Would You Rather: Revisited

Okay.  So a couple of days ago, I posed four impossible questions to writers.  If you haven't read that post, go do it now.  It's okay.  I'll wait.  

Right then.  So now it's time for my own responses, yeah?

Would You Rather...The Author Edition

If suddenly your favorite genre stopped being published entirely by the major houses, would you rather switch genres, or start publishing small press/self-pub?

• No question.  I would jump ship and find a way to get the stories that mattered to me out into the world in whatever way was necessary.  I don't know exactly what factors influence the market -- why some things get huge while others fade into obscurity -- but I feel that there will always be a place for good stories of any kind.  More importantly, I would not want to live in a world without fantasy and horror stories.  (How's that for over-dramatic?) It's true, though.  There are certain types of books that I, as a reader, enjoy.  If those stopped being picked up by the Big 6, I would turn my back on the Big 6 and go out looking for them.  

Would you rather have your book read by as many people as possible but not get paid for it, or get paid really well for it but only a handful of people read it?

• This is probably the single hardest, meanest question on this list.  Nobody ever wants to be stuck in this position.  But I can say, honestly, that I would rather have the distribution without the cash.  Put another way, I would rather have a copy of my book in every library in the country than in every book store.  Part of this is because of my values as a reader.  I grew up in libraries.  I read a lot of used books.  I've been affected by so many authors who are deceased, or out of print, or otherwise will never, ever know what impact they've made on my life.  I'd like to think I could maybe have the same effect on somebody else some day.  Would I like a huge advance?  Sure.  Of course I would.  But only because I want the money.  When I fantasize about a 6-figure advance, it's exactly the same as when I fantasize about winning the lottery.  The only thing going through my mind is paying off student loan debt and buying a new car, maybe a down payment on a house.  I don't equate the money of the advance with my career in any meaningful way.  In other words, it's not any more attractive or important to me if I get $100,000 from a book advance, inheritance, the lottery, whatever.  It doesn't have to be my book that makes me rich.  But it is attractive to me to think that I might be leaving a legacy behind that could affect someone else's life, even if it was just one person, with my writing.  That's something I can only accomplish with my writing.  Does that make sense?

Would you rather write dozens of books, trying to find the "right" one for your dream agent/publisher, or find a home for the one book you have, even if that home isn't ideal?

• This is probably the most pragmatic question on the list.  The others are sort of theoretical, but this one is a real question that people struggle with every day when they're in the querying trenches.  After you shop a book and it doesn't get any bites, do you trunk it?  How many books do you write and try to sell before one finally sticks?  Now, obviously, a lot of books need to be trunked.  I have about 10 novels that will never see the light of day.  From the time I was 11 until I was 21, I wrote those books and taught myself everything I know about writing.  I queried a few of them.  But I always knew in the back of my mind even as I did it that they weren't good enough.  I just couldn't tell what was wrong with them and thought maybe somebody else could.  

• But some books don't deserve to be shelved.  I refuse to accept that if a book doesn't instantly find its home or sell a lot of copies that it's bad.  And I refuse to accept that because the corollary is not true:  Not every book that's published is demonstrably good.  It comes down to money, and to a very messy acquisitions process full of a lot of guess-work: "I think this is what the agent thinks the editor thinks will sell."  It's far from being a perfect system.  And besides, since when has "the market" been an infallible judge of quality?  Not just the pop culture "mommy porn" obsession, but throughout history.  How many books that we currently revere as classics were completely obscure during their own time? 

•  Look.  I'm not saying that every book is a classic or even that every book is good.  If you're getting turned down by every person in the publishing world, it's pretty likely that there's a problem with your book.  But at the same time, if you're getting a lot of "This is great, but I just don't know if I can sell it..." comments, or if you're not getting any bites at all but you and your beta readers know in the depths of your heart that the book is good...maybe it's time to take a chance.  Maybe instead of putting all of your beloved books in a trunk until an industry professional tells you you're good enough, maybe it's a better idea to self-pub them, or find an enthusiastic small press for them.  It's not "giving up."  There's nothing stopping you from continuing the search with other books.  But maybe -- just maybe -- a project would be more useful to you with a small audience from a small press or self-pub or whatever than it would be collecting dust on your hard drive while you wait for your prince to come.  It's an option worth considering, at any rate. 
  

Would you rather have a small group of extremely devoted fans, or a wide readership of casual readers?

• It's interesting to me that, for the most part, this is the one question that people had the easiest time answering.  Pretty much everybody I've talked to has agreed:  small group of fans.  What's interesting about that is it's kind of contrary to marketing advice.  If you want to be the next Harry Potter or Hunger Games or Twilight or whatever else the huge blockbuster is, you have to tap into the casual readers.  The only thing that makes these books successful is they -- as Kristen Lamb points out -- mobilize "the fat part of the bell curve."   They sell books to people who don't usually read books. 

• But that's not quite fair, is it?  Because that's comparing a small group of devoted fans....to a huge group of devoted fans.  In a weird way, the people who read only a couple books a year are the people who are most passionate about the books they do read.  So the would-you-rather question is kind of misleading.  

• For my part, I'd rather have the small group of fans.  It goes back to how I feel about having my books in libraries.  I'd rather like to think that I was making some kind of impact in some way on some people -- even if it was just a few people.  Even if I only had a couple of true fans outside of my circle of friends and family, it would be enough.  I would get more affirmation from having a reader whom I have never met to tell me that my book was somehow influential in her life than from getting a bunch of great reviews or awards or accolades (but I wouldn't mind those, too). 

So, there you have it.  My answers.  I learned a lot about myself by thinking about these things.  I still have to synthesize the information and decide what I'm going to do about it, but I feel like I know myself (and my future career) better by sorting out how I feel here.

I've got a follow-up post in me about all this, but I'll save it for another time since this has already gotten pretty long. 

Everybody Has an Agenda

I have a few other things I need to be blogging about -- I have to answer my "Would You Rather" questions, of course, and I have a blogging award I just got today -- but I had another topic I wanted to address first on the tails of my discussion of literary agents. 

Writing is a crazy, tumultuous industry right now.  In reality, everything is a crazy industry right now.  Technology has made producing and distributing goods different than ever.  The Internet has forever changed the way that businesses can interact with consumers.  And the economy has changed the way that consumers are buying things.  It's nuts, and it's HUGE and a lot of people think it's a temporary thing and maybe it is but maybe it isn't. 

The point is, navigating these waters is really hard, and most writers are looking for someone to hold their hand and guide them down the right path.  And I just wanted to touch on that, briefly, because there's something that writers need to know but maybe don't really think about:  You are not going to get 100% impartial information from any source.  

The thing about writing and publishing (or should I say, distributing) is that there are suddenly multiple pathways to success where there used to be just one.  That's why so many people are saying that it's wonderful to be a writer right now.  It might not always feel like it -- considering how tumultuous everything is -- but it's true.  We used to have pretty much just one viable path.  Now we've got a whole bunch of them and they're all on surprisingly equal footing. 

Writers trying to decide which pathway to take end up searching for answers and advice, and the advice is conflicting.  Who do you listen to?  What's real (or not real, har har)? 

So here's the thing.  Everybody with an vested interest in something is going to have an agenda.  That's not a bad thing.  It's only bad if it's a hidden agenda -- ie, the person says one thing then does another.  For example, vanity publishing is bad because it claims that its purpose is to publish your book, but it's really making money from you, which is not how book-selling should go.  But everybody else -- agents, editors, bookstores, authors -- everybody who weighs in on the debate about the future of publishing?  All of those people are coming from a specific place, with specific goals in mind, and that's going to color their advice. 

Obviously if you ask somebody from traditional publishing whether that's the better option than self-pub, they're going to give you advice that benefits them.  Agents aren't going to say, "You don't need an agent!" and publishers aren't going to say, "You don't need a publisher!" because they like their jobs and have a powerful need to eat. 

On the other hand, you're not going to hear self-publishing people saying "Don't self-publish!"  But why is that?  Why are they all such big champions?  You'd think they wouldn't want more competition. 

Except the really vocal self-published writers (like Konrath).....seem to have made an entire platform by telling people how to self-publish.  It's pretty likely that, if you know who J.A. Konrath is, you know that because of how vocal he is about publishing. 

So who do you listen to?  What do you do? 

I have three pieces of advice for you.  And, if you're wondering where I'm coming from (as you should be) -- my agenda is the same as yours.  I want to figure out the best way through these dark, crowded woods, and I'm approaching it as rationally as possible.  And bringing you for the ride. 

• Always know the motive of the person giving you advice.  This is something to live by, not just in writing but in every facet of your life.  Whenever you're approached by someone telling you anything, ask, "What is this person trying to sell?"  Are they promoting a new book?  Are they in a business that's related to the advice they're giving?  What do they stand to gain from you taking their advice?  Just because somebody has an agenda doesn't mean that they're wrong.  A lot of times they're totally right.  But you need to know.  
• Research everything exhaustively yourself.  Don't rely on any single source.  There's a reason why your research papers in school had to have at least 3-5 sources.  The more research you do, from more people, the clearer idea of the total situation you will have.  Try to get the widest variety of answers possible.  
• There really isn't a single right answer.  This is probably the hardest pill to swallow for us writer folk who are sitting here saying, "Just tell me what to do!"  But the thing is, when people say "Choose the path that's right for you, there are no wrong answers," they're not bullshitting you.  There's a lot of paths to success and all of them can work.  It's just an issue of doing your research, figuring out what resonates with you and doing what works best for you.  

And that last part is what I want to leave you all with.  There are no wrong answers here.  There's just better and worse options to suit your needs.  So look in your heart, figure out what you really do want/need, do as much research from as many sources as you possibly can....and go forth and capture your dreams. 

Agents, Authors, Power Dynamics and You: An Encouraging Thought

So, I'm not sure if this is a new phenomenon caused by the publishing industry's recent shift (corporate conglomerates, fewer editors, more agents) or if it's always been this way, but literary agents seem to hold a LOT of power over aspiring authors.  Once you finish your book, your next goal is to find an agent, and the task can seem completely daunting.  You agonize over writing a query letter.  You workshop your first five pages to death.  You read every agent blog you can find, follow every agent you can think of on Twitter, and hang on their every word like gospel.  Every time they complain about something, you immediately think, "oh my god!  they're talking about me!"  Every time they say something good about something, you think, "Is that me?  No, that can't be me.  Oh my god, they hate me!"

Pretty soon you put yourself in a position where your happiness is entirely contingent on whether or not an agent notices you.  It's like being in high school again.  You remember how that feels -- the dreamy (insert appropriate object of affection: jock, cheerleader, geek, musician, chess club champion, etc.) actually made eye contact with you across the room!  Oh, the fluttering heart!  Oh, the swooning!

With each tiny interaction, you go through a rollercoaster of emotions.  A request makes you burst into spontaneous tap-dancing and song.  A rejection fills you with bleak despair.  All you can talk about is querying, but of course you can't talk about querying because you don't want your agents to think you're desperate, or misconstrue something you say, or think you're a pessimist, or whatever.  So you bottle it all up inside and then it comes bursting out every second you catch anybody alone.

C'mon, writers.  Snap out of it.  We're not swooning 8th graders.  Agents are not sweet puppy-dog loves.

And they shouldn't be.  That's not healthy -- for you, or for them.  Agents are people, not gods, not idols, not bulging-muscle-athletes with sensitive eyes and souls of gold (well, ok, some might be that last one, I guess -- I'd hate to be exclusionary).  I'm pretty sure that most agents would be (read: are) horrified by how much we've built them up in our heads.

Agents don't want to be the source of your happiness and misery.

They don't want to be the thing that makes you hope and cry and hate yourself and love yourself and eat ice cream and run around in circles sobbing hysterically because you are so overcome with feeling.

They just want to find good books and sell them so that they can make money.

Ideally, they want to find an author who produces good books so that they can continue to sell them and make money.

Agents love their jobs.  They love books.  They'd have to love their jobs because a tremendous amount of work they do is unpaid.  Their job may even be the most important thing in their lives (although, y'know, most have those pesky things like "friends" and "families" and "pets" and "hobbies" that they probably like a whole bunch, too.)  But we are not the center of their universe.  And they are not -- should not -- be the center of our universe.

So for fuck sake, stop freaking out so much about agents.  This is going to be a hard pill for some of us to swallow, so I'm going to put it in big bold letters, okay?  Agents work for writers.   

I know.  It's mind-blowing.  But let me reiterate:  They work for you.  They are independent contractors that you hire to provide a service to you.  Yes, they are business associates -- even friends! -- that stay with you (ideally) throughout your career.  Yes, they make it easier for you to publish your book in certain types of (very attractive) markets.  But they still work for you.  You still hire them.  You pay their commission.  You provide them with the goods that they sell.  Without writers, there would be no literary agents. 

Which is not to say that agents don't know what they're talking about.  They do.  Their entire career is predicated on selling books to publishing houses.  That means that they know better than anyone what those publishing houses want to buy.   They are masters of that domain.  You should listen to their advice.  But that's not the same thing as basing all of your values judgments about yourself, your writing, your career or whatever else on their comments. 

Let me provide you with a thought experiment.  Work with me, here.

Say you are starting up a business, and you really need to hire someone to work for you.  So you put out an advertisement on, I dunno, Craigslist.  Or some other job board.  Anyway -- you post your advertisement explaining who you are, what kind of position you're hiring for, and the duties that the job would entail.  Then you sat back to see who would apply.

Many of the people who aren't interested in the job won't respond to the ad at all.  Maybe they don't like doing that kind of work.  Maybe they don't like to work those type of hours.  Maybe your job ad actually doesn't make any fucking sense -- whatever.

Then some people do inquire.  They say, "Hey, can you tell me a little bit more about this job posting?"  and you tell them all the details and you know what?  A lot of those people are going to say, "Oh, never mind, this isn't the job I wanted at all."

But you, as a business owner, are not going to be upset about this -- because you don't want employees who don't want to be there.  You don't want to hire someone who's not a good fit for the job.  They might be great carpenters, but what you really wanted was a stone mason.  It's no big.  Eventually you'll find someone who fits the ad better.

And hey, sometimes you realize that the job ad you posted doesn't make any sense, or it describes the job so poorly that nobody wants to apply for it, or the only people who apply for it are totally not what you're looking for at all.  And every so often you realize that actually, the job you're trying to hire people for....it's not really a position that's ready to be filled just yet.  If you hired them, all they'd be doing is sitting around sharpening pencils because the business isn't ready for that particular job.  You'll have to put the ad out again later, when you have a job for them to do.

So think of it in those terms when you send out your query letters.  When you get rejected, it's not that you suck and you're ugly and nobody wants you.  It's just that the position you're looking to fill hasn't found the right applicant, yet.  Keep your chin up, dude.  Take the agent off the pedestal (it's uncomfortable up there, and really bad on their ankles).  We're all humans, and we're all working toward a single goal:  producing and selling a kick-ass book.

So relax, ok?

Would You Rather: Author Edition

Have you ever played the game "Would You Rather"?  The basic idea of it is to choose between two things that are both really unpleasant ("Would you rather eat a live spider or drink an entire bottle of moose urine?"), and your answer will illuminate something about you.  People try to guess what you'll choose. Sometimes there's drinking involved (but probably not moose urine). 

Well, I've been thinking about a few "would you rather" situations in writing-land, and I've realized that answering them honestly has taught me some things about myself as a writer.  It's given me a lot to think about, and I'm not sure what to do with all of this information just yet.

But, anyway, it made me curious.  So here's some of my "would you rather" questions.  Give it a shot.  It might give you some useful knowledge about yourself/your career.  Or not.  Feel free to post your responses in the comments.  If you're not feeling super comfortable with that for whatever reason, just think on them and do with that knowledge what you will.  I'm going to post my responses in a later post, and then we can chat ;)  It'll be fun! 

(also, feel free to steal/redistribute this post, but please link back to me if you do so we can share the love)

Impossible Writer Questions: 

•  If suddenly your favorite genre stopped being published entirely by the major houses, would you rather switch genres, or start publishing small press/self-pub?  

• Would you rather have your book read by as many people as possible but not get paid for it, or get paid really well for it but only a handful of people read it? 
   
• Would you rather write dozens of books, trying to find the "right" one for your dream agent/publisher, or find a home for the one book you have, even if that home isn't ideal? 
   
• Would you rather have a small group of extremely devoted fans, or a wide readership of casual readers?

Just a few to get you started -- feel free to think up some more.  Now I'm not saying that these choices *are* either/or choices -- in real life, you can have both sometimes.  But for the sake of this philosophical exercise, let's pretend that you have to choose one or the other. 

"Be Inspired" Meme

Oh hey look!  Another blog award/meme!  I love these things.

Thanks to Jamie Corrigan for tagging me :)  Let's chat a little about books, shall we? Since I've already talked about Tagestraum and Carnal Jesus a lot in this blog, I'm going to do something a little different and tell you about a different story  Are you excited yet?

Q: What is the name of your book? 

A: Nezumi's Children

Q: Where did the idea of your book come from?

A:  I've been doing rat rescue since '08, and I once had the opportunity to assist in homing about 50 rats from a really awful hoarding situation.  I brought three of them home with me, and integrating them with my own boys was harder than any set of introductions I've ever done.  They didn't seem to understand the "rules" of social hierarchy and they were constantly fighting.  As I worked with them, I got to thinking about what an incredibly strange life they'd had, and how bizarre it must be for them, and the idea of writing a book about rat culture took seed in my head. 

Q: In what genre would you classify your book?

A: Um.  Fantasy, I guess, since it's about talking rats.

Q: If you had to pick actors to play your characters in a movie rendition, who would you choose?

A:  Ideally, I'd want the movie to be animated -- old-school cel animation.  Anime-style.  Actually I think it'd make a great anime.  But, anyway, characters because it gives me an excuse to show off cute photos of my rats: 

White One, Dumbo, and Top Ear.  
(lovingly modeled here by my boys Normoth, Amadeus and Socrates.  Only Amadeus is still alive -- he lost Norm yesterday -- and he's about to celebrate his 2nd birthday)

Dumbo & Top Ear are twins, basically inseparable, although dumbo's the much more level-headed of the two. 

Bitey

(modeled here by my sweet old man Basil, whose personality greatly influenced Bitey's character.  He passed away this last Christmas)

Ostensibly the protaganist, Bitey's loyalties are torn and she struggles constantly with her nature.  

Q: Give us a one sentence synopsis of your book.

A:  When the rats of Rocco's Pet Emporium are abandoned during a terrible flood by the humans they once worshiped as gods, they must learn how to care for themselves -- but the wild rats already inhabiting the store have other ideas. 

Q: How long did it take you to write your book?

A: Nezumi was a joy to write, and the words came easily.  I did it in Nanowrimo of 2010 and finished it with a day to spare.  I started editing the following March, and that was going well -- but I ultimately had to set it down because it was just too hard to write.  Nezumi's Children isn't exactly a happy book, and I'd lost so many rats from the rescue that month that I didn't have the heart to face killing any more on the page.  I've been thinking about picking the edits back up now to give me a distraction from Tagestraum. 

Q: What other books within your genre would you compare it to, or readers of which books would enjoy it?

A: I pitch it as basically the feminist equivalent to Watership Down, but with rats.  Fans of the Warrior Cats books would also like it a lot.

Q: Which authors inspired you to write this book?

A: Whenever I decided I was going to write an animal novel for Nanowrimo, I sat down and checked out as many animal novels from the library as I could find in the name of "research."  Really, I just wanted an excuse to read my favorite type of book.  I've always loved animal books and there's never enough of them.  Anyway, there's a heavy homage to The Rats of NIMH in here, and I also have to give a shout-out to Barbara Gowdy for The White Bone.  I've said this before, but I will NEVER stop being in awe of that book.  I think everybody in the world should read it, although be prepared to bawl your eyes out afterwards.

Q: Tell us anything that might pique our interest in your book.

A:  It is, ostensibly, a story about rats fending for themselves in a pet store.  But it's also about religion, and faith, and culture.  It asks the question, "What happens when your gods abandon you?"  and deals with how to rebuild your life when everything you've held to be true turns out to be a lie.

Q: Now tag five others: 

 *rubs chin thoughtfully* Ok, I tag:  

100th Monkey

Daydreamer to Writer

Spinning Yarns

And, uh, any of the #TwitWits who want to steal this for themselves. 

The Triumph and the Tragedy...

"And when the world becomes too little or too much
The shadow mind contrives
The triumph and the tragedy that we invite into our lives
And Adam glanced back at the tree
As he was leaving
Said, “Baby, that's the price we pay
Knowing is grieving”"
-- Don Henley, "The Genie"

You always know I'm having a bad day when I start quoting Don Henley lyrics.  He was pretty much the single defining feature of my childhood musical tastes.  Thanks to my dad, I grew up on a steady diet of rock gods:  The Eagles, Led Zepplin, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, Neil Young.  Don Henley was always my favorite, though.  I wore all the sound off of "I Can't Stand Still" on cassette because I listened to it so much. 

Now I pretty much just turn to Mr. Henley on crappy days.  It's like comfort food. 

Anyway.  I woke up this morning very excited to run over and check the Christmas in July entries.  Before I could get online, though, I went to check on the rats as I always do in the morning, and was greeted with three sets of noses instead of four. 

I wasn't exactly shocked to lose Normoth.  He's been aging fast over the last few months as he approached his 2nd birthday, and the last couple of days he was ailing with symptoms that didn't seem to line up.  Digestive issues, neuro issues, respiratory issues.  I know from family history that his siblings have been prone to very aggressive cancer, so that's my best guess, but who knows for sure? 

Normoth during the Christmas photo shoot.  He was such a little camera ham.

Anyway.  Any day that starts with a dead pet is bound to end badly, and mine's been slowly spiraling downward since I woke up.  No hits in the contest yet (although I'm happy to say that several of my friends have gotten requests, which fills me with delight for them!), and I got an extremely confusing rejection letter today that I'm not sure how to process.  Then all day I've been dealing with allergies, except it might be the flu, which would probably explain why every muscle in my body suddenly hurts. 

But, right.  I bring all of this up not for pity, but just to say:  that wheel, it just keeps spinning.  There's days when you're up!  Days when you're down!  Days when you're smashed in a muddy tire track somewhere.  But you just have to keep on riding it out, and eventually you come back out on top. 

Hookers & Hangers Part 2

If you haven't read my other blog post, read it here.  This is for the Falling for Fiction Hookers & Hangers blog hop! On the 16th, we posted our opening lines -- and thanks to everybody for all the comments!  I'm working my way through the blog hop myself, although I don't have time to comment on everything.  I will try my bestest to comment on everybody who comments on mine, though, because you guys rock.  

Here, I'm posting my last lines for each of the first three chapters.  (I was going to do the last line of every chapter, but it felt too spoiler-riffic). What I've learned from this exercise is that my hangers are usually stronger than my hookers -- I tend to leave chapters on problems that I resolve in the next chapter. Interesting!  Anyway, here's my hangers:

• He’d have to dream up a stronger lock.
• He was aware only in a peripheral way of the rapidly approaching ground, and the realization that if this was a falling dream, he should be waking up by now.
• What she did after that, Adrian had no idea – because, before he could react, before he could think, the world was immersed completely in darkness. 

Enjoy!

Hookers & Hangers

That sounds kind of terrible-yet-wonderful, doesn't it?

It is, in fact, a bloghop hosted by the amazing folks at Falling for Fiction

Here's the basic gist of it:  Today (the 16th) I post the first line of each of my chapters.  On the 18th, I post the final line of each chapter.  The point of all this, of course, is to give you a teaser, and also to judge my ability to hook you (and hang you).  The hosts will pick their favorites and give 'em a 10 page critique, which is fun.

Anyway, here's the first lines of the first three chapters, plus a couple of my favorites from later in the book.

• The Nightmare Man came today.
• The drive out to the Weaver’s house was a familiar one, considering how many times Adrian had been there on welfare visits in the last eight months, but it felt strange now that he was making it after hours.
• Adrian had been hung over once, and only once, in his life.
• Nathaniel Weaver was certain of two things: first, that he wasn't playing make-believe anymore; second, that he wanted to go home now.
• He felt her, then, inside his mind: an intrusive, hungry presence that rifled through his thoughts, accessing his brain as though he were nothing but a computer.
• Adrian stopped celebrating Halloween the year that Samantha died.

Are We Living in a Sci-Fi World?

The truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction. 

I read this article about driverless cars today as part of an article I'm writing for one of my blog clients.  Car insurance is sort of my niche, so I like to stay on top of developments in the field -- so I was a little taken off-guard by this, as it was the first I'd heard of the driverless cars.  And my reaction was one of visceral terror. 

I'm normally pretty level-headed about technology.  When people all around me are freaking out about scary, scary science, I'm usually the one saying, "Well, actually, look at the people it will help."  I like to think I'm pretty good at giving rational responses to scientific developments that temper enthusiasm with realism. 

But this car thing frightens me.

What worries me about it is the possibility that, if these cars become commonplace, people will forget how to drive.  People will become completely reliant on specialized technology.  And what happens if that technology fails?  What happens if, a generation from now, we have kids who have no idea how to use a car if it doesn't drive itself -- or worse, if there is literally no other method of transportation available because the cars no longer work?

Science fiction, as a genre, is struggling.  It's just not that easy to publish a sci-fi novel these days.  And I have to wonder if part of the reason is because we're already living in such a scientifically-progressive world that nothing a writer dreams up seems far-fetched enough to be really innovative.  What new ground can we possibly forge?

When it Rains, it Pours

And, in this case, literally, as it's storming outside. 

I had lots of things to blog about this week, but I didn't get around to it.  There were a couple reasons for this.  First, because my plate is SO FULL with writing assignments lately and I was having a hard time meeting quotas for my "day job" assignments.  I came in with just over half of my goal for the week, which made me feel pretty shitty and also made me exceedingly nervous about my ability to pay my bills this month. 

I was also wallowing around in misery for part of the week.  It seemed like everywhere I looked, I was finding writers who were...not like me.  Writing different genres, for different age groups, being in a life position that I couldn't relate to.  It's really hard to feel good about yourself when everybody who should have something in common with you seems impossible to relate to.  Even when they're really super nice (and so many of them are so nice!), you can't help feeling excluded.

It felt a lot like being in graduate school again.  I ditched the MFA program for several reasons -- not least among them my massive amount of debt and inability to keep myself fed thanks to a high cost of living in Flagstaff -- but part of it was the feeling of isolation.  I was 21 when everyone around me was either 18 or 25.  The younger people (my coworkers) wanted me to buy them beer and talk about boys. The older people (my classmates) were all getting married, having babies, buying houses.  I didn't fit in anywhere.  Even when people were nice to me....what would we talk about?  What did I have in common with them? 


Anyway.  So I was feeling really down and grumpy all week. 

But then today, back-to-back, I got three bits of exciting news! 


First, I was one of the Top 20 winners chosen for the Writerly Rejects pitch contest!  I sent them a 5-sentence pitch for Tagestraum. Considering what a hard time I've had crafting a query letter, I was amazed that I even had a short pitch in me, much less one that could get a vote.  So, yay!  Now the lovely Claire Anderson-Wheeler (lit agent) will pick her favorite(s) from the list for requests.  So much excitement (and good luck to the other finalists).

Second, I was one of the 30 Finalists for the Christmas In July contest!!! (can you tell I'm a contest whore?) There were 350-something entries, which the judges painstakingly read every single one of in one day, which makes them awesome.  Anyway, Michelle Krys (who is awesome and you should follow her blog) will be sending me some feedback on my entry (the query letter + first 500 words of Tagestraum) and we'll beat it into shape in time for the 18th, when no fewer than ten amazing agents will be reading the entries and picking favorites to request.  Holy crap! 

As an aside about that, I've gotten so much awesome feedback on Tagestraum's opening.  I want to give a quick shout-out to all the Doggone Voice people, Monica of Love YA, and my new and awesome CP Gavin for giving some seriously-helpful line-edits. 

Anyway.  Third piece of news! 

I wrote an article on-spec for The Dollar Stretcher, which is this really great personal finance website & newsletter that's been around since the 90s and was one of the first places I turned to for living-on-a-budget advice when I was poor & starving during my MFA (you think I'm joking.  I'm totally not).  Anyway, they not only liked my article, they wanted to buy the full rights for it (I had submitted it just for the web) and pay me $50 for it.  :D My first-ever paid article submission with a byline.  SQUEE.

OH YEAH.  And hat reminds me of the OTHER bit of good news:  I got accepted into the Cracked.com Comedy Workshop. 

Which actually doesn't take much effort.  If you ever wanted a really awesome group of people to work for when you're just starting out in freelancing, go to Cracked.com.  They have the most elegant and interesting submissions process I've ever seen.  Essentially, you register for their forums and request access to their workshop.  The mods let you in, and there's a bunch of helpful information about how to write articles that will get accepted.  Then you write your pitch there on the forum, and people can read & critique and help you shape your pitch until it's ready to go.  Once it's finished, the editors review the pitches, and if they green-light it, they give you the assignment to finish the article.  Super straightforward, and the editors are a pleasure to work with.

Anyway, I've got some ideas brewing.  As soon as I get those ideas gelled into something resembling a coherent article, I'll be pitching to Cracked.  Because, I gotta say, as an unrepentant geek, writing for Cracked.com is sort of a bucket list item. 

So, yeah.  That's my explosion of good news for the day. 

My moral to you, kind reader:  If you're having a really shitty week, hang in there.  It might get suddenly and inexplicably better if you just wait it out a little.

#Amwriting and It Feels So Good

This has been a good week for me. 

First, I'm making some progress with my freelancing goals for the month.  I wrote two articles on spec and submitted them to small markets.  One pays, the other is free but has good exposure and is in my niche, so I can use it to get better assignments later.  I also pitched an article idea at a magazine.  I'm really hoping to get back some good news on these submissions.  It's already pretty sweet getting paid to write for a living, but if I could transition out of the content mills and start doing some real journalism it'd be pretty sweet. 

In fiction-land, I found myself getting totally inundated with critique partner offers from the MSFV Crit Partner Dating Service.  I think I ended up with six new potential CPs and have had to turn away two people so far because I'm just swamped with offers.  Who knew I'd be so appealing?  I'm going to have to make a chart or something so I can keep track of who's reading what and what I owe them in return.  We all know that organization isn't really my strongest quality.

It's nice, though, having somebody holding you accountable.  I sent the first few pages of z!CJ to them and now that I know people are waiting on more, I pretty much have to work on it again.  I managed a little over 500 words on it this morning.  Not exactly stellar, but hey, better than what I've been doing.

Sadly, I just get back to the day job.  Writing about credit cards would be so much more enjoyable if I weren't half-asleep.  *grumble grumble* But, hey, it still beats call center hell by a mile.  

Is Social Media Destroying the Internet?

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. 

Don't get me wrong, I love that it's given introverts like me a chance to connect with people.  I've made some pretty enduring friendships through Facebook, and I get all sorts of news and recipes and everything else from it.  So it's really cool, in some ways. 

But the thing with Facebook is it's single-handedly destroying the Internet, or at least turning it into something unrecognizable. 

I remember when I first got online.  It was 1998.  We had a 56k modem and used America Online.  My first-ever email account was with Go.com.  I remember Geocities, and ICQ,and Pogo and web forums that didn't bump when you posted in them.  I remember Runescape and Furcadia and Avidgamers.  All of those things are gone now, replaced with shinier, fancier things, but I miss them. 

The thing about the Internet is that it used to be anonymous.  It used to be a place where geeks and misanthropes could gather and be somebody else for a little while.  You could act differently online than you did in real life, and it didn't matter.  In fact, everybody expected you to.  When you met people online, it was okay to be sort of flirty with them, or act silly.  If you had a big melt-down, it wouldn't have any effect on anything important -- you could just leave the site, or change your username and start all over.  Soon enough, it'd all be forgotten.  You could spill your heart out on the page of your LiveJournal and feel reasonably comfortable that nobody was really reading it.

Sure, that anonymity allowed some real creepers to exist online.  But it also made the Internet a safe haven for people who wanted to get away from the real world, where actions didn't have consequences and you could be anything you wanted to be.  There were unwritten rules among people online that none of it really "counted."  There were things that you could and couldn't say, lines that you intuitively knew not to cross.  There was real life, and there was the Internet, and things didn't cross from one realm into the other without pretty serious planning. 

And then social media happened. 

Suddenly, the Internet wasn't the home of geeks and misanthropes any more.  Or at least, not just geeks and misanthropes.  All of these other people were online, interacting with you, and they broke all the rules. 

Now the things you do online have consequences.  Employers can fire you for things you say on Twitter.  If you flirt with somebody on Facebook, everybody you know will see you doing it.  If you have a public melt-down about anything at all, people will remember it, and it'll be attached to your name forever whether you like it or not. 

More and more websites allow you to connect via Facebook.  I can login to Gaia from Facebook.  I wouldn't be surprised if you can login to Neopets, too.  Hell, even all the Blizzard games have their "Real ID" that links your game to...y'know...you.  When you read things, or buy things, or do nearly anything, Facebook knows.  Anonymity is a myth.  The Internet is suddenly the most public place in the whole world, and it never forgets. 

Now where are you supposed to go to be somebody else?  

I'm not necessarily advocating being a douche online, or falsifying your identity or hiding behind the mask of the Internet to avoid interacting with real people.  I'm just saying, sometimes it's nice to be able to say or do things that you can't get by with in real life, to blow off steam or just take a break from being yourself.  Y'know, Carnivale and Halloween and all of those other masquerades for fools.  That place used to be the Internet, but I just don't think it is any more. 

So, anyway.  Is it just me?  Or do other people have some nostalgia for the "old" Internet?

Plants vs Zombies: A Writing Distraction Tool

So, I'm an ex-smoker.  I quit a little over three years ago, and although I've occasionally tumbled off the wagon, I usually find my way back on it pretty quickly.  Anyway.  There's a lot of things I miss about smoking, but the best part is taking smoke breaks.  See, I don't smoke in the house.  I've always gone outside.  Partly because I've always rented, and partly because I didn't want to hurt my animals -- especially the rats, who have sensitive lungs -- with second-hand.  So in order to have a smoke, I'd have to set down whatever I was doing and head outside for the duration of the cigarette. 

When I smoked, a cigarette provided the best opportunity to step away from whatever I was doing and give my brain a second to recharge.  This was especially helpful when I was writing, because it gave me a timed break away from the page where I could get my thoughts reorganized.  The nicotine buzz helped, too.  But it was really the focused break -- the act of doing something that took a specific amount of time that gave my brain a break without introducing more problems -- that was so valuable. 

Over time, I started replacing smoke breaks with other activities.  For example, I always used to go outside to smoke when I talked on the phone.  Now I take the dog for a walk every time I make a phone call.  I've started taking showers to unwind and clear my head after something stressful instead of inhaling a pack. 

And I've started playing Plants vs Zombies when I get stuck on writing. 

I'm not the only writer who does this.  I read on J.K. Rowling's website once that she has a Minesweeper addiction for the same reason.  I'm sure other people do it, too.  I've toyed with a wide variety of games to serve this purpose -- for a long time it was Freecell, then it was Tetris, then this bubble shooter game.  But lately, it's been Plants vs Zombies. 

If you've never played it before, Plants vs Zombies is a strategy game.  Zombies cross your lawn, which is made up of a number of lanes, and your sole protection against them eating your brains is an assortment of plants, each of which has different effects.  So there's a plant that shoots peas, for example, and a potato that explodes on impact.  You set up traps using your plants, the zombies walk into them, and you advance to the next level. 

Here's why it's so great as a writing distraction tool: 

1. It gives your brain a break without getting you sucked into something that might alter your mood or distract you for a long time (like, say, checking your email or Twitter would).  
2. Because it's a strategy game, it uses your left brain, which keeps it busy so your right brain & subconscious can think.
3. The levels are fairly short, and the game pauses after each one, so it's easy to take a break for just one level at a time
4. It's ridiculous amounts of fun

Pretty scientific, huh?

Well, anyway.  I'm off to get a little bit more work done.  After I finish tonight, I think I'm done for the rest of the week -- I'm taking a nice, long weekend to work on my new novel, spend some quality time with the boy and just relax for a bit.