falling through the cracks
Apr. 21st, 2006 11:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greygirlbeastMy thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sovay and corucia for sending me the Science article ("Global Mineralogical and Aqueous Mars History Derived from OMEGA/Mars Express Data") describing the three new proposed geologic eras for Mars. Now I know what the researchers in question have actually said, as compared to only knowing the watered down and oversimplified versions of their findings and propositions turning up in popular articles. If you'd like to read the paper for yourself, just follow this link. This is such marvelous stuff. File it in the great overflowing cabinet labeled "I'm glad I've lived long enough to be around for this." So, perhaps Mars was wet and amenable to life very early in its history, during the proposed "phyllosian" era (<4 billion ybp; see diagram below). The last paragraph is exciting indeed:
The era during which Mars might have been most likely to have hosted habitable conditions is the first one, indicated by the presence of phyllosilicates. If indeed living organisms formed, these clay minerals could be the sites in which this biochemical development took place. The low level of the further surface alteration, in perennial cold and dry conditions, under a tenuous atmosphere, could have preserved most of the record of biological molecules, structures, or other diagnostic features in clay-rich surface or subsurface rocks. These areas of high habitability potential offer exciting targets for future in situ exploration.
Back here Earth, I spent much yesterday on various busynesses, but also managed to begin the new Dancy piece, a vignettish thing which will be published as a chapbook to accompany Alabaster (free to those who order the once-again-available limited edition). It's called "Highway 97" and is set a few days before Dancy's arrival at the old church south of Bainbridge, Georgia. Despite the fact that I was initially reluctant to write another Dancy story, I'm actually quite excited about it. The whole of the story occurred to me yesterday, as I was listening to Nick Cave's soundtrack for Warren Ellis' film The Proposition. Likely, I'll write the entire thing to that CD (which is quite awesome, by the way).
I wish I could say that I'd be spending all of today working on "Highway 97," but, unfortunately, this isn't the case. Instead, I need to spend it working on the cover copy for Daughter of Hounds. My editor at Penguin sent it to me a week or so ago. She wasn't very happy with it, and when I saw it I was very unhappy with it. The chief problem is that whoever wrote the copy (people get paid to do this, I suppose) was trying to present it as a genre horror novel, which it isn't. It might fairly be called dark fantasy, with some emphasis on the dark, but it's not whatever people mean when they say "horror". So, anyway, I have something like 150 words to try and synopsize/describe a very complex novel that's almost 700 typescript pages long. 150 words to accurately convey the plot, the mood, something of the central characters. And I have to have it e-mailed to my editor before five p.m. this evening. I'd much rather spend the day with Dancy. Or Martian mineralogy. Or wedging my head into the bowl of the Worst Toilet in Scotland, for that matter.
Yesterday, Sonya Taaffe (sovay) brought up a problem that I've been trying not to think about. A substantial portion of my writing time is now being devoted to the work I'm doing on Sirenia Digest. On the one hand, the digest is keeping the rent paid until the next book deal comes in, and there's no doubt that it's allowing my writing to grow in new and exciting directions. But it's also true that the majority of my writing is presently being done for a very small audience, and there is some danger of all this work "falling through the cracks", as it were, failing to come to the attention of reviewers and editors and suchlike. I've been worrying about this for a couple of months. Excepting "Bainbridge," the last full-length short story I wrote was "Night," in July 2005, and before that, "Bradbury Weather," way back in August 2004. And I see three primary reasons for this: 1) personal chaos over this past year; 2) the fact that most of 2005 was spent writing Daughter of Hounds; and 3) the energy that's going into Sirenia Digest. It's an odd situation to be in. I love the work I'm doing for the digest and that I did on Frog Toes and Tentacles, but it's all being written "off the radar," so to speak. For the foreseeable furture, I'm committed to the digest project and don't really see how I can address the problem. But I have recognized that it is a problem. To a degree, the release of Alabaster will help, as will the release of Daughter of Hounds, work which will help keep me in the public eye while I'm engaged in these more esoteric pursuits. Well, truth be told, writing short stories, even when those stories win awards or are chosen for "year's best" anthologies, is a pretty damned esoteric endeavor.
There were wonderful thunderstorms just after sunset last night, and there will likely be more today.
sovay and corucia for sending me the Science article ("Global Mineralogical and Aqueous Mars History Derived from OMEGA/Mars Express Data") describing the three new proposed geologic eras for Mars. Now I know what the researchers in question have actually said, as compared to only knowing the watered down and oversimplified versions of their findings and propositions turning up in popular articles. If you'd like to read the paper for yourself, just follow this link. This is such marvelous stuff. File it in the great overflowing cabinet labeled "I'm glad I've lived long enough to be around for this." So, perhaps Mars was wet and amenable to life very early in its history, during the proposed "phyllosian" era (<4 billion ybp; see diagram below). The last paragraph is exciting indeed:The era during which Mars might have been most likely to have hosted habitable conditions is the first one, indicated by the presence of phyllosilicates. If indeed living organisms formed, these clay minerals could be the sites in which this biochemical development took place. The low level of the further surface alteration, in perennial cold and dry conditions, under a tenuous atmosphere, could have preserved most of the record of biological molecules, structures, or other diagnostic features in clay-rich surface or subsurface rocks. These areas of high habitability potential offer exciting targets for future in situ exploration.
Back here Earth, I spent much yesterday on various busynesses, but also managed to begin the new Dancy piece, a vignettish thing which will be published as a chapbook to accompany Alabaster (free to those who order the once-again-available limited edition). It's called "Highway 97" and is set a few days before Dancy's arrival at the old church south of Bainbridge, Georgia. Despite the fact that I was initially reluctant to write another Dancy story, I'm actually quite excited about it. The whole of the story occurred to me yesterday, as I was listening to Nick Cave's soundtrack for Warren Ellis' film The Proposition. Likely, I'll write the entire thing to that CD (which is quite awesome, by the way).
I wish I could say that I'd be spending all of today working on "Highway 97," but, unfortunately, this isn't the case. Instead, I need to spend it working on the cover copy for Daughter of Hounds. My editor at Penguin sent it to me a week or so ago. She wasn't very happy with it, and when I saw it I was very unhappy with it. The chief problem is that whoever wrote the copy (people get paid to do this, I suppose) was trying to present it as a genre horror novel, which it isn't. It might fairly be called dark fantasy, with some emphasis on the dark, but it's not whatever people mean when they say "horror". So, anyway, I have something like 150 words to try and synopsize/describe a very complex novel that's almost 700 typescript pages long. 150 words to accurately convey the plot, the mood, something of the central characters. And I have to have it e-mailed to my editor before five p.m. this evening. I'd much rather spend the day with Dancy. Or Martian mineralogy. Or wedging my head into the bowl of the Worst Toilet in Scotland, for that matter.
Yesterday, Sonya Taaffe (
sovay) brought up a problem that I've been trying not to think about. A substantial portion of my writing time is now being devoted to the work I'm doing on Sirenia Digest. On the one hand, the digest is keeping the rent paid until the next book deal comes in, and there's no doubt that it's allowing my writing to grow in new and exciting directions. But it's also true that the majority of my writing is presently being done for a very small audience, and there is some danger of all this work "falling through the cracks", as it were, failing to come to the attention of reviewers and editors and suchlike. I've been worrying about this for a couple of months. Excepting "Bainbridge," the last full-length short story I wrote was "Night," in July 2005, and before that, "Bradbury Weather," way back in August 2004. And I see three primary reasons for this: 1) personal chaos over this past year; 2) the fact that most of 2005 was spent writing Daughter of Hounds; and 3) the energy that's going into Sirenia Digest. It's an odd situation to be in. I love the work I'm doing for the digest and that I did on Frog Toes and Tentacles, but it's all being written "off the radar," so to speak. For the foreseeable furture, I'm committed to the digest project and don't really see how I can address the problem. But I have recognized that it is a problem. To a degree, the release of Alabaster will help, as will the release of Daughter of Hounds, work which will help keep me in the public eye while I'm engaged in these more esoteric pursuits. Well, truth be told, writing short stories, even when those stories win awards or are chosen for "year's best" anthologies, is a pretty damned esoteric endeavor.There were wonderful thunderstorms just after sunset last night, and there will likely be more today.
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Just a thought...
Date: 2006-04-21 04:49 pm (UTC)Re: Just a thought...
Date: 2006-04-21 07:57 pm (UTC)I'm not sure if my arrangement with subpress would permit this. I'm also not sure how one goes about offerring .PDFs via Amazon.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-21 05:59 pm (UTC)Or better yet, start your own magazine of dark/fantastical/mystical/esoteric erotica. Better for us readers, at least.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-21 06:49 pm (UTC)See my comments to [info]sovay (below).
Or better yet, start your own magazine of dark/fantastical/mystical/esoteric erotica. Better for us readers, at least.
I'm pretty sure I'm not up to publishing a hard-copy zine at this point. I get dizzy just thinking about it.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-21 06:22 pm (UTC)(For the record, my last name is spelled "Taaffe." Blame all the doubled letters on Welsh.)
no subject
Date: 2006-04-21 06:46 pm (UTC)Sorry about that. Dumb typos come from not proofing because I'm in a rush. Fixed.
How were the sales of Frog Toes and Tentacles?
Very good. I believe the book's been sold out for a bit now.
I'm wondering how a collection of stories selected from Sirenia would do: for example, as much as I find monthly PDFs convenient, I always prefer paper and ink and I would be more than pleased to have another beautifully-bound book of Kiernan erotica on my shelf.
That's been the plan from the start and is the reason that Subterranean's sponsoring the digest. There's supposed to be a second volume published, later this year, I think.
Would you be comfortable sending such a collection to reviewers?
At this point, I just don't know. It's something I'd have to discuss with my agent.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-21 06:50 pm (UTC)No worries. You should hear telemarketers try to pronounce it.
There's supposed to be a second volume published, later this year, I think.
Cool. I look forward to that.
It's something I'd have to discuss with my agent.
In terms of how it would be received?
no subject
Date: 2006-04-21 06:59 pm (UTC)Yep.
No worries. You should hear telemarketers try to pronounce it.
Yeah, I get the same thing with "Caitlín Kiernan." My all-time favourite mangling is "Gateland Kermit." Welsh, Gaelic, it's all Greek to them... :)
no subject
Date: 2006-04-21 07:04 pm (UTC)That's practically a character name. I'm impressed. : )
no subject
Date: 2006-04-21 08:07 pm (UTC)I pronounced it 'TAAH-feh' before I heard it spoken.
My maiden name was Van Metre-Oestman, much to the consternation of everyone who ever tried to spell or pronounce it.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-21 08:11 pm (UTC)Is okay; if we still lived in Austria, that would probably be correct. In Ireland, I found that people pronounced it "Taff," and anybody who speaks Welsh is free to tell me what the original pronunciation would have been. This is what happens when a name takes up traveling.
My maiden name was Van Metre-Oestman, much to the consternation of everyone who ever tried to spell or pronounce it.
. . . That's awesome.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-21 07:10 pm (UTC)Then again, I quit economics after a year because I realized it was a nice way to bullshit with numbers.
Here's a thought- maybe you could market the digest to comics readers? You've got a credible comics background, and comics artists doing work. Maybe an interviews on Newsarama or the Pulse or TCJ or such would bring you a bit more exposure. If anything, comics readers love spending money.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-21 07:55 pm (UTC)Additional publicity, up to a point, would be welcome. I'm not sure if Sirenia would appeal to most comic writers. I'm just not very in touch with that market anymore. The trick, of course, is getting people interested in interviews...
no subject
Date: 2006-04-21 08:02 pm (UTC)You know...there's seriously a story in their somewhere. Mars: the Old Ones attempt at getting a planet started before they moved to earth, or a failed experiment in creating something else that they axed because it was growing out of control? AND MAY STILL BE THERE?! As soon as I finish my "The Other Gods"-meets-goth/industrial music story, I think I need to get started on that.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-21 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-21 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-21 11:24 pm (UTC)Ok now that I said that ... In terms of the small press releases you have been doing, the limited to 350 (or whatever) copies of books, how does the Digest compare to that in terms of money? I have no idea how many subscribers you currently have but if only, say, 350 own a copy of a book can the numbers be too much different, in terms of exposure?
As far as professionally I'd say bundle up some of the "Best of" of the Digest and use that as an example of your current work if you need to approach a new company, in terms of pitching a new novel.
Just curious, and obviously I have no business knowing the 'real' numbers. I'm just curious about how they compare, or don't, for that matter.
SD
Date: 2006-04-22 08:18 am (UTC)also wanted to mention that i got around to reading "pas-en-arriere" (apologies that i don't type that correctly). it is lovely, delightful. perhaps my favorite among this whole project. nicely done.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-23 02:55 am (UTC)"For One Who Has Lost Herself" would make an amazing stand-alone graphic novel.
And just a thought, but reading short stories in "year's best" collections is how I've discovered some of my very favorite writers. Writing short stories may be an esoteric endeavor, but certainly could be a worthwhile one with the right marketing.