What's New? Nov. 28, 2001

News or Comments? vera.nazarian@sff.net
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Maniac's 2001 Stats Submission Rejection Sale Reprint 8 7 1 0

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Forward to December, 2001...

11-28-01

NEWSFLASH!

Loscon 28 was wonderful fun, and yes, we survived the California Winter Rainstorm. :-)

Here is a detailed con report that I posted in my newsgroup. :-)

11-22-01

NEWSFLASH!

Happy Thanksgiving!

As an ethical vegetarian for over 17 years, and proponent of animal rights, I take a moment of profound silence to remember the thousands of voiceless victims of today -- the "food" animals such as turkeys, ducks, and chickens, that have been slaughtered in excess numbers just to meet the quotas of this day of consumption.

Their charred pitiful carcasses lie on platters -- ironic centerpieces of bounty and family unity -- on festive dinner tables all across the United States and everywhere else around the world where we homo sapiens choose to celebrate Thanksgiving.

I am sorry for saying that. And I hate to spoil your nice family dinner.

But it is the simple truth.

And it is odd how so much of our lifetime is spent ignoring this truth and many other similar ones.

I know, because just like you I've ignored this truth for a long time myself. It's really the easiest thing to do. Not to make waves, not to question the course of one's own life, the small regular details that comprise it. The habits and the mannerisms that fill your moments. The actions that we choose to make.

Until one day it comes to you, sharp and bright. And painful.

And now I honor the day of Thanksgiving with my gratitude for all things, most of all the truth that is in my life and in yours.

I sit down to a plentiful vegetarian feast, as aromatic and flavorful as an autumn harvest.

Happy Thanksgiving!

11-21-01

NEWSFLASH!

Good news! I just called home, and my mom says that UPS delivered a replacement copy of my book for me, this one with a gorgeous dust jacket cover! I haven't seen it yet, but mom says the book is very impressive looking, a very nice edition, and very heavy! *grin*

I really really wish I could go home now to see it! It's only 1:15 PM Pacific time, so I still have 5 hours to wait before work ends and vacation begins, eeek!!! Must... manage... to endure.... *grin*

In the meantime, do check out the DREAMS page with all the info, including an updated and expanded ordering section.

The book retails for $39.95, but looks like Books-A-Million (BAMM.com) is carrying it for $25.17, so that might be the best deal as of now. But it is of course up to you where you get it (oh please, *do* get it!) and there are even links for Amazon Japan, France, Germany, and UK! :-)

I cannot WAIT to hold it in my hands for real, this time.

What an unexpected good day! Just in time for Thanksgiving, and for Loscon!

And talking about Loscon, please check out my program schedule -- I have 4 panels and a reading.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends! :-)))

11-14-01

NEWSFLASH!

Yesterday, on 11-13-01, BAMM.com delivered a hardcover copy of my first novel... without the dust jacket cover.

I held it in my hands.

Read all about it in my newsgroup.

Belated but heartfelt condolences to Jon Hansen for the loss of his cat Miles earlier this month. HUGS, Jon!! Also, congratulations to Jon for his poetry sales to Speculon.

11-12-01

NEWSFLASH!

Addendum - later that day. My deepest condolences to Zette on the loss of her beloved 17-year-old cat Bonkers. Major HUGS, Zette....

* * *

First of all, huge wonderful congratulations to fellow WebRat Hilary Moon Murphy who has just sold her story "The Run of the Fiery Horse" to Realms of Fantasy, and a belated but equally huge congratulations to Benjamin Rosenbaum who sold his story "Droplet" to F&SF! WOOHOOO, WebRats!!! We're doing really well lately, aren't we? :-)

It looks like my novel DREAMS OF THE COMPASS ROSE might actually be available for sale now....

*Amazement*

Not just pre-order, but really available! I had ordered it about a week and a half ago from Books-A-Million, and this weekend I got an e-mail from BAMM saying that it had shipped! And, they charged my checking account, so that must mean I will have my first novel in my trembling hands some time either today or tomorrow or whenever, this week!

When it does happen, you will hear a long scream all the way from California! :-)

Oh, and did I say that DREAMS now has its first Amazon Sales Rank? Wanna hava a laugh? It's ranked at 2,154,477, probably meaning that one person (me!) bought or ordered one copy! Sad, ain't it? :-) Well, of course I haven't really started my sales promotion campaign for this book, so I don't feel too bad... yet. :-)

In other news, Loscon 28 in Burbank, CA is just around the corner, and I look forward to meeting NAW's very own Greg van Eekhout who will be there on Saturday. Oh, and if you are there too, and if my book really is real (grin), I will try to have some copies of it for sale in the dealers room! So, come to Loscon and have your copy signed too. :-)

11-6-01

NEWSFLASH!

(long rant warning)

Writing What You WANT to Write

I just read Ron Collins's interesting NAW journal entry for today, which was in response to Trey's entry, basically about the idea of whether or not it is works with "merit" that get bought by editors, or if most work that gets acquired, as Trey says, "isn't judged solely on its merits."

Well, we've all heard this argument plenty of times, and we are rather sick of it. And I believe that, odd as it seems, I think that both Ron and Trey are absolutely correct in what they are saying.

In other words, work is and is not bought on its merits.

But this is not quite what I wanted to write about in this post. At least, not exactly.

This conversation got me thinking that maybe, just maybe, what imbues any work with true "merit" is the will and the inclination of the author behind it.

The will to actually create *this* work and not something else.

What do I mean? Well, this is what I mean. (And please believe me that I am not trying to put down anyone's efforts, since I do this myself. And the gist of this is pretty old hard truth too, so it's not like I am discovering America here. *grin*)

So many of us get caught up in writing things that in our hearts we do not want to write. In fact, often we hate it unconsciously, find it dead, empty, false.

We create fiction "to order" -- often the "to order" part consisting of our own mistaken impression of what is expected, of what the market wants, and the desire to sell and hence to fit a genre, or even surpass genre, but in a conventional way (does that make sense?).

We write stories to fit newly announced anthologies, we "try for" new markets, we join novel dares and story dares and other writerly "activities" that require us to produce something. We write science fiction or fantasy or horror or romance or mystery or mainstream or "lit'rechur" or whatever the heck it is that we think is out there under marketing labels.

And in the writing of all this dead crap that we really would never have planned to write in the first place were someone to truly honestly *ask* us -- in the writing of this we lose track of why we really are writers.

Someone -- I forget who now -- said that if you can manage not to write, then please by all means STOP and be a plumber (or some other profession that earns more than pennies an hour.)

Well maybe that really is the secret to great writing.

Write what you want and when you want and how you want. Not less, and NOT more!

And yes, true, this is not a recipe for a regular job.

But heck, maybe writing is NOT meant to be a regular job? Maybe it's a great illusion that a person can be a fulltime writer? Maybe by forcing one's writing to conform to a day job routine the writing "product" that results is not worthy of being out there?

Think about it, really, for a moment. Think of what writing really is, on the highest level. And no, I am not talking about routine practice that is the perfection of one's craft. Nor am I talking about more technical nonfiction writing.

I am talking about the silly self-enforced voluntary writing that so many of us engage in as a labor of... well, *labor.* Not love.

I dunno, maybe I am full of shit. Maybe it's that same old Art vs. Job argument. But I am tired of thinking up stories for fly-by-night anthologies (or even worthy high prestige wonderful anthologies that would make my career *snarf), or making up plots, or worldbuilding universes I don't really care about just so that I can pitch a crappy novel.

In fact, I don't want to write short stories at all. Fuck them.

I am really not a story writer, and I could care less about transient characters that I will regurgitate and move around in meaningless actions, in the guise of some kind of plot arc where I don't even fucking care about plot arcs.

Interesting that Ron Collins and Lisa Silverthorne were all discussing "theme."

Well, guess what.

All I care about *is* theme.

Moral fable. High arc truth. Justice and beauty and wonder. The meanings of things and the patterns in the world. Mind games. Mysteries inherent in life (as opposed to mysteries as genre -- there, I've just insulted a whole group of nice people who write mysteries -- sorry!). Comedy. Emotion or lack of. Intensity.

Resolution of pain.

That's why I write. My characters are metaphors for what I believe in and what I think and feel is right, and my characters live out variations of my own pain, grow and evolve, and are fulfilled where I cannot be.

I write the world as I want it to be.

I write because I cannot live out multiple lives in parallel, in the span of one, and by writing, I come closest to doing just that.

And all the details I use to show that world that I create, or even just small elements of that world, all these details I choose because I need to do it.

So maybe I should just write ONLY what I really WANT from now on. That what NEEDS to be written.

Elsewhere there was a discussion of how we all are limited in the number of "somedays" we have to finish all that we have planned.

In other words, life's too short to waste your writing efforts on the wrong things and to keep on saying, "Someday I'll write that special book."

There's no time to waste! Every moment slips by into your and my past, and there's less time left to do what must be done.

I say, write that what is Priority One to your own being, your own soul. Do that if you can, as much as possible, in the spare moments of your life between all the other obligations, because that is the only realistic way.

I know we all have commitments and we all have day jobs or even writing contracts to fulfill. And yes, we all try the best we can to add the life spark to those projects we are obligated to deal with.

We all try to add (or inject) as much as possible of that exciting vibrant living "what we WANT to write about" into the rotting body of that dull boring routine "what we HAVE to write about."

Why can't we just bury the HAVE body? Drop everything extraneous, cut the crap, and write the cleanest brightest core of our inner SELF -- like a rare fine jewel that shines only once in a million years under a blue moon in the 13th month of a dream year....

*end of rant*

I return you to your normal previously-scheduled writing routine. And myself also. The prestige anthologies and new markets await us even now, with their tempting deadlines and delicious promise of sales and an up-spiraling career....

Or maybe.. not? *grin*

Remember, time is ticking away.

11-5-01

NEWSFLASH!

Ok, the book is not even out yet, but I am already obsessing. *grin*

I keep on checking Amazon.com and other sites and wondering when will "numbers" show up. Like, do I get an Amazon.com rank pretty soon, pretty please?

And then I slap myself and tell myself to snap out of it. It is way too early, you fool, I tell myself.

In the meantime, DREAMS has now shown up at Barnes & Noble, at Fatbrain.com, at Amazon.co.uk, at Buy.com, and even at PriceFarmer.com, though at some of these places the book is still not available for ordering (like, no shit), it is only listed. Take a look!

I gussied up the main DREAMS page, and added a "Tell-A-Friend" mail form and also a real Discussion Forum on the very bottom of the page, both of these nifty webtools powered by Bravenet.com. And I also created a Buy This Book Box:

Buy this Book At your favorite local bookstore... Order online at: Amazon.com Amazon.co.uk Barnes & Noble BooksAMillion (BAMM.com) Buy.com Fatbrain.com PriceFarmer.com Directly from the publisher: Wildside Press

Of course it is ironic that the book is not listed at Wildside Press yet, but hey, I can't complain. So now ya'all can go and pre-order the book at so many places.... :-)

11-2-01

NEWSFLASH!

It is real, folks!

As of today, my first novel DREAMS OF THE COMPASS ROSE is now up at Amazon.com! It also showed up on BooksAMillion (BAMM.com) earlier this week, on Tuesday, 10-30-01.

Ok, so they got the incorrect Release Date, they are missing the cover image at both places, and Amazon is missing Publisher info, but heckle, it will be corrected eventually! :-)

And yet, I feel surreal....