(no subject)

[alg]

I think RWA is (generally speaking) a great organization. I think a lot of times it's extremely helpful. I think RWA has done much to help romance become a genre that's taken seriously. I think RWA refuses to be shunted aside by people who say, "Oh, it's just women." I think that is awesome.

However. The number one thing I see from RWA members that makes me cringe is this "Pro" thing. Really. Stop it. I don't care that you have a pro pin. It doesn't actually make you a professional at all. In fact, I sort of mentally groan and roll my eyes and think to myself, "Great, yet another person who has no idea what she's doing."

It's not your fault -- RWA encourages you to think this is important. That's fine. But here's a reality check: it doesn't matter. If you're sending me a proposal, I care about your words a lot, and your publishing history/contacts a little bit, and your RWA status not at all.

(If you don't know what I am talking about, here's a quick definition: RWA offers something called a "Pro pin" to its members who have finished and submitted a manuscript. Since 999 times out of 1,000 (999,999 times out of 1,000,000?) a first-time submission won't get published, you can prove that you are a "pro" by showing them your rejection letter. Seriously. I have run into more than one person who writes and submits a crappy ms. just for a pro pin, and more than one person who thinks that a pro pin means something to editors. It does not. Obviously.)

La la la. Moving on. Yesterday when I woke up, Vincent was dragging his back legs. In fact, I woke up because he was making weird noise. It was like he didn't have the use of his hips, but he wouldn't let me look at his legs. So I called my vet and left a message and called in sick to work. I kept calling my vet. To make a long story short, she couldn't see me, so I went with both cats to the ghetto vet near the Williamsburg Bridge. Vincent was fine -- by the time we got there, he was totally okay. But it turns out that Shiksa's got conjunctivitis!

I felt kind of hysterical and ridiculous -- yet at the same time absolutely vindicated because something was wrong.

Then I went to the office, because I am a compulsive workaholic, and, before going out for supper with some of my friends, I stopped in at a B&N near my office. I was kind of appalled to see that romance only had two bookshelves, whereas mystery had five, but whatever. I picked up six or seven books, and read one of them while drinking a mocha -- The Admiral's Bride by Suzanne Brockmann. She's one of my favorite writers, and this is a reprint (originally published in 1999), and I loved it. And when I was finished, I realized that I shouldn't have done that. I should have saved her for last.

Because the other five books or however many I had? Were crap. I flipped through them on the train on my way home. The most egregious errors were ones the copyeditor really should have caught (like the heroine who first graduated in 1996 and then in 1998, and either way, there was no way that she was a successful sociology professor!). I hated so many of the characters. There were a lot of clumsy beginnings -- dossiers instead of character development, etc. Totally boring stuff that actually kind of upset me. Why so lazy, writers?

Not to even mention that 99% of the time, when there's a dossier to introduce characters, they're always accurate. I hate that. I think it would be much more interesting to do something like what cesperanza did in her story MVP and have the dossier actually be inaccurate (or not entirely accurate, anyway). Come on, shake things up.

Jeez.

I don't mean to sound so vehement, but.... blah. I had high hopes. I always do. I just hate everything! I can see why other people would enjoy some of it (sometimes I can, anyway), but I just... Hm. Like my userinfo used to say, I am interested exclusively in things that are interesting.

Things I have tried and failed at in the last few days: to set up a "real" blog using movable type (that shit is hard!), Trackbacks, PB Wiki (scratchyfishie and 2muchexposition both have one, but I can't figure out what to use it for!), the Xvid codec, the DivX codec, and to teach myself to compress video files without losing too much quality.

I have, however, suceeded at eating a lot of burritos, listening to a lot of Kane, watching a lot of Supernatural and Criminal Minds and Grey's Anatomy and The Evidence, and planning out what I am going to do with my life, which includes opening a roadside truckstop diner with my friends where we will serve pie.

In conclusion, Christian Kane is hot. There's not much more I can say about that.

Comments

[julesjones]

[winces] I hope you don't think all e-presses are crappy. Though that is precisely why I say it is an e-press and put the name of the e-press in question in my query letters when it's a relevant market credit -- if I just toss off "I am a published author" without the details, I'm sure it really does look like either I don't know that editors know how to use Google, or I'm hoping that they won't.

I've spent the last year in a state of paranoia about whether it is better to state the credits up front, or to *not* state them up front and have them found by Googling. :-)

[alg.livejournal.com]

Some e-presses are crappy. Others are not. I have spent a good deal of the last year trying to figure out how to write an article about e-published fiction without sounding like a print snob. Especially since... some print houses are crappy. Others are not.

*g*

[julesjones]

Oh, I hear you. This is part of the problem from my perspective. I *know* some e-presses are crappy. In fact, I think "some" is an understatement. They may even follow Sturgeon's Law. But since I'm epublished myself, how do I say "Some are not" without it sounding like special pleading?

And when trying to explain to someone with her first contract why she should *read* the contract before signing it, and think about whether as a reader she would buy books from that publisher, how do I say "Yes, some are crappy" without sounding like a print snob?

[alg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think we're stuck.

And even the good print/e houses have their problems. I will be the first to say that Tor ha spublished some stinkers!! It's a tough line to draw. But you know what? I can almost always tell when someone's been e-published from the text, and I can't do that with print publishing. (And how do you write in a rejection letter, "Seriously, take this to epublisher X and you'll be very successful there" without sounding HIDEOUS?)

[kvaadk.livejournal.com]

Actually, in the short story markets a recommendation that the writer try another market can be helpful. The reader -- can't match the initials to anyone on the masthead -- at Esquire who rejected my last story hand-wrote across the bottom of the form: "Fun read, but not right for us. You might want try ..." (No, they didn't just trail off, I'm not mentioning the suggested market because I'm waiting to hear from them.)

That note raises an interesting point in the not-yet-or-well-published ranking system. When you progress from form letters to personal notes it indicates *something* in terms of development as a writer. Though I doubt an editor would be impressed with "I've received very pleasant comments jotted on my rejection forms from both New Yorker and the Atlantic."

The only rejection letters I've ever kept were from Marion Zimmer Bradley. She sent back a ms -- back in my manual typewriter days when I really wanted the ms back so I could mail it off again -- with notes all along the margin explaining where she felt the story went wrong. Invaluable editorial and writing advice. I followed all of her suggestions religiously and sent the revised story to her within the week. And got back a form rejection without comment.

[alg.livejournal.com]

Mostly unless I have spoken with another editor about this specific project, I try not to recommend too much to unpubs. However, if I know an editor has an open submissions policy and is looking for mss. like Type X, I might suggest the writer send it -- but the problem with this is that writers tend to use the names of the editors sending them over as a way to get a foot in the door. That's very smart. However, I don't want to be associated with Joe Blow 25's manuscript, you know?

[kvaadk.livejournal.com]

Oh, of course. I can't imagine the etiquette in suggesting a 6k short story might be good for another market would be at all like that for advising a novelist of options.

And also of course: Unless the person specifically says "Tell them I sent you" never use the name of another editor (particularly one who rejected you) as an entree.

[julesjones]

Even with form letters, the difference between the encouraging form letter and the discouraging form letter can indicate something. As I realised when I received a flat "no" from somewhere after a long string of "you didn't make the final cut, but keep submitting" form letters. :-)