Why your novel won’t get published (PG+)
My notes to this article read “LOL, fairly rude/graphic, and all true”. I’m a huge believer in a dose of realism every so often, so here it is: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/01/10/why-your-novel-wont-get-published/
Here’s a bit:
Brutal honesty time:
That novel of yours isn’t likely to get published. The numbers just aren’t in your favor. Last I did a sweep of the Internet, it was home to 500,000,000 writers. Once you remove the wanna-be dilettantes, you still end up with 1,000,000 left. And they’re all fighting to have their manuscripts published.
And one more picture of Ana in a basket:
Philip Pullman Review #4 of 4
“Ruby in the Smoke” (book 1 of the Sally Lockhart quartet).
What do you get when a brilliant modern writer sets out to create a series of penny dreadfuls?
The rest of this review is at Comfy Chair, where I get paid for it.
Professionalism
I’m well enough now to appreciate what I have in life and to take advantage. As a pregnant woman, I have a natural deadline to sort out my life – or in my case, my various manuscripts. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been sorting out who should be in the first group of people to see my steampunk novel, what I can improve in books I haven’t looked at for a while, and where I should send each of my manuscripts next.
Publishers, editors and agents all love their work in much the same passionate, not-financially-secure way that writers do (the idea of the wealthy publisher gleefully throwing brilliant books in the rubbish is simply not true). For the most part, I’ve had positive experiences with all of them. On the other hand, passion, courage, and hope are traits that often don’t go hand in hand with reliablility, efficiency, and realism. Which means that sometimes, publishers take far longer to make a decision than they should.
It’s flattering that so many publishers spend so much time with my books, but right now one of Austalia’s largest publishers has had a book of mine for almost THREE YEARS – and another of the top five Australian publishers has had just the first three chapters of another book for eleven months. I’ll be contacting both of them towards the end of this month, but honestly I’m not expecting much. (If anything, this is a cautionary tale about making contacts in the biz – both of these are publishers at which I’ve made personal face to face contact. In my experience, the slushpile is much, much faster – and with just as high a rate of full-manuscript requests.)
Which is why I’m so delighted with Publisher A. Publisher A has always been my first choice of publisher (another of the top five Australian companies), and they’ve read about eight of my books in full (usually when closed to submissions), and given me extremely useful feedback every time. Whenever I email my contact (who I’ve never physically met, although I’ve introduced myself to someone who works with her) she responds enthusiastically within 24 hours, and asks me to send the latest full manuscript. (This happened again yesterday, inspiring this blog entry. Then she replied again – within 24 hours once more – to say it had arrived safely and to thank me for giving them the chance to look at it.) They almost always reply within six months, which I consider a pefectly reasonable amount of time for several people to read a book and make a decision. When one of my books was passed on to the acquisitions meeting, my contact was so excited she emailed to tell me. (It didn’t pass that final hurdle, but oh well. I agree with their reason for refusing, and have since fixed it. That’s the same book I’ve been waiting on elsewhere for three years.)
I’m also delighted with America. So far, every single person I’ve spoken to (via email) about my steampunk novel has responded promptly and positively. The positively doesn’t surprise me – the “promptly” certainly does. To be fair, it’s not Australia’s fault that it has slower response times – the American system is simply different (for one thing, agents in America almost always have assistants, whereas Australian agents don’t earn enough and need to deal with all their myriad tasks alone). But from where I’m standing, it’s a beautiful thing.
And now I’m off to have a different kind of professional take a good long look inside my belly. See you!
PS Today is the first day of Spring! Yeeeeeeeehah!
PPS I am forming plans for a small but awesome zombie walk within the next two months. Details soon! (And of course there will be MANY pictures for those who can’t join in.)
Halfway
. . . sort of. Today marks twenty weeks, which means that if Mini-Me appears on his/her due date (hah!) this pregnancy is half over. It also means that, should Mini-Me decide to appear this very afternoon, it’s not a miscarriage – it’s a premature birth. The reason for the distinction is that there is a chance (an EXTREMELY small chance) that a baby born this early would survive. That’s oddly comforting.
Also (you may have heard a hint of a rumour on the breeze about this) we find out the gender tomorrow (plus we’ll be reassured about the non-existence of a large variety of possible complications). By “we” I mean “CJ and I and various friends and relations”. I do promise to blog all next Wednesday – if not before. There will also be fresh Mini-Me pictures.
If you’re wanting gratuitous fat-belly shots (Mini-Me is now around 16cm from head to bum), just scroll down to the entries from yesterday and the day before. In the meantime, here’s some gratuitous cuteness from last night:
Last night I became concerned that I’ve felt only the occasional movement from Mini-Me – and I’d done a preliminary midday weigh-in yesterday that seemed to indicate I’d gained over two kilos (rapid weight gain can be a sign of something medically wrong – or it could mean I needed to drastically cut down on my chocolate). I had trouble going to sleep.
Sidebar: You know you’ve married well when you confess to your partner that you spent the last of the grocery money on a giant block of chocolate loaded with toffee-coated cashews and hazelnuts – and he says, “Oh good. I want our child to be eating nuts.”
Pregnancy is infamous for giving a girl peculiar dreams, and ondansetron/zofran has been giving me nightmares most nights. And so it was that I dreamt I accidentally went to a chemist for my ultrasound. All the various tests were done on my urine (“Does Mini-Me have spina bifida? Pee in this cup. Is Mini-Me a Rodent of Unusual Size? Pee in this cup.”) by incompetent and much-distracted trainees.
The final test – the one about gender – was fobbed off onto an extremely irritating child who desperately wanted some attention. So he took me on several epic mountain hikes, during one of which a friend of his fell off an especially treacherous cliff and was decapitated. This further delayed my stupid test, and I swear that kid was pleased.
I finally promised to play a game if he’d do the test first. I peed in a rather dirty plastic cup and he showed me the results sheet, which was gleefully flashing through possible options. Finally the whole thing lit up. . . and it was pink. It was a girl!
At this point my mother showed up and we fled the scene, shouting a cheerful goodbye to the abandoned brat. As we left, the severed head of the fallen hiker was making small talk with two others about the correct first aid procedure for decapitation (so THAT’S all right).
The End.
Kids, don’t do drugs.
I got up and weighed myself, and discovered I’d gained precisely half a kilo – the exact recommended amount. (I’m actually still more than two kilos lighter than I was at the beginning of the pregnancy.)
Then I crawled back into bed, and something under the donna poked me suddenly in the stomach – so suddenly and so distinctly that I yelped aloud (my first thought was, “Tentacle monster hidng under the covers! Aieee!”).
It was Mini-Me, of course.
Which doesn’t necessarily mean there WEREN’T tentacles involved. I assume that’s one of the things they check for at the 20-week ultrasound.
Bra shopping
The pregnant body does all kinds of peculiar things, and the expansion in all directions can be difficult to deal with. There’s one area of growth that is welcome, however.
And so it was that a voluptuous friend and I went shopping for bras, and discovered I am now a D cup. This made me very happy.
I was less happy to discover that I now need size 18 underwear, but oh well. It feels good to be wearing the right size underwear and bra for the first time in ages. I bought maternity bras in hopes that they’ll still be the right size when I need front-opening clasps for breastfeeding.
I also bought an outfit that I’m hoping will fit for at least another month –
PS Reader Stuart has bet that I can’t resist spending at least some money on baby-related items. I would argue that buying new clothes for myself doesn’t count – but, for the record, I spent $65.
Belly VS Belly
I figured it was about time I began the series of obligatory “Look how pregnant I look” photos – but I decided to do so with a twist. In some of these photos I am pregnant, and in some I am not. Can you tell which is which?
This, dear reader, is why you must never, ever, ever ask a woman if she is pregnant. It should be noted here that other, far more pregnant-looking photos have been taken – but they’ve also been thrown away.
Victorian pulp scifi. . . is there anything more wonderful?
Here’s an i09 article (http://io9.com/5832671/how-science-fiction-cover-art-got-its-pulpy-sense-of-wonder?tag=pulps – links are still broken) on early pulp magazine covers. They are VERY special. . . see?
Here’s the bit you steampunks are probably most interested in:
The Victorian aesthetic appeared from 1820-1900 and is characterized by tons of ornamentation, both in imagery and typography. Most book and magazine covers escaped excessive imagery, but faltered under cluttered typography. Captions often accompanied images to narrate the moment of action rather than allowing the image to speak for itself. Images portrayed a single moment in the story meant to captivate passersby with feelings of adventure and excitement. Actions and poses were stiff and often awkward. Color was expensive, and not commonly seen until 1900.
You’ll want to scan through the pictures for yourself, so here’s that address again.
http://io9.com/5832671/how-science-fiction-cover-art-got-its-pulpy-sense-of-wonder?tag=pulps
Are writing courses worthwhile?
This Huffington Post article (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-joseph-davis/mfa-programs-_b_929183.html – links aren’t working today) argues that they are.
In my opinion, the most important pieces of information writers should get from such courses are:
Spelling and grammar (don’t laugh; it’s necessary)
The ability to follow submission instructions (so, so necessary)
Industry manners – eg don’t ever reply to a rejection
Some realism about (a) How long things take (b) How much writers earn, and (c) How few unpublished novels ever get published.
In my (reasonably limited) experience, none of these are taught in writing courses. But some other useful things are. Perhaps more importantly, you meet other writerly types, and may end up with a decent critique group.
Pictured: not a decent critique group.
Philip Pullman books part three
“The Amber Spyglass”
Oddly for a trilogy, I’m not sure this is the strongest book in the series.
The rest of this review is at Comfy Chair, where I get paid for it.
Quintuple Chocolate
Some people reckon triple chocolate desserts are impressive – to which I say HAH!
Triple chocolate is merely the canvas.
I began with triple chocolate Cadbury ice cream – chocolate ice cream with real chocolate chips and ribbons of chocolate sauce throughout.
I added choc mint ice magic (a brilliant invention that turns hard when drizzled on ice cream).
I garnished the dish with one-qurter of a dark chocolate cherry ripe.
This, my friends, is what quintuple chocolate looks like:
I considered also sprinkling this concoction with Milo (which, for you Americans out there, is like Ovaltine but a million times better – mainly because of a distinct crunchy texture), but I decided hey, I’d hate to overdo it.
Felicity Banks 