After carefully considering my rate of proofreading, the rate I ought to be proofreading, and the amount of work it will take to make the book ready for publication I have decided that the release date for Love or Lustwill be 29 June 2013.
I will be making the final uploads on the evening/afternoon of the 28th so it’s possible that some sources (e.g. Smashwords) might have it sooner — and, sadly, a few (e.g. iBooks) might show it a bit later than that. It can’t be helped, but Amazon, Nook, Kobo, CreateSpace, etc. should all take about 12 – 24 hours to actually make the book available, so we’ll call it the next day.
Keep a careful watch on the blog — the folks reading regularly may get a discount/free copy from one or more of the sources in the form of coupon codes or redemption vouchers. It might just randomly be at the end of, or in the comments of a post one day. Just a little gift from me to you.
I will probably, at some point in the year, do both a sale or two or an outright giveaway. These will be announced as their own post. I also intend to create a Goodreads give away (in fact I should have done that yesterday, but I kind of forgot about it).
I’m also looking around for reviewers. Feel free, please, to recommend your favourite ones in the comments below, or here. I was going to tackle a place I’ve discovered called The Indie View which looks fairly promising. I don’t believe they actually do reviews, rather they’re more of a portal to fine reviewers more easily in much the same way as QueryTracker acts to help one find an agent or publisher.
I’m so excited I feel ill. I wonder — did Arthur C Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, or any other prolific author feel like this on every book? I assume, naturally, we all feel like this on our earliest works, but after 25? 50? 100? I guess I shall have to try to attain such a lofty back catalogue to find out.
You’re no doubt tired of hearing about this; I know I’m tired of thinking about it.
I’ve reached a final decision regarding Now & Forever‘s publication: I’m going to just put it out myself.
This really wasn’t an easy decision. By making it I am shutting myself out, completely, from certain sales channels – and things like the Scholastic Book Fair is not something to be set aside lightly if one is trying to write YA fiction. I’m also shutting myself out of some marketing channels – just TRY to find a reviewer willing to touch something self-published.
Still, YA romance readers are unlikely to be reading literary review blogs and mags, so no huge loss. The scholastic thing … well, no guarantee I could convince my publisher or agent to make the fight to carry my book there (unless it’s changed a lot since my days in school, I can’t imagine them happily taking a lesbian romance with a cheery smile).
Publishers don’t put forth enough promotion effort to be worth continued headache looking for an agent who then would have to find a publisher and … with some luck, hopefully by being out sooner I will make up for the loss of being on a Barnes & Noble shelf – the only part that really stings in this decision. Well, that and the prospect of an advance – given how my truck’s been behaving of late, that cash in hand would have been nice … though slow to arrive, I suppose.
As a result expect Love or Lust by the end of this month. When? I’ll get you a better estimate as soon as I can. It could stand one more scan for typos. Some rather silly ones slipped through the cracks somehow.
There’ll be a print edition via CreateSpace. I don’t know, yet, if I’ll bother with the expanded distribution at first or not. Feedback on how much people would rather order it from somewhere other than the CreateSpace store and Amazon will help with that – meaning, if you have an opinion, now is a great time to voice it.
There’ll be eBooks for: NOOK, Kindle, iBooks, and Kobo. There’ll also be copies available through Smashwords and a place called DriveThru Fiction. If you have a different preferred source of eBooks now is a great time to name it. These are all the ones I’m familiar with is the reason for their inclusion, I’ve no qualms adding to the list.
Pricing I’m still thinking about. The print edition pretty much has to be us$10, given the length of the book. The eBook, though? Well, I think most retailers make the minimum 99¢. I’ve contemplated this price – certainly keeps it in my budget. There’s much debate over how seriously people take books at that price point. Thus I’m considering as high as us$5.99.
Feedback helps. If you have an opinion on pricing, say. I’m listening. Don’t want to say publicly in the comments? Contact me.
The sample chapters are, and ever will be available. So, give them a look. Given that this is a YA series, feedback on stores and pricing from parents or teens is doubly hoped for.
I want to try something different for Ready or Not. I’d like to select some … in fanfiction they’re often called “Beta-readers” but I seem to recall there’s a niftier and classier term for it that most fiction writers use, but it escapes me right now. I’d like to select 3 people to be my guinea pigs for book 2. Given that the series is written such that one book flows to the next to some degree a selected reader will get a free ebook copy of Love or Lustto give them some reference and establishment.
How to be selected? Nominate yourself. The means to do this?
Your three favourite scenes/lines/parts of the sample chapters and what it is you liked about them (if it just tickled you or some other thing that boils to — I don’t know, I just do — fine, you just do. Say so).
Why? (Just answer whatever you think I mean by asking this.)
Wait until 11am EDT the 2nd of June for me to announce the ones selected.
Recently I decided to present my mental chaos to a professional. Agent, not psychiatrist, I mean. From Query Tacker I found Ms Jordy Albert of The Booker Albert Literary Agency. As she kindly presented some very helpful answers I decided I would share them with you all.
First, a little about the agent.
Jordy Albert is a Literary Agent and co-founder of The Booker Albert Literary Agency. She holds a B.A. in English from Pennsylvania State University, and a M.A. from Millersville University of Pennsylvania. She has worked with Marisa Corvisiero during her time at the L. Perkins Agency and the Corvisiero Literary Agency. Jordy also works as a freelance editor/PR Director. She enjoys studying languages (French/Japanese), spends time teaching herself how to knit, is a HUGE fan of Doctor Who, and loves dogs.
She is looking for stories that capture her attention from beginning to end; stories that have heart, and characters that are hard to forget. She loves intelligent characters with a great sense of humor. She would love to see fresh, well-developed plots featuring travel with unique, exotic settings, competitions, or time travel. Jordy is specifically looking for:
* Middle Grade: contemporary, fantasy, action/adventure, or historical.
* YA: sci-fi, dystopian/post-apocalyptic, contemporary, historical–Though I am open to looking at other sub-genres, I’m looking for YA that has a very strong romantic element.
* NEW ADULT CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE
* Romance (contemporary and historical). ** I am open to YA LGBT, and would love to see a YA or NA romance set during WWII (and/or the 1920s) with a time travel element.
Please do not send:
* short stories
* non-fiction
* poetry
* mystery/thrillers, or suspense.
I’m an author with a dilemma and would appreciate your professional take on a matter if I may have a moment to trouble you for it, please.
I’ve begun a four book series. Two books are written, one could be published tomorrow if I chose to self-publish it. This one, though, is presenting my dilemma. I know nothing about the YA/Teen market (and haven’t a clue what this “New Adult” mentioned on your agency’s site even is), I know nothing about the market for romantic-comedies. Or, more to the point, I’ve researched it enough to know: I’m really confused.
New Adult is a relatively new genre, but it has gained momentum in the last year. In fact, a number of self-published New Adult titles have gone on to do amazingly well. New Adult falls in the age range 18-25 (college age or just out of college).
On one hand I’ve found a lot of things saying there’s nothing a traditional publisher + agent can offer me that isn’t perfectly counterable with a plus of being self-published. On the other I’ve learnt that this may not be true. I’d appreciate the voice of experience to untangle this nonsense.
Examples:
“You get no more or better promotion from a publisher — they just stick an ad in the trade mags which are only seen by bookstore book buyers”. A counter to that I’ve seen is that one shouldn’t underestimate the power of being on a physical bookstore shelf; something that CreateSpace can’t offer, as their sizes are non-standard and there’s nothing to influence the store’s buyer to pick it over Penguin or Tor’s latest offerings. The counter to that, being that word of mouth is the most important thing, just get some people talking, sit back and wait. Then there’re arguments that a good agent is also a good publicist and would get your book talked about by … Ellen, Oprah, or whomever. I assume that’s true to some extent, but can imagine the person saying it was being overly optimistic.
Publishers have resources that an individual might not have, such as contacts as newspaper, magazines, etc….publishers also have years of experience. While the publisher does help market a title, how well the book sells or does not sell doesn’t rest solely with the publisher. It’s important to market yourself: do a blog tour, do book signings, review another authors’ work and see if they’d be willing to return the favor, have a cover reveal, etc.
“You’ll never get a movie deal as a self-published author, no matter how well you sell.” Now this one I did hear from someone in the publishing industry as a reason to take an agent. Supposedly, a traditionally published book with 2000 copies sold is actually going to have less trouble selling movie rights than a self-published book on any best sellers list you care to name.
I would sort of agree, and not just about a movie deal. There are foreign rights, audio, tv, merchandise, etc. Agents will be able to negotiate to make sure you get the deal that’s in your best interests.
My own comment on this is, and was in my reply back to her: most major self-publishing options do include foreign publication. This is not the same as translation and what have you. Just, take Apple iBooks for an example: put your book up there, click a few things, and you’re in 52 countries.
“The publishers are just trying to rip you off — you’ll have to sue to see your royalty cheques.” Now, admittedly, this was from an author who had to do just that, and then had to sue (then fire) his agent for lying about how much the royalties had been and embezzling some of that.
While I can’t say this has never happened, I think it is really rare.
While it’s true — she has a vested interest in saying this isn’t true or is rare, but think on it this way: she could say it’s very common — for the publishers — and that it’s a good reason to have the agent who can keep on them about it. Either she’s none too clever or this is a perfectly legit answer. I’m inclined to feel it’s the latter, especially since she acknowledges that it does happen. Still, we must all make our own opinions.
And one specific to my own newest title(s): “They’ll never accept a book over 100k words, let alone any kind of series. You may as well DIY” I’ve seen little to counter this, actually. I mean, obviously, someone takes series or Twilight and Harry Potter wouldn’t be with major publishing houses. And, unless I’m mistaken, Ms Meyers’ book 1 is quite a ways over 100k words. Still, it does seem to be exceedingly rare.
This is somewhat true. There are exceptions to the rule, as your examples demonstrate. But an agent/editor is unlikely to look at a full manuscript if the word count is over 100k, especially if it a debut author. I’m not saying they won’t, but it would be unlikely.
Looking around you in a given work day … well … what would you say to any or all of those points? What other critical arguments in favour of one model or another would you care to chime in on?
For a new author, I would definitely recommend trying to secure an agent. Agents will help guide your career, and steer you in the right direction. Also, while I think self-publishing is a wonderful option for an author, I think that it can saturate the market with books that might not be edited, polished, or all that well-written.
Ah, editing. She’s right, really. If you do not have a good friend who can edit — and I mean well — and you can’t afford the rather high prices to hire your own professional editor (one who, please remember, is only looking for you to pay them that once — they don’t have any incentive to care if your book does well as the publisher’s professional editor (theoretically) does) then I second her recommendation: get an agent and/or publisher! There’re books out there which could be so wonderful, but are unreadable for all the grammar, orthographic, and layout problems!
One point of my own: I noticed you specifically are looking for YA LGBT stories. The very few agencies or publishers I ever found looking for those directly — sans your own agency — all seemed to be the very … I tend to put it as the “We’ll get you in every gay pride store in America!” but are no more likely to get me on a B&N shelf than CreateSpace kind of crowd. Is there any special difficulty, any special … anything … that one ought to look for or consider if their story is LGBT themed that a more old fashioned boy-meets-girl writer would never have to?
I’m open to stories that feature LGBT themes…it might be more difficult to find the novel a home, but it seems like it’s a little more common in the market today.
is there any resource you might recommend for “how to write a query letter”? I mean, logic and knowing what the word Query means told me most of what a query letter is (thank you Georgia public schools for the fabulous and indispensable education).
Which brings me to my final decision: I’m going to continue gathering and examining a list of potential agents. In the mean time I’ve contacted some options that might make for a resounding voice to start the word of mouth with a bit of a shout. If I secure that, then I will self-publish. If I don’t … I believe I will try some more agents. I just can’t bring myself to give up. I’m stubborn that way. I rather sincerely thought I could just give the agent thing a go and then move on if it didn’t pan out, but it’s become something of a challenge. I’m a sucker for challenges, especially ones I’m sure I can win if I can out-stubborn the problem (Why yes, I do have cats and have had them all my life! How could you tell? ;))
Okay, we’re all readers here, right? I mean I can think of few other candidates for followers of an author’s blog, and it breaks my mind to try to imagine a writer who doesn’t read.
Readers are notoriously opinionated people (about books).
So why is it, then, that I’ve only one reply to my question?
I did have one person click like — so I turned Like off for that post because, really? Why? What is the magic of the Like button that, not only does everything have one now, but that people will click it on things where it either makes no sense to do so or it is expressly asked not to?
Anyway stress is not fun. Editing is stressful. As is the realisation that I’m hitting the final week that 2/3 of my agents say they take to respond. I’m of a mind to say to Hell with self-publishing and just keep shopping the series out to publishers and agents till I get a bite, but I’m pretty sure I’m nowhere near so patient a person.
Wish me luck, I’m going back to editing now. At a scene I like, but have this sinking feeling ought to either be axed or relocated. Always such a bother to figure out if that’s true or not, and then if so there comes the question of which to do.
Anyone who’s ever come across writing advice has probably found various things referring to 3 or 5 act structure, and something that sounds like a reference to a Star Trek character’s firearms.
This is a curious phenomena that truly boggles me. Those elements have to do with playwriting and not with narrative, yet they’re rather vocally advocated by fiction writers. I’ll grant, JMS’s love of Chekhov’s Gun is excusable — he is, after all, a script writer for TV and film. But why should a novelist care if Chekhov has a gun, a sword, or a herring?
Personally, I don’t think we ought to.
For anyone not familiar with it, I shall enlighten you: There’re various versions of the quote from various sources, but our good Sir Chekhov essentially says “If there’s a gun in the first act/chapter by the second or third it should be fired, else it shouldn’t be there.”
I can, honestly, understand this for script writing, so long as it’s used sensibly. Prop department puts a gun, fishing pole, tuna fish, or moose head over a mantle it doesn’t have to be anything but scenery. The thing is, though, if some importance is placed upon this thing over the mantle (such as a dramatic, momentary zoom of the camera to it) or some scene of minor characters doing something mysterious and secretive with it before scurrying off stage left while the protagonists enter stage right … oh, sure, to do nothing with the gun after this is going to confuse and probably annoy the viewer. In writing, though we have far more freedom.
The study was quiet, lit only by the fire crackling in the hearth casting dancing shadows over everything. Jack sat in the well-worn plush chair by the warm fire and looked around the room hardly seeing the thick bearskin rug, or his grandfather’s ancient rifle resting below the large oil painting of the man. He took a sip of the bourbon and tried to work up the nerve for what he knew he must do.
Sighing heavily he slipped the small vial of deadly poison from his coat pocket and walked over to the cabinet with its beautiful crystal decanters. He hated to do this to such a fine, well aged cognac, but the man had to be stopped. He upended the vial into the cognac and placed it back in the cabinet. Knowing his father’s habits, in a few hours Lord Percival deWinter would be dead, and by his only son’s own hand.
In that, the gun isn’t important. Its presence is neither foreshadowing, nor pertinent, or is it? It’s scenery, clearly, nothing more than a prop. But it sets a tone, sets an expectation. It tells something of Jack deWinter’s family, his grandfather, apparently, hunted or perhaps was fond of antique weapons. Given its juxtaposition to a bearskin rug we can safely guess hunting. Was Grandfather deWinter a good man or evil? Clearly either his son or his grandson is, depending on why it is that Jack felt such an urgent need to poison his father with no more remorse than the ruination of a fine spirit.
In narrative there is this notion that one must adhere to various rules of structure. That items should only be referenced which are going to prove critical or useful later, or that are symbolic of something. That the flow and pacing of the story should fit a specific pattern (3 or 5 act, again or perhaps The Hero’s Journey). I think not.
Poetry, of course, has structure. By definition, a poem must — else it isn’t a poem, it’s just words placed on a paper in odd fashion. Meter, scansion, rhyme and rhythm all or some must be present. A poem is its structure. Hence, once upon a time, prose was a wretched thing, only any good for the uneducated masses and not worthy of attention by those more learned and intelligent. Let the peasants have their prose.
Prose, however, opened doors and those doors were flung wide and unignorable by things such as Don Quixote, or Les Trois Mousquetaires. Others, too, I’m more than certain, but give me a break — my tastes lean to the ancient Greek and then skip to Lewis Carroll. A few in between exceptions exist, but emphasis on ‘a few’. We threw off the bonds of poetry, and could tell any story almost any way that suited us. And with that came the chance to prove to the naysayers that prose could be intellectual, brilliant, and all that other stuff too.
Of course we’re still confined to the rules of grammar, and some conventions of grammar exist almost exclusively for the purpose of writing narrative, but that’s as it should be — one must still be able to convey one’s ideas to the audience in a meaningful way. But now we’re free in the telling.
In this freedom we have the following facts: Our audience is not captive. Unlike a script we don’t have to hurry. We can take the time to smell roses, and contemplate bees. If the reader needs to pee, they can take the book with them or simply put it down. Our audience can put us down. We can tell a story that takes 57 hours to enjoy — that’s fine. The audience may put us down at the end of this chapter and go to sleep and pick us up where she left off. We may be enjoyed in the park, in the sun, in candlelight, in the bath, in bed, in the car, on a plane or train, we can be enjoyed with a fox, we can be enjoyed in a box (I couldn’t resist, sorry). We need not make a fuss.
Now, there’s limits. A reader has his patience. Either Lawrence Block or Terry Pratchett said (I’m sorry — I can’t recall, and searching for the quote got me sites giving resumé advice) “The purpose of page one is to get you to read page two.” Pacing is important, but pacing isn’t the alpha and omega of keeping a reader’s attention. Keeping their interest does too.
John woke at exactly 0700 and stood, stretching. He padded thirty-two steps to his closet where he pulled out a dark blue navy suit, and a ivory coloured pressed and starched dress shirt. He decided on a narrow, midnight blue tie …
Pretty dull, awful lot of detail and most of it pretty unimportant in that it isn’t interesting. Thing is, context is important. If it’s just that excerpt, then it’s just a bad bit of narrative. You could trim lots of it out because it’s the kind of not important that bogs things down. On the other hand, perhaps this is very important as it could be part of something illustrating what a monumentally dull person this is. In that instant this boggy, mind-numbing bit of narrative could be fairly attention holding.
I also criticise other bits of fiction structure Gospel — act structure and Hero’s Journey, and others I can’t think the names of right now. I’m not saying a story shouldnt/can’t have these. It just shouldn’t be the intent. Hero’s Journey being a grey area — though, I’m sure you could just as easily write a Quest story that accidently follows the Hero’s Journey as doing so on purpose. If a story, after the fact, plots out to some named structure (and odds are pretty good it will to some degree) that’s all well and good, but why constrain yourself to this from the beginning?
To those who need it or can do it and well, that’s fine too. We all have to tell our own stories our own ways. I’m just referring to the plethora of advice that says Must. As if there is some rule to writing besides the rules of spelling, punctuation, and grammar — all of which might be violated in a pinch to tell the story better (e.g. Mark Twain’s fondness for writing in vernacular).
My writing advice? My contribution to this great big mess of How to Tell a Story and What Makes Fiction or whatever? Write. Tell your story. That’s all. Let the rest take care of itself. It generally will.
If you’re such a rigidly organised person you can’t write without a solid framework to build upon then yes, look into concepts like the act structure or the various other Formulae of Fiction; maybe in the educational journey of writing you’ll start to morph and modify that framework to fit your own needs. For the rest of us … tell your story, end done full stop.
English: J.K. Rowling reads from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone at the Easter Egg Roll at White House (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I find it fascinating to think about how the world of writing is often rampant with very profound sexism, and one enforced from all sides — including the consumer end.
Writing, I know, includes rhetorical writing, which has always been dripping with extremities of thought in every direction. Same goes for informative texts — everyone has a point to make. I often find the term non-fiction a touch funny — sometimes I think the only honest writing is fiction; it admits to being made up, then so often proceeds to give you a glimpse of some life truth through this made up account.
Still, by the same token the sexism isn’t in depiction, it’s in the industry itself. So, yes, even in the rhetorical and non-fiction worlds. Thing is, I’m not talking about on the paper. I’m talking about in the material, themes, genres.
Take SF, a favourite of mine. Speculative fiction is a vivid place full of idealised histories and shining futures. It’s a place where women could captain a starship with dignity and respect at a time when, perhaps, they couldn’t get taken seriously as the captain of a bass boat. It’s a place where a sorceress could cross spells with an archmagus and none could know who would prevail, and both were looked at with awe and respect — even fear. Yet it’s a place where authors, at times, find themselves thankful for a name with a masculine tone, or find themselves writing under pseudonym. Because, of course, women don’t know the first thing about writing Fantasy, Science Fiction, and the like! God, no, who ever heard of such a thing?! Oh, not to say they can’t, but it’d certainly be all fairies, unicorns, and True Love — not a decent fight scene in sight, and no mighty castings. It’d be court intrigue and … notice how I’m sticking with Fantasy here? Yeah, there’s a reason for that.
Sexism works both ways. Romance. Oh, fellas, you poor dears. Don’t you know, not a one of you has a romantic bone in your whole body?! You couldn’t write a touching love scene if your lives depended upon it. Oh, sure, a bodice ripper, all sex and “love muscle” this, and “throbbing” that might be seen as okay, though you’ll probably find you’ll have better luck if you called it erotica than romance, and throw in a few colourful vulgarities or just get rather more graphic about it.
Agents and publishers aren’t as bad about it, if they were then many of the authors writing under pseudonym couldn’t. Clearly one cannot cash a royalty cheque made out to their pen name, so obviously the agent and publisher knows who really wrote it. It’s the readership, though, they’re the worst. Jo Rowling‘s middle initial isn’t K. J. K. Rowling, just doesn’t sound as feminine — it does now that we all know that she is the lovely and talented author of the Harry Potter series, but when the stories were new … oh, my … let’s not put Jo, a distinctly feminine label, on this Boy’s Adventure Fiction, it won’t sell very well.
It’s true, too. Oh, if you ask people directly they’ll say it’s more important what’s in the book. But that’s while they’re thinking with their forebrain. What happens when they’re scanning the bookshelves? What happens when they see a cover with Fabio’s arms draped with a pert young blonde in a French Renaissance dress? They might glance at the title and see something like Jasmine’s Desire (I am not going to find out how many books have that title and nor how many have a cover remotely as I’ve made up … I won’t), in many cases if it’s by Elaine Wrotabuk the expectations for what will be between those pages will be different than if it says Edward Wrotabuk. Ever notice just how many names on the shelves of Science Fiction are ‘male’ and how many on Romance are ‘female’? Ever notice how many are only initials? Ever wonder who just got clever and picked a perfectly innocuous name?
It’s not just those two genres, they’re just the easiest to pick on. I write one and read the other, so I’m more familiar — and there’s the fact that it often appears to be the worst for it. They’re the ‘[sex] can’t write this stuff’ genres. In other genres it’s just assumed the content will be different. Also, if we’re talking Young Adult, Children’s, and other stuff that might, at times, be divided into girls’ fiction or boys’ fiction, then we run into the situation where you want a male name on The Hardy Boys, a girl’s name on Nancy Drew.
It’s in other aspects of the readership. Men just can’tpossibly write a female protagonist. Certainly not as a point of view character. Just as Jo Rowling, clearly, could not have penned the work with this male star-of-the-show — obviously that was done by the ambiguous, but assumed to be Mr J. K. Rowling.
So we’ve got expectation of content — male penned romance is smut, female romance is moving and passionate (even when it’s really smut). Female written fantasies are just romances with pixies in it, but male penned ones are hobgoblins and epic, bloody battles. Men can’t write convincing women, and women cannot write men to save their lives. And women don’t know the first thing about science fiction. Feel free to extrapolate into the expectations of horror and mystery, westerns and contemporary, and other such fictions.
Those matters, though, I can largely be amused by. I mean, an author can change her name for purposes of making the book on the shelf conform to societal expectations and, once the content between the pages is know — instead of only guessed at — her true name and face can be known and, now that everyone’s thinking with their higher brain functions, no one gives a damn. J. K. can now, once more, be Jo — though for convenience’s sake the cover retains the J. K. It’s the criticisms, analyses — the literary breakdowns that actually bother me.
It’s the feminist critique of works, for example, wherein a book by a woman (or perceived to be) can have lesbians, strong females, women who enjoy sexuality and women who loathe it, men who’re sensitive, and men who are brutish — and she is brilliant. There’s so much spoke in this work! Tell them though, that Sam Spade is Samuel, not Samantha, though and suddenly the lesbians are just perverse fantasy, the strong females are somehow sexist (I’ve never understood how that works), the sexual women are more perverse fantasy, and … need I go on?
It does work a little to the flip side. A woman author who writes sensitive men, or weak men, or strong women and so forth is clearly a dyke femi-nazi or something. Strangely I’ve noticed men tend to be less worried about this sort of thing. Maybe it’s just taken for granted by the male of the species that women think them idiots and so are unfazed when a woman writes them as such, who knows? Still, in all fairness, I’ve seen men get quite riled by the depiction of men in various writings.
Why is it that something is positive for little boys, or little girls if it’s written by one gender, but horrible and perverse the other way ’round — even if the text is unchanged (I’ve actually encountered, sadly I cannot recall where or with regards to what, people reversing their attitudes when such data is brought to light)? Why is it insulting when it’s discovered an inspiring story of homosexual romance was written by someone who’s straight? Okay, so that’s not sexism, but prejudice is prejudice.
I know, I spoke at length of fiction, but I said rhetoric and information had the same issue. It does. Women aren’t supposed to know about some topics, and men aren’t. Imagine a book on etiquette and protocol, or on flower arranging by a man — a straight one! Or a book by a woman about DIY diesel engine repair that isn’t just Suzy Homemaker “if the sprocket-hose, this little thing right here, gets a hole in it and you’re on the interstate, don’t call triple-A, just grab your ballpoint pen and …”, no I mean “So once you have the engine mounts loose, we’ll hoist the son of a bitch out of there and get to work rebuilding it …”
The point is we’re writers. Writers are readers, then there’re the people who’re just readers. We’re the weird people. We’re not normal! Why, then, are among the worst at maintaining stereotypes and prejudices? Oh, sure, we love a good stereotype while writing, it’s useful for making things succinct, “For a redhead she was remarkably even tempered” and “what do you expect, he went to Oxford,” but we shouldn’t enforce the things in life. I believe wholeheartedly that any woman who wants to know a camshaft from a steering column ought to be fully capable of showing any man at the local service shop a thing or two with a torque wrench (minds out of the gutter, folks), that a straight man can be a fantastically cultured individual with an eye for floral arrangements and interior decorating, that women are more likely to write an action filled blood and gore fightfest, and that any man who lets himself feel can write profoundly touching emotional explorations. Some of the most scientifically and technically minded people I’ve met were female, and there’re certainly a good deal of double-Xs reading SF … and there’re straight men who don’t mind a good tearjerker and have all the technical and mechanical aptitude of an earthworm. Maybe as the people who live in the world of facts (non-fiction), imagination (fiction), and trying to move people into new ways of seeing things (rhetoric) we ought to remember to think more forwardly in the real world just as well or more than we let ourselves in the worlds between the pages.
Well, this is it. As I said in my previous post I’ve submitted to a total of 18 agents and might add others over the next few days. And that’s all I’m waiting for — the agents’ responses. Love or Lustis now completely proofread and copy-edited.
My editor does feel that she might have missed a few commas in the course of some early chapters, so she wants to give those another glance over. I also want to update the asterisk scene separators with fleurons. And I will spend some time fine tuning the layout and formatting, as I wish for the book to be ready to go in early June if I haven’t heard back a positive response from the agents before then.
So final time table:
Between now and 1 June I will be tweaking layout and updating the sample to reflect the proofread version, adding the fleurons, and so forth.
Waiting. Maddening, heartbreaking waiting. This will be filled with much anxiety every time I check my email, and occasional bouts of disappointment as I’m bound to get more than a couple of rejection letters.
If, by 1 June I have been accepted by an agent then, as I’ve said before, I’ll keep you all updated about what the publisher is going to do and when.
If I haven’t been picked up by the first of June I’ll begin uploading the book to e-stores and will announce the date they’ll be available for purchase.
My God! I suddenly have a ridiculous pile of agents and agencies that look promising.
I will spend this week sending out queries. I do still plan to put a deadline to be accepted or self publish. Love or Lust will either be on the hands of an agent, being shopped to publishers, or it will be self published by the start of June.
I wish to give the agencies a reasonable time with which to respond, but I also don’t wish to sit idly on a completed story. I’m sure there are plausibly hundreds of relevant agents out there, if I can but find their names and sites. I will play that game to a point. When I could only find two promising looking agents, I didn’t like giving up so I looked – cautiously as I don’t need an agent, but I looked. I found a whopping three more. Today Google’s results were utterly different! Two pages of results I’d never found before before I decided to stop and get ready for bed! These were the top matches!
So I will continue to selectively query, but to a much deeper and broader pool (a wise thing, I should think, as it give the agent idea a far fairer chance). After this week, though, no more searching. This new pool of results gives me a more comfortably sized list, and looking much longer risks pushing my June deadline in order to give the agents fair time to respond.
After carefully considering my rate of proofreading, the rate I ought to be proofreading, and the amount of work it will take to make the book ready for publication I have decided that the release date for Love or Lust will be 29 June 2013.
Jaye Em Edgecliff 