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[apiphile]

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Immoderation and the pitfall of the superlativeLocking myself out of Tumblr has made me more productive, although possibly not in the right ways. It has, however, also cooled my temperament down to merely worrying and berating myself for lack of work instead of "MURDER MURDER MURDER". I think I'd like a Chrome add-on that puts a green block

Comments

[wolfy_writing]

The Tumblr blocking sounds really helpful. And it sounds like you've got a lot of great projects. I'm doing beads. Nothing else creative seems to be happening for me (it's like this space in my head where the stories go has gone dead and won't talk to me), but beads are shiny and patterned and can be pretty with little actual creativity involved.

The short story thing must be frustrating, although what I've read of your short stories has been impressive. I can't do novels. Everything I do wants to end in a few thousand words - maybe ten thousand, maybe less.

[apiphile]

I'm about to start making a tattered old book into a handbag because I don't want to finish this timeline or something, I dunno.

it's like this space in my head where the stories go has gone dead and won't talk to me

Yeah, same. My condolences, it's a really annoying feeling, isn't it?

A bit, although I can't help wondering what they *are* looking for. The body horror magazine rejected my body horror story (I'm assuming either because it was historical in basis or because it had gay desire as a catalyst) and the various sci fi magazines are rejecting the Pygmalion on a space station story for reasons I can't really fathom - maybe it's boring? Maybe it's too slow, and would be better if it was about half the length? Maybe the idea is dud? I don't know. But not being able to novel shouldn't be a problem either - people do love short stories and anthologies of them still sell like hot cakes the world over.

[wolfy_writing]

How do you even turn a book into a handbag? Are you a wizard?

It is. How do people sleep if they can't have a nice mental bedtime story to help them? (I tried counting sheep, but they kept tumbling over the fence in an increasingly ungainly fashion until the last one got tangled up and I had to stop because I felt bad for the imaginary sheep.)

Yeah, there are some great markets for short stories. To date, none that have been interested in me, but they're out there.

[apiphile]

It's a hardcover! You remove all the pages, reinforce the spine on the inside (with gaffer/duct tape, because I am classy) and where the content of the book used to be you glue in a zip, and some handles on the side that opens. Et voila!

Which reminds me, if you want HILARIOUS submission policies, Expanded Horizons.

[minervasolo]

Quitting tumblr has been so good for me. Only, now I'm scared to go and delete my tumblr, in case I get sucked back in. I'll be sucked back in by some pretty pictures of stars, and then suddenly I'll be raging mad.

Have you seen the Natural World doc about orphan elephants in Sri Lanka? One of them has a prosthetic leg!

[ayelienne]

I'll delete it for you if you prefer :)

[apiphile]

Maybe if you go directly to the settings page you won't get sucked in by your dashboard and made furious all over again...

NO OMG

[coniferous_you]

I'm finding that lately about my own work too; I just assumed I'd gone nuts finally.

For what it's worth, BBB's my favorite of the manuscripts I have read from you. It's one of my favorite books all year (and that hasn't been a short list). And I can't stress how much I normally loathe that genre.

I've done a basic timeline for the magicians book which goes up to 1910 but not to the end of the story and I am faintly unsatisfied with it. I've been counting plot points in each section because for NaNo purposes I find it's useful to have at least thirty, one for each day of writing. You then try to average 2,000 words per plot point, and then you have a narrative LUMP that's adequate for editing purposes.

This is interesting. I used to do this for plays, but I've never tried it for fiction.

And whatever about that book-signing and that other book. Lots of junk gets published that people like. It's a matter of what's marketable, not what's good.

inspires the kind of fannish receptionSo maybe I don't fan (it isn't in my genes to do

[apiphile]

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it appeals as strongly to other people as it does to you, otherwise I'm really going to have to start asking you to buy a hundred copies of it or something

[coniferous_you]

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it appeals as strongly to other people as it does to you, otherwise I'm really going to have to start asking you to buy a hundred copies of it or something. ;)

I'll definitely buy it. If I reacted that strongly to your first draft, that's a sign that you have something special (to me, at least) on your hands. Unfortunately, I don't know if I represent the book-buying public so well.

Your voice is plenty palatable. It doesn't waste time on unnecessary details, yet also gets to the heart of characters. If I were you, I'd worry more about it being too erudite for your average buys-a-hundred-books-a-year-but-reads-one customer. Because your books are more meticulously researched than a lot of academic articles I read.

Rare is the novel where I learn something.

Ha, I think that stuff is just the curse of the first draft. Nothing goes right the first time.

Hmm, you make a good point. I let my books tell me what to read. But yeah, there's a sort of elegant crassness in a lot of things fandoms like.

[apiphile]

Well like I said, I hope so. My girlfriend, who has substantively different tastes in terms of reading material, was also pretty into it, so maybe it appeals to a broad base.

Well, I don't want to talk down to my readers either. It's a fine line to tread: they're not going to enjoy being given the Sun treatment any more than they're going to enjoy being sent scurrying to the dictionary.

Yeah, you have the same "I don't groupthink" thing I do, which makes it a little harder to fandom. Fandoms ... form around unresolved emotional things, happy endings, a well-drawn world with opportunity for expansion, and average-looking white men who have sexual tension. The latter I'm very good at! Just... not in the right way.

[eglantinedreams]

Doing it in plants = inspired :)