Felicity Banks

#197: The Pitch

September 6, 2010 at 10:43 am (Daily Awesomeness, Writing Ranting)

The CYA Later, Alligator conference offered an excellent opportunity for targeted (and paid) schmoozing. I paid my fee (which includes having the publisher read the synopsis and beginning before seeing me) and chose Publisher J, based on their small size joined with respectability.

They have a bit of a literary bent, which doesn’t tend to get on with fantasy, but the handful of fantasy novels they published were clearly beautifully written, so I thought mine would suit them.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.*

One of the first things she said (after, “This is really well written” – to which I said, “Thanks” with a silent, “So what else is new?”) was, “We really don’t publish fantasy.”

It was at that point things got weird.

She carefully explained to me that fantasy is terrifically difficult to sell. She also said that the title, “The Monster Apprentice” would cause booksellers to stumble due to its length, and had I realised how similar it was to “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”? (In fact, “The Monster Apprentice” is a deliberate twist on the many “The . . . . Apprentice” books out there – it tells fantasy readers, “I’m writing something you know about. . . but this time, there are MONSTERS involved.”) She also said she was confused by the pirates, and had thought the character was dreaming the entire story, since pirates aren’t real (“Well, they’re SORT OF real,” she said) – and that I should maybe call them something else in order to indicate that they were a genuine threat to the hero’s home island. Maybe I should call them “attackers” or “invaders” so people could understand what was happening.

I wrote the book five years ago. In the years since then, a lot of people have read it or heard me talk about it and told me what they think. Here’s what I’ve learnt in five years of YA fantasy obsession (plus, you know, the rest of my life reading it):

1. Adult fantasy is notoriously hard to sell, since the books are often 200,000 words or more. “The Monster Apprentice” is 30,000 words, and written for children (who rarely have any issues with magic – see J.K. Rowlings, Neil Gaiman, Garth Nix, Sandy Fussell, and a third of all children’s books).

2. A lot of readers love the self-aware title.

3. When I describe the book, the word “pirates” is always, always the word that makes people say, “Ooh! That sounds fun.” No-one has ever had the least difficulty understanding that a pirate sighting at night means Horrible Danger (and is really happening).

So I spent most of the pitch listening to someone who, in this instance, came across as a complete moron. The worst part was that I was the real moron, for picking that company to pitch to.

The experience bordered on surreal. I was smart enough and polite enough not to engage, and I held myself together. She did say some potentially-useful things about setting and the name “Boy” that deserve thought (I’ll think about changing the title, but I doubt I will). She also reinforced my view that the first sentence/page was instantly involving, and that my voice and imagination are great.  The one good moment was when she applauded my characterisation – which was why it was rejected last time.

I exited with dignity, and (astonishingly) didn’t cry.

A few minutes later, during morning tea, I rallied and walked up to her to ask if I could send my realist novel, which she very tepidly agreed to (“when submissions reopen”). I don’t mind a tepid agreement – my writing can and should do the excitement-mongering for me.

When I mentioned that the book involved Christianity and homosexuality, she didn’t think it was a problem (one of the points of appeal of Publisher J is that they don’t seem to know much about market – which I’d observed before I got there, and which suddenly becomes a plus). The realist novel also has a lot of song lyrics in it, which could be expensive due to copyright and thus off-putting. She said her company just gets their authors to deal with it. Which is great, because it means they’re much more likely to say yes, and I can get an agent to deal with right (and edit out the ones we can’t use – songwriters often charge $10,000).

Having partially redeemed an epic fail, but still inwardly quaking and red-eyed from not quite crying, I thought about going and sitting in Brisbane airport for the eight remaining hours until my next flight.**

I stayed.

And it’s a good thing I did.

I’ll tell all tomorrow.

In the meantime, here’s the beginning of many pics from the VERY special site http://www.geekologie.com/2008/05/killer_robots_abound_at_maker.php

Do doomed humanity a favour and click on it.

*Well. . . I could have been. I could have sent a book to a defunct company (again. . .). Or attempted to pitch my opus to a duck (haven’t done that yet). That would have been more wrong.

**At least I wouldn’t miss it this time.

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#195: Packed Full of Awesome

September 3, 2010 at 12:29 pm (Daily Awesomeness, Writing Ranting)

About thirty minutes ago, I wrote:

Today was packed so full of awesome I don’t have time to blog about it until tomorrow. It did involve coins in my bra, a chance re-meeting, six hours of fruitless lurking, a zombie apocalypse planning session with someone whose name I didn’t catch, and a perky song “based on a true story about when I fell down a cliff and broke both my legs, yaaay!”

Celia just microwaved spring rolls for my dinner. It’s 1:00am. I shall now elaborate on the above, while it’s fresh in my mind.

Since getting up at 4:30am last Friday, I’ve been given a year’s supply of mucus and headaches. Today, finally, I reached the point where I feel pretty okay physically. Mentally, I awoke feeling good. And the sky was sky-blue, which I like. “Sky-blue” is what I call accurate reporting.

I heartily enjoyed my first session, in which authors Carole Wilkinson and David Metzenthen talked about journeys. They were entertaining, and they’re also much older than me (which reduces the “crazed jealousy” effect you may have observed earlier).

Then I had six hours free, so I lurked in and around Federation Square and Swanson Street, smiling winningly at everyone who walked past in case they were a publisher. (Which they weren’t.) Although one guy asked me if I was “the drummer from last night”. (Which I’m not.) I also tried to look super publishable, while chowing down on lollies and contemplating the fact that I was within 7 days and within 500 metres of being in exactly the right place at the right time – but I might as well be back home in Canberra for all the good my general proximity was likely to do.

One view out of Federation Square:

During the lurking I investigated the RMIT Capitol Theatre, which was emphatically locked (with a chain). Since I was two hours early, this didn’t surprise me. I made friends with a volunteer half an hour later, and accidentally-on-purpose snuck inside, but (after discussing the zombie-friendly glass doors) I exited when it became clear I was Not Allowed. So I lurked some more. During that time I obeyed reader W’s suggestion that I do some flirting, and SMSed CJ asking what he was wearing (officially, today’s awesomeness is flirting). He said, “Black long-sleeve T-shirt, blue jeans, blue boxers, white socks, and a smile.”* There followed a series of SMSes that shall never ever be repeated, but made me giggle and blush a great deal. It was indeed awesome.

And there were horses  (presumably placed here in case Crazy John gets a sudden cowboy urge):

Then I went back to the Capitol Theatre (now open to the general paying populace) and made another friend. While chatting with her, I glanced across the room.

“Huh,” I said, sitting back slowly. “I think that’s [name of YA publisher I talked to very briefly at the July con – my only direct point of contact with that extremely large publisher, ever]. Yep. Yep, it definitely is.”

And so I went and said hello a second time. The serendipity of that will stay with me. Saying hello to people in her particular line of work is ultimately what I’m here for. Thus, much yay. Sometimes, being within 7 days and 500 metres of a fateful meeting is enough.

That session was Cory Doctorow’s talk on Copyright versus Creativity, which was very funny and enlightening. He said (and I’m paraphrasing): 1. If someone puts a padlock on something that belongs to you and doesn’t give you a key – they’re not doing it for your benefit (copyright law that supposedly protects author ebooks also means the author themself is unable to legally lend their ebook to a friend – or put it on a different reader). 2. It’ s hard to monetise fame, but it’s impossible to monetise obscurity (just getting people reading your work at all is great – something I know very well, since my twitter tales are free). 3. Ideas don’t want to be free; people do (the internet is the ultimate in free speech – and will remain so whether we like it or not).

He also mentioned that DRMs are silly. And that if China can’t control the flow of information, NO-ONE can.

A gorgeous Helen Mirren lookalike (another friend I’ve picked up along the way – a startlingly classy one) and I intended to get dinner before going over to the Toff in Town for the launch of “Going Down Swinging” #30 (which, as I MAY have mentioned, I’m in – but as my leaner, meaner Felicity Bloomfield self, since there’s some tasteful evisceration involved. I’d call it steampunk horror, personally).

We ran out of time and had a “dinner” of sparkling white (hers) and Baileys-and-milk (why yes I *am* extra lactose intolerant lately, thanks for reminding me! Where were you five hours ago?) She took a good long look at the bar boy (who could have passed for 16 – and I know for a fact he doesn’t have chest hair) and said, “Ooh. I like *THAT*”

Ah, le travel experience. One day travelling throws you in the gutter of life to kick you in the face, and the next day you’re perving on the locals with a stunning 60-year old BFF.

And then the launch began, hosted by That Guy off Rockwiz (who enjoyed himself immensely). Helen Mirren was determined to get a good seat, so we sat directly in front of the stage – a position that I appreciated more and more as 150 people crammed in, including many standing shoulder-to-shoulder at the back, and half a dozen sitting squished between my legs and the stage.  I’d already gotten overexcited and left all my worldly goods with the cloakroom – except my cash and cloakroom ticket, which I placed carefully in my bra (including the change from buying Baileys).

Strange things happened. It is, after all, a literary magazine. The room was decorated with words on the walls – some fragmented poem involving a butcher and candlewax and one or two naughty things.

Among an acapella poet duo (Miles Bartlett and Emily XYZ) and a lady who performed a poem about teen pregnancy (while 9 months committed to the role) was a sweaty man in a lime green frilly shirt. He was the best. Among other things, he performed two poems on getting drunk, wandering around Melbourne, and falling down. He paused partway through for a Napoleon Dynamite-style dance moment (and later on, a slow-motion bar brawl with an invisible opponent).

Best. Poems. Ever.

And then, when the magazine was officially launched, the promised music began. The group was Flap. The sound was swing. And the last vestige of my resistance to Melbourne’s charm fell away. http://www.myspace.com/weflapon

There were five:

The shrugging drummer.

The double-base player with the old-style paperboy hat (he was tall, but not as tall as the double bass).

The frenetic violinist with the Great Big Bushy Beard and mad, shadow-rimmed eyes (he looked exactly like a bushranger who’s been alone in the desert a week too long – and also had a Marvin the Martian shirt).

The male singer and trumpeteer, who wore a tight-fitting Hawaiian shirt and looked deceptively sleepy, but played and sang with a hypnotising intensity. His voice was like a cat in the sun: relaxed perfection – but you know that if you touched it wrong, you’d die.

And the female singer, who wore a sailor dress (with full and sagging pockets) and red boots – who was bonde, with blue eyes and dimples, and who played the banjo. Her voice was like a kitten: soft and adorable, and even the bites feel good. She’s the one who said, “that song was based on a true story about when I fell down a cliff and broke both my legs, yaaay!”

The guy sang a song inviting us to his funeral. That was fun too. And the rest.

 “Tomorrow is a FAT man. . . with no arms or legs.

Tomorrow is a FAT man. . . with no arms or legs. . .”

This was one of those bands that speaks to each other without words, and loves one another intently. They laughed and played and laughed for joy, and they rocked out at one another’s solos. As the crowd thinned to merely packed, I put my feet on the stage, letting the sound shake my ankles and knees as I began to shiver from cold (and not care a bit). Writers often run seminars on knowing your “voice” – that band knows their voice. Especially the crazy-eyed bushranger violinist, the sleepily intense trumpeteer, and the banjo-playing sailor girl who laughed and wrong a song when she couldn’t walk. If people like THAT can exist – and exist so very well – then so can I.

I suspect the violinist was the greatest musician among them. The music of him cut and screamed and shook, and it was good. That’s how violins were played in the Garden of Eden – before sin was invented, when no-one knew what pain was.

In tribute to this month’s “Killer Robot Cat” tale, here’s a link to a fabulously creepy article on actual CIA technology using cats – it does involve animal cruelty, so consider yourself warned.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1361462/CIA-recruited-cat-to-bug-Russians.html

*I only just realised that he apparently doesn’t wear shoes to work

It’s now 2am so I’m going to sleep. I’ll edit this and post it tomorrow. Oh! And add photos. Here’s the Yarra River, which is perfectly easy to find when you’re not having a panic attack:

Tomorrow (I’m writing this tomorrow, which is to say today, now I’ve woken up):

My nephew is five years old. He hasn’t benefited the world in any way, and nor does he need to – ever. It’s perfectly easy for anyone to understand that his life is valuable regardless of what he does or doesn’t do with it. I’d never expect him to justify his existence to anyone – that’s ludicrous.

My own life is a different story. The true reason I’m so devastated about not being published is that I have to change the world. If I don’t change the world for the better, I don’t deserve to live. So being too sick (anxiety disorder, aka mad as a spoon) to even pay my share of the rent makes me a negative force – someone the world is better off without.

This is particularly difficult since 2006 when I gave up my rather self-flagellating goal of moving to a slum in Indonesia to teach English to street kids. How could I possibly stomach letting those kids die in poverty so I could write stupid books about farting and pirates? (And yes, my books are a positive thing – unlike, say, “Twilight” – but they’re not going to save lives or transform slums.)

I was about twenty when I was able to intellectually understand that third world poverty wasn’t personally my fault. I had a few good years (psychologically speaking), and then I became mentally ill and rewinded my happiness to my teen years – but without the prop of my precious future slum to help me.

I feel angry at CJ every day, because he simply accepts his existence as a good thing, and doesn’t need to think about it at all. While I feel guilty for existing. It drives me. . . well, crazy.

This morning as I made weetbix sandwiches (peanut butter and honey, my peeps – try it) I still had Flap in my head, and the sheer beauty of seeing an honest and whole-hearted existance. For the first time in six years, I thought, “My life doesn’t have to mean something. I can just do what I feel like, because I feel like it.” This was so unusual I quickly sat down to try to catch the thought in words.

The spectre of mournful Indonesian kids immediately rose before me, familiar as my own face (and innacurate – all the slum kids I’ve met were normal kids, not angry ghosts). And I suddenly both knew and believed (because it’s just obvious) that they do not deserve the power to make me unhappy.

Can I hold that thought in my head, and actually enjoy my life for the non-heroic, non-epic kinda nice thing that it is?

Maybe I can.

And all because of a mad violinist bushranger and a pretty banjo girl in a sailor dress.

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S#96: Celebrate Random Holidays

September 1, 2010 at 12:57 pm (Daily Awesomeness, Writing Ranting)

It’s a new day. Weelll. . . it’s a lot like yesterday.

I’m still unpublished, still sick, and still away from home. But.

It IS the beginning of a new twittertale, and it’s the first day of Spring.

From the first time I read this item on SteffMetal.com’s list of awesomeness, I planned to celebrate the first of September. Partly because I always do.

Here’s how: I wake up with a smile on my face thinking, “This is it! Spring is here! No more Winter for nine months!” Then I wear something utterly Summery – no sleeves, and often no shoes. Then the weather abruptly turns from pleasant late-Winter sunshine to howling winds, rain, and blanket clouds. Then I get consumption.*

Sure enough, the ritual wearing of the short sleeves caused the ritual darkening of the skies. I had a feeling Melbourne would come through for me:

But I never mind the shivering and consumption. I think of it as Winter’s death rattle, and laugh like a warrior who’s just stabbed a foe and is watching them cuss as they bleed out.

It’s a special happy feeling.

Today I planned to get up at 7:30 for more sessions of watching other authors talk about their books (one of which I hadn’t read, and one of which had a character slightly more passive than Bella, believe it or not). I decided to give myself another shot at getting over this cold, and switched my alarm off when I first woke up. In the end, I slept for over twelve hours – so it looks like I made the right call.

Tomorrow will be my last day at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival. Friday I’m resting, and mooching with Celia. Saturday I’ll start the day in Melbourne, go to Brisbane, and end up in Sydney. It’ll be a long and insane day. The most exciting part will happen at 10am, when I’m pitching “Monster Apprentice” to a publisher. The book is in very good shape, so I’m confident they’ll be open to seeing more of my work.

And here’s a rather disturbing picture from the fascinating blog nextnature.net (this cat has an option of also being a hoover. Seriously!) Remember, robot cats are coming to YOUR home. . . soon.

*Well, that bit’s not 100% guaranteed. Not every year, anyway.

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#194: Flee

August 31, 2010 at 3:55 pm (Daily Awesomeness, Writing Ranting)

Here I am again, perched beside the Tim Burton eyeball balloon*.

My first session today is cursed.

I wasn’t able to get the author’s book from the ACT public library (I tried twice). Then this morning, I missed my train.

Cue urge to kill.

Then it turned out to be in a different building – near an alleged river. **

Urge to kill growing stronger.

Then I asked directions twice, and ended up where I started.

Urge to kill becoming problematic.

Now I’m going home before a piano falls on my head.

By “home” I mean that blessed power point near the aforementioned eyeball balloon (see yesterday’s entry for a picture). I should still be able to make it to the session with Jaclyn Moriarty and Lili Wilkinson.

Hey! And guess what’s happening right now (around noon)? There’s a book I need to buy today. Not tomorrow – today. I spent my last $20 on a prepaid internet voucher in order to transfer the money for the book purchase into my account. While wandering around looking for Deborah Abela’s session, I found another power point and went to plug in my laptop (the battery lasts a maximum of 2 minutes these days). I was stopped by a guy with a dangling comm who called his supervisor, and then told me I wasn’t allowed to plug in. So I went “home”. Hello eyeball balloon. 

And here’s the thing.

The internet voucher isn’t working. This has never happened before – never. It’s quite likely it’ll never happen again. It’s a one in a million chance.

Hah!

I’m utterly screwed***! Ta da!

Does the universe hate you, too? Tell us how the hatred shows for you – the comments are all yours. (Well, that’s assuming I survive the curse long enough to post this entry.)

*Is it a metaphor for something? Hard to say.

**I do believe that this river exists – somewhere between all the high-rise buildings here IN THE MIDDLE OF A MAJOR CITY. If I ever do actually see it, I’ll let y’all know.

***writing this entry in a word document to post later.****

****later (at 4pm, safely back at Celia’s place): still hate everyone. But here’s a picture I took on the way home to prove that there is at least SOME good in the world:

Aww.

And here’s your final rainforest picture from flickr.com (“Killer Robot Cat” begins tomorrow – anyone got any LEGAL TO USE evil robot pics for me to post? I’ll also accepts pics of your cat – post them to fellissimo at hotmail dot com and make sure you acknowledge the source):

PS A blog must be authentic, and I assure you my sarcasm is that. But how do you guys like it? Too miserable? Or do you like laughing at my pain? I know I do! The up side is that tomorrow is practically guaranteed to be better than today.

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#183: Rainbow yay!

August 30, 2010 at 11:49 am (Daily Awesomeness, Writing Ranting)

 And here’s a Daily Awesomeness I prepared earlier, while driving along Kingsford Smith Drive in Canberra (it is truly awesome that these photos were taken five minutes away from the city centre).

And now, the main event: How’d my schmoozing go yesterday? 

Now is as good a time as any to admit that I hate schmoozing. Hate it hate it hate it. I don’t even like watching other people schmooze. And I’m a little creeped out by being schmoozed at (although it’s infinitely preferable, yes). I find nothing sadder than a group of unpublished authors oohing and aahing as two or three published authors talk about where they get their ideas.*

The jealousy. . . . drives me MAAADDD!

*moving on*

Yesterday was great. The first session, “Author as Brand” was actually, genuinely relevant and useful (partly because promotion begins before you sell your books, ie now). The second session was as fun as an author talk can get (and believe me, I’ve seen the other end of the spectrum more than once). The third was a lot like the first, but with magazine editors instead of authors. During the day I saw two of my writer friends, which was nice, and shook hands with one of the “Going Down Swinging” editors who I’m sure to see again at the launch party on Thursday.

At the third event I sat next to a drunk businessman who’d attended every single launch in that particular room (one of the “free event” spaces) all day, in unrealised hopes of free wine. I don’t think there’s any more accurate symbol of book launches than that man.

Here’s a pretty picture of the outside of the building where I’m spending most of my time:

The main reason I’m in such good spirits (despite being surrounded by used tissues due to my physical body’s silent but effective protest at my travels) is that I spent literally hours yesterday sitting on the ACMI floor with my laptop plugged in, fielding a gentle snowfall of dust bunnies. I edited “Waking Dead Mountain” (which has just been rejected by the Publisher A editing competition – although I think I made the long list). Mmm. . . editing. I then spent this morning polishing the book one last time and sending it off with the following cover letter:

Dear [name removed to protect the guilty],

My name is Felicity, and I acquired your email address from [name removed to protect the guilty] at “Publishing: The Whole Shebang” at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival last Friday. Hopefully he can vouch for my personal hygiene and general ability to promote myself (I wore an ankle-length red velvet dress so he’d remember me). He had a mild case of getting mobbed so I didn’t ask whether you hate attachments. If you do, just let me know and I’ll snail mail the extract (or book) to you next week.

I’ve attached the synopsis and first three chapters of “Waking Dead Mountain”, a 30,000-word adventure fantasy book for ages nine and up. The story is about an empath girl who works with semi-reformed pirates to solve the emotional issues of an ice volcano with an unfortunate habit of killing people when it feels threatened. It’s fully written and polished (recomended by Driftwood assessors), and part of a trilogy. I’ve also cut and pasted the first 250 words below, so you can see for yourself that my writing is competent before you make the hefty commitment of opening the attachment and/or emailing me back.

When I was sixteen years old I entered the [book competition run by this publisher]. My manuscript was awarded third most publishable after the state winners, and I later sold it to the (then) Royal Blind Society for audio book production. That was twelve years ago, and I’ve made the most of the intervening years to write infinitely better books, and to sell dozens of stories to magazines and competitions including the Katharine Susannah Prichard Science Fiction/Fantasy Award, Sleepers Press, and the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild’s “Masques” anthology.

I wholeheartedly welcome editorial suggestions, and I come promotion-prepared with an online following of thousands.

Yours sincerely,

Louise Curtis

————————————————————

The building is also hosting the Tim Burton exhibition that you may have seen on TV. I did my writing in an alcove next to this little guy:

. . . and I understood when I passed this exhibit that I’d be divorced if I didn’t take a picture (it was used in two of the movies):

And here’s your penultimate rainforest pic from flickr.com:

*There is one sadder thing: The fact that the shiny and adored writers still aren’t actually making a living.

UPDATE A FEW HOURS LATER:

I just received an email from the publisher who just received the beginning of “Waking Dead Mountain”. Here it is, with my comments.

Dear [Louise]

Thanks for this, and glad to learn that [the guy from Friday’s schmoozing] is earning his crust outside of the office! We will log this submission into our system and give it the editorial attention we do all proposals [she’s gently telling me that shaking the guy’s hand isn’t QUITE enough for her to be misty-eyed with appreciation that I’d deign to send her my opus]. We aim to respond within three months and our track record isn’t too bad [lol! These guys take six months for the first three chapters, and six months for the full book – last time, the first chapters took nine months], so look forward to hearing from us by the end of November [probably February/March 2011].

Best wishes

[her name]

——————————————————————

From now on, my novel will have to talk for itself – which, fortunately, it does rather well.

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