Sep 06 2008
WWIR: August 31 through September 6, 2008
Unwriting: Everybody at my daughter’s school has been brainwashed by Twilight. That in itself is enough to make my little rebel shun it, but she read the excerpt at BN.com. Her reaction was “a mix of boredom and wanting to kill myself because of the gushingness and boringness. There is no plotline, and it sounds like it was written by a 12-year-old fanfictionist.” (She tells me now even a teacher told her to read it. That settles it. Home school.) Then she found this comic (click picture there to enlarge), which cracked us both the hell up. The third panel, in particular, reminds me of one of those old Bugs Bunny in drag cartoons.
NB: If you’ve submitted something to Nocturne Bites and are still waitingwaitingwaiting for word, the official statement on the response time currently is “3 to 4 months.” I sent mine in mid-May, and I can tell you it’s closer to 4 than 3. The longer you wait, the more submissions they’re going to get, and the longer it will take, so if you’re going to do it (you know who you are), I suggest you do so sooner rather than later lest you end up waiting 6 or 8 months on 15,000 words.
To demonstrate how impersonally one begins to take rejection after a while, I’m barking at my email every day, “Hurry up and reject the stupid thing so I can give these people something!” Because I really dropped the ball on the IWS. I feel terrible, but I’m just not into it right now, and it shows. It’s bad. I’ll get back to it eventually.
But the Bite story, with a little tidying up afforded by word-count freedom, is a cute little story. One way or another, something should happen with that soon.
MC-1: Finished Chapter Three. On Monday. See? Dr. Naughty wasn’t so scary. Finished Chapter Four. Both also, I think, solid chapters that won’t have to die. Not saying “no editing” on any of these, mind you, just differentiating from my usual First (One-Two-Three) Hundred Pages of Suckage that have to be completely replaced five or twenty times.
Kind of gazing into the future of this story, I caught a glimpse of where it wants to head, and I said, “Nuh-uh. That can’t happen because there’s NO WAY to resolve that situation with them alive and together and ethically acceptable.” So I did what all sensible pantsers do and ignored it because I know worrying about the distant future paralyzes me, and lo and behold, the solution fell into my head a day later. Not a hand-of-god solution, but Dr. Naughty being a clever boy willing to make a big sacrifice for the woman he loves.
I lurve Dr. Naughty.
Must be a case of “the right book at the right time” making it go so smoothly. Hope I don’t get too spoiled, ’cause I don’t expect this to happen ever again.
Neurosis O’ the Week: Discussed the concept of the series with somebody. Received confirmation—without prompting—that there’s enough woo-woo to appeal to paranormal fans, contemporary fans will appreciate that nobody’s making out with the woo-woo aspect, and there’s even a conspiracy afoot for the suspense fans (which I actually hadn’t considered myself). Went home feeling pretty good about the whole thing.
Well, that couldn’t last.
Everybody isn’t going to be so supportive and agree with me, and I hate surprises, so I have to poke some holes in the plan to prepare myself for future criticism. Maybe there’s not enough woo-woo for the paranormal fans, too much woo-woo for contemporary fans, and not enough suspense for suspense fans, and therefore, rather than attracting readers from multiple subgenres, NOBODY will want to read it.
So either it will be boundary-shattering… or it will completely tank because nobody will want to touch it because it doesn’t “fit” anywhere.
No, this little hiccup hasn’t affected the writing of it. The primary benefit of being unpubbed is that I can write whatever the hell I want, and right now, I want this one. Just got my head out of the clouds about my brilliance being universally recognized at long last, is all.
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September 7th, 2008 at 4:31 am
I remember that cartoon — awesome, LOL!
There’s another one by someone else, let’s see if I can find it….
Aha, here!
Mind you, the art is incredibly crude, but I think that just adds to the funny. I love Bella. [cough]
Angie
September 7th, 2008 at 7:55 am
“You may gaze upon my fabulosity. Do I dazzle you?” Oh. Jeez. And he’s SPARKALEE!!!! Love it.
Only possible improvement: “Do I Bedazzle you?” and he decorates her clothes with rhinestones so she’s as sparkalee as he’s.
Angelic Daughter has subsequently been given a collection of serious vampire literature to peruse. She said to me a little while later, “Bram Stoker is waiting for a certain sparkalee-vampire writer in hell, and he is PISSED.”
(Apparently, all storytellers go to hell because we lie. Just a heads-up on the latest fundamentalist stance on imagination.)
September 7th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Squee for writing whatever we please. Just recently got a niggle of a plan for an exciting regency. Totally out of character, being as I write Sci Fi.
And no, it’s no Dara-Joy-Sci-Fi Regency. Unfortunately.
September 7th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Ooh, I love that flush of excitement when you meet a new story for the first time…
I was reading something the other day about what aspiring-to-be-published writers fear (I don’t like “aspiring writer”—I’m not aspiring to write, I’m doing it, after all), and nobody addressed mine, which is fear of suddenly being answerable to a “boss” who has input into the writing. Not in an editorial sense, but WHAT you’re “allowed” to write. I wonder a lot how many uninspired books by authors I’m used to enjoying are the result of “this series is selling really well, give us four more, we don’t care if you thought you were done with it” or “ninja-pirate-mermaid stories are the next hot thing, that’s what your next book has to be if you want us to publish it.”
I can tell you right now, I won’t do well in that environment.
September 7th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
I agree! I have files on the next two series…oh, wait…make that THREE series I want to write and I’m afraid a publisher will look at me and say, “You started with Greek myths in an urban setting. By golly (don’t editors say “by golly”?), you better stick with it.”
And then I get to introduce them to one of my alternate personalities and I’m never invited over for Ritz and Cheeze Whiz again.
September 8th, 2008 at 5:22 am
I’m afraid I’m stuck in the “write what you love” rut. It’s pretty obvious when people don’t care about what they’re writing. It may not be “professional” of me, but I don’t want to put some half-assed piece of work in a reader’s hands just to get a paycheck. Writers aren’t anonymous burger flippers. Reliability matters.
Here’s how I see it: Author feels pressured, for whatever reason, to produce a product she’s less than excited about. Reader reads it, hates it, says Author has lost her touch, moves Author from “auto buy” to “never buy,” and gloms on a Different Author. Author’s sales plummet. Publisher drops Author and replaces with one of the kajillion others clamoring for publication. Author is never heard from again.
Kind of a big price for Author to pay, if you ask me. If your name is on the cover, you’re responsible for it. If it’s your career, you’re responsible for it. Maybe I’d think differently if I had a publisher telling me “do it our way or we’ll drop you,” but if you consistently produce quality books that keep readers coming back for more because you’re not a sell-out, wouldn’t another publisher snap you up to reap the profits from your saleability?
Yes, I live in a fantasy world. The weather is lovely this time of year, and the air smells of fresh-baked cookies.
September 8th, 2008 at 5:55 am
You’re missing some of your web site.
September 8th, 2008 at 6:15 am
It’s called “removing my unpublishable crap so I don’t embarrass it further.” I’ll get back to that story (which I love) when I can execute it properly. Meanwhile, it’s retiring.
September 8th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Daughter is GLOMMING Twilight. I thought it was meh. I’m just happy she’s reading. LOVELOVELOVE the comics.
September 9th, 2008 at 7:32 am
“Author feels pressured, for whatever reason, to produce a product she’s less than excited about. Reader reads it, hates it, says Author has lost her touch, moves Author from “auto buy” to “never buy,” and gloms on a Different Author.”
Used to love Johanna Lindsey. Now I never buy anything she writes because it’s just not as good as it once was. It’s acceptable, I guess, but not worth $7.
September 9th, 2008 at 8:43 am
Me too. (OMG, Tony Malory, NOM!)
And me too. (OMG, Jeremy Malory, what a tragic waste of a character born to be the ultimate gentleman by day/bad, bad, bad boy by night, SOB!)
I abandoned historical romance altogether around the time J.Li lost her sparkle for me. I don’t know if she’s entirely the reason or if that was also around the time certain readers started making a stink about the historical accuracy of friggin’ teacups, necessitating the loss of half the STORY to make room for a bunch of boring window dressing that bores me to… reading something that doesn’t bore me. *sigh*
There’s a Teresa Medeiros book that came out recently, about which someone said it was a “throwback to the Eighties,” which was probably meant as a scathing cutdown but filled me with such glee, I put it on my next order. The Eighties were FUN for romance.
I MISS the ostentatious spectacle of those covers, dammit.
September 9th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Eva ~ I agree, anything that gets kids (or adults, for that matter) excited about reading is a good thing, regardless of my feelings for the book generating the excitement.
At the same time, I’m kind of glad my kid’s not interested in that one. I’m pre-reading P.C. Cast’s Marked (to get a sense of whether it’s worth recommending to her, not because I ever censor what she reads), which she won’t like either. (She’s grossed out by kissing, so oral sex on page 50-something would definitely be outside her comfort zone.)
Frankly, I’m not feeling any love for YA at this point.
As for the Twilight comics: In that one Angie linked to, anybody else think Edward bears a strikingly unsexy resemblance to the Count from Sesame Street?
September 9th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Your daughter sounds like a riot. Does she actually get away with telling you writers are going to hell? LMAO
I’m in the write what you love camp too. And you know what - don’t worry about not fitting in. Don’t write to the market. CHANGE the market. That’s my two cents anyway. If I didn’t love it, I wouldn’t do it. I write for myself, and pray someone else will fall as much in love with the story as I am.
September 9th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Angelic Daughter made the mistake back in 1st or 2nd grade of telling someone she doesn’t go to church and was informed she’s going to hell. Strangely, this upset her, until we had a talk about all the marvelous people we know who don’t go to church and apparently will be in hell right with us, so “you’re going to hell” has become synonymous with “funky jam dance party” around here.
She wrote a brilliant little story for a class recently and was subsequently informed by the same sort of person that stories are LIES, so she and I and you and everybody with an imagination better squeeze into this here handbasket…
And trust me, I have never been worried about not fitting in. (That’s been my state of being in most situations for the past 34 years!) I do write stories I’d want to read, and then people started telling me they liked them too, so I thought I’d start submitting. I don’t have expectations anything will come of it, but might as well give it a shot. I operate under a cloak of optimistic skepticism. Or skeptical optimism. Or something. If I’m totally wrong, at least I have a hobby that keeps me off the streets.
September 11th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
All stories are LIES??
*gasps*
I’ve been found out! Oh noes!