I have learned a valuable lesson. I think. But if I think so, then doesn't that mean I did? Well, I think so.
Approximately a month ago I sent a submission for an anthology call--a call that ends the 30th of this month. Meaning I sent it in a month before the deadline. How many people do that? From this side of November, I feel like I shouldn't have. I mean, a month is a long time to have a story floating in stasis. And couldn't I have edited it one more time before I sent it out?
Well, sure I could have. I doubt anything would've changed except a few commas or so but still ... the fact of having no more power to change or fix anything, that's what bothers me. Lots of IF ONLYs and WHAT IFs going on here. I mean, what if I have a genius insight on the 28th? I can't do anything about it now, that's what!
I thought sending it out earlier would get it off my mind but it hasn't quite worked out that way. I just have to wait a month longer between sending and getting my response back!
And so, yes, I have learned my lesson. Better to hold a story in my hand and flap it around uselessly than to send it to someone else where it can sit in a pile uselessly. If only for my mental well-being.
This lesson, I believe, is one that shall serve me well in the future and which I shall apply to the contests and magazine openings of December--happily shall I go Christmas shopping, and confidently shall I spend my time wrapping gifts and putting sprinkles on cookies. Nary a fret shall I entertain until the last moment it is possible to entertain them.
Meaning that, yes, while everyone else counts down the seconds to New Year, I shall be busily sending submissions to all the places which will be closing in that same number of seconds.
Which assuredly will be followed by another very valuable lesson learned at the beginning of 2013...
Monday, November 26, 2012
Monday, November 12, 2012
So I am sick today, meaning that my voice has gone all squeaky. Meaning that my cat has been giving me dirty looks about why I'm talking funny at her. Which is not easy to explain to someone who's already suspicious that I'm cheating her out of a dozen or more catfood kibbles per meal.
I could take this opportunity to talk about voice or dialog or something but all the thoughts in my brain are separating like oil from water so I think I will just roll over and go back to sleep.
If the cat will stop glaring at me.
I could take this opportunity to talk about voice or dialog or something but all the thoughts in my brain are separating like oil from water so I think I will just roll over and go back to sleep.
If the cat will stop glaring at me.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Not OK!
There's a book I remember reading as a kid, full of dragons and princesses and wizards--all the usual fantasy kid stuff. Except that's got nothing to do with why I remember it, and honestly there's just one thing that still sticks in my head after all these years. While one of the characters is riding a magic carpet it suddenly takes a plunge, which could have been described in any of a dozen ways. The author chose, "it was like the bottom falling out of a cardboard box," which was descriptive enough even if it kind of bothered me for some unspoken reason ...
And thus did I discover anachronism.
This was an easy one to spot and an easy one to remedy; another good example would be the story of a well-known author who mistakenly thought a foot was equal to a meter and used them interchangeably in a novel. (Though you'd think an editor would notice?)
But even as a kid I knew the OK rule. That is, you don't ever use the word OK (Ok, so okay is a word--OK is an abbreviation. You got me) until after, say, the year 1850. Because it didn't exist before that. Knights and princesses didn't say OK. Nor did pirates, assassins, merchants, mercenaries. Or anybody who existed before the word was invented.
Let's just be reasonable for a moment: you shouldn't be writing dialog that didn't exist for your characters when, supposedly, they do. You wouldn't use slang like "rad!" or "groovy!" or "sweet!" or "pwn!" for a character existing outside of these words' respective time periods. And though OK has lasted a fairly long time, it's slang, too.
For me it was always easy to find a substitute that sounded a bit more suited to the time period--or at least less slangy. Things like "sure" or "very well" or "all right" all mean the same thing as OK, while having existed historically.
(And don't get on me about translating your story from another language and therefore thinking it's OK to use OK as a 'translation' for some made-up word. Because it doesn't make sense to translate a period word for one that's not. And anyway, a lot of languages around the world these days use OK just as we do in English. There really is no straight translation for it!)
(And on the topic of all right--it's not alright. Alright's not all right, just like OK's not okay. And generally I prefer to use the word, okay, instead of the abbreviation. But OK just shows up better when writing for emphasis. Like I'm doing now.)
All authors want to write comprehensible, easy-to-read dialog, but if you are writing in a time period that's not your own--yes, even one of your own devising--you need to stay true to it.
Which means that taking even one word out of context is not OK.
And thus did I discover anachronism.
This was an easy one to spot and an easy one to remedy; another good example would be the story of a well-known author who mistakenly thought a foot was equal to a meter and used them interchangeably in a novel. (Though you'd think an editor would notice?)
But even as a kid I knew the OK rule. That is, you don't ever use the word OK (Ok, so okay is a word--OK is an abbreviation. You got me) until after, say, the year 1850. Because it didn't exist before that. Knights and princesses didn't say OK. Nor did pirates, assassins, merchants, mercenaries. Or anybody who existed before the word was invented.
Let's just be reasonable for a moment: you shouldn't be writing dialog that didn't exist for your characters when, supposedly, they do. You wouldn't use slang like "rad!" or "groovy!" or "sweet!" or "pwn!" for a character existing outside of these words' respective time periods. And though OK has lasted a fairly long time, it's slang, too.
For me it was always easy to find a substitute that sounded a bit more suited to the time period--or at least less slangy. Things like "sure" or "very well" or "all right" all mean the same thing as OK, while having existed historically.
(And don't get on me about translating your story from another language and therefore thinking it's OK to use OK as a 'translation' for some made-up word. Because it doesn't make sense to translate a period word for one that's not. And anyway, a lot of languages around the world these days use OK just as we do in English. There really is no straight translation for it!)
(And on the topic of all right--it's not alright. Alright's not all right, just like OK's not okay. And generally I prefer to use the word, okay, instead of the abbreviation. But OK just shows up better when writing for emphasis. Like I'm doing now.)
All authors want to write comprehensible, easy-to-read dialog, but if you are writing in a time period that's not your own--yes, even one of your own devising--you need to stay true to it.
Which means that taking even one word out of context is not OK.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Boo!
It's the day before Halloween and I'm going to a party today. I'm planning to dress up as something in my closet.
As a kid I didn't have all that many exciting Halloweens. For a few years I was a cow (moo...), there was one time I was a pirate (before pirates were cool!), and once I attempted to be a vampire but, little did I know that a girl with deathly white face paint, a black-on-the-outside-and-red-on-the-inside cape, and fangs, was actually Cinderella! Yep, that's what I got mistaken for. Well, that was also before vampires were cool ...
Halloweens out here where I live are always cold and rainy, thus making the whole dressing up thing kind of unpleasant, which makes me wonder what they're like where the holiday was actually invented. Who thought it was a good idea to send kids out on dark rainy nights to beg candy from strangers? And all those dark, shadowy costumes?
Incidentally, what I'm reading is rather Halloween-themed, too: H P Lovecraft's "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath." I picked it up just for the title. Turns out you can't judge a book by it's cover but the title might be a good hint of what you're getting yourself into; long winded title=long winded book. Especially when it's H P Lovecraft.
I've only got a third of the way through and am having serious trouble. With his prose, with his way of obscuring the few important actions going on by squashing them into looong sentences that explain way too much at once. With his lack of any dialog until, like, page 98 (of 99!). I understand that he was inspired by certain other writers, but I don't understand what tradition thinks it's a good idea to have no dialog whatsoever. No, it's written that characters talk to each other, and what they say (or glibber), but it's not made into dialog. Which would be so much easier for me or, I expect, most readers (modern or of his time, too) to handle. Surely there was a reason--saving paper, maybe? a pathological fear of quotes-marks?--but I just can't fathom it.
Getting back to the action in the book, I can't really tell you what's happening. Every time an action takes place in the midst of the narration, which feels mostly like explaining of things, I have to go back and read again to figure out what it was. And just as the dialog-less-ness bugs me, the fact of vast sweeping actions taking place in single paragraphs has me grinding my teeth. A whole city is overrun by sentient cats in a paragraph. The main character seems to travel by ship halfway around the world in a page or two and scales the world's largest, most impossible mountain in an equal amount of time. Maybe I'm exaggerating (only because I can't recall his fuzzy details very clearly), but not by much.
Not that I dislike H P Lovecraft in general; anyone who can dash off a phrase like "an Acheron of multiform diabolism" without blinking really has an eye for the weird. But weird shouldn't mean impossible and, though he's popularly known even today, I wonder how many people have actually read him.
As a kid I didn't have all that many exciting Halloweens. For a few years I was a cow (moo...), there was one time I was a pirate (before pirates were cool!), and once I attempted to be a vampire but, little did I know that a girl with deathly white face paint, a black-on-the-outside-and-red-on-the-inside cape, and fangs, was actually Cinderella! Yep, that's what I got mistaken for. Well, that was also before vampires were cool ...
Halloweens out here where I live are always cold and rainy, thus making the whole dressing up thing kind of unpleasant, which makes me wonder what they're like where the holiday was actually invented. Who thought it was a good idea to send kids out on dark rainy nights to beg candy from strangers? And all those dark, shadowy costumes?
Incidentally, what I'm reading is rather Halloween-themed, too: H P Lovecraft's "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath." I picked it up just for the title. Turns out you can't judge a book by it's cover but the title might be a good hint of what you're getting yourself into; long winded title=long winded book. Especially when it's H P Lovecraft.
I've only got a third of the way through and am having serious trouble. With his prose, with his way of obscuring the few important actions going on by squashing them into looong sentences that explain way too much at once. With his lack of any dialog until, like, page 98 (of 99!). I understand that he was inspired by certain other writers, but I don't understand what tradition thinks it's a good idea to have no dialog whatsoever. No, it's written that characters talk to each other, and what they say (or glibber), but it's not made into dialog. Which would be so much easier for me or, I expect, most readers (modern or of his time, too) to handle. Surely there was a reason--saving paper, maybe? a pathological fear of quotes-marks?--but I just can't fathom it.
Getting back to the action in the book, I can't really tell you what's happening. Every time an action takes place in the midst of the narration, which feels mostly like explaining of things, I have to go back and read again to figure out what it was. And just as the dialog-less-ness bugs me, the fact of vast sweeping actions taking place in single paragraphs has me grinding my teeth. A whole city is overrun by sentient cats in a paragraph. The main character seems to travel by ship halfway around the world in a page or two and scales the world's largest, most impossible mountain in an equal amount of time. Maybe I'm exaggerating (only because I can't recall his fuzzy details very clearly), but not by much.
Not that I dislike H P Lovecraft in general; anyone who can dash off a phrase like "an Acheron of multiform diabolism" without blinking really has an eye for the weird. But weird shouldn't mean impossible and, though he's popularly known even today, I wonder how many people have actually read him.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
It's About Time ...
I don't like time travel stories. Nope. Not for me.
Why? Well, a lot of reasons that could just as easily be someone else's reasons for not liking a different type of story. I don't buy into the whole premise, as it's so far outside of the realm of possible science. The whole butterfly effect thing (you breathe in the past and the world is entirely restructured) has been done so many times, with so few variations in theme and result, etc, that I don't understand why writers still want to write something that's already been beaten to death.
The next common theme of time travel fiction, of going back/forward in time to meet/see yourself/significant other/ancestor/descendant does nothing for me. It's not going to happen, ever, in this world or another (I mean, can you imagine the disaster the world would be if you could tamper with its chronology in any such way???) so why even pretend?
If you are one of those people who likes time travel, then you're probably saying, at this point, something like "Well, isn't that the point of fiction? It's SCIENCE FICTION! And 99% of other SF and Fantasy won't ever happen, anywhere, ever, either!"
And you'd be right. That is very true. A lot of other tropes of the genre have been beaten past the point of death, too.
Maybe my real problem is that every time travel story I read sounds like the last one I read. Especially when you get into the mire of Back to the Future-style past-self/future-self stuff, I start to cry blood. It's been done! Let it die! Then again, maybe I've seen Back to the Future waaay to many times. That could be it too.
Although, I do like the third movie (as much as I can for time travel); I understand the appeal of putting a present-time character into a historical situation--then you can use that character as a stand-in for an audience that doesn't quite understand the time period otherwise; it helps us identify. You can explain things. But it's also pretty damn cutesy. I don't really do cutesy.
I don't get why people think going into the past could possibly in any way shape or form improve anything ever. 'I will go 150 years into the past to stop the plague of Rocky Mountain Weasel Fever that wiped out half of the world's population!' says the Heroic Time Traveler. Never once thinking this might turn out badly. Overpopulation much? It doesn't take a genius to see potentialities like this in every 'I WILL FIX THE PAST' scenario that's ever existed. Oh, and then you get the ones where the time traveler fixes the past, only to make it so they themselves were never born! Arrrg, spare me.
So maybe that's the crux of my problem. To time travel you (theoretically) have to be smart enough to build or operate a time machine, but also must be stupid enough to never wonder what could possibly go wrong. Because to time travel fully aware that you might screw up the chronology of the world to the point that you never existed in the first place either makes for a deep, subliminal message about time travel stories, or just proves the flaw of the theme.
Why? Well, a lot of reasons that could just as easily be someone else's reasons for not liking a different type of story. I don't buy into the whole premise, as it's so far outside of the realm of possible science. The whole butterfly effect thing (you breathe in the past and the world is entirely restructured) has been done so many times, with so few variations in theme and result, etc, that I don't understand why writers still want to write something that's already been beaten to death.
The next common theme of time travel fiction, of going back/forward in time to meet/see yourself/significant other/ancestor/descendant does nothing for me. It's not going to happen, ever, in this world or another (I mean, can you imagine the disaster the world would be if you could tamper with its chronology in any such way???) so why even pretend?
If you are one of those people who likes time travel, then you're probably saying, at this point, something like "Well, isn't that the point of fiction? It's SCIENCE FICTION! And 99% of other SF and Fantasy won't ever happen, anywhere, ever, either!"
And you'd be right. That is very true. A lot of other tropes of the genre have been beaten past the point of death, too.
Maybe my real problem is that every time travel story I read sounds like the last one I read. Especially when you get into the mire of Back to the Future-style past-self/future-self stuff, I start to cry blood. It's been done! Let it die! Then again, maybe I've seen Back to the Future waaay to many times. That could be it too.
Although, I do like the third movie (as much as I can for time travel); I understand the appeal of putting a present-time character into a historical situation--then you can use that character as a stand-in for an audience that doesn't quite understand the time period otherwise; it helps us identify. You can explain things. But it's also pretty damn cutesy. I don't really do cutesy.
I don't get why people think going into the past could possibly in any way shape or form improve anything ever. 'I will go 150 years into the past to stop the plague of Rocky Mountain Weasel Fever that wiped out half of the world's population!' says the Heroic Time Traveler. Never once thinking this might turn out badly. Overpopulation much? It doesn't take a genius to see potentialities like this in every 'I WILL FIX THE PAST' scenario that's ever existed. Oh, and then you get the ones where the time traveler fixes the past, only to make it so they themselves were never born! Arrrg, spare me.
So maybe that's the crux of my problem. To time travel you (theoretically) have to be smart enough to build or operate a time machine, but also must be stupid enough to never wonder what could possibly go wrong. Because to time travel fully aware that you might screw up the chronology of the world to the point that you never existed in the first place either makes for a deep, subliminal message about time travel stories, or just proves the flaw of the theme.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Another Round!
So here's where I am:
Writing seems so easy and fun when you don't think about trying to get published--and sure, if you can be satisfied with the fact that no one else will ever see all the work you put into a story, don't sweat over it. If you don't care then don't worry about getting published. But if you want to be published, that's a chore in itself. Writing is just step one.
I sent out a half dozen or so stories a while back and have got responses from most of them (and in the meantime have been too busy to send much more out) (responses: no thanks, no thanks, and, you're getting closer...). So, with only a couple left floating around, it's time to prepare and send out another round. There are a few anthologies I want to try, and certain markets I feel more comfortable submitting to because I've been reading them for a while.
That's another thing; when it comes to submitting for an anthology you can only make your best guess as to what the editor wants, whereas if you want to submit to magazines you have to read them for a while first and, to have a good base to work with, you have to read a bunch of magazines. This makes for a LOT of reading.
Furthermore, you are not the only one writing clever stories and submitting them. The responses I've got from a couple different places give this indication: they get scores of submissions in a day, hundreds in a month, and only publish a few per issue. Your chances are less than 1%, even if you've got something great.
Which is why I've been trying to get myself out there everywhere possible; for me this means keeping on top of submission deadlines and the stories I have, coordinating what might go where, who wants what, accepted lengths, etc. I have a list of what I'm planning to send out soon (just once I'm satisfied they're good enough, which better be before the deadlines...), as well as a list of those magazines with designated reading periods, and what I might send to them once they've opened up. I'm working as my very own secretary right now.
And, finally, the issue of editing. I want to give these stories one more go-over before I send them out, but as I just did this with most of them, say, a week ago, I'll want to wait yet another week before I read again. Then they can go.
And hopefully someone will like at least one of these poor homeless critters and adopt it ...
Writing seems so easy and fun when you don't think about trying to get published--and sure, if you can be satisfied with the fact that no one else will ever see all the work you put into a story, don't sweat over it. If you don't care then don't worry about getting published. But if you want to be published, that's a chore in itself. Writing is just step one.
I sent out a half dozen or so stories a while back and have got responses from most of them (and in the meantime have been too busy to send much more out) (responses: no thanks, no thanks, and, you're getting closer...). So, with only a couple left floating around, it's time to prepare and send out another round. There are a few anthologies I want to try, and certain markets I feel more comfortable submitting to because I've been reading them for a while.
That's another thing; when it comes to submitting for an anthology you can only make your best guess as to what the editor wants, whereas if you want to submit to magazines you have to read them for a while first and, to have a good base to work with, you have to read a bunch of magazines. This makes for a LOT of reading.
Furthermore, you are not the only one writing clever stories and submitting them. The responses I've got from a couple different places give this indication: they get scores of submissions in a day, hundreds in a month, and only publish a few per issue. Your chances are less than 1%, even if you've got something great.
Which is why I've been trying to get myself out there everywhere possible; for me this means keeping on top of submission deadlines and the stories I have, coordinating what might go where, who wants what, accepted lengths, etc. I have a list of what I'm planning to send out soon (just once I'm satisfied they're good enough, which better be before the deadlines...), as well as a list of those magazines with designated reading periods, and what I might send to them once they've opened up. I'm working as my very own secretary right now.
And, finally, the issue of editing. I want to give these stories one more go-over before I send them out, but as I just did this with most of them, say, a week ago, I'll want to wait yet another week before I read again. Then they can go.
And hopefully someone will like at least one of these poor homeless critters and adopt it ...
Monday, October 8, 2012
Worlds Apart
I am still in Steampunk mode, with all the requisite niceties of language and thoughtful turns of phrase and polite conversation. It's fun, but I can already tell it's not my native tongue, so to speak. Sometimes you have to step out of what you typically do and try something different, and that's what I'm doing right now. But the minute I get done with this I think I'm heading back to the Wild West. Don't tell no one.
Funny how the two actually exist in the exact same time period, with the same technologies (real or imagined), but are--as they say--worlds apart. The West isn't known for its polite conversation and niceness. I suppose there's a part of me that enjoys, after being a grammar cop about everything I read, to write stories where the voice is avowedly NOT grammatical, no way nohow. Some part of me rubs its hands with vindictive glee to write dialog like: "He must of run off but it ain't bothering me none."
I'm actually not deeply versed in the realities of the Wild West (any more than I am of, say, the medieval world) but this, too, don't bother me none. I'll read what I have to and hopefully not make tons of mistakes. Honestly, there's not too much more I can hope for.
At the same time I am considering what would happen if you got a cowboy and a Victorian gentleman in the same room. And what they'd talk about...
What I'm reading: Lots of cowboy movies going on here, or there will be in the near future. Otherwise, I just finished a good collection of short stories by Ursula K LeGuin called Changing Planes. I really enjoy anthropology, especially of the peculiar--luckily, when you make it up, it can be as peculiar as you want! I'm also reading a book of life-stories from old timers in Oregon (which is where I live). It says 'Old Timers' on the cover, so I'm not being offensive or anything. And it's also pretty entertaining to read ninety-year-olds explain how they had to walk to first grade with a rifle just in case cougars came after 'em. Yup. Just in case.
Funny how the two actually exist in the exact same time period, with the same technologies (real or imagined), but are--as they say--worlds apart. The West isn't known for its polite conversation and niceness. I suppose there's a part of me that enjoys, after being a grammar cop about everything I read, to write stories where the voice is avowedly NOT grammatical, no way nohow. Some part of me rubs its hands with vindictive glee to write dialog like: "He must of run off but it ain't bothering me none."
I'm actually not deeply versed in the realities of the Wild West (any more than I am of, say, the medieval world) but this, too, don't bother me none. I'll read what I have to and hopefully not make tons of mistakes. Honestly, there's not too much more I can hope for.
At the same time I am considering what would happen if you got a cowboy and a Victorian gentleman in the same room. And what they'd talk about...
What I'm reading: Lots of cowboy movies going on here, or there will be in the near future. Otherwise, I just finished a good collection of short stories by Ursula K LeGuin called Changing Planes. I really enjoy anthropology, especially of the peculiar--luckily, when you make it up, it can be as peculiar as you want! I'm also reading a book of life-stories from old timers in Oregon (which is where I live). It says 'Old Timers' on the cover, so I'm not being offensive or anything. And it's also pretty entertaining to read ninety-year-olds explain how they had to walk to first grade with a rifle just in case cougars came after 'em. Yup. Just in case.
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