Okay, Sarai tagged me for this meme thing, so here we go.
1. Link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share six random things about you.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your blog entry.
5. Let the tagged people know by leaving a comment on their blog.
Six random things about me....
1 -- I don't always follow directions well. [duck]
2 -- I started reading historical romances when I was twelve, joined the Society for Creative Anachronism when I was eighteen, and majored in history (emphasis medieval Europe) at university. One of these days I'll write a historical of my own, but I know how much time and effort it'd take to do a really good job and it's been a bit daunting so far. [wry smile]
3 -- I met my husband over the internet, playing an online fantasy RPG back in '89. (Yes, they had multi-player online role-playing games back in '89 and even earlier, although to listen to the MMORPG people brag, you'd never know it.) We lucked out when it turned out we were both in the same state, only 400 miles apart. We got married in '96 and our honeymoon was at the Los Angeles WorldCon. (We're both into SF as well as computers and history.)
4 -- I love spinach, and have since I was a little kid. I only like it cooked, though, not raw.
5 -- Despite being female, I'm a dog person. ;) The cat in our house belongs to my husband; she and I cordially despise one another.
6 -- I learned to knit when I was three and crochet when I was six (taught by my grandmother and mother respectively) and have taught myself some unknown number of other needlework techniques since. I go through phases of being really into one or another needlework projects, then will put it down for a while, sometimes for years. I'm currently between phases.
Tagging whoever feels like doing it. :D
Angie
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Modes of Marketing
There've been a number of discussions around the blogosphere recently about book trailers -- Romancing the Blog had one today and has had others in the past, and they've been a subject of discussion in other places as well. I've never seen a good one, but then I'll admit I haven't gone looking very much. Even granting that there are good book trailers, though, I still have to wonder how much correspondance there'd be between a reader's enjoyment of a trailer and their enjoyment of the book it's advertising.
Movie trailers work because the trailer -- a piece of video with bits of scenes out of the movie, dialogue from the movie, action from the movie, showing the actors who are in the movie, and playing music from the movie -- give the viewer a small sample of the experience they'll have while actually watching the movie. "Like this? Get more of the same!" is the message of a movie trailer.
Book trailers, though, present information in a mode completely different from that of the book itself. Even a well-done book trailer, with hired actors or custom animation rather than pans of stock photos, and with music appropriate to the mood of the book, is going to be presenting an experience which bears very little resemblance to that of actually reading the book.
So how valuable is the trailer going to be, from the POV of the reader? I love watching movie trailers because I can get a feel for the movie and decide whether I want to see it. It doesn't always work -- we've all seen trailers where it turns out that all the best parts of the movie were in the thirty-second trailer -- but if I like the chase scene or the effects or a bit of dialogue in the trailer, I'll probably like it in the movie too. Liking the actors or the music or the visuals in a book trailer, though, doesn't really tell me whether I'll enjoy the experience of reading the author's writing in the book. (Although it might suggest that I'd enjoy watching a movie made from the book.) And although a trailer can certainly present a short description of the plotline, which is more relevant, I can get that just as easily and without all the extraneous distractions by reading the back cover blurb of the book itself.
If I do buy the novel being advertised, I'm not going to be watching the actors act it out, nor am I going to have the music playing. I'm going to be reading the writer's words, and all the voices, music, action and animation is going to be provided by my own mind, as suggested by the text. It's quite possible that I might enjoy a trailer very much but not care for the book for whatever reason, because the experiences of each are very different and liking one isn't going to necessarily guarantee liking the other. So from my POV as a reader, how much benefit is there to watching the book trailer if, when it finishes playing, I'm still no closer to knowing whether or not I'd enjoy reading the book?
If a writer only has one book to sell, then I suppose this doesn't matter. If a trailer persuades me to buy the book, then that's the whole point, right? The writer can smile and bank the money (after paying the people who made the trailer) and there you go. But maybe I would have liked their second book, or their fifth book. I'm less likely to buy those books, though, because at this point I have personal experience telling me that liking Author X's marketing doesn't mean I'll like Author X's book. I thought the trailer was great but disliked the book anyway, so if I like the marketing for the next book -- even if it's a more traditional blog or magazine ad -- my experience is telling me that I'll probably dislike the book it's pushing, that Good Marketing = Bad Book in the case of Author X. Yuck.
I might be wrong about this, and it's possible that five years from now we'll all be scrambling to make trailers even for our short stories. As a writer, though, I'm not going to jump onto this bandwagon without a lot more data, and it'll have to show that there's a significant correspondance between readers liking the trailers and liking the book, not just that watching the trailer makes them buy the book.
As a reader, I'll stick with the written modes of marketing to decide whether or not to buy books. At least there I have some idea of what I'll be getting.
Angie
Movie trailers work because the trailer -- a piece of video with bits of scenes out of the movie, dialogue from the movie, action from the movie, showing the actors who are in the movie, and playing music from the movie -- give the viewer a small sample of the experience they'll have while actually watching the movie. "Like this? Get more of the same!" is the message of a movie trailer.
Book trailers, though, present information in a mode completely different from that of the book itself. Even a well-done book trailer, with hired actors or custom animation rather than pans of stock photos, and with music appropriate to the mood of the book, is going to be presenting an experience which bears very little resemblance to that of actually reading the book.
So how valuable is the trailer going to be, from the POV of the reader? I love watching movie trailers because I can get a feel for the movie and decide whether I want to see it. It doesn't always work -- we've all seen trailers where it turns out that all the best parts of the movie were in the thirty-second trailer -- but if I like the chase scene or the effects or a bit of dialogue in the trailer, I'll probably like it in the movie too. Liking the actors or the music or the visuals in a book trailer, though, doesn't really tell me whether I'll enjoy the experience of reading the author's writing in the book. (Although it might suggest that I'd enjoy watching a movie made from the book.) And although a trailer can certainly present a short description of the plotline, which is more relevant, I can get that just as easily and without all the extraneous distractions by reading the back cover blurb of the book itself.
If I do buy the novel being advertised, I'm not going to be watching the actors act it out, nor am I going to have the music playing. I'm going to be reading the writer's words, and all the voices, music, action and animation is going to be provided by my own mind, as suggested by the text. It's quite possible that I might enjoy a trailer very much but not care for the book for whatever reason, because the experiences of each are very different and liking one isn't going to necessarily guarantee liking the other. So from my POV as a reader, how much benefit is there to watching the book trailer if, when it finishes playing, I'm still no closer to knowing whether or not I'd enjoy reading the book?
If a writer only has one book to sell, then I suppose this doesn't matter. If a trailer persuades me to buy the book, then that's the whole point, right? The writer can smile and bank the money (after paying the people who made the trailer) and there you go. But maybe I would have liked their second book, or their fifth book. I'm less likely to buy those books, though, because at this point I have personal experience telling me that liking Author X's marketing doesn't mean I'll like Author X's book. I thought the trailer was great but disliked the book anyway, so if I like the marketing for the next book -- even if it's a more traditional blog or magazine ad -- my experience is telling me that I'll probably dislike the book it's pushing, that Good Marketing = Bad Book in the case of Author X. Yuck.
I might be wrong about this, and it's possible that five years from now we'll all be scrambling to make trailers even for our short stories. As a writer, though, I'm not going to jump onto this bandwagon without a lot more data, and it'll have to show that there's a significant correspondance between readers liking the trailers and liking the book, not just that watching the trailer makes them buy the book.
As a reader, I'll stick with the written modes of marketing to decide whether or not to buy books. At least there I have some idea of what I'll be getting.
Angie
Friday, February 22, 2008
Modes of Encouragement
Natasha wrote a post on Encouragement today and I found myself frowning. She's right, but.... Well, yes, but.... Huh.
She says in part:
one of the things I love about DH, is he will read my stuff, tell me it's great, and tell me he's looking forward to the next bit.
I don't delude myself into thinking that he really thinks it's always great. I mean, he doesn't have much choice about what to say. If he doesn't say it's great, he gets a barrage of two thousand questions and we have to talk about it all the way home.
But even though I know it's a "canned" response, it keeps me writing.
And that's where I started squinting and pondering. I think it depends on the individual, really, because I wouldn't want my husband to read my stuff and just go "It's great, honey!" every time. I'd find that incredibly frustrating and annoying and pretty quickly I'd stop giving him stuff to read. :P
Do I like encouragement? Of course. But when it comes to my actual writing, to specific stories or pages or whatever, I want it to be honest encouragement, with reasons behind it. I want that back-and-forth discussion of what works and what doesn't work and why, and how things could be made better.
A bare, "Hey, this rocks!" is great when it comes from a reader who's posting a comment to a story or sending me an e-mail or something; they're strangers and it's great that they took the time to say anything at all. But for someone who's reading my work on a regular basis, someone I talk to every day, who's right there and available for an extended conversation, to just say "Good job, keep going," over and over again? Ummm. :/ No thanks, seriously.
Maybe it's just that I'm cynical about this sort of thing, but to me, having someone always claim to love whatever it is I'm doing, with no commentary and never any "But maybe this bit could've used some work," or "Actually, I didn't get why Joe did that in in this part here," sounds fake. Hearing "Great stuff, love!" every single time sounds like that person is just trying to boost my ego by giving hollow compliments, patting my head and telling me I'm a good girl and isn't that adorable? It comes across (to me, anyway) as incredibly patronizing and makes me angry much more than it makes me feel good or warm or fuzzy.
Which isn't to say I dislike any and all generic encouragement, of course. My husband respects my work and doesn't interrupt me when I'm writing, which is the encouragement version of showing rather than just telling. :) And on the telling side, he's said that he's proud of me for getting published after all this time, for sticking with it and finally fulfilling a dream I've had since I was a teenager. "You work so hard," or "You're so determined," or even, "Come on, you can do it -- keep trying and you'll find away over, around or through that roadblock in the story" -- that sort of encouragement is very cool because it says "I admire you" and "I believe in you," which is the sort of support I can believe and appreciate. But telling me how wonderful my writing is, over and over -- that page was wonderful, that chapter was wonderful, that story was wonderful, every word that comes out of your keyboard is absolutely wonderful -- I can't believe that. Maybe that's a problem, I don't know.
I'm not everyone, of course. I'm certainly not Natasha, and she's not me. I think it rocks that her husband gives her the exact sort of encouragement she needs and thrives on; it just shows that he knows her well and they fit together just right. But I don't think there's any one mode of praising or encouraging that's going to work with everyone. With people who are close to you, I think the trick of it is to make sure your spouse or parent or best friend or whomever actually knows what sort of encouragement you want or need. People don't read minds, and while it feels great when someone spontaneously tells you exactly what you want to hear, it can feel just as good to tell someone what you need and know that they're giving it to you because they care about you and really want to help you out by giving you what you need and have asked for.
Hopefully everyone can hook up with someone who'll give them what they need. Because every writer -- and every person, no matter what they're into -- deserves to feel like someone's there encouraging them and cheering them on.
Angie
She says in part:
one of the things I love about DH, is he will read my stuff, tell me it's great, and tell me he's looking forward to the next bit.
I don't delude myself into thinking that he really thinks it's always great. I mean, he doesn't have much choice about what to say. If he doesn't say it's great, he gets a barrage of two thousand questions and we have to talk about it all the way home.
But even though I know it's a "canned" response, it keeps me writing.
And that's where I started squinting and pondering. I think it depends on the individual, really, because I wouldn't want my husband to read my stuff and just go "It's great, honey!" every time. I'd find that incredibly frustrating and annoying and pretty quickly I'd stop giving him stuff to read. :P
Do I like encouragement? Of course. But when it comes to my actual writing, to specific stories or pages or whatever, I want it to be honest encouragement, with reasons behind it. I want that back-and-forth discussion of what works and what doesn't work and why, and how things could be made better.
A bare, "Hey, this rocks!" is great when it comes from a reader who's posting a comment to a story or sending me an e-mail or something; they're strangers and it's great that they took the time to say anything at all. But for someone who's reading my work on a regular basis, someone I talk to every day, who's right there and available for an extended conversation, to just say "Good job, keep going," over and over again? Ummm. :/ No thanks, seriously.
Maybe it's just that I'm cynical about this sort of thing, but to me, having someone always claim to love whatever it is I'm doing, with no commentary and never any "But maybe this bit could've used some work," or "Actually, I didn't get why Joe did that in in this part here," sounds fake. Hearing "Great stuff, love!" every single time sounds like that person is just trying to boost my ego by giving hollow compliments, patting my head and telling me I'm a good girl and isn't that adorable? It comes across (to me, anyway) as incredibly patronizing and makes me angry much more than it makes me feel good or warm or fuzzy.
Which isn't to say I dislike any and all generic encouragement, of course. My husband respects my work and doesn't interrupt me when I'm writing, which is the encouragement version of showing rather than just telling. :) And on the telling side, he's said that he's proud of me for getting published after all this time, for sticking with it and finally fulfilling a dream I've had since I was a teenager. "You work so hard," or "You're so determined," or even, "Come on, you can do it -- keep trying and you'll find away over, around or through that roadblock in the story" -- that sort of encouragement is very cool because it says "I admire you" and "I believe in you," which is the sort of support I can believe and appreciate. But telling me how wonderful my writing is, over and over -- that page was wonderful, that chapter was wonderful, that story was wonderful, every word that comes out of your keyboard is absolutely wonderful -- I can't believe that. Maybe that's a problem, I don't know.
I'm not everyone, of course. I'm certainly not Natasha, and she's not me. I think it rocks that her husband gives her the exact sort of encouragement she needs and thrives on; it just shows that he knows her well and they fit together just right. But I don't think there's any one mode of praising or encouraging that's going to work with everyone. With people who are close to you, I think the trick of it is to make sure your spouse or parent or best friend or whomever actually knows what sort of encouragement you want or need. People don't read minds, and while it feels great when someone spontaneously tells you exactly what you want to hear, it can feel just as good to tell someone what you need and know that they're giving it to you because they care about you and really want to help you out by giving you what you need and have asked for.
Hopefully everyone can hook up with someone who'll give them what they need. Because every writer -- and every person, no matter what they're into -- deserves to feel like someone's there encouraging them and cheering them on.
Angie
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Writers and Money
John Scalzi wrote an excellent post called Unasked-For Advice to New Writers About Money which I recommend highly. Scalzi is a successful SF writer and has been at this for a while. He's not always delicate about what he says [cough] but he makes a lot of excellent points. He admits that not every chunk of advice will apply to every single person, but there's a lot of value here, I think, for just about anyone who's freelancing in just about any field.
Angie
Angie
Monday, February 11, 2008
Influence
Right now, I want to be Alan Moore. Next best, I want to have some hope that some day, something I've written will have this kind of influence on people. Because seriously, this rocks.
"This," for anyone who doesn't feel like following the link (which I highly recommend) was a protest in London outside a couple of Church of Scientology buildings where most of the picketers showed up in masks from "V for Vendetta." They spent the day making fun of Scientology, completely pwning the whole business through mockery, with chants and signs based on Internet Stuff and generally having fun. There was no violence, no nastiness, and when someone occasionally yelled something offensive, the crowd chorused "FAIL!" and the person being offensive was shouted down. The cops were polite and helpful to everyone, as only British cops can be, and one of the local businesses got into the spirit of things with a quickly-made sign in the window. It was a realspace extension of the Anonymous campaign against Scientology, and it sounds like it went off beautifully.
What I think is just brilliant about this is that the people who participated took the mockery and wit from "V for Vendetta," but none of the violence. It would've been really easy for some whack-job with a V mask to take the impersonation too far, but that didn't happen, not even close. The idea that a large group of people can express their opinion and protest and make a difference, and that (despite what was shown in the movie) they don't have to use violence to do it, is a great message to give people, and if I were Alan Moore I'd be proud enough to bust knowing that a bunch of my fans had gotten that message from me.
Because really, the Scientologists don't merit violence; laughter is a very appropriate weapon to use here.
For myself, and the work I'm producing right now, I'd like it if my readers got the message that it's fine to be gay, that there's nothing wrong with it and if you're gay there's nothing wrong with you, and that anyone who says otherwise is an ignorant wanker. That there's room in the world for gay romances, and that gay people deserve to have positive stories written about them, just like anyone else. I doubt I'll ever influence the sort of mass demonstration of awesome that Alan Moore did the other day, but I'd like to think I'll have some occasional positive influence on a few people, here and there. 'Cause it all adds up, you know?
What kind of influence would you like to have on your readers?
Angie
ETA: Wow, it was all over the world, not just London! Cleolinda posted a good collection of links to write-ups and pics from all over.
"This," for anyone who doesn't feel like following the link (which I highly recommend) was a protest in London outside a couple of Church of Scientology buildings where most of the picketers showed up in masks from "V for Vendetta." They spent the day making fun of Scientology, completely pwning the whole business through mockery, with chants and signs based on Internet Stuff and generally having fun. There was no violence, no nastiness, and when someone occasionally yelled something offensive, the crowd chorused "FAIL!" and the person being offensive was shouted down. The cops were polite and helpful to everyone, as only British cops can be, and one of the local businesses got into the spirit of things with a quickly-made sign in the window. It was a realspace extension of the Anonymous campaign against Scientology, and it sounds like it went off beautifully.
What I think is just brilliant about this is that the people who participated took the mockery and wit from "V for Vendetta," but none of the violence. It would've been really easy for some whack-job with a V mask to take the impersonation too far, but that didn't happen, not even close. The idea that a large group of people can express their opinion and protest and make a difference, and that (despite what was shown in the movie) they don't have to use violence to do it, is a great message to give people, and if I were Alan Moore I'd be proud enough to bust knowing that a bunch of my fans had gotten that message from me.
Because really, the Scientologists don't merit violence; laughter is a very appropriate weapon to use here.
For myself, and the work I'm producing right now, I'd like it if my readers got the message that it's fine to be gay, that there's nothing wrong with it and if you're gay there's nothing wrong with you, and that anyone who says otherwise is an ignorant wanker. That there's room in the world for gay romances, and that gay people deserve to have positive stories written about them, just like anyone else. I doubt I'll ever influence the sort of mass demonstration of awesome that Alan Moore did the other day, but I'd like to think I'll have some occasional positive influence on a few people, here and there. 'Cause it all adds up, you know?
What kind of influence would you like to have on your readers?
Angie
ETA: Wow, it was all over the world, not just London! Cleolinda posted a good collection of links to write-ups and pics from all over.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Story Seed
I'm still sort of boggled from a news article I read and my brain is slipping in all sorts of directions. On the surface it's just a story about a petty theft, no big deal. But I'm coming up with all these different interpretations and implications and what if...? kinds of threads.
The story is about two teenagers who stole a nine-year-old Girl Scout's cookie money, and my first thought was that these two bitches are just begging for a good pounding, seriously. Not just for what they did, although that was bad enough. But when they were caught this is what they had to say:
"We went through all that effort to get it, we got all these charges and we had to give the money back. I'm kind of pissed," one of the girls told WPBF.
And the other:
"I'm not sorry, I'm just pissed that I got caught," the girl said.
That's it. No remorse, no guilt, no sense that they'd done anything wrong whatsoever. They "needed" the money, it was there within reach, so they took it. And after going to "all that effort" they seem to think that they somehow deserved to keep it. O_O
It seems like a minor thing, if you take a step back and look at it in the context of the world and its larger problems -- two teenagers stole money and weren't sorry when they were caught. But what if that were the new direction society was heading? What if that's "normal" a couple of generations from now -- what would the world look like? What if, a hundred years from now, there would be no outrage at all over what these girls did, just contempt for their being stupid and inept enough to get caught? Dystopias have fallen out of fashion in SF over the last decade or two, but this news story really brings a dystopian future scenario into my mind.
Or what if there's some explanation for their actions and attitudes other than their just being a couple of prime examples of entitled personalities? Maybe there's some disease attacks the part of the brain which makes moral judgements? Maybe they were drugged in some way which produces the same effect? (Deliberately or accidentally? Willingly or knowingly or not?) Maybe they're being impersonated or had their minds taken over (aliens? demons? ghosts?) by entities who are trying to fit in but watched the wrong movies during their preparations? Or which are deliberately trying to smear the two girls or hurt the Girl Scout or just generally create outrage?
You can get a dozen different stories out of this, from chilling to humorous, from intense psycho-drama to despairing dark-future to rollicking adventure, because this is just so outrageous that it spawns a strong need to figure out reasons and consequences, which is always a good place to start with a story.
In the real world, though, I still want to smack the both of them good.
Angie
The story is about two teenagers who stole a nine-year-old Girl Scout's cookie money, and my first thought was that these two bitches are just begging for a good pounding, seriously. Not just for what they did, although that was bad enough. But when they were caught this is what they had to say:
"We went through all that effort to get it, we got all these charges and we had to give the money back. I'm kind of pissed," one of the girls told WPBF.
And the other:
"I'm not sorry, I'm just pissed that I got caught," the girl said.
That's it. No remorse, no guilt, no sense that they'd done anything wrong whatsoever. They "needed" the money, it was there within reach, so they took it. And after going to "all that effort" they seem to think that they somehow deserved to keep it. O_O
It seems like a minor thing, if you take a step back and look at it in the context of the world and its larger problems -- two teenagers stole money and weren't sorry when they were caught. But what if that were the new direction society was heading? What if that's "normal" a couple of generations from now -- what would the world look like? What if, a hundred years from now, there would be no outrage at all over what these girls did, just contempt for their being stupid and inept enough to get caught? Dystopias have fallen out of fashion in SF over the last decade or two, but this news story really brings a dystopian future scenario into my mind.
Or what if there's some explanation for their actions and attitudes other than their just being a couple of prime examples of entitled personalities? Maybe there's some disease attacks the part of the brain which makes moral judgements? Maybe they were drugged in some way which produces the same effect? (Deliberately or accidentally? Willingly or knowingly or not?) Maybe they're being impersonated or had their minds taken over (aliens? demons? ghosts?) by entities who are trying to fit in but watched the wrong movies during their preparations? Or which are deliberately trying to smear the two girls or hurt the Girl Scout or just generally create outrage?
You can get a dozen different stories out of this, from chilling to humorous, from intense psycho-drama to despairing dark-future to rollicking adventure, because this is just so outrageous that it spawns a strong need to figure out reasons and consequences, which is always a good place to start with a story.
In the real world, though, I still want to smack the both of them good.
Angie
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Thinking Dirty Thoughts...
...about the Postal Service. And not even fun dirty thoughts, but thoughts about incompetence and retaliatory mayhem. :/
It turns out that my royalty statement was mailed out well before the fifteenth so I most definitely should've gotten it by now, and then some. They're only three states away, and even out on the western chunk of the country that's not far enough to justify it taking two weeks to get here. So Lorna said they'd cancel the check and cut me a new one and try it again.
My father-in-law worked for the Post Office for a long time, and the husband says his dad had talked about what happens when things take ridiculously long to arrive. One possibility is that when they grab a mail bag and empty it into a hopper or bin or whatever, they might forget to check carefully at the bottom (which they're always supposed to do) to make sure all the mail actually fell out. Sometimes a letter will get stuck in the bag and the "empty" bag gets tossed to one side. It might sit there for quite a while before it's grabbed again, and if the mail put into it is sent round the Horn to Madagascar on a cargo ship (or even put on a plane to Maine or Alaska or wherever) then it could be a few thousand miles away before anyone comes across the stuck letter and realizes that it got quite a ways off track. So my old statement might actually show up on Monday, or in April, or whenever. I'm just as happy to be getting a new one, though.
It's funny, I'm actually more eager for the statement than I am for the check. [wry smile] I mean, the money'll be great, however much or little it ends up being, but what I'm really bouncing up and down about are the specific sales numbers. Since my last (which was also my first) statement only covered three days' worth of sales on my first story, I'm not taking that as representative over a longer period. (Although if that story and all the others sold seventeen copies per three days, every three days since their publication, I certainly won't complain. :D ) At this point, though, I still have no clue how anything is selling, and that's what I want to see. So I'll just sit here and tap my fingers and glare at the mailbox....
Angie
It turns out that my royalty statement was mailed out well before the fifteenth so I most definitely should've gotten it by now, and then some. They're only three states away, and even out on the western chunk of the country that's not far enough to justify it taking two weeks to get here. So Lorna said they'd cancel the check and cut me a new one and try it again.
My father-in-law worked for the Post Office for a long time, and the husband says his dad had talked about what happens when things take ridiculously long to arrive. One possibility is that when they grab a mail bag and empty it into a hopper or bin or whatever, they might forget to check carefully at the bottom (which they're always supposed to do) to make sure all the mail actually fell out. Sometimes a letter will get stuck in the bag and the "empty" bag gets tossed to one side. It might sit there for quite a while before it's grabbed again, and if the mail put into it is sent round the Horn to Madagascar on a cargo ship (or even put on a plane to Maine or Alaska or wherever) then it could be a few thousand miles away before anyone comes across the stuck letter and realizes that it got quite a ways off track. So my old statement might actually show up on Monday, or in April, or whenever. I'm just as happy to be getting a new one, though.
It's funny, I'm actually more eager for the statement than I am for the check. [wry smile] I mean, the money'll be great, however much or little it ends up being, but what I'm really bouncing up and down about are the specific sales numbers. Since my last (which was also my first) statement only covered three days' worth of sales on my first story, I'm not taking that as representative over a longer period. (Although if that story and all the others sold seventeen copies per three days, every three days since their publication, I certainly won't complain. :D ) At this point, though, I still have no clue how anything is selling, and that's what I want to see. So I'll just sit here and tap my fingers and glare at the mailbox....
Angie
Thursday, January 24, 2008
First Publication
Is your first published story really all that different?
I'm wondering, seriously. Daniela is talking about how many strikes she gives a writer before she stops buying their books over at Romancing the Blog today, and Sarai said in comments:
Being an aspiring author I try to read the first books of everyone with a grain of salt. Why? Because we all start off rough and work to improve with every book.
Now, I agree that someone who's just starting out isn't usually as good as someone else who's been doing something professionally for twenty years; practice definitely counts. But on the other hand, I've known other people who've made similar statements about first books or first stories, about how allowances should be made and the next one is usually better, etc., and I really have to wonder whether there's such a huge difference.
Because seriously, we're not usually talking about a writer's first book or story here. We're talking about the first one published, and while there are occasional stories about someone's very first story or novel getting published, we all know how rare that is. My first story published was more like the fortieth I've completed (no clue exactly -- I don't have most of my earlier stuff to be able to count) and probably around the hundredth story I've at least begun and done some work on, going back to my first scribblings as a kid. [wry smile] Am I really that weird? That much of a slow starter...?
The whole point of having that gateway to publication, of having to get past an editor and a couple of assistants, and maybe an agent too, is that we're supposed to do our practicing before our work gets out there with a price tag on it. Not that I ever expect to know all there is to know about writing, or to stop learning and improving, but there is -- theoretically -- a bar we all have to clear before anyone is ever asked to pay money to read one of our stories. We need to achieve a certain level of skill and craft and professionalism while we're still banging away in the solitude of our writing dens, wherever they may be. Whenever I've said, "Well, it's their first story -- they'll get better if they keep working on it," I personally have always been talking about someone who's more or less new to writing itself. I don't recall ever saying or thinking that about someone whose story I read in a book or magazine.
I mean, yes, it's true that even published authors will improve, or at least they might and I think most do if they keep going and working at it. But I would hope that no one who's actually been published needs to improve so much that people would have to make "Well, they're just starting out" type excuses for them. There's a difference between, "Well, hopefully she'll get better with practice," and "Wow, imagine what she'll be like if she keeps getting better!"
Personally, I don't make those kinds of allowances once a writer's been published. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I usually assume that by the time I'm being asked to pay money to read someone's fiction, they've worked and honed their craft and have done most of their learning and improving. It's like with athletes -- the difference between your average person out for a jog or running to catch a bus, and someone who can compete and win a few ribbons or medals is pretty huge. The difference in, say, the 1500 meter pace of your average American and someone who competes is going to be a matter of minutes. There's a huge gap there. In contrast, the difference between runners who can win a few ribbons in the 1500m at a local meet and those who have a shot at an Olympic gold medal is much smaller -- a matter of seconds. But the amount of work and skill and talent and just plain luck it takes to close that gap is huge, moreso than what's needed to get Joe Average onto a local competitive track team.
I'm assuming that any writer whose work I'm asked to pay money for has made it onto that competitive team and is running with the dedicated athletes. I'm assuming that those writers have achieved a certain standard of quality and skill, and if I read their work and find out that this isn't the case, I'm going to assume that not only does their writing still need a lot of work, but so does their judgement. I'm going to assume that that is what this writer thinks is professional quality work, and I'm not interested in spending my money on a writer whose judgement is that lousy.
Your first professional publication still needs to be of professional quality. Yes, it's the editor's job to act as gatekeeper and make sure that everything that makes it out there into the commercial pipeline meets professional standards, but even when the editor blows it (and they do sometimes, we all know that) it was still the writer who submitted that work in the first place. Most of the time I don't know who the editor was, especially if I'm reading a book rather than a periodical. But I know the name of the writer, and fair or not, that's the name I'm going to mentally circle or cross out if a story was really outstanding or wincingly bad. Our stories represent us to the reading public, even our first one, and I honestly don't think a first publication does or should get all that much of a pass, just because the writer is a newbie.
Angie
I'm wondering, seriously. Daniela is talking about how many strikes she gives a writer before she stops buying their books over at Romancing the Blog today, and Sarai said in comments:
Being an aspiring author I try to read the first books of everyone with a grain of salt. Why? Because we all start off rough and work to improve with every book.
Now, I agree that someone who's just starting out isn't usually as good as someone else who's been doing something professionally for twenty years; practice definitely counts. But on the other hand, I've known other people who've made similar statements about first books or first stories, about how allowances should be made and the next one is usually better, etc., and I really have to wonder whether there's such a huge difference.
Because seriously, we're not usually talking about a writer's first book or story here. We're talking about the first one published, and while there are occasional stories about someone's very first story or novel getting published, we all know how rare that is. My first story published was more like the fortieth I've completed (no clue exactly -- I don't have most of my earlier stuff to be able to count) and probably around the hundredth story I've at least begun and done some work on, going back to my first scribblings as a kid. [wry smile] Am I really that weird? That much of a slow starter...?
The whole point of having that gateway to publication, of having to get past an editor and a couple of assistants, and maybe an agent too, is that we're supposed to do our practicing before our work gets out there with a price tag on it. Not that I ever expect to know all there is to know about writing, or to stop learning and improving, but there is -- theoretically -- a bar we all have to clear before anyone is ever asked to pay money to read one of our stories. We need to achieve a certain level of skill and craft and professionalism while we're still banging away in the solitude of our writing dens, wherever they may be. Whenever I've said, "Well, it's their first story -- they'll get better if they keep working on it," I personally have always been talking about someone who's more or less new to writing itself. I don't recall ever saying or thinking that about someone whose story I read in a book or magazine.
I mean, yes, it's true that even published authors will improve, or at least they might and I think most do if they keep going and working at it. But I would hope that no one who's actually been published needs to improve so much that people would have to make "Well, they're just starting out" type excuses for them. There's a difference between, "Well, hopefully she'll get better with practice," and "Wow, imagine what she'll be like if she keeps getting better!"
Personally, I don't make those kinds of allowances once a writer's been published. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I usually assume that by the time I'm being asked to pay money to read someone's fiction, they've worked and honed their craft and have done most of their learning and improving. It's like with athletes -- the difference between your average person out for a jog or running to catch a bus, and someone who can compete and win a few ribbons or medals is pretty huge. The difference in, say, the 1500 meter pace of your average American and someone who competes is going to be a matter of minutes. There's a huge gap there. In contrast, the difference between runners who can win a few ribbons in the 1500m at a local meet and those who have a shot at an Olympic gold medal is much smaller -- a matter of seconds. But the amount of work and skill and talent and just plain luck it takes to close that gap is huge, moreso than what's needed to get Joe Average onto a local competitive track team.
I'm assuming that any writer whose work I'm asked to pay money for has made it onto that competitive team and is running with the dedicated athletes. I'm assuming that those writers have achieved a certain standard of quality and skill, and if I read their work and find out that this isn't the case, I'm going to assume that not only does their writing still need a lot of work, but so does their judgement. I'm going to assume that that is what this writer thinks is professional quality work, and I'm not interested in spending my money on a writer whose judgement is that lousy.
Your first professional publication still needs to be of professional quality. Yes, it's the editor's job to act as gatekeeper and make sure that everything that makes it out there into the commercial pipeline meets professional standards, but even when the editor blows it (and they do sometimes, we all know that) it was still the writer who submitted that work in the first place. Most of the time I don't know who the editor was, especially if I'm reading a book rather than a periodical. But I know the name of the writer, and fair or not, that's the name I'm going to mentally circle or cross out if a story was really outstanding or wincingly bad. Our stories represent us to the reading public, even our first one, and I honestly don't think a first publication does or should get all that much of a pass, just because the writer is a newbie.
Angie
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Plagiarism Again -- The Bigger Picture
For anyone who's been in bed the last week, the Smart Bitches blog has discovered that well-known romance writer Cassie Edwards has been plagiarizing text from her source material for a number of years. Last I heard, the number of her books which include material lifted without credit from other people's writing was up to about a dozen, and the sources stolen from included not only non-fiction sources (which were what it was all about at the beginning) but also La Farge's novel Laughing Boy (Pulitzer Prize winner in 1930) and Longfellow's "Hiawatha." There are several megs of commentary all over the blogosphere if you're interested.
What I'm really concerned with, though, is the bigger picture.
Aside from this specific case, and the sheer outrage that a well-known and extremely experienced novelist thinks she's done nothing wrong by lifting lines out of other people's work and selling them as her own, a few other things have been bothering me about this whole mess, and others like it.
First, the sheer bulk of people who honestly don't know what plagiarism is. Ms. Edwards denies she has plagiarized anything, despite the many displays of side-by-side text showing she clearly did, and she's not the first plagiarist to make such denials in recent memory. And there are many people who've defended plagiarists and/or attacked the people who've pointed out the plagiarism, insisting that no wrong has been done. There've been discussions and explanations and arguments over just what plagiarism is and isn't, and why using passages from a source which is out of copyright without giving credit still is plagiarism. Why don't people know this? Why don't writers know this? How can people follow rules they don't understand or can't define?
Second, and related to the first, I'm wondering how many more plagiarists there are out there. We've had a nice handful pop up lately and I'm starting to suspect, sadly, that we haven't caught all of them. Not even close. I suppose this might just be a statistical glitch, over the last six months or so, but it's more likely a trend.
Thinking about it, it even makes sense. Ten years ago, it was a lot harder to catch plagiarism. Someone who recognized the source text had to read a book or story and actually think, "Wait, I recognize that!" They had to have access to the source, and be willing to go to the trouble of finding the book (magazine, whatever) and finding the actual lines in the book, and then figuring out what to do about it.
Nowadays, it's just a matter of firing up Google. Checking for plagiarism is incredibly easy, and it's getting easier as more text sources make it onto the web. And once the fact of plagiarism has been established, telling people about it is much easier than it was even ten years ago, much less in the pre-internet days. Before, it'd have to be a pretty slow news day for this sort of plagiarism to go before the public, unless you were accusing someone as famous as Helen Keller. (Who did commit unconscious plagiarism, by the way, of a few passages from a fairy story which had been read to her as a child.) But now, the net is bulging with bloggers eager for material, and no matter what area of publishing your story is focused on, there are dozens if not hundreds of special-interest bloggers who'd love to post about it.
We're still not used to seeing news of plagiarism -- the fact that Ms. Edwards's publisher initially tried to brush the incident off shows what likely happened in most cases in the past -- but I think we're going to get much more used to it in the future.
I'd like to think that most cases will be like this one appears to be, where the writer who lifted the lines and used them without credit seems to be honestly ignorant of what this "plagiarism" thing is all about, and didn't know they were doing anything wrong. It doesn't say much for their intelligence, I'll grant, but I'd rather think that people are just that ignorant than believe that there are a bunch of writers out there who've been coldly stealing from their fellow authors, living or dead, and profiting off of it, just because they didn't think they'd get caught.
But when I see so many writers (initially at least) jumping up to defend plagiarists, I really have to wonder about their writing habits. Added to the fact that so many people who commit these quiet offences don't get caught, I have to think there are a lot of writers out there who do this. I'm just hoping they're doing it out of ignorance, as opposed to sheer selfishness or malice.
Angie
What I'm really concerned with, though, is the bigger picture.
Aside from this specific case, and the sheer outrage that a well-known and extremely experienced novelist thinks she's done nothing wrong by lifting lines out of other people's work and selling them as her own, a few other things have been bothering me about this whole mess, and others like it.
First, the sheer bulk of people who honestly don't know what plagiarism is. Ms. Edwards denies she has plagiarized anything, despite the many displays of side-by-side text showing she clearly did, and she's not the first plagiarist to make such denials in recent memory. And there are many people who've defended plagiarists and/or attacked the people who've pointed out the plagiarism, insisting that no wrong has been done. There've been discussions and explanations and arguments over just what plagiarism is and isn't, and why using passages from a source which is out of copyright without giving credit still is plagiarism. Why don't people know this? Why don't writers know this? How can people follow rules they don't understand or can't define?
Second, and related to the first, I'm wondering how many more plagiarists there are out there. We've had a nice handful pop up lately and I'm starting to suspect, sadly, that we haven't caught all of them. Not even close. I suppose this might just be a statistical glitch, over the last six months or so, but it's more likely a trend.
Thinking about it, it even makes sense. Ten years ago, it was a lot harder to catch plagiarism. Someone who recognized the source text had to read a book or story and actually think, "Wait, I recognize that!" They had to have access to the source, and be willing to go to the trouble of finding the book (magazine, whatever) and finding the actual lines in the book, and then figuring out what to do about it.
Nowadays, it's just a matter of firing up Google. Checking for plagiarism is incredibly easy, and it's getting easier as more text sources make it onto the web. And once the fact of plagiarism has been established, telling people about it is much easier than it was even ten years ago, much less in the pre-internet days. Before, it'd have to be a pretty slow news day for this sort of plagiarism to go before the public, unless you were accusing someone as famous as Helen Keller. (Who did commit unconscious plagiarism, by the way, of a few passages from a fairy story which had been read to her as a child.) But now, the net is bulging with bloggers eager for material, and no matter what area of publishing your story is focused on, there are dozens if not hundreds of special-interest bloggers who'd love to post about it.
We're still not used to seeing news of plagiarism -- the fact that Ms. Edwards's publisher initially tried to brush the incident off shows what likely happened in most cases in the past -- but I think we're going to get much more used to it in the future.
I'd like to think that most cases will be like this one appears to be, where the writer who lifted the lines and used them without credit seems to be honestly ignorant of what this "plagiarism" thing is all about, and didn't know they were doing anything wrong. It doesn't say much for their intelligence, I'll grant, but I'd rather think that people are just that ignorant than believe that there are a bunch of writers out there who've been coldly stealing from their fellow authors, living or dead, and profiting off of it, just because they didn't think they'd get caught.
But when I see so many writers (initially at least) jumping up to defend plagiarists, I really have to wonder about their writing habits. Added to the fact that so many people who commit these quiet offences don't get caught, I have to think there are a lot of writers out there who do this. I'm just hoping they're doing it out of ignorance, as opposed to sheer selfishness or malice.
Angie
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
New Column
Forgot to post this morning [facepalm] but I have a new column up at Romancing the Blog. This one talks about the Amazon Kindle and the number one reason I don't think it's going to take the market by storm any time soon.
Angie
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Mortgage/Insurance Issue
Check out this post by Colleen Doran. No matter what your real estate agent or insurance broker might've told you, it's possible that your mortgage and/or insurance are null and void if you have a home office or just do business from your home. She says:
I sat down and REALLY read the fine print in my home loan agreement, and even though I had been told that my home office was OK and that my being an artist would not be a problem, the actual language of the loan specifically forbid my running any business from my home.
Ever.
For any reason.
...
And at any time, if I had been called on it, I could have lost my home. The bank could have withdrawn the loan and foreclosed on my home because I was drawing comics in my home. No kidding. One neighbor with a grudge and a little smarts, and I could have lost my HOUSE.
Same with insurance. If your policy specifically forbids a home office, then if your place gets flooded out or burned down or quaked into a pile of rubble, you could be left with nothing if you do any work out of your house.
Check the fine print on your mortgage and insurance paperwork. I'm going to. :/
Angie
I sat down and REALLY read the fine print in my home loan agreement, and even though I had been told that my home office was OK and that my being an artist would not be a problem, the actual language of the loan specifically forbid my running any business from my home.
Ever.
For any reason.
...
And at any time, if I had been called on it, I could have lost my home. The bank could have withdrawn the loan and foreclosed on my home because I was drawing comics in my home. No kidding. One neighbor with a grudge and a little smarts, and I could have lost my HOUSE.
Same with insurance. If your policy specifically forbids a home office, then if your place gets flooded out or burned down or quaked into a pile of rubble, you could be left with nothing if you do any work out of your house.
Check the fine print on your mortgage and insurance paperwork. I'm going to. :/
Angie
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Feedback
Well, I wrote about the good one, so I suppose I should write about the not-so-good ones.
"Spirit of Vengeance" has gone up on Fictionwise. They have a thing where people can rate your story as "Great," "Good," "OK" or "Poor," and it shows as a bar-graph thing on the story's page. As of right now, SOV has a Great, a Good, and two Poors. :P
Now, I'm like anyone else and I like having people like my stuff. But I'm realistic enough to know that not everyone will, and that's fine. But what's really frustrating me about those two "Poor" ratings is that I have no way of knowing why those readers disliked the story.
Did they think it was poorly written? Dislike my writing style? Dislike the characters? Did the plotline not grab them, or did they not buy the way the conflict resolved? If it's something like this, then that's a generally applicable "Poor" and I'd love to talk about it, or at least get a few specific comments, you know? Because you can't fix anything in the future without some data to go by.
On the other hand, it's quite possible that it just wasn't the sort of story those readers were looking for. It's categorized as Erotica/Romance, and it's quite possible that readers just assumed that it'd have a happy-fluffy ending where everything's fixed and the two main characters share a passionate kiss before going on with their lives.
That's not what happens in this story, though. It's a ghost story -- one of the main characters is dead at the beginning and that never changes. The ending is hopeful, I think, in that we know Josh and Kevin will be together eventually, but "eventually" isn't "now." I had a number of early readers tell me they ended up in tears after reading this, and that's pretty much what I'd hoped for.
It's more like the movie "Ghost" than it's like, well, any romance where both parties are alive. [wry smile]
Just looking at the ratings, though, I have no idea what the specific objections of those two readers might have been. If they simply didn't like the ending, well, it's just that kind of story and the fact that it didn't meet their expectations doesn't mean it's a bad story, or badly written. I knew going in that not everyone was going to enjoy a story with a sorta-sad-for-now kind of ending. But if they have some other problem with it, I'd love to hear what it is. In detail. :) But I don't even know who they are and I can't ask and.... [headdesk]
I've never really given much thought before to these kinds of reader rating systems, where there's basically a thumbs up or down, or a number of stars, or whatever. Because the only question being asked is, Did you like it? There are a lot of possible reasons behind the answer, and without knowing those reasons, the answer by itself isn't all that useful. It's like, when I read reviews of computer games, sometimes I trot right out and buy a game a reviewer rated poorly, because reading the actual review tells me that what they didn't like about it -- the fact that combat was too simple and easy -- is something I would like about it. (I'm not into twitch games, the kind where you need the reflexes of a twelve-year-old hyped on Mountain Dew, and a five-page fold-out chart to figure out how to punch or kick a monster. :P ) To most reviewers, harder is better, but I don't want to work that hard when I'm playing, so what they dislike about a game might be what makes me want to play it; that's why I read detailed game reviews rather than just looking at the final rating.
And it might be the same with the Fictionwise ratings. Or it might not. But I don't know, and that's really frustrating. [sigh] I really wish I could know exactly why those two people disliked "Spirit of Vengeance." Or heck, why the other two liked it for that matter. I think this is the start of a love-hate relationship with story ratings. :P
Angie
"Spirit of Vengeance" has gone up on Fictionwise. They have a thing where people can rate your story as "Great," "Good," "OK" or "Poor," and it shows as a bar-graph thing on the story's page. As of right now, SOV has a Great, a Good, and two Poors. :P
Now, I'm like anyone else and I like having people like my stuff. But I'm realistic enough to know that not everyone will, and that's fine. But what's really frustrating me about those two "Poor" ratings is that I have no way of knowing why those readers disliked the story.
Did they think it was poorly written? Dislike my writing style? Dislike the characters? Did the plotline not grab them, or did they not buy the way the conflict resolved? If it's something like this, then that's a generally applicable "Poor" and I'd love to talk about it, or at least get a few specific comments, you know? Because you can't fix anything in the future without some data to go by.
On the other hand, it's quite possible that it just wasn't the sort of story those readers were looking for. It's categorized as Erotica/Romance, and it's quite possible that readers just assumed that it'd have a happy-fluffy ending where everything's fixed and the two main characters share a passionate kiss before going on with their lives.
That's not what happens in this story, though. It's a ghost story -- one of the main characters is dead at the beginning and that never changes. The ending is hopeful, I think, in that we know Josh and Kevin will be together eventually, but "eventually" isn't "now." I had a number of early readers tell me they ended up in tears after reading this, and that's pretty much what I'd hoped for.
It's more like the movie "Ghost" than it's like, well, any romance where both parties are alive. [wry smile]
Just looking at the ratings, though, I have no idea what the specific objections of those two readers might have been. If they simply didn't like the ending, well, it's just that kind of story and the fact that it didn't meet their expectations doesn't mean it's a bad story, or badly written. I knew going in that not everyone was going to enjoy a story with a sorta-sad-for-now kind of ending. But if they have some other problem with it, I'd love to hear what it is. In detail. :) But I don't even know who they are and I can't ask and.... [headdesk]
I've never really given much thought before to these kinds of reader rating systems, where there's basically a thumbs up or down, or a number of stars, or whatever. Because the only question being asked is, Did you like it? There are a lot of possible reasons behind the answer, and without knowing those reasons, the answer by itself isn't all that useful. It's like, when I read reviews of computer games, sometimes I trot right out and buy a game a reviewer rated poorly, because reading the actual review tells me that what they didn't like about it -- the fact that combat was too simple and easy -- is something I would like about it. (I'm not into twitch games, the kind where you need the reflexes of a twelve-year-old hyped on Mountain Dew, and a five-page fold-out chart to figure out how to punch or kick a monster. :P ) To most reviewers, harder is better, but I don't want to work that hard when I'm playing, so what they dislike about a game might be what makes me want to play it; that's why I read detailed game reviews rather than just looking at the final rating.
And it might be the same with the Fictionwise ratings. Or it might not. But I don't know, and that's really frustrating. [sigh] I really wish I could know exactly why those two people disliked "Spirit of Vengeance." Or heck, why the other two liked it for that matter. I think this is the start of a love-hate relationship with story ratings. :P
Angie
Monday, December 31, 2007
Free Story and a Sale
It's my turn on the Advent Calendar over at Torquere -- you can read my story "Catching Courage," which is a sequel to "Chasing Fear," here. Things have improved a little since Halloween for Emilio, but not as much as he'd like. Now it's New Year's Eve and they're spending it with Martin's family, which always makes Emilio hunch into his shell whether it's logical or not. Can he convince his gut of what his head already knows?
Includes a free bonus recipe for tres leches cake, although not, unfortunately, Abuela Sandoval's recipe. ;)
All the other Advent pieces are still available through the main Advent page.
Also, my novelette "A Spirit of Vengeance" is on sale for 15% off here through January 2nd.
Happy New Year, everyone! [wave]
Angie
Includes a free bonus recipe for tres leches cake, although not, unfortunately, Abuela Sandoval's recipe. ;)
All the other Advent pieces are still available through the main Advent page.
Also, my novelette "A Spirit of Vengeance" is on sale for 15% off here through January 2nd.
Happy New Year, everyone! [wave]
Angie
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Taking a Breath
I'm actually caught up right now. Well, mostly. I mean, I have a bunch of partially done projects, but I don't owe them to anyone, so they don't count when it comes to being behind or whatever. So yay. :)
I had a deadline on the 23rd (for a fic fest) and one on the 24th (for the Torquere Advent promotion) and both are done. I was actually about 40 minutes late with the first one, but the moderators said it wasn't a big deal, for which I'm grateful. And the second one was a bit late but only on a technicality. I mean, when someone says something's due on the 24th, then right before then they say they're going to be out of the office doing, like, holiday stuff until the 26th, I think I'm justified in giving myself two more days of leeway, you know? [duck] So I got it in today, about six hours ago, and hopefully that's cool and everyone who needs to like it will like it. It's a short sequel to "Chasing Fear" called "Catching Courage," about the same two characters.
And that's it. That's everything I owed to anyone in the near future. Next deadline is... I think a little over a week into January (I'd have to look at my calendar) for my next Romancing the Blog column, but I wouldn't want to write it this far in advance anyway; one never knows when some hot topic is going to go sweeping through the industry the day before your column's due, you know? :) And if not, I have a couple of ideas anyway, so that's cool.
But I don't owe anyone any fiction right now. It feels kind of loose and drifting, but at the same time it's like the world is full of potential. Everything I see or hear or read is a story idea and I could sit down and write about absolutely anything.
Often that kind of freedom is a bad thing; if I have to produce X number of words by Monday, being able to write about "anything" can give me a case of paralysis. You know, when your eyes go big and round and unfocused, and you're looking at such a huge chunk of the world that it seems impossible to focus in on any one bit of it? That's bad, and frustrating. I wrote some really putrid (to say nothing of horribly boring) compositions in high school when the teacher told us we could write about "Oh, anything!" :P
But right now I don't have that Monday deadline. Not needing to produce a finished product at any particular point means I really can write about anything, and if it starts to suck five pages in, it doesn't matter. I can start it over, approaching the same idea from another angle, or I can completely trash it and grab a new idea and try something completely different. It doesn't matter and that means I'm free to dabble and experiment and do something weird or different or just interesting. And that's cool.
Mind you, too much of this kind of freedom can also mean I never get around to finishing anything; having definite goals is a good thing, most of the time. But every now and then it's great to be able to just kick back -- to go web surfing, or read whatever I want, or play a computer game, or go browsing through story scraps and ideas from years ago -- and do whatever. Plenty of time to get all serious and focused and efficient later.
Have a great Rest Of The Year, everyone! Don't work too hard. :D
Angie
I had a deadline on the 23rd (for a fic fest) and one on the 24th (for the Torquere Advent promotion) and both are done. I was actually about 40 minutes late with the first one, but the moderators said it wasn't a big deal, for which I'm grateful. And the second one was a bit late but only on a technicality. I mean, when someone says something's due on the 24th, then right before then they say they're going to be out of the office doing, like, holiday stuff until the 26th, I think I'm justified in giving myself two more days of leeway, you know? [duck] So I got it in today, about six hours ago, and hopefully that's cool and everyone who needs to like it will like it. It's a short sequel to "Chasing Fear" called "Catching Courage," about the same two characters.
And that's it. That's everything I owed to anyone in the near future. Next deadline is... I think a little over a week into January (I'd have to look at my calendar) for my next Romancing the Blog column, but I wouldn't want to write it this far in advance anyway; one never knows when some hot topic is going to go sweeping through the industry the day before your column's due, you know? :) And if not, I have a couple of ideas anyway, so that's cool.
But I don't owe anyone any fiction right now. It feels kind of loose and drifting, but at the same time it's like the world is full of potential. Everything I see or hear or read is a story idea and I could sit down and write about absolutely anything.
Often that kind of freedom is a bad thing; if I have to produce X number of words by Monday, being able to write about "anything" can give me a case of paralysis. You know, when your eyes go big and round and unfocused, and you're looking at such a huge chunk of the world that it seems impossible to focus in on any one bit of it? That's bad, and frustrating. I wrote some really putrid (to say nothing of horribly boring) compositions in high school when the teacher told us we could write about "Oh, anything!" :P
But right now I don't have that Monday deadline. Not needing to produce a finished product at any particular point means I really can write about anything, and if it starts to suck five pages in, it doesn't matter. I can start it over, approaching the same idea from another angle, or I can completely trash it and grab a new idea and try something completely different. It doesn't matter and that means I'm free to dabble and experiment and do something weird or different or just interesting. And that's cool.
Mind you, too much of this kind of freedom can also mean I never get around to finishing anything; having definite goals is a good thing, most of the time. But every now and then it's great to be able to just kick back -- to go web surfing, or read whatever I want, or play a computer game, or go browsing through story scraps and ideas from years ago -- and do whatever. Plenty of time to get all serious and focused and efficient later.
Have a great Rest Of The Year, everyone! Don't work too hard. :D
Angie
Friday, December 21, 2007
Review of "Chasing Fear"
Cassie over at Joyfully Reviewed posted about "Chasing Fear," my Halloween Sip. This is what she said:
"Park ranger Emilio Cardenas much prefers being in the woods to spending time with people, but when he gets caught up in a job, he forgets everything else. When he finally finishes his work, he realizes he’ll be late coming home. That might not be a big problem for most people, but when your lover is a Greenman, it’s not good to be late…
Chasing Fear is a very cool story of magic, nature, and facing fears. I liked shy, antisocial Emilio. His Greenman lover, MartÃn, is both vulnerable and tough. Angela Benedetti did a great job of showing the caring between the two men as well as a slice of Emilio’s painful past. This story is a good read for when you’re in the mood for a little unusual magic."
This is my first review and I'm absolutely delighted by it. Thanks to Cassie for her kind words; I'm very glad she liked my story. :D
The review post is here.
Angie
"Park ranger Emilio Cardenas much prefers being in the woods to spending time with people, but when he gets caught up in a job, he forgets everything else. When he finally finishes his work, he realizes he’ll be late coming home. That might not be a big problem for most people, but when your lover is a Greenman, it’s not good to be late…
Chasing Fear is a very cool story of magic, nature, and facing fears. I liked shy, antisocial Emilio. His Greenman lover, MartÃn, is both vulnerable and tough. Angela Benedetti did a great job of showing the caring between the two men as well as a slice of Emilio’s painful past. This story is a good read for when you’re in the mood for a little unusual magic."
This is my first review and I'm absolutely delighted by it. Thanks to Cassie for her kind words; I'm very glad she liked my story. :D
The review post is here.
Angie
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