It's not just you. The universe has sucked mightily lately. Fear not. Er, well, only a little anyway.

Oh, yes. It sucks beyond all one-time conceivable paranoid barely-imaginable nightmares of suckage.

278 days left. And then we start cleaning up the mess, if that's even possible.

I feel strongly reminded of something by the opening gambit of that wee missive. Specifically:

"Tor Books, Tammany Hall, and the First Armored Division."

Courage. I have friends who are astrologically inclined who would doubtless tell me that Some Damned Planet has gone splah, and everything will be better when it gets nudged back into its proper orbit.

I have other friends who simply say, at times like this, that it's raining assholes.

(Paranthetically, I am daunted by the number of people I recognized in that aerial shot of the SFWA mill n' swill.)

"Besides, if I’m so triffically elevated, how come I don’t have the power to squash him like a bug?"

But, er, you just *did*. Very effectively, too. He[1] should have put his silly failed chastisement in the comments thread; the worst that would have happened then is disemvowelment.

There's nothing wrong with holding somebody up to ridicule when that person is intrinsically ridiculous. :)

[1] random gender assignment; I'm afraid I can't distinguish genders by arrogance very well

Wow, that was funny. For some people, self-importance is the only sort of importance they'll ever have.

I work in the RPG industry, so I sometimes get loony letters/forum posts like this one. Once, a guy pissed me off so badly that I offered to pay his airfare to a major gaming con so I could kick his ass.

He didn't take me up on the offer.

Courage. I have friends who are astrologically inclined who would doubtless tell me that Some Damned Planet has gone splah, and everything will be better when it gets nudged back into its proper orbit.

Maybe it's that new planet. Its orbit's eccentric enough, and it takes so flippin' long to get round the Sun that all parties start without it, leaving it naught to do except write snippy "more in sorrow than anger" notes to the other planets.

Come to think of it, that may be what’s going on here. I occasionally catch flak from people who don’t feel up to confronting Patrick. I’ll wait a minute while everyone who knows us stops laughing

Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Patrick told you I was having dental problems and you made this up just so I could have a good laugh, right? Right?

Ahem. Well, I do enjoy the occasional eviscerations of this sort which you perform so very well. Keep up the good work. Perhaps someday I'll be able to laugh at them without coughing. Perhaps.

MKK--you know, she adds thoughfully, if they give me nitrous tomorrow this could offer rich pickings for some good fantasy....

It's not just you; 2004 has roundly sucked all around. The only reason I'm here reading this weblog is because I can't sleep because I'm too stressed because of the aforementioned suckage.

To not go into too much detail but sum it up in a nutshell: last Thursday, the epitome of suckage, I came home to a phone message that had me peering in the mirror intently to see if I had suddenly turned into the main character in one of my own books.

I wonder if this guy has actually read this blog before. I can't conceive of him writing this letter if he had.

Since starting to read this blog I often find myself saying "And Teresa said..." only to have people stop me and ask who "Teresa" is. Then I have to quietly admit that, no, I don't actually know this person, I just read her blog.

That instinct to think of your blog-self as a friend might just stem from your ideal balance of sarcasm and friendliness.

I sort of wish he had tried that in the thread, so I could have attacked him...

In a far less efficient or witty manner.
Hehe.

Tee hee hee... that was simply hilarious... and more than worth the (mild) chastisement I've received from my wife for reading this blog instead of getting my work done. Now if only the person concerned will be outraged enough by your response to write back another email for you to entertain everybody with...

Anyway, time for me to get back to work now. I'm glad to hear that you're starting to feel better.

Y'know, this Yngve pindick was over at SciFiWeekly just two weeks ago, with the same mix of insults, condescension, and obvious ignorance. I knew his name was familiar:

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue359/letters.html#sftv

Can you give us some perspective on how often something as frankly batshit as the "In Defense of Yngve" letter darkens your inbox? Is this something you and Patrick get on a monthly basis? Weekly? (Gulp) Daily?

Oh my. Cripes. Don’t I just wish.

But you just did! Not with the power inherent in you as Tor Editor, Almighty and Allpowerful :-) but with the power that results from being very much more intelligent than the person who has just written that arrogantly condescending letter. Which is his problem, not yours.

2004 has not been a good year so far. But this was good.

The letter to you did sound condescending, and the resultant impulse is wholly understandable. After all, Yngve wrote difficult material to swallow without raising hackles as he himself acknowledged, but I do think it's worthwhile to try to peer through the veil to see if he had made a point worth considering, and I thought he had. But maybe I was reading into his comments.

Although he "was deliberately provoking a reaction," I don't think he meant to offend any particular person, for he wrote:

"Good points, all. I'm preaching to the choir. :)"

However, I have a tendency to try to understand the unpopular and--if I can understand--to stick up for them.

Teresa, you know full well no-one would put up with reading you blog if we weren't trying to suck up to you... and I have a full shrine to you and Patrick in my loft. Don't you realise, unless we sacrifice our pride, attention and first born children to your dark appetites, you'll not publish our perfect books, and instead keep pushing out that trash you pretend you like as part of your plan to bring down Western civilization? Or was that Western Union, I get confused.

But, as Mike's probably noticed, there do seem to be a lot of them out there recently, and a couple of old favourites have re-appeared in the RPG fora. It's either that new planet and the re-commissioning of Dr Who, I tells ya.

And Father Ted showed the proper attitude to times like this, with the time honoured phrase "A shower of bastards"

I always find your blogs worth reading, btw. It's great to have the insight of an editor. We probably don't thank you enough, so multiple thank-yous for not only posting them but also responding. You put a human face on publishing, and I'm sorry that people sometimes take advantage of that for abuse.

"However, I have a tendency to try to understand the unpopular and--if I can understand--to stick up for them."

The temptation is to remark "don't sprain your shoulder patting yourself on the back." But that's a bit too mean.

There's nothing actually wrong, and plenty that's good, about an impulse to understand and defend the unpopular. The problem is that unpopularity, by itself, isn't a reliable marker for worthiness. If you really do use it as your compass for discerning what to "try to understand" and "stick up for," you'll wind up sticking up for some very bad people, at the expense of some people who actually deserve your support.

This is because sometimes individuals are "unpopular" because everybody else is being a shit, and sometimes they're "unpopular" because other people are exercising reasonable judgement. If you lump the two kinds of situations together indiscriminately, you'll get morally incoherent results.

"It's great to have the insight of an editor. We probably don't thank you enough, so multiple thank-yous for not only posting them but also responding. You put a human face on publishing"...

This might be a good place to remark that neither Making Light nor Electrolite were ever intended to be primarily the voice of An Editor.

Teresa and I have been committing this kind of writing on a regular basis for nearly thirty years. Back in the 1970s and 1980s it tended to be mimeographed onto fuzzy paper. More recently it's been more likely to be found on computer screens. The habit long predates our current day jobs.

We both write about aspects of those jobs. Teresa is particularly good at it. But if we were working as florists or cement-mixer operators, I suspect Teresa would write long and funny essays about nuances, ironies, and practical realities in the worlds of flower arranging or cement transportation. The point was never to be Joe Editor to the world of Aspiring Authors. The point was always to have interesting conversations with our friends--those whom we know, and those whom we don't know yet.

Something I've never understood, in the eschatology espoused by people like this, is how they would deal with the following question: "if your books and the books your friends write are so good, and Tor only publish junk by other folks ... how come they don't go bust?"

There's an obvious answer: "the readers are idiots and keep buying the junk". (Yes, there are other answers -- but in my experience of writers who get hung-up on editor-bashing, that's the usual response.) Which leads naturally, via thesis and antithesis, to the logical synthesis: "then why are you obsessed with placing your masterpiece of deathless prose in front of an audience of idiots?"

Just to be clear, I didn't say all that in order to gainsay Trent's kind words. It is indeed good that Teresa sometimes "puts a human face on publishing." I'm just, not for the first time, trying to get away from that externally-imposed context in which anything Patrick or Teresa say in public is taken as a chapter in the drama of Editors and Authors.

Our old friends know this so well that it doesn't even occur to them. What bothers me is that a lot of newer friends and acquaintances seem entirely locked into that drama, and the proscenium arch around it, with all its attendant constraints.

There's a Patrick O'Brian quote on my sidebar that's there for a reason.

> — or has the entire universe been unnaturally irritating lately?

Nope. Universe is the same. You're becoming a vicious, bitter old shrew, and nobody loves you. Go on out to the back yard and start eating worms.

In the particular case of this bit of bonehead-mail lodged in your inbox, consider that (A) since you're not dead, your own personal clue level is monotonicly increasing, and (B) as computers spread through the population, the average clue level of someone capable of tripping over your blog is decreasing. Ergo, it's neither that people are getting dumber, nor is it that you're metamorphosing into a harpy-- it's just that the technology to annoy you is becoming more available.

I don't see anything in the original note that looks like an explicit request for advice-- but I have a Y chromosome, and so (per Tannen) that means that when a woman mentions a problem, I immediately assume she's asking for a solution to it. Ergo, this advice is worth what you paid for it... There will always-- *always*-- be a segment of the population that you simply *cannot* explain yourself to. Even otherwise rational people can fall into this category. (Maybe their mothers were frightened by an editor when carrying them.) Eventually, you're going to have to stop trying to punch out the Tar Baby.

Now, this may have the unfortunate side effect that someone out there-- perhaps even many someones-- may become convinced you're so arrogant, you don't even bother to attempt to gently correct their misapprehensions. Well, bummer. Stress weakens the immune system, and you're not a kid any more. If nothing else, it must have taken a fair bit of time to think about and type in all the above. You could have been knitting instead. I happen to think knitting is nigh pointless, but at least if you'd gone with knitting, you'd have half a sock in hand, rather than a vague feeling that you're trying to be a nice person, and it isn't working, so maybe you're *not* a nice person. (For what little it's worth, you've always been nice to *me*. Given that I'm incredibly thorny, that's pretty clear evidence that you are not, in fact, a she-bitch from the eleventh pit of Hell.) (And, of course, if your teeth itched and you just needed to go into catharsis mode for a bit, that's cool, too.)

If need be, apply the crayon test. That is, look at incoming email, and ask yourself if you'd bother responding to it if it had shown up in your paper mailbox written in crayon. Some of it will still be respondable-- the stuff from first graders saying, "So what doex an editter do, anyway?"-- but some will clearly be written in crayon because the nurse doesn't allow the patient in #406 to have any sharp objects in the cell.

That being said, the excerpts from the bonehead-mail are intestesting-- in a clinical psychology / train wreck sort of way. One of the more peculiar dynamics in this culture is the notion of, "You're filth, but I could deign to love you anyway." (My favorite example is in Hitchcock's _Marnie_, where Sean Connery blackmails Tippi Hedren into marrying him, rapes her, criticizes the technique of her resulting suicide attempt, blah blah blah-- but only to *help* her, you see.) The litmus test to spot this is rapid variation from praise to condemnation. [1] The last sentence quoted is a classic example-- saying *in the same breath* that you're a good writer and you're powerful, but that you're a bitch as well. (Note in particular the use of the term "catfight"-- again, per Tannen, one of those words usually reserved for putting down women.)

[1] Of course, when *I* do it, I'm just being affectionately brusque. Yeah, that's the ticket. You can *trust* me. I'm one of the *good* ones. (Have I already mentioned my theory that the Neandertals went extinct because Neandertal women were too smart to buy the lines men handed them? By the time Cro-Magnon women figured out they were being handed a line of hooey, they were already pregnant. This is also why modern men look for youth in a mate, and virginity has the cachet it does-- what we're really looking for is someone inexperienced enough to actually *believe* us when we say, "Of course I'll respect you in the morning.")

This fellow sounds vaguely familiar.

Patrick:

[S]ometimes individuals are "unpopular" because everybody else is being a shit, and sometimes they're "unpopular" because other people are exercising reasonable judgement. If you lump the two kinds of situations together indiscriminately, you'll get morally incoherent results.

You just made my week.

With your leave, I am copying this into a large, legible bold font, possibly something like Caslon, and printing it on the largest format paper I can conveniently find, to live in a place of honor on my bulletin board.

"If need be, apply the crayon test. That is, look at incoming email, and ask yourself if you'd bother responding to it if it had shown up in your paper mailbox written in crayon."

I like this a bunch, and will begin stealing it immediately.

i'd like to say that i enjoyed your (Teresa's) use of the neologism "triffically". It adds a great sci-fi feel to your posting, as if your correspondent was imagining you were as powerful as a Triffle. Weren't there Triffles or Truffles or something in a Vonnegut novel?

Hi, Patrick,

"The temptation is to remark 'don't sprain your shoulder patting yourself on the back.' But that's a bit too mean. "

In my experience of "real life" as opposed to "theoretical life," defending the unpopular is not automatically viewed as a good thing. Perhaps you are right that some of the unpopular should not be defended. The comment was meant to explain that my response may be best viewed as a gut reaction instead of a defence of at all costs--"if I can understand them" being the operative phrase.

Regarding the pressure people put on you as human beings due to your editorial positions, no additional pressure was meant. I happen to enjoy literary discourse over other kinds. I appreciate y'all's political dedication as well, which I follow, but I am a little more conflicted and slip into literary discourse more easily.

If you guys do decide to quit the biz and become florists or cement-mixers or even a lowly research technicians like myself, I'll still mosey over here for literary chats. In fact, a group of us cement-mixers spend much time chatting about literary matters all over the spectrum at s1ngularity.blogspot.com, but it waxes and wanes. Very little political chatter, however.

Hope the illness has finished its course and your immune systems are better fortified. Take care.

Amy -- is "triffically" a neologism, d'you think, or just phonetically rendered dialect?

I'm remembering an old Blackadder episode where they find a Turnip Shaped Like A Thingy, and Baldrick says, "A great big thingy. It was triffic."

Either way, I like it too.

Some random thoughts.

I don't read and/or reply to these blogs as anything to do with the publishing business. I've enjoyed Patrick and Teresa's commentary since the glory days of Usenet (that would be the early 90's for me; your mileage may of course vary).

When I saw Yngve's posts over at Electrolite, the first thing I was reminded of was some unfortunate posturings that I made in public fora during my misspent youth. My thought at the time was, "Oh dear; I hope I wasn't this insufferable back then, and I hope Yngve gains a bit of insight by the time he reaches my age."

And then another post of Yngve's made reference to the fact that he is my age. Oh double dear.

Finally, on the perversity of the Universe: I just took my car for its annual wash on Sunday, figuring that there couldn't possibly be any more snow in New Jersey this season. Didn't take me long to be proven wrong, did it?

I've long since given up on the submitting manuscripts thing, but I wouldn't mind if someone were to offer me a job in Manhattan. This week's weather is yet another reminder of why trains are preferable to cars.

Trent, I got that it was a "gut reaction." I have some of the same gut reaction myself. "Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable."

I also have the experience of being attacked very nastily by strangers who claim justice because I'm allegedly "popular" and they're allegedly not. Remarkably enough, it feels much like any other variety of being attacked.

I think Teresa nailed it: we aren't responsible for what we do in other people's dreams. I'll own up to -- well, I hope I have the moral oomph to own up to -- responsibility to people I've actually hurt. That shouldn't be taken as blanket permission for any stranger to clock me just because they donned a T-shirt reading "victim."

For all that, I still like Dorothy Day better than Ayn Rand. Go figure.

Amy wrote:
> Weren't there Triffles or Truffles or something in a Vonnegut novel?

Tralfamadorians. (Which I had to look up how to spell by typing "Vonnegut farting tap dancing" into Google. Actually, I'm somewhat surprised I didn't end up at a web page offering mp3s of a new-to-me sexual variation.)

And, to be a geek and list things because I can, there's also _Star Trek_'s "Tribbles," John Wyndham's "Triffids," and Larry Niven's "Trinocs."

Patrick,

I'm in 100% agreement.

(In fact, you've even tempted me to write: "Slaughter the bastards!" but I'll restrain my blood-letting impulses.)

It's not just you. I've been immensely irritated by an awful lot of not very bright people lately. Somebody must have picked up a rock somewhere, and they all came a-scurryin' out.

I hate crap like this. I’m just an editor. I work on books. Sometimes I buy them. That’s all.

I get some degree of that bizarre pedestal-placing myself, and all I do is run a crappy online 'zine. I can only imagine how irritating it must get for folks like you who edit real books that people will actually read.

I've never found a fully reliable way to tell when I'm irritable and when the universe is messed up, but fwiw, I have been on oral steroids for breathing problems, and if these are of a similar sort, they can mess with one's emotions something fierce. (They can also have no effect at all--I know folks for whom this has been true, but it took me a long time to get onto an even keel again after using same.)

Until this week, the year was pretty good, and then a tragic event, a couple of irritating events, and a pair of truly annoying academic occurances led to a truly miserable week. I hope everyone has a better time then they've been having.

Which reminds me: I estimate the chance of you, Patric, or both having met Mr. Peter Tauber at some point, in some capacity, to be about 60%. If you have, I'm truly sorry to inform you of his passing. If you haven't, well I'm sorry for being maudlin in this space.

Rule number one: Don't feed trolls.

It just got what it wanted out of you. You have fed it.

Yes, the universe has been unnaturally irritating recently. Having seen several "Waaah! I am so stressed and depressed that I need something cheerful to look at right now!" LJ posts recently, I plan tonight to put together a handy-dandy reference list of links to point at in the future--for my own use too. Yuebing (new pictures!) will feature high on the list.

(Is squash soup something you can eat? Andrew Plotkin just posted a yummy-sounding recipe on raseff.)

I'll still be here when you stop acquiring, because I'm one of the few people I know with no desire or intention to write a novel.

And as much as I think a book about writing scams and the way publishing works would be useful and fascinating, I'd hate to see you have to out a pseudonym and lose that breathing space. So I shall not agitate for such a book.

Ummm. Anyway. *hugs* and my rambling self really ought to get back to the crap the universe has thrown onto my desk this week.

This particular psychodrama is about him feeling like he doesn’t have enough power, which usually means he either thinks I’ve stolen his away, or that I simply have too much and will imminently squash him like the insect he is.

Cripes. Don’t I just wish.

You know, it speaks pretty well of you that years of running into this sort of thing haven’t turned you (and the other editors who also have to put up with it) into the sort of bitter, sadistic goblin these people seem to think all editors are.

Teresa,

Glad to see you back on the blog. I've missed seeing new entries this past week or so and I hope that you and Patrick are on the mend and feeling much better overall. Viruses suck and not in a good way.

You probably don't remember meeting me at World Fantasy last fall (that's cool, truly - was a busy convention) but I must say that I found both you and Patrick to be friendly and conversational, as were most of the editors, agents and fellow writers I met. But I did notice that "Ye Folks Of Power" in the biz were often innundated by people wanting to pitch their stuff, get permission to submit, question as to why you had rejected them or to complain (or rave) about a story on your list. I assumed that you typically had to endure such things at conventions as well as via email and snail mail while at work, but to have it come to you because your personal blog... Good gracious, what's happened to manners?

Even if you do hold a writer's publishing future in your hands, you do have a right to your own opinions afterall, even in regards to your work. Surely most people realize this.

I found his letter to be condescending and sexist. If Patrick had made the "idiot" comment would he have received such a mean-spirited and sarcastic reply? I doubt it, but there is no way to know.

As for the is it just me question, I don't think so. This past 6 months or so have seemed to be overly mean-spirited and venomous everywhere, online and in real life. Perhaps it is the 10th planet, perhaps the election year, perhaps the economy, perhaps everyone's underwear has shrank in the wash and is lightly crushing their personals.

I think it's Britney Spears overload. The girl is EVERYWHERE! We can only take so much bright smiles and perfect skin before we all crack under the pressure!

lol

Here's hoping all your emails today are cheerful!

I think it's Britney Spears overload.

I blame Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake.

Not only was it a positively absurd kerfuffle, it meant that nobody was talking about the Patriots *winning*!

Grr.

Phil --

It is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals that their maxims have a plausible air; and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as copper coin; and about as valuable. They serve equally the first capacities and the lowest; and they are, at least, as useful to the worst men as to the best. Of this stamp is the cant of not man, but measures; a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honourable engagement.

(This being the attributable quotation, rather than all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.)

No matter who is doing the throwing, you're allowed to decide is has meaning when someone throws shit at your head. The practise of mistaking throwing shit at people's heads for a form of social interaction is an evil worth opposing.

The practise of insisting that the wight doing the shit-hurling must be a person of countenance, repute, and stature before one might legitimately feel bruised may not be, of itself, evil, but it surely and surely enough serves evil things. Defence of person is not a privilege; the expectation of courtesy is not unreasonable.

Teresa is far the kinder person than I; she has wistful thoughts about pygmy mammoths and zeppelin mooring masts, when what I have often wanted was a displacer capable of human-mass 'pluck' operations and a big tank of spike toothed, knob-jawed, strong-necked rippy fish, that could bate and swell and grow fierce and fat on a diet of trolls.

Conversation is not a trivial thing; peace, the presumption of good will, the relaxed expectation of courtesy, these are all civilization. If you can have these things, there might be accomplished what no power on Earth could hope to compell; if there are not these things, there is only force and the threat of force, the disdain for common purpose, common benefit, and the fine old virtue of generosity.

That the troll has not wit enough to be quite sure what it is trying to rend apart is no reason not to set the spear-blade in it.

I'd be tempted to chalk this kind of yahooism up to those nasty nasty entitlement gnomes again: as we all know, The Publishing Industry Is Out To Stomp Talented New Writers And The Establishment is Keeping Me Down, Man. (And Furthermore, I Deserve Your Undivided Attention, Help, And Encouragement.)

(I've actually gotten notes from persons with whom I had had some vague and, I thought, helpful online contact telling me that I should have done a better job for them, because I'm 'a pro.' First of all, I'm about as far down the 'pro' food chain as you can get (OMG! I'm a SFWA member too! Where are my privileges?!) but second of all and perhaps more importantly, there is a class of people to whom the idea that the correct response to someone doing you a favor is "thank you," not "that wasn't a good enough favor."

I'm tempted to blame society. Or perhaps the parents. But [obscure The Sibling Society joke] I think I'll settle on Robert Bly, because he's not here to defend himself.... [/obscure The Sibling Society joke]

In any case, your erudite irritation lightened *my* morning, so your work here is done. *g*

It's not you. The Higher Power is just feeling snarky.

Last week, my mother was in town. It was the best visit we've had since college. All the weird tension that's been bogging us down was finally gone. I even cried when she left. And then I went back to work to find out I've been laid off.

2004 pissed me off in January, depressed me in February, tried my patience mightily for most of March, and now it makes me laugh. Then again, no one I'm aware of has put me up on such a pedestal that I would have to be concerned about hurting them if I decide to call someone who deliberately provoked anger while he preached to the choir an idiot. 2004 might not be so blackly humorous were that the case.

The usual example of this I cite is the white guy who comes busting into a well-established discussion of (say) colonial policies in North America, yelling at self-indulgent length about how we’re callously ignoring the fact that the indigenous peoples were genocidally dispossessed of their lands.

This is what Rushdie, in his essay "Notes on Writing and the Nation," calls "New Behalfism." He writes:

« Beware the writer who sets himself or herself up as the voice of a nation. This includes nations of race, gender, sexual orientation, elective affinity. This is the New Behalfism. Beware behalfies!

« The New behalfism demands uplift, accentuates the positive, offers stirring moral instructions. It abhors the tragic sense of life. Seeing literature as inescapably political, it subtitutes political values for literary ones. It is the murderer of thought. Beware! »

"I must be getting old, I keep forgetting things."

A woman overheard me say this at the gym, and she left a note at the reception for me. She accused me of discrimination against old people.

See, you didn't have to use the word idiot. "Old" got me in trouble.

Thanks for visiting my site the other day. Since I don't write SF or Fantasy, be assured that I won't be pitching my work to you in the future.

Cheers.

(I had a post lost here earlier, but it wasn't of vital importance.)

Anyway, yes, I've been living in a more annoying universe in the last few weeks. Have gotten unsolicited criticisms of my stories like, "You should have said X was male earlier on!" (X was female and used the feminine pronoun consistently throughout) and "I didn't like the aliens. The aliens seemed gratuitous." (There. Were. No. Aliens. None. Not in the whole story, not even funny-looking humans.) Have also noticed gratuitous spilling of beverages, bruising of shins, etc.

Sorry it's not just me.

The "Is it just me?" question reminded me of a cartoon I saw once; I think it was a Hallmark card. It was a picture of one car parked on top of another, and the caption said, "You may be suffering from PMS if people seem to be doing little things just to annoy you."

Patrick, Teresa, others: perhaps the salient point to remember here is, "Only those who DO things get criticized." I can't remember who said that.

I enjoyed the venting, too.

Have a nice cup of chamomile tea, take some deep breaths, and have Patrick give you a shoulder massage.

That said... you could probably have skewered your correspondent nicely at a fifth the length and a tenth the time and energy.

I've been wicked irritable myself lately, and I don't have steroids as an excuse. So I definitely think it's the universe.

(By the way, there's a "which" missing in the third sentence of the second paragraph, after "steroids.")

This chap, whoever he is, actually makes me think slightly more kindly of Yngve, who (despite other issues) didn't cop this kind of whiny attitude.

Rikibeth, I think you're correct and "triffic" is some variety of British English dialect, based on prior encounters with it.

Howdy,

You guys know that sci-fi cliche about the time traveler from an ugly, dystopian, or even just unpleasant future who goes back in time to change one event, resulting in a shinier, happier future?

I think we're in the bad timeline now. Someone go build a time machine. The event that needs to change is left as an exercise for the reader.

-- Ed

It's been the world, T, not you. Things may be changing. Let's hope so, and that it's not just another set-up.

Watching you deconstruct such a missive is totally fascinating. It's a really good example of setting boundaries and not letting someone cross them. I learn a lot from you.

Gosh! What kind of prescience is assumed here? After all, I've known you for darned near thirty years, and have always enjoyed your company. I've enjoyed Patrick's company since I first met him. I don't write. But, according to this guy, I've been playing toady to you for thirty years getting ready to try to cozen you into buying that book I'm going to write any day (year? decade?) now. Who knew that I was so foresighted?

Teresa, it's not just you. Spring arrived early and it is quite beautiful here, and I got back from annual retreat less than a month ago. But I have just been too tired of it all and have been difficult to live with at times. Even more than usual . . .

I am so glad you are feeling better, and greatly appreciate your demonstration of how to debone a jerk without a knife.

For all that, I still like Dorothy Day better than Ayn Rand. Go figure.

Actually, Patrick, after reading your blog for a while now it is not hard to figure at all . . .

Elizabeth B: I think you have a point there. Entitlement gnomes. Mind if I borrow that?

My own irritability moment came when, working retail during Christmas season, a customer had a stroke. And other customers all but stepped over her with their demands. The employee pulled aside to make sure the poor woman didn't get hurt any worse before the paramedics arrived was harassed at several points with questions about where to find what movie. Being a graduate of the "people suck" school, she just smiled and explained that, due to a medical emergency, they would have to ask the other employee in the store (me).

Later, apparently, a complaint was lodged with the store that I called her female companion a nasty name having to do with her sexual orientation - a word I don't even use, unless I'm quoting someone.

Every time I think I'm used to how irritating people can be, I find another level.

As for steroids, yes, they can certainly make you irritable. I have bouts of labyrinthitis which requires a steriod regimen. The last time I was treated, I found myself thinking it perfectly reasonable to kick the wall in because there was no milk.

Put the increasing sense of entitlement humanity seems to be learning along with that irritability, however, and you end up frightening your spouse.

Not that that's anything new for me.

Teresa -

Not that you need my support, but I feel you dealt with Yngve in a rather reasonable way. Your response to the silly doofus who wrote the "In Defense" letter was great.

And I am not a writer, and in fact began reading this blog and attendent discussion threads because of the intelligence and wit of the commentary, not because I am sucking up in hopes of being published.(?!)

As for things sucking more lately, I am inclined to believe it's not drugs; I was laid off last month, and had nearly gotten over the shock and depression (which was helped by my cello teacher volunteering freebies) and this week, my apartment manager tells me that playing musical instruments is forbidden. *sigh* Can't find a job, can't play the cello, can't move out.

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

--Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontent. Vol. i. p. 526.

Ed Liu-

I think the key event was a certain decision of the Supreme Court four years ago. Unfortunately, my flux capacitor is broken.

Reading stuff like this is really helpful. One, it articulates those feelings I've had about others but could never flesh out for my own understanding. I work with a guy just like this character. Reading this was like "Oh...yeah!"
Two, it helps me to avoid that same rude behavior.
I guess number two is the far more important thing.
Thanks.

Oh, sure, blame the steroids. I happen to like my steroids, and if they happen to add a little cranky edginess to my character, so be it.

good lord!
i've been visited by Yngve too!
I had no idea he was such a lightning rod...

Theresa,

This past New Year's, reunited with friends whom I hadn't seen in literally years, we all agreed that we (as individuals, collectively and globally) all deserved a better year.

I'm glad that you're feeling better physically. Nothing is more bewildering than having your own autonomic functioning go on the fritz.

I know it's not my place to offer advice to a total stranger. That said, here goes. Let it go. Your analysis of the critical email was completely accurate, and I hope it was cathartic.

And yes, I know that's easier said than done. A couple of years ago, I had a run-in with a psycho doctor at Stanford Medical Center. She insisted that I was "morbidly obese", needed to lose "at least 100 pounds," and that my ideal body weight was 130 pounds. I'm 6' and weigh 230. But, I still get angry when I think of this incident. (Needless to say, I raised a stink and found a better doctor who has nothing to do with Stanford.)

By the way, you dealt with Yngve in an extraordinarily even-handed way.

What a hoot -- the Big Bad Editor Must Not Use Negative Words.

This guy tippy-toes sinuously through a tangle of suppositions and fantasies that make you wonder just what universe he lives in .

Steroids can make one irritable, but so can stupid jerks. Them's the breaks.

Also, for moron-boy or people of similar moron tendency who might be perusing this right now: I don't read this 'blog because Teresa is an editor. I read this 'blog because people I know kept pointing to it or quoting it and it sounded interesting. The fact that Teresa's an editor just means there are certain topics of interest we have in common, automatic-like.

Also, if I were trying to suck up to anyone, I imagine I failed a couple weeks ago over in Electrolite. ;)

This might be a good place to remark that neither Making Light nor Electrolite were ever intended to be primarily the voice of An Editor...We both write about aspects of those jobs. Teresa is particularly good at it. But if we were working as florists or cement-mixer operators, I suspect Teresa would write long and funny essays about nuances, ironies, and practical realities in the worlds of flower arranging or cement transportation. The point was never to be Joe Editor to the world of Aspiring Authors. The point was always to have interesting conversations with our friends--those whom we know, and those whom we don't know yet.

Patrick & Teresa --

I think your last sentence above is entirely on point -- As a frequent reader of both yours & Teresa's blogs, I'm reading because you both have unique voices, sometimes very funny commentary and are addressing issues that I am also concerned with much of the time. I also enjoy seeing Teresa occasionally delving into the hilarious misadventures of working in the publishing industry [as I do]. But I always think of these posts as her PERSONAL opinion, not Teresa-as-voice-of-Tor.

God knows, if anyone ever reads my own wee and not nearly-as-entertaining-blog and saw the rants I sometimes post about having a bad day at work,or recounting the ridiculousness of certain situations that probably everyone in publishing has encountered at one time or another, I certainly would hope those folks don't think that I am speaking on behalf of all Del Rey.

I agree with Teresa that the letter writer had no business sending her that letter, indeed it was highly presumptuous to think that he or she had the right to do so.

My two cents...

Priceless. Thanks for opening the window on that one...it was incredibly entertaining.

I think it's the weather over there.

Over here in California, we're in our second week of unseasonably warm and sunny weather, and everything seems so much better. I'm also in a glow of joy because I got into a prestigious graduate school, and my house is almost completely repainted (its first repainting since 1958). My creative fires have been burning hot lately, and that always helps. Somehow, when I'm in that "is the whole world in pain like me?" mood, knowing that it's not true for everybody helps immeasurably.

I've also had adverse emotional reactions to steriods. Some violent, some depressive, some just wallowing misery. Never anything . Why can't they come up with a steriod that will infuse you with a warm, happy glow while it makes it possible for you to maintain important functions like breathing or a heartbeat?

Kate - You want funny and/or cheerful? I can help with that...

List o' links

Sorry - when someone wishes for humor sites, I start proselytizing.

As for 2004, I've noticed a lot of irritability in most of the people around me, as well as a certain amount of fatalism. Everybody's depressed, really, and it's not hard to see why. (I can't tell much personal difference per se, as I've always been irritable, fatalistic, and depressed.)

When all else fails, I either pull out my Reduced Shakespeare Company radio tapes, or Tom Lehrer.

Teresa, there's a lot of people out here in Internetland who love your blog and don't care if you're an editor or a travelling llama salesman.

I've actually gotten notes from persons with whom I had had some vague and, I thought, helpful online contact telling me that I should have done a better job for them, because I'm 'a pro.'

Pros get paid for their work. If these people are confused as to the nature of your obligation toward them, perhaps a rate sheet would clarify matters.

Professional assistance............$mega/hour
Favours, helpful advice, etc.*...1 'thank you'

--
*grains of salt to be supplied by recipient, as necessary.

I hestitate to raise this topic, as I know very little about the science, but this just crossed my RSS aggregator:

Carbs crank up serotonin

You know, I look over this post and all the responses here and I think it sure is ironic that you can all be so moral when your whole culture is built on the suffering of America's indigenous peoples. Brave valiant people who were exploited by foreign invaders in a more ruthless example of genocide than has ever heretofore been exhibited in this contemptible bit of planetary mass floating in the great godless cosmic puddle of endless runon sentence follows here.

sorry I couldn't resist.

have you considered that the letter may have been a solicitation attempt, you know, if you liked my letter you'll love my three-volume epic about the Elders of RuneLands?

Ayse, I'd buy your explanation about weather if I weren't in California myself. I'm going to have to vote for the "just got into graduate school glow", and congratulations. :)

Teresa,

FWIW, whenever you wind up retiring, I might (I hope) be able to participate like a sane person in comments and such. Now, as soon as I begins typing my crazy-writer-mind starts up: Oh my God, what are you doing with that COMMA! Don't you realize SHE'S AN EDITOR!!!

Yeah, right. What am I saying? I don't think crazy-writer-mind ever gives up. Blurgh. It's very tiring.

In a rather dark sort of way, it's pleasant to find people who have the "you have to kiss editors' asses in order to get published" mindset. When they piss off the editors with their slurping, their MS goes in the round file, and there's one less person ahead of me in the slush pile.

No one ever thinks they have to kiss my ass. I'm feeling disempowered. My poor little entitlement gnome is all wan and sickly.

Maybe sugar water would help. Or a golden retriever puppy.

Golden retriever puppies are the cutest things known to humans.

They are also gigantic pains in the neck, but as long as someone else raises them and I just get to see the pictures--no problem.

As far as I can see after reviewing all the relevant documents, it looks like the core of all your problems is this -- you have persistently refused to include the following phrase, set in a 40-pt sans serif font and colored bright red, at the top of your blog:

Yngve is a louse!!

That may satisfy the vast horde of Yngve supporters.

Personally, I have looked -- briefly -- at Mr. Yngve's novels, and I think including the aforesaid phrase is the least you can do for the man.

Jimcat: When I saw Yngve's posts over at Electrolite, the first thing I was reminded of was some unfortunate posturings that I made in public fora during my misspent youth.

Yeah...I can only wonder how any number of people put up with me when I first ventured onto fidonet. I think at one point I was the only? teenage? female? (in Korea?) on the military history fidonet conference. And other conferences with kind, intelligent people who taught me manners (or tried; any fault in etiquette is all mine).

Thank you for sharing, despite the elevated blood pressure.

And, er, maybe I should swear off writing fiction and turn to doggerel, so as to decrease any probability of kissing up?

There was a poetaster named Yoon
with less wit than your average babboon.
She spammed others' blogs
(although not with eclogues)
and we hope she'll be disemvowelled soon.

(One of the few advantages of a Korean name is the plenitude of rhymes for "Yoon"!)

;-)

ARGH! Make that "baboon." More proof that the little one is eating my brains. Or maybe poetasters are required to misspell one word per post?

Is it me --- or does that e-mail bear several stylistic similarities to Yngve's posts? I grant you I've only a small sample of either writer's prose to go on---but, having come across similar ploys in other on-line contexts, I'm thinking the seals here and over on Patrick's island have only ONE ball to play with.

[To see what I mean, read the e-mail without Teresa's intervening comments....]

*Bounce!*

Tiercel: Alas, when I listen to Tom Lehrer I start thinking, "He wrote this 40 years ago and this shit is still going on?" and I get even more depressed. :(

Yoon --

One of the proofs that the folks on the KDE project are My Kind of People is that for the KDE browser, Konqueror, they put in a capability for automatic spell checking in comment boxes.

Sometimes, I can even figure out why that word just turned red all by myself.

Ab_normal -

I actually find that comforting, in a rather strange way. At least things aren't getting any worse, I tell myself. Criminals and morons have always been in positions of power, and probably always will be, so I may as well laugh about it.

Alternatively, you can stick with nonpolitical ditties like "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park," which is delightfully sick in a completely different way.

Patrick: We both write about aspects of those jobs. Teresa is particularly good at it. But if we were working as florists or cement-mixer operators, I suspect Teresa would write long and funny essays about nuances, ironies, and practical realities in the worlds of flower arranging or cement transportation.

When people ask me why I blog, I tell them it's because I sit all day at an Internet-connected computer. If I worked on an industrial drill-press, I'd probably drill holes in things at random moments to take a break from work.

I stole that explanation from the excelelent blog Entirely Other Day, regrettably defunct.

JMK - strangely, a similar thought occurred to me while reading Teresa's post -- what if the letter was written by Yngve himself, in a veiled attempt to stand up for himself, making it look like he was treated so unfairly, some stranger, even, stepped in for him.

But then, I'm always skeptical about people I meet online. I know I take on a more outgoing persona, so much so that I could meet someone in person that knew me online, and they would probably never make the connection, until they heard the name (I'm 95% confident there's only one Alice Keezer in America).

My skepticism has stretched to the point where I doubt a significant other's existence online until I've seen both parties, physically, in a room together.

Is it me --- or does that e-mail bear several stylistic similarities to Yngve's posts? I grant you I've only a small sample of either writer's prose to go on---but, having come across similar ploys in other on-line contexts, I'm thinking the seals here and over on Patrick's island have only ONE ball to play with.

Maybe my stylistic differentiator needs recalibration, but to me the e-mail doesn't sound that similar to Yngve's posts. For one thing, Yngve seems cheerfully oblivious to the tones of reactions to him.

Some days I am frightfully glad that I lack the writer-nature, or at least the desire-to-be-published-nature.

As a frequent reader and occasional delurker, I have to say that intelligent, articulate crankiness is vastly more entertaining, informative, and generally good than the timid politesse that Mr. Writer is calling for. As an aspiring writer, I say the same thing. (Granted, I only write short stories, and I have no intention of giving up my day job, which I quite like; I doubt the Nielsen Haydens have any direct power over my prospective "career," such as it is, even if they wanted and cared enough to exercise it. I suppose they could badmouth me to magazine editors at parties, but I don't know why they'd bother.)

The only responsibility anyone who writes in public has to their audience is to express themselves as well as possible, and to stand behind what they say. This is why Making Light and Electrolite are so good to read. Tenderness towards the feelings of potential readers who may happen by your blog someday is nice, but -- well, actually, it just turns the whole exercise of writing into a waste of everyone's time, which isn't really nice at all.

And not only is the world irritating, but it's been raining all week.

Teresa and Patrick: You two are going to have to get sick a lot more often if it leads to posts and threads like this one! Your public demands it.

TNH, you nailed it with the "I have the same business anyone else has, and I have no time for people who appoint me to strange roles in their rich inner fantasy lives. I’m not responsible for whatever it is I do in their dreams."

And PNH, the whole thing about the knee-jerk temptation to afflict the unafflicted and unafflict the afflicted-- genius. That sums up my personality in one sentence, I'm sad to say.

If you could fit a line in about being a hypocrite, you'd have me in a nutshell. Oh, but wait, this isn't about me. Maybe throw in a line about self-centerdness for good measure.

I occasionally catch flak from people who don’t feel up to confronting Patrick.

Well, that made the eyebrow go up.

Actually, people occasionally ignore me in deference to my husband if it's a Complicated Matter which demands the attention of The Spouse in Authority (sometimes in person, which I find really counterintuitive)

If it's a waitron unit, I always give them my credit card at the end of the meal, just to see their face.

Ironically, I tip better than he does.

The "Is it just me?" question reminded me of a cartoon I saw once; I think it was a Hallmark card. It was a picture of one car parked on top of another, and the caption said, "You may be suffering from PMS if people seem to be doing little things just to annoy you."

Actually, that sounds about right.

Now, I don't know you from Adam, nor you I, but I'll start sucking up to you if it means you'll keep posting hilarious stuff like this.

(adding URL to bookmarks)

Did I just really type "nor you I" in a comment to an editor? Thank goodness I'm not a professional writer.

You know, I read through this whole damn comment thread hoping that the Lord High Yngve Defender would drop by and leave a defensive, supercilious comment explaining how much better he was than thee and me, but no... all I get is a bunch of reasonable people saying kind, sensible things. Bah.

And me, I comment here exclusively to suck up. One of these days you'll be seeing Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon, by Language Hat, on the Tor list, and then you'll all be sorry! All of you! Uh, what was I saying before I was interrupted by megalomania? Oh yes: it's not you. History has its peaks and troughs, and this is definitely one of the troughs. My late father-in-law used to say, whenever anyone complained about Joe McCarthy or other evils, "Just wait ten years." I wish I thought ten years would be enough...

"— or has the entire universe been unnaturally irritating lately?"

Literally. I just moved, and all my stuff is full of allergenic dust. Two hours cleaning out a keyboard, good grief.

Sympathies on the ER visit.

Dave Owen: Did I just really type "nor you I" in a comment to an editor? Thank goodness I'm not a professional writer.

Arrrgh! Of course I only spotted my typo hours after I posted. That's how it always goes.

It's a mis-edit, actually, from writing and re-writing the same trivial, pointless thing until I can't see it anymore. If I didn't get so anxious, I wouldn't make these stupid mistakes, and if I didn't make these stupid mistakes I wouldn't get so anxious.

A cover letter cripples me for a full week. It's pathetic.

Off to do some deep breathing.

Gosh, I've not posted a suck-up note in a while. What've I been thinking? If I fall behind on my suck-up points count, big powerful scary intimidating Teresa might not accept my novel. Not that I have a novel. But she might not buy my novel if I were ever to actually write one. Which I won't, of course, because my brain can't carry a story longer than 6000 words. And even if I did, the novel would almost surely be the totally wrong genre for Tor. But still. You know. Must suck up. Just in case. Hence my presence here. Totally for the sucking-upping. Nothing to do with my own enjoyment. Nope. Not at all.