For the past month, every day at lunch I've gone down to the company cafeteria with a copy of "James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon" tucked under my arm. Today I finally finished the book. Is it embarrassing or stupid to say that I got a little teary-eyed at the end? She was a remarkable woman and an incredible writer: but more than that - my copy of the book is now bristling with post-it notes marking places where she writes (often with cold eloquence and often with a searching, bitter anger) about women and men, about being the alien "other", about sexuality, about the strange and often traitorous geography of the female body. Her attempts to define what it is to be a human being, to be a woman, are in many respects similar to mine, and I found it a sort of bittersweet relief to be able to read her words and think "yes, thank god, that's exactly how I feel".

Don't get me wrong, though - I am in no way comparing my writing skills to Tiptree's. I'm only saying that Alice Sheldon's constant questioning of what it was/is to be a "woman" has many parallels to my questioning. Because I spend a good deal of time wondering that, myself. Calling myself a woman or female is to me no different than putting a pair of fangs in my mouth and declaring that I'm a "vampire" - it's a costume, it's role-playing. Those words don't fully describe who and what I am. And I can't say why I think that way, why I look in the mirror and see "Other". I see someone "passing" as female. And the things I worry about and question and seek answers to are the things that are showing up in my writing more and more. This is a writing thing, in other words - not a confessional. Well, there's obviously a personal quest behind the writing, but that will stay off the blog. I guess what I'm trying to say in my own clumsy way is that it was gratifying to read about a woman who went through a similar process of self-evaluation and self-discovery (and un-discovery, if there is such a thing - because no one ever gets all the answers), and how that informed her writing, for better or worse. I know I'm alone, and I like being alone, but sometimes it's good to know that I'm not alone, that someone was there before me.

Labels: Tiptree

Yep, that's pretty much what happened. Two days ago I was riding home on the Hudson Light Rail, and while I was staring out over at the river and the skyline of Manhattan, an entire story dropped into my head. This rarely happens - in fact, this is the only the second time it's occurred. I sat on it for 24 hours, just to see if it held up in my head - it did, and I couldn't stop thinking about it, so yesterday I wrote the first 1000 words with a rather astonishing ease. Ah, if only all my stories dropped from the sky into my brain like manna from heaven! :P

My goal is to try to finish it this weekend, then set it aside for a week while I finish up the story/first chapter I started last week. I'm hoping to have both stories polished and out the door before I leave for Belgium next month - the story/first chapter ("Discrimen") probably to fishnetmag.com, and this new story, which is called "When We Get On the Inside", to Interzone for their "Mundane Science Fiction" issue. The story is more social science fiction than hard science, though, so I don't know if it'll make the cut. It's also what I could call my first feminist story - although it's also very damning of certain aspects of the "culture" of women at the same time. It's hard to explain. It's very Tiptreean? I have no idea. Clearly I should leave the labeling to editors and critics.

FYI, the photo of the diorama really has nothing to do with this post. I'm just dressing things up a bit. If you want to see more dioramas, and photos from the collections of the Museum of Natural History (dinosaurs! Aztec gods! flying cephalopods!) click on the photo and it'll take you to the set on Flickr.

Last night I had a "Drink 'n' Bitch" session in Manhattan with Robert Levy (if you can't figure out what we did, then you're beyond all hope :P). Among other things, we talked about my upcoming novel - and in the throws of a beery passion, I spun an old tale from my teenage years that's the inspiration for both the setting and the core emotional arc of the characters. After I finished telling the tale, Robert was all "OMG THIS IS YOUR FIRST CHAPTER, BEYOTCH!" and I was all "OMG UR RIGHT!" and then he was all "BUT OMG IT'S ALSO A SHORT STORY THAT YOU WILL SUBMIT AND GET PUBLISHED WHILST UR WRITING THE NOVEL!" and I was all "OMG U HAVE BLOWN! MY! MIND!"

And yes, we totally talked in all caps. Also, I talked a lot about literary fiction with genre elephants. You know - various elephants of genre. :P It was a fun evening.

So, I'm writing the story-slash-chapter this weekend, and hope to send it out by the end of the month. It's called "Discrimen". Below is a definition of the title, which is also a perfect description of what the story-slash-chapter is about (with a dash of resistentialism thrown in). You know, I've had that word sitting in a file for about three years now. I always knew it'd come in handy someday. Never throw anything away.

Discrimen is "...what the Romans called the moment of perilous and excruciating or exhilarating tension, the moment before everything changes because of this one experience. It never is that powerful again, but that one experience is so profoundly effective that it not only starts one down a specific life path, but it imbues the life and subsequent work with remembered power from the experience - power that it did not have on its own."

Labels: "the ruins of love", discrimen

About a month ago, I received a very complimentary rejection from Maxim Jakubowski, who regretted not being able to include "At the Edge of Ellensburg" in The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica - it was just too long for the anthology. He did mention that he'd read it prior to my sending it to him, and that he "found it fascinating - actually felt it warranted expansion to novel length even".

::cue light bulb::

In the meantime, I've been coming to realize that even though I enjoy writing erotica, it kind of sucks that I've never been paid for a single word I've "sold" - even though contracts have been signed, I've never seen a cent of the $600 total (plus contributor copies) that's owed me. And I have this 20k word erotic novella that I've been holding onto, because I have no intention of giving it away. I simply don't trust the erotica markets enough to assume that if I sign a contract it will be honored - clearly that isn't the case. So what do I do with a novella no one wants to pay me for?

Turn it into a novel.

I'll use what I've written as a preliminary outline, write a new outline in August and September, and then take the rest of the year to write the 100,000 word manuscript. The novella already has some slight fantastical elements to it - it won't take much nudging to make it full-blown horror. The plot will remain the same, but I'm going to remove the more explicit details in the sex scenes - it's not going to be erotica when I finish, so they're not necessary. My plan is to polish/revise in early 2008, then send it out to agents before summer starts. Once it's making the rounds, I can start work on the Tacoma Steampunk novella trilogy.

As far as word counts and excerpts and "snippets" - I don't mind work counts on blogs, but snippets tend to frustrate me, as well as any extended talk about characters and plot threads because, frankly, I forget from post to post who the hell the characters are and why I should care about them. However, I'm also of the opinion that if you're talking about your novel in post after post and readers still have no fucking clue who the characters are, then you just might be writing a fairly forgettable piece of fiction. I've come to realize, in wading through thousands of "snippet posts" over the past couple of years plus re-posting my crappy old YA novel over at "the_numinous_1" livejournal, that a lot of dark fantasy and horror tends to be far too complex and smartypants clever for its own good - forsaking character development over bullshit magic systems and casts of thousands that blend in with every other dark-urban-paranormal-interstitial-fantasy-horror-whatever novel that's being published nowadays.

Edit to add: My comments about reading snippets I don't like and novel-chat that makes no sense to me refers only to blogs and journals of people I don't link to in any way, both here and on Livejournal. Just wanted to make that clear, in case people I know might be horrified to think that I'm referring to them. I'm not.

Therefore: this is going to be a very simple, stripped-down horror novel, with a cast of few, and no magic systems whatsoever (in fact, it will be very similar in style and tone to "At the Edge of Ellensburg", because it's set - in Ellensburg!). Three main characters - one who isn't human - and the struggle is about friendship, loyalty and love, not who kills the monster and gets the MAGICKAL RING OF POWER, or whatever. And what this means to you, dear 3.5 readers, is that if and when I post excerpts, they will be long enough that you get a wider sense of what's going on, plus you won't have to consult reams of notes from prior posts because you have no fucking clue who these forty people are doing in this elaborate ritual/chase scene that I'm blabbing on and on about. Seriously: there's already a couple of novels being written and talked about in the blogosphere that I have no intention of ever buying, because reading the daily snippets and "favorite sentences" and "what's next for our intrepid explorers" have only left me confused and disgruntled, not all excited to, er, ever read the book. And I have no intention of alienating any readers - until after they've paid me money for the thing. Then you can freak out over my bad prose all you want, while I pay my bills. ;P

Labels: "the ruins of love"

One of my goals for this year was to have at least as many sales as last year - three. About a half an hour ago, I found out that my third story of the year has been accepted for publication (I can't reveal it yet, sorry). If I count the reprint sale of "Brimstone Orange" to Pseudopod, this makes four sales for the year. I know that's not a lot to some people, but it means a lot to me. It means that despite how difficult it is for me to write shorter projects, making myself stick to it has resulted in a slow but steady stream of sales. Perseverance. Kind of counts for something in this business. :D

As far as word count - bleh. Not a lot. Several stories, several novelettes, one novella that needs serious revision, and a failed flash. But I decided early on in the year that keeping an annual word count would just depress me. So: fuck it! What's more important is that I'm finishing stories, I'm sending them out, I'm selling them - or if they come back, I'm sending them out again. At the end of the year, however, I'll post my "Raymond Chandler Write a Million Words of Shit" count - I still keep track of overall output, and what percentage of that has sold.

What's looming up ahead is the spider-steampunk novella and the novel - this means my sale rate will slow to a big fat 0, since I'll have to disrupt my short story/novelette routine. I wish I could "write a story a week" like Jay Lake advises, but it just will never be. But I have a few stories and some prose poems in inventory that are either in submission or ready for submission, so perhaps there won't be such a big slow-down in my sales as I work on the novel. Also, frankly: I think one or two projects that have published this year will get HM's or better in various "best of" anthologies, so that will continue the very small momentum I'm currently experiencing. I think the key words there are "very small". I'm still under the radar, here. No one knows me or knows of me. Little steps, though. Little steps.

So, the secret project is completed and has been submitted. And I've been thinking about what to start next, and realized I wanted to start working on a new novel. Two days ago I posted this on Livejournal, along with a short description of what it'd be about. Let me share with you the one comment I received - an anonymous shot that I deleted immediately after receiving it:

"Your ideas suck and your writing sucks. Also, you're fat."

So there you have it.

In a way, though, it's kind of a reminder that I can't really use Livejournal (or blogging of any kind) as a gauge for what's real or not with my writing, whether the reaction is largely negative or positive. The comment feature makes it far too easy for me to believe that the "I sold a story" posts are causing huge ripples in the world - when in all reality, not one fucking person outside of Livejournal knows I exist. Seriously. I do not exist as a writer. Stephen King exists. I do not. On the other hand, the anonymous trolls I'm attracting tend to know my weaknesses (my age and appearance), and their ability to combine it with writing - as if my being ugly and unfuckable are the specific reasons for my lack of six-figure book contracts - unsettles me greatly. Again, their comments aren't any more true than the positive ones, but the immediate nature of Livejournal makes it hard to find some kind of balance between the two.

And that's why I don't plan on making any more posts on Livejournal about what's going on with my writing, other than the occasional sale. And I think maybe I'll simply forgo those as well, and only post when something's finally in print or online. The less comments I get about my writing, the more I'll truly see how small and insignificant my so-called "career" is, which will perhaps spur me to concentrate more on improving my craft and less on how I can word posts to get as many "CONGRATS" comments as possible.