who swoon for his name would be surprised what a hell of a time I had naming Gossamer. I'm a little glad Grimalkin never occurred to me, though it's a great little name, and it's sweet to know I share a cat-warmer writing companion in common with Francis Hodgson Burnett.
Fashion more your bag? Here's a refreshing post not sneering about the eighties, at Two Nerdy History Girls.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Processs of Elimination
Unpublished authors, I think, often forget that there are two sides to every slush pile. On the one hand, agents are out to eliminate queries so they can devote time to those magical manuscripts that will set them afire - and with which they can set the publishing world on fire in turn.
On the other hand, authors (lest we ever forget: the ones who create any and all possible product in the publishing market ... ALL. OF. IT.) have to remember we must eliminate agents, too. We can't just query 'em all, it's no way to find the right one.
And research can be grueling.
Here's the thing, though. Sometimes, we can make it easy on ourselves.
I just eliminated an agent from my list because, though they are listed as repping histfic, their own list of what they're looking for included "women's lit, chicklit, lady lit, and lad lit".
Nope. Not my agent. Ever.
Also: gag. Gag me with a spoon, even. GAH!
I no more accept that literature needs a pink label on it so my soft little female brain will know I'm allowed to read it than I accept that razors and soaps and automotive accessories and anything sold in a hardware store (.... or, you know, anywhere at all) need to be pink so I'll know my soft little female hands are allowed to use them.
Ya gotta have limits. When it's 74 degrees outside one day in December, 41 the next, and bouncing back up to 66 the NEXT, it may be said that limits can get as tight as your headbone.
Still, I don't think I'll run squealing back toward this one any time soon. I'm on the lookout for the agent who reps my genre and maybe gushes about puddy lit too.
On the other hand, authors (lest we ever forget: the ones who create any and all possible product in the publishing market ... ALL. OF. IT.) have to remember we must eliminate agents, too. We can't just query 'em all, it's no way to find the right one.
And research can be grueling.
Here's the thing, though. Sometimes, we can make it easy on ourselves.
I just eliminated an agent from my list because, though they are listed as repping histfic, their own list of what they're looking for included "women's lit, chicklit, lady lit, and lad lit".
Nope. Not my agent. Ever.
Also: gag. Gag me with a spoon, even. GAH!
I no more accept that literature needs a pink label on it so my soft little female brain will know I'm allowed to read it than I accept that razors and soaps and automotive accessories and anything sold in a hardware store (.... or, you know, anywhere at all) need to be pink so I'll know my soft little female hands are allowed to use them.
Ya gotta have limits. When it's 74 degrees outside one day in December, 41 the next, and bouncing back up to 66 the NEXT, it may be said that limits can get as tight as your headbone.
Still, I don't think I'll run squealing back toward this one any time soon. I'm on the lookout for the agent who reps my genre and maybe gushes about puddy lit too.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
It's Like Wearing the Corset ...
“Fake it till you make it!”
The little piece of wisdom above has become a facile mantra for a society increaingly occupied by the hectic schedule of life as we’ve constructed it, and particularly by professional frustration and ambition in an economy not well laid out for most of us to find the types and levels of comfort we’ve also set as a general expectation.
The fake-it mantra goes along with the “dress for the job you want, not the job you have” maxim (and there is a whole blog post in that one, considering how resolutely “casual” so many workplaces have become …), and various other positive-professional mottoes we try to post in our brains and daily behavior in order to attain – basically – whatever it is that passes for financial success, as compared to where we stand right now.
“Fake it till you make it”, though, has applications and effects apart from the financial, and the older I get the more surprised I am – and pleased – at how very well it works.
There are days at both the office job that provides me regular paychecks, and at the unpaid job I maintain as an unpublished (but persistently aspiring) author, when really it’s all just a game. And that’s not a bad thing. It can make The Game easier, actually, to make it *play*. Life’s no fun if you never play – and, sometimes, play helps you do life a bit better.
If I’m not feeling satisfied or motivated or even competent at the paying gig, I’ll make a point of popping in the boss’s office with a drive-by handful of “I’ve done this and this and this for you” comments – or questions “do you need hard copies/lunch reservations/documentation for X-meeting” – and the effect is usually strongest on myself. It’s like I won the role of Moneypenny in some play – and saying the lines and getting the responses makes me feel like I’m playing it well.
So I get to *feel*, “Okay, I am not a fraud.”
And I also basically remind myself, “Hey. *I am not a fraud.*”
I’ve been doing administrative/secretarial work for close to thirty years now, pretty much to the exclusion of any other professional work. It’s something I enjoy, and/but changing jobs as often as I have, it’s never something I feel I know completely – which is a good thing.
One of the important parts of changing jobs is overtly playing the part of a competent professional.
Being able to do a job and demonstrating that I can do it, I have found, are vastly different things: and the latter is the wiser course.
It’s a bit like feedback from a boss; if you hear “thank you” or “can we widget this, thus” now and then, fairly consistently, it makes all the difference in knowing where you stand. Performance reviews don’t do that, never have, and never will – but the smallest acknowledgement of daily to-do’s coming along regularly provides good bearings. And that works both ways (the corporate-speak phrase “managing up” comes to mind, though without the passive-aggressive intent). Feedback of the “A, B, and C are done/need something to get X done/changed the way Y is done” variety keeps ‘em aware you’re there and functioning.
I know an author who spent something like a week wearing a corset and cooking medieval recipes out of turnips, in order to get a feel for her period. We can hardly replicate “what it was really like” – but method writing like that makes sense. It’s the same at a job. When I wear the rold of Moneypenny, I realize that not only can I walk in those shoes, but I can project that to others, and that’s a useful reminder/demonstration/feedback on all sides.
It also encourages others to TREAT me like Moneypenny – or like an author.
I approach an awful lot of my life with some form of calibrated appearance in mind. This isn’t affectation nor artificiality (it may be manipulation, though …). It’s just an actor’s heightened way of going into any scene. I dress for my job, or for time spent with my mom and stepfather, or for some specific group of friends (… or for the Conference, yes) – I behave in one venue in a way I would not in others.
Many of us do this without really thinking about it all that much. Many can’t release themselves from a single self-image (when I see women on TV who wear $600, 7-inch high heels for every conceivable occasion, heavy makeup at all times, and false eyelashes even in the middle of the day, I pity them the stultifying consistency of such “glamour”, since it cannot be special, maintained at all times; likewise men who cannot get beyond khakis and polo shirts no matter where they go bewilder me with self-imposed homogeneity).
So we all play roles. I need multiple roles, in order for any one of them to seem worthwhile or fun – being a slovenly hausfrau all day on a Saturday makes the odd Saturday night out with friends so much more fun, as does the pampering self-transformation from slovenly comfort to arch impracticality. I need time with family and time as an employee and time as a friend, and time ALONE, just laughing at my dog and cat. I need the demanding and yet transformative rituals of my day – getting up and getting dressed, as much as coming home, and getting dressed *down*.
It took me a long time to really believe I was a “real” author – not a laughable fraud. This is true of a terribly large percentage of writers, and the way the industry is configured, unfortunately, encourages this, at least in traditional publishing. Yet this isn’t on purpose – the more agents and editors I’ve met, the more delightful I’m aware that they are. These are people who get to make a living not only doing something they love – reading – but they also get to act as conduits to bring new things they love to a whole audience.
I almost can’t imagine what that’s like.
But it’s certainly true that many of the editors and agents and designers and all the newer facilitators in a publishing world no longer strictly fashioned as a paradigm of “gatekeepers” (agents) and “keymasters” (publishing houses) SAY that this is what they love about what they do. There is an undercurrent of glee – “I found something wonderful! I must have it! I must share it!” – and a very emotional kind of satisfaction in most interviews I read when I research agents, but also when I find articles and blogs and so on by cover designers and book doctors and editors who work outside publishing houses, helping authors to craft not only good work, but marketable work. There is a mutual drive for satisfaction I’ve never seen in other areas of my own admittedly limited life, but it’s pretty wonderful. The blogs I follow avidly all share this with a depth and clarity that is infectious: they keep ME going, by telling me and ten thousand others, “you should KEEP GOING.”
This really isn’t faking it till you make it, of course.
But we all still have to fake so much. We have to put on our Editorial Boots and kick the hell out of our manuscripts and plays and poems. We have to put on the Authorial Jacket (with or without the little suede elbow patches; as your preference or genre or predilections dictate) and brave the autumnal blasts of rejection and revision and education until we’re tempered. We have to wear a Marketing Hat, too – and live a bit online, and reach out, and plan, and consider, and be ready to Be Told, when it comes to supporting our work.
THIS is undoubtedly faking it, for most of us.
• Faking like we have time in the week,
• Faking like we are not scared out of our minds,
• Faking like we really feel like we know what we’re doing,
• Faking like it’s not annoying to have to do all this stuff without pay,
• Faking like the friends and family around us who
(a) overestimate the likelihood we’re going to Become the Next Bestseller, or
(b) bitterly, ignorantly UNDERestimate it
… are not discouraging beyond toleration,
• Faking like there is anything at all about writing, other than the doing of it – all alone, at a wonderful desk or curled up with a beloved furbaby – that we can stand at all.
Faking it and knowing the fakery isn’t so much a lie as a *reminder* either works better and better as I get a bit older, or I am just finally getting, at my advanced age, just how well it always would have worked.
What’s your costume, what is the swashbuckling role you play … ?
The little piece of wisdom above has become a facile mantra for a society increaingly occupied by the hectic schedule of life as we’ve constructed it, and particularly by professional frustration and ambition in an economy not well laid out for most of us to find the types and levels of comfort we’ve also set as a general expectation.
The fake-it mantra goes along with the “dress for the job you want, not the job you have” maxim (and there is a whole blog post in that one, considering how resolutely “casual” so many workplaces have become …), and various other positive-professional mottoes we try to post in our brains and daily behavior in order to attain – basically – whatever it is that passes for financial success, as compared to where we stand right now.
“Fake it till you make it”, though, has applications and effects apart from the financial, and the older I get the more surprised I am – and pleased – at how very well it works.
There are days at both the office job that provides me regular paychecks, and at the unpaid job I maintain as an unpublished (but persistently aspiring) author, when really it’s all just a game. And that’s not a bad thing. It can make The Game easier, actually, to make it *play*. Life’s no fun if you never play – and, sometimes, play helps you do life a bit better.
If I’m not feeling satisfied or motivated or even competent at the paying gig, I’ll make a point of popping in the boss’s office with a drive-by handful of “I’ve done this and this and this for you” comments – or questions “do you need hard copies/lunch reservations/documentation for X-meeting” – and the effect is usually strongest on myself. It’s like I won the role of Moneypenny in some play – and saying the lines and getting the responses makes me feel like I’m playing it well.
So I get to *feel*, “Okay, I am not a fraud.”
And I also basically remind myself, “Hey. *I am not a fraud.*”
I’ve been doing administrative/secretarial work for close to thirty years now, pretty much to the exclusion of any other professional work. It’s something I enjoy, and/but changing jobs as often as I have, it’s never something I feel I know completely – which is a good thing.
One of the important parts of changing jobs is overtly playing the part of a competent professional.
Being able to do a job and demonstrating that I can do it, I have found, are vastly different things: and the latter is the wiser course.
It’s a bit like feedback from a boss; if you hear “thank you” or “can we widget this, thus” now and then, fairly consistently, it makes all the difference in knowing where you stand. Performance reviews don’t do that, never have, and never will – but the smallest acknowledgement of daily to-do’s coming along regularly provides good bearings. And that works both ways (the corporate-speak phrase “managing up” comes to mind, though without the passive-aggressive intent). Feedback of the “A, B, and C are done/need something to get X done/changed the way Y is done” variety keeps ‘em aware you’re there and functioning.
I know an author who spent something like a week wearing a corset and cooking medieval recipes out of turnips, in order to get a feel for her period. We can hardly replicate “what it was really like” – but method writing like that makes sense. It’s the same at a job. When I wear the rold of Moneypenny, I realize that not only can I walk in those shoes, but I can project that to others, and that’s a useful reminder/demonstration/feedback on all sides.
It also encourages others to TREAT me like Moneypenny – or like an author.
I approach an awful lot of my life with some form of calibrated appearance in mind. This isn’t affectation nor artificiality (it may be manipulation, though …). It’s just an actor’s heightened way of going into any scene. I dress for my job, or for time spent with my mom and stepfather, or for some specific group of friends (… or for the Conference, yes) – I behave in one venue in a way I would not in others.
“I contain multitudes” …
Many of us do this without really thinking about it all that much. Many can’t release themselves from a single self-image (when I see women on TV who wear $600, 7-inch high heels for every conceivable occasion, heavy makeup at all times, and false eyelashes even in the middle of the day, I pity them the stultifying consistency of such “glamour”, since it cannot be special, maintained at all times; likewise men who cannot get beyond khakis and polo shirts no matter where they go bewilder me with self-imposed homogeneity).
So we all play roles. I need multiple roles, in order for any one of them to seem worthwhile or fun – being a slovenly hausfrau all day on a Saturday makes the odd Saturday night out with friends so much more fun, as does the pampering self-transformation from slovenly comfort to arch impracticality. I need time with family and time as an employee and time as a friend, and time ALONE, just laughing at my dog and cat. I need the demanding and yet transformative rituals of my day – getting up and getting dressed, as much as coming home, and getting dressed *down*.
It took me a long time to really believe I was a “real” author – not a laughable fraud. This is true of a terribly large percentage of writers, and the way the industry is configured, unfortunately, encourages this, at least in traditional publishing. Yet this isn’t on purpose – the more agents and editors I’ve met, the more delightful I’m aware that they are. These are people who get to make a living not only doing something they love – reading – but they also get to act as conduits to bring new things they love to a whole audience.
I almost can’t imagine what that’s like.
But it’s certainly true that many of the editors and agents and designers and all the newer facilitators in a publishing world no longer strictly fashioned as a paradigm of “gatekeepers” (agents) and “keymasters” (publishing houses) SAY that this is what they love about what they do. There is an undercurrent of glee – “I found something wonderful! I must have it! I must share it!” – and a very emotional kind of satisfaction in most interviews I read when I research agents, but also when I find articles and blogs and so on by cover designers and book doctors and editors who work outside publishing houses, helping authors to craft not only good work, but marketable work. There is a mutual drive for satisfaction I’ve never seen in other areas of my own admittedly limited life, but it’s pretty wonderful. The blogs I follow avidly all share this with a depth and clarity that is infectious: they keep ME going, by telling me and ten thousand others, “you should KEEP GOING.”
This really isn’t faking it till you make it, of course.
But we all still have to fake so much. We have to put on our Editorial Boots and kick the hell out of our manuscripts and plays and poems. We have to put on the Authorial Jacket (with or without the little suede elbow patches; as your preference or genre or predilections dictate) and brave the autumnal blasts of rejection and revision and education until we’re tempered. We have to wear a Marketing Hat, too – and live a bit online, and reach out, and plan, and consider, and be ready to Be Told, when it comes to supporting our work.
THIS is undoubtedly faking it, for most of us.
• Faking like we have time in the week,
• Faking like we are not scared out of our minds,
• Faking like we really feel like we know what we’re doing,
• Faking like it’s not annoying to have to do all this stuff without pay,
• Faking like the friends and family around us who
(a) overestimate the likelihood we’re going to Become the Next Bestseller, or
(b) bitterly, ignorantly UNDERestimate it
… are not discouraging beyond toleration,
• Faking like there is anything at all about writing, other than the doing of it – all alone, at a wonderful desk or curled up with a beloved furbaby – that we can stand at all.
Faking it and knowing the fakery isn’t so much a lie as a *reminder* either works better and better as I get a bit older, or I am just finally getting, at my advanced age, just how well it always would have worked.
What’s your costume, what is the swashbuckling role you play … ?
Monday, August 18, 2014
Publishing Ghetto?
Tom Williams has a very good post indeed about writing a novel about a main character who happens to be gay, and the effect that has had on its publication. It's a somewhat sad, eye-opening piece - particularly when you think about the literal legalities imposed upon human feeling.
I've had some conflict about the fact that The Ax and the Vase suffers precisely the opposite problem - while one of my major supporting characters is gay (or bisexual), he's presented as a pretty awful guy. Further, there's no ethnic diversity at all in Ax, and I'm highly aware of the problematic nature of historical fiction and pretending no people of color were to be found anywhere in Europe before the 20th century. I'm also aware of the disservice it does to history (and audiences) to trot out the old "but it wouldn't be natural to insert diversity in this story" excuse. And, at the risk of getting cyclical, I'm also wary of the tendency to do exactly that and ending up with a Magical Black Person/Noble Savage stereotype. And so on until the dragon eats its own tail.
I find Tom's observations far more useful than my white liberal internal conflict, so recommend the first link here by FAR over the second. But we all experience the presence of our (potential) audiences, and that's always worth giving some thought.
I am either reading a “gay book” for gay people, which has to emphasise gay sexual behaviour or I am reading a “straight book” (or “book”) where everyone seems much happier if nobody is gay at all. (Often there’s a minor character who’s gay, so everyone else can demonstrate how liberal they are.)
I've had some conflict about the fact that The Ax and the Vase suffers precisely the opposite problem - while one of my major supporting characters is gay (or bisexual), he's presented as a pretty awful guy. Further, there's no ethnic diversity at all in Ax, and I'm highly aware of the problematic nature of historical fiction and pretending no people of color were to be found anywhere in Europe before the 20th century. I'm also aware of the disservice it does to history (and audiences) to trot out the old "but it wouldn't be natural to insert diversity in this story" excuse. And, at the risk of getting cyclical, I'm also wary of the tendency to do exactly that and ending up with a Magical Black Person/Noble Savage stereotype. And so on until the dragon eats its own tail.
I find Tom's observations far more useful than my white liberal internal conflict, so recommend the first link here by FAR over the second. But we all experience the presence of our (potential) audiences, and that's always worth giving some thought.
Monday, July 28, 2014
BAD Writer, No Scooby Snacks
One of those rare occasions when it's worthwhile to read the comments. The community of commenters at Janet Reid's blog ... well, sometimes, they far outshine (apparently) the queriers she sees. He's fortunate she didn't broadcast his name. There's little we seem to like better in this world than a good, vicious public shaming. Talk about a bullet dodged.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Collection
Does Janet Reid have the recipe for The Secret Sauce of Acceptance in publishing? Tune in to find out! (Side note: "the glacial embrace of rejection" is the best phrase any of us can expect to read today. She's a good writer herself, this agent.)
Pour La Victoire has another wonderfully detailed (with photos!) post about her latest preservation effort. This time, a pair of very shiny silver evening shoes from the 1920s. This will bring me shortly to my next fashion/style post, on metallics.
Pour La Victoire has another wonderfully detailed (with photos!) post about her latest preservation effort. This time, a pair of very shiny silver evening shoes from the 1920s. This will bring me shortly to my next fashion/style post, on metallics.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Puppies Suck
When I was younger (and could still breathe properly … and even sing competently, if not remarkably well), I had this idea that I was going to start a band and call it Puppies. Chiefly, this would be because I longed to hear people screaming, “PUPPIES ROCK!” – and because nobody could boo us. Nobody can say “PUPPIES SUCK!”
Who likes a critic, after all? My imaginary band, Puppies, was critic-proof … and that was really what I wanted – recognition without criticism – not to be a vocalist. Imaginary creations have a great deal of charm in this – and I imagine it’s this desire to escape negative feedback which keeps so many creative people in the “’nartist” category.
When it comes to Ax, I am intellectually aware that there are going to be guitarists at the back of the bar, snarking on the historicity of my fiction – but I am blissfully ignorant, thus far, of what the reality is going to be when it comes out. It’s not something we like to theorize about, is it? People may hate everything from the fact that that I don’t fold in the Merovingian Heresy somehow to the fact that I named Clovis’ horse without research. There will be those, indubitably, who can’t stand my style of writing, and I expect there will be many who don’t buy into my presumption in writing first-person from a male POV. Some will find a way to complain that my feminism compromises the book, and others will decry my abandoning it (and, certainly, there are the LGBT issues, though not front and center).
As brave as I am with professionals in publishing, and the work itself, I have to admit to gibbering, if intermittent, horror at reader reviews. One hopes those I’ll get from reviewers with wide readership for their opinions will be professional, of course – but the individual people on Amazon and the like are the ones that weaken me. People are emotionally partisan about their opinions on books, and if someone feels their time wasted by some shortcoming, or overlocution, or missed expectation with The Ax and the Vase, I’m going to FEEL their meanness when they unleash it and I make the mistake of not looking away fast. I can rise above critique, but individual reviews have a unique nastiness to them I’m going to either have to learn how to avoid completely. Individual reviews are so often *personal*, of the ilk of “this author SUCKS” in just the way I didn’t want Puppies to endure.
Part of the pain is that I didn’t just peel this novel off a large stack, it has meant so much to me and every scene had its place, even the many which ended up, as it were, on the cutting-room floor. Every edit taught me something – every cut and everything that remains has its considered, deliberate fate. Yes, some of it is pure fantasy; but I’m not a textbook author. Yet it isn’t slipshod, it isn’t careless nor even ignorant. When I look at it, I’m excited by it. When I think of sharing it, I’m excited by that. And, when we share something like that, finding that people consider it insufficient – or too much – or distasteful – can be hard to take. Like a host serving a meal he or she prepared personally, the book was quite literally made to please, and so to be met with offense at its contents or seasoning … or its presenter … is painful. The work that went in was never meant to upset, but to delight.
Failing to delight, I find, is perhaps the hardest thing in my life. That sounds unbelievably ridiculous when I read the sentence out loud – and yet, there it is. I haven’t produced the blessing of children in this world, I don’t contribute a lot to my community nor my country. I’m an outstanding friend, but even there still find myself impotent to do any good for some of those people I care for most in this world. The older I get, the more it means to me to bring satisfaction and joy to my friends and family.
Ax is my first real try at bringing it to those I may never meet. It’s just a story. But it’s such a story. And what greater thing is there to offer than a story? We each are our own story; Ax is just one of mine. It’s an offering with nothing but its own inspiration and my own goodwill behind it.
And so, as dispassionate as I can be with its bones, with its parts – with Ax itself, in the end, I am profoundly invested, and proud. I want it loved. Because: CLOVIS ROCKS.
Because, if he does – in some way, the shine reflects back on me. And I’m vain. I want that, too.
Who likes a critic, after all? My imaginary band, Puppies, was critic-proof … and that was really what I wanted – recognition without criticism – not to be a vocalist. Imaginary creations have a great deal of charm in this – and I imagine it’s this desire to escape negative feedback which keeps so many creative people in the “’nartist” category.
When it comes to Ax, I am intellectually aware that there are going to be guitarists at the back of the bar, snarking on the historicity of my fiction – but I am blissfully ignorant, thus far, of what the reality is going to be when it comes out. It’s not something we like to theorize about, is it? People may hate everything from the fact that that I don’t fold in the Merovingian Heresy somehow to the fact that I named Clovis’ horse without research. There will be those, indubitably, who can’t stand my style of writing, and I expect there will be many who don’t buy into my presumption in writing first-person from a male POV. Some will find a way to complain that my feminism compromises the book, and others will decry my abandoning it (and, certainly, there are the LGBT issues, though not front and center).
As brave as I am with professionals in publishing, and the work itself, I have to admit to gibbering, if intermittent, horror at reader reviews. One hopes those I’ll get from reviewers with wide readership for their opinions will be professional, of course – but the individual people on Amazon and the like are the ones that weaken me. People are emotionally partisan about their opinions on books, and if someone feels their time wasted by some shortcoming, or overlocution, or missed expectation with The Ax and the Vase, I’m going to FEEL their meanness when they unleash it and I make the mistake of not looking away fast. I can rise above critique, but individual reviews have a unique nastiness to them I’m going to either have to learn how to avoid completely. Individual reviews are so often *personal*, of the ilk of “this author SUCKS” in just the way I didn’t want Puppies to endure.
Part of the pain is that I didn’t just peel this novel off a large stack, it has meant so much to me and every scene had its place, even the many which ended up, as it were, on the cutting-room floor. Every edit taught me something – every cut and everything that remains has its considered, deliberate fate. Yes, some of it is pure fantasy; but I’m not a textbook author. Yet it isn’t slipshod, it isn’t careless nor even ignorant. When I look at it, I’m excited by it. When I think of sharing it, I’m excited by that. And, when we share something like that, finding that people consider it insufficient – or too much – or distasteful – can be hard to take. Like a host serving a meal he or she prepared personally, the book was quite literally made to please, and so to be met with offense at its contents or seasoning … or its presenter … is painful. The work that went in was never meant to upset, but to delight.
Failing to delight, I find, is perhaps the hardest thing in my life. That sounds unbelievably ridiculous when I read the sentence out loud – and yet, there it is. I haven’t produced the blessing of children in this world, I don’t contribute a lot to my community nor my country. I’m an outstanding friend, but even there still find myself impotent to do any good for some of those people I care for most in this world. The older I get, the more it means to me to bring satisfaction and joy to my friends and family.
Ax is my first real try at bringing it to those I may never meet. It’s just a story. But it’s such a story. And what greater thing is there to offer than a story? We each are our own story; Ax is just one of mine. It’s an offering with nothing but its own inspiration and my own goodwill behind it.
And so, as dispassionate as I can be with its bones, with its parts – with Ax itself, in the end, I am profoundly invested, and proud. I want it loved. Because: CLOVIS ROCKS.
Because, if he does – in some way, the shine reflects back on me. And I’m vain. I want that, too.
Monday, December 16, 2013
Missed Collection!
While I took vacation between jobs (started the new one today! yayy!), I took a vacation from reading those many other sites and blogs from which I cull the Collection posts which have become a feature here. Those blogs and sites, however, have not taken a break - and, predictably, I missed out on some excellent pieces. Hoping it's not too late, I hereby now share some of the backlog with you all ...
The History Blog, which originates several of our links today, shares the eye-popping digital color restoration of a 2800-year-old Japanese statue. The photos here are truly worth the click! HB's commentary, as always, is worth the read.
HB specializes, too, in historic forensics - and here we have the digitization of medieval bones. I'll need to follow this project on Twitter, this is the sort of thing that makes Twitter so compelling for me. I've already seen Tweets which look pretty fascinating ...
For those who find history's mysteries endlessly fascinating, take a look at the new light shone on the long-lost Roanoke Colony, also at the HB.
Take a look at a baby bottle shaped like a pig and tell me whether you wish you'd had one of these when your tots were small ... I'll make you click through, to find out what kind of toy the bottles also served as, once baby drank enough to drain their use in feeding ... (As to the theory of the absence of a baby in the burial, I hope the preserve the soil in case it is or may become possible to test whether an infant once lay in situ but is no longer corporeal.)
Stay tuned for a link on repatriation - but here is an expatriation of sorts. The Dying Gaul visits Washington, DC. Another innocent abroad ... ? Sounds like perhaps not.
And the final History Blog link to share today - another repatriation from Britain, this time to Cambodia. The statue is truly striking. The blow against the crime of looting is striking in another way.
***
Okay, and now to Janet Reid, always an excellent resource for those of us aspiring to publication - and always a good (and even encouraging) read!
Here, she discusses the hard, even difficult, numbers on the road from self-pubbing to traditional success.
Making me feel better and better that my book is not as short as "everyone" says a first novel "needs" to be. Ahh, thank you Janet - we histfic authors do need room for the furniture and the art.
On the question of whether you have even ordered, paid for, and received the stove before you start trying to turn it on ... "Cart, Meet Horse." Yup.
And, at last - did I query before revising TWO more times? Yes. Yes, I did. And, to me, two seemed to be the obvious answer. Why would you NOT??? *Finishing final polishes before requerying one, and initial querying two, agents met at the 2013 Conference*
The History Blog, which originates several of our links today, shares the eye-popping digital color restoration of a 2800-year-old Japanese statue. The photos here are truly worth the click! HB's commentary, as always, is worth the read.
HB specializes, too, in historic forensics - and here we have the digitization of medieval bones. I'll need to follow this project on Twitter, this is the sort of thing that makes Twitter so compelling for me. I've already seen Tweets which look pretty fascinating ...
For those who find history's mysteries endlessly fascinating, take a look at the new light shone on the long-lost Roanoke Colony, also at the HB.
Take a look at a baby bottle shaped like a pig and tell me whether you wish you'd had one of these when your tots were small ... I'll make you click through, to find out what kind of toy the bottles also served as, once baby drank enough to drain their use in feeding ... (As to the theory of the absence of a baby in the burial, I hope the preserve the soil in case it is or may become possible to test whether an infant once lay in situ but is no longer corporeal.)
Stay tuned for a link on repatriation - but here is an expatriation of sorts. The Dying Gaul visits Washington, DC. Another innocent abroad ... ? Sounds like perhaps not.
And the final History Blog link to share today - another repatriation from Britain, this time to Cambodia. The statue is truly striking. The blow against the crime of looting is striking in another way.
***
Okay, and now to Janet Reid, always an excellent resource for those of us aspiring to publication - and always a good (and even encouraging) read!
Here, she discusses the hard, even difficult, numbers on the road from self-pubbing to traditional success.
Making me feel better and better that my book is not as short as "everyone" says a first novel "needs" to be. Ahh, thank you Janet - we histfic authors do need room for the furniture and the art.
On the question of whether you have even ordered, paid for, and received the stove before you start trying to turn it on ... "Cart, Meet Horse." Yup.
And, at last - did I query before revising TWO more times? Yes. Yes, I did. And, to me, two seemed to be the obvious answer. Why would you NOT??? *Finishing final polishes before requerying one, and initial querying two, agents met at the 2013 Conference*
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Why Query?
In the world, in JRW, and in our own little group, the Sarcastic Broads, there are writers of different stripes and taking different roads. Leila and Kristy are most interested in self-pubbing (see Leila’s work here), but I’m lazily/stubbornly/traditionalistically on the old-fashioned query-agent-hopefully-sell-to-a-traditional-publisher path. At the Conference this year, I let myself ask why I don’t consider the e-route, why I don’t learn from Leila and get Ax out there.
I won’t pretend the tinge of fear has nothing to do with my methods. There is a certain liberty in being unpublished. Everything is potential, even when you’re fielding rejections – because there’s still that magical agent out there, somewhere, just waiting (who’ll get the Big Sale too). But I want Ax to make it into the world. It deserves it. Clovis deserves that.
I do. I have worked my ass off on that book.
The choice of method probably owes a good deal to my own sense of inadequacy in the face of innovation. Tech doesn’t scare me outright, but I’m not a forefront surfer, and what Leila has done impresses me to death, and though she’s done it with as much on her plate as I have on mine, the added vertigo of being on the hunt for a job on top of everything means I’m weak in the face of committing to more learning. There’s going to be a lot of adapting and learning to do if I make a change at work; that’ll be enough, thank you.
The real crux of it, though, is that I’m a traditionalist. The red clay of Virginia is in my blood and bones, and we’re a people who don’t love change.
Perhaps no point of pride, to admit as an author that I’m this kind of a wuss. But, ask any Virginian, and they’ll swear there’s an integrity to being a reactionary. I’m not up to snuff in that area in any number of my social ideas, but at the bottom of my being I resist the world’s obsession with eternal growth, with planned obsolescence, with new ways to do old things. Anyone who’s read more than a post or two here knows – one of my great fascinations is with the depth into the past that human ingenuity really reaches. The ancient methods and structures which remain with us through centuries, even millennia. Just yesterday I was reading about the Indus Valley civilization, and how in some areas the basic architectural plans of home building remain the same.
As much innovation and gee-whiz as there is in the world, some things we do, and have done for a long time – we’re not doing WRONG. It’s no more wrong to go the old-fashioned querying route than it is to self-publish (though I know people who STILL act apologetic and shamefaced about that option, which is long since an obsolete attitude in itself). And ...
I like a gatekeeper.
I like the sense of breaking through something, getting by someone, to gain admittance. It’s not about an Old Boys’ Club, and it’s not about exclusivity, but about the INclusive end, the fraternity of old school publishing. It appeals to me, and – this post notwithstanding – it really doesn’t matter why. Leila has the strength and the motivation to put Hot Flashes out into the world ON HER OWN and I find that breathtaking. But I’ll find it perfectly gleeful (even though the process has been, admittedly, a pretty slow one) when I’m agented ... and sold.
One of the more remarkable agents I’ve had the privilege of communicating with commented to me once that the guys like Conn Iggulden and so on are dinosaurs (and he is in traditional publishing himself). I’ve got about three years on that particular dinosaur ... and, as with being a secretary, I stopped apologizing for not being a wunderkind author quite a long time ago. The book is the point – the books to come. And, so far, I’ve got good stuff to get in the world.
The final polish is still going well, though as always not as fast as I would like. Reading it does always remind me how much I love the work – it’s good, and only getting better fine point by fine point.
Just you wait ...
I sure do ...
I won’t pretend the tinge of fear has nothing to do with my methods. There is a certain liberty in being unpublished. Everything is potential, even when you’re fielding rejections – because there’s still that magical agent out there, somewhere, just waiting (who’ll get the Big Sale too). But I want Ax to make it into the world. It deserves it. Clovis deserves that.
I do. I have worked my ass off on that book.
The choice of method probably owes a good deal to my own sense of inadequacy in the face of innovation. Tech doesn’t scare me outright, but I’m not a forefront surfer, and what Leila has done impresses me to death, and though she’s done it with as much on her plate as I have on mine, the added vertigo of being on the hunt for a job on top of everything means I’m weak in the face of committing to more learning. There’s going to be a lot of adapting and learning to do if I make a change at work; that’ll be enough, thank you.
The real crux of it, though, is that I’m a traditionalist. The red clay of Virginia is in my blood and bones, and we’re a people who don’t love change.
How many Virginians does it take to change a light bulb?
Five: One to do the actual job. Two more to stand off to one side discussing how much better the old light bulb was. And two more to write the history of the original bulb, with maps and civil war citations.
Perhaps no point of pride, to admit as an author that I’m this kind of a wuss. But, ask any Virginian, and they’ll swear there’s an integrity to being a reactionary. I’m not up to snuff in that area in any number of my social ideas, but at the bottom of my being I resist the world’s obsession with eternal growth, with planned obsolescence, with new ways to do old things. Anyone who’s read more than a post or two here knows – one of my great fascinations is with the depth into the past that human ingenuity really reaches. The ancient methods and structures which remain with us through centuries, even millennia. Just yesterday I was reading about the Indus Valley civilization, and how in some areas the basic architectural plans of home building remain the same.
As much innovation and gee-whiz as there is in the world, some things we do, and have done for a long time – we’re not doing WRONG. It’s no more wrong to go the old-fashioned querying route than it is to self-publish (though I know people who STILL act apologetic and shamefaced about that option, which is long since an obsolete attitude in itself). And ...
I like a gatekeeper.
I like the sense of breaking through something, getting by someone, to gain admittance. It’s not about an Old Boys’ Club, and it’s not about exclusivity, but about the INclusive end, the fraternity of old school publishing. It appeals to me, and – this post notwithstanding – it really doesn’t matter why. Leila has the strength and the motivation to put Hot Flashes out into the world ON HER OWN and I find that breathtaking. But I’ll find it perfectly gleeful (even though the process has been, admittedly, a pretty slow one) when I’m agented ... and sold.
One of the more remarkable agents I’ve had the privilege of communicating with commented to me once that the guys like Conn Iggulden and so on are dinosaurs (and he is in traditional publishing himself). I’ve got about three years on that particular dinosaur ... and, as with being a secretary, I stopped apologizing for not being a wunderkind author quite a long time ago. The book is the point – the books to come. And, so far, I’ve got good stuff to get in the world.
The final polish is still going well, though as always not as fast as I would like. Reading it does always remind me how much I love the work – it’s good, and only getting better fine point by fine point.
Just you wait ...
I sure do ...
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