Writerly Wackiness

Yup, it's that time again: the end of another artificially imposed construct approaches. January 1 may be a fairly arbitrary marker for the start of the new year, but it does serve as a convenient measuring stick for looking back and taking stock of where I've been and where I'm heading writing-wise.

So with that said, let's take a look at 2011--not as epically awesome as 2010 was for me on the writing front, but not a bad year.

Novel Progress
Ha! I said "novel progress."

There was lots of valuable brainstorming and jotting down of notes and ideas during 2011, but otherwise, revisions on My Big Fat Epic Fantasy novel took a back seat to a great many other things. Hopefully that will be remedied in the near future.

Short Stories
Stories written in 2011 include:

• "Demon Dreams," a 6,700-word fantasy piece that's probably going to end up being even longer once I finish revising the dang thing
• "The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen," a 3,800-word Norwegian folk tale-ish fantasy story that sadly has only racked up form letters at the few slush piles it's visited so far. I had my hopes up that this one would get a little more love.
• "First Date in the Horror Aisle," a goofy little 2,800-word YA-ish science fiction story (despite the title)
• And a 1,000-word comedic superhero flash piece that's probably too heavy-handed to sell anywhere

My one writing goal for 2011 was to do better than my paltry 2010 output of only one new story, so I can definitely check that off as achieved. I wish I had gotten more done, but trying to balance writing time, day job, and grad school was tough. But now that I've gotten the hang of that being-a-student-again thing, I'm going to strive for a better balance once the spring semester starts. In the meantime, I need to take advantage of winter break and get writer-me into gear.

Of story sales and SFWA...
While I had several stories published this past year in some rather lovely places, I wasn't nearly as successful with sales as I was in 2010, both in terms of total number sold (9 stories in 2010 vs. 5 in 2011) and sales to pro markets (3 in 2010, zilch in 2011).

Acceptances in 2011

• "Unlucky Clover" to Beyond Centauri
• "Mr. Fluffy" to Untied Shoelaces of the Mind
• "The Holy Spear" to Black Static
• "The Cycle of the Sun" to NewMyths.com
• "Dumping the Dead" to The Best of Every Day Fiction Three

Published in 2011

• "A Song Never Tasted" – Daily Science Fiction, Jan. 14, 2011
• "God's Gift to Women" – Daily Science Fiction, March 7, 2011
• "Final Report" (audio reprint) – Beam Me Up!, episode 258, April 23, 2011
• "Dumping the Dead" (reprint) – The Best of Every Day Fiction Three, May 2011
• "The Deepening" – Aoife's Kiss, issue 37, June 2011
• "Unlucky Clover" – Beyond Centauri, issue 33, July 2011
• "Mortis Persona" (reprint) – Wilde Stories 2011: The Year's Best Gay Speculative Fiction, Lethe Press, August 2011
• "Mr. Fluffy" – Untied Shoelaces of the Mind, issue 5 & 2011 Untied Shoelaces of the Mind Anthology, September 2011
• "The Holy Spear" – Black Static, issue 25, Oct-Nov 2011

Daily Science Fiction became a SFWA-qualifying market this past fall, making 2011 the year that I finally reached active member status. I don't feel like much of a pro, though. Just another would-be writer slogging away, occasionally achieving a small enough scrap of success to feel like I might one day achieve awesomeness, but mostly just adding to my rejection collection and banging my head against the same old wall of why-can't-I-do-better-than-this frustration.

Wow, that last bit was a downer of a sentiment to ring in the new year with. Here, have a Muppet chaser:

My first semester working toward my masters in library and information science is over, and I feel confident in saying that I totally rocked it. I was pleased to discover that, twelve years after finishing my undergraduate degree, I haven't lost my Nerd-Fu.

On the downside, first semester craziness combined with Ye Olde Day Job seriously cut into my fiction writing time. I did, however, find my fiction writing life creeping into my grad school life in fun little ways.

How do I love Scrivener? Let me count the ways . . .

I bought Scrivener several years ago for novel writing. When putting together a lecture for TNEO one summer, I discovered that Scrivener was also great for collecting and organizing research for that. So when it came time this semester to turns lots of research into a presentation for a group project in my Human Information Behavior class, Scrivener once again became a handy tool. And then came my final paper for that same class. In addition to using Scrivener for organizing my research and turning it into a paper, I discovered that Scrivener had an APA style template. From my undergrad days, I was used to writing papers in MLA format, but the MLIS program requires APA format, which was new to me. Scrivener saved me huge amounts of "how exactly am I supposed to format this again?" time on the APA learning curve.

It's just like a short story, only it's mostly plot with very little setting and character development . . .

At first, I was a little apprehensive when faced with the prospect of writing a 15-page research paper for the first time in over a decade. But then I thought, "Hmm, 15 double-spaced pages in 12 point Times New Roman font with an inch margin all around--that's roughly the equivalent of a 4,600 word short story for which I've done lots of background research. Piece of cake!" On the downside, years of focusing on the style and rhythm of my prose made the paper revision process go a little slower than it might have otherwise. Without the fiction writing experience, I probably wouldn't give a damn about using the same sentence construction twice in a row in a research paper.

This one time, at writing camp . . .

Human Information Behavior, where we studied how people search for and process information in a broad number of contexts, was a fascinating course. Several times I found myself drawing on writing-related experiences as an example of information-seeking behaviors and how library and information science professionals interact with users in their search process. One example was the judgmental you-frighten-me look I got while checking out a book called On Killing for research purposes and how that kind of attitude can dissuade people from using the library. And as an example of the Principle of Least Effort, where someone consults a known resource instead of investing the small bit of extra effort needed to get what they know would be a better quality answer, I mentioned the weird phenomena I sometimes saw of individuals asking very specific research questions in a writing forum where it was unlikely anyone had expertise in the area in question, and then balking at suggestions to consult resources more likely to actually provide an answer to their question.

The geek is strong with this one . . .

My other class this semester was Information Technologies, where we got to learn some basics about web design, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, MySQL, and other fun stuff. The class seemed like it was a struggle at times for several folks, but I was safely in my geek comfort zone. I already knew how to create a website with HTML going into the class, and I picked up the rest of it pretty easily. Two of our projects involved creating an "information resource" on any topic of our choosing, so I created a site called So You Want to Write Speculative Fiction? And for our final project, we had to create a site using WordPress, so I tested out a redesign of my writing website. 

And there you have it. Now to check off more items on my winter break to-do list, which includes paying attention to this blog again and rediscovering the fact that I'm a writer.

Originally published at Barbara A. Barnett. You can comment here or there.

This blog is conducting a test of the Livejournal Crossposting Plugin. This is only a test.

Wow, a month between posts? I'm slacking on this whole blogging thing worse than I thought. I don't foresee that changing until the semester's over, so it may yet be another month before I surface again. In the meantime, rest assured that I am alive and occasionally glancing at what folks post, but mostly buried in work and paper writing and project doing and, dare I say it, pecking a little at short story revisions here and there.

Say hello to issue 25 of Black Static, folks!

Dear Potential Future Readers:
 
So I'm working on this Big Fat Epic Fantasy Novel. If it ever sees the light of publishing day, then you, dear epic fantasy fan, will possibly read it. And several of you are going to raise certain complaints. I would like to preemptively address one of them now:

No, it's not that my female characters never menstruate. It's just that their menstrual cycle is not relevant to the story*. And while you may not see my characters answering the call of nature, it's not that they don't have to. They urinate. They have bowel movements. Again, it's just that those things generally don't contribute to the advancement of story*, and so I don't include them.

Trust me, dear reader, if I ever find that a depiction of defecation, urination, or menstruation would serve to advance plot or character, enhance my setting, or otherwise serve the story, I will not hesitate to describe it. In fact, such things have showed up in my short fiction when relevant. But as far My Big Fat Epic Fantasy Novel goes, please just assume that my characters take care of their business off-page. I mean, when your first draft clocks in at 118,000 words, the poo really has to earn its place on the page.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go use the bathroom.
 
Love, 
Me

*One helpful comment made me realize that this is probably worth clarifying: when I talk about relevance to the story or advancement of story, I'm not talking about plot alone. If a woman's menstruation or the way a person goes to the bathroom tells me something about a character's personality or the world or the setting, then I consider that relevant, something that advances the story by adding to my understanding of the world and the characters. But showing someone going to the bathroom simply to establish that they sometimes have to go to the bathroom, not so much.

I know I keep threatening to return to a regular blogging routine, but life seems intent on not letting that happen, which is frustrating since not posting regularly tends to lead to hardly anyone paying attention when you actually do post. So even though I may be blogging into a void, here's the state of me:

* School is keeping me busy, but I'm enjoying it a lot more than I ever did grant writing. This whole getting my MLIS thing? Good damn decision, I think. 

* Speaking of life keeping me busy, there will be a distinct lack of con attendance on my part for the rest of the year. I had been hoping to attend Sirens and Capclave this month, but there's just too much else going on for me to swing either one. And I'd normally do Philcon in November since it's practically right in my backyard, but I'll be off in Austin that weekend.

* Writing progress! Well, at least there was progress until a damn cold sidelined me yesterday (it's hard to focus or stare at a computer screen for too long when it feels like you have a head full of gauze-wrapped bricks). But before then, I got my short story "The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen" revised and sent out the door, and now I'm working on revisions for "Demon Dreams." And when that's done, I think I'll dive back into the never-ending My Big Fat Epic Fantasy Novel revisions.

* And last but certainly not least: I can haz zombie art? The awesome-looking title spread (with art by Dave Senecal) for my story in issue 25 of Black Static, which should be coming out this month:

In my last moment of resurfacing from the blogging dead, I mentioned that my twisted little flash piece "Mr. Fluffy" would soon be online in issue 5 of Untied Shoelaces of the Mind. That soon would be now. Behold yet another one of my bunnies of doom! 

It seems I went AWOL on the posting front. Again. But now that I'm here, many things...

SIGNALS
First, a signal boost: Say Yes to Gay YA, where Rachel Manija Brown (rachelmanija) and Sherwood Smith (sartorias) talk about an unfortunate instance of being asked to either make a gay character in their novel straight or remove the character's POV altogether. EDITED TO ADD: Some follow up. And this is where I bow out without further comment other than to say: must so many people resort to needing to cast a villain with a dastardly agenda in the matter instead of considering that it's more likely not so clearcut? 

STUDY
Busy grad school is busy! But despite some initial moments of panic (because that's what I do), I'm settling into the school routine just fine and have started to find a balance between class and everything else I need to squeeze into my days. You know, like writing. Speaking of...

STORIES
Appropriately enough for a writer, there are sevveral things going on in the story department:

* Now available for purchase is the 2011 Untied Shoelaces of the Mind Anthology, which includes my twisted little flash piece "Mr. Fluffy." The story should also be online soon in issue 5 of Untied Shoelaces of the Mind.

* My story "The Cycle of the Sun" was accepted for publication in the March 2012 issue of NewMyths.com! My Odyssey classmates will quite possibly remember this piece as "the orgy story."

* My steampunk lemurs on a dirigible story, "A Red One Cannot See" (originally published in Shimmer's Clockwork Jungle Book issue), has been added to my stories available at AnthologyBuilder  

* And I've finally gotten to work on the revisions for my story "The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen," which I got some great feedback on back in July at TNEO. Much like my daily schedule right now, these revisions are proving to be quite the balancing act. There are some changes to make that I think are going to really strengthen the story, but I feel like it would be easy to do too much and totally edit all the life and magic out the story.

I'm the kind of person who likes to have some structure to my life. It can be a little bit of structure or a lot of structure, but preferably a mix. If I need to practice piano earlier in the day than usual to accommodate something that can only be done later in the day, I like having that flexibility. But if I didn't have my piano lesson at the same time every week, I'd have a hell of a time planning around it and remembering when I need to head out the door (note to self: you need to leave in about 45 minutes for this week's lesson).

But trying to maintain any kind of structure to my days this summer? Didn't happen. Too much flux, which is one of many reasons I've been so scattershot about blogging the last few months. Hopefully, though, September should bring a touch more stability with it. Classes for my MLIS program start this Thursday. Regular weekly choir rehearsals start up again next Wednesday. My last day at Ye Olde Day Job was a week ago; I'm hoping to find something part-time and library related, but in the meantime, there's a freelance database project I'll probably be taking on. And with all of those things set, maybe I can get back into something resembling a regular routine for writing and exercise, both of which I'm ashamed to say I've been mostly neglecting lately. Bad me. Bad.

Related to all of the crazy flux in my life right now, trying to answer the question "What do you do for a living?" at my grad school orientation last week was far more difficult than it used to be. "What do I do? Up until a few days ago, I was a grant writer for a theater company. Why did I leave something that sounds so cool? Well, working in the performing arts was cool, but fundraising made me miserable, and I really loved the two years I spent working in a music library, which is why I'm pursuing my MLIS now. Why didn't I stay at the music library job? Because it was a temporarily funded project, or else I would have. No, I'm not going to be a fulltime student now. I'm hoping to find a part-time library job, and I'll probably be taking on a freelance database project.  Oh, and I also write fiction."

Postcript: in keeping with the spirit of randomness, is anyone else having issues with LJ's new text editor for posts? This entry got rid of all the spaces between paragraphs when I first posted, and then only the space between the first and second paragraphs on subsequent edit attempts. And with the last entry I posted, every time I selected text to put behind a cut, it moved the text before the cut text to after the cut. Damn it, LJ, I shouldn't have to keep tweaking the HTML in order to get simple entries to look normal.

( Spoilers lie ahead... )

*taps the blog mic*

Is this thing on?

So, yeah, I’ve been rubbish about posting lately. Life has been consumed by a big busy combo of workshopping craziness, vacationing, trying to finish things up at Ye Olde Day Job before my last day (two more weeks!), and preparing for that whole wacky grad school thing I’ll be starting in September. There has been precious little time for writing, which makes me cranky.

As for the aforementioned workshopping craziness, that would be TNEO (aka The Never-Ending Odyssey), which I attended last month, and it was all manner of awesome. Awesome people, awesome feedback, and awesome moments of writing-related light bulbs going off. Like three-act structure. For some reason, I always had the hardest time getting a firm grasp on three-act structure, but this time it finally clicked and I could finally see where I had (unknowingly) used it in some of my stuff.

I had two short stories and a novel chapter critiqued at TNEO this year, and I’m totally stoked to get the revision work underway on them. It’s easy to walk out of critique sessions overwhelmed by feedback overload, especially when you get conflicting opinions. But this year, there was so much consensus as to what was and wasn’t working in my submissions and so much helpful brainstorming that I feel like I know exactly what I need to do and won’t be bogged down trying to sort through conflicting reactions.

One really helpful session we did at TNEO was a plot breakout technique. Each person presented a plot they wanted help with, after which we would do about a half an hour’s worth of brainstorming that involved lots of adding and rearranging and deleting of various plot elements, done with index cards on a board. I was looking for ways to strengthen Act 2 (now that I know where Act 2 is!) of one of the major plot threads in My Big Fat Epic Fantasy Novel and got lots of great ideas, including more characters to kill (always a plus in my book). My collection of index cards ended up looking like this:



That big mess o' cards down the middle would be Act 2, with Act 1 to the left and Act 3 to the right.

Now if only life would settle the hell down and let me get in some more writing time, I could make better use of all that crazy awesome brainstorming!

Rising from the blogging dead for a brief moment of pimpage, which will be followed by a full-fledged, non-pimpage post in the next week or so. Promise.

So, the pimpage: Wilde Stories 2011: The Year's Best Gay Speculative Fiction, which includes my story "Mortis Persona," appears to be out now. The anthology includes a lot of other great stuff, so please do check it out if you're so inclined!

Tomorrow I head off to the The Never-Ending Odyssey (aka TNEO), a week-long workshop for alumni of the six-week Odyssey Writing Workshop, so my current LJ scarcity will likely become even scarcer. But before I head out, an actual post!

Gearing up for TNEO over the last several weeks got me wondering: just how much have I really grown as a writer since attending Odyssey in 2007?

Writing workshops are most definitely not for everyone, but for some of us, they can be an amazing, inspiring, eye-opening experience. And contrary to what some would suggest, not all writing workshops result in cookie-cutter stories written to some kind of formula. I’m sure there are some that do, but my Odyssey classmates and I went into the program as very different writers, and we all came out of the program remaining very different writers.

Had I not attended Odyssey and just continued writing and seeking feedback on my work, I’m sure I would have still improved and grown as a writer over time. But I think Odyssey pushed me in the right direction harder and faster than I would have been able to do on my own. The question, though: how do you quantify that?

Writing success can be subjective and dependent on factors other than talent or the strength of a story. (Sure, you wrote a fantastic story about radioactive bunnies, but Magazine A just published a story about radioactive bunnies.) And of course, sales and artistic merit don’t always go hand in hand. (Repeat to self: I will not rant about sparkly vampires.) But because I’m someone who writes with the hope of achieving publication success, sales are probably the best measure I have to go with. That, and I'm one of those sick people who actually enjoys crunching numbers.

( Crunching and analysis under the cut... )

I doubt my data will be all that interesting to anyone other than myself, but if you have your own stories of workshop experiences or realizations about your growth as a writer, please feel free to share in the comments.

And there I go disappearing from LJ again. It's been crazy lately!

Anyway, I'm emerging for a brief and belated moment of pimpage (apologies for shameless self-promotion being the bulk of my posts anymore): the July 2011 issue of the young adult magazine Beyond Centauri, which includes my story "Unlucky Clover," is out. "Unlucky Clover" is a sequel of sorts to my similarly titled (and much shorter) story "Lucky Clover," which appeared in Flash Fiction Online in March 2008.

*crawls back into the Pit Of Too Much To Do*

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Opera is among the musical genres I enjoy, both as an audience member and as a singer. Opera is not to everyone's taste, of course, but that can be said of any musical genre. Rap is not to everyone's taste. Nor is country. Nor polka. The list is quite long. 

There's an unfortunately common perception that all opera fans are elitist snobs, but really, we're not. Some are, true--no one musical genre has a monopoly on dickish fans. But most of us don't look down at our noses at all other musical genres. In fact, a good many of us listen to other types of music as well. Here, to keep a running list of what's been playing on my computer as I write this entry: Vienna Teng. Loreena McKennitt. Lisa Gerrard. Garbage. U2. Amy Winehouse. Elvis Costello. Dar Williams. All not opera.

(That said, I do think some people write off opera without giving it a fair chance. For those who think it's nothing but fat people singing, I suggest you look at this little clip of operatic beefcake. Even if you don't find the music impressive, the abs on those guys most certainly are.)

Now, the rant: yesterday I came across an opera-related blog post, and one of the comments on the post accused folks in the opera world of purposely keeping the art form dependent on private donors and grants in order to keep uneducated lowbrow undesirables from listening.

Cue me falling out of my chair in a fit of hysterical laughter.

[sarcasm font on] 

Yes, as an opera lover and someone who has spent most of the last decade working in fundraising for performing arts organizations--four of those years at an opera company--I can assure you that it is true: we love begging for money and remaining dependent on the whims of people with deep pockets. Especially the cranky eccentric ones who might stop donating if we take an artistic risk or do a production they dislike. We certainly don't want to increase revenue from ticket sales; that would bring in the riffraff.

And the grants. As a grant writer, my job description has always specifically stated that I am responsible for securing grants so that we can keep the undesirables out of the seats. I've certainly never spent time writing proposals asking for money to fund the education department's efforts to provide curriculum-based arts enrichment programming to inner-city students whose cash-strapped schools have cut all of their arts teachers and activities. We certainly wouldn't ask for funding to help bring those kids to see a performance. They might enjoy it and want to come back. We can't have that.

I've also never had to write proposals for marketing initiatives specifically aimed at attracting new and diverse audiences. No partnering with other non-profits for community outreach activities that will be free and open to the public. No radio or television broadcasts. No movie theater simulcasts. No ticket discounts of any kind. In fact, we should probably cut the advertising budget next fiscal year. The elitist insiders know where to go.

And it's especially fun depending on government grants. Because it's not like government arts funding sources are ever in danger of being cut.

[sarcasm font off]

On that note, I leave you with an example of how the Opera Company of Philadelphia is trying to keep away the rabble:

Holy crap, has it really been that long since I've been on LJ? Sorry not to have been keeping up with my lovely flisters lately, but life has continued to dance on the insane side of the fence. Hopefully come fall I'll be able to settle back into a blog reading and writing routine. Until then, I'll probably remain my current scattershot, occasionally resurfacing self.

In the meantime, here's the bullet points of what I've been up to in the writing department:

* My zombie apocalypse story "The Holy Spear" has been accepted by Black Static. This will be my second appearance in their pages, which I'm thrilled about.

* Speaking of Black Static, reviewer Peter Tennant wrote a nice post about my story "The Wounded House" from issue 20 on his blog.

* Received my shiny contributor copy of Aoife's Kiss (10th anniversary issue) this morning. Pretty.

* Gearing up for this summer's TNEO workshop for Odyssey alum. As of last night, all the critiques I had to do are officially done! I've still got a ton of other things to do, but it's nice to put a big fat check mark next to that beast of an item.

* Unfortunately, progress on the writing front has been mostly non-existent. I got in a good afternoon of revision work on My Big Fat Epic Fantasy Novel a couple weeks ago, but otherwise, that's been kind of it. But now that TNEO critiques are out of the way, I can hopefully get back in gear. I've got some revisions to do on a short story, several flash pieces I should probably polish up and send out somewhere (anyone have suggestions on where to send an unabashedly liberal-leaning gay superhero flash story?), and then back to the novel grind.

One day soon, I'll find enough hours in the day to return to posting and commenting on here with something resembling regularity again. In the meantime, please forgive me for a brief moment of pimpage: it looks like the 10th anniversary issue of Aoife's Kiss, which includes my story "The Deepening," is now out!

I'm happy to say that I've sold a twisted little flash piece of mine called "Mr. Fluffy" to the wonderfully named Untied Shoelaces of the Mind.

And on a non-pimpage note, I've now encountered the following situation enough that I'm curious to know if any of my fellow fantasy writers have as well: 

I'll be in a conversation with a non-writer and/or non-speculative fiction reader who finds out I'm a writer and asks, "What kind of stories do you write?" The "science fiction" and "horror" parts of my answer usually go over as expected, but saying "fantasy" often earns me awkward silence and a strange, questioning look. So, even though I've never written anything with an elf in it, I elaborate with, "Elves, magic, Lord of the Rings, that sort of thing." The person then laughs in relief and says, "Oh, when you said fantasy, I thought you meant like sexual fantasies."

Erm, no, I did not. At least not unless one of my characters has a sexual fantasy relevant to the plot.