Ask Nicola

for the nose!

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:48:48 PST

Yesterday lunchtime I was sitting idly at the kitchen table waiting for the vegetables to finish steaming (carrots and cabbage, to go with the leftover braised steak and sausage with onion from the night before, if you must know) when I was struck by the label of this nasal spray:

I tried to imagine being an alien who had to interpret this message for her people:

You, sir, are an asshole!
Thank you. Here is a friendly grenade.
Now I will slam this spray into your eye by the most efficient route.

Who do they get to design these things?

editing questions and answers

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:03:23 PST

From: Donna Collier

That was an almost orgasmic response. It was indeed, very, very good. Please accept my apologies for the length of my response and hopefully, no questions are too stupid to ask?

Right now, I have three irons stirring in the fire and I want Sterling Editing to handle the appropriate one at some point. One of my irons is a novel that I have been working on for yonks. It is with an editor now (a friend of a friend). I have no idea how many red marks it will accrue or what type changes will be suggested. That one, already has a bunch of cooks stirring the pot - so may not be the best candidate.

From that novel, I want to write two more - using the same character. Well, at least one more, for sure. I haven't started the second novel yet (which is my second iron) but I have written a few notes about where it happens, who she meets, etc. Will having SE step in on the second novel defeat the purpose of making the character and the book(s) flow because I should have used SE in polishing the first novel?

The third iron in the fire is a fantasy short story for young adults. I had it critiqued and was told that I should query a publisher and ask if they would be interested in my growing the short story into a novel or even a book of short stories - based on that particular character. Several other people have said that they see it as a series. (Perhaps they are telling the truth) Anyway, I don't know of any publishers or even an agent who accepts a short story based only on an idea to develop it further. I believe this means I have to write the entire novel before I can send it to anyone?

I'm sorry I’ve taken the long way around to ask you all these questions. More > At what stage of the project does SE want the manuscript? 1.Completed and double checked by other editors so its good enough to go through Sterling Editing 2.several chapters done so SE knows what the author is aiming for 3.one chapter done and the book will grow as SE works with the writer.

Maybe other readers have a similar question.

At Sterling Editing we will edit whatever you want help with. I'll edit a short story for submission and publication. I'll edit a novel that's a mess--a developmental edit--or one that needs just a little soothing and smoothing and pointing to bring out its best--a line edit. I'll give you a developmental edit of a few chapters and coaching sessions on how to continue it. I'll be your mentor on a book length project for forty weeks or 100,000 words, whichever comes first. (All those rates are listed here.) I prefer to work on something that is burning a hole in you, that you will move heaven and earth to perfect, to get to the point where it says what you need it to say. I don't care what length it is or what stage it's at.

But you get to choose the project.

Judging by your comment, though, you're having a hard time deciding where your heart lies. This is just the kind of dilemma we deal with in coaching sessions. We begin by asking a lot of questions.

My first question would be: how do you feel about these works? Reading between the lines (not recommended for coaching--hence the questions--but this is a public comment and response so I'm just going to go with it), you sound a bit fed up of the novel. You sound as though it's been pulled this way by too many hands and that and you're no longer sure of its integrity.

If this is true, then you have a couple of choices. One, throw it away. Two, go back to your first draft, the one only you have touched, and read it: remember what drove you to write it, what thrilled you, what the core of the story is for you. Then put your hand on your heart and ask yourself: is this worth fixing? If it's your very first effort it might not be. It might be time to begin something new. Only you can say.

Regarding the series: sometimes a story can begin in medias res. If you want to write a series about one character, perhaps you don't need to begin at the beginning. Perhaps you could begin with what you currently believe is Book 2. Only you can say.

Regarding the short story: I don't think you've had very good advice. First of all, one queries specific editors at specific publishing houses. Second, it's usually an agent who does that. Third, in today's market, querying a book editor with a short story is almost always a waste of time. Whoever gave this advice might be a great writing teacher but it might not be wise to listen to them regarding the marketplace.

So, to recap: I will work with you on any piece of writing you are burning to make great--any piece of writing at any stage. Only you can say. For writers, the real trick is telling the truth, especially to ourselves.

ambition

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:06:00 PST

In an AOL author chat many years ago, the moderator asked me, "What kind of writer are you?" I said, "A good one." No doubt he meant, What genre do you work in?, but that's a question I've never been interested in answering. I write good novels. I aim to write great novels. Sometimes the publisher calls these novels science fiction, or lesbian fiction, or crime fiction, or historical fiction. I call them good books.

As a writer, I am ambitious. I've never been shy about that. (See my rant on the subject, You've been warned.) But I hadn't consciously considered my ambitions as an editor (though I have thought about why I edit), until a writer asked me the other day, "What kind of editor are you?" I said, "A good one." But that's not the whole truth. Here's what I would say today:

As an editor, I am extremely ambitious--for you. It is not enough for me to help you polish your sentences, punch up your plot, and hone your characters. It's not enough to strike out your adverbs and adjectives. Not enough to point out your clichés and remind you to be specific. I will do all those things, of course--it's where we must begin--but they are only stepping stones to my real goal.
I want to help you change the world.
To do that, I'll help you write the best story of your life. I will look at your draft and I will ask you questions; I'll help you find out what you really want to say. Most writers begin by stepping around their story. I will help you drive straight for its heart. I will help you find the right words, the right scenes, the right settings and characters, the right POV, the right tense, the right trouble. I will stand sternly at the entrance to the road labeled The Easy Way Out and urge you back to the true path.
I will not shrug and let you get away with less than your best. I will keep you working until the wide way to the centre of your story opens before you. You will walk that way to the very best thing you've ever written (so far). When people read it, they will be changed.
That's what great writing does. That's the point. Oh, it entertains us, yes, it delights and amuses us, but it changes us, just a little. It widens our perspective, just a degree or two, increases our understanding, sharpens our vision. If your work changes one tiny thing in one reader, you change the way that person approaches the world. That changes the world.
Hundreds of readers have told me my work has changed their lives. A handful have told me my work saved their lives. One told me my work eased someone's death. That's why I write. That's why I teach and edit: so you can change the world, too.

Do you want to change the world? If you don't, what do you want to achieve with your writing?

linkage

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:58:00 PST

Still in Hild world, so here's some linkage instead of a real blog post. (Though I'm considering making this a weekly feature, if I can work out how to make the time to be organised about it.)

Secret copyright treaty leaks. It's bad. Very bad. Cory Doctorow opines on BoingBoing. The title says it all.

Leaked Courier Video. This just does my head in. Again. If I win the lottery, I won't know whether to buy this or wait for the Mythical Apple Tablet. Oh, wait, if I'm richrichrich I could get both. (Thanks, Timothy.)

Oh for a tricorder! L. Timmel Duchamp discusses current ethical implications of astrobiology. "This lecture focused chiefly on the search for "Life 2.0," looking at each of several sites in the solar system and evaluating their promise for delivering Life 2.0 or evidence that it once existed in those sites. Will anyone be surprised to hear there were quite a lot of references to sf, mostly Star Trek, most notably a picture of Spock and a quotation: "Jim, it's life, but not as we know it," and, later in the lecture, in answer to the question "How do we recognize alien life?" the reply "Use a tricorder" accompanied by an image of a Star Trek tricorder."

Modern Architecture - Stunning Whale-like Structure Can Float Away Wow. "Designed by Melbourne-based Peddle Thorpe Architects, Fluid is a whale-inspired pavilion that is sure to be a showstopper at the much-anticipated 2012 World Expo in Yeosu, South Korea." (Thanks, Evecho)

PoetrySpeaks.com "This is not just another poetry site. PoetrySpeaks allows you to experience poetry in a host of interesting ways." Brought to you by the brains behind Sourcebooks. This is going to corner the poetry market from producers to consumers to academics. Very, very smart move. Go learn.

good in Washington, bad in Maine--updated

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:10:09 PST

As of 10:14 pm, the vote to approve Referendum 71 is leading by a thin margin, 51% to 49%. Many votes still to be counted.

Sadly, it looks as though we lost in Maine. My heart goes out to you all up there. Except you fuckers who couldn't be bothered to vote. You I shun.

More tomorrow.

So now it's tomorrow.We lost in Maine--53% to 47%. Close enough to be both a terrible and a hopeful result. My hope is that folks keep chipping away at the prejudice and eventually it will be close in our favour.

Here in Washington, unless something truly bizarre and unforeseen happens, we've won. Yes, it's only 51% to 49%, yes there are still votes to be counted--but most of those votes are from the more liberal counties around Puget Sound, so I wouldn't be surprised to see our percentage rise a point or even two.

This is pretty astonishing when you consider what happened here just 12 years ago--the rejection, by 60% to 40% of a basic anti-discrimination bill. Think about that. We have won one percent per year to our side. One percent of voters, every single year, have gone from thinking we don't even need to be protected from discrimination to believing we deserve equal rights when it comes to family law. That, right there, is worth taking a moment to ponder.

I wish it were happening more quickly but the fact is, it is happening. At some point soon our quiltbag nation will have federal rights--something very similar, I think, to Washington's everything-but-marriage law, i.e. marridge. Then no one will be able to do what Jackson Memorial hospital did to Janice Langbehn and her partner, Lisa. No one will have to spend years fighting immigration, as I did (scroll past the sharks' virgin birth--oh, just go read it). No one will be stuck in legal limbo like the people who got married in California and now find themselves with no mechanism for divorce.

I'm going to go make a cup of tea and ponder the good things in life and work out how I can help to make them ever better.

the changing publishing landscape

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:01:12 PST

Kassia Krozser and Lev Grossman talked to Jeffrey Brown on NewsHour recently about 'the shifting world of book publishing', and 'how technology and readers are changing the industry'. I've only just got around to reading the transcript (thanks, Angelique). Most of what they say makes sense, apart from this statement by Lev Grossman:

And it sounds a little technical to say, also, but people have not really figured out how much an e-book should cost. Amazon tends to sell them for $9.99, but Amazon takes a loss on each book. And $9.99 is -- it's not enough for publishers to recoup the cost of producing an e-book. (My emphasis.)

I disagree. If publishers can make money on mass market paperback originals with a price point well below $9.99--many have and some still do--then they can make money on a book with no shipping, warehousing, printing or picking-and-packing costs. They just don't make as much money. Publishers (by which I mean the Big Six) must adjust.

Books delivered electronically at low prices are already a huge part of the reader-writer landscape. (For example, around 30% of my royalties are now from sales of e-books.) If the publishers want to stay in business, they are going to have to figure out how to make money for the long terms at those prices. Those that don't will fail and fade into the west. Newer publishers, writer-agent coops, and other strange agglomerations of stake holders, will take over. After all, the only two truly indispensable parts of the literary landscape are the writer and the reader. In my opinion.

What do you think?

Roomba girl, Raul Castro, Angela Merkel...and me

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:02:00 PST

Newsmakers: The People Behind Today's Headlines, is just published by Gale.

"Newsmakers – published quarterly in softcover – provides timely and informative profiles of the world's most interesting people. A hardbound annual cumulation makes Newsmakers a permanent reference source on 200 newsmakers of the year. Four indexes help readers locate entries by name, nationality, occupation and subject. Separate obituaries provide concise profiles of recently deceased newsmakers."

I'm quoting in full from their website because, well, I'm fascinated by all this. Click this table of contents and you'll see what I'm talking about:

The world's most important people include: the Chancellor of Germany, the President of Cuba, Maeve Binchy, Rachel Maddow, the Governor of Washington State, the co-inventor of Roomba, the Chair of the National Republican Committee...and me.

Life is very, very strange.

vote

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:53:00 PST

If you live in Washington State, here's your last reminder: if you don't vote on Referendum 71, you are no longer welcome in my home, real or virtual. No excuses. No exceptions. I'm deadly serious about this. It matters. Lives depend upon it. The lives of me and mine. Do your civic duty.
This also applies to folk in Maine: go vote.

another beautiful day in Seattle

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 11:38:19 PST

The trees outside my office window have dropped most of their leaves. The ones left look as though they're made of peach and wine sherbert. The grass is green again. The sky is blue. There are so many birds flicking through the garden on the way to the ravine that I can't keep track.

It's the kind of day that makes me laugh out loud. I can't stop smiling. I hope it's just as beautiful wherever you are.

Asterix and the golden jubilee

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:37:39 PDT

A preparatory sketch for Goscinny and Uderzo's first book, Asterix the Gaul (1961). Photograph: Les Éditions Albert René / Goscinny-Uderzo

The French are going all-out for the 50th birthday of Asterix the Gaul: fly-overs by Patrouille de France (the French equivalent of the Blue Angels), spiffy dinners with politicians, parties...

I loved--okay, still love--those cartoons, graphic novels really, of small but mighty Asterix and his hugeous friend Obelix, and all the Gaulish villagers living under Roman occupation. I admire the translation by Anthea Bell, who gets the tone just right. Wonderful books. They tickle my childish humour; make me howl with laughter, even now. The Guardian has an article here.

One day I'll buy the entire matching set (I own only a random sample, though I've read them all) and read them from start to finish. They are witty, charming, and full of particular characters being themselves. (And fighting, and falling in love, and taking part in Historical Events.)

Give Asterix a go. You'll thank me.

PW's death knell?

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:13:15 PDT

Publishers Weekly really screws up:

"Every year, PW selects its top 100 books, and for the first time ever PW has upped the ante by choosing the 10 books that stood out from the rest. The titles, whittled down from the more than 50,000 volumes considered this year, were picked by the PW reviews editors to reflect the very best of 2009."

The ten 'best books'. And they're all by boys. Every. Single. One. Ten books by men about men.

For me, this is just another indication that PW is rapidly becoming irrelevant to the real reading world. After all, women read more than men--yet our tastes and our subjects are not valued.

I think this might be PW's death knell. What do you think?

Addendum: if PW were based in Iceland, the list would have looked pretty damn different.

elusive plot

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:06:00 PDT

I'm chasing plot moths, dashing about in the dark swishing my net trying to catch the flittery things. I know roughly what has to happen to Hild during her next couple of years, but, oh, there are so many ways to get there, so many possibilities.

The problem is politics. Politics in seventh-century England were played for very high stakes: the loser died. (My kind of century...)

Power was abominably complicated. For one thing, everyone--that is, anyone who is anyone, that is, royal--is related to everyone else. Often in three different ways. They're all plotting against everyone and allied with everyone else. It is unbelievably, mind-bogglingly twisty.

It's enormous fun. Every time I get fed up of someone, I just whack their head off, or poison them gruesomely, or watch them die a tragic death in childbirth. On good days I wake up thinking, O-ho-ho, who can I kill today? More importantly, I think, And who does this doomed character remind me of in real life? Which is just a reminder: never piss off a writer :)

Today's mission: invent a suitably horrific but genial Anglo-Saxon torture. I think I have just the thing...

links

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:58:00 PDT

I've seen a handful of things in the last week that are worth blogging about. But I'm in Hild mode, so instead of pondering these things at length, let me simply link to them.

Over at Lee Wind's blog (I'm Here. I'm Queer. What the Hell do I read?), there's another infuriating tale of censorship, this time from Scholastic, who refused to carry a kidlit title at a book fair unless the author changed the dyke mums to a straight couple. People over on Facebook have suggested a letter-writing campaign to Scholastic and/or recruiting a PTA to weigh in. I agree.

Medical News Today has an interesting piece about back pain and vitamin D. (Also handy for the apocalypse.) "According to Stewart B. Leavitt, MA, PhD, Executive Director of Pain Treatment Topics and author of the report, "our examination of the research, which included numerous clinical studies, found that patients with chronic back pain usually had inadequate levels of vitamin D. When sufficient vitamin D supplementation was provided, their pain either vanished or was at least helped to a significant extent."

Publishers Weekly has a review of Eclipse 3 (scroll down). "...Peter S. Beagle's “Sleight of Hand” and Nicola Griffith's “It Takes Two” examine the nature and power of love from very different angles."

The Times has an article on time, procrastination, and etymology. "The longest entry in the new Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, a work that has been 44 years in the making, is for the word 'immediately'. As in - and let us pluck a thought at random here - 'We need this book finished immediately/right now/without delay.' The reason why there are 265 different ways of saying immediately? ...it is down to the human tendency to procrastinate. (Procrastinate: foreslow, adjourn, proloyne, protract, tarry, defer, delay ... ) 'A lot of the words that once meant 'immediately' came to mean 'soon', so you then needed another word that really meant 'immediately'. 'Soon', for instance - its original meaning was 'immediately'.' As in (to pick another random example), 'Yes, yes, we know you want it immediately. We're working very hard here. We'll get it done soon'."

From Sci Fi Wire: 6 secrets from the set of V. Oooh, I'm looking forward to this. I loved the cheesy 80s version. This one, though: two Firefly alums. Promising.

Enjoy.

delicious dialogue

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:14:00 PDT

Over at Sterling Editing I have a new blog post up, a discussion of some of Patrick O'Brian's masterful dialogue. There's an exercise--not an easy one--for those who want to try their hand.

random bloggish thoughts

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:11:00 PDT

In the last month I've had 16,201 visits to Ask Nicola from 90 countries. That's more visitors than usual: more than 6,000 of you came to read trembling with rage, my post about Janice Langbehn's story. If only ten percent of you did something--talked to your neighbour, posted a blog that prompted someone else to talk to their neighbour, or filled out a ballot--then we might have made a difference. So thank you all. We'll check back in on November 4th when, hopefully, we'll have good results on Referendum 71.

November will be a month of head-down work for me. Hild is reaching a critical stage. Plus, it's just that kind of weather, y'know? Rain pounding down, thick stews simmering on the stove, leaves piling up around the car which hasn't left the driveway for two days. It's the time for in-dwelling, exploring imaginary worlds: writing time. I'm looking forward to it.

Which is my way of saying I don't know what kind of blogging I'll be doing in the next new weeks. It's possible I'll want to indulge in avoidance behaviour, and so will blog my heart out. It's possible that I'll be wholly engaged with Hild and will post random snippets of nothing-in-particular twice a week. Let's look at it as an adventure...

vodka and The Marketing 'Plan'

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:12:30 PDT

Want to know what it's like to be a novelist these days? You sell the novel over a pleasant dinner (or an efficiently emailed proposal and outline). You write the novel. You send it in. You get the editorial letter. You rewrite the novel. The novel is accepted. Everyone is pleased and cautiously optimistic. Then you get that introductory email from your publicist. Your abdominals clench and your heart sinks. Ellis Weiner captures it beautifully in this Shouts & Murmurs piece in the New Yorker:

Let me introduce myself. My name is Gineen Klein, and I’ve been brought on as an intern to replace the promotion department here at Propensity Books. First, let me say that I absolutely love “Clancy the Doofus Beagle: A Love Story” and have some excellent ideas for promotion.
To start: Do you blog? If not, get in touch with Kris and Christopher from our online departrment, although at this point I think only Christopher is left...

If you're a professional, it will make you laugh, sway with recognition, and reach for the vodka. (No, beer is not enough at times like these.) If you're a beginner, well, one day, if you're lucky, you too will get that sinking feeling...

crow flash mob

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:00:00 PDT

I'm still off the grid but, thanks to the wonders of technology, here's something I wrote three days ago...

Yesterday Kelley and I spent some time in Carkeek Park.

It's always lovely there, but this time it felt like a moment stolen from the dawn of time. No one was about. We drove through alders turning gold--and I imagined Lothlorien. When we got to the bluff, the tide was in. Gulls hung in a magnesium-bright sky over pewter-sheened water. Mist dripped from the trees. Everything was still and quiet, but intensely bright. It was like being in the centre of a pearl. Then the crows arrived.

We've been going to the park in all seasons for five years. Every autumn, adolescent crows gather in huge numbers and shout and show off and carry on, desperate to prove themselves and find their place in the hierarchy. They caw, and face off, and indulge in astonishing aerial acrobatrics. Every now and again, they caw in unison, and it sounds very like a fraternity-house of drinkers shouting Chug! Chug! Chug! Kelley and I looked at each other: kegger of crows.

As fast as they'd gathered and boasting and chugged, the crows flapped away, looking for the next party. We listened to another moment of stillness. The tide changed, and line after line of rollers roared and rushed up the beach, thumping driftwood logs together, then getting sucked back, gradually revealing wet sand, which smelled like the bottom of the sea. Foghorns hooted. Gulls wheeled on their wingtips.

We sat for a long time, just breathing and smiling, glad to be alive and part of all this.

links

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:46:19 PDT

I'm still off the grid...

Over at Sterling Editing, another roundup of links for emerging and established writers. Enjoy.

access! the BookServer project

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:49:00 PDT

I'm off the grid for the next few days, but I've put together a few posts to go up in my absence...

Fran Toolan has a post over at Follow The Reader about Brewster Kahle's new BookServer project.

Brewster Kahle, Internet Archive Founder and Chief Librarian, introduced what he calls his "BookServer" project. BookServer is a framework of tools and activities. It is an open-architectured set of tools that allow for the discoverability, distribution, and delivery of electronic books by retailers, librarians, and aggregators, all in a way that makes for a very easy and satisfying experience for the reader, on whatever device they want.

(Thanks, Dear Author.)

This is very big news in terms of access: cross format, searchable, (findable), text-to-speech... It's a pretty astonishing thing. I talk more about next month, when I've absorbed all the implications. Right now, I think Toolan could be right: this is the Day It Changed. Nothing but good.

Hild and other updates

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:11:00 PDT

Regular readers know that I've been working for two years on a novel about Hild of Whitby. I've been thinking about her for much, much longer. (See "Where It Began" for the whole story.)

Hild is an interesting woman. (English understatement.) One could make an argument that it's to her influence we owe democracy as we know it. Nope, I'm not going to make that argument here today. I'm just saying that if you gave me enough beer and a comfy chair, I could. Sort of. Yep, you bet I'm being deliberately provocative. It's a writerly vice.

Hild lived in seventh century England. I'm writing her life, birth to death. She lived 66 years. I cheat a little and start when she's three. She's now twelve. Yesterday I hit 100,000 words. It's going to be a big book.

I've learnt a lot in the last 16 years of novel writing. This one, though, is demanding every ounce of my expertise. How do you take the life of a woman of that era, when by some estimates women spent 65% of their lives on textile production, keep it historically accurate, yet make it thrilling to today's readership? I'm using every narrative trick I've ever encountered, and inventing a few new ones. I'm having a blast. (See this post for a link to a tiny first-draft snippet from the book.)

Sterling Editing is going well. Kelley and I are as busy as bees in a bottle. My work with the Lambda Literary Foundation is also cranking up. I can't say too much yet but I'll give you a one-word clue: website.

I have stories and essays due in various venues soon (I'll talk about that in a separate post next week or, hmmn, possibly the week after). I'm planning to be in Atlanta in April, New York in May, and the UK in July. Meanwhile, if you're in Washington State on Saturday evening, drop by the Timberland Library in Olympia for a fabulous evening of entertainment, including readings and Q&A from me and Kelley, a performance by Blöödhag, and other delights (see Kelley's post for more info).

What all this means is that I won't be around much between Thursday and Monday. Before I fade out for a few days, I want to say an enormous thank you to everyone who responded to "trembling with rage." Thousands upon thousands of you have read it and spread the word. Please don't stop. Please don't think this is one-time issue. Please don't think I'm kidding when I say this is a real line in the sand for me. I'm not joking. I won't change my mind. There are no excuses.

learning to take it

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:22:38 PDT

Over at Sterling Editing, Kelley is talking about how it is to learn, as a writer, to take criticism. She is also asking interesting questions about being edited.

Accepting feedback is a skill all people have to learn; artists have to learn early. We get a lot. We need a lot. It also can be quite damaging if we don't know what to do with it.

So if you have opinions, techniques, or hard-won lessons you want to share--ways you've found to handle gracefully critiques of your art, your work, your parenting skills--why not drop by and do so?

reclaiming your copyright

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:26:00 PDT

I've just read a fabulously informative post by Jane over on Dear Author. As the Supreme Court in 1943 opined that "authors are congenitally irresponsible" and "frequently they are so sorely pressed for funds that they are willing to sell their work for a mere pittance," Jane notes that

Congress, who is responsible for setting the parameters of the copyright law in the United States, recognizes the economic imbalance between authors and publishers and has tried to include provisions to correct the imbalance. One of those provisions under the current copyright law is the right of termination of a previously granted copyright.

This means that even if your work is still in print, you can get it back. This isn't an immediate thing, far from it (you have to wait 35 years), but it's great news for those who felt pressed by circumstance in the past to make a less than advantageous deal.

I imagine this will have particular relevance to authors of LGBT fiction. Please pass the word (and while you're at it, drop a comment at Dear Author to thank Jane for doing the work: ploughing through the legalese and writing a clear summary).

trembling with rage

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:56:10 PDT

Yesterday I read this blog post about the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a the partner of a woman who died alone:

U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan dismissed a lawsuit yesterday, essentially finding that the Jackson Memorial Hospital was within its rights to leave a dying woman alone while denying her present and immediate family to visit her, be updated on her condition, or even to provide the hospital with medically necessary information.

Named in the now-dismissed suit were Jackson social worker Garnett Frederick and attending physicians Alois Zauner and Carlos Alberto Cruz, who made the decision not to allow Janice Langbehn, Lisa Pond’s partner, to have standard family access to information, even after receiving durable Power of Attorney and a Living Will naming Janice as legal guardian with authority to make end-of-life decisions.

I already knew the story:

Hello, I am Janice Langbehn [...] On February 18, 2007, Lisa Pond, my partner of nearly 18 years and 3 of our 4 adopted children: Danielle, David and Katie were on board the Rfamily cruise preparing to set sail. Before leaving port, Lisa suddenly collapsed while watching the children play basketball. The kids were banging on the stateroom door saying, “Mommy was hurt!” I opened the door, and took one look at Lisa and knew the situation was very serious. As a medical social worker for many years, I have seen people in critical condition. I knew that my life partner was gravely ill. As the ship was about to leave, we had no choice but to seek medical help in an unfamiliar city. After local medics arrived, we hurried off the ship to the closest hospital in Miami, Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

As Lisa was put into the ambulance I had no idea when she signed “I love you” to the kids and I it would be the last time I would see her beautiful blue eyes. We arrived at the trauma center minutes before her ambulance. I tried to follow her gurney into the trauma area and was stopped by the trauma team and told to go to the waiting room. The kids and I did as we were told.

We arrived shortly after 3:30 in the afternoon, around 4pm, a social worker came out and introduced himself as Garnet Frederick and said, “you are in an anti-gay city and state. And without a health care proxy you will not see Lisa nor know of her condition”. He then turned to leave; I stopped him and asked for his fax number because I said “we had legal Durable Powers of Attorney” and would get him the documents. Within a short time of meeting this social worker, I contacted friends in Lacey, WA, our hometown, who went to our house and faxed the legal documents required for me to make medical decisions for Lisa.

I never imagined as I paced that tiny waiting room that I would not see Lisa’s bright blue eyes again or hold her warm, loving hands. Feeling helpless as I continued to wait, I attempted to sneak back into the trauma bay but all the doors to the trauma area had key codes, preventing me from entering. Sitting alone with our luggage, our children and my thoughts, I watched numbly as other families were invited back into the trauma center to visit with loved ones. I was still waiting to hear what was happening with Lisa, realizing as the time passed that I was not being allowed to see her and if the social worker’s words were any indication it was because we were gay. Anger, despair and disbelief wracked my brain as I tried to figure out a way to find out what was going on with Lisa. I finally thought to call our family doctor back in Olympia (on a Sunday afternoon at home) to see if she could find out what was happening. While on the phone with our doctor in Olympia, a surgeon appeared. The surgeon told me that Lisa, who was just 39 years old, had suffered massive bleeding in her brain from an aneurysm. A short while later, two more surgeons appeared and explained the massive bleed in Lisa’s brain gave her little chance to survive and if she did it would be in a persistent vegetative state. Lisa had made me promise to her over and over in our 18 years together to never allow this to happen to her. I let the surgeons know Lisa wishes, which were also spelled out in her Living Wills and Advance Directive. I was then promised by the doctors that I would be brought to see Lisa as “soon as she was cleaned up”. At that point all life saving measures ceased and I asked that she be prepared for organ donation.

Yet, the children and I continued to wait and wait. A Hospital Chaplain appeared and asked if I wanted to pray and I looked at her dumbfounded as if I hadn’t already been doing that for over four hours. I immediately asked for a Catholic Priest to perform Lisa’s Last rites. A short time later, A Catholic priest escorted me back to recite the Last Rites and it was my first time in nearly 5hrs of seeing Lisa. After seeing her I knew the children needed to see her immediately and be able to say their goodbyes and begin the grieving process. Yet the priest escorted me back out to the waiting room. Where I was faced with the young faces of our beautiful children to explain “other mommy” was going to heaven.

I continued to assert my self over the ensuing hours again that we needed to be with Lisa. I even showed the Admitting clerk the children’s birth certificates with both Lisa and my name on them… and said if you won’t let me back, let her children be with her. I was told they were “too young”. I thought how old do you need to be to say goodbye to your mother?

In nearly eight hours, Lisa lay at Ryder Trauma Center moving toward brain death – completely alone and I continue to this day to feel like a failure for not being there to hold her hand to tell her how much we loved her, to comfort her and to sign in her hand “I love you”. All my pleas fell on deaf ears.

Lisa’s sister arrived driving straight from Jacksonville as soon as I knew Lisa would not survive. She announced who she was and I was at her side staring at the same person who had been denying me access all those hours. It was only then that I was told Lisa had been moved almost an hour earlier to ICU… and the hospital just kept the children and I waiting in the same waiting room, where Lisa was not even at.

A woman can share children with another woman, she can have Durable Power of Attorney and be named in a Living Will as legal guardian--and still she has no rights and no recourse. Because she's a lesbian.

I am trembling with rage.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here, so I won't belabour the point. We need equal rights. We need same-sex marriage at the federal level.

Here in Washington, voting has already begun on Referendum 71, which asks voters to reconfirm expanded domestic partnership rights which were signed into law in May, 2009. I've discussed this before, but I'm going to say it again: if you live in Washington State, are eligible to vote, and do not do so for any reason (barring ICU or earthquakes of apocalyptic proportions), you are not welcome in my real or virtual homes. I will block your email. I will unfollow you on Twitter. I will refuse you entry to our big parties. I will point you out at readings. I will turn my back on you in public. This is my line in the sand. I'm done with being wise and kind and understanding. Now is my time to be vengeful. You do not want to piss me off on this one.

So here's my challenge to all of you, wherever you live: talk about this. Blog about it. Donate money.

If you live in Washington State, talk to your neighbours, your co-workers, the woman in the checkout line. Ask them if they know any gay or lesbian people. Tell them that, in your opinion, voting yes, voting to approve referendum 71 is the right thing to do. Tell them Lisa Pond's story. Feel free, also, to tell them that if us queers do not get our rights we will rise up: the big bad butches will rip the tires off your car. The gay salon owners will burn your hair off. And all the queer cops and dental hygenists and plumbers and customer service people will fuck up your lives to the point of misery.

If you don't live here, think of someone you know who does, and call them. Talk to them. Send them Facebook messages. Write them a letter--but be quick.

This is happening today, this week, this month. Act now.

When you've done something, let me know in the comments. Perhaps it will encourage others to do something, too.

guess who gets crushed in Wal-Mart vs. Amazon?

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 11:21:48 PDT

Amazon and Wal-Mart are fighting a book-price war. Walmart cut the price of their new hardcovers (blockbusters by Stephen King, John Grisham etc.) to $10. Amazon matched them. Wal-Mart dropped theirs to $9. Amazon again matched and announced it will offer same-day delivery in select cities (New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Las Vegas, Seattle and Washington). Wow, readers might be thinking, this is awesome--cheap books! Well, yes. And no. If this continues, the ones who will suffer are the writers and, as a result (writers not writing = fewer good books) you, the reader.

Richard Curtis explains it all here.

Typically, publishing contracts reduce author royalties when the discount offered to retailers reaches a certain threshhold. I'm looking at some contracts with big houses that state that when the discount reaches 56%, the author's royalty is cut from one based on list price to one based on net receipts. For example, on a $25 book that means your 10% royalty drops from $2.50 (10% of the list price) to $1.10 (10% of the $11.00 your publisher actually collects from the retailer).

So, authors, this is not merely a spectator sport. Some of you are gonna get killed.

This doesn't currently affect me; I'm not a blockbuster seller. (Wow, never thought there'd come a day when I was pleased about that.)

I'm not saying, Don't buy these cheap books! For one, it would be pointless--you'd do it anyway, right? I know I would. (Actually, I'm eyeing the Stephen King book as a present for K; that price, wow, it can't be beat.) I'm simply saying that there's no such thing as a free lunch. Models will change, whole niches in the publishing ecosystem will soon be laid waste, things will get worse before they get better. They will get better. It's actually pretty exciting (as I've said before). But change is hard and price wars are wasteful.

I can't fix this, so for now I'll ignore it. I'll go write some more Hild. I wonder what kind of publishing world she will debut into...

an interview: The Outer Alliance Spotlight

nicolaz@aol.com (nicola) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:08:00 PDT

Over at Outer Alliance, I talk to Julie Rios about the Lambda Literary Foundation, Sterling Editing, and what it's like to be a dyke in sf land. Take a look. While you're there, join the Alliance. It's nothing but good.