The No News is No News Purgatory Thread, Vol. 7

xiaotien · May 21, 2012

Parametric said:
Everything is always over and dying and too late.

*flings self off cliff*

haha!

i want PARA to come and give our next
puglet toast! <3

Parametric · May 21, 2012

I'm so cheerful I could star in a Thomas Hardy novel. :tongue

dystophil · May 21, 2012

Only that Para would totally toast with water, but hey, there's an idea.

That's exactly it though. Personally, I think part of the learning process is to at some point write better faster. Clearly, much to learn I still have in that department.

dystophil · May 21, 2012

Parametric said:
I'm so cheerful I could star in a Thomas Hardy novel.

I think that would be the only thing that could ever persuade me to read a Thomas Hardy novel from start to finish.

xiaotien · May 21, 2012

dystophil said:
Only that Para would totally toast with water, but hey, there's an idea.

I ALSO TOAST WITH WATER!

*snuggles with para in our pod of doom*

haha!

WAIT! para is a virgo too! <3

Parametric · May 21, 2012

Hey, I'm a Scorpio. :tongue

K. Taylor · May 21, 2012

Blondchen said:
I think we get so excited, so anxious, so time driven as writers wanting to get our idea out there NOW, we sometimes forget that writing takes time. Edits take time. Not just to do them, but to sit on them and let the flavors marry together for a bit before we read it again JUST TO MAKE SURE.

For me, this is what's been missing in my own writing for the last year. I've had no time to sit on anything, no chance to let things marinate and develop and BLEND for fuck's sake. I hate it. Sometimes I wish I was back writing before agent, before editor.

Sometimes.

And I have too many author friends (and no, I'm not referring to anyone in Purgatory) who have rushed off to query projects that weren't ready yet. It was like they couldn't help themselves. They had this imaginary ticking time bomb where they were just DESPERATE to start querying! In several cases, I'd read at least a partial of the story and it wasn't ready. It didn't work yet. In one case, the writing wasn't even polished! In another, it had been edited pristinely and yet, the manuscript had no life to it.

It made me sad because I think both authors had something really special on their hands, but they just couldn't - or wouldn't - wait.

Neither got an agent. Both self-published manuscripts that were not ready for the public. And I feel like the publishing world missed out on books that could have been really fantastic and special, if the authors had just given themselves a little bit more time.

Wow. I totally didn't mean for this to turn into a rant. I've just been really in tune with the frantic nature of trying to get published these days, and I feel like some authors are shooting themselves in the foot.

Yet publishers are also pushing authors to produce faster with short stories and novellas to release between novels. The internet has put pressure on every level of production now and he who's slowest loses. Something has to slow it down or we all have to speed up.

CalebJMalcom · May 21, 2012

Parametric said:
I totally hear you about a lot of projects needing time to marinate. But it's tough to do that when the industry moves so fast. You read a cool book and you get inspired to write something similar, but the trend was already dead by the time you picked it up. An agent seems like a good fit, but by the time you're querying they've stopped handling fiction at all. Everything is always over and dying and too late.

It's like a forest. Looking down on it, makes it seem like it changes so very slowly, but get up underneath it and you see all kinds of change

dystophil · May 21, 2012

Have to admit, I always feel hideously unaccomplished when comparing how much I write with how much more other people have written already/are writing right now.

Then I remind myself that I've been writing "seriously" for less than six years and back then I wasn't even completely fluent in English. I know that's not going to help me one bit as far as publishing is concerned, but whatever.

ETA: Caleb's analogy = win.

Blondchen · May 21, 2012

Parametric said:
I totally hear you about a lot of projects needing time to marinate. But it's tough to do that when the industry moves so fast. You read a cool book and you get inspired to write something similar, but the trend was already dead by the time you picked it up. An agent seems like a good fit, but by the time you're querying they've stopped handling fiction at all. Everything is always over and dying and too late.

I think this is valid, if slightly reactive. You can't write in this business if you're reactive because, just like you said, the trend passes, the agent fills up their list with the genre you write, something newer and shinier grabs ahold of the public's attention.

Which is why it's a crapshoot. And I know I'm a broken record on this, but the more we all embrace the chaos theory of publishing, the saner we'll all be.

K. Taylor · May 21, 2012

Yeah, I've only been writing fiction since '05 and looking at publishing standards since '09, but I get frustrated when I don't have a task instantly mastered and curse myself for being slow. Stories are way more subjective than anything else I've tried to learn.

Blondchen · May 21, 2012

K. Taylor said:
Yet publishers are also pushing authors to produce faster with short stories and novellas to release between novels. The internet has put pressure on every level of production now and he who's slowest loses. Something has to slow it down or we all have to speed up.

We all make choices in our writing. Only the higher up you go - the more pressure that's put on you from publishers, sometimes multiple houses like with Irys, marketing teams and fans - the harder it is to say no. Sometimes, a contractual impossibility.

But the writers I was referring to don't have those pressures yet.

Take the time while you have it. It ain't gonna last.

Dragonstar · May 21, 2012

K. Taylor said:
If there's a submarine thing I think of Rick.

That looks good. I'll be watching.

And looks like perfect timing for Rick. *fingers crossed*

CalebJMalcom · May 21, 2012

dystophil said:
Have to admit, I always feel hideously unaccomplished when comparing how much I write with how much more other people have written already/are writing right now.

Sometimes when I'm having one of my depressive weeks I get all inferior feeling when I see people like lily, and blond, and taz, and all the others with several books going. Then the other crazies come out in my head and beat down the inferior one and throw him back in the box and scream at him "You aren't them" and then all is right in the Calebverse again.

vfury · May 21, 2012

TheCaleb said:
Sometimes when I'm having one of my depressive weeks I get all inferior feeling when I see people like lily, and blond, and taz, and all the others with several books going. Then the other crazies come out in my head and beat down the inferior one and throw him back in the box and scream at him "You aren't them" and then all is right in the Calebverse again.

Today is an "I :heart:

Caleb" day, clearly.

In regards to the fast/slow writing discussion, I view everything as a learning experience that will, hopefully, aid me in writing and revising the next book faster.

Because otherwise I'll be the one throwing myself off the metaphorical cliff. :tongue

Amarie · May 21, 2012

Parametric said:
I'm so cheerful I could star in a Thomas Hardy novel.

lwalker · May 21, 2012

Thank you, guys. All the messages and reps are making me smile.

It certainly seems, to me at least, that she’s looking to me to make her say yes. Which makes me feel like this opportunity is totally mine to blow. Which then makes me a little nauseous.

Blondie, I hear you, honey. And I agree. I will say that I have this fear that she’s going to buy something similar before I finish it and I’m going to miss my chance, but I can’t control that. I can control what I send her. That said, this mss has been sitting for three years and a lot of the things I’m fixing are the big issues that kept it from getting picked up sooner, at least I hope.

But I said July because I’m hoping to finish this pass and get it betas by the second week of June, which should give me time to address that, and then let it sit for a couple of weeks, at least, before I go back through again and polish it. And it is publishing time. I’d like to send by 7/31, but if it’s a couple weeks into August to make sure I think it’s ready, I don’t think that’s the end of the world.

I’m also feeling the pressure of the fact that I really don’t think she’s going to reject it on the basis of a sentence here or there or one plot issue (or two). So I feel like I don’t want to get my hopes up too high because it might end badly, but at the same time, I also know that knowing that means that if it’s an R, it’s REALLY going to hurt.

Fire? Any editor advice?

And if anyone else likes contemporary mystery and has time to read next month, please rep me. 1st person past tense.

Thanks again, y’all.

Going to make dinner now. Hopefully revising ch 11 after.

OL · May 21, 2012

Hey-ya.

In answer to your questions, yeah, putting the Shack on the market. We'll see how it goes. I don't plan on staying in So. Cal. at this point. Not that I don't love it here, but figure if I'm going to make a change, might as well make it a big one.

Not at all happy about any of this, but hoping to feel the positives, because there are some -- I hope.

kellion92 · May 21, 2012

(((OL))) I know that's a tough, emotional decision.

LW, that's a lovely collaboration you have going on -- sounds like a great chance. You'll nail it!

Calla Lily · May 21, 2012

Guys, guys, guys. Do you not recall (Caleb excepted, since he wasn't here back then) the YEARS of my agent hunt: the angst, the screaming, the R after R, the weeping, the group hugs, the group idea of the Revenge Query?

This whole multi-book author thing is a Greek comedy-tragedy mask that somehow got form-fitted to my skin. It's... surreal. Do NOT judge yourself by me!

Calla Lily · May 21, 2012

{{{OL}}}

Bflo is a cheap place to live. The job market's no more sucky than the rest of the country, too.

OL · May 21, 2012

I am going to try and stay in CA. I've been considering San Francisco for a few years; now seems like the time to try it. I should be able to swing it if the house goes for the range I (and the realtor) think it will (not a guarantee, but here's hoping the comps hold true). Not buying a house, but renting something for a while. My sis lives in Outer Sunset, which is about the least expensive area there, and I quite like it.

At this point in my life, being close to friends and family and having a community I can plug into is very important to me. I can't see moving far away from the place I was born and raised and where almost all of my friends/family live.

I suddenly have quite a nice little network in NYC, but that's more of a change than I'm ready to make, and I don't think it makes sense for me in any case. Too much city. Too far away.

Anyway, that's my me, me, me. I've been going around and around about this, but I'm at the point where there's no other sensible option.

Unless I get that job as a barista I applied for!

CalebJMalcom · May 21, 2012

callalily61 said:
Guys, guys, guys. Do you not recall (Caleb excepted, since he wasn't here back then) the YEARS of my agent hunt: the angst, the screaming, the R after R, the weeping, the group hugs, the group idea of the Revenge Query?

This whole multi-book author thing is a Greek comedy-tragedy mask that somehow got form-fitted to my skin. It's... surreal. Do NOT judge yourself by me!

Oh for me it's just when I get in my depressive down swings. Most of the time I just march on not aware. But I am human, even though I refuse to accept that most days, and I do get those occasions of inferiority and envy. Those days it's kept to myself until the cavalry arrives.

Then after all that I usually take it and spin it the other way and say "see all of them did it. You can too."

Blondchen · May 21, 2012

TheCaleb said:
But I am human, even though I refuse to accept that most days, and I do get those occasions of inferiority and envy. Those days it's kept to myself until the cavalry arrives.

Then after all that I usually take it and spin it the other way and say "see all of them did it. You can too."

Yep. Clearly human. We all get that way. I've had several moments lately with local writer friends who don't have to work full time day jobs like I do because they have a husband or boyfriend who supports them. I envy that set up like you would not believe. And yet I can't hate them for it. So I allow myself the twinges of jealousy, and move on.

And I am the PRIME example of "If I can do it, anyone can!" I'm still not sure I know what I'm doing.

CalebJMalcom · May 21, 2012

vfury said:
Today is an "I Caleb" day, clearly.

Uh oh that's how it always starts. Then there are the t-shirts, and wrists bands, then the decoder rings, and before you know it you're in a cult picking up the bones of small animals along railroad tracks and eating fudge.

The No News is No News Purgatory Thread, Vol. 7

bedazzled /bootay shaker!!

Wielder of the Literary Lead Pipe

Wielder of the Literary Lead Pipe

bedazzled /bootay shaker!!

Bah Humbug

And behold... A seed!

Wielder of the Literary Lead Pipe

Honey Badger don't give a shit.

Bah Humbug

Honey Badger don't give a shit.

a wishin' and a hopin'

And behold... A seed!

Hearts the furrily challenged.

carpe libri

Butterflies

Still a beach bum...

A cat may not look at a king

On hiatus

On hiatus

Still a beach bum...

And behold... A seed!

Honey Badger don't give a shit.

And behold... A seed!