They Didn't Ask Me

John Joseph Adams' New Magazine Guidelines

As I mentioned back in October, there's a new pro paying market coming out in June 2010, John Joseph Adams' Lightspeed. The Submission Guidelines are now online.

Lightspeed Guidelines

Guidelines for Original Fiction
Lightspeed is open for submissions beginning January 1, 2010. A link to the online submission system will be added to the site at that time.

Lightspeed is seeking original science fiction stories of 1000-7500 words. Stories of 5000 words or less are preferred. We pay 5¢/word for original fiction, on acceptance. To see which rights we're seeking, please view our contract template for original fiction.

All types of science fiction are welcome, from near-future, sociological soft sf, to far-future, star-spanning hard sf, and anything and everything in between. No subject should be considered off-limits, and we encourage writers to take chances with their fiction and push the envelope.

We believe that the science fiction genre's diversity is its greatest strength, and we wish that viewpoint to be reflected in our story content and our submission queues; we welcome submissions from writers of every race, religion, nationality, gender, and sexual orientation.

Guidelines for Reprints
Lightspeed will be publishing two reprints each month, but it is primarily a market for original fiction; a majority of our reprints will be directly solicited, but you may submit a reprint for consideration if you wish. For reprints, we are offering 1¢/word, on acceptance. To see which rights we're seeking, please view our contract template for reprinted fiction.

Rejections
Be aware that every month we expect to receive several hundred submissions. As such, we cannot offer personalized feedback on each story. If we say, "Send more," it does mean that we hope to see something else from you. Most rejections will be sent out in 48 hours or less, while stories being seriously considered may be held for up to two weeks.

Summary
Stories should be science fiction between 1000 and 7500 words long. Stories of 5000 words or less are preferred.

Payment for original fiction is 5¢/word, on acceptance. To see which rights we're seeking, please view our contract template for original fiction.

Payment for reprinted fiction is 1¢/word, on acceptance. To see which rights we're seeking, please view our contract template for reprinted fiction.

Response time: Most rejections will be sent out in 48 hours or less, while stories being seriously considered may be held for up to two weeks.

Submission Procedures
All fiction submissions must be submitted through our online submission system. A link to the online submission system will be added to the site by January 1, 2010.

Our submissions form asks for your name, email address, cover letter, story title, and story. Your cover letter should contain the length of your story, your publishing history, and any other relevant information (e.g, if you send us a hard sf story about black hole clusters and your doctoral dissertation was on black hole clusters, mention that). All stories should be in standard manuscript format and can be submitted in either .RTF or .DOC format. If you are unable to use our online submission system, please e-mail your story as an attachment to john@lightspeedmagazine.com. All questions about fiction and fiction related e-mails should go to john@lightspeedmagazine.com.

After you have submitted your story, a tracking number will be displayed and an automated email confirmation containing this information will be sent to you. If you have not received this email us. Your tracking number will allow you to monitor the status of your submission through our website, so please make note of it.

NOTE: Be sure to add john@lightspeedmagazine.com to your address book (or your email client's spam white list), and check your spam folder before querying if we have received your story.

Additional Notes
Lightspeed is not a market for fantasy fiction. Please submit fantasy stories to our sister publication, Fantasy Magazine.

Sexual themes and stories with strong sexual content are acceptable, but Lightspeed is not a market for erotica.

Lightspeed is not a market for media-based fiction (i.e., stories set in the Star Wars or Star Trek universes, etc.), or any kind of fan fiction.

Lightspeed is not a market for poetry.

We do not accept simultaneous submissions or multiple submissions.

Do not query for fiction. If you're not sure if your story is suitable, please simply submit it and let our editors decide.

If editor John Joseph Adams has previously rejected your story, please do not submit it to Lightspeed, unless it was rejected as being unsuitable for the market (due to theme, etc.) or unless it has been significantly revised to the extent that it is no longer the same story. (emphasis mine)

Please do not respond to rejection letters, even just to say "Thanks for the quick turnaround" etc. We appreciate the thought, but it is unnecessary and will just clutter up our editorial inbox.

Why The Big Deal

Well, for one thing we're always lamenting the loss of markets, especially paying markets. To have a new SF market coming out, one paying SFWA pro rates, is news to SF writers. Especially in light of the recent "Rate Fail" discussion -- a new market paying 0.1¢ a word -- which I'll probably blog about soon. Second, JJA has until recently been the Assistant Editor at The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and reading Gordon Van Gelder's slush pile for all the years I've been submitting to markets. And JJA's been editing some pretty nifty anthologies recently. Not that he's been buying my work. (grin) -- See italic emphasis in Guidelines above. -- Yet. (big-grin)

So, if you're a SF writer, you might want to read the above and think about some submissions. And if you're an SF reader, well, we'll just have to wait til June 2010 to see if all this fuss is worth it.

Dr. Phil

Tangle Girls Continues To Be Reviewed

Just found a November 11th review of "Under Suspicion" and the Tangle Girls anthology by the website Dear Author.

Janine wrote:

Set on the spaceship Mastodon, “Under Suspicion” begins when a shipwide alarm sounds, alerting United Star Fleet Ensign Lily Branoch and her fellow crewmembers to an accident in the main hanger. In the process of helping to rescue people trapped under “cargotainers,” Lily encounters a beautiful marine whose name she doesn’t catch. She glimpses the woman again before she learns that she is Lt. Cruz-Ortega.

Lily is powerfully attracted to the woman, so much so that she can’t get the lieutenant out of her mind. But this distraction becomes a problem when Lily begins to suspect that the beautiful Daniella may be involved in a plot to smuggle weapons off the Mastodon. Could Daniella Cruz-Ortega’s lovely face be hiding treachery? And even if not, will Lily ever get up the gumption to ask her out?

“Under Suspicion” was an enjoyable story and it probably had the most relationship focus of any of the stories in this collection. Lily was likable and the enigmatic Daniella was compelling. The worldbuilding was solid and I liked the military atmosphere. My main complaint is that due to the nature of the plot, the relationship between the two women did not develop that much. Nonetheless it was fun, though I would have liked it to be a bit more substantial.

Overall grade for the anthology is a B-, with "Under Suspicion" getting a C+/B-.

Given that the reviewer was looking at this from a Romance point of view, I can appreciate that my story held back and ended before Lily and Daniella's relationship gets very far. So you won't see me complaining about my grade. (grin) Especially since I thought the reviewer did a superb job of describing and analyzing my story. (double-grin) And I cannot find fault with someone who puts my ship names in italics. (triple-word-score-grin)

Another reason to appreciate this review of Blind Eye Book's anthology Tangle Girls, is the lament in the comments section that they don't see enough f/f Romance fiction to review. So I call this a win all the way around.

Tangle Girls is available from Blind Eye Books and Amazon.com.

Dr. Phil

A Day Of Running Errands

That's what Wednesday was supposed to be. I had quite a number of things planned out. But that was tossed in the rubbish bin when I got an email from Mrs. Dr. Phil before noon that the Grand Valley Family Clinic in downtown G.R. was going to have H1N1 vaccines, both shots and nasal mists, for employees, dependents and family. 3:30 to 6:30pm. Okay, so rather than run around, I could go down and get first in line. Then after lunch, I got a call from Mrs. Dr. Phil wondering if I could just pick her up after work and we'd both go down and see if they had any vaccines left.

We got our regular annual flu shots way back on 18 September, earlier than usual. But as my PHYS-1060 Stars and Galaxies students have succumbed to the evils of the H1N1 virus, I've wondered when or if we'd be able to get vaccinated. On the one hand, we're both over fifty, so there's some evidence that exposure to the bad flues of the '60s and '70s might provide some immunity. On the other hand, with reports of perhaps 20% or more of WMU students getting H1N1, and several of my students even being stowed in the quarantine dorms, I'm clearly working in a cesspool of swine flu infection. (grin)

We got down there and there was nobody in line. They'd had a lot of customers early on, but there was no one waiting as we filled out the forms. I'd been concerned that they'd only have the nasal mist vaccine left, and since I'm still taking some steroids for my sinuses, I didn't know if that was a clever idea. Not to worry, old fogies like us over-fifty types aren't supposed to get the nasal mist -- as I thought I'd heard a while back, it's way less effective for us.

So that was Wednesday and this is Friday night now. And other than a little bit of upper arm soreness, we've not had any problems. It takes some time to be fully effective, but if I can keep from getting sick between now and the start of classes in January, I hope I can make it through the double-flu season of 2009-10 without getting sick from that crud.

Yay, vaccines! Boo, viruses!

Dr. Phil

Thursday

Tuesday 1 December 2009 began with a really nice day. My drive to/fro Kalamazoo went from sunny skies, to overcast, and back again a couple of times. Though we had a light dusting on Thanksgiving, there'd really been no snow in our West Michigan forecast until now.

Got on campus around 11am. The faculty part of Lot 61 has been packed all semester, but usually I don't have to orbit around looking for a spot more than two or three times. Thursday it took fifteen minutes before anyone left. Very slight misting rain at the time. Fast forward to 6pm EST as I was leaving and there was a good inch or so of somewhat wet snow I had to brush off. No attempt at plowing anywhere, so I was 4WD all the way.

Driving sucked. Speeds varied from about 35 to 65 mph on the 70 mph highways, but mostly people weren't being idiots. The temp was near freezing, actually read 32°F on the sign by 84th Street in Grand Rapids. At times the flakes were huge and coming down at a hard rate, so that headlights just turned it all into white glare. There was a trailerless truck cab, a bobtail, mostly keeping pace with me that kept passing me, and without a trailer, it's tires were throwing up a completely blinding spray of water that I kept on wanting to get away from. The downside of water channeling tire technology. All told it was just under two hours to get home.

This Morning

At 2:30 am I marveled at the amount of snow which had built up on our back deck or had formed a cap on our heat pump in the front -- both had 8-12" of snow, but that was more a factor of wind patterns than how much we'd gotten. At 7:55am, the view out of the garage was this:


Mrs. Dr. Phil went to drive off to work, though she considered taking a "snow day" as by 7:40am Grand Rapids, Grand Haven, Allendale, Coopersville, etc. schools were all closed. The AWD Bravada got her slowly to the road, but between the rise up to the road, a thick ridge of heavy stuff that a plow had left at the end and the fact that the couple of cars she saw pass were sliding around our road, after not getting through the plow shit on the first or second try, she backed down the driveway and declared a snow day.

I think a call to John Miller to open up our driveway is in order. (grin)

But it's very white and very pretty. (wintry-grin)

Dr. Phil

Well, I Suppose It Had To Happen

Forty years ago or so, the people at the Harvard Lampoon published a parody called Bored of the Rings. The faithful were properly offended, but it was funny -- and the sucker's still in print! So back in the late 60s and early 70s, every college and high school student was reading LOTR. If lightning were to strike again, what meme would be attacked in 2009? Why yes, it's:

Nightlight

About three things I was absolutely certain. First, Edwart was most likely my soul mate, maybe. Second, there was a vampire part of him–which I assumed was wildly out of his control–that wanted me dead. And third, I unconditionally, irrevocably, impenetrably, heterogeneously, gynecologically, and disreputably wished he had kissed me.

Yes, the Harvard Lampoon has done a novel of Belle Goose falling in sort-of vampire-lusting love of Edwart Mullen, a computer geek who actually isn't a vampire, no matter how much Belle wants him to be. No, I haven't read Nightlight, or Twilight for that matter, but I thought I'd pass on the info. (grin)

I read about this in The Chronicle of Higher Education, but their online article is subscription based, so I won't link it here. Amazingly, this is a work of about a dozen people -- and the article mentioned that it was accidentally dumped into the Recycle bin for two days before someone noticed it and saved it. Ooh, vampire love and destiny -- this is the novel which had to be told! (eyerolls)

Let's hear it for parody. (But will it still be in print in 2049?) (Only time will tell)

Dr. Phil

Once Again I Guess I Have To Move One From The Rejection Column To The Win Column

This happened last October 2008, too. And I just on Friday decided to finally move this story to ASSUMED REJECTED status.

But First Day Of The Last Month Of 2009 E-Mail Brings Me:

... a 349-day SALE of "Your First Real Rocket Ship" to Εννέα (Nine).

Dear Mr Kaldon,
 
We published your story YOUR FIRST REAL ROCKET SHIP in issue #443. 
According to our rates (3 EUROcents per word) your fee for the 
publication rights of the abovementioned story is 44 EUROS.
 
You will find attached an invoice for the amount of 55 EUROS 
(55 - 11 = 44 - we cover for you a 20% tax).

With the euro at about €1 = $1.50, then €44 = $66. Not bad for a very short story of under 2000 words. (grin) Of course, this means that I will have a second story published in Greek -- and the second time that a story will be available in Greek and not yet in English. (double-language-grin)

Yay -- I was hoping for some more sales to close out 2009. Was definitely NOT expecting this particular sale, so a very pleasant early Christmas present indeed.

Dr. Phil

Unbelievably Cute

YouTube video via ellen_datlow:


Zero to Smile in under seventeen seconds. And I put (a) a cat (b) YouTube link on the Internet. (grin)

Dr. Phil

Variation In Traditions

For quite a number of years, we've actually done our Thanksgiving dinner on Friday or even Saturday, and have gone out on Thanksgiving to see some movies. Now I can hear it now -- doesn't this make you a hypocrite after your rant about Thanksgiving shopping? If you like. But I consider going to entertainment a bit different than Christmas shopping or looking for bargains for yourself. After all, people are going out on Thanksgiving to those big football games and the Big Balloon parades, etc. And frankly, the alternative is that a lot of multiplexes are located in, wait for it, shopping malls. And come Black Friday, people who don't like to drive into crowded places (like us'ns) won't go to those cinemas.

This year, though, we had some company and ended up doing the Turkey, et al, on Thanksgiving. So it was that we drove off to a movie on Friday. Away from any malls. Otherwise, we might've gone to see Bright Star, a four-star Jane Campion movie about Yeats. And no, we weren't going off to see sparkly vampires.

The Blind Side [PG-13]

Holland 7 Theatre #7, 2pm, 4×$6.75

It seems like a movie we've seen before. Big, really big, black inner city underprivileged kid is looked upon as meat for the local high school football team. Try to show him a new life and tutor the hell out of him, and hope to feed him to the Great Southern God of Football. Maybe make him illiterate or with a big chip on his shoulder. Doesn't even have to be a football movie, it could be Drumline.

It would be easy to say that The Blind Side is that movie we've seen before. Except I think that would do a series of disservices to this film and -- since this is based on a true story -- a disservice to the real people involved. Predictable? Somewhat. But we found it damned entertaining. And though I hadn't heard the real story of Michael Oher, or of the book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis, I found the characters pretty realistic and compassionate in a way very different from most of the movies out there.

Quinton Aaron as "Big Mike" -- can we say he plays his role low key with enormous energy? Can we say his character is hiding in plain sight and we get to watch him blossom? Sure. But of course what the reviews are going to talk about is Sandra Bullock. Now I've watched her since she had to drive a bus in Speed and really enjoyed her quirky offbeat characters. As Leigh Anne Touhy, we get to watch Sandra Bullock playing a real grownup. A force of nature. Now realize, she's as foreign to my life as Michael is. Rich. Driven. Southern Republican. A former cheerleader. But she's sincere -- and she has doubts. And dammit, at least twice in the movie she admits she's made a mistake, which would be very hard for her character, and she sucks it up. The queen of a string of romantic/action comedy movies has made an admittedly lightweight serious feel-good movie -- and dammit, I suspect she's going to earn herself an Oscar nomination, if not a statue.

The little brother of the family nearly steals the show -- the kid is brilliant as the plugged in operator -- wonder who he is supposed to have inherited that from. (grin) And a whole slew of NCAA Division I Southern head football coaches play themselves, which is a real treat. The wheeling and dealing is a bit comic, but it's as close as I'll ever get to sitting across a coffee table from a major league recruiter. (double-grin) And in this film, the crack using mother who lost custody of all her children over the years, isn't trying to get money from the new mom, trading a son for drugs. It would be so easy to complain, and I'm not sure it isn't something of a legitimate complaint, that this is some sort of white saves black from themselves story. Except that this all is set in motion by a black man helping out his own son and someone else's son, followed by a simple desire to help someone in a cold rain wearing nothing but soaked T-shirt and shorts and soggy tennies.

Since this is based on real events, it is interesting that there are things they decided not to do, decisions I think were made to avoid being distracting. The real Michael Oher graduated from Old Miss in 2009. Back up four years and he graduated from high school in 2005. So the action in this movie probably starts in 2002-2004, though I don't think it says. That's not all that long ago, but at the same time I don't think they made any attempt to adjust for the time period. Prior to Obama's run for the White House last year, the only people doing fistbumps that I ever saw were with Howie Mandel. (grin) Like I said, no distracting period stuff. Second, while it is crucial that the school involved was a private Christian school, and Sandra wears a lovely not-so-simple gold cross all the time, we never see any church scenes. These are the things they didn't do, and yet the movie clocks in at a solid 128 minutes. This isn't some 79 minute hardly-a-movie.

If you go, stay for beginning of the credits. They end the movie with Michael being drafted by the Baltimore Ravens -- and this is real footage. We get to see the family and people, and they did a fine job of casting, especially Sandra Bullock's hair (grin) and Kathy Bates (who is in everything lately) as the tutor. And an interesting side note, given the big debate in Michigan about whether to continue the subsidies to filmmakers shooting in the state, this movie about Memphis and Old Miss was shot in Georgia under their state program.

I don't think you particularly have to be a sports fan to see this. Perhaps it's that rare breed that qualifies as a guy's sports triumph movie and a chick flick that isn't a romance. Go figure. Or at least go see The Blind Side.

Recommended

Trailers: Invictus puts Morgan Freeman is as Nelson Mandela, trying to unify white and black South Africa, and picking on Matt Damon and the national rugby team to do it by winning the World Cup. I think South Africa will come out looking better than in District 9. Up In The Air, with George Clooney as a a busy traveler who swoops in to help fire employees -- will have to see the reviews of this one. We'll skip the life feed of Glenn Beck's The Christmas Sweater, trust me.

Dr. Phil

Mmm... Sigh

Finally, happier notes. Less grumpy. Surrounded by family here, phonelinks to family afar and echoes of friends and family online. And full from a delightful dinner.

Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, baked root vegetables (potatoes, turnips, carrots, leeks, onions), two kinds of cranberries (canned jelly and homemade cranberry-orange relish), gravy, a bottle of homemade Malbec (from a friend of Mrs. Dr. Phil in trade for some homemade bagels) -- and two kinds of pies, pumpkin and pecan. Oh. My. Yum.

Okay, So Much For The Big, Pig-Out Meal, But What About That Thankful Bit?

I am thankful that there's still a little sanity left in the world. That not everyone has to turn the holidays into a crass money grab. That I know many families who are visiting each other, meeting up with friends, and playing with their children. That not everyone is hellbent on trying to destroy the Earth (and each other). That there are still people interested in learning new things. And that there are people who are will to lighten up and have a little fun every now and then.

Yeah, Dr. Phil is pretty thankful every day -- and really, I'm much more of an optimist than a pessimist. Really.

(grin)

Dr. Phil

The Black Friday Blues and Dirge

I've gotta find some other things to post about, because I'm not all rant and doom and gloom. Really. But... Black Friday is evil. But it's not the source of the evil. Bear with me on this one.

Taking a family holiday, like Thanksgiving, and lure people to mob stores at 6am, 5am, 4am, 3am even, to find the couple of bargain priced items before they run out -- it's just mean. Mean to the employees. Mean to those storming the doors. Mean to all those who would never subject themselves to such a crowded circus (me! me!) or can't.

But wait, there's more.

This year Black Friday is expanding into Black Four-Day Weekend. What sick pervert makes people work and shop on Thanksgiving itself? There was a time nothing was open on Thanksgiving, which did inconvenience some people and made it difficult for those living alone or on the road and can't or are unable to cook. But shopping? You stayed home, you drove to grandmother's house, you watched the Big Balloon Parade, you watched football, you snacked, you ate, you napped. Sorry kids, mommy doesn't have time to do a traditional feast -- mommy has to go to work. Or worse, go out and shop.

The Source

Black Friday specials are loss leaders. They don't make money for the stores and most people won't get the deals. So why do "we" participate? Because in 2009 we're Two Incomes No Vacation Overworking Scared People -- and we don't really have the time anymore to do the holidays right. We keep on "improving" our worker productivity and efficiency, and the workers pitch in because they are afraid they'll lose their jobs, and now everyone is tired. We are working ourselves to death -- worrying about our jobs or job searches or about losing our health insurance. So we've got to get Big Stuff to show our children and family that we really love them and that all this working is really worth it.

Small Things

There's a 24-hour McDonald's in Kalamazoo that'll close at 2pm on Thursday and re-open at 10pm. Gosh, the crews and managers can be home for the holidays. Thank you!

And for you who actually scored a $200 laptop or $500 HDTV for yourself, I hope you choke on it. (grin)

Dr. Phil (who really doesn't want to be a Grinch, but Black Friday behavior isn't very spiritual or friendly and makes me bitter)

What Does Unemployment Look Like?

It looks like some biowarfare map of an airborne Ebola or just plain ol' H1N1 epidemic. But someone has made an animated map of the US showing the wave of unemployment county by county over the last two years. Note that most of Michigan starts off in the purple-black range.

"Houston, we've lost a country."

Of Course...

10% unemployment also means 90% employment -- though even that feel-good stat doesn't translate any of the subtlety of quality employment, suitable health care coverage, job satisfaction, worker portability or underemployment.

Dammit, reality sucks.

Dr. Phil

I Give You, The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody



Your moment of Zen for today.

Dr. Phil

In Case, Like Me, You Don't Know What's Going On

In my previous post, I talked about the huge midnight success of The Twilight Saga: New Moon, the second movie based on the series of books by Stephenie Meyer.

Now as I said, I haven't read the books and I haven't seen either movie. But online friend jeffsoesbe provided a link to glvalentine's post on New Moon and I think it very worthwhile for all to read. Now I don't know Genevieve Valentine, but this review (with spoilers) is hilarious and very educational. (grin)

Okay, so it's an outrageous snarkfest and sure to irritate anyone who is a Twilight fan. (evil-grin) The one saving grace is that glvalentine felt that the audience laughed at some of the ineptitude of the film and wonders whether the appeal is more one of camp than Serious Love. Otherwise, one worries for the self-image and sanity for a whole generation of young women...

My job, I think, is done here.

Dr. Phil

Twilight Of The Sparkly Midnight New Moon

Say what you will about Stephenie Meyer and her Twilight books, but they are popular. And the two movies? Huge.

To give you some idea, let's point out that the Grand Rapids area biggest line this week was not at the Barnes & Noble bookstore at Woodland Mall. No, we're talking about the midnight showings for Twilight: New Moon.

Long considered the staple of SF/F and Star Wars and Star Trek geeks, the midnight showings locally were taken over by a largely female crowd of all ages. Only a teen phenomenon? Oh, puh-leese. Pictures on the local news and in the Grand Rapids Press showed many middle-aged women who were not all mothers chaperoning their teens or pre-teens.

When Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace opened on 19 May 1999, Studio 28 had a midnight showing in Theatre 1, then had it running in 3 other theatres for the first 24 hours. Fast forward to 2009 and while Studio 28 is gone, the same chain's Celebration North mulitiplex opened New Moon in all 17 non-IMAX theatres at midnight -- over 3500 seats -- and sold out. Systemwide, they sold something like 14,200 midnight tickets, exceeded only by one of the Harry Potter's at 14,600 (and Celebration North opened it in 14 theatres at midnight).

While some of this is marketing and choosing to open extra theatres and offer more seats for the midnight showings, one needs to point out another set of interesting factoids about West Michigan: (1) this was on a school night and (2) with (most?) West Michigan schools on trimesters, final exams start like on Friday. And still the teens contributed to the surge.

The Inevitable Complaints

Last Sunday, I showed up for part of a 10am panel at WindyCon 36 on "Rowling and Meyer" and what young readers are reading. J.K. Rowling's writing poor and predictable? Stephenie Meyer can't write either and her vampires aren't (sniff) canonical? Does not seem to be hurting the sales, folks. Even the NPR news quiz show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me on Saturday tried to argue that all these Twilight fans are going to be unprepared to go up against real vampires. (grin)

Look, I haven't read any of the Twilight novels or seen the movies. And I know some people who have and their heads didn't explode -- some of them really like them. But they are successful and I won't begrudge either writer, stars or studio their success. Did I mention that Mister Werewolf in New Moon is a local boy from Michigan? (grin) While not all these readers and moviegoers are going to become lifelong SF/F fans of all genres, there will be some who go on to read more books and see more movies.

A rising tide raises all boats. Wrestling a tsunami is a little harder. (grin)

Dr. Phil

A Horrifying Development

Lots of people read romances. And the paranormal romances are clearly a cousin of genre writing -- and sometimes it is a pretty artificial division. I read Marjorie Liu's stuff, and Meljean Brook -- these are authors I know from Clarion and online, respectively.

Growing up, the brand name Harlequin seemed synonymous with Romance to me -- I guess in terms of sales, for good reason. But recently Harlequin decided to announce a new venture, essentially mining their slush pile for an in-house vanity press operation. For God's sake, Publisher's Weekly ran a news flash with a straight face. I heard about this first via Nick Kaufmann via Nick Mamatas.

But now Scalzi and Making Light have lit in, because -- Thank God! -- the RWA (Romance Writers of America), MWA (Mystery Writers of America) and SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) have all condemned the move. In particular, RWA is to be commended, seeing as they have the most to gain and lose in this effort:

One of your member benefits is the annual National Conference. RWA allocates select conference resources to non-subsidy/non-vanity presses that meet the eligibility requirements to obtain those resources. Eligible publishers are provided free meeting space for book signings, are given the opportunity to hold editor appointments, and are allowed to offer spotlights on their programs.

With the launch of Harlequin Horizons, Harlequin Enterprises no longer meets the requirements to be eligible for RWA-provided conference resources. This does not mean that Harlequin Enterprises cannot attend the conference. Like all non-eligible publishers, they are welcome to attend. However, as a non-eligible publisher, they would fund their own conference fees and they would not be provided with conference resources by RWA to publicize or promote the company or its imprints.

Sometimes the wind of change comes swiftly and unexpectedly, leaving an unsettled feeling. RWA takes its role as advocate for its members seriously. The Board is working diligently to address the impact of recent developments on all of RWA’s members.

So far, it sounds as if Harlequin sounds hurt, but has removed the name Harlequin from the new venture. It has not, however, decided to skip becoming "Romance Publish America".

Why This Is Evil

Self-publishing is when you hire someone to print your work -- it is very useful for certain limited interest publications, gifts and small runs of things for family & friends. Vanity publishing is when you hire someone to pretend you're a professional author -- they make you believe that your book is "just like" something which has been vetted and marketed by a real publisher.

As annoying as rejection is and as big as slush piles get at real publishers, you really can't judge your own work all that fairly. For someone else to say, "hey, this is good, we can work with this, and we'd like to pay you this much to publish your work", is setting the minimum bar level.

In real publishing, money goes to the author.

If I put up a story on this LJ or on my website, http://dr-phil-physics.com , I'm doing this for fun and/or to give people a taste of my writing for free -- especially given that some of my real publications are hard to get. And I've been using unpublished stories so as not to interfere with those who have published me. But I know these are not vetted, edited works. They are my words and I can give them away if I feel like, provided they're not under contract elsewhere.

For you to pay Harlequin, or its minions, hundreds or thousands of dollars to produce books that likely will not sell and will never get promoted to "the real publishing arm" is a scam. The bait-and-switch aspect of slush piles and rejection letters is just too vile to support. Harlequin's management should be ashamed of themselves and grovel at the feet of their authors, their readers and the writers' organizations like RWA and beg their forgiveness and vow to sin no more forever. Period.

So far, no. Clearly we are misunderstanding Harlequin.

And this has to be CRUSHED IN THE BUD, lest in these dangerous financial times, other legitimate publishers begin to start thinking -- hey, I've got this fucking big slush pile, too, and maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't be so bad if I followed Harlequin's lead. And don't get all sanctimonious that hey, it was Harlequin that did this, one of those Romance publishers, complete with the eye rolling of superiority. Because it could happen to anyone in any genre. No, really. It could happen elsewhere.

NO. It'd be BAD. It's not RIGHT. And you people all know it. Preying on the wallets of those with hopes and dreams of becoming published authors is WRONG. And EVIL.

So just STOP IT. NOW.

And please, PLEASE, PLEASE... Don't Fall For This Shit Yourself.

Dr. Phil

Saturday 14 November 2009 - Evening

Continuing with WindyCon 36, we've arrived at 6pm, my reading. This is my second reading at a con -- I gave one at ConFusion in January. I know I'm behind in updating my website, but memo to self: need to add a page about giving readings and signings. (grin)

Given that the con's theme was Steampunk, I decided to go counterculture and do a "high tech" reading. Forget those Kindles, I've been impressed with the Sony Reader eBooks. I can hook up the PRS-300 with a mini-USB cable and treat it like a flashdrive, downloading at RTF version of my manuscript at no cost (or even installing the interface software). For the reading I stepped up the font size to Large.


Other than having to anticipate page turns by hitting the page button a trifle early so the electronic ink can update in time, I had no problems reading the bright contrasty screen. In Standard Manuscript Format, my story was about 7900 words in 32 pages -- as you can see, enlarging and reformatting it made it 112 screens long.

Dammit, Dr. Phil -- What About The STORY?

So glad you asked. "Z.P.D. (Zeppelin Police Department)" was read before an audience of about five people -- of which I only knew two. I previously described it as "Noir. Police. Zeppelins. Steampunk." I had promoted it earlier at some sessions, one does have to be proactive about these things after all, and one person told me, "You had me at zeppelins." (grin)

I've been told that a good reading is about twenty minutes. Naturally, when I test read the story last Thursday it took about 32 minutes -- I always write long. That said, I must say I had people glued in their seats and managed to elicit some reactions at some of the twists.

Yeah, my reading went REALLY WELL. And "Z.P.D." will be sent out to the majors as soon as it can be fit in the rotation. I'd brought a couple copies of WOTF XXIV, which Al and I signed, and handed out to those who attended.

Steakpunk

It looked like we had four to go over to the Harry Caray's Italian Steakhouse for dinner afterward. Al tried calling over, but the number didn't work. We wandered over -- Walnut was literally the furthest room from the lobby -- and found out that there'd be an hour wait. So we went out to the lobby and took over one of the tables used by groups during the afternoon. Matt couldn't stay for dinner, but hung around for the chat, then it was just me, Al and Allen. I guess Jill, who was meeting other friends for dinner, had gone later to the restaurant to look for us, but we were still in the lobby.

Dinner, of course, was magnificent. Had them make some calamari without breading. Al and I had the 9 oz. fillet -- a ball fillet not a strip -- mine had Gorgonzola and his had peppercorns. Allen had really lovely looking fettucini alfredo -- which at one time I ordered all the time at Italian restaurants, but cut out because it's just too rich and I don't need it. (sad grin) Split a huge Idaho baked potato, and some broccoli and mushrooms. Stuffed all, I told our excellent waiter Christopher that he should at least tell us about desserts. Allen and I shared a chocolate bourbon pecan pie -- you thought I'd pass up an opportunity for a really fine not-too-sweet pecan pie?

Although not cheap, WindyCon 37 is also at this Westin on 12-14 November 2010 -- and if you come you owe it to yourself to splurge at Harry Caray's, if you love steak, Italian and/or seafood.

Sunday 15 November 2009

Packed up, check out, stash stuff in the Blazer. Then off to do a quick check of the Dealer's Room, to see if anyone was selling any Steampunk stuff. One dealer had some lovely leather and brass goggles, one set complete with extra magnifying lenses, but the ones I liked were $120 and $149 respectively -- too rich for today. So on to...

11am, third Christian Ready show with latest Hubble Space Telescope images. Noon, "Alternative Technology", What assumptions are made about steampunk technology? What is possible from a materials engineering standpoint and what breaks the rules of physics? I'm on this panel and we had a lot of fun talking metallurgy, the time that steam engines require, lubrication and maintenance issues, etc. As with the Science of Steampunk panel, the emphasis was made that alternative universe stories which are well crafted and consistent, can always get away with murder -- scientifically speaking. (grin)

Jeff Karp, my friend from Northwestern days, was supposed to meet me at 1pm. And I quickly found him, and as I mentioned before, he bought me lunch while we caught up.

All too soon it was time to leave and hit the road. No problems racing into the heart of Chicago on I-88 and I-290, through the Post Office and hang a right turn at Buckingham Fountain, then off onto Lake Short Drive and Indiana. Naturally, the only problems were at the end. The Shell station at M-89 was overrun with vehicles, so I drove on. Road construction on I-196 closed the last Rest Stop before Holland. And the exit for US-31 North was closed, probably due to reconstruction on the flats from previous washouts during the flooding this summer. So I got off at M-40, hit the McDonald's for a restroom, then home.

Dr. Phil

Friday The Thirteenth

Continuing on with my coverage of WindyCon 36, I had planned on leaving West Michigan around noon EST, with 2004 Clarion and WOTF XXIV classmate albogdan Al Bogdan driving over from East Michigan. But that would suppose his car was working. He told him me to go on without him. So I actually got out of town by about 12:30. (grin)

Last year I ran smack into a massive construction rebuild project on Chicago's I-88 Reagan expressway (East-West Tollway) -- in the rain and at rush hour. Crawled the last four miles or so. This year I was running early. Now WindyCon's planners decided to route all the directions away from I-88 and Highland Avenue. But given we're across Lake Michigan from Chicago, I've got WBBM-AM News Radio 78 (and WGN Radio 720) on presets. So I was able to get traffic info every ten minutes and they kept saying no delays on the Reagan. I-290 near Austin was, as usual, more of a bottleneck. No further problems and I arrived at the Westin Lombard around 4pm CST. Also heard from Al, he'd gotten ahold of a vehicle and was driving all the way in from metro Detroit.

Checked in and hit my first panel at 5pm, "So What Is Steampunk?" (see picture of panelist James Ballard Smoot here), then 6pm, "I Could Kill You With My Mind", started with River Tam from Firefly and talked about morality and moral codes about killing -- and insanity.

Meat Up With Mattw

7pm, Opening Ceremonies. Some people like them, some people don't. If I'm there, it's fun to see the various con invited guests. Afterward, the 8pm presentation was the "Gaslamp Fantasy" Girl Genius and "Revenge of the Weasel Queen", projected artwork by the Guest Artists Phil and Kaja Foglio and voices by the same bunch of crazies who did the little play at last year's Opening Ceremonies. Then at 9pm, former Hubble Space Telescope worker Christian Ready did a lovely presentation on the Electromagnetic spectrum and the various space telescopes searching the various bands. (Really hard to do a Google search on "Christian Ready".)

Amongst all this, I heard someone behind me say, "Dr. Phil" and fellow UCF member Matt came up. He was even wearing a UCF logo T-shirt. (grin) Naturally, I thought I'd commemorate this meat-up, but holding my little Sony out in front, there was no flash. No picture?

Camera was firing, but no flash -- because of the very bright indirect lighting of the ceiling.

Dr. Phil: "Uh, is this thing working?" (FLASH!)

Matt and I talked, and then I went up to the room to see if Al had made it. Actually, he was coming out of the room just as I turned the corner from the elevator. So we went in the room and talked a bit, then we headed down to see if I could still grab a hamburger or something, having not had dinner. Alas, as 10:20pm the kitchen had closed. So we went by the ConSuite, where I had a traditional con peanut butter & jelly sandwich (with Ruffles potato chips) and a Coke. (extra special grin) Such is con life.

Saturday 14 November 2009

The Westin's hotel restaurant is superb -- Harry Caray's Italian Steakhouse / Holy Mackerel -- and they do a more than complete breakfast service. Pancakes it is. (triple-stack-grin) On to panels!

10am, "Baen is for Men, DAW is for Women". Eric Flint (Baen Books) started out by reading the title as a question, then saying, "Yes." But of course he wasn't serious and it was all more complicated than that. Jim C. Hines was supposed to be on the panel, but was double-booked with the writers' workshop and only showed up at the end. The panel seemed to feel that the perception of the title was more on the reader than the publisher, though Baen covers were thought be recognizable from across the room. 11am, "Doing the Science in Steampunk", was similar to the panel I was on for Sunday on Alternative Tech in Steampunk, and it has a lot to do with a consistent vision by the author. Because armored zeppelins ain't never gonna fly. (steel-plated-grin)

Quiet lunch by myself in the restaurant with a turkey club sandwich and a coke (Pepsi). This year the restaurant also was offering a lunch and dinner buffet by the con itself -- buffet lunch was $13, dinner $15. My lunch in the restaurant? Exactly $13.00. (smile) 1pm, the Christian Ready show continues with a presentation and half-hour video of May's fifth and last Hubble Space Telescope's repair and upgrade mission. Interestingly, today NPR was reporting that the Wide Field Camera 2 pulled from HST is now on display at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.

Take A Break

SF cons, Physics and Chemistry conferences -- I can usually fill up the whole day with sessions. But sometimes you need to take a nap and definitely take some time to regroup before you're up. With say a reading, perhaps. So I wandered back to the room and caught the last 30 seconds of the Northwestern game (NU beat Illinois, they're 7-4 and bowl eligible!), the last 3 minutes of the Michigan State game (MSU beat Purdue right at the end), saw that Michigan got beat up by Wisconsin (snort), and turned off the Ohio State-Iowa game after it started. Took a nap for a while. When I woke up, it was 10-10 in the 3rd quarter, and I told Al, who'd also come in for a nap, that we hadn't missed anything. OSU won in OT, completing a brief survey of Big Ten football on the room's decent LG HDTV.

Read through my story one more time, then headed downstairs...

Next up: Dr. Phil's reading and Steakpunk!

Dr. Phil

Book Stores -- The New Conservative Meeting Place

Tuesday Mike Huckabee was in Grand Rapids, having a book signing at Schuler's Books & Music for his non-political A Simple Christmas. Twelve short stories about Christmas. Of course if you were really cheap and didn't care about whether it was signed or not, this is one of Amazon's $10.00 deep discount titles.

Tonight, Wednesday, the Barnes & Noble at Woodland Mall was drawing huge lines -- maybe 1200 1500 people, with the line starting over twelve hours ago at 7am EST -- for Sarah Palin's first book signing for Going Rogue. Though this second book signing has much larger crowds, there is some known overlap, with several of the people interviewed from Tuesday saying that they were going to go early for Palin's line. In the Grand Rapids Press there was someone saying that Palin is "young and beautiful and she shoots moose -- what's not to like?"

MSNBC was just saying that it isn't just a book signing, but there's a stage set up outside and she'll be making an address... a speech? I don't do Barnes & Noble*** and I don't do malls, so I'm definitely not there. (grin)

Not Sure I Want To Analyze This But...

Looking at the Amazon listing for Huckabee's Christmas stories, they had one of their mulitple-books-with-one-click deals, tripling up A Simple Christmas and Going Rogue with Glenn Beck's Arguing With Idiots. So much for the spirit of Christmas, I guess.


Dr. Phil

*** It is interesting that this shoot-out of two big book signings on two days is between Schuler's Books and Barnes & Noble. We found Schuler's soon after we got to West Michigan and have been going to their two Grand Rapids stores, and I've been to their Lansing stores, ever since. They expanded to a new location in part because the old two-level store was crowded, but also because Barnes & Noble was moving into West Michigan with a giant stand alone store. Well, that B&N, which I was never in, is now closed, because B&N decided to build a bigger store attached to Woodland Mall, next to the discount Celebration Woodland movieplex. I'm sure Schuler's is happy to let B&N have the circus at the mall.

It's not that I've never been to or bought things at a Barnes & Noble -- Chicago IL, Holland MI and Greensboro NC are ones I've been in -- but to me they are something of the Walmart of booksellers. Crossing the line between mall/big box bookstores and the locally owned quality bookstore.

Just sayin'.

It's Clearly Complicated

I knew there was a big change in the Nebula rules since January 2009, so since a number of other writers have posted lists of eligible stories, I thought I'd take a look, too. There's a nice distillation of the rules here.

Full Disclosure: I have not yet had enough pro sales to qualify for full active membership in SWFA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, so I have not yet joined, i.e. I am not yet eligible to vote myself.

From 1 July 2008 to 31 December 2009
Works of Philip Edward Kaldon in English
and Published in the United States:

a. Short Story: less than 7,500 words
8. "Le Grand Bazar" at Space Westerns. (December 2008)
http://www.spacewesterns.com/articles/108/ (5200 words)
10. "The Brother on the Shelf" in Analog Science Fiction and Fact. (May 2009) (3000 words)

b. Novelette: at least 7,500 words but less than 17,500 words
6. "A Man in the Moon" in Writers of the Future Anthology Vol. XXIV
August 2008 (14,000 words)
9. "Under Suspicion" in Tangle Girls (Blind Eye Press)
January 2009 (10,000 words)

c. Novella: at least 17,500 words but less than 40,000 words
None.

d. Novel: 40,000 words or more
None.

NOTE: the numbers in front of each story are my publication numbers, seen here. Story number 7 was published in Greek, in Greece, and is not eligible. Stories 11 and 12 were published in Australia, not the U.S., and so are not eligible:
11. "Machine" in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Issue #38
(March 2009) (9000 words)
12. "In the Blink of an Eye" in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine,
Issue #39 (June 2009) (7100 words)

Four Works

I'm pretty proud of all four of these stories. "Le Grand Bazar", which is in English I should point out (grin), was the first story I submitted anywhere in June 2002, and was one of my two submission stories to Clarion. I'm glad it finally found a home. Some of my readers have said it is a beautiful story. (blushes) "The Brother on the Shelf" was my first sale to a major, Analog, and selling a military SF story to Stanley Schmidt is a hard sell, but then it is and it isn't a military SF story. (grin) "A Man in the Moon" was my Published Finalist in the Writers of the Future XXIV, and represents a big step up in my writing career. And "Under Suspicion" was my hard military SF story sold to Nikki Kimberling's lesbian SF/F anthology Tangle Girls, and I've gotten some very nice comments and reviews on this story.

If any Nebula voters would be interested in reading or nominating these stories, I would be very grateful. Contact information is located here on my website, dr-phil-physics.com.

Dr. Phil

More WindyCom To Come

... but right now I'm going to post about a few things that don't quite deserve their own individual postings.

November in West Michigan

You know I seem to recall a number of days of rain in a row, but that might have actually been in October. At any rate, the local weather people are commenting that if things continue as they have, then this will be the warmest and driest November on record. Hmm... well, I know I've commented that it seemed like we had November weather in October (minus any snow this far south, though they got some in Northern Michigan) and October weather in November (minus any real HOT Indian Summer -- like 80-100°F). They've also been looking at the weather patterns to the west and north to comment on when the earliest possible snow might come. At this point, they're now saying that the Sunday after Thanksgiving, 29 November 2009, is the earliest we might get some -- and if we did it could be a pile -- otherwise we'll get no snow in November at all and none til into December.

We're Free!

Apparently while I was off to Chicago, the big I-196 rebuild between 28th Street and 44th Street has begun to wind down and on Friday night they let the eastbound traffic onto the new pavement and have more than one lane. By today, Tuesday, all the barriers were gone so we had all the westbound lanes. Only annoying thing is that there weren't any speed limit signs anywhere in the former construction zone from where I got on at 28th Street, so is it still 60mph or have they let it back up to 70mph?

Other than the slowdown and the narrowness of the lanes, this hasn't been bad going west/south on my way to Kalamazoo. But the shift over to one lane on the east/north return leg has frequently been a bottleneck -- and heaven help everyone if there's a breakdown and everything comes to a crawl or a wreck where there's no shoulder and everything comes to a halt. Of course, NOW I don't have any 6pm commitments back home for the rest of the semester, where I have to race back from K-zoo. (grin)

A Slump

Today, Tuesday, I went to open my office door and it only opened maybe eight inches. One of my legendary piles of boxes had undergone a partial slump and was blocking the way. Fortunately, it did open up enough that I could get a hand in there and move boxes out of the way -- they're mostly Amazon boxes of papers and so not very large -- and I was able to get in on my own. With minimum swearing and grumping. (grin)

My office was probably a storage room when it was designed, but has been an office ever since I got down to WMU in like July 1992. However the door has still got its heavy duty closing spring, so I suspect that the janitors shove the door open hard to work against the spring and opened it too far. Wonder if they heard the landslide after the door shut? Or whether it mysteriously happened in the middle of the night.

We'll never know. But one can speculate. (Actually, I've already speculated some on the boxes in my office, having published a story called "Boxes" in the CrossTIME anthology Volume 5 -- grin.)

Facebooking

I seem to recall that the average number of Facebook "friends" that a person has is around 300. I have less than a hundred -- looks like 91 right now -- which is more than fine with me. Someone the other day was linking to an article which suggested that people can only keep track of about 150 friends in real life, and so since they had about 300 Facebook friends, they wondered which half they should keep and which half they could dump. (double-grin)

Some people are pretty prolific, including those who crosslink everything in Twitter and LJ. There was free WiFi in the hotel this weekend only in the restaurant (with some signal leakage into the lobby area), and when I went to look at Facebook late in the weekend, there were something like 314 new updates. Yeesh. I decided not to look at that until I got home. (triple-word-score-grin)

The thing about Facebook is that is just barelyacceptable to use. They upgrade things all the time, without warning, and just about when you get used to one way they display stuff, they change it. And everyone seems to hate the new versions... a lot! Which makes me wonder whether FB ever bothers to have anyone look at their update versions before inflicting them on people. Or whether there was ever a canonical version of Facebook that users actually liked.

For me FB is a time sink which still has some utility. I have a Facebook group for my Physics classes, and while there's not a lot of posting there, I do know that when I make updates that a lot of students do see my announcements, so it's still worth it. And the regular personal Facebook is a mashup of groups: NU alum, MTU alum, Grimsley HS alum, 2004 Clarion alum, WOTF XXIV alum, other SF/F writers and fans, other library people and, last but not least, family.

I set up a LinkedIn account recently, in order to be able to read someone's page, but so far I've not found it otherwise terribly useful, plus it's weirdly implemented. Wow, a social networking system that makes Facebook look good. (grin) Besides MySpace. (evil grin)

Dr. Phil