This year, the NaNoWriMo haterade has been more delightful than the past few years, much to my overall joy. I’d thought we’d all moved on to “Kindle will ruin the publishing industry, so don’t even bother submitting to agents/editors, kid!” It’s good to see that the classics still exist.  (But, to take a quick break from kicking my feet and giggle-snorting)…

Here’s a link to my blog post from five years ago, (old, old post) which was brought on by various amateur (at the time, some may have successfully sold novels and/or short stories since their days of bitterness, in which case hooray for them!) writers talking about their terror that NaNoWriMo was going to produce too much competition for them, thus preventing them from being published.

http://kehrli.livejournal.com/500193.html

(Some parts of that post make me cringe a little, but hey.)

As of last year, the number of participants was about 250,000 and the number of “winning” novels was about 36,000. But 36k is really only the the number of files that had 50,000 words in them that got uploaded to the website, irrespective of quality or actual novel contents. Yeah, that’s a big number, but judging from the people who show up every year, it still consists of a lot of people who heard about this and thought it might be fun, many of whom are teenagers. Most of the people I talk to don’t actually have any publication goals, and are just doing it for the hell of it.

There are two dueling misconceptions at play, I think. The first is the idea that everyone has a novel in them — which N did not start by a long-shot. The second is the idea that putting your time in as a “writer” means anything.

As to the first, long before N was anywhere near as large a thing as it is this year (or last year, or the year before, or five years ago when I wrote that post), I heard people saying that they would write a novel if they only had time. I find ten people who are typing up novels that sound terrible far preferable to one person droning on about what they would write.

As to the second, yes! Working hard for years is how you build up any skills, especially the skills necessary to later create art. But it doesn’t entitle you to anything. If I read two books and I like one more than the other, the amount of time that the two authors spent on their books is meaningless. There will always be someone who shows up with far less experience and does better.

I mean, I have a long and storied history of failing at novels, but I sold the first serious attempt I ever made at a short story to Talebones. I’m certain that there were people who sent stories to Talebones throughout its run and never managed to sell to Patrick. I’m certain that there were people who had been writing short stories since before I’d even learned how to type who hadn’t been able to sell to Patrick. It didn’t matter, and it doesn’t matter. When I read slush at Shimmer and I get the occasional cover letter that says, “I’ve been writing short stories since 1987″ or whatever, my response is never “Oh! This person is DUE, I better buy this story.”

Someone who has been writing for fewer years, who spent less time on their project, and who may have even participated in NaNoWriMo could write a book that gets chosen over yours for any number of reasons, none of which have anything to do with how many years they did or didn’t spend writing it.

Tough shit.

Also, who the hell has time to police who does or doesn’t try to write a novel?

Originally published at Everything I do is SO fucking amazing that sparks are going to shoot out of your eyes.. You can comment here or there.

I don’t have much time, but want to blog ON THE DAY damn it, instead of several weeks later when I remember, buried in a post in which I’m trying to do four things at once but fail because I should have been blogging regularly but wasn’t.

Anyway.

I may have actually heard about NaNoWriMo in 2001, but was working on My Grand And Epic Science Fiction Novel That I Had Started At Age 16 In Response To The Fountainhead Being Bullshit. Plus, I thought NaNo sounded stupid, so I didn’t bother.

Regardless, on November 8, 2002, I opened a forum account on the NaNoWriMo forums because some of my friends were doing it (from back in the Elfwood/IRC days, oh my). I wasn’t too excited about it. Actually, I thought it was a terrible idea, and I didn’t want to start anything new anyway, so whatever. I probably TOLD everybody in IRC that NaNoWriMo was the stupidest idea I’d ever heard WHILE I was filling out the account info. I was 18, and it was my freshman year of college, and I was kind of a shit.

(There are people who met me in my late teens/early 20′s and I have no idea why they still acknowledge my existence. Waiting for schadenfreude?)

It’s been ten fucking years, now.

I mean, it’s just this thing that happens one month a year. It’s an event, sure, sometimes little more than a social event. I’ve showed up to meet other people doing NaNo in Bellingham, Helsinki, and Seattle. This year when I stopped at Powell’s during Orycon, I ended up in the middle of a Portland write-in. Every year, I churn out about 50,000 words of shit, usually finishing right at the very last minute so I can get that pixel star or whatever next to my name.

Yeah, none of those books are published. We can argue about whether or not they were ever finished.

I’ve got some short stories, though. And the novel I’m almost-just-so-close-to-done-with now. The thing is, besides being 18 and a disgruntled college student, I was also a procrastinator, and I had no idea how to finish anything.

That novel I mentioned up at the beginning? That I’d started when I was 16? It persisted for a while (even post NaNo, and after I’d started other projects in November). By the time I gave it up, I did have about 40,000-50,000 words of manuscript! Awesome! And I was pretty sure the plot was just… about… to… start. Yeah, so it was kind of a soap opera that was supposed to be science fiction about an active rebellion, but really it was just a lot of people running around and being dramatic at each other. Yet, somehow I had a small fanbase for it even though I would currently title the project, “The Author Desperately Tries To Come Out of the Closet To Himself But Is Persistently Clueless.”

(Actually, that probably explains WHY people sent me folders of fanart…)

In 2003, Cory Skerry and Liz Coleman were doing NaNoWriMo in Bellingham, and they attempted to make contact, but that was during the one time I tried to date someone, and he was pretty much all of my social contact until he dumped me because he found my reluctant blow job unsatisfactory (and I beat him at Risk). Also, I was still working on the terrible novel rather than starting something new, so I still wasn’t too into the whole NaNo culture yet.

But in 2004, I responded to their NaNoLy summons and did something I had not done much at all during my previous two years… I DESCENDED FROM THE CAMPUS ON THE HILL.

The thing is, until I wandered through downtown Bellingham in search of this mythical place named, “The Black Drop,” I was totally and entirely one of those amateurs who is going to finish a story Someday. There was just other shit I needed to do first. Somewhere, there’s an alternate universe in which I’m working a perfectly ordinary job, and getting slowly more and more bitter about how disappointed I am in myself. I mean, more than I am anyway. Like the way I am now, but a thousand times worse. Alternate universe me probably gets paid more, though. Thankfully I was sucked into the weirdo artsy coffeeshop crowd in Bellingham before I turned into someone respectable.

I participate in NaNoWriMo every year and it’s part of my life, but it wasn’t until I sat down and thought about it this morning that I realized just how much it meant to me. Without the relationships I formed through NaNo, I suspect I may never have written short stories, found out I could finish things, had a webcomic, transitioned, gone to Norwescon for the first time, or found out about Clarion. I’d be one of those sad fuckers with a 9 to 5 I hate, a chip on my shoulder, and a sagging pile of overworked mush that I was still calling a novel “in progress” after 12 years.

I see new people show up at write-ins now, people who always wanted to write, but weren’t sure if they could, who aren’t too sure about what this whole nonsense is about and just want something to do in November. Most of them will just have fun and put everything aside for the rest of the year, sure. And there are always plenty of people writing their fanfiction opuses for themselves and their friends.

Still, when I see people joining for the first time, I wonder if what they’re about to start is a novel or something much more profound.

Originally published at Everything I do is SO fucking amazing that sparks are going to shoot out of your eyes.. You can comment here or there.

Cool, so wordpress's crossposting thing isn't broken anymore. Of course, after all that, I'm not even crossposting. HAHA!

As far as stuff going on: I've not had a lot of short stories out lately (read: any) because I'd mostly stopped writing them. The reasons for this are mostly that I've been busy trying to write a novel that I can let someone else read without wanting to slam my head in the front door a few times afterward. I'll get there, especially since I've told my writing group that I'm going to give it to them for critique by the end of this month. As it has been for forever, I think the first half is pretty good, but the second half keeps getting mired in self-doubt and nonsense.

Also regarding the lack of short stories: I couldn't think of anything to write that wasn't substantially better than what I was seeing in the slush pile. Pointing this out to friends just results in someone suggesting, "maybe you should be an editor instead of a writer" to which I say INSTEAD OF!? But I feel particularly sore about my lack of good output, and a bit like screaming every time I hear yet another "writers write!" statement.

Orycon was okay. I felt a bit like I only barely flew by it, somehow, despite the fact that I was there for 2/3 of it. Lots of people there who I barely saw, and we did the "will you be at X future event" dance, which was depressing because for me the answer was mostly that I wouldn't.

The election last night ended up taking far more of my attention than I intended because I ended up having a bus ride from hell and then being surrounded by chirpy happy people who seemed surprised and pleased that Obama had won Washington (!?). Well, no shit.

The marijuana initiative seems to have passed, legalizing recreational pot use. I'll be interested to see how that plays with federal laws, if it does at all. It will be nice to have actual medical use separated from "sure it's medical, teehee" use.

We're probably going to get same-sex marriage, AGAIN, so that's good. Can we just go with it now? Can it just be over? That'd be great. Also, dear fellow queers, what is up with the HRC equals sign? I had no idea what the hell it was and just assumed it was something from Ikea due to the colors. LOOK, I LIVE IN SEATTLE. ASSUMING THAT PEOPLE AROUND HERE WOULD PUT IKEA STICKERS ON THEIR HYBRID VEHICLES SEEMS HIGHLY REASONABLE, OKAY.

Kshama Sawant (Socialist Alternative party, http://votesawant.org/issues/) ended up with 27% of the votes in my legislative district (running for state house of reps). I'd also voted for her in the primary, but she only came out of that with about 10%. The gain against a Democratic incumbent who has been in the house since 1995 and is currently the speaker is huge, and it'll be interesting to see what she does next.

Also, Puerto Rico! 51 states! SCREW WITH THE FLAG DESIGN YESSSSS CONFUSE EVERYTHING.

Unsurprisingly, the Omelascon Chicon committee* has chosen to close ranks and deny recent harassment reports.

This, of course, after their Social Media Coordinator wrote two "Rage Posts" that essentially stated "We're good people, therefore she's lying," and accused Kate of getting her story wrong, despite the fact that Kate's story has been consistent and Meg seems to have repeatedly misunderstood Kate's tweets.

There is something I would like to point out (regarding the Chicon committee claiming that Kate is a terrible volunteer) in the form of a screen-captured tweet:



So... there's an organization in which at least one (if not more, I've been disappointed so often on this subject lately that very little would surprise me), of the coordinators believes that screaming at volunteers regarding their performance is a good idea.

You know what? No. It really fucking isn't. If you find that screaming at volunteers is necessary to increase performance, there IS a problem, and it's not your volunteers.

EVEN IF Kate was not doing her work properly/on-time/whatever, EVEN IF she was slated for firing for that job performance**, SCREAMING AT AND PHYSICALLY THREATENING HER over her job performance is still not acceptable and whoever did that should have been fired. Period.

As far as why other people on the committee may not have heard about it? Was there an established way for volunteers to report harassment and threatening behavior? Were all volunteers made aware of the proper way to report harassment and threatening behavior? Were volunteers always able to report harassment and threatening behavior to people other than the ones who harassed them in the first place?

And why should anybody believe that this committee is safe to report harassment and threatening behavior to, when the only official response is to publicly trash the victim?

When I was tweeting my disappointment in Chicon last week, I got a bit of the old line about how if people want to change things they should volunteer, etc. Considering what I'm seeing about how people who apparently hold important positions treat their volunteers, why in the world would I?

I understand that some of this comes from "Oh no, I didn't know about this, and I was part of this committee and fuck, I look bad." This is true. But the reason you look bad is not the people pointing out that This Is Wrong, but rather whoever in the organization thinks that the way the issue is being handled is appropriate.

I did not attend Chicon, but I was at the Montreal and Reno Worldcons and so far intend on going to Lonestarcon. I've had a really good time at Worldcons but not everybody can say the same. Unfortunately, some of that has to do with situations being horribly mishandled by convention staff. The proper response is to Fix the Problems, people. I don't want us to never have Worldcons. I'm with N.K. Jemisin on this one. I want people to have fun. I want to have fun. I want to have some measure of confidence that while I'm hanging out and drinking ridiculous drinks at the bar with my Clarion classmates, the volunteers who put the convention on aren't being threatened by their bosses, and people aren't being harassed by people who feel entitled to sex. Or, barring that, feel confident that if the situation comes up, it will be dealt with appropriately.

Worldcon costs well over $200 just to get in the door, and people who want to vote on the Hugo awards (SF's most prestigious blah blah blah whatever) have to either attend or pay $50 for the privilege of doing so. What I'm asking myself is "Do I feel comfortable paying so much money towards an organization that shows very little concern for volunteer safety?"

*Or whoever the Chicon committee is putting in charge of updating that site. Which, you know. If you are part of a group and are being misrepresented, maybe do something about it. There are people involved in Chicon who I am particularly fond of, which is one reason why this frustrates me so much. Because it's hard to say who is doing what (and the recent news item about Kate is attributed to Chicon), so I am left speaking about the convention in general.

**Yet, strangely, in a situation where she is not being harassed and physically threatened by one person and sexually harassed by another, she produces good work. Work that was apparently good enough for Chicon to use.

See also: this.

EDIT: I've locked comments because I'm done here. Though it's possible I might reopen them in the future, at the moment I'm tired of getting depressing comment emails. I'm not deleting any of it, though.

Four years ago today(ish), I had to pack up all my stuff, try to cram 6 weeks of belongings and books into my single suitcase, and catch a flight back to Bellingham. Even though it was horrifyingly sunny the whole six weeks (which just seems unnatural to me), I miss San Diego. Well. Okay, I mostly miss the people. Even though today is the sad leaving day, I hope this year’s class had a great 6 weeks. I hope they learned as much as they could and that they’ll stay in touch with each other. Endings are hard.

Anyway, the Clarion UCSD Write-a-Thon has a little less than 6 hours to meet its fundraising goal! Which means I have a little less than 6 hours to finish my last story. Phew.

And, I’m still offering to send books to people who sponsor me for $10 or more.

To donate to Clarion, you can visit my page, or the main page.

 

HUGE thanks to everyone who has sponsored or participated this year!

Originally published at Everything I do is SO fucking amazing that sparks are going to shoot out of your eyes.. You can comment here or there.

Hey!

So, I finally finished a second short story draft, with what… a week and a half to go?

(No, you can’t read it yet, it’s terrible. No, you don’t want to, trust me.)

Basically, if I’m going to do this thing, I’m going to have to suck it up and finish drafts of all these miserable and abandoned stories — and do that WHILE taking the first two weeks of a super-condensed organic chemistry class.

Yes, because pacing myself was apparently too difficult of a concept. Whoops! But, I’m still going to make it, because a) it’s for Clarion and b) at this point, I’m so fucking tired of having no finished fiction that I don’t even care if these are terrible. I DO NOT CARE. That’s what rewrites are for!

ANYWAY. Besides the update, I have a reward for people who have donated!

If you have sponsored or pledged $15 $10 or more to my write-a-thon drive (or if you choose to do so before August 5) I will mail you a signed perfect bound dead-tree edition of the PDF I made last year. It contains four of my short stories: Advertising at the End of the World, Machine Washable, Bone Dice, and Daha’s Son. And illustrations! The PDF copy is available online, but I don’t sell the print version, so this is going to be a veeeery limited print run.

I’m on the wrong computer right now, so I can’t find the cover image complete with terrible font choice, so here’s the full image I used for the cover (I drew it in December 2010.)

 

And, either way, here’s the PDF (I kept forgetting to put it back up after I switched my site around:

four-stories

Thanks, everybody!

 

 

ETA: If you already sponsored for $10 or more, I’ll be in touch with you on August 5 or 6. Also, if you don’t want another book (I totally understand), then I won’t send you anything.

Originally published at Everything I do is SO fucking amazing that sparks are going to shoot out of your eyes.. You can comment here or there.

I get home to find out that the Mariners traded MY FAVORITE PLAYER. TO THE YANKEES. FOR SOME IMAGINARY PITCHERS.

BECAUSE APPARENTLY THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND
THAT ALL PITCHERS
IMMEDIATELY START TO SUCK
UPON REACHING SEATTLE
SERIOUSLY WHY NOT JUST COME TO MY APARTMENT
AND PUNCH ME IN THE FACE.



BUT MOSTLY.

TO THE YANKEES!

FFFFFFFFFF THEY TAKE EVERYTHING I LOVE FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU



(okay, yes, so he's 38, which is like 97 in baseball years, but still. baseball emotions, i have them.)

I still sometimes see people asking questions about author websites. Do I need one? What do I put on it? Who should I pay for it? Do I really need to blog? Do I need to social network facespacepintwitlr? Blah blah blah.

Okay, first, the obligatory HA HA, why would anybody take website information from a site as ugly as this one? (I don’t know.)

There are roughly a million billion sites that will tell you stupid minutiae about what your website should look like, and how to blog, and whatever. 99% of all that shit is optional. I won’t say that nobody cares about that stuff, but it’s not essential. I’m not saying that more advanced/complicated questions aren’t good. But sometimes I see websites that are full of all sorts of fancy bullshit but not the basics.

I don’t care how pretty your design is. Your website exists to tell people who you are and what you write. If it doesn’t do that, fix it.

You need:

a website
with your name on it
and a way to contact you
and a list of your published fiction (if you have any).

Website!

It does not have to be a fancy website. You can go to WordPress.com or blogspot, or even LiveJournal if you are feeling nostalgic for 2003. Try not to make your site look like it was designed in 1996. If you don’t know what means, just choose something like WordPress and use one of the free themes. It’s sufficient.

Name!

It does not need to be your legal name. It needs to be the name that you put (or intend to put) on your fiction. Recently, I went to an author’s site to try and figure out who the author was, since their Twitter account didn’t have their name attached. I had to dig through several pages of the site until I finally found a jpeg file of a book cover with the author’s byline. Their name was not on the main page, in the header, in their bio, or on the “about this blog” page.

Don’t do that. Make sure it’s visible on the main page of your site.

Contact!

Shit happens. Especially in slush piles. Your email provider can decide that the magazine you’ve submitted to is spam. You might fuck up and send a submission with no contact information. I don’t know. Name anything that could possibly go wrong when submitting a story. It’s happened.

Editors become very, very sad if they read a story, want to buy it, and can’t get into contact with the author. No, if you somehow forget contact info, good editors are not going to automatically reject the story. Why? Because if it’s worth publishing, it’s worth the (admittedly annoying) task of typing the author’s name into Google and sending an email.

It can also result in awesome stuff falling in your lap. Example: a few weeks ago I got an email out of the blue from an independent film producer who wanted to give me money and make a short film based on one of my stories. So that’s cool. I felt all validated about making myself easy to contact.

Bibliography!

List things you’ve had published (or published yourself). Link to everything that’s online. If I find one of your ancient stories in a back issue of a magazine, make it easy for me to find something more recent to read.

Okay? Okay. Everything else is optional, so stop freaking out about how some person is claiming that you ABSOLUTELY NEED an account in the current trendy social media site.

Originally published at Everything I do is SO fucking amazing that sparks are going to shoot out of your eyes.. You can comment here or there.

AGH. I somehow always manage to forget that summer = BUSY. Usually this is because everything that I’ve promised to be involved with happens in the summer. You would think that I’d figure this pattern out at some point, but no.

So, what is up with the Write-a-Thon? I’ve written every day (although I missed clicking the button once or twice, oops). And, though I’m woefully behind, I have finally finished A Draft of A Short Story that turned out to be not so entirely Short — and really I would have been better off if I’d just said HAY GUYS IT IS NOVELLA.

Except, I didn’t, and instead I spent the time trying to cram a great big huge story down to a short story length. In the end, I have 6,666 words (yes, that many exactly) of a draft-nobody-else-gets-to-read. This is, incidentally, why I didn’t write a bunch of updates. I kept getting embarrassed after the end of week one that I hadn’t finished a short story yet.

But now I have! Even though I had real writer’s block as opposed to my usual problem, which is that I’m moping because I intensely dislike everything I write. I fixed that by writing on the Link light rail which is a surprisingly good place for me to write. I would do that every evening, but I’m worried the light rail people will freak out if I go to the airport and back for no reason except that I want to sit on the train.

So far I’ve raised $124 and I have $132 in pledges (which means I need to write faster.)

The little bar is turning GREEEEEEN.

This story is going to need a lot more work before I can send it out, sadly, if I get that far. But, the path to publication is littered with the eviscerated bodies of failed projects, so whatever.

Originally published at Everything I do is SO fucking amazing that sparks are going to shoot out of your eyes.. You can comment here or there.

Poll #1851436
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 16

Should I get a keytar?