One of the fora I belong to has a lively thread right now, discussing authors' expectations - specifically, how it feels for a writer seeing scathingly negative user reviews at Amazon and the like.
I've made a point of developing a process callus; a good level of tolerance for criticism on a piece I am working on. I also have a sort of dividing line, I think - between actual critique and what I think of as "the guitarist at the back of the bar" (someone smarming about perceived shortcomings, but whose commentary has less meaning than the comments of those who put thought into criticism). The Guitarist is the person watching a band on stage, sneering how much better she or he could do than those performing. The Guitarist is speaking more for the value of what he or she has to say than in response to what's really happening live up front. The Guitarist, in terms of literary criticism, is the person reading who "hates" a work because they disagree with choices an author makes, rather than because it's poor storytelling or just not compelling for one reason or other. The Guitarist is the person most likely to come up with cruelty, ugliness, and insult in critique.
The Guitarist is an element I expect to crop up once I am published, but *hope* will not upset me much. Because, very often, Guitarists represent the power of backlash against something particularly large, successful, or culturally prominent ... it's entirely possible I won't hear a lot of their thrumming. Successful as I expect to be, I'm not under any illusions that J. K. Rowling need ever step aside to make room for my publishing accomplishments.
Actual criticism, however, fascinates me.
The critic is someone who really reads, and who develops sincere - and not necessarily emotionally-based - opinions. The critic is someone who may well not like my work - but will be able to say that this is because the subject matter didn't engage them, or because the language was overwrought for their taste, or perhaps because the choices I made didn't work - and here's why. This isn't someone who'll be crowing about what a hack I am, nor insulting me personally for the temerity of writing my novel at all.
The scary thing is that the critic is no one identity.
As I have learned that "historical fiction" has no single set definition - and that an agent claiming to rep it isn't necessarily the agent for me - so it is true that a reader who likes histfic, even military or religious or royal histfic, isn't necessarily going to like my work. Even those who enjoy authors and works I consider similar enough to my own that I've used them in my proto-marketing may not glom to my stuff for one reason or another. I think people who watch Game of Thrones might like The Ax and the Vase - but the Venn diagram illustrating both subsets and any shared audience is never going to come out to a zero sum.
It becomes necessary at some point to honestly realize, and accept, the inevitability that some people who read Ax will dislike it. The question, then, is how much does that matter? I'm not the sort for whom imperviousness to opinion is strong enough I'll be able to just sniff, dismiss, and say "I've sold x-number-of-thousands of copies" and tell critics and myself that it doesn't matter. There are times my state of still being in potential - as opposed to having experienced being published ... being *seen* ... has clear advantages to me. The future can still be so many things. I can still hear my own chords, not that Guitarist at the back of the bar. So far, there's no heckling and jeering to be hurt by, worried about.
I'm still nearly alone with my love of the work I was somehow able to produce. It's recognizeable how precious a time, in some ways, this is.
At the end of the day, though ... the point of picking up the instrument is to play. Is to go out there. Is to present myself to everyone - Guitarists and all.
I may be nervous about that. But it doesn't make me want to quit.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Time to Get Back to *Writing*-Blogging
Okay, the diagnosis is not terminal. Let's get back to talking about the craft of wordliness, shall we?
Friday, September 23, 2011
Quotery
Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favorable are the kind who do nothing.
--William Feather
What the man said.
Having been an English literary graduate, I've been trying to avoid the idea of doing art ever since. I think the idea of art kills creativity. I think media are at their most interesting before anybody's thought of calling them art, when people still think they're just a load of junk.
--Douglas Adams
And, as to what this man says: funnily, though it tends to play well with my thoughts on my own creativity, I'm not entirely sure whether I actually work up enough concern about the whole thing to say I even go so far as to agree. Still, it's a nice little buttress for my "blah, I'm not an artist" schtick - plus, it's an Adams quote - so up it goes!
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Tonight
Today is my mother's birthday, and I have hardly gotten to say hello to her. Tomorrow is the day we (begin to ... ?) find out whether my friend is dying of pulmonary fibrosis.
My grandmother died of PF.
My dad did.
It is simply, literally beyond my comprehension that a friend I have known since I was a twelve year old girl ... could die. I love her so very much. She has been a friend like none of my others; winsome and silly and all the things we naturally love - but her heart is unnatural. It is wide and kind and utterly loyal. She has for a husband a man with one just like it. Her friendship is a gift I have been thankful for, has spanned across thirty-one years now. We were little girls when we met.
We still are.
She is a woman of a depth of generosity I have always admired; she is brash, and wonderfully crass, and has a mean streak just as wide as mine. She is pragmatic - and romantic. But for her friends - and I am one of the oldest - she is the deepest well. She was there for me when dad died. I can hardly bear the thought of being there for her when she does. Of being there for her husband, who is also, so truly, so deeply, my friend.
Please pray for peace.
Pray for my beautiful, bitchy, batty, and beloved friend.
My grandmother died of PF.
My dad did.
It is simply, literally beyond my comprehension that a friend I have known since I was a twelve year old girl ... could die. I love her so very much. She has been a friend like none of my others; winsome and silly and all the things we naturally love - but her heart is unnatural. It is wide and kind and utterly loyal. She has for a husband a man with one just like it. Her friendship is a gift I have been thankful for, has spanned across thirty-one years now. We were little girls when we met.
We still are.
She is a woman of a depth of generosity I have always admired; she is brash, and wonderfully crass, and has a mean streak just as wide as mine. She is pragmatic - and romantic. But for her friends - and I am one of the oldest - she is the deepest well. She was there for me when dad died. I can hardly bear the thought of being there for her when she does. Of being there for her husband, who is also, so truly, so deeply, my friend.
Please pray for peace.
Pray for my beautiful, bitchy, batty, and beloved friend.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Extremities: Work!
I'll just tell The Story of Today here as I told it to Mr. X ...
***
Today has been one of those days that try the worthiness of any paycheck. I think I told you yesterday about the situation with the wrong name on a new hire. Today, I came in and began to tackle the outstanding issues, because I needed to do that to distract myself. (My sick friend) has been on my mind, and I was pushing through. I know I blow on and on about how great I am at work - but since coming here, I really DO take especial pride in it, and put in very high effort as well. So today I determined to deal with my weepiness and distraction, and beat on it with a lot of very concrete, very useful action. I lobbed a lot of "please confirm" and "let me know what to do" around and felt next steps should be progress.
By 2:00 I could see three new hires whose accounts (though background is confirmed cleared) were still not enabled. I had also just received word that the huge several-days of meetings I'd set and begun firming up had been blown out of the water. So I'm working to (a) reach out on the accounts, and (b) find new meeting space, which in a twelve-bank system spanning the nation, I probably need not tell you is not a minor job. And (coworker) is pinging me a LOT asking about progress on (b) - to the point where I sort of gave her a sit-down via text and told her I was having to prioritize the new hires' accounts, and was working on the meeting as I could. In a few minutes, I was midway down my existing list, and compiling the (grim/lack of) results already. I fired those off and commenced a new round of calls on the accounts.
In the end, it took until midafternoon for me to winkle out that the account contact was out - so I followed her voice mail's instructions and left a message at the service center. Who "usually respond within an hour." An hour and a half later, I am calling again, and receive the instruction to call the central Help Desk. Which: no. This is almost as good as the time I did call the central HD and received the instruction, regarding my broken printer, "contact your department admin."
Sigh.
So today has been a war zone, and ever-increasingly stressful. I just received my ping that my 5:00 "dailies" are due for my boss - a pinger I am usually ahead of by a couple of hours. I haven't even looked at his day tomorrow, so this could run me into overtime - I can't expect to get out of here anything like on time - and I've got grass to mow, and limited daylight to do it (though I don't think we did get the rain I was hearing about).
Oh and then there was the trip to the restroom, where one paper seat cover fell in before I could get situated. The second - thanks to The Wonder of Modern Technology - auto-flushed even as I was READY (ahem) to get situated, but not quite there yet. So I stood there and pulled out a third, so stressed at this point (and no puppies handy to poke in the eyeballs), literally screaming just a little bit from frustration.
Anyway. I finally reach a relevant human body on the new accounts and learn that the background clearance hasn't come through. Which I know I saw yesterday MORNING - and here we are, it's after 4:00 p.m. I reach out to HR and leave a message saying as sweetly (as someone can who is in an emotional state to gleefully poke puppies in the eye by now) as I can, please LET ME KNOW WHAT I CAN DO. I'm hardly off the phone when my phone rings again - and it's Relevant Human Body, saying, "gee, found that clearance - with so-and-so out, I hadn't looked today - hey thanks for the reminder."
Bits of me keep passing out at this point, and I believe my brains and some strategically important teeth and organs fell out on my desk.
So ... because so-and-so was out of the office ... nobody LOOKED FOR CLEARANCES ... ??? Is what you are telling me?
Yeah. You are welcome for that REMINDER.
Within ten minutes, three confirmations banged into my inbox in QUICK succession. Bam! Bam! Bam! New acconts, all enabled.
Dang.
Off to set up the dailies and GTFO if you get my drift. The confirmations did help me out, but just having the backwash of stress like this is enough to make you want to bolt.
***
Today has been one of those days that try the worthiness of any paycheck. I think I told you yesterday about the situation with the wrong name on a new hire. Today, I came in and began to tackle the outstanding issues, because I needed to do that to distract myself. (My sick friend) has been on my mind, and I was pushing through. I know I blow on and on about how great I am at work - but since coming here, I really DO take especial pride in it, and put in very high effort as well. So today I determined to deal with my weepiness and distraction, and beat on it with a lot of very concrete, very useful action. I lobbed a lot of "please confirm" and "let me know what to do" around and felt next steps should be progress.
By 2:00 I could see three new hires whose accounts (though background is confirmed cleared) were still not enabled. I had also just received word that the huge several-days of meetings I'd set and begun firming up had been blown out of the water. So I'm working to (a) reach out on the accounts, and (b) find new meeting space, which in a twelve-bank system spanning the nation, I probably need not tell you is not a minor job. And (coworker) is pinging me a LOT asking about progress on (b) - to the point where I sort of gave her a sit-down via text and told her I was having to prioritize the new hires' accounts, and was working on the meeting as I could. In a few minutes, I was midway down my existing list, and compiling the (grim/lack of) results already. I fired those off and commenced a new round of calls on the accounts.
In the end, it took until midafternoon for me to winkle out that the account contact was out - so I followed her voice mail's instructions and left a message at the service center. Who "usually respond within an hour." An hour and a half later, I am calling again, and receive the instruction to call the central Help Desk. Which: no. This is almost as good as the time I did call the central HD and received the instruction, regarding my broken printer, "contact your department admin."
Sigh.
So today has been a war zone, and ever-increasingly stressful. I just received my ping that my 5:00 "dailies" are due for my boss - a pinger I am usually ahead of by a couple of hours. I haven't even looked at his day tomorrow, so this could run me into overtime - I can't expect to get out of here anything like on time - and I've got grass to mow, and limited daylight to do it (though I don't think we did get the rain I was hearing about).
Oh and then there was the trip to the restroom, where one paper seat cover fell in before I could get situated. The second - thanks to The Wonder of Modern Technology - auto-flushed even as I was READY (ahem) to get situated, but not quite there yet. So I stood there and pulled out a third, so stressed at this point (and no puppies handy to poke in the eyeballs), literally screaming just a little bit from frustration.
Anyway. I finally reach a relevant human body on the new accounts and learn that the background clearance hasn't come through. Which I know I saw yesterday MORNING - and here we are, it's after 4:00 p.m. I reach out to HR and leave a message saying as sweetly (as someone can who is in an emotional state to gleefully poke puppies in the eye by now) as I can, please LET ME KNOW WHAT I CAN DO. I'm hardly off the phone when my phone rings again - and it's Relevant Human Body, saying, "gee, found that clearance - with so-and-so out, I hadn't looked today - hey thanks for the reminder."
Bits of me keep passing out at this point, and I believe my brains and some strategically important teeth and organs fell out on my desk.
So ... because so-and-so was out of the office ... nobody LOOKED FOR CLEARANCES ... ??? Is what you are telling me?
Yeah. You are welcome for that REMINDER.
Within ten minutes, three confirmations banged into my inbox in QUICK succession. Bam! Bam! Bam! New acconts, all enabled.
Dang.
Off to set up the dailies and GTFO if you get my drift. The confirmations did help me out, but just having the backwash of stress like this is enough to make you want to bolt.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Getting There
It should be possible to get through the remaining list of agents before the Conference, which is both a goal and a frustration - because then it'll be time to compile yet a new list. Boy am I glad I have JRW to look forward to!
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Book Associations
About a week ago, X and I were talking about reading and writing, and I brought up A Memory of Lions again. He's aware of the book, and of course I have gone on public record with its influence on my own work. Oddly enough, this was the first time I explicitly recommended he read the book, though. We've talked about "voice" a bit of late; his own tone and voice, as he has begun work on a regular review column, and the way he makes such a good reader for mine. So in thinking about my own, I said, really - read Memory and it will make so much about my own writing and focus so clear to you.
And that was the first time I heard it.
X's ex had a thing for Godwin's (better known) work - and also for Mary Stewart.
My mom has been making fun of me for twenty-nine years now, over my habit of re-reading books - specifically, and *most* particularly: Stewart's Arthuriana. As he put it to me last week - she felt she didn't have to read any more Arthurian works. And I have always felt the same. Much of an Arthurian/Merlin nerd as I should have been, I was actually very limited in my indulgences - because nobody could have improved on my experience of The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, and The Last Enchantment. Even The Wicked Day, though I liked it, almost felt extra-canonical to me. A good book, but the whole had already been produced.
X's ex, apparently, had that relationship with both Stewart *and* Godwin.
I've read Sherwood, Memory, and even Godwin's modern satires, Waiting for the Galactic Bus and Snake Oil Wars - but never have gotten myself to crack Firelord. It seems, with Parke Godwin, I'm almost obsessively a one-book woman. Sherwood was GOOD. But Memory is something deeper - and something far to special to me. TOO special. I can't let anything stand beside it - not even Godwin's other works. What if I felt about Firelord as I do about Sherwood? It would be a pointless read. And Stewart's Merlin did it all for me.
So it was a funny thing to find, after all these years knowing him, this strange new thing to know. That a man would find two women who are suckers for the same books - something so unique and so personal as a book - isn't anything odd. (As he put it, roughly, "geeky is as geeky does" or something like that.) What was strange was such an intimate similarity between myself and her. It shouldn't, yet it strikes me odd we have the same tastes in something that means so much to me. Obviously, we've had the same taste in something else that means rather a lot to me - and I am not of the type to find reasons to (a) dislike or (b) disrespect "the ex" generally. I'm not nuts about everything she does, but it's not as if our lives actually touch, so for the most part her existence is no-harm/no-foul as far as I'm concerned. Yet I've always maintained an implicit expectation of our dissimilarity overall. We've gravitated to vastly differing lifestyles - so the fact of our respective involvement with X has never generated much interest in her.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this odd little bump in the night - was that X felt some reluctance toward the reading recommendation. The mental association of the author is *that* strong, for him, with her. To go into a Godwin book - even one he's not sure she's even read - simply *speaks* of her, to him. My being something of a unique and special creature in his life, he recoils from tying me to anything else, even by my own association.
And that is the surprise.
Writing, for me - no matter my denials of how precious each baby word may or may not be to me - no matter how pragmatic about my work, my characters, my talent; or the marketing, etc. - is "mine". If it's not a badge I wear to prove anything to people, it IS a commitment for me. And I have learned how to commit, in this life. I am dedicated to my authorship, and "take it personally" so to speak. Right down to my voice - and where I learned it.
***
***
Earlier this morning, I was listening to Rolling in the Deep again. A friend who's a coworker is in town for meetings, and she brought me both of Adele's CDs. So I had it playing - and Rolling is the first track on 21. It was all I could do to contain myself, listening to that song. Its power is unbroken for me, no matter how often I hear it - and here I was, sitting at my desk, all but weeping.
Not a lot of art nor even personal emotion actually can overcome me. It takes something I care about VERY deeply to exert such influence over me.
A Memory of Lions' influence over me is complete. As complete as Rolling is. As complete as that swelling, bombastic bit of Wendy Carlos' Moog-performed Brandenberg concerto, the piece my dad used to play to wake up my brother and me. As complete as the memory of a hospital ... where I held my dad's still-warm hand ... where I first held my youngest niece, and smelled her red-gold head. Memory is the one piece of literature which owns me outright; the work I would save from a fire; the one I would seek on the worst day of my life. It is beautiful, but not because it is fanciful. It's, like ... X-beautiful to me, actually. It can be so hard, it can be so sad ... it can be so joyous. It can make you stand up, make you want to fight. Make you silent.
I don't know whether the power of her books is the same for X's ex. It's odd, but I find myself incurious. And I don't resent his reluctance to partake of this thing, so meaningful to me. Life is an odd thing; sometimes it comes up with stuff like this - and if you ascribe too much to it, if you CARE about it beyond synchronicity's inherent interest, you can drive yourself a little mad. Perhaps it's reassuring, some thread in the women this man I love has in turn loved. He spent more than a quarter of his life with her; and he and I have spent almost as long, ourselves, knowing each other now.
X knows me better than any other person ever has - and yet his curiosity is inexhaustible, I sometimes think. Certainly, we never run out of things we want to talk with each other about.
Finding unexpected surprises is a part of the blessing of attracting fascinating people to your life. I'll never forget the time he showed me that ridiculously funny spit trick he can do. And he's unlikely to be able to ever wipe his memory clean of some of my funnier attributes.
It's kind of a joy, though, that not everything left to learn is just that much workaday triviality.
I contain multitudes (my blog profile says so!). So does X. What a neat collection of things human beings are.
And that was the first time I heard it.
X's ex had a thing for Godwin's (better known) work - and also for Mary Stewart.
My mom has been making fun of me for twenty-nine years now, over my habit of re-reading books - specifically, and *most* particularly: Stewart's Arthuriana. As he put it to me last week - she felt she didn't have to read any more Arthurian works. And I have always felt the same. Much of an Arthurian/Merlin nerd as I should have been, I was actually very limited in my indulgences - because nobody could have improved on my experience of The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, and The Last Enchantment. Even The Wicked Day, though I liked it, almost felt extra-canonical to me. A good book, but the whole had already been produced.
X's ex, apparently, had that relationship with both Stewart *and* Godwin.
I've read Sherwood, Memory, and even Godwin's modern satires, Waiting for the Galactic Bus and Snake Oil Wars - but never have gotten myself to crack Firelord. It seems, with Parke Godwin, I'm almost obsessively a one-book woman. Sherwood was GOOD. But Memory is something deeper - and something far to special to me. TOO special. I can't let anything stand beside it - not even Godwin's other works. What if I felt about Firelord as I do about Sherwood? It would be a pointless read. And Stewart's Merlin did it all for me.
So it was a funny thing to find, after all these years knowing him, this strange new thing to know. That a man would find two women who are suckers for the same books - something so unique and so personal as a book - isn't anything odd. (As he put it, roughly, "geeky is as geeky does" or something like that.) What was strange was such an intimate similarity between myself and her. It shouldn't, yet it strikes me odd we have the same tastes in something that means so much to me. Obviously, we've had the same taste in something else that means rather a lot to me - and I am not of the type to find reasons to (a) dislike or (b) disrespect "the ex" generally. I'm not nuts about everything she does, but it's not as if our lives actually touch, so for the most part her existence is no-harm/no-foul as far as I'm concerned. Yet I've always maintained an implicit expectation of our dissimilarity overall. We've gravitated to vastly differing lifestyles - so the fact of our respective involvement with X has never generated much interest in her.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this odd little bump in the night - was that X felt some reluctance toward the reading recommendation. The mental association of the author is *that* strong, for him, with her. To go into a Godwin book - even one he's not sure she's even read - simply *speaks* of her, to him. My being something of a unique and special creature in his life, he recoils from tying me to anything else, even by my own association.
And that is the surprise.
Writing, for me - no matter my denials of how precious each baby word may or may not be to me - no matter how pragmatic about my work, my characters, my talent; or the marketing, etc. - is "mine". If it's not a badge I wear to prove anything to people, it IS a commitment for me. And I have learned how to commit, in this life. I am dedicated to my authorship, and "take it personally" so to speak. Right down to my voice - and where I learned it.
***
***
Earlier this morning, I was listening to Rolling in the Deep again. A friend who's a coworker is in town for meetings, and she brought me both of Adele's CDs. So I had it playing - and Rolling is the first track on 21. It was all I could do to contain myself, listening to that song. Its power is unbroken for me, no matter how often I hear it - and here I was, sitting at my desk, all but weeping.
Not a lot of art nor even personal emotion actually can overcome me. It takes something I care about VERY deeply to exert such influence over me.
A Memory of Lions' influence over me is complete. As complete as Rolling is. As complete as that swelling, bombastic bit of Wendy Carlos' Moog-performed Brandenberg concerto, the piece my dad used to play to wake up my brother and me. As complete as the memory of a hospital ... where I held my dad's still-warm hand ... where I first held my youngest niece, and smelled her red-gold head. Memory is the one piece of literature which owns me outright; the work I would save from a fire; the one I would seek on the worst day of my life. It is beautiful, but not because it is fanciful. It's, like ... X-beautiful to me, actually. It can be so hard, it can be so sad ... it can be so joyous. It can make you stand up, make you want to fight. Make you silent.
I don't know whether the power of her books is the same for X's ex. It's odd, but I find myself incurious. And I don't resent his reluctance to partake of this thing, so meaningful to me. Life is an odd thing; sometimes it comes up with stuff like this - and if you ascribe too much to it, if you CARE about it beyond synchronicity's inherent interest, you can drive yourself a little mad. Perhaps it's reassuring, some thread in the women this man I love has in turn loved. He spent more than a quarter of his life with her; and he and I have spent almost as long, ourselves, knowing each other now.
X knows me better than any other person ever has - and yet his curiosity is inexhaustible, I sometimes think. Certainly, we never run out of things we want to talk with each other about.
Finding unexpected surprises is a part of the blessing of attracting fascinating people to your life. I'll never forget the time he showed me that ridiculously funny spit trick he can do. And he's unlikely to be able to ever wipe his memory clean of some of my funnier attributes.
It's kind of a joy, though, that not everything left to learn is just that much workaday triviality.
I contain multitudes (my blog profile says so!). So does X. What a neat collection of things human beings are.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Research Rats
This is one of those nights where the agents are just blurring before my eyes. Work went from seven to six today, and I didn't get done at home the things I had planned either. And now I can't really seem to manage even just sitting here and seeing straight.
It'd help if I weren't clicking on the ones who like "every kind of commercial and literary fiction" (as long as it's good - because isn't that a hepfully nondescriptive phrase) - or the ones who require snail mail submissions, which I just don't feel like I can do tonight.
It'd help if I weren't clicking on the ones who like "every kind of commercial and literary fiction" (as long as it's good - because isn't that a hepfully nondescriptive phrase) - or the ones who require snail mail submissions, which I just don't feel like I can do tonight.
Monday, September 12, 2011
List
I remember when it took me almost a minute to scroll through my latest list of agents to query in my Favorites menu. Now, a mere three quick "page down"'s and I see a nice chunk of other links in addition to what now remains of the list. It started at over 120 agents, and even with the occasional swing from one agent to finding a better one at the same agency during my researches (this is what happened with my recent Big Response, actually), I have burned off easily 80% of that. Whew.
Go me. And the Conference is in less than a month now, too. Busy times - and very good ones.
Go me. And the Conference is in less than a month now, too. Busy times - and very good ones.
JRW: Annual James River Writers Conference Attracts National Literary Talent
RICHMOND, Va., Sept. 12, 2011—“Some of the most exceptional and talented writers publishing today” will highlight this fall’s ninth annual James River Writers Conference, according to conference chair Katharine Herndon, a Richmond-based educator and writer.
The conference will be held Oct. 6-8 at the Library of Virginia in downtown Richmond. “This year’s lineup of exceptional national talent is once again drawing attention across our region,” Herndon said. “Attendees will join Richmond’s lively, growing literary community for exploration into all facets of today’s changing publishing scene.”
This year’s headliners include:
• Tayari Jones, winner of the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for Debut Fiction for Leaving Atlanta
• Kathi Appelt, winner of the Newbery Honor Award for The Underneath
• John Casey, winner of the National Book Award for Spartina
• Robert Goolrick, the New York Times bestselling author of A Reliable Wife
• Karl Marlantes, winner of the William E. Colby Award for the New York Times bestselling Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War
“In addition to being able to meet and greet our headliners,” Herndon said, “attendees will be able to take part in one-on-one pitches with top publishing agents.”
Also, conference participants will attend sessions on everything from digging deep into character and writing in various genres to launching an online Twitter presence as a promotional tool.
Attendees will enjoy soaking up the atmosphere, mingling with top authors and writing professionals, and finding inspiration for their inner muses. The entire program fits with the James River Writers mission of connecting and inspiring writers and readers.
Registration is $190.00. Pre-conference workshop registration in fiction and poetry is $40.00. Registration and further details, including information on hotel accommodations, are available on JRW’s Web site, JamesRiverWriters.org, and by calling 804-433-3790.
The conference will be held Oct. 6-8 at the Library of Virginia in downtown Richmond. “This year’s lineup of exceptional national talent is once again drawing attention across our region,” Herndon said. “Attendees will join Richmond’s lively, growing literary community for exploration into all facets of today’s changing publishing scene.”
This year’s headliners include:
• Tayari Jones, winner of the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for Debut Fiction for Leaving Atlanta
• Kathi Appelt, winner of the Newbery Honor Award for The Underneath
• John Casey, winner of the National Book Award for Spartina
• Robert Goolrick, the New York Times bestselling author of A Reliable Wife
• Karl Marlantes, winner of the William E. Colby Award for the New York Times bestselling Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War
“In addition to being able to meet and greet our headliners,” Herndon said, “attendees will be able to take part in one-on-one pitches with top publishing agents.”
Also, conference participants will attend sessions on everything from digging deep into character and writing in various genres to launching an online Twitter presence as a promotional tool.
Attendees will enjoy soaking up the atmosphere, mingling with top authors and writing professionals, and finding inspiration for their inner muses. The entire program fits with the James River Writers mission of connecting and inspiring writers and readers.
Registration is $190.00. Pre-conference workshop registration in fiction and poetry is $40.00. Registration and further details, including information on hotel accommodations, are available on JRW’s Web site, JamesRiverWriters.org, and by calling 804-433-3790.
Friday, September 9, 2011
My Dad Called it Fighting the Dragon
... my beloved friend ... just says it feels like someone is sitting on her chest. She is near weeping - from the fear. From the pain.
Oh my lord Christ. How can I be a good friend to her?
Oh my lord Christ. How can I be a good friend to her?
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Wow II - You Can Boogaloo if You Want To
I got a detailed, thoughtful, engaging request for a full within about twelve hours after the query.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Wow
I just pulled up to an agency on my list with the most intensely well-written and inviting copy I have seen YET on any site in all of the research I have done so far. And this agency, yes, does histfic - and reps some works I would absolutely WIGGLE to get in alongside.
It can be an incredibly hard job, just finding an agent at all who does my genre, or does my particular type of my genre, or who is open-minded, seems intelligent, and manages a diverse catalogue. This place is exceptionally intriguing. Not by dint of their obvious success. But because it is so obvious how they should have become so.
It can be an incredibly hard job, just finding an agent at all who does my genre, or does my particular type of my genre, or who is open-minded, seems intelligent, and manages a diverse catalogue. This place is exceptionally intriguing. Not by dint of their obvious success. But because it is so obvious how they should have become so.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Recycled Lou
The dedication I've had on The Ax and the Vase since it was a little baby book, not even a manuscript yet, says:
Louise Smith was my grandma, and mom and dad gave me her first name for my middle name. And my middle name is how I became an author.
When I was a kid, if anyone ever found out my name, they called me "Weezy" after Mrs. Jefferson - and they always did so with this screeching pronunciation - so it was never my favorite part of my name. Diane doesn't really seem to have any provenance but that mom liked it, and Major ... well, that part of my name will come up in a later novel. It's #3 in line and a rollicking story.
But Louise, now ... Louise wasn't a good name, in my book, for a quite long time.
Then I learned its etymology.
I also learned to love the link to my grandma. I am the only Louise in my generation of the family. And my grandma ... can never be replicated.
Sooner or later, running across Clovis had to happen.
***
Clovis' name is the progenitor of mine, of course - but even "Clovis" isn't the real name. It is the Romanized version of a name we theorize was most likely something more like "Chlodo-vechus".
Chlodo ... Hludo - the first-root means famed, but is also a distant cousin of the word loud. I can appreciate this, as a part of myself. Nobody much mistakes me for a dainty, shy flower. And, if fame is not a state I in fact seek, the essence of meaning in the word, the stream and thread of meaning that links it to A Big Noise, is something I understand. Clovis was a seeker of glory.
Vechus ... Wiga - the second-root means warlike, warrior - a man of conflict, of terrible power. Clovis sought this through his whole life.
Famed warrior.
Glorious victory.
Clovis had a connection to his name far more fundamental than me and my Weezy issues. He fulfilled its promise - its threat - its ultimate depth - absolutely.
He was named by his mother, the Queen Basina. She became Queen to Clovis' father in a welter of scandal, and I enjoyed countless inspirations creating her character. Legend of her is rife with her overweening pride, her terrible selfishness, her unseemly behavior. And she it was who endowed her son with his epoch-shaking name.
Because his name has adorned dozens of monarchs ... been appropriated in languages across the world ... survived a millenium and a half ... and burned with enough power people still reach for its light even not perceiving the fire. Clovis. Louis. Ludwig. Ludovico. Lew, Lou, variations of centuries, cultures - genders - the most dizzying array of extensions ... He lives with us, almost anyplace. It's a given name. It's a surname.
It is a middle name.
And I am so grateful to have been given it. To share it with my granny.
To share it with my King.
To have told some part of its endless story.
To Louise Smith and those who recycled her name
Louise Smith was my grandma, and mom and dad gave me her first name for my middle name. And my middle name is how I became an author.
When I was a kid, if anyone ever found out my name, they called me "Weezy" after Mrs. Jefferson - and they always did so with this screeching pronunciation - so it was never my favorite part of my name. Diane doesn't really seem to have any provenance but that mom liked it, and Major ... well, that part of my name will come up in a later novel. It's #3 in line and a rollicking story.
But Louise, now ... Louise wasn't a good name, in my book, for a quite long time.
Then I learned its etymology.
I also learned to love the link to my grandma. I am the only Louise in my generation of the family. And my grandma ... can never be replicated.
Sooner or later, running across Clovis had to happen.
***
Clovis' name is the progenitor of mine, of course - but even "Clovis" isn't the real name. It is the Romanized version of a name we theorize was most likely something more like "Chlodo-vechus".
Chlodo ... Hludo - the first-root means famed, but is also a distant cousin of the word loud. I can appreciate this, as a part of myself. Nobody much mistakes me for a dainty, shy flower. And, if fame is not a state I in fact seek, the essence of meaning in the word, the stream and thread of meaning that links it to A Big Noise, is something I understand. Clovis was a seeker of glory.
Vechus ... Wiga - the second-root means warlike, warrior - a man of conflict, of terrible power. Clovis sought this through his whole life.
Famed warrior.
Glorious victory.
Clovis had a connection to his name far more fundamental than me and my Weezy issues. He fulfilled its promise - its threat - its ultimate depth - absolutely.
He was named by his mother, the Queen Basina. She became Queen to Clovis' father in a welter of scandal, and I enjoyed countless inspirations creating her character. Legend of her is rife with her overweening pride, her terrible selfishness, her unseemly behavior. And she it was who endowed her son with his epoch-shaking name.
Because his name has adorned dozens of monarchs ... been appropriated in languages across the world ... survived a millenium and a half ... and burned with enough power people still reach for its light even not perceiving the fire. Clovis. Louis. Ludwig. Ludovico. Lew, Lou, variations of centuries, cultures - genders - the most dizzying array of extensions ... He lives with us, almost anyplace. It's a given name. It's a surname.
It is a middle name.
And I am so grateful to have been given it. To share it with my granny.
To share it with my King.
To have told some part of its endless story.
74th
Dad would have been seventy-four today. I can't believe it's been nine years.
That's not all that much less than a third of the whole time I had him for a dad to begin with.
And THAT is simply impossible to believe. My dad is forever. And he was the best.
That's not all that much less than a third of the whole time I had him for a dad to begin with.
And THAT is simply impossible to believe. My dad is forever. And he was the best.
Just One
Just one query tonight, but not the only one for the holiday weekend, and I have done a stack of eliminations too (most of them today, I think), but I am going to stand. This one is a fast responder, too, so that will be nice. Still not getting responses - even on the partial request from April 18. *Sigh*
Time to button up anything work-like, though. The query's out, the query spreadsheet updated (and I found out poring over it I actually recently re-queried someone I had already done - D'OH! - but if I only do that once in my process, that may actually be above average), and I want to sit back and talk politics with the dog for a while. Which is to say, in Major-speak: relax. Just a few more hours before September at Work - and September, this year, is promising to be hairy.
Talking politics it is, for now. And blogging.
Time to button up anything work-like, though. The query's out, the query spreadsheet updated (and I found out poring over it I actually recently re-queried someone I had already done - D'OH! - but if I only do that once in my process, that may actually be above average), and I want to sit back and talk politics with the dog for a while. Which is to say, in Major-speak: relax. Just a few more hours before September at Work - and September, this year, is promising to be hairy.
Talking politics it is, for now. And blogging.
Query Letter Advice
I'm not very good about loving to read about the process of shilling, but for some reason query tips do usually get my attention. Here's a link with query letters and their commentaries.
I love marginalia, so commentaries on queries is bait for me. Enjoy - and don't forget to read further for dos and don'ts as well.
I love marginalia, so commentaries on queries is bait for me. Enjoy - and don't forget to read further for dos and don'ts as well.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Merrily Damned
More than one of the images in the post below come from one of the vintage films I've been watching this week, Merrily We Go to Hell (and now, feel free to guess what got me on that train of thought). This is the lurid tale of an alcoholic, love of whom turns perhaps the freshest and most darling girl I've ever seen onscreen ...
... into a despairing victim.
And yet, as melodramatic as this kind of a thing could and even should go, this film contains two of the best performances I have seen in recent memory. Sylvia Sidney is our heroine (and those of us of a certain age will NEVER believe the flicks we know her for - though she makes a convincing case for quitting), and she is simply remarkable. Not least for her outright loveliness - but she also starts us off with a convincing, fresh ingenue and brings us through a certain jading, and finally to her ultimate understanding. Clearly, this actress could not have been exactly what we see in her first scenes - in order to play her later ones - so the deveopment is rather remarkable to watch, and the innocence no less fresh when you reconsider the first act.
It is an impressive piece of work, and she sounds, looks, and breathes exactly right throughout. The film is really hers - and she is a fully rightful owner. It's excellent.
Played against this, we have the alcoholic husband, Frederick March. March has some very nice credits to his name, but I never rememeber being quite so stricken by him before. A leading man less than firmly at the center of attention, his role as Jerry is incredibly tricky. He plays a pretty good drunk - not Foster Brooks-ing it up, and yet not underplaying the condition either. Affable and definitely fumbling, when his focus is clear, his charm is genuine. You find yourself rooting for him, and glad he finds as lovely a woman as Joan - and yet, we all know, the "happy ending" comes way too soon to tell the whole story.
March's performance in the wedding scene alone is an amazing balance. That scene is all his, and he is perfect.
The screen pairing is enjoyable, too. These people are appealing, have that thing we so like to call "chemistry" - and even though we know their fate will either have to be unbelievable (i.e.: happy) or, barring that, unsatisfying (less so), but sometimes, with movies, getting there is all the fun.
Of course, "fun" and "entertainment" become unfortunate terms in the telling of a story like this one, but it is a pretty great movie. Though the story has some of the inevitable compromises of both film and its day, the endpoint is worth reaching, with these leads. Very definitely recommended.
... into a despairing victim.
And yet, as melodramatic as this kind of a thing could and even should go, this film contains two of the best performances I have seen in recent memory. Sylvia Sidney is our heroine (and those of us of a certain age will NEVER believe the flicks we know her for - though she makes a convincing case for quitting), and she is simply remarkable. Not least for her outright loveliness - but she also starts us off with a convincing, fresh ingenue and brings us through a certain jading, and finally to her ultimate understanding. Clearly, this actress could not have been exactly what we see in her first scenes - in order to play her later ones - so the deveopment is rather remarkable to watch, and the innocence no less fresh when you reconsider the first act.
It is an impressive piece of work, and she sounds, looks, and breathes exactly right throughout. The film is really hers - and she is a fully rightful owner. It's excellent.
Played against this, we have the alcoholic husband, Frederick March. March has some very nice credits to his name, but I never rememeber being quite so stricken by him before. A leading man less than firmly at the center of attention, his role as Jerry is incredibly tricky. He plays a pretty good drunk - not Foster Brooks-ing it up, and yet not underplaying the condition either. Affable and definitely fumbling, when his focus is clear, his charm is genuine. You find yourself rooting for him, and glad he finds as lovely a woman as Joan - and yet, we all know, the "happy ending" comes way too soon to tell the whole story.
March's performance in the wedding scene alone is an amazing balance. That scene is all his, and he is perfect.
The screen pairing is enjoyable, too. These people are appealing, have that thing we so like to call "chemistry" - and even though we know their fate will either have to be unbelievable (i.e.: happy) or, barring that, unsatisfying (less so), but sometimes, with movies, getting there is all the fun.
Of course, "fun" and "entertainment" become unfortunate terms in the telling of a story like this one, but it is a pretty great movie. Though the story has some of the inevitable compromises of both film and its day, the endpoint is worth reaching, with these leads. Very definitely recommended.
Clip "Show" ...
One of the things about watching all these pre-code films I've been enjoying is of course the costume design - and the fashion. Not the same thing, as one has more pointed aim in storytelling than the other tends to consciously have for most people. But, of course, I am not most people. I see Tallulah Bankhead wearing an ensemble sewn to resemble white satin blouse peeking from under a simply showstopping black satin dress - just as her character is about to have her goodness and conscience fight to emerge from her darkest impulses, and I see a lot more than an arbitrary choice.
I also see all those beautiful low-backed, bias-cut hand stitched dresses, and notice their unsubtly sexual decor.
Dress clips were a vintage type of jewelry I’ve always found pretty, but never seem to have thought about very much, but watching these old movies, made with an eye to titillate, I've started to notice what a signpost an inch and a half of rhinestones - shaped roughly like an arrow - and pointing at a lady's posterior really is.
The thing is, the presentation is almost invariably hopelessly elegant, to the modern eye. But in 1932, these fashions were outsandingly pointed - and quite literally so. "LOOK AT MY CURVES" these little pieces of jewelry say quite clearly - and they do one the favor of directing a viewer unambiguously which curve to focus on. Oh my goodness!
And it didn't die in the 1930s, not by a long shot. In the 80s we still had "butt bows" on prom and wedding party dresses, there to "add interest" to the back of a dress (for weddings, this was ostensibly because the whole party would be walking down the aisle, and thus backs to all in attendance) - and we hated them then, and we revile them now. But we certainly had them. And peplums - often with a similarly pointed shape.
In the 1950s, we had Rosemary Clooney (not a minor sex symbol, in this particular number) encased in yards of black velvet, Edith Head's famous giant rhinestone brooch guiding the dorsal gaze.
If the cut of this showstopper weren't exaggerated enough, and if the sculpted backline and neckline were just too subtle for some, that set of sparklers iced the cake. So to speak.
It's hardly a new thing - the bustle was an extreme example of posterior fashion afflictions. But just because the dress clip is smaller by a factor of several dozen doesn't make it any subtler. It was an ARROW for heaven's sake! "What you are looking for is: here." Oh my.
The other way to wear dress clips? In pairs, at a slightly higher altitude, and framing, or pointing toward another set of erotic features.
We all learn, by a certain point, that our generation didn't invent sex. But most of us have a tough time thinking of any generations within our reach - much less any PEOPLE we might know of - actually engaging. It's okay to consider the Victorians a scandalous bunch, with their buttoned up shirtfronts and abundance of prostitution - or the ancients - or name your mistress-keeping monarchs. But grandma? Saints forfend.
But check her jewelry box, the one you put away after she died.
And try not to remember what I just told you about neon signs pointing arrows toward her derriere ...
I also see all those beautiful low-backed, bias-cut hand stitched dresses, and notice their unsubtly sexual decor.
Dress clips were a vintage type of jewelry I’ve always found pretty, but never seem to have thought about very much, but watching these old movies, made with an eye to titillate, I've started to notice what a signpost an inch and a half of rhinestones - shaped roughly like an arrow - and pointing at a lady's posterior really is.
The thing is, the presentation is almost invariably hopelessly elegant, to the modern eye. But in 1932, these fashions were outsandingly pointed - and quite literally so. "LOOK AT MY CURVES" these little pieces of jewelry say quite clearly - and they do one the favor of directing a viewer unambiguously which curve to focus on. Oh my goodness!
And it didn't die in the 1930s, not by a long shot. In the 80s we still had "butt bows" on prom and wedding party dresses, there to "add interest" to the back of a dress (for weddings, this was ostensibly because the whole party would be walking down the aisle, and thus backs to all in attendance) - and we hated them then, and we revile them now. But we certainly had them. And peplums - often with a similarly pointed shape.
In the 1950s, we had Rosemary Clooney (not a minor sex symbol, in this particular number) encased in yards of black velvet, Edith Head's famous giant rhinestone brooch guiding the dorsal gaze.
If the cut of this showstopper weren't exaggerated enough, and if the sculpted backline and neckline were just too subtle for some, that set of sparklers iced the cake. So to speak.
It's hardly a new thing - the bustle was an extreme example of posterior fashion afflictions. But just because the dress clip is smaller by a factor of several dozen doesn't make it any subtler. It was an ARROW for heaven's sake! "What you are looking for is: here." Oh my.
The other way to wear dress clips? In pairs, at a slightly higher altitude, and framing, or pointing toward another set of erotic features.
We all learn, by a certain point, that our generation didn't invent sex. But most of us have a tough time thinking of any generations within our reach - much less any PEOPLE we might know of - actually engaging. It's okay to consider the Victorians a scandalous bunch, with their buttoned up shirtfronts and abundance of prostitution - or the ancients - or name your mistress-keeping monarchs. But grandma? Saints forfend.
But check her jewelry box, the one you put away after she died.
And try not to remember what I just told you about neon signs pointing arrows toward her derriere ...
Saturday, September 3, 2011
"The Visitor"
Revisiting Star Trek: TNG has renewed some of my perspective on the Trekverse as a whole, and really cemented DS9 as my favorite part of the whole. Quark, Gul Dukat, Garak, Worf-and-Jadzia, and Odo are probably the best things in this whole "world" - and the depth of storylines is most appealing to me. One of the aspects I like best is the realignment of optimism - allowing war and even conflicting loyalties into a canon so heavily focused on "humanity perfected".
Even if I were able to believe in the Whig-history idea that evolution is a force of ultimate improvement, actually guiding our species to eventual excellence (which - I can't), the fact is it makes for insufferable storytelling. TNG has pretty bad whiffs, at times, of an intolerable self-superiority which not only isn't much to my taste, it's frankly dangerous. It posits an impossible and imaginary societal high horse, from which bigotry really isn't very far removed. I know Rodenberry's idea was to present an ideal society and culture. But in the practice of storytelling, the fact is that members of any community so vaunted and wonderful can come off as prigs, and sometimes (speaking as a genuine bleeding heart) the "enlightened" attitudes are just about enough to make you choke someone.
This context also tends to lead to presumptions about best-outcomes, and even best-practices which are shortsighted at best. The prime directive is one of those things, it could be argued, that permits and fosters certain levels of blindness and even a lack of responsibility in some ways.
So, indeed, does breaking it, but that's a cookie crumbling.
In the ep referenced in the title of this post, though, the PD really isn't an issue, in that an alien planet isn't our Item of Concern - but it perhaps could have addressed the problem at hand. Which is time travel.
And changing the history of the entire Alpha Quadrant because one single person in it can't manage a bereavement.
The thing about "The Visitor" is that it goes down so easy. Tony Todd is so good in it, and he's a pleasure to watch in any case. Even Cisco comes close to dragging a tear out of me, in the midst of my frustration with the sequence of events. The history laid out in the story is INTERESTING - even if the venue (an episode framed entirely on Earth and in a rainy bayou) takes the audience out of the Trek universe in the first place. Some of the ways this story is told are alienating in themselves, but much of what it presents is kind of intriguing. And certainly, it seems that the makers of the series are proud of an love this particular script.
So it's INCREDIBLY irritating that (a) the story first presents a whole lot of dark and fascinating ideas and then (b) not only does a big old take-back on all of it, but actually presents the selfish act of reversing history itself as a triumph. Presents the indulgence of one single person's self-pity, by relieving it at the expense of fifty or sixty years of time (and, not for nothing, utterly negating the experiences of all the billions or trillions of sentient beings who lived through that time), as something quite wonderful.
If there were a Prime Directive of time: surely, it would have a judgment on the appropriateness of usurping the history of the universe for the sake of an author who quit after one book. In almost every ep, since TOS, touching on time travel, there's an explicit prohibition on tampering with the timeline. But in "The Visitor" - a guy unable to deal with loss suddenly is a hero, for obsessively trashing a couple generations of chronology. Heck, for some species, maybe hundreds of generations.
It doesn't even matter how long a time is chucked for the resolution. The point is that, even in a series controversial for its relative "darkness" in the ST canon, the ending in this case is an utter departure from this entire universe - and this is presented as a good outcome.
Picard can be a presumptuous nit from time to time. Bashir, of course, is the very soul of unwarranted arrogance (but this is used to propel his storylines, and it works). TOS was saved from its liberal-elite superiority by the fact that Kirk was a pugilist with a reliable weakness for the scantily-clad and curvy. Trek as a whole is a bit sure of its morality at times. It can be a pleasure to watch them turn this on its head, and DS9 has a record of doing this, perhaps, better than any other piece of the overall puzzle.
So "The Visitor" hiding out in the midst of this series is really frustrating. It makes me want to growl at the screen - not least because of all the virtues I mention it possesses. I even believe a creative screenwriter might have found some less weak-willed way around the progression. Some way to "save" the day without just throwing away years - and, frankly, the entire Trek scheme of morality.
Oh, gravy, I actually find myself tempted to write fanfic rectifying my irritation with this story! Hee. That can hardly be healthy of me.
***
In most things, there is that "exception that makes the rule" or some anomaly playing against an overall. The imperfection in a good thing that makes it the more beautiful somehow. "Expensively flawed" my dad might have joked, about the way a treasure is enhanced by some minuscule - but visible - anomaly.
The good in "The Visitor" is one of those things that makes me appreciate the whole of DS9 so much - it displays the stuff I love, even when it falls short.
The lives of the many outweight the lives of the few - or the one. Except Jake Cisco.
Even if I were able to believe in the Whig-history idea that evolution is a force of ultimate improvement, actually guiding our species to eventual excellence (which - I can't), the fact is it makes for insufferable storytelling. TNG has pretty bad whiffs, at times, of an intolerable self-superiority which not only isn't much to my taste, it's frankly dangerous. It posits an impossible and imaginary societal high horse, from which bigotry really isn't very far removed. I know Rodenberry's idea was to present an ideal society and culture. But in the practice of storytelling, the fact is that members of any community so vaunted and wonderful can come off as prigs, and sometimes (speaking as a genuine bleeding heart) the "enlightened" attitudes are just about enough to make you choke someone.
This context also tends to lead to presumptions about best-outcomes, and even best-practices which are shortsighted at best. The prime directive is one of those things, it could be argued, that permits and fosters certain levels of blindness and even a lack of responsibility in some ways.
So, indeed, does breaking it, but that's a cookie crumbling.
In the ep referenced in the title of this post, though, the PD really isn't an issue, in that an alien planet isn't our Item of Concern - but it perhaps could have addressed the problem at hand. Which is time travel.
And changing the history of the entire Alpha Quadrant because one single person in it can't manage a bereavement.
The thing about "The Visitor" is that it goes down so easy. Tony Todd is so good in it, and he's a pleasure to watch in any case. Even Cisco comes close to dragging a tear out of me, in the midst of my frustration with the sequence of events. The history laid out in the story is INTERESTING - even if the venue (an episode framed entirely on Earth and in a rainy bayou) takes the audience out of the Trek universe in the first place. Some of the ways this story is told are alienating in themselves, but much of what it presents is kind of intriguing. And certainly, it seems that the makers of the series are proud of an love this particular script.
So it's INCREDIBLY irritating that (a) the story first presents a whole lot of dark and fascinating ideas and then (b) not only does a big old take-back on all of it, but actually presents the selfish act of reversing history itself as a triumph. Presents the indulgence of one single person's self-pity, by relieving it at the expense of fifty or sixty years of time (and, not for nothing, utterly negating the experiences of all the billions or trillions of sentient beings who lived through that time), as something quite wonderful.
If there were a Prime Directive of time: surely, it would have a judgment on the appropriateness of usurping the history of the universe for the sake of an author who quit after one book. In almost every ep, since TOS, touching on time travel, there's an explicit prohibition on tampering with the timeline. But in "The Visitor" - a guy unable to deal with loss suddenly is a hero, for obsessively trashing a couple generations of chronology. Heck, for some species, maybe hundreds of generations.
It doesn't even matter how long a time is chucked for the resolution. The point is that, even in a series controversial for its relative "darkness" in the ST canon, the ending in this case is an utter departure from this entire universe - and this is presented as a good outcome.
Picard can be a presumptuous nit from time to time. Bashir, of course, is the very soul of unwarranted arrogance (but this is used to propel his storylines, and it works). TOS was saved from its liberal-elite superiority by the fact that Kirk was a pugilist with a reliable weakness for the scantily-clad and curvy. Trek as a whole is a bit sure of its morality at times. It can be a pleasure to watch them turn this on its head, and DS9 has a record of doing this, perhaps, better than any other piece of the overall puzzle.
So "The Visitor" hiding out in the midst of this series is really frustrating. It makes me want to growl at the screen - not least because of all the virtues I mention it possesses. I even believe a creative screenwriter might have found some less weak-willed way around the progression. Some way to "save" the day without just throwing away years - and, frankly, the entire Trek scheme of morality.
Oh, gravy, I actually find myself tempted to write fanfic rectifying my irritation with this story! Hee. That can hardly be healthy of me.
***
In most things, there is that "exception that makes the rule" or some anomaly playing against an overall. The imperfection in a good thing that makes it the more beautiful somehow. "Expensively flawed" my dad might have joked, about the way a treasure is enhanced by some minuscule - but visible - anomaly.
The good in "The Visitor" is one of those things that makes me appreciate the whole of DS9 so much - it displays the stuff I love, even when it falls short.
The lives of the many outweight the lives of the few - or the one. Except Jake Cisco.
Trust Fall
Any good theater geek can tell you about the title of this post - it's one of those exercises we used to use (and which appears from time to time on your lesser sitcoms, for HILARIOUS effect) to foster the ensemble spirit.
If the truth were told, I can't actually remember our ever in fact using this exercise. It's possible we did; my theater days are FAR enough behind me, at over twenty years now, I am no reliable witness as to what might have gone on, or what we did on our own time to foster our own actor-osity. But the exercise does *exist* at least, and it does kind of make a point.
I've come up against the interesting fact that, in life, trust isn't always a two way street. This of course is obvious stuff - the very essence of storytelling would be destroyed if human beings treated with one another equally in such things. BUT the point on which this particular issue is interesting to me, and interesting today, is that it isn't always a matter of some betrayal.
Mr. X and I have known each other now for nine years. For the past six or seven, he has been one of my trusted readers. It isn't because of our relationship - at least not its emotional component - but because of that brain of his I like so much. He does represent a likely member of my audience, but he is also a remarkably good DISPASSIONATE reader. This isn't to say he has no bias - his opinion of me, and of my writing, tends to be on the very high side generally - but it does allow him to consider my work in itself, even though he likes it. He's been probably the best reviewer of my pacing and of my POV (as a woman writing first-person male, I do very very well, but he has helped me tighten that and just occasionally given the go-ahead on certain aspects of narration), and been a fundamental part of The Ax and the Vase since the beginning. He's also been tireless in taking each piece as it came - including the entire manuscript, once I had a draft - and responsive in the best possible sense of criticism.
X too, of course, is a bit of a writer. More often than not, this is an informal thing - but recently, it came up that he's got a regular, public gig ("and I helped!"). At his inaugural piece, he felt his voice wasn't dead-on, and I suggested he have a reader. This is something I have done for many years in many contexts. I've been a proofreader, editor, copy editor, and composer for everything from a book-length financial services guide to death and taxes to every newsletter for every job I've ever held, to PowerPoints, letters, proposal documents, team-building-rah-rah-blah-blah, and the resumes and individuals' professional documents of all kinds. I can read for tone, for grammar, for length, for layman-accessibility, and for organization - and any combination or isolated aspect of these and beyond. This has been a part of my career for almost as long as my career, and I've done it both personally and professionally all the way along. It's no small part of my success, and of my visibility to executives who matter. And it's 100% calculated, too.
So it's no accident that at every job I have, I become to go-to grammarian, and eventually the de facto house author, for *whatever* needs doing.
BUT.
This work doesn't necessarily translate into the personal realm. Which brings us back to X and his own writing.
***
An awful lot of serious writers have a very, VERY hard time sharing their work at all. Some of us feel we are good enough, we don't "really" need to. Some feel we're not good enough, so showing our work is a painful experience. But those who most want to get PUBLISHED, particularly in the traditional (agent/publisher/actual books-on-shelves products) sense, sooner or later force ourselves to find good readers.
I had good readers in X and in Beloved Ex (hah - of all combinations) and a few others, but at last year's Conference, the Sarcastic Broads got together and, as much of a loner as I prefer to be, and as hard as it is for me to accept outside critique, I knew a good thing when I saw it, and have reaped the benefits many times over. It's good for me, and good for all of us Broads, I think.
And so I suggested to E, if he's worried about losing his unique self-expression, he needs a reader.
The obvious nomination in this category, and I made it with caveats, was myself - and we had the discussion yesterday. In the end, I think we tenatively decided to go for it - but the fact is, in really looking at it ... I realized that the reader relationship isn't always necessarily bilaterally beneficial.
It may owe to the nature of what he writes about, for which I really am *not* the demographic, but even though we may make it work, this is a dynamic I have said there's no-harm/no-foul if it doesn't work for him.
Funny how what looks analog in simple description, might not work out in parallel in practical experience. And why, and how that is okay.
I would be LOST without X as a reader. He's caught me every time I've done the authorial trust-fall.
Isn't it funny he might not be best served with me, though ... Life's just not as tidy as a theater exercise.
The moral of the story is that simpatico is a jewel when you find it. Find your Sarcastic Broads - or your X - or whomever serves your writing the BEST ... and keep an open mind as to who that may be. Take the trust-fall.
They can be surprising, pleasurable relationships when you find them. I am very much blessed in my readers!
If the truth were told, I can't actually remember our ever in fact using this exercise. It's possible we did; my theater days are FAR enough behind me, at over twenty years now, I am no reliable witness as to what might have gone on, or what we did on our own time to foster our own actor-osity. But the exercise does *exist* at least, and it does kind of make a point.
I've come up against the interesting fact that, in life, trust isn't always a two way street. This of course is obvious stuff - the very essence of storytelling would be destroyed if human beings treated with one another equally in such things. BUT the point on which this particular issue is interesting to me, and interesting today, is that it isn't always a matter of some betrayal.
Mr. X and I have known each other now for nine years. For the past six or seven, he has been one of my trusted readers. It isn't because of our relationship - at least not its emotional component - but because of that brain of his I like so much. He does represent a likely member of my audience, but he is also a remarkably good DISPASSIONATE reader. This isn't to say he has no bias - his opinion of me, and of my writing, tends to be on the very high side generally - but it does allow him to consider my work in itself, even though he likes it. He's been probably the best reviewer of my pacing and of my POV (as a woman writing first-person male, I do very very well, but he has helped me tighten that and just occasionally given the go-ahead on certain aspects of narration), and been a fundamental part of The Ax and the Vase since the beginning. He's also been tireless in taking each piece as it came - including the entire manuscript, once I had a draft - and responsive in the best possible sense of criticism.
X too, of course, is a bit of a writer. More often than not, this is an informal thing - but recently, it came up that he's got a regular, public gig ("and I helped!"). At his inaugural piece, he felt his voice wasn't dead-on, and I suggested he have a reader. This is something I have done for many years in many contexts. I've been a proofreader, editor, copy editor, and composer for everything from a book-length financial services guide to death and taxes to every newsletter for every job I've ever held, to PowerPoints, letters, proposal documents, team-building-rah-rah-blah-blah, and the resumes and individuals' professional documents of all kinds. I can read for tone, for grammar, for length, for layman-accessibility, and for organization - and any combination or isolated aspect of these and beyond. This has been a part of my career for almost as long as my career, and I've done it both personally and professionally all the way along. It's no small part of my success, and of my visibility to executives who matter. And it's 100% calculated, too.
So it's no accident that at every job I have, I become to go-to grammarian, and eventually the de facto house author, for *whatever* needs doing.
BUT.
This work doesn't necessarily translate into the personal realm. Which brings us back to X and his own writing.
***
An awful lot of serious writers have a very, VERY hard time sharing their work at all. Some of us feel we are good enough, we don't "really" need to. Some feel we're not good enough, so showing our work is a painful experience. But those who most want to get PUBLISHED, particularly in the traditional (agent/publisher/actual books-on-shelves products) sense, sooner or later force ourselves to find good readers.
I had good readers in X and in Beloved Ex (hah - of all combinations) and a few others, but at last year's Conference, the Sarcastic Broads got together and, as much of a loner as I prefer to be, and as hard as it is for me to accept outside critique, I knew a good thing when I saw it, and have reaped the benefits many times over. It's good for me, and good for all of us Broads, I think.
And so I suggested to E, if he's worried about losing his unique self-expression, he needs a reader.
The obvious nomination in this category, and I made it with caveats, was myself - and we had the discussion yesterday. In the end, I think we tenatively decided to go for it - but the fact is, in really looking at it ... I realized that the reader relationship isn't always necessarily bilaterally beneficial.
It may owe to the nature of what he writes about, for which I really am *not* the demographic, but even though we may make it work, this is a dynamic I have said there's no-harm/no-foul if it doesn't work for him.
Funny how what looks analog in simple description, might not work out in parallel in practical experience. And why, and how that is okay.
I would be LOST without X as a reader. He's caught me every time I've done the authorial trust-fall.
Isn't it funny he might not be best served with me, though ... Life's just not as tidy as a theater exercise.
The moral of the story is that simpatico is a jewel when you find it. Find your Sarcastic Broads - or your X - or whomever serves your writing the BEST ... and keep an open mind as to who that may be. Take the trust-fall.
They can be surprising, pleasurable relationships when you find them. I am very much blessed in my readers!
Friday, September 2, 2011
More Pre-Code
Tonight's special is "The Cheat" with Tallulah Bankhead. The opening credits are unpromisingly murky, but the print appears to be nice and bright once the movie proper begins; film restoration is a wondeful, and frankly kind of fun thing.
A lot of people are enjoying mid-century period pieces these days. Me, I'm having an awful lot of fun diving back to the 1930s.
A lot of people are enjoying mid-century period pieces these days. Me, I'm having an awful lot of fun diving back to the 1930s.
So It Shall Be Written
We expect of others what we know of ourselves.
I know this isn't a particularly deep, nor new thing to say. Sometimes, though, it's just *particularly* true.
I know this isn't a particularly deep, nor new thing to say. Sometimes, though, it's just *particularly* true.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Boo-Yay
Confirmation of my agent meeting at the Conference today.
Got a new rejection, too. Oh goody. I did, after all, quite literally ask for it.
Got a new rejection, too. Oh goody. I did, after all, quite literally ask for it.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
I Like *This*
Search string leading here: "The Ax and the Vase" ...
Nice to see that. Maybe one of my queries is finally going to get a response. Even if that has to be a neg, I still hope to hear something. No new rejections so far today, though.
Nice to see that. Maybe one of my queries is finally going to get a response. Even if that has to be a neg, I still hope to hear something. No new rejections so far today, though.
Other Side
Irene is gone. It was a golden, dazzling, gorgeous day. I got out into it with friends, and we found that a lot of places we wanted to go had no power - but we enjoyed it, and each other's company, and I thought little about querying or things to do around the house.
Came home, ordered from the neighborhood Italian/pizza place (cannoli = mmm), finally fixed one of the dresses in my Sewing Project Pile, and plan to wear it tomorrow. And now for SG:1. A nice Sunday.
Last night I did lose power just before sundown, at 7:30; sat and read Carmilla with a flashlight, and went to sleep on the couch, because: cooler downstairs. At around 2:00 a.m., the couple of lights I had not remembered to turn off came on, as did the AC. I got up, turned them off, went upstairs, and slept the rest of the night in nice, clean sheets.
Siddy's main fear response was limited to a little lip-smacking (the mildest expression of upset she has, and a good cue for me to love up on her a little) and the occasional glossy-eyeballed-gazing pointed *presence*. I think she was glad I didn't abandon her for a change.
I've drained the emergency tub water, the house is clean, and the weekend is almost over. Aw, boo.
But, hey, I have a fab little dress for tomorrow, and that will be pleasant to take for an end-of-seasonal spin.
Came home, ordered from the neighborhood Italian/pizza place (cannoli = mmm), finally fixed one of the dresses in my Sewing Project Pile, and plan to wear it tomorrow. And now for SG:1. A nice Sunday.
Last night I did lose power just before sundown, at 7:30; sat and read Carmilla with a flashlight, and went to sleep on the couch, because: cooler downstairs. At around 2:00 a.m., the couple of lights I had not remembered to turn off came on, as did the AC. I got up, turned them off, went upstairs, and slept the rest of the night in nice, clean sheets.
Siddy's main fear response was limited to a little lip-smacking (the mildest expression of upset she has, and a good cue for me to love up on her a little) and the occasional glossy-eyeballed-gazing pointed *presence*. I think she was glad I didn't abandon her for a change.
I've drained the emergency tub water, the house is clean, and the weekend is almost over. Aw, boo.
But, hey, I have a fab little dress for tomorrow, and that will be pleasant to take for an end-of-seasonal spin.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Winds Up ...
... but still okay so far. SERIOUS gusting out there, now to 70 MPH.
Sustained winds are high, though rain is not very heavy. And - wouldn't you know - some nit just drove by. I haven't seen traffic all day (apart from emergency vehicles), so someone driving around now, with the storm getting severe, is just bloody crazy.
My brother is the one who said he was hearing about tornadoes, but I haven't actually caught that reporting myself yet - so maybe the spinoffs aren't in this neck of the woods.
Not hearing a lot yet about flooding, though now I hear some areas may see eight inches. I think in my area, we've had two or three inches so far. At least two fatalities from falling trees - a child, in an apartment, and a man in his car.
This is me, not getting in my car. And glad the only tree anywhere that close to the house is very stout, and very healthy.
Sustained winds are high, though rain is not very heavy. And - wouldn't you know - some nit just drove by. I haven't seen traffic all day (apart from emergency vehicles), so someone driving around now, with the storm getting severe, is just bloody crazy.
My brother is the one who said he was hearing about tornadoes, but I haven't actually caught that reporting myself yet - so maybe the spinoffs aren't in this neck of the woods.
Not hearing a lot yet about flooding, though now I hear some areas may see eight inches. I think in my area, we've had two or three inches so far. At least two fatalities from falling trees - a child, in an apartment, and a man in his car.
This is me, not getting in my car. And glad the only tree anywhere that close to the house is very stout, and very healthy.
Stats FYI
I'm actually bothering with a look at the weather, and winds right now are sustained at about 40 MPH, with the strongest measured gust so far in the region being 75 MPH. I think more nearby the gusts aren't getting past about 60 MPH, so while it isn't a day to get out in, I would not guess that we're in for big hurricane effects today. The concern, though, is tornadic spinoffs.
Never did care for remakes and spinoffs.
Times like this, I do miss having Mr. X around. But at least I've got some companionship, and occupation, making sure Siddy La is okay.
Never did care for remakes and spinoffs.
Times like this, I do miss having Mr. X around. But at least I've got some companionship, and occupation, making sure Siddy La is okay.
Thus Far
Irene has been doing her work all day, and though I know I am only on the edge, we are willing to be impressed. We are fortunate - and need her rain. We are respectful of this wind, but know this is only the lucky fringe, the easy place.
Electricity has bipped-off several times. But it has come back.
Me, I am just cleaning the house. But fine.
Electricity has bipped-off several times. But it has come back.
Me, I am just cleaning the house. But fine.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Pre-Code
This week's special has been the beginning of the short spate of pre-Hays Code flicks I found on Netflix a week or so ago. Tonight: "The Torch Singer", a shocker in which Claudette Colbert starts off at a free clinic and gets scandalous from there ...
I knew I shouldn't have started the DVD this late. This one actually has some entertainment promise. Ahhh, but I need (and want so badly!) to go to bed.
Sad, how going to bed requires so much work before the relaxing part. *Sigh*
I knew I shouldn't have started the DVD this late. This one actually has some entertainment promise. Ahhh, but I need (and want so badly!) to go to bed.
Sad, how going to bed requires so much work before the relaxing part. *Sigh*
Plug-ins
There's a conversation going on right now at Historical Fiction Online, about how we organize research. Most writers have some form of "process" - the way we manage information and work it into creativity, the way we take inspiration and apply learning to it, and turn the two into writing. My own MO is not one I suspect many authors, editors, or agents would use, much less endorse, but it works with the way my mind works, and so if I break others' rules I am unconcerned, based on results.
When I began writing, I set up a one-page timeline of major events I wanted to cover. Very early on, I realized that what I wanted to cover was much more than my initial idea for a novel; and so the timeline became a single-shot view of Clovis' lifetime. Born here, battled here, ascended ... first son ... marriage ... conversion ... some larger events in his world, but not specific to himself. It is as high-level a look at the story as is possible. From there, I began to formulate what I needed to reasearch, and I made a quick study of how to follow tangents within research, to build my world (primary sources on Clovis - particularly for a non-French- and non-Latin-speaker - are not exactly exhaustively thick on the ground; so research by context was necessarily called for), and what tangents not to follow. I learned how to gauge, very quickly, when to stop following the often interesting threads tangents had to offer. I learned, too, how to heft something once I had chosen to use it - and, sometimes, how to discard it after all.
For me, writing and research are much less segregated a pair of activities than, as far as I can tell, most other authors (especially in histfic) feel is acceptable. The writers I hear talk about it all speak of "when to quit researching and start writing" ... but, for me, to withhold the act of writing just isn't an option. And so, I am writing as I am researching.
Typically blasphemous of me, but I still stand by my finished work.
From the high-altitude view of the timeline, I begin to organize the information by where it fits into the story. For those things specific to Clovis, it was easy enough to spot what positions certain anecdotes and events should occupy. In some cases, I had to make a choice, out of theoretical discussions of his life, between one timeline and another. For instance, much tradition points to Clovis' conversion and baptism being concurrent events, the latter being an observation of the former, and a commemoration of the victory on the field which yielded the conversion in the first place. There are other possibilities, however; that baptism was viewed, then, in a different way than conversion - and that certain prominent figures actually put it off significantly ... figures on whom Clovis conscientiously may have modeled his own life. There is also the dynamic of its being a consecration - and a king is concsecreted, already, when he takes his throne. Finally, there is the fact that Clovis, by necessity of the charisma of his power and of his *lineage* claimed divine descent.
The contradiction between Clovis' expectation of his vital heritage - and his faith in a G-d not content with polytheism outside a certain trinity - presents both an irresistible dramatic opportunity for an author and a persuasive (to me - and I'm the writer, which puts me in the driver's seat) case for delayed baptism. The thematic idea, brought to us perhaps courtesy of Gregory of Tours, perhaps out of the reality of Clovis' progress in life, that he modeled himself after Constantine allowed me to use that modeling in a literate way to make certain points.
It would have been impossible for me to write The Ax and the Vase without some delay in the baptism, after conversion. At root, essentially, I didn't buy the legend - I didn't accept that these two events occurred together. And so, I placed the baptism well beyond the conversion - and used it to create a scene in which this man, this indomitable power in a crown, actually makes the choice to renounce the tenet of his divine descent ... and accepts that of divine right.
More than a moment's scene, this action is one which informs much of the ensuing history of Europe. First, Clovis lends his considerable power to an alliance with the Catholic Church - then not the leading light in Christianity, nor in Gaul. Finally, he accepts a role, as monarch, which in its essence sets that church in an unmached role of supremacy in the world. This is a tension which played itself out from Becket and beyond, through Henry VIII and the Reformation. This is a dynamic royals managed in capitulation, or cooperation, or confrontation, for a thousand years after Clovis' death.
This was a scene I needed to see in Ax. It was one of the choices research gave me.
***
The other choices I had to make, using my research, was where to use such information as had little to do with particular actions by or times in Clovis' life. I was building a basilica, I studied bricks and ancient church decoration and design. Clovis needed a beautiful sword; I studied pattern welding. There was a particular breed of horse popular in northern Europe, a unique animal - and Clovis' army was the first generation of cavalry in a Frankish tradition of infantry warfare. Clovis' first prince by Clotilde dies ... and I knew the types of grave goods used for royal children. I knew the relics found in his father's tomb. I knew the symbolism attached to certain artifacts of burial - for adults; for children.
Some of the study placed itself almost as easily as actions and events; there seemed to be a place for much of it. I also learned what to set myself to study; introducing a queen into a world, and a story, previously focused only on men, I put time not only into studying the textiles of women's graves - but also to working on the history of costume itself; did lace exist in fourth and fifth century Gaul? (Answer: of course not; though fiber-tied textiles have existed for thousands of years, it was not in place in this *time* and place.) Embroidery. Material. Wine. Crockery. Jewelry - and its figural design and symbolism. Carved gems. Cloisonne'. The articles of hygeine - sandalwood and ivory; combs and hairdressing; leg wear and dyeing techniques.
The archaeology of graves fascinated me significantly; and it offered the wealth it has a tendency to provide - yet, archaeology being what it is, how much of its knowledge reflected LIFE, as much as death? Choices had to be made even in what indicated what - about death, or daily existence. Delineations began to create themselves, even if only in my unprofessional mind. I know I talked with the archaeologist nearest and dearest to me - yet I don't know that I ever asked for actual advice. I'm arrogant that way. But - again - stand by the product.
All the while - a scene here, a piece of dialogue there. I wrote the blue away - taking the fact of that rare breed of horses, and providing Clovis with a timely, peculiar gift from an ally. I turned plugs black as I went along, and even worked on flow and knitting them overall. The tentpoles I put up didn't stand stark and alone; I clothed them with the canvas as I went along.
Utterly unacceptable.
Impossible for me to avoid.
Nothing I would, nor even could, ever apologize for. Over time, I made this method of work serve me so very well that now I cannot conceive any other way.
Some of my research will stand, too, as tentpoles for the second novel, the work in progress *now*. I coded, in my texts, as I went along. Yellow highligher was Clovis'. Pink for the other work. Some passages I plugged into Clovis - and also bookmarked in the nascent document set aside for II. Even some of the pre-edited text first worked for Ax was set down as reminders and context for II. The two works are different. But the work on each one went on at the same time.
I work in a way not allowed by any professional expectation in publishing. Per usual, I refuse to repent this rebelliousness. Because, for me, it yields such excellent storytelling.
Because I was aborbed in the method of creating my story concurrent to its telling, the research process remained, for me, fresh and engaging. And because the writing took place in such proximity to the study I had put in to manage its raw materials, that too, for me, remained compelling as I went along.
***
If you are a writer - read, first of all. Not "for" any reason - only for yourself. Read second to educate yourself - on the process of writing, sure; and on the process of publishing, whether traditional or otherwise. Read finally for your readers - and find those you trust, let them read you too.
And through it ALL - write. All the time, through everything. Segregate it from research, if that is the way for YOU. But never actually stop it. Never let it go.
When I began writing, I set up a one-page timeline of major events I wanted to cover. Very early on, I realized that what I wanted to cover was much more than my initial idea for a novel; and so the timeline became a single-shot view of Clovis' lifetime. Born here, battled here, ascended ... first son ... marriage ... conversion ... some larger events in his world, but not specific to himself. It is as high-level a look at the story as is possible. From there, I began to formulate what I needed to reasearch, and I made a quick study of how to follow tangents within research, to build my world (primary sources on Clovis - particularly for a non-French- and non-Latin-speaker - are not exactly exhaustively thick on the ground; so research by context was necessarily called for), and what tangents not to follow. I learned how to gauge, very quickly, when to stop following the often interesting threads tangents had to offer. I learned, too, how to heft something once I had chosen to use it - and, sometimes, how to discard it after all.
For me, writing and research are much less segregated a pair of activities than, as far as I can tell, most other authors (especially in histfic) feel is acceptable. The writers I hear talk about it all speak of "when to quit researching and start writing" ... but, for me, to withhold the act of writing just isn't an option. And so, I am writing as I am researching.
Typically blasphemous of me, but I still stand by my finished work.
From the high-altitude view of the timeline, I begin to organize the information by where it fits into the story. For those things specific to Clovis, it was easy enough to spot what positions certain anecdotes and events should occupy. In some cases, I had to make a choice, out of theoretical discussions of his life, between one timeline and another. For instance, much tradition points to Clovis' conversion and baptism being concurrent events, the latter being an observation of the former, and a commemoration of the victory on the field which yielded the conversion in the first place. There are other possibilities, however; that baptism was viewed, then, in a different way than conversion - and that certain prominent figures actually put it off significantly ... figures on whom Clovis conscientiously may have modeled his own life. There is also the dynamic of its being a consecration - and a king is concsecreted, already, when he takes his throne. Finally, there is the fact that Clovis, by necessity of the charisma of his power and of his *lineage* claimed divine descent.
The contradiction between Clovis' expectation of his vital heritage - and his faith in a G-d not content with polytheism outside a certain trinity - presents both an irresistible dramatic opportunity for an author and a persuasive (to me - and I'm the writer, which puts me in the driver's seat) case for delayed baptism. The thematic idea, brought to us perhaps courtesy of Gregory of Tours, perhaps out of the reality of Clovis' progress in life, that he modeled himself after Constantine allowed me to use that modeling in a literate way to make certain points.
It would have been impossible for me to write The Ax and the Vase without some delay in the baptism, after conversion. At root, essentially, I didn't buy the legend - I didn't accept that these two events occurred together. And so, I placed the baptism well beyond the conversion - and used it to create a scene in which this man, this indomitable power in a crown, actually makes the choice to renounce the tenet of his divine descent ... and accepts that of divine right.
More than a moment's scene, this action is one which informs much of the ensuing history of Europe. First, Clovis lends his considerable power to an alliance with the Catholic Church - then not the leading light in Christianity, nor in Gaul. Finally, he accepts a role, as monarch, which in its essence sets that church in an unmached role of supremacy in the world. This is a tension which played itself out from Becket and beyond, through Henry VIII and the Reformation. This is a dynamic royals managed in capitulation, or cooperation, or confrontation, for a thousand years after Clovis' death.
This was a scene I needed to see in Ax. It was one of the choices research gave me.
***
The other choices I had to make, using my research, was where to use such information as had little to do with particular actions by or times in Clovis' life. I was building a basilica, I studied bricks and ancient church decoration and design. Clovis needed a beautiful sword; I studied pattern welding. There was a particular breed of horse popular in northern Europe, a unique animal - and Clovis' army was the first generation of cavalry in a Frankish tradition of infantry warfare. Clovis' first prince by Clotilde dies ... and I knew the types of grave goods used for royal children. I knew the relics found in his father's tomb. I knew the symbolism attached to certain artifacts of burial - for adults; for children.
Some of the study placed itself almost as easily as actions and events; there seemed to be a place for much of it. I also learned what to set myself to study; introducing a queen into a world, and a story, previously focused only on men, I put time not only into studying the textiles of women's graves - but also to working on the history of costume itself; did lace exist in fourth and fifth century Gaul? (Answer: of course not; though fiber-tied textiles have existed for thousands of years, it was not in place in this *time* and place.) Embroidery. Material. Wine. Crockery. Jewelry - and its figural design and symbolism. Carved gems. Cloisonne'. The articles of hygeine - sandalwood and ivory; combs and hairdressing; leg wear and dyeing techniques.
The archaeology of graves fascinated me significantly; and it offered the wealth it has a tendency to provide - yet, archaeology being what it is, how much of its knowledge reflected LIFE, as much as death? Choices had to be made even in what indicated what - about death, or daily existence. Delineations began to create themselves, even if only in my unprofessional mind. I know I talked with the archaeologist nearest and dearest to me - yet I don't know that I ever asked for actual advice. I'm arrogant that way. But - again - stand by the product.
All the while - a scene here, a piece of dialogue there. I wrote the blue away - taking the fact of that rare breed of horses, and providing Clovis with a timely, peculiar gift from an ally. I turned plugs black as I went along, and even worked on flow and knitting them overall. The tentpoles I put up didn't stand stark and alone; I clothed them with the canvas as I went along.
Utterly unacceptable.
Impossible for me to avoid.
Nothing I would, nor even could, ever apologize for. Over time, I made this method of work serve me so very well that now I cannot conceive any other way.
Some of my research will stand, too, as tentpoles for the second novel, the work in progress *now*. I coded, in my texts, as I went along. Yellow highligher was Clovis'. Pink for the other work. Some passages I plugged into Clovis - and also bookmarked in the nascent document set aside for II. Even some of the pre-edited text first worked for Ax was set down as reminders and context for II. The two works are different. But the work on each one went on at the same time.
I work in a way not allowed by any professional expectation in publishing. Per usual, I refuse to repent this rebelliousness. Because, for me, it yields such excellent storytelling.
Because I was aborbed in the method of creating my story concurrent to its telling, the research process remained, for me, fresh and engaging. And because the writing took place in such proximity to the study I had put in to manage its raw materials, that too, for me, remained compelling as I went along.
***
If you are a writer - read, first of all. Not "for" any reason - only for yourself. Read second to educate yourself - on the process of writing, sure; and on the process of publishing, whether traditional or otherwise. Read finally for your readers - and find those you trust, let them read you too.
And through it ALL - write. All the time, through everything. Segregate it from research, if that is the way for YOU. But never actually stop it. Never let it go.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Chopped
A banana of the perfect ripeness, a wonderful, gritty pear, a Virginia peach, a fistful of black, tart grapes. Dessert at my house was good tonight.
The problem with fruit salad, for me, is that in order to make it, you have to make quite a BIT of it - it's not really realistic to chop up one quarter of a fruit at a time and end up with one reasonable sized serving. Oh, but la.
Sometimes, you just have to have fruit salad. So dinner must be minimal. And, oh - dessert was maximal.
It's at times like these - with so many such wonderful fruits in the house - I miss X the most. Heh.
The problem with fruit salad, for me, is that in order to make it, you have to make quite a BIT of it - it's not really realistic to chop up one quarter of a fruit at a time and end up with one reasonable sized serving. Oh, but la.
Sometimes, you just have to have fruit salad. So dinner must be minimal. And, oh - dessert was maximal.
It's at times like these - with so many such wonderful fruits in the house - I miss X the most. Heh.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Back to You, Chet
Aftermathematics ...
***
I do think we have had several tremors since - but nothing approaching the scale of the main event. Mostly, just the same sorts of wobbles our building is prone to on its own resonating steam (have I told you about that? It vibrates so much some days I - no lie - get dizzy watching my monitor bob up and down. The low-key-ness of the effect can be vertiginous. So a LOT of us thought at first that was what we were experiencing, but it was SO strong - and just kept on GOING - to the point we stopped being angry at the architect and Facilities Management, and sobered up to what was happening pretty quick.
Apparently, the new guy, Doe, had said at lunch he'd never experienced an earthquake. Less than 20 minutes before one HAPPENED.
I'ma be nice to that guy Doe, I tellya.
Now, home again, I haven't found any damages yet, just a lot of stuff slightly shifted around. I'm kind of amazed none of the several glass things I bought over the weekend didn't fall from their high perches, but apparently they had good purchase and held their own. One is amusingly close to the edge of the mantel, though - I might photograph that because for some reason it cracks me up (that it didn't crack - down!). Kind of laughed when I put some groceries away and had trouble closing the cabinet door because "objects apparently shifted during the flight" or something.
Sid wanted nothing but to go outside and get the HELL away from me. So she is out hollering at neighbor dogs going by, and soaking up some reassuring golden sunshine. Aww.
***
I do think we have had several tremors since - but nothing approaching the scale of the main event. Mostly, just the same sorts of wobbles our building is prone to on its own resonating steam (have I told you about that? It vibrates so much some days I - no lie - get dizzy watching my monitor bob up and down. The low-key-ness of the effect can be vertiginous. So a LOT of us thought at first that was what we were experiencing, but it was SO strong - and just kept on GOING - to the point we stopped being angry at the architect and Facilities Management, and sobered up to what was happening pretty quick.
Apparently, the new guy, Doe, had said at lunch he'd never experienced an earthquake. Less than 20 minutes before one HAPPENED.
I'ma be nice to that guy Doe, I tellya.
Now, home again, I haven't found any damages yet, just a lot of stuff slightly shifted around. I'm kind of amazed none of the several glass things I bought over the weekend didn't fall from their high perches, but apparently they had good purchase and held their own. One is amusingly close to the edge of the mantel, though - I might photograph that because for some reason it cracks me up (that it didn't crack - down!). Kind of laughed when I put some groceries away and had trouble closing the cabinet door because "objects apparently shifted during the flight" or something.
Sid wanted nothing but to go outside and get the HELL away from me. So she is out hollering at neighbor dogs going by, and soaking up some reassuring golden sunshine. Aww.
Pass-saic (yeah, running low on 'em now)
Further adventures in email (yes, I know these are repetitive - I *said* this would be an unedited mosaic!):
***
3.7 miles underground was the last I heard.
I really have never felt anything like that. It's not that we've never had them, but as I said earlier I think - around here, "earthquake" means one boom. A sustained and serious shake like this was unbelievable - a terribly surreal experience, in the way you at first refuse to process it, and then angrily your brain wants to refute it. Then of course you sort of realize ... POWER. Which is enough to give anyone heartburn.
I was out over lunch, less than an hour (less than half an hour) before it hit, and the day was hot, golden, dry - beautiful. As it still is, of course - but so peaceful.
Really bizarre
***
3.7 miles underground was the last I heard.
I really have never felt anything like that. It's not that we've never had them, but as I said earlier I think - around here, "earthquake" means one boom. A sustained and serious shake like this was unbelievable - a terribly surreal experience, in the way you at first refuse to process it, and then angrily your brain wants to refute it. Then of course you sort of realize ... POWER. Which is enough to give anyone heartburn.
I was out over lunch, less than an hour (less than half an hour) before it hit, and the day was hot, golden, dry - beautiful. As it still is, of course - but so peaceful.
Really bizarre
Pro-saic
The massive emotional impact of the quake:
***
I was scared myself, I've never felt a quake like that before, and there's something to be said for the sensibility we have as humans regarding the solidity of the ground beneath our feet. At this point, I have a sustained headache of a unique variety - not of a type I haven't had before, but of a type I don't get regularly, and the distraction is palling mightily.
It's a really stupid observation (and no longer a joke, saying this for the sixtieth time this afternoon), but I am shaken, and really want to go home. I want to see what is broken and take care of the Sidster and shuck these clothes, frankly, which really smell like nerve-sweat to me. I want to walk with her, and feel that ground beneath our feet. Oh that poor old thing. I feel so bad for her.
***
I was scared myself, I've never felt a quake like that before, and there's something to be said for the sensibility we have as humans regarding the solidity of the ground beneath our feet. At this point, I have a sustained headache of a unique variety - not of a type I haven't had before, but of a type I don't get regularly, and the distraction is palling mightily.
It's a really stupid observation (and no longer a joke, saying this for the sixtieth time this afternoon), but I am shaken, and really want to go home. I want to see what is broken and take care of the Sidster and shuck these clothes, frankly, which really smell like nerve-sweat to me. I want to walk with her, and feel that ground beneath our feet. Oh that poor old thing. I feel so bad for her.
More-saic
From an early email today to X ...
***
The quake was a 5.8 magnitude, and centered RIGHT HERE. Z felt it in Brooklyn, and apparently it was felt in NC as well. I had things falling, and it was definitely scary. Sustained. Not typical for an eastern seaboard quake. We've had no evac and no damage to the building, but I suspect I will have one disgruntled pup on my hands in a few hours when I go home. I called mom and her response was that she's NEVER here for the really scary stuff (she missed Isabel several years ago, and a tornado once too). I mean, naturally that'd be the response - that "are you okay?" thing is strictly for amateurs, right?
Heh.
***
The quake was a 5.8 magnitude, and centered RIGHT HERE. Z felt it in Brooklyn, and apparently it was felt in NC as well. I had things falling, and it was definitely scary. Sustained. Not typical for an eastern seaboard quake. We've had no evac and no damage to the building, but I suspect I will have one disgruntled pup on my hands in a few hours when I go home. I called mom and her response was that she's NEVER here for the really scary stuff (she missed Isabel several years ago, and a tornado once too). I mean, naturally that'd be the response - that "are you okay?" thing is strictly for amateurs, right?
Heh.
Further Assurances
Some thoughts from a post I placed at Historical Fiction Online ...
***
The epicenter was only several miles from me, and we really shook, but the general area appears to be fine. We didn't even evacuate at work (formally, anyway - tons of folks toddled off with their laptops, though; any excuse!), BUT the tremor did last unusually long for central VA. We've had quakes here before, but they tend to consist of one single BOOM moment, which you can actually miss even if it's big. This was a sustained, clearly wavy, shake, and things did fall, but the essential upshot appears to be more broken pottery and jangled nerves than anything else.
Though it was a pretty good magnitude for this area at 5.8, the origin was also 3.7 miles beneath the surface, so the effect was very queer, and not sharp as it were.
I came home to a Siddy-pup VERY offended that yet again I had left her ALONE to suffer death, and a whole lot of "shifted during the flight" sorts of stuff in my cupboards etc. - but, remarkably, nothing I have found yet appears to have been damaged, nor anything fallen. Which, considering how much time and money I spent in antique stores wandering home with new pieces of beautiful glass just this past weekend (of COURSE), is pretty amazing!
It was in fact scarier after it passed and realization set in than during -when it was almost comical in some ways. Afterward, hearing one of my coworkers calling his scared-sounding kids, and being so smart, and so reassuring, and so generous with them and calm, was really affecting. They sounded stark terrified, and he was just wonderful for them.
I am okay and my dog is milkin' it. And I am encouraging her to. Good old girl.
***
The epicenter was only several miles from me, and we really shook, but the general area appears to be fine. We didn't even evacuate at work (formally, anyway - tons of folks toddled off with their laptops, though; any excuse!), BUT the tremor did last unusually long for central VA. We've had quakes here before, but they tend to consist of one single BOOM moment, which you can actually miss even if it's big. This was a sustained, clearly wavy, shake, and things did fall, but the essential upshot appears to be more broken pottery and jangled nerves than anything else.
Though it was a pretty good magnitude for this area at 5.8, the origin was also 3.7 miles beneath the surface, so the effect was very queer, and not sharp as it were.
I came home to a Siddy-pup VERY offended that yet again I had left her ALONE to suffer death, and a whole lot of "shifted during the flight" sorts of stuff in my cupboards etc. - but, remarkably, nothing I have found yet appears to have been damaged, nor anything fallen. Which, considering how much time and money I spent in antique stores wandering home with new pieces of beautiful glass just this past weekend (of COURSE), is pretty amazing!
It was in fact scarier after it passed and realization set in than during -when it was almost comical in some ways. Afterward, hearing one of my coworkers calling his scared-sounding kids, and being so smart, and so reassuring, and so generous with them and calm, was really affecting. They sounded stark terrified, and he was just wonderful for them.
I am okay and my dog is milkin' it. And I am encouraging her to. Good old girl.
Mosaic
I'll post some fragments from the day, which seems appropriate given its events.
I am fine, and Siddy-La is okay, if rather resentful at my consistently leaving her alone to manage natural disasters without any help. The house endured more shifting-contents-in-flight than actual damage, and work was wobbly, but we just got back to it and kept doing things.
I am fine, and Siddy-La is okay, if rather resentful at my consistently leaving her alone to manage natural disasters without any help. The house endured more shifting-contents-in-flight than actual damage, and work was wobbly, but we just got back to it and kept doing things.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Oh, And
I do know I shifted from italics for book titles, to quotation marks. While I do prefer italicization, it requires a vanishingly small amount more effort, and after the workday I had today, even vanishing effort can be a bit much to self-demand. My apologies to any dilettantes offended by my inability to fully organize standards of usage on even my own blog.
Heh.
Heh.
Bookish Enough
Reading as much as I have, since starting with JRW and the first, misty chapters of Ax, about and by writers and about writing and reading, I have felt for a long time that I am not bookish enough. I'm a good writer, but I don't seem to have a singlemindedness about either my authorship nor the artifacts-of-life (I also considered some clever use of "artifactual" here) as they pertain to books and quantity of reading. It's not like I'm wielding a measuring stick here, but it does feel sometimes as if "everyone else does more" ... reads more, owns more books - somehow is "more" entitled to being a writer, by dint of being a reader, than I am. My boss made a Stendahl reference not long ago, and I was afraid to admit: I'm not what you'd call well-versed there. Neither in French lit, nor even in a lot of classics, whatever the nationality. I tend to be a VERY eclectic reader. There is a heavy biblical underpinning, of course - I can still get lost in there very easily - and I have read a respectable segment of standard-issue schoolin' lit and also some off-the-path Victoriana and other eras, though I am likely too weak in 20th century standards, and those I have gone at I have refused to remember like a good student.
It all goes back to my contrarianism. But it also goes to the fact that I simply disbelieve in prescriptivism. Least of all, for READING - an act which, for me, whorish as it may sound to so many, is not for me a participation in The Arts, but the engagement in entertainment. Agents who make lists of books one "must" have read - or who name authors one "must" know (and the one who named "Slaugherhouse Five" as perhaps the best book in all history) - to me miss the point of reading, which is ENJOYMENT. Storytelling is an art, to be sure - but by my lights, it is first and foremost *entertainment*. This doesn't negate its deeper potential - nor even thematics, spiritual uplift, all the fancy Things and Stuff - but it is, for me, the guiding force. I am simultaneously intimidated by and disgusted by those who would dismiss another reader for following an insufficient path of literature. Of all insane arrogance - only stuff popular enough to have become "classic" - or culturally "relevant" enough (to a limited population of the world) to be widely disseminated - is worthy of consideration ...
... and - by far worse - should be made compulsory??
Not even if it did make me bookish enough would I follow that particular tenet. The path is not primrose-colored enough to stain my tootsies on.
***
But this post was not intended to be about contrarianism and prescriptivism in personal reading catalogues. It was actually meant to start on a musing about my home.
Thinking about this defensiveness - that I'm not "enough" of a reader; that I don't have all the right cred, to be a real writer - I was sitting in my living room this weekend, and realizing how truly surrounded I am with books.
Walking into my home, nobody would be struck by the predominance of a traditional "library" atmosphere. Yet everywhere around me, such a variety of books, all ove the place. By the front door, on the small table, are some in-progress reads - a Mary Stewart (The Crystal Cave), and a Penman on tap - the bibles, and a Tanakh. At the other end of the couch, stacked on the small red slate table - the anthologies I picked up at the antique store this weekend, the books I bought at Orca, the first edition of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" my mom gave me for my birthday (*love!*), The Chronicles of the Tombs (which I cannot recommend highly enough for historians, Victorian curiosity lovers, or people who just dig inscriptions and epitaphs), and several gifts from my brother and family.
In the office, the bookshelves my father built for his and mom's Dream Home twenty-seven years ago are lined two-deep, stacked on top with an antique six-volume history of Virginia, and all my reasearch for Ax lies in there, some of it sidewise on top of lit mags, yearbooks, and at least two dissertations (not mine). The Will and Ariel Durant volumes are on the small record rack he built. All my college milk-crates (dressed up, now, with a runner from grandma's house) house ancient journals I really need to burn, and the Texas Instruments calculator (Still in box) dad left behind - and on top of those is another set of miscellany, including books from my childhood, some more gifts from my brother and family, and at least two more yard sale finds.
Still farther across the living room, the complete Agatha Christie (same yard sale, if I remember) and "50 Great Ghost Stories" - still with the bookmark I used in it growing up. Top that off with a NFS copy of "The Messiah" and "Under the Banner of Heaven" and the votive holders have a nice pile to sit on.
And then there is the bookshelf. The one I built WITH my dad. The one where I learned how to use the router. The one with the "show" books - ones I grew up with - coffee table ones (I haven't even mentioned my actually-on-the-coffee-table coffee table books) - museum souvenir books, college texts including the one my dad gave me when he was a test reader for it "Physics for People Who Think They Don't Like Physics", Tao of Pooh and Piglet too, my Adamses, and a Tutankhamon I remember from grandma's as a child ... Photo books, art books, design books, even a Vogue drawing volume - and all the religion and philosophy I saved from college days ... The ancient, delicate, tiny "Sonnets From the Portugese" ... the Cicero text dad read before he died ... and every photo album I have compiled in my life ...
If these aren't enough for anyone's measure of a reader - or of a writer - I don't need to work with them, and will be content with their rejections. For me, though, they are beautiful. Pieces of my life.
It all goes back to my contrarianism. But it also goes to the fact that I simply disbelieve in prescriptivism. Least of all, for READING - an act which, for me, whorish as it may sound to so many, is not for me a participation in The Arts, but the engagement in entertainment. Agents who make lists of books one "must" have read - or who name authors one "must" know (and the one who named "Slaugherhouse Five" as perhaps the best book in all history) - to me miss the point of reading, which is ENJOYMENT. Storytelling is an art, to be sure - but by my lights, it is first and foremost *entertainment*. This doesn't negate its deeper potential - nor even thematics, spiritual uplift, all the fancy Things and Stuff - but it is, for me, the guiding force. I am simultaneously intimidated by and disgusted by those who would dismiss another reader for following an insufficient path of literature. Of all insane arrogance - only stuff popular enough to have become "classic" - or culturally "relevant" enough (to a limited population of the world) to be widely disseminated - is worthy of consideration ...
... and - by far worse - should be made compulsory??
Not even if it did make me bookish enough would I follow that particular tenet. The path is not primrose-colored enough to stain my tootsies on.
***
But this post was not intended to be about contrarianism and prescriptivism in personal reading catalogues. It was actually meant to start on a musing about my home.
Thinking about this defensiveness - that I'm not "enough" of a reader; that I don't have all the right cred, to be a real writer - I was sitting in my living room this weekend, and realizing how truly surrounded I am with books.
Walking into my home, nobody would be struck by the predominance of a traditional "library" atmosphere. Yet everywhere around me, such a variety of books, all ove the place. By the front door, on the small table, are some in-progress reads - a Mary Stewart (The Crystal Cave), and a Penman on tap - the bibles, and a Tanakh. At the other end of the couch, stacked on the small red slate table - the anthologies I picked up at the antique store this weekend, the books I bought at Orca, the first edition of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" my mom gave me for my birthday (*love!*), The Chronicles of the Tombs (which I cannot recommend highly enough for historians, Victorian curiosity lovers, or people who just dig inscriptions and epitaphs), and several gifts from my brother and family.
In the office, the bookshelves my father built for his and mom's Dream Home twenty-seven years ago are lined two-deep, stacked on top with an antique six-volume history of Virginia, and all my reasearch for Ax lies in there, some of it sidewise on top of lit mags, yearbooks, and at least two dissertations (not mine). The Will and Ariel Durant volumes are on the small record rack he built. All my college milk-crates (dressed up, now, with a runner from grandma's house) house ancient journals I really need to burn, and the Texas Instruments calculator (Still in box) dad left behind - and on top of those is another set of miscellany, including books from my childhood, some more gifts from my brother and family, and at least two more yard sale finds.
Still farther across the living room, the complete Agatha Christie (same yard sale, if I remember) and "50 Great Ghost Stories" - still with the bookmark I used in it growing up. Top that off with a NFS copy of "The Messiah" and "Under the Banner of Heaven" and the votive holders have a nice pile to sit on.
And then there is the bookshelf. The one I built WITH my dad. The one where I learned how to use the router. The one with the "show" books - ones I grew up with - coffee table ones (I haven't even mentioned my actually-on-the-coffee-table coffee table books) - museum souvenir books, college texts including the one my dad gave me when he was a test reader for it "Physics for People Who Think They Don't Like Physics", Tao of Pooh and Piglet too, my Adamses, and a Tutankhamon I remember from grandma's as a child ... Photo books, art books, design books, even a Vogue drawing volume - and all the religion and philosophy I saved from college days ... The ancient, delicate, tiny "Sonnets From the Portugese" ... the Cicero text dad read before he died ... and every photo album I have compiled in my life ...
If these aren't enough for anyone's measure of a reader - or of a writer - I don't need to work with them, and will be content with their rejections. For me, though, they are beautiful. Pieces of my life.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
What's This Horse Doing Under Me?
Ohhhhh - wait. I must've gotten back up on it.
Now, quite seriously, if only the RESPONSES would please come.
Now, quite seriously, if only the RESPONSES would please come.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
The Rs Have It
Maybe it's the process of contemporary querying, but these numbers seem to me more comically low than intimidatingly *high*. I've queried more agents, both in in-person meetings and in correspondence, than most of these apparent over-a-lifetime sbumissions add up to. And I am good - with a great story - no question. I am acquainted with plenty of authors, too - and, these days, as far as I can tell, querying 100 or 200 agents is in no way overdoing it. The guy who only managed 160 in his lifetime, and is considered the most-rejected author by this list, must have measured the term "rejection" by a different standard than I understand. Were these rejections from agents, or the post-agenting-process rejections by PUBLISHING houses?
That simply has to be it. Because the rejections from agents list, as far as I can tell, should never - ever - stop at TWENTY. Holy smokes, if I'd been agented twenty queries in ... ? I'd consider myself a veritable wirting goddess of some sort.
***
Also ... not for nothing, but who actually has the luxury to gnash their teeth like this at every rejection? No, I mean seriously. Nobody loves it - but is it actually the case that there are people with time for histrionics such as those described here?
I don't know, maybe I am simply not human enough, that I don't consider my work to be inviolable by other people's opinions. It's bewilderng to consider a mindset that affords rejection such a high allowance for reaction. Sure - there are those who would think my attitude that every R is "one step closer to success" to be insufferably Pollyanna, or unrealistic, or maybe requiring too much sanguinity - but anyone who knows me is aware I am hardly a cockeyed, grinning fool when it comes to my writing (or anything else). I refuse to let the bastards get me DOWN. But that doesn't make me a delusional, unable to see the real lack of value in my talents. I just can't understand expending much energy on non-starters. There are so many options available to me (*and* to agents) I don't think I can approach this Highlander-style, and decide "there can be only one" ... and cry and wail, when that "one" doesn't like me back ...
That simply has to be it. Because the rejections from agents list, as far as I can tell, should never - ever - stop at TWENTY. Holy smokes, if I'd been agented twenty queries in ... ? I'd consider myself a veritable wirting goddess of some sort.
***
Also ... not for nothing, but who actually has the luxury to gnash their teeth like this at every rejection? No, I mean seriously. Nobody loves it - but is it actually the case that there are people with time for histrionics such as those described here?
I don't know, maybe I am simply not human enough, that I don't consider my work to be inviolable by other people's opinions. It's bewilderng to consider a mindset that affords rejection such a high allowance for reaction. Sure - there are those who would think my attitude that every R is "one step closer to success" to be insufferably Pollyanna, or unrealistic, or maybe requiring too much sanguinity - but anyone who knows me is aware I am hardly a cockeyed, grinning fool when it comes to my writing (or anything else). I refuse to let the bastards get me DOWN. But that doesn't make me a delusional, unable to see the real lack of value in my talents. I just can't understand expending much energy on non-starters. There are so many options available to me (*and* to agents) I don't think I can approach this Highlander-style, and decide "there can be only one" ... and cry and wail, when that "one" doesn't like me back ...
Friday, August 19, 2011
Okay, Holy Cr*p
There is a FOOTBALL game on tonight?
It's August. Right?
*To the DVD shelf, Batman!*
(To watch my new copy of "In a Lonely Place" ... mmm!)
And editing to note: Apparently, there are TWO football games on tonight. And I do not have cable. Yeesh.
It's August. Right?
*To the DVD shelf, Batman!*
(To watch my new copy of "In a Lonely Place" ... mmm!)
And editing to note: Apparently, there are TWO football games on tonight. And I do not have cable. Yeesh.
Hah
Okay, so Michelle Bachmann's handlers are physically abusing FOX NEWS reporters??
Did she not get the memo, that Fox is the fawning Bestest Friend of her party ... ?
Did she not get the memo, that Fox is the fawning Bestest Friend of her party ... ?
Three Free
The West Memphis Three are OUT of jail, today. God bless them all.
I won't bother with a link. Anyone left who doesn't know what I am talking about will have no problem finding out, I suspect. I do recommend "Paradise Lost", the first of the documentaries about the story.
I won't bother with a link. Anyone left who doesn't know what I am talking about will have no problem finding out, I suspect. I do recommend "Paradise Lost", the first of the documentaries about the story.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
I Had Forgotten (or just never realized)
... how prone Captain Picard was to SERIOUSLY boneheaded decisions. I think we think of TOS as being sort of macho and naive, and Shatner was a bit of a cartoon - so we forgive the clumsier plotlines born of his randy or easily offended nature. But an English accent and excellent posture render Picard's image a lot more commanding, in terms of respect.
Yet here is a guy so easily swayed in one ep he *despises* children, and in the next he's all "oh, an alien said Wes is special, so I'm suddenly going to become his strict but proud mentor." Then he's dematerializing himself, then he's sending a CHILD DOWN TO THE SURFACE OF AN UN-EVALUATED PLANET ... so as to EVALUATE it ... and, of course, my personal favorite (from very much later on - in "Nemesis") ordering Troi to get over being sexually violated, because he's got a ship to run.
TNG overall has aged really well for me; it's a reminder, after spending more time with DS9 in recent years, of what Roddenberry's first visions and values were for his creation. But Picard isn't the freshest character to revisit in depth.
(Yeah, I know - crucify me now, this is blasphemy - what can I say, I'm a nerd, but I'm also a contrarian. If Jean Luc acts a fool, I can't kowtow to canon hagiography.)
Yet here is a guy so easily swayed in one ep he *despises* children, and in the next he's all "oh, an alien said Wes is special, so I'm suddenly going to become his strict but proud mentor." Then he's dematerializing himself, then he's sending a CHILD DOWN TO THE SURFACE OF AN UN-EVALUATED PLANET ... so as to EVALUATE it ... and, of course, my personal favorite (from very much later on - in "Nemesis") ordering Troi to get over being sexually violated, because he's got a ship to run.
TNG overall has aged really well for me; it's a reminder, after spending more time with DS9 in recent years, of what Roddenberry's first visions and values were for his creation. But Picard isn't the freshest character to revisit in depth.
(Yeah, I know - crucify me now, this is blasphemy - what can I say, I'm a nerd, but I'm also a contrarian. If Jean Luc acts a fool, I can't kowtow to canon hagiography.)
Monday, August 15, 2011
Status
The last partial request has been out for four months, and having followed up once at three, I don't see pestering the agent again. Still, one does get to wishing all the querying came to something.
I didn't win the pitch contest, results out today, but requests would have been made two weeks ago. So ten queries active.
Time to get some more pitches lobbed. So to speak. Blah.
I didn't win the pitch contest, results out today, but requests would have been made two weeks ago. So ten queries active.
Time to get some more pitches lobbed. So to speak. Blah.
Ah, the Easy Joy of the Canine Set ...
... upon encountering a freshly-mown lawn: the impulse to joy is so profound and so concrete. What is the blessing of this state of events?
Poop, of course. Happy, happy poop.
*Puppy squee*
Poop, of course. Happy, happy poop.
*Puppy squee*
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Far Point Far Away
Netflix has finally come up with Star Trek: The Next Generation on instant view, and heaven help me, seriously. Today I watched Encounter at Far Point for the first time in probably at least fifteen years, if not all of the 24 years it's been since TNG made its debut. I know it can't have been that long; but I do know it's been thirteen years or so since I had cable, and perhaps even longer than that since I had access to weekend afternoon Trek marathons. So.
I'm pleased at how very well the show seems to age. For its debut, "cinematically", the soundtrack is quite annoyingly obtrusive - but I can't think of a lot to say in complaint on a production level. Probably the worst moment of that was a Disney motif for Wesley's entry onto the bridge (... seriously, guys ... ?) - but I found its cheesier looks to be much more a probably-very-canny-choice in homage to the original. Ahh, the obvious soundstages and orange flat skies. There are a lot of production design choices we recognized very clearly, even then, as nods to TOS (for the innocent: the original series = TOS). The elaborate 'do on Troi, the short skirts they abandoned almost instantaneously (did we have an outcry in the 80s? ah, how I would miss that, if it were so; these days, there seems a positive vogue for objectifying women on TV ... sad to think of the 80s as a golden age of LESS gender discrimination), the explicitly Statement plots.
In that way, not only has the show aged well, it's about enough to show up current television. But that is probably best left to another rant (particularly the bit about sexism). The effects really aren't bad. Yeah, the jellyfish looked a bit stiff. But we thought so at the time, I recall it very clearly. And having one "mate" glow pinkish and the other a bit bluish is an amusing sort of "here is the boy and here is the girl" kind of artifact. But then, TNG had a great love of magenta. Let it be possible for ANYTHING to glow pink, and it would. No different, I suppose, than the current sci-fi vogue for LED white, or blue, or the green of ten years ago - or even the ubiquitous purple-saturated gelling one sees tackying up the "fairy tale" worlds of dating game reality teevee. We have a passion for fashion in lighting. So it goes. At least the orange gave us a grin about the sixties.
I'd forgotten Jean Luc's loathing of children, and suddenly remember what a big part of the character that was. I wonder whether I will come to feel, watching the first season or so, that making JLP a much warmer character over time was a bad idea. Heh.
Not that I dislike Wheaton. Given the man he's become, it'd be impossible to do that, though I hardly remember him as the major enhancement of the series in its day. No, the irritating character honor goes, as it always has, and as freshly and vividly as ever, to Gates McFadden's Dr. Crusher. Prickly and unappealing from the word go, I could not stand her even into her vanishingly thin presence in the films - and her opening scenes are no reassurance that "she couldn't have been that bad." She was. A nice looking lady, and I can't blame the actress - but, ugh, what an irritant, that character.
Love Q, though. Even in this, his somewhat unformed debut, John DeLancie is as DeLancie-licious as he can be, and G-d love THAT character and his actor all together now. You can savor him, even this early on, even if only for knowing what fun Q ended up being.
I tend to forget Yar's existence at all, but she was a nice, strong presence. For some reason, I remembered Denise Crosby's acting as being rather wooden, but years seem to have given perspective, and she just seems assimilated now, into that certain school of Trek acting which is a little bith toothy, but not actually bad. Again, maybe further episodes will remind me why she seemed embarrassing at the time, but Far Point makes a nice point of her authority without getting *too* overwrought (this soon) about her strength. And, again, its very possible that the contemporary atmosphere, in which women have become objects and shrews all over again for a new millennium makes this now-vintage take on a female character exciting again.
Inevitably, the central effect of watching these again is going to be an invigoration of my need to own the series. And here I am only up to season 4 of DS9! Thank goodness the car has been paid off. I can see spending far too much money on reruns in my future.
(She says ... even as she plans a comparison-shopping jaunt by Amazon and eBay to see what prices look like on season 4 of Big Bang Theory ...)
I'm pleased at how very well the show seems to age. For its debut, "cinematically", the soundtrack is quite annoyingly obtrusive - but I can't think of a lot to say in complaint on a production level. Probably the worst moment of that was a Disney motif for Wesley's entry onto the bridge (... seriously, guys ... ?) - but I found its cheesier looks to be much more a probably-very-canny-choice in homage to the original. Ahh, the obvious soundstages and orange flat skies. There are a lot of production design choices we recognized very clearly, even then, as nods to TOS (for the innocent: the original series = TOS). The elaborate 'do on Troi, the short skirts they abandoned almost instantaneously (did we have an outcry in the 80s? ah, how I would miss that, if it were so; these days, there seems a positive vogue for objectifying women on TV ... sad to think of the 80s as a golden age of LESS gender discrimination), the explicitly Statement plots.
In that way, not only has the show aged well, it's about enough to show up current television. But that is probably best left to another rant (particularly the bit about sexism). The effects really aren't bad. Yeah, the jellyfish looked a bit stiff. But we thought so at the time, I recall it very clearly. And having one "mate" glow pinkish and the other a bit bluish is an amusing sort of "here is the boy and here is the girl" kind of artifact. But then, TNG had a great love of magenta. Let it be possible for ANYTHING to glow pink, and it would. No different, I suppose, than the current sci-fi vogue for LED white, or blue, or the green of ten years ago - or even the ubiquitous purple-saturated gelling one sees tackying up the "fairy tale" worlds of dating game reality teevee. We have a passion for fashion in lighting. So it goes. At least the orange gave us a grin about the sixties.
I'd forgotten Jean Luc's loathing of children, and suddenly remember what a big part of the character that was. I wonder whether I will come to feel, watching the first season or so, that making JLP a much warmer character over time was a bad idea. Heh.
Not that I dislike Wheaton. Given the man he's become, it'd be impossible to do that, though I hardly remember him as the major enhancement of the series in its day. No, the irritating character honor goes, as it always has, and as freshly and vividly as ever, to Gates McFadden's Dr. Crusher. Prickly and unappealing from the word go, I could not stand her even into her vanishingly thin presence in the films - and her opening scenes are no reassurance that "she couldn't have been that bad." She was. A nice looking lady, and I can't blame the actress - but, ugh, what an irritant, that character.
Love Q, though. Even in this, his somewhat unformed debut, John DeLancie is as DeLancie-licious as he can be, and G-d love THAT character and his actor all together now. You can savor him, even this early on, even if only for knowing what fun Q ended up being.
I tend to forget Yar's existence at all, but she was a nice, strong presence. For some reason, I remembered Denise Crosby's acting as being rather wooden, but years seem to have given perspective, and she just seems assimilated now, into that certain school of Trek acting which is a little bith toothy, but not actually bad. Again, maybe further episodes will remind me why she seemed embarrassing at the time, but Far Point makes a nice point of her authority without getting *too* overwrought (this soon) about her strength. And, again, its very possible that the contemporary atmosphere, in which women have become objects and shrews all over again for a new millennium makes this now-vintage take on a female character exciting again.
Inevitably, the central effect of watching these again is going to be an invigoration of my need to own the series. And here I am only up to season 4 of DS9! Thank goodness the car has been paid off. I can see spending far too much money on reruns in my future.
(She says ... even as she plans a comparison-shopping jaunt by Amazon and eBay to see what prices look like on season 4 of Big Bang Theory ...)
Saturday, August 13, 2011
"You Should Write" ...
Every writer hears it, and I suspect every writer with a blog probably writes about it - yet it makes it no less frustrating, that the situation is a bit of a cliche'.
I've certainly had the conversation more than once - but it was the iteration a week or two ago which seems to be sticking with me and prompting me to write.
"You should write something lighthearted."
The purveyor of this particular advice is someone who's known me long - but understands me little; and who, frankly, doesn't try to. It is what it is - and it isn't the point of this post. Not entirely.
"You should write something lighthearted."
What this means, coming from this source, is, "You don't really know what you're doing; please allow me to 'help' you by pointing you in the direction of something that might actually sell. Also something I would prefer to read, and to tell people about, as I know the author."
I did give the explanation that, having completed one novel, and having been selling it for a year and a half now, it really isn't a "just like that" proposition - to go shifting gears and genres, and (ya know) to WRITE AN ENTIRE NEW NOVEL to suit her advice. I did not explain about the seven years I have been educating myself about the industry, about the fact that it *takes* this long to shill a book ... about the minor little detail, that an author must write out of inspiration, not out of (wrongheaded) ideas of the market.
*Sigh*
I'm close enough with this advisor that there persists a sense of duty, on her part, that there will come a time it will be an inevitability she'll "have to" read my book. This cannot be an appealing prospect. This is exactly why I have spent all the time since I started the writing telling friends, family, coworkers, even casual acquaintances who are so generous as to ask about the progress: there is no obligation to read my book. I wouldn't make my family read it; in most likelihood, I wouldn't *let* my nieces read it (before a certain level of manturity - and interest - anyway); I wish my friends didn't all say "Oh, I can't wait to read it" when I know it may not be to their real taste.
I know my audience(s). The market for The Ax and the Vase is not a parallel match for the population of my everyday life. Even some of those people who have been most encouraging - and, unbeknownst to them, helpful to my work - aren't folks I would think would care for the subject. "George Clooney" - an executive at the last mainstream financial firm I worked for (who, amusingly, called *me* "Angelina Jolie"; and who asked me every single time I saw him "how that novel is going") gave immeasurable practical support; and I would be amazed, just these few years later, if he even remembered that I exist on this planet.
All this is to say ... that I have less concern to fight the extraneous "you should write" dynamic, than to alleviate the sense of obligation those who know me develop, regarding the novel - which leads them to wish they could be obligated to something more palatable than my brand of historical fiction. Publishers don't froth over an author's intimate fanbase. They want general readership. And Ax can provide that. I just happen to be one of those weirdos who do not, apparently, hang out exclusively with my audience.
My plans on that have more to do with a marketing circuit. Cultivating all my University connections, to come talk at various schools and read and/or sign, when the time comes. Hitting up my business owner friends, offering nights with the author. Massaging corporate communications types up and down my resume', and bookstore upon bookstore upon every bookstore that will have me. Friendly enough.
But not to the point ... of giving me "you should write" advice ...
Heh.
I've certainly had the conversation more than once - but it was the iteration a week or two ago which seems to be sticking with me and prompting me to write.
"You should write something lighthearted."
The purveyor of this particular advice is someone who's known me long - but understands me little; and who, frankly, doesn't try to. It is what it is - and it isn't the point of this post. Not entirely.
"You should write something lighthearted."
What this means, coming from this source, is, "You don't really know what you're doing; please allow me to 'help' you by pointing you in the direction of something that might actually sell. Also something I would prefer to read, and to tell people about, as I know the author."
I did give the explanation that, having completed one novel, and having been selling it for a year and a half now, it really isn't a "just like that" proposition - to go shifting gears and genres, and (ya know) to WRITE AN ENTIRE NEW NOVEL to suit her advice. I did not explain about the seven years I have been educating myself about the industry, about the fact that it *takes* this long to shill a book ... about the minor little detail, that an author must write out of inspiration, not out of (wrongheaded) ideas of the market.
*Sigh*
I'm close enough with this advisor that there persists a sense of duty, on her part, that there will come a time it will be an inevitability she'll "have to" read my book. This cannot be an appealing prospect. This is exactly why I have spent all the time since I started the writing telling friends, family, coworkers, even casual acquaintances who are so generous as to ask about the progress: there is no obligation to read my book. I wouldn't make my family read it; in most likelihood, I wouldn't *let* my nieces read it (before a certain level of manturity - and interest - anyway); I wish my friends didn't all say "Oh, I can't wait to read it" when I know it may not be to their real taste.
I know my audience(s). The market for The Ax and the Vase is not a parallel match for the population of my everyday life. Even some of those people who have been most encouraging - and, unbeknownst to them, helpful to my work - aren't folks I would think would care for the subject. "George Clooney" - an executive at the last mainstream financial firm I worked for (who, amusingly, called *me* "Angelina Jolie"; and who asked me every single time I saw him "how that novel is going") gave immeasurable practical support; and I would be amazed, just these few years later, if he even remembered that I exist on this planet.
All this is to say ... that I have less concern to fight the extraneous "you should write" dynamic, than to alleviate the sense of obligation those who know me develop, regarding the novel - which leads them to wish they could be obligated to something more palatable than my brand of historical fiction. Publishers don't froth over an author's intimate fanbase. They want general readership. And Ax can provide that. I just happen to be one of those weirdos who do not, apparently, hang out exclusively with my audience.
My plans on that have more to do with a marketing circuit. Cultivating all my University connections, to come talk at various schools and read and/or sign, when the time comes. Hitting up my business owner friends, offering nights with the author. Massaging corporate communications types up and down my resume', and bookstore upon bookstore upon every bookstore that will have me. Friendly enough.
But not to the point ... of giving me "you should write" advice ...
Heh.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
"There's Lots of Darks Out Tonight"
I could NOT be angrier with Blogger right now. I opened this window to create the post, and minutes later the site went offline. When I hit the "tough luck" screen, there was a link to the Status page - which gave me the day-old news that the site would be going down at 5:00 PST today (because, after all, who the heck uses the INTERNET at 8:00 EST? or, for that matter, at the end of the workday in Cali ... ?). NO NOTICE ON MY DASHBOARD. NO NOTICE ON THE COMPOSITION PAGE. Which, you know, was WORKING when I opened it.
I guess we are supposed to be constantly checking the obscure little posts on Blogger's Status page. Gah.
So anyway. This is an incredibly crappy, unsatisfying reconstruction of what was a pithy and lovely post about two hours ago. *Seethe*
My older niece said this when she was two or so, in the car at night, after a long flight, on the way to grandma and granddaddy's house. It's a way of looking at the night any writer could envy; seeing the dark, and being able to describe it. Instead of the perfectly serviceable "it's dark" - she instead saw forms, she saw the multiplicity of night, she saw depths and expressed them (without the easy expedient of, for instance, "depths"). Her observation underscores the power of seeing things - *SEEING* them - without rules, but with the simplicity of clarity and honesty. There is no arguing: she was right.
Her approach to words was learning, then - but learning, as we know, has always been play. ... Or play is learning.
I use language with an enormous sense of play. It is one of my favorite things, to get people to laugh. Not class-clown laugh - but surprise laugh. I use words with the same unexpected play as my niece (still does, over a decade later), and delight when they delight someone else as much as they do me.
I am fortunate, in having friends who are willing to indulge in delight - and in words.
In writing Clovis, I refused ploy in favor of play. Histfic of my period tend for some reason to be little associated with wit - though Victorian, or Elizabethan, or other periods may indulge. Yet humor is human; there's no authenticity in writing funless Forsooth-ery - nor in planting Weighty Declamation throughout your dialogue. It's not fair to preclude cleverness, least of all for someone who must have been intelligent.
Blah. I am so mad at Blogger. I've completely lost the very good original ending of this post. I will have to come back and edit this if it is to be saved. But I am mad enough I insist on being stupid enough to post this shameful, crappy post. Just to spite BLOGGER. Which has cruelly betrayed my niece's brilliance.
*Insert outrageous swearing here*
I guess we are supposed to be constantly checking the obscure little posts on Blogger's Status page. Gah.
So anyway. This is an incredibly crappy, unsatisfying reconstruction of what was a pithy and lovely post about two hours ago. *Seethe*
My older niece said this when she was two or so, in the car at night, after a long flight, on the way to grandma and granddaddy's house. It's a way of looking at the night any writer could envy; seeing the dark, and being able to describe it. Instead of the perfectly serviceable "it's dark" - she instead saw forms, she saw the multiplicity of night, she saw depths and expressed them (without the easy expedient of, for instance, "depths"). Her observation underscores the power of seeing things - *SEEING* them - without rules, but with the simplicity of clarity and honesty. There is no arguing: she was right.
Her approach to words was learning, then - but learning, as we know, has always been play. ... Or play is learning.
I use language with an enormous sense of play. It is one of my favorite things, to get people to laugh. Not class-clown laugh - but surprise laugh. I use words with the same unexpected play as my niece (still does, over a decade later), and delight when they delight someone else as much as they do me.
I am fortunate, in having friends who are willing to indulge in delight - and in words.
In writing Clovis, I refused ploy in favor of play. Histfic of my period tend for some reason to be little associated with wit - though Victorian, or Elizabethan, or other periods may indulge. Yet humor is human; there's no authenticity in writing funless Forsooth-ery - nor in planting Weighty Declamation throughout your dialogue. It's not fair to preclude cleverness, least of all for someone who must have been intelligent.
Blah. I am so mad at Blogger. I've completely lost the very good original ending of this post. I will have to come back and edit this if it is to be saved. But I am mad enough I insist on being stupid enough to post this shameful, crappy post. Just to spite BLOGGER. Which has cruelly betrayed my niece's brilliance.
*Insert outrageous swearing here*
Monday, August 8, 2011
Restlessness Is Good
When I get into the "change" mode - needing to do small things with my bangs, shoving around the furniture for two days on end, finally actually writing about *writing* on my authorial blog - it tends to be a good thing. When I was younger, it often was a fugue state, a non-coping mechanism, a frustration, a power struggle with myself. As I have gotten older, I've come to be able to recognize the energy as it crests, to know when it is coming, and to think ahead of ways to use it.
Alongside poking around in these obvious, small ways, I have been able to knit some thoughts together. (I do not, after all, kill them *all* ...) This in fact keeps me from the necessary public face of this blog, neatening it up from all the randomness and off-topic-ery of August so far. But it is overall better. I will tend to this page, though. I will minister to it, knowing I still have something like a dozen active queries out and one never knows when one is being read (and when I am being Googled, or my links clicked). But it is good to minister, too, to rather more substantial writing.
Alongside poking around in these obvious, small ways, I have been able to knit some thoughts together. (I do not, after all, kill them *all* ...) This in fact keeps me from the necessary public face of this blog, neatening it up from all the randomness and off-topic-ery of August so far. But it is overall better. I will tend to this page, though. I will minister to it, knowing I still have something like a dozen active queries out and one never knows when one is being read (and when I am being Googled, or my links clicked). But it is good to minister, too, to rather more substantial writing.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Item #1
Okay, the bedroom has been picked up, the beds changed (mine and Siddy's), and the laundry is ready to start. Next up: start it. And wash some dishes.
Back
I have been offline in terms of the blog and the book since the connectivity issues began, yet the connectivity itself appears to have returned pretty reliably for at least three days. The only new query I've researched (twice) remains in my Drafts folder, having been started almost a week ago. I've been unmotivated and headachey, but today I want to get back into some activity.
I'd like most to rearrange the living room, and possibly take a poke at the bedroom too - but that's just one piece of the creativity I'm interested in. There are some sewing projects I could (should!) get into, but more than anything else ... I need to work on my book. The one completed: I need to query. The one in progress: I need to write.
Today should be a busy one. I'll be interested to see what I get up to.
I'd like most to rearrange the living room, and possibly take a poke at the bedroom too - but that's just one piece of the creativity I'm interested in. There are some sewing projects I could (should!) get into, but more than anything else ... I need to work on my book. The one completed: I need to query. The one in progress: I need to write.
Today should be a busy one. I'll be interested to see what I get up to.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Seek, and Ye Shall Find ...
... well, not *precisely* me ...
Apparently, by coming up with this search string, though - you could end up here. Twice in a row.
Apparently, by coming up with this search string, though - you could end up here. Twice in a row.
cartoon long hair brunette
The link actually makes it all the more depressing-slash-hilarious - because the search result makes it clear that I am NO Betty Boop. Aw.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
The Fundamental Interconnectedness of All Things
I've been having serious problems with my phone lines lately (and of course Verizon says, no, your lines are FINE ... and the nearest service call I could even hope for is a full *week* out), so haven't been on here. Also no querying for some days.
So, if the agents who have my stuff out right now, could please fall in love with it toot-sweet and come slobbering for more - that'd be really great.
OKTKSBYE.
So, if the agents who have my stuff out right now, could please fall in love with it toot-sweet and come slobbering for more - that'd be really great.
OKTKSBYE.
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