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.
Posted on by Eileen Young

Full Fathom Five

Full Fathom Five is James Frey’s latest project. We all remember Frey, right? The notorious author of the ‘memoir’ A Million Little Pieces, he’s now using his notoriety – er, sorry, industry contacts – to get young and bright-eyed MFAs published, with aims at movie deals for all of them.

Sounds great, right?
Except that said MFAs don’t get to claim credit for it. Their names appear nowhere on the published book. The recent movie I Am Number Four was put out by Full Fathom Five, and the author has sued for the right to claim in public that he wrote the original novel. He’s now allowed to talk about it, but his name still doesn’t appear on the book.
It’s an interesting concept, a think tank for coming out with cool young adult novels, surrounded by other people trying to do the same thing, with someone acting as literary agent for the whole group. Even the idea of branding as a think tank more than as a collection of individual writers is kind of fun, in concept.
Where Full Fathom Five falls off into creepy and exploitative is that James Frey is modeling it after Damien Hirst’s art factory – it’s all to be rewritten to his orders, and bear his stamp more than that of the writer, or even of the collective, for low wages and no recognition. The contract is a nightmare.
Which is why, despite pretty people and sparkly special effects in the previews, I will not be seeing I Am Number Four, or any future project from Full Fathom Five that makes theatres.
Posted on by Eileen Young

Akrasia, and the necessity thereof

Akrasia, as defined over at Wikipedia, is “the state of acting against one’s better judgement.”

For example, venti creme brulee lattes with whipped cream are bad for me. They contain dairy, which I react badly to, caffeine, which renders me strung out, and whipped cream, which renders me fat. Also sprinkles, sometimes. I know, logically, that they are bad for me and that I should not drink them. But they’re also delicious.
And sometimes delicious wins. That’s akrasia.
As an aspiring rationalist, I want to avoid akrasia as much as possible (that’s why I have tea in front of me – that and holiday beverages being over of the year).
Since I like to have characters that represent a fair spread of humanity, there are some characters who are aspiring rationalists, too. They fall victim to akrasia infrequently, since they’re specifically looking to avoid it, but they still do, since they’re still aspiring rationalists. And, in my stories, they end up in extreme situations where their best interests might not always be clear, making akrasia nearly inescapable.
For non-rationalist characters, akrasia is much more frequent. They do things like go off on adventures to save the world, when staying where they are and filing a complaint with their local representative or calling the police would be more practical and be the more logical decision, as there are agencies which are more effective than they are as an individual and present lower risk to life and limb.
It’s important to separate akrasia from the character judging outcomes using only the information they have, as opposed to information the author has. If the character has let their dog outside and hears a scratching at the door that sounds just like their dog, but the author has shown that it’s a ravenous wolf scratching at the door, the character is acting in their best interest as far as they know when they let the wolf in. To a reader, it’s achingly stupid, but the character is using the information they have available. To present the same character in a situation that really would involve akrasia, install a window next to the door. The character has heard stories on the news of wolf sightings in town. It’s dark out, and the shape is canine, but distinctly not that of his dog. He wants it to be his dog, since otherwise it means something has happened to make his dog not send up an alarm. Does he keep the door closed and call animal control, or let hope rule and let in the wolf?
Take out the possibility of akrasia, and you as a writer remove a great deal of suspense from your writing. The three main conflicts are man against nature, man against man, and man against himself. A rationalist who acts always towards what is best for themselves removes the third conflict. An aspiring rationalist, however, may simply elucidate that conflict more than many.
In fiction, akrasia serves a purpose, and can be good. It adds conflict, and makes characters more relatable to we flawed mortals who don’t choose rationally at all junctures. If the main character of Alexander behaved in a rational way, I’d never have made it past Chapter One with that particular story. This post is a result of more ruminating on the differences between good fiction and good life.
This post is also up at my group writing blog, Lunatic Writers.
And now, blog post complete, I shall go and drink something with sprinkles.
Posted on by Eileen Young · 1 Comment

Writing Software

Another frequent topic of debate is the technology used to write. Most frequently I see pen and paper vs computer, but not nearly enough do I see comparisons of the writing software available.
Microsoft Word and Notepad are the most obvious tools, since they come bundled with a Windows package on almost any PC you can buy commercially. But if you’ve had to wipe your hard drive and have lost your discs or are more interested in freeware in general, there’s OpenOffice. It has a lot of the same features as Word, except it can save in more formats. The default format isn’t Word, and Track Changes is hard to translate to another machine that doesn’t run OpenOffice, but it’s free, not particularly buggy, and has lots of online support. Probably not best for absolute computer beginners, but if you can google “how do I ___ in OpenOffice” and aren’t particularly set in your ways with Word, it’s a nice way to go. And if you feel bad about using freeware, you can just donate: a substantial donation at OpenOffice.org can still be cheaper than Word.
But what if you’re frequently switching between machines, and can’t keep track of a flash drive to save your life? What if you’re collaborating on a project with six people and can’t keep track of the latest version? What if, like me, you don’t want your hard work tied to your hardware? Then there’s Google Docs. Available anywhere there’s internet, they have a few fewer formatting capabilities than some software, but are free and perfect for collaboration. There’s a bit of a learning curve for using it, but it’s been well worth it for me.
Then there are the writing-specific softwares, like Dramatica and StoryWeaver. The only one of these that I’ve tried is yWriter5 (which everyone will be shocked to find is freeware). I found it interesting, the way it encourages planning and structure and pre-writing, but didn’t find that it gave me any appreciable advantage that couldn’t be filled by a spreadsheet. For people with large, sprawling worlds and huge casts of characters, it might provide more of an advantage.
Like every other aspect of writing, it’s a matter of finding those tools that work for you.
Posted on by Eileen Young

Island Writer Launch

Volume 9 Issue 1 of Island Writer launched tonight. It was my first issue as Editor In Chief.

There were a few minor crises, of course: un-synched lists meant that there were three people I wasn’t sure were reading until tonight, the final cover with the price on it wasn’t the one that went to print, Claudia de Veaux and her poem Waiting didn’t make it into the table of contents, and the 2010 contest honorable mentions were forgotten from my list altogether (sorry!).
But it was a fantastic launch: the readers were funny and moving by turns, the magazine was there, with enough for everyone who attended. Marianne Altos from the City Council came by and said very nice things. The magazine looked great! There was punch and cookies and fruit and cheese!
And I’m utterly exhausted. This is the result of six months hard work on the part of myself and Kim Nayyer, the Creative Non Fiction Editor; Sheila Martindale, the Poetry Editor; Catherine George, the Fiction Editor; and Simeon Goa, the Art Director. And then a week of living on nerves making sure the details for the launch were finalized. I’m utterly elated that it went this well, and I’m crawling into bed as soon as I type this last period.