I personally like "Whicherfligger," which is what I called the park down the road from me because I couldn't remember its name. "Point Whicherfligger," I would say, and eventually I remembered that it was "Point Woronzof." The first time I referred to it by its proper name, someone immediately said, "Is this the point formerly known as Whicherfligger?" My friends are easily and well trained. :)
-Catie
I believe I'll have another cookie. :)
Ayse, Yoon, I have a girlfriend of mixed ethnic descent who's rather exotic-looking, and the first time I met her in real life (I'd known her online for some time and had no idea what she looked like), I asked her what her ethnic background was. She gaped at me, because I was the first person who'd ever asked her that question in a way that made sense to her. Usually, she said, people asked her, "What are you?"
She said she typically said, "A human being," or, "A woman," to that question. Which seemed like the only reasonable answers, to me!
*LAUGH* Cruel! CRUEL WOMAN! *CRUEL*! *laugh*!
Kip: I bow in admiration. :)
Jo wrote:
And I *want* one. I'll look after it and take it for walks and house train it and comb it and everything.
Don't forget to collect the under-fur you comb out for weaving! I bet it'd make awesome yarn, like qiviut!
I want one too. I even live in Alaska. It's the right climate and everything! I might need a bigger back yard...
Wow. That Nutrigrain ad is extremely peculiar. :)
FranW wrote And if you're up to it, Teresa will take a red pen and line-edit a bit of your novel (a.k.a. hemmorhaging across the pages of your soul).
I haven't been to VP (possibly I will apply again this year, if the checking account is willing and the creek don't rise), but I have the first 20 pages or so of one of my manuscripts which Teresa bled all over (in green pen, which would lead me to wonder if she was a Vulcan, except Vulcans don't have her joie de vivre). The manuscript's from a contest she judged, and it's been written on *all over*. When I got the submission back, I'd never been so happy in my life to see so much (metaphorically, anyway) red pen. I even *agreed* with probably 95% of her edits!
Possibly it's one of my own personal oddnesses, but having someone who really knows what she's doing line-edit my work is an uplifting experience for me. It's seeing that, wow, I did some good writing here, and this person knows what to tweak to make it *great* writing.
-Catie
I'm irrationally pleased to read your post, Charlie, 'cause I'd figured numbers something very much like that as to what a publisher had to sell in order to break even. Gosh, don't I feel smug! :)
On multiple submissions--the thing that frustrates me, from a writer's standpoint, is that multiple submissions are frowned upon, but it takes *so* *long* to hear back from most publishers. I've gained an appreciation for the idea that publisher time is not like writer time, but as an individual writer who's trying to build a career as an author, the prospect of waiting five months or a year to be rejected (or even accepted) by one house, and then if it's a rejection, going through it again at another house--is just wildly impractical. Sort of like building a house with the hopes of moving in to it in five years, but you're only laying two bricks a year.
I know the proper way to deal with this is to get an agent, but agents are just as hard to come by as editors. Catch-22: if you don't have a book sale, you can't get an agent; if you don't have an agent, you won't get a book sale. It's not a perfect catch, because people can and do get agents without sales, and sales without agents (which is what I did, and then I went and got an agent immediately), but if what you're doing is waiting and hoping to hear back good news, it generally seems as good a use of your time (maybe better) to be querying editors as agents.
I've seen the Tor slushpile, albeit at its low-tide level, and I doubt other houses have any less impressive slushpiles to go through. I don't know how a house would burn through its slush (or even its solicited manuscripts) faster without accruing significantly more cost, but if there was a way, we'd all love you forever.
Not that we don't anyway. :)
*howls of laughter* I'm possessed! Possessed! *gleefully watches her feet* This is a good game! Do you have any more? *laugh*!
Oh, thank you. I've been wanting that quote for years, but I couldn't remember enough of it, or who wrote it, to be able to find it. Hee hee hee. *beam*
A couple more Tor slush pile pictures from September 2003, immediately after Patrick's Noble Assistant had Slaughtered The Slush Pile, are here and here. (Also note our gracious hostess' (is that the appropriate apostrification?) right hand in the second picture.) :)
I have a file folder in my, er, file cabinet (clever, wot?) entitled 'Rejection letters -- the fools, the fools!' I usually keep rejection letters on my desk for about two days, which is enough time to get over the breath-taking OW of it all, and then putting the letter in my FOOLS! folder makes everything much better. :)
I can't imagine going online and ranting endlessly about the vicious heartless nasty bad awful publishers who rejected me. The publishing industry's an *awfully* small pond to be pissing in. Besides, it's much more fun to go around the house yelling, "the fools! the fools!" Well, for me it is, anyway. Possibly I'm a little odd. :) (But full of smiley faces this morning, apparently.)
-Catie
Darn it, you're making me want to learn to knit!
Entirely off-topic, but a subject near and dear to our hostess' heart: Bay Area vanity press breaks hearts. Not that that's their article title, but it's certainly what's happened.
It all just makes you want to rush out and buy almanacs and hand them out on the street corner, doesn't it? Or maybe it's just me. Well, no, actually, reading this thread, it's *clearly* not just me.
Tina: I read very quickly, but don't have the visualization aspect kick in. My friend Emily, who was one of the people who started this discussion with me, reads very slowly indeed, but she /does/ get images.
Like Zack and Jordin, if I think back on a scene, I can see it play out, but as Zack said, there doesn't seem to be anything in between the writing and the knowledge thereof, which makes perfect sense to me, Zack. :) And like Kate, I can stop and call images up, but it doesn't happen automatically.
Janet: I also can tell when somebody's image is wrong, even if I don't necessarily have a specific image in my mind. That's one of the really beautiful things about the Canadian Anne of Green Gables tv-film they made. It all looks so very *right*.
David: thank you for giving me a name for this phenomena! It's kept my family in discussions for the last week solid and it's useful to have something to call it. :)
Graydon: mmm, bread-wrapped chicken sounds lovely. I think I'll have to get the chef in the house to try that soon!
Too late to be of any real use, but it really is that simple, yep. We put salt or garlic (or garlic salt) on the fatty end and stab it (the fatty end) a couple times with a fork halfway through the roasting time in order to make sure some of those yummy juices slide down the sides, but it's awfully easy. My husband, who just did his first standing rib roast today, didn't quite believe it either. :)
Oh, good, I was hoping for an open thread, because I'd really like to know how people on this comment list read fiction.
Last week, a friend said something about the radio drama in her head while she was reading. My husband said, "You only get a radio drama?" and she said, "Oh, no, I get pictures, too."
Now, he's said this before, but I always thought he was exaggerating, so it sort of threw me, and I said, "You really see *pictures* while you're reading?" And they both insisted that yes, they did. Rather like being the camera in a movie.
I don't *get* pictures in my head when I'm reading. If I think back on a scene, I can see it play out, but it doesn't play out in my head while I'm reading it.
So now I'm asking everybody: do *you* see pictures when you read?
Merry Christmas to all!
-Catie
I had, in fact, thought you'd forgotten about that footnote marker. I only noticed it on my second time through the post, and had to go see if you'd actually remembered to put the footnote in. *laugh*
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|---|---|
| 2004 | 14 |
| 2003 | 30 |
| 2002 | 6 |
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