Month: October 2011

Decisions, decisions

Readers might recall the short “God of Thunder” I finished a while back. I got the responses from beta readers, decided that those who haven’t responded, aren’t going to, made final edits, and am now putting it out into that cold, cold marketplace. I still have a decision to make yet, though. Tor.com seems to be just about the best paying market for short SF&F out there but it’s got a really long response time. If I send “God of Thunder” to them it can be a year or more before I hear back (most likely, in all reality, with a rejection). Other markets respond a lot more quickly and the likelihood isn’t too bad (given my recent track record) that one of them will buy it.

So the question is whether it’s worth trying tor.com and waiting a year or more for a reply and before I can try someone else, or if I’d be better off sending it to shorter turnaround markets where I’m reasonably likely to sell it, get some money, and another credit on my list (building name recognition and “cred”) before tor.com would even respond.

Deal not with this publisher

Fitzhenry & Whiteside

Fantasy author Doranna Durgan reports that they have not made her book “Dun Lady’s Jess” available through “regular trade channels” for some time and have refused to revert the rights to the book to her as the contract calls for.

Reversion is one of the more important rights an author retains. It means that if the current publisher of a work cannot, or will not, sell the book the author can recover the rights and find someone who can and will (including, nowadays, the ability to self-publish). By refusing to revert the publisher is denying the author the ability to make money they otherwise would have.

Bad publisher. No cookie.

Musings on changing values

I’ve been home sick the last few days and haven’t been able to do much writing.  When awake, I found myself watching the old Addams Family TV series from the sixties.

That is probably one of the most “functional” families in all of TV.

No, I am not joking.

When I was a kid watching it in syndication (I was a bit young to have much memory of its original run) I remember laughing at the “kookiness” of the Addams. Today, I find myself just as amused, if not more so, but now I laugh at the reaction of the “‘danes” to the Addams. After all, they like what they like and if what they like isn’t “acceptable” to contemporary society, well so much the worse for contemporary society.

That’s why I prefer the old TV show to the movies, particularly the way they made Wednesday actively evil, a far cry from the girl who got upset at the poor dragon being killed in the story who happened to like things like spiders, things that “conventional” people found gloomy, frightening, or disturbing.

Looking back, I wonder how much influence the Addams Family and the other show from the same period, the Munsters, laid the groundwork for my own tendency to accept what’s “different” both about myself and about others.  They may have been intended to hold the Addams and the Munsters up as objects of ridicule, and many people apparently saw them that way, but you had here a loving family that cared deeply about each other but that was just . . . different.

And that’s one of the powers of fiction, the ability to put a deeper message behind the obvious.  Not everyone will get it–certainly the folk who changed the kind-hearted if a bit creepy girl from the TV show to the murderous sociopath of the first movie didn’t–but those who have ears to hear, will hear.

Words of truth

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners.  I wish someone had told me.  All of us who do createive work, we get into it because we have good taste.  But there is this gap.  For the first couple of years you make stuff, it’s just not that good.  It’s trying to be good, it has potential, bu it’s not.  But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer.  And your taste is why your work disappoints you.  A lot of people never get past this phase; they quit.  Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through yearsof this.  We know our work doesn’t have this special thing we want it to have.  We all go through this.  And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know that it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work.  Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you finish one piece.  It’s only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met.  It’s gonna take a while.  It’s normal to take a while.  You jut gotta fight your way through.” Ira Glass

As one who is still facing that “gap” (and it’s a big one) I can say that there is much truth there.