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 […]
In which I have elderflower nectar
As of an hour ago, I have five stories out on submission. This is a new high water mark for me. (Two of them are reprint submissions, but still.) I also had the jawdropping realization this week that I have a personal theme. All of my novels, and many of my short stories, are about pairs of magicians, one mentoring the other. In trying to trace back the origins of this very persistent meme in my own life, I came back to the Vasilissa story. This story has been interpreted by Clarissa Pinkola Estes as a story about women’s intuition, as Wikipedia reminds me; I remember reading Estes at the direction of my therapist, when I was in university, and thinking that she basically took a whole pile of interesting old stories about women and said that they were about intuition, which galled me a bit, since I don’t possess much of that thing. To me, this story feels like it’s about power. Not necessarily feminine power, either, not in some essentialist way: we’re talking about flaming-eyed skulls, people. Clear, burning sight. Baba Yaga, the elderly witch who lives in the forest, teaches Vasilissa, the young seeker, how to wield […]
Peer feedback reviews
…in the form of Submit! (my writing group). I have been given the duct-tape to fix the broken story. I have also been given a great deal of homemade pizza, chewy brownies and berry pie. I proceeded to burn it all off in nervous tension while I read the conclusion to the broken story: twisting my hair, swinging my foot, drawing little triangles on the table with my fingertip and chewing the skin off my lower lip. This tension comes from the distance between this story and a thing which really happened: a distance apparently not enough to allow me to read it with complete equanimity. Other stories, I’ve been able to read to the group without flinching, because those stories were less new and because I knew they were good. This one was still wet, and not good yet, and it felt quite a bit like something private and nasty: a dental examination, perhaps, or the scrutiny of a hostile lover. This despite the fact that my group consists of the most mature, supportive, talented people for whom I could possibly wish. Hah… my problem is that they’re all rather too good for me, I suspect. Established and intelligent […]
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 […]
All we like sheep have gone astray
(Having once sung the Messiah with my university choir, I tend to get the entire damned thing stuck in my head at this time of year, except for the parts without a soprano part, which didn’t get rehearsed at the same times.) Major technical problems at Casa Clairification the last few weeks: I couldn’t get online much at all. What began as a major annoyance turned out to be a source of exactly the right kind of boredom. Instead of puttering about reading the words of others, I buckled down and wrote some of my own. Anyone actually prolific will scoff at these counts, no doubt. All I can say in my defense is that it’s also busy season at the Day Career and I keep being the one to turn the lights out at the office. Not-a-Werewolf Book: 9990 words since Nov 17 Godot Story: 2789 words (actually, quite a few more words than that, but the rest of them sucked, and were duly excised) “The Tongue of Bees”, formerly “BEitD”, formerly “LtLCBftCaW”, is now in the mail. !!!! You’d think this would involve about thirty seconds: print story, stick story in envelope, lick envelope, affix stamp. In fact–and […]