"I joke about sex because it's funny when you're frightened."

[greygirlbeast]

Yesterday, I did 1,024 words on "The Melusine (1898)" for Sirenia Digest #31, but did not find The End. Because this is one those pieces. I meant it to be a vignette I could write in two days. It has, become, instead, a full-fledged short story that has, so far, required twice that number of days. If I'm lucky, I'll finish it today. Truth be told,

Comments

[jtglover]

For the former... Let's say Katherine Kurtz vs. Paul Jessup. Katherine Kurtz is a Grand Old Lady of the current wave of fantasy writing, a Founding Mother if ever there were one. Paul Jessup is a burgeoning writer getting favorable notice (or maybe it's just a matter of being visible) in various places I read online -- Jeff VanderMeer's blog, Clarkesworld, Fantasy Magazine, etc. I shouldn't say "very few publication credits" for him -- certainly more than me or most new writers -- but he's not been publishing for dozens of years.

KK is famous, important, etc., and I had no idea up until seeing her at a con recently that she was publishing more Deryni books. It's true I don't regularly read Locus or the digest mags, but I would have thought that I would have heard about her publishing. PJ, by contrast, is getting various online press and will presumably get serious press next year when he puts out his first books next year. Don't know if it's a young/new vs. old thing, or what, but in some measure one gets more attention than the other.

As to markets, hmmm... I'm talking completely off the cuff here, and the number is more like thousands than hundreds, but I've heard a low but constant buzz about Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet for a while. I've never yet submitted there, I know no one who has submitted there, and I know no one who has told me they've read a story there, and yet that magazine name shows up in "year's best" mentions, offhand references among certain SF taste-makers, etc. Is it "more popular" than F&SF? Probably not. What about the high-paying Jim Baen's Universe? Well... Maybe it's just a matter of me not knowing enough SF readers, but I've never met a single person who's talked about reading a story at JBU.

And that's probably a longer answer than you expected, but it helped me to think about popularity v. buzz v. readership. Hmm.

[greygirlbeast]

And that's probably a longer answer than you expected

Yep. But, thanks, nonetheless.

Unrelated

[jtglover]

You're probably already aware of this... but LiveJournal's spell-check tells me that when I'm writing "greygirlbeast," I actually mean "crackliest." Who'd a thunk it?