A Reminder About The Tone of the Rebels

Remember when we all respectfully told England that we didn't like their taxes and could we please get some representation if it wasn't too much trouble? And we didn't do anything that wasn't taking the high ground or making our points in the most academic and non emotional manner. We never let incendiary rhetoric shut down "real communication." And the Brits listened and never had to tell us that we weren't doing ourselves any favors. They listened because we didn't ever let our more strident members be so militant or affect the discourse with their toxic rage. Our tone was always above reproach and England really respected that moral high ground as we debated it out through proper channels and with excellent diction and grammar. That's why the loyalists and the French stuck with us–because we never alienated our allies by being too angry. We certainly didn't destroy property or disrespect the law, the government, or those agents of England who were just doing their jobs. And in the end, England just LET us be self governing because we peacefully, rationally convinced them of the merits of our argument.

Today we are the United States and we celebrate our independence because we never hurt our own cause by going "too far."

Happy Fourth of July my ever respectably politicked America!!

The Wallflowers Have Ears

Or perhaps more properly titled The Vampiric Wallflowers Have Ears

Last Saturday I went to do my vampire LARP.

Let me be absolutely honest: I did not "stretch" with this character. Max is what I call a "comfortable jacket" character. Like your favorite jacket that you know exactly how it fits and how much warmth you can get from it. I was being a lazy roleplayer when I made it, and I knew it. Sometimes when I create a character, I know they are going to be a role playing challenge or that they will take me far outside my comfort zone. I've hit on everything that moved before or been almost non-verbal and wild eyed, both of which are almost exactly the opposite of me.

Then there was the character with the orgasm gun...

Max, on the other hand, is easy. He's got some tougher aspects to roleplay for me (like psychopathy and thrill seeking) but they aren't always immediately obvious, and it tracks that they will become more apparent as time goes on.  I didn't know a lot of people at this game before I went, and I have to admit being more interested in seeing my friends than in the game itself. It's not that Vampire LARPing doesn't have an appeal I recognize (clearly I'm getting sucked back in, pun fully intended), it's just that before I stopped playing in about 2010, I had been doing vampire for just about twentyish years. Larping for a decade, and the old White Wolf tabletop game before that. So I wrote a character that wasn't going to be a push for me. I had a built in, character reason to be timid (I was not yet acknowledged). My character is a journalist (a writer). He's not gregarious or outgoing. I even have a reason to open up my laptop and do some writing with earbuds screwed into my ears.

And I pull a lot of my "writer tricks" as Max. Especially the eavesdropping one. Honestly, it's a wonder I didn't make a blogger named Chris just to turn the lazy up to eleven.

You should know that I eavesdrop a lot. Not on people I know--that seems rude--but on people I've never met, I'm constantly listening into their conversations and trying to hear their stories. Most people in this world are too self-absorbed or distracted to realize JUST how much you can pick up in a room if you take the time to pay attention. Conversations across the room can be focused on without particular trouble. Interesting conversations can be "filtered out" of background noise. Particularly with a computer in your lap, you just kind of blend in, and with headphones in your ears, people pretty much assume that you can't hear them.

Saturday night I heard a number of conversations that were...interesting. Nothing Earth shattering--no plans for praxis seizure or to murder the seneschal or anything--but interesting nonetheless. Lots of status disputes, at least one elder rivalry that is probably going to end badly regarding the wanton disrespect of one character to a couch prince of a small city. There are status bids and boon worming going on. And perhaps the most interesting conversation I heard was regarding my sire being considered somewhat inappropriate as a harpy because of his lowly Malkavian clan status.

Being performative about my "writerly aspects" is a great way to remember that they're there and suggest that other writers put them in their own tool boxes. Writers spend a lot of time working to make rich and detailed characters, believable dialogue, and plausible escalation of conflict. They could do worse than to spruce up their lives with a little eavesdropping.

Oh, the PAIN of publishing!

The actual publishing of a book takes a long time. I don’t mean the editing and copy-editing part. I don’t even mean the proofreading part. I mean the complexity of getting a work up for sale on various direct to reader sites, getting it out to all the distributors, getting it into all the countries and stores where readers can find it. That can take FOREVER!

As of now, The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy Book Two Chasing Dreams is KIND OF published.

Amazon Kindle is (after several days of nonsense) UP at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B010F01B52.

All e-formats (every single one) are UP at: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/554066. Getting into THEIR system was really tough this time.

It’s even up on Goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25825574-the-toki-girl-and-the-sparrow-boy-book-2-chasing-dreams. That was surprisingly easy, but you can’t buy books there, only review them.

BUT: It will take about three weeks for hard copies to become available at Amazon (that link will work and connect to both books) as I still have to proof bound galleys and submit corrections, if any. It will ALSO take three to four weeks for it to appear in the iTunes store, on Kobo, at B & N for direct reader purchase, and ALSO be available for purchase by brick and mortar stores, schools and libraries.

Advance Review Copies (ARCs) are mostly out, and reviews are the nicest thing you can ever do for an author. Just takes a minute, but good reviews mean more marketing on the part of the actual booksellers, and the hardest thing I’ve found about publishing (Big House, Small Press, Tiny Indie Press) is actually becoming visible to readers. Reviews help! Please review! If you buy on-line, you can review right where you bought the book.

Since distribution (bookstores, libraries, schools and readers can FIND the book to buy it)  is available without a Big House now — small presses often do not provide much in the way of distribution — one does have to ask if working through a Big House is worth it. IME, they didn’t do much more than that in the publicity line. But they DID take a lot of the pain out of actually getting the completed book into print. I'd STILL have to proof bound galleys, though, and I am the World’s Worst Proofreader.

The past three weeks, as well as the next three weeks, will be filled with urgent emails telling me everything possible has gone wrong, though it shouldn’t have. They’ll be filled with cuss words as we (and I am doing this WITH professional help) try to figure out what they’re even talking about, much less what they want.  Files will be uploaded over and over, in response to NEW error messages. We’ll hear patent untruths and have to figure out ways to get around them. I’ll be ripping my hair out at midnight.

I hate this period of being neither here nor there, of dealing with constant errors and revisions — NOT in the book, but in getting it out to distributors and retailers. But would I trade it for the ease of having someone else do this? WOULD someone else do it, if I had a Big House publisher? They’d do some thing. It would take much longer. In many ways it would be easier. It would be someone else’s job to rip her hair out at midnight. But she’d be calling me at six a.m., since she’s in NYC and I’m in California, and wanting ME to answer questions about which I haven’t the foggiest. It’s a trade off.

Sure, I’d go back to a Big House if I felt like it would benefit my books. If I thought I could get better distribution. If I thought I could get better publicity. If I thought I could get an editor who understands my vision, and not one who wants to impose hers. If I thought the factor-of-ten lower cut I get of the proceeds would be compensated for by an increase in sales.

But even though I am in the middle of publication hell, I tend to think not. The Big House is going to have to show me some benefits. I haven’t seen any so far.

Claire Youmans:
blogger extraordinaire.

P.S. This is a REALLY GOOD BOOK for middle-grades and up, a fantasy-adventure set in Meiji-era Japan, featuring siblings who can turn into birds. And monsters, of course. Lots of monsters.

If you'd like to join Claire in blogging for Writing About Writing either regularly or as a one or two shot, please take a look at the guest blogging guidelines (which include the fact that you can get paid, but probably won't get the numbers to make more than a few cents) and then drop me a line at chris.brecheen@gmail.com.

Best World Building (Poll: Semifinal Round 2)

What is the best world building in Fiction?   

Our first semifinal round is over, and we're on to round two to see who goes on to the finals.

This poll will only be up for a little over two weeks.

Everyone will get four votes (4). The top four names will go on to the finals. Before you simply vote for your favorite four, consider that, as there is no ranking of those four votes; each vote beyond one dilutes the power of your choices a little more. So if you have a genuine favorite--or pair of favorites--it's better to use as few votes as possible.

The poll itself is on the left side at the bottom of the side menus. 

Don't forget that the Polldaddy program tracks the ISP you vote from for only a week. Since I can't stop people from voting twice, I might as well work it into the system. Vote early! Vote often!

Best Worldbuilding (Semifinal Round 1 Results)

And the winner is....

Congratulations to Hogwarts, Dresden, PERN, Westeros, and Earthsea. They will be going on to the final round (in a couple of weeks). 

Magical England, Known Space, Darkover, and Black Jewels did fandamntastic just to get on a poll with so many nominations.

Look for the poll for the second semifinal round–going up later today.

No Real Post

There's not going to be a post today (other than this).

There are a lot of reasons why, and several of them are none of my business to share with the whole world.

Many apologies. One of the downsides of trying to update every day is that you (the reader) get to see EVERY time life really gets in the way, whether I'm sick or childcare falls through or I just drop the ball because I'm having a shitfully shit day. Which I think is good for new writers who think that writers are always paragons of productivity or that no one who ever made money writing spent a day staring at a blank screen thinking, "Nope. This is just not going to happen today." Sometimes a writer just has to write "twice as hard tomorrow." Them's the breaks.

I write every day, but blogging or writing something that isn't just an emotional splat on the page isn't always something my brain can handle.

Tomorrow I will be posting the results of our first semifinal round of best world building and getting up round 2.

Apologies.

Tall Privilege (Social Justice Metaphor)

I should get all the component pieces of a regular week of blogging up this week, but due to a sore knuckle (typing with a sore forefinger base knuckle is a bit harder than you might imagine after a while--I really need to stop masturbating so much [but I guess it beats going blind]), an extra robust round of kid watching this week, and trying to recover from pretending I was a vampire on Saturday night, things might be out of order. So today I'm dropping a social justice metaphor that was an insta-hit on FB earlier today.  

If I tell you that I'm short, and there are things I can't reach and rather a lot of women who will never date me because of the "three inch rule" and certain high powered jobs that I am statistically VERY unlikely to get due to my stature, that doesn't mean I expect you to feel guilty about being tall. You were born that way. You can't help it. I don't hate all tall people. Don't be ridiculous.

But don't tell me about all the things you'd do if you were short--like wearing platform shoes or saying everything in a loud voice to compensate. Don't try to tell me that because you had to reach for something once or once you know what it's like to be short or because you got turned down for a date because you were TOO tall that you've basically lived my life, have gone through the same trials and tribulations, and know my struggle. And if I tell you I can't reach your cheese grater on the top shelf without a step stool, don't be a jerk and tell me I'm just lazy and I need to learn to *really* jump. Or that I should just be enterprising and pull myself up onto your counter top because that's what a plucky go-getter would do. Especially don't explain how enterprising and not lazy you are as you effortlessly grab it from the top shelf using the unearned advantage of your physical characteristics.

And if I do get up there, the plucky go-getter that I am, and all you do is complain about how I'm getting my feet all over your counter or that I'm presumptuous and rude and "that's not the way to go about getting what I want." (even though I know that if I had asked for help nicely, I'd be subjected to the "plucky go-getter" condescension), I'd quickly realize there was not actually any way to handle it that you weren't going to be an asshole to me somehow.

If I point these things out, or if I say that this comes from a toxic culture that favors tall people, I am not "attacking" all tall people. (Just pointing out the toxic ones.) If tall people race to inform me that this behavior isn't about being TALL but that short people sometimes do it too, they are ignoring the messages about tall people affect us all. If they insist that the whole thing is a total wash because short people live longer and I should just get over it and never mention my experiences living as a short person, they are trying to derail and erase me with a salient point that isn't actually germain.

And if, everywhere I went, tall people just kept doing and saying that shit all the time and acting like total dillholes, I might eventually come to NOT give all tall people the benefit of the doubt for being cool. I might think that generally tall people fell victim to an all-too-typical societal view that their tallness equaled some kind of moral superiority until/unless I'd met them and knew for sure they weren't going to pull that shit. I might even feel comfortable not trusting tall people, even if they self-righteously informed me by way of guilt trip that not all tall people were like that.

I promise that I only look up to you literally.

You don't have to apologize for the advantages you were born with or feel guilty about them. Just acknowledge them. Just listen when people tell you that differences in their experiences exist and try to have some empathy about how certain advantages make your life a little easier and that not every criticism of the dominant culture is an attack on its every member. Try to HEAR THEM and understand what life would be like if you lacked that advantage. And if they take the time and energy to tell you what they need to be able to reach the same things you do without undue hardship that you do not experience, don't tell them that they're wrong.

Follow up: Someone who was "Just Asking Questions" asked a few about this post and the results were probably not what they expected.