Apophenia

[la_belle_laide]

Soooo tomorrow I am going back to Kung Fu. I miss it and I can't stay away any longer. I'll just have to be careful and guard this stupid rib thing very closely. No situps, I guess. Maybe no pushups.

Spinning out into the last half of finals beginning on Tuesday, and I feel about halfway prepared. The ones I took already I pretty much nailed. In ABW 1 and 2, a 96 and a 95. In myology practical, 100. In Swedish tech written, I haven't gotten that grade back yet but I'm pretty sure I did all right.

Work is done for this weekend and it wasn't bad. Yesterday I sold a ton, today I was lucky if I sold a handful. However I did get to talk to this one really neat guy. I approached him in the cat food aisle already having had him pegged as someone who wasn't going to be interested in nutrition, which I admittedly do to some people and I'm ashamed of it. He just didn't look the sort. Older, sort of gruff, the kind of guy who at best throws some Friskies to an outside cat only because his wife pests him to. Ends up that he's got some dogs and cats with health problems blah blah blah, and he's also this totally fringy guy who knows all these artists, writers and freaks. We talked actually for about an hour and it really kind of made my day.

I am absorbed in this book I'm reading: Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. It's giving me apophenia. Pish-posh, who am I kidding? I live on apophenia; it gets me through the night. The main character has lost her father. The company she works for has a name so similar to that of the company I work for that it isn't even true. It's the book that makes you look forward to going to bed, because you can snuggle up in your blankets and just read the crap out of it.

Speaking of books and such, yeah so I queried this agent, as I mentioned. Still waiting, but I know it can take a while. I found tons of pages with insane information about agents, turnaround time, general percentages of rejection, oh my god, TONS of info. I'm entirely intimidated. For years I've just written for myself, to write myself into a cocoon, and chuck all the gore and violence out, and honestly just to entertain myself with my own self indulgent musings. However, it's no secret that I'd love to have readers. This guy at the store today, this artist guy, he told me to go ahead and self publish. I always shoot that idea right down. I actually had the same conversation with My Wonderful Friend. It's odd, how in music and movies, publishing (or recording or filming) independently is such a maverick way to be (thanks, Sarah Palin, for forever ruining a perfectly good word, you douche-hat,) but in the world of writing it just makes you a pariah, a hack who couldn't get past the guards at the gates of quality. I get that, I do. I got it more before someone let Smeyers through the gates, but still. Anyway, so there I am, out there casting my net. It's all so overwhelming but once finals are done and I'm on break, I will very badly need something to do aside from Kung Fu and work, video games and taking care of various birds and dogs.

(Waiting is hard when you love something.)

DOGS. I took both dogs to the local holistic vet because everyone I talk to lately, from all over the Island, tells me that he is the man I should be going to. I keep hearing the words “gifted” and “miraculous.” He was very optimistic about Sano! He sent me home with huge-ass pills full of powder and he thinks this has an 80% chance of curing the ITP once and for all. No more ITP, no more goddamn prednisone and maybe no more liver problems, too. Sano's last blood tests were encouraging, though he's not out of the woods. He's still ridiculously anemic and I have to keep an eye on his color, his breathing and general energy level all the time. He goes back tomorrow for another checkup. Let's hope it looks good. This new doctor also had a peek at Haku. He said to stay on the phenobarb and see if it works through the 28 day pattern. Today is the 28th day so I guess we'll see soon enough if it's even making a dent. I so very much hope so. Also, I want to sleep through the night.

I guess that in all it's been an uneventful week. I wish for some events. Nice ones. Screw “nice,” I want mindblowingly fantastic events. I realize that this is a lot to ask of the universe but, you know, I'm asking.

Comments

[skitty-kitty.livejournal.com]

Paolini, the kid who did the Eragon stuff, self-published, and look how that turned out. It's def. more of a risk, since I bet it's much harder to do the pimping to get more readers and whatnot, but ya know, it's worked really well for some. Good luck with it, and I hope this new vet works wonders for Sano!

[la-belle-laide.livejournal.com]

Eragon, that's true! However the only thing that story had going for it was the fact that it was written by a kid, therefore kinda gimmicky.

Trouble is that if you self-publish and that doesn't work out, then absolutely no company will ever look at the book. It's like diamonds in that way. How much exposure has it had? Too much exposure and not enough interest and you're screwed.

And it's so much a "thing" with me, the publishing. It's like, I just have to go through the gates. I'm weird that way.

[malenka-zeut.livejournal.com]

Funny thing, I just was talking with a friend of mine and she is about to self publish on Amazon. She's the last person I thought would do that. She's already been published, and so has her husband, but after his last book they both say they're done with publishing companies. These are friends of my dad's so they've been at it a while. They both feel that the utter crap those companies put you through is not worth it now that self publishing is so easy to do and access. Also, another friend of mine puts his short stories and essays on Amazon. I think things are different these days when it comes to self publishing. And for god's sake, publishing companies are the last to judge judge quality! Great news about the doggies, so happy to hear it. You know the miracle man did wonders for Strega & Mookie. You were the interpreter!

[la-belle-laide.livejournal.com]

*points down to Spatterdash* Definitely niche writing is cool for self-publishing. And if those friends of yours have already been published, then it's like they're already "in." They're not skipping the stupid rite of passage.

I think the biggest problem with me is that I see so many crappy writers doing the self-publishing thing because they just think they're the bomb. They've got a small circle-jerk following on the internet and all of a sudden they just know better than the professionals. I think it's called "vanity press" for a reason.

However, this is way different with niche writing and for people who have already been published, for sure!

[malenka-zeut.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, I do see your point now that you put it that way. Have you looked at Soho Press? They are smaller and sort of younger. And right in NY. Probably best to keep looking for an agent though, to do the leg work for you. You need Bebe Glazer!

my windy thoughts

[spatterdash.livejournal.com]

I both agree and disagree with the self-publishing suggestion.

Self-publishing has always had a stigma, but at the same time history is full of geniuses who had to self-publish, and folks who self-published and became a runaway success. The question is whether it's the right thing to do for you and your work, and IMO (from what i know of you, and of the work) i think you are on the right path.

Self-publishing makes good sense if you are writing a book with a SUPER narrow audience--my own self-published class textbook being a great example. It's out there easy to find and buy, for the six students a semester who take my class and the couple-hundred other people on earth who might care about the super-focused subject matter, but because of its limited appeal, no publisher would have ever accepted it just because it'd have taken them probably a decade to get through selling its first print run. Print-on-demand self-publishing is awesome for that sort of book. Which, novels really aren't.

If you wanted to turn the self-publishing into your personal vision quest and had time to devote to promotion of it, then i'd say go for it, too. Another commenter mentions Paolini, which yes, he did self-publish (or rather, his parents self-published for him). He also then spent a year traveling the country pounding the pavement and promoting the book himself, and even then, he only got the recognition and the "big book deal" when a big bestselling author stumbled on the book via his kid and passed it onto his own publishing house. Luck.

If you had the money and freedom to quit school and work and were willing to leave your family and health-challenged dogs for a year to go out roadtripping and hucking the thing, i'd say go for it, but i don't get the idea that's a viable option. (It was for Paolini because he was a homeschooled teenager at the time, and his family turned it into a big educational thing, the travel/publishing/promotion.) Or, if you had some wicked huge net-presence, like you ran some site that piles of people visit, or if you had thousands of FB friends who cling on your every word, or if you had just banged Tiger Woods last month and planned to tell the media at the same time as you release the book--some kind of built-in potential-readership or press-base.

And, the other time it makes sense is after you've gotten some kind of visibility for something. I had a writing prof who was about to self-publish and was very excited about it...but it was his fifth book. He already had a name and a readership, and was working on an agreement with his agent for getting it picked up for distro. Bypassing the publishing house doesn't always mean you bypass an agent, too. Agents can do all that legwork Paolini did, if they think they'll get paid for it regardless, which with an established author, they will.

So the upshot is, i support this agent-seeking, and i support your continuing to shop the book around, and honestly, i think you were onto a good thing with the idea of writing some shorter pieces and submitting them around. The market is a whole lot larger for short fiction and nonfiction, and that's a GREAT way to get noticed. The short story i had in that anthology got picked up because i had submitted it to a small (non-paying) magazine and when they were looking for stories in that genre, they read the mag and liked mine. I didn't get a lot for it for the anthology--$50 and 3 copies--but i did get a reputable credit, and if i ever finish the damn novel that's grown out of the story, i have one place to submit it right off the bat who will definitely WANT to see it.

So, the upshot being, good luck. And, *I* want to start writing critiques again, which if it winds up being only you and me submitting (since i know L & E both still have huge things going on personally), fine. We can do it! :D

Re: my windy thoughts

[la-belle-laide.livejournal.com]

Definitely self-publishing is a great arena for niche-writing. Just out of college, I wrote a book of haiku and self-published it. Some of them had already been published in poetry books and anthologies, but I wanted a collection to send to my old college professors and some other people. There is no market for american haiku. :)

But I see this line between self-publishing and vanity press. I guess I'm talking more about the type of writer I described in my comment up there to malenka_zeut. That fiction writer who got some praise from a small internet community and now thinks that she's written the next big piece of literature, and if publishing companies don't want it it's only because they don't understand her genius.

You pointed out the same scenario that malenka-zeut did, in fact, with someone who has already been published going ahead and self-publishing. I think that's great! As frustrating and retarded as it is (*points to Twatlight again*) it is a rite of passage and it's one I need to take.

There is just no way I could do it all on my own anyway. I don't have the business balls.

I hope to have some time over my break, and maybe polish some shorter stuff (essays and the like) up and look for a small market. If nothing else, as you mentioned, it looks good on the query.

I definitely want to start the critiquing up again. The last one I did for you was way too brief and shallow and I apologize for that. Yes, I'd love to rev that sucker up again!

[la-belle-laide.livejournal.com]

Hey, don't worry about it! It's just me rambling. I so much appreciate the tips. "Planks" are my favorite actually; we call them "monkey pushups."

I'm terrified of losing my muscle-tone, isn't that so vain of me? I check my arms every day. "Do they look smaller? OH NO!" I know I want to get back to it but I don't want to put myself further out of commission. Your ideas are very helpful.

Also, hey, I have no idea how we found each other and sort of merged, but it's kind of amazing (epileptic dogs, martial arts, broken ribs) and I'm so glad we did. :)