Yes, It Is All My Fault!

I may be out of town, but I’m getting better at regular blogging! The secret this time was planning (and writing) ahead. Unfortunately, I had to switch the line-up order. Normally this is when the next Callie post would go up. However, this week’s episode needs a little more editing before it’s ready, so you get your weekend reading a bit early instead. This week, your link collection is:

TV Tropes — you likely have already lost plenty of time to this one, but if you haven’t, join in the memetic fun! I think they stretch things a bit thin at times, but it’s full of useful and semi-useful information, and the nested links will suck you in just as well as Wikipedia does.

If you wanted to know a bit more about the editing end of things, here’s a very nice essay on why the editor gets the award for a compiled anthology : Chris Conlon on editing

And if you’re a writer moving toward (or already in) the stage where you want to start sending your work out for rejection (and eventual publication, hopefully), one of the best sites for finding fiction and poetry markets as well as tracking deadlines and what you’ve sent out to where, visit Duotrope. It is free to sign up for an account, they fund themselves entirely on donations and give monthly reports on their income.

Back and recovering from the trip like a tired, aching thing. Still much work to be done, just doing what parts I can do while sitting around and resting for today. Now on to the interesting stuff…

I’m entering in the last round of edits for “…Elmer the Cat” today in preparation for sending it off. This has been a profound learning experience from start to finish. In the first draft, I had the voice of the narrator so clearly in my head that writing the story was quick and much more linear than many of my stories. It’s been through 6 readers and several revision rounds, including an awesome workshopping that I think I already mentioned, with Steve and Nathan (and Kendra sitting in) up at 4th Street. Had another deep session with Nathan on the plane back, and I think one of the biggest signs that I had to be done with working on it for now was that in some of my own editing suggestions, I’d moved far enough away from it that I was starting to lose the voice that had come through so clearly in draft 1. Happily, Nathan caught most of those and I do think the result is a tighter story. I certainly hope I can get this one published, and already have three or four places lined up to send it to, so we’ll see how it goes.

While I’m trying to remember to take the time to appreciate my accomplishments, there’s more writing to be done! Already a full to-do list today, with catching up on emails to be written at the top of the list. (Also, trolling the trunk for salvageable stories, and jumping the next hurdle of brainstorming so that I can move on with the novel work. And updating the to-do list, hehe.)

Another experience in learning my writing attitudes and routines recently has been quite nifty. I stopped working on the novel for a bit to focus on “…Elmer the Cat”, and thought (rather casually) that I was having a slack-off moment on the novel, being a lazier writer than I really want to be. However, since I’ve been working on letting my head move more at the pace it wants to go, I didn’t struggle too much to self-castigate and just enjoyed the short story work — and my, did I enjoy it! Even as much as it pushed my limits I loved every bit of this latest short story, from brainstorming to drafting to final-for-now revision. (Though I agree with my stepmom Mary, that there’s no such thing as a final draft, you can always go back and revise or rework a piece whenever you feel it needs it.)

And in the process, figured out that the reason I was hesitating on the novel work wasn’t slacking off at all, but a wall needing smashed in regards to a (very good) editing suggestion I received from the marvelous Ella, that I needed more definition of time/space/place. And I agreed with her thought, and realized that not having some of that defined was part of what was slowing me down in this second draft — and that the faster I got to codifying that, the less of this draft I’d have to go back and re-write from the ground up later. Saving future me work is definitely a goal of mine, so my other learning experience this week was a more subtle layer of trusting my writing process/hindbrain, that even apparent laziness might actually be a useful break to regroup and rethink. Also, knowing which hurdle it is that I’m jumping this time is invigorating to the desire to dive back into the work.

For anyone reading who wants to join in, feel free to comment on any of the above or jump into this discussion: What sort of experience have you had with your work or craft recently where your own process surprised you by working outside of your expectations?

Whew. Back from 4th Street, which was great, of course. I think I talked with others about writing for about 12 hours on Sunday alone, not to mention all the other wonderful conversations with amazing people that happened throughout the con. I didn’t get to attend as many of the panels as I wanted to (in part due to arriving later than planned on Friday night), but I do have some good notes that I hope to share on the panels I did attend.

I got to meet an old friend of Steve’s at lunch after the con on Monday that involved me missing the post-con Fish outing. I really enjoyed seeing Neil and Steve interact with each other; I understand much better now why Steve refers to him as his “evil twin”. The lunch was delicious, the conversation and stories delightful, and Steve got more exercise wandering around the grounds looking at cool plants and animals than he has in a year! We should definitely go on more walks together, that was fun.

Even though I’ve traveled from California to Texas to Minnesota back to Texas all in the past two weeks, I’ve *still* managed to get two short stories viciously dissected and put back together into (hopefully) better stories during that time. The revisions on the latest one were an especially fun editing mini-workshop with Steve and Nathan on Sunday night when we all probably should have been in bed hours earlier. It was intense but really enjoyable and there was only one part that none of us could agree on or easily fix when it was all through. (Nathan, by the way, shows some early signs of developing into an awesome editor.)

And speaking of editors, one of my few epiphanies of the past weekend is that I don’t tend to categorize writers, even those with some measure of public fame, as larger-than-life in my head…but put me around brilliant editors like Teresa and Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Beth Meacham, Debbie Notkin, Sharyn November (and others I met but didn’t get time to talk with), and internally I turn into a fascinated wide-eyed fan-girl. Hopefully it’s not TOO obvious on the outside…

Okay, back to sending off one of these stories, finishing inputting the edits on the other one before sending it off, and then maybe I can get back to such cat-waxing activities as typing up my 4th street notes. And my main character in the next novel I shall be writing can QUIT hijacking the mental processes already because I won’t write her story until this novel is finished. Back in your box!

A writing maxim I just discovered, editing a piece this evening:

If a word, phrase, or sentence is giving you trouble and you can’t figure out how to fix it no matter how many times you look at the blasted thing…

CUT IT.

Now, I’ll figure out how to condense it down into something more pithy-sounding.

Thanks to everyone who helped on this latest short story. It was a lot of fun and turned out to be a lovely and creepy little piece. (Although I do hit a point in every story so far where I ask the skies, “why can’t I just write straightforward adventure stories?” But I’m sure that even if I tried, layering and ambiguity would sneak back in.) Anyway, thanks this time go to Kit O’Connell, Steven Brust, Jennifer Evans, abigail d, Kiki Christie, and Megan Elizabeth Morris from my writing group (The Society of Voluptuaries), and special thanks go to Mary Dell–first-time beta reader for me and I very highly recommend her work and hope to use her skills again.

It’s a much better story than it was thanks to all of you, and I even sent it in on the day I had wanted to submit by, with 30 minutes to spare. I’m excited about it, and ready to move on to other projects. I keep distracting myself with these anthology projects from getting back into the heavy novel work, so I think for the month of August, (barring sudden rays of inspiration) I will not plan to work on any writing work other than my novel or the collaborative project. If I need short story time, I have several related to the novel that need more work.

I saw an opening for a slush reader at an online magazine I like, and thought hard about whether or not to apply. I’ve heard several accounts from writers who felt that time spent slush reading really helped hone their skills as writers. On the other hand, I already have a full plate of commitments and projects and then some, so committing to read several stories a week on top of that seems like added stress that I just don’t need. So I think I’ve decided not to pursue the gig, but I wonder if I’m doing my writing (and editing) a disservice by not stretching in areas like these. What do you think, gentle reader?

I’ve received some excellent critiques of my latest story, and I think I’ll get back to work on another revision pass, hopefully this evening–definitely this weekend. Anyone want to get in on reading the next draft?  That one will be close to done (one hopes), except for minor tweaking. Props and shout-outs will go out to my fine team of helpers when I’ve sent this puppy off into the wide world of hopefully-not-many-rejections, mere days from now.

Finished the first revision pass, changing some things significantly and others not, and now it’s off at my writer’s group where I hope to get at least a few more opinions and comments before I have to tackle final revisions and sending it off. I like this one and had a lot of fun writing it, it’s been a challenge and an educational one. I’ve been working on the idea and the story since I first read about the anthology at the beginning of May, and seeing as how I did no writing at all in May, I don’t think I did too badly. Thanks to my first readers, Kit, Steve, and Jennifer, and any fellow Voluptuaries that want to help out!

It was all very simple, really. I was sitting here, reading this story from someone wanting to join our writer’s group (clever story, literate, not quite ready for publication but easily able to be made so, good style overall, can’t see why we wouldn’t let said applicant in). Five minutes after finishing, something was still tickling the back of my editor brain, and I went searching the crevasses of the internet. (Ok, I found most of what I needed on Wikipedia, but moving on…) (Reader Beware Warning: Thar be discussion of arthropoda and bodily fluids in the words ahead.)

Dark secret revelation time (no not THAT one): In another life, I was an entomologist. Or perhaps even in this life, if I ever decide to go back to school. Yes, I really am that weird. I used to collect roly-polys (in a jar at first, and later outside under the bricks in vast colonies). I wore cicada shells in my hair and on my clothes as a child–I had a jar where I collected each season’s found shells. (Looking back, I bet my mom liked that habit about as much as she liked my inability to quietly burp, but that’s too much tangenting for now. But wait, check out this cool cicada-molting animated gif!) Though I’ve not taken many formal entomology classes, they were very memorable for me, and pieces of what I learned there were reinforced in some of the other animal science classes I took when we got to the pests and parasites lesson sections.

To paraphrase and completely take out of its context the bit of the story that was poking me (and get back somewhere near my point), at one point in passing “horse flies” are equated to “stable flies”. My fidgety mind finally bursts out with “Hey, I think I remember learning that a stable fly was a different species from a horse fly. And aren’t horse flies those really huge fuckers that bite worse than a fire ant, and the stable flies are the ones that suck blood?” Quick, to the Wikimobile!

And I found that there was rightness on both sides (or wrongness, depending on your viewing lens). According to the Demi-gods of Wikery, it is a true statement to say a stable fly is also known as a horse fly, but not true to say that a horse-fly is the same as a stable fly. Or even more nerdily explained: both flies in question are of the order Diptera, also known as “true flies”. However the stable fly (sometimes called a horse fly) is of the Family Muscidae, and are bloodsuckers with mouth-parts similar to mosquito construction. The horse fly (which is similar to a deer fly, but is not a stable fly) is of the Family Tabanidae, where the adult female (but not the male) fly has mandibles that are serrated and designed to tear a piece of flesh off and drink the blood that oozes forth. So it all depends on your perspective (or which fly-borne transmissible disease you prefer), and mine is I’ll stay away from both the muscidae piercers and the tabanid masticators, thanks.

I think I crossed the line from geek far into nerd with this admission. Why yes, that was fifteen minutes of my life spent seriously contemplating fly mouths, why do you ask?