"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

Re: I joke about trash 'cause it takes class to be enlightened...

[greygirlbeast]

At least, that's what I tell myself, and that's what I hope, because your work's a bit too good to go without a large, Large audience, and you can't really keep writing that work, if you don't have food to eat.

Food. And rent. And video games. And books. And boy whores. Yeah.

[greygirlbeast]

Gotta' wonder, too, as the Writing Workshop Industry takes wing, how much spending money to achieve popularity is tied up in THAT particular game ...

Okay. Here is my very unconventional advice. Avoid ALL writing workshops, unless you just like doing that sort of thing for fun. There is really no connection between being a successful working author and attending workshops. And the workshops are really more about teaching writers how to please editors than about teaching writers how to be better writers, which, I think, is all but unteachable.

Can't afford admission? Solace in something Rod Serling once said: "Sooner or later, good writing gets noticed." (Perhaps, like Hemingway's words, a lie ... but a pretty one.)

Yep. That's a lie. One I would not perpetuate. Or I would ar least add the proviso that getting noticed does not equal any sort of actual success. Look at the brilliant but obscure Mitch Cullin, for example.

[greygirlbeast]

It's rare to have someone you admire confirm something you already believe. Thank you.

You are welcome.

Yours did. :-) (Gotcha'!)

Luck...

Re: Auctions

[greygirlbeast]

I can't help but think that this is a good idea. You may want to hold onto all the box flaps...

Well, truly, those are probably the only two I drew upon, and most are just box flaps. Also, at least half have now been disposed of. There might be one or two more of note. I shall look.

[stsisyphus]

Nice Title. Where is it from?

I still haven't gotten over being appalled at the whole high-schoolish "popularity contest" aspect of publishing.

Which, of course, just makes me wonder what exactly you encountered to make this old distaste arise to the fore (or more likely, the rear...of your mouth where one tends to accumilate bile from dyspepsic eruptions...).

[greygirlbeast]

Nice Title. Where is it from?

A song from the new Dresden Doll's CD, ""Lonesome Organist Rapes Page Turner."

Which, of course, just makes me wonder what exactly you encountered to make this old distaste arise to the fore (or more likely, the rear...of your mouth where one tends to accumilate bile from dyspepsic eruptions...).

Oh, I was just reading over the old entry this morning. But that distaste is usually somewhere in my mouth.

[jtglover]

Four years on, I still haven't gotten over being appalled at the whole high-schoolish "popularity contest" aspect of publishing.

I haven't seen much of the back end yet, but as a reader it seems like every so often you come across an author who's been publishing steadily all along... whom you liked just fine... but you hadn't heard was still alive, let alone still publishing. It's strange to see how much buzz certain authors or markets get -- writers with very few publication credits, or markets with very, very low visibility outside of the hundred or so people who read and publish there.

[greygirlbeast]

It's strange to see how much buzz certain authors or markets get -- writers with very few publication credits, or markets with very, very low visibility outside of the hundred or so people who read and publish there.

Such as?

[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

[greygirlbeast]

And that's probably a longer answer than you expected

Yep. But, thanks, nonetheless.