Posted on by Eileen Young

Voice

Finding one’s voice is made much of all over. We want our writing to speak from us as people, but us made sparkling and witty and insightful, with a thin veneer of fiction if that’s what we write. Some writers I know retreat to cabins at the beach to be isolated and more easily themselves, some take Hemingway’s approach and drink, some outline from their dreams as closest to their concepts and isolate themselves with orchestras to hammer them into shape.

For me, it’s in large part a matter of balancing the things I want to say with the way I want to portray my characters, as I largely write fiction. I try to consider the ways in which their thinking would differ from mine.
Most of my characters, for example, do not read quite as much non-fiction as I do, or at least not for fun, so they don’t have the wide general knowledge I do. Or they don’t value reading at all. But a voice that disdains reading isn’t quite the voice I want to write with, thus the careful balance.
I’ve mentioned other points of consideration before, relating to gender and the construction of a character’s world. But having writing sound like mine is another point, and one that changes as I do and becomes more or less important in certain kinds of writing.
Posted on by Eileen Young

Write 1 Sub 1

I didn’t get the dictionary. I was too torn on whether I really needed more books, and then it was gone.

The possibility of missed opportunity seems to be a huge motivator for people in general, but most observably for me in writers. Despite accepting submissions year round, the three days before the deadline on both of the magazines I work on have more volume of submissions than any three weeks the rest of the year.
Such violent fear is easily circumvented by planning, but it’s easier to plan the writing than what comes after. That’s why Write 1 Sub 1 seemed like such a fantastic thing when I heard about it in January. Deadlines for magazines are less of an issue when you have personal deadlines at much more frequent intervals.
Posted on by Eileen Young

Stone-Blind — Zymurgy

In the laundry room downstairs, calling my name, is the “New Century Dictionary.” Considering it’s leather-bound and the book on top of it was printed in 1929, I’m thinking the 21st is not the new century to which it refers. The title of this post is what Volume Three covers. It caught my eye because it looked at first glance like one long hyphenated word, and because I’d never heard of zymurgy (fermentation, apparently).

The idea of dictionaries has interested me recently, as the new Vice President of VWS, Michael McGovern, has an impressive collection of them. Every kind imaginable, and several languages. A hundred slightly different definitions, a thousand slightly different ideas of the central vocabulary of English.
As writers, we live immersed in language. But we also live in the particular connotations associated with our word choice. I talked about gendered language last month, and all of its attendant problems, but all word choice requires careful consideration, as the language evolves constantly.
Posted on by Eileen Young

Changing Fields

I had someone write to me the other day that they find my interest in literature rare.

It surprised me, as I live surrounded by people with literary bents, and I see numbers on a regular basis about ebooks an selfpublished books as they take off. I think interest in literature in a general way is stronger than ever, but it is less of a central culture; genre fiction is immensely popular, and indie authors tend to find more success in physically local markets.
With Oprah retired, we have no central figure telling us what to like; the New York Times bestseller list shows what people already like an buy, not what they might like in the future. This is where the proliferation of all manner of small decentralized communities comes in: if you like steampunk, you can find communities that discuss it, that can recommend and review and dissect various authors and novels in the genre.
Interest in literature has just become more specialized, more genre-based, as genres and our ability to expose ourselves to only what we want expands. It’s an interesting direction for an ever-changing industry.
Posted on by Eileen Young

Copyright Tango

Copyright is still a subject I’m trying to figure out.

Not the legal side of it: that’s what entertainment lawyers are for, and they can explain it to the rest of us when it’s relevant.
It’s how I want to use it, how it’s applicable to me in particular, that I have to figure out. Creative Commons licensing is more appealing on a number of levels than traditional copyright. Creative Commons licensing is more accepting of educators using the material, explicitly allows for fan-created work, and all together embodies more of the tech-edged forward-thinking social movement that I’d like to target as readers.
On the other hand, if readers are free to redistribute digital copies wherever and however they like, I’m not always going to be getting paid.
Cory Doctorow makes his novels available online in any format a fan will translate it into, and lets his publishers just handle the print versions. This is fantastic, and I’ve taken advantage of it more than once.
But I think digital editions are a very future-friendly option: no dead trees (stone paper and elephant-poop paper still being too pricey to practically print books on), cheaper production costs, and easy transportation to any corner of the globe with internet access. I think that, while they will never replace print editions completely, digital editions may easily become the primary distribution method. If they do, I’m not sure I want to be giving my primary distribution method available for free.
Digital editions still have associated production costs in terms of the writer’s time, the editor’s time, the layout person’s time, and the cover artist’s time.
Machine of Death has made PDF available for free, but not any other digital edition. That was initially jarring, but seems to make sense upon examination of other factors. PDF is almost universally readable, even if it is awkward at times. Like the public library, it is available to everyone but not as convenient as buying. That seems to make sense.
But that raises the issue with the more arcane editions that fans might format it into: is the writer entitled to make money from the efforts of fans? And if not, isn’t that just a lot of incentive to download the arcane edition and retranslate it into whatever format is most convenient for you?
A lot of Creative Commons licensing relies on the idea that fans who support an edition won’t do that, and I like the attitude of generally not treating fans like criminals.
But the licensing I’ll use for my own work (not short stories or collaborations) is still something I have to think hard about.
Posted on by Eileen Young

Literary Magazines

Literary magazines exist everywhere, and they can be pretty easy to find. You just need to know where to look.

To start with what’s dear to my heart, there are Island Writer and Theory Train.
But if you don’t write speculative fiction or live on Vancouver Island or the Gulf Islands, it can be difficult to find a market. There are just so many to go through, and so many corners of the internet where they could be hiding.
Writers’ Market is a fantastic resource, but it’s expensive, and only updates once a year, at which point you have to buy a new one. Which is fine, in most cases, but errors accumulate over time, like magazines going under or changing their address, so you want to buy a new one every few years at least.
Another option for finding markets is Duotrope.com, which is an online catalog of magazines and anthologies and whether they are currently accepting submissions. It’s searchable, and usually current to within a day or two.
Posted on by Eileen Young

Author Interview: Adam Schreckenberger

Adam, in addition to being the technological heart of Theory Train, is an author in his own right. I interview him about his series, McCallister Chronicles.

Eileen Young: So, what’s McCallister Chronicles about?

Adam P. Schreckenberger: Hmm, that’s a good question. Sometimes, I don’t even know the answer to that one myself. Upfront, it’s about a knight’s duty when it comes to his princess, but that seemed a little boring on its own. To some extent, it is about the endless insanity that lurks in my imagination and a mythology I created to pass the time. I can do whatever I want in those pages. I want a sword that talks? Fine. I want people that can wield fire? Fantastic! It also keeps my girlfriend happy, which carries a lot of benefits.

EY: Was she part of what inspired you to write it?
APS: Oh yes, she was. We had been thinking about writing a story together for a long time, but it just never worked out. One day, she really needed an upbeat, new tale. I sat down and wrote the five pages that became Episode 1. Like always, I posted it on my site for kicks. What I did not expect was the response.
EY: There was a lot of interest?
APS: That day still holds the record for most hits, and I got a few emails with messages asking if I was planning to write new chapters.
EY: Wow, that’s impressive. And you’ve continued to release the chapters as free downloads. What was the thought behind that?
APS: Well, I am a physicist. Writing is my hobby, and that is how it is going to stay. It just has never felt right forcing my readers to purchase my works. Originally, it was motivated by the fact that most of my fans, if you want to call them that, were in high school and had no fixed income. In that sense, it became a simple choice. Either I’d charge for my stuff and no one would read the pieces, or I’d have them available free of charge. Old habits are hard to break.
EY: And now you have the first several episodes available in print. What made you decide to make it available that way, too?
APS: Some of my friends are diehard supporters of MC. When they asked me to make a printed copy available, I obliged. Plus, let’s face it. It is awesome to hold a physical copy of something you wrote. It certainly brings me some joy.
EY: It really is. So, you never considered publishing traditionally?
APS: Once upon a time, I did. I was in talks with a publishing house, but there were terms of the deal that I just did not like. For starters, everyone could kiss the free copies goodbye. They also wanted to put me on a timetable for the remainder of the series, which is not acceptable when one factors in my job. I guess it would be nice to have it released in the traditional sense. It would certainly make it more capable of receiving some recognition, but I am proud of what the book has accomplished.
EY: Is there anything else you’d like to say?
APS: I am grateful that I had the opportunity and the motivation to write MC. It brought me new friends, and pushed my old friends even closer. There is also something worth mentioning to those out there that are on the fence about writing a book or self-publishing. Just do it. Whether you put it on a blog, dA or some website, getting your work out there is worth the effort. We are all extremely fortunate to live in a time when these tools are available to us. Do not let them go unused.

Posted on by Eileen Young

Makers

In an interesting collusion of events, I read an article about real-life makers the same morning I decided to spend most of the day reading Makers by Cory Doctorow.

They both touch on the proliferation of customized technology put out by people who see the need and think the meeting of it is fun; individuals with support networks they can consult, small teams of people with varied skillsets. They’re not big businesses. They’re representative of the social movement that has catapulted the term for a new company from ‘start up’ to ‘start-up’ to ‘startup’ in our cultural vocabulary. To quote from Makers, this is what the dotcom boom laid the foundation for.
Makers fill a need with their products, or at least an interest. Unlike L’Oreal, which makes everything from Lancome to Maybelline, makers make something unique, which means that anything else that comes along is real competition. There’s more drive to be better when the business is more personal.
The same thing’s been happening with publishing. Borders is bankrupt because it was not a model for the current and coming era. Author services like Lulu.com are growing faster than publishers, because authors are realizing that they can have an active role in the publishing of their book, they just may lack some of the applicable skills.
Traditional publishers have acted as gatekeepers, as arbiters of taste, but now we can find book reviewers online who review independent and self-published books, and we can find ones who share our taste in reading material. The market acts as a surer arbiter of taste than any book editor can; there’s just not enough time in the world to read all of the new material coming out. But books are the ultimate niche market: all unique, all intended to appeal on different levels to different people. Making more of the good stuff available is good for everyone.
Posted on by Eileen Young

Gendered Language is like ‘Black’ Only Worse

“Am I speaking to the lady of the house?”

“Well, I’m not a man, and I live here.”
The above conversation is one I overheard my mother having. Being a former hippie, she’s part of a movement that understood ‘lady’ as a trivializing term, whereas I understand it as a respectful term in most contexts.
But what does your reader understand it as? Your main character? Are they the same or different?
Worse, if you’re writing for anyone under 30, what do you do for those characters for whom a gendered pronoun is not appropriate? “That person,” “they,” and [name] can be hard to navigate for the length of a thousand-word short story, ignoring completely the challenge of novels. First person can be a way around dealing with it in narrative, but what about how characters react to them? Does the entire cast have the same biases about a character of non-obvious gender, and if so, is that on purpose?
Even if you’re keeping to gendered characters, there’s the question of terminology to reference significant others; “partner” is en vogue, but with some subcultures it connotes a same-sex partner, while with others it connotes someone with whom the relationship is too serious for them to feel comfortable using “boyfriend” or “girlfriend,” but which is not headed for marriage.
Gendered language is a similar minefield to that of finding politically correct skin-colour/ethnicity terms. It’s worse, though, in that melanin content can be described as “Oh, you have a high melanin content.” That makes for awkward phrasing, but it’s possible without turning too many verbal backflips. Gendered language, though, can be broken down by people who subscribe to a gender binary, people who consider it a spectrum, and people who present socially as one thing but consider themselves another (drag queens are one example of that in play).
It’s going to be impossible to please everyone. But in writing, it’s a good thing to consider as part of who you’re representing in your fiction and who you’re speaking to.
Posted on by Eileen Young

Open Mics

Tonight I was supposed to go to the Victoria Writers’ Society open mic night, but I was too exhausted to go.

Open mic nights are fun, especially if you get to read, but they’re also emotionally draining: exposing your creative side is pointless if emotions aren’t involved.
I’m going to cut my incoherence short and go watch Bones.