A Renaissance writer (and reader)

I'm not sure what the focus of my writing was when I started this blog. I don't have a single focus, so it's hard to know who's my audience when I share these posts.

So just know, I write. And I read.

I read mostly very old stuff, since I'm rarely impressed with more modern fare, ironically enough.

I write science fiction short stories,
articles about being married and Mormon (LDS) with the hubby,
working on finishing the next two books in my trilogy (don't we all need a trilogy in our portfolio?), family stories,
and I'm starting in on screenplays since my daughter is going to filmmaking school, and I've never NOT been able to help her with her homework.


If you're into any of those things too, what I write may not bore you to pieces, and you're welcome to read some of all of my daily/weekly behind-the-scenes ramblings.

**

I finally got around to recording my story yesterday, after a quick helpful technical tutorial from the 15-year-old on how to use Audacity. And I ALMOST made it all the way through with no mistakes...so utterly pleased with myself. I have to re-record the last sentence and figure out how to cut and paste it in, and then it's ready to send to AntipodeanSF for their October issue. Oooroo!

**
My husband and I get involved sometimes with local service projects sometimes through our church. This week we helped a sister (we do that in our church...the whole brother/sister thing) who needs to move to a retirement home and divest herself (painfully) of years of mementos, since it won't all fit where she's going.

We pulled everything out of her backyard shed, and helped her sort what to keep and what to sell, careful to avoid the spiders and mice and other larger creatures that had no doubt set up house in this rustic little outdoor shelter.

One box we opened contained a sheer miracle and pirate treasure, all at the same time - an entire set of the Harvard Classics, all 50 volumes!

My oldest son and I nearly salivated on the box.

It smelled of mildew and a tiny, tiny bit of mouse urine on the outside cardboard. A few mouse droppings and spiderwebs in the box, and some dust on the covers. Otherwise, the books were perfectly preserved.

I asked her about them, and she said they'd sat on her shelves for 40 years, and out in the shed for nine years. She'd never read them beyond the first book.

"Do you want them?" she said.

Do I want them??? Shiver me timbers!!!

**

So, after we got them home, I found that ammonia wipes largely took care of the smell without damaging the covers, and I'm starting in on the first volume.

When I read, it's not a sponge kind of thing. It's a conversation I have with someone who often no longer exists in this world, and some writers I really resonate with, while others I gratefully leave behind.

The first volume starts off with  Ben Franklin's Autobiography.  I'm only on the first two pages so far, and I practically feel re-parented. His sayings and his stories make me wish he'd been my father.

My own father always had this thing about making sure I wasn't vain, and he would accuse me of vanity whenever I showed him a catalog of pretty clothes or asked for something. To be fair, we were dead broke when I was little, and he did that to try and save money, but the way he did it mentally screwed me over for decades afterwards.

This one paragraph from Ben Franklin set me completely to rights, just this morning, in talking about why he decided to write an autobiography in the first place:

 "...And lastly, (I may as well confess it, since my denial of it will be believed by nobody), perhaps I shall a good deal gratify my own vanity.

Indeed, I scarce ever heard or saw the words 'Without vanity I may say, etc.' but some vain thing immediately followed.

Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they may have of it themselves; but I give it fair quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others that are within his sphere of action;

And therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life."

Coolest. guy. ever. :-)

The Never-Ending Carrot and Stick - Chasing my Ancestors

My father has been dead now for...what? Almost two months now?

So much has happened in those two months.

The entire trajectory of my life changed. Everything I knew about myself and my history has been altered or accentuated.

Who knew something I thought would have little to no impact could hit with the force of a neutron bomb in my life? Everything looks the same, but inside feels very different.

My hubby's super-intense summer class is over, and I'm thinking of returning to school myself.

To study history.

About five years ago, I took a course that was supposed to tell me my strengths. My four greatest strengths turned out to be connection, input, learning, and intellection. All introverted strengths - no extrovert strengths at all.

At the time, I felt very depressed about that. Living as a massive introvert in a world made for extroverts makes me feel like I should get a special parking space or something.

But still, over time, I've come to appreciate these strengths more and more...my love for learning, my search for connections, my appreciation for a good discussion of concepts, and I can't get enough of any of these things.

And it all circles back to my family.

Tolkien made up his universe - I have one ready-made in my own family, and so many missing stories to research and investigate.

The gay uncle who ran a parking garage in New Jersey - what was gay life in 1950s New Jersey like?

The great-great-grandfather who died mysteriously - were there a lot of missing persons in Illinois?

The aunt who was strangled to death by her husband - what happened to him?

Was my great-grandfather actually related to the founder of Harvard somehow - even peripherally?

The great-great-grandmother who, as a widow, traveled to Wyoming from a privileged upbringing to live out the rest of her life in the wilderness? What other stories of women alone in the West are out there?

The albums from a certain torch singer left behind by my grandmother after she died - who was this lady, and why did my grandmother like her so much? Where were the similarities?

The indentured servant who somehow escaped most of the terrible things that happened to indentured servants - how did he do it?

I could literally spend the rest of my life chasing down these stories - and what better way to do it than on the government's dime?

If I get my Ph.D. and get grants to write historical books, or teach online classes about history in college (remember, I'm super-introverted!) or learn languages and prowl libraries and databases for more information...wearing books on my head like a maniac...til I've got a Silmarillion of my own...

Bliss!

Now there's a project worth undertaking - I have it! I have my special purpose!

Now...to figure out this college application...

Procrastination and Priorities

I still have not recorded my story yet.

I suppose it could be a technical issue - my kids have far surpassed me in the mastery of this mysterious box with the glowing screen. And that's even AFTER having taken college classes in networking (which I barely survived) and A+.

I'm lucky to remember my password from day to day, really.

So it's time to tune up the pressure and git 'er done!

There's a time when procrastination is good - when the story needs more time to 'cook' in the brain, so it comes out in the best way.

Other times, procrastination makes the writer a little crazy, accomplishing everything BUT what you're supposed to be writing. The dishes are done - the garden is weeded - the family is happy - and you are miserable because what you really want to work on isn't getting done.

Crazy, I know. But that's how it goes.

So here's a video as a personal reminder...

Back to the Scottish Gypsies with Me! :-)

As a gift to myself when I graduated from high school, I brazenly took a week off work at my new job, with my new credit card, and traveled to England and Scotland.

In my heart, I had a feeling it might be the only travelling I would get to do, so I wanted to make sure it happened.

I was totally alone, riding trains and going from town to town, not even sure how I would feed myself. It was great good fortune that I survived and made it home, really.

One morning I woke up in a hostel in Kyle of Loch Alsh in Scotland, and wandered out early to sit on a pebbly beach and watch the clouds roll over the mountains and across the water as the sun came up. A moment I've revisited often in my mind over the years.

 

That moment came with a feeling of recognition I never could explain - a strong feeling of deja vu and comfort in my surroundings that seemed strange at the time.

So I've always felt that my ancestry came from Scotland, even though I never knew for sure.

Yesterday, I knew for sure.

One of the items I retrieved from my mother's house after the death of my father was a book of genealogy, about my Grandmother Lora Stockwell's line.

And in very dense, historical and factual terms, it laid out how William Stockwell Sr. travelled to Massachusetts as a teenager (probably) to become an indentured servant in America. His grandfather was born somewhere in Scotland around 1603.

It must have been some kind of poverty that made him want to leave. I know, that morning I watched Scottish clouds roll over Scottish mountainsides, that it would have taken threat of death for me to leave that beautiful place.

So the roots are firmly there, and now I'm looking up Scottish songs from that era, which turn out to be largely Gypsy songs. (which explains my preference of Halloween costumes for the past 40 years)...

Wish I knew where in Scotland they were from, but that's another mystery to solve in later days.

Happy Death-Day to my Father, and to Poppa Ray

My father died almost a month ago at this point, and in my rational mind I'm fine.

But my subconscious squeezed memories out of my eyes at random moments, and I still can't figure out why.

Ray Bradbury died five years ago today. Ray Bradbury was my Poppa...one of many. Someone who was always there, and suddenly not.

It was one of those moments I remember, like 9/11 or Kennedy's assassination (and I remember the former, but I'm not so old that I remember the latter).

I was sitting in my silent office, when my co-worker Alex broke the silence with the awful announcement. "Oh look - Ray Bradbury died."

My own silence broke as well. "What?"

I found the obituary in the newspaper. Then I went back to one of my favorite videos on YouTube, because I already missed the sound of his voice.

I took on his challenge, and I'm still in the middle of it today. Not as prolific a writer as he.

This blog at BrainPickings is like a posthumous birthday party to my Poppa Bradbury, and is not to be missed.

Particularly the poem Neil Gaiman wrote to him for his 91st birthday.

Still Here...Tending My Garden

I haven't blogged this week, and there's a perfectly good reason why.

I had nothing to say.

Sometimes that's the only reason, and it's a good one. Why take up bandwidth just to hear yourself chatter on, after all?

You see, there's three cycles to writing, kind of like gardening.

There's the gathering cycle, where I read widely and gather tools and ideas.

There's the planting cycle, where you put the idea into the earth - maybe two or more ideas together - and then you watch what grows from it.

Then there's the harvesting cycle, where you pluck and share, if there's anything worth sharing

Some ideas die.

Some ideas grow into something that's cute and entertaining, like the story I did that's about to be published here in October.

Some ideas grow into a Jack-in-the-beanstock vine that take you, the house, and the entire neighborhood with it, like this one.

And there there's others that are somewhere in-between...still waiting for their turn for the light.

***

Right now, I'm in a sort of gathering phase, where I've turned my house inside-out, and now I'm facing a stuffed closet with so many papers in it that used to mean something, but they've sat in that closet so long that I can't actually remember what they meant, and they're falling on me.

Not to mention emails back from 2007 with missing stories captured within, and two large duffel bags and several smaller bags that nearly broke my whole family's backs getting them from my mother's house in Maryland to mine in Texas, with stories from lives connected to mine swirling inside, waiting to get out and get converted into some kind of digital format I can actually work with...

So you see...nothing really to say.

Gathering...

From Writing to Speaking

This week I'm supposed to do a spoken version of my story that was accepted to the Antipodean SF website, which is going to come out in their October issue.

This thing (reading aloud) is not my forte.

It's not like I've never done this before. Heaven knows I've read enough bedtime stories to kids, and I actually did do a reading of another short story on YouTube years ago, just to try it out. I just don't feel like I'm terribly good at it. So there's a little mental block there for me.

I decided to listen to the podcast they do, to see how other authors read their stories.

And I found out they do a sort of radio show, that's really on the radio. They paint a lovely little romantic word picture of it on their website:

"The AntipodeanSF Radio Show is broadcast in the Nambucca Valley, on the Mid North Coast of NSW every Saturday evening at 8:30pm EAST, on community radio, 2NVR, 105.9FM."

So I had to take a quick Google Maps trip.

It's a small spot in Australia, on the beach facing out towards New Zealand. I clicked along Pacific Highway, and stopped for a moment to dangle my legs off the pier in Pelican Park and pulled in for a moment at the Nambucca Motel, with its painted brick and its signature cactus with a sombrero on it.

I tried to imagine the entire population of the Nambucca Valley (all 6,222 of them, or even if only 3% show up, that's still a good 186 people!), seated around their radios on a Saturday night at 8:30 in October...

Listening to me, reading out my story.

I'm in awe.

Neil Gaiman gave some advice to another author once, when she asked about reading aloud - "Pretend you're someone who can do it, and then just do what they would do."

Works for me. Tomorrow I'm going to pretend I know what I'm doing, and do it...I hope...

Stepping Back in Time Via Email

My father's passing (and the cleaning of my father's house) left a lasting impression on me as to the importance of getting a handle on stuff.

Thank goodness, my parents had (ironically) stuffed away in their bookcase Marie Kondo's book 'The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up." This book has not left my side for the past week.

 

 

 

So far, my clothes and my books are well in hand. Today I've cleaned up my desktop and my computer files, and I'm starting on my email.

 

Now, you think you've got physical clutter? Ever looked at the 'sent' folder of your email?

 

Don't.

 

Not unless you want a monster project on your hands. Or you like time travel.

 

I have emails back to the beginning of email time (approximately the year 2006 for this emailbox).

 

And they're telling me a very intriguing, nearly forgotten story.

 

Lots of people and ideas (and even articles and stories) in there.

 

Between that and the regular emailbox, I think I've got about sixteen days of work to do here.

 

 

In the meantime, while I purge, I'm going to keep my brain alive with Doestoyevsky's "The Double", which I found sitting lonely on my desktop, waiting to be read. It's a longer story about madness, so I'll just take my time over it on my lunchbreaks. To balance out the madness of my own life at the moment.

Back in AliveWorld with New Stories...

My father's funeral was this week - a rough business that required my full-on emotional participation.

So no new fiction stories came this week.

But man, did I ever get lots of family stories, which are just as good. Probably a little bit better, from where I'm standing. I took notes to remember what I'd heard, and I'll post them for my family later. Might post a few here as well - lots of colorful characters swimming in my DNA gene pool.

My dad turned into a bit of a pack rat during his final years. He wouldn't let my mom throw away anything, and he kept every scrap of paper that came into his hands, it seems. If they couldn't find something they were looking for, they just went out and bought another one, so they had 10-15 of everything when he passed away.

One single townhouse simply couldn't hold it all, so we cleaned and cleaned (or is it 'excavated'?) until there were at least pathways into every room. And we found pictures and journals and letters - so much family history. Surprisingly clear photographs of family members I'd never gotten a good look at before. I came away with over 150 pounds of history that I miraculously got home, and now have to sort through and save.

But my fiction stories are still coming as well. Got to thinking about my son teaching me to use Audacity to record for the published story I recently did, and thought...why not put them all on audio? It would be good practice, for sure. So that project's happening soon as well.

It was a fantastic week, even without writing, even if it was a funeral that got us back together. I learned to treasure these awesome people right here, and not the stuff so much. A good lesson to learn.

Dear Dr. Journal - Thoughts on Therapeutic Writing

Truthfully, with the events of this week, not a lot of reading or fiction writing is happening. But that doesn't mean no writing is happening.

I've been writing my father's obituary instead.

Man, if that isn't a job that drags you to the edge of mortality to stare out into the abyss! Containing a human being's entire life in 1-2 pages of text.

Especially the human being who came right before you did.

I work with obituaries for a living, and I've seen a lot of people who didn't know anyone who wrote, and got literally nothing. A name and a blank picture window on the funeral website, and that's it. I wanted better than that for the man who raised me.

So he got the world-class treatment, because his daughter is a writer. The kind of obituary you have to pay hundreds of dollars to get from a professional. And I was glad to do it. If I ever get the nerve together, I'll have to write my own and make sure it's good as well.

***

At the same time, I couldn't be completely objective, writing about my father. There's a little bit of a discrepancy between my experience with my father and some of the other kids' and in-law's experiences in the family.

Some of them got Dad, Version 2.0 and 3.0, when he was kind and accepting and mellow and all good things. Being an older child, I got Dad, Version 1.0, the one with all the bugs, at a time when I really wanted (no, needed) a later version instead.

I started to tell my kids about Dad, Version 1.0, thinking that might help me, but then I thought better of it. He didn't die in that version, and I wanted them to hear the good stuff too. But I had to somehow honor my inner child somehow, who was pretty dang angry at the treatment she got, having broken him in for the rest of the world.

A good friend of mine, who'd lost a daughter many years ago, had suggested keeping a journal as a way of talking out what I was feeling to the deceased, as if they could hear, and peeling the emotional onion as I needed to do. So I took this to heart. I wrote a letter to my father.

It was not a love letter, to say the least. It was angry, and vengeful, and as nasty as Version 1.0 deserved, with no filter.

Once that was gone, I felt safe to acknowledge that he'd made upgrades since Version 1.0, and I just hadn't been there to see it. I knew there was love somewhere under all that anger and regret. Just have to keep digging as I need to.

I went to bed, and woke up the next morning completely rested and clear. It was like magic.

It's not just published writings that have value - something I've definitely learned over the years. Journals have saved my mental and emotional life. Writing is a great service to render, to others and to myself, and I thank God I can do it.

On Death and Publication - All the Wrong Feels

My father passed away this weekend.

I couldn't say it was a surprise - it wasn't. He'd been sick for a long time, and they'd been preparing for this. Mentally, I felt ready.

I wasn't.

First response to the cascade of worried texts (he's in the hospital...no heartbeat...not breathing) felt like a sucker punch to the stomach. I just paced while looking at my phone. Then my sister set off the first wave of crying with the official word '....died...'.

We hadn't been that close, he and I, in recent years. Our relationship was thorny and complicated, to say the least. I wasn't sure why I was crying. Maybe it was because I wished that we were closer, but I had tried and failed to get closer. So that was it.

That moment passed, and then the first night of trying to sleep. Took us two hours. My siblings reported similar issues. Normal.

How is this supposed to be normal?

Today was details day - getting the rental car, planning the trip, writing the obituary (a service I was glad to be able to render for him), giving notice at work.

When I went into work, I saw another email.

It was from the magazine I'd submitted my last story to.

Mentally, I felt ready.

I wasn't.

The Australian editor that looked like Gandalf told me he'd read it, and he liked it...

He liked it?

Could I look at the edits he made and approve them so we could move forward...

He was publishing it???

My father died yesterday, and I've very happy.

This feels all wrong somehow. But, at the same time, it feels very right.

My father was the reason I'm writing science fiction in the first place. Instead of raising me on sports, he showed me all those Depression-era cliffhangers and science fiction movies I so wanted to make fun of, and he wouldn't let me. He took me to see each and every Star Wars movie; just him and me, episodes 4-6. I thought of all those passionate arguments we had about how ST:TNG was in no way comparable to the original series, all those years ago. He taught me about computers and science and how to love them both.

So now I'm writing these same stories he grew up on, and actually got one published. Pretty sure if he had lived to see it, he would have loved it.

So this one's for you, Dad. Despite everything, I'm forever your kid.

Stories From the Cabin in the Woods

You know those writer retreats, where you sit in a comfortable cabin with nothing but a laptop and some Wifi, and crank out your work-in-progress in utter solitude, looking out over a beautiful backwoods landscape, with no spouse, no kids, no responsibilities other than to dream and write it down?

This is writer porn.

Not in the sense of it being an immoral act, but in the sense that people don't really write most stories that way.

It's a beautiful, seductive dream. "Someday, when the time is right, I'll turn out something really special..."

If I thought this way, I'd still be waiting to start writing. And probably have gone insane while waiting.

My stories won't wait for the beautiful seduction of the cabin in the woods. They want out now. They knock on my head and nag me - What are you waiting for? Those kids are big enough to feed themselves. Exercise is pointless - you're going to die anyway.

Now, I don't take counsel from nagging stories, obviously - my kids haven't starved to death, and I do exercise now and then. But I also write, and I write in very small bursts every day. Between tasks. Lunch break. In the bathroom. While the family's eating dinner. During my commute.

After one or two days, I get nervous and irritable if I don't write at all. I have to write every day now, and in a lot of ways it helps me cope when the world goes crazy.

And one novel, one memoir, one published children's story, 18 short stories, and hundreds upon hundreds of blog posts, letters, poems, and journal entries later, I love having written, even if the writing was never pulled from a relaxed, peaceful setting with long leisurely hours of time to do nothing else.

Don't get me wrong - if I ever do get the chance to play eccentric-hermit-in-the-woods, you bet I'm jumping at it. My little introvert heart couldn't resist such a chance.

Just not waiting until then...got a cabin already in my mind, wherever I am. :-)

Having a Life to Write About

“In order to write about life first you must live it.”- Ernest Hemingway

I love going to school. L-O-V-E it.

My oldest daughter is graduating in ten days from one of those super-speedy high-school-and-associates-degree programs, where homework consumes every waking moment of your life - both hers and to a large degree, mine as well.

So it's such a relief to finally get beyond that, and look to my own education again.

I was clicking through the online list of majors at the school I work at, wondering what in the world to take, and suddenly it clicked.

But I can't tell you the specific major. Not yet.

Whenever I write a story, I never talk about what I'm writing about until it exists on paper, or in some computer file somewhere. If I do, it releases all my creative power, and then the story never gets written.

I'm afraid the same thing will happen here with school. So I won't say what my major is, not yet.

But it's good! I'm excited! Been trying to figure this one out for a long time, and I think I've finally nailed the perfect one.


Yes, it is science-related, which is also going to feed my stories. Super excited about that as well.

It's also very heavy on the math side, so back to Khan Academy I go. If I can finish those math classes before the end of the summer, I'll be in a really good spot to get started.

Another day, another page...

Patience and the Modern Writer

Finished working out my next story against the template I created - and it's yielding some interesting things.

How much more template do I have to go?

Nine pages more.

So, let's see...nine pages of story to go, at one page per day plus work plus helping daughter graduate plus sleep plus home and hubby maintenance plus dinners plus...nope, I guess TV's out...

I'm going to need longer than a week to finish my story.

(sigh)

I'm not the fastest writer in the world. I wish I did, but I don't.

Don't know if it's my Internet-fueled brain, or whether it's running after my family that I love and I would never, ever give up for art's sake, but I don't have Stephen King's prolific turnout, or Isaac Asimov, or R.L. Stine.

But I think that's okay. Patience is a superpower I'm still developing. Writing is a race I have to run against myself. Did I write even a paragraph? Even just another heartbeat of the the story helps. I have a goal for volume, but I'm not dead yet. Aiming for some semblance of quality as well, and want to make sure, above all, that I finish things...

So I'm pushing my deadline forward. Instead of one week, I'm planning on having a completed story for submission in two weeks - by Saturday, May 13th.

Haven't heard back from the first place I submitted to yet, but it's early still.

So it's back to work. With fake patience, if nothing else...

Back to the Writing Board...

Today I re-organized myself, and my stories. Once you have a certain amount, they start to go missing. I did, in fact, completely lose two stories - very good ones - and I'm not sure rewriting them will bring their wonder back for me.

We had a training about OneNote at work the other day, and our trainer listed all sorts of possibilities - keeping all your training documents in one place, lists of cleanup activities, meeting notes - all worthy and very nice uses for OneNote.

None of those uses were on my mind. I was already creating a notebook filled with stories at different levels of completion, lists of my editing and writing processes, character sketches, web stories of interesting and quirky things I could write into my stories...

It was a thing of beauty.

When I put my existing stories in OneNote, all my ducks in a row, I was dismayed.

Here I'd thought I had a good 17 stories on my way to my first 52 stories.

I had a total of 10 stories, not all of them even finished.

So I'm turning myself about, hokey-pokey style, and getting back to work.

Did an autopsy on a new story today, and ready to rework story #1, but for what market? It won't fit either of the last two markets I've checked out, but maybe Fantasy&Science Fiction? They like funny character-oriented stories, and this one's a lightly amusing fantasy. Beef up the characters, and it could work. Basically, they take anything that's science fiction or fantasy, up to 25,000 words, which is a nice, open amount most of my stories fit into. They could become a regular place for submitting.

I'm a finisher. Keep telling myself that. A finisher. So easy to think I'm writing, when I'm really not. Don't fall into that trap (note to self).

I'm aiming to finish this rewrite by next Friday, May 5th, and have it ready to go, in whatever condition it's in. It might need more editing, but I'm not hanging onto it longer than that. Whatever condition it's in, out it goes.

Out they all go. Too many baby birds in the nest.

When the Story Dies...

Feeling a little reflective today. Got a project that might be on the verge of expiring, despite my best efforts.

I could feel sad about it, but I've gotten better at telling when it's just no use, and it's not going to get better. So I can let it go, and be grateful for the lessons learned.


This one taught me a lot of important lessons...they all do really...so I'm glad it came into my life, even for the short time it was there.

And if somehow I do detect a heartbeat still there, I'll keep trying. But there's so many other stories calling to me...

A Little Help From My Friends, and My Undying Love for Ratings Systems

Finding places to submit to is a challenge. As a young neophyte, I bought the Writer's Digest Bible of all magazines possible to submit to (what I thought at the time), and then spent the year I should have been writing getting analysis paralysis instead, never coming to a decision, and ultimately wasting my $50 I spent on a very large pile of paper to recycle.

This time, I'm not doing that. Starting now with free resources scrounged on the Internet, and working my way up.

My fellow forum members pointed out a couple of new sources to check out in future: www.ralan.com and Submissions Grinder and also DuoTrope, should I ever make enough money to spend some back.

Thanks, guys.

The SFF Chronicles website has been terrific in helping me find my way back to writing again, and feel much less lonely in my chosen obsessions.

Anyway, now that the housekeeping's done, I'm reviewing Escape Pod, and figuring out which story to send. If it's read, it'll have to sound good out loud. Hmmmm...

The staff bios are cool...always a good sign.

The stories have ratings on them...also a good sign in my book. Call it a quirk, but I hate being shocked by something I wasn't prepared to stumble across. I get enough of that in life; don't need it from my entertainment.

The first story on their Best of page, "Imperial", their very first podcast, has an R-rating for "profanity, sexual content, politics, and sarcasm".

Not sarcasm! Oh nooooooo! And I did appreciate them screening for 'politics' - bleah!

Episode 105, called "Impossible Dreams", actually appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction before getting pod-casted here, and is rated G, for 'excessive movie trivia, some of it true'.

Love!

If you'll excuse me, I have a little more research to do...now where's my headphones? :-)

Editing with Theme, and Clearing Remaining Public School Pain

The best thing that can happen is for the theme to be nice and clear from the beginning..." - Paddy Chayefsky

I'm back in public school again, in English class.

My teacher, Ms. Whateverhernamewas, is standing over me.

"What is the theme of the story we're reading?"

Who knows? What's a theme? If it's not a theme park, I don't know. I don't really care. All I care about is where the cute boys are at, and how can I stare at them for the next 30 minutes without being noticed.

But now, back to today, my hormone-induced lack of foresight is coming back to bite me.

Because now, as an adult, I need to know about themes. Because I'm writing them.

My first-draft writing is something of an unconscious process. Pulling out what I see in my mind and putting it down on paper or screen so it doesn't get away from me.

Now it's time to edit the thing. I look at it, and think, "What is the theme?

Heck, I don't even know. And I'm the one who wrote it!!!

Aesop on my Shoulder Makes Me Happy...

If we travel back to Aesop's fables, the theme is easy to find. He gives it to you, at the end of each fable. He's like an obliging teacher, who feels sorry for our struggles, and hands it right to us so we don't have to think too hard. And sad to say, it made me lazy.

So what would Aesop say is the theme of this story I'm writing? I want Aesop whispering in my ear, so I don't have to figure this out on my own. Where is he when I need him?

The Moral of the Story

Authors don't just tell a story. They transmit a message. From the most brilliant to the most inane story, there's something theme-y in every one of them.

I want to know my theme, so I can shape my lump of words into something unified that makes sense, that echoes and reverberates with Truth, like the stories I love reading.

So I've got to find what I 'think' is the theme (with my inner teenager groaning the whole way - I hate English class!) and then make sure nothing goes in my story that doesn't hang somehow on some aspect of that same idea.

And then, suddenly, it changes...which I hope doesn't happen. Hopefully I've planned the story far enough ahead that I've got it, and it's set and planted and growing as it should...

But the subconscious has its own mystic workings, doesn't it? So anything could happen mid-way.

So, to any future students who have to figure out the theme of my story for some essay or paper due way too soon, you have my sympathies. I was right in there with you, but the theme is good to know. You get better grades, and I get better editing capabilities.

If it makes you feel any better, I didn't know the theme either, so whatever you think it is, you're probably right.

Another one bites the dust...and another one gone and another one gone...

While I'm waiting to hear back on my first submission, I'm charging on.

Checking out new markets and mostly striking out.

The free list I found on the Internet has a lot of old and broken links. Lots of dead magazines. Lots and lots of other magazines that are either choking on too many stories, or out on hiatus, too out-there for me, or otherwise not accepting new stories.

But I've found another one that's viable - Escape Pod.

Actually, it's more a podcast than a magazine, so I'll have to read it aloud before submitting. If I can't read it, no one else could. It's an SFWA-qualifying market, but if they don't pay at least 3 cents a word, I can't get in. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, that is...for anyone not familiar with that illustrious group.


It's my ambition to join them one day.One day, when people actually pay money for my work.

And what a wonderful day that will be...

First Submission (Gulp!) Away!

I sent off my first submission today, with only a touch of hyperventilation. A new story I wrote specifically for AntipodeanSF's guidelines. Time for a celebration dance! Bigbang! :-)

I hadn't really wanted to do that (write something specifically for a market - feels 'hack-y'), but truthfully I don't know yet what's the best way to get stuff published. When I don't know, I go into battering-ram mode, and hit at it until something works.

What else am I gonna do?

My other story was too long, and the story I'm editing is also too long for their consideration. Why send a story I know they'll reject? That doesn't seem like it really counts for my purposes here.

Is that being a hack? Making an effort to fit the material to the market?

I don't know. That's what this whole experiment is about - to gain the experience I lack.

And so, for submitting, I am a success!

And I got a polite response from the editor to 'wait and see'. Get this -

Hi Dianna,
Just a short note to say that your submission arrived here at AntipodeanSF safely and has been added to my reading queue. I will get back to you about it as soon as I can.
Ooroo for now,
Ion.

I had to look up 'ooroo', which sort of means 'goodbye' in Australian. And I Googled Ion the editor, who looks like a hippie version of Gandalf.

So my baby's in good, polite, nerdy hands. :-)

I've already decided that, when the rejections come in, I'll celebrate those with some sort of power blog or quote here, to keep my spirits up. I'm also NOT to rewrite anything unless an editor asks me to, otherwise I'll second-guess myself and rewrite the poor thing to pieces.

Also, if and when I get accepted, that's a serious celebration - like, a badge of honor. So I have this sweater that I'm going to sew a button on for every story accepted, and wear it like a general dresses up in all his or her stripes and medals. I need something substantial to look at and remind myself that I did accomplish something special.

Looking forward to it!