Arrant Nonsense

Congrats to the handsome and talented bradtorgerson for winning third place in the 3rd Quarter Writers of the Future contest. *blows party horn* UTAH REPRESENT, YO.

In other news, the agent hunt continues apace. I apparently need a synopsis now. Oh, god.

In other other news, I've tweaked the query yet again. I'd stop doing that if it wouldn't keep getting better every time I did it. Grawr.

Also, the shitstorm generated by Harlequin adding a vanity publishing arm to its stable continues apace, and I'm going to call my post about it at Clairvoyant Wank a rousing success.

• flipped a rejected story
  
• gone grocery shopping
  
• edited the last paragraph of the querything again into something even more awesome
  
• posted a thing at Clairvoyant Wank about Harlequin being delisted at RWA over their new vanity imprint
  
• posted a pissy comment at fandomsecrets

So. Why do I feel like I haven't done anything today?

*looks at list*

Well. Because I haven't, really. *headdesks repeatedly*

I think, for the moment, that the not!Iron Man is going to be in limbo for a bit. The submission guidelines for places that publish such lengthy works are esoteric at best and a pain in the ass at worst (seriously: pick a consistent format for all you publishing people and stick with it. I am not a typesetter, and if you're not even going to pay me for the thing, then why make it such a convoluted process?). I am not so desperate to be published that I'm going to jump through innumerable and ridiculous-to-me hoops to do so--I'll put it up here with a tip jar first, dammit. Probably make more money that way, to be honest.

What I'm going to do instead is work my hiney off on the query for the novelthing, and mention in the letter that I have a novella sequel of sorts that resolves the issue of Alex and Megan's relationship (while whumping Alex, because, hey, why should Ben have all the fun, right?).

Anyway. This day can pretty much die in a fire too, as far as I'm concerned. Nothing overtly horrid has happened yet, but the day is young, right?

*eyes icon* I really should add some blood and bruises to that. Because, yes, that's Alex and Megan. EDIT: is done, and here's the original for your perusal:

For a plethora of reasons.

It is entirely possible that I've run out of paying markets for the not!Iron Man story, having received (yet another) rejection for that one today (a nice rejection, but a rejection nonetheless) and discovered that the next market I was going to ship it off to has closed to subs permanently. And then I spent an ungodly amount of time wrestling with OpenOffice over taking a header off the first page, only to look over the guidelines of the market I was VERY SPECIALLY FORMATTING it for (seriously, some of these formatting requirements are whackadoo. I wouldn't mind formatting it after they accepted the damned thing, more than happy to do that, but I wish these markets would pick a format and stick with it. Preferably Standard Manuscript Format) and discover that they don't pay an advance at all, just a royalty. Which... yeah. Is fine and good if they were a major publisher, but...they're not. Also, they want me to come up with my own marketing plan. Because I know all about that, right? Aren't they the professionals? Feh. I mean, I'd be more than happy to do a local tour with signings and readings at bookstores and libraries and possibly high schools, and all that fun stuff, but an actual "marketing plan" is a little beyond my skill set.

Hell, I even chaptered the thing for them. It may or may not be better with chapters, crap if I know at this point. I just want someone to buy it so people will get to read it. This is the second story I've about decided will go up here with a tip jar, Miss Manners and her attitude toward "beggary" notwithstanding. My situation is a bit different (although I am also appallingly bad with money, but I have an excellent money manager in the Hubby) as I'd be providing content for said tips, and I view that more as a street musician playing with an open instrument case on the ground in front of me for people to drop a bill or some coins in if they so desire.

So, there was that. There's also the fact that I don't think I got any new words in the new!Ben&Janni story today (I edited some old ones, which doesn't count). And then I was going to console myself with a Carl's Jr $6 guacamole-bacon burger...and the Carl's I went to was closed for remodeling. The next closest one was at least fifteen minutes away (depending on traffic and how I hit the lights), and television was starting in... twenty-five minutes. I did not get my burger-y goodness.

I nearly decided to drown my sorrows in Diet Dew and Southern Comfort after Da Boy went to bed, but decided that drinking alone without the excuse of "unleashing my creativity" (because the Muse has apparently Gone Walkabout again) was a bad idea. So, here I sit. Comfort-less.

Also, the engine light in the CruiserBerry is on and has been for about a week. This is Bad.

Just...screw this day, y'know? Sideways, with a rusty cactus.

I know, I know, cry moar, boo-frakking-hoo, there's people out there worse off than I am. It...is entirely possible that I am hormonal. Which, you know what? Screw that too. *hates uterus*

Also, I miss the Gray Cat.

At least TV was good tonight. OH GOD THE PREVIEW FOR NEXT WEEK'S MENTALIST. *kermitflail*

Now I just need Plot.

*pokes Bunny*

What's horrible is that I have the house to myself (Da Boy is over at a friend's house and the Hubby is at work), the internets has failed to be entertaining (although customers_suck has just introduced me to the concept of a coffee-oreo shake and I OMG WANT ONE NAO), and so I have time to sit here and write.

In market news, apparently Spacesuits and Sixguns isn't getting the sort of subs they want, and has thus delayed releasing the current issue. So, if you have anything pulp-y, in the 4000-word range, ship it to them!

In kitty news, we have a two-inch sliver of sunlight coming in through the backdoor window. The Gray Cat has appropriated it.

the Desert Star today, with the lovely and effulgent bigsciencybrain and her Fiance Critter, to see "The Wizard of Odd." I know I have local SLC people on my flist, and if you've never been to the Desert Star, you need to go see this. Sometimes the productions there fall a little flat, but this one knocks it out of the park on so many levels. And be sure and stay for the olio after the main show, too. I think it's only playing for another two weeks, and then it switches to "Indiana Bones," which should also be tons of fun.

I'm still waiting on a certain market to get back to me on a certain story, and trying not to read too much into the uncharacteristically long amount of time they're taking. *writes 100 times* I will not get my hopes up. I will not get my hopes up. I will not get my hopes up. I will remember that the slush pile my story was probably in was nine inches tall, and it doesn't get any shorter as time goes by.

AUGH.

I have a title for the Bunny From Hell story, suggested by the Hubby, who is a genius, y'all. I'm...not sharing it, though. Because I'm mean. He also made a suggestion re: the ending, which I'm still mulling over. I may be posting it for the Concrit Group to tear into later today. I need to escalate the "creepy" factor before I do that, though.

The handsome and talented slushmaster has a poll up about snail mail vs email subs. Profic writers, go forth and vote and comment. You know you want to.

My gmail inbox remains empty. Woe.

"Lost" continues to rock my socks, y'all. That is some tasty tasty crack, and hey, dude who plays Ben? Here's your Emmy, man. Also, there's a new "Numb3rs" tonight, in case there's anyone on my flist besides bigsciencybrain who cares.

I have some new folks on my flist. *waves* I tag everything (mostly for my own record-keeping, especially as regards my fiction), so if there's a tag that piques your interest, click it and you can see everything I've ever written on the subject.

The Hubby bought a Dodge Durango yesterday, one of the old-style ones (because the new ones, although they have a Hemi, are butt-ugly). This may give him actual incentive to put the Willys on the block. I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, nothing will ever be as cool as the Willys. NOTHING. On the other hand, we're getting old and comfort is a premium. I just hope he builds the Durango up so we can actually go jeeping in it.

We talked some more about the aracari last night, and I'm finally coming around to the viewpoint that the Hubby is right: The Green Aracari is (very slightly) prettier than the Ivory-Billed. The beak is just way more colorful. Do I lose Wife Cred for admitting he's right?

and one of them is the handsome and talented Nick Mamatas, also known as nihilistic_kid. And sometimes they have entries of interest to writers, such as this one, in which he laments what he refers to as "fantatwee"--fantasy that's, for lack of a better word, cutesy. In fact, I sent him the BeeFic, and the complimented me on the fact that it wasn't cutesy--and rejected it anyway for other reasons.

That being said, just because it's not right for one market doesn't mean it's not right for another. What will garner a rejection from Clarkesworld, Nick points out, often garners a sale from Fantasy. So, tailoring subs to markets is important too.

The handsome and talented slushmaster, who is the slush reader for Realms of Fantasy, explodes some myths here, and talks about the futility of arguing with editors here.

The Merc&theSnake fic has been sent to Clarkesworld.

The Werewolf Fic has been sent to Coach's Midnight Diner.

Last night, I was ready to put my fist through my laptop screen. *loathes hormones and the way they make me overreact to, like, everything* Today, I shall buckle down and WRITE.

Hear that? I will write at least 250 words.

Flist, I'm counting on you to THUMP me if I don't.

Also, some interesting discussion here and here about email vs snail mail subs. My own take on it is that I only have six or seven snail mail markets that I'm actually likely to sub to, and usually half of them are eliminated right off the bat by virtue of content (I'm not going to send a fantasy to Analog or hard SF to Realms of Fantasy) or word count.

Honestly, it's only a couple of bucks to ship off a snail mail sub, and what with the "no multiple subs" policy the snail mail markets have, I don't really see what the issue is. The Big Three are the Big Dogs, and I'm darned if I'm going to cut myself out of their markets because of some notion that they should get with the program and take esubs.

On the other hand, the markets that take esubs can be rage-inducing. It seems like many of them not only want us to write for them, they want us to be their (unpaid!) typesetters as well. While the majority of them like standard formatting just fine, others want italics instead of underline. Some want block paragraphs with a space between and no indent...others want the same but with the indent. Some want one space after a period, others want two. Next thing you know, they'll be specifying if they want the Oxford comma (which I stubbornly cling to because it looks wrong to me to leave it off) or not!

And then there are the ones who want the sub in the body of the email instead of as an attachment. Some have a webform. Some want .rtf, some want .doc.

Is it bad that I kind of long for the good old days I never had the opportunity to participate in because it could be formatted the same for everyone? Argh.

And...that turned kind of ranty. Um. Sorry.

I know there's a lot of SF/F readers and writers here. And most of you know I'm planning on going to WorldCon (denvention3) next year.

And I'm terribly afraid of looking like a complete and utter n00b. I only recently got back into reading genre fiction (fiction that's not fanfic at all, really}, and I have no idea who the "hot people" are or who I should be reading. Oh, I have my favorites (old and new)...but who are the people I'm missing?

( Several favorites under the cut... )

Added to the list of "who am I missing" is "who should I avoid like the plague and why?"

Also, I'm thinking I should be subscribing to at least one if not two magazines. I know Locus is the industry mag, but I'm wondering if I'd be better served by subscribing to a couple of fiction mags instead, because it might be easier to get me up to speed that way, rather than slogging through a bunch of "news." Which two should I subscribe to?