As you know, Bob, Duotrope began charging authors for its service and content as of Jan 1. I chose not to sign up, even though the amount they’re asking is exactly what I voluntarily paid when paying was optional. Why pay when it wasn’t required? I figured it was worth some amount to a whole bunch of people who would find it a financial burden to contribute, so I chipped in more than what I felt was my share in order to hopefully keep it accessible to everyone. Now that the benefit would accrue only to me, the cost is totally not worth it. I’m extremely happy with this decision now that I’ve gone a couple of weeks without Duotrope. I don’t miss the submission tracking–I have a spreadsheet for that anyway, which is pretty epic, since I am an Excel geek courtesy of years of corporate life. I don’t miss the market listings–I have a market list of my own, on which I’ve ranked the various pro markets according to all kinds of personal factors, and so far, I haven’t submitted outside that list except for anthologies, which I usually find out about through word of mouth anyway. I […]
The Fantasy of Being Published
A while back I read a memorable piece by Kate Harding on the fantasy of being thin. Harding is a fat acceptance blogger who writes movingly, in this post, about how much time she spent believing that being thin would mean “becoming an entirely different person – one with far more courage, confidence, and luck than the fat you has”. This is how I was feeling about being a professional writer. Where one draws that line is actually kind of unimportant–does it start with your first sale? First pro sale? SFWA membership? Agent? Novel contract? Not all of those things have happened for me yet, but I’m very aware today that some of them have, and that I have not yet magically become an entirely different person. I am still a person who talks too much and then feels dumb about it. I still don’t have great boundaries. I’m secretive about some things and I overshare others. I read blogs instead of working; I work instead of calling my family; I call my family instead of cleaning the catbox. I am vain. I spend a lot of money on clothes and not as much as I’d like on charity. I […]
Oh, Canada
It’s extremely surreal to sit here at my computer, three kilometres from downtown, and look at pictures of police cars burning. At Queen and Spadina. Between this and the earthquake, it’s been a week of disturbance. And, as always, the literal upheaval is mirrored by another sort, in my mind, where a tectonic shift opens rifts in the landscape and shows me a new face of my earth. And I think about Operation Mincemeat and Schwerer Gustav and tiny china horses, and from this thought comes something springing, bright and spiny, through the broken soil. […]
My anxiety
…suggests that something has the potential to go Horribly Wrong before my story sees the public, and so I have told barely anyone (my husband and my mom, and of course, you, my invisible audience). I believe this dates from a Formative Event in my past: when I was fifteen I wrote a fantasy novel. It was atrocious, but no more so than many things written by adults. A publishing house expressed an interest and I had my very first business lunch with two wonderful editors. They declared bankruptcy not a week later. I’m sure it wasn’t as simple as all that, but being fifteen, I felt like some kind of leper of doom. This feeling was dispelled when the editors recommended to me another house (who rejected me kindly, and did not declare bankruptcy, restoring my faith in my own smallness). Why do I tell this story? Possibly to illustrate to myself the fact that I’ve always had a magical-thinking thing going on when it comes to my writing. Although I believe–strike that, I know–that I’m good, I feel that I also need omens, gods, runes, cards on my side; that anything that occurs around my writing is Fated […]